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— Shaheem Reid and Joseph Patel, with additional reporting by Sway Calloway and Rahman Dukes
Artist: Team Invasion
Mixtape: Team Invasion Presents: Hood Rules Apply
Representing: Green Lantern and Team Shady
The 411: While Green Lantern is in the studio working on beats for everyone from Ludacris to Eminem, he lets his team of DJs get some light.
Joints To Check For:
- "Pass Out" by Ludacris. Ludacris continues to solidify himself as the most versatile MC in the game. He can change the tone of his voice at the drop of a hat, he's stepping his metaphor game up crazily, and the dude can flow on any type of beat, whether it be a warp-speed hip-hop track or a ballad that flows at a snail's pace (listen to "Lovers and Friends"). Here Cris periodically switches his delivery while rhyming about partying till he literally drops. "I stunt like Jackie Chan and lay low like Rebbie Jackson," he brags.
- "N---as" by Tupac featuring Jadakiss. This seems too good to be true: Eminem producing the beat, and verses from Tupac and Jadakiss? Pac raps with militant might, addressing rioting in L.A., uprisings against racist cops, and takes the liberty to date his verse by saying, "I packed a nine last year, in '99 I pack a tool now." Pac even yells out Jada's name. Maybe he was referring to his good friend Jada Pinkett Smith, though. Kiss comes with his superb wordplay like "My dimes make the fiends go to sleep, so they call them bedrocks."
- "Switch My Style" by Styles P. S.P. vents about the many rappers he feels are biting his rhyme style, meticulously murdering Tweet's "Turn Out the Lights" beat with his freestyle. Styles adopts K-Solo's way of spelling out words, but goes one better, incorporating numbers in his raps: "I'm from 3,5,4 with a .9 mm on my 38 waist in a 55 Benz."
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- DJ John B's Soul Explosion Vol.1
- Mick Boogie's The Dope Game
- DJ Kurupt's R&B Blends 36
- DJ 730's A Snipers Story Chapter One
- DJ Warrior and Clinton Sparks' Coast Control: Defend Your Borders
- DJ Kool Kid's Touch Me, Tease Me #7
- Cyrus Tha Great's 50 MCs 2004
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- Lil Jon featuring Usher and Ludacris - "Lovers and Friends"
- Cam'ron featuring Kanye West and Syleena Johnson - "Down and Out"
- Ludacris - "Potion"
- Nas - "Coon Picnic (These Are Our Heroes)"
- Mashonda -"Back of the Club"
Celebrity Favs
Eighteen-year-old Baltimore singer Mario has resurfaced with the hit "Let Me Love You," and he'll drop a new LP called Turning Point on December 7. The youngster also has a remix of "Let Me Love You" with T.I. and Jadakiss, who he's admired for a long time. "I've always been a fan of Jadakiss," Mario said. "My favorite mixtape artist, though, I gotta say, is Lil' Weezey [Wayne]. He just be doing him. He don't care what people want to hear, he's gonna say what he has to say. That's why I like Tha Carter. Tha Carter is one of the realest albums I've heard in a long time. He's got some commercial stuff on there, but the rest of the stuff is just him, his life, what he goes through on a daily basis."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
50 Cent has settled on February 15 for the release of his next LP, The Valentine's Day Massacre. After the past few months of different people throwing overt and subliminal disses at him and his camp on mixtapes, 50 says he'll use the album — at least in part — as a forum to wholeheartedly respond. "You listen, you hear what's going on out there," 50 said on the red carpet at the Vibe Awards. "I got something for everybody talking. It's gonna be entertaining. I don't want to give it up before we get there. It's gonna be interesting. This is chestnut checkers, these are not warning shots." 50's first dart has just hit. It's called "Disco Inferno" and was produced by Dr. Dre. The Queens MC can be heard getting at the ladies on that one. The G-Unit are already calling next year "2050 not 2005," and the leader of the squad says when his album drops, "It's gonna feel like brain freeze across the country for rappers. You know how it is when you have something too cold." ...
Meanwhile, Tony Yayo is in the lab, Lloyd Banks is already 15 songs into his new album, which he says is dropping around the fourth quarter of 2005, and we may be hearing a new version of Young Buck's Welcome to Ca$hville soon. Swisha House label head Michael Watts dropped by MTV News' Times Square offices on Wednesday and said he chopped and screwed Buck's solo debut. Swisha House, which is also dropping albums from Mike Jones and Paul Wall early in 2005, is negotiating with Buck's people to officially release the disc. ...
As strong as the G-Unit already are, the team may be expanding with a G-Unit Midwest label soon. The first act to come from the new venture, should it happen, may be none other than Chingy's Git It Boyz. "How did you hear about that?" Chingy asked last week. "Yeah. You might be seeing that." Now, you may be scratching your head, because when Ching was on the Rock the Mic tour with 50 Cent, the two were throwing disses at one another. "Me and him actually planned that," Chingy explained. "Sometimes it's a good look to feed off of stuff like that. We thought it would be a good idea to go to out there and give the people something to be shocked about." Chingy is so tight with the G-Unit that he's been laughing at all the rumors of him fighting with Game at the Vibe Awards. "That's funny," Chingy said. "I was in the trailer talking to 50 and Game. We was just in there chilling. Game was at my party in California the night before that. Out there I heard Game snatched my chain and made me leave the club. It's nonsense. What are y'all talking about? Game is cool." ...
One person Chingy doesn't seem cool with is Nelly. We brought you the story a couple of weeks ago of how Ching was offended by the lyrics "I like the way you do that right thurr/ Just remember when you do that right thurr/ I made it tight to be country/ They thought country was bummy/ Till country start making money" from "Another One" on Nelly's Sweat LP. Though you probably won't see them sharing turkey at Thanksgiving, it seems like things are cooling off for now. "It sounded like it referred to me," Chingy said. "I talked to him about it, and he said it wasn't referring to me like that — which is weird because of how it sounds. I'mma leave it at that with what he said." ...
A year after Danger Mouse's The Grey Album initiated a wave of The Black Album remixes, a fan of the Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up has created his own video tribute, "The Grey Video." Graphic Designer and animator Antoine Tinguely made a video for The Grey Album's "Encore" by mixing classic Beatles performance footage with clips of Jay-Z plus some creative effects and new material. You can watch it at www.greyvideo.com. ...
For more on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out the feature "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."
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