And Another One

I'm back, and I need work!

Have a Good Laugh

Watch this...

...and peep this. Sample:

Hello. I was so moved by our great countrys outpouring of strength and courage after 9/11, and have been collecting 9/11 memorabilia ever since...
...
- A non-used bathrobe that says "Never Forget" on the front, and has the word "Terrorists" in a circle, crossed out, on the back
- A bath mat and shower curtain with a photo of the Twin Towers on it and a "Never Forget" banner

Our collective memories could never never forget like this one guy. Maybe it's this JoJo. Dare to dream.

These Are Our Heroes

"Obama Signs Sweeping Wall Street Overhaul into Law"

And to that, Robert Reich, Public Enemy, me, and others say, simply, "Don't believe the hype." Jeff Madrick, you wanted to weigh in?

The financial reregulation package just passed by Congress is far from a comprehensive reform of American finance. Despite the enormous threat to the world’s financial markets created by the failure of Lehman Brothers and the stunning excesses of insurance giant AIG and banking conglomerate Citigroup, the reforms are in truth modest. Neither the Obama administration nor Congress opted to cut banks down to size, and the bill is only placing mild limits on risky banking activities. The giant financial institutions, meanwhile, are as big—even bigger—than ever and bankers’ compensation is once again at stunning levels.

But the problem with the legislation is not merely its small scale. It is the way it is supposed to be implemented: to avoid controversy and get the bill passed, congressional reformers foisted the responsibility for setting most of the specific, sticky rules on federal regulators at the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and elsewhere, who are to make them over the next year or two. These are, for the most part, the same regulators who failed to stop the speculative excesses and ensuing credit crisis of 2008. While they now have a few more tools at their disposal, their already substantial tool box was barely touched in the years leading up to the housing and credit crash and severe recession. Will it be different next time?

Avoid controversy. Always the Obama way. And, of course, always the wrong way. Obama never presented himself as the most liberal candidate in 2008, and he never positioned himself as a firebrand who would rise to the level of zealous advocacy needed to counterattack the lunatic conservatives who make Glenn Beck popular. However, he did campaign as a change agent, promising that, if nothing else, common sense and good governance would return to Washington. Rather than allowing special interests to control the nation, and rather than standing down when confronted by inertia and systemic difficulty, Obama was going to challenge the orthodoxy in the name of progress.

That was all a lie, perhaps unintended at the time. Rather than waging a justified and popular assault on Washington's standard misdirection and corruption, Obama has elevated bipartisanship and placid politics to substantive goals, thereby marginalizing true policy leadership. For Obama, avoiding a fight and perpetuating the masquerade that cooperation among fifty-eight Democrats and two Republicans is a salve for all that ails America is worth the ineffective, mediocre legislation that results from such ideological indifference. Obama has emerged as a president who stands for nothing, a man whose priorities are lost in the vagueness of ceremonial compromise. That he is such an articulate, insightful scholar only amplifies the disappointment. Beyond liberalism and conservatism, Obama has surrendered his clarion advocacy and commitment to rational leadership.

Back to you, Madrick:

What I find most disappointing is that the Obama team did not present its case for regulation based on a diagnosis of what caused the crisis in the first place. His advisers seemed to adopt the widespread notion that everyone had a part in it—a convenient way to blame no one.

Just another copout from an administration that has made them a hallmark. These political appeasers don't even have the commitment and gumption to fight for their own ideas. And they operate from deep within the cesspool, happily swimming with the other feckless "leaders" whose instincts are solely about self-preservation and honoring the status quo. Matt Taibbi smacked them in the face for it, as he should have.

This note comes courtesy of my friend David Sirota out in Colorado. This is a classic example of how the Senate works. If the public understood better how rigged this game is, and how few issues are actually left to an honest vote in the legislature, I'm pretty sure the pitchfork factor would be twice even what it is now.

The entire post is one big kufi slap.

