Nas names new album 'Nigger'

"Nigger" is a great title for a cd but i fully expect this to come out with the title he's been using on all his recent 12"/mixtape cuts, which is "nasdaq dow jones".

Which is an even worse title than "new whirl odor".

(it needed repeating)

ROFFLES

The slur, formerly used by Southern lynch mobs, has become a common greeting among black youth

By the way (and this isn't a change of subject), here's what Dwarfism.org says about terminology for the vertically-challenged:

"We are first and foremost human beings, it is secondary that we are human beings who are of restricted growth. Use of the word "midget" to describe someone of short stature is considered extremely offensive by some people. It is better to refer to someone of short stature as a "Little Person" or "Dwarf". Also, some people find the term "dwarf" as equally offensive as "midget". If people, both average and short stature, were able to place their humanity before everything else, the world might be a much better place. The more we stick labels on each other, the more we segregate ourselves, and the more we encourage ignorance and prejudice."

They then headline the section immediately following: "Estimated Worldwide Dwarf Population".

The slur, formerly used by Southern lynch mobs, has become a common greeting among black youth.

Funny, I thought the idea has been around for a couple thousand years. The same goes for lesbians, gangsters, and coffee. Wait! That could be a silly Warren Zevon parody.

They went through "Colored", "Negro", and "Black" first, and are now considering "Americans of African Descent".

The real title is "The Goalkeeper's Revenge."

Kike was invented by Western European Jews to describe other Jews.

NO FUCKING SHIT?!?!?!???!?

Sorry, I didn't finish the rest of my post. I was just gonna point out the irony of Sharpton's point because the other slur he alludes to (kike) was a word invented by and for Jews and Sharpton talks about how no other race touches self-denigrating words with ten-foot-poles when in fact it's kinda common for these words to start among the races themselves and leak.

There's a lot of internal struggle and confusion. Don't tell me Nas can't rap

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1c2OQUWSQUE

It's all the experiences we go through every day, of all ethnicities, black, white, and... different

fucking momus

more surprised by late stones member brian jones not liking nas

Oh, god damn it, I've been here for more than two years.

i'm still really excited for the album

ha, i thought he said "black, white, indifferent".

i like the 'louis farrakhan' song a lot

also wtf is this 'eban thomas,' its eban brown. mp3 taggers cant get anything right

he's gonna perform on the Colbert Report next week.

what the fuck that b.o.b. article

B.o.B isn’t technically from Atlanta, he’s from Decatur. While it’s often assumed to be a suburb of the ATL, it isn’t. The map on DecaturGA.com doesn’t look like the streets of The Wire. There’s a school, but kids seem to be playing there, rather than manning posts on the corner. And someone is selling newspapers, but that person looks white and nothing like dope-scarred Bubbles wondering if he has AIDS. It’s all happy pastels and not the violent grays of Baltimore…and yet, B.o.B explains his youth like he just grew from Dukie’s ashes. And then his lyrics poking holes in the patterns of socialization actually make sense.

how the fuck does this devil even have this fuckin job

referencing the wire in a rap review in 2008 = automatic new jack status

i realize that doesnt even scratch the surface if this dudes b.s. but im just saying

hes talking about DECATUR

i dont even know where to begin with this

'im white btw' needs a graemlin

Worst beat-picker ever? Scratch that. Worst chorus writer ever. The 3 album drought pre-Stillmatic has been followed by another, erm, 7 year dry patch.

don't understand how someone who likes Stillmatic could hate all of the last 4 albums.

I like Stillmatic and I'm enjoying this one so far....

'im white btw' needs a graemlin

-- deej, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 5:04 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

with that picture of that dude from salon http://www.bostonmagazine.com/images/uploads/photos/shell/75_shellfile.jpg

lol @ nas rapping "*plop*" on 'fried chicken'

"I think Jesse Jackson, he's the biggest player hater," Nas fumed during a conference call. "His time is up. All you old n---as, time is up. We heard your voice, we saw your marching, we heard your sermons. We don't wanna hear that sh-- no more. It's a new day. It's a new voice. I'm here now. We don't need Jesse; I'm here. I got this. We got Barack, we got David Banners and Young Jeezys. We're the voice now. It's no more Jesse. Sorry. Goodbye. You ain't helping nobody in the 'hood. That's the bottom line. Goodbye, Jesse. Bye!"

just caught that he namedropped the late lunatic William Cooper and Behold a Pale Horse on one of the tracks...nice. perfect timing as I was just talkin about that dude the other day and couldn't remember his last name until I heard the track

Pitchfork gave it a bad review. there's the validation I needed.

