A rather delayed Video Jukebox this week, apologies folks! I can hold two nights of D’Angelo live at Brixton Academy fully responsible for this one! This week M.I.A. re-defined the phrase ‘making an entrance’ with two rather controversial music videos hitting the web. I decided to ignore the Madonna & Nicki Minaj video…it’s boring, full of advertising (Nicki’s adi-breasts) and poor M.I.A. & Nicki only get a small feature at the end. Plus her video for ‘Bad Girls’ is way cooler! Miguel and Day26 have their eyes set on the fast-approaching Valentine’s Day with their new R&B-smooth videos. There’s also some Hip Hop from Pharoahe Monch, Blu, The Quaranteam and a fan-made video for The Throne’s anthem track, “Ni**as in Paris”! Enjoy, and I promise I’ll be on time for our breakfast date this Saturday!

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M.I.A. – Bad Girls

If you’re an avid M.I.A. fan, you’ll remember the track ‘Bad Girls’ from her mixtape, Vicki Leekx back in December 2010, which is now being re-released as the first track from her forthcoming 4th studio album, due to be released this summer. This will be the first album under her new label, Mercury Records (formerly XL) and is rumored to have appearances from Swizz Beatz and Chris Brown (hmm sceptical about the CB collab for obvious reasons) Last Friday, Noisey (Vice’s new music channel) premiered the music video for the track, ‘Bad Girls’ directed by Romain Gavras (of Born Free fame). Shot in the Moroccan desert during some kind of drag race featuring women in leopard print hijabs, an unhealthy amount of gold chains, graffiti and the gorgeous M.I.A….is this just another tongue-in-cheek, psychedelic video from the Sri-Lanken singer, or is there a deeper message behind it about empowering women and equal rights for all…I’ll let you decide!

M.I.A - Website | Twitter | Facebook | Noisey Website 

Blu – Jesus

When Yin put me on to this new video, I was pretty surprised, Jesus was released by Californian rapper, Blu in July 2011…but as any Blu fan will know – he isn’t one to go along with the rules! Alcohol, weed, sunshine and cadillacs are the main components of this video, directed by Aaronisnotcool, the man behind the video for “My Sunshine“.

Blu – Tumblr | Twitter

Miguel – Adorn

Okayplayer premiered the new video for R&B singer, Miguel’s new track ‘Adorn‘ taken from his forthcoming project, ‘Art Dealer Chic vol.1′ due to be released Feb 27th. Carmex & Colgate intact, the video features some extremely close-up shots of the Prince of the new SoulxElectronica movement (yes I’ve named him that):

The visual for “Adorn” is the projection of a dream I recently had. I wanted to use simple creative elements in a symbolic way to communicate the intense desire to understand its meaning. – Miguel

Hit up Miguel on the links below to stay up to date with his latest delicious soulful offerings!

Miguel – Website | Facebook | Twitter

Pharoahe Monch (Feat. Jill Scott) – Still Standing

Pharoahe Monch hooks up with Red Bull for an extremely powerful video for his track, ‘Still Standing’ taken from the W.A.R (We Are Renegades) album, featuring the beautiful, Jill Scott. The video, directed by Terrance Nance displays the story of Pharoahe Monch’s battle with asthma as a young boy, through to now – which is the theme behind the track. Both empowering and inspiring, this video reminds me why Pharoahe Monch will always have a cemented place in every Hip Hop fans top ten.

Pharoahe Monch – Website | Facebook | Twitter 

Tom Laroc of the ‘United Content Providers‘ sat through 1000 minutes of live concert footage from the Watch The Throne concert tour and put together this unofficial video for The Throne’s track, ‘Ni**as in Paris’, featuring footage from concert dates in Montreal, Houston, New York City and Chicago. Tom has really put some hard work into this, I hope it doesn’t get taken down anytime soon! I wonder if we’ll ever get to see an official video from ‘Papa Carter & Yeezy World Peace’ as Low Key puts it on YHTN!

Day26 – Made Love Lately

This is incredible. I feel like I’ve just been transported back in time by about ten years. When the R&B power fists came in around 3mins I was genuinely excited!! ‘Made Love Lately’ is the first single from Day26′s forthcoming album, ‘A New Day’…a rather appropriate title since their split from Bad Boy.

Made Love Lately on iTunes | Day 26 – Website | Twitter | Facebook

The Quaranteam – Carnage (official video)

East London’s The Quaranteam have released the video for ‘Carnage’, the first track taken from their project ‘The Quaranteam EP’, produced by K-Nite13 and directed by Loudmouth Melvin. Props to Loudmouth on the directing & editing for these visuals, you interpret songs differently when you read along with the lyrics at the same time and this is a really nice, effective way of ensuring the delivery of The Quaranteam’s lyrics are well received.

