Lost in the World

The Anti-Christ of music review blogs Genres: Mostly Rap, R&B, Indie, Dubstep, Punk, J-POP, Alternative, Soul, Jazz ...anything that fancies me Favourites: Kanye West, Two Door Cinema Club, Oh Land, ADELE, Janelle Monae, Lupe Fiasco, NUJABES, Kendrick Lamar, Arcade Fire, Coldplay. Esperanza Spalding, Bon Iver

[chocolavision-blog]

Everyone, so this happened tonight…

Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t contain her excitement when she ran into Lupita Nyong’o on the red carpet at the SAG Awards in LA on Saturday night. Both ladies were nominated in the outstanding supporting actress category, and despite going head to head at the show, they shared a sweet moment on the red carpet.

Courtesy of popsugar… see more here

Also shouts out to Lupita’s afro… it deserves honorable mention

[mycollectiveperception]

[chocolavision-blog]

[chocolavision-blog]

excerpt from: “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh

I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen...

[vasunarchive]

This is a resource post for all the Good White Person™s out there. You know, the ones who say things like “It’s not my fault I’m white! Don’t generalize white people!”, or “I’m appreciating your culture! You should be proud!”, or “Why do you hate all white people, look I’m a special snowflake who’s not racist give me an award for meeting the minimum requirements for being a decent human being”. Well, if you are actually interested in understanding racism and how it ties into cultural appropriation, please read instead of endlessly badgering PoCs on tumblr with your cliched, unoriginal arguments and repeating the same questions over and over.

On White Privilege aka don’t blame me just because I’m white:

It’s Not My Fault I Was Born White: Basics of White Privilege x

Racial Divide x

Endless Examples of White Privilege x

You Cannot Know What It’s Like To Be A Racial Minority x

Intersectional Feminism x

White Privilege Does Not Mean White People Have Perfect Lives x

White Privilege and White Supremacy: A Presentation x

You Will Never Experience Racism x

Understanding White Privilege x

White Privilege and Double Standards x

Systematic White Ignorance x

The Invisibility of White Privilege x

The Luxury of White Privilege x

White Privilege: The Harry Potter Analogy x

Privilege Denial Bingo x

Privilege and Cost x

Check Your Privilege 101 x

Whiteness x

Whiteness is Not A Culture x

White Privilege and Racism x

Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk About Race x

When White Anti Racists Talk About ~Their Struggle~ x

White Privilege As A System x

On Reverse Racism aka you are being racist against white people:

Are White People Racially Oppressed x

White People, the new Racial Minority x

People Don’t Value Pale Skin!! x

There Is No Such Thing As Reverse Racism x

Racism vs. Not Racism x

But White People Are Discriminated Against In Foreign Countries x

The Myth of Reverse Racism: Why Cracker is Not N**** x

Satire: A Step Wise Guide on Being Reverse Racist x

Racism Against White People vs. Racism Against POCs x

On Cultural Appropriation aka I’m just appreciating your culture:

The Basics x

Identifying Appropriation x

But When We Wear It … x

Why Can’t I Wear It (Hipster Headdresses) x

Not Yours x

If You Take The Bindi x

White People Do It Better x

Multiculturalism and Appropriation x

Cultural Appropriation and Portrayals In Print Media x

Diminishing the Cultural Significance of the Bindi x

The Cultural Appropriation Bingo x

Why We’re Fed Up of Your Responses x

Identities Are Not Costumes x

Hinduism And Appropriation x

Religion and Privilege x

Bindis Are Cool x

Exotic India x

What’s Wrong With Cultural Appropriation x

Racism, Bindis and Ganesh Tattoos x

BUT YOU’RE SPEAKING ENGLISH! x

Cultural Appropriation Trolls x

Guide to Being An Appropriating Douchefuck x

New Age ~Culture Mixing~ x

In case you’re tired of the prose, here’s poetry x

Why You Shouldn’t Wear A Bindi x

Appropriating and Sharing x

Our Culture is A Punchline Until It’s a Trend x

Homage Or Insult x

Tattoos and Appropriation x

Bollywood is Not Synonymous With Indian x

College Party Costumes and Stereotypes x

Dotheads x

Bindis and Racist Humour x

Hindu Iconography x 

Misuse of Hindu Iconography x

Your Appreciation Doesn’t Help Us x

Assorted Vials of White Tears and Miscellaneous Antidotes aka I can’t change that I’m white/not all whites are racist/we are all humans:

