That's that crack music ... nigga?

Here's a track from this Kanye live album I snatched off the Internets. He performed with a live orchestra an shit, but you might be better off just listening to the studio albums, because there's not much difference here. It's no PNYC by Portishead or Jay-Z Unplugged.

There's some orchestration arrangements on "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" though. Also, it strikes me as weird that Kanye has reached that status where the crowd acts like a bunch of old white people, applauding and cheering when they figure out which song he is about to perform, and then again at the end of each song. If I were older or better at writing about music, I would probably parallel this to some classic rock live album by the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac. But maybe I feel this way because I haven't been to a live show in a while, and even then, it was all acts people never heard of besides "that one song."

Kanye West - Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Live)

Here's some other shit that's pretty cool:

The Coup - I Love Boosters!

Track about the joy of purchasing stolen goods. I implore you to also check out Cocaine Blunts' interview with Boots Riley.

Cut Chemist - The Garden

An Indian-flavored instrumental joint. Suitable for a hookah lounge.

The Legend Continues ...

I will make like David Carradine and scour the Earth until I find this reggae remix* of Chris Brown's "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)." I bet I'll never find it, or it'll end like the time I really wanted to nab the Alicia Keys reggae remix (was it of "Karma"? I don't even remember) and I never did, even after seeing it on TurntableLab and at Amoeba.

Here's a T.I. remix, though, from DJ Ross Hogg, known for the "Slump and Grind" series.

T.I. - What You Know About That (Ross Hogg reggae remix)

Snippet time: A couple from an Ice Cube sampler of "Laugh Now, Cry Later." I'm sure you've heard it, around the Internets. I uploaded them a few days ago, but my lazy ass hasn't gotten around to posting til now. By the way, Ice Cube comes wack now. I'd rather listen to that "Spirit of God" or whatever that thing is that's floating around on YouTube that has "Bop Gun" in the background.

Ice Cube - Why We Thugs (Scott Storch prod.)

Ice Cube feat. Snoop Dogg - Go to Church (Lil Jon prod.)

But wait! Before you go...

Cut Chemist feat. Edan, Mr. Lif - Storm

The b-side from Cut's 12", I assume from an upcoming album. Maybe I'll post the rap-less a-side later.

*not reggaeton, and it's not shitty, i've heard like three remixes that were all bad.

Youse a ballerina, I seen ya ...

Mobb Deep tries to stay relevent. I'm not sure it worked.

True: MTV compilations of rap songs containing "Shook Ones Part 2" censor "stab" in "stab your brain with your nose bone."

Mobb Deep feat. Lloyd Banks - Stole Something

I was listening to this and I had a few tabs in Firefox open, and I guess this song has a random sample of scattering drums or something, and it sounded like a website had some quicktime-loading video that was giving me audio problems. It took me a good minute to realize it was, in fact, the track.

Mobb Deep feat. Young Buck - Give it To Me

I think this is the new single. It seems that all the secondary members of G-Unit (read: all people who aren't 50 or weren't the Game) get the exact same beats to rap over for all their albums.

Someone found this site by Googling "cheesecake cheesecake cheesecake juelz santana"

Sorry, Diddy, Juelz is over at Def Jam. Get someone else to fetch you some Junior's ...

Oh, how neurotic I am, checking my sitemeter statistics almost on a daily basis. My hits and page loads have been falling. I blame the Black Eyed Peas. Sort of.

Between Will.I.Am collabing with Sergio Mendes and BEP releasing some "real hip hop" remixes of their songs (not to mention sampling Stark Reality for a track on "Monkey Business"), it seems that Mr. I.Am may be trying to move away from the dance-pop that has made him famous and go back (at least for a little while) to some of that neo-soul/Jansport rock he was known for back in the days of yore. We all know people don't every really change. And Nobody Ever Really Dies. (Oh Baby you want me)

Bob Marley - Africa Unite (Will.I.Am Remix)

So what Mr. I.Am did here was he went into ProTools and made it sound like Jazzy Pha was using a drum machine on Bob Marley's original song. Then he made it louder and longer.

Bailey feat. Too $hort - High Class Life
Bailey feat. Turf Talk - The Llama

The obligatory New Bay Hyphy Movement 2006 Houston post. If you liked Bailey's "Fuck Yo' Couch" enough to listen to it 20 times in a row, but each time the song's chorus gets less and less catchier, you might like his new album. Otherwise, maybe not so much.

Pete Rock feat. Grap Luva - Revenge

This could have been rejected in favor of "Be Easy." Has those same kind of bells. Pete Rock to mount a comeback? Maybe they'll play this on KDAY or the Wake Up Show.

