3 Sidez to A Story

Alchemy at its best

2009-07-18T23:39:00.006-04:00

I just read a GREAT interview on Allhiphop with Producer/DJ/Emcee Alchemist. The interview was conducted by Jaeki Cho, so props to him. Most interviews nowadays with artists are pretty typical, and boring but informative, as if the artist was answering questions from a prewritten list that was never destined to change. Rarer is the interview which is more like a conversation, with alot of humor and shit. Alchemist is also a funny dude, very candid indeed.

As a producer, he has always been one of my favorites. He came into the game makin soulful joints. Then, he began to do the grimey joints, w hich are what he became known for, especially with his first album First Infantry. He became further well known as Eminem's tour DJ. All in all, he's a bridge between mainstream artists like Em and Hov and underground artists like Evidence and Blu. He went to HS in a posh school in Cali where he shared classes with Angelina Jolie, Monica Lewinsky, and other future big names, and his musical influences are wide and varied.

Here are some choice excerpts:

*Green and red stuff is my emphasis

*********

AllHipHop.com: I have another question about the track “Therapy,” which features Blu and Kid Cudi. When you recorded that joint with Cudi, did you think he was going to be big as he is now?

Alchemist: My manager, my brother’s my manager, he and Paul Rosenberg have told me about Cudi years ago. He actually worked at the Bape store. Paul told me about this dude and gave me two songs and “Day ’N’ Nite” was one of them. And I was like, “Yo, this s*** is hot.” He came over and recorded couple things. The way he recorded his vocals I was like, “This dude is sick.”

AllHipHop.com: Was he high?

Alchemist: We were high, yes. He’s kind of like Snoop. Anything I ever did with Snoop the minute the beat came on, in about 20 seconds the hook was already there. Like [Snoop] will hear the beat and go, “Uh-ho! [Mumbling.]” And that’s the hook. That’s the same thing with Cudi. He was ill with the way he controlled his vocals.

AllHipHop.com: What about Blu?

Alchemist: My two favorite rappers that are new are Blu and Jay Electronica. I wouldn’t even say they are new because they’ve both been around. They’re so incredible because I feel like they still have that artistic integrity, which hasn’t been compromised by getting a big deal or catering to the radio, which I can’t say for this new crop of artists. But it still feels like labels are mad at those two. I like the rappers that are making the labels tight! [ Emphasis is mine. That shit is the truth though, exactly how I feel! ]

AllHipHop.com: And Jay Electronica?

Alchemist: He is like the wind. He is not a rapper! He is like a spirit. The first time I met him he was supposed to come over at night. Didn’t show up at all. Next morning he’s knocking on my door. So I’m like, “What’s up?” He’s like, “You want to just go for a walk?” [Laughs.] It was the weirdest s*** ever! I was like, “Uh…Word! Hell yea!” We rolled up some weed, it was a Sunday morning and we walked all the way to the West Side Highway just chopping it up about life and everything. He asks mad questions and acts like a student, but he’s a teacher. [Emphasis is mine again. That shit is so dope...by everything I've heard about Jay Electro, that seems like something he would do too...]

*******

AllHipHop.com: Serch is Jewish.

Alchemist: Yea, but Asher isn’t Jewish. That’s a misconception.

AllHipHop.com: I see. But Drake is half-Jewish.

Alchemist: No, no, no. He said, “Lyor (Lie-Or) Cohen” in an interview. How are you going to say Lyor (Lie-Or) when you know it’s supposed to be pronounced Lyor (Lee-Or)—if you’re Jewish, man. I don’t know.

AllHipHop.com: [Laughs.] He wasn’t raised to be a good Jew. But if his mom is Jewish…

Alchemist: This is like that s*** in Howard Stern “Is He a Jew?”

AllHipHop.com: [Laughs.] But why do you think…I’m not saying cats like Bubba and Lil Wyte aren’t dope.

Alchemist: Because they aren’t Jewish, man! Everybody know it’s because of that! They got to convert, man! [Laughs.]

AllHipHop.com: [Laughs.] Get your Bar Mitzvahs on!

Alchemist: Get your Jewish bars up, man! [LOL] It’s got to be because they are not Jewish. Go get that circumcision, man! [Laughs.] You know this a new theory you’re coming up with right now!

*******

He also talks about Relapse 2, and how he never really worked with Eminem despite DJing for him before he was sober, and how now they have been more open to collabs and have indeed cooked up some new shit in the studio...

Click here for the full joint

haff weigh throo

2009-07-16T01:02:00.006-04:00

Dear Summer,

~~I know you gon miss me, for we been together since nike airs and crisp tees~~

There's been a gang of good music this summer, this yr in general. We're about halfway through, So I decided what better than to drop some list-posts. As in, top __ songs of the first half of the year, etc. Consider this my 1/2way through the year BET Award Show, minus a red carpet, celebs, performances by pedophile cripples and pedophile gremlins, and general bitchassness.

TOP 25 SONGS

This isn't necesarily the best songs, as I'm sure I'm not up on everything out. In addition, it's just a list of good songs, surprising songs, with explanations attached. No particular order either. Lastly, It's supposed to be summer, but it might have some earlier spring joints. Dont ask.

Joell Ortiz ft Styles P: "We Can Do It"

Joell takes a break from the Slaughterhouse work to put out a positive, Git-up-Git-Out style duet with fellow New York Lyricist Styles P. The result shows Joell and Styles at their best, and reminds that Joell doesn't ONLY rhyme about rapping.

Fashawn: "Life as a Shorty"
The first song off the entirely-produced-by-Exile Album Boy Meets World gives listeners a rather personal introduction to Cali MC, as he reminisces about the ordeals of growing up as a kid over a nostalgia-inducing soundscape. Great song, Great replay value.

Nas: "Film"
I already said all that needs to be said.

Jeezy: "24/23"
My unabated stannery for Jeezy, despite his rather pedestrian rap skills, is well documented. I stand by the snowman and respond he makes hella good songs, consistently. The song 24/23 has him rapping over some sinister synths, alternating between dissing Gucci Mane and OJ da Garbageman and (what else?) selling coke.

Slaughterhouse: "Woodstock," "The One"
Slaughterhouse is a great occurence in Rap History. These two songs find them channeling their lyricism toward specific ideas, rather than general posse battle rap, which is great. Both are somewhat rock and roll themed, mosh-pit hype-up anthemic type songs, and both go HARD!!! The wordplay is still there, the chemistry...I feel like The One coulda used a little more activity in the beat aside from the drums and guitar, but as is it's still pretty damn good.

DJ JS-1, Pharoahe Monch, OS: "Ridiculous"
DJ JS-1 released a fantastic album with 40+ features, and this song finds him flipping a familiar sample and giving it to OS and Phraoahe Monch, two amazing rappers who haven't worked together in nearly a decade. They procede to tear it up, and Pharoahe once again reminds us that he is the most criminally under-rated rap artist in America.

J. Cole: "Grown Simba"
My favorite song off what I think is the Best Mixtape to drop since Fort Minor and Green Lantern's Mixtape from 05-06. This song gives us background on J.Cole's North Kakalaki upbringings, and showcases his raw lyricism and passion for writing. He doesn't sound as if he's trying, it just seems like he's viciously arguing, proving himself. The lyricism isn't forced, as is common in 2009.

B.o.B.: "No Man's Land," "Camera"
The first song isn't a rap song, the second one is only kinda a rap song. I put these songs up here because they are awesome, first of all...both are singsong acoustically focused jams, showing Bobby Ray at his best. To me he is a MUCH better singer than rapper, but if he keeps his rap verses and uses them as the changeup rather than the fastball, they work exceptionally well. No Mans Land is damn near a country song, but it is great music. Camera has Bobby Ray poking fun (in a dark satire sorta way) at the models and pornstars, and once you get beyond the jokey tone, you'll see he's actually saying some serious things.

K'Naan, Chubb Rock: "ABCs"

The Toronto-based/Somalia-Raised emcee fashions an AMAZING upbeat anthem which pays tribute to the worldwide system of oppression through [Lack of] Education, among other things. Him and Chubb Rock go through the beat like it's nothing, with the best chorus of the year rockin between the verses.

Ruff Ryders (!!): "Who's Real Remix"
Damn!!!! I don't really have to say much here. Its the RR!!! Even Drag-On, who along with Jada, Eve and Styles spits some serious fire. Jadakiss especially Kills it. Sheek is forgettable (as usual) and DMX ends the song with an angry ass verse. Sure it's not exactly a GOOD verse, but hey, I probably wouldn't rap well if I just got out my 5th prison stint in 3 years either.

Get Busy Committee: "No Time to Speak"
Apathy, Scoop Deville, and Ryu pool their underground rap powers to remind mainstream artists how to make a track that goes hard.

Holly Brook x Apathy aka Perverts in Love: "Banana Leaf"
You know, this isn't a rap song at all. I downloaded it cause I thought Ap rhymed on it, but he did the beat only, which supports the beautiful vocals of Holly Brook of Fort Minor's hit song "Where'd you Go?" The song is AMAZING, and the beat suits the haunting vocals perfectly. It's crazy, and not rap at all, but who cares. Check that shit out.

Killer Mike: "Ima Fool With it"
Killer Mike is another angry rapper who consistently brings heat. He has gone on the record of embracing nearly every style of ATL rap, from soulja boy to crunk to outkast to TI, and this song proves it, as he goes in over what seems like something for non underground rappers, and kills it.

Rakim: "Holy Are You"

Top 5 DOA. Back in the Game. You already know!!!

Camron: "I USED TO GET IT IN OHIO"
The best Camron s ong off his last album. Killa!!! Once again, you already know.

Mos Def: "Auditorium ft. Slick Rick," "History ft. Talib Kweli," "Roses, Ft. Georgia Anne Muldrow"
To me, these are 3 of the many standout songs off The Ecstatic. They show his versatility, as he goes in over 3 distinctly different types of songs. Auditorium is a catchy and ingenious middle eastern story tale told by him and The Ruler (crumbs!!). History is a blackstar party, reflecting on the current state of America, and Roses is the most poetic and beautiful song on the entire album, in the same vein as "Climb" from Black on Both Sides. These arent necesarily the 3 best songs on the cd, just 3 of the many great tracks.

Brother Ali: "Phillistine David"
Brother Ali absolutely decimates the unexpectedly upbeat, synth-focused beat from Ant of Atmosphere. No other track on this list I'm writing says as much as this song says. Then again, Brother Ali tends to speak more substantially in his verses than anyone else in hip-hop. Brother Ali at his most spritual, ferocious, and focused. Amen to that.

Heltah Skeltah: "Midnight Madness (M-phazes Remix)"
The most thugged-out, Grimiest, bad ass song of 2009, and possibly the hottest beat of 09 also. Ruck and Rock bring their incredible wit and grit to this remix, showing why they are the best grimey duo in hip-hop history (Sorry, Thorton brothers.)

50 Cent: "Get The Money," "Funny How Time Flies, " "Dreamin"
Curtis inexplicably came out with a decent mixtape with some great songs, most of which find him rhyming over decidedly funky break beats from the 80s, complete with great choruses sung in the same fashion. Reminds me a little bit of pre-get-rich 50, in terms of style. His lyrics still aren't back to that level, but certainly higher than they've been since Get Rich or Die Tryin dropped. Maybe his next cd won't suck after all....

...it probably will though.

Lupe Fiasco: "Shining Down"
Matthew Santos steals the show, but the song shows Lupe showcasing a concise and simple flow...however, the double and triple entendres as well as subliminals a re still in full force. I would go into more detail, but someone else already did.

The Cool Kids: "Popcorn"
It's times like this I wish I had a brolic SUV with a diesel sound system.

Aesop Rock, Cage, El-P...AKA The Weatherman: "Possible Kidnapping"

The 3 Rhymesayers superstars spaz out over this El-P production. The beat sounds like something from the climax of a space battle scene, and all 3 emcees go for countless bars of madness, showing that even the most underground emcees can have plenty swag on a track, especially Aesop, who starts things off with a good 60 something bars of unadulterated random awesomenss.

TOP "SMH" SONGS OF SUMMER

Jay-Z "D.O.A."
Wrong Idea, Wrong Time, Wrong Execution

Clipse ft Kanye West, "Kinda Like a Big Deal"
Clipse verses suck, Kanye's isn't even that great a nd he shits on them. Beat is mediocre too.

Clipse ft Pharrell, Clipse ft. Keri Hilson--I dont even remember the name of them shit songs.
If the rest of their CD is like these 3 songs, they are FUCKED.

Fuck this shit.

*plays Ride around Shining*

3SIDEZ "Fine, I'll give SOME props, i Guess they did Aight" Award

Goes to Drake for managing to sell damn near a million downloads of a song a yr old. Touche. Someones on their grind.

Top 10 Albums I'm Hyped for in the Second Half

(again in no order)

Fashawn, "Boy Meets World"

Big Boi, "Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Dusty Chico"

Slaughterhouse

Lupe Fiasco, "LASERS"

Nas and Damian Marley, "Distant Relatives"

Brother Ali, "The Street Preacher"

Whatever the Hell Pharoahe Monch Calls his CD

#45, "Blueprint 3"

Drake, "Thank Me Later"

Clipse, "Till the Casket Drops"

The Jay Jenkins Jeezy Wack Rapper Who Makes Inexplicably Likeable Songs award

Goes to Rick Ross for making a pretty good album, with mad listenable songs and replay value, despite living with a bad case of Being-a-Shitty-Rapper.

5 Mixtapes I played the shit out of:

Forever King, 50 Cent

J. Cole, The Warmup

B.o.B., B.o.B vs Bobby Ray

The Cool Kids, Gone Fishin

Brother Ali, The Truth is Here

(Technically an EP but whatever. Go cannonball into lava pits if you got a prob)

AND FINALLY....

THE COVETED....

*DRUMROLL*

"Spliff Star / Memph Bleek" Memorial Prize

aka Destined to be a Failure that hangs around for 10 years Prize

To OJ da Juiceman and Gucci Mane.

