no love for Rick the Ruler?

More specifically, The Art of Story Telling ;)

I like the first Bobby Digital. Maybe it's for nostalgic reasons only. I haven't heard it in a few years.

...

I am feeling super divided about J. Cole's Born Sinner. Sometimes it sounds brilliant, then it sounds really half assed. I am not very familiar with this guy, but he sounds like he's doing a Weird Al version of Kanye. His lyrics go back and forth between excellent and dillusional (seriously? J Cole, a millionaire? Worried about bumping into his ex-girlfriends at the Oscars? I just don't see that being a serious problem for him.)

Either he's as smart as he thinks he is/talks about being, or he's trying to talk his way into epic stardom. He talks about famous rappers who he used to adore, and winning them over with his sick skills.... Sounds familiar, only no names are dropped.

I really can't tell if I love it or think it's so so, but this is no Late Registration, and I think e needs a new angle. Hip hop does not need another intelligent (lots of people have college degrees... Even black folks, J), nerdy, hater-hatin' crown watcher. After listening to Born Sinner a few times, I doubt Jay or Kanye are looking over their shoulders in fear of this guy stealing their thunder.

Decent album. Sounds good if you shuffle it up with a bunch of other artists. But a game changer it is definitely not.

Meanwhile, Run the Jewels is better than I even expected it to be. Good team, those two.

yeah i have some issues with Born Sinner. there are some brilliant moments here and there (the closing track is just.. wow), but the constant namedropping and the way he ripped off beats from classic songs just make it seem like he's struggling to find his own identity in the hip-hop world. easily Cole's worst project to date.

So Born Sinner is like a throwback to the Game?

it's like Jesus Piece, except instead of a WC gangsta, imagine a normal dude who just really loves early Kanye. yeah.

Magna Carta Holy Grail cover art revealed:

Slick Rick the Ruler

One of my fave 12" single records is The Show b/w La Di Da Di. I love it soooo much.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm a little astounded by the unabashed commercialism behind this album. I find the art and teaser pics compelling as hell, and I am most definitely going to pirate the fuck out of the thing (all I have are Apple products now, so I don't think I can utilize the early release app) because I sure as hell know I'll probably listen to it for a month straight... But I find the whole thing a bit disgusting. Brand promotion and misleading marketing ploys, and this kind of slight of hand chivalry... Giving an album away, or giving a million albums away, or a million theoretical electronic kind-of albums away, then trying to get the charity google sales to count on Billboard? Then, when told "yeah, probably not," getting the RIAA to change the meaning of the term "platinum?"

I mean... Why? I haven't been following anything other than headlines, but is Jay really that invested in having his album go platinum before it's even listened to? And doesn't he get that he's selling phones for Samsung? For a guy who can "sell ice in the winter," that doesn't seem very savvy to me. You'd think he would have been going over the fine print and bending the wills of CEOs to make it so that this was never even an issue.

Interesting that you mention taking shit for being loyal to someone generally thought of as shallow, louder, because I've never really thought of Jay as a shallow guy. Not until now, I mean.

That said, I'll sign a contract and buy a goddamn Nexus Galactus Ninety or whatever the fuck those fat, stupid, ridiculously ugly phones are called if I have to.... I'm gonna hear that album as soon as humanly possible.
I'll chuck the thing after I side load or extract the songs from it, of course.

Wait, maybe one of my Kindles will work.

Cool art. I'm just being snarky. I don't give much of a shit what the platform is; a new Jay album is something I can't not get excited about.

I'm just confused as to when it comes out for folks that don't have Samsung phones?

Y'all get with that Raphael Saadiq? Muthafucka is BAD! I like how he goes through specific sounds like Kool Keith goes through characters.


Austin City Limits (FULL PERFORMANCE STREAM
Live at the Artists' Den

[url=

^YES

Saadiq is so underrated. Dude is brilliant.

ok so Magna Carta is fucking great. Jay and Kanye are running 2013, what's new?

July 8th.

Meh. Those are just like the years when the San Antonio Spurs win the Championship, years when there isn't anything particularly better.

not felling magna carta. ghost's still got this year down.

honestly i've been a bit let down from hip hop this year, especially after the last two year's successes (danny brown, kendrick, death grips, ugly mane)

i agree that all those albums are extremely interesting and dope, i'd put them on par with Yeezus (edit: well okay, Good Kid is better). Danny is gonna drop a new album soon though. Schoolboy is gonna kill it too, Kenny made him step it up. Ugly Mane is working on a retirement album. and i'm still excited about Doris. we just gotta be patient.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...grail-reviewed


I don't buy it. Its just one writer's opinion, but I think its bullshit. Jay-Z isn't necessarily dominating hip-hop into his 40s because of his inherent artistic greatness so much as his (a) extreme marketing blitz and (b) the reality of 21st century media technology allowing for just about ANY band/group/artist with some recognition to be unprecedentedly successful.

