New A. Pinks joint Produced by Frequency

been gone for a minute now im back it's the jump off

Notes on VH1's Top 100 Hip Hop Song list

I tend to agree that this list is a little out of wack, but I ain't mad at what they tried to do. They essentially had one song from every important rapper/group over the last 30 years. Now I can sit here like Bol and argue that "T.R.O.Y." should have been higher than 90 (I know it is A LOT of heads' favorite song of all time; I was never crazy about it, but I'd probably at least put it in my Top 50 just to please the heads), etc. etc., but I won't take that route. Instead, I want to examine the recurrences on the list just for shits and giggles, because they were obviously trying to limit the list to one song per rapper/group. I mean, 1 Nas song and 1 Pac song? That's a little weird...At least my favorite song of all time made it: "My Philosophy" by BDP...By the way, no "Flava In Ya Ear"? and no "Scenario"????? I wasn't crazy about "Scenario" either, but that is a Top 10 song on almost anyone's list...No Fat Boys???? No "Symphony"???? And as much as I love "Paid In Full," no "Eric B For President"?????

Krayzie Bone: 2 hits ("Ridin'" and "Crossroads")
Afrika Bambatta: 2 hits ("What You Waitin' 4" and
Wyclef: 2 hits ("We Trying to Stay Alive" and "Killing Me Softly")
DMX: 2 hits ("Ruff Ryders Anthem" and "Money Power & Respect"
Lil' Kim: 3 hits ("Crush On You," "Money Power & Respect" and "Benjaminz")
Slick Rick 2 hits ("Children's Story" and "The Show")
Wu Tang/RZA: 3 hits ("Shimmy Shimmy Ya", "I'll Be There For You", "CREAM"
L.O.X.: 2 hits ("Money Power & Respect" and "Benjaminz")
Jay Z: 2 hits ("I'll Be" and "Hard Knock Life")
50 Cent: 2 hits ("Hate It Or Love It" and "In Da Club")
Roxanne [LOL]: 2 hits ("Roxanne Roxanne" and "Roxanne's Revenge")
Run DMC: 2 hits ("It's Like That" and "Walk This Way") - Only act with 2 of their own songs on the list (i.e. not 1 as an act and 1 as a feature or producer, etc.)
B.I.G. 3 hits ("Crush On You," "Benjaminz" and "Juicy")
Kool Moe Dee: 2 hits ("Love Rap" and "How Ya Like Me Now")
Q-Tip: 2 hits ("One Love" and "Check The Rhime")
Shock G: 2 hits ("Humpty Dance" and "I Get Around") - WOW
Ice Cube: 2 hits ("It Was A Good Day" and "Straight Outta Compton")
LL Cool J: 2 hits ("I Need Love" and "I Can't Live Without My Radio") - I stand corrected. Both LL and Run DMC had 2 official songs on the list. Impressive.
Mark The 45 King [Producer]: 2 hits - "Stan" and "Hard Knock Life" -- WOW 2 in the Top 15
Snoop: 2 hits ("Gin and Juice" and "G Thing") -- 2 in Top 8!
Dr Dre: 4 hits ("In Da Club," "Gin and Juice", "Straight Outta Compton" and "G Thing") - 3 in the Top 8, all in the top 18!!!
Larry Smith [Producer]: 2 hits ("Freaks Come Out At Night" and "It's Like That")
D-Dot [Producer]: ("Feels So Good," "Benjaminz" and "Money Power & Respect")
Puffy: 3 hits ("Feels So Good," "Benjaminz," and "Juicy")
DJ Muggs [Producer]: 2 hits ("Jump Around" and "Insane in the Brain")
Rick Rubin [Producer]: 4 hits ("I Can't Live Without My Radio," "Hold It Now Hit It," "Baby Got Back" and "Walk This Way") -- Rick Rubin produced "Baby Got Back"???? He got 4 on the list. I think he takes the cake, beating out Dre who had 3 in the Top 8.
Young MC: 2 hits ("Bust A Move" and "Wild Thing")
Matt Dike & Michael Ross [Producer]: 2 hits ("Bust A Move" and "Wild Thing")
Neptunes: 2 hits ("Lapdance" and "Hot In Here")
Marley Marl: I think he produced "Roxanne's Revenge" and ghostproduced "Paid In Full"
Trackmasters/Poke: "I'll Be" and "Juicy"

People I know personally on the list (or at least have their number in my cell):
Pete Rock
Doc Ice [UTFO]
Lil' Kim
Raekwon
No I.D. [Producer]
Trackmasters [Producer]
D-Dot [Producer]
Snoop (Well, I sorta know him)
Doug E Fresh (Well, I've been to his house)
Teflon [Producer] (Actually went to High School with this cat...Congrats my dude...)

So what do we learn from this?

Lil Kim is on 3 times. I've been trying to tell ya'll she's a legend
Trackmasters are on 2 times. They really made a mark.
Dr. Dre is on 4 times, all in the top 18 and 3 in the top 8. I guess we all should wait for Detox patiently.
Rick Rubin is on 4 times. And this guy produced for Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash and the Chilli Peppers!
D-Dot's on 3 times. Selling point to the labels for Wais???
Snoop's on 2 times in the top 8...GOAT?
LL has 2 of his own songs on the list. At least he can call himself the GOAT
Run DMC has w of their own songs on the list. They deserve it.
3 Wu songs show up. Proof that they are the greatest group of all time.
Only 1 KRS, 1 Nas, and 1 Rakim song...Tsk
"Fight The Power" #1??? OK - I love this song, but that's a little weird. I guess it was written into VH1's Flavor Of Love contract...

The investment banks and insurance companies are collapsing, hurricaines are ravaging the gulf states, the runner-up for Miss Alaska is about to be vice president, and Kanye re-records and re-releases his new fuck you to the hip-hop world single "Love Lockdown."

The world is about to end. But at least we have the Mets to root for. Strike that. At least we have Brett Farve to beat the Brady-less Patriots playing with a high school quarterback at the Meaddowlands. Um. Strike that. At least we have Angel Lola Luv.

New Game produced by Just & Trackmasters

KRS meets Soulja Boy

Very interesting...

RIP Baby Girl

Who Killed It?

I'm about a month late on this, but this is arguably the...greatest...song...EVAR. And it's not even the whole joint!



This is the rest of it...

Lotta Wayne

OK - Didn't hear "A Milli" yet today, but it was playing on both Hot 97 and Power 105 at the same time at one point last night.

Today I turned on Hot 97 for 15 minutes and heard "Got Money," "Mr. Carter" and "My Life." Enough with Lil' Wayne already.

I then decided to check out Hot 97's playlist on line.

Lil' Wayne songs:

2. Got Money
3. A Milli
9. Mr. Carter
20. My Life

The rest of the Top 25 included:

4. Here I Am - Rick Ross (honestly, I don't give a damn that he was a CO, but the hood seems really pissed off about it...radio stations (and the Ozone Awards!) don't care)

13. The Business - Young Berg (any black woman, even light-skinneded ones, who buy this guy's album does not respect themselves...if you don't know what I'm talking about, google "young berg" and "dark butts"...any dude who buy's this guy's album is either 13 or gay)

Only New York artists on the Top 25:

1. Baby - LL Cool J (not crazy about this song, but I gotta respect LL's longevity)

14. Nas - Hero (not his greatest effort, but I'm happy Nas is getting spins...still ain't hear the album...tsk tsk for me)

25. Good Stuff - Jim Jones (don't ask me why or how, but Jim Jones really has figured out a formula for making hits)

But on the real, New York's longest running rap station only has 3 NY artists in its Top 25??!???!? Not even Maino! Yikes!

The only other rap songs in the Top 25 are:

6. Put On - Young Jeezy (Prolyfic got me loving this song...it's pretty good)

10. Homecomming - Kanye (goddamn, how many singles does this guy have...Graduation is starting to look like Thriller)

12. Whatever You Like - T.I. (I love T.I., but seriously, this song sucks...thank Lil' Wayne "Lollipop" for this one)

19. Get Like Me - David Banner (this song is fire)

22. Game's Pain - Game (much like T.I., I love Game. This song, however, is terrible.)

23. Dangerous - Kardinall Official (sort of a rap song...all I have to say is wow)

The remaining 10 songs are all R&B songs. Most of them are pretty good, so I won't complain. I will say this, that Ryan Leslie "Addiction" joint is fire.

