Friday 29 June 2012

Why duz rapperz call weed "loud" lol

Smokin' On That Loud by Drumma Boy with 8Ball & MJG came and went without so much as a Duncan Cooper or Sam Hockney-Smith reblog on The Fader when the weather was still damp and grey earlier this year, but I've pro'lly listened to it more than anything on the last 8Ball mixtape so let's see if it makes a little more sense to all y'all now that the weather's, um, windy and grey with occasional outbreaks of sun.

Drumma Boy ft. 8Ball & MJG - Smokin' On That Loud
(From some Drumma Boy mixtape I assume?; 2012)


Personally, I'll take this over any of the similar efforts Curren$y or Wiz have dropped in the past couple of years, especially since the producer Kacey Khaliel gets far more out of that Voyage To Atlantis sample than Cardo did on Mesmerized. This whole sound is what Driz' Markie likes to call Yacht-Rap, but Smokin' On That Loud is a tad more intimate and exotic than that so I think it qualifies as a Bubble Bath-Rap classic alongside Camp Lo's Material, Porno Muzik by Max B and, of course, DJ Quik's entire rhythm-al-ism CD.

It's a total fallacy that smoking weed has ever sounded as kewl and sexy as songs like Smokin' On That Loud, though, since it's a filthy past time for braindead troglodytes which can be neatly summed up by this song by deplorable cracka-ass-cracka Reggae band Tribal Seeds.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Is there anything more depressing than the major label Rap remix in 2012?

A better question would be, has there been a single great major label Rap remix since 2007 gave us a triumvirate of classics in the Wipe Me Down remix, the Pop, Lock And Drop It remix, and the Can't Tell Me Nothing ROC remix where Beanie and Freeway humiliatingly tucked into some serious humble pie just to get a little track-time with KanYe?

There's been a few dope indie personal faves in the years since like the the Polo remix, the Moon And Stars remix, the Man Up Band Up Remix and the Buck Nah remix, as well as some appalling indie ones like this Twitter-baiting bag of shite, but I'm drawing a blank on any major label ones from the past four years which aren't just back-scratching excuses in cutting cheques for Fabolous, Red Cafe, Swizz Beats, Snoop, Busta, Diddy, Wayne, Drake, Rick Ross, KanYe, 2 Chainz and various YMCMB/G.O.O.D. Music/MMG flunkies.

Any suggestions? Only song I can think of is the All White Everything remix, which most of all y'all would probably disqualify anyway since the only difference between the original and the remix is the appearance of a mercenary like Yo Gotti and it didn't even end up making the last Jeezy album.

Monday 25 June 2012

I thought Jordans and links through from The Wire magazine was livin' it up

Off to see the Rapper who Kelis done fleeced tonight with Prince from Queens, Fritz from Harlem, and Seymour from Rochdale. I'd leave a happy man if he were to start with a medley of his verses from Live At The BBQ, Eye For An Eye, Verbal Intercourse, It's Mine and Show Discipline before launching into all the obvious Illmatic/It Was Written/noughties Salaam Remi single classics, but what my heart truly yearns for is to see him throw on a stetson, bring out AZ and then treat us to a rendition of Phone Tap that's eerily similar to this late 90s live performance from, um, some TV show that I'm unfamiliar with :


(And it really would be eerie since Half-A-Mill couldn't attend now he's, y'know, dead.)

Knowing Nas, none of that will happen and his set list will probably consist of 90% material culled from Hip Hop Is Dead, Untitled, his awful cod-Reggae Distant Relatives album with Ali Campbell from UB40's son and whatever his forthcoming long player is called, before he wheezes thorough an encore of his shitty recent single with the Supercat sample which sounds like two different songs playing in unison on a MySpace page in 2006. Ayo Nas - at least let me up on stage during Street Dreams to do the "word is bond, son, I had that bitch down on my shit like DIS!" ad lib, eh?

