MIXTAPE SHOW EPISODE 16 – the katrina edition

Remember those posts I made about a possible Katrina hip-hop podcast show? Well, here it is, on the most known unknown rap podcast series on the internets – episode #16, the Katrina Mixtape.

First up, some heat from 4-IZE. Dude used to be in a group with Luda back in ’91 called Loudmouth Hooligans. I aint heard of em till now but apparently he was on dude’s first couple releases. Something y’all prolly ain’t expected from one of my shows, but get the fuck used to it. Good track. Paranoid as fuck, but good. Look for more from him, but in the meantime see what’s up at 4ize.com..

4-IZE – Can’t Eat.

Hood Affiliates – Hurricane Katrina Song.

I haven’t heard a name for this track other than the one provided here, but the joint is good. HA definitely bring it from a hood perspective, and remind you who’s really responsible for this shit. Don’t ever tell me that rappers don’t read the news. I haven’t heard much else from Hood Affiliates, but this joint here kinda makes me want to hear more. Anyone want to shoot a brother some mp3s? There’s a temporary site up at www.hoodaffiliates.com, hopefully they get on that soon.

What up internet nerds. All y’all done heard this, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good song. I saw this all over the web a long ass time ago, but some y’all maybe ain’t heard it, so here you go. Clever reference of Kanye’s own lyrics, you know, politics is on point, etc, etc. And the title is classic. Hit up their website, it’s more info down there. Try k-otix.com.

The Legendary K.O. – George Bush Don’t Like Black People.

Somebody tell the boss he shouldn’t be the boss anymore. Yeah, it’s Mos. You know who that is, and if you don’t, well, I don’t know. Wikipedia or something. Hot track, and I never even liked that fucking Nolia Clap beat. I actually hated it, still do. But come on. He calls out Bono. Bono. This is a classic. mosdefinitely.com.

Mos Def – Katrina Klap.

Chuck D – Hell No, We Ain’t All Right.

Yeah, Chuck D. This came out a while ago in poem form, acapella. So far to my knowledge he hasn’t done a song, but this is an excerpt from some stuff he said on a radio program a while ago. I just looped up a sample and presto. You really should have heard this already, but if you haven’t, make sure to pay attention.www.publicenemy.com.

Special shouts also go to Suburb, who produced the opening beat on this episode offa a sample I gave him, in like 15 minutes. Check him out and buy a beat!

That’s it for this episode, then. Be on the lookout for Grand Larceny Radio Volume 2 coming at you very soon. Also in the pipeline: other mixtape reviews, some brand new artists, an interview I already recorded and gotta postproduce, and fuck, a whole bunch of shit. All you indie label heads out there, get at me, we’re moving…

Oh, yeah. We got a sponsor. Motorola, in case you couldn’t guess. Shit, I gotta eat. Show some love, lemme know what y’all think… this was on the old network. but if motorola wants to fuck with us again, shit…

DRAG AND DROP (not click!) this into iTunes to subscribe to this show and get all the hot joints first…

ZING. Y’all know what time it is. I got that official shit, holler at your boy.

Materials: Spraypaint, stencils, tape, and a shirt. And about 45 seconds.

For those of you too lazy to check the site, here’s the basic rundown:

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

So, yeah. We’ve got a bunch of firefighters that are ready for action, but instead we’re holding a fucking tea party and training them on how to hand out fliers. Shit is so fucked nowadays that it’s surreal.

Here’s the thing, though.

I don’t ever, ever want to hear anyone telling me that FEMA or the government in general isn’t to blame for not being prepared for this, because that is a bunch of bullshit. I know for fucking sure that they knew what was going on. How? Well, two things.

1. Even Mr. Bill knew. The creator of the Mr. Bill series made a short PSA in which Mr. Bill’s house in New Orleans floods, and he gets eaten by a fucking alligator. This was all over the place.

In 2001.

Check this video if you haven’t seen it yet. I’m sorry, if a play-doh character that dies every episode knows that New Orleans is about to get flooded the fuck out, then maybe FEMA should, too. Next reason:

2. FEMA produced a rap song about it. I’m not fucking joking. Here’s the direct .ra file link.

Here are the lyrics, in case you want to sing along.

Disaster . . . it can happen anywhere,
But we’ve got a few tips, so you can be prepared
For floods, tornadoes, or even a ‘quake,
You’ve got to be ready – so your heart don’t break.

Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency.

