Fader

In honor of a certain FADER editor with the initials JES, we are putting up the best rap song from 2008 that samples Jodeci and has two dudes she bro'd with in Texas this year. It's from Bun's II Trill, which comes out next Tuesday, it features a song-stealing verse from Banner, MJG rapping like he is a deflating balloon, and an 8-Ball verse that is disappointing because it is actually just a list of his friends, but other than that, great song dudes!


Download: Bun B f. Rick Ross, David Banner & 8-Ball & MJG, "You're Everything"

Apparently "The Baltimore Zoo" is the last song to be leaked before the release of Darkroom Productions' Hamsterdam album. We're kind of bummed because that means we have to wait for the album to hear more of this stuff, considering every track we've heard puts us on to new rappers that we should probably be paying more attention to than we already do. This time around it's The Ministry—rugged and approaching the vivid imagery of early Wu-Tang while still retaining Darkroom's signature drums that sound like a dude is banging on barrels in an alley. Update: literally as we were writing this, Darkroom sent over "G For Life" by Bmore mainstay Mullyman and BK's Maino, a bonus cut that will not be on the album, but is no less quality.


Download: Darkroom Productions f. The Ministry,"The Baltimore Zoo"


Download: Maino & Mullyman, "G For Life"

The frenzy over Suge Knight's Debo moment on TMZ somehow managed to get us on a home listening Cali kick. Starting with Death Row perennials, moving on to soundtracks for gangsta flicks we shouldn't have been watching were too young to appreciate at the time...but when it was time to dig into deep cuts and slept-on jams, the task proved easier said than done. For such a fertile period in music, there's nowhere near the amount of DJ tributes or blog-strospectives you see all the time for comparatively obscure Bay Area 12" records or NYC cassette mixes. We want our secret history of g-funk, dammit, and we're not about to start buying yellowed copies of Rap Pages on eBay! PHUKK! Fortunately, Dubcnn came through with the final half of their two part interview with Kokane, sideman on Westside rap records for almost three decades (not to mention his own psych-y releases on Ruthless). The Q&A is packed with anecdotes about everything from the real roots of the Dre vs Eazy feud, how Outkast and the Dungeon Family were huge Above The Law fans, and even a cameo from Lil Half Dead (who also pops up in F26!). Suffice it to say, it's a perfect Friday afternoon geek-out, even if you weren't looking at NWA YouTubes all week.

How is it that we ride past Grand Army Plaza like 19 times every day and NEVER get to be in a rap video? How is that even possible?! Whatever. Get the mp3 of this song here if you like rappers who are too good to have us in their videos.

It's going to take us long time and many foot massages to forgive Kanye for making us wait nearly three hours last night for his performance at G-Shock's 25th anniversary party. By the time he'd parked the helicopter (for real), taken his seat in the pod-chair and surrounded himself with a troop of bare-chested fembots, the whole thing had drifted into one long and extremely weird Dionysian hallucination. Between the boobs, the lazer show and the armchair raps it's even difficult to tell whether the man on stage was actually Kanye West and not some weird anti-ye hologram or maybe a mis-programmed android here to destroy the planet. Thankfully by the second verse of "Flashing Lights" all was forgiven, the universe was saved, we were on planet Kanye drinking kryptonite cocktails and everything was going to be OK. more...

The reason we're most excited to hear Kid Cudi's mixtape and/or album is precisely because of the spaced-out hippie rap of "Day N Night" as well as the mixtape cut (WITH HARPSICHORD) that ends this video. What's next, a song about riding a dragon to find a scroll? JUST KIDDING! Sort of, we'd actually be really into that, especially if there was a video where Cudi rode the dragon from Eureka's Castle to the moon and the moon had visible strings attached to it. Whoa, did we just conceive of a Kid Cudi puppet show? Don't steal our ideas. Check FADER 54 for a Gen F on Kid Cudi and check Fool's Gold for more info on the mixtape, which might be released at the end of the month unless they want to hold off and do our puppet movie first.

It's been said before, but T.I. being stuck in his house and actually writing verses has done wonders for him after a mediocre period. On "Ain't I" Young LA and Tip calmly swing through their verses, and considering that T.I. is rapping about his "situation," we weren't exactly expecting calmness. Also, Young Dro references the macarena while bulldozing through the track. But that's why we like him, Dro sounds like he is rapping New Journalism on every song, his lyrics are a continuous sentence of breathless "ands," constantly sounding excited. Side note: The other day we found a burned copy of King in the office and we put it on the stereo, it started skipping three tracks in but we totally forgot how epic that album was.


Download: Young LA f. Young Dro & T.I., "Ain't I" Remix

CANNOOONNNNN! It probably should be a requirement that we start every Sandman related post this way, but actually though, he stays away from doing that on these three songs from his upcoming mixtape Gianormous that we got from 2dopeboyz, which, as much as we want to hear him do it forever, is probably for the best. We've been riding for the other half of the Reup Gang for awhile now, because how could we not, really? We're still trying to figure out what we think about the other rappers from Sandcannon's crew that show up on here, but we do know that Sandman raps about rap and it's not even annoying.