Sunday 24 June 2012

Reasons why I love Youtube # 27

Two absolute humdingers from the vaults of one Don Cornelius esquire today. First up we have the elaborate stage musical performance of All About The Benjamins by Puffy, The Lox & Lil' Kim at the 1998 Soul Train awards. If, like me, you occasionally find yourself wondering what a Bad Boy revue in Vegas would look like then here's a 2D approximation of our fantasy, complete with the requisite dance-breakdown where Puffy flaps about with all the rhythm of a toddler who has fire-ants in his slippers :


And then we have Elton John belting out Bennie And The Jets on Soul Train in 1975 whilst dressed as the eponymous evil hobgoblin from the Leprechaun movie franchise. Apparently Elton Da Sensei beat David Bowie by a few months to be crowned the first saltine to ever appear on t'train, and the clip is relevant to this blog's interests since Bennie And The Jets would later go on to be covered by Biz Markie and Mi Uzi Weighs An Elton pushes keys like ______ (<~~ insert generic Clipse punchline about tinkling the ivories here) :

Thursday 21 June 2012

Cobraswag & The Martorialist - #1 in your top 2

Nyquil gon' make me a star, I'ma make him a million, together we invadin' the building with a mix which'll take you on a 45 minute musical odyssey no man is safe from. It's all here : Louisiana Rap singles, Egyptian Lover ballads, 80s pop staples by Blancmange and INXS, slept on Mac Dre cuts with Dubee, 80s Chicago House classics by Maurice Joshua and Phuture, Danny Brown's dalliance with Swag-Rap, secrete bonus songs from deluxe Depeche Mode box set bootlegs, Carl Craig alias projects and a bunch of other certified jams we deemed appropriate for inclusion.


~~> Cobraswag & The Martorialist present : We're In Your Mix <~~
(A mix by Nyquil & Blogota Rich)



1. Webbie - Wipe Me Down remix (Intro)
2. Maurice Joshua - I Gotta Big Dick
3. Clams Casino - Track 13
4. Depeche Mode - Ghost In Your House
5. Mac Dre & Dubee - Westwayz
6. Mac Dre & Dubee - Hands For Holding Grands
7. Phuture - Your Only Friend
8. Paperclip People - Oscillator
9. Mc Eiht - N*ggaz Make The World Go Around (DJ Screw mix)
10. Fam-Lay ft. Project Pat - Money Makin' Trick
11. Egyptian Lover - I Cry
12. Rebolledo - Aire Caliente
13. DJ Jimi - Where They At?
14. Blancmange - Living On The Ceiling
15. Inxs - Never Tear Us Apart
16. Danny Brown - Lincoln Continental
17. Ed Banger - Greel
18. LFO - We Are Back
19. Mouse On Tha Track ft. Lil' Trill, Foxx, Lil' Phat & Webbie - Turn The Beat Up

Me, I've got the mixing skillz of a dead jellyfish or Eric Barrier with mittens on, so Nyquil handled that side of things and added such brilliant flourishes as the Matthew Africa vocal sample at 40:01. Together we dedicate this mix to the gumbo cookers, the Bourbon Street hookers, the aluminum can pickers, the drug dealer ass-kissers, the pork chop eaters, the CYC dick beaters, the bet'cha I could beat'chas, and all the holy Cobraswag and Martorialist readers.

Hey, you can listen to it on Soundcloud now too :

Katie Got Jamz

Facts on stone : with her latest classic Hittaz Only Katie Got Bandz has now dropped more bangers this year than there are on the 2nd Nicki Minaj album, yet therm-ass bloggaz and opp-ass critics still prefer to write about the less talented Ms. Minaj just because she affords them the opportunity to pen pompous think-pieces about how a chick Rapping from the perspective of a Euro gay dude called Roman in a zany Pepé Le Pew accent is shattering homophobic prejudices that've existed in Rap since Grandmaster Caz rhymed "faggot" with "maggot" on that 1979 Coldcrush live 'tape :

"So I'm strapped like a dyke bitch
Big 30s and we shoot, we don't fight, bitch
Hittaz turn me on like a light switch
You a opp, that's that shit I don't like, bitch"


Katie Got Bandz - Hittaz Only
(From Bandz And Hittaz mixtape; 2012)


Here's the dilly, yo : if I Need A Hitta was Katie's game-changing My Melody joint which obliterated all former generations of chick Rappers in one fell swoop, Hittaz Only here is Katie's As The Rhyme Goes On joint where she really flaunts her flow and lyrical chops, with the bit where she tells her engineer Rich to "wait, man..I got gum in mah mouth...tweakin'" possibly even paralleling the opening conversation between Eric B and Rakim on Paid In Full in terms of historic Rap record ad libbing.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Just sayin', bruv # 3.5

I'll honestly take Nino by Young Giftz & Tree over anything on Tree's critically acclaimed, internet-sexy and really good Sunday School mixtape. Now Nino has been blessed with a video I can kill two birds with one post by finally sharing this unpopular opinion with you and then reminding you that Giftz was also responsible for the masterpiece that is Meet Da Dealer :

