Showing posts with label eminem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eminem. Show all posts
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Listener's Digest Presents: Upcoming Albums - November Edition



Is the year slowing down? When I looked at what was coming out this month, I started to realize that the new release stream is lightening as the year winds to a close. Soon, we will be reading a seemingly endless string of year end reviews (none of which matter by the way but ours, ours is the only one you should read, we have a lot of opinions and you need to see that we are generally right, me especially, I am the most right here) and we will not see much new music until 2014. So, what is in store for this last major month for new music in 2013?

November 5

 Black Flag - What The...: Old dudes who should have retired awhile ago would like to desecreate  anything you might have held sacred.

Bright Eyes - A Christmas Album: A limited charity release from a number of years ago, Bright Eyes is apparently opening your holiday season up early. Like really early. Fun fact, you know how you always gave your mom or dad Christmas albums because that was what they liked...well kids can do that with Bright Eyes now, because we are all old, painfully old (the writer is 6 months away from his 30th birthday, not sure he is doing well with this fact).

Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 2: Oh dear lord, the first one of these came out when I was a freshman in high school. The cruel march of time marches on (he might need to talk through this, if you see the writer, tell him it will be ok).

Cut Copy - Free Your Mind: The Australian electronic group is back with one of the year's most danceable albums. Early singles have been a solid indication that the group has built upon their previous two albums, bringing them together into an excellent release. Check back on Wednesday for our review.


 Dropkick Murphy's - Signed and Sealed in Blood (Box Set): If you need a gift for your friend with questionable taste in hats and/or beer, here ya go.

M.I.A. - Matangi: After a number of delays and label disputes, M.I.A. has returned with her fourth album. While her "rebel" status is starting to seem increasingly contrived, early buzz has been positive even if she seems to have cribbed the first single and video from things Azelia Banks did a year or two ago.

Sapphire Slows - Allegoria: Japanese artist, Sapphire Slows, is releasing her second album through LA's Not Not Fun label. The first single, "Animal Dreams," sounds similar to labelmates, Maria Minerva and LA Vampires. Textured electronic melodies haunted by vocals perfect for wandering around during the longer and longer nighttime.

November 12

Lady Gaga - Artpop: Seriously?

deadmau5 - We Are Friends Vol. 2: New music from that guy in the big helmet. Might appeal to you if you are currently rolling.

Wooden Shjips - Back to Land: Spaced out psych from the San Francisco group, a few whose members were behind last year's heavily underrated Moon Duo record. The title track is fantastic and will satisfy fans of groups like The Fresh & Onlys.

November 18

Blood Orange - Cupid Deluxe: Dev Hynes has gone through a number of metamorphosis over the course of his career. Once Lightspeed Champion, the artist has reinvented himself as a pop music wunderkind, producing awesome tracks for Solange Knowles and Skye Ferreira. The first single, "Chamakay," may have been one of the year's best songs period. Hopefully this album lives up to its lofty promise.

November 26

Thee Oh Sees - Singles Collection, Volume 3: Just in time for Thanksgiving, Thee Oh Sees release another collection of music. At this point, I fully trust everything this groups does so I am just going to say it will be awesome and will totally scare your relatives. Play it while the pie is served.


Michael Torsell
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Straight Dope: October 21st


Has Pusha T made more money selling cocaine or selling records? It’s a question worth asking, particularly when you consider all of the success he’s had as an artist, first as one half of the duo Clipse with his brother No Malice (which must look awesome on a birth certificate), and later as a disciple of Kanye West. My Name is My Name offers an answer, but it’s hard to discern if a line like “I sold more dope than I sold records, you niggas sold records, never sold dope,” is hyperbole or a straight up lie.

Eliminating the use of a time machine to go back and actually watch Push move powder, we’re just going to have to take his word for it. Even if he’s spinning a yarn, it’s a compelling story, and there aren't many emcees in the greater rap topography as indelibly street as Pusha T. People seem to be responding to the sudden hustler injection, with MNIMN selling somewhere in the area of 75,000 first-week units. That’s good enough for second place on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums, placing him just behind Wheelchair Jimmy, a dude with the entire Young Money empire behind him. It’s also two spots ahead of indie rap all-star Danny Brown, another emcee of remarkable ability blowing up as a result of his ability to write songs instead of pop rap radio hits.

Sales are perhaps not the best indicator of success, but there’s clearly an audience for this kind of dealer-as-rapper storytelling. It would be too easy to write Pusha T off as a one-trick pony, no matter how frustrating his coke metaphor laden raps initially seem, because the alternative is sixteen bars of bullshit. Push knows who he is and what he represents, and he raps his ass off all over MNIMN to make sure you know, too. You can’t ask for more from a solo debut, and his singular focus on the drug game has left plenty of room for growth. If he fails to meet those expectations going forward, who knows, he might still be dealing.