What is with Pitchfork? Honest to fucking Christ. WTF?!
I'm liking this record so far, not cool that my very young brother knows all the lyrics to most of it already and sings them at school (so I hear).
I think Nas has a message to make somewhere but I'm wondering if it will get lost amongst ALL THE CONTROVERSY (which IMO is incredibly stupid considering rappers have been saying nigga for about...forever)its a pretty good album SO FAR. I may just be saying that since he hasn't done shit in a while. What was that god awful song with Nas where it was about 'dreams and stuff' but for kids and it was supposed to be like 'Hard Knock Life' only it was just shit?

Pitchfork is on point lately on more obscure stuff and techno. I also like their writing lately on this stuff. But I agree - with every rap review or hyped release that comes out, they're either black or white - 6.0 or below or 8.0 or above (when, in all honesty, most music they review deserves to be somewhere in between. And fuck the decimals). They're on Lil' Wayne's dick for his underwhelming album that sounds like anything else out right now, calling it "imaginative," and they write off Nas for his shit. Nas's album is seriously pretty alright; I enjoyed it. Somewhat better than Wayne's. Both are NOT classics and NOT terrible - they're inconsistent and have some good songs on there. But Pitchfork will never give an OG above a 7 unless thy're Wu-affiliated.

I'm kind of waiting to see what they do when Detox comes out. I know it's going to be a grandiose, pontificating review pulling examples that only help the writer's cause, and it's going to get ugly.

As a parting shot:

When caught up in the increasingly antiquated promotional cycle, Nas is more likely to rely on ugly manipulation of people who tend to care way more about his work than he apparently does, and accomplish the exact opposite of what he presumptively set out for-- see how Stillmatic took advantage of those who needed to believe that it had equal footing with The Blueprint (illustrated by The Source's hilariously opportunistic 5-mic rating).

Replace Nas with Wayne and the Source with Pitchfork. See what I'm getting at? I could write more but I'ma t work.

wait is Detox actually gonna come out at some point

predicting what pfork is gonna do to detox before a single has even dropped is kinda crazy

anyway like i said this album is pretty good, a solid 7-7.5 depending on how generous im feeling

i think that whats good about it is unlike how cynical of a commercial concept 'hip hop is dead' was (and ugh unbearable to hear ANYONE talk about) this seems pretty genuine and heartfelt, its a nice piece that fits in about the middle-quality of his catalog

people who even MENTION illmatic at this point - hes had 9 albums! its a sliver of his career! and its been the narrative on which every. single. album review pivots - "its the best since his 2nd best (after illmatic)" or "nas always disappoints (since illmatic)" are the basic structures every review fits in. its like, the most fair thing you can do at this point is write independently from his 'legacy' about it, realize that hes made enough traxx over the course of his career that an album can stand on its own as SOMETHING

but its also not the center of rap anymore and shouldnt really be treated as such, hes running on legacy, so drop the legacy talk and tell me about the record.

this one is ok

looked at from the pt of view of HISTORY this album is kinda just there and not really worth talking about. which is why i sorta agree w/ greg kot's perspective even if i like the record a lot more than he does
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/07/nas-fails-to-in.html

but if u look at it on its own terms (veteran rapper out of the limelight releases personal record regarding race in america) i think its pretty solid, although like i said somewhere hes always gonna be weird/cringeworthy at least twice per song, beat selection, lyrical choice, wack chorus, whatever

jon caramanica's review covered this angle pretty well i thought (so did mine but word count stripped nuance/im not self promoting lol)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/arts/music/14choi.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

its like ... praising a masta ace record, but not as harsh as that sounds

a post 2k masta ace record i mean

I think Ian Cohen is generally pretty on point, or at least has some insight even when I disagree with him, but I was kinda surprised how hard he came down on this album -- I mean he said it was the worst Nas album ever, which even disregarding the Esco years I think this album compares favorably to Hip Hop Is Dead in almost every way. But seriously, people that are that concerned about the numbers on Pitchfork reviews scare me.