Young Giftz ft. Tree - Nino
(From The Lake Effect 1.5: The Re-Rock mixtape; 2012)


Rap video paradox # 45679, 00001 : Tree saying "whip so sick I don't need no chain" during the hook at 0:19 - 0:22 as he stands there Rapping into the camera wearing a dookie gold ropechain.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Red or Ted

Rappers have been really lettin' ya boy Blogota Rich down with their videos this month, mang - a few weeks back King Louie filmed a loosely Bonnie & Clyde-themed clip for Bars with some random 'hoodrat as his patna in crime instead of Katie Got Bandz, and today sees A-Mafia release a promo for the 2011 fan-favourite Ted Dibiase with nary a visual reference to its namesake. Here was me hoping the video might reverse the Ted and Virgil racial dynamic and feature a Tuxedo-ed up 'Mafia stunting around Harlem flanked by a subservient pecKKKerwood in a dickie-bow who gives impromptu foot massages. Oh well, he does get his Iron Sheik on in the video, and the song is still the hardest shit since MC Ren as well as the perfect antidote to the mundanity of Joey Bada$$; does N.Y really need its own Stalley?

A-Mafia - Ted Dibiase
(From What The Streets Made Me mixtape; 2011)


Also wanna take this opportunity to admit that I was talkin' outta my ass about 'Mafia's Under The Scope mixtape being a near-complete disaster other than Road To The Riches and the Real Live Pro remix. It isn't a good 'tape by any stretch of the imagination, but along with the two aforementioned 'Mafia classics it also has the baronial Crime Pays and the Auto-Tuned guilty pleasure of Who Can I Run To? to its credit :

A-Mafia - Crime Pays
(From Under The Scope mixtape; 2012)



A-Mafia ft. Herb McGruff - Who Can I Run To?
(From Under The Scope mixtape; 2012)

Monday 18 June 2012

Today's suspects become tomorrow's victims

Already cultivated my Lil' Phat 'tache for the rest of June to honour his memory, so today I'm catching up with those two tribute mixtapes to the recently deceased Trill Fam Youngin; the T.I.P (Trill In Peace) 'tape by Traps N Trunks is fairly comprehensive and even features a couple of songs I'm hitherto unfamiliar with like Ima Dirty Muthafucker, while the #RipPhat: A Tribute To The Yungin 'tape by DJ Smallz & DJ Shure Fire would be the definitive Phat retrospective if it weren't bereft of a few key classics like I Do My Shit, Cuttin' Up, Feel My Pain and Countin' Money. Weirdly, both 'tapes are lacking in any Phat's material as part of 3 Deep, which I guess isn't so surprising really since I was unaware they'd recorded anything other the two songs on Survival Of The Fittest too until ANU put me onto their First 6 Songs mixtape recently.

Anyhoo, there's a few questions surrounding Phat's death which still need answering, damnit : does this Phat-sized hole in the Trill ENT roster mean Mel & Turk will finally start giving Foxx and/or Mouse a push again? Who'd have ever thunk Phat would die before Boosie or, indeed, Webbie? Can Mel plz release the NO-DJ versions of his dead son's Life Of A Yungsta and Death Before Dishonour mixtapes? Are there any crazy conspiracy theories floating about since the murder happened in ATL and not Baton Rogue? And why couldn't it have been Lil' Trill who got his balloon popped instead? I kid, I kid on that last point (sorta) - Turk's offspring might've single-handedly ruined every track he ever appeared on when he was Trill's in-house squeaky pre-pubescent sock puppet, but he did kinda rip the official version of Turn The Beat Up after his sack dropped :

Mouse On Tha Track ft. Lil' Trill, Lil' Phat & Webbie - Turn The Beat Up
(From Trill Fam : All Or Nothing album compilation; 2010)


Speaking of crazy conspiracy theories, it's fairly common knowledge that Boosie had been trying to leave Trill ENT due to money issues and Mel cutting verses from his songs to replace them with Lil' Phat cameos before he got sent to the bing in 2009, but did you know that he even went as far as threatening Mel on the unreleased-until-2010 song Free At Last?

"Fuck a contract, n*gga gonna have to release me
Mel, your goons ain't like my goons and you 'bout no beef!"

