Thoughts On The Blueprint 3

I was going to do this yesterday afternoon when I copped the leak from my second favorite rap blogspot site of all time, but it's the first week of my second senior year/superseniority and this fell by the wayside for 24 hours while I continued getting situated/wasting money on a useless political science degree.

1. “What We Talkin’ About”- Sounds almost identical to just about every lush R&B chorused track on Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, except Lupe is an incredible rapper and Jay is still a twitching corpse without Philly rappers to take inspiration from

2. “Thank You”- Amazing. After the initial admiration and excuse-giving that comes whenever an artist or parent disappoints you time and time again (the same that makes me check out Nas albums even though he’s to date only made one good one in 15 years), this will probably be the only track that I don’t delete. Jay goes IN during the break when it’s just the instrumental and the drums fall out and he spits all this semi-insensitive 9/11 allegory shit. I first heard this the morning the album leaked, before I found out the album leaked Monday afternoon from Combat Jack, and it’s the sole of the 5 previous leaks that made me give a shit about BP3 and offer a glimmer of hope. I’d equate this to “N.I.G.G.E.R.”, from Nas’ album last year, which was also a gorgeous almost classic quality song buried in a meh album. Also, the first memorable post-retirement Jay hook.

3. “DOA”- The beat is ill. I wasn’t sure about it at first because I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about the song, and then I realized that it was Jay. The lyrics on the song, ignoring his actual rapping and the grating “Awwwww”s, makes him seem like a crotchety purist jerk, which is a look that only looks good on KRS-ONE, and barely at that. It’s a song completely comprised of corrective talking points, and frankly, a lot of the shit he says is rote, immaterial, and oddly conservative. Who’s really going to rah-rah about these things when they’re just shallow parts of the zeitgeist anyway? People wear colorful clothes and tighter fitting clothes. That’s just what’s happening. And to get up in arms about a superficial change that will eventually be overtaken by something just and unimportant is remarkably myopic for someone who is supposedly blessed with foresight.

4. “Run This Town”- I find songs like this and T.I.’s “Anything You Want” insulting not because they’re poppy, but because they’re instantly dated trend-chasing throwaway tracks. Like, is anyone going to think this is a good reflection of over-processed ringtone-ready rap ‘n’b in context of T-Pain, The Dream, 808’s&Heartbreak and a slew of infinitely better examples of the strange mish-mash of pop radio that I’ve been subjected to since my summer working at Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s in 2006?

5. “Empire State of Mind”- It’s kind of sad to follow up a song prominently featuring Rihanna’s non-singing (statuesque) ass with one with Alicia Keys who can not only sing in the traditional sense, but can sang in the Steve Harvey sense. Also, did this motherfucker just reference Anna Wintour in a piece of wordplay? The beat is okay, but Jay is, third album in a row, the problem here. He frequently sounds like he has no more idea of what to do with his rapping.

6. “Real As It Gets”- Beat is inspirational and soulful in a Jeezy by way of Graduation Kanye sense as opposed to soulful in a Blueprint sense but this track is perfectly decent. No real complaints.

7. “On To The Next One”- My favorite thing about Swizz Beats, besides him seemingly existing to soundtrack dance crew movies and TV shows, is how hit-and-miss he still is. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a college hippie’s suspended chord, Dave Matthews-inspired cover of a song from Popozao, and a 10 being “21st Century Schizoid Man”m "I Luv Your Girl" or something equivalently awesome, this song is a solid 4.7, to use Pitchfork scaling.

8. “Off That”- My age group (21 and older) is the last to give a flying shit what Jay-Z thinks is cool. He should keep that in mind, as well as the fact that that very demographic is a tiny minority as I sit here listening to Auto-Tune records and wearing tight-ass yeastXcore pants. Hallelujah holla back. Also, I don’t know how it’s possible, but Drake manages to sound mulatto on record. On some 80’s Soul-Glo/School Daze shit. This doesn’t bode well for my rap career.

9. “A Star Is Born”- You know you’re old when you spend an entire track giving praise to canonical rap icons. I’m guessing the kingly gesture is to, for the first time, actually acknowledge that Jay-Z has heard of rappers outside of UGK, State Property, Nas, Biggie, Pac, Cam’Ron, Lupe Fiasco, and (Vol. 1 reference ahead) Master P. It’s neat to hear him shout out Wu-Tang, but for the most part that’d be the only reason not to delete the song. J.Cole reminds me of Brandon’s point in deference to technically proficient rappers in a traditional New York/East Coast sense not being that interesting.

10. “Venus vs. Mars”- Fucking repugnant. Honestly. Also, I got douche chills when he referenced “Hit ‘Em Up” and “Who Shot Ya”. There’s just something very uncomfortable about hearing someone around then and so close to the beef do that in some shitty toss-off song referencing a shitty middlebrow relationship book from the early-90s. THE PLOT HAS BEEN LOST BY TRACK 10. The bridge is neat sounding, but would be best on a Kanye record or something with the rest of the elements culled and shat out of a plane, likely JetBlue.

11. “Already Home”- I really like/want to like Cudi. “Poke Her Face/Make Her Say” is fun and sports great effortless verses, “Day n’ Nite” was an amazing grower of a song, and the details of his album from Nahright seemed well contextualized (usually the mark of at least a decent record half the time) and the album art reminds me of a mix of Jacon Bannon and Giger. But that mixtape he put out was terrible minus the album singles and I’d be hard pressed to say if he offers anything lyrically or thematically that Devin the Dude or Lupe Fiasco don’t do better, respectively. But his singing on this track definitely has charm. Something I notice about a lot of these tracks, especially the singles and this, is that there’s one verse too mane and the 4 minute run times could definitely afford to be shortened if Jay is going to put out these stock verses that just go in one ear and out the other.

