R.I.P. Nate Dogg

I’m sure the video for “Regulate” is gonna be tweeted, blogged and linked to a million times today and I was trying to find another song to honor Nate Dogg with but really there is no other choice. BUT, me being the contrarian that I am…

World Premiere by Mos Def.

Give me Mighty Mos and Madlib on a track and I’m in heaven. As much as I’m feeling Tyler The Creator, Odd Future and Lil’ B these days. This right here is my element, my center, my core. This is the Hip Hop where I feel most at home. Forever wearing my backpack.

Why is Mos still using a Myspace page?

Consistent Strokes.

I’m impressed at how well The Strokes have branded themselves and maintained their particular style and sound that is distinct only to them through 5 albums now. There are times where I want something new and something that isn’t rehashed but in this case I wouldn’t mind it if The Strokes just kept making the same kind of music over and over.

The Strokes

Cadalack Ron.

I’m straight loving this dudes look. Last I checked, the homeless, strung out on heroin, Death Metal listening, southern confederate look hasn’t been done in Hip Hop yet. This guy is like Otto from The Simpsons come to life except instead of driving a school bus he participates and wins rap battles. Don’t let the look deceive you, his freestyle skills are legit. I’ll take this guy over The Far East Movement any day of the week cause fuck those guys. You see their new video? What a fucking steam of pile.

Oh yeah, my new thing is shitting on The Far East Movement in every post I write whether it relates to the actual post or not.

“All Of The Lights” Video by Kanye West feat. Rihanna+Kid Cudi.

My personal favorite track off of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. My review for this video can be summed up in two words: “Rihanna…wow.”

“All of the Lights” by Kanye West, Rihanna, Kid Cudi:

If the embedded video won’t play for whatever reason, click here:

All of the Lights

Odd. Future. Wolf. Gang. Kill. Them. All.

It kind of sucks that the schedule I work affects the quantity of posts I write. About half of the week, I’m in such a vegetative state that I can’t manage to put a cohesive thought together let alone write it down and publish it without it sounding half assed or idiotic. Sometimes I do and usually those are a few sentences accompanying a video or a picture. Other times, I’m glad I take a moment out before writing something down because it allows me to process all of whatever it is I want to write about. To get some real perspective on it.

That said, before my work week started I wanted to post up something on Tyler the Creator and his latest video “Yonkers” which has been setting ablaze the online rap community as of late. I watched the video sometime last week and thought “I HAVE to post this.” But before I did I wanted to do some digging on who he is first cause what I saw on screen totally compelled me to do so.

Now I won’t lie, at first I started to write up a rough draft which basically had the tone of “I don’t get this.” and “This is the first time rap music wasn’t made for me or my age group.”(That was an exact line from it) And it was basically another rant on how I’m getting older and how popular culture is starting to slowly but surely slip from my grasp. But I decided to hold off writing it until now but not before I loaded up my mp3 player with a bunch of Tyler the Creator and OFWGKTA(Tyler’s crew) content. I wanted to immerse myself in their music and really give it a chance before I dismissed it as just something I didn’t understand.

I downloaded Tyler’s Bastard album, Earl Sweatshirt’s(Tyler’s younger brother and fellow OFWGKTA member) Earl mixtape and the mixtape Radical by OFWGKTA as a collective. Now at first, seeing “Yonkers” I was puzzled not so much from the lyrics or beat but mostly from the imagery in the video. Tyler’s words were no doubt impressive. The beat was good, not exactly what I look for in a hip hop beat but I liked it and it served his lyrics well and was a fitting compliment to what was on the screen. And what was on the screen was a series of things not typically seen in a “rap video”. I’m not going to spend too much time on it because I feel it’s more appropriate to watch the video yourself.

“Yonkers” by Tyler the Creator:

Basically it’s Tyler doing a series of disturbing things(playing with a cockroach, eating it then puking it out, hanging himself at the end of the video, etc, etc.) which led me to write this off as just kids doing “Horrorcore” and doing obscene things simply for shock value. But after listening to their music all weekend, I have changed my tune and now consider myself a fan. Their music is dark and gritty and pulls no punches. There is no political correctness in the words they say. Everything from rape, to tying up women in their basement, to stabbing Bruno Mars in his esophagus is covered here. This along with the imagery from their videos, you would think that these guys are demented psychopaths who are a threat to all humankind, but once you see the various youtube videos they post you come to find that they’re just regular kids who like to skate, fuck around and make dope hip hop music. You’ll slowly realize that their subject matter is tongue-in-cheek.

Which kind of leads me into my original write up on them in that to me, it seems like their whole collective persona is one that was created as a rejection to what hip hop has come to be in its present state. What I find most interesting is that not only have they decided not to make the same boring shit you hear when you turn on the radio or what you see when you watch MTV(when they do actually play videos), but they have also turned their backs on the most common declination of mainstream rap. The “underground”, intelligent, snobbish, “so smart-you-don’t-even-get-it” hip hop, which for numerous years now has even become a parody in itself. To me, this seems like a rejection of Mos Def, Kweli and The Roots just as much as it is of Lil Wayne, Drake or the Black Eyed Peas.

