j cole - born sinners vs. alchemist/prodigy - albert einstein

lmao

i sort of thought, hey, me and this kid are the same age, he's down with the boring formalism of new york rap, cosigned by jay, probably on some clever jay electronica raps... he got a song called 'let nas down,' let me play that first... i've got a lot of time for rap game mythmaking, 'u.b.r.'/nas talking about what it meant to hear g rap say "you got somethin"... opens on uncut nas line, freedom or jail, clips inserted, a baby's bein born / same time my man is murdered, the beginning and the end / as far as rap go, it's only natural i explain / my plateau and also what defines me name... fuck yeah, 'nas is like,' some squiggly jazz rap beat... turns out the whole fucking song is about how nas thought that fucking paula abdul 'work out' youtube single was wack. don't make a song about that, j cole.

when people complain about the shitty puns or groany lines or loud production on yeezus, i wonder if they've heard born sinners, which is so 'tasteful' and so boring (and looooong)

he's swallowed the lessons of canonical rap albums 1993-2013 and can accurately produce the form minus the emotion or insight, with no chances taken. he's a technically good rapper, he can write bars, and he'll occasionally hit on something interesting but his treatment of everything is so superficial. he can't maintain focus for very long. he produced the whole thing himself and, again, it's technically good or whatever but so fucking boring.

i like this guy... i like his singles a lot and the album is pretty good i think, def from a production standpoint minus the parts where it gets a bit saccharine.

but there really is no story there... he's just a guy with a good ear, basically.

unbelievable, seen evil that not even knievel know
at age three, i knew this world was three below
listen, even though my ego low achieved the unachievable
imagine if my confidence was halfway decent, yo
this just in, fuck more bitches than bieber, though
still i keep it low
got my niggas on a need to know
basis, my manager back in the days was racist
i was a young boy passin skates and tuckin laces
old perverted white man who told me, 'jermaine
it's all pink on the inside fuck what color they face is'
wise words from an indecent man
made me reflect on the times we was three fifths of them
in chains and powerless, brave souls reduced to cowardice
slavin in the baking sun for hours just to
see the master creepin to the shack where your lady at
nine months later got a baby that's
not quite what you expected but you
refuse to neglect it 'cause you
know your wifey love you
does you refuse to accept it?
that's that type shit that turned my granny lightskinned
rich white man rule the nation still
only difference is we all slaves now, the chains concealed
in our thoughts
if I follow my heart to save myself
could i run away from fifty mil like dave chappelle?

The fact that this album uses samples of/from Ready To Die, Midnight Marauders AND Aquemini is possibly more embarrassing than the song about Nas

it's a matter of public record that i've got a lot of time for rappers that are technically competent and sorta dull and i paid retail for a sheek louch album in the last five years but i'm not feeling this in any way.

song with miguel is the best thing on here.

t-boz and chilli sound all right on that one song but yeah this dude sucks

it's got a line on that starts "something something something paying 17"-- pause-- what are we getting into here, j cole? but it's:

"hundred a month" for a well furnished loft in new york.

i like the singles and the beat on 'let nas down' is cool.

this is one of those records i was actually kinda fuckin with while it was on

it's the funniest shit to me that he talks about discovering that he had to have a hit to release an album and how he treats making hits like an obligation so he can release his classic albums

but yo, his shit sold insane numbers and bourgeoise middle class "i went to college" relatable everyman rap is the wave right now

IMO be happy he sold more than the mac miller record

because yeah 'power trip' & 'crooked smile' are jams, and some of the production on here is pretty special

otherwise i agree that he is a rapper of limited narrative talents

http://cdn.pigeonsandplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/j-cole.png

late night, i can't sleep, i get dressed
four a.m., i'm gonna get cigarettes
grab my hoodie for the light drizzle
hit the curb what's the word with the night shifters
on that grizzly grime, they said p
nigga you was lookin for, i saw him up the street
he was parkin his car, probably still there
hotboxin with that little shorty with the hair
who? that bitch with the cheap red weave? yeah that mutt
aight cool, i'm out, good lookin out, dun
made my way up the block to the spot where they saw the joker
that's why i never leave home without the toaster
i saw his radio lights through the rear tint
i stepped in front of the car so he could see the hit
the look his face was priceless
the bitch microbraids caught fire when the fif
put pieces of her wig on the seats in the back
now there's weed smoke pouring out the bullethole glass
turn the gun on him, he tryna float
tryna run up out the car but he left on his seatbelt
now the nigga goin ham in the whip
'cause them shots tearin him up and thunderclappin

