the mix hut

Feel My Face

2006-11-28T19:47:00.000-05:00

Juelz Santana + Lil Wayne: Bonafide Hustla
Mick Boogie + Juelz Santana + Lil Wayne: Blow - The I Can't Feel My Face Prequel

21 Questions (feat. Nate Dogg [Possibly. I have no idea. You heard something?])

+ When, precisely, is something so homo that it's no no homo? Which is to say, what is the threshold of homo?

+ Just how powerful a qualifier is 'no homo' anyway? That is: How 'homo' would it be to say, par example...wait, that wasn't it. Was that too homo for you? Let me start again:

"Jeezus, Marvin, you've certainly got quite the pussy wrecker on you. I wouldn't mind assimilating that butternut squash with my anus." Can one 'no homo' their way out of this?

+ Is calling 'no homo' like calling marshal law? Can a transient regime of 'no homo' be retracted? Consider the following: "Jeezus, Marvin, I say again, that is quite the placenta tickler. No homo, of course, old chap. Now: would you mind if I slobbed that shiny knob of yours? Oh, and, you know what? On second thought, homo. I recant. Yes, homo it is."

+ By virtue of the fact that you've seen fit to utter the phrase 'no homo' and ensured that your every possible word is not misconstrued, doesn't that imply you're constantly envisioning acts that others would construe as, well, homo? A prudent man might opine that everything else you say is, well, non-no homo, no?

+ Is 'no homo' available for gay usage? Why not? If so, shouldn't we be imagining exactly how 'homo' something would have to be in order for a queer gal or guy to use it in proper proportion?

"Say, my Good Homo Friend Jermaine, did you purchase that new Fiddy record? No homo."

+ If we're truly to insulate ourselves from the homogeneity (no ha-ha) of it all, shouldn't we be saying 'no homo' a lot more? Like when, you ask?

Like all the time.

Like after using the internet. Why? Because "you" were probably looking at gay porn.

Like after eating. Why? C'mon. "Eating?" Clearly just a cover for wanting to eat gayness.

Like after brushing your teeth. Why? Obviously.

Oh, right. This mixtape. Title's a li'l bit gay, I guess.

How Could You Doubt Me?

2006-11-23T16:38:00.000-05:00

Young Jeezy: Jeezy Speaks
DJ Drama + Young Jeezy: I Am The Street Dream

I haven't been the only one to point this out, but really for real, if you'd heard this on your personal, portable rap music listening device, maybe we'd already be agreeing that rappers should forego the album, fuck the mixtape game (!), screw a studio session (but definitely keep your man who rolls your blunts and pours your fruit juice into plastic cups), and just record "rapping" onto hi-fi answering machine tapes. Put that on the streets; see who hollers back. Maybe Jeezy says, "Fuck a song." Fuck with structure instead. Fuck that new workout plan; here that new business plan: "I got something for all you niggas man."

A Trap Or Die Roadmap

+ Time spent in traffic: "Every day."
+ Monday: "@ Magic City"
+ Tuesday: "In the 'hood"
+ Wednesday:@ "Body Top"
+ Saturday: "@ 112, steady strapped."
+ How to occupy rest of week: "Shit to do, hoes to fuck, shit to smoke."
+ Real niggas still to be freed: Big Meech, Old Dog, Mailman, Goldmouth
+ Time you have to get your shit together: "A month"
+ How long a month is: "That's 30 days."
+ "Niggas" dropped during 2:00 track: Forty-nine

It's about delivery, yes -- elevating the banal through sheer charisma, etc. -- but the banal that's elevated ain't Jeezy's day-to-day, but instead the beat-horse "rapper's voicemail" trope. It's never just the voice, the ad-lib-as-laugh-track (Ha-ha!), or flow-for-flow's sake alone. One's inextricable from the next -- hot beat or not, whole-not-parts -- which is why Jeezy could read your grandma's grocery list and you'd still listen.

A Bar A Party An Institution

2006-11-13T14:41:00.000-05:00

Birdman & Lil Wayne: "Don't Die"
Like Father, Like Son

Re: "Gangsters don't die they get jumpy and they move to Miami. I moved to Miami. I'm banned from Wet Willie's but a nigga like fuck it."

I assumed this was like some chic bar, Wet Willies, some place where the gangsters go, basically a real-life rap video, dudes doing the Will Smith dance from Wild Wild West, chicks just shooting each other with hoses filled with hennessy, everybody wearing a bikini including the more aggro chicks who try to wear those ridiculous shorts (it's like get yourself the fuck cleaned up and put on a bikini bottom for chrissakes), somebody every five or six minutes driving a sweet "whip" into the middle of the dance floor, whipping it real hard. Then I checked and thought, for a minute, that Wet Willies was Wet Willy's, which is an "edible drink" i.e. body shot. I can see Wayne getting banned from Wet Willy's, or at least from giving them, like if he didn't pay for a shipment and the checkers at Wet Willy's body shot LLC were like fuck this guy, fuck this Lil Wayne guy.

Instead Wet Willies is, as mentioned above, a bar a party an institution:

Wet Willie's Philosophy: Wet Willie's endeavors to serve great tasting frozen daiquiris, with an honest portion of alcohol, at fair prices, in a fun and safe environment. This philosophy is put into practice by our continuous efforts.

I mean how the hell do you get banned from a fucking daquiri place. Maybe over the 7-11 slurpee thing I did pre-MH when you'd buy a large slurpee, fill it all the way up, drink half of it in the store, then refill it, then pay for it? Or maybe the other 7-11 slurpee thing I did pre-MH, which was that I often mixed two sometimes three flavors into one cup? Did you know Heathcliff's non-MH friends (forsooth) called him the Catchdubs of frozen edible drinks? One Girl Talk Slush Puppie Remix, Mr. The Rub?

This is nothing to be proud of, this de facto degree in mixology--but certainly not anything worth getting banned from Wet Willies either. So why would this be a thing Wayne is proud of? Countless awesome people including pre-conscious Ludacris threw down at Wet Willies, enjoying their delicious daquiris with honest portions of alcohol at fair prices. Just take a look at this image:

You'll notice you can get flavors such as Call-A-Cab, Pina Colada, Sex On the Beach, etc. This place looks pretty fucking awesome if you ask me.

The weird thing about mixing slurpee flavors, btw, is that no matter what combination you try, the end product always ends up this weird green color, and always tastes delicious.

Dialysis: A Requiem in Three Parts

2006-09-03T14:38:00.000-04:00

Young Buck [feat. Jazze Pha]: If You Want Some
DJ Smallz & Rick Ross: Southern Smoke # 28 - Heat Wave

"...if we can name names at all in the way this poll presumes is somehow natural then we would have to name Jazze Pha for both “Lose Control” and “1, 2 Step” which right there gives him one more perfect song than the guy who will win this poll and oh also he made tremendous tracks on albums by Nelly, Slim Thug, Young Jeezy, Bun B, Trina, David Banner, Jacki-O and I can’t even remember what all else, this was his year even if he’s not a sonic adventurist on par with the other great producers of the millennium but this is his year because he made more good minutes of music listening than anyone else but also because he is better at narrating both cultural history and daily life through dance beats than anyone since Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards which is to say Jazze Pha makes the most embodied music of this particular time and place..."

This is an excerpt and I don't want to misquote, misinterpret, misappropriate or misognynize (yuk-yuk) in any way, so I urge you to read the above linked post in its entirety, despite the fact that it's nine months old and is a flittery attempt at run-on as poetics w/r/t the possibly now-defunct Pazz n Jop poll. I admire the verve in Jane Dark's voice. But verve and taste are naturally about as alike as fishscale and Fishbone. Which is to say, shut the fuck up. I, like most every person I know that dwells on R&B and hip-hop, loathe Phalon Alexander. His drops, ("Ladies and gentlemen...") are the beckoning of Satan's army, one-two-stepping to demonstrative foolishness, but they're just a drop in the bucket of bile I have for his music and have always been bemused if beguiled by any sort of critical appreciation for the man. And yet, if I so choose, I can avoid him at all costs. No Ciara, No LeToya, and so on. A pass was granted to Tip, in accordance with the Atlanta code. Though it is worth mentioning that "Let's Get Away" and "Get Loose" are among the absolute worst things that Mr. Harris has ever been a part of and the lack of Pha-talism on KING, was a grand gesture toward establishing his once-unclaimable-though-now-so-very-necessary title: Purple-people-eater. But. But. But...

But...

But. But Mr. Phizzle, now you've gone too far. In the metaphorical sense, for certain, but also, in your travels to Memphis, Tennekey, where the Buck-aloes roam, you've come too far and you've poisoned all that is sacred. When things don't go as we hope they will (Lebanon, David Mark Carr, the weather, romantic endeavors, cooking, Little Miss Sunshine) there has always been Young Buck, not just a guiding light, groggy in sentiment but vociferous enough to raise spirits. Jazze Pha, with those very same sine lines, those very very same bass notes, those very same "WHOOOOO-EEEEE!"s he built a deacade's fuckery on, invades an inner sanctum and thus begins the descent of a decent, and we mean decent in the highest regard, as in "You're a decent kind of man" the sort of thing Belles say to otherwise scurrilous cowpoke, man. For the first time, I'm concerned about the decency of Buck the World. It is with great sincerity, we deliver to Pha and loyal subjects, Pha-lites: Buck you. Stay away from our man.

What You Call Me For?

2006-07-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

Fam-lay [ft. Pharrell]: Beeper
Internet

As I come to terms with why I'm eh on "Skrunt Owt" but ~~~~~~~!!!! on "Beeper" (that is me popping serious boner james), I can't help but think of 50 Cent's "Just A Touch": "Nas fall in love with hoes / me I just like 'em." Great beat on "SO" obvi, and I dig Wang's "sound of a slo-mo driveby" read even though it's much more likely the sound of, ahem, someone skrung owt. But there's something too personal/Requiem For A Dream about the hook that weirds me out: Your bitch keep calling. Fam-lay's all about them digits. I dunno, why did drug dealers decide to start being everybody's good friends? Why do drug dealers constantly feel the need to act like they're doing everybody favors, loving the block, and so on? I know a drug dealer around East Village who will purposefully leave shit at your house so she has to come back and get it, and hang out, and get to know you, and suddenly you're having dinner with her and getting your drink on because you sense she just wants to feel better about herself. Who's the samaritan?

Anyway, as above, I just like hoes. The beeper is a return to the impersonality, which is good cuz in my mind, ha, coke rap's gotten a little too friendly. I want to feel like I'm out of the loop and don't know what the fuck's going on--too much to ask? To wit: I honestly haven't seen a beeper in ten years, when my Uncle Michael used to call his own beeper just to make other members of my family jealous. Dude would actually ditch the conversation, use my house phone, then run back in time for his beeper to go off. Just sayin, nobody knew what the fuck was going on, and hip-hop was better for it.

Now we live in a post-Mike Jones world. Who? Every clown in rap has her face on 4th Street wheat posters, all "my number is so private it's public," which makes no sense and I think that's great. Fam-lay's flow feels dated like his technology, which is brilliant, and despite all the hi-techery (the instant messenger sounds Pharrell's worked in there, the hilarious warning sound a Mac makes when you do something stupid like click the screen in a spot you shouldn't, the Windows "we just finished installing something, time to reboot" noise), he's still stuck on the basics: "Niggas come quick like an email." They just come quick--probably because they're all text, no attachments or anything. Imagine if niggas came slow like an email with attachments. I bet that'd be pretty fucking annoying.

Mr. Just Heard The Dirty Version

2006-07-09T20:16:00.000-04:00

Clipse [ft. Pharrell Williams]: Mr. Me Too
He Doesn't Hear A Single

My dirty version secret, I just heard the non-Fader'd, non-semiclean version of "Mr. Me Too," like an hour ago. The song's up there topten 2k6 for me, yet I still hadn't heard Pharrell say "niggas" or Pusha or Malice say "fuck." Pretty embarrassing. It's like eating a piece of swiss cheese without the holes, or drinking wine out of one of those plastic wine glasses that has the stem but not the coaster. It's like two hot guys kissing sans tongue. Yet somehow the way Pusha bites off that "FUCK" on "fuck yall been doin" really gets to me. Huh? Somebody stick a condomless dildo up my butt already.

Don't get me wrong. I've heard plenty of major-label black rappers curse on their records. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've heard rappers say over the years actually. Shit, bitch, gay, AIDS, you name it--I've heard everything (though curiously not "Jesus Bag Cockbag"). And in the case of Pusha, the extra emphasis makes sense at least dramatically--he's genuinely confused about what you all have been doing, so obviously he has to say "fuck." What have you all been doing? He spits a little on the microphone too.

I'm trying to think of other songs where I became really attached to the clean version. Hammer's "Too Legit to Shit"? Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Fuck"? Actually the big one for me was Jay-Z "Can I Get A..."--I seriously had no idea Jay wanted to get a "fuck you." Totally floored me. I thought, maybe, "sand-wich." But "fuck you," no way. When I heard about this, my initial suspicion was that Weird Al had gotten to the track and cursed all over it like he always does. "Fucking Weird Al," I said to myself, pretending I was on broadcast radio. "Good ole Yankodick. He did it again."

Love It

2006-07-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

DJ Whoo Kid: "Change of Heart Skit #1"
DJ Whoo Kid and 50 Cent: Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21)

Like being a douchebag or dickriding in general, image posting is MH heresy. Still:

Apparently I'm supposed to look at this and say, "Oh shit! Game in leopard undies! What a fag bag! What a bag of dicks that guy is!" Read Mix Unit, it's all there. Clinton Sparks really wants us to know this is some funny shit so he just comes out and says it--funnier than W*ll White Chocolate D*kes writing about some buttery silk morning dew r&b chartreuse myspace chick he found facefucking her computer microphone.

The rest of the tape 50 Cent lays into a bunch of clowns but mostly the 'Cane. From what I can tell, this is why he thinks Game is a douchebag: Game was once on a pretty awesome, always hilarious TV dating show called Change of Heart, a show that every guy has definitely tried to get on because "I know exactly what I'd do if I were on that show, they wouldn't be able to say shit about me, I would bag every girl five times, there would be a Blind Date episode about me being on Change of Heart," etc.; Game has a really great body, nice enough that he can wear leopard underwear and look pretty good in them, no homo; on Change of Heart, Game was revealed to be one of those guys who actually treats women well, dotes on them a lot, cares about their feelings maybe a little too much, borders on "smothering"; Game started rapping late in the *cough*, game, and he was shot in a less violent, "it could have been anybody" type situation as opposed to 50 Cent being gunned at for that roffable paper-thin moustache; Game is not a great rapper. That's about it. Funny funny funny.

My question is: Who of us is a great rapper? I've definitely tried a few times and could probably get better with more practice, but that doesn't mean I'm great. Also, so what if Game was really nice to women? I mean, he learned soon enough that you're not supposed to hold the door for them, or leave notes in the morning because then they always expect you'll leave notes and then one morning you wake up and you're just like the last boring boyfriend she had, or say "thank you" after sticking your penis into her vagina. Surely he learned soon enough. Buttholes are a different story.

This is the beef that keeps on beefing, you know. I'm thinking a lot about that image in my science book from grade school, the one with the piece of steak left out on the table, fastforward six hours, the steak has generated thousands of angry flies. Just saying, G-Unit needs to step up its Frigidaire game.

It's Not Domino's, It's DiGiorno's

2006-07-07T15:49:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne: Walk It Off
Dedication 2
Gillie Da Kid: Friend of Mine
Internet

This isn't some typical cars-on-strings, SEPTA-ass bullshit. We know Gillie "bully from the 'burbs" Gill is doing his damnedest to turn Wayne into an illiterate check-writing fool, but now he's talking more-than-friends re: Weeze and his baby daddy, motherfucking Baby. At first, I scoffed--has Da Kid not heard of the blooming "Kerouac" movement? Then I thought for a month and realized his seemingly callous claim is the most on-target thing Gillbo has uttered since he compared himself to Tim Meadows.

Consider this dedication: "I ain't tryin' to fall in love/ I ain' t tryin' to get engaged/ You can meet me at the alter when a nigga really dead/ Everytime I'm tryin' to leave, she beggin' me to say/ And I politely fade away like my name was Em-Jay." Pretty gay. And the whole Wayne/Baby relationship has always been perplexing, kinda like David Copperfield and his dad. While many a Millionaire cried foul, Wayne continued to rep the franchise like Ross reps wraparounds; Ross loves wrappers, Wayne loves grown men named after generic infants. Of course, this revelation only widens Mr. Carter's "greatest alive" lead as double entendres go triple en route to civil rights heroism. So, Gillie, thanks for that.

I Need Some Mo' Ross: A Tribute

2006-07-06T01:42:00.000-04:00

Rick Ross [feat. Dre]: Blow
Southern Smoke #27: Disturbin' Tha Muthafu**in' Peace

"Ever seen a fat boy in a big body?"

Noted linguist Kelis once said, "I woulda never talked to you if I'da known you was a popular thug." Such is the tale of Ross & Haze. Two men (maybe) caught in a vacuum, bound by obvious appeal, repulsed by the game. Tumbling around in the void waiting for something to happen, anything really, that might eject us from this desolation, this desperation, this desecration. I admit right now, right here and forever: I was wrong about Ross. I will not apologize, for I am a person of resolve, just as I am a person with designs on humility, even if it eludes me most of the time. I realize, now, when faced with "Blow" that I do not just admire Ross. I do not just tout Ross. The truth is, I am Ross. Shimmering in a red jumpsuit, red flags flying in my face, signalling dominance of the real Miami. The MI-Yayo. I fuck with my shoes on. I hustle. Everyday. I flip that. I am that.

This is no chain-tug or life-pose. I'm as serious as a heart attack (please no "Rick Ross is having a heart attack right now" jokes. Thank you.) Somewhere, I could prattle on about strident production and glistening keyboards and falsetto hooks. The Mix Hut is not that place. The Mix Hut is salvation -- shelter from the storm of Baltimore house posters. When I first decreed Ross the doer of all I expected and loathed, the scourge of scourge-declarers, the Osama to my Gillette Mach III razor, the Ernie to my Bert, the distribution to my At-lantic, the Rocksteady to my Bebop, and clearly, the Lennie Small to my George Milton, I thought our relationship was doomed. I said, "Hey, you're just like Young Jeezy, except you're a piece of meerkat shit." I meant it. Resistance wasn't futile, but it wasn't a piece of rumcake either. Submission is a tough thing for Haze, ask Swagger or Curious. I'm really into distribution just as, like, a hobby. But now I see: There is only Ross.

A BRIEF ASIDE ABOUT THIS EXISTENCE: Mortal coils are still coils aren't they? Like slinkys but with guts? I love guts.

