You Can Download them All, or pick and choose. Even tho a few of the latter mixes evidently show the decline in mainstream hip-hop, I recommend you still cop. Don't say I never did nothing for ya.
The Roots Present the Jam on 4/1, 4/6, 4/21. Every night Is a different brand new Experience. check Highline Ballroom for information.
Afro-Punk & Bronx Underground Present:SMASH Tuesday, March 31st 2009 @ The Studio Webster Hall 125 E. 11th Street (between 3rd & 4th Ave.) Hitting up the 9:30 Show Webster Hall Info
If you missed part 1 you missed, Game Rebellion, Janelle Monae, ROCK The Bells, Blu & Exile, WALE, AOK, and more all in a month's span.
And part two is scheduled to begin next week. Talib Kweli, David Banner, Little Brother, Amanda Diva, Charles Hamilton, Wale, Rhymefest, Mickey Factz, Blu, Pacific Division, AOK.
I plan to be at shows Tues, Wed, Thurs and Sat next week. Whose coming with me?!
I was thinking a few days ago that perhaps my issues with women may stem from the fact that I've never sat down and figured out what I actually want in a woman. (Besides Kerry) (Heavenly Chorus Plays)
Okay lets get back to the partial fantasy instead of the total one. In all these years I have just gone with the logic of "oh she's talking to me, I should marry her." And while I've been lucky a few times but for the most part my dating endeavors have been less than favorable. Figured I might want to try someone with similar interests for once. So after thinking long and hard,nohomo, I have compiled a list of qualities and traits that I would be present in my perfect girl.
1. I need me a HIP-HOP chick. Now I listen to music CONSTANTLY and in the past, I've settled for a girl with good tastes in music. And that was cool, cause it usually meant I didn't have to listen to "hollabackgirl" more than once a year. But if there's one thing I love it's a Lady who loves her Hip-Hop. I want a Girl who I can have an intelligent argument with about why Jean Grae is/isn't better than Blackthought, someone who knows the difference between 9th Wonder and J Dilla, someone who can put me up onto some illness I haven't heard before. I want to be able to take my girl to a concert and have her know more than the one song she's heard on the radio and be rockin' out right with me. Good Example: Amanda Diva or Lauryn Hill Bad Example: Da Brat or Lil Mamma TESTS: Name all members of the Wu-tang clan without wikipedia or know any verse of any song off Mos Def's Black on Both Sides
2. Hmm let's go for someone athletic too. Imma dude so I like me some sports(not baseball, baseball is lame) so I imagined it would be nice to be with someone who also enjoyed them. It would be cool to go to the basketball court with my girl and actually feel good about crossing her up because she knew better than to reach. Or watch a game with her without her deciding to route for a certain team because their colors are nice or their QB is cute. And who knows, maybe she'll cross me...(I KNOW. AND SHE WON'T) I hate baseball. Good Ex: Candace Parker/Serena Williams Bad Ex: Chyna/Sporty Spice TEST: Hit a 3 pointer while still looking cute. (I can barely do either half of that)
3. N*E*R*D (minus the "*") Basically, I want to be able to watch Star Wars movie without some chick moaning about it or making me turn it off. Hey if she enjoys it, I may go out and buy an engagement ring before the Ewoks show up. Knowledge of comics books is a plus too. I've actually said to myself is any girl that greets me the way MJ greets Peter Parker in their 1st meeting will always have my heart. Good Ex: Tina Fey/Velma Bad Ex: The Napoleon Dynamite Chick/Myrtle Urkel TEST: Greet Me at my door with MJ's famous line.
4. Um, I'm gonna need a chick who can tolerate a broke dude. Yes I do have a full time job, but I also have an apartment and bills, so If you catch me at the wrong part of the month it's not pretty. I have no problem spending money on a girl I like, but if you're gonna be all mad that I couldn't afford to buy the SpagettiO's with the hot dogs for our gourmet dinner tonight well then I think this is where we part. Here just for the hell of it here's the Miss Independent remix.
