FACT Magazine Garden Falls: Mokona introduces his Rapid-featuring debut single, ‘Untitled’ @ Musique Non Stop

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1. Garden Falls: Mokona introduces his Rapid-featuring debut single, ‘Untitled’
2. New study charts shifting drug references in rap music
3. Hear two tracks from M.E.S.H.’s PAN debut Scythians
4. Goon Club Allstars plan bank holiday party — win tickets and a test pressing of Mssingno EP
5. Video purporting to show Solange assaulting Jay Z surfaces
6. Download all the remixes of Nicki Minaj’s ‘Yasss Bish’ you’ll ever need
7. RZA and Raekwon call “truce,” schedule A Better Tomorrow sessions
8. Numbers producer SOPHIE is writing for J-pop superstar Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
9. MK remixes his 1992 single ‘Always’ for 2014: stream it inside
10. Hear Jamie Lidell’s narcotic rework of Cakes Da Killa’s ‘I Run This Club’
11. Morrissey reveals artwork for new single ‘World Peace Is None of Your Business’
12. Venus X shuts down GHE2O GOTH1K, slams Rihanna for “collecting all the credit for my brand”
13. Watch a full-length documentary charting the rise and fall of jungle
14. Against the Clock: Dauwd
15. Enter FACT and Ableton’s Against the Clock competition and win Ableton software, production tuition and more
16. Hear Tyler, The Creator, Nick Cave, Katy Perry and more reinterpret the 1892 ditty ‘Daisy Bell’
17. Hear an unreleased 1987 live mix by Chicago firebrand Ron Hardy
18. Watch Mark Ronson’s TED talk on how sampling changed music
19. FACT mix 440: St. Vincent
20. Watch a behind-the-scenes clip from the Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me
21. Watch Spike Lee’s first hip-hop music video since 1993, Eminem’s ‘Headlights’
22. “Like someone playing cat’s cradle with your axons”: Michael Jackson, Akkord, Usher and more reviewed in the FACT Singles Club

