Stephen "Static" Garrett RIP 1976-2008

Can't believe I missed this news. The incredible songwriter, singer, producer and performer Static sadly passed away this Monday the 25th of February. He will be sorely missed.

The Thomas Crown Chronicles posted this very fitting eulogy...

It is with great shock and profound sadness to announce the unexpected passing of Stephen "Static" Garrett on Monday February 25th. Static helped create some of the most timeless hits in music including Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody" and "We Need A Resolution", Ginuwine's "Pony" and "Same Ol G", Destiny Child's "Say My Name" and Truth Hurts "So Addictive" to name but a few. Static let his brilliant songwriting speak for itself, racking up hit after hit and continuing his top 10 success throughout the years. Static along with friends and fellow musicians Smokey and Black formed the group Playa which released their critically acclaimed album Cheers 2 U to rave reviews back in 1998. The group disbanded, however Static still had much more to share with the world and so he continued as a solo artist releasing his album Suppertime in 2007 and planning a re-release with added tracks in 2008.

It is a huge loss to the music industry and to the world as a whole to have someone with so much talent, energy, love, and endless potential to be taken from us so early. Static was THAT dude when it come to making hits. Long before the success of Tim, Missy, Tweet, and Playa, Static was part of Da Basement crew busy penning many of his future hits, like his first #1 classic "Pony" way back in 1995. 13 years later, Static was still as relevant and in demand as ever as seen by Lil' Wayne personally choosing the talented crooner for his possible first single "Lollipop" off his new album.

The Thomas Crown Chronicles would like to offer their deepest condolences and prayers to Static's family, fellow musicians, friends, and fans around the world. Static made his mark in so many lives all across the globe and we honor the phenomenal music he was able to share with us. Static we thank you for all that you've given this world through your music, gifts, and talents and it's through this music and the legacy that you have created that we will always remember you. Rest In Peace, you will be missed!

Joell vs. Dave

My man Joell Ortiz just got on some David Dallas shit and kicked a whole shitload of rhymes over some classic 90's Hip-Hop tracks. Not quite a mixtape but instead one helluva long freestyle.
Peep it and see who kills more shit...Dave or Joell?
Joell Ortiz - 90s Free Agent Freestyle

David Dallas "The artist formerly known as" mixtape...catch up man, you should have this alreadyyyy!!! ;)

Ozzie Gigs Coming Up

Im goin to Australia for some gigs this weekend. The flyer is for my show with Mystro in MELBOURNE on the 9th at The Laundry (1:30-3am) and I'm also playing the following SYDNEY shows next week:

Friday 7th March - "Unreleased Joints & Remixes- OZ Album Release" @ Bondi Beach Rd Hotel - Bondi (10:30pm-12pm)
Friday 7th March @ Urban Soul Lounge - The Collingwood Hotel - Liverpool (1-3am)
Saturday 8th March @ X.O. (Hunter Bar) - Sydney City (1-3am)

Come on ozzie! :)

PNC - Gutter Black Freestyle

You might remember that youtube clip of me playin around with the Outrageous Fortune theme on the MPC from a little while back. Well PNC decided to rap on it recently and here we have the results... courtesy of PNC's Blog.

PNC & P-Money - Gutter Black freestyle [zshare]

Ain't Nuttin But A Gangsta Paaartyy

Crack up pic of the day.
Vanilla Ice, Ja Rule & Suge Knight. Further captions escape me...

ganked from the illseed

St-st-studio!

Today I'm in the studio in Kingsland recording vocals for one of my favourite tracks for my new album. And meanwhile this week in New York City a very special guest artist is recording his vocals to another one of my beats for what will probably become one of my other favourite tracks too!! Very exciting week...more info very soon ;)

Think Twice Again

Hey I bet you're expecting to see a link to the Think Twice charity/non-violence track by now right? Well you would be right to assume that and it should be up by now but we've had a couple delays. Due to time and budget constraints all parties involved decided against doing the sample clearance (samples clearance takes forever and can be very expensive) so instead I've been elected to make a new beat for the song. This is quite a challenge because I really loved the original and had managed to capture a certain vibe. So recreating that same vibe with different music is always gonna be tricky. Never fear though, I am on the case! And all going well i should have the new track for you next week (fingers tightly crossed lol).

DJ Mouli - New Music Strategies

Turns out DJ Mouli (aka Che to his friends and colleagues) is an internet guru! (haha, well at the very least he has some good ideas now and then ;). He has put me on to a few really good ideas lately, like using RSS feeds and how podcasting works. And he also pointed me in the direction of this e-book by another clever guy named Andrew Dubber. It's certainly worth a read if you're at all involved in the business of music. Che has been employing a number of the principles from Mr. Dubber's book in regards to the current David Dallas project (Che is Dave's manager) and I am close enough to the project to witness how its been working for him/them. I'd say they're off to a great start!
Anyway, as with all good ideas they should be shared so I suggest you have a little read of this book and visit Andrew's New Music Strategies Blog from time to time.

and check out what Dubber had to say about Che's little thank you letter, pretty cool..

