Respecta.is - The Ultimate Hip Hop Portal

Beastie Boys have contributed a "super surprise" 12-inch record for Record Store Day, which is a day in which special vinyl and CD releases are sold exclusively at independently owned record stores. The purpose of Record Store Day is to encourage music fans to support their local record stores, instead of big box stores or online music stores. The Beastie Boys' super surprise record for Record Store Day is limited to 1,000 copies and will be distributed among more than 700 record stores. If you are interested in getting a copy of the Beastie Boys' album, go to your local record store and express interest in it. The record store will not be able to guarantee you a copy, but it will be able to make a request for the record. I checked with Other Music, a popular independent record store in NYC, and was told that the store requested 14 copies of the Beastie Boys' album, but it has no idea how many it will actually get. It's all a crapshoot -- for both the record stores and buyers. A source at Capitol/EMI, the Beastie Boys' record label, confirmed that the label did not commission the album from the Beastie Boys -- meaning, the idea to participate in Record Store Day was solely the Beastie Boys' idea. Knowing that the label was not involved in the album means the album could be anything. Because it's the Beastie Boys, you have to assume that it will be interesting.

Muhsinah (pronounced Mu•see•na) is an independent singer/songwriter and producer. A graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and of Howard University. She cites Chick Corea, Alice Coltrane and J Dilla as among her influences. Her self-produced EP day.break 2.0 (2008) was described by XLR8R magazine as "a beautiful smack in the face of mainstream hip-hop and R&B convention".

Though a small scale release, it attracted the attention of rappers Common as well as Phonte of Little Brother/The Foreign Exchange, both of whom she later recorded with, appearing on Common's Universal Mind Control and The Foreign Exchange's Leave It All Behind. The Washington Post has written of her as being "part of a new breed of young soul rebels who seamlessly meld electronic beats with layers of jazzy arrangements and unorthodox song structure", and as "equally at home chopping loops and tapping pads on an Akai MPC as she is behind a piano keyboard".

Muhsinah was acknowledged by the band, Radiohead, on their website Dead Air Space on March 15th, 2010. The track 'Lose My Fuse' was listed as a favorite of the band at the time the post was published