Here we go, a little emotion on a Sunday morning flowing through my girly brain, courtesy of RapRadar posting this video of Kendrick Lamar's show last night at the Music Box. Ken's komrade Game showed up for R.E.D.album promo moral support of course, and proceeded to konvince me that he's a pretty nice guy - which is basically a big manipulation tactic by Game to make me forget about his musical output and that time he seared my eyes with his “acting.” But I'm relaxed. I'm just going with it. It's Sunday and I'm not religious but I do pray for peace, no traffic accidents, lots of ice cream, some freaking tight lyrics - and also for things that remind me of how lovely humanity can be sometimes. On with it, then -
Top 5 emotional girly moments in the video, Cuz!(my set affiliations will likely fluctuate throughout this post, and anyway it doesn't matter because at this point green is the most important color in all our lives, yes?):
1. THAT SUIT. So much hash-tag-ery occurring in the building on Saturday night, of course, but also so many Hundreds shirts, I'm sure of it! SO MANY. And yet look at KL in his nice black jeans and sport coat, dressed as if he's going to a completely different function than everyone else. “It's Saturday night, you'll probably wear that shit to church,” AMG said one time to a young lady in the club. Ken's show was Friday night, plus he seems like a super clean dude who doesn't wear things more than once, I mean he really keeps it tight and right, so he'll probably wear that outfit just for this show alone. Then tomorrow he'll have it cleaned and nicely pressed. Looking good, sir. And I know I keep saying it but Kendrick Lamar is just a really fresh name. You should run for President with that name, young man.
2. REMINDERS FROM JAYCEON. I know where I live, both because I have an adequate grasp of geography and because I listen to Power 106 for a good 70% of my driving time and that means constant “west coast/Cali/LA” drops are flooding the inside of my Civic, however: Game saying THIS IS THE MOTHERFUCKIN WEST COAST in that nice rasp of his (sorry; I'm a girl, remember?) and continuing with I hate when they say that the west coast ain’t poppin just feels good to a young lady from the greater LA metropolitan area. I know my mom loves me but it's still nice to hear it from her. I know I'm a nice person but it's still nice to hear it from my buddies. On a very similar note: OH MY GOODNESS, GAME! YAY! This IS the west coast! I exclaim. Oh Game, I hate it when they say the west coast ain't poppin too! We agree about some things and that is nice! I like some of your songs even though my blog would tell you otherwise!
(tomorrow morning I'll wake up and be embarrassed I wrote those last 2 things. I like the Scoop DeVille stuff, and I like that “Red Nation” but, I must be honest with myself, that's more because of the Eazy snippet and because of Cool & Dre's dexterity with shuffle-y drum programming than because of anything Game said or did in any of those songs. Ah well.)
3. I LOVE YOUS FROM JAYCEON.“I love you,” Game says to Kendrick, with his arm around him in that way that men do - affectionate but still keeping the body in a guarded position should a scrap occur even though you know a scrap's not going to occur, it's just that men have to make it look that way because of the limits put on them by our culture when they want to express emotion. “Dre, I love you. Snoop, I love you. Jay Rock, Scoop, Kurupt, Roscoe, King Tee, Pooh, Eiht, Tyson Chandler, Venus and Serena. Even if you're from Lynwood or Willowbrook, I love you. Skinny-lady blogs, I love you most of all. Apartment 680, Echo Park, birds in the sky, old records, the NFL about to start, cookies, ice cream, puppies. Logan, I love you. I love you - all of you.” Aww! Hold me! It's promo, all promo, but it's still heartwarming - like when Game volunteered at the animal shelter last week and provided updates about it, remember? “Sparky is a lab mix and has the nicest big brown eyes. ALL ANIMALS deserve good homes! ADOPT! #REDAlbum.”
4. PUNS FROM JAYCEON. “One thing me and (Ken) got in COMPTON...” Teehee.
5. SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY DANTE, WHAT IN THE FUCK. Kendrick's a little too preachy at times, dropping some important historical names in verse without any real gravity behind it, criticizing his generation for sippin cough syrup like it's water, blah blah, but he just turned 24 so that's forgivable. (I was a realll pretentious piece of work at that age.) “Who gives a fuck?” Ken also says, “We never do listen unless it comes with an 808.” Not sure if I'm included in the “we” but just for argument's sake, let's say I am - and Kendrick, my dear, what's your point? 808 taught me everything I need to know about car stereos and sex. But holy Christ, fucking hell, Mos Def is at his show in a sharp red button-up and shiny shoes, oh I just realized Mos is the only other dude in the place going to the same fancy function as Ken, I mean they're in those matching sport coats, and people, my affection for these two men in this moment trumps all. (This is the video's second-greatest moment - almost as aww-inducing as the crowd chanting Ken's name at the beginning, but not quite).
Bonus emotion: The part in the video right after it cuts out, when Ken tosses it to Kurupt and he does a version of “Ohh!” that makes everyone in the audience rip their hair out and scream, it's so incredible they can't believe it's actually happening.
