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”







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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.





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Communications 306: Images of Hip-Hop in Popular Media

1. Dance, monkey, dance! Such is the woeful life of every performer who wears a mask to shelter all the tiny, vulnerable parts inside himself.

Sofia, Bulgaria. A clown prepares backstage before his performance at Circus Balkanski. [Stoyan Nenov / Reuters]

Madvillain - "Fancy Clown." The one where Doom tries to get over his broken heart by vigorously entering the soft, curvy bodies of his former lady's acquaintances.

mp3.








2.

Islamabad, Pakistan. Laborers work in a foundry, 04/30/10. [Farooq Naeem / Getty]

I wasn't really ever a big fan, but I'm wise enough to see that if he hadn't died young, the apprentice would have taken over for the teacher probably sooner than the teacher would've been comfortable with. Sorry, Joe. Additionally, Pun gets a place on my Great Rap Voices list.









3. "A man looks at a sculpture called 'Also Heroes Have Bad Days' in front of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, May 4, 2010. The sculpture is part of the exhibition 'Heroes, Freaks, and Superrabbis: the Jewish Dimension of the Comic'."

[Gero Breloer / AP]

Johnny Guitar Watson - "Superman Lover." Surprise, motherfucker; Starky Love got breakfast.

mp3.



Don't nobody is more hiphop than Gil! (Sometimes you guys forget and I have to remind you.)











4. I have a Bachelor's in Literature and I still lack the capacity to accurately put my feelings for this photograph into words that my fellow English speakers can understand.

Labourers work as their children sleep at a brick factory on the outskirts of Jammu May 1, 2010. [REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta]

You know who never went to college but who's still a better wordsmith than me just because of going through life as a theatrical protagonist in his own narrative epic? Oh, just RAE, that's who.



"10 Bricks." This song marks the first time I ever heard the c-word used as a verb. Although my sense of feminism requires me to oppose this down to my core, the lyrics fan in me wonders how come nobody ever thought of doing that before because it's pretty sharp.

mp3.

Threw Kool-Aid rubies in a lemonade bezzle/When I was 12 in the church, I started packing that metal. Say it out loud; it just feels good in your mouth, doesn't it?










5. OH SHIT, it's dark and hell is hot.

Shepard Fairey at the opening of his May Day show at Deitch Projects, 05/01/10. [Sam Horine, The Village Voice]

OK. This.

I believe at last year’s convention we decided to retire the term hater, but I'm dusting it off just this one last glorious time because THIS PICTURE! THIS GUY!! Shep and his dogs stop, drop, shut em down, coordinate their black tees to display only the trillest of '70s bands, then open up shop. (No, that's not Rawss. But imagine the possibilities if it were! So much vitriol I could sift through, then write a post about!)



Me and my self-indulgent writing style insist that Earl Woods is like a Shakespearean figure, a little bit beautiful and very, very doomed, like Hamlet but from Yonkers. All I know is pain/All I feel is rage. The unironic emotional display of an American black man is a pretty intimate thing to behold. Dr. Drew, save X, but not so much that he goes completely over to the other side and eschews late-'90s G stuff like pitbulls and getting the crowd to lose its mind through the power of a gruff voice. AH!, also, in less serious news: I forgot to add X to my list of Great Rap Voices.


DMX - "Get At Me, Dog."

mp3.








6. Dios mio, I just got back from taking the Bandwagon Express to heaven--which, tonight, was US Airways Center because the worlds of professional sports and left-leaning politics were overlapping.

[Ross Franklin / AP]

De La Soul. El-P. Uno, dos, tres, it's on.

Kanye and a thousand viral marketing campaigns have made me suspect that everything done publicly is done solely for the purpose of moving units. I can't believe that the increase of revenue isn't the main goal here. But still. Even if solidarity with Los Suns means that owner Robert Sarver will sell a hundred thousand jerseys, he seems like a stand-up guy and the means justify the ends. I also was unaware that Steve Nash was the first athlete to go on record against the Iraq war back in '03! Get 'em, Canada! That said, should the Suns advance, the conference finals van a ser un masacre gigante porque Los Lakers son campeones del mundo.










7.

Venezuelan army in vocal support of Hugo Chavez, 05/02/10. [Juan Barreto / Getty]

I just really miss The Coup and dead prez.









8. Make um say testicular fortitude. The hubris is strong with this one.



Mike Brown's going to hell someday. If it were '05 I'd add "real talk" for emphasis.




Great balls of fire/Guess who just crawled out the mud, the mire. Viktor Vaughn - "Saliva."

mp3.