Lil' Boosie - Free At Last
(From Free At Last mixtape; 2010)


Could all of this possibly tie in with the rumour that Mel's other son was involved in the murder of Boosie's best friend Bleek alongside Marlo Mike and the recent gossip that Boosie plans on moving to ATL when he's released from prison? Damned if I know, but Trill ENT's labyrinth narrative of dirty money, murder, even dirtier moguls and attempted-murder is already similar to a Agatha Christie novella which takes in Alpo killing Rich Porter, The Lox's Let The Lox Go! campaign against Bad Boy, and Baby allegedly having U.N.L.V's Yella Boy shot to death along the way.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

New York, New York

Thought this was gonna be my lucky day for new Rotten Apple Rap, but that new Eldorado Red track certain sections of the internet are going cuckoo for turned out to be a Jurassic 5 version of Money Boss Players over trendy Cloud-Rap beats, and the latest Troy Ave Bricks In My Backpack mixtape didn't offer me a single song worth keeping since it sounds like Young Roddy reciting French Montana lyrics over a Stalley album. Thus, I've had to return to couple of dope Harlem loosies from the past couple of months that've otherwise slipped through the cracks online to get my N.Y Rap jollies :

A-Mafia - Realest N*gga In My City
(From that internet; 2012)


Today's crap cinematic description of A-Mafia's music : that Jean-Claude Van Damme punching out the snake in Hard Target-Rap. I'm finding Mafia's "I'm ready to die..as long as I get my point across before I go!" declaration on this quite upsetting seeing as 2012 has already claimed two of my favourite weedcarriers of recent years. Please let A-Mafia live, God, and if you must insist on killing a Dipset third-stringer in the next 6 months then take 40 Cal instead as punishment for that time he ruined Dipset City.

Black Rob ft. Snaggapuss & Sadat X - Can't Make It In N.Y remix
(From that internet; 2012)


2011 blessed us with Snaggapuss and Black Rob together on that Bounce Squad beatjack of J. Beez Comin' Through (Bonus Beats), this year we're treated to a remix of one of the handful of good songs from the last Black Rob album featuring a Snaggapuss verse and a Datty X appearance. I can't believe Dru-Ha doesn't give B.R first refusal on all the good beats which pass through the Duck Down office because Roses should've been a Black Rob & Freeway emo-Rap classic instead of an aiight Smif-N-Wessun song with the eyewateringly cringeworthy lyric of "just think, if BIG and 'Pac made peace and you could say somethin' to both of them, then what would it be?" Personally, I'd ask messrs Wallace & Shakur if they could believe that such a bitchmade lyric had come from the group responsible for such an all time classic as Nothing Move But The Money.

Monday 11 June 2012

Reasons why I love Youtube # 26

Because somebody has placed Fam-Lay's Clap Clap over the Slow Clap GIF AKA a loop of Charles Foster Kane clapping Susan Alexander's disastrous opera in Citizen Kane.

Fam-Lay - Clap Clap
(From Trained To Go album; 2012?)


Love this video for three reasons :

1. Clap Clap didn't make much of an impact first time around earlier this year so it deserves a bit of a second wind, especially since it's the closest Fam-Lay's come to rivaling the laconic menace of Skrung Owt and it's way more worthy of attention than rubbish Pusha-T dis tracks to Wayne, innit?

2. Fam-Lay and Orson Welles are apt bedfellows since the possibility of his forthcoming Trained To Go album featuring all the old Neptunes joints like Skrung Owt, Rock 'N' Roll, Amalance, Da Beeper Record et al alongside the recent tracks like Clap Clap, Money Makin' Trick and Beach Cruiser would basically make it the Rap equivalent of a fully restored cut of The Magnificent Ambersons with all the lost footage Welles left in Rio.

3. Fam-Lay's haircut and outfit in the real Clap Clap video were totally unbecoming and unsuitable for a thug-Rapper rhyming about guns, torture, pyromania and masculinity issues involving looking at one's self in the mirror. Don't let Mike (NJJ) catch you in them Virginia streetz lookin' like you're on that Blade shit, that gay parade shit, that dad-fitting denim jacket and parts in ya gumby fade shit, Fam'.