I Got a Honeybun

2006-07-02T01:34:00.000-04:00

S. Dot: Skit #1 (Diff'rent Coke)
The Def Jam Mixtape: Hustlin'
S. Dot: Skit #2 (Where Everybody Sells Cocaine)
The Def Jam Mixtape: Hustlin'

Lotta speculation 'bout the way I be leanin', bout the balls that I'm bouncin', 'bout the menus I be perusin'. Too much coke this. Too much sanctity that. Too much romanticism this. Too much rogue-championing that. My question: If Splash and Lenny S. say it's OK to pop shit and then follow up this stuff with Rick-Ay RAW-SS rapping horribly over "Poppin' My Collar," ("Gimme dem tonsils!" -- he's finding new ways to make you vomit every single bar) then I'm fairly certain we can all weather this game's vagaries. I'm glad that everyone is watching Gary Coleman re-reuns in the back room while Mom cooks Mac&Cheese cuz she had a hard day at work. Me? I'll be rewriting blisstory.

Listen to the last 6 seconds of Skit #2 and tell me I'm an asshole. These guys can fuckin' sing!

They Knows It Well

2006-06-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

Korpiklaani: Old Tale [Link TK]
Korpiklaani: Voice of Wilderness
Rick Ross, Biggie, and Clipse: Just A Memory (MB Mix)
Mick Boogie + Rick Ross: Rick The Ruler (The Port of Miami Prequel)

“Old tale about the girl/And the poor farmer boy/Their time together flamed/It couldn't last forever/They knows it well.”

It's basically currently too hot in the Mix Hott here to go over to the other side of the room, so, Korpiklaani – which I'm sure is on probably nine or ten Finnish polkatapes anyway.

Wherein: Chief lyricist, and presumed farmer, Jonne, does this girl every which way – "they took from the moment, everything" – makes her squirt, whatever. Problem: Father would like a different dude instead, someone richer – "he is to you the man best" – and, upon realizing that farmer Jonne hasn’t been practicing even rudimentary birth control – because he was so excited by the gushing torrent, potentially – kills his own daughter, cause there's now one on the way. "The boy heard, that girl got hung," and executes dad.

Now. With the exception of the somewhat Stosuy pan flute and what looks to be one of those thumb pianos – possibly also played by Stosuy – this is a pretty good story, and check that fucking violin solo just before the vox come in. My question: Why isn’t this a rap song? And, similarly, when’s the last time David Lee Roth rapped about killing someone? Or even shooting his groupies in the vagina with guns, or doing so much coke that he can’t feel the 1/100th of his face that botox didn’t already immobilize? David Lee Roth has definitely killed people.

Brings us to the man who was almost certainly handling Biggie’s verses from behind a curtain over at the Reasonable Doubt show last Sunday – Ricky Ricky Ross – corpse-fucking, yup, Biggie’s corpse. Sixteen or so bars (can’t get far enough through this part to count) and Ricky spits maybe fifteen words for the whole thing – my favorites are the bars he spends catching his breath. And the long seconds between words where he figures out what to rhyme with Cali – Cali – and bitch – bitch – and me – me – and hood, with hood. Block nigga? Block nigga. But. Maybe just that Bad Boy production, but the whole “do you know where you’re going?” and “you’re nobody till somebody kills you” seems to be headed straight for that mythical territory Korpiklaani was staking out way two paragraphs back. Not that this, at this point, has anything to do with the Rick The Ruler tape (more corpse-fucking right there, by the way. Nobody is mad about this?). Um, tell better stories, or whatever. Or if you’re Mr. Ross, better sentences will do fine.

SPECIAL EDITION: Then They Lie!

2006-06-25T03:40:00.000-04:00

Big Jaz [feat. Jay-Z]: Hawaiian Sophie

deadprezident: So, best jazz show ever?
RBHaze: only as good as the last Lizette Meechelle show
deadprezident: as i said, i guess the bitch from Floetry was busy
RBHaze: not too busy to shit all over a Busta Rhymes record, but it's good to know there are marginally talented bitches still biting Mary.
deadprezident: word to Kendu
RBHaze: anyway...
RBHaze: there's got to be a cold dark place in jay's heart when he realizes he knows all the words to "hola hovito" and NOT "22 twos"
deadprezident: it's filled with b's jelly, which is nice, because it's voluminous but not dense, meaning it's lightweight
deadprezident: if you a ho, i'ma call you a ho, too many bitches are shady
RBHaze: i might wanna talk about their sham common marriage, but the show was obviously about rekindling old loves: memph bleezy, bad suit jackets, and light jazz
RBHaze: and new loves: DIPSET T-SHIRTS
deadprezident: where i'm from, it's pieces of a dream, all day
deadprezident: re: shirt - i know he doesn't have a stylist, but does he have corneas, because that looked like a byrd to me
RBHaze: [BIRDMAN NOISE]
deadprezident: you want beef, we'll start a gulfstream war
deadprezident: maybe it was solidarity with f-a-b-o's byrd-jacking clything lyne lygo
RBHaze: honestly, if i knew god was gonna wear a bedazzled t-shirt to his first show in 6 months, i'da brought my lite-brite and matched up with him
RBHaze: then we could EZ-Bake some raw
deadprezident: and then pharrell could break out the fisher-price and make some New Maximalism
RBHaze: RAW-SS! RAW-SS! RAW-SS!
deadprezident: i mean, New Marximalism
RBHaze: Maximalism is the new Marximalism

Rick Ross [feat. Young Jeezy & Jay-Z]: Hustlin' (Remix)

deadprezident: the only thing missing from the night, really, was ross - he's better than a roc chain, or those roc af1s or bleek
deadprezident: he is a status symbol
deadprezident: of someone else's status
RBHaze: yeah, young jeezy
RBHaze: you think jay makes ross fetch him lemonade and orange drink and shit around the office?
deadprezident: Le vrai Big Meech
RBHaze: too much south coast dick lickin doin your best rick ross rendition
deadprezident: i think that warholian ross image that's on all his promo used to be of jay and he got shook and shelved, then had art dept add a beard to save on budget
RBHaze: at least he's not tilting his head, right?
deadprezident: what you know about that?
RBHaze: "ki by the 3 when i chirp gabe chirp back"
deadprezident: not really
RBHaze: that's why our people don't have anything
deadprezident: RIP
RBHaze: f'real

Lenny Kravitz [feat. Jay-Z]: Storm (Just Blaze Remix)

deadprezident: speaking of death, how about the opening DJ? Breaks 101
RBHaze:w as just gonna mention that
deadprezident: which UBB vol was he spinning from?
RBHaze: vol. 17: where the answers are the ?uestions
deadprezident: do you think that was Just the whole time?
deadprezident: BREAKING NEWS: Biggie to sample Isley Brothers
RBHaze: yeah, he's the kind of joker that thinks people are impressed by cut-up Tom Scott jams
RBHaze: still...he loves Lenny Kravitz
deadprezident: surprised he wasn't there tonight
deadprezident: also surprised nas was on the balcony and not on stage
deadprezident: also surprised to see nas wearing a tee that said 'i made it a hot line'
RBHaze: i wasnt, in fact, if he does the hook tomorrow without spitting a verse, he's reached official whipping boy status
deadprezident: and cleaning up post-show
RBHaze: best performance of the night: Pain in da Ass!
deadprezident: always available!
deadprezident: perfect sense of his own essential unimportance
RBHaze: what do you think he does for a living? deli counter? dog catcher?
deadprezident: not even a WC
deadprezident: he also hasnt aged
RBHaze: he's an android
RBHaze: DIGAME!

Original Flavor [feat. Jay-Z]: Can I Get Open

deadprezident: in what order do you think jay placed phone calls for guest appearances?
RBHaze: 1. FLOETRY
2. SAUCE MONEY (Less fat version)
3. NAS
4. SAUCE MONEY (Fat Version)
17. MEMPHIS BLEEK
deadprezident: did his t-shirt have shiny things on it too?
RBHaze: 5. CUTE VIOLINIST THAT KEPT THROWING DIAMONDS UP
deadprezident: ma, CALL ME
deadprezident: wo ai ni
RBHaze: 6. JAZ-O
7. THE ROOTS
8. EVEN CUTER CONDUCTOR CHICK THAT JAY IS FUCKING RIGHT NOW
deadprezident: do you think all those girls also tried out for B's all-girl touring band?
RBHaze: i know Bleek did
deadprezident: ouch
RBHaze: zing
deadprezident: when bleek is an old boy, what do you think he will tell his children was the highlight of his career?
RBHaze: somewhere between "Porsche on my wall" and "that time melyssa ford's friend sucked my dick in the whip"
deadprezident: you are wrong
deadprezident: the correct answer is: "remembering the words that jay-z forgot on 5 songs during his RD concert"
RBHaze: what a hypeman!
RBHaze: so, did he actually perform it back-to-front?
deadprezident: hmmm
RBHaze: he did
deadprezident: some kind of undoing the past thing? like on Lost?

Mic Geronimo [feat. Jay-Z, DMX & Ja Rule]: Time to Build

RBHaze: i would say, on the serious tip, it's not an album that i need to hear back to front in that order. it's not a narrative
deadprezident: well, on record, it slows considerably over the length of the record
deadprezident: maybe he was trying to _build_ to something
deadprezident: albeit "can't knock the hustle (marcus miller remix)"
RBHaze: it would have been hotter if he just did "time to build"
RBHaze: hell, we got to hear ja rule before the show started
RBHaze: i'm sure mic geronimo was eating out of the same garbage can that sauce money was
deadprezident: i know dame couldnt be there tonight, but you'd think jay would have brought irv out for a bear hug, just because
RBHaze: for that matter where the fuck were clark kent, premier and ski?
deadprezident: they were working security
RBHaze: jay's relationship with producers is sort of terrifying
RBHaze: that's a far more worrisome pimps-hos dynamic there than any misogynst shit he could get on
deadprezident: but he is the only dude who upends the whole producer-rules-the-roost dynamic of the last 10 years or so
RBHaze: he is, but only because he can get OVER with Bink or Trackmasters or whoever
deadprezident: without them realizing they're being had
RBHaze: poor Bink
RBHaze: :-(
deadprezident: it's like getting fucked by a hot chick, and you think you really put it down, but you realize it wasn't even about you so much as it was about your ability to not realize it wasn't about you
RBHaze: i would say, that doesn't happen with JUST hot chicks
deadprezident: of course, to the next chick, you still fucked a hot chick and get those points, but in your heart, you know it's not the same
RBHaze: if you have that kind of heart
deadprezident: i dunno - i only fuck hot chicks
RBHaze: jay doesn't, he's cold like December...look at him still sleeping
RBHaze: that was a problem tonight: he's not mean anymore
deadprezident: but he's got a honeybun!
deadprezident: don't become the 100th one!
deadprezident: but he hasnt been mean in years, and usually it doesn't bother me
deadprezident: (except 'change clothes')
RBHaze: that was kind of sad, at least he didnt play that during Overtime
deadprezident: but he's writing his own arcs now before he lives them
deadprezident: (FREE THE BLACK BOOK)
RBHaze: not holding my breath

Jay-Z: Super Ugly

RBHaze: you know what else was kind of depressing -- the lack of Dame Dash skits preceding "Friend or Foe" or "Bring It On"
RBHaze: like, those are part of the song. sorry, they are.
deadprezident: just think if they'd kissed and made up - sizzla would have jumped out after each song and screamed "you're the ultimate huss-a-la!"
deadprezident: i like that even after all the hamptons, all the cristal, all the bentleys, he still can't dress, and he still has weird posture. very honest.
RBHaze: please, he has no idea his posture sucks. you think B tells him to sit up when they have dinner w/Daddy at the mansion in Houston?
deadprezident: he knows his posture sucks because no one else in sagaponack stands like he does
deadprezident: plus, his chancletas don't provide enough support
RBHaze: when the world implodes all we'll be left with is cranky rap critics and the remains of M1's wack-ass hypocritical dookie chain
deadprezident: i think it was maybe silver, not gold, which is good, because silver is mined by brown people, not black people
deadprezident: (maybe)
RBHaze: i dunno, we might want to ask gen. pop. lupe fiasco about that
deadprezident: you just blew up our spot!
RBHaze: never that
deadprezident: for a repeat of tonight's action, holler at my boy: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/tix/175142525.html
deadprezident: (or step up your color copy game)
RBHaze: i'll just ask mike shinoda where i can get tickets

The Best You Can Is Good Enough

2006-06-20T16:58:00.000-04:00

Uncle Murder [feat. Haze]: I Really Mean It
Uncle Murder: Got Yaself a Gun
Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn

"I don't care if you get kilt in front of your wife and kids/That's the game, that's the life we live/If you a rat I hope you get kilt in front of your wife and kids."

--Uncle Murder, 2006

It's not cool when MCs take the beat from a song and don't rename it. Like, OK, the Diplomats really meant it. They really really meant it. So, like, how much could Uncle Murder mean it. He could get mean, maybe. Actually that's probably what he means (See what I did there). Like he could really mean out on the track, get mad and do some wild shit like shoot up a Gristedes or something. Maybe Trader's Joe, if y'all nahmean. I mean this is some New York Shit we're talking about -- where my 14th St. David Wright Pink Polo-lookalikes at? Tryna holler at those dimes we always see traipsing around the NYU building. I see you ladies! You lookin' kinda good! I might gotta take my shirt off!

Point being, why couldn't Uncle Murder just rename this song "I Really Peed On It."

No, there's something more troubling about Murder, aside from the inability to be interesting and rap well. This person is the truest post-50 fuckhead I've ever heard. Dudes who call themselves Uncle Murder and openly diss Nas on their second mixtape ever WILL NEVER BE THE CEO OF THEIR OWN COMPANY OR ANY OTHER FOR THAT MATTER. Sell high Murder, sell high. That's the motto, otherwise play lotto.

I Got That Condoleezza

2006-06-17T13:27:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne [ft. Juelz Santana]: "I Can't Feel My Face" (a/k/a "No Other")
DJ Drama and Lil Wayne: Dedication 2

My guess is the line comes from Blow, the Depp flick about George Jung, coke's Christopher Columbus. In the movie Bobcat Goldthwait, the guy who has the really fucked-up voice and does really stupid shit in the Police Academy movies, all of which involve him talking, says: "I can't feel my face. I mean, I can touch it, but I can't feel it inside." It's one of those blank, funny but deep sorta moments directors really like to play up, like maybe just maybe it'll make IMDB's memorable quotes section or something.

Me, I'm taken at how scientific rappers are getting about the trade. Here I am thinking "goddamn, they make crack in a kitchen? Pyrex? I really do have the inside scoop here" to wondering whether Jeezy meant "so much white it'll hurt your eyes" in the funny-but-deep historical coke-as-anaesthetic sense to knowing for pretty fucking sure that Juelz Santana probably knows the Latin names for all primary facial nerves. Science is straight, not metaphorical. Funny that the coke rap trade might subsume backpacker's ace up the sleeve: science-dropping.

Granted there's a bit of a scramble here--while snow statistics lose their purchase power, these guys prove their authority with chemical reactions and historicity. Less of a game with key players, more a matter of fact, which is this moral black hole I'm still not sure I'm willing to accept, especially when it's shoehorned into this rap vs. Bush Katrina shitstorm as active protest.

But who am I to judge. Wayne and Juelz haven't googled "basic laws of physics" yet: To touch is to be touched. As for metaphysics? It's not that you can't have it both ways--just that you must.

Tint My Wins

2006-06-12T17:47:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne [ft. Pharrell]: "Gettin' Some Head"
Lil Wayne & DJ Drama: Dedication 2

This is like a throwback track in mixhut time but bear with me. I put Dedication 2 on at work and this kid who works mornings with me--who only likes "hip-hop with messages, you know, Mos Kweli, The Common, Jurassic Park, stuff like that"--totally flipped out. I was able to finesse the druggier and more violent raps with the usual/boring skill-exonerates-content stuff, sublimation of the ugly, but when this gem came on he refused to budge.

There are plenty of great punchlines, and apparently more ways to say "blowjob" than I thought there was: "She gets straight to that head like a fucking Excedrin" comes with extra applause for "fucking," since it's not just an expletive, it's a participle. So there's humor, and self-deprecation ("we climbing all over that little chair thang"), and balls-out slapstick (on the chorus, "superhead--what's good?"), but none of the sublimation, none of the crack game=rap game parallels, no "killing emcees" made literal.

If you push more product or shoot more bullets than another guy, it makes sense that you'd be a better rapper than him. But what if you only got more blowjobs? It's a little trickier isn't it. What if they were really bad blowjobs? What if your boy had fifteen blowjobs but you only had one, and it was one of those really patient, pleasey-teasy kinds that doesn't go anywhere, more about the journey than the destination, a/k/a "the Kerouac"? It's a shame these blowjobs don't get more press. Either way, I think there's a lesson in there for rappers. Blowjobs need quantification and qualification. My coworkers are counting on you. Is that too hard?

Alternate name for the Kerouac: the droog.

STREETBALLERS

2006-06-12T16:42:00.000-04:00

The Clipse [ft. DMP]: "VA Streetz"
DJ Green Lantern Presents AND1 Streetball: The Official Video Game Mixtape

Hey mixfuckers. Haven't been a video game guy maybe ever, definitely since 94 95 or so when my neighborhood had its bout with Final Fantasy and decided to make me their DIME--designated instruction manual expert. I had a fling with Tony Hawk Pro Skater, whatever edition of the game had Styles of Beyond and Pennywise and, I think (hope?) "Jerry Was a Racecar Driver." Even that ended quickly though when I realized doing benihanas in space (dressed as Spiderman) wasn't nearly as awesome as doing triple ollies on my curb outside my house and not wearing a helmet. I didn't have a curb outside my house, and I don't even know where to begin with this triple ollie business, so you know where I'm going with this:

I fall for this shit nearly every time.

The Lantern tape here looked like bad news from afar. It's promo material, better for Lantern than us, better for the game than the music. Still there was this Clipse track on it and I wanted to see what they could pull off, all pressures and parameters considered. This is a post-Catchdubs world we're living in here. Who knows who got the remix anymore. Nobody just has it.

My guess/hope is Clipse and all the other jokers on here (including Bun B; not including, amazingly, Uncle Rape) picked up long paper, otherwise I can't imagine anybody dealing (ahem) with such ostensible top-down content control. Everything on this fucking mixtape has to do about playing the game of basketball on the streets, a/k/a streetball. There's some room for casual metaphor, streetball=coke game, and the chorus has a line about how "you gotta put your gameface on," which is something I'm sure rappers have to remind themselves to do from time to time. And it's pretty awesome that somebody at AND1 figures that people who are playing a game about basketball want to listen to music that's about playing a game about basketball. I mean that's just hilarious.

But except for that guy, this track does nobody good. Not particularly great rapping, so outsiders won't give a shit when the full-lengths hit late 06. And obviously I feel clowned too, the nervous fan who anxiously waits for Google News reports on The Clipse and buys all the DJ E.Nyce mixtapes that have Clipse on them even though I know E.Nyce just ripped off the WGI4Cv.2 tracks and gave them new titles to trick me.

So who's this mixtape for then? Are we getting into the culture of mixtapes being a thing people mildly interested in rap are buying? Is it more than an ear to the streets thing, more a hot look? What will these people do when they finally hear The Hood News Volume 2?