Power 105's Top 25 was relatively similar (all 4 Wayne songs were in the Top 20, with "Mr. Carter" at 2 and "A Milli" at 3), but they had:

5. "Bust It Baby Pt. II" - Plies (I actually need to check dude's album. He makes, as I like to call it, extremely solid generic Rap/R&B records...I heard he actually got some joints)

24. "Hi Hater" - Maino (whatever, this is NY's anthem right now...curiously neither the Nas record nor the Jim Jones record is on Power's playlist, so the only 2 NY records in their Top 25 ar the LL joint at this joint...wow)

Who said Hip Hop is dead?

A milli a milli a milli a milli a milli a milli

I swear to God if I hear this song again I'm going to shoot myself (or somebody).

Step ya production game up

Seriously, when did being a producer become the "thing to do" in Hip Hop?

I swear, the thought process must be as follows: I don't have the "look" or the "swag" to rap, I don't know how to get a label job, I don't have the contacts to be a manager, I don't have the skills to DJ, but I want to be in the music industry...I know what I'll do, I'll produce.

Now, I know people are going to jump down my throat for that comment, just like they did to Prolyfic when he said he doesn't mess with "Fruity Loop" producers.

That's not what I'm saying. I always wanted to be in the music industry. I went through the cycle. I've done it all. Rhymed, DJed, produced, etc. Where I'm at right now has been 23 years in the making. What does that mean? I started rapping at 6. Yeah, I said it. I'm on the business side now, and I'm staying on the business side.

At a certain point, a person has to look at themselves and ask, what do I want to do with my life? When you pick that craft, you have to perfect it. Don't half ass it.

Bottom line, if I make better beats than you, I'm not going to rep you. I don't even have time to rep all the producers that I think are hot. Why the hell would I rep a producer that has less skills than me?

Then again, I would've lost out on millions had Soulja Boy sent me a beat CD, so what the hell do I know?

Juganot performance

Juganot

Insults

Why not?

1) An exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband I'd give you poison,' and Churchill said, 'If you were my wife, I'd drink it.'

2) A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.' 'That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.'

3) 'He had delusions of adequacy.' - Walter Kerr

4) 'He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.' - Winston Churchill

5) 'A modest little person, with much to be modest about.' -Winston Churchill

6) 'I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.'- Clarence Darrow

7) 'He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.' - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

8) 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?' - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

9) 'Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.' - Moses Hadas

10) 'He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.' - Abraham Lincoln

11) 'I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.' - Mark Twain

12) 'He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.' -Oscar Wilde

13) 'I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one.' - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

14) 'Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.' - Winston Churchill, in response.

15) 'I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.' - Stephen Bishop

16) 'He is a self-made man and worships his creator.' - John Bright

17) 'I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.' - Irvin S. Cobb

18) 'He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.' -Samuel Johnson

19) 'He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.' - Paul Keating

20) 'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.' Jack E. Leonard

21) 'He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.' - Robert Redford

22) 'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' - Thomas Brackett Reed

23) 'In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.' - Charles, Count Talleyrand

24) 'He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.' - Forrest Tucker

25) 'Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?' - Mark Twain

26) 'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' -Mae West

27) 'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.' - Oscar Wilde

28) 'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.' - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

29) 'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.' - Billy Wilder

30) 'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.' -Groucho Marx

Mid-Year Thoughts

I really haven't had much to say (and neither has Pro or Freq or Jug (ha!) apparently)...Plus, I've been mad busy.

For whatever it's worth, I still haven't heard the Lil' Wayne album. I think the only album I've really listened to that has come out in '08 was Fat Joe...And it was actually kind of hot.

That being said, I really had a feeling that the G-Unit album wasn't going to do well. As much as they are playing the 3 singles in NY (plus those Mr. Cee/50 Cent mixtape joints), they are nowhere to be found on the charts (big shout to Ron Browz by the way). For whatever reason, those songs didn't break nationally. And the marketing campaign didn't really take on a mind of it's own. Maybe too much time was spent on the G-Unit/Young Buck dispute, and not enough time building awareness that the album was coming out.

But honestly, I really consider 50 Cent part of the new school or new wave of rappers. Even though he was on that Onyx album back in 90 whatever and "How to Rob" came out in '99 (I had it, plus "Money By Any Means" feat. NORE, on my first mixtape - ID4 - which came out 9 years ago on July 4 (part of me is like, "Only 9 years ago?" - the other part is like, "Holy shit! 9 years ago! I'm old")), I feel like he has a younger fanbase. Not Soulja Boy/Lil' Mama young, but young nonetheless. He didn't really make it big until '03.

Same with Wayne. He's been around for over a decade. But I feel like he was big in the South (I mean, shit, he did go platinum in like '99) until the last couple of years, when he became more of a national (international?) star.

Yet Wayne goes platinum in a week, but the G Unit album will probably not go gold. I guess Wayne was all over the place (guest spots, mixtapes, etc.) and promoting this album for years. 50 might be complacement. After all, he does have that Vitamin Water money. But he did promote this album -- he has thisis50.com, the free mixtapes, the Young Buck controversy (we all know that that taped phone call was released to coincide with the album). For whatever reason, "Lollipop," and then/now "A Milli" hit big nationally. I have no idea why "Rider Pt. 2" didn't hit. That joint was hot. Plus 50 used the vocorder. And then "I Like the Way She Do It" (the girl song) didn't hit either. "Straight Outta Southside" is definitely a New York song...I don't know if they're going to even do a new single.

But Coldplay did 700. Shit, Plies did 250. But I give it to Plies, he has released some solid (albeit generic) "girl" singles and they have hit. I think 50 needs another "In Da Club" or "21 Questions." Something that the girls will like. Maybe he needs T-Pain or Ne-Yo (weird how 50 hasn't collabed with them) for the single for the next album. Interestingly enough, the joint he did with Akon, which I liked, wasn't a girl song. Had it been, it might have taken "Curtis" over the top. I think I'm on to something. Sha - holla at me.

Bottom line. I have no idea how to market rap albums anymore (did I ever?). I don't think anyone in the industry knows either. The worst thing that possibly could have happened was Wayne going plat in a week. You know the execs are now scrambling, because just when they thought album sales were done, Wayne does Brittney Spears ca. 1999 numbers. I think it was a fluke. The stars aligned and made it happen. Snoop might not even go gold. And he goes platinum every time out. Plus, "Sensual Seduction" was a huge hit.

It'll be interesting to see what Yung Berg does. I think he comes out next month. He desperately needs a single though cuz I think "Sexy Can I" was on the Ray J album. Yung Berg definitely has potential to do Plies numbers. Then again, at least album-sales-wise, Sean Kingston didn't do great.

It'll also be interesting to see what Nas does. I have a strong feeling he'll sell less than G Unit. As much as the album's getting marketed through the 'net (album title controversy, mixtape, releasing songs to the websites and on Digiwaxx), he doesn't have a single! Plus the album already leaked. We'll see how strong his fanbase is. I'll certainly buy it. But it'll be the first album I buy since Snoop came out in March (yikes!). Yes I bought Snoop. Ted should've sent me (or Frequency) free copies.

On a related note, did anyone notice that Rza dropped an album 2 weeks ago? I think it sold 5,000. Scary. Remember when every Wu release went at least gold? You know the Wu ain't the same anymore when I stop buying their releases. I used to collect Wu-related projects like baseball cards.

Thank God for Proctor & Gamble and LiveNation. I need to get me some of that money. It's the future. And probably the only way that album sales won't matter anymore. Forget the subscription service. On the other hand, it's leading to the demise of Hip-Hop. Nas' prediction was premature. But once you got rappers hawking deodorant for a deal, Hip-Hop will officially be beyond commercial. It will be dead.

If Soulja Boy didn't already kill it. HA!

Billy Wagner is the new Armando Benitez

Mets fans know what I'm talking about.

New York Times Reviews the Carter III (sort of)

Note: Now that I've been banned from I am no longer bloggging for HHNLive.com, I'd like to do an experiment and see how many people actually read this God awful, hardly updated blog. After reading the article below from the new Hip-Hop bible, the New York Times, I can't tell if I should buy the new Weezy album or not. Truth be told, I have never listened to a Weezy album, although I believe I bought a promo copy of The Block Is Hot from Downtown Records when it dropped and I have the Carter II and Dediction II on bootleg somewhere.

