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| Damn! Back again with another riveting review! Whoo! Boot Camp Clik is another super-group (like the Visionaries and the Wu-Tang Clan). It's a huge group with groups inside the group. Group'd! One of the groups inside B.C.C. is Heltah Skeltah, comprised of Sean Price aka Ruck and Rock aka Rockness The Monster. With no Heltah Skeltah album in the last 10 years, this was one that myself and many others were shocked to hear was in the process, but overly excited about at the same time. And with all sorts of Hip-Hop legends crawling out the woodworks in the last couple years... only to make sub-par albums... even I was a little worried. But not to fear! This is one helluva album! Sean P and Rock are well known for pretty much being pricks when it comes to beat selection. Word is, that if they don't like it 200%, it's gettin tossed out the window. Literally. So it comes to no surprise that the production on the whole album is AMAZING.
Heltah Skeltah only released 2 albums (1996 and 1998) before "not necessarily parting ways, but not making music as a group anymore" for nearly 10 years....except for B.C.C. albums. Though, in the last few years, Sean Price has been hitting hella hard with the solo projects. In 2005, it was the critically acclaimed Monkey Barz, which dropped alongside Buckshot's and Smif-N-Wessun's albums. Then he came back in 2007 with both another critically acclaimed album, Jesus Price Supastar, and a mixtape titled Master P, which also had it's good moments... but overall, was a mixtape, and not an album, for good reason. Rock dropped his first (to my knowledge) solo mixtape earlier this year, Shell Shock... which was so good, I may end up doing a review of that later on...
Now you know! Cuz knowledge is power! ...and now onto the gooder shtuffs:
Favorite Tracks: "Everything Is Heltah Skeltah" and "Insane"
PURCHASE HERE: www.store.duckdown.com
Download here for free: http://rapidshare.com/files/147866756/Heltah_Skeltah-D.I.R.T.-2008-C4.rar
Or here for free: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TGV95ZE8
1. Intro (interlude)
2. Everything Is Heltah Skeltah
3. The Art Of Disrespekinization
4. Da Beginning Of Da End
5. Twinz
6. D.I.R.T. (Another Boot Camp Clik Yeah Song)
7. So Damn Tuff feat Buckshot, Ruste Juxx
8. Insane
9. W.M.D. feat Smif-N-Wessun
10. That's Incredible
11. Ape Food feat Teh Representativz
12. Hellz Kitchen
13. Smack Muzik feat Flood
14. Ruck-N-Roll
This album is so great, I'm probably going to end up reviewing almost every song. lolulz... So even though Track 1 is an intro with some shit talking from Sean Price, Rock spits for a while, almost giving a preview into the album, naming a few of the song titles (and even playing the sample from song "Insane"). Sidenote: Rock probably has the 'coolest voice' in rap music ever, don't deny it. The album kicks off with "Everything Is Heltah Skeltah" a high-pitch hook over a high-tempo track that straights bangs. With the MOST REAL quote of the whole album dissing this new-wave of rappers who.. well... let me just let Rock explain: "Rappers embarrased to say they rappers... Proud to say they sell crack though..." The hook is so infectious, when it leads into "The Art Of Disrespekinazation" I can only grin and want more. This song is to shit talking, as Wu-Tang's "Torture" is to classic skits. "Listen, it's big drama, it's little drama, lip gloss stains on my dick from Lil Mama. When I fuck Rihanna aint use no umbrella. When the bitch have twins, we naming them both Ella, Ella, Ay" from P and "No fuck that, I'm letting the hammer blam, have that man smoking like it's Amsterdam, dammit man. I go in your hood and get love, you go in your hood and get mugged" from Rock, Mr. Alcatraz.
