I can’t really say I grew up watching Soul Train. I was born in ’88, and by the early ’90s, Don Cornelius was about ready to step down, and Yo! MTV Raps had stepped into Soul Train’s role as the major television showcase for the most exciting, forward-thinking black music out there. But as a cultural touchstone, its influence is still pretty undeniable. When Max and I plan out these parties, I think there’s usually an image in our heads of all the folks coming down, two-by-two in a Soul Train line, groovin’ out to some Marvin or Curtis. We’ll take it there soon.

With Don Cornelius’ apparent suicide a few days back, it seems like just now, people are fully coming to understand just how impactful the show was for its time. Without the frenzy of nostalgic stories and think-pieces that have surface in the last week, it might be easy for our generation to forget the magnitude of a nationally syndicated show dedicated to soul, funk and the most cutting-edge popular music coming out of black America, being broadcast into living rooms across the country in 1971. Not to mention, everything about the show, and particularly Don Cornelius was just so damn cool. The voice, the fro, the effortless smoothness — not that it was all that hard to make Dick Clark look like a square, but he did. Looking back on some of the performances, in all their lip-synched glory, there were just too many classic moments. And, luckily for the YouTube generation, many of them are here at our fingertips. We thought we’d share a few.

The Jackson 5 performing “I Want You Back” (1972)

David Bowie performing “Fame” (1975)

Soul Train dancers dancing to The Commodores’ “Brick House” (1977)

Marvin Gaye interviewed, and performing “Let’s Get it On” (1974)

An eighteen year-old LL Cool J, performing “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” (1985)

Soul Train dancers dancing to Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie” (1973)

Sly & the Family Stone performing “Thank You” (1974)

The Jackson 5 performing “Dancing Machine”, also commonly considered introduction of The Robot (1976)

James Brown, in an early episode, performing “Sex Machine”, live, sans lip-sync (1971)

Last year, the world lost a true revolutionary. It seemed that only in the years leading up to his death, had greater pop culture begun to realize the true impact and importance Gil Scott-Heron had had on its own landscape. Though hip-hop and jazz historicists, vinyl collectors and political minds had been singing his praises for decades, it seemed that the last few years of his life saw that well-deserved reverence reaching an unprecedented level. The release of his final album, I’m New Here, a collaborative effort with XL Recordings founder Richard Russell, and the posthumous Jamie xx remix project, We’re New Here served to further cement his place as a luminary of modern music and culture.

Today saw the release of The Last Holiday, an autobiographical memoir written in the last years of Gil’s life. The memoir tells the stories of some of the more formative moments of his extraordinary life and career, using one particular story as a sort of centerpiece through which others are told. “The Last Holiday” refers to Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and more specifically to Gil’s experience touring alongside Stevie Wonder as a part of 1980′s Hotter Than July Tour, during which he and Stevie helped to campaign for MLK Day’s status as an official holiday, all to the tune of Stevie’s “Happy Birthday”. In the excerpt below, Gil writes beautifully and poetically about childhood memories, about his experience with Stevie, and about the tragedy of fallen heroes. In the wake of his own death, his insight seems all the more poignant now.

An excerpt from Gil Scott-Heron’s The Last Holiday: A Memoir:

I always doubt detailed recollections authors write about their childhoods. Maybe I am jealous that they retain such clarity of their long-agos while my own past seems only long gone. What helped me to retain some order was that by the age of 10 I was interested in writing. I wrote short stories. The problem was that I didn’t know much about anything. And I didn’t take photos or collect mementos. There were things I valued, but I thought they would always be there. And that I would.

There was Jackson, Tennessee. No matter where I went – to Chicago, New York, Alabama, Memphis, or even Puerto Rico in the summer of 1960 – I always knew I’d be coming back home to Jackson. It was where my grandmother and her husband had settled. It was where my mother and her brother and sisters were all born and grew up. It was where I was raised, in a house on South Cumberland Street that all of them called home, regardless of what they were doing and where they were doing it. They were the most important people in my life and this was their home. It was where I began to write, learned to play piano, and where I began to want to write songs.

Jackson was where I first heard music. It was what folks called “the blues”. It was on the radio. It was on the jukeboxes. It was the music of Shannon Street in “Fight’s Bottom” on Saturday night, when the music was loud and the bootleg whisky from Memphis flowed. The blues came from Memphis, too. Shannon Street was taboo at my house, something my grandmother didn’t even think about. We never played the blues at home.

