“On that Diamonds remix I swore I spazzzed but then my Big Brother (Jay-Z) came through and kicked my a$$….My Big Brother is who I always tried to be” – Kanye West – “Big Brother”.

So Kanye West and 50 Cent got all the hype this year. But quiet as it’s kept T.I.’s album is so far the best album of the year. But hold up. When the hell did Jay-Z drop? I ain’t even know dude was coming back out to tell you the truth. When we last left Jay-Z, Benz0 was commenting on how he didn’t know if Jay-Z’s comeback album KINGDOME COME was the last breath of a dying man or the first few breaths of a resuscitated man rising from the shadows of death. Lo and behold this dude Hov is hard-headed and he done dropped again with ZERO hype and fanfare.

Had my manz Princeton not text messaged me I wouldn’t even have had a clue dude was out. I finally did see an advertisement on the TNT halftime NBA show but seriously…No major buzz at all preceded the drop of this album. So you know Benz0 was mad skeptical after he had to bash Hova’s last album despite Hova being the best rapper to ever live in Benz0’s eyes. But come wack and I’m gonna tell the people the truth and I had to let the public know that Jay’z last comeback album was mostly B.S. Interestingly enough I compared Jay-Z’s last comeback album to Michael Jordan’s 2nd comeback to the NBA with the Washington Wizards. A comeback that would see a fatter Jordan sitting mostly on the bench icing those old knees instead of dazzling us with 50 point plus works of art. But remember Michael Jordan came back out of retirement the first time and was a bit rusty the first year but the following year he would win 3 more championships back to back to back. So could it be that Jay-Z was also just a little “rusty” during the first year of his comeback attempt? Well after a superb cameo on Nas’ 2006 album on the song “Black Republican” you could see that the “rust” was starting to disappear and the best rapper not named Tupac or Biggie was headed back towards the top of his game. But doing good on a cameo is one thing.

What about carrying an entire album? Well my friends I’m happy to report that Jay’s comeback from retirement is starting to parallel Jordan’s FIRST comeback and not Jordan’s 2nd comeback. Specifically this 2nd offering, AMERICAN GANGSTER, since Jay-Z un-retired is CHAMPIONSHIP MATERIAL. As unlikely as it seems this dude has crafted a masterpiece OUT OF NO WHERE. On Jay’s BLACK ALBUM he mentioned “Truth be told I’d rather rap like Common Sense, But I sold 5 Million and I ain’t been rhyming like Common Since..”. See the truth is Jay-Z was CARRYING his whole record label on his shoulders and thus was forced to focus on putting out songs that would satisfy the simple minded masses that mostly represent the group of people that buy rap. Deep down inside he was suffering as he knew that the cookie cutter club songs were a far cry from the artistic hiphop of the GOLDEN AGE that happened in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s. Jay-Z HAS ALWAYS been a disciple of old school rap where lyrics really mattered and artistic integrity was akin to the code of the ancient Japanese samurai. Well now that Jay’s made his millions he felt he could then retire “Jay-Z” and introduce the world to “Sean Carter”. Sean Carter represents Jay-Z’s true soul. His true passions. His true dreams. Jay envisioned being able to come out with an album that was more about artistry than an album crafted strictly for club play and record sales. Well now he’s gone and done just that this time around as he shelves the mindless club bangers and gives us an album 100% devoted to Sean Carter’s desires of artistic freedom and the results are BREATHTAKING!!!

So what made Jay-Z the “Big Brother” that Kanye West always wanted to emulate? It’s Jay’s penchant to be great at every aspect of hiphop. You want club bangers? Jay gave us them with little effort. You want Tupac like emotion and sincerity? He bared his soul on every album though not as much as he would have liked. You want old school raw battle lyrics? Yeah he definitely covered that every time out. But perhaps his greatest talent was his ability to paint us vivid pictures through his lyrics to the point where you felt you were right there as the main character in his story. On this album Jay is up to his old tricks as he paints us more pictures on “Pray”, “American Dreamin’”, and “Fallin”. “Pray” is classic Jay as he basically raps a “motion picture” for us in like three verses as a young Sean Carter goes from being a little boy who girls said was “too small” to one of the most feared and ruthless drug dealers in the game trapped in a life of hedonism and materialism. Peep the genius: “Mindstate from a gangsta from the 40’s, meet the business mind of Motown’s Barry Gordy, turned crack rock into a chain of 40/40’s..America meet the gangsta Sean Corey, Close your eyes and you can pretend you’re me, This is the genesis of a NEMESIS, Mother America is not witnessing it, The Harlem Renaissance birthed black businesses, this is the tale of lost innocence…as the incense burns and turntables turn and that Al Green plays, I see my mother’s afro, as Mama taps her toes as she rolls her J’s (joints), and my papa just left the house in search of the killer of my Uncle Ray, and she’s trying to calm my nerves as I observe this is just ONE DAY..and what tomorrow has in store we just can’t be sure so all we can do is just PRAY….”.

I mean this dude has literally set up the intro to a motion picture in a few words. All I can say is Jesus H Christ, the King is back. Big Brother was just showing off on this one. Flowing almost seamlessly after “Pray” is “American Dreamin” that takes things back to the soulful Marvin Gaye days that finds Jay reclining in his “lazy boy” in a haze of smoke reflecting on his dreams and aspirations. The sulky smooth track is to “die for”. Seriously. That phrase is about the only way I can explain the smoothness of the track. This song hits you harder than any club banger out there. But now we came to the payoff. Trumping almost any song on the album is “Fallin”. This song is one of the best songs Jay has EVER made in his life. First of all yes the track is a headbanger. But people people people. What makes Jay one of the best rappers to ever live is his LYRICS. His ability to paint street life with a few broad strokes of his tongue.

Once again I gotta let y’all peep more lyrics from the lyrical street genius known as Jay Hova: “I said when I got to one brick then the GAME I would depart, but got to one brick and then I looked to the sky, Like sorry God but give me just one more try, got to TWO bricks, NEW CARS NEW WHIPS!, but nig$^z never learn till they wind up in the NEWS clips, THE IRONY OF SELLING DRUGS IS THAT IT’S SORT OF LIKE YOU’RE USING IT, GUESS IT’S TWO SIDES TO WHAT SUBSTANCE ABUSE IS….CAN’T STOP, won’t stop ADDICTED to this new s$$$, BRAND NEW CONVERTIBLES..I’m so ruthless!!!..”. OK STOP….stop stop stop stop……..Please reread that line and ask yourself. Who the F%$# can paint such a vivid street picture so effortlessly? JESUS H CHRIST!!!…Game, set, match man. All those phone calls you hear are the young wannabe street lyricists trying to hire a hit man to take that old a$$ man Jay-Z out cause he’s putting too much artistry into street anarchy. Hands down “Fallin” is one of the best songs Jay-Z has EVER made. Last but not least is “No Hook”. A song I could display at least 3 more entire verses of that exhibit great picture painting but I think y’all got the point “Leave that boy Hov alone why don’t cha?, You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya….Oh…AND I DON’T NEED NO HOOK FOR THIS S^%$!!!!!…”.

So yeah Jay painting us them GRIZZLY, GORY, DISTURBIN’, masterpiece pictures but y’all old school heads wonder if he’s gonna give us more of them raw uncut lyrical offerings. Have no fear. Just skip to “Ignorant S&^$” and you’ll see Jay and Beanie Siegel “spazzing out” as they put the haters in their place. Call it a 2007 “Cuss Words” as Jay-Z brings Too Short back to life with a classic chorus: “This is that ignorant s%^$ you like, N$%$#a, F%$#, S&^%, A$$, B&^%$^, S&^%$,…”….Well the chorus kind of speaks for itself…..“Cuss words just let ‘em roll…” (Big up to Too Short!!..Hiphop Hall of Fame Member). Jay gives it to the critics on this song PERFECTLY as at the end of this song he points out what I constantly bring up to the “holier than though” Quentin Tarantino type fans who bash gangsta rappers. That point is that WAY MORE DAMAGE TO KIDS’ PSYCHE IS DONE THROUGH THE VISUAL (MOVIES) THAN IN MUSIC.

As a former drug dealer, Jay sums it up best with this verse “SCARFACE THE MOVIE DID WAY MORE TO ME THAN SCARFACE THE RAPPER DID TO ME SO LET’S STOP THE BULLS%$^^ING…TILL WE ALL WITHOUT SIN LET’S QUIT THE PULPITTING..”. As great as that song is it can’t hold a candle to the Pharell collaboration on “Blue Magic”. P hits dude up with one of his sickest tracks ever. Once again I gotta let Jay’s lyrics do the talking “Can’t you tell that I came from the dope game?, Blame Reagan for making me into a MONSTER, Blame Oliver North when I ran CONTRA, I RAN CONTRABAND THAT THEY SPONSORED, before this rhyming stuff we was in concert….”. Damn!!! Clipse and Mobb Deep eat your heart out. Y’all my boyz but NO ONE can make crime sound so poetic. They should outlaw Jay’s lyrics in like 50 states cause he makes crime sound so good even though he’s just reflecting on what he used to do. Thank god music is not as influential as the critics make it out to be or I’d be on the street corner RIGHT F&^%$# NOW!!! Nah just buggin out. Continuing on with Jay’s ROAD TO THE CHAMPIONSHIOP is “Say Hello” that has Jay spitting more biting social commentary: “We ain’t thugs for the sake of being thugs…We ain’t doing crime for the sake of doing crime, We moving dimes CAUSE WE AIN’T DOING FINE, 1 out of 3 of us is locked up doing time, You know what that type of s$$$ can do to a nig%$z mind…Y’all ain’t give me my 40 acres and a mule, so I got my Glock 9 now and I’m cool….Tell them I’ll remove the curses, if you tell me our schools gonna be perfect, when JENA SIX DON’T EXIST, THAT’S WHEN I’LL STOP SAYING B$$$$…B&^%$#!!!!”. Whoa!!!!!! Damn Jay!! You coming back hard!! Say what though? Nas got a cameo on here too? I almost forgot!!! Nas repays the favor that Jay gave him and reps on the album too!!

The bases are loaded and the Red Sox are ready to win the World Series and here comes Nas delivering an out of the park homerun on “Success”. This song is straight grimy, underground as the beat is something DJ Premiere would make and Jay and Nas just give us that nasty, car grease, toxin filled fluid flow that has Jay having bowel movements on the song and Nas spewing out classic descriptions as he calls himself the “GHETTO ORTHELLO’. Now that’s nice Nas!! Capping off the lyrical assault is a masterpiece Jay saved as his last song on the album, “AMERICAN GANGSTER”. This song lies to rest any doubt who the best MC in the game is. The only way to describe this song is to just imagine yourself skating while simultaneously holding two AK-47’s in your hands and rhyming lyrics that are just tearing your competition a new backside….This song thankfully gives us more of that patented Jay-Z rapid fire flow that defined Jay before people even knew who he was. Thank you Jay for bringing back that rapid-fire flow!!

Now there’s TWO things Jay-Z can never leave you without. That’s an ode to Brooklyn and of course some smooth s$%^ that even your grandma can vibe to. First let’s address two classic smooth joints that Jay now proudly trots out in front of us in lieu of the tired, cookie-cutter club bangers. “I Know” and “Party Life” gets the house party started RIGHT!! “Party Life” is some more Al Green like smoothness that you just sit back and zone out to. “I Know” is the ode to the ladies that you know Jay had to give the ladies as he’s an expert at that type of stuff. But don’t confuse this for a corny R&B song. This is a soulful artistic offering that EVEN hardcore Benz0 can jam to without feelin’ like a sucka. Fueled by a slick mid-tempo beat Jay let’s the ladies know what they SHOULD like.

Again I’m not against smoothness, Benz0 is all for genuine funkiness that’s more than just the cookie-cutter “baby I love you” BS that permeates today’s R&B climate. I dig the old school R&B sound. It’s the BS new school, “I love you baby”, BS with no artistic merit that I’m against. Jay gets it right by using nothing but the smooth O’Jay’s type music to be the background of his ode to the ladies. Again Jay can’t leave us without an ode to Brooklyn. Kanye West tried to collab with Lil’ Wayne on “Barry Bonds” with less than stellar results. Enter Big Brother to get the Lil Wayne Collabo right. “Hello Brooklyn” is PURE GENIUS as Lil Wayne comes off lovely as he sings the chorus like only Lil Wayne can do as Jay brings up the rear with poignant praises to BROOKLYN!!!…The place that made him into one of the best artists of the twenty first century.

