As cool as living in a 24-hour town like Las Vegas is, it sucks to be away from my best friend. Fortunately we do manage to keep in contact. Here’s some feedback he recently sent me;
I just read your piece on Amerie, it must suck to not have a good hip hop radio station out there. (Dude, you’ve got no idea) I tried to tell you about that song like 2 months ago (And I, not having heard the song probably said something like “that’s dope, I can’t wait to hear it”), there’s 3 remixes out now. I’m not sure if the other 2, 1 with jay z, (more on that in a minute) and the other with Eve are legit, I think a dj threw them together or not, but the one with Fab is clearly real.
The Jay-Z one is hilarious, the lyrics have nothing to do with the song, it sounds like she went to Jigga for the remix and he was like, “uh, look, I’m busy now so I can’t really give you an original rap but tell you what, these are some out takes from the dynasty album, and tell you what else, they’re 30 percent off, take whatever coherent rhymes you want.”
It’s awful, his voice sounds good over it because it’s an ill beat and as soon as you hear him you know he’s gonna kill it, but it sucks. It sounds beneath him, it’s almost off beat and the end is not even a full 8 bars and it kinda just trails off, it’s comedy! I only heard the Eve one once, Nicole said it was hot. But yeah, that song is ill; it’s all over the DC station of course for the go-go influence so I’m almost sick of it. It’ll be the summer jam, or at least the pre summer jam.
I suppose that I should take comfort that I live in a place where songs don’t get played out. I never have to worry about getting sick of a song. Joy.
Jason and I have had some pretty fun times involving music. In fact music really helped us become the friends we are today.
Y’see my barber in college was Jason’s roommate, so we kind of hung out by default. To Jason, I was “the tall dude with the fro from Arizona” to Jason was “that guy who was in The Source.” But how we initially began our mutual respect for each other was from a tape that I made. I put the Bad Boy freestyles from the second Funk Flex album on the tape. We both dug the songs and were both like “oh, he’s got taste.”
But our musical tastes were more similar than we knew. We also had an appreciation for “other” types of music. When you go to a Black College, it’s kind of taboo to have a diverse ear for music. But we influenced each other; he put me down with Bob James and I put him down Unkle.
Jason’s musical knowledge slayed me. We used to bug out when listening to my TV Theme Song cds. I was amazed that he knew the lyrics to The Beverly Hillbillies. I mean this was a dude from Harlem. He even knew the lyrics to Branded. It was almost surreal.
Jay was a beast at karaoke. You have not heard Baby, One More Time or You Oughta Know until you’ve heard them sung by a 5’10½”, 170 lb, half Black/half Puerto Rican. Seriously, it’s a sight to behold.
Basically I’m missing Baltimore a lot right now, but mostly because I miss my best friend.
Beanie Sigel
Speaking of Jason, he was the one who told me that one day I’d be a fan of Beanie Sigel. Well he’s finally right; I am a fan of Beans.
I admit that I wasn’t feelin’ Beans initially. I honestly wasn’t feeling anyone from The Roc, outside of Jay. But to be fair I wasn’t really giving Beanie any attention. I just wasn’t trying to hear him.
What really opened my ear to Sigel was his beef with Jadakiss. The beef started with something Jada said in a Hip Hop magazine, which lead to his Beanie Sigel diss on Uh Huh from his debut. Beans responded in turn, taking the beat from Put Your Hands Up and destroying it. The battle went on, and escalated to involving State Property and D Bloc. (If you weren’t/aren’t aware of this beef; that’s because it was real and not created just for album buzz. Maybe I’ll give it some shine in a future column.)
Now I can admit that Beanie was spitting fire, but at the time I blinded by my loyalty to Jada and company and refused to acknowledge Sigel’s skills. But basically that was when the bug was put in my ear.
I later did grow to respect him due to his verses on This Can’t Be Life and Guess Who’s Back (which were in heavy rotation due to the sick beats.) Anyway I went out and picked up Beans’ latest album The B. Coming from HipHopSite.com. They had a deal that if you copped the album they threw in DJ Green Lantern’s Beanie Sigel – Public Enemy #1. Needless to day Beanie does his thing. It’s just a shame he’s locked up right now.
So there you have it Jay; I’m a Sigel fan, you were right.
Dame Dash
Shawn had to suffer through 13 Going On 30. How did everyone remember the choreography to Thriller?
Aaron has a sensitive Taye Diggs. But really, is there any other kind? And what about poor Nick?
Kyle continues his Coachella coverage.
Mike Eagle spills the beans on Talib, who is shorter than you’d expect him to be. I’ve got a Talib story and even some Talib hearsay, but, I’m just saying.
Gloomchen offers more reasons why being deaf rocks…
While Tom just offers rock.
Kareem “Biggs” Burke
Ian’s got tidbits on Eagles of Death-Metal and Radiohead.
Phil has reasons to look forward to May, and Usher dry-dissing Prince. The gall!
Five Dope Radiohead Videos
1. Just
2. Fake Plastic Trees
3. There There
4. No Alarms
5. Idioteque
