Saturday 29 November 2014

Snow Tha Product >>>>>>>>>>> Dej Loaf


"I had to hit you with the ‘not now!’, with the ‘hold up!’
Even though you know I'm not down you like ‘so what?’
I'm looking at the bigger picture but you want a close up
What we had is in the past now you wanna show up?"


Snow Tha Product ft. Ty Dolla $ign - 1 Time
(From t'internet; 2014)


Show Tha Product's dreamy latest single then. You've got Ty Dolla $ign at his absolute sleaziest on some Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal type shit, but we can let him get away with it this once because 1 Time here ends on a cliffhanger with Ty still desperately begging Snow for a shag as she's probably laid up in the crib listening to the O.G version of Paranoid and laughing at Ty's penchant for fingerless leather Legion Of Doom gloves.

Most of Ty Dolla $ign's own music in 2014 has either been rubbish or ruined by unwanted guest verses by rappers, but we can let him get away with that too because he's also spent the past 12 months making his otherwise-awful Atlantic Records label mates like B.o.B, Lupe Fiasco, and now Snow Tha Product listenable with the legitimate 5/5 jams he's penned and produced for them. It's the small victories that are always the sweetest.

Friday 28 November 2014

0_o

In the month when I've already given thumbs up to 2 separate Caskey tracks, and Snow Tha Product's latest single is likely to appear in my month-end list, the song ya boy is most embarrassed to co-sign is SD's Circles. The quasi-Keef ‘cerebral palsy phase’
flow SD uses here is a current bĂȘte noire of mine, but this beat is simultaneously beautiful and grotesque: Here Comes The Bride wedding day piano juxtaposed with the type of bass that makes a house haunted, the type of bass that bloggers get lost in, the type of bass you fear when you're dead in a coffin.

SD - Circles
(From Truly Blessed album; 2014)


Does SD scrutinize the many possible ripples of a concept like Circles with the precision of those iconic opening credits of a certain 1980's Richard Briers sitcom? He has a pretty good go at it, yes. Official Martorialist rating: 4 dreadlocked Lupe Fiasco's out of 5.

Thursday 27 November 2014

Reasons why I love YouTube: Ebenezer Schoollze edition

File this post under ‘rap videos I had no idea existed until 10 minutes ago.’

Young B.G Schoolly D accidentally knocking himself unconscious during his bungled robbery of a barbershop only to wake up in the land of nod outside a cinema screening of Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child where he's confronted by present-day 1989 Schoolly who then warns his younger self about the dangers of a life of crime like The Ghost Of Trifeness Yet To Come in the video for Livin' In The Jungle might be the absolute peak of conscious rap, especially since present-day 1989 Schoolly is dressed like he ganked his outfit from Paul Sorvino's wardrobe department on the Goodfellas set:

"I don't understand, my man
We need a plan
Why I gotta walk with a gun in my hand?
They're lookin' for a fight to excite or a rumble
Don't know why? 'Cause I'm livin' in the jungle"


Schoolly D - Livin' In The Jungle
(From Am I Black Enough For You? album; 1989)


Also file this under ‘rap videos which were cleared intended to look like they were directed by Spike Lee but kinda ended up looking like Joe Dante was behind them.’

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Baefink

Just when I thought Fetty Wap's Trap Queen was the best Skooly-core song of 2014, along comes this recommendation via SpaceGhostPurrp Guy Maxwell. Invincible by Chicago's KO Tha God here even sounds like the sort of beat I wish Skooly actually could've/should've/would've sang his heart out over in 2014 with those Tampon commercial synths and that 808 Mafia type low-end.

KO The God - Invincible
(From the internet; 2014)


Speaking of Fetty Wap, who's the the bloke loungin' in the back of the car talking shit in the Trap Queen video? Dude got that Dr Dre in Limp Bizkit's Break Stuff video boss-level swag.

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Lamont YoungBloodz

Cash Out ft. Snoop - Go Get That Dough
(From Kitchens & Choppas mixtape; 2014)


Go Get This Dough might be the first Cash Out song to tickle my fancy. Mainly because that beat makes Laffy Taffy sound like Get Low, and Snoop sounds like he's employing whoever ghostwrote his lyrics for Drop It Like It's Hot again. Alakazam, scram, go get me some lunch.

