DJ Khaled featuring Brisco, Dirt E Red, Dela, Lunch Money, CO From Piccalo, Hennessy, and P.M. - "The Future Of Dade" (mp3)

Listennn is a pretty good all-star hip hop clusterfuck, but I think my favorite track is the one buried at the end with no mainstream stars on it, largely because of the Diaz Brothers' ridiculous production on the track. I really need to check for more stuff by them.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

DJ Khaled
Listennn...The Album
Koch Entertainment
2006
Stylus rating: B
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B

The history of official DJ compilations that rise above the for-promotional-use-only mixtape market is dicey at best. In the past, New Yorkers like DJ Clue, Funkmaster Flex, and DJ Kay Slay have issued retail albums, and even today tastemakers like DJ Drama are getting major label deals. But the days of Clue going Platinum are over, and with street mixtapes more prevalent than ever, such albums tend to wind up in a weird middle ground, like a soundtrack with no movie to cross-promote. They rarely get glowing reviews, have a short shelf life, and are put together by leak fiends who end up spilling most of the good material on the street well before the real thing hits stores.

With those factors stacked against him (not to mention being signed to Koch Records), DJ Khaled has built an impressive buzz for his first official release, Listennn...The Album. It helps that he's got connections to a respected crew (Terror Squad), has a monster single ("Holla At Me"), and represents a city on the rise (Miami). Miami may end up stealing 2006 from the Bay Area, with heavily-hyped albums from Rick Ross, Dre (of Cool & Dre), and Pitbull dropping in the next few months. All three of them have multiple appearances on Listennn and a hand in "Holla At Me," along with Lil Wayne, Paul Wall, and part-time Miami resident Fat Joe.

Although the Palestinian-American Khaled a.k.a. Beat Novacaine proved his production skills on Fat Joe's All or Nothing, he presents Listennn primarily as a DJ, and only produces three tracks, one of which is a brief intro. One of those tracks, however, "Where You At" by Freeway and the Clipse, is one of the hottest tracks on the album, all humming organs, regal brass, and watery wah-wah drama. For his part, Khaled doesn't do much to distinguish Listennn from a mixtape, shouting over tracks with a tremendously annoying voice, bizarrely reminding you of the release date of the album you're listening to, and pronouncing Listennn by stuttering the L, but not the three N's. Even the cover is by mixtape artwork king Miami Kaos.

The most consistent sound on the album comes from Cool & Dre, who produce five tracks. One of the best production teams in mainstream hip-hop at the moment, they're a welcome presence right up until "Movement" by Dre, perhaps the most dreadful producer-turned-rapper yet.

In addition to the ridiculous roster of guests, Listennn boasts a handful of interesting collabos. On "Problem" he unites the formerly beefing Beanie Sigel and Jadakiss, and "Destroy You" features the also formerly beefing Twista and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Aside from a few posse cuts, though, most of the bigger stars on the album bring their own entourages and stick to their usual sound. Young Jeezy brings Slick Pulla and Bloodraw with him on "Gangsta Shit," Young Dro and Big Kuntry tag along with T.I. on "Dip Slide Ride Out," and Kanye West shows up with Consequence and John Legend in tow. Kanye in particular stays on his A-game with "Grammy Family," an unexpectedly dark banger for a track ostensibly about all the statuettes on his mantle.

Khaled constantly represents Miami and Dade County throughout Listennn, not the least on the all-star anthem "Born N Raised" featuring Trick Daddy, Pitbull, and Rick Ross. Surprisingly, that track's thunder is stolen by the no-star album closer, "The Future of Dade," a 6-minute parade of lesser known locals Brisco, Dirt E Red, Dela, Lunch Money, Co from Piccalo, Hennessy, and P.M. Most of the track's success is owed to the amazing beat by Pitbull associates the Diaz Brothers, but several of the up-and-comers shine.

Executive produced by Khaled, Fat Joe, and "The Streets" (presumably not Mike Skinner), Listennn ultimately does little besides sum up the state of rap in June 2006 with a sizable number of its most ubiquitous artists. There are several bangers that have a good chance of becoming summer anthems, but "Holla At Me" could just as easily be the album's only hit. Or it may open the floodgates for a Miami hit parade. In an era wherein even mixtapes only have a buzz for more than a couple weeks if they're the work of a single artist or crew, a DJ compilation has to be better than just pretty good. Luckily, Listennn is.

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

This week in the City Paper, I reviewed a couple local releases by Barnes and Backland, and as usual I've got mp3s from both albums over on Gov't Names.

Labels: Baltimore music, City Paper, Government Names, hip hop, some shit I wrote

Lake Trout - "III" (mp3)
This week in the City Paper's local music section, I reviewed Lake Trout's There Are No Words, the instrumental disc that's being sold as part of the U.K. release of last year's Not Them, You, and as its own release on the internet. I recently heard from a mutual friend that someone who wrote for Pitchfork around the same time I did, when asked, characterized me as a jam band freak because of a Lake Trout review I wrote back in the day, which, ouch. I guess that's still the stigma with them, but they really might be my favorite rock band to ever come out of Baltimore, as unhip as that may be.

Labels: Baltimore music, City Paper, some shit I wrote

Jon Auer - "Sundown" (mp3)
I might've been a little rough on Songs from the Year of Our Demise, which came out this week, in my Stylus review, considering how big a fan of the guy I am. I just wish the album had more songs as good as this one.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Jon Auer
Songs from the Year of Our Demise
Pattern 25
2006
Stylus rating: B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B

Songs from the Year of Our Demise is a document of a tumultuous period in Jon Auer's life that included a divorce and the beginning of another marriage. However, it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly what year the title refers to, considering how long it’s been in the works. The title has been floating around since 1999, shortly after Auer's group The Posies broke up and he and co-founder Ken Stringfellow embarked on solo careers. In the time that it's taken Auer to finish his first solo album, Stringfellow released three, and the Posies reunited and recorded a new record, last year's Every Kind of Light. Also during that period, Auer contributed to Big Star's In Space and, oddly enough, William Shatner's Has Been. So Songs from the Year of Our Demise has a lot riding on it, if only to justify its lengthy gestation period and repeated delays.

Auer has always seemed blessed with natural, almost effortless gifts as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His voice is so clean and angelic that it sometimes sounds feminine, and as the more instrumentally skilled half of the Posies' nucleus, he handled most of the guitar solos, and even played drums on the band's early material. So after several albums as only 50% of a creative team, the chance for him to step out on his own seems like the perfect opportunity to thrive. But while Demise is a deeply personal work that shows the fruits of several years of recording, it's far from Auer's greatest achievement.

Now in his late 30's, Auer's voice is still in top form, but has taken on a deeper, slightly gravelly tone, which suits the depressive tone of the material. His gift for writing big power-pop hooks is similarly subdued, as he sticks to slower tempos and quieter arrangements. In short, it's his singer-songwriter record.