Sunday 10 June 2012

Greatest movie scenes ever # 46


Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, has Canibus got the Klaus Kinski as Don Lope de Aguirre swag down pizzack in that video of him battling Dizaster or what? From his lurching posture and gimpy arm, to the pie-eyed egomaniacal babbling into thin air, to the teeth which are too big for his mouth, to him being surrounded by filthy screeching dissident primates - the whole sorry mess appears to be some sort of bizarro recreation of the infamous finale to Herzog & Kinski's masterpiece :

Saturday 9 June 2012

Wanted dead or alive # 12 : Your Ho by Devin

Along with the original Right Now, Your Ho was one of the two songs from the advance of Just Tryin' Ta Live that leaked to the internet in 2002 which then proceeded to vanish from the retail CD's tracklisting. Right Now was cut due to the James Taylor sample RAP-A-LOT couldn't clear at the time, but it's never been clear why Your Ho got left on the scrap heap when it was a sample-less Dr Dre track and easily the equal of that other great Just Tryin' Ta Live Dre production credit It's A Shame.

Whatever, if you downloaded the leaked Just Tryin' Ta Live advance off Soulseek or Kazaa a decade ago you'll surely recall Your Ho too even though its subsequently disappeared from t'internet ever since, so there has to be somebody out there who still has the MP3 on a slowly eroding CD-R or an old external hard drive gathering dust. If so, hook that shit up before its lost in internet mythology forever like that XXXplicit photo shoot Andre 3000 did in his studio with some foxy Brazilian stripper bird back in 2003 not long after the release of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

EDIT : thanks to some dude called Wahhhhhhh correcting me that it was actually called Yo' Ho, and to street nozzles pointed at ya Noztrils for coming through with the info that it turned up under a different title on the 2008 RAP-A-LOT cash-in album Hi Ligh.

Devin The Dude - Yo' Ho/Comin' Back
(From Just Tryin' Ta Live advance copy; 2002/Hi Life album; 2008)

Friday 8 June 2012

101 great Rap album tracks and mixtape joints of the noughties


So this was originally intended to swiftly follow my best Rap singles of 1999 - 2009 list back in early 2010, but good gracious, even though that singles post was bodacious, hyperlinking the bloody thing was so arduous that attempting another best-of-the-decade list required far too much patience. Two years on and an idle Rap blogger can now pay a pittance to Indian gentlemen for HTML services, so here's another mammoth noughties Rap tabulation to inflict my tastes on t'internet. Same rules as the singles post apply, although this one is restricted to the slightly different timespan of 2000 - 2010 and isn't presented in any kind of hierarchy of preference. Lists of fury, yawl.

