K-OS Rocks Free Show @ Concrete Beach UWO

This year Western students had the opportunity to see Canadian hip-hop legend K-os live at Concrete Beach right on UWO campus. The free show was brought to UWO students compliments of the USC who in this author’s opinion have stepped their game up this frosh week.  K-os started dropping “ill philosophical science” around 6pm, blessing the crowd with a blend of classics infused with a couple joints of his new (also FREE) release The Anchorman Mixtape.  K-os, arguably one of the most talented Canadian entertainers of all time reminded us exactly why he has been so successful at this free show.  From his Heaven Only Knows rendition over Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven to his “off the top” freestyles shouting out Western and the students that had come out to see him, the man connects with the audience.  K-os is an artist who never forgot where he came from — you can hear it in his music and see it in his demeanor.  The humble swagger that makes him so different from most stars on the scene is also what makes him great.

Western’s student newspaper The Gazette sat down with K-os after the show to ask him a few questions,  you can read that interview here.

3D Optical Illusion Drives Home A Message.

As the school year begins and kids flood the streets during peak hours, a reminder to exercise safety and caution is in order. West Vancouver has found an innovative way to do so.

3D pavement art of a little girl chasing a ball is painted in high risk areas and school zones. In the driver seat, it will look like so:

The goal is to draw attention to the risks of hitting children. But will it work? Or will drivers become desensitized to little Suzy chasing her pink ball and continue driving, all the while a real child chases her real ball down the exact location?

Let’s hope for the former on this one.

Learn more at Preventable.

Kanye x Pusha T – “Runaway” (Live @ VMA’s)

“You’ve been putting up with my shit too long”

“Lets have a toast for the douche bags; lets have a toast for the assholes, lets have a toast for the scumbags”

So, Kanye debuted his new collaboration with Pusha T (half of The Clipse), and i’ll be honest…it sounds just like his Twitter overshares from a week or so past. Not to say the song is bad, I think its pretty fuckin’ dope. The samples and piano keys are eerie and haunting (much like the silence in Kanye’s mansion after he was excommunicated for the Taylor-Gate incident). In general the song sounds like a bit of an ironic half-apology/taking a shot at all the people who lambasted Kanye in the media for being a complete douchebag.

VMA Note:

The drama between Kanye and Taylor Swift seemed to overshadow the entire proceeding. A rumoured duet between the two stars never came together, but there was obviously connection between the two in their solo on-stage performances. Taylor sung “Innocent”, an olive-branch song directed at Kanye that seemed to empathize with his tough time in the spotlight. Kanye’s new song “Runaway” is a candid admission of his lesser qualities (ego, doucheyness, negativity).

This Underwater Video Is So Cool I Can’t Describe It

So, like I said in the title, I don’t have the words to describe how cool this is, but i’ll give you the details. This dude is Guillaume Nery, the World Champion Free Diver. This big ass hole he is swimming into is Dean’s Blue Hole (Bahamas), the deepest submarine sinkhole in the world. Its 202 metres deep. Thats 623 feet. For reference, the CN Tower is 1800 feet tall. Think about how CRAZY DEEP THAT IS….

For those of you who are interested, the soundtrack song is “You Make Me Feel”, by Archive.

The Craigslist Follies: Prostitution & Ambush Interviews

Craig Newmark is the creator of the most prevalent online classified-advertisement site in North America: Craigslist. Two things can be said about ol’ Craig:

1) He is not very creative
2) He folds like a cheap lawn chair in awkward interview situations citing the lack of action by his company to tackle the use of his product as a “the Walmart for sex trafficking” for exploiting women and children, as accused by victims’ advocacy groups across the United States.

In May 2009, Craigslist announced that they would manually screen ads to protect women and children being exploited by predators on the website.

"I am Amber Lyon, hear me ROAR...in defeat as my nerdly mouth-breathing prey runs away."

To test this, CNN reporter Amber Lyon created an advertisement offering sexual favours for the price of $200 per hour, and included a phone number. Before being deleted after two days of public viewing, the cell phone number was “ringing off the hook” allegedly. We can clearly draw a clear conclusion from this: Craigslist is doing dick-all to stop the posting of sex trade advertisements. In fact, of the hundreds of thousands of posted ads in the adult services section, officials can only find records of approximately 100 reports from Craigslist.

However, this month the site decided to remove its adult services section completely, and cover it with a black “censored” bar. Amber Lyon took the results of her foray into Craigslist’s dirty back-alley sex trade, and confronted Craig Newmark outside a conference he was speaking at. The street-interview is a complete disaster. Newmark practically has a brain meltdown and runs away from the camera on questions like these:

• “What are you doing to protect these girls?”
• “Who’s responsibility is it to report these ads?”

In his defense, Newmark seems like a pretty normal computer nerd, with the social skills to match and maybe a sweet case of Aspergers to boot. Amber Lyon, however, has a smile like a lion and an even more carnivorous attitude in the interview. Here’s the link to the full CNN article, and here’s the link to Newmark’s response letter on The Huffington Post. Thank God Interestingly, Canada’s Adult Services section remains accessible, and between you and me…its weird in there.

What do you think? How should Craigslist and other online classified ad sites be held accountable for the activity on their domain?

“Puppy Gate”: 4Chan Tracks Down Bosnian Puppy Killer

(Animal lovers may not like the content of this article AKA Youtube footage of a misadjusted Bosnian girl drowning a bucket of puppies in a river )

The newest “Gate” incident we have is Puppy Gate, and thanks to those trolling basement-dwelling do-gooders at 4Chan the Puppy Gate case can be closed.The Interwebz was stormed by chilling footage of a blonde teenaged female hucking puppies into a river like she’s playing in a 6th grade slo-pitch match. I’m no animal lover (frankly, I have two cats and I hate them), but this shit is fucked up.

