Captured this image at a separate USC show recently. Another frat, another party. This time is was Mickey Factz, Pac Div and Wale. Just a random shot I wanted to throw up. Photo after the cut.

The Fresh Air Tour touched down at the famed El Rey Theater. This was the tour that featured Brother Ali, Evidence and Toki Wright; an indie hip hop fan’s dream lineup. The venue looked to be filled to capacity by the time I got there with Staff Pro providing the full pat down. I remember sneaking my video camera in this spot so many times to capture visuals for my show, Tha Session. Those days are looooong gone now that Golden Voice has taken over. Sad. It’s so bad that you cant even take chewing gum inside.

I’m only a recent fan of Brother Ali, but everything I’ve heard him spit has been fire. We’ve had the opportunity to interview him for Hip Hop Official, but I never really had a chance to watch him Master the Ceremony like I did that night. He truly has a gift and I think we need more voices like his, not only in Hip Hop, but music in general. If you haven’t heard his music, I suggest checking out “The Undisputed Truth”. He really is a gifted MC with something heartfelt and important to say.

Now Evidence is a different story. I’ve been a fan of Dilated Peoples for quite some time, but I’ve never been fully satisfied with their full length albums. It’s always been a song here, a song there, but never a full album. I remember hearing them a while ago on Mike Nardone’s, We Came From Beyond (RIP) radio show and over the years with their various releases. But I always supported because first they’re from LA and whenever I’ve met them they’ve always been mad cool. Come 2007, and Ev’s, The Weatherman LP and shit changed. That albums was so fucking dope. It’s still in rotation 2 years later. Maybe it was the beat selection or merely the feeling that Ev had really stepped up his mic skills, whatever it was, I loved that album. Completely solid, no excessive guest appearances and the production was truly on point. With tracks from Alchemist, DJ Khalil, Babu, Jake One, as well as Ev himself, this album was nothing to sleep on. Either way, here’s some photos from the show at the El Rey Theatre. There was another special “LA” guest that touched the stage that night as well.
-D

A few months back we had the opportunity to cover up and coming singer/songwriter/producer, Mike Posner. He recently dropped a new mixtape entitled, One Foot Out The Door, which I must say pretty tight. It has a strong pop sound to it and it features a number of guest MC’s including G.O.O.D. Music’s Big Sean, Freddie Gibbs and Kid Cudi. He’s definitely going to be an artist to watch in 2010.

Back to the story; we met up with Mike and his manager, Daniel from Elitaste over at their sound check at The Roxy Theater and from there my producer Kevin rode with Mike and crew down to their first of two shows that night. One of the USC Frats had organized an parking lot concert  and Mike was gonna touch the stage for all the lovely coed’s in attendance. (Side note: I MISS COLLEGE). I’d just bought my Canon 7D and this was a perfect opportunity to give it a real world test on both the video and photo sides. I shot on a Tamron 28 – 80mm lens. The results on the still’s side were much better than what I got on the video. Definitely needed a faster lens for that night shoot, but we were able to get enough b-roll to drop into our bigger piece. Check out the edited version below.

This was a 1 camera (HVX-200) shoot out in the LBC. I went out to enjoy the show as well as capture some good visuals of Talib’s new group, Idle Warship. I had to shoot multiple angles to make the cut interesting and then when I got back to edit I realized I needed more. Still,  I think the edit turned out pretty hot and it received some pretty positive comments on Youtube. Video after the cut.