I honestly wished I lived in New York just so I could catch shows like the one above. The CunninLynguists, along with a live band, seemed to have torn down the house at QN5’s yearly megashow which took place at the Highline Ballroom in NYC. CL’s next release, Strange Journey Volume Two, will hit shelves on November 3rd. Update: Thanks to Attevocai for the live band info.  Club Dub (who are also from Lexington, KY) are the live band that are performing along side CunninLyinguists.

Spotted at Okayplayer

Produced by Kno and featuring emcees Natti and Deacon the Villain trading verses with Evidence of Dilated Peoples and Bay Area legend E-40 about society’s uptick in chaos and violence, CunninLynguists‘ Running Wild is the official first single from Strange Journey Volume Two, the second installment of this year’s double release from the trio.

Some new CunningLynguists? Don’t mind if I do. “Strange Journey Volume Two” drops November 3rd.

Download: CunningLynguist – “Running Wild” (Feat. E-40 & Evidence)

I did a “Most Anticipated Music of 2009″ a while back and so far I have been pleased with most of the releases that I had been looking forward to. P.O.S.’s Never Better came out early in 09 and didn’t disappoint. Well, it disappointed me a little, it is his weakest release, but still has some great songs. Other release lived up to my expectations as well. Isis and dredg both had very strong releases. Then some disappointed, The new Prodigy was pretty terrible, don’t know why I get excited about their releases anymore, but I think that’s over with Invaders must die. So now we are almost into the fall (my favorite time of year) and there are tons of releases that have yet to surface. This is going to be a wonderful few months leading up to the end of the year. Here is what I cannot wait for:

Brand New - Daisy: Yes, I know they titled the album Daisy. I don’t care. Brand New has been a rare band in my opinion. They have gotten better and better with each release. 2006’s The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me is my favorite album of the decade, hands down. For some reason people still love to label these guys “Emo” but they are the furthest thing from it. They are American rock to it’s fullest. They just happen to have an emotional front man (one of the best in the biz) in Jesse Lacey. I will always have high expectations for Brand New releases, they have never let me down. Releases 9/22/09 (it has recently leaked as well).

Katatonia - Night Is the New Day: This is a group that I randomly came across as 08 came to a close. I tried out The Great Cold Distance and was blown away. One of the best metal releases I have heard in forever. I’m not quite as enamored with their past work, but the song writing during TGCD was so fantastic, I cannot wait for new stuff. With this one I am slightly worried that expectations are too high as I just really can’t get into any of their early work. I’ll find out when this releases on 10/19/2009.

Thrice - Beggars: This one already leaked, which is way to early and might hurt (or help) with the final release. The same thing happened to Brand New with The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me and they scrapped almost everything they had and started over. Because of that experience I refuse to check this out early. I am going to wait for the release date and purchase it, because I want to support the bands I love. With the Brand New leak in 06 it kind of killed my excitement for the album because the leaked demos didn’t sound that good. Well, that’s because they were demos. From what I understand the Thrice leak might be more finalized than it’s Brand New counterpart, I don’t care. I’m getting this the day it comes out, in an actual store, which is 9/15/09. It is currently out on ITunes, but I feel like if I wait for the physical release I will be rewarded with something. Plus I want DRM free music.

Some honorable mentions to go over.

-A Wilhelm Scream is easily one of my favorite bands and I was really looking forward to their release this year. I’ve since found out that is a EP (5 songs I believe) so while I am still stoked for it, I want a full album.

-AFI are releasing their follow up to Decemberunderground this year and I am looking forward to it. I have cooled off on AFI the last few years and I’m not sure why. I think their last two releases have been their strongest (regardless of what others think) but I feel like I might be growing out of them. We shall see once Crash Love hits 9/29/09.

-30 Seconds to Mars is a guilty pleasure for me. They are kind of overly pretentious (seriously, that video for From Yesterday makes me want to gag) but I still enjoy listening to them. I’m not super stoked for this, but they are a decent band and always have 3 to 4 songs on each album that I think are great.  This Is War comes out in late October.

