Hip hop: the answer to all questions

recently, my boy cease and i were talkin about how often we incorporate somebody's lyrics into our everyday use. now most of the time we quote the likes of jay-z and/or biggie (seemingly interchangeable), with various other lyrics from other rappers thrown in as we see fit and we came to a conclusion: there is a rap lyric to answer any question or describe any thought or feeling one might be experiencing. "come on, follow me" as I share with you some basic lyrics that can be used on any given day.

for example, a female friend of mine frequently asks me why i'm out here wildin and not cakin chicks. she proceeded to tell me that i wasn't gonna get a girlfriend with my antics (as if, at 24, i want one) and that i need to calm down. the first thing out of my mouth was "you want r&b smooth/i ain't a r&b dude." her first reaction was to smile, and she responded by saying, "true." thanks to jigga, i had a quick response, and that wasn't the first time hov has allowed me to respond quickly. when my friend told me he went to a "million weed man march" back in may, i simply responded with, "i don't believe you/you need more people." hov's simple, yet elegant, statement allowed me to respond and dispel a bullshit topic quickly, and without much thought. after all, who has ever heard of a "million weed man march," and if anybody has, why the hell weren't my boys and i notified?

another cat who has provided cease and i with the ability to respond to people quickly has been juelz santana. the cat, oh so ruthless in the booth, has given us countless 1-liners that we use on a regular basis. for instance, "u can either compliment or comprehend/it's all authentic," has been a favorite response of ours for the better part of a summer. you can use that line to address any female you come across, or any clown in the street who might have you fucked up, thinking you're some type of punk ass nigga; it doesn't matter, they get the point.

in the case of cease, who lives in harlem, juelz has given perhaps the most 1-liners.
example:
--hey cease, i'm lookin for a new fitted and some exclusive air force 1s, and i can't find any out here in brooklyn. do you know where i can find some?
--come uptown to harlem, tell em that i sent ya.
that just further illustrates how the most basic rap lyrics can apply in everyday life.

freeway is also the king of 1-liners, however a favorite of ours is, "who him/he hot?" it's four words long but goes a long way when we spit that at a female, and for some odd reason, they find it humorous and it seems to become enthralled with "the dons" (no joke). it's the cocky attitude and swag that got em hooked. like lil wayne said, "my hoes need me, i'm like test answers."

cam'ron has provided the MOST lyrics that can be used on anybody at any given time. his cocky bars makes it easy to walk up to a female and say, "they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder/that's why i look in the mirror and realize how fly i am...GET YA CAKE UP!"

in conclusion, we could spend countless hours and much space on this blog writing 1-liners that we could use at any point in any conversation. i just wanted to get the conversation rolling. hip hop is a global force and truly everything from the way we walk AND talk is influenced by something that was supposed to be a fad. but i suppose that's neither here, nor there. after all, these are "just my thoughts, ladies and gentlemen."

*written in conjunction with jason "cease" cecil*
*this particular post is not to be taken too seriously. it was just a joke.*

the art of geniuses

today anyone can make music, but it takes a real genius to make art. visualize my point: i have a blank canvas, a brush, and some paint. i can paint a picture of a stick person or a house or some shit, and just because i can paint a nice picture of a house, doesn't mean that my work is ART. it'll probably be a nice lil something to throw over the toiletseat but it won't go down in the annuls of time, nor the louvre. i believe the same theory applies to music, and people release thousands of songs everyday, however only the true stars will shine.

even though there are hundreds of artists getting airplay every year, i believe that there are only a small handful of musical geniuses. everyone else pretends to be one, they have the backing of one, or both (ie: 50 cent, memphis bleek, diddy <--hurts me to say that). allow me to elaborate on my examples: 50 cent made decent songs before he linked up with dr. dre and eminem. he pretends to be a genius now, claiming to have the secret formula to music success (see "who does g-unit remind us of" post from aug. 31). he was fortunate to become a part of a great music making machine; he is the ultimate combo of pretend genius having the backing of not one, but TWO musical geniuses. 50's a star tho, but his shit will burn out, just like ja-rule did unless his sing-songy ass gets back to his natural ways.

