Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt II Album Review

July 26th, 2011 | By Edwin

It’s here – after 14 years, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Part II has been released.

Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, which was released in 1995, took the hip-hop world by storm. It took popular gangsta rap material that was popular at the time and dressed it up with a pinstripe suit and fed it Italian food. The result? A cohesive, dark, and brooding masterpiece of audio cinema, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… painted a picture of sophisticated Mafia-style organized crime with complex, rapidly delivered lyrics. Immediately afterward, Nas, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, and other storied rappers from that era retooled their image to fit this new “Mafioso rap” genre. What does this mean for the listener? We had something different to digest – instead of tales of Gangsta riding around town with a smoking blunt (which of course has its own merits), we had story lines, characters, and tales of intrigue, dodging the law, and honor amongst thieves. The influence was similar to how the Godfather revolutionized how people though about crime movies.

How does the sequel match up? Pretty damn well – I would have to say I am impressed.

To describe the hip-hop community’s anticipation for this album would be difficult. On one hand, you have a group of people longing for a successor to one of the best albums of the 1990s. On the other hand, you the classic setup for a mammoth, Kayne-West-styled sophomore jinx. After bumping the CD in my car, at home, and at work while going through my new CD listening habits, here are my conclusion:

Near-classic. 4.5 out of 5.

What surprised me most about this album was how accurately it managed to capture the atmosphere and cinema-quality feel of the first album, even with long time Wu-Tang producer RZA producing only three songs, a deceased producer (J. Dilla) crafting the beats for another three, and a producer best known for West Coast bangers (Dr. Dre) producing two tracks as well. Raekwon and his cohort Ghostface Killah are lyrically ferocious and attack the bars looking to prove themselves worthy opponents in an increasingly tired and mainstream hip-hop world. Concise, relevant skits and movie quotes are dispersed at the right intervals in the album, never becoming distracting and adding an extra dimension to the listening experience that sets the scene for the next song as well as injecting classic Wu-Tang flavor notes into this well-constructed cocktail.

The album starts off with a straight banger by deceased producer: J.Dilla.

This opening track highlights one of the strengths of the album: although a variety of different producers with intensely differently styles worked on the album, it managed to keep a coherent feel with true Wu-Tang flavor. Once you listen to the climatic violins in the background, the melodic chanting, and four of the Clan’s most dexterous lyricists pump out lines such as this:

Deep pockets with the eight on me, sleep with the safe in the wall
The cameras on with the make-up and all
Swap six 45′s, twist reefer in the flicks, papi whoadie ride
Bolt his gun off, from know your horse, she lied
Fly criteria, bury me in Africa
With whips and spears, and rough diamonds out of Syria

Then you know you have a Wu-banger. The next track (Sonny’s Missing), produced by Pete Rock, kicks off the album’s Mafia-themed storyline with Raekwon’s trademark introspective, narrative style spinning a tale of a deadly drug deal gone wrong. Other standout tracks include:

• Gihad – produced by one of the most unlikely producers (death rapper Necro), this track actually fits in perfectly with the rest of the album. The melodic chanting reminds me of monks chanting in the 36 Chambers as Ghostface and Raekwon spin a Cosa Nostra tale of a father trying to teach his son a valuable lesson about women and his role in a modern day crime family.
• Penitentiary – with its suspenseful melody which never lets up in sneaky intensity, Penitentiary graphically outlines the tale of two prison mates scheming to break out of prison with an elaborate plan fit for a Prison Break episode.
• 10 Bricks – a true gem of a J.Dilla beat, a Chinese violin is is plucked mercilessly throughout the track as if the strings are going to snap at any moment, and for some reason this beat from the late producer’s archives fits perfectly with the motif and lyrical content of the song – Raekwon, Cappadonna, and Ghostface go hard and do the beat justice with razor sharp precision.

CONCLUSION: After more than a decade, Raekwon shows no signs of slowing down. Even with a huge array of producers and some guest stars sprinkled all over the album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt II keeps the Wu-Tang Clan relevant with its timeless combination of sharp rhymes, unforgettable stories, and uncanny beat selection.

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How to Listen to a New Album

July 26th, 2011 | By Edwin

After patiently waiting for Raekwon’s Only Built For Cuban Linx II, I’ve thought about the whole album buying process, and what I do afterward. I’m a creature of habit, and I always eat my ice cream cones the same way, tie my shoes the same way, and angrily cut off the same car on the way to work everyday (half joking).

I got to thinking – what does one do after they buy a brand new album?

(I’m talking about a real CD, not a digital one. That’s for another post, although it’s not my preference. But I digress.)

