Ever present in hip hop lyrics are tales of street dealings, mostly in drugs, sometimes in women, and sometimes pure violence. In fact tales of drugs have gone as far back as the famous “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. As rap grew, so did the stories, providing more and more detail and giving more and more insight to the world of street dreams and realities. While many songs touched on various aspects of this underworld, there were two complete albums that play through like movies, life stories, biographies, entire pictures of the drug world. Each album played the role separately, one giving the rawest description, the cook up of sorts, the drugs on the table, ready to go, and the day-to-day bullshit that goes on to move that product. The other showcased the high life, the riches, the nice clothes and cars, the upside of the hustle, the kingpin’s manual for poppin’ bottles. One album looked at it from the kitchen, the other looked at it from the club. One from the work, one from the payoff. Together these albums make for the perfect combination of the drug life, both extremes with which one involved sees. With both artists on the verge of releasing new albums, both going back to old formulas of sorts, it seems fitting to take a look at the albums that defined and influenced one of the biggest aspects of hip hop, the drug dealer. The first to do it was Raekwon the Chef from legendary group Wu-Tang Clan with “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…” in 1995. One year later up and coming Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z gave us “Reasonable Doubt”. There are many other albums that contributed to the Mafioso movement in rap, Nas’ “It Was Written”, Mobb Deep’s “The Infamous” and AZ’s “Doe or Die”, but the genre was rooted in and flawlessly done with Rae and Jay’s masterpieces.
In 1995 hip hop was sufficiently blunted. The west coast G-funk was still blazing but New York grittiness was making its way back to the top, arguably resurrected two years prior with the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album “Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers”. The 10 man group was headed by RZA and his vision for a 5 year, 7 album plan was in the midst of manifesting. Solo albums from Method Man and GZA were pounding in every whip and next up was the Chef Raekwon with an album co-hosted by Wu’s most stylistic MC, Ghostface Killah. What was delivered was an album so dirty, so raw, so gutter that it set the blueprint for a style of hip hop that has been imitated time and time again, the gangster/drug dealing kingpin. The intro alone, with Rae and Ghost boasting of the high life while discussing the work they do sets in motion the whirlwind that follows with broken pyrex bottles, kitchen counter top wrap ups, money stashes in couches, shootouts in living rooms and a whole shit ton of cocaine being blown. To come out of that album without a white nose and a drip is basically impossible. They broke it all down. The production was heavy and grimy, the lyrics were shouted through voices caked in dust and liquor and the hooks (when there were any) were some of the most awkward if not genius things hip hop had ever seen. Every Wu general contributed to the album and each brought with him an alias specific to the crime family ideal. “Wu-Gambinos” they were called, each becoming a mafia don in the process of lacing their drug fueled darts. Songs like “Ice Water”, “Wisdom Body” and “Rainy Dayz” pierce the listener’s ears with sound so clashing it shouldn’t even work but magically along with the equally fucked up lyrics the tracks work to form an album that requires a shower following a listen. Even the one “female” track oozed with griminess even while invoking one of the sweetest things, ice cream. Never before had someone make listing the flavors of ice cream sound so rugged. They even supplied the high that everyone was chasing in the form of “Guillotine (Swordz)”, a track that began with a sample few believed would amount to an actual track after being hinted at before only to be quickly tucked away. “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…” was the closest thing to the Scarface fantasy so prevalent in hip hop. It gave us all insight to the world of a cocaine dealer, at least as close as you could sonically get.