This album is EVERYTHING that Kanye West’s new album SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Yes Kanye once again showed off his genius on his newest album that contained 4 or 5 songs that were just out of this world but it was INCOMPLETE at best. BIG BROTHER JAY-Z comes in and LITERALLY KICKS KANYE’S A$$ ON THIS ALBUM. It’s a NO CONTEST on which album is better and in fact Jay-Z has just given us ALBUM OF THE YEAR hands down. I have not heard an album better than this one in 2007. Sorry T.I. Sorry Kanye. Sorry 50.

But Jay-Z has just reminded us of why he’s the best rapper not named Tupac or Biggie. Big Brother done came through and kicked EVERYONE’S a$$!!!!!!!!!! Not only that. This album is one of the best he’s EVER done. It’ll take more than this article for us to debate if this album is his greatest ever but let’s just say it’s easily one of his top three albums he’s EVER made. Even more beautiful is that it came out of nowhere. Usually the best albums are those that come out of no where like E-40’s album last year. Thank you Jay for somehow, some way dipping back into more of that ‘Blue Magic” of yours. The best rapper alive has just served notice….

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

So let’s face it. A 50 Cent album is not as hotly anticipated these days due to the phenomenon he became which led to over-saturation of the market. But I admit his albums are still one of the few I know I’m going to pick up. Why? Because bottom line this guy is an entertainer and a HILARIOUS one at that. I don’t think people realize how hilarious this guy is. Only those who pay attention to his lyrics really can know the clever humor 50 gives us on every album.

But let me backtrack and of course address the September 11th hype that just went down when Kanye West and 50 Cent dropped at the same time on the most infamous day in American History. For those who remember, the real September 11th, 2001 also fell on “album release” Tuesday and you may remember that Jay-Z released his classic BLUEPRINT album that day. September 11th, 2001 was a huge day not only because Jay-Z was releasing but Michael Jordan had arranged a press conference to announce he was coming out of retirement AGAIN. Of course once the twin towers went down Jordan postponed the conference but Jay-Z still released.

I vividly remember being in Chicago and having to get away from the job because them crazy fu%$$# at the job were still trying to get me to attend meetings when the world was collapsing!!!! I just straight up left work and figured I might as well go cop the new Jay-Z album and just try to clear my mind. September 11th fell on a Tuesday in 2001 and now fell on a Tuesday in 2007; It’s with this backdrop that the GREATEST DAY IN HIPHOP HISTORY occurred when the 2 biggest names in the game dropped simultaneously on September 11th, 2007. The hype was who would outsell who and of course Kanye won the first week of sales but that really doesn’t mean too much. Kanye can sell 10 million of his latest album and he’ll still have to sell three times that to even catch up to what 50 cent ALREADY sold in the USA and worldwide (not including what 50 is about to sell). So what’s happening now is pure Economics 101 – Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns – the more you consume of a product, the less value you get from consuming more of that product the next time…..50 cent is such a big name that he’s saturated the market and simply dominated for the last 4 years so of course as the market has had it’s fill of 50 being on the radio every freakin second his sales are bound to keep diminishing. There’s simply no way in hell 50 can sell 6 million every album. It’s impossible.

So just common sense tells you each year 50 will sell less and less so the hype about who will outsell who is just that, H-Y-P-E. Kanye will be lucky if he can ever reach the 30 million plus that 50 has already sold. About the only rapper who’s sold more is that dead guy named Tupac who has sold over 75 million albums (About 65 mil of that coming after he was dead!!!..LOL). So now that we got that “who can out sell who” nonsense out the way let’s concentrate on 2007 and 50 Cent. The whole way 50 handled this album release was extremely weird. He dropped “Amusement Park” and “Straight to the Bank” seemingly in January. So folks were checking for the album but it kept getting pushed back apparently because his singles weren’t topping the pop charts like in the past. Then 50 would release THREE more singles before the album even dropped. This was a move counterproductive to creating a buzz.

What it did was allow people to realize how mundane his club singles were. Yes they are good singles but his first two singles were “business as usual”, carbon copy club singles that got played out within 3 or 4 weeks. Not sure who’s handling 50’s marketing but it’s obvious ‘I Get Money” and “Ayo Technology” were the crème of the crop of his singles but he waited a lot later to release these. But we can harp on the blundered marketing attempts all we want on this album called CURTIS (supposedly the album got its name due to the Cam’Ron song made dissin 50 Cent whose chorus yelled “Curtis!!” all throughout the song) but the real story is the semi-lazy approach 50 gave us on his 2nd Shady Aftermath album. Yes that album sold 5 million but 50 could have come out with nursery rhyme songs and sold 5 mil just on the strength of the phenomenal GET RICH OR DIE TRYING. Well maybe about 2 mil.

What pushed 50’s 2nd release 3 mil more was the marketing technique of having a video for EVERY song on the album. Yours truly bumped them videos 8 months longer than I should have just because no artist in the history of man came out with an album and a DVD containing a video for every song on the album and of course Benz0 had TV’s in one of his rides at that time so it was perfect. On top of that 50 had the video game coming out at the same time and a highly anticipated movie in the works too. But most fans that bought that 2nd album were disappointed at the lackadaisical approach 50 took. Even worse he started “drinking the Kool-Aid” and thought that his beats didn’t matter and only HE mattered. Bad move in hiphop. So along with saturation of the market 50 is suffering this time around from a ho-hum 2nd album that had him losing fans that he’ll never get back. On this 3rd album I can honestly say he put in WAY more work on the construction of the album. But the question is….IS IT TOO LATE????? Even more important…SHOULD WE STILL CARE ABOUT 50?

Well the simple answer to all of this is: 50 is still doing his thing. This 3rd album is light years better than his last one. I mean what made us love 50 in the first place (hardcore persona with clever sing-song hooks fueled by that common man making it rich theme) is still present in the 2007 50 cent. GET RICH OR DIE TRYING had a gang of club and radio songs on it and it’s a club song “In Da Club” that sealed his legendary status. So on this 3rd album 50 gives us the same dose. Obviously “Amusement Park” is a blatant attempt to capitalize on the success of “Candy Shop”. But this is what 50 does and this is what made 50 loved by thousands of grandma’s living in the USA and in obscure regions like Brasov, Romania or Sofia, Bulgaria. So hell yeah he got club songs on here…Albeit there is an OVERLOAD of club songs on here. We’ve mentioned “Amusement Park”, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of his club songs.

The last 4 or 5 songs of this album are straight up club songs. “Peep Show” (featuring Eminem), “Fire” (featuring Nicole Scherzinger – whom I’d make my wife for about 1 week), “All of Me”(featuring the soultress Mary J Blige) and “Touch the Sky” are all blatant attempts to stuff enough club fodder on this album for the paid-off radio disc jockeys to spin them records worldwide (Hey you think 50 did that Nicole P-doll chic or what?..I hope so!!). And you know what? I have no problems with these clubs songs cause actually these songs are respectable due to the effort that was put into them. The jewel of the club songs of course is “Ayo Technology”. I forget the boy band Justin Timberlake used to belong to but here’s one thing even Benz0 can’t deny. Timbaland has given Mr. Timberlake some of the funkiest beats man has ever made. It’s to the point where even Benz0 has had to contemplate the potential download status of some of Justin’s songs. Well “Ayo Technology” is another Timbaland banger that is just OUT OF THIS WORLD.

50 and Jus’tin!! come off lovely as 50 spits his patented razor sharp sex metaphors and Justin soulfully brings it home. Of course Benz0 has never really had a problem with the R&B song whose backbone is a hiphop track. Ever since Teddy Riley fused R&B with hiphop and came out with that New Jack Swing, fast paced R&B party tracks are almost interchangeable with hiphop tracks. So yeah you darn right. I like that “Ayo Technology”. Just a shame the marketing idiots in 50 Cent’s camp didn’t put that single out first or at least 2nd. Oh and “Follow My Lead” is respectable too but of course Benz0 presses the skip button when that comes on. The song should work well in 50’s eternal quest to dominate the radio airwaves.

Now we come to the part of the album where Benz0 really enjoys. 50 may have realized he can rule the world with lazy club songs but he hasn’t forgotten his street mix-tape side that got him signed in the 1rst place. Eminem paid 7 figures for 50 in what turned out to be a 50 Cent bidding war in 2002 due to how street and popular 50 was in the underground circuit. Leading the pack of street songs of course is “I Get Money”. While “Straight To The Bank” is genius due to the Slick Rick like HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!! chorus, “I Get Money” gives all of us old-school centric, street loving, hardcore nigs what we really want. “I Get Money” features a remix for the ages as a Milk D (from Audio 2 fame) chorus from “Top Billin” is sampled and looped. This is one of the reasons Benz0 will still be open to copping that next 50 album cause you know he’s gonna give us some ridiculously hardcore tracks too.

On top of that peep this HUMOR!!! – “I took a quart of water and sold it in bottles for 2 bucks, then Coca-Cola came in and bought it for Billions…What the F&^%?…, Have a baby by me girl, be a millionaire, I’ll write the check before the baby comes, WHO THE F&^% CARES?, I’m stankin’ rich!!!, I’m a die trying to spend this s$#@…”. Now that’s hilarious. For those who don’t know 50 Cent made HISTORY by buying a stake in the product VITAMIN WATER and making MILLIONS when Coke Inc. bought it out for billions. So even if he didn’t sell over 30 mil+ his business advisors already made him one of the richest men in America. Amazing for a rapper. I need to hire me a new venture capitalist guy!! AG where you at? (Holla at ya boy when you graduate from Harvard Business School!). But wait there’s more! “My Gun Go Off” gives us that GET RICH OR DIE TRYING feel and “Man Down” is lovely. “Man Down” is that song he first previewed on MTV when we were all trying to get a sample of 50’s new album.

But the surprise of the album is that the washed up dude they call Dr. Dre actually came out with another decent hit with “Come & Go”. I mean Dre been shooting blanks for so long I thought he had become impotent. Of course this song still does have the ubiquitous Dre production like characteristics on here that are tiring but it’s still nice. We get more patented 50 humor on this song too – “When I [just] breathe I make a killin’, Cam (Cam’Ron of Dipset fame) buying condos I’m buying the whole building, I’m pizzzzing on grown women, R-Kelly do it to children, you bet against me boy I’m a hurt your feelings…”. The song that probably trumps all the street songs though is “I’ll Still Kill” which features Akon (who’s seemingly on every album – country or hiphop) who gives a stellar performance capitalizing on that soulful Akon “call to the wild” yell…”Ohhhhhhh!!!!”….Yeah Akon you alright man. Capping off those street anthems is the lovely “Movin On Up” and “Curtis 187”. Classic underground 50. Raw beats and straight to the point tough talk.

Of course 50 will NEVER leave us without a classic joint dissin’ your favorite MC’s out there as after all 50 built his name by doing songs like “How to Rob” where on that song he robbed everyone from R&B stars to Wu-Tang. The true hiphop fans have Ghostface Killer’s 2nd album (SUPREME CLIENTELE) in which on a skit he actually threatens to KILL 50 Cent for the “How to Rob” song. When I first heard that CLASSIC Ghostface #2 album I was asking myself “who the hell is 50 Cent?..”. I mean Wu-Tang wanted this dude dead and of course a couple months later 50 was shot about 20 million times as he sat in that “Passenger seat” (coincidence?).

On 50’s 2nd album, “Piggy Bank” (Video included) was the hilarious “I’m calling all ya’ll suckas out” song that made the hardest nig laugh uncontrollably. This year it’s “Fully Loaded Clip’ that has Benz0 doubling over with hilarious pain as 50 pretty much unleashes on every popular rapper out there. Peep the initial chorus “While Jay and Beyonce was Mmmm Mmmm Kissing, I was cooking 1,000 GRAMS in my kitchen, While Nas was telling Kelis, I LOVE YOU BOO!!!!!!!!!!, I was shining my Nine [millimeter], YOU KNOW HOW I DO!!!…I got a fully Loaded Clip!!!”. Man this guy 50 IS H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!!!! This song by far is the hardest on the album and will get the most street buzz.