But without the hooks, energy, or jaw-dropping guitar solos, an air of blandness hangs over Demise that only a handful of songs cut through. And for better or worse, most of those songs are buried at the end of the disc. "Sundown" practically erupts with a thudding bassline, poignant melody, and naggingly catchy "sha la la la" chorus. And "Wicked World" is one of only a couple songs where Auer strips the arrangement down to just his voice and an acoustic guitar to showcase a hauntingly gorgeous melody. Meanwhile, most tracks, like the dramatic opener "Six Feet Under," contribute to the overall mood of the album, but hardly stand up as songs by themselves.

Auer wrote and discarded many songs in the process of making Demise, releasing several EPs along the way. Ironically, few songs on the album have hooks as memorable as "When the Lights Go Up" or "Beautiful" from 2002's Private Sides. Luckily, the best song from 2000's The Perfect Size, "You Used to Drive Me Around," is reprised in re-recorded form on Demise. Now fleshed out to an epic seven minutes, with ornate touches like David Einmo's chorus mellotron, and live drums replacing the early version's plodding drum machine, "You Used to Drive Me Around" becomes the album's hardest rocking song, though it never rises above a brooding mid-tempo.

Songs from the Year of Our Demise initially seems underwhelming, but like the Posies' best work, its songs reveal themselves over time. Still, it's an album that has far more potential for emotional resonance than musical discovery. The arrangements contain few surprises, and the handful of simple acoustic performances quietly outshine the more elaborate productions. There's no doubt that Auer put a lot of feeling into Demise, but if he takes this long to formulate his next album, hopefully he'll spend more time honing his musical ingenuity, and throw a few of his fantastic guitar solos in as well.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-05-04

Labels: mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus, The Posies

Got a few things in the City Paper this week: a profile of the Maryland MC Hots, with an accompanying mp3-packed post on Gov't Names, and a couple more reviews of cheesy family flicks. I think J.G. is gonna be mad at me for dissing Hoot, but my review got edited way down and I think some of the meaner stuff (and the parts I was proud of) got cut out, but I'm a little happier with how the R.V. one came out (credit goes to Ethan for the first line of that one).

Labels: Baltimore City paper, Baltimore music, Government Names, movies, some shit I wrote

B.G. f/ Gar - "Whateva U Like" (mp3)
Not my favorite song on The Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2 (I Am What I Am) by a long shot, but you really do have to hear the Hurricane Katrina punchline that involves vaginal secretion.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

B.G.
The Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2 (I Am What I Am)
Chopper City
2006
Stylus rating: B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B

Cash Money Records' only star left on the roster, Lil’ Wayne, may be at a career high point right now, but the long-running New Orleans rap label's disgruntled alumni is its own biggest competition. Juvenile's first post-Cash Money release, Reality Check, became his first #1 album earlier this year. And Mannie Fresh left Cash Money last year after producing 99% of its hits, and is finally becoming the superproducer-for-hire that he's always deserved to be. But B.G., one of the first Cash Money artists to fly the coop, is the most firmly established in his own world now, a respected mid-level star with his own label, Chopper City Records.

The Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2 (I Am What I Am) is B.G.'s tenth album since beginning his recording career at the age of 11 as Baby Gangsta. And it's his fourth in as many years on Chopper City Records, proof that his separation from the Cash Money machine hasn't slowed down his grind. But the man who titled his 2004 album Life After Cash Money isn't done fixating on the crew that he ran with for a decade and then divorced from bitterly, and songs like "Living Right" are all about how much better his life is "since I left C.M."

B.G.'s post-Cash Money output hasn't differed from his early albums in many respects, except for the absence of the label's in-house production guru. But now that Mannie Fresh is a free agent, he's hooked up with B.Gizzle once again for Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2's lead single, the wonderfully bouyant "Move Around." Although it rides the same boom-boom-clap rhythm as many of Fresh's productions since Young Jeezy's "And Then What," it's perhaps the best use of that formula yet, a rousing anthem about the ubiquity of fried baloney sandwiches in the hood. But the single most thrilling moment of the song is at the end when B.G. lets loose the sound that's become, like Jadakiss's cackle, his vocal calling card: a deep, creaky "WAHHHHHHHHHH." Although "Move Around" is by far the most polished song on the album, his weathered voice sounds like a raw nerve in that one moment.

B.G. has reportedly been clean and sober for three years now, but his past addiction to heroin looms over his recent albums in the form of the damage done to his voice. He's always rapped in a loose, conversational drawl, sometimes talking over the beat as much as rapping. But on The Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2, B.G.'s voice is nasal and faded, and perfectly suits all his talk about being a grizzled veteran, even if he frequently gets drowned out by the already subdued production.

The biggest hit from any of B.G.'s solo albums is "Bling Bling," the song that literally changed the dictionary and both defined the zeitgeist of hip hop materialism and gave the backlash a target for its hatred. But "Bling Bling" was a posse cut and Lil Wayne coined the title, and in truth B.G. now seems like a reactionary to Cash Money's extravagant flossing. Instead, he's moved onto the drug dealing raps currently in vogue in the South, frequently collaborating with T.I. "I Ain't Got Nothing" is the obligatory anti-snitching screed, and songs like "Yeah Nigga Yeah" almost gleefully detail the particulars of hustling in the trap.

The Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2's guest appearances are almost exclusively by obscure New Orleans MCs. And one guy named Bossman, who appears on two tracks and couldn't ride a beat to save his life, is clearly not the same Bossman from Baltimore who is currently signed to Virgin Records. But "Deuces Up" features Houston rappers Yung Redd and the increasingly tiresome Paul Wall, once again selling 16 bars of the same flow he uses on every song. But the real star of the track is Pretty Todd's barely-there production, all faint ticks and fizzes of percussion around a woozy bassline and distant organ note. The track is too layered and detailed to be described as minimalist, but it's so hypnotically slight and quiet that it stands head and shoulder's above the album's more generic 808 beats.

Most of the media attention to Juvenile and Lil Wayne's recent albums has focused on the one or two songs from each that bear any reference to last year's horrific flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. By comparison, several songs on Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2 reference Katrina, although largely by way of passing mentions, with nothing as overt as Juve's "Get Your Hustle On." But B.G. has succeeded in making an appropriately bleak, angry post-Katrina album, whereas Juvenile filled Reality Check with some of the most tedious, monotonous strip club music ever made. Curiously, though, B.G. ends his album with the slick sex jam "Whateva U Like," which contains the single most bizarre and unexpectedly humorous reference to Katrina to date. On the topic of female ejaculation, B.G. shrugs "I ain't trippin' on that, let's sex some more / I been through Hurricane Katrina, I been wet before."

