RJD2 - The Colossus . You may have heard RJD2's beats before, but didn't know it. One of his signature beats, Ghostwriter, has been used for several commercials and showcases his mastery of the art of the hip-hop sampling. The song ebbs, drops, and peaks while utilizing a highly complex drum sample. It never bores, and continually seeks to intrigue.

After producing mostly instrumental albums and for noted underground legends such as Blueprint, he started to gradually move away from movie score tunes such as The Horror and into darker, more introspective tunes that featured his singing voice. Although I personally prefer his strictly instrumental work, The Colossus does a good job of balancing brooding beats with thankfully muted singing and head-knockin', triumphant tunes such as "Let There Be Horns:"

I love this track because of its visual imagery: notice how the middle of the track contains a furious drum sample which has a distinctive Cuban Jazz flavor. The "interlude" of the track even sprinkles some electric guitar amid trumpet blasts, and smoothly connects the song toward its ultimately thrilling conclusion.

Sound Tribe Sector 9 - Artifact . Sound Tribe Sector 9's sound often defies definition - it combines so many different types of music together that they can only be fully described by emotions. "Better Day" is spaced out, mellow, and mysterious, with frequent electronic references and a beautiful singer sparsely lending her talents to fleshing out the track. "Somesing" contains some elements of drum and bass along with electronica, but its musical structure is so organic and complex that it's hard to pinpoint where one genre's influence begins and where another ends. Wikipedia has even mentioned that this song has a composition similar to classical music.. although I can't tell. What I do know, however, is that this album is NOT boring, unique, and worth a listen.

Oh No - The Ethiopium . As star producers come and go, Oh No has been in the background laboriously perfecting and mastering his craft of sampling, beat-making, and mixing. The result? The Ethiopium is a funky tour de force of two minute sound bites: a throwback to the old days of producing beat tapes and passing them around your peers, hoping that one of them will find a beat hot enough to rap over. Not content to use guitars, keyboards, and violins in his beats, Oh No taps into the musical tapestry of the music of Ethiopia with traditional Ethiopian instruments and sensibilities, such as the deftly placed chanting in "The Pain" and his creative use of instruments such as the krar. Taking J. Dilla's style of bite sized, dynamic beats, each track gives you a taste, establishes a theme, then abruptly stops and leaves you wanting more.

Featuring 30 raw and hard tracks, Jay Rock has expanded his repitore and sharpened his delivery and wordplay while displaying a wider range of emotion than shown before. A solid album that can be played from front to back on the iPod or in the car - I give this album a 4.5 out of 5.

Some standout tracks include:

The Takeover - Jay Rock flexes his vocals here and sets the tone for the rest of the album

Plenty Money - A nice West Coast G-anthem

Mandatory - K-Dot and Jay Rock are becoming quite the West Coast duo, especially with standout tracks such as this one

What's my Name - I'm sure West Coast veterans will identity this iconic beat, and Jay Rock does this track justice

Download Jay Rock - 30 Day Takeover and let me know what you guys think of it.

I know what the wrong side of the universe looks like - all alien beings must be late and hurried there. I was forced to skip breakfast and was already feeling the effects of my low blood sugar with each roar of my car's engine. As I was power-walking in the parking lot, I felt that my pocket was unusually light this morning.

My iPod is at home.

Luckily, with the trend of Web 2.0 everything, a delivered breakfast burrito and some interesting online radio choices fixed my morning right up.

Old school radio: demise forthcoming. Picture by Ian.

I will be frank and say that I believe 99% of the radio station out there sucks. I don't even think my car radio quite works correctly (one of the downsides of installing your own car audio system) - this is of little loss to me because the annoying commercials, low sound quality, and the fact that radio playlists never seem to play exactly what I want irritates me to no end. Don't even get me started on the songs they choose to play either.

My first taste of online radio was surprisingly great, and refreshing. I stumbled upon a radio station on Live365 that played extremely listenable and varied music, ranging from old school to Afrocentric to forgotten favorites. It felt like someone who knew what he was doing was playing the songs, as opposed to a media pawn or a statistics driven robot. Here is an example playlist:

A Tribe Called Quest - Like It Like That (great Afrocentric old school)
Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip (Fatlip, from the Pharcyde,  released a solo album in 2005 that I had no idea about. )
Afu-Ra - God of Rap (very overlooked old school artist)
Grand Puba - Two Thousand, Amazing (see above)
Canibus - Second Round K.O. (one of the first, best battle rappers in the game)
Outkast - Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (one of the Foundations of southern rap, for you Wayne/T.I. junkies out there)
The Fugees - Vocab (A marriage of reggae, hip-hop, and soul earning  unadulterated mainstream and critical praise? Never before done!)
Kanye West - Get 'em High (a lost gem among Kanye's more popular songs, features Kanye, Common, and Talib Kweli going at it hard)
Rakim - Been a Long Time (old school legend)
DJ Honda - Straight Talk from NY (surprising find on a radio station)

Has anybody else had a good experience with online radio? Any suggestions?