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Category Archives: Music

Forty One – Hope and Art

08 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Music

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A Written Testimony, Ambrose Akinmusire, Black on Both Sides, COVID 19, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple, Illmatic, Internal Affairs, Jay Electronica, Live! One Night Only, Mad Max: Fury Road, music, Nas, on the tender spot of every calloused moment, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Outkast, Patti LaBelle, Seven Sundays, SiR, Sleepy Brown, Southernplayalisticadillakmuzik, To Pimp A Butterfly

I’m now a bit over 41 and a half years old.

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I’ve finally reached the age when the divide between my life and the lives of those in their teens and twenties feels incredibly clear and insurmountable. I can no longer pretend to understand the perspective of young people without talking to young people. I always thought that I would have mixed feelings about this time of life, but it feels more like an opportunity to learn new things, which is kind of great.

The space between 41 and 41 1/2 feels much larger than the space between 40 and 41 (or 35 and 40). The COVID health emergency plays a large role – the days tend to blur together when you shelter in place for ninety days – but it’s also about the ways in which the basic rules of the world have shifted over the last few months. 

It’s more than the endless crises – the pandemic that caused a painful recession with Depression era food/job insecurity as we are struggling with the stress test for democracy that is the Trump administration (and his enablers in Congress) and a weeks long police riot targeting citizens protesting police violence against Black people. 

It’s the sense that I’m living in a moment in which anything is possible. This can be the moment when we can decide to confront systems of white supremacy and misogyny. I’ve spent my life reading and watching and listening to stories of women experiencing abuse in environments controlled by men (or being punished for not being the right kind of woman) and Black people enduring abuse in environments dominated by white people.

I’ve lost count of the stories about Black people abused by the police, from the murders that make the news to the demeaning, disrespectful everyday encounters that are less ‘newsworthy’ but deeply painful. This is not the first time that I’ve seen impassioned protests and powerful activist movements that have arisen in response to these incidents, but this is the first time I’ve seen so many people resist co-optation.

It’s not enough to schedule trainings on anti-racism or against sexual harassment or on de-escalation and how to be an effective ‘guardian’. It’s not enough to release a statement stating that Black Lives Matter or that you are listening. It’s not enough to write a consultant/lawyer approved note saying that you believe the woman who was raped or harassed. Crowds may cheer when you take down a statue honoring a person for the atrocities they committed, but they will not be satisfied.

They want to know how you will contribute to the project of dismantling systems of oppression. They want you to create opportunities for people, to address harm, to ensure that those who commit harm are held accountable. They want you to imagine an approach to public safety that centered the needs and preferences of people and communities (especially those who are ignored and harmed by our existing system). They want justice.

I hope that their efforts succeed, but worry about the darker possibilities, whether they take the form of a reactionary backlash that could result in a bloody reign of terror (as we stumble towards fascism and global irrelevance) or light procedural reforms and lip service to activist movements. I look back at history (both in this country and elsewhere) and think of the times when movements were undermined and destabilized or ruthlessly crushed. I know better. We are not condemned to endlessly repeat the past. This feels like a moment for truth-telling. It seems like people feel compelled to tell the truth in this moment. This country may finally be ready to stop committing the crime of innocence. In the midst of a pandemic, my sense of hope has been renewed.

The other interesting part of being 41 is that I am endlessly surprised by pop culture anniversaries. 2019 marked the silver anniversary of Illmatic and Southernplayalisticadillakmuzik, the debut albums from Nas and OutKast. Both are classic albums that don’t feel vintage or like products of their time. Neither feels twenty five years old. When Nas tells me that his sentence begin indented “with formality”, or when Sleepy Brown sings about how “niggas killing niggas is part of the master plan”, the flow and words still feel vibrant and contemporary even though the song also transports me to the moment in high school when I first popped the cassette tapes into my Walkman (with Dolby B sound).

I’m quick to identify Nas and OutKast as contenders in conversations about the “GOAT” of the genre, but I don’t spend much time thinking about their respective legacies or how they’ve influenced artists (in a variety of disciplines) over the last quarter century. I often think of them as vital, talented artists, but forget that they are icons.

This was the first year I realized that my definition of ‘recent’ with respect to culture has become fluid. It could be a reference to last week, last month or last year (or five years ago). Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road feel like they came out pretty recently, but they’re both five years old. 

