Juan, or better known as Jam One, resides in Chicago and is a man that posesses many talents/hobbies. Those talents include the following: beatboxing, turntablism, freelance photography, graphic design, and video editing. He’s that guy you see making all kinds of noises with his mouth, while reaching for his camera to catch in-the-moment shots of those guys breakdancing on the corner. He might even have slightly rough finger tips from scratching vinyl over the years. He’s rocked the stage with DJ Q-Bert a few times, Mr. Dibbs, Qwel, Illmaculate, opened for Zach De La Rocha (Rage Against The Machine), and others. He made his first DVD, “The Cypher”, which features a bunch of footage from various underground hip hop events in Chicago (check out the trailer at the end).

Jam One is my 11th interview since April, and it’s is my last interview for 2009. Check it out…
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Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, french fries, and a canvas to draw on. Yes, you read that right. Ginou Choueiri uses potatoes to draw on human faces.

“I chose the potato to portray the human face due to the many striking parallels: their porous skin, their similar color, and like us, they come in different shapes and sizes.

The portraits are that of friends, family, people I’ve met along the way, as well as politicians and pop stars.”
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I just saw this video by Louwop and thought I’d pass it along. First time my ears have ever heard this guy, so I had to do a little searching to figure out who he was. He’s an underground hip hop emcee (with some soul flavor too) from Toronto. He’s done many things since he first stepped into the light in ’94. Things like: attending plenty of open-mic nights at Planet Mars, joined a hip hop band (The Quartertones with Phatt Al), put out a few EPs (“Mind Grenade” with producter Catalist and his own “Warning Shot“), made a few appearances on Urbnet’s Underground Hip Hop Vol 2, was one of the eight finalists at the first Rip The Mic freestyle competition in Toronto, and has opened for artists such as Kool Keith, The Alcoholics, Jeru the Damaja, and Grand Master Melle Mel. Big things!

Now he’s got his full-length album, “The Great Escape“. In the video after the jump, Louwop combines the songs “One 2 Check” and “Get Up”, so it features both Shad K and Zaki Ibrahim.
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Remember the piece on Thunderheist? Well Grahmzilla, the producer/dj of the group, came back with some new stuff. A remix of Little Boots “Mathematics” and a remix of Erup‘s “Click mi finga” (check ‘em after the jump).

From Grahmzilla:
“After 9 months of insane touring, we’re finally done promoting the Thunderheist album and I have been getting my remixing on. I want to get back to making club friendly tracks and DJ alot more so I’m making it happen.

The Little Boots remix has been in the works for a long time but I just didnt feel like it was finished until recently. The Erup remix having been released a month ago officially…It was never leaked and I have tweaked it a bit.”
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Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you… and you, and you. Am I the only one that doesn’t like Egg Nog? That shit is disgusting. Even the name turns me off – I hear nog, and I think of snot. I don’t know why, but yeah. No thanks. Anyway…

My buddy, Mr. Hone, just dropped a “Christmas Tape” with Maodea. I’ve posted about Mr. Hone before, so you might be a little familiar with him. Maodea and Mr. Hone are both French beatmakers, and together they bring you Christmas hip hop beats… for free! Tracklisting and download link after the jump…
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Detroit resident Leaf Erikson passed me a link to his “Great Big Nothing” album. After listening to it, I decided to share it with you too. The site I pulled it from, had posted the album back in 2007. So yeah, it’s a couple years old, but good is good, right? Yeah.
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I don’t know if you knew this, but Freeway has a new album coming out soon called, “The Stimulus Package” (on Rhymesayers). By soon, I mean February 2010, and it’ll be produced entirely by Jake One. One emcee and one producer, like the good times.

“Know What I Mean” was the first leak from the album. And now there is an official video for the track.
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If you’re checking up on CrayonBeats often, you should be familiar with Nomar Slevik. And if you read the interview I had with him in June, you might remember that he loves researching all things paranormal.

Nomar informed me that he had published a short story in a paranormal magazine called, “Paranormal Underground“. You can buy that magazine issue here or you can view/download the entire magazine for free here. Nomar’s story, “A Language You Can See“, can be found on pages 42 and 43 of the magazine.
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