Rap Songs In Which Complete Sets of Things are Listed @3:00 PM
Joe Coscarelli is working up a list of complete sets listed. There is: Usher's "Little Freak." ("Like Santa I keep a vixen/ Got that Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Dixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen!" Um, ha. And then there's Jay-Z, who (sorry) I have never felt, particularly for a stunt like this. READ MORE 10
I Got 99 Problems, But Eminent Domain Ain’t One: White Brooklynites Against Jay-Z @9:50 AM
Jay-Z has been dipping his toes in the political waters of late. First, he and Beyonce showed up at the White House (which was stellar). Then, he surfaced as entrenched in an imbroglio (not so stellar) with the New York Guv, a potential Queens "racino," and Rev. Floyd Flake, the borough’s behemoth ex-Congressman-cum-powerbroker. Then the governor, even while busy swimming in a flood of scandal, killed the deal. And yesterday, Jay-Z appeared standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of New York politicos and dignitaries to take a big step towards building his dream: a stadium for the Brooklyn Nets. And lots of people are peeved about it. READ MORE 11
Aww, Man: Jay-Z's Not In The Illuminati After All @10:20 AM
Jay-Z just topped Forbes list of "Hollywood's Top-Earning Couples," pulling in a cool $122 million with wife Beyonce from June 2008 to June 2009. He so totally sold his soul to the devil!
Actually, the vigilant citizens at Rap Radar have collected denials from the principals involved with the video, for Jay's new single "On To the Next One," that got all those crazy Illuminati theories buzzing. READ MORE 8
So All That Crazy Stuff On The Dollar Bill Is Just, What, Decoration? @11:21 AM
“We need to make Freemasonry more contemporary, to make it reflect 2010, not 1910—or 1810.” That's Tom Sturgeon, newly installed Right Worshipful Grand Master for the Pennsylvania chapter of Freemasons, to the Times' Holly Brubach. And, since he's not talking about, say, marshaling a network of laser equipped satellites to work in connection with a fleet of telepathic dolphins to better secure control over an invisible matrix emanating from a golden pyramid hidden inside a mountain in Roswell, New Mexico, it's pretty disappointing. A Right Worshipful Grand Master opens his induction ceremony to the public, holds it in a convention center, and grants newspaper interviews about it? What kind of secret society is this guy running? No wonder everyone wants to believe Jay-Z is in a Satanic cult and the president is a Manchurian double agent for an Islamist sleeper cell. We need the mystery, the intrigue. Paranoia needs an outlet. READ MORE 13
New Video and Da Vinci Code: Jay-Z's "On To The Next One" @1:10 PM
The reliably enlightening Vigilant Citizen has some very interesting theories about the new Jay-Z video "On to the Next One." Apparently, as illustrated by all the crows, blood drinking and ram's horns in the clip, Jay is deeply involved in an occult conspiracy to put humanity under the control of the goat-headed dark lord Baphomet. This was also illustrated in the "Run This Town" video, and also, presumably, by his taking part in the MTV video awards show in September. READ MORE 10
New Video: Jay-Z, "Young Forever" @12:50 PM
There's a new video for Jay-Z's "Young Forever," featuring Kanye West's British discovery, Mr. Hudson. (That's a funny name for a singer, right? Maybe he should sing "Broken Wings" next.) It's not terrible. Like many Jay-Z videos, it features some nice black-n-white photography. But the song is just such an obvious bid for prom theme. Jay's not at his sharpest. And Alphaville's original, from 1984, still sounds better. 5
Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom Of Night Stays Jay-Z From The Swift Completion Of His Appointed Sounds @9:00 AM
You don't see Jay-Z pulling a gun on a crowd in a snowstorm. Rather, he controls them through rap. Here he is, during Saturday night's blizzard, taping a performance of "Run This Town" with Rihanna for New Year's Eve With Carson Daly. Even when it's cold, he remains cool. 4
New Rap Song (And Its Complicated Roots): Red Cafe, "I'm Ill" @2:30 PM
How rap builds itself on itself: Brooklyn MC Red Cafe has a new song out called "I'm Ill." I like it. But not everyone does. (The Pigeons and Planes website says "This track might be Mr. Marty Mediocre's favorite new song." Ha! Marty Mediocre must hang out with Plain Jane McLame and Norman McNormalson.) The song is interesting, though, at the very least, as a study of how production trends work. The beat is built around a vocal sample of Jay-Z saying "I'm Ill" on a record he released last year called "A Billie." "A Billie" featured Jay rhyming over the beat from Lil Wayne's hit "A Milli." READ MORE 5
A Common Misunderstanding of the Lyrics of Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" @1:01 PM
If you're like me (and the rest of America, according to the Billboard Hot 100), you love the Jay-Z song "Empire State of Mind." But here's the thing: there's apparently a frequently-misunderstood lyric regarding popular NBA players LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, one that seems to leave a number of people befuddled. Maybe you've heard this line? It's in the second verse and goes something like this, "I got it made/If Jeezy's payin' LeBron, I'm paying Dwyane Wade." A lot of people think this has to do with an NBA franchise, of which Jay-Z is a part-owner: the New Jersey—soon to be Brooklyn—Nets. Those people are wrong. READ MORE 90
Lordy, Lordy Jay-Z's 40! @9:45 AM
Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter was born December 4, 1969 weighing in at 10 pounds, 8 ounces. He was the last of Gloria Carter's four children, the only one who didn't give her any pain when she gave birth to him. That's how she knew he was a special child. 8
Radio Station Annoys Man Sitting In Car @4:54 PM
