Not A Blogger

Eating Leftovers With Elzhi

2009-12-11T10:52:00.004-05:00

"Ugh, Nice watch..."

I always get hostilely indignant when "rap" fans claim that Jason Powers is "boring" as if simply being preternaturally gifted at the art of rapping is somehow akin to having the scarlet letter of unforgivable wackness affixed to one's lapel . If you can't appreciate the subtle yet thrilling intricacies of Elzhi's raps that's more an indictment of your own personal attention span (or perhaps need for instant gratification with easily digestible swagger) than any flaw in Elzhi as an artist. Elzhi is a rapper meticulously obsessed with the craft of rapping and his taste in the neo-boom-bap beats in the Black Milk variety is just as impeccable. Not only that but he's a rapper that is able to translate that ability into crafting perfect, little concept songs that have fully constructed narratives, themes and morals. His lyrical flash is backed up by true substance. If that's boring to you than I'm not sure why you are even interested in listening to rap music in the first place.

Elzhi's latest offering,"The Leftovers Unmixtape," is another fine edition into the Detroit rappers growing catalog. It's mostly compromised of b-sides, rarities, and remixes from Elzhi's excellent and underrated tandem ("Euro Pass" and "The Preface") of street albums last year and for fans of Elzhi's razor sharp lyrical ass lyricism, this won't disappoint. The tape features beats from long-time Elzhi collaborators, Black Milk and DJ Dez, as well neo-Dilla beatsmith luminaries like Jake One, Oh No and Moss. While this doesn't quite match the highs of its predecessors, it does feature some particularly stirring remixes of some Elzhi's classics. "Dream", Jake One's remix of personal classic "Talkin' In My Sleep", is particularly evocative.

Download: Elzhi - The Leftovers Unmixtape

Video: 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers - High Noon

2009-12-09T19:51:00.005-05:00

For a guy I've never actually met in person, I converse with Zilla Rocca on the daily more often than I do with some of my closest friends (Shout out to the What?) so I'm going to be proud when Zilla breaks through the rap blog ghetto and turns himself into a genuine indie rap star. "High Noon" was my favorite song off of Zilla's and fellow "fruity little indie rap circle jerk" friend, Douglas Martin's 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers project from earlier this year. This is the video.

Prepare for full-on film noir awesomeness. I think more underground rappers need to have to the same level of conceptual ambition as Zilla does. If I have to listen to another goddamn "D.O.A." freestyle...

Adult Swim: Better Than Diplo

2009-12-09T11:19:00.004-05:00

"B.T.W. A.T.H.F. F.T.W."

One of my personal tests, to determine whether or not a human being is worthy of spending my precious time with, is determining if one finds the material dispensed by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim funny. If one doesn't find the comedic stylings of Master Shake (or god forbid, Frisky Dingo...) hilarious, I inherently distrust your world view and thus you must be exterminated (or at least, summarily removed from my presence) off the face of this earth. (You probably would vote for Sarah Palin, anyway, so clearly you have nothing to offer the human species.) I find Adult Swim to be great not only because their humor gels with my inherent schadenfreudic enjoyment of the cruel absurdities of the world but their celebration of all things bizarre leads them to spearhead moments of weirdo musical genius like this amazing little southern rap remix project, "ATL RMX."

The idea of a record that dares to combine the trunk rattle of Atlanta-based street rap with the sounds of the luminaries of modern avant garde, electronic beat making is going to win it's share of ironically appreciative fans and knee-jerk reactionary haters alike but it's an album (or is it more of a mixtape? At this point, the lines have been blurred so much that my screed against mixtapes, two years ago, is largely anachronistic) that deserves a more thoughtful approach than both. I've always contended that a lot of southern rap icons like Young Jeezy and Three 6 Mafia whose music is often lazily described as "gothic" or "monolithic" would sound amazing if paired with producers like El-P who specialize in ambient swaths of dystopic buzz. El-P's beat-making approach is often all dark ambient mood anyway so it seemed like a natural pairing to combine it with rappers who specialize in dysfunctional amorality. The idea being that you could amplify the strengths of the artists involved and hide their weaknesses. For example, El-P's remix of Young Jeezy's "I Got This" fills in the awkward pauses and holes in Jeezy's flow with punctuating buzzing flourishes while Jeezy's natural charm makes El-P far more palatable to casual rap fans.

Not everything works, the two Lil Jon remixes are particularly heinous, but there is a lot to love on this. Ann Arbor-based, glitch hop producer, Dabrye's remix of Goodie Mob's "Is That You God?" is pretty much perfect. While Starkey somehow manages to turn Guerrilla Zoe's "Lost" into something approaching the auto-tuned hipster hop of Kid CuDi. The best cut on the record is the previously mentioned, "I Got This (El-P Remix)," which miraculously manages to be the best Young Jeezy record released since "3 A.M."

Download: Adult Swim & Beaterator Present... ATL RMX (Left-Click) [Via Adult Swim]

Kickspit Underground Rock Festival '09

2009-12-06T12:39:00.004-05:00

Every couple of summers, I inexplicably decide to spend a few hundred dollars of my parent's hard-earned money and attend one of these outdoor music festivals and immediately regret it within the first hour of the show. For one, it serves as an instant reminder how much I hate the human race and to be herded amongst the worst of the human species, inches me ever so closer to my inevitable descent into multiple homicide, Joker-style supervillainy. Armed with this knowledge, you will realize why Saturday Night Live's pitch perfect send-up of these events resonated so spectacularly hilarious with me.

Of course, this was nothing compared to the genius of the potato chip sketch.

Blake Lively, I didn't think it was possible you could ratchet up your status within my heart but you have defied the odds and pulled it off. Serena van der Woodsen Forever! XOXO!

22 Minutes With Lupe Fiasco

2009-11-29T18:21:00.003-05:00

"Lupe Fiasco's "Tiny Toons" game is on point."

Brevity is a virtue amongst rap artists that is often far too overlooked. Somewhere along the great existential time line of human existence, rappers began assuming that the more product they could shove onto the 80 minute flux capacity of the compact disc, the more likely their record would be plucked off the crowded shelves of a record store and inserted into the warm plastic confines of a stereo disc changer. Perhaps, this was wise thought when albums were selling like they were lightly sprinkled with heroin flakes but it makes little sense in an environment when the world's biggest beef enthusiast can only sell 160,000 copies of his new record. When nobody is buying your record anyway, it makes little sense to water down the content of your record with filler tracks especially considering when most music is consumed in the solitary schizophrenia of an iPod, an artist can ill afford to waste their fan's potential time listening to a slew of ill-conceived crossover tracks. It only takes a quick flick of the wrist to switch to something better.

Lupe Fiasco must have taken that lesson because his excellent new mixtape, "Enemy Of The State: A Love Story", is an exercise in the power of limited quantity correlating with infinite quality. "Enemy Of The State" clocks in at a brisk 22:09 minutes and there is not a second wasted where Lupe is not furiously bringing glorious swaths of funeral pyre. It's been almost two years since "The Cool" established his bonafides as the premier rapper of his generation and if you had forgotten how great a rapper Lupe is, it's not going to take you very long to remember.

Lupe's primary strength is the complex density in the metaphors of his rhymes. He's the type of rapper whose lyrics are just as enjoyable being read in the liners notes as they are to listen to. You discover more depths the more you listen to him so it's extremely rewarding that "Enemy Of The State" is so brief. It allows for easily more digestible, multiple listens that allows you to explore the subtleties of his craft. His work on "The National Anthem" is a lyrical junkie's wet dream. Initially, the mixtape was released "cassette-style" (one continuously long mp3) before bootleg junkies spliced it up but I find the "cassette-style" of the tape to be incredibly fitting. Much like an old Maxell magnetic, one quickly finds oneself furiously spinning the iPod wheel in reverse in order to listen to the same lyric over and over again. Only in the digital age, you don't have to worry about popping the magnetic tape in your mp3 player. Who says technology ruins everything?

Download: Lupe Fiasco - Enemy Of The State: A Love Story [Mixtape] (Via Nah Right)

Kidz In The Hall: That One Song That Samples That One Song From That One Band That Has That One Song That I Like

2009-11-19T11:49:00.010-05:00

"Don't sit back there and act like Double-O's hair ain't luxurious when you know that it is, bitch!"

A few years back in college, I was browsing the music stacks at a Best Buy, looking for the latest Masta Ace record, when the in-store loud speakers began to the play the familiar drum patterns of a record I had become all too familiar with, Eric B. and Rakim's "My Melody." I paused for a moment to compliment the in-store D.J. for having decidedly exceptional taste for a sixteen year-old when it soon became apparent to my dawning horror that I would not be graced with the melodious baritone of Rakim's rich voice but rather the insipid strains of the pop vapidness of Teairra Marie's "Make Her Feel Good." I had been hoodwinked into the thinking I was listening to a superior song. Needless to say, I was not amused. I would go and buy the Masta Ace album at Circuit City, instead. (I was as shocked as you are that they had it. The rap selection at Syracuse area conglomerate retail chain stores is surprisingly boss.)

Later that day after I tore into Ace's masterpiece, A Long Hot Summer, for the first time (a surprisingly seminal moment of my music life since it was my belated introduction to my third favorite rapper), I began to reflect not on the universal atrociousness of Marie's blood screaming abortion but rather the curious nature of an R&B song sampling a classic hip hop jam. It seemed to me in my pre-blogger days (and before the crushing weight of disappointment morphed me into the cold-hearted hater that you know and tolerate) that if R&B was now sampling hip hop (instead of vice versa) that a critical equilibrium in the nature of the genre would soon broken and spiral rap music into the prophecies of the Pharaoh NaS and later dissected by the Prophet Sasha Frere-Jones. If R&B music was no longer producing original music breaks and instead were wantonly sampling from old school hip hop records than the delicate ecosystem of hip hop music sampling would soon eat itself and collapse into Casio keyboard fuckery or worse, start sampling from lame indie rock bands! I prayed to the Gods of the Mic this would not come to pass. Foolish, foolish mortal...

Noted hipster rap scions, Kidz In The Hall, made "history" this week when they sampled indie rock flavor of the month, Grizzly Bear's, "breakout" hit "Two Weeks" for their adventurously titled song, "Grizzly Man." A song that I've come to enjoy despite the obvious pretentious gimmickry involved with it's creation. Double-O and Naledge continue with a curious trend in hip hop as the sampling sources of the material continues to come from more and more obvious and gimmick-laden. Despite my admittedly ridiculous, curmudgeonly biases towards indie rock music in general, "Two Weeks" is actually a pretty fantastic song. Grizzly Bear's ethereal harmonies on the song remind me of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys and they build around a hypnotic piano loop that help make the song an instant standout record. However, Kidz In The Hall specious choice to sample the song ends up sounding as pandering and pretentious as T.I. and company did when ripping off M.I.A. for "Swagger Like Us." It plays to the built-in tastes of their hipster rap audience and combined with the relative unimaginative way the song uses the source material makes the record seem like a cheap play for crossover potential. The song chipmunks Grizzly Bear's harmonies and simply speeds the piano break to hip hop level bbms. When referring to the song, noted street-oriented rap novice, Jeff Weiss said "I liked this beat better the first time, when it was called Still D.R.E."

What's more troubling is the way that Naledge seems to be mining the Clipse's flow on a Guerilla Blackian level (Word to the Passion, again). His voice and speech patterns seem to mirror the Brothers Thornton's signature growly and delivery right down to Pusha's "hyuck" adlib. It's disconcerting that Naledge would do this considering he's an artist that is fairly established in his own right. I wonder if he even noticed what he was doing.

With all that said, I still miraculously manage to enjoy the song beyond all of my critical caveats. Perhaps, I just like gimmicky source samples more than I'd care to admit.