Its not that Jay-Z's rap is that good, its that music and pop culture has become that diluted, hyped, and technologically exploited. There is more casual access to music than ever, so people can have way overly inflated hype, audience share, and sales/views of their music. The technology in the twitter era has reshaped what it truly means to be popular. What made the Beatles, or Michael Jackson, or Nirvana popular is very different than what makes rappers like Kanye and Jay-Z popular today. When the access to distribution was more limited, it took some serious luck to get that kind of almost universal exposure. Now? Its become the norm. Jaz-Z has a "heritage" name for himself, he can sell records and advertising slots on his name alone, and even a haters will add to his account even if just to scoff. So its not necessarily that Jay-Z's talent has merited his success so much as that is the reality of popular art in the 21st century. EVERYBODY is Michael Jackson big. I will tip my cap at Jay-Z for still putting his art out there, but in all actuality he isn't the first rapper in his 40s to put out albums across three decades, he just so happens to be the benefit of a diluted scene full of mediocre talent. Dave Matthews Band and U2 have had similar moments of unnecessary success, thriving in the vacuum absence of better talent and building on their name alone and the nostalgia factor of aging fans with more money to spend. The broke teenagers who bumped Jigga in the 90s are the middle-class yuppies of the 21st century with money to burn, and just like the Stones and Aerosmith before him, Jay-Z is admittedly milking it ;)

I'm avoiding all reviews (including what you guys are writing about it) until I hear it myself. :)

By the way, I wasn't posting strictly to hate on Jay-Z, I could do that anyways, but rather to dispute that review's insinuation that Jay-Z is the best or biggest rapper of all-time (that is, unless people really don't dig the Stones ;) )

I don't really like Jay-Z, but I give respect to any artist or producer who is consistently prolific, its just that being a veteran doesn't exclude honest criticism out of matters of style and taste.

Besides, E-40 got way more albums and started years earlier than Jay-Z but that shit is quasi-underground..

I actually let myself read the manga carts review on pitchfork ( Oh, I "acquired" it the moment it came out, without a single android or google device, or the assistance of an app... It's Goddamn great)... I can't believe how much that site has flip flopped over the years. Magma is pretty much just another Jay album, awesome and bloated with self satisfaction, but for some reason this time they hate it, for the same reasons they loved the others?

Glad I didn't read the Yeezus review. Even if it was a 10.0, just reading those inane words would have made the album leads enjoyable for me. Idiocy.

P4k is all about hype. Magna Carta is basically the rap version of 20/20 Experience, which they gave an 8.4 earlier this year.

i think that Magna Carta isn't a MASTERPIECE like The Black Album or American Gangster, but definitely better than The Blueprint 3 (which i enjoyed a lot).

the track "BBC" with Nas is the most fun thing Jay has done in years. oh yes.

just copped Yeezus today. "Blood on the Leaves" got me blown away, song of the year so far.

While agree that 2013 has been an epically boring year for rap music, the late 1990s had some fantastically innovative rap and hip hop so long as you weren't getting crunk and were avoiding No Limit ;)

yes, true, but this is a hip-hop cafe. You got to take your Prodigy with you unless you want to chat up rap muzik ;)

can't seem to be able to stop playing The Chronic, Doggystyle and 2001 this week.

As it should be, about time you forget about that Jay and Kanye shit, and get back to some classic 1990s house party music. Lord I miss OG LA houseparties, back when you could actually go out, drink with friends, here some great DJ or even better, a local band, meet some fantastic ladies, smoke some kind trees, shit even get in a fist fight if you felt like it. Alas, by the early 2000s gangsters had infiltrated just about every party scene, and going to a house party was like going to the County Jail, nothing but drama and bullshit. The last house party I went to somebody got shot, and that was AFTER the police shut it down :fuckyou:

how do you feel about Eminem being all over that album? :p

i just realized that "Lost" by Chance the Rapper samples the intro to Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat.

No. I actually didn't like the Chronic 2001, but here in LA it blew up just about as big as the OG Chronic, so I had to more or less tolerate it. I'm on the Eazy E/Tupac side of the whole Ice Cube/Dr Dre beef. Fuck Ice-Cube (he is a bitch) and fuck Dr Dre (he is bitch made).

