Just what the doctor ordered

Eminem's Relapse wasn't quite what I expected...so thankfully he's set to re-release the album--the original twenty songs along with seven new tracks--on DECEMBER 22ND. Fingers crossed that Relapse: Refill will have a little bit more of the old Shady (his bit on Drake's "Forever" brought me back to his glory days).

Here's the VIBE article that got me pumped about it.

Also, according to an article on sixshot.com, Em's still planning to drop a second installment of Relapse...vs. the re-release we'll be hearing around Christmas. Hopefully this is five years' worth of pent-up genius he's been waiting to unleash on his adoring fans, vs. the fame-whore quality that's killing the radio for me day by day (honestly, what happened to Weezy?).


"Holy whack, unlyrical lyrics, Andre! You're fuckin' right!" -Eminem, "Business"

Fucking Crazy: The Best Rapper Alive is White

Almost forgot about this. Why not post it? No one reads this shit anyway.

***

I recently talked with a mixed-race friend of mine. We shot the shit, classes came up and I told him about Hip-Hop Journalism. He then proceeded to tell me that he had taken a similar class—and had chosen to write his final paper on “why white suburban kids love hip-hop.” Fitting the bill of his subject so precisely made me feel a bit vulnerable. I voiced this to a fellow white hip-hop lover at lunch recently, to which the waspy Texan quickly responded, “The same reason we love Mafia movies.”

I have to admit I see his point. I identify as an (Irish-)Italian. Some of my distant cousins and uncles are indeed mobsters, but I don’t see Mafia movies as my own direct culture. I’m not running drugs, bookie operations, or giving people the cement shoes. I’m the generic white girl just trying to get by in school to a soundtrack of face-melting metal, indie prog-rock, and hip-hop music I can’t live without.

Still, I can’t help but question what right I have to listen to, to love hip-hop. Middle-class, white, college kid. I suppose the rights I have to hip-hop are the same as those I claim to metal: I feel its anger and it soothes my own (though they may stem from very different sources), and I simply love the music. The beats. The way the words pour out over the samples with such ease, the sneering, rolling cleverness that makes you wish you had the authority, the words, the wit to pull it off yourself. I find solace in my favorite rapper—my music collection currently sports about 800 songs rapped, featuring, or produced by him—who just so happens to be white as well.

Eminem was voted the best rapper alive by a poll run in Vibe magazine in 2008.

He hadn’t released any major albums since 2004’s Encore, and was certainly not in the spotlight as much as the biggest music slut out there, Lil’ Wayne, or Jay-Z, the on-again off-again rap retiree. So how did Em pull it off? What is it about him that keeps his fans patiently waiting for the next track he’ll explode on?

Let’s take into account that he’s white. He put it all on the table with “White America,” letting everyone know that the blue-eyed, blonde white kids were eating his shit up because he “looked like them,” but not necessarily because they had similar upbringings. Though white is considered a majority in America, I doubt that the white kids were ballot-stuffing the Vibe poll. It’s simply not that kind of publication. I have to trust that the audience would be more balanced because the hip-hop audience itself is so widespread.

Eminem’s greatness stems from the simple fact that the dude is a genius. Upon asking a buddy of mine what he thought of Em, he replied, “…he’s funny,” and shrugged. Sure, he’s funny. He loves irony. He loves causing a scene and shocking people with his songs because that’s what his whole career has been about. Let’s face it, the odds weren’t with him from the beginning: a bleached-blonde white kid trying to make it in the rap game. He knew it, he knew he could make it, and he wanted to say a big “fuck you” to the haters. His newer stuff is hot (The Eminem Show is still one of my favorite albums), but take a minute to listen to his old shit, his freestyles. The latter is the ultimate testament to his talent.

How the hell can a high school dropout come up with this stuff off the top of his head? The vocabulary, the style and flow, the metaphors, Eminem has it all. It doesn’t matter that he’s white. He’s proven that with his success and the respect he’s gained from his Black rapping counterparts. Em has completely broken every rap barrier. So the next time you hear Lil’ Wayne, or anyone else, claim he’s the “best rapper alive,” think of Eminem, whose fans gave him the title he’d never claim for himself. Yeah, he’ll diss the guys who give him shit, but take his response to the award: “I don't think that there is any one rapper that is simply the best [though]. Everyone who was in consideration and many others are the best at certain things, and at what they do.” Slim Shady? A modest, talented genius?