Unoriginal Arguments Refuted x

Quick Checklist: You Might Be Racist If x

Your Opinion Isn’t Necessary x

I’m Not Responsible For My Ancestors x

The Kumbayah Myth x

Proud to Be White x

Good White Person x

We Don’t Hate White People x

Brutality of Colonialism And Why You Can’t Tell Us To Forget the Past x

People Who Claim Not To See Race Are More Likely to Be Racist x

All Races are Beautiful Said the White Girl x 

Race Blindness Is A Luxury x

Well, You’re Racist For Calling Me Racist x

I’ve Read About Its Significance, I Know What It Means

Angry Because Someone Called You Racist x

We’re Not All Like That x

People Only Care About This Trivial Shit On The Internet x

I Can’t Apologize for Being Born White, It’s Not My Fault x

Why Can’t You Tell Me What I’m Doing Wrong x

It’s Easy to Be Color Blind When You’re White x

A Diagrammatic Guide To White Tears x

Conversations I’m Sick Of Having With White People x

Why Do You Hate White People x

I’m Trying To Be Cultured x

Sisyphean Conundrum x

What is Your Problem x

We Are All Human, We All Bleed Red x

It’s Just A Bindi x

How Not To Respond To Accusations of Racism x

I’m Italian And 0.009% Native American x

What White People Think Racism Means: A Venn Diagram x

White Guilt x

White Pride!!!111!!! x

I Like *Insert Foreign Country* I Want To Live There x

You Have So Much Hate, Fighting Fire With Fire Won’t Help x

BooHoo, Don’t Call Me Racist x

Not Everything Ended With Your Ancestors x

The Racist Reaction x

I Don’t See Why That Is Racist x

Crummy Apologies x

Okay. I agree. I’ve been socially conditioned not to notice racism and recognize my privilege. What can I do?

Listen x

A Step Wise Guide x

I don’t care about this bullshit; you’re making a big deal out of nothing, go home and delete your blog:

The Clueless White Person Bus x

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

you should change your name to musicandblackchicks

I probably should ...I accidentally posted on this blog as opposed to my main blog which is about black chicks :'( ...sorry guys

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Lady Mondegreen and the Miracle of Misheard Song Lyrics

