Right in line with all unlikely mash-ups comes Tom Caruana who masterfully wove familiar Wu Tang classics over Beatles samples. The result was some of the best remixes I’ve heard in a good minute. I grew up on Wu and still remember hearing C.R.E.A.M. hit the air waves when the world stopped and said in unison “wha?”. Ha! Then soon after radio was overtaken with Rza beats and Wu affiliates, solo releases, and a double LP that stayed on heavy rotation for what literally seamed to be forever. Then the “jiggy” era hit and killed the creativity in hip-hop at the time. Hearing some of these mash-ups reminded me of old times in a new way. If your a Wu fan you definitely need to check this out. Heads up for the faint of heart this is explicit content. No radio edits.

Download Wu vs The Beatles here

Sample:

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Okay Player is hosting Mr. J. Medeiros – The Art of Broken Glass as a free ep download. No telling how long this will be available for free so go and download it right now. Mr. J. for those not in the know was 1/3 of a crew called The Procussions who most recently (well, as far back as 2006) released an album on Rawkus Records called “5 Sparrows for 2 Cents” which had a featured song that hit radio called “Miss January” featuring Talib Kweli. Now Mr. J. is no slouch himself having released a solo project in 2007 called “of gods and girls” which was one of my favorite albums that came out and fell under the radar that year. The single off that album “Constance” made waves as a socially conscious track making shedding light on the global issue of human trafficing. The video gave beauty to ugliness and helped awareness on a constant and lingering problem.

So fast forward a few years, and Mr. J. has hooked up with a fellow produced from his city named Boonie Mayfield whom J met after seeing a beat making video on the internet and exploring his production further. After meeting Boonie the two agreed to put out this EP together. Hence this free download. So now that you are in the know…

Download the EP from Okay Player here.

Enjoy.

Othello is one of those artists that might be off the radar to some but to the conscious heads who find lyricism at the top of their “props list” O is right there with the best of them. For those not in the know, Othello is 1/3 of super crew Lightheaded along side Ohmega Watts (Ubiquity) and Braille. The video above is a teaser from a solo effort with DJ Vajra and a hot beat complimenting O’s quick paced word play. I think what I like most about the video is it shows him as he really is and that being a regular guy on a regular grind out of his house speaking honestly about what he’s looking to achieve and makes it personal. A relevancy that most hip-hop artists especially in the underground can relate to. “…reflect what it means to put records out that will out live me” I hear that. Great line!

This is a crazy looking graph showing 1 million colors. Of all things random online I came across this posted image from a blog a few minutes ago. I’m always fascinated with the human eye-to-mind processing and how we all interpret colors differently. However, the way this color combination tricks the minds-eye into a three dimensional focus is all consuming. The longer you stare at it the more you see going on.

Anyway – I thought it would be fun to share. Enjoy!

There’s a good interview posted with our boy Wordsmith that aspiring artists should definitely check-out. Pay close attention to the audio from the interview at the very end of the post.

Read/Listen to interview here

If you are like quite a few people who picked up the new David vs Goliath shirts we recently dropped you may have noticed a few things different about that piece. For those with a critical eye the first thing you may have noticed was the absence of heavy inks (also called a hand in the printing industry). The second thing you may have noticed was how lightweight the over-sized print was on your shirt. Both of these benefits are due to a process called discharge printing. If you have ever held an Ed Hardy shirt or an Affliction shirt in your hand then you are probably familiar with this type of printing technique.

Discharge is a specialty ink used in screen printing. The results give you a very soft hand, and it shows the shirt’s natural fiber instead of a thick ink layer on top of the shirt. By itself, discharge ink removes the dye of the cotton fiber when it hits a certain temperature. It works with only particular styles of t-shirts or other garments, with some styles and colors having stronger results than others. We are of course extremely picky about our products so we go the extra mile to ensure what you get is something we are proud to bare our brand’s name. We also go through an extensive sampling process to test for ink densities and wash-ability to ensure our products stand up to detergents and dryers with minimal shrink and retain print details to the highest standards… Ours!

Discharge printing can have various results in bleaching efficacy. In our experience, darker color shirts discharge well, while lighter colors do not. Shirt colors that don’t discharge brightly can still be used for discharge printing. If we want a white print with discharge qualities of minimal hand, white pigmented discharge can be used to achieve a bright white on garments that don’t discharge. One layer of white pigmented discharge can have the same visual result as two layers of normal, opaque white ink but without the heavy hand or any of the difficulties in printing that can arise from having to do two layers.

If you haven’t guessed by now discharge is a pretty in-depth and tricky process to master. Our new David vs Goliath shirts contained not only a white discharge but an added gray as well. The result gave our piece a higher level of detail and complexity and in our bias opinions it looks incredible!

Check out more photos of the new David vs Goliath shirt at our webstore.