Questioning why the video was posted seems like a moot point now seeing as how this girl’s life is probably in shambles now. Word of this evildoing spread quickly and justice was demanded. Rising from the bottom of Social Darwinism’s barrel, 4Chan has come to the rescue yet again, and helped to identify theperpetrator. Trolling day and night, 4Channers tracked the video to a Youtube account in Bosnia, uncovered the owner’s Facebook page, and then analyzed the videographer’s Facebook friends to identify this girl. Bosnian police have since arrested the girl in question, and a shoddily made Youtube apology has been posted that apologizes for the girl’s actions

At this point, a few serious questions are raised, neither of which are related:

A) Why was this being recorded in the first place? Different reasons have been tossed around for why this girl did this, the most popular excuse being that her grandmother told her to do it, because the dogs were “sick”. If this was a farm-hand task, and not something sociopathic, why did it need to be recorded for posterity?

B) Do 4Channers have the right to do this to people? Cat Bin Lady, and now Puppy Drowner Girl, have fallen to the keyboard strokes and mouse-clicks of a bunch of computer nerds. The term “digital lynch mob” springs to mind, brandishing .gifs of flaming torches and pitchforks. An administrator on Reddit posted this letter to all users and I can say I definitely agree with him when he calls for users to stop posting people’s personal information on public domain for malicious purposes. He closes with this line: “You are seriously messing with innocent people’s lives and you have no right to do so. Fucking quit it.”

Now you know the story of Puppy Gate. Now ain’t that some shit.

Other Resources FYI

Reddit Thread:
Mashable Article

The Chef’s Career is Cooking

Fresh off a unique (and surprising) remix of Justin Bieber’s “Runaway Love” Wu-Tang legend Raekwon the Chef did an interesting interview with New York Magazine’s Vulture. Here are some choice cuts:

ON HIS HOT STREAK STIRRED BY THE RELEASE OF ONLY BUILT 4 CUBAN LINX 2:

Raekwon: It’s been prosperous, difficult, and definitely refreshing. I say “prosperous” because we’ve gained so many points in so many different ways in the industry, as well as with our fans, and they give you the motivation. I know that the key to really being relevant in the game is just being prosperous. Difficult, meaning it’s a new industry, so you definitely have to see how things work inside the business now, and it took me a minute to really understand how things is working. It’s a whole new system, it’s a whole new generation of kids, a whole new industry that I really had to really adjust to. Being the CEO now of my own company, things wasn’t really easy as I thought it would be, but it kind of gave me both sides to look at, as far as being an artist and being a chief vocalist. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears situations, and it’s all about balance, and I think I had to really learn that.

On the reception to his “Runaway Love” remix with Justin Bieber & Kanye West:

Raekwon: I’ve been getting a great response. It’s been a couple of mixed feelings on the net. It’s all good. It makes me laugh to know how people feel about certain things, but for the most part, everybody appreciated it. You almost feel like somebody wants to down you, but then when they hear it, it’s like you can’t really speak bad about it. Me, as somebody that’s an O.G. in the game, an old school legend, however you wanna call it, he gave me an opportunity to reach the young youth. And he’s a newb right now, so if he needs my assistance, of course I’m a be there to show my support.

Everybody stayed in they element. Rae didn’t go away from his element. I gave it to it according to what I felt. I think [Bieber’s] a talented young cat, and I wanted to be a part of that, so really anything else after that is just history being made again. He wasn’t around while we was doing our thing, but at the same token, he acknowledges us, we acknowledge him. We got his back. That’s how I wanted to come at the situation, and I think a lot of people was looking at it like “the collaboration sounds crazy,” but you can’t front on me and Kanye. You can’t front on Justin. We all got great careers, and we’ve been successful through our trials already, you know.

ON JUSTIN BIEBER’S KNOWLEDGE OF HIM:

Raekwon: I was surprised, more or less, that he was down for the get-down, which is, wanting to make that happen. But everybody calls me “Chef” in the game, and I’m sure that he’s a hip-hopper. He’s up on Wu-Tang. I’m sure that the cats he be around, they let him know what’s real and who’s who, so I wasn’t really shocked on that note, I was more shocked that he would have wanted to do something. That part made me feel good.

ON HIS WORK WITH KANYE WEST:

Raekwon: We’re discussing things, and we definitely agreed to put in some more work together soon, so you’re gonna see something happen real soon. Real, real soon. At the end of the day, we’ve always been in the game as peers and friends. I’ve known Kanye for a while. We never got that opportunity to work together, but now things is happening. Yeah, get ready for it. You’re gonna hear some things.

For the the full interview, click here.

How Dope Is Your Mojo?

Kid Cudi. “Mojo So Dope”. Released earlier this summer, off of his upcoming album. This song has made me into a Cudi fan so I wanted to share it with you all. Can’t take it off repeat, the beat meshes with his style too proper to stop ‘er…smoke an L and take it in.

Conan O’Brien Reveals the Name of His New Show

After battling it out with NBC and being banned from television until September, Conan O’Brien is about to reclaim his place in the realm of late night. The new show, simply entitled Conan will air on TBS starting November 8.

Cee-Lo Green: Official “F**k You” Video

As if his first video for his latest single, “Fuck You” wasn’t good enough, Cee-Lo decided to get on set and make it official. “Fuck You” is coming out of his anticipated album The Ladykiller set to debut in the fall.

Be prepared to smile. This video is catchier than STDs.

Now ain’t that some shit.