Long before the Internet came along and ruined our ability to experience anything and simply enjoy it, Gary Larson drew a “Far Side” cartoon of a cow staring blankly at a table, upon which is a set of poorly made, nonsensical tools. The cow’s brow appears furrowed, as if it is unable to decide which one to use. The caption reads simply: “Cow Tools.” Larson’s logic behind the gag was this: How hideous and apparently useless would a cow’s tool set be? Unfortunately for Larson, one of the tools vaguely resembled a saw, causing confused readers to seek out human analogs in the rest of the tool set in order to decipher the gag. Predictably this misreading led to frustration and a subsequent outpouring of angry reader mail. According to Larson’s “Prehistory of the Far Side,” it is arguably the most loathed “Far Side” strip ever, which says a lot: the comic was often intentionally obtuse A recent rap lyric has elicited a cow-tools-esque reaction on the Internet. To be precise, though, we should call it a mondegreen: the term for misheard song lyrics that give rise to new words or meanings. Sylvia Wright coined the term in an essay for Harper’s in 1954, recounting a frequent mishearing of a lyric from “The Bonny Earl O’Moray” that she experienced as a child: “Laid him on the green,” to her young ear, became “Lady Mondegreen.” (Other frequently cited, if not quite current, mondegreens include, “Secret Asian man,” “Chicken to ride” and “ ’Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”) The mondegreen we’re discussing today is “fanute” — rhymes with salute. French Montana, a rapper from Morocco by way of the Bronx, seems to say it on Rick Ross’s “Stay Schemin’,” a recent mix-tape hit. Type “fanute” into Twitter’s search, and you’ll probably see a new tweet surface every 30 seconds or so, with someone misquoting the lyric in question (sometimes ironically) or asking what “fanute” means or just jokingly using it in a sentence. All this was uncovered by a writer, Joe Coscarelli, who discovered that “What does ‘fanute’ mean?” was a recommended Google search; the query was that popular. The word has taken on a life of its own since, and as with many slang terms we adopt into our vocabulary, the line between ironic and sincere usage is never entirely clear, as irony frequently leads to sincerity. “I’ve come so far in the last two, three years. But one never stops improving, so I’ll continue to fanute,” someone tweeted, seemingly sincerely; when someone else tweeted on June 28, “Fanute that health care, dawg,” it was done obviously a bit less so So what is the true meaning of “fanute”? Most likely in an effort to save syllables, or out of pure laziness, French Montana omitted most of the hard consonants from the words “from the hoopty coupe to that Ghost, dog” leading to the mondegreen “fanute the coupe to that Ghost, dog.” Fanute is not unlike Larson’s cow’s “saw”: “fanute” is a figment of the viewer/listener’s imagination, and because of the way the sentence is structured, “fanute” appears to be a transitive verb, thus sending the listener on a potentially vexing quest for meaning where there is none to be found. A music blogger who goes by Mobb Deen, who has a bit of an obsession with this particular mondegreen, has since defined “fanute” as: 1. v., To convert; to turn less into more via “swag.” Or 2. Anything you want it to mean Not everyone is satisfied with this chaos, however, and one site in particular, RapGenius, has harnessed the power of the masses to guarantee that you never embarrass yourself at a party with a rap mondegreen again. It’s a wiki-style site that posts song lyrics and invites users to offer explanations for potentially obscure references or difficult-to-understand phrasings. At RapGenius, you’ll find Montana’s lyrics transcribed properly, and you’ll also find an explanation in a pop-up window: “ ‘Ghost, dog’ refers to the extremely expensive Rolls-Royce Ghost, which Montana now claims to be driving in place of his old, beat-up car.” It is even accompanied by an image of the Rolls-Royce. This read of Montana’s lyrics — most likely 100 percent correct (and fanutelessly dry) — was added by the user SameOldShawn, whose “Rap IQ” on the site has surpassed 100,000 points. RapGenius ranks its users, and at 10 points per “good” explanation and 20 points per “great,” you can safely assume that SameOldShawn keeps busy supporting RapGenius’s efforts The perhaps fallacious assumption at the Web site’s heart is that every rap lyric has a meaning and that the meaning of every rap lyric should be unearthed. It’s true that rap is routinely made up of arcane local vernacular, references to pop culture, snippets of other rap lyrics and even music-industry, inside-baseball jargon. Yet part of the joy of listening to a lot of rap music is having all this unfold for you as you become more familiar with it. And furthermore, you need look no further than the work of Das EFX, Cam’ron or Ghostface Killah to find that between the playful nature of the genre and its formal strictures, plenty of rap lyrics have absolutely no meaning at all. Cam’ron claims, in the opening line to “Get Em Girls,” that he can “get computers ’putin’ ” What can we possibly do with that? Victor Vazquez from the Brooklyn rap duo Das Racist once referred to RapGenius as “white-devil sophistry” on a song called “Middle of the Cake.”And yes, that lyric, too, is dissected on RapGenius — pull it up, and you’ll find a freestyle rap on video from an editor of the site, shirtlessly and awkwardly refuting the claim. If the RapGeniuses are sophists — like the sneaky Greek philosophers who perniciously used logic to lead followers to illogical conclusions — then their wrongheaded conclusion is perhaps that all of this can, or should, be explained in a linear, X-means-Y fashion. Which means that in this online world of prescriptive listening, there is no room for fanute RapGenius is part of a broader effort in recent years, both online and in print, to organize rap lyrics into something more useful to listeners, as if rap lyrics qua rap lyrics were utterly useless. In 2010, Yale University Press published the Anthology of Rap, which canonizes dozens of rap songs — or more specifically, their lyrics — as a sort of poetry. Not only does the anthology include verses “that were almost certainly not written by the performer credited — ghostwriting has been and always will be part of the genre — it warrants mentioning that the anthology contains more than a few transcription errors of its own, chronicled by Paul Devlin in Slate. For example, Devlin points out that the transcription of 50 Cent’s lyrics from “Ghetto Qua’ran” would have it that George Wallace, the segregationist four-time Alabama governor, was dealing cocaine in Jamaica, Queens — instead of Gerald Wallace, the drug dealer 50 Cent actually references. (Alas, no RapGeniuses were present to correct them.) This isn’t merely a detached academic’s game, however. Jay-Z put out the book “Decoded” in 2010, in which he “decodes” the lyrics to a number of his better-known songs, while tying them back to his life story. The notion that Jay-Z’s lyrics need some sort of Rosetta Stone is somewhat strange, though — he is indeed talented, but he is also an incredibly accessible lyricist Whereas “Decoded” and RapGenius at least encourage the exegesis of lyrics, elsewhere online, rap lyrics are treated more like a form of structured data. RapMetrics, for instance, is a fascinating project by a chemical-engineering student named Liban Ali Yusuf; it is both a rhyming dictionary and a source of more-provocative analytical projects. In one, Yusuf sifted through lyrics by white and black artists and generated a list of “white” words and “black” words. A few “black” words: Houston, mink, Impala. A few “white” words: rotting, nuggets, ninja (which: ugh). On the less sophisticated end of things, far away from RapMetrics (which is a truly impressive project) we have the circa 2008 meme of presenting rap lyrics in graphical form. For example, in one tongue-in-cheek graph designed to show the proportional relationship described by Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy and Ma$e on “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” the X axis is labeled “money” and the Y axis is labeled “problems.” As lyrically dense as rap can be, it’s no wonder that the lyrics present themselves as a problem to be solved, something to be organized either in wiki fashion or to be parsed like raw data. In wiki arrangement, the lyrics are treated as having no intrinsic value beyond the references they make; as raw data, they are done away with almost entirely. Both approaches belie an attitude that ultimately creates distance between the listener and the music: rap lyrics are data; rap lyrics are graphs. Rap lyrics are poetry to be read in your smoking jacket with a glass of Cognac (E. & J., sir? I recommend you fanute to the Louis XIII?). Perhaps this is reflective of a certain discomfort that rap music’s ever-broadening fan base has with the genre (or a discomfort with its own outsider’s unfamiliarity with the genre). It at least suggests a nascent anxiety: that to appreciate the music in a direct and visceral or even emotional way would be untoward for the effete, urbane listener. It is hard to imagine this brand of wink-wink analysis happening to any other form of music — make a graph out of Band of Horses lyrics, andsee if anyone laughs More to the point, however, is that this rigorous organization of rap lyrics into structured and unstructured data sets, into problems to be solved, exists in direct opposition to accidental mondegreens like “fanute,” which can arise only from actually listening to the music, rather than fussing over it as if it were your homework. The Internet is a powerful research tool, and apparently we’ve decided to use it to enable crowdsourced pedantry of the most obnoxious sort. Anyone with a laptop can be as authoritative as Springfield’s Comic Book Guy now, and apparently that’s something to be celebrated. We can turn something that ought to be enjoyed into something that owes us an explanation for its existence, into something that must reveal its underlying worth. We can use the Internet to sniff out and suffocate every mystery from all four corners of the globe, from the grandest conspiracies to the pettiest dispute. Yet despite these attempts to control, categorize and define, there’s still somehow room for mondegreens like “fanute” to break through and remind you why you like listening to rap While “Cow Tools” is funny on its own, sort of, it’s at least twice as funny with the knowledge that it vexed so many readers — even the cow looks angry. “Fanute” is similar. It’s a reminder that, in the face of this wave of rationalization brought on by the Internet, we’re still capable of appreciating the chaos. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some fanuting to do around the house