Throughout Heart of tha Streetz, Vol. 2, B.G. trumpets the same comeback he's been talking about ever since he left Cash Money. But he might be onto something, since he's become the most sought after collaborators in the South lately, and has been surrounded by rumors of signing with G-Unit. Last week, though, he signed a contract to move Chopper City Records from independent distribution on Koch to Atlantic Records, with yet another album due out this fall, to be executive produced by T.I. So if this album seems like a minor work in a long and prolific career, that may be because it's about to be outshined by a much bigger project less than six months later.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-04-10

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

Dem Franchize Boyz f/ Bun B - "My Music" (mp3)
"I keep white, keep purp, like a crayon box." The only song on the Franchize album produced by JD (even kinda has the same wobbly synth groove that was the only thing I really liked about "Grillz") and the best song on the album that hasn't been a single, which probably means it's a future single (but still not as good as Ray Cash's "Bumpin' My Music"). My review ran in the City Paper this week. And with all due respect to my wise and powerful editor, I have to say I just about did a full-body wince when I saw that 2 references to minimalism had been added to my draft that'd originally included none. Maybe one of these days I'll rant about how I take issue with the M-word being tossed at hip hop beats (particularly all that crisp Southern 808 stuff) anytime they don't have the ambient hiss of a dusty sample or a ton of Dr. Dre/Irv Gotti windchimes and wooshing atmospherics slapped on top, when usually the word doesn't really fit at all, in my opinion. Oh, I guess I just did.

Also in CP, I finally review a good movie, Inside Man.

Labels: City Paper, hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote

Today on Stylus, I represent for Bmore with a review of Unruly Club Classics Vol. III, and an accompanying post with mp3's on Gov't Names.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Various Artists
Unruly Club Classics Vol. III
Unruly
2006
Stylus rating: B
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B+

In the late 80's, while hip-hop was talking hold as the dominant urban soundtrack of most American cities, something else was happening in Baltimore, Maryland. Local DJs stuck with the "hip-house" trend way longer than folks anywhere else did, and gradually, club sets full of national house music hits like "Percolator" and "Brighter Days" were overtaken by a growing legion of locally produced dance records that were a little rougher around the edges than the stuff coming from Chicago, New York, and Europe. Built around a fast, programmed beat akin to Miami bass, these tracks that relied less on 808s and more on classic breakbeats like Lyn Collins's "Think" and Gaz's "Sing Sing," became known simply as Baltimore club music.

The producers responsible for some of the earliest Baltimore club music records, Scottie B. ("I Got The Rhythm") and Shawn Caesar ("Yo Yo Where The Hos At"), ran the premier club music label, Unruly Records, in the 90's, as well as a record pool that distributed the genre's biggest records to the city's network of DJs. And in the late 90's, as mix CDs replaced vinyl as the primary form of club music consumption among non-DJs, Unruly kept up, issuing popular mix CDs by DJ Quicksilva and Reggie Reg. But over the last few years, Unruly's output had slowed down, as other labels and DJs held down the scene and club music became more and more intertwined with Baltimore's hip-hop community.

After over a decade of evolving in a seemingly unwatched and undisturbed petri dish, Baltimore club music finally started catching the attention of out-of-towners a couple years ago. By that point, it was a fully formed genre, with dozens of artists and thousands of tracks. But it was also a fiercely provincial and shortsighted scene, with little access to distribution channels outside the tri-state area. The rampant sampling in club music couldn't have helped, either, in terms of the possibility of major label deals.

But recently, Baltimore club's upper echelon has started to catch up with the music's popularity around the country, and has finally begun to distribute records outside of Maryland. DJ Technics now sells CDs and vinyl all over the world through his website, and Rod Lee's first nationally distributed album, Vol. 5: The Official, rode high on the wave of Baltimore club media attention last year. But most promising of all these developments might be the rebirth of Unruly Records. The label was never entirely dormant, and in fact released one of last year's most popular mix CDs, Club Queen K-Swift's Vol. 6: The Return. But the release of the third volume of its Unruly Club Classics series is being touted as the label's big return to a newly booming market.

In addition to being one of the genre's founding figues, Scottie B. has been one of the first hometown originators to embrace Baltimore club's popularity at indie dance nights around the country. Teaming with hipster DJs like Low Budget of Hollertronix, Scottie B. has helped spread the music to an audience that's considerably, well, whiter than its following in Baltimore. He also served as executive producer on last year's Bmore Gutter Music, a Hollertronix mix that mashed club music up with club-influenced tracks by newcomers like an awful rapper named Spank Rock. With Unruly Club Classics Vol. III, however, Scottie B. is back to representing Baltimore club music in its more traditional form.

Despite the title, Unruly Club Classics is not an attempt to tell the story of Baltimore club music chronologically, like DJ Technics's History 101 mix series, and doesn't restrict itself to a particular period of club music either. Instead, Club Classics Vol. III gathers music from throughout club history, including tracks from only a couple years ago, like Debonair Samir's "Throw It Up" (one of the earliest of the countless Lil Jon samples that dominated club music for a while) and DJ Class's "Next To You" remix.

What makes Unruly Club Classics Vol. III unique is in its assembly: Virtually all of Baltimore club music hovers around the same tempo (130 BPM), allowing DJs to mix back and forth between tracks quickly and easily, and in most DJ sets and mix CDs, any given record is rarely played for more than 2 minutes at a time, usually cramming over 30 tracks into an hour. But for the first disc of Club Classics, Unruly has collected a mere 13 tracks, all appearing in unmixed form as they would on the 12"s distributed to DJs.

Unruly might have chosen to present the material in this form to show the tracks as they were designed, in full, or maybe just to throw a bone to all the CDDJ's out there. But for someone who's used to the brisk pace of Baltimore club mixes, it can be kind of a downer to listen to a disc where the tracks average over four minutes, and one of the most abrasive tracks, Karyzma's "KONG," stretches out over nine grueling minutes.

Baltimore club music is frequently criticized as too repetitive, and while that is the nature of dance music, many club producers have taken to creating tracks with several discrete sections to flex actual songwriting skills. But the fact remains that usually you can hear all a song has to offer in no more than two or three minutes, making some of the longer cuts on Unruly Club Classics a difficult listen. While the 13 tracks on the first disc can only cover so much ground as far as the variety of Baltimore club music, several of the genre's greatest producers are represented, including K.W. Griff, Booman, Debonair Samir, DJ Class, King Tut, and of course, Scottie B.

The second disc of Unruly Club Classics, Vol. III is relegated to "Bonus CD" status and not even given a tracklist in the album's packaging. But that disc, a 31-track DJ mix by Scottie B. himself, is the real reason to buy this album. It features several tracks from the first disc in abbreviated form, as well as a much wider selection of club classics, including Rod Lee's "Feel Me," DJ Technics's "Ding-A-Ling," Booman's "Out My Way," and K-Life's "Let's Get High." As a club mix CD, it's far from the best the genre or even the label has to offer, and sometimes Scottie B.'s beatmatching skills leave something to be desired as rhythms fall out of sync a few times during a stretch midway through the mix. But as a faithful representation of what you'd hear in clubs like the Odell's back in the day or Club Choices today, it beats the hell out of the first disc or, for that matter, Bmore Gutter Music.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-03-28

Labels: Baltimore music, Government Names, some shit I wrote, Stylus

This week in Stylus, I contributed to the Non-Definitive Guide to the Artist-Run Label feature, writing the last 2 label profiles for Roc-A-Fella Records (nothing that people don't really already know about in there) and Smells Like Records, who are close to my heart and considerably more obscure. I don't have every release on Steve Shelley's label, and I don't love all of the ones I've heard (the Mosquito album is one of the rare instances in which I took a CD back to the store after one listen for reasons other than scratches on the disc). But it's still probably my favorite tiny indie vanity label ever, and means way more to me than just any old Sonic Youth side project. Here are some of my favorite selections from their catalog:

La Lengua Asesina - "Hotel Opera" (mp3)
For anyone who's ever wondered about the origin of my AOL e-mail address, it's this, the brief slide guitar instrumental title track from Hotel Opera, the 1998 album by La Lengua Asesina, a side project of Tim Foljahn. Foljahn's main project is Two Dollar Guitar, my favorite Smells Like band, who I'll talk more about tomorrow. It kind of amazes me that I've had that e-mail address since shortly after this record came out, almost 8 years ago. Man, that makes me feel old.

