THEY'RE PUTTING DRAKE IN OUR WATER

Writergate (mk. ∞) is inherently misguided because it underestimates the aggressive parasitical nature of DRAKE'S on-mic presence, his awesome figuration in the pop-cult cosmos.  This ain't even on some, "It don't matter who wrote the songs, so long as they exist" kumbaya shit.  One drop of Drake poisons the whole well.  "Where Ya At" sounds like a vintage FUTURE song until Aubrey comes in with his beta-male moping, the neutral sound of rap's miscegenation across borders and timezones and city limits.  Drake's authorship hasn't mattered for a long time.  The Drake concept is bigger than lyrics, bigger even than antitrust laws.  Grow with it or get absorbed.

GHOSTWRITTEN BONUS: Bow Wow - "Let's Get Down" (T.I.)
Now who wrote the Rap City freestyle where Bow Weezy goes iiiiiinnn?

REAL SHIT FROM A REAL BLOGGA

Wussup y'all, I gotta write this shit fast cause I'm on my break right now.  Got this job guarding a sausage factory, it's pretty cool and I don't wanna fuck it up like I always do.  I get to eat all the sausage I want!  My clothes aren't too bloody when I come home, and pig blood isn't that hard to get out of upholstery if you don't let it clot.  I have a sneaking suspicion the sausage factory is a front for some devious activity, but who am I to judge?  Righteousness never paid the bills.  Here we go, y'all!

1.  Every year has its standout rap lyric.  It's not the best lyric, just the one that sums up "the times" or whatever.  Last year it was "I been sellin' crack since like the fifth grade" from Bobby Shmurda's "Hot N-Word," and the year before that it was Rick Ross's Darren Sharper/Bill Cosby shoutouts on "U.O.E.N.O."  This year's contender is "Remember when you had to take the bar exam, I drove in the snow for you?" from "How Bout Now," because it is the Drakiest lyric ever, and 2015 is the Year Of The Drake (Pt. II).

2.  Speaking of Drake, I read the Ernest Baker piece that 'pposedly set the Innanet on fiyah.  I'ma take a bold stance and say it's pretty a'ight.

3.   If we talkin 'bout gonzo journalism, FrankieThaLuckyDog is the god of this shit.  He reviewed P.I.R.'s Who I Are mixtape embedded in an abandoned psychiatric facility in upstate New York, and wrote what is probably the Blog Line Of The Year: “‘Bout” quite a bit on tha 1^st verse, ya feel me? I’m “‘bout” abandoned psychiatric centers; how “‘bout” dat?

4.  Not to get all Charles Murray on ya ass, but could it be that white ppl have a genetic predisposition for archiving the shit out of shit?  This dude Eric Brightwell seems to be a nerdy menswear enthusiast from Iowa, but his writing on New Orleans rap is invaluable.

5.  Finally getting into the White Gzus joint that dropped this year.  It's such a traditional mid/late-'90s style rap record that I'm starting to feel like Yung Methuselah up in this mu'fuh.  If they ever release new music, I hope it doesn't fall into Freddie Gibbs/Big K.R.I.T.-style hero worship.  For now, tho, I wish I had a 'Lac to bump this shit in.  Big ups to David Drake, whose review brought this disque into my life.

This post ended up bein long as fuck and cut into my meal time, so I'm runnin back to the factory stuffing sausages in my mouth.  LMAO, sausage game crazy!

DRAKE COLLECTS ANOTHER ELEMENT OF HIP-HOP, ONE STEP CLOSER TO TURNING TEMPLE OF HIP-HOP INTO CONDOS

Yo, who said DRAKE ain't respectin the forefathers of hip-hop?   He bringin back the old school hip-hop elementals with this one, conscripting fellow Canadian JIM JOE to lend his fresh chickenscratch handstyle to the new LP.  Y'all might remember Mr. JOE for his adorable Yeezus cartoon, and you've certainly seen his work if you've had the misfortune of spending any time in Lower Manhattan lately. 

Now we all know hip-hop and graff are tied up inextricably, so it's real cool to see the brotha from the north goin back to the rec-room days.  The similarities between JIM JOE and DRAKE are uncanny.  They both Canadians whose commercial and artistic pretensions clash with the roots of their artistic forms.  The purists hate on em with the same passion, often for the same reason: they're corny carpetbaggers cloggin up the airwaves and streets in a city they got no claim on and their success sets a toxic precedent for the future of their respective artforms.  They even say JIM JOE would've been vicked for his YSL peacoat back in the bad ol' days just as DRAKE would've been laughed off as a Newjack Swing cornball.  I ain't one of these people!  Every generation needs to define itself against its forebears.  Aligning himself with JIM JOE, DRAKE is basically sayin, "Fuck the haters, I'm the JIM JOE of hip-hop!"  He's pouting to JIGGA, "Sit down, old man.  I'm da new king, and JIM JOE is my Basquiat."

So what it is?  Will JIM JOE be the next Cey Adams?  Has DRAKE been successful in ushering in the Microphone Friend Era?  One thing is clear: these aren't the artists gentrified NYC needs, but the ones it deserves.

INFORMATIVE POSTSCRIPT

It's extremely hard to Google specific graffiti pieces.  I can't find decent pictures of CAINE's Welcome to Hell whole car, or SANE's "nailed to a cross" Agnostic Front(?) inspired skinhead joint, but I found this Bieber burner with no trouble at all.  In my fruitless search, I learned the mother of leftist scion turnt conservative ideologue David Horowitz took a photo of the CAINE piece that hung in the Museum of the City of New York.  The more you know!  If anyone can send me good flicks of these pieces, you will receive an official RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA t-shirt (2015, Sharpie on Hanes).

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.