I notice this phenomenon with most forms of culture, but it’s most noticeable in music. Many of the artists who I think of as ‘emerging’ or ‘up and coming’ are mainstream presences who’re firmly part of the establishment. Artists who debuted a decade ago feel as new as the artists who released their first music in the spring of 2020. Some of these ‘new’ artists have been around long enough to inspire subsequent generations of ‘new’ artists. I’m occasionally surprised to read about MCs who view Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne (post The Carter) as seminal artists. This logic also applies in other areas – I still think of an actor like Leonardo di Caprio as a youngish actor with a promising career ahead of him, but forget that people in their twenties probably see him in the way that I saw Jack Nicholson when I was young – an established industry figure who would be considered an all timer if he never made another film. 

Why do things feel so different? I think it might be because the role that art and culture play in my life has changed over the years. I used to define myself by the art and culture I loved. I listened to albums on repeat and memorized liner notes (and bought all the bootlegs and mixtapes). I saw movies multiple times and watched all of the credits. There are years and seasons I remember for the albums and films that were released as much as for the people I met and things I experienced. The Summer of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and a relationship that was reaching a bittersweet end. The Fall of Internal Affairs, Black on Both Sides, student government and drunken revelry.

 

I read all of the interviews and features (all of them) and devoured the criticism. Music and film played a powerful role in my life during the years when my aesthetic preferences were being developed, when I was deeply in the process of becoming myself. 

One day I stopped. I still listened to new music and watched new movies, but they were unmoored from any specific place or time. I still love film, music and art. They move me, entertain me and add meaning to my life. They are still part of the soundtrack of my life. I’m still fascinated by the unfamiliar, but the discovery of newly released work is less central to my experience. Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to music that is novel to me – from Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters and Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony to on the tender spot of every calloused moment by Ambrose Akinmusire, Patti LaBelle’s Live! One Night Only and SiR’s Seven Sundays. They all feel equally new and vital, though some were released over two decades ago.

 

I find myself drifting away from the discourse about new culture as I get older. I enjoy reading and writing about culture, but don’t need to engage with things immediately anymore. There was a time in my life when Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were incredibly important days of the week for me. It was a time for new music, comic books and film. At 41, I simply enjoy art when I encounter it.

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(The author, listening to a dope track from Avantdale Bowling Club for the first time in the fall of 2019). 

Sometimes My Heart Gets Heavy (Cell Therapy Two)

16 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Music

≈ 1 Comment

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Al Ewing, Alex de Campi, Ann Nocenti, Batman, Black Bolt, Black Monday Murders, Carla Speed McNeil, Carter 5, Christian Ward, David Aja, Evan Narcisse, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, Giant Days, Javier Pina, Joe Bennett, John allison, Jonathan Hickman, K.T.S.E., Lil' Wayne, Mark Morales, Mark Russell, Max Sarin, Mike Feehan, Noname, personal, Rise fo the Black Panther, Room 25, Saladin Ahmed, Sarah Horrocks, Teyana Taylor, The Seeds, Tierra Whack, Tomm Coker, Trungles, Twisted Romance, Wack World

The last few weeks have been exceptionally challenging – from the Kavanaugh hearings and the New York Times’ coverage of the Trump family’s efforts to preserve their family fortune to work related things (it’s fulfilling, but it can be emotionally draining).

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Here are some things that have been therapeutic:

Writing: There are few things that I enjoy more than thinking and writing about culture. The only reason that I don’t write about culture more frequently is that the things I love and value more than writing are also pretty time consuming. Over the last few months, I’ve managed to find the time (between family, work and volunteering) to write a few thousand words about a popular superhero movie. I have more to say (I always have more to say), but I think it’s time to branch off in a different direction. I have some ideas related to afro-futurism and black pop culture heroes, but I’m not sure that I’m going to have the time to do the topic justice. I’d love to do some more writing about pop culture, but with a full time job, a slate of volunteer commitments and a family, I’m always going to be behind the ‘discourse’ (is late 2018 too late for a Phantom Thread essay?). I have the beginnings of a comic book post in my head about how modern creators are finding interesting ways to reimagine the origin stories of Golden – Bronze Age superheroes. I have a series of posts about Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton that need to be fleshed out and edited. I also have a bunch of Funnybook Babylon and Between the Stations posts to finish editing/uploading to this site, but that’s not as fun as writing something new.

So what’s next? If I have the time (crosses fingers), a post about Sorry to Bother You and something about why the most meaningful hip-hop (and popular music) in 2018 has been created and performed by women. If I really have the time (e.g., a bout of the flu), I will finally complete the Hamilton posts.

Music: I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to Aretha Franklin concert mixes and Teyana Taylor’s recently released K.T.S.E. They are very different artists, but both lack artifice and can convey the feeling of finding joy in pain and chaos. Aretha was a genius in every way that a music artist can be one – a brilliant technician and arranger whose ability to evoke raw emotion was unmatched. Teyana doesn’t have Aretha’s gifts, but there was something unflinchingly honest about her performances on this album, from songs like Issues/Hold On to WTP. On Issues/Hold On, Taylor explores the intertwined anger, passion and uncertainty present in a tempestuous romance. She doesn’t just share the suspicion and other ugly emotions that can come when one feels vulnerable in a romantic relationship, she suggests that her uncertainty is rooted in her past experiences. She is self-aware, but the pain is still raw.

WTP is a very different kind of song (as you might guess after you listen to the hypnotic ‘work this pussy’ refrain), but there’s something deeply honest about her demand that a lover give her pleasure. The song is inspired by the Harlem underground ballroom scene created by black gay men, trans men and women, drag performers of all identities and orientations and other members of the LGBTQ community in the 1960’s. I always associated that scene with a heightened sense of fantasy, but Taylor’s assured delivery reminds me that the underlying desires and emotions can be very real.

During the last two decades weeks of the Kavanaugh nomination, I found myself turning to hip-hop. During other ‘our political landscape is enraging and terrifying’ moments over the last few years, I fell into the habit of adding more hip-hop tracks and playlists to my rotation. I usually added a mix of songs that were made when I was a young man or which sounded as if they were inspired by that music (my go to is one that shares the title of this post with tracks from Black Star, Yasiin Bey, Common, Lauryn Hill, Chance, Otis Redding, Amy Winehouse and Me’Shell Ndegeocello). This time I found myself listening to Tierra Whack’s Wack World, Noname’s Room 25 and Lil’ Wayne’s Carter 5.

I don’t know why I downloaded Tierra Whack’s debut album. It may have been a recommendation from a friend online or an admiring tweet that floated by on my timeline. It’s a delightfully strange album filled with unexpected rhythms and exceptional rapping. Tierra’s songs contain some hard truths, but there’s a sense of joy and optimism at the core of her music that feels necessary in this political climate. We deserve to feel joy and “if you love somebody I promise that you should tell ’em”. I know exactly why I rushed to get Noname’s Room 25 when it became available – I’ve loved her work since I was introduced to her on Lost, from Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape. Her verse was brief but powerful – the closing line “the only time he loves me is naked in my dreams” was heartbreaking. Her debut is assured and brilliant. I loved her two collaborations with Chance the Rapper (Lost and Israel (Sparring)), but she sounds even more confident on this album. The verses are packed with meaning, but Noname is comfortable with adjusting the density of her rhymes to ensure the maximum impact on the listener – contrast the melancholic Don’t Forget About Me with the high energy playful vibe on Self. I haven’t seriously thought about Lil’ Wayne for years, since I was disappointed by the Carter 3 about a decade ago. I downloaded his album on a lark – I wanted to listen to some new music and saw that Wayne had finally released the Carter 5. I was surprised to hear an artist who had rediscovered his voice. Wayne is scattered (as he always is), but his flow is still incredible on songs like Dedicate and Mona Lisa. His rhymes are dense, profane and inappropriate, but they are also compelling. Sometimes. He’s still Lil Wayne, so we still get verses that are just terrible or feel exceptionally lazy, but even the less inspired verses are backed by impeccable production from Mannie Fresh (man, was it refreshing to hear some new Mannie!) and the team of R!o and Kamo.  I found myself turning to a playlist with my favorite tracks from all three albums to help cope with all the dark and dour news of the day on a increasingly regular basis over the last few weeks.

I’ve also been doing some reading, but more on that later. Here are some highlights:

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  1. Giant Days – John Allison, Max Sarin
  2. Immortal Hulk – Joe Bennett, Al Ewing
  3. The Black Monday Murders – Tomm Coker, Jonathan Hickman
  4. The Rise of the Black Panther – Evan Narcisse, Javier Pina
  5. The Seeds – Ann Nocenti, David Aja
  6. Twisted Romance (Red Medusa on the Road to Hell) – Sarah Horrocks
  7. Black Bolt – Saladin Ahmed, Christian Ward
  8. Twisted Romance (Treasured) – Trungles, Alex de Campi
  9. Batman – Jim Aparo, Jim Starlin
  10. Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles – Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, Mark Morales
  11. Twisted Romance (Invincible Heart) – Alex de Campi, Carla Speed McNeil

See you next time.

Searching For A Real Love (Running Mix 9)

17 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in Music

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Mary J. Blige

BONUS

You see I’m searching for a real love and I don’t know where to go
I been around the world and high and low
And still I’ll never know
How it feels to have a real love
Cause it seems it’s not around
I gotta end it in this way because it
Seems he can’t be…

MJBRealLove

(9) Real Love (Hip Hop Mix) (1992) Mary J. Blige, Notorious B.I.G.

I love every version and mix of this classic, but this is my favorite version for a jogging mix. I first added this song for this year’s Faxon Law New Haven Road Race.  One of the reasons that I like running in races is that it forces me to push my limits – to keep running at top speed when I would otherwise be inclined to slow down. Music helps me keep up my energy throughout the race. Unfortunately, I ran a bit before I started the road race and had burned through most of my playlist. By the time I was in the last quarter of the race, I felt drained and was concerned that I ran out of music. There was silence after DNA ended. All I heard was my steady breathing and the sound of my sneakers on the road. And then I heard Mary. There’s no beat, no accompanying instruments, no guide tracks or other obvious studio wizardry. Just her voice. She sings that she’s searching for a real love and a faint chord can be heard in the background. She tells us that she doesn’t know where to go and it feels so honest, so powerful, that I find another gear.

Previous
Running Mix 0
Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes
Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 
Running Mix 3: When Will Queens Realize That the Flow Don’t Stop? 
Running Mix 4: The Thug N***** Have Arrived And It’s Judgement Day
Running Mix 5: Ain’t No More Sqad In Me
Running Mix 6: Bumping E-40
Running Mix 7: I’ll Be Coming Home With the Future in My Pocket
Running Mix 8: Yoga on a Monday, Stretching to Nirvana

Yoga On A Monday, Stretching to Nirvana (Running Mix 8)

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in Music, Uncategorized

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Kendrick Lamar, Mike WiLL Made It

220px-Damn._Kendrick_Lamar

(8) DNA (2017) Kendrick Lamar

My second nod towards hip hop from this decade from an artist who could have come from my personal golden age (like many hip hop listeners, my golden age is almost perfectly aligned with when I attended high school).

Kendrick’s famous for his complex and immaculately constructed rhyme schemes, but it’s his use of straightforward internal rhymes and repetition combined with Mike WiLL Made It’s ferocious production that make this track a perfect choice for the last quarter of a run.

“I got…” and “inside my DNA” feel like forceful mantras. His first verse is all controlled aggression, unraveling the contradictions of heritage and legacy. Kendrick shifts to the present in his second verse, giving us a glimpse at the experience of living a life of earned luxury as a black man in America with anxiety about how his material success has changed him (even softened him) with dark days ahead. If you grew up in rough circumstances, an easy life just might feel like the Matrix and raise concerns that you were less prepared to deal with the threats of the future.

