Heavily slanted towards panegyrics to Z-Ro and UGK, Shea Serrano’s Houston Press archive can be found here. With Citi Field currently serving as the home to the Mets, and Shea Hillenbrand out of baseball, Serrano aspires to be the nation’s best known Shea.
Few rappers have had a more frustrating career than one-time wunderkind, Jadakiss. Grab any five music critics/hotshit bloggers/wearers of scarves, and ask them to name the top 10 rappers of all time, three things are bound to happen:
1. In no particular order, Biggie, Pac, Em, Nas and Jay will round out the upper half. Rakim substitutions are more than acceptable.
2. One guy in the group will think he’s super hip and include some dipshit pick like Project Pat just to be contrarian. Then he’ll make some inane claim about how “Sippin’ On Some Syrup” was the most culturally relevant song of 2000 and everyone will laugh until they realize he’s serious, and then they’ll hate him for it.
3. Somehow, Jadakiss will sneak onto all of their lists. He’ll probably sit in the 8th spot, right below Mos Def, who has silently carved out an alcove as everyone’s secret-favorite Earth-rapper, and right above Scarface. Yeah, bitch, ‘Face is a top 10 pick. But despite being universally regarded for an obvious innate talent, Jada’s failed to translate it into the mainstream success he endlessly petitions for. He’s like rap’s Tracy McGrady. He’ll move 140,000 copies, but when it comes time for the playoffs, Jada’s got a bum knee, and his team is going to fall to the Lakers/Kanye.*
The Last Penguin
As far as I know, Jada didn’t take his album title from a Jet Li movie, but that doesn’t stop the “You mean like that shitty Jet Li movie?” comments from being made. I guess it was cool and all, but what about The One, or War, or even Lethal Weapon 4? That was way better than The Last Kiss. Accordingly, The Last Kiss falls right in line with the trajectory of Jada’s underwhelming career. Mind you, it has its moments. “Cartel Gathering,” succeds thanks to Ghost and Rae putting Jada back in the three-man taxomony where he’s always shined. The ad-lib heavy “Something Else” is unexpectedly earnest in its tough guy talk, with the buzzing Jada matching the inherent charm of Young Jeezy’s grumbly grumbling grumble.**
But collectively, TLK feels bereft of any real point. A few songs are simply repackaged versions of past efforts. The Pharrell-provided “Stress Ya” sounds exactly like every other Pharrell-provided song from 2003-2005. I’m pretty sure “Rockin’ With The Best,” an economy of sound brag-track, has been on every Jada mixtape and album ever made. While “What If,” begins each line of each bar with “what if…,” amounting to a blatant retread of “Why,” his one song of consequence. You’ve got to take points off for unoriginality, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less fun to listen to. Although the “What if I ever fulfilled my potential” and “What if I didn’t look so much like a mole?” lines must’ve been cut out during edits.
There’s just enough underdog charm on Last to save it from being completely hopeless, but it remains far from the greatness that Jada’s been hinting at for the past decade-plus. Maybe it’s time we knocked him a few pegs down the list.
* This is Jeff making this prediction. Shea probably thinks the Rockets are going to win because he’s from Houston. But the Rockets have the worst bench left in the playoffs and no amount of Michael Lewis love letters to Shane Battier will change that fact.
* Has any any rapper ever squeezed more out of less than Jeezy? He’s like a magician that keeps doing the same trick over and over, but no matter how many times you see it, you’re still impressed. That takes way more talent than actually learning a bunch of different tricks. ?uestlove knows a bunch of tricks, and look where that got him. On the Jimmy Fallon show. Who’s losing, really?
Download:
MP3: Jadakiss ft. Ghostface Killah & Raekwon-”Cartel Gathering”
MP3: Jadakiss ft. Young Jeezy-”Something Else”
15 comments
TJ says:
May 5, 2009 at 5:21 am (UTC -7)
Question: If Jet Li made a sequel to The One, would it be called The One Two?
Stephe says:
May 5, 2009 at 7:30 am (UTC -7)
Interesting analogy. I’ve always called Posdnous hip hop’s Antonio McDyess. I don’t know if Jada went so out of his way to be like early on like T-Mac but otherwise that’s pretty spot on.
goathair says:
May 5, 2009 at 8:42 am (UTC -7)
The Celtics bench is WAY WORSE than the Rockets. Just thought I’d comment on the least relevant part of this. Carry on.
