Saturday 31 August 2013

Cali dreams

Even if you've slept on joints like Me And My Thugs, Against All Odds and the various versions of Dat Dick, you can't deny that you should probably start ridin' with Lil' Cali now he's signed with UTP and dropping mixtapes full of songs with Juvenile over beats by Mouse On Tha Track, J-Buc, and Mike Will Made It, right? Take a gander at the credits on his new 'tape Rappin-N-Trappin' :


The boy boy yung Frankie has already given it a positive review and identified MLK as the highlight; I've yet to give the full 'tape a proper whirl but he might have a point about this one :

"Martin Luther King
Bitch, I got a dream
But I don't turn the cheek I empty out the magazine
Hop in that Mercedes, multi million dollar team
I just bought my girl a 7 carat diamond ring!"


Lil' Cali ft. Juvenile - MLK
(From Rappin-N-Trappin mixtape; 2013)

Friday 30 August 2013

That's the hardest shit since MC Ren



I gotcha :

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


Eldorado Red was so much better as a generic Harlem thug on tracks like this than he was during his periods dickriding the Bay and ATLanta. That said, I hope he takes a broomstick up the butt in prison for his part in the killing of the other Rap Game Jackie Aprile Jr. AKA Lil' Phat.

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Generic list post

Apropos of D.M.C appearing in that corny Adidas advert recently, here's a totally incontestable list of my favourite pre-Sucker M.C.'s Rap songs. One song per artist, although I've semi-cheated by including both Love Rap and New Rap Language on the technicality that the latter is a Treacherous 3 song with Spoonie Gee even though the label of the 12" suggests vice versa :

1. Spoonie Gee - Love Rap (1980)
2. Treacherous 3 & Spoonie Gee - New Rap Language (1980)
3. Duke Bootee & The Furious Five - The Message (1982)
4. The Fearless Four - Rockin' It (1982)
5. Grandmaster Flash - Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel (1981)
6. Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde - Doing The Do (1982)
7. Jonzun Crew - Space Is The Place (1982)
8. Super 3 - When You're Standing On The Top (1982)
9. Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force - Planet Rock (1982)
10. Grand Wizard Theodore & The Fantastic Romantic 5 - Can I Get A Soul Clap (1981)

All youz 90's Boom-Bap clods who still spout on about listening to "real Hip Hop" rather than "Rap music" should go Michael Hutchence yourselves with the straps of your Jansports because you've got history on back-to-front: the words Rap or Rappin' appear in the titles of around 50% of all old-school songs released between 1979 and 1983, while the term Hip Hop didn't even come into contention until after New York street culture had been neatly wrapped up into a presentable package by the likes of Malcolm McLaren, Charlie Ahearn, and Tony Silver & Henry Chalfont.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Make a blogger dash like Damon

"They ain't tryna ruin Christmas
That's the only reason they ain't tryna bring the Giftz in!"


Giftz - Death Wish
(From Position Of Power street album; 2013)


Giftz got that "Paid In Full the movie did more than Paid In Full the song for me" ethos on lock like Blackmoor right now. Not is he making songs about the movie's main characters with videos interspersed with its most infamous scenes, but he's also dressing like Paid In Full's minor characters in his other videos; case in point, the clip for Death Wish up top where his outfit is an obvious homage to Dame Dash's cameo role:

Giftz?


Dame Dash?


Giftz is really coming into his own on the tracks from Position Of Power where he goes it alone: Death Wish is Ike Eyes' Blue Roxies if it were about selling drugs instead of taking them, Flexin' N Finessin' is one of those tracks you initially chuck in a playlist as a deep cut that you then end up playing as much as the big hitter choons, and By Any Means is Struggle-Rap done right with Giftz just tryin' ta live the high-life in a city full of lowlifes.

