Although nothing can truly replace a good old fashioned vinyl and turntable setup in my book, I’m always fascinated by these homegrown virtual dj contraptions:

Sharpie, paper, video camera, dj software (TRAKTOR in this case), and no high-tech touch surface whatsoever. Who woulda thought? And to think vinyl purists thought Serato was the absolute worst that could happen.

[via Engadget]

Designer Miguel Caballero taps into the personal security market with his line of high-end bulletproof fashion:

For the English socialite worried about getting shot, oversize paramilitary gear simply won’t do. Fortunately, London’s superrich can now maintain their security without sacrificing style. On July 14, Miguel Caballero, the world’s only producer of “designer bulletproof fashion,” started selling his high-security garments at posh London department store Harrods. His new collection includes blazers, raincoats and suede jackets, some replete with a comforting stab-proof lining. Customers get to select from three levels of ballistic protection. For instance, a polo shirt that can withstand a slug from a 9-mm revolver costs roughly $7,500; a version for about $9,800 protects wearers from automatic weapons, including mini-Uzis.

I see a ton of lucrative military and law enforcement contracts in this guy’s future. Just watch. A collabo of some sort with a streetwear label might not be too far off either. Kevlar kicks, New Era fitted’s, smedium tees…I can see it now.

[via Time]

Ludacris pays homage to Obama on the mic:

The Obama camp responds:

“As Barack Obama has said many, many times in the past, rap lyrics today too often perpetuate misogyny, materialism, and degrading images that he doesn’t want his daughters or any children exposed to,” said spokesman Bill Burton. “This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.”

Ouch!

Considering the sharp words directed at Clinton, Jackson and McCain, I can understand why the Obama camp felt the need to distance itself from Ludacris by issuing that statement. It’s a classic PR move. Besides, we’ve seen how questionable remarks made by surrogates have been used against candidates throughout this entire election cycle. A simple statement expressing their disapproval of his remarks against the three individuals would have sufficed, however, they completely ignore the positive in his message (he encouraged folks to vote), dissed his effort completely, and went on to blast hip hip as a whole. Totally unacceptable!

[via Politico]

As I’ve mentioned here numerous times before, I’m a sucker for great album cover art. So of course I had to post this:

It’s the cover of T.I.’s upcoming album, Paper Trail, and in my humble opionion, it just might be one of the best album covers that I’ve seen from a hip hop artist all year. The execution is dope, and the concept behind it is pretty clever, I think:

The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract. [MTV]

On first glance, I actually thought the cover may have been partly inspired by the legal troubles that T.I. experienced earlier in the year: scatterd paper, maybe legal docs…the Feds trying to piece together a case against him…him later beating the case and rising from it all to restart his career. Ha! Looks like I was way off. Either way, it’s great to see him take a step away from normal hip hop album cover trends (you know the formula: studio photography, thugged out imagery, simple logo placement), and go with something a little more conceptual and abstract. Props!

In the meantime, I’ve been searching for info on the designer who’s responsible for this. No clues on the Grand Hustle (T.I.’s label) website, or anywhere else on the web for that matter (at least not yet). If you happen to know who she/he is, please drop a line in the comments or shoot me an email!

I was aimlessly roaming about the web earlier today when, whadda you know, I stumbled across the freshly redesigned website of one of my favorite hip hop record labels in the game, Stones Throw Records. They’ve implemented a new three column layout as well as an online store, and I must say, things looks super clean!

If there’s one thing that I have to give Stones Throw major props on, aside from the music of course, it’s their kick ass branding and design efforts. From album cover art to fashion to promo merchandise, they just get things right (take a look at this latest project). There aren’t too many record labels left out there that still put a great deal of focus on those areas, you know.

All in all, the Stones Throw site is one of the more well designed, not to mention personal/connected/accessible hip hop record label sites around. And this new redesign just took it to another level. The only thing missing from their site at this point (they already have messageboard, behind the scenes/user submitted picture gallery, and podcast)? Artists’ blogs, or at the very least a general label blog. Hop to it, guys!

