2013 WAS A GAS: THE YEAR IN REVIEW!

Wussup to all my peepers, midnight creepers, and all my degenerates who masturbate into sneakers!  It's time for RPA MSUIC HISTERIA to wrap up the year once again.  Now I know my updates is sporadic and all, but I prefer to think of them as spo-radical!  Namean?  Like this post if u agree.

All in all, 2013 was a wack year for rap music.  But I am nothing if not an eternal optimist, and so I look to the raps that tickled my fantasy, the ones that made me laugh and cry, rather than dwelling on the raps that diminished my already threadbare hopes for the human race.  Shall we proceed?  I do say we shall!

MIGOS

Group of the year!  This is the shit the streetz was bumpin in 2013 (J-Hole, stand up!).  Bonus points for bein the whipping boy for every rap purist decrying the state of rappity rappin.  In short, their cadences were the illest; we will one day speak of them in the same reverential, slightly embarrassed tones with which we invoke the name of DAS EFX. 

RUN THE JEWELS

 

Mane.  Would you look at EL-P?  That off-kilter red skully, the black t-shirt terminating in white person tattoos, the Napoleon dynamite glasses frames - affectations that make him look identical to the articles of human filth who make their daily exodus at the Lorimer St. L stop.  For much of my youth I nursed an analogous distrust of the man, much of which was informed by SCOTT SEWARD's tone-deaf, yet devastating, review of FANTASTIC DAMAGE.  Like, that review was wack and all, but kinda cut to the marrow of what made EL-P irritating.  "Step Father Factory?"  That was some emo crybaby shit.

Then one day I realized: my distaste for EL-P was rooted in my own self-hatred!  Word!  EL-P was actually fairly dope if you could excuse all the pretension and self-indulgence.  And you know what he did this year?  He cut down all that artsy fartsy shit by doing an album with a REAL RAPPER (C) instead of one of those compulsive masturbator DEF JUX fags.

RUN THE JEWELS probably used the word "fuckboy" more than any other rappers this year; and for that alone, they make this prestigious list!

LIL SNUPE DIED :(



I ain't hear LIL SNUPE till I checked one of those wack HIP HOP TXL compilations that's always gettin mad downloads on Datpiff.  At first I was like, "Fo rill - his name is LIL SNUPE?  Why don't he just call himself LIL NOTJORIOUS B.I.G. or LIL LL KOOL JAY?"  I heard him again on the DJ MUSTARD Ketchup tape that came out this summer.  At this point I still wasn't sold, but I'd begun to accept that he was someone I'd be hearing from for a while.

Then he got shot over video games or some dumb shit.  SMH.  Anyway, like the death groupie I is, I revisited some of his old freestyles on the YouTubes and was pleased with what I heard.  In a lot of clips you can see MEEK MILL encouraging him to spit some real shit - dat roaches, rats, and poverty flow - and the dude came through with the squalidest imagery.  His freestyle prowess was a welcome atavism in these readin off yo Blackberry ass times.  Before he got capped over Super Smash Brothers, SNUPE was starting to remind me of another Louisiana spitter who never reached his prime.

EARL SWEATSHIRT

"Had a spark when thou started /  But nowest thou ist just garbage" - Jayson-Z, "Ye Olde Takeover"

ODD FUTURE was a breath of fresh air when they came out, but look at em now!  TYLER THE CREATOR is as used-up as a 30 year-old running back.  Dude has been wack and irritating since he got out of the Tumblr ghetto.  Fuck you, TYLER THE CREATOR.  I will fight you.

HODGY BEATS and all them other cats were always just some banal dickriders, so where does that leave us?  EARL SWEATSHIRT, kid!  The main event.  His Doris LP surpassed expectations to the same extent that TYLER's post-Bastard output has sucked balls.  Man, them bars is mad dense.  We need to exercise our close reading tools on some of them verses!

And da best part?  The album is short as fuck, totes catering to my generation's Internet-addled attention spans.  EARL is a true poet, the Tennyson of our times, a prophet of peace, and a beacon of

FUTURE & RICK ROSS

"Bugatti" and "U.O.E.N.O." was the songs of the year, and you know this wasn't 'cause of ROCKO or ACE HOOD.  Whether you like it or not, ROZAY's rape-y ass lyrics was definitely da bars of the year.  And as much as young men aspire to be fat, disgusting frauds like RICK ROSS, I don't think his lyrics had any appreciable effect on sex crimes this year.

Now would be the time to reminisce on the many occasions I woke up in new Bugattis this year, but I am legally required to remain silent on this subject (I may or may not have left some hot DNA on the seatz).

CHANCE THE RAPPER

White America's new favorite negro performer!

SUMMARY
2013 was highly, highly wack.  I could sift through some of the chaff - the also-rans and kind-of-were's - but I'm tired and quite obviously lazy.  See you in 2014, bitches!

IS RAP MUSIC RELEVANT TO MY JUICE HEAD LIFESTYLE?

SO YO!

Everyone who knows me knows I'm an enormous juice head.  Raging.  There's nothing more I like than taking a shot of testosterone to the dome and working out my deltoids, my quadriceps, perhaps my serratus anterior or some such vanity muscle.

But when it comes down to it?  Hip-hop is terrible for pumping that 'ron, the Fe if you fancy huh.  Why?  I dunno.  Maybe it's the fact that so much of it is weed driven.  The most cursory example: I been listenin to PROJECT PAT as I pondered this question and remembered to exert my "critical faculty" (I was drunk and high) on the song "Ridin on Chrome."

I thought, "Yo, maybe I could listen to this when I'm riding all reckless on the slopes of Jackson Hole.  But at da end of the day?  Nah.  I can listen to some WAKA (any LEX LUGER beat, really), maybe MEEK, some LIL B, probably a lil more when I'm gettin my fitness on, but overall nothin be makin me hit the elusive area known as "the douchebag's reverie."

What get me hype?  All da dope jams.  Nah mean?

