Disavow Pleasure

This is beautiful. Cee-Lo converts Yorke's somber hymn from Protestant to Baptist and the warmth you never would've associated with the song makes for a great cover, a true interpretation. I look back at Gnarls' work collectively and I don't hear an attempt at experimentation or progress, just two music nerds wearing their influences on their sleeves and having fun that has almost nothing to do with Hip Hop (fuck the packaging). It occasionally makes for a good time. I think Cee-Lo is a brilliant rapper. I couldn't have a conversation concerning what I consider the greatest verse of all time without at least mentioning the fence around his projects. That being said, he's had a truly special career which rap is only a part of. Very few artists can follow their creative whims everywhere without bordering on indulgence but Cee-Lo has accomplished that. He's this extraordinary talent who can do whatever he wants well and without effort and its time to acknowledge he's a great rapper and a great singer. It's the guy who anchored Still Standing and Soul Food singing a Radiohead song, I understand that. All I know is I'm thankful for any outlet that provides a moment like this one.

Caught Up In Life

The rest of the rational world hates Stephon Marbury. I'll miss him while enjoying my suddenly entertaining team. Good luck.

The Cocaine Blues

Download: The Cocaine Blues (Tracklist below)

David Brown, also known as Young Buck presumably because his career began at the age of 14, got his start as many young prominent Southern rappers of his generation did, by signing with Baby and his Cash Money Records. When Juvenile split from the label in 2002 to begin his UTP imprint Young Buck went with him, the move made sense. It isn't hard to see the influence of Juvie and his forefather Bun B when considering Buck's approach. He delivers in a laid back, dusty, drawl heavy register drenched in moonshine and hoarse from too many Swishers stuffed with Mexican brick weed. It’s a wonderful instrument that can swing between detached and scarily intense at a moment’s notice. In what was his first move as a visionary General Manager for G-Unit, 50 Cent poached the unheralded Nashville firebrand from Juvenile, the beginning of his master plan to take over the country. I was pissed at the time. I was a G-Unit stan and a knee jerk South hater. I felt the signing of Young Buck was a sell out move, a sign that 50 was running his label and producing his music the way corporations churn out product. I was right, but in this instance it was for the wrong reasons.

By the end of 2004, Young Buck was a personal top five MC who changed the way I thought about Southern Rap. Buck is a great primer for those entrenched in the New York state of mind. He’s a raw lyricist capable of East Coast style wordplay, but he was revelatory for me in that as an artist he’s greater than the sum of his parts. He excels with emphasis, cadence and vocals that contrast with the emotions conveyed, making the entire performance aspect of a given verse that much more interesting. As you can tell from that last sentence writing this was difficult because beyond the obvious, there are some things Young Buck does well that are hard to put into words. After 2006 or so he began to move away from the style and material that made him so great to me, but with this post and accompanying mixtape I’m going to attempt to document his strongest underappreciated cuts from the period and why I loved them.

Sniper


This was the song that caused me to sit up and start paying attention. The first verse is an anecdote that Buck claims is based on a true story and you have a hard time doubting him based on the detail and his willingness to bring us into his thought process. Young Buck’s greatest attributes are his soft eyes, he doesn’t settle for clichés most coke rappers lean on when they talk about selling drugs and this gives songs like “Sniper” their authentic feel. The chorus sounds like a Big Syke hook left off All Eyez On Me and the second verse is a slight drop off but this song definitely piqued my interest.

Sleep with an AK


From the production through the verse this is a relentlessly bleak song. What makes it great is Buck’s breathless delivery, which is so matter of fact in the face of total despair it’s chilling. The way he paints his ruthless environment and conveys his nihilism makes for a great track. (Pissing in public?)

Tim Westwood Freestyle (ft. Lloyd Banks)


One of my favorite aspects of Buck’s coke talk is on display here. A running theme through his early work is selling his product for as little as possible. (“I sold my dimes for five, and my 20s for 10/I never gave they ass credit but they came again”) This Walmart logic is what separates Buck from many coke rappers, who the fiends supposedly flock to due to their vague consummate hustler essence. Buck advertises himself as a sound businessman promoting qualities that apply equally to crack, retail and finance. Anyone who has middlemanned anything understands the importance of a connect who can get you what you need at the right price but minutia of this nature is rarely brought up. In the very christening of his home state (Ten-A-Ki) Buck brings an economist’s approach to his crack rap.

Lean Back Freestyle


It Ain't Safe


I want to say that Buck beats Banks at his own game on their "Lean Back" freestyle but the truth is this is vintage Banks as well and if they were going toe to toe you’d have to declare a draw. (Although Banks featured reoccurring verses throughout this period, I very rarely heard a Buck verse more than once) What this track does however is accentuate the difference between the two and furthermore what made Buck special. With the first exchange Lloyd Banks is clever, street smart. Buck is wise. His coke punchlines play like biblical proverbs. He has a gift for phrasing and it shines through on lyrical exhibitions like this one and others such as “We’re Back” on the mixtape. “It Ain’t Safe” works along the same lines in regards to its oddly timeless quality. Buck watches Rome burning and while not hopeful, he’s not particularly distressed either; he has the serenity to accept the things he can’t change. It almost sounds like a dark prayer (a quality present in more than a few Young Buck songs).

I Love the Hood (ft. Game)


This is a great Buck verse over the “Poppa Was a Playa” instrumental but there’s an ugliness creeping into his flow that would become more prominent and lead to me somewhat losing interest as his career progressed. He is guilty of that amateurish cardinal sin of abusing doubled vocals. For me it’s a huge turn off and takes away from Buck’s calm rasp. It’s the quiet menace present in his delivery that makes him great and the effect obscures this. In addition, a gruffness has crept into Buck’s voice via blunts or design that has fucked up his flow from a purely aesthetic standpoint. Factor in bland writing (inevitable when you’ve been a famous rapper for several years and you specialized in the type of mundane specificity Buck did) and you have a shadow of the MC I’ve been writing about. Whether or not the split from G-Unit and recent reunion with Game provokes a return to form, it was fun while it lasted.