I used to believe that the country would be different with Obama, and that someone like Obama wouldn't even have been necessary had Al Gore won in 2000. Gore may have been a better president than Bush, but he probably isn't a better guy. Sexual politics and electoral politics may not mix well, but both help us measure the American ruling class. And during weeks like this one, it's hard to maintain enough interest to parse through which group of selfish, brazen, dishonest lowlifes is better than the other.



P.S. So that we're clear, the title of the post borrows from the Nas song solely because I want to acknowledge that the leadership in America fails its constituency despite the former's own celebrations to the contrary. This is not meant to be a commentary on race--Obama's or as a general topic--in any way.

The Best Bawse That We've Heard Thus Far

(A preemptive postscript. Prescript? Check out FD for a shorter consideration of another important hip-hop matter: Miami Thrice on wax!)

If you wouldn't mind, it would be nice if you would take a moment out of your day to thank Rick Ross for making "Tears of Joy." Rarely does an artist provide us with such an obvious inflection point from which we can praise his strengths, mock his weaknesses, marvel at his audacity, and trace a career arc that improbably keeps rising.



What Rick Ross has done for himself is rather amazing. Combining a distinctive, scratchy voice with a signature aesthetic, a willingness to pander, and a public demeanor that refuses embarrassment, he has crawled across critical broken glass, hot coals, and a bed of nails to arrive on the other side either, depending upon your perspective, unscathed or commanding some modicum of respect for now comfortably bearing the scars of struggle. One, the other, both, or something similar, Ricky Rozay has turned himself into a rap presence that even the most resolute haters of the oldest establishments must acknowledge with a benign smile, if not something far warmer, like receptive ears or even honest appreciation.

Consider how far he has come: Rick Ross sucked when he arrived in 2006. Just straight up awful. Out of a contextual void emerged a fat guy with a bald head, goofy beard, massive chains, and an encyclopedic knowledge of every crime and drug reference a person could make. For years already, the most mainstream rap music had given up on holding back brazen fake thugs and comically stylized gangsters, and Rawse appeared to take the proliferation of this archetype as a personal challenge. No one would top his extravagant embrace of everything dumb, opulent, basic, and hackneyed.

Port of Miami reflected this foolhardy mission. It started with an obvious Scarface homage; it transitioned into a single that contained "rhymes" like "I'm into distribution/I'm like Atlantic/I got the motherfuckers flying 'cross the At-lantic/I know Pablo (Pablo)/Noriega (Noriega)/The real Noriega/He owe me a hundred favors"; and it went on to suffer from cheap hip-hop populism, offering lame rhymes and discount-level production meant to capture as broad an audience as possible. Ross's first joint was the sort of disposable music that the Roots, Wesley Snipes, and Denzel Washington famously warned us about at the beginning of Things Fall Apart.

Ross endured, though. The popularity of "Hustlin'" and the juice of Def Jam earned him a platinum plaque. Despite struggling at times to deliver even basic couplets, Rozay could flow, his voice left an impression, and like most novelty acts, he was made for a guest verse. He started spitting those. He also started running with a bad crowd sometimes. The Bawse suffered the misfortune of sharing geography with DJ Khaled, so he wound up on a number of those handicap records. But the most notable development following Port of Miami was that Rawse began to flex his greatest gift: the man can pick beats like you wouldn't believe.

Trilla, Rick's second album, was not exactly a lyrical odyssey, but it was an important pivot point, all the same. (Particularly in a post-lyrical hip-hop context that usually emphasizes mood, style, and personality before it concerns itself with what's actually being said and how. No shots.) Far from another jumbled hodge podge of half-baked production derivatives, Trilla offered a fuller, more stylistically consistent sound. Quite bluntly, the production on Ross's sophomore LP transformed Rozay and saved his career. Booming synthesizers that kept the tinny southern stereotypes at arm's length and lush soul beats converted a grating, tacky microphone persona dedicated to South Florida kingpin fantasies into an amusing entertainer whose simple rhymes were merely a conduit for an impossibly catchy imagination. In particular, the five-song flourish from "This Me" through "Luxury Tax" was a wonderful production showcase; it gave Ross his true voice along with the context for it to be engaging drama, not just mindless fiction.