12. “Hate”- Douche chills. DOUCHE. CHILLS. Also, I like Kanye and Jay’s “slow Lil’ Wayne verse” impressions. Being full of yourself only works when you don’t consistently put out B- quality albums or lower. And the Blueprint is overrated, for the record. Classics don’t have “Jigga My Nigga” on it.

13. “Reminder”- This second half is pretty awful. You know who would make me love this beat? Gucci fucking Mane. Real talk. I never thought I’d say this. Get an old Pimp C verse for a screwed hook, Gucci, and maybe like Ludacris on the remix. Otherwise...feh. His raps and this hook should be violently dragged to the bottom of the abyss by a particularly ravenous and ill-tempered giant squid to be crushed like so much tinfoil in the unforgiving pressures of the earth’s watery black nexus.

14. “So Ambitious”- The most telling thing Pharell has ever said was in a studio interview (also, I’ve always appreciated The Neptunes for being technologically craptacular and more interested in songs and sounds than taking traditional routes to them, in a very punk rock way, to misuse a rotted cliché) was how much he loves major seventh chords and how “there’s just something about them”. Checking out his post-Neptunes falling off output makes this clear, as, though “I Know” was actually a really good song, a rarity in several lush yet tepid post “Give It Me (I Just Wanna Love You)” songs. Whatever happened to the guy who produced “Grindin’” and “Mr. Me Too”? Although that clearly seems to have been Chad’s department.

15. “Young Forever”- This album’s second half has quickly become a parody of itself. It’s unforgivably dated and terrible without aim or much of an even small inkling or anything important, profound, clever, or memorable. And this John Hughes bullshit is almost up there with “Beach Chair”, a song that single-handedly proved to rockist naysayers that it really isn’t that easy to make rap beats.

5 songs leaked by the time I had written this album off, which was a third of the track listing. Everyone hoped those were the 5 shitty songs, it turns out the fraction should be modified: 1/3 of this album is good and will not be deleted by the end of tonight, whereas 2/3's are equally bad and forgettable. It's a testament to nostalgia and Jay's hitmaking summers of yore that we still choose to pretend that Jay hasn't completely lost the plot whenever his post-retirement records leak. Also, can someone buy this motherfucker a hook and a Premier beat? Jesus Christ.

This Is Not The Matrix. But I Am The Oracle. "Do You Wanna Get With Me?" The Question Is Rhetorical.

Oh ho ho ho. Unfortunately a combination of being a college senior who suddenly gives a shit about being active on campus and a lingering aversion to sitting on my laptop and typing, rather than spending an hour going through youtube, StopAllMonsters, and the myriad channels of free amateur porn of girls who should know better than to trust any man in the digital age (word to anonib.com). I feared "blogger death" for a minute there, exacerbated by the fact that there's little to care or write about in music this year and my blogroll pretty much, with some minute differences, shares the same views or at least some semblance of it so the well ran dry around the time I went to Rock The Bells in August.

But now its October, and awakened by both my 21st birthday and the 1 year anniversary of this blog, I have a backlog of shit to exhume Or expound. Ex-somethin'.

Seeing as I'm now 21 and both boringly legal in the US and anything but appealing to marketers and the world at large, it's only fitting that the the remaining October posts will deal with age in hip-hop, or lack thereof and it's trapping and implications, including my own.

Let's get this out of the way.

Soulja Boy is a coon. This isn't judgment made out my approval of class warfare, socialist politics, latent afro-centrism/black nationalism, or a condemnation on the whole of materialism, it's an observable fact. Not because of his pop-rap for 12-year-olds and dancing, but because of his coon-ass behavior on Youtube on the daily. But he's the coon of the moment, or at least was since he seems to already have run out of the gas that "Yaah" afforded him, so it's not surprising that (Lil') Bow Wow, nee Shad Moss (really?) would go to him for tracks. Standard practice in hip-hop, even for producer/rappers like Kanye, is to remain pliant to whatever sounds are out there, and apparently after a bit of interaction with TI and Mike Jones and years being suspiciously at the behest of a certain form Whodini backup dancer/Janet Jackson enema carrier (because she keeps her shit regular, y'all) in Atlanta, Bow Wow began to refashion himself as a Southern rapper, or in reality, the "modern" Southern rapper as typified by Lil' Wayne, who essentially has all of the 00's NYC mixtape rapper cliches that Jay-Z cursed us all with (Whisper rapping, etc) but maintains all the things about characteristically less verbose and "speedy" Southern rappers that people like myself (and not DoctorZeus) love.

It's a logical and profitable move. It's an old hat to discuss relevancy versus financial stability versus artistic "credibility", but to be a rapper is to have to navigate that paradox of "Okay, I need to do this song with Lil'Wayne and T-Pain so the government doesn't repo my throwback jersey collection" versus "I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I like, fuck it I'll go on Koch and tour with Heltah Skeltah". Few can really do it, and the longer you stay around in any genre in general, the more criticism and derision is heaped unto you and people can see every flaw and loose seem in your image and shtick. One only has to look at Madonna, LL Cool J, U2 and Jay-Z to see what happens to people who become too successful and safe.

The source of Bow Wow's problem? About 10 years of kiddie star baggage, the same kind that reduced Lil'Romeo into a desperate Lil' Wayne rip-off (although Wayne's inflections come from Slick Rick, Andre 3000 and Snoop), prevents much in the way of image reinvention, especially considering there was and isn't anything remotely interesting or artistic about Lil' Bow Wow in the first place. In many respects, not to milk the comparison, he's the anti-Lil' Wayne. Not only did Wayne grow up without having to remind people he was growing up or make desperate bids like drop the "Lil'" from his moniker, but Wayne is unarguably interesting.