Tracklist:

1. Sniper- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 6 (Motion Picture Shit) 2004
2. Sleep With An AK- DJ Whoo Kid: S.W.A.T. 2004
3. Two Bricks- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 9 (G-Unit City) 2004
4. We’re Back (ft. Banks)- DJ Whoo Kid: Welcome to the Hood 2004
5. Help Me Change (ft. 2pac)- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 6 (Motion Picture Shit) 2004
6. Wicked East- DJ Envy & Tapemasters Inc.: Purple Codeine Vol. 7 2006
7. Tim Westwood Freestyle (ft. Banks)- DJ Envy: The Bad Guys Vol. 1 2005
8. Higher Than A Muthafucka- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 1 (Smokin Day 2) 2003
9. It Ain’t Safe- DJ Kay Slay: The Mixtape Maniac 2005
10. G’d Up (ft. 50 & Banks)- G-Unit: Beg for Mercy 2003
11. Rap City Freestyle- DJ Scream: BET Rap City Down South Freestyles 2006
12. Bang Bang- Young Buck: $traight Outta Cashville 2004
13. Be This Way- DJ Whoo Kid: Welcome to the Hood 2004
14. Y’all Niggas Ain’t Fuckin With Us (ft. G-Unit)- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 5 (All Eyez On Us)2004
15. Footprints- G-Unit: Beg for Mercy 2004
16. Everybody In This Club Fuck With Me (ft. 50 Cent)- DJ Whoo Kid: Welcome to the Hood 2004
17. Lean Back (ft. Lloyd Banks)- Big Mike: Cruel Summer 2k4 2004
18. I Love The Hood (ft. Game)- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 7 (King of New York)2004
19. Thuggin Till I’m Gone (ft. Banks)- DJ Whoo Kid: G-Unit Radio 14 (Back to Business)2005
20. Six Bricks Left- DJ Whoo Kid: Welcome to the Hood 2004

The Originator

I read an article the other day concerning Puff Daddy’s latest project, a concept album called Last Train to Paris which will tell a love story with an accompanying film dropping later this year. No word yet on if Kanye West is planning on biting the general aesthetic to make a far superior album, but one thing we can know ahead of time is it will in no way shape or form be able to fuck with what is arguably Hip Hop’s greatest concept record, (unless we’re counting 6 Feet Deep) former Stetasonic member “Prince” Paul Huston’s A Prince Among Thieves. The album is a Greek tragedy, a spoof of the tired hood film genre, a satire of the industry circa 1999, a great record that could only have come from Rap’s smartest weirdo. Paul brought together an all star roster of Golden Age legends including Chubb Rock, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Sadat X and Kool Keith for his movie on wax. The album came two years after his forgotten mind fuck of an instrumental LP Psychoanalysis. Here, perhaps because of the already experimental format and need for the songs to convey information conforming to the narrative Paul’s beats are as straightforward and uncluttered as his production gets. And it works. The ensemble cast is consistently great, De La Soul’s turn as crackheads with a gift for extended metaphor, Everlast as a crooked cop and Chubb Rock playing mob boss over a Biz Markie beat box are standouts but just barely as literally everyone brings it. The story is about an aspiring rapper named Tariq (The Juggaknots' Breezly Brewin) who needs to hustle up 1,000$ in a week to cut a demo he wants to pass on to the Rza. Paul brings the eternal chip on his shoulder to the project, the album is filled referential nostalgia in the production and subtle barbs at the gangster posturing he’s railed against throughout his career. Only here, with his critique framed as passing shots in the course of a story I find them more palatable then outright crying as we’ve seen on other projects like his mad, dense opus Buhloone Mindstate. The record ends on a dark note with the well intentioned protagonist getting his deal and life taken by his supposed friend “True”. Paul described Prince Among Thieves as a depression record and you can tell his stance on music, and perhaps life in general wasn’t particularly rosy. Paul was questioning his relevance at the time and asking himself whether his career had really made an impact on the music he had loved and you can sense these issues of dissatisfaction, this disappoint and disdain in the general tone of the album. Chris Rock, who revisited his crackhead Pookie on the album and worked with Paul before on his brilliant Roll With the New owns the film rights to A Prince Among Thieves. I hope before remaking another French New Wave movie as a glorified Tyler Perry sex comedy he takes a shot at this Hip Hopera that can’t even be called ahead of its time, because ten years later there’s still no one who’s attempted anything like it.

*Here's a bonus jam, the first single off Paul's new project with Souls of Mischief. Paul will be producing the entire album using nothing but late 80s technology. (SP-12, ASR, MPC, DAT) If this song is an indication of what's in store we may have another classic on our hands.

Hell Freezes Over, Pigs Fly, Knicks Win Championship, Etc.

So APPARENTLY, this will be the lead single off the mythical Detox. It premiered on DJ Envy's "The New At 2" on Hot 97 yesterday afternoon and features Nas and T.I. It's so new Dre hasn't put his vocals on it yet. It also doesn't sound much like a Dre beat (hmmmmmmm) and features an awful hook. (I live topless?) Still, Nas and T.I. are pretty great and this was legit enough to make the radio, so who knows? Maybe we'll win the war in Iraq, erase the deficit and cure cancer.
Update: Listening to this again, I'd like to put forward the theory that at least Cliff's verse is guide vocals for Dre, who as we all know doesn't write his own shit. The verse kind of has that feel the "Still D.R.E." verse Jay-Z wrote for Dre had. Plus it would explain Dre's absence. While we're on the subject, anybody happen to have that Biggie tape with the Hardcore guide vocals for Kim?

