Category: Music

#RushHourRap – No Ceilings – Lil Wayne

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Well the world might be on fire right now, but at least Lil Wayne re-released his classic 2009 mixtape “No Ceilings” on streaming platforms last night. Lil Wayne was the Best Rapper Alive for a long time, but he also recognized that content is king long before anyone understood its true value. Between 2004 and the day he went to prison in 2010, Weezy was featured on 373 tracks! That is insanity. I mean the guy strategically recorded songs ahead of time and had them released throughout his year long prison sentence so it felt like he never left. Thats genius.

Complex rightfully points out that this is a shortened version of the mixtape with just 12 tracks compared to the original 21.

The re-released mixtape also features an updated version of “Kobe.”

I understand a lot of people probably weren’t scouring HotNewHipHop.com for new mixtapes like I was in college. So it’s easy to lose track of the more than 25 mixtapes Lil Wayne has dropped over the years, but if you only listen to one Lil Wayne mixtape make it 2007’s Da Drought 3, which is arguably the greatest mixtape ever made.

No Ceilings came at the back end of Lil Wayne’s final stretch of elite releases and was effectively the end of his reign as the Best Rapper Alive. In consecutive releases, he dropped Da Drought 3 (May ’07), Tha Carter 3 (June ’08) [Platinum], Dedication 3 (Dec ’08) No Ceilings (Oct ’09) and followed that up by putting together a super group of himself, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Tyga with appearances from Birdman, Lloyd, and Gucci Mane on We Are Young Money (Dec ’09) [Gold] all back to back.

After 2009 Lil Wayne was more of a veteran NBA superstar like Carmelo Anthony who could surprise you with a 32 point game in his age 36 season, but his days of dominating night in night out were over.

Thats what I equate 2011’s Sorry 4 the Wait (July ’11) to because that was a surprisingly excellent mixtape following two mediocre albums (Rebirth, I Am Not a Human Being). There have been some heater singles from Weezy over the years like Right Above It, 6 Foot 7 Foot, Drop the World, Believe Me, but there hasn’t been an entire Lil Wayne CD that I’ve been excited about since.

Lil Wayne may not be the must listen to artist he was at his peak, but don’t ever forget the sheer quantity of bangers this guy gave us in less than a decade.

Monday Morning Music: Crazy – Daniela Andrade

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I was watching the new season of Umbrella Academy last night, which after watching the opening scene of Season 2 I am still all in on, and I heard this cover of “Crazy.” My brain was hearing this and all it could think was wait, wait don’t tell me don’t tell me. A soulful acoustic cover of a Gnarls Barkley song is never something I thought I would ever be into, but this song is incredible. Start your week off with some Monday Morning Music. And then go watch Umbrella Academy.

#RushHourRap – Souls Of Mischief – 93 ‘Til Infinity

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Not to sound like an old head, but this song is a classic from back when rap was rap. Even if you don’t know this song, you for sure recognize the beat as it’s been sampled by everyone from J. Cole on The Warmup to Rick Ross on Thug Cry to Big K.R.I.T. on Somedayz to even Tyga on ’09 Until. EVERYONE got on this beat. It was even ranked No. 93 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time.

As I was saying the other day, one of my favorite elements of rap is how artists find old, obscure songs and chop them up into something else entirely. This beat was originally sampled from a 1970’s jazz track 

“A-Plus’s flip is one of the most infamous ever, looping two different parts of the Cobham song to layer over each other. With the perfect truncation of sound and a little pitch increase, it’s up there with Havoc’s ‘Shook Ones Pt. II’ and RZA’s ‘Verbal Intercourse’ samples as one of the craziest flips of all time.” – TheBoomBox.com

Absolutely bananas.

If you really want to go down the YouTube rabbit hole of music inspiring music, check out this old video of Kanye, Just Blaze, and John Mayer all chopping it up over the 93 ‘Til Infinity beat.

Who do you think we need to feature on Rush Hour Rap? Tweet us @The300sBoston and use the hashtag #RushHourRap to send us what you want to hear in the AM.

#RushHourRap – Clear Soul Forces – Get No Better

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A song that dropped back in 2012 and is one I only stumbled onto after it was used on Toucher and Rich as a bed coming back from commercial. Love the old school Mos Def/Talib Kweli sound and style. But this is what I love about hip hop man, this beat just sounded familiar to me so I was trying to track down the sample and it led me to this artist/producer Alien Folk Urban Aire / Kankick, which led me to the original sampling of this Latin jazz artist, Airto. Unreal. Thats exactly why Kanye will forever be one of the best producers to ever lay down a beat. The samples the man was able to repurpose are just absurd.

