SEPTEMBER EXPERT WHITEBOY ANALYSIS
(A top 25 listing not necessarily in ascending order of 25 notable hip hop related things, sort of related to hip hop, at least springing from it, I think. NOW WITH 28% MORE WHITEBOY!)
Who we are:
MD: I’m Mike Dikk. This month I have some racial humor for you. The other day I was walking down the street with my roommate and I just happened to be wearing a t-shirt featuring the face of Biggie Smalls. Two young black fellows on bicycles rode past us, and one of them noticed my shirt. As he was riding by he shouted “What the fuck you know about Biggie?”. I’m usually quick on my feet when it comes to retorts, but nothing popped in my head. Even after I had time to think about it, the best thing I could come up with was, “Oh, I thought this was a Led Zeppelin t-shirt”. I honestly had no clue Biggie was an underground folk hero that only black folks knew about, but I sure learned my lesson that day.
A little later, while we were approaching our apartment, we saw two different young black fellows loitering outside listening and rapping along to Lil Wayne. My roommate shouted “What the fuck you know about Lil Wayne?” at them, but I don’t think they heard him.
RM: I am Raven Mack. Years ago, I found an Enter the 36 Chambers Wu shirt (before Wu-Wear even came out even) at a thrift store, complete with bleach stains and a good level of fade. I was wearing it one day going into the DMV in shitty Richmond when a hooptie full of some young black bucks rode by. The driver said loudly, in a comedically over-enunciated way, "WHITE BRE-AD!" At first, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Then I remembered I was wearing a Wu Tang t-shirt. It is funny to me now to think back that there was an actual time where black people owned Wu Tang appreciation. That was a simpler time. Black people were stylish, white people were stupid, and brown people were everywhere, but hidden like cockroaches.
I still have that Wu Tang t-shirt, but I never wear it. I think it became one of those t-shirts you use to clean yourself up with after masturbating, and no matter if you wash it or not, you know you've wiped your dick all over that thing too many times to actually wear again. Although it is fun for me to notice it in the closet and pretend I have fire semen that caused the bleach spots.
JD: (John Dawson) I am going to flip what Mike and Raven went towards, and tell you my story of white-on-white shit. Back in '92, I was a high school junior and around that same time the Grateful Dead sponsored the Lithuania Basketball team at the Olympics. For my birthday, my sister got me one of the tie-dye Lithuania basketball shirts the Dead were selling to support the team. I strolled into gym class rockin' my Lithuania basketball team reppin' no more than Sarunas Marciulionis and one dirty hippie stopped me in my tracks. I was in gym class and this dirty bastard asked me, "if I knew what the tie-dye meant?" I stiff armed the patchouli smelling asshole and kept on walking to play pickup ball while that smelly fucker sat on the bleachers.
KM: (Keenon Mobb) Hello, I have been given a furlough from mulatto jail. They allowed me to go work a Too $hort concert which fell through when Too $hort got stuck in an airplane due to random shitty weather. So if I seem kinda cranky from here out, just know that it's partly due to a shitty turn of events in the good ol' Hub City. Tomorrow I go back to working frat parties which will be FUN and INTERESTING.
BWT: Oh hello I am Brian W. Tosh and apparently this blog didn't have enough dorky white fuckers writing about the rap music so Raven Mack reached out to me. So I figured why not? I had been reading this blog for a while and instead of bitching about things I disagree with elsewhere I can just bitch about them right here from now on. Also I'm pretty sure my tastes in rap are going to be ridiculed to no end so we should have lots of good back and forth. So when I say things like I think Joe Budden is a top 5 guy in rap these days I figure lots of fun will be had by all. Also fuck you guys for not being down with Lil Wayne. Dude is holding down things like no other right now. He is able to make me burn songs with Bow Wow and Ja Rule. Think about that for a second. Bow Wow and Ja Rule.
JP: Jay Pud is Mike Dikk's pal. He is not a full-blown expert whiteboy, but rather a third down specialist brought in to help us not suck so much on the subject of Madden Football.
1. THE RELEASE OF MADDEN '08MD: If you’re a male sports fan who’s played a video game in the last ten years, then you should be well aware Madden ‘08 came out this month. I haven’t been this excited for a Madden release since ’03, and I really shouldn’t be, since I am a poor bastard and I don’t have a Next Gen system, so I have to settle for the PS2 version of Madden ’08. We are now far enough into the life of Next Gen consoles where PS2 Madden is being treated like leftover meatloaf. There are no real leaps from last year's version, except they cut out a lot of the bells and whistles bullshit, so the loading times are faster.
I’m really excited because this is the first year in my lifetime where the Bears have a top tier current team in the game. In Madden world, the most recent “good” Bears team (but there’s also the unlockable ‘85 Bears, who are arguably the best single team in NFL and Madden history) are the ‘88 Bears, which doesn’t exactly get you pumped if you’re a Bears fan. Their main scoring threat was Neal Anderson, and they have an elderly Mike Singletary at MLB. So for the past several years I’ve either had to suck it up and play incredibly boring and frustrating games with the Bears in Franchise mode where my best offensive players were center Olin Kreutz, and whatever journeyman fullback the Bears were stuck with that year, or be forced into two timing my team with another team that actually scores more touchdowns than field goals in real life. Even the fluke 13-3 Bears team in the '01/'02 season had a shitty Madden team outside of Urlacher.
This is also possibly the last Madden I ever buy since I have no immediate plans of buying a Next Gen system and most likely the second to last new PS2 game I buy (Fire Pro comes out in December). It’s the end of an era for sure, and soon I’ll have to leave video games completely behind as I get old and increasingly more stubborn to the point where I don’t feel like learning all these new fangled controls made for the youngsters. I’d like to thank John Madden for providing me with 18 years of video game football entertainment and here’s hoping my days of playing Madden don’t die before John Madden does.
RM: From me guessing Next Gen is a normal non-trekkie term, I can only assume I am an old fucker, way older than Mike. Here's why Madden '08 release got me stoked... when I went to the Best Buy store with the poster for that shit, I knew it meant Madden '07 would now be marked down to $9.99. I didn't have $9.99 that day though, so I didn't get it. When I went to another store, it was still like twenty bucks, and fuck that. I'm not paying a machine twenty bucks for me to waste all my goddamned free time, unless it makes me ejaculate. Literally, not figuratively. So when I went back to the other Best Buy, that shit was gone. Now I'm playing Madden '03 again, because in that game the Redskins are competitive enough because the game mistakenly thought Steve Spurrier was gonna be the most super-genius dude to ever come to the pros since Jimmy Johnson.
Hopefully, we will all share great Madden memories now. I once lived with this hippie bitch who dazzled me with her devil hole briefly. We had another roommate who grew really killer pot, the type of pot that made me stop smoking pot every waking moment of my life because it was too potent for me to function in a manner acceptable to my memory glands. Well, those two, meaning my stupid hippie bitch girlfriend and the other roommate, they had a friend who was this big fat black dude named Rich. Rich needed a place to stay, so he was to stay on our couch for like a week. I didn't know Rich, but they both did, meaning I was like, "Man, whatever," and they were like, "It'll be coooooool (sound of bong bubbling)". Rich moved in and never moved out. Seriously. He lived on our couch for like seven months, which ended up being awesome. This was because my stupid hippie girlfriend thought the penultimate experience of a precious day of human life would be to smoke weed and watch Welcome Back, Kotter. And the pot-growing roommate was always over at his chick's house. So I would be bored as fuck and go hang out in the living room where Rich lived. We would drink beer and smoke a bowl and laugh at how stupid everything else was. One of us bought a used Sega Genesis (or maybe got it from this dude who was going to jail, I can't remember) and the only games we had were a stupid casino game and Madden of one year of some sort. The casino game was good if you were home by yourself because if you bet high and won a million dollars, the game considered that winning, so you could type in your "dream" and then the screen would lock up with blank white script on black background that said "YOU WILL (whatever you wrote)" so I would do that shit while no one was around and write that my dream was to die a brutal death tonight, so the screen would be left saying "YOU WILL DIE A BRUTAL DEATH TONIGHT". That shit was hilarious.
Anyways, Rich, who since he was like 4000 pounds we called Big Rich, and me would play Madden like crazy, with the rules being no punts, so the score would always be like 78 to 73. It was great fun, all the time.
When me and the hippie bitch the pot-grower roommate got another house, they were afraid Rich was gonna move with us since neither of them ever asked him not to move with us, since they really didn't want him around anymore. I was supposed to talk to him about it, but by that time I hated the hippie bitch and found the whole thing funny, and Rich sort of couch crashing his way into our new place would be even funnier to me. Rich helped us move, got my mom really high, and then finally somebody asked him if he had somewhere to go, and he laughed his jolly fat black man laugh and said, "Yeah, I'm going up to my folks' house. I was wondering when you fuckers were gonna ask me."
I miss Big Rich. Last time I saw him was like six or seven years ago and I was harrassing a TV camera in the Roanoke Civic Center parking lot, and Rich saw me and came up and told me he had Hepatitis-C. I know C means the fucked kind, but I acted nonchalant, probably because I was tore up. There's a dude who lives in the city I live near who I see every now and then who keeps up with Rich, but that dude is a goofy recovered heroin addict bike messenger with pet ferrets, and I don't really like striking conversations up with people like that.
JD: I didn’t really get into Madden until around ’95 when I bought a Sega Genesis, but before then I was a child of Tecmo Bowl and the other non-Madden football games out there like the Sega College games and Bill Walsh College Football. Like most hetero males who went to college, Madden became a staple of our college existence. There were nerds who lived in the dorms who would play a league and post their stats on the dry erase boards outside of their rooms, but I wasn’t one of them. I was a Madden hustler. Not having a job or a wealthy mommy to send me cash, I needed loot. Luckily, I had a friend who would go to the athletes’ dorms and clean up playing Madden for cash. It was never big bucks, but like $5 to $20 a game. It helped feed my growing weed habit, but it was also a scheme that was good the first time around, then people either wouldn’t pay you or do gay shit like quit before the game was over. Intimidation was also used in order to not pay and/or make you pay. My friend and I would be in a room with the entire offensive line for my school hulking over you, then blocking the door when you attempted to bolt without paying or waiting to get paid.
Now that I am married and back in school, going out and buying Madden is no longer a priority. I bought Madden '06 used for $8 and I am happy with that for a while, especially because people said '07 wasn’t that great, and I don’t get the Madden itch until football season is in full swing. So there.
(MD: I had my hetero life partner Jay Pud tell a Madden story that I was originally going to write, but I figured he could do a better job.)
JP: I can’t remember what year it was, but it was a good one. My best friend Mike and I worked at the movie theaters, which was a pretty shitty job all things considering, but we got to see movies for free and they were kind enough to give us a paper cup full of popcorn and another full of soda per shift, so I suppose its perks were pretty up our alley. Plus we weren’t really above stealing Gummi Bears and Sour Patch Kids, so our stomachs were happy. Adam Sandler’s almost funny movie The Waterboy, and the Drew Barrymore shitfuckgayfest Home Fries, were playing in the theaters, so the superambitious and internet savvy can look up to find out the real time frame.
Working at the movie theaters for fifteen hours a week was fine enough to buy us them tweeds and hot dogs from the outside the Home Depot, but more on that later. The best part of that summer was that my mom had snagged me (and in effect, Mike), a new dad who lived around the corner from the theaters and Home Depot. To protect the people who I don’t put above googling themselves, I’ll call him Walter Weird, which isn’t a big stretch from the real deal.
