3 of my favorite tracks on Kiss Of Death, which all happen to be in a row on tracks 10-12:

"Real Hip Hop" f/ Sheek Louch
"Two-thirds of the L-O, where the X at?" I kind of resent the fact that 5 years after his inescapable commercial peak Swizz Beatz is suddenly a way better and more versatile producer than his monochromatic early hits let on he could be. Maybe it's because he started sampling more or he got some new gear, I dunno, but I like a lot more of what he does lately, especially this, Curtis Mayfield sample with spiraling strings, and his voice sounds awesome on the hook, where all he does is yell "how y'all doin' out there? how y'all doin' out there? THE HOOD'S HOT! THE HOOD'S HOT!", which really sounds like some kind of hypeman intro but works surprisingly well as a chorus. Sheek's half of the last verse is the best, goofy lines like "you need a gimmick, go run around the block with Puff / get a black phone, rent some of Jigga's stuff".

"Shoot Outs" f/ Styles P.
Big boomy dramatic kind of beat with metal guitars that I usually hate but this is good, Kiss and P. going back and forth finishing each other's rhymes "We Gonna Make It"-style, (I always wonder how they write like that, if they actually write alternating lines or if just one of them writes most of it).

"Still Feel Me"
The 2 reasons that the last couple years I came around from disliking Jada for a long time to kinda feeling him these days are (1) those silly lines on "Knock Yourself Out" and the "Family Affair" rmx where he talks about "doing my dance" give me this great mental image of this big fat black gangsta who's just GOTTA DANCE, his boys think it's kind of embarrassing and play the wall, but he doesn't give a fuck, he stays on the floor all night yelling requests, and (2) all his insecure vulnerable stuff like it really hurts him in his heart that he's not in everyone's top 5, that his first LP didn't go platinum and he didn't even recoup on the budget, and anyway this song is a great crystallization of (2), just kind of talking to himself over a mellow synthy Alchemist beat like the one he did on God's Son, no hook, and after the one long verse is over it just slowly winds down into silence.

I was gonna do my 3 least favorite tracks too, but it was all easy target shit, the Mariah/Scott Storch one (which Josh tried to convince me is great but I'm not seeing it), the one where Pharrell says "you can stink up the room with that big old ass", the one where Jada tries to sing the hook with his horrible constipated voice and it should be endearing or funny but it's just annoying.

cormega, the bay and cars, murder dog:

Was going to the Bay something new for you?

Hell yeah! It was definitely something new for me because I seen how niggaz was livin. Let me tell you how the average nigga thinks. When I used to watch videos and see niggaz from California with the old muscle cars in the videos I used to think they was bums. I used to think that's the only car they had. But when I came out to the Bay niggaz put me on the game. A nigga might have an old '69 Camaro that costs $40,000. He might have spent $20,000 just on the engine. Since I came home, I got me a Camaro now. I got me a 64 now. Them niggaz put me on muscle cars and shit like that.

Why don't people from New York fuck with classic cars?

Because niggaz don't know the world. Niggaz fuck with regular shit like Benz. They fuck with what everyone else has.

listening to a cormega album from 2001 called the realness.



looking folded up and pensive like he always does.
but on the back cover he stands under project doorway in baggy grey hoodie, clean complex braids.

i'm frustrated by not being able to describe why i'm feeling mega right now without just describing why i love new york or whatever rappers from the last ten and a half years. he's got this roughness but like he's just flowing like a motherfucker, so warm and automatic. he's got this whole nyc drug game mythology he can reach into and we know he was really in the streets and we want to know exactly who he fucked with and who he might be fucking with now and what he did then and what he might be doing now. whatever, right because that could be anyone.
so, i don't know. he's cold as fuck and perfect in every way, completely pure and real.
almost every verse is this perfect picture, this pure realness, those read-along verses to search up on ohhla and he raps at the exact same speed you read in your head.

i gave you power conceptual shit.
references you only get because of ghetto qua'ran.
staring at the heavens, secluded in a tinted jeep.

beats, he doesn't get on them unless they're perfect. drums gritty, granular, real drums but the sad slow piano, creaking violins crisp and clear like iceberg lettuce and reading glasses. if nas could pick beats like mega does, fill in the blank.

seen some of the biggest drug dealers blow fortunes in bathrooms
niggas be sniffing like vacuums
reminisce to 88 the year crack ruled
i had nike delta forces with them clear capsules
five for forty
crackheads like, i only buy from cory

a video for three kings now there.
slim thug, t.i. and bun b.
beautiful wetlooking expensivelooking videos for rappers that came out of nowhere and still sell records at barbershops.
nighttime. club scenes. thick girls that's caramel brown. pop trunks.
slim thug does his drank by the pint, dro by the pound verse and still seems stiff and we're still hopeful.
t.i. with a shirtful of dangling pieces and pieces and chains and chains leans on a clk500 on 20s and smiles with a mouthful of diamonds, following through on his promise to outgrill flip.
bun b rides through the opening on a chrome chopper and looks casual and pretty iceless and appeals again for pimp c's release.
check background for: paul wall, esg, lil 3rd, yung ro, various grit boys, boss hogg outlaws, and probably dozens of other minor houston mixtape rappers that only other minor houston mixtape rappers will be able to recognize.

from my mia x cd:

GHETTO QUESTIONAIRE

1. ARE YOU A PLAYER
YES / NO
2. ARE YOU A HUSTLER?
YES / NO
3. DO YOU HATE ON OTHER PLAYERS AND HUSTLERS?
YES / NO
4. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?
YES / NO
5. DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
YES / NO
6. DO YOU GET HIGH?
YES / NO
7. HAVE YOU SEEN MORE THAN FIVE GEE'S AT ONE TIME?
YES / NO
8. DO YOU HAVE A CAR?
YES / NO
9. IS NO LIMIT RECORDS YOUR FAVORITE RAP LABEL?
YES / NO
10. DO YOU OWN A GUN?
YES / NO
11. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL?
YES / NO
12. DO YOU PRACTICE SAFE SEX?
YES / NO
13. DO YOU LIKE RAPPERS THAT RAP ABOUT OTHER RAPPERS?
YES / NO
14. DO YOU LIKE GANGSTA RAP?
YES / NO

If you answer yes to 1 2 4 5 12 - you are a No Limit Soldier.