It would seem like these guys never really popped mainstream, but as we all know you can make a hell of a living as an indie rapper these days. So I may be nearly a decade late on these guys, but better late than never.

Logic Announces His Retirement Following the Release of His Next Album, “No Pressure”

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My first reaction is it’s hard to take a rapper seriously when they say they’re going to retire. I mean Jay-Z said he was retiring after The Black Album and that was in 2003. He’s since un-retired and released five more albums. Plus artists in general don’t normally have the ability to just walk away from their art. It’s not like a football player who has to retire because his knees are shot. Look at HOV, Eminem, Ice-Cube, Ice T, RZA, E-40, Missy Elliott etc. They’re all north of 45 and still putting out tracks.

However, Logic has been one of the hardest working dudes in the game over the past decade. He’s put out six mixtapes, six full albums, plus the criminally underrated soundtrack to accompany the freaking novel he wrote, Supermarket. Not to mention five headlining tours.

So while I hope this is more like MJ retiring to play baseball and Bobby Tarantino just needs to take a couple years off to get away for a while, but if not I wish him the best because he has given us a TON of music to bump to.

PS – Logic’s farewell album is being produced by No ID and is coming out in less than a week?

#RushHourRap – Kid Cudi ft. Eminem – The Adventures of Moon Man and Slim Shady

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So theres really not much of a rush hour these days as time is a flat circle during the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t blast some new #RushHourRap from your couch at 8 am. Well after a rough couple of years dealing with personal issues, Kid Cudi is back and he’s brought the one and only Eminem with him. This is a catchy track and a lyrically impressive song from Marshall. Em does more than just play with pronunciations as he plays with his tempo, which will have you rewinding the song a few times just to make sure you caught every line.

Eminem Detains Intruder at His Detroit Home

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Yahoo – Eminem came face-to-face with an intruder who bypassed security at his Detroit home.

TMZ broke the story, claiming the suspect used a paving stone to smash a kitchen window and climbed inside the house. The outlet reported Eminem was sleeping and woke up when his alarm went off, only to find the suspect in his living room, so he called for security. However, a rep for the rapper disputed some of the details to XXL, saying Eminem was not asleep and did not call for security — but that he detained the man himself until police arrived…Hughes apparently didn’t attempt to steal anything, but “was said to have wanted to meet the rapper face-to-face,” per TMZ. He was booked on charges of first-degree home invasion and malicious destruction of a building.

Imagine breaking into Marshall Mathers’ house? The guy thats spent the last 20 years rapping about killing his wife, his mom, and even his own fans at a concert?

Slim knows that some fans are nut cases and may want to break into his house to do God knows what. Whats even more eery though is he legitimately rapped about this exact scenario back in 2013 on the Marshall Mathers LP 2:

See, it’s sad it came to this point
Such a disappointment I had to make this appointment
To come and see ya, but I ain’t here for your empathy
I don’t need your apology or your friendship or sympathy
It’s revenge that I seek
So I sneak vengefully, and treat your bedroom window
Like I reached my full potential: I peeked
Continue to peep, still bent low, then keep
Tapping the glass lightly then start to crescendo, sneak
All the way ’round to the back porch
Man, door handles unlocked, shouldn’t be that easy to do this
You don’t plan for intruders beforehand?

TMZ actually reported that Em was asleep when the intruder broke in, but one of his reps told XXL that he wasn’t asleep and in fact detained the intruder until police arrived. I know he’s a rich, 47-year-old white man, but he’s also a maniac so what do you think was the more likely scenario?

This is hands down the worst part of being mega famous because you never know what the hell people are thinking. Maybe this was a troubled young man who just wanted to meet his idol or maybe he was a psychopath looking to slice up Slim Shady.

Glad to hear Em is fine, but I hope he fired those security guards that night like Shooter McGavin.

#RushHourRap – On This Day 17 Years Ago 50 Cent Released Get Rich Or Die Tryin’

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For a white kid from the burbs, this album was like being transported to another world. I love Jay-Z, but was probably just a little too young to really understand what The Blueprint was about when it was released. When Curtis Jackson came out of nowhere in 2003, co-signed by Eminem, he took off like a rocket because he was authentic with a wild origin story to back him. In what is nearly an urban myth at this point, 50 cent was shot 9 times and lived to tell the tale.

There were FIVE singles from his debut album, three of which I’ve heard on the radio within the last week – 17 years after their release. Get Rich or Die Tryin’ had one of the greatest B-sides of an album I can remember too.  What Up Gangsta, Patiently Waiting, High All the Time, Heat, Like My Style, Don’t Push Me, Life’s On the Line are all still bangers to this day. I feel like I forgot about a lot of these early 2000s albums once they stopped putting CD players in cars. I have like 50 CDs in my trunk with no way to play them. Damn technology.

