rap-a-lot announces next year's release schedule:

that new pimp c solo, sweet james jones story, dropping in february, with unreleased tracks recorded before he got sent away, sort of like the live from harris county jail record.

a month later comes the new z-ro, album called truth be told, dropping right after his assholes by nature underground with trae.

partners-n-crime from new orleans the month after that, rap-a-lot trying to follow up that nolia clap. the album's title is club bangers but they aren't strictly straight up bounce like, say, hot boy ronald or, like, choppa. i mean, you have to be pretty grimy to diss unlv and bg for being fake. (look. we had a link to an mp3 of their seven minute bounce suite, n.o. block party, with dj jubilee in june. definitely check it out and the unlv diss called talk that shit now).

okay, and after all that and a scarface solo, we're getting a bun b album called trill, coming in late july, supposedly.

Here's an arbitrarily numbered list of tracks I liked this year that didn't fit on any of the other lists I made, with links to things I (or in some cases dk) wrote about them:

1. Jadakiss/Green Lantern - "The Champ Is Here"
2. Cam'ron - "Killa Cam"
3. Peedi Crakk and N.O.R.E. - "Niggarican"
4. Usher - "Throwback"
5. Nas - "Disciple" (the mixtape version, not the shitty re-recorded album version)
6. 8Ball & MJG - "Don't Make"
7. LL Cool J - "The Truth"
8. Talib Kweli f/ Jean Grae - "Black Girl Pain"
9. T.I. - "U Don't Know Me"
10. Trick Daddy - "I Just Wanna Sang"
11. Kanye West - "We Don't Care"
12. 213 - "Another Summer"
13. Young Gunz f/ Freeway - "Parade"
14. Shyne - "More Or Less"
15. Memphis Bleek - "Yes"
16. Federation - "Go Dumb"
17. Twista f/ Ludacris - "Higher"
18. N.O.R.E. f/ Daddy Yankee, Gem Star, Big Mato and Nina Sky - "Oye Mi Canto"
19. Nicole Wray f/ N.O.R.E. and Peedi Crakk - "If I Was Your Girlfriend" remix
20. Nicole Wray - "Destination"
21. Ying Yang Twins - "Wait Til You See My"
22. Carl Thomas f/ Kanye West - "The Way That You Do"
23. G-Unit f/ Joe - "Wanna Get To Know You"
24. G-Unit - "Y'all Niggas Ain't Fuckin' Wit Us"
25. Cee-lo f/ Pharrell - "The Art of Noise"
26. Jadakiss - "Still Feel Me"
27. Lil Mo - "Why" freestyle
28. Bossman - "Why" freestyle
29. New Edition f/ The Game and P. Diddy - "Hot 2Nite" remix
30. Tim Trees - "No Club Shit"
31. Ice City f/ Freeway and Joe Budden - "Ride Up" (which is genius simply for juxtaposing Snoop's "Gz & Hustlaz" with Steely Dan's "The Royal Scam")
32. Joe Budden - "The Growth"
33. Jay-Z/Linkin Park - "Jigga What/Faint"
34. T.I. - "Prayin' For Help"
35. Mario f/ Jadakiss and T.I. - "Let Me Love You" (Scott Storch remix)
36. Ja Rule f/ Fat Joe and Jadakiss - "New York"
37. Ja Rule f/ R. Kelly and Ashanti - "Wonderful"
38. Talib Kweli, The Game and Black Thought - "Y'all Been Warned" freestyle
39. Jagged Edge - "What's It Like"
40. Nas - "Getting Married"
41. Kanye West f/ GLC and Consequence - "Spaceship"
42. Jin - "I Got A Love"
43. Sheek Louch, Jae Hood and Styles P. - "Respect" freestyle
44. Twista - "Get Me"
45. T.I. f/ BG - "What They Do
46. Ciara f/ T.I. and Jazze Pha - "Goodies" (remix)
47. Trick Daddy f/ Trina, Ying Yang Twins and Deuce Komradz - "Down Wit Da South"
48. Keyshia Cole - "I Changed My Mind"
49. Cam'ron - "Bubble Music
50. Eminem f/ 50 Cent and Dr. Dre - "Encore"

TOP 30 BUN B FEATURES OF THE YEAR

i can't wait for pimp c to get out for real (kill the rumors already-- when he gets out for real we'll know) and that new ugk album to drop and let two southern legends eat off the new southern supremacy, but, man, bun killed the features and remix game this year. we got to hear him on the remixes of every big track and then when you flipped open murder dog, every ad had "FEATURING BUN B." every rapper with a microphone and a checkbook got him on a track! and it didn't matter if it was a swishahouse mixtape flow or a no name kid from north carolina or a lil jon remix, he wrecked, roaring up out of the background with that voice of god flow, holding down the beat and outshining everyone else.

1. jim jones/t.i./bun b - end of the road -- everyone's talking about ugk doing a deal with def jam after pimp c gets out, talking about another section of the south being colonized by new york city, smoothed down with authentic, tasteful hip-hop beats. but bun can ride a beat like this, a straight heatmakerz sped-up soul sample ready for a juelz mixtape joint, and still sound raw as anyone, still spit about 84s and shout dipset affiliation at the same time.

2. mddl fngaz/mike jones/bun b - rollin strapped 2k4 freestyle -- from dipset all the way to underground houston mixtape filler, screwed and chopped with his click on big tuck's ambitionz az a ridah ripoff, using the same verse as the no problems remix verse: "i'm in a cadillac the color of cum / smellin like bubblegum with my truck on hum."

3. e.s.g./slim thug/bun b - in my cadillac -- man, bun b on sleepy houston beat, spitting about lacs and blowing light green: "there's only three rules when you sit in my car / one: don't ash on my floor, two: don't spill your barre / three: don't touch my radio cause i'm bangin my screw / and everyday in port arthur, p.a. this is how we do."

4. slim thug/t.i./bun b - three kings -- "we goin hard in the paint like car-MEL-OWWWWW / this is for the boys that sip purple and sip YELL-OWWWW / shorty shake ya jelly like jell-o, she curvy like a cello / damn, baby broke me off before i even said hello."

5. iceberg/froze ony/bun b - yo cadillac -- a lot of versions of this ended up being credited to bun b and froze ony and iceberg got stripped off it and replaced with twista and mike jones on the remixes (check for the original, though, cause they go just as hard as the guests). this one has the detailed, specific lac verse about buckhyde and peanut butter rag roofs. "mayne, your foreign must floss but your foreign ain't wreckin / my candy slab'll break you off in a second, stop disrespectin."

6. paul wall/killer mike/bun b - dats what dat is -- from the suite of hard and rough tracks from paul wall's chick magnet album before he goes soft for the rest of it. fat, blasting horns and hard drums, nothing like the usual fake atl beat most houston rappers flip for their hard tracks. and matching bun verse, coming with a dozen equally quotable couplets, stacking one on top of another. "now, eleven is the size of my shoe / and that's the new size of the hole you let your shit come through!"

7. pitbull/bun b - dirty -- tribute to southern life on hard, slow pitbull track, echoing the end of each line. opening: "say, straight up outta texas / that reckless p.a. to be exact(ACT) / where the streets is cutthroat / and fiends'll kill ya for a g of crack(CRACK) / and the gs in the cadillacs(LACS), chevys, cuttys and deltas / might swang up on ya, then hurt ya, nobody here gon help ya." closing:

8. paul wall/bun b - ridin big freestyle -- hook flipped to "we movin weight, hoe" and paul wall talking about popping glocks and birds that don't chirp before bun comes in and rips it, talking about, "playa, we was movin work when yall niggas was babies / ridin 600 mercedes way back in the eighties / and we fuckin the best ladies, smokin the best bud / and sellin crack cocaine before you knew what it was!"

9. t.i./bun b - pussy-ass niggas -- bun very carefully spitting on another t.i. diss track, talking in the general while tip goes at flip, sounding more menacing than anyone else can, matching that voice with that devastating wordplay about his history in the game. "you think your hood get crunk? let me take you to a wilder zone / you can get your numbers pushed without me having to dial a phone."