Now How Could We Not Do This One

2006-06-02T14:34:00.000-04:00

Clipse [ft. Ab-Liva & Sandman]: Re-Up Anthem (Nick Catchdubs Remix)
Clipse [ft. Ab-Liva & Sandman]: Re-Up Gang Freestyle
DJ Benzi & Evil Empire Present: We Got The Remix

It's never been about the Remix. While Huttistes are, on the whole, glad that at least some people out there are in possession of the Remix, caressing it, protecting it from doers of evil and fucking Mayor Goonberg's greazy paws, I'd rather they just keep the Remix to themselves. "Wrong hands" and all, sure. But c'mon: "Cocaine" ??? I don't even know how to eat cocaine, but I think blending Clipse w/any Bing Crosby Xmas song is still cleverer-by-half, if that's what you're aiming for.

The pleasures of We Got It 4 Cheap were found largely in the jacking -- no, reclamation of dope beats, and the forceful stamp of lyrical ownership placed on said beats by Les Clipse (Could you ever in good conscience listen to Cassidy's "I'm a Hustla" again after hearing the WGI4C version? Could you ever listen to it, period?). Pusha and Mal pantsed beats of their mc's (for those who like other metaphors, think 'emperor' and 'clothes' and I'll even give you an action verb: "reveal") then redressed them all sweet 'n' shit and smelling like Gisele having sex with diamonds. Which smells incredible. Regardless, it felt like something essential to the beat was released with the right rhyme written (and right sayers writing) to it (read: that sneaking suspicion you had that Jeezy would murdergasm "Hustlin"). Alas the inverse is untrue. Same great verses, but the jacked/matched beat gets played for hee-hee laffs and revels in its inessentiality.

What I Don't Get: Aren't these guys DJs? Don't they listen to music, or even fucking music, in those headphones? I'm assuming they do, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe they're just auditioning potential drops? Or listening to mp3s of Diplo dreaming about baile funk? Perhaps Ghislain Poirier reciting A Season in Hell? Shhh, I would even bump that, just don't fucking lay it over the French-Canadian cover of "Seasons of Love" and expect me to fiend out.

That freestyle is fire, though. For like 6 minutes.

I'm Bigshot Get The Picture

2006-06-01T23:10:00.000-04:00

Max B.: Hustlin Freestyle
Million Dollar Baby

Max Bodacious is the type of guy who would make-out with a gummed-up subway platform--and the platform would get embarrassed. I got a million of 'em. But no time for that, turns out our hero is--yes!--huslin(g)! I know, I know: Why would we need to hear Max Billabong over jerkoff Ricky Ross's undying flint of fortuitous flatulence (five times) when Jay, Jeez and Wayne have all prematurely turned port into vinegar? Well, let's leave it to Riffmarket to fuck his own shit.

When Jim Jones co-signed the lease for Max Blackout's penthouse rap estate last summer, he probably didn't know his protégé would heed the heathens and jump on the Fuck Katrina bandwagon. But this isn't a David Banner Fuck Katrina bandwagon. In fact, Billionaire Boy Max would probably say "fuck you" to David Banner's Fuck Katrina hullabologna. He practically does on this song: "I'm gonna come and getcha/ Send some nigga that'll have you floatin' in New Orleans like Flipper (ow!)" Now, I'll be the first one to admit I'm not positive about those lyrics thanks to Maxy's nicotine-patch-over-the-mouth flow. Pussyfooters may even go as far as to suggest that he actually says "in the water," not "New Orleans." And, technically, Flipper doesn't float, he swims. No matter. What you should really pay attention to is the concluding "ow," which is Dipset speak for re-exploding the levees and pissing into the re-re-pool from a chopper encrusted in rubies while listening to "Hustlin" on a PSP with one earbud. His Bubba Gump stock may slump, but Maximillion B. Pennydick does not care, he's written the most diabolical anti-south retort to come from the East Coast this year.

Baby I'm Coming

2006-05-30T10:32:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne: This Is What I Call her
DJ Drama & Lil Wayne: Dedication 2

Ever get the words vagina and Katrina confused? When Wayne says underwater, do you think he means underwater like mermaids and Spongebob, or mermaids and Superhead? Underwater like his house? Darling, beautiful, miss – could these just be different kinds of bathing suits? Wayne may well be writing letters to Starks, like: Dude, you weren't underwater. You were knee-deep in a vagina! You were sending fucking e-mails out of there!

Is it trauma that even when Wayne hits he’s surrounded by jellyfish and seashells? Did they get that far inland? His college math is a killer either way: Georgia=Bush, bush=Georgia, Georgia=Katrina, Katrina=bush. If he’s always talking about pussy, even when he’s talking about seashells, does that mean he’s always talking about, you know, seashells when he’s talking about…?

You Retire Out When You Die Out

2006-05-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

Uncle Murder: Murdera! (Produced by DJ Green Lantern)
On My New York Shit

So, yeah, uh, dude's name is Uncle Murder. Question: Is this a title? Like when you called that kid "Motherfucker" in 5th grade and he responded by saying, "Heh, yea, I fucked your mother." Oooh, that guy. Does Uncle Murder only murder uncles? Cuz I have this Uncle Juniper in South Carolina he may want to holler at. Does he murder avuncular beats? "Harlem Streets," the "Hill Street Blues" shit from Purple, ahem, Haze is definitely on some sipping-on-a-Molson, laying-in-the-hammock while I'm forced to kick a damn soccer ball around with his lunatic toddler son and pretend he's good at soccer (He isn't.)

Actually, check that. The real question is, when Uncle Murder blows up and signs to Papoose's label or whatever ("Vowel Violence Entertainment Inc.") does he drop the 'Murder' from his name or the 'Uncle'? Middle Amerigo Vespucci obviously can't handle 'Murder' in a guy's name. But are we, as a people, prepared to hail an Uncle? He can never, ever be "the father of yo style." That's automatically a bad look if he's beefing with Maino and Red Cafe and Joell Ortiz in '09 (we'll all be dead by then, nuclear-ized by end-of-tape buster mixtape MCs in a swift, 'Scanners'-style mind-blow. Especially when these guys learn the word 'alliteration.' That's when the Four Horseman of the Rapocalypse -- Kay Slay, Cutmaster C, Ethan Padgett and Bob Christgau -- descend and show us "that New York shit," which is actually just a tote bag full of shit.)

He should just change his name to Uncle Rape.

Snack Bunghole

2006-05-25T12:56:00.000-04:00

Stack Bundles: They Riot
DJ Pudgee P & Stack Bundles: Riot's That Gang

My computer's retarded at the moment, and sendspace never works for me, so I'm not posting the track sorry. But look. Haze, Stack Bundles is your Papoose--this guy's a clown with a choppy breathy flow and no charisma and barely the 8th or 9th best shaved face in rap. And that name, jesus. He is what he does! He does what he is! Just like Papoose.

So here's what I'm thinking. Let's get Stacks a website on the internet. It'll be one of those sitemeter type sites, but exclusively for rap blogs and Brooklyn Vegan, so: Stat Bundles. We can stick a .com on that, a .org, .biz, whatever. I want it to be called Stat Bundles, Stack can figure out the rest. From there we give the rap blog community what they want: hit counts. "How many hits did my rap blog get today?" (I just said this in the voice of David Drake.) "I better check my stat bundles."

On normal sitemeters they have a link you can click on which shows you all of the referring links, the ones driving traffic to your rap blog. This is where StatBundles.tk will beat out the competition. When you click the "came from" link over at Stat Bundles--also, and this is thinking ahead, I would like to get t-shirts made that say "Stat Snitching"--you get a call from the real Stack Bundles on the telephone. He is outside your apartment and it is raining, and he wants to come in. He drinks all your beer, then he tells you: All your hits are from Fluxblog.

Ever Play Tetris?

2006-05-25T12:41:00.000-04:00

Playaz Circle [ft. Ludacris]: Gucci Bag (Sparks Fly Remix)
Southern Conference

Gucci Duffel Bags. Louis Knapsacks. Versace Clutches. Manhattan Portage Messenger Bags. Motherfuck rappers and their multifarious methods of conveyance. I'm with H-to-the-iz-aze: Whither a JanSport, mf's? Besides, we'd be silly to believe You Rappers would allow yourselves to be seen carrying a bag in your hand in public, let alone a bag filled with things (Case in point: Baggage Handlers). We know the deal. Who carries important shit in a bag anymore? Think your local Mixhut wdsmith's bags are filled with mixtapes? Nope. More bags.

Entire songs are now dedicated to the art of freight and, with no abatement in sight, such purse-porn threatens to spin out of control. But we on this. Mix Hottt's spent the past 3 months crouched in a crawl space behind a false wall at Amadou's, eating dumplings and eavesdropping on our mans constant chirps-back to hold you down with this exclusive glimpse at the weeks/months ahead in rap baggery.

Nas, "Bag of Rhymes" - A book of rhymes being inconvenient in the main, Nas raps about his Def Jam fanny pack, where new rhymes are stored and, later, easily accessed. Sample lyric: "Have a peek into my bag of rhymes."

Juelz Santana, "Fun Dip" - The Flesh That Is Crack reveals new Dip Gear for the mid-'06 DipsetMixtapes relaunch. More a satchel really, or one of those bags-on-a-stick bums rocked in cartoons (design still pending), Juelz's Bag'o'Crack would have thousands of little monogrammed dope sacks all over it, in keeping with Juelz's lyrical transparency. Sample lyric: "My dope sack's a dope sack with dope sacks / stitched in black-black / Plus, trust: I fuck lots of sex."

Lil Wayne ft. Curren$y, "Paper Tiger Doll" - Weezy finds way to say something repulsive about B(ring)Y(our)O(wn)B(ag) picnics. Curren$y attempts to rap his way out of Wayne's paper bag with no luck. It's stuffed with "bitches."

Rick Ross, "My Block, My Beard" - Wherein Ross reveals his beard doubles as an ingenious form of barf bag. Sample lyric: "My beard is the real Manuel Noriega [vomiting sounds]."

Papoose, "P-L-A-S-T-I-C Man" - Pap intricately raps about the molecular composition of the plastic bag he's wearing over his head. Suffocates, dies at end of song.

Twinkle Twinkle

2006-05-25T00:27:00.000-04:00

Jim Jones: We Fly High
Summer Was Fun

He did it. He fucking did it. I think Haze owes me a case of Honest Tea. Fact: Blanco doesn’t rap. No game-spitting here. He admits this. He's a businessman (man) and a grimy one at that. Fact: Goon-In-Charge has the second-best adlibs in rap. Really. See the remixed remix take on "Get 'Em Daddy," where he bombs in not with his first line (is there a first line?) but with the "my life's on the line and I'm going out shooting!" Goonies shout. Catchdubs brought that exact part back four or five times so it must be pretty fucking hectic. Sticking with "Daddy," fast-forward to the outro, with more of the best "I'm building the building" sonic tic in hip-hop: Dude's unstoppable "huh" hiccup. Is he nervous? Is it a mini-laugh? At himself? At Mix Hott[t]? Probably.

Getting his bird on while saying "wha?" to rap while embracing his call-back calling. Finally. Morons will deem it an unmixed pre-release rip but those in the know smile as the verses sneak by nearly inaudible. "What did that guy say?" says Rick Ross, genuinely puzzled. Then, the reactionary libs arrive--and get very loud: "You know last summer, that summer sure was fun (BALLERS!)" or "Remember when Cam fucks up and likens weed to a 'Hyundai' instead of a 'Honda' in Killa Season (MONEY AIN'T A THING!)." It's like a revolution in a bottle. Or a quarter water. It's like a backwashed quarter water barrel that tastes way better the second time around.

Mr. Amoco Got The Pumps

2006-05-23T09:18:00.000-04:00

Young Joc And The Boy Short: I'm So Fly
DJ Drama - Welcome To My Block

I'm gonna make this real simple. Just so you don't have to think anymore.

Joc the Ripper. Joc Frost. Joc Jams. You Don't Know Joc. Joc Strap. Joc In The Box. Joc Nicholson. Cracker Jocs. Joc KeroJoc. Joc O'Lantern. Joc Russell Terrier. Kangaroo Joc. Joc and The Beanstalk. Joc Itch. Joc Abramhoff. Joc London. Joc Spade. Samurai Joc. Joc Benny. Joc and Jill. LumberJoc. Jumpin' Joc Flash. Joc Spratt. BlackJoc. Unforgiveable Jocness: The Rise and Fall of Joc Johnson. Old Joc.

Mix it up. Go crazy.

FIN

Side note: Artist and song title actually culled from Roald Dahl's collection Danny The Champion Of The World.

Sprinkle Holy Water On Me

2006-05-22T22:44:00.000-04:00

Busta Rhymes & Nas: Rough Around The Edges
DJ Green Lantern & DJ Kay Slay: On My New York Shit

The image of Busta, penitent and kneeling at the alter of the "New York City" cathedral, perhaps inserting his dreads in the collection plate and doing push-ups in the aisle, is too ridiculous for words. Not that I don't believe that Bussa Bus carries a few regrets. But then when you thought the scene couldn't be more deliberately reverent (I love the marketing of contrition. Let's be honest. Izzy's death is the best thing that could've happened to The Big Bang. How else would B. get to appear on the cover of VIBE last month, duct-taped and exclaiming(?) like he was on the movie poster for House Guest: The Return? ) and then this happens.

Get me. The broken glass drop couldn't have been better timed. Busta literally shatters the stained glass at St. Paul's upon his entrance. Bussa is actually inside the Kool-Aid man and they're breaking through the glass together and he's wringing out his beater into glasses and handing the glasses to the parishioners. I don't know where you do Lent, R.B. Haze, but admit you'd shine your saddle shoes for Sunday Service if you could share a kneeler with Bussa, dripping wet and filmy from 30 minutes inside Mr. Oh Yeah.

I hope they make a video of this with ghosts of Charlie Brown and Dinco D indian leg wrestling in the vestry . Also I think Hi-Tek hired actual ghouls for backup vox. Ghosts man. They're everywhere.

Side note: "Laying down with chicks with no feeling/I sleep with dead," he says. Bussa's tacit admission of necrophilia or a mild affinity for women with Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis? Someone's been watching too much House.

The Definition of New York

2006-05-21T18:38:00.000-04:00

Busta Rhymes: Definition of New York Interlude
DJ Green Lantern and DJ Kay Slay: On My New York Shit

Ya know what the fuck it is: New York shit. Now as we continue on, for all parties involved, whether you're from New York or you're from outside of New York, let me give you this definition of what New York means. The word "New"... "New" is an adjective. The word "New"... It means, having no previous example, no precedent or parallel. It also means of a kind never seen before. Bottom line is, "New" means: We are the motherfuckers that set shit off. When it was never set off ever anywhere else, we set shit off. Now. The word "York"... "York" is a noun. Them English motherfuckers created the word "York." Niggas from England, and shit. They gave it a definition that means, an English royal house. When you put the shit together, it says: "New York."

For $4500 I Will John Doe You

2006-05-19T02:28:00.000-04:00

Cam'ron: Leave You Alone
Killa Season

Totally wanted to tackle "Get Ya Gun," which may be the best damn thing on this farce. Too bad K. Sanneh pulled the shottie and spent slugs on it. All that stuff about drinking a can of pee and calling it pineapple soda, man he's still a freak wit it. Plus the ad-lib/overdubs on the chorus couldn't be more ghetto. Sounds like some basement shit, despite the churlish, "ethereal" production aesthetic. But the Gray Lady smashed that, so let's keep it movin'.

"Leave You Alone" is on the chipmunk game, sure. And that's tired ....... [......................] ......................... [......................] ............................. [..............] ................... you know what, fuck this 30 minute game. This is tired. I'm not sitting in this booth to let people know that we will spill out some wack invective on why this isn't or isn't worth it. It's designed for reaction. Why take the bait? Now is as good an opportunity to subvert the expectations as any. Wanna watch a Dipset backlash? Keep talking about it, that's secondary to what a real fan has in mind. When I copped Killa Season in a Best Buy ($14.99 Deluxe) six different folks picked up a copy, stared at the song titles, snickered, got happy and picked it up along with their new Tool and Rascal Fatts or whatever. Yell at some chump that's got nothing invested in an art form other than an opportunity to potshot a critic. And now, onto potshots!

Go listen to "Get Ya Gun." Matthew Perpetua has trenchant verisimilitude on "I.B.S." - that ole paragon of paradigm shift just odd enough to make whitey feel better about liking the guy that would punch you with his cock if he could. Celebrities - they're just like us! They shit! They feel! They bleed! They feel shit! They bleed shit! Not a metaphor. Respect due to the world's greatest rap critic. He knows things about rap things and other things that are rappy. Real talk.

Other safe mark ass white busters. If only people knew how to like stuff that they're supposed to like, then I can tell them why they can't like it and why they're racists. That's why I write for the streets and Baltimore house posters.

I will shoot at you if you squint at my diamond mind. You should run. I ain't scurred of you. I'm scared of me.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MIX HUT

2006-05-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

Ned Raggett: "Who the Hell Am I, Anyway?"

In What?

2006-05-17T23:52:00.000-04:00

Cam'Ron [ft. Hell Rell]: "Something New"
Killa Season

Potshotting on Hell Rell is like shitting into a blind man's mouth and calling it a cataracts. Thing is dude leaves himself so open anymore I don't know whether I'm reaching grade-a asshole status with this post or just playing into what Rell really wanted all along--for someone to call him the Dipset Morgan Freeman. So there you have it. Penguins, prisons and 18 copies of Hellraiser, none of which I had to pay for.

But guess the "hell" what? Someone besides Jack loves Rell's swag. He took some time out his busy Hell on Earth CD duplication schedule to replace Jaheim here, probably last minute and I respect that. What's more probable, Jaheim bailed on Cam after the scene in Killa Season when the two degos go Rambo on that guy's dick, a/k/a the "touch it or not." These are tough times, so you can understand why Rell, a friend to the max, agreed.

Kowtow--it's Rutherford's favorite word to mispronounce, but for word or action Hell Rell doesn't have the patience. He's going to disobey Cam'Ron, even if neither of them realizes it. So this is what we know about the "she" of "Something New":

"she fly
she cute
she ride
(in what?)
in coupes
(oh)"

I like to pretend Hell Rell is the interlocutor there--like he's really curious and then is so amped he found out the answer. He isn't, but he's in the studio for sure:

"Hell Rell and a model sitting in a GT
K-I-S-S-I-N-G"

Is it possible Rell's already forgotten what "she" ride in? His GT could be anything: Bentley GT, Mustang GT, GT3 that racing video game, Escort GT, GT the BMX bike, and I feel like there's a booth at Pizzeria Uno called "the GT" that's basically just the bike rack back in the kitchen where all the Mexicans keep their stunt bikes. I'm talking specifically the Third Avenue location, so the joke's on Cam. Hell Rell could be back there right now, and you just know his face is covered in cobb salad.