OK OK, one more Bailey song. But only for San Quinn.

Bailey feat. San Quinn, J. Valentine - All These Hoez

I hear dead people ...

R.I.P. Proof, June Pointer. He was the best rapper in D-12 besides Em and she sang that Sesame Street pinball song with her sisters.


Anyway. Music time. I know, I said Wednesday night. I lied. Sorry. Let's see if NY can get back on its feet.

Beastie Boys - New York City (Rub n Tug Mix)
Busta Rhymes - New York Shit (Statik Selectah Remix)
And a track without "New York" in the title. Masta Killa - Ringing Bells

Some fake soul music by rapper-singers.

Gnarls Barkley - Transformer
Dudley Perkins - Come Home My Dear

And some stuff that's not rap-ish at all.

Gorillaz - Stop the Dams
Atmosphere - They Call It

I was going to post some music from a Mac Dre Tupac-like compilation where they stick his old or unreleased verses on new songs with guests, but just about all of it blew, so fuck that. I heard the Lupe Fiasco got bootlegged on the Internets too. Meh. Maybe I'll look for it someday.

Watch this space ...

Music posted tonight. Probably about 12 hours from now.

Until then, scroll down and read noz's list of underrated rappers.

Tell Me When to Post (Dumb Dumb)

I was going to post some music today, but I got lazy. So I didn't. Luckily, the folks over at Nation of Thizzlam did, and coincidentally, covered some of the same tracks I had planned to highlight.

Read the post here.

I'm gonna steal some of the song links here too.

E-40, Kanye West, Ice Cube "Tell Me When To Go (Remix)"

Obie Trice "I'm Back"

Also very "on the ball" is the new, improved XXL audio page. You can't download any of the songs, and some of the tracks nobody cares about (Interscope conspiracy?), but they get some of their stuff real early, and have routinely been beating me in posting the audio. You win this round, XXL! But this war is not over!

Take the Juelz and run

Christina Milian wants to be in Three 6 Mafia. Well, that's what I can gather, from her under-the-radar collab with them and the chorus on her song, "Say I," which features Juelz Santana, where she stutters the beat a la "Stay Fly." Wait, what's that? Juelz? I guess we might not be hearing Young Jeezy rapping in front of prison bars for a while, so they brought in a pinch hitter to continue the song's radio promotion.

Christina Milian feat Juelz Santana - Say I

Juelz has also been curiously absent from recent Dipset mixtapes, save for a couple songs that don't sound new. People were wondering what would happen to the Def Jam signee when Jay vs. Cam popped off, and I'm pretty sure he might go the smart route (a.k.a. get paid). Remember, no snitching!

Rap Music

I like rap music. Here is some rap music.

Cam'ron and Hell Rell - War
40 Cal. - The 40 Cal. Show
Busta Rhymes feat. DJ Drama, T.I. - Cannon
Busta Rhymes and Ghostface - Blow This Head Off

They just let J-Rocc play short clips from rare funk records and then they pay him? Awesome.

J-Rocc - Cold Heat Funk Mix part 2

More rap:

Soul Position - The Extra Mile
The Coup feat. Black Thought, Talib Kweli - My Favorite Mutiny OK, so this one has been around for a while. But it's still dope.
Captain & Tennile - Love Will Keep Us Together

Project Blown: Accepted Eclipsed

Who pays attention to Aceyalone these days? Nobody. How sad. I listened to that "Magnificant City" a couple times, it was OK, but RJD2 ain't the 2006 Mumbles. I guess Acey got a mixtape-album out now. From "Grand Imperial," here are a couple of the better, listenable tracks.

Aceyalone - Grand Imperial
Aceyalone - Angelina Valintina

Coup Coup Ca-choo

The Anti-hyphy. From "Pick a Bigger Weapon."

The Coup - Head of State
The Coup - Shoyoass

Dear Rap Music, Please stop putting chirps in your songs

Sincerely,

Mac China

Messy Marv and San Quinn - Direct Connect
Messy Marv and San Quinn - Wassup

I guess these songs are aiight. These guys need to get some beats, though, especially for the rest of the album. The intro to this shit made me laugh out loud, though.

That's what she said! Er, I mean, that's what I said ... to ... her ... (?)

You know kids, French people wrote that cheer.