Download: Kidz In The Hall - Grizzly Man [Via 2 Dopeboyz]

50 Cent - Before I Self Destruct: Review

2009-11-05T08:50:00.006-05:00

"A lesser man would make a joke about 50 wearing a shirt on the cover.
Luckily, I am that lesser man."

I suppose if Curtis Jackson wasn’t Keith Olbermann-certified as the “Worst Person In The World,” one could begin to feel a tiny morsel of human sympathy for the man better known to the world as 50 “Fitty” Cent. After ruling the pop music world with an iron fist for the better part of the decade, 50 has fallen hard from the throne; Kanye infamously emasculated him two y ago in their sales showdown two years ago; his latest singles have been met with scathing indifference from both radio and the critical market; he’s been reduced almost to a court jester, showing up once every few to start a ridiculous beef with another rapper; raging against a world that does not care for his antics, anymore. It’s not far fetched to suggest had not for his Pimpin’ Curly videos on ThisIs50.com, he would relegated to Papoose status on his own record label. Be that as it may, after all the drama he’s caused helping shatter the New York rap scene in his quest to conquer it; it’s hard not feel a tinge (okay, a shit load) of schadenfreudirific joy at watching 50 Cent flail helplessly at making a hit record. The man wore out his welcome long ago and watching his feeble attempts at radio play be is karmic revenge for the endless amount of careers and lives the man tried to ruin. He’s earned this treatment. The man needs to hit the restart button on the last four years of his career.

50’s latest album, “Before I Self Destruct”, is billed as an almost mea culpa for the pop corniness of his previous two forays into blatant commercial pandering. In a way, it’s his “50 Cent Begins,” a revamp of his early mixtape persona before the allure of “Candy Shop” money turned him into a living symbol of gangster homo eroticism and beef mongering. “Before I Self Destruct” is an attempt to produce a record that bangs harder and more consistently than anything he’s done since quite possibly his mixtape days. For the most part, it’s a gambit that pays off as this is a record that is some of 50’s most inspired work since quite possibly “Guess Who’s Back?” and is easily his second best album.

From the opening moments of “The Invitation” (which according to the world’s most accurate encyclopedia is produced by DJ Premier. Really?! It sounds nothing like him, boys.), this record seems to have a clear statement of purpose when 50 Cent re-counting those infamous nine shots stares himself teary-eyed in the mirror and declares to himself “you ain’t dead!” It’s a powerful moment not so much because it evokes the most famous incident in his myth but because it serves as something of a metaphor for the state of his career. 50’s career as it’s nadir but he’s not going down without a fight even if it kills him. From this moment on “Before I Self Destuct,” 50 goes into an impressive stretch run of some of his most inspired, most hardcorest, most gangsterlicious (Word to Riley Freeman.) rap songs of his career. It’s song number ten before we reach anything that can remotely considered anything approaching that would be suitable for play in the club or the radio. 50 is not playing around. For once, 50 drops the quease-inducing sex food metaphor raps and actually provides the "aggressive" sounding music he's been alleging exists in between "21 Questions" knock-offs.

For those ten or so songs, Curtis Jackson gets his swagger back and returns to the viciously sarcastic wit that made him a star in the first place. Aside from the asinine radio-friendly pandering of "The Massacre" and "Curtis," I always felt the main problem with these record were that he couldn't channel the nihilistic joy of his mixtape work into any of his hardcore material. It always appeared that he didn't care and was more content to kick half-assed gangsterisms on auto-pilot than writing anything that remotely approached his early promise as a pure gangster rapper. The only time the fun of being the evil dictator of hip hop was channeled into his music was the shit-talking spoken word interludes, he would record over at the end of his seemingly endless diss tracks . (Think the last minute of "I Run New York.") 50 regains a little bit of that ol' demonic steez back on his new album. On "Then Days Go By", he giddily brags of being sexually taken advantage of as a pre-teen by his older babysitter when he screams "Take me baby, take me!" and on "Stretch," he taunts a young heroin addict that he doesn't give a fuck he' s ruining his live because "it's a cold world we're in". These are situations aren't novel to hip hop music but you can sense the joy 50 feels in playing the villain. We're missing that.

However, after those ten songs, the record begins to slowly fall apart as the second half of the record marks 50 Cent's quixotic quest to produce something gravitating towards a hit record. His insipid single, "Baby By Me," is as flaccid and desperate as the day it was conceived in a board room at the Interscope Records building. "Ok, You're Right" marks Dr. Dre's continued descent into pop, keyboard-plinking senility while "Get It Hot" sounds like budget Timbo lame-assery. This half of the record seems so schizophrenic and out-of-character with the mission statement of the first half that it begins to compromise the whole project. There is nothing on this record that is half as essential as "I Get Money," the brilliantly misanthropic single from "Curtis," and this in itself keeps the record from truly shining.

Still if this isn’t quite his “Stillmatic”, it comes close as possible as we will ever get out of 50 Cent (and no, we will not be debating the merits of “Stillmatic” in my comment section. It’s a great album regardless if your wack-ass Jay-Z revisionism will allow you to admit it or not. Sometimes, your just going to have to agree that the consensus is right, people. This is one of those times.). “Before I Self Destruct” isn’t quite perfect but it offers a glimpse at 50 Cent at this most clear and focused as an artist as he's been since his mixtape days. Welcome back, Curtis Jackson. I will now grudgingly give you your props. Don’t fuck it up.

Wale's "Mirrors".... The Calm Before The Shit Storm?

2009-10-30T10:30:00.004-04:00

"The rest of State Property must be maaaaad..."

I have not been shy these last couple of months at expressing my trepidation regarding the prospects of quality regarding "Attention: Deficit", Wale's upcoming debut album. It seems that after Wale received near universal acclaim ("universal" meaning praise from people who don't find Gucci's jewelry/produce couplets the highest form of American poetry...) for "The Mixtape About Nothing," he's been far more concerned with hobnobbing with celebrities and updating his followers on the regularities of his bowel movement on Twitter (Seriously, have you seen how often this guy twitters? I know less about the every day's comings and goings of my closest friends than I do about this guy. Keep some mystery about yourself, dude!) than being in the studio crafting quality songs that people want to listen to. It makes one wonder if he's received too much hype too fast before he had the chance to build a solid audience or identity as an artist and instead, left him craving the fast money and limelight that a huge radio hit provides.

I have been less than ecstatic about his output that's been leaked for his album and this seemed directly tied to his obvious desires for a crossover smash (and thus far, his inability to write one). Enough blood has been spilled over the transcendent offense to the aural canals that is "Chillin", so there is no need to re-hash but the other material that has been released for the album have failed to capture my imagination as well. "Pretty Girls" was cool but it didn't help that it couldn't catch on despite that it featured the presence of every ig'nant rap fan's favorite manslaughter defendant, Gucci Mane. "World Tour" was slyly catchy but it was too derivative of a far greater Tribe Called Quest song for it to be considered a success. Meanwhile, "Let It Go (Inhibitions)" and "Contemplate", two high profile collaborations with famous artists (in this case, the Corpse Of Pharrell Williams and Rihanna) were the basic definition of album filler. It seemed the farther he strayed from his D.C. go-go influences into crossover territory the more flaccid the material became.

Today's leak du jour, "Mirrors," takes the opposite approach to the pop market pandering of "Attention: Deficit's" earlier leaks and not surprisingly, it's one of the more successful songs released from the album thus far. However, it still isn't quite the show-stopping monsters that "Back In The Go-Go" and "Nike Boots" were last year. "Mirrors" draws heavily from Mark Ronson's shockingly gutter production (who knew the Trust Fund King Of Hip Hop had these types of beats in him?) and Wale manages to acquit himself very nicely with a showy, stuterring cadence that proves he can ride a beat as well as anybody. Problem is that he's getting his shine seriously blocked by Bun B's killer sixteen (he tends to do that to even the best of rappers) and ultimately, Bun seems to make Wale seem like an afterthought on his own song. Wale has a lot of strengths as a writer (witty pop culture driven punchlines, an ability to write an issue driven song that doesn't come across as condescending, etc.) but going head-to-head against rappers of Bun's caliber is a recipe for looking foolish. He's much better at letting himself give space to muse on the song at hand than attempting to compete with other rappers for song dominance. He's just not that type of rapper. He's way better at working at a concept song and digging into the intricacies than anything else. It's definitively why "The Mixtape About Nothing" and "100 Miles & Running"(two mostly featureless records) are better than "Back To The Feature."

I'm not in FULL-ON PANIC MODE about "Attention: Deficit" because other than "Chillin", the songs have been simply unspectacular rather out right awful but I'm certainly worried that the record could be an assured disappointment. After all, I have spent quite the amount of time talking Wale up as if he's the future of hip hop. I wouldn't want to be wrong, now wouldn't I? I have a reputation to protect.

Random Notes:

- Wale and Ronson have had great chemistry ever since the initial "100 Miles & Running" mixtape two years ago. Wale should really considering working exclusively with Ronson and Best Kept Secret on all future products. They bring the best out of each other.

- This record is certainly not approaching a hit record (and I'm sure Tray is going to come wandering around to discuss some nonsense) but this is the type of stuff that Wale should be rhyming over for here on out.

- I only link to other blog's to provide zshare links because Interscope has a nasty habit of shutting your whole blog down if you deign to link to their material. Obviously, I'm interested in maintaining an accurate archive of my material. Mostly so commenters can bring up some hyperbolic comment about Saigon two years after the fact to flaunt that I once had something slightly positive to say about a rapper that he doesn't like. Consider this the trade-off, folks.

Download: Wale [Feat. Bun-B] - Mirrors [Via Nah Right]

Dear God, Why Are You Fucking With Us?

2009-10-29T12:50:00.009-04:00

"[Archived Photo]: Man Screaming Expletives In A Cemetery ( 2010). Source: The Good Doctor Zeus' Worst Nightmares, copyright B.J. Steiner, July 2010."

Dear God,

Are you fucking kidding me?! After the unmitigated disaster of the 2008 Browns and 2008/2009 Cleveland Indians, you are crushing our hopes for a championship with a wildly disappointing wannabe contender, yet again. You really are doing this to the city of Cleveland, yet again? Why? What the hell did we ever do to piss you off so much?

It's bad enough that we had to watch our last two CY Young winners be traded away and proceed to start Game 1 of the World Series for our bitter enemies but you are now fucking with LeBron James, too. The Cavaliers are only two games into the season and they look like a total, irredeemable clusterfuck. I can understand getting beat by the Celtics on Opening Night. The Celtics are a great team after all (I just got nauseous a little admitting that...) but having us getting nearly blown out by the Toronto fuckin' Raptors is beyond the pale even for your vindictiveness.

Why do you continue to build us up only to anally violate our souls with spike medieval weaponry? Was trading away Rocky Colavito that much more of an affront to you than the Red Sox trading away Babe Ruth or that damned Cubs goat? Those teams got to enjoy Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and the 1985 Chicago Bears. Why fuck with us in all three major sports? It's bad enough we have to tolerate the gross, spectacular incompetence of the Fake Browns. Why mess with the only thing that's remotely source of civic pride in our fair city? Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

This is bullshit so get your act together, fix up Delonte West and get the Cavaliers back in shape or we will have more than words when I see you, God. This is not acceptable.

Love,

The City Of Cleveland

Return Of The King!

2009-10-27T12:33:00.011-04:00

"Seriously, SI? What do you have against Cleveland? Wasn't this enough for you?"

Our lord and savior, LeBron Raymone James, returns to the court tonight in the first step to ending Cleveland's quixotic journey towards a professional championship. This is the best team the Cavaliers have ever assembled. Win a ring for the King.

I Heart Jay Electronica

2009-10-27T00:35:00.006-04:00

"Thankfully, this man remains immune to the insidious effects of Baduizm. Quick! Somebody develop a vaccine!"

