December 28, 2007 | Tags: none

Got this idea from reading Sickamore's blog, who got his idea from Esquire magazine. Basically, this is just "the condensed life lessons, knowledge and weird insights" from my past year.

-Entrepreneurship/self-enterprising is the only way. Journalism is my love and freelancing is my hustle, but I've gotten fucked over on too many checks by too many magazines and web sites (none of which are HipHopDX, of course) this past year to depend on them anymore. I'ma keep freelancing, but starting my own publication, book and other ventures is more than an aspiration now: it's a necessity. Word to Adisa Banjoko, Steve "Flash" Juon, and the rest.

-Knowing successful people is valuable for more reasons than you may think. Not only because they can give you connections that you need or give you career advice, but because they're inspiration and they can keep you hungry. Y'all think I'm doing my thing? When you see who I chat with that's my age - Danya Steele, Tionna Smalls, Miso Brown, aforementioned Sickamore - it's a necessity.

-Speaking of Danya Steele and Tionna Smalls, I've realized that I need to wife a woman who's really, really doing her thing from a career standpoint. Not only will we connect better, but a woman who can handle her biz - especially if she's innovative with how she does it - is sexy as fuck to me. And if she looks good? Wrap.

-I'm going to start getting involved in fantasy sports from now on, namely football and/or basketball. ESPN is the only TV channel I watch, all my people do it, and it'll give me more reason to watch games more consistently and analyze these sports better. Plus, that shit just looks fun; I feel left out as hell when cats are talkin' about their fantasy stats around me.

-I really wish I would've learned the value of saving money earlier in my college career. Any young'n's who read this, stay fly, but stay secure, too. You'll understand what I'm saying in a few years.

-I swear I'ma make some YouTube videos this year. I've got a webcam on my Dell XPS M1330, but I don't know what the fuck to make a video about; my ideas always seem like their better articulated through writing.

-On a relevant note, my essentials list: Dell XPS M1330, Blackberry 8800, 80GB iPod (I'm still on my 5th gen, hopefully copping the 160GB new joint sometime next year), Sony IC Recorder (props to Thelonious G for the return), and Sony 7.2 megapixel Cyber-Shot (not as dope as my nigga Miso's shit, but hey, it works). I can't wait to get more bread so I can cop shit as much as I want.

-On another relevant note, popularity hasn't been something I've strived for since like high school, but I wanna be popular so I can get a deal advertising a product I love (preferably a Blackberry). Getting free, customized shit and tapping my name on something I either already use or fully advocate , just because of who you are, is dope as hell to me. See: Dwayne Wade, John Mayer, etc.

-I used to think it was overrated. But if you do it the right way, drinking is fun as hell.

Hip-Hop
-If you listened to all the great albums that came out in 2007 and still believe that hip-hop is dead, fuck you. The music is the best that it's been since '96 (yeah I said it), and old heads are holding it down while young cats are keeping shit hot for the future.

-On a related note: VH1 Hip Hop Honors, Tribe Called Quest slighting, and dumb OkayPlayer comments aside, Lupe Fiasco is the best emcee under 30. Don't get me wrong: Blu, Joe Budden and Chamillionaire are competition, but Lupe's conceptual genius, metaphors, wordplay and delivery are unparalleled these days.

-I'm not sure where I'll be once I graduate, but if I stay, a benefit will definitely be Michigan's hip-hop scene. With all the dope shit that's coming out from here - OneBeLo, Black Milk, Buff1, Guilty Simpson, and others - it's incredible to know and honor such an incredible hub for hip-hop.

-There needs to be a hip-hop version of The View, with 50 Cent, Cam'ron, Ghostface and RZA. That shit would be beyond hilarious.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

Concept Albums of '07: Highs & Lows

December 14, 2007 | Tags: none

In the best year for hip-hop since 1996 (don’t worry, that post is coming later), an interesting trend has been the concept album. For the ill-advised, a concept album is defined as “an album which is unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical.” In rap, it’s usually lyrical. Various emcees have had their albums play like top to bottom films, with songs serving as scenes to advance the disc’s storyline. Prince Paul’s seminal A Prince Among Thieves tells the tale of an aspiring emcee who needs to collect money to record a demo for RZA, and Sticky Fingaz’ The Autobiography of Kirk Jones narrates the post-sentence happenings of a released felon. Masta Ace makes damn near all of his albums a full storyline, with each disc featuring recurring characters from the previous one. Other discs, like Biggie’s Ready To Die and Andre 3000’s The Love Below, are executed more loosely, with songs simply having unifying themes and skits linking things together more clearly. When executed well, concept albums can be masterpieces, or at the very least, make a dope collection of tracks look more artsy than it really is. When executed poorly? Well, you have Cassidy’s Split Personality.

This year, most cats actually did shit the right way. Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool sees Chitown Guerra using five tracks to tell the story of Michael Young History, complete with metaphorical personifications of The Game and The Streets, allusions to characters in previous songs, and ripe narratives. (Shouts to Soundtrakk, by the way) Jay-Z’s drug rap has always been his bread and butter, but by framing it with splices from the Denzel Washington flick and by having a limited set of producers handling the production, he upgraded American Gangster from “great” to “classic.” DJ Jazzy Jeff’s Return of the Magnificent features him tossing the same mixture of lush grooves and up-tempo numbers to his favorite emcees as usual, but the disc is formatted as Jeff listening to an immaculate radio station in a rented car on a road trip; not the most brilliant concept, but it makes RotM slightly better than it already is. El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead isn’t even linked by skits or a linear narrative, but the macabre, dreary mood of the disc makes it as much of a concept album as anyone’s. And it's not out till next year, but 88-Keys' The Death of Adam LP and its preceeding mixtape, Adam's Case Files: The Mixtape (hopefully the mixtape is out before the end of the month), which all revolve around the power of the p-u-s-s-y, is sure to satisfy.

But some people are fuckin up. Despite the one-dimensional dopeness of I’m A Hustla, Cassidy still hasn’t realized that the concept album isn’t his forte, and despite his newfound maturity, B.A.R.S. just isn’t dope music. Styles P tacked the words “Super” and “Extraordinary” onto the title and proceeded to almost literally remake his solo debut and its theme of street/suit duality, for results that are solid, but uneventful. The most disappointing, however, may be T.I.’s T.I. vs. T.I.P. Didn’t he learn from Cass? Alter-ego albums just don’t work: especially when the differences in each persona aren’t clear enough to distinguish, skits are corny, songs range from great to mediocre, and it’s the follow-up to the album of the year, nigga, Grammy or not.

Either way, I’m not complaining. I’d rather see rappers go for concepts and not hit the mark than make an album where they split the same song into 16 tracks, then since the last song is “introspective,” then the artist is suddenly “versatile.” Fuck outta here.

P.S.: Someone told me that I'm giving the "concept album" title to too many albums that don't deserve it in this blog. What do y'all think? And are Kanye's albums "concept albums" to y'all?

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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