Available Nov. 20. Artwork and Tracklist under the cut.

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For those of you who are unable to attend and/or wish to donate money to Hex and his family to help cover hospital bills go to http://tiny.cc/TheHexCareFund. The e-mail address is [email protected].

The F*cking “Get Better Bro” Benefit For Hex Murda

featuring:
Black Milk
Guilty Simpson
Paradime
Fat Killahz
Trick Trick
Royce Da 5′9″
Phat Kat
Slum Village
Danny Brown
DJ House Shoes

Saturday October 17, 2009
St Andrews Hall (431 East Congress St. Detroit, MI 48226)
9pm-2am – $10 Cover – ABSOLUTELY NO GUEST LIST!

While one may not expect it considering Eminem’s tumultuous upbringing, his friend/partner-in-tunes Denaun Porter seems to have a great relationship with his ‘rents. When explaining to MichiganHipHop why he operates the way he does, he’ll often say, “That’s how I was raised.” These days, Ms. Porter must be proud of her son: along with producing for his multi-platinum selling group D12, the Detroit native has become a go-to beatmaker for the likes of Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, and helps music equipment company Open Labs develop sounds and keyboards. But Mr. Porter doesn’t let his big business get in the way of him making his stamp on the indie scene with artists like Royce Da 5’9” and Pharaohe Monch, and a consistent A-list clientele didn’t stop him from helping upstart artists with a web site that licensed his beats for as low as $50.

MichiganHipHop’s conversation with Mr. Porter was so packed with information that we had to split it into three parts. In Part 1 of this series, Mr. Porter talks vividly about his bond with Eminem. Check under the cut for how he stands by Em’s side as a producer, workout partner, hype man (in lieu of fellow D12 member Proof’s death), and as a friend.

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Quest MCODY “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” (Mixtape)

Download here

1. Intro
2. Ctrl + Alt + Delete
3. Out Here Gettin’ Paid (produced by Rill for Noize City)
4. 1,2,3
5. D.O.A. (Death Of Anybody)
6. You Got Me
7. The Light Show (produced by Fly Boy Viz)
8. Exorcist
9. Part of the Game (produced by Mr. Porter)
10. Amazing (starring Cynara Moore)
11. Last Call (starring Pahlavi)
12. Get’m Cody (Buy “The Light Project On Itunes)
13. Run This Town (freestyle) 12 Run This Town (freestyle)
14. Shade 45 Interview w/Rude Jude & Lord Sear Pt. 1
15. Dreamin’ (Proof dedication)
16. Shade 45 Interview w/Rude Jude & Lord Sear Pt. 2

To purchase or download more of Quest MCODY’s music, visit QuestMCody.com.

Readers,

Thanks for all of your support! You may notice that instead of the regular Google AdSense ads, that the site has some new ads at the top and bottom of the site. That’s because MichiganHipHop.com is the latest addition to The MOG Network!

For those unfamiliar, the MOG Network has thousands of contributions from music lovers and the top 300 music blogs. It generates over 6,000 music blog posts per week, all hand-curated to deliver the web’s best daily music newspaper.

Now that we are a part of this network, MichiganHipHop.com’s posts will be exposed to the monthly 5.5 million unique visitors that hit up MOG for the latest in music. Secondly, our new ad revenue will help pay for the hosting costs necessary to keep the site up and running. All of this is going to help with MichiganHipHop’s mission: to support and document the state’s burgeoning Hip Hop scene.

We’ve got lots more in store for the site in the near future, but we’ll let you know about that as it happens.

Once again, thanks for all your support!

Sincerely,

William E. Ketchum III and M.O.S. Ologist

David Rankin of MidnightFix was given access to some behind-the-scenes photos of the video shoot for Vstylez’ “Clash of the Titans,” which features Royce Da 5′9″, Rapper Big Pooh, eLZhi & Phat Kat (Listen Here). Scenes with Phat Kat and Rapper Big Pooh haven’t been shot yet, but each of the other guests made appearances in this shoot. Check the other photos under the jump.

