Tag Archives: rap

Snoop Dogg at the Regency, SF (17/4/2014)

5 May

It’s been quite some time since 1992 when a young Snoop Doggy Dogg stepped into the game on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. A lot has happened since then, including the death of 2Pac, some experiments with reggae and a Call of Duty voice pack, but Snoop is still one of the giants of hip-hop and a fine man to see live.

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Snoop is also a man with an unquestioned ability to have fun. This was not so much a concert as party time with Uncle Snoop. In the middle of the concert, he played Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and just chanted the chorus with the crowd. His charisma is undeniable and his happiness was clearly genuine and very infectious. I don’t think it is possible to go to a Snoop Dogg concert and not have fun.

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This playfulness resulted in a far more eclectic show than I expected. Not only did a Joan Jett song make an appearance, but also Kriss Kross’s “Jump”, and even The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize”. Of course, he followed that with the west coast classic “2 Of Americaz Most Wanted”, sadly without the associated 2Pac hologram.

He dropped classics from all across his career over the show. From “Lodi Dodi” and “Gin & Juice” from his debut album Doggystyle to “P.I.M.P” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot” to as recent a song as “Hit Da Pavement” from 7 Days of Funk. His has been a long and storied career and we were treated to the entirety of it.

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Uncle Snoop took us out for one of the most fun nights that I’ve ever had. No one can make rap look as easy as he does.

– @murthynikhil

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Childish Gambino: because the internet

5 Jan

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Childish Gambino’s second album because the internet is in parts brilliant. It is also in parts terrible. In that respect, it does bring to mind its namesake. It also comes with a 75 page script for a screenplay. That however, does not bring to mind its namesake. At least it wouldn’t were it not filled with emojis, internet-speak and embedded videos. You can read it here if you choose to. I did not.

Briefly, the screenplay is about “The Boy”, really Donald Glover, who lives off his wealthy father, really Rick Ross, and lives in the internet. The theme of the internet is sprinkled in impressively throughout the album. Interestingly, the sheer density of references to the immediate present give the album a slightly futuristic feel. These lyrics would not look out of place on reddit. On one hand, he sneaks ain’t nobody got time for that into a line, but on the other he makes a chant of GPOY into a chorus which, while not as bad as it seems on paper, is still pretty bad. This sort of inconsistency flows into the rest of the lyrics as well. Clever C-3PO lines and an excellent play on KKK sit next to Bangkok puns. Throwaway references to subjects like the Gaza strip don’t do much either. Still, he is the only person in rap who would make a line out of onomatopoeia.

He has all the technical skill he needs as a rapper and his production is excellent. The album comes in harder than Camp, he practically opens with the line “And I still put it down like the family dog.” He is actually quite a good singer as well, showing up well on “telegraph ave.” and the Weeknd-like “flight of the navigator.” I really like “3005” and the music video that goes with it and the entire final run from “flight of the navigator” to “life: the biggest troll.” I just don’t like having to skip past the other half of the album.

This is certainly an interesting album and it contains enough quality to deserve quite a few listens but is ultimately too unreliable to unreservedly recommend.

– @murthynikhil

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Earl Sweatshirt: Doris

22 Dec

It’s been a while since Earl Sweatshirt has been on a mic. His wordsmithing and flow is much of what made Odd Future into the sensation that they have become. Now, after a long stint at a Samoan retreat for at-risk teens, he is back, has moved from gut-provoking to insightful and in doing so released an excellent exception to this year of mediocre rap.

This is an album that unabashedly requires and rewards work from the listener. The first few times I heard it, it felt more monotonous than mellifluous to me. On repeated listens though, that monotony reveals itself to be deeper and more oppressive than at first blush. Rap has changed from this style of production, now it struts in suits instead of shuffling around, hands in pockets, in the underground. This album comes at you hard and strong the way rap should.

