Please use the thread to discuss the selections and inform everybody of your voting intentions. A poll will be added at a later date in order to tally votes, once everybody has had the opportunity to listen to all of the selections. If there are specific links to the albums or singles you have nominated (on Youtube, Spotify, etc.) that you would prefer voters to listen to, please post them in this thread. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Last edited by Skinny on 02/10/2021 19:50; edited 1 time in total
My original line-up looked quite different, but I thought it'd be a nice litte touch of paying tribute to MF DOOM - and I value team chemistry anyway, just check my first round team.
By the way, I got so absorbed listening everyone else's picks during the first round that I didn't write a single word regarding my team - contrary to my initial intention - so I'm thinking of keeping it that way and make a chart after the end of the tournament with all albums I considered and a short - or not so short - review of each.
I’ve always been surprised by the relatively lukewarm reception this album seems to get on the internet, as it is fairly obvious to me that this is one of the most distinctive, consistent, filler-free releases from one of the most unique, inventive rappers who has ever lived. I regularly go back and forth between this and In a Major Way when trying to decide what E-40’s best album is, but whereas In a Major Way is rightly lauded as a classic in many circles, this album tends to be viewed as being somehow lesser. Whether that’s to do with its intimidating length (it runs to well over an hour) or its inscrutability, I’m not too sure, but it feels to me that this album is due a widespread reappraisal and should be hailed as the West Coast classic that it is.
For a start, this album features E-40’s best rapping. As a writer and performer, he was at his absolute peak, and the sheer numbers of flows, voices, and memorable lines spread across this LP are impossible to keep up with. Always blessed with elastic vocals and a whiplash-inducing ability to transition into dizzying fast-rapping at any given moment, E-40 nonetheless ups the stakes here, putting on a total masterclass in how to utilise space and emphasis. The sheer joy he clearly takes in stretching and moulding words and phrases to fit his purposes is infectious, and whilst the likes of Aceyalone and Busdriver receive plenty of (deserved) credit from online communities for their unpredictable metres and cadences, E-40 is at least the equal of both, with the added bonus that he makes you wish you were partying with him. It’s little wonder that rap luminaries of the last decade Kendrick Lamar and Danny Brown have been vocal in their appreciation of the album as an influence on their own music, given that they both very obviously owe parts of their styles to Forty Water.
It would be remiss, of course, not to mention the aspect of Earl’s rapping that most often gets pushed to the fore by early commentators: his ridiculously influential slang. On this album he deliriously shapes and then gracefully navigates a world of numb numb juice, sucker-repellent spray, lick-it-and-lock-it Zig Zags, fetti, cluckin’ chickenheads, and undertuckamajigs (your guess is as good as mine). He wanted to play pro ‘ball since he was “ankle-low to a centipede’s claw”, he “used to sell taffy: white girl nasal candy”, he makes drops “for the club and the trunk, like a pregnant lady come with a album every eight or nine months”, he’s got “clusters on [his] fingers, like Liberace”, he advises that young hustlers “talk in Pig Latin, and keep [their] employees pizznosted with choppers and walkie-tizznalkies”, and “none of [his] folks are simps, marks, or nothin’ of that there magnitude”.
Whether he’s employing guttural growls on ‘Big Ballin’ with My Homies’, quoting Super Cat adlibs on ‘Brownie Points’, stuttering and stammering his way through ‘Seasoned’ (in order to better embody the terrified child narrator growing up surrounded by pain), utilising delightfully old school call and response party mantras on ‘Earl, That’s Yo’ Life’, or gleefully doling out those trademark rapid-fire, staccato, plosive outbursts on, well, every song here, there’s nothing stuffy or academic about what Earl is doing – he might be rapping as well as anybody ever has, but it all feels so natural, so organic, so unbelievably effortless.
