Twista ft Faith Evans - "Hope" (remix)
One of the sweet sentimental tracks from towards the end of Kamikaze, now a single for the Coach Carter sdtk but with Cee-Lo's warm pretty hook redone all thin and out of place by Faith. Only other thing different from the original: the line where Twista wishes that "super homie Christopher Reeve could still walk" replaced with a new line about the people that died at E2 (the Chicago club where 21 people got stomped to death).

Amerie - "One Thing"
Rich Harrison showing his Go-Go roots again after the stiff brittle "Soldier" beat, completely bananas flailing drums, loose as fuck, big long bars full of fills tumbling and teetering on the edge of just too much, barely held together by funk guitar stabs, back with his girl Am finally for a follow up to the underrated '02 summer jam "Why Don't We Fall In Love" (which, admit it, "Crazy In Love" was a in some ways inferior rewrite of anyway), her voice still so trebly and piercing but put to perfect use with that chirping hook and that wonderful ridiculous second verse where she says something about ringing bells and then goes "biiiing boooong biiiiing boooong".

Nas - "Getting Married"/Nas ft Quan - "Just A Moment"
Congrats to the Joneses! It almost feels redundant to hear they finally actually had a ceremony after dude spent the last 2 albums calling her wifey. This is far and away my favorite song on Street's Disciple: the weird intro with him doing a call and response of "KISSING" live with that hoarse winded voice he always has outside the booth, "I remember the first time, girl, you and me!", then one of those clean crisp, pretty but not 'lush' beats that everyone hates on him for using but sometimes they just work, rim tapping, slow echoing notes, sounds like a vibraphone. That balance he almost never gets right but does here, between the somber pompous Yoda-like diction and the gruff little flashes of humor, "this ain't no Huxtable kisses and hugs shit", the part at the end where he fakes you out with the cheesy music-as-wife metaphor and then going "siiiiiike". / "Just A Moment", next video and everything, I guess since he coudln't get "Coon Picnic" to fly as a single even with the neutered alternate title "These Are Our Heroes", so now the agenda is hyping this boy Quan he says is the future or whatever. It's an ok track, but I can't listen to it without thinking about how the same sample was flipped ten times better on Freeway/Kanye's "Hear The Song".