mixtape maestro (2.0)

Kinda making us feel a lil’ guilty for not putting more thought into the lame card and flowers we eventually copped (well, scrambled at the last minute to get) for our Maternal Ones on Mother’s Day, long-running West Coast Rapper To Watch (and Class of 2010 XXL Freshman) Jay Rock gifted his Mom’s last weekend by paying tribute to her in song for the holiday (Okay, we’re a week late…so what).

Rocking atop a slick sampling of, what else, The Intruders’ 1973 Gamble & Huff-produced classic “I’ll Always Love My Momma”, Rock’s “Love My Momma” is a touching one, tracking the gruff-voiced rapper’s undying admiration for his mother from birth (“After the doctors, the nurses wiped me off/ Your touch so soft/ I could feel the warmth of your heart through the cloth”) and childhood (“The teachers didn’t believe in me/ My Momma said the world needed me”), all the way through to his present-day adult-hood.

Expect Rock’s long-pushed back debut Follow Me Home sometime later this year.

DL: “Love My Momma” (alt)

BONUS DL: Jay Rock featuring The Game, Gorilla Zoe, Busta Rhymes, Lil’ Wayne & Will.i.am “All My Life (Remix)” (alt)

2007 promised big things for Atlanta rapper Gorilla Zoe.

Brought into the Boyz N The Hood unit to replace prized-member-turned-solo-star Young Jeezy, Zoe had the good luck to be featured on two back-to-back third-quarter ’07 releases: BNTH’s sophomore album, Back Up N Da Chevy, and his own solo debut, Welcome To The Zoo. But beyond his initially intriguing Jeezy sound-alike-ness and the briefly popular, club-and-street-hugged bouncer that was “Hood Nigga”, neither album managed to make much of a lasting commercial mark.

It looked like Zoe was going to soon fade away into the ever-overcrowded sea of faceless rap entities…that is, until he began to pique some major interest with last fall’s gruffily sung (!!) “Lost”, a bleak, Drumma Boy-produced slow-crawler that saw him teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown.

Managing to become a modest hit, “Lost” re-sparked Zoe’s buzz, leading to wonders of how, or if, this slightly intriguing “new sound” would further be manifested on his forthcoming second LP, Don’t Feed Da Animals. Apparently, by the sounds of Animals‘ latest leakage “Echo”, it seems “Lost” was no one-off fluke away from his typical dope-boy musings.

An Auto-Tuned-favoring (yeah, he’s singing again) kiss-off that could easily be mistaken for an Akon or Sean Kingston number if it wasn’t for Zoe’s deep shower croon, “Echo” is definitely the rapper’s most pop-leaning track yet. Swirly, new wave-y synths apply a sleek, 80′s sheen behind mocking taunts towards an old girlfriend. “You did this to yourself/ Now you’re all by your self/ Acting like you hate me/ All because you ain’t me,” he smirks, pushing the knife in only deeper with the further ridiculing hook: “I’m gone and all you hear is your own damn echo/…No one to hear you/ There’s nobody near you”.

Ultimately, despite “Echo”‘s needing of a bit more polish, Zoe shows here that he has to know-how to craft a decent enough Top 40 hit on par with other “rappa-ternt-sanga” entries from Kanye West and T.I.; it’s listenable and deserving of a sing-along or head nod or two. But it’s also a bit disappointing to see him jump from the darkish slant of “Lost” to super-radio-friendly Flo-Rida material so fast. It would have been nice to have a bit more edge injected (maybe a break into a straight-forward rap, or at least a guttural “uh” intro) to keep it from being so blatantly mainstream sounding and serve a stronger connection to his previous material.

You can listen to the original here, but below, peep and snatch up the slightly superior remix to “Echo” featuring none other than Diddy. Is it sad that Mixtape Maestro wishes the roles were reversed and Diddy was given more of a prominent position, with Zoe just relegated to hook and bridge duties?

DL: “Echo (Remix)” (alt)