DocZeus says:
May 5, 2009 at 9:16 am (UTC -7)
Shea-
Your breakdown of every rap fan’s top ten list is one of the most spot-on brilliant things I’ve ever read. I don’t know how the hell, Jadakiss gets on everybody’s list but it’s truly inexplicable. I mean I like “We Gonna Make It” as much as any man not named Ras Kass but that’s not enough to make me think he’s anything more than a marginal talent. Somebody needs to figure out this phenomenon. And is Masta Ace the Project Pat of my list? Probably.
“* This is Jeff making this prediction. Shea probably thinks the Rockets are going to win because he’s from Houston. But the Rockets have the worst bench left in the playoffs and no amount of Michael Lewis love letters to Shane Battier will change that fact.”
I’m not sure the Lakers have the mental and physical toughness to win it all this year. They are the definition of butter soft. They got smacked around like rag dolls last night.
“* Has any any rapper ever squeezed more out of less than Jeezy? He’s like a magician that keeps doing the same trick over and over, but no matter how many times you see it, you’re still impressed. That takes way more talent than actually learning a bunch of different tricks. ?uestlove knows a bunch of tricks, and look where that got him. On the Jimmy Fallon show. Who’s losing, really?”
I lost my shit reading this.
Passion of the Weiss says:
May 5, 2009 at 10:56 am (UTC -7)
Last night was an atrocity. I’m still confident they’re going to win the series, but Cleveland might take them in the finals.
@Trey: How dare you insult El-Scalabrine like that.
goathair says:
May 5, 2009 at 11:27 am (UTC -7)
Lakers in 6, tops. Maybe 5. Last night was an aberration.
Scal just sent over this track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1lVaYcJ5bQ
Passion of the Weiss says:
May 5, 2009 at 11:29 am (UTC -7)
Needs more Phillip Dick and apocalypse references.
Deen says:
May 5, 2009 at 12:31 pm (UTC -7)
Umm…
He ain’t on my list. Never was.
ekko says:
May 5, 2009 at 12:59 pm (UTC -7)
Another great post, old buddy. Except that Kiss will only make it on the lists of guys who don’t put Lil’ Wayne on. Dunno why that is, but it’s true.
Funny thing is: Neither of them are top ten rappers. Weezy has some good joints, fo sho, but he’s got diarrhea of the mouth. Jada’s got flow, but he never seems to pull it together for a full album.
quan says:
May 5, 2009 at 5:21 pm (UTC -7)
Jada is like Vlade Divacs of rap: flop after flop after flop. Pretty soon, he’ll be doing Taco Bell commercials too.
Alright, not really but I hate to read a convo on Passion involving b-ball without bringing in Vlade at some point.
Zilla Rocca says:
May 6, 2009 at 8:11 am (UTC -7)
Jada is Ben Gordon: he’s really great at one thing, and only one thing. He will not play defense, work the offense, take a charge, execute the coach’s gameplan, nor play only to his strengths. The bottom line is that if you want scoring/clever 16s, you know who to go to.
Jason says:
May 6, 2009 at 11:06 am (UTC -7)
Jada is the J.J. Redick of rap. naw not srsly just wanted to continue the basketball player analogies
Passion of the Weiss says:
May 6, 2009 at 11:07 am (UTC -7)
JJ has to be Asher Roth, too easy.
Nate P. says:
May 7, 2009 at 4:43 pm (UTC -7)
I thought Asher was Kevin Love. Now I don’t know what to think.
And wait hold up, isn’t the Jet Li movie in question “Kiss of the Dragon”, where he beats the crap out of the entire country of France by smacking dudes in the face with hot irons and piledriving them onto piles of broken glass?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AAjizspxbg
Tray says:
May 9, 2009 at 8:21 am (UTC -7)
Um, on a serious note, there are people with Jada in their top ten? Who? Surely everyone would rank G Rap, Kane, Rakim, KRS, Jay, Nas, Face, Biggie, Kool Keith, Cube, and Chuck D over him – a lot of people would put Andre, LL, Big Pun, Ghost, and Prodigy up there too. Even Slick Rick. I’d group Jada more with a Big L – ridiculous talent but mostly one-dimensional, no great album, most of his best work on mixtapes, features, unreleased shit…