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It's a Vallejo thing

May 10, 2015, 1:56 pm
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Decided to investigate whether Big Tymin' and Old School Hyphy are flukes or Nef The Pharaoh had any other good songs prior to 2015. In among the endearing backjacks with no replay value and the outright duds, there are 2 singles which are very necessary:

Nef The Pharaoh - M.A.C
(From YouTube; 2014)


Much like Husalah's Live Life Illegal, M.A.C exists in an alternate Hyphy continuum where The Federation never existed and so Feelin' Myself became the template record. Essentially this GIF in audio form, and if you can't get to the very essence of a Bay Area rap song with some sort of Mac Dre GIF then it shouldn't even qualify as a slap.

Nef The Pharaoh - Bitch I'm From Vallejo
(From YouTube; 2014)



The track where Nef began to stamp his own imprimatur on Mac Dre's former manor, Bitch I'm From Vallejo sees the kid Gassin' like Olivia Luccardi in It Follows: "a sucker tried to say that Vallejo isn't in the Bay, that sound like some faggot shit a n*gga like you would say/these rappers lack what I pack, I immaculately Mac and every song is a slap!" The potshot at Berner during the hook doesn't hurt either - stop letting a local weed dealer with the personality of tupperware have a rap career, Oakland.
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Hat tip to Drew Barber (again)

May 11, 2015, 1:32 pm
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"You can play the man in the room, I'ma play the fool
Real n*ggas goin' extinct like a Sabre Tooth"

Ty Money ft. Twista - Come Again
(From Cinco De Money mixtape; 2015)


Very appropriate that Twista should guest on this cut since it's effectively Frum Da Tip Of My Tongue 2k15 in a Ty Money song's clothing. Production here is also deceptive - what initially appears to be a pleasant enough industrial Zaytoven knock-off designed not to distract from Ty Money & Twista's acrobatics will have you tinklin' the air-ivories like Harvey Kietel in Fingers by the 4th play.

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Oi Mark Ronson

May 12, 2015, 5:39 am
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Why u no hire Lil' Chris as the midget 4 the Feel Right video, bruv? If this blows up even a 10th as big as Uptown Funk then Bouncin' Back (Bumpin' Me Against The Wall) has finally gotten the follow up single it deserves and Ronson has just vindicated himself for being too stingy to clear These Days& its ol'Blankety Blank soundin' ass Jerry Reed sample for that Rhymefest album.

Mark Ronson ft. Mystikal - Feel Right
(From YouTube; 2015)


Are fedoras officially a thing in rap now? Caught Mobb Deep live last friday night and Prodigy was wearing one on stage too. Rappers? More like dry dick randos amirite?
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Rompalation Shop

May 13, 2015, 5:25 am
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Very accurate description of this edit of some song by the Kitty Kat kid. Hyphy Dancehall: a genre that's been threatening to happen ever since Act A Ass?

Gage - Throat (Ghetto Vanessa Edit)
(From Soundcloud; 2015)


The Jamai' Area connection is so real right now 'cause Nef The Pharaoh clearly saw the Kitty Cat video and bit Gage's whole look.

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Savile Life

May 14, 2015, 2:17 pm
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South Park Mexican ft. Rasheed, Baby Beesh & Boo Rossini - As A Youngster
(From South Park Mexican & Happy Perez's Lone Star Ridaz album; 1999)



Very unfortunate song title or a thinly-veiled cry for help from a man struggling to suppress his sexual urges? That's on you, but even the presence of Miguel Mars Bar ain't gonna stop me from enjoying Boo Rosinni & Baby Bash over some laconic Happy Perez ersatz G-Funk.

According to some #FreeSPM truther on YouTube, Baby Bash owns a chain in the shape of South Park Mexican's head. I can find no photographic evidence of Bash wearing such an item, but since he's still recording songs with awfully inappropriate SPM samples for hooks, it's safe to assume the chain exists foreal foreal.
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A Lakim Shabazz compilation 4 u

May 16, 2015, 5:29 am
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You could never really say Lakim Shabazz was an artist who contained multitudes, but he was very much a rapper who thrived off paradoxes: he resembled Kendrick Lamar's younger brother yet he possessed the voice of a Nation Of Islam bodyguard; he's pigeonholed as a 5% conscious rapper when much of his music is about obliterating wack emcees into molecules; he's loved by ageing Anglo-Saxons like me &Eminem despite the fact he was none too fond of us white folk; he had a penchant for rapping over horn samples when Kenny G was the world's most famous saxophonist.

I put together a compilation of 15 of my favourite Lakim Shabazz songs for those of y'all who are unfamiliar with his paradoxical nature. There was no room for Style Is Free, Brothers In Action, or even I Can't Take It No More, but please believe it's all love for the entirety of his catalogue bar the 5% of ill-advised Hip-House tracks that the devil must have forced him to record.

