Photo from ANIMAL
When the Notorious BIG said, “I hope you niggas sleep,” he didn’t mean it literally. But Jamal “Gravy” Woodard took those words to heart and was caught napping while “Notorious,” the Biggie Smalls biopic, was filming in Brooklyn. He’s either tired of early call times or of playing the blunt smoking Bed-Stuy bandit. [ANIMAL]
Production of the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious continues, with filming taking place outside today at the corner of St. Marks Ave and Franklin Ave in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In preparation, a team of set dressers came through to give the block a slight makeover; storefronts are boarded up and a church is hidden completely. The local graffiti has been supplemented with Hollywood approved tags, which fit in fairly well if you don’t notice the lack of Blood and Crip tags or the protective plastic it’s painted on. By the looks of it, they’re staging a scene inspired by video of Biggie rapping outside a Bed Stuy grocery store at age 17.
If you want to be in the production and you’re between the ages of 17 and 35, they’re looking for unpaid extras for a few concert scenes being shot this Thursday and Friday.
Naming your record label after the drug trafficking gang that funded it is a bad idea, especially when they’re responsible for 12 murders and moving a million dollars of weed per week for 7 years. Whoever thought people wouldn’t make the connection between John Shop Crew, the murderous drug dealers, and John Shop Records, the reggae label, is a fool. It’s interesting that John Forte, producer for the Fugees, worked with John Shop. He’s currently serving 14 years for trafficking thirty pounds of liquid cocaine. [NYDN]
Hip hop was born in the Bronx, at 1520 Sedgwick Ave, when DJ Kool Herc started throwing parties and playing the breaks, something nobody had done before. But for the last year, the future of 1520 Sedgwick Ave, or Sedgwick and Cedar, has been in question as the landlord tried to remove the 100 unit apartment complex the Mitchel-Lama housing program, which gives landlords tax breaks for renting below market rate. Fortunately for fans of hip hop and affordable housing, the city has made an unprecedented move to block the sale because it “was not viable under current rent restrictions,” protecting the building from being bought and turned into luxury hip hop condos.
Here’s a piece of documentary with a British narrator and DJ Kool Herc explaining how hip hop was born. It also features Grandwizard Theodore, more recently caught performing the little known blindfolded-record-on-the-head scratch.
This music video for RJD2’s “Work It Out” features “Crutchmaster” Bill Shannon dancing around Brooklyn’s Borough Hall.
Mike Maronna, Big Pete from the Adventures of Pete & Pete, plays New York City bike messenger in the new music video for Nada Surf’s “Whose Authority.” Some call it the “sad fate of child actors” but we completely disagree. If you want sad, look at Gary Coleman.
After the interview last week the week before last you should be familiar A.M. Breakups. Now listen to the mix he dropped on us. Act like ya heard!
Listen: A.M. Breakups - Dirt Mix 2007
The New York Times features a Queens bike gang building massive stereos on their rides. Besides the fact that they are awesome, I like these bikes because they make all of mine look sensible.
Photo by Tyler Hicks/New York Times.
It seems like A.M. Breakups has been making beats since the time I first met him. Fast forward 7 or 8 years and he’s still making music, on his own and with 11:00A.M. On Monday we’ll hit you with a new mixtape he gave us, so stay tuned. Here’s A.M. Breakups.
“…MTV tried to sell us some crappy deals for using our songs in the backgrounds of reality shows or whatever. I don’t really think I want my beats on MTV though, I might get sued.”
