Mainstream Money, OR Respect?

This is a massive topic of conversation regarding urban music recently, particularly in the UK. A lot of artists have - in some people's words - abandoned certain sub-genres for the glitz, glamour, and more importantly - money of the mainstream music industry... Basically releasing "Pop" music.

A lot of hip-hop purists get really annoyed by this. The prime example is Ice-T dissing Soulja Boy over youtube (Yes, very lame I know) because he didn't think that the cong in question 'Crank Dat' was worthy of all the radio time it was clocking up amongst other things. Another example of a mainstream US rapper who always seems to aim his music at the radio's is none other than M.I-Yayo native Flo Rida. Ever since he dropped his massive single 'Low' he has released 5 other singles: 'Elevator', 'In The Ayer', 'Right Round', 'Sugar' and 'Jump'. If you haven't heard all of them, then you've been living under a rock for the past 2 years! They are all obvious radio hits due to the lack of lyrical ambition, rapping about nothing other than clubbing/partying, strippers/girls, catchy and well known samples in 'Right Round' & 'Sugar' plus unimaginative hooks that even Steven Hawking wouldn't have too many problems singing along to.

In the UK though, two artists that people would associate with this but on more extreme level would be Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder. Both highly respected grime artists before their obvious change to mainstream. Dizzee Rascal for example, has an album that is considered the greatest UK hip-hop/grime album ever with 'Boy In Da Corner' and a panel on MTV Base including R&B singer Jay Sean, considered it a classic in worldwide hip-hop, rating it third of all time. On his newest album 'Tongue N Cheek', there is only one song that even comes close to the old Dizzee and that is 'Road Rage'. Quite similar to his 2007 hit 'Old Skool', not quite as good, but still not bad. Tinchy Stryder's first album 'Star In The Hood', created a real buzz for him all over the country. His second and most recent effort was QUITE different. The first single, 'Stryderman' in my opinion was extremely lame, it's hook not drawing on too much creative genius:

"She’s like oh there’s Stryderman
Top east London writer man
If anyone can then Stryder can
got her caught on the web like Spiderman
She’s like oh that Stryderman
Top east London writer man
If anyone can then Stryder can
Work through on the whip like Spiderman"

Okay it didn't do brilliantly (peaking at only #73 on UK Singles Chart), but as you can imagine, that got him that little bit more radio-appeal needed to help boost his upcoming singles and albums, as well as wet the appetite for those who like Pop music. Up next was 'Take Me Back' featuring fellow UK native Taio Cruz got Tinchy to #3 in the charts. A song about love gone wrong with a catchy hook, it was always going to do well. The next three; 'Number 1', 'Never Leave You' and 'You're Not Alone' all pretty much followed that exact same winning formula. And I might just add that 'Never Leave You' and 'You're Not Alone' are awful.

My last example of this sort of thing comes from US hip-hop legends and pioneers of gangsta rap in the south... Three Six Mafia. Their most recent single 'Feel It' hit a nerve with me. Featuring Tiesto, Sean Kingston & Flo Rida, you know it's radio-bound without even having to listen to it. You press play and are straight away hit with noisy synths and loud/hard club kicks with barely a beat between them. The hook sums this one up:

"I say DJ turn the music up
And send another round going to my cup
I wanna Feel it (ohh ohh)
I wanna Feel it (ohh ohh)
Dj let the music drop
We going all night let the party rock
I wanna Feel It (ohh ohh)
I wanna Feel it (ohh ohh)"

Find the song in question here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FThuVI_maAs

I mean, sure, all the money is in the mainstream music, but what I hate is when rappers or artists change their music to fit in with something else. Okay, to be fair to Soulja Boy and Flo Rida, they have only released the radio-aimed tracks and neither started off in gangsta rap or anything, but the whole Three Six Mafia situation has really pissed me off, one of my favourite groups, they turn to a trance DJ in Tiesto and come up with the biggest pile of faeces I've heard in hip-hop since Soulja Boy's 'Crank Dat'. Now that is 'selling out' on the biggest scale if you ask me. I can safely say that, I will not be buying that album. Hell I won't even download it illegally!

I will leave you with the wise words of UK grime artist Ghetto:

"Alot of emcees dropped out with the same excuses ["THERE AIN't NO MONEY IN THIS TING!"]/But me I love making music so the fame and money was a bonus"

Taken from his brilliant new song 'Does It Now' where he rips through the bars, and just touching on the subject of artists dropping grime to get more money.


