These Are The Times...

 This election eve beckons a potentially terrifying time for the unprecedented. Stay alert across the diaspora.

 

The Real Art of Noise

 By now it's no secret that Slow Motion Soundz is the aural antecedent to unoriginality in modern rappery. Yet I realize that barring thefader and soundcircuit, most of the digital underground is still unawares of what they're missing. So allow me to further intimate you to the Block Beataz production team. For parallels sake, Mali Boi & CP are DJ Paul & Juicy J in RZA's Basement after a few liters of lean. For practicality's sake, just listen.

To kick this feature off proper like, I present two of their undisputed personal classics: Naturalz I and II. If you've been to 134 Cross or a passenger in my car, you've surely heard them at least once. Ice cold ig'nance over Crown Royal smooth knock. While you certainly can't go wrong with any "Moments In Love" sample, the flip is what makes each so thorough. Yet the jury is still out on which one hits harder. I'm more prone to say that they're like choosing  favorite child - feasible, yet ultimately undesirable and unfair. But feel free to drop a verdict.

B.O.S.S. & X.O. - "Naturalz" (2005)

Inbetween step-child: "Natualz (remix)" (2006)

B.O.S.S. & X.O. - "Naturalz II"(2006)

It Ain't No Thang...

 Most rap songs advocate some form of extreme response to life's travails. Be it mind-numbing materialism or nerve-busting violence, many emcees across all times and regions seem to advocate some form of indulgence/intensification as the bets way to navigate the day to day. Hustle harder, bust more guns, pop bigger bottles, drop more knowledge. Even aesthetically, it often seems hip-hop is the mantra of never enough, as bass is cranked beyond while more bells and whistles are whisked into mid and treble mixdowns. That's precisely what makes Young Bleed's "Give & Take" so refreshing. Nothing about is particularly spectacular nor particularly excessive. Rather Bleed's calm drawl brings the most keeping it real realism of all: that in-between space in which life's unavoidable joys and sorrows collide and the true tests of wisdom, experience, and characters are revealed through personal choices. 

 You win some, and you lose some

  and then you spend some on em when you choose em

  See it's a cold world, and it's a cold game

  But if you learn to give and take, it ain't no thang

I caught this video once on Rap City and have been trying to find it ever since. I was still a youngin and didn't quite remember exactly what the jawn was about, but I knew it made me smile. And now I see why.

Also, this clip definitely sets a clear precedent for how today's hood videos should capture a community. Just like Juvenile's "Ha", it gives a distinct feeling of what the respective area is like in ways that greatly contextualize and enhance the music. Southern Louisiana definitely got that aesthetic on lock, which makes sense as it remains one of the most unique places on the planet (word to the fam).

Orientation Ruminations

Thoughts on XXL's The 10 Freshmen: Hip Hop's Class Of '09 Attacks 

Delivery certainly has become an afterthought or impediment for this upcoming crop. It seems that in the transition from Big Daddy Kane barrage to Jay-Z conversationalism, too many rappers are trying to sound smooth at the expense of actually spitting. I never thought this would be an actual point of contention (Lil Waynetitus certainly didn't help).

 A lot of these songs just sound soft. Synths have a time and place, and it is certainly not fluttering behind an autotune sung chorus. Them tight jeans and backpacks are catching up to the knock. Creativity shall not compromise the low end theory.

 Braggadocio sounds tired. As a proud adult, I'm not particularly interested in how fly, flashy, or phenomenal another grown man I've never met is.

I'm half caucasoid, from PA, and graduated from college, and I still relate to Chingo Bling more than Asher Roth. Somebody flush that kid down the development deal toilet.

 I appreciate the transition away from punchlines ad nauseum ala early 2000's. However as not everyone can truly write cleverly, the weaknesses of flow, delivery, cadence, etc. become infinitely more transparent without the zingers.

One of the most wonderful aspects of rap is that you can literally rhyme about anything. Therefore, why anyone would want to rhyme about the saaaame things time and time again is mind boggling and actually quite offensive, considering that the money and time used to make the thousandth song about how you smoke better than errybody else could have fed hungry children or rehabbed a burned out crib. Selfish fuckers.

