Tyrannosaurus Travis

No matter how Jimmy Fallon’s show is ultimately received, one thing we can all agree on is that his show posses the best house band in Late Night television history, The Roots. Here, the Roots remix President Obama’s press conference the other night, highlighting some of his verbal ticks. Check it out above.

Skateboard P stops at a McDonald’s and decides to have an impromptu performance.

“On a connecting flight home from Malaysia, we stopped in Paris. At 6am, Pharrell tries anything to get McDonald’s to open up early. Maybe a little song and dance might do the trick, or maybe not”

Everybody’s favorite bratty songstress Lily Allen returns to to the scene with a new video “Not Fair” from her latest album It’s Not Me It’s You. The racy subject matter in the song is juxtaposed with a tongue in cheek video featuring barnyard animals. In true Allen fashion she comes through with poppy songs and doesn’t take herself to seriously. Check out the video above.

It’s very rare that a remix matches the original, and it’s almost impossible that the remix is better. However, there are exceptions. Young Electrik takes Wayne’s pop rock “Prom Queen” and gives it some synthesizer flair. Check out the link and description below:

Young Electrik are truly on the verge of becoming a name that everyone checks for, because only after a couple of weeks of their release of their Bad News Remix, they have now have now supplied us with their complete re-invention of Lil’ Wayne’s Prom Queen. Young Electrik stepped in and brought out some of the emotion behind Wayne’s song with their synth melodies , and a bass line to die for. This track is a must have for any fan of Wayne’s music, enjoy.

Lil Wayne – Prom Queen (Young Electrik Remix)

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton had his own celebration at SXSW a few nights ago. Several big name artists came through to perform. However, one of the best performances of the night happened to be a collaboration between Kid Cudi and Little Boots doing a rendition of “Day N Nite”. Check it out above.

When it comes to young rappers, it seems like Kid Cudi might be a bit better off than the rest of the gang. Not only did Cudi just ink a deal with Universal Motown, but he also has music’s biggest star, Kanye West, in his corner. Cudi and Complex have long had a relationship (he actually modeled for us back in 2006), but after we tapped him and his homies in a blog post and he responded, we weren’t sure if things were cool…

That is, until Cudi came through the eckoplex yesterday for his first press day, and he kept it realer than most. In this exclusive interview, the Double-O representer talks about how he wants to be bigger than Kanye and Lil Wayne, the screaming match he had with Wale last week, and that rumored Reebok situation that went down in Phoenix. Yup, we back friends like Puffy and Steve Stoute…

Interview by Joe La Puma

Complex: Obviously there was a little push back from the blog post we did about the new rapper retail deals…

Kid Cudi: Even in my post I said I have no problem with Complex. It’s been my favorite magazine. On one of my songs, “Cleveland is the Reason,” I actually shouted you guys out and I recorded that song in 2006. So when I say “I want my closet Complex like the magazine,” I was really dreaming of getting fresh. And I remember always looking in Complex and looking for the fresh shit. But when I saw that, it was kind of brought to my attention…like, I’m all good with jokes, I like cracking jokes, I’m a silly dude, we all know that, but I didn’t feel too roasted. I was like, that was an attempt to be funny but it just wasn’t funny. I was just standing up for my homies that were on the list. It wasn’t really like I was standing up for myself, and I wasn’t really attacking the magazine. I was just attacking this kid that thought he was being witty. But I wasn’t shitting on him. I was just like [silly voice] mannn you know…that’s not right man, that’s not cool.

Complex: Fair enough, we cool, ha. How crazy has the past year and a half been for you? I remember watching you at the T-mobile event and not many people knowing you, now you’re fresh off from shutting down SXSW with Kanye…

Kid Cudi: It’s definitely a mind fuck. Literally, since I’ve had “Day N’ Night,” it’s been bong, bong, bong. I know some people are like, man he blew up over night. Those muthafuckas ain’t follow my career. It was always a steady little pace from giving “Day N’ Night” to A-Trak at the “Stronger” premiere video release party, to having him play it twice, to ‘Ye standing there talking to people, and me from a distance trying to get his attention and pointing to my ear and saying “yo listen, that’s my song,” and him nodding back and giving me the smile like “yeah that’s what up.” He was like, “Yo, you have a lot of shit I’ve heard that I fuck with,” but nothing came out of it, but it was letting me know that I was on the right track. After he came back from Australia, he contacted Plain Pat and say he wanted to fly me out to Hawaii to work on the Blueprint 3. So literally, in my brain, I feel like I’m on this rollercoaster that’s not ending anytime soon and it’s just fresh as fuck.