"If a bitch rock with me, then her ass gotta know
The po-lice search the whip she gotta stuff it in her asshole
Or somewhere they can't find it, in her panty lining
'Cause this ain't really mine, I just got it on consignment
See if the plug call and he think somebody lyin'
And I don't come with the money, bitch, I hope you good at hidin'"


Giftz - By Any Means
(From Position Of Power street album; 2013)

Monday 26 August 2013

Martorial elegance : Boosie edition # 13

Me & the Facebook Boosie Justice page we like Scooby Doo & Shaggy :


Much like Mr. Bad Azz on Cartoon, Boosie Justice's snowbunny contributors are always in trouble, call 'em Garfield The Cat :



Sunday 25 August 2013

I been gettin' paid since Paul Wall had braids

BeatKing - IONCAHH
(From Gangsta Stripper Music mixtape; 2013)


It's been a very good year for the recurring-phrase jam with U.O.E.N.O, My N*ggas, Regular, Type Of Way and Ain't Worried About Nothin' all viable contenders for the coveted best song of 2013 belt. BeatKing's IONCAHH doesn't quite belong in such esteemed company since its default setting is Rick-Ross-doing-a-song-he-guested-on-only-a-hundred-times-more-wompin', but its a lesson in how to successfully gank another Rapper's steez without coming off all Lil' Ugly Duckling Mane, and the relish BeatKing exhibits when he's sneering at squares who attend college and men who wear glasses is some throwback ig'nance reminiscent of Poison Clan's classic Bad Influence :

Poison Clan - Bad Influence
(From 2 Low Life Muthas album; 1990)

Friday 23 August 2013

First movie ever merked out Mekhi Phife'

Late pass again! This must be that new shit that white bloggers ain't even got 'cause nobody told me Young Giftz had dropped a real nifty Paid In Full-inspired joint called Money Makin' Mitch in early july. My bête noire Freddie Gibbs even sounds pretty good on this by sounding nothing like what Freddie Gibbs usually sounds like :

Giftz ft. Freddie Gibbs - Money Makin' Mitch
(From Position Of Power street album; 2013)


Unpopular opinionz of the day : not only was Giftz & TREE's Nino the number 1 in my top 2 Chicago joints of 2012, but Giftz really should've been the guest Rapper on No Faces instead of Danny Brown; TREE & Giftz had chemistry like Rico & the letter B, whereas Danny's increasingly shrill squawking was completely unsuitable for TREE's most macked-out, bastard-grandson-of-Curtom production to date.

For all the homies, breezies, and goonies who've ever asked someone "is you one of Calvin's hoes?" IRL, take the Paid In Full quiz here.

Thursday 22 August 2013

Late pass!

File Play They Role by Lil' Herb & Lil' Bibby alongside 90% of the songs on ZMoney's Rich B4 Rap 'tape as Chicago joints from late 2012 that ya man Boycie Da 5'9 right chea slept on until this year :

"Goin' hard, this a fuckin' classic
Kobe with the blunt, don't pass it!"


Lil' Herb & Lil' Bibby - Play They Role
(From the 'net; 2012/FakeShoreDrive & DJ L's Heir Apparents compilation; 2013)


Imagine what LEP Bogus Boys would sound like if Count & Moonie weren't both 40 years old.... it's Herb & Bibby, innit? Now that Q.B Dunn-Rap is essentially deader than The Tunnel, it's heartwarming to hear that other regions have appropriated its hard-boiled spirit and baronial production steez for modern day ersatz Tunnel Bangers™ of their own.

Wednesday 21 August 2013

12 Rappers that are better than A$AP Ferg


Never forget A$AP Ferg constantly references DJ Screw and Houston Rap culture when he doesn't know who Z-Ro is. Here's 12 Rappers who obliterate his whole career of being a tone-deaf special needs kid during Regional Rap Music 1994 - 2012 week on the X-Factor :

Kitty Pryde
Charlie Travers from Big Brother 2013
Mindbender Futurama
Aussie soap actor Bruce Samazan
Freedom Williams from C+C Music Factory
Andy Cole
The whigga in the wheelchair from Da Southern Boyz
Mel Brooks
Paleface of Colgate Soulmate fame
Clint "Deuce" Dempsey
That Chazmaniia saltine who just bodied Lil' Reese on record
Mac Lethal

