Washington beats USC, 16-13. Dawg fans celebrate and breath a huge sigh of relief.
Category: Views From the Peanut Gallery
Attention, Hoes! Err…I mean, Ladies!
What self-respecting woman WOULDN’T want to be a part of this video? I’m forwarding this flyer to my best female friends, my cousins, my sister-in-law, my auntie, and of course, my mom. Ladies, go dig those clear heels out your closets and don’t forget to check your self-respect at the door!
(And, yes, this is happening in Seattle. Now excuse me while I go slam my head repeatedly into the wall in honor of mainstream rap music…)
And…It’s Officially Been Taken to the Next Level
And so, here is precisely why moments like those at the VMAs (and Serena’s breakdown at the US Open) are so cringe-worthy, because people will invariably take it to the next level:
Welcome to America’s Court of Public Opinion where, if you are black, you are very rarely given a chance to mess up in public before being called the N-word. Read the rest of the ugliness here.
Champagne Champagne’s Funky Car Ride
Okay, fellas, I’m sold. Got me stuck off the realness from this sh*t (click on the picture for the vid):
This car ride reminded me of those times so long ago when my friends and I used to roll around in my busted-ass Jetta. Of course, we were far less-talented rappers. In fact, we weren’t rappers, just some dorky and naive country kids imagining what it would be like if we lived in Compton. How times have changed.
A Brief Word on BP3
Got a chance to finally listen to The Blueprint 3 on the train ride to work this morning.
Eh. It’s coo, but it’s not what I’m used to (which is superior dopeness from hip-hop’s Man In Black, Ess Dot Carter).
This review here sums up my feelings pretty well. Especially this:
On the shiny new CD from Jay-Z, a rapper almost universally heralded as the greatest MC of all-time, a lack of urgency keeps the product a significant distance from greatness.
Some tracks made me smile and think, “Jay-Z is killin’ it here,” but most had me yawning and fiddling with the scroll wheel on my iPod like, “Where’s my copy of The Unplanned Mixtape? I swear it’s on here somewhere…”
The first Blueprint is a 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. #1; Blueprint 3 is the ’89 Fleer #548 — you weren’t sad to pull it out of the pack, but it didn’t make you lose your sh*t like the UD1.
A Brief Word About Clipse
The dude Andrew Matson over at the Times has really outdone himself. Check out his interview with Pusha-T (one half of the rap group, Clipse). It’s long, sprawling, and utterly revealing — a well-sketched portrait of an interview of Mr. Terence Thornton.
Clipse are one of my favorite hip-hop groups. To me, a Clipse album release is always a major event. There’s something very particular within their brand of drug-rap that’s deeper and more complex than others.
Sure, the subject matter is no different than a lot of other so-called “Coke Rap”, but there is something else that sets Clipse apart, besides that they’re naturally more gifted emcees than most others. I think they succeed in injecting a certain pathos in their lyrics. Much like how great comedians pull from painful events in their pasts, Pusha-T and Malice extract a more complex drug-game ethos than other rappers with similar biographies.
When I listen to their music, I’m actually frightened. Not of the rappers themselves, but of what it means to the communities and people like the Thornton brothers who were (are?) blighted by the seeming necessity of drug dealing. Maybe its because we don’t typically see the brothers in photos at parties, hanging with Kanye or Pharrell on their yachts, that an extra dimension of realness is added. (Pusha-T actually touches on this very subject. He says they’ve never really participated in the glamour life that comes with being rap stars.) Or maybe it’s because they’re just so damn good at representing their true selves and histories on records.
I think most casual fans of hip-hop don’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to “Coke Rap”. There’s typically some dangerous glamorization of the drug-dealing lifestyle that’s done by a lot of rappers, either purposely or not. In reality, it’s not hard, even for someone never involved in the game, to say the lifestyle is really some truly ugly sh*t. Clipse do hip-hop fans all a favor by keeping it ugly, which is how it should be. Their greatness as artists is defined by the fact they never do it at the expense of making great music.
My Hip-Hop Ear Glut
Real quick: I was making a list tonight of 206 hip-hop albums that I haven’t had a chance to really spend quality time with. Here’s what it looks like so far…
THEESatisfaction – Snow Motion
Grieves – 88 Keys & Counting
Gabriel Teodros – Westlake Class of ’99
Shabazz Palaces – Shabazz Palaces and Of Light
Champagne Champagne – Champagne Champagne
Yirim Seck – Hear Me Out
And that’s not even including new D. Black, Macklemore, and The Physics. (Whenever that’s dropping, which I hope is soon — I consider that CD the last possible ray of sunlight in summer ’09, but I have a feeling it will be more like the first drop of winter slush in 2010. No matter, it will still be absolute fire, I can’t f*cking wait! Physics are about to own hip-hop in this town, and you can put that in your savings account and collect interest on it, fools!)