Chris Lee - "Mount Venus" (mp3)
One of the most memorable introductions I've ever had to an artist via a live show would have to be when Chris Lee played a Smells Like label showcase in 2001. He opened his set with an amazing solo rendition of Tim Buckley's "Song To The Siren," and then played with the same backing band from his self-titled first album (including Andrew Barker, who I've barely heard anywhere else but might be one of the greatest drummers I've ever seen/heard). Chris Lee is a soul singer with a voice like Steve Perry from Journey with a little Southern twang added in, which might look terrible on paper, but he's made some really good, slept on records, in addition to playing with The Sands. And the best of his 3 solo albums is the one he did for Smells Like, 2001's Chris Lee Plays And Sings Torch'd Songs, Charivari Hymns & Oriki Blue-Marches. His official site has mp3's of some of my favorite songs from him, but here's another that's real quiet and pretty, and is kinda long because there's a hidden instrumental track at the end that sounds pretty awesome awesome..

Scarnella - "Release The Spring" (mp3)
Carla Bozulich's official site has mp3's from throughout her entire career, including some of my favorites by The Geraldine Fibbers ("Lilybelle," "Dragon Lady," "Butch") and Ethyl Meatplow ("Ripened Peach"), but the selection from Scarnella, the wonderfully bizarre 1998 album with Nels Cline, "Death By Northwest," is one of my least favorite tracks on that record. For a record that was made entirely by 2 people in a short span of time, it really does cover a pretty wide range of their abilities, from aggressive noise improv to torch ballads to giddy punk. I'll have to go with "Release The Spring," though, partly for the timeliness of the selection, and partly for that amazing spidery opening guitar riff, and the way Nels stomped on a bass drum to keep time during the song the one time I saw them play as Scarnella, opening for The Boredoms in '99.

Cat Power - "Rockets" (mp3)
I'm of the minority that was only really feeling Cat Power on those first 3 albums with Shelley/Foljahn backing where Chan Marshall's voice really cut through those muddy lo-fi riffs. Moon Pix, while about half really good, was the beginning of the end, as far as smoothing out her sound for a Garden Stateified fanbase that would actually put up with the bullshit she calls a live show.

Christina Rosenvinge - "Green Room" (mp3)
This tune has a somewhat convoluted history, from being penned by Tim Foljahn and originally released as "Chambre Vert" (the title translated to French, although the lyrics were always in Engligh) on the La Lengua Asesina album, and then recorded by Two Dollar Guitar for Weak Beats & Lame Ass Rhymes with Christina Rosenvinge guesting on lead vocals, and then recorded again by pretty much the same personnel (but with a slightly softer, less rock'n'roll arrangement) for Rosenvinge's Frozen Pool album. Plus there's a full band TDG version with Foljahn on vocals that they played on tour, which might be my favorite.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain:

Smells Like

Started: 1992

How It Started: Sonic Youth is an almost an indie cottage industry unto itself, with its various side projects and noise improv one-offs spreading out over countless homegrown labels. Meanwhile, drummer Steve Shelley has quietly gone about building a catalog of of rootsy, down-tempo lo-fi that owes a greater debt to Neil Young than the band's post-punk influences with his Smells Like Records label, over the course of 15 years and a few dozen releases.

Smells Like's first release was a 7-inch by Lou Barlow's Sentridoh, and true to those origins, the label's become something of a haven for side projects, including Dump (Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew), Mosquito (Half Japanese frontman Jad Fair), and Scarnella (a stunning and experimental 1998 collaboration between Carla Bozulich and Nels Cline of the Geraldine Fibbers). But Smells Like is more than just a vanity label for sidelines by estalished indie lifers, having signed a number of young unknowns including The Clears, Nod, and New York crooner Chris Lee, whose 2001 sophomore album stands out as one of Smells Like's finest moments.

Smells Like has also fought to keep cult heroes in print, including a 1994 EP by the reunited Raincoats. But perhaps the label's most ambitious project has been a 1999 campaign of reissues of solo albums by iconoclastic 70's pop songwriter Lee Hazelwood, including his first new album in decades. But Smells Like might still be best known as the home of the SYR imprint, which has issued Sonic Youth's series of experimental EPs, beginning with 1997's SYR1.

Where They Are Now: Smells Like still occasionally takes on new artists, most recently issuing debut albums by Ursa Minor and Tony Scherr. And they continue to foster long-term relationships with new albums by Christina Rosenvinge, Nod, and Fuck frontman Timothy Prudhomme, while Tim Foljahn has been hinting at a new Two Dollar Guitar album for years. The SYR series is still going strong with this year's SYR6, and Smells Like has handled the vinyl releases of Sonic Youth's more recent major label albums and its latest spate of reissues, including the long-awaited repressing of their 1981 debut EP.
[Al Shipley]

Roc-A-Fella

Started: 1995

How It Started: Hip-hop has virtually redefined the business model for artist-run labels, with nearly every up-and-coming MC now aiming for the ownership of their own company. And although Master P's No Limit Records set the standard for the independent grind in the South, no label has been more influential in popularizing the artist-run major label imprint than Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records.

Founded with business partners Damon Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke after they had no luck getting him signed to a major label, Roc-A-Fella issued Jay's earlier singles, including "In My Lifetime," before getting distribution from Priority Records for his debut album, the 1996 classic Reasonable Doubt. It wasn't until 1998 when Roc-A-Fella partnered with Def Jam that Jay-Z was propelled to multi-platinum status, however.

It's to the credit of Jay-Z's marketing skills that he made Roc-A-Fella a recognized brand name despite being one of its only successful artists for several years. Aside from DJ Clue's two platinum mixtape albums, no non-Jay-Z release sold a million copies until Cam'ron's Come Home With Me in 2002. By that point, Roc-A-Fella had only modest sales to show for Philly hardcore rapper Beanie Sigel, Jay's Brooklyn crony Memphis Bleek, and the flop debut by female rapper Amil. But together, they presented a unified front as one of the most feared crews in the rap game.

