“Amerikkka's Most Wanted” is 20 today so of course I had to write a love letter to it.

“I should have instructed (NWA) to leave Cube behind in Phoenix, where he could have continued his mechanical drafting career. He had hustled back into the group when the Priority deal was finalized, but he was always a major pain in the ass--a complainer, a borderline paranoiac.

‘A paranoiac,’ growled writer William S. Burroughs, ‘is someone who's in complete possession of the facts.’”

- Ruthless, Jerry Heller

“Once again it's on,” all our parents heard from our rooms when we got into this album. “The motherfucking psycho.” Ice Cube was a damn baby when this came out--19, almost 20--but remember, those are Black Man in '80s South LA years. I believe the word I'm looking for, then, is “perspective.”

People call the narrator of Amerikkka’s Most Wanted amoral, misogynistic, pockets heavy with ammunition and a fucking chip on his shoulder. I guess, but really, that was the opinion held by people who had nothing to do with me. Those were people afraid of language. All you need to do is listen to the album more than once. I love Black women with a passion, he says, and he puts a girl on a song—Yo-Yo, a girl pretty skilled at rhyming—imploring him to respect her. He didn't fool me when I heard it some years later, a suburbs-raised girl who got along with her parents and was free of tragedy. He wants girls to cover themselves, talks about how great he is and says fuck a lot. This made him no more or less complicated than the people I knew in real life. The cover is lovely (those calm, clasped hands) and the samples used are strangely revealing--Sly, James Brown, Parliament*, music that hits the cerebral and the physical. Then there was the bad guy in the story, of course, the foil to our hero; Jerry Heller played the part of villainous fucking jerk whose attempts at discrediting Cube (“gangsta rapper? Uh, no--try mechanical engineer”) fell blissfully flat.

The empirical is so overrated in music, our need for singers and MCs to have lived it--even I'm guilty of this, though (Drake is a rich kid from Canada! CANADA). But thankfully, nobody deducted points for Cube having 2 loving parents and a career path outside of rap music. He had facts and sad stories, things that happened so many times that they made him sound paranoid, always the same details--sirens, girls, County, bullshit, fakery, authenticity, the constantly defensive stance. He also sounded sure as hell when he described how he would exact revenge on the LAPD. A realllll pain in the ass, that one, they surely said about him.

-----

Honesty is an overrated quality in an MC. “We were talking from the perspective of a coast, rather from the perspective of one man,” said Sir Jinx of the album. “Ice Cube wasn’t like, ‘I’m a Crip, I’m a killer.’ He was more so like, ‘This is what can happen in Los Angeles’.” Cube’s not known for his lyrical prowess, which is so much bullshit because he wrote 70% of Eazy's quotables and about half of Straight Outta Compton. Charisma, vocal volume and force combined with sheer insistence is his thing; he gave his best lyrics away to other men. Generosity is an underrated quality in an MC.

NWA started with 5, but 1 couldn’t take it. So then it became 4 ‘cause the fifth couldn’t make it. When he first walked away, I imagine Cube might've been scared. I'd be. Flying to New York, finding solace with the Bomb Squad, he must've been aware of his talent and supremely confident, but the nerves were probably jangled. It just made him a better protagonist, though. Paranoid, but rightfully so. Heller was pretty powerful during those years.

-----

Some rappers are heaven sent/But “Self-Destruction” don't pay the fucking rent. His words coming out of my bedroom never shocked my parents, a couple of socially aware hippies who possessed equal parts romantic idealism and hard cynicism, although they were probably appropriately concerned that their suburbs-raised daughter was listening to what was basically poverty porn in CD format. I knew nothing of the goings-on in places south of Olympic and east of Vermont. But I liked a good storyteller, and I knew the police were bad (via my parents, the stories about their college years). I liked somebody whose anger makes his stories better (all teenagers do). He was believable and charming. His delivery was uncomplicated. His voice had that great parched sound to it. Also: ganked. Gafflin. I wish somebody'd bring these words back into the lexicon. And while we're on the topic of my hopes and dreams, I also wish they'd have put “Burn Hollywood Burn” on the album. I mean, it was from the same sessions so it would've been easy.

-----

I have a government job, working with homeless men. A few weeks ago, they shut down my regular route to work in downtown LA so they could have a funeral procession for Daryl Gates. I had to drive all the way around the blocked-off area, Figueroa to 1st, up Alameda, then left onto Temple. This added 20 minutes to my commute; I was late to work. There was a client waiting for me in the lobby when I walked in and he asked me where I'd been. I explained, apologized, and evidently didn't do a very good job of hiding my disdain. I was cranky and flustered. But this was mostly just bad planning on my part.

