August 28th, 2007
Zilla Rocca, the mastermind behind Beat Garden Entertainment and 1/2 of Clean Guns, (the most OCD fire-arms in the history of automatic weaponry) has returned to once again grace us with his presence. He dedicates this rant to David Banner and Peedi Crakk for respectively melting Al Sharpton’s crusade to censor lyrics and for calling Papoose out for flat-out sucking.
I first came across Will I Am (aka Wyclef on a budget) back in the late 90s when Black Eyed Peas’ “Joints and Jams” appeared on the Bullworth soundtrack. Like any hip hop head, the song and video was a breath of fresh air during a time dominated by Ruff Ryders and No Limit Soldiers. The Peas were actual b-boys doing actual b-boy shit in their videos—paying homage to hip hop’s past while breaking and spitting the most basic, kindergarten rhymes I’ve ever heard.
But who cared at that point? Hell, The Peas even managed to get a joint from Premier for their second album. And they certainly weren’t as pompous as The Roots, so they had no reason to generate any type of feelings from me. Hell, I didn’t even bat an eye when will.i.am put out an instrumental CD on BBE alongside Pete Rock and J Dilla (yes, this actually happened).
Of course that all changed with “Where is The Love?” And then “Let’s Get Retarded”—oops, I mean “Let’s Get it Started” (can’t piss off the NBA). And then “Shut Up.” And then “My Humps.” And that song no one liked but was on those damn Best Buy commercials where they jacked the theme from Pulp Fiction.
Anyway, the Peas existed for Top 40 radio. (They still receive NO LOVE by mix show DJ’s, mixtape DJ’s, most urban radio stations, most hip hop mags, etc.) As long as I could ignore them, I didn’t care about the fact that their lyrics sounded as though they were written by Young MC after being thrown down a flight of stairs and beaten with burning hammers. Nor did I have to endure their trite “conscious” side or their “positive and fun” (read: gimmicky) production and hooks.
But Have Fergie and Stifler’s Mom Ever Been Seen in the Same Place at the Same Time? 
And then suddenly, some record label exec had an epiphany; “Why don’t we get that rasta-looking guy from that group with the white girl who just made us $50 million to produce all of these other rappers on our roster?” Thus began my single-handed desire to see will.i.am (aka K-os in poverty) be gone. The problem with Will producing other artists is that he’s only good at one thing: making simple, shiny, catchy beats and hooks for a white girl who pees herself. Forget that, he’s REALLY good at that kind of music. (That Sergio Mendes album he did for Starbucks isn’t that bad either).
But once he gets into the studio with The Game or Common or or Nas, he’s exposed as a gimmicky b-boy whose style is straight Silly Putty. You want some lifeless, fake Dilla/?uestlove ambient noodling? Listen to the will.i.am joint on Common’s new album (I literally can’t remember the name of the song) if you REALLY want to hear “Stakes is High” replayed on a Rhodes and then really, really sucking ass, listen to that song on The Game’s last album. And the joint he did on Justin Timberlake’s album sounded like what happens when Pharrell gets less than $50,000 for a track. And let’s not even talk about “I Love My Bitch.”
When I hear songs like “Hip Hop is Dead” or “Fergalicious,” it’s like listening to the hip hop version of the king of ADD comedy, Dane Cook. While Cook packs jokes while telling jokes about a joke that started with two jokes and ending in a pile of jokes. Will.i.am (aka Whoopi’s forgotten son) jam-packs these songs with 342 breaks, interludes, bridges, hooks, pauses, live drums, sampled drums, Spanish innuendos, chopped and screwed vocals, etc. In the end, you can’t remember anything but the hook. Instead of the above mentioned artists going to the real source for actual hip hop-inspired hip hop (i.e. Pete Rock, Diamond D, DJ Scratch, Premier), Will.i.am gets the nod because he wears velvet jackets and riding boots and sells 56 million ringtones.So Will…The Way I See It…If Adding One Cracker to the Group Doubled Your Sales, Adding A Second Cracker Will Quadruple Them. I Mean, C’mon, I Can’t Be Worse Than Apl De. Ap. Can I?
Yeah, He may be an ill breakdancer and he may have been signed by Eazy-E back in the 90s, but will.i.am makes Diet Coke Rap Beats. And don’t even get me started on the movie Be Cool. There’s a truly cringe-worthy scene where John Travolta and Uma Thurman revise their famous dancing scene from Pulp Fiction to the sounds of…”Sexy” by Black Eyed Peas.
