White Castle Fries Only Come in One Size...

mmmm... White Castle. Okay, honestly, the only reason for the picture above is to distract you from the fact that it's been almost 3 weeks since our last post. I personally apologize, but as a school teacher, it's getting toward that time of year, my seniors are finishing up, getting in their final projects, and getting ready for prom (If anyone is looking for Big Rils on Thursday night, I will be in the hotel bar of the Hyatt in Cambridge, MA - the locus of said prom).

Anyway, we totally missed the ball on putting up show #117, but here's #118 just in time (and I promise to get tonight's show - 119 - up in the next day or two).

LCWTS_5_22_07 (.mp3 format)

As a way of making amends for our long absence, here's a list of some upcoming concerts in the Boston area and albums to look out for:

Shows

- Skyzoo & Reks @ Great Scott Allston (Tues, 5/29/07)
- First Annual Boston Hip Hop Unity Fest @ The Paradise - Featuring: 4Peace, Mr Lif, Akrobatik, 7L & Eso, Dre Robinson, Termanology, Big Shug, Krumbsnatcha, SpecialTeamz, Jake da Snake & Greater Good (Wed, 5/30/07)
- Slum Village & Phat Kat @ the Middle East Downstairs (Thurs, 5/31/07)
- Peanut Butter Wolf @ The Goodlife Downtown (Thurs, 6/21/07)
- 2007 Boston Hip-Hop Fest feat. Slaine @ the Middle East Downstairs (Sat, 7/14/07)
- Rock the Bells @ Randall's Island, NY - www.rockthebells.net (7/28/07 & 7/29/07)


Albums

Royce Da 5'9" - The Bar Exam (6/5/07)
Blue Scholars - Bayani (6/12/07)
Fabolous - From Nothin' to Somethin' (6/12/07)
Jaylib (Jay Dee aka J. Dilla + Madlib) - Champion Sound (Deluxe Edition) (6/19/07)
Raheem Jamal (of Project Move) - Boombox (6/19/07)
Pharoahe Monch - Desire (6/26/07) Common - Finding Forever (7/10/07)
Beastie Boys - The Mix-Up (instrumental) (7/10/07)
Talib Kweli - Ear Drum (7/24/07)
Oh No - Dr. No's Oxperiment (instrumental) (7/31/07)
Joe Budden - Mood Muzik 3 (t.b.a.)
Lil Wayne & Juelz Santana - I Can't Feel My Face (t.b.a.)
Dr. Dre - Detox (t.b.a.)
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (pushed back to the end of the year)

Show #116

If you didn't hear on the show last night, your favorite rapper's favorite radio show - Long Crisp White Tee's - will be back in the Tuesday 10pm - 12am time slot starting next week. Here's our last installment of the one hour show. We played some tracks, ran down the Brother Ali show and upped an upcoming show featuring ReCaaLL, K-the-I and US' own Shivaa, next Tuesday at the Bulfinch Yacht Club BAR down by TD Banknorth. For more info go here, or here.

Show #116 (.mp3 format)

Also, be sure to check out Usual Suspeckts' Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/usualsuspektz). They've got a couple new tracks up there including "Green" which is straight fire. Unfortunately, there has been a rift in the U.S. crew as Nacious has gone his own way. We here at LCWTs aren't trying to take sides and just hope that they can work things out. Anyway, Nacious has some new tracks on his myspace (http://www.myspace.com/ndibassi) as well (be sure to peep "Backhand").

Show #115 and Brother Ali

Sorry for sleeping folks. This past week was a pretty busy one, and Big Rils was unavailable over the weekend due to his participation in the 48 Hour Film Project. Here's our show from last Tuesday if you still haven't heard it. Just a reminder, we're only a few weeks away from returning to OUR time slot - TUESDAY 10pm - 12am.

Show #115 (.mp3 format)

As you may have heard last week, Rhymesayers Entertainment's Minneapolis-based albino rapper, Brother Ali, was in town at the Middle East last wednesday night. Due to increased demand for tickets, the concert was moved from the upstairs to the more spacious downstairs. Long Crisp White Tee's staff arrived just before the second opening act, female Chicago native Psalm One. While we missed One Be Lo (aka Onemanarmy of Binary Star), we were assured he ripped the mic as well. Now, as you may or may not know, I'm not a huge fan of female MCs, but Psalm One put it down pretty hard, with a Steve Nash-like assist from hypeman and fellow Chicagoan Longshot. I may even be prompted to go out and download a few of her songs. The highlight of her set was when the Bro ran out in between songs with a towel to wipe down her face and the mic and give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Due to the last-minute switch to the downstairs, the show didn't quite sell out, but was more than half-full with a crowd that was amped up to see their favorite albino rapper. When the energy was finally to his satisfaction, Ali came out and started throwing it down. He opened up with "Lookin' At Me Sideways," and then ran through a collection of new stuff - including "Uncle Sam Goddamn," "Truth Is," and "Faheem" - and his classics - "Rain Water," "Room With a View," "Champion," and "Dorian."

