I tend to shy away from "hip hop used to be like this, but now it's like this" gripes, partly because any 'golden age' I can refer to with any kind of firsthand experience was between 1997 and 2003, and partly because rap is like the weather, and you can bitch about how quickly it changes all you want but at some point you're gonna have to put your coat on and adapt. But man, when did the remix overkill start? It used to seem like people would wait until a song hit the top 10 to do a remix, now doing a remix is party of the plan to get to the top 10. Which, hey, marketing, whatever, I'm not a communist. But all-star remixes featuring some dream team of MCs over a beat everybody loves are supposed to be a joyous thing, which you'd think someone would remember, given every other remix video deliberately jacking the look of maybe the original platonic ideal of all-star remixes, "Flava In Ya Ear." If anything, with the mixtape freestyle game levelling the playing field so that anyone can spit over any beat, these things should be even more selective. Instead, the big deal remix increasingly sounds like one of those patchwork things mixtape DJs throw together of 6 different freestyles over the same beat.
When a song is huge and its beat universally adored without there being an official remix, like say, "What You Know," it's almost kind of a miracle in and of itself, that T.I. didn't go for the overkill. But then, T.I. went for the slightly less heralded strategy of juicing up the 4th single with the big remix. The results were pretty good, too, and I was pretty happy that the "Top Back" video brought back the crazy manic facial expressions that Tip used to rock with when he was the least famous guy in the "Never Scared" video.
As with most things, I can blame The Game, at least in part, for reaching the nadir of the all-star remix with the clusterfuck of dozens of rappers on the "One Blood (It's Okay)" remix. Dude obviously has a penchant for big bombastic event songs that go on forever -- a G-Unit diss that goes for 300 bars! a song with Nas that's 9 minutes long! -- but dude obviously just wanted a little oneupsmanship on Busta's 3-part "Touch It" remix where only half of the artists involved were actually famous. Or maybe it was just a savvy preemptive strike to 50's inevitable tendency to blacklist anyone who collabs with Game. But smart money says that Game's 3rd album is going to have a 20-minute multi-song suite, possibly with Pink Floyd guitar solos if he decides to follow Lil Wayne down that road. Either way, I won't be listening, because dude bores me to tears. I know the word on his last album was that all his contradictory bullshit and desperate self-mythologizing had become somehow fascinating and that he was this complext character, but honestly: a guy who talks a lot of shit he can't back up and mean-mugs when everyone knows he's soft batch, isn't that what we used to call a studio gangsta? Or is that not even an insult anymore now that they're the majority?
I think one thing I'd like out of these remixes is a little bit of thematic unity. I mean, Jim Jones could have cut the lineup from the "We Fly High" remix in half so that it was just him, Birdman, and Diddy, and it could've been a great statement of solidarity among non-rapping CEOs, but then they had to bring a couple of actual rappers (and Juelz) in on it.
Every year or so, of course, has its ubiquitous remix accessory, and Lil Wayne is a pretty good one to have as far as those go, even if there's something a little depressing about how eager he is to jump on board with any R&B munchkin that will have him on their song. Dude even opened for Chris Brown and Ne-Yo on tour last summer, and didn't seem at all demoralized about being a rap vet warming up crowds for rookie R&B singers. But that's kind of just one of the many paradoxes that Lil Wayne embodies. He's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an ugly BAPE hoodie.
Chris Brown's "Poppin'" remix is especially egregious, and not just because it's Chris Brown, who, as I've mentioned before, makes my ears bleed with any song other than "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)." I mean, Def Jam is bleeding the one-time-platinum album dry for a 5th single, and this might be the most awkward, unpleasant one yet. And with both Juelz and Wayne on there shortly after "Run It" and "Gimme That," it's like A Chris Brown Carol with The Ghosts of Chris Brown Singles Past. Is it a self-referential thing, or could dude just not think of any other rappers to ask? T.I. was busy, maybe? Chris's previous videos have already gone out of their way to link to other singles (the snippet of "Run It" at the beginning of the "Yo" video with the snippet of "Gimme That" at the end, and the tease of "Poppin'" in his headphones in the "Gimme That" video), so I'm wondering if the "Poppin'" video will end as some Fall Out Boy-esque mess of winking references to 'iconic' scenes and costumes from his other videos -- the dudes dancing with flashlights from the end of "Run It," the guy who does the skits on Kanye's albums jamming with Chris's earbuds and hell, maybe Omarion doing that hilarious impression of Chris's dancing in the "Yo" video (one minute and 19 seconds, funniest shit ever).
