The Drought Is Over (CH Edition)

Remember what I said about needing new music? Well CH heard me. Times six. This is crazy. So crazy that I gotta hook every single one of the joints up on here. Now, just for reference sake, these aren't new projects, per say. They're just projects he's been working on for the last couple years and either didn't get around to releasing them or just didn't quite complete them properly like he wanted. So here's the remaining five projects after Well This Isn't Awkward.

Charles Hamilton wins. That's all.

Charles Hamilton - 10 Things I Hate About Me
Here's what he had to say about it:

This was supposed to be my comeback project. Then the things I hate about me ended up being y'all problems. So "Why put this out, when Charles is able to bring law and order through his music. Charles, can you make a conceptless project?"

Basically, I had a therapist for about a month and a half, around the time I got dropped. My therapist (shouts to Dr. Ryder) said I am a very complex case, but very in my right mind. I think the version I'm giving Dalvyn (20fourhourbodega.blogspot.com) has some audio samples from my therapist's album (the connecting and healing power of music) scratched in. I know there are MAD soundbytes on it tho.

I am ALWAYS up to something (planned punch? answers here)
I can't sing (but I do it for the love of music and the theraputic response to singing)
I don't understand the value of money (so I didn't cry when I got "dropped"... #suarez)
I hate being categorized (and the Soulja Boy beef was horribly misinterpreted; I shoulda been more mature)
I jump the gun too often (and bullets don't scare me for some reason, so...)
I talk to my self a lot (and I have found...)
I watch a lot of CNN (and I feel like a pro boxer)
I'm moody (and it sometimes costs me love...)
Overall, I'm a Nerd (though geeks kick ass)
I Am More Concerned With Love Than Life (and I am living in the life after albums)

Charles Hamilton - The L Word II: Lust And Love (INcomplete)
Here's what he said about it:

All Barry White samples.

Bigger Ego, Shorter Tolerance (Beyonce)
-I felt compelled to respond to "Ego"... lol

How To Be A Better Girlfriend (Rihanna)
-Far from a rude boy... treat me like a gentleman and I won't treat you like a baby mama.

Rhythmic (Sonji)
-I pay your sister my rent... well, PAID your sister my rent... may I at LEAST have this dance? lol

someladyswebsite.com (Jessica)
-And I officially fall back from all communication with you after this song... sorry for the neglect...

Star Baby (Starrene)
-Pretty deep song, for a pretty deep female.

Superwoman (Fantasy Lady)
-I cannot remember your name. Will never forget your frame. Or the heat of the summer day we met on.

Vibration Bandaids (Karen Civil)
-The hook explains all.

Charles Hamilton - Gynophobia
Here's what he said about it:

Pronounced.... G? No... phobia. Gynophobia means fear of women. And though I've slept with enough women to be considered a G, I fear them. It's a Venus domination thing...

August Rush
being a semi-psycotic music in love

Farewell
the female in question liked to scream on me, couldn't trust me because I cheated on her, and had the sweetest accent I have ever listened to

Hello Kitty Guitar
as long as she still cares, I don't ever have to be inside of her again

London Girl
women are bizzarre

OhMyWhosThat
the most beautiful Dominican woman I have ever met, created right in front of me... and her name is

Pre(e)
...and this is about the night we met

Virgin
I am, tho...

White Girl Love
"Tell me you love me white girl..."

Barbie
a superficial lover with a heart of a super official lover... and kinda is about Nicki Minaj

Pilates
my crush on my 6th and 8th grade teacher, Imelda Lati

Charles Hamilton - Autumn Harvest
Here's what he said about it:

Autumn is a bunny.
Autumn is a bi-polar bunny.
Autumn is a musician.
Autumn is a junior high school teacher.

This is his life.

Charles Hamilton - Atlantis And A...
Here's what he said about it:

Cleveland Harlem goes to Atlanta and wonders about everything.

Who is Cleveland Harlem?

Recorded between 2008 and 2010... shouts to DJ Toomp, Sol Messiah and Groove for the production.

Also, learn a bit more about why I'm keeping my distance from this game... but still doing my music.

... and do the John Wall.