Hey Google, play 50 Cent radio!

Um, I Feel Like Eminem Does NOT Get Credit for Literally Creating the Term “Stan”

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Ummmm am I the only one who did NOT know this? I can’t be. I just can’t believe I’m that out of touch and in the dark.

Assuming I’m not, it’s sort of unforgivable in and of itself that we all sort of just went with the flow and started using “stan” as a common noun and as a verb. We all started saying things like “I stan (ATHLETE OR MUSICIAN X) hard” and “I’m sick of (ATHLETE OR MUSICIAN Y) stans they’re so annoying.” We did this without ANY KNOWLEDGE of where it was coming from and we did it in a day and age where that is capital “D” Dangerrrrrrous. We could of been #MeToo”d or #Cancelled or #ImWithHer’d or something along those lines without ever being any the wiser to what we said wrong. It was a new term that was easy enough to use so hey, fuck it. Let’s give it a whirl.

Come to find out, some fairly savvy individual took it directly from Eminem’s 2000 depiction of the eponymous obsessed, unwavering, and very much unstable fan. A song made famous not only by how very good, albeit dark, it was, but by an all-time VMA performance featuring perceived homophobe Marshall Mathers and Elton John. This is both sort of wild to realize but also a little unnerving to learn, no? I’ve called people “stans” with very little concern probably hundreds of times. Never was I trying to imply they were “a fan of to the point of a graphic murder-suicide”. Kind of overkill (no pun intended) if you ask me. But hey, that’s showbiz, I suppose.

Look, I know people don’t come to this blog to learn. They’re not seeking any kind of knowledge unless knowing where the line in the sand is drawn in terms of the etiquette of serving faux-Mexican fast food counts. However plain and simple I think this is a true blue #themoreyouknow situation where people should fuckin know this. Marshall Bruce Mathers III is a Lexicon King as well as a Rap God.

If you disagree? Well hit me back, just to chat.

-Joey B.

What Would Your Walk Out Music Be?

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There is nothing cooler in sports than the walk out music for a defending champ as the lights are off or when the music blasts as a closer jogs in from the pen to save the game. Whether its something grave diggers would listen to like Mariano Rivera’s “Enter Sandman” that ruined so many nights of my childhood or an A+ inside joke like Christian Yelich using “Roxanne.”

So the question I posed to The 300s staff was what would your walk out/walk up music be?

Dom: Walk up song is “Electric Avenue,” no doubt. Been my ring tone since senior year of college and still haven’t gotten sick of it. It’s one of the catchiest tunes of all time.

Big Z: Payphone – Maroon 5

“All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I’ll be sick”

Perfect song for an unexpected hero who saves the day in the bottom of the 14th. I know if I’m in the big leagues I’m probably coming off the bench in an emergency situation. It’s not the movies. I’m a dirtdog who doesn’t get all the opportunities, but delivers in the clutch when it matters most.

Papa Giorgio: It’s a toss up between The Used – Pretty Handsome Awkward and The J Geils Band – Love Stinks if I was on any of the 29 teams that aren’t the Mets. If I was on the Mets it’d be the Somebody Kill Me please song from the Wedding Singer.

Lippa: I have always thought “Eminence Front” by The Who would be a great entrance for a closer. That song has such a great intro that keeps ramping up as the pitcher reaches the mound.

Joey B: I’m giving you three because Abraham Lincoln didn’t swoop down onto the battlefield on the back of a bald eagle and turn away the Mongolian hoards just for me to keep quiet.

1.) 2pac – “Hail Mary”
Just a true blue pump up song with an always riveting biblical reference. “I aint a killer but don’t push me/revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin pussy” might be the best opening line in terms of introducing yourself to an opponent.

2.) Lynyrd Skynyrd/Shinedown – “Simple Man”
Either version works and will make the hairs on everyone’s necks stand up.A moving explanation of the fact that the violence that you are about to inflict isn’t personal, just a basic instinct of a simple person.

3.) Thrice – “To Awake And Avenge The Dead”
This one is kind of out of left field. I can’t really categorize Thrice as a band. Sort of a melodic metal/punk/hardcore fusion. But the second that first chord rips you’ll be ready to run through a fucking wall.

Red: You can see the clear line of demarcation between the baseball guys and the UFC guys here as Joe and I are the only ones to pick music that makes you want to get suspended from high school. I went back and forth on this one with classics like “Til I Collapse,” and almost had to go with “Shook Ones Pt. 2,” but I had to go with one of the few songs from Eminem’s most recent album thats taken off; “Lucky You.” The subtle bells open the track followed by some bars from Joyer Lucas before that beat comes in HARD. Let me walk into that and get the hell out of my way.