Willey Staley - New York Times

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

New Frank Ocean... Sweet Life 

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

I have finally gained an appreciation of Illmatic...

It has taken a while but I am enlightened

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

RPG

I sneakily make my escape through my window, as the town transforms into a role-playing game at night. Following the arrows, I am lured to a lively world, where the sound of the "Start!" signal is echoing. I can feel throughout my body my eagerness to meet you, so I begin dashing, leaping across the darkness. Even if the climax doesn't come, even if it's a dangerous gamble of life-or-death, it's fine, just try and arouse my interest. Right now I want to be engrossed in you. Even though I just obtained this future, I will rewrite its story. The set rules are beginning to crumble away. There are only 5 minutes left, and I keep running over-pace. Unable to wait any longer, I try again and again in vain. If my days continue like this, the role-playing game will end. I cannot yet see the next stage. The farther I advance, the deeper the surrounding blue becomes, as I plunge into the darkness. Play or fadeout? I've lost my way within you, and cannot find a way out. Holding my hand over the Reset Button, I can't just choose A or B. I want to know more about your heart than any other puzzle in this world. The program itself has nothing to do with it; it's nothing more than a pre-established story, so I'll cast it away, and step out my own path. If you wish, I'm willing to deceive the entire world, so for now, please pull my hand. Even if the climax doesn't come, even if it's a dangerous gamble of life-or-death, it's fine, just try and arouse my interest. It's not about A or B; logic doesn't apply here. I want to know more about your heart than any other puzzle in this world.

[subject-twentyeight]

[channelorange]

Visit Original Link

“SCANDALOUS, VANDALOUS, M.I.A. CAN’T HANDLE THIS”

http://www.twitter.com/boyinparis

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Bad Girl (N.A.R.S. REMIX) - M.I.A. feat Azealia Banks & Missy Elliot

This song is everything!

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Lil Wayne - I Am Not A Human Being 2 (Mixtape) is out

So I guess I know one mixtape I won't be copping :)

If you couldn't deduce, I'm saying Lil' Wayne sucks ass

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Frank Ocean - Pyramids

First new track released from Francis today from his upcoming album, Channel Orange, which is expected on July 17, 2012.

The production and vocals are pretty crazy...

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Kanye West: 35 for 35 - Yeezy's 35 greatest lines

Today marks the 35th birthday of Kanye Omari West — producer, shoe designer, Twitter user, Fendi intern, awards-show-ruiner, director, author of self-help books, and, lest we forget, rapper. The folks down at Rap Genius are marking the occasion by giving you his 35 best lines, with explanations.

Kanye West is notable for many reasons. When it comes to his rapping, though, he wasn’t always the celebrated figure he is today. He had some fantastic moments in the early years of his career, many of which are below, but overall, his ear for beats and knack for unique song concepts outpaced his rapping ability. On his 2004 debut albumThe College Dropout, he was shown up by nearly every guest — who were, to be fair, some of the greatest rappers alive (Jay-Z, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, etc.)

Despite that, the record sold over four million copies and Yeezy established himself as a legitimate rapper. Most artists would take this as an excuse to sit back and make The College Dropout, parts 2-157. West had a different idea. Despite being a huge star, he continued to work on his mic skills and, by 2009, he was on a par with — and even sometimes besting — the same folks who had previously murdered him on his own shit.