memphis bleek doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, a sidekick, and i don't hate on him for that. in fact, i respect bleek for falling back and not saying much at all. he let's his musical genius do all the talking for him. jay-z said, "bleek could be one hit away from his whole career/as long as i'm alive he's a millionaire/and even if i die he's in my will somewhere/so he can get just kick back and chill somewhere/oh yeah, he won't even have to write rhymes/cuz the dynasty, like my money, last 3 lifetimes." though hov shows his support for bleek, he obviously recognizes that bleek, with only decent flow, is not a reckoning force in the rap game.

as for diddy, it goes without saying that he is one of the greatest businessmen in hip hop in the last 15 yrs. his production in the early 90's for mary j and jodeci are classic, as was his music catalog during the mid-90's with the rise of bad boy music. however, it's now evident that he has allowed music to fall to the wayside in order for his other business ventures to grow. however, i think it's obvious to many that diddy's music credibility would have been stripped away from him by now had he not discovered the late, great notorious b.i.g. his recent ventures with "making the band" on mtv shows that his musical side of his brain may have become damaged. perhaps it was a mix of too much dancing and showboating. no true music man, regardless of the amount of business savvy present, would have and could have thought that those niggas (and females on the 2nd go round) would form any type of respectable group. though chopper and 'em made for FANTASTIC tv, who is honestly going to remember the niggas from "the band" in five years? i will give diddy a lot of credit and say that he has done a lot for hip hop as a businessman, especially being such a visible person. however, at some point people are going to look at him as one big publicity stunt, instead of the business genius that he is. when it comes to overexposure, diddy definitely can't stop, won't stop.

it's an understood notion that most geniuses are slightly off in one way or another. this brings me to two of my favorite musical geniuses: kanye west and eminem. i am in no way saying that they are the only two, but they're two artists that seem to always have some type of controversy following them.

i don't know how many times i've had a conversation with someone about musical genius and they'll said to me, "kanye is such is dick! he's so arrogant and i can't stand him." my favorite was my boy, dorian, saying, "you think kanye is a genius? you're a damn fool. his beats are tight, but his lyrics are lunch table." but as soon as one of his songs comes on the radio or tv, they'll sing along word for word. usually people as arrogant as kanye will completely turn you off, in EVERY aspect, however, 'ye is one of the few who can say the most off the wall shit (like he got snubbed for an AMA award <--nigga please) and still have a following, because he let's his music do his true talking for him. and fortunately for kanye, he has stepped his flow up in between his first and sophomore album, making his thoughts that much clearer. my boy, pat, put it this way in describing kanye's second album and some unreleased kanye tracks he had: "u have to hear this niggas flow! its been stepped up like a motherfucker. hes on a pac, jigga and dre level with the consciousness, the cleverness, and the beats." that may sound outlandish, but if you knew pat, you'd know you could take him at his word; shit, my boy knows his music.

eminem is just an enigma. he's the only person who will call his mom or wife a "crack, whore bitch" and keep it moving. everything about him is exceptionally unique: his lyrical style, flow, and word play. however, he has the innate ability to push all the wrong buttons, though it's obvious that one of those buttons is "play" because that what most of us do to his music. he realizes that as long as he says off the wall shit, we are going to continue to criticize, and buy his music to see what he will say next. but besides the crazy antics, his actual lyrical ability is 2nd to none. most will agree that em even shitted on jigga's "renegade" on the blueprint, a classic effort from another lyrical genius. shit, even nas touched on the point in the song "ether" on stillmatic. so with that thought in mind, could anyone deny eminem his credit of being a musical genius? he rhymes as effortlessly as one would breath.

in conclusion, there was no real point in writing this post. i just wanted to state the obvious, and that was certain people's music will go down in hip hop history and be forever remembered, while others, though they make good music, won't even register a blip on the hip hop radar by the end of this decade. music is art, and just like painting and sculpting, only true geniuses will be remembered. but hell, it's just my thoughts ladies and gentlemen.

