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Artful Dodger clothing
If this were 1995, you would say this line has it going on! You've been seeing people like Ludacris wear the hoodies — one of our personal favorites is the Boy Wonder Hoodie — but the designers have a lot more on their rack, from jeans to jackets to tees. The clothing line's big appeal are the hand-drawn designs on the apparel, which are reminiscent of rock meets skater boy, with a hip-hop swagger to boot. Kinda funky.
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— by Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes, Bridget Bland and Jayson Rodriguez
Artist: Lil Eazy-E
Representing: CPT
Mixtape: Cali Untouchable Radio 14: Rebirth of Gangsta Rap
411: Hey, his pops is one of the pioneers of gangsta rap, so don't be mad at Lil Eazy-E for trying to carry on a tradition. The 22-year-old, who had a buzz immediately upon his entrance into the game last year, sounds almost exactly like his legendary father. Originally signed to Virgin, he didn't agree with how the label was pushing him, so he got out of the contract and started his own production company: N.W.A. Entertainment.
Lil Eazy has since inked a distribution deal with Blackground/Universal, and his debut LP, Prince of Compton, should be out sometime at the top of the year. Lil Eazy just came back from VA to do some tracks with Timbaland, and he has Swizz Beatz, Scott Storch and of course N.W.A alum Dr. Dre listed as future collaborators for the project.
Obviously he's linking up with the right people for his album, and with his mixtape, he had to follow suit as well. The West Coast tag-team champions of DJs Warrior and Strong helped him put this street CD together.
Joints To Check For:
- "This Ain't a Game" featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. "Basically, the song title speaks for itself," Lil Eazy explained. "Me and Bone got back on the thuggish-ruggish tip, and we're sending shots at people who think it's something to play with. It's special because Pops introduced [Bone Thugs] to the world. And that's actually the first song I recorded. Honestly, I had the whole [original] roster on there, but they're not seeing eye to eye. So I just have the three Bone members on there now [Layzie, Krayzie and Wish]. We got more songs to do for the album. I just did a run with them on the road. It's all love."
- "Prince of the City." "That's the introduction track," he said. "[It's] basically my comment to the West Coast, letting you know what I'm about, what I'm introducing to the game. The last verse I say, 'I'mma rep mine and keep my father's legacy pushin'.' "
- "Compton City G's." "It's just bringing back the family, with my pops letting you knew where I came from," he explained. "He'll be featured [with a verse] on my album. It's something special. It scares you because of how similar our voices are. I scare most people when I'm rapping, but [an album is] something you dream for and it's a blessing to see it all come together."
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- Superstar Jay - First Name Esco
- DJ Mixx & DJ Ready Cee - Justo's Revolution Pt. 2: Hosted by Pete Rock
- DJ Barry Bee - Mixtape Serial Killer
- Young Mase - Unsigned Hype
- DJ Chuck T - Dirty South Classics: Chopped & Screwed by OG Ron C & DJ Lil Steve
- Hevehitta - 3 Kings: ATL Edition
- P. Novakane - Home Sour Home
- DJ Cool Breeze - Doin' Numbers
- Sha Stimuli - New York State of Mine
- Mick Boogie - Mick Boogie Presents Superman Returns: Hov Is Back
Click here for more of Mixtape Monday ...
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- Joe Budden - "Broken Wing" freestyle
- Quan - "Push It" freestyle
- AZ - "Show Me What You Got" freestyle
- Janet Jackson featuring Fabolous and Fatman Scoop - "So Excited" remix
- Lil Wayne and Birdman featuring T-Pain and Rick Ross - "Know What I'm Doin' "
Celebrity Faves
Remy Ma (who also goes by the name Remy Martin) is working on her next mixtape, There's Something Else About Remy, which should drop sometime before the end of the year. One song she just finished that may appear on the street CD — or on her next official LP — borrows from one of her favorite TV sitcoms.
"We took a part from the [theme song] from 'Martin,' " she said. It goes, 'Remy, Marrrt-innn. Remy, Marrrt-innn!' It's so crazy."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
OK, you know we can't go too many weeks without talking about G-Unit beef. Besides Game, they haven't really spit at anybody as of late, but we hollered at Lloyd Banks recently and asked him about rumors that there might be a feud brewing between G-Unit and the Dipset.
Remember a few years ago, there were rumors that NYC's two über factions might go at it and nothing happened? Well the latest chit-chatter surrounds a recent show at New York's Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where Banks and the G-Unit performed on the same bill as Diplomat capo Jim Jones. As the rumors go, there were some words traded between the two sides. So what's really good, Banks?
"Nah, I mean there ain't no problem, man," he said of the purported beef. "Whenever you get a lot of energy into the same building, people don't know what to expect. So just walking by somebody without saying, 'Wassup,' might get taken the wrong way. But it's nothing. We do what we do, they do what they do. We're holdin' NYC down. Unnecessary problems shouldn't occur. If it ain't no problem there, then keep it goin'. ... But I can't X out anything. Who knows? Records might come. That goes for anybody who you don't have a solid beef with. I don't really got beef with nobody. I got bread. ... Nah, ain't no beef with them."
G-Unit used to have some serious beef with The Source magazine — with an emphasis on "used to." Banks says that feud's dead.
"I'm actually gonna be the first G-Unit artist to be on the cover of The Source willingly," he said. "Everything you might have seen about us in that magazine was not with our approval. There was a lot of hatred going on. [Co-founder] Benzino was there, [co-founder] Dave Mays was there. Now I don't know where they're at. It's all new owners. I had to grace that cover. There was a point in time where I was imagining what [The Source] would give my album, like before I even had a record contract. So there was a point in time where that magazine was important. I think me being on the cover is a fresh new start to bring the magazine back to where it used to be."