Which, of course, brings me onto the album’s sonics, which are anything but natural or organic. This might some of the deepest, busiest, most cosmic funk I’ve ever heard, but instead of relying on the lush, cinematic, live band feel of DJ Quik or Dr. Dre’s respective takes on g-funk, the music here is aggressively synthetic, recalling not so much the earthy grooves of Parliament and Funkadelic but rather the hyperactive, scratch’n’sniff, cartoon silliness of George Clinton’s 1980s solo output (also underrated, obviously). There are some lighter moments here that add levity – ‘Seasoned’ is a breezy summer reflection on the importance of friends and family, particularly when growing up poor, full of charming self-deprecation, replete with a luscious falsetto’d hook; ‘Get Breaded’ rolls along with a (relatively) relaxed groove that recalls ’80s boogie icons Slave – but for the most part this album is a relentless barrage of sped-up, off-kilter Mobb Music that simply refuses to sit still.
There is a kitchen sink feel to these deeply layered tracks, with the skittering percussion fighting against fuzzy basslines, bright keyboard melodies, regular vocoder use, almost obnoxiously overused gunshots, and various other sound effects that are thrown in throughout. This is not the smooth, rolling g-funk you’re used to, but rather something much more fidgety and manic, music that seems less influenced by marijuana and more by cocaine (which is probably the case, if the lyrics to ‘Ghetto Celebrity’ are to be believed: “Been smoking tweed since nine, but I got to used to her, now I be powderin’ my nose with some of that there sugar booger”). It’s as though E-40 decided that the best way to accentuate his dense, frenzied verbiage would be to set it against a background wall of dense, frenzied funk. (In that sense, this album is a more than worthy addition to the otherwise largely rock-oriented canon of Great Cocaine Albums. Please feel free to tell me your favourites in the thread; it would make for a fun custom chart.)
[As a further aside in a writeup almost entirely comprised of them, I’m not sure whether this album strictly counts as ‘coke-rap’, which tends to be music about selling cocaine, rather than music inspired by its usage, though it does contain a lot of raps about selling cocaine, so who knows. I had a quick look for the best coke-rap albums online, and came across a list that named, amongst its top five, Reasonable Doubt, Lord Willin’, Super Tight, and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, albums which could conceivably take up four spots in my top five hip-hop albums overall (‘coke-rap’ or otherwise). Conclusion: apparently, I just love coke-rap. E-40 had one album in the top fifteen: Federal. Federal is not as good as this or In A Major Way, but it’s still great. Anyway, I wouldn’t necessarily describe E-40 as coke-rap, though he does blur the line, obviously.]
In lesser hands this might lead to an almighty clutter, but Earl knows best; whilst the album can initially feel suffocating, once you’ve adjusted to its berserk energy it becomes easy to appreciate just how intuitively this stuff has been put together, a rapper at the absolute top of his game doing what he does best, and picking beats that completely work for what he’s trying to achieve. Whilst the entirety of the album remains stubbornly in hard funk mode, that isn’t to say that these tracks are in some way formulaic or indistinguishable from one another. In fact, the memorable hooks that anchor them mean that a large portion of the songs here would have worked as singles, which results in that rarest of things: an album that is able to maintain a very deliberate, recognisable sonic cohesion whilst also playing as a sort of greatest hits collection.
(A quick word on the guest verses and hooks, of which there are many: they give the album a much needed textural variety, offering the listener well-placed respite from E-40’s otherwise non-stop hiccoughing, and the likes of Juvenile and particularly Fat Joe bring heat, in ways both expected – the former, who eats up a wisely chosen ‘Everlasting Bass’ sample on the Hot Boys crossover episode ‘Look At Me’ – and unexpected – the latter, who sounds bizarrely at home doing his Pun impression thing on the shimmering ‘Get Breaded’. My favourite guest verse here, however, is from the unfairly forgotten Jayo Felony, a San Diego rapper who had a brief stint on Def Jam in the mid-‘90s under the guidance of Jam Master Jay, and whose opening to ‘’Cause I Can’ – “We do this for life, you dumb fucks, y’all n***as is dump trucks” – is unhinged, nonsensical perfection that shows just how completely he was able to inhabit E-40’s world.)