Bonus bonus emotion (not really emotion, though - just a funny thing that fits in here): Nobody is apparently down-er than the Los Angeles Almanac, the website on which this map of Compton appears. CITY IN RED BELOW, SOO WOOOO, etc. etc.
(No color added for emphasis. Nothing added for emphasis. The LA Almanac just knows).
The only thing that can tear me away from making pancakes and listening to that new Danny Brown is a birthday tribute post to some Record Collection Gods of Apt. 680 (born in '49, '65, and '42, respectively).
Photo that makes me giggle:
Parker.
Hayes.
Lynott - N/A, because he looks fresh in every photo.
1- a present from Stax in '71 for his success, it's a metal/sex beast made by Lucifer's minions in a GM plant for the purpose of getting nice, respectable young ladies like me out of their dresses.
The Wall Street Journal wonders if “Otis” will give a boost to the Maybach and its sad little sales record. The video has given the car “new-found hip-hop notoriety,” the article submits, which means that the WSJ has never heard of Rick Ross (LOVE) but also that the WSJ is as out of touch with rap music as say, Kanye West is as out of touch with my life. Anyway, as I've already established, a jerk is a jerk, and that hi-res Lakai intro and lo-res Fatlip video still set the standard for Jonzeian superbness, but I won't lie - I wish on all that is good and holy (Lagerfeld, Murakami, Tisci) that I had been picked for this gig. It's daydream fodder when I'm at work - fast cars, danger, fire and knives, plus that cute part at 1:18 when K looks back at J so they can synchronize their, uh, grippin wood dance. (Am I supposed to pause at this point?)
“Let the Dollar Circulate.” GAMBLE N HUFF. GAMBLE N HUFF. And to a lesser extent, JEEZY JEEZY JEEZY.
“L. Muggerud - L. Freeze - S. Reyes.” SO TOUGH. Best DMV names in rapdom.
1. I will never not say it: Intelligent Hoodlum is a waaaaay better name than Tragedy Khadafi.
2. The simplicity, functionality and aesthetic appeal of those Source ads from '91 still hold up in '11.
Was it album art director Stacy Drummond who was responsible? If so: madam, excellent work.
Ms. Valentine taught me about the concept of “Chekhov’s gun” in 12-grade English - a literary technique in which an entity is introduced early in a story, but its significance does not become clear until later. Muggs says they recorded this album in the winter of 1990-1. In March '91, a video came out featuring the LAPD behaving like complete fucking murderous heathens. Ho-hum. Aaaaanyway, track 1 is called “Pigs,” it is about law enforcement officers, and in it - just like in nearly every song that follows it on the album - the boys make brutality (shooting, prison rape) sound fun and sing-song-y. There are all these well-placed la-la-laaaas in the album's stories about putting holes in human flesh, which is terrifying yet charismatic and amusing, like Jack Torrance or every character Joe Pesci plays.
3. Muggs tells Brian Coleman that PE and Ultramag were his favorites and the ones that influenced him most of all.
First of all, ME TOO, LAWRENCE MUGGERUD, even though I don't make beats (yet); second, NO FUCKING WAY, LAWRENCE. What I mean is: yes, upon listening to your compositions, one might be able to infer that you were influenced by the brothers Shocklee and that perhaps every night during the Cypress Hill crafting sessions you slept with one hand on your crate of most breaks-rich funk records. This influence also explains the New York-y feel to the group, which was probably Columbia's doing on some A&R bs - plus it was the Giants over the Bills in the '91 Super Bowl - but the fact remains I have a big problem with the videos being shot in NYC (even though '91 Q-Tip is always nice to see - the presence of Ice Cube in the video doesn't make it all ok, though! You're just throwing LA a bone with that one, gentlemen). PS, Larry: I'm not mad that to make “Something for the Blunted” you basically just let “Future Shock” play and laid some cheeba cuts on top. (Ask me about my feelings regarding Kanye and “Otis” sometime, and you'll understand how much of a compliment that is.) I'd also like to give you a special shout for using that “Tramp” bassline, which provides the whole foundation for the song, and for sampling THREE James Brown records on that same song. THREE. Swoon.
People don't put that creepy stop-motion walking-backwards craze in their videos anymore. I miss it.
Other things people no longer do: call dudes busters or marks; do the lift-up-the-knee stomp-dance;
wear bucket hats (other than DZA; he's the only one these days).
4. That “Phuncky Feel One” breakdown vs. the source of that breakdown (the JB's, “More Peas”): which is superior? This remains a heated debate in apt. 680.
“Phuncky” is a can of ginseng extract with a pinch of coke. I mean it's just pure energy. A party in a bottle, 2 in the morning, still jumpin 'cause your mama ain't home. But then you got the JB's! It's THE JB's! How can I deny them? There's the break at 08:28, takes my breath away, and just before that, James, as usual, chops it up with the song. He asks the song how it's doing, you know - makes suggestions for where the song should go, talks about the geographic areas where the people playing the song are from (Georgia; not DC). “We gave the people some. Can we give the bass some? Bass, you ain’t had none. When we give the bass some, let's take it to F...Can we take it to F?” UM FUCK YES MR. BROWN, AND OH DEAR, WHAT'S THIS, MY DRESS APPEARS TO HAVE FALLEN OFF OF MY BODY.