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1630034852/JColeNC_Teeth.jpg

time to face the music of
the israeli uzi
that murder music
i hunt humans
but i never find niggas when i go lookin
they always seem to fall in my hands
like, nigga don't blame me, this is really god's plan
there he go
what the fuck? nigga pickin up his kid from the school bus
now, how shall i proceed?
do the nigga dirty right in front of his seed
so the little bitch grow up traumatized, a witness
to how ugly life can be
it is what it is
they walking up the way holding hands
look
i drove ahead of them and got out for the ambush
there's no thinking twice the darkskinned nigga turned white
before that first shot turned out his lights
now, babygirl screaming hysterically
she gon spend most her life inside therapy
spitting image of her pops
so i smacked the little ho with the gun then i walked around the block
police buggin
i left the chariot still running
forgive me lord
he had it coming

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

who voted for j cole?

my favorite parts of this are
prodigy has slipping further and further into a minimalist freeform mode that is only occasionally, maybe accidentally structured like rap verse is conventionally structured or rhymed or showing any sort of formal constraints. he does conventional prodigy too but i appreciate the fucked up wandering over spooky alchemist beats.
at the same time
he goes for very conventional content on this, which actually leads him to coming up with interesting images or turns of phrase. murder&guns (&existential despair sometimes) examined with a microscope, almost totally removed from context. some of the images stick with me, like the weedsmoke bubbling through a gunshot in the back window of the car, for example.

The beat switch up on Bible Paper takes it from paraNOID to PARANOID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAzZzTUGNt4

so fucking dope.

no disrespect to p, lots of love for his style on this but
i would like to hear "good" rappers on these beats

by that, i mean big sean and pusha t

jokes

?

g.o.o.d. music rappers u see

:)

i definitely think pusha t is a "good " rapper tho

Yeah me too, would be interested to hear him over an albums worth of alc beats.

Born Sinner was aight, not sure if I'll spin it much, about to dip into the Prodigy joint. still think his autobio was a piece of junk that made him look like a butthurt dickface, but I still love hearing him spit bars.

The fact that this album uses samples of/from Ready To Die, Midnight Marauders AND Aquemini is possibly more embarrassing than the song about Nas

― some dude, Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:59 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like the "Da Art of Storytellin'" jack was dumb on so many levels. Keeping the beat intact was only going to invite comparisons, and well Cole's track vs one of the best tunes on one of the best hip hop albums of all-time isn't even close. Not to mention it slows momentum after a pretty killer intro track to step backwards like that.

i'm not some huge jcole fan but i actually like that song even tho obv it doesn't stand anywhere w/ the kast original. but i think it's a clever & subtle song, i like the way the last verse switches up ur expectations

i'm just not really here for these rappers whose fandom shines through so bright but they have really boring canonical taste tbh. it's like the Game all over again. if you're gonna bite, bite some obscure or unexpected shit.

yeah i feel that

i think i can take for example nas lionization of queens legends and guys like rakim and kool g rap because i don't have any emotional connection to the music or the characters he's talking about and i'm willing to accept the conventional wisdom that rakim and g rap changed the game or whatever and i've sought out their music but to be honest they don't do anything for me + a lot of the oldschool rappers nas namechecks, apart from run dmc, are sort of a blank spot in music history outside of rap magazines + nas flips the influence of early nyc street rappers in a unique way + the way that nas venerates his ancestors is often compelling and sorta illuminates his own personal experience and his music but with j cole it's just kind of lame ("let nas down" vs. "unauthorized biography of rakim").

fried red herring garnished with opinions and what not

http://tumblinerb.com/post/54242835122/why-is-jcole-mediocre

i feel like that properly ethers a certain kind of jcole fan more than cole himself

or it misrepresents his appeal (which is fair to a degree because his stans are always misrepresenting that appeal) but

j.cole to me is a 6.5 (pitchfork of course) rapper.

damn I actually really dig the Prodigy/Alchemist a lot!

