Keith murray and Canibus -Bff

Apparently Keith Murray and Canibus friendship started as early as 95, because of their mutual love for blunts. I don’t know what to think of that story to be honest. Truth is both Mc’s are underground heroes, respected for their mutual lyrical abilities, and both have also failed gaining any major success. Canibus has kept grinding it out, Murray has gone from being a quite funny redman type rapper ( i still rate tracks like “the most beautifullest thing in this world” for their humour and inventiveness)  to a harder and more gangsta image. I’m not really sure i get the point of this Ep, it’s difficult to imagine they would accomplish something together they can’t do apart. If you listened to a lot of hiphop in the nineties you might get nostalgic over this, but it hardly fits in into todays rap climate.

This shows in the tracks as well, “129” , “Show N’ prove”, “Gotta Be Real”, and “Stop Frontin” are great, if you love that Eric Sermon Def Squad sound, but Canibus feels kinda out of place with his angry flow next to Murrays loudmouth verses. “Show em what crazy is” is the other way around, Murray don’t work like Canibus do on a horrormovie beat. “No brainer” by “Shuko” and “Rise Of The Machines” are both ok, though Keith Murray is the one that makes the most of them. None of the beats feels very modern, or perhaps it’s Murray and Canibus that makes them feel old. It’s too bad, but the clock keeps tockin, and some times your old heroes just wont be able too keep up. All in all it’s not a bad Ep, but it’s far from spectacular, and, if i am to be nostalgic, it really just makes me wish for a Def Squad reunion.

Killer Mike is Atlanta

I don’t really listen to that much american hip-hop/rap anymore. The big names all release far too much inconsistent material and are far to eager to please a mainstream audience. Trends, musical or lyrical, dominate the scene, and make most artist sound alike. Smaller, younger hungrier talents look up to the big dogs, and do little more than copy their idols. Where the undergrounds gone i don’t even know, lost in left-field experimentation, stuck in crossword type lyrical exercises or loosing all political and intellectual credibility by talking about the threat of illuminati and melting lizards in the center of the earth. At times there is promise, when the dirty south had its breakthrough a couple years ago there was some sparkingly fresh music released, but the market soon ate that scene up and turned it into T-Pain and Flo-Rida. I’m not saying i have looked hard enough, i can probably find some white boys who make interesting electronica they rap over, or some trappers who don’t have enough money to sell out. But I’m not really sure it’s worth the effort. With the exception of the twisted genius of Rza there is really only one rap artist left that i keep coming back to, that i always have in safe distance so i can reach out and at any time play it at ridiculous volumes.

Killer Mike is Hip Hop. Son of a dope lady, built like a brick, raised in the streets of Atlanta with the hustlers and the junkies. He could have been any Gucci Mane or Young jeezy. But he is also savvy, perceptive,  political, outspoken. He don’t care about a Kanye but Cornell West. He is Niggaz With Attitude, he is Krs-One and Ice Cube. He is the embodiment of the dichotomy  that is Hip-Hop, street-raised and angry but intelligent and fueled by the fire of injustice. No one else right now have the just fury of Killer Mike, no one have his lyrics, no one have his ferocious flow, now one has the intelligence, now one else has the balls.  As proven many times but perhaps most easily with this:

“They say I dissed Oprah, I’m like “so what?”
I never get to jump up and down on a sofa
Now watch me as I Cruise like Tom through the slums
Where the education’s poor and the children growing dumb
In the section of the city where Sir Diddys don’t come
Where Mr. Cosby and Mrs. Winfrey won’t come
Unless it’s a hurricane, then FEMA don’t come

He also has great love for his city, for the people and surroundings he grew up with. Which is probably why he chose to take the risk of releasing this cd. These cd’s are generally never a good idea, especially not making it a double, and i’m guessing a part of Killer Mike knows it. Atlanta isn’t full of Killer Mikes, few cities has a underground scene that can entertain for a two whole cd’s. perhaps this should be seen more as a favor to rappers who would never otherwise see this kind of exposure. Across the ocean at least i am listening to it.

Unfortunately though, there aren’t really that many rappers on these two cd’s that makes you want to listen to their tunes more than once. The beats are rarely more than the usual sound of dirty south, and unless they stand out by being unusually bad you don’t really notice them. Most of the lyrics are, put mildly, extremely cliché. There are perhaps a few tracks that stand out, Trillville comes with quite interesting and hype screaming flows on  “I Be Off”. B.O.B stand out with his “Generation Lost” which kinda sounds like old ATCQ, or Skee-Loo’s classic “I wish” even. Goodie Mob’s Khujo is ok on “Comin true”, but that should come as no suprise, and  Pastor Troy flows ok on the horrible synth guitar production of “I want war”.

But that doesnt really matter. Killer Mike is featured on a third of the tracks, and every time he touches the mic the mediocre turns to stupendous. This release is worth the price for those verses alone. But if you haven’t already gotten “I pledge allegiance to the grind” 1 and 2 i suggest you do that first.