Another Rawse hallmark began to foment on Trilla. Thanks to a richer, dignified soundscape, Ricky's impossible grandiosity started to transition from annoying contrivance to hilarious delusion. Much as Cam'ron had earned a certain begrudged acceptance (or outright devotion in some circles) for his insanely audacious rhymes and unyielding devotion to the outrageous, Ross, too, took a weakness and plugged it into a redemptive formula.

There just really aren't any ways to calibrate the lifestyle that Ross catalogs with such zeal. It goes beyond the fact that he calls his own songs Maybach Music, though that's a fairly presumptuous, and funny, premise. String together a few Rawse songs and the Push-It-to-the-Limit montage from Scarface that Rozay has internalized begins to look like b-roll footage from news stories about the recession. As captured on verse (after verse), Ricky's weeks are filled with shirtless sex parties on yachts paid for by relentless drug trafficking; flouting the law while speeding around in the most expensive cars possible; swapping out the traditional badges of luxury for clothing and jewelry most people (including Ricky) can't even pronounce; and turning out models who are biding their time by fighting over who will get to be the subject of the Bawse's degradations first. Rozay leaves us no choice: we either scoff and move on, or we laugh and suspend disbelief. His unbeatable production and the safety of such innocent vicarious indulgence tends to encourage the latter.



Last year's Deeper Than Rap was the next step in Rozay's evolution. After Trilla, he took an L while beefing with 50 and being exposed as a rehabilitated corrections officer. He was the butt of joke after joke, and no one reading this site needs to be told how swiftly a career built on drug-trade fantasies can be destroyed by having the reputation for being a man of the system. How could hip-hop abide that kind of reverence and lawfulness? Befitting his physique, though, the potential embarrassment and career homicide just bounced off the Bawse. Much like he didn't ever seem to care about being lyrical, making sense, or being believed, Rick Ross just kind of plowed through the barriers. He played up the mafia angle on Deeper, shifting his profile from the pastels and simplicity of a weekly crime procedural to a dark, brooding gangster movie. Michael Mann probably should have been the record's executive producer. The new Ross seemed comfortable to parry whatever insults were thrust in his direction while focusing on being the sort of mob boss who looks beyond critics as they fall away.

Deeper Than Rap was just that. Sort of. It's not a topically or thematically deep album, but unlike Trilla, which was sturdier but still light, Deeper felt heavier. It was a cohesive soundtrack meant to score an epic starring Rawse, one set at night, out of the sun, and comfortable with dirt. Despite a furious three-song finish which left the lasting impression that Ross had arrived as a rapper who could do more than write limericks and pay the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Deeper's highlight comes at the very beginning. "Mafia Music," which opened the album, was the best Ross song ever made. The tone--set by the track's pounding heartbeat, menacing instrumentation, measured tempo, and defiant rhymes--was perfect for the rapper Rawse had become. "Mafia Music," through its mood, not its title, also cemented the new profile as a don on wax. As was the case on Trilla, the method acting which never allowed Ross to break character created a fantasy realm into which it was fun for an audience to step.

Rappers rarely reinvent themselves successfully. Nor do we commonly allow for their improvement. They are delivered prepackaged, the clothes, the sounds, the interviews, the endorsements carefully plotted by them and their people. Alternately, they might bubble up from the underground, rough around the edges and free of manipulation. Yet, no matter the route to fame, once a rapper arrives, he usually stays as he was first perceived. Rick Ross is something of an exception, then.

