Pam the Funkstress, member of the hip-hop group the Coup, has died due to organ failure, as the San Francisco Chronicle and Bay Area radio station KBLX report. Pam Warren had been hospitalized for over a month after organ transplant surgery. She was 51. She joined the Coup in the 1990s and provided scratches for their debut album Kill My Landlord.
Run the Jewels appear on Hannibal Buress’ podcast
Run the Jewels were the latest to appear on “The Handsome Rambler,” a podcast that is co-hosted by Hannibal Buress and DJ Tony Trimm. They discussed the next Run the Jewels album, stereotypes, making workout music during the episode. Listen to it below.
Animal Collective shares new live album
Animal Collective have released a recording of their performance at New Haven, Conn.’s College Street Music Hall in May, 2017. It is available as pay-what-you-want, with all of the proceeds going to Direct Relief, a non-profit organization that helps “improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies.” Listen below and download it here.
New Velvet Underground vinyl box set announced
The Velvet Underground will celebrate their 50th anniversary with a new vinyl box set. The 6xLP box set will include four studio albums: The Velvet Underground and Nico, White Light/White Heat, The Velvet Underground, and Loaded. It will also feature Nico’s debut, Chelsea Girl, and a recreation of the Velvet Underground’s “lost” studio album, 1969, which will feature two bonus tracks. It will also come with a 48-page booklet with a foreword by drummer Maureen “Moe” Tucker. The set will have a limited release of 1000 copies, and is set to be out February 23rd via Verve Records/UMe.
Watch Rihanna in the first Ocean’s 8 trailer
The Ocean’s 8 trailer, the Ocean’s Eleven spin-off led by women, has come out. Watch the video below. The film features Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter, Awkwafina, Mindy Kaling, and more. It was co-written and directed by The Hunger Games director Gary Ross. The film follows a heist at New York City’s Met Gala. The film is set to be out June 8th, 2018.
The Melodic Tree’s Weekly Playlist
1. Iblis Amghar – Mdou Moctar
2. Green – Young Jesus
3. Valley of Sadness – Karl Blau
4. Your Days Gone Like a Shadow – Jozef Van Wissem
5. The One to Wait – CCFX
6. Cannons – Youth Lagoon
7. Monkey Bars – Pickle Boy
8. Seagull for Chuck Berry – Gunn – Truscinski Duo
9. Cannibal Planet – OCS
1o. Dream Sequence – Posse
11. Money for Breakfast – Spinning Coin
12. Trouble – Grapetooth
13. New Shapes of Life – Martin Carr
14. Bad Behavior – True Blue
15. Little Bird – Livingmore
16. Later – Cones
17. Dead Ringer – Way Yes
18. Color in Your Cheeks – Ibibio Sound Machine
19. Barely Above – Olivia Kaplan
20. Twisted Sky – Dana Buoy
Flume soundtracks new Greenpeace video
Australian producer Harley Streten, aka Flume, has given “previously unreleased sounds” for a Greenpeace Australia Pacific video. “This is important!” he wrote in the description. Watch it below.
Listen to Squarepusher composed start-up music for new Super Nintendo system
Squarepusher has composed original music for the new Super Nintendo system by Analogue called the Super Nt. Besides providing the soundtrack to a video game trailer released in October, he also wrote the start-up sequence. Listen to it below. The system will feature wireless controllers and is compatible with over 2,200 Super Nintendo games.
Watch Black Thought’s 10-Minute Funk Flex freestyle
Black Thought from The Roots, today, appeared on Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 show and did a 10-minute freestyle over the beat from Mobb Deep’s “The Learning (Burn).” Watch it below. The rapper name-drops the Kardashian Wests (“pre-Kardashian Kanye, my rhyme play immaculate/same cadence as D.O.C pre-accident”), other legendary MCs (“I’m K. Dot Lamar meets Tupac Shakur/got profiled by a few cops, I’m too hot to charge”), and references Shakespeare (“I’ve been having visions of Nat Turner holding his master’s head/like Yorick and Horatio in Hamlet/Smacking it like a tennis racket underhanded/Send a message through the gram, the eagle has landed”) troughout the video. In response to the freestyle, Black Thought tweeted, “That verse was just what I had to say at the moment lol.”
Watch SZA perform “Supermodel” on “Fallon”
SZA was performed on last night’s episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Watch her performance of “Supermodel” backed by a string section below.
