Reader Review: Cam'ron - S.D.E. (September 19, 2000)

(Today's Reader Review finds Taylor discovering an album that I honestly would never have bothered with, Cam'ron's second effort S.D.E.  At least somebody got around to it, I guess. Leave some comments for Taylor below.)

In 2000, Cameron Giles released his sophomore effort, S.D.E. (which stands for Sports, Drugs, & Entertainment), to the masses, selling enough copies to instantly go quadruple aluminum. After his original label home, Undeas Entertainment, went under (apparently taking Charli Baltimore's career along with it), Cam'ron was shifted to parent company Epic, where he managed to release this lone project before cutting ties with the corporate offices in favor of Damon Dash's Roc-A-Fella crew (which is when the whole fucking Diplomat (or DipSet, if you prefer) movement started up officially).

S.D.E. is supposed to be Cam'ron's so-called “hard” album, a response to the critics who felt that his debut, Confessions of Fire, made too many concessions to the mainstream as a way of guaranteeing higher sales figures (see: “Horse & Carriage”). In fact, the only reason I even took notice of it in the bargain bin of my local Best Buy is because of his menacing look on the album cover: Cam'ron made me believe that, whether I bought S.D.E. or not, he would kick me in the balls and have sex with my girlfriend. And yet I bought this album anyway.

S.D.E. is the last Cam'ron album on which he actually tried to come across as an emcee; his subsequent efforts (on Roc-A-Fella Records and elsewhere) would see him adopting a newer, odd flow that is simultaneously slow, deep, and in double-time, and it seems as though he hasn't been able to evolve any further. Not that his fans really minded: according to Wikipedia, S.D.E. reached as high as number fourteen on the Billboard 200 (hitting number two on the R&B/ Hip Hop Albums chart upon its release) and had three relatively popular singles. However, I hadn't ever heard anything from S.D.E., and I never gave it another thought, at least until I saw it in the bargain bin.

So anyway, I bought this S.D.E., brought it home, and popped it in the CD player. Let's see if it sounds decent nearly eleven years after its initial release date.

1. FUCK YOU

This rap album intro uses the exact same beat from a similarly-named track from Confessions of Fire. Cam'ron appears to be fucking everything on his block, at least until the track devolves into a bunch of girls having an argument with our host. Like all other rap album intros, this is useless as shit.

2. THAT'S ME (FEAT. KEISHA “HONEY” CARGILL)

The instrumental (produced by Self, whoever he is) is suspenseful with its use of horns and drums, but it is ultimately wasted on Cam'ron, who simply brags about how his life is so horrible. Some of the jokes he cracks are humorous, though. This track claims to house a guest appearance from some artist I've never heard of, but all I could hear her do was moan, which makes her cameo the most ridiculous guest contribution since Jamie Foxx on Kanye West's “Gold Digger”.

3. WHATEVER

Darrell “Digga” Branch crafted most of the beats on S.D.E., including this one. His piano over the instrumental sounds oddly familiar, but it grows annoying fairly quickly. I didn't pay much attention to Cameron's lyrics, but I am able to make one observation: he sure does love to rap about how he's living the rich, fast life, and in a generic fashion, too. “Whatever” does seem to include one of the first occurences of the phrase “DipSet” in his overall catalog, so...whatever.

4. DO IT AGAIN (FEAT. JIM JONES & DESTINY'S CHILD) (chk)

I'm surprised that this pop trifle was never released as a single: since it featured Destiny's Child (but really just Beyonce) singing on the chorus about crime and shit, it would have been a number one hit back in 2000. Cameron's lyrics are decent, but not so much that he deserves anything but a pass. The song also claims to feature pseudo weed carrier Jim Jones, but I swear I couldn't hear him anywhere on here.

5. COME KILL ME

The instrumental is as suspenseful as a horror movie, but maybe it was too successful, since it ultimately distracts you from Cameron's lyrics, which I ultimately didn't understand but can tell you that they don't seem to have anything to do with his death or dying.

6. WHAT I GOTTA LIVE FOR

This Middle Eastern-styled Digga beat is energetic, though it also distracts a bit from the lyrics. (This may be a running theme throughout S.D.E.) After a dramatic intro, Cam'ron drops some lines about what goes on in his hood and even something about his life and what he has to live for, so that was nice.

7. VIOLENCE (FEAT. OL' DIRTY BASTARD)

Cam'ron was one of the few non-Wu rappers to record a song with Ol' Dirty Bastard before he turned into a recluse and ultimately passed away. (Strangely enough, they both ended up signed with Damon Dash's vision of Roc-A-Fella Records, but Osirus died before anything could ever come of it, and the Jay-Z decided that his own personal concept of Roc-A-Fella was better, which is why Cameron remains loyal to Dame to this day.) This Digga instrumental manages to invoke the feeling of a living nightmare, so that was interesting. Ol' Dirty Bastard and Cam'ron actually sound mad as hell (as though they won't take it anymore), but Cam'ron only sounds like he's yelling just because the mood calls for it. ODB obviously feels more at home here, delivering an interesting verse, but Cam'ron quickly reappears to hijack his own song back, so the good moments are few and far between.

8. SKIT

...

9. FREAK

The other radio friendly song on S.D.E. This Trackmasters-produced excursion sounds out of place on an album with its persistent violent tone: this beat sounds like something Will Smith would have rhymed over. Skip this song and forget that this bullshit even exists.

10. DOUBLE UP (FEAT. JUELZ SANTANA)

The beat is ominously dark, but also ominously boring. The track didn't grab my attention like it should have, especially since it apparently introduced fellow Diplomat Juelz Santana to the hip hop game (as if anybody cares at this point). Luckily, I was able to wake up before the next song started.

11. LOSIN' WEIGHT (FEAT. PRODIGY)

Possibly the best song on S.D.E. Cam'ron sounds fully comfortable with this Digga beat, which will hook you instantly with its melancholy piano keys. Prodigy (from Mobb Deep, although I feel that I shouldn't have to remind you two anymore) sounds alright, but he definitely could have taken his verse to a whole another level: instead, he just brags about himself. (So he sounds just as disappointing as he does today? Got it.) Cam'ron spits some pretty good verses, though, so this is a song that you might want to listen to again.

12. SPORTS, DRUGS & ENTERTAINMENT

On this title track (which finally attempts to justify the album's goofy name), Cam'ron spins a tale from his real life that is fairly compelling but the (otherwise decent) Ron G beat feels occasionally too peppy at times, which kind of ruins the mood. Otherwise, this was a really good song, and not because it uses vocal samples from both Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G. (the former of which is ultimately wasted).