Garden Falls: Mokona introduces his Rapid-featuring debut single, ‘Untitled’ Posted: 12 May 2014 01:51 PM PDT Following a clutch of tracks, most notably ‘Stewardess Rush’, that found favour in the sets of Ben UFO, Bok Bok and others, Mokona this month steps out with his first 12″.  Simply titled ‘Untitled’, it features a vocal from Ruff Sqwad lynchpin Rapid and a remix from Youngstar, the man behind one of the genre’s greatest instrumentals in ‘Pulse X’, but as FACT found out, Mokona doesn’t see himself as a grime producer. In his first interview, he opens up about the importance of anime and video games to his sound, getting into basic production while spending time housebound as a child, and why his music’s too personal for him to want feedback. Stream the vocal and instrumental versions of ‘Untitled’ below, and order the 12″ here. So you’ve always been kind of shady in the past – putting stuff on Soundcloud and taking it down pretty swiftly, not giving much away – but now, you know, there’s at least a photo of you on your Twitter. Are you opening up a bit? Well I'm not aiming for mystique to begin with, I just prefer staying in the background. I love getting messages and I always reply to them, but interaction is really exhausting to me. So yeah, I'm mostly under the radar. Still, resurfacing every now and then is healthy and obviously necessary. I'd rather post one update once every few weeks than be on Twitter and Facebook daily like "IN THE STUDIO U AIN'T EVEN READY #2014 #STEPYAGAMEUP". That's just not me, who would care anyway? Everything about Soundcloud just made me nervous. To tell you the truth I don't even know what made me sign up in the first place. I would upload a track, regret it, then take it down again. At one point I wouldn't even announce uploads anymore. If you happened to check the feed at the right time you could listen to the track, a day later it would be gone because I simply changed my mind. If anything I'm interested in sharing moments, it's not about being exclusive or anonymous. What’s your background? Where do you come from, how did you first get into making music and getting involved in this whole thing? I had a weird youth, we moved around a lot and shortly after we settled I was housebound for a few years. I couldn't do anything involving any type of physical activity so I spent a lot of time either in our garden or playing video games. I was constantly making rhythms toggling through menus or SFX (which I still do, so much fun!). I can't remember a time where I wouldn't listen to music from a production point of view. Even as a kid it was always "ahh man, I love that part I wish it'd loop" or "I wonder what kind of sound this is?". In my head I was constantly rearranging the songs I was listening to. During high school I came up with more and more original ideas so I decided to learn about production. Discovering Night Slugs in 2009 was key in my development, it sped things up significantly. It's the first and only crew I can relate to 100%. These cats were making what I was trying to make, but they were way ahead of me. I spent all of 2010 improving my skills and learning about sound design, playing catch-up basically – which hasn't changed. A year later I contacted Bok Bok and he reached out to me. It just grew from there, he's like a big brother to me now. Aidan hit me up through Soundcloud. Most of the time I'd just kindly decline any offers that came my way, but he just seemed so genuine. After some messages back and forth I agreed on joining Templar Sound and sent him every track I had made up until that point. We've been friends ever since! People are gonna take about this release in a grime context – it has a Rapid vocal, obviously – but the stuff you’ve put out feels more like it’s grime more in terms of drawing from some of its key moods, mostly the icy / chilly vibe, than it is as a genre. ‘Stewardess Rush’ and ‘Exploring the Deep Sea’ have those same vibes, but they’re not really grime tunes at all. What’s your relationship with grime? Yeah I'm not a grime producer, not even close. I love the energy when my UK friends reminisce upon that era, but I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject. Grime holds no nostalgic value for me, I mean I wasn't there when it happened. I mostly relate to grime through its similarities with video game music, that's how I approached ‘Untitled’. I love how absolutely human grime is, it's just really honest music to me. When I first heard the barrage of hi-hats on Dizzee's ‘Vexed’ it just clicked. I was like "Yes! Exactly!". I want to clarify that ‘Untitled’ is just a one-off, I won’t go there again! It was just a fun experiment to see if I could make a grime instrumental. The first version was really different but it just kept on mutating. It ended up as a sort of "thank you" to early grime. So far it's been interesting to see how people react to it. “I'm interested in sharing moments, not being exclusive or anonymous.” What motifs or aesthetics do you think particularly draw you in and speak to you when it comes to music – both listening to it and making it? Layers, contrast, subtlety, silence, detail, elegance, complexity, minimalism, nature, irregularities, repetition.. things like that, not only in music but life in general. Lately I've been heavily into rain, wet surfaces and static. Musically what matters to me most is how sound design and timbre are being approached and treated. All my favourite artists make music that lives in its own specific mini-universe regardless of tempo or instrumentation. There’s not a lot of people who have your tunes. Is that deliberate or circumstance? There's only two people I send my tracks to regularly, only one of those two gets all of them. Yes, this is deliberate. I'll make music regardless, everything else is extra. The main reason I'm in this is to connect with likeminded people, therefore I can easily choose specific channels I want to move in. I'll exchange the odd track or zip with peers but I'm careful with it. I know it's probably a cliché but my tracks are so, so personal. I won't send someone tracks if I have a feeling they'll message me back like "x could use a different hi-hat". NS and TS both understand where I'm coming from. Understanding and conversation are what's most important to me, but I need them from the right people. Whether or not my tracks get played out is totally irrelevant so I don't feel the need to send zip files to every DJ I know. It's mostly not even club material anyway! Where’s the name come from? It's a character from xxxHOLiC (pronounced "holic" – the xxx should be read as ellipsis, I promise it's not hentai). It's a manga that explores spirituality and philosophical themes as well as Japanese mythology and culture. I read it a lot in high school and the name just kind of stuck with me.