Our house was next door to Stevenson and Shaw’s Funeral Home. The man who ran that business was Earl Shaw, one of the nicest men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. His wife was a good friend of my mother, and our families were so close that I related to his children as cousins for years.

Evidently business at the funeral home was good because I remember clearly when Mr Shaw purchased another building in East Jackson and the movers came to take everything out of the place next door. And then the men from the junkyard came to put everything else in the back of an old truck. My grandmother knew the junk man and after a brief conversation with him he directed his two sons to bring an ancient and well-used upright piano into our front room and push it up against the wall. I was seven years old. Old enough to start learning to play. What she had in mind was that I learn some hymns I’d be able to play for her sewing-circle meetings. That’s how my music playing started.

There was no blues on the living-room radio. My grandmother had that one locked on the station that played her soap operas in the afternoon and her favourite radio programmes at night. When we got a second radio, it was quickly dubbed “the ballgame radio,” and, sure enough, when a ballgame was being broadcast I listened. But at other times I’d try to tune in WDIA in Memphis, the first Black radio station in the country, with on-air personalities like Rufus and Carla Thomas and BB King. Late at night I’d try to get Randy’s Record Show out of Nashville. I heard people talk about a music explosion in Memphis. I knew my favourite music, the blues, came from there, too. Memphis, Tennessee, was only 90 miles west of Jackson, my home. But Memphis was as far away as the North Pole in my mind. People in Jackson were always talking about somewhere else, mostly Memphis, because it was a close somewhere else and you could drink alcohol there, while Jackson was in a dry county. Some of my grandfather’s relatives were in Memphis and I had visited them, but what I remember about the trip was getting car-sick and throwing up.

The history that we were given about Memphis was done in light pencil that hopscotched its way to a semi-solid landing with Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show… The city matured from midway market to a major metropolis… [from] saloons and whorehouse tents, once soaked with the sweat of drunken sailors and reeking with the acid stench of swine, slime, sewage, and slaves [to be] better known for Graceland and the Grizzlies than for Beale Street and the blues. Its filthy foundation as a headquarters for whores and for humans sold to the highest bidder was obscured by the magic of musical melding.

Sun Records considered itself the fuse that lit the 1950s with Elvis and rock’n'roll. With Carla and Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding, Stax Records brought blues to the hit parade with hooks and horns and a solid beat, evolving into Al Green and Willie Mitchell. Memphis meant music.

And unless you stop to think for a minute, you might forget that it was in Memphis that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed on a motel balcony on April 4, 1968.

Stevie Wonder did not forget.

In 1980, Stevie joined with the members of the Black Caucus in the United States Congress to speak out for the need to honour the day Dr King was born, to make his birthday a national holiday. The campaign began in earnest on Hallowe’en of 1980 in Houston, Texas, with Stevie’s national tour supporting a new LP called Hotter than July, featuring the song “Happy Birthday”, which advocated a holiday for Dr King. I arrived in Houston in the early afternoon to join the tour as the opening act. I was invited to do the first eight shows, covering two weeks, and I felt good about being there, about seeing Stevie and his crazy brother Calvin again.

I was tired already, sweaty and exhausted from a five-minute trudge uphill, learning as I trudged why this block-sized enclosure was called “the Summit”. I had just found a stage entrance for a venue I had never played. The places I had played in Texas on prior trips could fit into this sprawling hothouse about 10 times and still leave room for the Rockets to play their games without me getting in their way. It was an impressive sight. Choreographed chaos on a Roman scale. But suddenly somebody called my name. Well, not exactly my name, but somebody’s name for me, the name he always used, my astrological sign. So I knew who it was. It was somebody who shouldn’t have seen me come in. Howzat?

The call for me rang out again, echoing around in the cavernous hall: “Air-rees!”

I scanned the upper reaches of the place, looking for Stevie Wonder.

And there he was, in a seat near the top row in the bowl-shaped theatre. He was leaning forward in my direction from the sound booth. Alone. There was no mistaking him. His corn rows were surrounded with a soft suede cover. Large, dark sunglasses hid most of the top half of his face, and a huge, joker’s grin furnished the lower half. He had a wireless mike in his hand and, again with the grin, was saying, “Come on up here, Air-rees!”