New York was the hip hop champ once again and Brooklyn was at center stage with Notorious B.I.G.’s chart topping album “Ready to Die”. On the success of “Juicy”, “Big Poppa” and “One More Chance”, Biggie had won over the hearts of millions of fans and provided the mainstream was swagger and flow along with lyrics filled with not only clever wordplay but substance and depth. His storytelling was unlike no other and he did it while still maintaining to throw punchlines out left and right. Around the same time fellow Brooklyn native and friend of Biggie, Jay-Z was on the come up after spending years working with legends like Big Daddy Kane and Jaz-O trying to find his niche in the hip hop world. Jay brought the swagger in a way different from that of close friend Notorious B.I.G. Biggie was known as a Heavy D of sorts, an overweight lover. The man loved his Gucci and Versace but played more on the lines of “let me chill and get money and fuck bitches”. Jay-Z stepped it up in telling us how rich he was and why he could afford all that nice shit. Jay seemed to focus on not just the hustle, but the results of the hustle, the fruits of labor. While Biggie liked to lay back and chill Jay-Z went out on the town wearing the most expensive suits, driving the most expensive cars, ordering the most expensive drinks, and getting the most expensive girls. Jay-Z’s life was on top of the world, looking down at everyone who wanted to be up there with him. Don’t get it twisted though, Jay certainly didn’t hold back from the risks it takes to earn such a high life. From “Friend or Foe” and “Dead Presidents” it’s clear that work had to be put in to get where he was. But this was certainly someone who had been on top and could educate those below him on how hard it was to get there. “Regrets” and “Can I Live” brilliantly showcase how one’s rise to the top is never easy and how it takes a strong man to survive. He also displayed his knowledge by giving life lessons to young’ns looking for their entrance to the life of crime on “Coming of Age” where he teaches an aspiring rapper/dealer how to make it in the world where he is king.
In the end you have two works of art so similar yet so different in their descriptions of essentially the same thing, the world of drug dealing. The reality is that there are very few kingpins of the drug world and most of them will inevitably meet their demise through either arrest or assassination. It is ridiculous to idolize such ideals when they result in nothing but heartache and struggle and usually much worse, but as any true great author can make the reader actually feel as though they are a part of the story, Jay-Z and Raekwon have given the listener the ultimate experience of the drug dealing lifestyle. And they have done it from completely different viewpoints. Raekwon has given us the training camps and the two-a-days and the pre-season and even the playoffs, Jay-Z has given us the Finals, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Tonight Show appearances following all those. Each artist holds nothing back in their accounts of one of the toughest professions for even the hardest of men, and yet each has a completely different vision of the world they live in. The lavish dining room with the bottle service and $50 plates of food doesn’t come without the hectic kitchen with sweltering heat and hunched over chefs busily working round the clock creating the delicacies. These records will give anyone who is interested the ability to see the two sides of the hustle, the ups and downs, the joy and pain, the struggle and the success. With both artists dropping new albums soon, Raekwon’s being titled “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2” and Jay-Z returning to his “Blueprint” label, this is a good time to remember how perfectly these two individuals presented us with something that most of us will never see up and close and personal but that all of us, through these albums, can feel like we at least got a peek in the door while being lucky enough to never have to walk in.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
What the hell happened to Memphis Bleek?
“a G? i’ll ride wit chu for free, i want the long term riches and bitches”
We all remember little Memphis Bleek riding shotgun with Jay-Z back on “Reasonable Doubt”, then setting off “Hard Knock Life” over some sick DJ Premier production, releasing a solo album, and subsequently, well, fading away. Why did the right hand man of the arguably the best rapper of the last decade fall so hard and could it be that Jay-Z himself is actually to blame?
With probably the best entrance to the rap game one could ask for, Memphis Bleek was featured on Jay-Z’s first album “Reasonable Doubt” as the corner boy Hov was mentoring on the classic track “Coming of Age”. He proved back then that he had the flow and the swag (before swag existed) to carry himself alongside one of the future greats of rap (even though most assume that Jay wrote his verse). While he was noticeably absent from Jay’s second album, he reappeared on the multi-platinum “Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life” to wake everyone the fuck up on the album’s intro. Along with another couple guest spots on the same album, it was clear that Memphis Bleek had the ability to build a legitimate career in rap, but could he ever step out of the shadow of Jay-Z and in doing so would he ever be accepted as anything more than a sidekick to the greatest rapper of our time?
Following the release of Jay-Z’s highest selling album to date “Hard Knock Life”, Bleek’s debut album was nothing short of a disappointment. So often in hip hop a top notch MC tries to put on his boys (we saw Nelly do this with the St. Lunatics) and so often that weed carrier is nowhere near as good as his mentor, that’s why he’s the weed carrier. “Coming of Age” (the album, strategically named after the song that introduced little Malik Cox to the world) was no different in the eyes of most fans. In fact the only singles that ever gained any ground were featuring other Roc-A-Fella artists, most notably Jay-Z as well as Beanie Sigel. Poor promotion, lazy work, and other factors may have been involved but at the end of the day no one was running to the store looking to scoop up the first Bleek solo album. It did go gold but this was at a time when the economy was booming and just about every rap album would sell at least 250,000 so gold was almost looked at as a failure. Luckily for Bleek he didn’t need solo success since he had the Roc-A-Fella label and Jay to hold him down but one can only imagine that it was difficult being next to the giant and not even coming close to measuring up.
