Groove Armada recently signed with Om Records and are set to release a brand new album BlackLight with them in February 2010. This is the first single from said album -  “I Won’t Kneel.”  I generally like Groove Armada, and this track might grow on me, although on first listen, it’s a bit too much with the 80s influence for me. Sadly this ubiquitous 80s trend does not seem to be dying any time soon :( Still, I’ll be curious to see what the rest of the album holds. Take a listen/look and let me know what you think.

Raashan Ahmad always comes with a nice, jazzy hip-hop vibe and a thought-provoking message. This video for “Peace”, taken from his recent album The Push is well-executed with a combination of live action interacting with animation. Here’s the official blurb from Om Records’ main hip-hop dude Jonathan McDonald:

“I couldn’t be more juiced to announce that Raashan Ahmad’s new video for his track ‘Peace’ (produced by Stro of the Procussions) has finally dropped and is ready and waiting to be consumed by the hip-hop loving public. Throughout his new album, “The Push,” Raashan echoes the themes and sounds of the roots of hip-hop music, intertwining social and political trials and tribulations with personal struggles and discovery. The ‘Peace’ video’s vintage vibe runs smoothly together with Raashan Ahmad’s thoughtful lyrics and classic beats. With the world in a current state of panic, Raashan is preaching peace on an individual and a global level. Combining the creative forces of director Eric A. Leppo and the passion behind Raashan’s lyrics leads to the creation of this dope video. When describing the collaboration process Leppo has said, “We realized we were both independently trying to get some similar messages across so it made a lot sense to combine forces through this project. To do justice to the topic of peace in our war- filled times, I could see from the start this would need to be a dense four minutes of animation visually and ideologically. After listening to the song and talking with Raashan about it, I came to see the song as an appeal for peace to the world, and at the same time as also a huge thought provoker, doing everything from prodding us to think about why someone might say “Peace!” instead of “bye,” to making us consider the general concepts of peace and conflict in and among different countries, classes, religions, time periods, races, species and beliefs.” There is no doubt that the song and video do the message of ‘Peace’  justice!”

Raashan Ahmad ‘Peace’ Video from Om Records on Vimeo.

So the nice folks at Om just hit us up with some new Black Spade ‘ish fresh out the studio. Grab the freeness below:

Not sure if I’m really diggin’ the Remixes. They are not bad, but I don’t necessarily feel that they add anything better to the originals.

“I’d Rather” is a fun jazzy track featuring Coultrain.

You be the judge:

Black Spade – American Gangsta Remixes
http://www.zshare.net/download/1059735699f65ea2/
Black Spade – I’d Rather feat. Coultrain
http://www.zshare.net/audio/105988260e766c1a/