On Our Radar: Anthem

The legendary Party Inform, sent out and received on most Thursday afternoons, mentioned yesterday that there was going to be an opening act for Cool Kids. Billed as an “NYC Hip Hop Artist,” running under the pseudonym Anthem, one can’t help but wonder who this young man is and what he might bring to the table prior to Cool Kids taking the stage. From what I have gathered thus far, Anthem a.k.a. “Ant” would astound most at CMC in that he decided to go against the grain, drop his professional life as an investment banker and pursue the dream of becoming a hip-hop sensation.  According to his self-penned bio:

Anthem (a.k.a. Ant) is a 24-year old Manhattan (NYC)-based emcee whose single(s) “Bachelor’s Theme” (and “Call Me Anthem”) have been building considerable buzz on the club scene and online.  Ant grew up in Northern Virginia and went on to attend Duke University.  After graduating from Duke, Ant headed to New York to embark on a career as a trader a top tier investment bank.  Despite enjoying the competitive intensity and high stakes nature of trading, Ant never lost his passion for rhyme and felt increasingly torn between the security and stability that a Wall St. career afforded his family and the opportunity of pursuing his dreams and making a name for himself in the hip hop world.  Ultimately his dreams won out;  and the rest, as they say, is history.  Outside of living in the studio while putting the finishing touches on his first release “Anticipation,” Ant is currently touring and doing shows at live venues in NYC and throughout the US.

Anthem has a handful of studio tracks on his MySpace and all of them feature his knack for lyrical creativity. A versatile rapper, Anthem manages to cover his whole bio, from dropping the Wall Street paycheck to pursue his dream on “Home” and “One Life” to silly drunkenness on the “I Gotta Feeling” Remix. He moves from verse to verse and from subject to subject over any beat that is on in the studio with nonchalance. That effortless quality is known by hip hop snobs as flow and many believe that without it, a rapper won’t stand a chance in the music business. We find Anthem at his best in “More,” a track that sounds like an all-out “off-the-top” freestyle and samples Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle.”

Van Gundy’s mad at my magic/ Cut from a different cloth, fathom my fabric/ Boy meets world like a n***a been savage/ Ravaging you wack emcees that spit average/ God damn my boast of having a classic feel/ Sh*t is bananas and you slipping in my mass appeal.

The ten tracks are averaging about 4,500 plays each on his MySpace page, a good number for up-and-coming rappers.

You can follow anthem on twitter @iamanthem and listen on his website www.iamanthem.com.

Here are a couple downloadable tracks for your pregaming tomorrow afternoon:

Anthem – Bachelor’s Theme

Anthem – Home

Anthem – I Gotta Feeling (Remix)

Lewis Corson from www.cmcforum.com

Bringing It Back: The New LA Lights

Shoe connoisseurs, this one’s for you. The past few years have undeniably seen our favorite shoe companies reaching into their respective vaults and reintroducing all the classics. Whether it be Jordan with its relaunch of the Jordan Retro I from Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”, Nike with the “White Men Can’t Jump” Air Flight Lite or Reebok with its timeless Pump series, the past is fueling the future when it comes to the newest kicks.

However with all the old styles coming back, there is one in particular that really got this child of the 90s excited:  LA Gear’s reinception of LA Lights. That’s right kids, dust off those Starter jackets and get ready because as of December of 2009, LA Lights will make their long overdue return.

Back in the early to mid-90s the LA Lights line exploded on the kid’s shoe scene, and then just as quickly disappeared off the face of the Earth. With the rebirth of the Lights in 2009, LA Gear is selling their classic to those same kids during their college years.

The difference is that the reinvented line finally comes out in adult sizes whereas they used to be only available in kids, something that previously killed off any hopes of reselling or redistributing the shoe.

And that isn’t the only improvement made. The new Lights are supercharged compared to their predecessors, not so much that they’re obnoxious and over the top, but definitely noticeable. Instead of the old Lights’ small blinking lights in the heel and midsole, the new Lights have a luminated heel that has a crazy strobe, giving a hot laser lightshow effect. The new design is also sleeker and less boxy, making it a solid sneaker beyond just the initial appeal of the strobing lights.

I posted a video of the LA Lights at LA Gear’s recent tradeshow in Vegas, giving you a little sneak peak of the new designs.There looks to be an array of color schemes both in the shoes and the lights, and they seem pretty tight. Personally I think the blacks with the green soles and neon green strobe are ridiculous, and I’m ready to snag a pair. Again look for these guys to be hitting stores around Christmas time.

LA Gear also brought back their Unstoppable line last year to solid reviews, so if you can’t wait on the Lights you can find LA Gear shoes at Sportie LA in Los Angeles, The Tannery in Boston, Raggamuffin in Brooklyn, and a few other select stores and cities.

Kade Krichko

Vampire Weekend Releases New Single

After an extensive viral campaign on Pitchfork and other indie music ‘relevant‘ blogs and websites that featured a comely looking blonde girl (pictured above) posted within the ad sections, we finally have breaking news from the Vampire Weekend camp. We have heard from Ezra Koenig that the upcoming LP, Contra, draws extensive influence from California and with the lead-off single “Horchata“, which is a Latino juice/soda, California residents understand what he means. VW are up to their old tricks as Koenig, much like Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, makes sure that his listeners have a dictionary on hand to fully understand the content within.

Words that may need a dictionary depending on learnedness (excluding ‘horchata’):

‘Balaclava’ – a cap that is close-fitting and woolen and covers all of the head but the face.

‘Masada’ – (Hebrew מצדה, pronounced Metzada, from מצודה, metzuda, “fortress”) is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea (we’re not sure if this is what is meant by ‘Masada’, but we’re trying).

‘Aranciata’ – San Pellegrino (also S. Pellegrino) is a brand of mineral water with carbonation added, produced and bottled at San Pellegrino Terme

Lucky for us, by downloading the song from VW’s website, we received the lyrics to Horchata, which seem to have something to do with wistfully dreaming of becoming a Mexican wrestler (hence, the “Balaclava” reference):

“In December, drinking Horchata/ I’d look psychotic in a Balaclava”

Vampire Weekend – Horchata

8.2/10. Ezra Koenig and his crew of Columbians have taken a wonderful and new approach to their over-sophisticated tunes with “Horchata”. It is a fun-filled track that is a cross between Koenig’s work with The Very Best, a slower West Coast jam and an Ivy League orchestra club.

Lewis Corson

Ukulele & KiD CuDi

On the heels of a great review of the SummerStage show at Central Park where Phoenix and Passion Pit were apparently incredible, I’m going to blog about a random YouTube video that I found. The clip features a college-aged Asian kid with a ponytail and a Ukulele covering “Soundtrack 2 My Life”, one of the best tracks off of KiD CuDi’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day.

The Ukulele is actually great but this dude’s voice is not… a very entertaining clip nonetheless (especially at the conclusion)!

Lewis Corson