1. Casual - Studio D (2001)
2. T.I - Kingofdasouth (2003)
3. Young Dro - Man In The Trunk (2006)
4. Sadat X ft. Heltah Skeltah - The Great Diamond D (2005)
5. Grand Puba - Let's Go (2007)
6. Young Bleed - I Couldn't C' It (2000)
7. C-loc, Max Minelli & Boosie - Throw It Up (2004)
8. Boo Da Boss Playa ft. King Goldie - Rainbow (2000)
9. Max Minelli - My First Verse (2004)
10. Young Ready ft. C-Loc & Max Minelli - 1 Rubber (2007)
11. Camp Lo - How U Walkin' (2002)
12. D4L - Scotty (2005)
13. Trap Squad - Tea Bag Dat Hoe (2006)
14. AZ - Wanna Be There (2002)
15. Nas - No Idea's Original (2001)
16. Cormega - Verbal Graffiti (2002)
17. Mac Dre - Me Damac (2004)
18. Z-Ro - Respect My Mind (2005)
19. Trae - Real Talk (2006)
20. A.B.N - Umm Hmm (2008)
21. Cam'Ron ft. Prodigy - Losing Weight (2000)
22. The Diplomats - Gangsta (2003)
23. Agallah - Gun Go (2004)
24. Jim Jones & Stack Bundles - Ya Dig? (2008)
25. Max B - Lip Sing (2008)
26. Mic Terror - Juke Them Hoes (2007)
27. E-40 - It's All Gravity (2002)
28. Turf Talk - 24 Feelin' Way O.G (2004)
29. Maino - Role Model (2008)
30. Lil' Boosie - Trouble Man (2005)
31. Lil' Boosie & Webbie ft. Pimp C - Finger Fuckin' (2003)
32. Webbie - Porch (2003)
33. Lil' Phat - I Do My Shit (2008)
34. King Geedorah - Fazers (2003)
35. Megalon - Rain Blood (2002)
36. Fam-Lay - Skrung Owt (2006)
37. Suga Free ft. Morris Day - She Get What She Pay Foe (2004)
38. DJ Quik - Jupiter's Critic And The Mind Of Mars (2009)
39. Devin The Dude - Go Somewhere (2002)
40. Messy Marv - "B" (2006)
41. Havoc ft. 50 Cent & Big Noyd - Bump That remix (2003)
42. Prodigy - Raining Guns And Shanks (2007)
43. Big Noyd - Heartless (2008)
44. Twista ft. Jazze Pha - Badunkadunk (2004)
45. Beanie Sigel ft. Peedi Crakk - Flatline (2005)
46. Freeway - You Don't Know (In The Ghetto) (2003)
47. Edan - Run That Shit (2001)
48. The Jacka - Murder Somebody (2006)
49. Husalah - Fighting The Feds (2007)
50. Go-Rilla Pimp$ - Pimp Olympics (2003)
51. Bo$$ Hog Barbarians - You Got Mail (2005)
52. UGK - Look At Me (2001)
53. Jadakiss ft. Nas - Show Discipline (2001)
54. Styles P - Kill That Faggot (2006)
55. Mike Jones ft. Bun B & Lil' Keke - Know What I'm Sayin' (2005)
56. M.O.P - Roll Call (2000)
57. Juvenile - Numb Numb (2003)
58. Lil' Wayne - B.M J.R (2004)
59. Mannie Fresh - Fight Song (2004)
60. Mitchy Slick ft. Damu & Don Diego - Yeah Dat (2001)
61. Big L - The Big Picture (Intro) (2000)
62. Lil' Wyte - Icy White Soljas (2004)
63. Project Pat ft. Beanie Sigel - Purple (2007)
64. Bailey - Fuck Yo' Couch (2006)
65. Paul Wall & Chamillionaire - N Luv Wit My Money (2002)
66. Ghostface Killah ft. Raekwon & Slick Rick - The Sun (2001)
67. Scarface - Safe (2002)
68. Geto Boys - 1, 2 And 3 (2005)
69. Tragedy Khadafi - Neva Die Alone Part 2 (2003)
70. Gucci Mane - Nickelodeon (2008)
71. Waka Flocka Flame ft. Pastor Troy & Slim Dunkin - Fuck The Club Up (2010)
72. Black Moon ft. Sean Price - Looking Down The Barrel (2003)
73. Rock ft. Sean Price - Fuck Dat Rapper (2008)
74. Lil' Flip ft. Shasta - 8 Rulez (2002)
75. 8Ball & MJG ft. Tiny - Thingz (2000)
76. Black Rob - Help Me Out (2005)
77. G-Dep - Child Of The Ghetto (2003)
78. Mystikal - Big Truck Boys (2000)
79. Jae Millz - Sober (2008)
80. Soulja Boy ft. Gucci Mane & Yo Gotti - Shopping Spree (2008)
81. Yukmouth - Stuntastic (2003)
82. 50 Cent - Rotten Apple (2002)
83. G-Unit - True Loyalty (2003)
84. All $tar - Keep Doin' My Thang (2008)
85. Boyz 'N Da Hood - Trap N*ggaz (2005)
86. Young Jeezy - Don't Get Caught (2005)
87. Curren$y - Scared Of Monstas (2009)
88. Wise Intelligent - A Genocide (2007)
89. C-Nile ft. Juvenile & Skip - U Know Me remix (2004)
90. B.o.B ft. Lil' Boosie & DG Yola - Fuck You (2008)
91. Gang Starr - Sabotage (2003)
92. Blaq Poet - Bang This (2005)
93. The NYGz - Get 2 Tha Point (2004)
94. Haystak - Hell Naw (2008)
95. OutKast ft. Killer Mike - Snappin' And Trappin' (2000)
96. Dungeon Family - Follow The Light (2001)
97. Bubba Sparxxx - Take A Load Off (2003)
98. Killer Mike - Belly Of The Beast (2008)
99. Rock D Tha Legend ft. Big Boi - DDT (That Hoe) (2007)
100. Lil' Kim - Suck My D*ck (2000)
101. G-Side ft. Yelawolf - Who's Hood

R.I.P to Lil' Phat, btw. Kinda feel like I was the David Thomson to his Orson Welles, and Life Of A Yungsta is probably my favourite non-Boosie Trill Fam mixtape of the past 5 years. Dear lord, why they hold they nuts on the greats until they gone????

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Is Reagan by Killer Mike & El-P the most overrated song of 2012?

