Or it could be crap just like his last one. Being the “hater” that I am, my bet is on the latter. The thing about Cam’ron is that, unlike a lot of MCs that I don’t particularly care for, he is somewhat talented. But he doesn’t put out a lot of very good records, I don’t think. Which makes you wonder, are all of these people that are supposedly fans of his actually listening to shit like Come Home with Me and From Me to You, or is it more about the fashion? I think my main beef with the shit of his that I’ve heard (I’m not as familiar with his pre-Roc-A-Fella work) has been his reliance on beats using sped-up vocal samples (and usually not very good ones at that) and guest appearances from his untalented homies. Still, I think if he can manage to get beats from all the Roc’s best producers and keep guest appearances to an absolute minimum, Blueprint-style, he might actually have something. Then again, I suppose you could say that about a lot of people.

It’s not really rape if it’s your house.

The boss said he would revoke my Shrimp membership if I didn’t post more often, and since that’s the only thing getting me into clubs these days I thought I should add something here.

The Big Tymers are always a double-edged sword – you get to hear Mannie Fresh’s fantastic beats, but in exchange you have to listen to Baby’s fucking awful rapping. Baby likes to rap about how he is a great businessman, which is true, but it gets really tired on 20-track albums like last year’s “Big Money Heavyweights,” since Baby has run out of interesting ways to say “I’m rich” and he has a dull flow. Mannie’s production, on the other hand, has kept getting better and better – “How We Do” was one of the great unheard singles from 2003.

Fortunately Mannie has already dropped one of the ten best singles of the year with “Real Big” and hopes are high for his album, scheduled for a November 9 release date. Tracks that will presumably end up on the album have started to leak. The only track I’ve been able to find besides “Real Big” is “Day In the Life.” I don’t know that it will be on the album and that it isn’t just a demo or something, but it is labeled online as an album track. It’s decent, good beats, but without the same great humor he brought to “Real Big.” It does have him making car noises though, so that’s cool.

Mannie Fresh – “Day In the Life”

Link is good for seven days or 25 downloads.

Fabolous is a pretty horrible artist too. His latest single “Breathe” is an exception in that it’s actually listenable, but he’s committed enough crimes against hip-hop in his relatively brief career to warrant mention in the company of the likes of MC Hammer and Lil’ Flip. In particular, there was this single off of his last album (the one with the R&B chick) that was pretty horrendous and almost as bad as this current Lil Flip atrocity. I suppose somebody’s going to pop up and try to defend him too, or does he not have enough gold teeth?

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

Because I care.

His song “Sunshine,” which I’m sure we’re all familiar with, is so bad, it might actually be worse than anything MC Hammer ever came up with. I say “might” because there might actually be something that he did that was worse than it on his post-2 Legit 2 Quit albums (and who knows how many of those there are), but I wouldn’t know because I never heard any of them, and those don’t really count anyway.

It’s so bad in fact that I don’t think it ever caught on at either of the local jig stations. But, apparently, they’re still playing it on our TRL-oriented teen pop station, SHIT 107.7. The only reason I know is that we had this shitty little radio at the Asshole the other day and it couldn’t pick up the game on an AM station, so we were flipping through the dial trying to find a station that was staying up to date with the score. In other words, no homo.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

So I had two days off school this week. My friend and I drove her ’71 Cutlass to Chicago to hang out with my friends for a few days. They live in the south loop (a stop north of Chinatown) because they go to school at Columbia Chicago which is like a community/technical/art school in one. Or some shit, I donno. Anyway it was a good time and I had Dim Sum for breakfast on Saturday.

Anyway while I was there I picked up Mass Hysteria’s newish CD Chicago: The Underworld Mixtape. It’s a pretty great example of Chicago’s strange position in the hip-hop world. Chicago’s always been in a really weird place because when hip-hop was developing in New York all the b-boys in Chi-town were listening to house music because that shit was huge and it’s still pretty influential. I was born in Chicago in 1983 so I don’t really remember this shit but apparently we had something of a hip-hop culture. William Upski Wimsatt’s written a lot on hip-hop in the late 80s and early 90s but it’s important to remember that WBMX, Chicago’s house station, was the most popular station in the city as hip-hop was becoming the predominant music culture outside of the second city. And House music never really broke in the U.S. so Chicago was denied any sort of big important cultural impact, and then for a long time there was almost nothing here. What did we have, crucial conflict and Common and R. Kelly? Shit when I was ten just like every other kid my age from the Chi we were into Dre and Snoop, that stuff was big – “The Box” was almost all G-funk and 2pac and maybe some biggie here and there. At my high school it was all cash money – even the kids who made beats in high school were imitating the Mannie Fresh double-time bounce music.