People helping people is what we do
And FEMA is there to help see you through
When disaster strikes, we are at our best
But we’re ready all the time, ’cause disasters don’t rest.

Written and performed by Scott J. Wolfson

I’m sorry, but that’s some fake-ass shit. I want to know who this Wolfson dude is. Maybe he’s someone they hired, or maybe Mike Brown was like “Hey, my son has one of those computers with the beat machine doodads in it! Why don’t we make some of that hippity-hop that all the youngsters like, so that they will think we’re actually fucking doing something!“*

I don’t know. I’m not trying to call dude out personally, but I’m having a difficult time seeing the difference between this rap and a rap where some dude gets on and acts like he sells rock and shoots people in they face, when he’s really an accountant or something. Oh, wait, I see the difference – in FEMA’s case, more people die. Yeah.

So anyway, there you have it. I don’t want to see anyone else getting upset because 50 allegedly wears fake chains cause the real shit is too heavy/expensive. Not only does our government lie to us, but they do it to us in rap songs. This is some extra next-level bullshit.

*Imaginary quote courtesy the shyster.

MIXTAPE SHOW EPISODE 11

Some strong material from Slow Speed Chase. This joint features Cawzlos MCing, with 26 on production. If you missed last week’s joint with him and LuckyIAm.PSC, well, go back and check episode 10 and get a bar. Check him at www.myspace.com/26hrs.

Slow Speed Chase – Caged Up.

Dusted Phoniks – Trouble.

I think these dudes hit me up via a Craigslist ad. They sent me a pre-mastered version of their upcoming album that needs some polishing, but overall there were some solid efforts on it. This track is actually the second half of a story – I would put both on here but time and space are limited. If you don’t pay attention the first time, feel free to rewind. Check dudes out at myspace.com/dustedphoniks.

I honestly can’t remember when this came in, but I know it’s been in my desk for a while. I finally gave it another listen the other day and am definitely fuckin’ with a few of these tracks. If you’ve heard that “Ghost” track from his album, you know what I’m talking about. From what I hear though Trunks is going through some tough times, so hopefully he pulls through all right. If anyone has any info on that, get at me… You can check Trunks’ label site at www.basement559.com.

Trunks the Hypnotic – Valley Kings.

XNOW – Black Man Lost.

Everyone remember the episode where I dropped that stuff off of the Deepthinka Vol II mixtape CD? Well, they sent me a radio-friendly edition the other day, and there was this unmarked CDR in a paper sleeve in the same package. I put it in, and it’s this cat XNOW just ripping shit up. This joint comes from the end of the tape – apparently it’s on an upcoming album. I actually hit dude up today about being on the show, so expect an interview in the near future, assuming everything works out. In the meantime, check him out at www.deepthinka.com.

This is another dude whose CD I had had sitting around for a minute. I don’t really have a whole lot of information on him, and it looks like the site is defunct, but the instrumental and the lyricism is definitely solid. The track is off an album called “Haines St. Hymns”. Their old site, at least, was at www.ransakrecords.com. As for this track, though, it’s pretty much here where this show starts to change form, so watch what happens next…

N.A.I.L.S. – Everybody Can’t.

Ray Nagin – Interview (mixtape show edit)

Now, this dude is not a rapper, but if you listen to this section, you’ll agree that this dude is dropping some fucking bombs on motherfuckers. This man is not playing around. If you don’t recognize him now, you will soon – this is New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Please note that I did not conduct this interview, and took some artistic license with his words by putting them over the N.A.I.L.S. “Everybody Can’t” beat, and chopping things up a bit. www.cityofno.com.

Last up is something that should sound familiar to most of you. Yeah, that’s a NAS beat, but it’s used with permission, it would seem. This is off of Saul Williams’ Real Niggery Vol. 1 mixtape, which is basically a collection of acapellas of his first album put over tolerable beats. This last one seems to be some sort of bonus. I’ll post about the whole thing soon, but in the meantime, jam to this one. Check out more info at catchdubs.com for this specific project.

Saul Williams – from the Real Niggery Vol 1.

So, how y’all like the new tracklist format?

Kanye did it.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s go.

So I was on fucking metafilter today, and saw this link. I was actually working on the latest edition of this site’s hip-hop podcast at the time, so I didn’t really pay attention to it, because the video was kind of sloppy.

