Generic list post: december 2014

2015 will be touchin' down to cause Hell in 14 hours or so and yet the human race still doesn't look anywhere near as futuristic as the Jonzun Crew did in 1983. Damn, homie! In the '80s everything was goin' to plan, man, homie - the fuck happened to us?

Here the customary list of songs I've been listenin' to during the month when Jarvis Cocker died and Shy Glizzy finally made a track where his uncanny vocal similarity to Larry Lifeless from Kilslug & Upsidedown Cross actually worked to his advantage.

Shy Glizzy - Funeral (2014)
Ca$h Out - I Want The Money (2014)
The Jacka ft. Dru Down & Joe Blow - The President's Face (2014)
TREE & Chris Crack - Naan (1992)
Kid Ink - Cool Back (2014)
Kevin Gates - In My Feelings (2014)
Fabolous ft. French Montana - Ball Drop (2014)
French Montana - Dontchu (2014)
Lil' Debbie - Fleek (2014)
White Gzus - Money Up (2014)
Show Banga ft. Kool John - Ain't Gotta Lie (2014)
Kurious Jorge - Best In The World (2014)
Psycho Les ft. Royal Flush, Tragedy Khadafi & Illa Ghee - Thunderbells (2014)
Lucci - Kno No Better (2014)

Heard the Psycho Les et al song on EttelThun's best of 2014 compilation and shit is the ideal B-side to that JuJu & Tragedy disco joint. Unfortunately you can now only find it online as a radio rip due to the video gettin' yanked from YouTube because of an uncleared Bob James sample, so plz tell me someone out there ripped the audio before them DMCA boyz struck?

Should probably acknowledge this new Roscoe Dash single too. Artwork is certainly more tasteful than it could have been, right?

I feel like Fabo(lous)

He might occasionally come across as the Chief Keef fanboy nation's Chris Crocker, but David Drake does seem to have a knack for sniffing out great tracks by Mic Terror's Treated Crew mate Gzus Piece that've gone hitherto unnoticed on t'internet. Previously there was 2012's Gimme That Cash and now there's Money Up as spotted on Drake's 2014 year end songs list:

White Gzus - Money Up
(From Stackin' N Mackin' mixtape; 2014)


Fucked up thing is I listened to the White Gzus mixtape, honed in on Top as its undisputed highlight since Gzus Piece seems to thrive best over beats with lots of space for him to nonchalantly dispense heaps of zingers in a John Jackson stylee, uploaded the tagless version to Audiomack, and then kept it movin', utterly oblivious to the fact that the project's other great song was tucked away 15 tracks deep on a 16 track mixtape. If only the wack 2014 Treated Crew album had sounded like Money Up or Top.

White Gzus - Top
(From Stackin' N Mackin' mixtape; 2014)

2014: the year when white ppl were early adopters to the hottest new ‘urban’ memes

"Turn up, po' up, roll up, smoke up
Real bitch role call, none of y'all show up"

Lil' Debbie - Fleek
(From Young Bitch mixtape; 2014)


Urban Dictionary needs to link this post as the official entry for Fleek, imho.

Amifrankwite

As anybody who's ever seen the 2003 King Of New York DVD's menu screen can attest, Schoolly D songs are best experienced when set to a loop of Frank White dancing in his luxury hotel suite with Jim Jump & the goons. True story, I spent the last 15 minutes in the bath staring at this GIF with Gangster Boogie on repeat and then came outta that water like I was just baptized in the root beer which so eluded Jim at the Chinese restaurant. Try it yourselves - you're welcome, you're all welcome etc etc:



Schoolly D - Gangster Boogie
(From Am I Black Enough For You? album; 1989)

The Coldest Rap back

Chris Brown's rapping stuntman Kid Ink is a Great Singles Artist™ who is much underrated at his craft online because the rap internet is a strange place where tuneless ironic Tumblr-rappers like Yung Gleesh and Mass Appeal-orchestrated okie dokes like Your Old Droog can both flourish. As 2014 draws to a close, he's ratcheted his Great Singles Artist™ steez up a notch and is now dropping songs which function as great B-sides too. Tbf, Cool Back here slaps just fine as a single in its own right, but for the best results bump it after Body Language and pretend it's the flipside to that song:

"Walk right by get her wet in the coocha
Steal your bitch, n*gga, like King Koopa"

Kid Ink - Cool Back
(From the internet; 2014)


To paraphrase Westwood's favorite maxim whenever he plays No Type - I'm not picky, just give me anything that slaps like a Ratchet overhaul of '80s Ice-T and I'm grateful.

