To thousands, she’s Nicki Minaj—the illest femme-cee ALIVE—but to anti-fadsters, like me, she’s merely just Hip-POP’s Queen of the ALL FAKE EVERYthings—with a sock puppetish ‘Fire Marshall Bill’ flow—who proved that her brain, too, was ‘Made In China’ when she 8-6’d (ex-manager) ‘Ms. Debra’ aka the streets-saluted tastemaker behind criminally-UNtalented Yo Gabba Gabbsters Gucci Peppa Wangz & Waka Flocka Waaaakaaa (son)—to hire infamous career wreckist Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as her official ‘manager.’

..So, with that said, I’ve dredged up FIVE good reasons why Nicki ButterBARS (She SEGGZY..but her ‘rap’ bars?! ..c’mon son) should re-consider hopping in bed with the globally-side-eyed mega-mogul and putting her p@#$y on his sideburns..when Cassie’s asleep who’s never gon’ stop ‘never stopping’ even if it’s, well, what Jesus (…or any other label head with *3 Gold/Platinum albums on their roster since ’04) would do. *POW..Take Dat..Take Dat*

5. Young Money > Dirty Money: Nicki’s About $1…WTF is 2 (Dirty) Cents?!

Nicki’s a freshly-minted dime-piece compared to Diddy’s dirt-crusted pennies & pocket lintettes Dawn & Estelle Kalenna who’d instantly gain 1 ¼ stars standing beside the game’s baddest ‘5-Star’ bish—who’s easily ‘Azz & Titties Barbie’ to their ‘Gawjus Garbage Pale Kid’ & ‘Trendy Treasure Troll’ (respectively)—during their Last Train To Paris promo tour.

As Diddy’s brand new Dirty Money promo play toy, Nicki would no longer be the ‘Sarah Palin of Hip-Hop’ once he siphons her blog-fueled buzz into his own musically-irrevelant career thus proving why she needs a dope management team like ‘Hip-Hop Since 1978’ (Drake, Weezy, Kanye & Jeezy) to capitalize on her ever-growing mainstream popularity.

4. Diddy’s ‘Nicki Management Plan’ = Jay-Z’s ‘Amil Management Plan’

I’m certainly not Dionne Warwick..err, or Miss Cleo, but I’d bet my best Young Money pajamas (…with the footies) that ‘Diddy-managed Nicki’ adds the following ‘power moves’ to her Wiki-page by Month #6:

A) Features on Kiely Williams’ debut & Bran’Nu’s (Brandy) rap debut Bran’Nufrodisiac

B) Small roles in Tyler Perry’s Why Am I STILL Married? & Why Did I Get A Divorce?

C) Endorsement deals from Citi Trendz, Hasbro Kid Sister dolls, Cap’n D’s & Myspace.

D) Severing of ties with ghostwriters Drake & Weezy, and the Young Money crew.

3. Kima, Keisha, Pam…and Nicki?! ..Wait, wha?! ..World: ‘HELL+NO to Total 2.0’

Nicki may not realize this…yet, but she’s already agreed to headline Total 2.0 as the fourth lesbian member of the hood-beloved trio (Pg. 362 of 400, ‘Diddy Management Agreement’) that Diddy plans to re-launch after his Notorious R.I.C.K.Y. W.A.L.R.U.S. project with the next greatest Biggie re-boot not named Guerilla Black..err, or Shyne.

Honestly, I’d rather watch (girl group) Dream play Danity Kane in a celebrity basketball game than Day26 + lacefronts & lip gloss aka Kima, Keisha & Pam ‘shock the world’ with rap’s bargain-bin ’Lil Kim doll who makes them a smidge too relevant for their own VH1 reality show. Sorry..but, Nicki headlining Total 2.0 makes just as much sense as Keri Hilson linking with Adina Howard to re-boot Changing Faces.

2. Barbie Girl In Diddy’s Reality GAME WORLD

Diddy definitely had a fetish for playing childish mind games with fame-thirsty nobodies who did EVERYthing BUT wipe his turd-smeared azz (PAUSE.) with baby wipes during Making The Band (1-?), Making His Band & I Want To Work For Diddy (1-2) which put future ex-Bad Boy staffers on—well, kinda—unlike Nicki, who ‘joined’ the Bad Boy ‘empire’ after selling Diddy her Mattel-stamped soul.

However, you’re nothing in Diddy’s shade-cloaked eyes until you play his ego-punishing games which, in Nicki’s case, is one potentially career-ending challenge destined to either make her a management ‘priority’ or a forgotten commodity, like Janelle Monae:

1) Ether ‘Babs’ (Making The Band 1), ‘Mysterious’ (Making The Band 2) & special contender ‘Keys the Problem’ (World-Famous Nicki Minaj DISS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcAm2Pm15HU&feature=related.) during an MTV-aired freestyle battle for the femme-cee spot on Diddy’s Junior M.A.F.I.A. re-boot (Notorious W.A.L.R.U.S, Diggy Simmons, Jim Jones & Blinky Blink). I’ll call this Making the Band..err, 11.

[But, then again, you & me both know that George W. Bush has a better chance being elected Mayor of New Orleans than Nicki does winning a rap battle against any decent femme-cee other than maybe Sylk-E. Fine, Lumidee or Khia. *Solé shrug*]

1. The Inevitable Biggie/Nicki Minaj Collab= THE END of Hip-Hop.

The day Nicki name-drops Santa’s reindeer (..again), seven dwarfs, ten Care Bears or any other popular collection of make-believe creatures while trading bars with Biggie is the day I’ll beg GAWD to press backspace on humanity. I’m sorry…but I’d rather hear an Aaliyah/Fergie duet or Guru/Soulja Boy collab, than Biggie & ‘Fire Marshall Bill’ rock over endless Diddy ad-libs. *Jim Carrey shrug*

“Bad Boy…we ain’t gon’ stop..I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to. I will never stop” — Diddy.

‘They’ say Hip-Hop’s DEAD — err, deceased, toe-tagged, pine-boxed, you know, in a ‘better, less depressing place’ — and was tucked inside Big & Pac’s tailored burial suits after somehow being ‘murdered’ in cold blood by: A) Greed-stricken record execs with insatiable ring-tone fetishes B) The F#!@$@$%# FOUR = Algernod, DeAndre, Radrick & Otis C) Pay-Per-Play Radio programmers D) Colonel Mustard with a candlestick inside the Billiard Room…(BING!) (wait, or was it Professor Plum..in the…?!) Bleh, who knows…better yet, who even knew that the POP-diseased genre had officially flat-lined?! …I’d say no one who truly loves music, lives it, or does it because TRUE music heads — all 1,723 of us on Earf — know that Hip-Hop/Soul — REAL Hip-Hop/Soul — AIN’T really DEAD.

With that said, I would like to dedicate this Mega-blog to any/everyone who dropped black roses on Hip-Hop’s casket after euthanizing the sickly, bed-ridden genre currently living within the pens, pads and vocal chords of REAL artists/musicians/composers/performers across the globe like the 27 I’ve personally selected to introduce to you. Hopefully, you enjoy reading..err, sifting through the blog/debating with fellow music heads about it.. just as much as I did writing it. OK, BYE. Let’s DO it.

Phonte Coleman: The Biggest Rap Star In Your Apartment Complex.

He’s only the ‘biggest rap star in your apartment complex’ and the ‘best kept secret since the AIDs cure’ …He raps better than your favorite ‘IT-boy’ rapper, croons better than your favorite tat-chestded crooner and zings wittier one-liners than your favorite late nite Comic Viewster — His name is Phonte ‘Phontigallo’ Coleman (…aka the face of critically-acclaimed Hip-Hop trio duo Little Brother & Nu-Soul duo Foreign Exchange) and he’s the #1 reason why Hip-Hop/Soul… Ain’t… DEAD…

…Don’t believe the HYPE?! …then google (Phonte) (+) Kanye, who admittedly scrapped his clunky College Dropout-flow after hearing the N.C. Central grad-turnt-(uber)undie-MC’s legendary verse on (Little Brother’s) “The Yo-Yo” (“…Man, sh*t, I’m bout to kick some Trick Daddy next poetry night like Myyy..Blaaaack..Queeeen..don’t know nann n*gga!”) …or Weezy, who struggled to keep up with the burly beat-rocker on the playful femme-love/hate anthem “Breakin’ My Heart” (Weezy = ‘…I gets all up in your head, just like shampoo…’ < Phonte = ‘…a woman’s life is love, a man’s love is life…’) …

…With four certified classics (Little Brother’s The Listening/Minstrel Show + Foreign Exchange’s Connected/Leave it all Behind) under his belt and thousands of die hard fans studying his every syllable, Phonte aka the best ‘everyman’s rapper’ alive (‘…My girl was throwin’ up this morning/I’m prayin’ it was somethin’ she ate…’) quietly etched his name into most Top-10 MC lists after penning some of the illest punch-lines (‘…might want to let me put my all in you/or else one of these off-brand Wal-Mart n*ggaz might try to Target you…’)/verses (See: “Boondock Saints”)/vocal arrangements (See: “House of Cards”) of our Hip-Pop-infused generation …

(“Boondock Saints” = ‘…Because I ain’t shucking, because I ain’t jivin’/Some of these cr*ckers won’t stand beside me/And cuz I ain’t killin’ and don’t support pimpin’/Some of these n*ggas wanna call me a Cosby/Well, I’ll be that dude, I’ll scratch that itch/I’ll play that role, call me Heathcliff b*tch!’)

…Nonetheless, if you’re a jaded Hip-Hopper struggling to re-discover REAL Hip-Hop in today’s ring-tone-deafened society, I highly recommend you purchase tickets to the next Foreign Exchange show (Ticket = $15) coming soon to an obscure venue in the hidden corners of a major city near you …Believe me, after vibing with Phonte and 173 fellow music lovers for two, maybe three hours, you too, will be a believer …

J. E. The  Extraterres… with Tourrettes: Live From Planet X.

After hearing Jay Electronica (‘They call me Jay Electronica…f*ck that. Call me Jay ElecHannukah..Jay ElecYalmulke..etc..’) ‘Jay ElecHannukah’ spit that ‘blow your brain, Kurt Cobain — Nirvana sh*t’ over Just Blaze’s incredible “Exhibit A (Transformations)” backdrop (“…I paved ways like Nat and Harriet, I blast on Judas Iscariots and peel off in the chariot…”), it was clear that the mind-bending beat bully from the ‘city built on top of a grave’ was more than just another quirky, dare-to-be-different MC with a store bought flow like Asher Roth or gimmicky image like Charles Hamilton …

…Nah, son… Jay Elec was the personification of innovation…and err, somewhat of a whimsical weirdo with a subtle edginess + beautifully surreal musical approach that only the most intellectual (of) ‘backpackers’/music connoisseurs could appreciate… To me, Jay Elec embodied everything that fad-tattered ‘hipsters’ like KiD CuDi strived to be and proved, once again, that rappers from the ‘souf’ were more than just criminally coonish cash-fiends/reckless misogynists with painfully dinky-doink flows …

…As a city skipping beatmaker/wordsmith with an endearing affinity for cult-classic movies/allusions (“…my mama said son why such a lonely face/because the pressures on me/plus I feel like Bill Murray trapped in Punxsutawney…”), the Planet-X-born, N.O.-bred MC dropped several buzz-worthy mixtapes, a phenomenal ‘poetry-in-motion’ (spit)session “Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)” and the critically-acclaimed Dilla mash-up Style Wars EP that elevated him to ‘NEXT-status’ where he’s now poised to finally drop his highly-anticipated debut album sometime in the near/far-reaching future…

…But until then, it’s probably best that you bang “Exhibit A, B & now C”/Style Wars EP until your speakers implode while waiting for the shadow lurking MC to drop (…quite possibly the illest single of the year…) “Dear Moleskine” — the soul-piercing Just Blaze gem that’s been teased online/on-tour for months with no official ‘drop-date’ …Oh, and, uh, if I were you I would avoid the 1 min. 45 sec. mini-teaser like a double McMexican swine sammich with extra pickled pig hoofle sauce… you’ll only be torturing yourself …

Black Milk: The Dirty ‘D’s’ ‘Youngest In Charge’

Curtis ‘Black Milk’ Cross certainly isn’t J. ‘Dilla’ Yancey nor does he pretend to be when crafting his sinister snare kicks + soul-splashed samples that breathe life into desolate souls — like Dilla’s untouchable catalogue of ‘Donuts’ — while standing alone as new-age pages in the Hip-Hop Beat-Bible that the legendary beatmaker/MC died too soon to finish…

At 25 years young, Detroit’s second ‘youngest in charge’ (#1 Mayor Kwame) is a GROWN azzded MAN on the MP with a flair for filthy, Dirty ‘D’-pimp slapped drum baps (See: “Give The Drummer Sum”) and wildly-imaginative, chipmunk-funk’d sample loops (See: “Shut It Down”), that, when meshed together, create audible anti-biotics for the POP-diseased strain of Hip-Hop currently spreading through the industry via trend-thirsty ‘super producers’ who couldn’t touch Black’s weakest reference tracks with their hottest ‘top-shelf tracks’/ring-tones… (‘Did he just…?!’) … Yea, I said it! …

…If anything, Black Milk represents a gritty new-breed of brilliant beatmaker/MCs (Jay Electronica/Hi-Tek/Nottz) who body their own bangers (‘…If Hip-Hop’s dead and out/Black Milk just gave that b*tch mouth-to-mouth/brought it… back to life… out the hospital… ILLL… the industry owe me, got hospital bills…’) and showcased this through his widely-heralded albums Popular Demand/Tronic + the sick (regional) collabs Caltroit (Feat. Bishop Lamont) & The Set Up (Feat. Fat Ray) further establishing the Detroit-anchored midwest as a perennial power-player in the steadily-growing underground Hip-Hop/Soul movement…

…So with that said, I move that we, as new-age Hip-Hopsters, dead these pointless Black Milk/Dilla comparisons/arguments/debates and allow Black Milk to shape his own legacy without facing lifetimes worth of unrealistic expectations to be everything that Dilla was, and more…I mean DAMN, let Black Milk be, well, GREAT… I’m sure Dilla would…

Blu: Eternal Sunshine of the Golden (BLU) Mind.