Spike Lee Is A Fucking Hack: Clockers

Subtle.

Spike Lee’s “Clockers” is an adaptation of author and “The Wire” collaborator Richard Price’s novel of the same name. I read “Clockers” around the age of 12 and it made a profound impression on me. For the first time I saw the street and drug trade represented as something more along the lines I recognized it as in my community. It’s a novel filled with interesting, intelligent characters dealing with difficult situations that suggest no easy answers. A long overdue, fair minded representation. The jacket of my worn old paper back is fashioned after bestselling Michael Crichton and Steven King works of page turning fantasy. The publisher seemingly saw “Clockers” as a genre piece, a “Whodunnit” beach read. They didn’t understand what they had. “Clockers” is a wonderfully accomplished work of modern fiction. It’s not without its genre conceits; misdirection, red herrings, miracles of circumstance and a few bad, out of character decisions by the two protagonists to propel the narrative but ultimately this novel lives between the lines. Behind the counter in chaotic fast food restaurants, in abandoned old hospitals overlooking the Statue of Liberty where junkies congregate while AIDS devours them, in shoddy project apartments where mythical teenage enforcers sleep on Star Wars mattresses, in regrets and misunderstandings between two cultures at odds but trying hard. Price took the skeleton of a crime novel and brought it to life. Spike Lee’s film manages to suck all the conflicted humanity out of Price’s story, leaving the lifeless, cliché-ridden, dangerously simplified dead end we’ve seen a million times before in its wake. Price isn’t blameless for the massacring of his work, he co-wrote the abortion of a treatment with Spike, but there is no doubt that Lee’s special brand of ambiguity eschewing, agenda pushing, rhetoric mongering is unleashed here in all its awful glory.

Ostensibly, “Clockers” is about a drug murder. Drug dealer Ronnie “Strike” Dunham is asked by his boss Rodney Little to murder a hustler higher up on the food chain for stealing from Rodney. The hustler, Darryl Adams is killed and shortly afterwards Ronnie’s brother Victor confesses to the murder complete with the gun he supposedly used to kill Adams. Rocco Klein, the homicide detective assigned to the case is convinced that Victor, a hard working family man is innocent and standing in for his dope dealing brother Ronald. At the conclusion we discover the killer was in fact Victor, fueled by drink and a dreary life of monotonous hopelessness. These are the plot essentials but what unfolds is an incredible novel full of sad and beautiful scenes, funny and touching moments. Price knows and loves his characters without being sentimental. They are studied and painstakingly realized. Most importantly, Price gives them room. They make mistakes, question choices, fill with doubt and self loathing. We’re along for the ride as they suffer tiny defeats and achieve small victories. It’s how he earns our investment in his characters, we see ourselves in the cops and criminals. It’s a shade of gray Spike Lee seems incapable of registering.

Considering the things Lee opts to include from the novel and exclude from his film are instructive in determining his intent. First and foremost is the setting itself. The hamlet of Dempsey New Jersey, vital for its small hood environment in proximity to the biggest city in the world is traded in for the Nelson Mandela houses in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn for absolutely no reason. Then there’s the issue of voice, particularly tragic because coming into “Clockers” Price was already an accomplished screen writer as well as an author renowned for his ear. There are missteps here and there throughout the novel but in general the conversation is wonderfully naturalistic. The film on the other hand opens with a conversation no one would ever have between the kids on the benches arguing the merits of Chuck D’s politicized rap (=good) versus violent gangsta rap (=bad). To quote a young Sticky Fingaz: “How this nigga gonna say Chuck D the hardest rapper? The nigga ain’t never shot nobody!” And it goes downhill from there.

The character who finds himself most often in error of judgment throughout Price’s novel is the homicide detective, Rocco Klein. His crusade to replace Victor with Strike is the catalyst for much of the novel’s action between the murder and the conclusion. We’ve seen the misguided detective figure before in Robert Altman’s “Long Kiss Goodbye”. Altman tweaked a Raymond Chandler novel to present Phillip Marlowe as an anachronism. In his desire to heed to a moral code, to believe in things and trust people he is adrift in a mad, amoral world. His faulty assumptions are a device meant to relate his purity, his hopeful naivety. We follow Rocco scheming and strategizing for how to go about nailing Strike because he clings to his belief that Victor, the decent working man, could never be capable of such a vicious and senseless act. That act could only be attributed to Victor’s Kane, a low, drug dealing shit bag. The sum of Rocco’s experience, his “20 years on the job” his “guts” tell him Strike has to be the culprit, because if Victor could be driven to murder than Klein’s logic and reason no longer apply to his reality. He believes Victor is innocent and misguided, unaware that his ploy to save his guilty brother will fail. In the film this pursuit of the truth is reduced to an offense of sensibilities. Keitel’s Klein is enraged that these common “yos” would have the gall to insult his intelligence by trying to pull one over on him. Klein is suddenly racially insensitive for no reason while in the novel he chastises other cops for insensitivity and berates himself for letting an epitaph slide in a heated interrogation. Harvey Keitel is generally unbearable here. Condescending, filled with hate, petty and vindictive (presumably by direction in his defense). I’ve never disliked a character I was supposed to like (or again to be fair, grudgingly respect) so intensely. Price’s Klein is a flawed character but ultimately genuine.