The 2000 album Dynasty: Roc La Familia, stuffed with posse cuts, went a long way toward establishing the brand. But what really solidified Roc-A-Fella as a sound all its own was Jay-Z's 2001 album The Blueprint, which made in-house producers Just Blaze and Kanye West the hottest beatmakers in the game overnight, and brought soul sampling back in vogue in hip-hop. And in 2004, just months after Jay-Z announced his retirement from hip hop with The Black Album, West became the label's second multi-platinum franchise with his debut as a rapper, The College Dropout.

In recent years, Roc-A-Fella haphazardly expanded its roster, signing countless artists who never ended up releasing an album, including questionable choices like ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and several underutilized veteran rappers. M.O.P. was on the label for years before moving onto a new deal with G-Unit, and Ol' Dirty Bastard passed away while working on an album for the label. Meanwhile, rumors swirled of a growing rift between Jay-Z and Dame Dash, which they denied adamantly right up until their partnership was dismantled.

Where They Are Now: Def Jam were so impressed with Jay-Z's business acumen in running one of the company's most successful labels that in 2004, he was offered the job of President of Def Jam. But the terms of the deal included Jay-Z, Dash, and Burke selling their remaining 50% share of Roc-A-Fella to Def Jam, effectively ending the partnership that the label had started. Dash has moved on with the unsuccessful Damon Dash Music Group, and one of the artists he brought to Roc-A-Fella, Cam'ron, left Def Jam and dissed Jay-Z on record. Aside from Kanye West's sophomore album, the continued success of Roc-A-Fella has yet to be seen, with meager sales of recent albums by Memphis Bleek, the Young Gunz, and Teairra Mari.
[Al Shipley]

Labels: Carla Bozulich, Chris Lee, mp3, Nels Cline, some shit I wrote, Sonic Youth, Stylus, Two Dollar Guitar

Remy Ma - "Crazy" (mp3)
Somehow I got through my entire review of There's Something About Remy without talking about how good this song is. The album is definitely not gonna stay the best I've heard this year, though, slipping down the list pretty quickly. I gotta say, it was really kind of heartwarming to read the other day that Remy is friends with Shawnna, because I could easily picture her being the Foxy Brown type who has to beef with every other chick in the industry.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Remy Ma
There’s Something About Remy
Universal Motown
2006
Stylus rating: B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B

Successful female rappers are such a rare phenomenon that they're usually discussed in hypothetical terms, speculating about what they need to make it: lyrical talent, some sex appeal, but not too much, a just-one-of-the-guys swagger, and ties to a respected crew or male rap star. Of course, post-Lil Kim and Foxy Brown, several female MCs have come down the pike fitting these criteria and selling more than sex. But for every Eve who crosses over and gets a platinum plaque, there's a dozen like Rah Digga and Shawnna plagued with album delays and meager sales.

Remy Ma, formerly known as Remy Martin before looming Cognac copyrights forced the name change, knows a thing or two about release dates getting pushed back. It's been two years since her breakthrough verse on Terror Squad's #1 single, "Lean Back." But her debut LP has been in the works since even before her mentor Big Punisher, one of the greatest rappers of all time, passed away in 2000. The Big Pun collabo on There's Something About Remy, "Thug Love," was even completed specifically for this album while he was still alive. Just think, There's Something About Mary was probably still a current pop culture reference when she titled the album.

That kind of wait would frustrate any artist, but especially so for Remy, whose entire persona seems to be based on an arrogant sense of entitlement. It's a quality that doesn't make people especially likeable, but for rappers it's a classic archetype that can make for hot records, and no female rapper has ever carried a chip on their shoulder quite like Remy. Her first words on There's Something About Remy are “What do you mean I'm your 2nd favorite female rapper? That's crazy, I'm better than most of these niggas...”

Although she sometimes affects the petulant tone of Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (i.e. "Tight"'s temper tantrum: "ain't nobody fuckin' with me, me me me me me me me!"), Remy usually expresses her high self regard by rapping in a bored, slightly pissed off monotone. And nowhere is that approach used to greater effect than on the single "Conceited," where Scott Storch's "Lean Back" rehash works better than it has any right to as Remy recites her daily affirmation, which basically translates to: I'm the shit, I'm better than you, and doggone it, people like me.

Unfortunately, it's not a good omen for an album when the two most appealing songs, "Conceited" and the Swizz Beatz-produced banger "Whuteva," were already singles, and didn't do particularly well on the charts at that. Still, There's Something About Remy is at least consistent, and she turns in uniformly strong verses even over ill-fitting beats like the token Southern joint, "I'm," produced by David Banner. But Remy is at her best when she has a solid concept to sink her teeth into, like "Bilingual" featuring Ivy Queen or the brief, perfectly executed storytelling track, "Guilty."

After nearly an hour of relentless swagger and aggression, Remy finally shows some emotional depth during There's Something About Remy's last two songs. On "What's Going On" featuring Keyshia Cole, Remy raps from the perspective of a pregnant teenager who struggles with the decision to have an abortion. It's the kind of conflicted but vulnerable side that might connect with more listeners than all the bravado and bluster Remy has to offer. The album closes with "Still," a more deliberate attempt to show her vulnerability, but Remy nonetheless manages to come off like a spoiled celebrity with statements like "even people with a fanbase have bad days." By that point, though, it doesn't really matter, because anyone who's still listening has figured out that this is one cocky bitch who's earned the right to brag.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-03-20

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

My adventures in reviewing crap movies continue in this week's City Paper with The Shaggy Dog. Unfortunately I didn't have room to expound on how ridiculous Robert Downey Jr. is in this, how squandered Philip Baker Hall is but still really funny when he says his one line, the obligatory "Who Let The Dogs Out?" scene, or the walking gay joke that is Tim Allen's son in this movie.

Labels: City Paper, movies, some shit I wrote

Jaheim - "Like A DJ" (mp3)
It seems kind of unlikely that 4 R&B albums have hit #1 on Billboard already this year, but what's really ridiculous is that I've posted songs from all of them in the past week. I need to space this stuff out more, I promise I'll ease up on the R&B for a minute. I think Ghetto Classics is the best of the bunch overall, though, Stylus slapped a B- on it but I thought my review pointed more toward a B or B+. This track is kind of unrepresentative in its club-readiness but still, one of the best tracks, and the lyric's whole extended metaphor appeals to music nerds like me.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Jaheim
Ghetto Classics
Warner
2006
Stylus rating:B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B

Either Jaheim Hoagland is consistent to a fault, or he's crafted his album titles to give that impression. 2001's Ghetto Love, 2002's Still Ghetto, and the new Ghetto Classics work their theme as monomanaically as Trick Daddy's five album run of Thug-related titles. But maybe it's the "classics" part that's more key to Jaheim's appeal, because despite modernized hip-hop production touches, his music is all big-hearted, old school soul that owes more than a small debt to Marvin Gaye. He's also a far more skilled disciple of Luther Vandross than, say, Jamie Foxx.