GUCCI BE REVELATIN, WRITIN IN HIS DIARY LIKE PETEY PABLO

 

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!  Sup bitches.  Anyway, let's cut to the quick.  First of all, what's up wit alll da songs about "young niggas" these days?  Is old rappers really feelin that old and out of touch that they gotta write paeans to their young fans?  Shit is mad homo imo.

But yo, 4real, I was not expecting anything diaristic about Diary Of A Trap God.  Thought it was just  a catchy name GUCCI conconcted to keep da Trap God series movin, yamean?  But there are a few revealing moments on the mixtape, in particular the track entitled "Show A Young Nigga."  Besides showin love to his youthful harem, he also touches on some real shit dat the rap public been pondering as of late.  First off, he touches on da beef between him and JEEZY and T.I.  The beef wit JEEZY been broiling for years, but he gives a little new insight into the situation.  "I heard Tip and Jeezy say that they don't like me," GUWOP raps.  So all dis beef is cause he thinks these cats don't like him?  That some grade school shit, GUCCI.  Didn't know he was that sensitive.  Who cares what other ppl think of u?

Then he say, "They say I'm bipolar but my diamonds they sure live."  Now there been some chirpin bout GUCCI bein bipolar, but there ain't been no proof cause none of these rap bloggers been readin the DSM-IV, and I know they ain't wilin on that DSM-V tip.  This armchair psychologizin got some legs when GUCCI had his infamous Twitter meltdown a while back.  But yo, dis the first time he actually address this shit in song and adds credence to the idea that it was all a publicity stunt, or more accurately, a private-becomes-publicity stunt.

Is GUCCI bipolar?  Does this explain his erratic behavior?  Will GUCCI do for mental illness what FRANK OCEAN did for gayness?  Or will it all get swept under the rug like so much mental illness in aMURIKKKA?  I dunno yo, i just be sittin back and observing shit like my mane Alexis de Tocqueville.  Chuuuuuuuuuuuuch!

LET US REMEMBER GREAT RAP SKITS

So yo, by now it's a cliche to hate on rap skits.  It's like a big joke but not in the intended way.  And if you really wanted to be arch and ironic you could write something about how great rap skits are.  Ain't gonna lie, most of da time I'm goin with the party line and saying, "Nah, fuck skits."  It's only on the best rap albums that skits are  good cause they establish a mood and you always remember where and when you was listenin to this dumbass skit on this great rap album.  So this ain't no apologist shit for skits.  Skits is what skits is.  But that don't mean there ain't good skitgs.  This could be a series or maybe I won't update dis shit for another month or never again, Iunno.  Yeah.

So dis GHOSTFACE KILLAH joint.  "Heart Street Directions (Skit)" off Fischcale.  I can't find it on Youtube so y'all got look it on on Google or somethin.  Some chick is like, "You know how to get to Heart Street?" and ol' Ghostface is like oh you gotta turn left on Vagina Street and go down the Hershey Highway and make a u-turn on Butt Avenue and do something called "run into Walls."  And the chick listen the whole time.  Like wouldn't you think after he talked about Vagina Street she woulda been like, "Ok I get what this guy is about time to walk away from this sexual harrassment."  But naw she listen to him talkin about Tits Project and his man Balls.  Yo Toney, leave ya man balls BALLS out of it -- he a dignified cat.  This one always got me and the boys cracklin on the skislopes so big ups to GHOSTFACE for some ill retardedness!

DID MIGOS MAKE THE MOST PAUSEWORTHY SONG IN THE HISTORY OF NO HOMO?

 

So yo, we all know rap lyrics can be mad gay, and I ain't just talkin bout later era COMMON.  Gay lyrics is such a hallmark of the genre that the phrase "no homo" was invented so DIPSET could continue saying gay things without being dismissed as gaylords or makin us feel uncomfortable with our sexuality.  And all that talk bout "my partner" from cats like WAKA FLOCKA and T.I. sounds mad Fire Island.

But dis MIGOS song wit GUCCI MANE, "Dennis Rodman," is maybe da weirdest entry into hip-hop's overlooked but extensive history of gayness.  It's all in good fun, too; dey even clarify "she changed her hair again / no she no drag queen."  But really, Dennis Rodman?  Yo, if someone compared my chick to Dennis Rodman I'd have em lookin like Rudy Tomjanovich.

Thing is, I seen way way better looking drag queens than Dennis Rodman.  Qualifying it by saying, "she no drag queen" is kinda a dis to drag queens.  So what's it gonna be?  Is GUCCI and MIGOS gonna set off beef with BIG FREEDIA?  I hope so, cause rap battles is lackin spice these days.  This shit could be the best rap battle since LIL B/JOE BUDDEN.  Wake up, labelheads, this could save hip-hop.  I ain't even want a cut of the $$$ from the inevitable pay-per-view battle, cause I'm not in this game for the money -- I'm in it for the advancement of hip-hop!

INTERVIEW WITH SOMEONE WHO HATES RAP MUSIC

 

So yo, if there's one thing you can say about me (but be careful when you speak my name), you can say, "He likes rap music."  See my bio on the sidebar (new feature btw!)?  It says, "i like rap music."  When I die, my tombstone will probably read, "He liked rap music.  If there's an afterlife, he still does." So it's difficult for me to conceive that some people do not like rap music.  Here is an interview with one such character who rudely asked me to turn down my music when I was just bumpin some LIL ZANE for the rest of the bus to enjoy.

RMH: State ya name, son.

HATIN ASS FUCKBOY: My name is Wiley P. Finkmeyer.

RMH: You don't like rap music?

HAF: No.

RMH: Why?

HAF: Just never resonated with me.  I prefer jazz, rock 'n' roll, rhythm and --

RMH: (interrupting) Oh so you a racist?

HAF: No!

RMH: Yes you are.

HAF: No I'm not  My mom is half black.

 At this point, RMH may or may not have put a knife blade to HAF's throat.

RMH: ADMIT IT, RACIST!

HAF: I'm not a racist!

RMH: Yes you is!