Dennis the Menace? You Dennis the Rodman

Damn, homie - TREE's gonna be persona non grata in his own city after that line from this highlight offa the new TREE X Chris Crack EP. Dude can no longer go out in Chicago.. and he from Chicago!!!

TREE & Chris Crack - Naan
(From Tree + Crack EP; 2014)


Can't believe the @MCTREEG EP is gettin' so royally shafted in all these year end lists I've read. Probably Nu It, Like Whoa, Soultrappin/I Believe, and God Like are all better than any song on half these bullshit albums and EPs from 2014. No shots, just facts.

No one on the rap internet is going to let you play their reindeer games

Season's greetings of da Siccness to those of you currently browsing The Martorialist with your new tablet devices on the one day of the year when it's acceptable to listen to Aled Jones over Young Jeezy. Ho Ho Ho - that was a crap Snowman joke right there for all the U.K famalam from ya boy Zanta Claus right chea.

All Martorialist readers are hereby required to celebrate this Christmas day the way jolly old Saint Newcleus intended by listening to at least one song from the High Fo' Xmas album by Master P & the West Coast Bad Boyz. Long before Byrdgang wished us a Merry Piffmas or Agallah extolled the virtues of a different type of Xmas tree, the Miller brothers and their not-so merry band of Richmond-era No Limit elves were bastardizing some of the most beloved Christmas carols and making Death Row's similar foray into the festive cash-in market sound like a Yuletide log in comparison.

In case Santa's never dropped the album down your chimney previously, ya boy Father D.V Alias Khristmas right chea has uploaded it for you tonight as a late stocking filler. Download that shit here, all my goons, goblins & grinches.

Reasons why I love YouTube # 65

From me & mines to you & yours this Xmas eve, here's Kurtis Blow lip-syncing his way through Christmas Rappin' on Top Of The Pops in january 1980. The video for Rapper's Delight had appeared on TOTP in late 1979 but this performance was the first time a rapper appeared live on national U.K TV. Props to Kurtis for introducing rap music to this great nation of mine whilst dressed like the sort of mid-tier New Jersey mobster who made his living bootlegging dodgy imported Color Climax movies to flog to 42nd Street's seediest pornography stores.


Kurtis achieved maximum Lifestyle Synergy by wearing such a suit for his Top Of The Pops debut since TOTP was the show which turned Jimmy Savile into a household name, and that fooken' nonce probably owned every last dodgy imported Color Climax movie.

Related - Generic list post: R.I.P Larry Smith edition.

Ten four - we have an AZN dropping n-bombs in the Calliope Projects! Officer required!

Is there a special loophole that allows AZN rappers to drop n-bombs because they're the last racial demographic it's vaguely acceptable to mock in polite AmeriKKKan society today, or is it merely a reparation of sorts for the anti-AZN racism peddled by Bun B, Ice Cube, Da Lench Mob et al at the turn of the nineties? I refer you not to the new Katie Got Bandz mixtape for the latest example of this phenomenon because we already know she drops n-bombs like she's auditioning for a cameo on N.W.A's Efil4zaggin, but to Ace B's verse on this new edition to the grand imperial Percy Miller's Bout It Bout It trilogy:

Master P presents Money Mafia - We Bout It
(From that internet; 2014)


Man, the anti-AZN conspiracy has been so real in 2014: Jackie Chain's intended major label single Party Girls got leaked by his former DJ on an unofficial retail EP that had zero promotion and was consequently ignored by 95% of the rap internet; and The Raid 2 has thus-far failed to trouble all those year-end best movie of 2014 lists which do contain such utter tripe as Richard Linklater's 3 hour exploration of how the word ‘like’ has decimated the vocabularies of 95% of all caucasian American males under the age of 25, and Jean-Luc Godard's latest incomprehensible exploration of the inside of his own arsehole... in 3D!

Never has Werner Herzog's "Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film" quote felt more germane.

An explanation of all Iggy Azalea's past, present and future racial faux pas for all white Americans on the rap internet

"I'm sorry. They're Australian, they think it's all fine!"