Top Dawg Entertainment - "2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards Cypher"

King Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and recent TDE signee Isaiah Rashad could probably level a city block based solely on the ability of their rapping alone. This cypher is a goddamn wrecking ball, and high fiving hasn't looked this good since Top Gun. BET should create a new award specifically to honor it. Kendrick Lamar has a couple of the year's best verses already and has two full months to round out the top five.

It's hard to imagine an emcee even attempting to match Kendrick's firepower at this point. We're one more diss track away from Drake releasing a full-length consisting entirely of his desperate sobbing.

Peep the shitty censored youtube embed, then go check it out at BET.com. Their video would appear in this space if it didn't refuse to autoplay in an enraging act of unrivaled stupidity.


 Eminem - "Rap God"

It’s fashionable to talk shit about Eminem, because when you grow up you put away childish things. Slim Shady is a reminder that you used to guffaw at a dude who made his money rapping about killing his wife and whoever occupied the top spot on Total Request Live. In spite of a few bright spots in his recent discography, Em hasn't done much to advance this conversation in the direction of credibility. “Berzerk” didn't do the job, and “Survival” sure as shit didn't help things. Is Eminem, as frequently cited, one of the best lyricists of all time or an emcee who got boring around the same time he got sober? “Rap God” does its best to convince us it’s the latter, and he spends over six minutes showing off his world-beating rhyming ability to great effect. If you’re flatly tired of his shit, you aren't going to like this track. But when you look at the hip hop landscape, with Drake at the top of the charts and Jay-Z falling way the hell off, this is maybe as good as it gets for rap’s elder statesmen. Good enough, in this case, ain’t bad.


Quelle Chris - "Loop Dreams"



Isaiah Rashad ft. Jay Rock & Schoolboy Q - "Shot U Down Remix"

 As a wholly owned subsidiary of Top Dawg Entertainment, Straight Dope is obligated to post about any new releases until Kendrick Lamar becomes so powerful he undergoes fusion and engulfs the globe in burning hellfire. He’s not even on this track, but that didn’t stop it from being dope to nth power. This remix pulls double duty, showcasing Isaiah Rashad’s preternatural rapping talents, while also showcasing Schoolboy Q’s ability to deeply hurt me by sneaking in an admission that we might not see Oxymoron until next year.



Archie Bang - "Apollo Creed"


Kathy Griffin terrifies me. I don’t know why this happened, but it will ruin your day. I could actually feel my lifeforce circling the drain the longer I watched it. Recommended for any diehard Lisa Lampanelli fans out there, it’s more or less twenty minutes of these two talking about their fictional-yet-no-less-disturbing sexual relationship. Always good to end on a high note.


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Straight Dope: October 14th


This interview with Eminem, supposedly his first, is one of the worst goddamn things I've ever seen. Can you imagine what type of human being he must have been in 1998? He obviously knows he's about to be famous, which is the only possible explanation for his decision to act like a caricature instead of an actual rapper. It's like he binged on a few seasons of Yo! MTV Raps and this was the most reasonable approximation of an emcee he could come up with. "This is real. I put my feelings on wax!" He's also wearing exactly the kind of thing a cop would put on to blend in, infiltrate the club, and taze the hell out of a drug dealer. Shit looks like a disguise. 1998 Slim Shady was a buffoon.

Shaquille O'Neal ft. ShaqIsDope - "Karate Chop"



Oh yeah, this is happening. Big Aristotle has returned to rapping. While Shaq was never very good at it, his massive size offering no clear advantage in the studio, that didn't stop his first record from going platinum. Shaq Diesel was followed by Shaq Fu: Da Return in 1994 with contributions from both Method Man and RZA, because the universe is random and unfair. His third release, You Can't Stop the Reign, even featured appearances by Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G in a hilarious mockery of established laws and traditions.

 Biggie Smalls is dead now, so you get Toronto rapper ShaqIsDope instead. I'm told he's a real person.

 Main Attrakionz - "International"

Oakland cloud rap geniuses Squadda B and MondreM.A.N. have a new mixtape set to drop this month, a collaboration with Sacramento producer Tynethys that promises to do something good to your earholes. Main Attrakionz last collaboration with Tynethys ended disastrously when their completed material was lost in a hard drive crash, likely an indicator that one of these dudes looks at weird stuff on the internet. Instead of re-recording the lost tape they decided to write a new one, an inspiring decision shrouded by terrible inefficiency.