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Lady stuff, 05/02/10.

- Today in DAMN GIRL YOU KNOW YOU FINE news, lovely bird Gemma Arterton exists, has freckles, is perfect in every way. I am, in fact, trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespect-fuu-llllll, but I'm finding it difficult. If I weren't so classy and ladylike I would probably use this opportunity to try out a "People With Whom I Would Enjoy Showering" tag. Sorry, Mom.






Bobby Brown - "Roni." Nobody makes songs about vulnerable/tough homeboys anymore. If you made sweet unadulterated love at least once between the years 1988 and 1991, you did it to something Babyface produced. Then Kells took over in '92.

mp3.









- The gold standard for ass is probably the one that's shelf-like and firm enough to rest your cup on that E-40 saw in the wild once and then wrote a verse about (that's not it, above). Mine (above) is a close second, and coming in third is the one from '99 that was so fat you could see it from the front.

Ass, the New York Times says, is the new breasts in that a lot of ladies are trying to fake it with surgery and padded things that lift and add thickness and curvature. Aw. Mutilation and trompe l'oeil effects aren't sexy. Leave ass alone, that's what I say.










- Gothamist reports that residents of the Sister Thomas Apartments, a low-income building in the South Bronx, "are so disgusted by the combined odors from a sewage plant and trash transfer station that they're considering a plan to pump perfume into their building." HA HA, Juice Crew! Murdered yet again by the superior borough!

"The idea is the brainchild of environmental justice advocate and MacArthur 'genius' Award winner Majora Carter, who enlisted the help of (a) Parisian perfumer to create a new fragrance for the Bronx Building. It's called L'Eau Verte du Bronx du Sud, which means 'Green Water of the South Bronx.'

The building's management company wants to release the perfume into the building through a rooftop air unit, and Carter tells the Daily News she hopes the fragrance will remind residents of 'the connection between everyday life and nature.' Tenants still need to approve the plan, but building manager Sal Gigante is certain they'll greenlight the perfume, which he insists is far superior to the current odor of 'decaying rat carcass.'" Teehee.

As odd as it looked, as wild as it seemed, I didn't hear a peep from a place called Queens even though it seems like at this point in his career Nas should have his own fragrance. This story is being included in a post called "Lady stuff" because it's about perfume, and because real ladies love BDP*. My posse from the Bronx is THICK. (that was used in a Camp Lo song, I think. I need it.)


*The above photo had to be named BDP 13, which is indicative of how much hard drive space I have dedicated to images of this troupe.






- Utah and its assemblage of bad facial hair fell to the mighty in game 1, obviously. This is part of "lady stuff" because gentlemen, we judge you by your facial hair and we point and laugh when it's that conspicuously manicured, even if you're Lloyd Banks and make delicious popular rap that makes a girl feel good about being alive while driving through the city despite the fact that she's behind the wheel of a late-'90s Civic.






















Natural and free and unfettered and lightly tended to is what we love, like the 7-foot tall Spaniard's. I hope to see changes in the next game so the series is at least a little interesting.






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Confusion in rap land*.

* (my apartment)


Feels like I'm dreaming but I'm not. sleep-ing. The Game has somehow convinced everybody that he is a capable rapper, as evidenced by the massive amounts of blog approval I see due to that Red Room mixtape and now this new(?) unreleased number, below. I downloaded the Red Room because I have to keep up with the crowd and I'm scared of falling behind, because of my blind and unwavering LA pride, and because of Scoop Deville's presence on it. The official stance of Rap Nation, however, should be that the mixtape is great but it's not because of any compelling or creative yarns spun by our face-tatted storyteller, and that The Game is merely oh-kay at rhyming (please press play, below). He's got a raspy voice, solid LA gang cachet, the ladies want to sleep with him and coo Jayceon in his ear, and he's like 7 feet tall; we can't pretend that these aren't all factors that have to do with the Internet's fondness for him.

You can swindle 'em easy if you just pick friends who'll benefit you by association. For The Game, it's DJ Skee, and Scoop Deville, and Cool & Dre, and Just, below, who've made it so. [Skee, by the way, stole my title of Cali's Hip-Hop Ambassador, but he got it from a Republican so he can have the damn thing. And Skee, by the way, is wearing me out with those annoying drops. DEE JAYYY SKEEEEE, exclamation point exclamation point!! DJ Skee!, knock it off. The increased frequency of the drops seem directly related to a DJ's increased popularity; that Mississippi mixtape had hardly any, but then that Evidence one had 'em all over the place. Drama and Whoo Kid show more restraint and that's how you know you're doing it wrong. You are alienating your core demographic, Skee! (hip-blessed girls in trench coats who toggle their browsers between Deadspin and RapRadar and Forever 21 all day). I'd like to see some subtlety, please!, Skee!. Those perfectly-used "Dilla Dog" shouts, you know? Like that.]