Also, in an age where we have a glut of great, but boring, rappers and terrible, but charismatic, rappers, Wayne managed to merge being interesting with having (sometimes) great lyrics. Although of late Wayne can only drop a 16 of note in freestyles.

Plus, Baller Blockin'> Like Mike.

This post was inspired by the video embedded above, which, I do actually like a lot, as well as Bow Wow's appearance on former hXc Hebrew/current manchild Pete Wentz's "F'n MTV". In it, he constantly insisted that he was trying to show how he was "grown up" and was going to stop making albums and start making films "like Will Smith". This was followed by a strangely robotic and pandering analysis of whether people will believe he was "all grown up" now by the impotent panel of talking heads employed on the show. The answer? Naw. Like most of the high school kids I used to run with in Brooklyn, he's really deluded and insecure, but that's made more tragic by the standard former child star attempts on his part to become something he's not, which is a person of substance within the field he's in. Catchy reworkings of "Going Back To Cali" with Omarion aside, dude is completely enslaved to the Scream Tour/106&Park/girls who don't actually enjoy music demographic. Even though he's currently being bolstered by increasingly catchy singles the last few years like say a Britney Spears, he lacks the star power to do anything with it. Realizing he's not a pop star but a kiddie rapper trapped in the BET chitlin' circuit, there's only one move to make, which is "respected rapper".

Motivated a self-serious pretension probably originating from his Napoleon complex, the kid is crippled by the fact that he's been a punchline for years. The same reason Marques Houston and Omarion would have trouble reaching the ubiquitous level of Usher is the same reason Bow Wow will never become the TI he thinks he is.

The best bet for someone like Bow Wow is to just become MC Hammer. Go all out and make an album full of catchy-as-shit pop songs akin to his recent singles and forget ever being taken seriously. Parachute pants and a cheap-ass G-Shock watch (what is this, 2001?) encrusted with diamonds.

That's a good look.At 22, that door closed a while ago. Being ill at 11 doesn't mean anything at this point. Biggie had already dropped Ready To Die, and Nas Illmatic by 22.

Or, he could just do the female pop star standard and become a gay icon and surf on disposable income for years.


This post is a tome to all the Foxy Browns, Lil'Zanes, Lil' Mamas, and Lil' Romeos that were put on the mic and quickly realized they had nothing to add. I'ma pour out a lil' bit of grape quarter water in the memory of your relevance.

Tonight's Da Night

Photo Courtesy of/hijacked from Brooklyn Vegan

It's been a long time. I shouldn't of left, but shit, its summer, music is boring right now and a motherfucker got hisself a JOB. So rather than opining about Rick Ross's succulent yet deceptive man-titties or Soulja Boy v. Ice-T during what was admittedly an inspiration drought, I sat back, wondering if I'd avoid the blog death that happens to most people doing this self-important e-typing bullshit. Luckily, yesterday was the NYC date of Rock The Bells, which was pretty much the one of the best lineups of anything in the history of ever. And this counts Woodstock that, honestly, had a lot of shitty filler that didn't age well.

After seeing my tax dependent Christian for a rare opportunity to actually hang out with one of my friends and downing some choice Colombian food for breakfast/lunch in Queens, I made my virgin voyage to Long Island. I was unable to find out where the Queens-to-LI bus was since it was Sunday, and being an hour late because of the lunch (I should've left around 12:30 to catch Dead Prez at 2:30, who were the first act I gave a shit about missing) I had to call upon all of the colors of the wind to navigate myself to Jones Beach. If transit wasn't so easy to deal with in NYC, I would've been fucked, but luckily I was able to read the map and ask the right questions, though I still felt terribly lost and embarrassed that I'm pushing 21 and never had never rode the LIRR or been to Long Island.

Unsurprisingly, the trains at Jamaica were filled with people coming to Rock The Bells who also didn't give a shit about missing about 6 Paid Dues acts. There was a nice mix of genuinely hot women and only a tiny smattering of the DudeManBrah's that gave Rock The Bell's its reputation last year of the pre-eminent wigger haven.

Rage Against The Machine seems to really bring out the retards.

After getting there and a bit of uncertainty with about what bus to take, all 123 of us made it on the convoy and were at the beach from Freeport, LI in about 20 minutes.

Following the signs posted and reverberations of Dead Prez's final three songs, I got to my ridiculous nosebleed seat and avoided the overpriced food and interesting but kind of futile distractions (I'd love to spit a 16 for a Burger King king mask, but, nah.) I figured, when I bought the tickets in late May on Ticketmassa that the seats wouldn't be that bad, but I got to experience the kind of immaculate view that comes with not spending a third of my paycheck on concert tickets. But luckily, save for Immortal Technique who tends to suffer from a weak flow and the same stale, cliched undie rap beats that helped kill NY rap, the whole lineup was energetic and awesome. I missed "Hip Hop" because I opted to piss before going up the endless cascade of stairs to section 24 seat V19, but I don't really like more than four Dead Prez songs anyway. I always thought it was ridiculous that they didn't blow up in the hood with their incendiary and kind of hood-ignorant politics and embracing the sort of shit I used to run into in Bed-Stuy (wheatgrass-promoting militant natty dreads with far left agendas and light-skinnededed girlfriends), but that doesn't mean I'd care to see them work through "Mind Sex" on a hot Sunday afternoon.