Lakim Shabazz - Kenny G Never Meant Shit To Me (compilation)

1. We Got The Funk (1988)
2. All True And Living (1988)
3. Black Is Back (1988)
4. Sample The Dope Noise (1988)
5. Getting Fierce (1988)
6. The 900 Number (LP version) (1988)
7. La Kim Theme (1988)
8. Your Arms Too Short To Box With God (1989)
9. The Lost Tribe Of Shabazz (1990)
10. The Voice Of Power (1990)
11. When You See A Devil Smash Him (1990)
12. Black And Proud (1990)
13. Style Wars (1990)
14. Flavor Unit Assassination Squad (ft. Flavor Unit) (1990)
15. 1,2,3 (ft. Naughty By Nature & Apache) (1991)

~~~> DOWNLOAD HERE <~~~
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Generic list post: R.I.P Chinx Drugz edition :(

May 17, 2015, 7:28 am
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Damn. How very eerie that Stack Bundles' protege should die in much the same way as his mentor after Chinx Drugz had followed Stacks' career blueprint to a tee. Chinx had the moniker of someone who'd have gotten a shout out on a nineties Mobb Deep album, so it made total sense that his music would confirm him as the Big Noyd of Waviness, and please believe that's very much the gold standard for N.Y weed carriers.

Chinx wore the scent of unfulfilled promise after the peak of his Cocaine Riot 2 mixtape in 2012, but still managed to drop a handful of joints which deserved far better than the limbo of New York rap radio - like I told y'all back in 2013 Tell 'Em was THE one not Feelings. Let him be remembered for being one of the few rappers who didn't waste Harry Fraud's production and for always managing to bring the best music out of an opportunistic industry leech like French. Better still, let him be remembered for songs like these:

All About My Money (w/ French Montana) (2010)
Superlight (2011)
Posted Up (w/ French Montana) (2011)
Wasted (w/ French Montana) (2011)
Murder One (2012)
I'm A Coke Boy (w/ French Montana) (2012)
Coke Boy Wave (2012)
Pressure On My Head (w/ French Montana) (2012)
Road To Riches (2012)
Tap That (w/ French Montana & Stack Bundles) (2012)
Red Light (w/ French Montana & Cheeze) (2012)
How Can I Lose? (2013)
Tell 'Em (2013)
The Silence (w/ French Montana) (2014)
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Brief thoughts on the Dr. Yen Lo album

May 18, 2015, 4:12 am
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Dr. Yen Lo - Day 0
(From Days With Dr. Yen Lo album; 2015)


This Days With Dr. Len Yo album by Ka & some producer by the name of Preservation is the point where Ka's artistic vision and my taste in rap music align. The rapper I'd dismissed as the most annoying member of Natural Elements doing coffeeshop Roc Marciano until You Know It's About caught my ear has just dropped an album that's less of the Marcberg-lite of his previous full-lengths and more akin to a bizarro world fantasy pairing of Max B and Madlib: Maxvillain/Madaveli, if you like.

*Jim Jones voice* I think I like it! Call this album the backpack Barter 6 if you need a snappy tagline for Twitter, but there's an important lesson to be learned from Days With Dr. Yen Lo for all rappers attempting to make music with the faintest scatterings of percussion who ain't tryna come off like a parody of Jay ElecScouseHouse at his most self-indulgent: make sure you sound like you've got balls of steel when you let your metaphorical nuts hang over near-drumless tracks.

Dr. Yen Lo - Day 912
(From Days With Dr. Yen Lo album; 2015)

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R.I.P to Post Malone's post-Bob Dylan karaoke/pre-cloud rap zany electro Minecraft pop video

May 19, 2015, 2:28 am
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Removed from the internet as if it was one of those MySpace-era videos of RiFF RaFF dropping n-bombs like Operation Castle, but never forgotten by the ppl.


Every generation gets the Lil' Ugly Mane it deserves.
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Detroit ain't got no love for No Hoe?

May 20, 2015, 2:00 am
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Damn Dlo - So Crazy
(From YouTube; 2015)


Rapping like Dru Down and Juvenile at the SAME DAMN TIME seems to be the wave in certain areas of Detroit right now because this So Crazy track by Pablo Skywalkin's sidekick Damn Dlo is like a less beserker version Pablo's own All Facts:

Pablo Skywalkin - All Facts
(From YouTube; 2013)


That whole off-best/outta-pocket/over-the-lines scorched parrot-flow seems to be a Detroit wave in general with everyone from Big Sean to Danny Brown to Doughboyz Cashout usually employing some sort of variation of it. Alas, ya boy is a layabout when it comes to the whereabouts and thereabouts of Detroit rap so I know next to nothing about the origins of the city's rap styles. Anyone care to drop knowledge?
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Brief thoughts on the Snoop & Pharrell album