I’m in love.

"I don't promote violence, I just encourage it" -Eminem, "Hazardous Youth"

Could the casket drop now? Please?

Been playing The Clipse's Road to 'Til the Casket Drop like an album since last year.

RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 8TH!!! Can't come soon enough. Check a single: The Doorman. Seems a little more clubby (I will never venture to say "mainstream" about The Clipse. Especially in the world of techno-y hip-pop that has been slowly destroying the radio for me) to me than their old stuff, but I don't hate it. The Neptunes are still on top of their game with the beats, that's for damn sure, and Pusha and Malice have still got it.

The Clipse-The Doorman vid

To tide you over til December...

The Clipse-The Doorman


"We did it in a flash like paparazzi" -The Clipse, "The Doorman"

Things I Hate

This thing is in need of a good rant. So, in no particular order, here are some things I hate. And why. Hope you enjoy, would love if you agree, might love it even more if you don't. Hmmm...

• Country music
• I only like the songs that everyone sings together in drunk bonding moments. Otherwise, it’s pretty much all the same twangy rip-roaring bullshit about pickup trucks and trashy girls and many other classic you-might-be-a-redneck-if-you-recognize-this references. I like a little more variety. And brain power. Sidenote: Keith Urban? Australian. Taylor Swift? From Pennsylvania. WTF?
• Sarah Jessica Parker/Sex and the City
• How did one of the ugliest mugs in the business become New York’s (and every Sex and the City fan’s) ultimate fashion icon? No, but seriously, face aside, who above the age of seven wears a god damned tutu out of the house for anything aside from a dance recital? This show is just absolutely absurd. I don’t care about any of these women or their lives, except for maybe Samantha because I find her hilarious. This show is put on the air to make me and my peers jealous of people who aren’t even better than me but are living the dream. Fuck you Sarah Jessica Parker. I agree with Peter Griffin: “She looks like a foot.” (Note: I did love her in Hocus Pocus.)
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Meredith Grey is a whiney, lispy, self-destructive bitch that should do us all a favor and slit her wrists. And the Asian chick looks like she got hit in the face with a frying pan. Patrick Dempsey is the only reason I ever have, or ever will, allow myself to be forcibly handcuffed to a chair to watch Grey’s Anatomy.
• Hipsters(“hippies” of the new era)
• Look, you’re not better than everyone else just because you think it’s wrong to eat anything with eggs in it. Therefore, no one wants to hear you bitch and moan about politics (even when your pick got the vote, you pinko-commie bastards), your musings on Nietzsche and the progress you’ve made on the painting of him you’re doing with organic baby food, or your opinion on just about…everything. (Especially the politics thing. And the war. Please shut up, you know nothing about what’s going on over there.) You are glorified emos. Look! The hair, the nerdy glasses, the tight jeans…this has all become cool somehow? We used to make fun of kids for all of that nigh on three years ago (see: The Emo Song). Also, quit it with the Che Guevara shirts. We don’t need to see a human billboard to know that you’re a Communist.
• Che Guevara t-shirts
• I hate them so much they get to be on the list twice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone but waspy, over-privileged white kids wearing the face of one of the world’s most vicious dictators proudly on their chest as a shot to “the man.” Dude. The man never got you down. Do you even KNOW who Che was, or is it enough that you’re making some sort of “bold statement?” Please look up how many people he killed. Where are your tree-hugging, peace-mongering, peace-sign chucking, wishy-washy naïve ideals now, maan?
• Mixed drinks
• They don’t make sense. They typically don’t taste good, so there’s the first problem. And if you’re skipping taste to go straight for results, well they just don’t come along quickly enough unless you’re pounding Long Island Iced Teas. So why not just cut the shit and rip shots? Frankly, I’d rather have a beer.
• Lady Gaga
• Is she really a huge whore, or does she just like to dress like one? And sing about “taking a ride on your disco-stick” after she’s turned her shirt inside out and probably lost it in a game of poker. Sure, plenty of us have had sloppy nights, but just dancing never makes it okay.
• Ugg boots and skirts
• Stupid.
• Angelina Jolie
• She is not great because she has enough money to adopt one child from every starving country on the planet. She’s a dirty home wrecker, not to mention a psycho bitch. Does anyone remember Billy Bob’s blood in a vial around her neck?? The make out session with her brother?? I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS. Angelina Jolie is not a good person because she can help people. She just has enough money to do so and a good enough publicist to tell her to. Here’s my advice to her: try and remember that you have a biological child. With one of the hottest men ever. Maybe you should get your head out of Africa’s (and the movie industry’s) ass(es)[1] and hang out with your family.

