College Football And Rappers

I clicked this shit on poplicks and it's pretty fucking hilarious so I suggest you click this now. I grew up at Texas A&M and I like houston rap so that combo kind of sucked for me but I laughed anyways. This shit almost makes me want to start watching football again.

Bang Bang

I saw a reissue of this for sale at turntablelab and I had forgotten I had this 12". Apparently the shit got pulled off shelves over sample clearance issues which sucks because that's what makes the beat so fucking dope. The song samples the Intruders' "Cowboys to Girls." Whatchu know about some oldies? This shit almost takes me back to Lowrider World Tours and bikini contests.

The 12" came out like 3 years ago, it's just been reissued so you can cop that shit. If you want the first issue good luck because I don't think there are too many out there.. A friend of mine first played this for me after a trip to Amoeba but I found my own copy in a used bin at record store in the Mission. Peep game because the song is dope as hell and probably the most interesting thing Big Noyd has done in a while.

Shoot'em Up (Bang Bang)

Bow to the wolves!

Younger Wolfpack - Bow to the Wolves (video)

Grime kids (literally, kids) fucking shit up on the mini golf course and at the carnival while making threats of bodily injury and the drums go boom boom and the snares go clap clap.

Semi Official

So this 12" was released like 2 years ago but I don't think this album has gotten the props that it really deserves. Semi Official is I Self Devine and Dj Abilities. You may should know of I Self Devine through his work with Micranots or the Dynospectrum tapes. Rhymesayers put this out but unfortunatly girls don't love him like they love Slug's penis.

The first time I heard Semi.Official was at Scribble Jam 2003. They performed a very short two song set that was fucking awesome. I didn't even know who was on stage. What happened was my girlfriend, skratch bastid and I had just worked our way near the stage because we knew Doom was about to come on. Well before he came out Semi.Official got on. I wasn't even really paying attention until I see Dibbs jump into the crowd trying to start a pit but all the scribble kids got scared. Well me not being one to turn down a chance to hit a white guy I decided to man up. I smash into Dibbs and next thing I know I'm getting blindsided by Skratch Bastid. Fucking whiteboys always trying to mob on a brown kid. For the short ass set we had one small ass pit that consisted of 3 people; Dibbs, Bastid and me. After that shit neither I or Bastid could figure out who was on stage. I just assumed it was someone named Mc Self Centered, sorry I thought a rapper named MC Self Centered was funny. Someone should name themselves that.

so yeah that's my story and I just drank a six of pyramid and two pitchers of stella artois so here are some mp3s and more shitty stories. Yo and fuck anyone that wants to front on 1200 hobos, Abilities is killing this shit.

Crime

Songs In The Key Of Tryfe Ft MF Doom

Police Assassination Athem

Rapanese Part I

(ALL TRACKS RE-UPPED)

These past three weeks I've been working as an interpreter for a documentary about Japanese hip-hop, round and round the streets of Osaka, jabbering back and forth between MCs and the director, getting educated.

Like any asshole foreigner who likes good music, I’ve been probing the country's underground for ‘jackin beats’, ‘surreal verses’, ‘creepy crunk', ‘tasteful yelling’ going on about two years now. Hip-hop on the islands is at a transition point. Where it used to be an exclusively Tokyo/Osaka axis, the music has spread strong, north to snowy Hokkaido and down south to Kyuushuu, a land mass known previously only for permaculture farms and the graves of infamous pirates. Anybody you talk to nowadays will say that shit’s really popping off in Fukuoka (Kyuushuu’s biggest city), that it’s got the future of hip-hop twisting in its volcanic branches. Now think if somebody told you ‘Denver’s comin up’.* Curious if not confusing.

