Why We Love H.E.R. Volume 1: Nas – The Message

Feb
5

It should be of no surprise to those familiar with my music that I’m a huge Nas fan. I grew up on Wu-Tang and A Tribe Called Quest, but Nas is the person that made me want to be an emcee. My introduction to Nas was It Was Written, Affirmative Action was the song memory serves me. For me, It Was Written was Nas’ best album. Maybe not the most consistent, but its peaks surpass Illmatic in my opinion. The only real misstep was Nas Is Coming, hurt by a mediocre Dr Dre beat. Everything else is at the very least solid, at its best magnificent.  And here’s how he starts the album off after an intro where he’s the slave that starts a rebellion:

Nas – The Message

Fake thug, no love, you get the slug, CB4 Gusto
Your luck low, I didn’t know til I was drunk though
You freak niggaz played out, get fucked and ate out
Prostitute turned bitch, I got the gauge out

Are you peeping these internal, multiple, and multisyllabic rhymes? “thug, love, slug”, “gusto, luck low, drunk though”, “played out, ate out, gauge out”. Plus he referenced the best movie about fake thug rappers, CB4 and its main character, MC Gusto. Nas clearly isn’t happy with somebody…

96 ways I made out, Montana way
The Good-F-E-L-L-A, verbal AK spray
Dipped attache, jumped out the Range, empty out the ashtray
A glass of ‘ze make a man Cassius Clay

Finishing the multisyllabic rhyming with “made out”. Nas calls himself a mobster by referencing to two of the best crime movies in history, Scarface (whose main character was Tony Montana) and Goodfellas. Don’t forget this album helped usher in Mafioso Rap. I’m not sure who he’s talking about in the last line. He was just now talking about himself, so he could be saying that liquor (specifically Alize) makes him ready for war. But since that’s a little self-depracating, and since no man should ever admit to drinking Alize, more likely he’s saying that corny people get a little liquor in them and think they’re untouchable  all of the sudden. (Cassius Clay being Muhammad Ali’s given name, and he being arguably the best boxer in history, people wish they were as good as him.)

Red dot plots, murder schemes, thirty-two shotguns
Regulate wit my Dunn’s, 17 rocks gleam from one ring
Yo let me let y’all niggaz know one thing
There’s one life, one love, so there can only be one King

Peep the internal rhyme from “schemes” to “gleams” in the first 2 lines, and how it ends up being the ending rhyme for the last 3 bars. Stuff like this is how we know that Olu Dara may have birthed Nas, but Rakim is surely his father. Anyway at the end the topic of this verse is revealed at last. There can only be one King. No one says that with the intention of naming someone else king. Therefore Nas is proclaiming himself as King. Of what, you ask? Of New York hip-hop! Who’s the pretender to the throne, none other than the Notorious BIG.

History lesson: Big and Nas had a little beef, seemingly because Big and Rakewon had beef. Read about it here

The highlights of livin, Vegas style roll dice in linen
Antera spinnin on Milleniums, twenty G bets I’m winnin them
Threats I’m sendin them, Lex with TV sets the minimum
Ill sex adrenaline
Party with villians, a case of Demi-Sec to chase the Henny
Wet any clique, with the semi-tech who want it
Diamonds I flaunt it, chickenheads flock I lace em
Fried broiled with basil, taste em, crack the legs
way out of formation, it’s horizontal how I have em
fuckin me in the Benz wagon
Can it be Vanity from Last Dragon

If you don’t know who Vanity from Last Dragon is, you need to go check that movie. Go do it now, don’t come back till you start telling your friends to call you Bruce Leroy. Hood classic!

Grab your gun it’s on though
Shit is grimy, real niggaz buck in broad daylight
with the broke Mac it won’t spray right
Don’t give a fuck who they hit, as long as the drama’s lit
Yo, overnight thugs, bug cause they ain’t promised shit
Hungry-ass hooligans stay on that piranha shit

After declaring himself king, Nas descends into describing his Mafioso life. Don’t miss the incredible rhyming in the first 4 bars after the king line. Content-wise, nothing too special here, just flossing and fast broads, but Nas ends with a reminder that there’s a price for this life. And that price is gunplay and its consequences, including innocent bystanders and a heightened chance of that violence being visited upon you, everyday. The second-from-the-last line is a shot at people who pretend to be thugs because they want that flashy life but forgot about this price, and is probably aimed at Biggie as well.

I’d planned on doing the rest of the song, but just this one verse led me to writing 500 words. And the second verse, while ill, doesn’t hold a candle to this one in my opinion. So I’ll end this here. Feel free to leave all praise, hate, constructive criticism, suggestions, and comments.

By the way, leave all feedback ON THIS BLOG. You don’t have to sign up to comment, and I’d like all the discussion to happen here.