So what does this all mean? Most will not notice but 50 has actually put mad thought into this album. Yeah the overload of club songs is a bit disturbing but this is by far 50’s 2nd best album. The soundtrack, GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN actually gave us hope that 50 Cent was growing as an artist but at the end of the day 50’s bread and butter are club songs and promoting an image of steel and that’s what he’ll continue to resort to. The true 50 fans will be happy with this album overall. He gave us 17 songs (not including the HUNDREDS of underground songs he came out with on the G-Unit mixtapes) that all represent what 50 Cent is all about. And that’s entertainment. Is it groundbreaking? Hell no. But 50 is still giving the fans what we want.

More humorous 50 Cent. He’ll never be a Mos Def or Kanye or even Tupac. But he’ll always forever be that poor man turned rich man that overcame the odds to entertain the WORLD. And for that? Thank you 50. Glad you made it dawg. For those who liked 50’s first album, cop this album. This one’s not classic like that one but it’s entertaining with enough hits to keep ya head boppin’.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

I can’t lie. I’m still bumping LATE REGISTRATION. For the uninformed that’s Kanye West’s 2nd album STUPID!!!!!! A HIPHOP F&^%$# CLASSIC B@$&^!!! For the uninformed that album was PURE GENIUS. Ironically for Kanye’s 3rd album, GRADUATION, that word genius is not only being thrown around by fans as it pertains to Kanye, but that word is used quite often by Kanye lately to refer to HIMSELF when he thinks about himself in 3rd person. Now Benz0 has to ask himself – how the f&^% does someone have the AUDACITY to refer to himself in 3rd person? Well Benz0 has no idea (LOL). But guess what? Benz0 LOVES arrogance, conceitedness, vainglorious-ness, etc.. etc… Why? Cause confidence is to SECRET TO LIFE baby.

Furthermore, hiphop FROM DAY ONE has been all about braggadocio. I mean peep 50’s hit “I Get Money”. The chorus is “I GET MONEY!!!!!” that was sampled by an old school Audio Two song from the 1980’s. Rap has always been about “I’m f&^$#@ better than you” and it will always will be. Hiphop is the RAWEST form of art on Planet Earth. It’s what interests non-black folks to buy the majority of rap. White kids from the suburbs of USA or kids from remote Philippine islands like Cebu appreciate that braggadocio and that “I’m better than you” hardcore attitude. So is it a wonder that Kanye’s incessant bragging is appealing to most? Now Kanye is far from hardcore.

One just needs to peep him and Pharell side by side to see that Kanye weighs about 140 pounds soaking wet – meaning that Kanye probably can’t even beat up his fiancé (Sorry to hear you’re getting married Kanye…Get that pre-nup ready dawg..). But at the same time Kanye is loved because he’s that ubiquitous “bullied kid” we all knew growing up that all of a sudden now has the power to beat up the bully. The guy who got picked on at school because of his small stature and weird name is now on top!! But for Benz0 it all started when Kanye turned into an activist for about 10 minutes when he uttered these words after the U.S. government waited like 2 years to send help to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: “GEORGE BUSH HATES BLACK PEOPLE”. As I said in my last review on Kanye, “NO ONE STICKS UP FOR BLACK PEOPLE ANYMORE!!!” cause it’s not in vogue (At least folks recently marched to support the Jena kids on trial though) The haters hoped it would hurt his album sales of LATE REGISTRATION but instead he sold 3 million albums after his activist statements. Now in 2007 Kanye makes things interesting again with his feigned campaign against 50 Cent in which Kanye PURPOSELY pushed his album to September 11th to take on the might mighty 50 Cent who was releasing on the same day. Well technically Kanye pushed his album to September 11th BECAUSE OF THE MTV AWARDS. His marketing team (Jay-Z and co.) thought it would be smart to use an appearance on the MTV awards to jumpstart his album. A brilliant idea despite 2007 being one of the sorriest MTV award shows ever due to performances by a fat Brittany Spears and ill-fated attempts to broadcast live Kanye and 50 cent parties going on in other parts of the Palms hotel in which the awards were hosted in. But doing the MTV awards was brilliant simply due to the national attention the nation gave to Kanye and 50 as they both squared off on stage to present an award as if they were about to get weighed in for a boxing match. This whole “who can outsell who?” hype earned them the cover of Rolling Stones after all and a much hyped duel on BET’s 106 & Park. Now ask anyone. I predicted Kanye would outsell 50 by a landslide.

Not only due to Economics 101 in which 50 was already oversaturated marketwise but for other logical reasons. First off. Kanye had NEVER sold anywhere near as much as 50 so there is room to grow and Kanye’s style is so unique that he was CONSTANTLY winning new fans while 50 had 30 million fans already as soon as he teamed up with Eminem and Dre so the most 50 can do is go backwards cause he started at the top. #2 – Benz0 recently relocated to Boston and one day driving in his Tony Soprano ESV Escalade he made the mistake of riding through the “let out” of a popular Boston club district. I swear I was just trying to get to IHOP but unfortunately I was bumping Kanye’s “Stronger” song and I got SURROUNDED BY WHITE PEOPLE DANGLING BURNING CROSSES!!!! I thought this was the end. I figured all my black friends who warned me about Boston’s racist past were gonna be telling me “I TOLD YOU SO N&^%a!!!”. I remained calm though cause I’m Benz0 and to my surprise what I thought were burning crosses were actually “iced” out platinum crosses bling blinging in the street lights and the white people wearing them were CELEBRATING with me and surrounding my truck just to dance!!!!

All because I was bumping Kanye’s “Stronger”!!!!! Right then and there I knew there was no way in hell 50 would outsell Kanye. Seriously. America LOVES Kanye!!! So it’s no surprise that in 2007 Kanye sold about 1,000,000 albums in the first week while 50 only sold less than 700,000. But that’s neither here nor there cause 50 will go down as the richest rapper in hiphop history. 50 will even tell you “I even gotta rap no more’. So it was fun to see who outsold who in 2007 but let’s not lose focus here. What we need to focus on is that LATE REGISTRATION was a classic and a lot of my boys are telling me GRADUATION is a classic too. But the reason y’all read Benz0’s column is that you know I’m not easily impressed. Like 50, I’m already paid so I write for the hell of it unlike your favorite journalists who depend on writing for their income and whom are susceptible to persuasion by their bosses who get payoffs from artists and worry about image. So perfect setting for Benz0 to weigh in on this “Is Kanye a Genius” and “Is GRADUATION a classic” argument.

The answer to the first question is YES – KANYE WEST IS A F^%$#@! GENIUS. But the question of “is GRADUATION a classic” is a whole other story. The way Benz0 sees it, LATE REGISTRATION WAS A F$#@!&* CLASSIC. Thus I’m compelled to compare this album to that. The no-brainer comparison starts with this album’s SMASH singles compared to Kanye’s 2nd album’s SMASH singles. Contestant Number one please enter…..Here we have “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” going up against “Stronger”. “Stronger” is the ULTIMATE club banger that samples the techno group DAFT PUNK in order to create a euphoric STADIUM banger feel that words cannot really describe. It’s this song that totally caught Benz0 off guard and had him contemplating Kanye’s genius. Yes this song is a sample but what rapper samples DAFT PUNK??? Plus that “You know how long I’ve been on ya?…Since OJ Had Isotoners (gloves)” chorus was incredibly clever. But compared to “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”? Diamond’s wins HANDS DOWN dude. NO contest. Banger #2 we got “Gold Digger” going up against “Can’t Tell Me Nothin”. The latter snuck up on Benz0 from no where!!! I’m a busy man so I rarely have the time for videos but the hiphop heads from Montreal, Quebec like Hoodah kept calling me and hyping up “Can’t Tell Me Nothin”. I finally peeped it thoroughly and had to procure it along with “Stronger”. Then soon after I’m stopping at a light and these two country Boston dudes were bumpin’ the same two Kanye songs I was bumpin’!! Another indication that Kanye just got the imagination of the public right now. BUT!!!!! “Can’t Tell me Nothin” is no “Gold Digger”. ADVANTAGE LATE REGISTRATIION in this category.

Now the thing about Kanye is he’s like Eminem. He doesn’t cry Gang Affiliated and he doesn’t claim T-H-U-G. So you never know what to expect. He can rap about anything!!! But all too often I find myself asking “Yo, is this mellow Kanye track hot or just soft?”. So on the 2nd album you had numerous mellow songs where I had to give it two to five listens to figure out what was going on. Those songs were “Celebration”, “Late” (bonus song), “Hey Mama”, “Roses”, and “Heard Em Say”. I ended up liking ALL those songs which is why LATE REGISTRATION is a f&^%)(@# classic! Fast-forward to 2007 and the mellow tracks on Kanye’s GRADUATION are the following: “Champion”, “Good Life”, “Everything I Am”, “The Glory”, Big Brother and “Homecoming”.

So I gave each song that honest Benz0 shake and when I shook the tree branch only these songs came out OK – “Champion”, “Everything I Am”, Big Brother and “Homecoming”. “Everything I Am” is cool as hell because Kanye addresses the wackness of just saying KILLING is cool and “all good”. Peep the positive lyrics – “People talk so much s^%$ at the barbershop, they forget to get their hair cut, but can I talk this??….Just last year Chicago had 600 caskets….Man, Killing is some WACK S^%$…Oh I forgot,…unless N$^%&z is Rappin, Do you know how it feels when n*&^%z is passing?…EVERYTHING I’M NOT MADE ME EVERYTHING THAT I AM….”. Now that’s tight!! “Big Brother” was interesting as Kanye talks about his long climb to the top and how Jay-Z constantly put Kanye’s rap career on hold in favor of “slam dunks” like Beanie Siegel. It’s an inspirational song as Kanye mentions his love for Jay-Z by saying how his inspiration was really Jay-Z and not himself (As Kanye had previously stated when he accepted his Grammy Award). But question? WHY THE F$%^ didn’t he have Jay-Z appear on the song? Do you know how EPIC that would have been? “Champion” also had to grow on me but is also inspirational as Kanye mentions his visit to a school that inspired kids to believe they were worth something. I like the song just for that message alone!! Only other song out of this mellow group that stands out for me is “Homecoming” cause I like the reminiscing about Chicago (Benz0’s current and former playground). Still can’t really listen to “Good Life” or “The Glory”. Advantage LATE REGISTRATION by a landslide in this department. On LATE REGISTRATION Kanye’s mellow songs were like soulful orchestra performances. This time around the mellow songs of GRADUATION are more mortal and sample dependent.

Of course every high profile album has the high profile collaborations too. On LATE REGISTRATION Kanye dropped a hydrogen bomb on the competition with super high profile collabs with Cam’Ron, Nas, Jay-Z, and Common. All of those songs are hiphop classics. On GRADUATION however those super collabs are pretty much non existent. The one collab with Lil Wayne on “Barry Bonds” I thought would be super hot reading the credits but sadly it has failed to move me in any way. It’s a shame because Lil Wayne is about to stake his own claim as one of the greatest rappers to ever live but I just wasn’t feeling his lyrics on “Barry Bonds”. I’ve heard Lil Wayne do so much more damage on other songs. ADVANTAGE LATE REGISTRATION by another landslide..An avalanche even.

Now we come to the payoff!!!!! It’s time to discuss why Kanye has the potential to be the greatest rapper to ever live. As a big time music producer AND a surprisingly superb rapper, Kanye has an advantage over EVERY other great rapper who has ever lived. He can perfectly align superb musical tracks of his own creation to match his own intense lyrical visions. This means yearly Kanye comes out with songs that can only be described as MIND BLOWING. On the 2nd album it was, “Addiction”, “Bring Me Down” (featuring Brandy), “Crack Music” (ONE OF MY FAVORITE HIPHOP SONGS OF ALL TIME!!!) and “Touch the Sky”. On Kanye’s 3rd album it’s songs like, “Good Morning”, “I Wonder” (a masterpiece…Jay-Z and I both agree), “Drunk’n Hot Girls”, and “Flashing Lights” that are the defining moments of Kanye’s newest album. “I Wonder” is a rare beauty that has Kanye mixing soulful choruses with a hardcore beat that would make Mobb Deep jealous. TRUE F&^%$#@ GENIUS. Then from out of no where “Drunk’n Hot Girls” comes at ya and knocks you on your backside due to it’s conceptual genius. On top of that Mos Def surprises us when in the middle of the track he starts singing and raising the track to another level. There is no other rapper alive that can put together such a great song. Right after “Drunk’n Hot Girls” comes the amazing “Flashing Lights” that is a surreal musical sojourn into soulful genius. Once again a song like this is a song that only Kanye West can construct. Everything about this song is perfect. It not only bumps in the ride but you don’t even notice the singing cause it flows so good it’s like part of the beat. “Good Morning” may get overlooked cause it feels like just an intro song but it’s much much more. More classic Kanye. Kanye should have had a real intro and separated this song from track #1 so it could stand on it’s own. TIE SCORE ON THIS CATEGORY.

