Coming into this mixtape here's what I knew:
- Travis Barker is the gifted drummer formerly of Blink 182. He had a smoking hot wife.
- DJ AM used to go out with Nicole Richie.
- They both were on a private plane that crashed recently and sustained serious burn injuries but are recovering.
Travis Barker had already bolstered his hip-hop credentials by working and budding with the likes of Paul Wall, Bun B and The Roots' ?uestlove.
What you got here is DJ AM cutting up the records and Travis Barker spicing it up with live drumming. The chemistry between the two has been strengthened thru live shows and makes for a better product.
Don't kid yourself: this is not just hip-hop. Johnny Cash mingles with Jay-Z. Eazy E, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Biggie are a surprisingly effective combo. And what can be said about DMX opening up to Michael Jackson. And that's like a tenth of the first six tracks. Barely half of this end-to-end banger.
Do yourself a favor, head on to Get Right Music and get spoiled!
Admittedly, I'm not so up to date on the french rap scene. I'm more familiar with whoever was hot at the turn of the century than the new players you have today. Ol' Kainry is actually an old player by today's standard. This, Les chemins de la dignité, is his second album that came out four years ago. (His latest album, Demolition Man, came out last year.)
As far as I'm concerned, Ol' Kainry is now four for four: discounting Demolition Man, which I've yet to listen to, he's dropped solid end-to-end projects so far. Check En attendant... (1999), Ol' Kainry et Dany Dan (2005), and Au delà des apparences (2001). It's tasteful street music and no one does it better!
The "Intro" raises expectations for this album and Ol' Kainry meets them with style: there's a smashing back-and-forth with Raekwon, Soprano (from Psy4 De La Rime) makes a strong cameo and Kainry's old group (Agression Verbale) is reunited and it feels like they've been there all along.
But the king of the punchline doesn't really need all that. With an engaging real life story to draw from, he concocts joints with large appeal. Les hommes se cachent pour pleurer, S'il était né, Entends mes regrets, the first hidden track (!), and the title track are just a few apropos examples...
I'm a big fan!!!!!!
Here are a couple vids of songs from the album:
That’s what I said. I am a confident player and a lot of people might look at it like ’Oh, another cocky attitude,’ but I don’t look at it that way. I have an opinion, I have a right to have one and that’s the way I feel. I felt I’ve played against the best over the years and felt right now that I’m the best player in the world.
Although I found this segment of “Black in America” to be highly informative for the general public, I was disappointed that the interviews in the section on what it is like to be biracial in America seemed to focus only on the more negative aspects. With the eyes of the world now on Barack Obama, I had hoped for a more balanced discussion on what a positive symbol a mixed race person can project.
Obama’s candidacy embodies change and hope for so many in this country of all generations, genders, races and cultures. His message of bringing us all together as Americans is enhanced by his mixed heritage. The biracial person personifies the breaking down of racial barriers that so many fought and died for in the civil rights movement. It is what Dr. Martin Luther King stood for and what his legacy of equality imparts to us today. So one should feel nothing but pride to be mixed in America.
If parents of biracial children are too concerned about what race their children identify and associate with, the only outcome will be confusion. They should rear their children to have enough self-esteem and self-confidence to be their own persons — encouraging them to be strong children who can grow up to be strong biracial adults.
There should be no need for them to say “I am black” or “I am white” because they are neither, yet they are both. Trying to force a choice is often done just to accommodate the people around them. Why should it be so difficult to understand that a person can be and take pride in two races, ethnically and culturally? Those who cannot accept this are perpetuating the kind of ignorance that would only resegregate society by taking away a positive symbol of integration, the mixed child, and restricting him or her to an either-or status.
In a world where a biracial man may well become the next President of the United States, all that a parent should be trying to instill in a child is pride in his or her race or races.
I am proud to be a child born to two loving, talented, creative people – a mother and father who happened to be of African-American and English descent, respectively. I do not feel confused at all nor do I have an identity crisis. I do not feel lost in society nor rejected by any race because I am all races in one.