As I stated at the beginning of this writeup, I regularly go back and forth over which E-40 album is his best. Both In a Major Way and Charlie Hustle are incredible albums that really showcase all of the things that make E-40 one of the greatest rappers of all-time, but for the most part I think Charlie Hustle is his most impressive release, the one with the most distinctive sound, the one on which his rapping was at its peak, and the one with the best hit ratio. Is it ten minutes too long? Arguably. Do the bass sounds sometimes resemble farts? Of course they do. Do the guest verses add anything of value to proceedings? Only occasionally. I feel like I’m taking a risk in nominating it here, from a tactical point of view anyway, because it’s a piece of world-building so thorough that its charms might be impenetrable to some, but it would’ve been disingenuous for me to have ignored it in favour of something more immediately palatable – I found this album on CD in a charity shop many years ago, and it took a number of listens over a number of years before I really, truly got it – given how much it means to me.
It’s a cartoonish, 200mph, overwhelming take on g-funk that doesn’t sound quite like anything in hip-hop before or since, an album of thick, densely compacted beats and rhymes that really pay no heed to any sort of hip-hop trend, almost avant-garde in its adherence to a sound and a style of rapping that are almost completely starved of air or space, an album so agitated and uneasy and borderline grotesque that it actively discourages the sort of satisfied head-nodding that hip-hop seems designed to support. Perhaps because of this, it barely feels like it’s aged a day. It’s a hall-of-mirrors take on West Coast hip-hop that pulls from many of genre’s tropes but twists them into fresh, exciting, barely comprehensible shapes. From start to finish, Charlie Hustle is one of the most exhilarating, intoxicating, contagious hip-hop albums ever released, one of the funkiest LPs I’ve ever come across (hip-hop or otherwise), potentially the definitive E-40 release, and simply one of the most unique and beloved albums in my collection. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Last edited by Skinny on 01/25/2021 08:21; edited 2 times in total
Legit wasn't expecting '04 to pull out an all DOOM team. Interesting choice. Might just work though.
Dead Prez's Hip-Hop is a great single. Production holds up incredibly well too. Let's Get Free in general is great, but that's certainly a standout.
Guerilla Maab's Rise bumps. Haven't given it a full listen in years, but tracks from it are usually in rotation from time-to-time. Just a smidge heavy to listen to the entire thing at once. Good stuff though, particularly for that niche of hip-hop.
Dre & Snoop are Dre & Snoop doing Dre & Snoop at the peak of Dre & Snoop.
Haven't heard the E-40 record (I've never actually heard an album by this guy, only singles— I've been putting him off for years for some reason).
And '04, despite being boiled down to one artist, is... well... kinda bulletproof. DOOM's '04 output might be one of the only times someone could pick one artist for the match and still follow the rules (no album/single crossover, etc).
Gotta listen to E-40's record first, but I think 04's got this for me. Probably helps that I spun both those tracks and albums at least twice this month alone.
verrrrrry bold strategy with 2004. not yet sure if it's a winning one but I can't complain about the quality of the songs anyhow. still gotta listen to Rise before I make any kind of decision. of course '99 is already aided by the fact that, even if I don't care too much for still dre, dead prez are good and Charlie Hustle is a masterpiece (excellent writeup btw Neil. made me realize I would be very interested in your thoughts on Northern California Trunk Tape Resurrection if you ever have an appetite for 107 tracks of exactly what it says on the tin) _________________ A Variety of Artists
Z-Ro is one of the greatest rappers of all-time. Nobody can tell me otherwise. He doesn’t have the most consistent discography, his willingness to rap over generic beats has often hamstrung him, and he is reluctant to step outside of his comfort zone. However, very few rappers who have been around for over two decades can claim to have a consistent discography, very few rappers are unwilling to ever rap over generic beats, and very few rappers often step outside of their comfort zone. Furthermore, very few rappers can claim to have a comfort zone quite as roomy as Z-Ro’s, government Joseph W. McVey IV, the Houston baritone who has built a career on being able to marry agile fast-rapping to an impassioned delivery and self-sung, undeniably bluesy hooks you can feel in your soul.
