Good Night, Sweet Princess

When Did This Happen?

Just watch.

Monkeys Follwing In Place

Click me!

Celebrate Black History Month the Kentucky Fried way!

"HEY, LOOK AT ME!"

It's Fake, Snoop, It's Fake

Damn, shawty,Πώς σε λένε. Ἀπὸ ποῦ εἶσαι. Knowhumtawnbout?

I recently had a nightmare that Chris and Snoop, who were making me rob a bank with them, kidnapped me. They were forcing me to drink King Cobra, to toughen me up I think. I was, needless to say, scared. I mean, shook like Mr. Omar was coming. Woke up like Drés at the end of "U Mean I’m Not" and stuff.

Homegirl is scarier than a glass of milk—or maybe Javier Bardem.

Sunday Afternoon Beer Music

The Lessondary (featuring Tanya Morgan): "Brazilian Grooves" [from the Welcome 2 Loud Minority LP]
Unreleased, 2006

From left to right: Donwill, Von Pea, and Ilyas

Because (like Gabe said) I'm into movements, I have been a major supporter of Tanya Morgan since being turned onto "She Moved Outta Cincy," the Brooklyn-Cincinnati triumvirate's moving reinterpretation of D'Angelo's "Africa," back in the fall of 2004. In fact, a few of you might remember that on my old Troublecrunk blog I even went so far as to include the group's single in the Top 10 slot on my "Best of 2004" list. At the time I had not only been impressed by their easy chemistry, but also by their overall zaniness, which is somewhat apparent in their unorthodox moniker—presumed to be a faceless neo-soul siren. For the record, Tanya Morgan consists of three male MCs—Ohio natives Ilyas and Donwill, and Brooklyn's Von Pea—and their 2006 debut, Moonlighting, was a personal favorite of mine in a year that wasn't exactly lacking in quality releases.

From an abandoned 2006 project titled Welcome 2 Loud Minority, featuring Tanya Morgan's extended family, the Lessondary crew (a loose collective of MCs, artists, and DJs, many of which are signed to California-based independent label, Loud Minority Music) rapping over the late Jay Dee's Welcome 2 Detroit instrumentals, "Brazilian Grooves" is a perfect example of the group's magnetism. Over Dilla's hazy, church-infused, guitar-driven groove, Donwill lets off steam aimed at homoerotic rappers—"I don't need y'all lame niggas screamin' at me, 'I love my niggas! Fuck bitches!'/Fuckin' homo thugs/Trying your best to go to jail and show your niggas some love"—while a mellowed-out Ilyas keeps it fly, with lines like, "Just let my spirit lead, 'cause this is my ascension/Now she's staring at me, guess I got her attention/So I approached her and asked her dance/Said she was from Brazil and her roommate from France." Although Von opts to sit this one out, limiting his participation to the chorus, everything still gels here and ultimately provides a playful vibe that's as chill as Kool-Aid popsicles on a lazy afternoon.

Last Donut of the Night

I woke up at 3:00 pm, with my left leg aching like a bastard; I have no fucking clue why this is.

All I know is that slight discomfort is a small price to pay for a man that has meant so much to my life.

Dear Dilla,

Thank you for everything.

Last night, we all came out to remember your legacy, and your man, Houseshoes, was in the place, holding you down proper.

In any case, you are appreciated.

Dillagence

This is a no-brainer: My peoples are promoting this and it's Dilla (!).

Expect to see me there tonight, sipping on something lethal and scheming on all the light-skinned boho bitties.

Shout out to Ian (who I used to fool with heavily back in the Troublecrunk/Golden Age of hip-hop blogging days) for spreading the love.

Be there or…

Fuck it.

I don't need no hook for this sheeeeeeeit.

More Guns Than Roses

G-Unit (featuring DJ Whoo Kid): "Bottom Girl" [from the Return of the Bodysnatchers, Vol. 1 mixtape]
thisis50.com


How to rob banks (not to be confused with Lloyd)