1st things 1st, it's important to remember that Tarrie Bar-B is a "confirmed white trash bogan" who hails from Australia, a country with the racial sensitivity of - quite literally - The Convicts. Take their longest running soap opera Neighbours, for instance, which has starred less than 15 ethnic characters in its 29 year history. Do the maths on that and then consider this: the 1 AZN family to ever feature on the show in 1994 lasted 6 weeks and their only story line involved them being accused of eating a pet dog that'd gone missing. That's just the way them AZNs like it, huh? Holly the dog look so good Mrs Lim wish that she could bite it, huh?


Thus, it ain't Iggy Azalea's fault that she doesn't know how to interact with people of colour because she'd probably never even laid eyes on anyone darker than that Greek bird from Heartbreak High and Home & Away before she met Backbone in 2009. Nor is it Iggy Azalea's fault that Fancy is empirically better than any song Azealia Banks has ever released or any song Nicki Minaj has released since the Boss Ass Bitch remix, with Yasss Bish!!! being a possible excelption.

Any criticisms of Iggy as a foreigner appropriating precious American culture are laughable when we consider that Azealia Banks is little more than a Ya Kid K from Technotronic karaoke artist writ large, and the bedrock of Nicki Minaj's success as a pop artist was built on her entry-level stereotyping of Japanese teenagers & European homosexuals, and her "cor blimey, guvnor" Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins impersonations. Plus, if it weren't for foreigners infiltrating American culture then Nicki Minaj's The Pinkprint campaign would have been deader than Magnolia Shorty because the only legitimate banger her vocals have appeared on in the last 6 months is Jessie J's Bang Bang, innit?

Frankly, all y'all outraged white Americans on the rap internet should be holdin' the I-G-G-Y down like you're givin' lessons in physics because you share a spiritual bond with her: your ancestors massacred the native American Indians and then stole their country from them just like Iggy's ancestors massacred the Aboriginal Australians and then stole their country from them. Who dat, who dat? It's your bredren in the genocidal Murda Bizness, I thought you knew dat, knew dat? Still, at least your country then had the decency to give the Injuns a bunch of casinos as an apology, whereas Iggy's homeland still portrays and, indeed, treats its indigenous people as criminals, drug addicts, rapists and psychopaths. Racism like they bringin' 1788 back!

FREE MEL B !!!

French Montana - Bricks And Walls
(From Coke Wave mixtape; 2008/Look Into My Life DVD; 2009)


The only solo French Montana song I've ever truly loved is Bricks And Walls here. I've warmed to French considerably these past few years after initially dismissing his rap career because I knew him as the lesbian Psycho Les-lookin' ass host of the Cocaine City DVD series, but his shtick still tends to be the most effective when paired alongside someone else, be it Shiest Bubz, Max B, Dame Grease, Curren$y, Charlie Rock, Stack Bundles, Chinx Drugz, Jadakiss, Wash, or even J-Lo.

Maybe it's because his recent collaboration with Fabolous has got me open, maybe it's because this is reminiscent of his aforementioned collaboration with Curren$y, or maybe it's because any rap song with an In The Rain sample is an automatic 4/5 straight outta the gate, but Dontchu here is sounding like the only song I need to listen to this fragile afternoon. Maybe I just shouldn't have mixed spirits last night?

French Montana - Dontchu
(From Mac & Cheese 4: The Appetizer EP; 2014)

Generic list post: R.I.P Larry Smith edition

Whodini - Featuring Grand Master Dee
(From Escape album; 1984)


Damn, and the fella's beats are still ringing out 30 years later in 2014 on Yay Area rap songs and French rap blogger's vlogcasts too. That's the very definition of timeless rap music right there.

If you wanna know who Larry Smith is, read EttelThun's brilliant profile of him. If you wanna know some of his best tracks, then I gotchu here with 15 classics he produced, wrote, played on, or had some sort of hand in:

Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin' (1979)
Kurtis Blow - The Breaks (1980)
Kurtis Blow - Hard Times (1980)
Orange Krush - Action (1982)
Jimmy Spicer - The Bubble Bunch (1982)
Jimmy Spicer - Money (Dollar Bill Y'all) (1983)
"Love Bug" Starkski - You've Gotta Believe (1983)
Run D.M.C. - Sucker M.C's (Krush-Groove 1) (1983)
Run D.M.C. - Hard Times (1984)
Run D.M.C. - Hollis Crew (Krush-Groove 2) (1984)
Run D.M.C. - Darryl And Joe (Krush-Groove 3) (1985)
Whodini - Friends (1984)
Whodini - Five Minutes Of Funk (1984)
Whodini - Freaks Come Out At Night (1984)
Whodini - One Love (1986)
One thing, though - I gotta disagree with some of the eulogies already flying around calling Larry "rap's first super-producer". Nowadays everybody wanna write like they got something to say, but nothin' comes out when they move their fingertips, just a buncha revisionism and motherfuckers act like they done forgot about Errol "Pumpkin" Bedward?

"Lotta muthaf**kers ain't know I was Puerto Rican, they thought I was black.."

Kevin Gates - Plug Daughter
(From Luci Brasi 2 mixtape; 2014)


Between Pesos making Snootie Wild's Yayo an irrelevance, Kap G, Snow Tha Product, and Baby Bash all dropping legitimate jams this year, and Kevin Gates admitting he's Puerto Rican on Plug Daughter here, is it safe to say that the lingering stench of South Park Mexican being a Mickey Mars Bar has finally been fumigated from the house of rap made by ppl of Latin descent?

In My Feelings is my shit from this new Gates. Also very partial to Talk On Phones.

I can't tell my fans apart from all my enemies and don't know what to do

Looks like 2014 is destined to end with Trainwreck as ya boy's favourite deep cut from Pullin' Strings. What's not to love here - it turns one man's misanthropy into something we can all can sing along to, it's a song that could only exist in the A-Wax catalogue, it's one of the tracks which makes it fairly explicit that Pullin' Strings was intended as a semi-sequel to 2004's Thug Deluxe, and it snatches caucasoid sad-rap back from the smarmy clutches of Yung Lean & Ryan Hemsworth.

A-Wax - Trainwreck
(From Pullin' Strings album; 2014)


Ain't tryna brag or nuffink, but I'm stoked the tiny amount of influence I possess on teh rap-internet in 2014 propelled Pullin' Strings onto Pitchfork and into The Wire magazine. 'Wax brought heat to go grocery shoppin' with mom, Drake and Nosnitsky brought 'Wax to the attention of corny indie fux and poncey hauntology twatz, respectively.

Brad Willis back!

Well, this is pretty much the best case outcome for a 2014 Fabolous & French Montana collaboration innit - Fab taking a surf on one of the sporadic bursts of THE WAVE that French still has in him when the occasion suits him. John from Brooklyn goes all John from Cincinnati under the guidance of Karim from "Somalian, Ethiopian, west nile virus Africa":

"My old bitch on death row, it's time for execution
My new bitch is bad azz, she's the best since Boosie"

Fabolous ft. French Montana - Ball Drop
(From the internet; 2014)

Rap songs that aren't on YouTube but really should be # 3

2014 first world problems that are guaranteed to leave you feelin' a Balotelli Type Of Way: when your mate asks you to link him to some good TREE songs so you head to YouTube to duly dispatch Trouble, Nino, and Soultrappin'/I Believe his way since each song is a perfectly ramshackle crystallization of TREE's Soul-Trap blueprint only to find out that no bastard has ever bothered to upload Trouble or the unedited version of Soultrappin'/I Believe.

"Seen a bunch of homies die on me
Whoadie said he ain't feel nothin' when he fired on me
Fuck him, he ain't my homie
Who am I to judge? I luh the n*gga 'cause he my homie
Split up what we rob, homie"

TREE - Trouble
(From The TREE EP; 2011)



"I said my father was an addict
Well, yo, MALCOLM WAS AN ADDICT!
VERSACE WAS A FAGGET!
No homo in these muthafuckin' fabrics"

TREE - Soultrappin'/I Believe
(From @THEMCTREEG EP; 2014)



It's all luv here at The Martorialist, mind - the only good Scousers are the gay ones.

Rap songs that aren't on YouTube but really should be # 2

I hope The K.I.D Heat & Mally Mall were well compensated for having their own song with Drake & Tyga snatched from them, because Whatcha Say was already getting radio/club play in it's two target markets of California & the U.K before Universal had it damn near wiped from the internet/muted on YouTube to make way for Truffle Butter from the new Nicki Minaj album.