On the song "Twinz," over an awkwardly amazing beat, Sean Price has my (probably) favorite line of the album. "Ruck is the best rapper, what do that make Rock? Make him my twin brother, motherfucker, the bank stop. P!" I've never before heard a better line big-upping yourself, and at the same time giving equal props to your group partner. Being in a 2-man rap crew myself, I do this often... but this line takes the bank (no pun) with P's finesse and execution. "D.I.R.T." is probably my 3rd favorite song (if I had to choose... which I wouldn't want to do =p) on the album. The hook is bananas, probably the catchiest hook on the whole album, aside from maybe "Everything Is Heltah Skeltah." It's just a 4-minute spit session where Ruck and Rock are at their finest doing their signature back-and-forth gritty rhyme rapfest. "Yo Son. Let these niggas know the ruler's back, nigga. Stop-stop lying. We're goons and lots of iron, and pops shots flying. Anybody trying, dying, filing, Riker's Island-style tyrant. Lights, sirens, crying and hiding all for your heiness... ME!" Middle fingers in the air!!
Rock really takes the cake on my favorite song on the album, "Insane." With lines like "The veterans... Back together again, better than we ever been. Let us in or I'm gon crack somebody fuckin head open. They say I'm *insane. I need medicine, therapy couldn't help the *insane." But don't call Price out with lines "Mass murder. I murder the mass, I blast burners. Pistol whip your face, finally fuck up your furniture." My question, is this a reference to Dave Chapelle's infamous Rick James skit, alla Fuck Yo Couch Nigga! ...? If it is, Price is truly insane, and hilarious. If not... then I'm worried about who's furniture he's fuckin up and that only proves his insanity. haha. Either way, Rock comes back with a hilarious un-sane line "I will have ODB slap the shit out you." The hook on "Insane" is utterly... insanely contagious. I can't help but put this shit on repeat... with more insanity from P claiming he's "a fuckin black belt in karaze" I'll make sure not to step on any toes next time Grand Angel TV interviews him... (like we did in Episode Three wink wink ;)
"W.M.D." obviously stands for weapons of mass destruction. And after hearing this song, you wouldn't have to live under 'red alert' in America to know that. Bumpin 4 fire verses straight through, from Ruck, Smif-N-Wessun and then Rock with no hook in sight. Sean P and Ruck hold their own on the song against Tek and Steele. Rock goes crazy: "Gimme two of those gats, that Bruno had, on Pluto Nash. Oh, they only on the Moon? Oh dag. Aint that false advertisement? I should sue those fags. I'm just playing... You know that!" I mean... Jesus Phrist! So many quotables per song, I almost can't handle it! "That's Incredible" could have been a bigger and better song, IMo, but it still pounds harder than 90% of the shit that's dropped in the last 5 years. And "Ape Food" is a pretty good song as well, but the featuring group The Representativz drag the song down. They're not even bad, I just wasn't feeling either of their 2 verses for this song. They show promise, but come harder next time! This is a legendary album. An instant classic....
The last song "Ruck-N-Roll" has a music video out (below) which is pretty bad, lolulz. It's a corny version of a corny rock band. Bad wigs are never a good thing, haha, not even in spoofs. Okay, maybe sometimes. But more importantly: the video doesn't match the music, IMo. Which, is fan-fucking-tastic. But I'm just gonna trust the Heltah Skeltah vision because "There's a method to this madness, and first of all: I'm aint-wack-shit." What better insurance is there? Honestly.
BLOAW!
