Fort Minor is one of the greatest blips in rap history in my opinion. I remember stumbling onto Fort Minor my junior year in high school when Petrified (remember that??) dropped in 2005 and just being blown away. I was always a big Linkin Park fan so a new Mike Shinoda project was something I would have given a shot regardless, but this album was way more than I ever expected it to be. The one thing I always remember about the album Rising Tied was that Shinoda famously did *everything* on it.
“Shinoda told Corey Moss of MTV News that he imposed on himself a requirement to play all the instruments and write all the lyrics to the album except for the strings, percussion, or choir parts.”
And it still stands up FOURTEEN years later. Holy shit I’m old.
Something I never knew until just now though was that Jay-Z was an executive producer on the album, which makes sense after the massive success Jay and Linkin Park had on their 2004 mashup album, Collision Course.
Remember the Name is arguably the most popular track from Rising Tied, but Where’d You Go was a bigger hit commercially (it was their only single to crack the Top 25) reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. This may not be the most talked about album, but I still have it in rotation all these years later. It even turned me onto indy rap groups like Styles of Beyond.
Unfortunately for whatever reason this was a one time thing as Fort Minor never made another album again. So for all the uninformed, below are a few of my favorite Fort Minor tracks AKA just about the whole album.
15 years? Preposterous. The College Dropout, Kanye’s debut album, dropped on Feb. 10, 2004 when I was all of 15 so Yeezy has been in my ear for about half of my life. I still remember seeing the video for Through the Wire on MTV and immediately thinking two things: 1.) This is incredible and 2.) Who is this guy because it seems like he’s already a force behind the scenes.
If you’ve never seen some of the behind the scenes footage, this is a good place to start the YouTube rabbit hole. A then unknown Kanye just blowing Jay-Z’s mind with the beat that would later become Lucifer on HOV’s 2003 classic, The Black Album.
All Falls Down is still one of my favorite tracks and the video itself was just Kanye’s POV of a day in the life dropping his girl off at the airport. A pretty uninspiring concept when you say it out loud, but that shot of him rapping in the mirror of the airport bathroom is stilled burned into my brain for some reason. Having Stacey Dash in your video never hurts either.
It seems we living the american dream But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem The prettiest people do the ugliest things For the road to riches and diamond rings
Say what you want about him now, but you can’t deny the guy changed the game as the ultimate standout. You could just as easily call him a contrarian for his self described “pink-ass polos with a fuckin’ backpack. But everybody know you brought real rap back.” In an era when EVERY rapper was rocking baggy jeans and throwback jerseys, Kanye was trying to make it cool to dress dorky. And it worked.
Kanye’s style, polo shirts & cardigans, was a HUGE departure from the baggy jeans and jerseys that were popular at the time.
His campaign as a style icon started with bucking these trends, and making the world follow his lead. pic.twitter.com/UefqywJZrg
Just read this excerpt from an excellent piece about The College Dropout that I found on Sabotage Times:
He might be a superstar now, but he represented the underdog in the beginning. Back in early 2004, when 50 Cent was hip-hop’s undisputed king, street credibility was a prerequisite to success. The son of a photojournalist and an English professor, Kanye had a middle-class upbringing and didn’t fit into that mould. Sure, people loved his production work, but no one was convinced about him as a rapper. Where would this goofy dude fit in? What did he have to rap about?
…He got his record deal at Roc-A-Fella, Jay Z’s label, because co-founder Dame Dash wanted to use his beats for a compilation, not because they believed in him as a rapper. Unbeknownst to anyone at the company, he instead worked on College Dropout, an album that would transform the genre and dispense with those narrow preconceptions about rappers entirely.
I caught some old Lil Wayne on the radio driving into work this AM and it sent me down the rabbit hole. Lil Wayne is obviously still very popular, but it’s different than how it used to be. The guy was an absolute monster with everything he touched turning to gold. Maybe it just seems that way to me because I’m washed, but seriously it’s different.