This is the app that I’ve been waiting for! Full WordPress access in the palm of my hand, and all ready to go whenever and wherever I get the sudden urge to blog. Which in this case, is right now. My only complaints so far: there doesn’t seem to be a way to create hyperlinks, and there are absolutely no text formatting options (you can always add the appropriate HTML tags yourself, but that could be a bit time consuming if you’re posting on the fly). Aside from that, it feels like the same WordPress that I post from on the web. So with that said, you can expect to see a lot more mobile posts around here in the future. In the meantime, you can find more info on WordPress for iPhone here: iphone.wordpress.org

Interesting feature in the New York Times on Macrumors.com founder and senior editor, Arnold Kim, and his decision to stop practicing medicine and pursue blogging full time. The kicker: his popular blog now nets him a hefty six figure income (the same amount he made as a doctor):

Stepping away from medicine felt somewhat strange, he admits. Dr. Kim was bringing home a six-figure income as a doctor, but he recognized that blogging was becoming more lucrative. He says the site also yields a six-figure income for him.

About three years ago, through a combination of Google text advertising, banner ads and commissions on product sales, MacRumors started turning a substantial profit. While Apple is obviously not an advertiser, other technology-oriented companies are, including Verizon, the online audio-book store Audible.com and the information technology products company CDW.

Still, he hesitated to make it a full-time job because he enjoyed medicine — and he had invested almost $200,000 in his education. But he finally concluded that “on paper, it was an easy decision.”

Just goes to show you that content (plus traffic) is king!

(via NYT)

Looks like the hardest working man in hip-hop show business is about to make a splash in the sneaker world. This morning on his blog, The Roots’ ?uestlove proudly unveiled his upcoming Nike signature shoe, the Air ?uesto 1. After a year in the making, the kicks will be available in select stores on August 1st in two very, uh, how do you say, interesting colorways–one of which will be a limited release:

25 lucky people across the US will open their boxes to receive a “golden ticket”—and unlike mr wonka i aint talkin a piece of paper.

the shoes will be golden (the one on top)—them shits are the ones to kill for.

i cant make the “official” announcement on what you will get if you are the lucky ones but lemme just say im gonna stand in line for my own damn shoe.

Best of all, ?uest will be dj’ing in several stores to promote the shoe’s release:

aug1- i’ll be at ALIFE in NYC
aug5- i’ll be at UBIQ in philly
aug 7th I’ll be at Undefeated in LA

Now, my question to you guys: Would you pick these up, or pass ‘em by?

(via ?uesto’s Blog)

Then said ghost blogger is doing a pretty half assed job over on Kanye Universecity. That’s my short response to this whole situation.

If Kanye really is doing all the blogging himself, then he should definitely be commended on his efforts. The guy is an international celebrity, with a demanding schedule, and somehow he still finds the time to deliver several blog updates a day–you gotta respect that. However, if it’s all the work of a ghost blogger within his camp (which he denies), then it’s all pretty pathetic. Not because it’s false advertisement, but because I’d expect higher posting quality from such a person. I mean, assuming that a ghost blogger’s schedule wouldn’t be nearly as demanding as Kanye’s, I’d like to think that he/she would have a little more time on his/her hands to compose a bit more than just the one sentence, picture heavy, “oh look cool” type posts that we often see on Kanye’s blog (again, if it’s Kanye himself, he gets a pass, considering his hectic, stadium status schedule and all).

One last thing, and this is something that I’d like to explore further in a future post, I can’t understand why celebrity hip-hop blogs & fan sites feel the need to follow in the footsteps of existing hip-hop news and gossip blogs. Instead of sticking to the exclusive, behind the scenes content that you’d expect from an artist’s blog, many dish out the same news and gossip that can be found on hundreds of other hip-hop sites around the web. So disappointing, so disconnected.

MagCloud:

MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.

It costs you nothing to publish a magazine on MagCloud. To buy a magazine costs 20¢ per page, plus shipping. For example, a 20-page magazine would be four bucks plus shipping. And you can make money! You set your issue price and all proceeds above the base price go to you. Shipping is a flat $1.40/copy (USPS first class mail) for quantities 1-9, or a flat $13 for quantities from 10-100 (per box of 10-100).

I really wish this service was around way back when the idea of Gureala first entered my mind. Back when I wanted to bring the vision to life in the form of a monthly or bi-montly arts & culture mag, but settled on Moveable Type after peeping the costs of printing and distribution. I really have to tip my hat to HP on this one (yep-yep, MagCloud is an HP Labs creation). Lots of possibilities here. I’m really excited to see how bloggers will take to this service, as well as the types of publications that we’ll begin to in the MagCloud library (there’s already a nice little collection forming) over the next several months. Call me corny, but I’d really like to see some blog year in review-type pubs come out of this…crazy possibilities. What say you?

Update: Thanks for the publisher invite!