Previous
Running Mix 0
Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes
Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 
Running Mix 3: When Will Queens Realize That the Flow Don’t Stop? 
Running Mix 4: The Thug N***** Have Arrived And It’s Judgement Day
Running Mix 5: Ain’t No More Sqad In Me
Running Mix 6: Bumping E-40
Running Mix 7: I’ll Be Coming Home With the Future in My Pocket

I’ll Be Coming Home With Our Future In My Pocket (Running Mix 7)

13 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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Cher, Kill Bill, Lil' Wayne, Nancy Sinatra, Quentin Tarantino, Sonny Bono

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(7) Dedication 2 (2006) DJ Drama, Lil’ Wayne

This is all about the tension between the sample of Nancy Sinatra’s cover of Cher’s Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down), the sample of the Diplomats’ anthemic Ground Zero and Wayne’s vicious abstract boasts. This song is from the era when everyone almost thought that Wayne was the best rapper alive. He made his case for the throne by overwhelming us with albums, remixes, freestyles and random tracks that never made it on an official release. Wayne seemed to have an inexhaustible reserve of energy. Wayne’s best songs begin in media res, filled with lines that were uneven in quality but which always felt  spontaneous. There’s a thrill that comes from the feeling that you’re listening to someone in the midst of the creative process.

On a separate note, I’m still waiting for a rapper/producer to sample Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) in a way that comments on the meaning of the song. Bang Bang is a 1966 song written by Sonny Bono for Cher’s second album and covered by Nancy Sinatra in the same year. To my ears, it sounds like a torch song from the prior decade.

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) is a song about how a man harms a woman (and about how men harm women) through rituals that appear safe and ordinary. It starts with a woman recounting a children’s game she played with an unnamed male friend, a pretend battle between good and evil cowboys that always ended with his victory. It’s a game played for ‘fun’, but there are echoes of real conflict beyond the reference to unrest during America’s westward expansion. She describes the sound of imaginary gunfire as awful and the listener isn’t just reminded of the jarring sound of actual gunfire, but all of the ways in which we sanitize the terrifying sound of a firearm discharge. The woman continues with a scene set later in her life. She is romantically involved with the male friend, who frequently reminded her of their childhood game that he always won. He seems to acknowledge that the game was more than play when he echoes her comment about the awful sound. The third verse takes place some time later after she married the man and he left her for mysterious reasons. The uncertainty is painful. When I first heard this song, I thought that he died. Maybe it was all the violent imagery that preceded that moment or the plaintive “never had a chance to say goodbye” line earlier in the verse that made me think that she had become a widow, but the line telling us that he didn’t take the time to lie removed much of the doubt.

I first encountered Nancy Sinatra’s cover of Bang Bang in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill 1, when he used it to accompany a silent black and white flashback of the Bride’s wedding day that ended in a brutal betrayal and assault – transforming emotional betrayal into an ugly, physical reality.

The songs that sample Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) tend to use the song for a similar purpose. The producer/artist typically sample the chorus to accompany or introduce violent stories that involve firearms. The resulting song highlights the darkness in the original by transforming the violent metaphor at the heart of Bang Bang into literal text. The blend of two incongruous works with superficially similar lyrics can also inspire some interesting, possibly unintentional interpretations of the finished product. Sometime the references to guns in the sample and the hip-hop song feel like a sly reminder that gun culture has always had a place of prominence in the American pop imagination. America’s love affair with guns predates hip hop. In some songs, (like Dedication 2) the sample suggests that the violence referenced in the hip-hop song is as imaginary as the make-believe gunfight between two children. More than anything, I’d love to hear a hip-hop song use it to explore the kind of relationship like the one suggested in Bang Bang – defined by power struggles and betrayal.

Previous
Running Mix 0
Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes
Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 
Running Mix 3: When Will Queens Realize That the Flow Don’t Stop? 
Running Mix 4: The Thug N***** Have Arrived And It’s Judgement Day
Running Mix 5: Ain’t No More Sqad In Me
Running Mix 6: Bumping E-40

Bumpin’ E-40 (Running Mix 6)

13 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

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Los

Bumpin’ E-40, three shorties in my 750, I’m 7-30, that’s twenty left, but no twenties on it

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(6) Becoming King (2013) King Los

I’m usually a big fan of lyrics that are evocative or carry meaning, but I love when mcs make me pay attention to the way words sound in combination. Los starts with one of the best intros for a run (Killer Mike takes the gold with this one because it’s still Grind Time Rap Gang – Bang. Bang. Bang.). He tells the audience that “it’s not about how bad you want something, how bad you want something is meaningless/if how bad you’re willing to work for the thing you want/isn’t ten times as intense as how bad you want it/I can’t sell you desire, I can’t bottle up passion/And give it to you in the form of some magic potion”. Once the intro is done, he goes into high velocity battle rap mode. The lyrics aren’t particularly clever, but it’s fun to focus on the speed of his delivery, the density of his rhymes and his rhyme schemes on a run, especially if my energy is low. The references to the legendary rapper E-40, a BMW and an examination to determine whether a defendant in a NY criminal action has the capacity to understand the proceedings are all entertaining on their own, but the internal rhymes throughout the song make it a worthwhile addition to the mix.