-CunninLynguists are set to release their second LP this year in the form of Strange Jourey Volume 2. The first one was better than I expected. It only had a handful of new songs and there are a few songs that weren’t even their own, but it was still a great listen. Hoping for more of the same.

In 2003 The Tunnel Rats released Underground Rise: Sunrise/Sunset with quite possibly the most guest appearances on a Christian Hip Hop album ever. Now six years later Cas Metah has released Guest Room with over 40 guest appearances from artists all over the Christian Hip Hop world, East Coast, West Coast and everything in between, Cas even brings some underground artists from the OH10 to join the party. Guest appearances from members of the Tunnel Rats, DeepSpace5, The Remnant, The Scribbling Idiots, Lightheaded, Future Shock and other artists. Production is also done from all whole spectrum of producers, Dust, Playdough, Vintage, Theory Hazit, Dert and once again many others. So Cas brought the guest appearances (which is a plus in my book) but do these guests deliver on this album?

So after listening to a message from Playdough (where Play-Doug-H calls Cas out on his “frail” body) we are introduced to the first track on the album “I Strain” featuring Cas Metah’s partner in crime JustMe and an appearance from the Cunninlynguists. The track at least in my eyes is about how we have to struggle to accomplish the things we want to in life. JustMe handles a verse and the hook on the track, but most importantly the production is solid on this track (and most of the album for the most part).

The track “Front Runner” is the first out of three tracks that has a whole slew of guest appearances from all over the Christian Hip Hop world. “Front Runner” features Ahred, Sojourn, Ajax Starglider (Future Shock), Sintax The Terrific (DeepSpace5), Sev Statik (DeepSpace5/Tunnel Rats), Griffin (Tunnel Rats) and JustMe (Scribbling Idiots). It’s basically the mainstream rap beat down track and I love it, Griffin’s verse is my favorite verse on that track where he acts as a tour guide and mentor for those who want to be “Front Runners”:

“So you want to be Front Runner huh, be a vicious contender
My name is Griff, let me aid you in your business venture
Any rumor you heard about it is nonsense
Acquiring the title is a serious process”

The “Told You So (remix)” is produced by Theory Hazit and features Masta Ace (who was on the “Told You So” original which is on The Have Nots), JustMe and we also get a verse from Theory Hazit. This is one of my favorite tracks from the album, it’s pretty much a battle rap track and all the emcees kill their verse. Theory lets you know “that there’s no punk in my DNA”, Masta Ace that even though “I’m old in age I control the stage” and Cas Metah has one of my favorite lines on this album “Now I’m rocking on the stage, already waiting for haters to fall in line…got them mad at Cas for collaborating with greatest of all time”. After listening to the entire album (Because I was so happy just to have the album) I went back and listened to this (and a couple other songs numerous times….after finally moving on to listen to JustMe’s Before The Twilight)

Since there space constraints with this I have to skip a couple of memorable songs on this album (“Real feat. Mouf Warren and Holmskillet”, “Rhyme Life feat. Listener and Ruffian”, “Die Trying feat. Chapter 13”, “Find Time feat. BC and Playdough) which brings us to “2nd Second (see what he did with the title HA!)” this features Every Day Martyrs (Griffin and Mouf Warren) and Deuce Complex (who I’m not exactly familiar with, but I do know him and Cas made a mixtape a while ago). I can’t remember who produced the beat but the beat has kind of a dark feel to it. I love the hook that Cas used for this song it fits the beat perfectly.

Hopefully by now you’ve been convinced that this album is worth buying, but if you haven’t been convinced yet, the track “Don’t Doubt” featuring Theory Hazit, Wonder Brown, K-Drama, Kaz, Mouf Warren, Griffin and Intellect who all happen to be emcees from OHIO. I love this track, but my opinion is somewhat bias since I live in Twinsburg, Ohio but the production is also solid. This song is all about Ohio Pride and is just a fun track to listen to production and the lyrics are solid.

Guest Room is the Christian Hip Hop catalog that people that are on the fence about whether or not they should listen to Christian Hip Hop need to listen to. I highly doubt that anyone will be able to top the number of guest appearances on this album and it was nice to hear different voices from all over the Christian Hip Hop world. Go pick up Guest Room LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!!!