Monday 24 November 2014

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

The past 12 months has been an unusually fruitful period for great singles by non-rap artists featuring the vocal services of rappers, huh? Here at The Martorialist our theory is that universe must have had to put some serious overtime into course-correcting itself after letting Schoolboy Q wreak havoc on Tinashe's 2 On. Hence we've been blessed with a heap of great non-rap singles featuring rappers this past 12 year as reparation, including a few tracks that date back as far as august 2013 but which didn't blow up until after 2 On dropped back in january 2014. Coincidence? Clearly not.

Here's the 12 best, most of which are already bonafide classics, and all of which are so good that they're able to make me temporarily forget that 2 On goes from its zenith of Tinashe's 2nd chorus to the abject horror of Schoolboy Q's verse in 2 seconds flat:

DEV ft. Sage The Gemini - Kiss It (2013)
Adrian Marcel ft. Sage The Gemini - 2 AM (2014)
DJ Snake ft. Lil' Jon - Turn Down For What (2013)
Katy Perry ft. Juicy J - Dark Horse (2013)
Body Count - Talk Shit, Get Shot (2014)
Jessie J ft. Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj - Bang Bang (2014)
T-Pain ft. B.o.B - Up Down (Do This All Day) (2013)
TeeFlii ft. 2 Chainz - 24 Hours (2014)
Fergie ft. YG - L.A Love (La La) remix (2014)
The Kid Ryan ft. Problem & Mr Smith - No Boundaries (2014)
Justin Bieber ft. Chance The Rapper - Confident (2013)
Wash ft. French Montana - Can't Trust Thots (2014)

Sunday 23 November 2014

Can trust FOTS

That's Friends Of The Show: peep this best of 2014 compilation from Hot Box which features the MP3s a couple of slept-on Martorialist favorites in Same Way by Uncle Murda & Keyz, and this masterpiece by Zaytoven's Sorority as performed live here in one of Atlanta's classiest bacchanals of the night:

CoCo Kiss, Robyn Fly & Ms. Go Ham - Side Piece
(From Zaytoven presents The Zaytown Sorority mixtape; 2014)


You other bloggers think you cute, you other bloggers think you fire, but you bloggers on the side like you got a flat tire. #TeamRobynFly got the game on lock like wednesday nights on Channel 5.

Saturday 22 November 2014

Rap songs that aren't on YouTube but really should be #1

Not entirely sure whether this eponymous Spoonie Gee track from his 1987 debut album has ever been uploaded to YouTube, or whether the intern Aaron Fuchs employs to Google unauthorized uploads of Impeach The President and Tuff City Records material simply had it removed for copyright infringement. Either way, Spoonie Gee here deserves to be streamable on the 'net in 2014 for 2 reasons: 1) it was the first rap song to use the Ohio Players' Pride And Vanity sample later made famous by Mary J. Blige & Grand Puba, and 2) it's the best moisture-moment slow jam Marley Marl ever produced.

"Now girls call me lover, sometimes the rhyme-sayer
I could be president, but I'll settle for Mayor
With money in my pocket, girls at my side
Sit back and relax while we cruise in my ride.."


Spoonie Gee - Spoonie Gee
(From The Godfather Of Rap album; 1987)


With a near-8 year wait between his debut single in 1979 and his debut album in 1987, Spoonie Gee pretty much pioneered Jay Electronica's whole career blueprint.

Friday 21 November 2014

Doe B back?

Fetty Wap - Trap Queen
(From YouTube; 2014)


It ain't hard to tell when a single by an unknown rapper has been given that Lyor Cohen-subsidized promotional push because it starts getting play on the UK urban music TV channels a day or two after the profile articles about its artist start appearing on media outlets like XXL and Complex. Pretty cool how a one eyed Cormega lookalike from New Jersey has ended up making the best Skooly solo song of 2014, but I take major umbrage with Fetty Wap's claim that he's "probably one of the first rappers/singers to come on the scene with (only) one eye and be comfortable with it" - what, rappers done forgot about Hostyle from Screwball?