Yeah I kinda do too.

prodigy/alchemist record is kind of a gem, totally unlike "return of the mac" but i'm really digging it

^^^
This

If it wasn't for this thread I wouldn't have even known this album existed

under the influence of magna carta holy grail, i played this again and i felt bad about clowning poor j cole. this is what i like:
-- the unselfconscious earnestness. i read an interview with him, where he ran into nas by chance at an airport in houston, flying out to l.a. after some car show gig he was doing in the houston suburbs, and he'd just finished 'let nas down' and his description of his anxiety approaching nas to play it for his hero. i appreciate that. his motives are pure.
-- he's a fan of a lot of the same things as me. he's flowing off 'da art of storytelling'! that's just a great beat and it's 15 years old and outkast put slick rick on the track and put him in front of new school rap heads and anyone watching mtv2 or listening to the radio that summer that might not have ever heard of him. j cole doesn't have the lyrical talents or the voice to pull off a closer imitation of the music that he loves but he tries. it's kind of like hearing a really breathy overpassionate talent show singer doing a destiny's child song or something... there are points where i can hear him reaching for a certain lyrical tone or a vocal tone or whatever and i appreciate it because i see what he was going for.
-- kid put a lot of work into putting this together, every beat on the album, no guests except kendrick lamar on one track to take the focus off him. it's pretty fucking boring but at least it's not actively insulting like jay and his obscene promotional campaign and garbage-ass samsung app.

if you like the prodigy album, you definitely need to hear the new havoc.

this isn't representative-- more introspective and weird but there's some of this stuff, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-qjJ_GaQ8A

love the banks verse, love the outro

got the Havoc this afternoon. Only had one listen so far, but it was really enjoyable. can't wait to dig a lil deeper

comparing old guy rap releases in the last month, prodigy, havoc, styles (, jay?), which are all as much about united production values (single producers on all of those: alchemist, havoc, scram jones) as oldschool rap rules, i think the havoc lp comes the closest to the best of both worlds (alchemist on prodigy's album has the best production, though, i think).

i'd like to read a longform review of all 4 of those albums. someone write one.

i dunno maybe sheek louch and memph bleek released albums this month which could be included too for balance.

dylann did you listen to the MC Eiht Keep It Hood ep from earlier this year?

i've never listened to any west coast rap ever. once accidentally bought a seagram cd on rap-a-lot because i thought he was from houston.

i saw there was also a wc/daz album out this month.

for real xp?

Eiht's been kicking around recording an album with Premier for the past year or two which would be interesting at least (Premo doing full albums has yielded his only worthwhile production in the last decade-ish I think? I'm probably the only person who listened to the BLAQ POET record though lol)

That album was ok, had a couple standouts for sure. The Keep it Hood ep has a premo track on it.

I cant get excited for Premier any more though.

ha word. always wished Premo did more West Coast shit in his prime besides, like, those CMW and Too Short remixes. nowadays it's sort of whatever

i have a good knowledge of canonical west coast rap and more underground stuff from reading murder dog, screw tapes, which are 85% 80s and 90s west coast content, following rap writing or journalism or whatever for a decade.

i never found a good entry point for it. i was too young to be around during the golden age of the west coast. by the time i came around, it had evaporated and i saw ice cube in barbershop before i ever heard him rap. there didn't seem to be any west coast underground rap that was making noise and seemed appealing. i just didn't like what i heard. at the same time, the south was making noise and i found a lot of what i liked about grimy new york rap in the south-- but sometimes it was more radical or scarier or more intense or easier for me to relate to (port arthur, shitty apartment blocks, the smell of swisher sweets coming out the windows of sunburnt buicks vs. project hallways) and in 2002, or 2003, or 2004, it was the most fun cool badass shit i ever heard.

there wouldn't be a west coast album in my top 100 rap lps of all time.