“You didn't hear they were gonna block off Temple?” he asked me. I had heard, but you know. I just didn't give myself enough time. Bad planning.

“I can’t believe it didn't last all day,” he said. “Daryl Gates probably said half that shit in the '80s just to get a king's funeral.”

His public persona was very different from his private one, one of his former subordinates said in an article I read about the funeral, sitting at my desk a while later, still grumbling about the goddamn traffic. I know he got in trouble a lot of times for the things he said, and that's unfortunate because that wasn't his heart. His words were exciting, inflammatory. That's what everyone remembers.








* Amerikkka's samples (zip), courtesy of HipHopIsRead, even though it pains me to think you're getting these in tinny, compressed mp3 format instead of hearty, delicious analog.









.

.

Bikini-clad white girls with funny names don't like sports! and other sporty news.

1. Ronn-dohhh, we all yelled. Rondo Rondo! And it worked!


Sorry, Ohio! You had to know it was curtains for you when you played a team with Tony Allen on it. Tony Allen. Aw Ohio, your love's still like a rollercoaster baby baby, I still wanna ride, and you still got Hi-Tek, Bone Thugs, Bootsy, and The Pretenders, plus the Geto Boys used this, below. Get yourself an affirmation + “God is Love” intervention from Rev Run and chin up, buddy.



The Ohio Players - "Skin Tight."

mp3.











2. LeBron's crew team chic in the photo above is from a GQ feature about NBA press conference style that I saw and promptly devoured.

Wait, LeBron is kind of attractive? I approve of forearm tats and the not-too-closely-cropped hairdo. King without a ring, though! Such a shame.

Kev D with the chest buckle!

Derrick Rose & Dwyane Wade: dictator chic.

"Dwight Howard, looking like he stopped by a Robert Evans/Robert Wagner yard sale." Ha.

Steve pulls off a black trench, even though he's so, SO unfortunate in the face. Unbelievable, the amount of blessings one man can receive in a certain area (physical prowess) while being denied in another (that FACE). Genetics can be quite the joker sometimes.

3.

Ice Cube, if you didn't know, got drama hoes. Jackin for beats, steady mobbin, and this week, his episode of "30 for 30" premiered. He's a busy guy. Cube interviews Al Davis (you must see this, you must), and delves into the history of the LA Raiders vis-a-vis the emergence of NWA. Everyone hated the Raiders for playing dirty and being too violent and for having too many brown young men south of Wilshire as fans (yeah I said it), but when their gear started to sell, everyone was a fan and everyone wanted a piece. The LA Kings changed their colors as a direct result of the Raiders' success, and immediately saw their popularity swell. Violence is a bad and awful thing, except when the kids get into it and start buying shit. This is so clearly a metaphor for '80s hip-hop, O'Shea says it without needing to directly say it.

"Straight Outta LA" will repeat on ESPN all this weekend and next week. Howie Long comes out the gate with an anecdote about being told Al Davis wasted a draft pick on him because he was, although quite large and talented, white. Howie laughs it off, like all white men should in situations like that. Good job, Howie. And thanks for being nice to me when I was a little kid.

I know I look like a boy, but that's me! A very unphotogenic me.

4.

NYC continues its plea for the guy with the tatted forearms to just give it a chance. New York is convulsing with desperation to get LeBron, and I keep seeing examples of how much New York is dumbing it down in its desperation--offering free lap dances to LeBron if he'll sign with the Knicks and telling him that such luminaries as, uh, John Leguizamo, Martha Stewart, and Tommy Hil (??) want to see him at MSG. New York is like a tough guy who suddenly decides that begging is an effective tactic instead of maintaining the stoic mystery that's always made him so appealing. LL did "I Need Love," and it worked, but that's because it was preceded by tough-guy stuff like "Rock the Bells" and followed up by tough-guy stuff like "Going Back to Cali" and "The Boomin' System." It was just enough vulnerability that it didn't cross the line into simping territory.

I think it's also important to note that LeBron already fucking gets free lap dances, dummy, and he probably gets 'em in places with strip clubs superior to New York's (Atlanta, Miami. Or so I'm told). I feel embarrassed for New York, so sprung and willing to grovel during these times. Act like you don't care, New York, and Bron'll come running to you. (See, I flipped and bounced Leykis 101.)