Nonetheless, Mr. F. Baby is the greatest rapper alive the greatest rapper alive from New Orleans with dreadlocks, and I feel compelled to add to his Soundscan totals, even though the mixtape DJs tell me not to. I just can't quite bring myself to do it. "Lolipop" is terrible (yet, somehow, I know every word to the remix - and I don't listen to urban radio anymore) and "A Milli" is arguably the worst song of all time that everyone loves. I think I might've made that beat and freestyled those lyrics when I was 7. I can't even bring myself to listen to the other songs making their rounds through the internet.

So I ask you, my 2 readers that don't post on this blog (and you guys too), should I buy the album? Please comment.

RAPPER'S ROAD TO POP
BY JOHN PARELES

SOURCE

“Mr. Carter,” a song on Lil Wayne’s long-awaited album “Tha Carter III” (Cash Money/Universal), brings together Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., and Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter. Since they share a last name — and no rapper would let the sonic coincidence go unexploited — some kind of identity-defining encounter was probably inevitable.

Jay-Z, 38, has been hip-hop’s top honcho and acclaimed virtuoso for a decade. Lil Wayne, 25, has been calling himself the “best rapper alive” for years. Now Jay-Z endorses and anoints him: “I share mike time with my heir,” he raps. “Young Carter go farther, go further, go harder. Is that not why we came? And if not, then why bother?”

“Tha Carter III” is Lil Wayne’s determined push into pop. Without a crossover, he has already gone as far as he can within hip-hop. He got a recording contract when he was 11, and he’s been making albums since he was a teenager, originally with the New Orleans hip-hop group the Hot Boys, which made gold records. He followed through with his own million-selling solo albums, including “Tha Block Is Hot” in 1999 and “Tha Carter II” in 2005. For hip-hop magazines (and, earlier this year, for Billboard), he’s already a cover story. Now he’s headed for radio.

Songs on “Tha Carter III” use lush, string-laden production by big names like Kanye West and Just Blaze, and they often revolve around full-fledged vocal choruses, sung by guests including T-Pain and Babyface. The album’s first single, “Lollipop,” reached No. 1 despite (or more likely because of) its single-entendre lyrics.

“Lollipop” is an insinuating electronic concoction, ticking and blipping, with Static Major (who died earlier this year) crooning the chorus and Lil Wayne’s brief bits of rapping turned into a melody by computer tuning. One of Lil Wayne’s least original efforts, “Lollipop” is just bait, inviting new listeners to notice one of hip-hop’s most free-form rhymers, with a career to match.

Successor or not, Lil Wayne just doesn’t do things Jay-Z’s way — anything but. Jay-Z presents himself as Mr. Organization, from his designer suits to his calm demeanor to the tracks themselves. His rhymes set a meter and stick with it; he chooses a refrain or a topic and works through its variations. He releases his albums methodically, with careful buildup and follow-through tours, and he doles out guest appearances as sparingly as papal audiences. He and his listeners never forget that he’s thinking strategically.

Not Lil Wayne, who treats hip-hop as equal parts career path and compulsion. Since “Tha Carter,” in 2004 — which was his fourth solo album — he has let loose his inner anarchist. “They don’t make ‘em like me no more/Matter of fact they never made it like me before,” he raps on a new song, “Phone Home.”

With the Hot Boys and on his first solo albums, Lil Wayne rattled off strict-meter, rapid-fire rhymes. But on the “Carter” series his phrasing has grown looser, trickier and funnier: “Wittier than comedy,” he raps in “La La.” “But I ain’t tellin’ jokes” — long pause — “apparently.” He drawls to land behind the beat, then casually tumbles through a rush of syllables to end up just where he planned to be. His voice rises and falls in a sly, scratchy singsong — no wonder he calls himself Weezy — that can sound like a cackly old man or a wisecracking kid. His voice holds unmistakable echoes of New Orleans R&B singing: weathered and frisky, jovial and wary.

“Tha Carter II,” released late in 2005, was largely complete before Hurricane Katrina. He raps about that tragedy in a brooding new song, “Tie My Hands”: “My whole city underwater, some people still floatin’/And they wonder why black people still votin’ .” He adds, “No governor, no help from the mayor/Just a steady-beatin’ heart and a wish and a prayer.”

Between albums Lil Wayne rapped an even more bitter reaction in a song called “Georgia ...Bush,” where he rhymed: “The white people smiling like everything cool/But I know people that died in that pool.” The song came out on “Dedication 2 — Gangsta Grillz,” one of the many albums in Lil Wayne’s shadow career as one of the most prolific and widely bootlegged rappers ever.

Major labels and their stars usually equate success with scarcity: completing no more than one album a year (if that), letting anticipation and hype build toward each rare release. But between the installments of “Tha Carter,” Lil Wayne has been ubiquitous, embracing saturation rather than scarcity.

He showed up as a guest on songs by Usher, Lloyd, Chris Brown and Fat Joe; he had his first collaboration with Jay-Z on “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” He made an album, “Like Father, Like Son,” with his mentor, Birdman. He toured steadily, filling theaters. (He also racked up arrests on marijuana and gun possession charges, including one after his July 2007 show at the Beacon Theater in New York City. He often raps about smoking dope and swigging cough syrup.)

With and without Lil Wayne’s consent there has been a constant stream of mixtapes and studio outtakes, distributed so widely that fans would sing along with mixtape songs at concerts. (It has taken Neil Young up to four decades to release his archives; Lil Wayne won’t have that time lag.)

Many of the mixtape songs are raps over other people’s hit tracks: samples that would be expensive to use on official albums, where Lil Wayne prefers to use newly made tracks. The mixtapes are inconsistent, of course, and the songs fall back more often on the standard gangsta shtick that filled Lil Wayne’s older albums. But even when he’s just spinning his wheels, Lil Wayne has more good material than his albums will ever hold. A deluxe version of “Tha Carter III” comes with “The Leak,” five leaked songs that were officially released earlier this year as digital downloads.

In interviews, Lil Wayne describes himself as a perfectionist. “Dr. Carter,” a song on the new album, diagnoses problems with current hip-hop: “Lack of concepts, originality, his flow is weak and he’s got no style.” And while Lil Wayne is well aware that just about anything he says into a microphone will be online sooner or later, he has clearly worked to make “Tha Carter III” a statement of its own: one that moves beyond standard hip-hop boasting (though there’s plenty of that) to thoughts that can be introspective or gleefully unhinged.

As Lil Wayne’s reputation has grown between albums, he has upgraded his collaborators; “Tha Carter III” is filled with guests. Its production encompasses both the plush and the minimal. There’s suave R&B in “Comfortable,” which sounds like a love song but bluntly tells a woman not to get too comfortable since she can be replaced, and in “Mrs. Officer,” where he has a tryst with policewoman and asks her for her number and she tells him, “911.” There’s bare-bones hip-hop looping in “A Milli,” which is little more than beat, a bass line and a male voice saying “a milli” as Lil Wayne free-associates about being a millionaire, among many other things.

Kanye West gives him gospelly piano in “Let the Beat Build.” There’s rock in “Playin’ With Fire,” which remakes the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire” as a mixture of come-on and death wish, and in “Shoot Me Down,” where Lil Wayne is holding a gun and staring into a mirror. Nina Simone’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” accompanies “Don’tGetIt,” in which he raps, “Excuse my French emotion and my passion/But I wear my heart on my sleeve like it’s the new fashion.”

As he reaches for pop exposure, Lil Wayne is tempering braggadocio with a different kind of audacity: he’s showing himself as more vulnerable than ever.

My Diz Brother's Kid Brother

In the words of the great Paul Mooney....

Fuck Hillary Clinton.

We Win




All I'm saying is that she better not be Veep. Rumors going around that Hillary was quoted as saying, "I'd love to be VP. Remember what happened to Lyndon Johnson?"

The New York Times reviews the Kanye Tour

Frequency, you were there. Do you agree?

Ego-Fueled Hip-Hop Sci-Fi Space Odyssey
By JON PARELES
Source
There is a new yardstick for the size of the universe. It is approximately equal to the size of Kanye West’s ego.

That’s not necessarily bad. Hip-hop runs on self-glorification, the transformation of underdogs into self-invented legends. Sooner or later someone was bound to claim what Mr. West’s show did on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden: that he’s “the biggest star in the universe.” That was not only part of the script but also a crucial plot twist for Mr. West’s headlining set on his Glow in the Dark Tour, a quadruple bill with Rihanna, N.E.R.D. and Lupe Fiasco.

