Just helped out on this piece over at Takin’ Mines:
Released just a week after the one year anniversary of Nas’ Illmatic, Mobb Deep’s Loud debut, The Infamous, is nothing short of a masterpiece. Although historically, Illmatic has been held to the standard as the best rap album of all time, it’s fair to consider The Infamous as the equivalent of Da Vinci’s Virgin and Child with St. Anne, to his former Mona Lisa.. Illmatic. Imagine younger, mischievous twin brothers to your high school’s star quarterback/prom king.. that’s them Mobb Deep boys Hav and P, compared to Esco (yes, even though Nas was wavin’ automatic guns at Nuns). Well enough of the analogies, we’ll leave that to our words and their raps, as featured in today’s special edition of Rewind Wednesdays.
More Food Rap action from Phillip “Millitainment” Mlynar:
Roc Marciano’s Reloaded is here! It’s a brilliant record, a shoe-in for top-spot on any sane end-of-year album poll, and, just like its predecessor Marcberg, it brims with references to food and fine dining. (It has also inexplicably made Roc Marcy somewhat trendy for a brief moment, but we’re sure the normal order of the Internet will be restored the next time Kendrick Lamar sharts on a song or something.) So just like 2010′s worldwide viral phenomenon post, The Unkut Guide To Marcberg Food References, here’s a rummage through Roc Marcy’s Reloaded pantry. Now go ‘head and blacken that tipalia! (more…)
Earlier this summer, Kool Keith was standing up at a dive bar in Midtown Manhattan nursing a glass of chardonnay in his hand. I was there to interview Keith, which turned out to be a process that largely involved listening to a bunch of lengthy speeches phrased in the rapper’s own kooky way. At one point Keith mentioned Godfather Don, and I managed to ask him what happened to the cult producer and rapper. Keith obliged with an answer that involved “night-time gangster jazz,” Chinese food, and a kennel of rappers. (more…)
In terms of lyrical masterpieces, that is masterfully and undisputedly achieved with “Bust These Lyrics”. A very strong argument could be made for this being the most lyrical song of T La Rock’s career. Before I defend that theory I have to recognize the rugged production. The drums are like a jackhammer at half-speed. The sampled pieces from the intro of “It’s Yours” and the repeated vocal sample infused into the beat can be symbolic of the screams and yelps of the competition as T La Rock verbal assaults relentlessly. All of these theories are adequately explained in the hook, “Hard Rapping, Funky Beats, Def Scratching, No Gimmicks/Put your ears to the speakers and bust these lyrics!” (more…)
I seem to be having a bad run of pissing-off Double-O and Naledge from Kidz In The Hall in recent years. First I accused them of the crime of Hipster Rap, to which they responded on an UGHH.com video, and now it seems that I’ve thrown them under the bus again in my latest guest post for XXL:
I’m assuming ‘lol’ is some kind of code for ‘we’re going to get our bodyguard to put you in a yoke when we find you’, although that may be considered bad karma since the same thing happened to Double-O at that nightclub in Tempe, AZ back in 2008. Since I’ll be living in a cardboard box somewhere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, I’m sure the money I might make from any resulting lawsuit will come in handy for when I need to buy myself a couple of Ghetto Big Macs. (more…)
Here are a couple of mildly inflammatory drops I did over at XXLMag this week, who decided to let me back in the building for another guest shot after my 2006 cameo:
There was only one rap album that mattered in 2010 – and it wasn’t by anyone who felt the need to show their dark twisted appendage to the world. That project, Roc Marciano‘s Marcberg, was critically untouchable, the most unadulterated example of the potency of New York rap in a good half decade, and even ended with a good old fashioned shout-out track. More importantly, it contained the most comprehensive batch of food references since an Ironman-era Ghostface was found being seduced by a temptress’s baked macaroni and turkey wings and lauding the virtues of a fish and salad-based diet. Whether used figuratively, literally or descriptively, there’s not a track on the album where Roc Marcy doesn’t get gastronomical. So in the grand tradition of the Dean & Deluca Cookbook’s Master List of Dried Legumes, here’s the complete guide to the food references liberally sprinkled throughout Marcberg’s grand grooves. Enjoy shrimp! (more…)
Last year Timeless Truth created a watershed moment for Hip-Hop, for ‘Lo heads and for NYC in general. Their ‘Priceless’ video shoot at the Brooklyn Bridge brought together a few dozen hardbody collectors of the lifestyle and more importantly it was the first time I had ever politicked with Thirstin’ Howl the 3rd on some brotherhood shit. Of course I knew of Thirst since he was in the streets. Everyone knew of each other, Decepticons, Lo-Lifes, A-Team, and there was an uneasy peace that existed to this day. (more…)
I learned some crazy shit doing my thing in New York City over the past forty years. Basically, the world is a huge place, but the people that vibe along the same frequency is the smaller subset and y’all will always find each other. That is what used to happen at record stores when you would go there on a Tuesday and meet up with other hip-Hop heads who were trying to copp that same release dropping that day.
