Maybe all we need for Premo to sound hot in ’06 is GRIMEY-ASS RAPS, like this track from Born Unique, a rapper from the M.O.P. school (also outta VA) and I’ve never really heard before. The beat does sound an awful lot like Got It Locked. But fuck it, this dude rips it, and as a certified Premier dickrider who still manages to be disappointed every time he hears Premier talk about rap like a eugenics experiment, I think this is a banger.
Born Unique – DJ Premier Exclusive
(b-b-but who’s this?)
Fuck That Shit
My favorite track off Three 6′s Da Unbreakables album although “Let’s Start A Riot” and “Dangerous Posse” are real close. Shit now that I think of it there are a gang of songs on that album that I really like but “Fuck That Shit” really sums up that don’t give a fuck tear da club up shit that the triple six does so well. My neighbors really hate when I play this record because I always blast it super loud. Sometimes I think I should be considerate and turn it down but then I think what would Three 6′s response be to my annoying neighbors. That’s when I realize that I need to Fuck That Shit even louder. This song pretty much reps everything that people who hate rap music hate about it. It also reps a lot of what I love about this hiphop shit, rowdy as fuck and unapologetic about it. Sometimes I feel like an immature little kid for loving that dudes are just yelling fuck that shit but then I say fuck that shit and realize this is so fucking great.
So Juvenile’s new video for Get Ya Hustle On (also here) has made the rounds the past couple days, and it’s pretty good.
Filmed on location in New Orlean’s 9th ward the video’s eerie post-apocalyptic backdrop is significant, although in many ways the formula is nothing new. This is what so much of rap music says daily, track to track – we’re here and we’re discounted and no one is going to help us, so do the shit yourself, get ya hustle on, sell crack if neccessary. The video’s political statement seems almost softened to me by the masks/indictments of ‘leadership,’ a comfortable message to liberals of all stripes who want an easy charicature to demonize, to see a few people alone responsible. Fuck that – the responsibility is this country’s, all of us, and to me the most significant footage isn’t the ‘empty promises’ symbolism but the ruins themselves, a stark montage of the extreme devestation caused by the American abandonment/containment pattern that reproduced itself in urban and rural areas across America, shunting poor and minorities via systematic racism and classism, self-perpetuated divisions that were dramatically unveiled by Katrina. Today the hurricane represents a moment when people acknowledged the injustice. This is what it represents. The projects, we can ignore, safely isolated, popping up on TV in dramatized cop shows and the occasional rap video only to be disdained, ‘ghetto’ music for ghetto people and those who fetishize blackness. Katrina though was black folks starving and abandoned on national TV and no one dared look away.
Juvenile’s look is stripped down, no obvious signs of wealth (“lost it all in Katrina”), bitterness seeping through the lyrics, dark shades covering his eyes rapping through New Orleans’ hurricane hangover. No grins to show off his grill, no playful goofy Juvenile smile. More people will be listening to him now and he knows this, and even though Dick Cheney masks will get more of the attention it’s really about how he aims at Mayor Nagin for faking the funk in the lyrics and his solution, pyrex pots and crack sales-as-relief, not so subtly hidden beneath the crisp atmosphere of political righteousness.
There’s plenty of shit about the Chicago press to be mad at; one of the most frustrating things is how backpacker-focused much of the rap coverage is. I mean I like plenty of backpacker shit don’t get me wrong; Diverse is dope in an underground-Jeru sort’ve way, and I like jazz, I like rap, jazz rap sounds hot in theory. Still, the coverage of Chicago hip-hop is utterly segregated.
Traxster at the Grammys
One of the most talented rap producers in Chicago is the Legendary Traxster. Depending on when/where/how you got into his music, you probably know Traxster even if you don’t. He produced one of the best tracks on Mariah Carey’s last album, “One and Only” featuring Twista; it sounded like a Hendrix ballad with better singing, plus Twista, and he got a grammy nod for it. But Traxster’s probably most well-known for producing some of the best Chicago rap music from the last decade plus, starting with early Do or Die (“Po Pimp” was his) as well as D.O.D. and Twista’s Kamikaze. He also did the entirety of Twista’s Chicago classic Adrenaline Rush. Speaking of – all the Cam fans (and I know there are a lot of y’all out there) one of the best tracks on Purple Haze was “Adrenaline” which was a redone version of the old Twista track. I like when Cam talks about dealing on Pulaski; local color via west side streets named after our Polish heroes. Anyone could sound hard over this beat though, even a rap blogger.
I should note that Traxster’s brother, the rapper Dun D, passed on earlier this year. I don’t really know the details although it was scooped by Matt Sonzala. Chibangin.com still has a link up to a Dun D Mega-mix up which you should check if you get a chance; he was a talented cat. They also recently added this new cut from Traxster’s upcoming album The Return of Gangsta Music. I’ve YSI’d it here too, its a familiar Al Green sample, and painfully beautiful. RIP Dun D.
Traxster, E Dubb and Dun-D – Love and Happiness
The Return of Gangsta Music was supposed to drop along with a Dun D solo debut EP on the 21st, but I imagine Dun’s passing may have offset that. I haven’t checked any local record spots yet but there hasn’t been any word on it in the usual channels. Its definitely one of my more anticipated records this year though.
The last major project Traxster really worked on though was E.C. Illa aka Whitefolks’ 2005 album, Whitefolks. Honestly over the course of an album sometimes Traxster-style beats can sound samey, dry/generic mob-style shit, but on the whole this album is fresh throughout. In one interview, Traxster gets the inevitable “are you EC Illa’s Dr. Dre?” and his answer is key to understanding Illa’s appeal; he dismisses the suggestion, arguing that EC Illa is less of a lyricist in the Biggie lineage, more influenced by Pac emotive side, representing his hometown.
