When I talked to Capone-N-Noreaga last February, Capone tried to justify their Ron Browz-produced crossover single:

Music today — they censor music so much that you have to make the thuggest record commercial to some extent. To get your albums in certain stores, your shit gotta be squeaky clean, because that’s just where music is at right now.

“Rotate” had a lot of people looking at CNN askew, but The War Report 2 is completely free of such unfortunate compromises. Intended as a sequel to their debut, The War Report 2 looks to duplicate the success of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II, the only commercially successful throwback rap album in recent memory. Raekwon, who appears on three songs, actually acts as executive producer on WR2, lending CNN his excellent ear for street ballads.

The album is refreshing because CNN stick to what sets them apart: their glorious lack of subtlety. No facades. In a welcome nod to early New York gangsta rap, Capone and Nore romanticize life on the streets without any excess theatrics. Besides the intro, which ascribes audio from a war documentary to life on the streets, the only real exception is “The Oath,” whose mafioso concept makes it sound like Rae passed them Cuban Linx leftover, but not in a bad way. The street single “Thug Planet” turns a “Planet Rock” sample into the soundtrack of an urban nightmare. Capone-N-Nore’s dynamic works better than ever as Capone is a surprisingly proficient technical rapper and Nore manages to be a street rapper and a parody of a street rapper at the same time (“Big loads of a fishscale / Guns from Israel / Dude named Ishmael / Told me that his shit sell.”).

The closest they come to a radio track on their new album is the Faith Evans-assisted single “Hood Pride,” which despite the sung hook and anthemic beat, doesn’t make any overly gimmicky stabs at radio play. Chalk it up to Raekwon’s influence or a legitimate desire to keep it all the way gutter this time; either way, The War Report 2 is this year’s raw, uncut New York rap album.

Download: Capone-N-Noreaga – The Oath (ft. Raekwon, Busta Rhymes)

Download: Capone-N-Noreaga – Dutches vs. Phillies vs. Bamboo (ft. Raekwon)

Also: the “Thug Planet” video.

As much as I’d like to write ‘album of the year’ and step away from my keyboard with a self-important sense of accomplishment, I know Big Boi’s new album deserves stronger praise.

With Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty and The ArchAndroid, Big Boi and Janelle Monae have injected a renewed sense of fun and spontaneity into pop music. Big Boi has the honor of achieving this in a genre that either clings to the past or lunges forward with obnoxious gimmicks. Big Boi jumps between styles with reckless abandon while maintaining a constant level of lyrical pandemonium. “Shine Blockas” sways with the feel-good sounds of a Harold Melvin sample while “General Patton” kindly reminds you to “Get the South dick up out your mouth.” And then there’s the electrical earthquake that is “Shutterbugg.”

Big Boi somehow ties it all together, perhaps just with sheer charisma. Sir Lucious Left Foot is blindingly vibrant and almost impossible to listen to sitting down. Hit play and get off your ass.

Download: Big Boi – Tangerine (ft. T.I.)

via 2dopeboyz

Download: Big Boi – Shine Blockas (Remix) (ft. Gucci Mane, Bun B, Project Pat)

via Dajaz1

The ML interviewee and Beat Drop contributor just dropped  Trunk Muzik, his third mixtape. We’ve talked about Yela quite a lot lately, but really this cat deserves all the praise. This is an incredibly strong, concise mixtape with great beats, great features and great rapping. Yela handles slow numbers and double-time trunk rattlers equally well. “Pop The Trunk”  is clinic in storytelling and I think Yela actually outshined Bun on “Good To Go”. “Love Is Not Enough” is heartbreaking, the best fusion of singing and rapping on the album. No one quite sounds like dude right now, and this shit is hotter than a burning Confederate flag. Cop this.

Download: Yelawolf – Trunk Muzik Mixtape

via DJBooth

Tracklisting after the jump:

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(Photo by Hannah Lipman)

View the full photo set here (Thanks Hannah & Joshua)

[Ed Note: Here is the grand recap of all the on-goings that happened this past weekend in New Orleans, as seen through the eyes of ML contributor Julie. Be sure to check out Julie's twitter stream which had a bunch of nuggets from the festival. Also, if you would like to check out Eminem's performance, I got word that it will be airing on Fuse as a part of the Best of Voodoo 2009 TV Special, tonight, November 6th @ 10PM EST (check the trailer here).]

Taking place during Halloween weekend in a city known as one of the greatest places in the country to don a costume, listen to music and get drunk, The Voodoo Experience 2009 inspired a lot of expectations. We’re talking Eminem, KISS on Halloween night, P. Funk, local artists that sound like nothing you’ve heard before, funky folk artists and talented craftspeople… and overall, Voodoo brought it. This festival required a stamina that most don’t because it was interrupted by some of the wildest Halloween parties in the nation. Voodoo, however, proved worthy of every ounce of effort it required to dance through each and every show.