In 2000, shortly after the compilation album “The Dynasty” was released by Jay-Z, Bleek’s next solo album surfaced, “The Understanding”. There could be any number of reasons for this but it doesn’t seem smart to try to jump start someone’s career by piggy backing their release on top of yours (as the Pharrell assisted “I Just Wanna Love U” was topping every chart in the industry and therefore would make Bleek’s album nothing short of completely missed). Few people noticed the growth from the debut and while the album again went gold, it’s assumed that it sold mostly based on Jay-Z’s guest appearances and the Roc-A-Fella label alone. Once again standing next to the giant proved to be a downfall.
A few years went by and Jay-Z released two Blueprints on the hip hop community, featuring all together one verse from Memphis Bleek. It seemed as though Jay was moving further and further away from his protégé, but without setting him up for any real success of his own. The year 2003 would be one of the most important years in rap as we saw Jay-Z retire from rap with his swan song, “The Black Album”. Released one month after was “M.A.D.E.”, the third album from the man who would be king. This was the first truly classic Bleek album. Featuring production from Just Blaze at the height of his game (and Kanye West) and a guest list that most rappers could only dream about (Jay-Z, T.I., Nate Dogg, Trick Daddy, M.O.P., Beanie Sigel and Freeway) the album could easily have been the torch passing from teacher to student if not for being completely overshadowed by the teacher himself. Again it’s hard to understand why Jay would follow up what was clearly going to be a huge record in “The Black Album” only a month later with this Bleek release, and even though there were references to the little man taking the place of the big man, it was as overlooked as any other Bleek album simply because he had already been labeled as nothing more than a weed carrier. It did sell a record 150,000 copies in its first week but never picked up any steam with the various singles and has since been forgotten by most. This was essentially the moment when it was undeniable that Memphis Bleek would never achieve the notoriety and success he deserved.
Two years later we were given “534”, a lazy and wasted album thrown together in the midst of the Roc-A-Fella split between Jay-Z and Dame Dash. In all honesty the only good track on the entire album was actually a Jay-Z solo called “Dear Summer”. From here we’ve seen Bleek fall into obscurity and while he continues to try to push forward on his own with Get Low Records, making mixtapes and signing artists, seeing him in a Garnier commercial just about sealed the deal for him to become milk carton status in XXL.
What we can take from this man’s career is the fact that no one is good simply because they are co-signed by a legend. At the same time, a legend’s weed carrier isn’t necessarily bad, but getting out of the shadow of the legend is extremely difficult and the artist usually suffers because of it. Would Memphis Bleek have even made a splash if not for Jay-Z extensively promoting him? That’s a question we will never be able to answer but at the end of the day there is no doubt that no one will forget the young dealer on “Coming of Age” and hopefully we never forget how he grew into the beast that slaughtered “Hand it Down”. Go pick up M.A.D.E. and put yourself in that Black Album mindstate again, and enjoy one more Roc-A-Fella masterpiece, and next time you see the name Memphis Bleek on something, an album, a mixtape, a single, don’t just brush it off but instead check it out and see how some sidekicks truly can make great music.
We all remember little Memphis Bleek riding shotgun with Jay-Z back on “Reasonable Doubt”, then setting off “Hard Knock Life” over some sick DJ Premier production, releasing a solo album, and subsequently, well, fading away. Why did the right hand man of the arguably the best rapper of the last decade fall so hard and could it be that Jay-Z himself is actually to blame?
With probably the best entrance to the rap game one could ask for, Memphis Bleek was featured on Jay-Z’s first album “Reasonable Doubt” as the corner boy Hov was mentoring on the classic track “Coming of Age”. He proved back then that he had the flow and the swag (before swag existed) to carry himself alongside one of the future greats of rap (even though most assume that Jay wrote his verse). While he was noticeably absent from Jay’s second album, he reappeared on the multi-platinum “Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life” to wake everyone the fuck up on the album’s intro. Along with another couple guest spots on the same album, it was clear that Memphis Bleek had the ability to build a legitimate career in rap, but could he ever step out of the shadow of Jay-Z and in doing so would he ever be accepted as anything more than a sidekick to the greatest rapper of our time?
