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

All About The 17.5

In the spirit of freshness, I bring some brief rap related thoughts of the day (inspired by The Wire 2 rap DVD):

While listening to the Streets May Be Icey mixtape by Cash Daddy (terrible, terrible name btw), I couldn't help but keep returning to the line "if you don't sell drugs, why rap about it/and if you do sell drugs, why rap about it". So common sensical yet seemingly so ignored in this day in time. The line definitely resonated loud and clear throughout the week as I tried to find the golden ticket of goodness in Jeezy's newest (The Recession), as apparently Mr. Patty Cake, Patty Cake Microwave has the streets and the screens going nuts again. Now mind you, Jeezy is the only rapper who is whack enough to make me physically sick. Literally. The Inspiration was one of the most tedious and stomach-churning experiences of my music listening lifetime. But the bul has stepped his bars up.
Back to the topic at hand. Obviously rappers are liars. However one must ask, why would rappers be allowed to lie so profusely and consistently about their status as street generals, and why would real deal hooligans decided to pick up a pen to put some words on a beat? The answer - extortion. Perhaps the world's true oldest profession. I see you Cass.

Freedumb Song

This afternoon while walking downtown, a brother not much older than myself passed off a shrinkwrapped CD and a performance flyer. Now at first I was hesitant to accept the handoff, as being a hustle city alumni I know better than to believe any rapper is willing to provide product for free. But sure enough, the exchange was made sans commerce and he went about his way. Upon closer inspection, this brotha was representing himself a “rebelutionary” rapper, one of the chosen enlightened few who spat truth to the ignorant masses brainwashed by commercial crappery. I figured I’d bump the CD on my ride home, providing some free promotion for a fellow struggling artist who sought a better day for Black people. Following an uninspired introduction, he proceeded to launch into some of the most shameless, corrosive, and artless misogynistic drivel I’ve ever heard on wax. Several tracks worth, including one detailing how don’t nobody “got more hoes than him”. Swirling with flashbacks of Patricia Hill Collins funk with Kwame Ture, I reconsidered her warning that the revolution of the “Black man” really was intended just for those with dicks. There ain’t nothing revolutionary, progressive, or remotely Afrikan about weed smoking sista bashing under the guise of gun busting militancy. It ain’t work in ’68 and it damn sure ain’t gotten no better in ’08. So shut the fuck up, rabble rouser rapper, and go read a few more books before claiming enlightenment. Cause your current shine can’t lead a scared little boy out of a too-tight cardboard box of misguided masculinity.

Styles P - The Key

Real Rap

Rappers from Philly have a historically terrible penchance for the pen (and i ain't talkin bout the bic variety). Blame the city's seemingly ever escalating murder rate*, or more realistically, the fact that without the stable hip-hop industry infrastructure of NY or LA, there really ain't much else for a rapper in Philly to do other than whatever he would usually do when not rapping. And as Peedi Crakk among countless others has mentioned, that pretty much subjects one regardless of verbal talent and budding career to the same consequences of any other young brotha in said circumstances. So needless to say, some get caught up in the judicial system. And no matter the circumstance, each rapper ultimately generates a "free (insert name here)" campaign from the local hip-hop community.

While in no circumstances do I believe that this so-called justice system has any legitimate right to judge any descendant of enslaved Africans, in recent years I've come to understand that doesn't mean the accused is necessarily worthy of adamant (or even partial) support. Take the case of Cash Dollaz, an inarguably gifted emcee who without a shadow of any conceivable doubt (as per video evidence, victim confession, etc. etc.) disgustingly murdered, robbed, raped, and terrorized a couple earlier this year. Fuck that nigga. Hot bars does not excuse all injustices. Yet nonetheless, there seems to be a blightfully big blind eye turned to the terrors verbal trend-setters commit by their Black male peers. Pun, Biggie, and Kool G Rap are all perhaps equally prolific as woman beaters as they were influential and innovative artists. Mystikal videos don't just depict shakin it fast, but gang rape and extortion. And if we are to include all the countless spitters that pitch poison in the form of coke and dope curveballs, this paragraph could fill at least three legal tablets in tiny font. No, I don't expect rappers to be any better than their out of studio counterparts. But I am asking that their supporters think a lil more carefully about why exactly we want so and so "freed" more so than the countless political prisoners (from Jalil Al-Amin and Sundiata Acoli to Leonard Peltier) who are down for a real cause and or the innumerable brothas and sistas who don't enjoy the public profile to generate a (albeit ultimately fruitless) movement.

Enter Touch Money's Brick A Raw, who just this week apparently was sentenced to life in jail for a homi. While I'm in no position to judge the situation of what actually happened, and the court is no position to snatch away a person's right to freedom indefinitely, the fact of the matter is that catching a body coincides with the type of "real rap" he claimed to spit. Is it a shame he tried to make a living rapping about killing or a shame they took away his right to make a living off of an alleged killing? Both.

I'm neither a gangsta nor a gentleman and as such have little automatic empathy for either extreme. If the poetry is indeed a product of the environment as Uncle Russ continually reminds us, then all I'm asking is that perhaps a lil more thought go into connecting the dots from celebrating the artist to co-signing the (90% time) man.

Bricks - Criminal Background

* which, thank God, is dramatically down this year for some inexplicable reason that seems to underlie all homicide rates regardless of what criminologists crapshoot about.