Dropping Beer

Toorak Bound

2006-11-13T20:20:00.000+11:00

So i figured id better post and keep up my monthly post record for the last few -

Ive moved out to Toorak with the crack heads and couch fiends - soon will be moving elsewhere with the same crackheads and revolver fiends - will keep you posted.

This blog will be resserrected in a new and fearsum fashion as soon as im settled in to the new place. Till then - oh yer - i saw jay-z two weeks ago - mad as fuck - will spit more on that at some stage - keep it breezy fiends - flaming...

Giant mud flow..

2006-10-14T00:22:00.000+10:00

The fucks up with this?

"Oct. 12 - The Indonesian authorities are not yet winning the battle against a huge mudflow caused by an industrial accident which is driving thousands from their homes.

Scientists are warning that the runaway mud tide in east Java may flow indefinitely."

Ras Kass vs Game

2006-09-20T21:01:00.000+10:00

So heres a rundown about the recent Ras Kass and Game fued someone posted on the non prophets forum, unfortunately he didnt provide the link so blame him not me:

"Early last year when Ras Kass was releasing alot of material after just being released from prison, he dropped a song/freestyle called Caution that raised some eyebrows. No, not just cause the song was dope, but for these lines; "Fools is acting like they want what I always was / West Coast lyricist with East Coast love/you was made to run/get a thousand tattoos and won't raise your gun/so when you get merked I'ma raise your son/Ras is a son of a bitch, you the son of a coward/your pops went to jail got fucked in the shower.”

It seemed obvious who Ras was talking about. The Game was a west coast artist with east coast love, covered in tattoos, had his street credibility questioned and had a son he always talked about. Plus he had just blown up, started calling himself the king of the west (which Ras often did), and was now rolling with Ras' boy Scirpio. But after questions of the dis came up Ras said, “the track ‘Caution’ that I wrote and recorded is not directed towards any artist. It’s a general statement. If the shoe fits, find a matching skirt. When I do diss somebody, I certainly wouldn’t bring their children into it.”

Despite this all seeming like ancient history now, The Game was looking to get it settled last night. "The ni**a tried to jump me 30 to 2, yet I'm alive and chillin' my sweater is still white and all my jewelry intact. Game is a 'Change of Heart,' stripping, fake-ass blood who sold some records riding Dr Dre's shirt tails. I guess he thought this would help him sell some more records. I was so unfazed by it all that I went up to his car afterwards and challenged him right there. Game is no match for me physically or lyrically," Ras Kass told AHH.

Of course The Game basically said the opposite; "Aint nobody hit that dude but me, he's crazy talking about 30 people. I never had beef and never met Ras Kass, unless it was a quick exhange saying hello. He talked about my son by name. You can say what you want about me, but what does my son got to do with it? I seen the nigga in the club. I walked up to him in the club and it was my mans birthday, so I didn't want to mess up his party. When the lights came on, at the end I asked him about the freestyle. He said it wasn't nothing, but he started in on that 'it's whatever I'm Ras Kass and punched him in the face before he could finish...Ras Kass' career is over, I ended it with that one punch last night."

While both said the fued will not continue on wax, how many times has The Game claimed he is done dissing G-Unit before coming out with another diss song a month later? I expect we'll be hearing more about this one."

Theres already a Ras Kass diss floating around, unfortunately havent located a link as yet. Theres also YouTube videos from both parties (aint the internet grand? hiphop beef documented like never before.)

The Games response to Ras.

Bryon Crawfords lil assessment of Ras's video and the video itself

New Jay Z rumour

2006-09-14T17:55:00.000+10:00

So thanks to some swift ass moves from my man J-Sleeze Jigga tix have been secured for yours truly - and furthermore this news hot off the press!

“It was the worst retirement, maybe, in history,” Jay tells EW. “I believed it for two years.” Jay’s new album Kingdom Come, rumored to be in stores this November, will feature production from Dr. Dre, Timbaland, Kanye West and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

more info here.

E-40 Interview

2006-09-05T22:36:00.000+10:00

This is an interview i been holding onto for a while...dope shit though...specially the bit about his son...

checkit:

Pretty Toney Interview..

2006-09-02T00:55:00.000+10:00

The fuck...better post something...heres what i guess is a Ghost interview and who knows what it says but im sure theres a reason I have it my archives sop enjoy!!! (and click all over grounuphop for sure)

SOaP

2006-08-22T21:04:00.000+10:00

So you heard it hear first (well maybe not) - but Snakes on a Plane comes out here within the next few days and the world will truly never be the same again.

So for the next while im just going to be posting some str8 up SOaP buzz shit..

A snippet of a post from a while back from the ever reliable Oh Word team:

"I think they could do one better: what if Cypress Hill did the closing theme to Snakes on a Plane?

Start it off with a dusty Muggs breakbeat. If you can’t clear the sample, just recreate the sound like Beck did on Guero. The verses aren’t really important either, just have B-Real rap back the plot of the film in classic cheesy early 90’s movie-rap style. The chorus is the real killer:

Both: SNAKES ON A MOTHAFUCKIN PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!
Sen Dog: SNAKES ON A PLANE! SNAKES ON A PLANE!
Both: SNAKES ON A MOTHAFUCKIN PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!
B-Real: CUZ WE COMIN WITH MAD MARIJUANA AND CO-CAAIIIIIIINNNEE!!"

Outkast - Oh no!!

2006-08-20T21:00:00.000+10:00

heres a review posted on ohword; got me worried:

Aug 14, 2006
Andre 3000, this is an intervention · by Sacha Orenstein

I have had it with Andre 3000’s bullshit. Now Outkast may very well be my favorite Hiphop duo that’s still rapping at a relevant level (when they rap that is) but enough is enough. I’ll meet them halfway on Idlewild by skipping the useless skits and accepting the fact that they’ve decided to become a space-pop group. I’ll accept that Big Boi decided that he needs overly lush production and constant R&B hooks to remain “creative” Hell, I’ll even let Andre get by on his blues n’ Prince imitations for the first half of the disc since they’re short and painless. All in all, the album has nine very fun songs even if they make Gnarls Barkley sound rugged and rough by comparison. It even has 3 or 4 more decent ones depending on how much of their self-indulgence you can take, songs with crappy hooks or concepts that I’ll let slide since it’s a film soundtrack of sorts.

But there are 6 absolutely terrible Andre 3000 solo songs/jams on here that are never forgive actions. Simply put the back end of Idlewild is the most embarrassing failure since fellow Badu alumni Common dropped Electric Circus. From the downright insulting Camille-aping of Makes no Sense at all to the interminable funkadelic disaster of Matron Angel to When I look in your eyes, the single most awful song Outkast have ever been associated with, the end of Idlewild basically consists of the Andre pop album we never wanted to hear. Even stuff that could have been passable like The Greatest Show on Earth, Dyin to Live and the (almost) literally interminable Bad Note wear out their welcome in about a minute and then drag on, subjecting the listener to Mr 3000’s whimsy and “creativity”. These songs serve only to prove that Outkast haven’t been a real group in years and to make some of the other material on the album seem less mediocre by comparison. Frankly, the best moments on here would rank as “good” on Stankonia, already not their greatest of releases.

I hope that this one grows on me, I really do. I’ve got it playing on repeat so I can just maybe find some justification for all the terrible decisions made here because the last thing I want to do is diss this album. I’m an Outkast fan first and foremost but this is unacceptable. Either break up and let Big Boi do his thing or patch things up and work together to release a real album because half-hearted protools pop from a band in name only serves only to cheapen the legacy what was once the most exciting duo in Hiphop music.

El-Producto's new lp...

2006-08-20T18:42:00.000+10:00

Heres a blog outlining in very little detail some of the last stages of El-P's new LP -

http://iswyd.blogspot.com/

Looking good!!

NES..

2006-08-12T18:47:00.000+10:00

The NES was quite possibly the greatest gaming system ever released. Sure it wasnt even as advanced as the Sega Master System in terms of graphics and sound - but what it lacked in this respect it more than made up with ill ass titles like Castlevania, Super Mario Bros, Zelda, Contra, Kung Fu, Metriod!, Excite Bike, Mike Tysons Punch Out, Double Dragon, Ghouls and Ghosts, TMNT (i remember thinking this was the shit when it came out! pity it really kinda sucks).

I remember going to my best mates house and playing NES from Friday to Sunday without sleeping - lying in sleeping bags in his lounge room taking turns playing whatever game we had hired out - pretending we'd just woken up when his mum came in at 8 in the morning - "are you sure you boys have slept?" - as we lay there with the sort of glaze and intent focus that can only come from 12+ hours of staring at colourful darting characters on a screen. I have particularly vivid memories of playing Metroid for what felt like en eternity, going round and round those levels, jumping up and down those tunnels, frustratingly dope.

Also how can those stupid playstation eye things compare with ill advancments like the NES Zapper (im sure the only reason this hasnt been reproduced on any other system is some bullshit 'kids cant have guns' campaign or something) - how mad would be have been playing Halo with a fucken shotgun replica? The Power Glove was close to completely useless - but still - the idea was there - i would definately rock one around during winter if i had one.

The only drawback to these games - the endings were always massively dissapointing. This problem continues to plague games to this very day - never ever have I seen an ending I was satisfied with! You invest hours, days, weeks and months into playing this thing and your expecting gold coins to drop from the sky and your tv to explode streamers or some shit at the very least - but no - generally its a 'congratulations you've saved the world press B to restart' sorta steez. Ah well..

Of course the Master System had some great games also - thats what my brother owned so I played it alot - Wonder Boy 1, 2 and 3 (3 being one of the best games ive ever played as long as i never play it again to find out its not that exciting) - Sonic of course, Alex Kid in Miricle World was dope - Alex Kid in Shonobi World was probably even doper - and that baskteball game where you played werewolves - that was some obscure ass game programming on that one - actually now it hink about it i presume it was inspired by TeenWolf hah never thought of that - there ya go..

Anyways im sure everyone has there own memories, heres the thread over at the NP board from (shit 4 years ago nearly!) that inspired this...

2006-08-10T19:44:00.000+10:00

heres some funny shit good ole rob nat posted over at his excellent blog www.unkut.com - about Doom dissing Parker Lewis Cant Lose for rapping -

DMX speaks...

2006-08-09T19:20:00.000+10:00

I havent watched this as yet so i dunno what its about - I got a shitload of archived shit to post up on here so expect some posts that i dont really know what im talking about coz i got no speakers on this comp - excellent huh?

DMX

Devin the Dude in Canada So Real...

2006-08-08T22:04:00.000+10:00

Check this story from over at HoustonSoReal about a fucked up weekend Devin and Matt had in Canada -

SNAP SNAP!!!!

2006-08-08T21:39:00.000+10:00

Just noticed this shit - second single from IDLEWILD!!

Featuring non other than Dropping Beer's favourite rapper of the minute - LIL WEEZY!!

and some other doggy dogg duke...

Aint listened to it yet ...but im sure its slammin!!

HERE

Hobart Trip!!

2006-08-07T20:41:00.000+10:00

Hons and Sesta

Aight heres a quick run down of my trip to Tassie - Thursday I packed all my shit up and headed off to the airport - got down to Tassie round 9.30 and punctual Crix was at the airport waiting for me and we headed off to this hotel in Sandy Bay I had just organised that avo. The manager or whatever had told me they close at 8pm but was nice enough to leave the key under the mat!! hah...So we get in there and shits all gravy - start sinking Cascade Draughts which is a fucken nice drop i might add...

We headed to some pub called the Republic Bar which was also to be the location of the Funkoars gig on Satdey and proceed to smash piss with some local dudes - mad vibe down there and dudes were mad friendly.

Ended up at this girls house talking shit to her housemate who was kicking us political 'rhymes' from his book while we sucked red wine from a goon back - I pretty much blacked out at this point but remember one or two things before passing out in the hotel.

We got up for checkout at 10 and shuffled down to the local Maccas and ate an absolutely disgusting meal - headed to Jorge's and chilled out and waited for Crytearia to finish work so we could bail to his joint and record.

Crytearia was a mad dude and had a pretty sweet setup - we started to record and after many a problem with the fucken mic we actually managed to get two tracks down. After that we just went and chilled at Jorge's.

Next day was all about the Funkoars gig. After chillin most of the day we headed out to the Republic and began to get our drink on. Was good to catch up with the 'Oar's as Sesta said 'I aint seen you in a minute..' - nearly two years worth of minutes to be exact haha. Drinks were flowing hard - on the way in the door bitch gave me $23 change for the $20 i gave her she musta thought i gave her $40 so that was sweeet - then later on she realised we were on the door so gave us a refund! Also the bar chick was giving me pints for $5 for some reason that was fucken dope!

Crixus destroyed his set - dude was going off!

Me and Jorge got up and did our track and the crowd cut sick - was an awesome vibe!

Later the 'Oar's were on and they absolutely killed it! - unfortunately a chick passed out in my lap outside i had to help the bouncers drag her outside for a good 20 minutes so missed a fair portion - but at least the bouncers felt sorry for me and loaded me up with free drinks..

Later on went back to mc felines house who proceeded to load me the fuck up on cones -

Next day headed home pretty much and shit was all good - tired as fuck but enjoyable as fuck...

till next time Tassie!

Crixoid

Funkoars in the hizzle!

Proof that Hobart loves Pronts and Temps

Temps and Cryteariod

Crix strikes a pose!

Crix and Hons

Funkizzles

Birds love me!

80's Tee's

2006-07-10T21:23:00.000+10:00

Damn upon posting the transformers thing i stumbled upon this site

www.80stees.com

Lucky i dont have a credit card or else it would be game over

Robots in disguise...

2006-07-10T20:54:00.000+10:00

Holy heck im geeked!!!!

http://www.transformersmovie.com/

Favela Rock!!

2006-06-29T20:29:00.000+10:00

Yup Yup - tis that time once again y'all!!

Get Crunk - Get Hyphy - Get Dumb - Get Stupid - Get Gorilla 'wit it!!

jyippp!!

Len Bias

2006-06-26T20:13:00.000+10:00

Here's some highlights from ill fated Boston draft pick Len Bias.

24 years old!!

2006-06-22T21:20:00.000+10:00

SO Saturdays my 24th Bday - happy birthday to myself!!

Ill post some more shit next week - also Miami won the title!!!

D and D and Dandy Line..

2006-06-20T20:20:00.000+10:00

So i got on the train today behind two dudes - one of them had a bunch of hiphop cd's (with something called Dr Dre Chronic 2006?) and was handling two bottles of port - one half finished. These dudes were just having a laugh and shit in what was probably uncomfortable for most other passengers as one of them was highly inebrebriated but I was finding it pretty funny so got to chatting to them a bit. They were headed to Warragul which is a hell of a long trip meaning theyd have to catch a V-Line after getting off at Pakenham station. After a while some seats came available and they sat down and continued to talk shit. At Noble Park station 3 cops (2 female 1 male) got on - to his mates concern the drunk dude couldnt resist yelling some shit at them just before they were gonna get off at Dandy - then he continued to bad mouth em as they were staring at him wondering if they should get off or not - so they walk up to this dude and start to question him. He immediately arcs up and starts giving them shit while waving the unopened bottle of port around to show that he wasnt drinking in public. Theyre asking him for ID and so forth and he's just being a smartass to them doing the standard - 'catch any real criminals today or just people on trains' speil. The male cop then asks the dude what was under his jumper and this dude just laughs it up and while pulling out the open bottle of port says 'its the bottle that you dont know about' and tries to take a sip - at this point the male police officer man handles the bottle out of him and all three police peoples wrestled him for about 3 minutes trying to put cuffs on him - the dude did a real good job of being simultaneaoulsy slippery and talking like a smartass while they did this. Oh yer and by this stage his mate had completely vanished. The dude was saying some pretty funny shit the whole time and was really getting under the male cops skin it was pretty marvelous to watch although im sure the dude will regret his bravado when the port wears off and the D and D charges kick in. At least it provided some entertainment to the usually boring train trip.

Ras Kass - Institutionalised

2006-06-18T11:00:00.000+10:00

Ras Kass is an interesting character - you can read about some of his history here. In a nutshell he's considered one of the best mc's of all time by many but hasnt released alot of product and hasnt come near reaching his potential either artistically or financially. As he suggests in the aforementioned interview: "I'm the king of this (west) coast homie. And you can ask Dr Dre. He gave his top 5 several times…I'm the only one who hasn't sold no records yet though. But it's a matter of time." With that he released the first of a slew of 'mixtapes' last year "Institutionalised" - which isnt actually a mix - neither is it on tape - and all the beats are original - so actually its probably closer to an album - whatever you call it - it was dope as hell and over time has emerged in my mind as one of the best releases of last year.

The 'mixtape' starts off with Sway announcing that Ras Kass is back from jail, back on the streets, and back in the booth - so what does he have to offer? The answer is precision lyrics and an obvious thirst for his craft that he hasnt had for some time - seems his time in jail has made him even more hungry and cocky than before. Ras truly believes he is one of the best lyricists in the game - and he's absolutely right - he also believes he has been treated very unfairly by the industry - which may well be true and from all reports sounds like it - whether it has been mismanagement or poor decisions on his behalf he hasnt had the career of some of his much less talented accomplises (see Xzhibit). Whatever the case - Ras is hungry as fuck and exudes a cocky swagger that is irresistable.

The opening track is lead by the sound of sirens and a sparkly sample - creating the image of Ras escaping the clutches of the law and laying down his own law. The second track 'Air em Out' is led by something that sounds like a speed up Queen sample - dope ass beat - as Ras Kass explains he's the dude 'everybody hates like Ja Ja Binks' - the chorus is simply stated "I - Will - Not - Lose" - testiment to his confidence that his time in the industry is just round the corner.

On "Slap Season" he laments 'they say men dont cry - then why this shit leaking out my eye?' over the down tempo beat - an introspective track where he talks about many things to do with his life, friendships and family.

FOllowing this we have "Flood" which is one of the tracks which stands out on early listens - he describes his intention to 'flood the streets' with his product over a hot as hell keyboard beat.

"Expect Me" see's Ras destroy a G Unit esque beat - since it appears Ras has put himself in competition with the likes of G-Unit his ability to absolutely kill the style that these guys do should keep him in good stead in his mission to blow up - however it could also work against him - on one hand Eminem blew up with his lyrical precision - whereas someone like Chino XL just couldnt reach the fine line between precision and accessability - it appears to me that Ras is really trying to tread that fine line and he's doing it very well so far in my opinion.

Next we have Killer Mike explaining how Ras is out of the pen and back on the streets and how 'God forgave him but the State of California wouldnt' on "Put ya Glass Out" over an orchestral beat. Ras spends the track laying down some solid rhymes making for another head nodding experiment albeit unspectacular.

After this we have "Write where I left off" - an absolute banger - ill beat - we hear Ras Kass ask us if we know what a 'homonym is?' as he proceeds to rip the track using homonyms. He says that he's heard that 'God dont like ugly' but is happy because it means 'Jahovas witness wont bug' him. During the chorus he suggests that he might not have more money than most so he shows off with his rhymes instead.