Mr. West’s set was the most daring arena spectacle hip-hop has yet produced, and in some ways the best, even as it jettisoned standard hip-hop expectations. The rhymes, the beats and the narcissism were there; the block-party spirit and sense of community were not. Until the encore Mr. West had no human company on the arena stage.

The spectacle is framed as a sci-fi space odyssey, with Mr. West as a lone explorer whose starship crashes on an unknown planet. He’s stranded in a landscape of colored lights, billowing smoke — probably enough dry ice to cool Death Valley — and gorgeous, panoramic video images of clouds, galaxies, fireworks and cosmic eruptions. He converses with his computerized ship, named Jane, and with shooting stars. He raps with barely a respite, and bounds around the stage: striding, hunching, pumping his fist, falling to his knees, grinding against the stage, flailing, shouting his rhymes. It is a show of stamina and lonely self-determination that takes on its own obsessive momentum, like a Samuel Beckett scene staged by Robert Wilson and George Lucas.

Mr. West’s songs — chronicles of his striving, success, fashion sense and media missteps — don’t have much to do with a planet devoid of paparazzi or designer labels. At Tuesday’s show, praying to get back home, he promised God that if he made it, he’d “stop spazzing out at awards shows.” But he wrenched the songs into the concept, turning “Gold Digger,” for instance, into a tryst with a hologram generated by his spaceship.

The music was rearranged (for a band sequestered in an orchestra pit) to sound less triumphal and more melancholy. Mr. West reaches pop audiences with pop hooks, but the concert often held them back, starting instead with drumbeats and reverberating minor chords before allowing sweetness in. The audience joined him every chance it got, and he did eventually get back home, to share an encore with Lupe Fiasco. But in Mr. West’s tour de force, it was lonely at the top. Cosmically lonely.

The other acts were also pushing genre boundaries. N.E.R.D. is led by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who as producers are a hip-hop hit factory called the Neptunes. N.E.R.D., however, is a rock band that ricochets among rap-rock, sardonic new wave and glimpses of Beatles chords. Mr. Williams, who does most of the singing and rapping, plays the perpetual Lothario in songs that dip into wordplay — like the group’s new “Everybody Nose,” about clubbing and cocaine — and make come-ons like, “I just love your brain.”

Rihanna, whose career arrived with dance tunes, keeps broadening her perspective. Her video-ready set flaunted three costumes and revealed her as a full-fledged singer, with a voice biting enough to leap out of speakers but also supple enough to be inviting. Amid Caribbean-tinged dance grooves and ballads, she sang about flirtation and self-assertion, and also tossed in part of M.I.A.’s gun-toting “Paper Planes.” For her biggest hit, the R&B loyalty hymn “Umbrella,” the singer Chris Brown joined her in an unannounced duet.

In the opening set the rapper Lupe Fiasco showed his own ambitions, verbal and musical. He rapped not only about stardom but also about skateboarding, child soldiers and a worldwide plague. And the music in his short set, using three backup singers, encompassed chattering electronic beats, smooth R&B and mournful rock. It was a good start for a concert that insisted hip-hop hasn’t run out of possibilities, even on this planet.

Bringing the NY Times to the Hip Hop Community

Just being lazy. However, I'm truly amazed about how often the New York Times runs Hip Hop stories...I'ma see how long I can keep this up.

Source

CHAOS IN COURT HALLWAY AFTER REMY MA SENTENCE
By Alan Feuer

Remy Smith, the hip-hop artist convicted in March of shooting a friend in an angry tug of war over a purse, was sentenced on Tuesday to eight years in prison at an emotional court hearing that touched off violence moments later outside the court.

Minutes after the sentence was imposed, in a hallway outside the courtroom doors, Ms. Smith’s fiancé, Shamele Mackie, flew into a rage, lunging and cursing at court officers, then overturning a garbage can near the elevator banks. Mr. Mackie shouted at the guards, “Go ahead, lock me up!” as a group of his friends surrounded him and forced him, flailing and howling, from the courthouse.

Tension had been building in Room 1123 of Supreme Court in Manhattan from the moment Justice Rena K. Uviller imposed the sentence and delivered a withering appraisal of Ms. Smith, calling her “an extremely angry young woman” who assumed herself to be beyond the rules of civil society.

Ms. Smith’s friends and family seemed aghast at that and began to weep and mutter as a large contingent of officers in the room stiffened visibly at their posts.

An angry crowd soon formed in the hallway around Mr. Mackie, a fellow rapper who was to have wed Ms. Smith on Monday at Rikers Island. The wedding was canceled when jail officials found a key on Mr. Mackie’s key chain that could be used to open handcuffs.

The officers tried to disperse the crowd, when Mr. Mackie, the rapper known as Papoose, tossed his baseball cap to a friend and lunged forward, reaching for the officers and shouting insults.

A court officer, who declined to give his name because he is not authorized to speak about security matters, said later that the detail had been ordered to proceed with caution because of Ms. Smith’s fame and her volatility.

Ms. Smith, who performs under the name Remy Ma, is known for her eye-catching outfits — on the day she was convicted she was wearing a version of a Little Miss Muffet outfit, gray bloomers and vest — but also for her easily available emotions, evidenced on Tuesday by the tearful statement she read to Justice Uviller.

In it, she excoriated some of the reporters who covered her trial for calling her a “hip-hop hellion,” saying her aggressive stage persona was precisely that: a “music industry creation” and “a facade.”

“Remy Ma is not even close to who I am,” she said through tears. “I’m not a thug. I’m not a hardcore anything. I have feelings and emotions, and I’m a human being like anybody else. I’m Remy Smith.”

Ms. Smith, 26, was found guilty on March 27 of first-degree assault for shooting Makeda Barnes Joseph, a member of her entourage, after a celebration of Ms. Smith’s birthday at a nightclub in the meatpacking district last July 14. At the party, Ms. Smith asked Ms. Joseph to hold her purse and said that when she got it back, $3,000 in cash was missing.

As they left the club, Ms. Smith pulled her Cadillac Escalade up to Ms. Joseph’s Nissan Maxima, then climbed into the Maxima with a cocked gun and tried to search Ms. Joseph’s purse for the money. During the struggle, Ms. Joseph was shot in the belly, and Ms. Smith fled in a taxi, abandoning her $69,000 Cadillac on the street and her victim in pool of blood.

In her own statement, read to the judge by Michael McIntosh, a prosecutor, Ms. Joseph, who was in the courtroom, said she was baffled how a night “so fun and enjoyable” could suddenly turn so violent. One minute she was hugging Ms. Smith, she said in her statement, and the next she was bleeding in a car.

“After July 14, I stopped existing as a person,” Ms. Joseph wrote. “I am now known as a victim, a gold-digger, a groupie, a liar and thief.” Her statement continued: “I will always be the girl they will whisper about. I will always be the girl who was shot by Remy.”

Before Ms. Smith sat down, she addressed herself to Ms. Joseph and spoke in her direction but did not look at her directly.

“I apologize,” she said, “and I’m sorry for not saving you. I feel so bad for all the physical and mental pain you went through, and go through. Myself, I have a lifetime scar on my face. So I know the pain you feel when I look in the mirror.”

Ha Larious

I actually saw this live last night:

I'm not a player, I just f!#@ my daugther

I know it's been a good 2 weeks since our faithful readership has had something with which to occupy their time, so therefore, I wanted to share this lovely New York Times story with you, which, ironically, is also about 2 weeks old [NOTE: I was going to blog about the Papoose/Remy Ma wedding, but apparently that's off for at least the next 6 months.

Here's the Times story [ONE MORE NOTE: I am 1/4 Austrian, so please don't let this be a reflection on me] (SOURCE):

AMSTETTEN, Austria — With his Mercedes-Benz and his fine clothes, Josef Fritzl looked every inch a property owner, neighbors in this tidy Austrian town said Monday. Even when running errands, they said, he wore a natty jacket, crisp shirt and tie.

Mr. Fritzl’s apartment house, its back garden obscured by a tall hedge, was his kingdom, one neighbor said, and interlopers were not welcome. On Monday, investigators in white jumpsuits combed the house and garden for clues. The authorities said Sunday that Mr. Fritzl, 73, had kept one of his daughters imprisoned for 24 years in a basement dungeon, where she bore him seven children.