My mom had re-met Walt outside of the supermarket. He was buying dogfood for his half-retarded golden retriever and I guess my mother, whose name will be Marie, recognized him. Apparently, in high school he had dreamy black hair and stunning blue eyes, and was big shit to all of the white trash sluts of which I am sure my mom was one. This version of Walt, and the only one I ever knew, was fat, bald, incoherent, and extremely broken. He was the type of broken that gave you the advantage - denying the crafty their chance to take. At that point, Mike and I were pretty much tackling the life thing together for a bit, and we got it narrowed down to a few things: pussy (which we may or may not have been getting at the time), marijuana, crappy movies, and John fucking Madden football, and hopefully multiples of all the aforementioned in the same day, and maybe even at the same time, although I can say that I have honestly never fucked while playing Madden. Not to say that I wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t want to give up a cheap score while some skeeze played with my ding dong. No - best keep Madden and pussy separate.
Anyways, my mom had re-met Walt, and as was her habit, she decided to move in with him after talking to him for about two weeks. Mike and I were cool with it because my mom’s condo was kind of cramped between my brothers, my mother, myself, Mike, and whoever else I had with me. So in we moved, throwing away all of Walt’s living room shit because it was ugly and my moms had the good leather shit that she bought after one of my other fathers died and left her a bunch of money. We moved in the big screen (and I’m mean 52 inch, bitches - Ballin!), couches, and all of our shit. Mike and I and sometimes my brother lived in the living room, which was actually our bedroom because it was where we slept and shit, but was a living room in the sense that it was where a living room should be and had a few pictures of Walt’s mom and shit. And it was downstairs and you were pretty much in there once you walked in through the front door. I’m pretty positive that we weren’t invited. My moms and I have a longstanding, unspoken rule that if I ever need a place to live, well, her casa es mi casa. I guess I kind of carry the same type of deal with some people, Mike being one of them. No one I care about is sleeping on the streets.
Either way, day in and day out, besides for the combined 30 hours we spent at the movie theater, Mike and I sat on the couch smoking weed and playing Madden. Walt tried to rap with us a few times, but we weren’t having it. We just kind of ignored him and played our game unless we wanted some liquor (we then weren’t old enough), or unless we had to tell him that his stupid retarded dog was annoying so we locked him outside. Occasionally, we’d pop on over to the Home Depot across the street and get some hot dogs from the vendor. If you have never experienced a Home Depot hot dog, and I don’t know if this is a country-wide phenomenon or a local deal, then you are missing out on the real deal as far as hot dogs are concerned. I’m pretty sure my mom started ignoring him, too, because he started going out a lot and coming home drunk, which was absolutely fucking hilarious. When Walt drank he spoke like Boomhauer from King of the Hill, and his face and baldness got real red, and he started projecting his anger with us at his stupid fucking dog. He’d be in the kitchen, bitching to the dog about how we didn’t clean shit, while Mike and I played it cool in the living room with that Madden.
Either way, this went on for a few months. Eventually my moms got sick of him so, while he was at work one day and without his knowing, we called a few of our friends and moved all of my mom's shit back to her condo. Walt’s house was completely empty because we dumped his furniture when we moved in. Before we left forever, we stole his toilet seat. I can only imagine what it was like when he fell in.
When we moved back to my mom’s house, we continued on smoking weed and playing Madden. We all had a good laugh at the pitiful answering machine messages that the fat fuck left on my mom’s machine, begging her to come back, wondering what the fuck had happened and how she could play him like so. There were dozens of them. It was great.
2. MASKED MF DOOM #2 MAKES DEBUTMD: This past weekend, MF Doom pulled the ol’ switcheroo on his adoring fans and sent out an imposter Doom to lip synch his way through a couple sets on the West Coast. Not surprisingly, the internet public is up in arms about this, and it totally blows my mind that in this day and age, a rapper having a shitty live show actually pisses people off.
By this point, it’s damn near tradition to feel underwhelmed or ripped off by a rapper’s live show. I’m sure the people in attendance have every right to be upset, but I still think the whole situation is hilarious.
I don’t go to many Rap shows, if any. I’m not some crotchety shut-in or anything. I’ve been to somewhere around 800 live shows in my lifetime, but only a small percentage of them were rap shows. I’ve lucked out a lot and managed to see a bunch with no repercussions, but on the other end, I’ve been to a show and hung around for two hours after the show was supposed to start without anyone performing and I ended up leaving without even seeing any rappers. I didn’t run home to complain to the internet though.
I try and go to rap shows if it’s someone I’m really into. For instance, I went to that Madlib/MF Doom/J Dilla show a few years back, because those are three dudes I really respect within the realm of rap. I am extremely biased toward all three dudes (not so much Dilla though) and you’ll never hear me say whatever release they put out at any given month sucks. They’ve had a couple misses (Doom’s Viktor Vaughn 2, most of the YNQ stuff), but I don’t hold it against them or feel bitter toward them. Everyone is bound to throw up a brick every once in a while. With that said, my Dilla/Doom/Madlib dream show kind of sucked. No one was late and no one was lip synching, and everything they did was enjoyable, but live rap never really is that great unless you’re totally high or drunk out of your mind, and this show was in NYC, so I wasn’t about to try and get drunk off of $7 beers.
My point is, this show ended up being a Best Case Scenario. Everyone was there, everyone played on time, there were no sound issues, no fights, etc. but this type of thing is like finding a five-leaf clover stapled to a unicorn, and still, it was only an alright show.
I can’t be the only person who feels this way about live rap shows. In fact, I know I’m not because I read the internet every day. Every show you read about has something going wrong and someone bitching about it. Fuck, I was upset with myself for a little while because I was planning on going to that “one time only” EPMD reunion last year in NYC but decided not to at the last minute. Then once reports hit the internet, they spoke of EPMD not going on until 1 or 2 am, and I fucking LOVE EPMD and I can tell you without a doubt, I would have bounced way before EPMD took the stage. I am a man of strict punctuality, and I am not waiting around until 2 am just because you’re a legendary rap group.
I can’t be sure, but I think I would have found the humor in the El Hijo Del Doom lip synching situation, and would much rather experience something like that than a rapper constantly bitching about the sound in between songs and then cutting their set short and storming off in a huff, or showing up four hours late and giving a half ass performance. Besides, if you’ve ever read a comic book with Dr. Doom in it, you would know that Dr. Doom regularly sends out imposter Doombots to do his dirty work while he chills in his lair by the fireplace. Frankly, I’m surprised Doom didn’t pull this gimmick earlier.
RM: As someone who has gone to too many rap shows over the years, I can tell you, ever since 9/11, rappers have tried harder. I mean, you still have dudes who never show up or on the major tours with 17 guys you hate and 1 guy you like, half the guys will do one song and then split. But if you go to a smaller club promising raptitude, people have realized in smaller clubs you can't always escape, so they've gotten it together a bit.
Still though, a fake MF Doom is hilarious to me, and I don't think I'd be upset either. Shit, I probably wouldn't know if the dude was wearing the mask. He could come out the to the merch table and sign an overpriced vinyl copy of some rare shit I never knew existed, and I'd be happy.
I am not an unencumbered MF Doom jockscratcher then sniff my fingers proudly dude like most of the internet, but this actually makes me think higher of him. People need to be fucked with.
3. GRAFFITI STAINED FREIGHT TRAINSRM: I haven't been going to Richmond to leisurely smoke crack as much lately, mostly because I found a shitty spot near Schuyler where you can get country crack. I try to limit myself, being self-employed with all the leisure time I may want, to one day a week and about fifty bucks (which means I have to work late one day to keep my weekly money quota in effect) a week. So usually, I'll just go fuck around and read the paper in the morning once a week and then about 11, once I know the dude's awake and on the porch, go get half a bill's worth of rock and ride down to the river and get smoked out, sipping on a Vitamin Water and listening to 4th Disciple-esque instrumental CDs.
The weird thing about crack is it is really an industrial drug, so sitting by the river feels kinda weird. I mean, it's easy to take most sedatives and sit there and fish, or just watch the water all day long. But with crack, you get bored with that shit fairly quickly. Luckily, where I live, the train tracks run by the river everywhere, from the mountains to the bay. And I've always been a fag for freight trains, big giant chunks of metal riding through nowhere. (Once I ruin my life with this part-time habit, I fully plan on just becoming a hobo and riding trains the rest of my life, robbing college kids slumming it up, and smoking crack and getting bad sewing needle tattoos and drinking fortified wine till I die.)
The thing about graffiti is it's fucked-up colors and shapes, going through scenery that has very basic earth-tones and box shapes on the train, and natural bullshit behind it. So splashes of graffiti are big pupil-popping blasts of color (hopefully) as well as weird retard mind letter shapes that go against everything else you can see within the landscape when you are sitting by the river in the middle of rural Virginia watching the train rumble by. It's a mainline of something greater right into the heart of shitty self-contained and hopeless Virginia. It fills my bloodstream with adrenaline, and I think about stealing spray paint and playing around, but that would involved far too much work and practice and I'm already old, so I usually end up just getting a little more fucked up and wait for the next train to rumble through from the distance.
MD: I find it really odd that despite living hundreds of miles away from each other in completely opposite landscapes, Raven and I both live in close proximity to a river and tracks that freight trains ride over. The tracks near me are right near the train yard in what I guess you would consider “The Warehouse District” of Albany. It’s a section of Albany I’ve spent a lot of time in over the years. I suck at describing geographic locations, but the warehouse section of Albany is like any other area of a city where warehouses are stored. Basically, on one block is a recording studio, where I’ve recorded and practiced a lot, and it’s also in the same building as a lot of huge warehouse spaces converted into loft apartments, where I’ve partied hard and done cocaine in stranger's bathrooms, and right next door is a label factory that makes labels for things like ham and chemicals, where I’ve rummaged through their dumpsters looking for interesting shit. Then the next block is the peanut factory I work at during the day. Right across the street from both blocks is the train yard, and on the other end of the blocks are the tracks where the freights travel on.
Despite being in such close proximity, I never really look at the graffiti on the freights because it doesn’t interest me that much, so I just explained all that shit to you for no reason at all. What DOES interest me though, is about a quarter mile down the road from all that shit I described is a real old school truck stop. Like the kind where they laugh at non-truck drivers and their convenience store has more porno novels and vaguely racist bumper stickers than anything useful to the common man. Being so close to this truck stop is why one of my band’s last records was called “The Truck Stop Tapes”.
I don’t usually frequent old school truck stops, so I don’t know how many are extremely similar, but there are flyers all over the place declaring “NO LOT LIZARDS” with crude drawings on them and cold hard facts about STDs the Lot Lizards carry. A Lot Lizard is a breed of whore that’s indigenous to the old school truck stop. The thing is, they are like the ninjas of the whore world. You don’t ever see them because they hide in the nearby abandoned buildings until very late at night when they creep up on sleeping truckers in their rigs to give them late night hand jobs, and also blow jobs. Seeing one of them is much akin to spotting an albino squirrel in the city. By the time you turn around to tell your friend what you saw, they’ve already vanished into the shadows.
Those NO LOT LIZARDS flyers are the real landscape graffiti for me when I’m in that area. They are so slanderous and crude and awesome. Originally, our “The Truck Stop Tapes” CD was supposed to have a photo of one of the NO LOT LIZARDS fliers in the tray card, but the picture we took didn’t come out clear enough. I need to grab one before I move out of this two bit town.
RM: Oddly enough, hundreds of miles away and about two cultures away from Mike, there's a pseudo-truck stop near where I live. I've done a lot of work in the area, and it's really a clean gas station, but they've got showers and tables and shit and there's always a couple hundreds trucks behind it. Anyways, at lunch, usually I like to buy a soda and a newspaper and sit in my ride and red the paper and refresh myself to go back and paint some roof or some rich lady's cedar siding or whatever stupid shit I'm doing that day. Anyways, one time, I parked behind that truck stop where only the big rigs were supposed to park, and I was reading the business section, because that's where they hide all the real news about the impending apocalypse, and this really haggard 30-something chick who looked like my aunt if she had gotten addicted to crack two years ago popped out the bushes right by my truck. She looked startled when she saw me, but straightened up and said, "Hey now," and walked by, as my window was open and I was just hanging. It was hilarious. If I was the type of guy who fills empty gallon jugs full of piss and owns a Red Sovine box set, I totally would've let her suck my dick in exchange for a fresh ten dollar bill from my leather wallet that has a solid spades royal flush etched on it.