So what's the most emblematic symbol of America's failure as a nation in 2013 then: A$AP Ferg blowing up IRL and getting favourable reviews from Jon Caramanica in the New York Times? The Wavery's very sinister practice of recruiting naive white teenage ironic YouTube Rappers like Kitty Pryde & Yung Lean and then encouraging them to drop n-bombs in their music? Or the forthcoming novelisation of Mac Lethal's "lol blk ppl" Texts From Bennett Tumblr site?

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Props to Rey

For finding the hardest song outta Baton Rogue since $hizz & Foxx's Send Ya Hit Man. All the more impressive a discovery given that it's a song by Nu$$ie's old weed carrier and Rey doesn't even fux with Baton Rogue Rap like that :

Que Tha Truth ft. Lil' Pooh - Back 2 The Paper
(From YouTube; 2013)


This is the post where we try to convince Rey to stop listening to that French Montana song where he donned a Masked Terror mask for a Stars In Your Eyes rendition of Chief Keef and let Ghetto Stories into his life instead.

Monday 19 August 2013

Belated brief thoughts on HBK Gang's mixtape

Remember those scientists Cam'Ron hired to invent him a new colour? Right now they must be up in the lab rewriting the laws of physics to explain why She Ready is an octillion light years ahead of everything else on this HBK Gang mixtape even though it first hit the 'net three years ago. The whole appeal of this crew for me was their knack of making what they do seem effortless, but all the new songs on this 'tape sound like they're straining harder than him from Cypress Hill before falling flat on their arses into the dreaded bog which contains all the Taylor Gang weed-carrier posse cuts from Wiz's mixtapes.

Considering IamSu!'s KILT 2 was equally rubbish for much the same reasons, that's two duds in a row from this camp now. I ain't wanna write them off entirely since the 100 Grand remix is probably my favourite single out of the Bay so far this year (sorry, Thomas!), although part of me secretly wishes it was Juvenile's answer to R.I.P with a cameo from the reinvigorated Wayne rather than Juve' being invited for a ride in the Ratchet-mobile by that scene's artists who Drake & Wayne swaggerjacked for The Motto.

So it's still She Ready 4 life for the foreseeable future. This is a song with a hook that's worthy of the Big Tymers which was uploaded to the 'net in the summer of 2010 to complete apathy, and then re-sent out in early 2012 after the success of UP! and Function where it became a cult favourite and a Rap radio staple in the Bay. Since it's proven it has legs and it's still the only song in the current HBK oeuvre that's as catchy as UP! is there any chance some industry bod can finally make it a proper hit third time around in 2013 without some bloodsucker like Drake sinking his fangs into it for a superfluous remix? I'd love nothing more than it to become a global pop hit so I could watch them performing it on Rylan's Celebrity Big Brother's Bit On The Side while I'm eating breakfast on a sunday morning.

Saturday 17 August 2013

Got dat paper

Courtesy of the Doc, a MobStyle poster for the 2003 reissue/bootleg of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly that some mook has cut the bottom border off of :

Friday 16 August 2013

Da Capo Best Music Writing 2012: Kitty Pryde edition

HEY YO, IT'S SURVEY TIME!


Who wrote the greatest most unintentionally hilarious blurb about now-proven Facebook rap cabal viral experiment Rapper Kitty Pryde, mang?

Was it the cabal's very own lackey Yayo?
“Okay Cupid” is the latest offering from one of our favorite songstresses, Kitty Pryde, produced by one of our favorite producers, Beautiful Lou. Though this may seem like a strange combination at first, the pair offer a surreal little number about adultery, drunk dialing, and inner-lip tattoos. The young Princess presents her usual tongue-twisting, self-loathing raps, before she breaks down into song near the end, singing the chorus to Frank Ocean’s “Thinking About You”. Lou’s translucent beat allows Kitty to further flutter forwards, until the song abruptly ends with an adorable little giggle tacked on the end.

