Devin the Dude, "What I Be On" @2:30 PM
A lot of folks are wondering what people in Texas are smoking in light of the state board of education's decision to change its social studies curriculum to reflect a more conservative outlook. A new video from the great Houston rap-crooner Devin the Dude provides some insight. 1
Big Boi, Featuring Too Short and George Clinton, "For Yo' Sorrows" @10:00 AM
Here's another excellent advance to stoke the fire for Big Boi's long awaited Sir Luscious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty album. As he proved back on "Synthesizer" from 1998's Aquemeni, no rapper makes George Clinton sound more at home. Too Short seems pretty comfortable with his gray whiskers, too. They're all very dope. 7
Robert "Chilly B" Crafton III, 1962-2010 @10:10 AM
"Like Afrika Bambaataa and Kraftwerk, Newcleus made music that anticipated a high-tech future. Decades before Wikipedia became a household name, Newcleus introduced 'Wikki wikki wikki' to the pop lexicon by using it as onomatopoeia to denote a D.J.’s scratching a needle back and forth on a record."
—Nice to see the Times going so big with an obituary of Robert "Chilly B" Crafton, a member of the early-'80s electro-rap group Newcleus, whose 1983 hit “Jam-On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)” was one of the very first rap songs to reach Markham Place grade school in suburban Little Silver, New Jersey. Also nice to see Rob Kenner, a founding editor of Vibe magazine (and always a force for good writing there) in the Paper of Record. 1
Meth, Ghost And Rae, "Criminology 2.5" @11:40 AM
I remember people saying, back when the recession started, one good thing that could maybe come out of it was it could save music from its dismal state. Not the music industry, which was already pretty much doomed whatever happened, but music itself. Because of the commonly held belief that bad times make for good music. I guess because of the famously fertile early '70s? That is probably my favorite musical era. But maybe that's because that's when I was born. Do people have a built-in preference for the music that was made around the time they were? Do the first sounds we hear, even before we're fully conscious of it, become the ones our tastes gravitate to? Pandora should do a study. Anyway, I was skeptical. And I guess I still am. It's always hard to see the relative quality (if it's even valid to assert such a thing) of current art without the benefit of a couple years' hindsight. But I'd offer the resurgence of the Wu-Tang Clan as evidence that something good did happen during the recession. READ MORE 22
Gang Starr's MC Guru In Coma After Heart Attack @11:30 AM
Sad rap news. Keith "Guru" Elam, MC in the beloved duo Gang Starr, is apparently in a coma after suffering a heart attack. He's scheduled to undergo surgery later today. Here's wishing him a full recovery. Above, the video for the classic, "Mass Appeal," which was the definitive sound of the New York City streets my first summer living here, 1994. 5
Hometown Heroes to Have Difficulty with Proposed Profanity-Free Week in Fucking California @3:45 PM
In what seems like a stupid waste of time, the California state assembly will vote today on a resolution proposing statewide observance of a "Cuss Free Week" each March. (Not like those guys have anything else to be working on.) The resolution does not stipulate any enforcement mechanism, although that would be amusing. READ MORE 9
Wu-Tang Trio's Choice In Group Name Disappoints Dork @9:10 AM
Bummer. Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon opted against "Three Wus Three 57 Trip Pyramid 3 A charm 3 U 3 Scales," instead naming their group the more mundane "Meth, Ghost & Rae." Oh, well. At least the album cover sufficiently caters to their middle-aged fan base's collective inner-thirteen-year-old. Wu-Massacre is out on March 30th. In other disappointing rap news: Bronald Oil & Gas, the Cash Money Millionaires' green energy company? Bloomberg looked into it and it seems that, thus far at least, the company exists primarily in the tattoo on Baby's head. 3
Tony Yayo, "Back Against The Wall" @2:30 PM
God, snow days suck. Fun for the kids. For the parents of kids, who suddenly have to take care of those kids because the New York City public school system suddenly gets all Florida every time a few flakes, or a few inches worth of flakes, or maybe a foot of them, fall, not so much. Like today, I'm trying to watch rap videos. READ MORE 3
Tony Yayo, "Bullets Whistle" @2:46 PM
In a fine example of what Ann Powers defined as "violator art" in a 1999 Village Voice article—one which is now being taught as a four-credit humanities course at Mt. Holyoke!—50 Cent's G-Unit henchman Tony Yayo has been making some great, awful rap music lately. READ MORE 14
Freeway: "Trap Door (Freestyle)" @10:50 AM
Wow! Explicitly recorded as a commercial for his upcoming album, The Stimulus Package, Freeway's two-minute take on "The Trap Door," a two-year-old track from his producer Jake One, is better than most full-fledged new rap songs you'll hear all year. READ MORE 4
