WHAT
Art and music in the soothing confines of a downtown space

WHO
More appropriately, who not? When you shove this many DJs into one three-roomed warehouse it gets difficult to keep track of all of them, but the list includes Peanut Butter Wolf, Vikter Duplaix, Shakespeare, Aurelito, Azul, Anthony Valadez, Valida, Tony Watson, Raul Campos, I&I Soundsystem, Destroyer and Jeremy Sole, for starters. Expect the unexpected.

WHERE
The Bell Tower, 764 E 9th Place, Downtown

WHEN
Tonight, 9pm-4am

WHY
It is not yet time to make the turkey. Plus, it totally beats your usual pre-holiday Wednesday routine of downing an entire $5 bum-jug of Carlo Rossi table wine while Colbert sneers at you from the Tivo machine.

Art and select live performances may occur alongside the activities of the cavalcade of DJs. Be advised. $10 suggested donation with all proceeds going to (a) DJ Dusk’s Mar Vista Family Center and (b) (mother of Dilla) MaDukes’ battle with Lupus. Read the flyer as often as you like here.

Finally, for those of you at LAX today, our all-digital, terminal-by-terminal airport bar compendium arrives shortly. Hit “F5″ every 20 seconds or so until it appears.

The Paid Dues Festival will return to SoCal on March 22, moving from San Dimas to San Bernardino this year. If you’re planning on attending, you can save $5 off the general admission by buying presale tickets today (password is FREESTYLE) or tomorrow (alleged new password tomorrow via myspace). (Ticket price says $40; rest assured, $5 discount shows up on the next page.)

General public onsale begins Saturday, with that additional precious Lincoln bumping the total cost up to $40 if you wait. Yadda, yadda, yadda. So who’s playing?
»continue reading Paid Dues Festival Presale Today

Midnight Records
2867 S. Robertson Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Myspace Page

I recently sat down with Midnight Records owner and Hip-Hop guru Sam Fuston to talk about the state of Hip Hop. Midnight Records is the #1 independent Hip-Hop retailer in LA, mostly because Sam carries a lot of stuff you can’t find anywhere else, like exclusive mixtapes. If there’s a mixtape in the streets, chances are it came from Midnight Records. Freshly signed artists will often ship mixtapes to Sam so they can get an understanding of how the product will sell before their first record comes out. For example, just before Young Jeezy blew up with Thug Motivation 101, he flew Sam down South on an all-expenses paid V.I.P vacation. Sam met with Jeezy and saw how much of a celebrity he was in his own hood. He watched Jeezy perform in front of thousands of fans that were singing Jeezy’s lyrics back to him. And this was all before anyone really knew who Jeezy was. When Sam got back to LA, Jeezy shipped a box of mixtapes exclusively to him so the West could discover Jeezy.

Sam is on a first name basis with any popular rapper you can think of.

Midnight Records is also a barbershop.
»continue reading A West Coast Conversation About Hip-Hop