New study charts shifting drug references in rap music Posted: 12 May 2014 01:23 PM PDT A new study has examined drug slang in hip-hop, and the results are predictably intriguing. Listen to enough hip-hop, and chances are you’ve heard your fair share of drug mentions, whether you noticed it or not. It might be the obvious chant of “Sippin on some sizzurp” or “drank in my cup,” or a more veiled reference, but it’s been labelled a large enough part of the music to have been the target of a study by drugs awareness group Project Know. Their team have painstakingly trawled through data mined from lyric website Rap Genius and made graphs which not only show the peaks and troughs of usage of a particular word (or drug itself), but also which rappers are the biggest repeat offenders. The word usage graphs are easily the most interesting here, showing quite clearly the societal trends by year – as weed dips in popularity, codeine soars, and as Patron loses traction, Ciroc jumps up. The list of rappers is less successful, and while it’s believable that Juicy J and DJ Paul’s Three 6 Mafia potentially be the rap act with the most weed mentions, the fact that Lil B tops three of the tables – Cocaine, Codeine and MDMA – seems as if it might be because he releases so damn much rather than simply because he’s constantly talking about drugs. We’d suggest that a more controlled (and fair) study might have yielded more accurate results, but it’s still worth taking a look anyway, so head over to the site to check each graph. If you fancy knowing which rappers have the best vocabularies, this startling list appeared recently and used similar Rap Genius data. [via XXL]

Hear two tracks from M.E.S.H.’s PAN debut Scythians Posted: 12 May 2014 12:33 PM PDT A new 12″ from PAN is usually cause for glee around these parts, and this latest EP from US expat M.E.S.H. does not disappoint. Entitled Scythians, it’s the Berlin-based Janus party resident’s debut for the label, and follows an acclaimed run of 12″s on the Dyssembler and Black Ocean imprints. Shackled to PAN’s diverse catalogue, it sounds as if M.E.S.H. has stumbled across the perfect home, and across five tracks he manages to successfully absorb fragments of Berlin techno, British electronica and the kind of low-end rumble you would usually expect to find emanating from a London bedsit. With sound design cribbed from Autechre and tempos that would make DJ Screw proud, it’s a diverse and constantly beguiling set of tracks, and follows on from PAN’s recent Beneath 12″ perfectly. You can hear two of the tracks – ‘Scythians’ and ‘Imperial Sewers’ below. Scythians EP will drop on June 6 on 12″ and digital via PAN. Tracklist: 01 Scythians 02 Interdictor 03 Captivated 04 Imperial Sewers 05 Glassel Finisher

Goon Club Allstars plan bank holiday party — win tickets and a test pressing of Mssingno EP Posted: 12 May 2014 12:21 PM PDT The London risers team-up with Beat Werk for a bank holiday party. A label-to-watch in 2014, the Goon Club Allstars crew — including Moleskin and Mssingno — will descend on London club Area on May 25. They’ll be joined by special guests Crazy Cousinz (playing a classic UK funky set), DJ Marfox and Gang Fatale’s Neana. FACT is giving away 5 tickets to the night, plus a copy of the Mssingno EP test pressing, which features 2013 track of the year ‘XE2′ — the 300-issue pressing is completely sold-out. To be in the running, send an email to competitions@thevinylfactory.com with the subject "Mssingno" before 5PM GMT on May 19. For more info on the party, head to Facebook and grab tickets now. Plus, grab a free bootleg below.

Video purporting to show Solange assaulting Jay Z surfaces Posted: 12 May 2014 09:37 AM PDT Shocking security footage from last week’s Met Gala. TMZ has posted surveillance video purportedly showing Solange Knowles kicking and swinging at Jay Z inside an elevator after last week’s Met Gala. According to TMZ’s sources, the incident occurred at the Standard Hotel in New York City. In the video, Solange attempts to attack Jay Z but a man who appears to be a bodyguard restrains her; Beyoncé stands by but mostly avoids the physical confrontation. It is unclear what prompted the attack. Watch the video below; it certainly looks like the trio, according to other photos from the night. We’re sure to be hearing more about this soon.