Screwball - H.O.S.T.Y.L.E
(from Y2K album; 1999)



Can you believe Tom Silverman actually stumped up the money for a video where Screwball flew around New York in a fucking helicopter? No wonder Tommy Boy Records ended up going bust in the early noughties.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

"How many times I gotta say I ball before I can convince Carter?" = top 5 Sage The Gemini punchline of the year.

Show Banga ft. Sage The Gemini - I Been That
(From YouTube; 2014)


Very pleased to see Show Banga & Sage The Gemini's I Been That has finally become a friggin' movie (™ Westwood) because I been that blogger riding for it ever since may. As far as 2014 HBK Gang goes, I Been That has got way more slap to it than anything off IamSu's boring debut album which managed to sound like a meeting of Warren G & Kenny G in the worst way imaginable.

HBK top 5 of 2014: Bad Girls by Sage The Gemini; Ask YB by Jay Ant; I Been That by Show Banga with Sage The Gemini; Only That Real (Back 2 Cali remix) by IamSu with 2 Chainz & Sage The Gemini; Bitch I Look Good by Kool John with P-Lo.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Reasons why I love YouTube # 63

Because you can remind yourself how (then-Tung) Twista's medley performance of Ratattat and Razzamatazz/Jazzamatazz on Yo! in 1992 makes the studio recordings of both songs sound half-arsed in comparison - something which seldom ever happens in the confusing world of rap music where most live TV performances are comprised of 25% mumbled ad libbing to disguise the bits where rappers forget their lyrics, 25% offbeat shouting at all the wrong moments from weed carriers who are excited to be on the telly, and 50% in-house back-up bands with all the blistering soul-power of 4 Poofs & A Piano.


Related plugs: download my Legit Ballaz compilation and Hot Box's best Twista features compilation.

Monday 17 November 2014

The Hip-House revival just done took flight

Show Me by Kid Ink, Down On Your Luck by Vic Mensa, and Don't Tell 'Em by Jeremih & YG desensitized modern America to the notion of a 2014 Hip-House revival just so Azealia Banks could make shit official by rapping like Lil' Kim's pub karaoke rendition of Freedom Williams on C&C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) all over her new single. I'll never willingly listen to Chasing Time here again, but posting it tonight presents me with the only opportunity I may ever get to point out that any rapper who's ever spat a squirrel/nut metaphor in their rhymes is flagrantly biting the holy scriptures of Freedom Williams:

Azealia Banks - Chasing Time
(From YouTube; 2014)

Sunday 16 November 2014

*Jadakiss voice*

Why Patsy Cline have to take that plane? Why Mystikal pop up in the Fancy video as faux-Sean? Why I ain't know my favourite Lil' Wayne solo song in 4 or 5 years had a video? Why it only have a million or so views when it's the best Wayne solo single since A Milli though? Why Trukfit gear look like Chinatown bootleg StĂŒssy? Why Wayne tryna act like he the king of cuckoo when he can't even turn his eyelids inside out like Boosie?

"N*gga tell me somethin' I don't know
Like where the fuck did my heart go, and show me something I haven't seen
And give me what help Martin sleep, on the same night he had a dream
And take me to where I've never been, but not to where I'll never be
And I ain't never scared but I'm scared of me, me versus me I need a referee"


Lil' Wayne - Krazy
(From YouTube; 2014)


Let's come up with a definitive list of rap videos set in insane asylums: Krazy by Wayne; Mind Of A Maniac by Boosie; Time 4 Sum Aksion by Redman; the Woo Hah!! remix by Busta & ODB; Sickness by Concentration Camp; Bouncin' Back (Bumpin' Me Against The Wall) by Mystikal; Teary Eyed/Meltdown by Missy Elliot; Outta My Mind by B.o.B & Nicki Minaj; that Eminem single with Kathy Griffin; What else?

