Update 28/2: a second Sydney date has now been added. Details below.
J Cole has announced his first dates in Australia (and New Zealand) in three years, marking his first visit since 2014’s Rapture Tour alongside Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Action Bronson.
The rapper dropped his fourth album 4 Your Eyez Only back in December 2016, two years to the day since his last release 2014 Forest Hills Drive. In less than three months the album – which debuted at no. 1 – has already reached platinum certification (with no features), with all ten tracks appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
His Australian shows mark the end of a mammoth 50-date international tour. The tour kick off in South Carolina this June, before visiting Europe, the UK and finally Australia, where dates are currently locked in for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
4 Your Eyez Only Tour. On sale Friday. See you in a few. https://t.co/uSjyv2SENG pic.twitter.com/bKfDXQLPgn
— J. Cole (@JColeNC) February 21, 2017
A 48-hour pre-sale will be available for Telstra customers from midday on Friday Feb 24 (details here), while general tickets go on sale next Tuesday February 28 at 12pm local time via Live Nation.
J Cole – 4 Your Eyez Only Tour
Friday December 1 – Vector Arena, Auckland
Saturday December 2 – Riverstage, Brisbane
Monday December 4 – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney – 2nd show just announced
Thursday December 5 – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Wednesday December 6 – Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
Saturday December 9 – HBF Stadium, Perth
Image: Supplied
Being December, most people already have their best of lists and top tens of the year set in stone. But 2016 is the year that just keeps on giving as all hell broke loose in the last week, especially for hip-hop fans. The release of no less than four absolutely cracking albums from Childish Gambino, Smoke DZA and Pete Rock, J. Cole and Ab-Soul all filling our stockings with early Christmas gifts.
Childish Gambino – Awaken, My Love!
Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino threw everyone a curve ball two weeks ago when he dropped his slick AF LP Awaken, My Love! No one believed him when said he was going to ditch hip-hop, but as the psychedelic yearning melodies revealed to us in single Me and Your Mama which were expanded upon throughout his entire release. It’s already drawn comparisons to Tame Impala and Radiohead but I think that takes a little a bit away from what Glover has achieved himself on this album. The level of production is sublime, really sublime. Second single Redbone pulsates with electro synth that transcends both the artist and listener to unfamiliar places. From the ambient and uplifting high end to the downright funky on the low end, you find yourself engulfed in the album. California blips and bops all over the shop and Riot sort of feels like a poor man’s James Brown interpretation resulting in the album being a little disjointed, but don’t let that take away from the record. Baby Boy drips with soul and although some might call cringe-worthy the hook in Stand Tall is as catchy and bumpy as anything. Despite the commercial success commercial success of his last two attempts at hip-hop records, this album is one Gambino can really claim as his first real crack at making something his own. Many will love it and many will hate it. I did have a sceptical predisposition but I think this is pretty fucking good album.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7eSUU9oy8&w=560&h=315]
Smoke DZA & Pete Rock – Don’t Smoke Rock
It may have been a little overshadowed by the former, but Smoke DZA teamed up with beatmaker Pete Rock to drop a stomper of an album on the same day, Don’t Smoke Rock. With names like BJ The Chicago Kid, Dom Kennedy and Wale appearing on a record, it melds old-school beat architecture with new-wave ideas and flows. Black Car Superhero featuring Rick Ross bangs like the classics of the 90s and Royce Da 5’9”, along with DZA, impressively hold it down on the skinless Hold The Drums. The most refreshing part about this album is that Smoke DZA has managed to escape the weed smoking bravado stereotype on this LP. A topic he has done to death, this album has more substance and punch, making it a really engaging listen. I do realise my own hypocrisy as I point to the awesome collaboration with Mac Miller on the album closer Until Then, which kicks off with a quote from classic stoner movie Friday, but the flow on the album closer is undeniable.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTCrE0C8v54&w=560&h=315]
J. Cole – 4 Your Eyez Only
The entirely solo 10 track follow up project to 2014’s Forest Hills Drive has been eagerly anticipated; with rumours of potential collaborations throwing around names like Kanye, Kendrick and Wale how could it not be? But 4 Your Eyez Only is once again a J. Cole only affair.
The intense intro tune For Whom The Bell Tolls immediately shapes the album as a product of a hopeless and self-depreciating headspace, also showing us Jermaine putting his pipes to the test. The 31 year-old continues to pick away at select heart-strings in Change. A message of self-realisation converted into a cry for a switch in community attitudes over a funky beat with the help of Ari Lennox (signed to Cole’s label) on the melodic bridge.
Both She’s Mine tracks, Part 1 and Part 2, consolidate Cole’s mind state as his spoken word delves into his own life and love in comparison to everyone else over stripped back classical keys. So given the album context you can understand why a track like Foldin’ Clothes was included, but you can’t help but giggle to yourself at the cheesy lyrics. Sometimes its grounding to be relatable, and sometimes it’s just plain boring. “Raisin brand in my bowl with bananas and some almond milk / I never thought I’d see the day I’m drinking almond milk.”….. nah.