I sat in a parked car for an hour this morning, waiting out the no-parking-for-street-cleaning window, listening to Hot 97. I know they're basically a top-40 station, dedicated to whatever's currently most popular in "blazing hip-hop and R&B." But, God, I wish they'd expand their playlist. It really seems like they keep to a rotation of the same five or six songs at any given time. (Maybe they're a top-5 station?) Today, for example, they played Fabolous' "Throw It In The Bag" remix, featuring Drake, around 8:45, and then again at exactly 9:24. Twice in forty minutes! That's ridiculous. (The most recent playlist at Hot97.com has "Throw It In The Bag" ranked 5th. Trey Songz' "I invented Sex," also featuring Drake, is no. 1. So they're playing that one every, what 12 minutes? We're going to run into mathematical impossibility here…) But I don't even mind "Throw It In The Bag" so much. Much worse is the new Young Money song that's also playing with great frequency (ranked 9th on the playlist.) Have you heard it? It's called "Bedrock" and it absolutely plagued my drive back home from Boston after Thanksgiving. (So Hot 97's counterparts in Massachusetts and Connecticut must share some blame.) Young Money is Lil Wayne's group, featuring, yes, Drake, but also Mack Maine, Gutta Gutta, Nicki Minaj and, usually, way too much autotune. But the real problem with "Bedrock" is the chorus. READ MORE 18
One Nation, Under The Roc, With Liberty And Justice For All… @11:06 AM
A Complex mag gallery celebrates one of the great marketing moves in a career that should be taught in marketing classes at business school. Around the time Jay-Z was recording his 2000 album Roc La Familia, someone in his camp (Jay himself maybe?) came up with a handsign to represent his Roc-a-Fella Records label. It's simple: put both index fingers and both thumbs together to make a diamond. (Roc-a-Fella = "The Roc" = a "rock" = a diamond.) Much easier than those complicated finger-twisting gang signs from Los Angeles. Since Jay demonstrated it on the Roc La Familia cover, it's become a standard pose for self-aggrandizing in picture taking, and nowadays, you see all sorts of people throwing up the diamond in all sorts of situations. (Including Fran Drescher, yo!) And like on Friday, when the Yankees were celebrating their successful lobbying on behalf of the House health care proposal World Series win, A-rod did it as he saluted the crowd, as did Jay-Z, who was riding on his float. The best possible usage, of course, is when Chicago area newscaster Ryan Baker flashes it all subtle on air. 11
P Is For The People Who Can't Understand @9:52 AM
So Jay-Z's booked to perform "Empire State of Mind" before the opening game of the world series at Yankee Stadium. Hard to beat something that makes that much sense. A big, bombastic anthem about the bright lights of the big city to match the big, bombastic Bronx Bombers and the bright lights of their big new stadium. (Even as that googolzillion-dollar monument to avarice and ostentation is already falling apart.) Alicia Keys on the chorus and everything. A-Rod's bound to pop a boner. The Evil Empire is stacking the deck.
How's Philadelphia-a place already afflicted with a severe second-city complex-supposed to compete? READ MORE 17
There's One Of Him, But In Some Ways, He's Like The Beatles @11:40 AM
So Britain's NME reports that Kanye West is going to an ashram in Pondicherry (such a pretty name for a city, and one that would also make a nice title for a slack dancehall tune) for a month of meditative recuperation after his embarrassing outburst at last month's MTV Video Awards. (Did you happen to hear about that?) This could be very good. READ MORE 5
Billboard's Chart Race Adds Fuel To Race War Fire @5:17 PM
Elvis may have been a hero to most, but he hasn't had a new album in over thirty years. And now, somehow appropriate during this week of full blown race war, Jay-Z has just displaced him as the American artist, and the solo artist, with the most no. 1 albums on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart, ever. Jay-Z is black. Elvis, who died in 1977, was actually white. READ MORE 4
Florida Man Accused Of Throwing Galaxies At Teenagers @11:15 AM
Pretty much the coolest thing humankind has ever built (sorry, pyramids), the recently refurbished Hubble Telescope, has sent back more awe-inspiring pictures from space this week. This one here is what it looks like when galaxies collide. READ MORE 6
Do Rappers Only Get Better With Age? @4:53 PM
"2009 is shaping up to be the year of the Grown-Ass Man, says New York's Josh Eels, discussing the notion of the middle-aged rap star. With a host of still-viable MCs approaching 40 (and, considering the showbiz tradition of shaving years off bios, it's safe to assume that some of them are already past the mark), the piece looks at the different tactics they employ to try to remain relevant. Jay-Z, of course, gets top billing. But as is so often the case, Ghostface Killah steals the show. "I wanted to take it to a more mature level," says the 37-year-old Wu-Tang Clansman, who's forthcoming album, The Wizard of Poetry, leans heavily toward love-song R&B stylings. "It's like having the same piece of pussy for twenty years. Sometimes you just need to change it up." READ MORE 3
Jay-Z and "Autotune in Wendy's Commercials" @1:06 PM
"It's the same thing like when the old lady in Oregon starts saying, 'bling, bling.' It's like, 'I'm never saying that again.'" That's Jay-Z, describing the genesis of his "Death of Autotune" movement to Billboard. Turns out Kanye West-whose own all-autotune album, last year's 808s & Heartbreak, probably marks the highpoint in the usage of the now ubiquitous computerized voice modulation program-gave him the idea. Interesting. (And Jay's right. Please, God, make it stop.) 12
Jay-Z Is America @10:30 AM
Foreign Policy examines the difficulties of exercising hegemonic power in modern society when faced with an insistent opponent of disproportionate strength. READ MORE 10
Jay-Z: Not An Auto-Tune Fan @11:19 AM
Jay-Z hates Auto-Tune, and he doesn't care if T-Pain knows it. I actually think this song is pretty great, but I'm an old man. Younger rappers are less impressed. 6