5. In 1990, there was no such thing as Death Row Records and, just as tragic with regard to my personal life story, no such thing as Starbucks in Los Angeles. Things were different then, that's all I'm saying, and the world was rather inadequate.
So of course you and your boys are gonna want to make some music. There was nothing else to do. LA was dullsville. “Back in '94 I shoulda signed to Death Row,” today's Power 106 driving-around-in-the-Civic banger said to me. Ooh what a song, I thought to myself after that first verse/hook combo. Then I thought: Oh dear, all the mentions of firearms and ki's and ass; Banner would hate this even though he raps about those things too then he hides behind his master's degree. And then: No, Money Jay--back in nine-one you shoulda signed to Death Row. You want to be ahead of the curve, my friend. Ah well. I still have great fondness for the song, though in concept more than execution. Dudes are so braggy all the time in my ear canal that it's nice to hear some humility and remorse for bad decision-making every once in a while.
6. This is Cypress Avenue in South Gate, where the shit used to go down for our heroic trio - or at least where they would play football in the street until their families called them in for dinner.
Does it look familiar? It should, because it could also pass for Andre Young's childhood street, or Pooh's or King Tee's or, I don't know, Arabian Prince's? Hell, it looks like Oxnard too - the street upon which Michael and Otis Jackson jr. played. The grassy, pretty, tree-lined-ness of LA neighborhood aesthetics lends itself perfectly to making songs when you are a young man, because it's boring, and there's little else to do. And my ears/heart/body thank the good lord for that.
7. November 3, 1990 – NBA on NBC starts airing.
John Tesh's epic/corny ass composes the music; it's playing in my head as I write this. Do-do dododoDOdo-dooooo (that's how it goes). I knew this fact before I composed this post, because I have a massive nerd brain inside the head that sits atop my skinny-lady frame. What I didn't know is that this was also the year the flagrant foul was introduced. I'm not sure how all this dovetails with the recording sessions for Cypress Hill (winter '90-1, remember), but it seems important-? And then, 20 years later, Lil B does a song about his chain looking like John Tesh and girls doing things to him with their mouths because he looks like John Tesh, and in his spare time he introduces the term Mary Hart for a groupie. J/K. Lil B has no idea who John Tesh is.
8. Top 5 lines from “How I Could Just Kill a Man”:
1. How do you know where I'm at when you haven't been where I've been? Understand where I'm coming from. This is just skilled writing - specific and universal, like all great sentences. 2. Time for some action, just a fraction of friction/I got the clearance to run the interference. What does this mean/I love it/I've loved it from the first time I heard it. 3.ALL I WANTED WAS A PEPSI.Muggs, I see you. You got alllllll those Parliament and Bar-Kays records on your shelf, plus one precious copy of Suicidal Tendencies hidden in the back. 4. Actin kinda loco, I'm just another local/Kid from the street gettin paid for my vocal. Please see #1 (this one's not so universal, although it kind of is, because in the greater LA area, everyone's got label connects and/or a deal pending). 5. The hummin/comin at ya, how it's always going away then popping back up in the song, is something like perfection only that sounds trite so I won't say it. You can just tell Muggs puts his time in, though - he really fucking cares about the stuff he puts out. I will say that.
Honorable mention: putos. The way they just spit it out, so full of venom.
9. We're supposed to believe “Time 4 Sum Aksion” was produced by Erick Sermon,
I guess back when he and CH were ‘90s buddies and used to...Ruffhouse together? (No? Teehee?...Groan. Sorry.) However, I know for a fact that “Time 4 Sum Aksion” was crafted by the hands of the basketball gods themselves, with care and love, for the purpose of having every high school team between the years 1992 and ’95 use the song as its warm-up music. And in a comical note, Wikipedia has a collection of “popular culture” instances in which the song appeared—a list of the 259 boxers/wrestlers/MMA dudes who have used the song as their intro theme. Not on the list: me, even though this song is my “getting fucking psyched to conquer the hordes at the DMV” motivation. Let's get ready to ruuumbllllllllle. Mr. Sermon also used it in “Cummin Atcha” from that same time period (I get it, Erick - you liked the first Cypress Hill album); that song's only remarkable for the liggedy-let the nines clap line, which reminds me that it was the height of the 9mm era, and I guess one could argue that we're still in that era, but honestly for the last 10-12 years in lyrics the mighty Desert Eagle has stolen the show.
10. That “Duke of Earl” sample makes no sense within the lyrical context of “Hand on the Pump,” but this is forgivable.
I knowwww I can’t afforrrrrd to stop is what comes into my mind, first thing, when I think of a break that's appropriate to the thematic and lyrical elements of an MC's story. On the opposite end of the appropriateness scale, Squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her, while beauuuuutifully chopped up and placed in between J and K's stanzas, is a terribly irrelevant and dumb Otis snippet to use in a song about having lunch with Charles Schwab or whatever the fuck those two are yammering on about. If I may, J and K: I would suggest an Otis song about having dreams to remember, or the We don't want nothing but joy, y'all/Nothing but joy from “Cigarettes and Coffee,” in a song about jets and cash and being able to dodge charges in the American legal system just like Dominique Strauss-Kahn. You're welcome, J and K! Really, J and K, it was nothing. But I would like a co-producer credit, please.
