Ryan Hemsworth's current not-at-all-suspicious ubiquity across all the big media outlets and blogs might be a standard Wavery exercise in peddling yet another shitty 5th rate, 3rd generation Cloud-Rap Tumblr flunky buddy of theirs, but Jordan Sargent's recent SPIN article suggests the blame for Hemsworth's buzz lies in slightly more innocent hands. In much the same way that Klara Hitler inadvertently gave birth to a tyrant, it transpires that Noz is accidentally responsible for the career of some Canadian indie rawk dewd who sharts out Cloud-Rap remixes of Katy Perry songs for Yung Lean and Kitty Pryde to rhyme over:
Here at The Martorialist we think blaming Noz for the relative rise of some Costco Clams Casino with an added zany mash-up gimmick straight outta 2006 is a trifle unfair. But should Noz get denied access to Heaven when he eventually pitches up to the pearly gates then it's probably because Saint Peter takes a dim view on him unwittingly setting off a chain of events which led to the existence of 2013's worst piece of music writing. Still, as Hemsworth himself explains in one of the many too-amazing-to-be-actually-true-surely? quotables from the SPIN article, accidents do happen:
If anyone from the Wavery had ever actually heard a Rap record made before 2006 they'd realise Zach G is the only rapper from their brood with any sort of talent or credibility. Rare Birds is to Bubba Sparxxx's Jimmy Mathis as LL Cool J's I Need A Beat is to It's Yours by T-La Rock, imho.
Here's something I'm deeply ashamed to admit I never knew existed until a couple of days ago: a Slick Rick & Dana Dane version of Ice-T's Pimpin' Ain't Easy song over The Godfather's entrance theme from that late 90s WWE Rap compilation. I'm guessing this original version got shelved because the universe would've imploded if the Que to Slick Rick's Future had appeared on the same song as each other back then?
Slick Rick & Dana Dane ft. The Godfather - Pimpin' Ain't Easy
(From Vince's vaults; 1998)
Once more with feeling in case you didn't quite grasp the magnitude of this: there's a song where Slick Rick & Dana Dane both rhyme over the Godfather's WWE entrance theme which actually exists IRL and it's pretty good! The universe still hasn't imploded, but my brain is about to.
You say It's Hot, I say Heal The World!
Click LIKE if u remember REAL Ratchet HIPHOP by former Ca$h Money artists!!!
I kid, I kid because I dig It's Hot (though it's weird seeing Turk as an adult and not dressed like a Hot Boy in his new videos), but never forget that Mannie Fresh made a great Ratchet joint with P.Lo & Jay Ant of HBK Gang last year which everybody ignored. Perhaps the song got slept on due to its ol' Band Aid soundin' ass title, but anyone expecting Talib Manni needn't have worried because Heal The World is closer to Mind Of Mannie Fresh than it is to Midge Ure, Marilyn & Francis Rossi, and the only similarity the song shares with Do They Know It's Xmas is that it slaps harder than Boy George during one of his S&M sessions with rentboys he's imprisoned against their will:
Also never forget that Travis Porter & Kirko Bangz are the owners of best song over that amazing DJ Mustard beat which Mustard had previously sold to Soulja Boy AND E-40 on two separate occasions. There are very tenuous connections between Ca$h Money Records and Real N*ggas In The Building but they do exist: Ali from Travie kicks a Hot Boy$ flow at the end and Kirko Bangz once again proves that he's what Drake would have been if Drake wasn't from a country that's just so wholesome it can't do lust without coming off creepy. No offence to any Canadian readers but I'm not listening to Rap music by dudes who drink milk out of bags and who probably have an uncle named Jacques:
I'm gonna have to confess that I'm not on particularly intimate terms with the nu-MySpace because I've only stopped by the place a mere two times since its revamped relaunch earlier this year: the first visit was to see if Rich Homie Quan really does have music dating back to 2009 (he does!) and the second was when one of the lil' homies sent me a link to Brendan Soderberg's Juicy J listicle for the site all like "well, this is the official nail in the coffin for Three 6 Mafia's legacy, huh?"
