Ludacris proudly holding his "Hip-Hop Autopsy Award" from last year and his stupid Grammy... he says he likes my award better.
Now to the festivities!
These awards are in no particular order because I'm indecisive. Narrowing it down wasn't that tough, though, because 2007 was filled with weak bullshit, (as you'll soon see).
Pharoahe Monch - "When The Gun Draws"
This song, in my opinion, has it all. An amazing, jarring beat that matches the theme of the song well and an interesting, changing flow that lets the lyrics progress naturally, rather than the artist obviously changing words to fit some syllabic structure. A poignant social commentary, without being too preachy. Nice work, Pharoahe!
Brother Ali - "Truth Is"
A really chill beat over what could be described as a edict or manifesto, rather than just a song. It's a call to everybody to demand more from artists, from politicians, from friends and family, and especially from themselves. Another powerfully crafted song from a powerful artist.
Rihanna - "Umbrella"
Rihanna's "Umbrella" wasn't something I was expecting to like, honestly. It's not something that us backpack rap kids like much. But this one took me by surprise. It came with a nice beat to dance to, a catchy hook, and that goddamn infectious "ella-ella-ella, ey-ey-ey."
Aesop Rock - "None Shall Pass"
Not the strongest beat in the world, but the turntables put off a great instrumental vibe, especially the vocal "I'm trying to help" sample. Those are the very nice touches that make Aesop's newest album what it is: awesome. This title track is just another mind-blowing track with wild lyrics and an impeccable flow.
Kanye West - "Can't Tell Me Nothin"
Yeah... the video is done by Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham. Yeah, Kanye wanted them to do it. It's the official alternate video to the song.
There's the other video.
It's always interesting to hear rappers actually admit flaws. This is like a more intelligent, updated version of the classic "Mo Money, Mo Problems." The smooth production coupled with the fact that this is a mainstream single that isn't a club hit makes this a unique endeavor indeed. It's an amazing song for almost any setting, the music of it is enough to keep you paying attention without paying attention, but if you are listening for words, even the first lines of the first verse will show you the kind of interesting ideas Kanye has for this song.
Chamillionaire - "Hip Hop Police"
"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go"
Yeah, that will remind you of 50's "In Da Club" if you're not paying attention. As good of a single as that was, this one is better. Chamillionaire, the man who dropped "Ridin'," comes back with another intelligent single, but worded to keep his mainstream credibility and swagger with the likes of Snoop and The Game. And let's not forget the always amazing storytelling ability of Slick Rick, who appears on this track, (Chamillionaire had it right, if you're gonna tell a story, get the man who told "Children's Story").
Army of the Pharaohs - "Tear it Down"
From the first beat, you can tell this is underground. It's got the feel of a freestyle beat with three crazy emcees just spitting off the top. It reminds me of the best talent at Scribble Jam, just three dudes talking shit in a freestyle. Really creative, really free-flowing, and really authentic. It's more grimy and gutter than most rappers even claim to be, and the production quality reflects that beautifully.
Brother Ali - "Uncle Sam Goddamn"
Another Brother Ali track. I'm not against having two songs by the same artist, especially if they deserve it, (though I tried to keep it off of the 10 Worst list, because I like talking a lot of shit about different people).
This one is a lot more laid back sounding, from the jazzy, country-blues feel of the beat to Ali's vocals, which have that smooth sound like he's covering an amazingly intelligent Snoop song. The message hits just as hard as any Public Enemy song, though.
Chamillionaire - "Won't Let You Down (Texas Takeover Remix)"
This is one of the bigger songs, personnel-wise, featuring K-Ci, Slim Thug, Lil Keke, Mike Jones, Trae, Paul Wall, Bun B, Z-Ro, and the late Pimp C. It's got that clear down south anthem style and a covers a wide range of verbal styles and crazy amount of geography. Honestly, to me, Trae and Z-Ro really take this track with their completely different, but very similar flow styles. The whole of UGK is featured on this track showcasing why they are where they are as far as garnering respect in the rap world.