Actually, scratch that - I hope The K.I.D Heat got duly shafted by Baby & Slim as karmic retribution for his pitiful attempt to toady up to The Canadian and pretend Tyga wasn't ever featured on Whatcha Say after the Drake & Tyga "beef" went public. Purely because I hate seeing sneaky major labels attempting to airbrush songs that've been gettin' rinsed on Westwood for months out of history, here's the MP3 of the original version of Truffle Butter:

The K.I.D Heat & Mally Mall ft. Drake & Tyga - Whatcha Say
(From t'internet; 2014)



Brief thoughts on The Pinkprint from a guy who likes Pills N Potions: looks like Nicki Minaj's "fuck the skinny bitches in the club" ad lib on Anaconda was an ill-subliminal aimed at Lil' Debbie because Nicki knew she was creatively spent after her 2014 peak of Yasss Bish!! and couldn't compete with Debbie's 2014 trifecta of $lot Machine, Work The Middle, and I Do My Thang. Not since the second Rocky movie has a black American taken such a devastating L against an Italian American.

Late pass - I've found another Ca$h Out song I like

See previously: Go Get That Dough.

"Your man a hater but he look up to me, girl, I'm a God
Your girl reaction when she run up to me? ‘OH MY GOD!!’"

Ca$h Out- I Want The Money
(From Let's Get It album; 2014)


Why the 'Orrible 'Ives didn't Ca$h Out's management push this song as one of the singles from his retail album then? Rap songs with that Go-Go type percussion invariably end up being club classics and I Want The Money has the best Go-Go type percussion I've heard on a rap song since Cali Swag District's Teach Me How To Dougie.

In fact, this whole missed opportunity is best explained by refracting it through the prism of Doug E. Fresh songs with that Go-Go type percussion: Ca$h Out had himself a The Show with I Want The Money here, but his management dropped the ball and now the song looks set to languish as a slept-on album cut like I'm Gettin' Ready.

The obligatory best rap songs of 2014 post

2014: the year that'll go down in history for suggesting that Bill Cosby is guilty of even greater crimes than inflicting Mos Def's acting career on the general public.

"I LIKE WHAT I LIKE!" isn't just a lyric from No Type but a code to live by, so bear in mind that there are numerous conspicuous absentees from this year's list: I remain immune to the music of that lad who hails from the country where they drink milk out of plastic bags; I hated some of the year's biggest singles like Hot N*gga, Try Me, Coco, and U Guessed It; I'm indifferent to the music of current internet darlings like Tink, Run The Jewels, Chief Keef, and Freddie Gibbs & Madlib; Makonnen is a cynical novelty rapper who is only notable for looking like Rickie from My So Called Life if he'd eaten all the pies; I loved Doughboyz Cashout in CTE weed carrier mode last year, but their 2014 singles were way too Juverassic 5 for my liking; I have zero interest in all those Alt-lanta rappers like Key!, Father, Rome Fortune etc who seem to exist solely to keep The Fader in daily content.

But then who am I to take cheap shots at what anyone else listens to when the list below contains songs by Chris Brown's rapping stuntman, Tarrie Bar-B, black America's answer to Pitbull, Lil' Chris' manager's 9 year old niece, and a 35 year old Jewish version of South Park Mexican? Rap was a pleasant surprise in 2014 because lots of my favourite songs turned out to be the ones that I had the lowest expectations for or the ones which arrived enigmatically from out of nowhere. Anyhoo, check back in a day or three in case Sacha Mon Frere-Jones BiggieGeorges pops up in the comments with handy zipfiles of all the songs again as he's done for the past couple of years now.

Favourite 2013 rap songs that everybody slept on until they blew up in some way this year, or dropped too late to make 2013's list:

K Kutta - Lum Lum
Lil' Chris - Keep Your Head Up
Migos ft. Young Thug - YRN
5th Ward Weebie - Let Me Find Out Part 1
Ezale - Foreal Foreal
Priceless Da Roc - Yiken (Certified)
Ampichino - Eulogy
Agallah ft. Roc Marciano - Blaze Of Glory
D-Lo - Choppa Dance
We Are Toonz - Drop That #NaeNae
Chinx Drugz - Tell 'em
Vic Spencer ft. TREE - Profound
Skeme ft. Iggy Azalea - High Power
S.B.E - I Feel Like
RJ ft. Jay 305 - I Feel Like
Project Pat ft. Juicy J & Doe B - Never Be A G remix
Kid Ink ft. King Los - No Option
O.T. Genasis - Touchdown

