This shit is fucking bananas hot.
See, Cracka, noone had to die.
Edit: They are, apparently, quite fucked. Waxy is mirroring it. There's also a torrent.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Fuck You, God, I want ODB back.
I’m gonna work through my feelings about ODB’s death by doing the only thing I really seem to know how to do – write about music. He was a unique and beautiful snowflake, that’s for sure – but he was part of something of a tradition. The tradition of craziness isn’t as strong in hip hop as it was in rock, since rock n’ roll is all about losing control in the first place, while hip hop is mostly all about keeping yourself as cool as possible. These guys, then, had to go against some fundamental features of the genre to make a place for themselves. Kudos.
Flavor Flav – The best known crazy guy in hip hop, hands down. Wore a clock around his neck “so you can know what time it is” – in other words, he was crazy . . . like a fox. Most of the ‘crazy’ dudes in hip hop follow this model. They may be wild, but they’re still saying something real. This of course applies up until Flav actually went for real crazy after years of smoking that shit.
Son of Bazerk – I know little about him, other than that he was Flav’s homeboy. But he was called “Bazerk” so he’s on here. Which brings us to . . .
Biz Markie – Biz wasn’t “crazy” per se, just really odd once he got behind a microphone. Again, his non-sequitors and bananarhythms could be as genuinely brilliant as they were goofy.
Kool Keith – Categorically not crazy. Just addicted to porn. And if that made you a good rapper, I'd be Rakim.
Busta Rhymes – Busta only ever used “craziness” as a style, but he used to be fucking awesome at it. Listen to “Live at the BBQ” or anything else where he collaborates with other, more “normal” rappers, and tell me your head doesn’t snap back a little bit when he hits the mic. Too bad he was reduced to selling whiskey.
Brotha Lynch Hung – I don’t know quite what to make of this guy. Ultra-violent, masochistic horror-rap shtick. Not my cup of tea, but he’s undeniably talented. I suppose you do what you gotta do to make sense of the world.
Esham – See Above. I would dis this guy for getting down with the next contestants (see below), but I guess the seeds need to eat, and I bet he was crossing his fingers the whole time anyway, so whatever.
“Insane” Clown Posse – I put the Insane part in quotes because, of course, anyone who says they’re insane is, by definition, completely sane. And of course, based on their ratio of talent to record sales, I would say these guys aren’t just sane – they’re cold, calculating motherfuckers who hit upon a brilliant plan. And of course, part of that plan assumes that their fans had never read Catch-22, and thus never caught on to the absurdity of their name.
Ramm:Ell:Zee – The G.O.D., in fact the G.O.A.T., of this crazy rap shit. Rammell deserves a place next to Sun Ra and George Clinton in the Black Futurism pantheon, and his music is brilliant. He invented the “Disco Duck” style that the Beastie Boys and B-Real both boosted. And in addition to being literally the first experimental emcee, he was an early and well-known graf stylist, and he remains more committed to graffiti than most rappers are to rapping. He has two new albums out. The only suspect part of his profile is that his insanity may just have been caused by overexposure to Vincent Gallo.
Where does . . . shit, I mean where did the erstwhile Dirt McGirt stand in this spectrum? Well, first off, it seemed like he was closer to being genuinely mentally disturbed than anyone besides Rammell. He was also, though, a better rapper than any of them besides Rammell, and a big part of his brilliance is that he knew how to use his dementia to his advantage – he knew how to control it as a creative tool, sometimes reining it in, and sometimes really letting loose. He could go several different directions because of this, from unpredictably aggressive to joyfully loony to edgy but controlled. And he could shift between these on a dime, which is part of why listening to his records is so fun it’s genuinely draining. He was great. I mean really, he was one of a kind.
This is goddamn terrible.
Flavor Flav – The best known crazy guy in hip hop, hands down. Wore a clock around his neck “so you can know what time it is” – in other words, he was crazy . . . like a fox. Most of the ‘crazy’ dudes in hip hop follow this model. They may be wild, but they’re still saying something real. This of course applies up until Flav actually went for real crazy after years of smoking that shit.
Son of Bazerk – I know little about him, other than that he was Flav’s homeboy. But he was called “Bazerk” so he’s on here. Which brings us to . . .
Biz Markie – Biz wasn’t “crazy” per se, just really odd once he got behind a microphone. Again, his non-sequitors and bananarhythms could be as genuinely brilliant as they were goofy.
Kool Keith – Categorically not crazy. Just addicted to porn. And if that made you a good rapper, I'd be Rakim.
Busta Rhymes – Busta only ever used “craziness” as a style, but he used to be fucking awesome at it. Listen to “Live at the BBQ” or anything else where he collaborates with other, more “normal” rappers, and tell me your head doesn’t snap back a little bit when he hits the mic. Too bad he was reduced to selling whiskey.
Brotha Lynch Hung – I don’t know quite what to make of this guy. Ultra-violent, masochistic horror-rap shtick. Not my cup of tea, but he’s undeniably talented. I suppose you do what you gotta do to make sense of the world.
Esham – See Above. I would dis this guy for getting down with the next contestants (see below), but I guess the seeds need to eat, and I bet he was crossing his fingers the whole time anyway, so whatever.
“Insane” Clown Posse – I put the Insane part in quotes because, of course, anyone who says they’re insane is, by definition, completely sane. And of course, based on their ratio of talent to record sales, I would say these guys aren’t just sane – they’re cold, calculating motherfuckers who hit upon a brilliant plan. And of course, part of that plan assumes that their fans had never read Catch-22, and thus never caught on to the absurdity of their name.
Ramm:Ell:Zee – The G.O.D., in fact the G.O.A.T., of this crazy rap shit. Rammell deserves a place next to Sun Ra and George Clinton in the Black Futurism pantheon, and his music is brilliant. He invented the “Disco Duck” style that the Beastie Boys and B-Real both boosted. And in addition to being literally the first experimental emcee, he was an early and well-known graf stylist, and he remains more committed to graffiti than most rappers are to rapping. He has two new albums out. The only suspect part of his profile is that his insanity may just have been caused by overexposure to Vincent Gallo.
Where does . . . shit, I mean where did the erstwhile Dirt McGirt stand in this spectrum? Well, first off, it seemed like he was closer to being genuinely mentally disturbed than anyone besides Rammell. He was also, though, a better rapper than any of them besides Rammell, and a big part of his brilliance is that he knew how to use his dementia to his advantage – he knew how to control it as a creative tool, sometimes reining it in, and sometimes really letting loose. He could go several different directions because of this, from unpredictably aggressive to joyfully loony to edgy but controlled. And he could shift between these on a dime, which is part of why listening to his records is so fun it’s genuinely draining. He was great. I mean really, he was one of a kind.
This is goddamn terrible.
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