2007 - the year being a hip hop fan became HARD work
How does that saying go about doing the same shit and expecting different results?
Well, I am about to run down 2007 in hip hop, and I am less than thrilled at the prospect that it will be any better than 2006 was before it.
Again, I am with the same feeling coming in that I do not specifically recall any huge hits coming into the year. Somehow, that worries the shit out of me. There was not much special in my personal life to mark the releases of this year, at least not that I can recall. "Turning 28" is not one of those things one sits and expounds on the virtues of, much like the letter 'c'.
All that being said, why don't I just get on into it?
January
Ultramagnetic MCs start us off with The Best Kept Secret, which I merely downloaded for the sake of history. Same applies for X-Clan's Return From Mecca, the difference being that Ultramagnetic is still on my hard drive. The savior of this month, however was Sean Price's Jesus Price Superstar. [Phlip Note - ha! see what I did there?]
February
Wu affiliate Hell Razah releases Renaissance Child and shows just how little being a "Wu Affiliate" means these days. Tough break, homie! If he needs to feel better, he can look to Jin, whose ABC showed how useless his run on 106th & Park's battles were.
2Pacweed/urn carrier Outlawz member Hussein Fatal and Da Hardtimers released 1090 Official and I didn't realize it until my research began 10 minutes ago. I won't care as soon as that last sentence was typed.
BG & Chopper City Boyz made an album titledPlease Let Me Back on Cash Money, I Kicked Dat Narcotic, PLEASE?!!? We Got This.
March
Q-Tip's cousin Consequence released Don't Quit Your Day Job and Twisted Black released the inaccurately-named Street Fame. One week laternot very Slim not quite a Thug's weed carriers, Boss Hogg Outlawz released Serve & Collect on the same day as 8Ball & MJG's Ridin High and Black Milk's Popular Demand. Crime Mob followed the following week with Hated on Mostly, same day as Devin the Dude's Waitin' To Inhale, El-P's BRILLIANTLY titled I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Insane Clown Posse's The Tempest and Psycho Les (of the Beatnus) with Psycho Therapy (the soundtrack) which I just noticed to seek for download this weekend.
The next week brought us Lil Flip's I Need Mine, Dogg Pound's Dogg Chit, Mims' Music is my Savior, Prodigy's Return of the Mac, Redman's Red Gone Wild: Thee Album, Rich Boy's Rich Boy and Young Buck'sSometimes a n***a just get confruse Buck The World.
April
Paul Wall released Get Money, Stay True which I downloaded and I don't think I looked for again when my drive crashed last year. On the same day was Timbaland's Shock Value, which I downloaded and NEVER listened to. A week later was Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth and Mic Geronimo's 9/14/73, which I did not know had come out until 3 minutes ago. A 2-week delay saw us to Joell Ortiz' Brick Bodega Chronicles, which I hate EVERY one of you for not having heard before, fuckers.
May
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (damn, are they still fucking TRYING?!!?) dropped Strength & Loyalty, DJ Jazzy Jeff released The Return of the Magnificent and Sage Francis dropped Human the Death Dance. KRS-One decided that he would stop trying to play with the young people and went back to collab with Marley Marl and make Hip Hop Lives, and Young Jeezy & USDA would render that useless with the shitty Young Jeezy Presents USDA: Cold Summer.
June
Canibus released For Whom the Beat Tolls and I bet not even his mother cared. On the same day was Fabolous' From Nothin' to Somethin' and DJ Khaled's WeWill Say Until You Believe It The Best and a week ahead of the best album of this month, Pharoahe Monch's Desire. Also released this month was Shop Boys' Rockstar Mentality and Beastie Boys' The Mixup.
July
My 28th birth week commenced with Pastor Troy's Tool Muziq and TI's TI vs TIP. The rest of the month was slow, with Camp Lo's Black Hollywood and Common's depressing (save for like 2 songs) Finding Forever. Keith Murray also released the STUPIDLY titled Rap-Murr-Phobia (The Fear of Real Hip Hop), which was not only a bad fucking album, but was a bad fucking album.
August
Plies takes the next step in the end of the fucking world with The Real Testament, which is thankfully outsold at the time by UGK's UGK (Underground Kingz) and Public Enemy's How Do You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?. Next came WC's Guilty by Association, followed by Killah Priest's ignored The Offering, SwizzKeys Beatz' unnecessary One Man Band and Talib Kweli's subpar Eardrum. The month closed with NORE's Noreality Aesop Rock's None Shall Pass, Strong Arm Steady's Deep Hearted and Young Joc's Hustlenomics.