The 26-year-old reflection in Johnson ‘Blu’ Barnes’ mirror is somewhat complex, flawed and reality-bitten… but, uhh, then again, that’s why any/everyone with their ears to the streets are buzzing about the nonchalantly confident leftcoast ‘rap peasant’ named Blu whose razor sharp ‘real-life’-coated bars force you to look into the mirror while wondering whether you’re living your life like it’s golden or merely just existing on this great ball of stress that we call the Earth  (Sadat X) …

…To some, ‘Blu’ is nothing more than a primary color but to true Hip-Hopsters he’s one of the realest, intimately introspective MCs in the game (“…And you chillin’ in your house with a wife, a few children/Feelin’ like you struck a million/Lookin’ at your kids like/‘Sh*t, this my son… This n*gga came from my nuts…”) who poured the contents of his tortured soul in between the paper’s lines (‘…I got dreams I ain’t reached yet – ends that ain’t meet yet/When it comes to being a man, sh*t I’m barely getting my feet wet/Trying to hit reset knee deep in debt/Trying to figure out how to feed a mouth that ain’t got teeth yet…’) for his fearless debut opus Below The Heavens that converted several ‘stuck-in-the-’90s’ ’Pac-stans into full-fledged, true Blu-believers …

…And NO, I’m in no way comparing a freshly-planted rose seed (Blu) maturing beneath the concrete to the fully-bloomed, concrete-grown rose that was Tupac Shakur — a Hip-Hop legend, even if the lyrically profound fresh face (recently) earned the late MC’s crown from Pacific Time Zone’d Hip-Hopsters/backpackers deeply immersed in a new-era ‘Cali-Soul movement’ (U-N-I/Fashawn/Pac Div) destined to revive the West’s severely comatized, Jerk-ravaged Hip-Hop pedigree …

…But I doubt the newly-major label drafted Blu (Sire/Warner Bros. records) cares about these over-blown comparisons (Hip-Hop Hype-Machinists = ‘YoO Blu’s betta than Lupe … illa than Nas … doper than Phonte’) or supposed ‘Westcoast (Hip-Hop) Savior’ status (Mainframe, ½ of Johnson&Johnson: “…A lot of rappers try to fit into a certain mold, but Blu breaks out of it…I think he’s the savior of West Coast Hip-Hop right now…”) and remains focused on inspiring Hip-Hop’s ‘left behind’ through eloquently insightful verses that elevated last year’s undie-gem (Mainframe-collab) Johnson&Johnson into serious ‘Album/Producer of the Year’ conversations/Award considerations …

Believe me when I say Blu’s winning right now and poised to shatter coastal biases in the name of REAL Hip-Hop especially after being contacted by a young deaf girl who revealed that the vibrations from his music were like no other when she placed her hands on her friends’ ‘Blu-blessed’ speakers … Obviously, I’m down with Blu, the question is, are YOU?

Little Dragon (Interlude)

*When PRETENDING to be a MUSIC HEAD goes wrong*

‘Music Head’: ‘Waaait, hold up, OK, so ‘Little Dragon’ is, uhh, Phonte … and, um, MC Pooh ..somethin’ … and 9^th … right?! … Dude, I’ve been a 9^th Wonder fan since Jay-Z’s Black Album and loved Phonte’s hook on that Playaz Circle jam … Yo, I been wonderin’ why that cat doesn’t sing more… dude has a nice voice …’

Me: Nawl, that’s Little Brother … you know, Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh … but, uh, 9^th Wonder hasn’t been with the group for a year or two now and definitely dropped doper tracks than “Threat” (Black Album) … As for Phonte, well, he’s on the road as we speak with his soul duo Foreign Exchange … Yea, but THIS group is Little Dragon.

‘Music Head’: ‘OoO, aight, COOL, For-eign … Ex-change … I’ll definitely check them out, but, OK, back to Little…Dragon, now they’re basically this ‘underground’ electro-POP/Rock, kinda Soulish/R&Bish Euro-band froooom Scotland … NO, Switzerland?! … Yeaaa, they SWISS … all dudes and one chick, right?! … kinda like Lucy Pearl, but white..err, European… YES, I LOVE that band!’

Me: *sigh* …You mean Sweden …

‘Music Head’: ‘OoOps, yea, my bad, Sweeeden, hahaa … same thing … but they were MAJOR in the ’90s, like global … Yo, I rocked wit them HARD when they dropped “Zombie” … Their lead singer, tha chick with the dirty tennis ball cut and swexy Europe-ish accent was HAWT… But wait, they weren’t always called Little Dragon though, right?! … Their name was Lusty Grapes, Tasty Blueberries, ehh, somethin’ like that, like some kinda fruit… *nods* ..mhhhmmm … naw, don’t try to play me son, I know who tha hell Little Dragon is … ’

Little Dragon: Stranger Than Fiction.

Little Dragon is headlining my wedding reception. No, really, they are — all four of those Electrosoul-smitten Swedes… Yep, I’ve already told my mama and, well, now I’m telling, HER, my future wife, as I’m typing this to mentally prepare them for the incredibly eclectic Rock/POP/Soul collective that very well may be the only reason why most legit music heads still find themselves optimistic about the future of progressive R&B/Soul music (…devoid of any poisonous Major Label additives or crippling A&R preservatives…)

Maybe it’s their funky fresh slinky-synths (See: “Turn Left”), retro-Soul-slicked aesthetic (See: “Feather”) or lead singer (Japanese/American/Swedish) Yukimi Nagano’s haunting vocals (See: “Twice”) that forever locked the Gothenburg-based quartet inside my cardio beatbox once their stunning self-titled debut Little Dragon (’07) faded into the warmest corners of my soul… Whatever it was, I F’N LOVED these talented dudes & sultry songbird, yes, LOVED them, and vowed to share them with the ‘musically thirsted’ until, they too, tracked down the band’s masterfully-conceived, indie-released debut album …

At the time, there were simply no artistic entities like Little Dragon (…aka Erik Bodin, Drums + Fredrik Källgren Wallin, Bass + Håkan Wirenstrand, Keys + Yukimi, Vocals) who easily carved their own niche in the Electro/Nu-Soul arena while generating a contagious promo-push for their highly-anticipated sophomore project Machine Dreams — a soulfully abstract, ’80s-POP-glossed throwback (See: “Runabout”) met with critical praise upon its release on Aug. 31… And the fans?! …well, most of us probably haven’t stopped playing the delightfully trippy record splashed with (more of) Yukimi’s (signature) soul-melting pipes (See: “A New”) that are unlike any other in the ‘soulstress’-saturated industry …

As long as Little Dragon is rockin’ stages, YOU, your ‘music head’ associates and these miserable-minded complainers have no reason to moan, groan and bemoan about the lack of REAL music/artists/innovation in today’s over-hyped musical wasteland… I say: delve deeper… expand your comfort zones… open your minds… and, maybe then, you’ll realize that there IS life after Hip-Hop/Soul’s supposed death after all …

Marsha Ambrosius: There’s Somethin’ About Marsha.

British chanteuse Marsha A. has (Jenny ‘Effie’ Hudson’s inner-strenf) + (MJB’s killer instinct) X (‘Lyzell in E Flat’ Jill Scott’s range) + (Adele’s Euro-edge) – (‘Post-Lyzell’ Jill Scott’s incessant emo-babble) ÷ (‘Indie-hyped’ Jaz Sullivan’s growth potential) + (‘Mr. Biggs’ Kelly Price’s (vocal) power) which, according to my 4^th Grade ‘PEMDAS’ notes, makes her the illest ‘songstress’ in the biz who, with one heart-chilling vocal ripple, turns ‘Baby, maybe we shouldn’t’ into ‘OoO baby, YES, right there’ in the bedroom while reigning as Hip-Hop’s ‘Heartfelt Hook’ Queen (Hi-Tek “Music For Life”/Fabolous “Stay”/Wale “Diary”)/R&B/Soul’s underrated golden pen (Michael Jackson “Butterflies”/Alicia Keys “Go Ahead”/Jazmine Sullivan “Music (All I Need)” …

Fellas, don’t trip, you know you luh Marsha’s panty-wetting, soul-stirring ways and currently have 11-17 of her songs sprinkled throughout your personal ‘seductive slow-burn mix’ (#1 Floetry “Imagination”/#2 Marsha & Jamie “Freak’N Me”/#3 Floetry “Say Yes”) …It’s cool, we ALL do, just like the ladies, who now expect to hear two or three Marsha jams between every few Jodeci, Kellz, Maxwell, Dream & Trey Songz..etc.. baby makers on our playlists …

…Um, YES, Marsha’s definitely THE TRUTH and one of three, maybe four, high-profile vocalists who truly ‘touch me’ whenever they sing, hum, chant or even speak. *Sigh* Yea, I admit it: Marsha plucked the hell outta my heartstrings the first time I watched Floetry’s Floacism Live like no other major artist I’ve ever seen perform live. *Nods* True story.

However, despite Floetry’s global mega-success, Floacism would be the doomed duo’s first, and last, live DVD before Marsha ditched her ‘singin’ chick from Floetry’-image,’ inked a solo deal with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath imprint and later re-emerged as the #1 contender for the struggling genre’s oft-disputed crown with Yours Truly (produced entirely by TheRealFocus), which — despite its ‘free mixtape’ status — shines as one the Top-5 R&B/Soul albums of the past several years mainly due to it’s edgy, yet masterfully conceived soundscapes (See: “Cloud 9”), stunning vocal arrangements (See: “Start…Finish”) and deeply-rooted emotional core (See: “Some Type Of Way”) …

(Yours Truly —>http://sharebee.com/b72516e7. You’re F’N welcome.  )

At this point, every one of you irksome Melanie Fiona over-hypesters can GO thaaat a’waaay. Damn. OK. I GET it. Melanie’s dope, she’s amazing, yes, she’s a ‘breaf of fresh air.’ But she’s NO Marsha and her flawed debut album The Bridge is definitely NO Yours Truly. Sorry. Seriously, let it go, and realize that 2010 belongs to Aftermath’s newly-minted H.B.I.C. who’s finally slated to release her solo debut album and officially claim a R&B/Soul crown that some believe belongs to: Jazzy..err, maybe Jill, others: Chrisette, Adele or  Alicia and Team:Melanie: well, Melanie.

…Better yet, it doesn’t even matter who your crownee is because we all know who we turn to when we need (Fellas): ‘I’m sorry, I can’t, I have a man and we in luhhh’ to turn into ‘Fuhhh dat N-AAAA, he cheatin’ ent’tee-way, I got condoms in mah purse *Here*’ or (Ladies): ‘Nawl, baby, I aint goin’ down durrr, Nah uh, NOPE’ to turn into ‘Damn, baby, you taste just like candy, like skrawberries, mmmm like some choc’late covered skittles … nam-nam-nam’ …Ha, stop trippin.’ Marsha’s the illest breathin.’ Thank you. Goodnite.