In a world where every aspiring rapper’s hustle primarily consists of flooding the market with more disposable mixtapes and “Run This Town” freestyles than my desktop’s trash bin can conceivably handle, Jay Electronica’s approach to career promotion is shockingly spartan. It seems like ages since the man has released a full length CDQ instead choosing to release tantalizingly, short snippets of restrained brilliance in MP3 form and live performance videos to satiate the unending, rabid hunger of the internet, true school hip hop fan. In my mind, the one minute, forty-five seconds of the video preview of the Just Blaze produced “Dear Moleskine” is the most thrilling two minutes of music produced all year and it’s not even a finished song. Jay doesn't just believe in the power of quality over quantity. He believes in nothing less than flawless perfection. It's an admirable quality but it leaves the devoted fan of his with a maddening case of blue balls.

So you can imagine the school boy enthusiasm that I felt when Jay released two new, unreleased tracks within twenty-four hours of each other today. “Suckas” and “2 Step” are easily some of the best music released this all year and continues Jay’s burgeoning candidacy for the greatest rapper of his generation. Jay’s perfectionism is obvious and palpable on both of these tracks as his sheer mastery of the lyrical arts continue to astound. The man is simply not playing around. The man needs to release his debut album yesterday.

Download: Jay Electronica - Suckas [Produced By J Dilla] - via Nah Right

Download: Jay Electronica - 2 Step [Produced By Sol Messiah] - via Dot Got It

Bonus Video: Jay Electronica - Dear Moleskine [Produced By Just Blaze]

Clipse, Cam & Chicken

2009-10-25T22:26:00.005-04:00

“Welcome To 2006...”

Way before Radric Davis became the chic rapper du jour of the sneering intelligentsia, Cameron Giles and the Brothers Thronton were perennially sweeping Pitchfork’s annual overly enthusiastic ironic rapper appreciation awards. Thus, it’s “kind of big deal” that Clipse and Cam’ron would decide to collaborate on Clipse’s new single, “Popular Demand (Popeyes)” for the Clipse’s upcoming album, “’Til The Casket Drops.”

In a lot of ways, Clipse’s and Cam’s approach to crafting hipster appreciated coke rap is diametrically opposed. The Clipse are all snarling, dystopic fury and perfectly crafted, menacing punchlines while Cam assualts the boundaries of cogency with his aloof non-sequiturs and assumed superiority. On “Popeyes,” they manage to synthesize these ideas to create the best track these three rappers have been apart of since Pitchfork stopped paying attention.

Pharell provides a dusty piano break in the vein of Lupe Fiasco’s “I Gotcha” for them to snap over and they all do a strong job attacking the beat. Highlights include a particularly memorable Pusha-T verse where he curiously taunts our Lord and Savior, LeBron Raymone James, for sleeping his with sloppy seconds that Pusha takes note looks like Madonna. Why Pusha wants to be smited by God is beside the point. It sounds awesome to hear the Brothers Thornton (...and Cam) over proper Neptunes production and kicking furious brag rhymes again after hearing a series of ill-advised overt plays for the club that marked the hideous “Re-Up Gang” album.

I’m cautiously expecting good things from “Til The Casket Drops” especially since “Kind Of Like A Big Deal" has grown on me significantly.

Download: Clipse [Feat. Cam'ron] - "Popular Demand (Popeyes)" - (Via Nah Right)

No Words... Weezer F. Baby Edition

2009-10-25T17:49:00.006-04:00

"How can we take my rock guitar approach and marry it to hip hop?" - Rivers Cuomo
"Don't." - the American record-buying public

In Chuck "The Best Music Writer Alive" Klosterman's new book, Eating The Dinosaur, there is an extended essay on Rivers Cuomo (and how he kind of, sort of, vaguely relates to Ralph Nader) in which he questions the common sense assumption that anything Weezer creates is remotely ironic. Klosterman asserts that Cuomo is the most literal rock artist of all-time and this goes to explaining the universal shittiness of hist post-Pinkerton (or far more accurately post-Blue Album) career. For Weezer's sake, Klosterman had better be wrong because "Can't Stop Partying", Weezer's paradigm-shiftingly terrible collaboration with Lil Wayne, is quite possibly the worst decision in a career that includes "Beverly Hills" if the record was meant as anything other than ironic mockery of their collaborator. Actually, that's not necessarily true.

Let's examine the two possible scenarios for the creation of this record:

1. If Rivers Cuomo is completely literal and serious about this record (and he really does enjoy popping bottles of Patron in the club) than the implication is that Rivers is either legally retarded or has one of the most legendarily shitty taste in music of all-time. This song plays like what I imagine the inside of T-Pain's head sounds like. It's nothing but synth gurgles (provided inexplicably by Jermaine Dupri and Polow Da Don) and tertiary weirdo, nonsensical vocals. It's like a Fergie song fucked Conor Oberst and out spewed from her vagina a neon-glittering still born.

2. If this song is meant to be ironic than it's complete and total douchebaggery at it's finest. It trades in nothing but the rotest of hip hop tropes and stereotypes, mining these signifiers for the same type of cheap humor whenever white people engage with hip hop. It makes the song ugly. The fact that Lil Wayne, the king of ironic rap appreciation, shows up makes it completely worse. He's actively involving himself with people who would openly condescend to his music. (Wait...Actually, come to think of it. I think the second one is infinitely preferable. I actively encourage Weezy mockery on an epic scale. Fire away, Rivers! )

Ultimately, who is this song aiming to please? Consider how Weezer fans openly revolted at the disposable pop punk of "Beverly Hills," I can't imagine the horrified reaction a song that sounds like "Beverly Hills" as if it were remixed by... I guess, Jermaine Dupri and Polow Da Don, would create. Lil Wayne fans might react to this considerably better (considering they made the war crime against humanity called "Lollipop" a number-one hit) but considering the violent, bleeding anti-buzz that Weezy's rock album "The Rebirth" has generated, it would suggest that the only emotion that a song like this would create is revulsion.

Dear Diary: Not A Blogger Vs. VH1's Hip Hop Honors 2009

2009-10-14T09:46:00.008-04:00

"Where's X and Jigga?"

I’m always been a bit baffled with the VH1 Hip Honors. On one hand, it’s kind of cool to see a whole bunch of forgotten rap icons get one last moment in the sun before the cruel mistress of popular culture takes them back behind the proverbial woodshed and plants two bullets in the back of their last shreds of relevancy. We get to see acts like the Furious Five share the stage with their cultural descendants in a moment of gooey, mushy glory that reminds us why we like rap music in the first place. It’s affirming of everything we kind of love about this insane little art form.

On the other hand, it’s VH1 running the show which makes the entire enterprise seem odd and out of place. Growing up in the ‘90s, I couldn’t have imagined a platform less hip hop than VH1. The network was always the prim and prissy older sister figure to MTV’s sluttier, younger sibling. While MTV had “Yo! MTV Raps” and “Headbanger’s Ball,” VH1 was content to let Celine Dion warble over their airwaves on a 24-hour cycle. If there was anything that would make lite-FM deejays swoon in their mom jeans, VH1! would play it on an almost constant, droning loop. They didn’t even play hip hop. I can remember vividly being pissed off as a budding rap fan when they cut Left Eye’s rap out of the “Waterfalls” video for reasons that I can’t even begin to contemplate. Knowing their history, I’ve always found it to be the highest of incongruity that VH1 and not MTV (or god forbid, BET...) would host this event.

This year , VH1 has decided to abandon it’s traditional format of honoring the fifteen or so artists that a bunch of random talking heads on television retrospectives have deemed “important” and honor Def Jam Records, instead. (I guess because honoring Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Public Enemy and the Beasties Boys weren’t enough recognition for Def Jam the first time.. Yet again, they did honor Isaac Hayes for reasons that haven’t been fully explained last year so that might be more of a function that they are running out of artists that people might remember. I mean, nobody really wants to see a forty year old Skee-Lo get up on stage and do “I Wish”... well except me.) Anyway, since I wasn’t invited to go to the show, I decided to do a running diary to review the show. Hate on!

9:00 - The show opens up with the sweet, melodious sounds of a gospel choir as the show’s host, Tracy “The Dong Slayer” Morgan, dressed like a preacher in a James Brown wig proselytizes the gospel according to Brother Russell. Somewhere along the line, this turns into a rousing rendition of “Jesus Walks” which is ironic because Kanye West is way too busy upsetting white America to be bothered with these shenanigans. At one point, Tracy claims that DMX became the voice of hip hop. Apparently, hip hop is synonymous with crack.

9:03 - In the night’s first video package, LL Cool J (who couldn’t be bothered to show up tonight because he loathes the modern incarnation of Def Jam with the fire I only reserve for the Yankees and assorted professional sport teams from Boston) narrates a pretty hilarious story of how he met Rick Rubin. LL is a pretty funny dude, it turns out. Do you think though when he signed with Def Jam that he would find himself co-starring in a NCIS spin-off on CBS with Robin? Probably not.

9:05 - I lick my lips and adjust my fitted.

9:06 - The Roots come out to do “Rock The Bells” for what’s gotta be the 5,000th time on this show when all of sudden the corpse of Eminem shows up out of nowhere to join in. I gotta say watching Eminem and Black Thought go toe-to-toe as performers is some really impressive shit. They have got to be the two best pure technicians in the game and they really bring the heat with this performance.

9:10 - In what we will be the indelible image of this whole ordeal, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons are interviewed about Public Enemy while they sitting shoeless and Indian-style in some idyllic garden at one of their mansions. It's all new-agey and stupid. I’m pretty sure if their younger counterparts could have seen how ridiculous and lame they looked twenty-five years later, they would have hung themselves in the closet in that NYU dorm room. How the mighty have fallen...

9:11 - What the fuck? Jimmy Fallon is introducing Public Enemy?! This has officially replaced “Flavor Of Love 3” as the most embarrassing moment in Chuck D’s life.

9:12 - Public Enemy does “Rebel Without A Pause” backed by virtually every vaguely “revolutionary” political musician ever. This has to be the first and only time that Boots Riley will EVER be on national television so that’s kind of notable right there. I didn’t listen to “Street Sweeper Social Club” (because I have better things to do with my life) but I heard it was pretty terrible. On the other hand, Pitchfork gave it a “3.9” which probably means it’s the rap album of the year. I will say this, though. Tom Morello continues to make weird noises out of his guitar.

9:17 - I just want you to know I think it’s incredibly disturbing to see Russell and Rick talk about wanting to make loud, angry music when they aren’t wearing any shoes. This image alone is enough to make me want to burn my copy of “Radio.”

9:19 - Scarface and Ludacris come out to a Def Jam South tribute. Scarface performs “Guess Whos’ Back” to polite indifference from the crowd. I’m blaming the crowd on that one. That song is boss. Shame on you. That would’ve killed in my apartment. Ludacris does “Southern Hospitality” to a far greater response. I find it hilarious when they do cutaways to the Def Jam dignitaries in the crowd and Kevin Liles is geeking out over the artists while Lyor Cohen looks like he’s pissed that VH1 is completely wasting his time with this foolishness.

9:25 - I got to admit these Tracy Morgan skits are hilarious. Scoopy Giles is the new, new hotness.

9:32 - Thanks, Rick! I will never get the image of Russell Simmons sweating naked in your dorm room out of my head for the rest of my life.

9:33 - Oh, man. KRS-One, Wale, and the dude from the Gym Class Heroes perform “No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn.” Whhhhhhhhhy? I’m officially in the twilight zone. And in typical KRS fashion, he promptly decides to not do the Beasties' actual lyrics and kick a random freestyle about the importance of respecting the four elements or some shit. That shit was like clockwork. Actually, that was one of the best performances of the entire show but I just want to point out that Wale is wearing a Mickey Mouse sweater. That’s a bad omen for “Attention: Deficit.”

9:40 - Apparently, Lyor Cohen signed Warren G because he was a Pete Seger and Carol Kane fan. That would not have happened if I was running Def Jam and saw those two records on his turntables.