Friday 14 November 2014

Reasons I love YouTube - Motown & Black Sabbath edition

In celebration of the imminent Style Wars Blu-ray, here's a 2013 interview where the legendary graffiti writer SEEN demolishes the whole concept of teh 4 elements of hip hop as little more than a last-minute marketing strategy put together by Henry Chalfont during the making of Style Wars because he didn't have enough footage of the Rock Steady Crew to fill out a documentary about breakdancing. In a perfect world Chalfont would have scrapped all the graffiti and breakdancing footage entirely, and shot 70 minutes of Skeme's mum & the old white fella who asks "is that his name or a nom de plume?" going on a date to 42nd Street to catch a screening of Battle Of The Amazons at The Liberty instead:

"Sorry, that's the way it went down! This shit does not belong together, and it fuckin' kills me every time people try to melt me into that same fuckin' pot because I wanna just fuckin' turn and burn and disappear because I hate fuckin' rap, and I hate that breakdancin' shit, so suck my dick in Macy's window during holiday rush!"


Thursday 13 November 2014

I'm known to stretch work like yoga and I keep the green like Yoda

Shitro Sanchez is the only generic Atlanta trappeur known for hanging around in kitchens with PeeWee LongWay & various other shirtless blokes who've hung out with Young Thug once we fuxwit here at The Martorialist. The difference between him and his contemporaries is he'd rather flip out over somethin' that sounds a lil' different (word to the Byrd), as illustrated by his latest single here. Okay, so different in this instance is just shorthand for the bassline from Freak No More thumping ominously underneath some computerised bleeps and blurps, but that still makes Shitro the lone figure with good taste in production currently working in a sub-genre that favours beats which knock about as hard as ants crawling across a sheet of A4 paper:

MPA Shitro - Work
(From YouTube; 2014)

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Generic list post: It Ain't White Boy Day edition


But it is turning out to be white rapper week on The Martorialist.

Like Migos mixtapes or Christopher Nolan movies, the catalogues of white rappers are generally something to be endured rather than enjoyed. However, here at The Martorialist we were born cursed with the patience to deal with these cocky caucasians, and the willpower to listen to an awful lot of Shawshank to find that one moment of redemption - shout outs to that one good song on the second Young Black Teenagers album!

The whole squad recently sat down in a room with 1000 candles lit to meditate on this caucasoid rapper shit and we came up with this carefully curated and incontestable generic list of the twenty greatest rap songs by white ppl. Whilst we couldn't quite find room for Wipe My Ass by Robyn Fly, Home Piss by Yak Ballz or Work The Middle by Lil' Debbie, please know that, like 2Pac's mum, you are appreciated.

1. Blondie - Rapture (1981)
2. Bubba Sparxxx - Lovely (2001)
3. Beastie Boys - What Comes Around (1989)
4. A-Wax - Be Together (2004)
5. 3rd Bass - Monte Hall (1989)
6. Haystak - Hell Haw (2008)
7. S.C.C & Lil' Boosie - Livin' What I'm Spittin' (2004)
8. Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy (2014)
9. Edan - Emcees Smoke Crack remix (2002)
10. Shamrock & Jackie Chain - Pacman (2009)
11. Kreayshawn - Gucci Gucci (2011)
12. Paul Wall & Chamillionaire - The Other Day (2002)
13. Yelawolf - Beer Buzz (2008)
14. Necro - Rugged Shit (1999)
15. Rittz - Nowhere To Run (2011)
16. Smut Peddlers - One By One Revamped (2000)
17. Puffy Dee - Joe Blow (1985)
18. T-Bo & Mike Da Hustla - #1 Headbusters (2000)
19. R.A The Rugged Man - How Low (2004)
20. White - Code Name (2010)

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Team Caskey

Caskey - Sun Goes Down
(From Black Sheep mixtape; 2014)


Here's the MP3 of that new Caskey single I was slightly embarrassed to post t'other day even though I'm feelin' it hard like Purple Aki touching up Tempa T's thighs. At best, Sun Goes Down is an accidental triumph of songwriting over cynical lowest-level YMCMB hackery; at worst, it's a 2014 rap song which can unite the disparate tastes of Step One & Blastmaster.

A quick skim of this new Caskey 'tape reveals So Bad as another accidental triumph of songwriting over cynical lowest-level YMCMB hackery. Clearly intended to be a white-trash take on Worst Behavior, this shit is actually the peckerwood analogue to Foxx's I Wonder:

Caskey - So Bad
(From Black Sheep mixtape; 2014)

Sunday 9 November 2014

Late pass!