So the use of this particular break makes no sense, but Duke duke duke, duke of just sounds really fresh in a rap song about hunters v. hunted and being fucked v. being the one doing the fucking; nothing less than that, but nothing more, either. I guess to justify its use, you could say the narrators are establishing their royal status within their social system - Sen and B are dukes, figuratively speaking? Really, though, it's just a sample that LA guys raised on K-Earth and Art Laboe wanted to use, so they found a place for it on the album. Why I can forgive inappropriateness when Muggs does it but I cannot when Kanye does will go down as one of apt. 680’s eternal mysteries - right up there with “how come some teenage boy actors can grow up and become fine, fine rappers (Mos) and others make me want to kill myself (Drake).”
“Let a white cop shoot a black kid/You'll see a few tweets, that's it.” Cranky Dave's got a point here but he's also perhaps missing the point that all of Lil B's songs are from the future, when words don't mean what we think they mean only we haven't caught up yet so we don't realize it. And can't I be complex enough to have a master's degree and still have a folder on my laptop dedicated to snappin & trappin songs? Can't I? Or am I deluding myself? The intensity of this debate makes me feel like I should stop blogging and working for the government and just go back to stripping.
Still, that V-Nasty reference made me scream out YESSS, THANK YOU in apt. 680 when I heard it last night. And Cranky Dave is better than no Dave at all, because even when he's cranky and message-shouting he still makes it fun and King of Diamonds-ish. GET EM.
“Get Like Me.” YES I've fucking seen a Chevy with butterfly doors. Stop asking, about 87 songs since this song came out. I only want David to ask me.
2. This isn't real; it's a picture of the inside of my brain (ARTEST X CURREN$Y, 504 X 718, life is wonderfulllll, lalalalaaaa), via the LA Times.
3. John Carpenter being interviewed by RA is not really that unreal, if you think about it. It really makes complete sense, if you think about it. What's really unreal, though, is the fact that apparently John Carpenter is my father-? (he talks how my dad talks and that's why I am the way I am). (GrandGood)
4. "Nostalgia is a seductive liar." - George Ball.
"How'd you come up with the concept for 'Sleepin' On My Couch'?""Uh, it's about people sleepin on my couch, Dre." Del is probably a difficult interview, though, so I shouldn't be too hard on
Dre. Anyway, Baby Del and his WOOLY DOME and his complaints about people coming to his home and not wanting to step are not real. It's seduction; not a real thing. I am not familiar with this man's work but from the strength of his speaking voice I feel like he might make a great MC and beat artisan (but only on his days off from reading me the phone book out loud).
I just discovered that first album was recorded here, in what is now a sad little AT&T store. 20 years later, here's me, a girl on planet Earth, typing this post on a laptop I purchased in a store across the street from that location. The Boogiemen used to make coffee runs at that very Starbucks, which first came to LA 20 years ago. Mindfucks aren't real. They're just not.
5."Dyslexie, a Typeface Designed to Help Dyslexics Read." This is real, and it feels good.
A man reads the Koran on the first day of Ramadan while taking shelter from rain on a sidewalk in Lahore August 2. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters); The Big Picture.
I don't get You're beautiful emails; I get Nice blog, nerd emails. That's the way I planned it and that's the way I likes it; I know my visitors come to read my Fripp dorkouts, my Gibbs dorkouts, my ramblings about that moment when I realized K.R.I.T. means King Remembered In Time (pretentious, but I still like him). My visitors don't even notice or care that I have hips (right??) because the pleasures of language overpower any romantic feelings between us. My visitors eat words up. I do too. And I take it for granted that I can do it so easily. So I'm taking a break from complaining about rappers, both because I'm still exhausted from yelling about WTT and because it's not good for my psyche to be so focused on the negative, to do a little fawning over a typeface designer who's doing some good for the world.
Boer compares Dyslexie (example above) to a wheelchair. He has dyslexia, and "followed his own instincts about optimizing typography to fit his own eye, then recruited eight other dyslexics (whom he didn't know) to help him iterate through four rounds of design to refine the letterforms..." One of the key features of Dyslexie is the extra visual 'weight' it adds to the bottom halves of the letters." Boer says this is to help "pin the letters to the baseline, which helps make them easier to read."
The time he spent perfecting the thing is the best, most fawn-worthy part of his story. "I can tell you that I have worked on the comma for four hours," he says, "and the letter 'a' for more than 12 hours." Nice work, Christian, but does it make Watch the Throne any more tolerable?(FastCoDesign)
You gotta let me read just a page of you, baby. Frank Ocean - "Bedtime Story." Frank's got car-sing-along Power 106 Chris-Brown-levels beautiful pop melodies, minus the no-holds-barred bitchery and absolute hatred of women that Chris tries to make us all forget about when he flashes his perfect white teeth. Plus Frank's got some musical blood running through him, being Billy Ocean's son and all. J/K! Shabaam Sahdeeq and Raphael Saadiq are cousins, though. (J/K! Stop believing it just because of my trustworthy face!)