降神

As far as I’m concerned, the future of hip-hop here in the east is in the hands of Origami, a pair, sometimes group of MCs from somewhere in Tokyo. They've got two albums out, both recommended highly, and a solo by MC Nanorunamonai is loose in the streets since two weeks ago. Onimas fries up the tracks, his beats ain't party shit. Surreal, eerie, buzzed up, crawling through the street shit, sometimes celebratory, dwelling in a furious melancholy each track having a very specific sense of place. Shibito and Nanorunamonai front the group with S in particular spitting manic, crazed fire on the mesh. See Shibito was (is?) a Hikikomori, one of these folks that retreats silently from the modern world. Can’t take the klaxons, the hollering, the cars buses trains, deaths on the subway, can’t bear to watch life wash away in repetitive motion after repetitive motion for monthly cash. So people like this withdraw, pull back into their own world. On permanent strike from industrial capitalism so to speak. Some Hikikomori play video games like sweet crack on their parents’ ticket, some sit alone in dark rooms and wait. N chose to write lyrics it seems. He got kicked out of school and just kept writing and rhyming and one day found his throat with some comrades. Now he's loud, and Origami is nice. Check the tracks.

'Tokei no Hari' 'Hand of the Clock'

Second track on Origami’s first one walks in from the instrumental haze of the opening, Nanonarumonai’s raw throat pulls itself together and knocks along with rusty kicks. Shibito opens fire on the second verse, dude's flow is like daggers; this is his introduction to the world, he walks in diagonally, mid-seizure, laughing, spitting about drugs, ketamin, weed, amphetamines. 'Clock hand is moving right' ‘Hurry up Hurry up’. ‘Carnivals of coup-de-tats’.

'Otazunebito' 'Missing Persons'

Guitars strumming, mid-tempo beats that roll into a ranting flow by Eron Za Tazu on some crazy word play shit. KAN shows up on the last verse. Lyrics like ‘Meet at the red-lit roadside in a pitch-black underground’ shit like this. I dunno I’d translate more but it sounds awful in English. Japanese rappers use Chinese Kanji characters in ways that will fuck you. The verse as it is heard has one meaning, but when written down, the meaning flips via the visual, symbolic context of the Kanji. There's a lot of wordplay happening throughout this whole cut.

I picked up Ojiba’s ‘Time is Fire’ a couple weeks ago at We Nod in Tokyo. What got me was the production, its obvious maturity and funk. Ojiba here abandons the classic-break sampling tendencies of Japanese hip hop as they've existed. Another knife in the heart of Jurassic 5 and other brewers-hat-backwards-white-guy grippin-a-guiness-raisetheroof-hop esque shit and its continuing influence here in Japan. Cartoon beats, thick, full production, post-breakbeat hip-hop as far as it goes.

'Oh, Ooh!' Ojiba (028), Ohli-day

Fifth track off ‘Time is Fire’, beat is riding some violin-ass shit, rolling with clippy breaks and cheesy samples. The group hooks are classic honshuu collectivist hip-hop but the flows are capable, Ojiba’s all about drinks, weed and ladies on his verse. Ohli-day’s next hollerin about the VIP room, that he’s different from when he was young, that you gotta come check him out. Coming up seems to be pretty important to dude. Second verse’s actually full of English, hear it?

'B.Bitch' Tomozo, Ojiba (028)

Lyric-wise this cut gets pretty stupid with the hook roughly translated as ‘booty-shaking bitches with no thigh cheese’, the sensual ‘I’m a match here to light your body up’, some real club-skulking mating ritual kinda shit, but it’ll work pretty well for people that have no idea what the fuck they’re saying. Nice dancehall-esque flow by Tomoz about taking you out for a nice night, wanting to see you smile; this runs over a vacuum-beat tok-tok combo by track maker Suminof (!) and Ojiba (028) coming in to talk about taking out Rolls-Royce class gals, how tonight's gonna be ballin, how he’s high every week. Not every day but every week, smokers be scrapin by in dank-free Nihon. A baller in relative terms.

