Wednesday Bullets: A Hip-hop Themed Kind of Day

Been away for a little while, so a few quick, or possibly not so quick, notes:

• I'm pretty excited about the second half of the NBA season. Lots of intriguing story lines with all the deals that have gone down in the last couple of weeks: Bibby to the Hawks - possibly putting them in contention to be a playoff team in the East - although they would've been out of it in the West ages ago; almost 35 year old J-Kidd to the Mavs; whether LBJ can make the conference finals again with literally no help; how the Lakers will fare without Andrew Bynum, and possibly Kobe if he opts, or is forced, into having surgery on his pinky; and, of course, how the Diesel will fit in with the Suns and how Steve Kerr will manage to fit his enormous testicles into his pants. The later of the two storylines begin with the Lakers/Suns tonight 9:30pmET on the Score. An interesting ESPN writers round table on the Lakers/Suns. Also, a looming Raptors post-season storyline - what they'll do after they get thumped in the first round of the playoffs by the Cavs/Magic.
  

• I've been listening to Shad K (of London, On)'s The Old Prince in the last couple of days, courtesy of my friend Jacob (who is apparently, so he says, friends with Shad). He is (Shad, not Jacob) nominated for a Juno for the album, which without hearing any of the other albums I assume he deserves. If K'naan winning the 2006 Juno in the same category tells us nothing else, it says that the voters are happy to give the award to someone who has been inspired by an awful experience in a war torn nation (K'naan - Somalia, Shad - Rwanda). Hopefully, I'll be able to put together some more thoughts on Shad in the next couple of weeks.
  

• After a little bit of a legal struggle, AmpLive was able to release its Radiohead RainyDayz Remixes, which, is pretty cool especially since includes guest spots from some of the best in the Bay Area - Del the Funky Homosapien, Chali2Na of Jurassic 5, among others. The best part is that its a free download on AmpLive's myspace. My pick:
  

[mp3] Video Tapez (ft. Del the Funky Homosapien).mp3

• Lastly, a couple of Kanye West remixes of, probably the best track on my favourite album of '07, 'Flashing Lights'. I'm not sure either of them are any better, but I think the track was so good in the first place, it would be pretty hard to screw up.

[mp3]Flashing Lights (R. Kelly remix).mp3
[mp3] Colin Munroe - I Want Those Flashing Lights.mp3

Also, if you haven't seen the video for the actual song... it might be the Fargo of music videos... kind of horrifying.