10. lil jon/nas/jada/t.i./bun b - grand finale --
we growin doja in the basement in that underwater garden
with heron in the back shed dryin til it harden
bakin hash up in the oven, with yayo on the hot plate
with 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 bound to get jerked
the yayo experts
we been whippin the yola since the crackers decided to take the coke out coca-cola
hold the roll, it's the king of the trill
the underground as well, you can step in the ring when you feel
nigga, just sound the bell
can't stand the haters in this game but the grind i'm lovin
pimpin, we past all that pushin, man it's time for shovin
i got the mask, i got the strap, soon as i find the gloves
then we gon start exposin like fahrenheit 9/11

11. gucci mane/young jeezy/bun b - black tees remix
12. graph/bun b - weight of the world
13. lil scrappy/cam'ron/t.i./bun b - no problems remix
14. mannie fresh/david banner/jasper/bun b - how we ride
15. lil boosie/webbie/bun b - give me that
16. david banner/killer mike/bun b - hold up
17. graph/bun b - don't give a fuck
18. daz/bun b - feel it
19. stat quo/bun b - they ain't know
20. lil flip/young buck/bun b - game over remix
21. roy jones jr./mike jones/bun b - 24s
22. paul wall/bun b - ridin big freestyle
23. bun b/killa kyleon - can't do it no better
24. young jeezy/bun b - over here
25. play-n-skillz/pitbull/bun b - freaks pt. 2
26. cam'ron/three six/diplomats/bun b - sippin on syurp pt. 2
27. juve/solja slim/bun b - slow motion remix
28. lil scrappy/bun b - what u gon do remix
29. t.i./jazze pha/big gee/bun b - is that yo chick
30. paul wall/bun b - drank in yo system freestyle

GOVERNMENT NAMES 2004 POLL RESULTS:

Albums

1. Kanye West - The College Dropout
2. Ghostface - The Pretty Toney Album
3. Nas - Street's Disciple
4. Trick Daddy - Thug Matrimony
5. Cam'ron - Purple Haze
6. Dizzee Rascal - Showtime
7. Theodore Unit - 718
8. Madvillain - Madvillainy
9. Wiley - Treddin' On Thin Ice
10. Young Buck - Straight Outta Cashville
11. Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz - Crunk Juice
12. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter
13. Crime Mob
14. Twista - Kamikaze
15. T.I. - Urban Legend
16. MF Doom - MM Food
17. Lil Scrappy/Trillville - Welcome To Trillville
18. Leak Brothers (Cage and Tame One) - Waterworld
19. Devin the Dude - To Tha X-Treme
20. 8Ball & MJG - Living Legends

Singles

1. Terror Squad - "Lean Back"
2. T.I. - "Rubber Band Man"
3. Wacko, Skip and Juvenile - "Nolia Clap"
4. Jay-Z - "99 Problems"
5. Crime Mob - "Knuck If You Buck"
6. Snoop Dogg f/ Pharrell - "Drop It Like It's Hot"
7. Juvenile f/ Soulja Slim - "Slow Motion"
8. Mike Jones f/ Slim Thug and Paul Wall - "Still Tippin'"
9. Ghostface f/ Jadakiss (and sometimes Comp) - "Run"
10. Trick Daddy f/ Lil Jon and Twista - "Let's Go"
11. Beanie Sigel f/ Peedi Crakk and Twista - "Gotta Have It"
12. Cam'ron - "Get Em Girls"
13. Young Gunz f/ Rell - "No Better Love"
14. Ciara f/ Petey Pablo - "Goodies"
15. Mannie Fresh - "Real Big"
16. Nas f/ Olu Dara - "Bridging The Gap"
17. Fabolous - "Breathe"
18. Lethal B - "Forward"
19. Twista - "Overnight Celebrity"
20. Nas - "Thief's Theme"

dj michael watts - choppin em up 9
yeah, we know basically everyone out the swishahouse click got seriously discredited in the past few months (mike jones got hit with a triple disc assault and rasaq came with the investigative reports, conducting interviews up and down tidwell rd/paul did his partner dirty when michael watts lured him back to the house with the major label cash)-- or straight kicked off the team (that's the story with magno, right?)-- but whatever. the click is down to archie lee, paul wall, mike jones (only one new verse and a recycle of his still tippin verse on the breathe freestyle) and coota bang. paul comes with his new style, laidback and slightly toning down his new gangsterism (i mean, just a little while ago his hardest dope reference was talking about a cocaine white drop, and now he moves more cookies than snackwell's!), talking about local record stores and pulling u of h girls again, and even doing one of his corny, romantic girl tracks over the my boo beat (watts says straight to da room is dropping soon [the screwed r&b line from the house. think og ron c's fuck action but with more flows]). and coota bang is the swishahouse rookie, magno replacement, spitting raspy and grimy about rap and history. just the basic swishahouse formula, the hottest beats at one fifth speed and rappers trained to spit slick quotables and chopbackable punchlines.

my ballot for the many shrimp end of year poll:

MC's:
1. Twista / 2. Jadakiss / 3. T.I. / 4. Trick Daddy / 5. Nas / 6. Lloyd Banks / 7. Peedi Crakk / 8. Cam'ron / 9. Lil Wayne / 10. Kanye

producers:
1. Just Blaze / 2. Jazze Pha / 3. Lil Jon / 4. Kanye / 5. Chad Hamilton aka Chad West / 6. Swizz Beatz / 7. Trackboyz / 8. Heatmakerz / 9. DJ Smurf aka Beat-In-Azz / 10. Rod Lee

Day after Christmas, dropped my brother off at BWI, then went to the Thunderdome, which is a rock club in north Baltimore where hair metal has-beens like Bret Michaels of Poison and local heroes Kix play all the time. But tonight, what's been hyped up as one of the biggest nights of the year for Baltimore hip hop, the 2nd year of Strength In Numbers. Billed as an MC battle but it really seems to be more of a showcase. People pay a registration fee ($20 for MCs, $25 for groups) to get up and get their 3 minutes onstage. And then, as the advertisement goes, performances by some of biggest MC's in Baltimore of the past few years, especially Bossman, who just dropped his first official non-mixtape album less than a week ago and it's sold out in half the stores in the city. Posters for the album everywhere around and inside the club.

The schedule goes something like: doors at 6, performances start at 7, then Bossman and the other headliners at 10:30, after party at 11:30. I get there around 8, the performances don't start until about an hour later. The host is a guy called Stevie Stay Hi, the Low Key God, Baltimore veteran, in the rap game 11 years, in jail for 4 of them, and in a wheel chair now. He just talks on the mic for the most of the first hour I'm there, about the even and about all kinds of random shit and mostly just warning people not to start shit and ruin it for everybody. This is the kind of event where every other performer finishes by dropping or throwing their mic on the stage for dramatic effect and then the promoter yelling at them not to drop the fucking mics they paid for.

At these kind of things, you don't really remember the decent or good acts, but you remember the bad ones and the embarrassing ones. There are a few white MCs throughout the night, and most of them are ok and take it seriously, but the first one called himself DMD, and he was this goofy dude who freestyled over the Terror Squad "Take Me Home" beat and it was just terrible and at first people laughed and booed but he just kept going and some of his lines where so ridiculous that eventually people started laughing with him and he kinda won the crowd over. At the end he said that DMD stands for Death Metal Don and that he's in a metal band. But the worst was this crew from Alexandria who must've paid extra for their time onstage, because they took up a huge block of time, like 7 or 8 songs. There were 3 guys and 2 girls, and they did a whole bunch of different kinds of things, fake crunk and R&B and spoken word, but it was all generic bullshit, and if they weren't from Virginia or didn't take up so much fucking time they woulda been ok but altogether it was just bullshit and everyone couldn't wait for them to get done.

C. Miller was there with his crew, which included Spit-1, who produced a bunch of songs for Comp and one on Bossman's album. He did his big radio hit "Mean Mug", but his crew's mics were all louder than his for some reason and it was kind of a mess. Prhyme and Great Mindz were there. Tyree Corleone went on torward the end and did a few songs, including his awesome song produced by Rod Lee that samples the tom tom triplets from Cee-Lo's "I'll Be Around". And Ray Lugar did his song from The Movement Vol. 2, which was pretty good. But aside from that, there weren't really any people there I'd heard of, and none of the billed performers: no Tim Trees, no B Rich, no Mullyman. I think I saw Bossman and NEK in the room earlier in the night, but they were all long gone by the time all the people who paid to perform were done, which was around 1am. Most of the place, which had been packed when I got there, had emptied out by then, and it would've been pretty anti-climactic if any big names came out and performed for such a small crowd anyway. But it was still lame how it didn't come together at all like it was supposed to.

Labels: Ray Lugar, Team Fifty, Tyree Colion

mannie fresh ft. david banner, bun b, jasper - how we ride -- recipe for my homemade drank: take a handful of tylenol 4s, five or so (t4s are 60 mg codeine per), grind them up and stir the powder into about a third of lukewarm water, put it in the fridge for about an hour, then filter it to remove the acetaminophen, which isn't soluble in cold water, and pour the codeine and water into your cup of diet sprite and you've got drank off in your cup.
/ mannie fresh chopped and screwed verse, 454 big block, rally stripes
comin through this bitch with them loud-ass pipes
any nigga wanna come and get it? please!
breeze by your ass with the motherfuckin ease
in the middle of the dark and interstate sparkin
cowl induction opened up, carburetor barkin
pass by the crowd, music real loud
everything in my cd changer from the south
then i do it real good, diamonds on the wood
ol pissy-ass, sissy-ass lame wish he could
ridin like that, diamond in the back
moonroof top, brougham cadillac
then i pass in my cut, dawg, screamin out fuck yall
roll down the window, hey let a pimp pluck off
assiuscassius clay has returned
in a super sport chevy with a ultraperm
WOOO!!
/ tinny ol beat like sometime in the 90s houston, ready for big t hook about slabs and fat pat and lil keke speaking on foreign cars and 96 impalas, same delicate little tinkling bells and neon pink keyboard whines.
/ banner explaining that he rides with a bitch-- whose bitch?? YOUR BITCH. and bun b paying attention to the beat and doing real southside trunk pop verse about bumper kit reclining, trunk open wide.

papoose ft. saigon - head of state -- representatives of the freshly reactionary new york: papoose, sounding perfectly 1996, getting pitch, tone perfect and still sounding enthusiastic, loud, and saigon, credible as fuck, ratface and big prison biceps, nativist tendencies, telling us to get the fuck off the south's dick and respect the real. this is the why? rip, watery r&b hook about "the head of state is lying ... cause the worries multiplying ..." and papoose sounding like conspiracy theory nastradamus ("bloomberg make a million a week, he's a communist"??) and a reliable, honest talib kweli dude and then just breaking down into anxious wordplay. saigon pretending to do the thug spitting a political verse style, calling out america for promoting homosexuality and telling black people to play the stock market.

