Lil B f/ Phonte & Jean Grae – “Base For Your Face” (Internet, 2011)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Produced by 9th Wonder.

So this happened. Musically the track is exactly what you would expect. Pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. The response is equally predictable. Some twitterers are tweeting mad at Phonte, Jean and 9th. Others are hitting their oh my god Lil B is actually good moment of clarity. Otherers are patting the artists on the back for breaking down the walls. Phonte, Jean and 9th are proudly touting the record, on one hand acting like they’re doing something real rebellious while also working the no really this is really real hip hop guys! angle. As if the Little Brothers weren’t among the very wave of artists who first cultivated the state of hyper restrictive elitism that makes their fans think that B the enemy.* This is fine. I’m not going to scream hypocrite. People are allowed to change their minds. It’s just that the flip flop would be easier to stomach if it were delivered with just a little more self-awareness. (more…)

Roach Gigz is a talented young rapper from San Francisco. His two installment underground series Roachy Balboa is out now. I recently talked to him about rap music for the latest installment of CB’s TALKS ABOUT RAP series.

When did you start listening to rap?
Real early, I would say I was like eight years old. It was mostly stuff that was on the radio but what really sticks out in my mind, the first artist that I really remember was Coolio. I had his tape, I had the single with “Gangsta’s Paradise” and I played that like every single day. And then my first album was The Dove Shack and that’s because they had that song “Summertime In The LBC” and that used to be my mom’s favorite. She would drop me off at school and when that came on we would love it. So she had gotten me the tape and then we listened to it together and when she heard the intro they were talking all this shit and she turned it right off. I never got to see my tape again. She didn’t know. So then I had to start sneaking in the little parental advisory CDs. I had Doggystyle hidden in my room and stuff like that. Tupac also was big for me in the beginning, I had Tupac posters all up on my wall. (more…)

Jonny Paycheck – Cities Of Dope (Mixtape, 2011)

Our BART representative Jonny Paycheck just sent over this mix of cross-genre Bay Rapps. It’s a nice complement to Will Staley’s recent 50 Greatest Bay Rap Songs list for Complex:

1 full hour of Bay slap. R.B.L. to M.O.S., Lil Bruce to Lil B. This was mixed live for internet radio so there’s one or two sloppy transitions. But where else are you gonna hear “Time For Turmoil” next to The Click? *pops collar*

Hit the jump for the track list: (more…)

DR PHIL! (more…)

Apologies for the delay with the Pac series. There is really an overwhelming amount of information about this guy and I’ve been learning to swim in the deep end. But here we are back at the beginning with no rarities at all, just a quick post about “Same Song.” But with more to follow. Regularly, I promise.

Pac’s alignment with Digital Underground doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in retrospect, but neither does anything he did. DU was deeply politicized but everything they did happened through fiction and folly. Pac’s economy would later be come one of realness (or at least perceived realness) and that disconnect was never more apparent than here. In fact the oddest thing about Pac’s coming out party is how closely it was attached to this Akroyd/Chase/Candy vehicle about a sadistic judge and his “extremely Draculated” mansion. They don’t just provide the track for the soundtrack, Digital, and Pac by extension, are shoved into the film’s plot. Pac doesn’t kick his verse or have any speaking lines, but there he is dancing his ass off. (more…)