Battle Cry

The first time I interviewed Joell Ortiz, in October 2007, I didn’t really know who he was. He had recently inked a deal with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath records and had a hot single, "Hip-Hop," that caught some commercial radio spins. I remembered hearing his songs and freestyles on the Stretch Armstrong show seven years earlier. Back in 2000, the 19-year-old Puerto Rican emcee went by the name Quickman.

I wasn’t a fan of him then, but now I confidently say Ortiz may be the best rapper in the game. He has superior rhyme skill, stylistic versatility and can rap about social issues without getting preachy. Most importantly - much like Jay-Z, Biggie and Big Pun - he makes dope hip-hop that even appeals to girls, like his single, "Call Me."

Here’s how I opened the article in Foundation Magazine:

“Inside of a Queens, NY recording studio, Joell Ortiz bangs on the thick glass window of the vocal booth but the dull thud can’t break through the hard drums and heavy guitar strings that his manager says is a Dr. Dre track.
He finally gets the recording engineer’s attention. Running his hand across his throat, he signals to cut the beat.
'Yo, I can’t hear myself,’ he shouts. ‘Run that shit back.’
 With sweat beads coating his forehead and a white wife beater hugging his husky frame, Ortiz attacks the microphone like a linebacker in full stride.”

At the time, I didn’t know the historical significance of this legendary studio. It was the second or third article I ever published and I figured some action and a football metaphor would make a good lede. (I really wish I had written it in the past tense though) I didn’t know that I was watching today’s best emcee rip apart the same booth where Rakim recorded the Paid In Full album. I didn’t know that Nas, Biggie, Jay-Z, LL Cool J, Mobb Deep and Run-DMC all spit in that booth.

When I walked into In Ya Ear studio on 30th Street, the first thing I noticed was a Big L plaque on the wall. Then I saw the masters to L’s posthumous second album “The Big Picture,” in a box under the plaque. The box contained other master recordings, but at this moment the only name I remember seeing is Kool G Rap.

A few weeks ago, Amazon.com leaked Ortiz’s album, “Free Agent,” unaware that he pushed the release date back three months. Much of his career has been stymied by such industry shenanigans. That’s why you may have never heard of this guy who deserves to be mentioned with the all time greats. But hip-hop heads know greatness. And that’s why Kanye West shouted out Ortiz on Hot 97 a few weeks ago.

My former editor at Foundation posted a new Ortiz video on Facebook. In the comment thread, he hit me with the link about tragedy that happened at the studio.

Here’s the video. Take five minutes to listen to the lyrical slaughter.

Shaolin What

I’m writing a 6,000-word story about hate crimes in Staten Island. It’s a narrative about one specific beating, sprinkled with anecdotes that depict the decade long prevalence of violent anti-Mexican sentiment in the Port Richmond neighborhood of the borough. Read this City Limits story to get caught up.

Everything on Staten Island, however, is about geography. That’s why I can’t get this damn Method Man lyric out of my head.

“Stapleton, Wild West, Park Hill – Port Richmond, Now Born, Jungle Nillz.”

Meth kicked that line at the end of “Shaolin What,” on his second album, Tical 2000: Judgment Day. If you don’t already know, Wu-Tang Clan dubbed their home borough “Shaolin,” in the early nineties. Five Wu members hail from Park Hill, (Meth, Raekwon, Inspekta Dek, U-God and Capadonna). Two come from the Stapleton projects, (Ghostface Killah and Rza). Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Gza were from Brooklyn. (Also see Park Hillean King Just)

But here’s why that Method Man line echoes in my head. The North Shore of the island is about 70 percent white and that’s the diverse side. The South Shore is about 90 percent white. The Staten Island Expressway is the geographical boundary of the North Shore and the Mid Island, or community districts one and two. Because of that, some long time islanders call the SIE the Mason-Dixon Line. Every neighborhood that Method Man mentioned is North of the SIE. As Rza said, “the slums of Shaolin.”

I’m having trouble weaving this information into my story without disrupting the narrative. Port Richmond is not really a “bad neighborhood.” But levels of poverty and danger vary from block to block. It’s ethnically mixed but predominantly Mexican and sandwiched by two mostly African American neighborhoods, West Brighton and Mariners Harbor.

To translate from the Method Man line, Jungle Nillz is Mariners Harbor and Wild West is West Brighton. This is more Staten Islander slang than hip-hop slang. “Now Born,” means New Brighton.