Ab-Soul – Do What Thou Wilt
We already had some insight into what to expect from the TDE member’s fourth studio album Do What Thou Wilt, with the release of singles Huey Knew, Braille featuring Bas and D.R.U.G.S, and last week we received the whole damn thing.
Straight off the bat, the often slept-on Black Hippy trash talker calls a (Raw) Backwards on all rappers over an ambient and building beat which fills you with the same real intensity as playing the James Bond: Golden Eye on your ‘Tendo ’64. The kind of intensity the album really feeds off as sometimes it can lyrically go begging.
There is no denying the production on this record and the West-Coast rappers ability to create a party, which was oh so evident in all three singles. Threatening Nature (leaked a few days ago) also boasts a crisp drum line which leaves room for Soulo to make his mark vocally. On Beat The Case///Straight Cooked featuring ScHoolboy Q, the track really shines toward the end, when the beat switches up to a synthy boom bap and Ab-Soul really lays down some bars with some substance beyond his high-life living.
Even in Now You Know, Ab-Soul shows glimpses of his ability to spit verses with wistful clarity but as many of the numbers on this LP do it leaves quite a bit to the imagination. The stabby snares cutting in and fading out periodically will make a crowd bounce but to release a 16-track piece of work there needs to be a level of cohesion which I cannot seem to grasp on this record. He is definitely not a dude to be slept on, this album will be big but I expected more.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphiZ2tcTv0&w=560&h=315]
Let’s hope this roll keeps on keeping on into 2017.
J Cole has released his new album 4 Your Eyez Only, only a week after announcing the project. The album was preceded by two tracks, False Prophets and Everybody Dies. Although these spawned a fair bit online buzz amidst the possibility that he was possibly dissing Kanye West, Wale and Drake among others, neither appear on the new record.
Like his last album, the acclaimed 2014 Forest Hills Drive (which came out exactly two years ago today), J Cole has marched on without one single guest feature throughout the album’s ten tracks, a remarkably impressive feat considering the nature of hip-hop records in 2016. Not only does it show that Cole is confident and able to craft a fully realised project on his own, but it should hopefully serve as a reminder that guest stars are not a completely necessary ingredient in many releases.
The album has come along with a 40 minute documentary entitled Eyez, in which we are allowed a glimpse into what he’s been getting up to since the release of his last album. It is out exclusively on Tidal.
Stream the 10-track, 44-minute project below and you can purchase it here via iTunes.
Image: Instagram
Hip-hop is very much dependent on the ‘guest verse’ and the success of a hip-hop song will often hinge on whether it has that little ‘feat.’ tacked on at the end. In most other genres the lyrics are sung, and this naturally involves a range of notes and tones. Rapping, at its most basic level, involves listening to someone talk over a backing track. It can be extremely dull to listen to the same voice drone over an instrumental for 80 minutes. Enter the ‘guest’ rapper. A slight change in tone, pace or intonation can be all that is needed to breathe new life into a track.
Hip-hop, however, is also naturally about competition. The danger in depending on a support act is that the support act might upstage the main event. In an industry built on braggadocio and rivalry, there might be nothing more embarrassing than being bested on your own turf. Killed on your own track. Or as Nas famously put it, “murdered on your own shit.” We take a look back at hip-hop’s best scene-stealing cameos.
Track: Scenario Remix, 1992
Host: A Tribe Called Quest
Guest: Busta Rhymes
Charge: Manslaughter
Priors: Ghostface Killah on Iron Maiden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6TLWqn82J4
A Tribe Called Quest were the masters of the “hippity-hop” / Rappers Delight style of old-school early 90’s rap. Simple, bouncy rhymes that flowed naturally and landed right on beat. Dinco D’s verse is emblematic of early 90s hip-hop, almost whimsical with a child-like quality “true blue! Scooby Doo, whoopee doo!” Enter the Leaders of the New School and Busta Rhymes. Because of Busta’s representation of the “new school” the Scenario Remix feels like the passing of the torch. And whilst Busta Rhyme’s verse is hardly revolutionary, (and still contained some of the rhythmic hallmarks of the era) it paved the way for a more frenetic, relentless rapping style that would come to dominate the late 00s.
It’s almost as if the Tribe caught a glimpse of their own death. Busta Rhymes is formally announced by Q-Tip and then given a small bridge to start warming up. He is handpicked for the last verse, the perfect opportunity to provide the finishing blow. “Watch as I combine all the juice from the mind” Busta starts. This is the perfect explanation for the complex neurochemistry that is about to begin. Busta delivers a barbarian flow, wild and booming, as we’re introduced to his trademarks roads. He crams syllables into beats “vo-cab-u-lary’s necessary / when digging in-to my library.”
