Prepare yourselves. Lee Bannon has entered the trap with Smoke DZA.
On both songs from DZA’s new tape, Bannon uses the cooing baby noise from “Are You That Somebody?” He does it for the same reason Timbaland did it: there is no reason, it just works. What comes out are destructive trap bangers made by a producer who isn’t native to the trap but takes to it as naturally as his usual left field boom bap. ASAP Rocky should be blowing up his phone right now.
Chuuwee’s Wild Style is like Joell Ortiz’ Covers The Classics mixtape, but more subtle. He pays tribute to the spirit of the golden age rather than individual records. Grab favored cuts below.
Atlanta rapper Ra Ra shines on this gem from his mixtape Higher (even if he takes the spelling out words thing a little too far on the hook) and then Big Sant crushes it.
Who remembers the time Ja Rule spelled ‘Murder Inc.’ wrong on a diss track? A Google search reveals that his weed carrier told MTV that Ja spelled it wrong on purpose to avoid incriminating himself. #iloverap
Today, gangsta rap is supported by a crutch. A crutch named Gibbs.
On some 2012 mixtape marketing steez, Gibbs released Baby Face Killa with DJ Drama tags, but you can buy the deluxe version minus said tags and stream it at DJBooth.net. “Breaking Bad” and “Fuck Them Niggaz” only appear on the deluxe version and “The Diet” and “Every City” only appear on the Drama version. Maybe we’ll get them all on one disc on the tenth anniversary box set.
Danny Brown and friends can rap over anything. Trapped out 808s? You got it. For some reason, both “Errthang” and “Jooky” are edited, so you’ll have some trouble transcribing these on Rap Genius.
Blu strides over the corpse of ringtone rap, friendless but for his DJ, past the perfidious radio station and the leering A&R and onto the stage where the true and loyal await his funky proclamation.
Five years later.
Blu has the most frustrating career trajectory of any of the inaugural XXL Freshmen, unless of course you were a Charles Hamilton fan (don’t you dare use that search bar — I was young once). His initial buzz petered out into a Jay Electronica-like nothingness, not for lack of talent or vision. His releases appeared online seemingly by accident as extremely rough drafts and were usually yanked days later only to be properly released by B-grade indie rap labels. He’s managed to establish and redouble a mystique to rival Madlib’s much to the chagrin of fans who just want to listen to his damn music. And yet it’s hard to be mad at the guy when he drops material like this.
Two fairly conservative boom bap singles for your listening pleasure. Let them hold you over until the next time Blu emerges to dump some mp3s from his hard drive.
Jay-Z just christened a billion dollar plus arena with 8 consecutive sold out shows.. in Brooklyn, NY. Re-read that and let that marinate. At this point Jay-Z can pull a Wayne Newton and just perform there as his exclusive home, I’m not even sure Brooklyn Nets fan would mind. I’ve been slightly salty that I didn’t plan better on making it out there and witnessing this historic run. I debated the latter half of this week of just taking a train up to NYC and yolo-ing out. That saltiness was watered down greatly with news that Hov’s home on the internets, Life + Times will be live streaming the closing show of his run, tonight at 9:30pm. Consider your Saturday night agenda set.
If you are really about that streaming life, Virgin Free Fest is also streaming, with Santigold, Alabama Shakes, Nas (at 6:20pm), M83, Jack White & Skrillex (amongst others) at this very moment over here.
Wu-Tang Pulp is a great tribute because it genuinely understands and appreciates its source material. The Wrecking Crew clearly recognize the spirit of the greatest rap group of all time and they put it on display. “Pulp” is right. This is Wu-Tang reimagined by artists looking to make their own statements, not anthologize. It’s definitely not Wu-Tang for Dummies, that’s for sure — absent are renditions of “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Chessboxin'”.
For an impression of the exact opposite of this approach, check out Rapsody’s “Black Diamonds”, where 9th Wonder’s artist scores an appearance from Raekwon and they use it as a reason to force extremely pedantic Wu-Tang references.
Is it time for a Wu-Tang tribute? I think so. We’re far enough removed from the glory days that we’re figuring out how to remember the Wu. Hip-hop moves fast, too. I except The Wrecking Crew will have Dipset Pulp for us by March.
Check out choice cuts from Wu-Tang Pulp below and grab the entire thing here. Note to self: Ethel Cee is dope.
