mixtape maestro (2.0)

If Kanye calls you out as having the potential to be the second G.O.A.T. (behind Eminem, of course), best believe when he calls upon you to bless one of his tracks, the “it” better be brought.

So with that said, it’s no surprise that Nicki Minaj would attempt to drop the best verse of her still young career on the much-talked-about Kanye & Friends posse cut joint “Monster” (from the newly announced upcoming West and Jay-Z EP, Watch The Throne); what is shocking, however, is that she would end up making the rest of her brow-raising trackmates (the song rounds together not only ‘Ye, Jigga and, in a laughably brief cameo, the BAWSE, but indie god Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is employed to play hook man) seem completely irrelevant.

Using West’s sludgy fuzz-bounce as her own personal playground, Minaj adopts like seven different voices and three different flow tempos to slice-and-dice those lesser than (“Let me get this straight/ Wait I’m the rookie?/ But my features and my shows ten times your pay?/ 50k for a verse, no album out!”) and teasingly flaunt her maybe-faux/ maybe-not bisexuality (“Besides ‘Ye, they can’t stand besides me/ I think me, you and Am should menage Friday”), in the end, bringing all kinds of truth to her early boast of “Watch the queen conquer”.

Sure, Kanye earns Runner-up Prize with his naughty-clever “sarcophagus”/ “esophagus”/ “swallow-ship” rhyme, but in her wildly animated contribution, Minaj easily steals the show, re-igniting hope that when her Pink Friday solo album does finally drop this November, it’ll feature more of this playfully raw side…

…and less of the questionable bubblegum tendencies that dominate second recent leak “Check It Out”, a will.i.am production/ duet that unnecessarily twists The Buggles’ early days of MTV hit “Video Killed The Radio Star” into a typical BEP electro-hop jam for the Top 40-loving teenybopper crowd (and will likely become one of the biggest, most inescapable, radio hits of the fall season).

Sigh, Minaj. You’re so promising, yet so frustrating.

Kanye West – Monster (feat. Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)

Nicki Minaj & will.i.am – Check It Out

It’s not the New Amerykah Part Two second single we were hoping for (that honor would fall onto the album’s Wings-looping seducer “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long”), but that’s okay: you’d have to be severely deaf not to have some love for official “Window Seat” follow-up “Turn Me Away (Get MuNNY)”, Erykah Badu‘s playfully lightweight update of Sylvia Striplin’s 1981 old-school fave “You Can’t Turn Me Away” (better known to the kids as the sample source to the Junior M.A.F.I.A./ Biggie classic “Get Money”).

Weaving multi-layered Betty Boop-ish chirps in and out the Striplin jam’s familiar rubbery funk and quirky hiccups, Badu sounds like she’s having a ball as she tries on what can be taken as either a prowling gold-digger guise or a satire swipe at artists willing to sell their soul for that almighty dollar (“I look like a model/ I’ll do what I gotta/
To stay in the runnin’/ Cause I want you money”; see…works both ways).

Peep the video, spliced with the Rick Ross-featured remix of “Window Seat”, below:

BONUS DL: Sylvia Striplin “You Can’t Turn Me Away” (alt)

BONUS DL: Junior M.A.F.I.A. feat. Notorious B.I.G. “Get Money” (alt)

It’s obvious that what Ne-Yo was attempting on new single “Beautiful Monster” was a sort-of “to the next level” take on “Closer”, his 2008 dip into Euro-house-meets-R&B sonic templates and obsessions with mysteriously sexy/ spooky seductresses, but wheras “Closer” can come on the radio today and immediately get us all pumped and excited for the near-four minutes of clubby euphoria about to envelop our ears, “Monster” just makes us angry every time we happen to catch it.

Why? Well, for starters, it’s just not all that catchy, with verses that just seem to meander on and on forever, lacking the specific lyrical finesse and melodic hookiness Ne-Yo usually employs so well. Then when the beat FINALLY drops on the chorus we’ve waited eons for, we’re subjected to anti-climactic, and quite awkward, repeatings of this woman being a “beautiful monster” (with nary a wink to GaGa, no less).

All that being said, there is a certain attraction in the hook’s driving dance thump and Ne-Yo’s cycling whines of “I don’t mind/ I don’t-I don’t mind” (which remind us of the similar repetitive aural pleasantness of his #1 mentor Michael Jackson on those otherworldly rounds of “eh-eh-eh-eh” at the tail-end of The Jacksons’ “Show You The Way To Go”), as well as the accompanying video’s Inception-meets-Mortal Kombat visuals, but a few seconds of goodness and a slick, big budget music video does not a great song make.

On the other hand, we can’t get enough of “Champagne Life”, the other single Ne-Yo has chosen to lead off his next album Libra Scale.

