mos and talib - side b freestyle

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i know some of yall get upset that i dont rep for the underground enough, so i just wanted to say that this playful, laidback freestyle from the first soundbombing mix is making me happy right this second, and when i think about it, its made me pretty happy every time ive ever listened to it : )

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:10 (twenty-two years ago)

ooh yeah, I totally forgot about that, haven't listened to it for a couple years. I remember liking the way they'd build off the other man's last rhyme. This basically sold my best friend on hip hop after HATING on it for years.
gonna go grab that cd now
What do you think of vol 2?

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:17 (twenty-two years ago)

heh, pretty funny. just about an hour ago i was listening to the Mos Def 4cd not-on-his-albums-collection-thing and i listened to this song twice (i got a phone call and started the track over when i got off). definitely shows that mos is the more talented of the two (i think so at least).

i saw a movie a few years ago called "Freestyle" that was just a documentary on the whole freestyle scene. Mos shined so hard in that flick. at the time i just thought he was ok, but after seeing him in the movie, it just brought him to another level with me.

― JasonD (JasonD), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:22 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, talib sounds a bit awkward, but mos is very fluid. Maybe he did the 'pre-packaged' off-the-dome thing. Reggie and Keith Murray seem to do that a lot too, ie have a certain set of phrases that they can go to when they hit a rough spot.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:25 (twenty-two years ago)

oops never copped vol two, by the time it came out i had long gotten over my short-lived rawkus/underground phase (oddly prompted by buying the love movement the week it came out wtf!!) i heard vol two a couple times later on, i dunno, really lackluster interlude-ish eminem track with worst axelrod sample usage ever, massively overrated and annoying co flow track (and i actually liked fire in which you burn on vol 1), i do remember kinda feeling the pharoahe monch/shabaam shadeeq song though with the big horns and shit, i would have to hear it again i guess, i never got vol three either... oh and the lyricist lounge vol two is FIRE after the boring first one, best rawkus release ever

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:30 (twenty-two years ago)

i meant 'oops i never...' etc etc

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Agree with you on that Em track, I think it was one of the things that soured me on him. Don't care for the CoFlow track neither.
LOVE the Medina Green (it's Mos and his lil bro, IIRC) track though--produced by Plug One!
It was good to see Diamond D come back with a solid track after semi-retirement ("the best you ever heard/fuck that/you know that's shit"...self-deprication in hip hop does it for me everytime).

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 01:41 (twenty-two years ago)

well ems verses are pretty hot i just hate the beat!!

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:09 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't have any problem with what he says, just how he sounds when he says it.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:12 (twenty-two years ago)

id think a big l fan would be feeling ems style!!

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:14 (twenty-two years ago)

there's no comparison.
actually though, I just listened to it and don't really mind his voice or delivery on that track. I musta been thinking of something else. Like, every other track of his har har

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:24 (twenty-two years ago)

trife, i feel exactly opposite about that track! i love the beat and feel eh about em's verses. i'm so sick of the "eminem makes a sound effect at the end of every line" thing. ugh

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

mos def's little brother is nice! that medina green track is good.

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:45 (twenty-two years ago)

the dilated peoples track is blah, kind of like everything they do

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:45 (twenty-two years ago)

i see no possible way for that beat to inspire love. i take shits that sound more interesting.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

yo, send me a tape of some of your shits!

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:52 (twenty-two years ago)

just kidding.

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:53 (twenty-two years ago)

back on topic, though, side b is a good freestyle. obviously this is from back when kweli wasn't all that good. "i need to eat more/ of that/ for my / nutrition" - yikes! mos played the staccato 'i'm looking for a word in the next line' thing better than kweli at that point.

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

just kidding

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i figured you wouldn't want to deal with the postage

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Check for my 'album'! It's droppin' soon!!!

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 02:59 (twenty-two years ago)

it's hot!!

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:03 (twenty-two years ago)

kweli improved quite a bit between soundbombing 1 and 2. "chaos" is quite good, he and mos both have a knack for almost-sung choruses. "chaos" now cracks me up- kweli matches bahamadia's whispery style, then XZIBIT smashes through the wall like the freakin' kool-aid man with his shout-out at the end.

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:05 (twenty-two years ago)

this might be asking for trouble but did anybody like "just to get by" off the talib solo album?