Apparently they're making an extended mix for download from Chamillionaire's official site which features EVEN MORE artists and is over fifteen minutes long! The roster for this massive mammoth of a song is: K-Ci, Slim Thug, Lil Keke, Mike Jones, trae, Paul Wall, Bun B, Z-Ro, Pimp C, Lil Flip, Rob G, Famous, Jayton, Slim Thug, Lil' O, Yung Redd, Big Pokey, ESG, Troublesum, PKT, Willie D, Corey Mo, GT, Chingo Bling, Magno, Yung Ro, Kiotti, Raw LT, Boss, Grit Boys, Big Mike, and Scarface. Can't fuckin wait, (especially if Scarface is showing up on the track)!
Kanye West - "Stronger"
This is it...
Kanye...
"Stronger."
You know it, you love it. It's infectious and dancy with a beat by Daft Punk, (but the bass is pumped up by Timbaland). There's not much to say about this song that hasn't already been said. It's amazing conceptually, lyrically, and aurally as a whole. It's innovative (though not as much as people are sucking Kanye's dick for, the electronica/rap thing has been done, he just did it in a Kanye way) and fun.
***
Now it's time for the Worst Singles of 2007! These will surly be pumped from radio stations ad nausem for the next year or two, because most people listen to shit, and most rap stations play shit all the time, (with a few exceptions). This was an extremely hard list to make because 2007 sucked... really badly. It wasn't hard to find songs, it was hard to narrow it down.
Lil Wayne accepting his "Lil Wayne Award"... he seems very happy with it, ironically. Maybe he doesn't quite grasp what it means.
Cassidy "My Drink N' My 2 Step"
Goddamnit I wish he would have died in that crash.
Another terrible single from the man that brought you "I'm a Hustla" which shows you that he can do better, but not much. The beat feels like a Kanye West throwaway, (that Swizz Beatz added terrible guitars over) and the flow feels so formulaic, especially when he repeats things over and over in the second verse. And the addition of Swizz's vocals only enhance how bad the song actually is, (memo to Mr. Beatz: stick to production... actually, you're kind of getting bad at that too). Yes, I know that you have your drink and your two step, your drink and your two step, your drink and your two step... too bad you drank too much and the key to a decent song was three steps away.
I wonder how many of these songs in the "worst" list have a chorus that simply repeats the title at least four times...?
Huey - "Pop Lock and Drop It"
Ooh! Another song that has a title about a type of dance! Here's another thing to keep track of... so far, we're at two.
The song is a predictable, boring, trite, pedestrian, club hit. Yeah, motherfuckers can dance to it. Keep it an instrumental then, people don't need you to tell them the steps to the song, this ain't the fuckin "Hokey Pokey."
I've said it once and I'll say it again, if you're a rapper with a club hit, you're nothing. You should just cut your entire check to the producer, because you mean exactly... dick.
And, oddly enough, for a song that talks about sex so much, and fucking girls that dance... there seems to be a few children in the video (yes, I just implied that Huey is a child molester). See also: my article on Child Exploitation.
Mims - "Like This"
Of course the video starts out with the "remember, I did this song" that seems to be commonplace for one hit wonders as a way to acknowledge how artistically lacking they actually are.
Isn't the first line pretty much a stolen Fergie line? "All my girls get down on the floor" versus "Good girls get down on the floor". Can he make a single without appropriating something? If you don't remember "This Is Why I'm Hot" has beats from "Jesus Walks," "Nothin' But A G Thang" and an E-40 song. Huey already talked about girls being upside-down, (actually, it's in "Pop Lock and Drop It," and since that single dropped before Mims' album did, I would suggest that Mims stole that too). Shit, even the "I" on the cover of Mims' album is being disputed (to the point where EMI is being sued by Universal) because the "I" looks like another rapper's "I."
There's a fine line between a respectful allusion, or flattery by imitation and plain theft... Mims knows this the way Carlos Mencia knows this.