4. 50 CENT VS. KANYE WEST 1st WEEK SALES SHOWDOWNRM: Oh that wacky 50 Cent. He runs his mouth off about if he didn't sell more CDs than Kanye, then he'd quit, and now people are going crazy with this nonchalant nonsense. When 50's date got dropped back, apparently there was question if Kanye would move his forward, and the label decided no. So now it's some sort of big battle established by 50's offhand remarks that now has stupid internet dipshits trying to get their friends to buy Kanye's album so that 50 Cent will quit making his formulaic yet infectious shitty background music.
First off, this is great for whoever benefits from the selling of recorded music, and I'm sure they'll throw some money Kanye and 50's way when it's all said and done. Making this some pseudo-wrestling main event was a great idea that'll trick people into buying the physical version instead of dl'ing the cybertron version for free. It's also funny to think people actually feel that by buying a Kanye West CD, they will make rap music a better place because it will force 50 Cent to quit. Even funnier is the rare person who steps forward indignantly as a 50 Cent fan, like it actually made sense to be a fan of something that's not much more than an image and computer program that spits out new singles heavily dosed with radio-friendly monosodium glutamate.
50 Cent is probably actually a holograph by now, because the real Curtis Jackson got sacrificed to Moloch the Owl God, but still, he's a very marketing savvy holograph. This'll sell him more stupid albums as well as Kanye.
Which brings me to the second thing this made me wonder... why is this even an issue? Aren't there only like 19,000 people who still go to record stores? And do these people like roll in with $15 for one CD and one CD only? I don't think I've ever left a record store with only one thing. Why is it assumed there are gonna be people standing there, thinking to themselves, "Hmmm, I really feel like buying a rapping album today, but I'm only gonna buy one," and then go into a pros and cons debate over 50 Cent and Kanye West? What the fuck?
This whole thing is some sort of marketing scam involving both parties, and I find it funny that as smart as people think they are, they are still stupid fuckers who fall for this shit.
Also, if the whole thing was on the level and not postured marketing angles, I would be disappointed in 50 Cent for just quitting like that if he didn't win. I would want him to try harder and make a more bangin' record next time, to show he had it in him. I would want him to reach higher, not just give up. That's not a good example to set for the kids. Then again, if he is the holographic image I suspect he is, that would be the perfect example to set for kids to keep them from rocking the boat too much as they grow into strong young men of able body and angered mind, ready and willing to take up automatic arms against their own corrupt government... Oh shit, my bad. I got my expert whiteboy rap fan blog mixed up with my domestic terrorist freedom fighter blog there for a second. My bad. But still, don't tread on me.
BWT: This is soo funny to me for so many reasons. First of all Raven is right, who the fuck buys CDs in this day and age? Honestly, aren't most of these dorks on the web creaming their keyboards over the prospect of 50 quitting rap the same dorks who just download albums a week before they come out anyway? The last time I bought an album was that double CD Nas put out and that's only because I had a gift card to FYE sitting around. The intarweb boards are buzzing about this but I think it's really a non-issue from two dudes who are pretty much the same guy if you think about it. These are two guys who are are extremely overrated, egotistical, and homosexual. Both were put over by other big name dudes to get that big push out the gate - Kanye from Jay and 50 from Eminem. Both had one really good album and both couldn't come close to topping it with the follow up even though I liked a lot off Late Registration. Both have vanity labels filled with mostly garbage guys but both vanity labels have one dude who's way better than the guy running it and probably ghostwriting for them (Young Buck and Consequence). Both these dudes have a formula and stick to it at all costs - 50 with his lame hooks about being a gangster/fucking women and Kanye with his corny lines and overproduced beats. Both these dudes are TRL to the core so seeing people push Kanye as this savior of rap is pretty fucking nuts.
With all that being said I'm rooting for Kanye West because I honestly believe that if 50 loses he might snap and kill Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks or something and I think we all know the world would be a much better place if that went down.
5. MADLIB'S "BEAT KONDUCTA IN INDIA" CDMD: In 2001, I thought Madlib would be the savior of rap music. He personally was to me, but it seems now he’s been flung in with the usual cast of underground rap characters that become more and more polarizing by the day to the internet’s rap nerd illuminati.
Madlib released The Unseen under his Quasimoto alias in 2000. I didn’t get to hear it in it’s entirety until 2001, but I thought the mix of refreshing samples and loops along with a loose DIY mentality (The Unseen was mainly constructed on a 4-track with a budget of around $50) would really spark a fire under hip hop’s collective ass and erase the late '90s Rap & Bullshit big budget glam era from everyone’s memory.
Unfortunately, years have passed since then and we are all now used to downloading records a few weeks before they officially release, which has made everyone jaded yet again. Madlib is still doing his thing, but it doesn’t seem as special anymore.
His new Beat Konducta record is solely made from Bollywood soundtrack samples, and even though I think it’s the best instrumental beat CD I’ve heard since J Dilla’s Donuts, I can already hear the keyboard taps that transform into nitpicking words in my head. It definitely doesn’t make me like this CD any less, but I’m sure it will make me hate the internet even more. Of course, I’m a hypocrite, because I do the same damn thing everyone else does, except I don’t do it about Madlib, so I feel like I’m in the right on this one.
RM: I was all set to blaspheme and talk about how, though I enjoy his beats, I do not understand why the robot machine online world has R.I.P. DILLA tattoos inside of their computers etched in cursive graffiti-style letters on the outer edge of a battery sticking out the top of the motherboard. And also how Madlib gets lumped into that in my mind, but then Mike stole my thunder with his pre-emptive strike of a write-up. You see, basically me and Mike figure the other one's gonna mock the other, because we are living proof of that old adage, "Your best friend on the internets is a huge fucking suckass in real life."
Still, part of my disdain for Madlib is based more on my disappointment with that last Yesterday's New Quintet CD. I guess I expect too much from Madlib sometimes, and I can appreciate his obsessive compulsive behavior, most likely combined with manic depression, that causes him to do like two themed CDs and a Stones Throw podcast every other month. Still, sometimes I get ahold of his shit and I can't help but think to myself, "Man, if Madlib would just hold onto shit for like a year, he could release one solid ass CD that would crack the world's skull wide open." Except this is nonsense think because nobody would actually buy it, and everybody who thought it was awesome would just steal it from the blogosphere. So at the same time, I feel sorta sad for Madlib, because he's this twisted pained dude who is mentally handicapped by an obsession with music, and he works tirelessly at it around the clock for most of his life, and it doesn't really mean shit really. Then again, if he is mentally handicapped by music obsessions, then it doesn't matter whether anyone else gives a fuck or not. I just wish, like any good paranoid schizophrenic outsider artist, he had some sort of handler (which should probably be Peanut Butter Wolf's job) who picked through all the output without the pained "artist" knowing, and dropped a fat ass CD release on me and the rest of the public, for us to "ooh" and "aah" at and pretend music's not completely hopeless.
Is there ever gonna be another Lootpack album? How about a Lootpack/Alkaholiks/King Tee album. Actually, on the outside chance Peanut Butter Wolf is a secret internerd dork (which wouldn't surprise me) and he reads this, you should get Madlib to do a remix CD where the first side he does wacky awesome Madlib beats behind the entire A-side of King Tee's Tha Triflin' Album, and then the second half of it is his wacky beats behind his favorite six or seven songs off the first Alkaholiks 21 & Over CD. But also make him include some megamix super-dork 37-minute remix of the funky piano remix of that "Got It Bad Y'all" song by King Tee plus tha Alkaholiks. That funky piano remix is probably my most-played song off of a single to this day, and having Madlib do retarded introvert extensions off of that launching pad would be better background music to me drinking beer and smoking dirtweed at the picnic table in my back yard than a "Haha, crazy Bollywood samples!" project. Although, to be safe, I am illegally downloading that shit too, just in case.
6. M.I.A.'s "KALA" CDMD: I was going to wait until I got an official version of this to do a write up, but then I remembered I hardly ever go to record stores that sell brand new records anymore, so I’d be waiting until May 2009 to write this garbage, but that wouldn’t happen either, because I’m lazy, and I’d end up illegally downloading an “official” copy before I could buy a real CD.
Also, whoever writes after me is going to make fun of me furiously for liking M.I.A., and I have a fragile ego and won’t be able to deal with it at all. I like M.I.A. because she makes fucked up dance music that sounds like Neneh Cherry and a more streetwise early '80s Madonna having sex to weird Third World Music. I really don’t care how much of a fag this makes me, but you have to understand, my Mom was my age in the '80s, so I grew up with a lot of that kind of shit, and it’s stayed engrained in my brain so I just can’t help it. It’s like how Raven can get away with liking Willie Nelson or whatever, and I think country music is the absolute worst music ever invented. That’s not fair. I’m sure there’s something even worse than country. That Nu-Swing Dance music that came out in the late '90s was pretty awful.
Anyway, if you were previously a M.I.A. fan and you’re reading this, I think this record is actually better than Arular and I totally wasn’t expecting that. Despite my lame attempts at humor in the beginning, I do plan on buying this because I like it that much, and you know what, maybe I’ll suck a few dicks on the way to the record store, but that’s my prerogative bro.
RM: It has become a common joke to be all like "haha, Erykah Badu's pussy juice is totally poison, look at Dre, Common, that deadprez dude, etc." But the real talk on shit is EVERY WOMAN'S PUSSY has poison potential. Seriously. I know we live in a time where you're supposed to be all open-minded and deny every stereotypical truth that makes life easier, but for real, pussy is danger. I bring this up because in one of my few moments of loading up AIM in recent memory, I remember Mike explaining to me his family tree, which is dabbling in cross-pollination like crazy. I think he had a sister who has a kid by a Puerto Rican, and another sister who dates black dudes, and then Mike was dating a foreign Indian chick. (And I have no problem with mixes within the melting pot; I don't think either of my sisters have ever dabbled because of our semi-racist father, but I have, and it's odd how a son dabbling is more acceptable than a daughter, I guess because of the simple fact of penetration.) I think Mike may have been brain damaged internally from within his penis shaft by dating that chick though, and that is no diss, because out of all the stupid faggots I've met through the internets, Mike Dikk is probably the coolest stupid faggot of them all. Still, I had gotten excited about this because assorted dork outlets had hyped it up - the same places that hyped up Amy Winehouse - and I thunk to myself, "Oh shit, my wife may like this shit, and if it's stupid dance shit my 8-year-old daughter may like it." Then I opened the stolen folder and that shit was like double ass. For real. I understand it's nice for music critical types to be all like, "Oh shit, an Indian chick rapper is using all sorts of world music influences to make really annoying Bomb Squad circa year 2010 type shit," but that doesn't mean it's good. And it's not. This shit sucks.
First time through, I only liked one song, and that was probably to convince myself it wasn't a total waste of time. I gave it a second listen, and I convinced myself the one song was actually good without justification, and justified a second song as good. Then I realized it was stupidry sneaking into my brain. This shit sucks.
7. SOULJA BOYKM: This will be where the brunt of my bile hits from the concert I just worked. See, I hated this wack-ass "YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" bullshit the minute I heard it, and hated it more with every subsequent hearing. But after tonight I have a different level of disdain for Soulja Boy. I would be happy if he got kneecapped or shot in the dick tomorrow.
The beat, first and foremost, is minimalist in the bad way. I would rank this somewhere below the worst No Limit Records beat and those were some crap-ass Casio demo turds. But they were better than "Crank That". Someone got this steel drum sound off their Fruity Loops or whatever piece of shit beatmaking software they use, matched it with a shitty crunk speed beat and threw in some wannabe Mannie Fresh effects. And snapping. But wait, there's more! Now you take that and add in this guy who sounds shoot retarded, yelling his Simple Simon Met The Pieman bullshit verses with his obnoxious, shrill voice. Behold, an audio abortion!
