Before I go into the first column, let
me just explain the point of this blog.
The name comes from “Hip Hop Saved My
Life,” one of my favorite songs on Lupe Fiasco's The Cool,
in which a young man escapes the hardships of his life through
pursuing a career in hip-hop, which ultimately gets him away from his
problems.
One of the most
important things for an upcoming artist is to put himself out on the
market on a mixtape. It's how rappers get their names known. Whether
they hand them out after shows, send them to local radio stations, or
just upload their mixtape onto a hip-hop website, most new artists
have to start with mixtapes.
And this blog is
all about covering those mixtapes. Whether they be good, bad, or just
flat out “re-dic-yu-lus.”
Now let's kick this
shit off.
The Good:
Cinos - #Chaoscontrol2
I was
seconds away from choosing former Roc-A-Fella regular Freeway's Freedom of Speech,
which is a good mixtape, when I happened upon Cinos' new
mixtape.
Two of the biggest
things I look for when searching for new artists to listen to are
interesting album covers and album names.
Normally I try to
stay away from mixtapes with a hashtag, but I couldn't help being
drawn in by the picture that was with the title.
I'm not exactly sure what this drawing including the earth, an asteroid, the moon and a UFO means, but when scrolling down a page filled with covers of
rappers trying too hard to look hard and scantily-clad women,
something like this instantly stands out.
And as soon as I
heard the production on “Black Lantern Zone,” I knew this mixtape
was just as interesting as the cover attached to it.
The
production throughout all of #Chaoscontrol2
is what really makes it so special.
Most of the
production seems to be done by relatively lesser known producers,
save a track produced by the always great and always trippy Clams
Casino. But they all come through.
“Isis
Tear Zone” has to be one of the best of the best produced, starting
with a sample from a track off the soundtrack from the movie Final
Fantasy: The Spirit Within, an
unlikely place to find a sample, but producer 13th
makes it work. The track continues with a unique drum beat, piano and what sounds like a xylophone underneath the verses.
While Cinos' rhymes
aren't anything too special, he's still good
enough to not take away from the production behind his rapping. The topics he raps about are controversial and he can be a little cocky (“You're now witnessing the birth of a new God”).
The Bad:
Wiz Khalifa is one
of the hottest, if not the hottest, rapper in the game right now.
He's in countless commercials, he's constantly trending on Twitter and his upcoming album O.N.I.F.C. (Only Nigga in First
Class) is easily the most anticipated album left in the year. But
he's overrated.
Gather around kids,
because I'm only going to explain this once.
Back in 2010, Wiz
was at the top of the game. He was coming off two very good releases:
his second album Deal or No Deal and his critically-acclaimed
mixtape Kush and Orange Juice. But the shit hit the fan.
Wiz was signed to
Atlantic, started singing his hooks, and hit it big with his number
one single “Black and Yellow” as his native Pittsburgh Steelers
reached the Super Bowl. This put him right in front of the public's
eye. The underground rapper became as mainstream as mainstream can
get almost overnight. And it was all downhill from there.
Now Wiz is just
your typical stoner rapper, except it doesn't seem like he's even
trying anymore.
Take his song from
Cabin Fever 2, “Smokin' Drink.” It has a chorus in which he
just repeats the title over and over again, and then he opens his
first verse by reiterating that “I be smokin', I be drinkin'.”
And then there's
“Ridin' Round” with frequent Wiz collaborator and 10Fest ditcher,
Juicy J. It features such classy lines as “And I've been shittin'
since before I could afford the plumbin'” on Wiz's part and “Make
weed disappear, you believe in magic?” on Juicy J's.
Granted, mainstream
rappers tend to not go as hard on their mixtapes since they have to
focus so much on their albums. So hopefully, Wiz will show up on
O.N.I.F.C. and make up for this unfortunate predecessor.
The Re-dic-yu-lus
The re-dic-yu-lus category is going to be reserved for just a downright laughable mixtape every week. This doesn't mean it's going to be a big release, just the worst album I could get my hands on from that week.
And this week the
honor goes to Mr.44.
Let me just list a
few of my favorite lines:
“Bite you quick
like an iguana.”
“Call me big
papi / Or just holla at me.” (Yes, that's supposed to rhyme.)
“Fool, bless you,
like an afterward sneeze.”
“A veteran, not a
rookie, homie. I done did it.”
“Mister, mister
fo-fo. O-H-I-O.”
“I can hear the
money's falling from the street. I'm like zoom.”
“I'm having
visions of a black Madonna / But she ain't black.”
And that's just the
tip of the iceberg.
There are plenty more
crappy lines on this mixtape, and that's the Stack That Cheese
guarantee.
Like in the title
track, where Mr.44 just starts off by listing the many area codes of Ohio.
Or maybe in
“Jealousy & Marijuana” where 44 tells a fascinating tale of
“Two women / One named Jealousy, the other Marijuana.”
The beats are
cliché, the features are mediocre, and of course Mr.44 is just plain
shitty. But hot damn is it grade-A shit.
-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.
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