Metal Lungies

Just came across this, first you had the original, then you had a version with a Biggie verse, now Lupe get’s on the track riding the drums damn near perfectly. Emily told me herself in Bmore during Artscpae that she is glad that the album is finally droppin on August 28th.

Download: Emily King Ft. Lupe Fiasco-Walk In My Shoes

You thought chapter 16 didn’t offer much? With chapter 17 it looks like they are really starting to streeeeeeeeetch it out. We don’t even have much thoughts.

• Sylvester is going to joint GLAAD fo sho.
• Thank god Twan didn’t forget his velour jacket, otherwise even considering starting a fire with the jacket still inside would be plain silly.

Here is a highly disappointed PD:

Chapter 17:
Why was Sylvester going to shoot them if he didn’t like it?
There is absolutely no lyrical flow to this chapter…in fact, there are hardly any lyrics at all in this chapter so far…wait, that’s it? WTF? That’s not a chapter, that’s a paragraph.

“‘Shalom’ is ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in Hebrew, right? Yeah, that pretty much sums up your career.” — Colin Quinn (not verbatim, but close enough), to someone at the Artie Lange Roast on The Howard Stern Show

… pretty much sums up my blogging career, as well.

On August 20th (Monday), I will start my first year of law school. So, needless to say, my presence at ML will be missing for a while. Will it be missed? Well, I guess that’s for y’all to decide. I’ll still drop by every now and again for the occasional Beat Drop (Hi-Tek’s is up for those that might not have seen it — Lethal’s been a one-man-blog-man lately), or whenever something gets me in a posting sort of mood. But, if I attempt to stay current with the daily goings-on of the hip hop world and balance that out with a time-consuming law school schedule, I’ll most certainly fail miserably in both areas — I’d be behind in class work, and you’d be reading my reviews of the Curtis and Graduation sometime in 2008 (assuming their release dates don’t change anymore).

So, in closing, I’ll see y’all when I see y’all. ML for life, ’til the casket dips and the death certificate reads, “Cause of Death: Iodine poisoning from eating so many shrimp.”

Easy,

Buhizzle

P.S. As one last goodbye-for-now, peep my guest post on Souled On (complete with MP3s if you’re not up for the long read).

Wow, After all that Chapter 16 is sort of a letdown. Here’s hoping its like a slow 24 episode that just leads up to a lot of crazy shit, because this chapter didn’t do much.

• It looks like Twan doesn’t cause  high blood pressure, but rather some pimping smacking turrets syndrome spinoff  to kick in.
• Sylvester is a good life coach.
• Will Sylvester’s cigarette start an inferno?

Of course here is PD:

Chapter 16:
 Roxanne says, (sound)
 Tina busting out the twitchy eye…not exactly Oscar-worthy.
 I don’t have any idea where this whole epic is going right now. I mean, I never really did, but now? Even less.
 A pimp hit her in the eye and that made her develop a nervous condition? You sure that’s not a physical condition, Roxanne?
 Within 20 seconds, Twan is convinced to leave the streets behind and start a new life with Tina. But then Roxanne drops the bombshell.
 This was probably, no, definitely, the worst chapter in the whole series so far. I hope R. starts stepping his game up after this. If it’s just going to be this kind of ongoing argument, I might as well go watch Maury.

Hate it or love it the MTV VMA’s are still the best award show in town (at least for us, sorry VIBE award fans). They know how to market a show as best as anyone as evidence in the pic above. They hooked up with a Dave LaChappelle for a series of photos to promote the show, and having a history of being big on Rihanna’s pop prowess (looks aren’t too bad either) we had to post. Kanye also shot a set of photos (we’ll share those when we get em).That we can definitely guarantee won’t be modest. Speaking of Kanye, we kinda want the Justice video to win video of the year just to see what he’ll do, both videos are dope.  In the end how can you hate on an institution that brought together 50+Vivica, Nas + Kelis, Snoop+ 2 randoms.

The VMA’s air live on 9/9/07 @ 9pm.

As promised! First watch Chapter 15 here. THEN read:

• Looks like the n-bombs are gonna start dropping like shit in WWII from here on out.
• Seems like Twan didn’t enjoy his 3 years huh? You’d think based on his physique, pause, that he would be running shit in jail? We need elaboration on his jail bid.
• Sending people to the moon is a threat? Aren’t people like Lance Bass (nh) willing to pay like gazillion money for that?
• Where does the skillet disappear to by the end of the chapter??
• Green screen scenes are just jaw-dropping.
• R. Kelly kinda read our mind after this chapter we too were going “Yeah. Yeah” in a serious tone.
• Oh yeah, is Twon wearing a knockoff Cubs hat? That shit doesn’t look like New Era fitted. Wearing a hat to match your outfit that’s NOT a New Era is urban fashion suicide.

PD’s Take:

Chapter 15:
Twan makes a Laverne and Shirley reference. That was unexpected.
“Bitch, don’t ‘Hey Twan’ me.”
Twan is rough, man.
“Then what? THEN WHAT?”
I don’t understand the issues with Tina and Roxanne at this point.
“Reckless endangerment.”
THE HELICOPTER! Bwaahaha.
I’m relatively sure the one cop is Principal Onyx Blackman from “Strangers with Candy.”
Oh shit. The saga just keeps dropping bombs. Twan was going to be Tina’s baby daddy. Or maybe…he is? Where’s the baby? Dammit, don’t keep me waiting another day!