Raven had made a remark about how there's an endless supply of songs featuring shoot retarded people yelling new dances over crappy beats. I learned this firsthand tonight at the Too $hort show - not only did people in the rapper entourages keep demanding "crunk music" (they actually meant snap music most of the time) but they also kept asking for random bullshit I'd never heard of by dudes with names like The Batman or Phase 10. There is apparently some dumb motherfucker putting out music and he's named after a boring card game. "CRUNK MUSIC LIKE SOULJA BOY, HEY PLAY THAT." I only played it twice, and could justify the second because the first had been cut off seconds into the song. I had that new TI single on, one of the entourage strolls up to tell me to change it because that sucks. Half a song later, same dude comes up to ask for the same TI song that sucked half a song ago.
What really got me was how they were acting like I was playing ass music, yet the acts themselves were rapping over music like I was trying to mix. But all they wanted to hear was motherfucking butt-ass retarded "SOULJA BOY! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" I even tried to make a compromise by playing chant music that doesn't suck, but no we don't want to hear anything from New Orleans. No, we don't want to hear Three 6. No, we don't even want to hear good shit from Houston. "SOULJA BOY! A BAY BAY! WALK IT OUT!" People in my city are fucking dumb. Soulja Boy is fucking dumb. It's why I assumed he was local, but maybe that's part of the gimmick - doing something on a sub-par level that makes the listener believe the artist can't possibly be more than a local aspiring artist who deserves a little slack. I'm here to tell you, he is not. He looks like Ray J circa 1996. He has more money than all of us on this blog combined and he got it by convincing you dumbfucks to pity a local dude and buy his crappy album or ask for his crappy song or go to a concert because he's trying and that's what counts when you're shoot retarded.
RM: Actually, I am ashamed to admit that I know there's a slew of "Crank That (Insert Stupidly Named Dance)" songs circulating through the cinderblock night clubs that are affectionately called the Chitlin Circuit throughout the South. Though there is an affectionate name for such clubs, you do not want to go there. Where I grew up in Farmville, VA, there was a club called Ernie's Disco run by, of course, a dude named Ernie who was my first grade teacher's husband. So we actually took a field trip to the club one day. No shit, disco ball spinning, DJ playing some corny ass Earth, Wind & Fire so all the little six and seven years olds could bust a retarded move, probably while my teacher and her husband were getting ozone high behind the two-way mirror laughing at our little asses. Back then, I did not sport the red-and-black lumberjack, but more likely some Rustler corduroys and a hand-me-down t-shirt that probably had palm trees or some stupid shit on it. Plus some bobos. That was my style as a youth - the crappy shit my broke ass young and reckless parents saw fit to slap on me before the schoolbus arrived at our shithole house a fucking hour and a half before school arrived.
Anyways, in high school, Ernie's became Fever's, and it's kinda well-known in Virginia as The Club, since it's outside of Farmville and lacks a lot of the secure regulations that a more urban establishment would have. Thus, getting blowjobs from full steezies, or having a good old-fashioned knifefight in the parking lot is much easier to get away with. I went in there a few times in high school (of course with for-real black dudes, because a solo whitey, even in a crew of whiteys, would've been natural bullet bait in a place like that) so we could get good and drunk at a club. Great thing about it was, it was outlaw to an extent so you could bring your own bottle of liquor if they knew you well enough and put it behind the bar and get drinks from that on the cheap, so long as you tipped well. It'd save you a ton of money in the long run though.
To make a long story short, I saw this dude I used to work with, Markie, at the store the other week, and he told me they had just remodeled Fever's and we should go. (It should be noted, he is black, so he would allow me to not get shot, conceivably; and he also loves white women, so my presence would, in his mind, work to allow his conquest of white vaginas.) I asked him if they had remodeled the bloodstains in the parking lot or not. Fuck going to a place like that. But that's the type of place the "Crank That" hysteria is getting buck upon, because believe it or not, in this day and age of heavy glitz and high-speed world-watching, there's still dank-ass little cinderblock buildings painted like neon yellow with purple trim that have boomin' systems inside to draw a bunch of young go-nowhere know-nothings who want nothing more than to hear Tha Jam, drink some Grey Goose, and make unwanted babies in the parking lot. It's like some indestructible tribe of people in a sci-fi flick, except they're currently not at war with anybody except DJs trying to play some played out shit. Of course, that played out shit came out like three weeks ago.
KM: Why did I assume this Soulja Boy dance was a white people dance? Well, for starters, it looks fucking retarded. Second, my first exposure was at a frat party, where I saw a bunch of white people doing this fucking retarded dance in unison as if they'd worked it out in-between 4th period and lunch. But no, the video proves it's an original hip-hop creation made by real live black people. If not for the fact that there are scores of black people doing this dance and thinking it's cool, I would have been inclined to believe it was invented to make white people look fucking retarded. My little cousins have already copped the Crank That (Spiderman) song and probably other bullshit that makes my ears bleed. I eagerly await the Crank That (Paste Pot Pete) and Crank That (Aqualad) dances. I also learned that Soulja Boy looks as shoot retarded as he sounds. AhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!
8. FANTASY SPORTS RAP A&R MOGULRM: We've fallen a long way from the days of the Pete Rock remix. You get a stupid hit now, and your A&R dude is overnight mailing the protools files to four guest MCs for the remix, usually a strange hodgepodge of one west coast guy, one southern guy, one guy from Outkast, and then either Jim Jones or Jadakiss thrown in for NY flavor over top of the tinkerbell beat. I often imagine there's a fantasy rap song website that you have to be a registered licensed union member (meaning Illuminati) A&R dude to access, and it has all the rappers there and you type in what the single made and what you're willing to spend to squeeze a few more spins on radio stations out of it for a bigger ASCAP check. Really want Lil Wayne since all the other A&R dudes are abuzz about him over their mocha lattes with soy milk at Starbucks in the morning, but can't really afford him? You can do a two-fer and sign up Birdman as a tag-along, which will cause Wayne to lower his fee, since you will also be hiring his daddy. Or you could do like the "A Bay Bay" remix and just skip right over an actual Lil Wayne and hire a washed-up rapper emulating Lil Wayne like Bow Wow.
Seems making albums is this way too, hiring like two Scott Storch beats, and one Polow da Don beat, and getting Kanye to do a song, and having Young Jeezy talk the hook on another song, et cetera et cetera, and it's just like someone playing fantasy sports, throwing a bunch of shit that's seemingly good together and expecting that to be good because it just has to be, when you look at it on paper.
The thing is in real sports, real life, whatever, there's chemistry, and people being able to feed off each other (which seems even extra ridiculous when you consider if you hear one of those "Flava of the Month (remix)" featuring one category A rapper, two category B rappers, and one category C rapper, that none of those dudes are ever in the same room or even building as that song is done) and hype each other up and shit. I read how the new Wu Tang album is all shit RZA has pieced together, having single sessions with different members all at different times and shit. That's why that shit's gonna suck. When they came out, it was chemistry, a powerful rap team frenzying each other up into creative craziness. Look at all the great crews throughout this shit - Furious Five, Juice Crew, Wu Tang, Boot Camp Clique, Hypnotize Minds, even Def Jux and Good Life Cafe or Rawkus and shit like that, on and on. It's always a group of people feeding off of each other. This fantasy team bullshit of throwing a bunch of different flavors of the month all-stars together and thinking that's bound to be some awesome shit, it has become tired. No wonder you motherfuckers don't sell records anymore.
MD: I don’t think that theory about the Rap Song Website is too far from the truth. I just saw a mixtape the other day that was made strictly from Lil Wayne and Jim Jones guest appearances. I don’t know what’s depressing me more - the current state of the music industry, or the current state of the movie industry. I just heard they’re remaking Death Race 2000, and there are also talks of making the Joust video game from 25 years ago into a live action movie.
I’m kidding though. Stuff that doesn’t concern me generally doesn’t depress me. I mean, it doesn’t stop me from being your average Robert Smith type minus pancake makeup but add saggy jeans. I could be triggered to go into a fit of depression over something ridiculous like the water not being warm enough in the shower. I think that’s why God made me funny though, to make up for all of that type of stuff.
Anyway, the current Fantasy Camp approach to rap music is pretty bad. Maybe if I were a littler younger, I’d be stupid enough to not care, and I think it would be kind of cool if the entire music industry went bankrupt. I really am optimistic enough to think some idiot will rise above the rest of the idiots that run Music Land and realize this is not the way to make albums, but the pessimistic side of me also realizes that making creative music is not a lucrative business anymore and it might be a long, long time until things turn around. I’d probably be happier if the music industry eats itself. It would give me one less thing to bitch about.
KM: I read an article on the flight back from Dallas about SASS (Short Attention Span System) as a radio format. Dude was interviewed, explained how nobody wants to listen to songs past 2 minutes and then they talked about how he edits music so it sticks to that time constraint. I thought it was stupid. What's weird and maybe I'm paranoid here, but today one of the Urban radio stations sounded like it was playing abridged songs. I know the torment of "Crank That (Superman)" or "Buy You A Drink" was shorter, and I noticed there were edits on songs like TI's "Big Shit Poppin" that trim out verses and breaks. Maybe it's been like that for a while, I mostly listen to CDs in my car and the radio's background noise once in a blue moon.
Anyway, the advent of 5 minute remixes in hip-hop is probably a large part of why this will inevitably take off like wildfire. Dudes on E-A&R.com need to figure out that nobody gives a shit about Murphy Lee or Bow Weezy enough to put them on with 5 other dudes on a remix for some piece of shit song designed by corporate fucks to have "regional flavor." They need to remember that if you overexpose someone like Lil Wayne, Fat Joe, Akon, T-Pain or Jim Jones - eventually someone's gonna realize they're not that good. This would be the Nate Dogg Corollary. See, around 2000-2001-ish some industrious genius realized people liked Nate Dogg on hooks and had the idea to put him on EVERYBODY'S GODDAMN HOOK. The cycle peaked with someone giving Nate a whole album to himself, where he had like 15 songs of Nate Dogg Singing that wore thin after the first 3 minutes. After that, he did guest spots but he mostly went away and gave the world a break. Now, in 2007, when I suddenly hear Nate doing the hook on a Mr. Criminal single, it appeals to that part of my brain that likes Nate Dogg in small doses. And then I'll hear him on another 6 or 7 songs in the next year and a half, and I'll fall out of love all over again. It's the circle of life.
9. UGK's "UNDERGROUND KINGZ" CDKM: I suppose the fact that I hadn't been running the internets waving my I TOLD YOU SO flag implies I wasn't as satisfied with this album as I hoped to be. That would be an incorrect assumption, motherfucker. The criticisms I've read have mostly been about how Pimp C's verses peter out and start repeating after a point, and I guess you could bitch about that if you want but you're a fool if you can't appreciate the quality of everything else around it. From the first track all the way to the bonus cuts at the end of the 2nd disc, I thoroughly enjoyed most of what I heard and could even find something to appreciate in the stuff I didn't dig.
For roughly 90% of the album, Bun B is absolute fire. Dude is unimpeachable on the mic, and in most cases he manages to bring out better performances from not only Pimp C, but also dudes like Talib Kweli and Dizzee Rascal. I'd heard the collabos both had with UGK on their own shit earlier this summer, but can honestly say I like their songs on Underground Kingz much better. Pimp C's consistent on this album, and while he's not Rakim he's still holding his half down (and hasn't lost a step on production.) Between the two solo cuts, I actually like Pimp's KEEP YA HEAD UP anthem ("Shattered Dreams") more than Bun's car ode ("Candy") - it sounds better, plus it's kind of amusing in a way to hear Pimp C talking about hoes don't have to ho forever and all that.