On 'Shine' Ras spits some of the most heartfelt rhymes ive heard in a hell of a long time as he talks about his time in jail. The beat is perfect creating a feeling of both the struggle he mustve experienced in jail and also the optimism that he mustve struggled to maintain while being in there. He suggests that "rehabilition is hypocritical, and not to sound cynical but all you ever learn in prison is how to be a better criminal" - he talks about how 'some dudes break in here and cut their own throats from ear to ear' and how jail is 'physical, emotional, psychological warfare' and such a waste of time - he ponders why he brought a watch coz he's got enough time as it is. He talks about his bemusement at his inmates who spend there time watching old episodes of cops - he also mentions how he shared a cell with Robert Downey Jr. He ends the song talking about what he's going to do when he gets out - and how he still has distain for the law - and in desperate display of self talk he says that he's a 'live wire, motherfucking survivor, fucken mygyver' - which holds a vastley different feeling to the other displays of braggadocia on the lp - as he appears to be trying to maintain his own positivity rather than trying to merely say something witty for the sake of his raps.

After this the mixtape returns to Ras spitting hot 16's over a carnival themed beat on the head nodding 'No Love' - as he states that he 'cremates his left arm every sixteen bars' and 'regenerates like salamander'.

On 'More' we have more (no pun intended) of the same formula - a doper beat than the previous track with more synth influence - another banging joint with hot 16's.

Rick Rock produced the key heavy "My Apology". Ras spends the last verse seemingly talking about a girl he used to see who was unsupportive yet would want the spoils of his hard work - which he later reveals to be Capital Records whom he apparently sued for 5 million dollars for contract breach.

On "U Aint Me" we have Xzhibit spitting some boring ass shit over an anthemic type beat - Houston cat Chamillionare spits the chorus giving it a down south vibe - Ras spits another hot 16 - talking about how he's like the tasmanian devil running through tornadoes - Chamillionare does his decent verse also (damn he sounds like 50 though).

Next we hear easily the worst cut on the lp in my opinion - Look Alive is obligitory G Unit track featuring Young Buck and Strong Arm Steady delivering a yawn feast over the repeatatively boring piano beat - Ras tries to save it but cant.

"Life and Bullshit" see's Ras getting reflective talking on a variety of subjects connected by the theme of people confusing life and bullshit over an awesome beat with Carribean influence (or something). He remembers his 'high school dance, nervous asking girls to slow dance...trying not to get a hardon' in his pants - he talks about dudes that spend thousands of dollars on jewellery yet still live at home with their parents and women who spend their welfare cheques on getting their hair done while their kids are at home hungry.

Following this Ras talks about he has been lucky to have 5 real friends in his life on "Unconditional Love" - a letter to the people who have been real to him in his life.

On the Snoop Dogg sampling "We run the Streets" we hear a variety of mc's of which im not familair with - a pretty good west coast posse cut with a standout Ras rhyme.

The mixtape finishes with "Welcome Home" which see's Ras talking about his experience leaving jail and coming home - a fitting finish to a very dope mixtape.

Since the release of this he has released another less polished mixtape "Revenge of the Spit" which im still yet to listen to in great length - but it shall be interesting to see what these two releases do for him and what he will be doing to follow them up business wise. No doubt Ras is ontop of his game - whether or not this translates to success is yet to be seen.

The Doc gives this 4.25 surgical gloves outta 5.

WooOOOooOoO FrIdAy!~@!

2006-06-17T00:27:00.000+10:00

Yo WATUP

Guess who's drunk? - well more than usual anyways - i had some mad shit to write here when i decided to post this now but seems the ISP has decided ive exceeded my download limit for the month already and pages are loading slower than a snail on codeine so memories of 6 minutes ago are like a distant memory that you cant remember but your sure was important -

anyways

I had nothing to do tonight so i chilled at work and drank a bottle of wine with some workmates before most went home - after that a couple of other people were willing to chill so i went and bought a six pack and another dude bought a pizza and we sat around for a bit - seemed like i was the only one drinking the six pack of the Bitburger from Germany which was on special and was a very nice drop i might say - so I figured fuckit and slammed into it headfirst - I been nursing a cold all week so might as well destroy the recovery process completely and nill any chance of doing anything product tomorrow - after the second beer i forgot the other two werent drinking - or stopped caring or whatevers clever - i was lamping it up spitting opinions left and right east and north - smoking ciggies answering phone calls acting a fool - shit was grand - i got lift back to the station from the chick and got home late enough to negate getting up early to look for houses tomorrow - well compiled with how fucked im getting now i mean - no chance - so another score str8 through the goals - flame on - next weeks my bday and no doubt that will produce some actual productive unproductivity as oppose to what this weekend beckons.....PZ!

oh yer i almost forgot

Bun B Interview

2006-06-15T21:18:00.000+10:00

Here he is - King of the trill - breaking a lil summin' summin' off for the suurp sippaz sitting sideways - pop ya cizzle - candy paint ya ride - and prepare for the trillest of the trill:

Bun B
[RAPPER]

“TELL YOUR HOMEBOY TO CURB HIS ENTHUSIASM
BEFORE I POINT MY MOTHERFUCKIN’ UZI AT HIM.”

How to out-rap someone whose song you are guest appearing on:
Use more syllables per line
Attack the song in the same way as your mark, but with more intensity
Rhyme more words, and rhyme multisyllabically

They rap different in the South. The urgency and foreboding that dominate the sounds coming from the Coasts are all but eliminated, traded in for an almost chilling casualness. At its best, Southern rap sounds warm, charming, and deliberate. Even the threats sound like easy conversation.

Bun B might just be the chief architect of that style. Born Bernard Freeman, Bun is one half of the Port Arthur, Texas, rap group UGK (Underground Kingz), one of the region’s—and the country’s—most revered groups. Over five albums beginning in 1992, Bun and his partner Pimp C helped craft the template that would catapult numerous artists of the next generation to success. Bun, in particular, emerged as a mercenary lyricist, capable of intense rhythmic complexity and astute narrative construction. Innovation, though, can be rough business strategy—nationwide notice came slow to UGK, who first came to wide prominence guesting on Jay-Z’s gargantuan 2000 single “Big Pimpin.’” Soon after, Pimp was incarcerated for a probation violation, and Bun became one of hip-hop’s most in-demand guest artists, rapping on scores of records and helping to kick-start a new generation of Texas hip-hop. Last year, he released his solo debut, Trill, and a few months later, Pimp was released from prison—they hope to have a new UGK album completed by year’s end.

This interview was conducted over the phone in late March. Bun was at his Houston home, resting in between show dates. BET was playing on the television in the background, and he was preparing to take his mother to a Houston Rockets game that evening.

—Jon Caramanica

I. “IF YOU AIN’T QUACKING,
YOU AIN’T NO DUCK.”

THE BELIEVER: What was Port Arthur like when you were young?

BUN B: Port Arthur as a town was incorporated in the late 1800s. It did fair business as a port town. But what really caused the explosion of the area in general was the discovery of the Spindletop oil derrick in Beaumont, Texas. The Spindletop oil derrick was the most fruitful derrick in the world. At its peak, it gave up about a hundred thousand gallons of oil a day. They were shipping it out from Port Arthur, so the oil industry, of course, brought a boom to the small town. If you go to the town now, you will see what are now defunct Chevron, Texaco, and all these other refineries. Pretty much everyone in the Beaumont part of the area from probably the early 1900s on up about to 1985—when everything in the oil industry went downhill—was employed by the refineries or made their money off the refineries. Either you worked for the refineries or you provided some service for the refineries or for the people that worked for the refineries.

BLVR: And the people would basically live in Port Arthur and work at the refineries—it wasn’t a commuter town.

BB: If you go to Port Arthur today, you see these big-ass fucking tanks, right in residential areas. And in the past there’s been a few times where we’ve had some problems with that.

BLVR: That’s what I was going to ask. First of all, the smell. I’ve never smelled a town like Port Arthur. It’s so distinctive, and so you know that has to do with the oil. There must be health repercussions with that.

BB: Every now and then something will leak… I had a brother who moved to Port Arthur, and he was living a little closer to the refinery than we did. There was some kind of chemical leak or whatever, and a lot of people got sick. And I’m like, I bet this happens a lot more than people know. But you can’t go biting the hand that feeds you.

BLVR: Did your parents work for the refineries in some capacity?

BB: No, my stepfather was a janitor and my mother was a private nurse for invalid patients. She would do personal care, which basically means wiping their ass and bathing them and feeding them. And my stepfather was a janitor, which basically means cleaning up after people who can shit and feed themselves, but don’t know how to do it like regular people.

BLVR: Your mom and your dad split when you were relatively young, right?

BB: When my parents were together, my father was an alcoholic. It’s not like I’m speaking ill on the man—if I put you on the phone with him, he would tell you this. He’s reformed and rehabbed now. He’s a preacher. But in spite of him being an alcoholic and a gambler and adulterer and whatever these things he was—understanding the nature of people, if I know him to have all three of these things, I’m good for one of them.

BLVR: You never held it against him?

BB: Once I got older I understood, yeah, I have a propensity to drink. Yeah, I love a good dice game. Yeah, I love the hoes. Once I got to an age where I understood these things, which was like probably twenty-one or twenty-two, I was like, “You know what? I understand you a lot better now, because I understand me. And I am of you.”

BLVR: Were you a good student in school?

BB: I was a pretty smart kid; I always made good grades. Most of the kids that made good grades, I didn’t like. I was like every other kid trying to figure out what he wanted to be and where he wanted to go. And what was going to work with where his friends wanted to go and who they were trying to be. You figure, OK, I want to be this when I’m around my friends and when I’m home I kind of want to be this.

BLVR: What was that split—public vs private Bun—like for you?

BB: It was a pretty big difference because in high school, there weren’t too many young black kids watching David Letterman. I was into Rich Little. If they were out there, they didn’t admit it.

BLVR: What about acting? I know you did some acting when you were young.

BB: I did A Raisin in the Sun, a couple of other plays. My drama teacher told me, “You know what? You got a lot of foolishness in you, but it’s not bad foolishness.” I ended up getting two college scholarship offers—one academic and one for acting.

BLVR: So you forwent both of them to rap?

BB: Once I’d accepted that that was what I wanted to do. It was all about proving my parents wrong, and you can totally understand the tenacity of a teenager trying to prove his parents wrong. That’s 151 percent. I was like, I got to make it now, otherwise they’re right. And I’m not going to give them that.

BLVR: When they first heard The Southern Way, what was their response?

BB: From my parents? My parents never actually heard Southern Way. My mother didn’t really understand I was a rapper ’til probably around “Big Pimpin.’”

BLVR: Really?

BB: My parents are from a whole different culture. My parents are from small-town Louisiana. It’s like, if it walk like a duck, talk like a duck, then it’s a duck. And if you ain’t quacking, you ain’t no duck. My mom’s whole thing was, “Why ain’t you on TV? Everybody else that makes music is on TV.” So I’m like, “Well, they don’t really deal with Southern people.” And she’s like, “That’s not true, ’cause Ray Charles is from the South and James Brown is, too.”

BLVR: So how did she think you earned a living?

BB: Drugs.

BLVR: So her assumption was that you earned a living exclusively from the street?

BB: Yeah.

BLVR: And at that time, what percentage of that was true?

BB: By the time Southern Way came out, 50 percent, tops. After that album, we started doing shows, and it declined.

BLVR: Do you miss the street at all? People sometimes get nostalgic, romantic for shit like that. Do you ever have that kind of semi-irrational response?

BB: No, because whenever I sit back and think about the dumb shit I did, I honestly cannot believe I got the fuck away. I know guys who are gone forever who did the same dumb shit I was doing. And I think I may have did it a little worse than them. Like, I was literally on the highway, with cocaine on the dashboard, car on cruise, with my feet out the window, smoking a blunt. Begging a state trooper to take me away for the rest of my fucking life.

II. “YOU CAN’T WRITE A BOOK
IF YOU’VE NEVER READ A BOOK.”

BLVR: So when you realized “OK, this is a career option,” what rappers did you want to model yourself on?

BB: At that point, KRS-One. This was really before KRS got, what most people would say is—

BLVR: Insane?

BB: Nah, not insane. But at least contradictory, on certain points—

BLVR: I’ll say insane. You don’t have to say insane.

BB: I really don’t want to disrespect the man because the man was great. He’d done many great things before I did. So kudos to that. Just because he had a few bad ideas maybe after the fact, you can’t knock what he’d done before. He is my OG.

BLVR: Yes, I hear that. At a certain point he was your OG.

BB: He’s still my OG. I say this right now to you and I hope you put it in print. KRS is my OG. Simply because he was the first guy that was like, “Fuck it. I’m a rapper. I’m in the hood. Me and my homies got guns, but you know what? I’m not ignorant. This is a personal choice some of us have made, and as soon as we can get away from it we will.” Like Andre [3000] said, every cat with braids ain’t down for the cause. You know what I’m saying?

BLVR: And in terms of your actual rap style, what were you thinking in terms of how you put words together?

BB: Now here’s the thing, Jon. Here’s where we come to a bump in the road.

BLVR: Tell me.

BB: I honestly never gave it that much thought.

BLVR: Really?

BB: I honestly never sat down and said “OK, here’s my style,” because my whole thing was knowing everyone’s style. Everything I’ve ever written has bits and pieces of everything I’ve ever heard. Any rapper that tells you different is a liar. You can’t write a book if you’ve never read a book. And if you’ve read five books and you try to write a book, your book will mainly encompass the themes and the context of the five books you’ve read. Now, the more books you read, the more you can bring to a book when you decide to write one. So the more rap I learned, the more I was able to bring to rap when I decided to rap. But this was all subconscious.

BLVR: How did you know that you were getting better?

BB: People were telling me. That was the only fucking clue I had. Everybody was like, “Man, you killing it.” I didn’t honestly believe I was a rapper, like a real fucking rapper, probably until I met Biggie [Smalls] and Biggie knew who I was.

BLVR: How did he know who you were?

BB: From the “Pocket Full of Stones” remix on the Menace II Society soundtrack. I met Biggie when he was on promo tour with Craig Mack. This was the time when “Flava in Your Ear” was the hottest record in the country. Craig had gone gold, and Biggie was still at three-something. And I met him at BMG, so of course with the label, they was all about Craig. But I’m a rapper. It’s all about Big. So I was like, “Yo Biggie, you’re a bad motherfucker.” I had to tell him. Biggie was the first real bootleg, the first time everybody wanted somebody’s album before it came out. He was like, “I heard your shit too, I know who you is.” I was like, “No shit.” And he was like, “Yeah, ‘Pocket Full of Stones’ is my shit.” Wow. [Pause]

I’m sorry. I’m distracted—I’m listening to myself talk on TV right now.

BLVR: What’s it like listening to yourself talk?

BB: Surreal.

BLVR: Do you feel like you sound like you actually sound when you see yourself on TV?

BB: Yeah, I do. But I can’t believe I look like that.

BLVR: What do you look like?

BB: Every time I see myself in print or on TV, I feel like a little white girl. I feel fat.

III. “IF HE USES TEN SYLLABLES IN A LINE,
I’M GOING TO USE FIFTEEN.”

BLVR: So a lot of the work you’ve done in recent years—before your solo album dropped—has been guest appearances on other people’s records. I’d like to know a little bit about the practice of writing those rhymes.

BB: Well, the first thing I do is I try to listen to whatever rapping is already on the track. I listen for cadence and melody to see how the track’s already been written, and to make sure that whatever flow or flows I decide to run with, or patterns or melodies that I decide to put into the song, that they’re not already in there. Then I try to see if there’s a different part of the subject matter that I can talk about. If there isn’t, I try to see if I can analogize it, break it down, flip it another way. If that can’t be done, the best thing I can do is pretty much out-rap the guy. And when I say out-rap the guy—say, if he uses ten syllables in a line, I’m going to use fifteen. If he uses fifteen, I’m going to use twenty, twenty-five. If he’s rhyming two or three words within two bars, I’m going to rhyme four or five words in two bars. I’m going to out-skill you.

BLVR: Treat it as a technical exercise.

BB: And just put more into it. Basically, I’m going to take what you did, the bare-bones structure of what you were trying to do, how you were attacking the song, and attack it in pretty much the same way, just with more intensity to show you that you could’ve come harder. Like, I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to tell a cat how to rhyme his rhyme.

BLVR: He didn’t know how to spit it.

BB: Saying it all wrong. You know, like, that’s not how that bends. Which is pretty funny to me, because it means that subconsciously, you can rap, but your conscious mind won’t let you go hard. It might be that they get intimidated. I’ve been intimidated before, you know, but I stepped up to the plate.

BLVR: In what situations were you intimidated?

BB: Well, you know, the first time I rapped with E-40, because, first of all, you’re not going to out-rap him. If E-40 is going to invent a word, you know what you got to do to take away from that.

BB: Sure. What about Jay-Z?

BB: Absolutely. Jay was intimidating to the point where I was totally intimidated before I even got to the booth. But I was like, this is going to be a test of my mettle. In the South, I’m regarded as the guy who, quote unquote, out-rapped Jay-Z. A lot of Southern rappers would say that. Not saying that I’m a better rapper than Jay-Z, but I was able to out-rap Jay-Z on a track. The reality is that I probably took that song [“Big Pimpin’”] a whole lot more seriously than Jay-Z. Because that was a lackadaisical, laid-back party track, and I attacked it. You know, for me, I’m a rapper. And I’m on it with Jay-Z.

BLVR: You’d better be hot.

BB: Yeah. In all fairness, I did hear it first. I got there and I realized he’s playing with it. Like, didn’t he even think to think that I would take into consideration the fact that I’m rapping with Jay-Z and might go—

BLVR: And try to devour him.

BB: Not even that much. Like, I know Jay-Z. The reason he called us to get us on the song was because of respect for what we do. So I know that he knows, on some level, in some form or fashion, that I tend to think of myself as a lyricist. And he had to know that, rapping on a song with Jay-Z, I was probably going to give it my all. But I don’t even think he thought that I was going to try to do anything, try to get my rap on. I honestly don’t think he took that song as seriously as I did.

BLVR: Let’s talk about that example in particular. When you heard his verse, how long did it take you to put yours down?

BB: Probably fifteen, twenty minutes. No longer than any other rhyme I’ve written. The hardest thing for me to do, as far as writing a rhyme, is figuring out how it’s going to go.

BLVR: Meaning?

BB: Once I get in my mind that it’s going to go “da da da dadada da da,” then it’s kind of like filling in the blanks.

BLVR: You figure out the pattern first, the pattern and cadence first, then the words?

BB: I take the typical words, or I pick a two-word, three-word pattern. One of the things I’m known for is I was one of the first rappers to end their bars rhyming multisyllabically. The other day I put Curb Your Enthusiasm in a rhyme.

BLVR: What’s the rhyme?

BB: It’s “Tell your homeboy to curb his enthusiasm before I point my motherfuckin’ Uzi at him.”

BLVR: [Laughs]

BB: I’m sure that would tickle Larry David.

IV. “I WOULDN’T DARE PUNCH
IN MIXED COMPANY. JESUS.”

BLVR: Are there things that you want to bring into your raps, but you have felt for whatever reason that you couldn’t or shouldn’t?

BB: No, I just haven’t gotten around to making those records yet.

BLVR: But you could go into the studio tonight and make a record about whatever and find a home for it. You could put it on a mixtape and put it out there.

