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Tag: Jay-Z

  • SonicClash Handicaps The Grammys Part 1: Rap

    jiggaGrammy has had an interesting relationship with hip-hop over the years. They didn’t institute a rap category until 1988, and for those first few years, it seemed like the rap categories were some kind of joke. They went to safe-rap artists like Young MC and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, while unquestionably more talented artists like Public Enemy went winless. Hell, I’m not sure if Ice Cube, an undisputed hip-hop legend, has ever even been NOMINATED for one of those statues.

    Over the past years, Grammy’s reputation has gotten better, although it could be argued that they still play it safe to an extent. Eminem, Kanye West and OutKast have almost completely ruled the rap category this decade, with Jay-Z swooping in for a few trophies along the way. This year’s nominees don’t offer anything embarrassing, but I wonder if seeing the same names over and over is an indication of Grammy’s unwillingness to look beyond the status quo or an indication of how much hip-hop fuckin’ sucks these days.

    Anyway, here are the nominees in the rap categories

    Best Rap Solo Performance

    • Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)…(Jay-Z)/ A Milli (Lil Wayne)/ Paris, Tokyo
      (Lupe Fiasco) / N.i.*.*.e.r. (The Slave And The Master)(Nas)/ Sexual Eruption
      (Snoop Dogg)

    Will Win: Jay-Z

    Should Win: Jay-Z

    WTF?: After the kind of year T.I. had, where the hell is he?

    All five nominees in this category are pretty solid. However, Nas’s track is a political hot potato, which should be enough for it to not win. Snoop’s song is more singing than rapping (as good as it is), and Lupe Fiasco, despite a Grammy win already, isn’t well known enough to take this one home. There’s the possibility that Wayne could walk away with this in light of having the biggest selling album of the year, but I go with Jay-Z, due to his previous Grammy success (one of his five trophies is in this category for “99 Problems”) and because his song’s the best of the five nominees.

    Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group

    • Royal Flush (Big Boi Featuring Raekwon And Andre 3000)/ Swagga Like Us (Jay-Z & T.I. Featuring Kanye West & Lil Wayne)/
      Mr. Carter (Lil Wayne Featuring Jay-Z)/ Wish You Would (Ludacris Featuring T.I.)/ Put On (Young Jeezy Featuring Kanye West)

    Will Win: “Swagga Like Us”

    Should Win: This category sucks

    WTF: The Roots (previous Grammy winners) made a great record, and they’re actually a rap GROUP as opposed to a superstar collaboration. Where are they?

    Despite the fact that all four artists on the song are nominated elsewhere in the SAME category, or maybe because of it, this one’s a no-brainer for the “Swagga” camp. The fact that they’re performing on the show seals the deal. The only other song that has a snowflake’s chance in hell is “Mr. Carter”. The Big Boi and Ludacris songs aren’t especially well-known, and while “Put On” was the biggest hit, I just can’t see Young Jeezy winning a Grammy.

    Best Rap/Sung Collaboration

    • American Boy (Estelle Featuring Kanye West)/ Low (Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain)/ Green Light (John Legend & Andre 3000)/ Got Money
      (Lil Wayne Featuring T-Pain)/ Superstar (Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos)

    Will Win: “American Boy”

    Should Win: “Green Light”

    WTF?: T-Pain gets nominated twice. Sigh.

    Well, the good thing about seeing T-Pain twice in this category is that he’ll more than likely cancel himself out, leaving three songs with a legitimate chance of winning (despite “Low” being the year’s biggest single, I can’t imagine anyone giving Flo-Rida a Grammy). Lupe’s song feels like it’s been out for 10 years already, so people have already forgotten. The Grammy folks love John Legend AND Andre 3000, so there’s a chance that the deserving “Green Light” could sneak in, but I pick “American Boy”, which is the only song in this category nominated in one of the 4 major categories (Song of the Year).