[via MidnightFix]

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In honor of Baatin’s passing, ?uestlove spoke on Slum Village and their “demo cum album that inspired a movement.” Here’s what he had to say:

?uestlove’s part Eulogy/Apology Letter/Manifesto on his favorite group Slum Village….a decade after the fact.

respect to t-3 for having to hold more weight on your shoulders than most should right about now…..

spring of 1997

before the Internet and me were a marriage made in hell i actually communicated with my friends the hard way….
the telephone.

it wouldn’t matter if i was in Wisconsin or Warsaw. I’d be on the phone longer than i could afford to be in hotels running up the bill back in the day.

and this was before shawn gee had the genius monopoly business sense in managing for us and helping us overcome the deep water of the rap business (or ye, wayne, drake, keri, jill, com and others) back when we were sharing rooms and doing shows for a 10th of what we make now.

one very expensive night when i was in cologne germany i heard a 10 second snippet followed by d’angelo and qtip snickering that they up on something that i aint hip to yet. so not wanting to miss out my broke ass called new york city and i made d’angleo play me the entire Fantastic Vol 1 tape from start to finish. (the were 20 songs at the most 1:00/2:00) my god it was like tribe and de la soul on acid!

that was the last time i was jaw dropped in music from a fan standpoint. it was so incredible i didn’t even feel threatened by them. i was like FINALLY SOMETHING TO INSPIRE ME! they manged to squeeze the last bit of life out of that innocent period of hip hop in which you made music with your peers in mind (not your press). you were going to sleep tryna imagine ghost and rae rewinding the tape likem”the hell they just say?” you wanted to walk through the spot like nino brown and have flav blow up your spot in the dj booth. i STILL create music from that level of wondering what “what’s his face” thinking while they peep this, may not matter in today’s climate but it matters to me if black milk gives me dap on a song or if erick sermon likes whatever trick i cooked up.

that night back in 97 what i heard as my phone bill went to an astounding $300 dollars (i semi stiffed the club promoter, but he caught our agent out there and they took it out my pay for that summer tour) i can’t describe what i heard. it was new, invigorating and JUST what the doctor ordered. it was the spark plug jump you needed to help your car to go that extra 400 miles as you travel cross country in a deserted road.

i miss those days. i first heard purple rain in the phone. i first heard de la soul is dead in the phone. member that time period in music in which you played someone a song in the phone?! i wish those days could come back once more.

i know that for the last 10 years ive brushed off the inevitable task of trying to explain slum village’s importance to hip hop.

it was so much easier to target the light-years-ahead genius of J Dilla and just call it a day on some “yall mofos just dont understand.” …..sheeeeeeeeeeeeit. i guess part of me reveled on some  “im up on some shit that only certain cats with their phd in funkology can understand” i mean i had a hard time enough trying to prove that dilla is the greatest beatmaker of all time  then it was to champion the whole group.(blasphemy in the eyes of MANY in light of dre, primo, pete, quik, the squad and about 12 others—but on the low? they know what time it is)

i owe Esvee an apology. i was just as enamored with Baatin and T-3 and Dilla as emcees as i was the beats, yet i let the world crucify them as i sat by idle and saved my own skin, reputation and music rep. similar to that of a jim crow nigger lover or a silent opposer of prop 8 in a room full of conservatives.

it was too hard of an argument to even dream about winning. black people aint even built to champion anything that doesn’t offer some sort of payoff or flash. we love underdogs because at least for an underdog there is the rare chance we can witness their rise to the heavens. and in the age of the pre blog, it was this kind of silly talk that many a middle class journalist holding on to that imaginary street cred needed to blow me out the water.

but the truth is: the most fun thing about slum village was their moronic frat humor. to THIS DAY who can make bustin a move at a tupperware party as a boho in a room with a bunch of east side pig eatin niggas from detroit sound awesome?!

not since too short has hip hop heard stooopid level’s of beautiful misogyny over (and this is the plus for Slum) the BEST musical backdrop in the history of 90’s hip hop.

yes i did crossed that line.

in honor of Baatin’s passing im finna honor his whole group and the demo cum album that inspired a movement.

