The Unheard Thoughts

Honors English - State of the Art (Review)

Every once and awhile, we as music lovers are treated to a truly special album, one that doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t and makes big statements while still sounding incredibly dope and fresh. Last year, Section 80 by Kendrick Lamar was that album. He tackled topics that most hip hop artists are afraid to really touch on, and did so in a way that was fresher than anything else that was coming out at the time. Fastforward to this month, and the hip hop world was treated to another brilliant album by a relative unknown named Honors English. I’m going to say upfront that I do not think that there is one single flaw on this album and that this review may come across as very biased – It’s not. The album is just that damn good.

I first heard about this dude the day that his album dropped, for free, from one of the many hip hop blogs I frequent. I downloaded it but kind of put it on the back burner because I didn’t know anything about it or the rapper. A few days later, my timeline was absolutely flooded with people complimenting the album, saying how dope that it is. So naturally, I threw it on for my first listen, and needless to say I was extremely impressed. Honors E is a special type of rapper, one that oozes with swagger and covers socially conscious topics in a way that it makes it damn near impossible to not agree with the dude and support his movement.

The first thing that I want to comment on is the production throughout, which is handled almost exclusively by Grammy award winning producer Needlz. The beats range from smooth soul on “Unstoppable” to upbeat tracks like “Palin & Bachman” to the just plain dopeness of tracks like “Anybody Go Hard”. “Cymbals On The Sidewalk” incorporates crashing cymbals for Mr. English to spit some real lyrics over, and it works incredibly well. The production is consistently fresh and there isn’t a misstep throughout the album. “Anybody Go Hard” samples a Kanye line to great effect – “Do anybody make real shit anymore?” and Honors English is right there to answer that question with a resounding HELL YES. “Highlight Real” is another upbeat track with a beat that most of the best producers in hip hop would have a tough time matching, and again, Honors doesn’t disappoint. Honestly, at this point, I could go through and name all of the dope beats, but I would literally just be naming every track on the album. Needlz has really outdone himself on this tape, and there’s really nothing else that can be said about it.

As dope as the production is throughout the album, the real show stealer is the emcee himself, Honors E. The lyrics that he spouts on this album are some of the realest and most important lyrics that hip hop has seen since Kendrick Lamar’s debut dropped last year. The problem with writing about the lyrics is that writing them down just doesn’t do them justice. While they are extremely dope lyrics, they don’t look as good on paper because Honors English really just raps the shit out of them. His flow is fierce and the way he says things on the album absolutely commands the attention of the listener. He starts off the album with my personal favorite track, “The Name Is…”. He takes the three different beats that Bink and Needlz supply him and he touches on his place in hip hop and introduces himself to the hip hop world after a six year hiatus. “Come with the chedda please, if you wanna schedule me, the name is Honors English and I’m a fuckin beast” starts the track off ferociously, as E lets it be known that he isn’t fucking around with this tape.  He continues with “look I mack shit, madness, man I’ma be a movie star yall there are no rivals, all they words are beneath me, like they subtitles, you ain’t got the dough to hire me, then SHHH!, speak quietly, I came here for that western union, that’s just how they wired me so…” before returning to the first four lines of the track. With further lines like “here to be the freshest and take it back to the essence, they say the game is like Geico against anything that’s progressive” and “even if I forget the lines to my session, the fans finish my words, like auto-correction”, Honors set the bar damn near impossibly high for the rest of the album, and then he resets the bar with every subsequent song. “Anybody Go Hard” comes immediately after that, and he takes the opportunity in the second verse to touch on some social issues that are currently plaguing our country, such as the rapidly rising gas prices and our jail situation. The lyrics are real as fuck, as he spits “fake bloods everywhere, is this a scary movie set?, what y’all don’t get is they privatizing prisons, damn that’s the next plan, last year, they made more cells (sales) than Def Jam, while gas prices up, food prices out risen it, all you gets a bag of air with 6 or 7 chips in it, rap shit so limited, think about where the image is, funny how the illiterate guys got the longest sentences” over a beat that is just unreal.

I could continue quoting lyrics to try to prove how dope this album is, but it would basically be me copying and pasting the lyrics from the entire album into this review. “Second Chances” is a song telling three different stories about people overcoming adversity, and it’s one of the most moving and touching hip hop songs in recent memory. I won’t spoil the ends of the verses, but he’s talking about real people and the second and third verses are particularly overwhelming. The chorus on “Unstoppable” by TL Cross is absolutely amazing, and Honors gets the opportunity to spit some real shit about relationships.  I’ve said all of this and I haven’t even touched on the incredible first single, “Crazay”, the ridiculous story telling displayed on “Short Story Long” and the real shit that he talks about on “Burn”. The chorus of “Burn” is one of the most conflicted and well said thoughts I’ve ever heard on a hip hop album, as he says “swear I’m numb to it, so hardcore, tryin’ to undo it in my mind, but I’m off course in my Sudan thinkin’ bout Darfur, tryin to let go of the pain and the bruises in my brain, it’s so useless, I just throw it to the flames, and the use that fuel for my fuses, let it burn”. “Palin & Bachman” has some real lyrics too, but the song could still get radio play and play in the clubs as well. What I’m saying is that this album has everything. Introspective and socially conscious lyrics, amazing beats that cover all styles of hip hop while still sounding like one of the most cohesive projects released this decade, and flows that will make any hip hop head lose their mind all round out the album perfectly.

I understand that this review comes off as a little Stannish, but I can’t help that. I’m being completely honest when I say that this is the best debut album to drop since “Food and Liquor” dropped in 2006. Honors English is a special type of rapper that hip hop is sorely lacking, and I sincerely hope that when he quit rapping for 6 years he got it out of his system, because hip hop needs him now more than ever. If you haven’t stopped reading to go download it yet, what are you waiting for? I’m going to end this review with an interlude from the album where Honors talks about his time substitute teaching, and if that doesn’t convince you to go download the album, I don’t know what will. This is real hip hop, and that’s all there is to it.