But it’s Strike that receives the worst abuse at Lee’s hands. In the novel he’s clearly the star, a truly unique character I would go so far as to say we’ve never seen before in literature. He’s a conflicted, joyless old soul. A considerate but still somewhat weak and often misguided drug dealer with a crippling stutter and a perforated ulcer who sees his life as a series of walls closing in on him. In the film, Strike is a stripped of his stutter and a fascination with trains is clumsily tacked on as an afterthought, intended as a stand in for his humanity. He’s at once without the warmth and the hard edge that provokes the reader to invest in Price’s protagonist. Mekhi Phifer, miserable in his professional debut, is a hapless, ignorant villain stumbling lifelessly through the film and motivated by nothing but personal interest. In the book, Price doesn’t shy from drawing parallels between the brothers, upstanding Victor and troubled Strike in mannerism, mentality, even in appearance. Both Victor and Strike approach their respective hustles with a quiet dignity, discipline and sense of purpose. Both are deeply troubled and doing their best to rise above the encroaching barbarism of others. To me, the entire point of the novel is the thin lines that separate the working man from the criminal in desperate positions. This applies to Victor and Strike as well as Rocco. Predictably, these overlaps are scrubbed from the film. Isaiah Washington’s Victor is dull and without pathos, particularly awful is one of the story’s all important scenes in which Strike and Victor discuss the impending murder. In the novel it’s full of nuance and layers of subtlety, while in the film it’s completely mishandled by the ham fisted actors and apparently misread by Lee. But that’s splitting hairs. You could literally go through this movie scene by scene and tear it apart should you be inclined.

The film is littered with what had been compelling peripheral characters rendered singular personalities totally and completely inert from start to finish. Errol Barnes is a faded, ghostly specter spookily hovering over and around the action in the novel. In the film, Spike Lee tries to prop him up sympathetically as everyone who’s ever shot horse or caught the monster. In what has to be the worst scene in the movie, a truly difficult distinction to win, Strike randomly comes across Barnes who runs his pockets and without provocation delivers his tragic life story over an acoustic rendition of “Crazy” by Seal. (!) Tyrone Jeter, Strike’s young protégé, is detached and impossible to read throughout the novel, in the film not so much. He’s an every youth: loud, mindless and lost in an absurd virtual reality game called “Gangsta”. This is the perfect example of how destructive Spike’s meddling is to the story. Towards the conclusion as Barnes hunts Strike for Rodney, Tyrone kills Barnes for reasons Strike is both directly tied to and powerless to control. Barnes’ murder is one of the more enigmatic moments of the book. Here it’s insultingly linked to a child unable to differentiate between video games and reality alongside contrived jibberish spouted by Spike Lee (a.k.a. Harvey Keitel staring DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA).

“Clockers” plays like a series of non-sequiturs, bereft of the slightest attempt to transition from scene to scene. The entire enterprise feels botched and rushed. Lee uses Price’s plot as a Mapquest print-out, turning, stopping and going at all the appropriate landmarks without being able or willing to consider the story’s value lies in its journey. What’s sad is Lee’s technical skill is evident. He employs some interesting camera work, visually engaging sets and film shuttling between grainy and vibrant. In “Inside Man” (as well as his riveting but still horrifically manipulated documentaries) he showed how competent he can be with someone else’s script. He sabotages himself in his own material with his need to say everything explicitly, to offer a definitive final statement on whatever topic he’s set his sights on. In addition, this particular content is only obscured by his loud artistic vision, but Lee has never exhibited the restraint or awareness to recognize this quality in any of his subjects and scale back appropriately. “The Wire” for instance, takes pains to remove all concept of a hand shaping narrative, it strives for documentary style and you can argue Price’s novel attempts the same level of unobstructed honesty (Though he is guilty of the occasional rhapsodic moment). Here the score is schmaltzy and often laugh inducing for its painful obviousness. Colors are bright and eye catching (See: the persistent neon green) but only contribute to the surreal crack sermon Spike is writing in all caps.

People in search of a life - Marc Dorsey

The novel suffers from a final act full of unnecessary fireworks and theme hammering. Predictably, where the novel falters, the film bombs. By the time we reach the busy climax Spike only has room for events, which accumulate with little to no context and barely matter because he hasn’t spent the time explaining his characters. We lose the continuity between the actions of Tyrone and Victor, the pretext for Rodney’s issues with Strike coming to a head, the personal frustrations motivating Klein down a reckless, destructive path. While Strike provides closure, opening up to Klein at the novel’s conclusion the film ends on a soap opera-ish miraculous entrance by the boys’ mother who willingly spills the beans. There is no moment of rapport between Strike and Klein. This illustrates the film’s conscious removal of the congenial relationship between cops and crooks which is so vital to the novel. The viewer gets the impression that drawing the distinction between upstanding citizens and dope dealing parasites is important to Lee. Strike is universally received with animosity from every member of the community (except for Tyrone, the impressionable youth on whom he preys), his mother included, an indictment absent from the novel that goes against the actual story.

Spike Lee’s “Clockers” is a procedural without the patience for details. A Baldwinian race play that insults its source material as well as its subject. It contains a quality present in every movie Lee ever made, including his most famous: “Do The Right Thing”. In that film, and my other favorite “Bamboozled”, pretenses are dropped completely. The characters are basically stripped of their human qualities and blatantly stand-in as symbols, mouth pieces for their author. When trying to realistically tackle a subject as large and vital as this one, it should come as no surprise that he fails spectacularly. A reader may conclude this screed is a longwinded way to claim “The book is better than the movie”, but it goes beyond that. I concede that obvious pragmatic decisions have to be made in adapting book to film, but this film could have been great and Lee’s sins here are consistent with a pattern that he established early on in his career and continues to haunt his work. “Sucker Free City”, a made for Showtime film from 2004 returned to the street and gang violence, somehow unique for including Chinese immigrants in the conversation. San Francisco is in dire need of a race and class minded indictment but this paint by the numbers retread wasn’t it, and it was wrong for all the same reasons. Spike has always been quick to call racism whenever he feels his community is being insulted or misrepresented on film. Ironically, his insult is the greatest, refusing to respect his audience’s ability to take anything from his films that isn’t explicitly stated. With his rare position of power and influence within the industry he contents himself making whiny, self righteous pieces of shit people stopped caring about a long time ago. Ultimately, this weakness sabotages his art and his message.