I went to the Drake vs Lil Wayne concert a couple summers ago and I was stunned at how many people didn’t know the words to LOLLIPOP. I felt like my uncle at a New Kids On the Block concert because I suddenly felt very dated. All the drunk children at that show knew nothing prior to I Am Not A Human Being and thats a shame because Lil Wayne was an absolute megastar back when I was in high school/college. I would say from 2006-2008 Lil Wayne was not only the most popular, but the most lyrically dominating artist on the planet. I think he’s tailed off hard in recent years, but you cannot deny the guy’s resume.
If you want to start even a little earlier in 2004 Weezy dropped Tha Carter with Go DJ being the main hit, followed up by a pretty legit feature on Destiny’s Child (holy shit I’m old) Solider. Then in 2005 he released The Carter II, which was the first Lil Wayne song I remember being a huge hit in Fireman, but also had Hustler Musik and of course Shooter (introducing Robin Thicke). In 2006 Wayne had the collab with Birdman Like Father Like Son, which was fine with the main single being Stuntin Like My Daddy.
BUT, thats when the guy absolutely took off appearing on anything and everything from features to mixtapes to albums. In late 2006 we got Dedication 2 and then in early 2007 Lil Wayne released, in my opinion, the best mixtape of all time with Da Drought 3.
Then the guy really got hot appearing on *all* of these songs:
“Despite no album release for two years, Lil Wayne appeared in numerous singles as a featured performer, including “Gimme That” by Chris Brown, “Make It Rain” by Fat Joe, “You” by Lloyd, and “We Takin’ Over” by DJ Khaled (also featuring Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, and Birdman), “Duffle Bag Boy” by Playaz Circle, “Sweetest Girl(Dollar Bill)” by Wyclef Jean (also featuring Akon), and the remix to “I’m So Hood” by DJ Khaled (also featuring T-Pain, Young Jeezy, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Big Boi, Fat Joe, Birdman, and Rick Ross). All these singles charted within the top 20 spots on the Billboard Hot 100..Wayne also appeared on tracks from albums Getback by Little Brother, American Gangster by Jay-Z, and Graduation by Kanye West.”
That was before he even got around to releasing his own work. Released in 2008 after a delay, Tha Carter III is still one of the best rap albums of all time. 3 Peat, Mr. Carter, A Milli, Dr. Carter, Mrs. Officer, Shoot Me Down, Lollipop — all bangers more than 10 years later.
In that time span Lil Wayne won a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance for A Milli, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for Swagga Like Us, Best Rap Song for Lollipop, and Best Rap Album for Tha Carter III.
Without a doubt, the most underutilized rap group of my lifetime. CRS aka Child Rebel Soldier was made up of Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Lupe Fiasco. Us Placers was released in 2007 and that was just about all we ever heard from CRS. To be fair this came out *right* before Kanye’s Graduation, and Lupe’s The Cool, which are two of the best rap albums of all time, so I can see how this may have gotten put on the back burner.
However, Kanye is known for collaborating with all kinds of artists, but is also infamous for boasting about forming rap super groups that never come to fruition. Some of these groups turn into classic platinum records like Watch the Throne with Jay Z. Another is just beginning as Ye has most recently teamed up with Kid Cudi to form Kids See Ghosts. Others result in an absolute fire single only to never be heard from again like CRS.
Kanye, Pharrell, and Lupe were also credited on the 2008 N.E.R.D. remix for Everyone Nose as CRS, which still bangs to this day, but is definitely more of a N.E.R.D. song than anything else.
Technically CRS had one other song that came out in 2010 called Don’t Stop, but it was a G.O.O.D. Fridays release so I don’t really count it. If you remember, G.O.O.D. Fridays was a free weekly music drop back in 2010, which was a godsend in college, that Kanye launched leading up to My Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy. Kanye utilized the full roster of his label GOOD Music to release music every Friday for several months, including hits like Power, Don’t Look Down, and a number of tracks that eventually made their way onto MDBTF like Devil in a New Dress.