“Instead of doing their assignments, they’re like ‘yo I wanna write raps and shit’… so I’m like, yo if you wanna write a verse in class then, spit that. We gotta hear it in front of the whole class. He started with ‘I got them guns bustin, I got them maybachs, I got them chicks on my…’ yo, you’re thirteen years old, just stop. Spit what you’re going through, what you really know. He said ‘man don’t nobody wanna hear that shit’… so I’m like, do me a favor, why don’t you spit something about who you are, how you feel, what you been through… he said ‘man, don’t nobody wanna hear about that, I’m just a nobody’… so that’s what we do now, censor ourselves before they censor us. Take away the little dude’s voice because everybody wants to hear the same shit. This that real life… state of the art”

This is real life. This is state of the art. Download this album and support real hip hop. Aight, I’m out. Enjoy.  

Cudi Vs. Drake: The 808’s Generation

Back in 2007, something unforeseeable happened to one of the greatest hip hop artists of our generation, Kanye West – his mother passed away. The loss of human life at any point in time is something to be mourned, and the passing of Kanye’s mother, Dr. Donda West, was no different. Kanye has never been shy about talking about how he feels about his mother, especially in the song “Hey Mama” off of Late Registration in 2005. Kanye bares it all with lines like “When I was seven years old, caught you with tears in your eyes, because a nigga cheatin tellin you lies, then she started to cry as I knelt on the kitchen floor, I said ‘mommy I’ma love you til you don’t hurt no more” and when his mother passed, it hit him hard. Combined with him breaking up with his on-again off-again girlfriend, the whole situation led to Kanye making some major changes to his music.

He channeled all of this pain and anguish into “808’s & Heartbreak”, an album that was unlike his previous three records in the sense that there was hardly any rapping throughout it. It was an electronic, techno, hip hop, pop, and r&b record all at the same time. What really hit home though, and would come to change hip hop as we knew it, was the way that Kanye bared his emotions to the rawest extent he could. This man was hurt, and it showed throughout each song and verse on the tape. The album was extremely divisive, with people either really loving it or really hating it, with myself falling in the former. Despite being divisive amongst fans and critics alike, it undeniably changed hip hop, and both Drake and Kid Cudi are shining/glaring examples of what hip hop artists comfortable with sharing their emotions can accomplish.

One of the major criticisms of both Drake and Cudi, a point that detractors are very quick to make, is that they are soft. And yes they are both soft, in the sense that they are comfortable with sharing their emotions on record. This emotional style of hip hop is one that has permeated the airwaves across the country, with Drake being the style’s most successful visionary. That being said, I easily prefer Kid Cudi to Drake, along with a number of other rappers that have tried to accomplish the same thing. This brings us to the big question – How is it possible to support 808’s & Heartbreak, Kid Cudi, XV, Tiron, Ayomari, and quite a few other rappers yet not find Drake to be as good as the rest?

The answer lies mainly in the difference in subject matter between the artists. Comparing Cudi and Drake is the easiest way to make this point, and both of them attempt to convey fairly similar feelings throughout their albums and mixtapes. Feelings of isolation, sadness, loneliness, the occasional bit of happiness, and a few other emotions pervade many of the songs of both artists. They both spend about as much time singing as they do rapping, and they both attempt (and succeed) in crafting mood music throughout their various projects. Sure, Drake has a few songs where he’s purely talking shit, but I don’t include those when talking about the emotional side of his music. The difference between the two artists, however, is how easy it is to relate to what they are rapping/singing about.

Take Kid Cudi’s first album for instance. On the song “Soundtrack 2 My Life”, off of Man on the Moon: The End of Days, he raps, “on Christmas time, my mom Christmas grind, got me most of what I wanted, how’d you do it mom? Huh? She copped the toys I would play with em in a room by myself, why he by himself”. I dunno about most of you, but my Mom and I didn’t have much for the first couple years of my life, and I’m sure that sentiment can be understood by a wide array of people. Later on the album, on Day N Nite, Cudi describes the life of a lonely stoner, one who is up late at night stressed about what life is throwing at him; another sentiment that is more than likely easy to relate to for many people. On his second album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, he addresses a lot of similar topics in ways that are still very easy to relate to. These Worries, The End, All Along, Trapped In My Mind, REVOFEV, and Ghost all echo emotions that are felt by people country wide, songs that people can really vibe to and relate to.

As stated earlier, Drake attempts to convey a lot of similar feelings to the aforementioned ones that Cudi has succeeded so well in getting across. Don’t get me wrong, Drake is very good at writing songs. He’s a talented rapper and an above average singer. Probably better at both than Cudi. That being said, making music in the vein of 808s isn’t about being the best rapper or singer. It’s about conveying emotions in a way that the majority of your listeners will be able to relate to what you are saying. Drake doesn’t do this. On “Say What’s Real” off of So Far Gone, Drake goes in over Kanye’s “Say You Will” (remember that whole 808’s lineage point?). He definitely does the track justice, as he flows well over the slow, hypnotic beat, and his lyrics command attention. The problem with the track is that the subject matter isn’t the easiest to relate to. Drake’s idea of struggle is far different from the one that has been portrayed throughout hip hop, and it’s a struggle that 95% of his listeners cannot relate to. I’m sorry, but most of y’all have never had to park your phantom 5 houses down because your mom was embarrassed. The line I’m speaking of, from “Say What’s Real” goes like this: “And my mother embarrassed to pull the phantom out, so I park about five houses down”.  On his debut album, Thank Me Later, Drake opens up with an admittedly dope song called “Fireworks”.  While the song is dope, the subject matter continues to be hard to relate to. The second verse is entirely about messing around with a groupie and her pulling groupie shit afterwards. Again, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have these types of problems. That’s not to say that all of his lyrics are challenging to relate to; in fact, a lot of the themes he brings up are ones that everyone goes through. The point of this is that while yes, some of the subjects he discusses are ones that can be related to (not knowing who you’re true friends are, wondering if people would still mess with you if you did something different with your life, etc), a lot of it tends to come off as whining, to me at least. This is more off putting than anything, and makes it even more challenging for me to want to relate to what he’s saying.

Is that to say that a lot of you shouldn’t find solace in the heartbroken lyrics that Drake espouses so effeminately? Of course not. To each his/her own. I don’t listen to Drake because I think that hip hop in the style that Drake and others have become famous for is a type of hip hop that should be relatable. People have pointed out flaws in this argument, saying that I should dislike Young Jeezy or T.I. or Eminem for the same reasons. Obviously I can’t relate to those artists, but I connect with them in a different way. I don’t listen to them because I want to relate to them, I listen to them because the stories they tell and the thoughts they portray are clear and put together well enough that the listener CAN relate, despite never actually experiencing those things on their own. Drake isn’t doing that, and he’s in a subgenre of hip hop where you HAVE to make your audience relate. Which is why, despite the major co-signs and the multi-platinum singles and albums, Drake will always be a whiny millionaire that happens to make some good R&B that I just can’t relate to.  

