UnioNoMics 101

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

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 »

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

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

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.
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

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)

The Clipse have always been one of my favorite newer hip-hop artists, new as in they came towards the tail-end of the 90s golden age. Their east-coast flow, true lyricism, and great beat choices all sucked me in, since The Funeral (how many of you new jacks remember that song?) If I had decided to be a cocaine-rapper instead of the semi-conscious lyricist that I am now, I'd probably sound exactly like them.

I'm sure it surprises a few people that I fuck with The Clipse so much, but don't let the music I make typecast my tastes. Just like back in the 90s when I remember gangsta rappers saying how much they liked Soundbombing 2, and just like Talib Kweli signing Jean Grae and Strong Arm Steady to his label, don't be surprised that I fuck with some drug/gangsta ish. Good music is good music, period, to be enjoyed by all who can appreciate it. Gangsta music is like watching a mob movie or Paid in Full, so I drive home from work looking business casual as shit with a button-up and dockers on, playing Fabolous' There Is No Competition mixtape.

Anyway, we all realize that there's a difference between reality and music. I write some songs about how ill I am, acting like I battle, all kinds of bragging and shit-poppin'. Then I sit in my living room and play Guitar Hero. Point is we know it can't all be true, especially not all the time. Music inherently presents a skewed view of a person and their life. Sometimes it's not about their lives at all.

On a dvd called The MC: Why We Do It, The Clipse claimed that everything they write is real. Not some things, not "this was inspired by a story I heard around the way", but EVERYTHING. That's a tall order! One that I'm skeptical about anyone fulfilling, let alone two rappers who only talk about selling drugs, money, and girls. But hey, they wouldn't be the first rappers to be liars. *shrug* Who cares? Rappers been lying for eons. Onyx, Mobb Deep, and Wu-Tang apparently are/were fake. I could give a shit less as long as the music is hot.

So I'm  Malice's website today, and I see this. Is he admitting that his music is inspired by the streets but that he didn't do everything he says he did, and that his life isn't like that anymore? Seems so:

Malice Video Blog 1 from Malice of the Clipse on Vimeo.

I miss good posse cuts:



www.unionomics.net

Cam'ron on Get 'Em Daddy(circa 2006):

Ain't no "a b, I see you"
why b? that'll get em up in ICU

Do you know what he's talking about? I don't know either. But I miss this Cam'ron. Th'fuck happened to him?

Trolling the internet today, I found this. I never would've guess in a million years that somebody would do country remixes of gangsta-ish hip-hop, and humorously enough it apparently took a German country cover band to take the plunge. Normally I'm not one to make "looka this dumb-but-kind-of-funny youtube clip" posts, but I actually found this to be funny (for the whole first minute that I could stand to listen to):



more info