Another one of those Ne-Yo tunes seemingly tailor-made for the MJ album he sadly never got to helm (sigh), “Life”‘s ultra-smoove, solo-Pharrell-esque R&B flutterings fit his high-pitched tenor and the lyric’s cheery detailing of “good-life living” (“We don’t even clap the same when we living that champagne life”) like a glove.

Check out the videos for both, as well as a Rick Ross-laced remix of “Champagne” below.

Libra Scale drops September 21st.

DL: Ne-Yo featuring Rick Ross “Champagne Life (Remix)” (alt)

Hoping to finally put to rest all those “Satan-worshipping” conspiracy theories that have sprinkled the World Wide Web for years, Jay-Z pulls off one of his strongest verses in a minute, easily stealing the show as guest star on the Rick Ross/ Teflon Don cut “Free Mason”.

Calling out the rumors as the work of…who else?…haters, Jay sharply rips into his ever-present detractors, his rhymes edged with a seething undertone, though he avoids completely losing his cool: “Hear me clearly/ If y’all niggas fear me/ Just say y’all fear me/ Fuck all these fairy tales/…Bitch I said i was amazing/ Not that I’m-a mason”. Later he boasts: “Bitch I’m red-hot/ I’m on my third six but the Devil I’m not”.

The rest of The Inkredibles-produced “Free Mason” rolls out as pleasantly lush and soulful as most high-profile Rick Ross tracks do, with Boss Rawse serving a strong intro verse/ hook and John Legend helping heighten the tune’s anthemic purposes in all of his skyward wails (“We knew we was born to do itttt”), but it’s no doubt Jay’s contribution that will make this THE highlight of the Teflon Don set, while also once again re-igniting fan hope that the next Jigga album becomes that filler-less Reasonable Doubt/ The Blueprint-type classic they’ve so longed for.

Teflon Don drops July 20th.

(via)

DL: “Free Mason” (alt)

Anxious to pad up his next mixtape, Rick Ross has been on a serious grind in recent weeks, attaching himself to any new R&B/ hip hop track garnering the slightest bit of noise.

For his latest “remix”, Ross injects himself on the front-end of Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat” (at the peak of the single/ video’s courting of controversy), his flow achieving a comfortable fit within the track’s incense-lit listlessness.

Just as long as we don’t get a video of him stripping down to his birthday suit in slow motion on the streets of Miami, we’ll take it.

DL: “Window Seat (Remix)” (alt)

Coming off what many considered 2009′s top R&B release (Love Vs. Money), it’s hard not to be left a little underwhelmed by “Love King”, the first single and title track to The-Dream‘s next (and possibly last) album.

Built atop a floaty, snap-laden midtempo groove perked with candied piano plinks and punctuating “Ey”‘s, the song is nothing more than a cut-and-paste patchwork of the singer/ songwriter/ producer/ “ey”-er’s usual bag o’ musical quirks, this time tied together by a thin concept (The-Dream has tons and tons of chicks at his beck and call) that’s in dire need of much stronger goofball lyricism than “Got girls with weaves/…Girls without it” and “Got girls on my Sprint/ My AT&T/ Got girls on T-Mobile/ Metro if it’s local”.

Yeah, it’s “Shawty Is The Shit”-meets-”Rockin’ That Thing” soundbed is perfect riding-to material, but if The-Dream really wants to finally nab some Grammy nods this time around (we, the people, can only endure so many Twitter rants), he’s going to have to conclude his solo album trilogy on the high note it demands with far better offerings than watered-down regurgitations from the same stylistic template.

Love King drops in May.

DL: “Love King” (alt)

If it’s any consolation though Dream, we’re definitely digging you’re rap verse on this all-star “How Low (Remix)”:

BONUS DL: Ludacris featuring Rick Ross, Twista, The-Dream, Ciara & Pitbull “How Low (Remix)” (alt)

So…did Clipse think that the only reason why folks weren’t all that madly in love over their ill-fitting feel-good summer jam “I’m Good’ was because of their initial lyrical contribution, the video, and the lack of guest stars?

Or that re-releasing the same damn single with the same damn beat and Pharrell-featured hook, but a brand new video clip, a so-so Rick Ross cameo and entirely different lyrics would change people’s minds about the record?

Beyond the nice-to-know FYI that as far as drug dealer code words for cocaine go, Taylor Swift is the “new” Christina Aguilera, the point of giving us an “Im Good 2.0″ that’s just as needless as the original has us perplexed. Why can’t they just do like 50 Cent did when each one of his fifty or so Before I Self Destruct lead singles failed to click with audiences: act like “I”m Good” never happened, and move on with the release of a totally new single?

Though Chrisette Michele is signed to Def Jam, her distinctive jazzy singing style and penchant for recording the types of R&B/ soul records usually found in the vinyl bins made her more of an instant hit with the adult R&B crowd. One critically-acclaimed, Gold-selling debut album (and Grammy win) later, the twenty-five year old is yearning to act more her age, deciding on a more “upbeat and youthful” vibe for the next project.