Get Familiar

So from the picture posted above you can see that I have an awful memory, the handwriting of an autistic young child and I will be pretty busy for the next few months. At first I was enraged and confused to discover that The Roots, my all time favorite live act will be the house band for the new Jimmy Fallon Late Show. Then I found out about this. For those unfamiliar with the live music scene in New York (Excluding the summer which features a surreal number of amazing free shows in Parks around the city) a quality ten dollar show is the equivalent of a twenty dollar steak and beer at Peter Luger's or fifteen dollar box seats to a Yankees game (Post 96). I also hate the High Line Ballroom, an out of the way bourgeois venue where they actually enforce the smoking ban, but when presented with an opportunity of this nature I had to respond with trademark restraint. It's gonna be a great couple of months. If you live in New York and are interested in the content I deal with here I'm sure I'll see you there.

The Rapper

In Hip Hop, hope springs eternal. Anyone who still finds the New York mixtape scene relevant understands this, that a punchline rapper is like a streaky two guard. For talented punchline rappers the circle of life works something like this: There's the revelatory moment of introduction in which the kid is at his best, spitting nothing but patented swagger, twisting the moment's prevalent pop culture references in new and interesting ways. Think Banks over "Victory", Jae Hood over "1-900 Hustler", Fabolous and Joe Budden on "Comin 4 You". Just as quickly as he burst on the scene the well from which the prodigy draws inspiration inevitably runs dry. In a saturated mixtape market, (slowly correcting itself by changing into an artist rather than DJ driven medium) references are recycled ad-nauseum till the very thought of comparing the size of your gun to Lil Bow Wow is gag inducing. Style gets stale, the MC is somewhat diminished in the listener's mind and we're forced to wait for the next Corey Gunz to catch our ears. Then, occasionally, without warning you hear a random verse or track that announces a return to form. For Budden it was "Mood Muzik 2", Fabolous had last year's DJ Drama assisted "There Is No Competition" and for me, Lloyd Banks had "The Cold Corner". All this brings us to East Flatbush's own Red Cafe, a boring MC who occasionally popped up on the circuit with a verse here and there but never warranted his prevalence on DJ tapes early this dedcade. He was auto-skip material lost amongst what was a wealth of talented MCs doing similar things. He played his part on the back of Kay Slay and Envy mixtapes and personally, I never expected to hear from him again.

Jermaine Denny lived his whole life down at the end of the 2,3,4 line by Brooklyn College. I worked with a kid who went to High School with him and apparently he's earned his longevity on behalf of wealthy parents and connections to the right people in New York's insular Hip Hop scene. For years DJs like Lenny S would feature him on mixtape showcases like the 5 O'clock free ride and you could feel particular DJs rooting for him, either by way of personal taste or some other shadowy form of coercion. In this first quarter their attention has been rewarded with a pair of excellent singles earning popular acclaim and heavy rotation. I love both of these for an intangible seasonally appropriate quality that both have, perfect for a cold, cloudless winter day in New York.

Red Cafe So Easy (remix) drop1.mp3 -

At first, "So Easy (Remix)" works thanks to a phenomenal beat, digging up the opening seconds of Anita Baker's "Caught Up In the Rapture" and letting the sample speak for itself with a straightforward, peppy kick-snare. Ras Kass tackled the same sample a few years ago for "Van Gogh" but couldn't get it cleared. In comparison, Ras' beat is melodramatic and overwrought, you can see how producer Big Dev wins for allowing his lush backround the space it needs and Red keeps the song's format hard and uncompromising, a successful contrast. Beyond this, Red Cafe sounds rejuvenated, practiced. He has acquired a self assurance that is tangible in his delivery. He rides the beat in a series of cadences that all work, his punchlines are straightforward but memorable. His catchy couplets evoke a New York Ludacris or perhaps more accurately, a Brooklyn 50 Cent. (In his prime)

Hottest In Da Hood - Red Cafe

This strong showing is only reinforced on "Hottest in the Hood", another minimal but hypnotic loop that leaves the listener feeling as if they're in good hands. If you're not buying this try going 50 seconds in, listen through the hook and try to imagine hearing that at crushing decibels in a club while the entire room chants along in unison. Red's ear for beats and newfound swagger have me interested for the time being. More then anything else they give the listener hope, you can never turn your back on an artist for good.

A Diss You Might’ve Missed: Identity

How am I not myself?

Ah, the bite. That oldest of grievance, irrationally juvenile and fundamentally Hip Hop. In our beloved art form there is no such thing as influence, no borrowing in a genre built on sampled beats and melodies; style is a wonderfully organic and sacred possession. Birthed without assistance in the cavernous recesses of the ghetto youth’s brain and brought to life for the masses to indulge but never to learn from. From T-Pain to Raekwon to the Rocksteady Crew to the first kids who played around with arrows and outlines on the 2 train the insistence and ownership of individual style has been intrinsic to Hip Hop. Anger over perceived biting has produced some of our most brilliant enraged ranting, the need to be different, to separate oneself from the mainstream co-opting of a style has produced moments of truly inspired “originality”.

I’m from upstate New York, about 75 miles North of the city in a small former foliage destination tucked into the Hudson Valley. Perhaps out of proximity, one of my earliest forays into Hip Hop was developing an affinity for Chris Palko, an MC who goes by the moniker Cage, (an acronym that stands for Cancer, AIDS, Government, Environment) a white boy repping the underground with a taste for the macabre hailing from Middletown, about 20 minutes South on route 17. Cage, along with Necro and his brother Ill Bill, practiced a horror core which held weight in certain New York circles in the mid 90s. Cage spit in tight, nasal bursts of practiced energy, mainly focusing on sadism, mayhem and hard drug abuse.