Busta’s verse is so iconic that it is one of the most sampled all of time. Afrika Bambaata used the line “heel up, wheel up, bring it back come rewind” in Zulu War Chant. Nicki Minaj transformed Busta’s most famous guttural bark “rawr rawr like a dungeon dragon” into an entire song. And who could forget the truly bizarre rework of Busta’s “chickity-choco the chocolate chicken” into the Barenaked Ladies’ “chickity China the Chinese chicken” in 1998 one-hit wonder One Week. Busta Rhymes is a manic assassin, spraying rounds and making messy casualties of legends Phife Dawg and Q-Tip. As the closing act for hip-hop’s greatest posse cut, Busta K.O’s it and alludes to the future of a more sophisticated art form.
Track: Renegade, 2000
Host: Jay-Z
Guest: Eminem
Charge: Murder
Priors: 50 Cent on Patiently Waiting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaBx_2AzTk
In response to Jay-Z’s The Takeover Nas produced a diss track so hot that its burn was supernatural, Ether. In a track that implies Jay-Z was molested as a child, one line hit even harder: “Eminem murdered you on your own shit.” Thus Nas gave birth to the expression we now use when a guest verse is hotter than that of the original artist.
Nas was of course speaking of Renegade, the ill-fitting addition to Jay-Z’s The Blueprint. Renegade feels out of place because it was originally intended as collaboration between Eminem and Royce Da 5”9. Written in 2001, Renegade came at the beginning of Eminem’s burgeoning interest in music production. The haunting beat is pure Slim and maybe it’s the reason the Detroit prodigy was able to dethrone the God MC. Home-court advantage.
Renegade is a classic exercise in trading bars. Both rappers get two verses each and go line-for-line in the chorus. This kind of equality makes it very easy to compare the performance of the two rappers. Hova’s verses are representative of everything about The Blueprint, crisp and clean. Jay-Z respects the beat, landing perfectly with the iconic “motherfuckers / say that I’m foolish / I only talk about jewels do you / fools listen to music / or do you just skim through it?” Jay-Z peddles the narrative of his entire career; financial difficulties, a fatherless childhood, and being forced to sell drugs to survive – a winning formula. The only problem is that Eminem’s “Evil” is just so much more interesting than Jay-Z’s “Bad.” Both rappers are given the opportunity to sing the song’s chorus, it’s just that when Eminem screams “Renegade!” he really means it.
Eminem’s use of assonance is incredible – “who’s the king of these rude, ludicrous, lucrative lyrics?” Also, Em’s verse is almost unmatched for its crescendo-like quality, the subject matter and the quality of the rhymes getting more and more intense as he reaches this climax “go to war with the Mormons, take a bath with the Catholics in holy water, no wonder they tried to hold me under longer.” But did Eminem really murder Jay? Hov seems to think so, conceding defeat on A Star Is Born; “his flow on Renegade, fucking awesome, applaud him.”
This jousting was historically important. In 2000 the undisputed king of hip-hop was Jay-Z. Eminem was at most a shocking court jester. There was little doubt that his success would be a passing novelty. Five albums later and the world is still split on who is the GOAT, Eminem or Jay.
Track: Run This Town, 2009
Host: Jay-Z
Guest: Kanye West
Charge: Manslaughter
Priors: Drake on Pop Style
On Run This Town Kanye West gives us a glimpse of a magic trick he would perform again on Watch the Throne – sawing Jay-Z in half without ever lifting a finger. On Watch the Throne Kanye’s “less” beats Jay Z’s “more” time and time again. Kanye’s rhyme patterns are often simplistic. He falls into the habit of rhyming non-rhyming words. “Coke on her black skin made it striped like a zebra / I call that jungle fever.” But Kanye’s rhymes are moreish. They’re memorable. It’s his emphasis and Frank Sinatra-like enunciation. It’s his wit and effortlessness. It makes every line a punch line. The great mystery of this trick is that you know Jay-Z is the better rapper, but he’s not the rapper you want to hear more of.
Released in 2009 as a single off Jay-Z’s The Blueprint III, Ye’s verse comes at an established point in his career, but before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy took him to “genius” level. Kanye’s verse is important because it’s the first real time he challenges his mentor. What we get is Kanye butchering his Big Brother on his own song with a breezy flow chocked full of witty one-liners. “I can spend my whole life goodwill hunting / only good gonna come is it’s good when I’m cumming” Ye’s verse is jam-packed with quotables – “we give a damn about the drama that your dude bring / I’m just trying to change the colour on your mood ring.”
In 2016, Kanye is still assassinating rappers without breaking a sweat. He absolutely phones in his verse on Schoolboy Q’s THat Part. The last 20 seconds of his verse is something like a ”freestyle” where he resorts to making sound effects and then laughing hysterically. But it’s listenable. Kanye’s verse on Pop Style is the benchmark for simple, witty rhymes that everyone can sing along to at pre-drinks – “they like Pablo, “why are all the windows tinted on your Tahoe?”