HAF: No I'm not!

RMH: Yes you is!  You's a racist!  I bet you think black people always be eatin puddin pops while wearin sweaters.  I bet you think Latinos be wearin sombreros and Chinese people live in giant woks.

RMH rips open HAF's blazer.

RMH:  What this is?  This ya Klan uniform?

HAF: It's an Oxford shirt!

RMH: Don't lie to me, boy!

HAF: Fine, fine!  I'm racist!

RMH puts knife away and sits down politely.

RMH: Well personally, you racists make me sick.  This is a post-racial society.  Come join us, it's enlightened here in the 21st century.

So there you have it, straight from da horse's mouth.  People who don't like rap music are RACIST!

INTRODUCING THE NOTORIOUS PHD!!!

 

So yo, if there's one thing you could fault RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA wit (and I'm not sure you can), it's that we occasionally fail to give exposure to new artists.  The payola money we get from Viacom is just too compelling sometimes, and we ain't got time for you Bandcamp rappers who can't even hook us up with an Arby's Jr. Roast Beef Sandwich.

But yo, the other day I heard dis underground artist who made me flip my lid.  IDK bout y'all, but I'm sick of all these rappers talkin bout "bitch this" and "N-word that."  It's time we took it back to da Golden Era, when real MCs talked about real shit.   Dat's why I was so pleased to discover NOTORIOUS PHD.  First of all, he an OG New Yorker comin straight outta BK, now reppin da BX Boro as a Fordham University Professor of African-American studies.  He even an original member of THE WEATHERMEN but left cause he thought AESOP ROCK was an emo art hoe too far removed from that '88 boom-bamp he so loved.

 

Skip to @2:22 to hear my man NOTORIOUS PHD absolutely shit on the kinda gentrification I addressed in my post on A$AP ROCKY, Harlem, and a yuppie in a purple shirt, all delivered in the smoothest flow I heard since, well, SMOOTH B.  He even got a brotha doin beatbox so this shit be sittin sturdy on mad pillars of hip-hop (MCing, beatboxing, graffiti on his tshirt, and I bet if my homie was 40 years younger he'd even break out some fresh b-boy moves)!  Unfortunately there's a guy on his left just shakin his head and doin nothin and doin nothin is not hip-hop so I gotta dock -10 hip-hop points.

 

But yo, check it out!  Here he goin straight a capella, no DJ or nothin, on a dis track aimed at trickle-down economics!  +20 rap music points!   So yo, if you lookin for some ill political hip-hop and think KRS-ONE fell off or IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE isn't real enough, check out my mans NOTORIOUS PHD.  Shit is funky fresh and has a message.

DID JIGGA POOP IN HIS PANTS?

So yo, sometimes things here at RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA! take a little longer than ya average blawg.  We like slow food, son, cause like rap music itself, we good for your mind, body, and soul.  But erry now and then I gots to chime in on a pressing issue of the day.  And yo, right now I got more chimes than a hippie's porch on a windy day.

So yo, by now JAY-Z's lil "happening" at Pace Gallery in NYC is old news.  In short, JIGGA performed "Picasso Baby" for six hours on some MARINA ABRAMOVIC biter-type shit.  Dat hoe even blessed the event by showin up and doing some of her weirdo shit, surely a highlight of JIGGA's second childhood as an art-world stan.    I dunno why JIGGA so into rappin about art, cause he on some newjack cornball shit like an art school freshman who just copped a subscription to Juxtapoz.

But anyway, supposedly the whole thing was an homage to ABRAMOVIC's MOMA mixtape a few years back where she basically just hung out at the museum all day and pooped and peed in her pants (she says she didn't, but c'mon son, ya bladder ain't built like dat).  So did JIGGA pull an AL ROKER?  It was only six hours, but you never know when diarrhea might strike.  If nothing else, he probably had to take a leak during that time.  I mean dey already made Roca Pads, why not Roca diapers?

I hope he cops to it cause fo rilla, rapping about pooping in his pants would be a lot more interesting than whatever he rappin about these days.  Live and direct from the art world, RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA is out!

IN WHICH DRAG-ON RAPS ABOUT A HATE CRIME

 

Wan gwan rap music enthusiasts?  RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA comin correct wit da content dat keeps da fiends fiendin!  So yo, back in the day RUFF RYDERS was the clique.  Don't tell me otherwise!  Heads had posters of Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood hanging over their virginal four-poster beds (no homo).  Don't know about y'all, but I stayed bumpin Ruff Ryders Vol. 1 on my Sony Discman, escapin from da oppressive confines of middle school into a thugged-out wonder world of sweaty shirtless men, steroid abuse, and crotch rockets (no homo).  I was so into the Double-R that I was anticipating the YUNG WUN album that never came out; I didn't even skip da song by those wack DRU HILL wannabes, PARLE!  Dat's how thoro I kepts it.

So when DRAG-ON came out, you best believe I was jockin.  Sheeit, "Down Bottom," "Niggaz Die For Me," and "Spit These Bars" was fresh to death on the strength of those tinny early SWIZZ BEATZ beats alone.  When I heard "Niggaz Die For Me" on the radio it was nearly unintelligible (too many N-words). I was hooked.  He and DMX even dressed adorably like firemen for the video (RUFF RYDERS loved gimmicks and costumes almost as much as motorcycles and male camaraderie).

So picture my disappointment when I listened closely to the lyrics on "The Hood."  DRAG-ON asks, and I quote, "You know how many chinks and Jews / Drag's done dragged out / On a cash route?"  Well, none I hope, but I suppose the implied answer is "a lot?"  My rainbow coalition heart was broken.  DRAG-ON revealed himself to be little more than Goebbels in a durag.

I thought RUFF RYDERS were a social movement where men could be men, lift weights without shirts in the presence of other men, ride fast motorcycles with other men, dress up identically to other men, and basically just enjoy the company of other men whilst doing manly things men like to do (token female EVE notwithstanding [no homo]).  But DRAG-ON ruined my utopian dream with his words of hate.  I quickly defected to THE ROC and STATE PROPERTY.  Although they had less of the welcoming YMCA vibe I so dug in RUFF RYDERS, at least they didn't rap about murdering Chinese folks and the Chosen People.