Moonlight!

fresh from PNC's blog!!

Exposure Lifestyles Mag Feature

The good people at Exposure Lifestyle Magazine have featured me in their latest issue. Its a free mag hitting the streets today in wellington and in selected stores around the rest of the country from this saturday. Pick up a copy if you see one or alternatively you can visit their website now and download the pdf version for free! This issue also features articles on Tiki, Chris Graham, SJD and a bunch of other incredibly talented kiwi musicians, artists and the like.

Slick Talk - PNC starts his own blog

PNC kicked off his own blog site today with the inaugural post "We Be Bloggin'". Amongst the customary summarizing of what content shall be appearing on the blog in future, Mr. aka Slick van xl from shotthen.com also tells us that he will be posting the world premier of his new music video 'Moonlgiht' (sic) at some point today! Very exciting. Of course I shall be linking that post as soon as it appears. But for now go visit PNC's blog and bookmark that shit. Nice one.

[EDIT] ah dammit, the vid still hasnt arrived yet!! we are at the mercy of these directors sometimes man...thats just how it goes

Dope Rap Thursday

Im back with the dope rap thursday posts! Today Im sharing with you this ill remake of the seminal Boogie Down Productions track 'Criminal Minded". I believe its creation was something to do with a Smirnoff Vodka promotion but the song bears no corporate branding or product mentions at all (thankfully!!). It's just real straight up dope hip-hop put together by two of the all-time greats. Get it while its hot!

KRS ONE/DJ Premier - Criminal Minded 2008

Beat blog : random as

Heres an instrumental I did ages ago that was used for a vodafone competition (in 2004?)
anyway it was still lying around and I thought I should share it
heres the link
YesterdayMP3 [zshare]

Moonlight Video

I'm sitting here in the edit suite with PNC reviewing the final cut of the moonlight video. We should have the master version on thursday! Can't wait to drop this one. It looks dope.

TV Guide

Watch 'Bassline' on Maori TV this Friday at 8.30PM to see PNC & David Dallas performing with yours truly on the decks. Should be pretty choice..
(thats New Zealand television for my overseas friends, hopefully we can get a youtube upload after the on-air date)
Thanks Bassline!

Get Out The Way!

David Dallas is steady dropping new material this year. Head over to his site and download the latest single 'Get Out The Way' produced by none other than his longtime collaborator Nick '41' Maclaren (of Frontline). The single is dope and there's more where that came from too. Get it now for free so you can feel cool :)

Tour Of Dirty

Now heres some exciting news!
Dirty Records, Uprising Records, Tikidub & Strike Agency present the "Tour Of Dirty" featuring Tiki*, P-Money, Concord Dawn, Scribe*, State Of Mind*, PNC, David Dallas, Bulletproof and MC Twincam at the following venues throughout March/April '08!!

March 13th - Hamilton @ Altitude

March 14th Palmerston North @ Bar Mode

March 15th Leigh @ Leigh Sawmill [CANCELLED: NOISE RESTRICTIONS]

March 20th Auckland @ Zen Bar

March 28th Wellington @ San Francisco Bathhouse

March 29th Napier @ Sideline Bar

April 3rd Nelson @ Phat Club

April 4th Christchurch @ Ministry

April 5th Dunedin @ Refuel

*Tiki will be missing the Napier gig. State Of Mind are missing the South Island dates. Check www.strikeagency.co.nz for full details.

Oooh yeaahh

KRS ONE hears about 'Think Twice' and does his own one...

Just got news that KRS ONE is to do a 2008 version of his Stop the Violence Movement song "Self Destruction" (thats the video above^). Apparently the new song will include features from the likes of The Game, Chamillionaire, Nelly, David Banner and 55 other artists.
It must be the season for charity tracks! Somethin tells me our one will be better ;)

Random Song Of The Day

When I Think Of You - Janet Jackson

From her 1986 album 'Control'. This was the jam, I was 8 years old and my sister had 'Control' on cassette. I think she wore that tape out! Peep Janet in the video, baby fat and all. So cute.

Mixing For The People

Im in studio today with my main engineer Evan Short putting the finishing touches on this "Think Twice" charity/non-violence track (I think it's probably ok to leak the title at this point..? ;).
Man its sounding pretty epic! Cant believe we got all these artists on one song. Everybody turned in great performances.
Should be able to give you all a listen in about a week... stay tuned!

Pharoahe in AK

Pharaohe Monch did a dope little performance to an invite only audience at Honey on O'Connell St. in the city last night. Thanks MTV for puttin it on and for inviting a brother! Much appreciated. Pharoahe killed it and TV3 have uploaded the first 2 songs of his set on their site. Thanks to Fat Lazy Guy for the embed code!

