LL-homie filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi makes his Bay Area premiere of his new documentary, Homegrown: HipLife in Ghana.  The film is a decade’s account of Ghanaian hip-hop crew VIP’s growth as artists and rise together as a collective.  Check out the trailer above!

Jan. 3rd Bay Area Preview Screening of HomeGrown: HipLife In Ghana
Q&A w/ Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi, Director
V.I.P (vision in Progress), HipLife Stars Live from Ghana
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
You Got 2 Chances…
Matenée Movie @ 3pm Q&A @ 4pm
Movie @ 8pm Q&A @ 9pm
(suggested donation $5-$10)

EDIT: Yesterday we listed the screening as taking place TODAY (12/30) but that’s actually the LA screening.  SoCal heads stand up!

Dec. 30th Los Angeles Preview Screening of HomeGrown: HipLife In Ghana
Q&A w/ Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi, Director
V.I.P (vision in Progress), HipLife Stars Live from Ghana
The Downtown Independent Theater
251 South Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
movie @ 8pm ($8)

There are few people who get a shorter end of the stick than those born the day after Christmas.  Besides probably getting a massive amount of regifts and “this is for your birthday aaaand Christmas” presents, it must be difficult and confusing to follow Jesus’ unbirthday.  However, if you’re Bay Area super producer/emcee/sweater vest wearer/iLL-homie Trackademicks, you simply brush it off and make a slappin’-ass joint for yourself and throw it up on YouTube.  And with all the work he’s done for Phonte, J*Davey, and Lyrics Born, a whole video dedicated to yourself is well deserved.  Happy birfday homie!

Check out more fre$h coast livin at Tracka’s blog.

Oy, and if you’re in the Bay on Tuesday, come to PST to celebrate!

BONUS: His mixtape that you’ve hopefully already had since April

Last year we participated in The Hybrid Project at Intersection for the Arts, a theatre series aimed at expanding the scope of spoken word through the implementation of music, dance, and theatre.  This year, the tradition continues with a hottttttttttt lineup!  This coming weekend, our iLL-homies Jose Vadi and Jason Mateo will be presenting brand new pieces.  We’ll be there Thursday…come through and kiiiiiick it!

The Hybrid Project
@Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA
Buy Tickets

It’s December now, so you know that means it’s time for nightly temptations to step outside for a head-noddin’, egg-noggin’, prez-wrappin’ good time (damn, that almost rhymed!).   And what better reason to go out into the freezing cold than to end up at Devil’s Pie among all the fresh Bay Area folk and some great music??  Music by Wonway Posibul, hosted by Do-DAT, produced by Papa-Lo.  It’s all the fam!

Devil’s Pie: 2nd & 4th Thursdays
Namu Bar
439 Balboa St @ 6th ave. SF
FREE / 11pm-1am

So it seems iLL-Lit has been upgraded to last-minute opening act status here in the Bay, and with the dope artists we’ve been getting stage time with, it’s not a bad place to be.  Tomorrow we’ll be hitting the Independent in San Francisco to kick it off for LA’s Blu and U-N-I! The show is a part of Imeem’s Keys 2 the City, a series documenting musicians like The Roots and Raphael Saadiq and their interactions with their hometowns.

Cop your tix here. And check out Blu and U-N-I’s Keys 2 the City pieces after the jump!
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Adriel has prepared a Kanye-style response:

It is beyond me why there are people who take the time to travel all the way to shows with unattainable expectations in their hearts and then who are going to be all pissy when what they get doesn’t fit into their tiny little world view of what should or should not happen at these shows… why not just STAY AT HOME AND REVIEW YOUR LEFTOVERS MOLDING YOU’D PROBABLY HAVE A BETTER TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’M ALL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM BUT I REFUSE TO PAY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES PRESS AND THEN USE SARCASM AND ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE AUDIENCE TO PIECE TOGETHER A SORRY EXCUSE FOR A REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!  OF COURSE THERE WEREN’T A LOT OF PEOPLE AT THE SHOW… WHAT PART OF “EXIBITION SHOWCASE AT A SMALL VENUE ON A WEDNESDAY BY AN INDIE GROUP DOING A NONCONVENTIONAL GENRE IN A NONCONVENTIONAL FORMAT” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND??????????????????????  DID IT MAYBE CROSS YOUR CLOSED-MINDED MINDS THAT YES SOME OF THE PEOPLE AT THE SHOW ARE FRIENDS (BECAUSE WE HAVE FRIENDS, DOY) BUT THAT MOST PEOPLE THERE ACT FAMILIAR WITH US BECAUSE THEYRE RETURNING FANS FROM PAST SHOWS AND PEOPLE WHO FEEL PERSONALLY CONNECTED TO US BECAUSE WE KEEP IT TRILL WITH OUR FANS?????……. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A STADIUM OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW EACH OTHER MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO TO A MILEY CYRUS CONCERT I’M SURE IT WOULD BE RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY. ILL-LIT IS DOING SOMETHING THAT IS OUT OF THE NORM, WITH NO OUTSOURCED PROMO OR MANAGEMENT SO EXCUSE US IF WE DON’T DRAW CHEETAH GIRLS NUMBERS… AND OF COURSE IF WE’RE GOING TO BE DOING HIP-HOP AND SPOKEN WORD THERE ARE GOING TO BE ASPECTS “TYPICAL” TO A HIP HOP AND SPOKEN WORD SET LIKE CALL-AND-RESPONSE. THERES A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THINGS THAT ARE CLICHE AND THINGS THAT ARE FOUNDATIONS.  NEXT YOU’RE PROBABLY GOING TO SAY THAT WE WEREN’T BREAKING BARRIERS BECAUSE WE WORE PANTS LIKE OTHER “TYPICAL” ARTISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!… BUT HAVE YOU EVER SEEN IN-DEPTH SOCIAL COMMENTARY DISCUSSED AT A CLUB STANDING ROOM ONLY???  DID YOU SEE ALL THE PEOPLE AT OUR SHOW LOSING THEIR FREAKING MINDS AND SPAZZING OUT ON THE FLOOR?????  DID YOU NOT NOTICE OUR FULL BAND THE HI-LIFES, LIGHTING, AND 60-OUT-OF-75 MINUTES WORTH OF MUSIC ALL THAT YOU FAILED TO MENTION????  NO SO SHUT YOUR TRAP!!!! AND THEOPHILUS LONDON IS THE FUTURE OF BROOKLYN HIP HOP AND WHAT YOU CALL “EMO RAPS” IS ARTISTIC TRANSPARENCY THAT’S DIFFERENT FROM THE BLING AND HOS AND MONEY TALKS THAT YOU PRESS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HAILING AS GROUNDBREAKING FOR CENTURIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND ALSO CAN I SAY THAT IF A SHOW’S DOORS OPEN AT 8 AND IT ENDS UP STARTING AT 10:30…………………………..THAT’S PRETTY DAMNED GOOD!!!!!  WHAT TYPE OF BILL COSBY HIP-HOP SHOWS DO YOU GO TO THAT START ON TIME?????????????  YOUR NEGATIVE ENERGY CAN’T STOP US FROM CHANGING THE UNIVERSE AND YOU CAN’T REVIEW AN EXPERIENCE, SQUIDBRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As much as we love SF, we loooooooooooove when there ar hot events that don’t require us to cross a bridge.  Throw in a sample sale featuring 25 of the Bay’s dopest designers, Adriel’s roommate DJ Lovelee with the music, and food from our favorite bakery Bakesale Betty’s, and you pretty much have an orgasm in the form of an event.  Come through to Old Oakland this Friday, and oh yes, this is guaranteed to be one of those hella-beautiful-people-everywhere-you-look shindigs.

Hit the jump for the full flyer. (more…)

Pacific Standard Time is very likely the hottest weekly dance party in the Bay.  With the infamous DJ Sake One as the resident, and having featured guest DJs and performers like Q-Tip, Dwele, and Maxwell (yup, Maxwell with the high voice), PST draws the largest crowd of fly people you can fit in one room.  This Tuesday will be even more hotttneessss as they bring in Res, whose debut album How I Do was hooked up by Santi White of Santogold, and is now roaming the stages with Talib Kweli and Graph Nobel as Idle Warship.  Here’s Idle Warship’s new video, “Black Snake Moan.” It takes some getting used to seeing Kweli on a club joint, but Res is the shit.

UPDATE: doy, forgot to put the event details:

It’s turkey day! Make sure you get all the sweet potatoes, mac&cheese, cornbread, and greens in your system, because you’ll be burning it all off on the dancefloor tonight at Dahlak’s Kanye West Tribute party!  Celebrating the release of Dahlak’s new mixtape Commencement, as well as Yeezy’s 808’s and Heartbreaks, the night is sure to be fiiiiiiiiiiiiyahhhhhhh!  You know everyone at the family party will be knocked out by 10 anyway.

We hope, from the depths of our beings, that you don’t have the god-forsaken task of having to handly any responsibilities whatsoever this Friday morning, after you’ve spent an entire evening of stuffing yourself with delicious turkey.  So after you’ve shaken off the itis, recovered from your hangover, and paid tribute to the pilgrims who slaughtered their way into American history, can you think of anything you’d rather do than get down to some Bobby Brown???  Neither can we.

Our iLL-homie DJ Zita will be hosting the monthly old school RnB and hip-hop night Reverse, along with greats like Vinroc and ShredOne.  And for real…you know you’ll need to burn off those calories from the mac and cheese.

Event details after the jump. (more…)

The thing about having a name like The Beatards is that you’d better be pretty damned good or else you’re just a bunch of chumps with a politically-incorrect name.  Fortunately for beatarded people everywhere, this trio has been setting it off for some time now, co-founding the monthly NYC dance remix party Mixtape Riot, worked alongside funky individuals like Santogold and Spank Rock, and recently dropped their brand new EP, Big Bad Beat.  Pretty damned good.

A couple of us met the crew a couple days ago in NY, where they politely informed us that they will be catching some of that 80-degree Cali December weather before we will.  Bastards.

Hit the jump to check out their Cali dates, then go nuts to their video, “Make the Bed.” (more…)

This Thursday you can push up the fader pump the meter shake the tweeter in SF as good ol’ Mr. DJ Phatrick returns to the Bay for the bi-weekly Devil’s Pie a.k.a. the hottest music lounge on this side of the universe!  This time he presents Erykah vs. Jill, a one-on-one, womano-a-womano intergalactic earfreak with two of our generation’s most influential soul singers.  So whether you’re living your life like it’s golden or waiting for that next lifetime (maybe you’ll be butterflies), this is the place to park that ass on Thursday.

On Wednesday thousands of people gathered in the big cities to protest Prop 8, which looked like it was set to pass, though it hadn’t officially done so yet.  Tragically, last night the No On 8 campaign conceded to the election’s victory…but the fight for same-sex marriages isn’t over yet!  Tonight there will be an even bigger protest in San Francisco, and we encourage everyone in town to come through and support!

For those of you who would like to help on a worldwide scale, please take a minute to sign the online petition to re-open Prop 8.

We know exactly what you’re thinking:  what am I going to do with myself after the Saul Williams and iLL-Literacy show tonight???  Well, our migrated homie DJ Phatrick is back for the weekend for Libre the monthly bangin-ass-party (it works both ways…”bangin-ass party,” and “bangin ass-party”).  And the best part is that it’s free for non-procrastinators! Today’s a new day, people!  Sweat it out on the dancefloor.

It’s that time of the year again!  Youth Speaks’ Living Word Festival is an annual megazord ultrazord of an event, bringing the hottest community arts events to the Bay each fall.  Last year Dahlak ended his run with Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s international hit Scourge, and this year we’ll see the debut of Nico’s new play, War Peace (more on that soon).

But first, join us this Saturday at West Oakland as we do a quick thangy-thang with Mos Def, Los Rakas, and Urban Word NYC!  It’s a whole day-long event and it’s FREE, in case you need an incentive to miss the end of them Saturday morning cartoons.

Click here for details about Saturday’s event and the rest of the Living Word Festival (including the FREE Goapele show in SF on the 17th!)