After Immortal Technique got done being angry and Peruvian, De La Soul got onstage and I realized that from then on out, I would be bombarded with 7 main stage acts I really fucking enjoy and would probably thoroughly embarrass myself with my quiet yet energetic rapping to shit I know. But for the sake of clarity, here is the rest of the show by act:

De La Soul- Unsurprisingly, they opted to not do "Me Myself and I". Which is cool, because due to my newfound appreciation of their non-"Oooh" songs (Fuck it, their first two records are classics), but I sort of wanted them to just do "Jenifa Taught Me" and like all of De La Soul Is Dead. They fell into a common trap of playing shit from albums people didn't like that much (for good reason) or new shit. Which, from death metal to Cappadonna, is always a terrible idea. Unless that shit is Thriller, I'll pass on trying to engage and decipher through crappy sound your latest 2rd rate J Dilla homage (Looking at you, Q-Tip). But they definitely could rock a crowd and kept things lean, just the three of them onstage and then briefly Q-Tip when he ran on stage for his "Buddy (Remix)" verse, which I thoroughly spazzed out for. Its enough to like some shit yourself, but to have this cavernous beach side theater full of heads reciting obscure lyrics to shit no one under 25 listens to is beautiful.

The Pharcyde- Aww. See, here is the thing. De La Soul, with their the Hives-aping "Freezing during a song for effect" thing got away with playing three post Buhloone Mind State songs no one knew or cared about (Doing "Oooh" with Redman would've been awesome). But though the theater was only half full this early into the main stage acts the crowd didn't get into any of the songs until "Passing Me By", which makes me wonder if its because The Pharcyde are this Cali rap group whose talent has been overshadowed by being the go-to reference made by white people who don't like rap to prove that they "do like rap". But to be honest I only recognized 5 songs, the aforementioned classic as well as "Oh Shit", "Ya Mama", "Drop", "Runnin'", and "I'm That Type of Nigga". Despite the noticeable flatness of the crowd, the dudes were entertaining and pretty much, like those Young Scooby Doo cartoons from the 90's, did their own signature dances throughout the whole set. Kind of felt bad for them, considering they were the first reunited act to play a set and didn't get the rapturous "welcome back" they might've deserved.

Raekwon & Ghostface- Holy shit. Okay, here's the thing. Everyone who played tonight made at least one album that I consider to be one of my favorites ever and unadulterated classics. Except Dead Prez and Immortal Technique, but that goes without saying. But having seen Ghost before last year at Nokia, I had a good idea what to expect, which was the throwback Wu/90's rap stage set-up, with about 30 hangers-on, family members, and weed carriers on stage while Cappadonna, Ghost and Rae did a bunch of the very best songs off Only Built For Cuban Linx and Ghost did "We Celebrate" and "Be Easy", which are neither his best or worst tracks. And as usual, there was the honoring of ODB's memory, constantly doing only their verses from other people's songs, doing only one verse and a hook at a time of their own, and Cappa or Rae doing the verses of other people, including Deck's still-titanic "Triumph" verse, which I know by heart and usually dumb out on whenever the song plays, and Nas' "Verbal Intercourse" verse, which was odd because dunny was in the building but didn't pull a Q-Tip and join his mans and them. Regardless, there were like 14 songs played (or thirds of songs, really) and I couldn't have been happier as the only song played I didn't dig was "We Celebrate" which, real talk, is unpleasantly "old guy rap" and uncool despite how on point the lyrics are. Plus, they did "Glaciers of Ice" and "Incarcerated Scarfaces" with maximum vigor so everybody got their hardbody anthems for the day. At this point, I took a break to go see what the hipsters were doing at the Paid Dues stage since, despite only like 10 minutes between each act, I somehow though missing ten minutes of Red&Meth wouldn't be a big deal.

Spank Rock w/Amanda Black and some of those DJ's they're always with or some shit- Here's the thing. I checked out Spank rock based on a cosign from drew Barrymore on her iTunes celebrity playlist, which I check out a few times a year to see if any of the featured actors and musicians had somewhat decent or atypical music taste. So far, Drew was the closest to being interesting, and the track she chose was "Bump" which is an awesome track and led to the even more hipstertastic and awesome "Bump (Switch Remix)". Half of YOYOYOYOYOYOYO is good, so I got mired into that whole Plastic Little/Amanda Blank/Spank rock thing for a minute last year, until the boringness of Spank's verses and the shittyness of all the music they've released since that album became clear and it just became annoying. There's something sad about watching hipsters and scene kids taken out of dark slutty clubs where they thrive and people enable their failings and put on a small stage in front of 30 people as infinitely more talented musicians' sets are blaring about 30 feet away. They, for all of their efforts, look like pets right before you put them to sleep, in a weird environment and over-doing it for you approval. Still, lots of good-looking people. And they tried hard for what's its worth, but it probably fared better outside of New York as evidenced here.

For the record, the Paid Dues line-up:

Spank Rock with Amanda Blank 6:40
Devlin & Darko 5:55
Akrika Bambaataa 4:45
The Cool Kids 4:05
Tyga 3:25
Ninjasonik 2:45
B.O.B. 2:05
MURS 1:25
Jay Electronica 12:55
Wale 12:25
Kidz In The Hall 11:55
DJ Blaqstarr 11:15

I feel bad for everyone who played before Tyga (Really? Tyga?), since people mostly filed in for Ghost and Rae and I can't imagine more than 8 people watched Wale or Murs. Though I was tempted to say "fuck Immortal Technique" and go check out The Cool Kids. But I was timid and lazy and it was a bitch getting up to my mosquito and dragonfly-ridden seats. On the way back, I noted a commotion and stop to check out exactly what was going on, and one of the many chill people there last night told me some fuckery with someone getting carried out on a stretcher happened, and that no one had gone on yet. 15 minutes later when things got back to normal, Mos Def came on rather than Red&Meth, which was a relief when i found out that Red and Meth hadn't gone on yet.