Yeezy didn’t rest on his laurels stylistically, either. Each album has shown a distinct change and progression. The hip-hop world waits with baited breath for each new project— can he really make an album with Jon Brion? Can he make a record that will translate into stadiums and arenas? What’s this about a tour where he’s on stage by himself, talking to a spaceship and some puppets? Wait, he’s singing? How will he come back from Swiftgate? Year after year, he pulls off stunts that no other artist dares to attempt, never mind succeed at, and his music only gets better — we could have filled up half this list just with quotes from “Gorgeous” and “Power”. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the best of Mr. West:

(35) Can’t you see, you’re like a book of poetry/Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni — turn one page and there’s my mommy — Hey Mama Donda West was a huge, looming figure in her son’s life. Kanye’s first three album titles (The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation) were all in their way answers to his mother’s wishes for him to move into the world of higher education. She also served as a muse, as in this touching number that remembers the hard times and ends with the son asking what type of Jaguar he should buy his mother as a thank you. The use of the word “mommy” here kills us every time with its child-like yearning and simplicity.

(34) Immature adult, insecure asshole/If you fall on the concrete, that’s your ass fault/If you pass on a Kan beat, that’s your last fault — See Me Now Kanye is for everyone — the backpacker, the soul music fan, the casual listener who just loved “Gold Digger”. With this song, he was apparently aiming for the usually overlooked hardhat market as well, as he makes an “asphalt”/“ass fault” pun.

(33) I’m doing pretty good as far as geniuses go/And I’m looking pretty hood in my pink Polo — Barry Bonds In 2007, Lil Wayne was the man to beat. Every thought out of his mouth made it onto a mixtape somewhere, and most of them were amazingly good. So Kanye was tempting fate by asking a man who was then believably billing himself as “the best rapper alive” to be the only rapping guest on his Graduation album. And in the first real indication that our caterpillar was growing into a butterfly, Yeezy pulled it off. He surpassed Wayne on this track, and more than earned the “genius” appellation he gives himself here.

(32) For every inch they cut the nose off the Sphinx/I make my jeweler add a few more links/You can look at me today and fucking nobody think/And my face always looking like somebody stinks — Chain Heavy This line is a stellar example of Kanye’s loyalty to both racial justice and Mammon. He sings the praises of his jewelry while referencing the Afrocentric theory that Napoleon’s troops destroyed the nose of the Sphinx during an eighteenth-century visit to Egypt.

(31) “And don’t let nobody with the power to sign/Ever tell you you ain’t got the power to rhyme/They used to tell me toughen up, put some bass in your voice/They used to tell me lighten up, put some Ma$e in your voice” — Get By (Remix) It’s hard to remember now, but Kanye’s early career had him constantly fighting for respect as a rhymer. The stigma of being a producer-turned-rapper followed him untilThe College Dropout’s multi-platinum success. This 2002 remix of Talib Kweli’s Kanye-produced hit features amazing verses from Kweli, Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, and Jay-Z. Yeezy, at this point in his career, was well out of his league rapping-wise. But he didn’t let that stop him, and came up with a sloppy but inspired verse that succeeds due to pure gumption and charisma.

(30) Dog, just keep it right thurr like Chig-ay/Your girl don’t like me, how long has she been gay?/The Spanish girls tell you, “No habla Eng-lay”/And everybody wanna run to me for they sing-lay — Wack Niggaz The modified Pig Latin that runs through this line is what sells it for us. Kanye is a man of many exaggerated pronunciations, not all of which are successful. Here, though, he adds just the right amount of goofiness to his brag about being the producer of the moment

(29) One thing I gotta call out, boy/Take a look at Fall Out Boy/Just seems like when they get money they don’t ball out, boy/They just buy tight jeans til they nuts hang all out, boy — This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race (Remix) Emo poster children Fall Out Boy were beloved by rappers. Jay-Z appeared on their fourth album, and they enlisted Lupe Fiasco, Lil Wayne, Paul Wall, and more to appear on this remix of their 2007 hit. Yeezy appears nonplussed by the whole thing, admitting in his opening lines that he has no idea what the original song is about (and, despite being avowed FOB fans, we really don’t, either). But he does know how Pete Wentz and co. dress, and gets his licks in here.

(28) You trying to stab one like Jack the Ripper/I’m trying to stab two like Jack the Tripper — Stand Up (Remix) This line was one that Kanye was extremely proud of in his early days, working it into seemingly every freestyle. He was right to do it. The couplet is in the style of all the best Kanye jokes — short, unpredictable, and bawdy. This could occasionally go awry — see his “I always had a PhD — a pretty huge dick” groaner in some songs of this period.

(27) Add this, we blazin' — Nicki, what you think?/We got two white Russians but we also need some drinks — Blazin If he decides to give up this whole rapping thing, Yeezy could kill as a standup comic. This line sounds great on the song, but could work equally as well at some Borscht Belt lounge. Should Kanye ever tire of, you know, riches and fame and world-beating success, we suggest he hit the Catskills.