If you answer no to 1 2 4 5 12 - you are a suckar.

there's no retroactive or whatever repping of no limit by people that are just starting to get into southern stuff, like cash money gets. master p is still a joke and the beats are still generic and no limit rappers can't ride beats and their songs about cars aren't that funny. okay this might be the best no limit album ever not counting a few master p albums that are untouchable. it's called unlady like. it's by mia x. she had one album before and one after this one, which came out in 1997. i bought it this summer with a stack of old no limit stuff at a used cd store in calgary, alberta.

the cover, mia with her head rolled way back against the back of an oxblood leather chair, feet up on broad, shiny desk, scuffed soles of white highheels and budles of hundred dollar bills in foreground, chandelier and gold framed album covers hung on red wallpaper in background.

i always used to imagine her as a thin faced gully bitch in american flag bikini with tattoos on her arms and thighs, posing with desert eagle in front of mercedes convertible, but she's like the complete opposite of that. inside the cd, her wide square body in shoulderpadded pantsuit with low neck to reveal:
1. tiny diamond medallion on gold chain around her big neck.
2. half of a bright red heart tattoo, with maybe a name written inside of it.
3. her flat wide breasts and stringy white bra.
she has:
1. pretty, round face.
2. beautiful big eyes.
3. her hair done up cleanly in thick curls on the top of her head.
4. antique gold rings and long white nails on her thick fingers.
in the other pictures:
1. she's wearing expensive looking blouses with complex patters and she has short straight hair.
2. she's wearing all dark fur and black sunglasses and crossing her arms across her chest and looking sad and resilient.
3. she's got her head on top of a robed, barefooted statue holding a bearded mask and standing under a stone dome.

the first song is a no limit posse song with master p, c-murder, silkk, and mystikal. and the second song is one with foxy brown and p and it's called the party don't stop. the third song is called i pitty u and it's just mia alone and the beat sounds like a cleaned down no limit version of niggas bleed or niggas bleed sounds like a beautiful nyc version of a sad no limit beat. and she sounds like slow devastating biggie from the dark tracks on life after death. she has this really conventional flow, sounding like mid 90s nyc superrappers with slowmotion charisma, using all kinds of old, basic rap tricks and never raising her voice or working to make things rhyme and she sounds clean and hard and spits rhymes as grimy and real as anyone repping the tank. you got the nerve to spit vicious / yeah i heard ya, but abortion / is the only type of murder you bitches did / tell them niggas stop writing your rhymes / cause real bitches speak they own minds / i pity you / and don't come unless ya slingin some iron / because we tryna dead ya whole crew / i pity you.

seven is an intro where she tells how much love she's got for salt and papa because they did it ghetto style and got platinum plaques. track eight is i'll take ya man 97. she does the oldschool flow perfect, sounding swaggery and rough and talking filthy about fucking niggas just for spite and ruining wedding plans. when she squeals over the outro i
in a red wallpaper/gold bedroom that's just off the office in the cover picture. on a tall, expensive bed. she's wearing the white pantsuit and sitting on the edge of the bed, kicking off the white highheels onto the hardwood floor and rolling over on her back with her knees up, which i kneel between and she pulls my t shirt up over my head and unbuttons and unzips my jeans and rubs my dick thru my underwear. unbutton her top and peel it back and she pulls down her bra and i kiss her breasts, fat neck and sticky lips. take off her pants and thin shiny panties and eat her dark, clean pussy. slide up over her and let her guide me into the right place and fuck her while she closes her eyes and breathes deeply.

there's a song called let's get it straight with a mystikal chorus that's good.

there's a tru reunion with c-murder, and a silkk.

there's a song called all n's that has the same break as every hardcore bounce song ever but also crazy arabian flutes and shit too.

there's a song called you & me that's about her man. she was a good girl and he was in the streets, but he was a gentleman and he respected her and she fell in love with him and he fell in love with her and her moans drowned out the sounds of the street and he told her everything about himself. they had a kid. he got murdered.

the next song is about her best friend jil, who got murdered, too. the beat is like the keyboard sounds from when master p sounded like fake california but all swooshy and sweeping over soft drums and ready to make you cry while she shouts out all the women she knows who died before they should have.

the last song is a prayer of thanks.

My main man Jigsaw over at Dust Mightz has been keeping me educated on sources of samples in current hits (he must have the same crate of LPs as Kanye), and lately Dustmightz has put up radio shows. Its usually pretty good stuff, and you can't do any better than free.

music is good

So over the weekend Pastor Betha was a no show for his own welcome back concert, and the replacement headliners were the fucking goonie goo goo DIPSET! Definitely no coincidence there. Best part of that article, though, is the 2nd to last graph where Shaheem refers to one of Ja Rule's songs as a "humdinger". WTF? Josh (GN's liquorporn) was also trying to explain to me what was funny about this Terror Squad article, my guesses were "touch his chest" and the part where Fat Joe refers to himself in the 3rd person, but he was referring to the Armageddon quote "I got a group of chicks begging me".

Other juciest gossip this week is about how Chingy is splitting from Disturbing The Peace and fired his/Luda's manager, Chaka Zulu. Now what I'm hearing is that Luda's cleaning house now and firing everyone around him except Chaka, and dissolving DTP, although I assume he's still tight with everyone else in the clique. Kind of a weird time for it all to go down, though with Shawnna and I-20's albums about to drop. DTP never really had much of a group dynamic anyway, Golden Grain was a pretty boring album.

The City Paper's Best of Baltimore issue honored several Gov't Names favorites this year, including K-Swift (Best Club Music DJ), Comp (Best MC), 92Q (Best Radio Station), Bossman (Best Local Summer Jam) and Paula Campbell (Best Local Ambassador To The Mainstream). There was also a Best Mixtape category, and I don't even have any locally produced mixtapes, so I need to get on that shit. I've also heard that Comp is about to drop his first mixtape.

The craziest sign of Paula Campbell's regional hugeness, though, is that she did a radio ad for Shoe City. The old Shoe City ads, that have been on local TV and radio forever, probably at least since the late 90's, if not the mid 90's, feature this random girl rapping about Shoe City, ending with the classic line "your city/is my city/and my city/is Shoe City". There hasn't been a new version of this ad for at least 5 years. But Paula's on it now, singing her own jingle. She also shot a video for "Take You Home" a few months ago, but I haven't heard anything else about it since. Maybe she can get it on BET Uncut!

EDIT: I was down in Takoma Park today and WKYS was running an ad for their back to school concert that had Paula on the bill and referred to her as "D.C.'s own Paula Campbell". Fucking Washingtonians trying to claim her as their own! Actually, I think the high school she went to is closer to D.C. than Baltimore but still, fuck D.C. She reps Baltimore.

