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Fire Starters: Reefa
Blaze one! That's what New York producer Reefa thinks about when he steps in the studio — he's trying to make each track his own personal towering inferno. Last year he came with the absolute hardest track of 2006, the Game's "It's Okay (One Blood)." Just last week, he helped another mic menace, Beanie Sigel, make Internet headlines with the song "Creep Low." The soundscape for that one provides Sig a bottom-heavy acidic hop to slam opponents with. Although Reefa has been dishing out his beats in small, potent doses for now, he does have three tracks on the upcoming Fabolous album From Nothin' to Somethin', including "Gangsta" with Junior Reid. That one is a problem.
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Mixtape Monday: Nas Gets Prezidential; Swizz Beatz The Hospital; C-N-N Reunite ... Again
— By Shaheem Reid
Artists: KRS-One and Marley Marl
Representing: The foundation of rap
Independent Album: Hip Hop Lives
411: "You can't sound like Shan or the one Marley/ 'Cause Shan and Marley Marl, man, they ... picking up the mic and they don't know what to say."
With those bars from the track "The Bridge Is Over" — featured on 1987's Criminal Minded — KRS and Boogie Down Productions won the battle of the boroughs against MC Shan and Marley Marl's still-forming Juice Crew and helped solidify himself as one of the earlier rhyme-fight champs in rap.
Obviously hip-hop grew beyond belief, and with the culture becoming so huge globally, everyone quickly learned that competing over which borough was the best wasn't a big-picture approach.
More than two decades after BDP and the Juice Crew were at odds, KRS-One is in the record books as one of the best to ever do it on the mic. And with his classic catalog of records — with everyone from Biz Markie to Big Daddy Kane to LL Cool J to Lords of the Underground — Marley Marl is one of the dopest producers ever.
After all this time, the two elder statesmen have joined forces to bring us Hip-Hop Lives. Two points to prove here: one, that hip-hop is in fact still alive; and two, that they can still do it. Marley produced the entire project and the Blastmaster concocted all the raps.
Joints To Check For:
- "Kill a Rapper." A rapper talking about killing rappers, only this time it's not metaphorical or delusional. KRS is outraged that just about all the murders of prominent hip-hop personalities — from Biggie to Tupac to his own beloved mentor, Scott La Rock — have gone unsolved. "You want to get away with murder? Kill a rapper. The investigation won't go further," he says on the chorus. "It seems like when a rapper dies it don't matter," he fumed. "Crimes don't seem to be solved when it's one of us."
- "I Was There." KRS-One makes sure no one can question his hip-hop credentials after this one. He talks about witnessing pivotal musical and political moments, from Nelson Mandela speaking at Yankee Stadium to the first televised Source Awards (which sparked the Death Row/ Bad Boy feud) to way back when New York radio station Hot 97 was started. "I am hip-hop itself because I was there," he proclaimed.
- "The Victory" (featuring Blaq Poet). The stories that must have been told when this session was taking place. DJ Premier adds scratches and up-and-coming Blaq Poet from Queens, New York, gets in on the action. You can almost imagine the Teacha standing in a b-boy pose in the booth as he raps lines from the record. "From the time I stepped in the game/ Kris been clear about his rep and his name/ If you believe in peace then we believe in the same/ If you think I'm a whore, man, you must be insane/ I'm war in reverse, like Big Daddy Kane. Raw!"
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- Nu World Hustle - Power in Numbers
- DJ Lil Raskal - Raskal Radio
- DJ Bedz & Whoo Kid - Mile High Shadyville
- DJ Jack Da Rippa - Street Cinema 11
- DJ 151 - The Quarterly
- DJ Babe - The Cook-Up 12
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- Keyshia Cole - "Let It Go" (featuring Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott)
- Kanye West - "Can't Tell Me Nothing" remix (featuring Young Jeezy)
- Beanie Sigel - "Creep Low"
- Foxy Brown - "How We get Down" (featuring Grafh and Prinz)
- Three 6 Mafia - "What You Starin' At" (featuring Lil Jon)
- DJ Khaled - "Brown Paper Bag" (featuring Juelz Santana, Lil Wayne, Dre, Rick Ross and Young Jeezy)
Celebrity Faves
Singer/songwriter/producer Tank has the top R&B album in the country right now with Sex Love & Pain (well, until R. Kelly's Double Up numbers come out next week) and he's been in the studio lately with Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Rowland, Jamie Foxx and Chris Brown, as well as gearing up for his supergroup trio TGT with Tyrese and Ginuwine. For straight-up listening pleasure in addition to inspiration, he takes it back.
