Prodigy - "Legends" (mp3)
The big elephant in the room that nobody seems to talk about, on the subject of Koch Records being really cost-effective and profitable for artists, is that they don't clear samples. At all. That, more than its commercial prospects, is the reason Prodigy's Return Of The Mac would never work on Interscope. Any album produced entirely by Alchemist, if all the samples were paid for, would cost millions. Alchemist was probably already in my top 5 favorite rap producers working right now before the new Prodigy record, be he definitely is now. Dude is really holding it down for white producers in mainstream hip hop, while Scott Storch is off doing the kind of cartoonish white rap guy stereotype shit that makes you think Ego Trip should've done the show about producers (pretending to rap and beefing with other producers, doing photo shoots in a robe and shades, making cheesy beats with melodic pianos and strings and absolutely no drums or groove).
I've never been a big Mobb Deep fan, and Prodigy still hasn't fully rebounded from that point where he seemed to lose everything that made him a good MC to begin with, but considering that I'd cop an Alchemist solo album where half the guest slots are filled by P, I shouldn't see anything wrong with enjoying Prodigy's solo album either. The whole album is built off of running already tired puns about how "mac" can mean a type of gun as well as a lot of other things, which isn't a really great concept to hang your hat on (although P occasionally does drop a funny one, like the whole "two all beef patties, special sauce" Big Mac bit at the end of "Legends").
In his Stylus review, Ian Cohen really gets to the root of what's interesting about P, which is his sometimes bizarre word choices. It's not about slang or dun language or insider jargon, just blunt phrases like "high on drugs," like he refuses to dress up his mindstate with euphemisms or any of the hundreds of slang terms for getting high. And then there's that line about "blood on my G-Units," like he honestly sees no contradiction or suspension of disbelief issues in telling you he's a killer at the same time as he reminds you that he's a rapper on one of the most successful labels in the world.
"Legends" is an interesting track because it uses the same sample as Remy Ma and Ne-Yo's "Feels So Good," putting it in a completely different context without really flipping it differently at all. Anytime two producers independently wind up using the same sample around the same time, heads reach for the tinfoil and start coming up with conspiracies about beat biting, but I tend to chalk it up to coincidence more often than not. Lending credence to my theory is the fact that Remy's song came out over a year ago on an album that Alc himself worked on. He probably had his own track laying around for a couple years, heard Remy's but didn't give a fuck and did the song with P anyway. "Feels So Good" was one of those weird singles that didn't really chart and didn't have a video, but certain radio stations in certain markets seemed to play it every hour on the hour for the past year. Maybe it was just residual Ne-Yo love, but I thought that was odd. Remy's label probably dropped the ball by not pushing that song harder. Prodigy rocked it better, though.
The big elephant in the room that nobody seems to talk about, on the subject of Koch Records being really cost-effective and profitable for artists, is that they don't clear samples. At all. That, more than its commercial prospects, is the reason Prodigy's Return Of The Mac would never work on Interscope. Any album produced entirely by Alchemist, if all the samples were paid for, would cost millions. Alchemist was probably already in my top 5 favorite rap producers working right now before the new Prodigy record, be he definitely is now. Dude is really holding it down for white producers in mainstream hip hop, while Scott Storch is off doing the kind of cartoonish white rap guy stereotype shit that makes you think Ego Trip should've done the show about producers (pretending to rap and beefing with other producers, doing photo shoots in a robe and shades, making cheesy beats with melodic pianos and strings and absolutely no drums or groove).
I've never been a big Mobb Deep fan, and Prodigy still hasn't fully rebounded from that point where he seemed to lose everything that made him a good MC to begin with, but considering that I'd cop an Alchemist solo album where half the guest slots are filled by P, I shouldn't see anything wrong with enjoying Prodigy's solo album either. The whole album is built off of running already tired puns about how "mac" can mean a type of gun as well as a lot of other things, which isn't a really great concept to hang your hat on (although P occasionally does drop a funny one, like the whole "two all beef patties, special sauce" Big Mac bit at the end of "Legends").
In his Stylus review, Ian Cohen really gets to the root of what's interesting about P, which is his sometimes bizarre word choices. It's not about slang or dun language or insider jargon, just blunt phrases like "high on drugs," like he refuses to dress up his mindstate with euphemisms or any of the hundreds of slang terms for getting high. And then there's that line about "blood on my G-Units," like he honestly sees no contradiction or suspension of disbelief issues in telling you he's a killer at the same time as he reminds you that he's a rapper on one of the most successful labels in the world.
"Legends" is an interesting track because it uses the same sample as Remy Ma and Ne-Yo's "Feels So Good," putting it in a completely different context without really flipping it differently at all. Anytime two producers independently wind up using the same sample around the same time, heads reach for the tinfoil and start coming up with conspiracies about beat biting, but I tend to chalk it up to coincidence more often than not. Lending credence to my theory is the fact that Remy's song came out over a year ago on an album that Alc himself worked on. He probably had his own track laying around for a couple years, heard Remy's but didn't give a fuck and did the song with P anyway. "Feels So Good" was one of those weird singles that didn't really chart and didn't have a video, but certain radio stations in certain markets seemed to play it every hour on the hour for the past year. Maybe it was just residual Ne-Yo love, but I thought that was odd. Remy's label probably dropped the ball by not pushing that song harder. Prodigy rocked it better, though.
Labels: hip hop
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on Saturday, April 14, 2007 at 8:55 AM.
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