Labels: 92Q, Baltimore City Paper, Bosslady, Comp, K-Swift, Paula Campbell

pt 2

The Rough Guide To Rick Rock Productions

1. Jay-Z f/ Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek - "Change The Game"
2. Fabolous f/ Nate Dogg - "Can't Deny It"
3. The Federation f/ E-40 - "Hyphy"
4. Busta Rhymes - "Make It Clap"
5. Busta Rhymes f/ Mariah Carey and Flipmode Squad - "I Know What You Want"
6. Ma$e - "Breathe Stretch Shake"
7. Angie Martinez f/ Sacario and Lil Mo - "If I Could Go"
8. Jay-Z f/ Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek and Lil Mo - "Parking Lot Pimpin'"
9. Jay-Z f/ Memphis Bleek and Snoop Dogg - "Get Your Mind Right Mami"
10. Xzibit f/ Snoop Dogg - "DNA (Drugs and Alcohol)"
11. Xzibit - "Symphony In X Major"
12. Method Man - "Ain'ta Damn Thing Changed"
13. Yukmouth f/ Outlawz - "We Gone Ride"
14. 2Pac f/ C-Bo, E.D.L., Kastro, Napoleon and Storm - "Tradin' War Stories"

(RR's work with E-40 would have to be a Rough Guide of its own, but I'm not well versed enough in 40 Water's catalog to do that one)

- picture of set! speed! crew! (whenever i say the name i imagine a

scratchy cut-up of oldschool rap djs saying each word.... SET! SPEED!

CREW! READY FOR! ACTION!)
taken at southland mall wal-mart photostudio, regina, saskatchewan

- dancehall nite at 777 every wednesday
row of warehouses with big metal doors/signs
dirt parking lot across the street right by the railyard
parked in front:
dolphin shaped dolphin colored bmw coupes with tops down
thick eyebrowed 5-series
ivory monte carlos with chrome grills and t tops
black denalis on factory rims
the dancefloor is supposed to look like a moon
it's scuffed up but it still looks cool, sort of pale yellow
the club used to be called texas moon and played country music
dancehall nite is the best and the busiest time
the blackest prettiest girls under red lights
hair all braided and shirts showing off a soft crescent of bottom belly skin bright orange/yellow/green and escorted by boys with gold rimmed glasses and ironnned shirts
mid 30s jamaican guys with trimmed beards plaid polo shirts and khaki shorts leaning against rail around dancefloor while their wives dance with other wives in bright blowy blouses and high skirts especially to the token soca records that are all about tasting your mangos
middle manager looking guys who check their suit jackets
and the cowboyhatted secretaries that rub up on them and teach them how to dance
kneesock robotic japanese girls from the university with expensive purses clustered in clumsily armdancing groups
goofy energetic white dudes in lacoste shirts drunk and jumping up on shit to dance and everyone cheering them on except their girlfriends leaning against a pillar with a black adidas tracksuit jacket baggy jeans and a wool rastafarian hat
serious real gangsta native boys and men that might be indian posse and run the kids that run the shadows beside abandoned hood buildings and bicycle deliver sets to anyone that doesn't want to leave their home with dark satin jackets from their reserve over crisp white undershirts and red rags under orioles caps-- tucked into the half circle padded booths along one wall
pretty girls in skirts beside them that will be driven home in brown 84 cadillac fleetwoods to tiny houses with blacked out windows and tenfoot high chainlink fences

- dour, holding record
i think that dude's from ghana or something
top left, pointing at photographer
he works at his dad's car dealership
used cars, two lots, one in regina and one in saskatoon
speaks english with french accent
big serious eyes and skinny arms
in white rag, pointing at dude's shirt
he's in an r&b group called meloxie too
they did a show with sean paul and baby blue soundcrew
he goes to scott collegiate
white guy
he's the dj
looks like the guy from the royal tenenbaums, the guy that plays tennis
pinwheel hat, pulling on shirt
we see him driving his tiny brand new silver tercel with black hubs in
square circuits around north central
we sold him a pound for 1600 and he said it was already sold before he even got it and bought another a week later

- when they come in they're wearing all white
those set speed shirts and white on white reebok hightops
giving dap and little hugs to the other people in the city that are doing things
on stage sorting out microphones and laughing
rapping over instrumentals everyone knows with new choruses about weed or girls or doing bad

The Federation - "Go Dumb"
New Bay Area group from me and Ethan's and E-40's favorite semi-slept on hitmaker Rick Rock! Double R cuts the beat from the same cloth as "Breath Stretch Shake", which is one of those beats that's less fun every time I hear it, but it's got that wonderful burbling synth from "Can't Deny It" running under the hook. I think post-BEP the "get retarded" meme should be officially retired from hip hop, but I'm still down with going dumb if it's this hyphy.

Memphis Bleek - "Yes"
Jay shows up on the intro but just for a sec to tell Memph to "go in" like he's Ghostface or something, and I'm starting to mentally place Bleek and Joe Budden in a class together because they both mostly only sound really good over dance-y Just Blaze beats (I know, who doesn't?), but I didn't even realize this was JB (or notice the way the high pitched squealy bits recall "When The Last Time") until someone pointed it out on ILM. I swear, the dude's bag of tricks gets deeper every month. What I love about this is the distorted, almost NIN-y drum sound, and how every kick drum hit is accompanied with a tambourine hit (maybe I'm not describing that right but it's one of my favorite production tricks ever, the best examples are "Can't Deny It" (again!) and Cassidy's "Get No Better"). This week Bleek told Mixtape Monday (Shaheem stand up!) that the big homey is giving "Yes" two weeks to build some more momentum, and if it doesn't do anything, they'll pull it and try a different single. Also, they're taking a vote on that MTV page, and right now the poll is anti-"Yes" by a 2 to 1 ratio, so vote on that shit!

Alchemist f/ The Game and Prodigy - "Dead Bodies"
For the bicoastal collab at the beginning of 1st Infantry, Alc comes on some weird shit, lo-fi piano sample beat that occasionally unravels into something a little too MF Doom-sounding, but it's still cool. It seems like everyone's still very tentative about the Game, keeping close track of his ratio of good to lousy guest verses, and this is another strike against him, he even recycles some rhymes from his "Stomp" verse (the double XL/sex sells couplet, except now he's trying to fuck Trina instead of Mya). Alc played this when he was on Clinton Sparks's show the other night and at one point they had a good laugh about how "white people in the club be loving Got It Twisted". I haven't heard white hip hop dudes try to otherize whiteness like that since...well, since the last time Ethan IMed me.

