August 15th. A pretty indiscriminate date. Historically there aren't many occurrences landing on this date worthy of taking a sharpie to the calendar. I however will spend August 15th feverishly pacing in front of my laptop eyeballing the cascading tiles of my Tweetdeck and refreshing multiple tabs on my internet browser. Why August 15th? is it because its Ben Affleck's Birthday? No (and if you do have Ben Affleck's birthday marked on your calendar or if you are Ben Affleck, i apologize). On August 15th Danny Brown finally drops his album "XXX" for free on Fool's Gold Records.

A very personal work, Hip hop at its most inventive, yet a complete diversion from the typical in every form. Its Danny telling a story to the listener. Its sort of like an episode of Reading Rainbow except Levar Burton is yelling at you in a high pitched squeal over an 808 drum break about drugs and bitches. You've got to admit, that scenario is both compelling and endearing. If someone told you that was going down in your hood, you would pay for admission.

So yes, on August 15th I'll be somewhere in NYC obsessing over public opinion on this album that we've spent the last couple of months recording, mixing and mastering but most important of all sequencing so that a story is told with the moral being completely amoral.

I just want the people that "Get it" to get it.

If you're from BK you've worn a pair of cheese Timbs on a walk to the bodega and to your best friends wedding. You have formal Timbs that you hit with the waterproofing spray and the suede brush and your casual Timbs with the back heel leaning like Rick Ross after 3 minutes on a treadmill.

We wear Timbs and shorts, we play ball in Timbs, We have rap groups that declare their allegiance to the "Timb Tree", why wouldn't i work on it?

I linked up with the guys at Michael Indresano Photgraphy and we got to work on creating the campaign for the 2011 version of the 6in' wheat now imbued with "Anti-fatigue" technology which keeps your foot from tiring after the long work day. I really wouldn't know anything about that. After playing ball in Timbs I have the hooves of a Mountain Goat, if the ground were on fire I would have no idea until the flames hit me around the shins.

In the course of a day the crew along with prop stylist Mari Quirk (one of the most awesome people i've had the pleasure of meeting) put together an indoor set that made me feel like I was in an abandoned lot in Brooklyn, I could almost hear the whispers of gentrifiers asking for more butter for their scones.

Then I got to work making the shoot look as authentic as possible.

Here's the first of the new Ads. Its crazy to know that something that you worked on is going to be a nationwide billboard.

I grew up in a remote corner of the world that we call New York. East New York to be exact. That geographical marker "East" has never been so meaningful in my life . I've never known east from west, asking me for directions is like asking a Japanese person to perfectly pronounce the word "milliliter", but you can automatically tell East New York from from the rest of New York with one viewing of a local newscast. East NY is not a destination, The only people headed in that direction are either headed past it to Rockaway Beach or a faulty spin of the Wheel of Fortune resulted in residence there. Its not exactly like hitting "Bankrupt" it's more like hitting the $100, $200 dollar tiles. Not the most horrible thing in the world, but its hard to nickel and dime your way out of disadvantage. Its a place where housing projects out number houses and the statistic of murder per capita is replaced by murder per square inch.

My parents always taught me to question everything which not only made me very annoying to hang out with but It made me wonder what was out there beyond the 10 block radius that everyone else in my neighborhood seemed confined to. My school issued Rapid Transit pass became my passport and the A Train from Euclid Avenue was the trash strewn jumbo jet that took me all over NYC aka The World. The more I trotted around NYC the the more culture and people I was exposed to, the things that shaped my life and what I do with it came from early exposure to things outside my comfort zone.

From an early age we are told to choose what we want to do with our lives, but how can we choose when we haven't seen all the options yet?

The homie Kenji Summers introduced me to his idea for the Passport Project. A project designed to get 18-24 year olds more interested in world travel and to outfit them with the tools to do so, a passport.

Go out and see the world. Before you plan your takeover, you gotta know what you're taking over

check out http://passportproject.tumblr.com/ while Kenji tries to get this flight off the ground.

Pic Courtesy of Mel D. Cole

Mos Def is probably one of my favorite entertainers of all time. I vehemently defend his mush mouthed Brooklyn drawl that surfaces in all of his acting roles because I have the same tendency to say "bruva" instead of brother and other dialect foibles imbued in hood born Brooklynites.
Once I got into the business (whatever that means) I learned that the criteria for being "homies" shrinks from actual personal exchanges of ideas and emotions to just being within a 10 foot radius of any said person "homies by proximity"

I've seen many a tweet go by my timeline basking in the sheer revelry of hanging with *insert rapper here* when its pretty clear that said personality is actually in the dimly lit VIP lounge of whatever seedy venue he was paid to walk through wishing that human teleportation wasn't a distant reality while you were at the bar trying to pass off expired drink tickets. Trying to establish a relationship by mouthing his lyrics while attempting to establish eye contact does not a friendship make.

Im not saying me and Mos are besties. He is not my emergency contact, We don't ride tandem bicycles in Prospect park, but he is one of the most magnetic, interesting and inspiring individuals that I have had the pleasure to know.

Its odd to make that statement being as 10 years ago I was the kid with the BlackStar stickers on his notebook.

yea I'm on some "stan" shit but whatevs.

Here's some vids i took of Mos rocking some new songs in at Brooklyn's Ft. Greene Festival.

Mos Def - World Premire from Emeka Obi on Vimeo.