Download all the remixes of Nicki Minaj’s ‘Yasss Bish’ you’ll ever need Posted: 12 May 2014 08:57 AM PDT MikeQ and the Qween Beat crew take Nicki’s latest anthem to the ballroom. Earlier this month, Nicki Minaj teamed up with surprisingly resurgent Soulja Boy for ‘Yasss Bitch’, yet another track that finds Nicki’s rapping at its world-beating best. Between Nicki’s icon status and Soulja Boy’s simplistic “yasss bitch” hook, the track is a perfect remix opportunity for vogue house producers, as MikeQ and his Qween Beat collective have proven. The New Jersey producer and Divoli S’vere, Beek, Jay R Neutron, and ByRell The Great each offer a different tweak to the ‘Ha’-crashing formula, with ByRell Jersey-fying the track and adding vocalist Buddah The Commentator. Download the original and the remix pack below. Last month, MikeQ and DJ Sliink inaugurated Fade to Mind’s new collaborative series with ‘The Bitch / Werk’d It’.

RZA and Raekwon call “truce,” schedule A Better Tomorrow sessions Posted: 12 May 2014 08:27 AM PDT The Chef and The Abbot bury the hatchet — for now. Raekwon and RZA have been openly fueding about the direction of the Wu-Tang Clan and their forthcoming album A Better Tomorrow for months, with RZA issuing a 30-day deadline last month. According to the Wu’s website, the two have come to a “truce” and Raekwon is scheduled to hit the studio to complete verses for the album, with more details promised — more as we have it. In other Wu-Tang news, producer Tarik "Cilvaringz" Azzougarh provided the first glimpse of the one-of-a-kind Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, while a comprehensive history of the Clan's beefs has also popped up.

Numbers producer SOPHIE is writing for J-pop superstar Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Posted: 12 May 2014 08:26 AM PDT It’s like kawaii squared. Numbers producer SOPHIE made his name last year with ‘Bipp’, an ultra-catchy, almost aggressively cute homage to J-pop that was hailed as one of the best tracks of 2013. It seems almost too perfect, then, to discover that Harajuku pop princess Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, one of Japan’s biggest stars and the very epitome of kawaii (with a touch of the grotesque, as her completely off-the-wall videos demonstrate) has tapped SOPHIE to write a song for her. The news appeared in an interview with Dazed published online today, and while there’s no further detail on when we might expect to hear the collaboration, the piece also notes that French pop band Yelle have been working on material for Kyary too. Read the full interview and find out why SOPHIE brought a beach ball, a tyre and a proper actual octopus to the photo shoot.

MK remixes his 1992 single ‘Always’ for 2014: stream it inside Posted: 12 May 2014 07:01 AM PDT The house veteran turned unlikely chart wonder goes back to an early classic.  We say unlikely – MK‘s links to the pop world have been well-publicised, spending time as a back room producer for Will Smith and Pitbull –  but we think even he was surprised when his remix of Storm Queen’s ‘Look Right Through’ hit number one this year. Here, MK returns to one of his singles from 1992, the Alana-featuring ‘Always’ (also remixed by Route 94, late last year) and re-tools it for 2014. More MK: hear his FACT mix here, and watch his remix tutorials for FACT TV here. MK will be playing festival slots at GlobalGathering, We Are FSTVL and SW4 this summer.

Hear Jamie Lidell’s narcotic rework of Cakes Da Killa’s ‘I Run This Club’ Posted: 12 May 2014 06:32 AM PDT Warp alum Jamie Lidell takes a scalpel to Jersey rapper Cakes Da Killa’s pounding new single. Lidell’s been quiet of late, and despite making an appearance on JETS’ cover of ‘Midas Touch’, we’ve hardly heard a peep out of the snappy crooner. And while he doesn’t exactly bust out with a song and dance here (it sounds as if he’s giving his vocal chords a much-needed rest), Lidell’s cheeky production smarts are enough to elevate this smart remix way above the competition. Anchored by an unwieldy, lurching bassline, the beat propels Cakes’ unmistakable purrs into brand new territory, positioning the track somewhere between the festival stage and the messy after party. It’s big, brash and awkward – just how we like it. Cakes Da Killa’s I Run This Club (Remixes) is out now and features additional mixes from Spank Rock, Fat Tony, Darq E Freaker, Curl Up and Siyoung. You can check out the whole thing over at Bandcamp.