P. Diddy - "Run This City"
Produced by that Boston cracker Clinton Sparks! The beat is spare and wiggly and it's got a nice cut-and-paste hook, with Diddy going hard like he's got cred to fight for, but I love any time he sounds all pissed off like on "Victory" and "Come With Me".

In case anyone has ever been disappointed in this site for not taking its name literally, check this site's amazingly thorough collection of rappers' government names.

In Breihan's review of "Let Me In" last week¹, he touched on a point that Harvell made a while back about all the 'cold'-sounding hits on the radio over the summer. For one, I thought his counterexamples are weird: "No Problem"² and "Let Me In"³, which I always thought of as being on the more gothic end of what's on the radio right now. Admittedly, that spectrum is probably further in the cold/dark direction than it's been in at least a while. But "Lean Back" isn't even as 'dark' or unlikely a hit as it gets made out to be. I mean, people didn't really seem to bat an eye when "Never Scared" was huge last year and that's a lot more overtly grim than most of the big crunk hits since then.

And anyway, I'm not complaining, because mainstream rap is always going to be exciting to me in a way the underground can't be⁴, and I'd prefer if the pop stuff gets a little grimey for good measure. A little part of me can't help but applaud any time someone in the game has the balls to push anything a little raw into heavy rotation, whether I like it or not. I mean it's pretty cool that Fabolous picked "Breathe" for his first single⁵, considering most of his big hits have soft drums and sung hooks. Ethan is right that Fab's got great lyrics whether he's doing pop shit or street shit, and he shouldn't have to do boring hard NYC style tracks to get respect, but radio has enough girlie rap songs with daisy beats, so I don't mind if the some of the already-platinum dudes try to balance it out with the street cred grab.

¹ _{As a rule, if I'm picking nits over a Pitchfork review, it's probably just to be mean, but if it's Tom, then understand it's done with the intention of respectful discourse.}

² _{I like "No Problem" a lot less since I realized how much it sounds like Jay-Z's "Show You How".}

³ _{I think I have an aversion to rap beats with slightly offbeat cowbell parts, I might like "Let Me In" and "Friday Night" without them, but as is they both get on my fucking nerves.}

⁴ _{And vice versa, but that's in a completely different way.}

⁵ _{When he first upgraded it from a teaser to the official single, I was skeptical, because when a song gets promoted from street single to radio single like that, it's usually either that the song got such an overwhelming public demand that they had no choice, or that they didn't end up with any really radio-friendly pop joints, and I figured it was the former because I wasn't really wild about "Breathe" at first, but that shit has grown on me big time.}

the game ft. lil jon and a weird tuba thing! try the the mp3 while it lasts. shit i don't want to look like i'm riding game's dick but he's been pretty consistent lately. he's really nice on this, really rough, talking about having niggas coast to coast and hitting hometown clubs, and they've taught him to stay on the beat, too. even on hissy mp3 with clicks and fizzles i need to hear it so loud that it's causing a pain at the base of my ear.

Despite the fact that Def Jam has yet to give Baltimore's Comp a release date or a significant promotional push, they have made him a character in their new video game, Def Jam: Fight For NY. Weird.

Also, this is Comp's official website, and this is the website of the clique he used to run with.

Labels: Comp

i got a mil on it

the game dissing motherfucking yukmouth on the i got 5 on it beat!! i guess the story is that yukmouth was down with bang em smurf and domination and there was some video of yukmouth talking down on g-unit and game. game ran into yukmouth at a club and asked if they had a problem and he said they were cool, then game's brother started talking shit about yukmouth, i guess. yukmouth supposedly rolled up forty deep to the jim jones/game certified gangstas video, too.

he's so all over the place, he can sound really awkward and ugly on a track and then do stuff like this where his flow is tight and he's got all these deadly quotable lines. how you call yourself the icecream man / when master p took your name and your icecream van?

and now:

game over

yukmouth dissing game on the let me in beat!! he's going crazy on it too, furious, shouting. he's got lots of material to work with because game is sort of silly and might not be a real blood and posts disses to respected and thorough west coast niggas on his messageboard and had a tongue ring and went on dating shows and had yellow hair and got slapped by suge knight. but game's still got the first round.

release date: September 28th

01. Dear Father w/ Res
02. Back Up Off Me
03. Broken Glass
04. I Try w/ Mary J. Blidge
05. A Game
06. Around My Way w/ John Legend
07. We Know w/ Faith Evans
08. We Got the Beat w/ Res
09. Work It Out
10. Ghetto Show w/ Anthony Hamilton & Common
11. Black Girl Pain w/ Jean Grae
12. Never Been In Love
13. Beautiful Struggle
14. Rock On

That's the official tracklist (as far as I know), forget all the bootlegs. I'm glad he scrapped a lot of the songs from the early version and did some new stuff, I wasn't really feeling most of the stuff that leaked. I wish he did some joints for the album with the people he's been doing stuff with on mixtapes this year, like Styles P. and Fabolous and The Game and Killer Mike and Busta, it'd be more interesting to have some of those guys on a Kweli album. I knew "Lonely People" wouldn't make the cut, what's the point of even doing a song with a blatant Beatles sample that's either impossible or way too expensive to clear? I'm still not crazy about "I Try" as the first single, but Kweli never seems to have good first singles anyway. "Ghetto" should be better with Anthony Hamilton on it, if he becomes the go-to guy for hooks after "Why" I'd have no problem with that. I'm a little mad that "Peace Of Mind" (his single from the Building, Vol. 1 compilation) isn't on it, that's probably the best new Kweli song I've heard so far this year. "Around My Way" was originally a Jim Jones song on a Diplomats mixtape last year, but then suddenly Kweli and John Legend were on Chappelle's Show doing a song with the same "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" sample, so maybe Kanye jacked the idea or something. (The new Mos Def album is dropping 2 weeks after Kweli's, so I'm worried that Beautiful Struggle will be overshadowed by The New Danger, like when Quality was released around the same time as the Roots and Common put out albums and it seemed to be overshadowed by those. But fuck Mos, I've always liked Kweli better. Maybe Mos's album will be good too, hell, maybe he'll even be a good Ford Prefect, but for now, my attitude is Fuck Mos.)

swishahouse got fifteen million from warner bros. today.

mike jones is coming first. paul wall second. magno and the other guys later, maybe.

paul wall. he will still suck. his album will be chick magnet girl songs again and a song with killer mike and david banner. and it looks like this is the reason paul abandoned cham on some shady, impolite shit a few months ago and abruptly jumped back to the swishahouse camp. fuck paul wall.