-Shaun

Now I’m like most 30-somethings out there who are both fathers, husbands and sole-providers and think practicality over bells and whistles. As a matter of fact as tech savvy as I am and as involved in social media as I’ve been over the years spearheading Vintage Limited into the web 2.0 era… I have to admit when it came to cell phones I’ve been a step behind. For the last few years I’ve been rocking the Motorola RAZR which to be honest was based on the necessity to have a phone that withstood the abuse of my kids toying with it and me dropping it. For more than a few years now my trusty RAZR has taken the abuse and kept on ticking making a suitable asset to my daily grind. No flash here, no web browser, no email, no VZ nav, not even an mp3 player and the only ringtone I’m getting on this thing are bad renditions of popular songs as midi keys.

Just about 3 weeks ago my trusty RAZR finally gave out. The lame battery gained a memory and now the phone could only operate for about 6 hours before beaping in my ear and eventually dying a slow and annoying low battery alerting death. After some deliberation and convincing I finally decided it was time to get with it. Since I’m online 12-16 hours of the day (most days) having the internet on my phone wasn’t really a selling point for me… Or so I thought. Yet there I was making a few trips to the Verizon retail store messing around with the latest phone options and doing my research online to see which one would suite my purposes for my business and of course hold up to the kids at home. What I ended up finding out about myself is my susceptibility to the hype. Here I was after years of never having a need for or even wanting access to all the bells and whistles of a new ’smart phone’ and I was salivating over the awesome new iPhone rival… Of course I’m talking about the Droid! Now this is a cool phone! Blackberry would have been my first choice had I not stumbled over the launch of the new Droid phones… but shortly after finding that my already hefty monthly bill would be increased by yet another $30 for unlimited data package and an extra $5 for email my excitement was short lived. Going through my head trying to find ways as we all do to justify spending that extra $30 plus a month on features like email, mobile web to update my facebook and twitter pages… you know all the things you suddenly can’t live without… and I was having a hard time justifying the bloated bill when I have a wife and 3 kids to support.

After conceding to a standard phone option I stumbled onto what I thought was actually one of the coolest phones in the store! A sliding menu, touch screen phone, with killer qwerty keyboard that slides out from the back of the phone on demand and has enough space between the buttons to actually make typing an email on your phone practical… All included with one touch access to Facebook, Twitter, and mobile email. Of course this had to be too good to be true so imagine my shock when I found out that the phone I picked up, the Samsung Rogue, allowed me to have limited access to the internet and mobile email for 1/3 what the Droid and Blackberry offered ($9.99/mo for 25mb of net access versus the required $29.99 for unlimited data access on the other phones). To make things even sweeter my new every 2 contract was up so the phone was practically free! Naturally I jumped on the offer. A few hours later I was fighting for my phone that was in my wife’s hands who was suddenly as captivated by the ability to stream video and check her social media pages while simultaneously sitting at the dining room table preparing food for the kids. Now how cool is that!?

I found this review on Cnet of the Samsung Rogue. Have to admit I really wanted an iPhone and was almost convinced to switch to AT&T to get one… the lack of the qwerty keyboard was my hold up and also the service change to break my contract with Verizon. Droid was my next option and a killer phone! Still… for anyone like myself looking for something more practical and can’t quite justify the $30/mo ADDITIONAL fee’s added to your plan… This phone is just as cool, has all the same features (a few exceptions) but for 1/3 of the cost of ownership. That’s one phone that was easily justifiable to my inner-conscious and to my wallet as well. I definitely co-sign the Samsung Rogue as one cool phone and a new weapon in my arsenal of the daily grind.

Interestingly enough I came across a Baltimore Orioles fitted hat about 6 months ago worn by a random passer by while out at the mall with my wife and kids. The hat was an all black hat with black embroidery of the O’s beloved oriole bird iconography but the silhouette had a thin white outline around it. I thought the hat design was done exceptionally well… So after I got home I did a little digging at the usual online boutiques I sift through from time to time and what I came up with was surprising. Unfortunately I couldn’t locate the hat that inspire me to write this post in time… However it seams us Baltimorians are not the only people prone to the heritage and legacy of our hometown Major League baseball team. Instead every possible color combination and reinterpretation of the O’s logo can be found. Obnoxious color combinations and all! Below is just a little gallery of some of the best & worst (mostly worst) variations I came across.

Enjoy!

How sick would these look with your Vintage Limited “Lion in the City” tee? That’s what I thought when I first seen these posted on Hypebeast today.

Nike released their Air Force 1 Supreme Canvas pack not too long ago and these new additions feature a premium material not too often used in footwear. The material is called chambray which is characterized by its lightweight and combines white unbleached threads over a colored wrap. These come in 3 colorways (the gray being the freshest in my opinion). However, check this… if your like me and would like to snag a pair you might be hard pressed to locate the rare find. Their only being delivered to select tier 0 (yes, tier zero!) dealers.

I did a little research today and after an hour I was able to find only 1 location which had these available. The hefty price tag will set you back about $650. Ouch!

-Shaun

I had to laugh out loud today when I read this. Quoting a Comcast Sports article about Baltimore’s own Michael Phelps, who coincidentally is on route to be the winningest Olypian ever (most Gold medals held by an Olympian in History). This is how they chose to describe him.

Perfection. That sums up the gangly 23-year-old from Baltimore who loves rap music, pimped-out cars and doing things in the pool that no one else even dared to think of.

I love it! That was classic.

Cited from article here.

-Shaun