Common: New Track "Break My Heart"

Hey, I said I wouldn't post the whole album. This is only one track--that makes it okay...right. Here's one of the tracks that I was feeling off of Com's upcoming lp, Finding Forever.

Break My Heart

It's leaked: Common Finding Forever

I ain't gon post it b/c me and my man is from the same parts, but it's out there if you look.

Naw Bruh That's Not Really A Classic

Yesterday, I was reading Meka Soul's blog on HipHopDX. It's basically about the besmirching of the word classic. Only in Hip Hop do cats throw the word classic around every 5-10 days with albums that are usually worth less then a "blowski" (word to Bol) from a chick with long teeth and gingivitis (sorry female readers of the blog). Here's how Dictionary.com defines a classic "an author or a literary work of the first rank, esp. one of demonstrably enduring quality." Suffice it to say that you can sub out "literary work" and add "album" for this context.

I'm going to go ahead and throw in my own two cents. A classic album is one that 9 out of 10 cats would consider to be damn near flawless--that means like one track that's booty and possibly a few annoying skits, but in all likelihood an album that's perfect. And yea, that one cat who doesn't agree with the other 9 is probably a down syn-baby--sorry to say. One person can't categorize an album a classic and it's just so. The streets have to proclaim it so and it remains so after years and years of bumpage. Also, for good measures the album has to change the way cats make music afterwards and not for a couple of months but for years to come. So, with that said it's time to quiet that talk about how you think so and so's album is a classic. If it ain't 3FeetSupremeReadyIllmatiReasonableChroniCriminal CubanEnterdaPaidinItTakesaMill and a select few others that shit ain't a classic. I hate to be the one who tells you younger guys but there hasn't been a classic in about 10-12 years...Yea, that long.

So here's the list of a few recent albums that are NOT classic.

College Dropout or Late Registration-I like Kanye West. I respect what he does but if you can hear a cat taking breaths in between bars then he's not ready to make a classic yet.

Hip Hop is Dead I haven't listened to this album in months and when I do I skip through alot of the tracks. When it came out, it was deemed a classic. Now, that the excitement has died down...Not so much. Most of yall yokels can agree this one is not a classic; another good album but not a classic. Couldn't hold the weed of Illmatic. Say I'm lyin'.

Lil Wayne-The Carter 1 or 2 I don't think this needs any explanation but okay, I'll go through it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Wayne fan but neither of these albums are classic just based upon the fact the album, persona and motif are a collage of pop culture icons and unhealthy male on male obsessions plus the whole fabled ghostwriting thing.

Food and Liquor I like Lupe's debut and it's certainly dope; possibly a near classic and defintely one of the more creative releases in recent Hip Hop history but not a classic. I get the concept of the album, but I don't think he uses much of that throughout the album. It's difficult deeming whether "I Gotcha" is either or where does "the Instrumental" fit in??? The individual tracks are dope but it just doesn't seem to come together as a whole for me. He should've released the leak but nevertheless, not a classic.

Be This is a hard one for me. I think most Com fans--including myself--just want to give dude his props a la Scorsese but I can't honestly agree that this album is better than Resurrection (a classic) or One Day It All Makes Sense (a near classic). I think alot of times when we hear our favorite emcees get laced with some decent beats we're like "yea, this is it." But, when you look at the subject content of Be, it's not as focused as the albums mentioned above.

Fishscale This is another difficult one for me. This was my favorite album of 06, but would you say it's Supreme Clientele??? Not, if you're smart. This may be as close as you can get to a classic in this era especially in the mainstream. After a couple of years this may be considered a classic but for now, I'm gonna have to say nope.

There's a few others that I can think of i.e. a few Talib albums but I think this should do for now as I know most of yall do not like scrolling down and reading this far down into a blog.

A Couple of New Videos (Courtesy of On Smash

Remy Martin *smh*: You Dun Fucked Up Now

Woody Harrelson really hit it on the head in White Men Can't Jump when he said something along the lines of black people would rather look cool and lose, then look dorky and win. Note: This doesn't refer to all black people but every now and again we get glaring examples.