But it's crucial to remember that MySpace was once a glorious Shangri-La for Rap music: it was the initial host for various lost minor-classic loosies by Prodigy, Young Bleed, Rakim, The Jacka, State Property, Crime Mob, Cam'Ron, N.O.R.E etc alongside original versions of ABN and Cormega songs which would later end up butchered by sample clearance; The Pack/Lil B, Soulja Boy, Mic Terror, Dude N Nem, Jackie Chain, Hot Stylz and The Cool Kidz/Sir Michael Rocks all first found fame on the site; and it was absolutely heaving with new music by Bay Area rappers between 2006 to 2009 when new music by Bay Area rappers was an absolute bastard to keep abreast of.
All that and Pimp C blessing the place with his pithy ruminations on "PUSSY ASS N*GGAZ", "PUSSY ASS RAP N*GGAZ" and "FUNKY BITCHIZ"! We were spoiled and such joys made it worth the effort of fending off daily friend requests from webcam girls, pyramid-scheme scammers, fat Burleque performers and shitty British indie bands who made Kasabian sound like Howlin' Wolf. Still unconvinced? Then behold this generic list of the 25 best Rap songs ya boy Tela Tequila right chea first heard on MySpace during its golden age of 2006 - 2008:
(Yes, I'm riding for a song featuring Papoose because it's a surprisingly good cameo by his standards so I can just pretend it's another posthumous unreleased Half-A-Mill verse a la Cold Outside or somethin'.)
Been goin' in on Agallah the Don Restaurant & Bistro's more recent catalogue this week parsing the gems from the germs, and it turns out my favourite choon from this autumnal period of his career is the intended intro for a project which has never been released in near-true Wrap Your Lips Around This fashion :
"Ruger or the flamethrower, bulletproof ya range rover
The champagne toaster, all my whips rollercoasters
Saturday night live, no John Travolta
Imagine me sittin' on the sofa kickin' it with Oprah
Lettin' her know this shit is real up in this G culture!"
Agallah & Oprah! Rap Bobby Fischer sounds exactly how you'd expect a 2010 Agallah song to sound and features all the usual hostility, alliteration and ludicrous boasts you'd expect from an Agallah song of any vintage, so it slots nicely into his oeuvre as a direct descendant of the Adolf "8-Off" Agallah interlude from Tony Touch's first album. What really marks this out as a potential future Agallah classic is his [sic] reference to Chill Rob G's Court Is Now In Session; a namedropping faux-pas of Game-esque proportions which he just about gets away with since it came 3 years before Eminem made it kewl to shout out members of the Flavor Unit.
When a novelty white Youtube rapper from Norway beloved of ironic AmeriKKKan racists is ranking higher on Google search than Yung Joc, Yungstar, Yung Whatshisname from WW3, Yung Nation and the plethora of other Yung rappers then you know that it's probably time to blow Rap music up and start an entire new genre.
Been waitin' on this one ever since I heard it on the Ballers Eve radio show back in september. Grip Plyaz has channeled the holy ghosts of D4L and Trap Squad a few times since Stuntman Mike (see: Let's Get To It, I Got What You Need, and Don't Give A Damn) but this might be his best stab yet at what Snap would've/could've/should've mutated into. As I may have mentioned yesterday, I haven't heard an ATLanta Rap song with a bassline as insane as this since Trap Squad's What's Happenin':
Grip Plyaz - Ray Lewis
(From t'internet; 2013)
As an ignorant British pig the song's theme is slightly confusing for me, doe: is Grip Plyaz Ray Lewis-ing in the club because he's dancing like Ray did or is it because he's gettin' away with murder in the club like, y'know, Ray also did?
Bonus Snap/sport related action: never forget the time Nigel Reo Coker did the Laffy Taffy at Highbury after he scored for West Ham against Arsenal in 2006. I sure haven't because it lost me a cool oner on an accumulator I had.