I'm sure most people know that Busta song, produced by Swizz Beats, culls from a Daft Punk track off their last album. It's a growing trend, as there was a Slum Village song, "Raise it Up," where Jay Dee flipped some Daft Punk on the beat as well (back in 2000!). In addition to that, I believe Slum Village also rapped on an official Daft Punk remix. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Daft Punk is awesome, and don't judge them just because they ripped off a Japanese rap group by giving them a rehashed, shitty beat.

Here's some audio, albeit all remixes, from a remix album of "Human After All." Some of the songs take a minute to get rolling.

Daft Punk - Robot Rock (Soulwax Remix)
Daft Punk - Human After All (Guy Man After All Justice Remix)

And a reinterpretation of the song used on "Touch It." Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it ...

Daft Punk - Technologic (Peaches No Logic Remix)

New York Shit

Busta Rhymes feat. Swizz Beats - New York Shit

Just cuz I haven't seen it anywhere else, except on XXL, and they got embedded audio.

Get your hands off me ...

OK, so Nigo from A Bathing Ape and some of his friends have a rap group out of Japan. They are known as the Teriyaki Boyz. I have no idea what they are saying, but what I do know is that at first glance, their first album (which was put out by Def Jam Japan or some shit) has a stunning lineup of producers (from Just Blaze to Premier to Daft Punk). Too bad the beats sucked. Even the Neptunes one was pretty bad. How you gonna do your boy like that, Pharrell? Didn't they pay you in shoes? Anyway, recently the album was remixed. Oh, but not just regular remixed. Oh, no. Proving that the Japanese are still anywhere from six months to a year behind on musical trends, it was chopped. And screwed. Or skrewed, if you will. They even brought in Swishahouse's Michael "5000" Watts, apparently the only dude alive in Houston who can work Sound Forge.

Here are some of the results, and they fare better than the original cuts. Mmm, should go well with some of that post-wisdom teeth codeine I still have.

Teriyaki Boyz - Kamikaze 180
Teriyaki Boyz - You Know What Time is it

I think there's an American rapper on the second track (Mr. Watts himself, perhaps?) but at these speeds, I can't tell who it is.

Oh, and here's a video of theirs of a song "Heartbreaker" from their first album, featuring production by Daft Punk (it's really just a slowed down, crappy version of "Human After All")

Michael Jackson vs. Prince

Sort of ...

Rhymefest - Sign of the Times

vs.

Keak Da Sneak and the Farmboyz - Beat It!

Posted for novelty factor.

Fair and Balance

From the URB with She Wants Revenge on the cover, Bay Area rapper Balance receives a coveted 5-star review. Congratulations. I haven't read URB in years and I didn't think the album was that great, but congratulations. (Thanks to the Siccness network)

I did immensely enjoy the single, though.

Balance - Gotta Get It from "Young and Restless."

The real question is: Does he get free Fatburger?

So E-40's son Droop-E and B-Slimm are releasing an album, "The Fedi Fetcher and the Money Stretcher." It's not super great. Droop-E can't rap and all his beats sound the same. But here's some shit anyway.

Droop-E and B-Slimm feat. E-40 - Pause
Droop-E and B-Slimm feat. KD Stunts - Get Ya Shit Cracked

Here's a scan of the back of the CD.

E-40's album was somethin like third on some sort of music charting system a while ago, and MTV's "My Block: The Bay" has come and gone. But where is the depth of Bay releases to keep the momentum going? I guess it has been sort of steady (San Quinn, Keak, the Team, E-40), but it seems like the Bay Area hasn't caught on to be the national wave it imagined itself to be. At this point it's unclear whether the Bay is on the way out or still on the way in, but me being the perennial skeptic will side with the former. I'm going to make the sacriligious analogue and say E-40 is the Mike Jones of the Bay scene, and his album should have jumpstarted the string of recent releases instead of punctuating them.

I could be wrong, though, as I'm sure you've heard even the NY Times is getting caught up on hyphy. I'd be mad, though, if I were Keak Da Sneak, first getting removed from the "Tell Me When to Go" remix with Kanye and the Game (which sucks anyway, but will probably receive national exposure) and now getting shafted in the Times story which uses his slang word in the headline.

On an unrelated note, I was reading the WFMU blog (which has been weak as of late) and it highlighted a song on the new DJ Green Lantern mixtape with Immortal Technique, Saigon and Dead Prez. It calls for the Impeachment of the President and the rappers spit over a loop of the drum-standard Honeydrippers tune. It might fly under the radar because the Green Lantern tapes I heard in the past weren't that good. It's a good song, though, and it's nice to see this guy bounce back even after squandering his DJ slot at Shady Records. Word to Russ Feingold.