Album Review: Game’s The R.E.D. Album Part I

I wanna start off this album review by saying “Fuck you, Jordan Sargent!”  Just so you know, Mr. Sargent is a Pitchfork writer who gave Game’s The R.E.D. Album a 4.8 out of a possible 10 (check link above).  I respect Pitchfork as a one-stop-shop for hot new music in all genre’s.  But Pitchfork please fire this man.  He listened to the album as a critic instead of as a fan; before writing the article he had low expectations and didn’t even let the greatness of this album take him away.  Instead, like a typical critic, he pointed out every little subtle problem of the album instead of respecting the skill, genius, hard work and tenacity it takes to make a great album.  Notice I said “great” – not “classic.”  After the 20+ times I listened to the album, I can say without a doubt in my mind that Game is four for four when it comes to creating amazing albums.
The album starts off with an ominous intro revealing how Jayceon Taylor was conceived in Compton by two gang-affiliated parents.  The next song, “The City” Ft. Kendrick Lamar.  The strength of the Dre intro and the ferocity of Game’s bars in this song coupled with West-coast up-and-comer Kendrick Lamar caused me to buy the album without listening to any other tracks.  It was a good decision.  In verse 2, Game spits:

“I’m from the city where two of the best died, Rest in peace to both of ‘em, spit like I’m the ghost of ‘em, Damn, I said I spit like I’m the ghost of ‘em, Name your top 10, I’m harder than the most of ‘em, Matter of fact, shorten your list nigga, top 5, Game, Biggie, Hov, prolly Pac, Nas”

Pretty controversial.  After this album, Game is still in my top 10.  But I think he’s getting a little crazy to put himself in the top 5.  Extremely debatable.  But you can’t hate on him saying he is the best because if you are an aspiring MC, you should have that mentality just like Weezy did with "Best Rapper Alive.”  Kendrick Lamar absolutely murders the chorus and his final acapella verse.  Believe me, check it out for yourself, this might be the best track on the entire CD. [5/5]
Next track is “Drug Test” which was meant as a club single.  While definitely a good track, I don’t think it will set the clubs on fire.  Dre and Game both spit their verses perfectly in tune to the beat.  Oh yeah, the Doggfather is also on the song but only spits four lines and the first two were scooped from him and Dre’s opus, “Gin and Juice.” [3/5]
Another standout from the album comes next with “Martians vs. Goblins” Ft. Tyler, the Creator and Lil Wayne (although he does not grace us with a verse).  Flawless beat created by 1500 or Nothin’.  Tyler steals the show however taking jabs at at Chris Brown and Bruno Mars like he always does.  But he also pokes fun at Game with the two lines, “Wolf Gang, we rock, crack rock and that shit was expected, Like Jayceon when he name-drop,” as Game responds immediately with a “Fuck you, Tyler. [4.5/5]
One of the first singles, “Red Nation,” just never appealed to me.  It samples the infamous nightclub hit “Kernkraft 400.”  Cool & Dre slowed down the fast-paced song greatly.  It would have been much better if they kept the tempo and Weezy and Game tried their best to speed up the flow kinda like how Biggie did with Notorious Thugs. Game, if your gonna put yourself in the Top 5, you better be able to spit at their caliber.  You didn’t show it with this one. [2.5/5]
Next comes another Dre skit talking about Jayceon’s life as a child with a positive mother role-model and a “pop’s who didn’t give a fuck” – as Dre would put it.  Followed up by another solid track – “Good Girls Gone Bad” Ft. Drake.  Drake’s verse didn’t blow me away.  Game steals the show in the first verse when he tells his father how he really feels about him.  After spitting some heartfelt bars about how his dad used to beat on his mom, and when the cops came to check out the domestic disturbance his dad would act like him mom was lying.  He then spits:

“Now my mama good, nigga she ain’t gotta deal with ya, You want some money nigga? I ain’t get a deal with ya, You ain’t saying nothing, you like a still picture, You better thank God you still breathing air.”

Real shit.  I’m still irked at how Mr. “I’m the man because I write for Pitchfork” Sargent talked so much shit on this album. [4/5]
“Ricky” comes next.  It’s a toss up between this and “The City” for dominance on the album. DJ Khalil went ape shit on the beat.  It starts with a minute long intro of “Ricky” from the movie Boys N Da Hood.  Game shows his ferociousness and hunger to silence the naysayers and haters.  And he does so over possibly the best beat on the album.  Game shows love for his city in the quick bar:

“My nostalgia is one hundred percent Compton and zero percent snitch…”

Listen to the song and you’ll realize how raw that bar is.  He goes on to talk about how he almost lost his life like the character “Ricky” in the movie when three Crips took him by surprise and shot him multiple times, putting him in a coma back in his previous gangbangin’ days. [5/5]
Alright folks, this is the end of Part I review of The R.E.D. Album.  I have work early in the morning.  Stay tuned for Parts II and II coming up shortly.

