super sweet sixteen of this wait what wednesday series, and this one’s brought to you by waka flocka flame, wale, and roscoe dash espousing their experiences through life when not having hands as bag raiders plays a cheery tune in the background to create a backyard barbeque track, shooting stars without hands.
I liked the combination of these because they were both summer anthems for different situations — they both got people moving when they came on, whether at a club or a daytime gathering. also, lyrically both songs left some up for interpretation, but still managed to be super catchy. if you haven’t heard wale’s album, though it doesn’t actually have no hands, I highly recommend it.
helped out planning a cool conference at stanford last week, headed down to LA for the weekend, and got to have lunch with the founders of YouTube yesterday through a stanford class. also in good news: jeremy lin is still repping for palo alto, and pitchers and catchers reported at giants spring training. another great week in the books — have an excellent upcoming week, see you all back here next week.
“ten, ten, ten, twenties and them fifties chick,”
charlie
fifteen, like the minutes of fame you get, as wait what wednesday gets to celebrate its Quinceañera. here we have trina and weezy f baby giving their brand of dating advice as mackintosh braun croons about the later stages of a relationship, and they combine to bring you don’t trip for us on the day following valentine’s day.
trina and lil wayne have an interesting history, making songs together, dating, and then making songs together about the single life shortly after breaking up. hip-hop, at the root of it, is people sharing their stories, and this one’s been an interesting one to follow. mackintosh braun is the kind of duo that could blow up pretty soon, and I’m surprised this song hasn’t yet — the original is called made for us, and is worth checking out.
this last week, I flew to DC and back, drove the three hours to lexington virginia, and had a great weekend visiting my sister in college. helped plan a conference at stanford, wrote one a paper on maybe my favorite topic, the san francisco giants, and met the CEO of the team along with one of the founders of Twitter. to top it off, had an excellent valentine’s day date in sf last night. until next time, my friends.
“baked a lot of bread but kept it off the books,”
charlie
fourteen deep, like the number of players on a rugby sevens field or days in a fortnight, of the wait what wednesday series. ludacris and nate dogg heard some röyksopp beats at a rooftop party and started espousing their thoughts on women in a variety of geographies to create happy up in these area codes.
hearing this ludacris & nate dogg track takes me back to summer of 2001, after freshman year of high school, and walking to get jamba juice. the video was on mtv a bunch that summer, back when TRL was something that existed. heard this röyksopp track by chance, recently — one of the virtues of having friends big into electronic music.
this week, I had an anniversary dinner, spun at stanford’s white party, watched a super bowl that the 49ers could have won, and posted a radio special. flying out tomorrow morning for virginia; see you all back here next week.
“my chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the dashboard,”
charlie
last week, my friends at Summit Series hosted their annual get together in Lake Tahoe with 650 leaders in business, philanthropy, science, technology and the arts for four days. As part of it, they took over a local radio station, 88.1, rebranded it KSQR, and invited me to host a one hour special.
here’s my hourlong radio special — the rare instance in which my voice appears on a recording, and where I talk about pairs of my favorites of 2011 in a couple categories: new artists, songs to hear when I’m out, mashups, hip hop tracks about love lost, hip hop songs that elicit strong emotional responses, songs that sample the beatles, and a few of my own tracks sprinkled in there. special thanks to my friend anneke for making it happen.
download it, put it on your iPod, take it on a walk/subway/bus ride. let me know what you thought (@wtwht) or spread the word — thanks for checking it out, team.
thirteen, and like that, the wait what wednesday ritual has grown up to become a teenager right before our eyes. j. cole wandered through a cmj show to find mates of state ready to provide him with a backing track to deliver can’t get enough now.
j. cole’s album has gotten some good attention, and rightfully so — he’s got great flow and some really witty metaphors and wordplay. I kind of missed out on mates of state, but was at Sundance this past weekend and this song played at the end of one of the movies and was in my head the rest of the day. the refrain in the hook is a good soundtrack for the urgency in life.
this week, I saw six movies at Sundance, pitched the startup, cooked a meal for 14, and, again, didn’t sleep much. in random notes, I’m on the side that believes blake griffin’s dunk isn’t being overplayed (because it was awesome), and I respect this kid for having the courage to cry when his team falls short. time to catch up on the rest of life; see you guys here next week.