mike jones will go platinum. he's got the south and he's got flip getting his video retired on 106&park and his album is going to be ten times better than u gotta feel me. he's going to have lots of goofy anthems and hard dirty beats (fuck flip and slim thug settling for five year old discount heatmakerz and neptunes beats) and vicious but cute subliminals to all the rappers in houston that can't get the money like he does and hate him for it (cham, no one believes the stories about you turning down all those deals. copywrite will get a rocafella deal before you do). he'll condense all of his best lines and ideas into one perfect package. get ready. (and king of the streets dropped today, if you really want to get ready. but it probably sucks. )

try:

paul wall and cham - i came to wreck -- it's not as funny and cute as most paul wall but it's the same basic p wall punchlines and stuff, "they bout as fly as a roasted duck / i'm comin so duck." and you can really hear the difference between paul and cham on this, paul going like deliberately too simple and cham going deliberately too twisted up and verbose.

mike jones, magno, michael watts -- yeah michael watts does a real verse on this!! "i'm michael 5000 from the swishahouse / my cash flow stretch from the north to the south / i know i'm not a rapper but i chop up beats / i'm in your main broad every day of the week....." and you get to hear second string swishahouse solja magno spit (22s on the avalanche, my wrist looking like an avalanche!! you ain't got leather like the cl bubble do, now you missing a girl like 3lw!!)

R. Kelly and Jay-Z - "Don't Let Me Die"

They played this like four times in a row when they premiered it on the radio last Thursday, no joke. The way it starts kind of reminds me of "Jesus Walks" with the ominous harmonies and R. talking about war and then a hard march of a beat. Kells sounds almost like he's crying, talking to God, sounding more and more frantic with every line, saying stuff like "worse than the war in Iraq when it's me against I" and "every time I look in the mirror my reflection is Uncle Sam". Seriously, WTF. And Hov comes in all foreboding and businesslike, saying "the British are coming" for some reason. Based on the subject matter, it sounds like it could be an outtake from U Saved Me, but there's another new Jigga/Kelly track called "The Return", so it's possible they're gonna do another whole album together. (What ever happened to Best Of Both Worlds 2 with R. and Baby? I mean, it sounded like a pretty terrible idea to begin with but it just kind of disappeared after being talked about for a while.

Lil Mo f/ Lil Wayne - "Hot Girls"

I haven't heard the version with Fabolous, but when Mo came to 92Q to deliver the song personally a couple weeks ago, the one she played had Weezy on it instead, working the labelmate connection and the hot girls/Hot Boyz theme. I don't know which version will be the official first single from Syndicated: The Lil Mo Hour, though. She's got Fab's number on speed dial, anyway, I'm sure she'll throw him on another song or two.

Ja Rule f/ Fat Joe and Jadakiss - "New York"

FIRE, although it's not on the tracklistings for R.U.L.E. that I've seen, which have different seperate Kiss and Joey Crack features. I like how they take turns doing the hook, so you get to hear each voice's take on it, although Ja's sounds the best, and Joe has the best verse, boasting that he stepped his game up so much that people think he found Pun's rhyme book, etc.

HotelOpera: I wonder how Face feels about T.I. going after his cash cow Luda
BOTF: call up t.i. and tell him you heard flip say soemthing about his mama
HotelOpera: hahaha
BOTF: you can be on the next mixtape!
HotelOpera: T.I. is the Jerky Boys of the south
HotelOpera: they should do a whole episode of Crank Yankers based on that P$C mixtape
BOTF: heheh
HotelOpera: a scarface puppet would look so ill
BOTF: haha wprd
BOTF: maybe luda can make it happen
HotelOpera: haha yeah
HotelOpera: oh my god i want to do puppet versions of every cheesy phone tap beef now
HotelOpera: like that LL/Canibus call
HotelOpera: and Benzino and Em's manager
HotelOpera: god that would be hilarious
BOTF: wooord

The 92Q Mountain Dew End Of Summer Jam

I thought that maybe going to a concert where I had worked on the setup would make me appreciate it more or give me a different perspective or something. But not really. During the show, I wasn't really thinking at all about how I had helped set up the stage that Fat Joe was standing on, or about how the whole audience was standing on tarps that I had helped roll out and tape down the night before (the tarps smelled absolutely horrible when we unravelled them, any moisture that gets trapped in them when they're rolled up causes mold, and who knows what else was on them. One of the usual Towson Center crew guys was telling me about how when Three 6 Mafia played there in March, someone in the audience got stabbed in the face and there was blood everywhere.)

It's always weird to hear a rapper's voice on records for a while before seeing what they look like, so I was curious what the Bossman would look like, but he's just a chubby dude with cornrows. He had his N.E.K. crew onstage with him and did his two big local hits, "I Did It" (which was the #1 most requested song on 92Q the day of the show), and "Baltimore" (the "oh!" song), and on that one they kept switching the beat, doing the 2nd verse over the beat from a Tim Trees song, then the 3rd verse over the "Knuck If You Buck" beat. He had one song that sounded kind of southern, and another one that was pretty much a Bmore club beat with rapping over it, which is never as cool as it should be.

Shawnna was pretty much the best performer of the whole night, in terms of rapping clearly and consistently and working the crowd and not needing half a dozen other people onstage saying every other line in unison, although she did have one female hypeman (or hypewoman, I guess), which I thought was kind of cool. She did "Posted" and her verses from "Dude" and "P Poppin'" and her next single, "Weight A Minute", which is produced by Trackboyz and was pretty good. "RPM" was the best song on the DTP album and I'm glad it's going to be on her album now too, when she hit those really fast bits on the verses the crowd would like ROAR. "Shake That Shit" was a little anti-climactic after that.

Also, Shawnna delivered the quote of the night: "I love this rap shit, this shit makes my dick hard". The audience seemed to be as a whole to be very confused as to how to respond to that.

Ciara and Nina Sky both only did about 15 minutes each, which was good since people pretty much wanted to hear their respective hits and then get them out of the way. Actually, pretty much every act except the last 2 played for less than 20 minutes. It was a pretty tight show, not a lot of time between sets and they got 6 acts on and offstage in the space of 3 hours. That's like a punk show. I hate "Goodies" but the Jazze Pha stuff was a little better. Ciara's dancing looks very odd to me, I don't understand it. The best part of Nina Sky's set was when they did "Move Ya Body" and their white DJ did the Jabba parts with a very half-assed fake Jamaican accent.