9^th Wonder: The Talented Mr. ‘Wondra.’

Patrick Douthit used to ‘make beats’ (…with Fruity Loops FL Studio) inside his very own recording studio..err, N.C. Central dorm room like many of the thirsty ‘I’m-Da-Next-Kanye’-clones in my ’ole H.U. dorm (…a few doors down from the artsy ‘shirt designers’ and a floor above the business-minded ‘party promoters’…) who wasted the ‘best years of their lives’ ‘trying’ to do what HE had already done once fellow classmates Phonte Coleman and Thomas Jones blessed his beautifully Soul-bejazzled Hip-Hop backdrops: Produce a CLASSIC Hip-Hop record.

From there, Patrick + Thomas + Phonte formed the new-schoolish, Tribe Called Quest-esque underground Hip-Hop trio ‘Little Brother’ (…and the Hip-Hop collective The Justus League…) before officially releasing their delightfully organic, semi-dorm produced opus The Listening (ABB Records), which, to me, ranks as one of the Top-20 Hip-Hop records of our musically-ravaged ‘lost generation’ …

(Legendary producer Pete Rock: ‘The Listening kinda brings me back to the days of when the 90’s was poppin.’ It’s more realistic than what I’m hearing today and sounds like these guys put a lot of work into it. I love this album. Classic.’)

Please. Disagree. I dare you… or simply just nod and smile because you, like me, could not stop nodding to the critically-adored Indie triumph that formally introduced Hip-Hop heads to the game’s master Soul samplist/‘Oldie-But-Goodie’ cratesmith/Midas-touched MP maestro (now) known as Patrick Douthit 9^th Wonder aka ‘Ninff Wondra’ who flips, chops & loops the record-crackled soundtracks of our parent’s ‘Soul Glo’-doused ‘wonder years’ better than any other mainstream/underground ‘Soul-sampling’ producer/beatmaker/beat-putterer-togetherer in today’s sample-smacked industry …

Sorry. ‘Ninff’ is iller than your favorite ‘producer’ and boasts the sickest ‘Big Louffa’ V. (See: Median “Comfortable”)/Stylistics (See: Little Brother “Shorty on the Lookout”) samples I’ve ever heard alongside a seemingly never-ending catalogue of genius, how-the-hell-did-he…?!-sample loops like:  A) Curtis Mayfield’s “Back Against The Wall” (Rapper Big Pooh “Scars”) B) Pleasure’s “Reality” (De La Soul “Church”) and C) Billy Paul’s “Word Gets Around” (MURS “Freak These Tales”) that only he (…and maybe DOOM, but I digress…) could’ve weaved into timeless undie-Hip-Hop bangers …

Me? …yea, I’m a Team: ‘Ninff’-ster whose soul blushes whenever his ‘dusty-fingered’ soulscapes bang through my speakers. But, uh, who isn’t?! …other than the stone-cold ‘Ninnff haters’ who blib-blab about the producer’s familiar drum kicks until they’re Smurf-blue in the face instead of celebrating the N.C.-born & raised dorm rat-turnt-mainstream-dabbling-producer with Destiny’s Child (“Is She The Reason”), Hov (“Threat”) & MJB (“Good Woman Down”) production credits waving at ‘them’ from the top of his resume … *Hi Haters* …

…Ha, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t hate on a world-renown producer currently instructing a production-related course (“Sampling Soul”) at a prestigious institution (Duke U.) based on the very thing that his ‘beat haters’ HATE on … But, uh, that’s just ME …what the hell do I know?! … *Kanye shrug*

Eric Roberson: R&B/Soul’s Most Known Unknown.

Eric Roberson could step into your house TO-DAY and sing the ‘SMOOV’est song you’ve never heard — off the dome — about the stack of ‘ain’t-gon’-be-paid’ bills on your living room table, few days old ‘spasghetti’-stained dishes in your kitchen sink and illegal cable connection ‘hidden’ behind your 46’’ plasma while you nodded to his every word — thoroughly intrigued and deeply ashamed — wondering how you, a ‘Soul head,’ could say: Huh, Eric Who?! whenever fellow Soul heads gushed about the undisputed, severely underrated (…often overlooked and musically unappreciated…) face of the Indie-Soul/progressive Nu-Soul musical movement …

As much as I dig Dwele, ‘Radio’ Raheem D., Ant Hamilton, Ant David & LL Cool Jesse B., there’s no way I’d rock with any of them over the shea-buttery, baby’s-booteez-cheeks-‘smoov’-voiced singer/songwriter/producer who, in my ‘humble’ opinion, is the dopest pure Soul sanga in the game with a platinum pen (Dwele “Hold On”/Vivian Green “Love Rollercoaster”/Musiq “Previous Cats”) + a golden collection of timeless gems spread across his latest (near classic) albums …Left (See: “Been In Love” Feat. Phonte) & Music Fan First (See: “The Newness”), earlier work The Vault 1.5 (See: “Couldn’t Hear Me” & The Appetizer (See: “N2U” Feat. Marsha) and rewind-worthy collabs (See: J. Rawls “Pleasure & Pain”) …

Believe me, there’s no one (…other than *Maxwell…) touching ‘Erro’ (Yea, OK, his mama named him Eric, but his fans — his REAL fans — call him ‘Erro’) — Soul’s most known unknown — who gives one of the dopest live (Soul) shows you’ll ever experience (…especially for $17-$20) …or attempt to experience, if you’re able to beat the legions of fanatical Erro-heads to the venue for his (usually) sold out, ultra-packed, oft-improv’d shows (Erro: ‘What do ya’ll want me to sing about?!’ … Crowd: ‘Sexy shoulder blades, pretty ankle bones and Gummi Bears!’ … Erro: ‘OK, cool, let’s do it …’ *kills it*) …

Having met and vibed with Jersey’s-own Eric Roberson, I can honestly say he’s one of the coolest + humblest ‘Da-Otha H.U.’grads artists I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He’s also an iller freestylist than 99% of ‘working rappers’ today and a warm-spirited crowd pleaser who adores his deeply-supportive fans. Clearly, at this stage of the game, there’s no excuse for any ‘music lover,’ let alone ‘music head,’ to say: WHO? when asked about ‘Erro’ or his latest album Music Fan First — one of ’09’s best. Seriously, stop moving left and get right… or, just get familiar. ‘Erro’ IS Soul. He ain’t goin’ NOwhere …

Jaspects: Revenge of the Polkadotted Band Geekz.

The Jaspects were obviously the geeky cool cats on campus (Morehouse) who rocked Polo blazers & pastel-colored bowties to their early classes because they were too fresh, talented and popular on the yard to care that it was 98 degrees outside — Yea, I’d say T. Brown (Keys/Music director), J.C. Sowells (Bass), “HC3” (Drums), “Spacey” Dugger (Tenor-Sax), Stagolee (Alto-Sax) and J. E. King (Trumpet) were the coolest cuttas at camp — the quirkily Jazzmatazzed, Dungeon Fam-inspired ‘so fresh & so cleandeds’ — who Hip-Bopped light years ‘outside the box’ where they perfected their incredibly Cosmo-Funk’d-Electro-Soul-infused brand of socially conscious mood music that currently has ATLiens + music-loving Earthlings throwin’ both of their ‘J’s’ up — HIGH— into the skies …

Not much is known about ‘polkadotted stripes’ or their deep space planet of origin but it’s clear they were speckled all over the genre-bending sextet’s fourth (’05 In ‘House’ Sessions/’06 Broadcasting The Definition/’07 Double Conciousness*Must-Have*) word-of-mouf-hyped indie-release aptly entitled The Polkadotted Stripe, which absolutely ROCKS as an intergalactoSoul-synthed voyage into the musical ‘unknown’ that’s just as creatively intoxicating as it is space-Jazz’d, funk-drunk and instrumentally impeccable…

…And NO, I. Can’t. STOP. Banging. This. Album. It’s just that artistically ‘different’ in the dopest possible way and my tentative selection as 2009’s ‘Album of the Year’ (…with the illest breakdown of the year (See: “Polkadotted Stripe”) …

Before The Polkadotted Stripe, I would’ve helped Hov pine-box Auto-Tune FOR FREE until the Jaspects KILLED “Unifunk” & “Polkadotted Stripe” (My favorite two songs of the year) with the cringe-worthy ‘robo-croon’ effect that actually enhanced the most memorable tracks on the album. Naturally, there will be those who won’t care for their ambitious Auto-Tune dabbling, but most open-minded music heads will, while wondering why chronic vocoderists with major label homes like Ron Browz have NO clue how to prop-er-ly use the acclaimed pitch-correction software that the Jaspects utilized so masterfully without appearing desperate for mainstream attention …

But, then again, the Jaspects are TRUE musicians with a deep appreciation for the musical arts that comes across during their enjoyably frenetic live shows where they bust moves, rock mics and play their own instruments for ‘good music’-feenin’  crowds across the nation. Sadly, 8 out of every 10.5 ‘music heads’ have no idea who the Jaspects are, what they are or why they should even care about a few random “Morehouse Men” with talent & a dream which is why I’m now formally introducing them to you, them and anyone who claims there’s no bands like them patiently waiting to be discovered.

I say: GET FAMILIAR. And then, when you finally do, crank your Jaspects’ record to ele’ben and throw your ‘J’s’ up — HIGH — into the skies.

*By the way, I’m in LOVE with Chantae Cann’s voice. YES, she’s the up-and-coming soulstress who murders the breakdown on “Polkadotted Stripe” …She’s also featured on the absolutely stunning “Find My Way To Love” … Trust me. She’s official.

Nicolay: The Re-Birth of Nu-Cool

When Netherlander Nicolay ‘connected’ with N.C. upstart Phonte on the innanet (okayplayer.com) nearly a decade ago, he had never met the uber-talented rappa-sanga before sending him a soulfully-infectious collection of head-nodders to write to, croon over and send back to be mastered until they = (Phonte + Nicolay) = ‘Foreign Exchange’ joined together to promote the finished product: 2004’s hidden jewel Connected — one of the dopest full-length infusions of Hip-Hop/Nu-Soul/R&B to ever be released (…and subsequently ignored by the mainstream’s musical gate keepers…)

…Nevertheless, new-age Soul heads pledged allegiance to Nicolay’s ‘smooved’-out synths/delectable melodies that pushed Connected into cult classic status while setting the tone for the Euro-wonder’s successful solo ventures Time:Line & Here (See: “I Love The Way You Love”(Feat. D. Brock), “Tight Eyes” (Feat. The Luv Bugz & Oh No) & “My Story” (Feat. Sy Smith & Kay) and 2008’s unforgettable re-connection with Phonte (Foreign Exchange’s) Leave It All Behind which cemented ‘Nicolay’ as the ‘smoovest’ beatmaker/composer in the game not named Dwele, J. Rawls or Zo! (respectfully) …

…Although Nicolay’s virtually unknown to everyday ‘music heads’ currently indulging in faux-(Nu)-Soul headlined by confused ‘soul artists’ like Jaz ‘The Caw Winduh Busta’ Sullivan, there’s no denying his undying commitment to preserving the actual SOUL in Soul music both inside the studio and on the road with Foreign Exchange — the most successful Soul-collective in today’s soul-starved industry… (Foreign Exchange > Platinum Pied Pipers) …

…Maybe now, after reading this, you’ll weave through the post-Foreign Exchange show mob to take a few pics with the lesser-known Nicolay rather than Phonte, who’s usually surrounded by overly-aggressive male/female groupies — Yep, just look for the tall, lanky white dude in the corner by the keyboards — He’s usually the coolest cat in the room …

Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham: The Rise & Fall… & Rise? of Drizzy F. Baby.