Favourite 2014 rap songs:

K Camp - Oh No
King Louie - Live And Die In Chicago
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy
DJ Quik - Pet Semetary
Rae Sremmurd - No Type
YG - Bicken Back Being Bool
Slim 400 ft. TeeFlii - Kno Where The Party @
TREE - Probably Nu It
A-Wax - Jetsons
Flo Rida ft. Sage The Gemini & Lookas - GDFR
Sage The Gemini - Bad Girls
Show Banga ft. Sage The Gemini - I Been That
IamSu ft. 2 Chainz & Sage The Gemini - Only That Real (Back 2 Cali remix)
Jay Ant - Ask YB
Kool John ft. P-Lo - Bitch I Look Good
Looni - Right Now
Kap G - F**k La Policia
French Montana ft. Jadakiss - '88 Coupes
Lil' Durk ft. MeetSims - Money And Power
HS87 - Grindin' My Whole Life
ZMoney - Dope Boy Magic
CoCo Kiss, Robyn Fly & Ms. Go Ham - Side Piece
The 99 Percent - Shabooyah!
King Los - Woke Up Like This
Mic Terror ft. DJ Gant-Man - Get Off My Dick
Lil' Wayne - Krazy
Young Money - Senile
Nicki Minaj ft. Soulja Boy - Yasss Bish!!
Soulja Boy - Wassup
BeatKing ft. Kirko Bangz - Friendly
Rich Gang ft. Rich Homie Quan & Young Thug - Freestyle
Young Thug - Eww
T.I. ft. Young Thug - About The Money
Ola Playa ft. YSL - Don't Move
PeeWee Longway & Quez of Travis Porter - Use Me
MPA Shitro Sanchez - Justin Bieber
Big Sean - Paradise
Yowda ft. YG - That's How It Go
Lil' Debbie - I Do My Thang
Ben J of New Boyz - Save It For The Birds
Speaker Knockerz - Erica Kane
Vic Mensa - Down On My Luck
JuJu ft. Tragedy Khadafi - Thriller
Kurious Jorge - Best In The World
Mouse On Tha Track - Liberation (The Cut)
Lil' Boosie - I'm Wit' Ya
Dorrough Music ft. Lil' Boosie - Beat Up The Block
Wiz Khalifa - We Dem Boyz
Snootie Wild ft. K Camp - Made Me
Vince Staples - Blue Suede
DB Tha General - Motel6 Intro (Phatasm)
Uncle Murda ft. Keyz - Same Way
FaBo - On The Table
Smoov-E ft. Clyde Carson - What's It Gonna Be?
Caskey - So Bad
Kendrick Lamar - I
Heaven ft. Lil' Chris - Don't Shoot
City Shawn ft. D-Lo & Show Banga - Bitches
SD - Circles
Too $hort - 19,999
Gangsta Boo & La Chat - Can't Sit With Us
Fetty Wap - Trap Queen
Lucci - Kno No Better
HD of Bearfaced ft. G-Dirty - Don't Like Me
Grip Plyaz - Flexin'
Jackie Chain - Party Girls
The Jacka ft. Dru Down & Joe Blow - The President's Face
Young Lox - Legion Of Doom
B.o.B ft. Ty Dolla $ign - Drunk AF
Snow Tha Product ft. Ty Dolla $ign - 1 Time
Lupe Fiasco ft. Ty Dolla $ign - Next To It
Rich Boy ft. The Game - Ridin' Thru My City
Jae Murphy ft. The Game, Eric Bellinger & Problem - You Playin' (This Could Be Us)
Famous To Most - #Whip

(Though I usually stop #Whip at the 01:15 mark because the song then takes a major nosedive. That first minute and change is the hardest shit since Nigel Benn, though.)

Some additions to the 2014 favourite songs list:

Fabolous ft. French Montana - Ball Drop
Ca$h Out - I Want The Money
White Gzus - Top

Bonus beats - Generic list post: rappers lending their vocal talents to great non-rap singles this year edition.

