[louder]

New Ab-Soul single/video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphiZ2tcTv0

[louder]

6 new albums this Friday (Dec 9th):

J. Cole
Ab-Soul
Neil Young
Dec 99th (Yasiin Bey & Ferrari Sheppard)
Post Malone
Hodgy Beats

[louder]

So.. Cole's album is a letdown in my opinion. Extremely boring and not as good as his last one. Production wise it's about the same sounds all over again, however this time he's more focused on a storyline, but the songs themselves just aren't as catchy and memorable. Also I prayed for him to stop "singing" after 2014 FHD but it didn't happen.

[Rob Instigator]

A$ap Ferg and Yachty got this new track, Terminator, which I dig and have been blasting from the car sound system..... https://soundcloud.com/demovoboyz/li...d-by-maaly-raw

[louder]

Lloyd's little EP is my favorite thing that came out today.

"Tru" is one of the best R&B songs of the year..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rG6y-NKrHU

[Severian]

Haha louder says Cole's album sucks. I believe it. Whatever. Probably won't bother to listen. So many of these artists are just broken records. Same shit, different timestamp. Special/different is incredibly rare in hip-hop these days.

[louder]

Musically, he didn't evolve at all. Content wise, he basically tells a generic love story with a ghetto twist.. a guy who wants to commit suicide, but his life is saved when he meets a girl and they fall in love and have a daughter. And then he implies that it's bad to be a thug. Alright Cole, but don't we know that already? Tribe told us. Kanye told us. Lupe told us. Kendrick released an entire album about it just a few years ago.. shit, even YOU made a song about it on your last album. We get it.

[louder]

There's also a song about how much he loves to fold his lady's clothes (literally titled "Foldin' Clothes"), which is meant to break gender stereotypes I guess. And he talks about Netflix and Almond milk on it. Yawn.

[louder]

I don't know, like 90% of the album is just forgettable stuff that puts me to sleep. One song is literally spoken word over violins and baby crying sounds. I know a lot of dumbasses out there are gonna talk about how "relatable" Cole is to the average person and give him credit for coming at Kanye, but at this point I just see him as a poor man's Chance (who is a protege of.. you know).

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

I don't know, like 90% of the album is just forgettable stuff that puts me to sleep. One song is literally spoken word over violins and baby crying sounds. I know a lot of dumbasses out there are gonna talk about how "relatable" Cole is to the average person and give him credit for coming at Kanye, but at this point I just see him as a poor man's Chance (who is a protege of.. you know).

I'm absolutely loving how much you're referencing Kanye today brother. Loving the shit out of it.

Here's the fucking deal: Kanye's got issues, nobody can argue with that. But his knowledge of and ability to embrace his issues and flaunt both his extreme positives and negatives are what make him TRULY relatable to the people who give him a chance, and those who love Kanye love Kanye ferociously. J. Cole, like most people, wants to present himself as "woke" and evolved, but it's Kanye's understanding of the fact that neither he nor anyone else will ever be fully "woke" or perfect that make him so relevant.

Well, that and his ability to chop the fuck out of genres and make music with a life force all its own, separate from Black Lives Matter or any fixed point in time.
He makes daring and ugly and terrifying and beautiful and glorious and fucked up music, period. J. Cole can't compete. He, like Drake, is trying to be cool AF, and is giving up his edge by playing the cucumber.

Chance gets that vulnerability and humanity are what make artists truly relatable. If you're gonna try to be a lyrical mtherfucker you'd better have chops like Kendrick, who's the only person pulling off full blown lyrical rap-rap in a wholly successful way (love to Common, but he doesn't seem to have the people's attention anymore).

So yeah, you can master the Everyman angle and become a Dylan or a Kendrick, or you master the meta-picture and become a Kanye or a Beatles, or you can zero in on the emotional volatility of a moment and be a Nirvana, or you can throw it all out the window and be a Bowie or a Prince. All these roads can, if done right, lead to memorable, potent, lasting populace music. But you can't succeed if you're mediocre, and I'm afraid Cole is pretty goddamn mediocre.

I liked 2014 Forest, but man... he's been on this or that dude's coattails for his entire career. I think it's too late for him to truly blow up now. Fuck him anyway.

[louder]

On a side note, Mos forgot to drop his album.. welp.

[pepper_green]

Originally Posted by Severian

I'm absolutely loving how much you're referencing Kanye today brother. Loving the shit out of it.

Here's the fucking deal: Kanye's got issues, nobody can argue with that. But his knowledge of and ability to embrace his issues and flaunt both his extreme positives and negatives are what make him TRULY relatable to the people who give him a chance, and those who love Kanye love Kanye ferociously. J. Cole, like most people, wants to present himself as "woke" and evolved, but it's Kanye's understanding of the fact that neither he nor anyone else will ever be fully "woke" or perfect that make him so relevant.