13. WHAT MEANS THE WORLD TO YOU (FEAT. KEEMA)

The third single from S.D.E. samples The Police's “Roxanne”, proving that it isn't just fifty-year-old men who podcast out of their cottages who are fans of Sting's early work: a twenty-year-old (at the time) drug dealer-slash-rapper can also be into it. The beat (as chopped by Armando Colon) is okay, but it can become repetitive and dull at times. Cam'ron and his weed carrier Keema speed rap for your listening pleasure, but since they both seem to be co-opting that particular style for style as opposed to substance, they don't rap about anything remotely interesting. This is one of those songs that you'll want to listen to once and then never again: I'm surprised at how its fans are able to tolerate it. (And there's a remix of this track, too, featuring, of all people, Ludacris, Trina, UGK, and Juelz Santana. Maybe Cam'ron figured that getting a mixture of different voices would distract hip hop heads from the grating instrumental. And this criticism is coming from a guy who unabashedly loves 1980s music, mind you.)

14. ALL THE CHICKENS (FEAT. JUELZ SANTANA)

The sample at the beginning of the song suggests awesomeness, but then the track turns into some outright boring shit. I believe that Cam'ron and his weed carrier Juelz Santana spit some verses, but I dozed off for most of the song's running time, so I can't really comment on that.

15. FUCK YOU AT (FEAT. NOREAGA)

This song ultimately does not invoke feelings of fear. The beat is fairly minimalistic in scope, consisting of drums, chicks and occasional piano keys used to mix things up a bit. However, both artists don't give it their all: Cam'ron resorts to coasting while Noreaga comes across as how I imagine a headache sounds. Reach for the skip button, folks.

16. WHY NO (FEAT. FREEKEY ZEKEY & JIM JONES)

The list of features on this track suggests that two of the original DipSet weed carriers make appearances on here, but Freekey Zekey only spouts random shit while Jim Jones is once again M.I.A. While Cameron provides some decent verses, the beat itself has no personality, so there is no reason for anybody to ever recommend this song. It seems like these three treated this recording session as a regular lazy day at work, performing the absolute bare minimum in order to get paid (and receive future royalties, if S.D.E. was a hit).

17. WHERE I'M FROM (FEAT. DUTCH & SPADE)

This collaboration was actually pretty good. The instrumental was dark and moody, allowing Cameron and his invited guests (and Undeas labelmates) Dutch and Spade to spit out verses that keep you hooked, even though their bars aren't as great as they could have been. Still, I liked this track.

18. LET ME KNOW

This first single from S.D.E. samples the theme from Monday Night Football (and may also be the inspiration for the “sports” portion of the album title, for all I know), which sounds okay at first, but becomes annoying pretty quickly. I don't understand why only the last section of the theme song was used, while the rest was untouched: anybody with a synthesizer could recreate that sound, so there was no need to sample anything. Cam'ron sounds both angry and re-energized, but the instrumental is the track's downfall.

19. MY HOOD (FEAT. JIM JONES)

Strangely enough, the second single released from S.D.E. is also the final song on the album. Dame Grease, who handled most of the better tracks from DMX's debut It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, brings us a poppy beat that sounds custom-built for radio consumption, which seems out of character for him. Cam'ron drops some verses about his hood, which is appropriate, and his weed carrier only performs the chorus (but at least he actually shows up this time). For some reason, “My Hood” only appears as a censored version on S.D.E.; even future pressings have not bothered to fix this error, which makes this a very disappointing way to end the album.

THE LAST WORD: Though Cam'ron has managed to throw away much of the trappings from the Confessions of Fire era, he still comes up short on S.D.E. Although a good number of these songs are enjoyable enough, the album as a whole fails to live up to the expectations that I had after looking at the threatening cover art. Cam'ron's pre-Come Home With Me flow makes him sound as though he was coasting, and Digga's beats (along with the other handful of producers who contributed) range from amazing to flat-out boring. I have to give credit to guest stars Ol' Dirty Bastard (R.I.P.), Prodigy, and Dutch & Spade for at least trying on S.D.E. I'm sure that most Diplomat stans hold S.D.E. in high regard as a classic album, but for everybody else out there, this was just decent. Not good, and not horrible, but decent. S.D.E. has a few good songs, but as a whole it just isn't worth your hard-earned money.

-Taylor

(Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.)

My Gut Reaction: Keith Murray - Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop) (July 31, 2007)

Keith Murray is not a subtle guy.  If he doesn't care for your music, he's likely to punch you in the mouth or hit you over the head with a bar stool, coastal alliances be damned.  If he doesn't like how you're marketing his album, he'll assault the street team while they sit in their offices in the label's own building.  And if he doesn't like your review...well, I'd imagine that he would probably go after the critics, too.  Not that any of this behavior is rational or justified, of course, but it's important to know where we stand.

After having been dropped by Def Jam Records for assaulting their marketing department, who failed to do a good enough job pushing his lone Def Jam release, He's Keith Murray, onto the paying masses, Keith Murray found himself, briefly, without a label to call home.  Due to his violent temper, he was no longer welcome at any of the majors: how he skirted past multiple potential assault and battery charges by simply accepting his resignation remains a mystery to me to this day.  Despite these setbacks, Murray felt that he still had something to offer the world of hip hop music, presenting the few fans that remained after He's Keith Murray tanked with a mixtape, Kickin' Ass Inc. Vol. 1, which featured his rants alongside those of his Legion of Doom team.

Somehow, that mixtape, which isn't very well-known in Blogland, was well-enough received that the Koch graveyard came calling, bringing a contract and several spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy's over with them.  Murray quickly signed up, considering that this was probably the last corporation that would dare do business with him at this point, and he set about recording what ended up being his fifth full-length release, the ridiculously-titled Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop).

Now at this point, most rap critics were declaring Keith Murray's career as all but dead in the water.  His anger issues (which he claims don't exist) had continued to get the best of him, and he alienated damn near everyone that had ever considered working with him.  (This includes his former coworkers at both Def Jam and Jive Records, who released his first three albums: you may recall Britney Spears, also signed to Jive, once petitioning for Keith Murray's release from prison simply because the label wanted to show solidarity to their comrade.) 

Luckily, Keith Murray had an ace in the hole: he was still an original member of the Def Squad, which mainly consisted of himself, Erick Sermon, and Redman.  So no matter what, at least he could count on his boys to come through with some beats and rhymes, and come through they did: Sermon actually produced the majority of the songs on Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop), and the album features the obligatory Def Squad collaborative track that fans have looked out for with each subsequent release.  He also still had his friends in L.O.D., who stuck by his side through thick, thin, and back to thick again, and he still had enough charisma to convince a couple of bigger names to extend a greeting.

The other think working in Keith's favor was the fact that he is a genuinely good emcee.  Ever since he made his debut on Erick Sermon's "Hostile" back in 1993, he's been wowing audiences with his wordplay and lyrics that are twisted up just like the tip of a blunt.  Throughout all of the strife, he hadn't lost his edge in his writing: it's just his beat selections that suffered greatly whenever he tried to branch out, such as on He's Keith Murray.

I never cared to listen to anything else in Murray's long and storied career, but Dag Diligent's write-up on the Canibus/Murray collaboration EP a few months ago sparked my interest enough to hunt this down.  So is Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop) (an anxiety that I'm sure isn't currently cataloged) good enough to warrant a Keith Murray revival?  I'm not sure yet: I just barely finished up my opening paragraphs.