"I always listen to Jodeci, Babyface, Kim Burrell, and try to come up with new music," the man behind the hit "Please Don't Go" said. "Babyface and Jodeci are my roots. That's a lot of what created me. As well as gospel like with Fred Hammond and John P. Kee. But being really introduced and molded into R&B was [listening to] Jodeci and Babyface. That's my heart. To hear those things keeps me in tune with my direction.
"It was love, it was love songs," he continued. "Babyface did beautiful love songs and DeVante did dirty love songs. Every woman in the world wanted to hear a DeVante or Babyface song. They talked about the same thing and got the same point across but Jodeci was hard and Babyface was a little more tender."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
"Showww tiiime!" Swizz Beatz, Fabolous and Cassidy have a video up on YouTube for their "Summer Jam Warm-Up Freestyle," and in it, you see all three in the lab one night, rapping the record. What nobody knows is that the very next day, Swizzy had to go the hospital. He came down with meningitis.
"I'm just f---ing happy to be feeling better again," Swizzy said last week. "I was down. I'm in the crib on chill."
Swizz says his challenging work schedule pushed him to a breaking point. When you have 50 Cent, Madonna, Chris Brown and Usher all waiting in line for tracks, you don't exactly have time for rest.
"I [was] up for four days straight," he said of what caused the illness. "I was paralyzed from my legs down. I was twisted. I was f---ed up! ... N---as call me 'The Monster' because how I work in the studio so hard. I can't do it no more. I gotta be on the schedule but still be able to do what I have to do. I just gotta invest in my health right now. That day I went in the hospital changed my whole life. I could have came out in a wheelchair."
As it turns out, just two weeks ago, Swizz was on Hot 97 talking to host Angie Martinez about his sleep depravation, and she warned him that lack of rest would send him straight to the hospital.
"That day when we was in the studio, I was exhausted," he added. "My immune system was low from not eating right. But I wasn't paying no attention. I'm going to the crib and I had a hard time getting out of my truck. I get out of the seat and I'm damn near limping. I was barely making it up my steps. I damn near fell in the bed and my wife was like, 'You have to go to the doctor immediately.' They had to carry me downstairs ... got to the hospital, they stuck a needle in my spine. I escaped some sh--. That changed my life, trust me. I'm happy to be able to run around with my son. Imagine I couldn't even run around with my kids? God gave me one more chance to get my sh-- right."
Swizz was hospitalized for four days and is now at home resting until Friday, when he's hoping to begin production on a new video that mostly focuses on his next single, "Here Comes Big Money" with Kanye West. We will get a taste of "Money in the Bank" at the beginning of the clip, though.
"I just want another look," he explained. "I want three solid looks. Put 'Money in the Bank' in the beginning of the video and Kanye will be like, 'I like that joint but the joint we got together, that's gonna put big money in the bank.' "
Originally Swizz was against having too many guest spots on his album, but when you have Kanye offering a cameo, what are you gonna do?
"Kanye went out his way to give me a verse," Beatz said. "He called me about it. I didn't have to bug him. It was cool. [Turning him down,] I think that would have been rude. If Coldplay could have been on the album, Kanye could be on the album. I'm honored to know he felt my sh-- is hot to even wanna rock with me like that. He could have made it competition, but he's like, 'Yo, Swizzy, I got you, let's get 'em.' "
Swizz is among the array of performers scheduled to hit Giants Stadium Sunday at Hot 97's Summer Jam concert. The event is notorious for all the guest acts that always seem to pop up, but Swizz says he wants to just keep it him. He could be bluffing, though.
"One Man Band Man, that's it," he said. "They expecting me to bring this one and that one. I'm just gonna do me. Let everybody else bring everybody. I'm just trying to raise the bar, point blank."
The "Summer Jam Warm-Up Freestyle" was just a few friends showing solidarity, he said.
"We basically was in the studio and I told Fab, 'Let's do a freestyle,' " he recalled. " 'You got the hottest record in New York. I got a hot record too.' New York n---as don't get along. I'm like, 'Yo, we need to switch it up a little bit.' Then Cass came in the studio too. [For the video] my engineer already had some footage of me in Miami in the Super America car. He pieced that sh-- up right quick and we had fun with it."
By the time you read this, Swizz has probably already leaked Cassidy's first single, "Drink, Two Step."
"I got my drink and my two step/ It's on, it's on and I'm home," goes the chorus.