Signing Off, Ryan 'The Infidel'

ALBUM REVIEW: 50 Cent - Before I Self Destruct

24th of November. That was the original release date of Fiddy's 4th album until the whole thing was leaked on 27th October. 'Before I Self Destruct' sees 50 focussing on his gangster personality again rather than reeling out 7 radio hits off the same album.


50 gets straight into the gun talk on the grimy 'The Invitation'. Some of the very first bars, he looks back to his well documented 9-bullet-shooting-incident: "I got popped up, cried til my eyes turned red/told myself in the mirror n***a you ain't dead". The hook re-affirms the gangster is back: "You want some?!/come get some/n***a it's murder 1 when I toss my gun". Ty Fyffe's wavy beat goes almost unnoticed as you find yourself drawn into the lyrics as 50 raps as if in conversation - using "you" a lot, particular in the second verse.

However, the album then takes a step down with 'Then Days Went By'. The beat makes it sound like a rip off of Rick Ross' 'Mafia Music' as well as conforming to the usual "n***a's get hit... n***a's get rich" which is usually associated with rappers like 50.

Relatively soon after however, the album does pick up for a few minutes at least. 'So Disrespectful' is probably my favourite song on the album, mainly because 50 does what he does bst; lays into other rappers and just being plain ol' disrespectful. Over a Dr. Dre-esque hard hitting piano by Tha Bizness Fiddy starts off with Jay-Z: 'Jay's a big man, he's too big to respond/i'm a big dick, you know, the one everybody on", followed shortly after by The Game: "Come on Game, you will never be my equal/your homies shoot doors, my n***a's shoot people" and then the threatening hook accompanied by gun shots, comes in. Next up in the firing line, Young Buck: "His CD's didn't sell like his CD's, man that n***a blew all his chips on them breezies.mad cause the world won't treat him like Weezy". For hardcore 50 Cent fans, I would imagine this would be up there with their favourites too due to him going at his enemies... To be honest though, it wouldn't be a 50 Cent album without a diss track on it, would it?

In 'Psycho', Fiddy is accompanied by Eminem and the two just describe how 'razy' and 'psychotic' they are over screachy Dr. Dre production. A bit same-ol' same-ol' to be frank.

Moving on to the albums expected 5th single 'Get It Hot'. I'm sorry, this is just cheating. It just sounds like a remix of 'I Get Money'. A very similar synthy leadline accompanied with what sounds like the exact same drum pattern with a verysimple and generic Jadakiss sample, literally just saying "I get it hot hot hot hot, I get it get it get it hot hot hot hot hot". Seriously poor, talk about a lack of originality! It's about as original as a Plies song!

However, on he bright side, the albums 4th single 'Baby By Me' featuring R&B superstar Ne-Yo, I can really vibe to. The production from Polow Da Don helps make it a really catchy song and one for the ladies with bell jingles plus a constant drum pattern with a lot of wooden taps in there. It may be an obvious attempt to get radio play, but it will definitely work especially with the smooth hook laid down by Ne-Yo added to the highly infectious line - "Have a baby by me baby, be a mi'ionaire" - sampled from 50's own 'I Get Money'. Definitely has the potential to be a big record, and likely to be a track you hear about 1000 times on the radio on the same night.

From one positive to another, from one radio track to another. I wouldn't usually really like the radio cuts, but for some reason, on this album, I feel they are the tracks that work the best. 'Do You Think About Me' is a heartfelt but also angry (in a calm way) track where 50 speaks on his son and his son's mother, their relationship and asking the - one would assume - rhetorical question 'Do you think about me?" whilst also dissing her by claiming she only wants the money: "She don't care about me/she just want some cash/I'm thinkin' damn, girl we used to be friends/how this shit become all about ends?"

I couldn't personally make my mind up about 'Ok, You're Right' until I thought about it in a technical way. The production is typical Dr. Dre - hard hitting piano, but uncharacteristic for the D.R.E., it has a very generic feel to it and is constant almost the whole way through. On the flipside though, if you have this banging out your headphones when walking down the street, you feel a certain swagger overtakes you and you feel like Goliath compared to all the David's on the block. There is something about the hook that I do like, the fact that it has a flow to it that akes you want to sing/rap along, although what does annoy me in parts (particularly the hook), 50 sounds like he is trying to do a Shawty Lo impression! NOT GOOD! Slurring words in the hook and adding a slight whisper, as if to impersonate rappers from the ATL.

On the whole, I wasn't very impressed with the album. I feel it's messy and 50 doesn't know where his priorities lie in his music plus unstereotypically sloppy production from Dr. Dre & Mark Batson in places. The pars of the album I like, I really like and could listen to allday, but the idea of a full album is to be able to listen to the whole thing without having to skip a track. A disappointment for sure!

