Chain of the Day

first chain with a ski mask

Of Note: Plies is not the definition of real. In fact, he isn't even a good rapper - but how amazing is it that he is probably the most (monetarily) successful MC pictured on this XXL cover from last November? For me, I have Lupe, Joell Ortiz, and Rich Boy at the top of the list and everyone else in a much lower second tier. What you think?

2008: The Year of the Hater?

As Jim Jones screamed ballllin at the top of his lungs and 50 Cent told the world I'm stanky rich, 2007 became the year of the baller. The same old flashiness and flaunting defined the rap scene, which behind closed doors was suffering from reduced sales and relying more heavily on tours.

As for 2008, a new phenomenon seems to be developing. In dealing with the backlash and jealousy that always occurs when you stunt in the face of someone who doesn't got it like that, rappers have become more aware than ever before of the hater.

Two weeks ago Haterz Everywhere We Go was the Jam of the Week. Well this week's Jam of the Week, Hi Haters by Maino, picks up right where B.O.B. left off and pushes the hater movement onward.

Looking at it closely, recognizing your own baller status or your league of haters that follow you everywhere you go, both seem to have the same underlying principle. In order to have haters one must be a baller, so therefore, in declaring you have haters you are merely declaring you are a baller.

When Shawty Lo yells BIG UPS TO ALL MY HATERS! he is really just biggin up himself for being worthy of haters. In many ways, haters is the new bling - both mean you've made it, so wear em' proudly. 2008 may be the year of the hater, but in reality it is just the same old same old.

On the Side: It is interesting to note that both BOB and Maino, the two main rappers responsible for focusing the eye of the rap world on the haters, are up and comers using haters to launch a career rather than rappers dealing with haters who are hating on their already established career. The importance of this? Either there are a number of people who are jealous of rappers simply for getting a deal or there are a number of rappers who are so overjoyed just by getting a deal that they think they've already earned the green eyes of the jealous haters. Is this a good or bad sign? I'm leaning towards bad but hey, we've got the rest of the year to find out.

Weekly Poll Wrap-Up

Fallen Off
	A term used to describe someone who inexplicably disappears from all contact. "Where's Nelly? He's fallen off"

Alright, so I've heard some complaints about the poll - mainly, what are Jay-z and Nas doing in the same category as Fifty and Nelly. Well here it is...

Jay-Z - Technically speaking, yes, Jay did fall off after Reasonable Doubt. That being said, he didn't fall too far as Blueprint and Black Album are both classics in their own right and paved the way for Jay-Z to be this week's winner - by receiving no votes - but RD was a top 10 album all-time. Can you say the same for any of his following work?

Nas- It would have been impossible for Nas to drop an Illmatic every time out and maybe he will be unfairly judged for never reaching that peak again and living up to the promise of his debut and becoming the best rapper of all time. Plain and simple that is why Nas was on the list: after Illmatic he had the chance to be the G.O.A.T. and he wasn't. Unfair? Maybe. True? No doubt.

Fifty - Get Rich or Die Tryin was ok. A B- maybe. Everything since? F -.

Nelly - Nelly beat out Fif cause he went from solid to disappearing completely and losing all credibility as an artist.

Conclusion: Y'all got it right and Nelly remains hip hop's Humpty Dumpty. Oh how the mighty have fallen...wait, he's still mad rich though right? Shiiiiiit.

r.i.P. Season Begins - A look at HNIC 2

Money is worthless


Real power is people

Real strength is in the streets
Where everybody is equal

fuck jewelry, fuck rims
Lets spend on our protection

Get Armor get cameras
Get wit it lil n***a this man sh*t.

The first hook from HNIC 2 turns out to be its most revealing. Survival – whether by getting protection or turning your back to the flossy side of the game – is something Prodigy has mastered. Staying relevant for over a decade in the rap game one must have the ability to either constantly reinvent themselves to keep with the times, or stay true to themselves, trusting their style and aura to last on the strength of their own effervescence.

In the case of Prodigy, he entered the game and took it by storm with the grimy dark sound of Mobb Deep. After beef with Jay-Z and Nas and hip hop turning into pop music, Prodigy and Havoc took the Mobb Deep name to G-Unit to try to make hits for the club. The result was immensely unsuccessful and Mobb Deep and its two cohorts seemed to have fallen off too deep to ever resurface as hip hop heavyweights.

