[ANALOGY] - If Rap Was Basketball...

… mainstream hip hop would be the AND1 Mixtapes

Don’t get me wrong, its really fun to watch the AND1 Mixtape series. Before I really got into basketball and followed our disappointing Toronto team, I would watch the players from the AND1 Mixtape Tour (AMT) with wonder and amazement. These guys, like the Globetrotters before them, focused on entertaining the crowd and putting on a performance rather than bringing home titles. Players with superhero-like names would travel around the country compete against local talent and make them look silly by showing off there dunking and dribbling abilities.

People who actually played ball knew exactly why these guys never made it into the NBA. Basketball is a sport with various techniques and intricacies, most of which don’t involve breaking someone’s ankles. Even if players have great technical skill they don’t need to show it to entertain the crowd, and in fact, some AMT fans get turned off by people just draining 3’s when they could be executing high flying dunks. 

There is, however, a place where fans can watch highly skilled players use there wit and finely tuned technical abilities to defeat opponents. This place is the NBA, where flashy moves are of little importance. The league is organized, games are scheduled, and players show up to win.  

With that being said there is definitely a purpose for both types of basketball. I wouldn’t go to see Hot Sauce and expect him to play defense. Similarly, a true fan would not like to see his favorite player risk a win to entertain the crowd with some flashy moves.

Basketball is a science which takes many years to perfect if one were to compete professionally. And you can only really appreciate this multifaceted game if you play basketball yourself.

Now lets say we live in an alternate universe where:

• Out of all the people who watch both types of basketball, only a small percentage watch the NBA, to the point where the NBA rarely gets any network coverage, if any.

• There exists a strong correlation between fans who play basketball themselves and those that watch the NBA. The reverse correlation, however, is not as strong. 

• There have been cases where AMT players have been caught with performance enhancing drugs such as Ghostwriting and the ever popular drug of choice for most athletes in all sports, Autotune. The fans of the AMT know that these drugs are used and don’t really care as long as they are entertained. The NBA on the other hand, has a strict zero tolerance policy for performance enhancing drugs.

• NBA fans say AMT fans don’t know what “real basketball” is and all AMT games are garbage. They also point out that the NBA would be more popular if they got the same network coverage as the AMT.

• AMT fans say NBA fans get too technical and don’t know how to have fun with sports. Besides, just by looking at the numbers of fans in each it’s obvious which league most fans would rather watch. 

• Most fans are unaware that there are, in fact, two different leagues. This is the very reason why there is so much animosity between the two.

A Few Players of the Sport:


Lil Wayne (AMT)

• One of the most famous members of the AMT
• Almost unanimously considered “the death of basketball” by NBA fans 
• If his last season was any indication of this coming one, it's sure to be extremely successful.

Nas (NBA)

• One of the youngest to enter the NBA and is still playing 17 years in
• First season in the NBA considered by many NBA fans to be one of greatest seasons ever played by anyone, let alone a rookie
• Had a few rough seasons, some say because of management, and never came back to first season form
• A few preseason games played this summer leave fans optimistic that this will be one his best seasons since his rookie year

 
Lupe Fiasco (NBA)

• Been in the league a few years but stayed relatively under the radar
• Fans of Lupe believe without a doubt he can take on any other player 1 on 1
• Brings a lot of creativity to game
• Well versed in the fundamentals of the game while often experimenting with different styles of play
• A big fan of sports in general and often can be seen experimenting with different kinds
• Last season he played for the AMT instead in order to reach a larger audience
• Playing in the NBA this year and promised to be back to rare form. Fans think it might be his best season to date.

 
Blu (NBA)

• Apart from his highly regarded rookie season, and a few preseasons, has only played a few actual games.
• A great example of natural talent, does amazing things without seeming like he’s trying too hard
• Lupe says Blu’s the only one he thinks he cannot beat 1 on 1
• NBA fans are very excited that he's finally playing this season

 
Kanye West (AMT)

• Probably the most easily recognized player in all of sports
• Known for his famous games and infamous shenanigans
• Very good point guard but often plays other positions too
• Known for the creativity he brings to the league
• Recently played a full season with all-star AMT veteran, Jay-Z, which turned out to be very successful

 
Tonedeff (NBA)

• Amazing dribbler and at one point held the record for the fastest dribbling in a game
• A player-coach who can also play different positions, but has focused more on coaching for the last 5 years
• Extremely sound fundamentals
• Doesn’t watch basketball that much but a big fan of sports in general
• Can often be seen playing various sports
• Has a lot of chemistry when he plays with his star player Kno, who is considered one of the top point guards in the league.
• Fans are eagerly await the new season where both Tone and Kno are playing together for the first time

 
J Cole (Both)