I wear the 4-5 in LA like I'm AC Green slightly makes up for the numerous examples of awful and lazy in the narrative, including but not limited to I graduated from the school of hard knocks like yeah. That said, I NEED THE INSTRUMENTALLLL, and I need it played whenever I enter a room and then I walk across that room in something that clings to my hips.


Courtesy of Eskay, naturally.






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It's too high to get over/Too low to get under

You're stuck in the middle/And the pain is Thunder.

It's all 'cause of Kev Durant's shirt--the loss of hope and the stomped-on dream of having champion status. Love the concept of green plaid button-up, hate the execution. AY QUE LASTIMA.



In happier news, my team bad. Badder than yerrrrrs.


"Spanish bombs,
yo te quiero infinito
Yo te quiero, oh mi corazon." - The Clash







A Classic Education - "Spanish Harlem."
a) Spector; b) pretty, so pretty; c) this is what they look like; and d) I needed a song with a Spanish connection so it was either this or something by Pitbull.

mp3.





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Heeeeere's Ronnie. (groan! sorry!)

[Stephen Dunn / Getty Images]

Nicholson + Artest, just like they practiced it during dress rehearsal.

Inell Young - "The Next Ball Game," AKA "Friday Night, Please Don't Call Me Unless It's During the First Quarter."

mp3.




Unrelated: Sleigh Bells, "Tell 'Em," which (don't get your hopes up) is NOT a tribute to Soulja Boy. Even though I kinda feel like white girls in bands singing sweetly over hard sounds get a disproportionate amount of love and shine and credit for musical risk-taking (I can say this because I'm a white girl, but you can't), I LIKE IT SO MUCH. Hurry hurry and like it too, before B.o.B. raps over the instrumental.

mp3.

"Crown on the Ground" is good too.

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On some teleprompter shit I got you watching your words.

"Cognitive Dissonance": a Blog Post in Two Acts.



I. "Little Brother's Retirement Party" in the Village Voice. The article is good because Brandon Soderberg wrote it, even though he did that thing in music articles that I hate and that is just so popular right now - "(Musical artist) is _____ (doing something seemingly unrelated to music, present continuous tense); ______ (location and mood are established, musical artist shows human/humble side while maintaining artistic sheen and allure)." Soderberg is my OG imaginary writing/nerding-out buddy from way way back; he does a fine job with this piece. Additionally, the picture that accompanies the article is dreamy, I'm introduced to the category "John Kerry hip-hop" and shall henceforth use the term whenever possible, and for everybody who makes fun of me for singing along with J. Biebs on Power 106, Phonte would like to punch you in the mouth! We're part of the unapologetically-liking-bad-music army. Join us or perish.

"Dude, if you like Gucci Mane's music," he says, "like it! Rock with us because you like us, not because of what you think it represents or whatever ideology you pulled out your ass and put on us."

YEAH, I exclaim, WHAT HE SAID! BURR!


Then the article reveals that Drake calls Phonte his favorite MC, which casts a dreary shadow upon an article dedicated to the greatness of Little Brother. "Phonte is my favorite MC," I imagine he yelled, in that loud, LOUD fucking monotone. By the way, how odd that I like Bieber the Canadian Elf extensively more than a semi-attractive rapper who does songs with Bun B. Hm. Never thought I'd see the day. Turn and face the strange. Ch-ch-changes.











II. Montgomery C. Burns and his sideways smirky face and sideways smug talk, quoted in Time.

Boastful braggery is a tough one to pull off without a bag of rhymes and an amazing producer; Dick Cheney has neither, so he never stood a chance with that quote above. When I first read those words, it sounded self-congratulatory and obnoxious. That's sort of the best thing I ever did, telling another grown man to fuck off. I RULE. Bow in the presence of greatness. It's not that simple, though, because when you think about it, the words he said are true. It is the best thing he ever did, mostly because it was a rare moment in which he did not increase Halliburton's profits or send 19-year-olds to the desert. In my soft and girly moments, I think that maybe Dick's acknowledging what a ghastly job his administration did, and how evil permeated the landscape between the years 2001 and 2008 in America. Maybe he's trying to apologize. This throws me, because Cheney scary bad man! My head hurts.









