The dylannn (west coast hip-hop) listening club

when e-40 hits something he's good at, like that crazy slang shit on a beat made of fox 40s whistles and marching bands, digital riffs... perfect, had it on repeat for ten minutes. but a lot of time, it just doesn't work for me.

again, though, it's not really fair because my opinion of e-40 has been set in stone for a decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnfNdFHBuPc

Since Freestyle Fellowship is out and the gangster canon has been well rep'd,
might I suggest some contemporary Seattle slaps:

Nacho Picasso 'Exalted'

must be grimly realist

this is so limiting

partly because it implies a very specific kind of "realism"

don't go by those rules. those rules are crazy. i think the suga free recommendation was the best one so far-- not my favorite album so far but the best recommendation in that it's outside what i know and love but is really surprisingly dope and interesting to think about.

I've been meaning to check for Nacho Picasso beyond the couple tracks I've heard.

lol i was gonna say dylannn you're way too familiar w the disciples of pac to ignore pac

but on the other hand 'i never listened to west coast rap' is already kind of crazy to me so who knew how far ... etc.

plus i dont remember ever reading you write about pac before.

i started to think you were joking when you mentioned bob marley tho

anyway i don't think dylannn will like nacho picasso. i'm still a little curious what he thinks of freestyle fellowship tho

yeah, pretty sure nacho will not be to his liking but i'm eager to hear his take. more so re: freestlye fellowship should he choose to revisit it.

a dylannn review of makaveli would obv be the most interesting thing to me

after viacom is done, for mine I would like to do J. Stalin - Prenuptial Agreement (assuming it's easy to find on the net!)

Gas Nation!! >>>

lol I knew someone would say that.

honestly I just went with the one I heard first (and most often).

giants & elephants with guce >

i never got the love for that

that's what started my interest in livewire/dj fresh/the mekanix stuff

yeah, pretty sure nacho will not be to his liking but i'm eager to hear his take. more so re: freestlye fellowship should he choose to revisit it.

― viacom dios, Thursday, July 11, 2013 7:33 PM (3 days ago)

i think i like this!

nacho picasso - exalted

ayo i find this difficult because i don't want to just give a feelin it/not feelin it response and the more i write, the more i'm drawn into coming to a conclusion and feeling around in my memory and charting out my immediate response to put something, anything down. that's why you've got me coming up with rules about realism and chalking out the zone of things i like. so, what i'm trying to say is: i'm caught between brevity and maybe giving careless treatment to musics that people have recommended with sincerest heart and trying not to wade too far out into the duck pond of profundity and bold statements and saying some stupid shit. so i'll be brief here:

i'm feeling nacho picasso. kinda stuck on it not sure what to say except that. album is funny in a way that a lot of rappers he's compared to are not funny. i think it helps that his style is still bound by formal lyrical rules and firmly stuck in known lyrical tropes and he's just pushing them outward rather than leaping right to the abstract. he goes for the absurd by stretching tropes or expressions or images that are familiar to me. probably needs to be crimp dated mid summer 2013, though. so that's it feelin it.

In a commonsense way, you write about the impingement of one upon the other—my subjectivity bumping into other subjectivities, or into the Prime Rate. You exist for me in my perception of you (and in some rough, Raggedy Andy way, for yourself, of course). That’s what’s curious when people say, of writers, This one’s a realist, this one’s a surrealist, this one’s a super-realist, and so forth. In fact, everybody’s a realist offering true accounts of the activity of mind. There are only realists.

i actually think i have more to say about it. but i'd like to hear what other people hear in the nacho album if they've heard it.

Yeah I dont know that one

who's next?

think Neanderthal's up next?

Never heard that record either. Yeah Neanderthal recd the j Stalin record.

alright j stalin, 23 tracks, this better be good

Considering himself as a blend between Messy Marv and TQ, the West Oakland native, born Jovan Smith, has modeled his persona after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin...

"westside" tq?

in an oakland accent it sounds a lot like he's saying "stylin'!"

Yeah that TQ but I don't really hear it.

this guy is like the westcoast chris and neef to me i dunno

good:
"rock day"
"hnic" ft messy marv
"g in me"

i hear the intro to "rockin wit tha best" and i think, yeah let's hear this... then it's more j stalin rapping to broads. "stop my shine," mcdonalds straw whistle, occasional flashes of lyrical interest in emotional breathy talent show singer voice.

"get me off," e-40 comes in and scoops all the girls j stalin was giving his number to, "get my rocks off like i'm on the yola track"

skip, skip, skip. "like a job": okay.

"when it's real," teena marie flip with west coast young gunz vibe failed rappin to broads lyrics about how he likes the pussy bald, that voice works with the image i have of him awkwardly putting his arm around pinky in his video looking like he was fucking around with his mom's younger sister.

"red and blue lights," jacka on some lowkey paranoid sadness feelin it.

yyyeahhh i think 'gas nation' is a much better record these days and part of the appeal of 'prenuptial agreement' to me at the time was the discovery of this scene that was doing this kind of rap music w/ an expensive production sound, all '80s R&B sheen and open grandiosity while the rest of the south was getting all pointillist and harsh and then aggro. It was a lot about it sounding like the stuff that hit used to cross over, but stuck in this bay area bubble, undiscovered by the outside world

i still love a lot of that music and prenuptial agreement is dope imo

esp this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC8YaOlKfNM

he's a funny dude, i guess, is my defense of that

prenuptial agreement is *still somewhat* dope imo, although it has sorta gone down in my eyes compared to the street album that dropped before it.

maybe i'm listening with a too critical ear and i definitely don't have the background to really place these albums in any sort of context.

i've returned to the suga free album a lot. a lot of what i've heard so far is dope in a way that i'm familiar with and i have a lot of other rappers i'd go to first for the same stuff. but street gospel is the most novel, exciting thing i've heard so far.

Spottie - Suga Free 'Street Gospel'
D-40 - Jacka/Husalah 'Mob Trial'
Reverend - B-Legit 'The Hemp Museum'
octobeard - Blackalicious 'Blazing Arrow'
Whiney - Low Profile 'We're In This Together'
Sisilafami - E40 'Grit & Grind'
viacom diss - Nacho Picasso 'Exalted'
Neanderthal -J Stalin 'Prenuptial Agreement'
fadanuf4erybody -
Shakey -
Upper Mississipi -
D-40 -
Spottie -

i think i need a break
i'm going to be traveling for the next 2 weeks+

AL WHAT UP
listen to some of these

Right on. Going out of town for a week+ too.

maybe i'm listening with a too critical ear and i definitely don't have the background to really place these albums in any sort of context.

― dylannn, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 9:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no worries i mean i like chris & neef too so \Oo/

esp this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/mC8YaOlKfNM&fs=1&hl=en

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 10:30 PM (Yesterday)

the howie hewett song >> this

spottie you forgot to include me btw

gtfo

lol

ha that song is an all-timer to me

i'm not being entirely serious. i love the j stalin cover though

Sorry kev

Spottie - Suga Free 'Street Gospel'
D-40 - Jacka/Husalah 'Mob Trial'
Reverend - B-Legit 'The Hemp Museum'
octobeard - Blackalicious 'Blazing Arrow'
Whiney - Low Profile 'We're In This Together'
Sisilafami - E40 'Grit & Grind'
viacom diss - Nacho Picasso 'Exalted'
Neanderthal - J Stalin 'Prenuptial Agreement'
fadanuf4erybody -
Shakey -
Upper Mississipi -
D-40 -
k3vin -
Spottie -

chris and neef > j stalin tho

tied with either oschino or sparks