July 2011
1 post
WatchWhen Push says he has “trouble on my mind,” he’s saying it somewhere in the tradition of this.
When Tyler says it, he’s saying he’s got notions of egging dudes.
Not saying one or the other’s better. (They’re intimately related! Especially when you’re 20 years old!) Just saying I didn’t really pick up on that tension til the video made it real...
March 2011
1 post
October 2010
1 post
Alex Balk: On language. →
For what it’s worth: I just got in from a breakfast panel where Dennis Crowley was “checking in at” all over the place.
alexbalk:
Cho and I got into a VERY HEATED DISCUSSION over whether one checks in “to” or “at” a location with Foursquare. I insisted on “at.’ Cho vociferously disagreed and called me old. Now my feelings are hurt and I still don’t know which is correct.
By...
August 2010
1 post
He says, "The Giants win the pennant."
He says, “The Giants win the pennant.”
Yes, the voice is excessive with a little tickle of hysteria in the upper register. But it is mainly wham and whomp. He sees Thomson capering around first. The hat of the first-base coach—the first-base coach has his hat flung straight up. He went for a chin-high pitch and cold-cocked it good. The ball started up high and then sank,...
July 2010
1 post
Wherein a grown man who has his hometown area code... →
May 2010
2 posts
Nah Right » PICS: The Neptunes x Will Smith x Game →
And thus David Mamet’s next play was written.
Jay-Z's Greatest Hits - The Awl →
I could play this game all day, but, on ultra-preliminary review, this is missing at least “Jigga What Jigga Who” and “So Ghetto.”
April 2010
2 posts
Cam’ron & Vado feat. KiD CuDi - They Feelin’ Me... →
Kid Cudi: making me wistful for the days when Freeky Zeeky sang the hooks.
I observed a David Simon media blackout in the run...
February 2010
1 post
A list of songs my iPod shuffled through after I...
1. “Helen of Troy,” Telefon Tel Aviv
2. “It’s the Falling in Love,” Michael Jackson
3. “Tha Carter 3 Intro,” Lil Wayne (actually from the mixtape, “The Empire & Lil’ Wayne - Tha Carter 3 Sessions”
4. “In My Eyes,” Minor Threat
5. “A Boy’s Best Friend,” The White Stripes
6. “Alabama,”...
November 2009
1 post
September 2009
5 posts
WatchThis is twice. Why is Drake always looking over his shoulder in videos? Is he checking for letter jacket thieves? Low flying planes? Is the start of every take actually just the end of him running a deep post route? WHAT IS GOING ON?
“This is what happens when you go off your meds. The legal system knows this, and presumably, Delonte is a little closer to figuring it out.”
I had planned to use this space to say something terribly clever about the Delonte West arrest. Then, Bethlemhem Shoals over at Free Darko went and filtered his take on the story through his own bi-polar diagnosis. It’s short, arresting...
4 tags
4 tags
I'ma sell to anybody in your damn family.
As I left my doctor’s office a few weeks ago, I walked past a handful of strung-out looking men huddled around a younger guy who was decidedly better dressed than they were. My mind immediately processed all the figures, but took a minute to do the math. The picture sharpened significantly when the dealer palmed a bill from one of his customers and handed the buyer something in return.
I’ve...
(Nevermind that the greatest propagandistic work of our time was the Matthew Barney-esque installation-art-cum-performance created by Scott Sforza, a Republican.)
The serial digressers can hang it up til Monday. Tyler Green dropped the parenthetical of the week today.
That’s it for now. Certified Gangsta relaunch coming next week. I’m going in.
July 2009
2 posts
WatchAnd in this video, Tony Yayo boasts about being in the region where your grandfather was born in a house that probably didn’t have indoor plumbing.
WatchTwo quick thoughts on the Kanye West-directed video for “Best I Ever Had.”
For a dude who spent most of his adolescence on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s payroll, Drake looks terribly uncomfortable on camera. Those stairwell scenes approach an early Snoop vibe, like when he spent half the “G Thang” shoot staring at his Chucks.
It’s kind of impressive...
June 2009
2 posts
May 2009
2 posts
April 2009
5 posts
March 2009
7 posts
WatchThe little nods to spaghetti western-type opening credits in this video — which start around the 1:50 mark when shit gets sepia and you’re all but waiting for a cigarillo to burn through the screen — are so perfect that I wish the whole video looked something more like this, except, you know, substituting Lacs for horses. It’s a nice wink to the song’s Morricone...
2DopeBoyz: 50 Cent to Release Two Albums This Year... →
Message to Cam, Fif, Em, et al.: Stop lying!