May 21, 2015, 3:21 am
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On one hand, it's hella disappointing that there isn't some kind of 2015 Drop It Like It's Hot redux on the album because Lil' Skateboard P's verse was the only good thing about Move That Dope, and it would've been cool to see Pharrell rollin' up his sleeves to throw some bows with Snoop in a 2015 rap video.

On the other hand, R U A Freak is a hybrid of Sensual Seduction and Freedom Williams' first verse from Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), and that shit could slay summer 2015 if it's the next single. If not, then the very least it deserves is an all-star west coast remix with Egyptian Lover and DJ Quik:

Snoop Dogg - R U A Freak
(From BUSH album; 2015)


(We're all agreed Sensual Seduction is the G.O.A.T clean edit, right? Hearing Snoop say the words Sexual Eruption was a real Your Dad Telling You About The Birds & The Bees moment.)
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Reasons why I love YouTube # 67

May 22, 2015, 3:24 am
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"It's your eyebrows, it's your vocals, it's your whole physique.."

"it's your attitude, Greg Nice, and your sideburns and that fade superstar haircut.."


Who knew Nice & Smooth's Early To Rise had a video? And not just any old video but one with an extended intro over More And More Hits where Greg Nice & Smooth B trade homoerotic compliments on some proto-The Essence type shit and make eyes at each other? Not me until YouTube threw it up in my recommendations yesterday:

Nice & Smooth - Early To Rise
(From Nice & Smooth album; 1989)


Other talking points here: Greg & Smooth bowling around a pool hall in those Dapper Dan garms from their debut LP's cover; a pool party which looks like it was shot in the same backyard as Cam'Ron's persona-deflating "it's gonna be a real motherf**kin' hot summer!" video; Early To Rise's status as a top 20 opening song on a rap album of all time.
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No American na fi do Reggae

May 23, 2015, 2:16 am
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The great irony about Reggae is that, whilst Eddie Murphy and Shaggy helped save the genre from amounting to little more than a novelty parade of Marley family members and endless boring Lee Perry albums, Americans are otherwise inept at anything related to it. Thus, it's not entirely surprising that Ty Dolla $ign would hop on a remix of Kranium's Nobody Has To Know 2 full years after it first dropped and a good year & change after someone blended it with Bhris Brown's Show Me when he lives in a country where UB40's Red Red Wine is considered a Bashment tune.

Kranium ft. Ty Dolla $ign - Nobody Has To Know (remix)
(From the internet; 2015)


But if ever there was a Yank arist who could lace the remix of a Dancehall classic about shagging another bloke's girlfriend on the downlow with some saucy poetic flourishes of his own, then you'd think it would be the guy behind the "I got another n*gga's bitch in my bed right now" song. So what does Ty do now he's been given the perfect opportunity to retcon the R. Kelly track which begat his own whole persona? He trots out a minute's worth of rote signifiers about strippers that sound like they were too generic for Drop That Kitty, if such a feat is even possible.

Official rating on the Reggae scale: fat Ali Campbell.

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Old man yells at Soundcloud

May 24, 2015, 2:34 am
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Nah, never that. Here's a couple of joints for the summer ya boy came across on Soundcloud this past week.

"I should slap you with the muthaf**kin' strap, no bra
Leave you eatin' through a muthaf**kin' straw"

Honey Cocaine - Honeydick
(From The Gift Rap EP; 2015)


Canadian rapper makes hot song shockah! Not since Can't Sit With Us by Gangsta Boo & La Chat has there been such a stark juxtaposition between lyrics and production - when magma meets melody! Gonna interpret that "a buster/ya pops shoulda used a rubber" lyric as an ill-subliminal at Canada's preeminent wasteman Mindbender Futurama.

"Itsy-bitsy Spider went up the water spout
SKEET SKEET ON THAT HOE WHILE I CRANK DAT ROOSEVELT!"

Mr.2-17 ft. The Ratchets - Why?
(From Soundcloud; 2015)


As This And That hinted, the most fun Mr.2-17 songs seem to be the ones featuring The Ratchets. 2-17's evolution of Swag-Rap comes as a much-needed antithesis to Atlanta's current glut of Trapper dullards shitting out mixtape after mixtape after mixtape of songs about their kitchens over beats with about as much low-end as a Fievel fart.
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Rap songs that aren't on YouTube but really should be #9

May 25, 2015, 4:19 am
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"You want benefits? Get with Uncle Sam