MC 雷太 Live CD Track 01

I’m gonna throw up this track by MC Raita, a Tokyo-area cat I saw perform with Daedelus and Jet Set last fall. On stage dude comes up there big bald and friendly, friend in tow, two taiko drums in tow. Starts toasting over taiko drums thunderous in the tiny club with this awesome, gnawing intensity. Everybody’s head's bobbing, probably reaching Zazen as the drums pump. Raita chanting like a holy man, drums bellowing like a monk’s New Year dedication. The baldness brings it all home. The track I’ve got here is not the banginest, frankly it’s cheesy with real honest matsuri-esque beats, but you can kind of feel the damp night heat of a summer festival here, Kimonos and Yukatas, red lanterns bobbing, fireworks swirling...Hopefully he puts together a more solid set of tracks for his debut, but I'm putting it up here just cuz dude's creative, might go somewhere and besides I wanted to tell that story.

Duff works with a group called 5W1H coming out of Osaka. This kid hasn’t broken yet, he’s young, 20, and he’s just putting his shit out there. I met this guy along with Gebo and some of the older Kansai-area rappers during the interview sessions; when cats started freestyling Duff struck me as pretty capable and brave. The demo he gave me unfolded into this audio ghost house, a CD full of spirits, divergent from b-boy heritage. Most of these tracks are Duff’s mind slipping over cliffs, rolling down a chasm, he can’t really stop himself. Cat’s gaspin. Feel this kid, Hakim Bey style.

Track 1 – Duff, 5W1H Demo

See what I’m saying about this ghost house shit? Sounds like the dead are walking and the utensils in your kitchen are rattling. People dyin somewhere. Duff towards the end koi koi koi, bring it bring it bring it

Track 2 – Duff, 5W1H Demo

Someone convulsing in tongues in the foreground until Duff follows up polite-style riding some horned up atmospheric beat, bouncy at moments, flowing. I’ve got no idea what this cat’s saying on this track, hell I barely understood him in person.

Track 10 – Duff, 5W1H Demo

This is Duff on the MGM beat (thanks Icky), somebody asked if this is a freestyle. Most likely, kid’s freestyles are pretty nice, then given the DJ cuts you can hear plus the way D collapses at the end, might be. Mastering’s a little shitty too. Check what he does.

So that's a little bit of hip-hop on the islands. Haven't even ventured into Tokyo shit real hard, like Baku, MSC, Think Tank etc. Definitely want to mention Inden and Itetsu from Osaka. Get at me, what's bangin, what's a flatline, what do you want to hear more of. Honesty now. Let's do part II real big.

HEX (respect to shrimp for the guest post)

MF Doom + Dangermouse + Ghostface

Equals Brak fucking killing it.

The Mask ft Ghostface

Reef The Lost Cauze: Invisible Empire

West Philly native Reef the Lost Cauze independently put out his album “Invisible Empire” in 2003 to quite a bit of critical acclaim in Philly. Unfortunately, due to really limited distribution (i.e. none), the album never really made its way too far out of Philly, but there’s some serious gems up on that shit (some of which I’ve posted below). If you’ve been lucky enough to see Reef perform recently, you’d also be privy to the fact that this dude is as charismatic and entertaining a performer as you’re likely to see grasping a mic. Dude demands your attention and doesn’t let go of it. Reef is also part of a crew called the Juju Mob with Philly underground legend Chief Kamachi and Pittsburgh-based MCs Charon Don, and State Store. The Juju Mob put out an album in June called “Black Candles” that has been making some waves in the underground, but Reef is poised to leave the realm of the underground behind with his new solo album. The new album entitled “Feast or Famine” is slated to come out on Good Hands Records in mid-October and it’s got its fair-share of true school bangers, thought-provoking cuts, and solid production. Definitely cop it when it drops. As for now, peep this shit from the “Invisible Empire” album.

This is My Life

This is the obligatory “coming up was hard” track that you will find on a lot of rap albums, but Reef handles the subject matter gracefully and the track progresses perfectly without ever feeling clichéd. Luckily, Reef refrains from being too melodramatic and does a great job of working with the somber beat. It’s just an all-around solid song and a good introduction as to what this dude is capable of.

Follow the Drum

Eyego Direct on the beat and it’s some murder. Reef getting his lazy, charismatic flow on. Basically just some raw gangsta shit without talking about raw or overly-clichéd gangsta shit.

