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July’s tbtotm, biiig tune, produced by the big neptizzle. (actual video here cuz I can’t embed) If you do comparisons between Timbo and The Neptunes for late 99/00, you can see between them they both put out a lot of bangers. I’d have to go with Neptunes in 00 though.. I have a soft spot for that Ray-J beat. ANND Southern Hospitality. Anyway, I remember hearing this song on the radio for the first time and being completely entranced by Mya’s voice. (Likely not the first or last time that happens regarding Mya’s voice.) I didn’t even know there was a video to it, and she looks gorgeous in it. This song was on the charts for 11 weeks, and topped out at a modest #24. Good job Beenie Man! (If Beenie Man’s accomplishments were great enough to warrant a biopic, I would hope that Don Cheadle shows up to get cast. so serious.)

+ Lately I’ve been kinda into the idea of the girl roll call in rap/r&b. Anytime actual names get used in lyrics or songnames, it makes it more memorable, probably 100x moreso if it actually is your name. What I thought was a more common occurrence turned out to be.. a rarity? Maybe I’m just not thinking hard enough/remembering enough songs. The ones that pop into mind with the quickness are:

• LL Cool J – Around The Way Girl (Lisa, Angela, Pamela, Renee)
• The Dream – Shawty Is A Ten (Keisha, Sonya, Tanya, Monique, Nece, Keke, etc)
• Petey Pablo – Freek-A-Leek (Shameka, Keisha, Tara, Shonda, Sabrina, Crysta, Daronda, etc)
• Slum Village – Selfish (The whole 3rd verse: Whatup Pam, how yo little man doin in New Jersey)

additions:

• Boyz II Men – All Around The World (Keisha, Kelly, Tanya, Stacy, Mica, and LaShaun)
• Blackstreet – No Diggity (Jackie, Lisa, Nicky, Tameka in full effect)

And that’s all I could come up with. As with my other compendium, I’ve got to set some rules, but this one’s pretty easy: Has to have the girl roll call. Meaning, it can’t be focused on a single girl. So no Sheilas or Sallys. Please help me find the diamonds in the rough, or if I’m just overlooking obvious choices, the diamonds in a stack of diamonds. (sidenote: of the four songs I chose to use as examples, Keisha shows up in two of them. Girllll you get around.)

+ Some older mixes I did (and probably posted about) earlier this year, the mini WFMU mix and the Midnight Snacks mix. One is chill, one is booty bass/bmore. Figure it out.

+ I’ve moved my whole design site to Cargo, which is honestly one of the easiest and friendliest CMS’s out there. I used to think that sticking with WordPress would be fine, but I just got bored of hacking wp so much – plus all that knowledge is slowly getting depreciated, and I’m much (MUCH) too lazy to learn a new piece of software just to show off work. This is one advent of web 2.0 (shouldn’t this be like web 3.0? web 4 beta? web 2010 for workgroups) that I will gladly embrace.

If you’re new around here, I’ve been doing ‘Ten years ago’ throwback tracks since January, and this is the one for June. However I can’t really effuse any more on it since I posted about it previously. I do want to say that I was talking to one of my younger cousins and I told her ‘Lucy Pearl’ she said ‘oh she sounds familiar, how come I remember her name?’ I was about to slap some sense into this girl. The other tracks that were popular in June are all either unknown to me or I didn’t like them.. so boo. Dance Tonight was on the charts for 26 weeks and peaked at #5. Awesome Song Great Job! (sidenote: I TOTALLY FORGOT TO PUT DANCE TONIGHT in the calendar. What a horrible and obvious oversight. Apologies.)

+ Apologies (again) if it’s been quiet around here, I’ve been busy working on my design portfolio and photography site too, so the mixes and mashup game have been on the backburner. However this is exactly why when I finish up blends, I sit on them for a hot minute until I know I’ve got some downtime and I’ll post it up. I’ll be done with both sites soon enough so I’ll get cracking on some other music related stuff.

+ Oh yeah, I came back from Australia. I really liked it out there. Weather in the fall is nippy like SF, everyone dresses so sharply, and everything is expensive. (hint: one of these was not enjoyable.) It wasn’t so much of a backpacking/exploration trip like my previous DR trip, but still seeing the world nonetheless. See some of my shots of my trip over on my flickr.

+ FIFA IS BIG. I was never really that big into football until the last Copa Mundial when I met up with some real (read: foreign) folks who knew the deal. Since they introduced me to it, and they were Dutch, I’m rooting for HOLLAnd. Plus orange jerseys are hella sick. But to be honest It’s just really fun to watch a game anyway, whether or not I have a team in favor. Kinda wanted to see NK do something crazy after holding Brazil down in their first game, but it looks like their defense just collapsed that last game. Ouch. Also I make it a point to watch the matches on Univision because the announcers are way more hype. GOL GOL GOL GOL GOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL (etc etc)

May‘s throwback track. This track is straight happy times, it would always be a party up in the headphones when it got radio play. (bonus memory: 00 was also when 92.3 became 100.3) I really miss a lot of that old g-funk from Quik/Suga Free, when repping coasts was so important you had to throw up westside in like every picture that got taken. Pitch In On A Party was on the charts for 14 weeks, and peaked at .. 68!? Boo. There were other great tracks that were on the charts this month, though – next episode, ruff endz no more (!!?), best of me remix. We’re inchin in to summer and a lot more heaters came out during then.

