Lichiban (aka Licsi) is a talented visual artist with a passion for art, music, and humanitarian work. Check the interview below…

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More videos after the jump. Get Freeway’s ‘Free at Last’ right here
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The reminisce over the SP1200 at the Village Voice.

Pete Rock Everything that you ever heard from me back in the day was the SP-1200. That machine made “Reminisce” ["They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)"], “Straighten It Out,” “Shut ‘Em Down,” “Jump Around.” When I made “Reminisce”—I had friend of mine that passed away, and it was a shock to the community. I was kind of depressed when I made it. And to this day, I can’t believe I made it through, the way I was feeling. I guess it was for my boy. When I found the record by Tom Scott, basically I just heard something incredible that touched me and made me cry. It had such a beautiful bassline, and I started with that first. I found some other sounds and then heard some sax in there and used that. Next thing you know, I have a beautiful beat made. When I mixed the song down, I had Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School in the session with me, and we all just started crying.

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This is like the Gibson ES of turntables - it has a wooden semi-hollow body for good acoustics:

It’s finally happened. Vestax has re-invented the turntable into a true musical instrument with the Controller One. The brainchild of legendary scratch innovators D-Styles and Ricci Rucker, the Controller One functions on actual musical instrument principles rather than mere pitch control allowing the DJ to create a wide range of tones and melodies never before heard from a turntable. With it’s tunable pitch range and selection of dedicated buttons, the Controller One can be set to cover up to 2 octaves all in the world’s first wooden, semi-hollow body (for excellent acoustic character). This turntable is definitely in a league of its own and will usher in a new era for turntablists and scratch composers.

More info here…

Jay-Z has decided to pull American Gangster from iTunes because he wants consumers to buy the entire album, not individual songs. Well it’s at least a better business decision than giving the album away.

If you still want it digital you can get Hov’s new album in mp3 format (DRM-free) here.