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  • MIXTAPE MONDAY vol. 2

    This week’s mixtape up for review, Big Mike’s “The Rulers Back 2006”

    This mixtape started off with a bang. The 1st track is from Jadakiss, called “It Can Get Ugly”. The Swizz Beatz produced beat is great and we get the normal lyrical lunacy that we have come to expect from Jadakiss on nearly every other mixtape. Jadakiss puts out more excellent mixtape tracks in a month than many rappers do in their whole careers.

    Mobb Deep got on a track with self-proclaimed “soul-hip-hop queen” Mary J. Blige and suddenly sensitive 50 Cent for a very R & B sounding song, “It’s Alright”. I personally miss the 50 Cent that sounded more like a vengeful man then the one we are increasingly hearing, a more sensitive half dollar. Mr. Jackson has gone from wanting to fuck over his enemies to making love to each track. Mobb Deep tries to save face with a more thuggish sounding track “Ain’t No Thug On You”, but ultimately comes up short with sub-par lyrics.

    After some G-Unit’s nonsense, it came time for Dipset’s turn at the mic. Cam’Ron started it off strong with one of the best songs on the mixtape “Ya’ll Can’t Live His Life”. Cam utters one of the more ridiculous lines in recent mixtape memory: “I’m the shit/ Shit, I should rock a diaper Yo/ No homo though”. Then came 50 seconds of a new Juelz Santana track called “Gangsta Muzik”. The highlight of the rest of the Dipset stuff is 40 Cal.’s “It’s Magic”. In the song, 40 does a good job sticking to the song’s theme with a great Houdini/Whodini line and mention of the NBA team from Orlando.

    Other highlights of the mixtape include Lloyd Banks verse on the Avant track “It’s Like That”. Towards the end of the mixtape there is a really good 10-minute freestyle where J.R. Writer gets the nod for best rhymes, but Jae Millz and Stack Bundles also bring some hot lines. About 2 minutes and 25 seconds into the freestyle Jae Millz spits one of the freestyle’s sickest lines: “Nothing they portray to do is mediocre/ The next best thing like Tyra to Oprah”.

    The rest of the mixtape has some good tracks from some lesser-known artists, including Nuci Reyo and his song “Hip-Hop”. Nuci’s passion for the industry pours out on this track. He mentions his admiration for such rap legends as LL Cool J and Run D.M.C., while still giving us his own point of view. Cory Gunz also chimed in with a hot track rapping over a Biggie beat on the song “Kick In The Door”.

    Overall, the mixtape gives the listener a lot of bang for his or her buck. Heavy on lyrics and light on shout-outs, from start to end this mixtape was a joy to listen to. The mixtape also gets points for featuring a hot freestyle and some underground artists.

    OVERALL SCORE: 8 out of 10

    BEST LINE ON THE MIXTAPE:
    “I’m a Coco weigher/ But then again all these deals on the table I feel like a poker player”
    -J.R. Writer

  • Pre- Labor Day Releases pt. 2

    I present to you a continuation of the list of some of the most anticipated pre-summer releases slated to his stores in the next 50 days.

    Paul Simon – Surprise

    Surprise, Paul Simon is coming out with another studio album this year called what else but “Surprise”. The legendary singer/songwriter turns senior citizen this year, which has to be a scary thought for all those baby boomers who are still curious as to what happened to Garfunkel. Simon’s last album, 2000’s “You’re the One” fetched Simon a Grammy nomination for album of the year. That album was a “Bridge over Troubled Waters” for Simon who spent many years investing in a failed Broadway musical previous to the album’s release. The famed singer teams up with eclectic Talking Heads producer Brian Eno for this newest album on which Simon hopes to prove he is as his 1975 album professes “Still Crazy After All These Years”. In a last cheesy attempt to hype up this album: Simon hopes you won’t be unpleasantly “Surprise(d)” when you hear his latest on May 9th. I apologize to Paul Simon for this over-the-top album blurb.

    Paris Hilton – Turn It Up

    I know I am losing any journalistic integrity with this statement but here goes nothing: If you think about buying this absurd album upon its release on May 9th, please consult the nearest tough guy and ask him to give you a concussion.

    The Red Hot Chili Peppers – Stadium Arcadia

    The Red Hot Chili Peppers or for space saving reasons, TRHCP, release their 9th studio album, “Stadium Arcadia” on May 9th. This album is the third since the return of guitarist John Frusciante and the third featuring a “drug-free” line-up. Both previous albums, 1999’s “Californiacation” and 2002’s “By The Way” continued what has been a very successful run of albums both critically and economically. The band is now considered by most to be cagey veterans of the rock world and it won’t be too many years before we see TRHCP in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. This latest release is a 2-CD set that features twenty-four brand new tracks from the future hall-of-famers.