Case and point, dumbass Remy Martin. I'm sure most of yall have heard about her fiasco over the weekend. If not, you can catch it on just about every Hip Hop-related website but here's the gist of it. Remy Martin was in New York's trendy meat-packing--can't they come up with another name for this area--district partying and bullshittin. She was with some friends (weed stashers) and probably some groupies and goons. So, for some unknown reason, Remy goes to do something else and leaves the designer bag under the supervision of her friend. What she was doing hasn't been stated yet but it can assumed it was probably some dumb shit she wasn't supposed to be doing in the first place (blowin' a guy, snortin' rocks or tuckin' her penis). So, when she returns to said friend and bag someone had lifted 2 stacks ($2,000) out of the bag. Now to me, 2 stacks is a helluva lot of money--possibly enough to hit someone with a blunt object while they're not looking but kill nah. But to her, it doesn't seem like hardly enough to make a big deal over ya know with all the bricks she's flipped. I mean it's not the first time a rapper's been robbed i.e. Young Buck, Prodigy, T.I., Jeezy, Bow Wow (yup, just about everybody). But this bitch goes all O'Dog and caps her friend in the stomach. Then, she stupidly tries to getaway in a loaded blue Escalade--like nigga's won't see her--and here's the kicker the dummy crashes. Later, she turns herself in.

So, in order to keep her street credibility she blammed the chick right on the spot and now has to figure out how she's gonna beat what looks like an unbeatable case. She's not facing misdemeanors, these are major Fs (attempted murder). She definitely don't have the Hilton dough so when the judge drops the gavel on this one, expect to see Remy in 2040. If anything was to be learned from recent rap going-ons it would be that you have pimp's tricks beat up the perp and keep it moving but because of Remy's newly found gully juice, she now has to figure out how she's gonna replace the 2 stacks and the 250 stacks she just blew on bail and how to manage to not become apart of the jailhouse commerce.

Just another example of when keeping it real goes wrong.

Callin a Spade a Spade...

I'm at work on Nah Right doing what I does--moonlightin' like fuck and gettin paid on the company dollar and hear Cassidy's I Get Money (Freestyle) and I must say he styled on 50 with a pretty mediocre Cassidy verse, but that's only to be expected as if 50 produced anything other than a turd nowadays it would be astounding. Towards the end there's an interesting jab taken at the rapper du jour, you know Mr. 468K out the gate/dude with two dudes living in him. I'm not the type to pat myself on the back but I was all over it (about 2 weeks ago) with this post so give me a round of applause. Thank you, thank you. Apparently, Cassidy was reading my blog or has eyes and ears that function with minimal comprehension skills. Judging from T.I.'s recent hijinx I'm sure he'll have something to say and Cassidy will respond, yall know how it goes and maybe in the end, someone will catch an eye jammy much to my delight. But the sad thing here is that T.I.'s blatant bite sold more in its first week--and if not first week then the addition of his second week--than Cassidy has sold ever (whole catalogue, perhaps). Is there any justice in Hip Hop??? It's like when someone makes a diving catch in Madden for a TD on the last play. You know it's bullshit but what can you do?

The Notorious

Peep game:

The Notorious MSG

Just Drop the Fuckin' Album You Pricks

Betwixt all the tomfoolery that went on with the two above this is the product (one out of the many tracks they supposedly collabed on). I think this is supposed to be Saigon's single, although I thought "Pain In My Life" was the single but I figured that wouldn't last b/c it's just a little bit too real for the radio. Depending on how well the Greatest Story Never Told sells, I think we may see a new model for promotin' albums; artists upping their internet presence, getting guestblogs on myriad sites, droppin E-disses via Youtube. Although nerds like myself have been rippin' artist(s) new assholes on the world wide web for some time now, we are now beginning to see rappers have their semi-literate weed carriers use the net to push their own agendas, mainly selling an assload of albums and subsequently making $$$ via concerts. I think I see a blog coming...For now, check out Saigon's new single "C'mon Baby" produced by Just Blaze adlibbed by Swizzy.

