As if Lauryn Hill getting sentenced to three months in prison on tax evasion charges wasn’t bad enough, another legendary New Jersey Hip-Hop act is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Naughty By Nature frontman Treach announced yesterday on Twitter that he was “firing” Vinnie, aka Vin Rock, from the group for undisclosed reasons, and has now released a diss record entitled “Tall Midget.”
This song is painful on several fronts. For one, these guys have been together over 20 years and should be able to handle differences behind closed doors and not like rappers still in their early 20s. Secondly, this song is bad — the chorus, beat and verbal attacks scream pure struggle. And as someone just old enough to remember Treach’s prime years (circa 1991-1995) when he was one of the genre’s best emcees, the massive drop-off in quality leaves you speechless.
Treach probably threw this together in the last 24 hours, but it’s still amazing that no one in his camp pulled him aside to flat-out tell him how wack this track is. There are only a handful of times when a diss is so comically bad that the disser comes out looking worse than the intended target. This is one of them.
Let’s thank the Hip-Hop gods that Vinnie appears to be taking the high road and won’t be penning a lyrical response.
For the younger heads, I’m sprinkling this post with some vintage Treach in case this diss is your Naughty By Nature introduction.
Following in the footsteps of other celebrities like Manny Pacquiao, Nas hooks up with Hennessy for a commercial spot for the liquor company’s Wild Rabbit campaign. There’s already a few giving Nasir grief for working with them based on a MTV special during the Stillmatic era where he scoffed at the idea of doing a beer commercial. Considering the number of pictures I’ve seen of Nas popping bottles, I always took that as Nas simply not caring for beer.
Big Boi utilizes the footage for his recent SOB’s performance in NYC for this new video for “Lines.” An artist is on hand during the show painting a very nice rendition of the Vicious Lines and Dangerous Rumors album cover.
ATLANTA, GA — Day two of A3C 2012 is now in the books. I’m willing to bet there’s many still recovering; when I left the main Masquerade venue at well past 2 a.m., there were still emcee freestyle cyphers and DJ competitions going on.
On Thursday, the events at the Masquerade were confined indoors, as the outside stage had not been opened up. Last night, all four stages were in play, ranging from a live broadcast of the Combat Jack show inside to the IHipHop outside stage that featured the likes of Chino XL, Torae, Prodigy and Freeway. The two aforementioned stages are where I split my time. Due to the other site locations that featured shows with the Dungeon Family, Trae the Truth, Thurz and others, The Masquerade was crowded but not as heavy as last year’s festival.
I arrived in time to catch Prodigy’s 15-minute set. With such a compact time and being solo, Prodigy’s performance was a short litany of his best efforts: “I Shot Ya,” Keep It Thorough” and “Hold You Down” were among the standouts. And of course what a Mobb performance be without the appropriate ending, “Shook Ones, Part II.” Hey Havoc, y’all need to stop the BS and reunite.
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Running back inside, I missed DJ Drama’s Q&A on the Combat Jack show, but got the pleasure of hearing Just Blaze and Killer Mike discuss the politics of Mike’s R.A.P. Music album, how to create positive movements in Hip-Hop and the definition of “black excellence.” Above anything, both men stressed the importance of not just networking for superficial perks, but creating lasting partnerships with like-minded individuals. While Mike tackled the political and social implications for black people by utilizing this philosophy correctly, Just balanced it out by focusing on how it could be applied to the music industry (using Saigon’s career as an example).
Upstairs, the homegirl Boog Brown was working some “magic” on the Red Bull Soundstage. Those of you who’ve read this site over the past few months are familiar with her skill. Those who aren’t, get initiated.
Running back outside, Nipsey Hussle was finishing up his set with his “This Planes” track. Just from gauging crowd reactions over the last day, there aren’t that many West Coast fans that made the trip out. Nonetheless, Nipsey’s style is appealing enough that the crowd was won over. Bringing out Houston’s Trae the Truth (whose numerous guest spots ensures he’ll be working hard all weekend) didn’t hurt either.
Chino XL brought out the lyric fanatics, especially with his “Deep Cover” version of ”Naah!” and a phenomenal, somber closing rendition of “Wordsmith.” It’s remarkable to consider that Chino dropped his debut in 1995 and is still operating a high lyrical level approaching 20 years later. You could tell from some of the faces in the crowd that his style was a little too dense for some, but the respect for the obvious work he’s put into his craft was definitely there.
After a nice, quick energy-building set from Freeway that featured “Roc da Mic” and “What We Do,” the outside stage was finished off by the Chef Raekwon. Unlike Big Boi yesterday, who chose to just handle his verses from Outkast’s catalogue, Rae was ambitious in trying to also rhyme the verses of other Wu members and emcees on classic joints like “Verbal Intercourse,” “Criminology,” “House of Flying Daggers” and “John Blaze.” This came with mixed results, as all the hard work clearly had Rae out of breath at times. Not that it mattered; just hearing those vintage tracks with Wu royalty present had the crowd filling in the bars when needed.