BB: Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to take away from it. Like, for the longest, UGK and dead prez have talked about making a song. They expect dead prez to say “fuck the government” and shit like that, but when dead prez and UGK say “fuck the government” and we’re both breaking it down in our own respective ways, I think it makes it that much more of an impactful statement. We could actually make a major statement in the hood. That’s the thing that I think we all took away from “Big Pimpin.’” Like, this is a good record, but this isn’t the record that it could’ve been. This is UGK and Jay-Z. We are major representatives of our culture, our region, and our people. We could make a much more impactful record for the streets, to motivate niggas.

BLVR: Do you see motivation as a big part of your role?

BB: Initially, we were the guys from a town that nobody came to. So we would do a show in Jackson, but then we would also do a show in Pritchard, Alabama, or Tuscaloosa. We were the cats going to towns where people wouldn’t go. There was that small-town camaraderie, especially on the chitlin circuit in the South. You didn’t see us on TV, you didn’t see us in the magazines, but you could still see us onstage. We’re all country boys. I’m up there talking just like you talk, acting like you act. So, goddamn, you could probably make it, too. At that time, I was eighteen. Pimp was seventeen. There were no young guys really repping for kids, for young adults. You had Pimp representing for the fly boys, who the women liked. And then you had me, who was there for the rough cats as well as people who respected the art form. So really, there was no stone left uncovered.

BLVR: What do you think a 2006 UGK record is going to sound like?

BB: I think you’re still going to have records close to a lot of what you heard on Ridin’ Dirty and Dirty Money. But then I know that Pimp, he’s going to want to compete with the likes of Just Blaze and Pharrell. Pimp understands that, as a producer, the kind of energy that’s being brought is the kind of energy that’s being demanded of the song by the producer. Pimp made “Murder.” “Murder” is a song that demands more of you as a rapper. He made that because I told him “I want a song that I can go off to.” And he was like “OK, well, I’m going to give you a song to go off to.” After I did that record, I went to sleep. That song put me to sleep.

BLVR: Because it was that tiring?

BB: Because it was that demanding. And this was back when I had certain rules I went by. Like I didn’t punch in. I don’t punch in on verses.

BLVR: Very old-school.

BB: So that was like thirty-two bars, and it was like eighty-eight, ninety BPMs.

BLVR: Did you punch on “Big Pimpin,’” or was that also one shot?

BB: I wouldn’t dare punch in mixed company. Jesus.

BLVR: [Laughs] Yeah, but it was thirty-two bars.

BB: I wouldn’t dare.

BLVR: I’m just saying, thirty-two bars, you might be allowed a punch.

BB: Sorry. I maintained my integrity to the fullest in them days. Back then, when I needed the monster on the track I said, get me some Henny in there. I’m gonna eat it up. Every now and then I’ve walked into the booth and I’ve had some cats tell me, “Yo, you’re not going to beat me. I know you been out here wrecking niggas. You’re not wrecking me today.” And I’m like, “Don’t underthink me, and don’t overthink me. Don’t underestimate me, and don’t overestimate me. Just do you.” That’s all you can do up against a guy like me.

BLVR: Who do you feel, right now, is lyrically impressive?

BB: I still think Eminem. I listen to Em and I’m like, “You know what? You’re just playing with it now.”

BLVR: Oh, no, he is. It’s like he’s not even trying.

BB: I listen to Em right now and I can almost see him rolling his eyes in the booth. And I’m not knocking him for it, because when you’re so fucking good at what you do—it’s the same reason why Andre 3000 won’t rap anymore. He’s like “OK, gimme a challenge in rap. Because what they’re doing right now isn’t challenging. I can do that with my eyes closed.” What some people don’t understand is that maybe you’re the one to bring the challenge to rap.

BLVR: That you’re obliged to bring it.

BB: The problem for Andre 3000 is that there is no Andre 3000 for him. And that’s what bothers him. It used to be people—the Big Daddy Kanes, the Chubb Rocks—people who just attacked the game differently. And I don’t think there’s enough people doing that now. I’ve definitely had different people pushing me, a lot of people that don’t let me rest on my laurels. I got people like Young Jeezy, who are taking street music to another level. He’s calling me “OG.” “You gotta get ’em, OG. You gotta go out here and get ’em. Show us how it’s done.” Even these people who are changing the game, you know, expect me to change it after they’ve come. “That’s what you do. You come out and change the game.” And it’s like, yeah, but that’s what some of you cats are doing now. “It don’t matter. You taught us how to change, and you still gotta change it again. You gotta make me rethink me.”

Jon Caramanica is a senior writer at XXL and a regular contributor to the New York Times. His favorite UGK song is “Short Texas.”

Illustration by Tony Millionaire

Sage VS Esoteric

2006-06-12T18:39:00.000+10:00

Here's another You Tube link - some battle in Boston musta been around 2000 - Sage taking out Eso

Link

Here's a link to the infamous Dick Licker video:

Link

Sage's explanation of what happened:

After a show in canada (including a night of zero sleep the night before when shalem and I drove there) we were heading back to my car. Two visibly drunken females, rushing a sorrority walked passed us. Both of them had "dick licker" written on the back of their shirts. Shalem points it out and says, "hahaa...dick licker"

The one female who is present in the video footage storms back and starts giving shalem shit about him saying that. Very beligerent. I was like.....you know what....fuck that. So we began our dick licker parade. That's when the video begins. In the course of the video she throw THREE punches at my face. Thanks to her drunken delay time I was able to easily avoid the strikes while still making fun of her and not touching her a single time. Now I might be a serious asshole on any given occassion if I feel justified in it, but Shalem is not an asshole at all (unless pushed.) He is one of the nicest people I've ever had the priveledge of knowing. The mere fact that he is involved in the antics is my best alibi.

The middle aged women holding hands, and the unnecessary dissing of canada, was just icing on the cake. Thanks for enjoying a wonderful moment in sage/shalem history. I'll make sure to have it on the next dvd for anyone who has lived under a rock over the past 5 years.

Gossips..

2006-06-08T19:39:00.000+10:00

Some recent rumours from the old trusty hiphopsite:

OPRAH VS. HIP-HOP: ROUND THREE

Oprah is Hip Hop enemy #1! First Ludacris, then 50 Cent, and now Ice Cube is jumping in to send some verbal jabs towards the talk show queen. In his recent FHM interview, Ice Cube weighed in on the Oprah vs Hip Hop battle.

"I've been involved in three projects pitched to her, but I've never been asked to participate. For 'Barbershop,' she had Cedric the Entertainer and Eve on, but I wasn't invited. Maybe she's got a problem with hip-hop? She's had damn rapists, child molesters and lying authors on her show. And if I'm not a rags-to-riches story for her, who is?"

You damn right Ice Cube! Take that Oprah! But will she respond??? - Andreas Hale

CAM VS. JAY: IT'S (NOT) GOING DOWN

Cam'ron must not be tired of going at someone who isn't responding to him. He has launched yet another attack at Jay-Z over Yung Joc's "It's Going Down" beat.

"Player hater I don't play them games/you got beef with Killa, nigga... say my name/you shy?/snortin wrong/or they recorded wrong/my paper long/I pee on any resort you're on," are amongst the numerous disses that Cam uses to try to pull Hov out to battle him. Why you ask? He must be bored or need a boost in record sales. Either way nobody will be surprised if Jay still holds off on battling Cam on record. - Andreas Hale

RHIANNA TAINTED JAY-Z AND BEYONCE'S LOVE?

Everyone knows that Jay-Z and Beyonce have been at it for more than a couple months now. And everything seemed pretty honky dory between the two....until now. There have been some "reports" that there are some issues between the two causing a small rift. That issue is none other than Rhianna (yeah the young girl with the big forehead and wierd cross-eyes....she's cute yet rather young). These "reports" say that Rhianna has gotten involved in their relationship. Apparently the lil chick that sings that "S.O.S" song has been seen with Jay-Z quite often and one rumor even said that Beyonce shouted on Jigga when she called during a Nets game. Could there be a problem with Jayonce (sorry had to do it, in honor of Bennifer, Brangelina, and all the other dumbass combined names)? Or is this all a bunch of crap that little schoolgirls gossip about? - Andreas Hale

E-40 Lil Jon and Buddies..

2006-06-07T19:41:00.000+10:00

Oh snap! I meant to post this ages ago but it got lost in the time space continuum of the heaps of shit i should be posting on here...its hard work bringing you all this insanely important information, anyways:

"E-40 and Lil' Jon Share Strippers, Weed and New Music"

E-40 and Lil' Jon treated industry insiders to free weed and strippers during a listening session for 40's My Ghetto Report Card at New York City's Electric Lady Studios last night (February 27).

Two hours into the session, Jon and 40 surfaced and began taking photos with BME Recordings staffers and the slang master's crew. Moments later, John proceeded to walk across the studio, offering attendees generous portions of weed out of two ziplock bags.

Once a few blunts were ignited, exotic dancers came out to entertain the listeners. Showered with singles, dancers treated several heads to personal dances while others performed a myriad of X-rated stunts on one another.

Meanwhile, David Banner, Chamillionaire, T-Pain, BET's Jullisa, MTV's Sway, DJ Drama, DJ Kay Slay and R&B singer Avant all stopped by to show support. Warner executive Kevin Liles left the event before things truly kicked off.

In the end, journalists on hand to review the album were left listening to a mix of E-40 classics and only a few cuts from his new album, My Ghetto Report Card.

Wow sounds wack as fuck, also degrading to women - as my friend Julianne reports:

My new friend Hillary and I were in the corner going: WTF?! I'm not one to begrudge any woman her chosen occupation, and I hope those ladies were getting paid a lot of money. But I didn't sign up for a strip club-I signed up for a listening session, and the sudden appearance of approximately 10 close-to-naked women shifted the dynamic of the room entirely. Sure, a lot of people seemed pretty pumped-but a lot of other people, both men and women, looked incredibly uncomfortable. I thought the listening party was intended so writers could to hear and review the record, but it's kind of hard to critique an album while some guy is getting a lap dance in the chair next to you. I left with some friends before it was over.

Wow I bet Julliane and her new friend Hillary are signing petitions as we speak..

Anyways heres another review of the evening...

GHOSTRIDE THE WHIP!!

6/6/06

2006-06-06T19:06:00.000+10:00

Greetings Devils and Devilettes..

Well its that once in a lifetime calander date - the devils day - Damien would be proud.

Unfortunately there is nothing ill to report from todays events - quite dissapointing - apart from it being a bit chilly i saw nothing devilish today - i was hoping at least for a random fonlding or cunning leftfield grope..

It was crowned however, national emo kid beat down day, much to my delight. I think this should be continued throughout the rest of the month coz one day just aint enough. So if you see someone looking something like this:

You know your duty!!

Paul Wall Gets His Own Pilot

2006-06-05T20:16:00.000+10:00

Taken from news a month ago on the Rolling Stone site:

"The latest entry in VH1's self-stylized Celebreality format is an unscripted series featuring Houston rapper PAUL WALL. A pilot is officially in the works. Wall is also currently working on the follow-up to his major-label debut, 2005's chart-topper The People's Champ. His second effort is due by the end of the year."

Unscripted Ice Grilling - dang - sounds like a recipe for a hit...

In the meantime - heres the clip for You Dont Know ft Mike Jones (who? Mike Jones!!) and Bun B (King of the Trill).........JEAARR!!!!

Keep it country y'all...

Nasty Nas...

2006-06-04T19:16:00.000+10:00

This was recently posted up on the Non Prophets forum - an EPK (electronic press kit) released to promote Illmatic.

ENJOY!!!!

Sage Francis beat submissions...

2006-06-03T17:39:00.000+10:00

So its that time again when Sage Francis is collecting beats for his new lp - so instrumentalists send him beats - check his myspace page
or his forum for details.

I figured it would be funny to rehash an old joke and send him an entry:

He replied with:

From : sage francis
Sent : Friday, 2 June 2006 7:41:17 AM
To : "Manifold Sounds"
Subject : Re: Instrumental application for new LP

haha awesome

His response was kind of vague and he still hasnt told me exactly what adjustments he wants and so forth so he must be working to fit his rhymes around the beat before he decides what he wants. Gonna be cool to be on an album of that stature though for sure.

PS. I see Sage has posted the pic up on the forums Myspace page - I assume he must be nearly ready to lay verses.

Baby born with third arm...

2006-06-03T16:20:00.000+10:00

Finally an Earthling has been born with the ability to competently fondle the Total Recall chick!

SHANGHAI, China -- Doctors in Shanghai on Tuesday were considering surgery options for a 2-month-old boy born with an unusually well-formed third arm.

A doctor inspects a 59-day-old baby boy who was born with three arms, at a hospital in Shanghai, in east China Monday. AP Photo.

Neither of the boy's two left arms is fully functional and tests have so far been unable to determine which was more developed, said Dr. Chen Bochang, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Center.

"His case is quite peculiar. We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm," Chen said in a telephone interview.

The boy, identified only as "Jie-jie," also was born with just one kidney and may have problems that could lead to curvature of the spine, local media reports said. Jie-jie cried when either of his left arms was touched, but smiled and responded normally to other stimuli, the reports said.

Chen said doctors hoped to work out a plan for surgery, but the boy's small size made it impossible to perform certain tests that would help them prepare.

Media reports said other children have been reported born with additional arms and legs, but in those cases it was clear what limb was more developed.

Chen's hospital is one of China's most experienced in dealing with unusual birth defects, including separating conjoined twins.

Winter Warz..

2006-06-01T18:23:00.000+10:00

Yes the shit is raw coming at ya door...

First day of Winter today so man up pansies - time for heaters (if your lucky enough to have one) - layers - and finding it even more difficult to get out of bed in the morning (if that was possible).

Also this means ill have to move off the west coast down south vibe a lil bit and get into some str8 up east coast hiphop...Winter also means pulling out some classics like Heltah Skeltz, Wu Tangs entire discog pre 97 and a whole host of other dope shit..plus i get to listen to Cage's Hell's Winter and the GZA Muggs project and some other shit thats been sitting on my comp waiting for it to get cold enough to create a mood for it (coz im anal like that)..

I havent been posting much recently coz just havent been feeling all that jazzed up.. but been writing a bit of music so thats a good tradeoff..not that i write good music but at least its something..

I got an external harddrive so now I can carry all my files with me wherever i go - so if im coming to your house watch out coz ill be fully armed -

the Hyphy party we went to at Loop was fucken awesome also - we didnt stay long and the crowd was packed as shit but the tunes were mad - definately check that out again and again..

theres some competition for kids to rap over a Jase instrumental on the obese records website - ive written most of my entry and I predict I will win this competition - we shall see.

What else...thats about it...so plug in your electric blanky and dream of electric sheep....

Get crunk!!

2006-05-25T20:45:00.000+10:00

So yer you slack ass bitches...get yer asses down to loop tomorrow and get real dumb and stupid with me d-boy and our harom's - ever seen a dude moon walk on a roof? y'all bout to meet him motherfucker!

it'll get so damn hyphy it hurts~~~~

I Aint Havin' That...

2006-05-22T19:06:00.000+10:00

So when i first got the internet in '99 - Hiphopsite was one of the most on point e-zines that offered a complete coverage of hiphop. To this day it still maintains its credibility while other publications and e-zines have dissapeared or lost relevance (hello hiphopinfinity). One of my favourite sections was the "I Aint Havin That" section which featured pseudo rumours and news stories, unfortunately this stopped in around 2000 or something, but not before there were some choice posts:

Study: DJ's Not Only Better At Foreplay, But Also At Scratching Own Crabs

Sherman Oaks, CA - Through long and rigorous tests, scientists have discovered that DJ's are more inclined to please their partner's sexual appetite better during sessions of "foreplay", more so than the average "non-DJ".

Studies show that through the constant shifting of the DJ's fingers on both the mixer and records spinning on a turntable, leads to more versatility and flexibility of the index, middle, fore, and "pinky" fingers, and greater stimulation to the female sex organs. Interviews with several women, including groupies and those claiming to be "with the DJ", show a greater percentage of orgasms than women not involved sexually with a DJ.

Scientists also conclude that because of the increase in sexual pleasure of women involved with DJ's, the percentages of female sexual partners had by DJ's are higher than those of NASCAR drivers, spies, and even magicians.

From this, scientists hypothesize that DJ's are in fact better at scratching their own genitalia, as a result of frequent rash outbreaks and "crabs" that occur, usually contracted from one or more of the many partners they've been involved with.

Says all-star DJ Q-Bert in regards to the study, "Um... yeah, I'd say that's about right. How do you think we came up with the 'crab scratch'?"

Phife Sees Q-Tip At Mall With Busta; Leaves In Tears

White Plains, NY - Crowds of people witnessed a shocking scenario at the Galleria of White Plains shopping mall this afternoon. What looked to be just another dispute between two former companions, was actually the result of selfishness and total disregard for the other persons feelings. The three involved in the dispute were Q-tip and Phife Dawg, formerly of the rap group A Tribe Called Quest, and rap superstar Busta Rhymes.

Apparently, Phife had just finished shopping at The Gap, and had picked up a Cinnabon and an Orange Julius from the mall’s food court. Phife had quickly lost his appetite, when he noticed his former partner, Q-Tip, sharing a Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick with Busta Rhymes.

"It...was like that feeling you get when you hit the drop on the roller coaster at Coney Island. My eyes... they immediately filled up with tears... I couln’t even speak," said a still broken up Phife Dawg. "Tip had told me that he was going to do an in-store apperance in Brooklyn, but it was so obvious that... that... he....lied to me!"

According to witnesses, Q-Tip pretended not to notice Phife, trying to cover his face with his hand. Phife then approached the couple, and began shouting at Q-Tip, while Busta tried to calm him down.

"No! You don’t understand," whined Busta, "It’s not what you think, really!"

At this point, Phife really wasn’t paying attention to Busta, and Q-Tip had made matters even worse by completely ignoring Phife and saying "Say Busta, shouldn’t we head over to the studio now?" in snide and snobby way.

Apparently, the dispute reached full scale when Phife emptied the contents of his Orange Julius onto Q-Tip’s brand new sweater from Abercrombie and Finch. Q-Tip stood there in complete shock, mouth wide open, looking at his soiled outfit in amazement. Phife then ran out of the mall, in a crying fit.

Just at that moment, Screech walked up and tried to light heartedly smoothen the situation by saying "Well, Tip, orange ya glad he didn’t stop at Starbucks?"

The argument was over almost as soon as it began.

"I don’t know what he thinks. We’re broken up, and that’s it. It’s over, and we aren’t getting back together. But, he keeps trying to interfere with my life, and he’s, like, totally freaking out over nothing," said Q-Tip.

"I’m not exactly sure I want to.... well.... do stuff with Q-Tip after this," said Busta Rhymes.

At this point, the status of the relationship between Busta and Q-Tip is up in the air, and A Tribe Called Quest still remains broken up.

Thousands of Teenage Girls Flock To Jeru The Damaja Performance

LOUISVILLE, KT – It was a big day at Louisville's Garden Square Mall on Saturday. Literally thousands of teenage girls rushed to see the newest heartthrob in entertainment, Jeru The Damaja.

Jeru arrived at the mall at 12 P.M. and his performance was held inside Contempo, which was filled beyond capacity with many of his young female fans. According to Garden Square Mall Security, they had to close both entrences to the mall after over 1000 fans had mobbed the scene. "It was a riot. I had never seen anything like it," said security guard, Bob Hickman. "Some of these kids were so excited at seeing him that they fainted. We had to call an ambulance about three different times during the show," he added.