Never has a MEGA-hyped underground sensation nobody gone from being the dopest unsigned hypester on the globe to the dopiest P.R. FAILure in the galaxy in a mere matter of months… err, that is… until Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham aka Canada’s great lite-brite hype rocketed into superstardom with his globally-droOled-over ‘mixtalbum’ So Far Gone — that spawned two consecutive ‘Song of the Year’ candidates “Best I Ever Had” & “Successful” — before plummeting into uberwhackdom when he:

A) performed his ultra-explicit misogo-smash ‘Every Girl’ in a wheelchair — for a record-setting BET Awards viewing audience — with a slew of underaged ‘hypegirls’ (…aka Weezy’s daughter & friends) on-stage … (Drake on BET Awards debacle: “It was just timed very poorly and it definitely wasn’t planned like that” … “To anyone who was offended, my personal apologies; it wasn’t intended to offend anybody”) *Cue: Homer: ‘D’oh!’*

B) starred in a skank-juice splattered video for his chart-smashing single “Best I Ever Had” that he later apologized to his female fans for releasing …(Drake on soft-pornish music video debacle: “I guess one thing I didn’t consider is what the song personally means to a lot of women” … “To those women, I apologize. I do apologize. My intention wasn’t to put anyone down. It was to make them laugh. I wanted people to see something visually different.”) *Cue: Homer: ‘D’oh!’*

C) crumpled into a pathetic, tragedy-pinched chumpling on-stage during the America’s Most Wanted Music Festival (Feat. Weezy, Jeezy & Soulja Boy) at the height of his meteoric ascension into the Hip-Pop stratosphere despite being told by Doctors NOT to perform on his shredded ACL … (Drake on stage collapse debacle: “I blacked out and really forgot I was injured. I was just so full of adrenaline, so happy to be there, it kind of set in for me”) *Cue: Ed Lover: ‘C’Mon Son!’*

D) signed his soul over to an insanely impregnatious, sizzurp-sloshing hobgoblin named Dwayne Carter who consistently placed him in the worst possible situations at the worst possible times while slowly siphoning away his mega-hype to fuel his own solar system-sized ego/insatiable craving for mainstream publicity … *Cue: Super Mario Death Ditty*: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHJSZSRSljk

…And somehow, these events occurred only weeks after the lyrically dexteritous uber-MC (…“I’ma rapper-turnt-singer and you can tell that he smoke/I don’t need no vocal cords/All I hit is C-Notes/N.E.R.D. flow, I spaz if I’m provoked/I’m about to change the F@#$# game/Pass the remote…”)/melody hummer (See: “Lust For Life”) emerged from the underground as the *gasp* FUTURE of Hip-Hop’s future + second-coming of (Golden-Era Hova) + (Pre-Bad Boy Biggie) + (Post-9 bullet-50 (Cent) …

…Dammit, ‘Drizzy’ Drake was Neo (the one), Luke Skywalker (the chosen one) & Bruce LeRoy (the one + ‘the glow’) com-bined to many mainstream Hip-Hop consumers who had never heard of the ex-child TV star until Weezy publicly co-signed him as the next, best HIM…

…But REAL-Hip-Hoppers?! …We ‘been known’ Aubrey, and wept the day he broke up with Hip-Hop to pledge allegiance to the house that Weezy baby daddy built… Yea, ‘Drizzy’ was Hip-Hop’s most-recent #1 Draft Pick and brought ‘hope’ to Hip-Hop, but his Kanye-esque, underdog-allure was gone; He was no longer the ‘misunderestimated’ Hip-Hop hybrid that murdered every (dope) track (9^th Wonder, Slakah..etc..) he breathed on (‘…My reality is brighter than your dreams are/I got your dream girl ridin’ in your dream car…”) with a who’s who of talented somewhat known/underground MC/vocalists (Phonte, Dwele, Elzhi, Kardinall Offishall..etc..)

..NOPE, Drake was now Drizzy F. Baby — another syrupy Hip-POPpist with a nauseating Auto-Tune fetish, cringe-worthy ‘super-crew’ (Young Money) and steadily declining non-POP following …

…However, in spite of my better judgment, I’ll overlook Aubrey’s post-Weezy-wrecked career path to focus solely on his Hip-Hop intangibles/lyrical prowess/triple threat appeal effortlessly displayed throughout his older mixtapes Comeback Season/Room For Improvement when his collabs with Little Brother “Don’t You Have A Man”/ “Think Good Thoughts” and Dwele “Deceiving” slowly seeped into my cerebral (Hip-Hop) subconciousness …

… Come Feb. 14, 2010, we’ll all (officially) know where Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham stands as an artist, an MC and a serious triple threat … Where will YOU be when Thank Me Later drops?!? …

Wale: DMV Dreamin’

He’s ‘not the next Biggie… he’s not the next Jay… he’s not the next Nas… he’s the first Wale’ — a beat murking punch-line ripper who’s DESPISED by ‘Hipster Haters’ and beloved by progressive Hip-Hopsters who swear by the scatterbrainded spitsmith’s mambo sauce-dipped bars that easily catapulted him into Hip-Hop’s mainstream/homes of POP-diseased suburbanites who had never banged ‘Go-Go’ until “Pretty Girls” beat its feet through their Bose stereo systems …

…Say what you want about the ultra-cocky (‘…I spit nasty/My tongue need a rubber homes…’), sports fanatical (‘…I’m just payin’ homage/If I ain’t strive to be Sean (Carter)..I’d..End..Up..like KiJana…’) DMV-reppin’ young’n and his psycho-frenetic ‘Waco’ flow… (but) dude’s next-level potential is undeniable like his firm grasp on a D.C. Hip-Hop movement that nearly spiraled into irrelevancy (…like the Redskins/Wizards…) before he dropped the classic Seinfeld-themed Mixtape About Nothing marking the (official) beginning of Wale’s come-up as the first major rap act to rep our nation’s capital (…or greater DM minus V area) on wax…

…And please, don’t spam me, questioning me about Wale’s inclusion in this blog until you’ve thoroughly digested the Mixtape About Nothing/(9^th Wonder collab) Back to the Feature/100 Miles & Running and listened closely to his “Hacksaw Jim Duggan”/“2^nd Time Around”/“Rediscover Me” verses that served as fitting preludes to his major record deal with Mark Ronson’s Allido records/Interscope and upcoming debut album Attention: Deficit that dropped on Nov. 10 …

…Whether you love Wale Folaren… or hate the DMV-MC…you’ll always remember his name …Hell, he says it every few bars … (My name Wale… dutta da .. dutta da .. dutta da dee … My name Wale… Haaa ) … Attention: Deficit … In MOST stores NOW… COP it!

Chrisette Michele: Little Miss SunSOULshine

Chrisette Michele’s debut album I Am was everything that I never expected a Def Jam release by a Neo-Soulstress to be: nostalgic, organic and soulfully refreshing — It was truly a musical tour de force considering the storied record label’s modern infatuation with syrup-smathered POP music while shining as one of the crowning achievements of the now-defunct, although highly-successful ‘Carter Administration’ responsible for The-Dream, Jeezy, Fabo-Loso, Ne-Yo, RiRi Fierce & Officer Ricky Walrus..etc…

…As the youngest member of the mega-label’s oft-ignored ‘Def Soul’ division, Chrisette killed ’em softly with her vicious vibrato, cutesy elegance and spunky spirit that slowly, but surely nudged I Am onto most ’07 must-cop lists despite a low-key marketing approach by Hov (…and the Carter Cabinet) who eventually ‘dropped the label’ that Ricky & Russy built to focus on his own Roc Nation imprint/solo ventures …

At that point, Chrisette tumbled to the bottom of the label’s star-studded roster where she was later watered down + repackaged as a ‘Contemporary R&B/Soul’ artist by L.A. G’Reid who probably water-boarded the helpless soulstess until she chirped half-hearted, vibrato-free vocals over Ne-Yo’s redundant backdrops that encompassed her overly-formulaic sophomore album Epiphany — an utterly disappointing mish mash of B-sides/throwaway tracks with no heart, substance or purpose for even being recorded…

Naturally, Team: Chrisette swooned over the soul-stripped, commercially-appealing Epiphany — which debuted at #1 on the charts (83K sold) — while I slept through the lifeless montage of songs during my desperate attempts to give it a third, fourth or fifth listen before officially .. A) launching my ‘FREE Chrisette Michele from Def Jam NOW campaign’  .. B) pretending that Epiphany never really dropped, or was somehow shelved indefinitely .. C) adding Chrisette to my ‘confused soul sangas’ list with Jazmine Sullivan, Musiq, Raheem D., Robin Thicke and Ledisi …

…But, then again, the Grammy-winning N.Y.-native is only 26 and steadily developing as a young (newish) artist who’s widely-recognized by many, including me, as one of the hottest new-age soulstresses in the game which is why I’ve blessed her with a  golden *DO-OVER* ticket for Epiphany and anything Epiphany-related… *Hands Chrisette golden ticket*

…At the end of the day, she’s a pure Soul singer who would SHINE on a niche label like Hidden Beach Records known for molding young soul artists into globally-adored superstars (Jill Scott) without stripping them of their artistic integrity…*deep sigh* … Hopefully, she’ll realize this sooner, before later, and rips her burgeoning career from L.A. G’Reid’s clutches before he locks her in the studio with Ne-Yo (again) to record another anti-Soul record featuring RiRi yodel-libs, a Brutha duet (YES! Brutha = Def Jam) & a Ricky Walrus/Jeremih collab… Please Chrisette, MOVE (…THE HELL…) on… Def Jam doesn’t luhhh you, and never EV-ER will …

DOOM: The Madness Behind The Mask.

The masked wiggity-wacko formerly known as Daniel Dumile probably scarfed down hearty globs of caweepy crawluhs + Elmer’s glue + melted crayon sauce as a pooty-pants’d mini-McDOOMling before morphing into the grimy McSlimy stoOpa-producer/MC known as ‘DOOM’ — the dopest, most gibberish-spittin’-est (‘…Goony goo-goo loony koo-koo like Gary Gnu off New Zoo Review/But who knew the mask had a loose screw?/Hell could hardly tell/Had to tighten it up like the Drells and Archie Bell…’) whack-job dwelling in the grime-smeared nether-regions of underground Hip-Hop…

…Err, and NO, I’ve never ever (truly) seen the slop-crusted cook-ball’s mask-cloaked face (‘…Take it from the dude who wears mask like a tarded helmet…’) even if he’s one of the Top-7 dopest beatmakers/crate diggers in the game with a hilariously nonsensical flow that’s so insanededly ridiculous that you’ll wonder if he ever stopped eating glue + crayon sauce-coated insects (‘…Wylin,’ get me every red penny/Sold a lonely only child a imaginary enemy…’)

*smh* …Yeaaa, uhh, I’d say DOOM (M.F. Doom = Viktor Von Doom = KMD’s Zev Love X) is utterly insane, but there’s no denying his incredible ear for obscure, often unfindable Soul/Rock/Pop samples (Ex: Cortex “Huit Octobre 1971,” See: “One Beer”/Waldir Calmon “Airport Love Theme, See: “Curls”) featured on conceptually clever albums like the cooky, cuisine-crazed Mmm…Food? (See: “Hoe Cakes” = Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” peppered with JJ Fad “SUPAs” + DOOM vocals… WHAT?!) or the diabolically soul-dusted Madlib-collab (DOOM + Madlib = Madvillain) Madvillainy (See: “Fancy Clown”)…

For now, DOOM thrives as a widely-ignored enigma whose latest indie-released gem Back Like That out-sold Mims’ heavily-promoted album Guilt on the ‘strenf’ of his major cult following that exploded once savvy Hip-Hoppers realized (that) he was scoring the audibly-deranged Adult Swim cartoon series … Yea, OK, I know, DOOM will never be for everyone but HE IS for those serious music lovers desperately seeking an audibly-potent dose of Top-40/sing-along-songy escapism… It’s true: We ALL wear masks (Whatchu know ’bout Paul Lawrence Dunbar?!) like DOOM during our everyday walks of life. Embrace it. After all, DOOM does …

Jazmine Sullivan: The FUTURE of R&B/Soul?! Really?!