Grip Plyaz is set to release his much-ballyhooed new single Ray Lewis tonight - good news for those of us who've been waitin' for a song outta ATL with a bassline that humongous since Trap Squad dropped What's Happenin' in 2006 (Fabo cameo version, natch). Alas GMT means I'll be tucked up in bed havin' Millionaire Dreamzzz by the time that shit drops, so Mouse On Tha Track's brand new single has got me covered until tomorrow. This is Gucci Mane's "drop racks, get it back, call that shit karma" ethos from Normal gone 2013 Baton Rogue Bounce.
"If you ballin' like you say you ballin', n*gga spend sumthin'!"
Mouse On Tha Track ft. Level - Get It Back
(From t'internet; 2013)
It would have been churlish to begrudge Devin The Dude's post-RAP-A-LOT fall off when his run of LP's from Fadanuf Fa Erybody!! in 1994 to Waitin' To Inhale in 2007 was a better succession of albums than most of the canonized G.O.A.T's have in their catalogues. Dook had done a helluva job for 13 straight years so he'd earned the right to fade into irrelevance as a recording artist on some Texan Too $hort type shit : a lovable wilted veteran in the diminishing returns years of his career who, at the very best, has a one-good-song-every-other-album average.
So nearly 7 years after Devin's last great CD it comes as an utter shock that One For The Road has a grip of good songs. There are no surprises to be found on the album itself since this a new Devin The Dude project not Aceyalone's latest full length of Mister Señor Love Daddy impersonations over Mark Ronson-lite cod-Funk, but there's nowt wrong with a rapper bringing out their standard array of party tricks for the umpteenth time as long as there's some good tunes involved. I'm Just Gettin' Blowed and Probably Shouldn't Have are the most quintessentially Devin jams with the latter featuring excellent usage of the word shithouse in its chorus, but it's when Devin forgoes rhyming to get his Anythang on again with Hear The Sound and Still Waitin' that the album done takes flight, especially when he coos sweet nothings to some lass he's been itching to blap on the former :
Devin The Dude - Hear The Sound
(From One For The Road album; 2013)
IMHO this is what would happen if Devin were to sing a saucy letter from a 70s copy of Playboy over the sort of lush Country-Rap & Bullshit production that was Mike Dean's bread 'n' butter throughout the noughties before KanYe came callin'.
I told y'all Atlantic Records were gonna ruin one of the best singles of 2013 and boy have they ever mangled it. What even happened to the original video they were shooting at the 711 with Joe Mo$e$, DJ Mustard and YG from that behind the scenes promo clip?
I also told y'all Atlantic Records were trying to wipe the original Ketchup version with Joe Mo$e$ from the 'net and lo and behold it's now vanished from YouTube leaving the only inferior Beach House 2 version with a slightly different beat and DJ Drama yapping all over it, and the remix of the Ketchup version with some weed carrier called KDOH where Joe Mo$e$' verse has been unmastered or somethin' because it sounds like it was recorded in DJ Mustard's left armpit.
Ty$ and everybody at Atlantic involved in this utter travesty will surely spend the rest of eternity in Hell being forced to read FACT Magazine's Sad Boys article over and over and over and over and over again.
Where the Hell has Alchemist been finding his sample sources the last couple of years? Dook came up on Prog-Rock breaks that sound like Funkadelic or Curtis Mayfield, Funk loops that sound like Hawkwind or Slip It In-era Black Flag, and Norwegian folk samples that sound like 70s soundtracks by John Carpenter or Isaac Hayes. Give Me A Reason from his album with Boldy James is (thanfkfully) less Cloud-Rap and more Cloud-Of-Opium-Smoke-Drifting-Out-Of-A-Cadillac's-Window-Rap, and that insanely macked-out guitar sample probably comes from one of the Engelbert Humperdinck LPs my grandparents got me donate to a charity shop about 10 years ago :
Boldy James ft. Vince Staples - Give Me A Reason
(From My 1st Chemistry Set album; 2013)
It's difficult to pinpoint quotables on Give Me A Reason the way Boldy's stanzas unfurl and overlap because you end up typing out a near-full verse as I found out when I was trying to convince one of my IRL Boom-Bap buddies on Facebook to check out My 1st Chemistry before I gave up and just told him the album makes the latest Prodigy & Alchemist project sound like that Treacherous 3 comeback LP from the early 90s in comparison. A slightly fabulated claim on all fronts since there's a few joints on Albert Einstein but you've really gotta sell it to these dudes who think Action Bronson and Joey Bada$$ are the only good rappers to debut in the past 5 years before they'll give anyone else new a listen, innit?