I started for the stairs, still scanning. Now I could see there was an engineer-type person in the booth, but his back was turned to Stevie and I didn’t believe I knew the man anyway. Or that he had identified me.

He hadn’t. But since I hadn’t figured it out yet and Stevie was having such a good time messing with my head…

“How you been, man,” I said as I climbed. “If you saw me get outta that cab from the airport, you shoulda helped me pay for it.”

“We felt your vibes, Air-rees,” Stevie said, and he laughed out loud, shook his head, and held his hundred-watt smile.

I agreed to be on by 8.05 pm each night and to hit my last note no later than 9.05. That would give the humpers and stage muscle 25 to 30 minutes to change the sets for Stevie and [backing group] Wonderlove. Stevie’s set would run the clock out, but at 11.30 or so he would call for back-up to do his last two numbers: “Master Blaster”, the reggae-flavoured tune that included the line that was the title of his new LP, and “Happy Birthday”, his tribute to Dr King.

The people producing the shows [were] worrying about us starting and stopping on time. I thought that was funny as hell, knowing that Bob Marley and the Wailers were coming in after two weeks. “Them brothers don’t start rolling their show joints until they’re 10 minutes late,” I told [the stage manager]. “I’ll be around an hour in advance.”

I meant that. It lasted for about 24 hours.

Different dates on the tour were memorable for different reasons. Some days I took notes, though most of those notes seem to have been done as a joke, some kind of acrobatic way of pulling my own leg. There were either a few lines written before the show along with whatever expenses I needed to note, or, after the concert, in the early am, there was a separate page or two that described something that happened or that I felt during the day or evening. There was rarely both, rarely an occasion when I wrote something before and after a show. December 8, 1980 in Oakland was a before-and-after day. I still remember the after-feelings now.

I rarely missed things Stevie said to me. But when I saw him at the bottom of the backstage stairs at the arena in Oakland, I thought I must have misheard him. Maybe it was the shock at what he had said. Maybe I hadn’t missed what he said and just thought I did. It was something I didn’t want to hear.

But no, I must have mistaken Stevie for sure.

“What did you say?” I asked him, trying to get above the noise.

“I said some psycho, some crazy person, shot John Lennon!” Stevie said. “And I’m wondering how to handle it.”

I am not so silly or naive as to suspect that there is an ultimate evil. But the death of a good man, so rare as to be nearly extinct, is a thorough tragedy. And what do you say about it to 17,000 people who have come out to see you and enjoy themselves?

I got that same feeling I’d felt when I heard that Dr King or someone else was killed; that sense of a certain part of you being drained away, a loss of self. There were certain events in your life that had such historical significance that you were supposed to remember the circumstances under which you received the news for the rest of your life. That was probably what some section of humanity used to illustrate man’s superiority over other animals: “memories of miseries that memorialise.”

Having those memories was like turning down the corner of a page in your life’s book. But maybe animals turned down corners of pages, too. They might not choose the date of the death of John Lennon to see as a date of loss and mourning, they would be more likely to remember the date the Ringling Brothers died or the day the woman from Born Free was born.

I was sure they talked about important things. I didn’t have the dialogue down pat, but I could picture a conversation between two lions on a late-night walk across the savannah.

“Yeah, that’s where it was, man,” one of them says. “Right over there by the watering hole. A big mean-looking thing with sharp teeth and the strongest grip you ever heard of. The gorilla called it an animal trap. Man, that thing grabbed Freddy Leopard and held him for hours. The gorilla got Freddy loose but his leg was all fucked up and he’s still walking with a limp.”

Just exactly what did those recollections, those dog-eared pages, prove? That you were connected to the human race? It couldn’t be. Because if so, people born since then, who weren’t around then, couldn’t be connected. That’s why there were history books and parents and other folks to tell you what happened before you got here.

And why did you need to remember those things? Most of them were about someone being killed or assassinated. You could almost feel as though you needed an alibi: “Where were you the day that such-and-such a person was murdered?” They were pages in history books, however. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what it proved. That you were connected to the human race? They were usually the least human things you could imagine. Unnatural disasters.