1. WALK UP (SKIT) (FEAT. TONE CAPONE)

Tricking consumers by not calling your rap album intro an “intro” is actually worse, Keith.

2. DA FUCKERY

Well, the title is both funny and apropos, and the chorus uses the phrase “Back up off of me and sit your ass down”, so there was potential for this track to not suck all that much. But Erick Sermon's beat creeps by like a reluctant hitman, one who has been hired to do one last job but is suffering from an existential crisis, so Keith's lyrics (which include some half-assed story about how he “had” to leave Def Jam Records because his immediate superiors moved on to better things – yeah, I'm sure attacking the marketing department had nothing to do with your “departure”) sound flat and pointless, turning the title into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This isn't good.

3. WEEBLE WOBBLE (FEAT. ERICK SERMON)

I'm pretty sure the stupid-ass title (which also lends itself to a shitty hook) was chosen only to draw attention to the sheer audacity of Keith Murray, as he twists a jingle for a children's toy into a hip hop hook, because this song actually works: this track was pretty good. In fact, this is the best Murray performance I've heard since his verses on Def Squad's El Niño. Sermon's beat is a simple loop, but Keith doesn't let the party die down, spitting clever bar after clever bar and proving that he can still captivate his audience using only his words. Nice move, Murray. Things are looking up.

4. DON'T FUCK WIT EM

Keith Murray apparently doesn't trust anybody, if this Mike City-produced track is to be believed. He's even smart enough to include himself in that classification, lest he sound too judgmental. Luckily, Keith doesn't fuck with the beat (he doesn't trust that, either): he rides it with ease, and the entire song is more focused than his previous two albums. I guess he's been fucked over a lot in his lifetime. Well, boo hoo, Keith: we've all been there. You're not special.  This wasn't bad, though.

5. I LOVE IT WHEN IT RAINS (SKIT)

…

6. U AIN'T NOBODY (FEAT. DEF SQUAD)

The obligatory Def Squad collaboration, which is also the first song that every single hip hop head reading this write-up skipped to when they picked up or downloaded Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop). (And if someone tells you otherwise, they're lying to your face. Are you going to take that shit from them? Huh?) Unfortunately, if Erick Sermon's lackluster verse (and beat) is any indication, this holy trinity has grown weary of this mortal coil. Keith sounds okay, and Reggie Noble tries his hardest to inject some energy into his verse, but this will never be counted among the Def Squad's finest work. So I guess we won't be seeing that second group album. Sigh.

7. DO

Do you think that every single crack dealer in the United States is an aspiring “rapper”? What about those folks that peddle crystal meth? Do they all want to be Emmy award-winning actors who portray high school chemistry teachers? It's a cliché that has grown beyond old at this point, but Keith manages to insert some levity into what is really a dark path to follow, once again giving listeners insight into how his synapses fire, and his attention to detail is what makes this track work, because it sure as fuck wasn't the Sermon beat of the overused soul samples as the “hook”.

8. NOBODY DO IT BETTER (FEAT. TYRESE & JUNIOR)

Keith spits lyrics that attempt to ape his debut album and ends up sounding like the guy who released It's A Beautiful Thing, but that isn't the problem I'm having with the song. The beat sounds like it was intended for a love rap (which I truly hope Keith doesn't attempt later on the album...wait, I just jinxed myself, didn't I? Shit!), and the presence of Baby Boy's Tyrese on the hook only seems to solidify that notion, as he crams unnecessary R&B into what was supposed to be a show of dominance. This was a weird mutation of a song.

9. HUSTLE ON

Producer Shuko lends Keith a strange amalgam of reggae and Southern bounce music (think Juvenile's “Ha”) that poses as an instrumental, and to my amazement, our host actually tries to rap over it. And here I was hoping that he had been undergoing treatment for his tin ear for beats under Koch's employee health care plan. Fuck.

10. WHATMAKEAN---ATHINKDAT (FEAT. LIL' JAMAL)

The artist formerly known as Mally G makes a return to the spotlight alongside his Def Squad coworker (I had completely forgotten that Jamal was part of the crew, but be honest with yourselves, you did the same thing). It's too bad that Keith couldn't have scored him a spot on “U Ain't Nobody”, because at least that Def Squad reunion made sense, and it had Redman on it. This song was barely passable.

11. WHAT IT IS (FEAT. METHOD MAN & 50 GRAND)

I can only assume that Method Man pops up on this track as a favor to Reggie Noble, because this isn't the most natural collaboration otherwise. E-Double's beat sounds like one of the weaker offerings from Meth's 4:21...The Day After, and Keith never sounds quite sure how to handle it, while Method Man sticks with the cameo thing, so he never really needed to commit in the first place. 50 Grand, Keith's weed carrier, actually benefits from rhyming alongside both of these veterans, as he turns in one of his better performances, so at least some good came from this unlikely marriage.

12. WE RIDIN' (FEAT. L.O.D.)

Keith Murray has been showing love to his L.O.D. crew ever since Erick Sermon's “Hostile” way back in 1993, so I have to give him credit for his consistency and loyalty. He even graciously steps aside and allows his crew to have this entire song to themselves (save for the intro and the hook). Sermon's beat is a simple loop that sounded alright at first, but got more and more annoying as it went along, and by the time the nineteenth member of the Legion of Doom made his way to the microphone, I was worn out. But 50 Grand and Kel Vicious (the first and second guys to perform, respectively) sounded alright.

13. DA BEEF MURRAY SHOW (SKIT)

What a wasted opportunity. Keith Murray could have directly addressed his tendency to start needless fights with other rappers, or maybe even have made fun of himself for doing the same. Instead, we get an uninspired and unnecessary skit.

14. NEVER DID SHIT (FEAT. UNIQUE)

This song was pretty stupid. Keith Murray and Unique, who sounds like a cross between Hurricane G and Eve except after having been hit by a truck and suffering irreversible brain damage, engage in a boring battle of the sexes that hits all of the same points as every single other rap song that approaches this type of material. You're on an indie label now, Keith: you don't have to do this kind of shit anymore.

15. SOMETHING LIKE A MODEL (FEAT. JUNIOR)

While I thought it was funny that the song kicks off with an unexpected Beastie Boys reference, this track is what I jinxed myself with earlier: a Keith Murray song for the ladies. Is it bad that I was left wanting to warn any possible female love interest for our host to duck? Yeah, I know, I thought I had gotten all of the “Keith Murray has obvious anger issues” jokes out of my system. But here we are.

