Welcome the homies Onry Ozzborn (Grayskul, Dark Time Sunshine, his damnself) and Rob Castro back home after their stint on the road, repping. They'll be headlining a show at Chop Suey on Friday, July 8, along with Khingz (also of Hi-Life Soundsystem, who have a new one soon to drop), Fictitious, Token Folk, and File Jerks' own Shorthand. Fictitious are celebrating the release of Anthologies Vol. 1, and what I've heard from this crew indicated room for improvement and lots of it—hopefully they got just that.

The following night at Chop is the release party for "What Up Pimpin," the rather plush new maxi-single (haven't heard that in a while) from Draze (he of those "Mixtape Movies" and of that mighty Maraire clan), also featuring Yirim Seck, Parker (who's Tha Bizness–laced Between Struggles LP is still way hotter than most of you know), and Da Association, who are all featured in that single and video. Controlling the flow that evening is no less than the five-star Town Legend, "Pimp of the Year," DJ Vitamin D.

Okay, so this news is gonna be somewhat old news to many of you, but not so to a few more others, so I might as well beat the press release here: Brainstorm, Fearce Villain, and S.E.V., known collectively as ya' boys Dyme Def, are free agents, no longer working with 800LB/Soul Gorilla. "Those guys did us a lot of good," Fearce tells me via phone. "There's no tension or anything; it was a mutual thing. At the end of the day, we wanted to go a different route than we were headed." They haven't been on the label, in fact, since their "PayDay" free song series kicked off back in January. "They have been abducted by the super entity YuktheWorld.com," says a certain Mr. Yuk, who I'm pretty sure is the man who was literally instrumental in creating that Space Music lane with DD in the first place—the prolific and always ill BeanOne. This is great news for DD fans, and I'm happy to report that they're back in the lab, formulating and finding a chemistry that's been absent for a minute.

"Ah man," laughs Fearce, "the stuff we've been working on... we're getting back to just raw hiphop. Brain is producing stuff with Bean, and the songs we're making are more out-there. It's crazy, too, since we have [been on our own], so many opportunities have come up." A free (with online RSVP) Tuesday, July 12, show at Nectar is a fine testament to that. Dyme Def are headlining the Seattle edition of the FADER-presented Vitaminwater "Uncapped" series (headlined in NYC, LA, and Miami by names like Twista, Freeway, and Vado), with Helluvastate opening up. Dyme Def, BeanOne, Space Music recipe; time to get a plate.