Where the fuck did they come from? Atlanta apparently.

Will they be as talented and faithful WeedCarriers as Spliff and Bleek? I'm gonna go with a Resounding NO.

Have they done ANYTHING worth room on my hard-drive? HELL no.

Where the fuck are they going? Off the cliff, specifically via the fall-off

Thats all folks. Dope ass post comin up on Bball-Rap analogies. Stay Tuned!

See it like film

2009-06-24T01:14:00.004-04:00

Some contest was held recently, and the winner got to produce a song for and work with Nas. A Kid named C-sick won, and they got together to make a song called "Film." The song reminded me of why Nas is one of the greatest of all time... to me he's personally in the discussion for GOAT. Despite having issues with beat selection in many of his CDs, having some albums perceived as selling out and other as lazy, random, and hypocritical, he remains alone in certain aspects of rapping. One of them is descriptive and vivid short story telling.

Download it here at 2dopeboyz.

Slick Rick pioneered the art of story telling (yo i swear I wrote that phrase without thinking about the Album before the irony hit me), many a rapper has tried their hand at it. Any artist in discussion for the GOAT of rap has incredible narrative skills, some display it more than others.

On his first album, 2pac narrated the song Soulja Story, a two-character tale about a gangbanger and his younger brother who, much to his older sibling's avail, wanted to follow in his footsteps. Biggie Smalls had the 5 minute opus Niggas Bleed which was a ridiculous and fantastic crime tale with as much blood and action as any hollywood block-buster. Hov had Meet the parents which was another hood tragedy complete with high tension moments and dramatic twists. Kast has, needless to say, Da Art of Story Tellin pts 1 and 2, Common has about a million songs that are narrative...

You and I could both go on and on with our favorite story telling tracks, or debating who is the nicest at it, etc, etc. To me it's more that different artists have different styles of storytelling, thus making it a matter of preference. Nas tells more stories than most of the rappers mentioned above, maybe with the exception of Common...and when I say tells stories, I don't mean a whole song, although that is included; it could be a single verse in a song that is narrative in style.

Sometimes Nas just makes verses that are cinematic as hell, because one thing he does that 99 % of the other story tracks, good or bad, don't do, that alot of films and great novels do....he describes the setting. Usually the other stories will give you a bar about it, maybe "on a rainy night" or mention the city and time of day or something along those lines. Nas, on the other hand, will go as far taking almost half t he verse to describe the people, regardless of whether they are important to the story. He'll describe belongings and random objects. He often describes how something smells, looks (and not just colorwise, as most rappers do, but texturally, for example), or sounds. He does this within his bars, without making them out of place or random. This is his first verse from this song Film:

Lots of fog at night, red break Lights

The freeway's beside a restaurant

cold Egg whites, sat on my plate, like, 3 AM

this is a spot frequented, by some made men

I'm high on Hemp

A fly old pimp jus walked in

His suit was sharkskin

he woke me up from some of the thoughts im lost in

what fame does a nigga,

change love to bitterness, friends to fiends,

for the audience screams, ridiculous

jumped up, paid my tab, got in my benz and went

to my old housing tenement, visit my old friends

some show love and some are envious,

some got the heart of gold, some venemous

at times I wanna go back to being penniless,

ignorance is bliss, i love being innocent

but life's got me on the fence again,

and all is real so all is worth mentioning

The actual story is only about half the verse! And in summary, the story isn't even exciting...it's him day dreaming at a rest stop diner at 3 AM and getting woken up by some old guy in funny clothes, then going back to the hood to see some friends. But he makes it a ill story, describes it like a movie director would. It helps that he is backed by an incredible almost descriptively somber matching beat from C-sick, too, of course. He uses the story to talk about what he was daydreaming about, and intersperses bits of philosophy and monologue. He does that whole story, day dream, philosophize combo alot in his narrations, and it always works because of t he descriptive caliber of his stories, and his pendant for relating a thinkers thoughts to normal people and listeners without sounding random or off topic.

He ends by saying "all is real so all is worth mentioning." I thought that was tight and had a little bit of a double meaning, as just a cool sounding line as well as a beleif he holds in his narrative ability. Why mention that he was eating egg whites? Because that is something real, that actually happened, so it's worth mentioning...worth including in the story despite no relation to the main "plot," you could say.

Thats the end of my rant, you should download the song. He has many better ones, of course, but this is still really good, especially if you consider how inconsistent some of his peers are nowadays with their lyrical quality compared to during their "golden age"....

* looks at Hov*

Lol but seriously. Nasir. Candidate for GOAT, he IS the GOAT in terms of pure lyrics (not song making not hits or charisma or any of that other shit) , at least to me, and all around legend.

My bad

2009-06-20T00:55:00.007-04:00

So one of my personal "pet-peeves" (that phrase sounds so wack btw) in rap is people who overkill on punchlines who aren't RIDICULOUS at them, or who don't have a history bringing that to the mainstream. For example, I don't mind Fabolous, sometimes can deal with Cassidy, and Lupe uses punchlines galore but I don't mind. I find them used nowadays as a crutch more as a creative device. Rappers will actually plan their verses around several punchlines...as in think of a punchline, and then think of shit to rhyme with that, and that, and build the verse, etc. Alot of them are forced and not creative, also. Rare is the artist who can rap, without using many punchlines, and still give you bars that you know are crazy, even rarer is an artist whose style is not about traditional subject matter who doesn't do that.

When done correctly, punchlines obviously draw the ooh's and aah's from the listeners, however, in terms of types of lines to drop in a verse, I think the best a rapper can do is just those dope-ass creative lines...I don't know how to describe it well because my writing skills are suspect, so i'll give a couple examples off the top:

"This watch here is a one of one, that means none before, and none to come" - Hov

"I'm cancerous, so when I Diss you wouldnt wanna answer this with a battle rap you wrote for canibus" -Eminem

"Guerilla Monsoon Rap, smell the fumes, get in tune with it, when I attack ya city yall gon think doctor doom did it" -Pharoah Monche

"wheres the ladder, cuz either you gon whine or u gon climb, i chose the later tho, i know you niggas is pissed but hold ya bladder tho..." -J Cole

This brings me to the first rapper signed to Roc Nation, Jermaine Cole, aka J Cole. I slept on dude (pause that). I just never heard of him and then he got mad acclaim out of nowhere, which is suspect as hell to me, because given my keeping up with the "current events and artists" in the world of rappin, I figured i would be up on his music if it was nice. So i kinda ignored him...until one of my boys said his mixtape the Warmup was better than Drake's So Far So Gone.

As many of you know, I'm somewhat of a Drake skepticist, not in the s ense that I don't think he's talented or has superstar potential because it's obvious he's gonna become a superstar. I just don't think he's lyrically as nice as what people say, or as good a singer as people say...and people just assume that singing and rapping are some kind of additive properties thus makes him some god-artist in the making. That being said, he's a real good songwriter, so it's all good with me. Anyway, despite my ventures in to the world of hating, his latest mixtape So Far So Gone was good, and a mixtape better than that would also be a real good mixtape so....yeah. I downloaded The Warmup by J Cole.

The first thing that struck me upon listening to a couple songs is that this kid Jermaine is legit a good rapper, and also a good songwriter. I would later find out that this mixtape was more songwriting than just him spittin ill lyrics murdering beats, which was his goal on his prior mixtape The Come Up. The next thing I noticed is that he doesn't overkill on punchlines, but is still nice as hell, regardless of subject matter. Then something bugged me...

I couldn't think of someone to compare his style to. Took me a couple days, but I sort of figured it out. In terms of pure lyrical style, he raps sort of like a higher-pitched version of The Game, minus all the name dropping. He also sometimes goes off like Wale minus the drawling voice and drawn out sylables. He also reminds me of Blu, but flow wise he's nowhere near as laid back as Blu, despite covering similar topical territory (the everyday everyman life, the struggle for rap success, pursuits of happiness, etc)...he's aggressive as hell on most tracks.

All, or I should say many of, the "everyman" "average joe lifestyle" rappers we know tend to be laid back...I can only think of one exception off the top of the head, and thats Brother Ali. At the same time, J cole is far less spiritual than Ali (who isn't, really) but more hood-sounding than him, Blu, Drake, and alot of those dudes. He has a confidence that is reminiscent of a young Kanye West before his ego went absolutely nuts, and is nothing like the IN YOUR FACE LOOK AT ME I BLEED SWAG WHEN YOU CUT ME forced shit that we see today so often, in everyone from actually humble artists like Drake to obscenely cocky ones like Wayne.

All in all, It combines to form a very interesting listening experience, at least for me, especially since he's nice as hell lyrically. Great stealth signing by Hov on this one, hope it translates to success for J Cole, he seems like a dude who is on his grind and who deserves it.

Complex did a great interview with him about how he came up, his influences, signing with Jay, etc. Find that here.

You can download his mixtape and peep some songs on his myspace, click here.

He might end up in my "great new things in rap" group with Slaughterhouse, Blu, Shad K, and Lupe if he keeps this up.

Soundwaves

2009-06-18T18:26:00.002-04:00

"The fan messages would be the illest ones though, know what I'm sayin...the illest message i ever got though, was from this girl, she was deaf. She said she usually chills with her friends and would like, u know, feel the vibrations of the music, and she was like...she felt compelled to tell me, the vibrations she got from my music and being around her friends when they were listening to it were, you know, iller than... [loses words...]...I'm not gonna break it down but she said she would put on a record and just put her hand on the speaker, ya know, and it was just real deep for me readin that message. . .people tell me every day they wake up to certain songs, this and that...

...I know I have a job now. I don't know how to describe that job [laughs], per se, I can do it better with a pen, but I know what it is..."

Tell me that's not incredible?

That's a roughly paraphrased quote from the end of Johnson Barnes III, b.k.a. Blu, from an interview from last month on Jesse Thorn's interview series The Sound of Young America. It's a great interview. Thorn knows exactly what questions to ask in order to allow Blu to paint a picture of his upbringing, how he got into Rap, how he made his cd Below The Heavens, and more. He knows exactly when to let Blu's monologues take control of the interview, among other things.

It's about half an hour, I'm not gonna recap the whole thing, I'm just here to put it out there for those who would be interested. I will say however, if you have listened to Below The Heavens this is a must-listen. If you haven't listened to BTH....step it up and go find a copy and listen to it.

The whole interview is here.

Hi Life

2009-06-14T00:30:00.004-04:00

"Hi Life"
Ridin Dirty, 1996

Verse 2, Bun B

You only got one life to live
That's all they give us to do it
You could bullshit your way through it
Or stay true, it-

can be complicated cause niggas

Be gettin' shot in the cross
People and names get lost
The feeble and lame get tossed
The streets'll eat your ass alive
Take your positions with pistols, bare hands, and knives
And nobody's surprised, if somebody
Don't survive the dusk to see dawn
It's treacherous how we was left to die
On the streets that we be on
Motherfuckers sleepin' on them corners that you pee on
Probably cause society felt they didn't be-long
Now who in the fuck made it this way for us
Got all these little niggas slangin' that yay
Because it ain't like they make high levels gainable
And that quote "piece of American pie" just ain't attainable
So how can I substain a full life before death
Man, I'm left out here to make it by my goddamn self
Now c'mon, who gives a damn when you can't afford the turkey or ham
Livin' off of Ramen Noodles, beef jerky, and Spam
Now that's sad, but that's a fact of life
All I can see in front of me is up for grabs
Come off that slab
Cause poverty will push a nigga over that brink
Over the edge especially if you don't know your ledge
And So instead of being without, I'm hustling
Tryin' to get through these ungodly days
Thinkin' of ways to get the fuck outta this maze
A man will committ a crime 'cause a fuckin' crime pays
I'm going through a phase you don't grow out
Until there's a reason a mother fuckers gots to pour out
His 40 on the curb, disturbed and left with no doubt, in his mind
But still sometimes, he don't know why
He walkin' around just hopin'
He can get one more try to make it
It's bullshit he going through, but yo, he gots to take it
You can't fake it, to get that hi life.....

Dead or Alive

2009-06-11T10:16:00.004-04:00

Initially I didn't really want to comment on DOA, the Jay-Z song, because I felt like it wasn't that big of a deal or serious. Even if I did feel like the reasons and logic behind the song were flawed, I wasn't really that mad at Jay from a fan standpoint.

I also didn't want to comment because I was struggling to write or explain exactly what my problems were. Fortunately for me, I just read some shit that explains it PERFECTLY.

From the Hip Hop DX Blogs...(I'm putting the important stuff in red):

The golden rule about being a member of any bandwagon is that you must know precisely when to co-sign the craze and when to jump and move to greener pastures. That being said the latest move by Jay-Z to jump ahead of the curve is the latest strategy for one of the genre’s pioneers to remain relevant and invoke conversation amongst the hip-hop community.

Jay-Z’s new single “Death of Autotune” carried out its purpose swiftly and effectively, something akin to Paul Revere informing troops of the British’s impending arrival, aimed to inform the masses that a shift from the current rap sound is neccessary — ending with a musical eulogy to the musical effect’s prominence. The problem here is beyond the song’s inherently pretentious nature. Declaring the death of autotune is as futile as the ill-begotten attempts of various influential African-American leaders to bury the n-word a few years prior.

The similarities are striking; PR-driven quick fix attempts to win brownie points with those unenamored with the current state of our culture, while offering no pertinent solutions to deep complex problems that truly plague our culture’s growth.

Autotune, the rap Frankenstein, has grown larger than life over the last few years and if you listen to your local urban FM market you’re bound to hear at least one song showcasing effect unless it so happens to be the Quiet Storm hours of night. As the game’s Frankenstein, the reality here is that as the effect helped create stars like T-Pain, every lazy A&R, talent scout, and record label honcho looked to capitalize on that success — thus creating a monster.

People really are missing the point here.