Someone has yet to truly merc "Swagger Like Us". Emcees please remedy, or somebody offer compelling counter evidence ASAP. And Cory Gunz, please leave autotune alone. You sound like a tween with emphysema. And in no way, shape, or form are you a freshman. At all.

Maybe its my latent Wesleyan traits, but spitting actual verses over MIA hipster mash-up beats

yields more freshness than a little bit.

B.O.B's. croonspitting is growing on me. Charles Hamilton in persona, lyrics, and topics is most definitely not.

So overall, i'm glad I graduated before '09 cause it don't seem there's too much to be schooled on by this crop, 'scusng Wale, Cudi, and maybe B.O.B. on a good day. And last time I checked 3/10 ain't no passing grade under any circumstances. 

Leaders Of The New School, Hold the Dinco Brown please...

 As the months have progressed and my Best Best (word to Fela Kuti) of Saigon CD has gotten more rotation, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that perhaps our dear Brian may not be the best rapper of this generation. However, this is mostly due to no fault of his skill, but rather his incessant homophobia and violence which seem to pop up at the most pointless moments of other absolute lyrical brilliance. Now don't get me wrong, as an Illadelphian I am forever wedded to the ign'ance. It's just that at some point it all gets old when you know someone can flow so much mo forward thinking. With that on the table, I now present the only emcees who still truly keep me interested in the recorded craft of rapping. Those brothas who actually still put in the grind time woodsheding their craft to show and prove that emceeing ain't a lost art relegated to VH1 specials and street corner ciphers.

Joell Ortiz

I slept on Joell for quite a long time. I definitely wasn't feeling his name, subject matter, or flow during the initial innanet buzz phase. However, that all changed when I peeped the following:

I was most definitely taken aback by both the relatability and professionalism with which he parlayed his joys and pains. So I dug deeper. And I found out that bul really can get down. He can rap about the struggle with those intimate details Ice Cube used to throw in that betray the sensibilities of a novelist rather than a novice, while actually building his image around rapping rather than swagging.

Joe Budden

As an anti-hypnoholic, I resisted the clamor about Jumpoff Joey as long as I could. But online and in real life, Mood Muzik kept popping up as a seeming mantra for multisyllabic meanness. So a download the first installment and was rather underwhelmed. Yet then I took another chance and peeped Mood Muzik II. And lemme say, I've been an unashamed believer ever since. Perhaps more so than any other nationally known rapper today, Budden can write from all angles, never sounding off his pivot or out of his element in any way. Truly impressive and refreshing. Also, like Joell, he's unafraid to (and would have you believe repopularized) spit self-critically bout getting grown and getting focused.

Sha Stimuli

I have however been up on Sha. Not much to say bout this dude other than he's like a freakishly right splicing between Saigon, Jay-Z, Grafh, and a fifth element of unknown dopeness. Stimuli spits conscious without sounding contrived by embracing his contradictions as points of honesty rather than compromises of a static image. Although homie could try to throw his hooks a lil harder.

Vodka

Philly's best kept secret and my personal favorite rapper. This nigro is not playing. If you think you catch what he's saying, listen again. Then pause for a lil bit more and listen again. Then once you figure out the bars, go back and try to digest the flow. Unfuckwitable. The only problem is his atrociously irregular output of only one full-length album and a bunch of scattered DVD and radio show verses. Innanet A&Rs get on ya job!

2003:

2006:

(2007- incarceration intermission)

2008:

Loaded Lux

Beating Lux is practically impossible. Every line he delivers has at least two meanings and rolls with a ceaseless barrage of fury. His utter and absolute desecration of 106 & Park's Freestyle Friday may demonstrate his strengths, but by no means the true parameters of his talent. It's truly not fair, as evidenced by his unique claim to be the only New York dude, scratch that, rapper anywhere to scare battle scarred Philly rappers into submission. According to him, the only time you seen rap tours is in a dinosaur book. Dizam.

 much more to come on these young cannons... trust