Benz and a Backpack

The Huffington Post threw up an interesting slideshow recently, comparing rappers to colleges.  Jay-Z as Harvard, Kanye as U Chicago….check out the article to see where Tupac, Biggie, and Lupe ended up.

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Every now and then, trying circumstances arise that would put a strain on any relationship. When that strain becomes sustained, or when it shows some semblance of permanence, it’s time to put the foundation of that relationship under the microscope and evaluate whether or not it is fundamentally sound. If it is, then you break out your tool belt and work with the other person to rebuild the interior of that relationship, and move forward. If it isn’t fundamentally sound then you tear that house down and look for a different plot of land to build on.

There’s no time to waste on people who don’t reciprocate equal love and respect. Surround yourself with the people who do, because they’ll always hold you down. Keep the others at arm’s length. Dame and Jay parted ways in 2004, most likely because Dame was not a supporter of the direction HOV was headed. Now Dame is doing much cooler shit than Jay, and he’s doing it with a group of people dedicated to a singular artistic cause. Ski Beatz, Curren$y, Big K.R.I.T., and Smoke DZA are DD172 teammates featured in this week’s Mixtape Monday. Other tracks include: brand new Raekwon, Andre 3000, Styles P, Cee-Lo, KanYe, Lupe & Pharrell, as well as cuts from Detroit’s Doss The Artist & Hir-O, and Providence’s own CR The Beast and Chachi. DL link under the cut!

Benz And A Backpack Presents…Mixtape Monday – Vol. 21 by BenzAndABackpack

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“Fine young man with an old man mind / No time for the tickle, fuck the whole mankind / Aw, no maam I’m an old land mine / I been waiting to blow up for a long damn time.”
~ J. Cole, Back To The Topic Freestyle

With his most recent feature in the New York Daily News (and a feature several months ago in the New York Times), it’s safe to say J. Cole is on the precipice of something major. This potential breakthrough, which will most likely occur after the upcoming release of his freshman No I.D.-produced album, has been a long time coming. We’ve chronicled Cole’s ascendance in the game, from his time waiting outside HOV’s studio to force a CD upon him to his eventual signing to Jigga’s label Roc Nation, and it seems there is no more fitting a time for an update on what Hollywood Cole is doing musically than right now.

Cole’s sustained buzz began when The Warm Up gained traction in the online community. From there, his music spread pervasively across the internet. It wasn’t until he toured with Jay-Z last fall and got his stage legs that Cole’s presence, at first strictly musical, rounded out into a full-bodied cultural persona. Now he can be seen almost everywhere you turn, with successful videos (One//Two) and leaks keeping his listeners closely attuned.

What’s about to happen is clearer than the water in Bermuda (whaddup tho Clutch!), just look at some of the song titles. Hit the skip for DL links to Cole’s most recent cuts, as well as a video explaining The Biggest Misconception About J. Cole.

J. Cole – Higher

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J. Cole – Problems [prod. Jim Jonsin]

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J. Cole – No Holding Me Back (Tags)

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J. Cole – Premeditated Murder [prod. J. Cole]

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It was after a particularly grueling (but prodigious) recording session in the building known as DD172 that Curren$y, the increasingly ubiquitous New Orleans rapper, decided to defuse and decompress his over-worked crew by joking that working in the studio with Ski Beatz was like a “24-hour dojo.” Though only a quip, Mos Def, also in attendance, ran with the idea, eventually recording the swingy song, “24-hour Karate School,” which would become the purported single off the album of the same name.

Mos Def – 24 Hour Karate School [prod. Ski Beatz]

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Since this auspicious meeting, Ski and his vivacious team of musicians, rappers, artists, and videographers, have been hard at work, catapulting the DD172 collective into the blog-o-sphere and capturing the attentions of journalists, industry executives, heads, and even a few casual listeners. Teamed with Damon Dash, Ski is launching what is beginning to resemble a movement in hip-hop, pushing a sample-based, jazz-oriented revivalism. This sound is defined by its refurbished Reasonable Doubt-era throb and swing, packed in tightly with lush guitars, airy keys, and blustering brass.

Curren$y ft. Jay Electronica & Mos Def – The Day [prod. Ski Beatz]

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It’s a lot to take in. Thankfully, the aesthetics of the DD172 movement make it all palatable. Read the rest of this entry →

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Cookin’ Soul deftly blends Wayne’s verse from “Hello Brooklyn” over The Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” and HOV’s verse from “Hello Brooklyn” over a Cookin’ Soul remix of “Passin’ Me By.” The Cookin’ Soul trio of DJs are known individually as Big Size, Milton, and Zock (which sounds like something Frank Zappa would have named one of his children). “Passin’ Me By” features a flute sample from the Quincy Jones track called “Summer In The City,” hence the name of the remix. Shouts are due to the homie E Boog and company over at HypeFloats. Hit the skip for videographer Greg Solenström’s ‘Making Of…’ visual.