Former high school phenom and street ball legend Sebastian Telfair was on the Breakfast Club this morning and I was wondering why he was on the radio regailing tales of his NBA heyday. Apparently he’s dropping an album, which I’ll get to in a bit, but first I have to dive back into my long dormant obsession of one Sebastian Telfair. On the Breakfast Club Telfair even briefly touched on his time with the Boston Celtics. I’m paraphrasing here, but basically what he said was:
“Even the young guys was acting like old guys, like if that guy drives a Cadillac instead of a Bentley I’m not setting a screen for him.”
Telfair played on the worst Celtics team of my life as a fan: the 2006-07 squad that went 24-58 under Doc Rivers. Woof. That was the year Paul Pierce missed a bunch of time due to a foot injury and only appeared in 47 games. What I totally forgot though was just how young Telfair was when he joined the Celtics. In case you were wondering he averaged 6.1 points and 2.8 assists per game in his one year with the C’s. He was still only 21-years-old though and it was just his third year in the league! So its not like he was this total project of a player, which probably helped his value as he was later part of the earth shattering Kevin Garnett trade package just a few months later.
Now who was it that Telfair could be referring to? That Celtics team had a TON of young guys that were on a terrible team so I can imagine how toxic that environment was. Lets take a look at the young guys on that team. Since it was Telfair’s third year in the league, lets take a look at guys who had three years or less of NBA experience when he joined the team. Tony Allen, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Kevinn Pinkney (?), Leon Powe, Allan Ray (not Ray Allen), Rajon Rondo, and Delonte West. Holy shit what a cast of characters. I don’t remember the last time I actually looked at the 2006-07 roster (why would anyone?), but I forgot how many “mercurial” players were on that team. I can totally picture Delonte West and Rajon Rondo hating on Telfair for no other reason than the publicity and fanfare he got for being good in high school. And thats before we even get to Kendrick Perkins, who is a favorite player of many Celtics fans, but is also known for being a complete prick too. My money is on Rondo and Perkins just icing Telfair out and straight up bullying him like Mean Girls.
Now it’s probably because I saw Telfair’s documentary Through the Fire when I was like 16 that I have such an affinity for the one time superstar in waiting.
Plus a closing credits song that bangs so hard its on my iPod (iPhone?) to this day.
He was one of the first high school basketball players to go straight to the pros not named Kobe, Garnett or LeBron. Jay-Z even spit a verse about the fucking guy on Dead Presidents.
Let me live out my dreams, until my heart give out Devour cream, you know exactly what this is about Fuck y’all mean, handlin’ since a teen Like LeBron or Sebastian, high school graduates Straight to the league, I ain’t waitin’ for my knee to blow Yesterday I was needin’ this dough
Telfair was on the cover of magazines,
His high school games were on ESPN, he had the aforementioned documentary, HOV and Derek Jeter even went to watch him play. In a high school gym.
The game was so highly anticipated, even Jay Z, Derek Jeter, Ahmad Rashad, Rick Pitino & a numbers of NBA scouts took a seat front & center. pic.twitter.com/t9Pa9wQ2y0
This was the real life Jesus Shuttlesworth as we all watched a 17-year-old kid decide what he wanted to do with his life. He ultimately ended up spurning the honorable Rick Pitino at Louisville to turn pro instead, going 13th overall to the Trailblazers.
After parts of 11 seasons in the NBA where he averaged 7.4 points and 3.5 rebounds over his career, Telfair went over to China just like his cousin Stephon Marbury and not surprisingly lit it up for a couple years. Now? Now we get mixtape Sebastian as Telfair is apparently dropping an album. Athletes releasing music almost always ends poorly, unless you’re Cole Beasley of course.
But we’ve buried the lede long enough. All athletes want to be rappers and all rappers want to be athletes, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gonna give Sebastian Telfair’s debut album a listen. I literally could not find any mention of it on the internet though, which is not a great sign. But I was able to track it down after I finally landed on Telfair’s own Twitter page. So without further ado…
Yahoo – When Gordon Hayward can start meeting with sneaker companies about his next endorsement deal in August, expect New Balance to make a strong push for the All-Star, according to Nick DePaula of ESPN.com. The Celtics forward has spent the bulk of his career playing in Nike shoes, but he has the chance to join a new brand before this upcoming season.
