Around the hip-hop world

You know, i usually dont check out hip-hop news sites cause they suck. Today i checked out btn.com and heres my shitty opinions on shit.

Clyde Smith launches new site
http://www.manhunt.com/news/stories/1110067230.html
Here's some free promotion for him. I didnt actually read the article, but if the dude at the top is him then thats funny.

Beastie Boys hate KFC
http://www.ballerstatus.net/news/read/id/53052684/
Come on, the Beasties are funny jewish people who used to make good albums. Who gives a shit what they think about how chicken die?

Biggie's clothing line
http://www.rapnewsdirect.com/News/2005/02/08/BIG.B.M/
Sounds suspect, since cashing in on dead people is the hot rap trend these days.

Will & Jada with "open marriage" - i.e. fuck other people
http://www.realitytvworld.com/index/articles/story.php?s=1001905
I'll go ahead and bet that who they fuck is people their own sex.

JMJ tribute, foundation
http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=4033
Personally i'd like a pair of Ultrastars (nhjic). Do they ever plan on brining those back?

Wu-Tang do an ODB tribute song
http://www.411mania.com/music/news/article.php?news_id=6935
Sounds sweet, actually. Wtf is up with the neptunes on their album though? Preemo should be tight

Nas Clothing Line
http://www.nobodysmiling.com/hiphop/news/80199.php
It's okay, I guess.

Dude from Fear Factory also produces
http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=4685
Weird.

Fergie pisses herself at show
http://www.lukaskaiser.com/archives/2005/08/the_black_eyed.html
The fuck?

Chuck D interviews Superhead
http://www.airamericaplace.com/archive.php?mode=display&id=2135
He wont call her that though.

And im done.

Inside Out - No Spitiritual Surrender Review

First off, a RIP to Rosa Parks. Im not going to go on about the world lost another beautiful soul and what have you cause if you didnt know that already, get the fuck out of this site and get educated.

So what is Inside Out? I'll call them 90's "metalcore" but make no mistake about it, the main draw here is the vocalist, none other than Zack de La Rocha.

See, Mr. de la Rocha's earliest influences were old punk groups like the Sex Pistols, which of course led to appreacieation of hardcore punk like Bad Brains or Minor Threat and heavy metal (although I can't pinpoint exactly what the band is, there certainly is a metal influence.)

After being in a straight edge band, he made this group, Inside Out, and this is their 1990 EP. This is a mere 2 years before "Rage Against the Machine" came out, and during that time Zack picked up a huge influence from Public Enemy and to a lesser degree KRS-1, Run-DMC, EPMD, Eric B. & Rakim, etc.

The "Rakim meets Chuck D of Public Enemy" voice we all know and love is not present on this album. The guitar playing sticks to metalcore and so are the vocals - screamed for the most part, sung a little, it is basically never rapped like it was in RATM. Zack does already sport activist lyrics, but they stem mostly from Minor Threat and hardcore punk, not Public Enemy and KRS-One and political hip-hop.

So this is not a Rage album, nor does it sound like it, nor does it attempt to be onr or sound like it. But is it good?

This CD has alot going for it, but ultimately Inside Out is just another band with good intentions and reedeming qualities but not enough good music to ever be one of your favorite bands. Nor can they be - Zack's split and the RATM rise and fall have made this EP more of an interesting relic in Zack's career - a place for one to examine his growth as an artist rather than a CD for actual musical value.

It's not bad, it's just not that good. It's a fairly interesting listen and if you can get it at your nearest "legal downloading center" it's worth the short downlading time(it's only 6 songs, clocking in at 15 minutes). In fact, alot of the songs sound very similar and thus you might just want to listen to a few songs. Recommended for Zack and RATM fans who are curious about the evolution of the band.

Rev Run - Distortion Review

Rev Run, with his MTV show and being a Reverend and what have you, comes up with his first solo album. So how is it? Well, its short, but...read on.