Though to some he's just a Neptunes impersonator with humorous dance moves (see also Kanye's more effeminate version of the I-just-made-a-hit dance), Cassie confidant Ryan Leslie is one of my favorite producers, if for no other reason than, from a musical standpoint, he constantly manages to do so much with so little. Naturally, "Bottom Girl," a cheeky, if appealing remake of Mr. Leslie's amorous song, "Diamond Girl," by the similarly resourceful G-Unit, is worth checking out. In fact, 50 Cent's predominant talent, other than conducting classic interviews that are better than his actual albums, is recording witty spin-offs—see early G-Unit material for hilarious takes on everyone from LL Cool J to Talib Kweli—that are, in the words of CL Smooth, "better than the original who first made it." Here is no exception, as 50, Lloyd Banks, and a startlingly tolerable Tony Yayo kick game on the myriad merits of putting one's pimp hand down. Over Leslie's fuzzed-out frozen Red Bull synths and stuttering snares, Yayo spits, "I blow her back out, so she love the kid/I jump bail and I lay up at her mama crib/She my bottom bitch/I put her through a lot of shit/From passport fraud to gun case to smacking shit." Though not as chivalrous as Leslie's OG version, "Bottom Girl" is, nonetheless, more fun. After all, who needs chivalry when autonomy can apparently provide such benefits?

"Everyone Nose"

"Without girls like you, there's no nightlife/All those men just go home to their wives."

—Amy Winehouse

Left brain:

N.E.R.D: "Everyone Nose" [from the forthcoming N.3.R.D LP]
Virgin/Star Trak

Theodore, Alvin, Simon

Whether or not it's true that the Neptunes' Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams had parted ways (as the rumors have been stating for the past year or so), it is evident that, with the exception of the Clipse's 2006 album, Hell Hath No Fury, the Virginia Beach producers' trademark sounds—e.g., tinny synthesizers and hollowed-out drums—had fallen off. Well, maybe "fallen off" is being too harsh; the quintessential Neptunes sound didn't fall off so much as become increasingly more minimalist and, as evidenced by recent 'Tunes tracks for Jay-Z and Mya, a lot less catchy. Which is why "Everyone Nose," the latest single by Neptunes doppelgangers N.E.R.D (which evidently reunites Pharrell with Chad and sometimes-y factor Shay) is so arrestingly fresh.

Taking a cue from such dance-oriented acts as M.I.A. and Spank Rock, our heroes experiment with grime-subsumed percussion and cheddar-sharp horn bleats that together sound like a paean to The Matrix soundtrack as envisioned by the Bomb Squad on mescaline. Gone are the cologne-spattered spiky gel pop flourishes that, for a time, made the trio's oeuvre ideal for the sort of coked-out model chicks made of Missoni, Mohawks, and $100 Brazilian waxes, i.e., the type of chicks that eat pussy, listen to Prince, and play with their wombs. Which isn't to say our boys have lost their signature Facebook-socialite afterglow. On the contrary, "Everyone Nose," though neither lush nor expensive like the earlier output, takes typical Pharrell foibles (e.g., bathrooms, girls, cocaine) and ratchets the whole shebang up a couple notches on the dance-your-ass-off-O-meter. "Baby, you partied all night," Pharrell, in his soft reminding mother's tone, gently and leniently croons on the song's weirdly melancholic bridge. Guess it's easy to see why.

---

Right brain:

Oh, we totally do

Friday, February 1, 2008, 11:00 pm. Somewhere on the Lower East Side.

I would have broke your pretty ass off in the unisex bathroom if I hadn't heard my jam blaring from out there on the dance floor, you drunken hot girl. Come on and let me cuff your Cree Summer 'fro while we grind (no draws and neither does she) to this TV On the Radio joint.

I could tell you're a freak by the way you clasp that glass and my crotch, and the way you pronounced "France," when you told me you spent a year there with your roommate. Will you be my best friend?

12:07 am:

Venue change. Smells like prostitution in this joint. Grab your girl and let's jet. …I don't do cabs, ma, but since y'all are paying…

[We jump out the cab like the Strokes out of a limo]

Damn. Y'all trying to do bottle service? Like, word? I am not at all a baller.

So, what do you do?

I am a marital arts instructor.

[Laughs] Good money in that?

Oh I easily make a good…$19…20…thousand a year.

[Giggles] Seriously though. What do you do?

I whore myself on the streets of New York City.

So, that makes two of us.

12: 51 am:

…And she can do that trick with her eyes closed, too!

What in the entire fuck?!

[Laughs] What can I say? I have a lot of free time on my hands.

Clearly.

1:03 am:

Nah. I mainly stick to the drinks. But to each his own.

COME ON! It's 2008!

[Laughs] Nah, I'm straight.

We'll be right back!

1:15 am:

I just wrote on the mirror in lipstick: 1:12 am: boy at bar with pint-striped blue blazer and yellow t-shirt has (clear) lack of social skills—but cute!