By 1999, Z-Ro had already released his incredible solo debut LP, Look What You Did to Me, the beginning of an untouchable run of albums, and was ready to put his crew on. Rise, then, by his group Guerilla Maab, could have ended up like so many crew albums before and since, a bunch of weaker, less charismatic rappers whose verses are held together by beats and rhymes deemed not good quite enough for their leader’s solo records. Instead, due to the facts that all of these dudes have distinctive styles and personalities, everybody here brings close to the best work they ever did, and these tracks are all memorable, fleshed-out, genuine ‘songs’, Rise is not only one of the all-time great crew records, but potentially the best album by one of the greatest rappers of all-time. (And whilst his name probably holds relatively little currency around these parts these days, you only have to ask the legendary GeevyDallas – who turned me onto this – for confirmation.)
Guerilla Maab were always best as a foursome. Z-Ro, as already mentioned, was the fast-rapping, hook-singing all-rounder; his cousin and fellow Houston rap legend, Trae tha Truth, had a slower, more grounded style, and rapped about ghetto life with a menacing, plainspoken drawl (it’s no surprise that he too has managed to build a respectable and long-lasting solo career); Z-Ro’s brother, Dougie D, had an energetic flow and nasally voice that actually called to my mind, at least, early ‘90s West Coast groups The Pharcyde and Funkdoobiest – the links between the West Coast and the South, both derided at various points and for various reasons by East Coast traditionalists of both the hardcore and the conscious variety, are long and storied, but that’s a tale for another time – albeit with an unmistakably Texan bent; and Taz, the only member who wasn’t family, was a Bone Thugs disciple whose melodic, slurred, whispered rhymes and innate storytelling abilities made him something of a wildcard. As stated above, crew albums usually rely lopsidedly on one member in particular, but Guerilla Maab really was a veritable all-star team of young and hungry Houston rap talent. Inevitable fall-outs and drifting apart occurred over the years, and there are Guerilla Maab sequels (of sorts) which have appeared since, put together by combinations of two or three of these rappers, but all of them sadly failed to recapture the magic of Rise, a real lightning in a bottle situation.
The album starts how it means to go on, with ‘Keep Watching Me’ and its spacious, airy, synthetic lurker of a beat, lightly funky and heavily melodic, relying on clean female backing vocals, over which Z-Ro (“if you invade my space, my fist gonna invade yo’ face”), Trae (“when I’m in my ride, I bogart the block”), and Dougie (“smoked out, and we be sippin’ on syrup, fuck the streets, we finna hop on these curbs”) take it in turns, with their precise flows and immediately distinctive voices, to take aim at the haters they see around them. The production definitely sounds cheap, albeit endearingly so, and in terms of content we are hearing plainspoken raps about life in the Houston streets, but Z-Ro drops a catchy hook and there’s an immediate charm and energy and chemistry apparent in hearing these three relatives absolutely rip through this beat. It may not have the layered depth of Mannie Fresh’s bouncy Cash Money beats, nor the lush musicality of Pimp C’s, but there is something welcoming about the beat and its lurching bassline.
Elsewhere, the title track is bolstered by its feelgood rags-to-riches theme and sweeping, guitar-assisted beat; the skittering ‘Endz’ examines the ins and outs of the street code, and features a dominant guest turn by the perpetually underrated Houston female rapper Cl’Che’ (a fellow member of DJ Screw’s wider Screwed Up Click family who turns up a few times across the album and never outstays her welcome, even if she is owner of one of the most clumsy and unfortunate rap names in history – seriously, why would you want to be a cliché?); ‘Not My Home’ brings in some light salsa vibes, and lands just the right side of cheesy, what with its fake panpipe sounds and heartfelt lyrics outlining with stark openness why the Guerilla Maab feel out of place in this world (Z-Ro: “What does it take to get a piece of the motherfuckin’ American pie, when white folks stab you in your back before they stare in your eye?”; Taz: “For the scandalous life I’m living, I’m breaking ties for riches, there ain’t no friends in business, nothin’ but lies and snitches”); Trae completely steals ‘Problems’ with a heartbreaking verse that calls to mind Pimp C’s on ‘One Day’ in its authenticity (“even n***as that I had love for turned fake, one of my real n***as just got shot nine times by a n***a that everybody really thought was down”).