(26) Spitting fire on the PJ in my PJs/Fire Marshall said I took it to the max like TJ/Y'all aint peep? I said “Marshalls,” replay/I guess I’m like the black Marshall meets Jay —Kinda Like a Big Deal We at RG are not really a fan of the “Get it?” style of punchlines. We even wrote a wholeblog post criticizing the practice. Leave it to Kanye to get us to go back on our word. This succession of clothing-store puns knocks us out every time, even if we admit that Yeezy’s Eminem-plus-Jay self-assessment is, er, a bit overstated.

(25) I’m like the fly Malcolm X, buy any jeans necessary/Detroit Red cleaned up —Good Morning While much attention has been paid to Kanye’s mother and her tragic loss, it’s a lesser-known fact that his father was a Black Panther. This legacy comes through in West’s music and thinking in unexpected ways, and this is one of the most unusual. Malcolm’s famous “By any means necessary” cry for justice is a long way from the high-fashion world West finds himself in, but a part of him always wants to reconcile the two outlooks, thus giving this line meaning beyond the obvious wordplay. Kanye didn’t call himself “Malcolm West” on “Gorgeous” just because it sounded good, after all.

(24) In the club, always the flyest/Always got her hand the highest/She stopped drinking Diet Coke/She on that coke diet — Everyone Nose (Remix) Rap Genius is always a sucker for a good poetic device, and epanados (repeating words in reversed order) is one of our favorites. Shakespeare may have made it famous with “Fair is foul and foul is fair,” but leave it to Kanye to one-up the original Big Willie with this line about, as the hook puts it, “All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom”.

(23) We gonna do like Sonny Bono and hit those trees soon as we get alone/I’m doing beats for pro bono soon as we get to bone — Half Price Kanye is in a light, playful mood here, and has fun with his newfound super-producer status. In addition to the tone, we’re suckers for the “Bono”/”bono” homophone and the “bone”-centric wordplay

(22) ‘Cause when the Jesus pieces can’t bring me peace/Yo, I need at least just one of Russell’s nieces — Put On This 2008 Jeezy collaboration came at a tough time for Yeezy. His mother died in late 2007, and his relationship with fiance Alexis Phifer ended in the spring of 2008. But all of those emotions were channeled into one Auto-Tuned verse in this song. Between rants about “bitches that owe me sex”, laments about losing his one true love, and cries that all his success “don’t mean shit”, “Put On” represents a frighteningly open look into the psyche of a depressed rap star. But in the middle of all that, and without losing the intensity, he manages to work in a great joke about Vanessa and Angela Simmons — which shows that, even at his lowest point, Yeezy still had a thing for Run’s House.

(21) And I’m through spitting these rappers my most heartfelt flow/Cause they be like, “That’s cool — you got some beats for me, though?” — Dreamkillers As we mentioned above, the main battle in the early years of West’s rap life was getting taken seriously as a rapper. The more popular he got as a producer, the more being pigeonholed as “that dude with the soul beats” became a huge risk. “Dreamkillers”, a pre-College Dropout number, recounts these struggles, and these lines encapsulate the problems he faced better than anything else he ever wrote.

(20) They take me to the back and pat me/Asking me about some khakis/But let some black people walk in/I bet you they show off their token blackie — Spaceship To get a measure of how long ago 2004 was in hip-hop years, remember this — Kanye West could make a song about working at The Gap, and no one batted an eye. This reminiscence of his time being alternately mistreated and tokenized is a great piece of writing. It makes issues of labor rights, racism, and the struggle of an artist in a dog-eat-dog society tangible by making them personal. It’s a story first, and a piece of social analysis second, but it works equally well as both.

(19) Now everything I’m rhyming on cause a Ramadan/Been a don, praying for the families lost in the storm — Power (Remix) Kanye’s politics, Malcolm X references aside, have always been hard to parse. But well before he made his sympathies clear by visiting Occupy Wall Street, he was dropping gems for his careful listeners. Here, on a song that explicitly calls for keeping our “troops out of Iran”, Yeezy mentions Ramadan not only as shorthand for a powerful, all-encompassing event, but as a way of explicitly siding with his Arab and Muslim listeners, a stance that he enhances in the next few bars by briefly rapping in Arabic. The Katrina imagery at the end rounds out his stance and reminds us that perhaps Mr. “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”’s worldview has been clear all along.

(18) Act like I ain’t had a belt in two classes/I ain’t got it, I’m going after whoever — who has it/I’m coming after whoever, who has it?/You blowing up? That’s good, fantastic —Gorgeous Hip-hop, whatever the editors of The Yale Anthology of Rap may tell you, is primarily an oral art. These lines are a prime example. The final phrase here is dripping with such contempt that what reads as a mild, if backhanded, compliment on the page comes across to the ear as the ultimate dismissive insult.