Quincy Jones – Summer In The City

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The Pharcyde – Passin’ Me By

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Hot Spitta’s highly anticipated Def Jam debut Pilot Talk is on the way (July 13th!), and in anticipation of the drop CreativeControl put together a video trailer featuring the infamous valet parking clip from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The New Orleans, former Young Money emcee is poised to make major waves with this one. Under the cut, we compiled all the visuals that have been released to date, plus some DLs that’ll turn any doubter into an avid Hot-Spitta-supporter.

Pilot Talk includes production from Mos Def, Nesby Phibs, MonstaBeatz, and one of the most enduring producers ever, Ski Beatz (few people know he did HOV’s “Feelin’ It”, “Politics As Usual”, “Dead Presidents II”, and “22 Two’s” off Reasonable Doubt). Guest spots include stoner heavyweights Wiz Khalifa, Devin The Dude, and Snoop Dogg, as well as Mikey Rocks, Jay Elect, Big K.R.I.T., and more.

CURREN$Y : PILOT TALK from Creative Control on Vimeo.

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Dream Hampton garnered her fame as the first female editor of The Source magazine in 1990, lucky enough to cover the golden era of early 90′s hip hop.  For the September 1994 issue, Dream chronicled a few days in the life of Tupac.  As if witnessing blunts, pranks, and court hearings wouldn’t have been fun enough, Dream was sitting in the in the back of Pac’s car when he shot two undercover cops square in the ass.  For those of us who have heard the music and folklore, we are aware Pac was an angry individual.  But for me, I never witnessed how truly intense, resistant, angry, and straight up irrational Pac really was until reading this article.  The thoroughness and color of Hampton’s writing create a stronger caricature of Pac than most of his music.

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I did a little bit of research on the internet to try and find the highly anticipated single off of Dr. Dre’s Detox album which features Jay-Z called “Under Pressure”. There is an instrumental floating around the internet that some claim to be “Under Pressure”.
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Lovine in an interview with a French radio station said that the single has been pushed back because of Eminem’s “Not Afraid”.

Here is the suspected instrumental…

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Believe it or not, there are a lot of hip-hop nerds out there.  Guys who obsess over release dates, lyrics, samples, and more.  So nerdy, in fact, the dudes over at Staple Crops have released the first Rap Data Pack, listing every single one of Jay-Z’s songs, including lyrics, release date, and word count, along with other more advanced categories like syllable count and average letters per word.  Another project of Staple Crops is Hip Hop Word Count, “a rubric that estimates the education level needed to understand each rhyme as well as, rates the artistic sophistication employed through the metaphors, similes, cultural references, consonantal/vocalic alliteration and overall pattern of each rhyme.”  They then rate the complexity of the lyrics on a scale of 1 to 20.

Is this the future of judging rappers?  I hope not; nothing compares to actually listening to the music.  But, at least we don’t have to worry about finding out the polysyllabic word count for “Empire State of Mind” anymore.

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On a recent Sunday after Midnight Madness, Clutch and I were with the team clicking through songs on WhoSampled.com– a site dedicated to unearthing and presenting samples used in famous songs– to see which producers sampled what to create some of our favorites. The first noteworthy connection was between Eminem and singer/songwriter Paul Simon. Em’s “Murder, Murder” (1997) sampled Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”- with producer DJ Roc slowing the drum pattern down and expanding the stereo field by adding a tremolo and slight distortion to the four bar guitar progression, as well as a handful of other noises and samples in the background- and Tupac’s “Outlaw,” recontextualizing the ‘Murder Murder’ phrase to inform Em’s introspective verses. From there, we moved chronologically through songs starting in ’94 and ending in 2000 with Jay-Z & UGK’s “Big Pimpin.”

The super-producer behind ‘Big Pimpin’ was Timbaland, who got four of the production credits on HOV’s Volume 3…Life and Times of S. Carter. He used the introduction from Egyptian musician Hossam Ramzy’s version of “Khusara Khusara” and added some ill drums (a mechanical, syncopated hi-hat, a handful of percussive sounds: cowbell, warps, pitched hand drums) to create one of the most memorable songs in rap history. Having done a good deal of sampling, the method behind the creation of “Big Pimpin” seemed to contradict my understanding of sampling etiquette. More than just taking one or several small slices of a song or songs and flipping them on their head, Timbaland took the entire introduction verbatum (as it were).

Then again, an introduction is technically just one small part of an entire song, so it’s understandable that Timbaland would feel comfortable using Ramzy’s for his own purposes. The real question is: how much is too much? Did DJ Roc manipulate his samples enough to escape criticism, or does using Simon’s drum pattern exactly constitute plagiarism? Better yet, should Timbaland owe compensation, at the very least in the form of royalties, to Hossam Ramzy, and Em to Paul Simon?

This may not be news to some, but since Big Pimpin’ Timbaland has used much more than just the introduction of an obscure non-copywritten song to make his own beats.

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