The deep and dark productions fit the deep and dark lyrics well. There are so many standout moments in the murkiness of the album. Earl absolutely destroys in Burgundy as he goes over how he’s struggling with being a commodity. Hoarse runs off a sick, shifting beat and absolutely dazzling wordplay to submerge and almost suffocate the listener. Chum drops you straight into a litany of family issues and leaves you to learn how to swim in it (It’s probably been twelve years since my father left, left me fatherless/And I just used to say I hate him in dishonest jest/When honestly I miss this nigga, like when I was six/And every time I got the chance to say it I would swallow it).

Additionally, the guest spots do incredible work. Vince Staples steals Hive from Earl and Frank Ocean does great work in the trippy Sunday. Big brother Tyler is unmistakeable in Sasquatch (Man, I suck now, I ain’t still dope (nope)/But Chris and Rihanna’s fuckin’ again so there’s still hope/Oh fuck, I went there, balling bitch, I’m Ben’s hair). My favorite though is the RZA dropping the hook in Molasses, which would fit in a Wu-Tang album even without him.

Doris is real rap. The kind of rap parents worry about and that gives kids who shouldn’t be listening anyway nightmares. Rap for people who want to think and talk. Rap so good that it’s broken. Rap you should listen to.

– @murthynikhil

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Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP 2

1 Dec

With one shining exception, this has been the year of mediocre rap album from big name artists. The Marshall Mathers LP 2, despite being Eminem’s best album since The Eminem Show, does nothing to buck this trend.

Let’s start by playing the good guy, writing the review that even Buzzfeed would accept. As ever, Eminem is a lyrical titan. I would cannot think of a single rapper whom I put above Eminem in terms of wordplay. Sometimes scary (So I sneak vengefully and treat your bedroom window/Like I reach my full potential, I peaked), sometimes scatological (In a public stall droppin’ a football/So every time someone walks in the john I get maddened), but always scintillating. Dense, unexpected and humorous, his lines hold up his own standard and there is no bar quite as high.

Some of the music on this album is indisputably incredible. Bad Guy is an excellent self-aware commentary on Em that switches sharply in the middle. So Far… is not only brilliant in all the standard Slim Shady ways, but novel sounding as well. Headlights, Marshall’s version of Dear Mama had me feeling more sympathetic for Slim than I have in a long time. The Monster shows Rihanna to great advantage and while Love Game is far below what you would expect from a K.Dot collaboration, it is still a solid song.

On the other hand though, I skip past half of the songs in the album every time I listen. Rap God, despite being an astounding displaying of Em’s lyrical abilities just gets repetitive very quickly. The words may have changed, but it’s hard not to feel like I’ve heard that song before. I now dislike stadium rap much more than before thanks to Survival, which is actually not too bad, and Berzerk, which is. So Much Better is a very strange take on the history of rap, and let alone a candle, can’t even hold a spill, to I Used To Love H.E.R.. Worst of all, Stronger Than I Was is an atonal, unlistenable mess. Rap has changed from the times when Eminem was relevant, but he really shouldn’t try to change with them.

Also, as always, Slim does not stint on the homophobia (although there is a shout out to Frank Ocean’s excellent Swim Good) and misogyny. If that affects you, then I would advise avoiding this album, but I think it unlikely that you would be a Shady fan in the first place. However, the hate and violence lack the shock value they held over a decade ago. His attacks also feel less incisive. The Gwen Stefani shot for instance (Good luck trying to convince a blonde/That’s like telling Gwen Stefan’ that she sold out/Cause I was tryna leave, No Doubt/In anyone’s mind…) is clever, but is also the first time in years that I thought about Gwen Stefani.

This is in places a great album, and Eminem cements his place as the most technically accomplished rapper in the game and possibly all time with it, but is far from his first three albums and far from enough to return him to relevance.

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Drake: Nothing Was The Same

1 Oct

Drake has changed since Take Care. More swagger, more bragging and sadly less quality. Where Take Care at least painted a more sinister, more complex picture of the man, Nothing Was The Same is the album of a mediocre rapper that happened to end up doing okay. It is far from a bad album, it’s just an unimportant one.