I Heard He Kill People

2006-05-16T18:29:00.000-04:00

Cam'ron: Killa Cam (Intro)
Killa Season

Strings swirl, guitars tick down, drums, build up. It's been a year and a half. Too long. We're ready for this album to start. It's time. So here's Cam: "Before we get into this Killa Season, let's start this shit off with my man 40 Cal." Oh. Um, OK. We can do that. I guess. 40 Cal sucks and all, but Cam has just given him the biggest platform of his life, so he has to murder it, right? I mean, he can't not murder it, right? Oh man, 40 Cal sounds angry. Maybe he's angry because this "You will be wondering what are we gonna do now" hook comes in every three bars or some shit and keeps him from ever building up any kind of flow, like he could anyway. "I'm a role model, I make the hustlers proud / I make the customer smile." Proud doesn't rhyme with smile. Do the hustlers know that? If they did, maybe they wouldn't be so proud. "If it ain't Vivica, it's someone similar / Coming down the block, the suspense is killing ya." The suspense is not killing me. I feel like I've heard these lines before, but it's not like I keep a mental note of every 40 Cal verse I hear. I don't think 40 Cal even keeps a mental note of every 40 Cal verse he hears. Jack Swagger does, though. My favorite part is where some guy goes, "They make Hummers in brown?" because that guy is not 40 Cal. And then Cam does a song, and it's OK, but the damage has been done. You know what I like about Rick Ross? He's not 40 Cal.

I've Made A Huge Mistake

2006-05-15T17:50:00.000-04:00

Rick Ross [ft. Trina]: Fuck With Your Shoes On
Purple City [ft. Buddy Klein]: Grind Slow
Juelz Santana: There It Go (The Whisper Song)
Juelz Santana: Oh Yes

Yeah, whatever, demolish 25 lousy beers in the fucking Mix Hut and next thing, heads are like, why are rappers talking about how hard their dicks are all the time? No homo, but that is so gay! Please explain this, Mix Hottt.

In fact, priapology, purple dick science, whatever you wanna call it, has been a part of rap at least since last year, when Dipset declared every New York single had to be about dicks if dudes were serious about bringing the city back. And now shit is like ’88 again:

-“There It Go (The Whistle Song):” Eighth-grade dance joke about dancing with a girl, getting a boner, then rubbing it in her back.

-“Oh Yes:” No bones about it, our dude Santana has a hard cock. If you have the radio edit of this song, it is time to get a new radio, asshole. Seriously: Best boner in rap?

- “Grind Slow:” B-List Purple City dude Buddy Klein wants the streets to know that there are more important things than everyday shit like creating sperm banks in girls’ mouths; his shit is all hard even when he isn’t doing that, which is why he should be on the next Crack-in-Flesh single.

-“Fuck With Your Shoes On:” Now Rick Ross may not be a good rapper (Girl you don’t know, how hard I aaaaaam!!!!!), or from New York, maybe not even as good as Pitbull, but look at his beard (I’ll stick this dick so far in you, I’ll drive you craaazy!!!!). Even haters know he’s got the second best boner in rap.

Takes Two To Tango, But It Takes The Whole Mix Hut To Do This

2006-05-13T11:16:00.000-04:00

Purple City [ft. Max B & Jim Jones]: Knick Knack
Purple City: The Purple Album

Holy living fuck does somebody need to make a Baltimore house poster about this album. If there's one thing I've ever needed more of, it's more Agallah, hanging out in the purple city, rapping about stuff. Razah! So here's the truth about the PC's TA: bananas. Un Kasa is a man. Angry about his lesser role in Killer Season ("Seven minutes, yeah, definitely Kas. You're like the next Hell Writer," said Cam), he bum rushed Jeezy's listening session on the roof. He aired it out on Slam. He's not a man. This is a serious problem. Really. I've got four years of urban planning so I'm sniffing for slum clearance. Broken windows theory or not, I'm not forseeing any white flight to the Purple Suburbs. Did we mention D-Dot Angelettie lays his nuts on the dresser? Just his nuts. And Shiest Bub comes thru and bashes them shits with his brain piece. And we're not talking about his cock. We're talking about his cerebellum. Literally. He was gettin' some head. Get it? Basically, dudes fuck. Like, lots of groupies, who fuck. Cause it's Purp City ya'll. Shiest Bub, Agallah, that third dude that no one can remember? Dudes fuck. You know, while rocking Cam's madscrewface, that one he wears while dry-humping through gym shorts. Ya dig? But besides that point, these dudes eat crack and spit death. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Damn.

Stage Left

2006-05-09T23:52:00.000-04:00

Black Moon: Who Got Da Props? (Video)
Boot Camp Clik: Video Surveillance

This isn't a relic, it's goddamn tear in the universe where lawnmowers and beach balls and loose fire hydrants and stop signs get sucked into the nether sphere. You know, when you could wear a windbreaker and a goofy-ass knit cap in a rap video and get spek. When DJs weren't just part of a group but might have actually been the most talented person in the crew, as Evil Dee's cuts are the sharpest Hanzos this side of Buck Knives. Moon shone, or something. And yes, they're wearing Jansports in this video. Cats just hung out in alleys (not alley cats, though) and grimacing wasn't just a gerund, it was the essence. You know who does the Screw Face better than The B.D.I. Thug Buckshot? Nodamnbody. OK, maybe not nobody. Save the "It was all so simple" sobs, shit's fine. But it is bright outside. I can't even remember the last good hip-hop vid set at night. And don't come at me with that Red Flag Rick Ross shit, that dude looks like he wants in on some NASCAR action. Jeff Gordo, holler (making blowed-cheeks fat face right now). Finally, bucket hats? Yeah, Buck's got a bucket. Difference is, he's got a head full of water. How else is gonna carry all that brain around?

Ain't Even Have To Do The Makeup Thing

2006-05-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

Rashad [ft. Young Dro & T.I.]: Tell Em What They Wanna Hear
Day One: DJ Drama and Young Dro

Wanted to speak on Dro proper, but got caught up lovely with this one. Already a page-load fave on the Black College MySpace Circuit in its Tip'n'Dro-less incarnation, Ray-Ray/Rashad's "Tell Em" starts off innocuously enough: (thematically: "Watermelon car/ watermelon guts/ damn shawty fine wit a watemelon butt") Dro + beat, both on the 1. Proceed through '3am-now-I'm-almost-splittin'-with-her' talk -- we still good. Cue syrupy-sweet sang-sang, saying much of the same. But the way Dro winds up his verse all puppy-cutesy, more Gipp than anything, hints at more. Not until the song's titular, spoken sample cuts in, undercuts in even -- and Wy'Cliff, pay attention, cos it sounds just like a white guy doing "the white guy voice" -- do we know what's up, imploring us to... Tell. Them. What. They. Want. To. Hear. Hilarious.

Call me Cynical, but in't this the most honest love song of the year? It's all lies.

I realize I sound like my ruefully lovestruck 15 yr-old self, but that's useful. Both the inverse of that Sonnet you memorized in high school and its mirrored twin, the most interesting idea here's the song that's not being sung. Is honey-dip Strobe-lit or the genuine article? Does it matter? It's all game, sure, but it's negligible, just like all these half-to-no-truths. And they're supremely well-intentioned ones (for the most part): the sweet, erm, white-lie answers to those bear-trap questions that make a day with your lady extra-pleasant ("You not too big, you just thick in the waist"). There's more tenderness in that than some kisses. Sure you can't trust a damn thang here, but duality's part of the pleasure. Try listening to T.I., with that same "Why You Wanna" cadence, slanging game like, "You say you're 27, but you look 19," and not smiling. He's never had to say that, ever.

Pardon Me If I Lost My Voice

2006-05-09T11:55:00.000-04:00

Ghostface [ft. Ne-Yo & Kanye West]: Back Like That (Remix)

Kanye doesn't have the ability, wherewithal or grime-grit expertise to son Ghost on a regular basis but that's what it is here. I'm sorry. And it's a two-level toppler to boot. While Dennis does the motions, flopping a "how could you" outtake, it's West who's moving the fuck on after listening to "So Sick" four or five times. He's mapping out future video conquests (Eva Mendes), piggy-backing Katrina once again (his new chick is a "Creole ho" who never says "N-O, so…") and hushing gawker stalkers like a life-long retardo tutor with a classic 1-2 ("Second I walked in the whole room got still/ Don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal"). It's all fun, games, the like. Yet, I'm overcome with sadness. It's Tuesday, sure, but dude really couldn't put this nonsense together when it would have mattered, say, a few months before fish didn't really scale? As Ghost languishes at No. 60--touring like an indie van band high on bologna-on-hand--surrounded by Korn's new one and a Poison greatest hits, Kanye's chilling on a recliner on a Maybach on a yacht on a movie set trying to make "Touch the Sky" push him past four. Rumor has it Fishscale's delayed release was partially due to an expected beat/hit/smasheroo from Mr. West. He didn't come through and we got a sample-neutered Blaze track instead. So, as he blows in now, taking "Back Like That" back like that, it's funny but also a little insulting. Who owes who what--not going there, but Ghost deserved more.

Hands Like E. Honda

2006-05-08T15:20:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne: "Bitches"
The W. Carter Collection Pt. 2

"Alphabet Aerobics" to "Alphabet Slaughter" to "(Alphabet) Bitches" and I think we all know why so few rappers actually do the 'go through the letters' thing--they don't know any R words. So why Weezy? "Mama, please don't be mad at me for this one," he asks Mama before he spouts off letter for letter every girl he's known and a key fact to remember said knowledge by. "This is my story." Well goddamn, if it's your story by all means.

I know we're supposed to be really amped about this guy's borderline Suffenian output but "Bitches" a/k/a "Alphabitches" is classic case of zero quality control--dude shoulda cut 16 of these letters, maybe spelled a funny word like P-I-P-E-T-T-E-S or B-A-R-R-A-B-A-S or something instead. Imagine that, a chick named Barrabas. Instead we get a demo beat for "Hot in Herre", a few connects (cf. J for Janessa, who "didn't make the bed but she still doing quite fine," or W for Wanda, who apparently has "hands like E. Honda," or the chick whose name I forget but, says Weezy, "If I don't fuck her once a week she'll probably go on strike"), and an obedience to form that really spells out, hardy har, why stuff like the fucking alphabet best flow subliminally instead as the main trope. Everything you need to know about pornography, bad teenage poetry, lower back tattoos of the word "TATTOO", and sneakers made of hemp is in this song.

FWIW, there's a part in the song where Wayne sounds like he's totally given up on the "idea" of flow, picks up this barfy street Sinatra singsong that I really don't know what to do with just yet except marvel. It's that grotesque.

I Came To Get Down

2006-05-08T11:55:00.000-04:00

House of Pain: "Jump Around"
Hard White: Collectors Edition of the Illest White Boys

Not the best look for ill white boys when according to Rob-N Hood and Sam Cuddy, Kevin Federline's "Popozao" is worthy of inclusion here--and I like "Popozao." 26 tracks of white guys either pretending to be black guys and acting like they really have the same concerns and inheriting the mythologies for crossover possibilities so the CMJ "hip-hop showcase" in Webster Hall isn't the pinnacle of their careers, or, worse, struggling in the booth about how they're white and they have to fake the negritude if they really want to succeed because the genre is fucked like that. There are exceptions, many of which make Eminem at least partially stomachable. In fact there's this part towards the end of HW:CEIWB where the DJ says something like "Eminem, we know you the cream of the crop," and you know maybe he is. But I wonder what that makes Fort Minor and "Epik" and "the Beastie Boys"--a napkin full of ejaculate?

Turf war. Kravitz loves this shit, so does Grundle on the flip, and I've been known to spend hours thinking about Pharrell's "I'm black on the outside and white in the middle" and how properly fucked that is. But what I love about "Jump Around" is that it's so unabashedly white--or should I say not-black, not-hiphop, just rap. There's a fucking bagpipe on this track. He doesn't rep Scarface, he reps the Terminator; he "came to get down" and that just means "jump up and get down" not any sort of elaborate ebony fuck routine; he doesn't like basketball or football, instead he "serves your ass like John McEnroe"; he plays Sega, not Nintendo; cops don't hate black people, they just eat a lot of donuts; he doesn't use 44s, he brings a shotgun to battle. Plus he doesn't hide his ridiculous accent, unlike several of these probably college-educated douchebags either (a) slurring their words like they don't summer in the Hamptons or (b) talking so retardedly white that they're merely executing the black person "white guy" stereotype. I probably like the Pete Rock remix more, but House of Pain, this is hard white--really what could be harder or whiter than a fucking shamrock?

When I Say More, They Say Fire

2006-05-06T02:25:00.000-04:00

Lil Wayne [ft. Al Fatz]: Came Down (Mick Boogie Mix)
The W. Carter Collection Pt. 2

How many times can we write about Weezy? Imagine the lifespan of the watery alien that Ed Harris Godbodies in "The Abyss," then multiply that by 46. That's how long we can do this. He'll keep putting tapes out, we'll keep going. There's rumored to be five Tha Carter albums planned. This is a solid plan, creating a narrative arc for an artist, pimping his finest work and making it thematic, like this was in his chamber since Lights Out disappointed. We all know this isn't true, that like all good writers, Wayne had to read and listen a lot more before he could get where he's at. Like the first time you read Joyce's "The Dead" and realized THIS IS THAT REAL SHIT, THAT EXISTENTIAL DOUBLE-DRAMA; I WANT TO DEDICATE MY LIFE TO WRITING. Smells like Weezy got his hands on a couple unedited copies of Reasonable Doubt and Long Live the Kane and Born to Mack around '01 and went to work shortly thereafter. And maybe he read "The Parsoner's Tale" and contextualized character and role. Weezy knows his reputation doesn't hinge on him being the king of anything. He can't be, he's too weird; rockin' pink hoodies on the cover of Vibe and talkin' reckless about old friends like they won't get somebody to chirp back. They will. This is why he becomes Tha Carter, a building where Nino Brown cooked schemes, dreams, blow. Not a Shawn Carter reference, or even a Joe Carter inference (real recognize real). He's a building, an edifice of ideas. Pretense in that idea, of course, but Lil Wayne is a pretentious kind of guy. He's an artiste and he's not a bad interview. Maybe. He also has enough ideas to make 7 mixtapes in 18 months work.

Al Fatz? He's another story. He's fat. Sounds like he's having fun though.

Ain't Just Word of Mouth

2006-05-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

T.I.: What You Know
T.I.: I'm Talking To You
T.I.: Why You Wanna
T.I.: You Know Who
T.I.: Told You So
King

Dear Tip,

Let's get right to the point: If it is an apology that you are waiting for, you are certainly going about eliciting mine in the wrong manner. Five songs dedicated to "you" (read: me) on your latest album surely won my attention, but I wonder at the sincerity of your motives for reconciliation. Or, if such desires even exist. Apparently you contacted Chris and settled matters face to face. I see no reason why we could not have achieved a similar accord. But no, instead I'm assaulted with Tracks 3 & 4 booming from my neighbor's Suburban every time I walk out to get the mail.

Don't get me wrong: Back to back and individually, those two songs are quite stunning. You'll be pleased to know everyone at the office has a real blast "talking to me" over the intercom, now that they know. It is getting a bit annoying, though. For Erin too: Her third graders torture her daily with, "Ay, what 'chu know 'bout that, Miss Styles?" So, congratulations.

But I resent the implication that I know not of what I speak. Pardon me, but I've always known you to return your calls promptly, as you're never failed to respond to mine. That is, until now. Let me tell you that threatening to knock my block off is far from gentlemanly, sir. And allow me declare for the record that I am neither "a scary dude," a "fuck boy," a "bitch," a "queen," or "not hot." More bees with honey, or so the saying goes. It behooves me to inform you that your comportment to date far from characterizes that of a stand-up guy.

And the mixed messages? Frankly I do not see the logic in first insinuating that my afterlife will be less than peaceful as a result of your action, then a few songs later, offer kisses between my knees and waist. That's just confusing. And I don't even wear panties.

If I may say so, lording your success over me by boasting that you told me so is truly the height of vaingloriousness, considering that when we last spoke I remember offering only encouragement. I believe you were incarcerated at the time. I'm willing to forgive this final indiscretion, if you're willing to tell me exactly what it was I did to provoke this untoward rush of blood to the head.

In closing, you are correct; I do know what my name is, and I suppose I appreciate you keeping that name out of your mouth. I would also very much appreciate if we could keep this quiet as is kept, seeing as I'd be tres embarrassed if it should ever come to light that I am "You."

Hoping We Can Squash It,
C. Styles

Nohomogenic

2006-04-29T16:11:00.000-04:00

Mayumi Miyata [ft. Cam'ron & Hell Rell]: Holographic War (Exclusive The Mix Hut Mash-Up)
Drawing Restraint 9 Soundtrack
Dipset: The Movement Moves On

In a recent New Yorker, sculptor / director / actor / pervert Matthew Barney was referred to as a "star for attaining stardom," putting him on the same cultural plane as Paris Hilton, Andy Pemberton and Pete Rose. He recently premiered his new "film," Drawing Restraint 9, in the States. It's terrible. Even on the "purely aesthetic" level Bar-heads love to babble on about, it’s a stupefying failure. Now, Cam'ron Giles is not a "star star" (though a few unwarranted shots at, say, Liz Taylor's corpse and Tupac's mom may turn him into one), but he also unveiled a new film that he directed and starred in recently called Killa Season. It too fails.

I'd be surprised if Matt or Cam know each other (I'll leave the potential exchange up to Curio or HC), but they've both painted themselves into intractably dubious corners; pushing their particular pet themes into oblivion, there's no more coke for Cam to push or vaseline for Matt to slice. The two films show their respective egomaniacal auteur playing the fool, dunced, parodying recurring dreams that they now actually think are real. Oddly, there are several bullet-worthy similarities between both two and a half hour opuses that indicate a celestial bonding between their quite different--yet spectacularly the same--startime savants.

+ Cutting. Restraint's infamous climax scene where Bjork and Matt cut each other's bottom halves in some kind of whale sheathing ritual is a symbolic knucklehead: Now they are untethered beings that shall roam the sea freely, huzzah! It's also graphic, but not quite as graphic as the scene in Killa Season where two Sopranos extra wannabes cut-up Cam's first kill in the middle of a convenience store. Both scenes succumb to sub-par special effects--Matt's special-effect blood ruins the moment's supposed "grace" while Cam's cadaver has all the realism of the pick-apart Operation dude. In fact, it would have been way better if they just used Operation.

+ Shitting. Some may cringe at the notion of drug mules excreting heroin in plain view. In Killa Season, Cam can hardly take the sight. But there they are, two otherwise demure women doing their business on some plastic bags before cleaning the drug take themselves. Fittingly, Restraint is more careful with its shit, though the enormous dried-up whale dung that acts as the film's holy grail is of equal importance to the drugs in Killa Season. It’s the circle of life, yo. Dumb out.

+ Anti-Americanism. In a significant Killa Season scene that is being quoted by dread-heads and six-year-olds around the world right now, Cam, talking to his cronies, states "America's not scheduled for us." He's right, which is both good and bad. Based on its Japanese lore and middle-of-the-ocean locale, Restraint's hatred of all things spangled is implicitly clear. To wit, Matt even overdubs his own few lines with the voice of an obviously bed-ridden Yank computer programmer sidled by his own inaction. Still, these political maneuvers are neutered by a loathing spirit that has lost use for reason. Both artists may as well be whacking a Bush piñata that's actually just a horse with a Bush mask on. It's pathetic and they should be ashamed--and then make a movie together.