Or was it our old friend Paul Lester from The Guardian?
The lineup: Kitty Pryde (vocals).

The background: She's the hip-hop Taylor Swift, or Tyler, the Creator, if he were a teenage girl cloud-rapping about sexting, drunk dialling and pill snorting. She's this nano-second's viral sensation and by tomorrow she'll either be the biggest thing on the planet or the subject of enquiries about "whatever happened to that white-girl rapper named after that X-Men character?" The song that's causing all the commotion is Okay Cupid. It opens with her yelling at whatever parent happens to be in earshot to "Get out my room – bleh!" before declaring "It's my party" like a 21st-century Lesley Gore in the body of Kreayshawn. It's insouciant ("Read my lip – it's pouty"), it's sarcastic ("Your cigarette breath – well, I thoroughly enjoy it"), it's a Tumblr-age Mean Girls and Heathers condensed into three minutes of cloud rap perfection – the producer of the track was Beautiful Lou (who has worked with Lil B and A$AP Rocky), and the Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking, self-styled "freckly freak" in the Yeastie Girlz T-shirt has even got the same management team as the Main Attrakionz boys.

This chopped'n'screwed, slow-motion dream-crunk is so our thing we can hardly believe our luck. And we thought that even before we heard her rhyming "I used to be a pimp without emotion" with "singing the Frank Ocean". She's got another new track called Justin Bieber that confirms her potential status as the first post-cloud rap teen superstar. The music's in the same ethereal realm as Main Attrakionz et al, and you can tell she loves Danny Brown as well as Odd Future – she fantasises about marrying Bieber, but first she wants to run over Selena Gomez (twice).

Pryde, who may be anything between 17 and 24 and works at Claire's, the accessories store, has had tweets from Earl Sweatshirt, and her Odd Future love is most evident on her previous release and debut EP, the Lizzie McGuire Experience, where she matches their feat of making the music somehow at once unsettling and pretty. It's partly in the woozy off-kilter synths, and partly in the lyrics: on Charnsuka her obsession with some boy leads her to threaten to drink his bathwater. It's on He (Tommy Cantewell) that she becomes what we've been waiting for seemingly for years – a female rapper to match Eminem et al: here she wants to bone the boy and put him in the back of her trunk. She goes furthest on Sickfit (aka Tha First), on which she decides to chop her beau up into pieces while complaining about the stoner bores who "sit around all day looking at titties on the internet", those "fuckin' losers who'll never get their dick wet". Meet Tyler Swift.

The buzz: "Last year, Kreayshawn went viral. This year, we have Kitty Pryde" – ONTD.

The truth: Ladies and gentleman, we bring you … Talia, the Creator.

Most likely to: Become a viral sensation asap – or rather, A$AP.

Least likely to: Get a cameo on Lizzie McGuire.

What to buy: Okay Cupid and Justin Bieber are, like, everywhere.

File next to: Kreayshawn, Azealia Banks, Tyler, the Creator, Leslie Gore.

Kreayshawn = the DGainz of Oakland?

Lest we forget that Kreayshaw was filming videos full of firearms for DB Tha General before she was shooting footage of Lil B drinking orange juice and sitting on a fixie wearing Kool Moe Dee shades :

DB Tha General - Gas
(From Welcome To The Navy album; 2007/YouTube; 2009)


Ain' gon' lie, this post is little more than a feeble excuse to remind you that the link to my 10 song DB Tha General primer compilation which includes Gas is still live if you happened to miss it last year.

EDIT - Zippyshare re-up since I'm told the original Mediafire link is playing tricks.

Thursday 15 August 2013

Is Kitty Pryde the secrete Facebook cabal's viral experiment Rapper?

