Over at the Village Voice website hip hop and rap aficionado Phillip Mlynar has put together a top ten list of some of the worst singing ever committed to disc by rappers. See and hear the whole list here.

In the first audio clip, Biz Markie and The Beastie Boys maul Elton John’s ‘Bennie And The Jets’.

The team’s attempt to tackle the Elton John number “Bennie And The Jets” originally appeared as a free flexi-disc with Grand Royal magazine back in the mid-‘90s. Brilliantly, at times it sounds like Biz has no idea what the original lyrics are, so instead he falls back on slurring syllables together as he blunders through the track.

 
In the next clip, Ol’ Dirty Bastard tears into The Foundations’ ‘Build Be Up’ with all the style of a pit bull attacking a chunk of raw meat.
 

 
Most of these flyers were designed by Buddy Esquire and Phase 2. Drawn by hand and using Letraset, Xerox, Exacto knives, graph paper, stencils etc. these are artifacts of the days before Microsoft Word and Adobe photoshop, real cut and paste. Old skool.

You can check out more of these groovy nuggets of hip hop history at Toledo Hip Hop
 

 

 
More flyers after the jump..

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Chris Campion writes:

“Two of the most unlikely names ever to be mentioned in the same breath, now united.”

Oddly, it kinda works!

 
Ace photographer Henry Chalfant who produced the classic 1984 documentary on New York City graffiti artists and hip hop, Style Wars, has a new website and it’s a beauty. An incredible resource for anyone interested in street art, hip hop culture and outlaw artists, check out Henry’s site here. It will blow your mind.

These photos were cropped in order to fit the page. See them in their full glory on Henry’s webpage, where you can actually scroll along the full length of the subway car.
 

 

 
“Kill Your Co-workers,” the latest video from the genre-hopping maestro of Los Angeles, Flying Lotus. From the new EP,  Pattern+Grid World.

Directed by beeple AKA Mike Winkelmann. Gorgeous!
 

 
Truly poetic. Enjoy. I know I sure did.

Thanks Brian Tibbetts!

 
You can be sure that the next chapter of media star Christine O’Donnell’s career—the one that starts after she loses her bid for a Senate seat—will be even bigger than the one she’s writing with the media’s help now.

But her campaign evokes the limits of populist-driven politics, which is where your man Jay Smooth comes in. Jay is the founder of NYC’s longest-running hip-hop radio show, WBAI’s Underground Railroad. He’s also a hip-hop generation activist and has also made a name as a grassroots common-sense political commentator for both his own Nil Doctrine and the Giant magazine blog.

It’s for the latter that he gives his perspective on why “I’m you” falls flat as a political meme.
 

 
Take a look at Brandon “N2ition” Riley’s video for rising Gary, IN rhymer Freddie Gibbs’s tune “The Ghetto” below, and you’ll notice that you’re looking at something different. The flossy clichés—bling, cars, cash—are absent. Instead, we see high school running tracks, lake beaches, and theatres. We see kids, grannies, murals, dirty piano keys, and broken basketball backboards.

In short, we see real atmosphere, an element that can take something as commodified and played-out as a hip-hop video into a profound direction. Says Riley:

I’m trying to take the hip-hop music video into a more cinematic direction. And I don’t mean cinematic as in ‘Let’s add dialogue at the beginning of the video and then jump into the club scene.’ It takes a real commitment from the artist and their team to believe in a track enough to come up with a unique concept and follow it through. To plan on taking 2-3 days to shoot it. To audition actors to play key roles, etc. You have to be inspired by the music first.

After making videos for his own rap group in college in Charleston SC, Riley started shooting for other acts and building his aesthetic. One of his vids became a top-20 finalist in a YouTube rap video contest judged by Common, 50 Cent and Polow The Don.

Since then, Riley’s made Chicago his home and has shot for local talent like Lungz, LED, Nascent, Big Law, Jay Star and others. His N2ition Productions continue to specialize in videos that eschew the vapid, party-up paradigm for a gritty tone that almost seems inspired by the ghosts of Midwestern blues.

Riley notes a bounty of video talent in his territory:

There are some other great directors in Chicago. Guys I’ve worked with like Travis Long from Ike Films and Noyz from Da Visionaryz and GL Joe from HYSTK. These guys are going to be national names in no time. They really have the borderline genius talent.

Upcoming N2ition projects include a video for “Linen” by Mikkey Halsted and Twista (“Some amazing shots of Chicago in the summer”), and another with LEP and Gucci Mane that he says “should be a nice Chicago anthem.”

And I’m supposed to be working some more with Freddie Gibbs in the near future. I also shot a documentary on Twista that should be out in November. But I’m just as excited about moving into more feature length projects. I just completed a feature with Ike Films and Ill be shooting something in early 2011 with Noyz from the Visionaryz…everything I learn on those shoots only makes my music videos that much better.

 
Bonus clips after the jump: Another N2ition production starring Gibbs working with Mikkey Halstead, plus some workingman’s-blues-style hip-hop from Jay Star.
 

 
Behold the berserk cluelessness of “Baby Got Book,” a super lame, not in the least funny or clever, Christian rap ditty set to the tune of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

Isn’t that special?

Via American Jesus

 
Public Enemy’s explosion onto the American music scene in the mid-to-late-‘80s transformed the musical views of a lot of people, myself included. These guys were the full package. Sonically they fused hardcore New York rap style with militant black power lyrics and a dense, bombastic sample-heavy rhythm attack. Visually, they had a solidly political graphic style and tough, utilitarian fashion sense that accentuated their revolutionary attitude. PE were a dream come true for dorky college students like me who were in love with both serious anarcho-punk bands like the then-recently defunct Crass and black music in general—especially hip-hop. Their 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is a landmark in American pop music.

PE marks their entrance into collectors’ posterity via a 3-CD/3-DVD-photo-book-and-t-shirt box set with a new video for their summer single, “Say It Like It Really Is,” shot in the surprisingly peaceful surroundings of Niagra Falls. Older, but still dangerous minds.
 

 
After the jump: a 2007 video re-contextualizing of P.E.’s 1999 tune “I”, with Chuck D. surveying New Orleans’ Ninth Ward…