DA NEXT EPISODE: EGYPT WAS HIP-HOP! (REVISIONIST HISTORY, PART TWO OF MANY)

Yo!  RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA goes hard as fuck!  All I gotta say on that front.  U know what it is.

But yo, I promised y'all I was gonna delve into the Secret History of Hip-Hop dat the leading rap intellectuals don't want y'all to know about.  So check it, we all know hip-hop consists of several elements.  One is bling (diamonds, chains, etc), another is self-aggrandizement, and the last two are B-boying and beatboxing.

First off, check out those big booty hoes up top doing the wah watusi.  Video hoes before dey even had videos!  I bet these bitches was all up on the Pharaoh's dick like, "Mmm big daddy, lemme get embalmed with you" and he was all, "Beeeeitch, stop talkin that shit and suck my fuckin dick fo some papyrus."

But yo, da Egyptians also correspond to the self-aggrandizement element of hip-hop.  Dey was all, "Life takes us all, word is bond, but I'ma make myself immortal.  Yo slaves, build me a fuckin pyramid!"  Now slavery is mos def not hip-hop, as hip-hop is all about freein yourself from mental slavery.  So in dat way I guess the Egyptians wasn't hip-hop.  But in dey obsession wit bein immortal? Hell yeah.

Dudes was also flossin like crazy.  More gold than a player's ball and dey even got buried wit mad lucre.  I bet if they was alive today, they'd be rappers and be all, "Yo, bury me in a Maybach while I'm wearin Pucci sneakers and Tru Religion jeans and a Gucci bucket cap and surround me with racks on racks and mad ice and hoes and fuckin Han Solo me in gold and platinum."

This KNOWLEDGE (c) has been brought to you by RPA MUSIC HISTORAI!

PURPLE SHIRTED YUPPIE IN A$AP'S "PESO" VIDEO: A SYMBOL FOR DA GENTRIFICATION OF HIP-HOP OR MERELY HILARIOUS?

FIGURE I

So yo, I was watching dat A$AP ROCKY "Peso" video da other day, tryna remember who made dem bone shoes in the video.  I was invited to a very high society wedding and wanna ensure I'm not gonna embarrass myself with some bum-ass gear, you feel?

As I was watchin, I paused to read dis cat's tshirt ("OUR TAXES PAY 4 COPS WHO PROTECT BANKING ELITES BOYCOTT FEDERAL RESERVE" - dat's some convoluted shit, bruh bruh).  After digesting dat white-T agitprop, I noticed a curious figure in da background.  In the midst of A$AP's "mobbin with the crew" moment, a staple of da NYC rap video, one notices a chubby white dude in a swagless outfit consisting of a purple shirt, khaki shorts and I dunno, probably dem clunky-ass New Balances.  He even got a bitchass totebag or some shit slung over his shoulder, probably from Whole Foods or some wack wine store that don't even sell Mad Dog 20/20.  Typical NYC yuppie.  Wasn't there an editor who could've ixnayed this simp?

Now we all know A$AP ain't exactly the most thugged-out cat on the block, but does this not in itself reflect the gentrification of his native city?  I means, take a look at a MOBB DEEP or JAY-Z or WU-TANG or BLACK MOON video that features mobbin shots.  Ain't no white yuppies accidentally steppin in the frame!

FIGURES II & III
 

Now these two images is, respectively, from M.O.P.'s "Ante Up" video and GROUP HOME's "Supa Star" video, precursors to the mobbin-in-front-of-da-bodega trope that A$AP's "Peso" continues.  These dudes look hard (no homo) - good heavens, da cat on the right in the GROUP HOME video is in the act of drinking a 40 oz. of malt liquor! - and contextually, it's hard to imagine they would let a NPR-listening poindexter pass without some form of rude commentary and/or public humiliation.

What's the basis for this change?  Does NYC's gentrification coincide with NYC hip-hop's own cultural gentrification?  A$AP occasionally raps about some street shit, but it's usually half-hearted and unconvincing.  His thematic focuses are swag, fashion, and exploring the multi-layered Pretty Motherfucker persona.  All da aforementioned '90/early-'00s rappers were decidedly on some street shit; fashion for them was limited to KARL KANI or FUBU.  Is this shift in subject matter rooted in da gentrification of the artist's surroundings?  Is it a sign of racial progress that soft white cats can stroll breezily through a Harlem video shoot and not be hassled by a young black rapper and his posse?  Was the purple shirt dude in FIGURE I actually gettin heckled but blocked it out by listening to his IRA GLASS podcast?  And where was the video editor for all of this?

IDK.  The world is changing.  There are ski slopes here in Jackson Hole that I wouldn't have dared sully my Salomons with just a few years ago - now I can shred the gnar without having to clutch my purse close or look over my back.  CHUUUUCH!

DA CIPHER HEARD ROUND THE WORLD!

 

Oh shit dude, it been a minute ain't it?  But fo rilla, ya boy been locked up.  Got roped on some bullshit indecent exposure charges, but ain't you supposed to diddle yoself in a porno theatre?  I think it was all a set-up, 'cause the MAN wants to contain the dangerous truths I be leakin' on this website.

But yo, what I really came here to talk about is this legendary BET cipher featuring NICKI MINAJ, OJ DA JUICEMAN, and WAKA FLOCKA early in they careers.  I think it was '09 or something?  I dunno.  Dey was rollin fresh off the noise GUCCI MANE was kickin at the time; we talkin Burrprint and Cold War era, before the cocaine, before the ice cream face tat, before GUWOP!

At this time, WAKA FLOCKA and OJ DA JUICEMAN were just Brick Squad weed carriers hungry to eat the waffle cone crumbs from GUCCI's bib.  NICKI had yet to release an album.  Da Internet straight clowned dis cipher when it dropped, e.g. Who da fuck is these shortbus-ridin cretins?,  but let's revisit it with three years worth of hindsight and context.