Skeme ft. Iggy Azalea - High Level
(From Ingleworld album; 2013)



Alongside Look What I Did and Mo Flow, High Level here must be another one of the Grand Hustle cameo tracks Skeme had stipulated into his contract in exchange for ghostwriting Iggy Kennedy's lyrics and teaching her to replicate a more credible Yank accent than Rose Byrne in any of her Hollywood movies. Beat sounds like an upgraded classic Model 500 track, which basically means it's an Aux 88 song, but instead of 2 bald blokes from Detroit in XXL North Face bubble-gooses rhyming "Electro" with "Techno" over and over again for 4 minutes straight, you've got Skeme talkin' about dicking his girl down in a figure four leglock and Tarrie Bar-B braggin' about how she owns a pair of heels that are longer than your dick.

Thanx to Bubba Spartxxx for the photoshop; truly the Dario Argento to my Dario Gradi.

Saturday 8 November 2014

I'm on TV talkin' like it's just you and me...

"You pro'lly listenin' to me now goin' through some real shit
Granny in the hospital and she real sick
Attitude with everybody, bein' a real bitch
'Cause losin' your granny you ain't ready to deal wit'
But I'm wit' ya, I'm wit' ya, I'm wit' ya
I be on your side when your well runs dry
Boosie wit' ya"


Boosie - I'm Wit' Ya
(From Life After DeathRow mixtape; 2014)



As with most of the best Boosie songs, I'm Wit' Ya sounds like it should be experienced live not at some packed nightclub on the chitlin circuit, but by Boosie rapping it to you acapella as you ride shotgun in his Corvette whilst he drives around Baton Rouge:

Friday 7 November 2014

Ayo Rey

FYI, I only clicked play on this new Caskey single because I remember you stanning for Anxious last year. This shit is like some infernal spawn of Machine Gun Kelly & Ryan Hemsworth as A&R-ed by Yams circa 2011/2012, and yet I've just listened to it 5 times in a row, and I'm about to rip the audio to see how it holds up in the ride on a cold november night with the steady drizzle obscuring my view in the side mirror every time I try to stare myself down in it like I'm Rocky in his Lamborghini after Drago snuffed Apollo:

Dawg, when the sun go down
"It's street justice
My homies turn into dream crushers
The pastor leave us alone but the codeine touch us"


Caskey - Sun Goes Down
(From teh internet; 2014)

Thursday 6 November 2014

Generic list post: 10 songs by rap crews from the past 12 months that are empirically better than anything on this crappy new Migos 'tape

This is my own personal Truman Show
You are all actors working for Lyor Cohen on the 300 Entertainment payroll.

That's the only explanation which could possibly justify the ridiculous t'internet hyperbole surrounding this awful new Migos mixtape. Of course, this is no different than when ironic dickheads claimed No Label 2 was better than Illmatic, but at least that 'tape contained one bonafide classic which made you forget the multitude of sins spread across its other 24 dud songs. All this new Rich N*gga Timeline 'tape has is a couple of aiight songs and 17 sluggish tracks which make me think that Lyor's vision of sending them off to Sweden to record an album of bork-pop bangerz with Stargate and Benny & Björn from ABBA wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

If there was ever a group who need to adopt the current Rae Sremmurd business model of drip-feeding a single out every few months, it's Migos: these guys couldn't make a half-decent mixtape if their mansion's shared closet of rhinestone t-shirts & pleather high-tops with 7 different velcro straps instead of laces depended on it. R.I.P to Nate Dogg - I Got Love but I also had to Regulate. Thus, here's a generic list of 12 rap crew songs released in the past 12 months which empirically obliterate anything on this new shitty Migos 'tape into smithereens.