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Since You've Been Gone

Who knows where Charles Hamilton is? I for sure don't. I just have this strange inkling that maybe like ... Dave Chappelle has prolly seen him recently. But that's just me.

Thankfully, for all us remaining fans of the dude who dissed Soulja Boy, may or may not be hated by fellow freshmen Wale and Cory Gunz, got punched in the face by his girl/assistant, may or may not have accidentally "stole" a beat, claimed to be involved with Relapse, Blueprint 3, and Detox, and got all of Detroit ready to body him over typing out the name "J Dilla" on his unreleased album tracklist ... he put in even more booth work than we knew of before he went on an unexplained public hiatus. And on the same level of thankful, there's a dude who's been digging like none other and compiling tapes on the regular of CH joints that aren't outright on any of his solo projects. And while I considered myself an avid Hamilton follower, this guy Chris Rivera has some other kind of connections to pull out the tracks that he's got leaking that I've never even remotely got a sniff of.

Here's what the world's been missing out. Who knows if these were just throwaway studio sessions or recording that Charles wanted to keep unreleased or just his crock pot of 2Pac material, but here's three tapes worth of whatever it is compiled by Where Is Charles Hamilton???

Charles Hamilton -
|charles~hamilton|
Abbreviated Dreams|Extended Nightmares
|charles~hamilton| Volume 2

... but do take my word for it.

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Rockstar Posner

Well ish. I did it again.

Mike Posner -

A Matter of Time

Just mentioned him while bigging up Novel and realized I've never posted anything from him. If you downloaded the Wale Feature tape then you caught him anyways and prolly remember his voice. The first track I heard from him was his remake of Soulja Boy's stanky "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" which I really, really liked. But that's to be expected cuz I'm a definite sucker for singers with raspy voices. Macy Gray, anyone? Matter of fact ... Mike kinda sounds just like when my friend Steven does his Macy impression. Hmm. I'mma have to look into that.

So I then retroactively downloaded his recent mixtape that'd been floating around and absolutely loved it. The song that knocked me off my rocker was "Cooler Than Me" with his associate from G.O.O.D. Music, Big Sean. Darn near a perfect song in my book from the crazy catchy production, beautifully written hook, and overall delivery and connectivity through the lyrics. You can count on that being on my "Best Of 2009" list for sure. It's got that kinda staying power from the first spin you give it. And if the tracklisting is to be believed, Poser produced all but one track on the whole thing, so dude's multi-talented beyond his eerily distinctive voice and impressive songwriting. Whenever an R&B singer can distinguish himself from the rest of the industry pack of Mario/Marques Houston/Omarion/Usher clones, then they're definitely someone took look out for. Don't be late on recognizing this man.

Bonus Singles -

Mike Posner - F'ed Up (Love Lockdown Freestyle)

3OH!3 - Don't Trust Me (Benny Blanco Remix feat. KiD CuDi & Mike Posner)

Mike Posner - Kiss Me Thru the Phone (Benzi Remix feat. Izza Kizza)

... but do take my word for it.

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iNeedaGirl

So in most cases I'm a pretty big Trey Songz fan. He puts in work prolly better than anyone in R&B right now behind Ne-Yo. Now while on first listen I think his new mixtape (Anticipation: download link) is a snoozer and that "LOL" joint with Gucci & Soulja is a radiating turd, I dig pretty much all of his freestyles as of late. As well as this song.

Trey Songz - I Need a Girl

Stargate handles production on this track. Talking about rhythm & blues lately ... what good song hasn't Stargate handled in recent years? But anyways, due to Ma$e's latest attempt at a comeback, this track caught my attention again. While I'm doing my internal investigation into my iTunes of songs I didn't remember I had, I found the demo over the same gorgeous acoustic instrumental. Now, dead serious, I don't know which version I like better. Trey Songz does some really great things with his voice on this one, like he does on darn near every track, but Johnta has those pure vocals that come from a dude who's been in the background of the industry and hasn't been forced to change the way he naturally sounds even one iota. But here's still hoping for a day when Austin'll keep a single for himself that'll stick on the radio. But so is the strife of a professional ghostwriter. Oh well.

Johnta Austin - I Need a Girl (Demo)

Ma$e - I Need a Girl Freestyle

... but do take my word for it.

