Milli (Exile Re-Edit)

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:22:10 -0000

Exile "Milli" Video

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:53:14 -0000

Exile "Milli" Video from Jonathan Kim on Vimeo.

Exile "Radio" drops Jan. 20th on Plug Research.

Single for "Stay Tuned" out now (Buy it on iTunes)

Imeem Presents: Creme De La Creme Mixtape

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:15:08 -0000

Creme de la Creme The Mixtape

LINKS TO BUY: C.R.A.C. - THE PIECE TALKS

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:08:45 -0000

Exclusive interview with Hip Hop DX

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:36:27 -0000

In 2007, HipHopDX.com deemed Los Angeles' Blu the "Rookie of the Year" [click to here to read...]. Through a perceived debut, the Sound In Color Records artist used non-fiction raps, tangible themes and a wealth of a personality to match partner Exile's menagerie of samples. With a C.R.A.C. project in tow, and a standout performance at this past weekend's A3C Hip Hop Festival in Atlanta, we saw it fitting to revisit one of the hardest working artists in Hip Hop.

Below the Heavens took a hold of my emotions (the experience) and ear (the lyrics) in a fashion that’s hasn’t been done since…since…well, ever. It would be cliché to say it’s the next coming of Illmatic. In reality, it’s nothing more then the unfiltered tale of John “Blu” Barnes, an emcee who will be deeply intertwined with the future of Hip Hop. If you haven’t already, take a moment to get to know Blu.

“Son of a blood with blue gators on”

DX: You briefly talk about your mother and father on Below the Heavens. What kind of people were they?
Blu: Right before they had me, they were happy and young. My mom was 16 when she had me and my dad was like 21. Then I came around and they had to deal with life. They separated and my dad went on his way. My mom went on her's and married a reverend [pauses]. Neither of them were really that into music. My dad liked gangster rap. My mom liked Gospel music.

“Exposing what you holding, like your soul don’t matter”

DX: There’s a real spiritual, church-like undertone to Below the Heavens. Is that a product of listening to Gospel while growing up or being raised with a reverend in the house or both?
Blu: Definitely, all of those combined and just being in the church. The vibe church gives me is just crazy. I have like an infatuation with the church. I’m not really religious. And it’s not like I go there and get saved or anything like that but it’s just what it does for people is pretty dope to me. I like to see people come in one way and leave another way. There are so many different aspects you can cover on church. But that definitely influenced me amongst other things. One of the things that influenced the journey on Below the Heavens was…God. I talk about everything that’s important to me in my life and God gets the most reference.

“But I got 11 siblings so it’s like I got kids…”

DX: You grew up with 12 siblings. What was that like coming up?
Blu: I ain’t grow up with all 12 of them. My mom has nine kids in total, including me. My dad has three. For a while, on my mom’s side, I was raising all the babies. That…changed my life. That was real vital to me growing up because I was pretty young at the time. This was elementary, junior high and a little bit of high school when I was raising them. I would be changing diapers while my parents were working late. So it gave me this love for children. I really love kids and just watching life progress and shit.

“I was trying to be a pro baller…”

DX: On the Below the Heavens, you talk about hooping when you were in high school. What made you make transition from hoop dreams to a full time rapper?
Blu: Each year some shit kept getting fucked up. In 9th grade I was straight so I played on junior varsity. Then I moved to San Pedro in 10th grade so I couldn’t make the team because I was new to the school. Next year I made varsity and then it was my grades. Next year, I made varsity. I was the star and all that shit. Then I broke my ankle dunking at practice. [Laughs] So I was pretty much like, "Fuck basketball." I was a much better rapper anyway. And I was more respected as a rapper by then. So after that I left it alone totally. I even stopped watching basketball on TV. Penny Hardaway was my shit…when he started falling off I started spitting. [Laughs]

DX: Who were some of the emcees that influenced you to get into rap?
Blu: As I was coming up, the rapper that made me want to rap was DMX. I got DMX’s first album It’s Dark and Hell is Hot and I was like, "Oh shit I gotta be a rapper." I thought Mase was dope too. That’s what actually got me into DMX. From there, I went from DMX to Redman to Canibus. “4, 3, 2, 1” was my shit. Then I got into Common. I actually heard “I Used to Love H.E.R.” after missing the first album. When I heard it, it really changed my life. I felt like I had heard Hip Hop for the first time. It made me change my content and my whole approach. It made me serious about writing and wanting to say something.

DX: Who inspires you now?
Blu: A lot of my influences now come from older music. I got into stuff while growing up like Curtis Mayfield, Al Green and Marvin Gaye. I listened to a lot of Jazz that my grandparents were listening to like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Dorothy Ashby. My musical approach even more so right now is influenced by the scene in L.A. like Sa-Ra, Flying Lotus, J. Davey, Ta’Raach, Madlib. The L.A. scene is kind of smashing cats. It’s not street or Hip Hop but it’s all rooted from both. It’s kind of like people say Hip Hop is dead but it’s not. It’s true but only in the sense of that original feeling or sound not being replicated well. But if you open up your ears you can see where Hip Hop is going. It’s just branched off. A lot of new artists are merging many different genres of music. Everybody in L.A. pretty much does like 3 genres of music when they put out a record. It’s not just Hip Hop. It’s not just R&B or Jazz or Funk. It’s all that meshed together.