"Worldwide trunk funk, no jazz on the East." A Kool Keith + Doom tag-team rap song, possibly one day? Alas, the Music Gods have not yet made it so. My heart and mind couldn't sustain the libidinous energy flowing through my slender body upon first listen. Plus I'm sure there's beef somewhere in their history. Boys and their feelings, you know?











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Today in smuggery, 04/25/10

Birds flyin high, you know how I feel! Sun in the sky, you know how I feel!

You wake up on a Sunday, you remember that the Lakers lost and you're sad, but then the clouds part. You read the Sunday paper. Your mom calls. The day improves. Things happen to make you feel pretty damn good about the hand you were dealt in life.

My mom never taught me to be smug; it's not ladylike. But still. It cheers me up sometimes. I never claimed that I could fuck with your Dougie, and you should see what passes for wood grain in my Civic, but at this moment I'm ruling because of all this:



- Curtis Mayfield and me, sartorial equals. People, you must respect this.



Sorry to prance around and revel in it, but you'd do the same if you were wearing your trench right now. You'd do the same.













- I swear I just read in this interview, right there in black and white, that Scarface didn't know Ced Gee produced Criminal Minded. Scarface also loved Guru, of course, but Scarface thought Guru was from Brooklyn. He never thought about the Boston accent? The dropped r's? "He might be loose in the pahhhhk, or lurkin at the train station"?


Guru was from Boston, actually, the interviewer tells him.
No shit?, says Scarface, and in my apartment I reply, No shit. Smugly.


The logical conclusion, of course, is that I know more about hiphop than 'Face (!!!). I'm not sure how this is possible, since I'm not from Houston and I definitely don't rap-a-lot. It doesn't matter how this is possible. It just matters that it's true. Recognize a real don when you see one. (she'll probably be wearing a trenchcoat)



[I also appreciate his beautiful humble simple existential take on the end of human life, from the same interview:

"If you don’t know anything else about life, and life’s promise, you know that at the end of the day you have to say goodbye... No one is gonna live forever, and to be able to accept and respect the order is a sign of a good person. We have to respect the order."

And there it is. Since '91, Scarface has owned my heart and mind. He possesses that lovely combination of wordplay skill, booming voice, humor, and humbleness that most ladies require, gentlemen, in order to get them to take their dresses off in your presence. Plus he gave Devin the Dude his name! Girls love that.]










- Jayceon has never made me feel compelled to brag that he is from the same part of the globe as me. Producer Scoop Deville, however, makes me proud that he is from the same part of the globe as me. I'm a sucker for a nicely-placed Eazy vocal fragment.

This cheerful and melodic ray of sunshine (thank you so very much, RapRadar) is Episode 18,000 of The Producer Matters More Than the Words That Are Being Said Over the Beat. (And I have a degree in English, so that statement is especially meaningful.)

OMG, can't wait til I find the mp3 of this. Can you even imagine?? It's dangerous to rush the natural progression of things, though. You're supposed to hear a poor quality/tagged version on YouTube first, then you get emailed an mp3 link and hear a bad digital no-tags version of it, then you find the instrumental at Amoeba on a glorious piece of round black vinyl. And then you're smug that you have it. Not to rap over it--just to have it. But you do it all in good time.

It's like my good friend 'Face says, Respect the order.







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Not long is how long that this post took me (Abacus bonds edition)

This Goldman Sachs fraud business. The emails. Um, get that paper, I guess, but heed the word of Frank Lucas and don't wear shiny suits with big signs on 'em that say "arrest me." In 2010, this means don't electronically transmit evidence of your schemery for us all the analyze and point at later when you get collared. Nobody ever told these gentlemen that boasting and bragging is so gauche and I feel rather embarrassed for them. Amateur hour. Ugh. Anyway, "Cash from Chaos" might very well be an appropriate title for the conceptual album that follows this scandal, but since I live by the code of the Wu, I realized that there's a Tony Starks connection that makes everything else fade away:

"I've managed to sell a few abacus bonds to widows and orphans
that I ran into at the airport,
apparently these Belgians adore the complex investments."

This is a Ghosty lyric in its purest form, even if Ghosty doesn't know it yet. THE WU IS PRESENT IN ALL ASPECTS OF MY LIFE.


I've managed to sell a few abacus bonds
to widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport/
Apparently these Belgians adore
the complex investments.

(Over a snippet of Fugazi's "Greed" instrumental, flipped & bounced. Abacus bonds. Complex investments. Widows, orphans, Belgians. This is slang that won't even be invented until 2014)







MINGUS. Call me. I've often been told that my body shape resembles a stand-up bass. Just sayin.