I’ve come to the realization that yes, maybe this hip hop wasn’t made specifically for me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate when something new comes along and does something relatively unique and goes against the grain. That, I can always respect.

“French” by Tyler the Creator:

“VCR” by Tyler the Creator:

“EARL” by Earl Sweatshirt:

Orange Juice” by Tyler & Earl(off of OFWGKTA mixtape, Radical:

Odd Future

Dark Souls Wants To Eat Your Children.

That’s right mother fucker! Demon’s Souls “sequel” is coming for that ass and it’s coming to use your spine as dental floss. The spiritual sequel is called Dark Souls and this time, From Software is bringing it to the PS3 as well as the 360. So now even more people can experience the video game that’s the closest thing to self mutilation I can think of. All of you so called “hardcore” gamers who play nothing but Call of Duty, GTA and Madden need to understand what the word “hardcore” truly means . Dark Souls wants nothing more than to harm you and everyone you hold dear. It wants to batter you physically and rape you mentally.

The 60+ hours I spent on Demon’s Souls was a lesson in Stockholm Syndrome. My constant deaths were all my fault. After all, the game was just being itself. The game did no wrong. It was just being the abusive step-child smacking, wife beater wearing game it is. When I died it was all my fault. Yes, all…my…fault. *nervously looks around*

NO DON’T HIT ME! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! PLEASE, NO! I’LL REMEMBER NEXT TIME I PROMISE!

*cowers into fetal position*

Dark Souls

Ummm, I’m Starting To Get The Impression That Wrestling Is Fake.

Why do they script the white guys to do “The Worm”? That’s borderline racist right there. “The Worm” has become the official break dance move for white guys. I think a white guy invented it actually. This video is half of the 10% of the time that wrestling is awesome and not retarded. The other half of that 10% is The Birdman Koko B. Ware and his bird Frankie.

The Show Goes On By Lupe Fiasco.

N.E.R.D., then Ye and now Lupe? In such close proximity of one another? Nice. As much as I herald and praise Kanye’s latest effort, I need something that packs a little more punch lyrically and I think Lasers will be just what I need. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before but the hook on this is taken from Modest Mouse’s hook on “Float On”. I felt stupid for not catching that sooner. Old age will do that to you.

Ramblings about Kanye on the radio

Both of the official singles from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy “Power” and “Runaway” are as far from anything on Hip Hop radio stations as you can get. Kanye is the biggest rap artist in the world right now and so he’ll get on the radio by default, but from what I understand stations aren’t spinning his latest offering as much as previous Yeezy hits. This is the most critically acclaimed album he’s released. One where it’s a near unanimous opinion that this is his masterpiece and mainstream radio is rejecting it. But who cares? This sort of thing seems to matter less and less these days anyway. The least radio play Kanye has ever gotten in his career, and you know what? I couldn’t be happier.

Oh and “Monster” even with it’s inclusion of Hov, Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj(all of whom aren’t unfamiliar with radio play) won’t change things either. Have you seen the damn teaser for the video? It’s the most disturbing, unsettling looking rap video I’ve ever seen. Yes, even more disturbing than “Summer Girls” by LFO. I know, it’s hard to believe right?

Of course if Kanye releases “All Of The Lights”, just strike this blog post from the record. Forget I ever wrote it if you haven’t already.

Oh and while I’m at it, I might as well get all Kanye posting out right now instead of multiple Yeezy posts which focus basically on the same subject. I don’t troll message boards anymore but I was searching and came across a post that went like this(Unedited for your pleasure):

“Yeezy on the other hand will make sure the beat is dope, he changes the pattern of the beats, picks artists to bring out the song NOT cuz their hot & will make him hotter, alters the mood for artists (raekwon, beiber, cyhi da prince, nicki minaj, beyonce, rza, charlie wilson, jay-z), he’s not out to “out-do” niggas on his shit & wont give u an entire album about how much coke, jewels or guns he shot. lets be real here, most artists who use MAD collabos dont do it like Kanye does (even wen Jay tried it w/ the Blueprint 2 creatively that shit was a dud). Hell even wen yeezy did the autotune that shit was hotter than most niggas albums.

Its one thing to have collabos but got dayum do it & be creative w/ it atleast. switch it up, play w/ the beats, select good artists for the song NOT for ur career. These days niggas just throw on a beat, get wayne on it or his whole posse & package it as a “street song” while some ass of a DJ is shouting out 100 shit on there n u cant even hear the track or feel it. No thanks. When Ye do it he does it w/ class & finesse. Nigga is like a conductor or Maestro. How many ppl bought a DJ Khaled album & could play it till their tape popped ? how many niggas bought a Luda or Diddy album & had 10+ pages in a thread on how hot that shit was production-wise, lyrically, breaking down what niggas said in the song & having arguments over who had the best verse ? How many niggas did that & brought u something new ? bridging the gaps w/ Justin Beiber, G-Unit or had u searching Youtube for Cyhi Da Prince & Pusha T tracks….

ok then…. I REST MY CASE SMH.”

-sionb55

Now that’s a quote! I agree with this guy 100% and would make the exact same argument. Okay, I would’ve changed a few words here and there. Cleaned up my punctuation and grammer a tad but I’m with this dude completely.