mixtape maestro (2.0)

At one point we would have been more than happy to hear every rapper possible be featured on endless remixes of Consequence’s “Whatever You Want” because the track was just…that…good. Two mixes later though, we gotta admit that that idea has lost much of it’s appeal.

Most of that weariness arises from the fact that this much-anticipated third “Whatever” installment (a Bad Boy Remix, hyping the reunion of Diddy and once-again-protégées The LOX) completely fumbles at re-creating the fun-loving air of it’s predecessors.

We get that the street-toughened LOX never settled comfortably with the glittery suits/ money flashing/ ’80’s-pop sampling goings-on that framed Bad Boy’s late ’90’s heyday (that was the whole point of them leaving the label in the first place, right?), but you would think that given this second (Third? Fourth?) chance had a career re-ignition, the boys would sound a little more inspired than they do here.

Instead, they come across like they lost some sort of bet and were forced to appear here, contributing oh-so-bored verses about living the lavish life that make being wealthy feel as entertaining as clipping your toenails. Even Diddy, King of the Monotone Mic Presence, reads fatigued, sleep-walking his way through “throw your hands in the air” hype-man orders as if distracted by the thoughts of the hundred and one other things he’d rather be doing at the moment.

What’s the point of being excited about a LOX/ Diddy reconciliation if all the members involved still sound as disinterested in the situation as they did before the split up?

DL: “Whatever U Want (Bad Boy Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized bad boy records, consequence, diddy, east coast rap, posse cut, remix, the lox

Minus a praise-worthy hip hop spin on 9-to-5 recession-depression, the timely “(I Hate) My Job”, and, to a lesser extent, his middle verse cameo appearance on Clipse’ “Popular Demand (Popeye’s)”, the anticipated return of one-time East Coast rap kingpin Cam’ron from a mysterious self-imposed hiatus really didn’t become the game-changing/ career-revitalizing 2009 event most assumed it would.

Yeah, Crime Pays, Cam’s latest studio release, may have shown that the rapper was in no danger of losing his stranglehold position as one of the most absurd spitters in the game, but marred by too many goofy couplets that lacked much of his previous spark, on-the-cheap beats, and the very noticeable absence of his former Dipset peeps, the album was just such a far-cry from the critical and commercial heights of 2002’s Come Home With Me or 2004’s Purple Haze, that it mostly left one wondering why Cam didn’t simply just drop it as the stop-gap, mixtape-only set it most felt like, a “inching my way back into the game” collection preceding the release of a real, big-budget and A-list-aligned comeback affair.

Recently leaked “Ooh Baby” only strengthens our frustration with Cam’s current incarnation. From a distant perspective it’s gets everything right, working like a brand new take on his 2002 crossover smash “Oh Boy” by nicely pairing Cam with a younger, hungrier protogee/ soundalike (Harlem emcee Vado) and boasting a fetchingly looped chipmunk-ed soul sample (The Temprees’ 1972 doo-wop-ish ballad “Dedicated To The One I Love”) for the boys to playfully interact with.

But a closer listen reveals how much of a poor imitation it really is: Producer Araab Musik fumbles in smoothly transitioning the sample in between verses; Vado is good, but lacks the eased, humorous swagger of Cam’s old sidekick, Juelz Santana; and Cam sleepwalks his way through two largely lackluster verses.

In terms of repeated listenability, “Ooh Baby” easily ranks as one of the better offerings Cam’ron has given us in a year of mostly meandering, C-rated duds, but it’s hard-to-ignore shortcomings prove that the man still has a ways to go if he’s hoping to make a triumphant return bid to his previous beloved status.

DL: “Ooh Baby” (alt)

Uncategorized araab musik, cam'ron, east coast rap, soul sample, vado

“Whatever U Want”, the first single off of Queens rapper/ Q-Tip cousin/ G.O.O.D. Music signee Consequence’s upcoming sophomore album Cons TV, leaked waaay back in the Summer, but somehow we had never come across it until we were flipping through cable channels and happened to catch it’s on-the-cheap-looking Hype-directed video (featuring a striking duo of ponytail-whipping Sasha Fierce-wannabes)…and now, we’re more than a little bummed that we have arrived so late to the party to gush over such a fantastic track.