5. Will athletes boycott Arizona? This is basically just an article from The Atlantic about what a G Ozzie Guillen is. I love him.

"It's not clear what would happen if a player did refuse to go (play the Diamondbacks in Arizona), and perhaps no one will. The players' union would be obligated to represent a player if he did refuse, but, since there's nothing in baseball's Collective Bargaining Agreement about players refusing to travel because of laws they don't like--or in political protest--the player may not have much of a case. Consequently, the union is unlikely to go out of its way, despite its opposition to the law, to encourage a player to take a doomed stand against his contract and to begin a formal grievance process when, or if, he is fined."

6. I alternate between somber and flippant in this section; you've been warned.


The inner workings of LT's psyche are being bandied about and discursively examined everywhere I look, but this angle from the Huffington Post is one that should probably be more in the forefront. I don't know what happened in the hotel room and neither do you, and there's all this talk of condoms and sex acts and fluids, but the one thing that's not disputed is the fact that the girl was 16. When she's 18, it's prostitution; when she's not yet 18, it's human trafficking.

LT's likely sense of entitlement to buy sex is a sad and gross thing, and it's "yet another example of the most powerful, respected and privileged among us demonstrating the normalization of the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Mr. Taylor is part of what (those) in the anti-trafficking movement call 'the demand that fuels sex trafficking.' Without the demand for commercial sexual exploitation there would be no 16-year-olds or 26-year-olds for that matter, being offered for sale, to Johns by traffickers."

I remain, as always, deeply conflicted when I think about this story--LT has frequently been rewarded professionally for not giving a fuck, so why would we expect a sudden moral trepidation from him when it comes to sex acts? And sure, LT is replete with demons and had it rough growing up, but you know what, I'm guessing this is equally true of the 16-year-old girl whose body he tried to purchase. In the end, unfortunately, there probably isn't an end, a tidy answer or explanation. That tossing of the discursive ball, back and forth, will just have to continue. Men are complicated beings and the socioeconomic/environmental/cultural forces at play in shaping them will always interest me. Also, don't underestimate the redemptive powers of talent. I mean, Ike Turner was an awful guy, but DUDE. HE PRODUCED "PROUD MARY."








7.

The New York Times found a sports-lovin underweight whitegirl and decided it was such a novelty that they wrote a whole piece about her. SI Swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker, who tries unsuccessfully to murder me on my own shit, got the "30 Seconds" treatment a few weeks back to plug a movie and talk about her love of the Tar Heels and Panthers. No disrespect, but I am clearly the superior Girl in Bathing Suit in this arena, and if I wanted to look at a sports dork in a 2-piece, I'd visit my own website* instead of an esteemed publication like the New York Times. TAKE IT ELSEWHERE, MRS. RODDICK.




JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, "Baltimore is the New Brooklyn." I needed a song with the word Brooklyn in it, obviously. Ha, you thought I was gonna post something by the Boot Camp Clik.



mp3.








*













.

Do I have to keep on talking til I can't go on?

The reason for the "Epic humans" tag on this blog.

Bron-Bron to New York maybe, Elena Kagan’s preference of sexual intercourse partner somehow means something, trappin may be dead at this point, and the color of the sky above has changed, but nothing else matters on May 13 except for the fact that the god Stevie was born on this very day in 1950. If you think of a way to capture in language the influence of this man, you’re kind of a jerk for trying but I’m jealous of your ability. (PS, call me; we should probably be sleeping together).


This is the best song I could think of to post, because of each beautiful and perfect note from that clavinet, and because Bobbito played it right after “Tears of a Clown” at Wonderfull ’05 and it made me collapse right there on the floor, a quivering mass of estrogen and joy. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, except when you’re talking about the Stevie Wonder catalogue.


“We Can Work It Out.” Saginaw > Liverpool.

mp3.






.

The 3 things on the Internet that have invaded my heart today.

Cherry + Rollins, Milan, 1963. [Roberto Polillo]

Sonny Rollins is the saxophone colossus,

that Duck Sauce song and its corresponding video* will never stop ruling,

Lil Jon is too old to still be making songs like that, and

anything produced by the good people at Organized Noize is fucking FUN, like music and life are sposed to be. I had forgotten about this; it's from '99. "Gold teeth and heavy Chevys, and talking slow/Afros & loud-ass Italian clothes" is the winner here, but that little shuffle in the drum pattern gets (a very impressive and nothing to be ashamed of) 2nd place.