Something of a gracious loser, Jay-Z again conceded defeat. Well sort of. In an interview Jigga was asked whether Kanye had killed him on his own track, he said: “as long as I’ve been in the game, that’s gong to happen, once or twice or even three times.
Track: Skew It On The Bar-B, 1998
Host: Outkast
Guest: Raekwon
Charge: Manslaughter
Priors: Mobb Deep on Nighttime Vultures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XU2o8p-Ixo
By 1998 Outkast had already shattered perceptions of the South as a hip-hop backwater. Nonetheless, the hip-hop intelligentsia had still decreed East-Coast boom bap as the benchmark of the genre. On their magnum opus Aquemini, Outkast invited Raekwon The Chef to join them on Skew It On The Bar-B, with the hopes of murdering the east-coast great on home turf.
Raekwon, used to the simple boom bap drums of the East Coast, might have been expected to struggle with Outkast’s melody and distinct Southern flavour. The Chef rises to the challenge. He embraces the style of the track, yet still delivers his trademark “ghetto Mafioso” flow.
It’s no easy feat to best a rapper regularly placed in the top five of all time list, but Raekwon manages to slay Andre the Giant on his own song. Andre 3000 comes with one of the most memorable opening verses of all time, “the common denominator, the n**ga numerator / never know the hater, n**gas cater to your ego.” Outkast love showing off their supersonic rhyming speeds and this track is no exception. The assonance in Andre’s verse is delectable.
The typically lethargic Rakewon is energised by the bouncy Organized Noize track. Matching the speed of Outkast without compromising his own style. Raekwon’s ability to adapt shows the versatility of his flow. But his choice of subject matter is safe territory, preferring the thematics of drug dealing and skirmishes with police than the extra-terrestrial nonsense of the Atlanta natives. Raekwon takes it to one of the greatest rappers all time, seamlessly rhyming off the same word for twelve whole bars, “hydro slide raw like fuck Ronaldo, fly ride though, shit lookin wild dope.” Raekwon milks this “o” sound, repeating it a full 25 times. Outkast hoped for an ambush but instead got killed in their own home.
Track: Diamonds from Sierra Leone Remix, 2005
Host: Kanye West
Guest: Jay Z
Charge: Murder in the First Degree
Priors: Pusha T on Drug Dealers Anonymous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92FCRmggNqQ
Given that Kanye and Jay’s relationship was far from perfect in the early stages of Kanye’s career, the track does contain a sense of the Def Jam President putting the young upstart in his place. From the beginning, Jay-Z seems dismissive of his protégé, ‘leave this to the professionals’ he implies; “yup, I got it from here, Ye damn.”
On the Diamonds from Sierra Leone Remix Yeezy does a decent job of tackling dense issues on an already superb track. Kanye explores the conflict diamond trade with some serviceable rhymes, but Jay-Z’s verse is truly memorable. If nothing else, it gave us the homophone that is the ultimate slogan for Jay-Z’s entire career: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!” With a basketball team, a clothing line, his own brand of cognac and an entire identity built around entrepreneurship, the catechism perfectly captures the phenomenon that is ‘Jay-Z.’
The master of multiple meanings, Jay-Z’s verse contains one of the densest quadruple entendres with “the pressure’s on, but guess who ain’t gonna crack?” In a time before Rap Genius, unpacking this line would have required reference to Jay Z’s autobiography and lyric bible, Decoded The line simultaneously refers to four things: the pressure of keeping Roc-A-Fella afloat after a falling out with co-founders Dame Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, the high pressure conditions in the Earth’s mantle necessary for the creation of diamonds, the natural pressures that come with selling crack cocaine. In the following line Jay-Z says “haha, pardon me, I had to laugh at that.”: His own wit has caused him to ‘crack up’ laughing.
Early in his career, Kanye showed a degree of humility that would not be seen again after 2009. Big Brother deals with how Kanye’s admiration for Jay-Z inspired him to work harder. Despite his best efforts, he concedes that on “that Diamonds Remix, I swore I’d spazz / then my big brother came through and kicked my ass.”
Track: International Player’s Anthem, 2007
Host: UGK
Guest: Andre 3000
Charge: Murder in the First Degree
Priors: Jay-Z on 30 Somethin’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awMIbA34MT8
UGK’s International Player’s Anthem and its classic video clip centres around the wedding of Andre 3000 and the admonitions of his friends, who warn him against abandoning the single life. Andre might provide the guest verse, but it is Andre’s wedding, Andre’s story, and Andre’s verse that you remember from this anthem.