September
The month starts with Master P doing that thing he has always done in copying people. This time he copies Baby and Lil Wayne, this time he brought his own (and in his case, his ACTUAL son) along and released Master P and Romeo: Hip Hop History. I hope they realize that the history they were after is not a good thing. Ice Cube continued his "the jokes on you" tour with In The Movies.
We would not notice that, though, because in the weeks leading up to the following week we were inundated with Kanye West and 50 Cent going at one another after 50 moved his release date to capitalize on Kanye's release date, then they both worked the angles to sell over 675k+ each in their first week with Kanye's Graduation and 50's Curtis. I downloaded both about 2 weeks early and only bought Kanye. It has been over a year since I listened to it. Also released that day was Young Noble & Hussein Fatal with Thug In, Thug Out. A week later came Twista's Adrenaline Rush 2007 and Chamillionaire's Ultimate Victory.
October
Back into things, a week later, Gorilla Zoe released Welcome to the Zoo and I wish he hadn't, same applies to Boyz N Da Hood a week after that with Back Up N Da Chevy. On this same shitty Day, Soulja Boy released souljaboytellem.com and the world came to an end. We're all in purgatory RIGHT now as a result of this shit. 9th Wonder TRIED to help us with Dream Merchant, vol. 2, but Gucci Mane's Trap-A-Holics came out on the heels. 2 weeks later, we got Bizarre (of D12) with Blue Cheese and Coney Island on the same day as Hurricane Chris' 51/50 Ratchet and my favorite hip hop album of the year, Little Brother's Getback. Playaz Circle TRIED to ruin that to close the month with Supply & Demand.
November
Saul Williams opened up with The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! (which was a BRILLIANT release... I "bought" it, but by "buy," I mean it was a free download from the artist's site), then Cassidy was granted the dubious distinction of releasing B.A.R.S. The Barry Adrian Reese Story on the same day as Jay-Z's American Gangster.
To Barry's credit, neither album has the "stick it in and ride to it" [pause...] allure that they had just 2 years ago.
One week later, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (damn, STILL?!!?) released T.H.U.G.S.
One more after that, Freeway released Free at Last, and one week following came CunninLynguists's Dirty Acres.
December
DJ Drama goes the "don't send me to jail" route and releases Gangsta Grillz: The Album, same day as Ghostface's The Big Doe Rehab, Scarface's Made, Too $hort's Get off the Stage, Styles P's Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman) and Wyclef Jean's The Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant.
The following week was Beanie Sigel's The Solution [to what?!], Birdman's 5 * Stunna, Gucci Mane's Back to the Traphouse, Hi Tek's Hi Teknology 3: Underground and the fall-from-grace-confirming Wu Tang album 8 Diagrams.
The month ended on Chingy's Hate it or Love it and Lupe Fiasco's The Cool.
a 12 release, zero purchase 4 download-but-2-not-recovered-after-a-crashed-drive month.
Man, dammit...
Common catches a brick. Lupe isn't really THAT great after all, 2 releases from Gucci Mane and the debut of Soulja Boy, Public Enemy makes an album that no one cares about and Chuck ENCOURAGES downloads of.
Fuck the further details, I am gonna score this thing now...
92 releases that didn't feel like 92 when I was typing that. 31 purchased/downloaded, 3 never recovered for a total of 28, which AGAIN I didn't think was even THAT high when I was typing it all down. 30.43%, and that is FUCKING abysmal... I am gonna go cry and masturbate, then cry myself back to sleep.
Seriously, I am reduced to mean-spirited jokes under strike-through text, then I laugh the truth under the "joke" off.
How fitting is it that Nas released Hip Hop is Dead at the end of 2006.
At this time, it is REALLY hard for me to continue being a fan of this music and culture (if one calls it that), but I am a glutton for punishment (or I like to witness train wrecks, why else would I watch reality TV on VH1?), so I will persevere.
[Phlip note - put a pin in that, it will be on the final exam... or at least will score you a bit of a chuckle]
I know I finished this at an insane hour of the morning, I been up almost 2 hours already now... I will see y'all sometime today (maybe) on the 2008 post.
Well, I am about to run down 2007 in hip hop, and I am less than thrilled at the prospect that it will be any better than 2006 was before it.