    Best Rap Song

    • Lollipop: D. Carter, S. Garrett, D. Harrison, J. Scheffer & R. Zamor, songwriters (Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major)/ Low:
      Tramar Dillard, M. Humphrey, Faheem Najm, Korey Roberson & Howard Simmons, songwriters (Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain)
      Sexual Eruption: Calvin Broadus, S. Lovejoy & D. Stewart, songwriters (Snoop Dogg)/ Superstar: Lupe Fiasco & Soundtrakk, songwriters (Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos)/ Swagga Like Us: Jeff Bhaskev, D. Carter, S. Carter, Clifford Harris, Plain Pat & Kanye West, songwriters (M. Arulpragasam, N. Headon, M. Jones, J. Mellor, T. Pentz & P. Simonon, songwriters) (Jay-Z & T.I. Featuring Kanye West & Lil Wayne)

    Will Win: “Lollipop”

    Should Win:”Superstar”

    This is a songwriter’s award, so while it would be nice to see M.I.A. and the members of The Clash win a Grammy (“Swagga Like Us” samples a line from M.I.A.’s smash “Paper Planes”, which gets its’ musical bed from The Clash’s “Straight to Hell”), the fact is that all of the performers except T.I. give subpar lyrical performances. Wait? Since when does that matter at the Grammy Awards? In this case, I pick Lil’ Wayne to win in this category, because the biggest hit usually wins, and “Low” is automatically disqualified because, again, no one’s voting for Flo-Rida. Lupe’s “Superstar” (and T.I.’s verse from “Swagga”) are the only legitimately solid lyrical accomplishments in this category, however. “Swagga” could sneak past and win this. Either way. Lil’ Wayne is going home with something in this category.

    Best Rap Album

    • American Gangster (Jay-Z)/ Tha Carter III (Lil Wayne)/ The Cool (Lupe Fiasco)/ Nas (Nas)/ Paper Trail (T.I.)

    Will Win: Lil Wayne

    Should Win: Pick’em

    WTF: Again, The Roots should have been represented here. They wouldn’t have won, but they should have been in the category.

    With five solid entries in this category, it’s difficult to pick a winner. Or is it? Nas’s album, despite the album title controversy, flew under the radar and Fiasco’s relative anonymity will be his downfall. I should (and will) pick Lil Wayne to win because his album was the most popular in the category (and is the only one nominated in one of the Big 4, with his nod for Album of the Year), but T.I. is the it guy right now and the Grammy folks might want to pick the artist that’s freshest in their minds. He could sneak this one out, as could Jay-Z, as the elder statesman and a previous winner in this category (for “Hard Knock Life”). “American Gangster” got quite solid reviews (reasoning beyond me), so that could push it over the top.

    Whoever wins which category, I say Lil Wayne brings home a lot of trophies regardless.

  • Introducing…Jaydiohead!!

    i-am-guilty
    Jay-Z photo by Wikimedia user i-am-guilty.

    Mash-ups are nothing new. Hell, mash-ups featuring Jay-Z are nothing new, but if you’re a fan of the Jigga Man, you definitely want to check out “Jaydiohead”. DJ Minty Fresh Beats has grabbed a bunch of the best songs from latter-day Jay (“Black Album”, “Blueprint”, “American Gangster”) and mixed them with some of Radiohead’s greatest songs (from “OK Computer”, “Kid A” and “In Rainbows”) and the results are almost as good as when Danger Mouse mixed Jigga with The Beatles on “The Grey Album”. My favorite happens to be “Dirt off Your Shoulder” mixed with “Paranoid Android”. Who said Kanye was the only person that could sample Radiohead? (oops, The Roots did it too). Check Jaydiohead out at www.jaydiohead.com where you can download the album for free!