9:41 - Warren G and Trey Songz come out to perform “Regulate.” I know Nate Dogg just had a stroke last year but couldn’t they have gotten R. Kelly to do this? I’m convinced they went with Trey Songz because Trey Songz vaguely rhymes with Nate Dogg. I just want to point out when they did a cutout to the stands, Brett Ratner was so bored that he was checking his cell phone. How dare you disrespect the power of the "Regulators," Mr. Ratner!

9:50 - Another Tracy Morgan/Scoopy Giles skit. Not as funny as first.

9:57 - So apparently, Redman called Brett Ratner’s mom a hoe to his face and thus, Ratner put his mom into the video for “Tonight’s Da Night” or something . Ratner introduces Red and Meth who do “Da Rockwilder.” I love that song but I gotta say whoever is doing the sound mix on this broadcast seriously fucked up because you can barely hear the production on any of these tracks. It’s getting really annoying. Redman is rocking a faux-hawk which makes me question my decision to write that piece championing “hipster rap” so many months ago. Had I known this would be in my future, I would’ve been listening to Gucci Mane records... Wait, no I wouldn’t!

10:00 - After a quick costume change, Method Man comes out to do “You’re All I Need To Get By” with Mary J. Blige and I thank the heavens, they are doing the vastly superior “Razor Sharp Remix” and not the uber-lame (and thus more popular) Puffy version. Note To All DJ’s: I don’t know why the Puffy version became the standardized version of that song to be played on the radio but that needs to stop. Puffy's version pales in comparison with the remix RZA did for the video. RZA’s version maintains the gritty, rawness of the album version while still being insanely catchy while Puffy’s version just lacks balls. If I wanted to listen to the equally-as-lame “One More Chance (Remix),” I would listen to the “One More Chance (Remix).” Remember, RZA > Puffy’s ghost producers. That is all.

10:05 - Apparently other than being the world’s biggest asshole, Lyor Cohen is batshit insane. Absolutely nothing in that last video package remotely approached anything resembling cogency.

10:10 - Am I reading too much into this or did Kevin Liles and some random white chick just admit to committing corporate fraud on national television? I’m sure the Internal Revenue Service would be glad to hear that Kevin Liles was writing off making it rain at a strip club as a business expense. That was awesome.

10:11 - Tracy’s outfit overdosed on the bedazzler. 50 Cent would be jealous.

10:12 - Onyx show up and do some bastardized nu-metal version of “Slam” with the Gym Class Heroes. And was I crazy or did I just hear a Rhodes synthesizer at the end of the song? I think my soul just died a little bit inside. Lyor seems annoyed with himself that he signed these clowns.

10:20 - Bill Adler speaks about how Russell and Rick’s original plan was to make the hardest, most uncompromising music possible and force the mainstream to crossover to them. I want you to remember this statement the next time you listen to the quiet storm of a Ne-Yo record.

10:21 - The hideousness of Eve’s multi-colored mullet weave is only surpassed by the monstrosity that sits atop Ashanti’s head. Ashanti’s wig looks like a cross between something Tina Turner would’ve worn to Thunderdome and a dead rat. She and the Corpse Of Ja Rule come out to do a lifeless, medley of various Murder Inc. abortions to scathing indifference from the crowd. If I had been in the audience, I would have considered chucking some cheese on stage to see if her wig was intelligent enough to run through a maze and find it.

10:27 - L.A. Reid shows up to talk about how he personally ruined hip hop. Or at least that’s what I inferred from his interview.

10:30 - When we return from commercials, Lyor Cohen offers further proof that he is totally insane. He rants something about Def Jam being blue collar (Ha!) and being able to fix cars while Death Row/Bad Boy couldn’t because they are soft and don't want to get oil dripped on them. I hate to break it to you, Lyor, but your company released “I Need Love” and as far as I can tell your company bombarded me with all the Ja Rule love songs that I could stomach a few moments ago.

10:31 - Tracy Morgan brings Oran “Juice” Jones(!!!) out for some reason. This seems like something his 30 Rock alter-ego would pull. I’m inspired. The next time I’m speaking in public, I’m going to pull an obscure 80s novelty R&B singer out of the woodwork to sing their hit song acapella, too. I wonder if Rockwell is available...

10:32 - Rick Ross gets his own tribute? What?! Why?! How?! Why?! You couldn’t have gotten Young Jeezy, at least? I’m baffled by the implications of what’s going on here. I would like to point out that Rick Ross’ DJ has managed to capture the annoyance of DJ Khaled's mixtape drops and insert them directly into the live performance medium. That’s fantastic... I’m always looking for ways artists to make their live rap performances shittier than they already are. Rick Rubin looks pained as he is forced to watch Rawse waddle about in that Fila tracksit. I know the feeling, Rubes.

10:40 - Holy shit! It’s DMX! How the hell did they get him to show up?! They must have told him he was going to be attending Tyrone Biggum’s $450,000 Crack Party, instead. Why is Gym Class Heroes re-creating “Party Up” for him? As much as I like live bands, I don’t want to hear Swizz Beatz production being recreated by the Gym Class fuckin’ Heroes or any other collection of half-rate musicians. Re-created live rap music never sounds right and ends up killing the whole vibe. I really wish artists would get off the kick that they need a band to have a hot live show. It rarely works out that way. I’d much rather listen to your DAT recorder.

10:45 - Scoopy Giles “I gotta 99 donuts but the bitch ate one.” Heh. I'm a fan of puns. Maybe, I really should get into Gucci Mane.

10:50 - The show’s finale consists of a medley of “hits” from the Def Jam artists that the show deemed not important enough to get their own segment. Kid Rock performs LL’s “I’m Bad.” (I guess white rappers from Detroit really dig LL...) EPMD performs “Crossover.” A fat, bloated Foxy Brown and Fabolous perform “I’ll Be” to hilarious schadenfreude. Ghostface and Chrisette Michelle do “Back Like That” (Ugh, really? Why not, “Run?”) to my immense disappointment. And finally, Wale comes out to do Kanye’s “Touch The Sky.” That could have been sooooooo better executed. Jay-Z or Kanye should have come out to close the show. You can't end your signature show with a performance from Wale.

10:59 - Russell Simmons comes out to do the standard Def Jam farewell as the credits roll.

Final Verdict: Would it have killed Jay-Z to show up and do “Hard Knock Life?” Doesn’t he have an album to promote? You too good to pay homage, Shawn? Fail.

As with usual with these shows, it always way more disappointing to watch than it would seem on paper. It seems like it would be awesome to watch Eminem perform “Rock The Bells” and have the greats themselves come back and perform one last time for a national audience but it always comes across as simultaneously half-assed and depressing. The newer artists always seem like they’re doing rap karaoke versions of the classics and the legends are always shells of their former selves and can’t live up to the hype of their storied past. It just doesn’t work the way you think it should.

I suppose this year was as good as any, though. I didn’t learn as much as I normally do on these shows due to the fact that the Def Jam story has been told a thousand times in a thousand places but I did discover that Lyor Cohen is apparently Gary Busey in disguise so that was fun. But before I go, I have a message from Russell Simmons...

“Thanks for coming out, God bless you and good night.”

The Inaugural Not A Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Program Spectacular

2009-10-06T17:06:00.005-04:00

"I'm the Bernie Madoff of this blog shit..."

Dear Prospective Internet Viral Blog Money-Giving Payola People Who Send Me Press Releases For Bands I Don’t Care About:

In light of recent Federal Trade Commission regulations that require bloggers to disclose any monetary or valuable goods they receive to review products, you might feel hesitant to continue to spend (or rather, waste) money on bloggers reviewing your products. Let me assure you that I, the Good Doctor Zeus, proprietor of Not A Blogger, have no ethical qualms whatsoever with the practice of blog payola and would gladly welcome any form of monetary pay that you might be willing to needlessly waste on me. I will gladly hate on the shit you send me over the internet if you pay. I look forward to…neigh…deeply crave you giving me exorbitant amounts of money to hate on artists, bands and products that I don’t remotely care for. My endless need to compromise my bloggistic integrity for greed and that’s why I’m officially announcing “The Not A Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Program.”

What is “The Not A Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Progam,” you ask? Great rhetorical question, future real estate license applicant! “The Not Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Program” is a dynamic, paradigm-shifting opportunity in which you pay me large amounts of cash or comparable assorted goods and/or trades and I will hate on my blog about an artist I don’t remotely care about so you can generate that ever elusive blog buzz that Time Magazine and other assorted publications that old white people read keep prattling on about it. It’s that easy! You pay and I hate. What an extraordinary opportunity for you to give me money that you clearly aren’t spending wisely promoting your artist!

You may skeptical about the effect that some random dude hating on his blog about your artist can have for their career so let me tell you a little bit about the program. Not A Blogger is a semi-famous hip hop blog popular amongst other hip hop bloggers that is viewed by literally dozens of people who stumble upon during their google-search for old Wu-Tang mp3s everyday. On my blog, I regularly take large steaming piles of hate on some of my least-favorite artists and without fail they are almost always, already huge hip hop stars in their own right already. Internet blog buzz is the wave of the future. It’s the cutting edge way for you to give me money and for me to use that money on my growing hooker addiction. The logical fallacies are endless!

Here’s a list of services I will provide if you sign up with the program:

1. Angry, Poorly Written Reviews

2. Snarky comments on Twitter

3, Dismissive, Condescending Essays

4. Pictures Of Your Artists’ Album Cover With The Words “Fail” Written On It

5. Pictures Of Your Artist With Jizz Drawn On Their Face in Microsoft Paint

6. Pictures Of Your Artist Photoshopped Into Gay Porn

7. Message Board Trolling

8. Noz Baiting

9. Tom Breihan Baiting

10. Lolcatz

11. Drunkenly Calling My Friend A Racist For Liking Your Album

12. Hostile Emails

13. And More…

“The Not A Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Program” is an equal-opportunity hater and will gladly hate on all forms of music regardless if I know the slightest about your artist. Actually the less I know, the more offensive and condescending my hating will be which has an added bonus of being both incredibly amusing to myself but also ensuring that I will secure a location in one of the deeper circles in Hades. Bonus! How often does a program like this where you get to actually pay somebody (but specifically me) for hating on something that you only are half-assedly trying to promote in the first place. I mean why would you be sending a complete stranger a promotional email for some shitty viral video that your band did at 3 a.m. if you aren’t fucking the dog on your band’s promotion. So why not PAY for me to hate on it? It’s clearly the delusional money making scam of the century.

I gladly will accept any or all of these forms of payment:

1. Cash

2. Check

3. Credit Card

4. Stolen Credit Cards

5. Concert Tickets

6. Beer

7. Booze

8. Porn

9. Eastern European Prostitutes

10. 1992-93 Game-Worn Mark Price Jerseys

11. X-Box Live Accounts

12. The Keys To Blake Lively’s Apartment

13. A Job I Don’t Hate

14. Or Anything Of Comparable Value….

My lack of ethical qualms knows no standard of journalistic decency that I can’t bend to fit my elastic moral relativism. There is nothing that I won’t do to make you look like a fool for spending money on a fucking blogger. Sign up today and you too can by swept on the majesty of my hatred.

“The Not A Blogger Cash-For-Hate FTC Advert-viewment Payola Program… because if you can’t buy my love, you can certainly buy my scorn." - The Good Doctor Zeus

No Words... Teddy Roosevelt Edition

2009-09-18T19:06:00.003-04:00

- The '99 version of myself would be bugging out over this line-up. The '09 Model? Not so much.

-Everybody remotely involved in this should be embarrassed they are getting eaten up by fuckin' Drag-On! Yes, Drag-On! Whom I'm quite positive has been banished from recording music since I haven't heard him rap since the Exit Wounds soundtrack. Ironically, the Exit Wounds Soundtrack was the last time, DMX, mattered in anything but drug-related arrest hilarity. I will give the Ruff Ryders this. Had Jay-Z decided to do an old school Roc-a-fella reunion, he would not have invited Amil to the proceedings. Kudos on finding, Drag-On, at whatever car wash he's working at these days.

