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Archive for February, 2010

Feb 27

T-Pain Presents: Nappy Boy All Stars Vol. 1 (Mixtape Review)

Regardless of what you think of HIM personally, he has fun doing music. You can just tell. That's a good look.

Looks like T-Pain’s been making moves quietly, assembling him a squad that could do some considerable damage as far as record sales within the next couple of years. The All-Star Squad (according to T-Pain at least) consists of Young Ca$h, Sophia Fresh, Travis McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes), Tay Dizm, One Chance, and newly recruited female lyrical monster Shawnna.

If you’re thinking that Shawnna’s with DTP, you’d be incorrect. Turns out, something happened and now she’s with the Nappy Boy umbrella. The interesting thing about this mixtape is that on a couple of songs, Shawnna seems to take a couple of really slick shots at her former labelmate/boss with lines like “Yeah, them hatin *ss n*ggas threw a curve ball… but I threw it right back” followed by a laugh that sounds EXTREMELY SIMILAR to the way Ludacris laughed in his song “Everybody With Me” that was on HIS Conjure Cognac mixtape that I actually reviewed earlier.

Not to mention in the intro song she says “Now I’m down with Nappy Boy, nah I ain’t with ‘dude’ and them / Oops, wait a minute, I hope you ain’t offended…”

HMMM… Read more

Feb 25

1 Comment

Laws – “457″ (Mixtape Review)

Ever heard of Laws? Yeah, me neither…but you should. Seriously.

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Feb 24

J.O.K.E. (Journal of K1ng Eljay) – “The S.T.D.”

Tiger apologized…not in spirit, but still…

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Feb 18

Ludacris – “Conjure: A Hustler’s Spirit” (Mixtape Review)

At least the bottle looks pretty...

Alcoholic Propaganda…

First off, I have to say congratulations to Luda for his single “How Low” going digitally platinum (1 Million “Paid” Downloads). Does that make this song ringtone material? My sources say yes, but moving on..

I’m not sure about other people, but I know that I thoroughly enjoy albums and mixtapes from Ludacris. He’s one of my favorite rappers to watch because of how he fuses hip-hop and rap almost seamlessly. One of the first albums I ever went out and bought was “Word of Mouf”, so I’m genuinely interested to see what kind of moves he makes. Regardless of his ability to promote and keep artists (hi Shawnna!), he still puts out dope music, and here’s another mixtape that shows him acting a fool for the love of Conjure Cognac.

I feel like this was more of a promotion of alcohol than hip-hop/rap music...

Seriously, the whole mixtape is filled with him promoting the Cognac brand. Can’t say he’s not a businessman…  But despite the flow of the mixtape being interrupted several times from an interlude concerning the “beverage”, you do get a nice size of free music from the Mouf of the Souf, so I guess it’s nothing to really complain about.

The mixtape shows off Luda’s talent as he hops on other people’s songs and makes them his without any real effort.  He also has a couple of verses that some people might not have heard before, but if you generally follow Luda, none of this material will seem new.

Regardless of the few flaws on the tape, it’s still solid. It’s not the best tape he’s ever had, and it’s not even better than the last few mixtapes he put out, but they’re ok. It’s average for a mixtape. Let’s just hope his next album, “Battle of the Sexes”, puts him back on his normal grind.

Eljay’s Favorites

  • “Born An O.G.” – w/ Ace Hood
  • “We Getting Rich” w/ Playaz Circle
  • “Everybody With Me”
  • “Wasted”

Feb 17

Curren$y – “Smokee Robinson” (Mixtape Review)

Since when did "Da Hot Spitta" start spittin' lukewarm? That's not a good look. At least the production is on point, I guess.The Quick Summary

See, here’s my problem with this mixtape. It’s nothing new, nothing original, nothing mind-blowing…

In a sense, Curren$y’s new mixtape is exactly what mixtapes USED to be: a compilation of songs that an artist put together and on that mixtape, you’d maybe find 4 or 5 tracks you could put on repeat. Hopefully, those four or five tracks could be so dope, you’d forget the rest of the mixtape was garbage.

Unfortunately for Curren$y…it’s 2010. The mixtape market has changed, and unless you elevate your game you’ll be left behind. In the current age of mixtape-albums and original mixtape concepts, this mixtape here is just not going to cut it.

I’ve heard better from Curren$y, and there’s not one real song that stands out on this mixtape for me because of Curren$y. That basically means that the cameos to me stole some of C’s own thunder from him on his own mixtape. C sounded bored the whole time, and his punchlines and flow was just a drag to listen to, honestly.

This is not his best. I’m glad to see that he’s still doing music after being signed and then dropped/released/whatever from Cash Money, but in order to keep up with the other people, he’s going to have to either revert completely to his old ways or diversify his rapping topics. Quickly. – K1ng Eljay

Feb 17

2 Comments

Bobby Creekwater – “Back To The Briefcase 2″ (Mixtape Review)

Bobby Creekwater delivers the business in his new mixtape...kind of....

The Quick Summary:

Bobby Creekwater’s been kind of silent since his departure from Shady Records (I think he departed….eh). Suddenly he re-emerges with a new mixtape showcasing his skills.