WHO RUN IT?!...down south rulers

nowadays it seems that almost every rapper in the dirty loves to throw some royal moniker in front of their name in an effort to state their superiority. T.I. is the self-declared "king of the south" and lil scrappy is considered the "prince of crunk" and so forth and so on, but who really runs it? and do these rappers have the right to call themselves the "king/prince/whatever" of anything?

well, we all understand that rappers from the south are of a different breed and held to a different standard. while east coast rappers have edgier beats and darker lyrics, southern rappers have bass-heavy beats and laid back, yet sometimes still gully, lyrics. however, it seems that lyrics aren't emphasized as much in the south as they are in the north. for instance, if a rapper from the up north had subpar lyrics or flow, no matter how dope the beat was, he would be considered whack (ie: memphis bleek or tony yayo). however, a rapper from the south could have subpar lyrics as long as his beats rattle the trunk properly, and still be a favorite of the masses (ie: ying yang twins "haaaaaaaaaa" or "whoooo?!" mike jones). T.I. and lil scrappy are two of the rappers from down south who have decent, if not better then decent, flow. however, is their flow good enough to have them be considered royalty in the game? and how can we forget the other rap monsters of the south? outkast, scarface & the geto boys, bun-b & pimp-c, mjg & 8-ball, just to name a few, are among the LEGENDS in the south more deserving of all the accolades then some of the newer rappers from the south.

VIBE magazine posed the question "is T.I. the jigga of the south?" I asked several individuals (all hailing from NY, NJ, OH, and VA) if they thought T.I. was dope enough to be labeled the "jigga of the south." a look of bewilderment came over the face of my boy, cease. "is T.I. the jigga of the south?" he asked. "niggas should ask 'is T.I. the luda of the south?'!"

it's obvious who my boy believes to be the best rapper in the south, and though his question is geographically inaccurate, he raises a good point. we all know jay-z to be one of the most lyrical rappers in the world. so in comparing T.I. to hov, are they saying that T.I. is the most lyrical rapper in the south? my boys and i have a running joke (even though it's not funny and it's true) that luda has never given us anything whack. even his subpar bars shit on many people's best. now that's not to say that T.I. is whack (which he is far from), but let's face it, he is definitely no luda.

and speaking of people whose worst bars still shit on other people's best, this brings me to my favorite rapper below the mason-dixon line. on a label known for below-average rhymes, yet bangin beats, lil wayne a.k.a. weezy f. baby (please say the baby, baby) shines like the true lyrical star he is. in my opinion, he has single handedly kept rap credibility in cash money records' corner for the last 3-5 yrs. at a label known for stuntin and flossy rhymes, weezy's lyrical content is nothing short of superb. if you need further proof please check any CD or mixtape he has ever released (i recommend dj drama: dedication).

in conclusion, though it is obvious to most true fans of the culture who runs the east (jay-z, nas, dipset <--wishful thinking maybe) and the west (dr. dre, snoop, and pac <--from the grave or galapagos islands), it's harder to determine who runs the south. with young cats like T.I., scrappy, young jeezy, and others on the rise it is nearly impossible to realize who deserves to sit atop the throne. a new rapper from the south sprouts up every week, vying for the top spot. if you ask cease who has the number 1 spot, he'll tell you "the nigga with the song." maybe cats should hold off on labeling themselves anything other than their rap names until they put in the years that the veterans in the south have put in. that's just my thought ladies and gentlemen.

september shine

each month i, brown a.k.a. sebasjion starr, plan on writing a small post to put the spotlight on an artist (niggas with REAL bars) who deserves to shine. so without further ado i present...mr. joell ortiz.

you may be asking, "who the fuck is joell ortiz?" that's a logical question, especially since even HE, being joell ortiz, asks the same question. he's the dude that has the potential to be your favorite rapper's new favorite rapper.

hailing from bkny, ortiz has been putting in years on the grind. some people may have heard him spit on hot 97.1 in nyc. if you've never heard him spit, i highly suggest you check his website at www.joellortiz.com. you'll be able to learn more about him there, as well as listen to the hot fire dude has put on wax thus far.