Why do purists and old heads see the Autotune as the problem, knowing damn well that the greater powers that be have been fucking up the balance in music way before the 12-year-old effect was even born? Furthermore why is Jay-Z, a man who held great power and ABILITY in his time at Def Jam, so off the mark with his current critique of the game? The conglomerization of the media can be pinpointed as the true driving force behind the Autotune craze. [JJ's Note: Hov is not stupid...HE KNOWS THIS!!!]Record labels push songs they want the masses to hear, and the thousands of Clear Channel-owned radio stations pump them out like the various assembly lines in my Detroit hometown pump out the newest brake pad. That redundancy, paired with the sad reality that a dynamic sphere of sound found on the radio in decades past has been relegated to a state of follow the leader — each subsquent copy-cat of that hot sound even more nauseating than the last. Autotune doesn’t set that precedent, people do. People like Jay-Z — and the last I checked there was no movement to reinstate the Native Tongues era during his stay as President of Def Jam. Labels are still fucking up by refusing to go overtime to break fresh new music into the scene, and thats an inherent problem with the industry that will exist after autotune, or any other impending trend, dies.

Thats what makes the song pretentious. A man of great clout who had the opportunity to be a forerunner of a creative U-turn in the game through corporate means chooses now to label himself as a noveau-Moses delivering us to the promised land away from Autotune. Surely, that comes off a little bit ingenuine when looking at mismanagement of various Def Jam non-autotune acts of quality under Jay’s stead. Don’t want gimmicks? Support those who don’t rely on them. Preaching that we go back-to-basics is cool if there’s an effort to follow through, but relying on rhetoric only makes the message come off as self-serving and there’s enough of that in the game already.

......

......

In the end though, I’m not mad at Jay. The game needs these declarations and events to happen so that we can critique the game and look toward the future. I give him props for creating the discussion neccessary for this blog to have purpose, that being said here are some alternative songs/slogans I’d get personally get behind, that are far more damaging to the game (and as a result will go unchecked because of how many top stars it benefits). [Edit from JJ: Jay-Z has gone on record as pretty much saying that Autotune is cool, until it goes to far...like on a Wendys commercial, for example. He's tired of it getting gimmicky. The problem is he's going at the Artists for trying to do what the Labels Want, rather than going at Labels for Wanting them. It's disapointing because I am 100% sure he understands that relationship, as he has been an artist as well as an executive. That being said, no one in the industry really has balls anymore, so you can't be too mad, only disapointed...]

Death of Payola
How about we put an end to the pay-for-play BS that puts untalented people with deep pockets in the drivers seat and open the lane up for true talent to shine through on radio. Then people can build the momentum neccessary to actually balance the game out by giving consumers options as opposed to selling spots to the highest bidder. That goes for all these promoters charging artists to open for whatever out of over the hill out of town they shelled out 5 g’s for to bring to their club. Artists do YOU a service, and no new talent should be paying to perform unless it’s a festival of Rock The Bells/Summer Jam proportions. Paying dues is not a literal statement.

Death of the (Undeserved) Co-Sign [JJ's Edit: This is SO NECCESARY!!!!! ]
A concept that needs serious re-tuning, because while the industry is telling the young broke cats trying to get heard to pay dues, some people are also punching v.i.p. tickets for people with no track record. The game thrives on networking, but its unnerving to see emcees who haven’t shown and proven get a certain amount of clout with having anything official. Nepotism is acid to structural integrity as well, so people should rethink putting on their boys/friends/homies as well if they just aren’t up to snuff. i wont name names of people in the industry i think this applies to, because frankly a diss wont stop the phenomenon. A GOOD co-sign goes a long way, and the proper type of big-upping will elevate a talented superstar to a position he’s not only deserving of, but ready for (i.e. Drake: rapidly-growning fanbase, performance skills, star potential regardless of how you feel about the music)

Death of Death
Hip-hop’s not dead or dying, and things don’t need to die for the game to change. There just needs to be a more balanced representation of the culture. Downplay kill what’s oversaturated in rap; don’t kill it.

So regarding Autotune, in the words of Jay himself on “Success”…

“LET THAT BITCH BREATHE!!”

Technical (non)difficulties

2009-06-09T17:43:00.012-04:00

Rather than post directly on issues that are "hot" on the internets right now, like say Relapse or DOA (the Jay-Z song), I'm gonna try to address them in other ways, combine "current events" in rap with my own ideas and whatnot.

With that out of the way, allow me to speak on Eminem a bit.

(btw, this right here has to be one of the best artistic hip-hop album covers ever...)

The general consensus, give or take, for his latest opus Relapse, can be summarized as follows:

"Eminem clearly can still rap his ass off. His rhyme schemes remain technically complex, his flow varied from song to song. Multi's still seem easy to him. That being said, Relapse suffers from a creative lapse. Most of the gorey, taboo, fucked-up things he rhymes about don't seem clever, they seem crude. The choruses, once arguably Eminem's greatest strength, are...corny as shit. The dark humor is gone, and the disapointment is furthered because we, as fans in the instant-information age, know that he has had plenty of personal drama to fuel new rhymes subjects. This is not to mention other things, like "the voice" he uses so often...."
-JJG

Yeah I just quoted myself. And what?

Anyway I wanted to use that as a bridge to explain what makes Eminem so brilliant...I say "what makes" rather than "what made" because I still think he has it, though he may not show it. There is a decent-sized contingent of people who tend to hate on Eminem, and even I have to admit, he hasn't done anything to shut them up in recent years. Anyhow, I just wanted to pick one song out and look at it critically for a minute. It's my personal favorite Eminem song, not one of his mega-hits, not one of his super-classics like "Stan."

Off of the acclaimed Slim Shady LP, we have the song "Role Model." I like the way this song showcases all facets of Eminem's rap persona...we get the battle-tested, detroit bred, in your face style. We get the I don't give a fuck, celeb dissing, status-quo questioning style. We get multi's, as well as his famous one-line quotables. We get his socially concious (don't sleep on his socially concious lyrics...theyre in most of his good songs) style, his affinity for experimental drugs...the whole deal. Not to mention it's one of my favorite personal beats, courtest of some a simple combo of country guitar, bass, and simple boom bap from the good Doctor [Dre].

It's very tough when your style isn't one dimensional to maintain it as long as Eminem has. But when you set the bar so high, naturally, any hint of fall-off will be magnified.

One of my favorite things in rap is when an emcee begins the song with crazy bars that let you know he or she means business...bars that pretty much say "I am NOT to be fucked with." The flow rides the beat perfectly, sylables just dancing with each snare and hat...

I'm cancerous, so when I diss you wouldnt wanna answer this
If you responded back with a battle rap you wrote for Canibus
I'll strangle you to death, then I'll choke you again
Then break your fuckin legs till your bones poke through your skin
You beef wit me, I'ma even the score equally
Take you on jerry springer, and beat yer ass legally...

That, right there, is cold-blooded. Just sick. Straight battle rap, shit talk, disrespect, creativity. The beginning of verses and the end of verses...not enough emcees take advantage of that nowadays. He continues in 5-mic fashion:

So if I said I never did drugs
That would mean I lie AND get fucked more than the President does
Hillary Clinton tried to slap me and call me a pervert
I ripped her fuckin tonsils out and fed her sherbet (bitch)
My nerves hurt, and lately I'm on edge
Grabbed Vanilla Ice and ripped out his blond dreads (Fuck you!)
Every girl I ever went out with has gone lez
Follow me and do exactly what the song says:
smoke weed, take pills, drop outta school, kill people and drink
And jump behind the wheel like it was still legal
I'm dumb enough to walk in a store and steal
So I'm dumb enough to ask for a date with Lauryn Hill
Some people only see that I'm white, ignorin skill
Cause I stand out like a green hat with a orange bill
But I don't get pissed, y'all don't even see through the mist
How the fuck can I be white, I don't even exist
I get a clean shave, bathe, go to a rave
Die from an overdose and dig myself up out of my grave
My middle finger won't go down, how do I wave?
And this is how I'm supposed to teach kids how to behave?

So much in that verse alone...

It's filled with the one liners he was famous for. Any rapper nowadays can come up with a ill punchline and use that to elicit "ooohs" and "aaahs" from the listener...rarer now is the non-punchline one or two bar line that does the same thing. A lost art indeed. Even rappers we consider "great" like Fabolous and Joe Budden emphasize punchlines far too much, which is boring as hell to me. Come up with legit hot bars without punchlines...it's much more difficult.

*looks at Wayne, Juelz, and Fab*

Only one punchline in that whole Em Verse, the "green hat with an orange bill line," and it's not a big deal--the beat doesn't stop for it, it's not the best part of his verse, just a complement.

You see the multi's too..."store and steal...lauryn hill...ig-norin skilll...orange-bill"...you already know.

The lines are ill, but we still laugh at them because they are funny as hell too. Honestly, few other emcees ever were witty AND dope at the same time. He just took styles and combined them, into some previously unknown synthesis that, like he notes, is often overshadowed by his being white and standing out for things (pop singles, drugs, whatever).

He takes shots at the highest of pop culture celebs. He shoots down vanilla Ice and Cage, polar opposites of the white-rapper spectrum, in one song. He (rightfully) calls out the President. He pokes fun at drug abuse, as well as the media and art's (overly emphasized) role in parenting. Social conciousness disguised as...nay, coupled with...comedy and dissaproval.

The biggest pet peave of critics of rap, to this day, is the seeming one-sidedness of some rap content. Fight, Fuck Bitches, Get Money, Drink, do Drugs...They fail to see the complexity of a genre which often reflects the many sides and grey shades of life, even if it stares t hem in the face. Eminem's music often delved into a part of human personality that never made it onto records. Sound Familiar? It's because I talked about this before, with a certain Mr. West...

He was (is? I hope so) the Emcees emcee. This is why you see rappers give him more credit than hardcore hip-hop head fans do. Accomplished rappers like Nas and Hov both put him in their top 5's and 10's consitently. Even underground rappers who pride themselves are their analysis of whos lyrically worthy, like Joe Budden and Royce da 5"9', do the same thing. While he had his faults, while there are other rappers who deserved an equally large share of credit for dopeness (as well as more money for their own works), it's hard to argue with his versatility and uniqueness. Alot of rappers are GREAT but in the same vein as previous emcees, to a degree...like Jay-Z and Nas. That's NOT A KNOCK! It's just a fact. Rarer is the Emcee who is both talented as ever and yet you can't point at them and say they are remotely like so-and-so. In Fact, I personally put Andre 3000 and Em at the top of that category, with Scarface and Ghostface right behind.

Slim Shady...at his top, one of the best, to me. How the mighty have fallen...as with Hov, he now seems like a current shell of his former self trying to acheive the glory of their youth. Hopefully they can...we'll k now before the summer is over.

Thanks in Taino is Oáan

2009-06-07T00:54:00.005-04:00

Most of my posts here are as a would-be-critic, addressing certain issues. What I do here, is what people do at parks, in restaurants, in barbershops, and now in comments sections and AIM and Facebook and Twitter. I'm just stating my opinions, what I think of things.

Thing is, I wrote back in my introductory post that I wanted to get a couple of things out of this blog, personally. One was to use people as a sounding board, to see if I am buggin' with certain theories and opinions. Another was to try to open people's eyes to other views, or even introduce them to different aspects of hip-hop. I also wanted to just use it to vent, release idea and emotion in the form of words and sentences, via hip-hop I guess.

I haven't, and most bloggers don't, write about broader issues with hip hop as a personal tool, an emotional vehicle to take us to different places. We often write about why we think the artists themselves do it, and often remark on how it's a coping mechanism for the artists to create these songs that represent how they feel or what they think. I feel like I need to pay homage to the other side of that coin...what I mean by that is that hip-hop is also a coping mechanism for us as fans and listeners and consumers.

It seems like a fairly obvious thing, I know. We all go through rough patches, and I know alot of people may, for example, associate certain music with certain time periods in their life when they were having trouble or having success or whatever. Same is true with me.

I guess certain people have closer relationships with music than others. In order for that to happen, it's not like you have to be a fiend, or a collector of music, or have tens of gigs of music, or hundreds of cds, or whatever. It could be anything. I just know that at one point in my life, I didn't really care about music.

I used to be a pretty reserved kid, call it whatever you wanna call it. I'm not gonna bore people with a biography or anything, but it got to the point where sometimes I would retreat into the music, into hip-hop. I know that sounds kinda corny....it's true though. I sort of thought of it as a coping mechanism, kinda just beleived that "oh no matter what goes wrong, at least hip-hop won't fuck me over. It will always have my back."

It was true then, and remains true today.

However, I think that the "spirit" of hiphop music, for lack of a better term, remains one of progressiveness, so I recently have had the revelation that rather than use it as a crutch or a safety blanket, I should use it to justify my forward movement...my progress both personally and professionally. Rather than use it as a shield, I will use it as a helping hand, a burst of wind on my back in the stretch run of a race.

It might not seem like much...but when you have an instrument as powerful as this kinda music at your disposal, there are different ways to use it, and I wanna use it for fun, for support, and for progress too.

I know this was kind of all over the place and random, but it was something I had to write. If you understood or took any sort of lesson away from this shit, congratulations, thank you, your welcome....I will end this rant with a thank you to hip hop, and a good luck to all the fans out there in whatever endeavors you may undertake.

-JJG

Great Quote

2009-06-06T15:40:00.003-04:00

Someone on the nahright comments said this, forget who though.

"hiphop dont need saving … it is well guarded, and is prospering in the unsafe hands of the oppressors … and genuine hiphop still matriculates underground in relative anonymity, awaiting the day that the oppressive entities kill themselves, and each other, off …"

dope!

Buncha Thoughts

2009-06-06T00:16:00.008-04:00

Can't Leave bloggin alone, the game ....

...Ok, the game doesn't really need me, but I'm tired of writing all these ideas on facebook statuses since summer started.

Furthermore I'm back in New York, where I'm happiest, fly-est, and most importantly, smartest (fuck junior year of college)

...so allow me to allow yall to welcome me and my 2 cents about this rap shit back to the internet.

