|
 |
Browse Bands by Name
|
|
Or enter a band name below to search:
|
 Bands Main
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
— by Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes and Hillary Crosley
MC: Sean Price
Representing: Brooklyn
LP: Monkey Barz
411: This is not actually a mixtape, ladies and gentlemen. Monkey Barz is an indie solo album by one half of the group Heltah Skeltah. Well at least they were a group until they broke up a few years ago, but let's live in the moment. What matters is that with Monkey Barz (out May 31), Sean P (who you may have heard on a remix of Destiny's Child's "Girl") has done what nobody really thought he could do: He's brought that feeling when everyone was rocking a backpack (no one dared wear a Louis Vuitton, though — JanSport, son!) and matching Starter jackets and caps (first you twist the cap, then you bend the cap).
If you don't know (or don't remember), Heltah Skeltah were an integral part of the Buckshot-led Boot Camp Clik, who at their pinnacle were one of rap's most formidable collectives — and even had their own special movement.
Monkey Barz is out May 31.
Joints To Check For:
- "Fake Neptune" featuring Buckshot, Steele and Louieville. The Boot Camp Clik drop a posse record where they mix and match styles with spiky lyrics — the way they did back in the early and mid-'90s.
- "Peep My Words." You have to love Sean Price's priceless honesty. On the album he proclaims to be a "broke rapper" and even admits that he fell off a little bit: "Listen to my old sh--, they be like, 'Damn they hot'/ 'What happened to them ni--as?'/ Be like, 'Damn they flopped.' Word?"
- "Jail Sh--" featuring Rock. Ah man. Somebody cue the violins, because Sean P is killing us. He brings back his partner, the "Rockness Monster," for a Heltah Skeltah reunion. You might get caught up in the murky disco beat, so keep your rewind finger strong.
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- DJ Rampage's Listen N Learn Vol.1
- The Evil Empire's Be South: Episode III - Revenge of the South
- DJ Silva Sirfa's Clash of the Titans
- DJ E. Nyce's Prince of the Roc featuring Peedi Crakk
- "Hieroglyphics Live: Full Circle Tour" (DVD)
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- "Hey Baby" by Prodigy
- "Something You Should Know" by Jadakiss and Jaheim
- "They Say" remix by Common featuring Consequence and Kanye West
- "Dear Summer" (official version) by Jay-Z
- "Gimme That" by Lil' Webbie featuring Bun B
- What the F--- Is Y'all Talking About" by Sheek Louch
Celebrity Faves
Larenz Tate loves to listen to music by one of his "Crash" co-stars, but he's not feeling the radio or all the shouting out on the mixtapes. "I bump a lot of Ludacris now," he said. "I like Luda a lot. I'm bumping all his stuff. I have to stop listening to what's on the radio. They recycling the same sh--. A lot of people on these mixtapes are doing the same thing Clue was doing. It's a lot of reverb, they shouting out they homies. It's a promotion thing, which is cool, but I don't have a favorite mixtape. They all kinda the same, they have the same format."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
It's no secret that Rap-A-Lot's J. Prince is the Godfather of the South, and his sphere of influence is pretty much adhered to by everybody. So when Prince felt things were getting out of hand between T.I. and Lil' Flip following their street fight a few weeks back, Prince acted as a mediator between the two and helped them settle their differences (see "T.I. Squashes His Beef With Lil' Flip, Plans To Serve 25 To Life").
"I do a lot of business with Lil' J. — that's my homie," Flip said. "We didn't really want to make it no big publicity thing, so I'mma be short with words on that, but [J. Prince] made it happen. That's how it went down."
Afeni Shakur praised both Flip and T.I. for the truce, and Flip says he's ready to move on and get back to solely concentrating on making hit records.
"That's a big step, 'cause a lot of rap beefs don't get squashed," Flip revealed. "You have so many people — people that don't even rap — making the situation worse. But at the end of the day, we're trying to make our money and feed our family. So he said what he said, I said what I had to say, and we gonna keep getting this money and move on."
Flip is finishing his next double LP, I Need Mine, and is putting out a blitzkrieg of material to set it off.
"I been involved in a lot of controversy, so I said, 'I gotta come back extra, extra hard,' " Flip explained. "So I put out three singles. My little radio song is called 'How Many Chicks.' It's like a club banger. I got a record I did for the streets called 'I'm a Warrior.' Then I got a strip-club anthem. ... This album is mainly me. The whole first disc I'm spitting by myself, and I put the features on disc two."
Besides his new crew — Eightball, MJG and Z-Ro from Squad Up (you may remember them from Lil' Wayne mixtapes) — Flip also wants to feature Ghostface on one of the songs. Flip produced four of the records himself and also has six tracks from the Three 6 Mafia. ...
Last week we told you about the imminent return of Now Rule's own Grand Puba. This week, there's another MC from Puba's era also mounting a comeback: Boss. The female MC from Detroit put out her only LP in 1992, the critically lauded Born Gangstaz.
A myriad of things kept Boss from making another album until now. She had beef with her lawyer, management and record label. She gave up the game and became a radio personality in Dallas for a while. And then things took a turn for the worse: Her kidneys began to fail. Last year the condition forced Boss to have an operation.
"Now I got me a transplant — I'm like the 'Six Million Dollar' bitch," she laughed. "I'm good as new. I'm swimming laps, jogging, sprinting against n---as in the street, kicking their ass."
Boss said she's starting her own label, 8055, with DJ Def Jeff who will be producing tracks on her album as well. Boss is getting ready to move from Texas to Los Angeles and hopes to collaborate with the likes of Eminem and Dr. Dre. In the meantime, she will soon be dropping her first street CD, Heat: The Mixtape.
"That bubble gum sh--, that commercial sh-- — that's a little too common," she said. "We need to change the game."
And Boss has more than enough material to usher in that change. "I have never missed a day of writing," she revealed. "My house is a fire hazard; there's too many papers around here."
For more on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out the feature "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."
|
|
|
|
Photo: MTV News
|
|
|
|
