Pretty amazing, this site will take a hip hop song and, using a complicated series of algorithms, will work out how smart you need to be to fully understand it.
Jay-Z - Dead Presidents 2: 16/20, University Degree (does HOV-A even have a degree?)
Kanye - Big Brother: 9/20, some high school.
Pretty rad little bit of musical theory shiz…
Since this is a free for all and everybody’s trying to go in - I’m next.
Lots has happened since we collectively last posted. Shit, Gary Coleman died (RIP). But over in my microcosm of rap and hip hop - there’s this youngster named Drake. He’s never even put out an album. A classic mixtape, yes (even my friends who won’t listen to an artist once he’s done more than 50k units with a commercial release put ‘So Far Gone’ on repeat - don’t front - Slaughterhouse fans, i think you’re technically still good?) and a Sprite commercial, right. He’s an overnight celebrity, and a song with the great one recently surfaced, that.. had we been writing this blog then we would’ve without a doubt covered. Thankfully, now the album has leaked and we can enjoy this instantaneous classic without any type of DJ/mixtape tag fuckery.
I’ll be the first to admit my child-like admiration for Jay-Z’s effortless cool, and ‘Light Up,’ a track that Drake had mentioned was perfect for Hov - is no disappointment. Remember Black Republicans with Nas and Jay? That was crazy. This isn’t quite beef-squashing epic, but it’s correlated somehow (and a potential passing of the torch) from old to young of the “freshest out.”**
At this point, you listen to the song, where at the end of Jay’s verse, he tries to rationalize / openly justify selling out. I couldn’t handle the tagged versions on youtube so click the link to listen directly or download if you so choose (recommended).
**the sentiment and belief of the public, not of my own.
You may have seen an interview with these dudes floating round the interwebz over the last couple of weeks. The dude on the right is Watkin Tudor Jones (wow), AKA Ninja, and the girl is Yo-Landi Vi$$er (really?). They’re a South African hip hop duo (well, along with DJ Hi-Tek) they have gone viral in the last month or so.
I’ve gone with their first single ‘Enter the Ninja’ because… well, watch it. It’s pretty obvious.
- Willbur
I just laughed out loud at the absurdity of this song and it’s title. It’s terrible tuesdays, and for good reason, Busta Rhymes is on now - with the instant classic, radio-friendly “I Love My Chick.” There’s really so much to say about this, but let’s just start by how Busta Rhymes has ultimately made his entire career by being an eccentric, caricature of a rapper - he’s the closest thing to a cartoon character in hip hop (maybe right alongside 50 Cent). That’s not to say that he’s got a catalog of classics, or that the first couple videos he had with hype were not legitimate - they were - and I think he’s pushed the genre forward with his creativity and uniqueness, but dude is just so ANIMATED. It hurts a little, even without the long, swinging dreads.
This song-
A. It made the single roster, among a bunch of songs on the album that I thought had a whole lot more potential. And I’m all for girl-songs or concepts, but can you find the perfection in the details and atleast give it some more subtlety? ”I love my bitch?” Enough said.
B. The video? A corny bite out of Mr & Mrs Smith? A “short film” with Gabrielle Union?
C. will.i.am production = time-stamped to that period when he was actually an in-demand hip hop producer for anyone trying to sell records to teenage boys and girls (I still respect him).
And fuck, even the fact that Dre cosigned this thing by cameo’ing in the video? I know you signed Busta to Aftermath and helped him craft a surprisingly good comeback album (I thought, maybe a little too crossover capable but) - still not a good look (like the ballerina pic, or even the steroid shit).
Watch this:
Now go find the real song on youtube and listen to how it was clearly never meant to be played on the radio.
I still like Busta, I’ll redeem him in a positive post soon.
This song has such crazy vivid memories for me. When it surfaced, it had so much built-up anticipation and hype as the lead single to Dr. Dre’s 2nd (solo) studio album in 10 years. I remember downloading the song, and the album even as I anxiously awaited the leak on different FTP servers, or through IRC chat. Now all I’d have to do is google the album title and attach zshare or megaupload. Crazy.
Traditional Thursdays, Dr. Dre, and the pristine studio sound of commercial rap should really be a doctoral thesis that someone writes, but its just today’s theme. There are so many “superproducers” that strive for the sound Dr. Dre has perfected. It’s flawless EQ - snares that literally crack, basses that feel like water dropping in slow motion (or the cup on the dash in Jurassic Park), and instrumentation that sounds like robots recreated and optimized string quartets with industrial grade, sterilized, stainless steel. Something like that atleast. Dre is the King, capital K (6 MPC’s daisy-chained?) The first producer of the genre to fully embrace live instrumentation and composing .. and the first producer to overhype 5.1 surround sound mixing (Detox??).
Still D.R.E. is a perfect track to spotlight - it was the future when you heard it, and arguably yet to be replicated (often imitated though). The famous, famous key melody that never quite made Scott Storch’s career. The envied Dr. Dre drums. Even the strings for counter melody and bass. To me, it’s really hard to describe exactly how pristine and precise it sounds, you try.
The video below, take or leave, but dig around and find a nice 320kbps mp3 to download and ‘bump it in your whip’ on your commute home.