Forever a master of “Storytellin’” this verse is exceptional for its vivid narrative, covering everything from communicating to ex-lovers to fidelity and revenge. It’s a rare hip-hop ode to monogamy, Andre acknowledging that a married life means foregoing the sea of women that surround him. Andre adopts a spoken word style suited to the confessional rap. Andre uses that classic Outkast technique of splitting up words so the rhyme arrives on beat, “reconsider, read some liter-rature on the subject” and “fuck it / you know we got your back like chiroprac-tic.” This verse also contains a killer double entendre “I’m so like a pimp / I’m glad it’s night.” Both a reference to the peak business hours for pimping and the soul of Gladys Knight And The Pips
This verse in 2007 almost kicked off the trend of Andre 3000 channelling his numerous talents into measly guest verses. Whilst we have to be thankful for Andre’s killer verses on Lloyd’s Dedication to my Ex, Beyoncé’s Party, and Frank Ocean’s Pink Matter, these verses may have slaked Andre’s urge to rap, and it might be the reason we haven’t had a solo album from him since The Love Below.
The curious thing about International Player’s Anthem is that Andre really provides more of an ‘intro’ or ‘opening monologue’ than a ‘verse.’ The bass drops when Pimp C takes the mic, and the song is completely transformed into a crunk banger. Pimp C and Bun B ride the fast pace of the new song, and provide its ‘anthem’ element. Even when ‘warming up’ Andre 3000 is spitting fire.
Track: Shadowboxin, 1995
Host: GZA
Guest: Method Man
Charge: Murder in the First Degree
Priors: LL Cool J on 4, 3, 2, 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7kAk5dTsj0
Liquid Swords by the Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA is still considered to be one of hip-hop’s finest displays of lyricism. An old-school disciple of quality rhymes, the GZA was the architect responsible for putting together some of the finest rhymes ever pressed on wax. Getting Method Man to jump on Shadowboxin’ was a calculated decision, Meth complementing the feel of the track perfectly. Method Man and GZA box, but it is the former who comes out on top, besting the Genius at the top of his game.
In retrospect, the verse is trademark Method Man. Meth’s flow has a Dr. Seuss-like quality to it, shifting between nonsense words and pop-culture references (“ticallion stallion, chinky-eye and snot-nosed”). The comparisons between Busta Rhymes are fair, not only for the guttural noises (“everything huh in any shape form or fashion / now everybody talking bout they blasting hmmmm) but for the sheer range of his subject matter and vocabulary (“slip the cardiac arrest me, exorcist Hip Hop possess me.”)
The hip-hop world knew right away that Method Man had brought his A-game, earning the prestigious “Hip Hop Quotable of the Month” for his verse in the December 1995 issue of The Source.
It might not be correct to classify this as a ‘guest verse’ since Method Man anchors the entire track, with his talents being put front and centre in contributing both the first and last verses. Legend has it that the middle verse from GZA was an afterthought; a fun opportunity to jump onto an already hot track. Again, the GZA knew he had been bested, conceding in an interview that it “always seemed more like Meth’s track” with his verse as “filler.” But it’s unfair to dismiss the GZA’s verse as mere “filler,” dropping an unreal line with “my sword still remain imperial / before I blast the mic, RZA scratch off the serial.”
Track: Beautiful Bliss, 2009
Host: Wale
Guest: J. Cole
Charge: Pre-meditated Murder
Priors: Jay-Z on A Star Is Born
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lirCKMj-cis
What makes this murder so particularly twisted and cruel is the sense of betrayal, of thwarted dreams and a stolen birthright that came with it. In 2009 Wale signed with Interscope and was being touted as the next big thing. His debut album Attention Deficit sold poorly, despite favourable reviews from critics. This album was supposed to be the real debut of Wale, but what we got instead was the debut of J. Cole.
Wale invited up and coming rapper J. Cole to put down a guest verse on the otherwise forgettable Beautiful Bliss. Like Renegade, the name of the song has become synonymous with guest-on-host murder.
Legend has it that J. Cole was extremely conscious of the attention surrounding this mainstream feature and made a concerted effort to spazz. As a result, Cole’s verse is filled with vivid imagery, catchy punchlines and raw energy. On Beautiful Bliss J. Cole shows his hunger. “Ain’t nothing given, dog, it’s earned / if you just living, dog, you learn / I let you n*ggas see the light / I’m like the prison yard, I yearn.” J. Cole’s final exclamation “I’m from the Ville boy!” shows his intensity.
The cruelty of this murder is that Wale probably thought he was doing J. Cole a favour. Putting a young rapper on an album guaranteed to blow. What Wale could not have foreseen was that J. Cole would spit flames and then go on to forge a far more successful career in the exact same lane. Wale accidentally gave life to a terrifying rival in the alternative hip-hop scene. While Wale never lived up to his potential, his protégé showed early signs of becoming one of the greats.
Track: Monster, 2010
Host: Kanye West
Guest: Nicki Minaj
Charge: Triple Homicide
Priors: Big Sean on Dance (A$$)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGyIXJ4KG8U
File this under triple homicide. On Monster the “bride of Chucky” easily disposes of Kanye West, Jay-Z and (to a much lesser extent) Rick Ross. It’s more than the best verse on the track. Or even the best verse on the album. It simply must be considered one of the greatest verses of all time.