I always knew where I’d been. I was in last period history class at DeWitt Clinton High School when the principal announced from the bottom of an empty barrel: “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that your president is dead.” He was talking about John Kennedy, shot to death by someone in Dallas.

I was in the little theatre at Lincoln when a guy everyone called “the Beast” had thrown open a rear door and shouted: “The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King has been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.”

I was in my bedroom on West 17th Street when man first reached the Moon and I had written a poem called “Whitey on the Moon” that very night (for which my mother had come up with the punch line: “We’re gonna send these doctor bills air-mail special to Whitey on the Moon”).

And now I would always remember the night John Lennon died. Yeah, because of who told me and where, but also because of the effect the news had on the crowd. It proved we had been right, Stevie and I, when we hastily decided that it would serve no purpose to make that announcement before he played.

“No, just wait until the end, before we play them songs,” I told him. “Hell, ain’t nothin’ they can do about it.”

And that had been soon enough. The effect of Stevie’s sombre announcement on the crowd was like a punch in the diaphragm, causing them to let out a spontaneous “whaaaa!”. Then there was a second of silence, a missing sound, as if someone had covered their mouths with plastic, so tight not even their breathing could be detected. I was standing at the back of the stage, outside of the cylinder of light that surrounded Stevie, next to Carlos Santana and Rodney Franklin, who were joining us for the closing tunes.

Stevie had more to say than just the mere announcement that John Lennon had been shot and killed. For the next five minutes he spoke spontaneously about his friendship with John Lennon: how they’d met, when and where, what they had enjoyed together, and what kind of a man he’d felt Lennon was. That last one was the key, because it drew a line between what had happened in New York that day and what had happened on that motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, a dozen years before. And it drew a circle around the kind of men who stood up for both peace and change. That circle looked suspiciously like a fucking bull’s-eye to me. It underlined the risks that such men took because of what all too often happened to them.

It was another stunning moment in an evening of already notable cold-water slaps, a raw reminder of how the world occasionally reached inside the cocoon that tours and studios and offices on West 57th Street provide. It stopped your heart for a beat and froze your lungs for a gasp; showing you how fragile your grip on life was and how many enemies you didn’t know you had.

It also gave Stevie Wonder’s tour and his quest for a national holiday for a man of peace more substance, more fundamental legitimacy. Not just to me. Everyone seemed to understand a little better where Stevie was coming from and what this campaign was all about:

Below, Stevie and Gil sing “Happy Birthday” in an excerpt from the 1981 BBC Documentary Hotter Than July. The documentary followed Stevie and company on their historic tour, culminating with the scene below, the 1981 rally in Washington in celebration of Dr. King. Several excerpts serve as companion pieces to the stories from Gil’s The Last Holiday.

In the interest of full disclosure, let’s just say we’ve had some server issues this year. And, unfortunately, that meant we couldn’t put as many songs out into orbit as we have in past years. Consequently, that means we didn’t get to show some artists the love they deserved. as far as Watch the Throne goes, the difference in sales was probably marginal. And don’t trip. The big blowout, wrap-up list is coming too. But for now, we figured it was only appropriate to return to a few of the artists a bit further off the radar, who made a major impression. Expect to see a few of these names on our list of favorites for the year, along with a few more. But since not everybody’s combing through Pitchfork all day, here’s a short list of folks to we recommend getting familiar with.

Michael Kiwanuka – “Tell Me a Tale”

from Tell Me a Tale (EP)

That “Tell Me a Tale” finds British singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka asking us to tell him “a tale that always was”, is only appropriate. It’s the kind of song that sounds like it’s been around forever. Or at least since the mid-’70s. It’s majestic soul, with flashes of Bill Withers, and afrobeat horns. It’s a song that’s instantly nostalgic, and if that was the only thing Kiwanuka had brought with him in his time machine, we’d still be blown away. That he’s readying his third and fourth EP already for the Spring, after two impressive efforts this year, is reason enough to believe he’ll be around for quite a while.

Download: Michael Kiwanuka – “Tell Me a Tale”

Shabazz Palaces – “Swerve…the reeping of all that is worthwhile”

from Black Up

You’d be hard pressed to find a rap album weirder than Shabazz Palaces‘ Black Up this year. Again, picking Butterfly from the long lost jazz-rap collective Digable Planets to return to form, with the most forward-thinking mindfuck of a hip-hop album since the early Def Jux era wouldn’t really have seemed like a safe bet last year. But for whatever reason– the space-industrial bounce, its warped jazz foundation, the bizarre twists and turns these songs take, maybe just the sheer element of surprise it had for a lot of us– it stuck. And now it seems oddly inescapable.