"I think it's a dope way for him to come back. It's a celebration," Swizz said. ...
Hell yeah! Dave Chappelle is probably on his farm in Ohio reading this and grinning like Tyrone Biggums coming out of rehab. One of his favorite groups, Dead Prez — the duo consisting of M-1 and Stic.man — have teamed up with a certain deep-thinker from Queens, New York.
"We've done quite a few songs with Nas," M-1 recently revealed. "We have had a relationship for years. Stic had did a song with just him on it. And I did a song with just me and Nas on it. I don't know when it'll surface yet."
With so much happening in the headlines lately — from the Sean Bell shooting to the Don Imus controversy to the call to clean up rap lyrics — hip-hop's most outspoken duo have been conspicuously absent. But according to M-1, he and Stic.man have plenty to say about it all and are prepping records to be released soon. Stic is currently putting the finishing touches on his solo debut, but after that DP — who have been in the studio with KRS-One, Nas and noted professor Cornell West — will be looking for a new recording home to put out their next group project. M-1 said the effort will be about justice prevailing.
"People don't have political clarity. And young people are not clear on their positions and not able to speak. I don't know if you consider me young or not," said M, who's in his early 30s. "I can tell you my position comes from an informed political stand. ... A lot of positions are ambiguous. ... The leadership has not emerged to be present enough to speak out ... I'd be interested to see who does have a position that could give clarity to what is happening now.
"Al [Sharpton] and Russell [Simmons]," he continued. "I think they are more into ambulance-chasing than actually grinding out [a] position that makes sense. I think it'll take some sincere forces that don't have any interest in anything other than changing our community and making things better."
For now, M-1 is lending a hand again to the upcoming Black August festival this summer and working on "Birth of a Nation," a multimedia project he's been putting together consisting of a Web site, CD and accompanying DVD.
"It's an organizational tool to get more interactive with people who feel like there is no inroads to get their voices heard," he said. "We're gonna [use it to] address all the recent issues." ...
Noriega, meet Noreaga. The rapper says his next single, the lead cut from his forthcoming Global Warming 11368, will be dedicated to imprisoned political and military figure Manuel Noriega.
"I never released my favorite record off the album first, but I'm gonna do something different this time," N.O.R.E. said about his song. "Basically, I was in Miami and a friend of mine, DJ EFN, told me Noriega is locked up in a prison up the block from the studio. The real Noriega. I actually did write him a real letter before, but obviously the song is not a letter. My n---a [Dame] Grease gave me a beat and had the chorus already on there: 'Money, cars, clothes, hos.' I said I'm a little above that. I called Grease back and said, 'Why don't you change the chorus to "Letter from Noreaga, written to Noriega/ You can write me back or call me later/ So we can chop it up, we both Noreaga"? ' We have a little girl voice doing that. It's a crazy club joint, but it's a creative joint.
"I say, 'Dear Noriega,' " he added. " 'My name was Noreaga, but I changed it to N.O.R.E./ I'll tell you the story later.' It's like a 93 tempo, club joint. The first part I'm describing his influence on my life, and the second part I'm telling him who I am. Normally, when you write a letter, it's for the heart. This is not for the heart, it's for the clubs and streets."
The words in his Global Warming 11368 title indicate his desire to heat up the world with his music, while the numbers are a tip to his old zip code in Lefrak City, a part of Corona, Queens. The solo effort is just the first album N.O.R.E. wants to release this year. There's going to be yet another Capone-N-Noreaga LP as well.
"It looks like the C-N-N thing is gonna happen," he explained. "At first it seemed straight on, then it was a little shaky in the middle; now it seems like it's right. So we're gonna drop two albums this year, C-N-N and the N.O.R.E. project."
N.O.R.E. says getting his old group back together was as simple as a sit-down conversation with Capone.
"It was really like we was doing separate things," he described. "Out of sight, out of mind. The more you do separate things, the more you grow apart. So we sat down and was like, 'Let's do this thing. The people are begging for it. It's in high demand.' ... We're starting the album in the middle of June and by the end of June we'll be done. I work pretty fast. I already picked the beats. So we're going to record it together and in two weeks we'll be done. I wanna keep it gutter. I wanna keep it straight street, but I do wanna have one single."
N.O.R.E. says both his and C-N-N's new record deals should be done within a few weeks.
For other artists featured in Mixtape Mondays, check out Mixtape Mondays Headlines.
For a full-length feature on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."
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Photo: MTV News
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