Morrissey reveals artwork for new single ‘World Peace Is None of Your Business’ Posted: 12 May 2014 05:33 AM PDT So-called animal lover taunts innocent dog to promote single! Well, something like that. Morrissey’s unveiled the artwork for his new single, the title track from forthcoming album World Peace is None Of Your Business. He appears to be chastising the dog for chewing his pen, or perhaps is about to throw it for him. Answers on a postcard; it makes more sense than the time he put a cat on his head, anyway. The single is out tomorrow, with the album to follow in July. It’s been a chaotic and controversial week in Mozland, with an unauthorised biopic of his early life revealed to be in the works followed by the singer being labelled a “rich, has-been egomaniac” after allegedly trying to cancel another band’s gig. [via Pitchfork]

Venus X shuts down GHE2O GOTH1K, slams Rihanna for “collecting all the credit for my brand” Posted: 12 May 2014 05:03 AM PDT Pop star’s fashion antics rile scene figurehead. Venus X has shut down her underground party-turned-movement GHE2O GOTH1K, blaming Rihanna for appropriating the scene’s style without giving its originators credit. In a series of tweets prompted by blog coverage of the “ghettogoth” style worn by Rihanna at a recent awards show, Venus labelled the pop singer a “dumb industry sex slave bitch” who was collecting “all the coins and credit” for her “brand”. Venus X launched GHE20 GOTH1K in 2009 with her friend Shayne Oliver, designer of cult street brand Hood By Air. Starting as an underground party that attracted clubbers of all races, genders and orientations, the night grew into a subculture of its own with a strongly political edge. As Venus told Fader last year: “The politics are radical. They're anti-capitalist and are pro-freedom and democracy — things that we don't know much about anywhere in the world.” [via Dazed] Read the tweets below. Apparently @Eonline TV & @necolebitchie both credit @rihanna for starting a new trend called #ghettogoth #5yrslate pic.twitter.com/fSy49BC3bs — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014 I work so hard for some dumb industry sex slave bitch to come collect all the coins and credit for my brand? @rihanna #ghettogoth — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014 A movement born out of isolation, being the weird kid, political frustration and a desire to expand the idea of what is cool. #ghettogoth — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014 Hate to say it but I can’t continue building my personal brand if she’s going to be credited. @GHE20G0TH1K was amazing…so was being a DJ. — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014 I will not be throwing any more #ghettogoth parties or djing. @rihanna thank you for teaching me a lesson. GOODBYE WORLD — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014 I can’t keep fighting guns with bows and arrows…sorry to my fans. — VENUS X (@VENUSXGG) May 12, 2014

Watch a full-length documentary charting the rise and fall of jungle Posted: 12 May 2014 04:10 AM PDT Channel 4′s Music Nation series comes to a close. The final episode of Dazed’s six-part series exploring the UK’s musical subcultures is now available to watch online. Directed by Ollie Evans, Jungle Fever charts the rise and fall of one the country’s most unique scenes and features jungle veterans Fabio & Grooverider, Nicky Blackmarket, DJ Hype, Kenny Ken, Brockie and more. Watch Jungle Fever below, via Dazed. Music Nation also included a full-length version of Ewen Spencer's UK garage documentary Brandy & Coke, a look at the birth of rave culture in Berkshire Goes Balearic, and a journey to the West Country in Bristol Bass Oddity.

Against the Clock: Dauwd Posted: 12 May 2014 04:05 AM PDT Against the Clock is a series on FACT TV where we give an artist 10 minutes in the studio and see what they come up with. You can watch all the past episodes here. In this episode, South London-based producer Dauwd, who has been steadily releasing wistful dance singes on Pictures Music, Ghostly International and, most recently, Kompakt, since 2011. He’s also built up a healthy arsenal of hardware in that time, which he puts to good use on Against the Clock. Oh, and he starts with a Fleetwood Mac sample. What a guy. FACT and Ableton are teaming up for an Against the Clock competition, where our readers can take on the challenge and win prizes of £1000+ in value. For more on that, head here. Dauwd’s Kindlinn EP is out now on Kompakt – you can buy it here.

