Archive for the ‘Hip Hop Notes’ Category
WHEELS OF FORTUNE
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009PAUL C TO THE ORGANISMS
Monday, March 9th, 2009Warren G Word Count
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
Times Warren tells you the date: 4
Times Warren refers to himself in the 3rd Person: 34
Times Warren mentions his crew 213: 15
Times Warren talks about the current era we live in: 10
Times Warren mentions where he lives: 3
Times Warren spells out the words instead of saying them: 10
Times Warren shows off his counting skills: 2
Songs you pray to God are freestyles and not written: 9
Times Warren pulls from Mother Goose: 1
Times Warren spits Hood Philosophy: 4
Times Warren contemplates having wings: 1
Songs without Warren: 2
Songs that appear on other artists’ albums: 1
Lines that could possibly lead you to believe that The Twinz are Warren G’s personal accountants: 1
Lines of studio banter: 1
Train sounds: 1
Words spelled wrong due to potential dyslexia, but probably just because Warren wanted something to rhyme better: 1
Nick, the Jerk Boyfriend from Cool as Ice
Monday, December 8th, 2008
How much of a douchebag do you have to be, to be the douchebag in a Vanilla Ice movie - and your name’s not Vanilla Ice?
BTW, I didn’t know this (from Wikipedia):
Cool as Ice is a 1991 film loosely based on Rebel Without a Cause, and often referred to as the Vanilla Ice Movie.
I had no idea that the alternate title for Cool as Ice was “The Vanilla Ice Movie.”
Thanks to Matt.
Kanye West in the ‘nati
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008Unbelievable.
I went to see the Glow in the Dark tour on Friday night and wow. If you thought rappers had egos, Kanye West makes them look like shy 4 year-olds. The stage looked like a desert landscape and it was supposed to be another planet like Mars or something. He had huge moving screens, including a floor screen that had hydraulics on it.
The story is, while on a space trip home to Earth, there is a crash and Kanye is stranded on this planet. His spaceship has a computer named Jane that talks to him giving him encouragement and advice. He talks back and forth to it though out the show and it keeps the story moving between songs.
And speaking of, every song is treated like it’s the last song he’ll ever sing. I’ve never seen such importance being flaunted in a rap song. The intensity Kanye infused into every performance made a song like Gold Digger sound like “I have a dream…” or “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do…”
Highlights:
1) Kanye getting eaten by a (and I don’t use this word much) F*CKING dragon and then spit out.
2) A creepy mannequin, calling itself a shooting star, telling Kanye that he is the biggest star in the universe.
3) Kanye: I can’t do this anymore Jane. I need more in my life. I need a woman. I need P*SSY Jane!
Jane: I can help you with that.
Kanye: How can you help me? You’re just a stupid computer!
[GOLDEN BIKINI WOMAN appears]
Next Song: Jesus Walks
4) Kanye tells Jane that he’s going to give up and then a woman appears and sings the first verse and chorus of Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey (and if it wasn’t clearly a woman’s voice (and body), you would’ve thought they were just playing an MP3 of the song it was so accurately played by the band).
5) Jane telling Kanye that the only way he (and really us) can get home is with the power of his shining star, as all the other stars have just come and gone. He’s the only one left.
6) Kanye addresses the Bonnaroo incident and says he had done 45 shows before then and hadn’t been late once.
All in all, it was very entertaining - but it just made me despise his own image of himself even more than I already had. I just hope that his ego never gets in the way of making good music because he’s done an OK job so far.
This guy is in love
Friday, August 1st, 2008RIP Frosty Freeze (1963-2008)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008Frosty Freeze was a world famous b-boy and a member of, probably the most recognized breakin’ group, the Rock Steady Crew. He was known for his comedic style and he was very acrobatic. His trademark move was called “The Suicide” where he would jump in the air and land completely on his back.
Besides all of the old school stuff like Flashdance, Wild Style and Style Wars, I’ve only watched a few videos here and there of him breakin’ (probably my first time recognizing that he was a famous person was on one of these breakdance competitions I bought off of Sandbox Automatic back in the day - I can’t remember which one - I probably still have it) and every single one of them was such a joy to watch. I don’t seek out b-boy videos too often because I get tired of watching these power heads do the same moves over and over again, but every clip of him that I’ve seen was so fun and interesting. He really made it look so fun and was one of the many who inspired me to try my hand at it for a short period of my wannabe hip-hopper life.
I will now (or when I get home, rather) remedy this ill and scour the internet for as many videos of “The Freeze to Please” as I can find.
Sadat X’s “The Lump Lump”
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008I’m trying to remember when I first got Sadat X’s Wild Cowboys album. Of course, I bought it when it came out and of course, no one else in my area had it - I’m just trying to remember what was going on. According to Wikipedia, it came out right after I graduated from high school. That summer is kind of a blur although I think I went to Disney World with my cousin. I also started working at BP and that was my first above-minimum wage job. Also, I finally got my driver’s license. That had to have been a good summer.
I wasn’t terribly aware of Brand Nubian. I knew about them because I was always watching Yo! MTV Raps and I loved Punks Jump Up. I think around that time I really started to seek out all of the stuff I missed when I wasn’t able to drive. I was also just buying anything with a name I recognized on it. That’s probably why I bought the Wild Cowboys album although I may have seen a video on Yo!.
Don’t you just love the inanity of personal blogs?
Anyways, this song is from that album and it’s probably the best one on there. It’s got the simplest beat - just an escalating organ and some boom bap drums; nothing more. The first verse is advice for fellas to keep their eyes on their girls because if they don’t watch it, their girls will leave them. The second verse is a love note for a career girl that is clearly not in it for Sadat’s money. The last few lines leads me to believe that their relationship could possibly be a result of someone not following the advice from the first verse. In the third verse Sadat kind of loses focus. He starts out complaining about the woman he meets in bars and ends up reminiscing about Good Times. Basically, this is your average 90s rap song and who better to perform it than Sadat?
Please enjoy the above video and, please, if you like, take some time out of your busy schedule to not care as much as I think you don’t.
Note to Special Ed
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
“And our jammies get Grammys, yet, I’m not an actor. It’s just a factor that we’re famous.”
According to the song “I’m the Magnificent” by Special Ed, his crew’s singles get Grammys just for being famous. That’s not entirely correct Ed. First of all, it has nothing to do with being an actor. The Grammys are for music. They also don’t really have anything to do with how famous you are, but you’re a little bit right. It does play a part.
I’ll give you that much.
Ringo Starr Movie Possible Inspiration For De La Soul?
Friday, January 25th, 2008While perusing the great WFMU blog, “Beware of the Blog” I came across this video on YouTube:
It’s a clip from the movie Caveman starring Ringo Starr, Shelley Long and Dennis Quaid. In this scene, a group of cave people are sitting around eating dinner (or breakfast - I don’t know how they did it in caveman times - maybe up is down) and one of them accidentally discovers music by breathing into his “cave juice” bottle. Eventually, as he keeps doing it, the rest of the group join in with various “cave instruments” such as bones and “cave tongues.” Here’s the video again and listen right around the 1:09 mark:
Now, listen to this track by De La Soul called En Focus (from my favorite De La album “Buhloone Mindstate”) right around the 1:52 mark:
Similar? I think so.
Now, the only reason why I would make this comparison is because De La is known for its inside jokes and esoteric references. I could totally see them pulling this from the movie.*
*Of course, this could already be known and I’m just late to the party. If this is the case, please forgive me, traffic was awful, and plus, I brought donuts.