I am the melting pot, and in our global society, soon all the children of the world will be a mixture of races as well. So why should we try to pick and choose what we want and don’t want our children to be? Why can’t we just accept our common humanity and try to refocus our energies on more pressing matters such as Hurricane Dolly in Texas, infected children in flooded Burmese streets, earthquake victims in China, AIDS patients in Sub-Saharan Africa or those here in Washington, D.C.?
As the world confronts these and other serious challenges to survival, why add more complications by trying to reduce a living symbol of racial harmony to a checked-box identity?
Marginal dans vos stats, sages et dans vos stades
Mets-moi sur un piédestal, y'a-t-il un coin d'paradis pour les squales
Viens pas rater dans nos squats
En moyenne y'a autant d'caille dans nos poches que de cailleras dans des
Porsches Cayennes
Ma boite crânienne abrite mes cauchemars
Tu vois c'est pas ma carrière qui va effacer mes fautes man
Trop de fois on s'acharne à se poignarder
Stop la mascarade c'est entre camarades qu'on aime se canarder
Ca va barder, nouveau projet, tu vois qu'on fait des progrès
On veut tenir les objectifs qu'on promet
Mais sans se compromettre, dans le game on se promène
Le geste tu le connais : plus de money, plus de problèmes
On oublie pas ce proverbe, les frères qui le profèrent
Se traînent entre les procès, get c'est ainsi que l'on procède
Aucun de nous n'est prophète et seul Dieu nous protège
La route est longue Insh'Allah on se verra à la prochaine
On brille sur les pochettes, le biz nous intérèsse
Mais difficile de repérer le paradis avec un GPS
En despi mes respects à S-PI
Ice Criminel et Prim's, malsain de corps et sain d'esprit
Hip-Hop appreciation is also at the heart of Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness. Set in 1994 Giuliani-era New York, its nostalgia for adolescence is made moving by Levine’s unabashed appropriation of hip-hop. His alter-ego protagonist Luke (Josh Peck) is obsessed with hip-hop as an alternative to Kurt Cobain. For a friendless, pot-selling, romantic Jewish kid from the Upper East Side, black pop becomes the ultimate expression of his alienation.
Ma life est faite de tragédies
Regarde mon trajet du
Sénégal au Canada, il est très agité
Mon passé tacheté
Mais je me suis racheté
Et quelques faux pas viennent s’y rajouter
Fais couler des gouttes de sang sur du mouchoir à jeter
Il y a eu des coups de feu, personne sait qui a shooté
N’ont pas pu m’acheter
Connais pas la lâcheté
Mais j’hésiterais pas une seule fois si tu comptes m’achever
Je saigne
J’ai le cœur fendu
J’étais
Le moins attendu
Je reste
L’inattendu
Personne
M’a attendu
J’ai crié
M’ont pas entendu
Prié
Mais m’ont pas entendu
Y a pas pire sourd que celui qui veut pas entendre
Agressé
Je me suis fais
Quand j’étais plus jeune
J’étais tout seul
Ils étaient plusieurs
Maintenant chui plus vieux
Et j’ai plus peur
Meme si les jours se font plus longs et pluvieux
Du real talk pour les miens comme les tiens
Chui pas un tragédien, non chui pas un comédien
Chui né la où les gosses naissent condamnés
Prêts à tout, se présente une opportunité et ils sont spontanés
Qui aurait cru que je finirais en occident
Que je retournerai au bled, mais par accident
Mon passé est si lourd, je trimbale un énorme excédent
Mon avenir fluorescent, et si excitant
Mais tu dois garder en tête que j’ai grandi en Afrique
Où les politiques sont prolifiques rien que pour leur fric
La seule loi c’est qu’il n’y a pas de loi, rien n’est illégal
On dirait que Dieu nous a quitté, putain le monde est inégal
Mais la misère fais que nous endurcir
Surtout lorsqu’on marche le ventre vide avec un sourire
Certains préfèrent mourir pour plus souffrir