• Had some phenomenal preseason games but still yet to play an actual season
• Apart from being very talented in the small forward position, he's also a decent point guard, something that's rarely seen in basketball let alone the AMT
• Shows some flashy moves like an AMT player while still being very well versed in the fundamentals like an NBA player
• Fans of both leagues await his highly anticipated start this season

 

[Technical Review] Lasers - Lupe Fiasco

I know, I know, I know. Not only has it been 6 months since my last post,  it’s been 2 months since Lasers actually came out. I really wanted to keep this blog updated more often but school has a way of crushing your dreams and aspirations. Anyways, since I don't have to worry about school for the time being, you can expect this blog to be update quite frequently. So, finally, as I promised in my previous post, here is my long overdue review of Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers. Better late than never, I suppose. 

Before we get started I wanted to talk about why this is a “technical review” rather than just a “review”. See, I have a pet peeve with the concept of critiquing art. I could tell you which songs were my favorite, which beats I found catchy or which lyrics resonated with me but ultimately I’d just be telling you about something you would never understand or experience. If we’re both looking at ball and I’m wearing yellow tinted glasses and your wearing red tinted glasses, would it do you any good if I tell you what color the ball is? I’d rather comment on it’s shape or size. Perhaps a truly objective critique might be impossible but I think if I compartmentalize my critique, by assigning equal weightings to each aspect of a song, it would certainly be a step in the right direction.  With that said lets jump right in.

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Criteria:

Beat:

• Melody: Melody affinity is usually pretty subject but I’ll try to keep it consistent with melodies I think are unique and original
• Hook: Usually the hook would be a part of the vocals section but seeing as how this was indeed Atlantic’s album (more on that later), where by the hook was given to Lupe with the beat, this classification seem appropriate.
• Execution: A good beat/song is nothing without the proper execution, specifically the structure, form and mixing of the beat

Vocals:

• Wordplay: Clever lines said in creative and original ways, a cornerstone of popular modern hip hop
• Flow: How well the verse fits within the context of the beat. Higher points will be awarded for complexity
• Content: Overall quality of writing in the song. Usually this immensely important to me but to be as objective as possible I’ll give it equal weighting

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Tracks:

Letting Go

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	4	Wordplay:	4
Hook:	3	Flow:	4
Execution:	5	Content:	5

Average:              4.2

Notes: Easily the best song on the album and the type of writing you would expect from Lupe. Unfortunately, its it's all down hill from here. Were it not for the obnoxious "ohweohwe oh oh" in the chorus it would have been a perfect song.

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Words I Never Said

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	4	Flow:	2
Execution:	2	Content:	4

Average:              2.8                       

Notes: This is very similar to a song he made for F&L called American Terrorist... except American Terrorist had a better chorus, better beat, better flow and much better writing. His openly controversial political views in this song scored him an appearance on The Colbert Report.

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  Till I Get There

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	3
Hook:	5	Flow:	3
Execution:	4	Content:	4

Average:              3.6                       

Notes:  It's hard not to love the playful writing style. This is what I imagined most of the album to be like when he mentioned that the album was gonna be similar to And He Gets the Girl.

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I Don't Wanna Care Right Now

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	2	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	4	Flow:	3
Execution:	2	Content:	1

Average:              2.3                       

Notes:  Atlantic's attempt at making a club song. Great club chorus but just a completely undanceable verse.
Shameless Plug: 
I Don't Wanna Care Right Now (ALJO Remix) by ALJO

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Out Of My Head

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	2	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	3	Flow:	2
Execution:	2	Content:	2

Average:              2.2                       

Notes:  A song for the ladies which was 60% Trey Songz and 40% Atlantic.

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The Show Goes On

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	1
Hook:	3	Flow:	2
Execution:	4	Content:	2

Average:              2.5                       

Notes: Windoo? Really? Lazy and cliché themes result in overall weak songwriting. Apparently the first verse is Lu's big F-U to Atlantic.

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Beautiful Lasers

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3		3
Hook:	3	Flow:	4
Execution:	4	Content:	5

Average:              3.6                       

Notes: A beautiful song but it was completely unnecessary to auto-tune the chorus, especially for such an acoustic, organic vibe.

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Coming Up

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	3	Flow:	2
Execution:	2	Content:	2

Average:              2.3                       

Notes: A lot of people seem to like this but I've listen to it a bunch of times and couldn't tell you a single line from it.

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State Run Radio

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	3	Flow:	3
Execution:	3	Content:	4

Average:              3.0                       

Notes: A favorite on tour but the stans were shocked and disappointed to find out that this guy sang the chorus and not Lupe. The distortion guitars in the chorus sound awkward, especially with in the context of the entire album which was more synth based.