The daughter, Elisabeth, now 42, is in psychiatric care, along with two of her children. Her eldest daughter, Kerstin, 19, who was also kept in the basement and whose illness pulled apart Mr. Fritzl’s secret after he had her taken to a local hospital, was in a medically induced coma and was in critical condition, the authorities said.

The authorities said Mr. Fritzl confessed Monday to imprisonment, sexual abuse and incest. The case has left this town of 22,000 people, 80 miles west of Vienna, in stunned disbelief. Neighbors milled around the three-story apartment building on Monday, watching the investigation unfold and asking how such an atrocity could have occurred in their midst.

“One cannot comprehend the dimension of this,” said Doris Bichler, 34, a neighbor who was walking with her daughter. “Natascha Kampusch was bad, but this is of a totally different scale.” Ms. Bichler was referring to the notorious kidnapping of an Austrian schoolgirl, who was hidden in a windowless cellar for eight years until she escaped in August 2006. Until now, the Kampusch case was considered by many as the epitome of depravity in the post-World War II history of this country.

But as details of this latest case filter out, it seems even harder to fathom than Ms. Kampusch’s abduction, involving nearly a quarter-century of confinement and sexual abuse, and the birth of seven children, three of whom never emerged from the cellar into daylight until last week.

It also raises a troubling question: Why did two such horrifying crimes occur in the same period in Austria, known as a tranquil, picture-book land?

There seems no easy answer — and Austrian officials, while insisting that similar crimes had occurred in other countries, said they were struggling to make sense of Mr. Fritzl’s singular misdeeds.

“He was man of stature,” Franz Polzer, the chief of the criminal investigations unit for the Province of Lower Austria, said at a news conference here, holding up a photograph of Mr. Fritzl, a heavyset, gray-haired man dressed in black.

“He led a double life,” Mr. Polzer continued, “with one family of seven children, with his wife, and a second family of seven children, with his daughter.”

The police described Mr. Fritzl as an authoritarian figure who had brooked no dissent.

Trained as an electrician and an engineer, Mr. Fritzl owns the small apartment building, renting out a few apartments and living on the top floor. Over many years, he built an underground world for his captives in a warren of cramped, windowless rooms. He provided them with food and clothing, bought outside town to avoid suspicion.

Photographs show a miniature bathroom, finished with tile and wood trim on the ceiling. A claustrophobic passageway leads to a bedroom. The chamber was accessible through a four-foot-high door that opened with a remote-control device, for which only Mr. Fritzl held the code.

The police said his wife, Rosemarie, 68, had no inkling of his secret life, believing that their daughter had fled the family for a cult and was unable to take care of her children. Mr. Fritzl forced Elisabeth to give up three of the children as babies, and he and his wife raised them. A seventh child, a twin boy, died soon after being born; Mr. Fritzl told the police he threw the body in an incinerator, the authorities said.

“You have to imagine that this woman’s world fell apart,” a local official, Hans-Heinz Lenze, said of Rosemarie.

Liberty? Bell!

And just like that
I was free.
Called upon
To take the trip down that l o n g corridor
After which there is no return.
Out of darkness
Through darkness
And into darkness
I go knowing
Nothing is left for me where I'm from.
My comrades have all suffered the same fate
Lured by the winds caress
That slight, seductive taste of
Freedom.
Freedom so sweet
Freedom so exhilarating
Freedom so blinding
That once you see the carnage ahead
It is far too late to turn back.
And so I go
In the name of the 50 stars they worship so.
So much so
That they numbered us
One
By
One
By
One
By
One
By…

By the waste side falls
One.
Mine.
I ripped through his flesh
With unfathomable ease.
I tore past his chest muscle.
Severed his lifelines.
Burrowed into his heart.
All in the time it took for
One final blink of an eye.
It would be the end
To both of our stories
As I remain
Trapped in this new darkness
Left with nothing more than the realization
That what I once considered freedom
Was never freedom at all.

Smokin' a Bol (ayo)

Check my new blog at HHNLive.com...

I've been gone for a minute, but now I'm back - its' the Jump Off. Damn - I suck as a blogger. I post here about as frequently as Sickamore used to post on XXL. Speaking of XXL, I think that the problem is that I'm just not as witty and clever as Byron Crawford. Bol has the luxury of sitting around his crib all day long trolling (trawling?) the internet(s) for celebrity gossip, political controversies and general Hip-Hop goings on. Supposedly he has a job as a cashier or something like that at the BGM (whatever that is - yes, I read his posts daily), but I'm guessing that the ad revenue he gets from his own site plus the paltry "per word" sum that XXL pays him is enough to sustain his lifestyle of binge drinking in his mother's basement, and this supposed job is really just a hoax. I, on the other hand, typically spend too much time working during the day to actually think of something to blog about. (READ MORE)

If you feelin' like a pimp, go and brush ya shoulders off

Check around the 2:20 to the 2:50 mark and see why Obama is the Jay-Z of politics...

Shout to Mace & Ace, from whom I stole the link.

Obama Obama Obama

Not to take anything away from Pro's latest post (go read it and click on the link - It's right below this), but I had to post 6th Sense's new video - "Ignite the People." Peep my cameo at the :27 mark (you have to pause it - at least it's better than my Juganot "En Why Cee" cameo). I used to manage this cat. He makes dope music. And I like this song's message...It very well might be all over the internets and TV very soon.



Also, this has nothing to do with nothing, other than the fact that Mr. Cee played this earlier today on the Throwback at Noon. Remember Funkdoobiest?

So My Good Buddy @ Fake Shore Drive Decided to Interview Me...

Let's See What I had to say.

Check this out

M Phazes interview on HipHopGame.com...Shout out to Matt Diamond and Coalmine...

Slackin in my mackin

OK - I haven't posted anything in damn near a week, and apparently, Frequency hasn't found a new video or Obama pic to post, Cinsere (Sincere?) has nothing to rant and rave about, Prolyfic hasn't found a movie since 1999 that he likes enough to write about, and Juganot, well, Juganot's too busy sending me friend requests on IMEEM to even accept my invite to post here.

So, I figured I'd just start writing during lunch and see what comes out. The last week or so has been pretty hectic, but I did manage to go to Joell Ortiz's show at SOBs last night. I even paid $18 ($18!) at the door to see it. I can't for the life of me remember when the last time I paid to go to a club or show was. Not that I'm famous or anything like that, I just tend to find my way in for free. Like the time I snuck in the back door at the Apollo for last year's Justo Mixtape Awards. Or the time I was with Versatile (hold ya head) in downtown BK and he not only talked our way into Club Caviar despite the strict dresscode, but had the owner buying us bottles of Mo and inviting us to his private recording studio to do a song. Apparently he mistook Verse for a Def Jam recording artist. But in all seriousness, I just go to free spots for the most part or places where I know the promoter, performer or someone at the door. I'm cheap like that.

In any event, I was a little peeved because Joell's manager had told me about the show the week before (over dinner, no less (and no homo)) but then couldn't get me on the list because I reminded him too late. But Joell is one of the few rappers that have come out since Canibus who I actually am a fan of, so I bit the bullet. Of course 3 of the first 4 songs he performed were BY MY CLIENTS (though I can't take credit for any of those placements), but it's all good. Shout out to Emz, VIC and Prince & Machavelli.

Got to chop it up a bit with Iron Solomon (my favorite YouTube rapper; no seriously, you should look him up), see Skyzoo perform (who doesn't recognize me after meeting me like 5 times, which, I guess, is all good, being that I haven't seen him in like a year), and see this dude Emilio Rojas spit hot apple cider vinegar fire over my newest client, M Phazes, beats.

After that, I went to go check Clap Cognac at PJs, but he wound up not performing. It was an interesting scene. Cats were battling on a make shift stage. The dude that won said some shit like "I'll make you die like one dice." That shit had me rolling.

Look out for that new Clap Cognac video on Video City, featuring a Juganot cameo with yours truly lurking in the background.

Somebody please remind me to blog about Queen Yonasda's Birthday party last week. Who couldn't resist a story involving drunk midgets, yoga balls, a swimming pool, and the Nation of Islam?

The Truth

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

Akon Calls T-Pain to Get a Bite to Eat

Booooowlingggg!!!