16. LATE NIGHT (FEAT. L.O.D., BOSIE, MING BOLLA, & RYZE)

Our host ends Rap-Murr-Phobla (Fear Of Real Hip Hop) with a dark hypothetical tale about what happens to folks who make fun of Keith Murray's obvious anger issues. Alongside his trusty weed carriers, Keith proceeds to torture a snitch, but the session goes awry, and they have to dispose of the body in pieces scattered throughout the city, in case you're a potential serial killer and were looking to a rap album, for some reason, for tips. It goes without saying that this was the most bizarre way I've heard a rap album end in quite some time. It could be argued that the entire track was a metaphor about how Keith feels about music critics or fair-weather fans. But at least he sounded at home on here.

THE LAST WORD: So can this career be saved? Not with Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop), that's for sure: there's an awful lot of bullshit to sift through, hampering the entertainment value. But, surprisingly, Keith Murray may still be deserving of a second act. The handful of good songs on Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop) are actually really good, and his lyrical dexterity sounds refreshing when compared to most of the artists who are popular today. The production is mostly boring (am I the only guy who feels that Erick Sermon should just fucking retire already? Anyone? Bueller?), but Rap-Murr-Phobia (Fear Of Real Hip Hop) proves that, had he been accompanied by better musical backing, Keith Murray is still capable of making you listen to his every thought. This album isn't very good, so you shouldn't waste your time with it, but t hat doesn't mean that you should count Keith out just yet. Which was not the expectation I had when I found this album. Weird.

-Max

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My Gut Reaction: Saigon - The Greatest Story Never Told (February 15, 2011)

On occasion, hip hop will throw audiences a curveball.  Collaborations that are destined to suck will actually turn out pretty great, artists will morph into entirely different versions of themselves, and albums that have been shelved until further notice will actually be released to stores.  Today's post is about one of those albums.

Brian Carenard's debut album, The Greatest Story Never Told, was first announced via cave drawing, the noise of which resulted in the messenger being stomped to death by a woolly mammoth.  The artist currently known as Saigon, who was working off of a massive buzz caused by the success of his many mixtapes, began the recording process during the fall of Rome, laying down tracks during the discovery of the Americas with his producer, former Roc-A-Fella employee Just Blaze, who has carved quite a niche for himself in our chosen genre after his label home imploded.

Between World Wars, Saigon completed The Greatest Story Never Told for Atlantic Records, his major label home since the Renaissance.  Just Blaze, who acted as executive producer, roped in a few of his production peers, including Buckwild and his former coworker Kanye West, to assist on the musical side, while Brian flipped through his newly-filled Rolodex to stack the odds in his favor with guest stars ranging from Q-Tip to Jay-Z.  The album was mastered and ready for release, but Atlantic Records had cold feet, and the project was put on an indefinite hiatus.

Saigon posted a blog on his MySpace (which is a true indicator of hos old this project is) complaining about Atlantic Records, inadvertently insulting his producer in the process.  Just Blaze responded via his own blog, insinuating that sample clearances were holding up the album's release, but it turns out that he was either lying or just trying to piss off Brian: Atlantic Records soon dropped Saigon from their roster entirely.  The Greatest Story Never Told was destined to be one of those projects that grew to mythical proportions in the minds of hip hop heads, leaving us to wonder what might have been while secretly hoping that someone would raid the vaults and just leak the fucking thing.

Things took a strange turn in 2008 when Just Blaze announced that he and Saigon were allowed to have the masters to The Greatest Story Never Told as a condition of his release, allowing him to take the project wherever he wanted.  While courting offers from other labels, Saigon released what accidentally ended up being his debut record, the Statik Selektah stunt All In A Day's Work, which was recorded within the span of a single day; this was met with mostly positive feedback.  In the meantime, Just Blaze was unhappy with the offers on the table, so he ultimately decided to create his own label, Fort Knocks Entertainment, and quickly signed Brian to a deal which would guarantee the eventual release of The Greatest Story Never Told.  And on February 15, 2011, the album hit store shelves, three thousand seven hundred and three years to the day of its original scheduled release date.

Was The Greatest Story Never Told worth the prolonged wait, or have audience expectations doomed the project to fail before it even starts to play?  Has the incredibly long delay given Saigon an opportunity to tweak his debut album for the better?  And does this mean that Dr. Dre's Detox might actually fucking see the light of day?  Some questions have no answers: these are not those questions.

1.  STATION IDENTIFICATION (INTRO) (FEAT. FATMAN SCOOP)

Fatman Scoop's line, "This party is so exclusive that you don't even have to go to the party" reminded me of Chris Rock talking about the club that not even air could get into in Pootie Tang.  So that made me chuckle.  But the rest of this rap album intro was motherfucking useless.  The audience had to wait forever for this shit?

2.  THE INVITATION (FEAT. Q-TIP)

I suppose the shitty intro leads into "The Invitation", so it isn't entirely without use, but I still found it to be pretty terrible.  This song is the shit, though.  Saigon rides Just Blaze's beat as though he were on a mission to let everyone know that the British are coming, and Justin feeds him an instrumental that serves as a perfect way to introduce him to the masses.  Q-Tip only really provides the chorus, but he does so in a way that invokes A Tribe Called Quest's "Jazz (We've Got)" (from The Low End Theory), not exactly connecting the past with the present, but serving as a valid endorsement regardless.  Flourishes aside, "The Invitation" is Saigon's show and the reason why he should no longer be known as just Turtle's former artist on Entourage.  This shit was nice.

3.  COME ON BABY (FEAT. JAY-Z & SWIZZ BEATZ)

This song, originally labeled as a remix of the original, Shawn Carter-less version of the same track, has been available for quite a while now, so it's a bit surprising that it still managed to find a home on the final mastered version of The Greatest Story Never Told.  Then again, it does include a guest verse from Jay-Z, which can only help with the album's sales prospects.  So it's too bad that Hova doesn't sound very good on here: not only is he a mismatch with Just Blaze's otherwise interesting beat (which he often is, as I have mentioned before), it's fairly obvious that his contribution was a throwaway on which he doesn't even pretend that he was working with or for Saigon.  The inclusion of Swizz Beatz was also questionable, as it always is, so that wasn't a shock.  But Saigon sounded invested in his work, and as such, he comes off as much more interesting than the hip hop veteran and the other guy on here.

4.  WAR

This sort-of instrumental interlude serves as an overlong intro for the next track.

5.  BRING ME DOWN, PT. 2

This Just Blaze-slash-DJ Corbett instrumental uses guitar-driven force to drive home the fact that Saigon is being set up as an artist who isn't going anywhere anytime soon: hell, this track could even fill the radio slot currently occupied by B.o.B., thanks to its mainstream sound (why do rap songs have to sound like rock songs in order to go "mainstream"?) and the positive message (during the chorus, at least).  For his part, Saigon sounds like a fully-formed rapper that already knows which direction he is headed in: all of those years pushing his mixtapes appear to have paid off.  I'm not usually a fan of when an artist includes a sequel or a remix to a song on an album on which the original isn't also included (I think the original "Bring Me Down" was from one of his mixtapes or the original version of The Greatest Story Never Told, and also on a specific retailer-exclusive bonus disc version of this album that I don't have, but I don't know Saigiddy's work well enough to find out), but I still found this to be pretty fucking catchy.  (Shortly after this album leaked to the Interweb, Saigon unleashed "Bring Me Down, Pt. 3", his hatchet-burying track with former foe Joe Budden.  Man, that guy knows how to rack up enemies in our chosen genre, doesn't he?  Do you think Royce da 5'9" and Crooked I get annoyed every time he opens his mouth, because they're more than likely going to have to fight his battles for him?)

