Gift of Gab

In my opinion this is the best time of the year. It's the sound of shoulder pads smacking from unearthly collisions or the sound "ugh" as the air releases out of a quarterback's lungs after getting stuck by a linebacker in the backfield. It's the everlasting hope and promise of this finally being The Year. Yes, dear reader, football pre-season is upon us.

Like so many millions of other football junkies, I have to find other ways to keep the edge off of my football jones during the off-season. My choice is video games, and it's getting tougher to pick a "drug of choice" with so many options, as the battle wages on for my disposable income and market share of this billion-dollar industry. These days, you've got the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii elbowing each other for their slice of the entertainment pie.

Not surprisingly, the music industry is falling behind. Sales continue to decline in the age of iTunes consumption, where music buyers get exactly the songs they want instead of CDs full of studio filler. The music industry continues to tread water. Cross-marketing may be the industry's last hope. You can find music being hawked with everything from breakfast cereal to candy bars.

Enter the 2K Sports' Z-Trip All-Pro Tour, a 24-city tour that combines heavy- duty old-school football gaming with underground hip-hop. They're promoting the new game, All-Pro Football 2K8, a game that remembers the icons and legends that made the NFL what it is today, minus the dog-fighting allegations and untimely rookie holdouts. The tour features renowned producer/mixer extraordinaire Z-Trip.

For those unfamiliar with Z-Trip, he is considered the father of the mash-up movement. Imagine if Willy Wonka was a deejay, creating aural peanut-butter cups. It's common for him to mix-and-mash-up songs from polar opposite genres. Imagine Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" running over Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" or Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" over the Pharcyde's "Passing Me By." There are no sacred cows in Z-Trip's world of sound. The more recognizable the song and the more disjointed you think the mix might be, the better. He then intersperses a layer of scratches that are equal parts dexterity, social commentary, braggadocio and humor to create these new tasty treats. "Fans can expect this Trip to do this incredible set with so many different songs but they're blended together so seamlessly, it's dope," beams Gift of Gab, one half of the duo Blackalicious and frequent collaborator.

Trip is bringing emcees Aceyalone and Gab, with turntable partner Tricky T, to complete the foursome. Both emcees are featured prominently on the game's soundtrack as well as the marketing online. "Yeah, I've been working with Z-Trip for years. He hit me up to do "Go Hard' for the video game. It's some hip-hop meets some heavy metal shit," says Gab.

The reality is football season may come and go with our team not even smelling the playoffs. But before the season's over, you owe it to yourself to celebrate the pigskin and the possibility of this being The Year.