True ASFP Stories - Truthfully…

goronnie:

I actually believed ASFP should have been nominated for a Grammy….

and when the nominations list came out I actually looked for it and when I didn’t see it on there I was kinda sad.  LMAO

“I’d rather aim for the stars and miss than shoot for the gutter and make it.”

One of my favorite albums from last year, I wasnt surprised it didnt get nominated, but its better than everything that did. Aside from MBDTF, anyways.

Young Jeezy - Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition

Young Jeezy – TM103: Hustlerz Ambition

“I made it through straight Hell, so I could get street Heaven” - Waiting

Jay Jenkins, better known by the hip hop community as Young Jeezy, has always been something of an interesting character to me. Back when he dropped his debut album in 2005, Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, I wasn’t completely sold on him. “Soul Survivor” featuring Akon was tearing up the airwaves, and the street tales that Jeezy spun were completely believable and thrilling at the same time. The album itself didn’t really do a whole lot for me at first, but the more I listened, the more I fell in love with the style of hip hop and the lyrics that Jizzle was spitting.

His music has always had an expansive, stadium quality to it: the bass booms, the strings soar, and the drums KNOCK. His voice is both raspy and guttural, topped with a southern drawl that adds a truly mesmerizing quality to his lyrics. It’s the kind of voice one gets from smoking a pack a day or far too many joints to count, and judging by his lyrics, it’s probably the latter. The music sounds like it should be performed in a gigantic arena where the acoustics can really let the bitch breathe some. He takes this formula and recreates it on his new album, TM103: Hustlerz Ambition, and he does it as well as he ever has.

A major thing that sets Jeezy apart from the rest is his ability to rap in two separate worlds. He is clearly too smart to remain just a street soldier (Waka Flocka), but his gangster tendencies make it hard for him to sit in a corporate office like Jay-Z. This works out well for him, as he straddles the line between these two worlds better than anybody has in recent memory, exemplified perfectly by the M16 produced “I Do”, which has features from Jay Z and Andre 3000. The beat is audio dope, and the strings and the bass combine for a smooth track that would sound at home in a wedding playlist. Upon further inspection of the lyrics from the Snowman and Jay, which include lines like Jeezy’s “smack it up, weigh it down, break it down”, “you ain’t even have to open ya eyes to know what you lookin at, and I aint even have to open my eyes when I was cookin that” and then Jay with “let’s tie the knot, let’s grab us a pot and lets make a baby”, it becomes semi clear that what was once thought to be a love song about getting married is obviously about being married to the streets. Jay ends his verse with “I, Jay-z, take this unlawful lady to have and to hold until the task force roll, to hug her every corner until I get ash from the cold” and really brings the concept of the song full circle, before Andre 3k comes in with a typical off the wall verse that actually seems to be about getting married.  

“Waiting” starts the album off in a triumphant fashion, as Jizzle silences the naysayers with a burner of a track that could have benefited from a slightly better chorus, but it’s still dope. He starts the song off with “what the fuck is you hatin for, like you done something for a nigga, would call you out, but that wouldn’t do shit for a nigga”, and continues later with “I do it for street niggas, and every nigga that’s like you”. Combine that with the quote from the beginning, and it’s easy to see where his head is at. He doesn’t get why people hate on him, and he makes music for the streets. He keeps up this ferocious intensity into the next track, “What I Do (Just Like That)” and doesn’t let up his relentless stranglehold on the beat until the smooth “All We Do”, which is a nice change up from the heat that the first six tracks brought. The chorus on “All We Do” is descriptive of Jeezy’s lifestyle (All we do is smoke, and fuck, smoke, and fuck) and the beat is entertaining enough to keep you listening.

To write a review of this album and not mention what is quite possibly the best track that Mr. Jenkins has ever made would be wrong, so “Trapped” with the always impressive Jill Scott gets an entire paragraph to itself. The track is darkly autobiographical, and it starts off with a spoken word piece by Ms. Scott that would give any one chills. “You ain’t really really doin it, I mean ain’t honestly pursuin it” with Jeezy in the background going “Nah” is so well done and helps to build the motivational persona that the Snowman has become famous for. He spits about his life growing up in the trap, with lines like “.380 for my thirteenth birthday, I promise dawg I’ll never let you motherfuckers hurt me”, which is both descriptive and slightly haunting. The beat lends to the haunting atmosphere of the track, and the thought that he needed a gun for his thirteenth birthday for protection is truly frightening. He says later in the same verse “Been cursed since the day the earth heard me!, been cursed since the day my mother birthed me, and how did I get here in the first place? Oh that’s right see the trap was my birthplace”. The lyrics throughout the song describe the conditions growing up in the trap in vivid detail, further solidifying Jeezy’s spot in hip hop as a premier story teller. Combine that with the beat by Justus League and this song is going to go down in the Snowman’s catalogue as one of his greatest.

He collaborates with Justus League again on the following track, and if this pairing seems odd, one listen to “Fame” or “Trapped” should put all of your fears at ease. The beat is goosebump inducing, as the strings bristle across the track and add a somber tone to the booming bassline, and Young Jeezy handles it the way that a veteran hip hop artist should. T.I. closes the track with a verse that sounds like he’s really hungry and ready to rhyme again. The chorus about “fake motherfuckers envy” comes across well, and he doesn’t seem to just hate on the fact that he has haters. He’s actually surprised he’s where he is to. “Can’t slow down too much evil in my rearview, sometimes you wanna scream to God but he can’t hear you, and even if he could this’d prolly be his answer, fuck you complainin bout it ain’t like you got cancer” is a startling admission from the rapper, as he seems to be questioning the evil in his life, but knows that others have it worse and he shouldn’t even be complaining. He continues in the second verse with “you mean to tell me from running my big mouth that I can chill here in this big house, all elevatored up with these hardwood floors, just to sit around and feel like it ain’t yours” and the song is really an honest exploration of Jeezy’s thoughts on Fame and what comes with it.