Can we get a Lil' Herb & Lil' Bibby album with production duties split between Alchemist and C-Sick next?
Here's my current list of holy grail Rap songs I'd probably sell my pinky toes for MP3s of given the chance. Are YOU the person who can help ya man Rollie Penzberton right chea find any of 'em?
Ayo $tarlito - can you plz put Step Brothers 2 on Amazon or even Bandcamp for doz dat don't do iTunes but still wanna chuck a few quid your way? Consider it a personal favour to me for riding for your music during those couple of dark, dark years when most of these feckless bloggers were swearin' that Main Attraktionz and SpaceGhostPurp had next in the Rap-de-Rap game.
$tarlito & Don Trip - Paper, Rock, Scissors
(From Step Brothers 2 album; 2013)
Is it just me or has Don Trip finally stopped RAPPIN' WITH SO MUCH EMPHASIIIIIS this year? His flow is so much easier on the ear on this, Caesar and Brutus, and No Rear View from Cold Turkey.
Is Kap G & Jeezy's Jose Got Them Tacos remix the greatest song to stereotype our Mexican brothers since Illegal Alien by Phil Collins? The man from Del Martorialist he say YES!
Props to Kap G for being out chea droppin' jams after South Park Mexican ruined the reputation of all vato rappers a decade ago. Song is far more effective and menacing than its original incarnation now Drumma Boy has slowed the tempo down a touch and added a Jeezy verse slap dab in the middle. I'm assuming this one's officially "a thing" now it's being sold on iTunes and Amazon?
Johnny Cinco's manager really shouldn't bother shooting an official video for his client's song that's already surpassed Wayne & 2 Chainz's Rich As Fuck at its own concept at a fraction of the cost and is now beginning to usurp My N*ggas from its spot as 2013's best jam that whte ppl can't ever sing along to in public; why eat into your own profit margin with an expensive official promo for They Gave The Wrong N*gga Money when the lyrics/montage clip your team uploaded to YouTube in august has already captured the song's essence in a way that a generic Rap video with Johnny faux-flossin' in rented cars and hired models never could?
"Yeah, I can pull up in that Phantom, might turn your hoe to a chauffeur
They gave the wrong young n*gga money, spend 60 thou' on my sofa"
Song sounds like what Future might've come up with had he been asked to contribute a song to the Djanjo Unchained soundtrack which has got me thinking : you know how Cam'Ron was talking about his movie deal with Netflix on The Breakfast Club last week? He should direct a Spaghetti Western called They Gave The Wrong Young N*gga Money with Johnny Cinco's song as its main theme. The plot would involve Cam accidentally driving his Lamborghini into a time wormhole on the Jersey turnpike which ends up in a dusty wild west town full of pilgrims being besieged by Mexican bandits in 1780. Cam could ride around on a horse wearing a True Religion Canadaian tuxedo making it rain on the town's folk, would fend off the bandits by doing drive-bys at noon on them with his Lambo, and the movie would combine elements of Killa Season, the original Django, Back To The Future, Boss N*gger and The Gods Must Be Crazy.
Sound good? Hold your horses because it gets even better : Hell Rell could come out of thespian retirement to play the Doc Emmett Brown nutty professor character who eventually finds a loophole in the 4th dimension to bring Cam back home to 2013. Greenlight this shit now plz!
It was inevitable my favourite song on Freeway & The Jacka's mixtape-before-the-album would be a RobLo production, what's slightly unexpected is that the aforementioned RobLo production would sound like a great lost Ayatollah instrumental recorded especially for Tragedy Khadafi sometime around the mid noughties. So bizarre to hear the words "it's The Roc-Mob Figaz, we sure to deliver!" on a song :
Ya boy Shipley NonStop right chea was just looking at the track listing for Freeway & Jacka's forthcoming Highway Robbery album on Amazon and noticed that Husalah and Paul Wall are both featured on a song called One; could it be that the slap from their 2010 studio session footage is finally getting a release? Snippet sez not (-_-;).