So yeah Kanye has proved his point. HE’S A F&^%$#@ genius and as I mentioned his background as a super producer and his unique honest style that everyone can relate to has put him in position to not only change the face of rap like no one before him but to truly become the greatest rap artist to EVER LIVE. As far as this album though it’s far from a classic despite the FACT that “Stronger”, “Can’t Tell Me Nothin’”, “I Wonder”, “Drunk’n Hot Girls” and “Flashing Lights” will be the best songs that will be made in 2007. It’s these songs that give me faith that eventually Kanye is going to put together another “STRONGER, BETTER, FASTER” LATE REGISTRATION type album that will become the greatest rap album ever made. But GRADUATION is not that album. This album lacks that agitated edge of LATE REGISTRATION. On LATE REGISTRATION we found Kanye blaming the government for AIDS, hating the fact that rich guys like Magic Johnson can beat AIDS but the poor members of his family can’t, pointing out how Reagan pushed crack into the black neighborhoods on purpose and he was WAY more raunchy when it came to the mack talk.

This album GRADUATION was really more of a short celebration event for Kanye as he basks in the glow of his new found top rap position. I think he purposely didn’t invite Jay-Z on the album cause he wanted this album to be about KANYE. Note how he only had a measly THIRTEEN tracks on the album which is short for a top artist in the twenty-first century. Now having said all that, THIS ALBUM IS WORTH PICKING UP!!! Just the 5 songs mentioned in this paragraph alone make the album a MUST HAVE. But we have to let Kanye know that right now people are looking at him to be the next hiphop savior cause his past work indicates he has that potential. Job well done on some of the incredible songs on this album but I WANT MORE!!! I want more of that CRACK MUSIC. The best of Kanye is yet to come but this album will do just fine for now.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

I bet the day T.I.’s parents named him Clifford Harris that they never expected one day that their baby boy would have the highest grossing hiphop album in a particular year and have a sector of critics contemplating if he was actually the “new king of rap”. Well in 2006 T.I. accomplished that feat with the release of his 4th album KING which was ironically his worse album ever but the highest grossing hiphop album in 2006. Yes his lead single was probably one of his best ever in “Whatcha Know About That” but besides that song, the album was mostly average to below average and Benz0 personally chose not to review it and/or buy it.

To complicate matters T.I. suffered a huge tragedy when his friend Phil Johnson was shot to death in Cincinnati at a club called The Ritz in April, 2006. According to T.I. he didn’t even want to rap anymore after that. At that point I was wondering if T.I. had gotten lazy like most rappers who gain unexpected fame and start living an alternate reality in which they think they have become the god of rap and can do whatever and still sell just because they get extensive radio play for a year.

A lot of times people forget that hiphop is cannibalistic in that the old get eaten by their young constantly. Yeah go ahead and play hop-scotch and get high on weed and coke with model chics and actresses all you want instead of sharpening skillz in the studio cause you’re one bad single from being unemployed and joining the old folks tour with Doug E. Fresh and Run D.M.C. Before his last disappointing album I saw T.I. becoming part of the New School of the South that was started with Poison Clan’s debut album 2 LOW LIFE MUTHAS (when Debonair was still part of Poison Clan partnering with J.T Money) and solidified by Outkast and the Dungeon Family.

But here’s the weird thing about T.I. Despite releasing a subpar album in the eyes of critics that actually know good hiphop, this dude managed to use his savvy to entice the market that commercially matters the most and that’s the white media and white fans cause they buy the albums and give the artist worldwide exposure. Consider what T.I. accomplished just from 2001 to 2006. Just looking at his businesses, T.I. now has a construction company in which he employs a lot of his family, he has a clothing line, owns a custom car company called Elite Auto Concierge and he even was able to help push his artist Young Dro to platinum heights (That Young Dro was FIRE though!!). That’s the least of his recent accolades though. How about TWO Grammy awards? One for this last album which I say was his worse (Which actually shows you the Grammy award is hollow in hiphop as it RARELY credits good hiphop) and another Grammy for partnering with Justin Timberlake in “My Love”.

It’s that collaboration right there that may be the most important as it introduced T.I. to an audience that hadn’t a clue about who he was. It gets better though. He racked up in the hit movie A.T.L. and is now coming out with a 2nd movie in November. And guess what y’all? In that new movie he’s acting alongside one of the greatest of all time in none other than DENZEL MOTHER$%#$#%^ WASHINGTON in the movie AMERICAN GANGSTA! Now that’s big time. But what we’re here to talk about is HIPHOP and the rap world is not going to let him off the hook just yet with a subpar 2006 album. Which brings us to 2007. 2007 his name is bigger than ever and this time the release of his next album has him even being MusicChoice’s “artist of the month” as he releases T.I. Vs. T.I.P. So he goes to drop two singles off of this album that frankly are OK but they are no where near his previous club bangers like “24’s”, “What You Know” or “ASAP”. Things were looking like a classic case of little boy strikes it rich and suddenly craps out until my manz Jamil Austin hit me up and told me to cop the new T.I. album ASAP (pun intended). I did just that and JESUS CHRISTO!! The rumors of T.I.’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. First impressions of this album are that it’s going take a lot for this album not to be ALBUM OF THE YEAR. Let me explain.

Moving quickly past the so-so singles of the Mannie Fresh produced “Big Things Poppin” and the Wyclef Jean collaboration called “You Know What It Is” let’s get to the real gems of T.I.’s new album. As is the case with an artist who sells a lot, the most anticipated thing on that chart topping artist’s next album is usually the major star collaborations. In this arena T.I. doesn’t disappoint and in fact unexpectedly impresses. He has a collaboration with none other than Jigga, Jay-Z himself. I guess Jigga Man is a left for dead man getting his pulse back cause Jay unleashes a classic verse on “Watch What You Say To Me”. Peep the genius: “Rap music is something ain’t it?, the way these pictures get painted, you’d swear this [guys] are dangerous, the gangsta &^%$ they be saying, lock em up in the booth with a half ounce of that cannabis, sit back and watch the outlandish &^%$ they portraying, but…… Sooner or later I’ll take you up on your offer and put you all in your place LIKE I’M RE-PLACING YOUR FATHER, You’re talking to the author, THE ARCHITECT OF THE BLUEPRINT, MY DNA IN YOUR MUSIC MOTHER &^%$#@!!!..”. Whew!!!! HELL YEAH!!!! Young Hov!!!!!! It’s like after that collaboration all other collaborations are truly second best on this album but hiphop heads will perk up when I mention T.I. also has a duet with none other than Slim Shady on “Touchdown” in which Eminem actually produces. Things of note on this song are mainly the chemistry Eminem actually has with T.I. on this song as T.I.’s influence actually has Eminem talking about “candy paint”(which of course refers to types of car paint color popular Down South).

Wyclef Jean bounces back from the average “You Know What it Is” to collab on the silky smooth “My Swag” which is best described as “brilliant”. Perfect blend of T.I. lyrical dexterity and smoothness. My favorite line is when T.I. mentions Ibiza, Spain which of course Benz0 has been to cause like T.I., Benz0’s been around the world. Here’s the line though: “I went to Japan and made a [million] in a week bro, you can see me in London or out in Ibiza, that time I didn’t sleep for bout 3 days maybe, you can see me in Haiti with Wyclef Jean and a selection of ladies..”. Benz0 had similar sleep deprivation experiences as Ibiza clubs stay open for 24 hours (Ibiza’s mostly techno though so you gotta be diverse to enjoy it). I literally entered the club in Ibiza at 10PM and stayed till 4PM the next day and people were still partying hard. But heck man T.I. done gotten so big that even Busta Rhymes makes a surprise cameo on “Hurt” that gets the blood pumpin’. Last but not least is an actually very nice collabo with Nelly on “Show It To Me” which nicely walks the fine line between R&B and hiphop.

OK now that we got the star-studded collaborations out the way. What really makes the album is T.I. himself. T.I. takes his talent to a whole new level on the amazing “Raw” which is some of the best hiphop out there as he shows off a new rapid fire flow. “Raw” is a classic example of the evolution of the Southern Rapper. I can’t get enough of this song. I’ve literally been late to work simply because I had “Raw” on repeat in the company garage and I just simply had to listen to it again and again and again….Then you have a T.I. classic club banger in the mold of “24’s” in the song “We Do This”. Incredible club banger that representsT.I.’s split personality T.I.P. (who is the hardcore, unbridled side of T.I. the businessman and professional). Mannie Fresh pops up again on “Da Dopeman” which is another classic T.I.P. production. And for those still sleeping on T.I.P.,“Help is Coming”, lets the hiphop world know to “Say hello to the man who can save hiphop”.

T.I. the laid back business man does make cameos on the album too. “Don’t You Wanna Be High” has that “old school, doing house chores on a Saturday, listening to the radio” feel that is more than likeable and isn’t even soft. Meaning Benz0 is even more in love with this album cause there are no sappy R&B cruddy songs on this album. “My Type” finds T.I. imitating the all too familiar foreshadowing of one’s own death due to haters theme but it’s sincere so it’s cool. The album climaxes on “Tell Em I Said That” that addresses the sad state of hiphop today in which artists come out with fabricated hardcore images trying to fool impressionable kids that they’re hardcore and trying to pretend that living in the ghetto is a great life. Yeah right. T.I. sets them straight on this song that features a passionate chorus with soulful undertones. The theme on this song pretty much sums up all that T.I. (and the phenomenon that has become T.I.) ISN’T and that’s fake.

T.I. or T.I.P. if you prefer came into the game with no connections or gimmicks. Just realness and a confident swagger. His swagger was such that he left Arista after the first album and pushed his own label Grand Hustle himself and made himself a superstar. So at the end of the day I’m happy that realness wins out this time. I feel bad though for the artists that still have to drop albums this year. Perhaps Kanye West (Who has another classic with “Stronger”) or 50 Cent has a chance to challenge T.I. for album of the year but the fight to dethrone T.I. in 2007 is no doubt going to be more vicious than a Michael Vick pit-bull fight event!!! For now this album is ALBUM OF THE YEAR in my eyes.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

Pimp Tight!!!! Aka Marlon Jermaine Goodwin aka MJG and that man they affectionately call Fat Boy aka Premro Smith aka Eightball are back in our music sphere again backed up by the ubiquitous P-Diddy. The Living Legends that brought you COMING OUT HARD on Suave House Records THIRTEEN YEARS AGO come back harder than ever with their TENTH album and Second Bad Boy Entertainment label offering entitled RIDIN HIGH.

If someone put a gun to my head and told me to name a group that represents what Down South Hiphop is all about I’d have to say it’s all about Eightball and MJG. Literally hundreds of rap groups have come and gone but Eightball and MJG are just building up steam and bubbling with more potential than ever as unlike their counterparts they stay true to themselves and their original fan base. While other artists are trying to be KINGS and Rap Heavyweight champions, Eightball and MJG let their creativity and outstanding hardcore funk do their talking for them. Ironically because they never tried to be THE group, they end up hanging around the longest and becoming literal living legends in the game.