Of course, Jaheim has to reaffirm his ghetto aesthetic on tracks like "I Ain't Never" with references to cooking bricks in the kitchen and standin' on the corner pitchin'. But then, he's one of the few R&B singers today who can pull off such claims convincingly, and sounds right at home when collaborating with the Diplomats or D-Block. In fact, in an R&B climate where sometimes entire albums can be littered with cameos by rappers, Jaheim limits Ghetto Classics to one appearance apiece from Lox members Styles P. and Jadakiss, like he's keeping it all in the family and not just collaborating with rappers for the hell of it.

DJ Kay Gee, the non-rapping third member of Naughty by Nature, has made a graceful transition from the soulful bangers that drove early 90's pop rap to the similar production styles that dominate contemporary R&B. And he's responsible for four of the best tracks on Ghetto Classics, including the new single "The Chosen One," which continues the hit parade of Willie Hutch samples on urban radio that was jumpstarted by the Three 6 Mafia. Elsewhere, hip-hop producers like Scott Storch and Bink! from Roc-A-Fella conform to Jaheim's aesthetic with lush, melodic backdrops that actually suit a singer better than a rapper.

Ghetto Classics might not contain a breakout single as inspired as "Fabulous," which crept into the Top 40 in 2003, but the lack of obvious hits doesn't hurt the listening experience. At 43 minutes, it's Jaheim's shortest album. But it's a smooth, cohesive ride that never lapses into boredom like, say, Ne-Yo's recent debut In My Own Words. And when Ghetto Classics does divert from Jaheim's usual style, it's just once, and results in perhaps the best song on the album.

Propelled by a stuttery keyboard riff and club-ready drums, "Like a DJ" stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the album's pillowy mid-tempo arrangements. But the upbeat dance track is propelled by a perfectly realized lyric paralleling a romantic relationship with a hit record's journey up and down the charts, complete with clever nods to the Vandross sample from Twista's "Slow Jamz." Jaheim laments falling "from top ten, to not even bein' in your countdown," until his lover goes digging in the crates and plays him again. It's a sly metaphor that might have a special resonance for, say, a singer who hasn't released an album in four years and might worry that his fans have moved on. But it's clear that the fanbase Jaheim built with his first two albums hasn't forgotten him, because Ghetto Classics became his first #1 album, despite no hit single and minimal promotion. The narrator of "Like a DJ" might fret about being passed over for a newer sound, but it looks like Jaheim shouldn't have to worry about that.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-03-14

Labels: mp3, R and B, some shit I wrote, Stylus

Jamie Foxx - "Heaven" (mp3)
Large sections of Unpredictable, as covered in my City Paper review, are truly laughable (I'm still not entirely sure that "Storm (Forecass)" isn't supposed to be a quiet storm parody), but he totally pulls it together for the 2 ballads at the end, especially this Stevie-style one that he wrote himself and Babyface produced.

Also in the City Paper, Jim reviews the Grand Buffet show I talked about last week.

Labels: City Paper, Grand Buffet, R and B, some shit I wrote

Ja Rule - "Exodus (Intro)" (mp3)
Today on Stylus, I eulogize the career of Jeffrey Atkins Represents Unconditional Love Existence.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Ja Rule
Exodus
The Inc
2005
Stylus rating: B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: C+

eleasing an album a year is almost standard practice in hip-hop, but few can boast several consecutive years of back-to-back releases, and even fewer can hope to compete with Jay-Z's eight year streak. Though few will admit it, Ja Rule is one of the few who did come close, with six albums in six years and several million sold. But in contrast to Jay's almost unanimous acclaim and popularity, Ja Rule is possibly the most hated multi-platinum artist of the past decade this side of Creed, reviled by critics and underground hip-hop heads alike, as well as probably a fair number of the people who bought his albums.

This isn't entirely Ja Rule's own fault. Plenty of rap stars have taken their fame for granted and insulted their audience's intelligence with brainless love raps, but few took that approach to the bank more successfully and relentlessly than Jeffrey Atkins Represents Unconditional Love Existence. In 2002, after three albums, each of which sold roughly twice as much as the last, mounting anti-Ja sentiment found a very vocal spokesperson in the form of rising superstar 50 Cent, who waged a savage and frequently hilarious smear campaign against his Queens competitor. But contrary to popular belief, 50 Cent didn't halt Ja Rule's career. It was already crumbling. The Last Temptation and its single "Thug Lovin'" featuring Bobby Brown flopped a couple months before Get Rich Or Die Tryin' was released or most people even really knew who 50 Cent was. He just accelerated Ja's downfall.

In a move that can be either be seen as admirable or suicidal, Ja Rule never retreated, even as his fanbase retreated from him, continuing to release albums in 2003 and 2004 that each struggled to reach Gold status. But as 2005 came to a close and his good friend and Murder Inc. label boss Irv Gotti was still embroiled in a money laundering trial, Ja Rule finally broke his album-a-year streak by releasing a greatest hits collection, Exodus, in lieu of a new album. So now, while Ja still seems to be hanging onto the hope of a major comeback, seems to be a good time to look back on what happened to his career in the first place.

Exodus may not be an enticing listen for most, but there's no getting around the fact that it features roughly a dozen of the biggest hip-hop radio hits of the past few years. Although the selection is sometimes muddled by the inclusion of a few new tracks and non-hits, and the conspicuous absence of some major hits, it's nonetheless nearly a complete picture of one of the biggest pop rap franchises of this decade.

Ja's first solo hit, 1999's "Holla Holla" is preceded by two new tracks. "Exodus (Intro)" is a stark reminder that Ja's cookie monster growl really can sound fantastic over gritty New York hip-hop, with an uncharacteristically hard beat from 7 Aurelius, the producer responsible for many of Murder Inc.'s softest, slickest R&B hits. And then there's "Me," a dull attempt at a new club anthem. But from track three onward, the middle 2/3rds of Exodus is a straight up hit parade.

Some of Ja Rule's most sugary pop confections, particularly the Ashanti collaborations "Always On Time" and "Mezmerize," might leave a sour taste, but beyond those, Exodus exhibits a body of work that holds up surprisingly well. ""Livin' It Up" featuring Case and "Wonderful" featuring R. Kelly and Asanti are slick radio jams of the highest order, and "New York" featuring Fat Joe and Jadakiss is one of the East coast's strongest street records of the past couple years.

But even on some of the collection's better songs, the criticisms leveled at Ja Rule are legitimized. Ja was frequently accused of imitating 2Pac and DMX, but on the mournful, sincere "I Cry," he shows range by imitating Scarface. And "Clap Back," the sole inclusion from Blood In My Eye, the 2003 flop released at the height of his beef with 50 Cent, is one of Ja's hardest singles, but also shows how poor he is at hardcore rap without the kind of expert assistance he later got on "New York." "Clap Back" begins with over a minute of Ja ad-libbing, sometimes with multiple voices layered over each other into a paranoid, incomprehensible babble before the hook even starts. And once he does actually rap, it's a venomous, unfocused mess.