I just wanted to hit a couple bases before I got back into essay-writing form...on my Pujols shit for a minute.

1. Drake.

I have been classified as a Drake Hater...rightfully so, as I've said my share of venemous things. It's not him I usually hate on if you pay attention though, it's his dick riders. I personally beleive that since he started ridin with Young Money, his lyrics have taken both the good and bad from Wayne. He never had thaaat many corny punchlines before, but he also didn't have that confidence to his flow that rappers need nowadays to make the jump to MTV-Airing Superstardom.

So sorry, Drake stans, if I hurt your feelings. I Do think he's gonna be a superstar, and think he deserves it. I do have faith that he's not just gonna be sheep and totally bite off wayne and kanye and all the other shit thats "hot" when he makes his debut...It should be a good album, I feel like he's still crafting his sound and trying to balance between the rappers he idolizes (wayne and yeezy) and what he was doing before then. I think he can pull it off.

Hopefully he does it Indie too, for his sake, because he'll cake more off that shit, and it'll be a big blow to the major labels, which I fuckin' despite and detest.

2. Hov

I've found myself hating on Jay-Z quite a bit recently, which is strange cause' he honestly is one of my favorite artists...I know all of his CDs song for song pretty much, and he's from NY, etc....

I just think sometimes, I dunno, he does things which irk me a bit. Most of em have (at least to me) some obvious business savvy behind them, but still...

Exhibit 1: Tour in the works with Jeezy, Weezy, and Drake. Really? None of these people are in your class, and their fans don't know most of your work...I mean, it's only a rumor though, so I'm not too mad. As long as he is the Headliner, i guess it's aiiight. I WONT be seeing that tour, though....

Exhibit 2: Featuring Drake on a song on your upcoming CD. Now this may s ound like some more hov/drake hating, but allow me to elaborate. Who guest spots on Hov CDs? Historically, we have legends....rakim, biggie, outkast, DMX (pre-crackhead)......other gully lyrical New Yorkers (LOX, Sauce Money, etc)...people on his label (Yeezy, Beans, Mac, etc...). Drake fits none of these categories, and doesn't even have a album under his belt. That's not anything against Drake, I would HATE For him to rush a cd out and not give his all. I Just think Jay is doing it to try and sign him to Roc Nation. He's essentially the blue-chip prospect of the rap world right now, and if Jay signs him he will gain a multimillion dollar asset that will pay for itself in no time flat...

I also take issue with all the alleged songs that have been made for BP3 at one point or another...Jockin Jay-z, History, and now DOA. Theyre all OK. DOA has a heater of a beat...and catchy lyrics...but I don't think its up to par. Not if your gonna take the Blueprint moniker for a third ride around the block...another business strategy. He's a business, man....but he's not showing me growth. Thats what makes me nervous about the BP3 Album...I hope he shows growth and doesn't just make songs where he talks about flossin and then reminds of his spokesman-for-hip-hop status. Nas showed growth with Untitled...Mos and Kweli still grow with each album...all his peers from the 90s who still rap well have not had issues with that. Granted, comparing t hose 4 rappers may be apples and oranges to a degree, but I hope you get my point. I just have my fingers crossed for it to be a tight cd, but I got the bar set pretty low personally.

Call me a pessimist, I guess.

3. The Ecstatic

The reason i Single out this album is because it is the first of MANY MANY MANY good Cd's schedule to drop in the next couple months. I've listened to it a couple times, and I'm not gonna run around anointing the shit a classic like some people. But I will say it is good as HELL. And not just lyrically or sonically, but because it brings some styles previously only seen on the underground label Stones Throw Records a little bit closer to the forefront. Also because he touches on many themes related to the perception of Muslims and Muslim culture in America (and Vice Versa). Mos Def is, as someone I know put it, a crazy ass n-word, so it's good to hear him harnessing that shit into making his music creative and crafting a CD different from anything we've heard.

(and for those still looking for Black on Both Sides era Mos Def...it's 2009, he's older...so Go headbutt a moving Mack Truck)

Aight.

On that note, I'm gonna try to cut the hating out my diet this summer, and focus on the positive shit going on in hip-hop, which is plenty, despite the fuckery we see on the regular in this digital age of youtube and facebook and twitter.

SOON:

Piece on the Ecstatic and it's socio-cultural signicance on the hip-hop landscape , followd by a Tolstoyan philosophical rant on the circular nature of hip-hop, focused a bit toward Drake and Lupe Fiasco.

Maybe some short ass pieces if I hear some good songs or quotables, etc, but I'm gonna try to focus on the more substance having, longer pieces now. My apologies if you came here looking for one paragraph of amazing insight.

I'm not that concise, for that you should visit JD's Spot.

where the HELL you been?!?!

2009-05-18T15:48:00.002-04:00

My computer got fucked, and I can't be creative without it. The same creative juices (pause) don't flow as well on other computers...I always write at random hours and times.

Just got it back in action, but right now I have finals...so gimme 2 weeks and I'll be back it.

We got alotta good music droppin this summer, 09 is lookin like a big year.

Catch yall when I'm back in New York

-JG

Smarter than Most

2009-03-14T03:09:00.004-04:00

[from Jay-Z's interview in Best Life Magazine]

At 39, Jay-Z is old enough to think about the cultural impact that hip-hop has already had, and the critical role he has played in it. "Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit," he says. "It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.

"I'll explain why I say that," he continues. "Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it's very hard to teach racism to a teenager who's listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It's hard to say, 'That guy is less than you.' The kid is like, 'I like that guy, he's cool. How is he less than me?' That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that." He pauses, as if marveling at the idea, and then repeats it for emphasis: "Hip-hop has done that."

Smart Guy, that Shawn Carter.

Supergroup Musings

2009-03-12T18:13:00.004-04:00

Slaughterhouse, as some of you hopefully know, is a bonified supergroup of extremely talented non-mainstream emcees. If you don't know the above pictures, from left to right we have Brooklyn's own [Puerto Rican!] Joell Ortiz, Jersey City's Joe Budden, Crooked I of Long Beach, and Royce da 5'9'' from Detroit.

I was listening to a track they recently released, called "Move On." It's 8 minutes long, because it's somewhat of a concept record and they choose not to sacrifice detail and emotion to fit the traditional format of songs. The song highlights some things that they all basically have in common...they are all only known by casual fans and mainstream media for a select few events in their respective careers.

In Joey's case it's his hit single Pump it Up, in Royce's case it's his friendship/beef with Eminem, for Joell it's his failed deal with Dr Dre and Aftermath records, for Crooked it's his tenure with unyielding Tenure with Suge Knight's Death Row records.

The reason this song Move On is so significant for them is that the other few songs they have released as Slaughterhouse have been your typical lyrical gangbangs, 4-7 minutes of them just decimating beats with battle rap stylings and tremendous lyricism. Move On, on the other hand, shows the potential for these guys.

They already have done more than many other theoretical supergroups by just RELEASING several songs. How many supergroups can you name that never came to fruition? The Four Horsemen, The Golden State Warriors, CRS...the List Goes On. They have genuine chemistry on the songs, and are good friends. They even have YouTube videos of them doing everything from drinking and performing on stage to arguing over the process of making songs and who ethered who on different tracks.

This isn't quite the normal supergroup because, as I said, all of them have publicly struggled with the rap game at one point or another. They've all been publicly exposed, and all of them have plenty of haters and naysayers who wrote them off and continue to do so. They seem almost down to earth, mortal, as opposed to projecting the lofty celebrity status we so often bestow to rappers. We can point out their flaws, comfortably, without it damaging our opinions of them. Joey is stubborn...Joell isn't exactly in great shape...Crooked has been around forever...Royce drinks his ass off lol. You get the point.

They are very much a group of the people. It was an idea created when they were just kicking it...the idea gained movement and momentum almost SOLELY because the fans in different parts of the country showed support and love for their skill and effort, as well as their charisma off the track and on YouTube. Something with this much positive energy is utterly UNHEARD OF in Hip Hop in the year 2009, and I don't think people understand the magnificence of it all. 4 extremely talented artists, giving 100 %, who genuinely care about their fans, and on top of the music, they don't see a problem with letting fans have extended glimpses into t heir own lives. They represent most of the major areas where Hip-Hop comes from in America, in Cali, The Midwest, and The NY/NJ area.

WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?

The irony of it all to me, is that if either of the 4 artists had taken a more normal route to hip-hop fame, this would not have happened. The main reason for groups like these not forming is time constraints, ego issues, not wanting to be out shined, being busy with various duties, tours, promotions, and the like. So SLAUGHTERHOUSE, the supergroup, was essentially born indirectly from the struggles, the losses, and the false hopes. It can represent, if you want it to, the hope that many struggle to see when faced with the nasty, dark underbelly of the beast that is the Hip Hop Industry.

And I'm not even one of the Joe Budden super-duper fans that has heard all his material...I don't "jock" any of them really, to be honest. I fuck with them all because of their talent and dedication and because they all flat out make good music and each has mad potential. And of course cuz Joell is from NY and is Boricua, too, haha.

But as a collective that actually is trying to leave a mark and gives a shit what fans think?

Consider me a Stan.

A Couple songs, including the aforementioned "Move On."

Move On

Onslaught

Fight Club

Jota Electronica

2009-03-06T00:40:00.004-05:00

Jota Electronica=Jay Electronica for you smart dumb cats.

We'll make it brief:

DJ Khalil has a group called The New Royale's. From what I can tell they're not neccesarily rap, and remind alot of The Gorillaz. That's a great thing.

They did a song with Jay Electro, one of the few up and comers I consider a legitimate blue chipper in the rap game.

Boom, Son.

Here's his verse, which as usual, is SILLY good.

Question:

How does one go from chosen to posin

trapped in a box for years like han solo frozen

trapped in a wack idea designed by DeBeers

to keep yo mental ideas under ya eyeballs bulgin

Fear:

It can kill a man, turn a real man into a realer man,

or package you into a bathin ape wearin gorillaz fan

this message is brought to you in part by a michael jackson thriller fan

i had the glove plus the matchin jacket zippers, ha heh

Its cool to imitate, just grow into ya own

dont let the green grass across the picket fence

turn you into mr smith without a purpose or a home

underneath he is a jedi, on the surface hes a clone

smilin for his peers but at night time he cries

till he dried up all his tear ducts, and he cool with that

long as he got a haircut and his gear up

without change, we over,

from individuals to posers, posers, posers...

Good LORD he needs to drop some material.

Surprises are Fun

2009-03-03T18:18:00.003-05:00

Something I do on occassion, maybe one or twice a year, is download an album or mixtape of a new artist, and listen to the whole album/mixtape from front to back without reading or hearing any prior information about the artist.

Last time I did this was Tiron's mixtape Ketchup, and Blu and Exile's album Below the Heavens.

I think it makes it kinda fun, albeit in a childish way...but whatever. The only thing I will know before hand is that people approve of an artist, so hopefully what I am about to start playing in my headphones or speakers is good. It just builds anticipation and makes for a pleasant and different listening Experience.

That Being Said...

I just did that today with the mixtape Distant Travels in a Soul Theory by QuESt, an up and coming rapper who I've been sleeping on. He has won some contests, dropped some other projects, creating a small buzz for himself. He hails from Miami, Florida. His style remind me, personally, of how Jay-Z rapped waaaaaaaaaaaay the fuck back before reasonable doubt, when he was rhyming with the OG NY rappers and shit.

What makes Distant Travels so ill? I'll just say the beats are out of the ordinary, and not from the last 30 years, and the mixtape vaguely resemebles a movie.

Very, Very, Enjoyable music.

Distant Travels in a Soul Theory

QuESt's myspace

My reign is as far as your eyes can see....

2009-03-01T23:30:00.005-05:00

Kanye West is a divisive figure in hip-hop.

While it is pretty much common knowledge that most people who are fans of hip-hop enjoy his music, those who dislike him do so vehemently...and ain't nothing wrong with that.

That being said, something that I personally beleive is undeniable is his work ethic. He puts in crazy work into his music and especially into his live show. If you saw Glow in the Dark, you know what I mean.

On VH1 yesterday, his 1.5 hour special edition of VH1 Story Tellers aired. It's live songs with him rambling and giving speeches inbetween. The live instrumentation versions of the songs are CRAZY, and his speeches range from convaluding to satirical to inspirational to sharp, surprising, and strikingly truthful.

If you are a fan of Kanye, the audio version of this stuff is a must have. Point Blank. If you aren't a fan, and you don't give it a chance, well...your loss. I'm not normally one to be a holier-than-thou rap critic, but rare is the live recording of rap which is this different and inspiring compared to the studio versions.

KANYE WEST: VH1 STORY TELLERS

Link courtesy of Nahright.

One thing that struck me in particular about the things he said in, as well as inbetween songs, is his grey worldview. In rap you don't get that much. He talks about things as he thinks about them...here's an example.

He talks about how even if your with someone, dating, whatever, you might clear a whole friday night to meet up with an ex, even if you know you can't be with her for anything more than that, that you can't love her really anymore, etc. There is an element of wrongness to that sort of thing, but people do it all the time, and it's something alot of people can relate to.

He lets certain actions and events be right and wrong at the same time, which is often how things are in real life, regardless of how badly we (and society) wants to neatly file them into a wrong or right category.

In hip-hop music, rappers will often present issues as viewed through one lens. This isn't a bad thing at all, as it is the normal thing to do. Jay-Z's world to us, is one where he is the coolest, smoothest dude on the planet. There's no other side to the story, that's it lol. Not many rappers consistently let us into the subconcious world where right and wrong are blurred, even though we can ALL relate to it.

Sometimes a rapper will do it with regards to something a bit more impersonal...such as Clipse, who consistently preach and speak on how selling narcotics is a sin that they willingly go through with, or Nas talking about the ills racism and discrimination in cities, and how some minority youths buy into it. These are issues that we can easily say, "good point, I see how that is. I know what the right thing to do is though, if the situation would ever come my way."

