One of Furman's belated, sorely missed ancestors. Pour out a lil Jame-o.SP gets fed up with things a lot, and, in all fairness, it's more than a bit immature. Lately, Ive been feeling let down by rapping artists and the bloggartz that report on their every bowel movement (that is, the rappers' feculence. some bloggartz report on their own as well.), and my faith in rap in general has been tested a great deal. Furman's most recent post displayed the sort of head-down-eyes-forward dedication to the sort of eff-the-heifers-lets-just-listen-to-music attitude that is so crucial in times like these. We've spent too much time nursing our wounds from the 4th-quarter '06 coke-rap freezerburn; forward progress is what's needed now.
What follows are some frenetically assembled pieces of new music that don't suck.
Young Buck's 2004 Straight Outta Cashville was a decent record, and it had a few great tracks, like "Let Me In," "Look At Me Now," and "Shorty Wanna Ride." Buck's and Ludacris's verses on "Stomp" were awesome. Game's was not. Cashville also had a couple of hilariously strange moments, like when Tony Yayo (I think this was the first major release he appeared on after he getting out of jail and, going back in 24 hours later, and then getting out again) raps about having tanks of LSD in his van. This is (not) psychedelic rap. Anyway, Buck the World, dude's sophomore effort, is supposed to come out on March 20th, and it looks set to break G-Unit's recent string of hopeless releases (Blood Money, Rotten Apple), if the strength of the first two singles ("I Know You Want Me," "Get Buck") is any indication. I don't know how much creative control Buck has over his records, but someone's making great decisions with regard to beats, songwriting, and video direction, and I have a hard time believing it's the same people who called the shots here.
The G-Unit brand has been stamped on a whole lot of miserable tripe over the last couple of years, and it's befuddling to me that 50 has been willing to put out shitty singles and albums that don't sell (Get Rich or Die Tryin' OST, Olivia, Hot Rod, Banks, Yayo, Mobb Deep, etc.). I'll be surprised if Lloyd Banks, after releasing a couple of the most underwhelming singles of recent memory ("Hands Up","Help"), drops another album this decade. You know it stung when Cam called Cuurtis out for outselling Rotten Apple with Jim Jones's Hustler's P.O.M.E.; Banks's album, and Mobb Deep's before him, were embarrassments, and Cameron's affront to 50's legacy was a wide-open shot. I think 50's Before I Self-Destruct may turn out to be one of the best albums of 2007, and if Buck the World garners the kind of critical and financial success that I think it might, Cuurtis will be left on top of the game once again.
Amy Winehouse, the chick who sings on Ghostface's "You Know I'm No Good" (which is originally her track, in an arrangement that must have resembled Lil Wayne & Robin Thicke's "Shooter"), is FMT's pin-up gal of the week.
The bloggartz have been going crazy over the new Brother Ali album, The Undisputed Truth, for a little while now (featured on Status Ain't Hood, Oh Word), and so I won't say too much on this, except that Ali is a good rapper who brings out great things in Ant, the same producer from whom Slug seems totally incapable of extricating anything remotely tolerable. Ali's from Minneapolis, MN, and when Shadows on the Sun, his critically lauded 2003 debut, was released, I had the good fortune to be living in the Twin Cities area. I think everyone who lived in Minneapolis or St. Paul at the time was required to buy the record, and with good reason -- Ali comes off more sincere and heartfelt (without falling into the whiny, disingenuous vein of labelmates Atmosphere) than any rapper out, then or now. The Undisputed Truth is slated to come out on April 10th, and it's got my vote for independent surprise hit of the year; Ali embodies a lot of the things that people are despairingly looking for in contemporary hip-hop. It doesn't hurt that "Freedom Ain't Free" (right click, save as), B-Side to the LP's first single "Truth Is" (same), is an absolute monster.
Some dark, violent, throwback NYC rap provides a great and necessary foil for Ali and Buck's respective styles: Prodigy of Mobb Deep has been building a huge buzz for his March 27th pre-album mixtape-that-is-also-an-album, Return of the Mac. The first few videos for that album's first few singles have been making the rounds of the internets for quite a while now, and here they are: "Mac 10 Handle" (don't watch if you scare easily), "New York Shit," "Stuck On You." Mobb Deep's last album was pretty awful, but I like Prodigy, and it's impossible not to dig Alchemist's compositions. They're the kind of tracks that feel familiar and frightening, and they're perfect for P. Here's some more audio off the mixtape: "7th Heaven" featuring Un Pacino
More notable effery:
Three 6 Mafia feat Chamillionaire - Dope Boy Fresh
UGK - The Game Belongs To Me
Consequence - Scarred For Life
Strange Fruit Project - Pinball (The Healing was really good)
DJ Kentaro - Free
El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead is due 3/20
Ghostface Killah - Hidden Darts (Special Edition), 2/27. I don't know what this is, but I know some of the tracks. This is annoying. Furman, any insight?
Love
Sordid Puppy
Foodmantooth
2 comments:
RIP giant sloths
this is the first i've heard of that ghost comp. who the hell is full clip media, and why are they using the rejected album art from fishscale (which is dope, but still) on the album? "Good Times" was one of the tracks that never made it onto Bulletproof Wallets, no? I've heard that shit, mighta been lost though.
yea, i dunno for sure. that wu-tang song is definitely not new. i think "hidden darts" was a mixtape ghost did a while back; whatever, maybe i'll buy it (?).
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