Before this NICKI was mainly known for her breathy, unremarkable appearances on LIL WAYNE mixtapes.  When da Internet heard her new weirdo style in this cipher, they clowned her cause they wasn't ready.  It was a classic case of the SHOCK OF THE NEW, like when STRAVINSKY dropped his Rites of Spring mixtape and heads went nuts moshing and punching bitches.  We was all, "What the fuck girl, is you on crack?"  But now that we have been familiarized with NICKI's style, it don't sound as silly as it once did.  Yeah her performance is a bit awkward and goofy like she popped too many Valiums before grabbin da mic, but now it's just NICKI bein NICKI with a subpar delivery.

OJ has had a lower profile in recent years, but his verse is prolly the best of da three.  Just straight greazy ignorance.  He raps like a happy illiterate child and who are we to knock the special guy?  He's just a simple soul havin fun pretending to be a big bad cool rap guy.  Don't burst his bubble.

WAKA's verse is the strangest.  When you think WAKA you think energy.  It's fight music for when you've been smokin crack all night and wanna get antisocial.  But here he's just all sheepish and shy, as if his aunt brought him out at her bridge night and was all, "Joaquin, you're a rapper!  Sing one of your rap songs!" and instead of rappin in da trap with his Brick Squad Killas, he was forced to rap in front of nice middle-aged ladies eating crumpets and drinking Earl Grey who don't really understand what he's doin, but he loves his aunt and wants to make her proud so why not rap a few bars?

WHAT WAS THE FIRST INCIDENCE OF RAP MUSIC IN HISTORY?: A REVISIONIST PERSPECTIVE (PART ONE OF MANY)

So yo, most of deez uptight Ivory Tower academics will tell you that hip-hop began in the South Bronx in 1973 when DJ KOOL HERC drunkenly yelled over a skipping record at a block party.  But we all know this is some propaganda BS better suited for the lie-bary, where they bury the lies!

Nah, anyone who truly understands rap music knows that it is a force of spiritual energy, a primordial pulse that has informed and nurtured human life since the dawn of time.  In service of the truth, we here at RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA plan to rectify the gross oversights perpetuated by the myopic establishment of rap music academics and charlatans.  Here we go, bruh!

So if you into evolution and shit, you believe in da big bang theory.  Basically the Universe was like, "Yo, Earth, you my son," farted real loud and shat out the Earth as we know it.  As we all know, to be called "son" is one of da worst insults in rap music.  So whenever da Earth get all uppity like, "Look at all my peoples, I got enough gold for chains on chains on chains, I got enough black diamonds to make a motherfuckin suit," the Universe be like, "Bitch, I am the father of your style.  Simmer down, son."  And that is straight hip-hop.

If u a Christian, you believe dat God created the Heavens and Earth, i.e., "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  Word!  I like to think the Word was, "Yo," or "Swag," or "CHUUUUUCH," but I wasn't there so I dunno.  Whatever the case was, in my scriptural interpretation (and many respected Biblical scholars share my opinion), it sounds like God was rappin one day, probably solo dolo, and was like "Yo, we need a cipher in this bitch," and thus created the Heavens and Earth so he could have people with whom to battle and collab.

This is why it's so offensive when JAY-Z calls himself GOD MC or HOVA, cause he's just a pretender.  His whole career he been trying to erase God's contributions to hip-hop from the history books.  His lil album Watch the Throne was basically a dis aimed at God, 'cause we all know Hov is just a jealous herb watchin the throne for the real GOD MC.

Dis is also why people be sayin JIGGA is Illuminati or a Satan worshipper or whatever, cause he so closely resembles LUCIFER in the way he tries God's gangsta.  He think he on that level but at the end of the day he just a wannabe aiming darts at the king, hoping he can piggyback on God's fame by getting a response on God's next mixtape.  But yo, that shit ain't gonna happen.  Ain't you ever seen Waiting for Godot, Hovito?

Obviously, hip-hop begins at the dawn of existence.  But what was the next occurrence of hip-hop?  Tune in for the next installment of this thrilling series, as RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA traces the unspoken, forgotten, and surpressed history of hip-hop!

RICK ROSS IS NOT A RAPIST OR A RACIST OR RACIST RAPIST (BUT HE DOES THINK YOU ARE CUTE)

Does this look like a rapist to you?  Hell naw, he wearin a suit and we all know rapists don't wear suits.  Well they do I guess, but they usually polyester leisure suits and that's a whole 'nother animal.

Anyway, my mans RICK ROSS a/k/a ROZAY a/k/a OFFICER RICKY a/k/a WILLIAM ROBERTS, JR. been catchin mad static over his line in da otherwise CHUUUCH-tastic "U.O.E.N.O," a barnburner featuring the likes of ROCKO and Tigerbeat pin-up FUTURE.  I guess RICKY felt the heat thru the slabs of blubber padding his skeleton and empty soul and decided to respond.  He explained, "there was a misunderstanding with the lyric, a misinterpretation," citing as evidence that the word "rape" was never used in the song.

So fall the fuck back, feminazis.  Even doe he rap about droppin a molly in a bitch's champagne without her knowledge, taking her home, fucking her and enjoying it ("and she ain't even know"), he never sez da word "rape," so obviously it ain't rape!

Maybe some of you dumb feminists and/or victims of sexual violence should've paid more attention to your critical theory when u was at ur liberal arts school, understood that the author is dead, content is secondary to form, and art need not be moral.  So when RICK ROSS drugs you and rapes has sex with you, you can have an aesthetic appreciation of da act and be like, "Yo, I ain't really feelin dis content, but the form is sublime."  Then you can be on par with us phallocentric male rap bloggers and understand rap on a deeper aesthetic level, i.e., a social vacuum of detached sophistication.

Peace fuckboys!

IS DRAKE THE RAP GAME FDR?

