Dizzee Rascal covers The Ting Tings.  

They call me black,
the call me rude boy,
they call me mate…
That’s not my name!

Tops!

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Not content with a No 1 album in Amerikkka (Thanks Ice Cube) containing the track ‘Sly Fox’, Nas was on a small podium in front of Fox News headquarters in New York City protesting what he sees as racist attacks against Black Americans and presidential candidate Barack Obama. In a brief prepared statement, the multi-platinum rapper pointed out examples of what he and ColorOfChange see as a long racist smear campaign against the Obama family: The onscreen graphic that referred to Michelle Obama as the Senator’s “baby mama”; Bill O’Reilly casually using the phrase “lynching party” to refer to attacks on the Senator’s wife; referencing to the couple’s infamous fist thump as a “terrorist fist jab.” Said Nas, “Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president.”

The rapper stood next to 19 neatly stacked cardboard boxes, with the number 620,127 taped to the side of each one — over 600,000 signatures gathered by ColorOfChange demanding that network president Roger Ailes “find a solution to address racial stereotyping and hate-mongering before it hits the airwaves.” Fox rejected the petitions, but Brave New Films says that Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will accept them instead.

ColorOfChange reached out to Nas after seeing the lyrics to “Sly Fox” posted on the Brave New Films website. “We looked at it and said, ‘This is exactly what we’re talking about,’” ColorOfChange deputy director Andre Banks tells Rolling Stone. Just two weeks later, Nas was here speaking to fans, protesters and press spilling out into 6th Avenue, some even holding homemade signs markered with lyrics from the song. When asked if there was a response to “Sly Fox,” Nas rebutted quickly with, “Nah, they’re scared of me.”

Via RollingStone

Hear what he has to say:

Metallica - Death Magnetic

Metallica confirmed the tracklist for their Rick Rubin produced September release ‘Death Magnetic’. The hirsute cover image was unveiled weeks ago at Mission Metallica (!) and is supposed to be iron filings in magnetic fields - presumably death magnetic fields. ROCK!

In a world first, songs from Death Magnetic will be available to download and play on Guitar Hero III the day the album is released. DOUBLE ROCK!

You can even buy a cool box set, shaped like a coffin! That’s less ROCK than I’d hoped. Really should have thought that one through. Anyway, the Tracklist:

“That Was Just Your Life”
“The End Of The Line”
“Broken, Beat & Scarred”
“The Day That Never Comes”
“All Nightmare Long”
“Cyanide”
“The Unforgiven III”  (TRIPLE ROCK!)
“The Judas Kiss”
“Suicide & Redemption”
“My Apocalypse” 

The thing is, I’m quite happy that they’ve gone all out 80’s. That whole ‘work through your anger’ nonsense has no place in ROCK!. Only ROCK belongs in ROCK!

So lets ROCK!

_heads_up - Bon Iver Live!

Those crazy kids over at daytrotter have done it again - they’ve managed to jag another beautiful recording from an artiste du jour (certaintly round these parts).

Bon Iver deliver 4 tracks from the haunting For Emma, Forever Ago, with some extra percussion and additional guitar work fleshing out the tracks nicely.

You can get them ( and heaps of other cool stuff ) here.
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The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

You may remember The Hold Steady from the Top 10 of 2006, where ‘Boys and Girls of America’ came in at Number 3. So it would be fair to say that I was expecting big things from ‘Stay Positive’ and in a way, I got exactly what I expected.

 I reckon Confucius did his best work early on, when he came up with ‘Careful what you wish for…’ and The Hold Steady follow suit. ‘Stay Positive’is filled with drug and alcohol soaked rock songs about fitting in, choosing not to, and ‘townies’ who throw parties and pack bowls. Just as I’d hoped, and they do it as well as they did on ‘Boys and Girls’.

And that’s my problem with this album. You can’t help think you’ve heard it before. They try and mix it up a little with a harpsichord ( a la The Stranglers), and some heavier use of the distortion pedal, but you can’t shake the feeling that these songs would have sat just as nicely on their 2006 album. It’s a fine rock album, with all the qualities that made their earlier release the third best release in 2006, but ‘Stay Positive’ should have been named ‘We’re still the boys and girls of America’

THINK: ‘Boys and Girls’ companion disc.
READ: The Hold Steady Home Page
WATCH: Sequestered in Memphis
BUY: Stay Positive at Amazon