My fingers have been all over the pulse of hip-hop lately.



I love music. My musical tastes have been varied since I was a kid: my first self-bought CD was Blues Traveler and my favorite band in High School was They Might Be Giants (surprise!); I've ground my hips to the nastiest electro beats and goth stomped to the bass of Covenant and She Wants Revenge. My only no-fly zones have been hip-hop and country, but that list has been getting cut in half over the past three years.



My college rides the awkward line between the ghetto of New Haven and Yale, but like any college, there's a lot of hip-hop and rap blasting from open dorm doors. At first it pissed me off and I tried to balance it out with stuff I preferred, but after awhile I grew to except it -- you kind of have to if you're going to live on a campus like mine, which is so small and close-knit that you can't avoid anything or anyone you don't like.



Slowly, and a little begrudgingly, I discovered that there was hip-hop and rap I actually liked.



It started off with Mac Lethal, who's the sort of rap artist that no one expects. He's outspoken and angry, politically inclined at some points, and grew up with the kind of rejection that's typical of rap artists working from the streets up: he's undeniably white, but he's got a "no, seriously, I don't give a shit" edge that most people like him don't have. But if you're expecting the typical "white guy trying to be black" card, I'm not sure if Mac fits that list:

This is for anyone wishing they could do their entire life over:
Quit sulking, you fuckin' pussy.
Yeah yeah yeah, clown on my accent all you want.
I'll whoop your ass. i'll whoop your grandmothers ass.
I'll whoop your sisters ass. I'll beat your moms ass.
I'll kick your ass. It's the anti-socialite not-so-christian
That will talk more shit than bitter and old women
On puny fucking rappers with little-to-no rhythm.
Fuck veganism give me some general tso's chicken.
I write weird songs that got hooks like journey
And if I grew my hair out I'd probably look like Fergie.
But I'd never tinkle in my pants while I was on stage
Cause I was potty trained when I was four years of age.
I think a lot of people these days are bitches,
I also think that emo and emotional are different.
But more so I hate white girls that talk like,
"Aww hell no, girl I'm gettin' you sick crunk, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Calm Down Baby

From there I fell into the rest of the Rhymesayers, which some people hate because they don't think they're "real" and some people love because they're pretty intelligent. For me, it's a little give and take. I love beats that have real music and thought behind them, but I hate political rap and I think hip-hop loses its edge when you take away the visceral aspect that a lot of modern rap artists seem to have. Two out of the Rhymesayer bunch worth talking about though are P.O.S. and Grayskul.



P.O.S. is just getting his shit off the ground and releasing his first album, Never Better, but what he's shown so far is great stuff and definitely worth the buy. To me, he's found the balance that Mac didn't really have, riding the line between good rhymes and some decent beats -- although he can still get a little too political for me.



The crown jewel of his new album is Optimist, which has really awesome and unique percussion with a laid-back beat and some good lyrics:

i'mma set off and run
i'mma kill it 'til it's dead
i'mma do it 'til it ain't fun and the words don't come
then i'm gonna find another hobby
probably find love, probably find trust
eighty-one young with a little bit of rust
clean interior, minnesota plates
money in the bank with a lot of you to thank


Optimist

Grayskul, the other member of the Rhymesayers group that I'm fond of, is the opposite side of Mac Lethal. Explicit lyrics with a typically driven electronic/bass back-up, but Grayskul's got the street-edge that the other two are lacking and I think will inevitably carry him further into mainstream. His most recent album features Missing, which also has what's-her-face from Pretty Girls Make Graves. Yeah, I'm totally up on my singer names, obviously.

A misguided child at the age of 18
Who never went to school in pursuit of a dream
I was truant, a class act that ruined his life fast
That was stupid and the whole world knew it
So then I dropped out and I never looked back
Alienated and related with cats that have my back
Got into drugs, thugs, syndicated, sporting them rags
Virginia Beach was a trap, I was under attack
And if this skull and OD never existed
I’d probably end up in the state prison
Convicted of multiple counts of robbery, malicious intent, rape, murder
Or worse persecuted, probably be dead
I had a mindful of demons, even made them my friends
They taught me how to lie, steal, and cheat
The art of revenge
A hate machine made to act out every thought in my head
A criminal, cold-blooded
Man, what happened to Jeff?

Missing

Around the time I started listening to these two, I met a guy who's got his fingers digging deep into everything that's good about the hip-hop scene. His music blog, We Are The Nite Owls, showcases some great shit from old-school and modern day, freestyle and remix. It's through him I started to find some really fantastic mash-ups of artists who work so well together it's ridiculous: Jay-Z and Coldplay, Notorious B.I.G. and Frank Sinatra (no, I'm serious, it's great), DJ Drama and The Clipse to name a few. I already had a few mixtape mash-ups that I loved, such as the Ratatat Remixes, but Ken Rivers III and the folks at We Are The Nite Owls pushed me along the rest of the way. Seriously, if you guys can get a hold of any of the Ratatat Remixes, especially Volume 2, I promise you it will be worth your time:




Ratatat - Allure ft. Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G.



Ratatat - Diamonds by Kanye West



Ratatat - Dead Wrong by Notorious B.I.G.



Coldplay & Jay-Z - Lost



Coldplay & Jay-Z - Life of Clocks



Notorious B.I.G. & Frank Sinatra - Everyday Struggle



Notorious B.I.G. & Frank Sinatra - Nasty Boy




I leave you with Nyle, who is brand new to the hip-hop scene and I'm already in love with. For every year he's been in college he's produced a fresh CD with a different sound and his latest album, not yet released, is proving to be fan-fucking-tastic. You can check out the video here, and I swear, if you only click one link on this whole journal entry, it better be this one. Nyles has some sick-as-shit and hilarious rhymes with a musical background I really appreciate -- he's not afraid to bring in his musical background and you can really read it in his style. From what I understand, he's graduating from college this year and the life he has ahead of him looks great with stuff like this opening up. His lyrics are hard to find, but really try to listen and or you'll miss some classy-ass shit like this:

"no more dreams of going diamond and spittin' that fly talk/dudes actin' like they street when they barely sidewalk"



""i'll make y'all wish hard like return of jafar"

Okay, hip-hop: you used Return of Jafar in a rap reference. You've converted me. Bring on the beats, bitches.