- Wow, the “Broke Phi Broke” skit on College Dropout is currently my theme song. It’s not that I don’t have money, but things are ridiculously expensive right now. Do I need to talk about gas prices? Nevermind that, what about food cost. In relevance to my last volume of Deez Steez, anyone notice how the most expensive food products in a food court are the healthy places? Anyone notice how the prices of KFC chicken’s so called “Toonie Tuesday” (for us in Canada, because we have the Toonies) is not so loyal to the name anymore. It’s damn near two Toonies. Another thing is that the size and quality of the food is going down as prices go up. I’m a huge video game fan, and I have a Playstation 3, but games are damn expensive. So I recently discovered Kijiji and Craigslist to save some flow. I suggest you guys do too if you are starving (ha, get it) for some funds and want to buy some things for cheap. Being a university student is a time where we truly are some of the stingiest and cheapest people around, but I can guarantee you that it is for a good and valid reason. Keep in mind; we seemingly always have money for the things we want. I can’t afford textbooks, but I sure as hell can afford a few dvd’s. How the hell does that work?
- I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a while. One thing I love about this site and why I support it so much is because Kevin does not advocate downloading music. It doesn’t have to be hip hop, it could be any genre, but I mean the downloading music thing is kind of crazy these days. Some guys have a full library full of albums they’ve downloaded including some gems that any so called hip hop fan should have solid copies of. The music industry, and this is where hip hop especially gets hit, is crawling with this type of damage and soon enough laws are going to be implemented that prevent the downloading. I download on occasion, an album like Red Gone Wild was sampled, and I liked it enough to go out and buy it. I’ve done that many times, and I suggest you do. Especially for artist like Little Brother, Blu, Sean Price, Skillz, these are artist who aren’t selling a hell of a lot, but have a huge fan base. Where the hell is their fan base at if they are barely selling 5000 records? There are certainly exceptions to the rule. I really can’t own up to myself and buy a Jay-z album because a) I don’t particularly dig him all that much now and b) I don’t feel like he needs my dollar and that money could go to another artist that could use it. But yeah, this also goes hand in hand with my rant last week about the fake hip hop fans. You aren’t a real hip hop fan if you download all your music. I’m sorry, if you really are as fast as a cheetah, you run and show me. If you really can dunk a basketball, you get up and show me. If you really are a hip hop fan, you get up and buy albums. Simple as that.
- My rant on hip hop this volume is somewhat controversial. I’ve been recently getting a few emails to light up some Top Ten lists of my own, and I promise you I will when I have the time. I warn you right now though; artist like Biggie, Pac, and Big L won’t be making my top ten rappers of all time lists. I have reasons, reasons I hope to explain, but, and I try to say this as nice as possible, I think plenty of deceased artist are extremely over rated. Never would Dilla be listed in the same company as Premier, Pete Rock and Rza if he did not pass. Granted, Dilla deserves mention amongst these greats, but I guess his death granted him plenty of praise and exposure, more than he ever got. I think Big L is extremely over rated, Pun can’t be the greatest because he dropped one very very good album, Biggie is tremendous but I have reasons for thinking he is over rated, and I’m really not a 2 Pac fan because I simply didn’t think he was ever that good. I do believe that someone’s death brings more attention to them and their craft, however, people will start jumping on the sympathizing band wagon and that kind of sucks and is in my opinion a sign of disrespect to the one who has passed. I will present you folks with plenty of lists though, I’m a Top Ten List fiend and I hope you guys enjoy them. -Peace
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
1. As I said in one the other Deez Steez; gas and food will suck you dry…add child care into that. It’s a sad state of affairs that people have to choose between gas, food, or utilities. All the things that you need are the most expensive. I heard a woman on the radio in the Maryland area (93.9 wkys) won $1000 from the station. She started crying because she said her electric had been off for 6 weeks! It has been hotter than hell in this area for the last 6-8 weeks. Off topic.