#1 - Memphis bleak; there's a good piece at the Village Voice about the trials and tribs of Three 6 Mafia and 8Ball & MJG, penned by goofy looking white guy Ben Westhoff. (They always make the best writers, though, so it's OK, Ben.)







#2 - E-40, Clyde Carson, Husalah, "Lightweight Jammin." It's no "The Server"; let's just get that out of the way right now. But oddly, in defiance of the Lil Jon rule, E-40 will never be too old to make songs like this. And the way he talks about the beat while the beat plays is like a lightweight, Solano County version of James Brown talking to Fred and Maceo as "Doing It To Death" takes shape--describing the drums coming in just before they come in, talking about the effects that the groove has on his private parts, and stating with frankness the fact that he needs to be in the key of D in order to really get down there, in touch with his private parts. I tell you. People, it's bad.










#3 - Nappy Roots, “Ride.” I thought this was gonna be corny and feel-good, and then I realized I'm pretty corny and I like feeling good. And when I let it play for longer than 45 seconds, I figured out that the song isn't corny. Ignore the corny white guy strumming while leaning against the car, though; focus instead on the cute doggy and Skinny's delivery, and of course the chorus, which makes me feel good. (XXL, thanks.)

(Why yes, I heard and saw that new Fashawn too; it leaves me underwhelmed and longing for the Mighty Mos rhyming/coal-mining original, despite Blu's presence. Can't win 'em all, Los Angeles. Unless, you know, it's the NBA we're talking about.)










* "I-can-doitanywaythatyouwantiiiiiit" is usually my line, but it's OK for someone else just this once.








.

Scarlett exists just to make me feel bad about my personal appearance, plus 5 things that entertained me at work yesterday.

I'm easy; any girl who couldn't get a job with American Apparel because she's not shaped like a 12-year-old boy just does it for me. [V magazine]

• Ornella Vanoni, "L'Appuntamento," which should play in your head every time you see me in a slip, walking around the house to get ready for a fancy, boring party. Sono triste tra la genteche mi sta passando accanto; ma la nostalgia di rivedere te forte pi del pianto. You don't need an English translation, my man. Just listen.

mp3.






• The Onion:






• Jeff Tweedy's son Spencer has a blog, both a regular one and a photo one, and they're better than mine. He's 14, and sassy and adorable. (sorry, Spence! You are.)

"I go to jew camp...(where) half the girls at camp are named 1. rebecca 2. sarah 3. rachel." LOVE.







• Animated album cover GIFs! Via GQ.












• Monch's pre-Mother's Day Twitter tributes, a study in both "Awwww" and "MOMMMM, you're embarrassing me in front of Mos."











.

“Anybody who was not madly in love with Lena Horne should report to his undertaker immediately and turn himself in” - Ossie Davis.

Medgar & Lena.

“Always be smarter than the people who hire you,” she said.

.

And all the suckers get pushed back.

RONDO! was the chant in apartment 15 yesterday. I'll always always hate this team due to the entire decade of the '80s and the mispronunciation of the word Celtics, but just look at the love up there! (You ever tell anyone I did a post in small tribute to them, by the way, and you're out of my RSS feed for life.)



PS -

The New York Times' "Style Map" featured Boston this week--and called it, of course, Mass Appeal. So subtle of a Guru tribute, I bet most of its readers didn't even notice; they thought it was merely a reference to the state of Massachusetts. Step up your Gangstarr, NYT subscribers. Good lord.





"I Got to Have It." Don't make me act like where I come from 'cause it's bru-tal. Ed OG had a boring voice and okay verses, but this fucking song, sweet Jesus.

mp3.




.

Ghostface's birthday: notes on a theme.

I'll never fully come to terms with the fact that rappers actually age like mortals, but at least I can throw together a humble tribute to one of the greats in my humble corner of the Internet. Ghosty turns 40 today; here's a dispatch from my emotional landscape:


• The Pill, too, was born on this day (in 1960). Without being too crass, let’s just say that the birth and subsequent music of Ghosty has given me sexual freedom in a way only equaled by oral contraceptives.

• The Taurean man is known to be affable and friendly, but in such need of stability that he can become possessive and stubborn. He's also prone to brooding and dark moods. I think we all remember the "I'm just a lonely old man and people don't know that" incident of 2007. I was a wreck for almost a week, you'll recall, worrying and saving up money for a plane ticket to NY so I could hug him.

