lil jon ft. bun b, jada, nas, ti, ice cube - grand finale -- three eighteen in the morning, just got off work, listening to shit loud enough to rattle my headphones. hard, cold, generic lil jon beat, sounding like the jada/styles track from kings of crunk but with new whistles and rumbles. hard, cold, credible gangstas with the same verses they always do.
bun b leading off with the hardest shit on the track but impact lessened by the four minutes until the end of the track.
say, we blowin doja in the basement in that underwater garden
with heroin in the back shed, dryin til it harden
makin hash up in the oven, with yayo on the hot plate
drank and fry in the freezer, it's obvious we got weight
i sell that hard work, that soft work, even that wet work
built-in clientele so we ain't gotta network
we always got work, so we ain't gotta get work
and if you ain't gettin your work from us you bout to get jerked
the yayo experts, we been whippin the yola since the crackers decided to take the coke out coca-cola
the extended riff on work, proof he's taking that dipset affiliation he shouted on end of the road seriously.
jada sounds amazing on beats like this, sounded amazing on his kings of crunk track, doing darth vader flow with punchlines about cash and murder.
dense, lyrical t.i. going at, i guess, flip, but never by name, just shit about how he got kinfolk in every city and how it's lame to say another man name.
nas giving me more hope that street's disciple is going to be another nastradamus. it's one of those smooth free association verses, flipping tightly rhymed lines that's just one word after another and sliding down into phrases to tie them all together.
ice cube, ehhhh. "keep it flippin like flapjacks," "sweaty like asscracks," "vanish like star trek." "ice cube is the shit on this motherfuckin grand finale"?

trick daddy - wanna sang -- three forty in the morning, smiling and tingling and drying my eyes with dabs in corner from sleeve. jesus. makes me feel genuinely excited about the stuff i'm doing. like, shit, i know, i totally know i can get the stuff done that i want to get done if i really believe in it, and i have to believe in it because that's the most important thing left in the world.
wassup, lil man? what's wrong with you, why you looking so sad?
(beautiful happy oh my god sesame street beat kicks in)
man, i went to school today and the teacher told me i couldn't be no rapper!
say what? why she tell you that?
she told me i had to be something that's more realistic, like a construction worker or something!
man, construction workers ain't realistic! you can't be out there sawin all day, what? holla at them, man. just keep on going to school, getting your education, that way you can be anything you want to be.
(blindingly happy optimistic chorus comes in, kid singing: I JUST WANNA SING, CAN I SING YOU A SONG, I BET YOU LOVE IT. cracking kids voices coming in, saying, "i just wanna sing, i ain't asking for much)
and trick come in riding over that beat so perfect, hopeful and saying he just wants a crack at it, prove the critics long and he'll do anything. saying he wants to be a legend one day, win a grammy, so he can prove you can be anything you want to be, even if you can't sing or whatever. saying he wants to sell records like the bee gees did and write a book and he can do it all if he gets a chance.

goodnight.