Has there ever been a greater tragedy on the Rap-internet than the loss of Fresh Squad's legendary original "Crank Dat" In Da Hood clip which featured heavily in Soulja Boy's official Crank That video? More than just teaching us the appropriate moves for every single line and steel drum reverberation in the song, it served as important a documentation of noughties Hip Hop kulcha as any of the Rock Steady Crew's scenes in Style Wars, Wild Style and Beat Street are to the eighties.
You could also view it as a riposte to Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead publicity stunt, so while we should mourn such historic footage going A.W.O.L from YouTube hitherto to return, we should also cherish the solitary Fresh Squad "Crank Dat" routine video which remains on the 'Tube so that future generations will always understand the reason why four teenagers Superman-ing Dat Hoe in public to Soulja Boy's second classic single better embodies the spirit of Hip Hop than any of the ill-advised dogshit Nas released between Thief's Theme and his first good song in eight years Reach Out :
Fanx to that fella who put me onto N.Y.Clast week because early '00s Agallah & Sean P over Axelrod samples is so significant. How come Game Recordings didn't put this song out on 12" when Shecky's whole shtick from 1999 to 2002 was releasing Agallah's best mixtape cuts as singles?
So, this is the post where we attempt to finally exhaust ourselves of Agallah/8-Off puns. I may have peaked already since all I've got left in my arsenal is Agallah The Donald Fisher, Sergio "8-Off" Aguero, and Agallah The Dom Passantino.
Back in the 90s, you'd only ever hear here snippets of dialogue from Style Wars on unlistenable Bomb Records turntablist compilations or Arsonists albums. Thankfully the greatest documentary of the 80s has been reclaimed by rap artistes who Wicked22, AC Tha Program Director, and German 4 elements enthusiasts don't listen to so you can now hear Cap's most infamous quotables on songs slightly more befitting of the trifest ginger white boy in the history of Morris Park :
Disappointing that DB didn't pay homage to Cap in the video by sporting a Lucille Ball hairdo, but I've not heard him tap into his mobb musik roots this thoroughly since Bitch Azz N*gga.
So the kid Tyga Henley right chea contributed to Complex's 17 Rap bloggers Name Their Favourite Rapper list. FYI : I'm not a blogger, I just write this shit because I love to see the internet diddy boppin' to my words, but catch me making a case for why Necro is better than Nas, Jay-Z, 2pac, Biggie, and even Le1f HERE.
Semi recurring phrase-Raps! Nursery rhyme beats! The best song I've heard outta South Carolina since Street Life by Alpoko Don! The first time Young Dolph's flow hasn't sounded like Dolph Starbeam from The Simpsons?
DMX was Ja Rule without the vocal range & songwriting chops, and Tim Dog had better barking ad libs than him. The only competent thing he ever did was his hook on Ma$e's Take What's Yours.
In an alternate universe where I'm emperor and my every fantasy becomes reality, all the good Dame Grease and Swizz Beats production DMX rhymed over would have gone to the Lox instead, and his appearances on 4,3,2,1, 24 Hours To Live and Money, Power, Respect would've been replaced with verses from Slick Rick, Lil' Kim, and Black Rob respectively.
Man, this Merge song which was sampled on AZ's We Movin' got the waterfall fantasy lobe of my brain going TADOW! right now. I wanna MC Serch Doe Or Die 2 so I can convince AZ that his valedictory opus should comprise of him rhyming about eating mangos under chandeliers over lavish 80s R&B samples on at least 7 of its proposed 12 songs.
This is the post where we convince the Rap internet's # 1 Irish dude to come to his senses regarding 8-Off's catalogue. Here's a top ten Agallah joints list as according to ya humble author Fredo Fantano AKA Abel Agallah :
As Cam's best song since Fuck A Freestyle, Instagram (Catfish) goes a long way in making up for Dipset's proto-To Catch A Predator TV show never coming to fruition.