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The Capo pledges the United States' undying support of Israel and other news.

"Obama's national security adviser, Jim Jones, urges bold steps to revive long-stalled Middle East negotiations." [NY Times]

HARLEM!

His intimate familiarity with beef and all its detrimental effects makes him uniquely qualified to speak on this topic.

PS, hey Jimmy! If Iran is so good at exploiting the Arab-Israeli conflict and we'd like to stop Iran from furthering its nuclear program, perhaps we could transfer some of our sympathy and funding from the nuclear power known as Israel and apply it to the residents of caged plots of land who are bound by checkpoints on the West Bank so that they will stop blowing humans up in protest. Iran might calm down about the threat of the Zionist entity if the Zionist entity allows Palestinians to live as dignified citizens. Call me for more info.









Malcolm McLaren's hearse, pulled through London today. How rebellious is rebellion if it's perfectly calculated? Is fame for fame's sake kind of pornographic and stupid, or awesome and postmodern? These are the questions I wish my friend Kanye would ask himself. Remember that slogan above, too; it'll be the name of my next mixtape.

I can't ever be too haterish if I know the dude is in on the joke. Oh Malcolm! An affectionate goodbye (see you later?) from me and all the other westside riders.












Adam Yauch is summoning all the Buddhist mojo in Rick Rubin's beard and encouraging people across the land to join him twice a day in order to meditate against cancer.

"We are visualizing taking the energy away from the cancer," he says, "and then sending it back at the cancer as lightning bolts that will break apart the DNA and RNA of the cells."

Meditation, bass guitar, gray hair and hippie shit. Dad??

Got a. Freaky. Freaky. Freakyfreaky flow.

XXL uses "Mostly tha Voice" as a starting point in compiling a list of the best MC voices. Bun B and Scarface and Biggie are on there; I approve. And then those space cadets mention Shyne (?) and some dude who had a bar on a Busta Rhymes mixtape in '98. Look, now they've gone and gotten me all upset.

Back on terra firma, we're a little more level-headed. Big fat shiny glaring omissions that deserve mention include ODB, Jeru, Doom, Kool Keith, Adrock, Ricky Walters, Sadat X, RA, Masta Ace, and an entire Cali cohort consisting of two-fourths of the Pharcyde, B-Real, Quik, MC Eiht, E FUCKING FAWTY, Del!, the DOC!, and Kurupt (I know it's a longshot, but I just love his voice), all the best Wu gods (except Meth, who’s mentioned), Hector Lavoe, Ian Curtis, Anthony Hamilton—oh sorry!

I am generally easygoing but this kind of debate makes me opinionated and feverish. The lack of Rakim mention made me throw my laptop across the room, for example.







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Top 7 reasons life is wonderful, 04/22/10.

1. Dave's Quality Meat thought of the Guru tribute post I was supposed to have thought of--they pulled together all the skate video parts over the years set to Gangstarr songs. Fucking genius. NYC boys are so clever; it's a stereotype of mine that will probably not change. Plus they say "God bless you" when you walk down the street and make you feel like the foxiest woman alive. Photo above by Massan.




2. Mobb Deep's "Whole Lotta Thug," STILL even though it's been approximately 10 days, 6 hours and 29 minutes since it entered my life via NahRight. I can't stop. Way better than whole lotta love and a whole lotta rosie, plus the realness is foundation, so please have a seat everyone else hoping to get a spot on the apt. 15 playlist this week.








3. Jeezy's "Greatest Trapper Alive." Not the song itself, 'cause it's dumb, but the name of the song--a lovely example of simple yet effective pun-ery, like Malice in Wonderland, that album that Snoop did about the dude from The Clipse.

The judges also would have accepted "Trapper John, M.C." and Jeezy's nod to Elvis, "We're caught in a trap; I can’t walk out."






4. Tanlines - "Real Life." I wish somebody would start a band with a friend, base it in Brooklyn, wear v-neck shirts, get coverage in Nylon, and put out experimental pop. And hey, did you know Matador records still exists? (!).

mp3.



5. THAT SWEATER HAS GOT TO BE AN MC ESCHER X COOGI LIM EDISH.





6. The Golden Filter - "Hide Me" (Peter Bjorn & John mix). I support and agree with the concept of synth in most forms.

mp3.




7. The xx - "VCR" (Matthew Dear mix). My intense throbbing love begins around 01:50. This is what the DJ puts on when it's time for me to show 'em what I'm working with at the strip club owned by Dov Charney. I go on at 11:30.

mp3.








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