I don't care for "Like That" at all. I don't need to hear about how UGK has sex with a woman, much less two versions of the same song. This probably dovetails a little with the homogayblowjob blurb. I seriously don't understand why people record songs like that unless it's so when they're mouthfucking full steezies they can have themselves on audio commentary like it's a sporting event. BITCH I PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH AND THEN YOUR PUSSY AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN HE GOES ALL! THE! WAYYYYYYYY! Seriously, how the fuck am I supposed to bump that shit on speakers? Someone (possibly ME) needs to do a proper blend/mash of both versions of "International Playas Anthem" too. I have one, but it's a mixtape cut and edited badly.
In closing, motherfuck Jive for making me wait for this album. Big ups to UGK for coming back hard. Strong recommendation to to the rest of y'all to buy it and get ya fangaz out ya bootyholes, mang.
10. PACMAN JONES SIGNS TO TNAMD: I probably should wait a little while longer to write this because the Pacman Jones Saga is getting better and better by the day and it’s only the 16th. Here’s a quick refresher: Pacman shoots up a club and gets in trouble. He gets suspended from the NFL. Since Pacman is not the type to sit around on the couch all day, he signs to wrestling promotion TNA, most likely because the WWE doesn’t want anything to do with dudes who shoot guns since the last confirmed murderer they had on their roster wasn’t too long ago. TNA needs all the publicity it can get though, so they were more than happy to deal with the controversy.
Now I originally thought this whole situation was going to be hilarious because you just can’t decide to be a pro wrestler one day and wrestle the next. There’s actual training involved. So I was initially expecting to be treated to really poor wrestling and possibly an accidental career ending injury or two. Instead, the NFL was smart enough to tell Pacman he couldn’t actually wrestle or else he’d be shitcanned.
This is where the beauty of wrestling steps in. In real life, if you were an airplane pilot who got suspended for being drunk on the job or something, and you tried to alleviate the situation with a quick career change by becoming a plumber, then the Airlines you were under contract with said you weren’t allowed to plumb during your suspension, that would be the end of it. You wouldn’t plumb. You’d go home and serve your time.
Wrestling isn’t like that. They’ve already paid this dude money, so they need to get something out of him. A logical conclusion would be to make him a manager or at the very worst, an announcer. Instead at the last TNA Pay Per View, they had Pacman get “attacked” off camera. So we will potentially be seeing Pacman cut promos on TNA television, except his actual wrestling matches will be imaginary and we will only hear about highlights from them instead of seeing him wrestle. This is the type of brilliant idiocy that keeps me a fan of wrestling. I don’t know how long they can run with this, but Pacman could very well be the only “wrestler” ever that doesn’t actually participate in “real” wrestling matches, which aren’t real to begin with because they’re scripted. It harkens back to the days where tag teams would lose their titles in imaginary matches on fake Caribbean islands because they got seriously injured or were leaving the territory abruptly, and the bookers had to come up with something on the fly.
The NFL is quickly eclipsing every other sport when it comes to crazy athletes who do crazy shit. Not since '70s and '80s NHL have we seen so many insane athletes in hilarious situations. It’s hard for me to decide where Pacman Jones: Imaginary Wrestler ranks on my list of outrageous NFL related shit, but I know it’s somewhere near a steroid-abusing Lyle Alzado making a comeback fifteen years past his prime only to die like a week later, and Pat Tillman giving up football to fight for his country, then dying by friendly fire. At least Pacman is still alive. For now.
BWT: Motherfuck the NFL and the Titans for stopping this. The Titans have shunned him throughout all of this and I don't blame them at all for that but the only reason they haven't flat out cut the guy is they want to get like a 3rd round draft pick out of this and that's the scummy world of the NFL for you. So yeah, the Titans care about Pacman's health but only to make sure they get something for him. They're flat out using him. But the real reason I'm pissed about this is 'cause I really wanted him to get in the ring and take some sort of super duper x-division 10-man superplex from like Shark Boy and Elix Skipper and end up paralyzed like that bouncer in Vegas his boys shot. That would have been a fitting end to the Pacman Jones era. This reminds me a lot of Lawrence Philips and his many run ins with the po po. And just like him I'm pretty sure Pacman's future is going to be the CFL and then prison. This would be like ECW bringing in Lawrence Philips if only people knew about TNA. And now that I think about it I'm kinda pissed that ECW never brought in like Lawrence Philips 'cause a Lawrence Philips and New Jack tag team would have been all sorts of awesome.
RM: I think one thing we can all learn from this is how underrated a scummy college football program West Virginia is. That place and state is the perfect breeding ground for a Pacman Jones type. State has gambling at the racetracks, full nudity in the strip clubs, and just a general wild and wonderful "fuck the law" vibe that makes burning couches after winning football games seem like the wholesome school spirited thing to do. Pacman fucked up though and fell into the "Top 10 Draft Pick" mindset in that he was unfoldupable (much like Mikey Vick, to be honest). But in order to be unfoldupable (much like O.J. Simpson), you've got to deliver more than promise, and all Pacman has done so far has promised shit.
In a perfectly entertaining world, some current Pablo Escobar type buys up the CFL's British Columbia Lions, brings in Michael Vick and Pacman Jones in 2008, and Tank Johnson too if he fucks up. Basically, just forms a renegade team that destroys the CFL, runs amok through the weed-laced streets of Vancouver, and eventually shows up at Seahawks mini-camp to challenge them to million dollar game on the spot. But this isn't a perfectly entertaining world, so instead we get Pacman being a wrestler without actually being a wrestler.
11. AESOP ROCK's "NONE SHALL PASS" SONGMD: I was never really a big fan of Aesop Rock. There’s way too much jibber jabber going on in his songs. He’s had a few songs that I basically think are spot-on perfect for his particular subgenre of rap. Kind of like how I don’t actively listen to anything labeled “emo”, but you can’t really deny Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary album no matter what you’re into.
I don’t think “None Shall Pass” has hit the Underground Nerd Rap apex like the other songs (Ttose songs being “Daylight”, “No Regrets” and “9-5ers Anthem”, all from Labor Days), but that’s not why I like it. My infatuation with this song is strictly beat-based. Blockhead, who produced “None Shall Pass”, has always been the least annoying Aesop Rock associated producer, and this is his best beat ever, to me at least. He taps in on a musical element that, if I was worth half a shit and got myself together to make my own beats, I would completely exploit.
I am a fan of about a thousand and ten kinds of music, but there are only a few different styles of sounds that really trigger the neurons in my brain to act in a certain nostalgic way. These sounds basically all derive from Bob James’ “Angela (theme from Taxi)”, more affectionately known as “The Song They Play at the Beginning of Taxi”. I was never hardcore into Taxi or anything, but those dusty, warm sounding keys always make my stomach feel weird and change the thoughts in my head from clear HDTV vision to grainy '70s style celluloid (weed does the same thing). I don’t know what it is about that type of sound, but out of all sounds music could possibly make, it’s the most soothing to me.
“None Shall Pass” uses a similar sounding sample, thus making me automatically love it. I still haven’t figured out the origins of the sample, but this is the age of the internet, so it shouldn’t be long until we all know, and when I find out, I’ll probably run out and buy two to twenty copies of the sample source, depending on how many I can find.
For the record, the rest of the “None Shall Pass” record is a lot of the same jibber jabber you’ve grown to expect from Aesop Rock, but he’s slowed down his delivery a little so it’s not as annoying, and all the Blockhead beats on it fuckin’ pound bro, but none of them touch the title track.
12. 1977: THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL DOCUMENTARYMD: Not only was this documentary the least exploitative Original VH1 programming in years, it was also the most entertaining. There was a lot to do with the beginnings of hip hop in this doc, but outside of some old dude saying the ’77 blackout is how most people became DJs because they looted music shops and snatched equipment, I didn’t find the hip hop sections that intriguing.
What was most intriguing about this documentary was how fucked NYC used to be. I’m aware there’s a lot of material already covering this subject, but everything else focuses on one specific thing, like how NYC was fucked because of the blackout, or it was fucked because of the porno, or because of the rampant crime, or because of graffiti. Much like the Wu Tang Clan, The Coolest Year in Hell is hittin’ you from every angle. They go over everything that made NYC so fucked (and supposedly cool) back in the day, and it’s some real interesting shit.
It’s mostly interesting to me because a lot of people tend to romanticize about old NYC and how much better it was than the current Disneyfied Times Square version of NYC. I’ll tell you what though, that’s such bullshit. The documentary covers 1977, but obviously NYC was fucked before 1977 and it really just came to a boiling point around that time, it still took them twenty years to finally wash away all the depravity.
I’m sure it was great always being in fear of getting raped and all, but outside of Times Square being squeaky clean, NYC is still grimy in spirit. Though it’s not as easy to buy bootleg shit on Canal Street as it once was, which bothers me, but it’s a small loss in the age of the internet. They started for real cleaning up the city some time in the mid '90s, and I’d say around 1997 is when everything became “safe”. I’ve been to NYC a handful of times during its twilight days of being a horrible place, and even though it was still only a small fraction as bad as it was in 1977, it still sucked. I guess if you were really into porno and getting a disease from riding the subway, it was cool.
The documentary really puts in perspective exactly how horrible the city was at that point, and it amazes me how they managed to turn it around so quickly. Like, what happened to all those perverts and vagrants that would hang out on 42nd street and watch pornos all day? Were they herded out of the city and shipped off to New Jersey? I can understand physically cleaning up a city, but how do you get rid of all the living, breathing scum?
I’m not a political person by any stretch, but I don’t know how Giuliani doesn’t have this presidential shit on lock. He cleaned up the shittiest city in America (besides any city in New Jersey), which was a feat no one could accomplish for over twenty years before him. I am in no way supporting Giuliani. Hell, I’m not even sure I’m spelling his name right, but he seems like a logical presidential choice to me.
Perhaps people forgot because NYC has been so sterile for so long now, and maybe documentaries like The Coolest Year in Hell are being made to subliminally remind people how much of a scummy place NYC was before Giuliani. If there’s more shit like this made within the next year, then I’ll start believing my own bullshit, for sure.
13. C RAYZ WALZ' "A CHORUS RHYME" CDJD: This album is supposed to be somewhat of a concept album. The concept is hip hop is so tied up in making a catchy chorus, C-Rayz was going to do an album where it is just verses with no chorus. Hey, if he wants to lead this revolution against the catchy chorus than I say this isn't the man for the job. The album sucks. Every song is sort of long, and boring, just like two verses together then the song is over. More than anything, it made me want a chorus or a hook, or anything to save the bordeom I was in listening to it.
The "star" of the CD is this 15 minute track with a whole mess of MCs, the only notible MCs are RA the Rugged Man and Wordsworth.
Since Mike said we are getting big here at EWA central, just a note to all the potential MCs out there - MAKE A CATCHY FUCKING CHORUS AND HOOK FUCKERS, so you don't make a piece of shit like this album. If you are hard and underground you have to separate your mad flows with something or it will sound like spoken word nonsense that some fake beer drinker makes in Virginia.
Also, if you are going to do a concept album, get in the studio, write your best shit, get a brilliant concept, and STOP DOING IT. It sucks, and the album you make will suck as well.
MD: Damn, John pulled some serious heel shit and nominated a record just to dump on it (which is why it’s called dumpin.net). That sucks for me, because this was the space I was going to use to make fun of John for liking a crappy record.
I was mistakenly pumped for this record when John threw it up on the list, because I thought C-Rayz had a really good song on that Definitive Swim comp, and I assumed that song would be on this record. Then I was pissed when I listened to it and didn’t hear the song. I was even more pissed once I double checked and found out the song I was thinking of was by Camu Tao and not C-Rayz.
