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  • » Name: William E. Ketchum III
  • » Location: East Lansing, MI
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Speech Is My Hammer...

Lowered Expectations: Hip-Hop's Five Most Disappointing MCs [#3: Memphis Bleek]


October 01, 2008 | Tags: disappointment, bleek, lowered, expectations, roc, jay

When me and Meka were chopping it up about this list, I was back and forth about how much of a shoo-in Memphis Bleek would be for it. I wondered, how dope was Bleek in the first place? But then I thought about how successful others were under the Roc, remembered the calibur of their production, laughed at a few Roc-A-Scenes, and checked out Meka's argument in this blog, and I couldn't front. Like Meka said, Bleek "invented new ways of losing." Enjoy.

Commenter: What's up w/you and Meka, man, are y'all OK man?

Meka: I'll take it from here, Ketch, damn.

--

The Potential: Back in 1996, a little-known rapper album known as Jay-Z dropped his solo debut Reasonable Doubt. A mixture of street-savvy lyrics, poignant reflection and hard-hitting instrumentals courtesy of some of the top beat maestros of that era, the album, while not an overtly commercial success - was a critical darling and a backpacker's wet dream. What many people didn't know then, however, was that it was originally planned to be Jay's only album, as he wanted to take on an executive approach to the fledgling Roc-A-Fella Records.

Upon finding a young Malik Cox rhyming in his old Marcy playgrounds, Jay-Z decided to groom the young spitter as the heir to the throne, landing him a pair of impressive guest spots on Reasonable Doubt (Nevermind that Bleek's lyrics were written for him).

After the Notorious B.I.G.'s tragic passing, Jay-Z reluctantly carried the torch of his Brooklynite brethren's legacy, releasing his third album, Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life to praise and, more importantly, platinum sales, which in turn increased Memphis Bleek's own buzz from his scene-stealing introductory verse. Thus when his own solo debut, Coming Of Age, rolled around, it was met with the same hype a kid named Nasir had when his first album was released five years prior. During my very first trip to New York I witnessed that hype first-hand, as every bootlegger on every corner from Brooklyn to Harlem prominently displayed a variety of Memphis Bleek mixtapes, while every boom box and sound system loudly brayed out his songs.

We should have already been suspicious of a guy who a) had the rap forename of a Tennessee city, which was just silly considering he was born and raised in Bed-Stuy and b) had "bleak" as his surname (which he spelled incorrectly!), but we didn't care because the Roc couldn't do no wrong... right?

 

The Disappointment: Boy, were we ever wrong. Not only was Coming of Age a bigger letdown than Crystal Pepsi, Ryan Leaf and the Atari Jaguar combined, it was the recipient of a harsh 2 1/2 mics in the then-respectable The Source, effectively killing... scratch that, eviscerating, any and all kind of hype he had left. Jay, after realizing his plans to retire knee-deep in the hymen of Beyoncé had gone horribly astray, is forced to return to rap, dropping verses throughout Memphis' later aural assaults to unsuccessfully keep his protégé from drowning under a sea of negative backlash, as well as having to do tours just so Bleek can earn a decent living as his hypeman. Roc-A-Fella co-d Damon Dash, after bearing witness to the epic fail that is Memphis Bleek unleashed upon his record label, stops peddling Air Force One knock-offs and top-shelf bum wines to sign his BFF Cam'Ron (who also was heading in the direction of a Kwamé Brown level of hype bankruptcy) to Roc-A-Fella, whom he then promotes to Vice President of the label, only for Jay to veto the idea, thus beginning the infamous irreparable rift between the two longtime friends, ending in Jay-Z being promoted to president of Def Jam, usurping the Roc-A-Fella and Roc-A-Wear brands and leaving Dame with nothing more than his insulin shots and ugly, clear Pro-Keds to make a living off of.

Or something like that.

These days Memphis Bleek continues to Rick-Roll whomever's in earshot via God(dess)-awful mixtapes, and still threatening to violate the laws of ASCAP by promising to release The Process, in between picking up rib tips for Jay (as seen in the Backstage movie) and pushing off Garnier conditioning products.


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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