    Ashley Parker Angel – Soundtrack to Your Life

    It’s been a whirlwind past few years for Ashley Parker Angel that have found him doing a complete circle. He started off on MTV with fellow O-Towners on the show “Making the Band”. He then released a couple albums with the all boy band and they had a couple of monster hits including “Liquid Dreams”. After O-town’s twenty minutes of fame were up, Ashley found himself unemployed, living off boy band money. When that ran out, he turned once again to MTV and in return we got the show “There and Back: Ashley Parker Angel”. The show detailed Angel’s post-boy band life that included having a baby, being rejected on a marriage proposal (well at least delayed) and struggling to make it on his own as an artist. His first solo album “Soundtrack to Your Life” drops on May 16th and the appeal stretches from former boy band fans, to MTV fans, to people who are just interested to see if this album turns into a complete train wreck. If his first single off the album “Let Me Go” is any indication, we may be hearing a lot more from APA in the near future.

    Cam’Ron – Killa Season

    If you’re thinking of taking the date of rapper Cam’Ron’s latest release “Killa Season” and using permanent marker to write it down on your calendar, think again. This album has been anticipated to come out for months, being pushed back time and again for different reasons. Cam’Ron’s previous release “Purple Haze” got pushed back over a year from its original release date. However, don’t let the tardiness of this album confuse you, this could be one of the biggest studio albums of the year from any rapper. Cam’Ron on recent mixtapes has been bold enough to take shots at industry heavyweight Jay-Z, including a track where Cam’Ron took clips of some of Jigga’s songs and showed how they copied off other rappers songs. The beef between Cam’Ron and Jay-Z go back to when Jay-Z became President of Island/Def Jam records last year and took most of the talent from the former Rocafella Records label with him. Since that time, Cam’Ron was shot in a carjacking and in mixtapes has made reference to the fact that he thinks Jay-Z was behind the shooting. If and when this album is finally released, it may be the breakthrough album that makes Cam’Ron what he has truly been on the verge of being in the past few years, a mainstream crossover success. The album could possibly drop on May 16th.

    That’s a look at just some of the most anticipated albums of the days that lead up to Labor Day and the unofficial start of the summer. As it goes with all these albums, the release dates are subject to change, so if your really thinking about picking one of this albums up, check up on it first.

  • Rapper Proof Killed, Pointer Sister Passes Away

    The world of hip-hop is one that has a tragic tendency toward lyrics that display a glorification of violence, drug use and death. It’s unfortunate, but this is due in part to the fact that most rappers both grew up and live in situations where those things are far too common. Lyrics seem to mirror actions and because of that hip-hop gets the credit of being a journalistic outlet with the clearest lens you would ever see through, the eyes of the people involved. We are reminded time to time of how real the life of a rapper can become.

    One of those times came early Tuesday when rapper Proof, whose real name is Deshaun Holton was shot and killed in front of a Detroit nightclub in the wee hours of the morning. Unlike some killings of rap legends such as Tupac, Biggie Smalls and Big L, it seems Proof fired the first shot in an apparent gun battle which left the man he shot, 35-year old Keith Bender Jr. with a bullet wound to the head. The club all of this violence happened at, Club CCC on Detroit’s famed Eight Mile Road, was apparently operating at an illegal hour of the night. This is reportedly the third shooting in or around Club CCC. The rest of the details of the shooting including who actually shot the rapper are unclear as of yet.

    Proof becomes the second rapper in the group D12 to be murdered. Previously in 1999 another member of D12, Bugz was brutally killed during an altercation that got out of hand at an amusement park in Detroit. D12 was reportedly supposed to begin work on its next album this month. Details of whether that will change are not clear yet. This also mark’s another in what has become a long chain of events that have left rapper Eminem devastated. A couple of weeks ago, friend and fellow rapper Obie Trice was shot on a Detroit freeway but survived. Just a few days ago, Eminem filed for divorce from his wife Kim. Proof was Eminem’s best man at the ceremony. In addition, the killing is eerily similar to Eminem’s “Toy Soldiers” video, in which Proof is shot and killed on a Detroit street. Newly divorced and with the killing of a close friend and fellow rapper on his mind, Eminem’s world seems to be a little more gloomy.

    In other sad news, June Pointer of the Pointer Sisters passed away at the age of 52 on Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital. June Pointer reportedly died of an undisclosed form of cancer. On her own, June recorded a top 30 R&B single “Ready for Some Action” in 1983. However, she will probably be best known for her work with her sisters, which included three Grammy awards and numerous top 100 Billboard singles. Some of the groups most well known songs include “He’s So Shy”, “Automatic” and perhaps their most recognizable hit “”Jump (For My Love)”. The Pointer Sisters songs were featured in some scenes in the 2003 hit film “Love, Actually”. In the film Hugh Grant plays the Prime Minister of England and listens to the songs of The Pointer Sisters throughout the movie.