Don’t get me wrong, he has some pretty good cuts on this album, but it’s the kind of album where the quite good The Language is followed by the absolutely atrocious 305 To My City. The grating thing is how far he seems to believe he has come. A song like Started From The Bottom is very listenable, if not particularly deep, but his boasts feel baseless. Wu-Tang Forever could have been a good song, but sampling that hook only reminds you just how soft Drake really is. Hold On, We’re Going Home is a good song, just not the groundbreaking release he seems to think it is. I’ll give Nothing Was The Same this though, listening to it did get me to listen to a lot of classic albums again, just to remember what exactly good rap sounds like.

To summarize, with Nothing Was The Same we have a passable rap album that will keep Drake up near the top of the charts. Listening to it again, it’s amusing how much the beginning sounds like 808s & Heartbreak. It’s as if Drake wants to tell us he’s years behind Kanye West. Also, what happened to 5 A.M in Toronto? That was Drake living up to the hype.

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Jay-Z: Magna Carta … Holy Grail

22 Jul

I’m sure no one doubts just how awesome Jay-Z’s life is. He’s married to Beyonce, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, undoubtedly one of the greatest rappers of all time, and married to Beyonce. Besides, he’s never been shy about telling us all of this. You can’t have a Jay-Z album without some self-congratulation in every song, and we love him for it. No, I don’t doubt that his life his awesome, just that his latest album is.

Magna Carta … Holy Grail is far from a terrible album. The beats are fine, there is plenty of classic Hov lyrics and flow and some truly exceptional moments. For instance, Jay Z Blue and Nickels and Dimes are both excellent by any standard and F.U.T.W. is quite good. However, these stand-out moments are the exception to the mediocrity that defines this album. Even worse, they are often balanced by moments best forgotten. Letting Justin Timberlake take the first 80 seconds of your album takes quite some effort to forgive.

At 43, maybe we should expect an album that is more business than rap, and certainly the strongest songs are only about topics Jay could address at this stage in his life – fatherhood and philanthropy. Whatever the reasons may be, the result is album best forgotten. This is promising to be a very strong year for rap, but Magna Carta … Holy Grail doesn’t hold a place in it.

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Deltron 3030 at Stern Grove, San Francisco (30/6/2013)

1 Jul

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Deltron 3030 is a supergroup consisting of producer Dan the Automator, rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and Kid Koala. Their first and only album Deltron 3030 is a space rap opera that laid the seeds from which the Gorillaz were to grow. Their second album, Event II is set to be released this fall and they have started touring again. Today, they played the Stern Grove festival and they were incredible.

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The set started with half an hour of Kid Koala all by himself. With no laptop and no headphones, he took us all to school in the art of turntabling. He started with a homage to Louie Armstrong that could have slipped into Future Shock with no questions asked. From there he dropped an eclectic set featuring a Jay-Z beat, his four-year-old child’s favorite song and “a song for the 50-year old women out there”. In case you couldn’t tell, it was great fun.

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From there we had a lengthy break for set-up and then Deltron 3030 came out to 3030 from their eponymous album. This is my personal favorite Deltron song and it was excellent live. The song is marked by the soundscapes it presents and the backing symphony did a great job in setting the atmosphere. It was the trio though that owned the stage. With Del rocking a Star Trek shirt, Dan’s conductor guise and Kid Koala’s infinite charisma, they were by far the stars of their own show, as well they should be.

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The set was a pretty equal mix of Deltron 3030 and Event II songs, which was an interesting mix of familiar and brand new. Dan the Automator had to teach us the chorus of one of the songs before it started and then cued us in so that we could sing along. Of course, for Deltron songs, the crowd came in knowing the words. 3030, Virus, Mastermind, Positive Contact and Memory Loss all had the crowd pumped from the opening bars. The new songs gave this concert a freshness I have rarely experienced. If the purpose of this tour is to hype Event II, then it worked for me. I am definitely stoked for its upcoming release. Having said that though, the standout moment of the concert came with the encore when they dropped Clint Eastwood, a song both Del and Dan played pretty large parts in.