TheQuaranteamEP | The Quaranteam Website | PyroBarz | KNite13 | SKILLITMUSIC | Chrismentalist | loudmouthmelvin

VOYR is our all access pass into the behind the scenes happening at Kanye and his big brother, Jay-Z‘s Watch The Throne tour. The daily video series will give us an insight into the hard work that goes into living life as Kanye West. Yes, they still work even after earning millions. Ye drops a plethora of quotables in this short first episode: ‘It’s a pursuit and responsibility. If people have done things before, you should be able to surpass them. I’m on a pursuit of awesomeness, excellence is the bare minimum’. BOOM. Inspiring, watch it on the reverse! Right off to bed I go..

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Bieber fever is at an all time high and while the lil dude is in the middle of recording his next album, he is also in the middle of a little promo tour to support the release of his Christmas album entitled Under The Mistletoe. One of his promo pit stops was to visit radio station Power 106 where, in addition to talking about his festive offering, he treated listeners to a short freestyle over Jay-Z and Kayne‘s ‘Otis’. I say freestyle but he had preselected Otis as a track that he wanted to rap over so it could be that he wrote his rhymes beforehand but never the less the kid done a pretty good job. This is not the first time he has slipped on his rap hat, see here, and i’m sure it won’t be the last, who know he may even be the next Chris Brown. We all know he thinks he’s a rapper now lol, not that he’s bad at it either. Anywho see how Bieber fairs after the break.

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Beyonce hooks up with J.Cole to shoot the visuals for the second remix of her track, Party. Set in a trailer park garden full of cool friends including Theophilus London, sister Solange, Cassie, Kelly Rowland and others, the video takes it back to the old school with neon outfits, crazy nails and an inflatable pool which really just makes you wish you were there! It’s lovely to see the beautiful Solange making an appearance in this video, it seems Beyonce was feeling rather nostalgic when she decided on the cast for this shoot as even former band mate, Kelly Rowland makes an appearance! Hit the jump for shots of fun, around 15 outfit and hair changes by Beyonce and an amazing Keith Harring dress I would die for!

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I must admit, as a 3000 enthusiast…it would’ve been AMAZING to see a video for the Andre 3000 version of this track, which I always thought of as the original…but in actual fact it turns out this WAS the original which J.Cole had written two verses for. But Beyonce cut it, chose Andre 3000‘s version for the album cut and then released this one a little while later as an “official” remix. Label politics ey!

Gosh I don’t think anyone would have thought they’d be writing about the Chicago rapper’s high fashion line when he emerged onto the rap scene in 2004 with College Dropout. Ye has been constantly breaking boundaries between the world of fashion and music since then from his pause-worthy fashion sense, to dating models and constant front row appearances. I was quite apprehensive about him releasing a collection since Pastelle never saw the light of day but he’s suprised me with this Jil Sander-esque collection. Sexy. “The biggest conversation I hope I can end tonight is whole ‘celebrity designer’ thing,” he said once he’d managed to collect himself. “That’s the biggest hurdle when you want to get amazing people to work for you.” Pretty sure he managed to successfully do that with the show, the likes of Jeremy Scott and Alexander Wang applauding the rapper’s debut show with positive comments. Ye didn’t wow us with something whacky or revolutionary – the collection features a lot of sexy dresses, gothic, bondage vibes throughout all the pieces. Plenty of leather jackets and skirts. You can see the streetwear influences with the hooded jacket that’s reminds of BAPE hoodies, don’t you think so too? More on the reverse.

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Surprisingly the model wearing that hoody, I’ve photographed her before haha. Go check our All Saints review. The collection titled DW pays homage to his late mother, Donda West. Most of you fans should have already guessed that. I’ll leave you with all the images I could find over Twitter.

“I had a lot of ideas about colors and shapes I wanted to express,” he said. “I’m really happy where I ended up. The biggest conversation I had was about the whole idea of a celebrity-designer or a rapper-designer,” he said. “That was the biggest hurdle when you are trying to get people to work with you”

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I’m taking it waaaaaaay back, you will all know this song because it’s been sampled/covered by numerous artists over the years. However NOTHING touches this version by the legendary soul singer Otis Redding. I bet a lot of you didn’t know Otis died at the age of 26 in a horrific plane crash, sad story. His music lives on 40 years on, can you believe he released 6 albums in the space of 4 years? That’s more than your Rihanna’s & Beyonce’s put together. I wanted ya’ll to hear the original mainly because of the Ye’ & Jay sampled ‘Otis’ which I am a fan of but it doesn’t come close. Nuh uh. Hop on after the cut.