Great albums are not without missteps, however, and this one has it’s share. “Lose My Mind” should never have been included on the album – the plies verse was atrocious on Trap or Die 2 and it’s still atrocious here. As my good friend Josh called him, he’s the poor man’s Waka Flocka, and I’d just rather hear another Young Jeezy verse, or silence, in place of his verse. “Everythang” sounds like an incomplete version of a song, and when listened to in context with the album, this feeling is only amplified. “Higher Learning” isn’t necessarily a bad track, but it seems like it was contrived solely to make a smoking song for the album, and Jeezy has done better. But these are minor complaints and they don’t mess up the flow of the album or detract from the flames that Jeezy is spitting.

All of that said, and I haven’t even mentioned the dopeness of the Atlanta to New York connection on “OJ” featuring Fabolous and Jadakiss, the ignorant bliss of “Supafreak” with the guest feature artist of the year 2 Chainz, “Way Too Gone” and the hard-as-possible “.38” with recent CTE signee Freddie Gibbs. Young Jeezy has really done his best with this album to recreate the dopeness of his first three albums and he does so very successfully. The beats on this album are damn near flawless, as the team of people that he got to produce for it really understand his voice and style of hip hop. There isn’t really a bad beat in the bunch, which makes the listen even more worthwhile. Jeezy really did go through straight hell growing up, and he’s found a way to get to a street heaven. And he’s only going to go up from here.

(The deluxe version of the album comes with a DVD that is well worth watching for any fan of the snowman)

The Year In Review: The Best of 2011

Every year, probably thousands of albums are released by hip hop artists. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some of them are great. 2010 and 2011 have been two of the best years for hip hop that I can remember in a long, long while. Now that the year is wrapping up, far quicker than I expected (once again), it’s that time that people are going to start putting together their “Best of 2011” lists. That being said, here are the ten albums and 5 honorable mentions that I think everyone should hear from this year. I only chose from the albums that were released before the thirteenth of December, so Common and Young Jeezy don’t get nods on here, as I haven’t heard them yet.

First off, here are the honorable mentions. They don’t get a write up, these are just some of the albums that I feel as though were very good representations of where hip hop is (or should be) in 2011, but aren’t quite good enough to make it into the top ten.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)

Jay Rock - Follow Me Home

Wale – Ambition

Atmosphere – Family Sign

CunninLynguists – Oneirology

Nappy Roots – NappyDotCom

And now, starting with number 10, the top ten hip hop albums of the year (obviously in my opinion).

10. Pac Div- The Div

Pac Div exploded onto the California hip hop scene a few years back, and they’ve been on a relentless grind ever since. Four mixtapes  and an EP have led us to their debut album, The Div. On the twelve track album, the Pacific Division cover a range of topics over enjoyable production. The album is perfect for just hanging around, going on a late night summer drive, or partying like it’s 2011. All of the rappers are very talented individuals, and as a group the chemistry is incredible. Best song: The Greatness. The No I.D. production and the lyrics combine for a standout on the album, and also a standout for the year.

9. Evidence- Cats & Dogs

Evidence, of Dilated Peoples fame, has always been one of my go to rappers on sunny days when I’m driving around, despite his constant rain metaphors. The bass knocks, and Mr. Slow Flow drops lyrics covering a surprising range of topics on the album. DJ Premeire blesses the excellent You, and The Red Carpet featuring Rass Kass & Raekwon has Ev holding his own next to two greats on a thumping, New York sounding beat. In fact, I’ve never heard such a California sounding hip hop album that still sounds so much like New York as well. Hats off to Ev for delivering on the promise shown on his debut solo LP.

8. Murs & Ski Beatz – Love and Rockets, Vol 1: The Transformation

Murs has always been one of my favorite rappers, so it’s no surprise that I loved this album. But he’s always been one of my favorite rappers because he’s one of the best and most consistent hip hop artists in the game, and this album only strengthens that legacy. Murs gets real on Animal Style, flexes his story telling chops on 67 Cutless, has some fun talking about hip hop and love on the appropriately titled Hip Hop and Love with Tabi Bonney, and talks that relationship shit on Remember 2 Forget that he’s become so well known for. All of this, and I haven’t even mentioned how dope the beats that Ski Beatz serves up are. This whole one rapper/one producer thing has been making a solid return, and these two do it as well as anybody in the game.

7. Pharaohe Monch – War

Pharoahe Monch is something of an enigma in hip hop. Being part of Organized Konfusion in the late 90’s and dropping two dope albums set Monch up to be a successful solo artist, but with Internal Affairs being shelved due to sample clearance issues, and Desire taking a solid 7 years to come out, his talents were clearly underutilized. War changed that though, as the album is a bold statement about the industry, the state of the country, and the state of hip hop in general. The production serves its purpose well, as the beats are cinematic soundscapes that are perfect for Monch to show off his lyrical dexterity and large vocabulary. From the militaristic sounds of W.A.R. with Immortal Technique and Vernon Reid to the soul on Black Hand Side with Styles P and Phonte, Monch crafted an album that speaks volumes about some major topics. Not to mention that the video for Clap is one of the best videos to come out this year.

6. Action Bronson – Dr. Lecter/Well Done

This is slightly unfair, as it is both of his albums that dropped this year, but I wanted to put both of them on the list, and as the writer, if I choose to cheat, so be it. Action Bronson has done something that isn’t done very often in hip hop anymore: he made two tremendously enjoyable hip hop albums that harken back to the golden age of New York hip hop without trying or setting out to do so. The food references, vivid imagery, flow, and production on both albums makes for some of the best east coast hip hop that’s come out in long while. Sure, the Ghostface comparisons are somewhat valid, as they both have similar vocal inflections and flows, but Bronson’s rhymes are clearly his own and after digging a little deeper, it becomes clear that the similarities stop there.

5. The Roots – Undun

The Roots have been in hip hop for more than 20 years, and they have put out dope album after dope album. This is their 13^th studio album and it’s just another artistic leap in The Roots’ incredible catalogue. This is their first stab at doing a concept record and they do it very well. The beats are typical ?uestlove dopeness, and Black Thought further solidifies his spot as the most underrated emcee to come out of the East Coast. The story isn’t a particularly compelling one, but the examination of the protagonist’s psyche is what makes this album lyrically stand out a cut above the rest. Black Thought can really write the fuck out of an idea, and that shows throughout every one of the veteran emcee’s verses.