“My first fuck was that year still I don’t call her/my own father brought me over to her house that weekend/he was cheating/so I lost my big V while he was beating.”

DX: Did your pops really take you to lose your virginity?
Blu: Yeah, that’s a true story. I lost my virginity while my pops was smashing some chick on the side. He took me over to old girl’s crib like, “Don’t tell your mom,” (Blu’s step-mom). And she had some cute ass daughters that were older than me and it just went down that night. And I was just like…word. [Laughs]

“I got a call from my girl last week/she telling me about that time of month and how it may not come/dropped the phone right before she said I might have a son.”

DX: How did this story end? Did you end up having a child?
Blu: Naw, that story is actually not true. It happened but it didn’t happen like that. It’s what goes on…the thoughts. I’ve experienced a few abortions in my life. And I still don’t have a child and that was something that really affected me. I wanted to talk about it somehow. I just decided to spit what was going through my head at the time when she told me that. I know people that have been through the same situation. But I didn’t want to put an ending on it because people have different outcomes to that situation and eventually I’d like to have a different outcome with that situation.

"What nigga/I skipped class and school a few times but I ain’t dumb nigga/pitched grass a few times but I don’t pump nigga,"

DX: So you were pitching weed?
Blu: Yeah, that was some real quick shit. That was like fun. [Laughs] I wasn’t really working or nothing at the time. I was just kicking it and writing raps. I would have different roommates throughout my life that slanged weed. So I was like shit I don’t have no burger today, I guess I’ll flip a couple dubs. [Laughs] Now and then I’d pick up a couple bags and start pushing. But I left it alone. The second time I think I ended up in debt or something. I wasn’t that good at it. It’s just something I did to past time.

DX: You’ve lived all over Southern California. What were the circumstances that kept you moving?
Blu: I was raised like that so I just continued to do it. My mom moved around a lot and when I moved in with my dad it was somewhat stable but that was only two years of my life. I went to three different schools in 6th grade and 12th grade. I’d go from a nice crib to an apartment. It was just…life. When I got out of school, I didn’t graduate and didn’t have a job so I just decided to rap for a living. But no one was really checking for me. So I was just moving everywhere. I had mad homies from all over so I’d just be like, "Yo let me crash on your couch for like three months." [Laughs] I wouldn’t say that, but it would go down like that for three months here or six months there. I found myself in some nice situations like living in a four million dollar beach house on the shore. That was for three months of my life. That shit was ridiculous. Now I live in a cabin in the middle of Los Angeles in an alley, but you know, that’s life. [Laughs]

DX: Earlier you mentioned how much Ta’Raach inspired you. You two are working on a project right now called C.R.A.C. Can you tell me about how that came about?
Blu: At the time I was recording with Exile, who Aloe Blacc hooked me up with. Aloe called me one day and told me he was recording an EP with Ta’Raach. He was like “Come through. It’s a different type of project. I’m not rapping on it at all but I wanted you to rap on it.” So I was like, "Okay I’m down," wrote a verse on the spot and laid it first take. Ta’Raach was like, “Naw man, cut that shit again.” So I cut it again and he was like, “That’s dope. You’re dope. Good looks, we should do some work together,” and I was like, "Yeah, I’m down." I wasn’t too familiar with his music then so I decided to do some research. Then I was really inspired. I heard his track “Hey” and I was like, "Damn this is the illest Hip Hop song ever." That song inspired the lyrics on Below the Heavens so much it’s ridiculous. Around the time I was finishing up Below the Heavens in 2005, I linked up with Ta’Raach again that November. He was like let’s hook up and do some shit and I was like, "I’m going to Europe in seven days," and he was like, “Well, we have seven days.” So 75% of the C.R.A.C. album [The Piece Talks] was done in seven days.

DX: Wow that was pretty quick. What happened next?
Blu: After the seven days, we pressed up an album in the summer of '06 of what we had done in those seven days. So Tres Records came along and they’d already heard it from when we leaked it. And they were like, “We want to mess with that.” We were like, "Nah, we put it out ourselves," and they were still like, “We want to put it out.” So we were like oh shit. We put a couple more joints on it that we had catalogued like “Buy Me Lunch” and “Love Don’t” just to switch it up a little bit and now we finally have the official release date of April 22nd. I’m happy because I got to work with someone I really look up to which is a lot of people I work with. But with Ta’Raach, I learned so much coming out of that situation. And he’s still one of my best friends now. We got a lot coming up. We got a C.R.A.C. cartoon coming, we’re shooting the video for “Buy Me Lunch” tomorrow. We’re gonna shoot one for “Bullet Through Me.” It’s fun man. We’re just doing whatever we want just having fun making music.

Peep the full interview and feature, only on hiphopdx.com

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.1071/title.blu-a-kind-of-blu/p.all

Bullet Through Me by C.R.A.C.

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:18:23 -0000

Buy Me Lunch by C.R.A.C.

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:18:23 -0000

Pop Dem Boyz by C.R.A.C.

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:18:21 -0000

Love Don't by C.R.A.C.

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:18:21 -0000

BRAND NEW VIDEO - 'BLU COLLAR WORKER'

Blu (UpAllNightVid NowUp) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:24:46 -0000

Brand new video from Blu & Exile, "Blu Collar Worker" from the critically acclaimed album, "Below the Heavens." - up on Imeem now!