14 year old Sharon Bender, who claims to be "Jeru’s biggest fan" passed out during the performance, and was taken to the hospital for immediate medical care. She woke up late Saturday night and had this to say:

"I can’t believe I fainted! But when he played "My Mind Spray", like, ohmigod, I just lost it."

After his performance, Jeru signed autographs for a mob of fans, and even took pictures with several others. "I took a picture with Jeru, and got to give him a special story I wrote him, called "I'll Never Fall In Love Again." I hope he reads it!" said 12 year old fan, Sherry Wasco. What is it about Jeru that these young girls like?

"He is SOOO Fine!" said 14 year old, Beth Rachtman.

"He's not the average…" said 11 year old, Nancy Gladstien.

"I like the way he chews his gum!" said 12 year old, Mary Wallace.

Nicole Hiemann, 13 year old president of the Jeru The Damaja Fan Club, and Geocities "Jeru Mania!" website, had this to say:

"I think he is a really good role model, and I like the songs he sings. I want to marry him. If not him, A.J. from Backstreet Boys. But I really love Jeru!"

And the fun doesn’t stop there either. The Garden Square Mall expects an even bigger turnout for the Dilated Peoples appearance at Bath and Body Works in January.
This was the thirteenth stop on Jeru's nationwide tour, which will continue across the bible belt and midwest. Fans can also check for Jeru on this week’s episode of "Blossom", in which Jeru plays her new love interest, as well as on the front covers of Tiger Beat and Bop magazines.

Kid & Play Charged With Murder; Must Throw Wild Party To Pay For Legal Fees

It was a disturbing and frightful sight last Friday night, when Police arrived at the scene of the gruesome slaying of Fennius West, on the corner of 4th and Broadway. Found fleeing from the scene were suspects Christopher Ried and Christopher Martin, more commonly known as the rap duo, Kid 'n Play. Police eventually caught up to them, and arrested them with charges of suspiscion. The two await their trial, currently scheduled for July 17th.

While handcuffed, and walking away from the scene, Kid shouted "It wasn't us, it was Full Force!!" Police say that they had no idea what he was talking about.

Currently the two are seeking legal advice from a team of very expensive lawyers out of Los Angeles. Now faced with the dilemna of how they are going to pay for their legal fees, the group announced in a press release on Sunday morning, that they were going to "...throw the fattest party of the year!" According to Kid, the party was "all Play's idea", and will help them raise money to pay their lawyers off. The upcoming "Murdergram Jammie Jam", will take place next Saturday, and will include a live performance of the group's hit single, "Ain't Gonna Hurt Nobody".

Meanwhile, Kid faces another dilemna, whether or not his girlfriend, Tisha Campbell, will still love him after this "whole mess" that he "wouldn't even be in if it wasn't for Play and his schemes." Hopefully, everything will work out for the best in both situations.

Backward Playing Redman Record Reveals Hidden Messages Of “Fuck” and “Shit”

Richmond, VA – A startling discovery was made last week by Reverend Carlton Morris of Our Lady Of Richmond Church in Virginia. The Reverend said he found hidden devil messages when he put a copy of Redman’s "I’ll Be That" on his phonograph player, putting the needle on the record itself, and while in the off position, spinning the record in the opposite direction at approximately 33 revolutions per minute. According to the Reverend, he found obscene language buried in the record, including the "F-word" and "S-H-word."

"Given the amount of satanic evil found in rock and roll music over the years, I knew that there was probably these same kinds of messages in rap music, which is a product of Lucifer himself", said the Reverend. "I began to hear strange noises hidden in between the lyrics of a lot of these rap artists. Every time I’d listen to a rap song, I'd hear these "kuff" or "ish" sounds. It haunted me, and I knew that they could only be cries from the very depths of Hell," he concluded.

Currently, the Reverend has been playing other rap records backwards, and has been finding the same thing each time. "It can only be subliminal. Satan has once again used his powers of trickery and deceit to tempt these role models of our precious youth to include these hidden messages in their songs," he added.

Redman was contacted and asked to speak on these issues, and had this to say: "Hell mu'fuckin' yeah if you play it backwards you gonna hear some crazy shit. But that’s more Def Jam's fault. I don’t put that shit in there, I just go in the studio and rhyme. But then the Def Jam mu'fuckas put it out as a single, you play it backwards, and you hear all kinds of shit."

Def Jam representatives had no comment.

Our Lady Of Richmond will be holding a burning ritual this weekend, and encourages all participants to bring their rap records, rap CD's, rap cassettes, Dungeons & Dragons games, trench coats, and any other objects of the occult, so that they may be stomped on, smashed into pieces and set aflame.

Fuckin' Puff Daddy Fuckin' Jennifer Lopez

Sacramento, CA – Area resident Jimmy Martinez came to the conclusion that fucking Sean "Puffy" Combs is fucking singer / actress Jennifer Lopez. Apparently, Martinez came to this realization on Thursday afternoon, while sitting on his couch watching MTV news.

"Yo, it wasn't instantaneous. I heard they were going out, and I was like, 'whatever.' Then I see them in the video and on the awards, you know, no big deal. Anyway, the other day, I was just sitting there, eating some Fritos, watching videos and shit, and then it hits me, like 'Oh shit! Fuckin' Puff Daddy is fuckin' Jennifer Lopez!' Shit ruined my whole day. I mean, of all people, you know?" said Martinez. "Like what he got that I ain't got? He don't deserve that ass. I mean, fuck, yo!"
Martinez even came to the conclusion that while sitting there on his couch, eating Fritos in his boxers, on that afternoon, that the two could be, and most likely were, fuckin', at that very moment. In a related case, Joseph Malone of White Plains, NY suffered a similar stage of depression late last year when he realized that fucking Dennis Rodman was fucking Carmen Elektra.

Busta Rhymes Explodes

New York, NY – While many were expecting computer systems to fail, terrorists to attack, or even the Second Coming Of Christ, the only shock of New Year's 2000 was the spontaneous combustion of superstar entertainer Busta Rhymes. Apparently, the rapper was in a hotel room in New York City, just before the ball dropped in Times Square. At approximately 11:59:30 A.M., he started shaking, screaming and pulling his hair, when finally, at the stroke of midnight, his body caught on fire, and exploded into a million pieces, setting the entire hotel room aflame.

"It was horrible, he had been like this all week", said his wife, who was in the hotel room with him at the time of his internal detonation. "He kept repeating 'There's only one week left; there's only one day left; there's only one minute left, when finally he just exploded. This is so terrible", the teary widow added.

"He was the greatest rapper of all time", said a fan. "It's a shame he had to blow up like that."
According to Elektra, Busta Rhymes was hard at work on his new album, but only three tracks had been completed. Label reps say that they plan to gather up many of his old, unused lyrics and put them over new beats, complete with new lyrics from Rampage The Last Boyscout, Kane & Able, and Project Pat, among other guests. There are also plans for another Flipmode Squad album, a greatest hits album, a remix project, and a Leaders Of The New School reunion album. Discussions have been held about possibly digitally remastering "Higher Learning" and his series of Mountain Dew commercials, for release on separate DVD's. "In no way are we trying to cash in on his death," the label’s A&R. "It’s what Busta would have wanted."

The Firm - The Album

2006-05-21T18:41:00.000+10:00

Aight so The Firm consisted of Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown, Nature and Dr.Dre (and previously Cormega who released the excellent 'Fuck Nas' in response to being removed from the line up). This lp was kinda erased from the history of Nas, Dre, AZ and Foxy as it was kinda lampooned when it came out for pandering too much to the trend of mafiosa raps and remakes that were so popular at the time and didnt really live up to the potential many fans had expected from this group. Still, in retrospect this is a listenable lp albeit non-fantastic. Nas had already done the style 10 times better on 'It Was Written' but that lp didnt have Foxy on the inside cover so that was enough reason to release this one. Two of the best tracks occur early in the lp:

Firm Fiasco

This one is dripping in the aforementioned mafiosa style which was blamed for detoirating hiphop in 95-97. Violin loop over simple banging drums - Nas and AZ have been watching too many De Niro movies and try to recreate it in there music - which makes for some pretty stock standard wise guy rhymes but remain entertaining enough.

Phone Tap

Probably the best track on the lp this one has AZ, Nas and Nature trading thoughts via phone communicae - you can tell theyre talking over phones because of the vocoder on their voices - another dope Dre beat.

The thing about this lp is we hear Dre in the embryonic stage of the style he perfected on 2001. I thought this was an Aftermath release but looking at the cover doesnt seem to be - this would be some of Dre's best work from 95-99 which isn't saying much at all given his output during this period - regardless - enjoy - (who can believe these tracks are nearly 10 years old? does my head in.)

Cam'ron's a comic genious....

2006-05-17T20:29:00.000+10:00

OK so I know a few people are a bit upset coz the gossip levels have been low so far - however heres a nice tid bit from hiphopsite a few weeks ago:

CAM'RON RESPARKS JAY-Z BEEF, JUST IN TIME FOR ALBUM RELEASE DATE

"Cam'ron just isn't done with Jay-Z yet. While Jay won't respond to Cam, the Dipset general has something else up his sleeve to get a response out of Hov. Word is that Cam has taken the beef to the next level by involving Jay's sweetheart, Beyonce. The NY Daily News has reported that Cam has been sending text messages to Beyonce with some pretty foul remarks.

"He's been asking her out, and dissing Jay-Z. He's been telling her she should be with a real man like him," the unnamed source told the newspaper.

Will this cause Jay to draw his lyrical guns or is Hov just too damn grown up for this shit? We'll see.

In the meanwhile, Cam's boy Juelz Santana spoke out to SOHH in regards to how the beef would affect his situation at Def Jam.

"If Jay-Z is gonna come back with a record to defend himself than you know, that's neither here nor there. But as far as my business up at Def Jam that didn't really affect my business, like I said I make money for the company, I'm an asset to the company and that's just what it boils down to. Business is Business," said Juelz. - Andreas Hale "

HAHA I love it - SMS beeth..

Boots Riley Opinion #2...

2006-05-15T19:30:00.000+10:00

This was taken from Cocaine Blunts and Hiphop tapes again from a post precursing the previous interview - this was transcribed from the recent Zulu Nation Stanford University "I Am Hip Hop" roundtable discussion:

"I think though that a lot of the labels that are put out there as far as who's conscious and who's not go strictly on an aesthetic level of what kind of music is behind who's rap. You know, I always talk about back in the day when Ice Cube had Death Certificate out and there was a big movement of new york rappers like, and i think Black Sheep might've been out at the time. Black sheep was conscious and Ice Cube was gangsta. Death Certificate was one of the most revolutionary albums that I ever listened to but yet [it] had more of a blues aesthetic behind them and it seemed like something that might have been geared towards black people's music that they were listening to. But if you had more jazz samples in your stuff that was thought of to be intellectually superior.

And it always goes that way. Hip hop wasn't the first music to be talked about in this way. That 'bebop is culturally superior to blues,' that was being talked about all the time. And it really has to do with what most people think black people are listening to is gonna be called ignorant. Ten years later, ten years from now it's gonna be some white kids making music that sounds like lil jon and black folks are gonna have moved on, but that music is going to be called the intelligent music.

Because right now we're all (I gotta say what's up to KRS one obviously man), we're always being criminalized, the image of black folks is always being criminalized. The culture that around is being criminalized and there has to be a reason for more police in the streets, there has to be a reason why we're all broke. There has to be reason why we're under the impression that we're under and the reason is never that there's a system that works against us, it's always the culture that we create that points to our inherent inability to cope. And that's what all of this discussion is really about. This discussion is really about saying that the culture that black folks make is some how not as smart as it could be. And not as progressive as other people, as certain forms of art. So we overlook when Trick Daddy makes a song that's very progressive and political, we overlook Juvenile's lyrics that are very progressive and political.

And then on the other hand we overlook the so called underground rap that says way more demeaning things to women and we overlook the so called underground rap that says way more right wing lyrics and things like that. And it really has to do with an aesthetic. We know that a lot of people are listening to hip hop and to me it's the systems problem. How do you get to the point that most of the white kids and people in the united states, in general white people, are listening to hip hop - how do you get them to listen to hip hop but not relate to black folks at the same time? The way you do that, because if you relate to the problems that black folks are in you might start thinking about the system itself and how it'd work. The way that you do it is to characterize this music as being less than up to par.

And you talk about how ten years ago black folks was peaceful so the music that was made ten, twenty years ago was always the peaceful music. You know, it's always when black folks was good and in their place and... in the 80s we used to have parties where everybody loved each other and hugged and that was the music that was going on so let's bring it back to '88. When we know for sure that back in 88 most of the stuff that's saying take it back to '88 wouldn't have got played. Because one, you can't dance to it, you can't play it at a party. People rhymin all off, with no kind of rhythm to it, no patterns or nothing like that. But we get this idea of what black music was twenty years ago and it's always the case. In the sixties all of the sudden blues was in after black folks had already moved on in general. And, that twas the music that was real, that was real soulful cause all of the motown stuff and the stax stuff was contrived.

Basically I think that the whole discussion it really has to do with can the struggle to say that our problems come from our culture that we create vs. the question of do our problems come from a system that we need to fight against."

Southern hiphop..

2006-05-14T18:30:00.000+10:00

This was posted a month ago over at XXLMag.com by resident blogger Bryan Crawford - which generated a swell of mixed responses and a somewhat heated response from Mr Bun B himself:

Byron Crawford wrote:
New rule: Southern rap fans are no longer allowed to pretend as if they’re being discriminated against.

Pseudo intelligent music critics, who make their living patronizing certain elements in the black community, like to claim that backpackers are the most annoying group of fans in hip-hop. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the true most annoying group of fans in hip-hop (other than, of course, women) are fans of southern hip-hop.

The knock against backpackers seems to be that they’re boring and negative. They spend too much time telling you what they’re against rather than actually telling you what they’re for. Many of them even have the sheer balls to suggest hip-hop is not nearly as good as it used to be.

For business purposes, hip-hop can’t appear any better or worse during any given year, at least until the TIs find something to replace it. Reggaeton, perhaps?

Southern rap fans, meanwhile, make it a point to draw no distinction between the best and the worst their particular segment of the hip-hop community has to offer. They may not actually pretend to like “Laffy Taffy,” but they’ll be quick to call your ass a bigot if you suggest that it’s arguably history’s greatest abortion in musical form.

And they all rallied around Pimp C as if he was Leonard Peltier or somebody, but come to find out he can hardly rap. Is everybody aware that he was locked up for pulling out a gun on a woman in a mall? Personally, I don’t find his release fair to all the rest of us men who have resisted the urge to commit an act of violence against a woman.

As far as I’m concerned, his ass should go back to jail. Where’s the hip-hop feminism community when you need them? Wait, does this constitute snitching, or would it have to be your sister or something? I generally advocate staying out of another couple’s business, even if it is in a public place such as a mall.

I can understand that this is the first time their communities have produced anything the critical establishment even pretended to like since the heyday of Blind Melon and Better than Ezra (UGK fans, do your homework), but I’m not going to sit here and pretend to like something I don’t really like, especially if I have no financial stake in the matter.

The truth of the matter is that the southern rap of today, both in its style of rappin’ and especially its beats, bears very little relation to the hip-hop most of us grew up listening to. In that sense, it’s not unlike disco was to rock music in the late ’70s. Interestingly enough, disco artists also tried to cry racism when rock fans burned disco albums on the field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

In 2006, southern rap is the style of rap music that the tall Israelis who run the music industry have decided to promote, to the detriment of all other styles of rap music. Therefore, not unlike the Mexicans who think they’re retaking America’s Southwest, fans of southern rap no longer have any legitimate claim that they’re being discriminated against.

Bun B's reply

Bun B wrote:
Who the fuck are you to sit behind you safe little cubicle and criticize who we are and what we do? For more than 20 years. Southern Artists and fans have faithfully supported any and all hip hop that was offered. We accepetced everyone on their own merits, gave evryone a fair listen, and then spoke. In light of you comments and views, it occured to me that you haven’t given near as much open mindedness to our music as we have to yours. The reasons I say yours is that it doensn’t what type of music came out, we supported it, so we in no doubt supported whatever the fuck you listen to. To think that all we know is what we do, or that we may know nothing at all is preposterous. If you’re a paying member of Soundscan, you can see that ALL MUSIC SELLS IN THE SOUTH! 5 percenter? Bought it. Backpackers? Bought it. Black power, Wu-Tang, horrorcore, need I say more? Meanwhile, after 25 years of unconditionally holdin down all forms of rap/hiphop music, as soon as we even try to join a club we bought and help build the clubhouse for, they wanna deny us access. Well guess what you Elks lodge habitatin, Masters in Augusta wanna-be, finger-pointin behind the bushes, throwin a rock and runnin ass nigga, I just thought I’d tell you to take whatever preconcieved notions you have built up in your air and watertight cranium AND STICK IT IN YO PUSSY! I guarentee you the TRUE FANS AND MAKERS OF HIP HOP JUST MIGHT DIFFER WITH YOU! I know this because I am friends with Cool Herc, Grandmaster Caz, Melle Mel, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap and other extremely well known originators and creators of this artform. The problem now is the act of causing division and dissention amongst the fans by people whom are not in the know. You see, YOU may not like Laffy Taffy or DFB or whoever, and you know what, that’s your GOD-given right. Hate all you want on the South, Southern rappers, or just Pimp C, since you brought him up. IT STILL WONT HELP WHOEVER YOU LIKE SELL SHIT! Talib Kweli: close friend of UGK. De La Soul: close friends of UGK. Kanye West, Common, Dead Prez, close firends of UGK. Jam Master Jay, 2 Pac, Biggie Smalls: ALL FUCKING FANS OF UGK, and I dont say this from second hand conversation. These people told me this from their own mouths, yet you would have people believe otherwise. They could learn to be openminded about the music the listened and the regions the music was popular in, so it should come at no surprise these people went further thatn the average artists. Whatever alterior motive you may have is trying to bring down the Southern rise, it won’t work. God kills hate with love. Oh yeah, by the way, as far as your comments on my brother and his reason for incarceration, he pulled a gun on a group of people thrreatening him in a mall. Only the girl went back and told the police, that’s why it seems as if it was between only him and the girl. The problem is, misinformed people give misinformation and cause misfortune to the learing. I hate to call this the blind leading the blind, because by the look of your commment posts, they know what’s up. So instead of just going to New York, screaming and ranting in White Nigga’s office, I came to see you on your turf, because I’m no coward. I’m willing to come in your yard: care to come in mine? Right a rhyme, let;s see what you have the hip-hop community musically. Oh and make sure it’s Grammy-nominated when you do it, because mine was. And while you’re at it ask Nas, Jay-Z, Papoose, Camron,, Russell Simmons, 50 Cent, Fat Joe, Chino XL, Self Scientific, Cyrpess ill, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris or anybody else in this industry you like if Pimp C is wack. I bet they bark on you louder than I want to. God forbid you’re in the wrong place and the wrong time like Pimp and have to spend 4 years of your life behind bars. You’re a black man, so fuck how educated and well read you are. You’ll ride just like Pimp, and you’ll be sorry about it, just like Pimp. The only difference: nobody’s gonna wear a fuckin t-shirt with yo face on it. Leave the South alone, becausse we’re just tryin to eat. Quit bloggin and write a book if you got more goin on besides gossip and shootin slugs. Because after blogging has come and gone, and XXL is no longer on stands or online(which I would hate to see), UGK and our musical legacy will survive. Will your triflin rants sustain?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This prompted further response from Crawford here as well as other various responses in message board threads and a particularly good one at the NP Board.