(ps trife I got a new ringtone tonight and thought of you: it's "big poppa")

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

john everyone liked that!

kayne did the beats by the way -- its one of his hotter tracks, tho i like the one for lil kim bunches too (and b r right but then this is a taleb thread not a kayne one)

i'm thinking of seeing taleb live this weekend but dunno if it'll be worth it.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:44 (twenty-two years ago)

oh come on i like how awkward kwelis freestyle is, you can tell hes actually thinking of a rhyme and its cute!! i usually dont like freestlyes unless its clear that its all memorized, the worst i can think of is every inspectah deck freestyle before wu forever came out, he does his 'i bomb atomically, socrates philosophies and hypotheses' verse from triumph, which is one of the illest verses ever, but tries to make it sound like hes just doing it off the dome, lame!!

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:47 (twenty-two years ago)

oh wow xposts! i didnt like get by til the 50 interview in xxl and they talked abt nina simone and the i heard it on the dj rectangle intro and realized what it was, now i love it

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 03:48 (twenty-two years ago)

get by is great, i've been blabbling about it on a couple of threads. i think it's the production where kanye west really arrived. (yes; I love almost all of the ones on blueprint as well, but none of them grabbed me and said that this guy is going to be a full-on-classic producer) j0hn, check out the remix too. there's also a re-remix which i'm not going to get into.

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 04:32 (twenty-two years ago)

*because it has snoop (great) and mr. cheeks (urgh)

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 04:33 (twenty-two years ago)

heart of the city didnt grab you?!!?!

― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

oh! yes it did. damn, i love that track!

― rob geary (rgeary), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 04:43 (twenty-two years ago)

this + the trife "clocks" thread furthers my 'mos def is the coldplay of hiphop' idea, which isn't particularly interesting or insightful or inspired but i feel the need to bring it up again. i still don't like mos much, but i haven't heard any of the mos things in this thread. 'cept for 'get by' which is great and he's alright on.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 11:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Mos is on "Get By"?

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Vol 2 of soundbombing lacked the all-bass no-high-end sonics of the first mixtape. But 'Patriotism' by company flow still makes me break a cold sweat every time i hear it.

Am a huge, huge Mos Def fan, possibly because of this very freestyle.

― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Mos Def what the fuck have you been doing since then!?! Ugh.

I love the beat on "Get By" especially; it has a strange pattern to it, it's not all arranged in sections of 4s, which gives Kweli's somewhat-rhythmically-awkward approach to rhyming a really good foundation, like it matches his style better because of it.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Mos Def what the fuck have you been doing since then!?! Ugh.

black jack johnson? def poetry jam?
(i only talk out of my HBO sightings of him)

― JasonD (JasonD), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

oh btw john, you really want the 'get by' remix w mos and kanye and jay and busta.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I loved that Black Jack Johnson Band thing so much, I heard they recorded an album! WHERE'S THAT ALBUM NOWADAYS, MOS, HUH!?!

(I only yell cuz I love, y'see.)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Soundbombing II is worth it just for the two Pharoahe tracks, WWIII is fucking huge.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

And yeah, Get By is great. I like how it's obviously based off that Nina Simone tune but the piano part isn't actually sampled.

Robin Eubanks posted this on a jazz message board about a friend of his who played some stuff on the tune, kinda funny...

"He also recorded on Talib Kweli's "Just To Get By". He said it took them hours to find the notes they wanted him to play. They kept plunking out the wrong notes on a piano and couldn't find the right ones. It took them hours to explain that they wanted a trill and a simple turn, because they didn't know the musical term or a way to explain it. At least they gave him a recording credit."

"Now that you mention it, I remember the horn player saying something about being at a social function and seeing Talib or one of the producers. He went up to him to introduce himself and said What's up, how are you? I'm _______ and i played horn on Just to get By.
He said the guy got a puzzled look on his face and asked something like, "There are horns on that?" My friend said , Hey don't sweat it" and kept steppin'"

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 September 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i really like just to get by
i put it on a cd of various mp3s i've been listening to recently and put it on in friends' houses a few times recently,and its the one track everyone seems to love the first time they hear it
what nina simone track is it based on?

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Sinnerman

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Sinnerman can be found on this amazing (and cheap) two-fer. that song was always my favorite of hers.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc600/c653/c65323xk6u7.jpg

― JasonD (JasonD), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

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