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Blu & Exile- Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them

While not as focused as 2007′s Below the Heavens, what Blu & Exile do on this new and remastered collection of tracks is nonetheless interesting, smooth, and entertaining.

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9th Wonder- The Wonder Years

On his latest solo effort, legendary producer 9th Wonder invites some of his favorite MCs to spit over his beats and celebrate his relevancy as a fixture in hip hop.

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Fashawn- Higher Learning Vol. 2

On Fashawn’s latest mixtape, the Fresno rapper sounds as hungry as ever. He sounds fucking alive. He doesn’t come off fake either.

There’s over an hour of material, and some of it seems a little half-baked–and I’m not talking about the weed references. But it’s a FREE freakin’ album. Though it may not be the most consistent thing in the world, listen in and pull some favorite tracks off of it. The tracks here I love, I REALLY freakin’ love.

The score is basically a reflection of how much I found myself skipping around, really. I’m excited for Fashawn’s future in rap, and I think he’s gonna release a fantastic new LP soon. I’m banking on it.

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Fashawn’s Higher Learning 2

With all of this Odd Future buzz going around, the hip hop world seems pretty noisy right now, but I don’t want this to go unnoticed:

Fresno rapper Fashawn has just dropped his latest mixtape, Higher Learning 2. It’s an army of new flows featuring beats that sample everything from Queen to Kanye. Fashawn is sounding as confident as ever, and it’s got me even more excited for his forthcoming album, the Ecology, which is yet to see a release date attached to it.

Download the tape and dig on a track from it below:

.zip: Fashawn- Higher Learning 2

MP3: Fashawn- Manny Pacquiao (Prod. by Phonix)
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Fashawn- “Manny Pacquiao” ‡ MP3

A new track from Fresno rapper Fashawn‘s Sunch School series, which is building up to his new mixtape, Higher Learning 2. Production by Phonix, and he did some nice slicing and dicing on “We Are the Champions” on this one. Of course, Fashawn is going hard. Dig on the track below. If you like it, try out Fashawn’s previous mixtape.

MP3: Fashawn- Manny Pacquiao (Prod. by Phonix)

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Fashawn- “Dark Fantasy Freestyle” ‡ MP3

These past few weeks have a been a little surreal. When I’m not busy figuring out myself, I’m trying to figure out the people who follow me. I can’t say all the hype has changed my point of view on the new Kanye record–I feel the way I feel, so sue me. But for me, watching the internet buzz unfold exposed some gears in the hype machine.

Will we gain some kind of new focus from all the talk surrounding this album, or will our attention be snatched as soon as the hottest new commodity comes along? It’s happened time and time again this year. It happened last year, too. Will this time be different? Remember the excitement around this album?

I think people just like consuming music, and everyone loves hearing something new. This Kanye will fall into the grey, and it’s got nothing to do with being perfect or awful. Albums both immaculate and mediocre suffer this fate because of the speed at which we plow through albums, music videos, remixes, and singles. Yes, this will even happen to albums I’ve liked this year.

Maybe shelf life is overrated.

The truth is all the positive and negative vibes only last as long as attention spans do. Albums of the year are forgotten because we desperately need to make room for the next album of the year. Is that because we’re dolts? Nah. We’ve just got a lot of tunage at our fingertips, and it’s hard to say “no” when the next song you search for could be better than the previous.

The following track is a freestyle from one of my favorite MCs on the West Coast: Fashawn. He dropped it last night via On Smash, and he’s spitting all over the first beat from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It’s an extremely ballsy move, but he’s one of the few guys out there right now who could pull it off.

MP3: Fashawn- Dark Fantasy Freestyle

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Fashawn- “Bart Simpson” ‡ VIDEO

Early this year, I talked up rapper Fashawn’s full-length debut, Boy Meets World. Building up to the release of that album, he was putting out mixtapes like a madman, and he still is–even though he’s got another album slated for 2011.

Fashawn’s latest mixtape is Grizzly City 3. The video above is for “Bart Simpson,” which is the 10th track on it. Grab a download link below:

Mixtape .zip: Fashawn- Grizzly City 3
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Fashawn- Ode To Illimatic Mixtape | MP3

New mixtape from Fresno rapper Fashawn. Every track is a remix of a song from Nas‘ seminal Illimatic. Download it below via XXL:

ZIP: Fashawn- Ode To Illimatic Mixtape

Is this a lengthy, heartfelt tribute, or some extreme hero worshiping? What do you think of Illimatic? Is it in your top-10 of hip hop albums? Top-5? 2?

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