Again, I am with the same feeling coming in that I do not specifically recall any huge hits coming into the year. Somehow, that worries the shit out of me. There was not much special in my personal life to mark the releases of this year, at least not that I can recall. "Turning 28" is not one of those things one sits and expounds on the virtues of, much like the letter 'c'.
All that being said, why don't I just get on into it?
January
Ultramagnetic MCs start us off with The Best Kept Secret, which I merely downloaded for the sake of history. Same applies for X-Clan's Return From Mecca, the difference being that Ultramagnetic is still on my hard drive. The savior of this month, however was Sean Price's Jesus Price Superstar. [Phlip Note - ha! see what I did there?]
February
Wu affiliate Hell Razah releases Renaissance Child and shows just how little being a "Wu Affiliate" means these days. Tough break, homie! If he needs to feel better, he can look to Jin, whose ABC showed how useless his run on 106th & Park's battles were.
2Pac
BG & Chopper City Boyz made an album titled
March
Q-Tip's cousin Consequence released Don't Quit Your Day Job and Twisted Black released the inaccurately-named Street Fame. One week later
The next week brought us Lil Flip's I Need Mine, Dogg Pound's Dogg Chit, Mims' Music is my Savior, Prodigy's Return of the Mac, Redman's Red Gone Wild: Thee Album, Rich Boy's Rich Boy and Young Buck's
April
Paul Wall released Get Money, Stay True which I downloaded and I don't think I looked for again when my drive crashed last year. On the same day was Timbaland's Shock Value, which I downloaded and NEVER listened to. A week later was Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth and Mic Geronimo's 9/14/73, which I did not know had come out until 3 minutes ago. A 2-week delay saw us to Joell Ortiz' Brick Bodega Chronicles, which I hate EVERY one of you for not having heard before, fuckers.
May
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (damn, are they still fucking TRYING?!!?) dropped Strength & Loyalty, DJ Jazzy Jeff released The Return of the Magnificent and Sage Francis dropped Human the Death Dance. KRS-One decided that he would stop trying to play with the young people and went back to collab with Marley Marl and make Hip Hop Lives, and Young Jeezy & USDA would render that useless with the shitty Young Jeezy Presents USDA: Cold Summer.
June
Canibus released For Whom the Beat Tolls and I bet not even his mother cared. On the same day was Fabolous' From Nothin' to Somethin' and DJ Khaled's We
July
My 28th birth week commenced with Pastor Troy's Tool Muziq and TI's TI vs TIP. The rest of the month was slow, with Camp Lo's Black Hollywood and Common's depressing (save for like 2 songs) Finding Forever. Keith Murray also released the STUPIDLY titled Rap-Murr-Phobia (The Fear of Real Hip Hop), which was not only a bad fucking album, but was a bad fucking album.
August
Plies takes the next step in the end of the fucking world with The Real Testament, which is thankfully outsold at the time by UGK's UGK (Underground Kingz) and Public Enemy's How Do You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?. Next came WC's Guilty by Association, followed by Killah Priest's ignored The Offering, Swizz
September
The month starts with Master P doing that thing he has always done in copying people. This time he copies Baby and Lil Wayne, this time he brought his own (and in his case, his ACTUAL son) along and released Master P and Romeo: Hip Hop History. I hope they realize that the history they were after is not a good thing. Ice Cube continued his "the jokes on you" tour with In The Movies.
We would not notice that, though, because in the weeks leading up to the following week we were inundated with Kanye West and 50 Cent going at one another after 50 moved his release date to capitalize on Kanye's release date, then they both worked the angles to sell over 675k+ each in their first week with Kanye's Graduation and 50's Curtis. I downloaded both about 2 weeks early and only bought Kanye. It has been over a year since I listened to it. Also released that day was Young Noble & Hussein Fatal with Thug In, Thug Out. A week later came Twista's Adrenaline Rush 2007 and Chamillionaire's Ultimate Victory.
*pause button*
Rapsters, take note... Coming into this album was the whole Don Imus thing. Chamillionaire mentioned that "if we get mad about white people saying the n-word, why are WE saying it?" and used that as a means of just cutting the word out of his album. A step further, he did not curse AT ALL on the whole album, and the only 2 occurrences of such by guests (Bun B and Lil Wayne, respectively) were edited.
Prove to me you're about some shit, and STILL earn my 12 bucks like Chamillionaire did, because this album was REALLY good to me.
