You know I don't usually like to, but I gotta post a freshly leaked joint. Here's a "Sampled" post featuring two songs, kinda on a double-take. The sample in question is Yvonne Fair's "Let Your Hair Down" from 1975, and the first sampling culprit is Jay-Z's "Where I'm From". Early, gritty stuff from Hov. But then there's the fresh new K-West wannabes [(c) Shad] single "Angels", which probably just samples the Jay track, but explicitly the part of it sampled from Fair's original. They are Dirty Money, by the way. While I'm not feeling Diddy's crew too much, luckily there was someone who thought he could improve the song. And he did. And he wasn't Rick Ross, damn it. Lupe tha Killa, Killa, Killa ... oh, and for all future reference, if I'm titling the post a random generality that can somehow be about a woman, Keira Knightley will be the accompanying picture. Just saying.
Jay-Z - Where I'm From
Lupe Fiasco - Angels Freestyle
... but do take my word for it.
Showing posts with label Shad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shad. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Let Your Hair Down
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Genre
As it stands right now since I sent all my intros, interludes, outros, and production kits to the recycle bin, I got 18,518 songs sitting in the iTunes. And since I'm one of those OCD organizers who gotta have everything straight and accessible, I got each song labeled perfectly appropriately according to my mental categorization. As you can imagine, the rap/hip-hop tag was just simply not gonna work for me to tag as the genre for darn near every joint. So initially I split it up like any reasonable hip hop head would and got my compass on. East Coast, West Coast, Dirty South, Midwest, and Foreign. But that even got too cluttered. For real, Bay Area joints should not be mixed in with So Cal joints. That kinda stuff don't quite mix right. Or at all. And while I could have microcosm-ed the genre's down to boroughs in all honesty, I finally settled for a mixture of state, city, and general region dichotomy. It works. As long as you know where everybody's from of the top or got Wikipedia on your favorites bar. So just because I wanna, here's a list of my top five emcees (where applicable if I care about five whole people) from each of my hip hop genres on my personal overloaded iTunes.
Alabama: Rich Boy
Atlanta: Andre 3000, Cee-Lo, Big Boi, Bobby Ray, Killer Mike
Boston: Termanology, Guru
Canada: Shad, k-os, Drake
Carolina: Phonte, J. Cole, Joe Scudda, Median, Big Pooh
Chicago: Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Common, brandUn DeShay, GemStones
Detroit: Royce da 5'9", Eminem, Obie Trice, Elzhi, Big Sean
European:
Houston: Scarface, D.O.C., Chamillionaire, Devin the Dude, Bun B
Kansas: XV
Kentucky: CunninLynguists (group), Nappy Roots (group), Chris Campbell
Los Angeles: 2Pac, The Game, Crooked I, Blu, The KnuX (group)
Maryland: Wale, Sage Francis, Marky, Oddisee
Miami: QuESt, Smitty
Minnesota: P.O.S, Brother Ali, Slug, Young Son
Mississippi: David Banner
New Jersey: Lauryn Hill, Joe Budden, Wyclef Jean, Redman, Serius Jones
New Orleans: Jay Electronica, Lil' Wayne, Curren$y
New York: Rakim, Jay-Z, Charles Hamilton, MF Doom, Pharoahe Monch
Oakland: Lyrics Born, Gift of Gab, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Boots Riley, Lateef
Ohio: KiD CuDi, Ilyas, Donwill, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (group)
Pennsylvania: Wiz Khalifa
Philadelphia: Black Thought, Jedi Mind Tricks (group), Asher Roth, Beanie Sigel, Freeway
Rhode Island:
Seattle: RA Scion
St. Louis: Wafeek
Tennessee: GRITS (group), Three 6 Mafia, Young Buck
Virginia: Praverb, Tonedeff, Clipse (group), Trey Songz, Skillz
... but do take my word for it.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Rappers That are Better Than Me, Part 2
First one was brandUn DeShay. Hard to follow that up. But maybe you'll see it fit once you watch this music video a lil' further down.
