WOW! For those of you who attended Walk the Walk LIVE in Huntington Beach last night, I'm sure you agree that this was by far, the BEST Walk the Walk in Hurley History! Set against the backdrop of the Hurley US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach and hosted by E! Entertainment's Sal Masekela, the night started off with a bang with a performance by skater/rapper/style queen Jayne Deaux. Hip hop and Hurley artist Murs served up amazing performances between each exciting fashion show.

With themes including: Regeneration, Surf to Survive, Smells Like Teen Spirit, A Year to Remember at Hurley High, and The Channels of Hurley, Walk the Walk judges had a quite a challenge on their hands to choose their winner. On the start-studded judging panel were: Bob Hurley, Rosemary Brantley of Otis College, actors Wilmer Valderrama, Scott Eastwood, Adam Gregory, UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Tito Ortiz and SVP of Hurley Design John Cherpas.

The competition was fierce, but there could only be one GRAND CHAMPION...A HUGE congratulations to Lincoln High School of San Diego for their victorious performance to nab the title of Walk the Walk West Coast Grand Champions! As a reward for their incredibly creative and exciting show, Lincoln High School will receive a $10,000 donation to their art and music program. Also victorious were designers for San Clemente and Fountain Valley High Schools on their head-to-toe design challenge outfits.

Shwayze wrapped up the night with a crowd-pleasing performance as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. What an evening!

Thank you so much to everyone involved in the 2009 Hurley Walk the Walk West Coast Grand Championship. Be sure to stay tuned to Hurley.com for photos and video of the event and the complete coverage of the Hurley US Open of Surfing. — Jordan Dowty

Murs
Murray’s Revenge
(Record Collection)

A track-by-track director’s commentary through the album by Murs himself:

1. Murs Day
MURS:
“My mother always told me that when you write a paper, you should tell ‘em upfront what the conclusion will be. ‘Murs Day’ is an overview, a personality track that says ‘welcome’: here, I explain everything that’s going to be on this album… well, almost everything. I’m letting you know here that I’m still the same guy: we’re not gonna be here yelling and screaming about ignorant shit, but I’m not gonna dis rappers with chains, either. I also had to let people know I was sick about hearing about 9th: since Kanye blew up, people were like ‘the vocal style sample of rap is played out,’ so before you listen to this album, I’m letting you know there’s going to be vocal samples, so don’t question and talk shit. I’m cutting off the Internet haters before they can start.”

2. Murray’s Law
MURS:
“That’s basically like a 3:16 song. It’s letting you know I don’t drink alcohol, I’m not a gangbanger, I’m not a hustler—I’m a rapper. But I’m not a sucker either—I know what street credit really is, and I still like girls, too. ‘Murray’s Law’ is about defining myself by contrast, like, ‘I’ll beat you up, but I’m not about killing you.’”

3. Sillygirl (featuring Joe Scudda)
MURS:
“’Sillygirl’ is kind of like a ‘Bad Man, Part 2.’ It’s about being stalked. There’s reality in there: being a Pisces, I’ve learned once you get a girl, you have a girl, and they won’t leave you alone for at least a good year. Also, when 9th gave me the beat, it just sounded silly. 9th was like, ‘I want you to rap a track about silly girls.’ I was like, ‘Oh, brother…. All right.’ The hook is based on an old doo-wop song—I’m a huge early R&B fan, so it was perfect. Joe Scudda guests on the track, and that’s my dog: when I first came to North Carolina, we kicked it. He smoked cigarettes, I smoked cigarettes; he likes girls, I like girls. Joe actually laid his verse about a girl who was in the studio at the time!”

4. Barbershop (featuring Big Pooh)
MURS:
“9th was like ‘This is your song with Big Pooh’—he even dictated the guest appearances on my album! I never liked that beat; it was a track that really should’ve made Little Brother’s album, and Pooh really wanted to rap on it. 9th and I would go to his barbershop every week in Raleigh, North Carolina, and they welcomed me into the family. They would just start talking shit—girls, shoes, sports, religion, food. When you leave the barbershop, you’re feeling real cocky—like I feel as good as I rap. That was the concept.