Due to its recent popularity in the states - hiphop that comes from the southern states has been blasted from all angles of late.

Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson was quoted as saying:

"A lot of the music that comes out of the South is kind of simplified and I think it's kinda 'cause they just wanna have a good time," he said. "They don't wanna think about what [they] just said. ... They really didn't make sense, but they made sense in a way and they just wanna hear something while they're actually partying and it works for them. But when they don't take the time to make it the highest quality possible, it hurts the actual hip-hop [genre]. People wanna make music they can get away with as opposed to the best possible music they can make.

"They'll lower the grade of music," he added. "It changes the range you can go and then it causes confusion amongst artists that don't have their own direction at that point and they all start making music that is similar. Like if the record comes out and it's a hit and it's the simplest thing on the planet, all of a sudden the new artists start writing records that are similar to that hit. Their motivation is to have a project that's successful and that will allow them to move out of the financial situations that they're in when you're in the 'hood or in the ghetto. They make it sound like the record that they hear playin' on the radio as opposed to just creating their own lane."

Firstly I think 50 is losing his shit if he thinks he can blast other artists for doing pretty much what he does, and secondly while what he said may apply to many rappers from the south (and the north, east and west and not just in the states) the vast majority of southern rap IS original - thats why it is popular to begin with.

Another view on southern hiphop was expressed in this article by James Radford:

Southern Hip-Hop: Money for Nothing?
by James Radford

"The John Singleton film "Hustle and Flow" has helped to popularize the image of a low-cost hip-hop production studio in the South: everyone gathers in mom's basement, the walls covered in empty egg cartons and felt for soundproofing, a microphone in the center of the room, an impoverished MC rapping about life on the streets while a production-minded white kid mans an inexpensive drum machine. While this image may have romanticized Southern rap to a large extent, it does contain at least a glimpse of reality: the Southeastern United States is currently awash in basement-produced hip-hop and rap music, and some of it is actually finding some success.

Anyone who frequents hip-hop blogs has noticed a debate is brewing about the merits of this recent wave of inexpensively produced Southern rap. Artists like Master P, the Three-Six Mafia, and Juvenile have demonstrated that highly-successful rap careers can be launched without the aid of a high-end production studio and a million dollar marketing team. Early releases from these acts were produced in the artists' homes, the sound generated and recorded through a mish-mash of second-hand drum machines, tape decks, and microphones.

The controversy could be fairly framed like this: Is the popularity of artists like Young Jeezy (who made it to #2 on the Billboard charts with his most recent release, held back only by the latest "Now!" compilation), the Ying Yang Twins (who's "Wait" has become all but an anthem in dance clubs), and Lil' Jon (who's 2003 single "Yeah!" was hailed by many as "Song of the Year") a triumph for independent, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps musical success? Or should we lament the demise of traditional musical production in the face of cheaply-made, hook-based, hype-driven rap?

It is easy to wonder why there is a debate at all. Are independent production and quality musical output mutually exclusive? They shouldn't be, but the two values often conflict. If one could survey all the hip-hop and rap artists working to produce music, one would probably find a plethora of intelligent, insightful artists making beautiful and creative music. Unfortunately, very little of this music makes it into the public consciousness. The artists who find great commercial success tend to be those that produce sex-and-violence-themed, heavily hyped rap music of dubious literary value. Outkast's Andre Benjamin pontificated on this problem on the group's classic 1998 album "ATLiens," when he rapped, "Them hooks like selling dope to black folks," a reference to the highly catchy, but often meaningless choruses that accompany much commercially successful hip-hop.

And it makes sense that hype and catchiness go hand-in-hand with bootstraps-style commercial success: without a million-dollar marketing engine and a top-of-the-line production studio working in your favor, its difficult to realize much popularity without resorting to age-old tricks of salesmanship and instant gratification. It takes a national campaign to get kids to eat their vegetables, while candy just about sells itself. It's no surprise that the market for danceable, content-free booty music is much larger than the market for provocative, thoughtful hip-hop.

There's also a controversy regarding exactly where the money comes from to so heavily market this new breed of Southern rap. With the release of Young Jeezy's "Let's Get It" came the popular anecdote of the artists proclaiming that "crime does pay" at large concerts and paying for the production of his videos in cash. Certainly, artists with little connection to major labels have to resort to alternate ways of raising marketing revenues. Drug funds are often cited as a major source though, to be sure, Jeezy and others rightfully claim that much of their funding comes from selling underground mix tapes of unreleased material.

Fundraising issues aside, another common characteristic to much popular Southern rap is the ultra-catchy "hook." Songs like "Shake that Laffy Taffy," "Back that Azz up," and "Make 'em Say Unhh," catch on fast because they are designed to be simple, infectious, and easy to remember. This is perhaps the element that rap music nay-sayers lament the most; while the latest albums by KRS-1, Public Enemy, or Mos Def, with their attempts to bring insight and knowledge to their listeners, barely made an impact in the hip-hop market, these catchy and perhaps mindless songs have been smash hits.

Perhaps insipid music is the price we pay for entrepreneurship and a free market. Then again, maybe artists like the Ying Yang Twins, Juvenile, are going farther than is necessary to sell records while violating an ethical duty they have to the public at large. When saying something that everyone is listening to, including impressionable young children, isn't there some obligation not to lead those listeners down a destructive path?

"Back That Azz Up" by Juvenile is near perfect in its ability to make you dance and to infect your mind with a catchy chorus. Although most conservative types will probably object to its lyrics, it's not likely to irreversibly pervert the minds of America's youth. More extreme examples like the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait til you see my Dick," or Juvenile's "Slow Motion" ("you must've heard about them hoes that I beat up in my home") are not insubstantial, but their substance is aggressively destructive. Don't these kinds of songs push beyond the point of catchiness necessary to reach the average listener?

One might persuasively argue that the artists who create music full of depraved messages are merely writing from their experiences. The argument goes that poverty breeds some of humankind's worst evils - sexual abuse, drug addiction, violence - and Southern rap artists are merely writing with the vocabulary they grew up with; are merely speaking in the language and about the topics that are parts of the lives of poor Blacks in the South. It's hard to argue with this point. We encourage people to be entrepreneurs, to create things of value and pull themselves out of obscurity. An unintended consequence of this entrepreneurial spirit is that the worst elements of our culture to come to the mainstream surface.

It's often said that the crack epidemic, and now the meth epidemic, never attracted the attention of mainstream politicians until it had already destroyed the lives and millions of poor people and began to move into richer communities. The same trend is apparent in recent debates over Southern hip-hop: messages of hopelessness, of sex, drugs, and violence, have been pervasive themes in America's ghettoes for years and years. With the recent emergence of Southern rap as a mainstream staple, those messages are now entering the heads of white America's children, thus eliciting the attention of upper- and middle-class critics.

Both sides of the debate are right: much of the newly-huge Southern rap is destructive, meritless garbage; yet, perhaps the artists who create it can't be entirely faulted for this result. They're playing the game of capitalism, and playing it well, selling a product that people really want even in spite of its negative side-effects. The solution to this mess is a systematic one, but one that is unlikely to be realized: Until access to quality education, quality childcare, etc. can be secured, the art created by America's poor is likely to be full of messages both disturbing and destructive. Art reflects society, and the content of today's Southern rap should ring alarm bells for anyone who cares."

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while Radford makes some valid points, I feel he has (much like most people talking on this topic) massively generalised an entire region of music based on a few examples. Furthermore, I feel that some of the opinions expressed by Boots Riley in the interview previously posted are extremely pertinent to this attack on the content of southern rap.

It's all very interesting - here is a Juvenile video which is anything but apolitical. I would argue vigorously that Juvenile, David Banner, Scarface, Lil Wayne, Paul Wall, Bun B and many others are much more political in there music than the so called conscious rap of Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and people of that ilk. David Banners video for what would appear as just another mysogonistic outing to the casual observer "Like a Pimp" actually was taken from a video talking about lynchings and racism in mississippi.

In fact Banner was one of the most active supporters of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Banner organised tribute concerts for the victims and donated a hell of a lot of money to it - yet Kanye West got way more media attention just for saying that Bush doesnt care about black folks. Read Banner's thoughts here.

Speaking of Banner (and turning this post into a monster but this is one of the coolest stories ever) he performed at a Universal showcase in August last year to an indifferent crowd of industry peoples and this is what happened:

"David Banner treated the crowd's indifference as a personal insult. During the first song of his half-hour set, he ran out into the crowd, jumped up on a table, tore his shirt off, and threw Courvosier on the crowd. Then he stopped the show to preach to the crowd, telling it that the entire music industry was based within fifteen square blocks in Manhattan but that 85% of Universal's sales last year had come from Southern and Midwestern artists, that "y'all got more responsibility to promote this music." He said that his home state was flooded and that his father had "brain cancer and lung cancer" and that we needed to make him feel more at home. On the next song, he tore down the Universal banner behind the stage, threw it on as a cape, and then charged into the crowd again. He threw up devil horns and yelled, "All you white people, put ya rock signs up! And all you black people, I know you working for somebody white because that's who runs the industry, so put ya rock signs up too or else you might get fired!" Then the DJ cued up "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and Banner chanted, "Rock! Rock! Rock!" He stared into the audience and said, "If my father die and you fuck this album up, I'ma kill y'all," and gave a low chuckle. He denounced the crowd for perpetuating rap beef: "We grown men acting on some high school shit! We in front of these white folks looking like savages!" (I'm paraphrasing all these quotes, but he was really saying this stuff.) He rode some bouncer's shoulders. He put some girl up on his shoulders. He jumped up on the bar. I'm pretty sure he told the crowd that he'd pissed in Diddy's pool. And when the crowd still gave him a weak cheer at the end of his set, he screamed, "As hard as a motherfucker work, I'd rather have y'all boo me!" And still the crowd paid no attention. Banner doesn't really rap at shows; he just sort of yells along with his CD. But he bared his soul to a room full of industry scumbags who couldn't have cared less. It made me happy and sad. I hope Banner's functional bullshit detector and fierce pride don't fuck up his career too much."

This dude really deserves respect.

OK so i'll end this meandering post with a quote from Non-Prophets forum member "futuristxen" (from the previously linked thread) which i think succinctly wraps up a lot of my thoughts on southern hiphop:

"I got a deep freezer up on my neck and sno-cones up in my ear
A ice tray up in my mouth, I'm lookin somethin like a chandelier
You can call me the ice man, I cause a blizzard every time I breathe"

This is a great lyric to me. I love Paul Wall's lyrics/sound. When I listen to a Paul Wall song, I feel like I'm there. It's got this impressionistic painting quality to it. People are trying to bring up like so called socially conscious southern lyrics that are more like stuff you get in the east coast. But it's lyrics like this that give a vitality to southern hiphop that isn't in a lot of other regions. When you listen to something from the south, it pops. It feels organic, it feels alive. There's a joy and pain to it, that isn't in other regions. It's the same shit that's in those old blues tunes that came from the south. It's the same shit that was coming up from Louis Armstrong even though he was pop. In the south the politics are a given. Just getting on stage and grabbing a mic is a political statement in the south. The blood of oppression/segregation/slavery is still alive and well there. The confederate flags are still there. People are still fucking crazy. The educational systems are in shambles. And you have this music through which people release, that connects in this very human level--it's like, if you can't understand it, how am I supposed to explain it. It's something in your gut. Goes through your ears, sits in your gut. It's angry, joyous, defiant, escapist, painful music. When people try and hate on it, it just belies their own ignorance, and perpetuates the system that creates this stew for better or worse.

The great thing about southern hiphop is it doesn't need your approval. It's entirely self sufficient. The south supports it's own. That will be the saddest thing to see go. Because eventually they are going to buy all of this out.

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Peace!

Scarface - My Homies

2006-05-13T20:59:00.000+10:00

I figured I'd start to post some mp3's from albums that arent that well known round these parts but deserve to be. In 1998 I did work experience at Mushroom Records in Albert Park. Was an interesting experience but made me think that working in the music industry wasnt the best idea. Anyways meet some interesting people, got to go on the old WKD R&B show on PBS with Wayne Fernandez, Mamma Lisa and Andrew Pinto which was fun for my young self. Anyways point is that week i purchased the Scarface double cd compilation 'My Homie's' which was probably the last new 'gangster' lp I dug until recently. Alot of quality songs on this lp (and this was one of the first hiphop double cd's after Pac's, Biggie's and Wu-Tangs). Heres some choice cuts:

2 Real - This track features UGK, 3-2 and F.L.A.J. on the chorus. A downbeat gangster introspection.

Win Lose or Draw - This features Johnny P, DMG and Lo-Ke. It's another downbeat introspective track with the overall positive message of Whether you win or lose in life your gonna die. Particularly dope verse by Scareface on this.

Overnight - This is a Do or Die, Snypaz and Rock Roc posse cut - all getting up with the iggedy flippedy toungedy style that was apparently coined by Aceyalone, Mikah 9 and the Freestyle Fellowship, popularised by Bone Thugs and later perfected by Twista - fantastic tune from the Chicagoans.

Boo Boo'n - A classic Devin cut which also features on his Rap A Lot lp 'The Dude'. Over the oriental synth strings - Devin explains three different scenarios - at the end of which he ends up in the bathroom "boo boo'n".

Enjoy.

It happened but no one heard...

2006-05-11T20:56:00.000+10:00

The same day the Beaconsfield miners were rescued 3 Torres Straight Islanders were found after being lost at sea for 22 days - two weeks after the search for them was called off. They had been surviving on "raw squid and shellfish and drinking rainwater. They also used metal tins as hats to protect themselves from the sun and jerry cans as paddles".

The Beaconsfield miners had the heart of the country focused on there survival efforts - media focused on them 24/7 until they were finally rescued - it was an inspirational story of human endurement, cooperation and patience. Now i understand the Torres Straight Islanders were presumed dead and they werent 'stuck' anywhere tangible like a mine shaft - so it is more difficult to allow a media circus. Yet something else tells me theres more to this than that - something tells me theirs other reasons why the 3 Torres Straight Islanders amazing story of survival garnered a brief article in todays Herald Sun whereas the Beaconsfield miners received at least 5 pages today alone. In the brief article in regards to the Islanders it was even mentioned that some authorities were now convinced that their story was indeed most likely true - as if they think these guys had just pissed off to gamble for a few weeks or something and come back with sun damage and major dehydration.

Now the two Beaconsfield miners will be millionaires - and the 3 Torres Straight Islanders will be forgotten.

Outkast!!!

2006-05-11T09:49:00.000+10:00

Aight this is an emergency post im making from work - just got a link from Cocaine Blunts and Hiphop Tapes for the new Outkast single - holy hot - this is like the antithesis of Hey Ya - the worlds best ever hiphop group (arguably - along with PE) look like they have done it again - this is kinda sedate for a lead single but leaves an extremely promising impression as to what to expect from the forthcoming lp - they once again branch out into a sound they havent quite touched on yet with stellar results. Colour me fiendin'.

Smack!

2006-05-10T19:48:00.000+10:00

Remember early last NBA season when Jermaine O'neal smacked the fuck outta that fan? Without a doubt one of the greatest moments in sporting history. Here it is in all its glory to replay from now to infinity.

Image courtesy of Beer and Rap and probably elswhere also.

Luda and Oprah

2006-05-08T21:05:00.000+10:00

Taken from Hiphopsite.com

GLOVES OFF!!

Beef has been the big thing between rappers. But what about beef between a rapper and an esteemed talk show host? Well it seems that Ludacris isn't too fond of Oprah Winfrey these days. According to Luda, he was initially refused to appear on her show and then when he finally was allowed on the show (after his role in Crash), he was then lectured.

Luda was stunned when Oprah criticized him for saying words like "bitch" and "hoe" in his music because he was supposed to be promoting his Crash and discussing racial discrimination.

"She edited out a lot of my comments while keeping her own in. Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination and she gave me a hard time as a rapper when I came on there as an actor," Ludacris said to ContactMusic. "Initially, I wasn't even invited on the show."

"After the taping, she pulled me into a room and we had a five-minute conversation," he continued. "What I got was that by having rappers on her show, she feels like she is empowering in them. It was like being at someone's house who doesn't really want you there."

"I don't see why [comedians] Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, who I am huge fans of, it's OK for them to go on Oprah. They speak the same language as I do, but they do it through comedy, so I guess that's acceptable to her [Oprah]."

It's serious business when you diss Oprah. Didn't you read that Chappelle conspiracy theory stuff? Oprah don't eff around, son! - Andreas Hale

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Boots Riley Opinion

2006-05-07T18:54:00.000+10:00

This is taken from noz's fantastic Boots interview over at Cocaine Blunts and Hiphop:

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Noz: I noticed before that you said "quote-unquote gangsta rap" and that reminded me of, I was listening to that round table at Stanford where krs got into it with that one reporter and i felt like you made some good points in that regard.

Boots: Whatever the perception is that the black folks listen to at the time is always called the ignorant music. If it's blues it's low brow. You know like when bebop came out they really considered it low brow.

One time a hero of mine, Hugh Masekela, I walked up to him and I asked him about playing on a record and there's kinda two issues - one the way that he discredited hip hop, he said "oh rap music? hip hop? oh I hate that shit, it reminds me of the twist in the 50s, that shits everywhere, it's disgusting." So now the twist, the way that I remember it, my parents liked it and they danced to it and it was black music and people listened to it. But to hear the twist talked about the same way someone might talk about Britney Spears or even the same way that somebody might talk about Ludacris or whatever is really kinda strange in the sense that blues and rhythm and blues was thought of by many jazz musicians to be not as advanced and to represent ignorance. What that is connected to is just the idea that's being sold to not connect with the black community. Even black folks connecting with and feeling united with the black community means that there's an understanding of oppression and exploitation and some analysis of the system. And if white people or other people that aren't black also identify in some way with the black community and what they're going through it could make someone think about the causes of exploitation and oppression. So the idea is to make it seem like there's this culture that is so totally useless and there's this culture that is so evil almost that it causes black people to act in a certain way. And in order to come up with that idea you have to really not listen to the lyrics of anything in the same way that our first song was called "gangsta rap from oakland."

Things are way more complicated today. Yeah, all kinds of different people have misogony in their lyrics, all kinds of different people have reactionary things in their lyrics. But there are so many good things that you can overlook if you take the attitude that all of one kind of music has no value. In the stuff that's called gangsta rap people are talking about the trials and tribulations that they had to go through just to survive in the system. And there are many times where the analysis in there is a lot more pointedly anti-authority than some songs that are considered conscious. There are many songs that are considered conscious that are basically just telling people that are listening that they don't have their head right. And there are many songs considered conscious in which people are talking about the fact that the system mistreats us. To me, those two things are very different. Some songs that are considered conscious could be made by the Sergeant on Soldier Story where he's like "all these niggers... they're backwards and they're bringing the race backwards" and there's a lot of people with that theme throughout their music that are considered conscious and it's not conscious at all. That's very much like a black republican.