Prodigy, realizing reinventing the Mobb Deep sound, sacrificing hardcore street lyrics for shake your ass hooks was not going to sustain the Mobb Deep franchise in the ringtone era, did what smart men do: he brought it back to what he knew and returned to the style that put him on the map in the first place.

Return of the Mac, Prodigy’s last solo and first post-G-Unit disaster disc, brought back the Prodigy we had all known and grown to love: stories of devastating drug use erecting mental cages, murder and a genuine love for his guns, as if they were his girl or kids, leading to entrapment within the revolutions of the dark-side’s vicious circle.

Well HNIC 2 offers the same Prodigy of Return of the Mac - only on HNIC 2 the 70’s funk and soul loops, masterfully put together by Alchemist on Return of the Mac, are traded in for ominous synth lines and cinematic strings.

While the highlight of the cd is clearly its opening track, Real Power is People, there are a few other moments worth noting:

1) Young Veterans – the song details the early, often too soon, forced coming of age for those growing up in streets of rage. Highlight of the song: how Prodigy says ‘boy’ on the hook. Random, I know, but trust me, it sounds dope…

2) A,B,C’s – The whole hook, with the children chanting an old (ABC) nursery rhyme – kind of like something Nelly would do, but a thousand times more gutter…who holdin down NYC, huh? Being the second highlight of the song.

3) Click Clack – HNIC 2 proves to me that Prodigy and his producers have a wonderful understanding of dynamics. In response to Prodigy’s monotone - which makes him the gangster Guru of his day – the producers of HNIC 2 surround him with beats that are all dark yet never the same and pair Prodigy with other rappers whose voices stand in complete contrast.

On Click Clack, the smoothest beat of the album, we find the disc’s first feature by Twin Gambino. Now Big Twin Pop-Off probably has one of the grimiest voices I’ve ever heard, I mean he makes MOP sound like pre-pubescent children. Putting Twin on the smoothest of the album’s beats only makes sense to someone with a great understanding of dynamic. It’s a good look.

4) 3 Stacks – On the hook of 3 Stacks we find P going all Quasimoto on us, raising the treble in his voice while killing the bass, to constantly repeat 3 stacks, 3 stacks, and a pocketful of hats. Right after the first hook and our first taste of Quasimoto P, Twin Gambino returns to hit us with the growl of his voice, which stands in striking juxtaposition to the preceding hook. Again, another great use of dynamics.

5) I Want Out – On the hook of the last song of HNIC 2, guest rapper Un Pacino notes how Havoc’s strings sound like the end of a gangster flick. He spits about if this was a movie this would be the part where he pulls his gun out because he wants out. This raises an important issue…

To me, I Want Out represents the struggle of every gangster’s inner Stringer Bell verses their inner Avon Barksdale - take the dirty money and build a clean empire or stay on the corners and do what you know.

In The Wire, Stringer tries to go legit and forego drugs for real estate and ends up getting murked by his own man – his past gets the better of him. As for Prodigy, he took the Mobb Deep dirty sound and tried to go clean with G-Unit but ends up returning to the dirt that took him to the top of the game in the first place. The last song on the album, plus Prodigy’s recent up north trip, may seem like a part of him wants to move on from the toil of his profitable past, but the first 11 songs suggest he’s comfortable back in his role as hardcore lyricist P.

On the Side: The Wire, in having Avon trump Stringer and depicting a gangster’s past to be too insurmountable to overcome, is a very depressing realization as it basically declares the war on drugs and murder in the streets to be never-ending epidemics. Ironically, in the case of Prodigy, the gangster overcoming the desire to be legit (in this case a rich G-Unit rapper) actually proves encouraging and a great sign that real music still has a place in today’s rap game.

Weekly Poll Wrap-Up

So the results are in and you chose Method Man as your first favorite MC of the Wu. I have to say I agree, Meth really did steal the show on 36 Chambers. In terms of Meth's career post-36 I'd say it was definitely much more hit than miss. His performances in How High and the Wire, his debut solo cd (Tical), his collabos with Redman (Blackout) and Mary J (All I Need) being the high points - his association with Limp Bizkit and last two solo projects being the low points. Right now it seems as if Ghostface is shining the brightest from the midst of the chaos that is the Wu, but back in the day it's pretty hard to argue the Method Man wasn't setting the bar.

Ayyy, It Must be the Monayyyyy - Nelly and the Sophomore Slump

This past week, Nelly spit a surprisingly decent "freestyle" on Rap City. I got to thinking about back when he first came on the scene, in 2000, and how if you were to do a hip hop fantasy draft you'd probably have to take him number one seeing as how Country Grammar sold 9 million fucking records - and on top of that, it was actually a decent album.

