Lil Wayne - Prom Queen

Prom Queen

So the video for Lil' Wayne's 'Prom Queen' premiered recently and I found it a lot easier to watch when I left the sound off. This song is one of Weezy's latest "eclectic" efforts and I really can't do it with him this round. But I also know that there are lots of things I can't fucking stand that get inexplicable love from the masses and this I presume shall be no different.

Thoughts
- O Hai Thar! Is that Ms. Katrina LaVerne?
- The moshpit scene is the most staged and confused moshpit scene I have ever observed. Hannah Montana and them can go harder than that!
- I never see this many black women in rock videos. I'll tentatively drop that in the positive box for safe keeping.
- Ron Howard passed on the cameo because the set was not trill enough for his liking.

So Far Gone

I might as well touch down to let y'all know what's been rocking my world lately. So Far Gone is the latest mixtape from Drake, the Canadian rapper of Degrassi fame. Well, I'm something of a long time listener first time caller. I've enjoyed his style for a while but I never really spoke about him, because no one else (that I know) really seemed to know or care who he was but with the positive buzz surrounding his latest effort I'm comfortable enough to lean over to you and tell you with confidence that if you don't know, you need to ask somebody. As is customary with mixtapes 'Drizzy' rides over a lot of other artists beats but he's done a great job of making each track his own and not just sounding like noise over a great instrumental. He, for instance, remixes Lykke Li's 'Little Bit' and adds his own dimension to the already haunting sort-of love song. He also beasts through Santogold's 'Unstoppable' again, making you wonder how he wasn't already on the track in the first place. This mixtape is great winter music, which is something I've been on the hunt for lately. Live, but not too exuberant. Just haunting hymns and heavy shit that you can drive through dusky snow covered landscapes to. 808's type shit. 'Successful' featuring Lil Wayne and Trey Songz is the track that I would say exemplifies that.
'Drizzy' isn't a gangster and he mostly raps about his actual current life as a pseudo celebrity and yet he is lyrically compelling. I'm willing to venture that the only time he's seen shots fired was that very special episode of Degrassi when he became a cripple but hey, it's only entertainment. I would say that this mixtape has been getting attention not simply because it shows that he can rap, but that he can make an album of listenable songs. I know it's great to be able to 'spit hot fiyah' but it's pretty annoying when your favorite mixtape rapper has no concept of bridges and arrangement and just barrels down each track as if the beats were irrelevant. Do you even like music or do you just like to rap? Enough of my ranting just cop this shit.


Drake - So Far Gone

Love Lockdown

I can't do a full recap of the VMA's because as much of a fuckery enthusiast as I am I ...I just ..I can't. All I'll say is that Wayne's enthusiasm for music is infectious and him kissing the older white lady before going on stage to accept his award was a wtf highlight for me (it warmed my heart, and made me forgive that he was rockin a plaid vest I almost picked up at Forever 21). I also think I liked this 'Love Locked Down' song that Ye' debuted at the close of the show but it's one of those things that will sound better recorded than live. So I can't call whether it's simplicity is endearing or pretentious. The simple suit and pulsing glow heart was a cute touch though. But, his shaky vocoder work is distracting, even more so than this odd brittish cat hosting the show and his Amy Winehouse do. So i'm awaiting more. Also, I am actually more excited about this French Revolution inspired rap battle Tag commercial than I am about the VMA's as a whole so..theres that.

Update: Ok so obviously this whole show was some kind of Britney Spears marketing vehicle but can you get over Sway talking to Cee-Lo backstage and spending the entire interview asking him what he thinks of Ms. Spears recovering from adversity and K. Fed and then when they finally get to some interesting shit like what he thought of Ye's new music they cut him off. smh

Bonus!

And just because it's Friday!



T-Pain and Lil Wayne - Can't Believe It

...aah fuck, its not Friday.

Swagger Like Us

In general, I am typically content with my life and my belongings but the moments where I am frustrated at my situation mostly revolve around my minimalist old school European car and the fact that it doesn't have an AUX jack and truck speakers. And songs like Swagger Like Us only serve to augment my grief because the shit is so absolutely dope. An M.I.A. sample from 'Paper Planes' loops in the background, her vacuous delivery being the perfect match up for this dense futuristic sounding track. I like M.I.A. but she can be annoying and that was my knee jerk reaction to hearing her sample repeated at the top of the song but then the drums race in and the sonic spaces are filled and the tracks are laid for Yeezy, Weezy, Jay-Z and Clifford Harris to ride the beat like a runaway subway train through Swaggerville. Everyone really holds their own on this song, I guess they were inspired by the topic (lol). The only problem is that Jiggaman's flow is more of the homeless guy in the back of the train variety than an actual paying passenger. He thinks he owns the train because he's been living on it for years but he doesn't have anything important to say. He continues to repeat himself and randomly blurts out random sing song things like 'HOO-OOVAAH' and generally annoying everyone. C'mon Jay, Not Again! As I previously mentioned, on Dope Boy Fresh the beat was fuckin terrible so I could excuse your not being inspired by it. But dude, this shit knocks, and this is supposed to be your forte. Matter fact you had the worst flow in the whole fucking song (you have no idea how much that pained me to type). Maybe this isn't the best song ever and maybe Jay wasn't that bad but I'm not gonna lie, when I first heard the news that this track was being put together I went from excited to depressed because I remembered what a let down Dope Boy Fresh had been for me. So upon hearing it I will allow myself to get excited about it in spite of Jay-Z's lazy shit. The following is for all five of you to enjoy!