I used to live in Port Richmond in 1999. (Full disclosure; I’m white. Jewish white) The day after Allan Houston hit his $100 million layup against the Miami Heat, I played basketball in a schoolyard near Veteran’s Park in the neighborhood. I saw one of my ball buddies get his face slashed that day but I continued playing at the park until I moved, a year later. I never felt any kind of fear in Port Richmond. I still don’t. But I’ve never witnessed a crime in Park Hill, yet I try to stay alert every time I go there to interview Liberians, who are some of the most kind and welcoming people I’ve ever met anyway. Just something about a place dubbed “Killa Hill,” that keeps me on my toes when I’m there. Oh, and the kid who got his face cut was from Park Hill.

What does this mean? What am I arguing? What is the purpose of this? Who knows? After covering hate crimes, I’m sick of arguments. Hopefully you learned something about Staten Island and hip-hop while I pump some Wu-Tang and blog through narrative obstacles.

Ol' Timer's Day

Jay-Z told John Stewart on the Daily Show that one of the reasons he wrote the his book, Decoded, was to show that rap is not just a young man’s game, as is commonly perceived.

Well, I guess Jigga’s book makes it official, but that’s not exactly a new sentiment in hip-hop. Despite all the personal sabotage, 33-year-old Kanye West drops his fifth album on Tuesday and seems on top of the game.  He got a five star review from Rolling Stone, praise in the New York Times and the usual love from hip-hop sites. Oh, and the 38-year old Eminem landed on the cover of that Rolling Stone. 

Furthermore, Ghostface Killah drops his ninth solo album, Apollo Kids, on December 12. The 40-year-old Staten Islander carried Wu-Tang’s reputation for most of the last decade. Some Wu members wrestled with mediocrity while they showed flashes of greatness, but Ghost released a string of classics that proved him the clan’s best rapper. He carried Raekwon’s two classic albums and put out enough great material for me to give him the edge over the lyrically superior and more commercially viable, Method Man.

Ghost dropped the mediocre Fishscale, in March 2006, and followed with the better but still lukewarm More Fish in December of that year. But when people doubted what he had left in the tank, he returned in classic form with the Big Doe Rehab on December 4, 2007. 

Don’t take my word for it though.

“Hip-hop is dead,” a classmate once shouted at me. “Didn’t Nas say that? Hip-hop is dead man.” Yet that same person liked my facebook link when I posted the album cover and track list to GFK’s new album.

The Roots released another great album this year. Redman has one in the works.  Recently I’ve seen packed shows for Pete Rock & CL Smoth, and Das Efex. I’ve seen lines wrapped around the corner of 42^nd street on to 7^th avenue for an EPMD show at BB Kings. I felt like I was watching something historic when Nas and Bob Marley’s most talented son, Damien, headlined Rock The Bells.

Don’t sleep on these new cats though. Jay Electronica had Diddy depressed when he signed with Roc Nation instead of Bad Boy. Another Roc Nation rookie, J Cole, gave hip-hop a little CPR with the Friday Night Lights mixtape. B.O.B. caught a commercial buzz with “Airplanes,” and a verse on the Bruno Mars single, but he crawled through hip-hops sewers and still gets respect there.

Then there’s established new artists like Lupe Fiasco, as intelligent as he is talented.

We’re lucky if we ever get bombarded with legendary works like we did from 1988 through 1996. But we don’t need the new blood as bad as we did then. We’ve got a decent amount of young talent supported by the foundation of early 90s cats who still crank out classics.

Jay-Z will rock crowds until he’s as wrinkled as Bob Dylan and Keith Richards.

Return of the Devil's Son

Even if you’ve already heard every song, freestyle and leaked verse Big L ever made, you’ll still want to cop Return of The Devil’s Son, on Tuesday. I’ll bet one of my eyeballs that it’ll be better most posthumous albums. Remember Biggie’s Born Again? Yeah, it’s mostly recycled verses over new beats. But the new Zone of Danger produced by J-Love is just as dope as the original Danger Zone.

L was Hip-hop’s fiercest lyricist. A genius, and not in the loosely tossed around way that people call Kanye a genius.

He was hip-hop’s last great hope. Jay-Z owned most of the last decade, but when L roasted Jigga in the classic 10-minute freestyle on Stretch & Bobbito.

