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'