Ya boy Juelz Rignall right chea is pretty much pilfering the big P with this post. From an interview with PukeBakingSoda's Nicolas Pellion about his role in breaking A$AP Rocky and A$AP Yams' shady Tumblr marketing okie doke. Nothing we don't already know aside from some intimate details about Rocky's marketing campaign which then leads to a very interesting accusation :

MRL : "Do you believe that « Influential blogs » in rap music are necessarily manipulated by Stevielike guys?"

Nicolas : "Sometimes it’s not completely conscious or as well thought out as Stevie did, so I don’t know if we can talk about manipulation, but there are definitely some artists that are being helped by some blogs. It can be explained by friendliness. As artists eventually get closer with bloggers/journalists for instance. There is this one blog of a skating clothing brand, talking a lot about rap music; this is exactly what I’m saying… Rappers they highlight always have a small success thanks to their support… And after chatting here and there, I realised that it’s just a huge friendliness network. Neither the rappers nor the bloggers are completely aware of it.

And there’s also some quite vicious stuff. Here’s a funny one. I’m part of a Facebook group gathering almost all the American bloggers, something like 10 rappers and a bunch of producers… One day we asked ourselves, if we all started to praise somebody at the same time on our different websites, wrapping up the whole thing well, like taking a beat from that well-known producer, a featuring with this hot cat and shit… Would we succeed in making believe he’s dope?

We took someone from the group who didn’t know how to rap, someone ghostwrited his lyrics and we made him rap on some beat from a producer everyone would know… One after the other, every blogger from the group wrote some stuff to explain why it was dope… It worked. But even more than everything we could have imagined. As this artist went highly praised by all the « tastemaker » blogs, for real. We found him in some year-end blog lists from bone-headed hipsters websites nearly interested in rap, some articles saying it was revolutionary, including some big players like Complex, Fader, Spin, Pitchfork… And now… well this artist has a career. Not amongst the rap audience, but amongst kind of retarded hipsters who love to believe that they listen to rap music, it’s a hit. This artist is touring now, hanging around with stars and shit… I think I won’t reveal his identity for now, but someday someone will, for sure.


Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a proof that these kinds of practices do exist, but it’s a proof it definitely works."

Him schmim, Nicolas! Not entirely sure that writing a eye-witness account of Danny Brown getting his dick sucked on stage for Noisey necessarily constitutes her still having "a career" in 2013, but this alleged viral experiment Rapper is so obviously the formerly Walkmaster Flex managed Kitty Pryde who debuted with a song where she rhymed over trendy Cloud-Rap production by Beautiful Lou, innit?

Anyhoo, now that Yams has deleted the RealN*ggaTumblr archives to avoid any further embarrassment of people dredging up his old posts talking shit about Drake, Danny Brown, and Roc Marciano, I think it's safe to put a full stop on the Tumblr-era and conclude that it was the absolute nadir of Rap blogging. Kool Herc cries kidney stones through his eyeballs when he thinks about all the first and second generation Rap bloggers who were narcissistic enough to abandon their original sites for a few cheap likes and reblogs.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

That's enough about you, you, you....

....we gon' talk about me, me, me!

Just realised that I've never gotten around to mentioning that I'm slowly beginning to prefer My N*ggas to both R.I.P and Type Of Way and that I can't wait until it becomes an official single so it can usurp Rich As Fuck from its spot as the year's biggest and bestest hit that's basically unplayable on radio/TV.

Because I'll always think of Rap as a 12" singles genre, I need a B-Side to My N*ggas from this currently fruitful YG/Young Jeezy/DJ Mustard axis. The Homie had been serving that purpose until Fuck You slobberknocked it out the box yesterday with the arrival of that new CTE weedcarrier sampler mixtape. I'm not sure if YG, Jeezy and DJ Mustard have somehow acquired access to my brainwaves but given that Fuck You sounds like a 2013 take on Rhyme Pays-era Ice-T with added lyrics about bringing it to dudes who accidentally step on your shoes, and references to scenes from my favourite Rapsploitation movie ever it feels like they've recorded it especially 4 me!

