a-Tunes

Seattle’s Blue Scholars have officially announced the name of their new album – Cinemetropolis. On top of that, they performed a few of the songs from the upcoming release at a recent gig that you can peep here. The titles of the track’s they previewed are “Slick Watts”, “Seijun Suzuki”, “Lalo Schifrin”, and “Hussein”. It’s a pretty dope set and the new cuts sound great; I’m really digging the produciton.

Shout out to reader Garrett for the tip!

The Blue Scholars are huge fans of the old school summer jam “Summertime in the LBC” so they decided to put their own flip on it called “Summertime in the SEA“, as a nod to their beloved summer days in Seattle. It’s a chill track that’s goofy but nostalgic.

Here’s what they had to say:

Dove Shack’s “Summertime in the LBC” (1995, prod. Warren G) is anthemic seasonal perfection. If it hasn’t found its way onto your summer playlist, then you’re losing and you don’t even know it. Bumping that track has become a yearly tradition for us rap-loving Northwestcoasters who only see glimpses of So-Cal like weather for just a few weeks out of the year. For me, its become synonymous with backyard BBQs, rolling to Alki, and mobbing deep to festivals like Bon Odori and Pista Sa Nayon.

Ah, yes, Pista. The one day out of the year besides a Journey concert where you can see ten thousand Filipinos in the town at once. Where we learned the art of ducking aunties and uncles to burn trees in the darkest parts of Seward Park. Where I learned to never go after Khingz in a freestyle cipher. The kind of summer days that almost make the other seasons worth it.

Last year, I attempted to do a mixtape/freeverse type song using the “Summertime in the LBC” instrumental. Miserable fail. Soon as I turned the mic on, I’d hear the original vocals over and over in my head. So I just started singing that instead, changing some of the lyrics along the way. Then I sent it to a few friends and forgot all about it. A year passed, and The Sun started making cameos again in our gray little city, along with requests to put out a mixed-down version of the song.

So here it is. Our tribute to summer in Seattle, and an homage to what I believe to be the finest summertime song of my generation. From my birthplace (LBC) to my nowplace (Seattle), to anywhere people of the sun gather to celebrate its presence.

You can DL the track here.

Soompi.com had the opportunity to talk with Geo, one half of the Hip-Hop duo Blue Scholars. Geo aka Prometheus Brown is the MC portion of the group and discusses his notoriety, the Seattle music scene, working with Bambu on ‘Slow Down’, Filipinos in the arts, and a whole lot more. Geo’s an intelligent dude and I appreciate his well thought out responses.

“Slow Down” was one of my favorite tracks from Bambu’s …Paper Cuts… EP, featuring Geo aka Prometheus Brown from the Blue Scholars. All that was missing from the mix (music pun… see what I did there) was Sabzi behind the production to make the collab official. Well they’ve gone ahead and solved that problem with the release of this remix. It’s got a completely different different feel from the original, but for that reason I think it’s warranted at least a listen. Besides, it’s free so why the heck not?!

Blue Scholars, the Seattle based Hip-Hop group got to talk with AR on a LOT of different subjects, broken up into 3 separate clips. It’s not only informative on the group, but also of the entire music scene as a whole. You can tell the fellas have been grinding hard for a long time as they have extraordinary insight into how the business works and what they’ve done to get where they are. It’s pretty long, and had some pacing issues but I thought it was a dope interview overall.

Jin, arguably the most well-known Asian-American MC, decided to drop a track in tribute of all the Asian MC’s he respects that are doing their thing right now. This song is in response to a list that was published by a blogger on their top 10 Greatest Asian MC’s list, where Jin made the cut at #1. It’s encouraging to see Jin give a nod to his fellow colleagues, or as his once famously said in a Freestyle battle “cause Game recognize game”. He spits over the instrumental to Drake’s “It’s Over”.

Here’s the complete list of rapper’s he shouted out on the track. Ill.

1. Dumbfoundead
2. Southstar
3. Bambu
4. Roscoe Umali
5. Geologic (of Blue Scholars)
6. apl.de.ap
7. Far East Movement
8. Snacky Chan
9. Mountain Brothers
10. Young Mac
11. LS
12. Reign
13. Flowsik
14. Shogunna
15. Rook
16. Lyrics Born
17. Chuckie Akenz
18. Kamikaze Grey
19. Lil’ Crazed
20. Lyricks
21. Manifest
22. Thai
23. Decipher
24. J. Reyez
25. D-Pryde
26. Johnnyphlo
27. Demo (of D-League)
28. Tantrum
29. Traphik

Blue Scholars has got a new interview with 24MilkCrate where they discuss a little about performing, what makes a good show, and how important the crowd is. It’s not too long of a view but the the interview is interspersed with performance footage from a gig in LA, helping you get a pretty good idea just what the Seattle duo is talking about.

The Blue Scholars have got a new freebie for you all, a remix of their song ‘New People’ from their OOF! EP. Well it’s sort of a remix… this is actually the original cut of the song that was never widely released. It was instead retooled and edited to the form you can now hear off their OOF! EP. You can read the full explanation at their site, but long story short they switched it up to better fit the sound of the EP and for sample clearance reasons. But as an interesting anecdotal gem, here is the song that inspired it all. If you’re interested in hearing it you can DL it via the widget below!

In additional Blue Scholars news, they’ve been featured on the latest episode of MYX Visual Crunch, about their prior single ‘Joe Metro’ and accompanying music video. The interview offers great insight behind the background of the track and what they aimed to capture and portray through the lens of the camera.

If you’re interested in the actual MV, released a few years back, you can catch it after the jump.

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The Blue Scholars, who released their single ‘Paul Valery’ just a couple weeks ago have also released a remix music video for the song featuring a mixture of footage including some from the very song they sampled, ‘Fireflies’. It’s a cool, arty companion to the track and it certainly matches the vibe of the track.

Last week we released the track ‘Paul Valery‘ and we’re happy that it got such a huge response. Sampling a track that took its style from another track was, well, our version of being forward.  Futuristic, if you will.

Going with the theme that “The Future is not what it used to be”, it inspired us to create a video montage of the song – a visual remix.

Get into your Future and check the video.

**Big thanks to the homie Carlos Pavan for his master editing skills.