I hear you. You've missed out on so much tho! Just with what I know about you you would be all over Spice 1, Suga Free, E-40/B-Legit, Mac Mall

Dru Down

I came into Cube right at the tail end of his prime between Predator and Bow Down so I got enough of a taste to have the desire to work back.

We should start up a dylannn west-coast hip-hop listening club

that'd be great.

Alright, sent you a webmail with some questions before I fire it up.

The dylannn (west coast hip-hop) listening club

my verbal ak slay faggots
and i don't mean no disrespect
whenever i say "faggot"
okay, faggot?
don't be so sensitive
if you want to get fucked in the ass
that's between you and whoever else's dick it is
pause-- maybe that line was too far
just a little joke to show how homophobic you are
and who could blame ya?
boy meets world
i'm tryna find a new topanga

This song samples the intro from R. Kelly’s I Wish remix along with The Notorious B.I.G.’s Juicy.

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/26634291/Prodigy+p.jpg

haha i realized i forgot to post this!!!

http://postimg.org/image/d0b29rtxh/

http://postimg.org/image/d0b29rtxh

http://s2.postimg.org/fue7n7w3t/photo_fixed_300dpi.jpg

hmmm

!

those j. cole lyrics dylann posted are pure fuckboi fuckery

hits #1 in its second week; it's already outsold Yeezus

That HAS to be eating away at Ye.

I would be too if my new album was outsold by a dude whose name sounds like a clothing designers

http://splicetoday.com/music/three-twilit-terrors

can we stop this "fuckboy" bullshit please

what's the problem?

It's such a weird phrase to me

fuckboy what's your problem?

oh i see what you did there

sorry rev i just didn't expect you to delight so much in the trendiness of a synonym for "faggot"

hmmm? you're the first person I've heard suggest that, it hadn't occurred to me to take it as such. I'm not sure I agree.

to me it's just been a way of saying "fuck that dude"

yeah if it's news to you then i dunno what to tell you man

I've seen a ton of people use fuckboy that would never call someone a faggot, so I don't think I'm the only one

i figured it was a new way of saying "punk" in the prison sense

in other news, can we talk about how great this Prodigy/Alchemist album is?

Lena Horny ‏@BougieLa

Republican homophobic fuckboy on SCOTUS' DOMA decision:" the Supreme Court decided to put the needs of society before the needs of children"

i figured it was a new way of saying "punk" in the prison sense

― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, July 23, 2013 9:08 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically

to me it reads as a synonym for faggot to me too at least rap lyric use of faggot
for whatever its worth

who is the tall bald white guy with prodigy there?

ray-ray if you liked this you definitely need to check out the havoc album
spooky production but warmer than alchemist

who is the tall bald white guy with prodigy there?

― dylannn, Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:56 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you rang?

nice
although now that i think about it standing beside prodigy might exaggerate your height a bit

lol when i interviewed Hav & P they were so tiny (it was a weird experience, though, i was basically in the room w/ them for an in-store appearance but then they had to go to the next event and did the interview by phone from the car).

i'm just a touch over 6 feet tall so not like crazy tall or anything, he was pretty short

though he was very solid, which seemed good cuz he looked so frail & sickly back in the mac 10 handle video era so he seems to be in better health

there are no truly great rappers taller than 6 feet

the Havoc and Prodigy albums are both great. they both complement different moods nicely.

if you need more evidence that they're dope, XXL only gave em both an L so....

love that shot of you with p m@tt
good rule of thumb when taking photos with rappers is to mean mug the camera

feel like this theory needed to be explored more:

there are no truly great rappers taller than 6 feet

― dylannn, Wednesday, July 24, 2013 1:41 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

big daddy kane (with fade) puts the lie to that

also method, snoop, krs...

"with fade" haha

i just listened to the prodigy audiobook read by prodigy.

no youtube embed right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaBpDSreVkY

PRODIGY FT. CORMEGA - THREE