Would someone at Mixtape Monday for once call bullshit in one of these interviews, please? Where’s the gotcha spirit in rap jouralism when you need it?
If all of the aforementioned dudes — none of whom has yet released even one album in 2009 — wind up putting out two, I will Warner Herzog my wingtips. Seriously, what’s to be...
Pitchfork Track Review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Skeleton" →
Say what you want about Ryan Dombal’s review of “Skeleton” (and I’d say it’s probably too oblique by half) but that kind of voice is a target that Pitchfork should be gunning at more regularly. It’s something that’s been sorely lacking around there since they canned individual track reviews to try to compete with Stereogum or whatever. Glad to see them...
What The Hell is Going On With Gorilla Zoe? →
(via brokedownpalace)
Real talk.
Dude’s last four quarters feel like the 25 minutes in every Scorecese gangster movie where shit gets real coked out and everyone thinks every idea they have is brilliant. I am not saying this is a bad thing for Zoe. We might even have seen him come up with Autotune rap’s “Layla,” if “Robocop” wasn’t already Autone...
WatchFuck and yes.
Hat tip, Eskay.
February 2009
20 posts
Its throwback horns, orchestration, Latin rhythms,... →
Marc Hogan is ostensibly right in his description of the Jeezy catalog, but there is a scale-tipping gorilla in that review. The last time Jeezy got on a horn-blasting Don Cannon production, it was “Go Crazy,” a beat so good it coaxed a then recently retired Jay to dig for a verse he hadn’t run through the mental paper shredder for the remix. It was, in other words, a bona-fide...
2DopeBoyz: Asher Roth Loves Hip Hop (Video) →
As I’ve touched on recently, I have some issues with My Name is Asher Roth. His copping to not really fucking with hip hop until “Vol. 2” here, though, gets points for honesty. Even if it is a little off-putting, homey seems to have done his homework since then, so more power to him. And on a point that he doesn’t really drive home, for probably obvious self-preservation...
Freeload: Money Addict, "Born, Bred, Built" →
Just in case you thought these Bama guys weren’t shit but ecstasy raps and Diplo mixtapes, here’s a Paper Route Gangsta getting nihilist as fuck on the subject of nature v. nurture.
Full disclosure: I might have at one point thought dudes were at least like 50 percent ecstasy raps and Diplo mixtapes.
This one helped me shake off those first impressions too. It owes an obvious debt...
“I still feel I have a lot of baseball in me,”... →
There hasn’t been much news from 161st Street in the past few weeks that stoked the gettting excited about baseball fires. The prospect of a healthy No. 55 in the batter’s box could start to turn that tide. I hope.
imlosingmyedge:
I was there when Captain...
"People need to eat, and if it means Asher Roth... →
Today, So Many Shrimp asked why the hell Gucci Mane isn’t getting more burn via the mainstream rap media. It’s a good question. I like Gucci as I liked Tip, Jeezy, Pusha and Malice and pretty much anyone who’s ever tried to rhyme anything with the word Barksdale, but maybe it’s time to put that narrative on ice. Maybe Gucci’s failure to catch on with the kids who two...
Drake ft. Bun B and Lil Wayne -...
“‘74: Gucci-saddlebagged Sheriff Bart teams wirth the drunken Waco Kid. Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, David Huddleston, Liam Dunn. Directed by Mel Brooks 1hr 33min. Rated TV-14 Adult language, adult situations. Program type: movie/comedy.”
Whoever was in charge of the NYC Time Warner Cable program guide summaries last night knows how and when...
kanYe West : blog : Kid Cudi "Can I Be" →
Wherein I get pissed about dudes rapping over LCD Soundsystem instrumentals.
On the hook to his breakout hit, “Day and Night,” Kid Cudi describes the song’s forlorn protagonist as a “lonely loner.” I have forgiven plenty of dubious lyrics in my time. Rhyming the same word with itself is largely cool by me. I liked the big picture of “Flashing Lights”...
"The "high-speed" train from Boston to New York to... →
Okay, that made me chuckle.
"For that matter, what about reporting her visa... →
The Voice takes down the Times’ oddly indirect MIA takedown.
"Den I slipped on sum ice wen I wuz faded on de... →
Cocaine Blunts’ idea to give a weekly column to Z-Ro-obsessed commenter MAYNHOLUP! is some of the best editorial decision making I’ve seen in a while.
WatchIt’s pretty amazing how often Mike deploys the phrase “Grind Time Rap Gang” in everyday speech. It’s become almost an auditory full stop with this guy. I thought that was just some mixtape shit.
Anyway, it would be most excellent if Killer Kill signing to Grand Hustle results in an actual album coming out.