Those catz sure ran they mouthz in the 1990s and yet become the biggest busterz with made-for-kids movies, lame TV commercials, and those shitty, overpriced super hyped headphones. Eazy E called it out, and I agree with his criticism, artistically speaking. Gangsta rap is admittedly about authenticity as much as underground punk was in the mid-1980s, so sell-out bands and artists gets not love

great post. ;)

btw, what do you think is the best Pac album? it used to be Me Against the World for me when i was younger, but now i'm leaning towards All Eyez on Me.

of course the Makaveli album is great but i feel like it's almost TOO intense. damn, at least Pac went away with a bang.

heeeeeey it's been one year since the release of Channel Orange! one of the greatest that came out in the last few years.

I'm gonna have to stop you there, because it is exactly like that.

His production hasn't always been the best (Vol. 2 has only occasional moments of greatness, sample-wise, aside from "Hard Knock Life",) but Jay is one of the most skilled rappers in the history of the genre. Some of his songs are awful.. Some of his rhymes are ridiculous... But considering that he's been a predominantly freestyle/one-take artist throughout his career, and taking into account how much music he's released, having one of two sucky songs (even one or two per album, if that were the case) would still put him in the upper pantheon of emcees from the last 25 years.

When referring to rapping alone, there are very few artists who can even share a track with Jay without sounding like children in comparison.

I think he sounds like a punk bitch and I hate everything he has ever released.

"I didn’t fully come out at Jay-Z and Kanye [West’s] Watch The Throne, but is that or is it not some kind of king shit? It’s like it’s some Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Louis XVI type shit. Man, fuck a king – unless it’s Martin Luther.

So it was one of those things like, no, I admire you guys as rappers but I could never, ever, ever salute that base of cake and greed. Nah, I ain’t never gonna do that." - Chuck D

If Makaveli the Don is too intense for you, then I'd say All Eyez On Me is definitely the best you'll find, though in truth, the post-houmous Better Dayz is actually pretty decent too..

But y'all know me, I'm too caught up in that Makaveli the Don shit or that Outlawz Immortal shit (Still I Rise is also very good)


I know you're bout it for Jay-Z but seriously, you are joking right? I head that dude come out on that Justin Timberlake single "Suit and Tie" and I was thinking to myself, "Shit, can Jay-Z even rap anymore, is he even trying to rap anymore or just spit out random words that sort of rhyme with ZERO cadence or delivery.."

Jay Z is a candy-wrapper

You west coast fellas (in truth, geographically speaking at least, I'm one of you, so no insult intended) seem to be way too wrapped up in things like cadence, and also... Cadence. ;)

Seriously, one of the reasons I took to easy coast hip hop like Wu and Jay Z was that it was NOT so clipped and articulated and full of vocal gymnastics. I think the over emphasis on that kind of thing really made the difference between "rap" and "hip hop." The west coast rap scene (and the Cleveland rap scene, I guess) made vocal delivery so important that it left no room for sloppiness, fun, or non-fabricated personality.

I have a hard time listening to anyone who works sounds like they're working on sounding a certain way. I love the Chronic, Doggystyle, and Straight Outta Compton, but for me, it's all about sneaking You're right that Jay Z is not the rap technician that any of LA's major players were. I thought he was retarded when he came up, and I didn't understand how anyone could enjoy his music. I don't think I was entirely convinced until the Black Album, actually. But Jay raps with very little prevention for such a notoriously pretentious guy... He's smarter than he sounds, and when I realized how much of his lyrics were made up on the spot, or with little to no preparation, I started paying attention.

That's not to say that Wu Tang doesn't have cadence down. They do, and always have. They're truly skilled rappers, but they let themselves spazz out, improvise, and have fun. Also, both artists have the ability to rap about things other than guns and physical prowess. East Coasters used samples for more than just beats. They also used vocals for more than melody, and as a whole, have always been more loose lipped and humorous than their coastal counterparts.

Except for Biggie, who just loaded up his lungs with pure fucking hate and screamed it into the mic. Still, that was personality. The voice spoke for itself and didn't need any adjustments. I think this cadence issue is really behind my preference for Big, Jay, and above all Wu Tang, to the Ice Cube and Dre and the rest. I guess the sloppiness, the throwback samples, and the honesty and imperfection of the vocal delivery feels closer to punk to me. Or maybe it's like post punk... Like Wire to the West Coast's Sex Pistols.

At least you noticed my biggest beef without me having to say it again, it was beginning to sound redundant on my part ;)


This is true, except that it actually allows for even MORE expression of personality and individual flavor of the rapper.


But isn't that attention to sound what makes rap actual music in the first place? When rappers like Snoop are essentially singing, its safe to say that its music.


Thank you for that concession, I sincerely appreciate the nod.



Wu is ALL about their cadence and delivery, its what sets apart each individual wu rapper and their various side/solo projects.


We have some ridiculously funny west-coast rap, but I feel you, sometimes we do here in the West take ourselves so damned seriously :cool: