WHHAT: Floating from Dreamville to Korea

Collaborations, music, and levitation.

Thanks for your continued readership! I’m gonna keep up my weekly cadence and slowly resume the original mission of this newsletter: finding, sharing and creating content that combines the best of hip-hop and technology.

This week, we have a story about a collaboration between J. Cole and a member of BTS (yes the K-Pop superstar boy band), as well as new music and a unique concept that lets your music float, literally.

As always, you can listen along to all of the music in this newsletter via my “Alej Archivez” playlist on Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal.

j-hope x J. Cole

“on the street” by j-hope & J. Cole

First things first, J. Cole kills this! Secondly, shout out to my younger cousins for putting me on to BTS a while back.

If this BTS x Dreamville collaboration caught your eyes like it did mine, you may be wondering how it came to be. Turns out it was years in the making!

This fantastic timeline from Billboard takes it all the way back to 2013 when j-hope did his own take on Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Like a Star” which was also sampled by J. Cole on his 2011 mixtape “Any Given Sunday”.

Alej.HipHop newsletter readers may notice that Corinne Bailey Rae also made an appearance 2 weeks ago; a fun full circle moment.

Beyond that plausible shared sample/cover between the two and their undeniably similar stage names, the Billboard timeline covers some very fun connections between the two over the years, including their eventual in-person meeting at Lollapalooza 2022.

That takes us to 2023 when they finally collaborated on “on the street”.

Check out the music video as well as this great behind-the-scenes for some wholesome times:

If you want to learn more about this inspirational fan-meet-idol moment, j-hope’s Vanity interview goes further in-depth, including an explanation of how the collaboration came directly out of the previously mentioned 2022 Lollapalooza meeting.

Speaking of inspirational I just love when J. Cole goes 100% inspiring. Although the beat of “on the street” reminds me of J.Cole’s “Get Free ColeWorld”, the themes remind me one of my favorite inspirational J. Cole songs, “Crooked Smile”.

So please, enjoy some good vibes, and pass them on.

New Music

“No More Lies” by Thundercat & Tame Impala

After a nearly 3 year drought in new music (hat-tip to 2Dopeboz), singer/bassist/artist Thundercat blesses us with a new Tame Impala collaboration.

The song is an intriguing look into the direction Thundercat might be heading and the cover art is just the cherry on top (get it, Tame Impala and Thundercat).

I wasn’t familiar with Thundercat until he was featured all over Kendrick Lamar’s output in the “To Pimp a Butterfly” and “untitled unmastered.” era, but my favorite starting point on his music would be “Them Changes” which featured on his 2015 EP “The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam” as well as his 2017 album “Drunk”.

Although if I’m being honest, the Thundercat song that my wife and I quote the most is “A Fan's Mail (Tron Song Suite II)”, a song about how simple it would be to live the life of a house cat.

His signature falsetto didn’t always click with me, but his instrumentation and bass skills slowly drew me in.

His signature goofiness also makes an appearance at the end of the song, a goofiness which might be best demonstrated by the 2020 music video for his “Dragonball Durag” single off his previous album “It Is What It Is”.

Hopefully Tame Impala has a new project on the way sometime because I’ve got lots of good stuff to share on them* as well.

“SILVER TOOTH.” by Armani White & A$AP Ferg [Explicit]

Alright who is doing the drum-programming for Armani White??? They knock on all the samples he flips; in this case the sample is the Neptunes-produced “Take Ya Home” by (Lil) Bow Wow.

This follows in the footsteps of Armani’s flip of Nore’s Neptunes-produced “Nothin” [explicit], which was the the foundation for his summer 2022 hit “BILLIE EILISH.” [quite explicit].

I don’t know if we can call this a formula yet, but I’m here for it. Armani’s debut EP “Road to CASOBLANCO” is coming May 5th.

In the name of journalism, I’ve researched my own question: “SILVER TOOTH.”, “BILLIE EILISH.”, and last week’s “GOATED.” were all produced by July Da Producer 👀.

Levitate Levitate Levitate

And finally, check out this wild concept for floating record players:

Found via Okayplayer, this concept has been sitting in my queue for over a year. A retail product hasn’t materialized yet, but I’ve still got my hopes up. You can read more details and commentary here: These South Korean Turntable Designers Want to Make Your Records Float.

Have a good weekend all, peace!