Dave Matthews Band Caravan - Governor's Island, NY Photos 8/26/2011

On Friday, August 26, 2011 the Dave Matthew’s band started their third DMB Festival of Summer 11’ on Governor’s Island in the state of New York. Because of that damned Hurricane Irene both Saturday and Sunday of the three-day music festival were canceled. Only the first concert of the Caravan was played.

My good friend John and I began our Dave Matthew’s live experience last summer in Camden, NJ and have been to six concerts ever since. Most recently, we both attended the first festival of the summer in Atlantic City, NJ. It was an amazing time and when John found out that the Governor’s Island leg was only an hour and a half away from our quiet suburb in Philadelphia, he immediately decided to buy a single day ticket.

I was questioning whether or not I should fork up the $100 to buy a single day ticket and go along for the great time. John even offered me $75 towards the ticket price if I would come along but I decided against it because of obligations to my day job. Unlucky for me, the group I would have went with ended up being six rows away from the legendary jam band. Here are some amazing photos John took from the event:

"Don't Drink the Water"

Cover of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" in honor of Hurricane Irene.

Fresh Vid of the Week: Kendrick Lamar–A.D.H.D.

Kendrick Lamar has been all over the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks after his critically acclaimed studio album Section.80. With the buzz surrounding the Compton emcee, I decided to finally give the young 24-year-old some spins on my iPod. I was awestruck. Section.80 is one of the best releases of the year and I was infuriated that I had not given the ferocious spitter the time of day before.

The album is a lyrical powerhouse filled with themes of corrupted youth growing up in Compton, CA who were born in the “Ronald Reagan Era,” which is also the title of one of the first tracks he leaked from the album. Section.80 is virtually unskippable filled with banger after banger of passionate, heartfelt lyrics detailing the thoughts, worries or braggadocio of the superb rapper. If you have not listened yet, please do. For a well-worth $15, you can cop a limited edition signed physical copy of the album from his indie label Top Dawg Entertainment website. Or if you would rather get it immediately, you can find it on iTunes.

Last week, Kendrick dropped a standout track from Section.80 – the song “A.D.H.D.” A mesmerizing track and video directed by Va$htie. In the video, Kendrick and his buddies are leisurely hanging out in the neighborhood, when they start to ride bikes to a house party as he spits his bars about the afflictions of his age group who were birthed in the 1980’s during the peak of the US Crack epidemic, or the “Ronald Reagan Era.”

Two bars that truly stand out to me come in the hook:

“Got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist.”

As a whole, the song is a social commentary about how everyone around him gets drugged out on the regular on whatever it is that is available to them. Although only 23 at the time the song was written, all of his pals have high tolerances to these drugs obviously because of prolonged use. Personally, I believe when he spits, “…when your age don’t exist” I believe he is commenting on how his Compton buddies feel about the meaning of their life. It has been said tons of times in rap how people growing up in that gang-inflicted area have a very short life expectancy. So, at the age of 23, they are past their life expectancy so their mindset is “Fuck it, let’s just stay fucked up. We aren’t supposed to be alive anyways.”

In the first verse, he spits:

“You know when you part of Section 80, and you feel like no can relate, cause you are, you are, a loner, loner, marijuana, endorphins, make you stronger, stronger.”

Extremely powerful lyrics. He feels like his peers were given the short straw when it came to their environment in which they grew up and consequently feel like loners. Kids whose woes are not relatable to the rest of society except for their similar friends who are all apart of the crack generation “Section 80.” Getting high is the only way to escape their worries so in effect it makes them stronger.

Verse two shows Kendrick meeting a young cutie and depicting a quick sex scene before a friend walks in unexpectedly with a pound of chronic and the pleasure abruptly ends as she focuses on getting even higher off of the “Bay Area kush.”

He closes out the song with the words:

“Ecstacy, shrooms, blow, dro, hoes, whatever you like. You can have all my shine, I’ll give you the light.”

Obviously, his crew gets down and parties hard. A standout track from Section.80 with a spacy beat handled by relatively unknown producer Sounwave on the boards.

Immortal Posse Cuts: Looking for Trouble

As part of Kanye’s free music giveaway program G.O.O.D. Friday’s, he released a track titled “Looking For Trouble” featuring a multitude of gifted rappers including Pusha T, CyHi da Prynce, Big Sean, and J Cole. It was officially released on November 5, 2010 as a download on Kanye’s official website. The order of rapper’s verses is as follows: Pusha T, Kanye, CyHi, Big Sean, and finally J Cole.