Their major deal with Bad Boy Entertainment in 2004 seemed to energize them even more and they’ve really buckled down and put that good honest effort into making an even better product that so far has yet to dissatisfy. Their genius is not only making sure their concepts and music is tight but the duo presents a dichotomy of styles on every record as the smooth voice of Eightball is countered by the frantic, hard edged, rapid fire, pimp lyrics of MJG. This duo is a classic one just like EPMD was back in the day. Perhaps the only duo to rival their longevity and positive chemistry are Mobb Deep. Obviously Outkast was THE DUO but their magic only lasted for about four albums before they just went off in tangents to the point where they’re both really solo artists more than a duo. While Outkast and the Dungeon Family were the true Down South Trailblazers that changed the way the South was thought of forever, no group represents more of the heart of the people than Eightball & MJG. Go anywhere Down South and you’re more likely to hear someone dissin their own mama than dissin Eightball & MJG. They are the GOLD standard of not just Down South rap but hiphop in general. A blend of new age rapid fire, hiphop creativity mixed with that old school, Memphis Blues influenced mentality. As we delve deep into their latest album realize this is a group that’s been out there for THIRTEEN years still putting out innovative music….Living legends indeed…

Their first single “Relax and Take Notes” has P-Diddy showing his influence as Eightball & MJG come out rhyming hard to a classic Notorious B.I.G. verse….Peep the smooth vivid lyrics of the genius known as Fat Boy – “Embassy Suites, sitting on the bed counting money, illegal hustlin’, dirty money muscling, spend it like I never saw a day of pain and suffering, Look at my face and you can see I seen BOTH OF THEM, I stick and move, do my business, get the dough and dip..my money’s big so my airplane’s little bitty..Major visibility, Bad Boy lieutenant, Black PHANTOM with the black guts and I’m in it…”. As a plus one of my cult favorites, Project Pat, concludes the song with that patented Project Pat flow. They follow that up with more P-Diddy influence as he’s all over the “Ridin’ High” chorus which is a timeless cut that is a mix of old school bass and new age grittiness. This is probably the first song that really grabbed me and let me know “Pimp Tight” and “Fat Boy” were back and taking no prisoners. P-Diddy makes another cameo on another FILTHY track in “30 Rocks” that is an incredible track with the only negatives coming when P-Diddy tries to rap. Can someone tell me why this dude is always trying to rap? I mean he literally is rhyming “Cat” with “Hat” and “Bat”, etc…My little pre-school nieces would give this dude a run for his money on the rhyme tip.

Thankfully P-Diddy only terrorizes our eardrums once with the rhyming while the Memphis duo proceeds to give us what we crave which is that Down South dirty dirty, gritty gritty, raw, hardcore flavor that ONLY they can provide. Leading off their string of patented flavor is “Hickory Dickory Dock” which has a dangerously juvenile chorus but they end up doing the impossible and making the chorus work because the track is built for the club and immediately has your neck snapping. Plus the lyrics are on point as MJG gives us more of his patented pimp rhymes. After all his nickname is “Pimp Tight!!!!” Next up we get a treat when Yung Joc cameo’s on “Clap On” which is classic dirty dirty funk. We get warned about what how a night out can turn into a shooting incident disaster in “Get Low” which MJG does a good job of vividly painting us a picture of a night out gone wrong. “Stand Up” is a nice Down South Anthem as the duo bluntly tells their haters to “F” off. Another classic hit occurs on “Watchu Gonna Do” that is sure to have fools doing the patented rowdy bouncing on the dancefloor as Pimp C adds to the A-list cameos on the album (Partying down South at one point was ridiculous as without fail 100 dudes would commence to bouncing and taking over the dance floor scaring the chics away…I’m glad that trend is dying down!!). “Worldwide” is another classic banger that has the duo pimpin’ and ridin’ in Cadillacs. What’s up with Black people and Cadillac’s anyway? Oh wait..I can’t talk…Benz0 driving the ESV Escalade his dang self. I blame it on too many Down South musical influences…Honorable mention is “Turn up the Bump” that is another typical hardcore Eightball & MJG track.

But Eightball and MJG have another dimension to them as well besides the no-holds barred street-funk as they have a knack for giving us those Blunted out, surreal smooth tracks as well. Leading the pack is the incredible “Memphis” which should have been made into a single release. The song of course has the duo relating how much they love Memphis but also has them just reflecting on everything they’ve been through in their career. “Running out of Bud” is another winner as the duo once again gives us a nice ode to that stinky green stuff. The chorus is hilarious – “My (chronic) is smoked up..My (chronic) is smoked up..Nobody’s left around..Nobody’s left around…”. Guess this is “Stay High” Part II or something? Juvenile rises from the dead and adds his unique flavor to the sultry “Pimpin Don’t Fail me Now”. Good to hear from Juvenile who used to be one of my favorites. Probably taking “smoothness” a bit too far for my taste is “Take it Off” that will be a winner with the females for sure but I only accept it cause MJG mentions on the song that on his next layover he’s hitting the strip club which is reminiscent to Benz0 hitting Club Nikki’s on his layover headed to Daytona Black Beach weekend back in the day.

I draw the line though on “Cruzin” which is just straight R&B and features of all groups 3-6 Mafia. That’s like enlisting Vin Diesel to do a love ballad with Justin Timberlake. Also Alcohol P**** and W***” does succeed in having too juvenile a chorus. When it comes down to it though only two tracks out of 16 (3 are skits/intro’s) turn me off. That gives us FOURTEEN solid tracks that all bump. Not even Young Jeezy can boast that on his second effort. So far I’d have to put this Eightball & MJG as the top offering Down South, then Young Jeezy’s latest (Not that U.S.D.A. crud though…That album is Terrible with a Capital T…The success has finally gotten to Jeezy to release garbage like that) and then Lex Denero. But the summer is upon us so we got T.I.P. about to come out and another offering from Young Joc as well plus 50 Cent and many more. I’m going to take a wild guess though and predict that this Eightball & MJG will easily remain in the top 5 of hiphop albums this year.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

“These are days of our lives [and] I’m sorry to my fans, but them crackers weren’t playing fair at Jive“ – Pusha T, “Mr. Me Too“.

How does one commit rap career suicide? The answer is the same as it’s been for the last 25 years. To kill your rap career simply wait more than 2 years to come out with your next album. RAP IS THE MOST DYNAMIC GENRE ON EARTH. What style is hot today is old stale cheese the next. Rap is fueled by the energy of the youth. That means that energy is constantly in motion and constantly changing sporadically.

It’s this spontaneous, perpetual motion in hiphop that makes it so great. You’ll never get too bored with rap because some new style will hit you over the head real soon. So you have to wonder why the Clipse rap duo waited over FOUR years to drop again. Remember “Grindin” came out in 2002!!! WAY BACK in 2002 I remember coming home around 4 AM in the morning in Chicago and turning on MTV and seeing “Grindin” for the first time. I almost nut in my pantz!! I hadn’t heard something so raw and sinister since Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones”!! The genius part about the song was that the track was so simple that it made the song even rawer cause they just spit rhyme for rhyme over your basic hardcore rap track. I felt they were taking things back to the essence of hiphop – Raw beats and Raw rhymes. On top of that their demeanor was way too cool, calm and collective for neophytes like themselves. Of course Pharrell and the Neptunes produce their music so they had the advantage of being well schooled. So Clipse drops their debut album LORD WILLIN and they go on to sell over a million copies while putting out about 8 different remixes to “Grindin” cause it was THE SONG of the summer of 2002.

But that’s when the two brothers Pusha T and Malice would endure years of music hell as they became embroiled in a bitter fight to stay musically alive as their record label dissolved and merged which eventually prevented the release of their second album. Just ask the group that started NY hardcore, Black Moon, how costly a battle with your record company can be. Black Moon released one of the best hardcore albums NY has ever witnessed in their epic release of ENTA DA STAGE only to vanish from the face of hiphop practically overnight due to label disputes that delayed their next album release for years. By the time album # 2 came out Black Moon had lost their luster and rap moved on without them (Wonder what Buckshot Shorty is even doing these days??…Washing cars or asking “Can I take your order?”). Now you have Clipse trying to enta da stage 4 to 5 years after their debut album with the release of their LOOONNNG awaited new album called HELL HATH NO FURY that has them apologizing to fans for taking so long to come out. You have to wonder how the heck these guys survived so long with no loot coming from the label and no rap tours keeping their bank roll fat. I guess having super-producer and millionaire Pharrell as your best buddy allows one to weather the roughest times. Clipse said they were inactive so long that they felt they “forgot how to rap” almost. They did release TWO highly critical mix tapes in between albums called WE GOT IT FOR CHEAP VOLUME 1 AND 2 to try to stay in the game but the mix tape game ONLY keeps you in the loop with those hiphop heads that don’t even buy albums. You gotta be out there in the national scene if you want that true buzz. So here they came late last year with their super single “Mr. Me Too” which definitely hit just as hard as “Grindin”. But what the rap world wanted to know was could they really still bring it on an entire album?

So you would think that Clipse would be so desperate to regain their fame that they would come out nationally again strictly commercial and do jiggaboo dances for all the white people who are responsible for rap even being commercially viable as they buy most of the hiphop out there. But to Clipse’s credit they came out as hard as ever with “Mr. Me Too” that ended up getting massive airplay simply because everyone knows a lying a$$ “Mr. Me Too” as well. Then it only takes one quick listen to the intro to their new album and the songs that follow to realize Clipse aren’t about to compromise their style for fleeting cheesy commercial fame. Right on the intro they hit you with a right hook on “We Got it For Cheap” which has them letting you know they had tough times but they’re back. Peep Malice’s verse describing the pain they experienced when their original record label failed them – “Now I see, My leg was pulled, the jokes on me, So heart breaking like loving a wh$$e, Might hurt you once, BUT NEVER NO MORE!!, it’s like trying to FLY, but they clipping yo wings, and that’s exactly why the caged bird sings..Seems to me reparations are over due, I done been to the top, I done sipped the juice and with that being said, bird crumbs will never do…Keep the pranks as I bid farewell….”. As further proof of their intent on keeping their hardcore stylo alive witness “Momma I’m So Sorry”, “Ride Around Shining” and “Chinese New Year”.

The latter makes you want to never forget to lock your doors at night as the chorus goes “I’m at your door, your eyes are like WHY ARE YOU HERE?!!, Judging by my steel I got something to do here, Give up the money or that angel cries two tears, front of your crib sounding like Chinese New Year…”. Then Malice backs his chorus up with the lines: “Mask on face, glock in hand, I was in and out of homes like the Orkin man…Fall victim to the Click Clack clan, my Vixen eat your face like she’s Ms. Pac man, My wish her command…”. Last but not least though is probably the hardest song on the album, “Keys Open Doors” that simply put doesn’t disappoint and will have you calling your homies when you hear Malice say “I yell re-up till I’m locked like Mumia and get it cross state with the Grace of Maria, ..keys on the floor, Mistress in Dior, Bi$$h tells me she loves me but I know she’s a wh$$re, Sh&& could get ugly if she talks to the law, and that’s just what I get, It’s the Roses of War, (but) F$$k the Bureau I’d rather be spending Euros, we get fed grapes, fu$$ ho’s in plurals…”.

There is a slightly lighter side of the album though. Clipse also released the club banger “Wamp Wamp (What it Do)” featuring Slim Thug that comes off as the perfect blend of mass appeal and hardcore appeal. It features some Cuban sounding percussion and drums and hard kicking bass undertones that makes you feel like you’re partying at South Beach but the lyrics are based more on the PORT OF MIAMI as the Clipse blast you with mega drug references as that’s what they do best. While that song is your normal type club banger I was TOTALLY caught off guard by three songs in particular that are unlike any songs I’ve heard out there in today’s hiphop. The New Age sound starts out with “Hello New World” that features a quirky sung chorus mixed in with the street poetics of Pusha and Malice.

Pusha says perhaps his best lines ever on this song..Peep it… – “See I was 16, eyes full of hope, Bagging up grams at the Hyatt though, THE NEWS CALLED IT CRACK, I CALLED IT DIET COKE, at the same time hiding from mama, dodging the drama, fu$$ing plenty Bit$$es while ducking the baby’s mama, I found poetry, EXCUSE ME, floetry..Ocean in my backyard where it’s supposed to be, funny how my neighbors DON’T think it’s where I’m supposed to be…”. The new flavor continues with “Trill” which sounds like an old school Cameo track with a new twist that has Pusha T doing his best Biggie impersonation as he rhymes in stuttered rhyme patterns that totally distort his voice and then Malice comes through and closes down the shop with his climatic word play. Then we get treated to perhaps the best song on the album called “A’int Cha” that sounds like a new age “Ha” as the chorus has a Juvenile rhyme flow that asks the listener question after question regarding how they are trying to come up – “Hmmm, you trying to slang in the rain ain’t cha?, Hmmm, You trying to save for that RANGE ain’t cha?…Hmmm…You trying to perfect your aim ain’t cha?…Hmmm..You trying to get that big chain ain’t cha?..Hmmm…Say what? You gonna get that hood fame ain’t ya?”. Trust me when I say this song goes the F$$K off. Again the point is some true innovative flavor is being witnessed here with these three aforementioned songs. Why “Ain’t Cha” wasn’t released is a mystery to me. Better yet none of the three aforementioned innovative songs were released to my knowledge. That’s just dumb. The world needs to hear this flavor.

