LOOKIN BACK ON STATE PROP, BIG UPS TO PEEDI

Philadelphia: brotherly love, grit, gun violence, and anger.  Few rappers embody their city like BEANIE SIGEL and the boys of SP.  I been goin through hard times lately, and The B. Coming been my grim companion.  BEANS got on for his realness, and though it's a cliche by now, Chappelle was right bout how that shit can go wrong.  Let's hope for a speedy return to health.

STATE PROPERTY was one of the most exciting things percolatin in the streets a decade and some change ago, but they didn't have much to show for it when the Roc-A-Fella gravy train stopped.  BEANS and FREEWAY had gold records, but outside of  YOUNG GUNZ's "Can't Stop Won't Stop," they never really made a crossover push.  Come to think of it, it makes more sense that they didn't blow up than labels thinkin they were gonna sell em as the next WU-TANG or whatever.

It didn't help that the industry was in a transitional state, sluggishly preparing its ass cavity for the long dick of filesharing and diminishing record sales.  Soon they'd be pushin a different product from a different region and resigning 'emselves to the fact that they couldn't sue every granny who downloaded an ENYA B-side.  SP came on at the end of that window, before a new model came in place.  So now when MEEK MILL's album flops he keeps his buzz going through free mixtapes and palling around with certified hitmakers.  Can't hate on that - he found a lane, cause DRAKE needs help appealing to the testicled population.

Label hell put the brakes on PEEDI CRAKK, who was so nice and ready to pop he dropped the surname and and named himself twice.  One of the more marketable cats in SP, he was a whimsical rake in the mold of SLICK RICK, welcome relief to the world-weary piousness of BEANS and FREEWAY.  Then nothing really happened.  He dropped a bizarre dis against a certain camel-faced Brooklynite, crooning hurt feelings like a brokenhearted drunk at karaoke night's last call, and continued to drop uneven mixtapes with flashes of brilliance. As it stands, he will be remembered as one of most talented rappin-ass rappers of his generation to never blow up or really even get the respect he's due.  He still kicks those spastic, protean brangdangdang verses like a Puerto Rican KOOL KEITH, but I can't help but wonder what could have been.  CF 5 saw him awkwardly tryin to jock the South, but he's a dude who sounds better goin over that ol boom-bap without comin off like a Madame Tussauds piece.  "Born in the wrong era" like the kids of Tumblr say.

What kind of world is this where MEMPHIS BLEEK gets four proper releases while PEEDI sits in limbo?  Them discs is fillin up half of Staten Island by now.  You might be driving around with a copy of M.A.D.E. melted into your dashboard.  Maybe PEEDI can rehabilitate his career with a DAN DEACON collab.  Hope he isn't goin out like that, but he's already clockin time at the Harry Fraud Old Folks Home with LIL CEASE and BLACK ROB.