The Puzzle

Reef’s attempt at a “down-south” track is really weird. The beat is synthy and bloopy, but certainly not in a Lil’ Jonor Jazze Phae synthy and bloopy way. But, regardless, I think it works. Reef’s faux-southern accent sounds believable (or at least sincere), and his slow flow is oh so seductive. Dude is killing it.

I Can’t Begin to Tell Ya

This is Reef at his best. Minimal Eyego Direct beat that Reef rides perfectly, spitting really fucking hard. I love this shit.

Angels Sing

Another obligatory melancholy rap track. Reef holds his own on this, but the Eyego beat is really what’s good with this track. I just fucking love the beat.

-e

fuck

"Stay Fly" by 3-6, Young Buck and 8ball and MJG really is the fucking shit, man. Jesus. Kanye better have stepped his game up for his album, cuz this track laps him easy with that whole soul steez. Fuck.

All I know is bricks, money, pussy and streets

It is about those things but it is about a lot more. This was the biggest album when I was in high school. "Get Your Roll On" and "#1 Stunna" (rerecorded by some of my classmates as "#1 Cus'ma," an ode to Panera bread - "i just bought me a phatty pastry, nigga") it was all about shining, flossing singles and comedy album tracks like a Richard Pryor album yr parents kept you from hearing when you were a kid. Like "No No" ("If a nigga try to stick a big dick in yo butt, you be like / no-n-no n-n-n-no he di'ent!" - I know thats what I'd be like) or "Snake" ("I been takin' ginseng/ swing a big ding-a-ling/ I got a medallion for my dick cuz my dick bling bling") or "Rocky" (see the post title). My friend recently told me he thinks "Rocky" is better than "Microphone Fiend" and I said "maybe" because yr tolerance for the 'humor' relates to yr tolerance for misogyny and how much the seeming tongue-in-cheek absurdity of the lyrics ("see me jumpin' outta somethin from 2002 / leave scar on yo ho from the side of my shoe") can disguise that sort of thing, sort of like Bernie Mac's child abuse jokes are funny in a sucking in yr gut ouch-way.

But this album ain't one-dimensional like that, its more than ho-jokes and shining, because of the ridiculous on-point Mannie production, where the album tracks have the same care as the singles (sometimes more) and there's the beautiful uplifting middle section of the album ("My Life" - "Sunday Night" - "Ten Wayz," the song that ends with Mannie addressing himself, 'self, i love you' plus a children's chorus!) and then the 'real talk' tracks that (thankfully) feature B.G., Juvenile, Turk and Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne carries his own on these tracks; at first I thought the new superstar Lil Wayne was an improvement, when really he's just more distinctive, switching styles to a confident, center-of-attention punchline S. Carter stylo; on I Got That Work-era tracks ("Shine" is the obvious highlight) he was the scrappy young underdog, but certainly not a worse M.C., or anyway he was definitely always better than Baby. Mannie represents downtown, Baby represents uptown. Baby is a goofball, charming, not really as funny as Mannie but his voice is a bit stronger, and he's less likely to be over-the-top with his humor, less wink-wink-nudge-nudge. He and Mannie called themselves "game spitters," not M.C.s, because they didnt want to be compared to New York lyrical miracles, and thats cool because it gave Baby a license to awkwardly rhyme a line like "draino, swallowin' everything I came fo'" with "I like rockin' ice and playin with these hos."

But yeah, the real talk tracks are top-notch, and somehow (Mannie's beats, its gotta be) they don't sound out of place next to the absurd comedy songs. Maybe the most exciting thing about Mannie's production comes up on "Hard Life," where he's tossing percussion-heavy textures, little timpani rolls and 'uh!' over dramatic horns, Juvenile's chorus - "It's a hard life we livin, day by day drama, we earn stripes from killin', attack like piranas" - and Lil Wayne's verse, where there's an urgency and hunger it doesn't have any more (replaced with focus and confidence):

"On the streets it ain't sweet, baby, dem best bel'
its not a game homeboy, this ain't the NFL
Him just steal, for rippin with the mid-deck 12
Hit the block in twin SLs and spit at gals
You get that, pal?
Once its war, nigga, skip town
Cuz if found, you will be swimmin' with fish, clown
Now, crack a whole chick down, sell it in quarters
If the drama happen to hit town, I'm 'nappin' yo daughter
If the broad try to flip out, I'm cuttin' her water
If your boys try to help out, I'm killin' they fathers
When and wherever
What and however - you bring it good
I'll have your mom singin' "Mmm hmm hmmm"
Cause nowadays lot of niggas got coward ways
So I ride with K's to knock off the side of heads
But I'm tryin' to stay man, I'm tryin' to stay focused
What I'm tryin' to say we gon' bust it wide open!"