Wu-tang don’t enter the dubstep

I was sooo looking forward to this. In my mind this was already competing for the best release of the year. For good reasons. Imagine the possibilities. Inventive dubstep producers reworking the genius that is Rza. Imagine a dubstep take on C.R.E.A.M, Protect Ya Neck, The Ghostdog theme or really any classic Wu Tang material. And to have some of the worlds best rappers blessing these beats with classic verses. Rza, Ghostface, Raekwon, Method man, Ol Dirty. It could have been classic, it should have been a classic – as they said in the pressrelease:

“…many of the pioneers and practitioners (DJ’s and producers) in the Dubstep world came up in a time when Wu-Tang ruled the international airwaves. Unlike much commercial hip-hop, the immediacy of Wu-Tang’s sound spoke to many outside of the scope of the typical hip-hop fan, across oceans and at home. Their music and style helped to shape an emerging artform that hadn’t yet defined itself. Now, in 2009, as dubstep continues to grow, expand and encompass more styles and subgenres, the Wu-Tang sound is reintroduced into the mix, to spawn a new and unique musical crossbreeding, that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts”

It’s too bad then this isn’t really a Wu Tang album. The tracks don’t come from Wu Tang albums. Most of them come from Raekwons proteges Icewaters release “Icewater: Polluted Water”, or the Bronze Nazareth fronted Wisemens release “Wisemen Approaching. You hear Rza, but it’s not from any Rza release but from Lord Jamars 5% album.  The closest you will get to this being Wu is some tracks taken from (the also quite weak) Wu Tang meets the indie culture Vol1, and a few tracks from Gza. There actually seems to be just as many rappers that have nothing to do with Wu Tang as there are actual members; Pimp C, Busta Rhymes and Three Six Mafia don’t really feel like Wu to me.

In some sense i suppose this could have been ok still.  Had they chosen the best tracks from the Wu-tang affiliates and lesser known projects it might have worked. Tracks with an actual Wu feel, perhaps more than just a third of a track that was actually produced by Rza. They didn’t. Ive actually heard most of these tracks before, some of them are ok, most of them are just your usual hiphop. Also few of the dubstep producers involed in the project seems to try and combine the two sounds. Most of the tunes, as far as i can tell, have little to do with the original. Which might be ok if they were given crap tunes to begin with. But they also have little to do with any type of Wu feel. As dubstep goes, it is rarely more than ok, it’s current to slightly dated, conventional, routine stereotype dubstep.  I thought there could be a risk of this happening if the producers didn’t make proper use of the source material. I didn’t of course expect the source material to be crap to begin with.

There are a few exceptions; Chimpos horror sundtrack remix of “Cinema” is dark and creeping, the Rouge Star remix of “New year banga” has some great distorted 80’s style synths and Scubas remix of Street Corners at least touches on the Wu sound. But the only one to succeed a 100% is Soroka, who takes on three tunes at once; Pencil, My Piano and Firehouse. This is a masterpiece, Wu-tang strings and horns blend seamlessly with dubstep rhythms and basslines. When Ghostface drops a verse it sends shivers down my spine. It really shows what an amazing album and collaboration this could have been, and regrettably wasn’t.

I don’t know what happened here. Perhaps Wu-tang didn’t feel comfortable giving their good tracks to dubstep producers. Perhaps it is some kind of attempt to gain some interest for Icewaters and Wisemens quite unexceptional albums. I don’t know, all i know is someone fucked up, big time.

get ya hustle on

making that lil boosie review yesterday made me reminisce, started to listen to some cash money records, and remembered a important tune i had apparently forgotten. You can say whatever you want about rappers being a bad influence, i wont listen. They depict the lives of people less fortunate than us (making and reading blogs). They ARE they voice of poor people and if you don’t believe me Juvenile proved it with this video, probably the strongest ive seen

unfortunately and fortunately juvenile is on a major label now so it’s not on youtube, but it’s here:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4401417

Juvenile hasnt been poor since he was like 15, 16, doesnt matter, he has love for his community, for he’s people. He has a voice and uses it, not for the benefit of himself but for the people he grew up with who don’t have a villa in  the hills. People who hate on hiphop and still dont like this are either rasist or idiots. There is only one other video i know which is possibly stronger than this: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3730916/10252601

Return of Boosie Bad Azz

I really liked Lil Boosie when i first heard of him back in 2005/2006. Although practise makes perfect, and having success will buy you better beats, theres a hunger to a new rapper that is difficult to sustain when you have a million dollar mansion and 10 cars. Lil Boosie had that hunger, that New Orleans hunger to be exact. And Boosies still a bad ass,  rocking the same fade haircut. He may have a big ass gold watch but he dont live in no million dollar mansion, he still reps the one-story run down building in Baton Rouge. Currently on house arrest on weapon charges, which means he has to stay at home to make videos like this

Theres a rawness and a hunger, gold chains and guns, but  also a connection to the poor community he grew up in. A social commentary of sorts. The only thing i can really compare it to is the early days of Cash Money records:

Now Boosie makes his return, and it’s starts off triumphant. More money and more popularity means you can afford a Runners beat, opener “My avenue” which is great, but does suffer a bit from the guest spots of Lil’Phat and Lil”Trill. Follower “Top notch” is really top notch, and no one would blame you if you thought it was Juvenile on the chorus. Third track “Better Believe” should be the album banger, with Young Jeezy and Webbie as guests. Unfortunately it kinda looses speed, and gets a bit too commercial. Things get better with the introspective “Lawd have mercy”, and the hard “I’m a dog”.  “No mercy”, and “Levis” both produced by B-Real are slower but somewhat saved by Lil boosies talent and raw agressive style. Unfortunately the tempos stays slow on “Bullshit” which is followed by two commercial tracks for the ladies, and then a soft track about his family. This is  the only problem with this release, you can’t blame a hustler for wanting to get money, but it’s obvious Boosie hasnt made the girlie tracks because the subject matter is dear to him, but because he wants to get that guap. And i respect him for the introspective tracks, but they are far too soft for me. There another bangers in “Loose as a goose” but the rest of the album, is either too slow or too poorly produced. Still they might grow on me.

Bottom line; its not a perfect album. I don’t listen to Boosie for love songs, or put on a deep track when drinking  my tea on the porch, looking at the sunset over the lake. I listen to Boosie cause i want hard hype tracks. And theres enough of them to make me happy,ill just have to program the cd player to skip the rest.