Oh yea, you two fucks stop teasin the fuckin net and drop this fabled album. We're feenin over here!!!

Saigon-C'mon Baby

My Other Child

This idea spawned out of many of my dialogues where I'm ranting about how hot some new shit is and how yall (my friends) need to get up on it. Basically, I have a new blog devoted to posting new shit, exclusive shit, vintage shit; well just mad shit but it's more so music-driven. Confused, well this ought to clarify. When you're done there, here's the main address for your audio consumption and general enjoyment.

Don't worry loyal fans, I'm still posting here but while Hip Hop is so blah I gotta do something right.

You Know Who Fucked Rap Music Up??? (Hint: not the South)

Thank God I was born in the early 80s. I was privileged enough to come into age during a time when Hip Hop peaked (and when rap music, generally, didn't blow balls)

For awhile, I've been avoiding writing long diatribes about how rap (not Hip Hop) is about as enjoyable as dual root canals but...what can I say, the shit really sucks right now. So, as I was on my way home from my 9-5 ball and chain, I was trying to think what sent rap into the shitter. I came up with a number of things, but I think it all can be embodied in one man's career: P Diddy.

Puff gets props on one front, discovering and putting out Biggy, if you can even say that. But in general, isn't his relationship to Big similar to that of Dash/Hov in that a talentless, flashy pseudo businessman from Harlem extorts the talent of a BK emcee??? What did they actually do???

First Puff destroyed the concept of what it is to be considered a good album. When Bad Boy became a force to reckon with circa 96-98 a good album was considered to be at least 80-85% dope tracks. That meant a good album had to be 8/10 good tracks or whatever the ratio is depending on how many tracks was on the album. A classic had to be 95-100% heat to be considered a classic. Albums that were 12 tracks long with only 6 good tracks were considered weed plates in the mid-late 90s. Now(2007), a good album only has to be 65% good. That means out of 10 tracks, only 6 have to be good for a mainstream rap album to considered good. Reference 2006 for numerous examples. Now, I wondered how it got this way...Here's a number of reasons: Mase (debut and follow-up), The Lox (debut), Black Rob (however many albums he has), G-Dep, Loon etc,etc. Really, all of these guys are at least average rappers but under the leadership of "can't stop won't stop" publishing/masters owning Puff they all produced shitty albums. But, at the time they all had chart-topping radio friendly hits which probably sold mad albums but the quality of their whole effort(s) was butt. So if you're wondering where the 1/2 hit + filler tracks = wack ass album format came from...you can thank your boy Combs. I think it's the continued production of albums like the above--coupled with outrageous album sales he got from those--that made cats believe, who needs 15 thoughful, dope tracks when I can pump out 3 "club bangers" and make an assload of money.

The original I blatantly suck but want to make ya dance dude . I think it should suffice to say "don't push me close I'm close to the eddddddge." This is not the first time Diddy rapped his god-awful rhymes over a track but probably the first track that was accepted as "cool." If I can recall right--which tends to be difficult b/c of all the years of drug/booze consumption--cats felt like, "yea, Puff's doo doo but I can dance to this." I'm not going through this guy's whole catalogue but "Been Around the World," & "Bad Boy for Life" etc, etc. Never should this man have been allowed to touch a microphone unless he was prepping it pre-concert for Big or for adlibs--no words though, just utterances. Puff did a couple of things that fucked up rap. He created the 98% swagger, 2% rhymes model and that bullshit "I'm not trying to be lyrical I'm trying to make cats dance" spiel.

All in all, Diddy's should be exiled from Rap forever and besides, Big, his only contribution to rap was the Fred/E-Ness debacle on Making the Band. I mean no offense to Puff or nothin.