Honestly, we could listen to Con and Kanye trade the mic back and forth over “Whatever”’s bubbling electronic drum beat and those seducing synth sounds that mark the end of every four lines over and over without complaint. And the addition of John Legend’s romancing croon and the way the different elements to the production beautifully crash together from the mid-way point on only make the song that much more endlessly addicting.

Can this trio form a supergroup of some sort and release a mixtape, EP or album filled with more tracks like this, please?

Catch the video below, then grab a cool remix from Philly’s DJ Gregg Nyce that slaps the “Whatever U Want” vocals over the “Back To Life” beat.

Whatever U Want by Consequence f Kanye West & John Legend

Consequence | MySpace Video

DL: “Whatever U Want (Nyce Back To Life Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized consequence, dj gregg nyce, east coast rap, john legend, kanye west, new york, philly

Ghostface Killah’s eighth studio album, Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, will be a R&B-inspired affair? Okay, we all nodded, completely confident that if anyone could pull this concept off with exciting results, it would be the man who padded his incredible catalogue with acclaimed “softer” joints like “All That I Got Is You” (with Mary J Blige), “Never Be The Same Again” (featuring Carl Thomas) and his 2006 commercial peak “Back Like That” (guesting Ne-Yo).

But with the arrival of early leaks “Baby” and “She’s A Killer”, two ill-fitting tracks that traded in the classic 70’s soul-washed soundscapes ‘Face has always sounded so good over for Auto-Tuned-enhanced stabs at radio-friendly thug-love rap and “Pop Champagne”-influenced club-hop, Ghostdini was beginning to sound like a bad idea that needed to be scrapped, pronto.

This week though, we were finally able to let out a sigh of relief thanks to the “web premiere” of “Let’s Stop Playin’”, a mid-tempo crush ballad that finds Ghost right where we’d rather have him when he’s getting his mack-flow on: bathed in soothing soul samples (in this case, Marvin Gaye provides the sophisticated beat source) and supported by a classy crooner like John Legend.

The song’s premise: Despite both being committed to other people, Ghost is really feeling a female neighbor in his building of residence, going so far as too memorize her daily schedule and make sure he’s around when she gets off from work at six to help her upstairs with the groceries because the elevator’s broken. Even when she’s had it out with her man and is giving him the cold shoulder, he still can’t help but find her attractive (“But still, you was lookin’ mad cute to me/ With your lips poked out being rude to me”).

The second verse is the one that completely seals “Playin’”’s status as a solid favorite though, with Ghostface masterfully juggling another dazzling lyrical display of his revered humor and storytelling skills as he scripts out a fantasy sex scene set in a laundromat with him and his dream girl getting buckwild amidst spilled Clorox bleach and scattered Bounce sheets.

Now this is the “soft”-mode Iron Man we know and love.

Ghostdini drops September 29th.

DL: “Let’s Stop Playin’” (alt)

Uncategorized east coast rap, ghostface killah, john legend, marvin gaye, sex-rap, soul sample

“Welcome to the future”, Jay-Z intros on the latest (ho-hum) Blueprint 3 pre-leak.

And by ‘future’, he means an era where having a “high yellow broad” and a “best white mate” named “Chris” (Martin) and not wasting dough on “making it rain” or rocking rims, Timbs or ‘Cris puts him a cut above the rest. Oh, and slightly generic Timbaland shuffles will rock the clubs while promising “future” mic hopefuls are disappointingly reduced to only hook cameos.

Sssiiiiggghhhh. Something’s definitely not right when the Black Eyed Peas corny glimpse into what will be hot tomorrow sounds more appealing.