In 1997, off the strength of two warped Necro produced singles (“Radiohead” and “Agent Orange”) Cage was featured in the Source’s Unsigned Hype column. The obviously talented but unfocused rapper would continue to toil away on the underground circuit. His atmospheric and appropriately titled Movies for the Blind off Eastern Conference wouldn’t receive its release for another five years. But in 1998, another technically sound white sociopath made it into The Source’s Unsigned Hype column. His name was Marshall Mathers, condensed to his initials Eminem. He was a kid out of Detroit of all places who had made a name for himself by regularly placing in organized MC competitions. Within a few months he was on Dr. Dre’s floundering Aftermath imprint readying his debut. This obviously bred envy and animosity between two rappers who shared tastes and styles. Cage aired out his grievance with “The Illest 4 Letter Word”.

Cage_-_Illest_4_Letter_Word.mp3 - cage

Cage found the perfect backdrop for his assault. It’s a simple repetitive loop, a creaky, watermarked player piano pounding away in a haunted saloon. This song isn’t here for its obscurity or to give me a topic to go off on. I’ve always genuinely loved “The Illest 4 Letter Word” on its own merits as a raw seminar on menace. The death threats are graphic but skirt absurdity thanks to utter conviction. Cage advertises himself as someone filled with hatred and there’s an intense personal disdain made crystal clear by the artist, this isn’t a publicity stunt. He rips Em a new asshole for lack of originality and being from Michigan. In the third verse, Mathers is never even mentioned and Cage simply goes off on a lyrical exhibition of masterful dusted delivery displaying exactly why Cage’s troubled intensity was such fertile ground for inspiration.

Mathers officially refuted Cage’s claims. He also responded with brilliant punchlines on two different songs, one off The Slim Shady LP, ("Role Model") and one ("Get You Mad") which is still my favorite Eminem punchline. (“Wagin wars/jumped on stage and sprayed Cage with Agent Orange/and wiped my ass with his page in The Source”. For the record, “Orange” is one of eleven words in the English language that don’t rhyme with anything.) In addition, I’ve always felt the line “I’ll bite your motherfuckin style, just to make it fresher” off “I Just don’t Give a Fuck” was directed at Cage, perhaps Em got something early on it takes some many years to understand, and some never do. We still can’t be sure that Marshall Mathers was influenced by Chris Palko, but for a moment let’s assume his Slim Shady persona was inspired by Cage’s American Gothic.

Mathers found a muse in Slim Shady, a deranged dick head that gave voice to all the wounded pride and pent up rage Eminem buried in boastful, elaborate punchlines. Shady could call out your favorite obnoxious celebrity, encourage statutory rape and take his baby mother’s corpse to the lake with his daughter securely fastened in a car seat. This brutal honesty and antagonistic assertiveness helped the artist find himself. He used it to mine his personal demons for great songwriting. He created a counterculture badge he’d wear with pride as he spit in the face of the status quo and it was the catalyst for some of his most deranged, brilliant moments. Moments, with no disrespect to Chris Palko, that offered a clarity and insight Cage simply wasn’t capable of, there’s a very select few who ever have been (And in fact with introspective efforts like Hell’s Winter he’s somewhat emulated his protégé). Cage was a springboard, a starting off point for one of the largest, most important personalities to grace the stage and he should be honored as such. I’m not saying the world is without biters, that low, talentless hack bereft of ideas. But for every critic lining up to bash the Knux, remember: We all get our inspiration somewhere. Even the great ones occasionally need a nudge in the right direction.

Wow This is Fucking Great

They said this day would never come

I totally stole this from Byron Crawford. You need to have the perfect storm of experience here. Anyone who has read "Dreams from my Father" and has a history with Baltimore Club will love this. I was just compelled to watch "Pork Chops & Onion Gravy" and "Watch Out for the Big Girls" five times in a row laughing my ass off. Every once in a while, I actually miss Baltimore.

The Second Line

Rappers B.G. and C-Murder really aren't so different. Both were raised in fucked up areas of Southern New Orleans on the Mississippi, Corey Miller coming up in the infamous Calliope projects, Chris Dorsey hailing from the 13th Ward. Both had to deal with difficult losses early in life. For C it was the death of his little brother Kevin, for B.G. it was his father at the age of 12. Both are less prominent members of their powerhouse labels yet arguably the best rappers to come out of each. Both communicate through weary monotones yet manage to convey hard earned experience and sadness with each bar. Both have faced tremendous personal hardships, the Baby Gangsta having a promising career derailed by an addiction to heroin and C-Murder looking down the barrel of a life sentence in prison.

In 2006, with C-Murder behind bars, both came together for a powerful anthem that took over the City of New Orleans in the Spring following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I went down to do some relief work during that Spring Break my Senior year. My University sucks because the real trouble areas of the city were deemed too dangerous for white college students and we were shipped to nearby Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish to help a bunch of blue collar workers from the nearby Exxon oil refinery who already had flood insurance and FEMA trailers gut their water damaged houses. The best part of the experience was sticking around after the buses rolled back to Maryland and hanging out with a friend from home who attended Tulane. The extra week I stayed we went out and partied with the city of New Orleans every night, it was a celebratory time there as people were beginning to trickle back, primarily from Houston but also from all over the world. (Then again, in all the times I've ever been to NO I've never found the city in anything but celebration.)

"Yall Heard of Me" is a dark and menacing song. A choir of Seraphim and tolling church bells lend an operatic scope to the mournful synth wailing through the track as the drum and bass pound mercilessly. In spite of it's chest thumping homicide talk I can't hear it without smiling, remembering the reactions in the bars and clubs from The Boot to the French Quarter and how much joy this simple sneer of a banger brought to the city. It's bleak and confusing and quintessentially New Orleans.