The album is packed full of songs like these, and nothing here is wasted. I feel guilty picking out highlights from an album where every song is a potential favourite for somebody. I relistened to this album a few nights ago, whilst trying to weigh up its pros and cons against other possible choices, and was completely taken aback by its consistency. (Even though it’s an album I’ve listened to a lot over the years, I’d forgotten just how strong it is.) Every song contains memorable elements – verses, hooks, beats – and there is no lull. On top of that, it’s simply one of the most passionate, heartfelt, almost desperate rap albums I know of: Guerilla Maab really took the earnest, fast-rap balladry of Bone Thugs to another level, adding in a dash of Pac’s gruff ‘me against the world’ chest-thumping for good measure. Earnestness can be a real crutch in hip-hop, and has turned many a great rapper into a corny laughing stock, but the hungry delivery and street credentials of Guerilla Maab means that they really make it work in their favour, four soldiers together looking for light in a harsh world. Rise works because of its communal spirit, and not in spite of it; that rare case of a crew record that actually stands out as a career highlight for all involved, including one of the greatest rappers of all-time.
Unlike the Dirty South record I nominated for my Gameweek One team, Crooked Lettaz’ Grey Skies, this album does not bear any East Coast influence whatsoever. Both records are proudly Southern, but Crooked Lettaz tended to display said pride in their lyrics, and their sonic Pimp C influence at times. Where David Banner’s production still incorporated elements of familiar, classicist boom-bap into its recipe, and both he and Kam rapped in ways that were relatable to anybody au fait with the likes of Busta Rhymes or Redman, Guerilla Maab’s sound is stubbornly Houstonian, with the beats provided by Screwed Up Click studio engineer Rakesh (or ‘Roc’) – a man whose other credits appear on releases by the likes of Lil Keke, Lil Troy, Den Den, and Archie Lee, names that are likely only recognisable to those with an intimate knowledge of the Houston scene – reliant on tinny drum machine beats and the type of mournful, chintzy, Phil Collins synths that would have got them all laughed out of the Bronx. Despite how that description may may sound, this is one of the record’s undoubted strengths. (Check out ‘Fondren & Main’, which could legitimately be a mid-‘80s Collins ballad were it not for the lack of big wet drums, but which also features one of my favourite Z-Ro verses ever: “My grandmother knew what I was doing, ‘cause my pockets stuck out, and plus she told me, ‘I love you, but get your shit out my house.’”)
Whilst I can’t claim the sort of cohesion offered by kokkinos’ 2004 team here, there are major similarities between the two albums I picked which were taken into account upon choosing them. Both rely on inorganic backdrops that almost sound kitschy at times. Both are examples of unapologetic regional styles – Bay Area Mobb Music in E-40’s case, and Screwed Up Click Houston rap here – that never garnered the same sort of widespread adulation or critical respect afforded to other strands of hip-hop. From what I can tell, both albums are cult classics of sorts, beloved by their disciples but barely a blip on the radar of most. Both are warts and all street rap records which lyrically distance themselves from either condemnation or glorification in favour of something far more balanced and neutral. Both are filled with memorable hooks and rapid-fire, technical verses. And each features, at its respective centre, one of my all-time favourite rappers operating at their absolute peak.
I don’t expect these albums to fare particularly well in this match, especially at a time when many of us have been refamiliarizing ourselves with MF DOOM in the wake of his tragic passing (he was seriously pretty much all I listened to for about ten days following the news), but I personally believe these records to be at least the equal of the selection they’re up against, two unheralded classics that deserve their place in their pantheon. And I would proudly put both E-40 and Z-Ro next to DOOM on any list of the greatest rappers of all-time.