The process begins for me after I scour the Internet for a new release announcement from any artist I’m interested in. If I am REALLY excited, I will mentally memorize the month it will come out for further notice. Then, the album comes out and an epic journey to Best Buy commences! Note that this is not an actual endorsement of Best Buy, which is a perennial customer service wasteland with horribly trained employees, but they do usually have $9.99 specials for new albums.

After racing home, I carefully peel the shrink wrap by removing the top sticker (they make this impossibly hard to remove for some reason – are they afraid of us copping a listen in the store or something?) and take out my initial playback instrument of choice: the personal CD player.

Do you remember the 90s when it was cool to have a mammoth CD player in your cargo pockets while you strutted your stuff in the mall? It’s hard to imagine this now in the iPod age, but a large bulge in your pants with wires sticking out of it was somehow acceptable. I use this partially because of convenient since I don’t have to wait for it to rip to MP3 files, and because I feel that the initial listen is richer and more musically complete this way. I block off some time, put on my Sennheiser HD 201s or Shure E3Cs so I can catch every note and word, and listen to the album front to back while reading the linear notes and noting the cover art on the CD cover. Linear notes are my favorite – unfortunately, they are slowly being phased out.

While listening, I note the atmosphere and tone of the album. What was the artist thinking, and why did he choose the beats? How is the chemistry between the producer(s) and the rapper, and his guests? Do the guests overshadow the rapper on any of his songs? How is the technique, lyricism, and overall “listenability” of every song? Is it filled with filler? These are some of the questions that run through my mind as I nod my head and absorb the material and listen to the stories on the album. I also make sure to listen to the skits, as they can be vitally important to the feel of the album (ala Prince Paul’s hip hop opera: A Prince Among Thieves).

After I finish the album, then I read more up on the album – reviews, background information, and forum posts to gain some more insight. Some extremely deep albums, such as Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor, may have so much to absorb that it will warrant weeks of non-stop listening – I’ll find something new for my brain to chew on each time I listen to a lyric. Heck, even that album’s title is a lot more complex than you may think! Lupe explains:

In Chicago, instead of having bodegas like in New York, the majority of the corner stores are called ‘Food and Liquors.’ The store is where everything is at, whether it be the wine-o hanging by the store, or us as kids going back and forth to the store to buy something. The ‘Food’ is the good part and the ‘Liquor’ is the bad part. I try to balance out both parts of me.

What do you do when you listen to a new album? Any comments from my readers?

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Hip Hop Beats – favorites from the early 90s

July 26th, 2011 | By Edwin

Upon listening to my iPod today (what a great leap from the tape deck, isn’t it?), I hit a string of songs in a row that all had a fantastic beat, and I couldn’t help but start nodding my head like I was constantly agreeing with myself. This had a two-pronged effect: I got a few puzzled looks from my coworkers who probably don’t need any help in thinking I’m weird, and it got me thinking about how important the beat is to a song. In a lot of ways, the beat is both overrated and underrated.

It is overrated because some rappers can have whack songs on a hot beat, and they’ll shoot straight up the charts – people often refer to these rappers as “ringtone rappers.” I can’t think of an honor more dubious than selling ten times more ringtones than albums. Nearly always, the casual listener will listen to and consider the beat first before anything else.

Beats are also underrated because, well, it IS in the background. Great producers are overlooked in favor of the artist rapping over the beats, and little is known about the art of production. Producers are often masters of several traditional instruments and can be considered geniuses who use a huge variety of sources to paint a melody on a musical canvas. It takes an enormous amount of knowledge about music to craft beats well, and only until Kanye West exploded onto the scene did producers start to get noticed.

Good beats beg you to hit the rewind (or replay, in this age) button just one more time. It implores you to reach for the volume knob because your poor ears have gotten used to where you turned it up before. And, it makes you snap your neck in your car, looking like a fool and not caring, because the bass hits so hard.

Here are three of my favorite beats – from the early 1990s.

Rapper: Nas
Album: Illmatic (1994)
Song: N.Y. State of Mind
Producer: DJ Premier

Listen to this song – the beat hits you as hard as a speeding train. DJ Premier’s fledging career was defined by this song, and his artistic traits were on full display – a haunting piano loop from obscure jazz samples, a pounding bassline, and cutting spoken lyrics from other songs to form a chorus. The overall result? A gritty, dark beat fitting for the Big Apple. Executive producer MC Serch noted “Primo [DJ Premier] and Nas, they could have been separated at birth. It wasn’t a situation where his beats fit their rhymes, they fit each other.”