TI has a song "Just Doin' My Job" that might not be considered conscious by people but he's breaking down the simple idea that in the system people are trying to have jobs [selling drugs] to survive and feed their families and that doesn't mean that you're a monster because you're doing that. You still have a love for life, but somehow you figure that you still have to do this job.

What's crazy is that throughout the time that we've been around I get all kind of rappers that come up to me that would be wrongly put into the gansgta category, but they're all saying "Yeah we talk about the same shit, we breaking that science down so they know what's goin on." What in their hearts, what they're doing is saying "This is how the world works, I am going to tell you something that makes it easier to survive." What that's coming from is a general love for the people. Some people will be like "your main problem is to watch out for some scandalous dude trying to steal your bike," but other people may have more information that tells them that it's deeper than that. The common denomonator is that when people are rapping, many times they feel that they're doing it for the listener. If people want that dialogue, what they add into the general dialouge to be more revolutionary, what we have to do is get some movements out there that are actually addressing some of these material issues. You're never gonna get somebody into a study group and teach them all kinds of stuff and then they start rapping different. Because they then won't be connected to reality.

We always hear stuff about songs like Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On?" and James Brown's "I'm Black and I'm Proud" and stuff like that, but that stuff came after there was already twenty years of big movements going on - civil rights movement, black power movement, anti-war movement - all sorts of movements going on and revolutions happening all around the world. And what people point to is that there were a few songs made in the 60's and early 70's that kinda said something. The Panthers had been asking James Brown, who, you know, was the P Diddy of the day, and they had been asking James Brown for years to do something for the people. It was only after H. Rap Brown basically hemmed him up that he made "I'm Black and I'm Proud." And this is after this big movement. And Marvin Gaye, after all of that stuff, he came back and his strongest statement was "What's Goin' On?" It was a question, it wasn't even telling people anything. It was just asking a question. So this is in the midst of this big movement, but now there is no big movement happening and people are still putting stuff into their songs. Let's say if someone is saying "this is how you make crack," they're not doing it just to make a hit record, because they know what makes a hit record - to have Mary J singing the hook or something like that - they're doing that because they think that they're giving people something. And that wasn't really around in the 60's and 70's for the most part. People were like "I need to make this kinda song cause it's gonna make some money" - "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" and all that type of stuff. Or let's say it like this, It wasn't happening as much as it is now, people are putting stuff into their raps that they think people need. Unfortunetly the movement hasn't been addressing people's needs enough so that there are more artists out there who have the idea that what people need is to make a movement.

------------------------------

Juelz Santana - What the Games Been Missing

2006-05-06T19:20:00.000+10:00

Juelz Santana's recent album is fucken mad. Nuff said - but lemme elaborate.

The lp starts off kinda cheesy with some attempted cute ass shit where he's talking to his nephew and showing how in touch with his emotions he is - completely skip worthy coz the rest of the lp burns.

Opening track "Rumble Young Man Rumble" is on some shiny rock star diva steez and serves as an excellent album opener - Juelz spits some classic shit - such as:

Toast to the good days to the bad days
to the good yae to the bad yae
to the time the shit was mixed up
ive had good yae on a bad day

This track gives the listener a good idea of what to expect from Juelz in terms of flow and delivery - which is generally slow, methodical, and unflabbably confident. He does some different sort of schemes on this also which come out dope.

Next track i guess was one of the singles - Oh Yes - killer single driven by a female sample chanting 'oh yes wait a minute mr postman' which gets cut up with the 'oh yes' part and the 'wait' part dispersed throughout the track as Juelz incorporates 'wait' into his verse in a variety of different meanings. This was the jam during the summer - simplistic minimal bouncy lovely.

Following this is "Shottas" with Cam'ron and Sizzla. This is another jam, raggae tinged with the inclusion of Sizzla - Cam's verse is suitably non sensical.

After this is Clockwork which has a fucken ill beat that drops in between two different variations throughout the track which both work incredibly well. The snare gives the song a tick tock kinda vibe. Again Juelz is making up definitions to terms - clockwork in this case - and he proceeds to give definitions of what qualifies as clockwork - respectable pass times such as hustling, and selling ass.

After a couple of non standout tracks we hit 'Make it Work for You' - a posse cut with Young Jeezy (jeeeeaaar) and Lil' Wayne. Another incredible beat - another great choice of subject matter - namely making crack and pimping chicks. The beat on this pumps so damn hard - specially on some good speakers - i remember Sweeps playing this at Loop - kick drum was BOOMING. All the rappers have a slightly off kilter flow which is right down my alley.

Another attempt at being serious follows this - which definately aint Juelz strength. Next dope track is Gangsta Shit - this is essentially about how Juelz is a gangsta and he does gangsta shit. Another ill beat.

Two attempts at seriousness follow this again - after that its back to the important questions such as 'how many chicks in this bitch like dick!' on "Freaky" - once again another dope simplistic beat drives this.

Now we have Murda Murda which about the 20 millionth interpolation of Ini Kamoze's World a Music - this one actually varies quite abit and makes for an original adaption with a hellafied gangsta edge. Cam once again drops a suitably non-sensical verse.

Skipping another track we have 'Kid is back' where Juelz really goes to town with his repeat rhyming steez - which is all dope in my books - another dope beat split up by kiddies chanting 'hey yall the kid is back'. A head nodder and no brainer.

We later have "I am Crack" were Juelz boasts 'im a mean pimp - you know what i mean pimp - four hoes on each dick' - the suggestion that Juelz has more than one dick is well - glorious. This beat is kinda epic but still toned down enough for me to dig it - the chorus is dope as hell also.

We then have the Whistle Song which i believe was the first single - simple ass beat with dope drums and someone whistling and thats about it - people hate on commercial music but you have to recognise the minimalism of this and how effective it is.

"Violence" is the last dope track on the lp, with a tribal battering of drums driving the beat with some simple ass blasts behind them making for a very effective outcome - Juelz drops his standard slow methodical flow to great effect.

Actually the last tracks pretty sweet too but ive had it with writing this highly non descriptive review.

So overall this may not be 'what the games missing' exactly, but it definately is a refined version of what other rappers with commercial leaniencies have been doing lately - this has a raw edge that is missing in a lot of his peers and Juelz has succeeded in making a very tight lp.

The Dr. fits this with 4.25 surgical gloves out of 5.

Idlewild

2006-05-03T20:19:00.000+10:00

From Hiphopsite:

"That upcoming Outkast movie-musical, Idlewild, has had it's trailer leaked on the Quicktime website. The full-length trailer for the film shows several scenes from the movie, and previews new music from the accompanying soundtrack, which doubles as the new Outkast album. Although this trailer may have been in the can for a while now, as the at the end of it, the screen says, "Outkast Idlewild in stores February 14th!" Whoops. Meanwhile, the official Idlewild website gives an August 25th date for the opening of the movie."

MagicfuckenEYE

2006-05-02T21:26:00.000+10:00

You know those Magic Eye fucken things? The jumbled computer graphic where your supposed to go cross eyed and see some bullshit 3D picture..Well im onto the makers and pushers of this stuff as well as the people who claim they can see them...your all fucken liars! Thats right...either my eyes are retarded or your fucken liars..im going with the second one.

Well maybe you really can see pictures in them - ok so your not liars your just smartass assholes - ive spent a considerable portion of my life devoted to seeing some crazy outlandish otherwordly pictures within these muddled colours with zero results. Ill be standing there straining and going close to the picture and moving away from the picture and crossing my eyes and looking into the distance and cant see shit - and some fucken 3 yr old will walk up and be like 'mommy i see a seahorse!' FUCK THAT! I wanna see seahorse!

I wonder if you set fire to one of those pictures if the 3D image will become visible for a few seconds or something before it gets sent to hell...i might go and see...

Camp Crystal Lake...

2006-05-01T19:10:00.000+10:00

At my school in year ten they made us go to this sort of pseudo military camp thing for a week. I dreaded this for months before our it was our classes time to go. Some of the fun activities involved being sent out in a group of 8 by yourselves for 5 days to follow a map to camp sites and finding your food that they would drop in random places and shit - in retrospect it was fucking cool experience but while you were doing it sucked more than a vacuum supercharged with a 747 engine. It was some full on lord of the flies steez. Everything you saw on that movie or book (if you were forced to study it) went down - mutiny's, insane screaming, fighting, being scared of imaginary beasts plus more.

We were given a tarpauline and told to manufacture some sort of sleeping device out of it. The week we went the weather decided to fuck with us and every single day it rained like a motherfucker. We all just rocked the same clothes all week coz we couldnt be fucked getting our dry clothes wet. We couldnt be fucked starting fires so we ate all our food cold. When we did finally start a fire it was a god damn guy fawkes styled bon fire. That night we had some possums attack and some kid poured petrol on one and set fire to it - that was good for a giggle but probably shouldnt have been. Also we were living on total rations - basic staple foods - cereal - rice - some shit ass soup - also we had these boiled lollies that had to be rationed out. These things became like sugary crack. This was the cause of the mutiny - one dude got salty coz he saw our designated leader dishing them out on the sly to fiends like myself. He decided he'd throw down for the right to lead - this of course caused mass delight and some dude started marking out a circle for the fight to take place within with a stick - i remember thinking how ludicrous the whole thing was at the time because everyone was really emotionally involved in this moment it was awesome. So the designated leader absolutely demolished this upstart challenger who proceeded to go off bitching to start his own camp which involved him trying to set fire to a tree by a river - which didnt work - and sulking away for a few hours before coming back wanting some food. I still see that dude sometimes getting off the train i catch in the avo's - he's working for some accounting firm or something - obviously not still in the business of conducting mutinees or starting rival campsites and fires that dont work.

So that was that. Oh i forgot the most bizzare activity which was called the 'ice breaker' which involved being woke up at 5am by some red blooded camp instructor on the first day of camp to run out to the coast to jump in this lake. The rule was you had to get down to your jocks or shorts whatever you managed to get on (of course anyone with any clue had slept in tehre shorts) and you had to get in the water enough for your hair to be wet - so you had to submerge your head in this icy cold 5am lakes wet dream. I just remember shivering from near hypathermia afterwards and walking back like i wanted to kill the camp instructors more than anything in the entgire world - this made goign out by yourselves for 5 days seem like a fucking breeze.

ANother situation - we went kayaking one day down some rapids which was actually fucking cool - some dudes were kinda retarded and couldnt do it but if you had the hang of it it was awesome fun - not like we were doing Solo man missions down slimy creek banks but shit was still cool. Anyways were all dragging our kayaks up this bank to the rtuck which is carting them away - which was fucking hell as these things weighed a shitload. So we're shoving them into this truck and the camp guide is yelling somes hit - next thing we know he whips off his wet suite and is no shit yelling instructions at us stark naked. This is kinda fucking bizzare for 15-16 yr old boys. He doesnt seem fazed - he continuese barking orders while lett8ing his manhood swing in the breeze. He's feeling natural as hell - we're feeling like this is some wierd ass shit. So anyways he eventually slid back into some clothes and we all drove off - no one ever mentioned shit - im thinking todfay that shit would be lawsuit str8 up.

Then on the last day - we all came back the main camp and had dinner and shit - they had lots of other bullshit rules whihc i wont get into too much detail with but basically you had to return your equipment in more pristine condition than when it was given to you or else you would starve. That was real convenient. Motherfuckers were polishing the fuck out of peice of shit pots and trying to straighten completely bent tent poles (which werent even used for tents considering we didnt have that luxery).

But yer the last day before we went home there was a 'fun' activity to finish off called "the wall". The "wall" was just that - a ten metre fucking wooden wall aboiut 2-3 metres wide str8 up str8 down. The object was to get your entire group up there as quickly as possible without using nothing but your bodies. So we'd done some strategic thinking before hitting this thing. We had our star leader go up first as well all bunched down the bottom with some dudes standing on shoulders and lifting him up - no worries. Now im kinda wiley so i was up next i did the same thing and the leader helped pull me up - easy. Now we decided we'd get the fucking lard ass dude up next while we still had some muscle downstairs and a couple of dudes upstairs. I'll never forget the screams of the dudes trying to lift this kid - this poor kid was unfortunately surnamed 'Goodbody' and let me tell you - his body was anything but good. These 5 or so kids were pushing with all there might - me and the leader were grabbing and stretching jusst to try and reach this kids hands - we finally get a hold of him and manage to pull him about .0002 millimetres before he starts to slip from our grip = ahah ill never forget his face as it became obvious to us and then him that he wasnt going to be held - he slipped from our grip and the kdis below all jumped for dear fucking life - another thing ill never forget is the splatting sound this dude made when he hit the ground. Theres no way that sound could be recreated on the internet without about 100 kilos of melted cheese, a concrete slab, a condenser mic, and a high definition wav to mp3 converter.

So yer thats it - yr 10 camp. Four years later i hear they shut that shit down due to the possibility of being sued the fuck up - no fucking shit - i should sue them right now for continued mental disturbance.

I was hiphop!

2006-04-28T20:33:00.000+10:00

So i figure i'd let you all into a little background of how i actually got into this hiphop shit. For me my first memory of music in general was watching Rage early on Saturday and Sunday mornings (and you know as a kid you had some insane inclination to get up as early as humanly possible - shit i woulda thought it was the sickest shit ever if i coulda got up at 1am and got down to business but thats another story).

So yer i used to watch Rage with my older brother and sister and sometimes my cousin every Saturday and Sunday morn - checked all the shit and i just loved music in general. It was a great time for popular music (86-90) and i got to see some classics like Kylie's debut and the rest of the Neighbours crew like Donovan and slick cats like McCloughlin as well as the Dirty Dancing singles, The Bangels, all the good shit. But there was one thing i was always unconsciously attracted to, i guess stuff like Pump up the Volume was one of the first, Run DMC's Rock Box was in there, Salt and Pepa was in there, but the first thing i learned all the words to (apart from pump up the volume - coz well if you know the title you know all the words) and that was No Sleep Till Bedtime by the Morris Minor and the Majors (or the Bedtime boys as i referred to em). It wasnt till years later I realised this was a Beastie Boys parody (which probably explains my penchant for parody tracks). I loved this shit. I had the entire song down pat and would not pass any opportunity to bust out some 'stutter raps'. It was some awesome shit.

Following that I just grew up listening to whatever but always liking these hiphop influenced tracks without even knowing that things such as 'genres'existed - to me it was all music (smart). Until i was in grade 5 and my brother started playing all these angry ass dudes yelling swear words on the stereo everynight - initially the music scared me in a i dont understand what the fuck theyre on about sort of way - i dunno how long it took or what happened - but it wasnt long before i was smuggling his tapes into my room to listen to. The first song i really connected with was Cube's 'Now im Gonna Wet Ya' from the Predator lp. Now my niave young mind thought this was actually about a real wet tshirt contest - which was probably why i liked it so much. After this i was hooked on Cubes shit - then it was KRS One's 'Loves Gonna Get Ya' which i mustve played about 10 times a day - i even had the video clip visualised in my head - i was damn dissapointed when i eventually saw the real video clip a few years later.

After that shit just escalated and snow balled and within a year both me and my bro had a pretty good overall grounding on what was hot in hiphop. Alot of this was due to DJ Krissy and STep into the AM. I remember the first mix tape i made from that show playing it ad nuseam. When i got my first proper full album on tape (Str8 Outta Compton) I literally played it everyday for 6 months straight. Thats the thing about back then, I dunno if it was just me being a kid or the nature of not having a whole lot of music but I would just replay shit over and over and over until i knew every little bit of each track back to front. Shit done changed. But thats how it all started.

Atmosphere, Ali, Vodka and Jager...

2006-04-25T21:44:00.000+10:00

Had a pretty slick weekend last one just passed. Thursday went and saw Atmosphere and Brother Ali which was totally fucking sweet. I picked up my friend Lizzie at her house and went and met up with Crix and Arch and chilled at Crix's sipping wine out of beer glasses for a bit. We headed off to Prince of Wales talking shit when someone mentioned goon bags and out of nowhere came a random yell of 'Go the goon bag!' from some random balcony or bush or someshit much to our amusement. Id love to have a hypeman like that just sneaking around yelling out random hyped up shit all the time. Anwyways - we hit POW, strolled in and starting the rounds of politicking.

Justice and Kaos came on first and they were pretty tight with there American twanged chants over Weapon X beats but whatever - cool kids but they make music like karoake bars. Brother Ali was off the fucken tap - maddest stage precense and precise flows. Dude was rocking over his own beats and some classic beats at one point even rhyming on Cube's "You know how we do it" beat much to my delight. He was loving the response from the crowd - would be trippy as fuck coming to the other side of the world and having everyone sing along to your songs.

After Ali Slug came on stage and they both did a set together with a DJ - this was fucken great as well as they ran through some of the tracks theyd done together and some other stuff. Then Ali got off the stage and the band came on. Slug ran through most of the shit youd like to hear from him cept Scapegoat - the stuff off the new lp sounded great live too so ill have to give that another chance. Was another killer set though absolutely rocked shit.

After the show the floor was absolutely covered in glasses - top work Melbourne - was like what I imagine walking through a recycling plant would be like. I made Slug laugh when i dissed some kids emo lasses so that was cool. We bailed and left Crix and Arch - at some stage someone thought it would be a mad idea to steal Crix's next door neighbours pot plant huh - I drove Lizzie home in a sloppy drunken fashion and we crashed the fuck out.

Got up the next morning feeling not too shabby considering the amount of sleep i'd had and went to work - not however, after I'd managed to lock my keys in my car - luckily my car's a peice of shit and any keys will open it so that was quickly fixed. Work was unsurpisingly sucky but I survived and wasnt feeling too bad. I met Jorgito at Oakleigh station after work and we went to the TAB to drink some beer to blast some time to let the traffic die down a bit.

We headed out to Crackenham and bought some obligetory Red Eye's and Vodka for a recording session. Went back to the cabin and started getting jacked up. We recorded the vocals for an Osinaka beat that can be heard in raw ass looped beat form HERE. We were kinda drunk but it came out alright. We ended up having a mad freestyle session unfortunately that was not recorded but it was truly side splittingly funny.

The next day I dropped Jorge off in the city and met up with Crix again. This time he was sitting in the driveway with his neighbour and Thorts. As soon as I rock up the neighbour accuses me of stealing her 'curry plant' - I act all dumb and say i know nothing about it although i had to try really hard not from laughing and giving it up. She was absolutely perplexed by it so shit was mad funny. We sat there for a few hours and then headed off to Thorts' hotel room down the street where we met some other random rappy dudes. Sat around his hotel which stunk like shit thanks to a fridge leak for a few hours getting progressively more drunk on Coopers then headed out to Revolver.

Me and Crix thought Jager Bombs sounded the ticket so we started loading up on them. Problem was - the more we had the more we wanted them. Ended up spending a rediculous amount of money that night and talked some mad shit I cant remember and probably dissed a few more dudes than I should. I worked on the front door for a bit asking people for passout stamps and so forth - then i decided it would be funny to ask the people walking out of the club for passout stamps - luckily i wasnt too drunk and peoples aggrivation at this made me realise it probably wasnt worth the laughs. Oh yer and there was some dude wearing a Chinchilla jacket and some other pimped out shit out the back - unfortunately it looked kinda Fancy Dress store-ish but at least the effort was there. This made me remember our friend Aki would rock his mum's full length ladies fur coat around - that was almost the most fiendish shit I ever seen anyone wear with its high collar and so forth.