It was about two years after Big and Tupac died when L was shot to death in February 1999. But Big L didn’t get a parade in Harlem like Biggie’s funeral in Brooklyn. He didn’t have the mythical status of Tupac that made kids think he was still alive.

It was ominous. The next February Big Pun checked out. Now the so-called genius of hip-hop gets suckered into being a pawn to promote George Bush’s book.

Though I disagree with the baseless assertion that hip-hop is dead, I think you can point to the late 90s as when simpleminded narcissism began to eat at the genre’s quality.

It’s evident in the slang. In 1993, after Wu-Tang Clan renamed Staten Island “Shaolin,” they sparked a slang trend for money with the song C.R.E.A.M. –Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

By 1999, we adopted Weezy’s “bling,” for jewelry and car rims. Since then, “gangsta” has become an adjective.

But before simplistic brain farts became widely used terminology, Big L was hip-hop’s slang ambassador. His 1998 single “Ebonics,” was the RosetaStone of slang. He rapped like an ESL professor with a PhD in street talk.

Anyone who appreciates good hip-hop should do him or herself a favor and get Return of the Devil’s Son. Unless Lil Wayne goes back to jail and you have to rally for his freedom. Wouldn’t want to miss that. Ok for now.

The Introspection

A friend of mine, who never grew out of his rapping hobby but wizened enough to find other sources of income, hired me to collect the cover money at a party he threw last Thursday.

His parties are more like showcases for local rappers where he gets a chunk of the door money as well as some stage time. He’s got some rhyme skills, as well as a few other kids we know, but most of these kids lack any capacity to rap and have egos as out of control as their identity crisis.

Kids who talk like The Situation and dress like Lil Wayne. Girls with neon colored hair that don’t understand you’re only staring out of bemusement that she actually looks like a deflated, white version of Niki Minaj.

And we can’t forget about those dudes who “hate fags,” but walk around looking like they borrowed their little sister’s jeans.

The most dignified person may be the 30-something Jamaican guy who can’t accept that his career peaked in 94’ when he did background vocals for a few notable rappers.

Or perhaps that drunk Jewish hip-hop junkie who never raps and keeps his self-esteem guarded by so many Ralph Lauren Polo horses, that he needed $60 bad enough to work at the gate of this hip-hop hell all night.

Rap Radar Blasts Bieber

It’s about time someone checks this little punk Justin Bieber back in his lane, as the good folks at Rap Radar did in the sidebar embedded below. 

 

I’ll never understand hip-hop’s habit of self-degradation. But buffoonery plagues the genre like fiscal myopia in the GOP. 

I’m so ashamed for even acknowledging Bieber in a blog, that to repent I’ll whip myself bloody and drink warm mustard until I vomit like the savage kid in Brave New World.

Steal From The Poor

Kanye West done did it this time. I’ve disregarded most of his clownish antics because I loved his music. I’ve even supported some of his wackest music out of respect for the balls it took experiment. But now he undermined what I once thought was an indestructible element of his creative credibility: originality.

In mid August, Kanye launched his GOOD Friday series, in which he’d release a new song every Friday until his next album dropped in November. Another good idea from the trendsetter right? Maybe if he didn’t bite the concept from Crooked I.

Who?

Exactly. You see, even people who don’t listen to hip-hop know Kanye West. But, like most great lyricists, Crooked I doesn’t share that same renown. In his own words: “They try to keep me out the ranks of the greatest rhymers / but I been underground longer than Chilean miners.”

In 2007 Crook started his “Hip-Hop Weekly,” series. Every week, for 52 consecutive weeks, he released a three to five minute freestyle with unparalleled rhyme skill. He re-launched the series this year with the title “Hip-Hop Weekly Reloaded,” and set it off with a murderous verse over Gangstar’s Mass Appeal beat in honor of Guru’s passing.

So along comes Kanye to take the weekly concept and claim it as his brainchild because only hip-hop junkies like me know about Crooked I. In the last two installments of HHWR, Crook addresses Yeezy’s jack move. Personally, I love the week 10 joint because it starts off with the Boardwalk Empire beat. But week 11 is dope too and features Joell Ortiz, arguably the best lyricist in the game, next to Crook.

I admired Kanye when he voiced my opinion at the infamous Taylor Swift VMA incident, but right now I agree with what President Obama said about him then. “He’s a jackass.”