Honestly why aren’t there more hip hop bands? It doesn’t make much sense to me, especially when a number of artists are now touring with bands playing their electronically (or less likely live-recorded) songs, and it’s really GOOD.
Have fans and listeners finally realized that a DJ, a couple giant speakers, and an MC doesn’t make for a very entertaining live performance? Has all this “authenticity” and gangster fuckery died? Are rap listeners more sophisticated?! Am I completely squashing rap’s historical roots just by suggesting that it’s an awkward genre to attend live shows? WELL. I can still respect it for its purity, but I also think its about time that shit gets flipped - for the advancement and depth of the music, and for pushing the future of the genre forward with intrigue (more on that with John-Gruden-like-aggression later).
Let’s just first give the roots a little Friday nod. Yeah, they’ve changed a bit. They’ve grown and expanded and experimented and even inked a big TV deal. Along the way they lost Storch, and they found Frankie Knuckles (?), and they still fucking tour like they’re 23 and hungry. It’s ridiculous, but so satisfying to fans because the sound is unchanged. Thank god they’ve yet to hit the state fairs like Huey Lewis and the News.
For freestyle friday, I chose the next movement (and forgot entirely about the music video), because each time I’ve seen the Roots play this song live, it instantly gives me chills. It’s the way it feels when you hear it organically - the overall groove, those keys, Quest just laid back on the drums. It’s major. TGIF
why not post an overly produced live version too:
who? ohhh. yeah, t-pain.
this is controversial and almost disrespectful to the blog, so i’m going to keep it short and sweet. for better or worse, this fucking guy influenced contemporary popular music (“hard & b”) in a pretty major way. look at the biters, look at the haters, look at the ringtones sold, look at the iphone app, etc. etc. i’m not even going to use this forum to say why it’s so wrong for a-z reasons. i’m just going to make the statement. influencer. maybe not the very first to do it, but clearly the first to popularize it and get the credit. as a different take to traditional thursdays, and a fun little fast fact - here’s where it started:
ps three letters - DOA.
FREESTYLE FRIDAY PEOPLE!
everybody can’t help but talk about how fly they are in rap. i don’t care if you’re “underground” hip hop artists, you still talk about how fresh your clothes are, or how artsy and intellectual your lyricism is, or how you have “more authenticity than everybody else in the game!” i see you, but it’s really all the same - just relative to status and success. look at common, look at kweli, look at the black eyed peas (what the fuck happened there?). they’re fly as shit (according to their music and brand) now that they aren’t independent artists on micro-labels.
that said, there are still artists with lots of integrity. and that’s important to a bunch of snobby hip hop listeners (probably less important to me if i can respect you as a craftsman, for what you make and do, or how you think). let’s chat about little brother though.
to me, and fuck i hate when these thoughts even boil up to the top of my brain, but little brother might be one of the ‘realest’ hip hop groups that i’ve ever liked listening to. it’s part the clever (and almost more charming than charismatic) wordplay, it’s part the north carolina roots and humble non-rap megacity influence, it’s part that they’re completely ok with never being major label commercial successes or atleast it would appear so, and it’s primarily because they’re fun to listen to. they’re approachable, and they make me laugh because the storytelling and insights into life in their lyrics feel pretty … normal. it’s refreshing. here’s life of the party - listen for the juxtaposition between swaggerific braggadocio and complete self-deprecating humor. to me, that’s GOOD music (no grammy family). -c
“hipster rap”. that’s funny. i remember when nahright and all the hip hop blogs blew up on some virtual-thug type shit over a new addition/slant/angle to the genre of rap - younger kids, 80’s clothing, tighter jeans - hipster rap.
i could be really really wrong on this, but atleast i have an opinion. i’m making a bold claim, to the best of my memory, that ‘black mags’ from the cool kids was the original hipster rap single (or atleast a spark to all the controversy and discussion) that spawned a movement. they’ve never really seen “commercial success,” they’ve had a couple mediocre mixtapes or EPs, and they frankly look like they’ve already been time-stamped for their 15 seconds, but what they did was kind of major. they were the first to set the stage. they took the heat for the “slim fit” pants and the 80’s basketball references, so that the hardcore hip hop audience could open up a little and support the artists that were jumping into the same cultural momentum. the likes of b.o.b., wale, nickelus f, pac div, U.N.I., asher roth, drake, kid cudi, mickey factz, XV, kidz in the hall, etc. etc. all share something that the cool kids helped make viable and possible.
i’m not here to say it’s good or bad. that i hate them or love them. but i think they were influential - and traditionalists, in the tradition of traditional thursdays. -c
ps hipster rap = nerd rap? up for debate.
I don’t know how “Wacky” this is, but it’s different, and it’s dope. The Orishas are a Cuban hip hop group. You might already know them, but if you don’t you should.
They mix traditional latin sounds and singing with amazingly fluid gangster flows.
I figure these guys deserved a wacky Wednesday post just due to the fact that I can’t understand a single thing they rap about. Regardless these guys kill it. Kill it !
- CD
Against better judgment, my friend and I headed to Walnut Creek on a recent Saturday night. Walnut Creek is an affluent...