Not to get all govt names in here, big passages of quoted text and all that, I just think its a really hot verse and shows the multi-dimensional nature of, erm, "classic" Cash Money. Another hot shit track is "Stuntastic," back when B.G. was the guy behind "Bling Bling" before a pen and a pad was all he had. The beat is this rough-timbred rumble, tension building with little keyboards and bou-b-b-b-bounce pulse. Strings on the chorus, its stuntastic, ballerific, straight out the plastic. Everyone hated on the 'ice age' when it was big (remember when cornball K-Os said 'this is the end of the jiggy era'?!) but I donno, maybe its because where I went to high school most of my fellow white students shunned this shit as "ghetto" that I never really got the feeling that this was music about consumerism or putting one over on the masses or whatever. It was certainly about culture, and even on the least 'serious' album in the Cash Money canon, real talk alternated with flossing and it was all part of a glorious post-NYC bounce empire.

Mestizo + Mike Gao = BlindFaith

Man I ment to throw this post up like two weeks ago but didn't. Anyways this is my homie Mestizo's new record. He hooked up with Mike Gao, one of galapogos4's youngest recruits on the production tip to crank this record out. I don't know how many of you peeped Mestizo's last record, Life Like Movie, but dude is mad talented. His style is primarily based in underground westcoast but then it's also kind of merged with some of the G4 sound which is good. He has definetly developed his skills from the days when we were just two pissed off kids in the desert hanging out at hiphop shows hating on the state of Arizona hiphop. Peep game because I fucking told you too.

Mestizo & Mike Gao - Redden Rise snippet

Mestizo & Mike Gao - Mr. Enthusiastic snippet

Mestizo & Mike Gao - Bad Impressionist snippet

Mestizo & Mike Gao - Shattered Glass Girl snippet

Mestizo & Mike Gao - Pick Up 52's snippet

snippets come via the Galapagos4 messageboard

Eyes See Through You

When The Camera's Off

Couple of tracks off of Mestizo's first album Life Like Movie. I love that touch of distortion in Eyes See Through You, it works well the way Mestizo steps up his flow at times over that flute. Mestizo tears through the track pulling phrases and dropping them into the song where he feels they make the most sense. No story telling or any of that bullshit, it's a race through this stream of concious rap that feels like he's barely able to keep it from becoming a trainwreck of words. When The Camera is produced by fancypants Maker who if you're not up on then you need to be because his beats are ugly as hell.


Oh and if you're in the area roll through Milk on August 8 for some fun raps.

tha boss

So everyone was afraid this album was gonna suck, be full of cautious Neptunes beats and boring stories about Slim Thugga partying with trendy east coasters and jet setting off to exotic locales with Pharell, and I was afraid too because the leak was pretty iffy. Shockingly I think this album is pretty great! Lots of low end, and a fair number of Neptunes beats that don't suck, especially the weirdo video game funk of "Playa You Don't Know" that features Pharell without making me mad at Pharell and "Click Clack" with one of the cats from the Clipse. Sure its got its fair share of great songs you've heard a million times (3 Kings, Like a Boss) and OK songs you've heard a million times (I Ain't Heard of That, Incredible Feeling) but the soul diamond in the rough of ruggedy h-town production is "Miss Mary" produced by *it* producers Cool and Dre, and it is a gorgeous follow-up to "Hate it Or Love It." Then there's the slow, slower than Ciara's "Oh"-slow "Diamonds" which features Thugga less flowing and more teetering in between Screwed and unscrewed over Heavy. Fucking. Drums with an S&C UGK hook for a chorus. And the Biggie-ish "Ashy to Classy" which is Slim's "Juicy" but sounds musically like "Everyday Struggle." And the final two tracks are on some heart-rending real talk shit. I haven't listened to the bonus CD yet, but aside from the generic "pimp" track I forget the entire name of the album is great and you should check it out.

