Friday, July 24, 2009
New Jay Off Blueprint 3
Song is kinda underwhelming. Sounds like a blatant attempt to recreate a mix of Umbrella and Live Your Life. Beat is pretty dope though, but if Kanye produced it he needs to chill with these militant drums. As of now Blueprint 3 has yet to wow me. I wouldn't go as far to say this is a bad song, but when you've been hyping Blueprint 3 as a landmark album I expect better than this. Luckily I have a huge thing for Rihanna and despite the fact everyone says she can't sing I don't know any better and her hook is the only thing giving this song a chance to be a hit.
Run This Town- Pretty Sick
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Racial Issues
There has been about one post in the history of Metacricket that has touched on a serious socially viable topic, well I have decided to add on to our list of posts on things that actually matter and shit.
We've all probably heard about the rape allegations made against Ben Roethlisberger in recent days. I am not here to debate on whether Roethlisberger did or did not sexually assault the accuser (obviously I hope he didn't for the sake of everyone involved and the fact that I've always kinda liked Big Ben), but rather I'd like to discuss the strange lack of coverage exhibited by the worlds largest sports media outlet, ESPN. These allegations were first made public this past Tuesday, and one would think that this bombshell of an accusation made against a superstar NFL quarterback would be front page news for the media giant ESPN. That, however, was not the case. For two days the story was left unreported on all ESPN mediums. Blogs and other news outlets reported the story as expected, and ESPN explained their neglect with this statement.
"At this point, we are not reporting the allegations against Ben Roethlisberger because no criminal complaint has been filed. As far as we know, this is a civil lawsuit that Roethlisberger has yet to address publicly."
A shady explanation that contradicts the past actions of this particular institution. ESPN was quick to report on the civil sexual harassment suits filed against two black sports figures, Isiah Thomas and Shannon Brown. ESPN finally began to cover Ben's story, today, after his denial of the claim. This privilege of waiting for the athlete's explanation was not granted for Isiah or Shannon. It's just unfortunate that these glaring contradictions in coverage occur, and are so obviously divided by race. I'm not trying to say that Roethlisberger's story was held back for the sole reason that he is white and that the story would have been immediately reported if the accusations had been made against Donovan McNabb, but ESPN's negligence merely perpetuates the (sometimes verified) belief that racial bias still exists in the media. All of this comes at a time when race relations have been brought to the forefront of the national spotlight after black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested trying to get into his own home. That particular story has since turned into a polarizing decision of whose story you choose to believe, the professor's or the police officer and is not something I want to delve into. At a time where our country's leader is part African-American perhaps ESPN shouldn't be giving people reason to believe that athletes in this country will be given the benefit of the doubt due to the lightness of their skin.
We've all probably heard about the rape allegations made against Ben Roethlisberger in recent days. I am not here to debate on whether Roethlisberger did or did not sexually assault the accuser (obviously I hope he didn't for the sake of everyone involved and the fact that I've always kinda liked Big Ben), but rather I'd like to discuss the strange lack of coverage exhibited by the worlds largest sports media outlet, ESPN. These allegations were first made public this past Tuesday, and one would think that this bombshell of an accusation made against a superstar NFL quarterback would be front page news for the media giant ESPN. That, however, was not the case. For two days the story was left unreported on all ESPN mediums. Blogs and other news outlets reported the story as expected, and ESPN explained their neglect with this statement.
"At this point, we are not reporting the allegations against Ben Roethlisberger because no criminal complaint has been filed. As far as we know, this is a civil lawsuit that Roethlisberger has yet to address publicly."
A shady explanation that contradicts the past actions of this particular institution. ESPN was quick to report on the civil sexual harassment suits filed against two black sports figures, Isiah Thomas and Shannon Brown. ESPN finally began to cover Ben's story, today, after his denial of the claim. This privilege of waiting for the athlete's explanation was not granted for Isiah or Shannon. It's just unfortunate that these glaring contradictions in coverage occur, and are so obviously divided by race. I'm not trying to say that Roethlisberger's story was held back for the sole reason that he is white and that the story would have been immediately reported if the accusations had been made against Donovan McNabb, but ESPN's negligence merely perpetuates the (sometimes verified) belief that racial bias still exists in the media. All of this comes at a time when race relations have been brought to the forefront of the national spotlight after black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested trying to get into his own home. That particular story has since turned into a polarizing decision of whose story you choose to believe, the professor's or the police officer and is not something I want to delve into. At a time where our country's leader is part African-American perhaps ESPN shouldn't be giving people reason to believe that athletes in this country will be given the benefit of the doubt due to the lightness of their skin.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Captain Tying Knots
I guess Dan Deacon is well known for being a trendy new hipster electro musician, but I will forever remember him as the genius who created this YouTube video Drinking Out Of Cups.