EC Illa kicks off the album by clowning Kennilworth, IL, which deserves to be clowned. E.C. Illa is from the north side of Chicago (uptown) so he knows my area; this song is called “Thanks” and he shouts out the Fish Keg on Howard! What y’all know about the Fish Keg or the Dairy Queen across the street, everyone’s 90+ degree summertime sweat destination? The parking lot is packed in the summer, kids outside and Young Jeezy and Mariah Carey oozing through car windows. (And a couple blocks west you’ve got the 24hr IHOP which has so much community energy at 4AM considering how much weed people smoke before they go, where I’m guaranteed to see folks I knew in high school, tobacco clouds over the smoking section, drunk kids tripping over their own feet following the waitress to their seats.) Back to Illa: “I feel like Ashanti in this mutherfucker!” And “Respect” is with Dun D and has them shouting out the CWAL mob (Traxster’s crew); beat is the dark g-mob mid-90s shit Traxster is known for, one of the harder tracks on the album. Listen to the squirming bassline rumbling around underneath – this is music made for trunk speakers, groundswell bump. The production is very clearly labored-over, pristine and precise.
Ultimately what makes this different, what makes it notable is the dearth of Chicago street rappers with any sort of profile, street rappers with the kind of access to the Chicago press given indie bands and backpackers, guys who bring the G shit that became the blueprint for grassroots rap nation-wide in the mid-90s. Traxster and CWAL Mob fill a void, repping Chicago, rapping from 71st street to (ultimately) streets nationwide, and (ideally) the world. His music deserves it.
EC Illa in Murderdog.
Traxster in Murderdog.
Oh and one more mp3, thanks to Chibangin:
Traxster – New York (Remix) where Traxster breaks down the problem with Chicago’s NY dickriding. “It took Cam’ron to redo Adrenaline Rush…thats fucked up.”
T.I. – What You Know video
When I first heard this single on the radio the other day I kinda lost it; it didn’t help that the girl I was riding with at the time was just complaining about how the radio all sounds the same, which made it stick out even more to me, thinking but this is what exceptional sounds like. With that baroque synth climbing and cascading, overloaded punch-ins and ad libs, Tip’s flow slowed down and grainy, showing all these other dudes how to sound regal because no matter how worried we are that it hints at T.I. doing Jeezy when it used to be the other way around, about T.I.’s disavowel of “ASAP,” the release of “Bounce Like This,” and the possibility that TIP’s spoilt-milk “Sunshine” is around the corner, “What You Know” makes T.I. really sound like The King.
Video – bringing back front-lawn weightlifting like old Dre videos, standing solo with a split-screen, rollerdisco, slowwww rollin autos. It doesn’t move much because it doesn’t have to; the momentum is all in the royal persona, the myth, the song.
Three 6 Mafia – Poppin My Collar Video
I came across that link on soulstrut which is also where I found this dude Delay’s pyschrock and southern rap mix. Check that shit.
I got this Tum Tum cd in the mail a couple weeks back, threw it in the work truck and have been listening to it pretty nonstop. Tum Tum, who also goes by O-Tumma Tumladin (my personal favorite tumtum name) or Tum Zilla, is from Dallas and a member of DSR (dirty south riders). It’s a crew that started out with Big Tuck (old post), Fat Bastard, Double T, Lil Ronnie and Addiction. They have since grown and if you don’t know about them you’ll probably start hearing about them. Big Tuck’s album, Absolute Truth, is going to be dropping march 28th some time in June. The entire DSR camp got signed to Universal and if shit works out for them then they will probably be the first crew out of Dallas to really blow. Dallas is kind of a strange place, there has been good music coming out of North Texas (someone needs to get me an old SkwoodX tape) but it never seems to get the recognition that Houston does. I think what I like about DSR the most is that they are a little more confrontational that your standard Texas rappers. They like to rap about fighting and getting buck. Not to say they don’t rap about cars and ballin but they like to tell you that you are a hoe and/or bitch and I approve of this.
Whoop Ur Ass ft TBG’z
This song represents Tum Tums personal battle with depression and his new found self worth. I don’t know who the second to last dude is but he accuses you of being a pussy like that franchize group so take that snap music.
Get Ur Paper Up
There is a moment in this song where Tum Tum says this line about about how you can’t do it like him and then follows that with a punch in of him yelling “OOOHHH!” It’s like that Chappelle skit with that one dude freestyling in the barbershop thinking he’s ripping it. I think I like that moment in the song more than Tum Tum telling people to quit fucking boo hooing and get their paper up.
I wrote an RIP piece on Stylus for Jay Dee which can be found here. I only hope I did his work justice. At the bottom you’ll find a link to a great mix of his music – “Dollar” is a new one to me, and it beautifully channels Marvin Gaye.
Why does anyone who listens to hiphop actually give a fuck about paying attention to the grammys? All this hype that kanye got off that shit, yeah he was a crybaby last time around but why the fuck would anyone, even him, think that the fucking grammys had any say in giving awards to some remotely legitimate shit. They are nominating bullshit like that shitass BEP songs and the fucking “candy shop.” I always viewed the grammys the way I view my parents talking about rap music; bunch of clueless people who don’t know shit about any of this music trying to pretend they have some legit opinion. These are the people that gave awards to Arrested Development. Who cares who should have been nominated, the grammys are irrelevant as fuck.
yeah I know, why post about it if I don’t care? I just think it’s weird to see kids on the internet or whatever talking about it as if the grammys hadn’t picked the corniest shit for awards every year so you get a shitty paragraph. Also I think it’s lame as hell to care about a grammy. It’s like sucking up to get approval from people who don’t matter anyways, on some “thanks for noticing me whitey” shit.