Although the mixtape has a few highlights, and the man does have a sense of humor (which is evident on the intro to the mixtape in which he finds out his lady for the night is “cycling”), some of the tape is a miss. It becomes evident that the whole tape is not up to par with some of the tracks that he destroys towards the end.

“Lust For Life”, The “What You Know” portion of the “Warm Up”, “Wasted”, “A World”, a remix of Drake’s “Uptown”, all show off what Creek is capable of doing on a daily basis. However, even though those songs are well worth hearing, it’s hard to warrant those songs as a reason to download the entire mixtape.

We’ve seen better from Bobby Creekwater, but his album should be the dopeness that we’ve expected from the Southern resident. This mixtape is just the warm up, and because of that, it’s average. Nothing less, nothing more. This time…

I have a feeling the next time, it won’t be so average. – K1ng Eljay

Eljay’s Favorites

  • “Wasted” Memix
  • “A World”
  • “Lust For Life” Memix
  • “Warm Up”

Feb 16

J.O.K.E. (Journal of K1ng Eljay) – “I’d Rather Not…” (My Issues With The ‘We Are the World’ Remake)

This is what happens when you have too many ideas coming together at once. I'm good on that...

This one’s a little extended, but before I begin…

Jay-Z has this habit of saying things that people commonly hold as true, and then because he says it, it spawns a whole movement. Throwback jerseys, people began to get tired of it, so Jay jumped to button-ups and that was the push needed for a majority of people to do the same thing. Autotune began to pop up in almost every single song known to man via mainstream radio and TV, so Jay stated the “Death of Autotune” as a music single. Not to mention the whole, racist, alcohol thing that I won’t bother to mention…

I don’t really keep up with Jay’s personal preferences. I pretty much do my own thing. I still rock jerseys at times, I don’t care too much for button-ups, and I still bump T-Pain albums. However, I completely agree with him on what he said recently about the “We Are the World” remake:

“I have a interesting take on that…I know everybody is gonna take this wrong: ‘We Are the World,’ I love it, and I understand the point and think it’s great. But I think ‘We Are the World’ is like [Michael Jackson's] ‘Thriller’ to me. I don’t ever wanna see it touched. I’m a fan of music. I know the plight and everything that’s going on in Haiti. I applaud the efforts: [Millions have been raised] through text [donations] to Haiti. So I appreciate the efforts and everything, but ‘We are the World’ is [musically] untouchable like ‘Thriller’ is untouchable…”

(Jay-Z, to MTVNews.com)

If you follow me on Twitter, you got my up-to-the-minute reaction as I watched the video. If you like the remake, then that’s cool for you, but for me?

…I’d rather not. Read more

Feb 14

3 Comments

QuESt – “How Thoughtful” (Mixtape Review)

How thoughtful of him to take a picture of himself looking thoughtful for his mixtape...

More importantly than ANYTHING, I finally got the spelling right (Q-u-E-S-t). That’s an accomplishment for me… Ok, let me stop joking. On to the review.

The last time I covered QuESt, I said something to the effect of “I would pay for music like this…” I think It always surprises me to see an artist develop and grow like he has from his last project to this one. “Broken Headphones” was a great project, but “How Thoughtful” is by far my favorite project I’ve heard from homie.

The Good:

“I like the fact that QuESt has punchlines, but CHOSE to stay on topic and go all in on whatever he was talking about at the time. You can tell he has lines on the outro song (“See What I See”) when he goes into something like a mini-rant during the second verse…” (K1ng Eljay, via “Broken Headphones” review).

That’s what I said last time. This time, it’s a different story. This whole mixtape is basically QuESt flexing his lyrical muscle and showing how easy it is for him switch and flip flows. The punchlines, metaphors, similies, and just CLEVER lines are all throughout this project, and you might not even get all of them at first. I was still catching some of the slickness on my fifth and sixth play-through.

“#HowThoughtfulFacts The mixtape is nothing more than a showcase of my skills.” (QuESt, via Twitter)

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Feb 9

Joell Ortiz & Novel – “Defying The Predictable” (Mixtape Review)

Dopeness. Nothing else needs to be said.

I love following people with personality on Twitter. I’ve been excited about Joell Ortiz ever since he dropped “The Bodega Chronicles.” I couldn’t understand how come he didn’t have a deal then, then he got one and the more I researched, the more everything began to make sense, and he became a REAL person to me.

The same thing happened for Novel. He’s one of the few people that actually interact with their fans on Twitter. I said something on Twitter that he and Joell Ortiz together reminds me of the quality music that Timbaland and Magoo used to put out, and to my surprise he hits me back:

“Wait i cant retweet that… I aint Magoo LOLOL.”

Caught me completely off-guard, but it was funny. I started following the dude, and I began to like him more as a person. It makes it easier to like someone when their music meshes with their personality. Genuine people make genuine music. That being said.. if you’re in need of a hip-hop fix, I got something for you…

The Good:

In case it wasn’t implied by the post name, Joell Ortiz and Novel have teamed up for a new mixtape, titled “Defying the Predictable.”  The two are familiar with working together, and have done so several times in the past. It makes sense for them to collaborate; I only wonder how come it hasn’t happened sooner. Read more

Feb 7

B.o.B. aka Bobby Ray – “May 25th” (Mixtape Review)

B.o.B. aka Bobby Ray aka…uh..forgot the other names, but yeah, he has a new mixtape.

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