Biters

If you haven’t heard – then you don’t read too many rap blogs, shame on you – someone compiled a six-minute mix consisting of portions lifted from Jay-Z songs played directly after the portions of others’ songs to which Jay was alluding/quoting in his. For instance, Snoop would say “From the depths of the sea, back to the block / Snoop Doggy Dogg, funky as the, the, The D.O.C.” then Jay would say “From the crap tables down in AC back on the block /Jay-Z motherfucker from the, the, the Roc.” And we’re supposed to be convinced by these morsels of evidence that Jay isn’t “a writer” but is, in fact, a biter.

There’s very little new here and my first response was to just call whoever composed this mix a moron. However, some of our best and brightest are apparently swayed by this critique.

Well it’s bullshit.

1) Hip Hop’s acknowledged commitment to originality (“No Biting Allowed”) must be balanced with its historical regional, and sub-genre based centralism. G. Rap is more like Kane than Eminem, who is more like Jay than Abstract Rude, who is more like Lyrics Born than Bun B, etc. Where these similarities are not the products of embedded sociologies, they are from self-conscious borrowing. Nas, for instance, has acknowledged borrowing stylistically from Raekwon and B.I.G. and together the three, among others, forged a sonic meme that will always represent a particular locus of the music’s history. In short, “No Biting Allowed,” like the first two rules of Fight Club, is a rule that is designed to be broken for growth to occur.

2) Regardless of the race of whomever compiled this evidence against Jay, they are clearly unfamiliar with the simple reality that language in black culture is a shared commodity. Michael Eric Dyson puts it much better than I could in his reference to Dr. King’s (and other black preachers’) tendency to reuse portions of others’ sermons and speeches in his own. In the vein of the argument posed by this mix and its supporters, “I Have A Dream” would have been a pure and simple bite. Of course, as Dr. King, Jay-Z has his own voice of distinction which renders all of his words (including the relatively few that he quoted from others) into a peculiar contextual continuum. Ask Kris Ex, he gets it.

“At their best, the practice of black Baptist preachers remind us that knowledge is indeed communal, that rhetoric is shaped in the interplay of a rich variety of language users, and that what is old becomes new again by being recant in forceful and imaginative ways.” – Michael Eric Dyson I May Not Get There With You

Dr. Dre is 40 years old today.

Ok so R. Kelly Left and Locksmith are The Frontline, two salty yet hungry rappers from Richmond (aka the Land Of Coach Carter) who with the help of E-A-Ski have been making some very romantic music. They’ve had some 12″s floating around and I’d seen them around but I passed them up each time. I didn’t really know anything about these dudes and didn’t feel like chancing it. Then their song with E-A-Ski, “What Is It”, started getting some play. It’s a cool song but I still didn’t cop their shit. Then I heard that Ross Hogg and B-Cause mix with some of their other songs on it and decided it was time to man up. After hearing their album I think they went a little soft on the singles. Don’t get me wrong the singles are cool but fuck they got some bangers that I would have prefered to hear loud as shit in the club. They’ve also got a couple guests on this shit such as E-A-Ski, Balance, and San Quinn. I’ve got some plans for a post about Balance in the future too.

(image jacked from here)

One of the songs that goes hard as fuck is “Playin’ With Fire” the beat has some dark tones to it but fuck man the drums on this shit don’t fuck around. It’s some fucking high school pep ralley stomping on the fucking bleachers clapping till your hands hurt screaming “we will rock you!” Frontline rapping about how you shouldn’t try fucking with them cause they don’t think you understand what you’re fucking with. They got this other cut, “I Got…” featuring San Quinn that also rocks the blownout handclaps with this casio guitar dropping in over the beat. I’m usually suspect of some sythasized guitars but they work it right dropping rhymes about chopping shit up with Willie Brown and how the bay ain’t on some punk shit. A number of the beats rock some guitar for a little bit of that harder edge to them. They even got this song Recognize that rocks that Ironman riff. It’s hard but I’ve been burnt out on Trick Daddy’s “Let’s Go” to really be all that impressed by it although it does leave the song open for flipping some cutesy mixes.

Well shit I just noticed something, I started writing this post then stopped and started reading the liner notes of this album. Turns out the 12″s that they released were all produced by E-A-ski while all the other tracks on the album are produced by Left. I’m thinking since E-A-Ski and CMT were the executive producers on this shit then that explains why they went with the singles they did. I like E-A-Ski but I think Left is bringing some harder shit on the beats. E-A-Ski has more shit going on in his beats while Left’s beats tend to be more stripped down but Left cranks out some bangers. I don’t know how long Left has been making beats but you give this dude some more experience and I think he’ll be dropping some serious heat.

Gangsta
I Got…. featuring San Quinn
Playin’ With Fire

buy the album here

No shocker here really, and I doubt we’ll actually see that album this year bcuz of an off-the-cuff “I will record again,” but whatever i guess this is news.

this is sort new although I’m sure someone else has covered it by now but there’s a new lord quasimoto video out.