If you have yet to see this I fully expect you to thank me the next time you see me for the laughs I just most definitely provided you. This is probably the funniest and most quotable YT vid I've seen since Bro Rape. After it's release it was speculated that Deacon was trippin on acid when his friends recorded the rant, but he has since vehemently denied those allegations. Claiming he was merely flipping through television channels and reacting to what he saw. I choose to believe him, I mean I namedrop Johnny Hammersticks, Tommy Noble, Treemeister, Mr. Balloon-Hands, Captain Tying Knots, Ms. Sand, Mr. Balloon Hands, Mr. Walkway, and make up several words in under 3 minutes all the time. All I know is when I buy my first home I sure as hell ain't paying for no floor.
Drinking Out Of Cups- Sooo Sick
If you have yet to see this I fully expect you to thank me the next time you see me for the laughs I just most definitely provided you. This is probably the funniest and most quotable YT vid I've seen since Bro Rape. After it's release it was speculated that Deacon was trippin on acid when his friends recorded the rant, but he has since vehemently denied those allegations. Claiming he was merely flipping through television channels and reacting to what he saw. I choose to believe him, I mean I namedrop Johnny Hammersticks, Tommy Noble, Treemeister, Mr. Balloon-Hands, Captain Tying Knots, Ms. Sand, Mr. Balloon Hands, Mr. Walkway, and make up several words in under 3 minutes all the time. All I know is when I buy my first home I sure as hell ain't paying for no floor.
Drinking Out Of Cups- Sooo Sick
Monday, July 20, 2009
Make Her Say Vid
After attending last week's Asher Roth and Kid Cudi concert I have spent the week enjoying some of Cudi's finest tunes. While this song may not be an upper echelon Cudder selection, the video busts hard.
Make Her Say Vid- Sick
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Things
It's been a hot minute since anyone graced the composition box of the Crick so on this beautiful summer evening I've decided to bless you with some textual dazzling. Were still getting around ten visitors per day and I can't let them continue to be let down when they see the stagnant site. I plan on touching base on several things in this post so if you don't feel up for it go take a cat nap and come back with your spectacles cleaned and ready to go.
The man above is the newest member of the Boston Celtics. At first I wasn't exactly thrilled about the deal, but after some further thinking I'm really happy about it. Not because Sheed gives us the much needed scoring presence off the bench that we missed so badly last year, nor the fact that he can play 8 different positions, nor his defensive presence that makes our front line literally a 7 foot wall in front of the hoop, but rather I am excited about the way he will fit into this team. Rasheed is an infamous douche bag and will assimilate seamlessly with our team of assholes. It's gonna be so awesome when the Celts have triple the amount of technical fouls of the second leading team in that category. KG might have gone from the most beloved to most hated player in the league last year, Perkins... well I don't have to tell you he's a massive dickwad, Pierce trash talks like a motherfucker, and Rondo has always looked like frightened 4 year old baby-alien on the court but after the trade rumors revealed he was in reality a kbrkabrka he will most likely play the part on the court from now on. Sounds like a hell of a starting 5 to me... Ray is far to nice to play on the team now.
The second thing I wanna touch on is Lebrongettingdunkedongate (is anyone else surprised that name hasn't caught on yet?). Supposedly/Allegedly/Apparently/Possibly/Most Likely/Definitely LeBron got dunked on by some random college whogivesafuck, in a recent summer camp pick up game. The dunk was caught on camera and subsequently destroyed by Nike officials running the camp. The story has since taken on a life of it's own and the world, minus Ohio, wants to see the clip. I'd like to see it too, only to be ridiculously let down as I'm certain it's not that cool. Here's an idea how about we just go through the reverse highlight reel of LeBron and find a clip of him getting dunked on in one of the 450+ games he has played in, because I guarantee you one exists. Problem solved... it's what I do.
I'd also like to share some music with you if that's okay. I highly suggest you all DL or buy (if you are a law abiding citizen unlike me) Mos Def's newest album The Ecstatic. It's funky sounding and took me a while to get into but the production and Mos's melodies are ear pleasing. Try this song on for starters.