6.  ENEMIES

Saigon's two verses over this D. Allen production are dealt with a heavy hand: his metaphor for the streets not really being your friend smacks you in the back of the head with its bluntness.  Also, the hook, which Saigon decided to sort-of sing for some reason, is on the weak side.  But otherwise, this song was a pretty interesting cautionary tale.  Our host isn't talking about anything new, especially when it comes to hip hop, but he makes "Enemies" sound fresh with his unique phrasings and attention to detail, and that is very much appreciated.

7.  FRIENDS

If you found the previous song to be a bit too subtle, Brian brings listeners a quick follow-up that hammers his message home: the streets don't fucking like you, and they will kill you as soon as they get the chance, and they will use you and replace you in the blink of an eye, and also, the streets will steal your wallet and fuck your girlfriend, and it will probably taste your cooking and say it likes it, but then quietly spit it into your trash can while your back is turned.  Truthfully, the fact that Saigon has now devoted two consecutive tracks to this concept leads me to believe that he doesn't have any faith that his audience will understand his point of view, which is more than a little bit condescending.  At least this shit lasts for only one verse.

8.  THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD

This title track should sound like a personal anthem for Saigon, but instead it limps along like a man with a bad leg and a broken dick.  Our host's verses sound decent enough, but I couldn't get behind the other elements of the song: Just Blaze's instrumental sounds like a Memphis Bleek reject (although I will admit that the scratching at the end nearly changed my mind), and the hook is really fucking stupid, as though Brian was simply filling in the gaps so that he could go back and lay down a proper chorus later, but then ran out of time before The Greatest Story Never Told was mastered.  Dude, you've had several years to clean up this project.  What gives?

9.  CLAP (FEAT. FAITH EVANS)

I heard this song on the radio the other day, but while it's accessible enough to fill the airwaves, "Clap" still works within the context of The Greatest Story Never Told.  Just Blaze's beat on here is catchy as fuck: our host should have used this shit for his title track.  For his part, Saigon doesn't water himself down for mainstream acceptance, and as a result, this song sounds fucking good.  Including Faith Evans on the hook was a questionable decision, though, as she wasn't even a relevant artist when "Clap" was originally recorded some thirty-odd years ago.  Ending the song with an overlong skit that leads into the next track was unnecessary, even though I laughed at the "Usher Raymond" line; you'll know what I'm talking about when you listen to it the one time.

10.   PREACHER (FEAT. LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS)

Saigiddy sounds like a more loquacious Curtis Jackson on this diatribe against crooked preachers, those who are "extorting us on the weekends".  A valid point, one our host makes without talking shit about any specific religion: he's attacking only the people who are supposedly there to guide us.  Collecting money from the parish and then using it to make a car payment?  We've all seen that shit, even if you don't go to church.  Just Blaze's beat reminded me of Kanye West's work on The Game's "Dreams", so this took me a bit longer to get into, but our host's verses ultimately won me over.

11.  IT'S ALRIGHT (FEAT. MARSHA AMBROSIUS)

Speaking of Kanye, he obviously produced this track well before his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy revamp, as it sounds like one of those generic soulful beats that he used to sell to the highest bidder in order to make his own car payments.  Everything about this track sounds like it was recycled from a much better source: Saigon's rhymes sound so plain that you couldn't pick them out of a lineup even if they robbed you in broad daylight (although, admittedly, the part about political prisoners at the end added a bit of spice), and the Marsha Ambrosius hook seems to have been imported from an entirely different song.  Nothing to see here, folks: move it along.

12.  BELIEVE IT

The 1980s synth sounds at the end of "It's Alright" lead into this particular song rather beautifully.  Just Blaze handles the beat while a T-Pain impersonation fills the hook (and not awfully, which was a surprise), and Saigon commits to his battle against adversity and complacency.  Adding to the anachronistic sound of the track is The Yardfather's reference to T.I.'s previous prison sentence (the one that was a result of Clifford trying to purchase assault weapons or some shit), but fuck it, I really enjoyed this shit anyway.  All of these skits on The Greatest Story Never Told are pissing me off, though.

13.  GIVE IT TO ME (FEAT. RAHEEM DEVAUGHN)

The song was ridiculous in and of itself: Saigon spends the entire running time hitting on chicks and demanding pussy in return for the briefest amount of affection known to mankind, and guest crooner Raheem DeVaughn sings along as though this type of behavior is perfectly acceptable (and not illegal in the least bit) in today's culture.  So I didn't care for this all that much.  The skit at the very end, though, shocked the shit out of me, as our host has apparently convinced Snoop Dogg to ease up his iron grip on the fictional WBALLS radio station.  That short interlude took me all the way back to fucking 1993. 

14.  WHAT THE LOVERS DO (FEAT. DEVIN THE DUDE)

This was pretty much the same song as "Give It To Me", except Saigon is focusing all of his attention on just one woman who won't sleep with him, as opposed to almost-raping numerous chicks at the club.  Instead of respecting her wishes and appreciating what she will do for him (up to and including giving him head), he goes the brutally honest route and complains about everything (at one point he even mentions that he wants to hit her father with his car because he was so successful in teaching her the discipline and self-control that she is exhibiting), and he comes off as a bit of a whiny bitch.  Still, this song wasn't entirely unfunny, even though stoner general Devin the Dude is completely underused in his role as the guy who sings the hook.

15.  BETTER WAY (FEAT. LAYZIE BONE)

A horrible misfire in any era.  Saigon takes the reflective route but sounds about as sincere as a talking head on Fox News, as he risks losing his entire fucking audience over an error in judgment.  Just Blaze's piano-heavy instrumental sounds more adult contemporary than edgy, so much so that it's hard to give a damn about our host's struggles.  And it has to be said: who in the fuck approved of a Layzie Bone chorus?  Is Saigon trying to be ironic by reaching out to a rapper who hasn't been popular since the late 1990s?  This song was just a fucking mess, and it has no place on any album, let alone this one.

16.  OH YEAH (OUR BABIES)

Saigon uses the made-up word "homocitical" in order to rhyme a line about how children are becoming murderous bastards with the word "pitiful".  Which probably tells you all you need to know about this track.  With the previous track and now this shit, it has become blatantly obvious that Saigon only thrives over high-energy beats that facilitate an immense amount of shit-talking, as these slower songs force him to become serious, which isn't a good look for him.  I'm all for artists adding new things to their bag of tricks, but not if the resulting music is boring as shit.  Oh well.  The bullshit at the end with the record skipping was also unnecessary.