I Cut 'Em Fat

2006-04-22T12:00:00.001-04:00

Rick Ross: Hustlin' Video (Samurai Champloo Remix)

No more hand claps, Krav. I can't catch all what's wrong with your riding for Rick Ross based on his "Hustlin" vid. But I can make an example out of some of it.

You're right. Melle Mel didn't wear that jumpsuit and bullet-belt just for comfort. But divorced from the content of "Broken glass everywhere, people pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care," Mel's -- pardon this blasphemer -- just another sweaty, muscled cokehead clad in ammo and synthetic fabrics. And that's not even saying his sartorial signifiers are empty. Said duds are Uptwn-meets-Dwntn, Ziggy-Stardust-on-East-Tremont-Ave-type shit, the glam-punk type shit few on the block (who'd never done coke) were on/up on -- a sort of peacocking before it was passe. But I don't see the same, or any significance in bald pates, bald verse, and Big Momma's mumus. Yeah, his name rhymes with 'boss' but I'm gonna need more than that. And it ain't that his facial hair convinces more than the "beard" that is his drug-dealing persona, beard in the way that Katie's Tom's best accoutrement.

(Besides, a la H-cliff, connect these dots if you dare. Career Criminal > Career Pirate > Criminal Port. What are we talking about here? Blackbeard's Revenge.)

Anymore's got to come from them raps. Read down & you'll know I gave Rhymefest a pass for being blunt in re: lyrical content and, like it or not, that's a part of his person/persona/positioning as 'blue collar' blah. But Ross is in the direst need of metaphor -- even the rumors of it. So Jeezy don't rap no more; all he do is "Jeeeah." But where we're willing to forgive Jeezy forgoing rhyme for a bit -- having the charisma to make that even novel for a mixtape or odd feature -- what's earned Ross the right to "rhyme" 22 seven times over without winking? Again, you're right. "Look at Rick Ross." As there's no conflict or ambiguity or ambivalence to Ross's beard, there is none such to his words, empty of what might make them interesting.

But the visuals, the visuals: Every day I'm hustling. Chop. Screw. Repeat. All stressed by 57 shots of hands exchanging cash. We get the picture/s, and over and over and over again. " With banal voiceover: "See most of my ni***as really still deal cocaine." "Mo 'blow." And don't tell me..."Yayo." Say it, see it, say it again. Speech, but never the figure of it. Do tell me though, how doesn't he look a damn fool all alone, your titan's turn atop a building looking less imperial coronation than on-set outtake from Jet Li's Hero; a post-Christo Ross as fat gaffer having a laugh during some downtime.

"'His' Miami looks cool in the video." I hesitate to get too specific with this because it's unclear what you mean. Just cinematographically? Or are you actually saying that the projects/tenements/rampant joblessness looks cool? Because I'll agree with you. It does look cool, especially when one has a job and doesn't live in or near said projects. Rap-as-commodity would have failed a long time ago if this were untrue. We know this. Still, saying ghettoes look cool, well, ain't always a good look.

Also, here is a picture of a Kodiak Bear grippin' fishscale, a.k.a. eating fish. The resemblance is unconvincing.

Whip it Whip it Real Hard

2006-04-19T18:03:00.000-04:00

Rick Ross: "Hustlin'" video

Been a million years, and I still haven't listened to all of M.I.Yayo (lazy like that), but it's time to respond to Heathcliff's portrait of Rick Ross as sub-Jeezy talentless charmless charisma-less hack. It's not the sort of thing you can do on sound alone, but since when has rap been based on sound alone? Melle Mel didn't wear a red vinyl jumpsuit and bullet-belt because the shit was comfortable. To understand Ross, you need to look at him: bald head gleaming, enormous red shirt draped over him like a cape, wraparound aviators, rings and watches standing out hard against dark skin. He's huge. He takes up space. Jack Swagger says he stole Freeway's beard, but no, Freeway's beard is smaller. Also, Freeway's beard does that weird Abraham Lincoln thing where the mustache doesn't grow but the rest of it does. Rick Ross has a mustache.

And those two beards mean different things. Freeway, or his character at least, is a Muslim who does dirt, and his voice is all yelpy strain, like he's always trying to find a way to justify the huge chasm between his beliefs and his actions and realizing that he's always going to fail at that, never quite going full-on Islamic because he knows he can't hack it yet, hoping he's born again (or whatever Muslims call it) before he dies. Look at Rick Ross: there's no conflict or ambiguity or ambivalence in that beard. I've grown beards, and you don't get a beard like that because you're feeling conflicted. It's a Fidel Castro beard, a hibernating Kodiak bear beard, something that demands respect. Ross takes up the whole damn frame of the video, waddling hard, moving in slow motion even when the video is going regular speed. Fuck a Michael Clark Duncan, he's the real black Kingpin.

Heathcliff says he doesn't say anything distinctive about the city he reps, and that's true. But do you remember him being a Miami bass guy? A Slip-N-Slide guy? Because I do. He looked like a damn fool jumping around at the end of Trina's "Told Y'all" video. He's not a supporting player. He is like Jeezy; he needs to be a titan or he's nothing. "His" Miami looks cool in the video, especially when the Cuban music fades away and the film stock turns all dirty and bleached-out as he's crossing the bridge, passing all the everyghetto signifiers (kids selling candy, middle-aged man gambling). But the best part of the video is the end, where he's on the roof of some building for no reason other than the visual: standing tall with red flags billowing behind him, wearing sunglasses even though it's quite plainly dark out. He's an emperor.

He also knows how to ride a beat, which is helpful since Jeezy has apparently given up on rapping altogether.

Scaring White People Half to Death and Taking They Bitch

2006-04-19T01:27:00.000-04:00

Mobb Deep [ft. 50 Cent]: Pearly Gates
50 Cent: Devil Son [skit]
Prodigy: Las Vegas P
G-Unit Radio Vol. 20: Best in the Bizness 2

Newsflash: It's not true what the Good Book say. It's also not true what Heath Bar Cliffy say. I listen to some other shit. And some other other shit, too. The news isn't that "It's 50," nor has it ever been, really. This is about P's salvation as it has been since Hell on Earth, when he started to believe the functionalities he forced himself into on Juvenile Hell (glaring on that cover whilst Hav held that fucking sickel, thinking he was hard) and later "Shook Ones pt. 2," when, in the end, Jay showed us he was a tiny dancer. It's always been about Prodigy. His rundown of joints in that XXL feature about "Queensbridge Classics" is laughable (apparently the beats are "hot."). Anything P has to say he says it in verse -- trust, he's a bad interview. One of the worst. No knock on what 50's trying to rile up here, referencing Kris Parker (who likely HATES Curtis Jackson) and his sling. The sing-song is bulletproof, too. "Uncle Tom niggas wanna see me locked up, too" is something deeper and less-considered, requiring a scalpel for surgery, but not as much as "I bought a fresh box of bullets," esp. considering 50 hasn't had a fresh batch of anything since "Ghetto Qu'ran," or 50 Cent is the Future or "How to Rob..." actually. 50 Cent can't believe someone would call him "Devil's Son"...in King Magazine! Believe it, Harris Pub has no shame, anything for a cheeky dekhead (like Mix Hut honorees, too. We fuck wit puns, not guns.)

But P has nothing left if he can't say "Tell that nigga God we got beef." Take "Las Vegas P." Ugh. This is as bad as it gets. Whoo Kid forcing him into spitting on that Pharrell beat that never took off the way that Iovine thought it would just cuz Stefani was doing slithers on it. C'mon, "fuck a actress and fuck a rap bitch"? "The Paris Hilton for the weekend"? "Remember the Time like Michael Jackson"? Christ Prodigy, put the bank card down for a sec and realize what you're doing.

Lambasting this kind of thing is just as gauche as the actual music. So let's stop. At least he's still repping E&J. It's the stark, bleak, honest dismissal of religion, sight unseen in the Christianity-laced imagery of your crucified Makavelis and your God's Sons. P says something we all want to say: WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THAT RELIGIOUS BULLSHIT. Somebody needed to play this on Easter morning when my Moms was trying to get me to go to church. Which is not to say we're Godless. Hardly. We just can't DEAL with the implications of an ever-crushing garage door of morality round the clock. P takes this idea due South. If he's not shooting and fucking, he's talking about how much he doesn't give a damn about the ramifications of shooting and fucking. Nihilism qua nihilism. Simple repudiation. Now this, we understand.

NOTE: Prodigy was not born in Queensbridge, NY. This means nothing.

I'm Bleminem

2006-04-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

Rhymefest: Gone [ft. Kanye West]
Rhymefest: My Beat
Rhymefest: Tender Thug
Rhymefest: Chicagorillaz [ft. Mikkey & Bump J]
Plugg City: City On My Back

"Subtext" implies subtlety, something Rhymefest proudly professes to lack -- blue collar baller he's angling to be -- but for lack of a better term let's jooks with it for a minute. A line of rapperly discontent runs straight through a pre-mixed, pre-Brion/soaring strings/ebullience, etc. version of "Gone" (with the verse Fest recorded for Kanye appearing where Cam's and Consequence's eventually did) to "My Beat," where (get your analogy game up) RF is to Super Producers as GZA is/was to Record Labels. W/R/T "Gone," say sour grapes and maybe you're right, but that in turn implies that Fest's rationalized his non-inclusion, that he's already come to terms with it and said f-that. Yeah, yeah, "Jesus Walks." Obviously it's not the first time dude's been jerked, or at least tweaked, so you might expect he'd expect it. But it doesn't sound that way, which is much more interesting.

"When it was all said and done, I wasn't on the song...I just think you need to hear and judge for yourself whether or not you think this is a joint that I shoulda been cut off on or not. Call me & let me know what you think. Hit me on Myspace or something."

And funny. And wrong. Rhymefest's verse, while enjoyable for lines like, "I'm tall in the game, you ni***s small like Willow," is un-special (though intriguing's how both Ye & Fest kick that "What you rappers could get is a job from me," line which sounds more and more Fest-ian than West-ian on repeat listens...hmm). Who the fuck wants blue collar when you can rock chinchilla 'round your neck? What's missing? Not you. Honestly bruh, there's barely a valid comparison. Cam might never rap over a beat more suited to his style than that; maybe same goes for Quence. And that I like Fest is the killer. But I digress and the drama continues...

"During the making of this album, a lot of people tried to gouge me on beats & tracks & features...You know who you are...I'm a tell you exactly who it is."

Maybe the goofy inverse of T.I.'s "I'm Talkin To You," Fest names names on "My Beat," which is, um, his beat, yet with a different strain of the venom Tip bares for not-this-guy-and-no-sorry-not-that-one-either. Pharrell & Chad? "Overrated-ass ni***s." Kanye and Cool & Dre? "I love that track, but I can't pay." Consider: "All you did was chop and loop that/ I wrote the rap, how you produced that?" Despite all that half-arsed-aggro, doesn't ever seem that dude could mean mug around too long; in fact he plays distemper for jokes most times, which charms (See: "Tender Thug," whose titular softie might just be Slim as well, or at least sounds like. Plus, the ad libs are beyond compare). The hardest shit on here is the Training Day sample (Denzel: "King Kong ain't got shit on me.") at the top of NO ID's "Chicagorillaz" -- deservedly holding down the, erm, hot-fiyah #6 position on the tape -- and that should be no offense to Fest. Denzel Washington is, obviously, a bad motherfucker. But where Tip don't need a metaphor, apparently Fest doesn't either. And that's OK.

I Talked My Way Up Out the Hood

2006-04-15T20:44:00.000-04:00

Mobb Deep [ft. 50 Cent]: "Pearly Gates"
G-Unit Radio Vol. 20

Haze cautioned me not to make too big a deal out of this one. It's tops on Blood Money but nothing controversial or groundbreaking--the Infamous have spit buckets full of goddamning nihilism by now, and 50's out-washed NYC rapstar rehab program is nothing but still in effect. "So don't go pulling another Heathcliff on us," adds Haze. Haze, so we're clear, has listened to a lot of rap music; he's probably listening to it at this very moment.

Let's hurry slowly then and see what happens. At the 43second mark, right in the middle of 50's verse, Whoo Kid shouts out Amadou. Just his name, no location, which is smart; both Big Mike and Cutmaster C tend to include his corner, and I see an angry spot-blown Amadou eventually putting Junior on their ass until they cut the shit out. The drop fits like this:

"It's been a long time coming I done paid my dues/ Now every time I turn around it's like I'm back in the news [WK: Amadou!]"

Intentions irrelevent, the timing is perfect. Amadou, or at least the spirit of Amadou, helped the young 50 pay his dues on the mixtape circuit. 50 paid other dues too obviously--slinging rock, getting shot, living in the projects, getting his bike stolen a lot--and as character-/myth-building qualities they, ahem, get their due. They're all but necessary anymore really, since the gap between person and persona continues to collapse; I've seen prominent Mix Hut scribes waste away time arguing over how soft Jeezy's hands are and whether he's technically harder than, who was it, Witchdoctor? Sorry, I think I was by the beerstand sending text messages to myself.

But the dues 50's talking about on "Pearly Gates" directly pertain to his come-up, to learning how to write, developing a voice, getting his name out there. In the end (i.e. death), this is what's going to save him:

"Homie if I go to hell and you make it to heaven/ Just get me to the gate and I'll talk my way in/ Got a gift, I'm special with the flow, I'm good/ Shit, I talked my way up out the hood."

These last two lines confuse the fuck out me. I don't want to get hung on "Heathcliff, just because 50 says it doesn't mean 50 says it," as if person/persona isn't my bread/butter, but nothing suggests to me 50 has ever thought he talked himself out the hood before. The 50 myth, his own, is that he grinded, threw himself in hi-risk hi-return situations, got knocked down then decided hip-hop was a safer, easier money-making alternative. He learned to rap quick, worked his ass off self-marketing, got where he needed to be and maybe a lot further.

"This shit is so easy," too many of them say, but I don't think 50's ever come out and explained that said shit is easy because he's "got a gift." It's a bad look --antithetical to his hardworking image--and undermines his archetypal rags-to-riches American Dream promotion and inherent appeal: If you work hard like 50, you can get out too. "Around the same time KRS was writing 'Black Cop'/ I was busy trying to pump crack to the back lots," he floats out there on the verse, and the KRS/50 contrast says a lot. This game tends not to reward geniuses on arrival anymore; customers aren't inspired by what they can't do, but by what they can. The scheme is a cheap dirty trick, of course--50 does have a gift, you don't--but as it stands rags-to-riches sells better than mere riches, and the market perpetuates itself on the everyman ruse of 'you can do it too', audience artists ads and all. Just saying, there's a reason Sly's "You Can Make It If You Try" feels so sad and cruel.

Now I'm going to make a big deal. Despite Mobb's divine spite, this song is awe-inspiring. 50's triumph is he's literally in eternal shit (i.e. hell), but insists he can pull himself out because the rules don't apply to him. He's a genius, and I don't mean this in the 'spells all the challenge words right' sense--just that he is above the rules, operates on a level exclusive to himself. His is a position of privilege not afforded to, literally, the rest of afterlife-going humanity; whoever made 50 want to go public with this tidbit, I bet he scored at least a 4 or 5 on the AP Euro exam.

So what, except that 50 needs to go to hell precisely so he can show that he can talk his way into heaven. The underdog is on top, always; confer Game, then Hegel. It's not rags-to-riches, not even rags-or-riches, wherein the rags merely anchor the riches in cred and zero sum but are crucially in the past. Rather, it's rags and riches, concurrent and symbiotic, not to mention a billion times more compelling than the other two verses here, Havoc's pathetic "did so much dirt I'm trying to clean my slate" and P's reactionary fuck-god woe-is-me. It ain't where you at, but now it ain't where you from either.

Looking For That Paris Hilton Bitch Too

2006-04-15T16:33:00.000-04:00

Fabolous: You Don't Know (Freestyle)
Loso's Way: Rise to Power

EXT. MYRTLE & WASHINGTON AVE., BROOKLYN - NIGHT.

CURIOUS STYLES and MINGUS DYNASTY stop at a red light outside KUM KAO CHINESE TAKE OUT.

MINGUS: Damn. Three in the morning and it look like a car show out here.

CURIOUS: Word. The rims on that Magnum are unprecedented.

MINGUS: Peep homey with the green Astros throwback.

CURIOUS: Where at?

MINGUS : Sitting on the hood. With the mint on his neck.

CURIOUS : Who's he think he is, Fabolous?

MINGUS: Ha.

CURIOUS: Ha.

MINGUS: Yo, here he comes.

CURIOUS: Yo, that is Fabolous.

MINGUS: Oh, what up Fab?

FABOLOUS: Doin' me, fam.

[The light turns green.]

**********

Fab's forever been on that slick shit, that talk with a lean shit, to the point that Swagger's comfortable with quoting a hot line over panang curry -- a great look. But to jack Swag's surmise, Loso's Way's far from jus being about beating about that dead-horse, "Bring Back ENN WHY" yang. (But shit it's that too.) At the very least its a pretty entertaining & presently/nearly isolated (in re: New York, erm, shit) attempt at mythmaking, albeit whose cinematic crutch is the sub-Pacino 'prequel' to Carlito's Way. (Still halfway clever idea though: Remember, "I'm reloaded.") LW proves it doesn't take rapping about alphabets, or how Manhattan maybe looks like his finger (which kind of looks like a dick and how a dick-sized thumb looks like a borough again and is maybe pointing at you) to be from Brooklyn and be able to rhyme words pretty. That's an opinion of mine.

Supposedly Brian "L.A. Reid" Cashman traded Musiq and a stack of DVD-R's to be named later to Atlantic for Fab, so here's hoping we get more collabos like "How We Do It," where Jeezy performs the mystical feat of making it possible to listen all-way-thru that "Have A Party" beat.

Bottom line's I'll ride for dude long as he's shrewd enough to rap "I'm tryna keep it subliminary/ but that's only temporary/ to all of them I buried inside of a cemetery," knowing I won't find a dictionary in time.

[B/T/W, there's a song titled "Computer Love" on here. "What's not to..." about this guy?]

At Last

2006-04-13T12:28:00.000-04:00

Freeway: What You Know About Dat
Freeway: I Never Testified
G-Unit Radio #19 - Rep Yo Click

Let's keep this short: Free’s a fickle listen. Even though he’s on hella pneumatic breath patrol, he needs a very specific sound for his rhymes to work. “I Never Testified” and “What You Know About Dat” are two of the best milks on his new tape, but they’re still lacking something. The beats for Tip Harris’ hit and Kanye West’s smash are undeniable in grandeur and specificity. They’re designed for the artists that rap over them and immediately became a part of said artist’s identity. Free needs breathy soul vocals to match his exhale (“What We Do”). He need’s crunching snares and cymbal splashs (“Come Again”). He needs organs (“Line ‘em Up”). He needs a specifically East Coast sound (Philly, WHATEVER) -- that inexplicably inimitable Roc-A-Fella sound (“I Gotta Have It”) that has completely melted away in the wash of Dame Dash and Jay-Z’s annulment. In other words, where in the world is Chad "Wes on Track" Hamilton, when we really really really need him. Neither of these songs carry that fire. So they fail.

