Play It Loud

Beats By The Pound built their name producing for the No Limit camp years ago, or at least that's how I came to know of them. More recently, BBTP member KLC appeared on the radar with a solo record through Koch (remember them?) that I got my hands on (one of the perks of working in radio) and brought home on the strength of the name because it struck my memory. Long story short, I really like what this cat came with on this particular 12 inch and I want you to know that my dude has some serious sounds. This is some New Orleans stuff...so raw......................these guys changed the production game.............................play that shit loud



KLC - Play It Loud instrumental


KLC - Holla At Me feat. Mystikal, Calicoe & BG

Reacquainted...

I went out the other week to this event at the 9:30 Club hosted by Red Bull called the Big Tune competition. Nottz was a featured performer, and though I recognized his name, I couldn't really put the name to any tracks off the top...it soon came to my attention that he was responsible for this from 'Extinction Level Event' and this from 'Graduation' (one of just a few other producers credited on Kanye's latest.) Outside of those, I've been a big fan of "W.O.L.V.E.S." which is off the Training Day soundtrack, but the tune that really caught my attention was the joint he opened up with as his hype-man was setting the stage a bit. I couldn't place it, so I asked him the name of it afterwards when I saw him outside the venue...a little Motown flavor for ya, Edwin Starr - Easin In.

Anyway, there were some good producers involved in the competition (K. Murdock of Panacea, Young Slim, Best Kept Secret, etc.) and an energetic performance from Wale, who seems to be a favorite of some/many these days, or at least a buzzworthy name.  He was good, I'll give him that...good energy, good music, all around, dude did his thing.

In between competitors/performers, the DJ was playing some tracks, and it turns out that he was actually spinning DVDs which was kinda cool...interesting to see some of the music videos showing on the big screens for the joints he was spinning. At one point he was playing 'Da Rockwilder' from Meth and Red, which was a dope little jam when it came out at the beginning of this decade, but even more memorable than the track, was the video. It got me to thinking about some of the videos from that era (late 90's, early 00's) and some of the video directors, including the cat who did the 'Rockwilder' video, Dave Meyers. Many of the videos back then really defined the tracks that blew up cats like Cash Money and their whole crew (surprisingly, I don't believe Meyers did any videos for Cash Money, but it sparked the idea and his name is the one that stands out the most.) Of course, keep in mind that this was in a different time when heads would spend a huge budget on a video because there were not countless outlets for music videos yet, and in order to get your video played, it needed to be big. Nowadays, the math just doesn't make sense (obviously.) Back to the lecture at hand though, many of the joints that really blew up around this time had dope videos, and while I don't find myself checking MTV2/Jamz/VHI Soul/Fuse/etc. nearly as much as I did years ago, I don't think these type videos are being made as much. The look they accomplished was pretty impactful. Here's some of the vids from those days that stand out: