Sneaker Keychains

Been buying these for a little while now, I think they're way cool. They're available online outta the UK, but I've been buying em all locally at Centre [website] which is one of my favorite DFW sneaker/streetwear boutiques, located in Mockingbird Station in Dallas.

These sneaker keychains run $10 and there's a wide variety to choose from. I picked all these up because they're kicks I'd love to have but don't own--mainly because they're highly collectible and crazy expensive on the aftermarket (well, except that Air Max 95, it's a general release). Shoot, my two "grails" are in there: the Staple Pigeons and the Wu Dunks. Doubt I'll ever own either of those. Haha!

By the way, Centre is doing it big for All-Star weekend; they're opening a special pop-up ANNX store next door to their main location that's gonna be full of all sorts of special products and deals exclusively for the event [link]. If you're from Dallas, or are just gonna be in town for All-Star weekend, do yourself a favor and go to Centre and check out their ANNX pop-up shop.

Favorite Albums of 2009

Music nowadays might now be what it once was (especially hip hop) but there's still a lot of quality stuff coming out. I mean come on, you know there's still some heat left in the oven when two certifiable bangers, BP3 and OBFCL2, drop on the exact same day.

Raekwon - Only Built For Cuban Links II
Direct sequel to the 1995 classic which was one of the very best Wu-Tang solo efforts. Picks up right were the first left off and the Chef don't miss a step. My favorite hip hop album of 2009.

El Michels Affair - Enter the 37th Chamber
Wu-Tang inspired live instrumental album. I thought it might be stupid at first, but damn I keep playing this one over and over--gonna wear the vinyl out!

Ghostface Killah - Ghostdini, Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City
Pretty Tony gets a little bit RnB on us but doesn't cheese out. Maybe not as good as his last couple albums, but still a very solid effort. Spun this one a lot.

Jay Z - The Blueprint 3
The third installment of the Blueprint trilogy spawned one of the best NYC anthems in years. A bit long, but nowhere near as sprawling as the BP2 mess.

Lee Fields & The Expressions - My World
My favorite album of 2009 hands-down, and one of my favorites of the whole decade. Authentic soul that coulda been lifted straight outta the 1970s. Highly recommended.

Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement
White kid from Detroit channeled 60's-style Motown proper. Totally unoriginal, but that makes it even more perfect. I even cop'd the heart-shaped 12" single for my wife.

Mos Def - The Ecstatic
He dropped two classics early in his career--Black Star with Talib Kweli, and Black on Both Sides--and then fell off, seemingly focused on acting. He came back strong on this though, back in true form.

Drake - So Far Gone
This man seemed to come out of nowhere, caught me totally by surprise. This isn't the style of hip hop I typically listen to--it's definitely a softer, pop-ier sound--but I like it.

Wale - Attention Deficit
Another album that's outside my normal preferred style of hip hop. I admit I slept on this at first; glad I woke up tho, it's a solid album that caught me on the first listen.

Honorable Mentions:
These are some more albums and mixtapes I liked this year, but didn't quite make my top-9 list for one reason or another. Good stuff tho, definitely worth checking these out too.

• Braille & Symbolyc One - CloudNineteen
  
• Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood Ferguson - Suite for Ma Dukes
  
• De La Soul - Are You In?: Nike + Original Run
  
• Diz Gibran - Soon You'll Understand
  
• Doom - Born Like This
  
• Exile - Radio
  
• Fashawn - Boy Meets World
  
• Frank Ramz - Make The Road By Walking
  
• Has-Lo - You Can Live Thru Anything If Magic Made It
  
• J Dilla - Jay Stay Paid
  
• Jabee - Must Be Nice
  
• Jazz Liberatorz - Fruit of the Past
  
• KiD CuDi - Man On The Moon: The End Of Day
  
• Large Professor - The LP (originally recorded in 95/96)
  
• Madlib - Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6: A Tribute To...
  
• Method Man And Redman - Blackout! 2
  
• Panacea - Corkscrew Gaps EP
  
• Royce Da 5'9 - Street Hop
  
• Saigon - All In A Day's Work
  
• ScholarMan - The Pull Forward EP vols. 1 & 2
  
• Waxolutionists - We Paint Colors
  
• Wu Tang Clan - Chamber Music
  

Wu-Tang Dekline sneakers

If you know anything about my taste in music, then you know I'm a big Wu-Tang clan fan, easily one of my favorite groups of all time. And of course if you know me at all, you know I got this sneaker thing, right? Ha ha. Yeah so here's the best of both worlds: Wu-Tang sneakers! This obviously ain't the first time the Wu have done up a sneaker (Wu Dunks, anyone?) but it's the first ones I've been able to put my hands on. Truth be told, I actually almost missed out on these. When they dropped a month ago, I decided not to chase them but then when my buddy Tom mentioned he cop'd em, my jealously kicked up to high gear and I had to go chase down a pair. Ended up snaggin 'em from Active Ride Shop outta So Cal.

These Dekline Belmonts are a limited collab of just 500 pairs between Dekline sneakers, Rival Skate Shop in NYC, and the Wu-Tang (through Oli "Power" Grant, one of the Wu-Tang managers). Oddly enough, I found out about these sneakers from following the RZA on Twitter--don't ever say Twitter is pointless, LOL. Dekline is known pretty heavily in the skate scene, but they don't really make sneakers just for skaters; that's just who they seem to be the most popular with. Guess that's why I didn't know anything about them till these were announced since I ain't connected to the skate scene at all.

The colorway of these sneakers is called "Killa Beez, Black and Yellow" which, come on, could they be any other color? The detail work on these are incredible; black leather with yellow accents, including inside the perfs which is just sick as hell; the Wu-tang logo on the tongue and on the gold lace locks; the Wu-Tang name on the heel; the Ws on the insole; even the gold embossed Dekline logo adds to the look. They even threw in a Dekline keychain.

All in all, these sneakers kill, and they'll go great with one of my favorite tees, that Wu-Tang Manifest shirt that I blogged about way back when. Seriously, I get more comments from random people on that shirt than any other tee I own.

Alife Rivington Club

Alife Rivington Club (A.R.C.) is sneakerhead heaven. Flat out, there's no better place in NYC to buy hot new kicks than the Rivington Club. Damn, let's not limit that to just NYC; it's the best place in the entire world. Seriously, this is the pinnacle of high concept sneaker shops.

First off, you'd better know the address of the shop is 158 Rivington Street because that's how you gotta find it--there's no big sign outside like you'd find at any normal store. Other than the address, the only external marking you'll find is a small bronzed plaque on the wall between two locked doors. Locked? Yeah, that's right, locked. You gotta press a button to be buzzed in.

Once you're in the door, you'll find the richest looking shop ever. On the right is a long leather bench along an ostrich-skin wall, and across the plush green carpeting is a wall of individually illuminated dark wood cubby holes showcasing each sneaker like a work of art. Above the cubbys, locked behind glass, are rare Air Jordans. Hanging from the ceiling is a lavish chandelier. At the back is a wooden podium with an old time red telephone. Then out the back is a large open air courtyard to chill in. Spend one minute in the shop and you'll instantly know why it's called the Rivington Club.

As for the kicks, what you'll find is the absolute best selection of the newest sneakers available. Being one of only six Nike Tier Zero accounts in the entire country, the Rivington Club gets the hottest and rarest new Nike kicks. Of course, being consistently rated as one of the best--and often THE best--sneaker shops in the world, they also get the new hotness from other manufactures like Adidas, Reebok, New Balance, Fila, and more. Watch out tho; they sell out of sneakers fast, and they don't restock old joints (gotta keep it fresh) so if you see something you want, you better jump on it fast because it'll probably be gone if you wait--and then you'll be stuck slummin it at your local mall searching for leftovers hoping to find the heat you seen and shoulda bought at the Rivington Club.

About the staff--I met Chris and Jesse, and they were two of the coolest doods I met in NYC. They treated me like I was their best friend, talked about sneakers, music, made fun of some rude dumbasses, just all kinds of shit. I happened to be wearing my Wu Tang shirt and Chris asked me if I was going to the Raekwon show @ Santos that night (which unfortunately I wasn't) and we got to talking about the music video that was filmed there that summer; it was for a Dilla song featuring Raekwon and Havoc that of course I'd already seen. Chris mentioned that the dude in the video that gets tied up was Jesse--that's cool as hell. Who wouldn't wanna be in a music video, and a Wu + Dilla one at that? Damn.

