Metal Lungies

“I got that white girl, that Lindsay Lohan/
And all you gotta do is ask Lindsay Lohan”

— Lil’ Wayne on USDA’s “White Girl (Remix)” [To all the hip hop purists out there — yes, Wayne did just rhyme Lohan with Lohan. I don’t approve of it, either, but that’s besides the point right now.]

Guess you actually don’t have to ask Lindsay — she’s pretty open about it. Although, she is now claiming that the cocaine in her pocket was not hers, and actually belonged to a “friend”. However, from my understanding of celebrity, famous people have less-famous people carry their drugs, so the person that has Lindsay fucking Lohan carrying their drugs must be pretty damn famous. President Bush, perhaps?

If there’s anything positive to take out of this, I’d say that Lindsay’s mugshot is the cutest picture of her I’ve seen in a while. See, Lindsay — everything happens for a reason!

One of the motivations behind this Beat Drop series we’ve been doing is to try to shine light not only on some of the most highly-touted, but also some of the lesser-known works of hip hop’s most famed beatmakers. For example, most people who know Alchemist for his work with Mobb Deep don’t need to be reminded of how dope “Keep It Thoro” is, but they might not have heard “The Red Light”, the compilation-only track he laced for underground favorites The Smut Peddlers. And everyone knows DJ Premier‘s history with Gang Starr and many of N.Y.’s finest, but some might not have known about the tracks he made with Xzibit (which was rudely thrown on the bonus disc for Man vs. Machine) and Chi Ali (who is better remembered for killing a dude over $20).

In the case of Dr. Dre, however, there aren’t really many “sleeper” picks to choose. Dre’s fame and reputation make it impossible for one of his beats to slip under the radar. If Dre lends his talents to another artist’s album, either you’re going to find out about it through some sort of media outlet, or it’ll end up locked in a vault somewhere between Hittman’s and Rakim’s albums (sorry, had to go there). As for when Dre decides to make an album of his own… how long have we been/will we be waiting for Detox? Unlike Primo, Dre doesn’t really work with artists with less than platinum aspirations (although, in this age of music purchasing, he’ll probably settle for gold). And unlike Alchemist, Dre’s “paying dues” period — whether you consider that to be his World Class Wrecking Cru days, his N.W.A. days, or the early days of Death Row — was fairly publicized. [Granted, Dre was known almost equally known as a rapper back then.]

In a way, Dre is similar to Kobe Bryant, another popular figure in L.A. (assuming Kobe hasn’t been traded by the time this is posted). Dre’s won multiple championships in his sport, and his high self-expectations make anything less than that a disappointment — granted, there’s no real equivalent to a “championship” in hip hop, but if there were, The Chronic, Doggystyle and 2001 would certainly qualify. He expects the talent around him to give nothing less than 110%, sometimes to the point that he unfairly expects that talent to perform on the same level that he himself performs — although, while Kobe can’t kick his less-than-spectacular teammates off of the Lakers, Dre can certainly drop an artist or two (or 10) from Aftermath. And, while some may be critical of the somewhat-unorthodox approach they each take to their respective professions, just like you wouldn’t change the channel when Kobe’s on the verge of dropping 60, you likely wouldn’t fast-forward through a Dre-produced track.

Provided by Lethal, myself, and occasional ML-contributor Hangover Monkey (they tried to make him go to rehab, and he said, “No, no, no.”), here are some of Dre’s works to definitely not fast-forward through…

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For you old school ML readers you may remember one of our more popular posts from the early days. It’s funny if you go back on our old blogger site entry there are still ignorant people commentating! Now I came across this today:

That’s some old Hollywood hag portraying Lionel Ritchie…WTF? His daughter thinks this is a cool/cute idea? What does he think of this? What do YOU think of this?

After seeing the 1st part, you know you wanted to see more…

You know we’ve shown our appreciation for Ali Vegas before, so naturally I’m stoked to be hearing music off of his waaaaaayyyy overdue debut album . I’m hearing the album drops Jan 2008 on Rich Soil (owned by Lamar Odom) via Asylum. Anyways check out the new Ali Vegas:
Mp3 Link.

We continue to get stronger like Kanye. We have hooked up with freelance photographer extraordinaire Tien Mao. Straight out of Brooklyn, Tien will be snapping up the flyest photos of concerts all around NYC (and the world!). We kick it off with some indie rock at the Helio Pool Party.

Band of Horses

The Annuals

Oxford Collapse

For the WHOLE photo set go to the flickr right now.

Here is what Tien had to share about the venue & the party:

The McCarren Park Pool opened in 1936 and was the 8th out of 11 pools built by the WPA. It had a capacity for 6800 swimmers, but was closed in 1984. After years of being shuttered, the pool was used again in 2005 for a dance performance and then in 2006 for concerts and special events. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarren_Park)

At the Pool Parties, the organizers have areas set up for dodgeball, slip n slide, and volleyball, the later two perfect for yesterday’s warm weather. While there were plenty of people that were standing in front of the stage for the show (most people seemed to be there for Band of Horses, the headliner), many others were content to sit or lay on their blankets in their swimsuits farther away from the stage.