"Put It on Me" featuring Vita is one of the greatest, if not the greatest love rap of its era, a dramatic, gamelan-driven masterpiece. But unfortunately, the album version is featured on Exodus instead of the superior single mix in which singer Lil Mo's melodic ad-libs cover up Ja's shortcomings as a hook singer and bolster the song's emotional impact. The disappointing omissions don't end there unfortunately. Rule 3:36's lead single "Between Me And You" featuring Christina Milian is strangely missing, as is the Pain Is Love hit "Down Ass Chick" featuring Charli Baltimore. But while the "I'm Real (Remix)," his 2001 smash with Jennifer Lopez is absent, the superior J. Lo collabo, "Ain't It Funny (Remix)" does appear.

Between Exodus's most recent hits from 2004 and the closing new track "Exodus (Outro)," Ja slips in three non-singles from his first three albums to fill out the CD's 78-minute running time. "Never Again," "Daddy's Little Baby," and "Love Me, Hate Me" are each slightly more serious and lyrical than Ja's best known songs, and go a little way towards showing that Ja Rule made more than just pop jams. But if you want to hear that, the albums themselves are lining used bins everywhere. When you put on Exodus, you want to hear the hits, and for the most part, that's what it gives you.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-03-02

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

A while back, I decided to try something a little different and do some little movie reviews for the City Paper, and told the arts editor, Bret, to feel free to toss me any mainstream flick the real film critics don't want to be bothered with. And I got exactly what I asked for, because my first review is of Aquamarine.

Labels: City Paper, movies, some shit I wrote

YoungBloodZ f/ Daz Dillinger - "Diamond Rings" (mp3)
I was kinda rough on Ev'rybody Know Me in my review on Stylus. There's not much wrong with it on the surface, but it does kind of slide by unmemorably. There are some good tracks, though, mainly the ones produced by Jamil Debardlabon, especially "Datz Me" featuring Young Buck. I think I just like this one because it has the same kind of faint whistle sound that Daz used on T.I.'s "My Life."

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

YoungBloodZ
Ev’rybody Know Me
Zomba
2005
Stylus rating: C
Adjusted rating by reviewer: C-

A perennial hub of Southern rap's commercial explosion, Atlanta is a busy, crowded town. As new stars establish themselves on a seemingly weekly basis, though, local duo YoungBloodZ have remained low on ATL's pecking order, despite kicking around since the late 90's with three major label albums. Their two best known singles, "Damn!" and "85," were driven up the charts primarily by the star power of collaborators Lil Jon and Big Boi, respectively. And although "Damn!" established them in the mainstream and led to some high profile guest spots for YoungBloodZ members Sean Paul and J-Bo, the duo is mainly remembered as just a part of Lil Jon's hit parade.

That it's taken the YoungBloodZ three years to follow up their big breakthrough does them no favors either. Having a Lil Jon track doesn't make for an insta-hit the way it did in 2003's summer of crunk, but lead single "Presidential" follows the formula as if there's still high demand for it. And even with different producers throughout Ev'rybody Know Me, the YoungBloodZ seem only to be trying to recreate the Lil Jon sound with tick-tock hi-hats and sine wave synth lines. But the album does pack some sonic variety, albeit with of-the-moment productions that include a formulaic Mannie Fresh anthem and a formulaic Mr. Collipark intimate club track. Presumably, they wrapped recording too early to jump on the more recent "snap music" or "trap hop" bandwagons. On the other hand, Jazze Pha turns in one of his better recent productions on "Play Ur Position," and newcomer Jamil Debardlabon provides several of the album's best beats.

Despite being saddled with also-ran status, the YoungBloodZ are not without their appeal. They've got chemistry as perfectly balanced as any duo in hip-hop today, with J-Bo's gruff, forceful delivery providing a necessary counterpoint to Sean Paul's fluid drawl. Sean P. is generally regarded as the bigger star of the two, more frequently tapped for guest appearances and involved in a group with Bubba Sparxxx and Timbaland. But where Sean Paul gets by largely on his laid back charisma, J-Bo switches his flows up more often and generally is more interesting over the course of Ev'rybody Know Me. Lyrically, neither strays far from the drunk/crunk axis of subject matter, but manage some sharp punchlines nonetheless.

Of course, whenever a magnetic guest passes through the album, both YoungBloodZ are bumped down to second banana status. Young Buck of G-Unit handily steals "Datz Me," and relative unknown Ben-Hated grabs the spotlight on "Sum'n Like A Pimp," with a catchy flow, stretching syllables way out at the end of each line. Sean Paul and J-Bo might be able to hang onto their lowly rung of the Southern hip-hop food chain if they stick with their famous producers and guests, but if they keep getting upstaged, they'll never climb up any higher.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-02-22

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

Talib Kweli - "Right About Now" (mp3)
By far my favorite song on Kweli's newish sorta album/"official sucka free mix CD" (ugh) is the brief, hookless intro title track where he babbles about his career and hates on bootleggers and his former labels. Great beat!

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Talib Kweli
Right About Now
Koch
2005
Stylus rating: B-
Adjusted rating by reviewer: C+

Looking at Talib Kweli's career arc over the past few years, I can't help but think he blew it. Ever since 1998's Black Star, when I was of the minority opinion that he quietly outshined Mos Def in terms of lyrical talent, if not charisma, I'd been rooting for him. 2000's underrated Train Of Thought ingratiated him to me further, as did the fact that he was one of the few conscious rappers at the time who was giving props to Ice Cube and Jay-Z in interviews. I never necessarily thought he had the tools for serious stardom, but he had the kind of open mind and varied lyrical content that could bridge the still gaping divide between commercial and backpacker rap.

And with "Get By," he actually did bridge that gap, at least a little, with a song that had a preachy and vaguely uplifting message but was still hot enough for radio to spin it and for Busta Rhymes and Jay-Z to jump on the remix. Of course, the producer of that song was Kanye West, who went on to bridge that gap more explicitly and much more successfully, labeling himself "the first rapper with a Benz and a backpack." Meanwhile, Kweli, had to deal with the downside of raised expectations for his next album after "Get By," as 2004's Beautiful Struggle was widely bootlegged, and then delayed, and then released to poor sales and worse reviews. Beautiful Struggle wasn't exactly the hopeless mess that many fed up backpackers and critics made it out to be (including David Drake here at Stylus), but there's definitely a palpable sense that he was dropping the ball.

With hopes of crossing over to the mainstream, or at the very least into New York's elite of middleground MCs, dashed, Kweli's first release since Beautiful Struggle is Right About Now. Awkwardly subtitled “The Official Sucka Free Mix CD,” it's not quite an album, full of new music and recent outtakes, and released with little advance promotion on indie powerhouse Koch Records, before Kweli moves onto his next major deal and proper album with Warner Music Group.

On the opening track, "Right About Now," Kweli establishes right off the bat his motivation for turning out a quickie mini-album outside the major label system: "I'm gonna give it to you before the bootleggers get a hold of it." He also airs out the entire saga of label changes that have plagued his career, from Rawkus's deal with MCA (referred to as "Music Cemetery of America") to being shuffled around to Geffen and mishandled by Interscope ("Jimmy Iovine never signed me, I just kinda ended up there"). The frank, terse way Kweli describes this turn of events comes off as both sour grapes and surprising honesty. And, because of the lush, rattling 88 Keys instrumental, it's also the early high point of the album.

