Cool Toyz

Get ready to lose yourself in videogames—literally.  In May, the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas installed the first public Virtusphere, a human-sized hamster ball that lets you move through virtual worlds by walking, running, or crawling inside it.  Until now, the sphere has been used primarily for military and police training.  Now, wearing a virtual-reality visor, anyone inside can play a first-person-shooter game, tour historic Russian architecture or do any number of leisure activities.

The 10-foot sphere is made of the same plastic as Legos, and its curvature helps to cushion players if they fall.  The ball spins on a platform fitted with 45 caster-mounted wheels.   Beneath, an optical sensor tracks motion the same way a computer mouse does, watching for relative movement across x and y axes.  To make the experience truly immersive, the player is fitted with a head-mounted display with two internal LCD screens.  A laptop wirelessly collects the data from the sensor and the gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers on the headset to create the image the player sees.  Below is a video showing how the system works and for more info on Virtual Ventures go to  360virtualventures.com

5 Classic Remixes

In the spirit of the best remix contest below are 5 classic remixes that still get airplay on my MP3 player. Notice that in the 90's when producers made a remix they not only added new verses, but in some cases added a new beat. The reason Murder Inc, Bad Boy and other labels at the time stopped doing this. Is the way to track a records success is thru BDS (broadcast data systems) spins and if they change the beat of a record the BDS system doesn't recognize the record anymore and starts counting spins again from zero. 

Instead of having one record sell 20,000 copies and the remix selling 30,000 copies to make the total of 50,000, which would be somewhat successful. Labels had one successful record and one unsuccessful. So to capitalize off remixing a record they stopped changing the beat. 
 

The Best Remix Contest

Are you a talented DJ or producer?  Here's your chance to remix a track by international recording artist Tyger Vinum. This contest is open to DJ's, producers and musicians worldwide.

THE RULES: You will be given the accapella "Grindin Muzik" (the title track off the new album) and your task is to remix the song by adding your own original beat and production. To enter the contest and receive the song contact my colleague at liz@tygervinum.com and put "The Best Remix Contest" as the subject.

DEADLINE: July 4th, 2010 (12 midnight EST)

NO submissions will be accepted after this date. The winner will be notified by email.

PRIZE: 1 Tyger Vinum T-shirt and a copy of all 3 Tyger Vinum albums. The winning song and producer will also be listed in Tyger Vinum's Myspace music player, website and blog for 30 days. I'm looking forward to hearing some bangin remixes so get at me.

For more information about Tyger Vinum, Vinumous Records, or Poizonous Pen Productions you can visit the websites below:

www.tygervinum.com 

www.vinumousrecords.com  

www.myspace.com/tygervinum  

www.myspace.com/vinumousrecords

Return of Black Sheep

One of my favorite 90's Hip-Hop groups has re-united and is doing a show in Amsterdam on June 11th. Black Sheep was one of the founding members of the iconic Native Tongues collective which started the whole conscious rap movement. The Native Tongues were a super group consisting of  The Jungle Brothers, Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, and De La Soul. Black Sheep debut album  A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, released in 1991 which gained them praise and recognition in the hip-hop community for the album’s unique rhythms and intelligent lyrics. That album produced 3 Billboard singles  "The Choice is Yours," "Work We Do," and "Strobe Light Honey," which propelled the group towards stardom.


They released a second album Non-Fiction in 1994 but it wasn't as successful do to poor album promotion and label support. Since then the group members Dres, and Mr. Long separated and worked on solo projects until re-uniting in 2008. There show is in Amsterdam at the Bitterzoet night club on June 11th. I posted their clip "The Choice is Yours," below and if you're in the Amsterdam on the 11th come to the show.