2nd annual STRENGTH IN NUMBERS concert and semi-finals MC battle
Sunday, December 26th @ the Thunderdome
3612 Hanover Street, Baltimore, MD
live performances by Bossman, Tim Trees, Mullyman, Ogun and B Rich!

Labels: B. Rich, Bossman, flyer, Mullyman, Ogun, Team Fifty, Tim Trees

Ying Yang Twins - "Wait Til You See My"
Nothing but tom toms with that downward sliding sound echoing off of them like the Neptunes used to use a lot on stuff like "Slave 4 U", only a faint hint of click-clap on the upbeat, Kaine whispering in his usual flow but whispering, only whispering, for the entire song, and it's so hard to make out what they're saying that it sounds even filthier than it probably is. On the radio they couldn't say the whole title and had to blank out a lot of lyrics, so you don't know what it is he wants her to see, but he's gonna beat that _____ up with it, so you can kinda guess.

Trick Daddy f/ Cee-Lo and Lil Kim - "Sugar" (remix)
New single version (with a split video with "J.O.D.D."!) with Luda's verse swapped out for an actually good Kim verse. All the people who were up in arms about the "Crazy Train" jack on the last single are going to be even more freaked out about the follow up being a Talking Heads interpolation (the relatively obscure "Sugar On My Tongue"). Actually, Thug Matrimony is full of weird appropriations, like that song that lifts the melody from that Smokey Robinson song that Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis charted with a few years ago, and New Edition's "If It Isn't Love" re-done as "If I Ain't A Thug".

Juelz Santana f/ Young Ja - "S.A.N.T.A.N.A."
"Juuuuuuuuuuuuelz" is the new "Snoooooooooooooop".

Nivea f/ Lil Jon and Youngbloodz - "Okay"
My history with 'crunk & B' or 'bubblecrunk' or whatever horrible name you wanna put on it has not been a happy one so far, but this is pretty wonderful. It even makes better use of the best part of "Ghettomusick" ("feelin' good feelin' great" etc). I guess all that remains now is for Lil Jon to make a song called "What?" to complete the trilogy.

new Comp freestyle produced by Liveson from D-Block

Labels: Comp

New Paul and Chamillionaire dropping on Paid in Full next month. The idea is to take verses they recorded, while they were signed, and mix them with new beats. But, wait.

1) Cham's saying he wasn't paid properly (Paid in Partial?).
2) He doesn't want them putting his name on shitty product.
3) Cham's been talking for a long minute about an album called Controversy Sells being his first solo, the first thing he was going to drop on Univeral/Chamillitary in the summer.

Cham's telling people to bootleg the shit out of it. Paul is saying to cop the official release and it's going to be hotter than Get Ya Mind Correct, which suggests that he might be seeing more cash than Cham behind this deal. I asked Cham about that and he said: "I highly doubt that an album that I didnt even participate in making is better than Get Ya Mind Correct. I'm guessing that they told you that Chick Magnet and Madd Hatta's album was better than Get Ya Mind Correct, too." Damn....

(picture from oak cliff chamber of commerce 21st annual golf classic, april 26th 2004)

young star and nino ft. bo-leg - oak cliff (that's my hood)-- young cats, still in highschool, making cash off their very own big regional hit, repping for oak cliff specifically and various east dallas neighborhoods in general. it flips the beat lil jon gave 54th platoon for holdin it down, turning treble and bass to extremes to get those clapping drums cranked and the bass overwhelming. UH-OHHHHH IT'S ME, HOT BOY STAR OUT THE O-C-T / HOP OUT THE FLEET, TAKIN OFF MY TEETH / SHOWIN OFF MY TATS, THROWIN UP Y-G.

big tuck ft. tum tum, fat bastard, lil j - boyz n da dirty -- big tuck with his click, the dallas legends dsr, simultaneously ripping off some old run dmc electric guitar joint and j-kwon! it's that regular dsr shit, combination of standard candy paint on cadillacs lines and weirdo boasts about dro from alaska and our click got meatballs, we make your brain leak spaghetti, cool to hear focused in on this type of beat rather than usual offbeat freak-a-leek flows.

3 of the biggest independent MC's in Baltimore are all dropping new albums today:

1. Bossman "Law & Order" (NEK) - here is the awesome poster for the album

2. Mullyman "Mullymania Continued" (Major League Unlimited) - here is Mully's official site, which has audio for a bunch of songs, including the singles "Got It" f/ the Clipse and Fam-Lay and "From The Heart" f/ Freeway and Black Lo, from his first album "Mullymania"

3. Little Clayway (Clayway Records) - here is a picture of him (he's the one in the middle), and here is a site where you can see some Little Clayway and Mullyman videos

Labels: Bossman, Little Clayway, Mullyman

baby ft. lil wayne - shine on -- baby explains how mannie is going to go oldschool, explaining that it's going to be another cash money classic, and uncharacteristically slowing down, pausing, unsure, "and i felt couldn't nobody... do it the way i'm gonna do it." it's baby with the stepped up rhymes, flipping the hook to another cash money classic, wayne verse still using that mid-90s new york biting flow (even quotes long kiss goodnight) that maybe-unless-it's-all-a-big-rumor-which-it-probably-is got him a def jam deal, mannie rocking the smoothed out, grinning, new cash money rider beat. this is how baby and mannie are fixing to eat off the new south. they switched over from vanguard, leading the most advanced elements in the struggle against northern wealth and privilege, to sitting back and enjoying major label money and car collections and just being fly motherfuckers enjoying the prevailing social order.

pastor troy - murdaman -- your pistol in your car, MY PISTOL IN MY HAND. while mannie and baby are tucked in under mink sheets in new orleans suburbs, pt cruiser is trying to kill everyone in atlanta, busting guns with shredded throat on harder beats than ever, one of those atlanta beats like no one rides anymore. he speaks in generalities, explaing that he represents the heart, the anger, the real, the danger, asking how these kids think they're running the southside, sounding wild and tearing the beat up, working the echoed COME ON!!!s and UH-HUH!!!!s in the background, leading up to calling out the names:
this ain't the swat team, this ain't lil scrappy and them
i rep that hard shit, now fuck a platinum, and lil jon
used to be my homie, used to be my ace, now i want to slap the taste
out your mouth! nigga, down south i'm a legend
when you see me keep motherfuckin steppin

writing about oye mi canto before it's too late, almost the end of the year.
this place we go, if we get there early it's filled with,
1) tall, handsome white men in identical blowy white blouses and tailored pants, dancing perfectly with,
2) girlfriends in all-the-same black, frilly-bottomed dresses. thinbodied, narrowfaced white girls in red stilettos and lipstick, competing with,
3) latin girls wearing shiny gloves to their elbows. perfect hair worn way up in the air. thigh-length bridesmaids dresses curved over round asses, swooping necklines. dancing with each other, tapping painted toes in transparent plastic highheels and smiling and spinning for,
4) probable cousins and older brothers of friends, chubby, sweating boys in sport jackets and pink or orange ties, hovering around,
5) older latin couples dressed up and getting drunk, dancing in little clusters off the dance floor, the wife tripping into a ducking, hustling kick/step and other wife picking it up and the husbands stepping back and clapping for beautiful wives and,
6) the dj, who spins the original and all the remixes, incl. one with the new york dj shouts still on it, dances to each one, calls all the girls up on stage who smile at
7) us, dancing to the only song we've heard before. later, when samantha goes to the bathroom, a beautiful bridesmaid dress girl falls out of formation and stands along side me, sipping on a plastic cup, "you like this music? is that your girlfriend?"

For those who downloaded Mos Def's last effort and still kinda felt sick afterwards, I present him as Ford Prefect, of Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy,a scifi comedy which if successful or failure should make sure he pretty much will never be taken seriously as a rapper again. See also Will Smith.

the last mr. bigg caught two bullets in the back of the head walking through his neighborhood in mobile, alabama. sounds like he got ran up on from behind and the shooter dropped him, snatched his chain and ran his pockets for the cash. are you picturing this? facedown on the grey sidewalk, leaking thick black blood out of jagged exit wounds, mouth gaping, old lady running out of house because she heard the shots go off, runs back in and dials 9-1-1, the dude lying out there until emt truck screeches up. and right now lying in a coma in a hospital bed with spearmint green sheets, flanked by mother, sisters, cousins, friends.

he does that old man, old fashioned pimp and gangsta shit, talking about cadillacs and selling soft white in 1986 and getting put up on crack and putting a downpayment on his third house and giving his baby sister a benz to drive to highschool graduation.

just like you ft. paul wall and chamillionaire - just like you -- bigg flying into houston for one of those soft, shiny beats and thirty two from the two hottest in the city. it's paul and cham spitting their strictly metaphorical pimping for the purposes of wordplay and bigg spitting gruff about taking a bitch life and getting his nails done, and softly crooning the hook, letting his voice quaver and crack.

trial time -- this is his anthem, the track that got him blowing up on out of state mixtapes and selling him a lot of records. he's working that filthy voice on this, sort of a half and half mix between bill cosby and old master p, talking about take it trial because he's not talking, "getcha twelve white folks and take that shit to trial, bitch."

get well soon.