Given that it's being treated with the reverence of a new Fight The Power or A Bird In The Hand, it certainly appears that way, yes. There are a helluva lotta disingenuous motherfuckers out there at the moment because Reagan doesn't really do anything Wise Intelligent's entirely less-celebrated A Genocide didn't already do more creatively five years ago, except use the backing track of a critic-baiting peckerwood producer and cheat by clumsily hammering its point home with snippets of Ronald Reagan's dialogue. The dialogue trick might have worked for Killer Mike before with those Charlie Manson samples on Belly Of The Beast, but on Reagan the complete lack of subtlety is startling and it affords the song the replay value of an Immortal Technique interlude about how American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were actually secrete missles fired at the twin towers by Halliburton H.Q. Such an overwhelmingly positive critical response to a song so flawed and ultimately average only confirms my suspicion that some of you heathens will sweat any ol' merely half-decent Rap shit if it happens to mention Oliver North.

Other than being a footnote in Will High's life story and releasing an inexplicitly great song where two of indie-Rap's foremost killjoys break kayfabe to poke fun at their own po-faced personas, what's a useless lump like El-P ever done for American culture to earn the right to besmirch the legacy of the iconic actor who starred in Juke Girl, King's Row and The Killers anyway? Ronnie Reagan getting decked by John Cassavetes after slapping Angie Dickinson around the chops in The Killers is a far greater achievement than releasing ludicrously overrated albums by the poor man's Cage & Yak Ballz and Rapping like the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off over clangorous beats which sound akin to robot qweefs amidst draws of cutlery crashing down a lighthouse's stairs.


For the love of Rap, someone please put a couple of bullets in El-P's hands before he manages to get his claws into Danny Brown's next album and consequently ruins it.

Fat Lace back!


It's Def Jam week over on Fat Lace, featuring blurbs-a-plenty by ya man Richard Tre Mane AKA Trap Goin' Burham Wazir. Drew Huge and I actually wrote the text for this entire week back in the Reagan/Thatcher era when Davy DMX was signed to the label (well, sometime last year), but it's taken Dan Large this long to rip and up all the audio for it since he's now clocking that Tinie Tempah paper from Sway becoming a proper pop star and partying it up in Dubai with Calvin Harris and Alexa Chung. When we was on the computer writin' about B.G Knocc Out, he was in Palm Deira sippin' Cris' on a speedboat.

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Hey black ppl of America

If you're gonna take up Rapping as a career in 2012 then you might as well employ Goodie Mob's debut album and Suga Free's I Wanna Go Home (The County Jail Song) as your two primary artistic inspirations and parlay them into a pretty interesting Youtube gimmick :

"hell no, I don't want my head bust, no I don't wanna die
I 'ono what's up there in that great big ol' sky"


Alpoko Don - All I Know
(From Youtube; 2012)



"This my year this year, money gon' keep pilin'
I'm playin' with more faces than a thousand photo albums


Alpoko Don - Get My Paypa, Dog
(From Youtube; 2012)


Has this guy really just been locked up for eight years or is that narrative merely part of the gimmick?

Reasons why I love Youtube # 25

There's only two types of people in this world, my friend: those simps who think Jarvis Cocker bumrushing Michael Jackson's 1996 performance of Earth Song was the most notable Brit Awards moment of the decade, and the more discerning viewers amongst us who KNOW that the time Mark Morrison cranked out Return Of The Mack at the 1997 Brit Awards when he was on trial for smuggling a burner onto an airliner was the single greatest live performance in the history of television:


Mark's ankle length white mink and black Only God Can Judge Me print turtleneck ensemble was mad baroque, but peep closer and you'll notice it's his mic-throwing skills in this clip that are truly next-level: clock 3:30 - to 3:34 where he stagedives backwards into an adoring throng and then casually tosses his mic from his left hand to his right hand for a glimpse of live TV swag that's second only to the time a clearly shitfaced Scott Hall got hit in the head by a drink on Nitro and used it to grease his immaculate mullet back further without messing a single follicle of hair up. Still, if only Mark had known in 1997 that those blessed with pure uncut swag are supposed to go and cop private jets when they get kicked off planes then his life might not turned into a sisyphean loop of failed-comebacks and prison sentences.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Martorial elegance # 63

A-Mafia adds his own tuppence to the never-ending brand harmony debate, yo :