The festival got off to a rough start with the chilliest storm New Orleans has seen all season. Mud, rain and kicking The Knux off stage didn’t make for the most promising opening day. Yet the festies got creative, borrowing trash bags from the grounds crews to make ponchos and huddling together at Justice to keep warm. With the help of a few beers and an other-worldly dance party/light show, the crowd managed to forget the cold and have a blast. Most people who lasted that long trudged through the ankle-deep mud to at least catch the first few songs from Eminem + D12 before heading out. Eminem’s decade of fame has taught him how to really wake a crowd up, showing a gory short film of a psychotic, asylum-bound, murderous Marshall Mathers. They threw in gunshot noises between songs, keeping the audience on their toes throughout Eminem’s energetic performance. When the audience finally dispersed, most people looked pumped for the next day’s shows.

Saturday’s lineup included The Black Lips, Mates of State, a cancelled K’naan show, Mutemath, Gogol Bordello, Parliament-Funkadelic and KISS. Few people showed up without a costume, and the crowd started drinking early. The festival had a friendly, frenetic vibe, people getting more and more excited as the day wore on. Strangers took pictures of and with one another, and the festival-goers traded tips on where to spend the evening between the countless after-parties, Halloween parties and Frenchmen Street.  Security wasn’t too tight, and most shows smelled strongly of pot, contributing to the audience’s already relaxed, comfortable vibe. K’naan’s cancelled show changed the locations of many artists slotted to perform around the same time, making for a confusing afternoon. Yet things got back on schedule by Mutemath.

Gogol Bordello got the festies dancing harder than any other show all weekend, save Justice. P. Funk, on the other hand, played for a relatively small, chill crowd on a quiet stage between folk art vendors’ tents. As they got funky, the majority of the festival-goers rushed toward the KISS stage, dancing through art installments on their way. The crowd was packed, and KISS was, in a word, insane. Pyrotechnics, Gene Simmons flying across the stage, an infomercial between songs to buy their new album — it’s available at WalMart, apparently Simmons has seen it there. Teens and college kids were busy texting their dads, blown away that rock ‘n’ roll used to rock this hard. Older women in leather jackets and KISS-style face paint sang every word of the KISS classics (though, as Simmons reminded us, just because something is a classic doesn’t make it an oldie). People walked out of City Park that day high from the music and drunk from the spectacle, ready for an even wilder show: the New Orleans Halloween scene.

The entire festival crowd seemed at least a little bit hungover Sunday. Relatively few people showed up before The Flaming Lips, but the Voodoo producers seem to have anticipated this. With an emptier schedule than any other day, Sunday’s big shows included The Pogues, Widespread Panic, The Flaming Lips and Lenny Kravitz. Yes, Lenny Kravitz. It was almost as if they wanted to clear the park before the final performance. Yet those who did leave before Lenny walked away with a most beautiful ending to an exhausting weekend. The almost too-mellow show saved itself by concluding with the sound of “Do You Realize?” playing under the full moon, tens of thousands strips of confetti floating in the dark sky like psychedelic stars, and an entire audience singing together “to make the good things last.”

Gutta is a hardcore rapper from Pheonix, Arizona. A city where they love ML. He just signed with Babygrande Records and hooked up with Blue Sky Black Death, the producers who worked with Hell Razah last year. We really loved the BSBD Hell Razah album, and judging from this song Gutta’s album is shaping up to be some ridiculous shit.

His music is hardcore in that Jedi Mind Tricks/Ill Bill sense. Some really hard shit, but definately don’t crank this at the office.

Gutta- Thrashin’ (Produced By Blue Sky Black Death)

The loop digga is back with his new album for the BBE Beat Generation series. This new project has a bunch of features and many of the tracks are only produced by Madlib with no rhyme input.

I really enjoyed this new album even though I only got part of it for this review (Holla at me BBE!!). I’ll go track by track.

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So DJ01 and I went to Artscape for Sunday only. Mostly because neither of us own cars, and public transportation to Baltimore is a crime on the weekends (or anytime for that matter). I was able to borrow a car on Sunday, so we made the trip.

After a stop off at Metal Lungies Radio studios, to pick something up and record DJ01 dropping the best freestyle ever, we arrived at Artscape around 3 pm. We immediately went to the Food Area and consumed epic amounts of ocean product in the form of a crabcake sandwich (pictured above) and a plate of fish and chips.

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I like to drink in the afternoon. Maybe even more so than at nighttime. And I am not saying I like to get drunk midday cause that would make me a loser, right? Im saying that having some beer with your buddies on a blistering hot day provides me with the kind of mental tension, that kind of neurological intrigue that I also find in great rock music. Everything runs together and your emotions are blurred or piqued without warning. Your not lost but your constantly searching.

