Metal Lungies

“Mr. Get Silly” is the name of my new hardcore band.

Faith Evans’ relevance to hip-hop and R&B has been cut down to her being one of the original members of the Bad Boy family and her being married to hip-hop’s beloved icon, The Notorious B.I.G. Faith, or (ghost?)writer Aliya S. King, recognizes this and opens the book with the night of Biggie’s death. The prologue sees Faith showing up at a party at Andre Harrell’s house in LA after a Vibe magazine party only to be told by Heavy D, “Faith. Get back in the car. You need to get to the hospital. I think something happened to Big.” Keep the Faith constantly struggles with the fact that most people will read this book because of Faith’s connection to Big and her involvement in a number of scandals and controversies. But that’s not to say that she doesn’t have anything interesting to say.

The earlier parts of Faith’s memoir didn’t interest me much. Maybe it’s because I’m an insensitive young man, but Faith recounting her teenage experiences with her abusive drug-dealer boyfriend and her abortions were just a little too Lifetime movie-ish for me. Put it in an angry rap song and maybe I’ll be more interested. Regardless, these parts are necessary to show who exactly Faith is. An interesting piece of trivia from this part is that Faith grew up around a guy named Reggie who would later become Redman, and they dated too. Faith never goes into detail about their relationship, but Red is attributed this darling little quote: “You need me to fuck somebody up? ‘Cause I’ll fuck a nigga up for you. You know that.”

It’s also interesting to see an artist rise from singing in her church to having a number one song. Faith goes from hanging around the studio with Christopher Williams to working with Al B. Sure to writing songs with Mary J. Blige.

The book’s greatest asset is its priceless depictions of Big and Puff. Big is characterized as being a man of few words with infinite confidence. Faith first met Big at a Bad Boy photo shoot. She was looking through an envelope of pictures from a party when a fat, lazy-eyed  Biggie Smalls sat down next to her and asked, “Can I see your pictures?” Puff on the other hand, comes off as a loud and demanding boss who’s all about the money. Faith tells a story from the early Bad Boy days when some producer made the mistake of saying he had to be somewhere and Puff responded, “Did you just say you needed to get out of here? This nigga just told me he needs to leave. Do y’all believe this shit?” Puff shows a much darker side later when he screams on a mourning Faith to get her to perform “I’ll Be Missing You” with him at the VMAs.

There are plenty of great stories from the Bad Boy days: Faith picking up Usher to go to the studio and having to wait for him to finish his homework, Faith and Big going to Busch Gardens and Faith buying a wedding ring from a man named Jacob who would end up becoming hip-hop’s official provider of shiny things.

And then there’s the scandal. As Faith recalls, she was hanging out at the Hollywood Athletic Club in LA and 2Pac sent Treach from Naughty by Nature over to get them introduced. 2Pac told her he wanted to record a song with her and after she got the go ahead from Big, she agreed. The next night at another party, Pac made sure to be seen with Faith all night. Later, Pac personally picked up Faith from her hotel in a Benz to take her to the studio. Apparently, Faith hadn’t heard that Pac was signed to Death Row and became terrified at this point. Suge Knight came over and gave her a friendly hello and she was asked to record vocals for “Wonda Why They Call U Bitch” which Faith complains “wasn’t really that good.” Sorry Faith, I’m going to respectfully disagree on that one. Faith ends up going to Pac’s hotel to be paid where he tells her “This situation with the money is like this, if I give it to you, then you my bitch.” He also adds, “You know you want to suck my dick, bitch! Don’t fucking lie.” Faith runs away crying and is never paid. Despicable as Pac’s behavior may be, it’s still great to see him using his enemy’s wife for his a scheme and living up to his alias by being truly Machiavellian.

One of the frustrating aspects of Faith’s tell-all memoir is that she stops short of revealing certain details. Names are often withheld and it’s obvious she isn’t telling the whole story. There’s a producer she only refers to as Terry Dollars who she admits to sleeping with a few times who later stiffed her on some money, but for whatever reason Faith won’t give his real name.