YG & Young Jeezy - Fuck You
(From Young Jeezy, YG & DBCO's Boss Yo' Life Up Volume 1 mixtape; 2013)

Tuesday 13 August 2013

A Mouse On Tha Track compilation 4 u

Not sure if this is a futile exercise in preaching to the converted, but I flung a Mouse On Tha Track compilation together for the hell of it anyway. If you're unfamiliar with Mouse you can look at him in two ways : he's either the producer/Rapper auteur heir apparent to Mannie Fresh who can make damn near every line of his sound as catchy as a million dollar 2002 Nelly hook, or he's a bizarro world Juicy J mining New Orleans classics by DJ Jimi, Juvenile, and Lil' Slim to create a new type of post-Bounce jitterbug for women with arsecheeks like two planets to twerk to in Baton Rogue's strip clubs.

Beginning with the Handy song where his trademark "Mouse on tha track.." production tag comes from and ending with his recent single featuring Kevin Gates, this thing is 20 tracks deep and takes in solo cuts, his classic single with Lil' Phat & Shell as 3 Deep, collaborations with Killa Kyleon and Fiend, and guest appearances on songs by the aforementioned Handy as well as Webbie, Boosie, Jimi Jump, and Lil' Cali.


Mouse On Tha Track - DAT MOUSE

1. Handy ft. Webbie & Mouse - Cut The Lights On (2005)
2. 3 Deep - Watch My Shoes (2007)
4. Webbie ft. Mouse On Tha Track - First N*gga (2008)
5. Jimi Jump ft. Juvenile & Mouse On Tha Track - 2 Pieces remix (2008)
6. Jimi Jump ft. Mouse On Tha Track - Real Slow (2008)
7. Mouse On Tha Track ft. T. Mac - Rubbin' On My Head (2009)
8. Mouse On Tha Track - Turn The Beat Up (2010)
9. Mouse On Tha Track ft. Trill Fam - Turn The Beat Up remix (2010)
10. Lil' Boosie ft. Mouse On Tha Track & Shell - Cartoon (2010)
11. Mouse On Tha Track - Swagger Fresh Freddie (2011)
12. Mouse On Tha Track ft. Young Ready - Alligator Hummingbird (2011)
13. Lil' Cali ft. Mouse On Tha Track - Dat Dick (2012)
14. Killa Kyleon & Mouse On Tha Track - Carmelo (2012)
15. Killa Kyleon & Mouse On Tha Track - Dick Look (2012)
16. Mouse On Tha Track - Hand Rub (2012)
17. Mouse On Tha Track - Raise A Finger (2012)
18. Fiend & Mouse On Tha Track - A Lil' Sumptin' (2012)
19. Mouse On Tha Track - Bye Bitch (2013)
20. Mouse On Tha Track ft. Kevin Gates - Don't Make 'Em Like Me (2013)

~~> DOWNLOAD HERE <~~

Monday 12 August 2013

Agallah sez : "I got guns that'll turn all ya shoes into samples!"

Gunplay - Drop Da Tint
(From Acquitted mixtape; 2013)


Lovin' that Drop Da Tint is Gunplay's official new single since it's my favourite song offa Acquitted. Also lovin' the very Repo Man-esque touches with the shots of empty pairs of shoes after the tint has been dropped and the choppa has "knocked a muthafucker out a fresh pair" and that we never get to see who's inside the car just like we never get to see what's in Frank's trunk.

My only complaint is that we're still none the wiser if Gunplay ever caught up with the h8er he chased through the Miami flea market in the Jump Out video. I was hoping he'd use the Drop Da Tint clip as an opportunity to close that particular chapter, but, nope, we're still left hanging. Ayo Gunplay, plz stay away from G-Unit third-stringers and shoot a Jump Out sequel clip asap because I don't want this to become another Slim Dunkin's Blindside video situation where we'll never ever find out what happened to his kidnapped son.

Sunday 11 August 2013

Tweetz is talkin'!