Other wack trends from Puff: jerking rappers, the rappers that can't rhyme, the singer who can't sing, the acceptance of the dancing male in mainstream, materialism, white tigers in the hood, extortion.

The Police

A little something different for the people. Yall ain't know I had shit like this did yall. Yeah, the catalogue is deep.

The Police

Killa Cam is Down with the Police!!!

Yea, pretty corny but check out the similarities in the two tracks; makes you kind of reevaluate the talent of these producers out here.

If You Assholes Are Going to Party like a Rockstar Do It Right

Hip Hop is decrepit, decaying and on its last leg and shit's looking a little shaky to say the least. There's no doubt in my mind that if Pharoahe could brick--sales-wise--with as close as one's been to a classic in years with Desire then it might be time to hang it up on this Hip Hop shit. Alot critics, bloggers and dissatisfied consumers in general have been flirting with divorcing this Bitch we call Hip Hop for a minute and some have called it quits, ashamed at what rap has become--a watermelon, toot and whistle, shuck and jive show word to mantan. It's only a matter of time before our favorite artists do the same and kick this Bitch to the curb. I mean, let's face it we can wax poetic about how REAL emcees should do this for the passion but passion doesn't feed a family of 4. Hip Hop, although it may be one's heart, is still a job; a job that puts food on the table. So as we see, right in front of our very eyes, the well running dry (sales are in the shitter, cats are being signed for deals only for their singles, artists scrambling to indies b/c the majors got them stuck) future acts will either convert to Rap (the pop friendly bastard child genre of Hip Hop) or move on to greener ($$$) pastures.

History serves us well with examples. When Uncle Crakka (TIs--word to Meka--Gen Pop America, the mainstream) gets ahold of it, it (the music) goes through a cycle--discovery, unabounded consumption, disposal (word to the blues and jazz). Hip Hop is now in that last phase being that Corp. America has boned it dry and will continue shaking it by the kankles until all the ringtone $$$ dry up.

I think (Afro)Punk is going to soon become what underground (what some would call backpack) Hip Hop was to blacks. I think fashion-wise we're already there. Now, we're starting to realize how retarded it is for a cat to wear a shirt that looks like a night gown and pants me, fred and ray ray from down the block can fit in. That whole style of dress is becoming corny and cats are trading in their XXXXXXXLs for regular fit tee and jeans and slim fit jeans (popular in punk). I can list a couple of other trends that remind me of punk: biker chains, mohawks, bandanas (the fairly obvious ones). Attitude-wise, we've never really gave a fuck; similar to punk but here's some other traits of punk: anti-establishment, nihilism. Some Hip Hop acts are already have these traits and if we're not ready to fuck some shit up after this Bush administration then we're just assholes. It's only a matter of time before emcees evolve in to punk rock band fronts and Hip Hop becomes a faded memory--slight exaggeration but yall get the point. Personally, I think this is where cats are gonnga take and if you interested in seeing the future check out Afropunk.com and here's a couple of artists I checked out from there:

Tiombe Lockhart

The Apes

Philmoore Browne

Dragons of Synth

Building Better Bombs

Whole Wheat Bread

Thoughts anyone???

INI: Center of Attention

One of the most underrated Hip Hop albums ever; produced entirely by Pete Rock.

INI-Center of Attention

ATCQ: Low End Theory

Let's celebrate this Hip Hop shit!!!

A Tribe Called Quest-Low End Theory

Thanks: 2,000 Readers and Counting

I wanted to do this when I hit 1,000 hits but I just never got around to it and I thought it would be kind of lame to do it when had already passed(like thanks for 1,016 hits) but I appreciate all the love people have been showing me on this blog shit. I remember when I got my first hit. I was mad excited now cats regularly check my shit. I write just because I love to write and I originally created this blog b/c I wanted to talk to yall and yall have been talking back. ON THE REAL, THANKS Be on the look out for the mag I'm about to put out too...More on that later.