DL: “Off That” (alt)

Uncategorized drake, east coast rap, jay-z, the blueprint 3, timbaland

After letting Jigga’s A-list-assisted “Run This Town” marinate in our brains for nearly a month now, and after finally seeing the entirety of it’s long-teased, “What in the ‘California Love’/ ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ Hell?”-themed accompanying video clip, we have now decided to officially stick with our initial reaction of the record: It’s…just…okay.

Since busting out of his retirement all those years ago, Jay has built a steadily growing catalogue of records (both as lead and as guest star) that puff up a lot of hype simply via his attached name, but just as soon fail to merit much long-lasting appeal beyond their highly-anticipated release. We should have gotten used to this anti-climactic routine long ago, but what can we say, he’s arguably the G (Living Emcee). O. A. T. and we long to hear him justify that honor over and over.

More so than a lot of other material in recent memory though, high hopes had fallen on “Run This Town” (who could deny that exciting title, or the sheer collective weight of the top-of-the-game artists upon it?), so it’s only more of a shame that, in the end, it lands as just another meh notch in Jay’s increasingly dissapointing belt.

Atop producers Kanye and No I.D.’s dramatically buzzing electric guitar sting and heavy-thudding drum march rumble, Jay and Ri-Ri commit performances that remain boringly on par with their previously well-established artistic angles. His raps are admittedly slick but carrying little “hip hop head” value, offering more eye-roll-inducing references to his bulging bank account and knowledge of high fashion folk; she continues to be the fiercest dead-eyed yodeller around in a chorus that feels twice as long with all of it’s non-catchy, street-anthem self-seriousness.

Kanye is the only one to really make this cut worthwhile, which comes as no surprise given the fact that well…he’s Kanye, and that he’s proven to be good at making these joyless, un-dance-able hip hop arrangements crackle like any other major Hot 97 banger in the past (remember “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”?). His ending verse overflows with the wit and imagination severely lacking everywhere else here, from the opening “Joe Blow/ no homo” couplet on down, which, in our heads, brings about many burning questions, like:

A) Wouldn’t it have been smarter if his verse have been placed second, to help keep cats from switching this one off early, as we assume most have by now since “Town” began infiltrating radio?

B) After hearing West’s portion, didn’t Jay feel a need to upgrade his own parts?

C) Why couldn’t Kanye have just kept this one for himself, given us an added entertaining verse and just reduced Jigga’s role to a single sixteen?

Like everyone else, we’ll still be first in line (or, more likely in 2009, on-line) to cop The Blueprint 3 when it arrives (besides, we can’t miss that Drake feature!!!), but, and we SWEAR by this, if this ends up another “one-listen-than-quit-and-wait-for-all-the-other-rappers-to-rock-it’s-instrumentals-right” affair, we’ll have to…have to…hell, sit around and wait for the next Jay-Z project to drop so we can get all overly excited all over again. Damn you Jay!!!

Pre-order Blueprint 3 here.

Uncategorized east coast rap, jay-z, kanye west, no i.d., rihanna, the blueprint 3

This remix to Fabolous & The-Dream’s excellent collabo “Throw It In The Bag” may not carry the same overwhelming sense of ideal summertime material as the original, but it still has a lot going for it:

1: The beat’s sped-up sampling of The-Dream’s “Fancy” is downright mesmerizing.

2: Featured guest Drake pulls off another solid verse, cleverly flipping Fab’s sugar daddy concept to narrate the benefits of romancing a woman who’s wealthy off a divorce settlement and “probably old enough to be my momma’s friend”. All he asks is that he never comes face-to-face with her 26-year-old son, cause he saw a pic of him and “that nigga look cra-a-a-zy”.

And 3: Fab makes us giggle oh-so-hard every damn time with this winning third verse line: “So money ain’t a thing/ Jay-Z, JD/ Like Jay-Z lady, it’s Beyonceing”. Get it? “Beyond saying”? Oh, you witty rapper you.

Loso’s Way drops July 28th.