Big Daddy Kane - The Beef Is On
(From Looks Like A Job For... album; 1993)



I'll have you know that I love Kane, SpaceGhostPurp guy! He just didn't make that many good songs after 1989, and wearing a pair of child's leopard skin briefs as Madonna and Naomi Campbell lezzed it up in front of him REALLY wasn't a strong look for the self-proclaimed Count Macula, was it?

Saturday 10 August 2013

DAT YOU?

Had to do a double take when Mouse On Tha Track flipped his entire script on the final verse of his new single Don't Make 'Em Like Me with a story about being arrested on a false homicide charge (Rap Game Barry George?) that's closer to Boosie & Webbie's Fuck The Police than anything in his own catalogue of jolly songs about having fun in Baton Rogue.

Mouse On Tha Track ft. Kevin Gates - Don't Make 'Em Like Me
(From Don't Make 'Em Like Me single; 2013)


Gates has come a long way from being thought of as Max Minelli's Memphis Bleek, but in all the words that've been typed about him over the past twelve months nobody has mentioned the main obstacle he faces in ever becoming a household name : Kevin Gates sounds like a bloke from your I.T department, not a Rap star. Dook has obviously never seen the Louis Theroux interview with Pen & Pixel's Shawn Brauch where Shawn snootily tells Louis he can't use Louis Theroux as his Rap name because "it's not monumental enough", nor must Gates be familiar with industry rule 4085 that Rappers are only allowed to use their government names if they have fly ones like Craig Mack.

Friday 9 August 2013

Screens fall two by two, watchin' Winnie The Pooh

Yungstar and co's Screens "R" Fallin' is a bit of an anomaly in that it epitomises everything great about early '00s Houston Rap by bush league Screwed Up Click alumni when it doesn't particularly sound like a typical turn-of-the-century posse cut from second-tier S.U.C members. It's one of those songs which makes me feel I've been missing out by never having heard it until a few months back, but I can't make out a specific lyric during the first verse that's driving me nuts; at precisely 00:44 does Lil' James say "ballin' outta control and I ain't ten years old" or does he say "ballin' outta control at nineteen years old"?

"Ballin' outta control ___________ years old
Gimme the remote control, I seen this episode
Gas poured, pines blow when it's time to hit the road
Lil' James is the name, I put the T in Throwed!"


Yungstar ft. Lil' James, Lil' Flex & Pooh-Bear - Screens "R" Fallin'
(From Throwed Yung Playas Part 3 album; 2000)


Lil' James' being under the age of 18 is crucial to Screens "R" Fallin' (no Dids) since its whole premise is that Yungstar and his B.G. buddies are cruising around in spaceship cars and minivans watching cartoons and playing TurboGrafx-16 on some proto-Cosmopolis type shit, but how can Lil' James be a Baby Gangsta if he's 19 years old? Even more confusingly, how can a kid who "ain't ten years old" possibly sound older than Yungstar? This shit is an even bigger paradox than that bit in Soulja Boy's I Got Me Some BAPES video where he tells Arab he's just got back from his local mall with some new Bapestas when the Bathing Ape stores in NYC and L.A were the only places in America you could cop Bapestas from back then.

Speakin' of the S.U.C, how the hell do I download the studio version of Z-Ro's classic "Look Good" in studio freestyle off that new Tripolar EP of his that's only available to stream on Audiomack? *EDIT* Thanx to ANU :

Z-Ro - Look Good
(From Tripolar EP; 2013)

Thursday 8 August 2013

Rap game Scott Hall & Kevin Nash circa 2002

Very, very happy that one of 2013's best traditional hard nosed Gang$ta-Rap songs has just become a proper single with a swanky video. Woke Up isn't quite a Jeezy & Gotti A-lister like the All White Everything remix or Choppa Talk, but it's definitely a very strong 2nd tier collabo a la Four so here's hoping it can steal Act Right's thunder because that's a rare dud by the jobbing mercenary duo :

Doughboyz Cashout ft. Young Jeezy & Yo Gotti - Woke Up
(From Young Jeezy's #ItsThaWorld EP; 2013)

