Seattle producer Jake One has always been more interesting to me than similar producers. He is a G-Unit affiliate and has done tracks with 50 and E-40, but he is also adamant about the underground scene. Check out his thoughts on the unnecessary disparity between underground and mainstream hip-hop.
“What’s kind of weird about it is that 50 can do it and people will fuck with it but for some reason people only fuck with his version of it,”Jake says. “Like the song “All Of Me” with Mary J Blige on 50’s album, a couple of other people like Brother Ali had a song to that but he decided not to use it. It probably could have hit a totally different way. But in the same vein, underground fans probably wouldn’t fuck with 50’s version because they hate the person on it that’s rapping. They get so mad with that shit like that was supposed to be for them.”
And as a producer he is not just ubiquitous, he’s as solid as they come. Listen to these two tracks off of White Van Music, set to drop October 7th. The doom track is bonkers. As a side note if I could have anyone rap at my wedding it would be Doom. If the wife says no, shes out.
New mixtape from the Sonic the Hedgehog loving Internet rapper Charles Hamilton. Good looks on having Shadow on the cover, because everyone loved that game.
Shit is kinda fresh. “Windows Media Player” is one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard though.
(Image courtesy of The Smoking Gun and the other sites emphatically tagged over the pic)
So, has this whole ordeal about Rick Ross being a C.O. in his former life — you know, back when he was mere mortal William Roberts and not “the biggest bawse that you’ve thus far” — boiled over yet? Yes? No? Either way, before most major label rappers sign their multi-million dollar contracts, chances are that there were less glamorous times that forced said rapper to work for (**gasp**) minimum wage!!
If a popular MC decided to dedicate his next album to rhyming at length about his first job, chances are that that popular MC wouldn’t be all that popular afterward. To save them the trouble — and, what with today being “Labor Day” and all — this month’s Fun Facts will reveal what a number of hip hop stars did before they became famous. Hopefully, it won’t cause you to look at any of these artists as being less “real” (not that all of ’em were “real” to begin with).
1. Snoop Dogg’s first job was as a grocery bagger at Lucky, a now-defunct Los Angeles supermarket chain.
2. Just as Outkast member Andre 3000 claimed to have done after dropping out of high school (in “Git Up Git Out” off Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik), Organized Noize’s Rico Wade worked at an Atlanta loading dock at age 9.
3. Jay-Z claims to have never held an actual job prior to getting into the drug game, thus dispelling an internet rumor that he worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken as a teenager. This rumor started years after it was mentioned in a “What if…” article in Rap PagesBlaze.
New Kardinal with the Pussycat Dolls (ie Mostly Nicole Scherzinger) on the hook, a nice crossover look. For those counting that’s 2 tracks with Pussycat Dolls on ML, we are so street.
Hosted by the homie Statik Selektah, Appreciate the Hate is a NY mixtape in the classic sense of the word. It’s got hot verses from every underground NY rapper who’s never gonna blow and genuinely funny skits (the blogs one made me smile). On top of that, the tape is very polished and leaves the annoying DJ shit at the door. It also features the Joell Ortiz murder victim, "Brooklyn Let’s Go!".
The Madd Rapper/D-Dot’s relevance to NY hip-hop is often overlooked and at the end of the tape, there’s a bunch of his OG shit: rare Bad Boy tracks, the "Stir Crazy" track with Eminem and even "How to Rob". This tape is like a trip through old New York.
The latest installment in the Missing ELements series. Black tells you what it’s all about:
Ok I know i’ve been on the funny tip lately, but i had to hit ya’ll with this one. STDs can be pretty funny sometimes, when I made this track I thought of the South Park movie song “it’s easy MmmmKay. So I decided to make something for the kiddies if I was teaching Sex Ed.
There’s some goofing on T-Pain on this one, pretty damn funny.
Termanology had a little listening party for his album Politics as Usual at a trendy sneaker shop called Sole Food last night. I honestly couldn’t hear the album very well because the acoustics were so bad, but I did mingle with some of New York’s finest underground rappers.
Term was just as cool as he was when I hollered at him. He told me that he had a crazy party at his house last night and I asked him if he wanted to come play beer pong at my dorm after the listening party. He respectfully declined.
As more people showed up, I noticed Torae who had good news: his upcoming album with Marco Polo, Double Barrel, is finished. Other than that, Tor mostly kept to himself and flipped through a XXL. Donny Goines on the other hand was just like he appears in all of his videos: very forthcoming and talkative. Both dudes showed ML love.
Next, I talked to Statik Selektah who seemed to be having a great time. He also showed ML love and asked if I’d seen his new video. He had played some stuff off his album earlier including a dope Jadakiss track and a funny skit with The Madd Rapper. Before I left, I hit up Lil Fame who had the shiniest teeth I’d seen all night. You would never guess from talking to him that he’s such a good producer. I usually think of producers as wise men who flip through obscure records all day, but Lil Fame had no seriousness about him at all, just a regular guy.
I’ve been slowly going through and cleaning up some of the older (read: first) ML entries, the format and grammar was pretty gully in a lot of them back then.
Anyways, one of the first entries I personally did was about The Neptunes straight to dvd movie project called Dude We’re Going To Rio starring Busta Rhymes & Pharrell. Even though a cover got made, it never actually came out in stores, I was curious to see if anything new happened with the long lost film, well since then a trailer surfaced (NSFW near the end):
This seems like it could have been The Neptunes equivalent of Killa Season, with better production and more softcore.
While looking for the trailer, I found that in the recent issue of Complex (which I’ve yet to read in entirety myself) P was asked about the film.
Back when Clones came out, there was talk about you guys making a movie called Dude, We’re Going to Rio.
Pharrell: Are you trying to torture me right now?
No, I’m just curious what happened to that.
Pharrell: It was just bad. Not surrounded by the right people. Just a shitty arrangement. Those guys were nice, but I didn’t know what was appropriate. But now I’m working with Joel Silver so we’re producing something. I’m doing some television things with McG.