What other emcee you know that was actually born in Kenya, raised in London, Ontario, and got the most unnoticeable accent you've ever not heard?
I hate having to discover a guy from another blog, but that's how it happened. He was featured on The Rap Up under a series called "An MC I Care About Today". And after first listen, I cared about him, too.
"Cats say, 'you the illest.' I'm like, 'nah, B. Nah, B. Nah, B.'
Well, okay, prob'ly. But it's only cuz I rap like it's my hobby,
Not a jobby job, all sloppy and off key.
Y'all mad as march tryinna knock off the top seed."
I bought both of this dude's CDs off iTunes directly after I saw this music video for the first time. Shadrach Kabango, to me, is a poet laureate if there ever was one. His raps are so impeccably perfect that I literally cannot believe the bars that he puts together. There is not a single throw away lyric on either When This is Over or The Old Prince. They are undeniable classic albums to anyone who's ever heard either one. Unfortunately that's not enough people.
"His wife was still beside him under the blanket enclosed.
When he looked up at the clock, he saw the hands and it froze,
So the man just arose, put his hands to the roads,
And began to compose the most candid of prose."
So whether you're looking for punch line after punch line rolled off with perfect delivery or the most heart-pounding, picture-painting stories ever, Shad's got 'em. Throw in there a song where he hilariously argues with a white guy over both races in the NBA ("Real Game"), an in-depth story of a fallen musician personifying the entire music ("I Heard You Heard You Had a Voice Like an Angel"), a straight out lyrical rhythm jam session ("Rock to It"), an I-still-live-with-my-mom shame confessional ("The Old Prince Still Lives at Home"), and even a doctoral thesis on women ("Out of Love" & "Out of Love, Pt. 2"). No other emcee I've ever heard hits as many real people topics without ever becoming redundant or uninteresting. Dude is that dude.
"I'll never understand how flesh bein' torn apart feels.
Or how, after all the suffering, a heart heals.
On the rich screen, fields where they killed old and young.
Cold and numb, under the light of a golden sun.
It still stuns. Tell me what possesses man to, in anger, raise his hand?
I'll never understand."
Buy his albums so you can understand and enjoy life a little better. It's for your own good. Revolutionize what you're brain allows rappers to be. I hate to say it, but Canada's got one of the best rap scenes out there right now with Shad, k-os, Drake, and Famous. Still don't enjoy Kardinal in the slightest besides whoever is on his choruses, but Shad K makes up for his sell-out shortcomings ten-fold.
Read any of the lyrics I posted aloud and tell me they don't simply feel good. I don't care if it's just wordplay or social commentary, Shad puts the right words together in a way I can't compare anyone else to. Ever. For real. This is the only song I can give you cuz all of mine are flippin' iTunes protected.
Shad - I Get Down (direct link, so right click & "Save As ...")
... this was whatcha all been waitin' for ain't it?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Rappers That are Better Than Me, Part 1
So I don't plan on doing this often, but who knows. The world is an ongoing experience to me and I don't know everybody. Yet. But 13,631 iTunes songs ain't a bad start and kinda gives me the authority to deduce such things like what's in this post.
So brandUn DeShay. Hit my musically-inclined ear like something else. If you don't download from the following link, then I won't ever feel like I gave you any good advice music-wise. Ever.
Dude beats me. That's it. Creative processes, beats, emulated verses, polishedness. I'd take this tape over 98% of the albums out this year. And the other 2 percent would be debatable. Like, this is some other stuff originality. And I ain't gonna lie, I'd never heard of dude before earlier today. But I get the same musical goosebumps with this dude as I did when I first heard Black Ice perform a poem and the first two bars I heard out Shadrach Kabango. And that's as good a complement as I could ever give somebody. Stan me already. Dang.
Brand new unashamed fan who's keeping tabs. *Accidental joke, I swear*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