Some bias is also evident. Faith makes sure to pull out stories about Big’s mistresses Lil Kim and Charli Baltimore whenever she can. She recalls Charli calling up after Big died and claiming ownership of one of his cars and Ms. Wallace telling Kim she couldn’t come out to LA with her when he died. Early on, Big is seen screaming at Kim, telling her she could easily be replaced by Foxy Brown.

A major problem is that parts are fishy. All too often, Faith portrays herself as the innocent party. So many incidents start off with her saying she had no idea what was going on at the time. Did she really not know that 2Pac was signed to Death Row, the biggest independent label at the time, which was run by a man that is known for beating people down and making a guy drink urine? Did nothing happen between her and Pac despite all the weed and alcohol in the room? Also, it’s impossible that all of the quotes are accurate unless Faith recorded every minute of her life. The fabrications are obvious at times; Faith has an epiphany about her life at Big’s funeral after Mary J. Blige snubs her, which conveniently gives the book a well-placed climax.

It should be noted that Keep the Faith comes before the release of the Notorious B.I.G. biopic, Notorious. Faith is likely trying to tell her own side of the story before the movie comes out and says otherwise.

For the hip-hop head, Keep the Faith may be disappointing because it doesn’t really tell the type of stories that heads like to hear. When it comes to legends, we hip-hoppers like to hear stories about Big going to Pete Rock’s house and asking to watch him make a beat (which actually happened). Faith tells us plenty about the man behind the mic, but not enough about the music. A prime example of this is when Faith goes with Big to D&D Studios where he would record “Unbelievable”. Faith writes that she later learned that Big told Premo that he was going to marry her, which is a cute story, but most would like to hear more about what it was like when the greatest rapper of all time and the greatest producer of all time were in the studio together. Keep the Faith is heavy on drama and isn’t really meant for music lovers.

Exile produces the shit out of this mixtape from Cali’s Blame One. His beats are nonstop retarded and Blame One keeps it moving on the mic. The only thing it’s missing is any kind of cohesion as it’s a compilation of unreleased joints. His album Days Chasing Days drops January 9 and will feature Exile, Blu, Sean Price, Black Milk, ALoe Blacc and more.

1. Mixtape intro. cuts by bizkid
2. Hella Confused prod Adikt one
3. Cali Dreamin Prod. Amiri
4. Ghost Stories Prod Exile
5. Set up. feat Aloe Blacc prod DJ Day
6. Take no Shorts prod. Exile
7. Master the rhyme prod. Mike Castillo
8. Mic Math prod. Exile
9. Change Begin prod. Exile
10. Life Prod. Exile
11. Saloon Tune Prod. Exile
12. Young man feat. Johaz(deep rooted) prod by exile
13. All on the line prod. Exile
14. North County Prod. Exile cut by Blame
15. Once Upon a time prod. Exile
16. Song for Anthony prod. Exile
17. City Slickers feat. Exile prod. Exile
18. Outro feat. symphony and Anthony

Download: Blame One – Raw And Unreleased

via GRANDGOOD

MTV loves LL for MTV promo spots..

VMA’s hosted by Russell Brand air live 9.7.08.

Prediction: everyone will be talking about Britney positively after this years VMA.

To prepare the world for their debut Bored of Education (reminds me of the Reason shirt), which drops 9.2.08, Brooklyn Academy just put out a mixtape, Summer School hosted by DJ Haze.