(17) I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven/When I awoke, I spent that on a necklace — Can’t Tell Me Nothing Spirituality is not a subject Kanye has ever been shy about addressing. From “Jesus Walks” on his debut to the permissive “new religion” he creates on “No Church in the Wild,” Yeezy is constantly hungering for some connection to forces greater than himself. However, he is continuously drawn back to the need for worldly success. It is this contradiction that fuels most of his great art, and this couplet captures it in all its paradoxical glory.

(16) Dress smart like a London bloke/Before he speak, his suit bespoke — American Boy “American Boy” could have been a throwaway. A cheesy song by a British singer about her love for the colonies, the tune is made into a near-masterpiece by West’s guest verse. Here, he puns on the British word for “tailored” in a way that is, unlike most guest verses, both funny and appropriate to the song’s subject matter. It’s worth noting that his verse also contains a great homophone, a trick that we at RG are suckers for. When he rhymed “U.K.” with “You, K”, grammar freaks on both sides of the pond went nuts.

(15) Screams from the haters got a nice ring to it/I guess every superhero need his theme music — Power “Power” was the first single from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and it delivered an unapologetic West, ready to reclaim his throne after his time in the post-Taylor Swift pop cultural wilderness. Here, he literally turns hate into fuel for his art, and lets the public know that, love him or hate him, his ambition and ego remain intact

(14) You know how long I been on ya/Since Prince was on Apollonia/Since O.J. had Isotoners/Don’t act like I never told ya — Stronger Hip-hop, or at least its mainstream side, is by and large a youth music. The latest radio-ready singles all seem aimed at the same 8-18 demographic. This is why those of us who are (ahem) more mature were ecstatic at the outro of this 2007 number. Yeezy nodded to the 70’s babies — like himself — who remember Purple Rain and the OJ trial, and old heads around the globe cracked a wistful smile.

(13) As kids, we used to laugh/Who knew that life would move this fast?/Who knew I’d have to look at you through a glass?/And look — you tell me you ain’t did it, then you ain’t did it/And if you did, then that’s family business — Family Business The first several Kanye West albums had introspective, soulful songs about the West clan — his mother (“Hey Mama”), his grandmother (“Roses”), and this one about the whole crew. This part of the song, addressed to a jailed cousin, is an emotional look at the price of incarceration, as well as a meaningful example of loyalty to those you love

(12) The Lyor Cohen of Dior Homme/That’s Dior Homme, not “Dior, homie”/The crib Scarface, could it be more tony?/You love me for me — could you be more phony? —Devil in a New Dress Few things excite Kanye West more than fashion. The man did an entire song made of nothing but the names of models, after all. So having a chance to correct his uneducated antagonist about the proper name of a menswear line is not a chance he is likely to pass up, and he does the job with gusto here. Plus we love the pun on “tony” — few people, rappers or not, ever use the word properly.

(11) They say I’m crazy, but I’m about to go dumb again/They ain’t see me ‘cause I pulled up in my other Benz/Last week, I was in my other other Benz/Throw your diamonds up 'cause we in this bitch another 'gain — Otis Kanye rarely matches up to his big brother Jay-Z’s contributions on their duo albumWatch the Throne. Even on this song, he’s far outclassed by Hova’s multi-layered, heavily political lines. But his “other other Benz” formulation is an absolute classic, one that will live on in the culture as long as there are people bragging about cars. It should be noted that this song also contains West’s single greatest brag — “I made ‘Jesus Walks’ — I’m never going to hell”.

(10) I ain’t here to argue about his facial features/Or here to convert atheists into believers/I’m just trying to say, the way school need teachers/The way Kathie Lee needed Regis/That’s the way I need Jesus — Jesus Walks “Jesus Walks” is an iconic Kanye song for a reason. It’s powerful, anthemic, and perhaps overstates its case just a little bit, as he claims that radio will play songs about anything except Jesus. This song’s success showed that talking about the big guy in a largely Christian country doesn’t really take away from your spins after all. These lines are the best in an excellent tune, and reveal that one of Kanye’s best qualities has always been his humor, which he uses judiciously to make his serious messages stick.

(9) Tell me what I gotta do to be that guy/Said her price go down, she ever fuck a black guy/Or do anal, or do a gangbang/It’s kinda crazy that’s all considered the same thing — Hell of a Life While Kanye would be the first to admit that he’s self-involved (“immature adult, insecure asshole”, he once rhymed), this song shows empathy for that most-maligned of hip-hop’s stock characters, the sex worker. The porn actress Kanye dates in the song explains the rules of the game to him here, and he comes back with an extremely on-point critique of racism in the sex industry — not, to be sure, most rappers' first reactions when hearing about their girlfriend starring in a porno.