Following the release of Jay-Z’s highest selling album to date “Hard Knock Life”, Bleek’s debut album was nothing short of a disappointment. So often in hip hop a top notch MC tries to put on his boys (we saw Nelly do this with the St. Lunatics) and so often that weed carrier is nowhere near as good as his mentor, that’s why he’s the weed carrier. “Coming of Age” (the album, strategically named after the song that introduced little Malik Cox to the world) was no different in the eyes of most fans. In fact the only singles that ever gained any ground were featuring other Roc-A-Fella artists, most notably Jay-Z as well as Beanie Sigel. Poor promotion, lazy work, and other factors may have been involved but at the end of the day no one was running to the store looking to scoop up the first Bleek solo album. It did go gold but this was at a time when the economy was booming and just about every rap album would sell at least 250,000 so gold was almost looked at as a failure. Luckily for Bleek he didn’t need solo success since he had the Roc-A-Fella label and Jay to hold him down but one can only imagine that it was difficult being next to the giant and not even coming close to measuring up.
In 2000, shortly after the compilation album “The Dynasty” was released by Jay-Z, Bleek’s next solo album surfaced, “The Understanding”. There could be any number of reasons for this but it doesn’t seem smart to try to jump start someone’s career by piggy backing their release on top of yours (as the Pharrell assisted “I Just Wanna Love U” was topping every chart in the industry and therefore would make Bleek’s album nothing short of completely missed). Few people noticed the growth from the debut and while the album again went gold, it’s assumed that it sold mostly based on Jay-Z’s guest appearances and the Roc-A-Fella label alone. Once again standing next to the giant proved to be a downfall.
A few years went by and Jay-Z released two Blueprints on the hip hop community, featuring all together one verse from Memphis Bleek. It seemed as though Jay was moving further and further away from his protégé, but without setting him up for any real success of his own. The year 2003 would be one of the most important years in rap as we saw Jay-Z retire from rap with his swan song, “The Black Album”. Released one month after was “M.A.D.E.”, the third album from the man who would be king. This was the first truly classic Bleek album. Featuring production from Just Blaze at the height of his game (and Kanye West) and a guest list that most rappers could only dream about (Jay-Z, T.I., Nate Dogg, Trick Daddy, M.O.P., Beanie Sigel and Freeway) the album could easily have been the torch passing from teacher to student if not for being completely overshadowed by the teacher himself. Again it’s hard to understand why Jay would follow up what was clearly going to be a huge record in “The Black Album” only a month later with this Bleek release, and even though there were references to the little man taking the place of the big man, it was as overlooked as any other Bleek album simply because he had already been labeled as nothing more than a weed carrier. It did sell a record 150,000 copies in its first week but never picked up any steam with the various singles and has since been forgotten by most. This was essentially the moment when it was undeniable that Memphis Bleek would never achieve the notoriety and success he deserved.
Two years later we were given “534”, a lazy and wasted album thrown together in the midst of the Roc-A-Fella split between Jay-Z and Dame Dash. In all honesty the only good track on the entire album was actually a Jay-Z solo called “Dear Summer”. From here we’ve seen Bleek fall into obscurity and while he continues to try to push forward on his own with Get Low Records, making mixtapes and signing artists, seeing him in a Garnier commercial just about sealed the deal for him to become milk carton status in XXL.
