In this day and age it’s quickly becoming evident that albums are no longer the most succesful business model for the music industry. In the onslaught of individual song downloads and ringtone sales who can be bothered with creating a cohesive collection of songs encompassing a beginning, a middle and an ending? The unexpected answer seems to be Fabolous, an MC who was never known for his consistency throughout his previous albums recently announced that his latest record ‘Loso’s Way’ would be a concept album loosely based on the movie ‘Carlito’s Way’.
In 2003 The Black Eyed Peas asked people ‘Where’s The Love?’ in a highly accessible tune posing a rallying call that in actuality no sane person would disagree with and every parent could easily approve. If every Yin must have it’s Yang than the Yin to the BEP’s Yang has arrived in the form of La Coka Nostra. Read more…
Ladies and gentlemen, Nickle Nine presents The Revival EP. A four-track release, The Revival only runs for a shade less than 15 minutes, however the EP is aggressive and serves as an establishing tool to familiarize new listeners to Royce -his flow, his style, his persona and his crew – despite two of the tracks (“Warriors” and “Gun Harmonizing”) having already been leaked. Read more…
A man much smarter than I am once told me that Rap minus lies equals hip-hop. I think I liked hearing that.
The purpose of this essay isn’t to convert you to being a fan of hip-hop. Considering this is being published on a website whose readers are entrenched in it already it would make doing so pointless. I’m not trying to preach, I’m not looking to get self-righteous and begin to call out all the wrong I see in the industry – I do that enough. The real purpose of this essay is to explain why I love rap music and why it should be treated as legitimate as any other genre of music. No caveats, no Roger Maris asterisks, no footnotes. Read more…
To be honest I laughed when I came upon G.’s page on the RAHM Nation website. I was doing a little background research on the New Orleans emcee when I read the following regarding the title of the album.
Yes, American Scholar is a play on the title of Jay-Z’s last effort, American Gangster. But it is not a diss album or a treatise on street culture. It is, to the contrary, a celebration of Black American academic culture, a culture that is just as vibrant and prevalent in the Black community but scarcely represented.
I suppose those three sentences wrote my lead for me. G.’s American Scholar is exactly that, an album filled with thoughts and observations from not just a scholar but a lawyer, father, husband and emcee. Read more…
So I went over the RS Twitter account and found that we had someone going by the name of VerbalStyles give a tweet-by-tweet review of the RS Mixtape. In seven 140-characters-or-less tweets, VerbalStyles, who is a New York-based DJ and producer, broke down the tape track-by-track and gave his opinion on each track and artist. Oh yeah, take the advice with a grain of salt. He was a little drunk when said review was written.
SomeOne – standard white rap; DK – nice MC but beat was nothing special; Submit – DOPE beat but bad mix, first cat is a Lil Wayne biter…other two MCs have nice flows but need to find a voice; AKA got that Digable vibe but two different choruses? GodChaserz producer could blow up tomorrow, MCs more bitin’; 810 I dig but vox needs to be louder, def fresh though. D. Julien – interesting, would do well at a hippie fest; Random – listen to Dilla much? E.A.R.T.H. interesting beat, sounds like Del/Living Legends but dude don’t do your own repeats! Ha. Not trying to hate on anyone, just half drunk and bored checkin’ your tape out. Would be more verbose if it weren’t for 140 character thing. All in all lots of talent but low on production value. Nonetheless curious to see what you guys find next. Respect.
Sober or not, we appreciate the feedback. Tweeted on July 2nd, 2009.
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