Movin roughly, straight to the desert, San Antonio. That's what happened in June, when I took my uppity liberal feminist California self down to Texas. It was a work trip, but I capitalized on having my hotel room and plane ticket paid for by using every minutefucking carshoping freaks will get inside of my Lacville '79 trying to breathe in promethazine fumesRap(ping)-A-Lotdisproving stereotypes put in my head by a thousand Texas rap songs going record shoppin! I also insisted on pronouncing it “San Antone” during my entire stay just like Ike did in What's Love Got to Do with It, because I'm adorable/insufferable.
Don't ever go to Texas, it's an awful place (outside my comfy comfy hotel room bed, above) - unless Devin is your tourguide and he takes you to meet Bun B's second-grade teacher who remembers him as a bright, quiet boy, or Dev arranges a tour of Cowboys Stadium that ends with you punching Jerry Jones square in the mouth. San Antonio Antone is deep in the heart of Texas (which would make a great line in a song), and prior to going there I knew little about it apart from the fact that the Spurs have a player named Tiago Splitter and the guy in ZZ Top without the beard has the last name "Beard."Now, however, I am aware of a lovely store called Hogwild at which I purchased some records (below).
Best Cover in this particular record haul, which is to say: Best Use of Hands Outside of Muhammad Ali, James Yancey, and Curren$y Doing the Alpha Sign. Would you look at that cover, please.
Just look. Go on. I'll wait here.
I like manhood that isn't afraid to match outfits, or touch hands to shoulders out of respect/admiration.
“Trying Girls Out.” Most Obvious Way for Kanye to Weasel His Way Into This Post Somewhere,annnnd Most Seductive Use of Harmony (making me forget this song is about lady-hopping.)
Best Ant Banks Connection (the break in Spice 1's “Clip and the Trigga,” a song that opens with I'm 22 with a motherfuckin beer belly so I'm guessing the boyfriend prospects for me in Hayward are pretty slim. I'm still prowling the Bay; nothing can stop me. Richmond, lock up your sons and husbands.)
Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson, 1980 (Arista...uh, 1980).
Ain't no such thing as a superman, Gil said once, speaking the truth. Ain't no such thing as a space-cadet cowboy duo in the future, doing some programming of keys in the belly of Herbie Hancock's church/laboratory, I said once. Then I saw this album cover, which made me say Finally!, a photographic rendering of What 1996 Logan Imagined Future Del and Future Madlib (Rap Ziggy Stardusts) Looking Like in the year 2387, Hanging Out Together, Bringing Messages from the Other Side.
Billy Preston, Everybody Likes Some Kind of Music (A&M, 1973).
Most Obvious (and kind of insulting to our intelligence, really) Album Title. Sorry, Billy.
Best Personnel Credit: “Banjo - Dennis Coates.” THERE'S A BANJO CREDIT. FUCKING DOPE. Billy, born in Houston, is also the Texan with the Best Hair in this particular record haul. I'm trying to remain calm in spite of the big biiiig Texas news I just heard about (UPCOMING SCREW EXHIBIT AT THE U of HOUSTON).
Best Use of 9th Wonder! Billy's cover of “It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding” was flipped n bounced by 9th on "Let It Be Known,” a song by World's Third-Best Grouchy MC (Next to El-P and Pimp C), Sean “punch n---s through school buses” Price (with Phonte). This is a Dylan song with the line “He not busy being born is busy dying,” which my 16-year-old self found to be terribly heavy and meaningful; I mean, it really put 10th grade into perspective for me. These days I hear it and think Gosh that sounds like something Drake would say in his awful Canadian monotone.
Quincy Jones, Mode (ABC, 1974).
This one's unremarkable, a compilation of some '60s jazz pieces that neither the Pharcyde nor Doc Oct flipped/bounced, ho-hum, but it's Quincy nonetheless and that makes it the Best Excuse for Me to Post Some Quincy. “Kitty with the Bent Frame” is obviously a song about the sexual arching of a female's back, yes? We're all grown-ups here; let's just get right down to it. And knowing Quincy, I'm guessing Kitty is a lady with pale skin and blondish hair, yes? Just a guess. Knowing Quincy. “Kitty” is a track from Q's soundtrack to Dollar$, a heist film that is just begging - BEGGING - for a Curren$y tie-in. Monsta, get on that, please.
Weather Report, Black Market (Columbia, 1976).
Best...Use of Zawinul? I don't know; don't tell my dad or Madlib, the two men I'm always trying to impress the most with my musical knowledge, but I'm really not that into these guys. It feels right to have some in my collection, though - like the broccoli in my fridge's crisper that I'll never eat.
Redd Foxx, Sly Sex (Dooto, 1960).