You can get it here, it’s called “Rap Cats” and the song is alright but what’s really cool is all the old footage on some “we didn’t start the fire” for hip-hop shit. I don’t know what I think of the song, i guess it’s passable but I can’t imagine listening to it without wanting to watch the video as well. The Quas album is gonna be out May 3rd.

lace up your stadias homiez we taking a walkzors down memory lane
shit was a fucked up silver and had the cracked red rich corinthian
leather interior hold up soccer mom in the cube next to me just handed
me a deviled egg sandwich un momento por favor damn this shit is bomb
except the bread is too dry okay bluds sorry anyway this car was a
piece of shit bludz no lie i remember having to pray no like literally
moms told us to really pray hoooard as she and my bro was sitting there
and we was struggling to pray like sweating that the car would start
and this would happen like every morning i mean i kinda forgot about
that shit until just now which is wierd cause TA got the steel trap
mind steezo like i am so tripping off that cordoba right now and then
thinking back to that i remember my step dads 67 nova which was all
raised up ughh raise up fooo in the back all muscle car steez and was
a sicc ass money green with metal flakes before people was doing 67
novas with money green metal flake paint jobs and that shit would cook i
mean straight short order chef you down 23rd no seatbelts cause fuck
thems for sissies and then also he also had a 46 oldsmobile primered
and bondo steezola but that just sat in the garage after his initial body
work until he sold it and smelled like wet dog youd think with all these
cars and mechanically inclined folkers that id be all sicc and into cars
but fuck that i was upstairs playing sega or looking at my step brothers
collection of hustler mags with the sports illustrated covers on thems any
way my biological didnt bother with that shit i remember he had a buick
regal and it was tan hellsa boring compared to step dads rides but yo my
biopops liked listening to click and clack on npr which is ironic anyways
these are the memories you have when you from a broken home blud also my
step sister had a cat named domino and that fucker weighed like 78 pounds
or some shit oh yeah also rap music is sicc too that opinion is thanks to
my step sister too she had a late 70s corolla with sheepskin seat covers
bird call

Nas – New York

“New York” is all trad New York Premier-biting production, chopped samples with urgent pianos and pure descriptive Nas lyricism: “yo the trains are new york veins, the city’s a psycho/ people are the bloodstream, mean and ice-cold.” Lost Tapes had more personal, introspective shit and I loved it for that reason. On this track though, supposedly from Lost Tapes 2, Nas is direct, to the point, a bunch of little narratives built upon each other, lots of dark urban imagery and romanticized city drama. Its no new ground, and none of the personal style that he showed in Street’s Disciple; just fresh classic Nas shit, the stuff that made me love Illmatic and “Nas is Like” like the corny old-fashioned Nas head I am.

Serg is gonna call me softhands for this shit, but this wack day is going to be a hard one for me. Fuck this fucking day.

I stand in solidarity with all my lonely peoples on this day.

Fuck this fucking day.

-e

Edit: And this day is so fucking wack, I don’t even care that the middle finger picture is fucking up the screen. You fucks better leave that finger that big. It NEEDS to be that big. You fucks.

I mentioned APG before but now I’m actually going to post about them.

The Action Packed Gangsters were:

Mello – Mar & J-Cutt

Cold Coming Up ( Professor T & DJ Pause)

MC Red & DJ Red Slice ( The Red Connection)

The members of APG were mostly from Oakland (incase you couldn’t tell from the fucking title of the tape). The name APG actually comes from Apgar Street out in Oakland. They released this tape in 1991. It’s got some of your standard early 90′s type production; horns blasting through drums, soul to soul type piano stabs, some of that uptempo bass rolling though, and high pitched sirens coming straight out of oakland. I miss that high pitched siren shit, it was the easiest way to make the hype track on an album. Just put some hard drums under a loud screeching sound and everyone was ready to perform a beatdown on any video camera in site. This needs to make a comeback. Fuck all these fancy videos with hoes and shit. The posse is where it’s at.

APG doesn’t really sound too much like the standard bay area shit of the time which sounded more like Too Short and those affiliated with him. It’s more uptempo and seems to be more influenced by that early 90′s NYC sound. Not to say that they don’t sound westcoast because they do but the tape just has some of those tones to it. These guys were saying “punk police” just as much as everyone else from the west did after Cube said it.

So yeah because there really isn’t any way to cop this tape unless you dig it up somewhere and because I doubt it’s ever going to be released ever again I’ve decided to upload the entire album for you people. It’s a zip file so you’ll need winzip or something to open the shit but unless you’re fucking retarded that shouldn’t be that hard.

APG – Oakland’s Finest

Brother Reade – Blue and You

This, in a sense, does Joni like she did Mingus, transcribing syncretic love and loss and sex. And you feel good about yourself when you can say “I caught that allusion.” It also feels good to know, for once, that you’re in the intended audience for a rap song. Brother Reade is Jimmy Jael on vocals, Kill You Me You on production. They live in L.A. by way of Winston-Salem. They have two EPs on deck for Spring.

Brother Reade – Fire This Time

They got raw when they went to Cali. Still, this one’s North Carolina as all get-out. Ever been to Winston-Salem? I’ve been there three times (I think) and I can’t really remember shit about it. Handclaps on records usually bother me. They beg crowd participation whether it’s deserved or not. To a point, they’re compulsory. But I’m digging them on here. They, along with the layered, chanted chorus harken (probably intentionally) the sacred. You know, home. Jimmy’s talking burning it down, praying for cleansing.