~Grand Noble // www.myspace.com/grandangel510
You can call me Jellyboob.... or Jellystofenoffercurse (for short). | | |
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Favorite Tracks: "Piece Of Art" and "I'm Not Having It"
PURCHASE HERE: www.upabove.com
Download here for free: http://rapidshare.com/files/143171624/LMNO-Let_Em_Know-2008.zip
- Where I've Been (interlude)
- Make Tracks - 2:33
- James Brown feat Kev Brown - 1:54
- The Brand New Pay Back feat Killa Sha, Grand Daddy I.U. - 3:30
- On And On - 1:08
- In Love - 2:42
- No Less - 1:14
- Never Secondary feat Sirah - 1:21
- It's O.K... - 0:59
- Pyschomicrocosmic - 1:25
- Walk With Me - 2:47
- Piece Of Art feat Lorett Fluer - 3:37
- Blast Off - 2:28
- Creation Of The Gun - 1:18
- P.T.K.S. - 1:44
- Branch Off - 1:49
- I'm Not Having It feat Zane - 2:01
- Stay On The Grind - 3:08
- The What's To Come - 1:46
- The Brunt - 1:52
- In The Making feat Onry, Nolan Rhymin - 3:01
- Achieve - 0:53
- Rolls Up - 2:33
- Shake It Out - 2:24
- It's True - 2:40
- Give It To Em - 1:12
- Prescription - 2:48
- Us Against Us - 1:07
- Played Out - 1:13
- Never Stop - 2:01
- Let'eMkNOw - 0:38
- Where's I'm Going (interlude)
Alright! Today's post is about LMNO's new album Let'eMkNOw. LMNO is apart of the6-man group the Visionaries, whom I have performed with at a car show AutoCRAVE, so I have a certain bias about them lol. But musically, they are in my top 5 favorites. Group-wise, they are my favorites, along with Jedi Mind Tricks (NEW ALBUM NOVEMBER 10th! But I'll save that for a future post...).
I purchased the album from the Visionaries' homesite www.upabove.com. After a rather substantial S&H fee, I checked Amazon.com to see if I could have gotten it for cheaper and it wasn't even available! Good job being so "indie" the internet can't even find your album to sell, Up Above. I was JUICED to see that there were 32 tracks on the album, with an intro and outro that's still 30 and that's DAMN good.
 Support Hip-Hop, BUY THE CDs! Okay, then I got the album, ripped it and started checking the actual song information... with most songs being under 2 minutes (couple under 1 minute!), I started to have this bad feeling about the album, before even listening to it! A full first-listen through the album and every song was just blazing through hella fast before I even had a chance to enjoy the LAST one! I was morally Hip-Hoppically confused. I wanted to like the album simply because I love the Visionaries, but this was really throwing me off!
Luckily, I try to listen to things a few times through before I make a serious judgment about it (btw, MURS For President is fantastic... took a minute to 'get into' it, but now I can't get enough of it). The few features on the album are dope, Kev Brown is on (and produced) the song "James Brown" and he's got some nice beats and rhymes for the song, but the song is too short, as are most of the tracks. Like "On And On" which has a stump'd 1:08 time span. Overall, the album has great production and even greater lyrics by LMNO. I'm just so confused as to why every song is so short. It diminishes the quality of the album as a whole to me. Every time I just get into a joint, it's over. The few songs that are close to full-song-length, like "Walk With Me" have GREAT hooks, GREAT beats and LMNO is at his verbal finest. "You don't have to disagree or agree, but come take a walk with me and you'll see... I'm not productive in my slumber, have to capitalize and stay from going under as I rationalize.... why it is that I thrive, off hunger..." Damn. Some of my favorite Visionaries quotes from past albums are LMNO's, he's always got that heat. I'd be really interested in getting an LMNO track that's 10 minutes long or something. No hook, just spittin game for hella bars. That'll probably never happen, seeing as mostly only up-and-comers who try to 'prove' themselves do stuff like that, but I'd love to hear it. The next track again, is longer, at 3 minutes and some change. "Piece Of Art" featuring Lorett Fluer singing on the hook, is marvelous. "Love and patience go with this piece of art... So together let's draw a conclusion." Damn, LMNO is on top of his game lyrically on this album.
My least favorite song would have to be "Shake It Out." The track sounds like a failed attempt at a club record. The beat does NOT fit with the rest of the album, IMo. And even LMNO's lyrics aren't that great, (unbelievably!!)... Maybe trying to compensate for the beat, I guess. Good attempt, but that's a song-fail.
