What's New(s)?

OutKast to potentially reunite for Coachella

OutKast reunion rumors have been lingering for awhile now, but today's news about a possible Coachella performance seems to have a bit more weight. Several sources have told Billboard that Andre 3000 and Big Boi will reunite for 2014's Coachella festival in April, before performing at "additional festival dates in 2014". However, sources are conflicted at this point with one assuring there have been "some conversations" about an OutKast reunion, while another contends "all systems go". Coachella organizer Goldenvoice has yet to comment on the "conversations" nor has anyone from the OutKast camp. 

While you wait for OutKast to potentially return like the "ghost of Christmas past", enjoy the video for the classic "Ms. Jackson" posted below.

Kanye West releases "Bound 2" video

Kanye West appeared on Ellen today, where he talked about Kim Kardashian and baby North, while also debuting his new video for the soulful Charlie Wilson-feature "Bound 2". The video which cycles through l0w-budget stock footage and green-screens, sees West and

Kardashian riding across the U.S. landscape. Directed by Nick Knight, it's perfectly in keeping with the minimalist feel West brought to Yeezus, but still totally compelling. Check out the uncensored version below, which features a topless Kim Kardashian (if you've somehow never seen that before).
 

West is currently out on his Yeezus tour featuring Kendrick Lamar and dates can be found below.

Tour Dates:

11/20 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center (ft. A Tribe Called Quest)
11/21 Washington, DC - Verizon Center
11/23 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
11/24 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden (ft. A Tribe Called Quest)
 11/27 Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena
11/29 Miami, FL - AmericanAirlines Arena
11/30 Tampa, FL - Tampa Bay Times Forum
12/1 Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena
12/3 Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center
12/5 New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Arena
12/6 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center
12/7 Houston, TX - Toyota Center
12/8 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center
12/10 Phoenix, AZ - US Airways Center
12/13 Anaheim, CA - Honda Center
12/17 Chicago, IL - United Center
12/18 Chicago, IL - United Center
12/19 Detroit, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills
12/22 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre
12/23 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre

Check back in tomorrow for more of the newest in new(s), and visit @AllFreshSounds on Twitter for additional news updates.

In Revue- "Run The Jewels"

"This is R.A.P.," Killer Mike warned on his blazing 2012 record R.A.P. Music. But no mission statement no matter how loud or bellowing could've prepared anyone for this. On Run the Jewels, Mike and new-found bff El-P (who produced all of R.A.P. Music) don't just beat the rap game into submission; they douse it in lighter fluid, strike a match, and walk off laughing. If "protect your neck" could be bandied about as a warning statement in 2013, it should appear scrawled across the front of this record in the largest font conceivable.

If you walked into this thing expecting some lengthy treatise on police states or crumbling economies tinged with a healthy dose of introspection or introversion, you've set foot in the wrong house and should turn back immediately. If Killer Mike and El-P accomplish anything on this album, it's recasting rap threats as an art-form. Mike isn't just 80s Tyson on the lurking production of "Job WellDone," he resorts to 90s Tyson techniques and promises that "if I'm losing take a bite out." El-P makes stream-of-consciousness "s**t-talking" oddly possible in his verse, painting scenes of Yetis walking out of the woods to "cop the album," and emperors performing an about-face when they hear the duo's tunes, "admitting they are nudists."

But not every moment on the album is "real bad guy s**t," hell-bent on destruction. "No Come Down" finds Mike chowing down on a shroom or two before traveling to Ancient Egypt to make love, and checking out The Moon for good measure. The dance-floor seizure number "36 Chain" lets El-P ”spit grams at zombies," and indulge his inner Michael Flatley. The propulsive drum beat of "Banana Clipper" proves a jump-rope for the two to perform their own rap double-dutch, trading off lines and verses like Siamese cyborgs programmed to rock a microphone. When raps are delivered this tightly-wound and fully-formed, it's impossible to do anything as a fan but stand up and cheer. Big Boi’s verse (which has been unfairly described by almost everyone out there as "an afterthought) is Daddy Fat Sacks at his biggest and baldest, accusing anyone who doesn't get it of being "simply simple minded simple Simons." Much of this album plays out as a blend of Southern-fried  rap and nightmarish synths, like ATliens or Aquemini repurposed for the robot apocalypse, so what better guest to have than one half of the OutKast?

More than one outlet has drawn inevitable comparisons between this album and Kanye's eye-brow raising Yeezus, with Sobhi Youssef of Sputnikmusic hilariously bemoaning "when Kanye West decides it's f***ing brilliant to combine industrial and electronic influences with hip-hop, suddenly the music we've already been hearing since 1997's Funcrusher Plus is bukkake-worthy." But Youssef should honestly know better. Pure, unadulterated rap will never outmaneuver the type of juggernauts Kanye drops every time out now, no matter who’s behind the boards. Ye's earworms bury their way into brain, Mike and El-P's ravage every last lobe until you drop dead from an auditory overload. One isn't better than the other; you're just ensured survival when you take the path of the former.  
    
For all the larger-than-life chest-puffing and sci-fi braggadocio, the pair still manages to deliver sincerity. Mike cops to being "stuck in a time capsule, when rap was actually factual," on "Get It" letting us all know why he's so doggedly committed to hip-hop. Further buried in the song, Mike identifies him and "Jamie" as the "new Avengers, here to you all your false idols are just pretenders, they're corporation slaves indentured to all the lenders, so even if you got seven figures you're still a n***a," distilling the entire modern struggle into one barbed verse. "A F***ingChristmas Miracle" blends sleigh bells with thudding drums to produce a rap Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but El and Mike melt the icy synths with personal narratives of pops becoming "vagrants," steel and cement twisting into "nature," and eulogize fallen friends "Pimp C & Camu Tao." Behind every jack-move, there's still a stick-up kid with a story to tell, and on Run the Jewels, El-P & Killer Mike tell the tale more vividly and with more fury than anything anyone's released all-year.  

Run The Jewels is out now on Fool’s Gold; download it for free here.

"Get It"

       

       
       

   

No OutKast For Now

In an interview with GQ the willfully weird Andre 3000, one half of the OutKast, has said "there are no plans for another OutKast album." Three Stacks cites his dedication to collabos and a forthcoming solo-effort as the reason for no new releases from the ATL-duo. This is a reversal from Big Boi, who went on record in '08 to give us the heads-up on the new 'Kast album. For now, OutKast fans can look for that Andre release, as well as Daddy Fat Sax, the follow-up to Big Boi's monstrous Sir Lucious Left Foot.

"B.O.B."- Stankonia