John forgot to mention that 15 minute long song also features Sean Price and Thirsten Howl III, but he probably didn’t notice because he’s a poseur n00b. If that song was cut down to an acceptable time and featured the good rappers, it would have saved this record a little.
Oh, and C-Rayz has some other project out called Monster Maker that appears to be some kind of Gnarls Barkley thing, so I’m avoiding that like hippies avoid soap.
RM: I listened to this tonight to help contribute to the round table and all I could think was it wasn't that great. I mean, it didn't outright suck, but it had nothing at all worth making me keep listening to it. So I ended playing a Best of Lil Boosie mixtape instead, which I enjoyed far more thoroughly.
Seriously, I think one thing rap elitists need to remember is that just because you are clever doesn't mean a fucking thing. With the right charisma/beat/aura, you could rhyme about the different cinderblocks in the wall quarter-operated car wash and be three million times better than this C-Ray Walz shit. And probably have a deeper concept to be honest.
14. METHOD MAN REGULATES A WHITE BOYMD: I don’t know if it’s made the usual rounds yet, but there’s a video floating around from the Chicago leg of Rock The Bells where, during Wu Tang clan’s set, some white kid got all uppity and started saying shit like “Fuck Wu Tang Clan!” and “Where’s ODB?”, and Method Man took it upon himself to defend the honor of the Wu and get in this guy’s business. With his fists.
Unfortunately, the video is taken from an angle where you can’t see shit, and other reports say that Streetlife and a Wu bodyguard did most of the punching, but either way some guy got hit for heckling.
There are obviously only two outcomes to heckling. You either get ignored, or you get beat up. I guess you can also be kicked out by security before any bodily harm occurs, but I don’t know what was going through this guy's head. Rock The Bells also features Rage Against The Machine, so maybe he was one of the ankle biters that went to see Rage and his previous heckling escapades were limited to rock concerts with giant barriers. Even so, if this was the Wu Tang of five years ago, maybe it would be okay to heckle them because they were still rich and probably didn’t care about such things. For the past year or so, Method Man has consistently been one of the angriest people in rap music, and if I heard correctly from his verse on that new Ice Water record (which is pretty unintentionally hilarious), he’s broke now too (I can’t be sure because I was laughing too hard though), so that gives him even more reason to be ornery.
I do like seeing people get beat up for heckling, and even if I can’t physically see it from the video, the visual of a large crowd throwing up “The W” after the punching begins is good enough for me. Though I’m sure the douche will press charges because this is America, and that’s what we’re taught to do.
RM: Wasn't there some sort of Rage/Wu tour planned years ago that ended up getting canceled after a couple of shows because nobody in the Wu other than RZA thought that shit wasn't gay. I think I remember in that piece of shit Wu Tang Manual RZA talking about how the other dudes didn't see the full potential in that tour. So I can see how the other guys must be broke in the Wu and down with a faggy tour like this just for the money. I mean, if Method Man is broke, with his movies and more prominent musical career and recurring character on The Wire (my internerd dork talking points list says I'm supposed to mention this as THE GREATEST TELEBISION SHOW EVAR!), then how the fuck do the other Wu dudes have any money? That's probably why Ghostface didn't do the tour, since he's probably the only one who has any cash, which according to Wu Tang Clan Players Association collective bargaining agreement, gives you freedom from RZA's bullshit. So hopefully this is a sign of more problems and eventually all three hundred Wu Tang members who were gonna show up at that one Source Awards with swords will just start decapitating random drunken white dumbasses on tour, while RZA shouts from the stage, "HOLD ON GOD! STOP GOD! HOLD ON GOD!"
KM: I wish someone had a better angle on this. Watching Method Man stomp a mudhole in some stupid white kid would have made my day. As it stands, all I can do is imagine the eternal comedy that happens when white people come face to face with When Keepin' It Real Goes Terribly Wrong. If the DJ was smart, he would have thrown on that one skit off Tical 2000 (fuck you haters) where they kill Chris Rock that ends with "You play too fuckin much, Pookie."
15. ILL POETIC's "THE WORLD IS OURS" CDMD: This record was being talked up ad nauseum by Eric from the When They Reminisce blog on the world wide net web a couple months back. I downloaded it based on his praise and gave it a listen. At first I thought it sucked, and chances are I was in a pissed off mood when I listened to it, because I’m normally in a pissed off mood about 80% of the day. I decided to give it a second chance a few weeks ago, and maybe the weather was nicer or something, because I ended up liking it a lot. Not so much the rapping, but the beats are really great. There’s a couple songs that sound a little too much like Joe Budden’s “Pump it Up” on a shoestring budget for my tastes, but you cant fault a dude for trying to become MTV famous. Unless he made those songs on his own volition with no dreams of custom made Escalades and mansions with disco party rooms and S shaped hedges in mind. Then that would be kind of fruity.
Either way, you should give this a listen if you haven’t already. It’s some dude you probably have never heard of outside of the internet, and he’s making some dope beats. I’m sorry if my Official Seal of Approval is a bit late with the rest of the internet, and I know the same people who read Dumpin are most likely the same people who read When They Reminisce, but sometimes I like to pretend I have this crazy non-blog assimilated fanbase. You can’t fault a boy for dreaming.
JD: Funny, Mike and I are usually the ones who nominate the "blog of the week" CD, and this is no exception. I too heard Eric, who is a PA homeboy, jock the shit out of this, but man I feel left out. This didn't get to me. I did DL it, but it didn't get past my initial skimming of the CD to make it to the big show.
This is how I determine if an album will make the big show aka my iPod. First, it has to be jocked somewhere which this Ill Poetic was. Second, I DL it and give it at least an hour to go through. If I find myself skipping through more tracks than I want to actually listen to it gets the ass face. Third, if it gets past the skimming, it goes to the robot music machine.
This shitz didn't get past the step two. Sorry, but this was like every other album Mike and I nominate - ill beats, poopy rhymes. No offense at all to the MC because I know I could never make a whole album worth of rhymes, or ever three seconds worth of rhymes, but it did not keep up with the production. Instrumental please?
16. ORAL SEX FETISHIZATION/EMOTIONAL HOMOSEXUALITYRM: Brain this brain that. I went to some show a couple months back and some herb was wearing a shirt that said "Virginia is for Brain" which only made me think he was a trifling idiot, not all clever and shit. First off, calling getting head brain is one of those slang terms that seem so fucking stupid to me that, one, I can't take anyone who uses it serious, and two, shows I should be walking around with an onion on my belt and give up on pretending I should comment on pop culture. But what I also don't get is how all rappers talk about getting head, but never mention really fucking anymore. And I understand the terrible repercussions of leaving a baby inside a cooch (trust me, I know), but still, busting nuts almost exclusively in mouths seems odd to me. And when you combine this with a general disdain for showing actual concern for females (we-don't-love-them-hoes-itis), where dudes would rather stand around gladhanding and bonding with their homeboys while they all got their dicks sucked together by a couple of women who were more outlets than fellow humans, it all makes for a weird culture, one that creates things like that XXL cover from last month where Lil Wayne and Baby probably thought that was purely macho to be all tough looking like that together and that they were gonna get mad brain through that posturing. The thing is, this is ultimately just being confused gay. You don't love women, and never want to have vagina sex because that might mean child support. So you fuck mouths for sexual outlet and chill with your boys for emotional bonding. That's like half a step from realizing you could combine the two in one person and save yourself a lot of T-Pain style drink-buying at the bar. But what do I know? I love not only stabbing pussy with my penis, but putting my mouth all over it beforehand. (But not afterwards, because that's also half a step away from being gay; I've read enough Penthouse Letters to know tasting even a trace of semen in a vagina will quickly lead to you fellating a mandingo dude to get him hard so he can fuck your mother slut.)
KM: There are some things I just don't get. If you are a rapper, why in the fuck do you think most (if any) of your fans want to hear about how you fuck, in explicit detail? I can understand those "I wanna hold your hand" pop songs or "I wanna make love to you woman" Barry White shit, but some of these fucking rap songs are beyond stupid and off into absolutely goddamn ridiculous territory. I covered the UGK one, but this shit is pretty common. It's not like this is ever going to put me in the mood to have sex. I would not feel comfortable having it on while I'm fucking. Does anyone sit around and say to themself, "OOH, SELF, MY FAVORITE RAPPER IS GONNA PUT IT IN HER HOO-HAW. NOW I MUST PARROT MY FAVORITE RAPPER'S BEHAVIOR WITH THE HOO-HAW IN FRONT OF ME"? A woman sitting around listening to this may have masturbation fodder, maybe. Maybe. The rest of the listening population now has a skippable song and too much information about their favorite rapper's bedroom boom.
The other thing is, lots of rapper dudes are straight up homophobes past the point of making sense when you look at what they say (or do on secret videos that wind up on Youtube. Hello, Lil Cease!) DMX is probably the worst. You can catch him on an album talking about never shaking hands with A Gay Gay, possibly in the same song where you'll hear him yell about how "bitch niggas" can "suck his dick" or "get fucked in the ass." Anybody yelling "no homo" at the end of whatever it is they're saying fits this mold, too. If you've ever talked about how MC Such & Such owns cocker spaniels during the same interview in which you discuss fucking girls with your boys sitting around or running trains or whatever - that goes for you too. That's some conflicted content, yup. I don't want to see any stray video clips of DMX wearing Kool-Aid for lipstick or whatever. Motherfuckers need to get over the gay shit and get their fingers out they bootyholes already, dawg. Outside of the occasional jabbering (case in point: this month's EWA), I can safely say I don't have to spend much of my day validating the fact that I don't like dudes by talking greasy about dudes who like dudes or talking about dudes who talk like people who secretly like dudes even though they talk greasy about hating dudes who like dudes. I can be comfortable with not wanting wang without having to shout off a mountaintop about my ever-lasting love for vagina so the rest of the world doesn't think I secretly want wang. That's time that could be beter spent in search of vagina.
JD: I love how Raven took that path from the desire to get brains to being a homo, and while there is truth to that, I think it goes in a different direction. I think these rappers that always talk about getting lettuce are doing so because they feel that is the ultimate sign of power over a woman. I am a married man, and I can tell you that throughout the 8 years I have been with my wife, I have been much more likely to get the vagina than the mouth. I think after college most girls slow down their oral sex and concentrate more on the hole-lovin'. Maybe it is the whole women need to reproduce thing? Maybe they realize it is sorta gross? Whatever the case, if I was a MC I would rhyme about holding hands and spooning in a field of long wheat grass with the warm spring breeze caressing our faces. Or skullfucking.
17. JAZZ ADDIXX' "OXYGEN REFRESHED" CDJD: I did a gigantic 180 against this album because at first I thought that this was different than most of the stuff that we have reviewed, but it isn't. It is that same Common Finding Forever hip hop muzak shit. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't suck. The beats are pretty mellow, the MCs both have mellow flows, so it is far from offensive, but it doesn't grab you by the neck and kick you in the balls. It is just there. I really thought I liked it after the first listen, and maybe that was because I was writing a paper when listening to it and the music didn't distract me. Usually when something distracts me, it is either really good or bad, this shit was as neutral as water. Shit like this just makes me hungry. Hungry for something that rattles my molars and makes me think, "shit, this is amazing"; but hip-hop isn't like that anymore. Artists are doing shit that you heard before, just flipping it in a different way. They are scared to go out and do freakish shit. The best example of this I can come up with is the Cadence Weapon Breaking Kayfabe record. This kid has balls. The album was not my thing, but he had a really herky-jerky flow over some odd beats, but he did shit that doesn't sound like an ATCQ B-Side or something that is coming out on a De La Soul mixtape. Sure, it wasn't internet nerd fucker hyped up, but we all seem to be victims of finding stuff that isn't that bad, but not good, and jocking it like it is some revolutionary shit.