Rarer is the situation where we give pause, and struggle to conclude which side of an argument is correct. That is because these situations are intensely personal usually, and these are thoughts that materialize in the back of our mind, when we are by ourselves, with no one to bounce words off of but the vast corridors of our own mind.

Kanye has a line in Say You Will where he ominously sings "When I grab your neck, I feel your soul..." When he says it, especially live, with the backing band and track giving an almost hellish feel to the song, it gives the listener doubt. Hands on her neck? Choking her? But the listener does not immediately register and associate incorrectness with the line, despite the obvious amorality of it. Why is this? It's because deep within anyone's subconcious, whether they are comfortable with it or not, strange and disturbing thoughts may surface. Thankfully, action is the ultimate determiner of morality, rather than our Freudian subconcious.

The point is, this doesn't happen in rap music often, and I personally appreciate the fact that someone can channel this sentiment, these complexities, onto songs, from time to time. It isn't easy, by any means.

Earthquakes in San Andreas

2009-02-28T11:49:00.005-05:00

Now, some of you already know I pretty much jock the rapper known as Blu, from Long Beach, California. I had always been aware that he was only one of a small group of Cali rappers who guest spotted on each other songs, produced for each other, etc., but I had never listened to the other ones. Maybe it was some kinda subconcious fear that they would not compare to Blu, i dunno.

Anyway, I finally got around to listening to one of them, Tiron. He just dropped a mixtape, "Ketchup," which essentially is reintroducing him for people like me (get it...catch up?).

Turns out he's nice as hell. I mean his lyrics aren't Blu, but who gives a fuck? He's charismatic as hell on the tracks, and it appears he can make whole songs, not just have good lines or choruses or verses. He can readily switch topics while keeping it light and funny, with an ounce of satire thrown in there for good measure. Not that my opinion matters, but I was blown away.

Check it.

(Link Courtesy of 2dopeboyz)

Gettin the Computers Putin...

2009-02-25T17:06:00.002-05:00

No this isn't a celebration of the return of Killa Cam....

Although it should be.

Jus introducing another blog that has some interesting writing. Politics, Hip-Hop, some intellectual stuff goin on. The dude writing just has an all around unique perspective on the way things happen in hip-hop and in our society.

The Headless Giant!

Boo-ya, son.

Communism!

2009-02-25T10:42:00.004-05:00

Yeah, hah
So check it out, yeah
Chick-a chick-a I'm
Chick-a chick-a on
Chick-a chick-a my
my, own shit
Like an entrepreneur, that stepped in manure
man I'm newer than a Jack I went up the hill with Jill
And jack Jill's big bootay
But did the booty up, I told the bitch she better have my money
Or step to the AMG
You know Com Sense, oh yeah him be
That nigga that be making all the by-by-by-bye sounds
But since then, Common calm down!
I'm on some calm shit watch Com get complicated
Simple motherfuckers say the way that Com communicated
was too complex, I got a complex not to complain
on my brain no complain and so will my community
And I prefer compliments
So I complement at an angle, of ninety degrees
It's the nineties, and music got known for grease
I got a sense of direction and a compass
Com past MC's with compassion, though I heard the screams of
But I ain't shy, so why shall I comfort
Com should've been at the fort with Jeff I'm so ill
But I chilled in my compartment with no company and no meals
Now Com can get the panty, but I want my own company
And Com is on a mission not to work for commission
It's a common market and it's so much competition
but to me, competition is... none
To my comp I'm a ton I get amped like Watts in a riot
my compact disc is a commodity, so buy it
Instead of competing with Pete
Com compromised, Com made a promise
Not to commercialize, but compound the soul
without the elements, compelling sense into Communism

-Common, off the song Communism on his second cd, Resurrection

Download it here

Spotlight

2009-02-23T16:17:00.003-05:00

The (small) audience of this site is a mix of hip hop fans...some like underground shit, some are mainstream hip hop fans with knowledge of the "classics," some are fiends who know about everything like myself, some just casually check the site to see what kind of shit I'm talking on any given day.

I think one of the main things I want to accomplish is putting people on to under-represented, under-rated rappers. So I'm gonna do a series on a couple rappers who aren't super duper underground , but aren't main stream, who should be more well known. I'll either be profiling the rappers themselves, or profiling a specific album (or mixtape) they have done which will serve the same purpose.

Be on the lookout for that...

Originality, Hype, and the Blogosphere.

2009-02-23T09:13:00.008-05:00

There are many traits that make a good rapper a good rapper in my opinion. You can have great lyrics...you can be very good at making lyrics mesh with a beat...you can tackle different subjects creatively...you can carry yourself with a certain persaonlity or charisma...and you can be original.

I bring this up because of a disturbing phenomenon that I've noticed. Hip Hop blogs have long been practitioners of marketing, often giving more spotlight to under-represented artists. This is not to say that they don't publicize the mainstream artists, because nahright and other sites routinely cover soulja boy, Curtis, and other house-hold name artists. That being said, they work with labels and artists' management to for example distribute mixtapes and the like. They essentially control the hype of some artists who don't get much radio play.

I feel like the level of hype we see for certain artists does not match their actual skill level, in any of those categories i mentioned earlier. Drake is not as nice as people say, and he isn't original on any level. He's better than alot of other main stream artist, but I feel like the internet has almost forced his perception upon blog-goers. He seems to be a mix of "what's hot," as in corny punchlines, forced metaphors, "swag," southern twang, with a dash of attempted singing. Charles Hamilton's hype is inflated because he is giving blogs the Lil Wayne diet of a Mixtape a Week, for the whole fuckin year basically. Don't get me wrong, I like "Brooklyn Girls" (the song and the subject) as much as the next hip hop fan...and I feel like on occassion some of his joints show his admittedly large potential...but the hype doesn't match.

And some people are at the other end of the spectrum...admittedly creative, yet totally unskilled. Another darling of these websites is Asher Roth. Now excuse the inner Science Major in me, but this is the best way to put it: Asher fills a void, an unfilled niche--pop-ish, not controversial but somewhat rebellious in that adoloescent way, and of course, white. His song "I Love College" has been making it's rounds, becoming more popular in colleges and known amongst people who normally could give 2 shits and a shart about underground hip-hop artists. It's good that he noticed this and decided to take advantage of it, but people don't seem to notice in these blogs that he sucks at rapping. He's ASS. Point Blank. Period. Any of these other underground rappers that XXL and the blogopsheres consider his peers would eat him alive. And any ACTUALLY Talented rappers with underground buzz (I see you, Rhymesayers!!!) are ten times better but get ten times less buzz.

Charles Hamilton and Wale, both talented with many connections and co-signs and label backing, along with Drake, are the darlings of the rap-blogosphere...which, while I feel is wrong, is not something I am neccesarily against. It's just we are coronating these guys before they pay their dues. And paying dues should not entail making a fuckload of mixtapes.

I'd rather more rappers take the Jay Electronica route, or a less extreme version of it (more akin to Blu or any of the guys in The Justus League, for example) and have less mixtapes to let the buzz build more slowly. We the bloggers are eating rap fast food...we think it's great, it's marketed extremely well, and it's new music that is very convenient because there is always some new stuff to consume. ...Call me crazy, but I'd prefer that well cooked, exquisite, Zagat rated rap food where every time I get to have some it's a special occassion that I can enjoy thoroughly.

Maybe I'm just disapointed because I thought politics and the like would not cause blogs to fall into the same trap that radio falls into. I had idealistic visions of a Rap Utopian Meritocracy, built from the ground up by the fans of good hip hop for the fans of good hip hop, where fanatics like myself could just plug headphones in and become totally satisfied with the state of music. I was naive, and while the hip-hop blogosphere is not something I take for granted because it IS a giant leap ahead of MTV, BET, and the Clearchannel radio whores...I just thought by now it would have made more progress.

"I got a Letter from the government, the other day...."

2009-02-19T21:17:00.005-05:00

What's up, kiddies. Hope you guys enjoyed my 2 entries of Outkast homerism. Time to switch gears for a minute.

If you guys have ever ventured onto the blogroll on the right side of the screen, you woulda realized half the sites on their are music-related, but half are political or socio-conciousness related, 'cause that shit is mad important to me.

Hiphopdx.com did an interview with the always forthright and thoughtful rapper Brother Ali. For those of you who don't know much about Brother Ali, he's a very gifted artist who stands out on Rhymesayer Records' roster of gifted artists. He happens to be an Albino, as well. He hails from Minnesota, and his story is a pretty unique one, but if you wanna learn more about that, go check his Wikipedia page, cause I don't feel like writing the whole thing.

He talks about his music, the election, a contrasting opinion he has on Obama with his hero, KRS-One, as well as other shit. Here's an excerpt:

DX: Now you said you’re not a political rapper, but you apparently have plenty to rail against the government about. On “2nd Time Around” [click to listen] you noted that “the Homeland Security gaffled me overseas/Froze my bank account and seized my guarantee.” Was this a real incident you were referring to?

Brother Ali: Yeah, that’s real… Two things happened [that I referenced in that song]. The first one is that I was supposed to go on tour with Gym Class Heroes[click to read]… I had the opportunity to go on tour with them. It was gonna be all college shows – all their fans. So I’m like, “Word. That’ll be a good chance for me to perform for some people who haven’t heard underground rap.”

But Verizon was the sponsor for the tour. [And] they just had trouble with Akon [click to read] because he was on a tour they sponsored and he had that whole scandal where he had like a nasty dance contest [with someone] that turned out to be a young girl. So they kicked him off of Gwen Stefani’s tour [click to read]… And so when that happened they went [and] took a look at me and because of that video [for “Uncle Sam Goddamn”], and because of that song, they felt like it was too risky for them to be associated with me [and] so they kicked me off that tour… I lost tens of thousands of dollars from that. Like, I probably lost $30,000 on that.

[So] then I went to Australia. We took The Undisputed Truth Tour all over the world… [So] we’re in Australia, [and] the promoter for the Australian show wired the money for the guarantees for the show to the Rhymesayers' bank account in Minneapolis. [Then] the Department of Homeland Security stopped the wire transfer and froze the Rhymesayers business bank account so that nothing could go in and out of that account for me, Atmosphere, Blueprint, MF DOOM, everybody on [the label]… What we had to do [was] register with theDepartment of Homeland Security. I had to give ‘em [information on] all my people in my crew, their social security numbers, addresses, [and explain] what we were doing, what the money was for, our schedule. And then they finally released everything to us after that. But it was a few days where everything was just held in this show of force…

[My songs] have had real life consequences for me… And that was my point in that verse [on “2nd Time Around”], somebody like me who sells 50,000 records, there’s no reason why I should be…Homeland Security is looking at me.

Catch the Full Interview here!

READ BETWEEN THE LINES

2009-02-17T16:49:00.000-05:00

"look out the window, golly, the sky is electric blue..."

DA ART OF STORY TELLIN' PART II

Those of you who know me at all, or have checked out my I Pod, know that I am an Outkast fanatic. I think they are the best group in hip-hop history, and one of the best musical acts in recent memory.

Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way, this month's slept on song isn't really that slept on. People KNOW that this song exists, and that it's tight, for the most part, but I don't think people quite understand some of the nuances in the song. I don't blame them! It's not a normal thing to go inbetween the lines as much as I am about to.

Classic songs in other genre's are often broken down in meticulous detail by music critics, and the same approach often eludes reviews of hip-hop, so I will try to do this every now and then.

Without Further Adieu....

( if you haven’t heard the song, here’s a link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8B8Z9l12SA )

We'll go in a logical order. First, the beat. Once the track comes on, we are greeted by an alarm clock and a somber piano, as well as the ad-libs of Andre "3000" Benjamin. Are we being woken up or alerted to something? Not much time goes by to let the listener ponder, because in a matter of seconds, the beat drops.

Shakers, Hi-hats, off-beat snare hits, and Andre 3000's nimble rapid fire delivery contribute to the frantic feeling of the song. At the same time we have the piano almost sobbing in the background, while a whistle wails in the background. If you listen carefully, you can hear an guitar strumming, exchanging almost sorrowful retorts with a trumpet.

The contrasting parts of the beat, fast and panicky versus slow and somber, somehow complement each other over the boom-bap kick drums, and are all tied together by the ridiculous dexterity and unrelenting raps of distorted-voice versions of Dre and Big Boi. We don't even get a break until between verses, and even that is a fleeting moment.

Many songs just have a beat and verses, with no real relation to each other. A Rapper may even work extremely well with the beat, riding it perfectly from syllable to syllable. More rare though, is when verse and beat actually create meaning which cannot be obtained by either individually. The beat almost makes you picture a fast paced, apocalyptic escape scene, as do the verses... speaking of the verses....

Baby did you hear that yea baby I heard it too

Look out the window golly the sky is electric blue

Mamma Earth is dyin and cryin because of you

Rainin cats and jackles all shackles disintegrate, to residue

Silly mortals haven't a clue,

as to what the fuck is goin on

I'm on the telephone, dialin the Dungeon "Hello?"

This Dre, bring the MP and the SP

Meet me at the center of the earth and travel carefully

Baby grab the baby cause baby it ain't much time

Mamma Earth is tossin and turnin and that's our sign

Omega Nigga IFO's are landin in Decatur

Hope I'm not over your head but if so you will catch on later
Play the track, guess she could not take it anymo'
Rapin her heavenly body like a hoe, coochie so'
from niggaz constantly fuckin her never lovin her never showin
appreciation bustin nuts in her face when they done

He paints the scene with crystal clarity...We have Andre alerting a female companion and their child to what seems like some kind of apocalyptic end-of-times storm. He claims that all hell is breaking lose because of what the girl did to "mamma earth." It's rainin like hell, like cats and jackles as a matter of fact. He calls Big Boi, then urgently commands the girl to bring the baby and the MP and the SP (music production tools, for those who don't know), because apparently recording in the Dungeon is the only way to save the earth. He’s warnin "it aint much time" left, and that if it's over her head she needs to just listen and she'll "catch on later."