What we can take from this man’s career is the fact that no one is good simply because they are co-signed by a legend. At the same time, a legend’s weed carrier isn’t necessarily bad, but getting out of the shadow of the legend is extremely difficult and the artist usually suffers because of it. Would Memphis Bleek have even made a splash if not for Jay-Z extensively promoting him? That’s a question we will never be able to answer but at the end of the day there is no doubt that no one will forget the young dealer on “Coming of Age” and hopefully we never forget how he grew into the beast that slaughtered “Hand it Down”. Go pick up M.A.D.E. and put yourself in that Black Album mindstate again, and enjoy one more Roc-A-Fella masterpiece, and next time you see the name Memphis Bleek on something, an album, a mixtape, a single, don’t just brush it off but instead check it out and see how some sidekicks truly can make great music.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Why Slaughterhouse is good for Hip Hop
Almost a year ago rapper Joe Budden put together 4 MCs on a track called “Slaughterhouse”. The idea behind this track was to get some of the most lyrical MCs all lacing a beat with 24 bars, back to back to back to back with no hook. The result was an epic track that was nothing short of a serious lyrical exercise. From that track (minus Nino Bless) the group Slaughterhouse was born. Consisting of Joe the Jersey native, Joell Ortiz from Brooklyn, Royce Da 5’9” from Detroit and Crooked I from Long Beach, this supergroup was really the first of its kind, something that 10 years ago before the boom of the internet could never really be imagined. This was 4 MC’s from different parts of the country all coming together on a song, which then turned into a few more songs (Onslaught, Wack MC’s, Move On). The closest thing we’d ever seen to this was the Four Horsemen group a few years back consisting of Canibus, Kurupt, Killah Priest and Ras Kass. That group, while getting together for a couple tracks, never really got that stability to make an entire album. Where that group left off, Slaughterhouse picked up, completing the idea of four top notch MCs forming a Symphony-like supergroup. For a number of reasons, this formation has been a huge boost for hip hop at a time when rumbles of the “death” of rap are still being spoken by fans and artists. For months there was a buzz about this group and when the decision to make an album finally happened the buzz picked up, gaining more and more ground in the hip hop community. Would the album be a solidified classic, or would these 4 minds clash in the process of recording an entire record? Would the result be an actual group album or a bunch of thrown together verses from four different MCs? We got lucky with this one…..
This first thing this collaboration shows is how hip hop is really about peace and love and not violence. These 4 MC’s came together for the love of rap regardless of where they are from. There is no bickering about east coast/west coast and the only “battling” of sorts is really between these 4 MC’s to all top one another. In fact these dudes have openly admitted that the competition to be the best has been a part of recording which is good for everyone involved, the MCs being on their best game and the fans receiving the hottest verses these guys can come up with. We also get the sense that these MCs really like each other and really have that chemistry that you can only hope for when such great talent comes together. The Lakers of 04 looked to be the best team ever assembled on paper but on the court they couldn’t put it together, something the Slaughterhouse crew has had no problem with at all. They are essentially the Pistons of the same NBA season, as individuals they are good but as a team they are unstoppable and the sum of all the parts is what creates the greatness. While Royce is the “apparent head” of the group, no one MC has been featured more over any other MC and none of them are quick to play the leader role.
This album has the potential to bring lyricism back to the game. Not to say that we’re gonna hear “The One” in the same rotation as the names they drop in the song, but the buzz that this group has generated will at least remind hip hop fans that sometimes a hot hook is not the only thing needed for a hot track. Rather than collapse under the pressure of maintaining lyrical integrity while also making something for the radio, Slaughterhouse has created an album that plays through like any solo artist’s major label release. Shared verses, hot hooks, blazing production, all these elements have combined to make an album as opposed to a bunch of tracks with all 4 MCs on it. Most MCs of this caliber would have made an album that wouldn’t be accessible by the majority of hip hop fans. Not to say it wouldn’t have been good but with this much verbal ability usually a couple issues arise. The first is always production. Artists get so concerned with making the hottest verses that they fail to put as much time and effort into getting the best beats possible for the project and sacrifice a hot song by using a boring beat. The other flaw is typically the desire to create such incredible bars that the double entendres and punchlines are overdone and therefore aren’t noticed or aren’t understood by the majority of listeners. So for the average listener it goes way over their head and they get bored and turn it off. Neither of these flaws were apparent in an album fueled by brilliant punchlines, simple and advanced, and blazing hot production. Putting aside the greatness of the group themselves, this is a solid album.