17.  AND THE WINNER IS... (FEAT. BUN B)

This was strange.  I understand that this song was a late addition to The Greatest Story Never Told, but I was expecting an all-new track: instead, what I seem to have is a remix of "Enemies" (with a slightly different beat, if I'm not mistaken), one that starts halfway through the program, with an additional verse of Bun B that is of no consequence, tweaked to pretend that this is a "live" performance at an awards show.  The song ends with some light applause, a brief skit, a twist ending that is depressing as fuck, and then a long stretch of dead air.  (Maybe that's just on my copy.)  This was an incredibly bad way to end an album.  Doesn't Saigon have people around to help him avoid fucking up this badly?

The following is a bonus track that isn't listed on the back of the CD case for The Greatest Story Never Told, although it is listed on iTunes, and its guest appearance is advertised on the sticker affixed to the front cover.

18.  TOO LONG (FEAT. BLACK THOUGHT)

Black Thought (of The Roots, the Money Making Jam Boys, and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon fame) sure seems to be making the rounds with his once-infrequent cameo appearances: first Ghostface Killah and now Saigon (who he had already worked alongside on "Criminal" from Rising Down).  Black Thought is one of my favorite rappers, so this should be considered a good development, but this late addition to the program is meh at best.  Thought sounds as good as he possibly can over DJ Corbett's plodding instrumental, but Saigiddy loses steam and turns in a poor performance. 

THE LAST WORD:  I'm happy that Saigon's debut album The Greatest Story Never Told has finally been released, just because he'll no longer be known as a hip hop punchline with that self-fulfilling prophecy of an album title.  It helps that the man has obvious talent behind the mic, and this has earned him a lot of fans within the industry.  However, The Greatest Story Never Told is far from perfect.  The first half of the album is pretty fucking entertaining, I will admit, with Saigon's bars keeping the audience engaged while his beatsmiths (mainly Just Blaze) do what they do best.  But the second half (save for "Believe It") fumbles the ball, and the multiple ill-advised skits run the project into the fucking ground.  The back end of The Greatest Story Never Told is boring as fuck.  The front end, however, was worth the long delay, and is almost good enough to override the project's faults.  In short, The Greatest Story Never Told is an alright album with enough bangers to keep you interested, but it is far from one of the best albums of 2011 thus far.  It helps if you have zero expectations going in to it.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

Saigon & Statik Selektah  - All In A Day's Work

Ice Cube - Lethal Injection (December 7, 1993)

(Editor's note: Some of you two may remember this review as having erroneously been posted for a short time in December. Well, what you actually saw was an incomplete edit that I was still working on. However, the only part of the write-up I was still tweaking was the introduction: the actual track-by-track review is exactly the same as it was on the “original” version. So for the two of you who think this is a rerun, it isn't, but you're not completely crazy. Enjoy!)

Recently, while waiting for the rest of his party at the bar of a midscale restaurant in Los Angeles, rapper Ice Cube was asked by one of the other patrons what it was like to have fallen the fuck off in the music industry, why he believed that his new family-friendly persona had any right to exist, and how it felt to know that, no matter what he did, he would never make as much of a cultural impact as he did back in the early 1990s. A drink was thrown, security was quickly called to action, and I was promptly thrown out of that establishment.

O'Shea Jackson's fourth solo album, Lethal Injection, is generally seen as the point when the man's career in hip hop began to implode. Ice Cube's Jheri curl was long gone at this point: many of his fans point to the loss of that particular hairstyle as the reason why his lyrics faded in potency. However, that isn't truly the case: after his acclaimed work with West Coast gangsta rap forefathers N.W.A. and the runaway success of his controversial solo debut, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, he changed his look and tried his best to retain the political rhymes that made him a critical darling, if a bit of a divisive one.

Lethal Injection is the first Ice Cube album to focus almost exclusively on gangsta rap, both the violent facets and the rewards, as evidenced by the G-Funk influences on the project, almost certainly a result of the success stemming from former rhyme partner Dr. Dre's The Chronic a year prior. He doesn't stray far from serious subjects, though: Lethal Injection covers racism and religion with equal fervor. But he also doesn't exclusively focus on them, either: it's safe to say that a song such as "Bop Gun (One Nation)" probably turned the majority of his older fans away, since positive messages and odes to parties aren't what hip hop heads look for when they look in O'Shea's general direction.

Unsurprisingly, Lethal Injection took a pounding from music critics, and Cube took a break from rhyming afterward, deciding to focus instead on his blossoming film career. (Judging from the sheer amount of success he has had in that particular media, it's clear that he made the right choice.) This project still had a fair number of hit records (two of which, the aforementioned "Bop Gun (One Nation)" and "You Know How We Do It", garnered regular airplay on MTV, which was still something of an anomaly back in 1993), but most hip hop heads casually dismiss this effort as easily as they would a marathon of Two and a Half Men or yet another Tea Party rally.

1. THE SHOT (INTRO)

A useless rap album intro that doubles as a passive racist statement? Oh fuck, this album is going to suck.

2. REALLY DOE

After a brief snippet from the film American Me, we get to the actual song. The beat (from Lay Law and Derrick McDowell) is really fucking good, and it mixes in a Slick Rick vocal sample with ease, but O'Shea takes up too much of the listener's time with a useless intro that leads nowhere. He may as well have been reading his grocery list. When he finally decides to grace our ears with some actual verses, you'll quickly notice that his flow has been tamed by the trappings of success, both in the music industry and in Hollywood. He comes off as alright on “Really Doe”, but this just cannot compare to his first two full-length albums or even his N.W.A. contributions. Apparently this track was also a single, but I don't remember it ever getting any burn on the radio around my way.

3. GHETTO BIRD

O'Shea's ode to police helicopters has a truly funky QDIII instrumental as its support, but Cube's socio-political stance has waned throughout the years, and his delivery suffers: there are so many blank spots during the bars themselves that you one could drive Cube's Impala effortlessly between the words and parallel park the motherfucker, too. This being a rap song, of course this story ends with O'Shea somehow scoring some ass while being chased by modern aviation technology. While the beat is banging, the song itself is pitiful.

4. YOU KNOW HOW WE DO IT

Back in 1993, I really liked this smooth declaration of Ice Cube's victory over his opponents, but in listening to it again today, there appears to be a soul missing. QDIII's beat doesn't need to exert any sort of dominance, as O'Shea attempts to do so himself, but while his lyrics sound better on here than they did on “Really Doe” and “Ghetto Bird”, this is still indicative of Cube's new direction in his career, one in which he feels that he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone and spouts lazy gangsta threats just to fill the time between family-friendly film roles. Sigh.

5. CAVE BITCH

Ice Cube resorts to his old trick of trying to piss off an entire race by declaring white women (who universally have “stringy hair and no derrière”, apparently) inferior to...well, just about any woman of color. The overt hatred prevalent on this track may have been a representation of how O'Shea felt back in 1993, but when compared to his anger against other groups, he doesn't have much of a case: he seems to hate white women for solely superficial reasons. Given that there are a bunch of white women today who now do actually have more curvaceous bodies, do you think Cube has reversed his stance yet? This song was ridiculous.

