I like my chicken fried, my women wide, GMC trucks is all I ride
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
New 40 Video
As others have stated this album is pretty much two albums, a shitty one and a dope one. Earl is easily the best track on this shit. I don't like paying for mp3's but really this is one record were I would say you are better off cherry picking the joints you want because T-Pain features are for lames. The hyphy songs are shitty attempts to recreate another Tell Me When To Go and both are failures. It's not all bad though, Got Rich Twice is hella dope. Pretty much all the good songs are the most straight forward rap joints with the less complicated beats/sounds.
The other joint I really like is Alcoholism, you can't really go wrong with 40 and B-Legit on some drunk raps, especially when you throw in a beat made of Voltron burps and horror ticks.
we switched back to blogger comments because haloscan was deleting old comments and I guess David really wanted to read about the time someone told him he was stupid back in 2004 or something. Anyways yeah that's the deal if you've been wondering why the comments were disabled that last couple days. They should all be up and running now.
I have pretty much zero interest in superstar rappers anymore - the reason the Jeezy album is my record of the year isn't just because he captured the zeitgeist of the moment (although that helps) but because he did it with an almost-anonymous record. Not that you dont know every second you're listening to it that its a Jeezy LP but that he's not assuming this fact going in - aside from the Billy Paul track its all pseudo-interchangeable A-town trunk-rattlers and Jeezy actually rapping. What saved this record was that its gritty back-to-basics no-bullshit rap music over current but rap-for-rap's sake beats. No pretensions and no blatant crossover moves, pure stripped down recession-era rap music.
There was an interview with NYC-gritty-committee chairman (see Screwball, "Flamboyant" beat) Mike Heron on unkut in 2007 that really highlighted what makes a solid rap record:
Have been listening to any new hip-hop records that you’ve been liking?
I’ve been like T.I. - T.I. is hot. I think now, in hip-hop - and a lot of people won’t agree with me - you’ve gotta be a fuckin’ MC to win. Niggas with pens are winning. T.I. got a pen.
Now aside from getting into T.I. on his downward curve the key here is the PEN - lyricism is not and hasnt ever been dead in rap, it's still the lifeblood of it in a lot of ways - the only thing that has ever changed is what folks think quality lyricism is. Rap's been strong but people talking about it tend not to know shit about shit. Meaning - dudes who like to RAP will continue to release great records. Dudes who forget or think it doesnt matter won't be forgotten, but those records should be. Trying matters.
Anyway to get to the point - the NYG'z 'Welcome to G-Dom' is one of the best of the year. These are ugly generic-looking dudes, not pop stars, and also ugly generic rappers, but in the best possible way, especially as Premier farm teams go (Group Home are not as good as you think). For an LP that has been a half-decade in the making (I copped "Giantz Ta This" in like '04 I swear) it knows the advantage of stripped-down gutter raps, the embrace of aesthetic rather than ideology. Plus it does get lyrical, its got some bangers and a non-LP remix with Lady of Rage & Royce that is a must-cop classicist Premo nu-classic.
And lyrically its solid, not many "wtf?" malachi the nutcracker-type lyrics, lots of hard New York no-bullshit raps. The NYG'z are Panchi and Shabeeno, but it really doesnt matter cuz they are anon-NY archetypes. Although it is a Premo record by and large though, the best track is not Preems --
"Bow Down" cross-borough posse cut with Blaq Poet from Screwball and Rave Roulet (this dude is kinda whatever). I mean what else is there to say about a track that starts "When I was in jail I used to pop off, but thats in the past, I mean razors under my tongue and a knife in my ass!!!" I remember sitting back like "damn dude, that's serious - a knife in your butthole???" Rappers storing weapons in body cavities are rappers who will thrive in this kind of environment - who wants to listen to lil wayne drug binge rap when you can hear a dude brag about how his urethra is a holster?? <---note he does not actually do this, at least on this album.
Yes to some degree I feel like I am giving A's for effort rather than following the 'naturally gifted auteur-madmen' but fuck it, when it comes down to it I'd rather be with the people on the ground than eagerly awaiting Jay-Z's next conceptual 'masterpiece.' Isnt that what this era is about right now - uninhibited free markets sent the cream to the top and that worked in the late 90s, but right now its time for a capital-C Change. I'll stick with the common man rapper, his stubborn desire to TRY to rap even in the face of his inferior skills and an increasingly unprofitable market, his faceless grind over kingpins in gas guzzling limos playing guitar and making glow-in-the-dark emo 'raps'. I'm done with these superstar rappers. Jeezy gets it, of the people for the people.