FUKUDOME

I suppose I should've saved my "BREAKING NEWS" piece for today (April 1), but whatever.

Instead, I will leave you with this link to a Jimmy Rosemond interview with Sway (and John Norris, looking younger each year, narrating).

I've met Jimmy a couple of times and he's a really nice dude. It's really shocking to hear all these stories about him. I was also surprised to hear that Trackmasters were in the studio when Pac got shot in '94.

In unrelated news, shout out to my boy Johan Santana for helping me forget the Mets' late season collapse from last year.

Also, just for the fun of it, shout out to the Cubs' newest player:

6th Sense/Wildabeast Freestyle

Hot and not cuz I used to manage 6th.

BREAKING NEWS

The L.A. Times and N.Y. Times both reported this morning that Remy "Remy Ma" Smith was involved in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Studios. She allegedly purchased the weapon used in the assault, a semi-automatic handgun imported from Brazil, from Clifford "T.I." Harris. A N.Y. Times reporter was on the scene during the near-fatal shooting and has pictures to prove it, but was scared to come out until now, for fear that Remy Ma would send Rocko's street team after him and break his camera. More on this shocking news as it develops...

Remix Magazine Feature - Trackmasters...and Frequency

Well I guess it's official now....I am part of the newly re-formed Trackmasters. Check out the full article in the April '08 issue of Remix magazine.

-Freq

Pots & Pans

I saw these kids perform last night at Faces in the Crowd. Shout out to Reality, Chalant, Clap Cognac & Gilat, Riggs, etc.

All I have to say is that Big L is from (and died on) 139 and Lenox. These kids are repping 137 and Lenox...This is the next movement.

Yes We Can

I know I'm a little late on this, but I just watched the Obama "race" speech on youtube this morning, and I have to admit, my eyes welled up a number of times during the video. Maybe he won't make a great president, maybe he's too young or too unexperienced, maybe he hasn't quite fleshed out his universal health care proposal, maybe he's not ready to lead on Day 1 (as Hillary insinuates), maybe he's not the person you want picking up the red phone at 3 a.m. (again, as Hillary insinuates), maybe he's being naive about fighting the special interests in Washington, maybe he has a funny name, but, damn it if he doesn't inspire the hell out of me.

I honestly believe that that's what this country needs right now. A great inspirer. Someone who will talk honestly to us. Someone who will attempt to repair our image abroad. Someone who will bring us together. I really love his whole post-partisian approach and the fact that he hardly mud-slings, and when he does, he does it with grace. I just hope he doesn't get Spitzered. And I'm not saying that I fear that he'll get caught with a hooker. Obama pulling a Spitzer would be like him up and invading Iran for no reason. But I have faith (yeah I said it) and he already has my vote. I might actually go write a check now. It's funny, I learned last week that my mom is a huge Hillary supporter and my (step) father voted for her in the primary. But after that speach, he vowed to switch sides (yes!). Now we have to work on my brother, who is one of the few black (figure that out) men still out there who has pledged his vote for Hillary. If John Lewis can change, so can you. Yes you can!

If you haven't already, you need to watch this video. Do yourself a favor, and set aside 37 minutes. I'll tell you this much, I have a case of undiagnosed adult ADD (I refuse to believe it's a real condition - eveyone has a short attention span), and I sat there capitvated, listening to every word. I usually tune people out after about 2-3 minutes...But this speech...Man...Just listen.

[In Funk Master Flex voice] Hillary ya finished!

New Blog on HHNLive: By the time I get to AZ

OK - so here's my overdue attempt to try to write a blog about Sha Money's One Stop Shop producer conference that took place in Phoenix, Arizona about 2 weeks ago. Sorry for the delay - I know Roccet posted a photo blog about this last week, but hopefully my blog will serve as some sort of color commentary to the extent you guys give a damn!

Truth be told, I'm hoping I can actually remember what happened out there in enough detail to make this post interesting. It's not like I was drunk all weekend or anything like that, I've just been really busy since I got back and might forget some interesting parts of the story.

Originally, I was going to write a blog a couple of days ago about Phoenix, but I wound up getting side-tracked and writing a blog about the Snoop Dogg "VH1 Storytellers" taping that Frequency and I went to last week on my own site, http://still-legal.blogspot.com. And then I was going to write it this morning (i.e. March 20 - sometimes HHN takes a couple of days to post!), but I had to do some last minute NCAA research to fill out my brackets. I got UNC over UCLA in one and UNC over Texas in the other. I really wanted to pick Cornell to go all the way, but I'm more interested in trying to make some side cash.

So, here we are. Let's start on Friday, when I was scheduled to originally leave New York from JFK. (Read more)

Wait...THIS guy strayed?!?!!

I hope I don't offend any blind readers.

Oh wait...nevermind.

But seriously...WTF?! What chance does the rest of our visually gifted male population have when a blind dude is getting poons outside of his marriage?! I mean, he's BLIND for god's sake!

For those who don't know, David Patterson is New York State's newly appointed governor-by-default (and if you don't know what happened to the first guy, kindly go back to that rock you live under). On Monday, with wife in tow, he held a press conference to publicly admit that he has had a number of extramarital affairs in years past. This was, I suppose, in order to keep any career-annihilating dirt from creeping up on him later on down the road. If wife Michelle didn't seem quite as angry (or suicidal) as Spitzer's wife Silda, it's because apparently she's done her fair share of dirt as well. Oh yes, folks...seems she's been quite generous with the poons herself over the years. Now two wrongs don't make a right, but they sure as hell make things even! And isn't that what marriage is all about anyway...the 50/50? I'd say so, and I'm guessing they would too.

Now their marital woes is nobody's business but their own, and I respect that.

I'm not judging. Really I'm not.

But it does beg the question: how in the HELL does a blind dude get so much extramarital poons?! Like, really?! As a proprietor of testosterone, I can tell you that my primal urges to rub crotches with the opposite sex come primarily from looking at a chick and thinking, "wow, that top really brings out her eyes knockers!" Or "holy shit, if that dress were any shorter, it'd be a bra!" A few other thoughts might roll through my mind, but you get the picture. Point being, when it comes to lusting after women, sight is of the utmost importance.

I've thought, as I'm sure most people have, about what it'd be like to be blind. More specifically, how much it would suck sacks. And usually, the regular stuff comes to mind. You know...can't see the sun shining, can't see the blue skies, yadda yadda yadda. But for some reason, I never stopped to think, until now, how I'd never enjoy the simple pleasure of watching an exceptional piece of ass badonkadonking down the street, or have that feeling of your shitty day just blow away in that breeze that just lifted some hot girls skirt. That's priceless stuff right there! Call me a perv if you want (women!), but it really is something that only those of us plagued (read: blessed) with the effects of testosterone can understand.

So seeing as how, along with the sun, moon, and stars, hot women are a gift from the heavens only to be enjoyed by those blessed with sight, it goes to figure that, if you're blind, then you're chances of being tempted by a woman's looks awesome rack should be slim to none. I mean, you can only "see" with your hands, right? And it's not like you can go around grabbing random boobage, lest you get slapped with a serious harassment suit (not to mention literally getting slapped!). So how is it that this guy Patterson couldn't keep from bangin' chicks that weren't his wife?! I just don't see it. Unless he and said woman are having a convo about ideas on allocating state funds, when all of a sudden..."Whoa, she put my hand on her boob! Score!"...I don't see where the temptation kicks in.

Maybe I'm being too superficial. Perhaps looks don't matter to him. Not because he's above that sorta thing, but because...well...you know. But then somebody tell me how Bill Clinton, with his 20/20 vision, was only able to pull these chicks:



And the blind dude bagged this broad:



I mean, she ain't no pageant winner or anything, but for being one birthday short of 50, and looking no older than 30, she runs circles around Monica and Paula.

My answer? Dude's a pimp! (Pronounced: PEE-ump).

At any rate, I don't know how the rest of us are supposed to ignore the temptation of forbidden fruits when even dudes that can't see the tree are pickin' apples left and right. I mean, I've never cheated on a girl before ('cause I'm perfect like that), but I certainly look, because, well, I have eyes dammit!

That's what I always tell my girl.

I'ma have to find a new argument.

Tourney Time

Spent the morning figuring out which teams Cornell will beat on its way to a national championship. Go BIG RED.

