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— by Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes
MC: German Luger
Representing: Brooklyn
CD: The Gutter, Gully and Gullable Mixtape Part II: Beats, Bars and Scars
411: You may remember that we featured German awhile back, when he dropped his first mixtape. The Brooklyn native is now making music on his own (he's left the fold of producers Rockwilder and DJ Twinz), but he's still buzzing strong, dropping a barrage of freestyles and samples of songs from his upcoming R.I.C.O. Entertainment release.
Joints To Check For:
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"Right Here" Lugs, one of The Source magazine's recent "Unsigned Hype" alums, raps over an intense beat from producer Aqua that incorporates disco and soul. "Hit you with a flow like a kick from a horse, and redefine the meaning of your Nike Air Force/ Spew poison till it destroys them/ Ah man, the flow is beastly."
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"Knocked Down." Germ raps about his own experience overcoming life's hurdles and adds his take on the Bush administration and the high price of gasoline. "Losing don't make you less of a man/ It just gives you more experience so you know how to win ... You gonna need terrorism to fight terrorism/ I'm not a politician, I just got a violent vision."
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"How Sick" and "Rocket Launcher" freestyles. Luger has all the makings of a strong songwriter, however, the freestyles may best capture his intense lyrical ambushes. Germ goes for broke with rhyme patterns that release a litany of words drenched in his sewer sensibilities.
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- Makaveli Unreleased and Sittin' Sideways (with Paul Wall)
- Yo Gotti's Shop Open, Vol. 1
- Big Mike's Presents The Big Boy Game
- "Both Sides of the Story" by KingDemm
- DJ Exclusive's Jin - I Quit
- DJ Butta's The Notorious B.I.G. (Blends & Exclusives)
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" remix by Kanye West (featuring Jay-Z)
- "Hoe Sit Down" by Maceo
- "Crack" by Cassidy
- "I Ain't Heard of That" remix by Slim Thug (featuring Bun B)
- "Off the Top" by Quan (featuring Nas)
- "Chess" by Papoose
- "Can't Hold Us Back" by Public Enemy
- "Hard Liquor" by Game
- "The Way We Came Up" by 50 Cent
- "Welcome 2 Detroit City" by Trick Trick (featuring Eminem)
- "Novocaine" by Fat Joe
- "We Got This" by AZ
- "Bars of Fury" by CL Smooth
Celebrity Favs
Just Blaze — who's worked with Jay-Z, Nelly, Jadakiss, Usher, Game, Busta Rhymes and many others over his illustrious career as a producer — has some advice for the next generation. "You know, sometimes if you want to find out where the next move is or where you're headed, you got to know where you came from," he said. "And there's so many artists and people in this business that just don't know. Like, they might know [Nas'] Illmatic or [Jay-Z's] Reasonable Doubt because they're the cool, East Coast classic albums. But you mention [Public Enemy's] Nation of Millions or [Boogie Down Productions'] By All Means Necessary to these rappers, they just be like, 'Who?' No clue. The first record I ever bought was when I was 4 years old: 'Fat Boys' by the Disco 3, they weren't even the Fat Boys yet [the single was so successful the group changed its name to the Fat Boys]. I dragged my mother to the store and wouldn't let her leave until I walked out with that 12", and I haven't looked back since."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
Loud and crazy? You bet your life. Grown and sexy? Huh? Yes: The ever-so-crunk Ying Yang Twins say they're still wild guys, but are enjoying the kudos from older and more sophisticated fans since they dropped "Wait (The Whisper Song)" and its video, which finds them dressed up in suits.
"We don't get to go to clubs like that no more because of how big our name has become — we have household names now," Kaine said. "Only thing we get now is compliments from older women — not the same women we been dealing with. Now we get compliments from women that are 35 and up. Me and brother are grown now, our look is grown — not to say we ain't been grown, it's just a point of selling yourself.
"The thing about 'Wait,' " he added, "instead of being high in our voice, we just whisper. You can't always holla at every lady you talk to. Every lady you talk to is not a hoodrat. Every lady you talk is not a whore, they not all bitches — some women are women. To get a woman's attention, you have to be an adult. To step to a female and whisper to her would be more attractive than trying to make a point out loud and being in a crowd." ...
It took over a decade but Eightball & MJG and Three 6 Mafia finally recorded a song together, "Stay High," with Young Buck. The whole Tennessee collective is set to shoot the video soon in Miami. Meanwhile, 'Ball and MJG are almost done recording their next LP for P. Diddy's Bad Boy South label.
The Memphis legends say that unlike their last opus, this album keeps the guest spots to a minimum. Producers Lil Jon, Jazze Pha and Shondrae have supplied beats.
"We really just trying to be us and its classic material," MJG said last week in Memphis. "I can't explain the gutter in this album," Eightball offered. "Everybody is supposed to be the perfect-smile guy and have that dance record." He laughed. "That ain't us!"
Jazze Pha, who just secured a joint-venture deal for his Sho Nuff records with Capitol, can't keep from smiling when talking about one of his next projects, the new LP by Too Short. Pha says to look for as many as seven records he produced on the new album and Jazze Phizzle promised that Short Dogg is spitting his vintage game on the tracks — and also has a few surprises. Sources close to the Short project also say that Jazze probably isn't the only superproducer Short will be colliding with for the new album. He's been talking to Lil Jon for awhile and the King of Crunk may in fact be producing the other half of Short's album.
For more on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out the feature "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."
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Photo: MTV News
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