Insomniac Rap Show- A few throwbacks

Welcome to The Insomniac Rap Show, where I share YouTube videos until I get sleepy.

Let's start with my favorite Joell Ortiz song:

C.Kirk's doin' it B.I.G.

this portrait of the late, great Biggie Smalls by emerging Dallas pop artist C.Kirk is available for sale on E-bay 'longside several other pieces. this joint was made with spray paint, acrylic, enamel, and the vaunted C.Kirk scratch technique (LOL!) on particle board, and measures 36 x 24 inches. word is, when he move joints on Ebay they go cheaper than on his website, so cop this and other fly pieces by captain Kirk here. subscribe to his facebook fan page for special members-only offers!
holla!
-samax
ghettoManga.com
comics.hipHop.news.art.culture

Biggie Schools Your Ass

This comicbook-style joint is the intro to Will Rouch’s mixtape (Know My Name Vol 1), which finds him traveling back through time to learn all about hip-hop history. He’s guided by a clone of The Notorious BIG who visits him from the future. did you get that? okay, so The art on this is by this cat out of Texas named Profesone, and directed by legendary hip-hop visual artist Skam 2, who was the creative force behind artwork for Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP and A Tribe Called Quest’s Beats, Rhymes and Life, among others.
holla!
-ghettoManga.com
comics.hipHop.news.art.culture

Slow Singin' and Flower Bringin'...

Warnin' is not my favorite Biggie Smalls song... that would be Dead Wrong. however, Warnin' is important because this is the song that got me to stop hatin'... when the notorious B.I.G started taking the world by storm, i was going through a spiritual awakening, the details of which i won't bore you with here. the point being, i wasn't trying to hear none o' that gangster isht at that time. so i yawned away many Biggie joints (i was also not that impressed with Juicy, but for other reasons) until one day, quite by accident, i heard Warnin', off BIG's debut plate Ready to Die...

"it's gonna be some slow singiiiin' and flower bringin..."

OH. MY. DAMN! this dude is a RHYMIN' FOOL! BIG rhymes like he's sword fighting, and the stylistic delivery in Warnin' transcended the subject matter... i couldn't front any longer, even though BIG was never MY favorite rapper, that dude sure was dope!
-gM

Unbelievable: The Notorious Edition (Mixtape)

1. Diddy Intro
2. Biggie and The Clipse: Blow
3. Biggie and Jay-Z: Brooklyn Go Hard
4. Biggie, Game, and Darien Brockington: On Top (Produced by The Kickdrums)
5. Biggie and AZ: Brooklyn
6. Biggie, Craig Mack and LL Cool J: The Flavor (produced by Frequency)
7. Biggie and Big L: Let The Games Begin
8. Biggie & Redman: Machine Gun Funk (produced by DJ Premier)
9. Diddy Interlude
10. Biggie and Fashawn: Going Back To Cali (produced by Remot)
11. Biggie and Kanye West: Kicks Open Doors
12. Biggie and Jadakiss: All Day Every Day
13. The Madd Rapper: Still Mad Interlude
14. Biggie and Lil Kim: Only One Thing
15. Biggie and Young Chris: Young G’s Part 2 (Produced by Moss)
16. Diddy Interlude
17. Biggie and Jay-Z: The Commission
18. Biggie and Gravy: Ready To Die
19. Biggie and Nas: It Aint Hard To Tell
20. Biggie and Prodigy: Escape From NY
21. Biggie and Sheek: Things Change (produced by nVMe)
22. Diddy Interlude
23. Biggie and Lil Wayne: If You See Me (Produced by Garbs)
24. Biggie and Mobb Deep: Last Dayz.
25. Diddy Outro
26. Biggie, Big Daddy Kane, Ms. Jade: Set It Off

Download: Mick Boogie & Terry Urban Present Unbelievable: The Notorious Edition

courtesy of NahRight.com

-gM

Dead Wrong Jugganaut Freestyle...

i like all kinds of hip hop... while i am generally into "conscious Rap," i do get ignorant now and then. which leads me to This Week's Cut: a freestyle by Dallas underground rapper Hollywood Cole, over the beat from Biggie Smalls' "Dead Wrong"... it was mixed by DJ WHIZ T (because if it isn't mixed by a DJ, it's not a mixtape, it's a compilation...) on Cole's "I'm The Juggernaut Bitch! Mixtape" inspired, of course, by the YouTube Classic of the same name, where two dudes turned down the sound on an episode of X-men and created an internet phenomenon, about mutants, pimpin', and bein' "the Baddest Muhfucka On the World..."

anyways, check that joint out, and if you dig it, buy Cole's mixtape...

it's ignorant... but still good.

holla!

samax.

"I Ain't Dead, I'm Just Mackin'..."

okay, so i was reading the Davey D blog post about rap juggernaut Nas' new plate Hip Hop Is Dead which also discussed whether or not hip hop is, in fact, dead... so this is my response. my opinion on the issue is pretty adamant (as you'll see), but please feel free to respond...

"this record is fresh, but hip hop is not dead, dying, or whatever. it's popular right now for people spoiled by easy-access to good hip hop videos and music to say it is.
so, as usual, it takes a couple years for some mainstream cat to say what underground niggas have been sayin' all along... and now that nas and jay-z are saying hip hop is dead, i'm gonna hafta have this conversation (again...) with late comers... this is really all just proof that hip hop isn't dead...

on the other hand, some things are dead that make you FEEL like hip hop is dead:

YO! MTV RAPS IS DEAD: and with it, the movement for fair, balanced, varied representation of what's happening in hip hop. now with multimillion dollar videos, payola, and other assorted CORPORATE crap influencing rap shows, the possibility of a show like it (and the once-great competitor, Rap City) that really programs based on a love for hip hop, not the mighty dollar, is dead.

RADIO IS DEAD: but that's like saying "concrete is dead"... if you are depending on CORPORATE- controlled radio to tell you what's going on in hip hop, not only are you stupid, you're also lazy, and hopelessly out of touch. if you are one of the lucky few that live in a city where your radio stations are run by people who truly love the culture and care about promoting good music, you probably KNOW hip hop isn't dead. the rest of us just need to stop listening to the radio. now, i hear there is some hope in the form of satellite radio, but i refuse to pay for radio... the internet does the job just fine for me...

BIGGIE AND TUPAC ARE DEAD: so stop trying to crown somebody "king of hip hop", "the south" "new york" or anything else... while it's fun to argue over who the greatest rappers are, it actually is kind of stupid to believe in these titles.
case in point, LL Cool J (a rapper with more staying power than any emcee i've ever seen, and just as much right to the title...) was on Letterman promoting his album G.O.A.T. (which stands for "greatest of all time") a few years back, and chuckled when Dave asked him if he really thought he was the greatest rapper ever. "Naw man... rappers don't take this stuff that serious..." seems we can all learn a lesson from the original todd...

hip hop fans need to stop trying to be on the bandwagon of whatever/whoever is hot and just support the rappers they like. if we spent time looking for and supporting good music instead of crying because the radio/video shows don't do hip hop right (i grew up on hip hop with very little support from the radio, crybabies!), no one would even think to blog on this topic.

maybe Nas should have called his album Hip Hop Is Corporate, or Hip Hop Is Vulgar,or Hip Hop Is Producing Crap or Hip Hop Is Not A Valid Career Path, So Some Of You Need To Stop Rapping or some other such title... but it's a pretty good record, either way.

holla!
samax.