Kanye West’s picture dominates this mixtape’s cover and its easy to see why – the guy pretty much dragged Chicago into the spotlight and helped to put Twista on and revitalized Jay-Z. He has a song of his own on here from before he was big. Its called “Nothin’ Gonna Stop Me” and it’s a really good example of how awful his drum programming can be and his rhyme style sounds a lot different and more amateurish. Its also got his beats on Common’s new single “Food” which I actually like a lot more than Common’s other recent hendrix bullshit and the “Overnight Celebrity” remix with Cam’ron and 50 Cent. 50′s verse is surprisingly exciting.

For the most part though this mixtape is all about Dug Infinite. He produces a bunch of the tracks and drops a verse on No I.D.’s “State to State (Beatnuts Remix).” My personal favorite is All Natural’s “Stony Island” which is on the Pete Rock-style piano loop steez.

Just like when House was king, Chicago is in its own world when it comes to hip-hop. The south is revitalizing hip-hop production and meanwhile these cats are sampling like its 1993. Dug Inf is pretty good and I like this mixtape a lot but some of the production veers towards dull. There are a lot of good MCs on it though, most of the major guys you’d want to hear from Chicago – J.U.I.C.E., Rhymefest (who absolutely rips it over a Mark Ronson beat), All Natural, and No I.D., for instance. And there’s something endearing about Chicago’s refusal to even acknowledge what’s happening outside its own city limits.

For a history of Chicago hip-hop, check out the galapagos 4 website. This history was written by Kevin Beacham aka Formless.

Here are two mp3s of my favorite tracks from Chicago: The Underworld Mixtape.

All Natural – “Stony Island” (produced by Dug Inf)

No I.D. featuring Common and Dug Inf – “State to State (Beatnuts Remix)”

Buy the mixtape here for only 6.99.

Here is the tracklist:

01 – Intro – Gee Field & Mike Treese (Prod. By Matt Monster)

02 – Plane Terror – Mass Hysteria (Prod. By Dug Inf)

03 – Respeck – Rhymefest (Prod. By Mark Ronson)

04 – Renegades – Cap D ft. Ali & Tree

05 – Middle Ground Anthem – Prime & Clew (Prod. By Crates)

06 – Hot – Kaos (Prod. By Memo/Molemen)

07 – In the Trenches/Wake Up Call RMX – J.U.I.C.E.

08 – Stony Island – All Natural (Prod. By Dug Inf.)

09 – Rockin’ w/ the Best – DJ Presyce

10 – It Ain’t Safe – Mass Hysteria (Prod. By Dug Inf)

11 – Freestyle – Zoser from Frontline (Prod. By Spike & Jamal)

12 – Feels So Good – SMP ft. Earatik Statik & Pace Won

13 – Smoke Signals – Primeridian ft. GQ & DJ Kiko

14 – We Made Us – Mass Hysteria (Prod. By Dug Inf)

15 – Autobiography – Sham God (Prod. By Manos)

16 – Nothin’ Gonna Stop Me – Kanye West (NOT ON ALBUM)

17 – Chapelle Show Intro

18 – The Food (Full Song) – Common ft. Kanye West (BRAND NEW)

19 – Lost Boys – Longshot (Prod. By Panik/Molemen)

20 – Fall Out – Mass Hysteria ft. J.U.I.C.E. (Prod. By SC)

21 – This’ll Have to Do – Sef the Executioner (Prod. By Spike & Jamal)

23 – State to State (Beatnuts RMX) – No I.D. Ft. Common & Dug Inf

24 – Persevere RMX – Mass Hysteria (Prod. By SC)

25 – You Know I’m Wit It – SMP ft. Kool G Rap & Ma Barker

26 – Overnight Celebrity RMX – Twista ft. Cam’ron & 50 Cent

27 – Peace to Chicago Artists

All Natural (Tone b. Nimble and capital D)

If you are interested in hearing more from All Natural check this track which is available at the thrill jockey website.

Ztrip Interview

So the folks over at Downhill Battle interviewed Z-trip about sampling issues and the problems he’s faced as a dj trying to release an album with a major label. Downhillbattle.org is the same site that did a lot of advocating for Dangermouse’s album and the site is basically dedicated towards fighting against bullshit sample laws. The interview starts off talking about the Uneasy Listening album he made with DJ P (who happens to be a dope dj but gets overlooked too much because z-trip is more known). Oh I also recommend going to the DJ P site and watching the video footage of him djing at shitty top 40 clubs in the midwest.

Is King Lear up in here?

I just got back from Chicago. The new t double d album is heat (Check gov’t names for a couple mp3s). Upcoming I’ll be posting about Lil Boosie and T-Rock and the mass hysteria mixtape of Chicago hip-hop. Stay tuned, motherfuckers.

It’s probably not considered cool to jack a whole day’s worth of links from some other kid’s site, but I did it anyway. I’m gully like that.



Nas featuring Olu Dara – Bridging The Gap video

Nas featuring Olu Dara from VH1′s Hip Hop Honors

Eminem “Mosh”

Immortal Technique and Mos Def – Bin Laden

I’d suggest you grab this shit while the getting is good, if you know what I mean.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.