I RE-fuse to GO IN on the laziest, most anti-successfo underachiever in R&B Jazmine Sullivan, yet again, and offer my apologies to the Soul-smiting Soul-smitten sanga, her wretched wonderful stylist and bumbaclot brilliant manager for (editorially) smashing well-deserved undeserved holes into their woefully-unsuccessful wonderfully-successful Soul&B movement like the tint-cloaked windshields that she inspired crazed ex-lovers to shatter into a zillion jagged pieces …

…Hopefully, Jazzy & her atrocious amazing team will forgive me for criticizing her nowhere-bound career and realize that she is, and will always be, one of the biggest busts of my generation my musical muse whose beautifully soul-kissed pipes are the ONLY reason why she’s included in this blog. exquisite R&B transcendence solidified her spot in this blog… For those of you who missed my VERY appropriate inappropriate letter to the heartstring plucking generic-song singer vocalist, here it is I’d rather you never read it:

Link: http://www.emqtv.com/emq/news/122/ARTICLE/1389/2009-10-06.html

Once again, I sincerely warn you to fire your mama as your Manager, hire a new stylist who doesn’t squeeze you into smedium outfits and demand that your label  remove Missy from your recording sessions before you’re career ends before it ever really started. apologize for my damn good career advice disparaging remarks and wish Jazmine ‘Caw Winduh Busta’ Sullivan much success in her future job search/background singing career. endeavors …

Alejandro. The GREAT

Twitter: http://twitter.com/AlejandroDaGr8

This has been another Alejandro presentation.

“Do you ask a Dolphin how it swims, or an eagle how it flies … That’s right you don’t! Because that’s what they were made to do!” — Willy Wonka

Dammit DEAR Jazzy, I’m officially DONE with your uber-talented, soul-singing azz and can’t believe you’re still a new artist a year after dropping a #1 club banger as a, well, new artist …

…And YES, I said it Cotton FACE, A NEW ARTIST… who remains virtually unknown to the masses and a question mark-faced mystery to music heads like myself who wouldn’t recognize you if you posed in front of your own life-sized billboard while singing “Lions, Tigers & Bears.”

Seriously, who the F@#$ is your manager and why are they still pretending to manage YOU?! …I mean DAMN, did you even sign a legit record deal where J Records agreed to promote you at some point during your lifetime… And if you did, was it scribbled in orange crayon or doodled with a ‘Mortimer Ichabod’ marker?! …

…Yeaaaa OK, I know, Missy McChubbs promised that ‘things’ would get better before they grew worst, but that was probably after the irrelevant track-wrecker used you to stay relevant by masquerading as your mentor in order to scream “Yes, I’m really this desperate” over your hottest records (…that she supposedly ‘produced’) with your reggae-tinged chart smasher “Need U Bad” aka your dopest record to date being the most victimized …

Believe me Jazzy, you were R&B/Soul’s #1 Draft Pick and definitely would’ve stolen at least one of Adele’s coveted Grammy’s if J Records would’ve allowed you to embrace your Philly roots instead of (ramming a loaded 4-5 into your temple and…) forcing you to record that whack azz McFAILure (…with extra FAIL sauce) Fearless along with the nearly career-murdering femme-failure “Bust Your Windows.”

Err, wait, did you hear that?! …Uh, yeaaaa…defffff-initely was RiRi Fierce sucking the life out of the “Run This Town” hook that begged for your soul-punishing vocals which, to me, are a close fourth to J. Hud’s, J-I-LL’s and Marsha’s respectively…

Face it Jaz Marie, you’re an R&B tragedy waiting to happen and will find yourself singing back-up for Jill Scott if you don’t 8-6 your manager, dismiss your stylist, request to be released from your POP-obsessed label, drop a LIVE album and consistently attach yourself to major Tours instead of indulging in extended beauty siestas while vocally-inept starlets like Keri, CiCi and RiRi cash hefty checks that should’ve been deposited in YOUR bank account…

But NOPE, you’d rather drop generic anti-anthems like ‘Dream Big’ while rotting in front of the boob tube with your hands buried in the Kettle-cooked chip bag and star in your own corny azz Cotton commercials without ever demanding the game’s full and undivided attention like Mary, Erykah, India, Jill, Alicia, Lauryn and Keyshia were able to do as famished up-and-coming soulstresses …

Think about it, every one of those mega-stars dropped classic debut records that earned platinum plaques while you rise & shine every afternoon with a tragically-flawed debut album on your resume that probably won’t even go Gold (447K sold to date)…And please, dead this ‘…but, it’s a Recession…’ bullll shieeet because J. Hud, Jamie, Bey and Keyshia…etc… still managed to move over 800K records during a dead period when NO ONE was buying records …

…*Heavy Sigh*…but then again, I’ll understand if you don’t respond to this letter and continue to allow your manager to ignore texts/e-mails/messages from the producers of The View/Ellen/Regis & Kelly/Oprah/Tonite Show…etc.., neglect major mag editors interested in giving you the cover and shoot down movie roles for music-themed films …

…Ha, it’s cool though…why the hell would you want to follow in Lauryn Hill’s footsteps anyway…you know, the chick you’re always foolishly compared to… After all, she did blow after starring in Sister Act II… and is currently recognized as a living legend…err, or used to be… *shrugs* …

…Hell, if Jennifer Hudson can fall out of the sky and win an Oscar and Fantasia can shine on Broadway, then I know you have the ability to be more than just some uber-talented underachiever whose been nominated for 8 music-related Awards (…including Grammy’s) and only walked away with 2 from the… *sigh* …BET Awards …Err, pardon my sky high standards, but in my eyes, that’s a ’got dayum shame!

So there, my pen finally shed the last of its tears on this pad, but I can only hope that my words motivate you to detach your body from your marshmallow soft Queen B. tomorrow (…before noon) and dedicate yourself to becoming the illest soulstress in the game that we all thought you would be by now (…Err, and should be ya damn slacktress!) … And with that said, I wish you much success …

Love,

Alejandro Ford

http://twitter.com/AlejandroDaGr8

P.S.

Don’t ever let me see you singing your heart out for another globally-ignored artist like Ace Hood again. Thank you.

This has been another Alejandro presentation.

… I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Jazmine Sullivan’s WORST readily available photo … … err, and did I mention that her toes are longer than her shoes?! … smh … Yeaa Yeaaa, we know Jazzy, you haaaaad to have those shoes even if they were a half-size too small … gotcha

… I’m not scareddddd of liiiiiiiiiiiiions, Tiiiiiiiiiiiiigers and Beaaaaaaaaaars … and shagggggy weaaaaave and baggyyyyy tightttttts (see below) …

J. Sulli lookin’ like the fifth Ghostbuster …

smh … damn Jazzy … those tights are obviously not tight … Hell, they’re baggy … and have a kangaroo pouch in the front …

…Coooooottooooon … the fabric of our livessssssss … *PAUSE* … I truly believe that this extended jingle is hotter than most of the songs on her album …

… It’s OK… I believe in you Jazzy … and pray that you’ll take control of your career …

Whitney Houston is no longer shouting out her love for the infamous Bobby Brown in courtrooms; instead, she’s blowing out lyrical melodies on her much-anticipated album, “I Look to You.”

Do not call it a comeback because she’s been here for years. Since her last album six years ago, Houston’s personal tragedies have flooded headlines and now she’s reclaiming her throne as an untouched talented songstress.  ImageThe album, which is half good, half forgettable, but never lame, hit stores yesterday. All 11 tracks are streaming live on whitneyhouston.com. Although the singer looks tired on the album’s cover, she sings of tackling her demons with a refreshing clarity.

Her highs aren’t quite as high anymore and that famous throaty low is now an awkward drag queen husky.

On the first single, “Million Dollar Bill,” produced by Swizz Beatz, Houston lets it all hang out without overbearing digital trickery. It is a surprising moment that reminds the listener that in spite all of her tabloid trappings; she’s still a fabulous singer with stellar control and phrasing.

The up-tempo, joyful track about love is arguably one of the most energetic songs Houston has ever done. “Million Dollar Bill” has an amazing bass line and almost recalls the late Michael Jackson in “Off The Wall” with catchy hook, “you make me feel like a million dollar bill.” Her vocals are strong and it doesn’t appear as if she’s trying to compete with teenagers.

Although the album’s second half loses its catch, there are nice singles to be discovered. Stargate, the Norwegian producers that made Beyonce’s, “Irreplaceable” a smash, produced the mid-tempo, “Call You Tonight.” This track is fun and mature and a song everyone can relate to.

Heavily produced, it was sometimes difficult to adjust to hearing a pure vocalist like Houston sing on top of such a heavily produced track.  “Call You Tonight” is reminiscent of one of the better tracks from 2002’s, “Just Whitney.”

In the R. Kelly produced, “Salute,” Houston is saying goodbye to a former lover who has done her wrong, and she’s letting go with no anger. She confidently and bolds serenades, “I salute you” in this strictly R&B track. Could Houston be referring to the troublesome Bobby Brown? Who’s to say?

Houston delivers meaningful lyrics and worked with the best in the music industry to produce a fresh album that will make her a positive household name.

Houston tried a few comeback albums during her troubled times, but there was always a level of insincerity and false confidence to each. Something was wrong, and fans knew it. This album is far more humble and confident.

Compared to all of the modern-day studio singers that need to be digitally enhanced to sell a record, it is nice to have a “real” singer re-surface.

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KeJuana Stanley writes for The Famuan, the Florida A&M University student newspaper, which originally published this article.

I don’t give two C(ha)’Mon kicks and a crotch clutch what they say about Michael Joseph Jackson—he was the BEST to EVER do it—and moonwalked through the pearly gates as the most swagger-jacked, criminally-imitated, obsessively-sampled entertainer in the history of beats, rhymes and life.

To THEM, Mike Jack was a pathetic pedophiliac with freakish tendencies and a skeleton-stifled closet, but to his true fans, like myself, he was an incredible performer/singer/songwriter, platinum-hearted philanthropist and transcendent trendsetter who globally branded himself, his music, his movement, like no other major artist we’ve ever seen, or will ever see, during our lifetime.

Even though he was blessed with his wings much too soon (well, at least in my eyes), he left us with a ½ century’s worth of golden memories that started for me in the corner of Peaches on 163^rd St. in Miami where I placed my ashy hands on the only white cassette tape to rumble in my dust-bitten boom box for the next several months.

The coke-white cassette? Mike’s Thriller, which, to me, still reigns as the dopest record of our musically-starved generation (with one of the coolest covers) due to its classic videos (Errrbody loved “Thriller” BUT “Beat It” featured ‘Eddie Torres’ (Michael DeLorenzo) before he was everyone’s favorite Latino detective..who knew?), timeless anthems and chart-topping smashes conceived from its very classics (SWV’s “Right Here (Remix),” Brandy & Monica’s “The Boy is Mine” & Kanye’s “Good Life”).

And for those reasons alone, I’ve always sided with Thriller over the Disco-dipped collection of rug cutters Off the Wall that rocked my cardio beat box toward the end of Mike’s lite-jheri & skinny jeans era well into his brite-er skinded years when he killed ’em in stunna shades & golden shin guards (with adhesive strip-speckled fingers) during his unprecedented Bad campaign (boasting the illest cinematic feature to never be theatrically released (in the states): Michael Jackson: Moonwalker.

Face it, you don’t truly Stan for Mike if you A) haven’t re-watched Moonwalker until the VHS tape crumbled inside the VCR B) never battled imaginary claymated creatures, move-by-move, in the mirror or C) refused to risk your life attempting the “Smooth Criminal” ‘Lean’ because you swore it was fake (when ‘we’ all knew it was REAL. Ha.)

At the time, Moonwalker was untouchable, an instant classic, while serving as a brilliant prelude to the conceptually-flawless Bad album that it promoted with epic music videos of the album’s dopest records. Genius. (I admit it. I didn’t know Mike was asking ‘Annie if she was OK’ (“Smooth Criminal”) until I saw Moonwalker).

With Bad, Mike effortlessly kicked in the door to the ’90s with moto-chained leather biker-boots (with heels), a vicious wet-n-wavy (with an Elvis-style curly-swirl lick) and an edgier, boundary-smashing sound that solidified the colossally-successful Grammy-winning release as the only album to ever feature five #1 singles (with “Man in the Mirror” being one of my All-Time faves, with one the greatest breakdowns ever. See: 3:51 mark).

But, then again, there were a few occasions when Mike had me feelin’ myself (literally, HEEE!)—thinkin’ that I, too, was ‘Bad’ until my mama throat-chopped me back to reality and hid my stereo under her bed. I mean, it was cool though because I knew she actually loved me whenever she gave me a few dollars (from her tithe & offering envelope) to play the Moonwalker arcade game. Whether I leveled-up or lost never mattered, I just wanted to press [Dance] and watch Mike do God’s work on the screen, with me dancing along.  *JerMajesty shrug*

While I loved the Moonwalker arcade game and pledged allegiance to the film, nothing ever touched Captain EO, which, based on my yearly Orlando trip experiences, was thee ONLY reason why anyone went to Disney’s red-headed step child theme park: Epcot Center (yea, with the giant golf ball and world-famous food court. WHACK..yea, I know).