 At just over two minutes in length, "International" is the fun sized candy bar of rap songs. If you haven't sampled Main Attrakionz yet, now seems like a pretty good time.

 James Blake ft. Chance The Rapper - "Life Round Here"

English OG and electronic music king of men James Blake has a fresh take on his single "Life Round Here" from the album Overgrowth released earlier in 2013. He's recruited Chance The Rapper for some hot rhyming action, and that's damn sensible. Chance is beating rap's ass like he just finished a video game and got to start over with all of his special abilities and inventory intact. There are few up-and-comers as promising as Chance, having been featured in XXL and Complex as a rapper deserving of your unwavering affection and eternal devotion. Probably.

I don't read XXL or Complex.

Pusha T ft. Future - "Pain"


Your weekly reminder that My Name is My Name is out now, going hard for hip hop album of the year.


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Straight Dope: September 9th


Boy, there’s just so much to talk about this week. Football is back, DMX has been wielding his penis in a threatening manner, R. Kelly’s got a release date for his new album (it’s November 11th), 2 Chainz is releasing a goddamn cookbook, and Lil Wayne sits down with Katie Couric again later this afternoon on daytime TV.

 RE: Lil Wayne and Miss Katie, I must confess to some seriously hardcore ambivalence. I think if you see Lil Wayne during the day you should get some kind of prize, or at least a handshake from a supportive father figure to remind you that life is tricky and it does get better. For a long time, I wasn't sure he actually existed. I thought of him as a type of ghost story a bunch of rappers would recite to each other as a cautionary tale with each emcee adding their own personal embellishments to try and scare the shit out of everyone in the room. Like, if the Scooby Doo gang were chasing Lil Wayne, they’d pull the rubber mask off and it’d have been Kanye the whole time.

 I eventually found out how wrong I was and had to come to terms with the concept of filthy rich adult men mixing prescription cough syrup with Sprite for recreational purposes. Remember when people would just get drunk as hell? On a more positive note, this is not the CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric of years ago. As her star continues to fall, we inch that much closer to these two eventually dropping a single together. Matt Lauer diss track? Matt Lauer diss track.

 Alright, let’s listen to some rap.

 Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - “Deeper”

 Freddie Gibbs really is the best rapper from Gary, Indiana. Deeper (the album) is the third collaboration between Mr. Gibbs and his presumptive BFF Madlib, and here you have a title track to pass through the canal of your ear directly into your brain. What happens next is up to you.

 Deeper (the album) comes out 9/14. Their next collaborative effort, Cocaine Piñata, is expected 2/14/14 with guest spots by everyone good.

 But really. A cocaine piñata. I just… Man.

Eminem - “Berzerk”

 And then Eminem came back on some vintage Slim Shady shit. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but it does make me feel like it’s 1999. I could do without the extended Kevin Federline diss, but Em more than makes up for it by insulting both Khloe Kardashian and her disturbed husband Lamar Odom. I know the song was recorded before Lamar Odom’s awesome drug use was made public, so yeah, I guess, suck it nerd. Shady got yo’ ass with that perfect timing.

 I never thought Khloe looked exceptionally terrible; however I learned a valuable lesson about how the public feels about her appearance when I told an ex-girlfriend I thought she kind of looked like her. I get that she’s clearly the Kardashian sister still in beta, by which I mean that someone did not work the bugs out before they released the software, but goddamn. Apparently she’s the Jack’s Links Beef Jerky Sasquatch and I had no idea.

 MMLP2 is out 10/5.


You only get two songs this week, because when I go on hiatus apparently so does the entire rap industry. You don’t want to hear Eddie Murphy’s new single with Snoop Lion, Weezy’s 29 song Dedication 5 mixtape, or Meek Mill’s soft as hell Kendrick Lamar diss track. During a national survey, 9 out of 10 Charmin bears chose Meek Mill’s track as their preferred toilet tissue over other leading brands.

By the way, did you hear about Kim Kardashian wanting to pose for Playboy again? Kanye West is reportedly enthusiastic about the prospect, and I don’t even have a punchline for this joke. I just really want his ego to lead him to take over the shoot, eventually throw out all the pictures of Kim, and become the first male entertainer with an issue of Playboy showcasing his nude body on every page.

You're next, Hov.

