Throwback Track: "M.V.P.- Big L"

Sorry, there's not really a video for this one....

Throwback Track: "Concrete Schoolyard- Jurassic 5"

Listening To: J. Cole

It's surprising it's taken me this long to come up with a reason to blog about J. Cole. If you saw Jay-Z's show in MI you saw Cole as well. He's the first signee to Jay-Z's new label, Roc Nation. He's a producer/rapper like Kanye and his tapes are at a College Dropout level of changethegameability. Easily the best newcomer. If I had to bet on him or Drake to matter more in 5, 10, 15, 20 years... it's J. Cole every time.

Here's his very new verse over Common's "Go!", kinda destroyed the track:


And if you're interested.... Click here to download J. Cole's Mixtape "The Warm Up".

Opposite of Adults

So quite a while back Chiddy Bang released a solid mixtape effort (their freshman tape as far as I know) called the Swelly Express. They did their thing mixing a lot of poppy choruses with simple lyrics and re-doing a host of outside the box alt rock and pop songs. Included on the tape was a track called "KIDS (Opposite of Adults)" that bit it's beat from a remix of "Kids" by MGMT off of Oracular Spectacular. Easily one of the better songs on the tape; I'm happy to see it got treated to some ridiculous visuals. Pretty perfect for what's going on here and eerily similar to the early screenshots for the reincarnation of NBA Jam (for Wii only, kill yourselves EA Sports):

The game is sure to be great. Anyways, here's the video:

Did Somebody Say McDonald's?

Keith Appling, future Michigan State Spartan became Keith Appling, future McDonald's All-American and Michigan State Spartan late last week. He'll become the 9th Izzo coached player to play in the swagger-ridden high school showcase. This may end up being the best opportunity to get a good look at what Appling can do- both for State fans and the rest of the country. I'm really hoping for a Brandon Jennings-esque performance full of ridiculous jumpshots and Nash-style passing. Anyways, the game's on March 31st.

Speaking of the fall of 2010, Izzo feels like he's still got some work to do. And if he has any hope of running his very own Fab 5 (he never said he did, but I'ma pretend he wants to) he's going to need someone special at the shooting guard position. Someone like Mount Pleasant's Trey Zeigler. He's ranked 26th nationally by Rivals.com, and would give us a fully loaded draft class for next year; filling every possible need left by the changes we'll (maybe) see next year.



Plus, we can like totally run a Fab 5. And Chris Webber won't be there to call a phantom time-out. Really, if this kid comes to campus everyone better show him a great time... this draft class would cement Izzo's status as not only a coach and recruiter, but as a potential dynasty builder. Gotta get that reloadability. How good would it feel next year to flip on SportsCenter at literally any time during the season and instead of hearing about John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and John Calipari's douche-asses, instead we'd see Adriean Payne, Keith Appling, Trey Zeigler and Tom Izzo?

I'll stop dreaming for a second though, as Zeigler won't commit until his senior season is over and MSU is among a few other prime time basketball schools on his short list.

Dunk Contest: What Could've Been

So Shannon Brown couldn't have disappointed harder on Saturday. LetShannonDunk.com? Maybe someone should have asked him if he wanted to dunk. At least LeBron gave us a taste of what might've been Sunday night.

Nuthin' But Net

Aside from the Doritos and Bud Light commercials, this may have been my favorite Super Bowl commercial...



Too bad neither of them showed up for the dunk contest, Dwight was visibly embarrassed for this year's competitors and how weak their dunk game was. Here's the OG version of the commercial...

Some Weird Shit CuDi's Been Doing

So... it looks like CuDi has finally embraced his inner-Kanye and is doing a whole buncha stuff that certain people in the media will consider to be "genius" and others will pass off as just plain bonkers. This new CuDi/Dan Black song (which seems to have bitten the drums off Umbrella by Rihanna) definitely falls under the category of "bonkers", but hey- it isn't bad and the video is done too well to not check out...


And in case you hadn't heard, SuperHollywoodProducer Mark Wahlberg (he brought you Entourage!!) is producing a show starring a dude my little sister would probably recognize from One Tree Hill. But the show also happens to be co-starring... Scott Mescudi. Looks decent at best from the trailers, and running it against KEVIN DURANT'S DEBUT AS AN NBA ALL-STAR THIS SUNDAY NIGHT means that I'll most certainly catch the first episode OnDemand. Check out the trailer below:

Throwback Track: "Monstars Anthem- B. Real, Busta Rhymes, Coolio, LL Cool J and Method Man"

Fitting track today, getting ready for the Purdue game tonight.

How Does Bo Ryan Recruit?

Bo Ryan always seems to have a squad right at the top of the BigTen, in contention for the title. Now, any winning coach can recruit a group of All-Star players; but that's just not Bo's style. He takes it a step further. He only recruits Aryan All-Stars. Reading their lineups is like looking at a list of Commanders of the Third Reich. For real. Berggren? Jarmusz? Markolf? Brusewitz? Year after year, buzzcut after buzzcut, I'm left wondering... what does Bo Ryan do that allows him to relate to these players so well? And then I stumbled across this gem...



...and I realized that Bo Ryan can relate to his players in recruiting because he himself is an annoyingly arrogant, awkward-looking farm boy. But this clown's dominance over Izzo... (the last refuge of hope the BigTen has of a conference not entirely dominated by the Spartans) ...ends tonight.

Big Sean "Supa Dupa Lemonade Freestyle"

Big Sean's back, gearing up for Finally Famous Vol. 3. Solid effort, pretty typical of Sean but typical Sean is better than above average almost anyone else.

Cudderisback (Freestyle)

This CuDi freestyle over an unreleased Vampire Weekend song came out a while back, but the video for it just came out a couple days ago; if you can really call it a music video. It's pretty funny nonetheless:

KiD CuDi "cudderisback" - Directed by Jason Goldwatch - DatNewCudi.com from DP on Vimeo.

Travis Barker Remixes

So when we got back home last night, this new Travis Barker remix (of Drake's Forever) popped up; now we might not have been in the clearest of mindstates, but this impressed the hell out of us. He's just too good, too raw, too real. You get the impression that all of these are after only a few minutes of tinkering around with the song. Anyways, check out the new one (Drake's Forever) and two others he rips the hell out of (3AM and The One).

Shannon Brown

Needs to be included in the 2010 Slam Dunk Contest. Too dirty. Just check out these 3 dunks from games so far THIS SEASON. The team's only played 8 total, and Shannon only comes in late to put on a 4th quarter show for the Staples Center crowds... but they are getting their money's worth:





And a classic from last years Western Conference Finals:


Let's just pray we'll have a jumper like that in Durrell this season.