-Eve might be the only human female that has gotten hotter as she ages. I thought she was hideous when she was rocking the Eminem-cut back when she first appeared on the scene but she's definitively smokin', now. Let that be a lesson to you, Amber Rose!

- I can't decide which member of the L.O.X. is more comatose these days. Sheek Louch wins by default since he always sort-of sucked.

- I don't understand the point of putting together a video like this for a song that's meant to be the re-introduction to Ruff Ryders and making it so fucking budget looking. So you are going to spend thousands of dollars renting ATV's and sports car but you can't spring for a camera that's slightly above your garden-variety camcorder? You can't make "Big Pimpin'" if you don't have a director who understands the concept of "white balancing," people! It kills me that cheap-ass videos like this are the reason that I had trouble finding work so much when I was working as a freelance videographer a few years back.

- Swizz Beatz should be shot... We all know why.

Well... That Was Fast!

2009-09-14T09:32:00.004-04:00

Thanks, Mr. West! Thanks to your insane selfishness, Joe Wilson is off the hook for being only the second most ridiculous person to interrupt a speech this week. Tell me I'm lying.

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II: Review

2009-09-08T14:08:00.004-04:00

"His price is 26, son."

I am 26 years old and that places me at an age in which I’m old enough to start thinking seriously about my future but still have a yearning for the childhood obsessions that occupied my youth. I spend hours researching old Saturday morning cartoons on Wikipedia, watch old WWF (Fuck-a-World-Wildlife-Fund…it will always be the WWF to me!) matches on Youtube and cop X-Files DVDs at Best Buy. My world is rapidly changing around me as my friends start to slowly pair off and get engaged, advance in their careers and become fully function members of the vile cult known as adulthood. Meanwhile, I’m beginning to think if my reverence for the glorious, permanent juvenilia that has become my modus operandi is something that I should abandon for something approximately approaching societal norms. (I can’t keep delaying law school forever. Ugh.) All this means is that nostalgia has particular death grip on my psyche at this moment in my life. I don’t want to grow up but am self-aware enough to know that this is not a particular healthy notion to be harboring.

For me, Raekwon’s “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt. II” is soaked in a particularly palpable nostalgia that evokes a particular slice of my adolescence that I have nothing but fond memories of. As a teenager, hip hop was the music I used to escape from the world and 10 years later, it is the music that I choose to examine and frame my worldview about. (write these long, winding narratives as a way to reconcile my thoughts and feelings about the world around me at large.) In regards to my long-standing love affair with hip hop, Wu-Tang has been the love of my life. The group that makes all other rap groups look second-rate.

On the surface, Cuban Linx II is an ostensibly perfect record. For an album that took nearly 14 years to make and is the sequel to one of the most highly acclaimed records in the history of the art form, it works way better than I can possibly have hoped for. It works as the type of perfect ‘90s crime epic that used to be the norm until it was abandoned for the cartoonish, uber-violent, half-baked crack rap fantasy of the Young Jeezy’s and the 50 Cent’s of the world. It is meticulous and grounded in details. It is loaded with pathos and drama and it makes the delusion of “Deeper Than Rap” seem like the highest of high comedy. And boy does it ever bang. Raekwon has not only brought out the heaviest of heavy production artillery (Dilla, Dre, RZA, Rock, Marley fuckin’ Marl) but the Wu-Tang cavalry out as well. There isn’t a wasted beat, half-assed verse or a solitary half-baked idea on the entire record. It is the type of hard-as-nails, gritty rap album that they don’t make anymore. It’s the best rap album of the year by a wide margin and that is where the problem lies.

“Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt. II” relies too much on nostalgia. It is so rooted in ‘90s rap minutiae that it sounds alien in this modern rap environment and from a philosophical standpoint the record sounds almost regressive to the needs of the future of hip hop. It appeals to me because it sounds like a throwback Wu-Tang record, “No Said Date” with a more talented lead, and had this record been realized in ’99, it would be on par with the best of the Wu-Tang solos. Unfortunately, it’s 2009 and thus all this nostalgia (the kung-fu samples, the RZA and RZA-esque beats, the “Killer” dialogue) makes it inherently a limited record. It’s sort of the equivalent of a late-period Scorsese crime film. It’s highly enjoyable and well-made but it lacks the raw grit and originality of his earlier works. Its appeal is entirely based on the familiar and thus it cheapens its greatness. What does it say when the best record of 2009 sounds dated? That its success is because it’s consciously re-creating the past? You begin to wonder as a fan what that speaks about you when the big artists of the day leave you unsatisfied and what you crave most deeply is the nostalgia of your youth. Is this healthy? Or does this signal an unhealthy obsession for pangs of youth? (And why am I ending all my sentences as a rhetorical question like a Carrie Bradshaw column? And why am I making Sex in the City references in a Raekwon review? Should I cut my balls off? Is this healthy?)

I feel strange writing a seemingly negative review for a record that I happen to love. It is a record that I have been banging for a week straight and it reminds of me all the things that I miss about hip hop. I just don’t know if this is the record that I should love after all these years. Hip Hop needs more than older artists mining the exploits of their older, better records. It needs innovation. It needs somebody trying to push its boundaries. It needs to find the future. (It needs Jay Electronica to release an album.) Perhaps, this was always coming. For a genre built on the mining the works of other artists to create new, it may have been inevitable that it would run out of ideas and that eventually come to eat itself. I hope not but I’ll being “Cuban Linx II” as I stare wistfully into the past.

Random Notes:

-Who did U-God piss off to get left off the album? Even Masta Killa got two features!

-It doesn’t remotely bother me that some of these beats/samples have been used elsewhere. Nobody cared about O.C.’s second record in 1997. Nobody cares now.

- At this point, anybody who is in doubt that Ghostface is the best human being alive working in the profession of rapper is seriously kidding themselves. Everybody brings their A-game on this record and Ghost still dominates like LeBron James at a pick-up with Mark Madsen and Yi Jianlian’s practice chair.

- J Dilla should have been producing all Wu-Tang efforts from ’99 on. “House Of Flying Daggers”, “Ason Jones”, and “10 Bricks” are the three best beats on the entire album. RZA should be ashamed of himself for Dilla’s beat-making corpse sonning him on his own shit.

- How big of a fool is Dr. Dre for refusing to release this album on Aftermath? It’s not like he’s doing anything but Dr. Pepper commercials, anyway.

- Nas lost.

- If mobster bosses’ don’t pop off with lobster-sauced angel hair then they seriously need to reconsider what they are doing with their lives. I’m glad to see Deck is still bombing atomically 10 years after he mysteriously had his voice stolen by the Gentleman.

- “They found a two year old, strangled to death/with a love daddy t-shirt/ in a bag/ at the top of the steps.” Need I say more… Verse of the decade material.

Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3: Review – Part 2: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Blogs

2009-09-02T23:10:00.004-04:00

"You have my permission to hang out with Coldplay, Jay... For now..."

Commercial rap music (defined loosely as music designed for release through public consumption for profit… in all forms) is at a definitive crossroads at the moment. This is an insanely obvious point and I feel like an ill-informed Time Magazine writer for bringing it up (but bring it up I shall because clichés work for quick-hand narrative purposes. And I loves me some quick-hand narratives). Illegal downloading has slaughtered execution-style the rap music industry to the point, nobody has any notion of what is going to sell in a climate where a consumer can freely sample anything he or she (but let’s be honest with hip hop, she’s probably a he wants. Even the scions of gangster rap, the tried and true bread winner of the major label system, have watched as their Soundscan numbers march off into commercial irrelevancy (not to mention artistic bankruptcy but that’s neither here or there). This naturally created a talent vacuum at the top of the major label system and increasingly desperate record executives began looking at different types of venues to discover and cultivate new artists. Enter the blogs and the rise of hipster rap.

What would have been unthinkable just a few years prior has led the major labels to take chances on a series of oddball rap acts that derive their inspiration not from streets of Bed-Stuy but from Williamsburg and the indie culture that surrounds it. Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne (yeah, “The Carter III” is a hipster rap album, folks. Don’t front like that sounds like some Hot Boys shit!) were perhaps the forefront of the movement and one of the few artists still selling major units. Soon artists like Wale, Kid CuDi and Charles Hamilton were being snatched up by the major labels for their more off-beat sensibilities and the hype that it was generating on the blogs. This brings me to “The Blueprint 3.”

The early critical word for the third (and final?) installment has been resoundingly negative. That’s actually not a strong enough statement to convey the level of vitriol “BP3” has fostered from critics. “Blueprint 3” has been met with the type of scathing, uncontrollable rage that is saved for gun-toting, health care protesters (and their amoral, lying, greedy backers in the insurance industry looking to exploit their fear of Obama’s skin color into some delusional, twisted defense of small government. Let’s put it this way: If you aren’t for a public option, I consider you to be the lowest form of human being. How dare you attempt to prevent poor folks from acquiring a basic human necessity for survival on this planet, you selfish fuck?! Fuck you and the diseased, corrupt horse you rode in! Yeah, I’m fucking mad! Fuck you! But I digress…). Jay’s foray into hipster rap has not been met well. Admittedly, I was ready to pounce on the album myself (we all know how I love hating on shit) but a funny thing happened on the way to the meat grinder… I found I actually liked the album.

“The Blueprint 3” is Jay’s most honest and thoughtful work since he un-retired and something of quiet (or rather a loud, grandiose...) revelation for an artist whose done it all. It’s about the pratfalls of growing up when nobody wants you to change in the slightest. It’s about what you are going to do when all your friends want to do is keep you down and learning to not care about what they think, anyway. This isn’t the groan-inducing, grown man status symbolisms of “Kingdom Come” nor the forced, retro crackisms of “American Gangster.” It’s funnier and more loose than its predecessor allowing Jay to grow a bit of confidence in his new direction. Jay is finally making the record that he’s been trying to make since “The Black Album” served as the swan song to the first act of his career. He wasn’t quite ready to make this record on “Kingdom Come” where his enthusiasm for creating the world’s first adult contemporary rap album overrode any semblance of fun on the record. As for “American Gangster,” there was always something a bit dishonest with that record. On “Kingdom Come,” he spent a good portion of the record talking about how he was so grown and passed all that gun talk shit but one year later after he had released the most critically savaged record of his career, he was right back into the crack narratives talking about how he was inspired by a run-of-the-mill (albeit entertaining and well-made) gangster movie. It seemed calculated to appeal to the true school purists and new school Jeezy fans who craved Jay in his prime. It didn’t feel right. “Blueprint 3” feels right for a man who is 39 years old, married man with more responsibilities than dreams.

Sonically, this record is not going to appeal to everybody. It bares little resemblance to the classic Jay of yesteryear and has more in common with “808s and Heartbreak”, Justin Timberlake’s “FutureSexLoveSounds” and Kid CuDi than it does with “Reasonable Doubt.” It’s basically a litmus test for the futuristic, space rap that seems perpetually on the verge of breaking through and achieving mainstream notoriety. Jay’s two main collaborator’s on the album, Timbaland and Kanye West, provide Jay with some dark, foreboding spacey synth beats to rap over. “Empire State Of Mind”, “On To The Next One”, and even the much maligned “Off That” are standout tracks. If Cudi’s album had beats as good on this as Jay’s does I would be a very proud Shakerite. The production on the album, once again, belies Jay’s penchant for trying something unique in his quixotic quest to stay relevant. Personally, I feel it succeeds. The presence of blog rap luminaries such as Drake, J. Cole and Cudi himself help guide the process as well.

