The Humble Hip-Hop Bundle

Bad-ass flyer by @rusty_shackles

Apparently February is the hot new month in which to tour. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it!

I've already mentioned that next month my boys Adam WarRock and Kirby Krackle will be travelling the west coast, but it's recently been revealed that my other boys Jesse Dangerously and Mikal kHill will be doing the same on this end of the country. Kicking off in Columbia, SC on the 3rd and concluding on the 11th in Worcester, MA, the Humbled to Dust Tour promises to shake the eastern seaboard to its hip-hop core.

Along the way they're also hitting Orlando, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, so expect to see some amazing local talent (not the least of which is the delightful infernal Schaffer the Darklord) showcased as well.

Oh, and as I'll likely miss the Charlotte show – for reasons I'll go into at a later date – y'all be sure to make some extra noise on my behalf for MC Stealth. She's one of our precious few regional lady-rappers, so treat her nice. Which mostly means make the aforementioned noise!

Information Wants to Be Free

I'm not participating in today's internet blackout because I think anyone with half a brain already understands that what I do here – at a site that promotes acts who sample, remix and, in many cases, pay lyrical tribute to existing songs or properties without permission of the original copyright holders – can't be done in an overly regulated internet. If you dig my blog or podcast, if you love mixtapes or mash-ups or crazy cover songs (AKA: transformative works), then know that legislation like SOPA and PIPA very certainly affects you.

Pirates won't be stopped by content filtering and targeted prosecution, but artists will.

For more insight I'll now turn the floor over to Adam WarRock. When a former lawyer calls something out for "vague legal language, that’s unconstitutional / False pretense of purpose, that’s barely any solution," you know you can't take that shit lightly.

Thesis or the Egg?

I imagine it's hard for most of us in the States, after the three-day MLK weekend, to get back into the swing of the work week on this sullen Tuesday morning. On a personal note, I'm more than willing to admit that it's a dreary winter day in the Deep South, and I am operating on what I conservatively estimate as four hours of sleep. Ergo, not my best.

After a night of fruitlessly staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what, if anything, was keeping me awake into the wee hours, I was less-than hopeful about my potential productivity. Thankfully, salvation was delivered by the force up North known as Backburner.

The video for the title track from last year's epic release Heatwave was (apparently) uploaded in December, but I didn't discover it until yesterday. That gave the joint just enough time to earworm itself back into the front of my brainpan, and the album proper has once again become the soundtrack du jour.

Thus the day is saved!