Slaughterhouse has brought back an idea gone from rap for years now, a group. There hasn’t been a rap “group” on the edge of the mainstream in quite some time now. Little Brother is about as close as it gets to a popular rap group and even they have lived in the underground with only producer 9th Wonder (now gone from the group) getting any real type of shine. In the age where a solo artist has guests on every track, Slaughterhouse has brought back the idea that more heads are better than one and that rap superstar status is not only achieved through being a solo artist with a hit single. In fact what really makes this interesting is the fact that all 4 of these artists have tried and arguably failed at making legitimate solo careers. Crooked I has been shunned since the Death Row days, Joell Ortiz was Rakim-ed from Aftermath, Joe Budden has been the victim of industry bullshit since before he even dropped his first album and Royce has failed to ever live up to the shadow in his life that is Eminem. Rather than be bitter and die out like 99% of rappers in their situations (each of the original Four Horsemen being perfect examples) they have become stronger as a group. Hip hop’s early days saw the Treacherous Three, the Furious Five, N.W.A, Three Times Dope and Stetsasonic. The Native Tongues, Wu-Tang Clan and Naughty By Nature, as well as many others, all brought that group element to the genre and were better because of it (obviously some of these groups produced legitimate solo careers for some members but for every solo artist, the group was the origin and undeniably the reason for the solo career success). Nowadays it’s about which artist is hot, MIMS, Drake, Soulja Boy, Fabolous, Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West, all these solo artists have created hot music but the energy rises when you have that group effort with that group dynamic and more minds than one working on a project.
Finally Slaughterhouse has given us hope for the future of hip hop. They lit a match and sparked the game back up in a time when everyone is complaining about auto-tune and skinny jeans. When the hottest tracks on the radio are nothing more than a hook with artificial singing and a lazy 2-word-a-line rap verse these four MCs have knocked down the walls of manufactured music and created a soundscape that any and all hip hop fans can appreciate. Whether you’re a backpacker who needs “Microphone” and “Lyrical Murderers” to remind you that darts are still the name of the game or a casual fan who can get into party tracks like “The One” and “Not Tonight”, the Slaughterhouse crew and their debut album gives every fan of hip hop something to bump and a reason to be happy about hip hop in 2009.
This first thing this collaboration shows is how hip hop is really about peace and love and not violence. These 4 MC’s came together for the love of rap regardless of where they are from. There is no bickering about east coast/west coast and the only “battling” of sorts is really between these 4 MC’s to all top one another. In fact these dudes have openly admitted that the competition to be the best has been a part of recording which is good for everyone involved, the MCs being on their best game and the fans receiving the hottest verses these guys can come up with. We also get the sense that these MCs really like each other and really have that chemistry that you can only hope for when such great talent comes together. The Lakers of 04 looked to be the best team ever assembled on paper but on the court they couldn’t put it together, something the Slaughterhouse crew has had no problem with at all. They are essentially the Pistons of the same NBA season, as individuals they are good but as a team they are unstoppable and the sum of all the parts is what creates the greatness. While Royce is the “apparent head” of the group, no one MC has been featured more over any other MC and none of them are quick to play the leader role.
This album has the potential to bring lyricism back to the game. Not to say that we’re gonna hear “The One” in the same rotation as the names they drop in the song, but the buzz that this group has generated will at least remind hip hop fans that sometimes a hot hook is not the only thing needed for a hot track. Rather than collapse under the pressure of maintaining lyrical integrity while also making something for the radio, Slaughterhouse has created an album that plays through like any solo artist’s major label release. Shared verses, hot hooks, blazing production, all these elements have combined to make an album as opposed to a bunch of tracks with all 4 MCs on it. Most MCs of this caliber would have made an album that wouldn’t be accessible by the majority of hip hop fans. Not to say it wouldn’t have been good but with this much verbal ability usually a couple issues arise. The first is always production. Artists get so concerned with making the hottest verses that they fail to put as much time and effort into getting the best beats possible for the project and sacrifice a hot song by using a boring beat. The other flaw is typically the desire to create such incredible bars that the double entendres and punchlines are overdone and therefore aren’t noticed or aren’t understood by the majority of listeners. So for the average listener it goes way over their head and they get bored and turn it off. Neither of these flaws were apparent in an album fueled by brilliant punchlines, simple and advanced, and blazing hot production. Putting aside the greatness of the group themselves, this is a solid album.