2. I was introduced to hip hop by my older brother. He had the big boom box and had all the latest ish. I remember being a youngin’ and watching the older girls across the street dance on their step to “Planet Rock”. I remember my brother rockin that “Rock Box” and “Peter Piper”. Kurtis Blow, UTFO, Roxanne Shante, The Real Roxanne, MC Shan, Fat Boys, etc. I’m a hip hop fan. I download, but if I like it I’ll go out and buy it. If I download something and am not feeling it I’m deleting that ish off my hard drive to never listen again. My funds are limited and I have to make sure your (the artist) ish is tight….cause my extra funds for me (after bills, wife, and kids) is limited and I can’t be wasting my money on a brick. My collection of hip hop starts around 87/88 until now. Just about all the classic’s I have on tape (cassette) and/or CD. I have over time upgraded my collection to CD’s since I’m scared that my tapes will pop…like my O.C. “Word Life…” did a few months back. I agree if you’re a hip hop fan having a downloaded copy of a classic is not cool. Now I will say is if I have something on tape and it’s not in print any longer I will download it and put it on a CD with iTunes cover and all. For example, Showbiz and A.G. “Goodfellas” can’t find it anywhere. Got it on the hard drive though….same with Jamal’s “Last Chance, No Breaks” have the tape, but out of print. BTW Sean I’m a Jay Stan and I buy his CD’s. LOL.
3. I’ll save this one for when you drop your top ten. B.I.G. is top ten!
On Number 2 Thomas, I’m an idiot.
I mean, what if you are broke as hell, the only time you hear hip hop is on the corners or on the radio. Is it fair to say that you aren’t a fan? Of course not. You certainly are.
I should say that if you can afford it, then you should go out and buy it. But you can’t be buying ps3 games and rims for your car, and say that your too broke to buy a cd.
But I feel you, these days I’m really careful about what I buy.I also do what you do with your cassettes. I have SO many joints on deck, but to be fair, i did download a lot of those strictly because I already supported them when it came out ( I have the original Purple Tape mofo)
Oh man, don’t even get me started on Goodfellas.. What a freaking album.
A lot of young folks aren’t checking for the “classic’s” Some are, but I wouldn’t think all are. I didn’t take #2 to from the point of view of a person not having the funds to support hip hop through the purchasing of an album…I took it from the point of view of someone who has the means to go and get a CD and just download. I was following you on that.
I remember my best friend and I use to get a couple of dollars every now and then from our parents and would go to the mall to cop tapes. I remember the time we went to the mall he copped De La’s first joint, I got something stupid, and we went to the drug store to get blank tapes to dub each others joint.
If a person doesn’t have the funds to support the music other than the radio/corner its a no brainer what they are going to do….I would…I did it back in the day. Dubbing tapes.
Artist don’t make money off of albums anyways. Show money is the good money.
I swear I took that Purple tape and The Show, The After Party, The Hotel everywhere with me during the summer of ‘95. Those were my Bible and Koran (no disrespect intended).
I’m looking at the Show and AG tape right now. Listened to it about a month ago. Afraid to put it in the deck…don’t want that ish to break.
Just gotta add my 2 cents in. You all know where I stand. My beef is against the bloggers who put the albums up for download and then say, “support hip hop”. Come on now. Now I ain’t gonna front and say I don’t download. Everyone downloads, but what was the last album you bought? Me? I just recently copped the new S1 Music Box album (off iTunes). It was a decent buy, $9.99… that’s not asking too much.
Ok, I don’t know where I’m going with this other than to ramble… LOL. Point is, everyone downloads… whether it’s one song or a whole library. It’s wrong… what are you gonna do? Some people would say the same for the sample compilations we post here. I’d be interested in hearing peoples thoughts about those. The thing is, they’re the most popular posts on the site. People get online to download.
Ok, end rant… oh, and yeah, I own all of Jay’s stuff too. Don’t hate on Jay, Deez…
Kev, just arrest me now. LOL. “support hip hop” it does say that doesn’t it!
LOL, yeah, which blog was that? I’d love to put it up as an example… lol
We all download. My main thing is downloading isn’t the only means that I cop the music I like. Last CD’s I paid for were “The Millon Dollar Backpack” by Skillz, “3:16: The 9th Edition”/”MURS Revenge” by MURS (I’m awake…was sleeping on him. Updated some of others a while back.
Still on the topic of downloading. The sets that we do we don’t have all of the music that is use. Are we stealing….yes. I think what is positive about the sets are a few things:
1. It brings awareness to music that may have been lost or forgotten about.
2. For the most part I listen to the albums that we are completing a set for. For the most part I have all of the albums that we have done so for me its a way to take time out and listen to something I haven’t for years.