In the meantime, check Peter Rosenberg's newest video about Duke below. Other NYC showcase hosts may hate on him (you know who you are!), but I think he's funny (and I went to law school with his brother):

I'm so cool

Frequency and I went to the VH1 Storytellers taping for Snoop Dogg last week. Unfortunately, VH1 didn't let us take pictures or video during the performance, but it was definitely one for the ages. Doug E. Fresh came out to do "Lodi Dodi;" Too Short and Mistah F.A.B. did "Life of the Party;" Daz & Kurupt came out for a Dogg Pound reunion (surprised they didn't do "NY, NY" - that woulda been ganksta); Teddy Riley was on the keys; Quik was on the drum machine; Battlecat and Jam were on the (4) wheels; Terrace Martin was on sax...Good shit.

Shout out to Ted Chung and Shvona, who ironically went to high school with Shanna.

Iron Solomon (do yourself a favor and "youtube" him - this dude is ill) was in the house, as was John Brown. I tried to convince Iron to battle John Brown, but he was afraid of embarrising Mr. Second Place in the White Rapper Show. No disrespect to Tha King of Tha Burbs, I actually thought he had skills on the show, but his whole "Ghetto Revival" shtick has probably hindered his career if anything. I do hear he has a modeling agency though...That's what's up. Halleleujah Hollaback.

In any event, it was good meeting Terrace (who played piano on the Frequency joint on "Ego Trippin'") and DJ Quik (who mixed the record), although I must admit it was a little weird when Terrace told Frequency that he met his other manager. WTF?? Awkward.

It was also good to get up with Snoop and Co. while they were in New York, especially since we completely missed the album release party on Monday. I won't blow anyone's spot. Let's just say that we were still in Arizona on Monday (more on Arizona soon - I promise!).

Terrace wound up telling us that they'd be at the hotel bar in a couple of hours, so me and Freq grabbed some food and headed over. In the interest of full disclosure, Frequency didn't want to go because we couldn't get in touch with Terrace after we left the VH1 shoot, and he didn't want to bum rush the show. You know me - I was like f' it - he told us to come through. When we got to the hotel, the bar was filled with older white politican-types in tuxedos. We actually caught Quik out the corner of our eye in the lobby, but at that point, I agreed with Frequency that we'd probably look like idiots chasing him down to see if he wanted to chill, so we bounced.

It kinda reminded me of the time that me and Cinsere went to the hotel where Destiny's Child was staying at back around the time that "Survivor" dropped. You see, Destiny's Child had been on Letterman earlier that day and I wound up catching them getting out of their limo down the block after the show. Ironically, I had met them all a couple of weeks before when I snuck into an autograph signing they were having at FYE (I was wearing a suit for work and just walked right in with the press (plus I had my old CBS ID when I was an intern at WCBS-FM just in case)). So when I saw them getting out of the limo, I said what's up and Kelly remembered me. She started talking to me and whatnot, and I was like, "yeah, yeah, whatever, so, um, Beyonce, what's up" (lol). Beyonce pretty much ignored me and then their bodyguards were like, ok, time for you to go, but I was not to be deterred.

Later that night, I gathered my accomplice (Sincere) and I was determined to find Beyonce. If I wasn't gonna get a date with her, I at least was gonna freestyle for her or play her some beats (this is back when I still wanted to be a rapper or producer - well, I guess I still want to be a rapper or producer, I just don't do either anymore, I live vicariously through my clients). After asking the front desk for Ms. Knowles' room and roaming the hotel for like an hour, we couldn't find them and gave up. However, at one point, we were talking about them in the elevator, and some older dude was like "Oh, they're staying here? I'm a huge fan of there's." It turned out to be Matthew Knowles. D'oh.

I also learned that night that hotel bars tend to be swarming with hookers. For all I know, a 15-year old "Kristen" might've been in the house that night getting her start. And you all wonder where R. Kelly meets these girls...In any event, there were no hookers at the hotel bar where Snoop was staying, or maybe there were, which would explain why there were so many politician-types in the building. But, as for Snoop, he don't love them hoes.

I leave you with Morris Day and The Time's video for "Cool." Snoop performed a 20-minute rendition of this song to close his set for VH1, but it probably won't air because Prince wouldn't give TV clearance for it. It was awesome.



Oh, and Snoop's management wound up inviting us out to his "One Life To Live" shoot the following day. I missed it, but Frequency wound up getting up with Snoop to play Rock, Paper, Scissor. The game ended in a tie.

Chi-Town's own ILL Nature vid "This Ain't A Game"

Ok this is the best I can do for you...

After searching the net for a decent fast loading url, i realized that since youtube deleted it from it's site, the only options that remained was the extremely slow loading sites like youku etc. so insstead of posting one or all of those videos, i'll just give a link.

"But Pro, A link to what??" you might ask, seeing that i've completely left that part out.

"oh yea , my bad ... it's only a link to the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME."

But The 1st Rule is that i cannot talk about it. and the second rule is i cannot talk about it. and another rule is that you cannot ask questions. so there you have it lol.

This Link will take you to a very fast loading site which will enable you to cycle thru all 8 parts rather quickly and it gives easy instructions on going to fullscreen.

the main reason i decided to post this was to try and go straight to the conversation in the bar, but this is an extra treat. I say that bcuz if you have'nt seen THIS you ain't seen SHIT.

Ashley Youmans a/k/a "Kristen"

Only one question: This girl was (is?) a high priced hooker?



And for the record, I went to her myspace page when the Times broke the story around 5 p.m. and she had 70,000 hits. As of 10 p.m., she had 1.2 million. Wow. I need that type of press.

BTW Kristen, Ashley, Alexandra (or whatever your name is), if you're reading, and you still want to be a pop star, let me be yo manager.

Quick update: as of 10:15 p.m., she had 1.5 million hits.

13 hours later (11:15 a.m. on March 13): 4.9 million hits. Um, wow.

Client #9

Back from Arizona. More on that to follow. Shout out to Sha Money XL and Ex-Governor Spitzer.

Oh yeah, new Snoop LP, Ego Trippin', in stores now, featuring "One Chance (Make It Good)" produced by Frequency!


In the meantime, check out my new post on HHNLive.com...

So I was reading a post by Noz today over at another site (which I won't promote out of respect for the good folks over here at HNNLive.com), which essentially was about the new Erykah Badu and Gnarles Barkley albums. I was actually thinking of writing a post about Ms. Badu over here, like I did at my own site (http://still-legal.blogspot.com - shameless plug), but then I got inspired by the parenthetical that Noz wrote underneath some Queen Latifah picture from, presumably, some corny movie she did. (read more)

March 9th

Freshman year of college. A Sunday morning like any other. Or at least it started off that way. I was, of course, sleeping dumb late, feeling the effects of what your average college freshman gets into on a Saturday night. The phone rings. I'm thinking something along the lines of "who the fuck is this, calling me at...10:46, Sunday morning?!" - or whatever time it was. Who cares?! I just knew it was still before noon, and whoever was calling me had better have a damn good reason.

It was my then-girlfriend.

She told me Biggie was dead.

My attitude quickly dissipated, giving way to incredulity. I ran to the student lounge and turned to MTV. Surely my girl was buggin'! She must've heard some bullshit rumor or something, right? Right!? But no. There it was on the screen. Dude was gone. Just like that.

He was only around long enough to give us two (classic!) albums. He didn't leave behind very many unused recordings. Yet somehow - and I know this may sound like clichéd sentimentality - his presence has remained so strong in hip hop's collective psyche, that one can hardly believe it's been 11 years since his untimely departure.

As a small tribute, rather than some "greatest hits" type deal ('cause who doesn't already have those?), I put up some of his rarer or lesser known gems and collabos that you're not gonna find at your local record Itunes store, plus this video of him back in his unsigned days, ripping some poor bastard a new one. Haha.

Biggie Smalls is the illest. R.I.P.

Baduism

You think she read my blog? I haven't checked my BlackPlanet (yup, I was on BlackPlaent) page in a looooooooooooooong time.

You've received a Friend Invite.

Today March 5, 2008

Hi diplomat85,

ErykahBadu has invited you to become a friend on BlackPlanet. Check out ErykahBadu's profile and accept or decline the invite.

ErykahBadu

Thank God for that Figghhhttttt

VS.

At least for Papoose, who hasn't had very much in the way of buzz lately.

Wait, Freq's not working with him, is he?