Banks' Rotten Apple CD recently debuted at #3 on the Billboard albums chart. And soon he'll have a street CD coming to a 'hood near you.
"ASAP," he said about his new mixtape. "I'm gonna let the album breathe about two weeks. But I got Mo' Money in the Bank Pt. 5 already geared up and ready to go. Mo' Money in the Bank Pt. 4 with DJ Whoo Kid is on the street right now — [the one with] the green cover. Now it's time for the blue cover. That'll be out in a matter of days. You know what's crazy? I was on the way here bumping a CD, I got like 80 of my freestyles on it, and I just zoned out like, 'Damn, I ain't heard this in so long. How'd I come up with that?' It made me want to get back in the studio. That's where I'm headed next, straight to the studio, to get some more mixtape material out there." ...
Jan-U-Ary! Papoose says early next year his Nacirema Dream LP is dropping. An official first single is still a little while away, but Pap just finished shooting two videos for white-label tracks "Alphabetical Slaughter" and "Ghetto Soldier" — the latter of which features Akon — in his Brooklyn, New York, backyard.
" 'Ghetto Soldier,' basically the concept of the video is showing the comparison of the soldier that's going to war in Afghanistan and the everyday ghetto soldiers that are losing their lives," he explained on Thursday. "It's a visual metaphor between the two. People could see they going to war over there, but it's everyday war we going through in the 'hood. We showing both sides of the fence. I think the video made a good statement in the end. We're all fighting for different causes, but at the end of the day, it's a loss of life." In the video, he added, "I'm doing performances and a little bit of acting." (Click here for more photos of Papoose.)
"Alphabetical Slaughter" will require a little more post-editing.
"They gonna use a lot of different graphics to bring it to life," he said. "But it's me spittin' the lyrics. One scene shows a different learning process. You got my man with the boxing gloves and somebody is training him, he's learning to fight. Then there's this female who's sitting down learning schoolwork. It's more like a lesson. 'Alphabetical Slaughter' is a lesson to MCs. Throughout the video you gonna see a lot. This is just a warning shot, me making my introduction to the mainstream."
Pap is planning to go full-blast with his six-person crew, Thugacation, soon. They have a self-titled mixtape dropping within the next few weeks.
Lastly, you've probably seen a clip floating around the Internet in which 'Poose's main man, DJ Kay Slay, is lambasting Green Lantern. Pap offered little insight as to why Slay was throwing shots at Green, but he said he stands behind Kay.
"You know Slay is gonna speak his mind," Pap explained. "If you saw the clip, it speaks for itself. The Drama King." ...
Ice-T has always had provocative album covers, from 1988's Power to the following year's The Iceberg. So no one should be surprised by the front of his Gangsta Rap LP: It depicts him lying in a bed in his birthday suit, with his nude wife on top of him.
"That's very Ice-T," he laughed last week, shrugging off any flak he may get from the visual. He has, after all, gone head-up with controversy before.
"To me, a record is every piece of it: the album cover, the liner notes," he added. "That's why you want to have the album as opposed to downloading it. Everybody wants to stand butt-naked on their album cover at least once in life. I used to always wake up in the morning and look at 'Superfly' movies, like, 'This is real fly. Mutha----as need to know what this is.' We had a cameraman come in, stand over the bed [and shoot] me and Coke [wife Coco] laid out. We tried to cover all the vital parts. If you notice, it's a pistol on the mantelpiece. That's saying, 'That's gangsta.' No matter how nice it looks, you gotta stay on point. I don't really sleep with guns no more but for many years I did. It was a weird lifestyle."
Due on Halloween, Gangsta Rap is Ice's 10th solo LP in 19 years, and he says even though acting is sweet on the top-rated TV show "Law & Order: SVU," he's not getting out of rap anytime soon. Now 48, he says he'll stay on the mic as long as he feels like it.
"I can still out-rap 90 percent of these n----as," he said. "It's not like nobody is saying, 'Get out of the game.' It's nothing tremendous out there."
Ice is known for his relentless first-person tales about gangbanging, pimpin', strife with police and cocaine wars. So with keeping it real such a hallmark of his past life, but now being far removed from putting it down in the streets, how gangsta is Gangsta Rap really going to be?
"It's gangsta rap from another perspective," he said. "My record is an overview of the situation. It's not like I'm on the block and all that — I've been there, I done that. My boys say this is my grown-man album. This is a more mature swing on things. Me re-evaluating my gangsta [life]. What I thought was gangsta may not be gangsta. It's still hard-core as hell, but more focused.
"The title cut is basically a chronological breakdown of West Coast music and how it happened," he continued, explaining some of the album's tracks. "Naming off cats, paying honor to them. At the end, I say, 'Eliminate the poverty and disease and we'll rap about the birds and trees.' I got a record called 'God Can You Hear Me.' Saying, 'Yo dog, I don't necessarily believe in you, I don't know if you're there, but all the f---ed-up sh-- I done, how am I still alive?' I'm trying to make peace with the karma of drama. Is stuff gonna come back to me?"
Ice says due to his television taping schedule, he'll probably be unable to tour behind this album. But every Saturday of the year, he's either performing or making an appearance somewhere. ...
Young Jeezy says his 8732 clothing line will be out December 1, less than two weeks before his LP The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102 drops on December 12.
"It's gonna be everywhere you get Sean John and Rocawear," he promised. "Macy's and all that."
The Snowman is also about to drop his next mixtape. "I'm about to do one called Family First," he said. "I'mma put a couple of cuts from the album on there."
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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