September 21st, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Michael Render first attracted attention with his guest appearances on Outkast’s “Snappin’ And Trappin’” and “The Whole World”, but he never sounded completely at ease over Dungeon Family space-funk. I Pledge Allegiance II is backed by a line-up of mostly unknown producers providing simple but effective bangers that perfectly conform to Mike’s fiery bark.
Channeling Tony Robbins on the intro, Mike explains that the album is meant to soundtrack your success. He’s less interested in telling listeners how much money he has and more about talking about how to get that Yet hustling is only one facet of the grind and Mike wears many masks over the album’s 17 tracks: motivational speaker, preacher, and yes, hustler. But like his personal hero (early) Ice Cube (who appears on the polemic “Pressure”), Mike embodies all of these characters without being contradictory.
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Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Aaron Matthews | 8 Comments »
August 27th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
None of y’all will admit it, but Madlib went and dropped the Y2K Paul’s Boutique on us. The innumerable samples, the LA stoned immaculate vibe, and the back-and-forth interplay reminiscent of the Beasties’ classic. Of course, back-and-forth rapping is a lot weirder when you’re trading bars with your helium-voiced alter-ego and a Melvin Van Peebles record. Deliriously fun, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas might be Madlib’s most uncompromised and best produced, a litmus test to see people’s tolerance for that lo-fi experimental rap shit.
Trading The Unseen’s jazzy vibes for Technicolor psychedelia, the album is a sample spotter’s wet dream, and a sample clearer’s nightmare with each track featuring multiple beats and extended outros. On the rapping side, Quas talks weed, hoes and scandalous homies with Madlib playing the back, warning you of things to come. Plenty of rappers today try to balance out being cool, being creative and being accessible and fail miserably. Madlib? He just does what he wants and doesn’t care how strange it sounds. Throw this on, light a bowl and enjoy the ride.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: Quasimoto ft. Madvillain-”Closer”
MP3: Quasimoto ft. Med-”The Exclusive”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 4 Comments »
August 25th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Capture the essence of the most important album from one of the most important emcees to come out of Houston in the last 20 years in less than 200 words, including this intro? That doesn’t leave much room for masturbation jokes or Blood In Blood Out references, but here it goes:
Z-Ro is so much not like you (street certified, genuinely depressed, woefully star-crossed) that he’s exactly like you (completely lost in his own skin). He’s the rare tough guy rapper that wholly understands the futility of being a tough guy rapper, and that realization tinges everything he does with an amount of desperation that endears him to seemingly everyone without allowing him to personally connect with anyone. It’s madly ironic that he’s talked about his heartbreak and loneliness so perfectly that it’s provided a level of fame that has only magnified each. His music is wildly reactionary, which humanizes the obvious contradictions in it, and never has he offered a more conceptualized representation of that incidental grit –from the legendary “Mo City Don Freestyle” to the ghostly “Help Me Please”- than on Let The Truth Be Told.
Done. Count ‘em. That’s exactly 199 words. In your face, putas. –Shea Serrano
Download:
MP3: Z-Ro-”Mo City Don Freestyle”
MP3: Z-Ro-”Help Me Please”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Shea Serrano | 1 Comment »
August 21st, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Forget the lackluster back end, My Ghetto Report Card is all about the high energy first half that brought 40 Water back to MTV and put the Bay back in the National spotlight for a minute. While Hyphy always worked better as an adjective than as an awkward name-tag for Bay Area Hip-Hop, 40 and producer Lil Jon somehow make the reductive “West Coast Crunk” description the genre got stuck with work.
“Tell Me When To Go” is the big hit, an incredibly sparse post-Grindin stomper that reworks RUN DMC’s “Dumb Girl” into a dancefloor call-to-arms. But the album’s real strength lies in Bay Area legend Rick Rock’s contribution: “Go Hard or Go home” is an anthemic stadium sized banger, while opening salvo “Yay Area” features a Digable Planet flip and lyrics so dope that even the East couldn’t ignore it.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: E-40-”Go Hard or Go Home”
MP3: E-40-”Yay Area”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 2 Comments »
August 20th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Up in our merger, there’s foul murders
Turkeys to cow-burgers, the code of our murder
Child, if you style or a wild splurger
Stay away, okay? Mr. Giles will hurt ‘ya.