Here are the remaining dates for the Helio Pool Parties;

JULY 29
TV ON THE RADIO
Celebration
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

AUGUST 5
BLONDE REDHEAD
I’m From Barcelona
The Coydogs
The Rub

AUGUST 12
TED LEO + THE PHARMACISTS
The Thermals
Birds of Avalon
DJ sets by Craig Finn (THE HOLD STEADY)

AUGUST 19
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY
Yacht (Jonah of The Blow)
The Rub plus special guests

To RSVP for the shows hit up Going. For more info on the concert series beam up the official site. Also, be sure to bookmark Tienmao.com to keep with his day to day photography.

David Beckham made big news earlier this year when he signed his 5-year, $250-million contract to leave Real Madrid and join the L.A. Galaxy of the States’ Major League Soccer, which, contrary to previously-popular belief, still exists. Though the money may make it seem otherwise, it’s quite a bold move on Beckham’s part — attempting to revive popularity in a sport that hasn’t seemed to matter since Brandi Chastain showed us all her sports-bra back in ’99. He’s off to a pretty good start, considering how heavily publicized his MLS “debut” was this past Saturday, where his 10+ minutes of jogging along the sidelines was more impressive than his 10+ minutes actually in the game. [Granted, he did have an injured ankle and realistically didn’t have to play.]

Current Knick point guard Stephon Marbury, if you believe a word he says (and he did once say that he was “the best point guard” in the NBA), is following suit, as he recently announced that he plans to play in Italy once his current contract in New York expires, describing it as a “Beckham thing”.

It’s nice to see athletes take such pride in their professions, and, in a sense, themselves, that they would relocate to a new country and take it upon themselves to try and make an impact in that country’s culture. With hip hop music being so competitive here in the U.S., you’d figure maybe a rapper might try to do the same — not just touring to different countries, but to go live somewhere for a while, work with the local artists, help create a scene for hip hop music, and (if all goes well) be praised for starting something.

I present a few suggestions after the jump. And, by the way, don’t take this to mean that I’d like to see these artists shipped out of the U.S. for lack of enjoying their music. I’m actually a fan of these guys well, some of these guys — the last guy in particular I’m not too fond of.

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All you ML readers from the west west might get a semi-chuckle out of this…

Taking the train to work, a girl in her early 20s was talking very loudly and I couldn’t help but hear a discussion going on about a friend taking a public bus somehwere in LA:

Girl: A bus in LA ??!

Guy: Yea…

Girl: Why would you take a bus in LA? or even the metro? We are on the metro here [in DC] cause traffic is so bad. But in LA? There is no taking the metro, there is no taking the bus, with the roads so open you drive your car!

The girl was geniunely annoyed that someone wouldn’t want to drive in LA. It was hard to keep a straight face as she stood next to me.

Please alert the authorities, ML is eavesdropping!

Here at ML, if 50 Cent didn’t do so many interviews, we’d have nothing to talk about. In this batch of outtakes from his interview in the latest issue of XXL, 50 attributes Nas’ book smarts to the fact opinion that Nas is “not hot right now” and has lost his “initial audience.”

Granted, Hip Hop Is Dead didn’t break any records with its sales, but it has been certified gold, which is more than can be said for a lot of hip hop releases in recent memory. Considering how much record sales have declined in hip hop, and that Illmatic is platinum only once over, I’d say that Nas has actually done a pretty good job of keeping his “initial” fanbase in tact — if Nas has lost anyone, it’s the people who jumped aboard after he did “Hate Me Now” with Puffy and “You Owe Me” with Ginuwine, and, if anything, that was dead weight to be lost. And as far as Nas not being hot right now, it’s true that he doesn’t have a single that’s getting hourly burn on the radio at the moment, but I wouldn’t say it’s from lack of effort — has Nas really been trying to make a radio-friendly single in past couple years? Meanwhile, 50, by my count, is 0-for-his-last-3 in “hot” singles (“Amusement Park”, “Straight To The Bank”, “I Get Money”), and Curtis has twice changed release dates as a result.

Hearing 50 say that Nas is losing his audience, and thinking back to Hip Hop Is Dead at the same time, 2 particular tracks stick out in my mind — “Who Killed It?”, which had Nas on some Dick Tracy shit, and “Blunt Ashes”. I’d say that the latter track, with its different-sounding production (provided by Chris Webber of all people) and Nas’ off-kilter flow, was largely hit-or-miss with fans. But, if you can get past those things, Nas’ lyrics on “Blunt Ashes” are a great listen — he sheds light on some of the mysterious deaths of musicians of the past who have been influential to not just hip hop, but all music in general.

I picked a couple of choice rhymes from “Blunt Ashes” and broke down in greater detail what Nas is talking about. I figure that if 50 is right and Nas is losing fans, the least I could do is try to win back some who may have been confused by the song, on Nas’ behalf. Of course, this shit ain’t rocket science — 30 minutes of Wikipedia and Google searches provided me with all of the information I’m about to share — but a lot of these details were new to me, so I can only assume they’d be new to others as well. Enjoy.

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