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REASONABLE DOUBT: a critical round- up of the hip hop headlines
He's called RUSSELL MYRIE and he spends all week combing the interweb so that you don't have to. Nice one, cheers
Published: May 22, 2009
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JIGGA: my album's worth how much?
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| Photo © Paul Hampartsoumian |
First off, rest in peace to Dolla. Condolences to his family and friends and the families of anyone else who got taken down in these streets recently. He was only 22! That's just too young. He seemed like he was about to make big moves as well. Initial reports have hinted how it could have been over a girl. Weird how the same sad stories keep repeating themselves time and again.
Damn, Jigga got that extra-long, high-stacked paper. Most rappers exaggerate their wealth ridiculously, but when Jay said "millions ni**a, i got couple hundred them" on the remix to Officer Rawse's Hustlin', he wasn't lying. Being the big dog that he is, Jay-Z has apparently paid Def Jam some serious money to release him from his contractual obligations (recording and presidential) so that he can release Blueprint 3 on his own Roc Nation label. That said, we're still not sure about all those claims about buying his "independence". Didn't he cut a deal with Livenation for 70 mil? Whatever: if initial reports are to be believed, the figure he had to pay to obtain the release matches the number of copies that Vol 2... Hard Knock Life sold, and the important bit is that this suggests that Blueprint 3 is some classic ish: he wouldn't pay all of that money for just anything. It certainly looks like being his best one since The Black Album - and that's not a slight to Kingdom Come. The reception that that album received had a lot to do with people wanting to hear songs like Big Pimpin' and I Just Wanna Love You. Can he live? People who love to gun it off have obviously never listened to joints like Oh My God, Do You Wanna Ride and Dig a Hole. He wasn't gonna stay big pimpin' for ever!
Lupe's always been a bit different and not afraid to follow the path less traveled - check American Terrorist on Food & Liquor. He's one of the only rappers to speak eloquently on the similarities between the ways black people and native Americans have been treated in the land that gave us hamburgers and the prison industrial complex. Anyway, in order to prepare the masses for his third, most likely classic album (The Cool was even better than its predecessor) he has prepared something that is a little like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale's ten point program. Except his manifesto, which he published on his Myspace blog, has four more points. Numbers 3, 11 and 13 seem to share something with the Panthers, but they all make sense. Let's hope at least some of them can be implemented. Just like with Jigga's new stuff, Lasers looks like being some next level ish. Still looking forward to that Child Rebel Soldiers project too.
Joe Budden may wanna reconsider talking out of turn about classic rappers. I said "may"... but he may also feel like he can say what he want when he wants and how he wants. He's definitely a good enough rapper. But Method Man won't even acknowledge that he exists. With that in mind it's good that Redman has stated that the dispute is gonna stay far away from the streets. Who would want a less than happy Gilla House Clique knocking at their door? Not I. Nevertheless, it'd be really interesting to see who would win a war of words between Meth and Tahiry's boyfriend. Neither of them are slouches. Meth obviously has that legendary status and the achievements to match. Away from music, he even starred prominently in The Wire, hip-hop's favourite ever TV drama. But if push came to shove, I can't see Joey just backing down and letting whatever fly over him. Yet Meth doesn't seem to feel like accommodating anybody right now. When he and Red were booked to appear on Jimmy Fallon's show, ?uestlove was kinda disappointed when he found out the Blackout twins had asked to rock over a backing beat instead of rhymin' with The Legendary. Once word of ?uesto's unhappiness got out, Meth said it wasn't nothin', he just doesn't feel he has the voice that can work with a live band. That seems a bit odd - if you're one of the greatest, you should be able to swing off anything, even the string of a harp, right?
So Cam did Jim Jones numbers. Or slightly better than Jim Jones numbers. But he did them independently so that's more dough for him. He probably spent less money on producers and stuff too. The good news is that 'cos neither did excessively better than the other it means that the egos won't be too wounded and they may just rock together again at some point. Not Summer Jam, but at some point. If Erick and Parrish and Nas and Jigga can make up then so can Cam and Jim. The game needs them. Next week's sales figures will be interesting. Em, Busta, Red and Meth and Barack O'Drama drop on the same day. The self-proclaimed Elvis of rap will obviously do massive numbers - he's already predicted to go gold the first week, with 650,000 US sales being the figure bandied about. The Blunt Brothers and Drama will do something respectable. But what about Busta? He's dropping a very, very good album [not according to our reviewer - Ed] to a massive fan base stretching back nearly 20 years. Get out and support, people.
It's good to see Rihanna is putting the, shall we say, unfortunate events behind her. Drake seems to be having all the luck right now. One of the next big things, he was rumoured to be getting all cosy with Barbados' finest in a bowling alley. But Drake has been at pains to deny it, so who knows? One thing's for sure, Rihanna's going to have all eyes and ears on her next album: it's set to be a monster.
Speaking of monsters, anyone who wants that real hip hop can always check Brooklyn's Duck Down records: they've been dropping that real good stuff ever since Who Got Da Props. Anyone else remember when Black Moon debuted that video on Yo! with Fab Five Freddy? Buckshot (Shorty as he was then) with the backpack? Just me? Skyzoo looks set to fulfill the promise seen on mixtapes like Corner Store Classic when he drops his debut album The Salvation in August. Torae and Marco Polo got that good stuff too. But the best news has to be the official inking of Random Axe. Mix two parts Detroit (Guilty Simpson and Black Milk) and one part Brooklyn (Sean Price) and you get some guaranteed classic hip hop. Run from Guilty's Ode to the Ghetto is indicative of what you can expect. Those lines about the reason that your jog turns run need to be heeded.
And what's with this crazy woman going on hunger strike? Do people really love hip hop that much? It seems so: if it was just for the 15 minutes there are much easier ways of achieving that. Crystal King from Greensboro, North Carolina (home of Little Brother!) was so upset that local artists UpRite Lions, Rugged-N-Raw and Josephus III weren't getting their proper shine that she decided to fast for a month to draw attention to their plight. Want to help? Download their tunes (links at Crystal's blog) and, if you're local enough, go to their shows. People funny, eh?
If you missed last week's news, catch up HERE.
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