If there was ever a mission statement for The Diplomats, who– let’s not kid ourselves– pretty much ran New York during the early part of this turbulent decade, the opening bars of “DJ Enuff Freestyle” should be their butcher-shop mantra. Or maybe, “This is a movement, this is a union/This is more than what you people call ‘music’.” Diplomatic Immunity, less a double-disc album and more accurately a compilation of the best moments of Diplomats 1 & 2, which redefined rap bootleg culture by popularizing the single-artist mixtape. Carried by the record’s two star-players– one a longtime NYC rap underdog finally getting close enough to reach the city’s throne, the other a young gun-slinger given the opportunity to shoot from the front seat– Diplomatic Immunity was a coming-out party (I don’t think the term “no homo” has ever been more appropriate) for two of the most compelling rappers to come out of the city this decade.
The crew obviously starts with Mr. Giles himself, Killa Cam, a man whose joyous disregard for the conventional helped him become not only an enthralling lyricist (“Let‘s get lost in Camby/I got lobster in Boston, Austin/Floss in, of course, Miami“), but a trendsetter (let’s face it, nearly every black dude you know had at least one pair of Air Force 1’s with the pink swoosh). Coming off the heels of the platinum-selling Come Home with Me, for Cam’ron, Diplomatic Immunity was triumphant and celebratory. It was the sound of him sticking his tongue out at the wreckage of the Twin Towers and taking the elevator to the top of the Eifel. “You’ll get side-swiped, look at my life/First movie ever, murked out Mekhi Phife.“ Behind a cocky smirk and under an Osh-Kosh B’Gosh bucket hat(!), you can smell the champagne from the locker room celebration on his breath in almost every verse; two arms up, touchdown.
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Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Douglas Martin's Dirty Shoes | 14 Comments »
August 18th, 2009
The beautiful thing about hip hop is that you can say some of the weirdest, most inane, ridiculoid phrases, but say them with conviction or jest, and suddenly you’re creating New Speak. From “rap at high speed strawberry kiwi” to “gimme them girls with the pumps and a bump”, it’s not really what you say, but how you say it. Try this on then:
Rattlesnake caught in a wheel well, strawberry in an ostrich throat.
Gully.
Ten, the second album by Anticonners Why?, Dose One, and Odd Nosdam as cLOUDDEAD, is a study in pop-rap filtered through a William Burroughs MPC then dumped onto cassette and reinterpreted by three white guys jonesing for a critical beatdown. They don’t present themselves as inside joke to the culture, nor are they self-aware white liberal arts students itching to make an album after listening to Midnight Marauders for the 17th time. The arrangements of the beats rival Prince Paul’s work on early De La albums in terms of unpredictability and penchants for sampling British etiquette records. The tape hiss and shuffling of drum patterns at random are hemorrhaged from the Beat Konducta’s vaults. Dose One does he best to erase any memories of lyrical joustings with Eminem at Scribble Jam, while Why? harmonizes beautifully about dead dogs and b-ball courts in Cincinnati. Oddly enough, none of these guys seem to have a serious drug problem.
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Posted in Zilla Rocca, The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s | No Comments »
August 16th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Devin Copeland started rapping with Jugg Mugg and Rob Quest in the Odd Squad, whose Fadanuf Fa Erybody!!, was famously called Rap-A-Lot’s best album by no less than Scarface. In ’96, he joined the Face-assembled quintet Facemob. Yet Devin’s singular presence didn’t fully come across in either group, though the Odd Squad’s amiable goofiness clearly set a precedent for Devin’s solo material. What really should’ve been his commercial break-through was Just Tryin’ ta Live, his long-awaited sophomore album that featured beats from Premier, Dr. Dre and Raphael Saadiq and cameos from Xzibit and Nas.