So if you get over the initial surprised reaction that there are 50 second long "songs" .... you can start to appreciate the album, as I do now. I'd still love to hear a 4-minute, longer version of "Blast Off" though, cuz that beat is FIRE and the hook is simple and catchy. I could see that getting LMNO some radio play. Same with the track afterwords, "Creation Of The Gun" a BLAZIN ass song! Running time of 1 minute and 10 seconds leaves me wanting more... Maybe that's what LMNO was looking to accomplish?? Hmm... BLOAW!~ You can call me Jellyboob.... or Jellystofenoffercurse (for short). | | |
| WOW! I keep coming back and then ... falling off the planet. It's hard to stay considering uhh... I don't have any 'readers' anymore. lol. It's always just been 'for me' not others but when it stopped being a 'habit' to write xanga every week, with no one to hold me onto the site, I kept leaving. Oh wells. But here's why I love having this site, it's like a diary. Kinda. I have a HORRIBLE memory and I've never kept a real diary before, so when I look back at posts that I made like 3 years ago or whatever... it's like an in-depth look at my inner thoughts back then. It's very cool. To me at least. I guess it's good I never had hundreds of people reading this, just a select 15 or so (lmao..) cuz then I never had to worry about NOT saying what I really wanted to say and it getting back to that person, or people, or whatever, or whomever. You get what I mean, yes? Yes. Moving On. So I've decided to maybe just do music stuffs on here. Not even just all my music. I'm so much a fan of music and I've never had a way to truly express it verbally. Besides telling people I have any album you can name (I did at one time, now, not so much, my tastes have refined.. and my downloading habits have refined as well... to only downloading stuff I know I'm gonna like or at least something I want to try my ear at listening and give it a try). Something (for me) to look back on and go "Oh damn! I forgot about that *insert artist or song or album name here* !!! I totally loved that in *insert month or year*... dang.. I should go listen to that now!" So here goes. 
Favorite Tracks: "Sooo Comfortable" and "A Piece Of Me"
- Intro
- I'm Innocent
- Lookin Fly feat Will.I.Am
- The Science
- Can It Be (Half A Million And 18 Months Later)
- Everything
- Road Is My Religion
- Sooo Comfortable
- Time Is Now feat Snoop Dogg
- Think You Know Me
- Me And This Jawn
- Love And Appreciate pt. II feat Tyler Woods
- A Part Of Me
- Break Up (The OJ Song)
- Breakthrough
My favorite song at the moment is from MURS new album called "A Part Of Me." Wow. It speaks to me. Cuz me and my girl Reese had just gotten over this stupid fight. About I don't even remember what. But the song is basically about how MURS wishes he could have seen that his girl would ACTUALLY leave him if he hadn't got his act straight. His act-not-being-straight is not the same as my act-not-being-straight (his is STDS, possible cheating (just lyrics people!), whereas mine is more about selfishness and laziness?), but the underlying topic of the song really moved me and made me rethink our relationship. I cleaned up (my act) a bit, and hope to do more. Def not a woman I want to leave or for her to leave me. And yeah, I downloaded the album. I couldn't resist!! I wasn't going to download MURS For President originally because I didn't want to tempt myself with the Freeness of it and then be lazy and not purchase the actual album (like I told myself I would: to support MURS, underground Hip Hop and music in general). The album is good too. It was a bit surprising though. It wasn't a whole album produced by 9th Wonder, and I knew that beforehand, obviously. So I can't say that that's the sound I was expecting to hear... but... it's just different than I was expecting. I haven't heard the album enough to truly judge it (just replaying "A Part Of Me" over and over again (oh shit I'm listening to it now! How funny...)), but first couple runs through is: I enjoy it. Just need to get used to it. Here's what I mean: there's some songs on there that could TOTALLY be on the radio. Like, definitely MTV-worthy. MURS could definitely "blow up" because of this album, and my homie Wade aka Archangel told me MURS has been all over MTV... Which is cool cuz it's like 'oh shit this song is bangin' and