Nicki Minaj’s verse on Monster is even more shocking because it is effectively her debut. It’s true that Minaj had already had a strong summer on urban radio with her first single Your Love and an equally blistering verse on Trey Songz’ Bottoms Up. But it was Monster that brought Nicki to mainstream audiences and provided the perfect launching platform for her debut album Pink Friday, released just one-month later. Nicki says it best herself: “50K for a verse, no album out.” Believe the hype, this is an artist to invest in. Less than six years later and she has become a hip-hop institution and the frontrunner for the greatest female MC of all time.
Minaj’s energy and vibrancy make it abundantly clear that she will carry the torch for the next generation. She utterly shames the G.O.A.T. contender, the not-so-Young Hov. Her distinctive tones are a breath of fresh air on the very album that revitalized the whole genre. On an album as bright as MBDTF, Minaj manages to eclipse not just some of the best rappers on earth, but the best artists. Although it is one of the great humblebrags, Kanye West has it right when he describes it as “the best verse on the best hip-hop album of all time.”
Minaj does imagery like few others. The first few lines of her verse paint one of the most vivid in hip-hop (“I’m in that Tonka colour of Willy Wonka”). She takes aim at male-dominated industry (“you can be the King but Watch the Queen conquer”). She pays homage to her Trinidadian roots (“Tony Mattheron, dutty wine it, wylin”), boasting one of the many accents and voices at her disposal. A voice Minaj uses like an instrument, constantly altering between sickly sweet chirping, low growls and piercing screams, all in the one breath.
It is a credit to the quality of this verse that, despite its sheer complexity, everyone knows the words. It’s the kind of verse that you make the effort to learn. This is exactly what hip-hop is about. This is what you live for.
Track: Control, 2013
Host: Big Sean
Guest: Kendrick Lamar
Charge: Mass Murder
Priors: Pusha T on Nosetalgia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7zdMeZPkpY
No surprises here. This is an example of premeditated murder. An act of hip-hop terrorism, Kendrick Lamar’s verse was a calculated move to incite fear amongst the rap community.
Big Sean and Jay Electronica provide serviceable verses, but none can compare to K.Dot’s conscious intent to “blow up the internet.” Kendrick’s worldwide chest-thumping transformed a B-side reject from Big Sean’s sophomore album into a social media shitstorm. Lamar’s Twitter account saw a 510% increase in followers in the week following the track’s release and he gained 88,000 new fans on Facebook. Even the lesser artists that Kendrick shouted out received a boost in profile, with Mac Miller gaining 87,000 new followers. The official story is that it could not be included because the “sample didn’t’ clear.” Or maybe Big Sean didn’t want to give any more oxygen to Kendrick Lamar on his own album.
Hip-hop is inherently about bragging, but Kendrick’s boasts on Control border on sacrilegious. He places himself right at the beginning of a ‘barber shop’ lists of the G.O.A.T that includes Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem and Andre 3000. He claims to descend directly from 2pac, and most shockingly calls himself “the King of New York.” It’s testament to Kendrick’s skills that some of these claims don’t even seem that outlandish.
He adopts an unusually gruff voice that’s suited to the seriousness of the subject matter. “This is hip-hop and n**gas should know what time it is” he says, offering a warning and wake-up call to his competition. Kendrick’s verse is blistering and relentless. While the earlier bars contain some of the most quotable lines of all time, the final moments show off his skills as a lyricist, with vivid images and complex internal rhymes.
Nowadays, even the least subtle diss tracks have the good sense not to specifically mention the rapper’s name. On Control Kendrick methodically moves through the list of top rappers, articulating their stage names with his gravelly voice. “Big Sean, Jay Electron,’ Tyler, Mac Miller / I got love for you all but I’m tryna murder you n**gas.” You know that Kendrick wanted to see his name on lists like this when he specifically used the exact language Nas used to describe Eminem’s verse on Renegade.
Kendrick’s Control verse served to revitalise the competitive spirit of the genre. It called forth a wave of response tracks and incited more debate and discussion than any hip-hop track since.
Image: Discogs
Until recently, the majority of public opinion comes from mainstream media. Industry experts, professors and politicians provide their own opinions, in turn helping to form those of the masses; however, in the social media age that we live in, anyone and everyone is able to share their thoughts instantly across a number of incredibly far reaching networks.
These alternative points of view help to create a more in-depth dialogue about issues as trivial as memes, as universal as ethical issues, as controversial as politics and religion and as topical as race relations and immigration. Artists, as an umbrella term, are a group of people that have always engaged in this dialogue. A painter painting, a writer writing, and a musician making music, all respond to issues and themes in some shape or form.
In the digital age, this participation in conversation has become less passive for artists and much more direct. Rather than relying on their work to speak for them, creatives can now give their own opinions directly to their audience via a number of channels of communication. Recently and more frequently, one of these channels of communication has been via lectures and discussions, most often at universities and in video series.