Peep will.i.am’s verse Mind you, these rhymes were written by a 30+ year old man whose been signed since the early 90s. Whose name wasn’t Cam’ron. Or R. Kelly. Or K7.
Behold:
“You take me to ecstasy
Without takin' ecstasy
It’s exactly like ecstasy
When you layin right next to me
I'm sexin' you, sexin' you
You sexin' me, sexin' me
It's feels so damn natural
But we doin' so naturally
I'm liking yourubbin' me
And you liking me rubbin' you”
To quote Shawn Carter, what more can I say?Download: (Because It’s Okay, Everyone Kinda’ Liked That First Album)
MP3: Black Eyed Peas-”Joints and Jams”
MP3: Black Eyed Peas-”Que Dices?”
Posted in The Beat Generation | 8 Comments »
August 12th, 2007
Zilla Rocca, 1/2 of Clean Guns, and Beat Garden fitness consigliere, has returned to drop some more knowledge on the people. Neither of us are actually sure if knowledge can actually be dropped, nor are we certain whether it hurts when said knowledge is dropped upon you. Probably not.
So was there like some sort of memo that got passed around that I didn’t see, because honestly, I’ve now become convinced that all white girls aged 22-25 drink exclusively Miller Lite. Of course, these are the exact same chicks that in college, hated on the taste of beer because it was “like so gross.” The same girls that subsisted on a diet of Malibu and Swedish Fish (with the occasional margarita tossed in the mix).
I see you, Kaitlyn, Brianne and Madison, with your bottles of Miller in your hands. That or a Coors Light. You won’t catch me with a can of that girly, watered down shit. And just because females now think it’s okay to knock back bottles of that cold piss water, don’t think you’ll escape my wrath if you’re a male and drinking that shit in front of me. To quote Meth: “Ya’ll been warned.”
Another group of people who need to be warned: Wedding DJ’s. I went to a wedding last weekend and the DJ (let’s call him Dancin’ Ralph) found it perfectly acceptable to get out in the middle of the dance floor, mic in hand, dancing and slapping his own ass while mouthing the lyrics to “It’s Raining Men.” Sorry, dude, last time, I checked this was a matrimonial ceremony not “Men on Film.”
Slapping Your Ass While Singing “Raining Men?” Hated It
To add insult to injury, the DJ broke the cardinal rule of wedding DJ’s, by not playing a single slow song throughout the entire reception. C’mon man, everyone knows that slow songs are the Trojan Horse of wedding receptions. Throw on some Celine Dion or Vanessa Williams for three minutes, cue up “It Takes Two,” and BAM, instant freak-fest. But not Dancin’ Ralph. He wanted to change the game like Hova or MJ. No “Wind Beneath My Wings,” no “Love is,” not even a mothafuckin’ Boyz II Men cut. I felt bad for all the drunken bachelors looking to close the deal with the single and depressed bridesmaids, stuck doing the Soul Train for four fucking hours. You are dead to me, Dancin’ Ralph.
Speaking of dead, I’ve also been wondering how it’s possible that Blockbuster isn’t. I just got NetFlix and it’s pretty much killed all chance of me ever going to a Blockbuster again. Then again, I have no sympathy for them. They killed every independent video store in Philly by carrying 9,084 copies of every movie and if you called ahead, they’d even hold that copy of “Major League 2″ on VHS for an hour. Hell, they even sold CD’s for a while. I remember copping “Illadelph Halflife” there, while this kid, John, I used to play ball with stole Rage and Cypress Hill CD’s. He later got locked up for rape. Seriously.
The last time I was in Blockbuster, it was pretty depressing. All the remaining stores left in South Philly cut themselves in half and rented out the other half to laundromats or wig suppliers. They start selling overstocked used DVD’s for $7, with naturally 50 copies of “2 Fast 2 Furious” for every one of “I Heart Huckabees.” Whatever, Blockbuster, that’s what you get for trying to make me sign up for for your “online store” every time I walk in the door, or your rewards program, or trying to push jumbo-sized bags of M&M’s on me like a used car salesmen. Until next time, RIP Blockbuster. God bless Netflix. And burn in Hell, dancing Ralph.
Download:
MP3: Clean Guns-”We Just Run Things” (left-click)
MP3: Clean Guns-”Hold Your Glass High (Wdhq Remix) (left-click)
Posted in The Beat Generation | 3 Comments »
July 29th, 2007
Chances are if you’re reading this you probably already know, Zilla Rocca, 1/2 of Philadelphia rap duo Clean Guns, and one of the founders of Beat Garden Entertainment. I’ve posted about them once, or twice, or thrice in the past year, and though I’m probably biased, I sincerely believe these guys to be the most exciting new rap collective to emerge from the underground since Def Jux and Rhymesayers bubbled up a half dozen years ago. With the major labels in a perpetual state of panic, I was curious to hear Zilla’s thoughts and experiences in getting a label off the ground at a time when the music industry seems more tenuous than ever.