It's ya birfday

In the year when the backsides of Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Chanelle from series 8 of Big Brother all made headlines, it's important to remember that it's now been 10 whole years since Twista dropped Badunkadunk:

"Remember them times when you met two shortys and you really want the cutie
But you let her slide 'cause the other girl wit' her got a big ol' donkey booty?"

Twista - Badunkadunk
(From Kamikaze album; 2004)

I'll never be invited to the president's place, but get indicted just for tryna keep my residence laced

The Jacka ft. Dru Down & Joe Blow - The President's Face
(From What Happened To The World mixtape audio-documentary; 2014)


Just when it looked like Jacka's protege Young Lox had made the best Jacka song of 2014 with Legion Of Doom along comes The President's Face here. On paper, Jacka & Dru Down should clash like chalk & cheese; in practice they've somehow managed to compliment each other like strawberries & cream again. Joe Blow popping up for the third verse as a reminder that he's the current leading exponent of Jacka-core is the glass of wine to wash the rest of the song down with. Or sumfink.

Unrelated note: This new Kurious Jorge single is an unexpected treat in the exact same way the JuJu & Tragedy Khadafi disco-rap song from earlier this year was an unexpected treat. Would probably like this shit even more without the struggle video where Kurious breaks one of the key tenets of Lifestyle Synergy by wearing a New Era with a peacoat; pick a lifestyle and run with it hard, mate, but never mix & match them:

Kurious Jorge - Best In The World
(From YouTube; 2014)

I ain't arrogant, this is confident!

The boy MC Shan might have had a point about beat biters, but hook-jacking in rap is a wholly acceptable practice as long as the guilty culprit song is better than the song(s) it jacks. For recent noteworthy examples, see 5th Ward Weebie's Let Me Find Out Part 1 banging a trillion times harder than its dull namesake by Doe B, and Looni's Right Now being better than the countless other Right Now songs from the past 12 months which preceded it.

If, however, your jacking is slacking then you deserve to be sneered at for being a thieving twat, and attention should be drawn to the superior original songs as team Martorialist did earlier this year when both NMB Stunnaz and Rolls Royce Rizzy ganked Lil' Chris' Godamn, and when both Lil' Reese and 2 Chainz gaffled RJ's Shoulda Coulda. Since Ace Hood & Rich Homie Quan's We Don't is now a bona fide hit, it seems only fair to point out that the song bit its whole shit from this deep cut offa that recent Gangsta Boo & La Chat album:

Gangsta Boo & La Chat - Can't Sit With Us
(From Witch album; 2014)


It seems like t'internet views the Gangsta Boo & La Chat album as slight when compared to the BeatKing & Gangsta Boo mixtape, but I like Can't Sit With Us here ever so slightly more than anything on the latter. Boo definitely redeemed herself in a major way this year after spending 2013 making music with Spanish Trap-Rave producers and Mishka interns.

Grand Daddy P.U.

File this under ‘Wait (The Whisper Song) back!’ and ‘No way, Waka Flocka Flame back too with a coda that's the best thing he's done since his verse on My Life by Rich Kidz!’

Maejor ft. Ying Yang Twins & Waka Flocka Flame - Tell Daddy
(From Tell Daddy single; 2014)


Tell Daddy has been out just over a week but it's already bubbling like Grotbags' cauldron and gettin' play on the usual urban UK channels. Hearin' it after U Guessed It and that absolutely wretched new Rae Sremmurd song Illest Walkin' as I did yesterday, Tell Daddy sounded like it was from some whole 'nother parallel universe of 2014 Atlanta where the art of subtlety is still appreciated, even by Waka who turns up self-conscious of his beer breath.

It woz son wot done it

If you're old enough to remember t'days when DJ Vlad was just another whigga DJ threatening to beat the shit out of anyone who'd caught him sock-puppeting up hype for his own mixtapes on rap message boards back in the early noughties, then you'll know that it felt like poetic justice when Vlad finally found his true calling in life as the Perez Hilton to Miss Info's TMZ after getting the shit beaten out of him by Rick Ross during an early VladTV interview in 2008.

Here at The Martorialist we respect the sort of petty gossip-mongering with which Vlad plies his trade, but we don't indulge in such mucky business ourselves. Therefore, you won't be seeing us use this post as a cheap excuse to ask whether there's any correlation between Rolling Stone magazine insinuating that the girl who was gang-raped at the University of Virginia is a liar, and Rolling Stone magazine now employing one of the SPIN magazine staffers who helped hush up the Das Racist sexual assault allegations of 2012.