The Government Names Lil Weavah Interview



Check this out: cruise the sunshiney afternoon away, day off, sliding on dirt roads with the city way back in the rearview mirror, smoking skinny little joints and letting that Lil Weavah CD bang, backseats rolled down to let the sunwarmed cabin air leak back into the trunk and keep the amp from getting too cold, 10s banging and just digging on the genius of that Killa Kamikaze out Atlanta, Georgia. I'm going to say it again: Weavah is one of the realest in the game right now, the whole game, from West Coast to East Coast to Third Coast. If you haven't bought Home Team, you need to. (The IAP Store has it for under eight bucks, so hit them up). (And hit up the official website to find out when he's coming to your town and keep updated on his mixtape spots). He comes with that studied, bulletproof flow, spitting like he's got ten years in the game-- and he's only twenty years old. And check this out, too: I called the dude up and shot some questions at him about the rap game, the dope game, and his plans to get it popping on a major label. Like Akini says on the intro, "Always representing the real."

Aight, you ready?

Yep.

What part of Atlanta are you from?

I'm from Southwest Atlanta.

I heard you shout out Rasaq and Chamillion on your album. What do you think about there being a new rivalry between Atlanta and Houston?

Um, rivalry as far as actually beef rivalry? I don't know about that. I'll tell you what I'll speak on. They show me much love in Texas. Cham and Rasaq, I showed them much love when they came through, took them to all the record stores. I get much love when I go to Texas.

You've got the number one independent album in Atlanta right now-- in Georgia. Are people start to recognize you? Are you a pretty big deal when you go back to your neighborhood?

You know, I been rapping in the hood for a long time. I been rapping since I was six. Everybody knew I was rapping. I had a record out as Killa Kamikaze that blew up pretty big industry-wise. I formed relationships with record stores. When Home Team came out in September, with the underground game and P$C-- that's T.I. and them-- I knew how to sell, I knew where to sell.

You were rapping when you were six?

Yeah! I was rapping about six, my cousin and I. I play it for people when I do interviews, when I do interviews in person here. Way back in 1989, man.

What were you rapping about when you were six!

You know, about how we wanna be a star, we wanna be big. [Laughs]. It's amazing! You know? Where did my consciousness come from at that age.

Who were you listening to then?

I got my first record player when I was four. I had two records: Run DMC and Patti Labelle. Actually! My bad, my bad, Run DMC and the other was Gladys Knight.

You spit similar about the drug game, the dope game, to how T.I. is doing. I've heard T.I. say some stuff about crack being the best thing that ever happened to the hood, because it's letting cats get money. Are you with that? Do you subscribe to that whole philosophy?

I mean I'm still in the hood. I speak on dope 'cause thats what I know. I know the dope game inside and out, how you can succeed and how you will fail. I mean, you gotta realize I got folks in the pen right now for some working with some heavy weight. But I always say in my raps, I aint never get deep into the crack. That's a whole other game in itself. I wont lie, I was around plenty dudes moving it, but like I say, thats a whole 'nother underworld that lives diffently day to day than the green. But, I understand people gotta feed they kids, so at the end of the day, folk do what they gotta do.

You just straight up don't fuck with crack?

Nah, that's automic five to ten years if you slip up. Weed is a different game. Either way if you really getting it in, you got twelve watching, or maybe even feds. But if y'all dont know, coke is another level of street hustling. It's deep, man, but I dont really want to get into all that.

Do you get any heat from street niggas for shouting out real specific shit in your raps? Like, you were saying how much you get a quarter pound for!

For what. I'm a street nigga. Thats what niggas want to hear, a real nigga. Street dudes come up to me like, 'Damn shawty you be getting it in for the low.' [Laughs]. But because I hang or for the sake of this interview, because I hung with big time inner city trap stars, what ever I was in on was for the super low.

How important is it to stay true to that, stay true to it being street music, trap music?

I do street music but I'ma take it outside the street. I'ma give you the hood perspective, show the folks in the hood that the hood is not everything. The hood ain't everything. If you don't wanna be in the hood, you ain't gotta be. On my new album, Home Team, on 'The Block' I explain you gotta save up money and work with it. You ain't gotta work in a crack house, you can buy houses. Fourteen, fifteen year old girls ain't gotta prostitute themselves. I can help you get a job in the hood. School ain't for everybody.

Did you graduate?

Yeah. I'm going to school right now.

College?

Yeah, I had to. To be where I'm from and have seen what I've seen, I had to take advantage of an opportunity I was given. My folks didn't have a chance and some of them really wanted to go. But I'm still in my same hood. Ain't shit changed. Before the industry rap, it was just me in the hood rapping. And even then I was a neighborhood hero. I stay down shawty. It's more kids in the hood looking at me more than they look at probably a lot of other rappers.

Do cats still try and hit you for a zee?

Who?

For a zee, an ounce.

An O? [Laughs]. ...Well, um, they do... but I'm not really into it....

Aight, enough about that. Do you plan on staying on the independent hustle--

No...

--or trying to get on a major?

Definitely not. Definitely major. I've been talking to some and hopefully talks will heat up.

What do you have out in stores that people can cop right now and what else do you have coming out in the next little while?

Right, the Home Team, number one underground in Atlanta-- or Georgia, basically-- out right now. Upcoming... a lot of mixtapes right now. I'm trying to hit the mixtape game real, major labels real hard. I'm doing some stuff for a major album. We haven't gotten the budget yet but I've done some stuff.

Is there anyone you want to shout out?

Yeah. I wanna shoutout B-Ray down in Florida, CPB, Duce, DJ Burn One, Young Dro, Quez and Raeniece. And everybody thats been keeping it real, man.

Cool. Aight, that's it, man.

I appreciate you hitting me up, doing the interview, showing love. I just try to represent for all the folks out there, without them I'm nothing.

Bossman and N.E.K. - Charm City's King Mixtape Vol. 2
NEK stands for North East Kings, kind of a UGK nod/ripoff, repping the Cherry Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, been making moves as a group for at least a couple years before Bossman started his solo project and got a bunch of songs on the radio this year and moved somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand units so far.

2. Intro - Dollars
The members of NEK on this mixtape are Bossman, Dollars aka D.O. and Tony Manson (there's another dude, Cash, who broke off from the crew recently, which Bossman talks about on the new single "Off the Record" and a couple tracks on here). Dollars is coming 2nd, after the Bossman album drops, then Tony Manson coming 3rd. Dollars has 2 solo tracks on here (plus the posse cut verses), this one and track 19, "D.O.L.L.A.R.S.", and both are hot, although he's got the more generic east coast/Jay-Z wannabe flow where Bossman and Manson have that tight-lipped Baltimore accent where every vowel sound is squeezed up in the same way.

3. Battle Skit
please enter your password..you have 4 new voice messages and 3 saved messages...to play your messages, press 1...saved messages, sunday august 8th, 10:29...

listen, doggy, been month after month after month, doggy, of you duckin' me, doggy, I'm sick of you duckin' me, I'm tryin' to battle, I always will be tryin' to battle, doggy...I keep hearin' this "land and the city of the oh's, the city where they rock them oh's," doggy...doggy, what the hell is a oh? doggy, listen, and now I'm hearin' this "I did it, I did it, I did it"...nobody knows what the hell you did, doggy...don't wanna battle me, you duckin' me...listen, doggy, I will...gotta calm down, doggy, calm down, lemme give it to you right now, doggy, listen, doggy listen, doggy, I am a wild animal, doggy, whatever, doggy, I will come through your block...sting you like a hornet...niggas will be like "dayum, son...like a hor-net!"...listen, doggy, my flow is on another level, like noone else's doggy, whatever you wanna do, whatever you wanna call it, doggy, you're not comparin'...listen, doggy, late at night I put it on bitches, when I pull your bird, I don't be like, hey baby, can I buy you a drink, what's your number...nahh, none of that, doggy...all I have to do to pull a bird is go...CAW, CAW-CAW, CAW...like a parrot! listen, doggy...I got too much dough, doggy...niggas call me...Duncan Heinz...every broad that I get, doggy...I hit it from the back...I dunk in hinds! don't want none, doggy...