It was just last month that the Red Bull Music Academy hosted a roundtable discussion with some of hip-hop’s biggest producers – Zaytoven, Sonny Digital and Metro Boomin. The Atlanta boys discussed their musical origins, the process of sampling, labelling genres and their careers over the course of an hour and a half. The full interview was only posted a number of hours before writing this article and has already racked up several thousand views, but would videos like this have been so successful only a few years ago? Would people have been as responsive to the ideas and experiences of producers, rappers and everyone in between?
Definitely not, but let’s take a look at why that’s changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkJbkixcpcU
Let’s get this out of the way early: the rise and prevalence of social media is a huge contributor. We live in a time where I can know everything that Drake is doing and has done at the push of a button, or at the touch of my thumb. Being able to keep up to date with what any artist you’re interested in is doing means that they appear in our news feeds, and consequently our lives, much more.
Articles being written about what they’ve said or what they’ve done means they’re on our minds as often as our friends. From there, it’s only a small jump to people that maybe aren’t as interested in them as someone else. No doubt almost every person alive today knows about Kanye in some form, and they’re more likely to be even a little interested in what he’s got to say (even if a lot of it is wildly outlandish). Social media is its own universe though and most of what is said online isn’t particularly insightful and intelligent, so let’s make a big distinction here. Yes, social media is the way in which most opinions are shared and spread, but let’s take a look at how hip-hop and in depth discussion, academics, and education are overlapping.
Over the last year alone, a number of huge names in hip-hop have held lectures and classes for students at some of the world’s most renowned universities. Harvard has seen Pusha T quizzed about his role as new president of G.O.O.D Music and the dispersal power of music platforms, Chance The Rapper was there last May discussing streaming and police brutality and J. Cole visited all the way back in 2013 to talk about his upbringing.
Joey Badass gave a lecture at New York University for Black History Month, Killer Mike made an appearance at MIT to talk about race relations, Stormzy was at Oxford talking domestic violence, and Kendrick’s got a storytelling class based on his work at Georgia’s Regents University. It’s a long list, but there are many more that we don’t have the space to mention. So, why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JPVNA44CQs
There’s no doubt that rap has become the mainstream. Look no further than the charts, where Drake’s One Dance and Desiigner’s Panda are sitting comfortably at Billboard number one and two respectively. While rap had previously been labelled as aggressive and intimidating, seen most obviously in criticisms of artists such as Wu-Tang Clan and N.W.A, it’s now, at long last, a respected artform.
As a result, rappers are now enjoying a time in the mainstream that was previously only enjoyed by pop and rock musicians. For this reason, their music is being appreciated both on a base level and at a deeper level. Though many fans listen to hip-hop and appreciate the way it sounds and the intelligent bars being spit, as has always been the case, there are those fans who wish to understand lyricism on a different level and to look at it in relation to the person’s own life.
Hip-hop is largely an artform born out of struggle. The marginalisation of black youth, the hardships of growing up in often problematic families, and the documenting of the gangsta lifestyle – these are all themes which have run through the veins of hip-hop (though not all hip-hop of course) since its inception. As these real world struggles become more and more a topic of mainstream concern, rather than pushed to the side as they have been for so long, hip-hop becomes a seemingly endless resource for the understanding of these themes.
The opinions and experiences of its proponents thus become invaluable to people trying to better understand what they, and many people like them, have gone through and experienced. Coming from these backgrounds and essentially having to become masters of business to survive properly as an artist also gives them a very unique perspective on the industry in general. They’ve experienced it all first hand, and their opinion is invaluable both in understanding how music operates currently, and the direction that it will be moving in.
While it goes without being said that each artist speaking or lecturing is giving a very different point of view on contemporary topics of discussion, the inclusion of these people in the dialogue offers opinions that have been so far lost for so long. Hip-hop is the telling of stories that many of us haven’t experienced, and it’s this first hand knowledge that will help in the solution to some of the problems that many rappers and producers alike have faced.
What will the rappers of tomorrow be lecturing on at Harvard in 20 years time? We’re looking forward to finding out.
Image: Rolling Stone
In a year where many musicians are sadly passing away all too young, it’s understandable that many are feeling the nostalgia and doubting that the musicians of today will be able to hold candles to the giants they stand on. Earlier this week however, Talib Kweli came out against a Twitter user who was doing exactly that, who claimed that A Tribe Called Quest and Rakim can’t be compared to the sounds of today.
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/732672904933068800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Over a number of tweets, Talib named Run The Jewels, Joey Bada$$, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Rapsody, Anderson .Paak and Chance The Rapper as artists “all great, on [their] way to legend.” All of these artists are absolutely killing it at the moment – constantly releasing well-received music and each with their own distinct sound – but kind words from the one and only Talib Kweli can’t do anything but help their reputation and their self-confidence. In the same post Kweli also addressed the ease of finding good and original music in the age we live in.
“You are pretending that finding good music is harder than it used to be. That is false. It’s way easier… People forget the primary subject of real hiphop from 20-30 years ago was the ubiquitous ‘wacl MC’. Cuz there was a lot of wack shit out.”