Who Said We Ain't Dope Dealing Wizards!

Mayne hold up, I'm in the dirty got this bitch sowed up. Government Names have posted up about this album already but I'm throwing this up on the shrimp because motherfuckers just don't know about the greatness that is Big Tuck and the DSR boys. Shit just look at the cover, I fucking hate the color purple but that shit is just clean as fuck. If this came on vinyl I'd frame the fucker. DSR had a performance at SXSW that I fucking missed because I was off bullshitting with my old roomate and watching the Shapeshifters when I should have been getting buck with some Texas rap. Whatever though, during my trip I picked up this cd at Music Mania because I lag at ordering off the internet. I'd been meaning to post up about it but much like I suck at ordering I also suck at posting mp3's for the idiots who read this crappy website.

South Side Da Realest (extended version)

Big Tuck letting you know that he truly is a dope dealing WIZARD, not a fucking warlock but a goddamn wizard, so don't you ever fucking question that shit. Do you have any idea how awesome that is? Fuck being hard, Tuck carries a motherfucking wand. When I first heard that line I just bust out laughing, I like the song and all but seriously man, drug dealing wizards??? Were you really jocking harry potter that hard? Fuck this is hiphop, not goddamn dugeon and dragons. But whatever I guess that's what happens when you can't stop the hustle with a Blair witch spell. Shit what else would you expect when going up against a fucking wizard.

Tussle ft Tum-Tum

Tuck and Tum Tum just getting rowdy as fuck over this beat. It's fucking great. I especially like the part where they scream "FUCK YOU" because I like to drive around day care's just blasting that shit. The folks at the Ikea parking lot this past weekend loved it.

These Niggas Ain't Real ft Trae and Z-Ro

Kind of a strange match up of styles, Big Tuck with his one line shouting where it sounds like he's just running through his breath before he reloads to break you off with the next line up against Trae and Z-ro's smoother style which seems to be based more off singing and the fluctuations in thier tones. I'd say their style is close to Bone's but unlike Bone they don't suck and they actually have pauses because they rap instead of just change their tones quickly to stream together whatever words they are trying to squeeze out. Tuck does easy up on the one line shit and flows better than usual but he's still not flowing like them guerilla mob boys. If only Adeem could flow like Trae and Z-ro then Carson Daily would have sucked his dick on TV.

Boyz In Da Dirty ft Tum-Tum, Fat B, and Lil J

The DSR cover of the classic Boyz In Da Hood. Boy you should have known by now, Teezy does it.

This cd comes with a dvd but much like most cd/dvd the dvd fucking sucks. Although it's no where near as bad as watching the messy marv dvd where marv tries to pimp at some whitebread ass club down here in SF. This one just has some shitty footage and too many hypemen trying to shine when they should be shutting the fuck up. Go buy this album from t-town music, which is just a store/magazine for the DSR dudes. Anything affilated to them you can get for a decent price there but anything outside of that is jacked, fucking 20 bucks not including shipping, fuck that shit.

Ghetto Stash Video

click play

I posted about this 12" back in january but today I found out they filmed a video for this motherfucker. The video is pretty straight forward, Eddie K and Quest mobbing around San Francisco. When I saw the footage from Milk I realized how far back they recorded this shit. I'm actually in the fucking video throwing my hands in the air like I just don't care because I am an idiot. Fuck I forgot about that show, it was mad fun, Eddie K and Z-Man opened the show going hard over some crunk shit. I think that show footage is from like the end of last year. Gurp City is repping all through the video with Z-Man, Mc Oroville, Topr, Marz and others making appearences.

The code I used to insert the video in the post was jacked from myspace so that's probably why everything on the site is all centered and fucked up. Oh well fuck it, watching rap is more important than websites.