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Fire Starter: Rocko Da Don
Rock is Monica's man. That's his biggest claim to fame now, but not for long. He just signed a deal with Jermaine Dupri over at Island Def Jam for his Rocky Road imprint, and his debut, Self Made, should be out in the spring. Why should you care? OK, his "Umma Do Me" is heating up like ribs on Uncle Gus' barbecue grill. The original has been circulating in the ATL for months and just busted out of the region. There's also a remix with T.I.'s now-infamous dis (Tip was nice enough to put a disclaimer on before his verse started, at least) of Ludacris and Young Jeezy. The video is coming soon and will be based on a day in the life of the young music hustla. Rock — who has been behind the scenes writing and producing for artists such as Young Dro, Dem Franchize Boyz and Sammy Sam since 2001 — is working with JD, Scott Storch, Polow Da Don, Cool & Dre and the Runners. Rock's imprint is just getting off the ground.
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Mixtape Monday: Lil' Kim Honors Female MCs (Except Remy Ma); Fabolous And DJ Drama 'Still Got It' On Joint Tape
— by Shaheem Reid and Jayson Rodriguez, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes
Artists: DJ Drama and Fabolous
Representing: The Aphilliates and "Street Fidddddddammmm"
Mixtape: Gangsta Grillz: There Is No Competition
411: "We linked up like beef sausage," a smiling Fabolous said a couple of weeks ago while standing next to DJ Drama. The two came together to speak about their new joint effort, Gangsta Grillz: There Is No Competition. Fab obviously has a catalog of mixtapes with other DJs, such as DJ Clue, but this is his first Gangsta Grillz — and if you listen to the two laugh about their first meeting years ago, this collabo is a long time coming.
"I came up to him and said, 'What up, I'm DJ Drama,' " Dram said.
"I was like, 'I know who you are. I know what you do. Let's do it together,' " Fabolous said.
"It was only right we teamed up and did it," the mixtape king chimed in.
"We had to do this because you know what kind of singles I put out," Fab continued. "I put out singles to keep the cash register ringing. So people might think I'm slippin' a little bit. Even on your side [turning toward Drama], you putting out an album. They see you putting an album out ... "
"They say I'm not putting out tapes no more," Drama chimed in.
"We just letting people know there is no competition," Loso finished. "We still got it in us. I still got the mixtape in me. You gonna hear Street Fam heavy on the tape: Red Cafe, Paul Caine, Freck the Billionaire. Drama is gonna do what he do. I'mma overdo what I do."
Besides the new Gangsta Grillz mixtape, yes, Drama is releasing his Gangsta Grillz: The Album on Tuesday.
"It all worked out because I call myself 'Mr. Thanksgiving,' " Drama said. "What a better time to drop than during the holidays, a week and a half after Thanksgiving? I can feed the people, the streets. We get busy."
Drama's album has been delayed a few times due to the raid on his studio earlier this year and controversy over his well-known moniker. In the interim, he took time to take some material off the record, such as the Just Blaze-produced Lil Wayne song "Million Dollar Baby," and add new records like the album's first single, "5000 Ones." Nelly, Diddy, Yung Joc, T.I., Young Jeezy, Twista and Aphilliates Music Group's own artist Willie the Kid all appear on the LP.
"We went back in, added a couple joints, bangers," Drama said. "We got '5000 Ones.' I think we set a record for cameos of hip-hop artists in the video. I went to [the song's producer] Jazze Pha after my album got pushed back and said, 'I need a banger. They counting me out right now.' Jazze brought [the track] to the table. We sat down and mapped out a vision for the song. I said, 'We gotta make a major motion picture, the Oscars is coming up.' I wanted to make a song that makes sense. I represent the gangstas, but we got the females involved. It's an ode to the Atlanta strip-club scene, but it's also a feel-good party song.
"When we do a song like this," he added, "we map out the whole thing — who sounds good on it? It's A&Ring. You gotta figure out the order, who's gonna sound good on the hook. You can't just pick names out the hat. ... It won't sound good if they don't match up. You gotta get your star power up. Everybody has to shine. It's like doing a movie like 'Get Shorty' where you have crazy cameos."
Some of the other new material on the album includes "Keep It Gangsta," with Yo Gotti, Lil Boosie and Webbie; and "Cheers," with a familiar combination from Virginia.
"We got Pharrell and the Clipse," Drama said. " 'Cheers,' that was a celebration in the end. We dealt with the raid situation on the album. We got a couple skits on there. Katt Williams made an appearance on the album. The greats in life proved themselves when they went through adversity. It's how you proved yourself when your back was against the wall."