We Are All Witnesses

It's not everyday you get to cross an item off your bucket list but today is one of those for me. I've never had the privilege of seeing Lebron James in action, but tonight I will be on hand to bear witness. Kobe dropped 61 Monday night, I'm expecting nothing less than a classic performance. In honor of the occasion here's a little Bone Thugs. (Sorry Ray Cash) If I was a good blogger I'd dig up some grainy demos or obscure gems but instead I'm just posting a few of my old favorites.

A Diss You Might've Missed: This Is A Man's World

When they close the book on Alvin Nathaniel Joiner, let the record show that before becoming the face of “Pimp My Ride”, before “XXX: State of the Union”, and “X-Files” cameos, the MC known to the world as Xzibit had his moments. The Alkaholiks affiliated rapper from Los Angeles via Detroit will be remembered for his first two contributions “At the Speed of Life” and “40 Dayz & 40 Nightz”. Like Nas, Xzibit cloaked his impoverished hood in mysticism and biblical allusions. He was most effective over dramatic, string heavy production in which his gravelly baritone fills with passion and intensity. You hear songs like “Paparazzi” and believe for Xzibit, his artistic integrity is an all or nothing struggle.

Perhaps this is the reason why no rapper ever suffered more from gaining an all star production team and the backing of what, at the time, was the most powerful label in the game. Xzibit was a leader of the underground, someone whose identity was based on his very otherness and unwillingness to conform or compromise. When he leant his growl to voice-over narration for MTV2 shows about conspicuous consumption and tailor made, cookie cutter singles about nothing over bloated, Storch-era Dre beats we didn’t believe him. The raging, righteous underdog was nothing but a career move from an intelligent and talented MC, easily, carelessly traded in once a major label came calling.

A microcosm of Xzibit’s promising career and where it went wrong can be found in his brief beef with So So Def impresario Jermaine Dupri. In a 2002 interview with XXL magazine, Dupri got a bit full of himself and started running his mouth, claiming the title of best producer in the game and that Dr. Dre and Timbaland couldn’t do what he does. Dre and Timbaland were pissed, and in a fashion typical of that moment, in which all of Rocafella participated in Jay v. Nas and G-Unit/Murda Inc. became a battle royale, Eminem and Xzibit followed their label head into the fray.

Xzibit’s roast of Jermaine is a mini “Ether” (A song I consider the gold standard for any diss). I say that not in terms of devastating ramifications or cultural importance but sheer effectiveness. It’s at once childish taunting and eviscerating character assassination over a Neptunes beat ripe for the taking. It’s humorous and a scathing career critique of the man, so damaging because it’s so on point. This is Barry Bonds swinging on a piñata with a spiked bat and X makes the most of his opportunity. To this day, when there’s some obnoxious, amorphous, talentless rapper who seems to hang around through means of familiarity and the willingness to co-opt any and every developing trend to get three minutes on Clear Channel I’ll ask myself “Why it always gotta sound like the next man’s shit?”

Unfortunately for Xzibit, a new jack on Aftermath presumably and understandably trying to fit in and make a name for himself, there was more than one label head with Dre’s name in his mouth at the time, and that irritant was none other than Suge Knight. With the relevance of his label already nearly non-existent, Suge took increasingly brazen shots at Dr. Dre, Snoop, Eminem and everyone affiliated with the collective. Even this wasn’t enough to garner publicity for Suge and his once mighty Death Row imprint. In all likelihood with no response, Suge would’ve continued to fade into his role in history as the super villain at the heart of the East Coast West Coast beef, there was only one person who couldn’t let the aggression stand.

Snoop Doggy Dogg, arguably Dre’s greatest collaborator and ghost writer (with all due respect to Jay-Z and Ice Cube) took Xzibit, Eminem and Dr. Dre to task for what he perceived as hypocrisy. They were all loading up on JD, the easy target while the big bad gangster Suge Knight is saying much worse, ungodly shit about all of them and their mothers. Xzibit weakly responded that his beef with Dupri was “just hip hop” and because of the fact that he had a life and a family, a beef with a character like Suge was something the MC couldn’t afford. Snoop responded to Xzibit and Suge with one devastating blow.

Snoop Dogg - Pimp Slap (Suge diss) - snoop dogg

“Pimp Slap” made a brief run on the mixtape circuit then disappeared. It did nothing to further Snoop’s career or cement his place as a West Coast icon. It’s a song the listener understands in context as something the man had to make. He was being disrespected, called out by name and Snoop was obligated to respond. The very name of the track implies his intentions, a pimp slap is something reserved for a ho, a sign of open disregard and disrespect. This came at a time when Suge was still seen as a dangerous entity who had gotten away with one or two of the most infamous murders in the history of Hip Hop.

The song is quintessentially West Coast, the funkadelic bassline and hook, the Quik-ish key work and scratching and of course Snoop. This track displays none of the tight, technical proficiency Xzibit unleashes in his attack on Jermaine Dupri, Snoop seemingly freestyles through half of it and more than a few punchlines are throw away. But this declaration of war is towering, imperial swagger, screw faced with a middle finger raised from start to finish. It’s drenched in Los Angeles reference, neighborhood pride and crew love. Intimate knowledge of Suge’s prison situation, damning swipes at Death Row’s failing health, when Snoop straight calls the unassailable Suge a bitch you’re floored. The Crenshaw role call is my favorite moment. In general this song serves as a reminder, that beyond cutesy commercials and celebrity bullshit Snoop is still Snoop, a Crip born and raised in Long Beach.