We got home about 4 oclock which wasnt too bad and pretty much passed out str8 away - we looked and sounded maggoted the next day so bought some fancy imported beer to try and make ourselves presentable. I left Crix's in the avo meet up with J breifly then went home and passed the hell out.

Fin.

Plastic face gaurds..

2006-04-24T22:00:00.000+10:00

So me and my brother used to love us some war games. Medieval shit was mad cool coz you could actually get some real action going there. We would fashion us some sword like sticks and go to work. Our dad had some wooden strips left over from some renovating he did in 1988 (and still has plenty left over - these must be like the magic pudding of wooden strips left over from renovations or someshit). So we used to grab these strips and carve some sharpish ends to em and then tape another much smaller piece of wood horizontally near the end to act as the hand protector part. These were some real wicked sword replicants. We had been to the Melbourne show at some stage and bought some medievil show bags (which did actualyl include plastic swords but theyd broken within about 20 minutes of purchase) - but even better they had plastic breast plates and some sick ass plastic helmets with the movable face plat which was optimum for thinking you were a unfuckwitable 6 yr old. It didnt matter that they offered minus 20 protection - coz as far as we knew armour was all about looking cool.

So we had these wooden swords and plastic armour and we'd get to work sword fighting eachother in our best Conan impersonation. Sure enough soon wood chips would be flying everywhere - which actually seemed kinda like sparks so that was sweet - until 2 seconds later one of our wooden strip swords would break in half - in which case it was now a (probably much more deadly in real life) dagger. I dont really remember how many of these duels ended but they most likely ended in one of us complainging that our sword was completely shit or that it was totally unfair.

Also remember those plastic masks you used to get in showbags? I think we had like Heman and Optomus Prime or someshit - anyways you put this mask on (and the elastic was always either waay too saggy or waay too tight) and start trying to breath through the mouth and nose pieces. When i wore the Heman mask - I actually WAS Heman - I couldve taken out a 7ft body builder with the power of this mask. Thats until the sweat and vapour from your muffled breathing started to make the mask stick to your face. You'd always tear off the mask and be like 'fuckit im forced to use my imagination' like as if it made any difference to the amount of imagination you had to use coz it wasnt like you could see yourself in the mask anyways it was more like 'this is what it must feel like having Hemans face'.

These plastic masks always ended up with some sort of yellowish brown tinge around the mouth whole as well from sweaty breathing and general hygiene.

Random wackness

2006-04-19T19:02:00.000+10:00

This is for D-Boy - rough ass drunkard version of You Dont Know - grain of salt required...
here

Random shards..

2006-04-15T19:24:00.000+10:00

Why are Red Bull, Red Eye and V et al called 'lifestyle' drinks - what sort of lifestyle are these drinks supporting?

Why are condoms not kept next to rubber gloves in the supermarket?

Last night I was giving shit to Muphin for being fucked and having two beers in his hand and proceeded to drop my beer mid sentence on Bias' foot.

Class act.

Mothman Prophecy

2006-04-14T16:13:00.000+10:00

So i moved into my mates apartment - it was highly suspect when i went in but i figured i could change that shit. Turns out im not superman and jack shit done changed. So we had these strange little maggot like creatures growing on the roof and crawling all around (at least as far as i know they kept to the roof). We assumed it was due to us keeping the windows open with no fly wire screen and having moths come in and lay there larvae in strategic corners. Anyways these little things were fucking cool to burn off the roof - they shrivelled up and just fell on the ground like some burnt up bit of rice - still - in retrospect wouldve been much cooler not to have moth larvae on our roof at all.

Today's Good Friday - so everyone have a good Good Friday and lets not be one of the people killed on the road - even though it is a time to celebrate death.

Mutating shit...

2006-04-13T20:53:00.000+10:00

So today i stroll into my works tiny little box toilets - as soon as i enter my nostrils take in a rank dirty morning shit stench which fills every follicle in my nose and makes my eyes weep. Im pretty good at cutting out stenches when i have to but these was one of those entire being permenating shits - like you can almost see the shit follicles shooting through the air trying to stick to you.

So im taking a piss gagging the entire time and i burst out of the door without bothering to wash my hands im just glad to get the hell out of there and take in some fresh air into my lungs. Problem was - i kept smelling that same reaking stench of hot sticky shit all day - i dont know if it was stuck in my nose or if it had morphed into my clothes and some mutated hybrid was starting to set up shop. Either way i just couldnt rid myself of that stench all day - i went home and incinerated my clothes.

Fin.

Hilltop Hoods!!

2006-04-11T20:46:00.000+10:00

The Hilltop Hoods new lp has debuted at Number 1 on the Australian charts!

This is a phenomenal effort and just goes to show what sticking to your guns and doing something original, creative and dope can result in.

Massive respect to Suffa, Pressure, Debris, Pegz and Obese!

Slipper warz...

2006-04-06T21:37:00.000+10:00

When we were kids me and my brother used to make up some ill games. One of my faves involved sectioning off the loungeroom into two segments on either end into two bases. Then we'd turn off the lights and use our slippers as projectiles - so we had two projectiles each to begin with - but once someone threw theirs the other person may have three or even four - so it was highly strategic - sometimes nothing would be thrown for 10 minutes and you'd just be sitting in darkened silence waiting for something to happen until *thump* a projectile was launched. The problem with the game was that rarely it was one of us that got hit due to just randomly throwing them into the dark - this had to stop due to consistently hitting our mums shit off tables and so forth.

I PWN3d all these n3wb5!!!

2006-04-03T23:03:00.000+10:00

So anyone that follows geeked out message board speak will by know be aware of this gay terminology. Im not even sure where it originates and im sure someone with a much better operating system than I can tell me all about it but im sure it has something to do with LAN games or the internet before It was actually the internet (yer man your so hardcore coz you were using the internet in its primitive form when it wasn’t even the internet yet – pfft).

Anyways on the good ole Non Prophets Forum there has been a lurker who has been stirring up troubles trying to crack funnies by using these terms.

The question came up as to how “PWN3d” was pronounced –

Mr. Francis’ take:

Sage FrancisJudge and JuryJoined: 30 Jun 2002Posts: 10179

I've decided it should be pronounced "pooned" even though that sounds sexual. Some choose to pronounce it was "poned" when I drive through Maine I poon people randomly. Thanks for the inspiration, y'all.

Another’s:

mizterieJoined: 12 Mar 2004Posts: 2361Location: Danbury, CT

most people i know pronounce it "pawn" but i pronounce it "pween".

An opinion:

BandiniJoined: 01 Jul 2002Posts: 2221Location: frogtown

and its pronounced "poned" as it originated from the misspelling of the word "owned"

The word:

Sage FrancisJudge and JuryJoined: 30 Jun 2002Posts: 10179

this is where your wizard hat FAILS you, bandini! SINCE pwned is based on a mispelling, I believed that should be honored in its phonetic pronunciation. There is no "o" in pwned. It has been replaced by the "p" pwned is not "powned"....it is pwned....which sounds like pooned. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh SHIT! you totally just got PWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after some research from my man Jorge we got this from wikipedia which cleared the term all up for us n3wb5:

"The likely beginning of the meme is from the hacker scene on EFNet IRC circa 1994. “Owned” or “Own3d” referred to getting administrative privileges on someone’s computer by exploiting a security vulnerability. [citation needed] The use of the word own in terms of victory over another predates its use in the gaming subculture. This accounts for the pre-existing proliferation of the word, which may then have been morphed into “pwn” through any of the following possible means.

* The term could have simply been derived from a common misspelling, with no significant event proliferating its use [1][2]. Instead, it is assumed that it simply began to spread as a result of fast typing, due to the proximity of the P and O keys on most modern keyboard layouts, and the tendency of gamers and net users to create and expand internet memes.

* Another way of deriving “pwn” from “own” is by jokingly stating that P is the next letter after O, alphabetically, and in that way poses as some sort of higher level—so “pwn” is a kind of superlative “own.” This is the origin of other web slang expressions, such as “raising” the slang spelling “gr8” (for great) to “gr9” because 9 is the next step up from 8. Compare this with Victor Borge's inflationary language.

* Yet another possible proliferation, and common use, is the circumvention of language filters. Some game and chat servers began to ban the word “own” and its variants, as it was frequently being used in a verbally abusive manner when players achieved victory. Sometimes the message would be blocked; other times the user would simply be banned from the server. Some of these players have used “pwn” as a substitute word in order to bypass the filters."

"Pronunciation

Given the recent development of the word, and its primary use in written form only, there is no single accepted pronunciation of the word “pwn.” There are many different ideas on how “pwn” is properly pronounced, although pronunciation is mainly based on personal preference. Some of the common variations include (IPA pronunciation) [oʊn], [pəʔˈoʊn], [piˈoʊn], [pən], [pwin], [pun], or, most commonly, [poʊn], as rhymed with the original “own” ([oʊn]). It can also be pronounced phonetically, as [pwəʔˈn̩] (“pwən”).

Another pronunciation, [pɔn], is used by many other players, although many online gamers believe it to be a false pronunciation. The main argument against that is that since “pwn” is just in fact a purposeful misspelling of its parent “own,” that it should still be pronounced as [oʊn] or [poʊn]."

Hope that clears it up for all the n3wb5 out there. Got any last words?

Enough is enough. I've had it with these snakes!

2006-04-03T22:03:00.000+10:00

Aight so it seems the movie of the year is already locked and sealed in a ziplock bag. Rumours have been floating around the net for some time about the highly anticipated "Snakes on a Plane" starring Samuel L. Jackson. As my research into the subject has gone as deep as checking the Non-Prophets Forum this could all well be another net hoax. If it is - im going to release some snakes on a plane my damn self.

Heres an exert from an interview posted on the NP board:

"The Diva:You also are just wrapping up on “Snakes on a Plane” Tell us a little bit about it.

The Man:Snakes on a Plane – it’s exactly what it sounds like. They changed the name to “Pacific Flight 121” But there seems to be a clamor for it to go back to “Snakes on a Plane” and I’m part of the “Snakes on a Plane” group that’s one of the reasons I took the job. I either want to see that movie or I don’t. Because that’s what it is. I’m an F.B.I. agent transporting a witness from Hawaii to Los Angeles. Who saw this big mobster who we have been trying to catch for years, murder somebody. And the guy puts a crate load of snakes on the plane that release when we are in the middle of the ocean, so we have to go on and these 3-400 snakes are getting loose on the plane – all over. And they are killing passengers. We’re trying to blockade and keep them in one place and they get through that place.

The Diva:How many snakes did you say? 400?

The Man:Yeah 400. a one point the air bags deploy and snakes and the airbags come down and they are biting people in the face. It’s real crazy."

Snakes biting people in the face - where the fuck do i buy a ticket?

If that aint enough - check the trailor

Is that Samuel L. (baddass) Jackson whipping a dude with a snake?

Another quote from an article:

"When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded."

I could only imagine how cool that line will be - unless its the line that appears as the title of this thread - either way im sure it will blow your socks into orbit somewhere past Jupiter.

Im hyped as hell for this shit - fuck a star wars - i want to see snakes tearing off blouses.

Lil' Wayne - The Carter Review

2006-04-03T21:26:00.000+10:00

So some people think im strange coz i think the best hiphop lp's last year were by Edan, Sage Francis, and Lil' Wayne and Juelz Santanta - sure theyre not exactly similar artists - but the thing they have in common is style, flair and dope music. Plus i dont really give a fuck about the 4 elements, keeping it real and all that kids bullshit.

Let me talk about Lil' Wayne - now i slept on this kid coz i used to think there were two sorts of hiphop - ie commercial and underground - or bad and good - until i realised they were all exactly the same with slightly different business models. So hitherto i had categorised Lil' Wayne and the Hot Boys as wack without listening to them - my bad. Lil' Wayne is one of the slickest rappers out there currently and seems poised to take over Jay-Z's spot as having the smoothest flow in the game ( yer argue that).

As you can see Lil' Wayne looks like they found him in a PNG jungle and gave him a mic - he kinda sounds like it too - but dude can rap his ass off. To add to his appeal he was born in the same year as me (1982) - and just released his 5th lp or someshit - he joined the Hot Boys when he was 11 (eat a dick Bow Wow).

His first real tight lp was The Carter. This aint a nod to Sean - its a nod to Nino Brown's building in New Jack City (new jacks dont know). Its been laced with some dope beats by Mannie Fresh - and some suss ones but thats alright when theres 20+ tracks the fuck you expect.

Theres a few anthems on here - but Wayne's real strength is saying absolutely rediculous shit and making it sound cool as fuck:

"I'm a m,m, mack mack
a p,p, pimp
I sp, sp, sp, spit out shrimp"

More knowledge:

"Lilweeziana piranas everywhere you at
You gotta wear a extra condom and a extra gat"

Mad metaphors:

"Gat blacked ya face like ya run into a wall or something
Its cash money all or nothing
Its Lil Wayne the reverand call it Sunday
The congregation know I come with nothing
But leave with everything, I ain't come for nothing
And the choir know I come with money
And y'all know I'm Stunnas youngin like dat bitch"

And more:

"My charm starburst, my watch skittles
I'm hot sizzle, what up hot bizzle"

Sick ad libbed intro's:

"Ladies and Gentlemen
People with jobs people without jobs
Middle class, upper class, high class all that
Cats, snakes, chickens, ducks, elderly people in twerkers"

Mad braggadocia:

"Hustle boy sell a nick to ya mom I'll sell a brick out ya house
I'll sell a brick to a house nigga"

Sick use of the English language:

"Don't get it confused I want no confusion
And keep ya hoe I don't want your contagious"

People might think im taking the piss - but im actually dead serious - this is pure entertainment. Hiphop needs to take itself less seriously and to sound better and this is what this lp is all about.

So if you want some sweet beats and slick rapping this lp is for you. If your still waiting for
someone to remake '93 till Infinity' it may not be what your looking for.

The Doctor gives this 4 surgical gloves outta 5.

P.S
Ive just been reminded of Flaming Moes - if someone can find the exact recipe it shall be appreciated - but as far as i can recall the major ingredients were cough syrup and liquor - which just happens to be the ingredients to everyones favourite beverage - sizzurp. So what came first? The sizzurp or the flaming moes...im pretty sure we all know the answer to that - so now we know what the Simpsons writers were sipping on.

Benz or a beamer...

2006-04-03T20:32:00.000+10:00

So if your a P plater driving a benz or a beamer or any other descrip of sick new car heres a newsflash - you aint a sick cunt - your a spoilt bitch.

Unless your Lil' Wayne or Lil Bow Wow you didnt earn that shit.

If my parents were buying me a car outta highschool theres no way id let them spend more than a few grand coz being a baby faced driver and driving a sick ass car points to one scenario (see first paragraph)

The only reason to have a slick car is to show how much spare cash you got to throw around - its a status symbol - my opinion is if you have no status dont have the symbol. Also everytime you frivalously smash your car while changing your favourite Usher cd you gotta hit daddy's company up for the bill coz theres no way you can afford to pay the running costs.

Yer maybe im steamed coz my parents never splashed any money on me for material items that dont mean shit - yer - or maybe your just a spoilt bitch.

Sage Francis fans are sooks..

2006-04-03T19:21:00.000+10:00

So in late 2004 Sage Francis came down to rock a show at the Corner Hotel. I had smashed my car a week or something before so the night before the show i was returning from work to crash at one of my mates house and had some time to kill in the city so i though - shit why not get some beer. So im strolling around the city looking for a liquor store that was still open while I was waiting for my train - when i see this large stout grizzly beer looking motherfucker galumphing towards me with two chicks - i recognise it as Sage and say watup and so forth - against popular opinion dude was mad cordial and we strolled and chatted for a bit till he mentioned he was going to Revolver to check some band i never heard of and i was acting a little overly interested and he musta got worried i was going to start following his ass all night like some star struck fan boy (he was damn right too coz i pinched a locket of his hair just before he managed to make a quick escape and have been trying to grow a Sage of my own ever since).

Anyways that was my run in with fame - well two years before i was actually one of the supporting acts at his first gig down here - well i did one track - still sounds good.

So the next night i had my work christmas party which was completely wack apart from the free booze - i jetted when the old people started to dance and hoped on a train to Richmond. Got in the show just before Sage got on and was already already pretty cut up - the shows kinda hazy for me (which is wack coz Sage rocks a dope show) but i do remember a couple of points.

Firstly Sage had asked this night to be a no smoking event - cool I can get with being a performer and not wanting to inhale second hand smoke all night - that would fucking suck specially if your a non-smoker. So im down to not smoke in his vacinity - I light up one near the bar a good 20 metres away from him and trying to blow it in the doors basic direction. Now - the bar staff didnt give to shits - it was just a 'request' it wasnt law - however i musta been told by about 20 hippie looking groupies that this was a no smoking zone - to which i replied 'do you work here?' and was promptly answered with a 'no?!' Well thanks for the information beeetch. My boy Anthony got into the act too and it was actually a whole lot more fun smoking in there coz we werent sposed to - was like highschool or something. Like i said no disrespect to Sage we werent anywhere near him.

Secondly - during one of his spoken word pieces - it was Slow Down Ghandi - which is a rallying political song even though he was doing it accapella - i started to yell along with the words and provided some enunciation on certain lines by yelling randoming "woo's" and "jear" and so forth. Apparently - some hippie groupie though i was mocking him - i got "sshhhh'd".

"Shhhhhh - dont you see he's performing?" - Um, 'scuse me? I didnt realise this was a game of golf - as far as im concerned this is still a hiphop show even though the beats stopped and furthermore - the spoken word performance is actually tomorrow night so if you wanna sit around drinking chai tea and thinking about how damn sophisticated and emo you are then go for your life then - coz i wont be there. Also in the back of my mind I was thinking 'yer well I did supports for this dude a good 2 years before 'emo hiphop' became your new favourite genre for this month'.

I gotta admit i was kinda baffled by this. I remember all i could do was get rediculously drunk and find my good buddy John Safran and rant and rave in his ear about his latest TV series (much to his delight) while he was trying to pick up some chick.
Went back to my mates and passed out.

Drivers are shit..

2006-04-03T18:13:00.000+10:00

So im driving home in peak hour and this fuckstick is tailgating me and i can see him continually cracking the shits and trying to get as close as he can to me (like thats somehow magically gonna get him to his destination faster). Unsurprisingly the front of the dudes car was all smashed in no doubt from ass raming some other poor bastard. Now im just driving with the traffic trying to read it as best as i can so i dont have to keep stopping and starting coz if theres one thing i hate more than driving slowly its having to stop and start all the time. This guy mustve been a big fan of it - coz it was obviously annoying him alot i wasnt on the ass of the guy in front of me - so he eventually does that classic dumb fuck move and switches lanes to get the extra two metres closer to his destination - and then when two seconds later that lane stops he gets back behind me - by this stage ive managed maneovered slightly ahead of the car he was just behind in he other lane and managed to switch lanes myself but as I have half a brain I waited until this move actually made sense and i managed to get a good 100 metres free run up the road before having to slow down - meanwhile this wanker is now caught in the lane i was previously in and cant switch lanes due to the build up now behind me and on either side of me.

Anyways if you can follow that story your a fucken genious - point is most people on the road cant read traffic for shit - they remind me of short sighted politicians who can't see a long term goal - people who speed the fuck up like its same sort of race to stop at the next traffic light are morons - this aint a drag strip motherfucker and you sure as hell aint driving a drag car - you could just drive like a normal person and not have to stop at all.