5. Yesterday, Today
MURS:
“’Yesterday, Today’ all about the struggle to redemption, the thug putting his past behind him. To me, I was doing a straight Kanye West there: no matter how I tried to rap on it, my flow sounded like Kanye. The hook is actually a quote from a Sublime song. There’s also a deep MC Eiht reference in there that I don’t think anyone’s ever gonna get; on my Kanye West song, I had to represent that I’m from L.A. I also quote ‘’Round The Way Girl’ on there, because LL Cool J is my favorite rapper. LL and Ice Cube are the greatest rappers of all time, hands down—I’ll go to church on that.”

6. Dreamchasers
MURS:
“That’s my favorite—one of the best songs I’ve written. It’s the most autobiographical song on the album: it’s written from the perspective of me talking to you when I was nine years old. It’s about my life—the first verse is exactly how I grew up in the Compton-Lynnwood area. My mom had to move us out of the neighborhood because I was saying ‘cuz’ to her—it was ‘cuz’ everything. I wasn’t allowed to see Colors when I was growing up because I was already living it: I already had a friend who shot himself with a machine gun. We would always pick up twelve-gauge shells in the alley after our big brothers had a shoot out the night before. Most kids sneaked Playboys—we were sneaking issues of Guns & Ammo! That was us. The conclusion is about a friend of mine named Nightmare, who I saw become the ultimate gangsta as we grew up; all of these stories are his. He was chasing the dream, but it’s a dream you can’t maintain: in that lifestyle, death is gonna be your wake-up call.”

7. L.A.
MURS:
“That’s the first single. I loved the beat but I didn’t know what to write to it, so I said ‘I’m just going to write my L.A. song here.’ No matter what happens to me, I’m from L.A.; shit, every rapper wants to be from L.A.—Dipset wants to be us, 50 Cent, too. I’ve tried to live a lot of places—Tucson, Minneapolis, New York—but whatever happens, L.A’s my home. 9th loved it: he’s like, ‘You’ve made a true anthem.’”

8. Love & Appreciate
MURS:
“My mom asked me to do more love songs. Actually, when 9th gave me that beat, I wrote a ‘Dear Mama’ song to it, but he told me I can’t do that: he said I have to replace that with a relationship song. I was like, ‘It’s not gonna be true, because the only person I love and appreciate female-wise is my mother.’ He told me to just make something up, so I did. To him, it worked—he says people love it.”

9. Dark Skinned White Girls
MURS:
“The first verse is about white girls, the second verse is about black girls, and the third verse is about the mixed girls. That was supposed to be the ‘Freak These Tales’ of the album—the fucking joke song. I wanted to do it on a more uptempo, sexy beat: I saw it as a DJ Quik-meets-AMG-meets-Too Short-with-a-Will-Smith-comedy feel. 9th was like ‘Naw, you have to make it serious.’ I changed the words and tone around, and it turned into a deep meditation on race. It pisses the black girls off because I start with the white girl verse—they’re like ‘Fuck you! How can you stand up for those bitches!’ I’m like, ‘I’m not—I’m just saying it as it is.’ Then the second verse is about the black girls that don’t fit in. Doing the kind of music I do, I always meet the one black girl in the room who’s into, like, the Cure and Atmosphere; she’ll be really cute, and all the thug guys at her school wish she listened to Tupac. The black girls that act white are still dark-skinned white girls, because they’re white girls on the inside, and vice versa. That’s America.”

10. Murray’s Revenge (The End)
MURS:
“9th made that beat all while I was holding and feeding his four-year-old. I told him I needed another beat for the record, so I held the baby while he made the beat in five minutes. I was like, ‘What do you want me to do with this?’ And he said, ‘This is hot—just lay down the hardest rap you can.’”