Tracklisting:

1. Ashes feat. Tools and Mokeout (prod. by Thoro Tracks)
2. Role Call feat. Wordsworth (prod. by Khrysis)
3. Matters feat. Lego (prod. by Unknown)
4. My Life feat. Sha Stimuli (prod. by J. Cardim)
5. Doin’ It ’08 feat. Fresh Jones (prod. by Brady Becklo)
6. Told U feat. Vinnie Paz (prod. by Ruler)
7. Funeral (prod. by Will Tell)
8. Fool’s Gold (prod. by Shuko)
9. Brooklyn Goonery feat. Poison Pen & Blitz (prod. by Etik n Clint)
10. Fiyah feat. Castro (prod. by I See On & Block McCloud)
11. The Last Passion (prod. by Snowgoons)
12. Seven Sins feat. Raw Dawgz & Killah Priest (prod. by Shawnecy)
13. Leaves in Autumn (prod. by Sick Doctor)
14. Park Slope Boys feat. Illzburry Doeboy (prod. Beat Brewers)
15. Bored of Education (prod. by Haze Attacks)
16. Haze Outro

Summer School Mixtape

To celebrate the release of the album Brooklyn Academy is having a party:

Brooklyn Academy release party feat. Jean Grae, Sean Price, Scram Jones, DJ Evil Dee, DJ Eleven, DJ Eclipse, and many more.

Doors: 9:00 PM • $10, $5 with a copy of the album • 21+

Poster after the jump.

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I’m posting lots of videos lately, I know. Courtesy of Pitchfork TV.

Love the clips of Nosferatu integrated into the video.

You & Me is getting a lot of spins lately, I can’t recommend the new record enough. For god’s sake, buy it!

Read DaddyL’s review if you aren’t convinced.

They say you can’t please all of the people, all of the time… maybe so, but you can try to please as many different demographics of people separately, and, if all goes well, you can end up pleasing all of the people bit by bit. That seems to be the approach of up-and-coming Miami MC Benisour (pronounced Ben-eh-swah), and it doesn’t hurt that he’s able to make quality songs of many various styles.

Below are 3 tracks I received by Benisour, who sounds kind of like The Game (with a much lesser degree of name-dropping), and who has already worked with the likes of DJ Khaled (who, as annoying as he may be, does have a lot of pull) and Freeway. One features a hook from Akon (which doesn’t sound like 5 other Akon hooks that are out now… maybe 2), one features a hook from Junior Reid, and, lastly (for the man who has everything), one has a screwed-and-chopped hook.

Download: Benisour – “I Was Wrong (The Grain)” featuring Akon

Download: Benisour – “Shining” featuring Junior Reid (prod. by Blackout Movement)

Download: Benisour – “Rimz Chop”

For more on Benisour’s music — both what’s out now and what’s forthcoming — peep his MySpace page.

Via FSD

I actually dig this record a lot, even though Common isn’t really saying anything. Nor is Scooter P, who sounds silly. DOPE Pharrell beat though. I’m still holding out for the Mr. DJ produced tracks.

Also: does this beat remind anyone of the beat to BIG’s “Dreams”? That opening guitar line always throws me off. I think it might be intentional, judging by the BIG references in the lyrics.

After that Good Charlotte post, some of you maybe confused, but this is still ML. This is a pretty random mixtape I had to post. For some reason Ludacris challenged Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy to a rap battle, then somehow Clinton Sparks got involved and the results is this mixtape..

Citizens FOB Mixtape: Welcome to the New Administration.

Tracklisting:

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Good Charlotte has a lot of haters, I’m not one of them. I have been following their careers since the early days when they were reppin Waldorf, MD to the fullest doing local public access shows in the DMV like MHz. I won’t say I’m their biggest fan, but I have checked out most of the stuff they put out. Lately it looks like the Madden brothers have been putting off being a band, and have started a trend of singing the hooks to various songs. I guess if you can’t get Chris Martin on the hook, you try to get Benji & Joel next? Anyway, check the mp3 flavorings:

Young Dre The Truth Ft. Good Charlotte – Workin

(My favorite; off of Madden (no pun intended) 09)

Bubba Sparxxx Ft. Good Charlotte – I Ain’t Gonna Run

Three 6 Mafia Ft. Good Charlotte – My Own Way

Anyone know what happened to the Good Charlotte & The Game callabo?