Speaking of Blaq Poet is anyone else way too excited for this shit? Me too:
addendum:::: yes the NYG'z joint actually came out late last year. who cares.
I am no fan of Kanye or T-pain but really how the fuck are you going to put out a song called Go Hard and lace it with these autotune addicts. I can only assume that the reason is that Kahled is behind this and he is obviously one of the dumbest people alive. What the fuck is going on in this bullshit? Black and white video full of shirtless tattoos mean mugging and knuckling up while you are serenaded by plugins expressing their distaste for doubt and threating the non existent. This is such a waste, why not give this song to someone who knows how to do angry rap? T-pain can't get angry. He only gets excited about strippers, two stepping, and buying drinks. While Kanye can only commit to two emotions crying or jealousy. Although now he sometimes gets angry at women. All the emotions that are primarily used by 12 year olds girls. Way to go bitchmades, you have the maturity of an issue of Tigerbeat.
Every time I listen to The Recession or just see Jeezy on TV or in a magazine or whatever it reminds me that he's the only real rap star we've got right now. Wayne stopped trying over a year ago, to the point where I can't decide whether him mugging it up with Kid Rock at a country awards show is worse because I didn't even bat an eye or because he mugged it up with Kid Rock at a country awards show. Kanye was always more pop star than rap star but even on that front he's on a sabbatical. You could maybe argue T.I., who sold out but still really went at it in some places on Paper Trail, but we won't be seeing his face for a while. After that who's left? Jay? Nas? Plies and Ross? BET is still trying to pretend like Nelly is famous.
I feel kind of lazy even writing about this video. For one, videos don't matter anymore, so this doesn't carry the weight of "Ha" or "Get Ya Hustle On" even though it desperately tries to. I felt this way after the "Put On" video emerged, which did way less than this video does with a song that's worth way more. Secondly, Jeezy's not doing anything special in a video that is pure formula (right down to the McCain/Palin masks), so it would be foolish to classify it as anything more than a bullet point as to why The Recession is great and why its existence matters.
Still, it's intense and moving to see Jeezy rapping this dark, sinister and hopeless song in the middle of a mosh pit. It's still prescient to see a song called "Crazy World" visualized like this. Even the splices of video showing falling buildings and alligators are artfully done. And for some reason, Jeezy riding around in a Go Kart seems to oddly fit in.
Put simply, Jeezy seems to be the only major rapper that cares, not even about real rap, but about the way a famous rapper should carry himself. There's no Ross-like fake kingpin shit that is appropriate in song but smothers you elsewhere. There's none of the shameless genre-hopping that's makes Jay and Wayne fans embarrassed to own their albums. He doesn't play the acoustic guitar or have a blog or a freestyle up on YouTube every two hours. He's humble, smart and judicious. He has the hood on his back but he doesn't flaunt it, and in the case of "Vacation", he gives them as much power as they give him. He puts his art out, take it or leave it.
I sense that Jeezy feels like being a rap star is his duty, both to rap and his fans. I sense that he feels like he's carrying the torch, whereas Wayne and countless others feel like they're the flame. This is why, to me, he carries himself so gracefully.
And lastly, besides the music being really great, there's a reason why The Recession is so powerful: Jeezy lets it speak for itself.
I finally got around to picking this up and I had to throw up Snitch's Worst Nightmare. It's easily the best track on the album. The beat bangs, Nick Peace laced this shit something proper with that menacing distorted bass that goes hella hard. No bullshit unnecessary parts to the beat, it's just direct and too the point.
Nick Peace really needs to get more shine but that's the problem with bay. Few people get the recognition they deserve. But that's whatever, I'm not going to get in to it just peep game because this shit is a slumper.
AP.9 is on the cut by himself and brings it. I like AP.9 even though sometimes his flow can be off but when dude is on point he's real fucking dope. Lyrically he's pretty basic, you're not going to hear some amazing lyricall bullshit but he makes up for it with style. On this joint he speeds up his shit just a little bit and rides the beat perfectly.
This modestly-weird-prod.-by-Daz track is like a frankenstein monster of LA gangsta past and yay area ... more-recent-past. How else to explain the dogg pound, g funk organs and whining synths XXX'd with Turf Talk hyperenunciated verses and that uptight bay area bounce-groove and stop-start bass?? Great song of Cali cross-breeding. On second thought, there's something extra-perfect about the balance between the two here - not yin yang cuz the styles aren't really opposed as such. scales of justice is more apt maybe. North and South Cali united in an All Eyez... tradition.
Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti - "Shopping Spree"
Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane, Shawty Lo (<--please ignore) - "Gucci Bandanna"
Where Soulja Boy sits commercially now is, I imagine, a mystery to everyone at his label. After coasting into 2008 on the back of one of the biggest pop singles of the decade, he's trickled out a few more singles off his album, the biggest of which, "Donk", made a small dent on rap radio in the South but that's about it. The supposed first big single off his follow-up, "iDance", was directly passed along to the morgue about two days after it showed up on YouTube. His new single, "Bird Walk" (video at the end of this post), is a Soulja Boy single to the core: clattering percussion, simple but catchy keyboard line, tons of chanting, huge chorus. If the kid is able to get something this confrontational on to pop radio then he might actually be sticking around for a while.
Over the summer he started posting mixtape tracks to his YouTube channel, some of which featured guest verses from Gucci Mane, one of the first major rappers, to my knowledge, to collab with Soulja Boy. For Soulja Boy, having a respected Southern MC on his songs both legitimizes his art in his mind and, more importantly, gives him a foil aside from the legitimately brain dead Arab. As for Gucci, the Soulja Boy tracks provide for him harder, rawer beats unlike the (really well-produced) Zone 4/Zone 4-rip off joints that highlight his last solo album Back to the Traphouse. But, unlike countless other stuff that Gucci's gone over this year, the Soulja Boy beats aren't too mixtape-y. They're noisy but not muddled, not at all hi-fi but not DatPiff quality either.
Mostly though, the songs allow Gucci, a dude who has his eyes on pop music (or at least commercially successful rap music) and a knack for hitting his mark, to enter into the world of a kid who's trying to make the hardest, most nonconforming, most singular pop-rap around. They also make sure that Soulja Boy has good rapping on his songs. It's an excellent mix.
The homie Emynd just dropped this fucking heater with Young Chris. The boy is doing big things these days. Peep this shit cause it fucking jams. Fuck your rave shit, play some rap in the club.
late 90s non-biggie bad boy like g dep and shyne and black rob has always been underrated in my experience, although dep's record was definitely the worst of the three. the only g dep joint i really played when dude was out was that special delivery remix marketed as the return of craig mack. but looking back his snoozy flow on 'child of the ghetto' has some moments - "i am" with kool g rap stands out, "blast off" is alright, "one way" is tight and "let's get it" is just a banger straight up.
anyway i dont really have much else to say about this new g dep shit except that its unexpectedly great.
'somebody said where i be, somebody gon come, strong as ali in the alley hittin ali want some? start to wilin, you prolly be dialin 91-1, and we was weapons im atom-y you's a grimey stun-gun'
Found this shit when I was trying to do some research on Lil Richard and Otu. This song is actually pretty dope. The video reminds me of the old Dre Dog videos he did back in like 95 with a VHS camcorder except this was done probably last year. Their is some great use of special effects with the green screen and the camerman wisely uses the automatic focus feature to constantly give the viewer the the experience of blurred vision. I was thoroughly impressed with the Mise-en-scene of the video, it gave me great insight into the world of hanging out with ho's, using them to set up robberies and rapping in parking lots and for that, this video gets my vote.
Straight out of Oakcliff, these dudes rep hard. Can't find much info on them, these boys arent really big on the whole myspace scene but here is Lil Richards link, tell him to post some more shit. Heres the tracklist and a couple tracks to check out.
1. Chuckin Up Da Cliff 4:15 2. Get Em Lil O 3:15 3. Take A Ride Thru The Cliff 3:18 4. Hustlers Grinders ft. Young Tay 4:55 5. Bumpin Hard To The Beat ft. S.M.C 4:49 6. Pass It Down ft. Fat Bastard 3:10 7. On The Grind ft. Young Tay 4:01 8. 5-0 My Click 3:35 9. Im Gettin Paid Now 2:01 10. Double Stacks 2:14 11. Drop Low ft. Frozone 3:46 12. Bitch Move 3:36 13. Cant Do What I Do 2:45 14. Head Busters 3:56 15. Find Me In The O-A-K-C-L-I-F-F 2:14 16. Heavy Weight ft. Young Tay 3:35 17. Front Back ft. Young Tay 2:19 18. So Fresh So Fly And So Clean ft. Frozone 4:33
This flyer is amazing, if you don't understand why then you need to spend more time on the brown side of town.
Toy Selectah was down with Control Machete, dope ass mexican rap group. Anways I found out dude is coming out to SF to throw down at the Tormenta Tropical party. It's gonna be fire! Dude has a banging Milli remix, I know there are a lot but his cumbia version knocks.
He's also got a new Calle 13 remix up on the mad decent blog, it's kind of on some reggaeton/cumbia meets rave shit tip. Mad Decent is also going to be dropping Toy Selectah's 12" in january so pay some fucking attention.
