Well, that’s one way to start a new job.

During her show on Thursday (July 17) at Power 105 — her first with the station, following an announcement in June that she was leaving her longtime home at Hot 97 — Angie Martinez got a call from Jay Z. The talk came at the end of her time slot and lasted less than three minutes — the veteran radio personality actually rushed Hov off the phone, if you can believe it. But not before the rap legend could pay homage to The Voice of New York.

“I really believe that what you are about to accomplish in the next phase of your life will dwarf everything that you’ve ever done,” Jigga said, which prompted Angie to beg him to stop, because she was getting emotional. “Because, that’s what people that are great do. You’re not termed the voice of New York for no reason. You’re an instituion in radio. That’s a special feat to accomplish.”

After two decades at Hot 97, Martinez announced last month that she was leaving the station. If that wasn’t a surprise enough in itself, she piled it on days later by revealing she had signed on to join Hot’s NYC rival, Power 105.

Though he and his wife Beyonce are currently on their On The Run Tour — scheduled to perform in Houston on Friday — the Magna Carta Holy Grail rapper said that he was kickin’ it by a pond on the Hamptons.

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Common is setting out to paint a picture of what life’s like for a young black kid in his native Chicago with his upcoming album, Nobody Smiling, and his newest release from the project does just that.

“The Neighborhood,” which dropped on Thursday (July 17), opens with James Fauntleroy singing a capella: “A thousand lives ago, we were young and we didn’t know we were trading our crowns for our souls.”

After 30 seconds of the crooner’s soothing voice describing a dark picture, the No I.D.-produced beat for the track drops, and Com launches into his first verse. “The hustlers was the tastemakers and trendsetters/ They the ones that fed us, hoping that the Feds don’t get us/ The era of Reagan and terror of Bush,” he raps at one point.

The song’s second verse is delivered by Lil Herb, A generation removed from the veteran rapper, but a fellow Chi-town native, he weaves similar tales: “Ain’t nobody stop the violence, why everybody keep lyin’/ N—as throw up peace signs, but everybody keep dying,” the up-and-comer laments.

Also on Thursday, Com dropped a teaser for the video for “Diamonds,” featuring Big Sean.

Nobody Smiling is set to hit stores on July 22.

Adam Fleischer

Throwback Thursdays don’t get much better than this.

Complex, by way of DJ Eclipse, got a hold of some footage of a 19-year-old Kanye West rapping at the 1996 grand opening of a new location of legendary New York City record store Fat Beats.

Looking a little younger and thinner — naturally — Yeezy showed promise and glimpses of what was to come. “Tryna flex the technique, you get blasted with a TEC/ That sh– is mad ironic like Alanis Morissette,” he rapped.

Check out a description of that memorable day from Eclipse, who was the store’s general manager:

The original location of Fat Beats launched on July 14, 1994 which means FB just turned 20 years old! Business was doing so well 2 years in that Joseph Abajian decided to move the store from it’s small 9th St. basement space into a 2nd floor location on 6th Avenue. August 1996 (day?) was the grand opening of the 406 6th Avenue location. It was also the beginnings of our independent movement which had recently started bubbling about a year before.

Yesterday I started converting old Hi8 video tapes to DVD and came across some interesting footage from that day. Now we had a lot of the usual suspects in the place that day such as ILL BILL, Arsonists, Lord Finesse, Adagio, Breeze Brewin, A.L. Skills, Percee P, J-Live, Mr. Live, Chino XL, Al Tariq, Black Attack, Xzibit, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Rawcotiks, Ak Skills, Rob Swift, Roc Raida, DJ Spinna and ...

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There’s nothing punks hate more than inauthenticity. People that don’t fully buy-in to the punk ethos, or who don’t follow specific punk rules are immediately shunned as #posers by true punks. But now, even posers can blend in and rage against the machine with these handmade items!

Seriously, when punks get a load of this Punk Starter Kit on Etsy, they’re probably going to have a cow. A punk cow. With a studded bracelet. It’s basically the opposite of everything the punk lifestyle stands for—including the fact that it’s on the notoriously cutesy, girly site Etsy.

Here’s an excerpt from the post on Etsy:
“Did you recently see some punks at the mall, thought they looked sick and want to join the freak show?”

Is “freak show” really the appropriate label to use as a marketing tool here?

The post continues:
“Well now you can with the kit that has everything you need for the other punks to stop calling you a poser.”

Yes, because clothes, patches and spikes are all it takes to transform from a suburban Spice Girls stan into an avid Sex Pistols fan.

Here’s verbatim what the kit includes:
- Bootstrap studded with small (your’re just starting out) 77 cone studs
-Bondage belt
-Studded bracelet with bondage wring
-Studded wristband
-Totalitar and Varukers patches
-Mystery goody!

Oooooh wonder what the mystery goody is? Could it be a book about anarchy? A Sid Vicious poster embedded with tiny, handmade spikes? But wait, there’s another extra that this Etsy user has included as an added bonus…

“PLUS: List ...