Ushering in its 20 year anniversary like only Nike can do the footwear kings decided to re-issue a classic. As it’s name indicates the Air Max ’90 was first released in 1990. Featuring the legend AIR MAX on the side panel and visible air bubble in the heel. This exclusive White/Black/Blue/Gray colorway can only be found at JD Sports in the UK for about 90 Euros (click here to see more photo’s of the shoe on JD’s website). For fun we decided to see what would happen if we paired up these hot kicks with our own classics. We matched them with our Lion in the City retro blue t-shirt and gray molten wool/black/white Art Addiction fitted hat. The combination of similar colors and complimenting textures made for a good look.

The new Warner Brother’s film “The Preacher’s Kid” hit theaters nationwide on January 29th, 2010. Why is this relevant you may ask? Well, you may have heard that local hip-hop artist Soulstice had a song featured in the recent smash “The Blind Side” which stars Sandra Bullock and depicts the struggles which Baltimore Raven’s offensive tackle (NFL) Michael Oher endured on his rise to stardom.

Its also relevant because Soulstice is a friend of mine and having heard him perform on a few occasions while marketing Vintage Limited in make-shift stores at the back of live venues Soulstice and I have had the chance to speak on issues concerning the music industry, the state of hip-hop, and life here in Baltimore. A few seconds into a conversation and you instantly get that he’s no slouch and has a collegiate background knowledgeable on many subjects. For the past few years we’ve kept in touch through email and events and Soulstice has been a supporter of ours. Take a look at our photo gallery and you can see a few shots of him rocking our Brown Classic tshirt at a local show. Another one on there shows Soulstice wearing the Rock is Steady tshirt during a tour in Italy in 2009. I was also informed that he wore one of our shirts on a tv appearance (more details to come regarding that).

“The funny thing about The Preacher’s Kid is that this was actually the first movie I placed a song in, it’s just taken this one forever to come out.” Soulstice said in a recent email to his fans. Apparently It took so long that he had actually forgotten about it until his Dad text messaged a reminder.

“The Preacher’s Kid” is a modern twist on the prodigal song story in which a preacher’s daughter leaves home to pursue her dream of being a singer.  The movie stars the singer Letoya Luckett (formerly of Destiny’s Child).  The photo here shows Letoya and Soulstice on the red carpet at an event in DC.

The movie features a remix of the Soulstice song “The Melody,” which was the first single he ever released back in 2003, on 12″ vinyl. The club-friendly remix featured in the movie was crafted by DMV producer Arsonal.  If you watch the movie trailer, you can hear the song play briefly around 1 minute: http://bit.ly/aBsWVx

You can hear the song in it’s entirety on his myspace page: www.myspace.com/soulstice (yes, musicians still use myspace even if the rest of us have left it far far behind ha)

Congrats Soulstice! Look forward to seeing you around the city. Who knows? Maybe Hollywood comes knocking?

Nu Revolution Entertainment LLC presents Wordsmith “Tour Guide To New Bride”. Behind the scenes of the video shoot for his UK single (produced by Capish) off the debut album “Vintage Experience”. Album dropping March 30, 2010. Check out the Rock is Steady tshirt making a cameo. Thanks Word! We’re looking forward to the final video drop and the album no doubt.

So I was up late doing some random web surfing and somehow ended up at a popular blog looking at this new 9th Wonder + Laws preview video for “Shining”. At about 20 seconds in I spotted Eric Nine’s boy, the rapper 4-ize from Atlanta who’s in the background of this shot above. He’s in the video wearing our David vs. Goliath tshirt. I thought it was too cool to pass up not mentioning one of our shirts was featured on a friend of ours hanging out with 9th who’s also one of my favorite producers. Check out the full video below.

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