The album is, of course, far from flawless and Jay’s relative inexperience dabbling in with this type of music can create some missteps. “Reminder” is 4 minutes and 18 seconds of futuro asininity and “Hate” is a song that can be classified as torture weapon in 86 different countries. Of course, Jay isn’t remotely close to being a great rapper anymore and there is without a doubt a few moments of groan-inducing, sub-Kanyeezyian puns on this record (Yoga jokes, Jay? Really? Ew.) but ultimately, this isn’t really enough to sabotage the record. The music, he’s crafting is far too affecting and personal to let the little matter that Jay can’t rap anymore ruin the proceedings.

However, I do have one major caveat to the record. The continued, artistic disaster that is “D.O.A.” Now while I’ve warmed to No I.D.’s production on this (yes, it fucking bangs but that’s irrelevant to why it sucks so much...), its presence on this record is even more glaring and dishonest than I initially thought. I had thought that “D.O.A.” was suggesting Hov was going to make an elitist, true school record with sub par rapping and sniping at the younger generation’s music. This seemed completely dishonest of Jay and it created a nasty visceral distaste in me. “D.O.A.”, however, has no place on this album. It adds nothing to the proceedings and its presence almost acts as apology for betraying his New York gutter roots. It serves almost to negate the confidence he has in making such a record in the first place especially when no less than three records actually use “auto-tune.” Don’t apologize, Jay. Own up to what you are doing!

Ultimately, “The Blueprint 3” is an enjoyable if flawed record. Its definitely not one of his major artistic achievements but it does offer promise that Jay has a bit more left in the tank than I initially thought. He seems ready to finally give up the childishness of his previous swagger and street talk and focus on what matters to him now as an artist. This is far from the reputation ruining embarrassment that a few of my more histrionic colleagues are calling it. And yes, we needed another Blueprint after all.

Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3: Review – Part 1: Jay-Z Vs. The Grizzly Bear Concert

2009-09-02T01:18:00.003-04:00

"Politics As Usual."

For the last couple of months, my Sunday nights have been spent playing in the infamous Brooklyn Hipster Kickball league (Go Divine Sisterhood Of The Sacred Bleeding Heart!!!) that transforms McCarren Park into the be-jorted hipster heaven on the weekends. For the first three summers that I moved to the city, I had viewed this league as the type of precious, twee, faux-ironic, scenester bullshit that the indie culture has unfortunately come to represent in the eyes of outsiders. The spectacle of watching emaciated, bearded hipster rocking uniforms made of Snuggies and prancing about on a kickball field made my skin crawl and wish that I could afford to live in Manhattan. I felt that way until I was asked by one of my friends if I wanted to join their team. I naturally balked a bit at first but then I decided what the hell, “I’ve got nothing to do but cure my hangover, anyway.” I soon realized the playing kickball was undeniably awesome and that my fears of being infected with incurable hipster cancer were completely unwarranted. Kickball rules. I want to be 10 years old, again.

Now while you are down at the park on Sunday evenings, you can often catch the ethereal vestiges of music floating in the air, emanating from the free Pool Party concert series played down near the waterfront in Williamsburg. These concerts are usually played by some flavor-of-the-month indie rock band that has the Pitchfork crowd in a tizzy. On the promise of free alcohol and a V.I.P. pass, I have attended these shows before. They are exercise in everything that’s annoying about hipster culture. Men with pretentious facial hair. Poor Dye Jobs. Unfortunately tattooed pretty girls consciously trying to make themselves unattractive as possible. Girl Talk. You can smell the irony in the air.

Last week, Grizzly Bear (of that one song that’s kind of awesome fame…) was headlining the last show of the summer and the neighborhood was abuzz with the typical amount of ironically detached excitement that these things can foster. Basically, the few Williamsburgers that were not at the Grizzly Bear concert were down being seen in their Sunday best at McCarren either kickballing or lounging about. Around 9 o’clock, the park started to buzz with excitement as the first few conquering heroes from the concert joined the herd and informed us that they had seen a unicorn in the crowd. Shawn Corey Carter and his wife, Beyonce (and Solange but really who cares…), had graced the trust fund brigade with their presence to watch Grizzly Bear grizzly bear it up. Controversy ensued.

Since Jay-Z’s faux-fake-not (that’s a triple negative, y’all) retirement, there has been a lot of talk about Jay’s betrayal of his hip hop, drug-selling roots. Over the years, Jay has slowly taken the doo rag off, moved from button-ups and beach sandals, to keffiyehs and other assorted scarves. All of his long-time associates (except the irrepressible Memphis J. Bleek. Get that inheritance money, Malik!) have accused Jay of forgetting where he came from (or rather not making them insanely rich as he is) and abandoning them for greener pastures. His associates over the years have grown whiter and more “respectable.” He dropped Beans for Buffett, State Property for Coldplay, and Amil for Gwyneth Paltrow. Consequently, his music has shifted from tales of crack sales and gun battles to Jigga’s adventures with the yacht club. His music has been definitive narrative shift for six years now and it’s peaking with the release of his new album, “The Blueprint 3.” Jay-Z is no longer about the streets. The fact that Jay-Z would attend an indie rock concert (in 2009!) is irrefutable proof that Hov is more concerned with fitting in with white people than making music that appeals to hip hop’s core audience of people who think Gucci Mane is a genius because he’s using fourth grade vocabulary words. (Word to Andrew Noz!) Clearly, Jay hates the streets now. And as for the hipsters, Jay’s presence at one of their most sacred of institutions, at best, was trend hopping carpet-bagging and, at worst, a corruption of all that is pure and decent about indie culture. Jay-Z does not belong there.

Of course, that’s a profoundly idiotic notion and belies more on the prejudices of those making the assertion than any calculation that Hov is making. Jay-Z grew up in the Marcy Projects in the adjacent neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. If you were to walk from the corner of Marcy Ave and Flushing, it would approximately take you about 20 to 25 minutes to reach the waterfront in Willamsburg where the concert was taking place. It’s a 10 minute cab ride (5 minutes if you get lucky with the lights and traffic). He is not invading foreign turf that does not belong to him. Brooklyn is his home. The fact that Williamsburg has been overrun by twenty-something, white film students from the Midwest (Word to myself!) does not make Jay a foreigner in a distance land. When Jay was growing up in Marcy that neighborhood was populated with a majority of black faces and if anything by attending one of these concerts, it can be seen as some kind of weird, reverse colonialist hipster reclamation project. In four years of living in Brooklyn, I have met few, fellow Brooklynites living in Williamsburg that were living there longer than 10 years ago. And I can guarantee that almost nobody at that concert (including the Brooklyn-based performers) were living in the neighborhood when Jigga dropped “Reasoable Doubt.”

In some respects, you can see Jay’s gravitation towards indie rock culture as a natural evolution for an artist that’s been consistently adapting his style his entire career. People forget but Jay has been, perhaps, the most avant-garde pop rap artist of all-time. From “Hard Knock Life” onwards, Jay’s sound has consistently taken chance after chance and its consistently come out in victory. Taking cues from hipster rap and indie culture seems logical when you consider that he grew up near one of the great vestiges of urban art culture in the twentieth century and has shown an interest in cultures that extend beyond the traditional boundaries of hip hop for years. You think Jigga would’ve worked with UGK and Timbaland if he was stubborn, east-coast traditionalist (like myself)? Hell The Fuck No! What do you think “Big Pimpin” was but a play at avant-garde, southern relevancy? Becoming friends with Chris and Gwyneth seems logical when you consider the chances that he’s taken professionally over the years. And so does attending a Grizzly Bear concert? Tastes evolve as you grow. This ain’t some calculated play for hipster cool, people.

Still I had extreme reservations about “Blueprint 3.” I wasn’t sure if Jay-Z was the musician or rapper in 2009 to be able to pull off a hipster rap album. “D.O.A.” was unequivocal, reactionary basura and “Run This Town” made my body want to rapidly bleed out through my ears. When I returned home that evening from kickball (after a fucking monster game. I had like 3 unassisted double plays, a bunch of hits, and a plethora of great defensive plays. Yes, I’m bragging about kickball! WHAT?!?!) , I was dreading listening to the leak. It turns out my fears were unfounded...

To Be Continued...

Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg - Poor Young Dave (Outtake From "The Chronic" Sessions)

2009-09-01T21:16:00.005-04:00

[From Robbie At Unkut.com:]

Did these dudes have chemistry back in '92 or what? Am I right, people?

"Poor Young Dave" is an outtake from "The Chronic" sessions and you can find a young Snoop in full-on classic storytelling mode. Dre doesn't rap on this but it doesn't really matter. The beat sounds vaguely like "Deep Cover" which is just fine by me. I could listen to classic era G-Funk beats all day long and twice on Sunday.

Download: Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg - Poor Young Dave

In unrelated Dre news, he's an idiot for not dropping Cuban Linx II on Aftermath. You just let the best album of the last five years walk? Fail.

Not A Blogger Vs. The Britney Spears Concert: Live At Madison Square Garden (8/26/09)

2009-08-28T13:56:00.009-04:00

"It's Britney, bitch."

In the past ten years of my life, I have approximately thought for about 9.58 seconds(or approximately the amount of time that it takes Usain Bolt to run the 100 meter dash) about Britney Spears’ music in any context other than “what is this terrible noise and why is it screeching from my car radio?” (Fuck It! I’m a hater.) Let’s put it this way: my iPod currently has 12,541 unique songs on its hard drive. I have at least, one song, by virtually every major act of the last 50 years in my ever expanding collection of (“illegal”) music that is clogging up space on my hard drive. I have two Jim Jones albums, three Young Jeezy albums, an assortment of songs from some lame ass indie rock bands my friends keep pushing on me, and a Kenny G Christmas album on this joint. I’m nothing but eclectic, motherfuckers. With all of that choice, I still don’t have one single solitary Britney Jean Spears song on this piece of technology. (Not even “Toxic.” I know! Blasephemy...) That’s how little I’ve thought about her music over the last decade.

You see, I’m old school. I operate on the guiding principle that any respectable teenage male must not only refuse to listen to music produced primarily for the enjoyment of teenage girls (and consequently, kitsch-loving gay men) but fiercely deny that I would ever be worth listening to lest my fledgling sexuality be subject to the mocking of my peers. (That it how it was and that it how always shall be.) I partially attribute this steadfast dogma to forcing myself to listen to rap-rock (I know. Fail.) in the late ‘90s as a way to counteract the goofy, chaste preppiness that I was being assaulted with when I watched TRL when I came home from a hard day of underachieving at high school. However, I was also a horny teenage boy during this period which meant I was very interested in Britney Spears from a deeper “philosophical” standpoint. Britney Spears was the hottest hottie since hot came to Hot Town. Of course, I’m a Britney Spears “fan.” I spent a good portion of my teenage years “philosophizing” on how Britney would look naked over the internets. (I know. Win.) Britney Spears represented the first sex symbol of my youth that was roughly my age. To my young teenage mind, it wasn’t inconceivable that had luck plucked me from my drear suburban existence and placed me in contact with Ms. Spears that I could make her my girlfriend. I could care less about her music but her music videos... I could watch those all day as long as I was alone in a dark basement with nobody home. Pardon my euphemism. Granted, these days, Britney is better recognized as walking human catastrophe than anything remotely passable as a sex symbol but nevertheless I have fond, fond memories of when Ms. Spears was gyrating on stage in various states of undress at the VMAs when she had her fastball. I’m sure I have pictures of it buried deep within my hard drive. So when my friend who works for Madison Square Garden offered to buy a group of my friends cheap tickets for the Britney Spears Circus Tour at MSG, my instant response was “Yes. A thousand times, yes. Cop me a damn ticket. Hell the fuck yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Now, of course, I won’t pay to go see Britney Spears in concert. No way. I won’t even go to a Britney Spears concert by myself even it was free. But with a bunch of my idiot, drunken, drug-addled friends? And with the promise of beer and the glorious potential of a massive trainwreck? You can’t possible contain my enthusiasm for this. I live by a guiding set of rules in my life and if offered the chance to see a potential cataclysm in person, I do not pass up on the offer. Britney Spears. Concert. 2009. Madison Square Garden. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. What I didn’t see was a trainwreck. What I saw was far more awesome.