Download: Shabazz Palaces – “Swerve…the reaping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)”

Clams Casino – “Motivation”

from Instrumental Mixtape

When Brian Eno’s giving you his stamp of approval for the beats you made for Soulja Boy and Lil’ B, it’s safe to say you’re doing something special. There’s something about those warped samples and woozy textures that takes you to another world. It’s a signature sound that feels just as much at home next to “Purple Swag” and “Zan Wit That Lean” as it does next to the most experimental music of the year on music-geek best-of lists. The life his music has taken on recently– an instrumental album, experimental solo tracks, and a handful of the most exciting tracks from A$AP Rocky’s LiveLoveA$AP– seems to suggest that Clams is just getting started. What we’ve heard from him lately is the sound of a sonic architect who’s starting to master his craft.

Download: Clams Casino – “Motivation”

John Maus – “Believer”

from We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

If off-kilter, lo-fi, synthy pop made by a philosophy PhD candidate wasn’t the first thing you picked to break through in 2011, you probably weren’t alone. John Maus is an oddball character, a spaz onstage, and a fascinatingly pretentious interviewee. Surprisingly enough though, he’s got a serious pop sensibility. Shimmering keyboards, atmospheric low-register vocals, and a few deceptively complex pop songs set Maus’ We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves apart this year, and “Believer” was a highlight.

Download: John Maus – “Believer”

Main Attrakionz feat. A$AP Rocky – “UGK”

If A$AP proved anything this year, it’s that where you’re from doesn’t have to determine what you sound like. It’s not that the last few years haven’t seen their fair share of partnerships that crisscross coasts and subgenres, but it’s an idea that more and more of the internet’s most like-minded rappers are embracing, and it’s foundational to the sound that’s starting to define Oakland duo Main Attrakionz, a style that fuses Bay flavor and swag with the kind of hazy atmospherics Clams Casino’s been pioneering 3000 miles away. That the hijacked loop from Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love” has been borrowed before isn’t really important. What matters is that it’s never sounded more at home.

Download: Main Attrakionz feat. A$AP Rocky – “UGK”

Jacques Greene – “Another Girl” & Ifan Dafydd -”Miranda”

James Blake, How to Dress Well, The Weeknd, Jamie xx. The last few years have seen a lot of genre-defying electronic music, and one of the main inspirations, interestingly enough, has been mid-’90s R&B. This year though, no two songs did it better than these, and both with a similar flare. Montreal’s own Jacques Greene turned a forgotten Ciara sample into something surreal and hypnotic with “Another Girl”, while Ifan Dafydd pitchfucked “U Remind Me” in about a hundred different ways, prompting the inevitable comparisons to two of the people mentioned in the beginning of this paragraph, and providing some major highlights on the latter’s BBC Radio One Essential Mix. Like those luminaries though, both are the kind of producers that push boundaries in exciting new ways. Part of that has to do with understanding that those boundaries– between danceable and contemplative, or say, between 90s R&B and futurist house– are all pretty flexible.

Download: Jacques Greene – “Another Girl”

Download: Ifan Dafydd – “Miranda”

Credit The Roots for their insistence on subtlety and focus. Nearly two decades into the game, ?uesto and company have kept busy over the last half decade, not only as the resident tastemakers for late-night network TV, but also as hip-hop’s foremost album auteurs, creating albums as conceptual and cohesive as any in recent memory. From the dark paranoia of Rising Down to the soulfully eclectic palette of How I Got Over in particular, The Roots have set the standard for visionary hip-hop records of late. It’s not that those classifications don’t apply to the rest of their career, but I suppose it’s just the ridiculous consistency, and attention to craft that’s made such an impression in recent years.