Download: Sandman f. Lil Spazz & Housewife, "Watcha Gonna Do"


Download: Sandman f. Tommy Kaine & Lil Spazz, "Back Block Bandits"


Download: Sandman, "Ride"

It seems like a million years since our Africa issue—not because it's gotten old but because the people in it stay doing so much stuff that it doesn't seem possible it's only been a few months. BLK JKS, Esau, Buraka, etc etc. And of course there's Sweat.X who were in the Gen F section of that issue and continue to do crazy nice club music straight from SA. Spoek, Sweat.X's rapper, has a new project out with producer Sibot aka DJ Fuck (<--classy) called Playdoe and we are feeling it. Their new EP just came out and we got the single off it along with a kinda nasty Toxic Avenger remix. You can also still grab the Go Dumb Go Thick mix off their MySpace if you hurry.


Download: "It's That Beat"


Download: Playdoe, "It's That Beat (Toxic Avenger Remix)"

Is this new? Is this old? Will it be on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II? Does anyone still care? We're not saying you should, but Pretty Toney gets filthy on this one.


Download: Raekwon f. Ghostface, "The G Hide"

It must feel kind of terrible to go to Kanye's Glow In The Dark Tour and not be in awe of what he's done, not be somewhat stunned and slackjawed at the spectacle, and not feel better about humanity when you see tens of thousands of teenagers singing along to every word of an album that you, as a non-teenager, know every word to and maybe sing in the bathroom every morning. We wouldn't know that feeling because we went to the Kanye show at Madison Square Garden last night and it blew our brains out. more...

The current issue of the mag is an Ohio rap bonanza, with Gen Fs on buzzing Cleveland-bred MCs Chip Tha Ripper and Kid Cudi. But what about fellow middle-of-the-map MC Ray Cash? Raymond was last seen by the general public circa '06, spitting bespectacled flows with Scarface (and Mannion behind the camera!), but after following it up with a super solid LP no one bought he slunk back into near-anonymity, releasing the occasional mixtape and recording with locals. Somehow, getting camouflaged in Ohio concrete has only made him doper. It's no recipe for rap success, but if it results in more ride-out joints like "I'm On One," we're cool with it. I been relaxin/ Gettin close to God/ But now I'm back to rappin/ It's my fuckin job.


Download: Ray Cash, "I'm On One"

We'll have plenty more to say about Kanye and autotune when we review the Glow in the Dark New York show in a minute, but in the meantime, here are the two dudes talking about the same thing in entirely different ways.


Download: Lil Wayne f. Kanye West, "Lollipop (Remix)"

We have love for both of these dudes always, but they haven't impressed us lately. You know what, though? It's sunny out and they created a real laid back porch-sitter just in time for us to actually be capable of appreciating it. We can't really throw the term "grown man's rap" around without giggling (especially when we also have to deal with kinda obnoxious scratching), but this is a song for evenings on the porch if there ever was one.


Download: Kurupt, "Yessir" Prod. by Pete Rock

Darkroom Productions hit us off with another track from their upcoming Hamsterdam album on Koch. Seriously dudes, is every song going to be a banger like this? Part of the appeal of Darkroom is that they tend to work with really charismatic emcees across the board, from the Get 'Em Mamis(profiled in F53) to the ultra-weird Diablo, to Loonatyk—everyone holds their own over beats that sound like they were pounded out on turned-over garbage cans backed by yogurt-thick basslines.


Download: Darkroom Productions f, Loonatyk, "Gettin Dollaz (This is Go-Go"

Can we talk about how weird this T-Pain song makes us feel for a minute? Less vocoder-reliant than usual, T-Pain sing-raps his way through a song that's a little more understated than we're used to. Are we okay with this? We're honestly not sure, but we do like the G-Funk flourishes. We always loved thinking T-Pain's vocoder was always hooked up and he walked around saying shit like a sad (or happy) robot, but then again we really liked it when he rapped vocoder-free for a second on "Tallahassee Love" on Epiphany, so maybe this is a good idea. What do we even want from dude at this point? We don't know. Also, when he says, They gonna be talkin bout me in front of McDonalds in heaven OHHH we kind of think dude is selling himself short. McDonalds? Really? Actually that is awesome. There you have it, more T-Pain inspired mental conflict.


Download: T-Pain, "Talla Ho Wak"

So not only does this dude Mickey somehow put out a song a week, he's now found time to A&R other rappers. We can't even drink coffee and think at the same time. GFCny's new group based out of Atlanta FKi aka Fly Kidz Incorporated, comprised of 1stDown and 88, have a new EP coming out and this is the first single. You can also grab a couple other songs over on their MySpace.


Download: FKi f. Mickey Factz, "Lookin Fly"

Slim Thug kinda fell off the map after Already Platinum, but we still rode for him as well as his homies Killa Kyleon and the rest of the Boss Hog Outlawz (GEN F in issue 33), now they are back with this song—a slow Houston anthem that creeps as much as it bounces. The craziest thing about it is how spare it sounds compared to most of the rap we've been hearing this year. Not that we're mad at trance-rap or whatever it's called today, but sometimes it's cool to hear something meant for driving on a hot afternoon instead of riding speedboats really fast with our arms in the air to (not that we aren't doing both daily).


Download: Boss Hog Outlaws, "Ride Wit No Ceiling"