Kidd Kidd, "From Here" @9:40 AM
While there's much that's different, the similarities between Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti are as impossible to ignore as they are uncomfortable to consider. New Orleans rapper Kidd Kidd makes the connection himself at the end of his new video, "From Here." 0
New Video: The Clipse, "Freedom" @3:45 PM
New Clipse video today. For "Freedom," which opens their new album, Til the Casket Drops. Like the much of the Virginian duo's music, the song is great. You imagine them—brothers, Gene "Malice" and Terrence "Pusha T" Thornton—rhyming over their parents' Hendrix records when they were kids. (The original sample is actually from David Potter's 1971 "Open Letter," but producers Sean C and LV put some extra-sizzly guitar over top.) But I'll never understand wearing sunglasses inside. 4
The "Name The New Wu-Tang Spin-off Group" Contest @1:55 PM
The Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah, Raekwon the Chef and Method Man are currently working as a trio. The album is due soon, but they've yet to decide on a name for the group. So Ghostface has gone to his MySpace page and asked fans for suggestions, promising a shout-out in the liner notes to anyone who might come up with a winner. My favorites up so far are "three wus three 57 trip pyramid 3 a charm 3 u 3 scales," as suggested by MR. M. AZAR A.K.A BIG T PRODUCTIONS. (I think Mr. M might have omitted some punctuation, and perhaps intended that to be four or five separate entries. But there's definitely some good shit in there somewhere.) And "Ironman, Iron Chef and the Iron Lung," as suggested by Dangerous. And "g.r.a.m.s" (Ghost Rae And Meth) as suggested by a fan called FIRESPITTINDRAGGONS. Actually, "Fire Spitting Dragons," is pretty awesome in itself. If he (or she, but somehow, I think it's a he) would let them borrow it. 14
New Video: Big Boi and Gucci Mane, "Shine Blockas" @12:00 PM
What do you do if you record a great duet with a big rising star in your field, but he has to go to jail before filming a video for it? Well, if you're cooler than a penguin's toenails, like Outkast's Big Boi, you head to Walmart to pick up some new socks, set the cameras rolling, and lip-synch your partner's parts for him. And give a little "Free Gucci" shout-out at the end. READ MORE 1
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
Another Blackberry Commercial Irks In Many Ways @10:31 AM
You know you're really late to the party when you learn about a new trend in youth culture from the Times' Sunday Styles section. Sadly, that's what happened this weekend when I read Guy Trebay's article on "jerking," a new dance craze that's apparently burst out of Los Angeles via the internet. On the upside, the new knowledge answered a question I'd been asking my television machine for the past few weeks. This was: What is that spastic karate-chop shit the crazy-haired girl in those "All You Need is Love" Blackberry commercial is practicing in front of her bedroom mirror? READ MORE 15
Warren G Takes Credit For Something Not Worth Taking Credit For @2:10 PM
This seems to not quite qualify as a great stroke of genius. Producer and former rapper Warren G tells XXL that he came up with the name for his step-brother Dr. Dre's classic 1999 album Chronic 2001-which was a follow-up to Dre's 1992 debut, The Chronic. "We actually met at the Beverly Hills Hotel one night, and-I swear to God-he was trying to figure out what to call the album, and I actually said, 'How about Chronic 2001?' Right there at the Beverly Hills Hotel-we sat there, in the bungalows, and named it The Chronic 2001… Dre probably don't remember that shit, but I said, 'Chronic 2001… We are The Chronic. Why change it and name it something else when you can name it Chronic 2001? Because it's the second one, and it's in the new millennium. Let's start it up and hit them again with it!'" Okay. In the '90s, there were so many rap albums coming out with future-year-based titles that hip-hop magazines were doing stories about the phenomenon. How about a quick list? READ MORE 15
New Video: The Clipse, "Back By Popular Demand" @2:30 PM
Pusha T and Cam'ron dress up as John Fogerty and Eddie Vedder in the grimy, but colorful, Rik Cordero-directed video to the Clipse's new "Back By Popular Demand," a.k.a. "Popeyes." As previously evidenced by another recent song, "Doorman," the Clipse are onto something good with a mariachi horns sound-and their upcoming album, Til The Casket Drops, is shaping up nicely. Unfortunately, the above video is only for the heavily bleeped clean version of "Popular Demand." So what you should do is open up another window on your computer machine, and sync up this one to listen to while you watch. You don't want to miss any of the rhymes. 'Cause they're so excellent. 5
It's Gucci Time (Six Months in Lockdown) @10:56 AM