I was on the Jamaica Ave strip with a bunch of my homies doing some shit called ‘Sneaker Fiends Unite!’ We travel around the city looking for kicks comeups and peeping how gentrification changes the urban landscape. At a store on the strip this husky dude told me that my ‘Lo scarf was official. I gave him some dap for recognizing that shit. Real recognize real always. Dude said he had some pieces to deal. This is the language that collectors use when they are selling and swapping I.T.’s (items). We exchanged maths and kept it moving.
Later that night when I got back to the lab and started uploading the video footage I had made that afternoon I stopped by UnKut for a minute to just check in on the old head rap scene. If you don’t cut your NahRight or 2DopeBoyz with some UnKut shit you will get rap diabetes from all the saccharine in the game right now. Funny story, true story is that very day Robbie had a drop on his page featuring the dude that I politicked with in that sneaker store – Meyhem Lauren (more…)
My peoples, Timeless Truth, were invited to Fat Beats last week to record some video for U.K. superstar DJ Sarah Love. Timeless Truth always represents the Polo Ralph Lauren lifestyle to the fullest. It is deeper than just getting dipped and making sure you are color coordinated. Its about your presentation to attain the lavish lifestyle through rhyme or crime. (more…)
Welcome new contributor Max Angeles to the team. I don’t know much about her other than the fact that she fux with ‘Anchorman’, Tragedy records and almost died of alcohol poisoning last week. Sounds like a born Unkut Dot Com trooper…
Let me just say a few things about working at the Fat Beats store – I remember interning for them as early as when they had moved out the second floor of XTRA LARGE and into a well established hip hop institution on Melrose in LA.
Fat Beats LA had a much more rustic, garage studio feel to it. With limited edition posters of albums and artists plastered on every corner prompting all kinds of tourists to just whip out their cameras and take mad pictures. That shit was always annoying to me. We tagged our labels and arranged EP’s and LP’s our own way. regulars and real hip hop heads knew how to navigate throughout the store. If you saw a RZA single, you’d most likely find 4th Disciple in its vicinity. That’s how it worked. The ones who didn’t get it, were usually the ones that didn’t know who House Shoes, Rhettmatic, or DJ Soup was. (more…)
Dallas Penn contributes this drop in the first of a series of guest spots while his site is on hiatus:
Fat Beats was like your older uncle who you didn’t visit as often so that when you got the news of his death it was from the other folks who still brought him his wine and shit.
You had great times at Fat Beats tho’ and those memories will last forever. Hip-Hop, like the rest of America which it represents has gone Best Buy big box pop. Fat Beats, Bondy‘s and Beat Street are only to be references in your favorite rapper’s verse of nostalgia. (more…)
Here’s another track from the Steady Flow vaults. This time it’s a little something that the I Dot U Dot gave Biz Markie for the All Samples Cleared album.
“I wrote and produced a song for him called ‘Hooker Got A Boyfriend’ – he fucked it up”.
The I Dot U Dot just blessed me with some tracks from his vaults to share with the Unkut regulars, with a quick description of four of his favorites: (more…)