 

So yo, I think my greatest contribution as a rap blogger - besides the hardboiled street tales I deliver post after post - is da connections I be makin between the rap world and the world beyond.  And y'all may not know dis, but I took an American History course once and now I got wisdom out the bootyhole.  Scopes Monkey Trial?  Sacco and Vanzetti?  Yeah, I heard of them shits!

So recently I got to thinkin bout the relationship between FDR and DRAKE.  For those who don't know, FDR was an American president way back in the olden days when things were black and white and Yahoo was the only search engine in existence.  Now many people don't know this, but FDR was left paralyzed after trying to pull of a Christ Air on this huge-ass halfpipe and had to keep the fact that he was in a wheelchair on the d-low.

But despite all this, FDR ran his shit.  The dude was straight up gangsta, serving as president for a record three terms and droppin the A-bomb like it wasn't no thang.  One might call him the MICHAEL JORDAN of the American presidency.  Some people have even called him a dictator cause he was such an OG kingpin.

So for like 12 years it was nothin but FDR.  Turn the radio on now and who you gonna hear? DRAKE all day.  He is currently the FDR of Clear Channel radio.  But there's more!  As many of us now, DRAKE was on Degrassi before he was a rapper.  The character he played, Jimmy Brooks, was left paralyzed after he slipped on a piece of Canadian bacon.  So dude spent time in a wheelchair, perhaps learning how to see the world from FDR's perspective.

Now, I ask: is there a certain power derived from the wheelchair itself?  Look at MF GRIMM:

Dude goes hard on the mic and was able to get his life together after being shot in connection with his involvement in tha drug trade.  Maybe like HOMER and MILTON, some OG blind rappers whose loss of sight may have substantially affected their subsequent mixtapes, seeing the world from a different perspective endowed GRIMM with unique poetic insight.

I mean look at PROFESSOR X. Dude was mad smart, he could bend spoons with his mind and shit.  And STEPHEN HAWKING, too, he also mad smart.  I dunno yo, I just be thinkin bout things.

AN ELEGY FOR OJ DA JUICEMAN BY A DECEASED ROMANTIC POET!

So yo, one of da most beautifullest things I've learned in my time in the rap music trenches is that HIP-HOP HEADS come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.  I once had dis midget friend and to my surprise he was mad hip-hop!  Who woulda thought?

I thought I'd seen everything after I met a hip-hop midget, but I was wrong.  This cat Pasquale who lived down the street from me fancied himself a poet in the Romantic tradition.  He styled himself after LORD BYRON and wore mad poofy shirts.  We gots to talkin once and he started blatherin bout how BUSTA RHYMES embodied the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility" that them Romantic dudes was all about.  I was like, "Chuuuuuch!"

I ain't seen dis cat in years when I ran into his mother on da ski slopes.  She told me Pasquale had died in Tunisia.  He was thurrr teachin a coterie of young men about poetry and eroticism when he was taken by the consumption.  I was all, "Sheeeit, RIP."

She forwarded me a stack of his poetry.  Most of it was mad gay and not very hip-hop, but this one elegy for OJ DA JUICEMAN spoke to my soul (no homo).  In honor of JUICEMAN'S new mixtape, I thought I'd reprint this soul-tickler for y'all.

ELEGY FOR OJ DA JUICEMAN

OJ da Juiceman, where hath thou gone?  Your giddy "Aye! Aye! Okay!" no longer brightens the barbed paths and dark hallways of our wandering souls.  Your ooze of noble savagery has waned and O! we no longer thrill to your crudely enunciated verse.

What malady befell you?  Wherefore the absence and quietude? Beneath thy buffoonery was a depth the masses could not understand.  O, cruel fate of the visionary ones!  Disregarded in their time as common rabble.  Verily a kernel of gold amidst landscapes dreary you were.  The refuge of future glory is but a cold consolation for the insults you endured.

They cursed you as a plague upon culture, but soon they shall prostrate themselves before thy alter as they did with Van Gogh.  Your flame has diminshed, but Rejoice! -- your torch of genius burns eternal.

DOES CHAVEZ'S DEATH MAKE VENEZUELA MORE OR LESS HIP-HOP?

So yo, I ain't gonna enter the fray about whether or not HUGO CHAVEZ was dope-ass or broke-ass as a leader.  I got mad friends who be like, "Yo, CHAVEZ rocked that shit for the peoples."  But I also fux with ascot-wearin ass rich fucks who be like, "adios, puta madre!"

Nah, what we here to talk about today is if Venezuela is more hip-hop or less hip-hop following CHAVEZ'S demise.  On the one hand, hip-hop was originally about empowerin the disenfranchised and givin them a voice.  It crawled out of da South Bronx, multiplied and politicked, and now we got heads like JAY-Z becomin the 21st c. HARRY BELAFONTE (or at the very least BILL COSBY).  So in this way, HUGO CHAVEZ was mad hip-hop.  You could say he was the CED GEE of social equality.

On da other hand, hip-hop has long been about capitalism and unbridled materialism.  JAY-Z has his stature only because he got that money - we owe TONY MONTANA fo dat lesson.  I mean, if we was goin strictly off talent, we'd be honoring LARGE PROFESSOR or MR. CHEEKS instead of HOV.  For better or worse, today's hip-hop is totally in cahoots with the capitalist system.  Fo all his fake-ass revolutionary bullshit, HOV is more likely to give a shout out to WARREN BUFFETT than GOGO CHAV.

So what y'all think: was HUGO CHAVEZ hip-hop?  Or did he merely embody the hip-hop of a different era?  Damn, I gots to go smoke 15 blunts (in a row) 'cause my head be trippin on da slippery nature of hip-hop, and by extension, reality and the world itself.

Peace bitchez.

HIP-HOP SEX OFFENDERS

 

So yo, let's be real: if most rappers actually did what they claim to do, they'd be locked up in da clink faster than you can blink!  And I ain't even talkin bout just the violence and drug slangin - some of em would be locked up for sex crimes.