In 1999, Jay-Z was on the verge of being the biggest Black rapper in the world. (As unfortunate as it may be, nobody was bigger than Eminem, though you could argue that he had already moved away from hip-hop and into the pop stratosphere.) He was next in line to the throne in New York (if, indeed, he hadn’t already ascended), particularly as DMX’s now-nearly-forgotten run of platinum album after platinum album was winding down, and in terms of sheer numbers he had Nas beaten all ends up. Cash Money were still doing huge business, especially Juvenile, but his time at the top always felt wild and fleeting; he wasn’t the sort of rapper ready to build a dynasty. Jay-Z had the streets on lock, and had finally crossed over to the mainstream. He would remain rap’s biggest blockbuster star (bar the aforementioned Eminem) for at least another five years, until the emergence of protégé and collaborator Kanye West, or maybe even until the global emergence of Lil Wayne as a genuine commercial force five years after that, and he now feels genuinely bigger than the genre itself, over two decades on.
[Whilst its intentions are transparent and shallow, like a bad TV crossover episode, I still have a real soft spot for 'Mr. Carter', the majestic torch-passing number from Wayne's mind-bogglingly huge Tha Carter III, on which Jay-Z ostensibly crowns his heir with a nimble verse encouraging Wayne to "go farther, go further, go harder", but refusing to get too emotional: "Is that not why we came? 'Cause if not, then why bother?" He was aware Wayne was a bigger artist than him in that moment, but wasn't giving up his crown easily.]
I would argue that, in 1998/1999, Jay-Z was at his peak as a rapper. He had perfected his mogul persona and was able to balance street shittalking with effortless pop sensibilities better than any other rapper ever. He was still able to do the technical fast-rapping thing that carried Reasonable Doubt, but he’d figured out new and important ways to make his rhymes more succinct and accessible, so that they had mass appeal even when the lyrical content may not always have been to everybody’s taste. Getting Jay-Z to feature on your single was a flex that few could command or afford. Getting Jay-Z to ghostwrite your single, and then getting him to re-write it because it wasn’t up to scratch, was a flex unimaginable to anybody. Anybody, that is, except Dr. Dre. (Getting Eminem to ghostwrite for Dre was an easier ask; Em will forever be in his debt.)
Now, ghostwriting is still a touchy subject in hip-hop, and it still gets a lot of folks’ backs up. There are plenty of people out there who have tried to come at Drake over the years for his supposed reliance on ghostwriters, most notably Meek Mill, and despite his continued dominance there is no doubt that Drake had a couple of wounds to lick following the allegations. Ghostface Killah has been accused of having his masterpiece Supreme Clientele written by little-known Raekwon affiliate Lord Superb, although those allegations can be fairly easily brushed off when you think for a second about how ridiculous it would be to have actually written those particular lyrics and then attempted to sell them to somebody, given their incomprehensible abstract absurdity. Max B’s entire career was built off of the fact that he was pissed off that Dipset member Jim Jones underpaid him for all the rhymes he’d written for him.
The art of ghostwriting in hip-hop is as old and as storied as the art of rapping itself, and for the most part – until the last decade, maybe – it has been looked upon as being hip-hop’s ultimate sin, forsaking the artform and pulling the wool over loyal listeners’ ears. And yet pulling Jay-Z to ghostwrite for him was so big of a flex that not only did Dre not attempt to hide it, he openly bragged about it in interviews. “At first, he wrote about diamonds and Bentleys,” Dr. Dre told Blaze magazine in 1999. “So I told Jay to write some other shit. Jigga sat for 20 minutes and came back with some hard-ass, around-the-way L.A. shit.” Whilst Jay-Z had perfected his on-record mogul persona, Dre was making actual mogul moves.
[Just a little aside to further emphasise how inevitable Jay-Z’s ascent was, even from the early days: Ski, the producer responsible for a handful of early Jay-Z tracks including ‘Feelin’ It’, the Reasonable Doubt single picked by LedZep for his 1997 Gameweek Two team, had initially earmarked the beat for Camp Lo’s Uptown Saturday Night, a LedZep Gameweek One pick. In fact, earmarked is understating it. Camp Lo had finished the track. It was done. It was going on the album. However, when Jay heard the song, he demanded that he have it. Ski was reluctant, given that Camp Lo were his dudes, but he was basically powerless. He knew Jay was going to be massive, and he knew that it was the only move that made sense, career-wise. He also knew Jay-Z would kill that beat. Before he’d even dropped his debut album, Jay-Z was able to get what he wanted, because everybody knew he was going to be one of the biggest rappers in the world. His detached mogul persona may have been carefully calculated, but it was never unwarranted or inauthentic. When he called himself "rap's Sinatra", he wasn't lying: both had real mob ties, and both had first pick of any song they wanted. Anyway, back to 'Still D.R.E.'...]
