Metal Lungies

When does Nas, who’s doing an album with Damian Marley and won’t return DJ Premier’s calls, find the time to do a track with mixtape-slinging J-Love?

Download: J-Love – Desert Eagle Mouth Pieces (ft. Nas)

via The Smoking Section

I just saw a Mr. Mecca video that paid tribute to the vid for “Flava In Ya Ear (Remix)”. Then I remembered this Rappers I Know video with the same concept. I thought it’d be interesting to put these tribute videos side by side with the original. I’m keeping tabs on the featured rappers, hot chicks and rapper cameos in each video.

Let’s start with the OG “Flava In Ya Ear”.

Rappers: Biggie, Craig Mack, Rampage, LL, Busta Rhymes.

Hot chicks in cameos: Keisha Epps, Mary J. Blige.

Rapper cameos: Mad Lion, Puff (rapper status debatable)

Next up, Mr, Mecca’s “Over Here”.

Rappers: Skyzoo, Sha Stimuli, A. Pinks, Torae, Mr. Mecca.

Hot chicks in cameos: Sara Jay (debatable)

Rapper cameos: Emilio Rojas, Esso, Iron Solomon, Poison Pen, Donny Goines, Nina B, Pack FM, Grafh, Sic Osyrus (I didn’t recognize a lot of these cats right away, to be perfectly honest).

And lastly, Rappers I Know ‘s “New Flava”.

Rappers:Synatto Watts, Kay, S.A.V.V.I., Damien, Minus.

Hot chicks in cameos: The fairer sex is totally absent. Alas, it’s an H-Town sausage fest

Rapper cameos: Devin the Dude! Snap rocking a bluetooth. And that’s really all the people I recognize.

Which tribute video do you like better?

This one goes out to all the baby mamas’s mamas…and their mama’s mamas, baby mama’s mamas.

(image source)

2Pac disses everyone and their mom on this unreleased a cappella freestyle. One needs only listen to the first few seconds of “Hit Em Up” (“That’s why I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker”) to realize hip-hop beef has lost its spark. Where have all the angry rappers gone?

Download: 2Pac – War Gamez (ft. The Outlawz)

And here’s two more never-before-heard 2Pac tracks that leaked this week.

Download: 2Pac – If There’s a Cure (I Don’t Want It) (ft. Snoop Dogg)

Download: 2Pac – Welcome 2 Death Row

via Xclusives Zone

According to Drake, this track was originally for Rihanna. And yet, it still goes harder than “Death of Auto-Tune.” So far, Jay hasn’t given us too much to be excited about for Blueprint 3. “Run This Town” is decent and has an edge that was missing from “D.O.A.,” but it’s not the banger Jay-Z’s radio single should be, given his track record and status. Am I the only one can’t listen to this song without hearing the ducks quacking?

Download: Jay-Z – Run This Town (ft. Rihanna, Kanye West)

via RapRadar

(image source) 

This first leaked alongside “Hallelujah” but  I didn’t post it because it had DJ Skee tags. Here’s the untagged version of the feel-good West Coast posse cut. The song is co-produced by the odd combination of the legendary DJ Battlecat (overdue for a Beat Drop) and relative newcomers 1500 or Nothin’ (see “Dope Boys,” Life on Mars). Barbecue something to this.

Download: Bishop Lamont – Nothing Could Be Better (ft. Suga Free, Chevy Jones, Bokey, Butch Cassidy) (produced by DJ Battlecat, 1500 or Nothin’)

EKEK via The Young Kingz Daily 2.0

All these years later, the classic Wu-Tang cut continues to inspire.

When you cross hip-hop and Legos, magic tends to happen.

Nore took a page out of Cudi’s book with this one, but still sounds like good ol’ Nore. Off S.O.R.E. (Still On the Run Eating). Said Nore about the track in March,

I like Kid Cudi. It was crazy, ’cause I kind of wanted to use him for a single. And it’s crazy, he’s a fan of a lot of the old N.O.R.E. stuff. He was like, ‘I wanna do something like ‘Follow the Dollar’ and I was like ‘Damn, that shit is like two weeks old.’ He went in and I showed him a reference of what I did and he asked if he could change the beat and he changed the beat. I’m buggin’ out for my solo album.

A winning collaboration, I’d say.

Download: Nore – Floatin’ In Sky (ft. Kid Cudi)

57thave via Dat New ‘Cudi’

Sareem Poems of Long Beach, California raps about his lady over Oddisee’s crackling, popping, soulful beat. The album, Black & Read All Over, is nothing but beautiful samples and dusty drums from top to bottom. Producers Oddisee and Theory Hazit knocked it out the park with this one.

Download: Sareem Poems – She’s So So (produced by Oddisee)

Bonus: Sareem Poems – Lower the Boom (ft. Pigeon John, Akil of Jurassic 5) (produced by Theory Hazit)

via 2dopeboyz

Showbiz dropping knowledge:

Hip-hop to me, is not rap. Rap anyone can get on the mic…It’s the way we talk, the way we dress…Hip-hop is a feeling. People can feel if a brother is just rapping or if he’s down with hip-hop.

Via The Meaning of Dope

And just ‘cause, the video for “Fat Pockets”:

A.G. is still a dope emcee; here’s a great recent spot off Detroit producer Dabrye’s album Two/Three. A.G. spits his autobiography over a minimalist guitar loop.

DOWNLOAD: Dabrye – My Life (ft.A.G.)