4. Kanye & Jay-Z – Watch The Throne

What more can really be said about this album? Two of hip hop’s colossal heavyweights combine for an album that could have happened several years ago, but finally blessed our iPods this year. Kanye is clearly at the top of his game for this album, as he generally outshines Hov; however, Hov is not much of a slacker either. They both come correct on nearly every track, and the production only enhances the greatness of the album. Combine all of that with two features from Odd Future singer/songwriter Frank Ocean and we have what is not the best album in either of their catalogues, but what is a damn good album and clearly one of the best to drop this year.

3. Saigon – The Greatest Story Never Told

This is kind of an unfair pick because it was scheduled to drop in 2005, and anybody that has an additional six years to work on their debut should make one very dope album. And normally I wouldn’t include something like this, but Saigon didn’t just drop a very dope album. He took the time with it and, with Just Blaze at the helm on the production tip, dropped one of the best modern east coast hip hop albums of the past few years. The production throughout is classic Just Blaze, and Saigon rips through beats with a thug’s passion that is seldom heard in today’s estrogeneration (word to Big Ghostfase) of hip hop artists.

2. Tiron & Ayomari – A Sucker For Pumps

Unfortunately in hip hop, sometimes an artist goes overlooked despite continuously dropping dope project after dope project. TiRon and Ayomari happen to both fall into this category, but they are working hard to change that. A Sucker For Pumps is a concept album about women, and it is one of the best and most interesting hip hop albums I’ve ever heard. The production is very, very smooth and is perfect listening for almost any situation. Lyrically, TiRon and Ayomari are similar enough that the chemistry is strong yet different enough that they are easily distinguished on any track. The lyrics are clever, the concepts are strong, and the feelings are easy to relate to. If you don’t support any new hip hop artists this year, at least buy this cd. You won’t be disappointed.

1. Kendrick Lamar – Section 80

And that brings us to the best album to drop this year, Kendrick Lamar’s Section 80. Kendrick Lamar is a special rapper, the likes of which I don’t believe we’ve seen since Tupac, and the Kendrick we get on this album is a direct descendent of Tupac’s lyrical lineage. Few rappers can switch from social commentary as poignant as on “Keisha’s Song” to a straight battle rapping lyrical barrage on “The Spiteful Chant” with as much skill as K-Dot can. No Make Up is a song encouraging women that are victims of domestic violence to get help, and it’s extremely dope on top of that. The beat by J. Cole on HiiiPower is phenomenal, and Kendrick rips it in a way that few rappers would be able to. All of that being said and I haven’t even touched on the fact that Kendrick Lamar currently has one of the top 5 flows in hip hop. Add the dope features and amazing production to the mix, and what we are blessed with here is a classic hip hop album. People aren’t saying the things that need to be said, and Kendrick isn’t afraid to be the one that says it. I’m really hoping that he continues to get the backing that he deserves, because K Dot’s only going to get better, and let’s face it: Hip hop needs him.

Yelawolf- Radioactive

If you watched the BET cyphers from a few weeks ago, you’re probably somewhat familiar with Shady 2.0 and who’s involved. But just in case you haven’t been awake for the past year at any single point, Shady 2.0 is the group of rappers that Eminem signed earlier this year, announcing almost simultaneously that Yelawolf and Slaughterhouse had signed to Shady records. Most rap fans were surprised by this, as Royce Da 5’9 (a rapper in Slaughterhouse) and Eminem hadn’t exactly been getting along for quite some time, but they’ve since reconciled. The majority of the hip hop world seemed to be very excited about the signing of Slaughterhouse, but the one that I was more excited about was the Yelawolf signing. Trunk Muzik was a great mixtape that showcased a melodic rapper that also could get gritty and vicious with the best of them. Pop The Trunk, the lead single from the tape, was a tale about violence in the south and Yela’s thick southern drawl only added to the authenticity of the track. His story telling on the track was as good as some of the best in the game, and the rest of the mixtape further solidified his presence as a great southern emcee. The re-release after being signed to Shady was definitely warranted, and the new tracks improved upon the greatness of the original. This, combined with the thought of an Eminem and Yelawolf collaboration, had me very excited for Yela’s debut album, Radioactive.

Yelawolf is a very unique rapper. He’s as country and hick as they come, and is damn proud to share that fact. Before rapping, he skateboarded and was trying to make it professionally. He has some hard rock influences that can be heard throughout his music. His melodic abilities are reminiscent of Andre 3000 (whom he sites as a reference for obvious reasons), and he can sing the shit out of a hook when he chooses to handle them on his own. All of these parts of him have made his music some of the most interesting and entertaining hip hop to come out in recent memory. Radioactive is no different in this sense, as his influences and nuances of his personality can be easily heard on every song.

The first song on the album, Radioactive Introduction, is a great way to become acquainted with what Slick Rick E. Bobby is all about. His lyrics are visceral and scathing, as he raps “they sent me to hell, and I shit on the devil, try to bury my chevy box but I won’t buckle, and that’s a deep hole bitch, you better bring a shovel”. His thick Alabama drawl is on full display here, and the country twang adds to the intensity of the track. The beat is a dark and brooding beast, and it’s perfect for the raps that Yela is spitting over it. Get Away featuring Shawty Fatt and Mystikal is absolute fire, as Yela and Shawty Fatt have great chemistry on the track and the chorus by Yelawolf is catchy and very easy on the ears. Shawty Fatt’s verse is great, as his deep baritone voice complements Yela’s nicely. Mystikal is the weakest link on the track, but he doesn’t do poorly. He just doesn’t keep up the fire that was going on over the first two verses. Let’s Roll is a southern white trash anthem, and the chorus from Kid Rock is one of the best on the album. The inclusion of Kid Rock makes sense, especially when considering Rock’s early career where he incorporated rap and country into his music. Hard White with Lil Jon is a minimalistic club banger if I’ve ever heard one, and Yela rides the beat like an industry vet. The lyrics are great on this one too: “Gotta lay down on ya back to know you already fucked up, letting me in the mothafucking game is like letting me drunk drive in ya truck”. The chorus from Lil Jon is great too, and I can see this one getting play in a lot of dimly lit, loud and crowded southern clubs. I cannot stress enough how dope this song is. If you’re not a believer in what Yelawolf is doing, then you need to sit down and listen to this song on repeat until you get it. The Alabama white trash in him is front and center, and he twists that with being some sort of southern gangsta as he says “I’m no longer rappin, I’m building, with one brick, two brick, three brick four,  underneath the steps of my single wide door”. There are way too many quotables on this song for me to put them all in this review, just know that it’s an excellent song. Yela tackles some deeper subject matter about the troubles of Growing Up In The Gutter on the track that follows it, and it works well. His flow is great and the beat is HARD. This one is a definite keeper, and the guest verse from Rittz only adds to that. Throw It Up is the Eminem feature, and Gangsta Boo handles the chorus and gets a verse too. Yelawolf has what may possibly be the best verse on the album on this track, and Eminem kills it as well. The chemistry between the two has me hoping for many more tracks by them in the future. Boo’s chorus is dope on this one as well, but she spits 16 bars of absolute struggle right in the middle of the song. Why that verse was permitted to stay on the album is beyond me, but it makes a very, very good song almost unlistenable.