Whilst the verse is unmistakably Jay’s work (“still love to see young Blacks getting money” feels like a dry-run for his now-inescapable Black capitalism schtick), he definitely did come back with “some hard-ass, around-the-way L.A. shit.” (It may seem odd that Jay was so effortlessly able to embody the West Coast in these lines, but go back and check out Volume 3, another album I considered picking for my team and may still yet – dude sounds just as natural murdering Preemo beats, like on ‘So Ghetto’, as he does going toe-to-toe with UGK, on the glorious ‘Big Pimpin’’; he was just on another level at that time.) ‘Still D.R.E.’ is, lyrically anyway, basically YG’s ‘Twist My Fingaz’, only 16 or 17 years earlier, even down to the dress code (“still rock my khakis with a cuff and a crease”). Jay’s internals are there, as is the way the words hit the end of every line right on time. Nothing here feels rushed, despite its alleged 20-minute turnaround, but it also doesn’t feel overly pored over or too delicately constructed. “Haters say Dre fell off. How n***a? My last album was The Chronic. They wanna know if he's still got it, they say rap's changed, they wanna know how I feel about it.” (He felt nothing, to be sure.) The sneering indifference of it all just drips with charisma, even delivered by a man whose lack of on-mic charisma remains an in-joke to this day among hip-hop fans. This, I guess, is the genius of Jay-Z of 1999.
Anyway, I almost didn’t pick ‘Still D.R.E.’. I almost picked its parent album – which was, I shit you not, still ubiquitously blaring from numerous car windows every fucking day when I started going to college, not in sunny L.A. in 1999, but in dour, drizzly Birmingham, nearly a decade after its release – before deciding that there were other things I was more desperate to highlight. (It is still not unusual to hear shards of this album from passing car windows even now, which can only lead me to deduce that Dr. Dre made the greatest driving album of all-time. As a full-time pedestrian, perhaps I’m missing out.) Then, I had the impossible decision to make between three of its singles: ‘The Next Episode’ (the most successful one, and the only pre-2010 song that still frequently appears in Spotify’s end-of-year most-played songs list, not to mention the one that has potentially the most iconic ending to any song ever made), ‘Xxplosive’ (the one with the best Nate Dogg turn), and this.
Initially, this was pretty much the third choice for me, until I was listening to a playlist whilst cooking dinner one day. The playlist consists of 1999 hip-hop, a selection of singles and album-cuts from releases I was trying to decide between for this tournament. I was fairly set on ‘Xxplosive’, because that beat to me is just pure money, but then the keys from the intro to this kicked in, and… well, a tingle literally went down my spine. (I’d just like to mention here the sort of thing it takes for me to turn down the opportunity to highlight a great Nate Dogg feature: fellow D-O-double-G Snoop’s cloying, bouncing mini-hook – “if you ain’t up on thaaaangs” – rivals any vocal fill Nate ever provided.) I immediately started dancing and rapping along, whilst adding garlic and thyme to my mushrooms. I must’ve heard the song hundreds, if not thousands of times in my life, and for it to still have that sort of power over me is incredible. I love the album, and particularly the three singles I considered, but realistically how could I pick anything over ‘Still D.R.E.’? It’s the greatest flex in all of hip-hop. It might be nothin’ but more hot shit, or it might just be the hottest shit ever made. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Damn... I didn't even realize both those DOOM albums in the same year, tbh. I think it's a genius team to be honest. Haven't re-listened yet, but I love historical "hot damn" moments like that.
Great teams for sure. I think 2001 is a great album choice, but that's because I'm vanilla. Solid single for sure.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