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Diggin' in the Showbiz's mates

Try as I might, ya boy will never understand why the Conservative Rap Coalition's head honchos settled on Milano as the indie-period generic D.I.T.C weed carrier they decided was one of N.Y's great unheralded talents when Rep For The Slums is the only great solo song he's ever made in the 14 years since he debuted alongside Big Pun on Where Ya At?:

Milano - Rep For The Slums
(From Deal With A Feeling 12"; 1999)


Besides, such esteemed luddites as Robbie and DJ Ivory & the other bloke from the P. Brothers really should have known that the best Fat Beats-era D.I.T.C doja was A-Bless. Ain't gonna front like A-Bless had more than 4 good songs in him, but that's 3 more than Milano had, and dude was a Lord Finesse analogue for the S.D.E generation. What a pity we never got a proper Showbiz-produced solo A-Bless single since he made the fatal mistake of signing with a crew who still plied their trade with 12" records when N.Y was amidst the transition into a mixtape city:

"I need a mami for the don with no kids
And I love 'em in white thongs with no skids"


A-Bless - That's Bless
(From D.I.T.C Presents Wild Life compilation EP; 2001)


"Temper problem, sick in the head
Tec's a problem, clip to the head"


A-Bless, O.C & Party Arty - Bad Reputation
(From D.I.T.C Presents Wild Life compilation EP; 2001)

Sunday 4 August 2013

They can't even pronounce nothin', pass that Wuh-Taps!

Ayo 2$hin aka Mr. I Khan Do Dat aka A$AP Burt Kwouky aka Jean Paul Sartaq. Check out the O.G AZN Rap gawd spittin' dat Jin & juice like the Great Kabuki sprayed red mist on the 500th and 1000th episodes of Freestyle Friday, bruv!

"Ayo, matter of fact, you know Free is fine
Justin and M got a kiss, yo whassup with mine?"



"Yo, I walked into 106 for a standin' ovation
All I heard was "welcome back" like my name was Mason!"



Jinichi Imafofo spat acid like the fabled Mongolian Death Worm and basically spent 70% of his allocated interview time promoting CDs by Eve and Styles P, yet Dee & Waah STILL shelved his album and then dropped him from Ruff Ryders. AmeriKKKa really hates its AZN citizens on some "the sushi bar ain't mah spot!" type steez, huh?

Friday 2 August 2013

You ain't gonna know what to call it, just know it's a drop and the sunshine jumpin' off it

Deep cuts by generic Baton Rogue c-listers that've been transformed from 3/5 jawns into 4.5/5 jams by the mere presence of Mouse On Tha Track saying "DAT ME!" and "WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" on them part 3465 :

Mista Cain ft. Mouse On Tha Track & Mista - Hard As I Go
(From Louisicain 2.5 mixtape; 2013)


It's mad confusing to have two Baton Rogue Rappers called Mista who both sound near-indistinguishable from each other and who've both released mixtapes with the word Cain in their titles, especially when I'm attempting to parse their respective catalogues for any other jams or when I'm trying to remember which of them is the Mista that's beefing with Foxx and which of them is the Mista that's currently in the pokey on a murder charge.

I dunno, though, maybe I'm doing Mista a disservice by lumping in him in with Mista Cain since he didn't need Mouse's help for his one genuine 5/5 minor-classic It B Going Down and its anthemic no star weed-carrier remix last year?

"Phone ring, hear that noise, that must be Rashanda
sneak me in this party or I'm puttin' holes in ya Honda"


Mista - It B Going Down
(From Cain Muzik Volume 1 mixtape; 2012)

Thursday 1 August 2013

Dunn did dat already

"F**k a new friend, they just potential enemies
Open old wounds on you, hold it, then let it bleed
Can't front, the jealousy just bring out the best in me"


Mobb Deep - Cobra
(From Cobra 12" single/mixtapes/Infamous Archives 2xCD; 2005)


Never forget that Havoc pretty much pioneered the concept of No New Friends 8 years ago.