Running a label is like being the general manager of a basketball team. You’re always looking for a balanced squad: someone to bring the ball up the court, cats to clear the boards, shooters to hit open three’s, etc. But then there’s always the question of team chemistry. We’ve had to let some people go due to toxic personalities and lack of contributions. Things always move faster once you drop dead weight. With everyone on board, you can move forward and focus on marketing and promotion, figuring out which venues to establish contacts with, which big purchases you should get next (i.e. CD/DVD burner) and who to take shit from and who to tell to go fuck themselves.
Most importantly, you need to constantly work on the music. I don’t mean that in the Lil’ Wayne/2Pac, doing 23 songs a day way. But there always needs to be a project for your crew to get on. That way MC’s stay sharp and producers stay hungry. That’s what made the Wu great—RZA cut whole verses from cats because they weren’t as good as someone else’s bars. What hip hop needs is quality control. I hear at least 20-30 new hip hop songs a week. I end up re-listening to less than half .
In Philly, EVERYONE has a mixtape, a DVD, a company, a “movement,” etc. This causes everyone in town to hate each other off the bat because a) they assume the next man is garbage (most of the time they’re right) and b) that next artist is taking up their spot. What separates us from the pack is that we try to be cool with everybody. We maintain positive relationships with people we collaborate with, as well as with people from out of state who have only seen our stuff online.
Do Not Believe the Rumors: Vanilla Ice Has Not Signed to Beat Garden
Of course, there’s daily nonsense to deal with. Paramount above all is the fact that Clean Guns is comprised of two white guys. It’s amazing that this is still a “weakness” for MC’s in 2007. I honestly never think about it. But the rest of the world must think that white dudes are still Vanilla Ice-ing it because people are SHOCKED when they hears us for the first time and our racial identities are revealed. We just did a show at Liquid Charm in Philly where the crowd was overwhelmingly African-American and hadn’t heard us before. The moment we set foot on-stage, people ice-grilled me, knowing that we’d waste their time, hoping we’d be corny. Halfway through “Watch How it Go Down,” the crowd was in our hands. By the end of the four song, 10-minute set, (“Econo-rap” says Sean Price), damn near everybody in Liquid Charm rushed up to us with pounds, business cards, flyers and CDs, saying “Yo that was CRAZY! Oh my god, let me get some music. Here’s my info, where y’all playing next?!!?” I felt like Hendrix at Woodstock. Except I was wearing a “crack is wack” shirt. We put out our debut record last August and only now have heads in Philly really started to open up to us, asking us to do shows and get on tracks. We rehearse before every show. We constantly write new songs. We try to maintain a presence online as well as venues and clubs and shows. Songs from our album are getting spins on college radio. And the company meets every month to go over whatever’s clever to make sure we’re all focused on the common good. It’s a full-scale operation that never stops.If I’m not checking my email, the MySpace accounts, all the hip hop blogs plus the forums on 215hiphop.com, I feel lazy. I need to know what’s going on from a business standpoint, but also because I’m still a big fan.
From now on, the fifth element of hip hop will be the computer. Not the internet, but the computer. Cats make beats on computers—shit, I do exclusively. Cats write rhymes on computers—Nico does exclusively! Cats design their little mixtape covers on Microsoft Paint and print them out on their HP inkjets (really, no excuse for this but I see it all the time). People bitch about the Internet, but the Internet is a byproduct of owning or having access to a computer, which does more than just let you get the new T.I. album for free. The computer and with it the Internet, allows artists to get an instant response for whatever they’re doing. The bad news is that it birthed MySpace rappers. But ultimately, I don’t care if people download or burn our music for free—the fact that they want to own it, hear it is money in the bank to me. The truth is, Nas was wrong. Hip hop isn’t dead—CD’s are.
Download the first installment in the Beat Garden Producer Series.
ZIP: Clean Guns-”World Domination” (left-click)
Posted in The Beat Generation | 6 Comments »
Zilla Rocca, the mastermind behind Beat Garden Entertainment and 1/2 of Clean Guns, (the most OCD fire-arms in the history of automatic weaponry) has returned to once again grace us with his presence. He dedicates this rant to David Banner and Peedi Crakk for respectively melting Al Sharpton’s crusade to censor lyrics and for calling Papoose out for flat-out sucking.