It should be no surprise then, that Undun is fundamentally concept driven. More than that though, it’s the moodiest, most decidedly downbeat Roots album yet, telling the story of Redford Stevens, a Memento-style backward moving, existential journey, beginning with Redford’s death. “Kool On” is all bluesy guitar and soul chops, with Black Thought, and frequent collaborators Greg Porn and Truck North all lending verses about the pleasures and the pitfalls of fast money. It’s also far and away the hookiest, most fun track on the album, which is to say, it’s not exactly representative of Undun on the whole. In all seriousness though, listen all the way through. You won’t regret it. For now, get your cool on. Way too wet.

Download: The Roots feat. Greg Porn & Truck North – “Kool On”

It was the second half of what was to eventually be a wonderful year spent in L.A. The volcanic burst that was the new year of 2011 seemed to be settling and in the eye of the storm, Unready to Wear was born. Heavy-hearted one day I sat trying to determine what was the most creative way to send in a demo to Stones Throw, when I got a call from my friend Doug. Confirmation for a half-planned trip to Coachella was the question and an unsure “yes” was the answer.

Download: Mario Hills & Vernell Anthony – “Paint”

Little did I know this trip would be the moment that spurred the whole project. We reached Encino the first night of the 3 day festival Max, Doug, Sydney, Whitney and I and were greeted by our concert-bound friends. Our plans to sneak into the festival were soon abandoned after discovering that electronic bracelets were being used to track attendants, but luckily we had a plan B. The next day, we said our goodbyes for the day and made our way to the Ace Hotel to attend a pool party for those of us who didn’t get in but still wanted to celebrate. It was sort of our own Coachella– artists performed, the ladies chose– it was an all day-affair. The night approached and it was then that I ran into Dam Funk.

I walked by the funk instrumentalist without first recognizing who he was. He nodded and a conversation began, “Are you one of the artists?” he asked. I said “no” as far as I knew it that day I was a producer, trying to send his demo into Stones Throw, coincidentally the label Dam was signed to. I introduced myself as such and offered to play him a track, which he politely declined. The drink in hand and relaxed pose suggested maybe another time.

I entered into the bar and sat in amazement, “Did that actually happen?” I said under my breath. “Did the opportunity really approach that suddenly?” I sat for a while and decided to try again. I met back up with the group, letting them know the news when there out of no where I see the creator of Stones Throw himself, Peanut Butter Wolf. The moment was alive again and I could feel it as he began to walk past. I introduced myself, explained my demo submission plan, and offered to play him a track. He agreed. The track I played was the instrumental for “Paint”. He dug it and asked me to send him more. We parted ways and the next day the crew and I headed back to L.A. I left Indio with a new vision and determination, feeling as though things really did happen for a reason.

Within days, the track list for the project was assembled, and the cast was called, yet the title still was unknown. An urge for inspiration overcame me and I visited my friend Will’s to pick up a couple of books. He picked one off the shelf and handed me a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House, and there it was sitting in the table of contents: the title, “Unready to Wear”. There was something about the story that said so much about evolving out of the things that once inhibited you and never looking back. In a way, finding peace in abandoning convention. Soon after I began writing, it was July, my lease was up and I moved back to the Bay. What was to come was the story of Unready to Wear. A story about life, love, reality, individuality…all that. Ha…Unready to Wear.

Download Mario Hills’ debut solo album, Unready to Wear here, and for more from Mario, check out his Bandcamp page here.

Now that a few million eyes are tracking the Odd Future collective’s every move, it seems only appropriate that a few folks not named Tyler or Frank take their turn in the spotlight. Aside from a few remixes surfacing over the last few months, Syd the Kid has been pretty quiet thus far. As introductions go though, “Cocaine” is pretty much all you could ask for. A trippy, great-looking video, a lesbian love affair, some serious hard-drug use, and a delightfully groovy piece of futurist funk. While Tyler’s been grabbing VMA’s and Frank Ocean’s been rivaling The Weeknd for the indie R&B crown, it’s become increasingly clear that the rest of the crew — Left Brain, Hodgy, and Syd in particular — are poised to do some damage in their own right. The Internet, Syd and Matt Martian’s collective moniker, is scheduled to drop Purple Naked Ladies this December.