MD: I haven’t listened to this CD. I don’t even know where to download it and John never brought it to the EWA Secret Clubhouse. I felt I should write the required follow up blurb because Keenon is only allowed so many downloads per month at his Mulatto Jail, and Raven’s Internet Welfare is the same deal, plus it’s past the 1st and 15th so he’s most likely used up all his Download Stamps and WIC check on Lil Boosie mixtapes, and the New Guy is still too mysterious to judge on these types of things. Plus, I’m the group’s resident queer music listener, and the last syllable of this group’s name is “Dicks” so I’m assuming everyone else is expecting me to do it anyway.
I went to their Myspace and the music sounded like something I’d be into for at least an hour, but I have to pass on this as I’m growing more and more apathetic toward rap music and I’ve been slowly creeping into one of my moods where I stay away from the rap music for a while so I don’t get burnt out on it, and I only listen to it in small doses so I can think of clever words to put together in an effort to entertain five faceless people that live inside of the computer.
I am moving in a couple months and I’m getting really excited about cleaning out my closet because it’s filled with horrible CDs I’ve gotten for review purposes over the years, and I plan on going to the local used record store one last time to cash them in for jacked up credit so I can spend it on all the really high priced records I wouldn’t normally buy because I’m a bargain shopper, and I might never be able to go back there again once I move, and I sure as hell won’t be on such a relationship with my new area’s local used record shop where they think I’m cool enough to get a little extra in shitty CD trade in credit so I can even fake afford such things. I guess you can say I’m excited about this because I’m an record addixx
18. THE LESSON OF PHAROAHE MONCHRM: In our secret whiteboy clubhouse where we drink from our Private Stock of malt liquor and smoke reefer cigarettes rolled in Bambu papers, we recently circulated the latest MURS song that came through the cybertron machines always blipping and blooping in the background amidst the smoky green liquids in beaker jars and all the mad science we have going on. I had only recently read a stupid article about how MURS had signed to a major label, and it has only been maybe half a year now that I finally realized MURS was awesome and not just one of thirty seven million wacky west coast conscious MCs with ill wit and sharp similitude. This of course, made me wonder what the fuck he was thinking signing major label. I mean, first off, like nobody sells records anymore. Secondly, with a major label deal, that means major label loan. And if big super-hyped retarded rappers aren't moving units, how is some clever-worded dreaded dude from Cali's underground scene gonna sell enough records to not go in debt to the Zionist Overlords whose lawyer's names were on the top of each page of the recording contract MURS signed? Thus, in an attempt to make bank off his passion, he'll in all likelihood fail (sorry MURS, I'm pulling for you though man, although I probably won't buy your CD because I'm kinda broke like I already had a failed record deal, but without videos of myself walking around in front of commissioned graffiti pieces to remember the failure by), and have his passion become more jaded.
It made me think of Pharoahe Monch. Monch has always been critically hyped as an uber-genius on the pen and pad, who rocks the mic quite right, and just a normal rap dork talking point consensus underrated superstar. With Organized Konfusion, he was mired in the mid-card of hip hop politics. Then when the most honorable Rawkus movement went down, he had his one big moment with "Simon Says". The thing about that song is that it's not necessarily because he was any different than he ever has been, but because that beat is ridiculously thick. Ridiculously so. Which helped propel him from underrated mid-carder to Next Big Thing status. But he never got there. Right before this last CD came out, when he was in magazine interview/promo appearance hype mode, it seemed as if the direction of the hype wasn't sure whether he was the Next Big Thing or just an criminally underrated awesome dude.
Of course, then the CD came out, which seemed completely devoid of any real passion (which is odd considering the title), and Pharoahe came off sort of ehh whatever. I mean, he's still the same talented wordsmith he always was, but there was no "Simon Says" thumper of a beat behind any of the songs and it all was kinda interchangeable with each other as well as a lot of other stuff out - clever words delivered with ease, competent beats, but nothing that would even be considered for the EWA Hot Jamz 100 in five years time.
And what happens next Pharoahe Monch CD? You can't say he's a should-be superstar because that's been used up. And can he still be underground underrated awesome dude after dropping that last fumble? I don't know. Seems like wasted years of his prime creative life to me.
Which takes me back to MURS... I'm not one to jump on the stupid "You Sold Out! You Sold Out!" because if he could make giant wheelbarrows with 24 inch Esinem rims full of thousand dollar bills, I support any dude doing that without compromising themself too far (just the head in your ass, not the whole dick), but shit. Seems to me, from my pretentious know-it-all perch on the other side of the computer screen, that it would be easier to carve a career out of this passion through regular indie releases supported by one of those indietastic rap label tours, featuring every good act on a major indie label, plus either one of the guys from Binary Star or one of the guys from dead prez.
But what the fuck do I know? I do know that I doubt very seriously this major label MURS excursion is gonna turn out some awesome music. And I do know that I bet Pharoahe Monch is not as apt to leisurely bust out the composition book as he was ten years ago.
MD: That Pharoahe Monch CD was a real let-down after twenty five years of waiting for it and around 335 thousand magazine features telling everyone how great Pharoahe is. Of course, that didn’t stop at least a few internet establishments from calling it THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR OMG!, but if someone releases an album, there will be at least one person on the internet that says it’s the best album of the year without fail.
That new MURS song is weird (it’s in the new Madden too). It’s not like I know the guy personally, but I never expected him to be the type of rapper to make a Paint By Numbers pop rap track. I’m guessing he was forced to by the label, since the entire industry is singles-based now, and they need something to make a ringtone out of to make a record worthwhile. I guess we’ll see once his entire record comes out.
It would be really weird if it was, because I don’t understand the practice of signing established underground rappers just to make them dumb down their established style when there’s countless bums out there that already suck from the get-go and would be more than willing to make awful records with no questions asked. One thing is for sure. Both MURS and Pharoahe Monch will no doubt have non-label backed follow-up CDs explaining why the label fucked them over and how it’s not really their fault their major label CDs sucked, and that will be enough for the rap underground (read: internet) to accept them with open arms again.
19. J ZONE's 'GATORS & FURS' MIX SHOWMD: If you are a person like me that basks in the downfall of hip hop, and you need something to remind you every once in a while why you haven’t given up on it completely, J-Zone’s Gators and Furs mix series is the shit you want to download.
It’s set up like your average college radio mix show, but we are living in the future, so it’s a podcast and not an actual mix show on the radio. J-Zone “hosts” along with his Pitch Shifted Quasimoto-esque wise ass sidekick Chief Chinchilla, and they spin all this crazy good old shit. Last month, Raven talked some shit about a mix show on the evil satellite radio with Lord Sear and the Eminem guy from Jenny Jones, and even without hearing that, I bet this pseudo mix show blows it out of the water. I wish this shit really was on radio so it could be more than once a month, but still, it’s absolutely free so you don’t even feel guilty about enjoying your download.
J-Zone has a great sense of humor, and like I said, he reminds every negative fuck out there why they haven’t given up on hip hop yet. Before this, I wasn’t the biggest fan of J-Zone, but this mix series really shows where he’s coming from and it makes me appreciate his work more than I have in the past.
I know it’s not really entertaining for the readers when we do these passages where it’s all blowjobs and lollipops, and we don’t say anything mean spirited, but whatever. You can deal with it every once in a while.
20. HARDCORE WIGGER TWANGRM: The other week I was at a bar with a bunch of old friends from back in the wild days and I had a hilarious encounter attempting to drunkenly accept some drunken wigger dude's fighting attempts at my friend. Seems my boy Born King, who was mad fucked up, had all staggered around and must've bumped this wigger dude, who I happenstanced upon seeing him glare at my boy Born King. Me being the type that likes to discover new things went to big boy to ask if something was up, if my friend had done something. Dude started talking with that amazing weird ultra-wigger twang that's like a Hee Haw character doing a Puerto Rican girl's Brooklyn accent, but only out the right side of his mouth. I'm sure you've heard this talk on Springer or some shit if you've never been out dealing with real people. Apparently, my boy had accidentally bumped into this dude's ass, like completely wobbly drunk, and the wigger dude was all like, "Don't nobody touch my ass, that's one shit I just don't take, knowwhahuhmean. I mean, that shit ain't acceptable." This of course triggered drunken Raven trickery mind where I smoothed things over, explaining how my boy was drunker than fuck but he ain't no fag, and things were cool, wigger dude said I reminded him of his Uncle Pete, so I flip it and be like, "You ain't trying to say your Uncle Pete is a bitch and you fuckin' with me, are you?" This would lead to uncomfortable tension that could blow up, but then I'd smooth it back down, but work it back up, asking the guy if he had been to jail because most dudes I know all over-protective about their ass had been in jail, especially big goofy white dudes. Tension escalates, then eases, I find out his best friend in high school ended up being homo and it sorta tweaked him out. This is a fun game to play, dancing on that full-blown fisticuffs/let's go drink a beer together in the parking lot line, which had all my boys watching intently from afar waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Because I am a master manipulator of drunken minds, probably because my regular mind works like a drunk, just extra-sharp and looking for something to amuse me.
Sadly though, that strange hardcore wigger twang is something I understand all too well, having hung out with too many decrepit pieces of shit in my life-long mind of a drunk while sober quest to find things to amuse me. I don't talk like that though. I talk like Juliette Lewis using her bad redneck dialect to talk like a southern girl who's going to graduate school, but more masculine-sounding.
KM: I had a witty 200 word tirade about wiggaz and their hardcore wigga twang, but I was informed by Raven that I'm not allowed to use that word because I'm only half white and that's a right reserved for 100% white people as part of their full-fledged crackerdom. So I'll basically say that I think white dudes who try to act black and roll around in knee-length t-shirts and tricked out Honda Civics make me laugh. When they do that stupid Soulja Boy dance, they make me feel bad for their parents for having raised dress-wearing dipshits who hop around as if they'd just been released from a child tether. They're the kind of dudes who wind up catching an assbeating from dudes like Method Man when they step across the ever-present boundary and need to be put back in their honky-tonk badonkaplace.
JD: I grew up during the time when getting called a wigger because you dig hip hop was a pretty popular thing. Almost every kid I went to high school with was listening to The Dead and a bunch of other 70's rock and if that wasn't what you were into, you were some kind of freak. I then went away to college and lived with black dudes which, I think, d ampened my chances of having the wigger twang because those dudes thought kids who acted like that were gay.
Now I live in a tiny town with a large wigger contingent roaming the streets on their bicycles talking like they were doing the adlibs on a Young Joc record. I don't hate them for it, I see myself in those kids. Well minus the wigger uniform Kennon mentioned of fitted cap and large, white tee. But I want to sit them down , bend the brim of their cap, and tell them to cool it with the wigger speech because the people they are trying to emulate think it is mad corny. Personally, outside of the one year of high school when I was rocking the Tommy Rugby and Timbs, I always took pride in being a hip-hop fan, but not looking like it. I enjoy that odd face you get as an adult when you are asked what kind of music you listen to. Hopefully, one day these kids will learn.
21. N.O.R.E.'s "NOREALITY" CDRM: I have not heard anything really off this except for a couple cuts, but Noreaga was on the Tony Touch show on the satellite machine that's giving me brain cancer inside the cabin of my truck last week, and it was a great fucking show, full of old freestyles NORE had done on Tony Touch mixtapes, including one from the tremendous Fifty MCs tape he had out back then. Oh man, I'm so glad I had a good mixtape spot to hit up back in the mid-'90s when Tony Touch was going strong right before DJ Clue stormed into the scene, creating a DJ culture where you do absolutely zero actual cutting or turntable mixing of any sort but you yell your stupid shit name all over the track so if someone dubs the shit it sounds like you had something to do with it other than four-tracking your voice over top it. Noreaga is a fun-loving motherfucker, and although the album as he described it sounded like it suffered from the same seven thousand guest spots syndrome that all rap albums suffer from nowadays, NORE sounded like a fun ass dude and the type of guy I'd like to give thirteen dollars to. I know he's all internet famous for the full steezies interview, which is a hilarious interview, but he might've been like treetop high off some wacky colored weed that day or something. And anyways, most of you internet-wandering homos would've been thrown off the mountain by Muhammad years ago, so fuck you anyways. This record might suck nine dicks, but even without hearing it and just having a general good-natured faith in Noreaga's good nature, it's at least three dicks short of anything you could ever do.