Mos Def- Dude is probably one of the best live MC's ever considering he does a bit of everything, from geeking out to crooning and invoking 30 years of rap history and etc. Plus, he only played one song from Tru3 Magic, "Undeniable", which was one of the three good songs on there and flipped the same sample that Rza and Nas did this year. He played the original versions of the songs that are sampled on his albums to intro those same songs, but it got to be a bit much when he just played some reggae for 6 minutes straight until the melody from KRS-ONE's "Stop The Violence" and Black Star's "Definition" played and segued into Talib coming out them doing the song, to crowd eruption. Which is cool, but I always through that not only was Mos better than Talib, but Black Star's record wasn't amazing enough to backup people's fervor to see them together all the time. Mos was the only exception to the "don't play new songs" rule, since the new tracks he did sounded pretty fucking great and might be further proof that Tru3 Magic was just a dud to get out his Geffen contract, and the set was topped off by "Get By", which is the best thing Talib will ever do and is still a gorgeous, legitimately uplifting track, and then bringing Pharoahe Monche, who had been around earlier for Immortal Technique, out to do "Simon Says", which was the first full-blown ridiculous moment of the day as everyone went retarded and that fucking legendarily monstrous beat boomed loud enough to be heard by ever middle class Italian family on the isle.

Only downer was "Ms. Fat Booty" getting cut off halfway through and abandoned because of an error caused by miscommunication between Mos and the DJ. Fucked up my recital.

Red&Meth- From the announcement of the lineup, I thought about the weirdness of having Cuban Linx and Red&Meth both doing duo sets and the difference between the old Wu way of doing stage shows and Red&Meth's way, which is just as cocky, energetic, ridiculous and awesome as it seemed when I saw it discussed on MTV 10 years ago. Shit, besides Method Man being hyper and frequently dancing wildly and seeming to be floating 6 inches off the ground while doing it, its probably the same shit from that old Def Jam tour from Backstage.

Fuck, that's a great movie.

But moreso than anyone else so far, they knew the drill and it was all hits and singles, every song people expected and wanted they got, plus some surprises like "Def Squad Delite" with Keith Murray and fucking "Tonight's Da Night", which made me the happiest girl in Long Island not getting DP'd on her parents bed on a Stickcam show. Now, every show I've ever been to had weed, so that's nothing new, but the shit was omnipresent during their set, as was the "Really?" feeling when Redman asked if the crowd saw How High, wanted to see a sequel, and then revealed that they were making the sequel.

Oh and +1000 rap points for bringing out Slick rick to do like 8 bars of "La Di Da Di" and then leave the stage. That's fucking ballsy.

Nas- And then Nas. Nas is maybe one of the more difficult rappers ever, more than Pac because Pac never made a decent album so fuck him. But I've never seen the guy live so I didn't know whether or not to expect the same lax quality control as his post It Was Written album output or what. Tenser, to the point the guys down the row from me booed and inspired half the theater to do the same, was the nearly half an hour wait to sound check Nas' live band, which didn't really get much use anyway and his attempt to put these weird studio musicians, save for the sonic heft added by the drummer, over his tracks didn't fare well and got cut out three songs in after the awkward riffing and keyboard patch over "NY State of Mind". Speaking of which, he played, truncated Ghostface style, about half of Illmatic, which was the fulfillment of a dream I've had since hearing the record, as well as a few surprising singles, like "Hate Me Now". I was really disappointed he didn't do "Oochie Wally", but I guess its a dream deferred until I get to see dude perform as an event with a less "Yaaay rap" vibe and more of a "Pussy poppin in a handstand" feel. Oh, and he brought Jay out for those two songs they did together. "Success" is meh, but "Black Republican" is a fucking behemoth with that kind of bass-heavy volume in that kind of venue. All was forgiven, although dude has terrible breath control, though he was forced into stopping enough that it just seemed like he was being "deep". You know...in that high school 2Pac fan way. Weird to be privy to one of those "event" moments, even though every guest except Pharoahe and Biz Markie (during De La's set) was obvious.

Oh and "N.I.G.G.E.R." is achingly beautiful. All is forgiven, Nasir.

A Tribe Called Quest- this started out weird because it was basically 13 or so songs, and the first 6 was a Q-Tip solo set wherein he did his singles, the new track he's putting out, and his verse from "Excursions", all with Mos Def, geeking out next to him. Which is another thing, there's a pointed difference, I noticed, between Method Man's cocky hyperactivity, and Q-Tip geeking out. Its hard not to like the guy. There was a really cool usage of the video screen attached to the towering DJ booth on stage that wasn't really used at all until Q-Tip's set, and then become a whole experience when Ali, Phife, and that weird Morehouse professor looking guy who never does verses came out and basically performed the Tribe's Anthology album live. And of course, not going against the grain of the genre or tour, brought out Busta Rhymes and Consequence, the former who did his "Scenario" verse much better than at Fiascogate last year.

All in all it was a beautiful night oddly devoid of the transport issues or drama I've become accustomed to going to shows and I even got to force an upgrade of my seats by moving down to the middle section since, though sold out on Ticketmaster, there were about 40 empty seats scattered about the area. My progress lower to the floor and closer to the stage was a huge step for my people, and not since Lenny Kravitz nutted in Lisa Bonet and several other pale women or Barack Obama became the first blacasian presidential candidate since Andre Jackson has such a momentous moment momented to the descendents of mulatta.

Now if only the crowd had acquiesced to Redman and Pharoahe Monche's peaceable suggestions to show their titties.

Titties are always nice.