I also suggest you check out the new snippets off Lasers. Ladies and Gentlemen and Two Ways are available to get via the googleweb. I will hold off in posting the DL link as they are very catchy and resulted in me playing them 100+ times in about a week, and therefore I'm kinda sick of them already and want to prevent you from that horrible fate.
Bye.
The man above is the newest member of the Boston Celtics. At first I wasn't exactly thrilled about the deal, but after some further thinking I'm really happy about it. Not because Sheed gives us the much needed scoring presence off the bench that we missed so badly last year, nor the fact that he can play 8 different positions, nor his defensive presence that makes our front line literally a 7 foot wall in front of the hoop, but rather I am excited about the way he will fit into this team. Rasheed is an infamous douche bag and will assimilate seamlessly with our team of assholes. It's gonna be so awesome when the Celts have triple the amount of technical fouls of the second leading team in that category. KG might have gone from the most beloved to most hated player in the league last year, Perkins... well I don't have to tell you he's a massive dickwad, Pierce trash talks like a motherfucker, and Rondo has always looked like frightened 4 year old baby-alien on the court but after the trade rumors revealed he was in reality a kbrkabrka he will most likely play the part on the court from now on. Sounds like a hell of a starting 5 to me... Ray is far to nice to play on the team now.
The second thing I wanna touch on is Lebrongettingdunkedongate (is anyone else surprised that name hasn't caught on yet?). Supposedly/Allegedly/Apparently/Possibly/Most Likely/Definitely LeBron got dunked on by some random college whogivesafuck, in a recent summer camp pick up game. The dunk was caught on camera and subsequently destroyed by Nike officials running the camp. The story has since taken on a life of it's own and the world, minus Ohio, wants to see the clip. I'd like to see it too, only to be ridiculously let down as I'm certain it's not that cool. Here's an idea how about we just go through the reverse highlight reel of LeBron and find a clip of him getting dunked on in one of the 450+ games he has played in, because I guarantee you one exists. Problem solved... it's what I do.
I'd also like to share some music with you if that's okay. I highly suggest you all DL or buy (if you are a law abiding citizen unlike me) Mos Def's newest album The Ecstatic. It's funky sounding and took me a while to get into but the production and Mos's melodies are ear pleasing. Try this song on for starters.
I also suggest you check out the new snippets off Lasers. Ladies and Gentlemen and Two Ways are available to get via the googleweb. I will hold off in posting the DL link as they are very catchy and resulted in me playing them 100+ times in about a week, and therefore I'm kinda sick of them already and want to prevent you from that horrible fate.
Bye.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Lasers Manifesto
A lot of people call Lupe pretentious and I've really never agreed with or accepted that sentiment. After watching this video explaining the theme and message behind his upcoming album I can see how some people could call this pretentious. Lupe seems to want save the world with this one album, but, honestly, who the hell cares? This manifesto is idealistic and Lupe probably won't even touch on all these subjects but it's still refreshing to see someone with the balls to stand in the face of adversity and take different approaches to making music which will influence the listeners with positivity.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Dilla
Sadly, J Dilla is no longer with us. The legendary hip hop producer passed away in '06. Luckily, he accumulated enough material during his lifetime to release several albums posthumously, one of which has recently come out. Jay Stay Paid is getting it's dick sucked by the critics and currently has a 90 on our big brother site Metacritic. I think its safe to say that the album isn't nearly as good or as emotionally provoking as his 2006 release Donuts, but one song in particular has tickled my ear buds to their fancy. Check the track below, Reality TV, with the criminally underrated Black Thought.
How dope is that beat? Pete Rock, Dilla's musical idol, and Dilla's mother executive produced the album to prevent the corporate big wigs from pimping JD's legacy. Hope you liked the song.
Reality TV- Sooo Sick
How dope is that beat? Pete Rock, Dilla's musical idol, and Dilla's mother executive produced the album to prevent the corporate big wigs from pimping JD's legacy. Hope you liked the song.
Reality TV- Sooo Sick
Monday, June 22, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Shining Down Is Here
Ever since this live snippet of Lupe's new song, Shining Down, hit the net my life has pretty much consisted of breathing, eating, and scouring the internet to see if the full song had been released. So finally finding the CDQ version here was a rather landmark moment for me. My initial impressions are WHY WHY WHY the fuck did they change the hook and beat. In the initial version Santos murdered the hook and the beat went harder than my dick on viagra with Scarlett standing naked in front of me. The final version is softer and the beat is much less forceful, and still it remains dope as hell. It is unlike anything I've heard, probably a top 5 beat Lupe has rapped over. Let's get to the content, the hook seems to be alluding to someone deceased looking over you.