“Sly sex” is that thing that happens on a hot day or a hot night when you appeal to my basest animal needs by putting Fresh on the hi-fi.(Then you watch what happens next, which is always me doing my impression of a King of Diamonds professional. HI MOM).
Best Useless and Comical Assist Attempt by the Internet: the Discogs search box inquiring Did you mean Freddie Foxxx? when I typed in Redd's name,thereby making my whole day better.
No, I did not mean Freddie, Discogs - but I can understand why you'd make that assumption.
(Discogs understands me in a way few ever will)
The Crusaders, Street Life(MCA, 1979).
The Crusaders get Most Convincing and Un-ironic Display of Enthusiasm Before a Night on the Town with that album photo. Aw, so excited! They look so happy because there's nothing else to do in Texas but get dressed up to go ride mechanical bulls and play beer pong.
They also get the win for Best Band Name (but sometimes I wonder if this was a mistake, the wrong choice; is The Persuaders actually the better name?). Anyway, street life: it's no jet life fool, but it seemed to work for a lot of dudes in 1979. That title song is a true great, a joyous driving-and-singing classic, even though street life isn't so much the only life I know. Prod sang it awkwardly in a hook once, sort of convincingly I guess - but it's nothing compared to his secret song off his secret 2011 album ("Reading Logan the Phone Book Out Loud Life"). And that Randy Crawford, boy I tell you - she had this soft-hard thing happening with her voice, making me jealous as hell but no so jealous that I can't write a little post of admiration in her honor on my humble blog.
1824 N Main Ave San Antonio, TX 78212 (210) 733-5354 Neighborhoods: Nowheresville; Republican Hell; Tobin Hill; San Antonio College adj.
Pros: Good records; cheap records; no competition from the locals; staff was nice to me; cab driver waited for me outside while I shopped and didn't leave the meter running. Aw. Cons: TEXAS.
The phrases "I love your sundress," "sugar bunny," and "church girl on Sundays; freaky on Mondays and Fridays" are enough to get me through the dreary workday. Also "word life," which needs to make a triumphant return.
I like to think I'm made of fairy dust, hips, pure love and 808, but in fact I am human. I'm only human. The jerk above and his friend made a record, and on it they flash and stunt, and cry a little, and overall they try to grip hard to that thing they're losing, that Scorsesian ability to make jerks seem appealing. Watch the Throne is a ghost that has nothing to do with my life, like those awful Transformers movies - no real storyline, just a bunch of explosions and cars and slow, panning shots of ladies’ asses. But I'm only human. So I had to give this thing a listen. Here, then, is a song-by-song breakdown of exactly how long it'll take me to jump out of your car when you put Watch the Throne on the Kenwood with me in the passenger seat:
1. “No Church in the Wild” - 63 seconds; I wanna hear an internal-struggle song about being torn between hedonism and a more meaningful life, I'll listen to “Cadillac on 22s,” thankyouuuuu.
“You're gonna put Frank Ocean on a song, and you waste that voice of his on this drivel?” I say out loud to you in my naggy voice (you're a stand-in for the true object of my frustration, 88-Keys, who is no doubt the man behind the boards here. 2011 Kanye lacks the restraint required to make such an understated piece of music - 2003 Kanye had that restraint, but wishing for his return is not going to make it so.)
“What's a mob to a king?,” Frank sings, “What's a king to a God? What's a God to a non-believer who don't believe in anything?” Knock it off, Frank. Nobody cares. More importantly, I ask you, what's a goon to a goblin?? I can only tolerate about 1 full minute of this, but still, it's got some pluses: a) the presence of Frank's voice, underused as it is, and b) an interesting beat. I can't tell if I like it or not but goddammit I keep listening to it and that's gotta mean something, right? Ooh and pitch it up and that BPM would make “That's All” the perfect song to mix into it when you have your next BBQ.
Oh hi Beyonce, glad you could join us. You're beautiful but boring, a spinning, perfect ballerina inside a jewelry box. And oh my, what's this? Looks like you brought some ascending, triumphant synth stabs with you! Nice. J and K are trying to appeal to the "persons with breasts" demographic with this one, I see. Except that J and K should stop insulting my intelligence and just call the song "Pandering to the Ladies (The Lady Song)." I mean, really; let's just lay it all out on the table, gentlemen. I can hear this thing playing at Forever 21 already. (Rap they don’t play at Forever 21: Curren$y, Wacko n’ Skip, Keith Thornton, Terrence Thornton. Just like God intended.)
Margiela, hot bitches, Derrick Rose's crotch getting some love (verbally - not in any other way. Goodness gracious.): this song sounds like the daily goings-on in apartment 680! That's not enough to hold me, however. Aw damn. Once I hear the full hook, which is pretty great even though it has Michael Bay explosions and I'm already tired of hearing Aziz Ansari's future rap song based on the phrase that shit cray, I open up the door and I'm gone, gone like the wind...if the wind wore jeans that are too tight and if the wind cared wayyyyy too much about jerks who make rap music.
