Kweli vs. Kanye

In Kanye's College Dropout outro, "Last Call", Ye says the following about Talib Kweli:

"My relationship with Kweli I think was one of the best ones to ever happen to my career as a rapper. Because, you know, of course later he allowed me to go on tour with him. Man, I love him for that."

That's enough for me to compile a "Favors" segment on them. From Quality to the aforementioned College Dropout to as recent as Ear Drum, this one-time underground duo traded bars. They have extensively more stuff together, but it's all Kweli over Kan beats on albums and unreleased compilations alike, like on "Young Man", "I Try", "What I Seen (Lonely People)", "Get By", "Good to You", and "Momma, Can You Hear Me". But I decided to just link up when they were both vocally on the same joint. You just gotta deal with it. Or utilize Google.

2002
Talib Kweli - Guerilla Monsoon Rap (feat. Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch, & Kanye West)
Talib Kweli - Get By (Remix feat. Mos Def, Jay-Z, Kanye West, & Busta Rhymes)
2004
Kanye West - Get 'Em High (feat. Talib Kweli & Common)
Consequence - Wack N****s (feat. Kanye West, Common, & Talib Kweli)
2005
Kanye West - We Can Make It Better (feat. Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, Common, & Rhymefest)
2007
Talib Kweli - In the Mood (feat. Kanye West & Roy Ayers)

... and do the John Wall.

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Game vs. Nas

It's crazy to me that these guys got so many tracks together. The old school era-defining Queensbridge emcee with the cocky, name-dropping leader of the New West? Oh well. Their mic chemistry works crazy nice. Maybe it was their mutual hatred of 50 Cent that makes it work so well. Whatever it is, it started on Game's super long "Why You Hate the Game" cut and continued on the same Doctor's Advocate album with the monster "One Blood" remix. Then they just kept swapping cuts on every single release with Hip Hop is Dead, L.A.X., N***er, and most recently the Brake Lights project. They're apparently legally required by the Pac&Biggie Convention to collaborate on everything for the rest of their lives.

2006
Game - Why You Hate the Game (feat. Nas & Marsha Ambrosius)
Game - One Blood (East Coast Remix feat. Jim Jones, Fabolous, Clipse, Juelz Santana, Nas, Jadakiss, Styles P, Fat Joe, N.O.R.E., & Ja Rule)
Nas - Hustlers (feat. Game & Marsha Ambrosius)
2008
Game - Letter to the King (feat. Nas)
Nas - Make the World Go Round (feat. Game & Chris Brown)
2009
Busta Rhymes - Don't Touch Me (Remix feat. Nas, Lil' Wayne, Big Daddy Kane, Spliff Star, Game, & Reek Da Villain)
2010
Game - Street Riders (feat. Akon & Nas)

... and do the John Wall.

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Jigga vs. Talib Kweli

This one's a little more hypothetical, but I love the premise. Every Black Album aficionado should immediately recognize the line:

"If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli."

And any Black Star aficionado should immediately remember the lesser known response in "Ghetto Show" where Kweli says:

"If lyrics sold then truth be told, I'd probably be, just as rich and famous as Jay-Z."

This all happened after Kanye helped to bridge the gap between these two Brooklyn emcees on the remix to Kweli's own Ye-produced single. And now you got enough music for a new "Favors" segment on this blog right here.

2002
Talib Kweli - Get By (Remix feat. Mos Def, Jay-Z, Kanye West, & Busta Rhymes)
2003
Jay-Z - Moment of Clarity
2004
Talib Kweli - Ghetto Show (feat. Common & Anthony Hamilton)

... and do the John Wall.

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Twitter Reviews!

So I just gotta say, I did buy the new Asher Roth album. Man. First purchase recently since I did my usual roundup of the newest Kanye, Common, and John Legend cuts that always seem to pervade the CD waves at the same time.

Welp, here's my magical Twitter summary of each song 140 characters at a time.

1. Lark On My Go Kart: interesting free-word association over nintendo-sounding beat. good for an intro i guess.
2. Blunt Cruisin': just a weed song. beyond boring with the ULTRA-slow flow, dumb ad-libs. maybe the worst song i've ever heard.
3. I Love College: best part is the MC Lyte intro. i hope she got a lot of money for that sample. like every penny of the billion mtv plays.
4. La Di Da: nice soundscape with way better flow than the others. genuine writing w/nonsense chorus that im definitely still feel anyways!
5. Be By Myself: awesome beat with perfect cee-lo feature. how could this turn out bad? it couldnt. single-intent, but still sweet. cee-lo!
6. She Don't Wanna Man: crazy catchy single. some purposely dumb lyrics, but its such a good premise & keri hilson chorus that its great.
7: Sour Patch Kids: love the production, real nice life-analyzing lyrics. big surprise. different look for him, but i find no blemish in it.
8. As I Em: the eminem song. chester french fits perfect on it & the words are pretty intense & well-aimed. different kinda white guilt. ha.
9. Lion's Roar: hit or miss with this one. its the clubby im-hittin-on-you-hard track. busta's crazy on it. beat's fine. feelin it less tho.
10. Bad Day: intentionally ridiculous dream-sequence track with big jazze pha chorus. pointless, but pretty fun. feels like a PG eminem cut.
11. His Dream: perfect singing chorus by miguel stands out. very introspective-ish. sad storytelling. winds up a really good song. deep.
12. Fallin': school days reminiscing. his most interesting flow yet. sweet nottz beat. practically laughing through all his memories. GREAT.
13. Perfectionist: there's usually a reason why songs are deemed "bonus". beanie's boring on it. the HARD reggae parts are misplaced. aight.
14. The Lounge: terribly annoying intro & chorus, but the verses are REALLY good. hilarious ponderings delivered masterfully. what IS rap?
15. Y.O.U.: european bonus track, pretty painful. i hate to complain about a slick rick track, but the sample is shank-in-the-ear worthy.

