It would be easy to just peg Amanda Blank as a raunch-rapper; a purveyor of sex-crazed rhymes in the vein of Lil' Kim or Trina, shot through an electro-indie prism. But there's a lot more going on here.

Blank is a Philly native who came up through the same eclectic scene that helped produced artists like Diplo and Spank Rock (both of whom she's collaborated with on her debut album I Love You).

While their certainly is a lot of NC-17 material on her album, the more interesting aspect is the way in which she delivers it. Blank's flow is super-tight; she has control over the kinetic electronic beats that she raps on. And she's not at all one-dimensional; some of her stuff veers towards feisty electro-rock in the vein of Le Tigre.

Check out Blank's video for "Might Like You Better" below. And if you like what you hear, vote for her in the mtvU Woodie Awards. She's nominated for Left Field Woodie!

With the underground success of Diplo and Switch's Major Lazer project, the line between electronic dance and reggae has never been more blurred. And now Terry Lynn is here to make it even blurrier.

Lynn, a Waterhouse, Kingston, Jamaica singer, has teamed up with the Last Gang label (home to MSTRKRFT) to make stunning dancehall, with an emphasis on dance. Where most contemporary reggae relies on the skittering beat of dancehall rhythms or the slow, soulful pace of more traditional reggae forms, Lynn employs a powerful, Daft Punk-like thump and wallop behind her toasting.

Check out her incredible video for the Daft-Punk-referencing jam "Kingstonlogic," off her Kingstonlogic 2.0 album. It's a clip that both embraces her local culture while backed by a sound that reaches across borders and blurs lines. And stay tuned for the premiere of Terry Lynn's "Jamaican Girls" video this Thursday on mtvU.

Kingstonlogic 2.0 from Rickards Bros. on Vimeo.

Via mtvU:

Holy summer. Major Lazer has June, July and August on lock with Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do, his non-stop set of deep, nasty habanero riddims. Also, Major Lazer is a cartoon soldier (see photo at right).

I don't know how it took this long for the G.I. Joe PSA vibe to infiltrate the music world. The anti-booze/reggae-cop clip (watch it after the jump) was club-ready six years ago! But, as much as this dude may look like an extra on "Porkchop Sandwiches (NSFW)," Major Lazer's on a level all his own.

Masterminded by Mad Decent M.I.A. DJ/producers Diplo and Switch, the cartoon hero is the latest player in an explosive resurgence of Jamaican dancehall music. In case you're all "Bwah? What's a dancehall?" Dancehall is kinda like reggae and afrobeat's loose-lipped party animal little brother. Bob Marley and Fela Kuti meet Ali G. The rhythms are faster and hit harder. The vibe is darker and wilder. The Caribbean humidity is thicker.

The brand-new "Hold The Line" video is the ultimate marriage between summer heat, blinding banger beats, and Saturday morning cartoons. Major Lazer surfs through space, dodging explosions, punching thug face and busting Voltron vampire ass.

Do yourself a favor and click play. But before you do, JACK YA BASS, BWAH.

+ Follow Major Lazer on Twitter

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At this point, the conflict in Darfur and the resulting humanitarian crisis are more than six years old. It is common knowledge in conscientious circles, that hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced by the horrors -- and I do mean horrors -- of the Sudanese army's systematic decimation of the region's native people. But, after six years of activism, it is easy for our outrage to cool off and devolve into uneasy acceptance. Well, Waxploitation -- the L.A. management company that handles Gnarls Barkley, Black Moth Super Rainbow and Danger Mouse -- just ain't havin' that.

On the verge of releasing his second Causes record to raise money for relief in Darfur, Waxploitation founder Jeff Antebi had this to say about the project:

"It's easy for fatigue to set in when a crisis goes on for a number of years, but no one has given up hope that things can change for the better in Darfur. There are untold numbers of people committed to changing the outcome. It takes humanitarian assistance, tenacity and political will."

And, of course, it takes money. A whole lotta spending money. And, while 15 indie gems clearly aren't going to fund a revolution, Causes 2 does provide everyday people like us with an easy means of contributing to the betterment of the world.

The compilation -- whose profits go entirely to Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America -- includes rare tracks, remixes and live cuts from Devendra Banhart, Diplo, My Morning Jacket, RJD2, LCD Soundsystem, Gnarls Barkley, The Decemberists, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and many others.

The compilation doesn't hit shelves until May 5, but you can listen to Causes 2 right now, for free, only on The Leak. Get hooked here, then shell out $9.99 for the good of humanity in May.

+ If you pre-order Causes 2 now, Waxploitation will throw in Causes 1 -- including tracks from Animal Collective, Bright Eyes and The Shins -- for only $6.99!

The name Amanda Blank may not immediately ring any bells in your head, but you know all of her friends. The foul-mouthed Philadelphia rapper who creates performance art as part of Sweetheart, frequently collaborates with the likes of Spank Rock, Diplo, M.I.A., Santigold and Ghostface Killah. Now, for the first time, she's striking out on her own, repping Philly with a set of club-clobbering dance singles.

Her debut album, I Love You, is due out on Downtown Records on July 19, but lusty leading single "Might Like You Better" has been fouling up the MySpace airwaves for ages. The chorus does not recall Romeo Void's 1980s classic "Never Say Never," from which the lines "I might like you better/ If we slept together" are borrowed, but instead rides a pounding beat to orgasmic euphoria. In other words, sex doesn't sell Amanda Blank. Amanda Blank sells sex. That sounds dirty and illegal, but so do her songs. And that means, among other things, that this ultra-stylish cheesesteak-city-spitter is about to be all up in your radar, not to mention your business. You don't mind, do you? Course not.

M.I.A.’s successes – Mercury and Shortlist Awards for her 2005 breakthrough Arular; an eye-opening around-the-world journey to write, record and produce her second album, Kala; her extensive visual art accomplishments; and her efforts to bring the plight of the Sudanese, Liberians and her own Sri Lankan people to the mainstream – are myriad. And so are her struggles: her well-documented early childhood was spent fleeing between war-torn Sri Lanka and India before landing in government housing in her native England, while her father, a Tamil activist, hid from the Sri Lankan army during that country’s civil war. And more recently, she lashed out against Internet rumors perpetuating the falsehood that it was DJ-producer-sometimes-boyfriend Diplo, and not M.I.A., who actually masterminded Arular.

But despite the fact that M.I.A.’s a human collage: a hypnotic, hyper-aware, hyper-colored, multi-cultural, multi-talented mash-up of international sounds – from hip-hop to dancehall to baile funk to ragga and back – and ideas – from war and poverty, sex and disease and sexism, to racism and identity, hegemonic masculinity and the Bush administration – and forget the fact that she’s got more music cred than 100 artists strong, what we ultimately admire about M.I.A. isn’t her ability to look amazing in fluorescent colors, bright lipstick and stretchy pants. (Yet it's that too.) It’s that she’s living proof that one person – one young woman – using just a 505, some Bollywood samples and razor-sharp wit and lyrics – can actually raise consciousness and expose global suffering and indignity. Read more...