But as we all know, rap is mostly a fantasy land where weird dudes with overactive imaginations can be loved and celebrated for their absurd lies.  Occasionally, however, these dudes back up what they rap about.  Take SOUTH PARK MEXICAN, for example.  I don't think he ever rapped about diddlin a child, but he got thrown in prison for that shit right on the cusp of (maybe) blowin up!  Like I remember reading about dude in Newsweek or Time or some shit.  They was tombout how he was Mexican and independent and sellin records, then he (allegedly) diddled a 9 year-old and fucked some teenie boppers and BOOM, game over!  See ya later, prevert!

Personally, I can't listen to the music of a mothafuckin child molester.  And yet I can read Lolita like a motherfucker.  Curious.  And take MYSTIKAL.

I mean, damn!  Look at that picture.  Look like he has some strawberry flavored Juicy lip gloss on for some dick-sucking homothug shit.  But homeboy ain't a homothug so far as I know.  Nah, he went to prison for makin his hairstylist (pause) blow him and his homeboys.

But unlike SPM, I still enjoy his music.  It's a weird double standard.  Dis da shit I call moral ambiguity.  Is one act worse than da other or is they both equally shitty?  Am I tacitly admitting that heternormative sexual abuse is somehow more excusable than weirdo pedophilia? Or is MYSTIKAL's music just that dope?  I don't fuckin know, alls I know is I ain't fuckin wit no child molestin bitchmade fuckboy.

POPE BENEDICT THINKS HE'S JAY-Z EXCEPT HE WAS IN THE HITLER YOUTH AND CAN'T RAP

Maaan, it's time for me to put this sucka on blast: POPE BENEDICT XVI.  Other day this lil punk was like, "Waaah, bein the Pope is too hard.  I'm a baby, I want my mommy!"  We all knew he had a weak will cause of that lil Hitler Youth bullshit, but really bro?  You just proved you ain't bout that life.

Remember back in the day?  Real dudes like KOOL G RAP and POPE JOHN PAUL II did real thangs.  Now we just got soft-ass simps like TYGA and BENEDICT.  But yo, I gots to wonder, is this all just some ploy for publicity?  Maybe homeboy is takin a page outta JAY-Z's book and is all, "Man, I can't do nothin more with this Catholicism game.  Shit is played out.  I'm just gonna count my money and watch you fools play yourselves."

 

Flash forward 1.5 years.  BENEDICT rolls back in on the new Pope and is all, "Boy, take that silly hat off.  You ain't no Pope.  Let me get my lil sceptre and shit 'cause the Ruler is back!"  He starts issuing edicts and all that bullshit like it was the ol' days and he was Big Boss Dogg #1, full of mad braggadocio and hubris, but in the end his core audience knows homie is but a pale shadow of his former self.

DIPSET NOSTALGIA IS THE BITTEREST OF ALL

Let's take it back to '05.  DIPSET was on everybody's lips (no homo).  Viewin da whole movement thru retrospective goggles, DIPSET's greatest contribution may have been its injection of controversy back into hip-hop.  They got under everyone's skin: conservatives jizzed they pants over the giddy, amoral spectacle that was central to DIPSET's aesthetic, so unabashedly tasteless they basically delievered a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE directly into the hands and Nielsen ratings of the O'Reillys and Riveras of the world.  The loathsome creatures known as REAL HIP-HOP HEADS was always bitchin bout DIPSET cause they strayed too far from NY orthodoxy and most certainly wasn't on no "artistic" or "conscience" bullsheeit.  There was even some noise about white hipsters fetishizing DIPSET's exotic blackness, quasi-racistly, in certain rap circles.  Dayum!

I just thought it was all fun.  They were the Macho Man Randy Savages of rap.  I was 15 and felt on top of da world every time HELL RELL or 40 CAL came up on the CD changer.  But those days have long passed.  In-fighting and splintering factions threw a wrench in the gears of the purple DIPSET tank just as it was threatening to roll over the whole industry.  The tacky pink party came to an end, the hangers-on hung up their purple mink coats and went home.  All subsequent DIPSET related releases have lacked the elan of the original era.  Some cats like JUELZ SANTANA just disappeared.  The long-rumored I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE with LIL WAYNE never materialized; while WAYNE became a corny skateboarding pop star, SANTANA languished without an album in some kind of record label purgatory.

But never fear!  SANTANA is back wit a new mixtape, GOD WILL'N.  And it's very much a 2013 rap mixtape; SANTANA makes sure we know this on the corny "Blog That" ("Just put a picture up on Instagram / Now I'm in the kitchen whippin insta-grams!").  It's not bad, either--essentially what you'd expect SANTANA to be doing in 2013.  But it also means the DIPSET garishness we all love so much is almost entirely gone. 

Obviously we can't (and shouldn't) expect an artist to remain the same forever.  That's stagnation.  But within SANTANA's transition lies a message on life: appreciate what you have before it fades.  One day you're living it up in a delirious orgy of rap cliche, the next you're scrounging the darkest corners of the Internet for FREEKEY ZEKEY b-sides.

ONE TRAIN: WE GO VERSE BY VERSE Y'ALL!

 

So da new A$AP ROCKY - can't front, it's good.  He's coverin all the markets: mainstream club-banger wit "Fuckin Problems," hipsters wit da CLAMS CASINO and SANTIGOLD joints, meth-head skeezers with that weird SKRILLEX collabo.  And on "1 TRAIN," he caters to that fickle group of hobbyists known as HIP-HOP HEADS.  It's a posse cut with a roster reading like a XXL Freshmen list that shoulda been: KENDRICK LAMAR, JOEY BADA$$, YELAWOLF, DANNY BROWN, ACTION BRONSON, AND BIG KRIT.  So who go the hardest?  Let's break it down!

KENDRICK LAMAR

Kind of a forgettable verse.  Maybe we just getting used to consistent excellence?  It gets more entertaining toward the end when he sounds like he's desperately trying to keep from splattering his Fruit of the Looms with diarrhea.