He plays the track, hoping that it can make up for mamma earth being raped, fucked, ignored, and basically shitted on. I'm not even gonna focus on how fuckin' ILL his flow is on this song. I'm gonna focus on the metaphor.

What?

THE METAPHOR! If you listen to the whole Aquemeni CD, you'll know that at the time, Kast wasn't quite proud of the state of hip-hop, and they felt unappreciated and insulted because of the lack of respect the south got from the rest of hip hop community (while one S dot Carter dominated the charts and headlines). They often referred to hip-hop being dead in their songs.

Yes, it's true; the concept didn't begin with Nas in 2006.

Anyway, back to THE METAPHOR.

I won't waste time for you smart dumb cats...Earth=Hip-Hop, the girl = the contrived, gimmicky, without-heart, only for the money acts that keep making it onto the airwaves. Now lets look @ the verse again: Hip Hop is going ape-shit,dying in EPIC fashion, because of the Girl. They are rushing to The Dungeon (Kast's semi-fictional recording studio) to make some real, creative, pushing-the-envelope type music, hoping to save hip-hop while they still can. The Girl doesn't understand the consequences of what she's done, it's over her head...just as the people who abuse hip-hop for the sake of fame and money without respecting it don't fully understand the cultural complexity and significance of the genre.

Andre ends is verse explaining that hip-hop has been fucked ( a double entendre) and raped by others who don't give two turntables of a shit about it, "busting nuts in her face when they're done."

Oh, and the Baby? It symbolizes that no one, even righteous Outkast, can resist the allure of the girl, the paper, the fame, the easy road, and that even THEY have fallen for her once...creating a child in the process.

This explains Andre's urgency, which is reflected in his verse, the vocal distortion, as well as the somber-panicky style of beat. To Outkast, this shit is IMPORTANT! It's NOT just some job, nor is it just some scheme to stack paper.

Now that you REALLY know what's going on down through the Rabbit Hole, lets continue, and check out Big Boi's verse. (if you didn't get that reference, please Google it, or go do a cannonball off a cliff)

The sky is fallin nobody ballin they done gave back they guns
for some tickets to the playoffs but the Hornets they won
Nigga we SLUM, kept all the guns, I gotta protect my family
I drove the biggest thing at the house
cause I knew they'd try to ram me, but I'm stabbing
Makin a path on expressways, the best way I know how
Up in the sky, East-West, no clouds
Him comin now, fuck that money now, I ask my honey how
she feeling and is Jordan okay, yeah yeah she's chillin
We should be in the Dungeon shortly
Ain't nobody on they porch see
Approachin the final exit
I'm thinkin I see four horsies but I don't though
Nigga you WON'T know, until it's on ya
I put that on my dope boys from A-Town to California
All the weed smell like ammonia
but at the Dungeon I know they smokin
Writin the raps and doin the beats to make this last recording
Fuck abortion, I got in the booth to run the final portion
The beat was very dirty and the vocals had distor-TION

Big Boi, his wifey, and his son Jordan are also speeding to the Dungeon as the sky is fallin', and all hell is still breaking loose.

The verse "takes place" at the same time as 3000's, not before or after, as evidenced by both of them arriving at the Dungeon to record at the end of their verses. He explains that other people, presumably rich rappers with unexpected sudden stardom, gave away "they guns, for some tickets to the playoffs," or for fame. He, on the other hand, kept his guns (symbolizing where he’s from), because he remembers where he came from, where hip hop came from--the hood!

B-I-G-B-O-I continues to whip down the expressway, again noting the cloud-less nature of the electric blue apocalyptic sky. "Fuck That Money Now," expresses the same sentiment that Andre said regarding the art of hip hop. Before reaching the final exit and going to the center of the earth where the Dungeon is (how? Don't question Kast...haha), he swears he saw "four horsies," but concludes that it's his imagination.

Four Hoursies refers to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, further implying the importance that they go make some fresh music ASAP, lest the hip-hop world be fucked over. Definitely one of the illest lines you'll hear..."I'm thinkin I see four horsies but i don't though, nigga ya WON'T know, until it’s on ya, I put that on my dopeboyz from A-town to California..." A tight way to recite and remix the oft-quoted idea that no one knows when the world will end until it happens.

The last four lines are when he gets to the studio where (of course) Dungeon Family is smokin and recording.

"Fuck Abortion, I ran in the Booth to run the final portion..."

The world, or rather the future of hip hop, is on the line, and Big Boi is not going to accept the death (abortion) of creative music, and since 3000's verse is done (which is why he goes first in the song), Antwan proceeds to lay his verse down. It's kind of ill that the creative verse he refers to in that line is in effect the verse we just heard him spit...

After his verse, we are left with the beat for about a minute, a DJ scratching 3000 saying "you not supposed to die" (if you didn't believe me about the hip hop is dead metaphor, you HAVE to now...), giving us 3000 and Big Boi's personal outlook on rap. We also run into screwed, monk-style overlapping chants saying "Nothing's well" and "All's Well," perhaps symbolizing that this battle between abusers, doubters, and haters of the genre and those carrying the beacon of creativity that birthed hip-hop, will never end.

SHOW SOME RESPECT

2009-02-06T22:18:00.004-05:00

Under-rated emcees. Theyre everywhere.

One of my favorite, if not my fasvorite under-rated emcee is Big Boi of Outkast.

Big Boi's verse from the song Chonkyfire, the last verse on the classic Aquemeni:

THIS is how you fucking close out a CD:

To make one bob they head be the track job
Yo job's to spit that fire
Some of y'all MC's take this rhymin for granted, I won't comply
with that slackin,
poppin and crackin 4th ward say we snappin'
They won't that hardness that oddness that gets a nigga to start this
What's happenin, see if do what yo won't do today boy
Will I live tommorrow like you can't even live, cause you strayed,
Motivational skills lackin, when I see you nigga packin,
Understand that though, you behind a $75,000 car note'
But you still stay with mom though playin the King like Don doe
You chocked up, you was the nigga that supposed to be loc'd up
Makin them think Hip Hop is dead, exhume the body if you ain't scared, And if I see you in the streets I'd dap you down like you was bred...

[bredren, for you smart dumb cats]

That verse should be distributed to any fuckin emcee who wants to make a difference, but chooses instead to dumb their skills down for a couple dollars.

Hip Hop Conspiracy Theories: Lupe and Jay-Z

2009-02-05T23:42:00.007-05:00

Whatup hip-hop fans! I'm trying a different pic layout for shits giggles and grapefruits on this one.

Anyway, this isn't any hip hop conspiracy theory along the lines of who shot big and pac, what beefs were were publicity stunts, did 50 cent snitch, etc.

On Lupe Fiasco's (another rapper I worship) debut album, one of the hyped tracks was his collabo with Jay-Z, "Pressure." This track was supposed to be a meeting of two generations most heralded and talented emcees. For those of you who don't know their brief backstory regarding each other, Jay-Z originally wanted to sign Lupe to Roc-a-Fella records, but Lupe wanted his whole FNF team to be signed, and Hov only wanted Lupe. So they couldn't come to terms...instead, Jay executive produced his debut classic (CLASSIC!!!), Food and Liquor.

Anyway, this track Pressure is a divisive one. At first, I thought Hov didn't come correct on it, while Lupe's verse was good but weird. Over the years, it has grown on me, especially Jay's part. The main thing though, the people may not know, is that this song existed without Hova on the leaked version of Food and Liquor, with no chorus and entirely different verses.

The original version of the song was called Trials and Tribulations. It was, in my opinion, one of Lupe's most lyrical songs ever...which is SAYIN something considering the countless complex lyrics he has given us in mixtapes and his two CDs.

I won't quote the entire verses, just some select parts:

They couldn't belive how I took jargon , and made it describe how I push hard-ened through the streets,
And at the same time I was pushin the mar-gins so far to the left, that I ended up writin on my desk....

This is a different Lupe. It hints of his pre-Fahrenheit 1/15 days, when he would do gangster type rhymes every now and then. He still maintained his current level of skill, jus different subject matter...his gangster rhymes could go toe to toe with anyones, including Jay-Z.

its sick 1st and fif bout to come up like the last bullet in the clip/ Click, a few didn't survive, it triggered something inside that gave me power/ Got a grip, like the floor of the shower, now I hit/ anything that I set my sights on, no lights on... silencers, my 5th plead the 5th...

My fifth pleads the 5th?! Holy SHIT! Yeah he was still a problem back then.
He ends with this:

Followers, easily subdued by a flutes,
swallowers, of anything the bandwagon hands em.
but listen to me, tellin em to listen to me, they refuse my route, Perusers scoop,
I'm finin to take you to my zone, take you to my home,
please remove ya boots.
Not the spook who sat by the door, but lu who slept on the floor, that you stepped over all these years , wakin up, comin back for yours!

So what is my point with all of this? my point is this: Why did he CHANGE they lyrics?!?!? They were INCREDIBLE!!! Maybe he didn't wanna do any gangster shit on the song with one generation's most popular gangster rapper...I think he didn't wanna embarrass Hov.

Yeah I said it! It woulda been Renegade part 2. If Jay came with the same art-paint theme he used, which was creative and good, he woulda got shitted on. I think he changed it out of respect.

Call me crazy, call it a reach, but lets just be happy for Hov that Lupe changed his lyrics.

How can shit make no sense and still sound cool?

2009-01-29T18:52:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I criticize lil Wayne fans for liking his lyrics at times when his lyrics clearly make no sense. Sometimes he just spews random shit. Can't blame him too much, if I was that fucked up of sizzurp the whole time I'd probably make less sense.

Like on a millie, half that shit makes no sense. Bleed on the pencil of the tablet of my mind or whatever the fuck nonsense he said...but hey it sounds cool on the beat i guess.

I was listening to a newly released Ghostface and Raekwon song, Crimonology 2 from the mythical beast of an album known as Only Built For Cuban Links 2 (which comes out septembuary 32nd the same week as Detox, the Scarface/Nas/Cube album, Eminem's next GOOD album, and Reflection Eternal 2)... and some shit Ghost says makes no sense to me.

Sometimes I just chalk it up to me not knowing what the fuck his outrageous (yet awesome) slang means.

"Blaow, I'm in the bobsled, racin for large bread,
gucci helmet is blue, trimmin is dark read,
the rap TJ swan is ?????
if he dont play my shit, break the dj arm
and glide off like an escapade,
renegade on ice lemonade clarks,
the haze is nice, The goldilocks rock sapphire chain is right,
bitch niggas watch what yall say in yall mics"

If u heard the song, you'd acknowledge it was a banger and that it sounds cool. But what the flying-into-the-hudson-fuck is a bobsled? Clearly he doesn't mean an actual bobsled...(you never know)....probably some kinda vehicle...that he wears a helmet on. So motorcycles are bobsleds???
Then he talks about renegade on ice, i don't know what that means, but his meteorological rhymes are SO neccesary and always sound crazy. can't have a Tony Starks verse without em. I won't show too many examples, but one of the best Ghost songs ever is Apollo Kids, and this is the chorus:

Aiyyo, this rappin's like Ziti,
facin me real TV
Crash at high-speeds, strawberry, kiwi
As we approach, yo herb, the Gods bail
These Staten Island ferryboat cats bail
Fresh cellies, 50 thieves up in the city
We banned for life, Apollo kids live to spit the real

So....this rap is like Ziti. How so? Doesn't matter!
Does the shit sound tight when he says it? Yup.

go figure.

Zen Quotables

2009-01-19T20:56:00.003-05:00

Remember that real short entry a couple days ago (scroll down if you don't) about that quote from Blu? I got a better name for those entries--I'm gonna call em Zen Quotables. Cause they make you think on some mahayana zen buddhism, deeper level type ish.

Here's another one:

"brainwashed, I'm still learnin to be me/ worth millions? I'd rather be free"

Courtesy of the rapper Shad K, off his song "Rock to It" from his first cd When This is Over..., released in 2005.

Thoughts on Notorious (both the movie and the artist)

2009-01-19T12:14:00.004-05:00

So i went to see Notorious the other day.

I wasn't expecting anything profound, to be honest...I was just hoping they didn't fuck anything up. And they didn't. So I was satisfied. The movie was a good time, a nice blend of comedy, drama, romance, and music.

Let me get one thing straight though. I've read some blogs that have been pretty critical of the movie, for stupid, idiotic, and foolish reasons. On one of my go-to sites, http://www.hiphopdx.com/, a blogger named Copywrite (in his second entry on the site) was criticizing the movie because the actors didn't look enough like their real life counterparts.

Can we just think before we type next time? IT'S A FUCKING BIOPIC! They looked similar to the real life counterparts, and that is good enough! Will Smith looked as much like Ali as Jamie Foxx looked like Ray Charles as Jamal Woolard looked like Biggie. You have to balance the need for, you know, decent acting, and resemblence, but clearly this blogger would rather have california rapper Guerilla Black act as Chris Wallace because he looks more like him.

Anyway, back to the movie.

It was not made for the hip-hop head (but the soundtrack sure as hell was...mad unreleased gems!), it was made for the casual music-loving moviegoer. Thus, they cut out certain things to limit the length of the movie. Pac and Big discussed their situation before the shooting that left Tupac p-noid...although whatever they discussed clearly didn't work out well in the end.

The actors did a good job of acting within the scope of the lines they were given. I thought the acting was top notch by everyone. I also thought the writing could have been better for certain scenes, and was oversimplified at times (namely, pac's scenes and the scenes where BIG and Faith Evans have their conflicts).

ON ANOTHER NOTE....

I've seen some forums, talked to some people, and read some blogs, where people have decided that since the movie is out, it would be a great idea to use terrible logic to hate on B.I.G.

People say he is not the GOAT. Fine, I'm ok with that, especially since he only had two CDs to judge off of.

But people also say some arguments that just do not make sense. Allow me to briefly shit all over these alleged theories:

1. BIG was on Puff's team...and we know what Puff did/does to his artists careers...

Yes, Diddy is an unequaled career destroyer, contract rapist, and music ruiner. However, people seem to classify his relationship with Biggie the artist as the same type of relationship he had with the LOX, 112, Carl Thomas, The Band (LOL), and a bunch of other fall-offs.