~Knowledge The Rhyme-Professor

Why We Love H.E.R.(Hearing Every Rhyme): The Intro

Feb
4

Is hip-hop real music? A few days ago I got in a facebook conversation about this very question. Of course the topic starter was playing devil’s advocate (do you think I’d associate with a hip-hop-hating music snob). He just wanted to spark an intelligent debate amongst his hip-hop loving friends. But his counterpoints were surprisingly strong. Read more »

Quick Hits Of Knowledge

Jan
12
1. Fuck John McCain. It's funny how one side gets pissed when the other does the same shit they been doing. Politicians, as a rule, can go fuck themselves. They all suck, and to varying degrees, they're all disgusting human beings who lie for a living.

In case you're too lazy to click the link, Harry Reid (a Dem), back in 2008, said that Obama could win because he's light-skinned and doesn't speak with "Negro dialect." Use of the word Negro aside (seriously who the fuck still says Negro), Reid didn't say anything that isn't true. If Chris Rock had said it nobody would give a fuck. Cuz we all know that a light-skinned (half-Black even) bruh who "speaks so well" is the best chance Black people could have to get in the White House.

So anyway Republicans are pissed cuz Obama pretty much doesn't seem to care that Reid said that, and it seems that Reid will keep his job and position as Senate Majority leader. Really I could care less. Obama knows that cats see him as Black before anything else, so this revelation really didn't open his eyes to anything. I'm sure Reid will be punished in some other, stealthier way. Issue deaded as far as everyone but Republicans and other stick-uptight-in-their-ass people are concerned

2. Black Rob needs to get outta jail and stay outta jail. Today I rediscovered his two albums, and my feeling is hip-hop needs Black Rob. Real good story, realistic thug-rap.

3. Fuck my job. That shit has ruined my creative mood since TPRH was finished. Gotta find something new, VERY fast. For various reasons my writer's block is crazy, and I'm sure the job is a part of that. Fuck real life in general, in college it was much easier to get inspired.

4. Go download Da Vinci's mixtape!! Don't just listen to it, download it. Post comments with your thoughts on it

The Coming

Jan
7
it feels so weird to post on this blog. One of my resolutions was that I'll post on here more consistently and everybody knows how OD I get with my resolutions. anyways I need to think about what my next few posts will be about. until then, just download a copy of my new mixtape "The Coming" off of

thanks much!

by the way...you all should be reading this from

New Mic=New Songs??

Dec
10
Not yet, but we're working on it. Me and Da Vinci are still working on Kick In Ya Speakers, and we got a bunch more coming. He's got a mixtape aaaaaand ...an EP and a ...book coming soon? Whatever I get confused trynna explain his plans, he's got way too much going on. Anyway there's new music from him, coming like next week. And there's our mixtape. And I got a couple songs I'm working on. No idea how I'll release em, but they're coming in some sort of way. And of course we're still working on setting up performances. This shit is not nearly as easy as it looks.

But back to recording, I had a terrible time trying to record earlier this week. See back in September I moved to a new spot. I had been done with TPRH, and was taking a break from recording for a while. So even thought I set up my studio during the move-in, I didn't test everything for a while. By the time I came back to it, I forgot what settings were best for my audio interface (presonus firebox). Long story short, this week my recordings were either too loud(static was doing my overdubs and ad-libs), or too damn quiet(damn firebox doesn't route its preamp for it's stereo inputs). So I'm trying to get a new mic sometime in the next week or two. I'll finally get a compressor mic and use the full power of this firebox. In the meantime everything I record is just for me to reference and practice, you guys will hear none of it. The new mic should sound so much better than what I got now, it doesn't even make sense to take my current recordings serious.

Until then, keep listening to our old shit(to the right), keep giving our music away, and keep supporting other good artists. Snoop has a song with Brandy on his new album that sounds so good I'ma have to download the album despite the trash that is I Wanna Rock. Also, the four songs I've heard off the Clipse' album were nice as hell, minus one that features Keri Hilson (further fueling my ire for her.) And go download Freeweezy's The Beat Made Me Do It, this joint knocks!

~Knowledge

Straight From The Gray Matter 2009-11-25 08:42:00

Nov
25
Last week I reviewed Raekwon's Only Built For Cuban Linx 2, this week is Ghostface's Ghostdini the Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City

Ghost's fans know that dude is one of theee greatest rappers of our times. He's the dinosaur from yesterday who still stomps today. He's this age's Kool G Rap, the emcee from the past era, who nobody today still can't touch (funnily enough, Kool G Rap is still that guy, now 2 or 3 ages displaced.) Soit's a given that everything Ghost does is at least a 7/10. It's also a given that he's a true artist who can change his style to always stay fresh. Case in point: this album.