4. "Otis” - half a second. (no link; IT DOESN'T DESERVE A GODDAMN LINK)
“HOW BOUT WE JUST LISTEN TO THE ACTUAL ‘TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS,’” I yell when I hear the opening strains of track 4. You had to know this was coming; I've been bitching about this song for a week now! And since I don't know when to quit, I just keep going. “HERE'S TODAY'S NEWSPAPER HEADLINE FOR THAT ASS: LOS ANGELES WOMAN GETS MIGRAINE UPON LEARNING OF CHICAGO MAN TAKING CREDIT FOR PRODUCING A SONG WHEN REALLY HE JUST ADDED FUZZINESS AND A DRUM TRACK OVER A CLASSIC.” Then I feel bad; you kind of like this song - it is chopped-up very nicely, I'll give you that - and I just yelled at you about it. I put my face in my hands. Yelling's not normally my thing; I don't know what came over me. I am truly sorry. You're still reeling, though, so then I try to sing a funny little song or tell a joke to lighten the mood. If you're still annoyed, which you probably won't be because I'm adorable, and have you seen my hips?, I'll put my hand on your hand - trying a little tenderness, if you will - as a sign of apology. The actual "Try a Little Tenderness" is playing at this point, since I always get what I want. Then we make out, and things get especially hot during the drums at 2:34! Yay.
5. “Gotta Have It” - initially, 12 seconds. Then I let it warm up, and boy am I glad, because if I had gone with my first instinct I would've missed the very, verrrrry Pharrellian spare-change-jingling-in-your-pocket breakdown just before the 2-minute mark.
The Whatchu need, WhatWhatchu need draws me in, and the Takeumonhome about halfway through convinces me to ride this thing out (thank you for keeping the James Brown fires burning, Mr. Williams!) Unfortunately, I'll probably still pout all the way through because when you said you were putting on a song about needing to have it, I thought I was going to hear THISSSSS:
Even more unfortunately, once the thing comes to an end I return to my senses and remember that if I wanna hear some JB all chopped up, goddammit it's gonna be one J. Yancey who gives it to me.
6. “New Day” - 4:39. That's the whole thing! (I like it; I want it to go on and on).
Nina Simone saying Breeze driftin on by, echoed coos, plus Robert Diggs, plus a narrative theme that cleanses me, kind of un-does all that gross consumerism I feel since I acted on impulse and bought that Alexander Wang bag. This song is wonderful, pretty, heavily-bottomed (ROBERT DIGGS; I just told you). “And if the day comes I only see him on the weekend,” J says about his pretend-son, “I just pray we was in love on the night that we conceived him.” Aw Shawn. It makes me get a little teary-eyed, probably because I have a mean case of melody-specific autism and because of my still-vulnerable emotional state after catching some very intense feelings over Mike Mills' Beginnerswhen I saw it Sunday.
7. “That's My Bitch” - 3:22 [just because I'm curious to see if what every ex-boyfriend says about me is true (that I really do like every song with the word bitch in the title)].
Q-Tip's drums doing an impression of Pharrell n' Chad's drums in '01 sounds nice, and then the drums from "Apache" come in and they always sound nice. But even though the best advice I can always give myself about anything in any situation at any time isDON'T OVER-THINK IT, LOGAN, I always fail in doing so. Track 7 is no exception to this. J on non-white feminine beauty: “Picasso was alive he woulda made her/That's right....Mona Lisa can't fade her/I mean Marilyn Monroe, she's quite nice/But why all the pretty icons always all white?” Oh J, I'm so glad you asked - it's probably because of Madison Avenue, our special American kind of racism that has a mutually beneficial relationship with our special way of commodifying women's bodies within a free-market culture that convinces us to buy things we don't need, and because your friend K raps constantly about pretty white icons as if they are the standard of beauty. (Beautiful ladies of color name-checked by Kanye in “Christian Dior Denim Flow”: 8. Beautiful ladies with my skin tone: 12. The defense rests, your honor.)
That GODDAMMIT right after J's verse will stay in my head for the foreseeable future. I like that. Your shoes are still are ugly, though.
9. “Who Gon Stop Me” - 4 minutes; almost the whole thing, because it's produced by the “Man Down” guy and because the rhyme patterns keep changing and I want to hear what comes next.
Alas, it's too slow and it's got tense buildups and shuddery breakdowns for no reason, rhyme patterns that change for no reason, and that thing J does where he just makes labored breathing sounds into the microphone every third line is really on display here and I hate it. UH-HUH. UHH. AH. The one thing I'll probably always remember about these 4 minutes in your car, though? “Heard Yeezy was racist, well, I guess that’s on one basis: I only like green faces.” Cute.
10. “Murder to Excellence” - 2 minutes, 4 seconds. Too preachy, but people like it when kids sing on hooks, including me, so I let it play and play. And at 01:48 it sounds like the “Make Me Wanna Holler” intro, so that's nice.
11. “Made in America” - 17 seconds. Just enough time for me to realize the drums are never coming in, not ever. (I get hyped when I hear a drum roll. And I get un-hyped when I hear yet another song in 2011 that sounds like a video game.)