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/732686737693085697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Indeed, when we interviewed Kweli last year he told us, ” [To Pimp A Butterfly] is an experimentation in hip-hop, it’s funk and jazz, and he’s talking about the black experience as a kid from Compton. Kendrick is the number one most popular rapper right now, with the exception of maybe Drake. So to me, that signals a really healthy market for real music… People know the names of the artists that play club music, but people have nothing invested in these artists. People have something invested in Kendrick, and Run The Jewels, and J Cole and A$AP Rocky.”
Some wise words from one of the biggest names in biz. It’s an exciting time for music that we live in, and living in the past is getting no one anywhere interesting. Let’s wait and see if Talib’s predictions are true, and these acts all become legends – we’re pretty confident they will.
Check out our review of Talib Kweli alongside Common in Melbourne here.
Image: oogeewoogee
Charlamagne Tha God weighed in on comparisons between the late Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar, insisting that the comparisons should stop being made between the two prominent artists.
In an interview with Montreality, Charlamagne was asked who he believes is the biggest rapper right now. He responded predictably, listing off a possible tie between Drake, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.
“I don’t know if there is one particular answer.” Charlamagne said. “Everybody’s got these different, cult-like followings. And their fan bases love them tremendously.”
“I don’t think it’s one supreme individual who is the most influential in the game right now”.
Charlamagne was then asked his opinion on the comparisons drawn between Kendrick and Tupac. He was quick to point out the flaws in the comparison, and how they hurt new artists instead of helping them grow. “No, they will never match up, and we need to stop doing that to the new guys,” he said. “We have to stop putting them on the same level as ghosts. And what I mean by ghosts is guys like Tupac, guys like The Notorious B.I.G., guys like Jay Z, Dr. Dre. Those are legendary figures who have already done it. They’ve been through every door that any of these new guys could possibly even think of going through.”
Charlamagne capped off his point by suggesting that instead of focusing on similarities between Tupac and Kendrick, “Kendrick should be working on being the first Kendrick.” Rightfully, he’s showing that upcoming artists should work on focusing on themselves and their own identity, rather than try to fit into a mould left by somebody else.
If you have a spare three minutes, his short interview below is worth a watch.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr8oLbEuhUI]
Read our live review and see our photos of Kendrick Lamar during his recent performance in Sydney.
Image: HipHopWired
Over the weekend, things got even more heated around the American Presidential race, as protests erupted at Donald Trump rallies. It turned violent, with protestors arrested, but it seems there is some good news to come from the chaos.
Thomas DiMassimo, pictured above, was captured by security guards after attempting to charge at Trump himself on March 12 in Dayton, Ohio. In the altercation, his shirt was ripped, but I don’t think he expected what would happen next. Thanks to a fateful photo of the protestor being apprehended by some guards, the internet picked up quickly that he was wearing a Dreamville shirt, as in J Cole‘s record label. DiMassimo tweeted about the fate of the shirt, but was blown away when none other than Dreamville’s manager, Ibrahim Hamad, tweeted him saying a box of Dreamville merch was headed for him.
https://twitter.com/Younglionking7/status/709030328921407489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
@Dailyrapfacts @Younglionking7 all good bro, we'll send you a box of Dreamville gear on us. Be safe out there.
— Ibrahim H. (@KingOfQueenz) March 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/Younglionking7/status/709046998738018304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Considering how vocal the rap game have been about their detest for Trump, the sight of a protestor supporting one of their own would have been welcome news indeed. The presidential race is far from over, and tensions continue to grow over Trump’s puzzling popularity, so whilst we can probably expect many more protests in the weeks ahead, we should also hope that they remain as safe as possible.
Read more: Check out our review of J Cole’s Forest Hills Drive
Image: XXL Instagram
J. Cole is no stranger to letting the world know that he’s a Notorious Big fan. He featured on an unreleased cut of Biggie’s Can I Get Wit Ya, as well as sampling Notorious Thugs on his track N****z Know, from his 2013 album Born Sinner. He has even mentioned taking influence and rating Biggie Smalls as one of his favourite rappers; now he has surprised fans at Shaun White’s Air + Style Music Festival by dropping Notorious Big’s Hypnotize.
J. Cole was getting the crowd ready and amped for one his bigger hits, Who Dat, when he suddenly changed direction and launched into Hypnotize.
Now, nothing can compare to Biggie’s rendition, but whenever you are out and someone plays the song, whether it be a DJ or J. Cole, it’s a hip-hop sing-a-long at its finest. You and everybody around you should be jumping up and down and rapping along, so loudly that it impedes your ability to realise Cole’s voice isn’t that of Biggie Smalls. Check it out below.
https://youtu.be/Eo6u9qySFFg
Fans are still waiting to see whether J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar will actually release their collaborative album. The are rumours to both extents, so only time will tell. Either way, J. Cole is staying busy featuring in Trae Tha Truth’s video for Children of Men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzVbJ3Ct-uU
Image via jcolemusic.com