*resume blog*
After that came Havoc (of Mobb Deep) with The Kush and I bet you didn't know that either. Also released was the CRIMINALLY slept on Median album, Median's Relief.Rapsters, take note... Coming into this album was the whole Don Imus thing. Chamillionaire mentioned that "if we get mad about white people saying the n-word, why are WE saying it?" and used that as a means of just cutting the word out of his album. A step further, he did not curse AT ALL on the whole album, and the only 2 occurrences of such by guests (Bun B and Lil Wayne, respectively) were edited.
Prove to me you're about some shit, and STILL earn my 12 bucks like Chamillionaire did, because this album was REALLY good to me.
*resume blog*
October
Back into things, a week later, Gorilla Zoe released Welcome to the Zoo and I wish he hadn't, same applies to Boyz N Da Hood a week after that with Back Up N Da Chevy. On this same shitty Day, Soulja Boy released souljaboytellem.com and the world came to an end. We're all in purgatory RIGHT now as a result of this shit. 9th Wonder TRIED to help us with Dream Merchant, vol. 2, but Gucci Mane's Trap-A-Holics came out on the heels. 2 weeks later, we got Bizarre (of D12) with Blue Cheese and Coney Island on the same day as Hurricane Chris' 51/50 Ratchet and my favorite hip hop album of the year, Little Brother's Getback. Playaz Circle TRIED to ruin that to close the month with Supply & Demand.
November
Saul Williams opened up with The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! (which was a BRILLIANT release... I "bought" it, but by "buy," I mean it was a free download from the artist's site), then Cassidy was granted the dubious distinction of releasing B.A.R.S. The Barry Adrian Reese Story on the same day as Jay-Z's American Gangster.
To Barry's credit, neither album has the "stick it in and ride to it" [pause...] allure that they had just 2 years ago.
One week later, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (damn, STILL?!!?) released T.H.U.G.S.
One more after that, Freeway released Free at Last, and one week following came CunninLynguists's Dirty Acres.
December
DJ Drama goes the "don't send me to jail" route and releases Gangsta Grillz: The Album, same day as Ghostface's The Big Doe Rehab, Scarface's Made, Too $hort's Get off the Stage, Styles P's Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman) and Wyclef Jean's The Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant.
The following week was Beanie Sigel's The Solution [to what?!], Birdman's 5 * Stunna, Gucci Mane's Back to the Traphouse, Hi Tek's Hi Teknology 3: Underground and the fall-from-grace-confirming Wu Tang album 8 Diagrams.
The month ended on Chingy's Hate it or Love it and Lupe Fiasco's The Cool.
a 12 release, zero purchase 4 download-but-2-not-recovered-after-a-crashed-drive month.
Man, dammit...
Common catches a brick. Lupe isn't really THAT great after all, 2 releases from Gucci Mane and the debut of Soulja Boy, Public Enemy makes an album that no one cares about and Chuck ENCOURAGES downloads of.
Fuck the further details, I am gonna score this thing now...
92 releases that didn't feel like 92 when I was typing that. 31 purchased/downloaded, 3 never recovered for a total of 28, which AGAIN I didn't think was even THAT high when I was typing it all down. 30.43%, and that is FUCKING abysmal... I am gonna go cry and masturbate, then cry myself back to sleep.
Seriously, I am reduced to mean-spirited jokes under strike-through text, then I laugh the truth under the "joke" off.
How fitting is it that Nas released Hip Hop is Dead at the end of 2006.
At this time, it is REALLY hard for me to continue being a fan of this music and culture (if one calls it that), but I am a glutton for punishment (or I like to witness train wrecks, why else would I watch reality TV on VH1?), so I will persevere.
[Phlip note - put a pin in that, it will be on the final exam... or at least will score you a bit of a chuckle]
I know I finished this at an insane hour of the morning, I been up almost 2 hours already now... I will see y'all sometime today (maybe) on the 2008 post.
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Comments
Only bought Pastor Troy, Devin and American Gangster in 2007, as far as new Hip-Hop CDs go. However, I spent a load of money recopping yesteryear's classics that became lost/stolen/too warped to play (Raising Hell, Follow The Leader, etc).
Not sure what to look forward to in 2010 and the remainder of this year. That's been the pattern for me since early 2000s, an impatiently waiting "surprise me" state of mind.
I bought 'Graduation', loaded the bulk of 'Curtis' onto the Crackberry, &-get this-downloaded TI vs TIP onto my PSP. See that there? The levels of respect for the music THAT YEAR? What self respecting, heterosexual male carries around a ginormous PSP just to listen to niggas rap? Not this one, I'll tell you what...