In addition to the Rivington Club, you'll find two other Alife stores in the vicinity. Next door--through the other locked door out front--is the Alife brand store where you'll find sneakers and apparel from the Alife brand themselves. Across the street is their third store, A.R.C. Sports, where you'll find the Alife collaborations with companies like Nike, Fila, and other major brands. I ran over there to pick up some of the limited edition Black, White, Gum & Bang! A.R.C. Nike Dunk High Supreme TZ sneakers--and as luck would have it, I bought the next to last pair of size 10.5 they had.

Yeah okay, so can you tell I liked the place? Ha ha! What's not to like for a true sneakerhead? Freshest kicks, rare heat, unique collabs, best atmosphere imaginable, and the coolest staff. Absolutely without a doubt, Alife Rivington Club is the shit. If you're going to NYC, you absolutely must hit this place up.

Highest possible recommendation.

Fat Beats

Fat Beats is a vinyl record shop in a second floor walk-up on the edge of the West Village in Greenwich Village, NYC--and it's the best hip hop centric vinyl record store I've ever seen.

I've been ordering online from their website for several years now, so it was sweet being able to hit up their actual brick & mortar store, but even though I knew sold new vinyl I had no idea just how extensive their selection really was. I mean really, it's crazy how much shit they got--I kept hearing myself say, "damn I didn't even know this was available on vinyl!" And on top of that, every one of my favorite classic hip hop albums was there, available for purchase, on shrink wrapped virgin vinyl. It was like heaven, but it hurt the hell outta my wallet. I spent more at this record store and any other in NYC.

You know that this place is for real when you see the lineup of folks who do album signings, promos, releases, and other events here: Q-Tip, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Talib Kweli, 88-Keys, EPMD, J. Rocc, Large Pro...and then the day after I was there, Raekwon was gonna be doing a signing event for OBFCL2 that dropped that week. Damn.

If you're looking for hip hop on brand new vinyl, either classic releases or new joints, then Fat Beats can hook you up better than probably anywhere else on earth.

Highest Possible Recommendation

NYC vinyl purchases

While in NYC last week, I hit a whole slew of record shops and bought quite a bit of vinyl. Most of it was cheap 50¢ and $1 records for sampling, but I bought a few things just for my own listening pleasure:

• Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988; reissue)
• De La Soul - is Dead (1991; reissue)
• De La Soul - Art Official Intelligence 2: Bionix (2001)
• Common - Resurrection (1994; reissue)
• El Michels Affair - Enter the 37th Chamber (2009)
• Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab (2007)
• Blu & Mainframe are - Johnson & Johnson (2008)
• Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement (2009)
• Mayer Hawthorne - Maybe So, Maybe no 12" single (2009)

Except for De La's AOI:Bionix (top right), all these were brand-new, shrinkwrapped virgin vinyl. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of slicing open vinyl shrinkwrap with a pocket knife, but there's just something about it that makes me so much happier than fudging with a CD jewel case and a bunch of dumbass security/ barcode stickers.

And then whew, playing that fresh virgin vinyl? It sounds so sweet, ain't nuthin like it.

NYC Vacation

Okay, since so many friends have asked "how was your New York vacation?" I figured I'd post up about it here. So basically, my wife and I spent a week in NYC on vacation, mainly to do some shopping, go to a few little events, and just chill. Here's a recap of the trip.

We stayed at the Hotel East Houston because it is affordable, modern, in the right location (Lower East Side) relative to our planned shopping, and because it has a kickass outdoor rooftop terrace that we could drink and smoke cigars on. The rooms are small, like most others in the city, but it was very nice with a damn comfortable king size bed. I heard some of the smaller rooms have chintsy bathrooms, but ours was great with a huge shower, much bigger than the one I got at home. I highly recommend this hotel, especially considering the rooftop terrace and awesome location.

The hotel is right in the middle of the areas we were planning on checking out: Lower East Side, East Village, Little Italy, SoHo, NoHo, and Greenwich Village--which are basically the areas where most of the big time vinyl record stores and sneaker/streetwear shops are located. We pretty much spent Monday through Wednesday just shopping. I'll be blogging about those places over the next few weeks, so keep reading this blog to check them out.