Well, that and his ability to chop the fuck out of genres and make music with a life force all its own, separate from Black Lives Matter or any fixed point in time.
He makes daring and ugly and terrifying and beautiful and glorious and fucked up music, period. J. Cole can't compete. He, like Drake, is trying to be cool AF, and is giving up his edge by playing the cucumber.

Chance gets that vulnerability and humanity are what make artists truly relatable. If you're gonna try to be a lyrical mtherfucker you'd better have chops like Kendrick, who's the only person pulling off full blown lyrical rap-rap in a wholly successful way (love to Common, but he doesn't seem to have the people's attention anymore).

So yeah, you can master the Everyman angle and become a Dylan or a Kendrick, or you master the meta-picture and become a Kanye or a Beatles, or you can zero in on the emotional volatility of a moment and be a Nirvana, or you can throw it all out the window and be a Bowie or a Prince. All these roads can, if done right, lead to memorable, potent, lasting populace music. But you can't succeed if you're mediocre, and I'm afraid Cole is pretty goddamn mediocre.

I liked 2014 Forest, but man... he's been on this or that dude's coattails for his entire career. I think it's too late for him to truly blow up now. Fuck him anyway.

but at the same time yr a totally dick about it while having total humility about it it all? If I was a a hip hop reviewer and saw this bullshit I would think "like mi god, yr gross and should die and/or get yr ass kicked!".

Sev. you talk a lot of shit, you know that?

[pepper_green]

Originally Posted by Severian

On the upside, Kanye's all over the Rap awards. He's going up against himself in two categories, and is at least featured on a track when he isn't nominated. Chance got a ton of love as well, as did ScHoolboy Q. Drake got way too much love for the worst album he's ever made.

Funnily, the "Best Rap Performance" version of "Pop Style" is the fucking one with the Kanye and Jay appearances! You know, the features Drake removed from the album version of the tracks after the world unanimously declared that Ye made Drake his bitch on his own track!!

Anyway... lookie:



I do this every ear. Bitch about Grammys. Whatever. Not important.

who give's a fuck about a goddamn grammy. throw a molotov cocktail in their face!

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

On a side note, Mos forgot to drop his album.. welp.

I noticed. What the heck happened? Not references to its delay anywhere. In fact, one article (questionable source) implied that he was releasing not one but theee albums before year's end. Don't believe it, but I still wanted to hear December 99th.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by pepper_green

but at the same time yr a totally dick about it while having total humility about it it all? If I was a a hip hop reviewer and saw this bullshit I would think "like mi god, yr gross and should die and/or get yr ass kicked!".

Sev. you talk a lot of shit, you know that?

Good thing I'm not a hip-hop reviewer. Good thing you're not either.

And are you saying I'm a total dick about it while having humility about it or that Kanye is? If it's the former, then... Huh? And if it's the latter, then... uh... Yah, of course.

And sure I talk shit.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

I noticed. What the heck happened? Not references to its delay anywhere. In fact, one article (questionable source) implied that he was releasing not one but theee albums before year's end. Don't believe it, but I still wanted to hear December 99th.

Yeah. Good to have Q-Tip back. But we still need Mos. We need DOOM. We need 3 Stacks. We need Jay-Z and Nas.. the game ain't the same without all these people.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

Yeah. Good to have Q-Tip back. But we still need Mos. We need DOOM. We need 3 Stacks. We need Jay-Z and Nas.. the game ain't the same without all these people.

I think Jay's working on a new album. But it has to be some crazy good shit if it's going to be his swan song.

[Severian]

Wow. I'm very surprised to see that Kanye has has topped Pitchfork's 100 Best Songs of 2016 list with "Ultralight Beam."

I totally wasn't expecting that. Not at all. It crossed my mind that "Real Friends" might rank pretty high (and it did, kinda... No. 14, not bad) but I'd never thought of "ULB" as this kind of track, and I didn't think anyone else did either.

Cool though.

[Severian]

Also, I thought of Rob's abject disdain for Kanye's "THat Part" verse when I read this: (full disclosure, I skimmed the list for artists I liked and only read the full reviews for the Kanye songs. Ha.)

Originally Posted by Some 'Fork contributor

At first Kanye almost seems to be mocking the transactional nature of guest verses here, filling an alarming number of bars with the word “OK”—you can almost imagine Schoolboy’s face sinking when he heard it for the first time. It’s a fake-out, though. Soon Kanye is feeding off the energy of his fellow hothead, firing off some of his most memorable zingers of the year (“Rich n*gga, still eatin’ catfish/That bitch ain’t really bad, that’s a catfish”). And in what could be an apology for all those “OKs,” he even throws in a wild, half-improvised walk-off verse where he brags about having Scottie Pippen at his wedding and comes this close to making a Ray J reference but stops short, just to fuck with people. Never let it be said that when you pay for a Kanye verse.

Hah. Yeah, his verse starts out pretty lame, but he pulls it off.

[Rob Instigator]

rhyming catfish with catfish. how "genius"

 

I guess he did NOT get the bleach on his t-shirt......