Maybe it is my affection for this state of mind that makes me love The Walkmen so much.

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I’ve been contemplating on this one for a while now. Weiss likes it. Pitchfork likes it. And many others feel the same way.

To begin with, its a good record. The fact that weez has been spittin more nonsense than bill o’ reilly over the last few months has been unsettling for sure. But I’m not gonna dismiss the entire effort because of a few stabs at the pop charts. “Milli” “Get Money” “Phone Home” and “Lollipop” are cheezy, overblown, and out of place. Lots of people are gonna love those tracks, and talk shit on me for dissin em. But think about how good those tracks would be without five shots of Jagermeister.

I wouldn’t expect complete greatness from C3 if it weren’t for the songs that knocked my socks off. “Milli” and “Lollipop” were only as disappointing as they were because “Mr. Carter” and “Dr. Carter” were fat as rick ross (and deserving of more inventive song titles).

In hopes of legitimizing my comments I’m gonna break down my thoughts on C3 song by song.

1. 3 Peat (Produced by Maestro):

He opens up the record showcasing his lyrical ability. His flow is interesting (nothing new), and some of the rhymes made me pause with pleasure.

“Got a million duffled up/ for the, fuck, of, it”

Admittedly a fucked up line, but it was delivered with excellence. And his gruesome metaphors can yield some provocative scenarios.

“Swallow my words, taste my thoughts. And if its too nasty spit it back at me.”

The song was a good start. He spit about his abundance of money and his inherent greatness too much, but at least he established that theme early.

2. Mr. Carter feat. Jay-Z (Prod. by Drew and Infamous):

One of the most noticeable disparities in this album is that some of the producers dug deep for just the right sample. Drew and Infamous are in this camp. The sound is lush and complete, and it surprisingly cradles weezy’s sound just as effectively as Jay-Z’s. W drops numerous quality lines, and I think he put out a better performance than Jay.

“Blind eyes could look at me and see the truth/ wonder if Stevie do?”

Something amazing about Lil’ Wayne is that he can make not-that-great-of-lines sound ballin like MJ.

“I call em April babys cause they fools.”

3. A Milli (Produced By Bangladesh):

When I first heard this song I thought, okay, maybe it will be less annoying with a fat sub. So I listened to it with a decent system and, wow, was I wrong. The bass ends up smothering the instrumentals (which is kind of a good thing) and there isn’t much left except wayne trying to turn a decent club beat into a legitimate rap song.

If you enjoy this song, I’ll agree with you if you wish to say it shakes your balls like a motha fucka and its cool when your drunk; other than that this is not good music.

Take a look at what the producer himself had to say:

Bangladesh: This girl I produced for, Shanell, got it to him. But I never went to the lab with him. If I had my way, I would like it more. But I wasn’t around, so what he felt, he put on there. I just thought he would make more of a song out of it, honestly. He’s just rapping. If it was going on the mixtape, it’s cool, but not on no album or single. It’s saying, “A milli.” He needs to pop about being a millionaire. He switched it up and tried to make it “ill.” If that was somebody else, it wouldn’t be on the radio. They just f*ck with Wayne regardless. That right there makes me like that sh*t, because it’s against the grain and it’s working. That sh*t’s no format. A n*gg* went in, freestyled, and that sh*t’s all over the radio. And it’s the hottest beat in hip-hop right now. Every time I turn on Rap City, they in the booth rapping to the beat…

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Once upon a time, Al Green taught the world how to treat a lady.  The silky grooves on “Lets Stay Together” are testements to the undying nature of true love, plus they are really bitchin tunes.  Back in the day, my father was clearly moved by the hopefulness of the title track.  He made it his ringtone as soon as he split with my mom.  I found this hilariously ironic; at the same time it made me lament for a record that could fill my heart with the love that my dad found in that song.  What the hell am I supposed to make babies too, huh?

Well my prayers are answered by the new Al Green Record, sort of.  Its an enjoyable listen and there are some standout tracks, but all in all its a little underwhelming.  Undoubtedly, the songs are still smothered in Al’s romantic goodness.  I mean every song is pretty much about his undying affection for a female or the lack there of.  So, in that respect I am satisfied (I give it a 8 out of 10 for babymaking potential).  But there isn’t the same “wow” factor that you saw in “Lets Stay Together” or “Tired of Being Alone.”  It seems that the soul vet has settled down a little, laying down tracks that are noticeably conservative.  

That being said I have been enjoying the record on repeat for the last few days.  ?uestlove nailed the production, and even added a little bit of hip-hop flavor without obstructing the soulful feel.  So, if your a fan of Al hit this up, no questions asked.  The record is released on May 27th. 

Download: Al Green-Standing in the Rain 

See Also: Al Green: Thought It Out