You want bougie nails? Get with the program
And dank weed's what I smoke, it makes me choke when I holla
See, God created pussy right after the dollar"

Jay Tee & Baby Beesh - You Should Neva Be Broke
(From Spread Yo' Hustle compilation; 1997)



File this under ‘Vallejo slumpers by Latino Velvet that Mac Dre really should have guested on’. Come for the entrepreneurial (wo)mannishness, stay for the G-Funk bass.

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Brief thoughts on your thinkpieces about instrumental hip hop

May 26, 2015, 2:16 am
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.<~~ This dot here represents a random old 45 King beat nobody ever spat over.









.<~~ And this dot here represents the genre of post-Donuts instrumental hip hop.

On this page they're separated by an inch or two, in the real world there's a gulf of a gazillion trillion bazillion miles in quality between the two.

The 45 King - Simply Dope Part 2
(From 45 King's The Red The Black The Green 12"; 1988)



Presumably Lakim Shabazz rejected the Simply Dope Part 2 beat for his first album because Night Of The Living Baseheads had everybody shook to rhyme over The Grunt back in '88?
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Nevertheless this one's hella fresh

May 27, 2015, 2:08 am
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We're at that point of the year when your main criteria for finding new music should be "will this song turn my mate's BBQ into the I Got 5 On It video when I get my turn with the AUX cord?" Had to spit a loogie like Yukmouth when I clicked play on this cut from RJ's latest 'tape because this one'll make a backyard go delirious like Eddie Murphy:

"You might find a bitch around me, but not in me
My last flight outta town hit the lottery"

RJ - If It Ain't Ace
(From OMMIO 2 mixtape; 2015)

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A 2015 Bay Area rap song about weed which bodies Berner's whole solo career

May 28, 2015, 1:30 pm
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Looks like Nef The Pharaoh's first move with Sick Wid It Records is to team up with Cousin Fik & Willie Joe as the label's 2k15 version of The Mossie. Plz excuse the terrible weed analogy here but you'll light up Blunt On Me up expecting B-Legit's The Hemp Museum only to find uncle Earl has instructed his rugrats to lace the backwood with Celly Cel's Hot Sunny Day and Fik's own No Gravity:

"N*gga puffin' on some wood, yeah, we in this bitch
Money for breakfast, no eggs benedict, man, we been the shit"

22nd Letter - Blunt On Me
(From YouTube; 2015)

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Brief thoughts on Lil' Mama's Sausage

May 29, 2015, 11:16 am
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Lil' Mama - Sausage
(From YouTube; 2015)


Damn, ol' lass coulda had the meme-rap era Chicken Noodle Soup on her hands if only she'd chilled out with DMX/Pow Wow burlesque during the hook and gone for a pork-based Nicki Minaj homage instead. That didn't happen so what we're left with here is 2015's 2nd best rap song about jimmy hats after Rae Sremmurd's Safe Sex Pay Checks and another chance for Slick Rick & Vance Wright to clock some ASCAP cheques.
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Generic list post: may 2015

May 30, 2015, 2:13 am
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Obligatory round-up post of the songs I've been feelin' during the month when Mad Max: Fury Road single-handedly saved a genre as creatively moribund as guitar music.

Latino Velvet ft. Don Cisco - Raza Park (1997)
AZ ft. Jermaine Dupri - Rock Me (Hey AZ So So Def Mix) (1998)
Pablo Skywalkin - All Facts (2013)
Nef The Pharaoh - Bitch I'm From Vallejo (2014)
Corn ft. Nef The Pharaoh - Old School Hyphy (2015)
22nd Letter - Blunt On Me (2015)
Dr. Yen Lo - Day 93 (2015)
Boosie - I'm Sorry (2015)
Ty Money ft. Twista - Come Again (2015)
Snoop Dogg & Pharrell Williams - R U A Freak (2015)
Mr.2-17 ft. The Ratchets - Why? (2015)
Honey Cocaine - Honeydick (2015)
$tarlito ft. Robin Raynelle - Introversion (2015)
The Novelist - Ignorant And Wot (2015)
Gage - Throat (Ghetto Vanessa Edit) (2015)
Becky G - Lovin' So Hard (2015)
Junkie XL - Spikey Cars (Extended Version) (2015)

What else? Lil' Mama's Sausage is more like an oral history of rap music than a song; saving RJ's If It Ain't Ace until the weather warms up; BeatKing's That Ain't My Thot is the greatest No Limit remake ever even if it doesn't bear repeated plays; someone needs to edit Migos out of DJ Clue & Meek Mill's Basic Bitch already; Good Thing might be billed as Sage The Gemini featuring Nick Jonas but it's blatantly the other way around; couldn't be arsed sifting through 100 songs by a rapper so hit-or-miss as Young Thug so I sat out The Great Rap Leak Of 2015.
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