Rapper: The Pharcyde
Album: Labcabincalifornia (1995)
Song: Runnin’
Producer: J. Dilla (RIP)

One of the defining songs of The Pharcyde’s popular run in the early 90s, Runnin’ was one of J. Dilla’s early masterpieces. J. Dilla always had a habit of having his curious style imparted onto every one of his beats, yet every beat he created was somehow drastically unique. Noteworthy aspects of the beat are the disjointed, almost dream-like guitar samples, mastery of turntable scratching, choice saxophone and maraca cuts, and the way J. Dilla artistically wove this haphazard tapestry together. Also, who could forget the ridiculous verse drop at 3:00 when the beat stops, for just a heartbeat?

Rapper: Notorious B.I.G.
Album: Ready to Die (1994)
Song: Things Done Changed
Producer: Dominic Owens, Kevin Scott

I love music that stirs the soul, like a movie soundtrack starring Denzel Washington. Those who listen carefully can hear a stirring, tinkling piano loop, a sinister bassline, and a steadily rising and falling cresendo rising throughout the song, culumating in muted trumpet blasts. Ironically, the iconic (and amazingly addictive) vocal sample comes from none other than Dr. Dre, a giant on the rival West Coast.

What are your favorite beats from the early 90s?

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Hidden gems found, thanks to online radio

July 26th, 2011 | By Edwin

I was sprinting to my car in the morning.

I know what the wrong side of the universe looks like – all alien beings must be late and hurried there. I was forced to skip breakfast and was already feeling the effects of my low blood sugar with each roar of my car’s engine. As I was power-walking in the parking lot, I felt that my pocket was unusually light this morning.

My iPod is at home.

Luckily, with the trend of Web 2.0 everything, a delivered breakfast burrito and some interesting online radio choices fixed my morning right up.

I will be frank and say that I believe 99% of the radio station out there sucks. I don’t even think my car radio quite works correctly (one of the downsides of installing your own car audio system) – this is of little loss to me because the annoying commercials, low sound quality, and the fact that radio playlists never seem to play exactly what I want irritates me to no end. Don’t even get me started on the songs they choose to play either.

My first taste of online radio was surprisingly great, and refreshing. I stumbled upon a radio station on Live365 that played extremely listenable and varied music, ranging from old school to Afrocentric to forgotten favorites. It felt like someone who knew what he was doing was playing the songs, as opposed to a media pawn or a statistics driven robot. Here is an example playlist:

A Tribe Called Quest – Like It Like That (great Afrocentric old school)
Fatlip – What’s Up Fatlip (Fatlip, from the Pharcyde,  released a solo album in 2005 that I had no idea about. )
Afu-Ra – God of Rap (very overlooked old school artist)
Grand Puba - Two Thousand, Amazing (see above)
Canibus – Second Round K.O. (one of the first, best battle rappers in the game)
Outkast - Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (one of the Foundations of southern rap, for you Wayne/T.I. junkies out there)
The Fugees – Vocab (A marriage of reggae, hip-hop, and soul earning  unadulterated mainstream and critical praise? Never before done!)
Kanye West – Get ‘em High (a lost gem among Kanye’s more popular songs, features Kanye, Common, and Talib Kweli going at it hard)
Rakim - Been a Long Time (old school legend)
DJ Honda – Straight Talk from NY (surprising find on a radio station)

Has anybody else had a good experience with online radio? Any suggestions?

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How 50 Cent Applies Marketing Knowledge to Himself

July 26th, 2011 | By Edwin

I read an article recently that appealed to me, mainly because it contained a strange hybrid of two topics, both which I find extremely interesting: hip hop and marketing. After reading the article, it made me realize that 50 Cent is a lot smarter than what people make him out to be (heck, even what he makes himself out to be) and that he could rightly be defined as a sort of hip-hop marketing guru.

A few takeaways:

1) His street cred, which was carefully cultivated after being shot multiple times, was starting to fade away. Ironically, his two immensely successful albums that center around this street cred started erode his tough image.

2) As typical with a lot of young rap stars or athletes who become immensely rich in a short period of time, hands begin appearing. Palms up. Asking for money. 50 Cent found himself surrounded with people who were only looking for their own interests, and not his.

3) Fifty Cent found that his social circle increasingly consisted of white guys, in suits. Corporate label guys in suits don’t necessarily give you a good sense of new trends in the street, where Fiddy came from.

After some introspective thinking, what did he do? He recorded a track without his label’s knowledge and released to the public and watched for feedback (very Web 2.0). The public wanted harder stuff! He continually shortened the distance between himself and his fans with technology, and his “hustler’s mentality” now applied to Internet marketing with great success. Greene’s great article explains more, but with Twitter, the Internet, and all the marketing knowledge rap stars are now in possession of, the audience has less patience for rap stars who don’t get it. Except Lil’ Wayne, who can do whatever he wants.

Buy 50 Cent’s Latest and Surprisingly Good Album on Amazon now – on sale

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