Enter FACT and Ableton’s Against the Clock competition and win Ableton software, production tuition and more Posted: 12 May 2014 04:04 AM PDT On FACT TV, we host a series called Against the Clock, where a producer has 10 minutes to make a track from scratch. Since the series begun last year, it’s featured sessions from KiNK, xxxy, Addison Groove, Huxley, Tom Demac, Ikonika and more, and has become one of the most popular channels on FACT TV. Now FACT and Ableton are teaming up to open Against the Clock to any readers who fancy taking the challenge. If you think you can go Against the Clock and win, then we want you to submit music to our Soundcloud group. You must be an unsigned artist (we appreciate that ‘unsigned’ is a vague term – the odd digital release is OK, but we’ll have final judgement and if you’re regularly releasing music on labels then you’ll be considered too pro) and you may submit one track only. The deadline for submissions is midnight on June 9. Once that’s past, we’ll go through the music you’ve sent and pick out the three tracks that, for whatever reason, caught our ear the most. We’ll then contact you via Soundcloud (so if you do enter, make sure you check your messages), and arrange for you to go Against the Clock on FACT TV. Once we’ve filmed all three of you taking the challenge, we’ll upload the videos to FACT TV, and FACT readers will vote on who should take home the crown. It’s not just kudos you’re winning, either. The overall competition winner will take home a copy of Ableton Live 9 Suite (RRP £559), an eight-week online production course with Quantize Courses, with expert training coming from Ableton Certified Trainer Keith Mills (course value is £495 – for more information head here), a bundle of Ableton merch and their choice of instrument / pack to download from Ableton’s pack store. Both runners up, meanwhile, will win a copy of Ableton Live Standard (RRP £339), a bundle of Ableton merch, and their choice of instrument / pack to download from Ableton’s pack store. Take note: the competition is a collaboration between FACT and Ableton, but you don’t need to use Ableton to enter. You could build tracks on Logic, FL Studio, some saucepans and a contact mic, whatever you choose. However, if you do want to use Ableton for your entry, you can download a 30 day free trial of Ableton Live 9 here. Good luck! For inspiration, check out this week’s Against the Clock, from South London-based producer Dauwd, below.

Hear Tyler, The Creator, Nick Cave, Katy Perry and more reinterpret the 1892 ditty ‘Daisy Bell’ Posted: 12 May 2014 03:00 AM PDT Yep, the one about the “bicycle built for two”. A motley crew of musicians including Tyler, The Creator, Nick Cave and Katy Perry have delivered fresh interpretations of ‘Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built For Two)’ as part of a project by visual artist Mark Ryden. ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO and Kirk Hammett of Metallica also contributed their own versions of the 1892 composition, with each accompanied by an animation. The predictably bonkers results have been pressed up on vinyl in a limited run of 999 copies, with half sold at the opening of Ryden’s LA art show ‘The Gay 90s’ last week, and the other half due to go on sale from his website tomorrow (13 May). The records are selling for $99.99 with proceeds going to the Little Kids Rock organisation. Check out all the videos below – our favourite is Mothersbaugh’s potato head version. [via Exclaim]

Hear an unreleased 1987 live mix by Chicago firebrand Ron Hardy Posted: 12 May 2014 02:27 AM PDT The latest RA podcast marks what would have been Ron Hardy’s 56th birthday. Departing from their usual focus on brand new music, Resident Advisor have this week shared a previously unreleased live mix recorded at Chicago club C.O.D.’s in 1987, and put forward by local DJ Zernell. “He was on fire!” says Zernell. “Three different versions of ‘I Can’t Turn Around’ back-to-back killed it. That was classic Ron.” Hardy, who passed away in 1992, was known for his high-volume, rough and ready DJ style (as this mix demonstrates), often pitching tracks up to much faster speeds and adding reel-to-reel edits into the mix. Head to RA to download the mix.