Floe Already

2006-04-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Edgar Allen Floe: Skyward
Floe Almighty: The Chronicles of Edgar Allen Floe

Far be it from Stack Grundles to dog undie labels, but Shaman Work sorta has it coming. Why and how they exist is answered in the wallowing mystique of Doom’s mask Essentially, we know why SW exists; it's all part of Metal Fingers’ hyper-productive largesse. Yes, they signed C.L. Smooth and Lacks is nice, but Wale Oyejide? Scienz of Life? Emanon? Just give in to Koch already.

So fitting that the hut trashes EAF this week after slaying Rick Ross and Sr. Santana, but I’m still scratching my head as to why independent artists aren’t churning out more unreleased material. So hats off for SW for pushing Edgar Allen Floe’s forthcoming Streetwise via Floe Almighty. But why isn’t this a permanent part of undie’s marketing strategy? Artists on these labels tend to have less high-powered label drama that drowns their releases in the abyss (again, less), so the option is still there in a big way. DJ Drama will cosign anything, so why not put together more fodder for mix hut residents?

To be fair, eNCees tend to do it better. The Justus League punched out like a dozen NC State of Mind, Halls of Justus, and Just Us bootlegs with perhaps the only intention of drilling names like Joe Scudda and L.E.G.A.C.Y. into the backpacker subconscious. Don't even get the our 19th President started on 9th Wonder...

So here's the thing that kills me. The Justus League has been riding this whole "minstrel show," step your game up language for a minute now, but there isn't a single emcee in that whole crew (save Phonte & Pooh's Listening verses) who's ever demonstrated I should pay attention.

Floe is a classic case. (It's amazing how narrow undie hip-hop can be. "Influenced by artists as diverse as Rakim to Common" his bio reads. Really? Maybe one kufi size difference between the two as far the total breadth of music goes.) Your whole steez is wordsmithing. That's why I'm supposed to look to you and keep the radio off. You're supposed to make me remember that underground emcees have the same talent as their popular peers. Instead, I get faux-inspirational slight-of-hands like: "To stand out, you must outstand" and "Time to bust out the cage" and "I used to hold back." These are all well and good for HS guidance counselors, but don't expect me to give up the next Clipse mixtape to pop another mediocre NC rapper into the deck.

One Thing's For Sure, Two Things For Certain

2006-04-12T14:18:00.000-04:00

Cam'ron: Ya'll Can't Live His Life
Dipset: The Movement Moves On

Remember the first ping of that "Dreams" freestyle? Nevermind the hazy ways, this fresh-cut broccoli defied rap logic and soon became Bible for the Movement. "Drought over," Cam proclaimed, and lavish riches were seemingly inevitable. For a moment, the guiling one smashed his looney clientele into a pockmarked ulterior ozone; keeping it Kool like Keith running on G's. Since then, the piff--as they say--has run dry, forcing assholes to make excuses for "Suck It Or Not" and "Girls Cash Cars" while podunks running Wet Wipes Inc. are the only ones caking steak.

But wait. As the Killa Season album awaits another supposed drop down we get this 7-minute-plus statement of purpose. And if the four minutes of throat-scraping hollers don't do it, the three minutes of underwater fishscale just may. First, loose ends--let's get it. Kotch Records? "My son--label--holler. They under the armpit. Ya dig?" Popping shit? "I'm allowed to pop shit!" Not selling records? "I ain't got to sell records to get money." His man Sarge? "My man Sarge is making four million a month. That's what the Daily News said, not me" (Using the Daily News as second source = priceless). Dame & Co. (possibly)? "Niggas is clowns, B. I guess niggas is a group now. Y'all old ass niggas, y'all should be the Supremes, the Four Tops or something man" (Would explain his absence in the film after chewing out in the trailer). What about his other man Weso? "My man Weso got charged with kingpin charges in Buffalo. I don't know if he was a kingpin or not, I'm just telling you what the Buffalo Times say."

Based on cursory research, the Buffalo Times no longer exists. And I'm pretty sure "kingpin charges" only occur in Dick Tracy cartoons. This is perfect. Cam fails when harnessed by physical reality. I suppose Weso is a real person but he may as well be a heroic figment. Keeping it real is keeping it ridiculous and harebrained and foolish, like how he may have to "step on some bunions." I say keep stepping.

Rap-wise, "I'm the shit/ Shit, I should rock a diaper, yo" is no "Dear Mr. Toilet, I'm the shit" but we're still reconstructing here. The slings are solid, no easy sex jokes--just Pink for the price of Pink. Things are going with the grain, though Ron fans in Dayton, Ohio may beg to differ. You see, on "Down & Out," Cam repped his Ohio connects with cadent glee: "Columbus, holler at your boy. You know what else I do: Dayton, Youngstown, Cleveland, Cincinnati." He's still hitting the Midwest here but the order is switched--and there's a flagrant omission: "Cleveland, Youngstown, Cincinnati, Columbus," he says. Has Cam ever been to Dayton? Who the fuck knows.

Dress For Less

2006-04-11T18:29:00.000-04:00

Rick Ross: "Down and Out"
M.I.Yayo

"You know my motto: Get rich in the game." -- Rick Ross, "Before Da Limelight"

People--rappers, bloggers--are actually getting behind this clown. Huh. He can make words rhyme and "times funny now/ guess it's about the money now" comes out like bubble letters, the Os blown out and Ts cut hard and that flow oh so indebted to Biggie but where's the charisma. Ross and Businessman-Z alike will push Ross as Miami talent, seems, the heat (ahem) on as always to find your next Houstons and Bay Areas and New Orleans. And maybe Miami is that that; 'Ross is the other side of Miami, the dirtier grimier side of the city nobody done heard about,' ya dig. But what I hear is: yayo, east coast slang, zero regional signposting save an area code and a T-Pain ref, and Pain's from fucking Tallahassee.

In other words, Ross is about the part of Miami that is exactly like every other fucking city in the world. Which is frustrating. He has access to so much crazy shit down there--why shy away from it? When are we going to get a rap about the M3 conference? The ongoing, unchecked genocide of our senior citizens? The weaponry store I found two years ago where theoretically I could have walked out with an enormous Japanese sword, the handle of which was covered with several mini-swords? You don't need me to connect the dots.

Heretofore Jay's curatorship has tended to half-formed artists in budding scenes but with incomplete identities, no? Remember Aztec? Is the guy's point defiantly reductionist, as if to say every new region sorta is the same as the last? Or is he just a clown himself? To wit, Ross has changed the name of his forthcoming LP (and it follows, the focus of his appeal) pretty much every time there's a new article about him, first Port of Miami, then Career Criminal, eventually (we hope) some combination of the two like Career Pirate or Criminal Port, a concept album about killer dessert wine.

Now I'm gonna wrap this up with a fantastic conclusion.

This is a "Down and Out" freestyle, but all is not lost. "Lunch with E-Class, Puffy on the cell, Timbaland sending emails from 'Ville/ See, I'm well connected." So that's what Timbaland's up to.

Put Your Number 2 Pencils Down

2006-04-10T18:35:00.000-04:00

Juelz Santana: Losing My Love
Dipset: The Movement Moves On

"Losing My Love" is the only Juelz track on The Movement Moves On, and it comes about two thirds of the way through the tape, after it gets past the three or four good Cam songs and after the long-ass slog through Hell Rell solo tracks and boring-ass JR Writer joints, but before the neverending 40 Cal set and the fourteen-minute Funkmaster Flex session. Listening to an entire Dipset tape all the way through is a really depressing way to spend an afternoon; all those halfassed interview bits and blippy half-done beats and half-rapped-half-mumbled stab-you-up taunts can really drag out, especially when Cam recycles his "Dreams" freestyle lyrics for the kajillionth time and when Rell rhymes "anyway" with "anyway" and "anyway." So we really need a pick-me-up right around here, and that's exactly what we get. Juelz has good news for us: he's getting tired of rap.

That's good news because rap (meaning: me) has been done got tired of his lazy ass. So when the nice lady on the chorus sample sings "Could it be I'm losing my love?" and Bandana adds "for this rap shit," it's cause for celebration; maybe he won't be around to fuck up the next LL album with his clumsy-ass bark. He elaborates: "I sit in a daze, y'all / Twisting the haze y'all / I don't listen to rap, I listen to Dre, I listen to 'Hey Ya.'" Does anyone still listen to "Hey Ya"? I mean, when was the last time you were sitting around and thought to yourself "You know what I need to hear right this second? Motherfucking 'Hey Ya'"? Did you ever do that? If this means that the only bullshit verses on E-40 albums will come from E-40, that's fine. But wait, Juelz has more to say: "I've had it to here with all this fakin' rap / Shakin' this, you're fakin' that." You're faking shaking that? How do you do that? Whatever, fine, as long as the next Chris Brown club single has nobody blurting bullshit on the intro. "Seems like y'all amused with / Everything that got to do with party music." He doesn't like party music? Why? Doesn't Juelz like to party? Is he a square?

Oh wait, I guess he's not because he follows that up with "We could still party to this / Clap!" And then he claps for two bars. At Juelz Santana parties, everyone stands around and claps. That actually sounds kind of fun.

Also, the clapping is the best part of "Losing My Love" because the rest of it has Juelz Santana rapping on it. This is the kind of thing that happens when Juelz Santana raps: "Where I been, where I be, ha? In the street, ha / Now I'm back to ride this horsey like yee-ha." Also: "Yee-ha, yee-ha, giddy up now / To the sound of the touchdown." I'm confused: are people riding horses on a football field? Is that allowed? If it is, why hasn't anyone taken advantage? Horses can run faster than people. Also: how are these rap lyrics considered remotely acceptable?

It makes sense that Juelz is sick of rap music. I get sick of stuff when I'm not any good at it, too.

Also: this beat is terrible.

Know What I Mean?

2006-04-10T02:17:00.000-04:00

Keak Da Sneak: Scarface Dust
Keak Da Sneak: Superhyphy
Keak Da Sneak [ft. Hollis & Eklips The Hustla]: Get That Doe
Kunta Kinte

As experiental movements continue to evolve, and regions (Atlanta, Houston, The Bay, soon Cleveland or Reno or Phoenix) stake claims on chart dominance, the shuffle lost in the big dance is obvious: metropolises are getting pawned. Obviously, the populace at large thinks that when something good happens to Bonecrusher or Z-Ro or Mistah F.A.B., that thing is good for the region they rep. Not necessarily the case. Short term, sure. Paper stacks rise quicker than average and fame grows. Minimal outsider fame, with a one-sheet in Vibe and an allhiphop.com interview. But I guess fame is for the famous. Long term, it distends a city's viability. Now, when folks think TX. rap, they think swangers, lean and diamond teeth. Forget humanity, we're codifying culture! Houston's pigeonholed, plain and simple and the Bay is next. Just because 15 or 35 rappers ride donuts and shake dreads doesn't mean an entire city does so. So MTV's "My Block" and the hordes of culture-micro-trend-think-thought-thank pieces in every mag across the land conflates a scene with a culture. Don't get it twisted: this is no call for mealy-mouthed "safe" voices. More a firing squad set up for the reportage. Hard to say what DJ Screw's influence will be in the long run. But, ya know, there was a time when Haight-Ashbury had it poppin'. Those dudes are fossilized remnants now. Queensbride, too, right? Heh. Sad if the same were to happen in these cities. Who's to blame? Surely the media and short-sighted ad-sales mind frame; and the artist that allows him or herself to be marginalized by these pieces; and the greedy, thoughtless publicists and managers that force the issue; and the listener, the "outsider," looking for a tidy package and a new slang term to throw at their parents. Still, that Keak Da Sneak really is something!

Rather than get reductive and lavish with the "His voice sounds like he gargles Beelzebub's balls every morning and washes it down with a side of molten feces" faux-descriptive hyperbole, let's just say Keak has an unorthodox sound. Thing is, he's also just like any other rapper; voice begets persona, persona begets stardom, stardom begets ridiculous adjectives. Proof's positive on this site. Keak knows exactly what I'm saying: "You can call it Bay shit, but I'm just speaking for the town, East Oakland." Oddly, Kunta Kinte is more interested in diversifying local investments, bragging about "going ghetto gold" (50,000 sold) and generally doing him, if that isn't too vague. There's no outlying sub-culture nonsense. Just the records. Though we've crafted a blurb or three in our day, we don't like it. Not when Keak doesn't care, obviously. "Get That Doe" samples "Brickhouse" for heaven's sake. And it actually works. Like Lionel Richie says, it's just music, my friend. But it's not just music. "Superhyphy," which was "Tell Me When To Go" when Lil Jon was still wearing short pants, is O.G. status even though it's like a year old. But there I go again attempting to correlate a song with some sort of movement. The reason "Superhyphy" is exponentially better than "Tell Me" is because there's no affectation. It's not a history lesson or some speak-n-spell shit. It knocks, sure, but it doesn't have to involve "wild, frenetic dancing" and "wonderful displays of regional pride by way of 'Ghostriding' one's own vehicle" for it to be important. EVERYBODY I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH DID DONUTS IN ABANDONED PARKING LOTS. How about some analytical reading that isn't extra-musical. Oh shit...pot meet kettle, what's hatnin'?

Coupe Got Vitiligo

2006-04-08T18:18:00.000-04:00

Pharrell: Renegotiations
In My Mind (The Prequel)

Listening to Pharrell rap can be hard. Listening to him talk is easier. And Heathcliff is right when he says P. makes "bling a childlike fancy." Take this strange shout-out directed at gold-studded oblivion. There are many sides to the infantilism at work here, all as naïve and grotesque as a baby gurgling under a five pound Gucci chain. Pharrell himself goes totally toddler, showing Sally the dirt mound he's been working on during recess for a week while explaining how darn cool it is. "I just renegotiated my contract with Louis Vuitton," he says, all puffy. Sally's stare is blank. "My contract is crazy." Still nothing. "C'mon, it's Luis Vuitton." Uh huh. "Louis Vuitton!" At this point Sally walks away and the soon-to-be marching band nerd decides to discuss things with his imaginary companion, Mr. Me Too, who's usually more impressed with his musings.

Who does Pharrell really think he's talking to here? Best guess is the fans, who he waggishly appeases near the end ("I love my fuckin' fans, man"). As a fan, I can't relate to his wealth. It's unfortunate, because he makes being rich sound better than Diddy ever did. "Who would we ever meet would be able to create your own diamond cut?" he asks. It's a clumsy line, but the key is "we." Pharrell wants to bring everyone on his ride, show them the Italian models and fit them into his "mall-ish" Miami getaway. For a guy who's had too much money for a while, he's still excited by new ventures and opportunities. It's refreshing and kinda weird.

I can't help but think of Pharrell's scene in Fade to Black while listening to "Renegotiations." In it, he gets worked up over what we now know as the "Allure" beat, strutting around the studio and summoning Jay post-haste. Let's face it, the beat is ok. But Leonardo P. thinks it's just as good as anything else he's done. It's like he's got Guy Pierce's Memento memory. But instead of getting all insular and paranoid, he goes back into tike overalls every 20 minutes or so, eye-popping at ugly sneakers, girls who say "pussy" funny and silly Elton John sunglasses. "The rung is a step in a ladder," he states with knowing pride later on in the tape. Whenever they make a black Big, we know who'll be 13 going on 7.

I Was Ditching Piranhas

2006-04-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

Cam'ron: White Girls
Dipset: The Movement Moves On

I've been waiting for someone to rap about white girls for a span of time with no direct correlation to a sixty second interval. But before we embrace our white sisters with the same buoyancy which Cam does the beat from Kells' "You Knock Me Out," I think we ought to compare some notes.

First off: "Papa had a dream." Now, was that dream to date a white girl? Because I've done that. For my troubles, I got clowned by my own pops and his friends. Called me Tiger Woods. I've forgiven them. It was funny. But now I know he was just jealous. And no, I don't look anything like Tiger Woods.

"Got a white girl/ tell you that she's quite thorough/ borough to borough/ move me through this white world." It is my experience that I have found white girls to be similarly thorough, yet I find their capacity to streamline transportation to be slightly overrated. The frequency with which I am stopped by police officers while driving around Midtown Manhattan tends to increase exponentially with a white girl in the passenger seat. Maybe Cam's windows are tinted, or perhaps he is talking about driving out to Montauk. But that would mean he is rapping about the members of Northern State. Can't be sure.

But it's not all glowing praise: "From Colombia/ then she moved to Canada/ now she live in Harlem, right/ and you could say I manage her." It is quite comforting to know that Cam too reads the Times Real Estate section, and is concerned with Harlem's inevitable gentrification.

The revelation that white girls are Cam's "pride and joy" may very well redefine the Dip aesthetic. For instance, I did not know that "Bird Gang" referred to a Diplomatic predilection for British women. But suddenly it all makes sense: the Dips are Brits at heart. And it all falls into place: Duke Da God=Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Hell Rell=John Milton. J.R. Writer=J.K. Rowling.

That said, I haven't had this much fun listening to Cam since "Oh Boy." With a white girl I mean.

Dramatic

2006-04-08T02:36:00.001-04:00

Pharrell [ft. Clipse]: Come Go With Me
In My Mind (The Prequel)

Transcription:

22 niggas
2 to a car
11 flagships with the three point star
the only other ballers is them three point stars
we only five-nine, they think we point guards (ha)
no jumper, still at the top of the key
no wonder, they thought we were shooting them threes
throw numbers, sell it for the deuce and a three
like air jordan, it's all in the wrist turning keys
your modern day chardonnay sippers
we throwing up our middle screaming fuck them other niggas
we spit it out like '94 Diddy on them niggas
ain't worried 'bout the cost, we know those hoes is counting figures
the games of the rich kids, we know what the tricks is
we turn our backs so we can fuck each other's bitches
the lifestyles of the rich and right now
any given sunday, in the kitchen, white clouds
poof

Do you watch basketball? Do you play games? Do you write rhymes? Do you know lines? Do you push lines? Do you find time? Do you make time? Do you grind? Do you shine? He does.

