Boog Brown and producer Apollo Brown are joining forces to form UPS with their forthcoming album The Brown Study LP, due for release in the summer of 2010. In anticipation of their debut, Boog Brown is releasing a mixtape entitled The Grind Season Vol. 1.

A collection of music from the Atlanta-based artist, this project features production from Illastrate, Lex Boogie, 14KT and appearances from staHHr, Fluxwonda of Binkis Recs, and Mojo Swagger.

“Grind Season is a state of being,” says Boog on the meaning behind the mixtape’s title. “Every day you must grind for your vision. Mine is making honest music.”

Boog Brown – The Grind Season Vol. 1

Next is Fly Gypsy who are planning to release their remix project entitled FG*XL:remixtape on March 16, 2010. As a preview, you can download Fly Gypsy’s Birdman-less remix of “I Want It All” now.

New from Oddisee is the remix of “NYC” featuring yU.

Oddisee – “yU Traveling (NYC Remix)” featuring yU

Related:
Oddisee – “San Francisco,” “Chicago,” “Khartoum”

General Steele’s new album, Amerikkka’s Nightmare Part 2 – Children Of War, arrives February 23rd. The album promises to have a political and activist tone. General Steele states:

“America the beautiful has an ugly past. It is the people who live in this great country who have struggled relentlessly to establish this country under the basic common human & constitutional rights that all people should have. These rights have at times been suppressed and our vision of a “land of the free” has been compromised. Some people are complacent with the state of our nation, others are speaking out.”

Album art and track listing below:

Amerikkka’s Nightmare Part 2 – Children Of War track listing:

1. Amerikkka’s Nightmare
2. Pledge Allegiance ft Nicole Michelle
3. Cry Freedom ft Dead Prez
4. Tomorrows Children ft Flood Diesel
5. I Had A Vision ft Louie Skaggs, Hasaan Salaam, Akir, Louie Skaggs and Hicoup
6. Child Of War
7. State Of The Union Address
8. We on The Move Now ft Nicole Michelle
9. Amerikkkan skemin
10. Home of The Brave (Jimmy’s song)
11. Patriot Games
12. Rebellious ft Madison Rocks

This is overly complicated, but if you’re a Madlib fan, you probably won’t mind.

In 2001, Madlib formed Yesterdays New Quintet, a project that wasn’t in fact an actual quintet; rather, the group consisted of Madlib himself, and four fictional characters. After a number of really good records as YNQ, or as one of its members, Madlib dissolved the pseudo-group in 2007, at which time he formed Yesterdays Universe.

With Yesterdays Universe, Madlib created a whole new set of pseudonyms, fictional Jazz musicians, and made-up Jazz groups, one of which is called The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble. The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble has a new album out later this month, and it’s called Miles Away. From Stones Throw:

Miles Away is a jazz fusion album, produced & arranged by Madlib, which has been tweaked and revised for over two years when it was first announced. Look for more of Madlib’s Yesterdays Universe releases to follow in 2010.

Read more about Miles Away and its amazing cover art here.

Download “Tones for Larry Young,” a song from the new Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion album.

Produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios, this record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax.

You can get a preview of the album, and download the single “I Learned the Hard Way” right here.

Diamond District – “Who I Be” (Marco Polo Remix)

Marco Polo’s remix of Diamond District’s “Who I Be” will be appearing on the Diamond District Remixes album, as well as the forthcoming The Stupendous Adventures Of Marco Polo.

DaVinci – “Trickle Down” produced by Blunt