Fat Joe got the biggest response of the night, I think a lot of people weren't gonna go to the concert until he was added to the bill. I mean, I personally like Twista more than anyone else on the bill, but he doesn't have a hit like "Lean Back" now. Joe did all his hits plus "Twinz" and some other Big Pun classics that he wasn't even ever on. The biggest disappointment of the night was that Remy Ma was a no show. I missed her on "Yeah Yeah Yeah" especially. They did a few more songs after "Lean Back" and then closed with the Lil Jon remix. The crowd went pretty nuts. It was kind of cool to see someone do their big hit less than 2 weeks after doing it at the VMA's. I kind of built up my tolerance for hearing "Lean Back" one more time for this show. I'm still not really sick of it, amazingly. And the rockaway really is the perfect move for that kind of show, it's too crowded for any real dancing.

There was a guy onstage whose sole purpose for being up there seemed to be to walk around with a towel and wiping the sweat off of Fat Joe and the rest of TS. After the concert when I was cleaning up, I found a towel on the floor and wondered if it was maybe the Fat Joe Sweat Towel, and decided that either way it was in my best interests not to touch it.

Jadakiss did a pretty thorough run through his catalog, guest verses and remixes and Lox classics (for a crowd full of college freshmen who were 11 when "Money, Power, Respect" came out). I liked how he segued from "Time's Up" into "The Champ Is Here", and there's probably no song I love to hear on a huge soundsystem more than "We Gonna Make It" (although it was cooler when I saw Kanye at UMBC back in April and he had Miri Ben-Ari do a mini-set of violin over hip hop songs and "We Gonna Make It" sounded amazing). He closed with "Why" and did his verse from the remix a cappella at the end, which was pretty cool.

After the show, I went and got some Taco Bell, then came back to the venue and worked til 3a.m. breaking everything down.

Labels: 92Q, Bossman

update: someone just came up into the office with the scoop that apparently FAT JOE AND THE TERROR SQUAD are going to be a last minute addition to the bill.

"There is no definite word so far as to whether Twista will be canceling his set for this weekend." And apparently Petey Pablo has been rumored to join the bill, but that's also unconfirmed. But even if neither of them are there, it should still be a good show: Jadakiss, Nina Sky, Ciara, Shawnna and the Bossman. I work for TU's events department, and the Towson Center usually isn't in our juris diction, but starting this semester our staff is merging with theirs, and this is the first event I'll be setting up there. We're supposed to do a bunch of work tonight, and break it down after the show tomorrow. I dunno if I'll be able to get into the show for free or anything yet, though.

Labels: Bossman, flyer

now, t.i. and lil 3rd the disgruntled "original leprechaun":

lil 3rd: hello?

t.i.: can i speak to 3rd?

lil 3rd: [sound suspicious and like t.i. got him out of bed] yo, who this?

t.i.: what's happening, homie. this t.i.p. out the a.

lil 3rd: what's up, boy?

t.i.: ain't nothing much. face just gave me your number. i was just reaching out to you, homie.

lil 3rd: already... what it is?

t.i.: nothing much man. shit-- really-- i'm really just trying to reach out and connect with all the real niggas out of texas, out the southside, niggas who i really have relationships with. and face, he pointed me in your direction, said you was the real thorough nigga out of cloverland.

lil 3rd: yeah man, nigga just keeping it one hundred out here. that nigga-- he really-- he ain't even from cloverland man. [they give away the fact that the call is partly staged by 3rd talking about flip with no prompting.]

t.i.: where buddy from?

lil 3rd: ehhhh... that's what i'm trying to figure out!

t.i.: eh man the nigga hiding behind them four leaf clovers and that leprechaun suit for real, like yall--

lil 3rd: it's like the nigga used cloverland, screwed up click to get where he wanted to get, like he used a nigga to blow up. that's how i feel the nigga done the shit. but i been [something] a nigga up, like 9-9, 2000, i big faced, [something], i done everything. the nigga ain't wanna do nothing man... nigga stuck in the chair, he ain't no street cat though. dude ain't never touched the street. nothing! [t.i. laughs gently here and at several points throughout 3rd's rant] i'm talking about what he's trying to say, look at this nigga man. he out here on the streets on these records talking like he's a g and then get up on that mic and say anything. you know he gonna tuck his tail when it hit the fan though! ain't no street nigga. how nigga ain't gonna move a brick, or sold a five dollar rock, ain't never bust a gun. this nigga a real pussy, hiding behind a nigga hood, niggas really get they head bust for that. but a nigga out here trying to get this paper baby. and all the clover gs is botany boys nigga! you ain't no botany boy, you ain't no motherfucking clover g! botany is cloverland!

scarface phone conversations #1,2 transcriptions from down with the king:

t.i.: ...they been putting one of my playa partners in the middle of this shit so i'm fitna holla at scarface, try clear the air about this little situation. hold on... eh, face, what's happenin man? what yall niggas doin?

scarface: man we just on the motherfuckin bus, man, just chillin. but man like i was saying yesterday man that shit there man. that shit there man-- that nigga.... you doing what's right man, you doing what's hood man.

t.i.: that nigga say he from your hood!

scarface: no, no-- you know, like-- i ain't never seen that nigga over there man! i swear man. and you know when i started-- you know when i started at sixteen though man, dude was riding but before then, like all those other niggas that claim cloverland like straight up man, like c-note out of cloverland, 3rd red out of cloverland-- but i.. ain't.. never.. seen.. this.. nigga.. before.. man!

t.i.: hehehe.... the nigga hiding behind you like he trying to put you against me, saying 'yeah man, you know scarface the king of the south.' you had me, like the nigga coppin deuces'--

scarface: you can't put me in that shit, bro! niggas can't hide behind me to do a motherfucking thing. niggas know what i am! that shit [something] to me, homie. you ain't never ever heard me say it! i don't want to be no king of nothing, feel me? nigga, you can have that shit. ... man, shit, i love that kinda shit! i love what it bring to the game.

t.i.: that's real.

scarface: i love it! but on the cooley high man, i just straight up with you, you my little nigga man. but i'm from round there... i'm from round.. that.. way.. and i ain't never ever ever ever ever.. ever ever.... never! i seen dude when he first started rhyming man--

t.i.: you say you ain't never ever ever ever?

scarface: ever ever ever ever!!

t.i.: so--

scarface: for real man!

t.i.: so this nigga ain't never been sighted in the cut nowhere man?

scarface: no-- the brick cut? oh no! and you know what dude, that's the motherfucking problem with the old niggas over there man. we like 'nigga, we stood out there in the motherfucking trenches nigga and dug.. that.. shit.. up!'

t.i.: yeah!

scarface: you know what i mean?

t.i.: for another nigga to come and rep it half-assed and get credit for it...

scarface: yeah, but shit that's just how the game go man.... if it sell, fuck it!