Sadly, Disney shut down the star-studded 3-D experience in ’94 (due to Mike’s legal woes) in favor of Honey, I Shrunk The Audience (O_O), despite Mike’s ever-growing popularity that reached its apex with the Teddy Riley-molded mega-opus Dangerous responsible for the “Remember The Time” workout plan/Black History Month Program Dance routine, globally-beloved “Heal The World” and greatest race relations anthem, maybe ever “Black Or white.”

In addition to pushing global issues to the forefront (and making Free Willy relevant), Dangerous also marked the beginning of the King of Pop’s ending, and proved to be his last monumentally-successful album before his heart-crushing fall from grace at the hands of the bloodthirsty media, heartless extortionists and his own greed-stricken family.

However, as a serious Michael Jackson fan, I refuse to remember the incomparable icon for his eccentricities and would rather celebrate the life of a human being who contributed more to the foreign community, his own people and recording industry than any other entertainer in history. And with that said, I’d like to pay my final respects to the King Michael Joseph Jackson—the BEST to EVER do it—and I highly recommend you do the same, while allowing his soul to rest in peace.

R.I.P. M.J. (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

“I will never stop helping and loving people the way Jesus said to. He said, ‘Continue to love. Always love. Bring on the children. Imitate the children. Not childish, but child-like.” — Michael Jackson.

I hate going to funerals.

The last person close to me that died was my Granddad on my Mom’s side. I was living with my uncle in Pennsylvania at the time, and we drove aaaaall the way down to Alabama for the funeral (which was a LONG over-night drive). We got there early the next morning and went straight to the church, where the rest of our family was waiting.

Once inside the church, we all got a chance to walk up to my Granddad’s casket. I got to look at him one last time, and… well, I don’t really cry at these things anymore, but I looked at him and automatically thought to myself:

“Wow – they did a LOUSY job embalming him!”

Later on during the funeral, as people went up and started talking about my Granddad, I became more and more angry with how the service was going. Every time somebody would say something, I would analyze it, pick it apart, and find fault with what they were saying.

“Hey, they didn’t mention this thing about him!”

“Wait a minute – why are they only talking about his LAST job as a Wal-mart greeter?? Where is the personal stuff??”

Even the choir that sang at the thing was pissing me off – “Why did they pick THAT song?? Why is it so darn off-key??” The happiest part for me was when the funeral part was finally over, and we were allowed to eat in the church’s cafeteria.

—

In looking back on it now, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with my Granddad’s funeral per se. Sure, there were things here and there that I wished would have happened, but ultimately, most people probably have similar feelings at funerals. Why?

BECAUSE WHEN YOU’VE KNOWN SOMEONE FOR THE MAJORITY OF YOUR LIFE, IT’S HARD TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE TAKE THAT PERSON AND TRY TO CELEBRATE THEIR LIFE WITHOUT HAVING SOME KIND OF OPINION ABOUT IT.

In looking at the B.E.T. awards yesterday, I actually ENJOYED the program. At the same time, though, I know there are many others that thought B.E.T. either (a) didn’t do enough to remember MJ, (b) didn’t remember him in the right way, or (c) felt it was too much of a rush job and not classy enough.

I understand where these feelings come from. The ENTIRE WORLD from the 1960s ’til now grew up on Michael Jackson. He was in the ENTIRE WORLD’S lives for 45 years. That’s BILLIONS of people.

What does that mean? It means that BILLIONS of people are going to have various opinions about how his life should be celebrated.

For the opinions of the (comparatively smaller) MILLIONS of people who watched the award show on Sunday, you have to take into account the fact that, when an event like this happens where many feeling of sadness abound, ANYTHING DONE WRONG AT THE SHOW COULD MAKE THEM AUTOMATICALLY HATE HOW THEY CHOSE TO HONOR HIM.

For example: you might have watched the show and loved every bit of it until near the end, when Lil’ Wayne and Drake got up on stage and dedicated “F–k Every Girl” to the Gloved one. That one act of so-called “disrespect” could automatically make you think they did a snow job on MJ’s memory, even if you liked the rest of the show up to that point.

Or, you have been jamming along to the Jackson songs, havin’ a good time… and became outraged when the censor guy started missing just about every dang curse word spoken in the last 2 hours.

Or, you might have even felt that the tributes were too hastily thrown together, and that it was wrong for B.E.T. to even try and attempt such a thing.

In any case, the point is that, even if B.E.T. had somehow managed to throw a “classier” show (which, in our society, means a dignified, i.e. WHITER tribute show – I have issues about that as well, but that’s a whole ‘nother note), the reality is they were gonna lose either way.

On the one hand, if, as a “Black” network, they didn’t overhaul their show, they would have been chastised the next day for “not doing more to honor Michael.” Heck, they’re already catching flack for not allowing Chris Brown to perform – u can imagine how much more they would have gotten if they hadn’t added the “Rock With You” light to Beyonce’s performance, or made alterations to some of the teleprompter skits!

On the other hand, they also knew that, by altering their show, they’d catch flack for not “waiting it out” or “spending time putting together a REAL concert tribute.” Either way, they were stuck, people – he died THREE DAYS before the show!

I was a theatre major in college, so I know how hard it is to put up a show in 3 months, let alone re-vamping it in 3 days! It’s similar to a woman moving into a 1-bedroom apartment… and having a baby the next day, not having known she was pregnant for 9 months (I’ve seen the TV specials, this DOES happen)! Sometimes you have to make last-minute changes when life throws you a curveball, even if the results aren’t always perfect or going to please everybody.

So I say, “KUDOS” to B.E.T. for putting on a damn good tribute. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and I’m sure the Grammys will blow them out of the water, but at least they understood he’d be the reason people would be tuning into see the show and gave it to us. Everyone’s opinion about how it went may differ, but it’s still better than the backlash they would have gotten for doing NOTHING.

-Aaron P. Taylor

P.S. But really – Lil’ Wayne giving Mike a shout-out after “F–k Every Girl” was ri-dam-diculous

So here we are AGAIN, pretending to be mentally-vexed, uber-perplexed and negatively-hexed after indulging in the seemingly never-ending Shuck-N-Jive Jubilee (…with a slight Mike Jack twist) that was last night’s wretchedly produced, directed and executed ’09 BET Awards…

Err, and YES, it was Soul Plane Part Deux-whack and yet another epic fail & ¾ by Queen Coon Koopa aka Der’tie Debbie May Lee, Stevie ‘My’s Tap Shooes Shiny Suh’ Hill and the rest of the niggerish Coon-Bots at BET who eagerly presented the sambolicious Awards spectacle on the one night when the entire galaxy tuned in to watch the first live action tribute to the legendary Michael Jackson — the greatest entertainer of our time — who tragically passed away earlier this week …

I did it since B.E.T. wouldn't....

But then again, I’m just a cold-blooded BET boycottist who refuses to side with bias bloggers, first-time blog writers and bitchASS BET loyalists/apologists who gave BET a *golden pass* due to the network’s lack of ‘time’ to somehow stitch together a basic video tribute, rousing dance number with Omarion/Breezy/Ursh and heartfelt ballad medly by Jaz Sullivan/Jennifer Hudson or Mariah Carey …I mean DAYUM, how difficult would this have been and why the F@#$ are random niglets creating excuses, rationalizations and lengthy explanations on behalf of BET?!? … Face it, this was our opportunity as African-Americans to pay tribute to q uite possibly the greatest entertainer EVER and we blew it!

And with that said, I now present you with the OFFICIAL Post-BET Awards ’09 Mini-Blog without any additives, preservatives or any of that other store-bought shyt … Just raw & uncut Alejandro… let’s get to it.

Jeremih & A Two-Pack of Slut Sacks
Either this Trey Songz reboot’s mother used to read a Bible with missing letters or his label advised him to drop the ‘A’ for a cutting-age take on the popular Biblical name… Either way, I refuse to utter this retarded azz name in public and have no idea how this dude secured a record deal. Yea, dude has a decent voice, but he’s too much of what’s wrong with R&B today which is why his two super-slutty skeet receptacles aka dancers stole ‘his’ show by splattering their fallopian tube and uteral juices all over the dance floor while contorting their wobbly azz cheeks to the ‘Birthday Sex’ beat … Uh, and the Award show hadn’t even officially started yet …

Faaaaat Mikeeeeee In A Litttttle Vesssssst
I hate to label the most tolerable member of Day26 as ‘obese’ ‘chunky’ or claim that the group’s stylist places special ‘husky’ orders just for him, but Big Mike barely fit into his slowly dying vest during the Awards and seemed to have gained every pre-MTB pound back that he was forced to lose just to make the band … In fact, he was one cholesterolic enzyme away from launching his ill-fitted vest toward the head of an unsuspecting seat-filler in the crowd … Dayum, and his skinny jeans fit like Pee Wee Herman pants … seriously Diddy, it’s time to step in …

Estelle’s Facial Gifts That Keep on Giving … and Giving
I absolutely love Estelle’s music and her quirky demeanor, but I despise her fashion sense and constantly find myself wondering when her face and teeth will stop growing.

It’s Kerrrrri Baaaaby … Uh, And?!?

Whatever feelings you may have had about Keri Hilson before the Awards probably changed after her dreadful, H.S. Talent Show style performance that ended with a dead-on-arrival MJ tribute by the vocal-chord-less ‘singer’ who shriekled, squawkled, cackled and yodeled into the mic without a heavy bass-line to cloak her less than nonexistent singing ability…Yea, she’s gorgeous (…even though she’s built like Mowgli from “The Jungle Book”) and blessed with a platinum pen, but she crumbled in front of our eyes and allowed her arch-nemesis Beyonce — who was sitting in the front row — to have the last laugh … *Point* Beyonce …

Ciara … *Ahem* Sings E2 And The Song Wasn’t Uptempo
It’s well-known that the pole scrubbing poptart formerly known as Ciara is the weakest vocalist in all of POP/R&B, which is probably why the F#@%-heads at BET asked her to belt out one of MJ’s most famous ballads in ‘Heal The World’ … Nope, not ‘P.Y.T.’ or ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ … not even ‘Beat It’ … but ‘Heal … The Got’ Dayum World’ — a song that actually means something to millions of people in hundreds of countries … and instead of thinking this decision through or extending an invitation to REAL-LIFE singers (J Sulli… J. Hud… or Chrisette Michele anyone?!) to perform — they allowed her to embarrass herself, her family and the entire MJ estate with her off-key, Kermit-The-Froggy rendition of the timeless smash that probably re-opened many of the wounds that MJ may have healed during his 50 years on earth… God help you Ciara…

Beyonce Takes Us Unnnnndeeeeer Theeeee Seaaaaaaa … And Then To Heaven

…And people wonder why I go so damn hard on this fake azz decepticon known as Beyonce Knowles, who opted to promote her own shyt by singing the hundred + plus year old concerto piece “Ave Maria” as if she recently wrote it instead of performing a song from the classic MJ catalogue20during a tribute show dedicated to HIS MEMORY… And NO, I refuse to give this woman a *Pass* because she knew what the F@$# she was doing and is clearly nothing more than a self-absorbed label puppet devoid of any true emotions or humanistic feelings … I mean seriously, who rocks an over-sized Alice in Wonderland ballerina apparatus with a camel toe compartment and pretends to be some sort of heavenly deity during someone else’s tribute show?!? … Please Bey, you lose … and you looked like Gaia from “Captain Planet” on stage and Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” on the red carpet … Get your life right Bey …

...and now with our powers combined....

And before I leave you, here are a few last minute remarks:

A)    I really hope that ‘Tiny’ gets a facial transplant and takes speech lessons.
B)    I love Mary Mary, but liquid tights and Gospel music just don’t go together.
C)    Does Jaz Sulli care more about her Cotton commercials than her music career?!
D)    How old is Baby … really?!?
E)    I’m sure Tyra’s Victorian era top looked better during the Victorian Era.
F)    Dayum T.I., ‘Tiny’ musta had that … *PAUSE*
G)    Ne-Yo … Hat On > Hat Off … By a landslide.
H)    Once again, I’d like to applaud the ‘Bleep Dude/Chick’ … *Standing Ovation*
I)    Did ‘Clef really tell the world that he used to live in a hut?!
J)    Who shreds their ACL right before signing a mega-record deal?! …damn Canadians …
K)    Funny how a stylish white chick made Kanye happy again …
L)    R.I.P Mike Jack!