A postscript to the great album interludes, and anti-cop song posts

If you've ever wondered why some of us old bastards view Ice-T as one of the true greats then consider the fact that dude had 42 second album interlude tracks which still stand up as poignant critiques of the American police force 23 years later:

Ice-T - Street Killer
(From OG: The Original Gangster album/VHS tape; 1991)


*EDIT* Someone has made a YouTube playlist of the near-whole O.G VHS tape. This is obviously the best way to experience that vintage Tracy Marrow "does South Central look like America to you?"-rap if you've got an hour to spare:

Kill the bill

"NYPD can suck my dick, spit in they faces, they all racist.."

Eldorado Red ft. Mel Matrix - Fuck The Police Pt. 2
(From Paint The Town Red Volume 1 mixtape; 2006)


Feel like this is the only rap song it's appropriate to post today. Fuck Eldorado Red for killing Lil' Phat, though.

Generic list post: album intro/interlude/outro tracks which don't suck

This is the generic list post where I attempt to defend the much-maligned album intro/interlude/outro track by making a case for 30 incredible ones that have made it worth the effort of sitting through all the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of bad ones. The criteria here is that they have to function as a song* and must not last longer than 3 minutes, though I've made an exception on the latter rule for a handful of essential intro joints. What no (Hiney) interlude from Gang Starr's The Ownerz????

Onyx - Bacdafucup (1993)
Young Bleed - An Offer U Can't Refuse (1998)
MF DOOM - Hands Of Doom (1999)
Ice-T - Home Of The Bodybag (1991)
Lil' Wayne - Big Tigger Live On The Radio (2002)
Mannie Fresh ft. Lil' Wayne - Wayne's Takeover (2004)
Schoolly D - Super N*gger (1989)
The Beatnuts - World Famous (1997)
Odd Squad - Shit Pit (1994)
OutKast - D.F. (Interlude) (2000)
Jungle Brothers - Jimmy's Bonus Beats (1988)
De La Soul - Intro (1993)
The Clipse ft. Fam-Lay - Freestyle (2002)
Beastie Boys - To All The Girls (1989)
Master P - Ooh Shit (1992)
DB Tha General - Intro (2007)
Mystikal - Smoke Something (1994)
Ice Cube - What They Hittin' Foe? (1990)
Snoop ft. Lady Of Rage - G Funk Intro (1993)
Cam'Ron - Fuck You (2000)
The Diplomats - Un Casa (2003)
DJ Quik - Hooray 4 Tha Funk (Reprise) (1995)
Geto Boys ft. J. Prince - Intro (1993)
Notorious B.I.G - B.I.G (Interlude) (1997)
Curren$y - The Briefing (2009)
Main Source - Scratch & Kut (1991)
Akinyele - You Know My Style (1993)
YG ft. Big TC & RJ - Thank God (Interlude) (2014)
Public Enemy - Show 'Em Whatcha Got (1988)
T.I. - Long Live Da Game (2003)
* By function as a song, I mean it must be something you can bump; thus, all spoken interludes in the JD's Gafflin' or Shark N*ggas (Biters) vein are disqualified.

Reasons why I love YouTube # 64

Here's a video of Twista, KanYe & Django Upstaged doing Slow Jamz on 106 & Park in 2004. KanYe must have really loved that pink/lime green POLO rugby because he also wore it for the AOL Sessions performance of Slow Jamz and on the Freshman Adjustment compilation cover. You've gotta feel bad for the session musician who had to stand there pretending to play his guitar like that dead bloke from the Manic Street Preachers after DJango's nauseating intro jam:

"Shout out to Shyne! Shout out to Shyne! Free Shyne! Free Shyne!"


KanYe West doesn't care about Black Rob!!!

My daddy is really a rasta

File this one under ‘another sweet Skooly-core anthem.’ This time from the fella who dropped that Rich Homie Quan dis song with none other than Skooly himself. Lucci's Kno No Better here is the perfect monday morning music for anybody who spent last night taking advantage of the Swiss gold referendum.

"A n*gga don't kno no better
YEAH!
Took a lot to get here, motherfucker, can't turn back never
NO!"

Lucci - Kno No Better
(From DJ Lil' Keem's HoodrichKeem Tweet Tape mixtape; 2014)