Oh yer in other news I went to the dentist today - my jaw feels like ive been giving head for an hour.

A recipe for disaster..

2006-04-02T22:32:00.000+10:00

My housemate had this recipe for some soup - the first time he tried to make it it tasted like shit - he was told by someones mum that to make it work you have to add some meat in and let that simmer for a day or two. So he goes again this time cooking it with half a lamb in this big ass pot. We let that simmer for about 30 hours - I was just walking around the flat keeping an eye on it and shit - after a while the whole place reaked like flesh though - shit was infused into the carpet and all.

So anyways - we let it cool down and the top just turns into fat. I have no idea how thick this fat layer is. But im still willing to give it a go.

So I dig into it with a spoon and the fat layer is only 5 cm's or something so im thinking shit should be alright. So I pour it into a saucepan and start warming it up - I add some noodles and some vegies and its smelling fantasmic.

I pour it into a bowl and im eating it - and it was truly brilliant - so tasty it was unbelievable. But you know those colourful rings oil makes? Well that was like the exterior of the bowl - ie it musta been 95% fatty meat oil and maybe 5% water - I was informed afterwards that we shouldve drained the fat and added more water in coz apparently you shouldnt really have a soup bowl full of oil.

Nneedless to say the 'soup' was great but I was hitting the bathroom constantly for the next 24 hours.

Anyways so my housemate decides he doesnt want this soup anymore and just empties it all outside our window - pot and all. I kid you not a day later there was a dead bird lying next to it. OD'd on meat!

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

2006-04-02T21:30:00.000+10:00

So I'm re-reading one of my favourite books - "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan. I get all geeked out thinking about the universe and stuff (not in a Star Trek kinda way though). Anyways, i'll post up certain bits that I find interesting as I go through.

Did you know:

"There are some hundred billion galaxies, each with on average a hundred billion stars therefore roughly ten billion trillion planets."

"There are 400 billion stars in the milky way."

Did you also know:

"In Alexandria, Egypt 3 B.C lived Eratosthenes, he saw that two sticks in different locations cast different shadows at the exact same time. By measuring the distance between the sticks and the difference in degree of shadows they cast he measured the size of the Earth to an error of 2 percent (and also that it was curved)."

Diabolical!

The Alexandrian Library was home to great scholars work - Euclid wh systemised geometry; Dionysius who defined the study of speech; Herophilus who found the brain not the heart was the centre of intelligence; Heron who invented gear trains and steam engines and the author of Automata (first book on robots); Ptolemy, and more. These works and more unknown works were mostly lost when the library was deliberately destroyed.

Aristarchus of Samos wrote that the Earth was a planet which orbits the sun - not until 2,000 years later was this knowledge rediscovered).

The library had a 3 volume history of the world completely lost by Babalonian Priest Berossus.

Just imagining how different our civilisation would be today if this knowledge was accepted and grown upon back then is mind blowing.

Think about this:

"The idea that the Earth is perfect for life is confusing cause and effect - we are the descendents of organisms that did well and adapted."

"Life had arisen almost immediately after the origin of the Earth but did not evolve much past blue green algae for 3 billion years - this suggests life may be easy to form but large lifeforms are not."

"An oak tree and I are made of the same stuff on a molecular level and if you go back far enough we both have a common ancestor."

Sagan constructed an experiment by mixing together gases of primitive Earth - methane, hydrogen, water, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide - all present on Earth and Jupiter and throughout the universe. These were sparked electrically which represented lightening - slowly a brown pigment appeared on the sides - this tar was rich in complex organic molecules.

BAM!

Now for something different..

2006-04-02T21:11:00.000+10:00

I was watching this film a few weeks ago and some of the stuff in it kinda makes you think (duh).

Most of this was taken from here.

This guy Dr. Masaru Emoto (graduate of the Yokohama Municipal University and the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine) performed these experiments where he had a water sample and would direct different emotions towards it by playing music or getting people to say certain words and so forth. By observing the newly formed water crystals when the water was frozen he saw the change in there structure when certain concentrated thoughts were directed towards them (like love, hate etc). The pictures are quite amazing - beautifully intricate patterns when positive energy was directed and jagged ugly patterns when negative energy was directed.

Interesting implications when you think about how much of the world is made up of water - including our bodies which are 3/4's water. Most people probably think its bullshit but whatever - I think the power of positive thinking is powerful hah (how eloquent).

People are morons..

2006-04-02T20:50:00.000+10:00

So the other day i'm catching my train home - and I see a bunch of typical ozzie blonde spiky haired dicks sitting around shooting the breeze like some retards at a firing range - so the train stops and most of them get off leaving one doofus sitting there and as they're leaving they musta said something smart to him coz he's yelled out at them as they get off the train 'bitch ass n***as'. This isnt the first time i've heard people who have no right using that word refer to people who have no right being called that word as such. The Sri Lankan and Indian kids would refer to each other using that word in highschool which would shit me no end - i mean your not even freakin African - your Asian - when i pointed this out some of them werent even aware this was the case - "nah man im black' - yer whatever.

I'd love to see one of these aussie's go to the US and start throwing the n-word around some ghetto motherfuckers from Queen's - "Whatup n***a!" *smack*

I know rap and hiphop are really popular nowadays and the word has been trivialised by certain rappers - but still - doesnt make it alright for some dick from Mornington to say it in his worst American accent.

I remember some wanker at highschool trying to tell me he was 'grimey' - pfft no your not dude - the kid i knew from Doveton high who got kidnapped for a weekend while selling heroin on Swanston Street was grimey - your just a pansy wearing huge parachute pants that fall off your ass.

School formal..

2006-04-02T19:36:00.000+10:00

So a big part of my life experience which I missed out on was going to my school formal. Tragic huh? We did manage to squeeze some fun into the night though.

First week of year 12 me and my 'mates' are sitting in the year 12 common room thinking we're badass coz we're in yr 12. Anyways some dick gets a call from a kid who is sick and is chatting away next to me - at one point i hear in the convo - 'yer bro ill get it whats your locker combo?' - so he's writing down this dudes locker combo in perfect site of myself. So i sit there and casually grab my pen and jot it down in the back of diary.

Our school formal was at the end of the first term so it must've been about two months later - me and my partner in crime are chilling in the common room thinking we're badass coz we're in yr 12 and I remember I have this dudes locker combo. So we sneak up to his house area and start working our way up and down the corrider trying different lockers until snap! One opens - and holy moly - this guy had a small treasuretrove in there - I wont go into much detail but we lined our pockets with valuables and got the hell outta there - giggling in a high pitched fashion (NB as our school actually had rules that these sorts of items were not allowed at school we were actually just doing the policing for them). After school we were hanging at Dandenong station and were talking to dudes - and seems people were willing to pay good money for the items we had procured. So bam! Instantly we're holding a few hundred dollars in our hands and being 17 years old we felt like we were big pimpin'.

So we decide seeing as we're some of the only people (apart from the poor guys who couldnt get girls) not sitting around discussing the colour of their lapelle and how they're going to do there hair and how many people they can squeeze into a rental limo then we should conduct our own private party right next door to where the formal was being held. This ended up being some hotel room on Toorak Rd.

So while everyone else was getting into rental tux's - we were tucking into a rollicking good time at this hotel room. We had our girlfriends come around and shit was all gravy - we even went down the street to hang out at the front of the formal place to laugh at everyone as they rocked up until we got asked to leave.

After the formal was the after party - we had a few dudes come up from the formal to our room to drink before this party and all they did was bitch about how ghey the formal was - well we couldve told you that dickheads! One dude was up for a vodka shot challenge - boy was that silly mistake - me and one of my buddies left to go to the afterparty and left this evil Russian up there feeding this poor lad vodka shots. Well next time we saw this dude he was out the front of the after party trying to start a fight with the bouncer coz he wasnt allowed in. Dude was almost as drunk as I've seen anyone in my life - shit was funny as hell.

So we went in and completely destroyed this after party as we were ten times more drunk and daring than everyone else - it was stupendous.

Only problem was when we eventually got back to the hotel room stupid ass drunkards had been let in and stolen our beds so we had to sleep on the floor of the room I had payed for.
We stayed there one more night and got up to some mischief then also - all in all my formal night was great!

I caused trouble at my highschool...

2006-04-02T19:00:00.000+10:00

I got alot of funny memories from my highschool years. One of my favourites was the avo me and one of my buddies were busting out early (as was usual practice) and we see one of the schools most prized possessions just lying on some lockers. To give some background - my school had the best pipes and drums band in Australia or something stupid and they were all dress wearing wierdo's who were (i hope) forced into doing it by mother or because great grand-uncle McArthur was in one or something. They had a head piper who would lead the charge by yelling incomprehensible ad libs kinda like Young Jeezy or something while doing lame ass spins and shit with this baton/sceptre. So we see this baton/sceptre chilling in a cloth case on the top of some lockers - happened that my mate completely hated the head piper in our year level - and I was just down to mess with the school - so without saying a word we both look at eachother - nod - and grab this thing and run into the toilets - we found the filthiest cubicle we could and jammed it in there good and proper - emptied our bladders - and run off giggling in a high pitched fashion.
The next day we rock up to school in the morning and see the head piper is talking to our house master in his office - shit looks all kinda serious. He comes out looking all solemn and defeated. Anyways we never heard a word about it (our school would keep embarassing stuff like that as quiet as they could) but a week later he comes back with a new baton/sceptre - this time its sheathed in metallic armouring - ingenious! We were happy just to see the results of our labour.
We ended up not being able to resist telling this young punk on the bus who proceeded to spread it around the entire school - thus adding to our legend. We never ever admitted to anything we did but the stories always got around. The head piper was eventually creatively crowned 'piss stick' by someone or other.

(NB its damn hard to find a pic of a sceptre on the internet - maybe I'm just a retard at using google but this was the best one I could come up with - anyways the way this statue is holding the sceptre is kind of like how we felt after it showed up in its new armoured home)

Getting cruised by two gay dudes..

2006-04-02T18:24:00.000+10:00

Now i dont have anything against homosexuals - other than when theyre trying to get against me - so it was D, J, and myself (names have been abreviated to protect the less than innocent) chilling at E-55. Same deal Friday night after work drinks. D notices some dude sitting provacatively by the bar sipping a Pina Colada in a highly camp fashion, sporting an open neck pink and white striped shirt and some gold jewellery keeps staring at us. Now, we figure either dude wants to fight - OR - fuck. So we presume him and his buddy are looking at us thinking fivesome.

So after we finish our beers we head straight to the pizza slice joint to soak up some some of the booze. We're standing in line minding our own when some seemingly random dude strolls up and asks J "Is this the line?" - now this was just a stupid ass question - no shit its a line buddy - so we're clowning this guy a bit when he says something else equally retarded (this is where memory gets hazy coz no one was paying attention to this we were drunk and just talking shit to a random stranger OR so we thought). Then after a few more words back and forth it pretty much dawned on us all at exactly the same time that this dude was trying to hit on us - so we all turn around in unison and sure enough standing next to the dude doing the talking is Pina Colada dude - we all turn our heads str8 back around forward and start to piss our pants - when we turn back around they're gone.

So after we finish our slices and shit me and J drive off but apparently D was followed by these dudes to the train station. If he'd send me the photo I could post it and complete the tale of this amazing adventure.

What's in a name?

2006-04-02T16:55:00.000+10:00

This blog is named after one of my favourite (yet completely unintential) past times - which is obviously dropping beer. It's right up there with having your beer stolen - or having your cigarettes stolen - or getting kicked out of bars/pubs/clubs and (you know the rest). All family friendly practices which I try to participate in regularly.

There's nothing better than buying a drink and putting it down in a strategic spot - talking some shit - then looking back 3 minutes later to see its vanished into thin air. Now i know theres rumours of pilfering ghosts at Workshop so this could explain some of it - and Im sure Revolver has a fair few tormented souls stuck in there so yer I dunno.

Could they also be stealing cigarettes though? I mean - you leave a packet of smokes on a table and completely forget about them for an hour and when you come back - somehow they've completely vanished? Once again, I'm struggling for non-supernatural explanations.

But indeed - one thing that doesnt deserve a segment on the Extraordinary is dropping beers. There's two reactions you can have when your standing there feeling a slight buzz and the beer magically slips through your hands and smashes onto the floor. You can stand there laughing and completely claim it - or you can just keep moving in a clandestein fashion and buy another drink like it never happened. I generally gravitate towards the second option unless I've been spotted. Anyways it's just such an awesome feeling and confidence booster when it happens it's hard to explain.

One time at E-55 I'm having some after work drinks with some loonies and decide that the big ass table in the middle of all the couches looks sturdy as - so rather than navigate past peoples feet and so forth I stealthily jump on it thinking it was the maddest shortcut ever. Until the entire thing topples over - including everyones drinks. Most of the people there are way too pussy to say anything so the only ones who requested I buy them replacements were these two big ass Islanders - now their jug of beer actually somehow fell down without spilling as it was only a third of the way full - yet somehow they now seemed to have been drinking some fancy ass gin and tonic or some shit. I wasn't going to argue.

Furthermore - I also enjoy stepping on girls toe's and talking to strangers in toilets.

All awesome shit.

I got payed $25 a minute to yell abuse at Digga..

2006-04-02T16:31:00.000+10:00

Anyone familiar with the Australian hiphop artist J-Wess will no doubt be familiar with at least the voice of Battletown's Digga. He was the white guy trying to look like a Latino in the video clip to Bang This - the one who was going to 'spray the joint' (with what exactly is still yet to be determined).

When I was 17 I was a little arrogant cocky bastard who thought he was one of the slickest rappers in the world - when in fact - I sucked ass. That still didn't stop me talking loads of shit on now defunct message boards and tarnishing my name wherever I could. So one day I was asked to participate in the Out 4 Fame Art of War showcase - where they got three experienced rappers to battle three unexperienced rappers in a showcase of 'mad skill'. Of course I figured I was chosen coz word of my amazing abilities was no doubt spreading far and wide - in retrospect I imagine I was chosen because of my amazing shit talking abilities and they figured I would be an easy win for big man Digga. Which of course I was.

I remember being outside the Corner Hotel sucking down a hearty spliff when I get a call on my g/f's mobile from my bro saying that they were calling out my name to go on stage. Of course my ever perceptive self had misread the performance times that night and thought I still had an hour to spare. So I'm all of a sudden starting to shit myself a bit coz I've just removed a big fat spliff from my lips. So I run inside and jump backstage and then I have to sit back there while two other battles go down. This gives plenty of time for the weed to kick in and for some paranoa to become nice and prominent. Also I'm pretty sure this may have been the first time I was on stage or something like that. Definately at an event that large.

So anyways my name gets called and we go out and I think I had to rap first which always sucks, I did some fantastic freestyles rhyming shit with shit and so forth - littered with a few pre-thought of disses I managed to remember. It was alright - I was so caught in the moment the nerves completely dissapeared once I was on the stage. Then Digga starts rapping - and this dude had been doing it for a while and was no stranger to live performances - he's twice my size and is booming disses towards me - plenty of cliches but still. Anyways so I got through it and got off stage and some people actually came up to me thinking that I had won. I find that highly doubtful but regardless it was just a showcase so there were no judges anyways. I guess rapping in an Aussie accent will always be enough to win a battle against an American twanger.

A week later I meet Mr Out 4 Fame in the city and get my 50 dollars - thats 25 dollars a minute if your not good with the mathematicals - which is actually quite close to the sort of pay I feel I DESERVE.

Fin

Beast Master

2006-04-02T15:24:00.000+10:00

Aight so just to bring the level of sophistication and flair smashing through the top of the sophistiflairometer - lets discuss a forum which was posted over on the good ole Non-Prophets forum. Unfortunately I can't find the exact thread that this was brought up in - so you'll just have to take my word that thats where I found this! (seriously) (serious!) (since posting this I have noted a thread which references this so this proves i wasn't just looking up animal porn right here)

I presume grandmaster Sage would've deleted all shreds of evidence of the thread which is probably something I should be doing - but really I think its in the publics best interest to know what goes down so fuckit.

So let's talk about the people over at Beast Forum. Now you may think that this innocently titled forum might be about body building or some he-man character. Alas, this is a forum dedicated to animal lovers - and I don't mean RSPCA members, or animal handlers - these are animal fondlers.

This bad boi right here is a prime example of the sort of avatar you will expect should you dare to enter the realms of the Beast Forum. Although I must say knowing this bad boi is relegated to the Beast Forum makes walking dark alleys at night just a little bit more comfortable.

Some such examples of topics which frequent the Beast Forum are:

Nothing but fluff
Sexual Healing
Pick one pass it on
I've had an orgasm
Furries
Only fools rush in

Let your imagination run wild (and yes it is better to use your imagination because the reality is a whole lot more sick and twisted than you could ever imagine)

Here's an example from the 'I've had an orgasm' thread:

"hehe me and my girl had one this morning hehe probably another to come at bedtime
Tundra"

Let me tell you - I aint going anywhere near any animals in the tundra regions ever again.

Oh and that pretty black and white doggy looking extremely worried at the top of the page is her avatar - or her 'girl' as she refers.

Now - you may be wondering - what sort of person is into this sort of thing? Surely not a family man or a mother?

bzzzzzzzz!

"About 7 this morning...had to be quickie cause the kids were already up!"

Thanks "Fluffykitten"

Now, talking to my good pal Jorge (who is an innocent bystander), he mentioned that as most sub-cultures eventually get appropriated by the mainstream, so too could the wonderful world of beasiality (which in many instances brings a whole new literal dimension to animal husbandry). Forget Will and Grace, wait till you see Jill and Rex!

I'm gonna end this now even though I could go on and on however I feel damn dirty reading that, let alone having it open in my browser for 10 minutes, let alone writing about it.

I figured I'd hit rock bottom straight away just so people have no misconceptions about what is going down here - surely - the only way is up from here! (not in a beast forum sense)

Oh yer..

2006-04-02T15:12:00.000+10:00

I just realised the colour template I have chosen is the same as Houston So Real and So Many Shrimp - which is hardly surprising when they give you a choice of about ten with only two being even remotely close to being considered manly by a manly man with a manly mane such as myself. I couldve gone white like the Beatles, but im more of a Johnny Cash kinda guy so now consider me the Doctor in black. Actually, I dont know why more doctors dont wear black attire - particularly surgeons, I mean wouldn't it save some cleaning bills if they were wearing black coats as oppose to the white or even the green (what are they doing rinoplasty alot or something?). They could wear the same black coat and maybe give it a once over with some black spray paint at the end of each week and voila - put an end to the constant washing necessity.

First beer dropped

2006-04-02T14:18:00.000+10:00

OK so this blog has been created in order to make it easier for me to transfer important information to my friends such as the latest Jay-Z and Nas gossip, the latest geeked out message board brawl, or how many points Dwayne Wade is averaging in a basketball league which may as well be fictional considering our countries commitment to a complete lack of coverage. And so forth, essentially whatever I feel like writing on. It will also be dedicated to hyper grammatical skills and death defying punctuation, and of course my general opinions - and my opinions run wild and deep, so deep they could put your ass to sleep.

So stay tuned and let the Dr. prescribe you some top notch $5.50 beer dropping home remedies.