gonna be in decatur this weekend, will report back on how many white looking newspaper vendors i see

watch out for children playing by a happy pastel school

we should make a wall of shame thread for all rap journalism that mentions The Wire

the ultimate frame of reference for anyone unfamiliar with the drug trade prior to the show's existence

nah dudes were just happy they had something to ref. that was newer than miami vice and scarface

i mean rap journalists, not rappers! thats a diff issue

http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/2/9/4/9/21919492-21919493-slarge.jpg

i left a comment on the infamous nas/urb piece and they printed it in the magazine o_O

I'm just crossing my fingers that Nas doesn't embarrass himself further on this one.

lol j0

a post 2k masta ace record i mean

-- deej, Friday, July 18, 2008 6:28 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

I think Ian Cohen is generally pretty on point, or at least has some insight even when I disagree with him, but I was kinda surprised how hard he came down on this album -- I mean he said it was the worst Nas album ever, which even disregarding the Esco years I think this album compares favorably to Hip Hop Is Dead in almost every way. But seriously, people that are that concerned about the numbers on Pitchfork reviews scare me.

I agree - at least it matters less in rap where sales and critical opinions aren't shaped as much by them. It's just that their reviews on rap lately skew so badly on either dick-riding or hating that it gets me upset, especially for a publication I used to read very seriously. There's no middle ground with Pitchfork, and honestly, most rap is right there in the middle these days. I'm only pointing out how awful their opinions are now.

The reason I'm wondering what they'll say about Detox is that the more hype an album builds, the more extreme their review is going to be. We saw that with Nas, Jay, and Wayne, and Detox, objectively, is going to be pretty damn significant. I'm not predicting what they're going to rate it, and it's not even going to matter much. I'm just pointing out how opinionated and shitty their journalism gets when it comes to mainstream rap. In my opinion, the respectability of a critically important publication is something worth speaking my mind about, and it comes to light once a highly anticipated rap album comes out.

I helped, in a small but not insignificant way, to make the beat for this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfz7wVxzuoE

Great story.

My friend teaches piano, and one day I was hanging out with him and he said he had some aspiring hip-hop producer coming over who needed help figuring out the keyboard part from a sample he wanted to use. I figured it out for him, and it was that beat.

I'm surprised to find out this didn't disappoint me at all

your best success is my worst blunder.......

I found the album a little disappointing for sure (too much off-topic victory lapping), but it's certainly pretty good.

Fat Joe's "Beaner" due out in 2009

Bo Jackson Overdrive's "Custos" due out in 2010.

The Reverend's "Ned Raggett Joke"

im really glad that bo jackson overdrive posted in this thread

god that pfork review

flowery and frustrating, as usual.

"Black President" moved me to where I played it three times on repeat when they called the 2008 election for Obama and made my roommate listen.

just remembered those moments and makes me legit sad to think how excited we all were back then. the moment on television after the victory speech, where Oprah and Jesse Jackson were on camera, teary-eyed, as Obama and Biden waved to his crowd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Jlku7gWUY). we got robbed of another such historic moment and it's so depressing.

back to the song....still love the first verse a lot.

They forgot us on the block, got us in the box
Solitary confinement: how violent are these cops?
They need a early retirement
How many rallies will I watch? I ain't got it in me to march
I got a Semi to spark, the game's in a drought
Public housing, projects, cooking up in the Pyrex
My set, my clique, either getting money
Or running from homicide trail, that's if they ain't died yet
Trying to be rich, still I'm pledging allegiance
A predicate felon, a ghetto leader
Lending my poetical genius, to whoever may need it
I bleed this from Queensbridge, now living with my feet up
Never defeated, so a president's needed
You know these colored folks and Negros hate to see
One of their own succeeding
America: surprise us and let a black man guide us

N*********l