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Every week, Arts Desk’s hip-hop writers drop news, music, culture—and generally put you on game.
Pimp Romney
At Halloween parties across the land this weekend, the people who once dressed up as Sarah Palin or a teary-eyed Glenn Beck will come up with costumes that spin off the one-liner of the season: Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women.” It’ll be whatever.
The easiest riff on the gaffe was Mitt Romney as an iced-out hip-hop pimp, and predictably the Internet produced a post-Pen & Pixel interpretation. Shortly after, Glen “G Money” Jones and the mischief engineers at Listen Vision Recording Studios on Georgia Avenue NW sampled the binders line and made a rap song with it. Turns out, Romney’s ill-conceived comment lends itself to even more objectification. —-Ramon Ramirez
ATLiens
D.C.’s SmCity offers a taste of the career grind in his latest minidocumentary, which collects footage from the DMV showcase at the annual A3C festival held earlier this month in Atlanta. Watch as Phil Adé, Pro’Verb, Fat Trel, Baltimore’s King Los, and others energetically work what appears to be a typically subdued-but-interested industry crowd. —-Joe Warminsky
Starks Industries
Released in January, rapper Javier Starks’ Faces of Change mixtape was an all-in effort with a collective who’s who in D.C. hip-hop—-Substantial, X.O., and Kane Mayfield, among many others. On it, Starks shared the spotlight on his own terms, by dropping the foul language and keeping his topics relatively light.
Out this week, Starks’ video for “Fall Back” features Raheem DeVaughn protégé Phil Adé and rapper RAtheMC, a recent competitor on X-Factor. In this colorful visual, the MCs rhyme vibrantly among tumbling skateboarders and video-game animation. Starks rolls into the video on a skateboard, and RA keeps it cool by rapping near her trademark boombox. The result is fittingly fresh and carefree.
—-Marcus J. Moore
Ndamukong Groove
Oddisee shows how to get some of that Nike money: 1. Write a dramatic, high-energy song called “Ready to Rock.” 2. Collect money when Nike uses the song in a video where Ndamukong Suh of the Detroit Lions promotes the Nike+ FuelBand, which appears to keep track of the social media traffic that you generate while you’re exercising. (Note: The inclusion of “Ready to Rock” on our Street Sweepers Vol. 1 mixtape probably did not contribute to Oddisee’s acquisition of Nike money.) —-JW
Flowz, Notes
Goodlife Tuesdays are over and that’s a downer. [Marcus J. Moore]
Yardfest popped off during Howard homecoming, Drake cheesed like a prince. [Joe Warminsky]
Rock-solid unofficial footage from last week’s Adidas Original Cyphers surfaces. [YouTube]
Gucci Men
Neiman Marcus, Mercedes Benz convertibles, North Face, Louis V, white iPhones—-YSC stunts hard like the Real Housewives of New Jersey. “Stunt Hard,” the first single from brothers and rappers Brian and Tony Bryant, finds the rap duo planting a flag at Tysons Corner. Their Stunna Season mixtape is out November 14, and features creative input from Dew Baby, Shy Glizzy, and Fat Trel.—-RR