FRESH: Drake ~ Draft Day

Last night, Drake released an unforeseen track, "Draft Day," with perfect timing in anticipation for the upcoming NFL and NBA 2014 drafts. With several name-drops, whether explicit or not, and a sampled Lauryn Hill, this song is sure to garner attention from the hip hop community.

Drake opens up the song with a sample from Lauryn Hill's 1998 hit "Doo Wop," along with recognition to college football and basketball phenoms: Johnny Manziel and Andrew Wiggins, respectively. He continues with his usual braggadocio theme over this lighthearted beat until he delivers a soft hit to Chance, but not without disclaimer: "And if I left this shit to chance, I would've picked a name like Chance the Rapper / No offense cause I don't know that nigga." Shortly after, Drake ostensibly revives tension between he and Jay-Z, with the line, "Just hits, no Mrs. / That's for the married folks." This was likely in response to the statement Jay-Z made directly to Drake on the 'We Made It' remix which also featured Jay Electronica; this back-and-forth between Hov and Drake could possibly extend into further songs, as it hasn't seemed to dissolve thus far.

Don't stop listening to the song just yet, Drake still has a few names up his sleeve. He pays homage to Jose Canseco and his use of 'roids during his MLB career, along with unexpected and unrelated shout-outs to Jennifer Lawrence:

"On some Hunger Games shit I would die for my district / Jennifer Lawrence you can really get it / I mean for real girl, you know I had to do it for ya"

It seems like Drake has got into a rhythm with his tracks, releasing several songs that are either leftovers from NWTS or simply side-tracks that he's been doing for fun. Either way, we should hope to hear some more non-album songs in the future.

album review: "Supermodel"

Artist: Foster the People
Genre: Indie Rock, Synthwave, Indie Pop
SOT's: "Are You What You Want To Be?", "Pseudologia Fantastica", "Best Friend", "A Beginner's Guide To Destroying The Moon"

Returning to the music scene following their successful debut studio album Torches in 2011, Foster the People come back at full force with their sophomore effort, Supermodel. As many of you will notice when listening to this record, Supermodel focuses a lot more on experimentation & symbolism that maintains some key aspects of their old sound while also incorporating new genres and instrumentation styles to bring us a refreshing, matured collection of songs. What makes this album so interesting is that it will serve as the successor to the band's exponential fame arising from their hit song "Pumped Up Kicks" (which received months of radio airplay on multiple stations), which ultimately determines Foster the People's status as either a one-time hit, or a genuinely talented group.

COMME des GARCONS SHIRT x Supreme 2014 S/S - Review

Last week, Supreme announced the release of their 3rd collaboration with the Japanese designer line Comme des Garcons SHIRT for the upcoming spring season. The underlying theme of this collab is an homage to the late NYC skater, Harold Hunter, featuring the notorious polka dot patterning that we are all familiar with, along with the introduction of some striping as well. Moreover, Supreme will be donation a portion of their earnings to the Harold Hunter Foundation, which is a nice little touch of philanthropy on their part. Anyways, let's take a look at some of highly anticipated pieces that just released this morning.

top 13 albums of '13

We're three months into 2014, and pretty dry on new music quite frankly. But remember all the golden releases we saw the previous year? From Earl Sweatshirt's epic return from Samoan hiatus, to QOTSA's Josh Homme's revival from his near-death experience, arrival of new contenders such as Chance and Lorde, and so much more. We've heard the extraordinary comebacks. The "it was alright" albums. The absolute disappointments. Forget the last two; here are the 13 ranked albums we enjoyed the most from 2013.

album review: "Atlas"

Artist: Real Estate
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Rock
SOT's: "Past Lives", "Talking Backwards", "April's Song", "How Might I Live"

Atlas is the third release by New Jersey based, indie rock band Real Estate. After discovering one of my favourite songs of all time, I gave their sophomore release Days a listen, only to be a little disappointed with an overall homogeneous and indistinguishable sound. Atlas carries somewhat the same sound with it from it's previous album, however some songs in this record carry more emotion and feeling to it, and we can hear Real Estate take some risks by experimenting with guitar distortion effects and more sentimental lyricism. However, the homogeneity isn't all that bad; Real Estate's lethargic sound is based off of their melodic dual acoustic riffs, intricately soft folk-sound, and lead singer Martin Courtney's monotonic, yet harmonic vocals.