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Deltron 3030 was a landmark album and sounds as innovative now as it did nearly fifteen years ago. All three of the artists are rulers of the underworld in their own right and together they are unmatched. Their live show only bolstered my respect for them and I am very excited to see what will come next. This is the standard to which rap concerts should be held.

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Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP

24 Feb

Only once in a while do we come across greatness, whether it is in the form of movies, art, literature or music. Greatness which doesn’t present itself to us in the form of a fluke, but sheer talent. Greatness which can be spoken about, even a hundred years after the particular event/form of art has been created. I’m going to talk about one such masterpiece that I was lucky enough to observe at its inception.

This particular art is none other than Eminem’s 2nd major label album- The Marshall Mathers LP. The album is one of the most aggressive and important music albums to release during a time when the frustrated, directionless and angry youth was trying desperately to find someone they could relate themselves to. A time when hypocrites and fakes were rampant in the music industry. This time was during the late 90’s & the year 2000.

Just when people got used to calling Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys as the greatest artists of all time, Marshall Mathers aka Eminem aka Slim Shady stepped onto the scene.

Eminem changed the face of hip-hop & rap, particularly with his album, The Marshall Mathers LP, which came out on May 23, 2000. This album, apart from being extremely controversial, it eventually sold 10,598,000 copies, becoming one of the most commercially successful rap albums of all time. It has been ranked as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time by Rolling Stone, Time, and XXL. It is also one of the only albums to be acclaimed by critics, as well as the mainstream-pop loving- audience. It influenced us all.

Every song on the album was a classic; even the skits were worth listening to. The album starts off with the satirical “Public Service Announcement 2000” where Eminem reminds us in under a minute that he doesn’t mind being sued over what he raps about. It smoothly merges into one of the most shocking diss songs – “Kill You”. Eminem aggressively takes shots at his ex-wife, Kim, the mainstream radio shows and yes, his own mother.

The next song on the album is the famous “Stan”, where Em talks about obsession from a deranged fan’s point of view. It is a brilliant song- right from Eminem’s solid storyline verses, to Dido’s haunting hook. After this song, we have a skit called “Paul”, where Eminem’s attorney, Paul Rosenberg seems dejected after listening to this album.

The next song is “Who Knew”. This is an extremely raw song, which reminds me of the songs on the Slim Shady LP, Eminem’s first mainstream album. Eminem is at his most honest and straightforward self in this song, where he questions parent’s upbringing of their children. For instance, pay close attention to the lines- “Told them that my tape taught them, to swear/ What about the makeup you allow your 12 year old daughter to wear?”

The end of this song marks the beginning of a skit called “Steve Berman”, where Steve gives Eminem a piece of his mind because he hates the album’s themes and he compares his album to Dr. Dre’s Chronic 2001 explaining why the latter was so successful. Next on the list is “The Way I Am” where Eminem reminds the world why he doesn’t give a f*** and warns us to leave him alone in peace. This is followed by “The Real Slim Shady” where Em tells us how despite millions of people imitating him, there will be only one Eminem.

The next song is “Remember Me” featuring RBX and Sticky Fingaz. All 3 rappers produce solid verses which soothe as much as they sting. This song has one of the best Dr. Dre beats in it. After this, “I’m Back” commences, which is one of the most aggressive songs Eminem has done, even without his trademark screaming. He reminds us that he is back with a vengeance and is here to stay. This sparks the next song which is “Marshall Mathers” where Em tells us that he’s just a normal human being like the rest of us, and how his fame & fortune paved way for even the most hostile people to embrace him.