Son has been doing relationship-songs for his whole career. Since Camay, Ghost has always made songs about the opposite sex that were never sappy and always real. This album took that talent and put it on blast, 12 tracks and 2 bonuses, all about relationships. Now if you're like me, you hear that and get worried that Ghost will run out of things to talk about by limiting himself so much. Or that the album will reek of saccharine because it's all about women. And surely, some people are gonna hate the album for these exact reasons. The same people who skip Camay, Killa Lipstick, and ¼ of The Pretty Toney Album are gonna hate this album. For better or for close-minded worse, the album is truly limited to relationship. This isn't a half-ass theme/concept album where half the songs don't fit the theme. No, no, not Ghostface. Every song about relationship, most featuring soul samples and today's hot R&B singers.


Exposition completed, let's get to the album. It's opens semi-weak IMO with a track ft Shareefa. I didn't know who this broad was, but my girl explained she's that “I-I-I-I-I-I” singer(apparently the song is named Need A Boss.) Anyway the song is about how ill Ghost's girl is. Decent-enough song, but the opening coulda been stronger. The next two joints feature Raheem Devaughn, who in cornball-fashion is calling himself “Radio” nowadays. Decades-late-nicknames aside, the two songs are ill. Do Over pleads for a second chance after effing the relationship up, and you guys already know my love of Baby(couple posts ago). Raheem does his thing on these songs.


Stapleton Sex is a disgusting-in-a-good-way song about...you guessed it...sex! If you liked Wildflower(“yo bitch I fucked ya friend, yeah you stank hoe”) from Ironman, then this might be right up your alley. We're 5 tracks in(I skipped talking about one), and about here is when I realized that there's a lot of different ways to attack the relationship angle. Humans are social beings, therefore it's only right that there'd be many aspects of our relationships to discuss. Luckily Ghost is smart enough to hit a lot of these different topics.


Paragraphs of Love features Estelle, and despite her ugly accent, dvd-sized teeth, and weak voice's combined attempt to ruin the song, it ends up being one of the best on the album. Ghost is a guy at a party who sees a pregnant chick, on some love at first sight shit. So he has to approach her. Sound retarded? It is. Irregardless, it's dope as hell, from the beat to Ghost describing why she's beautiful, right past Estelle's rap/talk verse, and onto Estelle singing with the help of some guy named Vaughn Anthony.


Other highlights are Guest House with Ghost finding out that his girl Shareefa boning Fabolous, and Ghost and Lloyd pledging to do whatever's necessary, including blasting cats, for their girl on Goner. The whole is at least decent, most of it is great. The wackest songs are Let's Stop Playin with John Legend, and I'll Be That, ft Adrienne Bailon (who???). Both songs sound weak as a chemo-patient. But they're still not terrible, just skippable.


Overall, this album is like a 9/10 or something, just a fucking awesome display of lyrical dexterity. A whole album relationships that rarely disappoints. Ghost takes the rapper-with-a-R&B-hook-and-bridge formula that's so commonplace today, and does it better than EVERYONE. The album isn't selling very well for some reason, I blame the choice of singles. Baby is the only choice I agree with. So go buy it, like me:


(notice the much calmer face lol)

PS. Back Like That Remix ft Neyo and Kanye is one of the bonus tracks. The song is like 3 years old, Ghost gets the gas face for including it. Thank God for the next track button!

~Knowledge the Ghost-Junky 

Wu-Tang Is Back!

Nov
16
Years ago Me and Da Vinci had a conversation with a Baltimore emcee named Dre The Beloved (hey Dre sorry if I spelled that wrong) about music. It was after an open mic show called Season The Microphone Mondays, hosted by one of my favorite Baltimore emcees, Tislam The Great. According to Dre, the Wu-Tang sound was over, and he couldn't even listen to Enter The 36 Chambers anymore. Blaspheme!

As a Wu-head from birth, it brings me much joy to say that Wu-Tang has come back with a vengeance. Of course they never really left. But you can't deny that they fell back for a while. The only members still consistently putting out albums were Ghostface and Gza, and I've neverz been huge on Gza. He got too cerebral for my tastes after Liquid Swords (Killa Hills and Cold World are still my shits tho). But I've liked every Ghost album ever made. Now in the span of like a month, both Ghost and Raekwon drop two very different albums that show that the W is definitely not dead.




(This is the "Only Built For Cuban Linx 2 Face", all rights reserved)

Raekwon's new joint brings him back to square one, in the best way possible. Only Built For Cuban Linx 2  just may be the only rap sequel to stand up to it's predecessor. I won't waste time going track for track, but I will say that there's only 3 joints on it that I skip sometimes. If you know my pickiness, you know that that's a great accomplishment for a 22-track album.