Also in the area around the hotel are several famous old timey restaurants and pubs. In fact, right before we left, I caught the Anthony Bourdain's “Disappearing Manhattan” episode of No Reservations, and two of the places are just a couple of blocks east of the hotel. Also, Little Italy is only three blocks to the west, so there is plenty of food around.

Speaking of Little Italy, every September the streets transform into the famous Feast of San Gennaro where you can eat yourself to friggin' death on Italian food. We've been before on past NY trips, so we knew to plan this trip to coincide with the event. The "Holy Cannoli" gelato from Cha Cha's alone is worth the trip.

The SoHo shopping and fashion district is just two blocks west of Little Italy, and the Fashion's Night Out event was taking place on Thursday night, kicking off New York Fashion Week. The streets fill up with taxis and a bunch of really tall, skinny women drinking champaign and shopping their asses off til 11pm. It's a complete zoo, for real, really neat to see in person.

Speaking of taxis, we spent a week in the city and never took one! Instead, we bought week-long MTA passes at LaGuardia airport and got around exclusively via subway trains and city buses--even back and forth to the airport. By the end of the week, we had a firm grasp of how the subway works, and I gotta say, big ups to the MTA for making that shit easy to ride. I don't think we ever walked more than 6 or 7 blocks at a time; anything more than that and we just hopped on a train. The iPhone subway maps make it real easy to figure it all out.

The best ride we took was probably the B train out to Crown Heights in Brooklyn to hit a specific sneaker shop. It was a totally different experience than the touristy shopping in Manhattan--and the coolest part is that the train goes over the river on the Manhattan Bridge, a really scenic (if somewhat seedy) little trip.

Another subway trip we made was on Friday, September 11th, down to the World Trade Center site. The place is mostly a giant construction site right now, but being there on the anniversary of 9/11 was pretty surreal and somber.

Friday evening, we rode the subway up to midtown to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which was having Target Free Fridays. It's a real tourist trap, way too damn many people to properly enjoy the art I suppose, but hey, it's hard to bitch when it's free.

Finally, a music related comment. On Tuesday, two significant new NY-based albums came out: Raekwon's long awaited Only Built For Cuban Links II and Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3. For real, it seemed like every single record and sneaker shop we hit all week was playing one of those two albums. Everywhere we went in the city, those albums was playing. New York was most definitely representing.

Wu Shirt

It's always a good day when no one lifts the package off your front porch; I always worry about that with UPS deliveries. Anyways, here's the shirt I ordered...check yesterday's Wu-Tang Clan post. I'm lovin' that sleeve detail. Impressive quality shirt.

Bring da Ruckus

Okay, so I ordered a t-shirt last week and UPS tracking says it should hit my steps tomorrow, right? Well, I'm always a bit antsy when ordering stuff online and can't wait for it to show up--guess that's because I like that instant gratification you get when you buy in a store.

But in the meantime, since I have to wait, here's the Wu-Tang Clan:

• Method Man
  
• Ghostface Killah
  
• Inspectah Deck
  
• Raekwon The Chef
  
• Masta Killa
  
• U-God
  
• GZA
  
• RZA
  
• Ol' Dirty Bastard

I'll post up the related t-shirt tomorrow.

Favorite Hip Hop Producers

The men behind the music:

• DJ Premier
  
• Dr. Dre
  
• RZA
  
• Pete Rock
  
• J Dilla/Jay Dee
  
• Madlib
  
• The Bomb Squad (Hank and Keith Shockley)
  
• DJ Jazzy Jeff
  
• Kanye West
  

Favorite Classic Albums

My favorite classic albums--all old stuff that's stood the test of time with me. Music I listened to back in the day and still listen to today. Nothing else in various passing fads I've been through (grunge, I'm looking at you) makes that cut. So here's my all-time classic list, in no particular order:

• Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (1971)
  
• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)
  
• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory (1991)
  
• De La Soul - Stakes is High (1996)
  
• Donny Hathaway - Live (1972)
  
• Digable Planets - Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (1993)
  
• Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
  
• Al Green - Let's Stay Together (1972)
  
• Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)