Fans of Fantastic know EXACTLY where they were when they first heard this tape. i was fortunate enough to get a tape straight from dilla.

full of crazy imagery that would fit at home on Critical Beatdown (“all you gotta do is grip yo meat, massage her, laugh with her, take a bath with her….devour her)

full of middle school wolf ticket inside jokes worthy of “Skip 2 My Loop” era De La (heads TOTALLY catch them trying to figure (and clown) the words to Escape’s “Just Kickin It” but ABSOLUTELY miss them ragging Color Me Badd’s sophomore flop “Time & Change” right before the lines faster than a bullet, blink and you missed it  “Fat Cat Song”)

and heavy on east side detroit shit talking.

they just always made me wished i was in on the joke. (shit, maybe the joke was on me, cause lord knows after 60/70 listens i done caught many an inside joke with them snarkin on a cat or two and always wondering in the back of my head would they clown me just as hard.

they truly made an art of rhythmic talking:

“Fantastic pt 1” although not singing, THIS is how i wished the hypeman would back up their emcees.

most try to “outddo” the emcee in the name of “keeping it HYPE! when in actuality they are gunning for that number one slot (Hov!)—the :52 mark of dilla “harmonizing” with baatin is a prime example of some lampin in the back of the class, smokin while teacher’s back is turned coolness….

“ayo…..wheelin…..dealin…
..cash flow….oh……down low huh………”

nothing remarkable. but again it was all in the attitude that won me over. they adlib’d and ish tawked better than ANY group i knew.

i mean wu tang made an art out of adlibs to the point that once lauryn hill’s grafted rae’s overused “a yo  a yo….yo yo yo yo” came into play it was a tad stale.

slum village left no onomatopoeia or  senegalesesque pronounced stone unturned.

THAT was the charm of Slum Village: they were regular cats who went over the heads of regular cats and gunned for the higher level cats

to mortals, t-3’s entry in “i don’t know” (“im influenced to like…schhchhhhhh *his trademarked inhale/sigh/sucking teeth noise*…..um yknow”) is just plain “whatever”—but to cats that (dare i take this license?) “who knew what time it was” said ALL of his lines were CRAZY. and CRAZY was beautiful. Nas could “props is a true thugs wife”/”sleep is the cousin of death” all he wants—-im “wearing your mama like a lambskin”.

t3’s Look of Love’s pronunciation of “sa-lutt” or “spllinnnderNESS” or taking 4 secs to pronounce the word “yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss”; or the “tchcht!” sound sandwiched in between “Beej N Dem”‘s (you want it boy and you know who “tchcht!” got it) or even the purposed fumble of at the 1:00 mark of his solo version of “pregnant”—only for him to praise himself 4 seconds later with (“what’s that shit i said? that shit is FRESH!”) to me? was where it was AT!

—we’d just sit there  for hours hypnotized like “these dudes are so crazy” the fact that words to them were percussion and drums more than a means of communication was right up my alley. just listen to the adlib subliminal magic of the “fantastic 2 and 3 interludes”—absolutely makes no sense. but they say it SO SOULFUL and FUNKY that it truly doesn’t matter. for all i care they can sing the dictionary and they could manage to wrangle some funky way of pronouncing aardvark.

breath control, alliteration, ignorance, snark, humor, inside jokes, soul, excitement, spontaneous spurts, edge, and innovation.

its that sh–tcchcht—ayo.
-akt.

[via:Okayplayer]

RenSoul.com is now accepting donations for Baatin’s family. Click Here To Donate.

T3, Baatin, Illa J & Frank Nitt “Homage To Dilla (Prod. Focus)”
[audio:http://www.michiganhiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/frank_nitt_t3_baatin_illa_j_homage_to_dilla-_prod_by_focus-mihiphop.mp3]
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Phatboy Chef “Chef x Won (Prod. MarvWon)”
[audio:http://www.michiganhiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/phatboy_chef_chef_x_won-mihiphop.mp3]
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[via NahRight]