Wednesday, 4 December 2024

Northern Exposure

"Reagan set us back 100 years, I'm glad he died
Zimmerman done killed Trayvon, he still alive
I ain't tryna hear your lil' song 'bout how you slide
If I don't change the world before I die just know I tried"


LARussell - Boycott
(From YouTube; 2024)



Don't say the truck is a monster, say that thing got a BBL. A BBL made from them 1980s WWF steroids or sumfink. Coldest LARussell song/video I've heard/seen since all the singles with P-Lo in the boiler room. Speaking of which, let's talk about NorCal Rap in 2024...

* Weighing up which of the LARussell & P-Lo singles is gonna make my 2024 EOY list. Yankin' is their best song and thee anthem, but Who Else You Know is the song I've jammed the most.

* P-Lo's sequel to Player's Holiday has gotta be the biggest NorCal disappointment of 2024. If P-Lo decided on that line-up then he should donate all his profits from the song to charity.

* Ezale's Fun gets my vote for best NorCal Rap single of 2024. Pity the video got removed from Ezale's YouTube channel due to illegal usage of a FedEx truck (lol) and ended up quietly reuploaded on the video director's own channel.

* Seiji Oda's A Gentle Gigg is his best song since City Pop 001 IMHO. Props to him for good-naturedly eluding to my frustrations with his singy Auto-Tune music in an interview.

* Mac God Dbo's A Whole Brick is my favourite unexpected random NorCal slap of 2024. If I never dig another Mac God Dbo song in my life at least I'll always have A Whole Brick.

* Forever inconsistent but always dependable for a few slaps per annum, Nef The Pharaoh's top 3 songs of 2024 are Essence, Don't Stop and the Splash Bakery performance of Big Tymin' IMHO. He's been inconsistent but dependable for a decade now too because Bitch I'm From Vallejo celebrated its 10th birthday this year.

Tuesday, 3 December 2024

I Post You With A Passion

"This shit remind me of, like, Andre Nickatina Killa Whales type shit... foreal, foreal"

Nef The Pharaoh - Puppet Theatre
(From Vallejo Playa album; 2024)



Dre Dog - Killa Whale
(From I Hate You With A Passion album; 1995)



Here's a melancholy knock from Nef The Pharaoh's latest album which he compares to Andre Nickatina's Killa Whale. The kid really missed a trick by not AKA-ing himself as Changdre Nickatina or Nef The Fillmoe. Not sure I catch Nef's drift with that comparison tho tbh. This is more like some Andre Nickatina Ghost Of Fillmoe type shit innit? Whateva, man - Puppet Theatre best gets in where it fits in as the B-side to Don't Stop.

Monday, 2 December 2024

Mask Off

"Yo, make sure the mics is right, I'm gonna take my mask off and reveal my identity out here... DAMN!"

MF DOOM - Gas Drawls
(live at Wetlands, New York; 2000)



The New York backpack scene was full of irksome, myopic people, but hats off to whichever one of them captured DOOM's third show on video where he removed his mask to perform Gas Drawls. Dome blown in the comforts of my own home at him actually wearing a Stetson hat like Paul C. Hats off to Megalon too who kept his mask on under those nuclear-grade stage lights. The only Rap sidekick to hit the stage lookin' like a Cobra Techno-Viper or wot?

Saturday, 30 November 2024

Generic list post: November 2024

Heaven - In Here
(From YouTube; 2024)



Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when Johnny The Boxxx found a Party Up-interpolating smutty New Orleans Bounce song by some lass who looks like a back-up dancer from an old J Hus video. Also the month I dropped a playlist of non-2024 Rap songs which have been all up in my ears this year.

Arabian Prince - Simple Planet (1988/2008)
Saafir aka Mr. No No - Street Scene (1998)
Kurious - Cow's Eye (2024)
Kurious - Separation Anxiety (2024)
Homeboy Sandman - Win Win (2024)
41 - Save Me (2024)
Nef The Pharaoh - Essence (2024)
Nef The Pharaoh - Don't Stop (2024)
Nef The Pharaoh - Big Tymin (live at The Bakery) (2024)
Kendrick Lamar - Squabble Up (2024)
DMX Krew - Warp Zone (2024)
DMX Krew - Cloud Ocean Part 1 (2024)

Bonus bloggin: 1nce again I'm gonna use my monthly wrap-up post to keep track of the best movies and TV shows I've been watching. * indicates rewatches dunnit.

Movies I watched and liked:
Whisky Galore (1949)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) *
The Firm (1989) *
Point Break (1991) *
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Heretic (2024)

TV shows I watched and liked:
Prisoner: Cell Block H (episodes 158 to 164) (1980)
Neighbours (new episodes) (2024)
What We Do In The Shadows (series 6 episodes 5 to 8) (2024)
Asia (series 1) (2024)
Only Connect (new episodes) (2024)
Match Of The Day 1 and 2 (new episodes) (2024)

Bonus bloggin' part 2: me on the best U.K Punk singles of all time; Party Sparty on Blake's 7 and Franco Micalizzi's best movie scores.