There’s a pretty incredible sense of emotional honesty on Erykah Badu’s last album. I guess the nudity of last year’s “Window Seat” video was a metaphor for that, in a way. That she’s still putting out video projects based on an album that’s more than a year and a half old is telling. New Amerykah Part Two was the kind of album that’s worth considering, and exploring in careful detail. “Out My Mind”, the album’s closer is a perfect example too. Weighing in at just over ten minutes, and complimented by three distinct musical “movements”, it’s quintessential Badu. One moment she’s a lovesick little girl, obsessing about newfound love. The next, she’s snapped back into full-on goddess mode, “searching for the Holy Ghost”. As is the case with most of the visuals we’ve seen lately from Erykah, the first two movements of “Out My Mind” say a lot, by doing just a little. Hit play to see what I mean, and MORE to see part two.

Written By Lukas Brekke-Miesner

On December 14, 1974 Marvin Gaye sang the National Anthem at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum before the Raiders beat the Dallas Cowboys 27-23 in front of a national television audience. Marvin donned his iconic red beanie in the Bay Area’s temperate 53-degree weather and blessed America with its self-affirming anthem. He looked at ease, but earlier that year, on the very same field, Marvin Gaye had confronted some of his biggest demons by returning to the national spotlight… live in Oakland, CA.

When Gaye’s frequent collaborator, Tammi Terrell, collapsed on stage in 1967, Marvin began suffering from stage fright. And when she died of a brain tumor two and a half years later, he refused to tour despite pressures from his label. But with money problems and the huge success of 1973’s Let’s Get It On, Gaye was forced to return to the stage. And so it was that on January 4, 1974 he treated 14,000 fans (paying as little as $5 for entry) at the Oakland Coliseum to a beautifully orchestrated 52-minute set.

Whatever fears he had weren’t apparent as he blessed those in attendance with a melancholy, soulful and sultry set of his more recent work (and a medley of his older hit tunes). A transcendent spirit swept over the Coliseum that night as Gaye not only reemerged from the shadows, but also recorded a live album. Marvin Gaye Live! would go on take the #1 spot on the R&B charts and pique at #8 on the pop charts. It also birthed a slow-burning version of “Distant Lovers” that elicited Beatles-esque shrieks from the female fans in attendance. Thanks to that response, that rendition of “Distant Lovers” became a staple in Gaye’s repertoire until his death in 1984.

Download “Distant Lovers,” but do yourself a favor by purchasing the whole Marvin Gaye Live! album. It provides an amazing glimpse into the spirit of a troubled man with soaring gifts from above. Oakland knew he was back that night, and the rest of the world would soon be let in on the secret.

Now that we’re in August, I can’t say I’m surprised that The Weeknd’s House of Balloons is still one of the most impressive projects to drop so far this year. The love from media outlets, bloggers, fans and contemporaries has been plentiful, and its well deserved. But given the relative anonymity Weeknd mastermind Abel Tesfaye has maintained thus far, I guess we shouldn’t have expected him to rest on his laurels. Less than six months from the release of Balloons, comes the second of three scheduled Weeknd projects, Thursday, and as you might expect after a debut as accomplished as his, the sophomore jinx doesn’t seem to be of any concern.

Download: The Weeknd – “Heaven or Las Vegas”

Quite on the contrary, Thursday picks right back up where House of Balloons left off. This is polished, densely textured, and meticulously constructed R&B. If it’s lacking in the kind of blindsiding element of surprise, or the monumental highs the first tape had (“The Morning” or “The Party”), it’s just about as engrossing, just as sexy, and in some ways even more cohesive as a total package.

Like the first album, Thursday is impressive for its eclecticism, but also for its extraordinary ability to tie so many musical strains into one train of thought. Acoustic ballads like “Rolling Stone”, or the reggae-tinged “Heaven or Las Vegas” are steps outside the box, but once again, everything is tied together by woozy synths and of course, Tesfaye’s soaring vocals. The stories and emotional content too follow a similar pattern. These are drugged-out, passionate serenades. But there’s just as much emotional vulnerability here as there is swagger. As much heartbreak as there is raw sexuality. Even when the subject matter is party-centric, it’s got real weight to it. All in all, this late night music executed to near perfection. Download the tape below.