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I Guess He's Back

Why is the 2dopeboyz comment boards my favorite place to argue now? Well, regardless, a new Eminem song came out. So ... I might have had something to say about it.

Eminem - 3 A.M.

I'll just highlight my few points and rebuttals amongst the 276 comments:

-"yea, i’m not feeling it too much. is there really a need for kim kardashian butt reference in BOTH of the first 2 songs released on any given album?
voice is grating, as mentioned. i don’t know. guess i’m not feeling psychotic murder tracks in 2009. but that might just be me."

-"is anybody sittin at their computer listenin to this and thinkin to themselves, “heck yeah. i can relate to this.”?
i mean, if this is the kind of song some of you all bump on repeat, cool. the story itself is straight i guess, but i know i won’t be riding to this track or playing it at a party or meditatin to it or prolly ever searchin out for it on my ipod again after today.
my favorite part is how sick the instrumental gets on that demented “lotion in the bucket” bridge. i’m not one to question dre, but i enjoyed that part a lot more than the rest of the instrumental."

-"if you LIKE listening to murder stories in an intentional crazy voice, then you will LIKE this song. if you DON’T like listening to murder stories in an intentional crazy voice, then you will NOT like this song.
you can’t expect everyone to like this. it IS a great concept. it IS genius writing in the portrayal of a psychopath. it IS genius rhyme schemes. but the song packaged as a whole isn’t that great. it might be fully appreciated by some fans, but most of us don’t have that lane where we wanna listen to a high-pitched audio clip of “cape fear”."

-"what the staunch supporters of this song need to understand is that some people just don’t have a place for this song in their lives. i’m happy that eminem created this narrative if that’s what he needed to creatively get out of his system. BUT … the package of this song is a genius psychopath gore story wrapped in the middle of a slightly annoying character.
just because someone doesn’t enjoy this song doesn’t mean that they’re retarded or hate quality music. i guarantee there’s gonna be songs on the album that us who DON’T enjoy this song will still bump on repeat. but i’m sure em made this song KNOWING that a lot of people wouldn’t be able to appreciate it because of the full package that he presented it in. and, after listening to this joint open-mindedly five different times tonight, i’m prolly not gonna ever look for it again to play. that’s where most of us are coming from.
i’ll admit any day of the week that the lyrics are AMAZING in this song. but, to me, it’s just not an enjoyable song. that’s all. and yes, there are definitely blind haters that would type the same crap shooting down eminem on here no matter what the song sounded like, but that’s NOT the mindset that most of us are coming from. and it doesn’t make you any better of a hip hop fan than us if you disagree. and it dang sure has nothing to do with rick ross or 50 cent or soulja boy or anyone else regardless …"

-"AGAIN. what the heck does rick ross have to do with someone liking or not liking this song? or pop culture at all for that matter?"

-"em has sold tens of millions of records. do people really feel the need to bring up racism here? the white man isn’t that down on his luck or public image … come on now."

You gotta read the rest of the crap here to know the full story of everybody fighting over this track. Ha.

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

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I Am Not Charles Hamilton

You can't talk to me about rap music today without me bringing up this dude. It's that simple. As 2008, Charles Hamilton is hip hop to me. He epitomizes everything enjoyable and worthwhile in the genre. Even though he wouldn't want me categorizing him within any genre.

It's just refreshing to hear someone who's not trying to be the next ... anybody! I'll take less money bragging, less thug posturing, less automobile endorsing, and less I-got-everything-on-lock any day of the week in my music. And in the same vein I'll take more introspection, more conceptual girl songs, more musical composition, more actual personality, more not-afraid-to-be-different while not being-different-just-to-be-different but because-I-actually-am-different, and more fun mixtapes any day of the week in my music, as well. Ladies and gentleman, let me reintroduce you to everything that is Charles Hamilton.