Jamie ripped the opening

Scottie should have beamed her azz out of the bathroom

Should've stayed in the 1770s....

Doooooo it....Doooooo it....its for the best...

Like I said, is Alicia off her Proactive or is that a Swizzy love juice bump on her nose?!

I swear it's a thousand degrees outside ...

I just hope she breaks down and hires a stylist ... and her face stops growing ...

Hov killed it ... but still should've performed 'Izzo'

It's like he never left....

... I was lost at this point ... and was waiting on the little girls to do the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' hand movements ...

Classic Movement...R.I.P. MJ.

This has been another Alejandro presentation.
“If I don’t like it, I don’t like it… that don’t mean that I’m hatin’”

I used to believe Hip-Hop was the love of my life before I caught her creepin’ with a Ring-tone-deafened Anti-Genre seething with sacklets of venereal VOCO-puss and S(wag)TDs. At that moment, my once warm blooded cardio beat box shriveled into a splinter infested heart shaped holding cell forcing my love for beats, rhymes and life to fade to into an unsightly shade of black.

There didn’t seem to be any hope for my severely fractured relationship with Hip-Hop, who after inspiring so many people, developed a deadly obsession with college credited mini-goons, delusional rappers turned tone-less vocalists and major artists who routinely fed the public overhyped drivel stamped as freshly baked greatness.

Damn this Hip-Hop! She was so amazing, yet so unbelievably slutty, unfocused and two faced. Even when I attempted to replace her with Pop, Reggae or Rock, I realized nothing could ever give me butterflies like she did.

So I vowed to save her from her doom — even if she didn’t want to be saved — by reuniting with Doc Brown and Marty McFly to travel back through time in the DeLorean and save Hip-Hop from the diabolical clutches of the Anti-Genre aka Urban Music.

After finalizing our master plan, Doc set the date to Sept. 7, 1996 and location to Vegas where we helped Pac slip away from his assailants after the Tyson/Sheldon fight before landing in L.A. on March 9, 1997 — after the infamous VIBE party — and saving Biggie from being swiss-cheesed in his vehicle.

On Feb. 15, 1999, we touched down and nabbed Big L before he was offed in front of his apartment and whisked Aaliyah back to the states before she boarded her awaiting aircraft after the “Rock the Boat” video shoot on Aug. 25, 2001.

In order to save J. Dilla and Pun, we traveled to the distant future and acquired advanced treatments for Dilla’s Lupus and Pun’s obesity. By doing this, we were able to help the sickly rappers overcome their afflictions and accomplished our seemingly impossible mission.

However, when we returned to 2009, Hip-Hop’s mind, body & soul had been brain washed into believing she could make millions if she created a marketable gimmick and image. But I still was determined to convince her that what we had was worth much more than millions.

And with Hip-Hop on my mind we zoomed to N.Y. — Hip-Hop’s birthplace — where we posted on the block near a mob of Brooklyn’s finest who buzzed about the Biggie, Jay-Z & Mary concert at Madison Square Garden that night.

While in Queens, we hit a corner store to cop a few quarter waters and asked the dude behind the counter about Hip-Hop. His name was Curtis, and it felt like déjà vu whenever he spoke, especially when he blabbed about how he would be a big-time rapper one day.

Curtis hailed Biggie as the hottest MC in the world and mentioned Big’s recent collab with R. Kelly called “The Best of Both Worlds,” that he was promoting on Ellen earlier that day. With Biggie on top of the game, Bad Boy flourished under the watchful eye of Diddy who held onto 112, Total, Carl Thomas, Lil’ Kim, Faith Evans and Mase over the years.

Apparently, Diddy was so occupied with Bad Boy that he never pitched his cutting-edge reality show ‘Making the Band’ to MTV.

Because of Biggie’s influence on the game, Faith blossomed into a major crossover artist whose resume boasted several multi-platinum albums, high-grossing films and a classic duet album with her husband Biggie. Shockingly, Lil’ Kim escaped jail time to become the hottest female rapper in the game and starred in her own successful show called “Kim.”

In addition to gloating about Bad Boy & Biggie, Curtis gushed about the dominance of Jay-Z, Big L and the rest of the Roc-A-Fella roster that included Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Nas, AZ, The Clipse and T.I.P., with Kanye West and Just Blaze behind the boards.

Kanye’s emergence as the hottest producer in the game seemed inevitable, but never fully satisfied the Chicago beat maker who pestered Hov for a shot at solo stardom. However, Biggie felt Kanye’s whole steez was wack, talked Hov out of giving ’Ye a solo deal and enlisted ’Ye to produce their upcoming Hov & Big project and new Junior M.A.F.I.A. record.

Curtis later revealed that Hov had married the gorgeous triple-threat Aaliyah, who rocked the crown as the hottest chick in the game after her leading role in “Dream Girls,” #1 smash “Umbrella,” and multiple seven-figure endorsement deals.

I could only say daaaaaamn homie before dapping up Curtis and scuttling to the West Coast, which was littered with life-sized 2pac billboards and polluted with Dr. Dre’s sinister soundscapes spilling from every lowrider jerking past us.

Everyone was on the move except for a random schlub slumped on the curb with his face buried in his hands. Next to him was a CD case with MARSHALL’s DEMO scribbled on it and a bus ticket from Detroit to L.A.

Something was familiar about this pale faced sap, who traveled to L.A. countless times to deliver his demo to Dr. Dre only to be clowned by Pac who felt “white rappers” were a joke. And that’s when we started talking about Hip-Hop.

Even though Marshall despised Pac, he confessed that the rapper was a living legend on the West Coast, which led Pac to squash his beef with Biggie and the East Coast. Eventually, Suge Knight was pinched for his role in the attempted murders of both rappers and sentenced to 50-100 years in prison.

Over the next few years, Pac achieved mega-success with the films “Waist Deep” “Baby Boy” and “Transformers,” wifed an upcoming songstress from Oakland named Keyshia and dropped his new Dre-produced single “In The Club” from his new highly-anticipated album “Get Rich Or Die Thuggin.’”

As a powerful executive/producer, Dr. Dre molded the West Coast into a legitimate musical powerhouse and brought Pac, Snoop, The Dogg Pound, Crooked I, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Lady of Rage, Marshia Ambrosius and piano player Scott Storch with him to his Aftermath imprint after dumping the now defunct Death Row Records.

Even though Dre handled multiple projects, he was able to drop his opus “Detox” and banged out tracks for Jay-Z, Biggie, Pun, Jadakiss and Nas to name a few.

Marshall also dished on the music scene back in his hometown of Detroit and bragged about how J. Dilla had catalyzed abstract rap music and a new movement called Nu-Soul.

With his Lupus behind him, Dilla rocked as one of the dopest producers on the globe while enjoying platinum status with his group Slum Village and crafting classic backdrops for artists like Common, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Dwele, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Floetry and some new soulstresses named Jazmine and Chrisette.

Before darting down south, Marshall told us to always lose ourselves in the moment when we’re presented with everything that we’ve ever wanted, which seemed profound coming from a loser like him. But somehow his words of wisdom stuck with me as we descended into dirty south airspace.

Unfortunately, we crashed through a billboard of some famous Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown named Teddy Pain and landed in Dade County where we were busted by the MDPD for wreckless driving and booked in the South Florida Reception Center.

While there, we met a larger-than-life prison guard named Roberts who barely fit in his uniform and often battled many of the inmates during his lunch break. Fortunately for us, he was mad cool — even though he insisted on telling us about his everyday hustles — and very familiar with Hip-Hop.

During recess, Roberts admitted that the southern musical movement wasn’t as major as the West or East, but acknowledged that Outkast & The Dungeon Fam, the Hot Boys, Trick Daddy, T.I.P., Ludacris, Scarface and Bun-B kept the region on the map.

According to Roberts, there was no opportunity for southern rappers to shine because of the dominance by the other coasts. At the time, West Coast music was very commercial and the East Coast artists catered to the streets, which left the south with no true identity or direction.

Basically, there were socially conscious groups like Outkast dropping classic records and hood poet collectives like the Hot Boys releasing commercially viable records, but no major southern artists captivating the hearts and minds of true music fans.

As one of the hottest young artists in the south, Lil’ Wayne appeared to be ready to put the south on his back until he was destroyed by Biggie in a Brooklyn battle in front of Jay-Z and dismissed as an overhyped S dot Carter-scrotumizer.

The only other MC gifted enough to save the south was Outkast’s ill spitter Andre Benjamin who eventually pressed *pause* on rap music and *play* on his burgeoning acting career after snagging an Oscar for his role in the major bio-pic “Hendrix.”

After weeks rotting in the joint, we dug a tunnel leading out of the prison and hid the escape point behind an old Toni Braxton poster. Before escaping, we left Roberts a note that read: “Get Busy Living, Or Get Busy Dying,” slipped into the DeLorean and the rest is history.

At the end of our amazing journey, I realized that no matter how much I tampered with the past that the Hip-Hop I once loved would never love me like I loved her because she was much too selfish and would always love money more than me.

Ironically, Hip-Hop was destined for doom even if Biggie and Pac had never died. She would’ve always been on the paper chase even if it meant losing every shred of self-respect permeating through her 30-year-old bones.

Honestly, Big and Pac needed to move on in order for everyone who knew Hip-Hop to truly appreciate her for what she brought to the world … That’s why I’m going to stick by her side hoping that the madness stops. ’Cause who I’m talking about ya’ll … is Hip-Hop!

This has been another Alejandro presentation.

“Do you ask a Dolphin how it swims, or an eagle how it flies … That’s right you don’t! Because that’s what they were made to do!” — Willy Wonka

Diary of an Angry Hip-Hop Junkie

In yet another blatant display of editorial bitchASSness by a popular urban lifestyle publication, the now-defunct flesh-rag known as King magazine recently unveiled its highly-anticipated ‘Unpopular Rap Facts’ in its final cootch-juiced issue before joining Radar, Blender, Scratch, Vibe Vixen and nearly 600 other recession-rocked mags on the midnight train the Foldsville.

While examining these blasphemous revelations — which should’ve been called ‘8 gun shots to Hip-Hop’s dome’ — my eyes smoldered with crimson fury like ‘Lance’ in ‘The Best Man’ until the following ‘rap fact’ repudiaHATEsions spilled from my beautifully diseased thoughts into this blog for your reading enjoyment. Let’s get to it.

8. Ice Cube Had The Greatest Five-Year Run In Hip-Hop.

King: “From 1988 to 1992, he made N.W.A the world’s most dangerous group with “F*ck The Police,” and then slaughtered them on “No Vaseline.” He recorded “Jackin’ For Beats,” a template for the upcoming mixtape era, as well as radio hits like “It Was a Good Day.” He foresaw the L.A. riots on Death Certificate and then described their aftermath on The Predator.”

Alejandro: This debatable doozie clearly crip-walked into the mag-staff’s blunted brainage during a purp-induced viewing of Are We There Yet? …Err, so ‘Jheri curl Cube’ and not Hov, Em or DMX had the GREATEST five-year run in the HISTORY of Hip-Hop?!? …Uhh YES, according to these Almighty Hip-Hop Know-It-Alls who cited Em’s lack of classic material and Hov’s ‘dog’ albums (In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 & The Blueprint 2) as ‘valid reasons’ why the greats were 8-6’ed from the ‘best five-year run’ sweepstakes.

However, there are many rap purists who agree with this distinction even if Cube ditched his Raiders fitted and F@#$-whitey mentality years before re-emerging as the lovable ‘family-friendly Cube,’ which is why I’m siding with DMX’s ’97-’02 campaign where he barked legendary bars on Mase’s “24 Hours To Live,” The LOX’s “Money, Power & Respect,” and LL’s “4,3,2,1,” before dropping two multi-platinum classics (It’s Dark… and Flesh of My Flesh…) and possibly the illest Hip-Hop themed soundtrack/crew compilation ever (Belly and Ryde or Die, Vol. 1). Dark Man X also starred in four feature films during this run highlighted by the cult classic Belly and certified guilty pleasure Romeo Must Die.

7. Famous Common Is Less Than Common Sense.

King: “During his long career, Lonnie Rashid Lynn has released an undisputed classic album (Resurrection), possibly Hip-Hop’s most clever concept song (“I Used To Love H.E.R.”) and a brutal, nearly career ending battle record (“The Bitch in Yoo”)” … “Since his late ’90s heyday, Common has been an MC in decline. That would include his comeback album, BE, which was more about Kanye’s production than great MC’ing…” … “He is also, however, a classic example of someone who was underrated until he became overrated.”

