​Large Professor cuts an outside figure in the New York hip-hop scene these days. As a producer who also happens to rap in an endearingly economical manner, he's integral to any overview of hip-hop's storied golden era--he tutored under Paul C, contributed production input to Eric B & Rakim songs, scored a classic with his own group Main Source's Breaking Atoms, and helped kick-start the career of a [then] Nasty Nas when Queensbridge's golden son was still rocking a band-aid over his cheek in promotional pics. But since his late-'80s emergence, Large Pro's solo career has unfortunately faltered, with his intended solo debut The LP caught up in label politics and long-delayed, and his subsequent statement on Matador, First Class, resonating limply at best. As a producer, Large Pro has never caught a particularly pop break either--unlike, say, DJ Premier he's never been handed an opportunity to gallivant with a feisty chanteuse. Instead, he's maintained a dedication to working with grass-roots New York rap talent as if the very idea of cracking the mainstream is absurd.

Large Pro's newest project, the album Still On The Hustle, reunites him with fellow Queens resident Neek The Exotic--a pairing last heard on 2003's Exotic Is Raw set, for which Large Pro handled around half of the production duties. It's a release unlikely to trouble those whose RSS feeds frolic above rap's underground layer, but it's a collaboration that allows Large Pro to continue to dwell in a hip-hop world of his own creation. When I interviewed him a couple of years ago, he was late because he was cycling around Flushing Meadows Park while listening to his iPod--the impression given was that he'd prefer to produce at his own leisurely pace and on his own terms rather than pucker up and play the major-label game. It's a stance that should be applauded. With that in mind, here are ten commendable hometown anthems produced--as opposed to remixed, which would be a whole other lengthy listicle--by Flushing's finest self-proclaimed "live guy with glasses."

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​The year in music, circa 2010, started at the Cake Shop, with a shred-down to the New Year courtesy of Siren Festival MVP-to-be Marissa Paternoster and her band Screaming Females. After a tour through the NYE fetes of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, that night ended amidst a marathon show at Bushwick's Shea Stadium, right around the time the Blastoids' drummer poured paint on his kit and started splattering away.

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Surfer Blood play Cake Shop during last year's CMJ. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.

​Hey, remember last year, when we predicted that the stresses of Surfer Blood's twelve different CMJ shows would cause the band to self-destruct? Um, that's not at all what happened. Instead, the Florida band rode their week of shows here last fall to some semblance of that ol' traditional CMJ success story, and here we are a year later with the band headlining the 2010 edition of the annual music festival, taking place October 19 through October 23. Surfer Blood join the Drums, Ghostface Killah, Helmet (?!), Lissie, the Blow, recent New York darling Big Freedia, and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart at the top of the 2010 class, announced in part today. We still have no idea why this festival continues to exist. But you can probably count us being there come October. It's like a paradox, see? Full first round line-up, here:

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​When "Our Dreams," the awesomely emo first single from the eponymous group effort from Method Man, Ghostface, and Raekwon (Rap Radar just confirmed that Wu Massacre, as in the cover, at left, is the name of the record and not the group) circulated a few weeks ago, we figured that'd be last anyone heard about it. Why? Because of the substantial chunk of the hook and sample on the verse is pulled from Michael Jackson's "We're Almost There"--a beast of a clearance, even amongst the elevated, no-permission-granted-ever climate of sampling in general today. And yet not 24 hours ago the song popped up again on an official Island/Def Jam site, streaming, with its own single art and everything. What gives? It's not like these guys have Jay-Z's money.

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Right? Or that would be too accurate? Ironman, Iron Chef, and the Iron Lung would also be acceptable, we suppose. More info here, if this confuses you. [JensenClan88/Ghostface]

​Probably not, but damned if we can remember where the sample ("This is Ghostface, I got a twin ghost in the building--that's the Holy Ghost") that kicks off this DFA double-disc winter mixtape comes from. Anybody? Sadly, James "Jigga" Murphy's "Phone Tap" intro on disc two is decidedly not a Firm reference, but otherwise, well done--certainly our favorite Phoenix remix so far, with no apologies at all to last year's flaccid Animal Collective take on "Love Like A Sunset." Plus, Panthers are back? [MOKB]

Ghostface on Cappadonna's brush with death at the (nightmarishly stubby) hands of Midget Kiss, the world's tiniest and most violent Kiss tribute act. [Rap Radar]

​Oh, wow. We were so stunned by Barbra Streisand's left-field chart victory yesterday we forgot to check on Ghostface's Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City. Maybe it was because you have to go all the way to #28 just to see where the damn thing debuted? At the sub-Mendoza line figure of 19,200? So much for that cash-in. The chuckle patch turns out to be a cold place indeed. [XXL]

​There must be a lot of celebrating going down in the old VW compound right about now. From yesterday's Q+A in the Times, with Ghost and his manager Mike Caruso, an interview which took place inside a "parked S.U.V. around midnight recently":

Q: Vampire Weekend is a group you said you liked. How'd you first hear about them?

MR. CARUSO: My son, he's 15, left his iPod in the car, and that was on it.

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