I Need A Personal Jesus (I'm In Depeche Mode)*

I can't ever really talk about rap without discussing Jay-Z. Along with formative years listening to Hot 97 and watching Video Music Box and MTV Jams with Bill Bellamy (I feel fucking old), basically every moment of my life from 1997-2002 was musically dominated by the guy. My first exposure was seeing "Who You Wit II", then "Sunshine" on the Box and hearing the rest of the record blared from cars on my block back before noise ordinances snuffed that sort of thing out. From then on, dude was basically my favorite rapper, but this was before I got really educated and critical about rap, and this is back before I was buying rap records at all. It's only since 2004 that I've been adding some classic records to my collection, wedged between Clinic's Walking With Thee and three AFI albums.

I remember in 9th grade being given my mom's boyfriend's copy of In My Lifetime Vol. 1 because I kept borrowing it (and around the same time my aunt telling me she was going to give me her copy of Hard Knock Life but there was too much cursing and etc. Feh. I guess she meant well, in a clueless way). I soaked up every piece of that album, and to this day it's one of five Jay records I'd say are good (that and The Black Album, Hard Knock Life Vol. 2, Reasonable Doubt, and The Blueprint). Even after mistakenly buying Roc La familia only to realize it was an over-produced shit sandwich with only 4 or 5 good songs, I was still a fan. But between 2001 and 2003, I got into a lot of other rappers beyond the mainstream NY stuff that was so huge most of my life. Between then and 11th grade I developed some degree of a critical ear and started paying more attention to what made something great or not and my own changing tastes and listening to difficult or dense albums and finding them more rewarding, etc.

It seemed he could do no wrong, and I remember the battle with Nas and, me having been exposed to Nas during It Was Written and being unaware that Illmatic even existed, went "Who the fuck is Mr. 'You Owe Me' to get at Jay? What the fuck is Stillmatic?" Granted, after buying Illmatic around 2004 after I saw the video for "It Ain't Hard to Tell", and finally hearing "Ether", my view changed a little. But I still maintain Nas is kind of a bum with no vision or talent left and his fans are some of the most clueless assholes, next to 2Pac fans or people who praise Common for being "different". Despite being a homophobic racist with gayface, awful rhymes, a labored and annoyingly self-righteous flow, and one half-decent album.

But the guy fell off substantially, and everyone felt it, when he released Blueprint 2. He now says he made The Black Album because he was just putting out record to put out records, and it showed. I remember being aghast at seeing him on stage with Lenny Kravitz during SNL and doing "Guns and Roses", his shitty attempt at a rap/rock song for some crossover appeal and edge, and to display that, you know, he enjoys Coldplay and Lenny Kravitz. Remember his MTV Diary from 2000 when he was singing along to Z100 as it played Nine Days' "Story of a Girl"? Yeah. That's Jay's taste in music outside of rap. I wish I could say that wasn't the norm with most rappers (Ghostface once sang "Numb" to Mike Shinoda during the Projekt Revolution MTV2 tour special. Motherfucking "Numb".) So, with my weird sixth sense about these sorts of things in the ether (lolz), I knew the record was going to brick. I remember being in Bravo supermarkets buying something for my mom and thinking "Man...Jay finally fell off" as "Excuse me Miss" was playing. (Good song, but still)

The final straws, despite having casual enough interest to buy and be slightly disappointed by The Black Album, despite being very good, were "La La La", his shittastic contribution to the Bad Boys II soundtrack, and that goddamned corporate sponsored mash-up album with Linkin Park.

Let me get this out there right now: Mash-ups suck. It sucks when Girltalk does it, it sucked when it was a Limewire internet fad, and it sucked when MTV tried to salvage some degree of cool and cherry pick a bullshit trend to promote. Mash-ups are lazy and only cool to people who love pop radio and think it'd be "So totally random to mix Maroon 5 with 50 Cent". I don't believe in judging a person by their interest, because that's shallow and transgressive, but when I see people who own or bring up that CD, I make a mental note to not feel any empathy when tragedy befalls them.

"You got robbed and your girlfriend of two years that you just reconciled with was sodomized in front of you to the song "Numb/Encore"? That's too bad...maybe they were after that Collision Course CD? To think, had you never bought it, you'd have your stuff, and your girlfriend wouldn't be able to fit an Xbox in what used to be her ass"

So despite numerous interviews and persistent rumors and him being on stage with fucking Phish, I thought "Nah, he's not coming back, he's smarter than that".

Then, in a roundtable discussion in 2005 for MTV, where I learned to hate David Banner for being a homophobic Baptist idiot with no perspective or insight to go with his years of college education, Remy Ma said something along the lines of "Nah, that's garbage. He's a rapper, and he feels the same passions he always felt. And he's not gonn a be able to stay away"*

*Badly paraphrased from memory.

At the time I dismissed that pretty accurate appraisal of the situation, because it seemed like a lot of people there were just hating. Jim Jones, who was the only reason I watched the special at the time because I was obsessed with the Dips and all their singles that year, spent his time shitting on Jay's (very real) inability to be a good president at Def Jam. But she was right. And the effect his absence caused was fascinating. By 2006, there were constant rumors of a comeback, he was doing guest verses for Beyonce and Memphis "Cappadonna Jr." Bleek, and a shit storm arrived when word of Kingdom Come got leaked by the record's producers in the summer. The response was hilarious, as just about every rapper, and myself, went "Fuck that nigga", after hearing about the concept. And surprise, the record was an epic shit sandwich of Roc La Familia proportions in a 2006 full of great albums (as opposed to 2007, which is the worst year for music I can remember living through).