Swagger Like Us - T.I., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne

You Just A Baby Boy

I have to discuss an issue that randomly concerns me this afternoon. Chris Brown. Who does this guy think he is? If you want me to be perfectly honest I was not really paying attention to anything he was doing until that song 'Poppin' got a remix with Juelz Santana (Ay!) and Lil Wayne a few summers ago. It was too funny not to enjoy, oh what with lines like "I'm about my dough and cheese just call me a slice of pizza (Ay!)/ I'll be your pizza guy/ deliver your pizza pie(Ay!)" There was fun to be had for all. Chris Brown to me represented the crop of popular entertainers that were actually younger than me. More specifically sex symbols that were younger than me. Chris Breezy never really did it for me in my panty area like how he seems to do it for these young girls. In fact, I actually did have one dream about him *smoke and glitter fade in* It involved myself and my then boyfriend (who actually secretly digs CB despite allegedly being from the block or something) and Chris all on an outing to the movies. Breezy ruined the movie by laughing and talking and eating popcorn with his mouth open, and all around being immature. We wondered who invited him - End Scene.
But something about him always piqued my curiosity. He reminded me of one of those kids that was cute but not as popular in high school as you would think he should be. He never dated any of the girls that liked him because he was too busy going down on his mom's friends. That's his back story as far as I'm concerned. So I passed on whatever his first album was called but I did decide to pick up Exclusive. And blimey, it was not half bad. It had a lot of catchy production and it played to his strengths. His voice at best sounds like amateur night at the Apollo. So he largely stayed away from ballads. Even 'With You' the only song on the album that could be mistaken for a ballad is saved by its midtempo beat. 'Take You Down' is the other ballad and I love the throwback to the nasty R&B era of days long past. To me that song captures the intensity and perverted anxiety of your pubescent hormones and your heartbeat during your first time (or at least how you imagine it) and again the fact that its this young bwoy singin it fits and takes you there (or back). And on what I can only assume is Chris Brown's lazy attempt at a stripper love track 'Gimme What You Got', Weezy drops by again to say "let's get high and make love on Venus." Maybe its trite but I like it. I like it when Wayne talks about sex, love , and drugs. These are the topics for which I'll allow he has some authority. In any case my point was that EXclusive was a solid album for what it was however apparently it didn't do so well.


So now, whenever Chris gets a moment to tear himself away from Rihanna's asshole (I'm not hatin, I'm just sayin'), he has been popping up on confusing collabo's and making techno like tracks that I guess are supposed to give him more 'crossover ' appeal (in my opinion heavy metal needs more crossover help than pop r&b these days, but whatev's). On Exclusive's re-release theres the song 'Forever' that has been getting airplay inexplicably. I mean I am not opposed to the disco/club music revival that has been going on lately but I only like it when it's done in a way that is...oh i don't know, sonically appealing? For instance, Ne-Yo's 'Closer' in my opinion hits the right pace, Ne-Yo has always been into these kind of beat patterns and his zesty persona melds with this white nightclub beat in a way I can get into. However in my opinion Rihanna's 'Disturbia' is pretty terrible. Maybe it isn't if you're some kind of glowstick kid and automatically like this kind of music but to me it doesn't hit the mark. I'm not really mad at Rihanna for this though, just because she has been fortunate enough to be a weird artist that can do weird things with her weird voice and get away with it. Chris' 'Forever' however, just seems forced...and a lot like an ad for Doublemint Gum, I mean, did he get a check for that line, cause it didn't even make sense, its just thrown in there. Now he is on some songs with artist Dre and one of them is called 'Hologram' and its pretty bad. The "boom boom chika boom boom" line is repeated over a boring crunchy synth while Dre and Chris talk about God knows what. Basically I am trying to say I don't want to see Chris Brown anywhere he's not supposed to be. Singing while Lil Wayne raps - sure why not (they basically the same age, mentally). Talkin about toasting gangstas with Nas - I don't think so (although I think Nas bodied himself on that track without Chris' help, smh). Nickelodeon Choice Awards- certainly. Anymore of this techno garbage - No more for me please. I'm sorry your last album didn't do so well, but thats because 'Wall to Wall' was a stupid song and you put it out as your lead single. That was the first mistake. There's good shit on that album that no one really got to hear. So instead of jumping on an 'A Milli' freestyle or trying to surf this disco/techno wave you should be doing something that sounds good. And unfortunately, Rihanna doesn't count, kiddo.