So I'll start with the bad: Some tracks have annoying singers. Meh, it's the classic Wu sound, you gotta take the bad with the good. Sometimes the untrained voices work, sometimes they don't. So I liked Blue Raspberry on Have Mercy, didn't like (uncredited) singer on Mean Streets. And I can't stand Busta Rhymes on About Me. His new not-so-hype-at-all gravely voice and lazy flow annoy the fuck outta me. Why do good still-new-ish rappers retire (Lupe!) yet his ass continues to poison my ears?

Now the good. Raekwon has paradoxically and inexplicably succeeded in channeling the old content and sound without sounding old. He's completely on the drug rap tip, and he does it this go-round better than the last time in my humble opinion. I'll admit that I didn't listen deeply to the original Cuban Linx when I first got it, as Raekwon's style was hard for me to get into. He doesn't really rap per se, at least not like most rappers. He always tells stories. Even on a song about bragging, the way he brags is just, well, different, like he's telling a bunch of micro-stories about how live he is. I've since absorbed Cuban Linx, and I still gotta say I like this one better. The content is much more cohesive this time around. I feel like his songwriting skill has grown like crazy. And the beats are better because they vary more. Raekwon used a lot of guest producers, but he purposefully chose beats to fit the mood of this album. The Dilla and Scram Jones beats steal the show, but all are good.

The whole thing plays out like the drug movie Hype Williams wishes Belly was. Not with any real narrative that I can perceive, but more so that each song is a scene from the hypothetical drug/hood movie that Raekwon made the soundtrack to.

I'll end my ramblings here, and talk about Ghost's album in my next post. If you haven't already, go buy Raekwon's album! He sold around 150k so far, and the album is independent (up until distribution and some radio promotion, which is handled by EMI). So you can rest assured that more of your money will go into his pockets.

~Knowledge the Wu-Fanboy

Ghostface ft Raheem Devaughn – Baby

Nov
5
At the risk of sounding gay, I'm in love with this song:

Ghost's new joint is the first cd I copped in ages (gotta get outta the downloading habit now that I make real money). He decided to make this jawn all about romance, from heartbreak to sex to love songs like this one. This experiment is exactly why I fux wit Ghost. Son understand that creativity has to be fostered, damn the formulas and "sticking to the script." Even if I don't like this album, I'm happy to have bought it just to support a real artist. Expect a review soon after I get it (bought from amazon, a place that sells Thru Playin Round Here)

Absenteeism

Oct
13
Lately I havent felt that I've had any words worth putting online. Well that's not entirely true, I've had a few thoughts but mostly while I'm at work. Life is cool, working my album still. Trynna get a show lined up. Trynna get some blog love for TPRH(review my album you bastards). All the normal music work.  

...Really not interested in blogging right now. But I will say this:

Get OFF Obama's Dick! Let son live! As was said on this jawn I was reading earlier today, nobody gave a shit about the Nobel Peace Prize selection process until my nig Obama got one. You weren't bitching about last year's winner, you can't even name last year's winner!

People compare him to MLK and Mother Theresa and say he doesn't compare to them. NO ONE FUCKING DOES YOU DIPSHIT! Therefore your argument is asinine.

This irrational hating on Barack is clearly prejudice/racism in sheep's clothing. And it's disgusting. Colorless society? Colorless nuts in ya mouth!

Next week somebody is gonna slip up and instead of socialist they're gonna say nigger. Granted Obama is far from perfect, in fact he pisses me off pretty often. But at least he pisses me off for real reasons, like his refusal to focus on a few things instead of trying to change the entire world everyday.

So much for not having any thoughts to blog about. Peace

~Knowledge aka Big-Head Rico

UnioNoMics convo: GOYA-Smuttin

Sep
3
UnioNoMics convo:


Da Vinci: They got a grown up dora the explorer?!?
Knowledge: The ass fat?
Da Vinci: Wtf is she explorin? It better be my draws
Da Vinci: I can't see it from the front so I think not
Knowledge: Damn
Knowledge: Where is she?
Knowledge: Hook us up
Da Vinci: Lol iono all I know is [my sister] and I are watchin icarly and the commercial to play on her website came on. This big headed bimbo got the nerve to have more taco friends
Knowledge: Taco friends?!!!!!
Da Vinci: Lol yeah they all got goya tatoos on they legs and everything
Knowledge: Bwahaha
Knowledge: They wildin
Da Vinci: Lol u kno I made up the tat part
Knowledge: U never know
Knowledge: U is what u stay eatin
Da Vinci: U is?
Knowledge: Maybe goya ass niggas become gorditas
Da Vinci: Lol
Da Vinci: I heard in mexico hoes be trickin for bottled water
Knowledge: Son if they made condoms that could protect against hot sauce pussy I'd be down there rat now!
Da Vinci: Lmao