I, after being so underwhelmed lyrically by "Show Me What You Got", decided to pirate that over-produced abortion, and in the process of me listening to it and hoping it would grow on me like some of my favorite dense or complex records, I realized what was left of my Jay-Z fandom was deader than Superman after Doomsday came and bodied half of Metropolis. Naturally, casual rap fans, desperate Jay stans, and the hordes of shallow faux-80's, glamor-fapping, vapid, party-obsessed Myspace trendwhores that make up most of the 12-22 year-olds in this country thought it was great. And, that was probably who the record was made for in the first place, judging by how it was essentially a Beyonce record. (Had Beyonce used all of the tracks for herself, it might've been hot). Unsurprisingly, it sold very well. (Oh, and interesting fact, Jay, despite his hugeness, never rarely sells past double platinum. Now, that's a lot of records, especially, now, but keep in mind, this is the supposed best rapper alive. DMX's first two records could, financially, body Jay's catalog.)

Getting my grouchy old man on, I had a list of qualms with that album. Or, more realistically, a list of long simmering beefs with Jay as a rapper that, lucky me, now that he came out the gate stumbling, I could spew at his stans. First of all, the guy has been trying to force the concept of him being a grown man (which is redundant, since he's two years younger than Rakim and was 26 when his first record came out, LOLZ) on people for 5 years, which is one of those things that should be shown and not said or, more simply put, if you really were that, you wouldn't have to constantly remind people or announce it. It's an adage of late that developed in reaction to the hordes of impressionable/clone-like black kids who, in their ripe teenage years, kept repeating that they were "Getting their grown man on". Now, usually, they weren't. I don't recall any time where wearing a blazer with your Nike's made you an adult. It makes you a fucktard. So for this, I curse him.

Second, and one of which that plagued me ever since I filled in the blanks last year and downloaded the few Jay records I had never heard, I discovered that for the most part, he wasn't that great of a lyricist. He's a definite B- who can sure destroy any track that's obviously going to be a single, but otherwise, has the same problem as Lupe Fiasco where he confuses a lack of clarity or ability to be concise and not convoluted. Hearing all of the albums that are in my CD collection or the few albums I like but not enough to purchase put that into perspective. There's a quote from a great Stylus piece I had linked to before that summed it up:

Jay-Z isn’t as clever as he thinks he is:
Jay-Z was the main instigator of the “I have just said something clever” pause in rap. For a while, “Kill at will, solid water, ice cube” was the worst rap lyric ever. J seems to believe that the punning wit inherent in this line was so great that it required a slight breather whilst the listening public revelled in the genius of his, quite frankly, sub-Richard Whitely wordplay. Of course, Jay-Z has now retired and the baton has been passed in so many ways to Kanye West. If anyone out there can listen to, say, “Trying to be a millionaire I used two lifelines”, or the low-point of 800 years of the English language: “Story on MTV/ But I ain’t trying to make a band”, and the ensuing raised eyebrows that follows them, without wanting to kill, indeed, at will, please tell me how.

Jay maintains a lot of people miss his more complex lyrics and that's why he "dumbed down" (More on that in a second). But truth be told, the best rappers can be lyrical AND memorable just like any writer. But he believes his own hype, as does the world, or at least those that don't follow the other B.R.A.*, Lil' Wayne. The number of lyrical fumbles, as mentioned in that feature, that I've sat through did nothing but to erode at all the self-aggrandizing Jay does.

*BEST RAPPER ALIVE (Please save the Baby!)

So did his feeble attempts at putting on BAPE hoodies and acting the way he thinks Chris Brown fans would think is cool during his 106&Park performance (one of two times I've watched that show in 5 years...other time was the Kanye/50 appearance) made him just look sad. He would later dispel logical assertions that Kingdom Come was a 4th quarter cash-in to make his president run at Def jam seem successful and say the album was "rushed", but let's call a spade a spade. The guy only "stopped rapping" for two years. If you're really that good, your quality level shouldn't fall off that much. And if your return was triumphant, why rush the product? An album a year is great, but not when you only spent a few weeks of that year on it.

The biggest beef I've had with the guy came from my actual excitement for that album. On The Black Album he had said “Honestly I wanna rhyme like Common Sense (but I did 5 mil)/I ain’t been rhymin’ like Common since” as well as some shit about dumbing down to double his dollars. At the time, I was like "Wow, I didn't know that", then "If he comes back, maybe he'll actually be better and more like Mos Def or any other more concise, more lyrical MC? Or at the very least get some balls and do more than briefly mention something political and wax a whole song about it!"* 17 year-olds have a lot of hope.

*Paraphrased a bit

I even thought that it'd be cool if he restarted his career, comic book style, with a new name and attitude, and just went by Sean Carter or something. And then there could be a Sean C/Sean P duet album! Nah, B. He was exactly the same, but worse, and it became clear that he was brilliant at marketing. He was good enough of a rapper that he could make all these fictitious claims that he's a whole lot better than he actually is, sort of like "The Big Lie". Good businessman, sure. Great MC, yes. But, like Lil' Wayne, his spotlight is due to diminishing returns. Biggie was dead and DMX fell off in 2000, so Jay was all alone to bask in the success of his four albums and mythologize. Similarly, since most rap is crappy or boring of late, Lil' Wayne can get obscene amounts of attention for being great at everything except, you know, lyrics.

So after re-assessing Jay in the last two years following countless viewings of "Fade to Black", and completely losing faith in his ability to make good musical product, he announces the American Gangster album. And I sat there reading the news blurb on this very laptop, completely apathetic. When my friend Anthony was excited on the day of its release to download it and got annoyed when it became known that he pulled it off for completely pretentious and suspect reasons (Jay can't be that dumb to not know it IS possible to make tracks "Album only" and force people to buy whole albums on iTunes), I just added it to a list of fan annoyances, a la Mos Def. I don't download leaks of artists I like for weird moral reasons, but when the record leaked a week before its release, it was just that I couldn't care less. "Blue Magic" is cool-sounding, but just as ultimately anemic and forgettable as most post-N.E.R.D. Neptunes tracks. "Roc Boys" grew on me and I pirated the record, and decided to be objective and give it more attention than the other 11 gigs of stuff I've recently downloaded and listened to it exclusively.

