Get To Know, The Roots

On June 22nd The illadelph crew that delivered classics like "What They Do" and "You Got Me" return with an album that continues to push the boundaries sonically and lyrically. Black Thought is the most underrated emcee ever. His skill with Questlove's construction and the infamous Roots band has never, in my opinion, failed to deliver a classic. While many Hip-Hop heads make ridiculous statements like, The Roots are mainstream, the band just continued to produce at a consistently high level. As a Hip-Hop fan, it's nice to be able to grow with my music. I would look like a fool trying to listen to many of today's emcees. I'm not saying they are bad, they just fail to talk about anything worthy of discussion. If my music is going to be empty, I want the lyrics to at least entertain me.

The Roots new album is titled "How I Got Over". Any person who has been a long time listener realizes that the title has been used in previous Roots songs and is also an allusion to Mahalia Jackson.

The album is typical in its varied sound and from all of the songs I've heard it is as close to a live Roots performance than any other album except Organix. I still have Organix by the way. The latest drop from the album is The Fire featuring John Legend, which was used in the Winter Olympics. Instead of continuing to write, click play on the videos to listen. I'd like to request that if you have never bought a Roots album, this could be a great intro to the group. Visit http://www.okayplayer.com/ to keep up with the Roots and great music in general. "Before my time start to wind down like a Mayan." Classic Hip-Hop

Invest 2 hours and 19 minutes: Pyaar Impossible

Alright, I'm sure you're wondering what the hell is Pyaar? Pyaar means Love. This film is a Bollywood creation and has all of the characteristics associated with the genre: Outbursts of music, corny acting and length of the story, but I'm assuming that you have watched a Bollywood film before. To create clarity I will give you an allusion: Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog does not really stay as true to the genre since the viewer really is not exposed to the dancing and singing until the credits. Pyaar Impossible however has several extremely catchy tunes blended seamlessly into the film.

What is the story about? I'm asking you to give 2 hours and 19 minutes to a film. Typically this amount of time when watching film is only given to serious films such as Schindler's List, Titanic, Avatar, you get the picture. How can I ask you to invest your time? Because plain and simple this was one of the cutest (Yeah I'm a dude) stories I've seen in a long time. Often American love stories that are playful are either too sexual or basically underwritten and star studded to keep your attention. This film lacks any big names (Well big by American standards), although the main character Abhay (Uday Chopra) looks suspiciously like Michael Jackson. Alisha (Priyanka Chopra) is actually very big in India while Abhay is also popular by Bollywood standards. Enough of that...

Why should you give this movie your time? It is not the acting first off, it is the way the story is presented. Initially the singing catches you off guard but once you get past that the story plays out like the typical nerd desires beauty story with one small catch, the beauty ends up a single mom, which would never happen in an American film. The nerd does win the day but it is the final scene where the daughter acts in a school presentation that makes this film work. Rather than go into a lot of detail and spoil the film I am suggesting that if you are hanging out with your girl and you want a cute film to pass the time, hit up your Netflix account, get the popcorn out and snuggle up to Pyaar Impossible. You'll like it, I promise.

Get To Know, k-os

YES is the fourth album from Candadian emcee K-Os. I discovered him a while back I think it was in the early part of this decade. The name of the song was crabbucket and I thought it exemplified the mentality of many of my people. There were other songs that slip my mind right now that I thought made k-os a more talented Wyclef. I even tied him to the Fugees in my mind. His ability to carry a note and drop verses made him an emcee to watch on my list. But like all things that do not have a mainstream following I forgot to tell people about him. I guess I should say tell Americans about him since he has a pretty good following every where else. I'm not forgetting this time to tell you guys to support real Hip-Hop/music. I promise you will enjoy this. Peep out the first track Zambony by clicking the link below. You can also listen to the whole Yes album here.