Thankfully, the first taste of this venture, current single “Epiphany” (from her May-set album of the same name), doesn’t see her awkwardly committing to some disastrous female R&B version of “Stanky Legg”, but teaming up with hit songwriter Ne-Yo for a track that achieves it’s contemporary goals without forcing her to trade away her much-appreciated classiness.

As it’s piano-knocking groove lays out a hypnotizing, midtempo melody, Michelle offers a peak inside an increasingly lop-sided romance. After spending too many nights at home anticipating a ring that never arrives, while waiting on a boyfriend who doesn’t make his way through the door until the sun is peeking over the horizon, Chris has decided she’s had it up to here with him and his heartbreaking ways.

“So I think I’m just about over being your girlfriend/ I’m leaving,” she informs him, matter-of-factly. And that’s that. No revenge-seeking plots of busting up his car or crazed tantrums filled with cuss words and flung dishes. She just casually packs up her belongings, greets him with a smile and a kiss after his return from another one of those mysterious all-nighters (“like nothing ever happened”) and then, without any deviation from her ever-pleasant disposition, breaks off the bad news.

How refreshing to hear a female R&B break-up song delivered without the typical daytime-TV-inspired theatrics. Fingers crossed that it succeeds in establishing her with the young’un set.

Watch the video below, then peep the remix, featuring Rick Ross and Juelz Santana begging for a second chance, afterward.

DL: “Epiphany (Remix)” (alt)

A larger-than-life rap n’ rock hybrid that seemed to be fully aware of it’s future ubiquity from the get-go, Kevin Rudolf‘s “Let It Rock” cemented itself in the brains of millions with the utmost ease; thanks to it’s for-the-arenas fist-pumping air, head-turning Weezy grab and ginormous hooks (not to mention lyrics that apparently drew inspiration from Judas’ betrayal), the track turned the liner-note credit (his guitar skills have earned him spots on joints from Timbaland, Nelly Furtado and David Banner) into a major (at least, for the moment) pop star almost overnight.

So what’s next for the insta-sensation? How about a smart reprisal of what made him so big in the first place.

Like “Rock”, follow-up single “Welcome To The World” is another big, dumb and loud energizer fueled by heavy guitar and squelchy synths that doesn’t really register as coming from a human as it does a computer program based on “What the kids should like” focus group-ed data. Despite that un-attractive description, though, the song soars as a highly enjoyable guilty pleasure for the road.

“World”‘s lyrics may revolve around a woman’s crash down back to Earth after experiencing her fifteen minutes of fame (“So no more time spent/ And no more free shit/ In fact this free ride has reached it’s destination”), but that dour theme never ekes it’s way into the track’s musical display, a celebratory stomp that damn near orders the toes to start tapping. Pair that with the “rock & roll lifestyle” hurrah of featured guest Rick Ross (“I only came to party tonight/ New chicks, get my drinks up/ Every weekend we can link up”) and Rudolf sounds like he’s got another smash on his hands.

Listen to the album version below, then snatch up an alternate take that replaces “The Bawse” with Kid Cudi afterward.

DL: “Welcome To The World (with Kid Cudi)” (alt)

First there was “Maybach Music”, then “Mafia Music”…now “Cigar Music”? Whatever Ricky. We’ll bypass the snaps on song title laziness this time, if only because with this latest theme-tagged entry, we’re getting something other than the “‘Continue To Go Back-And-Forth With Fiddy In An Increasingly Dumb Rap Beef‘ Music” that’s dominated the blog world in recent days.

Unfortunately we’re also quickly reminded with “Cigar Music (I Do It)”, the latest “preview” from his forthcoming Deeper Than Rap, that outside of that on-going rivalry, Officer Ricky (sorry, but it is funny) rarely has anything interesting to say.

To Ross’ credit, the Bink-produced “Cigar Music” (like recent leak “Magnificent”) does sound good: That orchestral soul sample loop it relies on bears a nice cinematic feel and the measured flow he attaches to it is diggable. But the backing production demands something more on a emotionally revealing “Song Cry”-level, not Reason No. 523 why Rick is the “BAUSE”, more yucky visuals of the big-bellied one laying the pipe or a forgettable R&B hook dropped by some anonymous male singer.

This would’ve been the ideal track for him to get Deeper Than (His Usual) Rap and maybe base a song on how you can’t trust baby mamas or give us some meaty lyrics about life as a correctional officer. Instead we get the same ol’, same ol’. “I’m The Down South Nas!”? Not exactly Rick, but we’ll still give this one a couple love spins for the smooth…wait for it…’Background Music’ it is.

DL: “Cigar Music (I Do It)” (alt)