(8) Something’s wrong, I hold my head/M.J. gone, our nigga dead — All of the Lights Michael Jackson is a natural touchstone for an artist as ambitious as West. It goes deeper than that, though. The key word here is “our” — Kanye manages, in just a few words, to get at the loss that the black community felt when Jackson passed. He was theirs in a way that the singer’s white fans couldn’t experience, and Yeezy gets to the heart of that while creating a catch-phrase worthy of the ages.

(7) Got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson/Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson — Slow Jamz The second in Kanye’s trilogy of great MJ lines (the third is “Knock Me Down”’s “This is bad, real bad, Michael Jackson/Now I’m mad, real mad, Joe Jackson”), this couplet functions like a great joke. The set-up and the delivery of the inevitable punch line are just masterful.

(6) I went to the malls and I balled too hard/“Oh my God, is that a black card?”/I turned around and replied, “Why yes/But I prefer the term ‘African-American Express’” — Last Call Yeezy’s pun on the American Express Centurion Card, commonly known as the “black card”, has taken on a life of its own over the past seven years, migrating eventually into the place all slang aims for, Urban Dictionary. Few puns by any rapper stand the test of time, so we salute Mr. West for this one.

(5) She’s so precious with the peer pressure/Couldn’t afford a car, so she named her daughter Alexis — All Falls Down An early Yeezy classic and still one of his greatest songs, “All Falls Down” deals with materialism in an incredibly nuanced way. It is sympathetic to the female middle-class protagonist of this verse, who is stuck in a college where she doesn’t belong and drawn to flashy material things that she can’t afford. The “Alexis”/“a Lexus” wordplay is funny, but the real takeaway of this song is Kanye’s empathy for a woman who, in many other songs, would be nothing but a joke

(4) They rewrite history, I don’t believe in yesterday/And what’s a black Beatle anyway? A fucking roach?/I guess that’s why they got me sitting in fucking coach — Gorgeous Kanye West has never been shy about his place in the pop pantheon. As early as his 2008 Glow in the Dark tour, he was calling himself the number one artist in the world (and, having seen the incredible spectacle that was that show, we were right there with him). Here, he goes at the neck, not of the Beatles exactly, but of racist music critics who will never place him on that level, no matter how incredible his art. This song is, we should say, Yeezy’s single best work lyrically. He truly does succeed in making, as he puts it, “End-of-century anthems based off inner-city tantrums/Based off the way we was branded”.

(3) The plan was to drink until the pain over/But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?/Fresh air, rolling down the window/Too many Urkels on your team, that’s why your wins low — Dark Fantasy Like many artists, Kanye West has had problems with alcohol. His notorious 2009 VMA’s incident was fueled by booze and led to reports of alcoholism and rumors of rehab jaunts. In addition, the metaphoric hangover from that fateful night permeated the album that followed, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The title track alludes to his drinking problem and the issues that brought it on, but then masterfully lightens the mood with, of all things, a Family Matters joke.

(2) They say I was the abomination of Obama’s nation/Well, that’s a pretty bad way to start the conversation — Power When the President calls you a jackass, people are bound to take notice. Kanye had to address it in rhyme, and does so powerfully here. He notes correctly that Swiftgate brings up a lot of issues worth discussing — about race, gender, celebrity, and the public’s often fevered and contradictory ideas about all three. West points out that by simply calling him an idiot, you are, consciously or not, sweeping a lot of ugly stuff under the rug that would be better served by open, honest discussion

(1) Killing y’all niggas on that lyrical shit/Mayonnaise-colored Benz, I push miracle whips — Last Call The fix was in for our number one line. This is not Kanye’s best lyric, nor his favorite (that honor goes to his verse in “Lost in the World”). However, it was his first great rap line. As he says it, you can practically see him beaming with delight. His pride in the pun is evident — he chose, after all, to end his debut album with it. Yeezy would have plenty of better and more elaborate lines to come, but this one stands out for the touching pride he has in it

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange Teaser

The wait is over ..this new video and teaser for Frankie Ocean's new album Channel Orange was released via Vimeo today and let me tell you it's a banger.

Expect it on 07/17/12 

I predict a Best New Artiste Nom in his future

OFWGKTA

[musicand0therstuff-blog]

Artiste of the Day As Defined by Wikipedia

Kanye Omari West ( /ˈkɑːnjeɪ/; born June 8, 1977) is an American musician, film director and fashion designer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used pitched-up vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. However, subsequent productions saw him broadening his musical palette and expressing influences encompassing '70s R&B, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock,folk, alternative, electronica, synthpop, and classical music.

West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, his second album Late Registration in 2005, his third album Graduation in 2007, his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, and his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. West released a collaborative album, Watch the Throne with Jay-Z in 2011, which is the duo's first collaborative album. His five solo albums, all of which have gone platinum, have received numerous awards and critical acclaim. As of 2012, West has won a total of eighteen Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time.

Happy Birthday Yeezy