As far as the declaration that he has the "top-10 number one ringtone"... well, number one is in the top-10 (he may be confused about how the numerical system works). Also, having the number one ringtone isn't necessarily something to be proud of. Larry the Cable Guy had a featured ringtone on V-Cast a few weeks ago that featured a rendition of "Jingle Bells" done in farts. And if a lot of people want only 28 seconds of your song, chances are, that might be how long they can stand you.
Talking about the success of another one of your songs in a song is probably a bad thing, Mims.
Also, this is number three for songs in the worst of the year that just have the title repeated over and over in the chorus.
Pretty Ricky - "Love Like Honey"
Pretty Ricky sucks, and no one in it is pretty. That's their first problem. Their second? No one is named Ricky.
Anyway, the title should warn the listener that it is going to be a cliche filled fun-fest. Think about an R&B version of 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" or "Amusement Park" (and if you didn't know that those were the same song, just by the titles alone... you should probably stop reading... actually you probably already stopped because you liked all the songs on the "worst" list... actually, you probably don't read anyway).
"Spectacular's" verse (I put his name in quotes because I almost feel like saying his name sarcastically) sounds like he's singing either from immense pain, or trying to sound hardcore (like any number of studio gangstas in the industry), or like he's taking a massive shit after being on a steady diet of melted cheese and no fiber. Yes, that's my first scatological jab at someone, but listen to the song, you'll agree.
"Pleasure's" singing of "I wanna do ya, do ya, do ya" is clearly ghostwritten by a twelve year old boy. He then croons "I wanna take it to the east, take it to the west, don't wanna go up north, 'cause down south is the best." This, clearly, means that he'd rather "take it" to your arms, rather than your face. "Tip Drill" anyone? Maybe, combined with the food references, the girl they're talking about is a "Butter face."
And what the fuck does "your love's like ice cream/sweet as a rose" mean? "Sweet as a rose"? Really? Someone wrote this on a piece of paper and no one went, "wait, this makes no sense." Or am I to believe that there's some rap fad that I haven't paid attention to where motherfuckers are eating foliage? Or is there some Ben and Jerry's flavor "Ridiculous Red Raspberry Roses" that I was unaware of? I'm not big on dessert foods, so this is the most plausible explanation.
Anyway, Pretty Ricky sucks. Next!
Rich Boy - "Throw Some D's"
The intro to the video has very little to do with the song.
Also, why would MTV blur out the "Cadillac" symbol, but let Rich Boy say it? That's really curious.
I think Rich Boy's looks like a cartoon version of an army Sargent, and oddly plastic, formed into a perfect square. His forehead extends past his eyebrows into his eyes for Christ sake! He's HIDEOUS! I did hear someone say that he looks like Robocop. I'm inclined to agree.
Aside from that, the beat to this song would be pretty good if Kanye or Jay-Z used it (specifically if Jay-Z used it on the "American Gangster" album), but they didn't, so we're left with a decent beat with lyrics that in no way carry the same feel. Either way, some of Rich Boy's shit makes very little sense, most of the time. "Got the damn top dropped two colored flip flopped/Candy red lollipop." Let's count how many colors there are to be "flip-flopped". Yes, that's one. Not "two colored, flip-flopped." Apparently, like Mims, Rich Boy wasn't paying attention in math class.
The song turns oddly wholesome when he starts talking about Peter Pan and peanut-butter ice cream. Again, keeping up that nonsensical style, but joining Pretty Ricky in some banter about dessert foods.
He does point out one thing in this song that is the scourge of music today, particularly rap: "I can't explain how I feel." If there's anything you can't artistically explain, stop doing music, and ESPECIALLY don't mention it in your song.
He mumbles too much and has an apparent allergy to vowels, pronunciation, and words with more than one syllable. The only person who beats him at this is Soulja Boy (who appears, not coincidentally, later on this list).