Complex: So you talked about working with ’Ye—how much of an advantage do you think aligning yourself with him gives you over other young rappers like Charles Hamilton or Mickey Factz, who might not have that major co-sign?

Kid Cudi: Basically Kanye is probably the biggest fucking artist in the universe right now, and me being with such a dope tastemaker complements my taste in music. Whatever he does and whatever he touches is amazing and being a new artist and having that person say, “Hey everybody, this muthafucka is dope.” I mean, the talent was already there of course, “Day N’ Night” was already established and shit like that, but at the same time, it definitely turned the right ears to it. So it’s definitely an advantage for me.

Complex: The Universal deal. Why did it make sense for you to sign with them?

Kid Cudi: It wasn’t about the money, because I really don’t give a fuck about the money. Honestly, I don’t even have to do music anymore, I can just live off of808’s and Heartbreak checks and “Day N’ Night” checks and be good. Then I have the HBO show in August. I went with Universal Motown because I know Sylvia Rhone believed in my vision. Like, Sylvia is going to go hard for me and I know it. She was ready to put her career on the line for this stranger, ultimately because she believed in my shit, not because I had this big song. Because she already told me that it’s about longevity. There are artists like a Lil Wayne that’s just going to blow the fuck up and just kill shit. And she knows that I can play the role of a Lil Wayne, or a Kanye and be as equally successful and that’s why she was like, I don’t give a fuck about what anybody else is talking about, I want this kid to do this. And that’s why I was with the deal.

Complex: What kind of expectations do you have for your career? Do you think you can be as big as Wayne or as big as Kanye?

Kid Cudi: My whole thing is to not to be as big as Kanye or Lil Wayne, but to be bigger. It’s all about progression. If I just set the goal to want to be like Kanye and Lil Wayne, that’s setting my shit to a limit and it’s selling myself short. I’m pretty sure when Kanye was aspiring to do his music, he wasn’t like, I want to be as big as Jay. He was like, Nah, I want to be bigger then Jay. It’s not necessarily saying that you are better than them, it’s just setting that bar. If I never am better then Kanye, in my brain, I’m always going to be trying to be, forever and ever until the day that I die.

Complex: That’s a good way to stay motivated…

Kid Cudi: I don’t want this to get misquoted that I’m trying to be better than Kanye or anything like that, it’s just a mental memo in my brain to keep me turbo charged to accelerate my shit, to make me think on grand scales. To tell you the truth, no one can catch up to Kanye, that muthafucka is gone. It’s just like a muthafucka saying that he wants to be a god amongst men. It’s never going to happen but its just you raising the bar, you know what I mean?

The world’s smallest music player just got smaller — and smarter. About half the size of the previous model, the all-new 4GB iPod Shuffle ($79) features VoiceOver technology, which enables the Shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. Screen? Who needs a screen? The new Shuffle is wrapped in an awesome new aluminum case in silver or black, and sports a built-in stainless steel clip for maximum wearability.

[From Hypebeast]

Since Kanye West is such a visionary when it comes to music videos anticipation is sky high for any clip he chooses to display as the visual accompaniment to his music. Recently, Kanye put a video of “Welcome To Heartbreak” from 808s and Heartbreak on his blog. The video utilizes vivid colors and graphics to match the mood of the track. Don’t attempt to adjust your computer screen, the visuals are purposely skewed for effect. While the video would surely get constant rotation on every video channel, Kanye clarifies that the song is not the next single. Therefore the web is probably the only place you’ll see this while you wait for the “Amazing” feat. Young Jeezy video to drop.