New Balance, which has its headquarters in Boston, partnered with the Celtics on their new practice facility recently as part of the company’s attempt to gain more traction in the basketball world. Currently, the shoe company does not have a section on its website for basketball sneakers.
Please make it a high top. Thats all I ask.
But in all seriousness this move would make perfect sense. The New Balance headquarters is a literal stone’s throw away from the Celtics brand new practice facility, which they partnered with to build. Odd move for a company without any basketball shoes right?
Hey if PUMA can get back into the NBA world then why not New Balance? Sure, PUMA may have Jay-Z leading the way, but Gordon Hayward would be a pretty good start for New Balance.
Now the real work here is in New Balance selling Gordon Hayward on them as his brand of choice in the prime of his career. I mean a tractor trailer full of cash always helps, but if I’m New Balance I’m pitching the fact that my CEO works 20 feet from where you practice every day. Phil Knight probably ain’t flying out to Brighton to take meetings.
Whatever you do just don’t give Gordon the Vinny Chase free agency pitch.
I can’t do basic math, I’m bad at directions, and I’m terrible with names, but I can still rap Jay-Z’s verse on Frontin’ word for word in my car 15 years later.
So Facebook reminded me that today marks the 5 year anniversary of the Celtics-Nets trade of Paul Pierce and KG for a BOATLOAD of draft picks. At the time I was a young’n living in Allston still holding onto the heyday of the Celtics. Hell, that 2012 NBA playoffs commercial for the Celtics is still my favorite NBA commercial to this day.
Young, athletic teams are exciting, but in my opinion nothing is more fun to watch than the old, proud, savvy veterans making a last stand.
I still vividly remember when the trade was first announced on ESPN because I was sitting at White Horse crushing some $2 Coors Lights. At the time I was pretty bummed because I loved Paul Pierce and KG is my favorite Celtic of all time. Cue the Facebook memory!
This was the best Celtics squad of my lifetime finally broken up, and probably a couple of years too late. But don’t tell that to former Nets GM Billy King, who was more than willing to pay top dollar for guys entering their age-36 and age-37 seasons in Pierce and Garnett.
Just look at the fucking quotes from King and former Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
“Honestly, did I think we could pull something like this off? No,” Nets general manager Billy King said during a Friday conference call. “… But (Celtics GM) Danny (Ainge) and I just kept working at it and got to the point where we both were comfortable.”
“Today, the basketball gods smiled on the Nets,” team owner Mikhail Prokhorov said in a statement. “With the arrival of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, we have achieved a great balance on our roster between veteran stars and young talents. This team will be dazzling to watch and tough to compete against.”
Laugh out loud funny looking back.
Obviously that trade has been roasted in the years since and while it seemed like an overpay at the time, it wasn’t completely outlandish. People, Sports Illustrated included, thought the Nets were going to be awesome.
So the thinking was, “welp whats a few late first round picks?”
As we joked on the podcast the other day, the Celtics drafting this year at No. 27 overall is house money — just draft an absolute scrub or roll the dice on an asshole. Late first rounders in the NBA are rarely game changers.
Except, as we all know, the Nets experiment bombed miserably. Historically bad. I joke with my buddy who is a Nets fan that this is going to be the greatest 30 for 30 ever.
For the price of FOUR first round picks the Nets got 75 games out of Paul Pierce and 96 games out of KG. In those two years the Nets went 44-38 and 38-44.
The Nets then blew it up and proceeded to go:
21-61 (2015-16)
20-62 (2016-17)
28-54 (2017-18)
Holy. Shit. What a bad deal.
Meanwhile, with those Nets picks the Celtics went on to draft and/or acquire via trade:
James Young – No. 17 overall (2014)
Jaylen Brown – No. 3 overall (2016)
Jayson Tatum – No. 1 overall (2017) *Celtics traded down to No. 3 to take Tatum and in the process picked up the following piece below
Kings 2019 1st round pick
Kyrie Irving – via trade of the Nets’ No. 8 overall pick, Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, and a second round pick
So we actually get one more bite at the apple due to Danny’s draft day trade last year. As long as the Kings don’t get the No. 1 overall pick it goes to the Celtics and that will officially wrap up this debacle of a Nets trade.