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Break The Chain

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	5	Wordplay:	4
Hook:	4	Flow:	5
Execution:	1	Content:	2

Average:              3.5                       

Notes: A great mix of European and American cultures (both the beat and vocals) but everything that got epically built up throughout the verse completely falls flat during the chorus. Someone failed songwriting 101.

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All Black Everything

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	4	Wordplay:	3
Hook:	4	Flow:	3
Execution:	4	Content:	4

Average:              3.6                       

Notes:  Lupe's self proclaimed masterpiece is definitely one of the best of the album and showcases Lupe's classic method of conveying a message through analogy. That being said, I can't help but notice that in Lupe's fantasy, where slaves got payed, that the only thing that changed was peoples names got switched around.

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Never Forget You

Beats		Vocals
Melody:	3	Wordplay:	2
Hook:	4	Flow:	3
Execution:	3	Content:	3

Average:              3.0                       

Notes: Lupe gets nostalgic. I'm pretty sure the last verse, if not the whole song, is about his father who passed away a couple years ago.

Album Beats: 3.25
Album Vocals: 2.88
Album Average: 3.07

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The Making Of a Mess:

Truth be told, this album looked better on paper, or more specifically, in the form of a manifesto. Lupe said he made this manifesto before he recorded or wrote any of the songs, and it was to serve as a guideline while making the album. The first supposed release date, from the man himself, was to be May 2009, more than 2 years before the actual release date of March 8th, 2011. So why did it take so long for the album to drop? 

According to Lupe, Atlantic told him they would shelve the album until he signed a 360-deal. See, when you hear all this propaganda about pirating music and how it is “stealing” from an artist, it’s really only the record labels that suffer. The artists themselves usually benefit through increased popularity and higher attendance at their concerts, which happens to be a more direct from of income than record sales. To counteract this, record companies have started employing a "360-deal" where by they get to grab a percentage of everything the artists does, including concerts, t-shirts, book deals..etc. Not only does this mean they have control of all business decisions but, more importantly, their artistic decisions as well. Lupe Fiasco, who has been dealing with record labels for about a decade know, knows quite a lot about this deal with the devil and refused to sign, while Atlantic stayed true to their word and shelved Lasers indefinitely. After months of arguing and fighting, Lupe seemed to accept the fact that the album may never come out and even went through a bout of depression, documented in the song Beautiful Lasers. 

Throughout all this, however, Lupe had been touring for 3 years straight, save a short break to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with his celebrity friends. A big part of his set during these tours was dedicated to featuring some songs off  Lasers, which not only increased anticipation of the album but also aggravation towards Atlantic for the lack of a release date. So much so that the fans actually created a petition which got over 32,000 signatures including some from celebrities such as Talib Kwelli and Big Boi. After an unsatisfying “Lasers is coming” twitter response from Atlantic, the fans collaborated to prepare for the next logical step; a protest. The stench of bad PR reached the noses of the top dogs at Atlantic HQ and forced them to give in and announce the release date before the protest. Suddenly everything was butterflies and rainbows. The protest became a celebration. The fans didn’t seem to care that they had to wait another 5 month for the album. It didn’t matter. It was actually coming out. Lyor Cohen, CEO of Warner Music Group (parent company of Atlantic) came out of the building with a boom box playing the first official single on Lasers, The Show Goes On. There was only one fan there who managed to not get caught up in the hype and actually confront Lyor and ask him why it had been shelved for a year and a half in the first place. Of course all the stans fans thought she was crazy that she dare speak while a distorted version of the new single (which was coming out the following week) was being played. Through the early releases of some songs officially and unofficially the fans soon realized what compromises Lupe had to make to get this album out.

The album that was eventually released was actually the fourth version. One can only imagine the disappointing board room meetings with talks of “autotuning everything because that's what the kids are into” or perhaps, more ironically, being told to "dumb it down". A lot of the songs on the album ended up being about the making of the album itself, garnished with Atlantic’s commercial grade glitter and filtered through euro trance synths. The final product turned out to be worse than expected. The album’s metacritic score landed a horrendous 57% based on 23 reviews, by far his worst score yet. Conversely, and perhaps this speaks volumes on the current state of the music industry, the album was quite commercially successful, debuting at #1 on Billboards top 200 while his single peaked at # 9 on Billboard's hot 100. That being said, even with terrific first week numbers, I still doubt the album will have enough steam to reach gold before his previous album, “The Cool” did in 2008. Marketing will only get you so far and, of course, it didn't help that Lupe himself said he hated the album and was only proud of about 4 or 5 songs.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing for the fans was finding out which song didn't make the final cut: 

• I'm Beaming
• Shining Down
• Army Girl
• Scream
• Stereo Sun
• What U Want
• Who Are You Now?