HIGHLIGHTS:
'Do You Think About Me'
'Baby By Me'
'Gangsta's Delight'
'So Disrespectful'
'The Invitation'

Anticipated Albums of 2010

Well, 2009 has been what many people have described as a bad year in the music industry, album sales falling dramatically from 2008, albums leaking up to a month before general release (mentioning no names... *Cough* 50 Cent *Cough*). However, others will argue that there just hasn't been that many decent albums released this year compared to the previous.

2008 saw fantastic albums such as T.I.'s 'Paper Trail', Young Jeezy's 'The Recession', Nas' infamous but brilliant 'Untitled', The Game's 'LAX' and a potential classic in Lil Weezy's 'Tha Carter III'. I just mentioned them without even going into the fact that Ludacris, Plies, Rick Ross, Flo Rida, Common, E-40, Kanye West plus efforts from Hip-Hop legends Ice Cube & Q-Tip.



To be fair, 2009 has seen some good albums from the likes of the 'God Of Hip Hop' - Jay-Z- with 'The Blueprint 3', Eminem's 'Relapse', Jadakiss' 'The Last Kiss' plus solid efforts from 'The Boss', Asher Roth, Cam'ron, Busta Rhymes and Mos Def. However, for me, the only album that even slightly hits the heights of 2008 is KiD CuDi's debut 'Man On The Moon: The End Of Day' (Jonny will disagree to the end of the earth... Until he actually decides to listen to it!). To be honest, it's probably the best album i've heard since Kanye's debut 'The College Dropout'.

However, that is all in the past now, but we do have many albums to look forward to over the next 12 months or so, some won't have even been spoken about yet. Here is my list of 10 albums to keep an eye out for:



Drake - Thank Me Later - Probably the most anticipated hip-hop debut since Kanye West. The Canadian was possibly looking like a "one-hit-wonder" when he dropped the brilliant single 'Best I Ever Had'. Haters were proved wrong when he better that with probably my favourite song of 2009 - 'Forever', whilst also being backed up by an allstar-cast of allstar-cast's comprising of Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Eminem. This won't just be the big break for Drake concerning this album, but close friend and producer Boi1da will no doubt be playing a big part. Expect HUGE things from this one.



B.o.B (Now known as Bobby Ray) - B.o.B Presents The Adventures Of Bobby Ray - MY most anticipated album of 2010. I've been waiting for this album for almost 2 years since B.o.B dropped the marvellous mixtape 'Who The Fuck Is B.o.B?' No tracklisting has been announced yet, however B.o.B himself admitted that the acoustic love song 'Lovelier Than You' will be on it. If the music on the album are even half as good as songs like 'I'll Be In The Sky', 'No Mans Land' or 'Ghost In The Machine' then this is going to be an album to savour and will cement his label as the next Andre 3000.



Juelz Santana - Born To Lose, Built To Win - One of my favourite artists. Juelz has leaked quite a lot of music since departing from Dipset. The song with the most radio appeal so far would be 'Back To The Crib' featuring Chris Brown and unorthodox production using trombones and such by Polow Da Don. However, the most creative and even slightly odd, song to have been leaked is the Kane Beatz' produced 'Mixing Up The Medicine'. Fantastic production in my opinion with a mix banjo's and bass make a 'western' feel to it. This has been awaited for a good two years or more, so Juelz won't have too many excuses if it donesn't meet the expectations.


Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty - Eagerly anticipated debut solo from one half of Outkast. The first single 'Royal Flush' featuring Andre 3000 & Raekwon may not have done that well on the Billboard Charts or radio play, but it has already been nominated for awards and is lyrically outstanding. Another leak; 'Shine Blockas' brings out the best in a usually dull and 'same-ole same-ole' Gucci Mane. Features big artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, Jamie Foxx, Andre 3000, Mary J. Blige, B.o.B, Jadakiss and Gucci Mane. Sure to be loved by Outkast and hip-hop fans alike with a mix of great beats and lyrical genious.



DJ Khaled - Victory - Many people won't agree with me on this one, but I generally look for to new music from 'Mr. West The Best'. One thing I like alot about Khaled is the fact that he generally works with some of the best producers such as The Runners, Cool & Dre, The Inkredibles, Danja among others. Okay, the songs he does may generally be aimed at the radio and may not incorporate the greatest lyrical rap, but he mixes good production with catchy hooks as well as catchy verses. The first single - 'Fed Up' Featuring Usher, Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross & Young Jeezy - falls perfectly into that assessment. Expect guest features from Florida in general - artists such as Plies, Rick Ross, Ace Hood, Trick Daddy, Flo Rida, Dre, Brisco plus singers like Usher, Lloyd, Trey Songz & T-Pain.