I Smoke a Lot of Corn Cuz I Got Indian in My Blood

2006-04-08T02:36:00.000-04:00

Busta Rhymes [ft. Swizz Beats]: New York Shit
Papoose [ft. Busta Rhymes]: Get Right
Busta Rhymes [ft. Kelis & will.i.am]: I Love My Bitch
The Art of War

Rah-rahing Bussa is akin to rooting for the Kansas City Royals. There was a time, like when George Brett mashed with that thin-handled stick (extra pinetar) and bugged his eyes out every chance he could, when B.R. excited the world with Dungeons, Dragons and daring. Those days are gone and rote is rote. Difference being K.C. is a perennial basement-dweller, whilst Rhymes is prolly gonna go plat on the strength of “Touch It” (gasp). The beef here is with the surrounding players. Swizzie, shaped like a swizzle stick and unimpressively goofy like a twisty straw, is so irritating on “N.Y.S.” that his cheese grater chirp (lots of chirps lately, no?) that it makes me want to spread his face all over a FULL SURFACE! Swizz didn’t produce this, technically Diamond D did, then DJ Scratch (who’s better than this) re-looped and actually yelled at Swizz to do the intro and part of the shout-out. New rule, Bill Maher stee: If Swizz didn’t produce it, he shall remain absent from said sitchamation. Otherwise, that face-spreading commences. I can’t be mad that Busta Rhymes wants to pay homage to Big Apples (even though Elliott Wilson put him on blast for including New Jerz-ite Queen Latifah and forgetting Melle Mel. Musta been the muscles that threw him.) Swizz is defiantly antithetical to these thoughts. Ever the self-server, plus biter (“I’m a Hustla,” “Bring ‘em Out,” et al. jack from elsewhere in service of new jacks) this is classic sycophantry, from his own pantry. I wonder if duke ever-ever listens to Grand Wizard Theodore cuts anymore. Guess here is: Not regularly. I still fucks with Zach Greinke though. Head case and all.

Papoose, who simply cannot rap, should not ever be a rap star (sorry Heathcliff). As Kay Slay strong-arm-steadies the industry into believing, my mouth stays open over his extraordinary lack of grace. Lyrics=solidly meh. (“The music is my momma, I am the son of song.” Word? Your moms is a trick.) Charisma=donut. (If you tell people that you are the shiz enough times, do they learn to agree with you or do you just piss everybody off?) Production=retread. “Get Right” is practically drum-less. If “I got New York City in the palm of my hand” self-mythologizing from the taut-self-taught “Touch It (Remix)” wasn’t bad enough, try on “I know he [Chris Lighty] ain’t seen a buzz this strong since 50.” Son, you’re still scrapping. You just signed a deal. “I got the club on me like a steering wheel” is painful. You’re clunky. J.Lo already had a hit with a song called “Get Right” (which was a Rich Harrison bangaramalammadingdong), too. This is as crystal as phrases get: Stop. Rapping. ASAP. G_d.

Deemed “My Humps ‘06” by Jonathan T. Swagger, “I Love My Bitch” might not be that wack. But it’s barrel-scraping from a black-eyed Pee. Songwriter Will (wearing a less-serious face) sounds like Billy Ocean after six tequila shooters. Kelis is wasted, as she often is when teamed with Busta, reduced to a voltronic cyborg. To have a woman sing the hook of a song called “I Love My Bitch” is confounding. Why not just make an actual prostitute sing it? Or Julia Roberts? Check minus.

Rub On Your Titties

2006-04-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

Red Cafe [ft. Fabolous and Paul Wall]: "Bling Blaow Part 2"
Loso's Way: Rise to Power

I missed "Part 1," I think--unless Red and Loso mean Missy's "On & On," which had better bubble sounds and "stick you on the table with a plastic cup/ Say grace, then eat ya ass up." All the levels, all the fucking levels--ain't turned up here.

But let's talk about the chorus: "This ain't nothing for the radio/ this is jeep shit for the club."

I'm confused. The song is not for the radio, fair enough. It's jeep shit--that means we're in CD or cassette territory, possibly cassingle. Maybe you could get away with using one of those iPod cassette adapters but I wouldn't count on it. Definitely no iTrips. Thing is, it's not just any jeep shit--it's jeep shit for the club. Now I'm very confused.

This is a half-assed "Simon Says" in some respects, so maybe "Bling Blaow" is JSFTC insofar as it's something you might listen to on your way to the club. It doesn't even matter what kind of club you're going to. You can go to a rock club. You can go to the Harvard Club. Personally I'd suggest Club Monaco--they have the best sale rack in the city.

My big worry though is that this is jeep shit for the club, just like the song says. Here's what I see happening: I'm driving in Long Island, doing figure-eights in the parking lot of Club Med. "BB2" is playing in my jeep via Belkin Auto Kit, and from what I can tell, every other person in the lot is playing the song too and liking it a lot. "If you like it, rub on your milkshake," says Fabolous. 80-car pile-up.

Stay In Your Lane

2006-04-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

Pharrell: Liquid Swords (over "4th Chamber")
In My Mind: The Prequel

Many un-thanks to Curious for swiping my Pharrell skit transcription idea, albeit telepathically. The banality of lavishness--that's what this guy is all about anymore, no? I'm talking about Pharrell. Granted there's some rap-as-enterprise involved, music-as-elaborate BBC Ice Cream advertising too, and it's not like Jeezy didn't drop a wordless measure here or there on Can't Ban to prove quality rhymes (in the traditional a/k/a 'good for blogpost title' sense) aren't that important anymore. Make no mistake: There's something gloriously fucked up about that.

Aside. I've been thinking a lot about "Mr. Me Too," how Pharrell's verse fits into it, why Clipse fronted their comeback single with so puffy a verse. We've talked about this together once and I just hadn't heard the song enough to weigh in. "Me and Puff hoppin out the plane/ both us laughin" is the key for me. Remember, Bad Boy was relief for a good long minute, bright fun but certainly not willfully unconsequential stuff after years of agit and bustamoves and "underground art." Biggie was epochal because he came at this metamorphotic tip and rapped it realtime, which is maybe why I feel comfortable more or less saying he's the avatar of mid-90s rags-or-riches rap, i.e. when rap music itself mirrored perfectly the rapper come-up, both the person and the music gaining $$$ and *** (i.e. respect). It was all a dream...

This isn't Bad Boy 2 in size, not at all. But Pharrell's pretending it is. The extent to which he catalogues his wealth and ostensibly cares about it, meticulously describes his earthlies, dwells on his business exclusively--I'm not saying this is subversion but I don't think Pharrell's a total fucking dunce either.

Wealth as candy? "Rims red like swedish fishes"; "In my chain I got the pink laffy taffy, the white laffy taffy, the blue laffy taffy, the yellow is so flashy"; "Ice Creams [bear with me] make all the girls wanna fuck"--he's made bling a childlike fancy. Calling spade a spade? Dunno, except right now guys everywhere are bragging about how they're in the BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB and paying $500 for sneaks called ICE CREAMS. "That's why the nigga laugh." Six months, you'll hear this a lot: "Oh man, I love 50 but my favorite rapper is SKATEBOARD P."

"Tough guy--not I." If the bad boy was a huggable gangster, Pharrell's just huggable. He's upfront about backpacking, reads Deepak Chopra, never deals but Pusha's told him it's 16 for a ki, and in fact "musical cocaine brought me all these things." Which is why the old Wu-Tang beats seem more pointed choices. "4th Chamber" is audio terrorism; over it, now, "Liberace chains hold my neck like an ankle" and "puffing a Cuban cigar in Brazil with Hype Williams watching the playback." Gza's rap-as-violence metaphors sound self-sanctimonious in comparison. Yeah dude, "we're gonna take you back to the source, the knowledge." Hoop it up.

"Couldn't see the light like baby Jesus in the manger." With Pharrell's implicit "I care about everything but the rapping" bit comes the (brutal) criticism that "I only care about the rapping" is as much of a bit. This is different than saying backpacker rap isn't fun or interesting or relevant, which is the common chorus; Pharrell's saying something much nastier, turning their very criticism on them. I won't be surprised if he overstates this eventually, condemns his backpacker past as equally artiste bullshit (which I don't think he does here), but this guy's next move is potentially way more interesting than Pusha's latest (wrist) turn.

When I Chirp?

2006-04-05T01:46:00.000-04:00

T.I.: What You Know
King

There’s already been talk of bringing the ax to certain resident of the mix hut, pending an immediate defense of his existence. So I’ll be brief (and tardy):

“What You Know” is White Squall. It’s that big.

So large, so unavoidable, in fact, it begs aesthetic conversation. Can you actually watch something happen and not be a part of it? Doesn’t voyeurism imply some shift in one’s ontology? Can “What You Know” be an object of sole contemplation without requisite reaction? Can we observe T.I.’s run for the throne and not somehow be complicit in his regicidal ambition? Marcuse should be flipping his shit.

“What You Know” is triumph of dunces and T.I. leads the parade, scepter in hand, head bobbing (adh)ominously with a Braves pinwheel literally bobbypinned to his skull. The horns read like fanfare; this is not a celebration, it’s a coronation.

But it’s a classic Latin American coup: all guns and no butter. With a See-n-Say flow that spins out gems like “I’m fast as lightin’ bro/Better use your Nike’s bro,” I’m having trouble swallowing T.I. as a thinker given our last princes ran dictionaries around opponents.

But don’t sell him short. Despite T.I.’s admonition of “scary dudes” (The Game’s ghosts notwithstanding), he’s still posting an epistemological challenge. He's poised to let you know what we know is a lot less that what he knows (read: Knowledge is King).

Nas burned us with realism. Hov dazzled us with panache. T.I. bludgeons us with the billyclub. It’s blood simple: “Look I’ll kill ya bro.” When TIP roars “What you know about that?” for the thirty-sixth time, the would-be challenger, already blistered, bruised, and broken, has no other reply: not a cot damn thing.

The Cat Drippin'

2006-04-05T00:10:00.000-04:00

Pharrell [ft. Karolina Kurkova]: Models in the Hood
In My Mind (The Prequel)

Puppets and Pinocchios. (Much, much more later, I'm sure). Just saying:

ELEVATOR DOOR OPENS TO REVEAL LACERDA, THE BLONDE TV REPORTER AND HER CREW.

BLONDE: (to Gonzo) You must be a rider.

DUKE: She's, uh, speaking to you.

BLONDE: What class are you in?

GONZO: Class? The fuck do you mean?

BLONDE: What do you ride? See, we're getting a little footage for a, hee-hee, television series. I thought we could, um, use you.

DUKE: "Mother of god," I thought. Here it comes.

GONZO: Use me? Yeah, I ride...I ride the big fuckers. You know, the really big fuckers. Yeah.

**********

P: You like my music?

KK: I love your music.

P: You like my cars?

KK: You don't have any car.

P: Yes I do.

KK: Which one?

P: A few of 'em.

KK: Really. Like?

P: Them big shits. Big expensive shits. You like riding in the back of Phantoms?

Um, Yezzir?

Chicken Stains And Jelly Stains

2006-04-04T18:31:00.000-04:00

T.I.: The Breakup
King

Something weird is going on with "The Breakup"; there's no real reason for it to exist. King has gotten past its bananas-ass beginning, four absolute monster tracks before it settles down with "Live in the Sky" and then begins to settle into its hard mid-album lean with "Ride Wit Me," the intensely focused mid-tempo self-affirming burners that made up the best parts of Urban Legend, the songs that T.I. seems to write in his sleep. So the album is just starting to cruise and breathe on its own momentum, the easy asphalt glide it mostly maintains up until the end, and you'd think it would be absolutely necessary that it swings this stretch with no problems or interruptions. So why would he put a skit here? And "The Breakup" isn't just a skit; it's a totally shrill and distracting blast of noise, Mike Epps and someone named Maliecka yelling at each other while babies cry and sitcom voices babble and phones ring in the background. If you're washing dishes or writing blog entries or something when "The Breakup" comes on, you pretty much just have to stop for the duration of its minute-56 running time and wait for it to end. It's totally fucking unpleasant. It's also pretty funny.

It doesn't have much to do with the album or T.I. himself; he only gets mentioned at the end, but it's implied that he's the guy Epps is yelling about, the guy his girl is going off with now. He starts out all nice and courtly, welcoming her home and then getting all heated and laying into her, telling her he followed her and saw her with some dude, then just randomly complaining about her. As a back-and-forth bit, it's a lot like the Will Ferrell/Christina Applegate scenes in Anchorman; the girl is supposed to be getting the upper hand, but her lines totally fall flat, and he gets all the good digs in. All the big laugh lines belong to Epps: "My first reaction was to run up on you and just grab the back of your pants and give you a wedgie, just pull the thong all up in ya ass," "Bitch, your hair look like a dirty tennis ball now," "How you gonna have me killed with four hundred and thirty-nine dollars a month?" The best thing she can come up with is calling him an "extra-regular-ass nigga," and mostly she's just calling him faggot and telling him he stinks and stuff, total lameass fourth-grade playground comebacks, just nothing.

And even though he sons her so hard, he comes back on the album later, presumably in phone-message form at the end of "Goodlife," crying and begging the girl to come back, all pathetic. And yet we know that T.I. and Mike Epps are friends from the "What You Know" video. They're such good friends, in fact, that T.I. totally forgave Epps for being an undercover policeman and getting T.I. thrown in jail in the "ASAP" video. So why would he reduce Epps to a crying mess like that? It's not right.

Grown Kid With A Bike

2006-04-04T03:00:00.000-04:00

DJ Green Lantern [ft. Juelz Santana]: Did U Miss Me Pt. 1
Juelz Santana [ft. 38 Special]: C.R.A.C.K.
DJ Green Lantern [ft. Juelz Santana & Dem Franchise Boyz]: Show You What I'm Workin' Wit
Juelz Santana: Did U Miss Me Pt. 2
Alive on Arrival

This is that that, or rather, this is this: tautological's an oft-slung adjective in ref. to Bandana's rhymescheme. Let's see if Webslings stick where they're 'posed to. Promise for penance I'll eat whole the next Tapemasters R&B jumpoff, no chaser, if it's wack. (Aiight Haze?)

Rhetorical faults of style, tautologies aren't just easy bonus points on my 8th grade math quiz. A/K/A redundancies in language; in mathematics, they can be related to a concept called vacuous truth, exemplified by statements that take the form, "everything with A also has B," where there is nothing with property A, like: "all woolly mammoths inside the belly of a whale like Papoose freestyles. " See, vacuously true. Onto Mr. Me "Do what you do..."

Funny that "A is A" is known in logic as the law of identity. [New chain idea! -Ed.'s recommendation] (And coincidentally alliterative that said law is often attributed to Aristotle and Aquinas.) And we're AoA, presently: a crypto-Santana mixtape, 4 tracks full w/copiously sampled hook material, cos he's Green's secret crush. The tape's meaty bits bookended by your boy's jovial queries -- "Did U Miss Me?" pts. 1 & 2, (Both the cutest shit on the block, both w/the same similarly questioning MJ sample from The Jackson's "I Wanna Be Where You Are") -- AoA's a useful illustration of Juelz's particular, perfected fault of style. Excused as guiltily pleasurable, Santana's rhymes are certainly vacuous, but could you find a better description of how his lines feel than 'vacuously true'? And he's so excited to be so: "You guys full of it/ you seen cash before/ but not a shoebox full of it/ You guys get full/ with a pocketful/ Man, I'm trying to send my son to rocket school" (Hope I'm not willfully misreading that last line). Standard Dipset games, but cos playful's pleasing, they're ones we're willing to play. Just not with Jones, cos I hear he smells terrible.

"C.R.A.C.K."'s effervescent piano loop naturally draws nothing but jester out of Juelz, who tomfoolerys the shit -- what else to do with the most inane of acronyms as yr title? "Now, my chick game proper cos my whip game proper/ my chick game proper cos my dick game proper/ I get work for cheap and then serve it cheap/ you get work for cheap and then serve police." Repetitions employed in the interest of style in speech/writing are not technically considered to be linguistic/rhetorical tautologies, so the term is too loosely applied to Santana's stanzas in many cases. But regardless of the law's letters, Juelz's discovery of this device, juvenile and stunningly effective, gratifying and maddeningly simplistic, accounts for much of his lyrical appeal. Or maybe it's just the fucking bandana.

Stabbed For A Couple Stamps

2006-04-04T02:39:00.000-04:00

Hell Rell: Hell Is Home (Rukmix)
Hell on Earth

C-lister to the stars, Rell is that guy. In and out of the pen too much while coming up to settle down and find a legitimate flow and style of his own, the King of (Streetsleeping) New York simplifies the Dipset aesthetic and mass markets it to boutique borough mixtape traders, who listen halfway and toss like a token R&B cut. "Maybe next time," they think. Not me.

You see, I met Rell once. Well, when I say "met," I mean "saw." But when I say "once," I mean "once." We were in a big room with people in it (don't want to give away any of Rell's spots here, sorry). He was short. More like an overgrown midget than an undersized man. He walked with adequate ease. He talked on his cell phone nonchalantly while music was blasting at extremely loud volumes-- he's used to such things. He didn’t really expect anyone to know him and that's good, because nobody did. But I recognized his wide, cheek-filled face on first look. "Oh shit, there's Rell," I thought to myself. I was the only person thinking this.

The thing that keeps me coming back is his penchant for the grand slam. He's like an aging baller who largely swats air but is known to knock one at opportune moments. And, like a steel door to the temple, the now-you-see-it rawhide blasts do damage. ("I'm still wonderful/ I put a TV in the trunk so, when I throw you in it, you feel comfortable"). Unlike other Rell tapes, Hell on Earth is nearly all Rell. Single verses abound on the 49 track behemoth as dude dominates roughly 95 percent of the tape. Of course, this makes it wholly unlistenable. While waiting for lines like, "My watch is full of little Smurfs and Tweety Birds," there's tons of bullshit to wade through. Kochese's Hellraiser is a more well-rounded, manageable affair but Hell on Earth has a completist element that three people will appreciate.

Also, with this tape, the rapper can check off another "hell" phrase from his scribbly black-and-white ideas tome. Keeping score, we've got Hellraiser, Hell on Earth, For the Hell of It and Hell Up in Harlem. Another recent tape dubbed Streets Wanna Know predictably failed due to its experimental title. Causal suggestions for the future: Frozen Hell (perfect for those January hut treks), Hell to Pay, Hellish (simple yet effective), Hell In A Handbasket, Helluva Nice Guy, Like Hell (tribute album), Hellbot (futuristic Bobby Digital shit) and Hellbent.

The Hardest Out is not merely notable for his endearing mediocrity. He's the first rapper to appropriate Hurricane Katrina as a metaphor for toughness. (Since I've listened to every mixtape since Katrina hit, I know he's the first, yeah). "My flow is hurricane (Katrina!)," he suggests-- convincingly-- on the "Get 'Em Daddy" remix and, later, warns, "You want war, I'll Hurricane Katrina your Beamer." Rell doesn't care about the displacement of millions-- such godly displays of power are pretty awesome to him. Which, given his comedic impotence in rap's megasphere, is only fitting.

Ten Toes Down

2006-04-02T03:50:00.000-04:00

Scarface [ft. Lil' Flip, Bun B & Chamillionaire]: Platinum Starz
Lil’ Keke [ft. Pimp C, Bun B & Paul Wall]: Chuck Up Da Deuce
Cory Mo [ft. Pimp C, Bun B & Slim Thug]: If It Ain't Me (Remix)
Southern Smoke 25

Linked by succession and banging certitude, these three, each anchored by what was and will be again, amusing or thorough Bun B meta-duper-verses, are the obvious in Smallz' pile. Sandwiched healthily in the ever-important 13-15 track spots, those middle passages that can bend, break or eviscerate a tape's otherwise wise start. Or they can fuck it up. See, sequencing is for suckers on the tape trap, unless, of course, you care about your audience (say it with me now: AWWWWW-dience) and not just the folks who buy, listen and chuck away. As we are prone to do every now and again here at the Hut, perhaps when Styles or Ab Krav cop something filthy (bad) from Amad. Murda. Like anything with Kochese's name on it.