Hold up. Before all of that, I should probably introduce myself first. Cinsere here, at your service...hip hop connaisseur and all around know-it-all. Now some of you may be thinking to yourself, "Hmmm...Cinsere. Sounds familiar. Where do I know him from?" Allow me to jog your memory. I'm sure you know me from that one time I was on Josh's college radio show way the fuck up in Ithaca, NY, like ten years ago (shout out to The Doctor), and I was talking about how dope it was that Big Pun's Capital Punishment had gone platinum on the strength of just ill rhymes and dope beats. If not (though really, how could you not?), then you might know me as that random dude occasionally tagging along hanging out with Josh and Frequency at industry events. That is, unless your name is Eternia, in which case you wouldn't know who the hell I am, since we've been introduced like five times, yet you never seem to remember me. Not that I care. Because I don't. Really. No, really. Anyway...you probably just know the name Sincere from Nas's character in the movie Belly, since that's where I got it from. I just switched the "s" and the "c" around, because I'm clever like that.

Back to the program. It seems that in the latest story written into World Hip Hop Federation, Fat Joe and Papoose are now mortal enemies. Well, maybe not mortal, seeing as how nobody got shot. But apparently, according to 50 Cent's website who broke the story, and later confirmed by both parties, Joe and Pap shot the five at some hotel somewhere down in North Carolina. The two of them were in town for a show they were doing together, along with a lineup of other acts. Oddly enough, Cassidy, who was also on the bill, seemed to play as a referee of sorts, since it happened in his room yet he was not involved in any way. Word on the streets (read: internets) is that Cass asked Papoose to come to his room, and shortly after Pap arrived, Joe shows up with his goons to confront him about...um...something. That something is a bit unclear, but speculation is that it stems from Papoose being on 50 Cent's radio show while 50 was talking his patented shit about Joe. Pap may or may not have laughed. I don't know. If anybody heard the show, holla in the comments. In any event, it seems Joe took offense, and deemed it necessary to confront Papoose about comments made by somebody who was not Papoose. Go figure. From here on out, it's strictly hearsay. According to Pap, it was 1 (him) versus 10 (Joe and 9 other dudes, but I'd say that's more like 12. Joe's a big dude.). But as Joe would have you believe, it was a very even and fair 4 on 4. Pap says he put in "work" on Joe's chin (though he didn't specify which chin). Joe says Pap got "pounded out" (um...pause?), and that one of Pap's dudes ended up in the hospital. I say, dudes should go the Floyd Mayweather route and actually get paid for such well scripted drama.

In the end, I don't believe either one of them. If you could ask the fly on the wall, he'd probably tell you it was a staring contest. Not to take anything away from either of them, of course, but something tells me it just wasn't that deep, and once word got out, they both had to spin it in their respective favor. And it becomes a win/win anyway. Joe gets free pub for that new album he's dropping, and Papoose...well...he's got the streets buzzin' again.

Being humble is so 2007. Trust Me. (c) Erykah Badu

I have a confession to make.

I love Erykah Badu.

I don't even know why.

There's just something about her.

I don't even know her music that well. I've never bought any of her albums. I own her first album, but I only have it because I found it abandoned in a computer lab at school many years back and took it. I don't think I ever even listened to it. That "Tyrone" song was hot as was "Bag Lady," but since then, I can't even tell you what she's done.

This is what I know:

- She did a new album with production from Madlib and 9th (sounds cool to me, but where was Frequency? Oh yeah, apparently she has a production team with ?uestlove called Frequency (which I learned last month courtesty of...Frequency (guess which one?). I think I'll buy it, even though I was hoping for a free copy when I was up at Universal last week (they had none!).

- She used to date Andre 3000, Common, and (get this) the D.O.C. Yup! She has a 3 year old kid with him.

- She moved to NY 11 years ago from Dallas into a rent controlled apartment in BK. She still lives there.

- Steven Hill (of BET) says "[Y]ou can't look Erykah Badu directly in the eye. She will suck you in, and you just want to follow her. . . ." I think he's right.

- ?uestlove says "Everyone she met fell in love with her within five minutes." I think he's probably right.

- The quote that is the title of this blog is really from Erykah Badu and it is so true. Word to Snoop Dogg's Ego Trippin' album. Coincidence? I think not. You only got one chance to make it good. A little cryptic, I know, but it makes sense. Think about it! Seriously.

- I love Jill Scott too. I think I'm a closet neo-soul freak.

Blog on HHNLive.com

Check out my new blog on HHNLive.com...HERE

I guess you can say I'm multiblogging!

I'll still have exclusvive content on this site, with a weekly or bi-weekly cross-promotional, more music industry-related, blog on HHNLive.com.

Shout out to Adam Aziz and Scott Willemsen.

Raekwon in the studio

Check out Raekwon buggin out over a Frequency track (near the end of the video) at Groove's studio in Atlanta with Prolyfic, Soudtrakk, Lil' Mama and her management team, and No ID in the background on the drum set...

Uh-huh, OK, what's up...SHUT UP

Alright, by now, we all know that the music industry is collapsing and that TVT filed for bankruptcy (hold ya head Chris B!), but what we (or at least I) didn't know is that a big part of the TVT bankruptcy is based on the $9 million judgment that Slip-N-Side obtained against TVT last year because TVT interfered with Slip-N-Side's rights to release an album full of previously-recorded Pitbull songs. (Source) Not to mention the fact that TVT lost its $132(!) million judgment against Def Jam over the Ja Rule Cash Money Click album on appeal (shout out to Andy Frey). That woulda helped. Poor Cash Money Click, by the way, forever relegated to Ja's shaddow (that album was their big break).

So, in any event, I guess the rumors are true that it is (was) virtually impossible to get a clearance from TVT, which was a potential problem because the song Juganot did with Pitbull and Nina Sky is fire.

But it begs the question, why wouldn't TVT just let Slip-N-Slide put out the record? Who really wants to buy an album full of previously unreleased Pitbull tracks? Just let them put it out.

While I was surprised to learn that Pitbull's '04 album "M.I.A.M.I." sold over 600,000 copies (well, it was 2004, "Culo" was a smash and "Damnitman" was hot), a Pitbull album of old songs on Slip-N-Slide ain't gonna interfere with a Pitbull album on TVT, especially since the TVT album had his huge Spanish club hit "The Anthem" and still only managed to push 22,000 in its first week (and 9,000 in its second week). Was "Culo" that much of a bigger song????!?! Or is the music industry really tanking that bad. YIKES!

Pitbull went from 600,000 in '04 to 300,000+ on a REMIX album(!) in '05 to 198,000 for "El Mariel" in '06 to 70,000 (in 3 months to date) on "The Boatlift."

Talk about "Slip-N-Slide"! HA

But seriously, lets talk about Slip-N-Slide. Ted Lucas must be fucking rich. First Trick Daddy & Trina, then Rick Ross, then Plies and now $9 million after NOT releasing a Pitbull album. Maybe this TVT lawsuit was a blessing in disguise for Ted Lucas. For Steve Gottlieb (founder of TVT), not so much.

And on a completely unrelated note, I know this was business news, but my source for most of this post was the NY Times, which has been covering Hip-Hop pretty extensively over the last year or so (shout to Kaleefah whats his face). Last week they had an article on Bun B AND reviewed the fucking mixtape release from Princess from Crime Mob. WTF? But this isn't the first time the Times reviewed a mixtape. I'm pretty sure they also reviewd Joe Buddens' Mood Music III. Is this a further sign that Hip-Hop is dead and the industry is collapsing, or has the Hip-Hop generation finally taken over?

POST A RESPONSE! I KNOW I HAVE READERS!

I'm a blogging machine

I had to post this because it is a youtube video of my cousin that I found today looking like a *@!ing iditot:

Juganot Interview on AllHipHop.com

Check out the Juganot interview on AllHipHop.com:

Last year rapper Juganot made an impression as sizable as his gerth with "En Why Cee." A numbing, Frequency produced (with additional production from Scram Jones) groove, guest verses from Joell Ortiz and Uncle Murda equaled a heater of a record chock full of NYC pride. After years of dues paid Juganot plans on maintaining his momentum, recently dropping a high caliber remix ["En Why Ceequal"], songwriting and seeking distribution his Strictly Live Music imprint. Down with DJ collective The Heavy...(Read More)

Shout out to Gilat & Aqua!