The Good

OVER 40 GUESTS!!!
Production from all types of producers
Memorable verses from just about every song on this album
The Bonus Track!!!
The beats from Theory Hazit (“Told You So”) and Muneshine (“Laying the Foundation)

The Bad

The album kind of loses steam towards the end of the album

Rating: 4.5/5 (ALMOST CLASSIC GET THE ALBUM KIDS!!!)

If You Can’t Buy The Album (and you better) Download These Songs

Told You So (remix) feat. Theory Hazit, Masta Ace and JustMe produced by Theory Hazit
Real feat. Mouf Warren and Holmskillet produced by Vintage
Laying the Foundation feat. Lightheaded produced by Muneshine
Don’t Doubt feat. Theory Hazit, Wonder Brown, K-Drama, Kaz, Griffin, Mouf Warren, Intellect
2nd Second feat. EDM and Deuce Complex

Shout out to Kno for putting this up for us to enjoy. Off of the CunningLyng crew’s album Strange Journey Volume One featuring none other than Slug of Atmosphere. I also gotta give Shake the props for this and according to him:

this song will be available as a limited edition 7″ vinyl pressing (which will also include Nothing But Strangeness featuring the Looptroop Rockers and Hilltop Hoods). You can pre-order it here.

Download: Dont Leave (When Winter Comes) (Ft. Slug of Atmosphere) – CunningLynguists

No time, this is dope, watch it and enjoy.

While I prep some more posts, I figured it would be nice to hit you with this little interview that the CunningLynguists crew did with ScratchTV. I will not lie to you, my CunningLynguists game is kind of lacking, but thats just more reason to educate myself. Below I’ve added the boys’ latest leak off the upcoming album, Strange Journey since we seemed to have missed posting it… Our bad.

Download: Never Come Down (The Brownie Song) – CunningLynguists

The homie Tunji and his group Inverse just dropped an E.P. for 2009. ‘So True’ features production from Kno of the CunningLynguists and is the group’s second release. Click the jump below to download, and stay classy San Diego Los Angeles. Ok that was just corny –Yoelian

Click here to download!

My brother in the blog game posted a Primo x Maroon 5 remix that was released on M5’s remix album Call and Response, which is pretty much a greatest hits album with doper beats for those that don’t know. Here I have one produced by Cunninglynguists’ Kno that didn’t make it on to the album due to sample clearance and all that bullshit, its a shame.

Download: Good Night Good Night (Kno Remix) – Maroon 5

One of the smartest things that Jay-Z ever did, aside from amassing a sizable fortune and owning his own record label- was dropping an acapella release of The Black Album before he gave us the actual version. Where this would not necessarily lure most of the market into an early sale, this made scores of impatient producers create their own versions of the songs by adding their own production. There are several of these albums that stand as monuments of hip hop greatness. Way beyond the grasp of sound that Jay-Z’s producers normally reach into- I feel that a lot of these guys understood the greater meaning behind Jay’s lyricism, accenting and completing these tracks in a manor that will elevate this album to higher standards than I have ever viewed an album.

This segment will be dedicated to the careful mastery of DJ Kno. He is the man behind the decks in the legendary crew Cunninglynguists. If you ain’t heard by now, go check the page and read up on some dope underground hip hop. Really jazzy and excellently orchestrated, I’ve always been a fan of Kno’s style. The last track is a more recent production that he had up for free on his page. Lovin’ it.

Jay-Z – Change Clothes (DJ Kno Remix)

Jay-Z – 99 Problems (DJ Kno Remix)

Jay-Z – Intermission (DJ Kno Remix)

Jay-Z – My 1st (DJ Kno Remix)

Lupe Fiasco – Superstar (DJ Kno Remix)

skunk anasie – post orgasmic chill

i love you but i’ve chosen darkness – fear is on our side

fear before the march of flames – always open mouth

stateless – stateless

joanna newsom – ys

jason mraz – the e minor ep in f

kno of cunninlynguists – kno vs. hov (the white album)

citizen cope – citizen cope