David Dallas - Mixtape Drop [Part 6]

Part 6 is out today. Nearly complete now... and keep an eye out for a brand new single following the last installment of the mixtape!

David Dallas - Mixtape Drop [Part 5]

Regular as clockwork. Dave keeps dropping these installments and they keep gettin crazier! I shouldn't have to tell you where to get 'em from by now should I??

Link for you smart dumb cats

This dude has a bebo now too

Anomaly

Politics are something I have yet to delve into on my blog. And today shall not be the day that I venture into deep political discussion or analysis. But it is an election year, here and in the U.S., so things of a political nature are in the air. (Not to mention today is of course Waitangi Day. The day in which we remember ('celebrate'?) the signing of that largely controversial founding document of our country, The Treaty of Waitangi).
But in fact the reason for my post this Waitangi Day morning is to bring light to a very intriguing and rather perplexing anomaly (as pointed out by Mr. Seth Godin on his blog). As John Campbell would say..."ponder this":

"ATM machines never screw up, voting machines do. A lot."

Good day.

David Dallas - Mixtape Drop [Part 4]

You know the drilly. Get over to Dave's site and grab the 4th installment of his great new mixtape. Oh, thats right you're already up on the podcast though aren't you?? ;)

Brothers Gonna Work It Out

I had the best weekend just gone. Friday night at the Horsemen Release party was dope (congrats on the release boys and thanks for the kind hospitality!), had an awesome family bbq on saturday with some great new friends and on sunday I spent all day at an undisclosed location recording parts for what could be one of the most important pieces of music I may ever make.

Early last week Dj Sir-Vere contacted me with the vision for a charity project in response to the excessive amount of violence we have experienced around NZ so far this year. The timing could not have been better because I had just been thinking about what efforts could/should someone like myself make in order to help our communities stem the violence. So, long story short I have been enlisted to produce a charity song to speak on the topic at hand and help discourage the type of actions that are taking place. Its one small step in the right direction and definitely a positive sign of unity within our musical community which at the very least we hope could influence some individual to think again before committing an act of violence.

In an effort to preserve the impact of the final track Im not gonna reveal who's on the song just yet but rest assured its an outstanding line up of our best local hip-hop talent and quite possibly the only time you will hear all these guys on the one track.
More details to follow...

Love Changes

From AllHipHop.com:
"[On Thursday, January 31st] Paris Hilton hosted a Super Bowl pre-game concert at the 944 Super Village. 50 Cent, who headlined the concert, name checked Paris Hilton during his performance. When she attempted to get on the stage and dance, she was promptly told to "Get the f*** off the stage," causing her to burst into tears."

Laters For Facebook

I just deactivated my Facebook account. I decided I don't need or want a social networking site to manage my real world relationships. I'd rather call someone up or better yet go VISIT them. My actual friends have my number and know where I live. They can visit me too, or gimme a call anytime.
I am keeping my myspace and bebo accounts active. I use them to communicate with fans and to interact on that level. My myspace page contains my bio, links to this blog and a music player with my latest tracks on it. My bebo is the main spot for fanmail and the next best place (alongside my blog) for me to spread news about anything I may be doing.
I was amped to have a facebook artist page at first but I've found it to be somewhat ineffectual for me and it was not possible to keep the artist page if I deleted my personal one. So thats the price I pay I guess. ha!

Subscribe

The very best way to keep up with P-Money and his music, his work with other artists and possible gigs is to visit his blog.



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That will take you to the RSS feed. Once you are there just add that page to your bookmarks and you will be subscribed. Easy as that!

D.A.N.C.E. Remix - Justice/Mos Def/Spank Rock

Goin hard with new music this week. Here's the official rap remix of the dope D.A.N.C.E. single from Justice. They roped in Mos who comes through lovely for BKNY and the trendy newbie Spank Rock. I've been paying close attention to Spank Rock lately, diggin the 2 Live Crew vibe of his stuff with Benny Blanco.

Run For Your Life!!

Have you ever purposely not listened to an album because the people who were so desperately trying to put you on to it have a history of really bad taste? Unfortunately that was the case with the first Gnarls Barkley record for me. I just wasnt interested in checking it, eventually of course I heard the album (courtesy of my neighbours bumping it really loud on repeat throughout the latter part of 2006) and developed quite an appreciation of it.

"Run" is the new joint from Gnarls Barkley. And, truth be told, I'm diggin this shit. Cee-Lo kills it on the vocal. Listen and enjoy.

ps. ^Homegirl from the Sports Illustrated/Gnarls shoot is ridiculous

David Dallas - Mixtape Drop [Part 3]

Part 3 dropped today and its a killer! Dave re-does the Shyheim Wu-classic "Shaolin Style" in his own "Stonex Style" (a reference to the street where he grew up). It's niiice maaan.

Download Link

On another note, for my australian readers; David Dallas will be perfoming a rare one off solo show in Melbourne TONITE @ Miss Libertine. Be sure to check him out!!