hqa's 5 FAVOURITE 2007 RELEASES

These are 5 of my favourite 2007 releases:

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens
Exciting new artist for sho. In an era where it's extremely difficult for me to accept new blood these dudes seem to impress me, a lot. Exile is a dope producer. Really. There's been a lot of producers trying the nu-soul or soul-hop or whatever-you-call-it sound but not many have impressed me. But Exile managed to capture the early and Slum Village-era J Dilla spirit. Applying infectious basslines and clever cutting of samples. And with Blu rhymin' on his shit, it's hard to go wrong. While this duo is from the west coast, Blu might have more east coast emcees on his influences list flow-wise, even accent-wise at times. In this album most of his lyrics are very personal but won't alienate the listener, instead we might find ourselves relating our own experiences to most of his endeavours.

Public Enemy - How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul
Yeh. Trust the old hip hop warriors to show us how to do things. This album is super banging. Chuck D is still as powerful as ever with his delivery, and Flava Flav hasn't aged. Their production team might've disintegrated at one point and are not the same old Bomb Squad, but there's still a lot of boom in them. While the old school hip hop fans will definitely appreciate this, I'm pretty sure it will get them new fans as well. After all, I haven't been the most fanatic Public Enemy fan, but somehow this record has sealed my faith. Only bummer is it is highly underrated especially since PE is independent and the last few recent releases weren't as enticing as this one.

Ghostface Killah - Big Doe Rehab
This is Primo's pick for best album of 2007. Not so hard to understand why, Tony Starks continued his trademark of rapidfire spittage on banging beats. It might be more compact compared to the intricate Fishscale but it's still good. There were mixed reviews though, some compared it to Pretty Toney, assuming most people didn't like it, but I did like that one. Honestly there might be a few throwaway tracks but most of the tracks were just a simple combination of good beats and good emcees. I'm impressed by the fact that while a lot of golden age emcees lost their dynamic styles (cough*Raekwon*cough), Ghostface seems to add more passion and fire to his.

DJ Deckstream - Soundtracks
Trust the Japs to keep good and forgotten American pop cultures alive. The nu-jazz & nu-soul sound in hip hop has been quite a trend over there. Deckstream makes it evident that it won't be just a fad. One word to describe his samples - sweet, one word to describe his method of sampling - very sweet. While his beats might be really catchy he retains the booming sound of the hip hop beat so as to make it very hard hitting and lively. No need to question his choice of guest emcees - Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli, Camp Lo, Pep Love, Zion I.. need I continue?

Cam'ron - Public Enemy #1 (mixtape)
Okay. This is highly personal. Hehe. While there's a lot of rubbish tracks mostly because of the plastic beats, there are a few gems. And these gems prove that while Cam'ron has been guilty of falling into the pop-rap stigma, he is still essentially a golden age emcee having originated from a 90's crew led by Big L. Because on old-school sounding beats, his voice and flow shine, and he still has that Harlem swagger. His decision to focus on featuring only the newer Dipset members in this mixtape is welcoming to me, since they sound more serious and have the potential to have some form of depth which when added to the swagger might create sick emcees. Whatever it is, Cam might not be as big as loathsome Fiddy, but he is still more cult, has way more character, and is way more interesting.. to me, at least. Hehe.

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Now..

I could just link the albums but I decided against that since we all don't have that much attention span. Especially the non hip hoppers. So to make it more attractive, I decided to make a mixtape consisting of songs I really really liked from those releases. With the tracks ordered the way I wanna. You can burn this mixtape to make an audio cd too.

Aight?

hqa's 5 FAVOURITE 2007 RELEASES MIXTAPE

1. public enemy - black is back
   
2. public enemy - harder than you think
   
3. public enemy - col-leepin
   
4. cam'ron - no delaying
   
5. ghostface killah - toney sigel a.k.a. the barrel brothers feat. beanie sigel
   
6. dj deckstream - can you let me know feat. lupe fiasco, verbal and sarah green
   
7. dj deckstream - keep in the pocket feat. talib kweli
   
8. dj deckstream - 3.2.1. contact feat. surreal
   
9. dj deckstream - touch of mink feat. camp lo
   
10. cam'ron - i'm a hustler barry
    
11. dj deckstream - play on feat. pep love
    
12. public enemy - escapism
    
13. ghostface killah - yolandas house feat. raekwon and method man
    
14. ghostface killah - i'll die for you
    
15. blu & exile - good life (show me) feat. joseph and aloe blacc
    
16. blu & exile - blu colla workers
    
17. blu & exile - party of two
    
18. ghostface killah - killa lipstick feat. method man and masta killa
    
19. ghostface killah - slow down feat. chrisette michele
    
20. cam'ron - bad day feat. tom gist
    
21. blu & exile - soul amazin (steel blazin)
    
22. dj deckstream - five alarm feat. nikki jean

Cam'ron is still alive dogg, public enemy number 1, whoody-whoo

There's been rumours of chaos in the DIP SET DIP SET DIP SET DIP SET camp, mostly heartbreaking. But fuck it right, Cam'ron started all this shit, he showcased dem boys on catchy beats in the first place. He's the essence of Dipset. Well, prolly mixed with a little bit of Freeky Zeeky's fucked up sense of humour.