Because of bad parking, most fans elected not to try and travel across town to check out The GZA, who was performing ALL of Liquid Swords in its entirety. Thankfully, GZA gave us a surprise treat in stopping by for a quick drop of “Shadowboxin’” before leaving for the Terminal West stage.
Legends Kool DJ Red Alert and DJ Teddy Ted were on hand for a special DJ competition entitled “Needle to the Record” at the Guitar Center Stage. The showcase had some classic turntablism from the aforementioned two and some new school, amazing scratching from guys like DJ Shiftee.
My evening was finished off back upstairs at the Red Bull Soundstage with The Beatnuts and Alkaholiks, recently united to form the supergroup The Liknuts. Like the name implies, you get all the adult humor, lyricism and thupping beats you’d expect from these veterans. Juju looked to be getting drunk throughout the show, and went through a few lyrical brain farts on those older Beatnut tracks. Nonetheless, it was an overwhelmingly festive atmosphere. While the Beatnuts are more laidback, the Liks’ Tash and J-Ro are all energy, providing a great contrast.
Both groups have always stated they’ve been overlooked and not given due credit for their contributions to Hip-Hop culture. Seeing them live, it’s hard to argue. You won’t find their songs when you look back on Billboard charts, but their catalogue is chock-full of classic cuts. If you forgot, tracks like “Daaam,” “Make Room,” “Reign of the Tec,” “Watch Out Now” and “No Escapin This” served to be excellent remainders. The only question now is when is that Liknuts album dropping?
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That’s all from Day 2. The finale tonight will have the likes of Twista, Tech N9ne, Devin the Dude, Mello Music Group, Jamla Records, Slum Village and many more. Tickets can still be picked up at www.A3Cfestival.com.
1982′s love of Hip-Hop takes them to Tokyo in this new video for “Lights Down.” This relaxing track can be found on the duo’s latest album 2012. The video is directed by Jonah Schwartz. 2012 can be purchased HERE.
Jena Grae new “Kill Screen” video is an creative descent into choatic mix of fantasy, assassins, love and mystery. Ms. Grae gives you an opening hint of this track’s direction off the title aloneand flashes of instructions and phrases during the clip. As with most noir stories, time is bended, making the viewer have to be active in piecing together what’s happening. And lyrically, Jean reminds us that when it comes to straight bars, she remains an emcee of the highest order.
Sadly, still no word on when we’ll be blessed with Jean Grae’s next album. But if this is any indication, maybe she can hold us over with some mini-movies in the meantime.
DJ Khaled wisely eliminates his usual bombastic adlibs for this somber ode to the unforgiving mistress that is Hip-Hop culture. Both Scarface and Nas use personification to paint Hip-Hop as a woman they’re still struggling to love. Nas’ verse is a little craftier as he incorporates media outlets like The Source, WorldStarHipHop and Vibe to enrich his point while Scarface utilizes heavier emotion in his voice to translate the pain of his rollercoaster love affair with Hip-Hop. This track will be included on Khaled’s Kiss the Ring album, due out August 21.
The critical acclaim for Nas’ tenth studio album Life Is Good was today equally validated with fan enthusiasm, as the Queens emcee secured his fifth #1 Billboard debut.
Released last Tuesday, the album pushed 149,000 copies and was also reported to be #1 in 15 countries.
You can’t ask for much better from an emcee 20 years into his career. As much flack as Def Jam gets for how they handle a lot of artists (including a rant by Nas himself a few years back), they did an excellent job this time around. Nas was performing everywhere over the last few months from award shows, late night talk shows and even a high-profile video appearance with Nicki Minaj.
And most importantly, damn near everything he’s released or been on over the last year and change has been fire.
Life is indeed good. The only question now is what should be the next single/video to keep up that momentum?
KRS-One was in a very talkative, insightful mood during this excellent interview that spans his history in Hip-Hop. Starting with the spiritual meaning behind his moniker, KRS goes into detail on some very previous unknown occurences behind the Self-Destruction and H.E.A.L. movements. Also, KRS reflects on why he felt battling (Poor Righteous Teachers, X-Clan, PM Dawn etc.) led to the end of his commercial/mainstream career in 1992. Over 90 minutes is a lot, but this piece is well worth your time.
Those in the Tri-State area got a treat and history lesson over the holiday weekend when Funkmaster Flex enlisted fellow legend Kool DJ Red Alert for the annual Hot 97 old school Christmas mix. The duo’s four-hour set spanned Hip-Hop’s development throughout the 80s. With Mister Cee and Bugsy Buggs in attendance, there were also great background and side stories in between tracks. You can download and stream the entire set below.