Joints To Check For:
- "The Intro." "The intro, that's gonna let you know what it is from the jump," Fabolous said.
"I said, 'Fab, listen, when you start this tape, we gotta start off right,' " Drama added. " 'We got all this music. I need something specific for this Gangsta Grillz tape.' He said, 'Send me a couple of [beats].' I sent what I sent, he went crazy."
"That's right," Fab confirmed with a grin. "That's what I do."
- "I Don't See Nobody." "That's saying I don't see nobody when doing my thing on my grind," Loso explained. "Nobody is in my way. There is no competition."
"I like to talk a lot on my tapes," Drama added. "I like to speak that truth on my tape. He gave me a lot to talk about too."
- "Takin' Pictures" (freestyle). "The beat is so nuts on there, I had to take that beat," Fab said. "The whole Street Fam is on the song. You'll hear us put a Rodney King beating on the beat. Drama heard it, he put his hands up, gave me the touchdown [signal], and it was over."
"He gave me what I needed," Drama smiled.
Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week
- DJ XL - Play It How It Go
- DJ White Owl and NY CEO - Who Got the Crack 3
- J Armz - How to Be an MC Vol. 48
- Mick Boogie and Busta Rhymes - Dillagence
- R.O.C. All-Stars - The Street Leak
- Team Invasion - This Sh-- Right Here!
'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar
- Beanie Sigel - "I'm In"
- Ghostface Killah (featuring Method Man and Raekwon) - "Yolonda's House"
- Icadon (featuring Redman) - "Wus Dat Sound"
- Jadakiss - "Welcome to the Roc" freestyle
- Snoop Dogg - "Sexual Eruption"
Celebrity Faves
"Sexual Eruption," "Sensual Seduction" — no matter how you label the song title, we can't stop watching Snoop Dogg's new video. He's having so much fun with it. The clip, inspired by the late-'70s/early '80s, is a direct homage to R&B generals such as Rick James and Roger Troutman — and you can't forget the sprinkle of Prince.
"To me, that is something I always loved doing: emulating the guys I wanted to be like," Snoop said. "Roger Troutman is one of the guys who influenced me as a kid, as well as Rick James and Prince. With the video, I wanted to add those elements to it, and by having that sound in the song, it complements the video by showing we can still do that and bring it back to life. I love going back and flashing and showing I can get back in that era. ... I'm going to hip so many young guys onto that style of music who don't know about it."
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
The Bee is back in the booth.
"I rock rough and stuff, still they put me in cuffs," she rhymes with her feminine ferocity to the approval of the Track Masters, Tone and Poke, who are in the control room in New York's Battery Studios helping Lil' Kim finish the last bit of her new mixtape, Ms. G.O.A.T.
Kim is rapping over Dr. Dre's instrumental to the Lady of Rage's "Afro Puffs." "She's from VA," Kim said of Rage. "A lot of people don't know my moms and pops was born in VA. ... I respect her gangsta, [it's] crazy! So I did it over."
You can also look for remakes of Lauryn Hill's "Lost Ones" and MC Lyte's "Cha Cha Cha" on the mixtape, which is a joint effort between Kim and DJs Whoo Kid and Mister Cee.
"This mixtape is special to me because I do a lot of female-rapper songs over, and it's almost a tribute to them and a thank-you and a shout-out," Kim said. "If no one else is gonna recognize them, I'm gonna recognize the women I looked up to and respect and love. I also got a lot of new songs on there, like the one with me and 50 Cent. It's hot. I'm glad we could do this. He's really a great person. Love you, Fif."
Kim's stance on 50 is a lot different from what she spat on The Naked Truth. The LP was laced with 50 disses. But lo and behold, a few weeks ago the two appeared out of nowhere on a new song called "Wanna Lick (Magic Stick 2)."
"Me and Fif always been really tight. We used to talk on the phone every day," she said about their relationship before their most recent falling-out and reconciliation. "He placed a call to me and I thought it was very big of him, and it was all very respectful. When we were on the phone with each other, we were being very careful to not step on each other's words. It's like the best reunion I think I ever had with a friend. He's really a good person. He had this idea [for the song] and he said, 'Don't nobody do it like you, Bee. I wanna make this "Magic Stick" part two.' Me and Fif got some surprises for y'all."
Just because Kim and 50 have made up, don't go looking for any Kim and Remy Ma collabos anytime soon. Kim just dissed Remy on a freestyle over 50 Cent's "I Get Money." The Queen Bee said it was retaliation.
