Metal Lungies

There were a lot of great guest verses this year, but this would have to be my favourite. Three Stacks & Snoop both guest on Devin the Dude’s “What A Job” off his excellent album Waiting To Inhale, but Dre kills it.

Peep it:

Andre 3000:

We work nights, we some vampires
Niggas gather round the beat like a campfire
Singin’ folk songs, but not no Kumbaya my Lord
You download it for free, we get charged back for it
I know you’re saying, they won’t know they won’t miss it
Besides, I ain’t a thief, they won’t pay me a visit
So if I come to your job, take your corn on the cob
And take a couple kernels off it that would be alright with you
Hell no! Yeah, exactamundo
But we just keep recording and it ain’t to get no condo
And Candy Bentley fanny with no panties in Miami
And that cute lil’ chick named Tammy that you took to the Grammys
See we do it for that boi that graduated
That looked you in your eyes real tough and said ‘preciate it
And that he wouldn’ta made it if it wasn’t for your CD number 9
And he’s standing with his baby momma Kiki and she cryin’ talkin’ bout
That they used to get high to me in high school
And they used to make love to me in college
Then they told me ’bout they first date, listenin’ to my tunes
And how he, like to finger nail polish
I say hate to cut you off but I gotta go
I wish you could tell me mo’ but I’m off to the studio, gotta write tonight
Hey, can you put us in your raps? I don’t see why not.

“What A Job”-Devin the Dude ft.Andre 3000 & Snoop Dogg

“International Player’s Anthem” definitely up there too, obviously.

What would be your picks for verse/guest verse of the year? Let us know in the comments!

Well the numbers are in from the “The Day” and…well, we were wrong with a part of our prediction (Wyclef charting highest of the debuts) and right (Ghost not charting highest). Not surprisingly, half of the original  list got pushed back/shelved.

17      SCARFACE          M.A.D.E                          62,901                           63,084 26     DJ DRAMA           GANGSTA GRILLZ           48,738                      48,848 28     WYCLEF JEAN       CARNIVAL 2                 46,397                            46,519

Ghostface= #41 @ 35,563 &  Styles P= #52 @ 28,518

In general, outside of Scarface surprisingly doing the best out of all the debuts, these numbers are sobering. By the way, none of those compilations charted it looks like.

Numbers from HipHopDx.

You won’t find amazing lyricism here, but you will find a group just having fun who don’t take themselves too seriously. The reason I’m posting this is you gotta check the flossing of the mario kart tattoo  and lines like “I play bitches like sega” “You know what WII can do”.

A little something from Stones Throw to warm your hearth in this cold season. Badd Santa is a dope compilation of really bizarre and great Christmas (and a little Kwanzaa) music, from reggae to Miami bass.

Here’s a sweet little promo ST made for the album.

You can check it out here. There’s a nice mix of the Badd Santa songs available through the Stones Throw Podcast too, mixed by label head Peanut Butter Wolf.

For all my fellow Heebs celebrating the last night of Channukah tonight: Fatlace Magazine hipped me to Shady Records head Paul Rosenberg’s annual Hannukah Radio show on Shade 45 on Sirius Satellite Radio, with special guests DJ AM, actor Jonah Hill (Superbad kicks ass) & Marky Ramone of the Ramones! Takes a while to load but it’s worth it.

There’s a second set of shows available at Rosenberg’s blog, Paul Rosenberg.For those celebrating Kwanzaa, I think you already know.

Bonus mix for the season: A DJ Yoda exclusive mini-mix from Fatlace Magazine (who are killing shit right now). Act like you know.

Rebel INS is often looked to as the lead-off hitter for the Wu — “Protect Ya Neck”, “Triumph”, and “The Jump Off” were all set in motion by a verse from him. Here at ML, we think differently…

… so we’re closing out our countdown with Inspectah Deck. 8 Diagrams in stores today, just in case you forgot.

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Bone Thugs-N-Harmony appeared on Life After Death, and had a 2Pac guest spot on their Art Of War LP. Too Short appeared on Life After Death also, and rapped along side 2Pac on Ant Banks’ album. Redman appeared with Biggie on the classic posse cut “The Points”, and also appeared on “Got My Mind Made Up” on Pac’s All Eyez On Me LP. The point of all of this?

Method Man is only* MC to appear on a non-posthumous (no Duets nonsense) Biggie album — “The What” off Ready To Die — and a non-posthumous (no Pac’s Life bullshit) 2Pac album — the aforementioned “Got My Mind Made Up”. Wrap your mind around that.

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LA-based rapper Blu (here pictured with Detroit rapper/producer Ta’araach) is going places. His collabo with Detroit producer Exile, Below The Heavens, is probably my favourite hip-hop album of ’07. It’s gotten accolades all over, from HipHopDX to Okayplayer, where it’s been nominated for three Okayplayer awards, including Album of the Year.

Exile’s productions are super soulful, reminiscent of Pete Rock or Jay Dee in places. And Blu raps about stuff everyone can relate to, from girl troubles to working blue collar jobs for a little cash. And dude sounds hungry on the mic. I’ve got high hopes for this cat.

I’ve embedded a video for one of my favourite tracks off the album, So(ul) Amazing, below:

BTW, you can stream the whole record off Blu’s MySpace too.

And he’s got more stuff coming down the pipe for ’08. I got tipped off by one of my favourite blogs, When They Reminisce, about another Blu album, this time with producer Mainframe. Together they are Johnson & Johnson, and they’ve got a full-length LP on the way, at the moment set to drop in April ’08. From what I’ve heard from the record on their MySpace, the album’s got a more quirky sound to it (I’ve heard it compared to Madvillainy by some people and the comparison holds up). I like what I’ve heard so far.

Here’s a video they put together for their song Bout It Bout It (No Master P):

The other project Blu is working on for ’08 is an album as C.R.A.C. Knuckles, which is him and Detroit producer/rapper Ta’araach (pictured above). Not too much info on this album yet, but you can listen to some songs on their MySpace page.

Don’t be surprised if you see Below The Heavens as one of Metal Lungies’ picks for the best of ’07 (our round of 2007 coming soon!)

It’s been awhile since the first instalment with KRS-One and Crazy Town but seeing this song on a blog was what inspired me to start this feature.

This time around, Slim Thug is paired with former Disney teenybopper Hilary Duff for a remix of her song, "With Love".

I can’t vouch for what the original sounds like (honest!) but the remix puts Slim over a synthy beat with hard drums. His verse isn’t AWFUL or anything; it’s just very generic.

But what really detracts from the quality here is that he’s rapping on a FUCKING HILARY DUFF song. I ain’t heard of that!

Anyway, here’s a video of the song with the remix dubbed over. Prepare to be weirded out.

SOHH has brilliantly got Tony Starks to guest blog for them. He just filed his 1st entry; here is a sample:

Even if the computer wilds out you can always back that sh*t up on one of them sticks. What’s that sh*t called? I don’t know. Mike (Ghost’s manager) is on it like that.

For some reason we get this feeling that someone maybe “ghosttyping” (no pun intended). We need to look into doing that ourselves around here.

Eskay posted this a few days back but we weren’t in the mood, but regardless, this shows you kids that you don’t need some crazy budget to make a dope video. We highly recommend watching the high quality version over at the directors site, if your internet connect is up to par that is!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s two for this picture (courtesy of David Corio)…

HOLY SHIT!

Today, the RZA-Rector’s all in your sector…

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