01. I Used to Think I Was Run
Rev really is intense throughout this album, and the opener is certainly a demonstration of this. The song is pretty good with a nice chorus.

02. Home Sweet Home
This samples "Sweet Home Alabama" and its alright for remaking Lynrd Skynrd into rap, I guess. Not really all that.

03. Boom Ditty
And this song has a thump like you havent heard - a certified minimalistic headnodder. My shit.

04. Breaktime
A minute 42 seconds with a bunch of breaks and what I'm guessing is a 303 synth or something. It's okay, but "Boom Ditty" is better.

05. High and Mighty Joe
Headnodder again, just a fun song. The chorus is pretty funny and again the focus is on the drumming. I'd like to know who's doing the scratches and who's playing bass and what have you cause there's definitely alot of live instrumentation.

06. The Way
Song about how good he preaches, which is untrue. He's not really all that knowledgable about God. But the percussion and the guitars are nice. Actually the lyrics arent that bad either.

07. Don't Stop Y'all
He switches his flow up, and the weird synthesizers and chorus are pretty sweet.

08. Mind on the Road
Big single, big-time headnodding with the booming drums and the distortion guitars. Fuck it, I like it and deal with it.

09. Take a Tour
Another song with a laid back flow and general laid back feel,at least compared to the rest of the album. I dig the percussion andwhatever instrument that is that plays along. The Blondie sample on the hook works alright.

10. Distortion
Closes with the title track, so I'm guessing its suppossed to be super important. Rev Run has a powerful voice that feels right at home over the booming percussion (and you guessed it) distortion guitars and ocassionally distorted vocals or what have you. The guitar solo isnt all that good though.

Overall
This album reminds me of Run-D.M.C. even though it doesn't sound much like Run-D.M.C. Of course Run still is Run and there's Run-D.M.C. samples scattered througout, but the sound in general doesnt sound like that. What I mean is that its just a fun album - Rev isnt the most intelligent or the wittiest rapper ever and whoever plays guitar is no Marty Friedman, but they dont have to be. There is a certain urgency to the songs, a certain class, a certain fun to it - that's how it reminds me of Run-D.M.C.

So yeah, this album is over at 23:03, the longest song is 3:07 and there's 2 songs that dont even break the 2 minute mark. So yeah, its short. The truth is, however, I'll take 23 minutes of shit this good as oppossed to 46 minutes of shit half this good.

Like my man GZA said:
"Half as long, twice as strong"

djx featured on SOHH.com

Number 4.
http://sohh.com/articles/article.php/7670

Yeah kids, the 1 & only djxplicit and his "222 Reasons I Hate Kanye West" has been mentioned on SOHH.com - hailed as the "most awesomest hip-hop site on, like, the planet, dude!" by several aging white men in Rolling Stone magazine who swear theyre still cool.

Big ups to Bol Guevara, M.D. for providing that link (nhjic). I didn't even know the kids at SOHH.com had mentioned me till he emailed me that.

For some reason though, they dont link to this site, nor even to the list (still found at http://www.slapadropout.tk). I don't like spreading rumours or anything, but word on the internets is that they gotta get their advertising revenue from Kanghey and...well, we all know Big Bank doesnt like Bol or none of the stop Kanye movement.

Whitewater's Weekly Burning Questions

In honor of the start of NBA Training Camp, it's time to ask some important questions relating to everyone's favorite blend of athleticism and crime.

Given his corruption indictment, do you think Tom De Lay will face enough questions about his heart to nickname him "Eddy Curry?"


Eddy's heart just skipped a beat.

Since last year's Timberwolves were such a wreck, does anyone else think we should just refer to last season as the Malik Sealy Season?


Did the Hornets have a Bobby Phills Season too?

Whose name is more associated with the word bust: Damon Stoudamire or Kwame Brown?

What's more broke: Pakistan or Amare Stoudemire's knee?

And, finally, no homo Juelz Santana, what lasted longer: Nick and Jessica's marriage or Rafael Palmeiro without viagra?