t.i.: yeah!

scarface: but me, i'm just more real-- i'm just real.

t.i.: vice-versa, shorty, vice-versa.

scarface: niggas talking out there on the motherfuckin cut for real, and swangin-- i did it when it wasn't cool to do it!

t.i: that's right.

scarface: i did it when it wasn't cool to do it and talk about it!

t.i.: that's real.

scarface: i ain't start talking about it til i got all the way out of it.

t.i.: yeah... that's the way a nigga supposed to do it... i might have started talking a little too early...

scarface: [wheezy old man laughter breaking into coughing] yeah...

t.i.: but i'm all the way up out of there now though...

scarface: yeah, that's really hood man. but like i said tip man, i love what this did to the game man.

t.i.: when the game needed you, you were there. so, who am i to say no?

scarface: [wheezy old man laughter and cellphone static] you so right man! but for you to reach out to me man, letting me know what's going on, that's even bigger!

t.i.: that nigga say he from your hood...
scarface: i aint never seen that nigga there.

based on second hand accounts, etc. scarface shitted on flip in the down with the king mixtape (see several posts below) phone conversations. face is supposedly always in his neighborhood still and owns a house there, but he makes claims about flip never really doing shit in the streets, which are probably closer to true than false-- but that's not really flip's thing, he doesn't really specifically play up his street history (when he does it's either hyperbolic or quiet and honest) and he won't talk about getting shot or shit like that. and according to flip, he grew up mostly on the northside-- and when he did eventually move to the southside it wasn't as if face and flip were neighbors, they both just lived in the same general area. is this guy saying flip's been lying for like ten years about where he's from? dude is like at least twice flip's age, too. fuck scarface. at the end of the conversation face tells t.i. he can take the king of the south crown and tells flip to keep his name out his mouth.
also, he's the guy that tells t.i. to talk to lil 3rd from the botany boys about flip stealing his whole leprechaun thing. fuck scarface.
also, t.i. describes mike jones as a g.
dream track: lil flip ft. chamillionaire, bun b, rick ross, luda, trick daddy - fuck t.i.

chrysler 300
there's a scene in the new mannie fresh video for real big where he very literally illustrates b.g.'s cashmoney diss "and we gon do it like real niggas do: not one maybach, ten lacs comin through." in a car showroom, he explains that he wants to trade in his maybach (cut to close-up of triple m hood ornament and sliding across sweeping lines of hood and roof)(but on the outro of big money heavyweights there's a sort of funny-angry outro by mannie about how he doesn't drive maybachs-- "i drive old-ass cars, dude! and the chicks: i don't buy bars and all that kinda bullshit"-- and they need to talk to baby if they want that shit), get that long row of identical silver 300s that are lined up along one wall, and distribute them to all the members of his crew.
the first one we ever saw was in a boston pizza parkinglot in saskatoon. one of the creamy white ones. bulldog battering ram face with big dumb diamond eyes. kleenex box flat on every side and with the little slitted side windows that you could never hang your arm out. and it makes sense never to roll down the windows. it makes sense for them to look like some kind of drone cars. indigo-tinted windows to hide the lack of driver. it's a car that would still be beautiful and still make sense if everyone in the world drove one, an identical robotic silver 2005 chrysler 300. they're so clean and emotionless. in traffic they blur everything else into a fast motion mess perfect background for clean silver or two percent white. fuck big rolls royce dracula castles and arrogant sharp eyed japanese seamonsters. it's a pure american robot.
it's why michael vick can stand beside one on the cover of rides, 2005 chrysler 300 with only minor cosmetic changes. (example of the opposite thing: lil jon on how i'm living sort of shrugging and dragging his feet out to his driveway to show the camera crew his new h2 and having to be all ashamed and apologetic and saying, "yeah i know everyone has one, let's just keep going.")
wheelworks out on the highway looks like a chrysler dealership right now with all the 300s sitting behind the back fence waiting for 20s or 22s or warranty voiding, wheelwell scraping 24s with low profile tires that look like black rubber band stretched around the rim, which will be bent and pothole-fucked by the end of the month. after the rims you put on the screendoor mesh grille or the euro grille that looks like a fireplace covering thing. and we see all the fancy ones cruising through north central and parked in front of nyx and gabbo's and even though the gaudy decoration dilutes the awe slightly we are still stunned reverent and try not to make direct eye contact.

(Shawnna and the Bossman have also been added to the bill)

Labels: Bossman, flyer

Twista Injured In Car Accident; Bodyguard Killed

He's supposed to headline the big fall concert at my school this Friday, I've been looking forward to it for weeks. Whether or not he's able to do it, I hope he's alright. Send some good thoughts his way.

og ron c - fuck action 38

"i gotta say wassup to all the ladies all in texas, louisiana, down in shreveport, mayne, doin it big..... wassup to all the ladies all over the world, can't forget you ladies overseas, mayne, holding it down for the og ron c....."

jerking off with a warm laptop on my chest and fat warm blanket over my legs or with a girl under the same fat warm blanket in skyblue plywood basement apartment bedroom. after, if you let it just seep in, just lying there, warm and alone or warm and with her, you can get this feeling floating into your throat, sinuses, bottom half of brain, top of spine that's like thirst/right before you cry/guilt/being hugged by your mom/overwhelming sadness. i make it go away by playing my favorite songs on headphones connected to laptop or making her giggle by saying some dumb shit and asking if i can kiss her. but that's what these fuck action cds always sound like to me.
screwed r&b can hit you like it's the saddest, loneliest music in the whole world. listen to mary j blige slowed to deep masculine voice crying over double hitting beats and sobbing background singers with og ron c playing dj tricks to make it sound like just so washed out, drained out. or the profyle track on the very end that sounds like fucking ghosts singing, with crackly grainy beat with slow claps and it's almost unbearable.
(he's the only houston dj that fucks with records this much, making voices tinny and staticky or even more stretched out, and like scratching the drums against the grain of the song kinda to make everything separate element of the song sound opposed to every other part. he has a weird scratching style, too, where it'll sound just like some kid playing with slowly bringing a spinning record to a stop with a sticky finger down the centre and then letting it go for a second and grabbing it again, but he can do really tricky stuff too. he's not bad at all.)
but other times it's like the chasing away part, the giggly kissing, all hopeful and syrupy sentimental. listen to the amazing old scarface verse about his neighborhood over lloyd/ashanti southside and then just playing with lloyd's beautiful robot voice sipping the warm sunshine on forearms beat. or the prince song, i think it's a new one, call my name-- i imagine og ron c testing the song for the right speed and getting it to this perfect pitch and tears suddenly steadily falling over his turntables, slowly spinning off.