7. "I Did It"
His 2nd hit, follow-up to "Oh!", I wrote about it back when it dropped over the summer, and it really grew on me over time. Produced by One Up Entertainment (as are most of tracks on here that aren't freestyles), soul sample in 6/8 laid over a 4/4 drum pattern so that the piano notes from the sample kind of fall across the beat in this elegant, dragging way I've never heard anyone quite do before, it's really amazing considering that even a lot of mainstream producers don't know how to quantize a fucking 4/4 sample so it sounds tight and together. His voice is so perfect on this, clenched jaw and pinched, constipated vowels, saying "childs" instead of "children" but pronouncing it more like "chells".

hook (female voice sampled): I did it for real, I did it, I did it, I did it for real, I did it the way that my heart led me to, finding a star

verse 1: now I done seen cold winters with no blizzards, I'm talkin' when ya heart turn cold with no feelin's, we all some sinners, I got diminished, no matter how you look at it, man, we all winners, like 'Melo in the league and he knockin' down jumpshots, got your degree and you ain't have to pump rock, or you like me on the beat spittin' dumb hot, or you had to pump rocks to getcha own business, no matter if you did it, right or wrong you still did it, the skies is the limit, lotta stars, gotta pick it, just follow your heart, that's how I spit it, and if you dead broke without a job you still livin', still got time to shine, go and grind, go and get it, and you can be proud of yourself and say I did it, it's easy to spit it if you ain't never lived it, but I lived it, livin' proof, lemme tell you how I did it (hook)

verse 2: and to my grown sistas, my own sister, out there on your own, know it's hard with no mister, keep on, sista, you go, sista, no matter how it look, shawty, y'all all winners, you punch in the clock to put food on that table, trippin' on the block to put food on that table, don't worry about no labels, ho or a trick? you takin' care of home, yeah you did it, you the shit, if your kids ain't complainin', girlfriend you gainin', that's the type of gal that you gotta claim queen, mayne, I done seen the same, man, my sister, my mother, seen 'em both struggle and that's why I love ya, single black females, 2 or 3 childs, 2 or 3 baby fathers and they all fell, graduated from school, own cars, own cribs, ask mama how she did it, and this is what she said (hook)

verse 3: it was a cold winter, good old November, 23rd day, '81, that's when I entered, like woah timber, bout to drop ol' kippers, then my parents got locked, that made me more sicker, not one 9 to 5, had two 9 to 5's, and on top of all that, man, I was tryin' to rhyme, I was tryin' to grind, I was tryin' to shine, the story I'm sellin' these labels ain't buyin', so I started supplyin' that grain on the block, gettin' cream on the block, but all that had to stop like skrrrrr, 'cause now I got a daughter, it costs to be the boss so I gotta afford her, I got my game in order though my pockets got shorter, still punchin' on the clock, spittin' hot like Florida, the city's supportin' on the radio bangin', the land of the Oh! got everybody sangin', I did it (hook)

8. "Cock Up"
Corny comedy version of Akon's "Locked Up".

10. "Get Loose" (freestyle)
catch me if you can, it's the Boss to the man, gettin' bread like my first name ginger, man, I fold my hands and I pray e'y night, life is a dice game and rap is the dice, and I ice my wrists, ice my neck, even ice my fists, with all this damn ice this life's still a bitch, got a hustle on the side, still grind for a check, still ain't seen a check for this 1-2 mic check, take a walk in my Nike checks see if you feelin' tight, left without a deal when you knowin' you spit it right, you're blind to the flow, can't be seen and I'm outta sight, yeah I said it, B-O-crooked letter, bring any competitor, I'll put up the chedder, bet I'll leave you deader than Big and Pac put together, the game been in need since we lost B-I-G and P-A-C, R-I-P, I'm the R-A-P P-C-P with A-P-B out on the G-A-M-E, it's no I in team but there's one in king, so I wear the crown while all y'all bow, got half of the town ready to throw in the towel, it's Charm City's king, Bmore, say it loud, I got nothin' else to say, so fuck y'all, I'm out

11. "Dog"
The hook has a woofing "hoo!" thing like "No Problem", used in almost the exact same way except they're actually trying to sound like dogs on this. On the last track on the mixtape there's another message from the 'doggy' dude from track 3, going "now you even got a joint called All My Dogs and I'm not on it!"

12. Omar Skit
"yeah, what up niggas, this Charm City's king, the Bossman, chillin' in full effect with my nigga, the shotgun bandit, Omar from The Wire, man, we bout to lay shit flat, this shit live and direct"

"Brooklyn to Bmore, muthafuckas, what's good"

"bout to slide up in here and let my man get at y'all pussy ass niggas"

"niggas, what's really good, lemme tell ya what's up, boy, holla at ya muthafuckin' nigga, Omar from the muthafuckin' Wire, 3rd season gonna be crazy, reppin' the streets of Bmore, east side, west side, ya heard, my nigga, you heard Bossman, nigga, this is not a game, ya heard? gangsta life got no ups, just downs, full of frowns and hounds who just came home from pounds, you can be despised by men wicked or wise, who like to tell lies and walk around in disguise, they vowed never to vote, choke or flip fries, unaffected by lies, numb to the who's and why's, critical of the ones that try they best to fly. I myself? a carpenter, the hood, a tool to rise, see them other cats, they need to be tried, jealousy's a felony, so much poison in they lives, maaaaan...sup, Bossman, help me out, nigga!"

14. "Why" freestyle
The track that started a minor controversy, Bossman saying "why is Jada's album garbage but this song's so hot?" and people thinking it was meant as a diss (I dunno if this all went down before or after I saw Bossman open for Jada in September).

15. Why Skit
Really stupid skit with Bossman and someone smoking (or making those sucking sounds pretending to smoke like a Cheech & Chong record) and talking about Jada, and then the one who isn't Bossman singing about Jadakiss to the tune of MJ's "Human Nature". There's so many stupid skits on this CD, like 8 tracks are skits (and only the "doggy" one is funny at all), and it's supposed to be a fucking mixtape, I hope the album doesn't have this many skits.

17. "Face Down" (remix prod. by Blaqstarr)
The awesome fake club track with the spooky vibraphone-y synth!

23. Omar Skit 2
"Back that shit down, son, it's not a muthafuckin' game, we comin' hard, you heard? streets of Baltimore, we comin' hard, it's not a muthafuckin' game, Omar comin', dog, you know what this is, son! North East Kings, you heard? it's not a game. kings! big word right there, you heard? kings, baby! be the king at what you do, be a beast at what you do, you gonna sell them cracks? do the shit right, be a king about it. don't be a fuckin' corner nigga, gettin' cornered by the police, dog, get yo game right, the police is not stupid, yo, they watchin' us, The Wire's real! bea a king at what you do, don't be a nickel and dime nigga, don't be petty, keep them guns off the fuckin' streets unless niggas really need to see 'em, stop killin' my brothers and sisters, make that paper, yeah, but stop sheddin' that motherfuckin' blood, man, be a king at what you do"

25. "Need To Know"
Super intense freestyle over the Jin "I Got A Love" beat (which O-Dub dissed a couple times but it's one of my favorite Kanye beats of the year), Bossman talking all about the split with Cash, and then

26. Cash and Bossman "Re-Up"
and then the two of them going back and forth, clearing the air, taking turns with lines and finishing each other's rhymes Lox-style, great dramatic shit.

BOSSMAN DEBUT ALBUM "LAW AND ORDER" OUT DEC. 21st!!!!!

Labels: Bossman, mixtape/album review, One Up Entertainment, The Wire

we love rappers talking about sex. so, here's selected excerpts from the ozone sex issue interviews. go read the rest, too.

t.i. on paris hilton and white women in general:

She's interesting, yet frail. I don't think she could take it. I don't generally do white women. I've had, uh, encounters, but I've never slept with a white woman. It's just that I'm an ass man. I like asses, and white women generally have more titties. Not to say they're not nice; I like a nice set of titties as much as the next man. I know a lot of cool white broads and we can go kick it and drink and have a good time, but you know, that attraction just don't be there. I've seen a few on TV that I might consider.

lil scrappy on getting his salad tossed:

The best lesson I ever got was when a bitch lick my ass, dawg, I was like, "Oh, my muthafuckin' God!" I was like (Lil Jon voice) "Whattttt????????!" 'Cause I used to argue with niggas all day, like, "How y'all gonna let a bitch lick your ass? That ain't proper, my nigga! That ain't hood! But then I was getting my dick sucked and the bitch lifted my leg and licked my ass. I couldn't help it, I was screaming, Oh, I felt like a bitch.

jacki-o on who's packing:

Petey Pablo. Lil Flip. Ludacris. They just give me that vibe. Who else is holding a big package? Definitely Lebron James, cause he's a young tall nigga with some big feet. Them ball players, like Clinton Portis, and Lebron James. Lebron James looks like he's straight muthafuckin' lunch. And now that Shaq done moved to Miami, he ain't exempt, neither! But they could be tricky dicks, they could be foolin' us.

jazze pha on oprah:

Oprah can definitely get it. Oprah could tell me not to look at all them other broads and I won't. I'll look straight ahead.

lil wayne on anal sex:

That was back in the day. Now, if you try to pull that shit with a girl, they like, "Oh, no." But back in the day, that shit was real popular. For real, like, we had a whole 'hood known for doing that. The advantage is that if the rubber pops, there's no kids, you just end up with that Twix. Nah, to tell you the truth, I ain't really did that shit since I was 17 or 18. Ugh, I don't even wanna do it now. I guess I was just young and it was popular.