+ Since I’ve put that mini site up with my sticker offer, I’ve probably sent out atleast 200. Ya’ll are awesome! And I’m definitely still sittin on more, so if you don’t have em already, ask and ye shall receive. (send me cool pics of where you put it tooo!)

+ I forgot how but I was reminded of an old old mix i did, I’m thinking some time circa 2004 or 05.. I still enjoy it. It’s kinda different though.. kinda fast like 160/80bpm kinda shit. Old heads might have seen it around a long long time ago. I don’t have a tracklisting either, but it’s a full length mix and it’s the first mix I ever made! (well it’s an updated version of the first mix I made, hence the v2 – but you get the idea) download here: melotic v2

+ I leave you with that, because for two weeks I’ll be in Australia! Be back in June with (I hope) something special for my ★FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARAYAYAY★

Throwback track of the month. Big Pimpin is such a happy song. I remember when this video came out, I was kinda blown away because of the white letterbox instead of black – such a sick idea. (what other videos have white letterbox? should I start another mini compendium?) I also remember being perpetually complexed to what a B L A D was. Only recently (five minutes ago lol) did I figure out what it was. My best guess would have been a ‘blad, but somehow I don’t think that’s correct. Ten years ago Big Pimpin was on the charts for 22 weeks and peaked at 6. Super! Also of note: the past few throwbacks have been very heavy on the Timbaland tip. He kicked so much ass in the late 90s. What happened dude..

+ As I just sent out my last calendar (bigup Dale!), It’s only fair that I share the project with the masses: Promo Only Urban 2000 was the infographic calendar I made last December outlining all the hot tracks that came out in 2000, broken down by month. I had a lot of fun researching and making it, and I’m dedicating all my throwback posts this year to certain tracks I remember. When I’m not talking about music or photography I just might be designing something, and infographics are really interesting – and I don’t mean those halfassed “info graphic” bastardizations (INFAUXGRAPHICS!!) that have been becoming oh so popular around the interbutts lately.

+ Also on the flickr are some shots I took behind the scenes from the Snoop Dogg & Kid Cudi video for That Tree. You know my steez: film only. Snoop is pretty hilarious irl. The video just got premiered on mtv.com and you can peep here, I take some issue with the color correcting they did.. it’s all washy and shit.

+ Next Monday I’m playing some shit on wfmu, a big thanks to Trent for reaching out. Eastcoasters, check it out 8-11 or just peep the stream online.

+ Things been listening to lately:
Onra – Long Distance
New Boyz – Cricketz
Dilla Joints
Return Of The Ankh – this cd is thoroughly listenable. REALEST.

This month’s ‘ten years ago’ throwback track, and yes I’m really late on it. I can’t even properly classify this as a throwback, to be honest, because it’s not like I haven’t heard this in a while – lots of Aaliyah stays in rotation. I do remember mornings at school when people would be bumping this from their rides before first period started though. ‘Try Again’ was on the charts for 27 weeks, and peaked at #4. Nice. My criteria for throwback is that I gotta know this song, which ruled out this Tamar Braxton song I found out while researching – I’ve never heard it before. Hell, I didn’t even know she existed. I like it!

+ Super late on this: my live set at Devils Pie last November. Some old, some new. All chillin. Thanks to Phatty and company.

+ Super early on this: I’ll be doing a mini twenty minute set for my buddy Snacks for the five year anniversary of his weekly radio podcast. Hint 1: it won’t be any r&b. Hint 2: it will be all 2 live crew. This got me thinking: five year anniversary, huh. June 14th would be the anniversary of my first wordpress post, the post with the now classic amerie remix (rest in peace Jun Seba), and that was also five years ago. Should I do anything fancy? Goodness, how time flies. (also a ‘we’re fucking old’ for good measure)

+ I am GIVING AWAY SOME STICKERZZZ so gimme an address and I will send you some.

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory. (transcript)

TED talks are usually informative and fun to burn 10-20 minutes on and learn something new, but I’ve probably watched/read this one multiple times now – it’s really affected me and how the concept can be applied to certain things I’ve been interested in. Without paraphrasing too much from the video, as I strongly suggest taking some time to watch, Daniel Kahneman tells us that we all live two lives – one for our experiencing self, and one for our remembering self. The experiencing self lives life every day, while the remembering self decides which experiences are worthy enough to be remembered. Most are not. And when making life decisions, or just every day decisions even, our remembering self uses its memory to dictate which direction an experience will go – Daniel calls the future anticipated memories. “And basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn’t need.”

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