6. BOP GUN (ONE NATION) (FEAT. GEORGE CLINTON)

This song is actually over eleven minutes long, unlike the edited version Cube shot a video for: I don't think anybody was ready to see Cube dance at a house party for that long. The length of the track is supposed to pay homage to guest star George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic roots. The music on here is easily the most mainstream that O'Shea has rhymed over thus far, and it's also the most obvious nod to the G-Funk that was taking over the West Coast's rap scene at the time (although calling it P-Funk would probably be more accurate). The song itself is alright, I suppose: there's nothing threatening about it, but one grows weary of it around the seventh minute, since Cube is the only guy spitting sporadic verses. This track might have worked better with the assistance of several guests. Back when the video used to play all the time on BET and MTV, I laughed every time at Cube referencing the year the single was released (1994) versus the year Lethal Injection dropped (1993); it's not the funniest joke in the world or anything, but the level of self-awareness is amusing. I also wanted to show appreciation to the chick in the red and white-striped bikini who dances in the video. This review could have used more of her.

7. WHAT CAN I DO?

O'Shea's story, detailing his own drowning in a sea of crime without any way to escape, sounds like it was performed by a completely different rapper. It's certainly not a bad story, though: it isn't as good as his past work, but you share Cube's frustration with the limitations of his life, the pressures of his surroundings, and the restrictions of the system. The 88 X Unit beat isn't very helpful, though: it makes “What Can I Do?” sound like a melodrama airing on Lifetime than the character study it actually is. Most Cube fans will be more familiar with its remix, which I will discuss when I get to Bootlegs & B-Sides. The skit at the end of this track is also an understated commentary on using religion as a crutch, which was nicely played.

8. LIL ASS GEE

I've owned Lethal Injection for about seventeen years now (fuck, I feel old), and I'm still more familiar with the remix to this track, too. (Probably because Cube shot a video for the remixed version, but I'm not judging.) Cube inhabits another persona to describe the life and motivations of a child entering the fun and prosperous world of gangbanging. The beat is funky, but not a good match for the subject matter: it sounds like it wants to be played in the background of a house party that the titular character would attend after committing his twentieth drive-by and winning a free toaster for his troubles. O'Shea suffers from a strain of Ras Kass syndrome on here. Oh well.

9. MAKE IT RUFF, MAKE IT SMOOTH (FEAT. K-DEE)

Ice Cube, who refers to himself as “Chocolate Thunder” on this song (which tells you everything you need to know about this song straight away), if only fooling himself if he really thinks that Lethal Injection is “devoid of pop”. This K-Dee-featured track, which is supposed to be about how much they love to make sweet love fuck anonymous bitches, devolves into a festival of boasting (most of which comes from the guest, who O'Shea even makes fun of during the first verse) and complaining about the music industry. Because there's nothing that will get a woman's panties dropping faster than bitching about how the label wants you to record a radio-friendly single. Talk about losing your way in the forest.

10. DOWN FOR WHATEVER

This sounds nothing like an Ice Cube song, but for once, that trait is its main strength. O'Shea slows his roll down to a crawl, riding the beat like a drunk driver white-knuckling the steering wheel, trying his best to not draw attention to himself as he swerves between lanes and runs stop signs. The instrumental, from Madness 4 Real (a great producer name, by the way), fucking bangs, but Cube's performance is damn near laughable: in his quest to move as many units as possible, he's forgotten his roots, running with a drawl that somehow moves even more slowly than the lackadaisical beat. Here's the thing, though: I kind of like this song. Cube rides that fine line between serious and self-parody, but the important thing is that he never crosses it, so it's easy to enjoy his performance, especially if you think of him as an actor first and not a rapper at this point. I still think that the beat should have gone to someone more deserving, but it is what it is. This track was also hilariously used on the soundtrack to the Mike Judge classic Office Space.

11. ENEMY

For one track only, Ice Cube unearths his political views and attacks his enemies over this East Coast-sounding Madness 4 Real production. (Okay, now that producer name is getting annoying.) He sounds more comfortable on here than he has on all of Lethal Injection, perhaps because he's actually saying something worth hearing, as opposed to lazily proclaiming that he's the king of the West Coast without any real justification to back it up. This is the first song on Lethal Injection where both the beat and the lyrics mesh well: I wonder if O'Shea's return to a East-ish beat had anything to do with that.

12. WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN

After revisiting the skit from earlier (and changing the point of the original entirely), O'Shea goes after organized religion in a much calmer manner than one would expect, considering that countries have declared wars over this bullshit. The Brian G beat is weak and almost causes the track to fall apart on more than one occasion, but Cube opines in an effective manner, hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel, and essentially trading roles with the guy from the skits. This was a relatively thoughtful way to end the evening.

There's also a reissued version of Lethal Injection that includes some additional remixes.  I don't have that version, so I can't really say much about it.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Although a couple of the songs serve as flashbacks to a simpler time in the career of O'Shea Jackson, Lethal Injection mostly blows donkey dick. Ice Cube aims for the cheap seats, embracing G-Funk and discarding any of his personal opinions, making one of the most generic gangsta rap albums in existence. A few of the instrumentals are really fucking good, but Cube tries to alter his public persona to that of a seasoned veteran (which he kind of was, admittedly) with nothing more to prove, but he doesn't earn those accolades on here: not for nothing is Lethal Injection widely known as the first album in Cube's catalog on which our host started to drift away. Can't say I blame him, though: I get bored of hip hop too, at times. But it is a shame that the guy who recorded AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted also managed to record this shit, instead of simply gracefully bowing out and focusing on his successful movie career. And I haven't even really gotten to his later output yet (except for Laugh Now, Cry Later, which makes Lethal Injection sound like Liquid Swords). Groan.

BUY OR BURN? A burn is sufficient. Ice Cube apologists will be far more lenient than I am, but I was sorely disappointed during this revisit, as Lethal Injection doesn't really hold up.

BEST TRACKS: “Enemy”; and “Down For Whatever”, depending on my mood, I suppose

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

Why, yes, I've written more about Ice Cube. Why do you ask?

Max's List: Nine Completely Random Hip Hop Collaborations (At Least One Of Which Is Fucking Awful)

I'm taking a short break from album write-ups to post another one of these articles that you two love so fucking much. Today, I'm focusing on rappers who wandered out of their respective comfort zones and collaborated with acts in music genres not really related to hip hop or R&B. As hip hop has slowly become the defining voice of a generation, it makes sense that our favorite artists would try to take over the world by venturing out: this is probably the reason why the radio hits of today sound like you're tripping balls in a German nightclub.

The following list, which is in no particular order, was compiled using the following criteria: (1) No Wu-Tang collaborations (that will probably make a lot of you two very happy); (2) No tracks from the Judgment Night soundtrack (as that could fill an entire list all by itself); and (3) No songs taken from N.A.S.A.'s The Spirit Of Apollo (see number two).

