[ May 24, 2009 3:00 pm to May 25, 2009 2:00 am. ] Rhythm Lab Radio and Needledrop.net is proud to welcome the 5th Annual Live At the BBQ at MOCT in Milwaukee this Sunday, May 24th, 2009. Do not miss the 8 DJs, great drink specials and Milwaukee’s best food from Bubb’s Texas Style BBQ.

In case you missed last’s weeks Rhythm Lab Radio, our friend Karen P blessed us with another great segment. She presented her favorite sessions from her live event called Broad Casting.

It has been over 5 years since the Rhymesayers duo Eyedea & Abilities graced us with a full length release. The album E&A was released back in 1994. Since then, Eyedea has done different side projects, and Abilities now lives in Milwaukee. I got wind of a fortcoming record from Milwaukee’s DJ Deadbeat and Kid Millions. They both told me the music on E&A’s record entitled “By The Throat” was amazing.

[ May 24, 2009; ] Minneapolis and St. Paul has become a city that has become a major player in Hip Hop within less than 10 years. In some cases, even bigger than Chicago partly due to the label Rhymesayers home of Atmosphere, POS, Brother Ali, and others. Also the support of the venues, bloggers, and even commercial media to some extent has helped put the Twin Cities on the map.

What is it with soft drinks and alcoholic beverages getting involve with releasing music and putting on tours. You Mountain Dew has Green Label Sound, Red Bull has Red Bull Music Academy, Southern Comfort had the SoCo Music Experience and now Bacardi is getting into the act.

I don’t know how I miss this, but I did. From the land of my old stomping grounds, Wale, Tabi Bonney, The Five One is a band out of the DMV(DC, Maryland, Virgina). The Five One consists of 4 members represented by colors: Red, Blue, Green and Gold, and they actually wear their colors so not to be confusing.

Whether you have a Blackberry or an iPhone, you must admit their have been a lot of creative apps for the iPhone. From app that allows you compose songs to even Diplo’s label Mad Decent effects app, the iPhone is becoming a swiss army knife of information. Apple iPhone sales in 2008 grew 245% which means more developers are going to create even more applications. What I like about the iPhone is the iPhone SDK which allows anyone from an hobbyist to a corporation to create an app.

I’m a big fan of fan made music videos. Some of them are really good, and better than the original video. This fan made video was for the song Robocop off of Kanye West’s 808 and Heartbreaks. The video was created by Myk Dawg. It looks like he chopped up an old 8 bit video game. On the contrary, It is a completely original and made from scratch.

2009 is shaping out to be a great year for music. Amp Live of Zion I and the amazing Rainy Dayz Radiohead remix project is set to release a new project of electro hop on his label Child’s Play a parent of Om Records. Amp Live is setting himself as the next Danger Mouse. He is becoming one of the producers that can take hip hop to the next level.

Mos Def is returning to true form with his forthcoming album The Ecstatic to be release on Downtown Records which is the same label as Santigold, Amanda Blank and Gnarls Barkley. From his epic “Life in Marvelous Times” to his new song Casa Bey, Mos Def is going to have one of the most anticipated albums of 2009.

While I was checking out the Red Bull Music Academy’s Various Assets from their promotion package, I came across this artist by the name of Piper Davis out of Vancouver, Canada. Her voice was so intriguing I had to find out more about her. She attended the RBMA Barcelona session back in 2008.

After I came back from the inauguration, I compiled my pictures into a short video using Sam Cooke’s “A Chang is Gonna Come” (which I own on vinyl, cd, and digital via iTunes) and uploaded it to Facebook, and Youtube. A few days later, Facebook and Youtube yanked my video or yanked the music from my little slideshow due to copyright infringement. Note I “own” the song in three various forms. I was not giving the song away, but playing with some pictures to share with my friends. If that is copyright infringement to put a song in a slideshow for friends, it must be copyright infringement for me to play the same song in my house, at work or at a beach for my friends, right?

While the sound of Retro-Soul is almost everywhere, the sound of future soul and electro-soul or whatever the media is calling it today is bubbling under the surface with artists like Kissey Asplund, Muhsinah, Georgia Anne Muldrow, J*Davey and others. Will there be an Amy Winehouse for this new type of soul? To be honest, I don’t know. But I can I tell you this: the duo of New Look is group not to be overlooked.

On this past week’s Rhythm Lab Radio we had a special guest mix from three of Wisconsin’s finest DJs of Culture Culture. Within one mix, we actually had three mini mixes from OCD Automatic, Diamonds from The Glamour and Double Drop which you can grab after the jump. We also had music from NYC Electro-Soul duo New Look, Mickey Factz, UK’s La Roux, Georgia Anne Muldrow, El Michel’s Affair, Ramir Musotto and more.

This is probably one of the coolest schools in the world. For almost 10 years, The Red Bull Music Academy has been putting on two week sessions with musicians, dj, singers, producers from all over the world in various international cities including Barcelona, New York, Berlin, Sao Paulo, and Melbourne. For two weeks, the artists attend lectures, workshops, tour the city’s music scene, and collaboration. This year’s session returns to where it all started – London.

I don’t know what it is about Erykah Badu but she seems to be from another planet one moment, then without notice she is the girl next door. She exudes this spiritual sexuality which is hard to explain. Try capturing that energy in a painting. That is what artist Steven Lopez did with the above painting called “Amerykhan Promise”. Steven Lopez has done other paintings of various artists including Sade, Minnie Ripperton, Jill Scott, Tina Turner, and more. He calls this series of portraits “After Midnight”. I think the painting captures the essence of Badu’s energy and spirit.