The rest of Right About Now features few moments as revealing, as Kweli returns to his comfort zone of tracks that would've fit on any of his previous albums. Kweli admits in the liner notes that several tracks were outtakes from the Beautiful Struggle sessions, along with mixtape holdover "Supreme, Supreme" featuring Mos Def. But Beautiful Struggle's flirtations with superproducers like the Neptunes and Just Blaze are long gone, as longtime collaborators like Dave West and the late Jay Dilla return to hold down the granola indie-rap beats. The uniformity of the production aesthetic is so thick that even an appearance by MF Doom on "Fly That Knot" fails to stand out.

Standing out might be the biggest obstacle facing the bulk of Right About Now's 12 tracks. It's significantly shorter than Kweli's best album, Train of Thought, but has far fewer shifts in sound or mood to keep it interesting. Tracks like "Who Got It" and "Flash Gordon" feature thunderous beats and some of Kweli's most confident flows, but disappear into the background when all the tracks are lined up next to each other. And then there's "The Beast," on which Kweli is guilty of the crime he's most often accused of: political tracks on which he raps at his angriest but also his sloppiest, spilling words all over the beat and cramming syllables and losing track of the meter.

One of the tracks on Right About Now that does stand out, for better or worse, is "Ms. Hill," Kweli's overly earnest ode to Lauryn Hill. Over a melancholy piano loop and a sped up Ben Kweller sample that makes the alt-rock singer-songwriter sound even more like a chipmunk, Kweli expresses sympathy for L-Boogie's situation as an incredibly famous and respected artist who's become increasingly criticized for her erratic and reclusive behavior. Although Kweli goes out on a limb to back up a peer and ends up coming off as a defensive fan, one has to admire the passion with which he pleads her case.

Kweli reaffirms his underground values with some choice words for the commercial rap world throughout Right About Now. And although frequently the first conscious rapper to extend an olive branch to mainstream artists, he does criticize hip hop's status quo in songs like "Drugs, Basketball, & Rap." And in the liner notes accompanying the song, he takes shots at hip hop's current platinum elite: "It is not a coincidence that T.I. and Jeezy call where they hustle at the trap. Capitalism is the bait and niggas are donkeys chasing that carrot on a stick." Between comments like that and Young Jeezy sideman Slick Pulla's recent subliminal disses against Little Brother, a whole new commercial/conscious rap divide could be widening before our eyes right about now.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-02-17

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus

This week in the City Paper, I'm back on the local release round up beat with some more of that Baltimore hip hop: DNA's Harm City Volume 5 mixtape, B. Rich's new album, and Under Sound Music's new compilation. Accompanying posts with mp3's will be going up on Government Names over the next few days.

Labels: Baltimore music, City Paper, Government Names, hip hop, some shit I wrote

Biggie Duets review in City Paper. I actually think there's some pretty good tracks on this, especially the surprisingly good Missy/Scott Storch one, but no mp3 because it's one of those bullshit copy-protected CDs that won't even play on my computer.

Labels: City Paper, hip hop, some shit I wrote

Three 6 Mafia - "Testin' My Gangsta" (mp3)
A pre-"Stay Fly" Willie Hutch sample from Da Unbreakables which wasn't a hit as far as I remember, but nonetheless is worthy of being resurrected on Most Known Hits. Still can't believe they got an Oscar nod.

Note: In light of the end of Stylus in 2007, I decided to archive the text of all my reviews for the site on this blog for posterity, since I don't what the future holds for the Stylus domain, and have included both the letter grade ratting that accompanied the original review, and an adjusted rating that I would give the record now in retrospect.

Three 6 Mafia
Most Known Hits
Columbia
2005
Stylus rating: B+
Adjusted rating by reviewer: B+

"Stay Fly" may have busted the doors down for Three 6 Mafia to finally become commercial hitmakers in 2005, but as they acknowledged on the accompanying album's title, Most Known Unknown, Three 6 have been operating on the fringes of the mainstream for roughly half of their decade-plus career. With a fistful of regional hits and at least a half dozen albums selling gold or near-platinum, the Memphis collective could hardly have been considered obscure before "Stay Fly." But with TRL and daytime radio on their jock and MTV offering them their own show, their status appears to be at an all-time high, the perfect time to release the greatest hits album and let the new jacks catch up. In other words, it's the package that casual fans like me, who've always enjoyed their singles and guest spots, but are intimidated by Three 6's huge back catalog and constant onslaught of new music, have been waiting for.

Released hot on the heels of Most Known Unknown and notably omitting "Stay Fly" as to not take away sales from that album, Most Known Hits covers the entirety of Three 6's major label career, starting with 1997's Chapt. 2: World Domination. And it begins with the two tracks that until recently were the group's biggest hits, both collaborations with Houston veterans: 2003's "Ridin' Spinners" featuring Lil Flip, and 2000's "Sippin' On Some Syrup" featuring UGK. They also set the precedent for the closest thing to a hit-making formula that the Three 6 Mafia has come up with so far, which consists of making an anthem about a trend or accessory already popular in Southern hip hop, including "Ridin' Spinners" (spinning rims), "Sippin' On Some Syrup" (recreational cough syrup consumption), "2 Way Freak" (Motorola two-way pagers), and "Tongue Ring" (sexually suggestive piercings). Other common themes among their hits include time-tested favorites: sex ("Slob On My Knob," "Ass & Titties," "Squeeze It") and violence ("Tear Da Club Up '97," "Hit A Muthafucka").

Of course, it's not the subject matter that's endeared Three 6 Mafia to a worshipful cult of fans, but the production of the group's only two permanent members, DJ Paul and Juicy J, the Super Producers. Many rappers have come and gone throughout Three 6's career before the lineup was whittled down to its current configuration: the two core members and Crunchy Black. But the only constants are Juice and Paul's dark, lush instrumentals, and the blocky, halting cadence of their raps. The fact that their sound has remained so consistent over the course of tracks that cover a nine-year timeline is a testament to Three 6's commitment to a strain of Southern hip-hop that scarcely had a presence on the pop charts until fairly recently.

To their credit, Three 6 Mafia have made what's likely to be seen as a quickie cash-in into a well-sequenced collection that holds together as an album. Many tracks segue gracefully into each other with fade-ins and fade-outs. And in addition to the hit singles, the selection of less obvious tracks is top-shelf, including "Hypnotize Cash Money," a 1999 collaboration with the Hot Boyz and the Big Tymers, and "Testin' My Gangsta," one of Three 6's dopest Willie Hutch sample-lifts prior to "Stay Fly." The absence of "Stay Fly" and one of the biggest hits to ever come out of the HCP, Project Pat's "Chicken Head," means that Most Known Hits isn't quite the comprehensive hits collection it could've been, but it's damn close enough.

Reviewed by: Al Shipley
Reviewed on: 2006-02-02

Labels: hip hop, mp3, some shit I wrote, Stylus