Why did he take steroids? Because he wasn't naturally good with the wood.

Public Enemy - New Whirl Odor Album Review

Well, PE decided to not put out whatever it was they were doing with Paris (or at least delay it till next year) and put this out instead. I guess that's OK, but why didnt they combined the best of both?

01. …And No One Broadcasted Louder Than… (Intro)
Some dude keeps up with the black CNN metaphor. I mean, I guess.

02. New Whirl Odor
Pretty sweet, actually, even though the vocals seem to be played thorugh a tape player.

03. Bring That Beat Back
This would be good if the beat didnt sound like OKplayer ripping off Kanye West. Still good vocals. By the way, I dont know how you can make a bad Kanye West imitation - you just take a Luther Vandross song and play it really fast. And I mean that quite literally.

04. 66.6 Strikes Again (Intermisson One)
This is a tribute to the "Incident at 66.6 FM" instrumental back in the day - and they got the same radio guy and the phone calls and a new, but totally nice instrumental. Actually this beat is better than the past 2.

05. MKLVFKWR (featuring Moby)
This is pretty old, but it has great lyrics and it doesnt even sound all that techno. Actually this production is better than the fake Kanye earlier. Of course i still like the Raw Public remix better.

06. Questions
The now required attempt at heavy metal. This is actually pretty damn interesting even if some parts are just typical Fine Arts Militia or what have you (and I mean that in a bad way). Where is Anthrax when you need em?

07. Makes You Blind
A more traditonal rap song, except better. Probably produced by DJ Johnny "Juice" Rosado. The lyrics take the traditional shots at the government, news and corporations but with the usual cleverness of Chuck D - "Throw your hands in the air, Bush and Blair dont care [...] they said to the masses they considered them asses / Take a look at the world, another Son of a Bush disaster"

08. Preachin To The Quiet
This one of the better songs. Maybe it's when PE isn't trying to reinvent the wheel when they sound better now days. Back in 89 they were groundbreaking, but this is 16 years after and they still want to break new ground at every turn, and maybe if they just stuck to making much better versions of what other poeple are doing their albums would be better. Just maybe.

09. Get Down
Another instrumental, this time more reminscent of "Security of the 1st World" if it wasnt as cool. But not alot of shit is as cool as "Security of the 1st World"

10. Revolution
This beat is pretty good, the chorus is awful, and who's this dude rapping? I want to say it's like a british dude or something. Professor Griff is on this too. A little hint to him: There's a reason why youre not on PE's best 2 albums.

11. Check What You're Listening To
Yeah, fuck the radio. But again the beat is kind of weird and not in a good way.

12. As Long As The People Got Something To Say
If I attempted to recreate like, "War at 33 1/3" without any James Brown samples, this is probably what I would end up with.

13. Ya'll Don't Know
Proffessor Griff solo = skip.

14. Either You Get It By Now Or You Don't (Intermission Two)
This is another good instrumental. Maybe they should do an all-instrumental album. Actually, not they shouldnt at all. By the way, is that like a Neil Young sample somewhere in there?

15. Superman's Black In The Building
With that kind of corny attempt to be clever of a title, you would never think that this is totally awesome and intense in a way you hadnt heard before from PE. This shit is 12 minutes long - and its complete with sax solos, guitar solos, drum solos, turntable solos. Maybe a little too long though.

OVERALL: Ok, I complained throughout most of this album, but it's actually pretty good. The problem is that the memories of "Fear of a Black Planet" and "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" are there and nothing will ever be as good. The vocals are consistently good if they are kind of getting a little more repetitive than in the past but the beats are just not there. Next time, let's get Pete Rock to do the whole album. That'd be badass.

Best songs: The intermissons, "Makes You Blind" and "Superman's Black In The Building".

Oh yeah, every brown person on the face of the Earth is always planning to blow something up just to spite the Heavenly Space SuperGod Jesus. When boarding a plane, remember the old saying: If the passengers are brown, stay on the ground. If the passengers are white, have a nice flight!