Quote of the day: "Everybody's actin' like I work for Crayola, 'yo, what's the new color?'" - Cam'ron on Rap City today

TODAY (Tuesday Dec. 14) Baltimore's own DJ K-Swift the Club Queen will be Tigger's guest DJ on Rap City: Tha Bassment on BET, 4-6pm.

Labels: K-Swift

baby d. a lightweight, hundred-situps-a-day prettyboy thug, lean and tattooed, dark brown eyes, coming out of southeast atlanta with hot, traditional songs, toasting on dirty, real atlanta beats that bear no resemblence to what comes out of atlanta after a couple seasons of atlanta rappers blowing up on universal, generic southern beats, sounding ultra provincial and selling a lot of records and getting cash with the oomp camp and grinding his way to a major label deal. he got the big push right at the apex of the first southern intifada, banner&flip/bonecrusher/ying yangs/lil jon on 106&park, selling records up north. the label got him the cash to get the right producers and the right features and a video with bonecrusher. the album was supposed to drop last spring-- maybe it was even before that-- but it never did and he disappeared back into southeast atlanta, where oomp camp had been usurped by all the other grinders following their template for money-getting in atlanta. but i guess he's back now, showing up on some mixtapes. that's good. check:

baby d - eastside, westside remix ft. lil c -- the record that blew d up in atlanta, flipped with a different beat from a different oomp camp in-house producer. this shit presses all kinds of correct buttons and sets it the fuck off. you'll be shouting out that E-A-S-T-S-I-D-E spelloff after the second rewind, and hitting the chants at the beat breakdowns, wishing you were bumping up against motherfuckers on packed dancefloor, shouting in their faces and trading perspiration.

baby d ft. lil c and loko - bouncin -- it's the hottest out the oomp camp on a quasi-bounce beat (it's got all the little bounce signifiers, the right break, that HOO! vocal sample but used sort of superficially), hence title. more amazingly hot shit, though.

baby d ft. lil jon and lil flip - hoe check -- was probably going to be a follow-up single after his video started blowing up and the album was in stores, but it never got much shine, just showed up on a few mixtapes. yeah, so, it's an oldschool lil jon beat, standard bass bombs under the beat and delicate chimes on the edge of drowned out. and, yeah, a standard flip verse, which is always nice to hear. and baby d thrown onto the end, feeling like an afterthought, checking the hoe-ass niggas, as the title suggests.

young jeezy ft. baby d - old school chevys -- i guess this is the first step in his comeback. mixtape heater with young jeezy, who's been getting fame and on everybody's album. sit through two jeezy verses conforming to the new atlanta lyrical standards and then hear baby d tear it up with filthy gangsta shit, "a nigga just got a chopper with a coolin system / don't make me fuck around and change your digestive system," and talk about heading back to the streets after the rap shit slowed down.

If you haven't yet, vote in the poll by midnight this Wednesday! And feel free to plug it on your own blogs/message boards/what have you, the bigger and more varied the turnout, the better. Here's my ballot:

Albums:
1. Kanye West - The College Dropout
2. Trick Daddy - Thug Matrimony: Married To The Streets
3. Nas - Street's Disciple
4. Cam'ron - Purple Haze
5. Twista - Kamikaze
6. T.I. - Urban Legend
7. Comp - Bang-A-Rang Gang, Vol. 1
8. Bossman - Charm City's King, Vol. 2
9. Paula Campbell - Who Got Next?
10. various artists - The Movement Mixtape, Vol. 2

Singles
1. Jay-Z - "99 Problems"
2. T.I. - "Rubber Band Man"
3. Terror Squad - "Lean Back"
4. Lloyd Banks f/ 50 Cent - "On Fire"
5. J-Kwon - "Hood Hop"
6. Young Gunz f/ Rell - "No Better Love"
7. Juvenile f/ Soulja Slim - "Slow Motion"
8. Wacko, Skip and Juvenile - "Nolia Clap"
9. Twista - "Overnight Celebrity"
10. Anthony Hamilton - "Charlene"
11. Jadakiss f/ Anthony Hamilton - "Why"
12. Mannie Fresh - "Real Big"
13. Nelly - "Na-Nana-Na"
14. Lloyd - "Hey Young Girl"
15. Paula Campbell - "Take You Home"
16. Comp - "Harder"
17. Ghostface f/ Jadakiss and Comp - "Run"
18. Beanie Sigel f/ Peedi Crakk and Twista - "I Gotta Have It"
19. Lil Whyte - "I Sho Will"
20. Fabolous - "Breathe"

I really didn't buy many albums this year, so I ended up filling out my 10 with some Baltimore mixtapes, because I'd rather rep my city than all the mediocre albums I copped (Fab, Kweli, Cee-Lo, Jada) or some random various artist mixtapes like Southern Smoke or something. And I feel kinda lame including so much 4th quarter stuff, but there's just been a lot more recent releases that lived up to/exceeded my expectations than there were earlier in the year.

lil weavah - home team

i get a qp for two twenty five
then i break em down to ounces and it's sixteen dimes
four hundred dollar profit with no givin or takin
everytime i flip a quarter i invest what i'm makin
do it twice in seven days and it's eight hundred a week
this a little hustle, ain't no way i'm out there runnin the streets
cause i grew up around trap stars with ounces and birds
i mean them niggas ran the projects, water house and the burbs
i seen how to catch a lick, take a nigga brick, chop your keys into ps and let em go for six
but these niggas be robbin so quick by the time you try to re-up they stick you for ya kicks

i always been the littlest thing on the block with an ounce
remember back in 99 we was trappin at the bounce
we was comin out the trunk with a pretty good amount
askin how much can you pay, sayin how much can you count
ran with the biggest dope boys the city ever seen
harris homes, zone 1, niggas sellin hella green
fillin up with green cause i never fuck with crack
and we made a couple stacks so we'd always carry gats
round here it get dirty, we got paid off what the cops sell
movin weight to college park on out to scottsdale
a nigga thinkin bout robbin, watch the glock
tell him, it spell him, THE HELL WITH HIM CAUSE HE GETTIN SHOT NOW *BLADOW*

the only shit i heard out atlanta all summer other than the obvious major label dudes was unlaced filas white tees talent show crunk getting huge off blown up regional singles and getting sold out best buys, making hundred thousandaires out of the boys of summer. but weavah's running georgia right now, twenty years old and coming out of southwest atlanta with the number one independent album in the state, co-signed by t.i., the whole p$c, jazze pha, d. banner, all the mixtape heavyweights in atlanta, and pac's sister! the next to blow out the south.

he's got the big, rough hooks done in freshly broken teenaged voice, working the accent, shouting about he's got ounces for sale (his deal is he sells green instead of white) and he's about to bust your shit. and he's got the lyrical southerner shit, studied t.i. and ball&g and bun&pimp, coming with rim metaphors and drug math and autobiography:

it all started when i was fifteen and used to walk home right after school
football season was over so we was actin a fool
but i stayed cool until the day i spotted some dudes
posted on the corner with some rocks and a tool
now they tried fronting me some green
but the block ain't for me
and plus i don't wanna get kicked off the team
so it's cool but i'm realizing i'm always broke
thinking about all the dope that folk around here smoke
but folk round here, man they just look and sell the best weight
cause they get caught and go to jail and then they bail the next day
see, on the west side we lookin for jumpout vans
they put me out on the block to be the watchout man

flips that rise in the game shit better than anyone out right now, sounding old and thorough despite thin mustache and nasal twang, doing the same street economics knowledge as t.i., telling the kids to invest the profits from that brick and build yourself and your community up. he keeps it specific, giving dates and locations and names and convincing you of the shit but keeping it natural and loose and avoiding the slow, read-along t.i. sort of style. and still sounding natural on the club/girls/cars joints.

he's got the hard, grimy atlanta beats. tinny robotic snares + shiny keyboards + militant bass blasts you need at least ten inches and a couple hundred watts in your trunk to feel properly + one trick per track (distorted vocal sample scratched in OR roaring fiery furnace rush on the hook OR sproingy guitar jerk off OR sighing dj paul/juicy j scared shitless fake violin shit (he also uses their scary devil voice on a track) OR hollow church choir hook singers).

home team is kind of halfway between a mixtape and a regular album. he's got some freestyles that have been on other mixtapes (a break bread freestyle [amazing doubletime flow, exhausting to listen to], one on that jae millz no, no, no beat, one on you don't want drama).