DL: “Throw It In The Bag (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized drake, east coast rap, fabolous, remix, the-dream

The minute MIMS‘ uber-smash introduction “This Is Why I’m Hot” made it’s way to the top of the Pop singles chart and started being goofily mimicked by all of thirty-something-plus suburbia, the NYC newcomer’s status seemed to quickly morph from promising rap newcomer to one-hit wonder punchline.

Apparently, though, MIMS isn’t ready to simply fall off the edge of memory or be this decade’s version of Skee-Lo, making an enticing return with a record that makes a better case in proving (rather than endlessly stating) why he’s, indeed, “hot”.

“Move (If You Wanna)” is the first official single from his upcoming Guilt, and it’s a stunner, immediately awakening the senses with it’s minimalist bass and snare rumblings and a soft/ loud vocal gimmick reminiscent of Busta Rhyme’s “Touch It”.

With crosshairs fixed on the much-targeted anonymous “hater”, MIMS riddles out an uzi spray of tough talk one-liners (Sample: “Get you Biz-Marked up, turn you into vapors/ If you got a problem, get you swallowed like a chaser”) to get boots shaking. And while none of them really make strides in believably defining him as an intimidating force, their simplistic, Rhyming-101 attacks against the trash-can banging production do enough to draw your undivided attention, helping re-establish the once-dismissed idea that this cat might actually have some staying power.

Guilt is set for an April 7th release.

Uncategorized east coast rap, mims, new york

There are plenty of excitingly strange going-ons throughout Brooklyn alt-hip hop-ster Theophilus London’s amazing new set, This Charming Mixtape (download it for FREE here). The way he is able to jump from trance-soul to drum n bass to street-centric hip hop to rock-rap spaz-outs and damn near effortlessly succeed in all of them; the way he plays fan-boy to certain records like “Ain’t No Sunshine” or Lauryn Hill’s beloved cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”, letting huge chunks of them play out before sprinkling them with a bit of his personal flavor; the very random outro that finds him shower singing along to the “O Happy Day” performance from Sister Act 2.

But perhaps the mixtape’s most stupefying moment arrives with “Always Love You”, a cut based on Whitney Houston’s syllable-stretching diva staple “I Will Always Love You”. After opening with a screwed-voiced London answering back Whit’s a capella goodbye (“Get yer ass outta here,” he growls), a choppy dance beat drops, slicing-and-dicing Houston’s endless hook as Theo stutters his way through a bitter kiss-off (“No I ain’t staying with you/ I ain’t playing with you/ Six feet under homie/ See where the playing get you?”).

A genius re-take on a song we thought we never wanted to hear from again, it’s entry alone gets London Mixtape Maestro’s vote as one artist everybody needs to get familiar with.

DL: “Always Love You” (alt)

Uncategorized '90's, alt-hip hop, east coast rap, mixtape, soul sample, theophilous london, whitney houston

Still highly-missed rap icon Notorious BIG is paid tribute to yet again on “Letter To B.I.G.”, a recently unearthed cut from Jadakiss (featuring the golden-hued vocals of one-time Mrs. Biggie Smalls, Faith Evans) that sees the LOX member updating his late labelmate to the going-ons since his passing over a decade ago.

An intriguing tune steeped in such intimacy that you feel slightly rude for listening in, Jada’s signature de-animated flow stirs up all kinds of blue feelings inside as he peppers the “letter” with details of the sadly fragmented current status of Junior M.A.F.I.A (“I ain’t heard from Cease in a minute…”) and moving reveals of how BIG’s offspring have turned out (“Teyana so pretty/ CJ turned into Lil’ Biggie/ Just a little lighter, but so witty”), all upon a sleepy R&B backdrop

Probably the most striking portion of his extended verse, though, is when he begins talking of how uninspired the hip hop scene has become since Biggie’s passing: “Game has got cheaper/ And rappers is more commercially successful now, but the heart’s a lot weaker”. Sentiment more than a few of us could agree on.

From the soundtrack to the highly anticipated 2009 biopic, Notorious.

DL: “Letter To B.I.G” (alt)

Uncategorized east coast rap, faith evans, jadakiss, notorious big