He's my favourite pop rapper, sure he rhymes about all the usual modern hip hop hoohaa but the way he does it is almost satire (definitely cult though) - over the top multisyllabized rhyme schemes, made up words or sounds, serious swagger even when delivering something ridiculously retarded, and misogny the size of Snoop Doggy Dogg's balls in his Doggystyle days. It's like he's just fucking around and making the most of the opportunity to talk nonsense since it's pop hip hop

Him and Dipset shined most in his Come Home With Me album, it's my personal favourite at least. It's all about having the right beats. I guess back then he had the luxury of Roc producers. The Just Blaze banging catchy hype typa shit mixed with a little smoothness here and there works just well for Killa and his dope voice to swag on. Man fuck it, Just Blaze and Kanye West should give Cam special discounts, forget the rest, Kanye should stop rapping and concentrate on showing some instrumental love for the Dip leader while Just Blaze should put the ron before the gon (Saigon haha). I'm fucking sick and tired of listening to Cam'ron rhymin' on over-generic beats with over-enthusiastic hi-hats.

Recently he released this double disc mixtape entitled Public Enemy Number 1 which had an abundance of those typa shit, low budget beats and all that. Fuck that, there are a few gems though, three songs in particular that am'a be pluggin' which I really like cause he's rapping on some smooth shit and good shit.

First off is this song BAD DAY (feat. Tom Gist, who? Prolly new Dipset blood), where he flipped Ice Cube's it was a good day's concept using that particular track's instrumental as well. Although Cube's original is that real piff, the beat is one of the best ever in the history of hip hop.

The other one is I'M A HUSTLER BARRY, in which he rhymed on Barry White's love's theme. It's sweet as fuck.

The other other one is this track NO DELAYING. I'm not sure who's beat this originally is but listening to Cam spit on an old school drumbeat is pretty refreshing. We all love that old school loop. Fuck clap snares and annoying hi-hats.

As a bonus, the shitty skit from the mixtape.

Okay, now we forget all that, let's go back, not so way back though, this was back when Ja Rule was what 50 Cent is now. If you've never checked out Cam'ron before, start with this one aight. This was before he started using annoying beats and way before Dipset blew up proper (cause this is where he started plugging his Dipset homies on a large scale hence sharing the limelight with them). Some of my favourite tracks from this album are oh boy, daydreaming, hey ma, on fire (whaukhukgea funny ass track, best topical evva), stop calling, and tomorrow.

Come Home With Me (2002)

1. Intro
   
2. Losing Weight Part 2 feat. Juelz Santana
   
3. Oh Boy
   
4. Live My Life (Leave Me Alone) feat, Daz
   
5. Daydreaming feat. Tiffany
   
6. Come Home With Me feat. Juelz Santana & Jim Jones
   
7. Welcome To New York City feat. Jay-Z & Juelz Santana
   
8. Hey Ma feat. Juelz Santana, Freekey Zekey & Kay Slay
   
9. On Fire Tonight feat. Freekey Zekey
   
10. Stop Calling feat. Mcgruff & Freekey Zekey
    
11. I just Wanna feat. Juelz Santana
    
12. The ROC (Just Fire) feat. Jim Jones
    
13. Dead Or Alive feat. Jim Jones
    
14. Boy Boy feat. Memphis Bleek & Beanie Sigel
    
15. Tomorrow

Shit I'm feeling quite bonussy today. On some FLASHBACK tip, here's a bootleg I found of Children of the Corn. I'm still tryna download a proper album from them though, watch out for updates.

Children of the Corn - Harlem's Finest bootleg (1993).

1. Intro
   
2. American Dream
   
3. Harlem USA (freestyle)
   
4. Studio Freestyle
   
5. Freestyle
   
6. Uptown Connection

Who're Children of Corn though? You might ask. They're A supergroup (considering the reputation of some of the emcees now) founded by Big L involving Murda Mase (Mase), Killa Cam (Cam'ron), McGruff and Bloodshed. Dope as fuck. Imagine if they're still around, daym, Big L and Killa especially, they were killin' it, fuck it even Mase was pretty good back then. Sadly Bloodshed and Big L passed away. More info here.

That's that for now. I don't know what's the situation with Jim Judas Jones and Juelz Santana. I just watched Juelz going on an interview talking about loyalty, what? I'm not sure what he was mumblin', I don't know, I don't know the real situation, Cam hasn't been replyin' his gmail, am'a try the fax later. Fuck that shit. By the way, still on the Dip note, I checked Hell Rell's album. I thought it sucked ass, so whatever, no plug for you. Oh yeah before I go, yeah, fuck you fiddy cent. You suck ass, Kanye won over yo' ass, stop whining. You got beat by a tight panted metro homo. Wgheukahga.