Only downside to the album I can even think of is the simplistic “Dirty Money” that features a track that a 2 year old could produce yet still has one of my favorite pimp lines of all time “You ain’t gotta love me, Just be convincing”. Then we have “Nightmares” that is more experimental than anything else yet still has flavor as it’s sort of a remake of “My Mind is Playing Tricks On Me” by the Geto Boys. All in all this album represents good entertainment which is what the music business is all about. Yes there are about a thousand drug metaphors on this album and dozens more references to unwarranted violence. But music is entertainment just like a movie is entertainment. It makes me sick to my stomach when critics and even friends of mine try to attack gangsta hiphop and claim it’s corrupting the kids. Yet these same idiots are PRAISING Quentin Tarantino and other violent movie directors like Robert Rodriguez who both kill WAY more innocent people in their movies than NWA’s Greatest Hits Album ever did.

Grow up dummies. Hiphop and music in general just like movies is just another form of entertainment. And certainly this album HELL HATH NO FURY is one of the best entertaining albums to come out lately. I personally made it a point to own an authentic copy of this album cause I truly enjoy listening to it. Most of you suckaz will now go download this album now that you know it’s tight, but trust when I say it’s worth buying. How is hardcore rap gonna continue to thrive when it’s biggest fans and people who can understand the lyrics the most keep choosing to not support their favorite hardcore artists? I’m all for downloading albums at first cause ever since probably 1998 most rappers stopped trying to put every ounce of their soul in albums. But when you find an album worth buying you should do so. Come to Benz0’s house and you’ll be able to find the authentic CD cover of this album cause it’s one of those diamond in the rough albums that I’ll be bumping for quite some time. Follow in my footsteps once you download and procure the authentic CD for yourself. It’s NOT a hiphop classic like XXL magazine claims BUT it is a solid hardcore hiphop album that won’t disappoint and is worth your $13.99.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

“I keep it gangsta and they LOVE, that s$$$…If you’re a gangsta you gonna love this s$$$….Ha HAAAA!!!…“ – Young Jeezy, “Keep it Gangsta”.

HAAAAAYYYYY!!!!! Jeezy aka The King of Ad-Libs is back!! Gotta be honest with ya folks. I thought Jeezy depended on them clever little hooks a bit too much to the point where I didn’t think he’d have enough substance to actually make a decent sophomore album. Even when his decent first single off his current 2nd album called THE INSPIRATION dropped I just wasn’t that motivated to rush to the store. So I admit I took my time before even copping the album despite the positive reactions from the streets. I mean when you think about it what exactly does Jeezy represent? He’s not exactly a lyrical terror and also isn’t like a Ludacris whose persona is non-threatening enough to crossover into all cultures. I mean Jeezy doesn’t exactly invite happy fun thoughts when you think of him.

Thinking about his first album though, the thing that stood out the most was that deep reverberating bass interlocked with soft sounds of melodic doom. And those ad libs!!! But see that’s just it. Jeezy has brought back what the quality artists back in the day like Tribe Called Quest perfected. What he’s perfected is making an album that creates a “MOOD” throughout the entire album so that when you listen to it you feel like you’re drifting off to a far and away place created by the artist. Tribe did this perfectly on their first two hiphop classic albums called PEOPLE’S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS AND THE PATHS OF RHYTHM and THE LOW END THEORY.

So I realize the genius of Jeezy is that on his albums he brings you into HIS world of realness where serenity is only a dream and a glock and a “brick” is the only reality. Even Jeezy’s attempts at making radio songs can only get so commercial cause he never strays too far way from his dark stylo. If only other artists thought this deep when making their albums or even just creating their image!! Think about it. Nothing’s more annoying than buying an album because of one single that fool’s you into thinking this is that artist’s style but finding you’ve bought nothing but an album full of “singles” trying to appeal to every human alive in which no continuity or consistency is created. Perhaps the best hiphop group on Earth to perfect their own style through their dark tracks and attitude is Mobb Deep. They are the kings hands down of bringing you into their world of hiphop (3-6 Mafia is a close 2nd). You know when you buy a Mobb Deep album that what you’re going to get are tales of hiphop horror set to nothing but hardcore menacing tracks. So once I picked up Jeezy’s second Def Jam offering I was wondering if he really had mastered his own sound. And I’m proud to say he has done exactly that!! Unlike other “flash in the pan”, cookie cutter carved type artists, Jeezy suffers NO SOPHOMORE SLUMP. Too bad jokes like that artist called The Game can’t claim the same. Game’s only claim to validity and apparently only topic is that he hangs out with Dr. Dre in Compton…Seriously…How can a grown man ride someone’s jock that hard???…In his 2nd album he mentions Dre no less than 3 billion times…But I digress…. Curiously though unlike Mobb Deep and Tribe Called Quest, Jeezy enlists the help of SEVERAL different producers like Shawty Redd, Cool and Dre, Timbaland, DJ Toomp, DJ Smurf, Justice League, The Runners, Drumma Boy, Anthony Dent, Don Cannon, and Key Pushas yet still amazingly maintains his same dark, surreal, somber “I will survive” mood throughout the album. Let’s fall deeper into the newest dark sounds of Jeezy…

Showing he’s a visionary and a serious artist Jeezy takes care that his album starts off with the same tone his last one ended with. So fittingly Shawty Redd dominates 3 out of the first 4 tracks. Brilliant! As a ni$$a like me was instantly drawn back in to Jeezy’s world and was left eagerly anticipating what Tracks 5 – 16 had in store for me. “Hypnotize”, “U Know What It Is”, and “J.E.E.Z.Y” really take you back to the first half of Jeezy’s first album and makes you remember why you became addicted to Jeezy’s stylo in the first place. Personally “J.E.E.Z.Y.” is the Shawty Redd track that does it for me the most out of the three. You listen to that track and the vivid picture he paints about a night in hood in the first few bars leaves you saying DAAAYUUUMMM!! – “The Red Dog’s trippin and these ni$$az still snitching, The old lady across the street’s still bit$$ing. It’s 3 AM in the morning..Take yo old a$$ to sleep!…It’s the 3rd time she done called the police this week..the folks just left so I’m on my grind!!…yeaahhh!!!…”. As in the first album the first 5 tracks leave you wide “OPEN” (You know I gotta quote from the group that started NY Hardcore, BLACK MOON!!) and then he lets you catch your breath by attacking some less abrasive topics. So Track 6 has us entering the club with Jeezy and R&B Legend R-Kelly and you feel like you’re right there hollering at the hizzoez right alongside them! The chorus is catchy enough but not corny as you and Jeezy spot a fine broad and you tell yourselves..”Go Get’ta!!!!!” (Go Get her).

No doubt he needs to release this one. It takes off where the classic Akon blessed “Soul Survivor” left off. Actually at first I thought it was Akon singing the hook to this one cause the vibe of the song has that Akon feel (Not that I can truly know what an “Akon feel” is being he’s an R&B artist..more soulful than most though). Anyway I like this song man. Ni$$az gotta listen to something upbeat on the way to the club! But that’s the good thing about Benz0. I’m universal when it comes to hiphop. I can appreciate the genius of a down South club song like this yet get off on the rawness of a Philadelphia bred Black Thought verse. After taking us to the club Jeezy let’s us hang out AFTER THE CLUB with him as the Timbaland produced “3 A.M.” comes on which also is a perfect blend of commercial and realness too. What can you say about Timbaland though? He’s getting that dayum Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado money!!!! I mean I’d be real surprised if this dude isn’t the richest hiphop producer to ever live cause he’s literally extending the career of Justin. Hat’s off Timbo, that’s just incredible. I mean dude even has BENZ0 jamming to Justin Timberlake!!

But the reason we like Jeezy is cause he puts limits on his quasi-commercialism. He brings us all the way back into his grim realness frame of mind as we start to explore Track 8 that is fittingly titled “The Realest”. Then IT’S OVA!! when “Streets on Lock” comes on and just like that we’re riding the Jeezy Realness musical tidal wave as he takes us far far away deeper into his land of realness…YEAAAHHH!!!!…We then get treated to a 2007 “Murda was the Case” when we hear the gunshots pump into Jeezy’s body on “Bury Me A G” in which he describes his own death due to the hands of haters that hate seeing him shine. I’m feeling this song as 2006, New Year’s Eve was a time for haters. On this day the same type theoretical haters that shoot Jeezy on this song shoot a young black 24 yr old Denver Broncos NFL player in real life as dude sits in his Stretch Hummer Limo (Rest in peace Darrent Williams!!). Man same day them haters got Benz0 too!!! I was partying in the party capital of North America known as Montreal, Canada and these same dang hater types steal Benz0’s pimp SUV on New Year’s Eve!!! DAAYUUUMMM!!! Just like that there’s no more riding around in a luxurious SUV with TV’s, DVD Player and a sound system to kill for (at least for a month or so!). Hey but Benz0 dang sure had a better New Year’s day than Darrent Williams so can’t complain. But like Jeezy says “You can’t take nothing for granted, and don’t take granted for nothing..”.

Hey but who says Jeezy can’t get soulful on you? “Dreamin” shows you the versatility of Jeezy as we find ourselves reflecting with Jeezy as he shares his fears and joys with us. Dude needs to release this one too!! This song would get mad radio play and it’s not even commercial. Just a real song with a soulful chorus. Along that same soulful mode are “Mr. 17.5” and “The Inspiration”. But luckily we still get two more hardcore gems towards the end of the album in “Keep it Gangsta” and “I Got Money” (featuring T.I.) which are both classic Jeezy – Hardcore chorus, real baseline, and angry treble!! So once again all is well in THE LAND OF REALNESS. Jeezy you done, done it again!!! You’re a genius!! You gotta love it man. A modern day artist that actually puts mad thought into not only the lyrics and image but also the entire musical mood of the album that signifies their musical soul. I know a lot of “still in a 1990 time warp”, “Nas is the only good rapper left” type hiphop fans probably won’t even bother to pick up this album. Well, your loss. This is good hiphop like just like The Roots is good hiphop. Man it’s all hiphop!! Jeezy just represents that Down South Hiphop. That raw hiphop. It’s like my dad Fred Benjamin Sr. says: “If War came to America them down South dudes would probably be like the main leaders of The Resistance” cause they’re lifestyle is all about f$$$ what y’all thinking we got our own way of thinking and life going on down here and anyone that gets in the way of that has got trouble on their hands. Jeezy keep keeping it real man. Love ya for that Jeezy!! This album is in the MUST HAVE category.

Jeezy’s album is right up there with that E-40 and that 40 Cal. Those three I consider the top nationally released albums of 2006 (Late 2005) with honorable mentions to Get Rich Or Die Trying (G-Unit), J.R. Writer (HISTORY IN THE MAKING) and Lil Wayne (THE CARTER II). In full disclosure I have the new Nas album right in front of me but haven’t had the chance to open it yet. Maybe it’s tight too but I’ll let y’all know next album review. Happy New Year to all the Benz0 loyalists and hiphop loyalists in general no matter what coast or country you’re partial too!! Hiphop is the most creative, real, and lyrical genre ever created by man!!! “Champagne for my real friends and PAIN for my sham friends” – Ed Norton in 25th HOUR (Benz0’s favorite movie). The haters tried to take Benz0 out on New Year’s Eve just cause he shining now but watch how hard I come back on em’ in ’07!!!! You won’t believe the next ride he’s gonna get…Oh Boy!!!

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

“It’s the end cause the game’s tired, It’s the same vibe as Good Times had right after James died, that’s why the gangsta rhymers ain’t inspired, heinous crimes help record sales more than creative rhymes, and I don’t want to keep bringing up the greater times but I’m a dreamer, Nostalgic with the state of mind..” – Nas, “Can’t Forget About You”.