Good Ex: Upgrade You Beyonce Bad Ex: Pay My Bills Beyonce
5. A Smart Lady. I'm stupid, I need someone to teach me thingstuff. Someone to teach me to cook, another language, school me on some economics, tell me why I shouldn't eat a bottle of Flinstone vitamins a day, or just whup me in scrabble. Bring it on. Good Ex:Couldn't think of anyone at the time so here goes Rosario Dawson Bad Ex: Gretchen
6. Someone to put up with me. I am by no means perfect. I'm immature and joke around too much, slightly insane, I work too much, I'm only marginally good looking, there's the aforementioned brokeness, and occasionally I'm a jerk. So if all that is appealing to you... You need a doctor. TEST: Put Up with Me
7. Someone with their own funky style or demeanor. Normal People are boring, and who wants that. Got some strange quirks? Cool. You like to wear a bagpipe with you where ever you go? Awesome. Got your elbow pierced? That's a little much for me. But until that thumbs up. Good Ex: Jack Davey/Janelle Monae Bad Ex: This scares me. TEST: Be like them, but original. You know?
As far as appearance goes, I'm not too picky. I have no defense for a nice smile, and I'm partial to black girls, they've had the home court advantage thus far. Prefer the T, in T&A, but hey, they're both pretty cool.
As long as we're fantasizing: I think I'd like to go for a tall chick cause usually I deal with shorties, and I would love a chick with locks in her hair or something. And maybe a dragon. (too much fantasy?)
So there we go, there's my loose outline of what my perfect girl would be like. And now I will go be depressed because she does not exist and I will never find her, nor will I look because... weren't you paying attention? SHE'S NOT REAL. Now lets go out there and be miserable team.
8:15 Alarm rings. Eyes open. The cold I caught isn't completely gone. Throat's sore nose is stuffed. Don't care. Load up on cough drops and nasal spray. Get dressed and by the time I'm done Mike is in the apartment waiting. Marcus and Naz still slumber. We kick in their doors waving some four fours, and they screamed Poppa don't hit me no more. Then we got Egg Mcmuffins and Hash Browns.
Greatest Thing on Earth
11:00 The ride over we spent discussing music of course, Mike and I go into our usual Jay-Z argument, and he exclaims he can never respect Jay-Z again, nonetheless be a fan. Arrive at Jones Beach way to early, I curse out Naz and Marcus in my head for making me be up this early. They thought we needed to be there early for some reason, as if the concert wasn't from 12:00PM-12AM. We wander around till they open the doors to the Outdoor theater. In my preparation that morning I had brought some leftover chicken from last night to eat during the day and put it in my bag. Upon getting out of the car I see bags aren't allowed and I leave it in the car, hopefully that won't cause problems later. I threaten some swans, make fun of the security guards, one of which punked out Naz for no reason. Hilarious.
12:00 Doors open allowing us to enter the venue, but not go to out seats. Just wander around for a while. There's booths with free stuff, At the end of the day my pockets contained: 2 water guns, 2 $5Burger King credit cards, Mix tape discs, flyer's, and a bunch of other crap. For the next 10 minutes we shoot each other with the water guns and hit bystanders. They should have gotten guns. Not my fault. We see WALE just walking around and absolutely no one else notices, we shout what up, he shouts what up back, then eats his $6 hot dog. He must be a rapper cause I couldn't afford that.
Fig 1: Wale (he's cool)
1:15PM WALE opens at the mini-stage. His set was def too short. Does Nike Boots, W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E., and a few other hits. Throws water to the crowd because it is ridiculously warm. Brings out Skyzoo, who does a few songs. STILL NO HACKSAW JIM DUGAN?! Nothing special.
Performance gets for disappointing length.
Here's a cypher from Wale and a few others.
2:00PM We leave the mini stage because besides Afrika Bambatta the rest of the upcoming acts we miss-able. And miss them we did. So back to the area behind the bleachers to waste time, we had more water gun fights, Mike played guitar hero at the booth, spotted some STJ peeps I still refused to buy anything because a water was $5 and a gallon of blood. And then it happened. Some cute girls in Burger King T-shirts conned us into following them (actually only one was cute, but she was so cute she made up for the other one) to the Burger King "Spit a Flame Broiled 16 (ACTUAL TITLE, I KID YOU NOT)Booth" Marcus the resident rapper is chosen to rep for us, and as we wait for him to flow, it hits me. I HAVE A CHANCE TO RAP IN A BURGER KING BOOTH. #7 on my list of things to do before I die. I select a beat sign up and let the rhymes loose when my turn comes, I believe among my lyrics are
Stab a fry guy in the eye/demand a Hershey pie/tell him if i had it my way Ronald McDonald would die.
