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REASONABLE DOUBT: a critical round-up of the week's hip hop headlines
It may be a holiday, but that doesn't mean we've given RUSSELL MYRIE the day off. He puts his chin in his right hand, leans his head to one side and asks the question we always seem to be asking about the rap headlines of the past seven days: "Is this sh*t for real?"
Published: April 10, 2009
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Damian Marley and Nas
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| Photo © Paul Hampartsoumian |
First and foremost, rest in peace to Anthony Depula, aka Tony D, the funkiest Italian-American in hip hop [you checked in with DJ Muggs about that? - Ed]. Depula died in a car accident in New Jersey last weekend. Even though he's produced classics like YZ's Thinking of a Master Plan, he's perhaps best known for his work with Jersey's Poor Righteous Teachers. His untimely passing made me dig out my Pure Poverty and Black Business albums. Songs like Easy Star, Black Business and the killer Lick Shots are all good reasons for hip hop heads to pay their proper respect. I don't have their first joint Holy Intellect (with Time to Say Peace) but there were hits on that too back in the days. [There certainly were - Ed, listening to Can I Start This?, Rock Dis Funky Joint and Strictly Ghetto.]
Bishop Lamont is still on Aftermath. Or is he? Whether he is or not, he has mad skills and is in an important position to unify the left-coast boom bappers with the more gangstafied cats. One person who's definitely on Aftermath (or, at any rate, on the Aftermath offshoot Shady) is Eminem, whose new video hit the internet this week. The best of his first-single vids so far are probably The Real Slim Shady (the bit where homegirl bites on the saliva-enhanced onion ring will always make you think twice about being rude to fast food employees) and Without Me (Osama bin Laden doing the running man was too funny). The clip for We Made You has its moments too: Dre as black Captain Kirk is hilarious, ditto the Jessica Simpsons, Kim Kardashians and Sarah Palins. Is the tune any good? It could well be a grower, but I bet there's much, much better stuff on the album. Who would have expected Mosh when they first heard Just Lose It?
Three M.O.P. albums in the next year? God is good. The Foundation, the first in the proposed trilogy, is set to drop in June on E1 Records, formerly Koch Music. DJ Premier - producer of Downtown Swinga and many more - is the executive producer so all seems to be in place. But wait - what happened to that G-Unit deal? If initial reports are to believed, 50 Cent is still gonna get paid on their new stuff. Was a Diddy-and-The-Lox type clause inserted into their release forms? It's possible. On the other hand, 50 must have shelled out large when the Brownsville bombers signed to G-Unit in June 2005. So maybe, just maybe, for once in hip hop, everyone's happy. It's been nine years since Ante Up troubled the pop charts and even though there's been a steady flow of internet joints and even the odd side-project since then, their return is well overdue. Why the hiatus? Look no further than Take a Minute from their St. Marxman project: "They wonder why they don't get enough M.O.P.?" rhymes Lil' Fame, "Simple and plain, we don't kiss ass. Fuck it!" They've never been the type to play those industry games.
Mos Def has always been a confident dude on the low. Well, not really on the low, but just not on some OTT rah-rah shit. Is that about to change? That video of him, albeit kinda jokingly, challenging Jigga, 'Ye, Weezy and Beanie Siegel to a good old-fashioned rap battle is kinda interesting to say the least. Maybe he knows his forthcoming album is a killer. The only reason that this seems at all strange is because he's challenging people who are at the top of the game commercially. They all have skills but can they go rhyme-for-rhyme with the man who used to hold down the Lyricist Lounge? Will they even have the guts to accept the challenge? It ain't like some mixtape rapper is trying to get his weight up by talking shit for the sake of it - Mos has put years in the game: UTD's My Kung Fu dropped in like '95, people. Mos versus Jigga would truly be something for the ages. Beans is obviously very capable of giving him a very good run for his money - he's one of the few street cats who's also truly super-lyrical. Weezy's been rapping since he was about two years old and as he don't write shit 'cos he ain't got time - you don't wanna bet against him going off the top of the dome. 'Ye, with the most amount of respect, may not be an emcee's emcee but his elevated position in the game would allow him to talk some shit to Mos. To be fair though, I think that's the one I can see Kweli's best friend handling with not too much fuss. Kanye may have a different kind of battle with the makers of South Park to handle anyway. But you know who would really give him a run for his money? The one cat Mos didn't say nothing about: Common. Common is battle-tested against some of the best in the game and is also one of the few who regularly injects freestyle sessions into his live shows. But props to Mos for even getting the idea of rhyme battles back into people's heads. Even if nothing actually happens. Which it won't.
Best news of the week by far is the official unveiling of the collaboration album between Nas and Damian Marley. The album, set to arrive around June, is to be called Distant Relatives (a reference to the fact that, as Peter Tosh once said, if you're black you're African originally). It looks set to be one of the albums of the year, and should provide plenty of food for thought and talking points. Anyone who heard the Nas-blessed Road to Zion from Junior Gong's modern classic Welcome to Jamrock should be excited. Apparently, portions of the album's profits will go to (as yet unspecified) African charities, so there's even more reason to support when it lands in stores. Of course, if you're from the UK you've been used to these kind of link-ups since Asher D and Daddy Freddy's Raggamuffin Hip-Hop in the late '80s, but that's an argument for another day.
In other Nas and Damian news, the 2009 Rock the Bells line-up has just been announced and the pair are set to top the bill. It's also great to see Rza and Raekwon among the headliners - and you know other Wu members are gonna turn up too. KRS-ONE, The Roots (Black Thought is capable of causing Mos a few worries in the dance if they battled too, now I think about it), a reunited House of Pain, M.O.P. and Reflection Eternal complete a line-up that's massive in all senses of the word. If you can reach, make sure you reach!
If you missed last week's news, catch up HERE.
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