End Rhyme - UTFO

Educated Rapper of UTFO did his thing on this verse from their hit song "Roxanne, Roxanne". It also happens to be a good use of end rhyme as well. Also, like many older school MCs before him, EMD makes use of voice inflection-changing his tone, tempo, and over annunciating as he goes along.

UTFO on the whole were kind of gimmicky, but they did have a few bars here and there.  I mostly like how much fun they were having on the mic. 

"But do you know, after all that

All I received was a pat on my back"

It's also cool that at the end, he/they ended up not getting the girl. A little humility/reality. The "reality" for many rappers today would have been ending this song with them "getting brain from the girl and her mom, while simultaneously driving AND popping tags....

Fun - Asher Roth & Chuck Inglish

"Just having fun not worried about anyone

And you could tell, by how her titties hung" - Common Sense

I'm on record with my love for all things Cool Kids and this song is no exception. While I personally never really warmed up to Asher Roth I always respected his skill set. Chuck Inglish's beats always make me wish I drove one of these.

Asher's free fall, zip line flow really works with his beat. The concept and video are both

heartening and make me happy.

R.I.P. Heavy D

 

So I was trying to find some music to listen to while my daughter cleaned up, and I made dinner for her and I decided to put on "classic hip-hop" (that is how I labeled old school hip hop in my iTunes, think "classic rock").

The "genius" list started off with some Whodini, Grandmaster Flash, Funky 4 + 1 and Afrika Bambaataa but then it skewed modern and played Jingling Baby by LL Cool J and then Mr Big Stuff by  Heavy D & the Boyz.

I said to myself, "I should do a post on Hev..."  The thinking was his unpretentious style and ability to have fun on the mic (yes, rappers used to embrace fun).

The next day he died. I was not a big fan but he did have songs that I really liked. I really liked "Don't You Know" despite the fact there was no actual raping in it at all. "Money Earnin Mt. Vernon" and "Don't Curse" were cool and the "Overweight Lover" was a favorite, as a chubby kid searching for a bit of an identity myself. Unlike the Fat Boys, Hev took that shit and he owned it!

R.I.P

Hip-Hop Lives...

Great.  Just great.

Rahzel, Davey DMX , Biz Markie, Dougie Fresh et al. are all somewhere smiling....

Here are a few of my favorite beatbox based songs...

"You jump around, and act a fool, some people think it's dumb...

...but I think it's cool... - Joeski Love


I am going to start a series of posts called Perspective. Simply to call attention to hip-hop snobs the fact that more the game changes, the more it stays the same.

"uh, uh, uh, all over the track and, uh pardon me, uh, as I come back" - Busta Rhymes

So....I swore to myself that I would make it a point not to do music reviews on my blog. I and I will hold true to that. However I listen to a shit-ton of music throughout the week, some great, most mediocre, a lot of it trash.

Sometimes, I am scarred by the experience and quickly need to hear or watch something new to rid my memory of the experience.

That being said, I recently gave two, full, quality listens to Busta Rhymes' new album, Back on my BS, and.... yeah (sigh).