- That Being Said -

When it comes to falling off Nelly is the hip hop Humpty Dumpty. Emerging on the scene with Country Grammar, Nelly put the midwest back on the map and became 50 Cent before the world even knew 50 Cent. Nelly's style of singing hooks and bridges, coupled with the St. Louis accent, throwing rrrr's at the end of words and E.I. at the end of sentences, Country Grammar, much like Get Rich or Die Trying, was a movement that put a whole crew in the limelight and put Nelly on top of the game.

What happened after that? What happens far too many times in rap - a sophomore slump. Now Nelly didn't suffer a sophomore slump in terms of sales - neither did 50 - just in terms of quality hip hop music. To explain why sophomore slumps consistently plague hip hop artists of living up to their debut's precedent, I am going to look at three simple points:

1) Ay, It must be the money - The bulk of Nelly's debut, and several other mainstream rapper's debuts, deal with the come up - the struggle, the hustle, the joy of making it. On an artist's debut this material feels fresh and real but after an artist goes platinum (9X) an age old problem arises:
(1) now that you've made it what else are you going to rap about?
(2) if you rap about the same problems your lyrics seem played out.

So what do the bulk of rappers do? Make hits for the club, trade credibility for profit aka drop down and get their eagle on.

2) A life in utopia - Life in the garden of Eden, or any where struggle doesn't exist, is meaningless because if everything is perfect there is no room left for progress. The sophomore album of an artist whose debut album almost solely deals with the come up faces the problem of no longer being motivated by the tension that it took to make it.

3) When interviewed about the making of Reasonable Doubt, Irv Gotti, of the VH1 reality show Gotti's Way fame (he may have done some stuff before...), said that often times a rapper or any artist's debut is their best work because they have been working on it their whole life. Twenty years of emotion transformed into art will often be more powerful and meaningful than what an artist can crap out in the one year following the greatest achievement - to that day - of their lives.

Conclusion: When you got something to prove you are dangerous. You are hungry, you are motivated, you are willing to pour your heart and soul into every record. Luven Me was the last song Nelly recorded for Country Grammar. In the song he talks about all the shit he has put his family and loved ones through and how he has so much love for everyone sticking with him through the sacrifices he made to dedicate his life to this album. Think about it: he was drafted by the Cardinals and opted to stay on the streets because making music was his dream. Now, someone that puts that much on the line is going to make sure their music means something. Once that tension, that risk, is gone: rapping becomes like any other job, just something to do to cash a check.

Nelly said he cried after recording Luven Me. What do you think he did after recording Hot in Herre? Wipe his ass with a Benjamin?

Nelly's freestyle on Rap City gives me a glimmer of hope, not Obama HOPE!, but I am almost ready to start lovin Nelly again - well, only if he's got something to prove.

On the side: Country Grammar features interludes from Cedric the Entertainer. While mildly entertaining, I have to say Bernie Mac's interludes on Kanye's shit absolutely murk Cedric's - I feel like this encapsulates the difference between their whole careers as Bernie Mac has just always been a little bit better. Also, Country Grammar features a totally forgotten about guest verse from Young Post Office Weezie - back in the day when Wayne didn't get by on just mailing in verses but solely on the premise of how crazy his voice sounds.

Last thought: Somehow, athletes like Tom Brady are impervious to the sophomore slump because no matter how much they win they still feel like they have a chip on their shoulder. What rapper's have this quality? Jay? Maybe. Anyone else? I don't know. What I do know, is Nelly and 50 and all of them debut album was good then I became a sellout rapper better find it. One.

Thought after the Last Thought: The best part of Luven Me might just be the shout outs from the last verse on the song, and the album. Take a look:

My n--ga Lil' Erv, Gino and Poochie
and everybody over on Euclid and Labade
Young Big Touch, Pooh and Big Baby
Rio, J.T. and Big Money
Herky Jerk, Wezz and Pea and Cody
J.E., K-Ug and Odie
Toe-Fa, M.J., and Cowlby
And all my soldiers down at Fair Ground on Monday
My Lunatic fam, Keyjuan, Murphy Lee
City Spud, T-Love and Big Lee
Yellow Mack, Slow Down, Courtney B


Of all the names, I'm going to go ahead and say Herky Jerk takes the cake. Just imagine being like hey Tanya, these are my friends James, Matt, Liz, and Herky Jerk. I guess that would actually be kind of baller...