Now, I listen to a ton of hip-hop; so much hip-hop that I feel like my Elton John CDs are starting to feel neglected. And if you think I’m wack for liking Elton John, just listen to “Kiss The Ring” off OB4CL2 and go ahead and f*ck off.
My point is, there is a glut of hip-hop swirling around the belly of the 206 and it’s a full-time job just listening to all of it. And I don’t mean just putting it on as background music while you Dustbuster your apartment. I mean really spend quality time with the sh*t, which, if you’re even interested at all in appreciating these artists’ grinds and hustles, you will do out of sheer deference.
Anyway, this rant is basically meant as a shout-out to those artists putting in work for the love of the music. As fans, we appreciate it, and we are paying attention. Stay up and keep making music like your lives depend on it.
Peace!
I Have A New Blog Moniker!
Just kidding. The name of my blog is remaining 206-UP! I haven’t been heavy in the blog game long enough to warrant a change in my moniker. But someday, if I keep pushing, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to possess not one, but two blog personas, as have so many athletes and rappers before me…
Anyway, the point of this post was to make those unawares aware of RA Scion’s new rap moniker, Victor Shade. It sounds like a superhero handle which, in fact, it is. It’s also a window blinds company in Saint Louis, Missouri, but that’s not important here. What is important, is that it appears Common Market has been (temporarily?) shelved in favor of RA’s new collaborative effort with local producer, MTK.
In the perpetual style of all-seriousness, as is RA’s modus operandi, he’s taking this new project, well, serious — as is evidenced by these words spoken to The Stranger’s venerable hip-hop commentator Larry Mizell, Jr.
In any event, I’m bummed (boo!) that we may have seen the end of Common Market, but excited (yay!) for the birth of the Victor Shade project, the genesis of which has been (apparently) some time in the making, but its official release upon the masses will happen at this show.
You can sample a collabo track (“Kasase”) between MTK and RA on MTK’s Myspace page (linked above). It sounds like RA’s — ahem, excuse me, Victor Shade’s — battle-ready flow is fully intact, which isn’t a surprise. But he does sound fresh and new rhyming over MTK’s RZA-style beat. It’s dope. I like it. And I’ll probably like Victor Shade, even though my Lady tells me I don’t do well with change.
More later, fam.
D. Black Is For The Children (For Real, Though)
D. Black’s sophomore album, Ali’Yah, is set to drop on 9.15.09. News of the release has gained a huge amount of traction around Seattle these days, and not just because folks are excited to see what this immensely talented emcee will bring forth on his second solo LP.
All indications from people who have heard the album say that it represents a true artistic advancement, not just in the music, but in Damien Black the person. The loyal folks at Seattle Show Gal caught up with Black outside the invite-only listening party last month where he spoke briefly on his life and music.
Sounds to me like D. Black has consciously made a decision to make music that you might actually play for your kids, something with which to big-up young people and their community. That’s real talk — I can’t wait to hear it.
As always, your faithful 206-UP! reviewer will be back with his thoughts.
Tangent: A Good Way To Kill Three Hours
It was only a matter of time before this blog became tangential. (I am, after all, an 80’s baby and don’t all 80’s babies have ADD in some form or another?). So let me slam the brakes on 206 hip-hop for three quick paragraphs, open the passenger side door, and let some other music ride shotgun for just a minute.
It’s a Tuesday night and, if you ain’t got nothin’ better to do, I suggest you carry your laptop to the couch, plug in your headphones, and zone out to Pitchfork‘s magnum opus of a feature: p2K The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s. It’s like the best radio playlist in…well, the 2000s. And the hip-hop they include is respectably on-point, especially for an outlet like Pitchfork, the Home of Indie Rock Criticism. I mean, they don’t go deep underground like true heads would, but go put all their rap sh*t on a playlist and you’ll have one hell of a mixtape.
(Unless you don’t have to get up for work in the morning, I suggest skipping straight to the top 200 before you actually start listening, otherwise you ain’t sleepin’ tonight.)
Have fun, kids!
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 