"make sure you got the seal, baby, cause if you didn't you got fucked, i don't care where you got it from, you got fucked. get the real deal at www dot og ron c dot net or hit me on the hotline at 1 866 488 4710"

but if you order the cd from iap-tv.com you can win an autographed t.i. shirt or a trap muzik necklace!



they also have rick ross's t.i. diss
beautiful moment
and the t.i./hypnotize minds
24s remix

government names wishes rappers would just go track for track again, put all the effort into a couple tracks, instead of launching gay mixtape smear campaigns. this has three phone conversations with hump on it! three with scarface, too, which might be interesting cause flip was making sure he said at the end of every track and interview "...but we all know scarface is the real king of the south." and he recruits lil 3rd, the dude that dissed flip for allegedly stealing his leprechaun nickname (shit he's not a real king or a real leprechaun....what else did he lie about?) and there's the mediocre disses and dipset tracks (the same two i just wrote about even!)

government names is down with flip forever, no matter how much he keeps falling off. fuck t.i.

(i heard that paul wall had a falling out with p$c over the flip beef, which is why he isn't anywhere on the cd. fuck t.i.)

firm fiasco
i don't feel like i'm equipped to listen to beautiful nyc rap anymore but i'm listening to the firm album right now. just this song mostly.
at the start there's sweeping strings and twinkling bells and nas talking like a gangster about wiseguys and tipping bartenders and the beat comes in and it sounds like the first gorillaz song with the zombie video and this crazy az verse that's really difficult and fast
two hundred fallen angels, ballin from every angle
heavy bag gold panamanian chains dangle
let's tangle, tabernacles,
elohim's comin at ya, fuck parables
a billion years bc, original black jews
cashews, honeynut roasted, let's kill the culprit
he owe shit, toe-to-toe when that fo-fo spit
like he doesn't know it's supposed to be a beautiful nyc gangster song on a dr dre beat. it sounds lame but it's sort of amazing.
let the dope pile, bet the god be around for awhile
firm islamic, hit the core of the earth just like a comet
and at the end he does his own fake goodfellas interlude talking about nas. "he was the type of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movies. but hey....."
and nas has a pretty good verse about taking women to steakhouses and getting huge amounts of money. "dre made it qb to cawwwmmp-tawwwnnn."
foxy: "you know what, most hoes would have these cats a long time ago." popping or chopping every consonant, all kinds of saliva on the screen.
thirty second beat outro.

that's the big picture inside cd booklet. look at that.

that's a subwoofer. boom boom boom.
on headphones: little barely audible blomps of bass you hear under ticks of clicky clacky southern drums and spooky triple six keyboard sounds.
with a big speaker making bass in your trunk: huge fucking cannons of asshole shattering bass. not even any secondary sustaining bass to hold the song together, it's all big motherfucker explosions. it's the most violent shit ever. just exploding and shit and it sounds so militant and not musical at all, just shells going off behind you and rocking up through gas pedal and seatback and shaking the rearview/side mirrors and vibrating the air between the ceiling of your hat and the uncompressed hair under it. and goofy dudes with unlaced filas and kneelength white tees (refer to cover) and gully bitches (on the cover they're wearing white lowtop tennis shoes, one has a denim skirt and the other has dark blue jeans rolled up her calves, and they both have the same tight strapless shirts but in different colors) rapping about tearing clubs up and holding down the trap.
a guy named lil jay made all the beats except for three. all the ones he didn't make are the ones that aren't that good, except the lil jon one which is pretty hot.
my favorite song is you got ana.

(stolen from a message board post by "nupe03" without permission)

10 Facts About Chicago Hip Hop

1. JUICE beat Eminem in the 1997 Rap Olympics Finals.

2.Twista/a group called D 2 da S and the Ill State Assasins beefed with Naughty by nature in 1996 and released a single-"Dissing these Fools." It was dope. They also rushed a Naughty By nature concert here and assulted all the group members-it made the local news!

3.Common got sued and had 2 pay $25,000 plus drop the Sense off his name due to copyright infringement. A rock group owns the copyright.

4.Mobb Deep's last two albums were ghost produced by my guy Starchild from here----I never liked M.O.B.B. but this makes me hate them cuz he's not in the credits.

5.Kanye West was assulted at the E2 Memorial-the club where 22 people died trying to exit-- by former artists called the Concrete Mob for allowing Jay-Z to literlly copy one of their songs-thanks 2 Kanye.

6. No ID who produced G-Unit's "Smile" released an album w/ Dug Infinite called "The Black ALbum" in 1999 on relativity records and it only sold like 1,500 copies.

7. The first album Kanye produced songs on this cat named Grav-sold only 86 units and thus the label folded! THAT HURT! Al Tariq from the Beatnuts was on the label-I forget the name of it. (1997)

8. Anacron an underground m.c. from the Chi starred in a Lugz commercial via 1998 where he was in the bathroom urinating and Dr. Dre from yo MTV raps was tryin 2 look at his shoes but it appeared he was looking at his pee-pee.

9. Spray Paint was banned by Mayor Daley in 1998-thus writers went to the suburbs to get their cans and still bombed the city.

10. Chicago Hip Hop is only getting better with time.

Beatnuts f/ Akon - "Find Us"

When it came on the radio last night at first I thought it was something local, mainly because the beat sounds kinda like B Rich's "Woah Now", but after I recognized Akon's voice on the hook I figured out what it was and was pleasantly surprised, since the couple other tracks I'd already heard off the new Beatnuts were disappointingly boring. But this is pretty great, especially for the chant of "you're an alcoholic" at the beginning, which I almost wish was the real hook of the song.

Twista f/ Ludacris and Ice Shuler - "Higher" (remix)

A new version of maybe my favorite song from Kamikaze! Check it out in RealAudio while the link's still up on Allhiphop.com. Basically just the same verses over a sparklier beat and different hook, but it's good.

Lloyd - "Hey Young Girl"

Every time there's an R&B video where the song is all romantic and midtempo and then suddenly there's a dance break over a random faster beat or a different song from the album and then it jolts back to the main song (Ginuwine used to do a lot of these), I kinda wish that's how the real song went, with the weird tempo changes. Well that's what this is like, someone finally did a song like that! The best part is when the random big thumping beat from the midsection comes back in at the end and he sings the chorus over it.

Apparently G-Unit's performance at the Reading Festival didn't go over well, as the crowd chanted "50 Cent Is A Wanker" and tossed folding chairs at him. This looks like a job for 5.35 Shilling!