Now because none of us gave a fuck about the opener, the thoroughly mediocre American Idol sycophant Jordin Sparks, we met up at a spectacular seedy dive bar, The Distinguished Wakamba Cocktail Lounge, on 37th and 8th at 7 p.m. before the show to start out night of debauchery. Most “dive” bars in Manhattan are these consciously crafted pseudo-hipster places with impossibly attractive bartenders and period paraphernalia picked by interior decorators in the hopes of invoking some “authentic” form of New York atmosphere circa Neveruary 1940 Question Mark. Basically, the look is so you can pretend you aren’t at one of these douchebaggy Upper East side joints but so they can still charge you Upper East side prices. This place isn’t like that. It’s a damn dive in the purest sense of the word. Upon entering the front door, you can instantly see this place has not been remotely changed roughly since its opened. The interior looks like the Copacabana circa that scene in Goodfellas in ‘62 and the few people that are actually in the bar look like they roughly have been patronizing the place since the Copa opened. Tiki torches, bamboo piping, and fake palm trees are the modus operandi for this place. Basically, if there was ever a place for a bunch of twenty-something hipsters to ironically attend a Britney Spears concert in 2009, this place was most assuredly it. We arrived ordered our drinks, passed out the tickets and talked Britney before (I shit you not, people.) being kicked out of the bar because the health inspector had shut down the bar... while we were in it. I’ve been in lot of dirty establishments in the hopes of feeding my insatiable craving for alcohol since I moved to New York. I have never been in one that required to immediately be shut down out of health concerns. Clearly, this would be a night to remember.

Upon being removed from the Wakamba Lounge out of fear that we might be infected by government-created nano-robots or something (and copping myself a delicious piece of street meat at the cart in front of the arena. Cuz lord knows, I ain’t paying 20 bucks for a hot dog in the damn Garden.), we made our to the Garden to catch the beginning of the show. The first thing you should know if you are a straight male attending a Britney Spears concert is there will be a sea of young women in various states of revealing clothes and the only other creatures with a penis in the vicinity will be far more concerned with other penii than providing anything remotely passing as competition. The demographics skew like this. 90% female, 9% gay men, .9% straight dudes being dragged to the show by their girlfriends, .1% Me. I might have been the only single, straight male in the entire concert which depending on how you look at it is either creepy, extremely uncomfortable, an opportunity or hilarious. Personally, I thought it was all the above. Luckily, any creepiness and discomfort was alleviated by, the fact, that I was drunk so it evolved strictly into being an opportunistically hilarious.

We arrived at our seats just as the giant clock counting down on the huge circular video screen in the center of the arena reached one. This being the “Circus Tour” and all (I guess because her last album was called “Circus” or whatever. I didn’t listen to it.), the gigantic stage in the center of the arena is set up like a three-ring circus (obviously, dumb-asses) complete with a ringmaster, creepy Gacy-like clowns and surprisingly brolic contortionists. As the lights dimmed, a few acrobatic set-pieces (including a legless woman on a trampoline) primed the audiences for Spears entrance. Britney descended from the rafters on glittering swing in some sort of diamond corset. We were off.

The first thing you’ll notice at the show is that Britney is not the dancer she used to be. Britney never sung with anything remotely considered skill so dancing used to be what set her apart from the rest of her teeny bop clones. Instead of elaborately choreographed dance routines that she used to execute flawlessly when she was in her prime, Britney sort of vamps and struts around the stage while her backup dancers work their asses off to make her look good. It’s sort of the equivalent of watching a veteran NBA shooting guard who has lost his ability to blow by defenders and get to the rim. Britney is settling for jump shots and while she certainly understands how to work a crowd, she is not the performer she once was. I suppose it’s understandable considering she’s had two kids, snorted up a pharmacy worth of drugs, and had a complete mental collapse over the last couple. I suppose if I married Kevin Federline then I’d probably lose my ability to crossover Shane Battier, too.

To make up for, the show pulls all stops on a visual overload of orgiastic, optic delights. There is literally not a portion of the stage that is flooded with dancers, clowns, and pyrotechnics to keep you visually in awe. Basically, there is enough flashing lights to leave a Japanese anime fan in a permanent epileptic coma. (Eat your fucking heart out, Pokemon.) To me, Britney’s music has always been irrelevant to the visuals she’s placing forth for the viewer. Britney’s primarily a visual artist working within a musical context. She’s always been selling some type of image rather than her actual music. She’s always known this and her handlers have always known this. Think about her music videos over the years, you can better remember her outfits than you can do the actual songs. The red catsuit from “Oops! I Did It, Again” and the futuristic stewardess outfit from “Toxic” are more memorable than the songs, themselves. It’s reason that she consciously chose to sex up her catholic schoolgirl look in the “…Baby, One More Time” video. You are supposed to remember the visual before you even begin to engage with the song. It’s how she sells her stuff and the “Circus Tour” is selling the visual in plenty. It’s mind effin’ blowing with all the stuff that is going on around you.

Britney does most of her hits over the course of the show and because they are so damn ubiquitous you sing-along. You just enjoy herself. Its all fantastically well executed. Its really an odd feeling to sing along to “Hit Me Baby” with 20,000 aging, twenty-something former teeny boppers but its undeniable. Britney, after all these years, is a damn professional and she knows her audience. You are in the presence of master of live performance and she will have you singing and dancing along even if you are a jaded hip hop head like myself.

We forget because she’s been with us for a decade and has moved into the Michael Jackson zone of bizarre pop iconography but Britney has managed to execute a pop career that rivals any pop star of the last century. She’s sold 6 platinum albums, made hundred of millions of dollars, had countless hits and continues to be a giant in pop culture. She’s going be with us until the day she dies a botoxed Elizabeth Taylor figure or collapses in inevitable heartbreaking fashion at a young age. There really isn’t a third option for this girl. I caught her performance when she was starting to lose what made her great in the first place but could still recognize the sexpot of my youth. It was like watching the last blazing glory of a dying phoenix. I wonder what she’s got in the next act of her life but perhaps… it’ll be stronger than yesterday.

Pen & Pixel + Ghostface = Awesome.

2009-08-27T17:00:00.005-04:00

I'm of the minority position that "The Wizard Poetry" is going to be pure, Barney Stinson-class awesome. Of course, "Baby" was meh but so have all Ghost's singles over the last couple of years and that hasn't stopped him from dropping classic after classic. Besides when Ghost tries to make a "for-the-ladies" song they end up sounding completely oddball like "Big Girls" or "Child's Play" and to tell you the truth, I think I can kind of dig an album that sounds like "Child's Play."

This is Dennis Coles that we are talking about, people. The man is allergic to wackness.

Not A Blogger Live!: Bajah + Dry Eye Crew At Lincoln Center (8/7/09)

2009-08-08T12:04:00.002-04:00

"Break out the Zubaz pants, yo!"

There is a powerful moment during Bajah + Dry Eye Crew’s electrifying live set where the band’s three rappers, Bajah, A-Klazz and Dovy Dovy, re-enact one of the most terrifying moments of their lives. Staring at the barrel of a commanding officer’s pistol, the band members are sadistically forced to freestyle rap to save their lives. Its a harrowing moment and reminder that most of will never have to face anything as remotely horrifying as war...civil war. A moment where the band forces us to take notice of the fickle cruel nature of fate and how it all can be ripped away from us at the whim of a sadist. Perhaps, this is why Bajah + Dry Eye Crew want nothing to do with the cartoonish violence that characterizes the post-50 American gangster rap scene because they lived the real thing. You don’t need street cred when you have life cred.

Bajah + Dry Eye Crew, hailing from war-torn (and Kanye West made-famous) Sierra Leone, are currently the biggest hip hop act in Africa and they are currently in the process of trying to translate their wordly, eclectic sound for American audiences. Their mixtape, “Kings Of Salone: The DJ Gravy Mixtape”, recently released at okayplayer.com for free download, is one of the most surprising and freshests releases I’ve heard all year. “Kings Of Salone” is a mish-mash of varying influences. It combines dusty, futuro hip hop-meets-african percussion, shuffling reggae-influenced melodies and twisting, dexterous dancehall vocals. It borrows from everybody from Timbaland to the Roots to El-P to Elephant Man. It’s the type of release that the Fugees would have made had Wyclef and Lauryn never started fucking. On tracks like “Rapumpum”, “Love Of My Life”, and “My Own Life”, they belie a deep understanding of the human condition and the suffering that war causes upon the people of their own land. Not to mention, a couple of the tracks the tape teases seems like it’s primed to assault the clubs (“Honda” really stands out.) This is very exciting stuff.

I caught Bajah et. al perform at the Lincoln Center Outdoor Ampitheater at Hip Hop Generation Next’s annual Global Hip Hop festival. It was a truly bizarre group with lots of aging, 60ish hippies and children swaying awkwardly to the music. I arrived late and thought I had the wrong place at first. Its not often you see people who look like my parents at hip hop show. I can only chock that up to the show being free. Bajah rocked the crowd, anyway. Perhaps due to being used to performing in front of crowds in the hundreds of thousands in their native land, the crew had a tight, polished show. Backed by a full 12-piece band, Bajah is a natural entertainer and frontman and his show includes set pieces that feature dancers, singers and live instrumentation. The band is damn good.

I feel these guys have a real shot at finding an audience in the United states. They are awesome live, they write good songs and judging by the way, they could appeal to 60ish white people they seem primed to have their debut album break out. You know if some smarmy ass bloggers (Word to myself) don’t deem these guys boring because of all that positive stuff they are preaching. Negativity is the new populism, after all. Don’t front on these cats.

Download: Bajah + Dry Eye Crew - Kings Of Salone: The DJ Gravy Mixtap e

The Importance Of Not Bitching Over Twitter About A Rap List On Somebody Else’s Fucking Blog: 6 Albums That Should Have Made Passion's Top 50 Rap List

2009-08-07T21:56:00.010-04:00

"Here I am in my smug, elitist contrarian troll glory! Witness the face of the enemy! Know thee and despair!"

“Zeus is a contrarian troll who debates not with facts and ideas but presumptions and sweeping character generalizations. He deserves nothing but my dismissal and condescension.” - Andrew Noz

A wise man once said (or a wise man I invented for the purpose of rhetorical device but I’m sure someone said something in vein. If not I said it and I’m definitely a “wise man.” No humble.) “there’s no sense in getting your panties bunched up about music lists. You look like a petulant child and the list is probably wrong, anyway.” Luckily, petulant man-childhood is the reigning philosophy of my life and due to my constant state of arrested development and immaturity, I have no qualms bitching about lists. It’s fun. After polling the crème de le crème of hip hop bloggers (including yours truly, bitches), Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Bradley have compiled a list of the Top 50 rap albums of the decade for Weiss’ blog, The Passion Of The Weiss.

While the list is most assuredly better and far more accurate than the brain trust at Pitchfork (or hell, even XXL) will inevitably trot at the end of the year, I couldn’t help but notice that my fellow bloggers inexplicably left off some of the better releases of the decade from the list, in favor, the works of Mike Skinner, extraneous MF Doom albums and mediocre Blu & Exile records. Clearly, this is unforgivably egregious and demands immediate remedy (over Twitter, of course). Luckily, my loyal readers, I am a man that has been gifted with “The Curse of Flawless And Impeccable Taste” so I will offer six records that warrant performance of the Cruciatus Curse upon my fellow bloggers for leaving them off. Consensus can be a motherfucker.