Nas, Nas, Nas. What am I going to do with you huh? Sometimes I love ya and sometimes I hate ya. See one minute you’re in love, next minute you’re sending threats to haters about putting them in caskets. One minute you’re uplifting Africa and next you’re promoting misogynistic ideals. Even worse though, Jay-Z bones your baby’s mama and then you go fall in love again with Kelis and get a tattoo of her on your arm? Huh? Yuck!! Makes Benz0 want to vomit. But still at the end of the day Nas has and always will have the potential to always drop album the year cause he’s still crazy poetic.

It’s simply a matter of what mood he’s in at the time and how focused he is as to how good his album will be. I mean is he thinking about licking honey off of Kelis’ toes while he’s in the studio like he was obviously doing on his last double album? Or is he thinking of ripping you to mental shreds like he was on the single “Made you Look”? I mean I feel like I’m in a relationship with Nas just cause of the long history and love hate relationship. See Nas and Benz0 go way back. In fact way back before the ballin persona of Benz0 was even born. Look Nas. When I first heard you say – “Verbal assassin, my architect pleases, when was 12 I went to Hell for snuffin Jesus, Nasty Nas is a rebel to America, police murderer, I’m causing hysteria…My troops roll up with a strange force, I was trapped in a cage and let out by the Main Source…I melt mics till the sound waves over, .Before stepping to me you’d rather step to Jehovah” – back in 1991 on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” off the album BREAKING ATOMS you caught my attention. Then when you dropped ILLMATIC in 1994 I declared you better than Rakhim and my favorite soloist (It helped that the Source Magazine pumped up your ILLMATIC album like it was some newly found lost scriptures written by Jesus Christ himself). But just like that my adulation of your refreshingly poignant style quickly started dissipating. Yeah your sophomore album IT WAS WRITTEN was OK but it rang true when Tupac called you out about your words on “The Message” in which you detail a story involving you getting shot and checking out the hospital the same night. Something Tupac did in real life. Even worse though is that you started getting the “big head” and doing duets with Lauryn Hill and Puffy. Then the ultimate low was dancing around with Ginuwine. By then the love was lost. But then you made a come back with STILLMATIC and I finally decide to give you a second chance and buy your double album STREET’S DISCIPLE and IT SUCKED!!!!!! Talk about feeling robbed!! So back on Benz0’s S-List you went but hold up. Now my manz is saying your new album HIP HOP IS DEAD is all that. But Benz0 is no fool. I decide to download it instead. If it’s fly I’ll cop it. So the question is. Now that I’ve downloaded it have I bought it yet? To be continued…In the next paragraph…

In this album Nas plays Pete Rock and “reminisces” on the good ol days of hiphop. You know the days of the Fat Boys, King Sun, and Black Sheep. The days when rap was still finding its identity but in which NEW and FRESH creative ideas were brought to the forefront almost on a weekly basis. OK, it’s cool to reminisce but why make your first single off your new album use the EXACT SAME TRACK as your lead song from your last album? The title track “Hip Hop Is Dead” uses his “Thief’s Theme” track from his last album. Now that’s just stupid!! But the song is his ode to always representing true lyrics in music so I accept it. He continues the reminisce theme on “Who Killed It”, “Carry On Tradition” and “Where are they Now”. But none of those songs hold a candle to his other odes to the old school in the songs “Can’t Forget About You” and “Blunt Ashes”. “Can’t Forget About You” is like a hiphop remix to “Unforgettable” and perfectly breaks down a lot of the “back in the day” moments in our lives – “Jordan’s first retirement, first time you made love, Tyson and Buster Douglas, Robert Horry’s game winning shot..etc. This song is brilliant cause it mixes in some Nat King Cole with sultry soul. Crazy brilliant man. But probably the best reminisce song is “Blunt Ashes”. This song is hard to describe. It’s got a real somber track that becomes even more somber from Nas’ morbid lyrics but ends up inspirational as he vows we can learn from the mistakes of the more high profile tragedies of famous people like when Roger Troutman got killed by his brother Larry Troutman to end Zapp, when Bill Cosby’s son got murdered, and Marvin Gaye’s death.

I really dig all the reminiscing man but of course we always want to hear that “Live at the BBQ” flow too. He delivers right on the opening track in “Money Over Bull$$$$” where he paints us yet another vivid picture of chaos. Peep these scary lyrics that are on par with the hardest lyrics out there “7 candles lit, black wallpaper, black carpet, thinking about which ni$$a to target, You kill a ni$$a today, he lives forever, so I plot it out smarter, they’ll be NO martyrs, …”. Hey Nas I’m sorry man. Whatever I’ve said in the past, Benz0 was just playing!! Nah but personally I would love for him to come out with songs like this on every song of every album he made. In my eyes he’d then be the greatest rapper to ever live. But alas that’s asking too much. However he does give us another patented Nas street story in “You Can’t Kill Me” that shows us Nas ain’t really lost a step. Of course the song that’ll get all the hype is his duet with Jigga Man Jay-Z. “Black Republican” is what they call it and it was well worth the wait. Jay absolutely rips it – “We had covenant, Who would have thought the love would end, Never imagined all the disaster that one could bring,..It’s kill or be killed how could I refrain…the pressure of success can put a good strain on friend you call best and yes it could bring out the worse in every person even the good saint..then you mix things like cars, jewelry and Ms thing…jealousy, ego and pride and this brings it all to a head like a coin,…Cha ching….the root of evil strikes again, this could sting, now the TEAM got beef between the post and the point, but this puts the RING in jeopardy.…”. Oh Hova welcome back!! I like to think it’s his apology to Nas on how the pressure of the rap game forced him to lash out at him. He mentions the “post” and the “point” which are basketball team terms and the RING means championship. So I think Jay envisioned signing Nas to Def Jam and to bring Def Jam to greater heights and knew the beef between he and Nas had to stop. See that’s the great thing about lyrics. You can make them mean what you want them to mean. Nas has a lesser duet with Snoop on “Play on Playa” that’s off the hook mostly cause of the eternal voice of Snoop Dogg. Snoop will go down in history as the most recognizable and best voice hiphop ever had. Speaking of Compton. Nas does a duet with the Game on a Dr. Dre track that is straight garbage. Yo Dre retire man. Please. You’re straight embarrassing yourself these days. And you know how I feel about the Game. Straight Lame..Hiphop is dead? Nah man West Coast is dead (except for Snoop and E-40).

Yes I would love for Nas to just assassinate fools on EVERY song but that would leave him no avenues to grow. He shows his growth and maturity with a slew of more low key songs in “Still Dreaming”, “Not Going Back”, “Hold Down the Block”. Benz0 is notorious for hating mellow songs but not if they are either inspirational, thought provoking or funky. These songs fall in all three categories. Kanye is featured on “Still Dreaming” where Nas spits some funny but true lyrics about those bum friends of yours always looking at you like you’re a bank teller – “How you a man waiting for the next man to get rich?, You’re plan is to stick out your hand real quick?, So if he feeds your family and he serves you?…s$$$, then he needs that head you getting and he deserves your b$$$$..”. On “Not Going Back” (featuring his love muffin Kelis) he lets us know how embarrassed he was on spending 60K on a stupid chain and points out that real rich people spend 60 Million on paintings. He basically lashes out on the whole stupid bling bling lifestyle of rappers cause buying a 60K chain is not really any kind of status symbol but some low grade bootleg offerings they sell to wanna be rich uneducated black folks. I love that song man cause he really speaks the truth and shows his growth and maturity that can maybe change the way stupid young blacks spend so much on stupid jewelry when they don’t even have real money to be doing that. It’s this growth and maturity that really rounds out this album and is what actually got me hooked to this album. Far as I’m concerned this is one of Nas’ best albums ever cause of the props he gives to my beloved hiphop, the street stories he gives me and the TRUTH he puts on display about US. US being black people. Black people who still suffer the “slave mentality” and US who can’t stand to see another Black man succeed. Think about it y’all. Think about how SO MANY of our so called friends become jealous and envious of our success. Think about how it’s rare that US as black people give other successful black people props. It’s always “Yeah he got this but Benz0 ain’t s$$$” or “she ain’t s$$$, she thinks she’s all that”. Nas vividly points out how most other cultures like the Jews stick together and have friends in high places. Not black folks though. We get to the top and spit on the folks on the bottom. Find ways to make others feel less about themselves. So more than anything this album not only serves as a wake up call to Black people but to hiphop artists in general. Stop the madness y’all and let’s build. So Yes I indeed paid my $13.99 and bought this album after falling in love with it. Pick it up and see if you do to!!! At least for now NAS IS BACK!!!

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

Oh really? Jay-Z is back? OK. Didn’t he retire? Yep. Well why is he back? Cause he’s a rapper…Is Benz0 the only one who knew that Jay-Z retiring was just a publicity stunt? I mean you would think that Jay Hova would have been more original than this. Too Short retired long time ago just to come back. It’s all a publicity stunt in rap. Which is why I admire Barry Sanders who was one of the greatest running backs in the NFL of all time but retired YOUNG and kept his word and never came back.

Michael Jordan played the same retirement game too but dude won 3 championships when he came back!! I guess Jay-Z figures he can do the same thing. Retire then come back and put out 3 back to back to back multi-platinum selling albums? Well I don’t know about that. See in rap, YOUTH WILL BE SERVED! Rap changes styles about every 12 to 15 months. In Hiphop you simply CANNOT take more than 15 months off and still be in the mix of what’s hot (Though Outkast defied this logic for 5 straight albums before falling totally off the edge as they only come out every 2+ years). One of the smartest rap business men in hiphop history, Master-P, knew this so he came out like every 3 months and made millions as he gave the nation drunk on a steady dose of his lethal country verbal elixir in the late 90s.

Heck Jay-Z knew this too. Rarely a year went by where we couldn’t grab a new Jay-Z record over the summers. So knowing this why would Jay-Z try to take three years off and try to make a comeback? Well if you ask me dude was probably bored and jealous sitting at home by himself while his prized Beyonce possession (who is way more famous than him) continued to do her thing. I mean I can just imagine lonely Jay-Z sitting in one of his mansions like a sucka for love R&B thug about to cry as he’s watching Beyonce perform on TV at yet another hot awards show surrounded by young hot dudes that look better than him. He probably figured he better get his name back out there before Beyonce forgets how hot he used to be. That’s my honest to god truthful assessment on the situation. Cause dude has said just about EVERYTHING there is to be said. We’ve heard about his hard upbringing. We’ve heard how proficient he was at selling drugs and how he had loot before he made it big in rapping. We’ve heard about his pops not being there and his lost child. We’ve heard his tributes to his mom already. We’ve heard about how many bottles of bub he pops at the club and how many girls he’s had.

I mean I think we all feel like we could write an autobiography on this cat. But yet here he comes again. At almost 38 Hov just can’t put down the mic. To his credit thus far it seems like he’ll probably be the best 38 yr old rapper ever. But then again only Reverend Run of RUN DMC fame tried to come back at that advanced rapping age. So Hov is trying to comeback like Michael Jordan after Jordan’s first retirement but unfortunately folks after giving an honest listen to his newest offering called KINGDOME COME, his comeback resembles more like Jordan’s SECOND comeback where Mike Jordan came back fat, slower than ever, OLD and injury prone. In that SECOND comeback, Jordan couldn’t even get his team into the playoffs in the WEAK Eastern Conference. The same team that a YOUNG Gilbert Arenas would get into the playoffs soon after. So as Jay-Z makes his comeback it’ll be about the same results as this aging Jordan. You’ll see some 50 point scoring highlights here and there but mostly you’ll see someone beginning to be past his prime and on the verge of embarrassing himself at times. As you go through this album you can literally see the wrinkles forming as you get further into each track.

When the album first starts we are reminded of the YOUNG Jay-Z! The intro starts out nice enough and goes right into “Oh My God” which is classic Jay-Z! I couldn’t get enough of this song when I heard it. I mean dude is ripping it like the Hov of old!!. Peep his lyrics: “Got all these rival dealers trying to do me in and all these little rappers don’t know how prepared for them I am, I feel like the world is against me Lord, Call me crazy but I love them odds!!..”. Not only that though the chorus, track and hook are all classic Jay-Z. Then the next song, “Kingdome Come”, is a “can’t miss” as producer Just Blaze samples Rick James “Super Freak” in a surprisingly unique way to give the song just the right touch. Jay easily skates through the song with ease.