Alejandro: When the legendary MC plugged his SAG card on “Break My Heart,” it was clear that he no longer hearted Hip-Hop like he did when he ‘borrowed a dollar’ from Hip-Hop heads nearly two decades ago… But rather than driving this ‘point’ home by ripping Com’s movie-first-album-second approach to the uber-whack UMC, the f*ck-heads at King decided to discredit his lyricism on the critically-acclaimed BE and label the Wanted/Terminator 4star as ‘overrated’ …WT—MUTHA—F?! …This is Common dammit — one of the best to ever do it — not Missy F@#$%$ Elliot, who actually NEEDED Timbo to stay relevant… Seriously, how could anyone deny his phonetic brilliance on “Be (Intro),” “The Corner,” “Chi-City” and “It’s Your World?!” …Hell, if BE was more about Kanye then — by golly — Like Water For Chocolate was more about Dilla …F@$# outta here! …

6. In 2009, Ready To Die Sounds Dated.

King: “OK, it has lots of timeless, amazing, genius records. But between Biggie’s birth on the “Intro” and the creepy closer “Suicidal Thoughts,” Ready To Die contains, in retrospect, some wince-worthy moments …”

Alejandro: …Sooo I’m guessing that in 2037 the record will sound even more ‘dated’ than does today, which obviously isn’t acceptable to the zoobilizooble(s) responsible for this super-duper-mind-blower …I mean DAMN, what the F@#% did they expect a 15-year-old classic to sound like FIFTEEN YEARS later in ’09 — slick, synthed-out and pop-speckled like, say, Deeper Than Rap?!? — Maaaaan… F@#%… That… Sh*t! …If anything, Hip-Hoppers love this album because of its vintage feel — its record crackles, grungy acoustics and dust-crusted break beats… Sh*t, that’s the beauty of golden era Hip-Hop and records like Wu Tang’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Outkast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and The Root’s Illadelph Halflife..etc..which will always be celebrated despite sounding somewhat ancient at times…

5. Miami Has Yet To Produce a Great MC.

King: “And to date the city hasn’t yielded an MC on anyone’s top 10 … Miami rappers, meanwhile, are a rogue’s gallery of mediocrity …”

Alejandro: …and neither has Juneau… Honolulu… or even Sante Fe… but I doubt anyone’s keeping track other than the skeet-stains at King… damn, who knew U.S. cities had MC quotas?!? …certainly not me or anyone else that’s visited another state to enjoy its attractions (Las Vegas = Casinos) or feast on its delicacies (Kansas City = Bar-B-Q) …So with this in mind, remember that this is Miami baybeee — the hottest city in the south and home to legendary figures like Dan Marino, Dwyane Wade and ‘Scarface’ — not a snow-plagued war-zone like NYC where Great MCs are grown on concrete jungle trees… In fact, I’m almost certain that tourists flock to Miami for its gorgeous weather, exotic women and extravagant beaches without ever envisioning sweaty MCs rocking the mic on the South Beach boardwalk… But then again, what the F@#% would I know… I’m just some random niglet who was born AND raised there… *shrugs* …

4. Summer Of ’98 Was Crucial To Jay-Z’s Career.

King: “In early 1998, Jay-Z’s career wasn’t matching the expectations. His debut, Reasonable Doubt, collected kudos but only a gold plaque. Its follow-up, 1997’s In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, would be remembered as the perennial sophomore slump. The rapping was phenomenal, of course, but it piggybacked the crassest trends of the Bad Boy era — indolent crate-digging, style over substance and ugly clothes…”

Alejandro: …So wait, let me get this right, Reasonable Doubt didn’t match expectations because it only went gold (at the time) and Hov wouldn’t be where is he is today if he hadn’t survived the summer of ’98?! …In the words of ‘Jheri curl Cube’: “N@#$@ please!” …Yea, In My Lifetime was too glossy at times but there’s no denying bangers like “Who You Wit,” “Imaginary Player” “Friend or Foe ’98” and “A Million…”

And if you were wondering, the word ‘crucial’ usually refers to a ‘must-have’ or ‘must-do’ situation — uh, sorta like Weezy’s use of the Dedication mixtapes to re-build his teetering career, Jeezy’s Trap or Die campaign or T-Pain’s adoption of Auto-Tune — and probably wouldn’t be the best term to stress the importance of a random summer in a Top-10 MC’s illustrious career… So, realistically, even if Hov did sh*t on his fans with the commercialized In My Lifetime (…which he kinda did) I truly believe his lyrical brilliance alone would’ve won them back and pushed him into elite status despite anything these Hov-haters say…

3. Lil’ Wayne Is The Greatest Punch-Line Rapper Ever.

King: “…Lil’ Wayne encapsulates all the qualities of a wordsmith — creativity, humor and surprise. He toys with phonetics whole bars at a time… throws effective jabs (“I’m on fire, need water like a hiccup”)” … “Weezy animates his words better than any other Hip-Hop simile-sayer, flipping and flopping his flows with weird inflections, sound effects and pronunciations…”

Alejandro: This is, by far, the most blasphemous ‘rap fact’ of them all and proves that these pop-slurping peons discovered Hip-Hop when the Carter III dropped. There’s just NO… F@#$#$… WAY… the mega-mind-frazzled pop-sensation — who spits more cringe-worthy one-liners (“I’m on like the television” …really?!) than anyone else in the industry — is a better punch-line rapper than Big L (“I got mad hoes/ask Beavis I get nuthin’ But-head”), Em (“You couldn’t make the crowd throw up their hands if they swallowed their fingers”), Phonte (“I saw your latest signing at an in-store, the whole sh*t was see-through/he couldn’t draw a crowd with a paintbrush and an easel”) and a zillion other spitsmiths who would slaughter the ex-lean-swigger in a head-to-head battle with stacks on the line…

Now to be fair, Weezy USED to be a dope MC who dropped OoOh-worthy lines like unwanted pennies… but in 2009, he’s the anti-punch-linoisseur behind lyrical catastrophes like: “I’m trapped in a maze — therefore I am aMAZEing,” or the mag’s head-scratching example: “I’m on fire, need water like a hiccup” …Err, and this is from the greatest punch-line rapper… ever?!? …Riiiiiight… so instead of poking more holes in this revelation like gourmet TV dinners, I’ll bless you with a quotable from the illest punchline-rapper you’ve never heard of — His name is Iron Solomon — And yes, he’s on Youtube…

From ‘Iron Solomon vs. Math’:

“I recycled your rhymes to trash you lyrically/cuz back in High School I smashed his chickity/to cut, she cut science class to visit me/we had chemistry/attracted physically/taught her sex-ed and woodshop now Math is history.” — Iron Solomon

2. Tupac’s Influence Is Second To None, But He Was An Average MC.

King: “Sure there is plenty of “real talk” but few instances of mind-boggling verses or innovative flows. Can you honestly admit that he is a better rapper than, say, Big Pun? Tupac is the epitome of conviction over diction” … “Tupac was a passable storyteller (see “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” “I Ain’t Mad at Cha”), but even his narratives were driven by simple rhyme schemes and cut-and-dry wordplay…”

Alejandro: I refuse to place an (R.I.P.) by ’Pac’s name because there’s always some pimple-faced ’Pac-ripper dredging up the rapper’s remains and torching whatever’s left of his once-glowing legacy …and in this case, it’s the rap-delusionaries at King who felt the need to sh*t on the grave of the most beloved, studied and quoted (“Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to getting p*ssy” …classic…) rap poet of our generation …And for what?! …to prove that Pun was a hotter homonymist than Pac or that ’Pac wasn’t as ‘lyrically intriguing’ as Hov, Nas or Em?! … F*ck… outta… here… (again)!

Think about it, if your influence is second to none wouldn’t that make you GREAT at what you do?! … See: Hall-of-Famers Larry Bird, Jim Brown or Pulitzer prize winning author Ernest Hemingway, who are all legendary figures despite very ‘un-flashy’ approaches to their crafts — Bird was stiff, dopey and unathletic but scored nearly 22K points during his championship-winning career, Brown ran like he had boulders chained to his cleats but routinely demoralized defenses on his record-setting 106 trips to the end zone and Hemingway used short, simple sentences to pen literary classics that most High School-ers are forced to read and write papers on to this day…

With that said, it should be difficult for any rap fan to view ’Pac as an ‘average’ MC or accept that “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” and even “Dear Mama” were passable pieces of storytelling and not poetic masterpieces that touched the lives of millions of people across the globe… Yea, it’s true, ’Pac wasn’t a lyrical beast, but at the end of the day dude had a message and that’s all that F@#$#% matters!

1. Nas Has Hip-Hop’s Best Solo Discography.

King: “Both claim three classic albums (Illmatic, It Was Written, Stillmatic and Reasonable Doubt, Vol.2… Hard Knock Life, The Blueprint) but again, only one released Illmatic … Jay-Z’s failures (namely, The Blueprint 2 andKingdom Come) are apathetic collections of bad radio records. At least Nas pushes artistic boundaries on Street’s Disciple and Hip-Hop Is Dead. And even though Nastradamus has become an industry punch-line, it’s much better than advertised.”

Alejandro: I agree… Nas has Hip-Hop’s Best Solo Discography and boasts three classic albums that include It Was Written and Stillmatic… but then that would mean that Muhammad Ali recently beat me in a game of “Operation” on the White House lawn …Uh, and even if he did beat me those two records would still be very good records (… not classics!) and his discography would still be among the worst ever for an MC with a classic album on his resume… Yea, that’s right… the… worst… ever… In fact, Nas may be the only dope MC to drop five lukewarm yawners in a row (Nastradamus, Stillmatic, God’s Son, Hip-Hop is Dead and Untitled) which is why I’ve chosen to leave you with five superior discographies from Jay-Z, Common, Ghostface, Busta and Snoop (Min. 8 Albums) to chew on while I bounce to my next blog … Stay strong Hip-Hoppers!

This has been another Alejandro presentation.

How To Enter and Participate:

Starting June 7th, you can enter for a chance to win an a win to for you and you and a guest to the 2009 ESSENCE Music Festival. Simply register at emqtv.com/emf09 and navigate to the right side bar with your name, cell phone number and provider between now and June 24th. On June 25th between 2:00pm and 4:00pm EMQ Networks will send out a series of 5 special Essence Music Festival trivia questions.

When all 5 trivia questions have been sent, login back on to emqtv.com/emf09 to complete the your official entry form with your answers. You will have been 4:00pm – 9:00PM EST to submit your entry, so that means you have 5 hours! The contest stops at 9:00pm EST. If your entry is not in by then you will not qualify for the drawing.

You must correctly respond with all five answers to the trivia texts to www.emqtv.com/emf09 to be officially entered into the drawing for the winner. Need help, check www.essence.com and www.essencemusicfestival.com for clues. If you miss a text don’t worry just stay tuned to www.emqtv.com for the questions you missed.

The winner will randomly drawn, so EVERYONE has a chance to win! The only way you can’t win is by not entering… The winner will be announced 11:00pm EST on June 25th on all EMQ Network participating sites, Twitter, Facebook and via text message. Don’t miss the 15th Anniversary of the Ultimate Party Weekend

The Prize:

This package includes a pair of tickets to get access to three nights of exciting performances on July 3th, 4th, and 5th in New Orleans, air vouchers to fly to New Orleans through Southwest Airlines, and a 4 day 3 night hotel stay.

For complete contest rules go to http://www.emqtv.com/emf09/contestrules

Additional Info Because We Want Everyone To Participate…

The Trivia Questions:

A series of five trivia questions will be sent via text message to the participants registered cell phone. Trivia will range from current to previous performing acts at Festival. An example would be: “This Soul crooner shed his locks 8 years ago to spread his wings…who is he?”

Messaging Process:

The first question-message will be delivered starting at 2pm EST and following messages will be released at 2:30pm, 3:00pm, 3:30pm, concluding at 4:00pm respectively. Participants will have from 4:00pm EST until 9pm EST to respond to EMQ Networks with their submissions.

How Participants Will Respond:

Participants will have to submit all five answers to a designated page on the contest site and participants with all the correct answers will be entered into a drawing to select the winner.

Winner Announcement:

The winner will be announced via the microsite, SMS and Twitter at 10:00pm EST on June 25th. Contest and package information will be sent overnight to the winner on June 26th.