(best tracks:

just breathe. weavah spitting heavy, dripping game over nothing but angels exhaling and ticking snare. it's this bulletproof flow and sexy and dirty as a motherfucker. crazy.

trapped. that autobiographical, coming up in the game track i was quoting above.

green 4 da low. with bohagon. those two verses at the top are from this. rocking that creepy three six sort of beat and doing the drug math shit that i love.

they scared. with xtaci, the p$c girlrappers.

hollywood. coming with spitters on minimal electro shit. sounding more like t.i. on this than anything else, but more raw, more loose. talking about how he still in the hood, still getting fucked over by police, still using his food stamps, still selling, still driving a le sabre. goofy, sung hook: I SAY FUCK HOLLYWOOD, I'MA STAY RIGHT HERE IN THE HOOD / SMOKIN ON THAT GOOD, SOLD AS MUCH GREEN AS I COULD.)

okay. so, he's one of the coldest in the south right now-- shit, one of the coldest in the whole rap game. i can't wait for him to get on tracks with the legends and the fresh cats. order that home team. listen to samples on iap-tv and order the shit. seven bucks!

real talk re: Real Talk

Tit 4 Tat
The next single. I always wondered whether the word "tit" would still be censored on the radio if it was in the context of the phrase "tit for tat", I guess we'll see now. It kinda sucks, though, so maybe it won't get spins anyway. Pharrell does one of his awkward wordy hooks and rhymes "bourgeois" with "sushi". Pet theory #4980 about how the Neptunes fell the fuck off: it's all Pharrell now and not enough Chad. I've noticed, on the Neptunes tracks on here and the one on the Jadakiss album, there's a P. Williams songwriting credit but no C. Hugo. Maybe someone with the liner notes for the Snoop album and some of the other stuff they've done recently can verify whether there's any other cases of this. Chad's already proven with the Kenna album that he can do hot shit without P., but I don't think the opposite is true.

Girls
Scratched sample of Run DMC saying "I'm the king of" and Fab saying "girls". Yeah, Fab, you're the king of girls. That shit don't sound right, like you're saying you're the best girl there is. (The first track on Urban Legend has a flip on "King of Rock", too, except with the premise that T.I. is the king of the south, not the king of girls).

Church f/ Charlie Murphy
Darkness as hype man, talking between verses in lieu of a hook, but he doesn't really say anything funny, except maybe when he says "fart". The weird thing is in the lyric sheet in the CD booklet, it has completely different words listed for what Charlie says, I guess from a different take

Can You Hear Me
An attempt at a Jay-Z style introspective, regretful track, but he doesn't have real storytelling skills and he ends every verse by saying "and it's fucked up" in this resigned way that just makes me crack up for some reason.

Holla At Somebody Real f/ Lil Mo
It's ok, but it really didn't live up to my high expectations for a Fab/Mo collab with such a great title.

Ghetto f/ Thara
Tuff Jew unloading a bunch of his stock sounds, "Poppin' Them Thangs"/"Time's Up" muffled piano and "Lean Back" string squiggles, nothing special, but towards the end of an album full of dated, weak ass beats, it feels like a banger by comparison. And you know something's wrong when I'm forced to give props to Scott Storch. Plum Drank worried a while back that "Breathe" was an omen that Fab was going to get fully on the Roc's jock for this album and drop the 'chunky keyboard beats', but almost every other track on this album wouldn't sound out of place on a pre-Blueprint NYC album, it's all very four years ago. Which is kind of nice, in a way, I love that era too, but really this album is garbage. I'm mad I waited too long to take it back to the store to get a full refund.

Po Po f/ Paul Cain and Nate Dogg
Fab's long overdue potshot at the hip hop cops, shuffled to the last track for added effect, some ok storytelling, and really stupid bookend skit parts with I think Clue playing the part of the cop.

So don't be acceptin' new 'We Are The World' records
These pickaninnies get with anything to sell records
'Cause it's trendy to be the conscious MC
But next year, who knows what we'll see?
- Nas, "Coon Picnic (These Are Our Heroes)"

Well, shit, he warned us: Jermaine Dupri Producing All-Star 'We Are The World' Sequel. I'm glad he said it, and the timing was really perfect, but actually, fuck Nas, he was on that shitty post-9/11 "What's Going On" cover, so he's just being a hypocrite as usual. Plus even though he has a point about about the trendy consciousness shit in '04, "Why" was the most glaring example of that and he was on the fuckin' remix!

messy marv ft. yukmouth - you already know -- marv and yukmouth (the west coast's official ambassador to texas) on a tribute to h-town, modifying that chillin with my broad and you already know to i'm a motherfuckin fool and you already know. "choppin-choppin swishas down, drinkin my remy / ridin-ridin through, servin, droppin off cream / knockin-knockin michael watts with my four 15s."

yo gotti - burna clap -- yo gotti on the nolia clap beat. it's probably months old now but you probably didn't get to hear it. it's the most recent thing i've heard from yo gotti in a while, since his cd from last year. i heard he was getting down with cash money with his block burnaz group, who were being hyped as the next hot boys.

FOUR GOOD SONGS FROM POWERBALLIN

we do ft. bun b -- panicking keyboards chirping, buzzing, swarming around central chant. who got them whips with them dubs?? WE DO!! who gloss hard on them scrubs?? WE DO!! and remember how hot a short burst of chingy actually sounds? that goofy, rubber band twanging flow and always sounding illegitimately convincing talking about street shit, that slippery guntalk out his tight throat. and bun b, stepping away from that slow, lyrical flow he uses on guest verses (reading heavylidded from black leatherbound dayplanner to fulfill his role as oldschool boss blessing the newcomer, teaming up with the kid for a creaky gangsta tears track//or just fucking around on one of his friends shits, flipping through the book until he finds verse about cadillacs/drank) and flipping something short and sweet, big pimpin cadence:

now who got the city by the cojones
who front dope to the man who front dope to the man who front to your homies?
nigga, you owe me, don't even know it, don't even know me
so, no disrespect, give it up, bow down to the one and only
king of the trill and the underground, you see me on the throne
but hold the phone, just keepin it warm until a pimp come home
bitch, give us some, git it boys and ugk, we bout it
money, power and respect, you ain't gotta ask who got it
nigga, WE DO!!

make that ass talk ft. ziggy -- ching-a-ling flipping the burroughs (fellow st. louisian!) shit on another overwhelmingly slippery smooth beat. i've got to listen to these twice to pick chingy's verse out of the blur of blinding shine sheet of ice beat and smooth hooks, takes a minute to figure out where the machine ends and chingy starts. no one else could ride these beats like this without being caught flatfooted at the end of every line.

all the way to st. lou ft. david banner and nate dogg -- slick, plastic d banner beat fitting in perfectly, everything toned down a bit so chingy can't disappear against wallpaper. half a chingy verse sounds like this: "stressin, bout to take four to the head / thinking revolution listening to dead prez / he say, she say, i don't care what they says / man, i'm a hustler stay equipped with the bread / irs trippin, so fuck the feds." and d banner's gruff YUH!s and casual interjections at the ends of hooklines. and nate, obviously smooth on anything.

26s ft. lil wayne -- yall ride 18s, we ride 26s!! yeah, okay. don't count on dudes from st. louis to talk about rims, he's out of his element and can't get specific about what exactly he drives and on what they're sitting. but wayne's done this track so many times that he really want to surprise and use his real world experience, using that new haggard superrapper flow. i'm seein chrome and i do them run flats / president tint: front, back / man, i wish them old bbs's come back / but i roll on them 100-spoke big d's triple gold / lil homie, my rims ain't twistin but don't get it twisted / damn, it's 26s.

Oh shit, Stay Getting also have a song on Purple Haze -- check track 14, "Bubble Music". More heat from the Dipset/Bmore connection! Speaking of which, on first listen I'm surprised how hot PH is. Until maybe a week ago, I'd pretty much written it off as delayed for too long and probably not worth the wait. But this has way surpassed my expectations.

Still, they don't seem to have timed this too well, considering it's been delayed like 9 months. I mean, "Girls" is barely on radio yet (and I really don't think it was the right choice for the single anyway...forget how old it is, "Killa Cam" could be a huge). I mean I'm sure it'll sell ok but it's not gonna compete well in the 4th quarter without a serious hit. Still the video does have one great moment:

random guy: Cam, you see my wifey in here wildin' out?
Cam: yo, that's not your wife, that's everybody's friend!

Labels: Stay Gettin'

JR Writer and Juelz Santana - "Get Use To This"
Crazy hyper stuttering beat by Stay Getting, the Baltimore-based production duo who've done tracks for local people like Tim Trees and Comp and are starting to get some national shine, doing beats for Kay Slay and now 2 tracks on Diplomatic Immunity 2 (this and the Cam mixtape classic "Dead Motherfuckers"). It's kind of a shame JR Writer sounds so typically Dipset (flow like Cam, voice like a cross between Juelz and Cam but higher), otherwise he might actually get props from people. On Diplomats Vol. 5 he had that ridiculous "What Up Gangsta" freestyle where he went 6 minutes with no stops, just unloading his inventory of rhymes seamlessly, Cam in the background talking and keeping time ("this might be 400 bars right here!").

Nas - "Sekou Story"/"Live Now"
Both featuring "Scarlett", which is like Nas's version of "Camille", Prince's female alter ego from the '80's that was just his voice pitched up to sing from a female perspective. Of course, Outkast do that shit all the time too, but biting Prince is pretty much what they do. For Nas to do it is kinda nutty. At first I thought it actually was a girl or a kid or something until the part where he/she says "a ho has to" in the exact same way as the "'cause I'm my owwwwn master" part in "Bridging The Gap" gave it away. Both are totally weird two-part epic songs with beat changeups. "Live Now" is a bit much for me, especially the part where Scarlett's coughing as as she raps and then at the end dies and you hear her machine flatline or whatever. That's just too much. The 2nd half of disc 1 is maybe the only part of Street's Disciple where I really lose the plot, the rest sits pretty well with me.