While haters can step back and call this diss lazy or predicated on shallow gang feuding, for me it’s instructive regarding an X factor in what it is that makes a diss track effective. While Xzibit used every device in the book well in his tongue lashing, Snoop ultimately did more damage with less ability. I can’t say context doesn’t play a part, but it’s in the music as well. There’s a simple, quiet confidence, a menace, a heart in “Pimp Slap” that simply isn’t present in the JD diss. There's a genuine grievance being aired, a personal intimate familiarity and anger that avoids the typical, publicity minded industry beef. In his battle, Xzibit’s playing the school bully, while Snoop is standing up to his and knocking him on his ass. What does it mean to keep it real? Being gangster? Conveying authenticity through your rhymes? Being true to yourself? I don’t know, but Snoop does.

The Children's Crusade

While there are several worthy candidates, Dead Prez are probably the most successful example of what could be classified as a second generation in political minded Hip Hop. The duo offer an overeducated, passionate brand of protest rap. They blend Public Enemy’s anger and X Clan’s spirituality to deliver a fresh, fact oriented critique out to challenge our system in almost every aspect. They have separated themselves from their stylistic forefathers by refusing to settle for blanket statements or hinting at foul play and corruption. Rather than vaguely referencing an ominous Anti-Nigger Machine, their interests lie in dissecting and laying the parts of said machinery out in the cold light of day for the listener to inspect. Statistics and eulogies for Fred Hampton are commonplace in their verse but never feel forced. For this reason, Dead Prez strike the listener as more KRS than the obvious Chuck D the group name checks themselves on “I’m a African”, the first true song on their idyllic, unapologetic 2000 debut Let’s Get Free.

Stic.Man and M-1 are an immensely talented pair that tackle each track on Let’s Get Free with the combination of intelligence and charisma that allowed the Brooklyn transplants to steal the show, both on and off the stage in the 2006 concert film/love letter Dave Chapelle’s Block Party. They have a tendency to wax poetic on the dire issues they address, which are far ranging, but are good enough to avoid heavy handedness and often achieve poignancy. You find yourself liking them even as their content is almost exclusively the stuff of fire and brimstone. Still, DP is at their most effective when they step away from sociology and history lectures and make their political points by grounding them in personal experience, probably the reason why I consider They Schools as their best song to date.

While often criticized for their production, to me nothing complements DP’s message like their urgent, ominous, future shock soundscape of sonic wailing present on “African”, “Enemy Lines”, “Police State”, “Assassination” and even the somber instrumental “You’ll find a way” to name a few. With the exception of the busy, choppy Pistol none of the beats truly suck.

Dead Prez are at their most obnoxious when radiating their arrogance, which knows no bounds. Of course, this arrogance goes hand in hand with their youthful exuberance and without it the album would have no teeth, yet when they veer off the political and start literally lecturing their audience as to how to live their lives you want to tell Stic.Man to roast less bowls and come down off his fucking high horse. The interlude/song “Discipline” is particularly painful in this respect as a young protagonist turns down a cookout to “do maths.” Then we’re treated to a lecture on the song’s title, given by the worst R&B singer ever DP must have found chilling outside a storefront mosque on Flatbush.

While not always so explicit, essentially DP displays how they achieve their revolutionary chic on the Kanye West assisted Hip Hop when Stic famously and eloquently poses the question “would you rather have a Lexus or justice? A dream or some substance? A Beamer, a necklace or freedom?” In setting up this all or nothing dichotomy DP suggest that our only way to enact change is taking up arms and throwing barrels of oil into the Hudson River. While this is an absurd demand, I suppose I sympathize, it can’t be easy writing fiery protest rap about drafting petitions and actually voting for mayor.

As they struggled within the industry, and one can only assume with their identity as artists, the philosophy of Dead Prez went in a direction not unlike the Civil Rights Movement they studied and referenced constantly. In their Turn Off the Radio mixtape series, leading up to their sophomore release “Revolutionary But Gangsta” their message was re-packaged as one of violent defiance, an advocacy of a sort of militaristic outlaw existence, shunning any sort of belief in a future fueled through knowledge of self so strongly promoted in LGF. This change of face is represented in their lead single “Hell Yeah” in which the Stic and M-1 propose a number of ways to hustle money, including robbing a (conveniently white) pizza delivery guy and insurance scams. They make no apologies in the song, or take a moment to ponder the consequences their actions have on others in the community.

RBG contains a lot of gun play and soldier talk which is supposedly different or revolutionary because their agitation is aimed at cops or anyone not of their revolution, but often the listener is forced to remind themselves of that due to the monotony of subject and similarity toward every other unimaginative crack narrative so popular at the moment RBG was released. It’s a message fraught with the same contradictions and difficult questions that plagued the Black Panther Party they so clearly emulate. In fact, it’s right on par with 2pac Shakur’s THUG LIFE movement, preceding Dead Prez’s rhetorical shift by over a decade, so it makes sense that in 2006 they teamed up with the Outlawz to release an awful album no one cared about. In comparison with LGF, their philosophy since comes off as weary nihilism at best (“W-4”) and calculated posturing at worst (The horrifically titled “I have a dream too”) and for a fan it’s a difficult switch to stomach.

Regardless of what they have become, we will always have Let’s Get Free to remember Stic.man and M-1 by. Beyond their issues, as Dead Prez re-imagine George Orwell with gusto, woo women with games of chess and beg us to eat curried falafel and barbeque tofu for our own good, they represent the eternal hope of the young, educated revolutionaries. As they begin to read and comprehend the vast, ugly history our world is built upon, Let’s Get Free is their shock, their repulsion, their conviction that the world is not only redeemable but worth saving and that they will be the ones to dam the flood. It’s kind of stupid and embarrassing and every once in a while you’ll laugh out loud at the audacity of their hope, but it’s also refreshing.