  • The Sunday Seven: I Love Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls

    Money Mike has been looking for some volunteers to do their own Sunday Seven column and I raised my hand this week. I’m actually anticipating what’s going to come up because I bet there are going to be songs that pop up that I haven’t heard in forever or songs that are a part of full albums that I may not even like. Since I only buy music from the iTunes store now, my iPod is full of entire albums and thus, stuff that I don’t even really listen to since I’m a big play list guy.

    For those who don’t know, the idea of this column is to take your iPod (or whatever else you use to listen to your music electronically) and put it on shuffle. The next step is to list the first seven songs that come on and list them here.

    Here goes:

    Track 1: The Water Bottle by Bill Cosby

    Aha! The first track isn’t even music. It’s a quick skit by Bill Cosby from his album I Started Out As A Child about children drinking from the water bottle when their parents aren’t home and then leaving just enough in the bottle so they don’t have to refill it. The track is less than a minute long and let’s just say that it’s not his best skit. I have a ton of Cos on my iPod.

    (By the way, I love the fact that on my iPod they actually have “Shuffle” as one of the selections from the main menu. I used to hate having to click a few times to get the shuffle going.)

    Track 2: Let’s Be Friends (Skin To Skin) by Bruce Springsteen

    I love his post 9/11 album The Rising so much that before every semi-pro baseball game after it came out, I listened to it on the way to the ball park. I’m not sure if Bruce only wants to just be friends or not with the skin to skin reference, but hey, he’s Bruce.

    Track 3: Not Gon’ Cry by Mary J. Blige

    From the soundtrack to the movie Waiting To Exhale, this song captures the feeling of the Angela Bassett character Bernadine Harris (thanks IMDB) perfectly. Yes, I think I’ve seen the movie at least once.

    Through sickness and health ’til death do us part
    Those were the words that we said from our hearts
    So now when you say that you’re leaving me
    I don’t get that part

    Word.

    Track 4: Don’t Cry by Jordan Knight

    A few years ago, Jordan Knight released The Fix which was an EP that I only saw on iTunes. It wasn’t bad. But this wasn’t necessarily one of the better tracks. It’s an uptempo song that features, “Don’t cry mama, shake that mama,” as a part of the hook. And that’s one of the better parts of the song. I won’t tell you about the part of the song where he starts talking about her thong.

    Track 5: Girls, Girls, Girls by Jay-Z

    I love girls, girls, girls, girls, girls I do adore. I love this song for all the one liners. From his most famous album, Blueprint, he raps about all kinds of different girls. It’s a fun track, even if he stereotypes them all.

    I got this ho that after twelve million sold
    Mami’s a narcoleptic, always sleepin’ on Hov’

    Track 6: Just To Be Close To You by the Commodores

    The iTunes program that grabs the album art thinks this is supposed to be on the Jackson 5 The Ultimate Collection album. You know it’s a good day when Lionel just starts talking in his songs. He just lays down a soliloquy at the top in a funny accent before saying that he was a lonely man without direction or purpose and no one to love. Of course, that was before he found the girl who made his jagged edges smooth. I have one word that describes this song. Outrageous!

    Track 7: Little Sister by Elvis Presley

    Remember that Elvis hits album that came out several years back and sold like hot cakes even though anyone and their mother who even liked Elvis just a little bit had almost all the songs? Well, they released a sequel called 2nd To None that didn’t sell as well. This song is on the second album. The song is catchy as hell. Elvis, as the mack daddy of all mack daddies, is singing to the little sister of someone he used to date. He used to pull on this girl’s pig tails. But instead of singing her a love song, he’s scolding her.

    Little sister, don’t you kiss me once or twice
    Then say its very nice and then you run
    Little sister, don’t you do what your big sister done

    Thankfully this isn’t the Sunday Eight or else I would’ve had to write about the WWF version of The Land Of 1,000 Dances where the Iron Sheik says that you have to learn to move like the Sheik. That might’ve been a bit embarrassing. Also, I’m going to lose some street cred by only having one hip hop song on here. Sorry guys, I swear I have a ton.