Look Up in the Sky
Thought I was down.
Thought I was gone.
Thought I wasn't around.
When I left you alone.
Look Up in the Sky.
Just look Up in the Sky.
See that I’m everywhere
Everywhere
Shining Down on You.
The final line of the first verse also kinda confirms this.
Rap name Lupe but my daddy named me Warrior
This is his memorial.
Other than that nothing else in the song really has anything to do with that subject matter. Lupe songs can take a while to digest. The third verse is fairly dope, with some vintage Lupe wordplay.
Not a facade cherisher, I’d rather have the skies
I don’t idolize America, I’m dancing with the stars
His use of autotune in the second verse is noteworthy, but he seems to be questioning it. All in all I'm a tad disappointed. But this will suppress my appetite for now. I leave you with my favorite line.
Run around in circles like it's chapstick
Get it?
Shining Down- Sick
Update- Turns out this isn't the final version. Soo you should probably still listen to this and shit til the final mastered version comes out and hopefully hits hard as fuck.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Red Sox Own Yankees On Twitter As Well
John Henry is officially the man. He pretty much already was for bringing two World Series Championships to Boston, but his recent clowning of Mark Teixeira via twitter brings him to a whole new level of coolness. After the Sox beat the Yankees for the gatrillionth straight time on Thursday night, Henry tweeted, The MT Curse? Posing the question that Mark Teixeira had possibly cursed the Yankees when he signed with them after coming very close to joining the Red Sox this past offseason. Henry was obviously just playing around, but BIG TEX took it as a preemptive strike to start WW3.
"There's no reason to get into it with a 70-year-old man about baseball"
Henry is in fact 59... close though Mark.
"I love playing this game. If I have offended anybody from the time that I was 18 years old until now, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. It's a little silly. It's actually very silly. There's nothing else to say."
Jeez dude it was a joke, relax. Henry wasn't calling out your existence, no need to defend your entire life.
Henry went on to say that the twitter post was purely for entertainment and he doesn't believe in curses, to which Teixeira replied:
"You guys make the decision. Whose reputation looks better right now?"
Well, actually yours looks pretty bad considering you react to a harmless playful joke like a four year old.
My favorite part about this entire thing is after Teixeira's comments were made public Henry responded with this.
"Hope I didn't hurt Mark's feelings!"
Ahhh, that's good shit. Taking shots at somebody via twitter may seem a bit childish but when Marky took the entire thing out of epic proportions, Henry could have started a food fight with him and would have seemed more mature. All this talk of the MT Curse is giving Tex too much credit anyway. We all know A-Rod cursed the Yanks when he fell into their hands in the 03-04 off-season.
John Henry- Sick
"There's no reason to get into it with a 70-year-old man about baseball"
Henry is in fact 59... close though Mark.
"I love playing this game. If I have offended anybody from the time that I was 18 years old until now, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. It's a little silly. It's actually very silly. There's nothing else to say."
Jeez dude it was a joke, relax. Henry wasn't calling out your existence, no need to defend your entire life.
Henry went on to say that the twitter post was purely for entertainment and he doesn't believe in curses, to which Teixeira replied:
"You guys make the decision. Whose reputation looks better right now?"
Well, actually yours looks pretty bad considering you react to a harmless playful joke like a four year old.
My favorite part about this entire thing is after Teixeira's comments were made public Henry responded with this.
"Hope I didn't hurt Mark's feelings!"
Ahhh, that's good shit. Taking shots at somebody via twitter may seem a bit childish but when Marky took the entire thing out of epic proportions, Henry could have started a food fight with him and would have seemed more mature. All this talk of the MT Curse is giving Tex too much credit anyway. We all know A-Rod cursed the Yanks when he fell into their hands in the 03-04 off-season.
John Henry- Sick
Brother Ali is THE Truth
I've already hyped the remix of this track some time ago, but it's worth sharing the original with both of our readers. This track is off of the fresh EP that Bro' Ali released a couple months ago. I didn't get around to reviewing it then because I'm too cool to do stuff like that, but give a listen to this track and try and tell me that Lil Wayne can even TOUCH Brother Ali.
Ant has taken a new direction in his production lately; he's on a more electronic sound that I don't necessarily think is better than his earlier work (which was pretty much soul samples with drums), but not really worse, so I guess it's net-neutral. But it's not like you can really go wrong if you have someone like Ali rapping on your beats. He steals the scene EVERY time. He's like the Zach Galifianakis of rap. It's pretty amazing if you listen to Brother Ali speak on some conscientious and earnest shit, then switch over to self-proclaimed retarded alien Lil Wayne vomit out a sizzurp-infused shit salad and call himself the best rapper alive (I really do like Lil Wayne, don't get me wrong, but he just can't touch anyone with actual passion on the mic).