Bruno Spoerri - "Hymn of Taurus."

mp3.



• Sexually depraved lyrics. Having recorded with El-P, Mobb Deep, Doom, Styles P., Kool G Rap. Songs about white women in knee high boots and bracelets. The high-pitched, breathless flow. The way I feel totally out of the loop sometimes when I listen to the slang and can't keep the fuck up, yet I just want more and more. Keeping it weird.
(just an unorganized collection of things I love about him)

• Back-in-time pretend time: on 9 May 1970, "American Woman" and "Turn Back the Hands of Time," noted displays of bassline prowess, were riding high on the charts. Psychedelic Shack just came out (March), "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was on the radio. Funkadelic came out. Wilson Pickett, "Get Me Back on Time, Engine #9."; The Spinners, "It's a Shame"; Stevie's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," with that joyous collision of bassline and tambourine as an opener--all of 'em were new and were immediate classics. The Derek & the Dominoes album with "Layla" on it came out. Next month, in June 1970, Band of Gypsys will come out. In the fall, Paranoid by Black Sabbath will come out. Obviously baby Dennis Coles was destined for musical greatness, being born in this musical climate. Meanwhile, the only groundbreaking musical thing that happened in apartment 15 last week was Gucci leaving So Icey.




Just the sheer craftsmanship of this song. Grab your headphones and indulge me, please.







And with today being what it is, I'm pulling out the old "Ghostface and your mom have a lot in common" post from last year.

This tall, handsome man from New York who has the face of a ghost could absolutely come over to your house for some coffee and lovely conversation with your mom, over there in the breakfast nook. Ragu and nutmeg, Camay, scales of fish, Betty Crocker: mothers understand these references in Toney's breathless high pitch. Plus you got all those mentions of actresses, American presidents, kings, emperors, French-Canadian chanteuses, a bunch of athletes (tennis, football, boxing, wrasslin'), Colombian businessmen, game show hosts, '60 and '70s soul singers, '80s pop stars, messiahs, ex-"Today Show" hosts, Rat Pack-ers, Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky and Mike (sorry)...it's really so obvious that Toney and the moms of the world could chat about pop culture for an extended period of time. (Hi Ego Trip, it's me again. I'm really disappointed in you for not seeing this first.)

It weakens my argument to have to omit certain lines because not everybody's mom would catch the references that mine would, but there's still enough convincing material here. For example, I feel that I can be honest and admit that I had to leave out that Sonny Carson mention from "Murda Goons"; as fresh as my own mom is, she is unfamiliar with Sonny. However, I'm proud to say that I could include any verses mentioning Slick Rick, since my mom is quite familiar and could even pick him out in some sort of group Def Jam photo if asked (you would too if you had me for a daughter). Similarly, I included the Brian Urlacher and Jay Cutler stuff in case your mom watches football like mine. PS, the only Jaime Summers in a middle-aged mom's world should be Lindsay Wagner, and my mom doesn't understand the verb "to train" the way it's used by Ghost* and I'm fine with that. Ssshhhh.





Puppy love, gorgeous face, amazed by lip gloss
Cherry scent, when the princess spoke yo it bounced off
Mole like Marilyn Monroe, threw a rose in her mouth
Wherever God go will be Mrs. Coke

- “Child's Play”




Wu-Tang Clan spark the wicks and
However, I master the trick just like Nixon

- “Bring Da Ruckus”




I ran the Dark Ages, Constantine and great Henry the Eighth
Built with Genghis Khan, the red suede Wally Don

- “4th Chamber”




Blow backs in, flip raps like forty-eight bundles
Dinner plates, deadly front gates, celeb Bryant Gumbel

- “We Made It”




With starwriters like I fucked Celine Dion
Stuck everything that's the god's honest beyond

– “9 Milli Bros.”




Thanks to the revolver, Ramik had the leap from the heat
Like he was Frogger, bang monster King Arthur
Guns older than Bob Barker, graze comin out the nose barrel
Trouble maybe, then we from Harvard

- “Who Are We”




Sho nuff, hit the bank and thrust
Cool Nauticas, *Jamie Summers got trained on the tour bus

- “Iron Maiden”




I know this chick from the hood named Courtney Cox
And her brain is easy to pick like faulty locks

- “Josephine”



That's how the God do, Motown twenty-five
My orals like Smokey's voice, little moist, but choice

- “Stay True”



Kiss the pyramid experiment with high explosive
I slapbox with Jesus, lick shots at Joseph

- “Daytona 500”




Burgundy minks, whips with sinks in em
Broccoli blown, illa disease breath, elephant skin
Meet the black Boy George, dusted on my honeymoon

- “Stroke of Death”




That's the same kid that cut his wrists, talkin bout the cuffs did it
He ran away, frontin majorly, eyes like Sammy Davis jr.