Previous
Running Mix 0

Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes

Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 

Running Mix 3: When Will Queens Realize That the Flow Don’t Stop? 
Running Mix 4: The Thug N***** Have Arrived And It’s Judgement Day
Running Mix 5: Ain’t No More Sqad In Me

Tuesday Evening Nostalgia (Nine Square Countdown Edition)

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music, Uncategorized

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Method Man, Nas, O.C., Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Redman, Smif N Wessun

1994 was a special year.

  1. Sound Bwoy Bureill, Smif-N-Wessun, from their debut Da Shinin’. I’ll be frank, the lyrical content of this song does not age well (hint: it’s the wildly homophobic lyrics). The production of this song is still top-notch. I’m not sure that anyone was better at blending hip-hop and dancehall than the Beatminerz. Smif-N-Wessun were one of the most underrated duos of the era. They had the darkness and menace of groups like Mobb Deep, but the horns and flutes in the background and haunting basslines suggest a world that’s slightly less bleak than Havoc and Prodigy’s Queensbridge. They created a sound and mood perfect for long subway ride.

 

     2. Time’s Up, by O.C., from his debut Word…Life. One of the things I love most about O.C. is that he felt more like a working artist than a wanna-be celebrity or mogul. He rarely sounds like he’s trying to jump on a bandwagon or adhere to some trend. There’s a refreshing sense of honesty he brings to this track – insistent without being self-righteous. Time’s Up is the kind of jeremiad against hip-hop that glorified violence and misogyny that was extremely popular in New York at the time, but O.C. adds a personal touch (“I know your folks, you was a sucka as a kid”) that distinguishes it from songs like Jeru the Damaja’s Come Clean. Buckwild’s beat is unforgettable. I can listen to this forever.

 

3. I Got A Love, by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, from their second album Main Ingredient. This is just a perfect blend of beat, vocals and video. I still can’t believe that this duo only released two albums.

 

4. Rockafella (remix), by Redman, from his second album Dare Iz A Darkside. Whenever I hear (or read) people talk about the great producers of this era – Dr. Dre, RZA, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, DJ Quik, Organized Noize – I want to interrupt to remind them that Erick “the Green Eyed Bandit” Sermon deserves to be in the conversation. And no one does a better job of riding a Sermon beat than Redman.

5. Release Yo’ Delf, by Method Man, from his debut Tical. When I first heard Tical, this was my favorite track. Love the epic sounding vocals from Blue Rasberry.

 

Bonus: It Ain’t Hard To Tell, by Nas, from his debut Illmatic. It’s hard to explain how it felt to listen to Illmatic in 1994, but it quickly became a barometer of quality introspective hip-hop. Nas’ lyrics on this track are abstract, but there’s a sense of purpose and precision to his delivery that separates him from his contemporaries. When I listen to this song, I’m reminded of a time when Nas was the best rapper alive.

The Thug ***** Have Arrived and It’s Judgement Day (Running Mix 4)

06 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

All Eyez On Me, Dr. Dre, George Clinton, running, Tupac Shakur

The thug niggas have arrived and its judgement day

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(4) Can’t C Me  (1996) Tupac Shakur ft. George Clinton

The track starts with a silent moment. By this point, I’m in a groove. I’ve exorcised any morning blahs and all concerns about work and home are in hibernation. The only things on my mind are the route and my breathing. The peerless George Clinton  breaks the silence with an intro that always sounded like a subliminal aimed at Dr. Dre and the g-funk era (for this to work, you’d have to believe that the “million pairs of eyes” belonged to Dre, Quik and the g-funk producers of the 90s “who will never see… the P!”). Tupac obliterates the track with a blend of bravado and rage. It’s post-prison hyperbole that helps me maintain that M.O.P. and Freeway fueled momentum and makes me nostalgic for that moment when Death Row felt like an unbeatable dynasty.