Download: The Weeknd – Thursday

It would be hard to imagine a better tour pairing than Chromeo and Mayer Hawthorne. Something about smooth retro blue-eyed soul and dance-friendly ’80s electro-funk on the same stage just sounds proper. To be honest, the image in my head is something like Hall & Oates going on tour with Steely Dan. So with these two acts hitting the road this Fall, it seems reasonable that they extend the bromance by covering each other’s songs. After converting “Don’t Turn the Lights On” on into slow, sexy bedroom fare, Mayer took the chance to tackle another Chromeo gem, adding some smoothed-out ’70s flare to “When the Night Falls”. Not to be outdone though, Chromeo returned the favor, effectively throwing that same equation in reverse for Mayer’s latest single, “A Long Time”. Not that I should have to tell you, but they’re both jams. Peep the latter after the MORE.

Download: Chromeo – “When the Night Falls” (Mayer Hawthorne Cover)

Download: Mayer Hawthorne – “A Long Time” (Chromeo Remix)

If there’s one thing I love about Mayer Hawthorne’s music, it’s that he just knows how to have fun with it. That the whole classic-soul persona that is Mayer Hawthorne started half as a joke is kind of telling. Somewhere between the Smokey and Marvin Motown influences of A Strange Arrangement, and Hall & Oates’ blue-eyed pop soul lies “A Long Time”, the latest single from Mr. Hawthorne. And then there’s the video. Composed of footage from what I can only assume is a Detroit-area public access Soul Train knock-off, it’s the perfect compliment to a serious groove. And as expected, it’s pretty damn fun too. Don’t know about you, but I’m about to hit some of these moves at the next function.

It’s pretty cool how inspiration works. It’s like it knows no boundaries. Inspiration can transcend time, age, race and reach you at any given moment. Inspired by Frank Ocean’s summertime ballad Love Crimes, writer and fashion blogger Neijah Williams received the vision for this short work. The debut film by Neijah, Love Crimes functions as a style piece, while also relating a story of love and scorn. Produced by Joseph Poakwa, and featuring Camila Marie and Michael Coleman amongst others, Love Crimes offers a unique perspective on how far one will go to mend a broken heart.

This one’s been a long time coming, I know. My apologies to Cunningham, and anybody else who’s been waiting. It’s not that there’s been any shortage of dope shit dropping lately — Theophilus London’s full-length debut, and quality projects from Washed Out, Little Dragon, Dom Kennedy and Beyonce to name a few. August tends to sneak up on you with the realization that summer actually ends, and once again today, it hit me. Still, fleeting though it may be, every summer deserves a soundtrack. So here’s a taste of ours.

Download: Theophilus London – “I Stand Alone”

Download: St. Vincent – “Surgeon”

Download: John Maus – “Hey Moon”

Download: Beyonce – “I Miss You”

Download: The Black Keys – “Dearest” (Buddy Holly Cover)

Download: Frank Ocean – “Thinking About You”

Download: Washed Out – “Amor Fati”

Download: Dom Kennedy – “Dream to Me”

Download: Jesse Boykins III – “When You’re Ready”

Download: Little Dragon – “Crystalfilm”

Download: Lil B – “I Seen That Light”

Download: Freddie Joachim – “Waves”

Video: Pusha T & Tyler the Creator – “Trouble On My Mind”

Video: Blood Orange – “Sutphin Boulevard”

Video: Washed Out – “Eyes Be Closed”

Video: Starting Six feat. Do Proper & YMTK – “Dale Shake”

If you were to tell me Hov and Ye were about to go in over a loop of Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness”, you wouldn’t have too much convincing left to do. With the highly anticipated Watch the Throne a few weeks away, the first real leak emerged last night, basically consisting of an extended exchange of bars between the two legends, set to a minimal backdrop that leans pretty heavily on the song’s even-more-legendary namesake. For all the hype — gaudy cover art, the over-the-top ridiculousness of H.A.M. — the chest-thumping is probably warranted. Even if the album was just an excuse for these two to talk shit, it’s hard to imagine two people more suited to the task.

Download: Jay-Z & Kanye West – “Otis”

The only thing better than an artist that’s consistent, is one that’s consistently full of surprises. Originally, and clumsily pegged by critics as chillwave, Chaz has turned his Toro Y Moi project into something else entirely, coming with some of the more subtly soulful, and diverse music in recent memory. Given the scope of his latest full-length album Underneath the Pine, or the impressive collection of singles and remixes he’s dropped recently, a cover of an ’80s R&B radio staple makes sense, even if it’s unexpected. Weekend music at it’s finest.

Download: Toro Y Moi – “Saturday Love”