[Laughs] Y'all are WILD, yo.

2:00 am:

Make out/black out.

My tongue is in her ear. Her low-rises unzip easily, like an illegal download.

Now we're talking again.

She's hungry.

I’m mad because there's no waffle houses in New York.

Back to the sweat-soaked dance floor.

Her girl is nowhere in sight.

I'm dancing with some other girl. She's busy flirting with the bartender.

2:59 am:

You could be fucking. But you are no longer in your twenties. And it's, frankly, just not as fun anymore. (Good to know you still got it though!) Maybe maturity is being able to put yourself in her shoes and to cheer her on, because you acknowledge that if she doesn't get it from you this fine morning, she's certainly going to get it from the next man and, well, more power to her!

So before you head out, into the global-warming-induced February sunshine, to the 24-hour pizza bar on 9th Avenue, and then to that not-quite-Striver's Row block you've grown to love uptown, you'll have one last drink—a toast to all the drunken hot girls at all tomorrow's parties.

Who nose [sic] but, that on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

I'm No Peacemaker—That's my Jeweler's Job

From: 50 and co.

To: Re-Up Gang:

YOU GON’ SMELL MAH COLOGNE!

Wow, this is quite better than what was probably the most anticipated mixtape in recent memory. Which is saying something, 'cause We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 3 is still that piff.

But this brings to mind those early classic G-Unit tapes from the early 2000s, when 50 basically ushered in the modern-day mixtape.

Here, the beats, lyrics, and hooks are all surprisingly good. And the whole thing just has a unified feel that has been lacking in a lot of recent 50-related releases.

I have a feeling that the Re-Up joint is going to grow on me. But for now, G-Unit is winning.

We Shine Like a Super Bowl Ring

The whole Harlem is so crazy right now. Negroes are out honking their horns and whooping and hollering all up and down the streets. I think I even heard a few ratchets bust off. Which is cool as far as sentiments go. But chill regular, residents of Harlem. Gravity, as the homey Jay says, is ill. Them bullets got to come back down, cousin.

Tonight my roommate's wild-ass brothers and their families came over to watch the game. These being the same brothers that tried to convince me, last Christmas, of the benefits of hanging out at the local around-the-way barbershop during the holidays:

"I'm sayin' though, doggie: You wanna get it in on some drinking for free, come through the spot and kick it with live niggas, feel me? Somebody usually always got a bottle of something around this time, you know what I'm sayin'. Mad beers in the fridge and everything, fam!"

They're really nice guys, if not a little rough around the edges (one of them, Joe, I think, was last seen fondly reminiscing about the bed-making etiquette at Spofford in the '70s).

Joe, like his 17-year-old son Kevin, is heavily into football and was, from what I understand, about to go pro back in the day until he caught a case behind some bullshit. Now, his NFL fantasies are pretty much limited to the Sunday-night flat-screen.

Cherokee, Joe's charming, if not mischievous 18-year-old daughter (who reminds me of the rapper Lil Mama) evidently bet her father $50 that the Patriots were going to win:

"Dad! Oh my God. You're seriously gonna make me pay you that? You know they cut my hours at Pathmark—I don't know when I’m gonna get paid next!"

"…I want my bills in two 20s and a 10—don’t bring me no 50 either. You know I don't trust no 50 above 116th Street."

"But dad! I’ma be broke…"

"…Bring me a ginger ale, too, when you go downstairs."

"Dad, are you really gonna send your loving daughter out into the world broke? The whole Harlem is gonna be looking at me crazy!"

"This is a Giants family—"

"I know. The first word out my mouth: "Giants."

"…We from New York. How you gonna bet on New England?"

"Daddy. The Giants don’t even play in New York."

Urban Dominoes Pizza Music,™ Vol. 2

OK, so this has definitely got to be the greatest not-a-real-song-but-still-bumps-like-one joint since Little Brother's "Cheatin'."

Melody, check. Adlibs, check. Ersatz Usher production, check.

I wonder how proud the dude who performed this is when he sees it come on after "Xena: Warrior Princess."

I bet he probably has a MySpace page with a gang of off-brand Southern rappers in his "Top 8," and represents labels with names like "BULLETPROOF ENTERTAINMENT," with Buffie The Body's ass as the main photo.

Under "About_____," I bet it reads: “Performed theme for the 'Best Barbeque In Oklahoma': Mr. Spriggs!"

He probably has the world's greatest business cards.