3. But, all of what I said is just me trying to justify me stealing music! Lock me up I guess.
Yeah, I have no justification for the sample sets. It actually took me a long time to decide to actually put them out this way. If you remember back to the beginning days of this site, I used to only post snippets. I caved in and gave the readers what they wanted — full sample sets. Put me in a cell next to you Thomas!
The both of you going to hell. Good thing Run DMC is raising it…
well we all are a bunch of thieves… Not only do we steal music either for listening purpose or as in my case… i spent hours listening to all kinds of albums for that sound.. I dont know it yet, but I regonize it when I hear it.. And then I claim to have done all the music myself, ignoring the orchestra and composers that should have my royalities… There you go, Danny Elfman – You need my money.. Where was I ? Fu** em Do almost whatever you gotta do to survive…
Isbjerg
I suppose I agree with the downloading rant; I make it a point to only buy the highest of quality, you really have to prove to me that you deserve it. Even then though, I’m guilty of not buying which is a habbit I intend on breaking when the funds are better. I have a mental note of albums that need to be bought from old to new. “classics” if you will.
I would like to see your top 10 list of all time. It must be interesting if your finding a way to exclude ‘Pac. I’m reluctant to include Biggie in mind just simply because of his lack of material. Granted he was robbed of the opprotunity to lace more classics, and I have no doubt that had he lived that he would have added 2-3 more albums to “classic” category. Its kind of hard to put a rapper in your top 10 that only has 2 real albums total (and I’m not reallly the biggest fan of Ready to Die anyway) so he’s out of mine. But no ‘Pac Deez? Whats not to like? He had 3 very dominate and influential albums of the 90’s, that still get regular play today. Pacs replay value is pretty damn good for someone whos been dead since ‘96. Even if you don’t like his material as much, you have to give it to him on work ethic and versatility. He hit you with something different on every album, and didn’t sugar coat his singles. Bring on the list lol.
I’m with Benadreal. How bout it Deez? Your Top 10 hip hop albums of all time…
Sup Ben,
In short, I just don’t think Pac was that good. I think he was a poet and if he did spoken word, I think he could’ve taken that genre to a new level. I think just about every aspect in Pac’s complete package was average. I’ll say lyrically he was great, but I really couldn’t handle the fact that more so than any other rapper, Pac contradicted himself a shit load.
More over, Hit em Up was NOT one of the top diss tracks of all time, as a matter of fact, if people made a top 10 worst diss tracks of all time, that would be there
But enough of the Pac talk here, I think I’m gonna ya’ll with a dope top 10
If I could put two cents in, I would like to define what I define with a classical album… Since I first saw the cultural explosion called hiphop from the heart of New York, it is clear that a classic is an album, who can resists the times and still be up to point and be heard from front to back and still be played again… In my world, on a quick brainstorm, I’ll say :
De La Soul : 3 feet high and rising
Beastie Boys : Pauls Butique
Boogie Down Productions : By all means
Public Enemy : It takes a nation
Digible Planets : Blowout comb
Jeru the Damaja : The sun rises in the east
Scarface : Untouchable
Gangstarr : Step in the arena
Company Flow : Funcrusher Plus
Dr. Dre : Chronic 2001
Bear in mind, that this is my opinion and for a danish fan as myself, these albums have spent a whole lot of time in my system…
Honourble mentions :
Nas : Illmatic
NWA : Niggaz4life
LL Cool J : B.A.D.
Aright Deez..
I would say that an exceptional amount of overall albums of pac, most are right around par, but if your going to make a top 10 hip hop albums list, your about the only sane minded person that might not include atleast one of his albums. (I say that because you appear to be atleast rational with your explainations as opposed to many who simply say ’sucks’ or whatever)
I think his flow is probably average. Its nothing special but nothing real bad. there was a lot of passion and energy put behind it on almost every track not to mention what he said held so much impact. but enough ‘pac talk. I’ll be anticipating that list lol.
I’ll say then Ben
I wouldn’t include him in a top 10 albums of all time. I wouldn’t even consider it. It’s a no brainer for me actually. Not because All Eyez on Me or Me Against the World (his two best IMO) are bad.. because they are fairly good, but I feel like I could name at least 30 albums better than them
But as I said, this section won’t be for talking about Pac. A post should be coming up soon that’ll have Pac fans up in arms
lol ok, cool.