charleshamilton.blogspot.com

Name me any other label-backed musician in the world who is allowing you with full endorsement to take his music at your own discretion for an entire year absolutely free. Literally eight mixtapes worth of creative juices all for the effort of a "Right-Click, Save As". With anybody else, I'd be calling foul due to little or no creativity and each tape's prolly just a compilation of lazy freestyle verses over industry instrumentals. But not hear. Charles helms a butt-load of his own production along with fellow Demevolist producers and brings you an entirely new music experience every single time. But even you nowadays-heads would be proud as he flips ridiculous amounts of highly contemporary music into imaginative samples and creates a brand new song and concept out of something that was on the radio literally months ago. Take, for instance, Beyonce's "Single Ladies" [Ringtone Rap] or Rihanna's "Shut Up & Drive" [Lemme Know] or Hoobastank's "The Reason" [Mr. Perfect] or Young Jeezy's "Put On" [Jeezy Hamilton] or Rob Thomas' "Lonely No More" [Sweetheart (Take It Back)] or The-Dream's "I Luv Your Girl" [Wrong Side of the Bed]. Tell me you aren't completely feeling at least one of those songs or wanna hear how it got flipped. I dare you.

And now the clincher. Look deep inside of your soul and tell me who could flip the various retarded Windows computer noises into a hot hip hop joint? Seriously. This dude is beyond a genius musician. He's a real person.

Here are the links for the Hamiltonization Process 2008. It was pandemonium. And he's got beef with Soulja Boy? What else could you ask for from a rapper?

Death of the Mixtape Rapper

And Then They Played Dilla

Staff Development

It's Charles Hamilton

The L Word

Sonic the Hamilton

Intervention

The Pink Lavalamp

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

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The Cipher: Bittersweet

In its short three years of existence, the "Cipher" series has gained quite a bit of recognition as the solely reserved non-industry segment on the BET Hip Hop Awards. On the surface that's all quite apparent. While it's sad that grouping legitimate emcees in a celebration of the true foundation of rap is relegated to a few two minute segments yearly, I'm obviously happier that BET puts them together rather than not. And all praise for DJ Premier scratching every year.

BET Cipher Series - feat. Everybody

But I still feel I'm watching an eerily sold out product even though I enjoy every single addition to the series. It seems that BET makes this the annual equivalent of "Saturday sinners, Sunday morning at the feet of the father." (c) Talib Kweli

It's like the producers are trying to make up for all of the garbage they flood the masses with every single day by putting together a cut that'll have all the hip hop heads celebrating. Here are a few reasons why I so strongly get that vibe in elaboration after I've just got done bobbing my head and cheering.

1. Rappers are prominently featured that BET could absolutely not care any less about.
There was a big debacle that I remember awhile back about a Little Brother video being blacklisted from the station because their video was, infamously quoted, "too intelligent." Fans were in a big ole uproar over it, especially since The Minstrel Show was just such a monstrously dope album altogether. But when the next year came around, Phonte got a lead spot in a cipher. A more recent and even quicker-responding example is Q-Tip, whose video was also disgustingly quoted as being ... "different" as a reason for why it wasn't on online polls to be put on 106 & Park. And guess who gets a closing cipher appearance before his album even drops?

2. Nothing wrong with international rappers, but interlingual?
There's just something about a rapper spitting in Japanese while the dudes around her "ooh" and "uh" as if they're hanging on every punchline. For me personally, it's hard enough to pay attention to Dizzee Rascal's heavy accentuation, much less the aforementioned Hime or the French Flo or K'naan slipping into Somalian. Unless Fuse TV is on the brink of buying out BET, these artists have no chance of ever getting another two milliseconds on the station. And I'm serious, Willy Northpole was sweating Hime's tanka usage.

3. Hurricane Chris got a spot in there ...
Yeah. I know everybody's waiting for next year's Rakim-Lady Sovereign-Soulja Boy spit down.

Now I just gotta say it again, I absolutely love these cipher segments! But you know when something seems a little too good to be true and you just know the motives behind it are in no way honorable? I can't complain about the final aired product, though. I'll suffer through an I-don't-know-why-everybody's-bigging-upping-him Ace Hood verse if it means there's gonna be a Lupe, Rhymefest, or Jadakiss to come correct afterwards. Maybe if BET replaced Rap City with some form of a Cipher show that actually showcased real talent on a regular basis then I'd shut my mouth and actually enjoy the thing.

They say the game got the belly of a beast ... (c) Lupe Fiasco

... and so concludes another masterpiece

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