That would be unfair because the only similarity is that they were all signed to Bad Boy. BIG was the only artist, EVER, on Bad Boy, whose success, popularity, and publicity (which is key) was GREATER than Diddy's. Puff had leverage over negotiations and relationships with all the artists signed after Biggie Smalls because of Biggie Smalls success. Puff had minimal leverage of BIG. If in the future it got to the point where they had a quarrell about whether to make a more hardcore, traditional rap record vs a more pop-focused, R&B one, there is no guarantee Puff would win because he was not in a position to force BIG to do that.

2. EVERYONE LOVED PAC IN CALI! IN NY, SOME PPL LIKED BIG, SOME LIKED NAS, SOME LIKED WU-TANG...IF BIG WAS SO ILL, HOW COME NY WASN'T UNIFIED IN SUPPORTING HIM WHILE HE WAS ALIVE?

I don't know, maybe it's because NY actually had more than 1 Lyrically-inclined superstar, and more than 2 super famous rappers?

OF COURSE people are going to be divided when their are more options to choose from. In Cali you had Snoop, You had Pac. You had Dre, but he was a tier below despite creating the most influential album of the three artists. In NY, you had the whole fucking Wu Tang Clan, Nasty Nas, and Biggie, for starters.

3. He was so club focused! He just ran the clubs, thats ALL!!! His CDs were for the bitches!!!

Chances are he wanted to begin his career running the clubs so he could make millions of dollars. He was in a position to succeed financially. He also did not let that one genre of rap consume him, as you can tell if you listen to the multitude of other genre's of rap songs featured on his two albums. Also, for those who don't know, check his unreleased pre-album work. It's mostly hardcore lyrical rap, which was still his forte despite what billboard charts during the mid 90s would make you think. One guy on hiphopdx, the blogger Brillyance, went as far as to compare him to Nelly because of their shared success in the clubs. thats the wildest shit I've ever heard. People act like Jay-z didn't attempt to go pop unsuccessfully (with Diddy at the helm, i might add) with his second album, vol. 1. That didn't ruin his career, lyrically, or in the club, did it? People oversimplify things so much when they talk about hypothetical situations.

That being said, in my opinion, no one is comparable in terms of how much one rapper's style has directly influenced the style of other rappers.

That doesn't mean he's the GOAT, but it means he was pretty unbelievable.

Random Slept On Song of the Month

2009-01-17T11:01:00.004-05:00

New feature I made up 'cause I felt like it.

For January, I'm picking this song some people may not have heard because it's by Rich Boy. Yeah, the Throw Some Ds guy.

The joint is called Ghetto Rich rmx. Have I heard the original? No. I don't plan on it. The remix is also featuring John Legend, Lil Wayne, and Nas. It's a real soulful song, the beat is mad low-key and somber, fueled by a simple piano, with the occasional choir and string sections adding that orchestral feel.

It's a great song because everyone really captures the vibe of the song. John Legend kills the chorus, and each rapper stays on subject and spits real lyrical, heartfelt shit while channeling their own respective style. Nas dominates his verse and closes out the song incredibly, but for him thats more par for the course...i could quote his verse just as much as Wayne's but I wanna focus on weezy's verse for a minute, because in my opinion it's one of his best verses ever. This is why i getp issed at weezy when he becomes lazy and lays down wack ass mailed in verses. Soulfulness, reverence, but still twinged with that New Orleans gangsta that millions of people have come to know and love (and pole jock). I'm not saying Wayne should always rap like this, but more often would be cool, to just PROVE to people that he could.

I could never win an Oscar 'cause I don't know how to act
Saw my first million dollars and I ain't know how to act

Then the second million came, then more came after that

Then more came after that, Hurricane after that

DAMN!, and y'all saw the aftermath

And in my hood we don't front, so I do give back

When you see a hood nigga you gotta tilt your hat

And since I'm a hood nigga I do just that

OGs used to tell me you just rap

Lil nigga all you need to do is rap

And just when I thought I was gonna do just that

Poppa was a Rolling Stone and them stones was crack

Fuck being like Mike I wanna be like pop

Then I picked up a mic I wanna be like 'Pac

Please put down the pipe you don't need that rock

Please put up a fight for the kids that watch

Us in the spotlight, and then they mock

But caskets get closed and then they drop

And cases get closed and they are dropped'

Cause no one knows and nobody got

Any outlaw info, 'cause they better not

Three words to a witness they get shot

Let me tell you what this is, this is the block

Always talk to God, never listen to cops

Peep the track on youtube, email me if you want this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwsjP0zK_OY

Food for Thought

2009-01-10T23:47:00.004-05:00

Occasionally I'll be chilling out, either vibing in my room to some music, or just walking somewhere with the Ipod on, and hear some inspiring shit. Some shit that is thought provoking, that you overlook despite hearing that particular song a bunch of times.

Courtesy of Blu, from the cut titled "NeverBeAnotherMe":

"rap is not a hobby or a job or a sport, in short, its 500 years, of finally being free, flying like a bird over sharks in the sea, until i find me, this is how i spit..."

In my opinion, that's a phenomenal quote, awe-inspiring even. It's these little moments of revelation and insight that make me love this rap shit.

THE TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 08

2009-01-02T23:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays.

I don't like to do lists. I would prefer to do a "year in hip hop" review which jumps between cds, songs, etc., but that wouldn't be as interesting, would it? Here's the top ten hip hop joints of 2008. Discussion is welcome, as this is just one dude's opinion...

...that should be taken as gospel lol.

Couple things first:

1. There were no albums i consider classic, released this year, unlike 2007 (The Old Prince, Below the Heavens, The Cool, Desire)...but 2007 was a freak year for elite albums in my opinion. Maybe Nas' CD will age into the category, maybe not...

2. The first 4 on this list are to me the one less up for debate, and are for SURE at the top of the class of 08, while the second 5 can be debated with several left off the list. I'm going to go into real detail with the first 4, and just list the rest.

1. Nas: The Untitled Album

Nas outdid himself. A topic which has been sorely missing in Hip Hop is the depictions American society by the media. Out of sheer topic alone this becomes one of the most important albums in recent memory. This has gone somewhat over critics' heads, in my opinion. I could talk about the potent lyricism, which is on a different plane from everyone who released work in 2008...or the fortunately improved beat selection (he learned that he doesn't necesarily neeeed mainstream producers for all his beats like he did on HHID). Songs like Sly Fox, one of the best socially concious rap songs i've ever heard. The catchphrase "Watch what your Watching" symbolizes perfectly the nature of living in America...The lies we read as children in our history books, the myths fed to us by news and radio conglomerates, the lose-lose political system that we've dealt with for 8 years. The album is very cinematic, in that we really do delve inside the mind of nas in almost systematic fashion, seeing his doubts about the political system and the media, his personal beleifs on Hero, how he slowly becomes a bit more trusting with the positive but skepticalBlack President track. Sometimes Nas thoughts are not as well articulated, as evidenced on some of his concious song attempts on previous albums. A few people knock him for some misguided concious efforts in the past, but help from other artists with knowledge on the issues, likestic.man of Dead Prez, has helped him focus his creative energy to all the right places.

It's an album unlike any ever created, especially for a more mainstream artist. The content, the lyricism, and especially the timing,make this the clear-cut choice for best Album of 2008.

2. Elzhi: The Preface

Elzhi's album lacks the pure concious, goal oriented, time specific nature of Nas' untitled CD, which is the main thing that seperates the two on this list, to me. That, and that Elzhi's lyricism (which shits on any other CD released that's on this list aside from Nas) is a more traditional modern style while Nas lyricism always changes and is unpredictable.

Ok, just had to get that out of the way. Anyhow, the slept-on Slum Village emcee from Detroit surprised everyone by releasing a solo joint, The Preface, along with another collection of s ongs titled Euro Pass. They contain overlapping songs, but the Preface is his actual solo official joint. His lyricism is in the same vein of many other battle-tested, agressive-style-sporting emcees from Detroit. He has mastered the style, and can go toe to toe with basically anyone he wants to at any given time. The Preface begins with an intro and then with "The Leak," a crazy boom bap beat where he gets some shit off his chest about many topics, ranging from his motivation to his family to his hood. After that, you realize that he has talent if you never really listened to him much, like I did.

And then in a couple minutes, the song Motown 25 comes on...and him and the always ill Royce da 5'9' trade stupendous battle verses in an epic collabo where each artist's feed off the other's energy. Not many cities can put two emcees on the track with each other and have both be this lyrical. However, THIS song is overshadowed by the following track, Brag Swag. I fucking hate the word swag, in case you couldn't tell, so i was suspicious going into the track...

that day that hell snowed is when El flowed, poetry's well told its entertainin, keep niggas trainin like the railroad, sting man, what i bring in's dope as the kingpin, slingin, OG's threw me beneath the wing span, expert, do the less dirt, but still my tech squirt, buck then it gets tucked in jus like a dress shirt, been a beast in a winter fleece im fa ya dinner feast with the pen unleashed , if there's a preist within the peace/piece, quick ta leave, stick chicks so that they could breed, get fricasseed, with trigger speed, u puffin nigga weed, im buyin hundred dolla bags, cadalacs impalas jags, i show u how to brag while the hour drags, spit quotes that lick volts, bet it can split boats, get votes off shit i wrote, im the legit goat, no statistics, to bitch niggas im chauvanistic, i toke a biscuit, carry arms like shoulder discs's...

Cot' Fuckin DAMN! And thats HALF the song. Anyway, now that he's already proven to listeners that he is indeed one of the nicest rappers on the Earth, he focuses the rest of the CD on making great songs as opposed to just filler or filler beats with mixtape battle verses. He goes onto to rap about mad different topics, with great boom-bap-ish production complementing his multi's. The greatest of these songs are Save Ya, a soulful ode to the good chick that went awry, who can only help herself before she gets help from anyone else. Talkin in my Sleep finds Elzhi narrating a obtuse, abstract dream for 5 minutes, and is equally impressive.

The last thing I'll say about this CD is that he also released Euro Pass, which is sort of another solo joint, with some other songs that ARENT on The Preface, as well as a good amount that are. I Could have just as easily put that in this spot as The Preface, so check em both out. Both combine ill beats and stupendous lyrics.

3. Ice Cube: Raw Footage

"The Hood is where I'm from....but it's not who I Am." -Keith David, on the song Hood Mentality. David narrates on the album.

The Mothafucka you Love to Hate returned in 2008, carrying momentum from the under-rated Laugh Now Cry Later from 2006, as well as carrying full creative control of his CD Raw Footage. This is extremely rare for a rapper to have in 08, with Major labels raping artists and mismanaging singles and projects. Well, the answer is 2 parts:

1. O'Shea Jackson is a G
2. Raw Footage was released independently with major distribution.

Not many can get that deal, but Cube has that kind of respect.

Anyway, let me come out and say it quickly: Ice Cube is not "lyrical" in the traditional sense, and is not a lyricist, and won't ever be. If he was, this would be tied with Nas for the best album of the year, if not better than Nas album. The production on the album sounds like it was influenced by young Jeezy's albums, which is a great thing. It's full of diesel kicks and mean synths which make you wanna ice grill someone like Cube used to do in his NWA days. However, the content on Raw Footage is far from NWA. It's an urgent message to the youth, a fuck you to those in power, and a lesson that t hose who listen will learn. Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It was his first single, and on it Cube addresses the recently increased right wing claims that Rap music is responsible for violence, among other things. The remix, not on the CD, features Nas and Scarface and is INCREDIBLE, by the way. He addresses the stereotypes which permeate both the minds of conservatives, as well as the minds of the people who LIVE IN THE HOOD, which is never addressed as it should both my the music industry and by the big influences in urban children's lives (schools, primarily). Why Me, Jack In The Box, Cold Places, It Takes a Nation all deliver powerful messages over tough ass beats.

Aside from the awesomeness of the messages, the significance of what he's saying and the topics he addresses, why else is this CD so good? It has NO filler, and the songs relate to each other. It's not a bunch of random fuckery. Keith David narrates and contributes to the cinematic feel Cube has brought back from Hollywood for us. To understand how important this CD is, one has to hear it, a review won't really cut it.

4. Blu and Mainframe: Johnson and Jonson

BLU!!! The rookie of the year from 2007 returns with Mainframe replacing Exile this time around. He does something that many other rappers try to do, have tried to do for years, without much success. He "switches it up." Common tried (twice) with limited (read:not much) success, Kanye tried this year (failed in my opinion, did well to some others...). Johnson and Jonson, is a collection of usually short (2-3 minutes) tracks that are all different. They aim to capture life in Long Beach in all it's incarnations. The diversity of songs captures the diversity of the place. It begins withJ&J, to let people know that he's still murdering anyone whos a new rapper not named Lupe in terms of pure skill. Up all night captures that 3 am, blunted, chillin vibe that not many have tried to put on wax in rap music's short history. He goes in and out of different facets of life, ranging from gambling to God, all with weirdo beats. The weirdo beats are courtest of upstart Mainframe, who proves that you can be nice and untraditional, even in 2008. The biggest examples of this are "Bout it Bout it," which takes what sounds like indian and latino samples and no drums and makes a awesome banger of a track out of it, where him and Mainframe exchange verses for about 2 minutes. Another is The Oath, the last of the non bonus songs which sounds like the beat came from a 60's swing-crooner song. On this beat he proclaims that despite his stranger styles of songs, he will always make great music, different music, and be one of the nicest if not the nicest to do it. I beleive him wholeheartedly.

The different styles of songs are all still clearly categorized as rap music, but manage to seperate themselves from everything that has been released in the last decade in terms of style, which is EXTREMELY impressive to me. Also when you consider his previous two releases, 2008's C.R.A.C. Knuckles, and 2007's Below the Heavens, you get to really see the diversity of this kid's skills, and that he not only is nice, but does what the fuck he wants, and does it well everytime.