Dr. Dre - Detox - I know what you're thinking... That this has been on 'Album's to look out for next year' articles for the past 6 years. Originally slated for 2004 release, the West Coast King decided to focus on his artists and his own production. Arguably the best producer around these days, probably only rivalled by The Neptunes and - in my opinion - the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League. Various artists have said they have worked on the album such as T.I., Nas, Drake, Lil Wayne, Ice Cube... The list goes on. Very few leaks so far, although a song called 'Topless' featuring Nas and T.I. has, with rumoured ghostwriting from T.I. . Ludacris is also a rapper claiming to have ghostwritten. Over 6 years in the making, and on the back of two hip-hop classics, pressure is high, but if his new batch of songs are anything like the bangers he has been producing recently, maybe he will have a third classic. Wouldn't be a bad way to retire would it?



Lil Wayne - Tha Carter IV - Little is know about Tha Carter IV as yet due to Weezy seeming to be concentrating most of his efforts on the debut album of his Young Money Fam and his Rock debut 'Rebirth', both due on 15th December. All we can say about this one so far is that Play-N-Skillz have claimed to be producing for it. The reason why this album is on my list considering so little is known about it, is because it is the follow up to what many people such as - English radio personality Tim Westwood - called a modern classic and it will be interesting to see if his Rock album puts people off this one. It's fair to say that people aren't expecting big things from Rebirth due to past attempts by rappers to blend into the rock scene, the fact that leaks off it so far have sounded very clichéed, transparent and just lame to be brutally honest.



Young Jeezy - Thug Motivation 103 - 'The Recession' received mainly positive reviews in 2008 which was probably helped by it's social relevance of the whole album itself along with the epic 'My President' about the then newly elected Barrack Obama. However, this album seemsas though Young has goine back to the old Jeezy, bringing out the 'Thug' and music predominantly for the streets. So far, leaks have been just that. A diss track aimed at Gucci Mane and OJ Da Juiceman whilst also speaking on the NBA called '24, 23 (Kobe/Lebron)' is an absolute scorcher in my opinion with big bass and screachy strings with a catchy hook whilst also dissing - in my opinion - two of the lamest rappers around. Added to that is 'Trap Or Die II' which to me, sounds like a track for the 'trap' mainly because of the mix of a simple flute melody with simple bell rings... Yep, it was produced by Zaytoven, who else?

Sway - Signature 2 - Without any doubt the best rapper from the UK. His first two albums showed his talent at using imagery to create stories that the average Joe would go through whilst mixing it with humour and generally adding a moral to the story. 'The Signature LP' was propelled by club and radio friendly Akon collabo 'Silver & Gold', however, that was the only song that got anywhere in the charts. 'Signature 2' will probably be his most commercially accessible album so far with guest spots for UK R&B acts Craig David and Jay Sean as well as, oddly, Liverpool Football Cub's Ryan Babel. The first single 'Mercedes Benz' allows his to brag about his money, but also lets him show off his lyrical flow along with a catchy hook: the perfect recipe for a potential radio hit. The single has big fans in UK radio personalities Mistajam and Zane Lowe.

Ya Boy - Facelift - Slated for a 2009 release, however I have a feeling it won't be until 2010 that we get the highly anticipated sophomore effort from the Bay Area Bully. I honestly cannot wait for this album, as over the last two years or so, Ya Boy has been one of my favourite artists with fantastic mixtapes like 'The Bay Area Bully' and 'Mohawks & Heavy Metal'. He has a brilliant mix between cuts for the club and radio as well as joints for the streets. The first single 'Fall In Love' with the Cataracs is exactly the type of song to get radio play and get him so exposure before the street tracks come out. A highly synthy instrumental along with a hook using auto-tune, it may not be a classic Dr. Dre banger, but it SHOULD get some radio play and if so the cubs and the ladies will love it. Ya Boy - like many rappers before him - has claimed to be retiring after 'Facelift', whether that is true or not, we won't know for a while, but if he plans on sticking to that plan, then he will want to go out with a bang.

Signing off, Ryan 'The Infidel'

The Introduction

We are the Rap Know It All's. I'm Ryan, and my main man is Jonny. Jonny tends to look for the lyrics - he likes his lyricists. Whearas I, I listen for the beat. We are Kings. We are the Kings On Set!