He also stopped in the middle to ensure the crowd that he had called ahead to get permission from Mr. Lif to spit in his town. All in all, the show was dope and Ali made the venue feel like a bumping house party that we were all chilling at as much as a concert. He's still on tour, so if he hasn't come to your city yet, make sure to get tickets. Otherwise, get the CD.

Damn, it's been a while... Show #114 and Nas Show Run-down

What's up folks. I apologize for the two-week hiatus, but as a school teacher, I had to take full advantage of April Vacation - the week off that schools provide to allow teachers to quell their many urges to strangle high school students. The first order of business is to announce that in two weeks or so, WE WILL BE RETURNING TO A TWO-HOUR TIME SLOT. Most likely Tuesday, 10pm-12am. Stay tuned.

After that, we've got this week's show - #114. I know we didn't get last week's up, but let's not dwell in the past. Here's the playlist.

Finally, if you have listened to the last two shows, you may have heard us talk about the Nas concert we attended on Sunday, the 15th, in Providence, RI. While I'm not going to get into the pre or post-concert festivities, I thought I'd do a quick run-down of the show itself. It was at Lupo's, probably the best place to see big-name acts in New England. So far in my life, I've seen Atmosphere, Ghostface, Redman, Raekwon, Lupe Fiasco, Mr. Lif, El-P, and now Nas there. The place is pretty big, but they really packed them in for the Nas show, to the point where they were out of Bud Light bottles by the time we showed up a little after 9pm. I guess Nas is big enough that he doesn't need anyone opening for him, other than some DJ's blasting a nice mix of mid-90's hip-hop to get everyone's heads nodding.

When Nas finally came on, he jumped right into some Hip-Hop is Dead material. The crowd was pretty live, and although Nas didn't have a lazer show or anything, there was a huge HHID banner at the back of the stage with some sort of coffin prop in front of it, and the lighting followed the motif. As a huge fan of Nas' early material, and an admirer of his new album, I was pretty happy with the way he setup his show. After ripping through five tracks off HHID, including "Money Over Bullshit," "Hip-Hop is Dead," and "Black Republicans," the Little Homey took it all the way back to the beginning with some joints off Illmatic. He ran through another five joints before jumping into his next best album, It Was Written.

The rest of the show included some jumping back and forth from newer to older material, along with some lesser known tracks, including a Crispy Favorite, "Silent Murder." In all, he performed about three-quarters of Illmatic, but unfortunately, failed to play my favorite track, "Halftime." I can't complain, however, as he played just about every other one of his bangers. No matter which Nas people came to see, they got a taste of every major period of his career. The only thing I found odd was his decision to end his set with his verse of Kanye's "We Major." Below, I've posted what I can remember of his setlist. The question marks represent times where I either forgot to write something down, couldn't read what I wrote the next day (it was dark, I was drunk, and I was using my beer bottle to write on), or - in rare occurrances - didn't know the song. Towards the end of the show I ran out of paper and energy, so I definitely missed a few more, but it's a pretty good representation of what went down.

As for after the show, I can't really go into it, but I would like to give some official LCWT shout outs to: The Sportsman's Inn, Richard Cummings (no homo), Gemini, Club Balloons, Wednesday, and Dreamweaver.

Nas partial setlist, 4/15/07 - Providence, RI:

1. Money Over Bullshit
2. Hip-Hop is Dead
3. Carry On Tradition
4. QB True G
5. Black Republican
6. NY State of Mind
7. Represent
8. It Ain’t Hard to Tell
9. The World is Yours
10. Life’s a Bitch
11. Affirmative Action
12. The Message
13. Street Dreams
14. If I Ruled the World
15. ?
16. Oochie Wally
17. Get Down
18. ?
19. No Idea’s Original
20. I Want to Talk to You
21. Silent Murder
22. Nas is Like
23. Hate Me Now
24. One Mic
25. One Love
26. Made You Look
27. We Major (his verse from Kanye West song)

Brother Ali - Undisputed Truth

It is no secret that we here at Long Crisp White Tee's sweat everything that a certain Minnesota-based albino named Brother Ali drops, and his new album Unidisputed Truth is no exception. Ali brings it hard on his sophmore release, and this album is a must cop. If Rakim says it, its gotta be truth....

Support one of the best independent artists out there and buy his shit. Also check him out on May 2nd at the Middle East Upstairs. Brother Ali fuckin' destroys the room every time he performs, believe that.

The Final Four - Show #112

We made it. On Tuesday night, your boys at Long Crisp White Tee's finally rapped up our hip-hop March (and April) Madness tournament with the Final Four. As you know, the final four artists were Gangstarr, B.I.G., Ghostface, and local favorite, Mr. Lif. We played a track from each and then crowned the winner - download the show to find out who it was. If you think we screwed it up and you still want to vote, click here.

We filled the rest of the show with tracks from our honorable mentions - artists that were left off the initial bracket, either by oversight or because they just missed the cut. click here for the playlist.

Click here to download the show (.mp3 format)

Next week were back to the regular format - straight dope hip-hop as always.

Jedi Mind Tricks Show 3/29/07

Here's some recently Youtubed footage from the show we attended at the Middle East a couple weeks back. Courtesy of Product of Society Street Entertainment.