“cause all that hype don’t feel the same next year, boy,”
charlie
twelve here, like the number of people on a jury or the current year (or a number with some significance to the mayans) of the wait what wednesday practice. cam and juelz left the club in the middle of an urban dystopia to reconvene with the weeknd at an after hours gathering with the weeknd surrounded by illicit substances to create hey glass table girls.
people forget about cam and juelz, but if you lived in new york and listened to hip hop in the early 2000s, dipset was everywhere. if you guys saw my top albums of 2011, you already know how highly I hold the weeknd — if you haven’t heard house of balloons yet, stop reading this, download it, and play that front to back right now.
the match came about awhile ago, with both songs sharing a sense of hedonism and the feeling of freedom offered by giving oneself to the pursuit of pleasure in the moment. the cover art comes from a fashion show I played in toronto last year where the designer created this surreal environment of dark lighting, candles, and vacant faces.
this last week featured me not sleeping enough, cooking more food for big groups, djing a house party, recording a radio special, and watching the 49ers collapse at several inopportune moments. all in all, things turned out okay — see you guys back here next week.
“got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist,”
charlie
eleven, like my best friend’s favorite number or the number of players on a soccer field, of this wait what wednesday tradition. here we have wiz khalifa hopping on stage at a local theatre in the midst of two door cinema club’s opening track to create black cigarettes in the yellow theatre.
wiz has gotten a lot of prominent placement in mashups, but two door cinema club, surprisingly less so. I really dig both their albums, and the energy match and back and forth of “tell me about your favorite things…black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow” pushed me to make this track. listen to this one in headphones or your car to hear some nice left and right panning.
the cover art is a photo a friend took at a hotel in long beach over the summer — he took a series of awesome shots, and this one of the fallen lamp, rose on the ground, and girl on the move was a cool piece that felt like it fit with this track.
good week: got sponsored by a cool clothing company and rocking new gear. 49ers are playing for the super bowl on sunday; it’s like I’m in middle school again. have a great week, everyone, and see you next week — same spot, same time.
“you don’t got the pasta, you don’t get the pesto,”
charlie
finally hitting double digits here at number 10 — look how fast this little wait what wednesday ritual has grown up. gorillaz started playing a ditty on a casio keyboard when little dragon walked in, shared some melodic heartfelt sentiments, and next thing you know, jay-z was up in the spot dropping that american gangster knowledge to details their dreams of an american ant empire.
I’m a big fan of jay-z’s american gangster album — I think it ranks up there with his best albums (should probably have it higher than it is there, but he’s got a pretty spectacular catalogue), and little dragon has been on the playlist for a bit. no ritual union here, but instead someone I follow on twitter linked to this gorillaz/little dragon song awhile back, and so decided to try it out.
the cover art is of a run to the pier I go to in san francisco with alcatraz in the background. if there were any people on alcatraz (like nic cage or sean connery), they’d probably look like ants in the distance.
returned to stanford this week, am in the midst of figuring out classes, and cooked a meal for a bunch of people. did yoga in a massive cathedral, spent a bunch of time with my parents, and worked on some music and meditation practices, and received a couple intriguing music offers. feeling good about 2012.
“hundred dollars a sock, two ankles — you do the math,”
charlie
here’s nine, like the number of stories salinger combined or the number of the district where they made all the aliens live in that movie a few years ago, in the wait what wednesday saga. phantogram started playing mood music about diamonds and kanye heard it in the distance, ran up, and started rapping to craft mouthful of diamonds in sierra leone.
people often ask how I decide to put two songs together, and it’s usually because two songs share some feeling or one brings out a more subtle element in the other. in this case, the thematic match is pretty obvious, but had been wanting to mash up something with phantogram, and liked how kanye’s voice sounded after the drop.
this week featured a good new year’s eve in sf followed by a 13 hour roadtrip to arizona with three friends and a crushing fiesta bowl (american college football for those unfamiliar). the photo in the art comes from masai mara, in kenya, last year — not exactly sierra leone, but it’s the closest I’ve gotten. I also didn’t have any good shots of all the diamonds I rock on the reg, so went for the african plains shot instead.
here’s number eight, like the number of planets (after pluto got kicked out of the cool kids’ club), in this batch of wait what wednesdays. this here came to be after drake hopped on stage during a gil scott-heron show at the blue note that jamie xx snuck into to make take care of u.
the first music I made so that I could hear a different take on the music I liked, and that sort of explains this week’s track: it’s not a traditional mashup, but more of ‘version vs. version.’ drake originally sampled this gil scott-heron & jamie xx track but got rihanna to sing the hook, but who doesn’t dig gil scott-heron’s voice? I wanted to hear a version with him on the hook — hence this track, here.
the cover art here is from a little beach jaunt I took a couple weeks ago in santa cruz — sneaking around, taking pictures; that sort of thing. have a great new year’s eve, everyone – next wednesday, we’ll be a (calendar) year further into the future.
blowing tiger stripe bubbles with “go to hell” bubblegum,
charlie