I suppose though, in the end, everyone did in fact win. Originally Lupe had said he wanted Lasers to have a positive message for a wider audience and he definitely reached that result. The fans learned about the power they have as consumers from the protest and perhaps Atlantic learned that throwing glitter on crap still makes it crap and thus non economical in the long run. Lupe said once in an interview that it’s like playing chess, he had to give up a few pawns but now he gets to take the queen. He is, of course, referring to his follow up album ambitiously titled Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album set to come out later this year. He has already apologized for dumbing down Lasers and said that he has a deal with Atlantic to not step into his studio during the making of F&L II. Better yet, he says this album will be for his core fanbase who were disappointed with his lackluster lyrical effort on Lasers. With all this hype I’m optimistic but who knows, I’ve heard this story before.

[THE FALL TO POP] Regina Spektor

Imagine you’re an aspiring musician known for how you delicately balance art and talent. You’re fairly popular on the internet, mostly due to your thousands of profile views on Myspace. Unfortunately for you, being popular on the internet doesn’t necessarily translate to making money and as a result, you’re flat broke. You realize the only way to do this is to gain more exposure via promotion, music videos, radio single, etc but even that costs thousands of dollars. Record labels know your situation all too well and so they offer you a deal. They will finance your rise to stardom but in return they get to make all the financial decisions. And by financial decisions, they mean they need to cater your sound to a demographic that would yield maximum revenue, AKA they make all the artistic decisions. The record label tells you it will actually be easier for you since they will just outsource songwriters to write for you and ensure a team of specialists will make you sound “perfect”. Sure you will finally be making money off your songs but are they really your songs? Too many times I’ve seen an artist settle for the numbers, formulas and figures of the industry and essentially, settling for pop. What gets classified as pop? It’s a little hard to define and I’m not sure what the industry definition of it is but for all intents and purposes for this blog, I will refer to pop music as songs that you lose interest in with time, as opposed to songs that getter better with time. Songs that are made to sell, not last. Unfortunately, I know a lot of artists who have succumb to this fate, this derailing and have undergone the fall to pop.

When I first heard Regina’s music I never thought I her name and the word “pop” could exist in the same sentence. My first thought was “wow, this is a true artist”. A true artist in every sense of the word. One who, I believe, should be selfish with their motives. And by selfish I don’t mean monetary gain by any means. I mean they make music to solely satisfy their own need to release emotion. When you hear her music you’ll see what I mean. She does exactly what she wants and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I first heard a couple of her songs from a friend and did what I usually do with an artist I think I’ll like: download their discography and see if I can find any diamonds in the ruff (I usually find that the popular songs are my least favorite). This discography turned out to be a little unusual because I found every song to be thoroughly entertaining. Even if I didn’t like a song it would entertain enough to hear it all the way through. Perhaps it was her fantastic display of singing and piano talents, or maybe it was the dynamic array of genres she used throughout, but I think the main reason I found it so interesting was because it was so refreshing to hear someone singing so unconventionally. She is definitely the most unique singer I’ve ever heard, and it’s nice to see someone break the mold of what singing should be. Singing is an art, and an art is not about being perfect, it’s about being expressive, which is something Regina is very, very good at.

Her music ranges from the strange... 

to the beautiful... 

to the strange and beautiful...

Sometimes I can’t make out if she’s absolutely insane or incredibly brilliant

It’s quite apparent that she has a very eclectic taste in music. Almost her entire first album is comprised of jazzy and bluesy tracks while in her other albums, you can tell she got influenced by a wider variety of music. Only a couple of her songs have infiltrated the mainstream, by far the most popular being Fidelity. A lot of people noticed her with this song and of course, so did some record execs.

For her new album she gave the steering wheel to a superstar cast of producers (Jeff Lynne (ELO, The Traveling Wilburys), Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem), David Kahne (Paul McCartney, The Strokes) and Garret "Jacknife" Lee (Weezer, REM)) and made one of her least inspired albums by far called, actually, Far. Perhaps the title was alluding to the fact that she left her eclectic self behind and traveled to the far away world called Pop. I liked her album the first week, hated it the next, and never listened to it after that, which is exactly what the producers were excepting from this album. Give you a little bit so you’re eager for more. From a business point of view it’s much more profitable to make someone buy a new album every month than to provide a great album that will last years. A brilliant business model but it’s a damn shame that someone as talented as Regina Spektor was wasted on it.

[NOTES] The Difference Between Mainstream and Underground Hip Hop

Mainstream:

“F___ You, I have more money!”

Underground:

“F___ You, I rhyme better!”

Both are correct.

Hip hop may not be dead but creativity certainly is.