But while Just Tryin Ta Live extensively chronicles the day-to-day struggles of a man concerned with typical party material, wine, weed and women, it somehow it remains as far away from party music as you can get. That limited topical range might drag in another rapper’s hands, but Devin’s endearing weirdness keeps things fresh. On opener “Zeldar,” Devin is an alien who discovers a patch of strange green trees in a field and decides to smoke them. “Lacville ‘79” is an affectionate tribute to his busted-ass Cadillac, which he keeps despite his complaints because it fits his easygoing lifestyle. “Who’s That Man, Moma?” is a cautionary tale, warning parents not to bring their seeds to a Devin the Dude show, “…unless they want to see some grown niggas shakin’ they bone.”
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Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Aaron Matthews | 2 Comments »
August 14th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
“My wife don’t like my album,” sneers Ryan Montgomery– better known as Royce da 5’9”– on the closing track on Death is Certain, “Something’s Wrong with Him”, “It’s way too dark for women, she say it sounds like I hold grudges. She’d rather listen to Joe Budden.”
Before Nickel-Nine would form Slaughterhouse with the target of the punch line immediately following his wife’s 75 or less review, he was all alone. Of course, D-Elite, his obligatory rap entourage, was lurking in the shadows, but Death is Certain is primarily the document of a preternaturally-talented rapper deserted by peers, fans, and friends (mainly longtime Bad Meets Evil partner Eminem and his D-12 crew)–Nas before he dropped “Ether.”
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Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Douglas Martin's Dirty Shoes | 3 Comments »
August 13th, 2009
A late arrival to the Queensbridge canon of classics, Cormega’s The Realness strikes a middle ground between Illmatic’s wistful nostalgia and Mobb Deep’s ice-cold aggression. Mostly produced by a cast of little known QB beat-smiths with choice contributions from Godfather Don, Havoc and Alchemist, The Realness is an exercise in good taste with Mega picking nothing but gems. Embroiled in a feud with former associate Nas at the time of recording, almost every track on the Realness features an underlying theme of betrayal and vengeance culminating on the orchestral “You Don’t Want it.” But it’s the more thoughtful moments such as the melancholic “Fallen Soldiers” and the sunny “Glory Days” that elevate the album into the top strata of Queensbridge Hip-Hop. Fun fact: the album sold over 150K on an indie, enough money to keep Cormega living large for the rest of the decade. Now THAT’s gangsta.–Sach O
Download:
MP3: Cormega-”Fallen Soldiers”
MP3: Cormega-”You Don’t Want It”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Sach O | 2 Comments »
August 12th, 2009
Hip-hop history is littered with middling records made by teenagers. For every Shyheim, there’s a Kriss Kross, a Bow Wow and a Lil Romeo. Even good adolescent rappers like Illegal and Da Youngstas rarely got much further than a few strong early singles. Needless to say, a pair of dirt-poor 16-year olds from hip-hop backwater Baton Rough, Louisiana, weren’t supposed to release one of the most impressive debuts of the decade. Then again, most teenagers don’t have Pimp C presiding over their investiture either–which in this case, involved informing the world of their festish for “fucking with [my] diamonds on.”
Boosie had risen through the ranks of C-Loc’s Concentration Camp in the late 90s, and dropped a little heard solo album, Da Youngest of Da Camp in 2000, but Ghetto Stories operates as an official debut of sorts. What’s most striking about is how hardened and war-torn Webbie and Boosie sound. Boosie’s amyl nitrate bark is brutal and cold-blooded. Webbie is at his most savage. Consider it a country-rap analogue to The Infamous–perhaps not on that rarefied level, but matching it round for round with a fury that you can’t fake.
On the aptly titled, “Keep it Gutta,” Boosie wishes, “2Pac could hear the shit that I be spitting to you, I bet 2Pac would have Lil Boosie on an album of two.” Judging from this, there’s little doubt they would’ve traded war stories. –Jeff Weiss
Download:
MP3: Lil Boosie & Webbie-”Had a Dream”
MP3: Lil Boosie & Webbie ft. Pimp C-”Play Hard”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s | 2 Comments »