Thanks again to Mikhail, Jay-Z, Billy King, and the borough of Brooklyn for fast tracking the Celtics rebuild and putting us back on the brink of the NBA Finals in just 5 years! If Jayson Tatum becomes the 1st-Team All-NBA player like I think he will then Nets fans probably have no choice but to become full blown Celtics fans. I mean when you think about it, this is basically the Bizarro Nets. God its good to be a Boston fan.
PS – Oh yea, Jason Terry was part of that deal too, but the Jet only played one season with the Nets as well. Terry is *still* playing by the way as he just wrapped up his 18th season with the Bucks.
Double PS – Lets go back and look at some of the reactions to this trade when it was announced because with hindsight being 20/20 these are some of the worst takes you’ll ever see.
Complex – JAY-Z has joined as [Puma’s] president of basketball operations. “We’ve been working with Roc Nation for quite some time. They’ve been great partners to us for several years. We’ve done many different deals with many different ambassadors,” Adam Petrick, Puma’s global director of brand and marketing, told Complex. When Puma approached him about this opportunity, JAY-Z felt it “was something he wanted to be a part of,” according to Petrick. Hov will have a hand in the players selected to join Puma’s basketball division, as well as assist in the art design and overall concept and direction of the brand.
Freaking Hova, man. The guy can do whatever he wants. Whether thats cooking up some crack, dropping platinum rap albums, launching a record label, owning an NBA team, launching a sports agency, and now becoming the president of a major sports brand.
The stop with the Nets was probably the only thing he’s ever done that wasn’t a huge success as the team was awful under his watch, but he did help get the team to Brooklyn, which he promised years before on “Hello Brooklyn 2.0”
My fine hoe we got some victims to catch So in a couple years baby, I’m a bring you some Nets
Now he’s running Basketball Operations as the President of a major brand. All that without a fancy college degree either. Incredible. The guy is the living, breathing iteration of his verse on the “Diamonds” remix.
Massive props to the jigga man. Puma ain’t Nike, Adidas or Reebok, but I feel like thats about to change. In his first week on the job Jay-Z/Puma signed Deandre Ayton, who is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in this week’s NBA Draft, and Marvin Bagley III (projected top 5) after being out of the basketball business for nearly 20 years. The last NBA athlete Puma signed was Vince Carter in 1998! Now Puma is scooping up half the 2018 lottery picks as a way to announce its comeback.
Seriously, watch out. HOV is about to make Puma the hottest label around because thats what he does.
DJ, spin that shit!
P.S. – American Gangster is such an underrated album that I think a lot of people forget about because it was a concept album that more or less was a promotion for the Denzel Washington movie of the same name. That sounds like a recipe for a mailed in effort, but Jay-Z brought the heat with Hello Brookyln 2.0, Success, Roc Boys, Say Hello, Blue Magic, Fallin, and American Gangster.
I live for videos like this. Nothing beats behind the scenes footage of your favorites actors and artists in their element seeing how they react to certain things. In this case we have Jay-Z hearing Dirt Off Your Shoulder for the first time, before it became the all-time classic that is today.
The Black Album really was a defining rap album of our generation. Watching Jay’s first reaction to hearing the beat from Timbaland and then seeing him get legitimately excited and jump in the booth is awesome. Thats why these guys are artists, they get inspired and then they absolutely crush it. If that doesn’t inspire you to find something you can feel the same way about then you’re probably already dead inside.
Bonus – This reminded me of a similar video where Jay first heard the Lucifer beat that a young Kanye made. Back when he was still on his polos and backpack. A+ stuff.
His high school games were on ESPN, he had the aforementioned documentary, HOV and Derek Jeter even went to watch him play. In a high school gym.
The 300s 