JD: Raven forgot to add that we all at one time have worn a sweater vest and owned a Cocker Spaniel.
I always chalked up NORE to that late 90's NYC hip-hop boom. The first CNN album and his first solo albums are really good. I think the CNN album is really overlooked as far as classics go. But NORE seemed to shit the bed after his first solo album, and Capone went to prision, so that made the second CNN album bullshit horrible. This new album, he seemed to patch things up with one of the targets of his homo rants, The Neptunes, which makes me a bit sad because if anything, I hope that once NORE pegs you as wearing womens clothing, you are done in his book. NORE also lost me when he became too wrapped up in his, "I'm Puerto Rican" shit because I aint Puerto Rican, so I don't get it. I feel dumb doing these blurbs sometimes without actually listening to the album, but in this case I feel pretty confident in thinking that there will be some rhymes about brains, someone being a homo, and NORE being Puerto Rican.
22. TURNTABLISMRM: I have an old school mentality in that I am disappointed if I see a group perform and there's not a bonafide live DJ onstage with them. And I have come to even accept some of the more robotic forms of the modern DJ (those that use CD scratch pads, which I finally learned to accept once most DJs who use vinyl switched over to that laptop-driven Scratch Live program, which turns a crate full of records into a snippet of your hard drive with for-real pretend slabs of vinyl for you to scratch upon complete with little graphics on your laptop to replicate marking individual records), but I have come to detest the whole super-jazz DJ-extraordinaire turntablist bullshit. I mean, I dig on dudes doing crazy mixes of old rare shit or classic jams or whatever, but when dudes start doing that beat-juggling which is never onbeat and sounds like John Bonham drum solos while he's on PCP and having a mild stroke. It turns into pseudo-jazz music, imitating the type of jazz music I hate - noisy experiments with sound that make regular laid back folks want to stab other people with two-foot sections of rebar. And then you throw in these "turntablists" doing wacky physical shit like scratching with their elbows while the fade with their nose and have their feet crossed noticeably above the other table like it's a relaxing act on their part. What the fuck?
There seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to DJ respect (which is sadly probably a pretty small segment of Music Land, even when you combine the two schools of thought). The first is the new school turntable as art who thinks not just that a DJ is an actual musician but that he's some sort of brilliant John Coltrane incarnate, just by mangling two copies of the drum beat from Special Ed's "I Got It Made" until you can hardly count a simple one, two, three, four to it. The second school of thought, personified by DJ Premier, looks at the DJ's role as a musician is more along the lines of a lead guitar solo during the break. He's not there to fill every waking moment with a scratch track that eventually drives normal men to hear voices in barking dogs that instruct them to rape and murder random strangers. As you can see, I am more attuned to that second school of thought, because the DJ is a musician, but the instrument of the turntable is a pretty grating instrument, like an industrial didgeridoo, so if you just use it constantly, it becomes as annoying as that hippie guy sitting in the walking mall walkway doing that with his aborigine endorsed phallus incessantly.
I am hoping that through random google searching, some young kid who wants to dabble in DJing will find this, and I can't encourage you enough to, in order to understand the perfect role the DJ can play, just listen to all the old Gang Starr tracks and what DJ Premier does, or better yet what he doesn't do. Premo gets credit for his ill beatitude, but seriously, that dude's probably one of the best DJs ever because he knows exactly how much is just enough and then fades the fuck out to not take away from the beat and the rhymes. And if you get a chance to shine, "DJ Premier in Deep Concentration" is what you want to go for. Not three DJ, five turntable cracked-out jungle juggling nonsense. Although I guess with you stupid kids running doing pharmies like I used to smoke reefers are probably into that retarded ass shit.
KM: I need someone to teach me how to scratch with vinyl or show me what the hell is up with my set-up. The tables we have play just fine, but no matter what adjustments I've made so far they won't let me scratch without skipping like a motherfucker. I started to ask this dude at the concert who was DJing as part of one group, and his quick response was "Get better equipment." If ever I was to hold ill-formed pre-conceived notions about vinyl DJs, I would have started with this guy. Fucker didn't even check his own shit before they went on and got mad at me and the sound guy because his boys plugged his shit in the wrong hole hours beforehand. Maybe they should write a song about it and include how they found the right hole later with some of the jailbait groupies that were trying to get on stage all night. That's my story about turntablism. I don't know how yet, I can mix like a motherfucker and I guess that would be good enough to get me fired from SEP on a bad night.
JD: When I was first into my journey as an Expert Whiteboy leaving the realms of just being a whiteboy, I would go into my local record shop and buy whatever the 30 year old dude who was into hip-hop would recommend. One casuality of this was the Beat Junkies Mix series which I followed like a trooper into three volumes. It was all these dudes who would cut and scratch Def Jux and other underground flavor of the week stuff. I dug one of these tapes out a few weeks ago when I was driving around my wife's car with a tape deck. It sucked. I don't understand why someone would listen to some music/noise done by DJ Nerdfucker in person. I guess there is an art to it, but fuck if I see it.
23. JOE BUDDEN's "NEW JERSEY DRIVE" MIXTAPEMD: I wasn't supposed to be doing this introductory write up, but that person went MIA, so I'm stuck doing it. I've read all the blogs that told me Joe Budden is this great rapper that everyone should love, but I can't shake the annoyance of that "Pump It Up" song.
It turns out, Joe Budden really is this great rapper everyone should love. He's one of the few rappers I've heard that actually has a lot of rapping skills and can still do the corny pop songs that sell records without it getting too much on your nerves. This mixtape is split down the middle between regualar mixtape "Look how good I rap" tracks and more commercial "In Da Club" tracks. I don't remember exactly what happened with Joe Budden that threw him into mixtape limbo and out of the comfort of a major label deal, but I have no idea why some shady cog in the zod machine isn't trying to make millions off of this dude right now.
The highlight of this mixtape for me is the "Three Sides to a Story" song, where Joe takes on the task of rapping as three different people in a fictional story about a girl getting raped by her stepdad. Not only is that in poor taste no matter how you swing it, but Joe has the balls to rap as the girl who gets molested, which is the catalyst for the greatest moment in the tape.
At one point Joe is rapping (as the girl) about going to visit her brother. He says the line "He notices my belly getting fatter", and the DJ/Hype Man guy in the background ad libs, "PREGNANT!". That is the greatest ad lib in the history of rap music and everyone else should fucking stop right now.
RM: I don't need to listen to this shit ever because he's that dude who was yelling in that video that kept giving my children epileptic fits a few years back. Me and my brood are uninsured, which means I don't let shit that causes seizures into the house. Except for the lead paint that's already here. And toys made in China and shit. But they've got to play with something while I'm at work.
24. DAP-KINGS BACK WITH SHARON JONESRM: By now, the worldwide hype machine has probably made you aware of Amy Winehouse and what a triflin' slut with various substance issues she is, but how she is the (insert wacky outrageous critic superlative here) since (insert obscure yet often sampled earlier singer that critics fellate here)'s career crashed to a tragic demise. Well, Miss Winehouse got sent to rehab, allegedly, and cancelled the rest of her American tour, so the backing band that had been hired to play with her, the Dap-Kings, went back to what they do normally... playing with some old black chick Sharon Jones, and already putting out a new single. For years, Sharon Jones has travelled the road and played the type of dark smoke-filled clubs that most of us regular folks are more likely to go to - the ones with like a six dollar cover charge at the door and two dollar PBR bottles (or three-dollar Budweisers, if you're gonna be contrarian to hipster trends and not support PBR publicly).
It should be noted though that Sharon Jones is motherfuckin' awesome. And if you are the type who was cajoled by popular media into acquiring and then ultimately enjoying Amy Winehouse (and I'm not here to bury her, my wife played that shit enough that I can dig on a good chunk of her Back to Black CD), then you should use your internet mindwash machine to look up some Sharon Jones. Most likely, if you live within like fifteen hours of the Atlantic Ocean, she's playing really close to you somewhere in the next year. And you'll feel a lot better supporting her than you would Amy Winehouse with all her jew corporate backing (i.e. promotional payola funds). Although this is the internet, so you're probably some creepy homo who finds Winehouse sexy in that "ragged whore to emasculate me" sorta way.
MD: I saw a headline that said something about this, but I didn’t bother to read it because I figured I’d wait until it was an article in Waxpoetics or something before I let it concern me. I’ll tell you though, that Amy Winehouse broad just got into some kind of drug-fueled knife fight with a whore and her husband. Then like two days later she went vacationing with her husband, both all bruised and cut up and shit. I go to a lot of those gossip sites because I’m a secret fag, and today there were bikini pictures of Amy Winehouse. Have you ever seen the first Sleepaway Camp? Remember the last scene (SPOILER ALERT) when Angela turns around and she’s naked holding that blonde boy’s head in her hand and her eyes are glowing, and then you look closer and you notice instead of where a vagina would be, she has a dick? That is EXACTLY what Amy Winehouse looked like in a bikini, but her dick was covered up by little bikini bottoms.
25. SAMPLE FINDERSMD: I was reading Scratch magazine the other day, which is a magazine I tend to buy if I’m stuck in places that make me bored easily. I think Scratch is an alright magazine, but it could definitely be better. All of those XXL-related magazines have a heavy kayfabe vibe going on, where you can’t possibly believe the shit these people write is how they really feel. Anytime I pick up an XXL or a Scratch magazine, there’s at least one article that brings me back to simpler times of reading Pro Wrestling Illustrated in my bedroom and getting really pissed off at the outrageous shit Ted Dibiase had to say about Hulk Hogan.
Anyway, there was this quick little blurb, not even a full article about some dude (sorry I don’t remember his name and my copy’s already in The Official Mike Dikk Library of Resources, i.e., the garbage) who has a job digging for records and finding good sounding grooves for top-shelf producers. He supposedly gets paid around $1100 per groove for his services. Are you fucking kidding me? Rap music has to have the most fucked up economical structure of any industry ever. I can’t believe dudes are willing to pay other dudes a G just to find a decent sounding section of a song. I don’t think I’ve read anything about rap over the past year that has perplexed me this much. It’s already been beaten to death that a lot of rappers have ghostwriters, and that a lot of producers have little fuckboys that make most of the music they take credit for, but now, this is a whole new level of lazy. I mean, your job is to find music and make different music out of that, and you’re outsourcing your entire job to some guy because you’re too fucking lazy to do it? I swear to god I feel the same way that I felt when Andre turned on Hulk. In case you don’t know how I felt because you’re too thick in the head, I felt betrayed and sad.
I mean good for the dude who is getting paid just to shop at record stores all day, but shit like this needs to stop. We are only a couple steps away from producers buying beats other producers made in the '90s outright and using them for songs, and then Scratch magazine will call them geniuses for doing so, and everyone else who buys Scratch magazine when they are stuck in places that make them bored easily will lap it up, and then after that technique gets old, people will start rapping over ringtones that some other dude found for them. I really need to stop reading magazines.
RM: I love records, have stupid 45s and LPs and all types of shit in different stacks all throughout everything I've ever owned. One time I moved needing a moving truck and dumped like 500 records behind to save space. Still, this is stupid. It makes me want to stab motherfuckers in the eyeballs with my dick filed down to a sexual fang. This is also the exact reason I never talk on the internetz about awesome singles or records I have, because some stupid fuck will just be all like, "Oh shit, I need to really watch out for Boney M in the used record bin. 'Rasputin' is supposed to have a dope ass groove."
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