"At the end of the day, I'm not gonna sit there and not say nothing," Kim said. "I spoke how I felt. She can take it how she wanna take it. She goes in on me, I go in back. It ain't even nothing to think about. At the end of the day, it's on wax, but whatever ... because if you go in on me, I got the right to go in on you — bottom line! Next! I don't even look at it as competition."
Kim and Remy were at least cordial at one point. "A lot of people was coming to me like, 'Why you say something about Remy?' ... These chicks kill me," she said. "One minute they wanna be my friend, then the next minute they on the radio going in on me. The next minute they on songs going in on me. I can't let nobody take that away from me. It's only but so much you can take."
Kim's tone gets playful when she talks about the title of female G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). "I'm the hottest bitch out," she says in a playful whisper. "I'm real cocky these days, huh? I'm loving it.
"Shout out to all the females in the game," she added. "All females should have the right to be cocky and boast about what they do. One person might be the best at what they do. Trina is the best at what she does. She's the baddest bitch in the South. Missy is the baddest bitch, I'm the baddest bitch. It's gotta be love for the next person — love and work. It's art. At the end of the day, it is what it is."
Kim is almost out of her recording contract with Atlantic Records and says she might have a new album out as early as February. ...
The harbinger of hardcore, Styles P, says it blows his mind to work with MCs who are in his Phantom Zone.
"It's admiration and respect for people who do what you do," Styles said about all the music he's been doing with Ghostface Killah and Beanie Sigel lately. All the guys have cameos on each other's albums. "These are dudes I love. I see them and build with them. I go crazy when I pop in their stuff. You gotta keep what you're doing alive with people who do what you do and love this art of ours. These are dudes I could rock with. We all got together and we all got joints together. It's really keeping it hip-hop."
Beanie appears on "U Ain't Ready" from Styles' Tuesday release Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman), while Ghost checks in on "Star of the State."
"The track sounds like a '90s old-school Wu-Tang joint," S.P. described. "It had a nasty, hallway vibe. I said, 'I gotta call Ghost for this.' On the Beanie joint, Dame Grease produced it. We're going back to that formula, man, to make people lose it. Straight hip-hop."
All three just finished a few videos together. Styles broaches race relations on "Cause I'm Black," where he questions why New York officers didn't go to jail for murdering an unarmed Sean Bell, while Michael Vick is doing time for killing canines. That's just the start of talk on the record. Black Thought has his own ideas, rhyming, "This system failed, where Mychal Bell might as well be Sean/ Genocide, Jena Six, guilty till we innocent."
"I've been seeing Black Thought for years, and we always talk," Styles said. "I think he's a hell of an MC. He's incredible. He's great all around, but he's an incredible lyricist. We was building at a tribute to Rakim, and I was like, 'I'd love to do a joint with you.' Anytime I see Black Thought, Mos Def, Common, Talib [Kweli], I can build with them dudes. Me and Talib, Jadakiss and Black Thought, we had a mean building session one day."
Max B of Jim Jones' Byrd Gang does the chorus on Styles' "Holiday." That record is all over the Net. "The Max B joint, that was me showing them something different," S.P. said. "That was a flow I never used. I be having flows in my head; I just keep 'em quiet. But it was an incredible beat, something to go left on, so I decided to come left. I always listen to Max B. He always goes a little more uptempo or slower than what he did on 'Holiday.' I like Max's hooks and raps. I needed him to go somewhere he ain't go before 'cause I'm going somewhere I ain't been. It's like magic, when you take two people on a beat that's usually not them. I didn't think you would think of me or Max on that beat. I said, 'Let me throw them off.' I wanted something that was different but keep it where I'm from. Nobody can pinpoint what kind of joint that is."
Styles' video for the lead single, "Blow Ya Mind," is one of the more unorthodox clips this year. "In this day and age, you gotta make something to play on the radio if you're going to get any type of success," he said of the record, which Swizz Beatz produced. "I don't like to be anything other than who I am. I felt that song was a fitting joint everybody could relate to.
"For the video," he added, "I felt like I should put my career in my own hands now. I always have ideas and thoughts for my video and other people's videos. I'm independent now. I don't feel I should go to anybody else to put my ideas out. I knew the order of the shots and how I wanted it to look. I didn't want to do what everybody else was doing in their video. I was thinking about the things that blow my mind, things that interest me. You see the bike riders doing tricks, the sharks in the water. I thought of things that trip me out. ... I be tripping out sometimes. I said, 'Let me put it all down.' "
Mr. Sex Tape himself, Ray J, appears on "Let's Go," and Akon brings his lauded résumé to "Got My Eyes on You." On "Da 80s," the Ghost boasts about not even needing a hook because his lyrics are so strong.