Watch Mark Ronson’s TED talk on how sampling changed music Posted: 12 May 2014 01:59 AM PDT The hit-making machine defends the idea of “co-opting” a song for your own ends. Mark Ronson took his turn on the TED podium recently to give a talk about sampling, arguing that recycling other people’s sounds shouldn’t sound like “hijacking nostalgia” but should always bring something new into the equation. To demonstrate, he remixes 15 previous TED talks into an audio-visual collage before tracing the evolution of Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s ‘La Di Da Di’, the fifth most sampled song of all time. He also talks about avoiding pastiche while working with Amy Winehouse on her second album Back To Black, and comments on Miley Cyrus’ recycling of the ‘La Di Da Di’ hook on ‘We Can’t Stop’. Watch the talk below.

FACT mix 440: St. Vincent Posted: 12 May 2014 01:36 AM PDT Annie Clark goes from front of stage to behind the decks on this week’s FACT mix. After starting off her musical career as part of The Polyphonic Spree, Annie Clark turned St. Vincent for her debut album, 2007′s Marry Me. In 2009, she sidestepped from Beggars Banquet to 4AD for the release of her well-received second album, Actor, and has become one of the label’s most successful acts, most recently releasing her fourth solo album St. Vincent - an album that Clark, who’s often been described as very private, has described as her “extroverted” record. Clark’s picked up many admirers in her musical career – Swans‘ Michael Gira and Talking Heads’ David Byrne have both collaborated with her, the latter on an entire album in 2012′s Love This Giant - and her on FACT mix, she gets to shine a light on some of the acts that she admires. Beyonce, King Krule, Kanye West, Liz Phair and more feature. Tracklist: King Krule – Easy Easy Solex – Oh Blimey! Beyonce – Blow David Bowie – Warszawa Kanye West – Black Skinhead Interlude Loretta Lynn - Wine, Women and Song King Creole and The Coconuts - Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy Sisyphus - Calm It Down Marvin Pontiac - No Kids The Clash - London Calling Liz Phair – Divorce Song Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady, Suite 3 Selda – Yaylalar

Watch a behind-the-scenes clip from the Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me Posted: 12 May 2014 01:23 AM PDT We can safely say it’s Tupac as you’ve never heard him before. Holler If Ya Hear Me, the Broadway musical that takes Tupac’s back catalogue as raw material for its story, is due to premiere on 19 June at the Palace Theatre in New York. To whet our appetites, the show’s producers have released this behind-the-scenes clip of the cast recording their parts (including the titular ‘Holler If Ya Hear Me’ and an slightly awkward ‘California Love’). The musical, written by Toss Kreidler and directed by Kenny Leon, actually isn’t based on Tupac’s life, but instead uses his lyrics and music to shape a narrative about two friends based in the Midwest. More information and tickets can be found on the show’s website. The long-awaited Tupac biopic also looks set to appear in the next year or so, helmed by Boys In The Hood director John Singleton and featuring music by Ashanti. [via Hypetrak]

Watch Spike Lee’s first hip-hop music video since 1993, Eminem’s ‘Headlights’ Posted: 12 May 2014 12:57 AM PDT Eminem has released the video for ‘Headlights’, from his latest album The Marshall Mathers LP 2. In an about turn, of sorts, the video is an ode to Eminem’s mother – one of the main targets of his bile since his rap career took off. It’s also the first hip-hop music video that Spike Lee has directed since Naughty By Nature’s ‘Hip Hop Hooray’. Read FACT’s review of The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

“Like someone playing cat’s cradle with your axons”: Michael Jackson, Akkord, Usher and more reviewed in the FACT Singles Club Posted: 12 May 2014 12:00 AM PDT Each week on the FACT Singles Club, a selection of our writers work their way through the new music of the week gone by. With the way individual tracks are now consumed, the idea of what constitutes a single has shifted dramatically in the last half a decade, and its for this reason that the songs reviewed across the next pages are a combination of 12″ vinyl releases, mixtape cuts, Soundcloud uploads and more. All are treated equally – well, most of the time. On the chopping block this week: Michael Jackson, Popcaan, Powell, Usher, and more. Use your keyboard's arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/8)