Mos Def - Cream of the Planet from Emeka Obi on Vimeo.

I've know the Fool's Gold guys for years, a an off and on relationship starting back in about 2007 when we threw a holiday party starring a then just bubbling Kid Sister and unknown Kid Cudi. A-trak and Nick Catchdubs are an endless database of music nerditry to some infinite exponential power, which is why we click, the amount of incomprehensibly unnecessary knowledge they hold puts me into a shame spiral as I kinda thought i held that title.

When the guys expressed that they were opening their office/shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I had to put on my sheriffs hat on (not a literal sheriff's hat, mine's more like Boss Hog's from Dukes of Hazzard)

I expressed my concerns (Zoning restrictions, capacity, how much Drum and Bass music you're allowed to have per square inch) but I was lenient on them because they signed Danny Brown. Really quick I wanna tell you the story of how that went down.

It was sometime last November, I was a couple of week's off of convincing Danny let me manage him and a couple of days off of realizing that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing as a manager. We were fielding calls from major labels, Def Jam, Universal etc. but Danny was totally uninterested, soured by his experience on the road with G-Unit, his want was really to be an independent artist, he was content just putting music out for free and hoping to get some notoriety and shows out of it.

To that I responded with a resounding "Fuck that".

I asked Danny if he could sign to any label what would it be and he stated "XL records or Fool's Gold records. XL because they get money, Fool's gold because they get bitches"

I know nothing about either getting money or bitches but I do know the guys a Foo'ls Gold so I immediately hung up the phone and gave Nick Catchdubs a call.

Aside from disseminating some of his videos and records accross the web, This would have been my first managerial action. Had I known this would have been such a benchmark moment I would have chosen a better location to make the call than the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant.

Long story short the convo went as such:
Me: I work with this guy Danny Brown, you should sign him
Nick: Eh. I heard of him, I dig his stuff. Lemme ask Alain and i'll call you back.

a week later...

A-Trak: It's cool, I want to sign him

I call Danny...

Me: Fool's Gold wants to sign you
Danny: oh,thats cool!

Im running around thinking im making boss moves and everyone else is nonchalant like they're signing the deal in sharpie on a blunt rap. Getting the deal was whatevs, the work is yet to come.

Id like to congratulate Fool's Gold on the opening of their Brooklyn space and invite everyone to come check it out on opening day. Me and Danny will be there, probably in a corner, talkin about rap.

But this was the first D. Brown song i ever heard:
Metal Gear Solid:

Some endearing shit huh?

Im going to post more about my experiences as a manager just so I can keep my stories in chronological order and so when the revolution of the machines happens and the robots burn all the books, I still have some record that I accomplished something with my life. Or not.

ok...just went far off topic.

For Hip Hop Mr. MuthaFuckin Exquire is a breath of foul, NY air. A mixture of grimy street shit, mal-intended intelligence and pop culture reference that we haven't seen out of the Rotten Apple since Doom donned the metal mask.

I was talking to friend of mine who asked me why I thought this was dope. I told him its not good enough to be good. You have to be interesting. Some people can rap their asses off technically but also find some why to make you not give a fuck what they were talking about (Slaughter house for example). Visually, Sonically, none of this is new, nothing is really new, but the pool of people you have to compare him if trying to correlate the image and music is pretty small.

I mean who the hell name checks "The American Ninja" Micheal Dudikoff?

Michael Dudikoff from TKTK Films on Vimeo.

Its some weirdo shit, but Its some Brooklyn shit. Im a member of both parties so im automatically sold. Hopefully if record companies still exist a few days from now they'll realize that NY needs a resurgence and start nurturing new talent like this guy.

Some friends of mine at Gillette, yes the shaving company, have seen fit to get me involved in their effort to hand out some cash prizes for anyone who checks out my blog. I agreed under the pretense that people actually read my blog and that my hit counts aren't generated by a heavy hand on the refresh button.

I've never shaved my face, ever...well once, and I broke out like Harry Houdini in a straight jacket. So after that i was on never again status but if i had known at some point that i could collect $25,000, (Thats right, i did not mis-punctuate, that is a comma, not a decimal point), for consistently taking a blade to the beard, My chin would have looked like Charlie Villanueva's head

All the details are below, (I jacked those graphics oof of their facebook page so the links aren't active, I didn't want to make you feel stupid trying to click on those) talk about it, tweet about it, tell a friend, tell a foe, tell a phone. Most importantly tell them Emeka sent you...No really, tell them I sent you or Gillette might never fuck with me again. If you're submitting or even busting off 140 characters about it on twitter use the hashtag (yes,if fully aware that this is corny) #blameemeka.

You know when people say something is like watching an accident and you can't turn away? Listening to Death Grips is like watching a 24 car pile up on the bridge, then scouring through the survivors personal effects for Subway restaurant punch cards in hopes of scoring a free 5 dollar footlong. Its like taking all you know about compassion, sensibility and previous cognitions of musical theory throwing them into a tire fire.

Right now is a great time in music. The backlash against the reigning pop regime and the major label structure is like throwing chum in the waters for experimental musicians to feed on.

For some this may be hard to swallow, this is uncomfortable music, but Hip Hop hasn't made anyone uncomfortable in a long time.

You've gotta be real smart to get this dumb.

check out the rest of his Ex-Military mixtape at Third Worlds