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Straight Dope: August 19th


Big Sean ft. Kendrick Lamar & Jay Electronica - "Control"

I'm usually homeboys with the same niggas I'm rhymin' with/But this is hip-hop and them niggas should know what time it is/And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale/Pusha T, Meak Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake/Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you niggas

Kendrick Lamar basically shit on everyone last week and took over the world with his extended verse on a Big Sean track that won't even make it to his album Hall of Fame. The official story is that clearance issues with the sample forced them to cut it, but if I were Big Sean and Kendrick Lamar put me on blast on my own song, I'd keep that shit as far away from my record as possible. The only reason he released it at all probably has as much to do with typical hip-hop hubris as it does with the dread hanging over him while considering what K-Dot might do if he threw it out.

Threatening to murder his peers (in a non-violent rap way) is just the tip of the iceberg, so terrible is Kendrick's fury. The entire song is a critique of modern hip-hop culture. Offer Kendrick pills and he'll pop you. No more designer clothes. No clubs. No pictures. No Instagram. We're not listening to a diss track, this is coliseum music. The emcees that should take the greatest offense to this song are the ones he didn't mention. Everyone else should step their game up.

Having his verse book-ended by Big Sean and Jay Electronica is a perfect illustration of that notion. Big Sean's bars are like the unskippable FBI warning on a DVD. Then you finally get Actual Rap Music and have to sit through the credits as read by Jay Electronica hoping your favorite character will pop up again at the end. When he doesn't you've officially listened to "Control" from start to finish for the last time. Jay Electronica's career might already be over. At this point, he doesn't even get a syllable out before I hit stop.

To date, a handful of emcees have released response tracks dissing Kendrick. They are mostly terrible but indicative of the current level of competition in hip-hop. Call yourself the King of New York when you're from Compton and people are going to get upset.

All the rappers mentioned by name in "Control" have remained silent.



Eminem ft. Liz Rodrigues - "Survival"

 Eminem is back with a new anthem to listen to while kicking open your ex-wife's front door. This is not the best song you'll hear all year, but believe me when I say that you will hear it. This has sporting event playoff banger written all over it. Even when Em is dropping irrelevant "ain't never gonna' stop me" radio hits, the man still has flow. Give it a listen but skip the hook.

Danny Brown - "Hand Stand"

New Danny Brown is new Danny Brown, even if it's a relatively low quality radio-rip of a song that would comfortably fit into a genre of music we can safely refer to as twerk rap. That is, music to twerk to.

We are still waiting for an official release date on Old, Brown's follow-up to the masterful XXX, but all signs indicate it happening in the future. Like all things do.


Earl Sweatshirt ft. Frank Ocean - "Sunday"

Young rap prodigy Earl Sweatshirt will at last debut Doris, his first album after returning from the foreign shores of Samoa, on August 20th. That's tomorrow. If the anticipation is corroding your flesh as though a delicate acidic mist is drifting through the corridors of your ancient castle by the sea, you can stream the entire thing over at the Odd Future Tumblr. And you should.

"Sunday" is a straight up relationship song and features fellow Odd Future world-beater Frank Ocean actually rapping, a secret talent he's been suppressing since he last spit on OF track "Oldie" a hundred years ago.



The next time you think about putting off writing the next great American novel or finally learning how to play the guitar, recall that Earl Sweatshirt is only 19 years old.

 And Kendrick Lamar is watching you.

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Listen to Shady 2.0 BET Cypher

We're a little late on this, but have you heard the Eminem-led Shady 2.0 BET Cypher, shown at the BET Awards on Oct. 11? If not, quickly press "play" on the video below. For rap purists, it's six straight verses of rhyming bliss over a minimalistic beat from Gang Starr's DJ Premier, featuring Eminem and his roster of Shady Records artists. Stealing the show is Slaughterhouse's Joe Budden, whose deft bars included lines such as these: "If they teachin' how to Dougie, I'm condonin' droppin' out," "I ain't Watchin' the Throne, I'm sabotagin' it," "You Super Mario thugs is in the wrong room, gotta figure here you won't get bigger if you on shrooms," and "I done took the wine outta Amy's house."

Budden's Slaughterhouse comrades - Joell Ortiz, Royce Da 5’9 and Crooked I - are all impressive as well, especially Royce Da 5'9, whose salutations to Rihanna had the crowd laughing. And Alabama's Yelawolf starts things off with a bang, bringing the energy with his fast flow and packing as many syllables into each bar as he can. But, of course, it's Eminem who provides the exclamation point at the end, showing everyone that even though his last couple of albums were disappointing, he still may be the greatest line-for-line rapper of all time. Try to follow the line about Posdnuos (of De La Soul) and a prostitute - I couldn't.

As Budden said in his rap, "I know hip hop's alive and well; if it dies, you other crews wouldn't survive the smell."



luke hammill
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