After the first six songs is where the album starts to veer more towards commercial territory and it’s more hit or miss than the fire of the first six songs. They were vintage Yelawolf. Dark, brooding beats and lyrics about pabst blue ribbon, nascar, guns, violence, and getting fucked up. At the end of Throw It Up, there is a skit where Em calls Yelawolf and tells him that he thinks the album needs a song for girls, because “bitches like love songs”, which leads into Good Girl featuring Pooh Bear. Yelawolf’s lyrics on this one aren’t bad at all. He raps about what he wants in a girl, which includes tattoos and beer drinking, and it works. But the chorus from Pooh Bear is pure saccharine: unnecessary sweetness. It’s almost too sugary though, and the beat doesn’t do anything to help. Made In The USA has Yela on some socially conscious shit as he delivers a biting and sarcastic ode to the hypocrisy in United States citizens. The lyrics are easily some of the best on the album, as he says “we some gun totin, church goin, 18 wheel rollin, bag slangin, flag waving, at the dinner table prayin, old school yard fightin, beer drinkin, hell raisin, hard workin, blue collar, earn it all due payin, illegal weed smoking, dope cookin dirt dealers, on the corner bible preachers, Hollywood dream seekers, muddy waters swimming in, rock-n-roll all the time, straight from the assembly line”. The lyrics on the rest of the song are pure fire too. The chorus by Priscilla Renea, however, tears the song down. It’s a chintzy sounding chorus and it really doesn’t fit in with the song at all. It sounds more like something that would be heard on a commercial advertising those collectible coins or some shit. The choruses on the back half of the album are generally more poppy, and it works on occasion. The Hardest Love Song Ever is just that, as Yela’s excellent delivery and lyrics and the chorus from an uncredited singer (Pooh Bear) meshes perfectly. Write Your Name works well too in that respect, as the more commercial focused chorus works well with the laid back beat and Yela’s dope rhymes.

Slumerican Shitizen is where the album starts to come back to the Yelawolf of the first six songs, as the “ode” to American Citizens by Yela and Killer Mike is one of the best songs on the album. Yela delivers some verses about where he is from and what he’s all about. Killer Mike spits a predictably show stealing verse about living in the slums. The last song on the album, entitled “The Last Song” is a great way to end the album, as the laid back beat is the perfect plateau for Yela to talk about some of the things he’s been through. His melodic abilities are on display here as well, as he handles the chorus to great effect. As dope as this chorus is, I don’t understand why Yela didn’t handle more of the choruses himself.

Childish Gambino- “Camp” (Review)

                Donald Glover is one talented dude. He can rap. He can sing. He can do comedy. He acts, produces, writes, hell he even directed his own movie (which was hilarious). He is truly a rising star and one that should be applauded for doing so many things and doing them so well. When he, as his alter ego Childish Gambino, dropped Culdesac and EP I pretty much listened to nothing but those albums for a month and a half, which is a feat considering most music stays on my iPod for little more than a week. So naturally I was excited when I heard that Camp, Mr. Glover’s new album, was coming out soon.  

Reviewing albums is challenging because I’m trying to give an unbiased look at the album, and it’s hard to review an album without comparing it to past works. I want to review Camp based only on its own merits, but it’s tough to do that when he has 5 or 6 other projects that I’m very familiar with. That being said, I’m going to try and give it a fair review without focusing too much on the similarities to past projects, which are mostly in the topics he chooses to discuss.

Lyrically, I love Gambino. It’s obvious that his comedy background influences his music throughout this album, as he fills each song with pop culture references and humorous lines. If familiar with his past works, there’s a lot of the same here in the punch line department, as well as in the subject matter overall. He talks about his dick size, how girls that didn’t used to mess with him are now all over him, how people tell him he’s too white to be black, how nerdy he is, how he wants to fit in, etc. With a less talented rapper, this would get extremely boring very fast. Luckily, Gambino is very talented with a penchant for pointing out common things in life and making them exciting and interesting. He may retread a lot of topics but he continuously comes up with new and hilarious ways to talk about them. Bonfire is a perfect example. The song sounds like a complete retread of Freaks and Geeks off of EP. His lyrics are very similar, but the song is still filled with a ridiculous number of quotables (“this Asian dude, I stole his girl and now he got that koji beef, my dick is like an accent mark it’s all about the over e’sssss”, “I make the beat retarded, call this shit a slow jam”, “Gambino is a call girl, FUCK you, pay me”) and his flow is INSANE. The album opens up with Outside, a dreamy track where he touches on some real subjects such as growing apart with family members because of the streets or whatever else is going on in life. Firefly is an interesting track, I personally love the chorus but I can see it being divisive. He talks about some similar subject matter as past albums, but again does it in such a refreshing way that it’s hard to be mad at (“girls who used to say you ain’t cool enough are now sendin me pics like ‘you can tear this up’”). What struck me most about this track though is how much he changed up his flow for the beat. His flow on this track is unlike anything he’s ever done, and he does it extremely well. Heartbeat is another different type of track that sounds more electronic in nature, and Gambino puts his voice through a vocoder to talk about one of his favorite subjects- relationships. The ending is hilarious, as he says “I wish we’d never fucked and I mean that… (spoken word) not really. You say the nastiest shit in bed and its fucking awesome”.

