The magic number

3 recent songs I'm currently feelin' :

$tarlito - Three's Company (2010)
(From $tarlito's Way 3 : Life Insurance)



His reboot of Yo Gotti's I Shake Life with a new 3rd verse is my preferred car jam of the moment even though $tarlito is a rapper whose nebulous flow and pensive rap persona haven't exactly been well suited to his more uptempo street stompers in the past, but he's still at his best in introspective mode as an exponent of sad-gangsta-rap (which is handy since Boosie's rap career is over and Z-Ro's so hit-and-miss due to his propensity for his own awful production) I've settled on Three's Company as the highlight of $tarlito's Way 3. This breathes new life into rap-as-a-chick metaphor songs by adding another character in the form of a guy. Or is it a drug-game-as-a-chick metaphor song with rap being the intrusive 3rd person? Fuck, I feel like I'm a teenager back in 1995 again listening to I Got 5 On It and interpretting it as a song about gambling or masturbation. Also, is it just me or is 'lito continuing his unlikely penchant for old QB rap with this one, because it sounds suspiciously like a warbling synthesized variation on the orchestral sample on part 2 of Kool G. Rap's labyrinthine fable Thug Love Story?

G. Dep - Gametime (2010)
(From Ghetto Legend)



While G. Dep turning himself in for a homicide he commited in 1993 is probably closure for the family of the guy he shot, I was really hoping him hitting the headlines would result in someone finally uploading an mp3 of the dirty version of the Everyday remix with Faith I've practically begged for twice on here in one of the many tributes/memorials which then appeared about him where all you hoggish bastards just posted Head Over Wheels for the 10875th time instead. Ah well, at least the situation inspired me to check Dep's final mixtape Ghetto Legend from a few months back where we find very little evidence of the mental anguish he was apparently experiencing before he gave himself up in his music, but and there are a couple of joints amongst the dreck, most notably Gametime. He sorta has the same weird drug addict cadence which Ced Gee pioneered on The Four Horsemen going on nowadays but it just adds to the overall griminess with Gametime working best as a distant relative to his most brolic cut Child Of The Ghetto and a decent swansong because we ain't gonna be hearing from this fella again.

G-Side ft. Bentley - No Radio (2011)
(From The One...Cohesive)



G-Side's new album finds them steadily refining their craft as rappers and the Block Beattaz moving into more musically verdant zones which are best described as Peter Gabriel's So album if it was produced by Mike Dean (please believe that's a complimment), but maybe the harsh winter weather has unearthed the unrefined brute in me because the token Burn One joint No Radio is the album's song I'm currently stuck on to due to all 3 rappers coming with them double-time flows (S.T's verse is particularly great) and its more orthodox blend of fuzzy bass squiggles and flecks of country-rap guitar being the intrinsic nuts 'n' bolts pretty much every southern track not featuring a sample of the Paul Oakenfold remix of Mansun's Wide Open Space needs. Ayo G-Side : unless you're gonna employ the services of that PT bloke from My Aura, Sleepy Brown or Z-Ro next project can we have less singing and more Yelawolf and Jackie Chain appearances, plz?