Is this hip hop?

Gong Gong

I don't know about some of you, but for me, winter signals a shift in the kind of rap I want to hear. In the spring and summer, I'm a bit more inclined to listen to tales of workin' the slab, bendin' corners, chasin' hoes and all that fun stuff. The music feels warm and appropriate for the time of year. But as soon as winter rolls around, all I want to hear are crime tales from abandoned urban youth. A couple years ago, right before finals, I distinctly remember only listening to Hell on Earth, The Infamous, and Hell Hath No Fury for a couple weeks straight. Obviously the weather alters my mood. After reading about Tray revisiting The College Dropout five years later, he inspired me to go back to a time when I thought Kanye was a rapper that I could connect to. That's not to say I ever thought he was the best, but let's be honest; I'm not from, nor have I ever had to run the streets. So listening to some guy who comes from a fairly well-educated family rap about topics that matter to him was pretty affecting to me. But now that I'm older, those skits fall way, way flatter than i remember. Maybe it's because I am also a college graduate without a drug habit or a job at the Gap.

Anyway, along with the change in weather, there's a big event (in my mind) coming to Cambridge in a couple weeks: M.O.P. at the Middle East. In anticipation of that, as well as my hunger for riot music in the winter, I've been listening a lot to First Family 4 Life. It's not as clean in execution as Firing Squad, which has Premier as executive producer, but this thing is pretty tight. I've written about "4 Alarm Blaze" before, but thinking back, I have a hard time figuring out what is really the standout track on this album. Firing Squad, for me, has a couple clear standout tracks: "New Jack City," "Anticipation," "Brownsville" and "Downtown Swinga '96." FF4L lacks the standalone "signature" track of the album (maybe "Handle Ur Bizness"), but they're all so good it doesn't matter. Premo gives Fizzy Womack and Berkowitz five great beats, and the ones by Laze-E-Laze and Fame are great too. In terms of rapping, these two break no new ground, and you know that is true with any M.O.P. song. But these two have more passion in their voices than most; I can always feel their hunger and borderline desperation. The guest list is pretty on point, too: Tef, Jay-Z, O.C., Heather B, Guru, Freddie Foxx, and Treach. Besides Guru, all have great, energetic performances. Thinking about Guru being sleepy reminds me, why isn't "1/2 & 1/2" on this album, or a Gang Starr album for that matter? I know it's on Full Clip, but there is no excuse for either party to omit such a gem.

Getting back to business, whereas Firing Squad is a really well constructed album that builds up to its best songs then allows you some time to soak it all in (an hour of Fame and Danze yelling at you/threatening fake-ass gangstas can get a bit too intense at times), FF4L feels like a collection of the best songs that the Mash Out Posse had made over the course of a year. If you have a chance, totally pick this up.

M.O.P. (prod. by Premier)- Breakin' the Rules
M.O.P.- Facing Off

What in the world?

Best R. Kelly impersonation ever? I think so.

Click, click, click.

Since my roommates have been gone this past week, I have had a lot of time to myself recently. So, besides doing the usual running, reading, etc., I've also been watching TV. Actually, I broke out the second season of Chappelle's Show that my dad got me for Christmas two years ago. This week was the first time I had watched any of those episodes since they aired 5 (!) years ago. I don't think I can describe how committed I was to this show. When it came out my junior year of high school, for whatever reason, I was incredibly amped. To give you some perspective, I had really only seen Dave Chappelle in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, The Nutty Professor, and heard all my friends quote Half Baked without actually seeing the movie. So given how unfamiliar I was with his work, there was no reason for me to care so much. But every week, I was hooked and would talk about, quote and reenact skits with my friends Thursday mornings. This may seem odd, but this week I've spent some time thinking what about this show appealed to me so much. It wasn't the humor, because like I just said, I didn't really know that guy's sense of humor like I think I do now. Then I realized something about the television shows I had watched as a kid with my family. Save for a few (like In Living Color or The Chris Rock Show), many were about black families and how they dealt with life. That's great and all, but kind of distancing for someone high school or college age. Also, given that Dave Chappelle is one of the few black comics who grew up in a pretty diverse environment (between Yellow Springs, Ohio and DC), his point of view made a lot of sense to me as someone who was and has been essentially one of the only black people in his classroom/office space. Also, the inclusion of musical guests who appealed to my sensibilities at the time made the show feel like even more of a personal connection between me and this random 30-something guy. So with that little introduction, I thought I'd share some songs I thought of while watching the show that aren't by Prince or Rick James. Besides, my favorite sketch is the World Series of Dice.

Youngbloodz feat. Lil' Jon- Damn!

It was very obvious the opening line "They callin' me, to come back to the street" spoke to him since he quoted it a few times before going into those Lil' Jon impersonations. I cannot tell you how annoyed I got from people at my school asking me to impersonate Dave Chappelle impersonating Lil' Jon. As a wise man (who deserves his own post) once said, white people. In defense of that picture, I go running in the cold of Boston... but with tights on. Also, what happened to these guys?

Black Star- Thieves in the Night

Just based on how many times these two were featured on his show, it's obvious Chappelle loved their music. Hell, he does the intro for Kweli's "Quality." He used to have an iTunes celebrity playlist, but they took that shit down. I remember this one being on there and he quoted the line about the yacht and a slave ship. You know it, I do too, so there's no real need to be precise with it.

DMX- Get At Me Dog

Like any rap fan with a smidgen of goddamn sense, Dave Chappelle loved DMX in some way. I own Belly. There's no reason not to like this song; besides, it includes a reference to Optimus Prime.

Happy new year, by the way. I'll try and get back to posting regularly and writing about topics of consequence soon. Which means I need to get back to a record store or search my hard drive. I'm on it.