---

[1] I mean, honestly, did any of you see Wanted?

"Punch drunk off 0f somebody's joke...what happened to the time?" -Third Eye Blind, "Crystal Baller"

I Remember (Caspa Mix)-Deadmau5

stupid playlist wouldn't work with it, so catch the track here

"I fought the war but the war won't stop, for the love of God!"  -Metric, "Monster Hospital"

Max Hendren

Back again.

My buddy Max is a seriously talented artist, all-around cool dude, and a fellow music junkie.  He just graduated from Syracuse and has a portfolio online of some incredible projects.

Here's the link-

DSLV: Max Hendren: Art Director

This kid's gonna be huge.  You heard it here first.

"Oh Lord/Said I'm bloodshot, for sure/Pale runs the ghost/swollen on the shore" -The Mars Volta, "The Widow"

jams to crank

May 13th.  It's beautiful out, a rarity around here, and again I'm in the library trying to pretend the glow of the computer's gonna help me get my tan back.  But no big, more album reviews (The Chronic down, on to When Life Gives You Lemons), so I'm secretly loving sitting here rocking out.  Since I can only listen to a few songs over and over for now, I figured I'd share some recent favorite tunes (in no particular order).  As I look at it again, it's surprisingly metal-free...I should fix that...

Sick techno, some ill mashups/remixes, and a little bit of rap here and there (with a random appearance by Imogen Heap).

Not to play favorites, but I can't stop listening to I Remember (Caspa Mix) and Help I'm Alive (The Twelves Remix), so make sure to check em out.

(I Remember has the.  Sickest.  Beat.  Ever.  So even though the beginning feels like a setup for a lame song, just wait.  Trust me, it's worth the listen.)

Create a MySpace Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Metal songs that belong on this playlist:

Fade to Black-Metallica (live from Mexico City, off of Live Shit: Binge and Purge)

Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr-Trivium

Bad Timing-No Warning

Two Weeks-All That Remains

Distance is Darkness-As I Lay Dying

My Own Summer (Shove It)-Deftones

The New Black-Every Time I Die

Cemetary Gates-Pantera

I think this desk chair is molding to my butt.

"You can't grow if your skin don't fit you/Sometimes you gotta get low just to get through..." -Atmosphere, "Painting"

Dr. Dre: The Chronic (Revisited)

the ultimate gangsta rap.  why can't anyone do this anymore?

"...The Doc’s prescription for hip hop perfection: a healthy dose of California’s infamously dank bud incarnated in music...The Chronic serves as the sweet antidote to the notoriously gangsta-fied streets of southern L.A., where you'd better 'watch ya back, 'cause ya might get smoked.'"

...

have a spliff and keep an eye out for the full review.

on another note, Ben Folds and anyone like you: please, for the love of God, do not ruin pure magic with your snarky, waspy-ass bullshit thinking you're cool because more prep-school idiots think you're the OG when anyone with half a brain knows who really taught us how to get our proper swerve on.  and to those of you who like the Ben Folds version................well, i'm nearly speechless.  i guess i'd have to say i'm disappointed.  or that i hate you.

for your listening pleasure, I give you the real deal: Bitches Ain't Shit

enjoy.

sick of shitty music,

J-Rock

"Watch ya back 'cause ya might get smoked." -Dr. Dre, "Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')"

Check it

Blogging?!  It must be finals week, why else would I be looking for any reason to not do work?

Even though it's the coolest work ever: album reviews of The Chronic, the newest Atmosphere (When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold), and Relapse.  ADD is a bitch.

Anyway, I made this thing to promote my boys Matt and Joey.  Their new zine is jumping off and is worth checking out.

MAGGOTZINE

^^I triple dog dare you.^^

It's on like Donkey Kong.

"...It's strange how I rearrange and change the business by droppin' shit like this..." -Dr. Dre, Rat-Tat-Tat