A couple old dudes are maybe making unlikely bids for next remix MVP status right now, which is always at least bound to be more interesting than letting Busta clamp down on every remix for a year again. Andre 3000, maybe salty that noone noticed when he finally started rapping again on Idlewild, is suddenly all over the place with at least 3 remixes in the bag. "Walk It Out" was a little surprising, even if Oomp Camp are kind of an ATL institution, simply because it's the kind of goofy dance song that you imagine made Andre start turning his nose up at rap in the first place. And of course, he uses the opportunity to diss the kinds of XXXXXXXL white tees that half the people in the video are wearing ( you wonder if he feels like he got away something with that), and then does a chorus himself, which might be the most annoying thing I've heard since "Hey Ya." His verse on the "You" remix (btw, how weird is it for Lloyd of all people to have the Best Rapper Alive on his single, and then two yesteryear BRA's on the remix) is the kind of corny shit about a meet cute in Whole Foods that makes you think the movie role he's really out in Hollywood looking for is a Meg Ryan-style rom com. I don't think the "Throw Some D's" remix he's supposed to be on has leaked yet, but it's hard to imagine even him ruining that beat.
The other old dude elbowing into the remix game is R. Kelly, who threw his hat into the ring by trying to fit his head inside a girl's ass on the "I'm N Luv Wit A Stripper" remix, and has kept it up recently with the "Make It Rain" and "Promise" remixes. All these kind of break the mold, whether by an R&B singer jumping into a rap posse cut and getting his own verse, or by using the remix format to turn a solo track into a two-singer duet. But admittedly, the results were a little disappointing. But based on those tracks, and that great song with Bow Wow and the new single I heard the other day, '07 should be a good year for R. after '06 was the first year since the golden shower video controversy broke that he hadn't released a box set's worth of material. I don't even really care if we get more installments of "Trapped In The Closet," but I wouldn't complain if we did.
When a song is huge and its beat universally adored without there being an official remix, like say, "What You Know," it's almost kind of a miracle in and of itself, that T.I. didn't go for the overkill. But then, T.I. went for the slightly less heralded strategy of juicing up the 4th single with the big remix. The results were pretty good, too, and I was pretty happy that the "Top Back" video brought back the crazy manic facial expressions that Tip used to rock with when he was the least famous guy in the "Never Scared" video.
As with most things, I can blame The Game, at least in part, for reaching the nadir of the all-star remix with the clusterfuck of dozens of rappers on the "One Blood (It's Okay)" remix. Dude obviously has a penchant for big bombastic event songs that go on forever -- a G-Unit diss that goes for 300 bars! a song with Nas that's 9 minutes long! -- but dude obviously just wanted a little oneupsmanship on Busta's 3-part "Touch It" remix where only half of the artists involved were actually famous. Or maybe it was just a savvy preemptive strike to 50's inevitable tendency to blacklist anyone who collabs with Game. But smart money says that Game's 3rd album is going to have a 20-minute multi-song suite, possibly with Pink Floyd guitar solos if he decides to follow Lil Wayne down that road. Either way, I won't be listening, because dude bores me to tears. I know the word on his last album was that all his contradictory bullshit and desperate self-mythologizing had become somehow fascinating and that he was this complext character, but honestly: a guy who talks a lot of shit he can't back up and mean-mugs when everyone knows he's soft batch, isn't that what we used to call a studio gangsta? Or is that not even an insult anymore now that they're the majority?
