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Slap-Boxing With Jesus

In Defense Of Jay-Z

As with everything else in life, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how... err... “interesting” they are. Having a credible, visible avenue to express such opinions has definitely become one of the brighter spots in my, day, what with being able to spew wild jibba jabba on some shitbag artists with little fear of reprimand [1]. At its best it’s an update on one of the forgotten elements of hip-hop, the cipher, but at it’s worst (and often most hilarious and controversial) it’s nothing more than an electronic form of playing the dozens.

I’ll admit: I’ve thrown my fair share of grease-loaded shit talk in the few months I’ve been around. But in all honesty, some of the shit has gotten some of my brethren here to defend their stances. So imagine my amusement when our latest top-tier voices [2] Charlamagne Tha God took Grandpa Simpson to task for being a “ball hog” and not trying to give his younger compatriots sufficient playing time.

No disrespect at all (because I hold the utmost of it for all my siblings. Yes, even Ketchums as well), but excuse me if I call bullshit on that decree.

Granted, while Sean’s recent string of shoddy lyrics have left more mouths sour-tasting than Kim’s puss [3], the most obvious reason for that is, well, he’s not the same MC Flossy McDrugLord from his first album over a decade ago. The interesting conundrum about this is that he finally decided to go back to those ideals for his upcoming “concept album,” the same humps who wished he did that for Kingdom Come are now barking on that decision.

In order to compare Jay-Z to Number 23, one must also take into consideration the supporting cast each had behind them. Using that logic, it makes perfect sense that both Michael and Jay constantly had to throw their respective teams on their backs. Granted, Pippen was to Jordan what Silk Shirts is to Grandpa, but did anybody honestly expect Judd Buechler, Bill Wennington, BJ Armstrong or Dickie Simpkins to play any legitimate role outside of court filler [4]? If you need further proof, feel free to check Beanie’s and Memphis Bleek’s respective go-rounds, where they couldn’t even toss a beach ball into the ocean to will their audio rapes to sell.

It’s painfully obvious that Jay has tried at the very least to train his underlings to shoot a jump shot. But if they’ve constantly Sam Bowied their way to failure and shattered his confidence in them, why else wouldn’t he toss out a few sub-mediocre bars to keep his team in playoff contention. But perhaps this condescending nature of today’s culture, where some drug-addled, wombat-sounding “rapper” with no legitimate vintage material (a shitload of mixtape “quotables does not count) gets and insanely confusing (and at times invalid) amount of respect. I shouldn’t be entire upset, though: perhaps in my (not-so-) old age, I had lyrical leaders to look up to, not some shit like this. But perhaps today’s generation is cool with the fact that there is no credible balance of hardcore and thought-provoking artists in the public eye as there was a decade ago. Rather, there’s an overabundance of feet-shuffling show tunes, elongated rappers with a smidgen of moral sense and other delusions of grandeur.

No wonder why they keep losing.


[1] Unless you count MC iThug running off at the mouth, but who really gives a shit about them?

[2] And I’m not up there yet why?

[3] Anyone: Kardashian, Lil’, Cattrall, Action, pack guns, ridiculous.

[4] You don’t see anybody inducting Randy Brown into the Hall Of Fame anytime soon, do you?

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