The point is that Brother Ali puts most rappers to shame, and he's often laced with hot hot hot hot beats by Ant. BA is releasing an album in the fall, and if it's anything close to his first two then I think we're all in for a treat. The man is a genius, and I would not hesitate to put him near the top of my list of best rappers alive.
"Talkin' My Shit" - Sickest Thing Ever
Ant has taken a new direction in his production lately; he's on a more electronic sound that I don't necessarily think is better than his earlier work (which was pretty much soul samples with drums), but not really worse, so I guess it's net-neutral. But it's not like you can really go wrong if you have someone like Ali rapping on your beats. He steals the scene EVERY time. He's like the Zach Galifianakis of rap. It's pretty amazing if you listen to Brother Ali speak on some conscientious and earnest shit, then switch over to self-proclaimed retarded alien Lil Wayne vomit out a sizzurp-infused shit salad and call himself the best rapper alive (I really do like Lil Wayne, don't get me wrong, but he just can't touch anyone with actual passion on the mic).
The point is that Brother Ali puts most rappers to shame, and he's often laced with hot hot hot hot beats by Ant. BA is releasing an album in the fall, and if it's anything close to his first two then I think we're all in for a treat. The man is a genius, and I would not hesitate to put him near the top of my list of best rappers alive.
"Talkin' My Shit" - Sickest Thing Ever
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Report Card Time
If you frequent this site you know about 75% of posts revolve in some way around the 09 crop of rappers. Supposedly other websites know about these guys as well and some dude decided to hand out some midterm grades for the kiddie-boppers. Click here to see the article or just take me at my word as I relay the grades on to you.
B.O.B.:A-
Wale:A-
Asher Roth:B+
Kid Cudi:B
Blu:C
Charles Hamilton, Currensy, Mickey Factz, Ace Hood, Cory Gunz- Who gives a fuck
It's pretty obvious he is grading mainstream credibility, otherwise giving Blu a C would be an outrage. Blu really has no aspirations to hit it big, but Below The Heavens will MOST MOST likely be the best debut from these rappers. Some of these grades seem a tad suspect to me. Putting Bombs Over Baghdad and Wale above Kid Cudi doesn't make much sense considering Day n Nite is tearing up the charts. None of their albums have release dates yet so the biggest hit should have weighed heavily in his grading. Asher has kinda fell off the face of the earth since his album dropped, but at least it came out. A second single has to start making some noise if he wants to stay relevant.
PS- How fucking hard did XXL drop the ball by not including Drake in their initial list?
B.O.B.:A-
Wale:A-
Asher Roth:B+
Kid Cudi:B
Blu:C
Charles Hamilton, Currensy, Mickey Factz, Ace Hood, Cory Gunz- Who gives a fuck
It's pretty obvious he is grading mainstream credibility, otherwise giving Blu a C would be an outrage. Blu really has no aspirations to hit it big, but Below The Heavens will MOST MOST likely be the best debut from these rappers. Some of these grades seem a tad suspect to me. Putting Bombs Over Baghdad and Wale above Kid Cudi doesn't make much sense considering Day n Nite is tearing up the charts. None of their albums have release dates yet so the biggest hit should have weighed heavily in his grading. Asher has kinda fell off the face of the earth since his album dropped, but at least it came out. A second single has to start making some noise if he wants to stay relevant.
PS- How fucking hard did XXL drop the ball by not including Drake in their initial list?
Original Umbrella
We also jock The-Dream pretty hard over here, so it makes sense that I would post this bomb song. In case you didn't know, The-Dream wrote "Umbrella" and decided to give it to someone who guys want to have sex with. I guess it was a good decision, because like the song was like popular and shit. But here is the original version that The-Dream recorded.
This goes so much harder than the original!!!! Like holy shit. It's totally synthed-out and I would rather hear The-Dream sing well than Rihanna auto-tuned any day. This puts the original to shame, in my professional opinion.
"Umbrella (Demo)" - Sickest Thing Ever
This goes so much harder than the original!!!! Like holy shit. It's totally synthed-out and I would rather hear The-Dream sing well than Rihanna auto-tuned any day. This puts the original to shame, in my professional opinion.
"Umbrella (Demo)" - Sickest Thing Ever
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