- “Malcolm”



- “The Grain.” Pretty much his whole verse. (Queen Elizabeth, Vanna White, the Pope.)



Slinging the backs of five Cleopatras
A cocaine chef, I stretch money like elastic
My raps is bigger, dynamics with the muscle advantage
Jay Cutler on dust, when I blam shit

- “Rec-Room Therapy”




Fly shit like Curtis Mayfield and his intro
Throw this in your whip, convent, your tens blow

- “Ghost Showers”



As I stroll the globe and terrorize the planet
With a Bill Clinton mask and them Playskool hens

- “The Mask”



I give a order to my peeps across the water
To go and snatch up props all around the border
And get far like a shootin star
'Cause who I are, is dim in the light of Pablo Escobar

– “Protect Ya Neck”



You two-faces, scum of the slum, I got your whole body numb
Blowin like Shalamar in eighty-one
Sound convincin, thousand dollar court by convention
Hands, like Sonny Liston, get fly permission

– “Triumph”



Laying n---as like ceramic tile
I'm like Urlacher, beasting at the top of the pile

- “New Wu”



Chop the O, sprinkle a lil' snow inside a Optimo
Swing the John McEnroe, rap rock'n'roll.

Aiyyo spiced out Calvin Coolidge, loungin with 7 duelers
The Great Adventures of Slick, lickin with 6 rugers.

- “Nutmeg”




The Betty Crocker, marvel cake stakes admissor
wax janitor, black Jack Mulligan from Canada

- “Bells of War”







.
.
.

Instrumentals I need and that in some way refer to the cultural zeitgeist at large, 05/06/10.

• "Hand-Clapping songs improve cognitive development in children." - LiveScience, evidently just now hearing about how I won the entire school's spelling bee when I was in second grade. That means I had to go up against fourth and fifth graders, and I won, and it's all because of mom and dad's record collection.




Look at you, North Carolina! Shining star, baby! "Who Dat" blew up the proverbial spot a couple days ago, and I'm hungry for the instrumental so I can raise up, take my shirt off, then twist it around my head and spin it like a helicopter. It's the handclaps, sure, but that bassline gives me a magical feeling of '90s nostalgia because of a certain Christopher Wallacian quality. Pink gators, my Detroit players/Timbs for my hoo-li-gans in Brook-lynnn. "Who Dat" into "Hypnotize"--that would be a nice mix.


Shirley Ellis - "The Clapping Song." Joy, just pure joy. My parents used to play this when I was little and show me how to cut a rug right there in the living room. Obviously they saw the hips blooming on me and knew I'd have to learn how to move them in a rhythmic fashion in order to get boys to buy me things.

mp3.

• I’m supposed to believe that Tiger Woods drove a Buick and Dr. Dre uses an HP to make beats. "STOOPS!," the 15-year-old in me says. Good one, advertising! E for effort, and T for nice try.

Sometimes advertising is successful, though, like in the case below. "Evolve," a Gatorade x David Banner wonderful thing, contains a song Banner wrote, produced, and arranged. And now, of course, I need it in instrumental form even though the singing is pretty great. Nice intro to build to crescendo. Courtesy of UGC.















• Detroit might someday legalize weed, perhaps. I live in California, where the streets are paved with gold and there's greenery in a dispensary on every corner and we don't have to worry about something called "sticks" or "stems" (I don't smoke but I've listened to enough songs to know). So, Detroit, you're onto something good here, even though the slow, state-by-state legalization of things gets tiresome. States’ rights vs. federal law means I have to leave Arizona if I’m too swarthy-looking (I always get guesses of Spain, Argentina, Brazil, sometimes Italy), I have to go to Michigan for weed, and then on to Iowa or DC to marry my girlfriend.


"Cali Hills." Where is the instrumental of this, and may I have it, please, Stones Throw? PS, look at Guilty up there, lookin like he's about to go to work in a factory so his kids can eat, like every dude in a Springsteen song or a gentler Joe Jackson. Goddammit I love a blue-collar-lookin MC.

mp3.





.