Whats better than one GREAT Nicki Minaj verse? TWO! Of course. To follow-up her stellar performance on Kanye’s Monster (scroll down a bit), I figured what da hell let’s go straight into the Harajuku Barbie’s latest 80′s inspired manic schizoid opus! Will.I.Am samples the Buggles ‘Video Killed the Radio Star‘. This was the first video to ever air on MTV coincidentally and as I listen to the artist formally known as Will.I.Am do whatever it is he is calling what he is doing these days….sigh….I can’t help but think that he, Will.I.Am, is killing the radio star all over again.

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(A half star was lost due to Will.I.Am’s bit, but keep in mind every Nicki Minaj track gets a half star bump )

Last week ‘This Guy’ posted this song. And I couldn’t help but think DAMN……me and ‘This Guy’ are always on the same S#!T!!!!! This week’s UK Funky mix is filled with tracks from Katy B, who I am sure I will be highlighting for years to come on this here blog thingy we done started. Anywho you should thank me when you see me in these here streets for this mix by your boy DJ Vital Sines……..as usual. (maybe we should be thanking him actually…lol)

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Download mix here!

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Shadrach Kabango aka Shad can be found on stages with the likes of K’Naan or K-os from his native Canada. His praises can be found on blogs from Kevin Nottingham to Kanye’s blog to Okayplayer. This remix by Oddisee of Shad’s first single off his album TSOL is bananas. Check @ Shadk.com for all the info you could possibly need to know or not know about young Shad. Be sure to peep a video or two as well under the music tab.

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This guy Pill has created quite the buzz for himself. He was featured in XXL Magazine’s Top 10 Freshmen of 2010. But on this track, to me, Young Dro steals the show. I used to think Dro was a twit. But after listening to a couple of his flows minus the backing bass tracks (we call those acapellas), I realized Dro knew a thing or two about piecing together a flow. Take a hit!

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Does any female in this solar system have a chance of sniffing the female MC throne which has been painted pink by Nicki Minaj????? MY favorite bloggers over at RCRD LBLhad this to say about young Azealia Banks.

Officially, Azealia Banks scares the shit out of me. Not because she can rap lipstick circles around Nicki Minaj, or because she recently unveiled a seriously sultry singing voice on her cover of Interpol’s “Slow Hands,” it’s mainly because in 90 seconds she’s able to display more sex appeal, swagger and skill than most MCs take entire careers to conjure.

Hmmmmm…..I have my opinions (and obsessions) that you are well aware of……….but I will let you form your own.

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I was introduced to Black Milk by my guy from the CHI(town) DJ Kwest_on. He gave me two releases. Elec, a mixtape, and Tronic, the follow up album. Wikipedia says Black Milk has been around since the early 2000s. It took me 5 years to catch on but I have since spread the word. The Urban Daily said (and wikipedia agreed) that Mr. Milk was to release 3 projects this year, one of them being his next solo album entitled, Album Of The Year. I haven’t heard any of the other two projects but I likes this right here.

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Back to work kids. Can’t no virus hold me down. Can’t stop won’t stop. Best of all its O-Gee Week so this week’s mix although late is an old school 90′s mix of some UK Funky or back then it would be called ‘garage’ pronounced like adage (those damn brits and their tight jeans and accents). Thanks for this one AGAIN DJ Vital Sines.

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This is some kind of thing that VonSwayne would usually give us on his Weekly humpday mix. The Count and Sinden released their debut album Mega Mega Mega, and it is a huge load of fun dirty electro house. Tracks like this:

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It is available on Amazon, although it is pricey because it is still only on import.

Diggy’s voice is breaking (dude is only 15) so every single he releases sounds a little different than the one before, and I am as yet undecided as to whether that is a good or bad thing. Question: would Pharell and Lupe feature on a mediocre Diggy single as this if he wasn’t the son of Rev Run? Probably not. Should we hate hate hate him for his fortunate family situation, something he really could not control. Probably not. Will we anyway? You betcha.

This single is off his upcoming Airborne EP.

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When Lupe is good, he is very very good. This is off his upcoming album, formerly “Lasers” now rumored to be called “Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album”- a mouthful.

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Even a self-confessed Swizz Beatz hater like myself cannot deny he did his thing on this remix. It takes a while to get to it, but he flips Snap’s ‘The Power’ pretty well. (Yes it is an obvious sample, but still).

Kanye’s verse sounds like a freestyle, which still makes it better than 99 percent of what’s out there. The rapper-formerly-known-as-Jay-Z is on here too:

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Von Swayne’s computer is on the fritz, so in lieu of a UK Funky humpday mix, we have a mixtape download to get you through the hump- an artist mixtape rather than dj mixtape of the sort we feature on Mondays.

With the release of The Slim Shady LP in 1999, Eminem proved what Vanilla Ice never could- that a white rapper could have street cred and achieve cross-over success. It is the formula for chart success and everyone thought rap music would be taken over by white rappers.

That did not happen, mainly because it is not white/black thing, it is a poor/middle-class thing. It is a class issue more than it is a race issue. But now that a generation of kids have grown up unaware that there once existed a world in which hip-hop was fringe music, we are beginning to see white kids make the kind of rap music that white kids will like instead of approximating black culture.

Case in point: Mac Miller. The Pittsburgh rapper recently released a mixtape that is going onto the ol’ ipod in its entirety(!!) because a) it is devoid of any annoying dj shout outs (thanks for ruining the world for us DJ Clue) and b) it is really, really, really good:

• Outside:

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• Nike’s on my feet:

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• Ride Around: (the sample use here is sick!):

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You can download the entire project here. Cost: free ninety-nine.