Hopefully this isn't the last Johnson and Jonson album we hear from Blu and Mainframe.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Atmosphere: When Life Gives you Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

6. Q-Tip: The Renaissance

7. G-Side: Starshipz and Rocketz

8. The Roots: Rising Down

9. Ludacris: Theater of The Mind

10. The Cool Kids: The Bake Sale EP

Shoutout to TI, Wayne, and Killer Mike for making some good albums in 07, as well.

The Best 20 rap songs of 2008 + Special Bonus List

2008-12-29T00:38:00.008-05:00

Some good ass music on here. Enjoy.

Without further adue, the top 20 hip-hop songs of 2008:

The best by far, everything else is below it

1.Jay Electronica: Exhibit A

The Elite

2. Ice Cube: Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It Remix ft. Nas, Scarface

3. Joe Budden: Who (pts 1,2,3)

4. Wayne: A Milli

5. Jake One: The Truth ft. Freeway, Brother Ali

6. Mos Def: Life in Marvelous Times

7. TI: No Matter What

Not Elite, but pretty fucking ridiculous in their own right

8. The Roots: Criminal ft. Truck North, Saigon,

9. Outkast: Da Art of Storytellin part 4

10. The Roots: Rising Down ft. Mos Def, Styles P

11. Game: Game's Pain Remix ft mad ppl

12. Nas: Black President

13. Nas: Sly Fox

14. The Knux: Cappucino Remix

15. Common: Universal Mind Control

16. G-Side: Starshipz and Rocketz ft. Adrienne

17. Q-Tip: Gettin Up

18. Ludacris: Last of a Dying Breed ft. Lil Wayne

19. The Cool Kids: 88

20. Kanye West, Malik Yusef, Adam Levine: Promised Land

4 songs i really wanted on this list but couldn't put:
Lost Desire by The Roots ft. Malik B and Talib
Puppets by Atmosphere
Speed of Sound by G-Side
I'd Rather by Three Six Mafia

SPECIAL BONUS LIST

Fuck These Songs which were Played every 5 minutes in 2008:
Swagger Like Us: TI, Autotune, Predator, Wizards Michael Jordan
Lollipop Remix: Predator ft. Autotunes 1 and 2

The fuck happened to remixes?

2008-12-28T23:39:00.005-05:00

The last person to make some REAL , SERIOUSLY, good remixes:

For those who don't know, that guy is Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park/Fort Minor fame.
He's an emcee, producer, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, CEO, and graphic designer.

Once upon a time, a remix was sometimes new verses on a song. Sometimes, however, the people would actually change the beat up! The last REAL RAP remix I heard that had new verses and a new beat that was crazy and still fitted the song was the remix to Drop It Like It's Hot, by Snoop and Pharrell. The Remix had a entirely new beat by the neptunes (obviously) and a new pharrell verse (the best of his career) and a crazy Jay-Z verse to boot. We all remember the Bad Boy remixes that changed up the beats and verses and made the songs hotter...so what the fuck gives? Is there a boycott on real remixes that I missed the memo for?

Outkast did their thing remixing Jazzy Belle for the TV stations back i n the day as well...I can't really name any other good ones of the last 5 years. Before Drop It Like It's Hot, the only other one I remember that was ill was the Can't stop Won't Stop Remix by Young Gunz, where the beat switched up alot and was still hot. Unfortunately, that record also included Chingy aka The Only Guy to Get Dropped By a Record Label...TWICE.

Damn Luda...you had to drop him twice?

Anyway, the dude in the picture, Mike Shinoda, made an entire album remixing his band's (Linkin Park) first CD, Hybrid Theory. The album was titled Reanimation, and every single song was remixed, to perfection. Each remix retained enough of the old beat that it was recognizable, had some of the same lyrics, some new ones, and often featured guests on the track to add some of their own flavor ( pharoahe monch, black thought, and the X-ecutioners, to name a few).

I say each remix involving rapping lyrics on Reanimation is better than any remix of the last 6 years. Prove me wrong. No remix in that span has remade the songs so entirely with such precision while making them still great, if not better than the originals.

Step it up, entire rap game!

PS This was a stream of conciousness rant, and I just remembered one from this year that actually WAS good--the Game's Pain remix by The Game ft. Jada, Pusha T, KRS, Fat Joe, and a host of other rappers. None in the last 6 years, 1 in the last 6 years, same shit. If you find some other ones, please let me know.

Hov's Dilemma

2008-12-23T22:42:00.012-05:00

I could write about this in a number of ways.

I could take the the Michael Jordan comparison route, and speak on the Roc Nation label as The Wizards and how he occasionally flashes glimpses of the old form, but for the most part is the attention-getting figurehead, the player-GM, etc.

Fuck that though. At some point it has become obvious that either he has lost a significant amount of skill, or stopped trying. I'm inclined to beleive it's the former, because Jay-Z genuinely cares (cared?) about his reputation as a lyricist, so it's tough for me to think he stopped trying.

People have recently been making claims that he finally got it back with the two recent songs BK Anthem and Brooklyn (We Go Hard), both off of the upcoming Notorious soundtrack. The songs are good songs, don't get me wrong...but saying "Hov is back" is just an incorrect assesment.

Both those songs showcase some lyricism which is superior to anything ELSE we've seen recently from Hov, such as the abomination of a verse he laid down for this year's most over-hyped song, Swagger Like Us. (Can't wear skinny jeans cuz my nuts don't fit or whatever the fuck he said...)

Or the totally underwhelming verse from the otherwise amazing Ludacris opus I Do it For Hip Hop.

Or History off the alleged Blueprint 3, which is a song that has total great intent...and the effort is there, too...but nonetheless is executed rather awkwardly, with him not in sync with the beat at times as well as forcing metaphors instead of letting the metaphors work for him, if that makes sense...

Even Mr. Carter with everyone's favorite drug-addled Predator-lookin pop rapper was good but not great. The last great verse by him was probably one of the joints off the under-rated American Gangster cd (Fallin or Success, imo).

Which brings me to my next point: That album was the transition. On AG we could hear some remnants of the random, slightly whispered style of rap he tried on Kingdom Come as well as his current style. In his current style, his verses are all revolving around certain lines, with the rest of the lines at times being good but also containing some filler. His SLU verse was screaming for us to listen to "don't wear skinny jeans cuz my knots don't fit..." as well as "and my all blue fitted is my graduation cap..." so we would go around quoting that to our other weezy-loving friends. When Hova was NICE though, how many times did an AMAZING line just seem like another part of the verse? Like it was expected, and we were to pay attention to that as much as any other line?

"Like 52 cards went out, I'm through dealin" was just another line in a song of many quotables, and both the listeners AND Jay himself knew it! That's the difference between hov's swag now and then...then he EXPECTED every line to be great, now you can almost feel that he's not gonna go hard for an ENTIRE track. Thats what most of these rappers who claim to have the confidence and skill and swag do...act like they all that, spit 2 or 3 good lines per verse, and then put themselves on pedestal.

Just compare any song on American Gangster, and the flow, to the song Ignorant Shit off the same CD. There is noticeable difference in how he goes about the other songs and that one...because Ignorant Shit was made for the black album, not AG, originally. He doesn't just ride the beat, he makes it his bitch. His sylables weave in and out of the hi-hats and oscilatting synth as he pleases, while he switches rhyme schemes and flows without sacrificing lyrics. It sounds like it's easy for him and he could go on forever, probably cause he could at the time.

Anyway, is this just a phase for Hov? Rustiness? Or is this new Shawn Carter incarnation here to stay? I guess we'll find out in February when (knock on wood) BP3 comes out. Stay tuned.

The 1st Real Post: What is Nice?

2008-12-22T01:36:00.004-05:00

We've all argued about it.

Whether while chillin in the crib, jammin in the park in the summer, while listening to music in the whip...

The age old debate, it will never die.

"Who is the nicest?" The Top [5, 10, most lyrical, all around, your pick] rapper? The GOAT?

Before this blogging journey gathers full steam, I'd like to ask a different question...What is the nicest? What constitutes nice?

Here's my opinion...

I think to be NICE, which doesn't automatically qualify you for any top ten list, you have to have multiple skills on the mic. I think of skills as being lyrical, being a great song maker, being creative without being corny, making your own style, taking an older style and putting a spin on it that makes the listeners look through a different lens....any of those. If you can do more than one, I consider a rapper nice. And you can't front on your skills...if a rapper is ok, and swears he is the truth and top 5, he gets demoted in my book (Lookin at you, LL...)

(Tangent: Here's your obligatory 2008-09 mention of "swag": swag isn't a skill. It's not a bad thing, but when it's coupled with no other type of skill, it IS bad. It has to be justified by something related to what the real LISTENER cares about...i.e. the music. I don't care if your hood was tough and you were raised with a natural swag if you can't do anything whatsoever on the mic.)

Example...Curtis Jackson. 50 cent (right now in 2008) can sort of make hit songs (even that's questionable). But he's not lyrical...the songs aren't creative...he picks great beats for some songs but not for all of his, so that's not a +. He aint nice. Not since Get Rich... and really not since Power of the Dollar.

On the other hand, if you can even do two skills well, I'll give you credit. Example...I'm a thorough hip hop head, but sometimes I'll catch flak for bumpin mad Young Jeezy. I'll even clown myself sometimes, tellin the homies that everyone gets one wack rapper pass to use. So he's not lyrical or close. He makes great songs that are not corny...they have replay value in later years, and not in that "oh let's play that one hit wonder! remember when that shit came out?!" way. He makes anthemic songs that get listeners hyped, consitently, and has arguably the best beat selection in mainstream hip-hop. He can make good songs, consitently, with good beats, and does not CLAIM to be more than he is. He also has a good flow, one of the most catchiest flows in rap in terms of syllable placement, cadence, voice, etc. So is Young Jeezy Nice? He's not lyrical, but I'd say as a rap artist, he IS nice with it.

Any elite rapper has a plethora of skills and abilities.

The more skills you have, the more well rounded, the nicer of a rapper you are. From this stems the argument for Jay-Z and Biggie as the GOAT...

However, I also beleive that if you have a decent amount of skills, and are EXTREMELY beyond everyone else at a particular thing or two, that also warrants consideration for elite status. From this stems the arguments for some other artists as the best of all time...namely Nas (by far the best at descriptive, vivid, cinematic rap) and Outkast (by miles the most creative and diverse rap act, while retaining many other skills).

( where Pac fits in is a whole other post, i'll get to it sometime...)

"so even when the mumblers talk, I still walk the most humblest walk,
and one day, they may even catch up to me man,
But until then,
I'm Leanardo, catch me if you can"

JJ

Who is JJ? What is 3 Sidez?

2008-10-26T12:21:00.011-04:00

Some Context...

JJ stands for Julian J. ...I prefer haters to address me by name, so I had to include that.

The first thing you should know is that I digress...often.

Anyway, I'm not puttin the full government name out there...sorry, stalkers. JJ is also known as Prez, and is also known as Who (Hoo?) to a couple people who can't pronounce latino names...

I chose 3sidez as the name for the blog because of an old adage that I firmly beleive in: that there exists 3 sides to any story:

1. My side.
2. Your side.
3. The Truth.

Hopefully I can, with the help of some readers, give people a little bit of all 3 sides, with regards to this rap shit.

Alotta sites don't give real thoughts on music aside from your average short review blurb which is a couple paragraphs max. I have always had too many theories and thoughts on hip-hop for my own good, so I might as well give some other hip hop heads something to read and look forward to.

I'm gonna try to provide shit that is thought provoking and detailed...we'll see how it goes.

Life in Marvelous Times........

In order to better understand the random, terribly written things I'll be posting, you should probably know a bit about me with regards to hip-hop. I'm a rap music head, probably to the point of unhealthiness...Right now, my itunes is rolling 10,000 deep off rap alone (although I know people with way more). I'm a youngin in the upperclass years of my undergraduate experience at the University of Delaware, and I spent the first 17 years of my life in my birthplace, or as I like to call it, The Birthplace, aka The Bronx, New York.

Funny thing is, I didn't like hip-hop until I kinda bounced from the BX. I was fortunate enough to go to a pretty good (albeit rich, white, and preppy as fuck) boarding private high school in Jersey (The Lawrenceville School...). I kinda got into rap then for some reason (I blame Kazaa and Napster...haha). Pretty Ironic if you ask me.

Hip Hop keeps me from trippin over the edge, ever since I started enjoying it. It's not a phase or fad, It won't die, It never did, it never will, It's genius, it deserves more acclaim, and it deserves more respect from the powers that be. It teaches those who really listen to the music instead of just skimmin thru it. Within it is the history of cultures, of places, of generations. If you look hard enough sometimes, you might even find the future. My father grew up in the Bronx before rap music, and rap music tells the history of a music and a culture born out of turmoil that he saw and experienced. Hip Hop is an epic on par with The Odyssey and The Iliad, only it has millions of authors instead of just one. I really don't have the faintest clue how I went about my younger days without it.

In addition to giving people who like music something interesting and substantial to read, which is my main goal, I also wanna try to help people appreciate hip-hop music a bit more, whether it's the already knowledgeable music fiend, the foreign student who has come half-way around the world to learn about hip-hop culture, or the suburban kid who thinks rap music is obnoxious. I figured a blog (and a book, in the far future...) would be a decent way to do this.

I'm just tryna write somethin real for those who seek things that are real, and to anyone who has even a faint interest in rap music.

The things I write are only opinions backed up with alleged facts. I am by no means proclaiming my ideas to be set in stone or truth, so I welcome debates, rebuttals, arguments, praise, hate, and all that good shit. Hit up my email, hit up comments, do whatever floats your boat or finds your lost remote....

-Julian

Coming Soon

2008-10-25T21:36:00.000-04:00

Rants, Theories, Essays, Reviews, Love, Hate, Complaints, Praise, Advice, Rambling, and Run-On Sentences...about Rap.