Ludacris - "Numba One Spot"/"Potion"
OK, it was bad enough when Jay was saying "I got my mojo back" and "oh behave" on songs after his girl did the last Austin Powers flick, but now it's like 8 million years later and Luda is sampling that Quincy Jones track they used in all those movies and talking that "yeah baby" shit (Kanye jacking the "allow myself to introduce myself" line was lame, too, but biting bad jokes from movies is pretty much what he does). I mean, the way they chopped the sample is kinda hot, and in a way it's kind of fun to hear references to catchphrases that were annoyingly unavoidable a few years ago instead of "I'm Rick James, bitch" or whatever else is played out this year. But damn, these dudes need to get some new DVDs on the tour bus. / "Potion" is one of the beats Timbaland plays for Jay in Fade To Black. It's so boring and nothing that it's not surprising he ended up settling for "Dirt Off Your Shoulder", which probably sounded hot in comparison (can you imagine what kind of wack shit Pharrell must've tried to sell Jay before he settled on "Change Clothes"?). But Luda actually kind of makes the beat work with the sheer force of his voice, pushing it around and putting some rhythm into it in the absence of any hi-hats or anything really going on in it.

Labels: Stay Gettin'

My Top 10 Remixes of 2004

1. Jadakiss f/ Styles P., Common, Nas and Anthony Hamilton - "Why?" (remix)
2. Twista f/ DJ Smurf - "Slow Jamz" (Collipark remix)
3. Terror Squad f/ Mase and Eminem - "Lean Back" (Lil Jon remix)
4. Alicia Keys - "If I Ain't Got You" (Kanye West remix)
5. Ghostface f/ Raekwon, Comp and Lil Wayne - "Run" (remix)
6. Jay-Z - "Public Service Announcement" (Just Blaze remix)
7. Lil Flip f/ Bun B and Young Buck - "Game Over" (remix)
8. Trillville f/ Twista - "Neva Eva" (remix)
9. Lloyd Banks f/ Eminem, 50 Cent and Nate Dogg - "Warrior Pt. 2"
10. Jae Millz f/ Cam'ron and T.I. - "No, No, No" (remix)

lil flip - parking lot freestyle

ya might see, got the fade in the drop
comin through, one, two, trunk kick like kung fu
niggas be like damn were you sippin drank
blow the smoke out my lungs too
then i inhale, then i exhale
turn off my nextel

from the soldiers united 4 cash movie, just came out on dvd (watch for big moe looming at the end ). three and a half minute parking lot freestyle over car stereo. must be the summer of 2000. back when flip was a skinny, goofy kid, before cam'ron and diamonds in teeth and gunman talk. that beautiful dumb perfect flow he built his name on, keeping it going for as long as he wants to.

loko - dickies suits -- i sport my red dickies suit when i'm ridin and smokin / but on the block it's white to blend with the rocks i be throwin.
we buy them at bannock shack on 5th ave. it's a restaurant and a telemarketing office and a music store and a clothing store, a bunch of hustles under one roof. they buy the bright white ones from the paint store and dye them any color you'd want, budgie blue/bloodclot brownred/strawberry milk light pink. they can sow on your band/reserve patch or screen a full picture on the back. light khaki longsleeve shirt with angry wolf eyes with bushy eyebrows and MUSKEGWAN BAND #494 KINDERSLEY on the back. matching shorts. shirt unbuttoned to show off the bootleg pac shirts they sell, too.
i wear the khaki shortsleeve and matching shorts in the summer, company logo stitched on left breast pocket. wear them day after day, let them get sweaty and faded out, stained with dust and grass. and in the offseason, rocking the navy blue to add an intimidating legitimacy to any activity. an appearance of looking like-- saying, "this is my fucking job. this is how i eat. i've got the uniform. give me my fucking money." that's what it means. usually never put into practice.

mike jones/slim thug/lil keke/big pokey - still tippin remix --

i'm sittin on fo-fos, four point stance like a bulldog
blue lens, red lights, horsepower under the hood yall
oldschool like a 8track, my cake stack like a brick wall
roof pushed back when the six crawl, chip in the motor, i ditch the laws
door slamma, rimmed up, driveway decorated
four hammers, stash spot, everywhere, niggas hatin
off the cut, raise it up, afghan, blaze it up
park the car, play the truck, meet the rican, weigh the dub
pour it up, shake it up, four fifteens tryna break it up
slab ridin with a hockey game, i be the nigga that'll take the cup
state to state, pullin up like a hamstring, they no dealer
international, worldwide, cool but ain't no ho neither
it's pimpin here, i'm a ho bleeder, jet black fo-fo heater
four fos on four vogues, weed stashed in the door speaker
on boulevards i'm a slow creeper, hog the lane like the trash truck
dog i chase these fast bucks, niggas better get they cash up

ex-screwed up click members thrown a bone, given the privilege of getting on houston's biggest song of the year on a late late remix (officially a remix of a remix), getting a chance to shine alongside the northside kings, the new click running shit.

Ski
1. Streets Is Watching
2. Who U Wit
3. Dead Presidents
4. Feelin' It
5. Politics As Usual

Primo
1. A Million & One Questions
2. So Ghetto
3. Friend Or Foe
4. Friend Or Foe '98
5. D'Evils

Poke and Tone
1. Face Off
2. Best Of Me rmx
3. Jigga That Nigga
4. Honey
5. Fiesta rmx

Timbo
1. Nigga What, Nigga Who
2. Hey Papi
3. Is That Your Chick?
4. Snoopy Track
5. Big Pimpin'

Swizz
1. Money Cash Hoes
2. Jigga My Nigga
3. Stop
4. Girl's Best Friend
5. Things That U Do

Neptunes
1. I Just Wanna Love U
2. Fuck All Nite
3. Allure
4. La La La
5. Excuse Me Miss

Just Blaze
1. U Don't Know
2. Hovi Baby
3. PSA
4. Soon You'll Understand
5. Show You How

Bink Dog
1. 1-900-Hustler
2. All I Need
3. You, Me, Him and Her
4. The Ruler's Back
5. Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)

Kanye
1. Guess Who's Back
2. Poppin' Tags
3. Encore
4. Some People Hate
5. This Can't Be Life

cd backcover, tucked into backseat of bentley pulling away from old money american mansion, whole picture tinted sunset orange. white tee and akademiks between skin and million dollar margarine suede, half-watching meet the parents on seatback screen, balancing notebook on lap. and, further, tucked into upper middle class biodome. soy milk, lexus suv, organic apples, team of mexican laborers cutting front lawn. making transition from aging streetlife philosopher with a ringed pinky still connecting him to the block and a copy of secret resume still saved on hard drive for a quick update if shit goes down to ex-thug of the exurbs. figuring out how to make a clean album, stripped of all unpleasant impulses and club tracks, something that can be held up as an example of the real thing, dusty tome of realness to hold up against invading hordes streaming across mason-dixon line, wild coons with bass and thirty thousand dollar platinum teeth and no respect for new york lyrical conventions. despite cover suggesting another nastradamus, at least another stillmatic. but, no. clean. clean. clean. shameful. but, can't lie, it's still intermittently beautiful and amazing and on a level no one else can touch. it's the truth: he is the greatest. and think about that. think about that for a minute. not just nice, not just a bunch of classics-- the greatest. no one on his level. that's why i can't say anything harsher. that's it. congratulations, i guess, on getting it right.

AllHipHop.com is weird. One of the "exclusive" new songs they have on the audio section on the front page was on Ms. Jade's album over 2 years ago, "Count It Off" f/ Jay-Z. And the Talib Kweli song is labelled as "Slap Niggas" f/ Lil Jon, but it's "Peace Of Mind". And the title bar says "Small Wonder" -- still with the Delaware thing, wtf?

'Melo in the league and he knockin' down jumpshots, got your degree and you ain't have to pump rock

DENVER -- Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony is featured in an underground DVD that is circulating in his home town of Baltimore, Md.

The DVD is called "Stop Snitching" and shows alleged drug dealers talking about what happens to people who cooperate with the police, and Anthony is standing next to one of them.

He is also seen on the DVD talking about his Olympic bronze medal and saying that he threw it in a lake. The man he stands next to later goes on to tell how he would take care of snitches by "putting a hole in their head."

goofiest moments of the Source Awards:

- while presenting the international award, Jin said something about "China...and Asia too"

- one of the best video of the year nominees being some Untouchables/Benzino video (and not even either of the ones that's actually gotten play on Rap City/Uncut). they have to know what a laughing stock they are for pulling that shit by now, why do they still bother?

- Vivica hosting the pre-show and saying "drop it like it's hot" in response to anything anyone said

- Mase's entire presentation speech: "there's a lot of one-hit wonders out there, so let's look at the nominees for album of the year". That's it, no joke, no point. It seemed like he was trying to say something but he kind of lost track and just wrapped it up in a way that made no sense.

- the complete chaos and confusion during the performance of the "Lean Back" remix, with Mase repeatedly trying to start his verse early while they were still doing the hook, and then yelling "let me in!" over and over until it was really time for his verse. And Tego Calderon popping up to do a verse in lieu of Eminem.