Yup. I read it in another review and it's my main issue as well: Asher seems to enjoy going off on intentionally purposeless verse rants. Like, they literally mean absolutely nothing. It only hurts because he really shows on other songs that he can rhyme entertainingly with purpose. But overall, I really have to say I enjoyed Asleep in the Bread Aisle. Besides "Blunt Cruisin'", "I Love College", and "Y.O.U." (which I personally find unlistenable), there are no skip-worthy joints. Once he defines himself beyond that one white frat boy, he's got potential for a legit name. Here's hoping he can have have a career past "College".

... put 'em both together and you got yourself a super spork.

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The Team

My Busta Rhymes post got deleted. Screw Google. They're too ignorant to just cut the link, they gotta delete everything you write, too.

Whatever. My team better get it back together tonight. And I ain't even talking bout the Lakers. They got everything together. My Wildcats. We can't bomb 4 in a row. Please, Jodie, don't let us.

UPDATE: Jodie hit the game winning three pointer on a step-back, bobbled, cramp-legged attempt (new picture). I called it.

... this was whatcha all been waitin' for ain't it?

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Classic: Get By

I enjoy all meaningful hip hop music more than I could ever explain to you, but never did I know an incredibly intelligent track could be so fun. I guess that's what you get with an always lyrically on-par Talib Kweli when he had an old Kanye beat tape before he was a household name.

With Quality, Talib punned his name into the title and provided every bit of it literally with every song in the album. After two undeniably classic duo albums, the Brooklynite ventured completely solo to create another. And I'm not ever gonna say he didn't.

The album comes to a explosive high point early on once "Get By" breaks into your auditory system. Nina Simone Sinnerman's her way through the intro as the looped key sample joyfully creeps its way in simultaneously with Kweli getting straight to it. "We sell crack to our own out the back of our home, we smell musk the musk at the dusk in the crack of the dawn ..."

Short, pointed verses refrain with the sing-alongable chorus and keep you knodding the entire time. You can feel how immense and hopeful the lyrics are, yet you can't help but nearly get lost in how easy the track plays. And just extending on its level of perfection is a more radio acknowledgeable remix creating an ultimate posse cut with the addition of Black Star partner Mos Def, fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z, an early rhyme from Kanye West, and Busta Rhymes rounding it out. Even if you're not crazy familiar with Kweli, you prolly already have stored in the back of your head Jay's big-up Black Album "Moment of Clarity" line, "If skills sold then truth be told, I'd prolly be, lyrically Talib Kweli. Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense. But I did 5 mill, I ain't been rhymin' like Common since." Calling out both my "Classic" series emcees? Yup.

Talib Kweli - Get By

Black Star - Get By (Remix feat. Jay-Z, Kanye West, & Busta Rhymes)

This mornin', I woke up, feelin' brand new and, I jumped up ...

... and so concludes another masterpiece

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Just a General Update

Just wanted to let you all know about all my projects and those upcoming.

The Laptop Mixtape

Download the whole thing for free right HERE!!! This is all pre-college Chris, so jump on it! It's already vintage by now! Features the smash single "My Life" with accompanying features of Aaronn Ralph and the special album-only version with Steven replacing my chorus vocals. But if you have something against Shtee, then you can download the single-only version off my MySpace! And let's not forget the song that started it all, "School's Almost Over"!

Vol. 2, A Laptop Chronicle

I've posted a lot of the songs I've finished from it on this blog, but even those have mostly been tweaked for my sophomore effort. It currently stands at 11 completely done tracks on my iTunes, but I got at least 6 completely untouched brand new (produced by me) beats sitting in GarageBand. Plus the two brandUn tracks. Plus about three or four other instrumentals I wanna go over if they come out right. So yeah, it's shaping up. I have no idead when it's be completely zipped and out in the world, but it shouldn't be too long. Oh, and I just finished this quick ditty. "Brett Favre" (downloadable link). A hilarious sample flipped to an an important concept. An ode to Ethan, of course. Ha! The whole thing'll be out soon enough. Has less features than my first (whether that's a good or bad thing) and some original Chris Campbell production. Lead single is the Andre and Norah featured "Take It Off".

Remix Part Three!!!

In case you're not Tyler or not a retentive Busta Rhymes fan, this title is a tribute to his screaming at the beginning of the sloppily compiled internet remixes of "Touch It" a couple years back. But it's my crazy big remix project of all the recent hit singles in which everybody and their mom dropped a freestyle verse or remix to. I compiled 'em all, mixed 'em, dropped a verse on 'em, and let the world have the product. Currently 100% done with 6 songs off it, and it'll prolly end up being 10 or 11 deep. Commercial product, but one with integrity. The Alicia Keys remix that I did is DOPE!

Simply Poetic

A spoken word album. This is where the heavy stuff will be. A couple poems have been featured on some of my tracks, but this is where they'll be performed in all their acapella glory. Not much else to know. I just need to sit down hard on this and I could get it done crazy quick. But, you know ...

27 Point Me

This is following the concept started in my second mixtape's interludes. Chris Campbell will have taken over a radio station and provides you with the latest and greatest songs as well as exclusive interviews with legendary musicians and comedians. Robin Williams? Dane Cook? Lauryn Hill? Dave Chappelle? Frank Caliendo? I'm not telling. It's a comedy concept CD obviously. Only one track into it, but the mental construction is all there! And the radio station is 27.ME, hence the title. Dumb, but you'll get over it.

That's everything currently in a nutshell. This is prolly why I never get any sleep, cuz I for sure don't have any free time to be composing all of this!

... and so concludes another masterpiece

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