With all due respect to Company Flow and their ’97 debut Funcrusher Plus, it was really Rawkus Records’ 2nd album release, ’98’s Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, that propelled the label to global prominence. Its 2 commercially-released videos, “Definition” and “Respiration” featuring Common, got occasional Rap City airplay in the midst of the dominant “shiny suit” videos of that time. But, these videos didn’t need to be viewed much more than once to stay with you. Black Star showed the world that “underground” rap, “conscious” rap, “backpack” rap, or whatever label you want to place on it, wasn’t something to shun and be afraid of — it could actually be pretty dope. And furthermore, it showed that the MCs didn’t need boring production in order to get their points across — the beats could also be dope. Enter Hi-Tek (producer of 6 of Black Star‘s 13 tracks).

The name of the game for Hi-Tek is “versatility”. It’s difficult to pinpoint a production “style” for him, because he employs so many so well. It’s the best explanation for how one Tony Cottrell out of Cincinnati could go from lending beats mainly to Talib Kweli (as one-half of Black Star with Mos Def, or as one-half of the group that Tek co-anchors, Reflection Eternal, which is the closest thing to a “new” Gang Starr hip hop has seen thus far), to working as a staff producer for Aftermath Entertainment, where he has worked on the majority of G-Unit’s releases, as well as participated in the making of Detox (that is, assuming Detox actually exists and/or will exist). It also explains how his Hi-Teknology albums’ guest lists grew from mainly Rawkus-signed artists and local Cincinnati MCs in 2001, to including the likes of Nas, Jadakiss, Ghostface, and Bun B on his 2006 follow-up.

Your friend and ours, Marco Polo, is back in the cut like Neosporin this time around (if you haven’t yet, peep his contributions to the forthcoming Boot Camp Clik album here).

Read the rest of this entry »

The good word on the Wu-Tang just keeps on rolling in. According to  pitchfork (via spinemagazine), Wu-Tang is going to use the Beatles track While My Guitar Gently Weeps on 8 Diagrams. With George Harrison’s son and John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on instruments on the track to boot! We can’t wait to hear this, you got a sample of what to expect a few years back when Ghostface straight up murdered an obscure cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. You gotta think it was Ghost’s idea to make such a track happen with all of the Wu involved… sheer genius. The Ghost track was a ML approved classic, now add the whole clan to that formula and we might have broken repeat buttons on our Sony Walkmans.

Dear God-8 Diagrams CANNOT disappoint.

I’ve re-upped the original Ghostface track for all you people late to the game.

Download: Ghostface-My Guitar.

Over the Years Ashanti (more her producer Irv Gotti) has ripped the beats off a good many classic rap tracks for her songs. Now, I know a lot of other artists do this too. But Ashanti does it a lot. A lot. Some examples.

Ashanti- Foolish:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAPOtmqio1k&eurl=[/youtube]

Notorious B.I.G. (One More Chance Remix):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHDRkO_UmXY&eurl=[/youtube]

Thats kind of an easy one. Lets Step it Up.

Ashanti- Baby:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMI2d4HaFRQ&eurl=[/youtube]

Scarface- Mary Jane:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB5hZUvNiVk&eurl=[/youtube]

Damn! She even jacked the video!!!! Wow. Lets Move on….

Ashanti- Rain on Me:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfXN9JCiv-M&eurl=[/youtube]

Jay-Z- Can I Live:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7MJ8l73SQ&eurl=[/youtube]

I mention those because Irv Gotti produced both songs. Back when he produced Can I Live he was known as DJ Irv. They both sample The Look of Love by Isaac Hayes. Moving on…..

Ashanti feat. Black Child- Breakup 2 Makeup (Remix):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIjWo24wZe8&eurl=[/youtube]

Notorious B.I.G.- Dreams (Just Playin’):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4cYoDVRB9E&eurl=[/youtube]

That Ashanti video kinda started out like the Video for the Flava in Ya Ear Remix. I didn’t think you could make a sucessful RnB song with a song about raping RnB singers. And you can’t. Moving on…

Ashanti Feat. Paul Wall and Method Man- Still on It:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ity9YwE_QQI&eurl=[/youtube]

Masta Ace Inc.- Born To Roll:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjxBPZfvEdE&eurl=[/youtube]

I gotta thank MTV Jams for that last one. I knew that Ashanti song was taking a great old song, but it was on the tip of my tounge. They played these back to back and it was awesome.

So thats it for now. But Ashanti is working on a new album and that means there is plenty of room for some throwback beats.

No hate though. I would have never been listening to Masta Ace Inc. after all these years if it wasn’t for her.

Good news for people who like to wear clothing — friend-of-ML and occasional commenter Peace Justice Universal (a.k.a. DJ Eurok) is selling t-shirts with the name of his blog/record label/movement, Upset The Setup, on the front in an ill design. And, if you’re not all that interested in “upsetting the setup”, the shirt also doubles as a means of showing your love for Gang Starr’s Moment Of Truth (“We grow wise…”).

Available in black-on-gray or white-on-black, only $15, and the shipping’s free. Check the above links, and PJ’s MySpace, for more details.