Smallz stuff, however, is less concerned with "New-New" new shit as it is with classically composing fairly recent slam-bang-sing stuff. "Chuck Up the Deuce" and "If It Ain't Me" couldn't be further friends, one skippy-dippy, disco bounce, as Kravitz pointed out. The other is thick, surly, screw from an O.G. Screwed Up Click-er. Keke is a cracked pinky nail in this Manicure game, but his peddy is fly as shit. Ten toes down to the grass. Follow me. Paul jumps out front on some silly Foreman sno-cone stuff, pish-posh. Wrist game, too. Between Arkanoid lazers and tension-mustering string work, there isn't much space for tomfoolery. Keke is proletariot with the wizdom: "Try to take the Young Gunz spot." Ha! "Roll the green like I'm playing golf" is also Dare iz-era Redman good weed metaphor, which is truly stunning. Pimp and Bun own songs like this and I have no more time for idolatry than you do. Also, this is a five minute song on a mixtape and it slays without sacrificing sync, saying something seriously. Test me now.

"Platinum Starz," which is incorrectly labeled "Stars," is off 'Face's new sorta joint, which is fine, even good, but sad. The beat is on some real-real Newsies stuff. Same jam that Killa Cam'ron sampled when he wrote the Purple Haze bootleg epic "To the Top" (find that Interweb hounds). It's slowed here a bit and importantly setting up men with flows less menacing, less dexterous, less slithery than Cam'ron's. Not disrespect in the least. It's only now, after years of hating Lil Flip, that I realize I love Lil Flip. His oblivious confidence ("I AM THE KING OF THE SOUTH") is crushingly endearing. Like the kid at the picnic in the three-legged race who hasn't realized he's lost already, all the while Daddy shouts at him. Daddy in this case is quite clearly Jesus H. Christ. Chamillionaire is, turns out, still an incredible rapper and didn't "forget" how to be good. He just stopped. Willfully. Going Gold ought to teach him how to burn and yearn rather than lope and slope on the track ("Southern Takeover" still wrecks.) He reps isosceles triangles here. That almost hurt me. Bun, again, does Bun things and whereas we were thrilled before, now we are thrilled but in the less than thrilled way. He is also still talking about your daughter. Even though he also has a daughter.

The final is the aforementioned "If It Ain't Me" which might as well be called "I Saw the Sign" because it is on some Ace of Base + Tom Tom Club stuff. If there's something missing from Texas, it is funk guitar stretched thin. Well, that and the Soutbeach diet. This time Bun goes first and please thank you your welcome my best sincerely any time hope all's well au revoir merci one time for your mind. He's polite. Cory Mo is the best rapper here and he's a producer. OK, I lied Slim Thug is the best rapper. Do you think Z-Ro and Bun B and Slim actually hang out together at the club. That would be cool.

Like I was saying, rhythm and groove, bass for your taste. Just cuz the shit cost five bones (5 for 20, holla) doesn't mean we're not listening. Pay attention. I look at tracklists.

You Pronounced Him

2006-03-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

DJ Green Lantern: Alive on Arrival Intro
Alive on Arrival

Pardon me, and something about laughing at crack, but I'll play idealistic fool here:
Sampling a thematically stiff Scorsese flick (John Goodman and BX native Nestor Serrano in, ahem, wait for it...Bringing Out the Dead) as intro to "Intro" leads ponderous punks like me to think Green's titular ER "arrival" is none other than the deadest metaphor in the game, the quote-unquote Death of Hiphop. (And to mention: the title, and movie sample, implicitly cite Cube's identically named '92 joint which ends -- badly for its g.s.wounded victim-- in an emergency ward. And, okay, Inspectah Deck, who's been lyrically dead for years, now currently heard jacking his own late 90's swagger, a good look it's not.) Right, right, Oprah killed rap music and books, har-dee-har. But fuck a cynic for a bit; let's fuck with big ideas. I'm Curious.

Not buying rigormortis yet, but neither does Green ("You told me he was dead, flatlined." "Got better."), and not without a sense of humor ("Wake up Dr. Starks, tell him we're gonna need him, STAT"). But Green's Intro -- and the tape at large -- scans as vicious backhander to DJs who poison mixhuts worldwide with ephemeral radio somethings slapped together & "sponsored" by yr latest "Kill Dat Nigga!" Xbox jumpoff. No shit Green Lantern's one of the good guys, but headphone sessions with AOA reward re-listens, and remind you just how much most "DJs" skew Tanner rather than Premo.

"Speaks with his hands": "(B.I.G.) Niggas say I died dead in the streets/ Nigga, I'm getting high, getting head on the beach/ (Jay) Rumor has it/ (B.I.G.) Niggas say I died dead on the streets/ (Jay) Pardon me I had to..." (you know the rest). Something that peeps used to say about Premier, but fitting here since Green wields this artform as expertly as any DJ worth his decks should. It's bigger than that too (here's where I'm to be put on blast if I overstep): Lest we forget the equilibrium between MC & DJ wasn't always as orality-fixated as 'tis today. Hiphop-writ-large was once enjoyed as a strictly live performance medium, DJ-reverent and at first merely tolerant of the call&response that eventually ate the pie whole. Sure, DJ's won't ever return to being rap's end-all-be-all-central-entertainment (and to be honest, would we ever want that when Tip's got more charisma in his upper lip than Drama's got intrusive, self-promoting mixtape tics?), but Lant's skills reveal as pure an aesthetic appreciation for chaotic word salad as, say, any other Clientele you could namecheck, and they (re)assert a bit of control/artistry/whatever as an engaging entertainer.

New role, but kinda same as the old: surgical archivist, fiending for lyrics & beats, severing them from stanzas, reattaching and revivifying them in new schemes as exciting as the past ones. Its collaged orality that reveals the keen connective tissue in the selector's head, while learning y'all a li'l history lesson. Then again, later on the tape, Jay: "Green, fuck it, just become a producer already."

Only place I got to check ya, bruh, is on the 'This is an Album' tip: Nope, This is the kind of MIXTAPE that had cats quoting the DJ's scratches back in those Clue-some, Stretch-y days (Try listening to Ghost's "Survivor" freestyle here without catching yrself aping Juelz's "Call me a survivor/ C-Call me a grinder"). Mixtapes have their own ethic, their own scruffy-but-attractive aesthetic. Fuck it man, you made an "honest-to-goodness mixtape" as my mans Louie B was wont to say, and dope shit at that. Be proud of it; they're few and far between.

It Is What It Is

2006-03-29T22:19:00.000-05:00

Cam'ron & Freeky Zekey: Talkin' About Cam Going to Jail
Cam'ron: Wet Wipes
The Inc Files 7

Been beating this trunk for a while and here's the coming out: Skits are the new songs. Hypothesis reared and ready, New Jersey's erstwhile huckster is the dummy. Scene: Hot 97 interview. Players: Your boy and one of the best hollers in the game, Dipset's own Tony Yay. Motivation: Cam's apparent jailtime and Zeke's been-had-that jailtime.

Like it wasn't already a made-for-TV thriller, "Testify" hisses underneath. Cam practiced his lines in the mirror so, even though this is supposed to be a hard-hitting Larry King style impromptu chat, he soon takes grip. "Pardon me," he says with the politeness of Trump pissing all over the seat, "I'm in interview mode now."

Sometimes this talk-turned-skit turns into a sitcom: "I get shot and go to jail while people who shoot me are still on the streets!" is accompanied by canned booing and "I'm a charity giving citizen-- donated thousands to Katrina" gets some fake applause from the unheard effects genius (Banco?). Zeke turns up out of nowhere getting all wacky neighbor, making sure we still know he's a "Nextel dude, not a pre-paid Cingular dude." So is he chirping from the bing (bing)? Can he shank Travis Barker? Anyway, he's set to drop out of the pen "late '06" (early '08 in Dipland) and his welcome home requests are modest, just "a four-door Maserati with his face in the rims." Done and done.

Oh right, the song. Cam stutters a lot? Kinda funny a little. He references "Duncan Heinz," which Jay did 10 years ago. But it's not a subliminal (I think). That's the thing, not many inside-the-brain crevices here, more like cleaning exteriors. "Go get your wet wipes!" There's a Beautiful Mind oral sex bit but I'm over that. I'm saying, when is Brain Candy going to get its due with the head 'n' helmet massive?

All this and more is why Killa Season the movie will be better than Killa Season the album. Because Cam is bigger than his rhymes. Because he's clowned Bill O'Riley and Tim Westwood. Because, with his vision held back by three and a half minutes, his mind trips over itself trying to fit it all and stumbles. Because if you're the World's Fattest Cat, it's hard to move.

Barney Rubble With the Top Popped

2006-03-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

T.I.: King Back
T.I.: What You Know
T.I.: Get It
King

Any asshole with a keyboard and two dicks to type with can walk you through "What You Know" and the regal horns big sound "alas, T.I. is the king," etc. Which is frustrating to an extent. "Know" does what every pro white rap consumer loathes: Turns regular white non-consumers into huge rap fans because it's that good, and everybody knows it, and no matter how little or much backreading, slumming in the ATL blogs or taking pictures of rappers at car conferences, "What You Know" just is better than anything either party's heard for a while. Yeah, my money's on Stack Bundles too.

Let's go beyond the OMGs though: great production, but it's Tip's flow that makes "Know" work. He's steady, long, and wide--never "spits" the words, never has to, as he's merely the mouthpiece for something greater coursing him. What do you know about that? Getting romantic, sorry. But it's like what Jameson Marvin said about good choral singing back in my glee club days: Keep the breath going, the mouth merely shapes the air. You get the visual in the "Know" video, T.I.'s mouth stuck in that half figure-eight snarl, minimal lip/jaw movements. It's not just a look--it's a look with actual repercussions (i.e. not just a look).

Not to ruin a good thing, but there are decisions T.I.'s making w/r/t word choice that keeps his flow so uninterrupted. Unwitting or not--who cares--and this ain't too scientific an inquiry, just some things I've noticed, and please take issue if things get wack. T.I. avoids a lot of sounds that stop the air: Bs, Ds, Ms, Ps, Ts, Zs (which are TSs). When he does have to use them, he gets them out of the way quick, hangs on the vowels, which separates him from the H-Town clowns who power through consonants, gravel in the mouth, etc. That he rhymes "king back" with "lean back," holding that short "i" as long as lean's diphthong, speaks to the liberty he takes with vowels, though he's not obnoxious about it--compare the way Kanye drops the ends of words so sloppy, as if he's cheating or something when rapping "years" with "his" on "Golddigger."

First lines:

The first line of "King Back" is, as Standard Written English, not particularly pleasant-sounding, esp. with that run of six short vowels in the middle: "Who knew you could fit on your wrist a whole pound of diamonds." Not the best example, but watch how T.I. works it, smoothes it out, elongates: "Who knew you coo fee on ya wris-ta whole poun-da di-mons."

"Know" does subtler, beyond the typical fast/slow, shout/quiet, DMX/not-DMX choices emcees make for deliveries. "See me in ya city sittin pretty kno I'm shining dawg/ Ridin wid a couple Latin broads and a china doll," goes the first line; though T.I. changes up the rhythm on the next line to something faster, he picks that "aw" off "dawg" and "broad" and "doll"-- maybe the most natural, unconscious sound humans can muster (we make it we sigh and yawn)--and that sound gives the line its float: "And you kno how we ball (Ay)/ Ridin in shiny cars (Ay)/ Walk in designer malls (Ay)/ Buy everything we saw."

"Get It" is also worth paying attention to. It's Jack Swagger's big number, so I'll let him wax on the specifics whenever he gets to it (soon, Jack?). This being the party track, Tip's more willing to annunciate his percussives, really bang them out, spit them uh-huh. "GET" "IT" is defiantly two different words the way they're pronounced here, contrasted with the song's much looser fast-raps ("got that guacamole holy moly you don't know me"). Notice too Swizz Beats throws the mids up really high, there's no bass or treble on his voice, which softens the grate, demands replay in the way, say, Mu's "Chair Girl" cannot.

As this is a half-assed linguistic inquiry into three of the year's best songs, do any of you know of similar, for similar? I'm wondering why we (or just I?) separate flow and timbre and word choice so much, except when it's really obvious there's a connection. The whole process scares me either way--potentially dehumanizing, demystifying, overly reductive--but seems like another trick to keep up our sleeves.

Two Bottles of Hypno

2006-03-28T18:08:00.000-05:00

Cory Mo [ft. Bun B, Slim Thug & Pimp C]: If It Ain't Me
Southern Smoke 25

I went to Houston once, a few years ago. People only wear cowboy hats in the airport, and the Rushmore school from Rushmore is right across the street from the public school from Rushmore, but other than that it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. The heat is so oppressive that laziness becomes sort of an environmental necessity; everyone who can afford to have a pool in his backyard has one, they turn pissy-warm around mid-June, and it's almost impossible to do anything other than just sit there in a floaty chair and drift in and out of sleep. There's a lot of oil money, a lot of rich people, and you can see the sense of entitlement rising off their SUVs like steam after they leave the car wash. It definitely had something to do with where I was staying, but I didn't see anyone swanging their candy-paint cars; all I saw was big monsters cruising slow on the way to the supermarket because everything is way too far away from anything else for you to walk, and plus it's too hot. Have you ever heard people talk about real estate in New York? People mention triple-digit figures when they're talking about square-footage; it's pathetic. Rappers in Houston talk a lot about real estate, and they sound like they know what they're talking about.

"If It Ain't Me" is the first time I've heard that Houston in Houston rap, all bullhorns mounted on front bumpers and orange-tinted mirrored wrap-around sunglasses and golf-course swagger. Cory Mo sounds just like Cowboy Troy except he cusses, too-white plosives and over-enunciated ooh-sounds, like he's a white person making fun of rap music, saying absolutely nothing but very proud of himself for it. Slim Thug is amused, laughing at himself for being as fly as he is: "I'm six-six with six chicks under my wing." Pimp C gets on the hook because everyone likes the way he says "bitch." Bun actually mentions tinted Ray-Bans. It's all that kind of moneyed indolence, dudes making a rap song in between bitching about gas prices and comparing lawn furniture. The beat is straight-up goober-disco, sounds like someone turned an Allmann Brothers riff into a bassline and put some drums and organ squiggles on it. If any of these four guys have ever had a bad day in their lives (and they most certainly have), you can't hear it. It's sports music, like Huey Lewis.

Gas Brake Dip Dip

2006-03-27T03:00:00.000-05:00

The Game [ft. E-40]: Tell Me When To Go (Remix)
Southern Smoke 25
The Game [ft. E-40]: Tell Me When To Go (Remix)
The Inc Files 7

Wack Wall Street obsessives took note, this freestyle found a spot on both The Inc Files 7 and Southern Smoke 25, not to forget several other prank mixtapes WWS-obsessive Jack Swagger prepared for my amusement. DJ Smallz is no Nu Jerzey Devil when it comes to Game dickriding, and Amadou told me Tapemasters only bring the hot shit, always, so I wondered: Is Thizz Face the new Game Face?

It is just his regular face. Like last year round now, and six months ago, and however long this guy can keep up the shapeshifting and trendfucking and 50 baiting, Game forges new friendships in the hottest new cities--drinking the purple stuff, coloring the candy paint, trapping things, whipping Ghostrider, etc. And this time out, seems that Game forgot how much he hates/needs G-Unit; depending on how you liked Game's track of Tony Yayo yelling "HERE WE GO YO!!!!" over Reel 2 Real's "I Like to Move It Move It," you could be disappointed here.

Anybody else taken by how much Game loves ghosts? "Cops pulled the Benz over," he explains. "Ain't nobody in it." But there is. Later: "Ghostride the whip/ Ghostwrite your shit/ And when I get writer's block I ghostride your bitch." I'm pretty sure that's an allusion to Hollow Man.

Elsewhere Game takes cues from Jeezy's trapper-not-rapper status, selling his rap career as a side project to his true vocation, basketball: "Got half the niggas in the NBA tryna fight me." He's like Ron Artest, he tells us. That puts Game in "pretty good rapping for an athlete" territory, next to your Tony Parkers and Terrell Owenses and (dare me) Phil Mickelsons.

More. The freestyle is also a curious though not at all subtle move toward career branding, and hints at a greater 'Game' lifestyle that includes many many things we can buy: G-Unot shirts, Hurricane sneaks, tickets to the 'Game' flick, a movie-inspired video game, and with any luck, a sport developed around a new kind of Game-branded deepwater scuba sunglasses sure to hit stores in time for Christmas.

But well you know okay okay see, Game's not hyphy. I'm not either; not faking it though. Granted as above, Game knows that whips are for ghostriding and Mac Dre is for overly sentimental touchstoning (though it's unclear whether Game thinks "Mac" is Bay for "Doctor"). The hyphy outsider has no reason to believe Game is fucking things up.

When he gets to the part when E-40 asks to "direct traffic"--a simple enough call/response that E makes all the more simple by adding "when I say something, you say it right back at me"--the masquerade is over. (Pun averted --Ed.) Game makes it through "ghostride the whip" ("GHOSTRIDE THE WHIP"), and even through the first "scrape!" ("SCRAPE"). The next 'scrape' though, Game's response accidentally falls on E-40's call. It's really small but still--dude's maxed out the chameleon thing.

Post Scrapegate: Game recognizes the error immediately, remembers to say "SCRAPE" his turn too, puts his stunna shades on, barks his way through the rest of the track like nothing ever happened. There's a reason the Tapemasters cut is nearly a minute shorter, the passage in question nowhere to be heard. Same reason I bet Smallz lets his run long. Same reason this line--"Jesus had dreads so fuck it i'ma grow some/ then i'ma shake my shit/ after that have a bitch braid my shit/ chop it off and fade my shit"--reads so damn tragic.

Ruined Men

2006-03-27T00:37:00.000-05:00

J.R. Writer [ft. Juelz Santana]: What You Know About Crack
Writer's Block 3

Word on the block is that Jay Argggghhhh never sold. He spit fire round the camp fire and dude brought dude to dude (Cameron Giles) and dude signed dude. Sorta, even though he's on Koch (ack) and not W.B./Asylum. Now that King is finna win, people and players will horde that windswept collection of stompers for all they can muster. The game starts at Writer, who takes "What You Know," which is pro forma Dipset thievery material from git-go, and goes. J.R. chirpin: "You couldn't take this cold off my neck with Thera-Flu!" Really really doe? Yes. "I know all about crack." Dubious but we ride dirty. Santana does "dirty work" like Norm MacDonald when duke had jokes. "I'll be there in a jiffy with a bag full of Jiffy; I ain't talkin' bout peanut butter either brother." I'm sayin' these were days meant to last and we are but a victim of the Gleaming Cubes that jingle-jingle-jangle. Santana makes but a brief appearance on this thang and MURDERDEATHKILLS the shit. Actually what were we saying about Writer getting writtens for Koch? Yeah, makes sense in retrospect.