In no way is this meant to be a definitive list: there are lots of collaborations that I didn't include or simply forgot about, so you can mention some of those in the comments below. Of what I did list, some of the following tracks are really good, some of them are of questionable quality, and at least one of them is really fucking terrible. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

THE PRODIGY FEAT. KOOL KEITH - “DIESEL POWER”

“Kool” Keith Thornton has never been picky when it comes to working with other artists: for a guy who has marketed himself as an insane deviant who loves pornography and mating animals of different species, he sure does have a lot of fucking friends in the music industry. Clearly, his non-sequiturs translate well over any type of instrumental backing. At least British electronica outfit The Prodigy thought so; after sampling Keith's vocals for their hit “Smack My Bitch Up”, they called upon the man himself to drop a few verses over a pounding beat that is among the best Thornton has performed over throughout his solo career (Keith has never had a great ear for beats; his work with The Automator and Kutmasta Kurt should be considered flukes at this point). Actually, The Prodigy's album The Fat Of The Land still holds up pretty well today. How many electronica albums can you say that about?

R.E.M. FEAT. KRS-ONE - “RADIO SONG”

The opening track from R.E.M.'s Out Of Time wasn't even aiming for street credibility, so it's a mystery why anybody thought this pairing was a good idea. (The fact that the group even shot a video for it is even more mystifying.) The Blastmaster embarrasses himself without even really saying all that much: everything he says sounds like a background ad-lib, so it took me a while to realize that he was attempting to string together a verse toward the end. Sometimes hip hop should be admired from afar, guys.

MATT & KIM FEAT. DE LA SOUL - “DAYLIGHT (TROUBLEMAKERS REMIX)”

Matt & Kim's current hit “Cameras” is one of the best Duran Duran songs that they never recorded, but “Daylight” isn't nearly as catchy. Adding De La Soul to the recipe doesn't make it taste any better, but hey, at least the members of De La are steadily receiving paychecks, so good for them. Apparently this remix is featured on the soundtrack of FIFA 10, but I don't care enough to find out why.

DEEE-LITE FEAT. Q-TIP - “GROOVE IS IN THE HEART”

A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip has worked alongside a ton of artists throughout his storied career, including Prince, R.E.M., and Norah Jones; the man has even co-written a song with Elvis Costello, for fuck's sake. All of this is on top of his already numerous hip hop contributions. But the strangest (and catchiest) collaboration in his catalog has always been, and will always be, “Groove Is In The Heart”, the lone hit from the group Deee-Lite (which also features a guest spot from Bootsy Collins) that still gets spun at 1990s flashback parties today. The kaleidoscopic video is still headache-inducing, but the music still holds up. I like this song so much that it visibly upsets me when radio stations play the censored version (read: the radio edit without the rap, as Q-Tip doesn't say anything remotely offensive on here). Because the young ears of America need to be protected from a member of the fucking Native Tongues, you see.

DAVID BOWIE FEAT. ICE CUBE - “I'M AFRAID OF AMERICANS (V3)”

I can honestly say that I'm not really sure what David Bowie was going for on here. If he's trying to scare his audience into thinking that everyone in the United States sounds as aggressive as O'Shea Jackson, then he failed: Cube's distorted vocals sound less like a nightmare and more like bronchitis. Then again, our country is now forced to recognize the existence of the uneducated masses in the Tea Party, so maybe Ziggy Stardust was on to something. One of the other remixes of this track featured Nine Inch Nails; after that one, Bowie should have left well enough alone.

TIME ZONE (AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & JOHN LYDON) – “WORLD DESTRUCTION”

Probably my favorite song on this list. Afrika Bambaataa takes a day off from the Soulsonic Force to coerce some hyper-political commentary from John Lydon (of Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. fame), and the result is a depressing-as-fuck song that you can dance to (thanks in part to producer Bill Laswell's work). This rap/punk hybrid still gets spun whenever I'm able to make it out to my favorite new wave club, so I guess it could be argued that I can never really escape from hip hop, even when I actively try.

CHRISTINA AGUILERA FEAT. REDMAN - “DIRRRTY”

To be fair, Reggie Noble isn't really outside of his wheelhouse on here. The track was produced by his homeboy (and part-time gardener) Rockwilder, and the song itself was heavily influenced by his own “Let's Get Dirty”, also produced by Rockwilder; Christina says so herself in the fucking song. So it's more like Redman forced his host to adapt to his needs. The first time I heard this shit on the radio, it felt like my ears were vomiting onto my brain, it was that bad. Today, it still doesn't sound great, but that doesn't matter: the main reason this song made the list is because of Christina's now-infamous assless chaps. Just put the video on mute and watch.

TIN TIN OUT FEAT. EMMA BUNTON - “WHAT I AM (GANG STARR REMIX)”

UK duo Tin Tin Out had already recorded Emma Bunton, formerly known as Baby Spice from the Spice Girls, covering Edie Brickell & New Bohemians' “What I Am”, but for shits and giggles (I'm assuming), they thought it would be funny to get DJ Premier to remix their hard work. Surprisingly, he accepted their offer, and he brought the late Guru (R.I.P.) with him for insurance, resulting in this piece of strange. Primo does what he can with the chopped-up samples, but there isn't a way to save this track. One positive taken away from this: you can now use this information to win bets at your favorite bar. Although, in a perfect world, you wouldn't even know this shit exists. You're welcome.

COLDPLAY FEAT. JAY-Z - “LOST+”

The original version of “Lost!” (from the album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends) is a really good track that, surprisingly, didn't become as big a hit as it should have. (The piano version, entitled “Lost?”, is even better.) So it wasn't that big of a shock that Chris Martin (Mr. Gwenyth Paltrow, not DJ Premier) and company looked toward our chosen genre for a remix. Since he had Jay-Z, Swizz Beatz, and Kanye West on speed-dial, he opted for the one who would generate the most interest, and what he received was a Hova performance that recycles his vocals from “Most Kingz” but still fits with the track (which appears on the Prospekt's March EP) seamlessly. Then again, I'm a fan of Shawn Carter, so you were probably expecting me to say that. It is what it is.

L.F.O. FEAT. M.O.P. - “LIFE IS GOOD”

Holy fuck, this song is bad. The Lyte Funky Ones, a pop band who started out life as a hip hop outfit, as if that excuses the mere existence of this track, were apparently paired up with Brownsville's Mash Out Posse as an inside joke (I'm assuming); there had to have been a point when the producers of "Life Is Good" thought it would be hi-larious to pair up one acronymed band with another. (I'm surprised that they showed restraint and didn't choose to name the fucking song “L.M.F.O.O.P.” or some shit.) Lil' Fame and Billy Danze must have had a light bill due that week or something, as I can't come up with any other excuse for them to have popped up on here. “Life Is Good” is the Troll 2 of music.

-Max