Oy vey. Now Gucci Mane's going to jail for an unnamed probation violations. Another rapper at a prime moment in his career, self-waylaid on his way to a big release date. And this is the second time this has happened to the 29-year-old Gucci-four years ago, the buzz from his first hit, "Icy" was squelched when he was arrested on a murder charge that was eventually dropped. He later did jail time for, um, forgetting to do 600 hours of community service on an assault charge. Busy, busy! 2
There Was No Father To His Style; Remembering Ol' Dirty Bastard @10:20 AM
One of my happiest days as a music journalist came in 1999, when I got an advance copy of Ol' Dirty Bastard's second solo album, Nigga Please. What a rewarding surprise it was to hear an artist who had become more renown for the tumultuous details of his personal life-he was amidst a string of nine arrests over the span of 13 months at the time-return with a work of music so powerful and compelling, so brazenly different from anything I'd heard before. "A biblical storm set to funk beats," I called it in a review I wrote for Vibe. READ MORE 4
New Video: The Clipse "Doorman" @2:30 PM
Earlier this year, stand-out coke-rappers the Clipse had their bona fides verified when manager Anthony Gonzales pleaded guilty to running a multimillion dollar drug ring. With the video to the new single "Doorman," from the forthcoming album Til The Casket Drops, the Virginia duo celebrate their incarcerated "comrades" very explicitly. The game is to be sold, not told. At least, not until after everyone who could go to jail is already in jail, at which point it should be told so it can be sold some more. Not knocking it. That's just good business, I suppose. Good song, too. 2
Wait, Is That The Good Kind Of Illin' Or The Bad Kind Of Illin'? @3:35 PM
Well. The thought of a Run-DMC Broadway musical makes me want to puke in my shell-toes. (Just kidding, I don't really have shell-toes.) True rap greats, going the way of Billy Joel? This cannot be good. (It certainly was not good for true rock greats, The Who.) But wait, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to diss and dismiss. After all, Awl pal Sacha Jenkins' recent foray into rap musical theater, met with rave reviews. And if Big Boi can pull off a ballet and still kill the mic (and talk to penguins) anything's possible. And Jordan Galloway of the New York Press is "practically giddy" at the news of the project, which he thinks "has the potential to be amazing." He also reports, "The job of bringing the hip hop impresarios' lives to the stage falls to Hollywood producer Paula Wagner." Oh, the Paula Wagner who produced Vanilla Sky? That doesn't make me feel better. 3
Lil Wayne Going Away At The Top Of His Game? @2:15 PM
Damn. Looks like Lil Wayne might actually go to jail for a while. Seems particularly unfortunate timing. His most recent album, The Carter III, was last year's biggest hit, selling 3 million copies. And he's supposedly readying three new ones for release in December. 3
How Awesome Would It Be to Have The RZA as Your Dad? @1:13 PM
Self-professed recovering video-game addict the RZA (a.k.a. Prince Rakeem, The Abbot, Bobby Digital, Bobby Steels, the RZArector, Ruler Zig-zag-zig Allah, etc.) tells his sons, "If it was up to me… You wanna make me happy? Four hours of video games a day is enough." 3
When Rap Really Died: What He Said @10:00 AM
"If you try to locate the moment of a major paradigm shift, in the moment, perhaps by calling your album 'Hip Hop Is Dead,' as Nas did in 2006, you're slipping into weatherman territory. Will it rain tomorrow? Will another great rap album pop up? The life spans of genres and art forms are best perceived from the distance of ten or twenty years, if not more. With that in mind, I still suspect that Nas-along with a thousand bloggers-was not fretting needlessly. If I had to pick a year for hip-hop's demise, though, I would choose 2009, not 2006." Everything I've written about rap this year? This is what I meant to say. And here's a video of Freddie Gibbs, the Gary, Indiana rapper profiled in the last section of this excellent piece. 6
Good Rap Song Doesn't Really Make Sense @12:04 PM
Silly to quibble with someone who's declaring himself a maniac, but the chorus to Lil Boosie's new single, "Mind of a Maniac" seems to contradict itself. "I ain't got no mind," Boosie begins. But then, immediately, he says, "Welcome to the mind of maniac." So, apparently, he does in fact have a mind. Just not a normally functioning one. Today though he is on his way to the big house, where he will have the better part of a year to think about these issues. READ MORE 4
Mos Def Takes Japan @2:56 PM
Today's Rap Radar posts two Current TV clips of Mos Def in Japan. (One here, one below.) Mos performs the songs "Auditorium" and "Quiet Dog" from his The Ecstatic album, analyzes Japanese society during a taxi trip through Tokyo, goes to a sumo wrestling bout, and falls deeply in love with a blue leather jacket that his brother describes as looking like "a gay Ninja Turtle." Like pretty much everything that Mos Def does these days, it is all highly enjoyable. READ MORE 1