Shop Boyz - "Party Like A Rockstar"
If you wanna "Party Like A Rockstar," you should probably make a song that sounds like you're a rock star. Another case of the beat not matching the feel of the song. Frankly, the song is just lame... lame, lame, lame. There's no feel of authenticity, just an attempt to stretch the boundary of the genre into an area that was discovered back in the 80's. It's like as if Tony Blair set sail on the vast blue ocean to discover the uncharted New World of America.
Wicked discovery, Shop Boyz.
Soulja Boy - "Crank Dat"
Yet another "Hokey Pokey" style song. At the beginning of the song, he may as well be saying "I gah 'nutha formula fo' y'all call da Soulja Boy. Ya gotta think a title den repeat dat eight times."
This IS one track where the beat matches the song though: simple, primitive, and uninspired.
Of course, what would a rap formula be without "jockin on some haters," talking about money, fighting in the club, the occasional name brand plug and shameless self-promotion? He follows this shit to the book.
[I should make a note to repeat here that "hater" is probably the most ignorant, useless, piece-of-shit word in rap. It basically is a catch-all term that means "anyone that criticizes, disagrees, or dislikes someone or something" whether that critique, disagreement, or disdain is valid or not. Reminds me too much of Bush's "you're either with us or with the terrorists."]
The song makes sense insomuch as it makes sense within the vacuum of two lines of a rhyming couplet at a time, but those don't necessarily fit in the context of the rest of the song. It's like he had scraps of songs strewn about, and was just like "fuckit... I'll put them all together" and then loosely fitted them together between chantings of "I MEAN YOOOUUUUU! (Crank dat Soulja Boy!)"
Oh, let's not forget the formula of so many lines per verse, and the song structure of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. Inspired.
We only need one dance song per year. We got seventy this year. It gets fucking old. Let people dance how they want to instead of goose-stepping while you bark orders, okay?
And like I said before, he has an aversion to enunciation. I've heard the boy speak during interviews and promo things (one with 50 Cent where he was getting his hair cut) and he doesn't speak that badly. He's got an accent, but the mumbling, slurring, monosyllabic nonsense is just an act. He tries to sound stupid. And anyone that does that doesn't deserve money or influence because they just do stupid things with it.
Yung Joc - "Coffee Shop"
Anyone whose name could easily be mispronounced as "Young Joke" should probably change it.
The beat is stupid. It's childish and banal, so is the chorus. He's basically saying that theft rings are like coffee shops. A story about that wouldn't necessarily be bad, but, frankly, rap's mostly lost the storytelling talent. It's just a vague representation of what he does repeated with every line. It's like saying, "I walk, I saunter, I strut, I gait, I jaunt, I tread, I march, I parade, I pace, I step, I stride, I stroll, I tread". That's basically the entire song: "I steal shit, then people buy it from me" repeated over and over in different words. Slick Rick would roll over in his grave if he were dead.
T-Pain - "Buy You A Drank"
Yung Joke made the list twice with this song!!! Congrats! Now kill yourself.
I'm not sure if T-Pain ever leaves the club. He must eat, sleep, and shit there. Look at the evidence: "I'm N Luv Wit A Stripper" and "Bartender" are two of his other bigger hits. Maybe his albums are a concept album about being in the club. This is just the second portion of it, in which he's made his way from the pole down to the bartender, and now he's offering to buy a young woman a drink! It's a hip-hopera! Actually, they're all probably just shitty songs, completely independent of one another.
Within the first few seconds, he proves, once again, that he is simply a second rate Lil Jon. Lil Jon grows dreads and does production. T-Pain grows dreads and does production (only Lil Jon's is good, while T-Pain's is mediocre). Lil Jon makes a bad decision and starts to try and put his vocals on tracks. T-Pain makes the same bad decision. Lil Jon screams "Snap yo fingaz, do yo step, you can do it all by yo-self" where T-Pain croons it and sounds like an ass while he does it.
This song proves two other things:
1) Almost any song that mentions the beverage Patron should be avoided at all costs.
2) The only person that should use a talkbox that much is Roger Troutman, and he's dead. T-Pain just abuses it to cover up his lack of talent.
And that's that for this year!