Running Mix 0

Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes

Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 

Running Mix 3: When Will Queens Realize That the Flow Don’t Stop? 

When Will Queens Realize That The Flow Don’t Stop? (Running Mix 3)

05 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Memphis Bleek, State Property, Young Guns

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(3) Quiet Storm (rmx) Freestyle (2001) Beanie Sigel, Sparks, Oschino, Young Chris, Freeway, Memphis Bleek (intro by Jay-Z & Funkmaster Flex)

Posse cuts are a great listen for a run, especially if the crew has obvious chemistry but distinct styles. The beauty of the freestyle posse cut is that you get the benefit of impassioned verses without being distracted by carefully constructed verses. You also get messy tracks that go on for far too long, which is perfect for a long run. On this one, Beanie and Free are joined by Sparks, Oschino, Young Chris and Memphis Bleek for an almost fifteen minute long freestyle to close out State Property’s visit to Funkmaster Flex’s radio show. Beans and Free are in the starter/closer role. Sigel delivers a powerful freestyle (that sounds like a written), but Omilio Sparks wins the first half of the track with a verse that goes from standard braggadocio to:

“This life I lead cost more than your Rolex, money
Cost my homie Nook his whole life, you heard me?
Damn…
When he was here it was easy to love him like a brother
Now that he’s gone, I find it difficult to talk to his mother”

Neef and Chris are the palate cleansers. Neef delivers what every good posse cut needs – a competently delivered replacement level verse that allows the listener to digest the earlier verse and serves as a reminder (by contrast) of how good the other mcs really are. Young Chris’ appeal is tied to his relative youth. The best part of his verse are the frequent reminders from Jay-Z that ‘he’s sixteen!’ and his offers to provide a birth certificate. Chris would release some stellar songs in the years following this freestyle, but this isn’t his best work. Freeway delivers the knockout blow. His lyrics are fine, but his energy and flow are truly memorable. The ghost of Memphis Bleek makes an unexpected appearance at the very end of the track to remind us of the many times when Jay tried to convince us that Bleek had next. Bleek does his best with an aggressively delivered generic verse. There’s something sad about the fact that Bleek’s career was mostly defined by the gulf between the bright future predicted by Jay-Z on songs and skits and the ordinary music Bleek put out. His verses were mostly unremarkable. His delivery and flow were competent, but indistinguishable from ‘your buddy who likes to write verses and join the occasional cypher’. His production was good, but all second tier Roc-a-Fella, the tracks that Jay rejected. His albums weren’t bad, but had no reason for existing. The crew cheers the end of Bleek’s verse, when he declares that he’s “ghetto like using a lighter to write your name on the ceiling”. It’s an evocative line, but he slightly rushes his delivery. In some weird way, the crew’s enthusiasm makes his delivery sound slightly more clumsy. Free follows with an impromptu perfectly delivered verse that makes Bleek sound like an amateur.

It is a star making moment for an mc who came very close to becoming a star.

To hear it for yourself, check out the third track from the Running Mix 0 post linked below.

More soon.

Running Mix 0

Running Mix 1: The Devil’s In Him Lord, Open His Eyes

Running Mix 2: I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob 

I’m Still Running With Cats That Rob (Running Mix 2)

05 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in hip-hop, Music, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Jay-Z, Just Blaze, M.O.P.

 

(2) U Don’t Know (remix) (2002) Jay-Z ft. M.O.P.

Sometimes I need a boost of energy and a reminder of my home borough. In those times, I turn to Just Blaze, Jay-Z and the fine folks from the Mash Out Posse.

Lil’ Fame and Billy Danze bring an aggressive energy to their music that can’t be ignored, especially in small doses (How About Some Hardcore, Ante Up, B.I. vs. Friendship). I’m still not sure that their approach works for an entire album, but there’s no one better at getting you revved up within a short period of time.

Jay wisely avoids any efforts to match M.O.P.’s aggression, opting to complement their rage with something I like to call ‘anthemic Jay-Z’ – clever, slickly delivered lines designed to highlight his wealth and his street roots.

Just Blaze does beautiful things to the Bobby Byrd sample at the center of this track. He has produced countless classic tracks, but this is one of my favorite. He contorts Byrd’s voice until it sounds like an inhuman plea and transforms the brass and drum sections of the song into something magical.

 

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