Monday, April 19, 2004
Nas' new heater | Danger Mouse's favorite CD's | Ghostface, Joe Budden & Def Jam | Who is Ruste Juxx? | Info on the new Ma$e mixtape
Have you heard Nas' "A Thieves Tale"? This rock-flavored jawn is double-super bananas and is my new favorite rap record. Between this and "Star Wars" the outlook for his upcoming Street's Disciple album is ridiculous. Linkage as soon as I can find it (and suggestions on where to find that linkage would be very welcome in the comments section below).
What I thought was "Move Back" by N.I B. is actually a track by the Vacant Lot Boyz. Good lookin' to my man Sam at Def Jam for the wax hook-up though. (mp3 link courtesy: Vacant Lot Records)
Shyne Signs With Def Jam although I hear Capone N Noreaga might be outta there soon.
And speaking of Def Jam, no doubt I'm biased because I'm a fan, but I just can't call Joe Budden a mad rapper when I hear his "Def Jam Diss" because it sounds like the truth to me give or take a few lines. (mp3 link via: hiphopgame.com)
Meanwhile, Def Jam is banking on Ghostface's Pretty Toney album to be the next success for the label dubbed the "Yankees of Hip Hop." I got a copy last Friday and have played it several times since then. Frankly, while I'm a big fan and like the album, this is not gonna happen like it did for Hov, DMX, Ja Rule, Ashanti etc. Pretty Toney is probably Starks' weakest album to date and, while it may outperform his sorely underrated and ignored Bulletproof Wallets set from 2001, this is sadly not the kind of hip hop album that does well in the 2004 marketplace for mass appeal hip hop. His emotional, soul-drenched MC style trawls a middle ground between ODB's stream of consciousness lunacy and Raekwon cinematic crime rhymes. Even an assist from Missy Elliott on the "Tush" single is unlikely to help as that track has, as far as I can tell, gotten a mixed reception so far and Missy has her own issues trying to match her level of fame and awareness with a similar level of sales.
Related:
- Pick cuts from Pretty Toney: Tush, Metal Lungies feat. Sheek Louch and Styles P, Ghostface, Tooken feat. Jackie-O, Beat the Clock, Love feat. Musiq & K-Fox. (mp3 links courtesy hiphopsite.com)
I Want My Old-School Hip-hop: Eric Arnold asks how come there's no Pharcyde or De La Soul on the dial? (houstonpress.com via Global Pop Conspiracy)
I didn't know that Sweetback had just dropped a new album. Anyone know whether it's hot?
Blogsite Royal Magazine is blazing hot though, check it out. Had to permalink it in the sidebar, no doubt.
Image courtesy: Reuters
Chappelle says "F-ck you, pay me." (Reuters via Nadine S.)
Premo is interviewed in the new Wax Poetics. He comes off a bit curmudgeonly and I wish there'd been more discussion about his music making process on some of his classic tracks but it's cool though. O-Dub has an article in the same issue too.
UKmusic.com: Britain's biggest online music site?
Will J-Kwon have to resign his post as "The Teen President" within the next year due to age violations? (via byroncrawford.com)
The New York Times' Kalefa Sanneh on the N*E*R*D show I reviewed on Friday...
... and on Lil Flip (whose U Gotta Feel Me album I still haven't checked out despite liking the single and being impressed by his mixtapes cameos in the run-up to this album's release).
While Danger Mouse lists his current favorite CD's. (New York Times)
Bumped into Evil Dee outside Turntable Lab on Saturday evening while trying to cop some last minute wax for my gig at Sage that night (which turned out to be kind of wack in the end). He told me he was working on a new Beatminerz album for Studio Distribution Records while Black Moon and Smif N Wessun (apparently no more Cocoa Beez, thankfully. I always hated that name and thought they should've just ran with Tek N Steele as an alternate moniker back then.) are now on Koch.
And I'm also hearing Lil Kim was dropped by Atlantic and is now on Koch too? People laughed when Koch first jumped off calling it the label of last resort but now everyone seems to be signing with them.
Shout to my man Trouble who came through to the Sage jumpoff and hit me with his excellent new underground 12" release "Short'ee" by Ruste Juxx. Remember when there was actually an NY underground hip hop sound and tracks still had enough bump to bang in the clubs as well, not a bunch of NY MC's and groups doing fake down south or midwest bounce records? "Short'ee" is the kind of track trying to bring back that sound back. I even managed to drop it into my set on a first listen no problem where it mixed lovely with Busta's "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See" (a song that I inexplicably never liked when it first came out, but which I belatedly acknowledged as a classic after the fact and still keep in my crates when DJ-ing now despite it being like seven years old). Email Trouble for info on how to cop this jawn or to book time at his Brooklyn-based Glass Cage Recording studio.
How does Chris Ryan list the essential Gangsta Rap albums of all time in Spin magazines "record guide" column but miss including BDP's Criminal Minded, perhaps the definitive Crack Era hip hop album? At least he remembered to include Schoolly D, who arguably invented this subgenre, albeit with a Best Of... album rather than with his classic Saturday Night! The Album.
Jim Derogatis on the "Kanye effect" on Chicago's hip hop scene. (Chicago Sun-Times via Coolfer)
Anyone know what happened to the American Black blog?