I think one thing I'd like out of these remixes is a little bit of thematic unity. I mean, Jim Jones could have cut the lineup from the "We Fly High" remix in half so that it was just him, Birdman, and Diddy, and it could've been a great statement of solidarity among non-rapping CEOs, but then they had to bring a couple of actual rappers (and Juelz) in on it.
Every year or so, of course, has its ubiquitous remix accessory, and Lil Wayne is a pretty good one to have as far as those go, even if there's something a little depressing about how eager he is to jump on board with any R&B munchkin that will have him on their song. Dude even opened for Chris Brown and Ne-Yo on tour last summer, and didn't seem at all demoralized about being a rap vet warming up crowds for rookie R&B singers. But that's kind of just one of the many paradoxes that Lil Wayne embodies. He's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an ugly BAPE hoodie.
Chris Brown's "Poppin'" remix is especially egregious, and not just because it's Chris Brown, who, as I've mentioned before, makes my ears bleed with any song other than "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)." I mean, Def Jam is bleeding the one-time-platinum album dry for a 5th single, and this might be the most awkward, unpleasant one yet. And with both Juelz and Wayne on there shortly after "Run It" and "Gimme That," it's like A Chris Brown Carol with The Ghosts of Chris Brown Singles Past. Is it a self-referential thing, or could dude just not think of any other rappers to ask? T.I. was busy, maybe? Chris's previous videos have already gone out of their way to link to other singles (the snippet of "Run It" at the beginning of the "Yo" video with the snippet of "Gimme That" at the end, and the tease of "Poppin'" in his headphones in the "Gimme That" video), so I'm wondering if the "Poppin'" video will end as some Fall Out Boy-esque mess of winking references to 'iconic' scenes and costumes from his other videos -- the dudes dancing with flashlights from the end of "Run It," the guy who does the skits on Kanye's albums jamming with Chris's earbuds and hell, maybe Omarion doing that hilarious impression of Chris's dancing in the "Yo" video (one minute and 19 seconds, funniest shit ever).
A couple old dudes are maybe making unlikely bids for next remix MVP status right now, which is always at least bound to be more interesting than letting Busta clamp down on every remix for a year again. Andre 3000, maybe salty that noone noticed when he finally started rapping again on Idlewild, is suddenly all over the place with at least 3 remixes in the bag. "Walk It Out" was a little surprising, even if Oomp Camp are kind of an ATL institution, simply because it's the kind of goofy dance song that you imagine made Andre start turning his nose up at rap in the first place. And of course, he uses the opportunity to diss the kinds of XXXXXXXL white tees that half the people in the video are wearing ( you wonder if he feels like he got away something with that), and then does a chorus himself, which might be the most annoying thing I've heard since "Hey Ya." His verse on the "You" remix (btw, how weird is it for Lloyd of all people to have the Best Rapper Alive on his single, and then two yesteryear BRA's on the remix) is the kind of corny shit about a meet cute in Whole Foods that makes you think the movie role he's really out in Hollywood looking for is a Meg Ryan-style rom com. I don't think the "Throw Some D's" remix he's supposed to be on has leaked yet, but it's hard to imagine even him ruining that beat.
The other old dude elbowing into the remix game is R. Kelly, who threw his hat into the ring by trying to fit his head inside a girl's ass on the "I'm N Luv Wit A Stripper" remix, and has kept it up recently with the "Make It Rain" and "Promise" remixes. All these kind of break the mold, whether by an R&B singer jumping into a rap posse cut and getting his own verse, or by using the remix format to turn a solo track into a two-singer duet. But admittedly, the results were a little disappointing. But based on those tracks, and that great song with Bow Wow and the new single I heard the other day, '07 should be a good year for R. after '06 was the first year since the golden shower video controversy broke that he hadn't released a box set's worth of material. I don't even really care if we get more installments of "Trapped In The Closet," but I wouldn't complain if we did.
Labels: hip hop
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on Friday, January 26, 2007 at 12:13 AM.
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Anonymous : 3:55 PM