Migos ft. Young Thug - YRN (2013)
Rae Sremmurd - No Type (2014)
S.B.E - I Feel Like (2013)
Pushaz Ink - When I Was Gone (2014)
Young Money - Senile (2014)
Rich Gang - Freestyle (2014)
Sicko Mobb - Fiesta (2013)
Trill Fam - Pray For Me (2014)
HS87 - Grindin' My Whole Life (2014)
The 99 Percent - Shabooyah! (2014)

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Len Good Mane

As an ageing rap fan, you eventually reach a certain point of no-return where you just can't feign interest in finding that 1 good song on the latest 20 track Migos mixtape this time around, and so you now find yourself contentedly zoning out to some new Too $hort shit which makes you feel like you're Antonio Banderas doing the Tango with Zoe from Casualty in the final of Strictly Come Dancing as Len, Darcey & Bruno throw roses at your feet and Craig reluctantly gives you a perfect 10/10 score.

Too $hort - Latina Love
(From 19,999 EP; 2014)


*EDIT* And then you have a moment of clarity where you suddenly realise the song this would sound best next to in a mix is, ironically, by Migos, so maybe you should check out that new mixtape after all in case there's any more Zapatista salsa-party anthems in the vein of YRN on there? Damn.

Monday 3 November 2014

Just sayin', bruv # 9

Yup, it's another installment of unpopular opinions. As ever, think of this edition as little more than a repository for actual facts I've not been able to shoehorn into any other posts the past few months.

The only edit of Move That Dope that ever needs to exist is one which consists of the hook looped for a minute either side of Pharrell's verse.

Not gonna front like the chorus of All About The Money doesn't sound pretty damned good in the mix on Westwood, but Troy Ave needs to accept that he peaked two years ago with I Know Why You Mad and his legacy now depends on if he can fully commit to filling the void Hell Rell created as the accidental butt of everyone's best jokes.

The past 12 months have turned out to be a very fruitful period for great songs from the most unlikeliest of rappers and N.Y rappers who've been washed up for a decade: Fancy by Iggy Azalea; GDFR by Flo Rida; We Dem Boyz by Wiz Khalifa; the trilogy of No Option, Show Me and Body Language by Kid Ink; Drunk AF by B.o.B; Paradise by Big Sean; Save It For The Birds by Ben J of the New Boyz; Work The Middle and I Do My Thang by Lil' Debbie; Thriller by JuJu & Tragedy Khadafi; Nothing by Ma$e; 187 by M.O.P.

Considering it's modus operandi seems to be Tink Got Gunz, Try Me by Dej Loaf is one lifeless wet blanket soundin'-ass song.

Slim 400 & TeeFlii's Kno Where The Party @ needs a video so it can do for Slim what Ride Wit' Me did for RJ, and teach me how you're supposed to dance to it properly. I've tried everything from the Pee Wee Herman to the Mr Miyagi but I always end up tying myself up in knots because that beat makes me feel like I've got dissolving mushroom platforms under my feet and Koopa Troopas chasing me.

Until Gucci Mane gets out of the bing in 2016, Zaytoven should be contractually obliged to give his best beats to CoCo Kiss & her mates rather than let them end up in the clutches of some boring Trap 101 pudding like Young Scooter or someone whose voice sounds like a tom tit on a round of beef over his production like Young Dolph.

When a 35 year old Jewish novelty-rapper with a very dodgy penchant for girls of high school age dropped a certified 5/5 slap with Clyde Carson this past summer, even the Aryan Brotherhood were forced to admit that rap is the only genre of music that matters any more.

His music might be glorified-Fadercore rubbish, but Makkonnen does serve a purpose for all of us My So Called Life fans who've often idly wondered what Rickie would look like in 2014 if he'd spent the past 20 years pigging out on junk food.

Sunday 2 November 2014

What's today's mathematics?

Lil' Boosie ft. Lee Banks - Trouble
(From Life After DeathRow mixtape; 2014)


You'd almost think Trouble was a lost Boosie cut recorded at some point between For My Thugz in 2002 and Bad Azz Mixtape, Vol. 2 in 2007 if it weren't for Lee Banks' rapping about "Twitter gangstas" and the fact that the beat is a 2013 Lil' Snupe track with added harpsichord which make it sound like it's a Happy Perez production from Boosie's 2000 debut Youngest of da Camp.

Lil' Snupe ft. DJ Khaled - Take Over
(From R.N.I.C mixtape; 2013)