Basically, it’s a taping of Mike Myers and Kanye West on NBC. At first, I was a little disappointed in the fact that they needed celebrities to get on there to convince people that this is serious business. Then I laughed a little at how they had Kanye and Myers there – I mean, they’re both really funny to me, but the latter is the only one that I think is trying to be funny on purpose.

Have you clicked the link yet? Do it. Check out this video, it’s worth it – here’s a .mov version.

So yeah, I am watching this video, and I’m noticing how Kanyizzle is fucking trembling with anger, angst, something. He’s obviously very emotional at this point. And while Myers is reading from the teleprompters, you can tell that Kanye is speaking straight from the heart, because he’s stumbling all over the place, his voice is shaking, and well, he doesn’t really sound all that great. At first, I’m like man, they need to get this dude a beer or something, chill him out, because he’s gonna break down on camera.

I was partially right. He didn’t break down, but he definitely fucking broke something down. Let me put this into pictures for you. He starts talking about the government putting military in New Orleans, and then breaks out with this line:

And by “us”, he’s talking about the urban Black poor people in New Orleans.

Myers is a little shocked. But it doesn’t end there.

At this point, I’m a little intrigued, because Kanyeezy already pulled the race card in the beginning of the clip, and you can tell that Kanye is still itching to let loose. You’ve got to wonder how far he’s going to go. Of course, you always hope that someone is going to get up on national TV and just do the damn thing, but it’s a fantasy.

Until now.

After he gets himself back together, Mike Myers proceeds to read off the teleprompter like a good celeb. He says some shit about the spirit of the people of Southern Louisiana.

Kanye, though, fucking Kanye. He waits for Myers to finish, looks the camera dead on, and says the following:

That’s right. Dude is on live television, and says: “Bush doesn’t care about Black people“.

What happens afterwards is sort of strange. Mike Myers looks at him in astonishment, and then they cut to Chris Tucker, of all people. God only knows what that was going through that man’s mind. Actually, I want to know what the producer was thinking when he cut to him – was he hoping that maybe Tucker would be like “Ah, nah, man, Bush loves us brothers!”?

I personally think that Chris shoulda been like “That’s right dog!”, but, well, he didn’t. His career is a bit less stable than Kanye’s right now, I’m thinking, so that probably wouldn’t have been a good move. I’m sure they exchanged words after that happened, though.

So here’s the thing.

See, this is something that everybody has known all along. I mean, if this had been a rich white neighborhood that was flooded, people woulda been evacuated inside of two days. Actually, that flood wouldn’t have even happened, because the government never would have moved money earmarked for levy improvements to Iraq . So Kanye really does have a point – it is, once again, fairly obvious that Bush doesn’t give a fuck about us*.

*By the way, if you’re not a Bible-thumping, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, rich male WASP, feel free to include yourself in that “us” as you see fit.

But, I mean, it’s Kanye. How is it that we’ve lost our way so badly that we are relying on a hip-hop producer whose fashion sense is barely above that of Pharell to represent us? It’s not that Kanye is the spokesperson for Black people, but, I mean, in this case, people – white politicians included – are looking at him as such. And most of us agree with him, I’m assuming.

I sure as fuck do.

And as sad as it is, I’m perfectly willing to take this. I don’t care if Suge fucking Knight gets on television and says that shit, it seems that we as a community are just forced to take anything that we can get. So if we need Kanye West to get up on stage and say what everyone – and I mean fucking everyone, Republicans included – have known all along, then so be it. Kanye wasn’t perfect, but fuck it, that’s all we’ve got right now. Don’t like it? Then let’s start taking care of this shit on our own, without relying on celebrities to convince themselves they’re speaking for us.

But for right now, I’m pretty happy. For real, this is the best shit that’s happened to me all fucking week.

I henceforth forgive Kanye of all previous crimes. Even though he kinda embarrassed himself in that Sierra Leone shit, even though I slept though the entire Common album, and even though he might have shot Suge (I’m kidding), I totally forgive dude. This was not perfect – not by any stretch of the imagination, but come on people, the world is fucking crazy right now. Shit is so absolutely fucked up that it’s surreal. I am sure that there are some out there that will accuse him of taking us a step backwards somehow, but for now, I’m satisfied with shaking shit up a little.

Oh, and check this statement from NBCsandiego.com:

“Tonight’s telecast was a live television event wrought with emotion. Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person’s opinion.”

Man, whatever. Fuck NBC too.

Anyone who knows me personally and lives nearby – who wants to have a Kanye listening party?

I’m kidding.