Slaughterhouse has brought back an idea gone from rap for years now, a group. There hasn’t been a rap “group” on the edge of the mainstream in quite some time now. Little Brother is about as close as it gets to a popular rap group and even they have lived in the underground with only producer 9th Wonder (now gone from the group) getting any real type of shine. In the age where a solo artist has guests on every track, Slaughterhouse has brought back the idea that more heads are better than one and that rap superstar status is not only achieved through being a solo artist with a hit single. In fact what really makes this interesting is the fact that all 4 of these artists have tried and arguably failed at making legitimate solo careers. Crooked I has been shunned since the Death Row days, Joell Ortiz was Rakim-ed from Aftermath, Joe Budden has been the victim of industry bullshit since before he even dropped his first album and Royce has failed to ever live up to the shadow in his life that is Eminem. Rather than be bitter and die out like 99% of rappers in their situations (each of the original Four Horsemen being perfect examples) they have become stronger as a group. Hip hop’s early days saw the Treacherous Three, the Furious Five, N.W.A, Three Times Dope and Stetsasonic. The Native Tongues, Wu-Tang Clan and Naughty By Nature, as well as many others, all brought that group element to the genre and were better because of it (obviously some of these groups produced legitimate solo careers for some members but for every solo artist, the group was the origin and undeniably the reason for the solo career success). Nowadays it’s about which artist is hot, MIMS, Drake, Soulja Boy, Fabolous, Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West, all these solo artists have created hot music but the energy rises when you have that group effort with that group dynamic and more minds than one working on a project.
Finally Slaughterhouse has given us hope for the future of hip hop. They lit a match and sparked the game back up in a time when everyone is complaining about auto-tune and skinny jeans. When the hottest tracks on the radio are nothing more than a hook with artificial singing and a lazy 2-word-a-line rap verse these four MCs have knocked down the walls of manufactured music and created a soundscape that any and all hip hop fans can appreciate. Whether you’re a backpacker who needs “Microphone” and “Lyrical Murderers” to remind you that darts are still the name of the game or a casual fan who can get into party tracks like “The One” and “Not Tonight”, the Slaughterhouse crew and their debut album gives every fan of hip hop something to bump and a reason to be happy about hip hop in 2009.
Monday, August 10, 2009
We Care Too Much
By this time everyone in the hip hop community is aware of an altercation that took place this weekend between Joe Budden and Wu-Tang’s Raekwon. This history of this situation, in short is as follows: Joe says Method Man ain’t as good as Vibe ranked him, the Wu-Tang gets pissed and rallies around Meth, Deck releases a diss track, Joe says “no comment”, then proceeds to comment all over the situation, deads it with a video apologizing to Meth but leaves open the idea that he will retaliate to anyone else who wants to talk shit. Enter Saturday afternoon.
Now as one of the few hundred people who was watching Budden’s live stream I’ll be the first to say that it was clear that Raekwon meant business when he walked up in that room. It was also clear that Joe was straight up shook when Rae sat down and starting asking questions and making accusations. What happened after that is all speculation since the feed cut out but when Joe came back it was clear he had taken a shot to the eye. Joe then proceeded to call the incident a “faggot move” and has since been absent from his usual daily video blogging.
In the hip hop world, beef is as essential as beats and rhymes it seems. However what used to be lyrical beefs, two MCs battling for control of the microphone at a block party, has become two egos battling for control of the public perception and fighting to maintain their status as being “real”. And while hip hop has certainly seen its share of physical beatdowns (KRS-One catapulting PM Dawn the fuck off stage), the internet age has allowed us to see, with our own eyes, while in the confines of our safe homes, the confrontations and subsequent beat downs of these artists. There are some lessons to be learned from this incident.
1. When you talk some shit, you better be able to back it up. Joe Budden has consistently throughout his career defined himself as the anti-rapper, the MC who is “real” simply by not subscribing to the “gangsta” image of rappers so prevalent and necessary to maintaining stability. The results of this are 3,000 records sold instead of 30,000 or 300,000. You can’t blame the guy for not faking, but at the same time dude has spoken some pretty harsh words regarding many subjects and artists in the game. In fact if people reacted to “Who Killed Hip Hop” the way they reacted to “How To Rob” then every single MC, past and present, would be calling for Budden’s head. At the end of the day though most rappers have realized that what is spoken on record stays on record, although most rappers aren’t talking as much shit as Joe Budden. This guy consistently gets on his live stream and discusses his opinions of other rappers, of rap in general, and of all the bullshit surrounding the entire genre, and has openly challenged any and all rappers to come at him if they wanna battle. The problem is that his bark is much worse than his bite, and this incident proves just that.
2. Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta Fuck Wit. This isn’t the first time in which a Wu-Tang member has been involved in an altercation, remember years back when a journalist had his ass beat for writing a bad article? You got a group of 9 (R.I.P. Dirt) mafuckas who came in the game swingin’ and haven’t forgotten who they are. While Joe Budden is a rapper’s rapper, an aspiring MC since youth, a writer and an artist, and a huge fan in general. The Wu-Tang Clan is a collective group of mafuckas who put in their work and just happened to be sick with the mic as well. The backgrounds of Wu members differ immensely from the background of Joe Budden. Hip Hop helped Wu-Tang escape the street life, for Joe Budden hip hop is a life he chose simply because of his love for it. That means, at the end of the day, that Wu-Tang will handle shit the way they been handling it and the way they grew up handling it, which is to say they will smack a mafucka upside the head if he’s talking shit. Joe Budden will also handle shit the way he been handling shit, by making a diss track and talking all types of shit. The lesson here is “know your competition”, something Joe Budden clearly failed to do before going at an entire group of serious mafuckas.
3. We as fans have need to check ourselves. I’ll be the first to admit that watching the pot boil was exciting. Between Rae’s demeanor and Joe’s shookness, I could tell we were in for something good, but what exactly is good about one rapper smacking up another rapper? Aren’t rappers a minority anyway? Aren’t rappers always being hated on by everyone else including media, parents groups, politicians, and just about anyone who isn’t a diehard fan of the genre? Why make it worse by a)infighting when our image is already bad and b)giving those groups more fire to rage against us. Battles are the lifeblood of hip hop but it’s LYRICAL battles we are supposed to be excited about, not physical altercations that further the stereotype of “violent gangsta rap” that Bill O’Reilly gets off on reporting. This shit ain’t a reality show, it’s fucking reality, and at the end of the day the fans are too excited about seeing a mafucka get his dome split (myself included) when we should be saying “hey, chill the fuck out”.
Now as more and more facts come out (and hopefully the IceWaterTV video of the whole incident) I’m sure we will get more information regarding while this whole incident took place but between the hip hop sites and the online buzz, this altercation is getting some serious attention and many of the people involved in the discussion are placing far too much emphasis on the hilariousness of Joe Budden getting punched in the eye (@mousebuddenseye on twitter says it all). Instead of laughing at how a rapper best known for being angry and bitter while having one hit 5 years ago, let’s take two things from the situation.
1. We don’t know these mafuckas like we think we do. It’s one thing to be a fan but to these people it’s real life. If someone talks some shit about Wu-Tang, the Wu-Tang members gonna take issue and they WILL back up their words with actions. They’ve never been a “words-only” type of group and this incident proved once and for all that they are as “real” as it gets (I hate when people use that word but it fits here). We can headphone it up all day getting lost in the street tales and imagery we’re fed by the Wu but we gotta remember that a lot of what they spit is taken directly from their eyes and ears, and if we actually think about that while listening, we’ll realize that these dudes have seen some shit that none of us would ever wanna be around.
2. Shameless discussion of these incidents will only further the problem. Yes it’s funny to laugh at Joey’s eye or the authority with which Raekwon stormed up in the room and ran shit, but this is not a good look for hip hop and it isn’t good for anyone involved. Even though the Wu proved once again that they ain’t to be fucked with, and even though Joe proved once and for all that he is all talk, this could have escalated past the point of an ice water banada and a black eye and we should all be happy it ended when it did. Violence is inevitable when dealing with people who have had to resort to it in their lives, but as outsiders we shouldn’t be voyeurs to this kind of behavior and celebrate it, because none of us would want to be in that situation.
My prediction is that Joe Budden’s career is essentially over. It was bad enough when he was “that Pump It Up guy”, then he became that “angry bitter pissed off Pump It Up guy” but now he’s in the same boat as Yung Berg and Drake and The Game as nothing more than a joke, a novelty, “that rapper who got punched in the eye”. He hasn’t had a single since Pump It Up, has sold maybe 10 copies of his last 14 albums combined and recently has been known as the “Internet Blog Rapper best known for showing off his wife’s ass”. The list of labels for dude has gotten worse and worse over time. This is most likely the nail in the coffin, and we’re the ones putting it there by subscribing to the idea that rap beefs are supposed to escalate to this. Keep it real.
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