In Return of Ma$e news, look out for the new Harlem Knights mixtape featuring unreleased freestyles and tracks from the man now known as Pastor Bertha (still?) and his former Harlem World cohort Blinky Blink hitting streets soon.
And finally one more time: don't forget to enter the Hip Hop Box contest. Click here for details. Remember, contest ends tonight.
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What I thought was "Move Back" by N.I B. is actually a track by the Vacant Lot Boyz. Good lookin' to my man Sam at Def Jam for the wax hook-up though. (mp3 link courtesy: Vacant Lot Records)
Shyne Signs With Def Jam although I hear Capone N Noreaga might be outta there soon.
And speaking of Def Jam, no doubt I'm biased because I'm a fan, but I just can't call Joe Budden a mad rapper when I hear his "Def Jam Diss" because it sounds like the truth to me give or take a few lines. (mp3 link via: hiphopgame.com)
Meanwhile, Def Jam is banking on Ghostface's Pretty Toney album to be the next success for the label dubbed the "Yankees of Hip Hop." I got a copy last Friday and have played it several times since then. Frankly, while I'm a big fan and like the album, this is not gonna happen like it did for Hov, DMX, Ja Rule, Ashanti etc. Pretty Toney is probably Starks' weakest album to date and, while it may outperform his sorely underrated and ignored Bulletproof Wallets set from 2001, this is sadly not the kind of hip hop album that does well in the 2004 marketplace for mass appeal hip hop. His emotional, soul-drenched MC style trawls a middle ground between ODB's stream of consciousness lunacy and Raekwon cinematic crime rhymes. Even an assist from Missy Elliott on the "Tush" single is unlikely to help as that track has, as far as I can tell, gotten a mixed reception so far and Missy has her own issues trying to match her level of fame and awareness with a similar level of sales.
Related:
- Pick cuts from Pretty Toney: Tush, Metal Lungies feat. Sheek Louch and Styles P, Ghostface, Tooken feat. Jackie-O, Beat the Clock, Love feat. Musiq & K-Fox. (mp3 links courtesy hiphopsite.com)
I Want My Old-School Hip-hop: Eric Arnold asks how come there's no Pharcyde or De La Soul on the dial? (houstonpress.com via Global Pop Conspiracy)
I didn't know that Sweetback had just dropped a new album. Anyone know whether it's hot?
Blogsite Royal Magazine is blazing hot though, check it out. Had to permalink it in the sidebar, no doubt.
Image courtesy: Reuters
Chappelle says "F-ck you, pay me." (Reuters via Nadine S.)
Premo is interviewed in the new Wax Poetics. He comes off a bit curmudgeonly and I wish there'd been more discussion about his music making process on some of his classic tracks but it's cool though. O-Dub has an article in the same issue too.
UKmusic.com: Britain's biggest online music site?
Will J-Kwon have to resign his post as "The Teen President" within the next year due to age violations? (via byroncrawford.com)
The New York Times' Kalefa Sanneh on the N*E*R*D show I reviewed on Friday...
... and on Lil Flip (whose U Gotta Feel Me album I still haven't checked out despite liking the single and being impressed by his mixtapes cameos in the run-up to this album's release).
While Danger Mouse lists his current favorite CD's. (New York Times)
Bumped into Evil Dee outside Turntable Lab on Saturday evening while trying to cop some last minute wax for my gig at Sage that night (which turned out to be kind of wack in the end). He told me he was working on a new Beatminerz album for Studio Distribution Records while Black Moon and Smif N Wessun (apparently no more Cocoa Beez, thankfully. I always hated that name and thought they should've just ran with Tek N Steele as an alternate moniker back then.) are now on Koch.
And I'm also hearing Lil Kim was dropped by Atlantic and is now on Koch too? People laughed when Koch first jumped off calling it the label of last resort but now everyone seems to be signing with them.
Shout to my man Trouble who came through to the Sage jumpoff and hit me with his excellent new underground 12" release "Short'ee" by Ruste Juxx. Remember when there was actually an NY underground hip hop sound and tracks still had enough bump to bang in the clubs as well, not a bunch of NY MC's and groups doing fake down south or midwest bounce records? "Short'ee" is the kind of track trying to bring back that sound back. I even managed to drop it into my set on a first listen no problem where it mixed lovely with Busta's "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See" (a song that I inexplicably never liked when it first came out, but which I belatedly acknowledged as a classic after the fact and still keep in my crates when DJ-ing now despite it being like seven years old). Email Trouble for info on how to cop this jawn or to book time at his Brooklyn-based Glass Cage Recording studio.
How does Chris Ryan list the essential Gangsta Rap albums of all time in Spin magazines "record guide" column but miss including BDP's Criminal Minded, perhaps the definitive Crack Era hip hop album? At least he remembered to include Schoolly D, who arguably invented this subgenre, albeit with a Best Of... album rather than with his classic Saturday Night! The Album.
Jim Derogatis on the "Kanye effect" on Chicago's hip hop scene. (Chicago Sun-Times via Coolfer)
Anyone know what happened to the American Black blog?
In Return of Ma$e news, look out for the new Harlem Knights mixtape featuring unreleased freestyles and tracks from the man now known as Pastor Bertha (still?) and his former Harlem World cohort Blinky Blink hitting streets soon.
And finally one more time: don't forget to enter the Hip Hop Box contest. Click here for details. Remember, contest ends tonight.