At this point I pick up my phone and call my manz Jamil Austin in Chicago to tell him about how elated I am thus far with the album. But then Jamil is like “Yeah, well wait till you hear the songs towards the end..You won’t be impressed”. OK. So then the ubiquitous “Show Me What You Got” comes on and it’s still easy on the ears as I was a big Public Enemy fan when they first sampled the same horns in their TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK album. Track 5 infiltrates my senses and I’m loving it! “Lost One” is a nice rendition of the quote Lauryn Hill made famous and Jay talks some real stuff as he explains guilt over buying his nephew a car that would eventually cost his nephew his life. But he explains how his faith was restored as his nephew’s girlfriend became pregnant right before the tragic accident. And I guess he’s referencing Beyonce in this song in another verse as well as he realizes he has to “not hate” and let his girl do her thing as it’s her time to shine. So at this point Young Hov aka Jay-Z still seems like the Jay-Z of old or is that the Jay-Z of Young?

Then the new Jay-Z starts showing his gray hairs as soon as Track 6 starts rotating. But you know I still kind of like “Do U Wanna Ride”. It’s soulful. Then “30 Something” comes on and at first I notice how lame the track is but yet he’s still spitting some decent lyrics as he honestly explains how now he’s “Young enough to still know what right car to buy, but old enough to not put rims on it..”. But still man. Track just lays there. Track 8 we get another “dear mama” type song which is just simply an average tribute to his mom that highlights some back in the day tender moments. YAWN!! Then the wrinkles really start to show with the star-studded, yet VERY AVERAGE, R&B (Rappin BULL&&&&) song “Anything” that sours the face of your stereo and your face.

I mean how can you have Usher AND Pharell and have such a lame outcome? Yeah Benz0 hates most R&B but that’s mostly the slow sappy “Baby I’ll pay all your bills” love songs. I dig a lot of fast R&B cause it’s basically a hiphop beat these days thanks to Teddy Riley’s visionary efforts. But this one just sucks and not even Beyonce can save the below average “Hollywood” song that comes on next. I’m sure he’ll make a fancy video for either “Anything” or “Hollywood” and all the girls and R&B thugs will force themselves to like it but the songs suck. Then you have “Trouble” which the album credits say Dr. Dre produced but I can’t tell. It can’t be Dr. Dre of Compton but must be Dre from NY that used to host Yo MTV Raps with Ed Lover cause the track is one of the wackest tracks in the history of hiphop. Now “Dig a Hole” starts out with a bang the first 5 seconds until some crooning a$$ R&B dude starts singing a wack chorus that is the hook for what is supposed be Jay’s attempt at hardcore.

Well I guess too much time with his face in between Beyonce’s thighs has made Jay’s head soft cause no way you try to make a hardcore song with a wack singing hook like this one. This is not the “Takeover” Jay-Z I knew that single-handedly crushed Nas and Mobb Deep on a whim over a hardcore track with no wack singing on it!! Man I want my money back at this point cause this dude has lost his edge!! Yes he has a tight subtle line in which he says “[dudes] throwing Roc signs outside of your coup” in reference to Cam’Ron’s shooting incident in D.C. but the wack chorus just turns the song into a joke. Even worse some kind of New Orleans tribute song shows up on the next track out of no where. Mr. Jay-Z you’re only a gazillion months too late on this one. What were you thinking??…

Interestingly enough the last track on the album (Track 14) is INCREDIBLE!!! Peep the tight lyrics on “Beach Chair”: “See I got demons in my past so I got daughters on the way, [cause] if the prophecy’s correct then the child will have to pay for the sins of a father, so I barter my tomorrows against my yesterdays, in hopes she’ll be OK, and when I’m no longer here, they shade her face from the glare…”. Wow. Now that’s the Jay-Z who became my favorite soloist ever talking right there.

The inspirational, clever, new-school but with old-school character, type of rapper that spoke so vividly that I shared his pain like it was mine!! Where has that Jay-Z gone? Is it age robbing him or his fascination with Beyonce? I don’t know. I think dude just took too much time off personally. You can’t do that in the American rap industry and think you can come right back ruling things. Rap in America is a dog eat dog world in which your star will maybe shine for about 30 seconds if you’re lucky until the next tidal wave of innovation drowns you into obsoleteness. So does the impressive last song on the album represent an aging, dying man’s last gasp? Or does it represent signs of a man on cardiac arrest starting to show real signs of serious life? As a former Jay-Z Loyalist I hope it’s the latter. But this effort IS NOT ENOUGH!!! Download tracks 1-5 and track 14 and go about your business!! I can’t in good faith recommend folks buy this album as it’s not consistent enough.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com

“I don’t sound like none of y’all, you getting independent [money]?, just remember the n$$$az that taught you that… Bay Area!!!…Tell the people that E-40 is back“ – E-40, “Yay Area”.

510!!!…415!!!!…707!!!…916!!!….BAY AREA!!!!…YAY AREA!!!!…..Don’t sleep on the Bay Area!!! That NorthWest (San Francisco/Oakland to Seattle) region has been representing hiphop since the Sir Mix-A-Lot days. And E-40 picked up where Sir Mix-A-Lot left off joining Too Short as the main Northwest playaz in the game. But ever since Too Short moved to Atlanta it seems the Bay Area lost most of its steamFear not.

E-40 has hooked up with a new click of young hyphyed out n$$$az and released his TWELTH ALBUM entitled MY GHETTO REPORT CARD. With this album he plans on infecting the world with the newest hiphop sickness called H-Y-P-H-Y. My first love is hiphop and the main reason why is the creativeness of my culture when it comes to musical art forms. My Black American forefathers created Blues, Rock & Roll, and Soul/R&B but my generation created hiphop. Hiphop is the most diverse genre of music to ever come to Planet Earth and the subcultures formed from this Black American genre puts all other cultures to shame. Just stroll through Black America and you can feel what I’m saying. Let’s start in hiphop’s birthplace and you’ll hear the crisp percussion and battle-ridden lyrics of NY.

Travel through Baltimore and you’ll hear their own version of hyper-house music that has a unique style of dance to go with it …Hit D.C. and the youth still bang to go-go music with it’s foundations in live music…..On down to Atlanta where CRUNK music rules all….Stroll on down to Florida and you can dust off your Two Live Crew and Magic Mike cassettes and ponder on the great energy of BASS music which started out with slow to mid-tempo beats until Miami sped it up…Take a quick flight to London, England and get introduced to the movement American hiphop built called GRIME rap where the youngins rhyme at supersonic speed to hyper Bass beats; but of course they are all sons of groups like Bone Thugs & Harmony, Twista and Freestyle Fellowship.

Sorry London but America did that style almost 20 years ago to perfection with better beats…Hop back on the plane and head to Texas and there you have the home of SCREW music….Can’t forget the Memphis area with their special brand of hypnotic TRANCE music perfected by 3-6 Mafia and crew….Keep heading north and Chicago still bangs out that old school original house music while the younger cats came up on GHETTO HOUSE….Head to LA and you got the smoothed out FUNK grooves of the West Coast that Dr. Dre took to new heights..And now you can head straight Northwest to the Bay Area and witness the world’s newest hiphop craze, H-Y-P-H-Y. I swear I love to death the creativity of my culture. I’m hiphop till the day I die!! I wouldn’t wish to be anything else but a Black American (No offense to any other culture/race).

But what is Hyphy you say? Well no one can sum it up better than the folks on E-40’s website – “The energy of the youth created a power so strong that the music coming out of the bay was forced to follow suit, giving the streets a soundtrack to the movement [CALLED HYPHY]. Hyphy has a dance component….This ultra-intense form of freestyle dancing is called going dumb. The customary fashion for Hyphy is jeans, white tees, dreads and big sunglasses called “stunna shades.” . Well said. So it is with great pleasure that I report on how a hiphop veteran like E-40 is using his legendary unique voice and slang to bring the Northwest back into the lime-light…

Those who witnessed the incredible video of E-40’s first single off the album called “Tell me When to Go” witnessed the powerful energetic beats and dances that defines Hyphy and also witnessed the fellaz “ghost ride the whip” where the driver hangs out the door of his “scraper” while simultaneously driving his car so that the novice observer swears that the car is driving itself! That song and video is the perfect embodiment of Hyphy and it’s no surprise that Lil Jon (the creator of the Crunk genre) produced this song – Not sure if people realize the greatness of Lil Jon’s production ability as he can produce a Hyphy beat with ease while also producing some of the biggest selling Reggaeton hits out. When you get the CD you’ll see there are plenty more songs with the same flavor and energy that are the embodiment of hyphy. Right at the start of the album a classic Digable Planets line is repeated incessantly (“We be to rap what key be to lock”) as the track heats up and E-40 reminds us why he is still one of the most talented rappers to ever pick up a mic. One of my favorite lines on the album comes from this song in which E tells us fellaz some great advice “Never tell a b$$$$ what your up to [Why?!] cause one day she might tell on you…Now you sitting up in the can, while she f$$$$$$ all your friends…riding around in your scraper [car]….Giving brains..…all the hood homies running trains..”. Then the “Ambassador of the Bay Area” blesses us with more straight hyphy in the form of “Muscle Cars”, “Go Hard or Go Home”, and “Gouda” (money).

But once your bones start getting too wore down from all the dancing from the first few tracks E-40 shows his versatility and slows things down to a more normal pace with a slew of songs so solid that it’s mind boggling. Basically from Track 6-15 E-40 hits us with nothing but quality hit after hit….Track after track. Tracks 7 and 12 are skits but you still got 8 tracks on this middle portion of the album that are ALL beyond solid. I was so impressed that I scrapped the plans I had to do an Outkast review and chose to showcase E-40 instead. Out of this selection of songs “White Gurl” stands out the most to me because not only do they mimic the raw old school beat of “Fly Girl” (One of my favorite old school songs of all time!!) but they also imitate the chorus but add that modern street twist to it and replace “fly girl” with “white gurl”. Now hold up sistas. Before you start getting all offended “white gurl” is referring to drugs and not an actual “White girl”. Though Bun B comes through and blesses the track by cleverly using “white girl” to refer to a person AND a narcotic. Man this song is a classic street song! Juelz Santana even comes through with a verse that’s actually pretty clever and Pimp C puts his spin on the track too. Needless to say E-40 rips it as usual when he spits “A-K will light up your chest like E.T!!”. Classic.

Now I haven’t even gotten to the song that will probably push his album to platinum status. That song is the commercial “U and Dat” featuring T-Pain that actually I have come to find very tolerable. You know Benz0 pretty much hates 99% of radio friendly commercial songs but this one is OK because the theme of the song is still about getting into a lady’s panties (my favorite hobby). But the name T-Pain makes me vomit almost every time after being forced to watch his “I’m Sprung” video fifty billion times due to it’s popularity on every video show. R&B thug I am not. But you gotta love E-40 cause he shows them dumb rappers how to walk the fine line between talking about girls they like while also keeping it hardcore. Check tracks 17-19 – “Just F$$$$$$”, “She Say“, and “Gimme Head” as exhibits A, B, and C your honor. “Gimme Head” features probably the sickest beat on the entire CD and sports a chorus that ALL true playaz can relate to. Listen to the chorus and you’ll see what I’m saying. Heck half of the girls I date these days make that chorus come true every weekend!…(Benz0 calm down!!)…..

If you’ve been reading this article it goes without saying that this album is BEYOND solid and is a MUST HAVE. No way you can try and download 3 to 6 songs and think you have all the songs you need. I would say EVERY track except the skits and the more mellow track 17 are MUST haves. The only album I can say is this solid in 2006 is J.R. Writer’s album. And to clue you in on what I mean. I mean the only other album in which pretty much EVERY song on the album is either solid or Outstanding. This album is one of those and needs to be picked up by every hiphop fan alive. Seriously. This album blew me away. Never figured an artist 15 years in the game could provide such innovative flavor…But then again we’re talking about E-40. The inventor of the most slang in hiphop history. He’s risen from the ashes to funk up the masses. PICK THIS F$$$$$$ ALBUM UP!!!

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com