Thanks...Yall (the readers) are the reason I keep doing it

This is Why I Love This Hip Hop Shit: Jay Electronica

Fuck, I can't come up with anything profound to say. I got writer's block which is a bit odd for me...

(minutes later) Okay, here we go. Just when I was ready to give up on this Hip Hop shit, someone reminds me just why I love this shit so much. Although on a daily basis we see Hip Hop debased, degraded and (excuse my French) fucked in the ass, we forget that it has so much potential. It truly is an art form when placed in the right hands. Which brings me to the reason for this post: Jay Electronica. As I came to work, thinking about how much I hate fucking working on shit I don't care about, I went over to Billie X.'s blog over at XXL and stumbled upon this cat named Jay Electronica. As I enjoy listening to new music I went over to Just Blaze's blog and what I heard made me forget everything I was doing and realize why I love this Hip Hop shit. Click below and let me know what yall think.

A Special Dedication to a Friend of Mine's

Common-The Bitch In You

Money Does Not Equal Intelligence

This post originated from my watching of the BET awards. I'm watching Ciara's performance, Lil Jon emerges from the ground yelling in his usual fashion and Ciara goes into an all out Uncle Luke booty twirk. So, you're Bow Wow. You have a big ass house, $$$, cars and possibly one of the bombest bitches in the game--whose career will soon dwarf your own--and somewhere along the line you Fuck Up and they say he doinked a stripper or some shit like that. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING??? Bow Wow, watch this and feel the sour face my friend b/c now you're hoe is getting her pipes cleaned by Mr. Vitamin Water. This is the perfect example of how money does not equate into intelligence.

DJ 2Tall Presents...Dudley Perkins and Georgia Anne Muldrow-Beautiful Mindz

Hip Hop is dead has become a commonplace nuance in discourse about the current state of rap music. Similarly, ingenuity in R&B has died down as well as it appears musicians (both rappers and singers) no longer carry the passion for their crafts that they once did. So, it’s refreshing to stumble upon a project like DJ 2Tall Presents…Dudley Perkins and Georgia Anne Muldrow-Beautiful Mindz. Each of the talented multi-faceted artists contributes their own unique ingredients into the cauldron to produce an effort that’s equal parts experimental, funky, futuristic, and free flowing.

“A Beautiful Mind,” the lead single of the album, has Dudley Perkins (also known as Declaime) and Muldrow pairing up to show their palpable chemistry. 2Tall provides a background laden with breezy flutes and a basic drum pattern suitable for Declaime’s free flowing stanzas that hit on varying topics including empowering the youth, inciting revolution and spirituality. It’s not until mid-song where, songstress, Muldrow displays the range and depth of her vocals on an extended hook. The formless structure of this track characterizes most of the album as speech transitions into rhymes and rhymes transition into crooning etc, etc. For instance, the duration of “Atall” has Declaime giving a revelations-esque spiel, claiming the end is near, in which his verse falls somewhere between an uptempo monologue and traditional rhyme spitting and eventually evolves into singing. The loose structure gives the album an organic and fluid feel. The instrumental interludes 2Tall provides weave the album together and illustrate his production prowess. On “Coils” 2Tall accesses tambourines and an active string section to make a unique concoction akin to something the RZA would have put together in his hey day. Muldrow’s appearances are few and far between as her only solo effort comes in “Ain’t That Strange,” a not so impressive rant about deceitful people who prey on others. This album is at its best when Declaime, Muldrow and 2Tall are all contributing on the track i.e. “Fonkwitme.”

Although Beautiful Mindz is an enjoyable effort that’s an alternative to the fodder currently out there, it does have its faults. At times Declaime’s subject content is a bit too abstract and comes off as hippie existential babble. Also, 2Tall’s beats at times become cluttered with too many elements. Personally, I’d like to have seen more of Muldrow who’s mostly reduced to singing bridges but for the most part, Beautiful Mindz is a seamless, invigorating outing that’s inspirational and innovative.