JOEY BADA$$ 

Rhymes "conscious" with "conscience" and "prism" with "prison" in the first four bars.  Threw us for a loop there, BADA$$!  We was just expecting some retread NY Golden Era shit, but you flipped the script n shit!

YELAWOLF

Kills it!  Never been a big fan of his work, but he comes thru sounding like a DUNGEON FAMILY influenced Rumpelstiltskin.  I don't think I'll ever listen to his music on the regular, but thanks for the momentary entertainment, homie!

DANNY BROWN

His best work is in concept-driven songs, which doesn't lend itself well to a guest verse.  Like KENDRICK it just sounds like he's treading water.

 

ACTION BRONSON

Kills it!  Erryone knows he sounds just like GHOSTFACE, but he pushin that aesthetic to revelatory extremes, namedroppin none other than former Cleveland Indian KENNY LOFTON and comparing his girl's walk to a Chilean horse.  He even drop the weirdest boast ever, talkin bout fixin the game between Georgia Southern and Grambling.  Big money high roller!

BIG KRIT

Never paid much attention to this young man (he seems nice), and I think I'm gonna maintain like that.  He uses his verse as an opportunity to advertise his existence.  The cynical references to "choppin blades" and "grippin grain" say, "Hey hip-hop fans!  You may not have heard of me, but if you're looking for some UGK influenced rap, why not give me a listen?"

CONCLUSION
I think I'm gonna give the crown to ACTION BRONSON with a slight edge over YELAWOLF.  I ain't gonna listen to his music or nuthin, but he itched all the right spots on this track (no homo, seriously).

Imagine that: ACTION BRONSON and YELAWOLF are the winners.  For once the white man wins!

KENDRICK LAMAR: MEET THE NEW AOR

 

 

The year was 2012.  Mad heads was lost tryna find they way up outta KENDRICK LAMAR's bootyhoole.  But despite being lodged deep up in an anus, they persisted in sounding trumpets of accolade.  And it was cool.  He made good music and all.  But sometimes it all felt too well crafted, like he was following pointers out of a '70s issue of Rolling Stone.  An AOR (read: ALBUM ORIENTED ROCK) rap album.  Lacking the spontaneity and disposibility that makes popular music so irresistible.  So high concept it sometimes felt like we was listening to a PINK FLOYD album.  Wasn't no party starter. 

Dat's fine and all.  But I often feel as if music critics view popular music thru the rubric of high art, which is entirely inappropriate when you're dealin with a popular form.  I just wanna have fun and forget the worries of my shitty fuckin existence.  Dat's why I always be goin for TRINIDAD JAME$ and 2CHAINZ before I go for KENDRICK LAMAR.  Yeah, I know on a aesthetic level they far inferior, but the stupidity help me get thru the day.

So fuck it mane.  I stay tuned to Clear Channel monopoly radio, cause that shit be pumpin the hits that help a menial worker like myself carry on.  I ain't got time for an aesthetic approach to pop music.  Play me da KENDRICK LAMAR hits interspersed with some ROSCOE DASH or PRETTY RICKY or KIRKO BANGZ  -- anything that will help me swallow down the poison of trickle down economics.

WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR CHIEF KEEF TO EXIST?

 

Aight, so that "I Don't Like" shit was cute and meme-worthy and all, but this "Sosa" shit?  Is this what it's really come to?  Shit sounds like somethin from a Broadway musical about homo sailors. Where is the need for CHIEF KEEF when we already got a WAKA FLOCKA?

"I Don't Like" was hype cause it was next-level ignorant, but WAKA has staying power cause he actually has legit skills.  KEEF is like the DONOVAN to WAKA'S DYLAN, the BL'AST to his BLACK FLAG.  It's aight and errythang, but we've seen it all before and better to boot. 

I don't really fux with this shit, cause unlike WAKA, CHIEF KEEF don't seem to have even a glimmer of intelligence, and I ain't about celebratin ignorance for its own sake.  Come back harder and originaler next time, KEEF.  Til then I ain't got time fo you.  Fuck dis shit!  Save the youth!  Stay off drugs and always wear a jimmy cap when you goin up in a honey!

GUEST POST: NEW YEAR'S RAP MUSINGS FROM A PROFESSIONAL GLASS POLISHER!

As many of y'all know, I run shit in Jax Hole.  From da ski slopes to da flourishing drug trade, I'm well-known like the number man.  I used to slang herb to this herb named Fezziwig.  He wore a fedora and had a large collection of Japanese swords.  All he did was smoke weed by himself and play World of Warcraft.  I ran into him at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar the other day and he bugged me about writing for my extremely successful rap website until I said, "Aight."  Here we go!

The clock passed midnight, a grinning crowd of rubes watched the ball drop in Times Square, and 2012 floundered into the annals of history.  It was New Year's Eve and I was polishing $4 glassware for less than minimum wage.

I regarded the customers with scorn.  Drunk idiots with too much expendable income blowing noisemakers like idiot children.  "BMF" by Rick Ross floated from out of the kitchen.  We shucked and jived to the anthemic throb, trying to forget that we were actually making money at the rate of a slow trickle.

"Bands A Maker Her Dance" came next.  I wondered what a stripper feels on New Years.  Maybe it's better to start the year in a G-string than polishing water spots off a water glass.  Rick Ross bellowed, "Deez niggas won't hold me back!," and I increased my polishing speed.  But deez niggas were holding us back: busted economy, the development of an American oligarchy, all the lies, the goddamn lies!  Where is our recession rapper, one who would rap about being broke and working a job beneath your dignity?  Of realizing exactly how little your college degree is worth in today's economy?  All we have is a cartoonish, nearly self-parodic celebration of capitalism.  We love rap music as an opiate that helps us believe in a failed system.

I decided it was time to take action.  I would no longer debase myself by listening to escapist drivel.  No more rap music for me!  But then I remembered my duty as a busboy and how bad I would feel if someone died from a water spot I'd failed to remove, so I polished bravely into the future as the old world, foaming at the mouth, clipped rabidly at my heels.