then you realize it's MURS and there's this weird awkward unease about blasting a MURS clubbish song. Iunno. Somewhere deep down in my Indie Hip Hop Conscious (conscience?), otherwise known as my IHHC™, it's somehow "weird" to do such an out-of-the-box action... But I like the album, I am going to purchase it from his website www.mursmusic.com. Last I checked, there was a special sale were it was selling for $12.99 or something. I advise anyone who likes MURS to actually PURCHASE the CD... plus it comes with a extra DVD!!! I'm HELLA juiced about that! Because if MURS does good sales-wise, it will show the record industry to maybe give MURS a push next album and make him famous-er... which is good for him and all of Hip-Hop... but an even bigger impact than that is it may show the record labels that 'good underground Hip Hop' can sell massively if marketed... which has an even bigger impact on the Hip Hop community. In the long run. IMo. Today. Right now. (if you typo today... you can get "Toady" like I just did... reminds me of Super Mario and the 7 Stars for SNES... .... ...... . . .. . ANYWAYS!) I've got tons more to talk about, regarding new music, but I will save it for another post me thinks. I might even post later today, haha. LOTS AND LOTS to talk about... to myself? I guess, yeah, to myself. HEY! Maybe when I get muy famouso un dios, the kids'll run to this blog and learn about my inner most secrets. And old musical preferences.. BLOAW!~ You can call me Jellyboob.... or Jellystofenoffercurse (for short). (damn I don't even remember where that inside joke name came from... something with Hez... but I don't remember the context... hmmm......) | | |
| So today was a good day. My L came. I've been waiting so long it seems to get my license it's crazy. My picture is ridiculous. I'm one sexy beast. Who looks kinda sad. And a tad confused as well. Anyways... suite deal.
Plus, yeah... we (Jeremy, Daniel, Marc and I) went to the L.A. Improv, a comedy club here in SoCal. We even RSVP'd, cuz we've got it like that *pops collar*. But yeah. We were late. Actually we were like 15 minutes early... to a show you should wait in line for at LEAST an hour 1/2 for... so yeah... we were waaaaaaay late. So we basically just chilled for a while glancing at the celebs there who were walking in and out the club, just chattin it up with each other and them when given the chance. Fuckin Jim Norton! lol. He's dopeness. Anyways.. YEAH!! DANE COOK!! Just... gets out of his (Lexus E Class) car and walks across the street towards US (or.. the club, but.. yeah.. US!!)!!! Danwise and I immediately give him the SUper FInger.. something of his. It's like throwing the "ROC" up for Jay-Z. Get me? So yeah, he's like hahah yeaah and give it back and asks if we're in the show and Jeremy's just tells him how they ran outta seats and we're just hanging out... So he (DANE FUCKIN COOK) tells us how he's gonna try and get us in. But it may or may not work so just hang out. "Thanks!" So after he goes in we all realize we just had a fuckin convo with DANE FUCKIN COOK. And we're all smiling nonstop, lol. Anyways. After a while we all think man.. he's gone. Then we see him come back into the bar area and talk to a couple people and point at us. So we're all like FUCK YEAH. Some bouncer guy tells us we have some seats in the club to watch Dane's act cuz he told them HE KNOWS US.. that's WE'RE HIS FRIENDS or some shit. Some dope fuckin shit. maaaaaaaaaan.
Not that anyone would think otherwise, but his set was hilarious. Of course. So yeah, after it's over. We're outside and Dane comes out and see's us and is like "Seeee!! I told you I'd get you in guys!" And we're all just acting like school girls haha. Manly ones? Or something. I know I was happy looking at least lmao. So I get him to autograph my passport, he signs Daniel's old license, Marc's playing card, and Jeremy's old school ID. FUUUUUCCK YEEEEEEEEAAAH!!
Needless to say. We talked a little more. Discussed MySpace. And his future sets. And the L.A. Improv itself. And seeing future sets of his... He fucking KNOWS us now.. I feel special.. I've heard of a lot of people seeing famous people and acting dumb but it was never anyone I'd really care about. But Chappelle and Cook are def comedians I love man...
I love L.A. <3 | | |
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