Now, the next song is a skit called “Ken Kaniff”. I’d rather not give a description of what exactly happens in the skit, but it’s basically where Em makes fun of Shaggy 2 Dope & Violent Jay, two other artists who Em had a beef going on with for many years even after the album was out. The next song is “Drug Ballad”, where Em talks about the ill effects of drugs, in his own twisted, satirical way.

This is followed by “Amityville” which features ex-D-12 member, Bizarre. Eminem raps about how he’ll kill you if he’s pushed too far, especially in Detroit. Bizarre gives us one of the craziest verses in rap history. You better hear it to believe it. The next song is “Bitch Please” which has a star studded guest feature- Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Xzibit. All the artists show off their rapping skills, where as usual, Eminem outshines the rest.

The next song is the brutal “Kim” where Eminem kills his wife after catching her cheating with him. After this, Eminem gives us another hard hitting, vulgar song “Under The Influence” which features his group D-12, of which he’s a part.

The final song is “Criminal”, which, personally is one of my all time favourite Eminem songs. He is crazy, funny, brutal and serious at the same time. The song also includes a funny skit where he and Dr. Dre pull off a bank heist without getting caught.

So there you have it. I actually reviewed the entire album tracklist in the correct order without even looking at the album back-cover. Yes, such fans do exist, and there is a REASON why such fans exist. I hope whoever reads this gives this album a listen. Especially those who think rap & hip-hop is comprised of only people like Nicki Minaj, Soulja Boy etc.

– Faisal

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Childish Gambino: “Bonfire”

26 Jun

“Childish Gambino, homegirl drop it like the NASDAQ
Move white girls like there’s coke up my asscrack
Move black girls cause, man, fuck it, I’ll do either
I love pussy, I love bitches, dude, I should be runnin’ PETA.”

Childish Gambino (known also as Community star and 30 Rock writer Donald Glover) leaves no room for any doubt about his intentions with “Bonfire,” the first single from his latest album Camp. “Bonfire” is essentially one long unrelenting rant, from start (wailing klaxons, haunting gospel chant and a jarring syncopated drum-machine snare beat), to finish (one word – “bitch”). Along the way, we’re treated to an onslaught of offbeat and off-colour references, masterfully-crafted punnery and sheer unadulterated emotion, with some catchy hooks thrown in for good measure. While this version of Gambino has turned some people off (I’m looking at you, Pitchfork), for your sake I hope that’s not the case. Sit back, listen and enjoy.

The Gambino you’ll hear on this track is the raw unabashed Gambino from his earlier (free) single “Freaks & Geeks”, dialled up to 11. Gambino’s boasts are as frequent and grand as they are hilarious and fierce. You’ll find yourself grinning in appreciation at lyrics like “My dick is like an accent mark, it’s all about the over E’s” and “I made the beat retarded so I’m calling it a slow jam.” Or at least, you will if you manage to keep up with the fast-paced, blink-and-you’ll-miss it speed at which such gems are dropped.

That also applies to the pop-culture references liberally scattered over the track – Gambino seems to have made sweet passionate love to some form of pop-culture goddess (Aubrey Plaza perhaps?) in order to produce this single. Invader Zim? Check. Toe-Jam and Earl? Check. Hidden insult aimed at Drake? Check. Not all of his references work quite as well as they should (there are probably better ways to bring up Human Centipede) but Gambino delivers them all with absolute commitment.

Ironically,the song’s music video is where Gambino falls short. While it is indeed a wonderfully conceptualized and filmed piece of art, the story in the video just doesn’t quite match the lyrics and intention of the song. You’ll see Donald Glover in fine acting form, but not in Gambino persona.

Verdict: Bonfire is a song that needs to be listened to once, then once again after looking up the lyrics, and then once again after looking up all the references you may not have understood. After that, just sit back and take a break. Then go listen to it again. By now, a large chunk of you will have fallen in love with all that Gambino has to offer. For those few who remain (poor, poor Pitchfork), Gambino has some parting remarks:

“Rap’s Step-father: yeah you hate me, but you will respect.”

– Manickam.

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