Since the "real Harlem n*gga - no tight shirts or tight jeans" seems to be delving into his back catalogue for joints to give the ole video treatment at the moment (a Ted Dibiase clip drops this week, apparently!), he might as well shoot a promo for this ridiculously hardbody 2004 joint from when he first popped on the scene as the fourth member of Purple City alongside Agallah, Shiest Bubz and Un Kasa before incarceration saw him vanish and then reappear as a Cam weedcarrier on Public Enemy # 1 in 2007 :

"Sleep with my eyeses open
'cause them guys is scopin'
front on me, my forty-five is smokin'"


A-Mafia - I Ain't Playin'
(From The Color Purple mixtape; 2004)


If only it'd been Mafia instead of that Boo-from-Boo & Gotti sounding jabronie Penz on Glitter, eh?

Friday 1 June 2012

Just sayin', bruv # 3

Five days to work, an extended Jubilee bank holiday weekend to play, c'mon everybody drop those unpopular opinions today :

There isn't a more abominable Rap album than The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, and the only Fugees song future generations will remember with any fondness is It Doesn't Matter by Wyclef Jean & The Rock, mainly for The Rock's contributions.

Dilla really did change our lives when he managed to ruin three of the great eccentric groups of the early nineties in the space of a year with his pedestrian clip-cloppy production for De La, Tribe and The Pharcyde.

Nothing good has ever emerged from El-P worming his way into black ppl Rappers' affections or studios, and, yes, that includes R.A.P Music.

A-Mafia's belly laugh after he proudly proclaims "I ain't never had a job in my life, man" on the intro of Crime Pays is precisely 10000 times more entertaining than anything Cam'Ron dropped in his unreleased-song-a-day campaign last month.

If the internet has revealed anything about our Rap-writer forefathers, it's that a toadying blowhard like Elliot Wilson simply can't have been responsible for any of the good bits in Ego Trip.

Since Nas is now the Rapping version of the weed-addled twit he's always appeared to be in his interviews, the only chance his new Life Is Good album has of being worth a listen is if we're treated to the return of Nas the gloriously offkey R&B singer who blazed shit like a young Luther on the hooks of Gimme Yours and Street Dreams.

Kirko Bangz's Autotuned ode to sexual harassment What Yo Name Iz makes Future's critically acclaimed Pluto album sound like the creepy ramblings of a PUA-inspired Canadian friend of Mindbender Futurama.

Busy Bee may have lost the famed battle against Kool Moe Dee, but he eventually won the war by managing to make a good song on Sugar Hill Records with Making Cash Money when the Treacherous Three proved themselves to be utterly useless as recording artists after they left Enjoy Records, and then went on to rub salt in the wounds by dropping a golden-era classic in Suicide as Moe Dee was getting his ass handed to him by LL Cool J and responding by recording dis tracks over the mediocre Teddy Riley beats Spoonie Gee rejected.

Hairy Asshole by UGK with Webbie & Boosie is the only true feminist anthem of the last five years since it rejects the pornized ideal that women have to wax every follicle of hair from their bodies to appear attractive to the opposite sex.

It seems unfair to level accusations that American Rap criticism is an all boys club when Rapper groupies are employed by major media outlets, and The Fader's female editor insists two of the more charismatic bloggers pen bland missives which read like they've been writen by a Rap Radar intern.

Close but no cigar, GLC

GLC ft. Raheem DeVaughn - Cathedral
(From Cathedral mixtape; 2012)


I've got a bit of a soft spot for GLC, even when he's cranking out bizarre Nu-Metal jams, so it's a bit of a shame he never had the opportunity to rhyme over any of the A-grade College Dropout and Late Registration cast-offs that KanYe happily gave to Consequence and Rhymefest back in 2005 and 2006. Recently he's come within a pigeon's penis of making the sort of song I wish he'd made back then on two separate occasions : with Cathedral off his new mixtape being slightly spoiled by the Raheem DeVaughn crooning reminding me of these two chicks I know who do this dance to Syleena Johnson's better-than-that-cunt-from-The-Fugees ersatz Lauryn Hill hook on All Falls Down where they close their eyes, wave their fingers about and then open their eyes and point at each other; and with I Ball from that Legendary Traxster EP last year suffering from 2 other dudes with daft names taking up valuable airspace by also Rapping on it, even if they do both deliver pretty good verses :

The Legendary Traxter ft. Skooda Chose, Dawreck & GLC
(From Flood The Streets EP; 2011)