Overall? It's good. It's not great, it's a failure as a "concept record", but it's not bad by any means. It's overproduced, too light sonically, and still has some disposable tracks and awful lines ("I'm more Frank Lucas than Ludacris/And Luda's my dude, no offense") But to nerd it up, a track by track breakdown-

"Intro"- Some quotable lines toward the end about swagger being immaterial and a front, but kind of crappy. Badly cast voices.

"Pray"- Beyonce just reminds me of Storm from the X-Men on this for some reason. The rhymes are really on point, but, like most of the production, comes across way too clear (in a bell sense, like natural harmonics) and cheesy-sounding. The strings sound shitty.

"American Dreamin'"- Could take or leave it. It's rare that on a Jay-Z record, my beef is with the production, and not the rhymes. Lyrically, is again on point here

"Hello Brooklyn 2.0"- Decent. At first it stand out the most and seems sort of cool and weird, but eventually it becomes a Lil' Wayne version of "Snoopy Track". Also, more ammo to throw at Lil' Wayne dickriders on the internet, streets, and Pitchfork Media: He completely gets bodied on a huge major label album again. Getting shat on lyrically by 2007-era Kanye West is bad enough, but it was kind of important for him not to eat it on this song. Oh well, time to release another mixtape and get a 9.8 rating.

"No Hook"- Lame. And also, Murphy Lee did this song a lot better back in 2004 with "What the Hook Gon' Be?". Jay fails at being clever (as usual) by turning the absence of a hook...INTO A HOOK! OMFG. Issue is, Jay hasn't made a decent hook since 2003. LOL.

"Roc Boys (And The Winner Is..."- Awesome. Outro lingers way too long, but meh. He's indefatigable on this shit.

"Sweet"- Pretty good. Although, unfortunately, suffers from the same fate as a lot of tracks here, where everything sounds like the opening track of a record. Intro songs are usually great for that purpose, introducing the record or concept or establishing the feel or making some sort of explosion to be followed up, but usually not that great by themselves most of the songs here feel like that. Good mid-album track, though.

"I Know"- Jay, like Common and a bunch of other MC's who rap about crack or New Age bullshit, suck at talking about sex. I can't help but shudder in revulsion when he whisper raps "I'm your addiction!" It always either comes across gross or falls flat. Ghostface and Mos Def are some of a few exceptions. Plus, this would've made a better Kanye record. Note to Jay-Z: Avoid the Neptunes. They haven't done anything good for you since 2002. And Pharell is a douche bag of Fiascogate proportions.

"Party Life"- A lot of rappers would sound better on this track than Jay, but I like it for two reasons. The beat is great, and I take weird pleasure in hearing Jay rap like Juicy J. Seriously, EXACTLY LIKE JUICY J. Awesome. The south wins.

"Ignorant Shit"- Disgusting. Ridiculous. One of two tracks on this album that I'd add to my 70 or 80 song-long "Jay-Z's greatest hits" iTunes playlist. This is the "smart, complex" Jay-Z he alleges he dumbs himself down from. Personally, Jay's best moments are when he displays that he does actually have sharp wit and a vicious side. Problem is, he rarely uses it. Only flaw is the incredibly awkward third verse tagged on. Oh, and Beans bodies Jay in like 8 lines, Wu-Tang style. "Tell a trick get these nuts/Eat dick like food". COME ON. Sigel wins. And what's with Jay's weird enunciation of "I miss the days when it wasn't about Imus"? And way to stray from your album's concept.

"Say Hello"- A great beat ruined by a wack hook and extraneous studio adlibs. Seriously. What do I have to do to get a Berry Gordy-esque quality control job for major label rappers? I know what I'm talking about, B. Hire me, I'll steer you towards a classic album. Yentas.

"Success"- AKA "Black Republican II" AKA "Dead Presidents IV (Live)". Classic all the way through. The most ridiculous brag-rap track I've heard in a long time. "Google Earth Nas/I got flats in other continents". Nas wins. Plus, his voice sounds great on the track. Here's hoping Nas can learn to pick beats before he gets as old as Jay is.

"Fallin'"- I feel like a lot of people will put this on mixtapes and rap over it. I'm for that. It's a good track. The hook is solid, and the beat is great, no qualms.

"Blue Magic"- More interesting than good. But still, really fucking cool track. I gave the Neptunes a lot of credit for stating in 2003 or so that they were going to make their productions a lot weirder and eschew standard song format. And they did. The Nelly and Snoop tracks they had released as singles were fucking odd, though the former was pretty shitty. Putting this as a bonus track and not an immediate part of his failed concept was a great move, because it doesn't fit at all. And Pharell's falsetto on the hook is pretty dead-on, rather than embarrassing, for a change.

"American Gangster"- Crazy beat, really busy in that Just Blaze way. (Just Blaze:Rap beats::Cryptopsy:Death metal).

For once, I agree with Tom Breihan about something. He gave the record its solid 8.6 Pitchfork rating, which is astute. It's a really good record in a year of shit, but I still put it behind Underground Kingz and Graduation in terms of the year's hip-hop releases. And 8.6 is basically a B, which is what the album is. I'm happy that Jay is returning to form, but it still falls too short for me to be interested in buying the album or overlooking my beefs with the records first half.

Then again, what other 38-year-olds can get their shit together and make heyday quality albums like this*?

*Answer? Jonathan Richman, who is pushing 60.

Jay wins.

Chris has, including American Gangster, 6 hours (or 91 songs) worth of Jay-Z on his iTunes. Srsly.