Bet your bottom dollar you'll be spittin' over rhymes.

It's hard to do something like this without repeating myself, and I also realized I don't have some of these songs, though I think that may be a good thing. These songs disturb me, but it's all love like tennis. Anyway, let's get this started:

Diddy- The Future

Two years ago, when the rap blog world found out Pharoahe Monch had written 2(!) songs for Diddy, we were all in shock. After "The Future" leaked, the response was even worse. Personally, I think this thing is great. It just proves Diddy could never command respect using the power of speech. He stumbles over his words, making a potentially great line like, "this is the man who provided more jobs for Blacks than Armed Services" into some silly goose shit. It doesn't hurt that Pharoahe didn't even attempt to write a real song for this guy. "Early, I skip breakfast/ A nigga be on his grind like he needs new brake pads?" He's had better days. But hearing Diddy sound so convinced the Monch gave him the gospel, it's hard to to enjoy. Especially when he yells towards the end, "Fuck with me now!" "Hold Up" is another Monch/Diddy gem.

Download "The Future"

Cedric Ceballos- Flow On

This may not seem like a collaboration, but the song was produced by Warren G (you can hear him in the second and third verses). This thing is too great. If you ever get a chance, check out B Ball's Best Kept Secret, Patrick introduced it to me last year and it has some gems. What the hell is the "Ba, ba, bababa?" When is LeBron going to release an album, I'm sure he has a bunch of bad king similes and metaphors in a notebook somewhere. Though he probably saw what happens when you say, "step to me with faggot tendencies, you'll be sleepin' where the maggots be."

Maxwell- Fortunate

This is the only decent song out the bunch, and for whatever reason, I was reminded of it recently. R. Kelly's lyrics are serviceable, but it's really sold by Maxwell, remember, that guy who covered that Kate Bush song? This came out for the soundtrack to Life, which also had that K-Ci and JoJo song where they sang the word "life" for about four minutes. Yea, this was much better. Also, where has the R-ah been recently? I heard him singing about his lemonade on the remix to "Customer," but since then he's been AWOL. These two should get together again, it worked the first time. Or Maxwell could do what Bilal does now, and become the budget Anthony Hamilton on rap hooks, and he was the budget Nate Dogg. Well, Maxwell did do some song with Nas on Street's Disciple (do they hang out?), so I guess that would make him like D'Angelo.

I really wish I had zshares of all these suckers, so if anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it.

Wazupwitme.

It's been a while since I posted anything, and I really have no excuse. It is not as though I am in school getting ready for finals or packing up my stuff to go home for the winter (yet), I was just at a loss for things to discuss. But that is normally how the end of the year goes, so I don't feel so bad. With the end of 2008 come "best of the year" lists, and those can be found (so far) if you go to the websites of Noz, Weiss, Doc Zeus, and Tray. My list falls somewhere between all of them, but I will wait a while until I come up with anything. Real quickly, I never knew there was a West Coast Remix to "Drivin' Down the Block," who are those other guys?

After being reminded of "Party All the Time" by Tray, I think this is appropriate



Talk about a weird collaboration, which sounds like a good idea for a post. A taste of what is to come: The Future. Stay tuned.

What?

Since I don't want to get a letter from Google, I will just direct you to this, the uncut video of Jadakiss' "Knock Yourself Out." I didn't know they made an uncut version, and I am completely dumbfounded by what I just saw. Wow, that was wrong on many levels. I am completely speechless. The years 1997-2002 were very good/forgiving to rappers.

All you hear is tick and pow.

First of all, I didn't know you could chop and screw videos. I also think it's a bit of a bad idea. Anyway, last week, on my way to work, I realized that my Air Force 2s, having had them for close to three years, were just too old to cut it anymore. The rain will help you realize something like that. So, taking Monique's advice from a couple weeks ago, I went looking for the shoe store Bodega. Man, what a place. A coworker of mine has also shopped there and recommended it, but what no one told me was that the owners of the store liked to make shopping a huge experience. To get to the actual shoes, you had to pass through an automatic door that looks like it is covered with grocery items. I felt like I was entering the batcave or something. Once you pass the door, though, it's a real upscale place in the vein of Ubiq in Philly. I got some nice shoes, Clae Mcqueens if you are curious. Anyway, it was an interesting experience to see all those hipsters, and I even found Underground Hip Hop, though I didn't look around it at all. Let's get down to business, shall we?

G-Side- Speed of Sound

Regardless of what Tray has to say about the lyrics not really matching the beat, with a song like this, it works just fine for me. I should really check out their new album, since it seems like all rap blog trolls have been waiting a while for it. Also, B.o.B. should really try and hook up with the Block Beataz if he wants to keep up his space rap persona. At this point, they're certain to be cheaper than whoever Grand Hustle employs.

B.o.B. feat. T.I.- I'm Dat Nigga

Speak of the devil, he came off pretty well with this one. When does T.I. plan to serve his sentence? If it were to simply loom over him and he started making great songs with up and coming artists, I would not be upset at all. Of course, it is a shame that it took the fear of prison to light a fire under his ass. I also checked my Google search: T.I. does not pop up. Work on that, Clifford.

Pharoahe Monch & Shabaam Sahdeeq- WWIII

Yea, Shabaam got destroyed. There's really nothing more to say, it was a federal crime for sure.

Busta Rhymes- So Hardcore

All this recent talk of post-lyricism and "Arab Money" takes me back to a time when Busta was my favorite rapper, which was about eleven or twelve years ago. He just seemed to be having more fun than anyone, regardless of whether he was making sense. And most of the time, he wasn't. This is the lone Jay Dee contribution from When Disaster Strikes and in my mind, it's a doozie. I apologize about the skit at the end.