Pusha T starts off the track in dramatic fashion with the lines,

“All I see is black roses, drug dealer poses, shoveling that devil’s angel up they noses.”

Black roses are common symbols for death and the cause of death is explained in the following line. Devil’s angel is a synonym for cocaine, a dangerous substance which have led to many people’s death and demise.

Kanye goes off on a completely different subject in his next verse which is filled entirely with lyrics about his past with females. He talks about misogyny an attitude filled with hatred for women. Ye even goes on to explain an embarrassing past sexual escapade with the lines,

“Sometimes we lowered out standards at the colleges, so please don’t judge me, uh, for the followin’, fat bitches swallowin’, skinny bitches modelin’.”

Mr. West has obviously slept with some obese women in the past.

CyHi da Prynce, one of the newcomers to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Music label, deals an amazing 3rd verse to this incredible posse cut. His flow is on point, flawless, and his voice is extremely unique. It blends perfectly with the beat. His first eight bars might be the best lines in the whole song, in my opinion:

“Boy, we lookin’ for trouble, maybe if we wasn’t black, then we wouldn’t have struggled, player, all I got is trap niggas and crooks in my huddle, they cook and I smuggle, got twenty pounds of kush in the duffle, so I’m runnin’ through them circles, boy, I’m looking like Knuckles, look at my knuckles, got the hook in ‘cause niggas was looking, I’ve take some whooping, so trust me, dog, I’m good for a scuffle, don’t be mad I whooped your ass, ‘cause I’ve taken a couple.”

He starts off by saying mostly all blacks are born into poor socioeconomic conditions and that’s the reason they are “looking for trouble.” Drug dealing was a way of life for him, he is surrounded by “trap niggas and crooks” who cook the dope while he peddles them. He then has the courage to admit that he’s been in many fights and has lost a fair amount so you should not be pissed when he beats you up in a brawl.

Big Sean comes in next, also a member of G.O.O.D. music. He begins with a double-time flow, rapping incredibly fast about banging hot girls with “double D” breasts while smoking a lot of marijuana. One of his most clever lines is,

“I’m just a Westside lover, I leave females in my sheets and all my feelings in a rubber.”

Now that’s G shit! He doesn’t have time to accumulate “feelings” for females.

Lastly, Roc Nation up-and-coming artist J Cole delivers the final verse. It’s a tossup between him and CyHi for the best verse on this track. His verse is much longer then everybody else’s and mostly is very braggadocios. But the most thought-provoking and impressive rhymes comes at the end of the verse when the beat stops and he spits acapella,

“Check the young genius out, fuck the world, bust a nut, and let my semen sprout, I thought that real shit is what you been fiendin’ ‘bout, what you been praying fo’? What you been screamin’ ‘bout?, Ironic you been sleeping on the one that you been dreamin’ ‘bout.”

He is implying that everyone is searching and dreaming for the rap savior, while this entire time it’s been him and everyone hasn’t been paying much attention to him.

First “Immortal Posse Cut” of Carpe Diem. Who do you think has the best verse?

Legendary Tracks: NAS Ft. AZ – Life’s a Bitch

Let’s take this back to 1994 with a classic record by none other than Escobar and his frequent rhyming partner AZ. I bought this CD my senior year of high school because Nas's album Illmatic is known as the greatest hip-hop album ever created. Still a rookie in the game, I thought it sounded far too old-school for my naïve taste but this song immediately stuck out as an awesome track.
Great old school beat and the chorus made me fall in love immediately; it subsequently became my anthem for my senior year.

"Life's a bitch and then you die, that's why we get high, cause you never know when you're gonna go."

While your parents may tell you not to do drugs, hip-hop is all about it and makes you feel like experimentation isn't a problem at all.
This track also made me discover AZ, easily the MOST UNDERRATED rapper in the history of the rap game. Believe that. He must be good if he is the only guest rapper gracing Nas's magnum opus. He gets you captivated immediately with his first lines,

"Visualizin the realism of life and actuality, Fuck who's the baddest a person's status depends on salary, And my mentality is, money orientated, I'm destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it."

Don't knock the vocabulary and flow. This caused me to buy AZ’s first album Doe or Die which is also a remarkable album. An all-around great song with Nas and AZ splitting the vocals talking about living life to the fullest because "Life's a Bitch."
On another note, Nas' father plays the cornet in the background. The instrumental rides out at the end beautifully. One of my favorite songs ever created.
Legendary.