What landed Jamal Barrow in jail could easily have been another ‘when keeping if real goes wrong’ sketch on the Chappelle’s Show. Everybody knows the backstory. No need to dwell on it too much: young kid gets thrust into the limelight and has to run with the ball after the untimely passing of the late great Christopher Wallace. He’s the biggest star on arguably the biggest hip-hop label at the time, Bad Boy Records, with the best in-house production team in the industry. How could this possibly go wrong? One nightclub shooting later, the next big thing ends up doing a ten year bid. Take that, take that.
It seemed that his legacy would be confined to two solid and highly underrated albums, his self-titled debut and ‘Godfather buried alive’. And his life could be summed up with a Bill Duke line from Menace II Society: “you know you done fucked up, right?”
Against all odds, all the drama ends up seeming as a mere prelude to Shyne’s actual recording career. After the jail time, converting to Judaism while incarcerated and getting deported to Belize upon release, Shyne aka Moses Levi releases the Gangland mixtape. Truth be told my expectations weren’t high for this one since he’d been deprived of The Hitmen’s production genius and at first glance didn’t sound like the nimble 21 year old rapper that exploded on the scene more than a decade ago. Gangland is a monster of a record through, to the point you actually feel like you’re doing it a disservice calling it a mere mixtape. Shyne comes across as the last real rapper alive of the course of the album’s 18 tracks and as a refreshing alternative to rap’s current batch of manufactured drug Kingpins, personified by the omnipresent Rick Ross.
Shyne’s fluidity on the mic has been replaced by a slower, hoarse flow and he’s trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s lost nearly ten years of his life. As such Gangland might not be a demonstration of skill, dude’s lost a step over the course of the last decade from a mere technical standpoint, but it does make for an utterly compelling record as a more contemplative Shyne emerged after all the trials and tribulations. At times he sounds bitter, other moments remorseful but always brutally honest. There’s no glorification of crime or his past actions. There are no excuses being made, shit happens. Gangland is a headphone masterpiece, one of those instances where a rapper’s words carry so much weight that they transcend nearly all of his limitations as an artist. Don’t get it twisted, Shyne is still a gifted rapper and gets to ride some gritty and bleak soundscapes as he takes you with him through his personal purgatory. There’s none of the gloss of his debut album and only a few nods to current trends, with some Lex Luger style drum programming and synths thrown in the mix. For the most part it’s that vintage boom-bap, Nuevo York aesthetic that’ll keep your head bopping throughout.
He’ll probably never be a household name again but if this tape is any indication he’s going to end up being one of rap’s brightest stars, on his own terms. The King of New York is back.
Recommended: You’re welcome, Meyer Lansky, King Judah, King David
Hard to admit sometimes but rap fans often are a conservative bunch. For all the ranting and raving against commercialized hip-hop, they don’t want an artist to rock the boat too hard and there are limits to how hardcore things should get. That pretty much sums up why Necro is condemned to cult status, which in the natural order of things goes with the territory when your whole steez is built around exploitation. But to pigeonhole Ron Braunstein as a one trick pony doesn’t do the man and his undeniable talent, both in the booth and behind the boards, justice. The initiated already know that the self-proclaimed Sexorcist is part of a lineage of rugged East Coast emcees like Kool G Rap, Tragedy Khadafi, Akinyele and Mobb Deep.
Yes, this is Insane Clown Posse, the counterargument to every point you ever tried making to someone about the artistic merits of rap music and it being based around intricate wordplay and rhyme schemes. They’re most likely rap music’s biggest guilty pleasure this side of Vanilla Ice. While we’re at it, let’s admit we all dig ‘Ice Ice Baby’ and that you simply can’t front on that song, okay? Good.
Vinnie Paz from Jedi Mind Tricks has been in my playlists for several years now. Most recent “End of Days” has been one of the tracks I’ve been bumping alot. I like the fact that Vinnie Paz talks alot about conspiracy theories, government influence and “the man”. He’s also got an ability to find real tight beats to spit over. Personally I think his delivery is not the best, at least not when trying to do slow love-songs and such, but it goes well with certain types of songs. “God of the serengeti” was released in october of 2012 and for me, it was one of the albums I was anticipating the most in 2012.
“99 Ways To Die” was not only Master P’s fourth solo effort, but was also released in the golden era of California’s hip hop reign. The Bay Area was also the original home of P’s No Limit Records, as evidenced by 1995’s “99 Ways To Die.” The album was released after the success of P’s “West Coast Bad Boyz” and contains a completely different feel than P’s catelogue when No Limit obtained commercial success in New Orleans.
Public Enemy aren’t hip and/or happening and they haven’t been since the zenith of their popularity back when Fear of a Black Planet had everyone wanting to Fight the Power. That hasn’t stopped PE from keeping things moving though, matter of fact since they split from Def Jam they’ve been on a creative roll and released several good-to-great albums along the way. Their new album, How do you sell Soul to a soulless people who sold their Soul?, continues that artistic momentum. Chuck couldn’t give a damn about the popularity contest that is mainstream music and he’ll keeping hitting you over the head with logic and political awareness, doesn’t matter if you like it or not. To quote Mistachuck himself I’m too old to be popular and at my age if I can’t teach, I shouldn’t even open my mouth and begin to speak. And with those words you know what to expect from the album, PE in full effect not minding if you consider them cool in the least, they’ve got more important things to worry about.
Before Master P’s No Limit empire blew up in the late 90’s and officially put New Orleans on the map, people seem to forget he spent his early career in the Bay Area (more specifically Richmond, CA). After making a slew of guest appearences on P’s solo albums (and three albums as a member of TRU), the youngest Miller brother, Silkk The Shocker released his debut album in August of ’96. This album features appearences from the entire No Limit roster, and production from Beats By The Pound.
Ronny Braunstein has come a long way since launching his own label late last millenium and releasing his debut album I Need Drugs on it. The lo-fi recording was a highly promising debut which garnered him a dedicated fanbase from jump and since then that promise seems to have come to fruition. From 2004 till 2005 Mr. Braunstein even went Master P on us by dropping solo albums by Ill Bill, Mr. Hyde, Goretex, Sabac and two of his own for good measure, his personal masterpiece The Pre-Fix for Death and the sleazy ode to pornography that was The Sexorcist.
Ok so I first now got my CD that I was waiting a long time for and when I got it, the CD cover was kind of low budget and I was like, man I paid $30 for this??? But anyway ***** all that, I popped the first CD in the CD Player and I was like daaaaaamn this shit is off the hook!!
Shawn Carter has done it again. After a mediocre and not-so-well recieved comeback album only a year earlier, Jay has returned with an album he says was inspired by the release of the film “American Gangster”, a film based on the life of notorious 70’s heroin kingpin – Frank Lucas. The album is described as Jay’s return to his hustling lure, and features production from the Neptunes, Diddy, and Jermaine Dupri among others, as well as guest spots from Nas, Beanie Sigel, and suprisingly Lil Wayne.