Backpackers is another stand out, as it’s more of Gambino just ripping the beat apart, with some self-deprecating humor (“look it’s mr. ‘talk about his dick again’”) and a great chorus. Other standouts include You See Me (“if I’m a faggot spell it right, I got way more than two g’s”), Sunrise and That Power. He touches on some serious topics throughout the album, ranging from relationships to fathers not being there for their kids to race and the challenges of growing up black in a white area. One of my favorite lines on the album is when he says  “it’s weird, you think that they’d be proud of him, but when you get out the hood people think you look down on them, truth is we still struggle on a different plane”. Gambino is easily one of the easiest hip hop artists to relate to, as his lyrics are not so complex that they go over your head, and he communicates universal feelings with an ease that isn’t commonly seen in hip hop. These moments show his growth as an artist and are some of the most endearing moments on the entire album.

Musically, the album is a beast to take in at once. Each track sounds so different from the previous that it’s easy to select a song and get a completely different vibe from any other one. That being said, when taken all at once, the album has a cohesion that is missing in today’s “On-The-Go” playlist style of albums. The album flows from track to track and by the end of the album, it truly feels like it’s been a journey. There are hard hitting hip hop beats (Bonfire, You See Me, Backpackers), electronic beats (Heartbreak), poppy numbers (Fire Fly, Outside) and slow, moody tracks (Hold You Down, L.E.S.). Bonfire has my favorite beat on the album, as the wailing chorus that is chopped up into the verses adds an intensity to Gambino’s lyrics that really makes the track an obvious stand-out.

There are some missteps throughout the album. Even though he does switch up how he delivers his lines, the subject matter is still repetitive. All Of The Shine is a good track, but the first verse is very corny and the punch lines just don’t work. Letter Home sounds like Gambino watched Aladdin before he wrote the song and then tried as hard as he could to recreate “I Could Show You The World”. It may be good for a Disney song, but in the album it just doesn’t work. Some of the choruses are a little awkward sounding, which is a minor complaint considering the vast majority of them are incredibly catchy and the awkwardness fits in with Gambino’s persona anyways. These complaints are minor, but they do hinder the album and hurt the flow of it, especially with how great the good tracks really are.

The last song on the album ends with a story that Donald is telling about a time that he went to summer camp. The basic plot of the story is that he spends all of camp with this girl that he doesn’t want to tell he likes because he’s just so happy that she’s taking the time to hang out with him (again, the subject matter is repetitive). While on the bus back from camp, he tells her how he feels and she replies with “Okay” before he falls asleep. After he wakes up, it turns out she’s told all of her friends what he said and they’re laughing at him. He says the story isn’t about him being more cynical because of the situation, or about how bad and mean girls are. The story is about a boy going to camp and coming back a man. But in this instance, he went to camp a boy, and still hasn’t come back. I don’t know if that parallels the album, or what the point of the story was in general. There’s supposed to be some concept throughout the record, but if there is, I can’t find it. What we have here isn’t a concept record with an over arcing story line. It isn’t Gambino’s career defining album. He hasn’t made that yet. What this album has done is it has cemented his place in hip hop as a serious problem and one that’s going to be here for a long time. While we may not have his career defining masterpiece, what we do have is, without a doubt, Gambino’s best album, and this is a ride I know I won’t be getting off of for a while.

(Due to the expansive nature of Childish Gambino album, it’s hard to cover every great punchline and every subject he addresses. I am not physically capable of pointing out every dope beat and the reasons that they are dope. I pointed out the stand out tracks , and I hope that they have encouraged you to listen to the rest of the album and find all of the great lines and beats) 

Wale-Ambition

 Back in 08, Wale was heralded as the next great savior of hip hop. He had just recently dropped The Mixtape About Nothing, a Sienfield inspired mixtape, and was fresh off of a show stealing verse on The Root’s album “Rising Down”. Signed to AllIDo Records, headed by Mark Ronson, he released his album Attention Deficit which was met by critical acclaim but did meager first week sales and left him in a bad place. Fastforward a couple years and he jumps ship to Rick Ross’ Maybach Music Group (MMG), a move that left many fans scratching their heads. I was actually very excited about this move, as I thought that it would mean big producers and a guaranteed sophomore album for the young DC native. And needless to say, I was right, as Ambition dropped a few days ago on the first of the month.

One thing I’ve always respected about Wale is his hustle. The dude grinds harder than most rappers in the game, and he has a lot to show for it. Wale has spent the past several months hyping this album up beyond all imagination. He has been calling it a classic months before it was released. I personally think that this method of album promotion has both positives and negatives. Yes, he amassed a sizeable amount of hype for the album and there are a great deal of people talking about it. However, the problem with promoting your album in this way is that no matter what, the chances of the album living up to the hype are extremely slim. It’s like Culture said in his review, few  artists that have actually released classic albums can be found calling it a classic before it dropped. Jay didn’t call Reasonable Doubt a classic.  Nas didn’t call Illmatic a classic. Snoop didn’t announce months before Doggystyle that his album was going to be a game changer. So Wale trying to put his album in league with other classics presents an interesting situation, one in which a large number of people are going to be listening to see if the hype is deserved.

Which brings us to the big question: Did Wale release a classic. The answer is a definitive No. This album will not be mentioned in the same breath as Reasonable Doubt or Hell Hath No Fury. People will not talk about this album as one of the greats. But what he did was release a very good hip hop album. 

The first thing that I noticed when listening is the beats. Wale has always repped DC to the fullest, and this album is no exception. DC or Nothing is one of the best tracks Wale has ever released, and he keeps the go-go vibe intact that he started his career with. The beats on the album range from above average to very good, which is a representation of the expanded rolodex Wale acquired when he switched to MMG.  Tone P (responsible for the aforementioned track), Mark Henry, Diplo, DJ Toomp and T-Minus all contribute on the production tip, along with a few others. They create a great soundscape for Wale to do work over, and for the most part keep the go-go vibe alive. 