Peace

2 OLD 4 ANIME

I was in this conversation recently with a friend about animation. His son is 13 and loves the show FMA ( Full Metal Alchemist), I also watch the show which surprised my friend cuz he thought I was too old for anime. His understanding of anime was that most animation was for children like Saturday morning cartoons. Over the next two hours Isaac and I gave his father an education in animation. After watching the Ninja Scrolls and Fist of the Northstar my friend joined the fan club. You never get to old to enjoy the things you love in life. There are countless amounts of awesome anime to watch but I only like a select few. The three shows I'm watching right now are Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto Shippuuden and Ichiban Ushiro no Diamao of the three F.M.A. is the best.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Their world is styled after the European Industrial Revolution. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is one of the most advanced scientific techniques known to man, the story follows the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, who want to restore their bodies after a disastrous failed attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy. Check out the clip below.

God of War 3

This is for all my cyber-junkies, gamers and couch commando's. 


If you're a gamer and you haven't heard of the God of War then you're not from this planet. The G.O.W. (God of War) trilogy started out for the PS2 (part 1 and 2) and carried over to the new PS3 console (part 3).  G.O.W. is a action adventure game set in Greek and Roman mythology, where u are Krato's the avenger and servant to the gods. In part 1 Krato's completed his mission for the gods and they cheated him so in part 2  he goes for answers to why the gods broke their pact, and in part 3 he goes for revenge. I was annoyed that I have to go out and buy a PS3 just to finish the series, but when I played the demo...I knew it was worth the investment. Below is the game trailer from youtube and if u wanna own your own copy go to http://www.godofwar.com.

Shadow Art

Another painter that inspired me to continue painting even though my style wasn't conventional art is H.R. Giger. He is the master of the macabre, his paintings and sculptures have been used for the movies Aliens, Species, and numerous others. I got a book from him titled Necronomicon  for Christmas when I was a kid and the pictures in that book were the images from nightmares. I became a diehard fan right then and i've been collecting his work ever since. Giger was born in Switzerland in 1940, went to private school for architecture and industrial design in Zurich, then had his first art exhibit in 1966. I posted a few pieces below but you should visit www.hrgiger.com to really see all of his work. 

Abstract Creations Art

I'm a big art affectionado, I love all mediums of painting, illustration and drawing. Most of my artistic inspiration comes from reading comics when I was a kid. It wasn't until I was older did I get into paintings. Below is one of my favorite Dutch painters Hans Kanters. His style is surrealism like Salvador Dali but with less focus on the landscape and more on the objects or images in the paintings. You can see more of his work at www.hanskanters.com

How 2 become a lyrical legend

I'm sitting here going thru email listening to Helta Skelta "Nocturnal," and it made me post the footage below. Helta Skelta in the studio at Line 5 in Amstedam freestyling for the radio to promote their new project D.I.R.T "Da Incredible Rap Team."

If you're unfamiliar with the group Helta Skelta is rap duo Rock aka Rockness Monsta and Ruck aka Sean Price. Helta Skelta is part of the Boot Camp Clik which is composed of groups Black Moon, O.G.C,  and Smif-N-Wessun. 

They rose to prominence in the 90's with singles like "Letha Brainz Blo," "Therapy," and "Leflah," off their 1996 album "Nocturnal" full of sharp wit and grimey lyricism. They went on to release Magnum Force in 1998 which had the hit single "I ain't havin that," featuring Redman, then took a break as a group until 2005 when they reunited on Sean Price's album "Monkey Barz." Since then the group has been touring non-stop and released their new album  D.I.R.T (Tha Incredible Rap Team) in 2008.

I've been a fan since the 90's because of their consistency and lyricism. I had the chance to do a track with Sean P. called "Who Dat Be" on my newest album "Grindin Muzik." These guys are real MC's the kind that say rhymes that make you wanna press rewind after hearing 'em.  If you like the videos below and want to own some classic Helta Skelta or the Boot Camp clik albums go to www.duckdown.com

Peace, Vinum

Vinumous Chronicles: series

I've been doing a mini-series of my adventures around the globe called the Vinumous Chroincles, that I've been posting for a few years now. The clips are under ten minutes and usually have me in  different countries checking out the local scene and interviewing U.S. artists who are there at the time. I posted a few below featuring my recent performance in Amsterdam, footage of my fam in France and a interview I did with Sean Price of the Boot Camp Clik. If you want to see more check my youtube page www.youtube.com/tygervinum.