1. The Game – The Doctor’s Advocate (2006)

Jayceon Taylor is… let’s just say… a “complicated” man. To be more delicate, the Game is bat-shit fucking crazy. Of course, you wouldn’t know that had your only listening experience with the man been “The Documentary”, a record best described as “the Transformers 2 of rap music.” His record was an expensive, glossy over-produced rap record saved by the sheer amount of production talent, name-brand guests, and two monster 50 Cent-assisted singles. Game, however, was content to name-drop his way to mediocrity on his own album. You barely would have realized if he was there if he wasn’t staring at you, shirtless, on his own album cover.

“The Doctor’s Advocate” coming in the wake of Game’s ejection out of G-Unit and divorce from Dr. Dre (and the cringe-inducing psychosis these events wrought on our hero) is nothing short of revelatory, however. Its an artistic birth for a rapper who remained a creative cipher on his debut album. Not only is Game’s rapping dramatically improved but the album plays like a twisted gangster rap version of “Rumors” or a violently uncomfortable love letter from a scorned stalker to the apple of his eye. Game spends the album raging savagely against those he feels did him wrong (real or imagined) and those who would dare to keep him down. Sure, the annoying name-dropping remains but so does the razor-sharp production and his rapping and song-writing improve upon his earlier work. The name-dropping seems even creepily in place considering songs like “Doctor’s Advocate” place Game firmly in the creepy stalker vein.

This record might be the most emo gangster rap record ever recorded but still it undeniably bangs. “Lookin’ At You”, “It’s Okay (One Blood)”, “Wouldn’t Get Far”, and “Remedy” are as well-executed as anything on “The Documentary” and the deeper cuts like “One Night” and “Why You Hate The Game” are deeply engaging. Game is flawed rapper and this is a flawed record but a vivid and entertaining one. Even if Game is thin shred of sanity away from boiling Dr. Dre’s rabbit in a pot.

2. Devin The Dude – Just Tryin’ Ta Live (2002)

No rapper catches the bittersweet pangs of everyman sad-sackitude quite like Devin Copeland. His melodic, melancholy voice and off-beat, weirdo cadence captures woe better than any instrument this side of Robert Johnson’s devil-infused guitar strings. The Dude is a simple man obsessed with simple things like cheap wine, cheaper women and weed that is way to fine to be cheap and “Just Tryin’ Ta Live” is his lonely magnum opus tribute to those three things. He’s been the lonely stoner freein’ his mind way back before Kid CuDi was getting high at the triangle cutting gym class in high school. (Word to my Shaker High heads! Trust me, they get the reference…)

Make no mistake, Devin the Dude is just as emo as anything that has passed the lips of Sean Daley but he has the uncanny ability to make you laugh hysterically at his problems and not want to punch him in the face (like anytime, somebody tries to convince me to re-evaluate an Atmosphere record) when you hear him gleefully croon rap on his record. Devin injects his music with the type of southern fried funk that rattles trunks in adjoining states that keeps his albums from falling into the traps of whine rap. Devin subverts expectations of what you expect from both a Houston rapper and an emo one by gleefully bragging about his problems like his busted, broken down car (“Lacville ‘79”), neighborhood bullies (“I-Hi”), and even somebody stealing your last bag of weed (“Doobie Ashtray.”) The latter song is one of the most oddly heartbreaking songs of quiet reflection, rap music has ever produced. It’s become something of a personal anthem as I stumble home drunk and lonely at 3 a.m. by myself. (Which happens way more than I’d care to admit).

Personally, I don’t feel you can go wrong with a record where the hero is more than willing to play the fool…repeatedly… at his own expense…repeatedly. If I were a drunken fuck-up from Houston this undoubtedly would be the record that I’d make.

3. Cage – Hell’s Winter (2005)

If you are a person that believes in the inherent truth in tropes than you might ascribe to the notion that devastating personal trauma is often the genesis for great music. In fact, you might ascribe to the notion that personal trauma is the only recipe for great music. So one must wonder why it took Cage nearly a decade into his fledgling rap career to make “Hell’s Winter,” a darkly confessional album that journeys into the heart of Cage’s horrifically troubled life?

On his debut album, “Movies For The Blind”, Cage crafts violent, horrorcore fantasy and on “Hell’s Winter”, we learn where the violent fantasies come from. Backed by the Def Jux all-stars dystopic production (Total Aside: Is there another way to describe El-P’s production style? I’m tired of writing dystopic when describing him.), Cage delves into his abusive childhood, his own rampant drug addiction and the deep-seated psychological problems that accompany it. “Too Heavy For Cherubs” describes the horrors of the indescribable abuse (and I really do mean indescribable…) he faced at the hands of his junkie drug-dealing father while “Stripes” describes the pain of being ripped away from the same father by the police. By the time we hear the defiant, mournful horns on the title track, we have been painted a vivid picture of an artist’s life and pain. Its breathtaking in its candid honesty. For an artist, best known prior to this album, as the rapper who claimed Eminem stole his style from him, its remarkably ironic that Cage made the best Eminem album since “The Marshall Mathers LP.”

4. Ludacris – Word Of Mouf (2001)

It’s a fallacy to claim that Ludacris’ does not have any classic albums because, in a lot of ways, “Word Of Mouf” is the Dirth South’s answer to Jay-Z’s “Vol. 2.” It is a record jam-packed with a litany of Dirty South rap singles that ruled the radio way back in the year of our lord, 2001. What album this decade do you know that features a better collection of trunk-rattling, club assaulting, jeep bass crushing bangers than “Word Of Mouf?” “Rollout (My Business)”, “Saturday (Oooh Oooh!)”, “Area Codes”, “Move Bitch”, “Growing Pains.” That’s a murderer’s row of motherfucking club singles if I ever saw one.

The knock on Ludacris has always been that he can’t make a cohesive album to save his life. Perhaps, that’s true. However, I counter that sometimes you don’t need to make “the definitive artistic statement” to make a classic records. Sometimes the sum of the parts manage to make the whole look irrelevant. And sometimes, “Move Bitch” is such an undeniable jam slamming in the CD deck of your car that it don’t matter what you think.

5. Little Brother – The Minstrel Show (2005)

I’m always a bit baffled (but yet again, I guess I live in an ivory tower. You know because I like Edan records and write a middlebrow reactionary blog…) when a certain subset of people like to front like the “Minstrel Show” is some “boring ass, hating ass backpacker faggit shit” because when I listen to the record I hear the most incisively, hilarious record of the decade. “The Minstrel Show” is a no-holds, barred assault on the state of modern African-American entertainment and a record that’s simultaneously prophetic as fuck and an indictment of the sign o’ the times. It’s this decade’s “Stakes Is High.”

Record and released at the height of the mid-00s radio slip into uncomfortable, pseudo-minstrelsy Laffy Taffyism, Phonte, Big Pooh and 9th Wonder take aim at the elements of black culture they felt have failed them. On “Cheatin”, they hilariously send-up R. Kelly-style story tracks (if anything considering the direction of post-urine Kells this track might not go far enough) as Tigallo puts on his Percy Miracle wig and his croons his way to ignorant victory. While other tracks like the heartbreaking “All For You” take absentee fathers to task for abandoning their children. All the while, Phonte and Pooh trade witty clever couplets and craft fall-on –the floor funny type skts.

Oh, and 9th kills it with his production. Fuck what you heard!

6. J-Zone – Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes (2001)

When discussing hip hop music, I often refer to a concept about records I call “gloriously misogynistic.” A record which goes beyond the casual, ugly misogyny of the Cam’ron’s of the world, verves right pass the bounds of traditional feminist criticism and squarely into the realm of Howard Sternian “I-Can’t-Believe-He’s-It-Taking-There” hilarity. J-Zone’s hilarious “Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes” is a record that defines the concept.

J-Zone is a gifted story-teller and “Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes” spends the record giving a giant unapologetic “fuck you” to “the fake-ass activist headwrap chicks on the low kidnapping dicks”, backpacker fans demanding he “stay underground forever” and any other human being that crosses his ire. On songs like “Zone For President” and “Live From Pimp Palace East”, he describes his misanthropic ways in full assholic glory. J-Zone is a glorious bastard and he weaves his tales of Marxian anarchy to production that sounds like its channeling French New Wave cinema soundtracks and D.J. Premier. There’s no hooks on this record. Nothing resembling a hit record. And nothing that could remotely played in front of member of the opposite sex. An unapologetically, hilarious mean-spirited soundtrack to play in your Cadillac as you wave to backpackers bumping Trick Daddy.

One Final Note:

I’m often accused of being a violently contrarian prick and by own admission, I actively cultivate that impression. “Not A Blogger” was started with the distinct impression of being aggressively acerbic in my defense of my own particular worldview. A worldview I don’t expect anybody to have but myself. That’s all its EVER been. Its masturbatory, its schizophrenic and I think its also wildly fun. There is nothing I enjoy more than to hate on shit. I'm a narcissist. Sue me.

I’m completely willingly to debate the merits of an idea, as evidenced by the length page-long debates I have on the comment section but not when the opposing party isn’t necessarily being honest with their intentions. And I have distinct trouble reconciling the notion that a few select critics of Jeff Weiss’ list are being honest with their critiques of it ESPECIALLY when the vast majority of the criticism is being done in the 140 characters of asininity that are Twitter tweets. I can’t possibly take you very seriously if you can’t even bother to craft a well-rounded thought.

I mean honestly, people, Passion Of The Weiss is a privately-run blog. It’s not run by a major corporation. It does not claim major cultural cache. It’s not even fuckin’ Pitchfork. It’s the work of about a half dozen writers of various different backgrounds spread across North America who happen to all like hip hop (and happen to be white.. except Douglas. Wait… Oops.). People who do damn good work, I might add, as well. If we are to derive a lesson from a list, its that democratic process leaves absolutely nobody happy in the end… and apparently, George Washington wants MF Doom to have four albums on the top 50 (This is why I’m firmly believe in royalty.) For those who seem to think this is some sort of a vast indie rock conspiracy to ruin rap through El-P records, you need to ease up on the dramatic opening machine a little.

And yeah… Edan > Young Jeezy. Yesterday. Today. Always.

Here's my list for those that are interested:

1. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
2. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
3. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
4. Masta Ace - Disposable Arts (This is probably my favorite record of the decade. I love it. I could not it good conscious have it higher than the top 3, though.)
5. Nas - Stillmatic
6. Jay-Z - The Black Album
7. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
8. Kanye West - Graduation
9. Little Brother - The Listening
10. Scarface - The Fix
11. Madvillian - Madvilliany
12. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
13. J Dilla - Donuts
14. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
15. Cage - Hellz Winter
16. Masta Ace - A Long Hot Summer
17. Kanye West - The College Dropout
18. 50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
19. Devin The Dude - Just Tryin' Ta Live
20. Common - Be
21. J-Zone - Pimps Don't Pay Taxes
22. El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
23. Clipse - Lord Willin'
24. Ghostface Killah - The Pretty Toney Album
25. DJ Muggs vs. GZA - Grandmasters
26. MF Doom - Operation Doomsday (This actually came out in '99. So...)
27. Edan - Beauty & The Beat
28. Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
29. The Game - The Doctor's Advocate
30. Eminem - The Eminem Show
31. T.I. - King
32. Little Brother - The Minstrel Show
33. Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
34. Reflection Eternal - Train Of Thought
35. Nas - The Lost Tapes
36. Lil Wayne - The Carter 2
37. Ludacris - Word Of Mouf
38. The Roots - Game Theory
39. M.O.P. - Warriorz
40. Outkast - Stankonia
41. RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke
42. Mr. Lif - I, Phantom
43. Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing (I actually didn't want to put this on here because of my strict mixtapes aren't albums rule but I felt weird leaving off my favorite release from last year.)
44. UGK - Underground Kingz
45. Dead Prez - Let's Get Free
46. Slum Village - Fantastic, Vol. 2
47. The Game - The Documentary
48. Common - Like Water For Chocolate
49. The Knux - Remind Me In 3 Days... (I like this record, a lot but I might be tripping on putting this even as low as 49.)
50. Brother Ali - Shadows On The Sun (I'm not sure I even like this record.)