Lyrically, the album is on a completely different level. One of my favorite things about Wale has always been how complex of an artist he is. He chastises chasing fame and fortune at one moment and flosses harder than anybody else the next. This paradoxical dichotomy is evident throughout this album, as he goes from stating that he doesn’t care about the fame or money on “Legendary” to songs like “Miami Nights” where he states “once I get my money right I’ma OD”. I love this conflict of interests, as it is easy to see Wale in several lights. There is the person/rapper he wants to be, the socially conscious emcee that tackles tough subjects like on 90210 (off of Attention Deficit). Then there is the person that the public wants him to be, on songs like Miami Nights and Chain Music (my personal favorite track, but more on that later). Wale spends most of this album straddling the line between these two versions of himself, and he does it very well. Chain Music, on the surface, is a song about flossing and big chains. Dig a little deeper and Wale is actually talking about how broads didn’t want anything to do with him until he started talking about his money. It’s this kind of complexity that makes Wale such an interesting figure in hip hop. He simultaneously flosses better than anyone else in the game (“chain so big can’t pop my collar”) and comments on the women in hip hop and how they make rappers change (“she so stingy with vagina, but wide and open when a nigga get to shinin”). 

The album opens up with vintage Wale on Don’t Hold Your Applause, Double M Genius, Miami Nights, and Legendary. He is the king of sports references, and he shows that vividly and poignantly throughout the album. Legendary is a triumphant song about being remembered as a great, and the beat by DJ Toomp is absolutely nuts. Lotus Flower Bomb is a great first single, although it sounds just like several of the other tracks featuring prominent male R&B singers. Miguel sings THE SHIT out of the hook and Wale spins some empowering raps about women, something that he has become known for throughout his career. White Linen and Sabotage are both examples of this type of song as well, and Wale can do it as well as anybody in the game. Chain Music is hands down my favorite, as Tone P produces a banger of a track and Wale rips the beat a new asshole. Other great songs include Ambition (Featuring Meek Mill and Rick Ross), No Days Off and the iTunes bonus track Bait. All of these songs are certified bangers with some of Wale’s best lyrics in a while.  

Illest Bitches is a decent enough track about women and tries to empower them by calling them bitches, something that I do not understand. I do not like the beat and the lyrics are only above average on the track. Slight Work with guest raps from Big Sean is an okay club track, but the beat by Diplo sounds like a poor Swizz Beatz imitation and Wale sounds uninspired on the track. Big Sean steals the show easily, throwing out lines like “white America said I was supposed to do 25 to life, just for that, I’ma blow 25 tonight”. That being said, these are minor missteps that don’t interrupt the flow of the album, nor do they really detract from the value of the album as a whole.

I’m a big fan of Wale, and this album has done nothing to change that. It is an extremely enjoyable album with a lot of good beats and a lot of lyrics that are going to take a few more spins to completely decipher fully. I’m not anticipating this album ever being referred to as a classic, but it will do enough numbers to ensure that we get another solo effort from Wale, and it will be getting spins for several months to come. Wale’s ambition has seen to that. (bad pun intended) 

Hip Hop is Alive and Well

I’ve been listening to hip hop since i was about 13 years old. Edited at first, moms wasn’t too fond of all the cursing that was going on, but quickly moved past that and started to get my bearings in a completely different culture and world than the one that populated the radio waves and the headphones of most of my friends at the time. A few years back, probably around 06/07, i didn’t think hip hop was going to make it into the new decade. Shit was ROUGH. but today, in 2011, i think that hip hop is alive and well, for 5 reasons.

1) The return of the one producer/one rapper album. This style of hip hop album is what the genre so desperately needs yet continued to shun for years in the mid 00’s. Bling bling became popular and cohesive sounding albums became boring. Sure, there were still some production/rapper duos, Murs and 9th Wonder, Buckshot and 9th Wonder and a few others, but there wasn’t that “He’s the DJ, I’m The Rapper” kind of camaraderie and creativity that there was back in the early 90’s when every album was majorly produced by one person. Just this year alone we’ve seen a Curren$y and Ski Beatz album, a Curren$y and Monsta Beatz album, a Curren$y and Alchemist Album, a Murs and Ski Beatz album, a self produced solo album by Big Krit, amongst countless other projects that i’m currently too tired to remember. 

(Sidenote: Just because someone CAN produce their whole album, doesn’t mean they should. Looking at you J. Cole)

2) More intelligent people are using the internet to gain fans. Sure, soulja boy and lil b did it back in the mid 00’s, and they did it well. They gained a whole lot of notoriety and even gained mainstream success, to a degree. Now, however, we’ve got people like Hopsin, Odd Future, Big Krit, Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Jay Electronica, Yelawolf, Big Sean and countless others that use the internet to gain fans, and they are honest to god talented rappers. People that are going to be remembered in hip hop for more than “that one song that has a dance to it”. And these people are making some ridiculous collaborations through the internet as well.

3) Change in subject matter. Hip hop went through a serious shiny suit era back in the early 00’s followed by some of the most ignorant hip hop, sans a few artists, in the mid 00’s. I mean… plies became a rapper for fuck’s sake. Bad gangster rap became a big thing and there were only a handful of artists that were putting out good music. Now, on the other hand, there are a whole lot of talented hip hop artists that are making GREAT music and also saying something that matters. Kendrick Lamar may have made the most important hip hop album in the past 5 to 10 years with section 80, and even the big name people are making changes to their lyrical content to make it more intelligent and challenging than your typical pop hip hop. 

4) Groups. There has not been changes in hip hop alignment like this in a long, long time. GOOD Music is signing people left and right. MMG is signing people left and right. Black Hippy is quite possibly the most interesting grouping of rappers I’ve ever seen, with Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock. Eminem signed Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf, and if you watched the BET cyphers the other day, you know these dudes aren’t fucking around. Odd Future, while i may not have initially like them, are one of the most immediately polarizing hip hop groups we’ve ever seen. But they’re getting people to talk. 

5) Kanye West. If you’re not a fan of Yeezy, i suggest this is where you stop reading. Yeezy is and always has been my favorite artist in hip hop. College Dropout and Late Registration were both classics, and he’s continued to push the boundaries of hip hop throughout his career. Yeezy is one of the major reasons hip hop is doing so well right now. He started GOOD music and got the group movement going. Signed Pusha T, CyHi Da Prynce, John Legend, Big Sean, and several others. Pushed the boundaries of what sounds can be considered hip hop, and every single producer inside the genre and outside of the genre could learn something about great song construction from him. Since he dropped in 04 he’s been at the forefront of making a change in lyrics from ignorance to knowledge about current events. He made a song about conflict diamonds while people were still trying to Crank Dat all over every party in the country. Kanye is a major contributor to the state of hip hop, like it or not.

and those are my five reasons that hip hop is alive and well. comment, don’t comment, i don’t really give a fuck.