I think Imma good bet to win the contest. 3 Out of 5 of the top 5 rappers of all time
2:30 KIDZ IN THE HALL. Main stage is opened we find our seats (not disappointed) just in time to catch one of my newer favorites groups grace the stage. And by grace the stage I mean, fumble with a broken Mac Laptop for 20 minutes. DJ Double 0 heroically steps onto stage days after leaving the hospital from a non-deserved beat down. But after the initial tech probs, the performance was lackluster, but driving down the block is my shit so it gets
3:30 It is Soooo hot, I break down and take out a loan so I can buy a Snapple iced tea, I finish it before I pay and keep the bottle. Always free refills at the water fountain. I hear someone shout F-the police and rush back to the stage.
4:00 Dead Prez. Always solid. Its always amazing to see white people sing along to lyrics about killing crackers, then again that's no where near as bad as black people ACTUALLY killing each other over rap lyrics so 1 for them 0 for us.
5:00 Immortal Technique. Not only does this performance get no hash browns, I'm going to pretend it never happened. And after a quick trip in the time machine...
5:00 DE LA SOUL. Now we're picking up, or so we thought. Instead of doing Oldie favorites like Me, Myself and I, or even the Redman aided Oooh, they do a bunch of their newer stuff. Which is still better than half of other rappers catalogues. They bring out DRES of Blacksheep who kills it. And if an entire crowd screaming Engine Engine number 9 wasn't enough, BIZ MARKIE emerges from backstage and I can bet that New Jersey could hear cries of OOOOOH BABY YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!
6:00 THE PHARCYDE. The first of many reunions that night. All that matters is I finally get to see the group that created the anthem I lived by most of my life perform "Passing Me By" live. So amazing. That song alone gets them
6:45 SUPERNATURAL. This dude was hosting the show but could easily be accused of stealing it. In the Illest freestyle I have ever heard, Live or recorded, this dude took any object the crowd gave him and incorporated it into his flow immediately.
Give That man some potatoes.
7:15 GHOSTFACE & RAEKWON. I did not want to see this. I wanted Wu-tang Clan. In a night with such unity and reuniouns galore. These dudes couldn't get it together and all don the stage at once. Sure they held the stage down (along with the 100 other people up there for no reason). But denying me the Mystery of Chessboxin or even CHEZ LA GHOST?!?!?!?
Boo. First performance I sat down on. However while I was sitting down I noticed Cute-Hip-Hop Girl for the first time. She was some chick who came alone and just sat listening to her headphones during the breaks, during the show she was up dancing and singing everyword. I thought I was in love. One thing that I am a sucker for, is a girl that knows her Hip-Hop. She gets some browns.
See if you can count how many people aren't contributing anything to the performance
7:50 Oh yeah I think someone passed out or died or something.
8:00PM MOS DEF. Always amazes and did so again tonight. So much about this man I can't say it all, but I will say he was joined by Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch. The show could have ended after this and I would have been happy.
"Yo I dunno Kwe..."
8:45 First sighting of Boombaye, a drunken drugged out African man who would stand and pose triumphantly for the crowd like Rocky on top of the stairwell. Oh and did I mention all he had on were some overalls and you could totally see his buttcrack.
Boombaye
9:00 REDMAN AND METHODMAN. Microphone Checka swingin sword lecture... These dudes nearly take the whole show. Guest appearances by DJ Kool (letmeclearmythroat!), EPMD, and Keith Murray were only icing. These two had the most high energy/fun set of the night, encouraging the crowd to yell F&%k Redman before I'll Be dat, Method Man literally walking on the crowd and the duo climbing on top of the giant speakers before announcing How High 2.
10:30 NAS. Nasir Jones had an amazing show set up before he pulled the Ace out of the deck. Live band. New hits off his #1 album. Countless Classics: He nearly performed all of Illmatic with the entire crowd knowing every word, The World is Yours, Hate Me now, One Mic, Hell he could have performed Oochie Wally and still killed. Then. Success came on, Jigga Came Out, and it was all over.
How Would You Like A Dope Comprehensive History Of Hip Hop Music From Categorized yearly from 1979-2009? You WOULD????
3 Out of 5 of the top 5 rappers of all time
Boombaye