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Last week, we resuscitated Eargasms back to life. Ya’ll seemed to like it so we’re back again with 5 more songs. To be honest, this week could have easily been dedicated to Watch The Throne and with all the riots – it’s been a really quiet week in terms of music, in fact I don’t think people were paying as much attention!? I know I wasn’t. So we’ve only got 4 choices, enjoy. Eargasmic!

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Want to know a funny story? Tara DM’d me the other day to ask if we were doing the eargasms post this week but her iPhone autocorrect messed it up so she ended up sending: ‘Are we doing orgasms this week?’ HAHAHA.

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JAY-Z x KANYE WEST x FRANK OCEAN

‘Made In America’

The album has grown on me big time in the past 2 days, it’s swag rap at it’s finest. I guess they’re talking about their lavish lifestyle, one that I certainly can’t relate to. The wordplay and production/sampling is on point as always.

Frank Ocean – the man of the moment in the R&B game killed his 2 hooks on the album. His come up is inspiring! a year ago…he was still a nobody and now after releasing his debut album for free on the internet – he’s everywhere. Jay offered him an opportunity? Cor blimey he killed it right? both verses must have quoted over your twitter timelines this week. His soulful vocals start and close the cut beautifully. Have a listen!

Selected by Yin

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J*DaVeY x DEF SOUND

‘Quicksand’

Selected by Tara

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ROYCE DA 5’9″ x NOTTS x ADONIS

Selected by Jazz

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ED SHEERAN x WRETCH 32 x DEVLIN

Last night I saw a tweet from Funkmaster Flex, “(Video) Tinie Tempah Freestyles Over “Otis”. I genuinely smirked at this. I’ve never ever been a fan of Tinie Tempah, from his ‘Wifey Riddum’ days through to ‘Pass Out’ – I respected his hustle…but certainly not his rhymes. I decided to check out Flex’s blog for the link to the video, just because I was interested in seeing what the Americans had to say. I wasn’t actually planning on watching the video. But I’m glad I did. Check out the freestyle on the other side.

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Tinie actually represents on the Otis Redding sampled beat. Full of funny references, some of which only us Brits would understand (I live a very wild life, David Attenborough) – his flow is decent and the famous Tinie Tempah enthusiasm come across really well. My only negative comment, you can tell that being over in the States has rubbed off on him – we don’t really tend to use the n-word in songs on this side of the pond, do we? I know he’s trying to showcase his energy and hunger – but bitch this and n*gger that…in an English accent just didn’t sound right. I flinched a little everytime I heard it lol! Oh, and what are the Americans saying? It seems to vary, I’ve seen comments on forums saying “STAND UP UK sit down!!”, but then I’ve also seen a person comment on the Youtube video and compare him to Kanye (now they need to sit down!!). What do you think?

Im surprised our resident hip-hop head Tara hasn’t already posted this but just in case she hasn’t seen it yet I thought i’d put it up for you all to see. Check out this documentary which is being used as promotion for Jay-Z and Kanye West‘s collaborative album Watch The Throne, set for release August 1st and 5th. With the guys doing next to no promotion for the album thus far it seems this week things have kicked into gear with the release of their song ‘Otis’ and now this short film. I love how the clip incorporates old footage from back in the day, it highlights the growth in both artists.

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This morning I woke up to news that a song featuring my three favourite artists had been dropped online. I’ve never jumped out of bed so fast, I don’t think even a fire could get me ripping my duvet off of me so quickly! The Kings of Rap, Kanye West and Jay-Z today released, “Otis” sampling soul legend, Otis Redding – Try A Little Tenderness! The song opens with a slowed down version of Otis Redding’s huge hit, before being sped up and cleverly switched into a chopped and looped sample. Jay-Z reminds us he “invented swag” on the first 8 bars before passing the mic onto Kanye warning those he adopted “Phillip Drummond ‘em” (Different Strokes) that have been “talking reckless” of the pair are about to have their Summers “tucked in”. And they most certainly are, I hope that no artist managers are planning to release their rappers albums in the same WEEK as “Watch The Throne“! Short, catchy verses from each rapper to-and-fro throughout the track remind me of an old school clashing session. Continues on the reverse.

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You could say the focus had been taken away from these two veteran rappers over the past few months as younger lyricists nudged their way into the gap left by Ye and Hov whilst they were absent working on “Watch The Throne”. Kanye affirms this with his line “Damn Yeezy and Hov, where the hell you been? N****s talking real reckless, stuntmen’ “. However “Otis” almost yanks the spotlight back onto the pair, making you feel like they never left.

Where H.A.M didn’t quite certify the pair as the Kings of modern day rap, “Otis” provides the Royal Seal of Approval from Queen Elizabeth herself that Kanye West and Jay-Z are here to take the throne!

“Watch The Throne” is due for release on August 1st, you can preorder here.