"I'm just trying to be the MC and come with good, old-fashioned street soul music. ... I really feel like the '90s era," he said, talking about the vibe of the effort, which marks his debut on the independent powerhouse, Koch Records. "It's like my first [album] as far as hunger, but it's way better as far as maturity and thought pattern. Even on the extremely hard songs, I threw conscious things in it. What caused that emotion? What was I thinking? I tried to go back to the '90s, when MCing was MCing." ...
Gucci Mane has a huge, iced-out "See Spot Run" dog pendant on his chain, but it could just as easily double as a "See Gucci Run" adornment for his career. The Alabama transplant has been consistently heating up the A for the past months with all kinds of records, from "Bird Flu" to "Freaky Gurl." And now with Lil' Kim and Ludacris onboard for the "Freaky Gurl" remix, Gucci is making headlines for his music instead of just his run-ins with the law.
"It took me to another level," he said of the remix. "It's one of the biggest songs I ever put down. It definitely catapulted my career to a whole 'nother plateau.
"I heard Kim's verse when I was in the studio, and I had to redo my verse," Gucci added. "They pushed me, 'cause she was going bananas on there. I already heard Luda's verse. I had both before I wrote mine, so I think I had an advantage on that one. I love that remix."
Gucci said the next single, the lead track from his December 11 release, Back to the Trap House, is going to be even bigger. "Stay Fly" was produced by upstart Butter, who worked with Polow Da Don on Rich Boy's debut. Gucci recently shot a clip for the song, featuring Rich Boy and Pimp C. He said the beat for "Stay Fly" matches the foundation he set with "Bird Flu," which set the overall template for Trap House.
Gucci has a production deal in place with Jimmy Rosemond's Czar Entertainment, and they picked tracks for the album together.
"I wanted like a raunchy, grimy feel to it," Gucci explained. "So I wanted party beats that still could bang in the truck. So trunk music. The producers know my swag and what I wanna hear. So they gonna hit it in the head when they give it to me."
Not every track is so dirty, though. The Trey Songz-assisted "Drink It Straight," and "G-Love" (featuring LeToya Luckett) offer smoother alternatives, and according to Gucci, one of the two will likely be the third single.
In the meantime, Gucci is still getting his crew, the So Icey Boys, together. He told us DG Yola may not be in the group by the time the album drops due to issues he's having with Atlantic Records. After that, Gucci is prepping his new artist OJ the Juice Man for for a release, and then he wants to drop another solo album by the end of 2008.
"I gotta get my catalog going now, man," he said. ...
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New York Police Detective Derrick Parker
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The streets are still watching for sure, according to the original hip-hop cop, retired NYPD Detective Derrick Parker. Parker headed up the rap task force and was responsible for creating the infamous binder that noted information on rappers in abundance. In an interview set to run next week on MTVNews.com, the former cop-turned-private investigator confirmed that the hip-hop police were plenty active and in fact targeted Lil Wayne and Ja Rule in July at the New Orleans rapper's headlining New York concert.
"I was there at the concert, at the Beacon [Theatre], working for the promoter at the event," Parker revealed. "And the police were waiting at the event. And they pulled over Ja Rule and then pulled over Lil Wayne's tour bus, and they arrested both of them for possession of firearms, for guns."
Parker said he's still knee-deep in plenty of rap-related investigations, and he rattled off a laundry list of cases that could easily be solved — from the deaths of Stack Bundles and New York spin doctor DJ Carl Blaze to the still-open cases surrounding Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.
"There are other cases that [have] some music or hip-hop connotation to it that can be solved," he said. Parker explained that he wasn't sure if the right detectives were on certain cases. It's not that the police aren't well-trained, he said, but he wasn't sure how well detectives now on the cases knew the neighborhoods they were investigating. Parker said most of the deaths had more to do with personal matters than music-industry politics and that they require a certain expertise in handling.
Parker most recently served in a consultant role on the Biggie investigation but admitted that he didn't offer all the information he possesses because L.A. police officers wanted to handle things their way, and he obliged. He did, however, say that solving the 'Pac case would be instrumental in solving the Biggie case ("They both mirror each other because they have the same component of people, it's just different levels," he said. "But it's all a West Coast thing"), as would a September admission by Waymond Anderson, who previously went on the record with information about the case before recanting it.
Parker said Anderson's testimony was critical. "He came forward and gave information on what happened," Parker said. "His information was credible back then, but what happens now if he ever retracted that statement? This is what makes this case so difficult, because if they ever go to trial, they're gonna pick apart this guy's statement."
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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