I’m reading a Spector bio and I’m pissed at this song as if it were an actual person. “Nailing the whole edifice to the ground like metal tent spikes in a storm were the drums,” says page 113, “A clean, hard backbeat was the cement in the Wall of Sound.” Riding in your car, I hear this drum-less demonstration in lameness that Kanye made on his SK-1 during the commercial break on a rerun of The Office last Thursday night, and I can't stomach any conversation about the weather, the movies, the NBA lockout. I am that disheartened. I wanna hear some tinny melodic prettiness, I'll put on something “Sleng Teng”-related. I wanna hear some drums that'll give me a brain aneurysm, I'll bypass J n' K and go straight to Vietnam Sadler. (This one also includes Frank crooning “Sweet Father Joseph, Sweet Jesus/We made it in America/Sweet Baby Jesus, oh sweet baby Jesus.” I swear to Christ, and sweet baby Jesus, even, that I will never forgive Frank for this. Sold your soul for a paycheck, buddy.)
12. “Why I Love You” - UGH. A third of a second? A half-second? And can someone please tell me if it's humanly possible to un-hear a song?
Brought to you by the good people at Red Bull and Edge Shaving Gel, when I hear this I feel like leaping off a mountaintop on my snowboard while Sal Masakela provides commentary over the slow-mo footage. When I hear this I do not, however, want to walk down the street, dance next to a parked car while someone films the whole thing, ride in a car at 12 MPH, take my dress off to lounge on the couch, take my dress off to make a baby, vote, punch someone in the face, sob, fly a kite, hug my mom, gun down Radames, take the stage at Magic City, or write a paper about Chomsky (things all goodrap songs songs should make me want to do).
13. “ BoringestIllest MF Alive” - zzzzzZZZZZZZ. Oh I'm sorry; I didn't realize there was music coming from your speakers. Dullsville.
Obviously I love K's “You in line behind Curren$y/Yeah you after money,” FUCK YES A CURREN$Y REFERENCE, but in the end, it's not enough to save me from naptime when you put this song on. Anyway, if I wanna hear some female vocal operatical theatricals, I'll listen to Xzibit's “Paparazzi” (which, I must acknowledge, I first heard on an old 411 video shown to me by Jackson; thank you, little brother!). Cut it off; put on Jet Files or Jackie Moore or let's see if Art Laboe is on. I'm feeling lucky, like maybe he'll play some Flamingos.
14. “H.A.M.”- skipped. In apt. 680 it's called “J.K.W.C. (Japanese Kids Watching Cartoons)” because this stuttery thing gives me a seizure. On the other hand, it makes me feel like I just jumped into Tron and that's pretty fresh.
I don't care what none of yall say; I still love em ("em" = Kanye's HAHs). And out of respect for No ID, who produced it, I had to give it at least 2 minutes. But just 2 minutes. This was also the rule for my 808s and Heartbreak listening session, remember?
This is the way the album ends; not with a bang but with a whimper. At this point in the evening, I'm outside your car, walking with my heels in my hand, and you're driving next to me at 2 MPH, asking what the fuck my problem is. I wasn't raised to have screaming fights in public, so I keep it classy. “For my thoughts on 'The Joy,' please refer to my dissertation on 'Otis,'” I snap. Then I raise my fists to the night sky and yell PETER PHILLIPS OF MOUNT VERNON, NEW YORK, you oughta be ashamed of yourself. I gave this song 7 seconds, some precious moments of my life that I'll never get back. I should've spent those seconds scrolling through your iPod to find the original that was copied and pasted all sloppy-like into this piece of hot garbage.
Anyway, through it all, I laughed; I cried; I learned to experience freedom through the power of purchasing luxury goods. But other than “Gotta Have It” and “New Day,” I wish I had just stayed in and listened to the Three Tough Guys soundtrack (while wearing my TAF Jorge Ben shirt and NAF bathing suit and LUAF sandals.
(New As Fuck; Lace-Up As Fuck)
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“Bitch I'm ten toes in it” - Gibbs, in a song about, um, my toes?
Pro tools confiscated as evidence by the crime
Lab spyin, ain't even have to do em like that
Knife work on the track
Many I cut and slash
At the neck like a sash
Blood on my hands, me and my killin bag
Raw shit, kill a gram
High spinnin ceilin fan
You ain't never seen a man til you seen the man.
The Wizard of Rad, his belly, his red polo, and his light halo, along with the Robert Glasper Experiment, in a scene I really really want to call “Swiss Beats” (ST). I'd like to point out that he's wearing an actual fitted so it turns out snapbacks aren't really as back as you all thought. (Fools.)
Caramel complected/body like heaven (ummm no). Your favorite nerdy bikini-clad sarcasm peddler.
Tomboyish tendencies in a girly package.
Music nerd making my way in the world. The more emotion I put into it/the harder I rock.
I bow at the altar of Phil Spector, Rick Rubin, and Large Pro.
I find that I can amuse myself to no end. I got front & back, and side to side. I am a real person and NOT viral marketing for Stones Throw. I also have a government job so please don't tell too many people I'm in my bathing suit on the Internet.
Nothin else to tell, really.
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