Friday, 29 November 2024

What's the 41?

41 - Save Me
(From Save Me single; 2024)



First 41 song I'm all in on with no reservations. All I want from New York zoomer Drill is some barional rotten apple Rap which could double as a modern day Tunnel Banger™.

Thursday, 28 November 2024

My Mind Spray 17.5

You already know Squabble Up is my shit, but the rest of this new Kendrick Lamar album is unlistenable to me. He sounds like he's trying so damn hard, and I like rappers who work their magic by sounding effortless: Spoonie Gee, Slick Rick, Rakim, Mac Dre, Snoop circa 1992 to 1994, Biggie, DOOM circa Operation Doomsday, Devin The Dude, Max B etc.

If you don't condider MC Shan's So Def one of the greatest Juice Crew songs, we can't be Rap maven m8s.

Something I learned yesterday: there's a Berner-core rapper from Seattle called DZ who looks like a Mob Music Gentle Jones and is dropping an album with Dru Down.

Damn, son - James Brown's 70s TV show Future Shock has been almost entirely wiped from YouTube aside from a couple of uploads of the T-shirt commercial. Worse still, they've yet to reappear on Vimeo or Dailymotion. What happened to the world when we can't even watch random Future Shock clips on the internet anymore?

Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Duck Alert

Kendrick Lamar - Squabble Up
(From GNX album; 2024)



As Kase2 nearly said, it's the Debbie Deb and the Kenny Ken!

In 2015 people got mad when I called Kendrick Lamar yhe highfalutin Kid Ink: a great singles artist from California who makes horrible albums. It's now 2024 and my theory holds true more than ever because Squabble Up is the best song on his new LP by a Shorty Long mile. This shit has the full-toned knock of a Bay Area track and it doesn't mention That Canadian Nonce™, thus I prefer it to Not Like Us. My only complaint is he didn't get Ezale and Nef The Pharaoh up in this video like he did for the Alright video.

**EDIT** I just realised the guys on scraper bikes in this video are the same guys on scraper bikes who were in Ezale's Day Ones video.

Monday, 25 November 2024

From the BBQ to The Bakery

Nef The Pharaoh - Big Tymin' (live at The Bakery)
(From the Splash Bakery channel; 2024)



Excuse two Nef The Pharaoh posts in a row, but, damn, this is a cold Live Instruments Performance™ video of Big Tymin'. Maybe the cheat voce with live performance videos is that they only hit proper if you dump the guys with guitars and grab some AZN musicians from NorCal. Chef's kiss @ the call-and-response during the bridge. "Ballin' like Bibby" on the captioned lyrics tho? I know Bibby had a mixtape song called Ballin', but c'mon now - it's Baby like George Dawes.

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Pharaoh Islands

Nef The Pharaoh - Don't Stop
(From Vallejo Playa album; 2024)



This one's a real grower even though loosie single Essence is still better than anything on Nef's new album. Producer Carter Boy combined a vocal sample from Janet Jackson's All For You with a First Class Type Beat to create a slap with warm Off The Rictor euphoria. Too much current Rap music sounds like the crowd at an MMA event. Me, I'm tryna bask in Rap music which sounds like that first rush of MDMA euphoria.

PS: I added Essence, Don't Stop and another track to my best of Nef The Pharaoh playlist.

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Bone Idol

Gen X - Dancing With Myself
(From Dancing With Myself single; 1980)



10/10 song from 1980 which became an 9/10 song when it was re-recorded and re-released as Billy Idol's debut solo single in 1981. The 1980 Gen X version is one of the greatest U.K Punk singles ever recorded, but I guess Billy F**kface here was too stupid to realise that because he toned down the guitar & bass considerably for the 1981 solo version. I'm not tryna get Enid Coleslaw on datazz, I'm just sayin' the 1981 version doesn't crank nearly as hard as the original and that's all fact no opinion. I always presumed Dancing With Myself was about Billy being lonely on tour and wanking in a Tokyo hotel room on some Lost In Masturbation type shit. Turns out I got the song's inspiration lost in translation because Idol's artistic impetus was seeing the crowd in a Tokyo club dancing with their own reflections in mirrored walls.

As a concept, Punk Rock is kinda cool. But as a culture, Punk Rock is invariably corny. Out of all the terrible British music critics, Those Blokes Who Can Only View Rap Music Through The Prism Of Punk Rock™ are the absolute W.O.A.T. Ain't gonna lie tho, some of the music is undeniable, particularly as a singles genre. Ergo, here's the official Martorialist top ten U.K Punk singles of all time in no order of preference.

The Damned - Neat Neat Neat (1977)
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant (1977)
The Flys - Love & A Molotov Cocktail (1977)
The Stranglers - No More Heroes (1977)
The Undertones - Teenage Kicks (1978)
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't) (1978)
Subway Sect - Nobody's Scared (1978)
Gen X - Dancing With Myself (1980)
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Happy House (1980)
The Jam - Funeral Pyre (1981)

Don't give me no lip that The Jam weren't a Punk band. They may have been rigged out in 60s Mod clobber, but them lads were a Punk band in sound until 1982.