DJ Blu Fire Hip Hop Blog

I've had the same laptop since before I start college in the summer of 2009. In that time period, my musical taste has constantly changed. On my hard drive, I have over 10,000 songs.Today I am going to start on the first on in my library as a starting point then on shuffle give my feelings on the 10 next songs that follow. Some may be songs I still listen to while some may be random mixtape songs that I downloaded in college. Here we go... Song 1- Real by Frank Ocean, The Lonny Breaux Collection This song is for an early Frank Ocean mixtape. I've listened to most of the songs on it but it's over 30 songs in length and this is one I missed. This is a chill ballad that I'm feeling on this lazy Sunday sitting in a coffee shop in Kansas City. Song 2- We Don't Do That by the Joker, The Casino Family Vol. 1 Anyone that spoke to me in high school and early college knows how much I loved the rapper Tha Joker. In my opinion, he still has some of the best punchlines in hip...

Yesterday was Record Store Day, where people were encouraged to visit their local record store. As someone who loves music, I've always wanted a record player to play vinyl. The experience of the album art and the richer sound is something that I enjoy. With the convenience of digital streaming music, we lose the art and patience of music. So yesterday I decided to purchase a record player after years of wanting to own one. I felt a reconnection with music that I've heard numerous times before by having a different listening experience. When I put on Purple Rain onto my record player I was forced to sit and simply listen to the songs. I couldn't multitask with my headphones in or skip songs with ease. I simply sat back and listened to the songs in the order and sound that Prince meant for them to be listened in. I also purchased a few of my favorite recent albums that sound great on vinyl. The album that I got that sounds great on vinyl is House of Balloons by The Weeknd....

Gone are the days of rappers using traditional advertising to promote their next album. A few years ago we used to see artists buying billboards doing numerous media appearances. That type of traditional album promotion still happens but is not as prevalent as it was. In this blog post, I dive into how artists have changed how the gain attention for a new album or song. Soulja Boy Tricking the Internet The first artist I can remember being smart using the internet to virally marketing his music was Soulja Boy. During the late 2000s we just started seeing a boom of people switching to digital music over physical CDs. So what Soulja Boy did was name his songs after top songs of the time. People would think they were downloading 50 Cent In Da Club but really downloading a new Soulja Boy song. You can see more about that in an interview here . Rae Sremmurd Mannequin Challenge Last year Black Beatles by the duo Rae Sremmurd was a hot song but it didn't really ta...

Sorry for the delay, meant to post this right after the album came out. For a visual, I'm currently eating french toast outside on a beautiful day listening to the new Drake. Here is my first reaction to Drake's new album (playlist sorry). This is posted a few weeks after the album came out but here were my first thoughts. The rules I set for myself were I couldn't look anything up and I could only write about each song for it's duration. Also no pausing the album. Here are my first reaction/thoughts. 1. Free Smoke The first song on the album starts with a gospel intro then BAM big bass drop and Drizzy goes in. Ok Drake is coming at all the wack rappers and moving to Dubai. "I'm not Kid n Play, this kid doesn't play about the flow" *insert 100 fire emojis Oh damn, this outro is trippy, who's this British dude?! 2. No Long Talk feat Giggs Ok hard bass drop with some British dude yelling WE LIT. Is Drake British now? I'm not su...

About five years ago a friend told me to download the Pulto mixtape by Future. I was familiar with him from the couple of singles he had but had never listened to a full mixtape/album of his. The mixtape was filled with numerous autotuned filled ballads as well as high-energy bangers. I enjoyed the majority of the songs and something about Future's energy was extremely infectious. Fast forward to two years ago and Future solidified himself as one of my favorite rappers. In the span of less than a year Future released five projects: Monster/Beast Mode/56 Nights/Dirty Sprite 2/What a Time to be Alive. The numerous hits and anthems that came were tremendous from March Madness to Thought It Was a Drought every hip hop fan knew every word. Fast forward to this week I was extremely excited to learn that Future would release two albums in one week. With little to no warning, Future dropped the self-titled album FUTURE. The album is high energy with catchy hooks and fast-paced ...

Aubrey Grahm aka Drizzy aka October's Very Own aka Drake is no doubt a superstar. He has transitioned from child actor to a rapper on Lil Wayne's Young Money label to an icon. His music has become anthems for months and he recently hosted SNL. With this level of popularity, it's hard to imagine his music being anything close to hidden but there are a lot of great songs from Drake you may have missed. I remember listening to Ransom feat. Lil Wayne in my 98 Jetta in 2008 as a Senior in high school via cassette adapter. I am going to try and introduced your or reintroduce you to some great Drake songs you may have glossed over or simply missed. Little Bit feat. Lykke Li Check out this chill love song featuring singer Lykke Li.  I'm Still Fly One of Drake's best early songs. Stuntin' feat Lil Wayne This is a song off of Lil Wayne's Dedication 3 when we didn't know much about Drake. Congratulations Drake does a verse over some Coldpa...

We all have different devices or methods of how we listen to our favorite music. It may be on a stereo or headphones. You may use streaming services or make your own playlists or just listen our entire library (try it you may find hidden jams). Since my teenage years, the way we listen to music has changed drastically with various pros and cons. Today I'm going to like back to how I listened to music the pros/cons and what music comes to mind from that era. Stereo- CDs/Radio When I was about 13 years old for Christmas my grandma gave me money and with that money I bought three things. A stereo for my room (similar to the pic above) Kanye West's album College Dropout and John Mayer's album Room for Squares. I would sit in my room and listen to the radio and the two albums I owned. Memorable song(s): No Such Thing- John Mayer Two Words-Kanye West Pros: Solid sound No headphones Cons: No remote Had to listen at a reasonable volume Had to listen to the alb...