He has changed. In degree, not kind, but he has changed. The man arrived hustlin' and he has yet to eschew that larger gimmick, but Port of Miami is miles away from Deeper Than Rap or his newest joint, Teflon Don. He's a better rapper now, and that's part of how he has earned our patience. I don't expect him to battle Rakim, or Blu, or even Drake--backhanded compliment!--anytime soon, but at his clumsiest, now, he is markedly better and more credible. Rawse won't be tussling too tough with Lil' Wayne, either, but only Dwayne comes to mind when considering other rappers who arrived as relative jokes and then grew into something far better. To be fair, Rawse may have been born on second, if not third. He started on Def Jam and has never wanted for resources. The second song put out in his name was the "Hustlin'" remix that featured Jay-Z and Jeezy. (I am sure it's still getting spins in the Pitchfork offices.)

All the same, he has seized upon the good fortune to establish himself as an entertaining MC, and that's no small effort. I was chuckling about this with a fellow old head--though perhaps one more open-minded--at the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival last weekend. Ian agreed that for as much fun as it used to be to front on Ricky Rozay, the dude's won us over, even if only in a relative way. Those beats!



There are plenty of them on Teflon Don, which takes the best production instincts demonstrated on Trilla, mixes them with the latest iteration of Rozay memorialized on Deeper, and serves up something that is a little more daring and assured than its predecessors. To wit, "Free Mason" is a true musical composition, with John Legend killing it while blending so well with Ricky and Jay; "Live Fast, Die Young" has an exaggerated sample and complicated filler that might have overwhelmed Rozay earlier; the sequence of "MC Hammer" and "B.M.F." is something that would make the Heatmakerz die of envy, with the simultaneously sudden but seamless transition among my favorite hip-hop moments of the year. Of, course, improvement is incremental and measured against what came before. This Rawse has that golden ear and a sharper tongue, but there are a lot of moments on Teflon that betray a rapper still not fully comfortable with what he's supposed to do best.

That's why you, me, we--we all must give thanks for "Tears of Joy." It has a lush soul beat and a subtly energetic tempo, the sort that is best for the Bawse. Further, the sparse melody and drum pattern is commodious, allowing Rozay to spread out, lounge around, and...

...uh...

...pontificate? Luxuriate through the mouth? Project stories onto still photos flashing before his eyes?

I have no idea what is happening here. The rapping on this song is the functional equivalent of someone speaking slowly in a desperate and transparent attempt to grab more gravitas than he might normally wield. It's awesome. There is pained reflection, pseudo social consciousness, the inescapable Rawse misogyny, some genuinely pointed emotion, and a blending of common expressions and general stupidity that make for the best malapropisms. "Ain't life a bitch/But you gotta keep 'em wet/Keys open doors, so I gotta keep a set/Everybody know that I'm a lotta people threat/Biggie Smalls in the flesh/Livin' life after my death." Just gorgeous. And just so Rawse.

I hope he keeps growing.



Intro
Smokin' a fat spliff in a brand new Benz
No I.D. on the track
Let the story begin

Verse One
Lookin' in the mirror but I don't see much
Still runnin' the streets, so i don't sleep much
Watchin' the snakes so they don't creep up
But the way I'm gettin' this money
N***as can't keep up
You n***as can't keep up

N***as got beef but it can't be much
I'm still walkin' through the crowds like I can't be touched
Top back, all black, Gretzky puck
Ice skate a little later, might let me fuck
She might let me fuck

Last night I cried tears of joy
What did I do to deserve this
Vacheron on my wrist
A year ago I didn't even know the bitches exist

Quarter milli for the motherfucker
No insurance on the motherfucker
Ain't life a bitch
But you gotta keep 'em wet
Keys open doors, so I gotta keep a set
Everybody know that I'm a lotta people threat
Biggie Smalls in the flesh
Livin' life after my death

Yesterdy I read my horoscope
Tell me lord, will I be poor and broke
Tell me lord, will I be dealin' dope
I wanna take my mama to the Poconos

But only lord knows

Verse Two
Last night I cried tears of joy
What did I do to deserve this
Young, rich motherfucker still uneducated
But dammit, a n***a made it
God damn, a n***a made it

Crib bigger than a church
Lord know I'm blessed
Five different lawyers
Lord know I'm stressed
A punch in the face'll get ya $300k
Ask Vlad
Now he back to making minimum wage
Another victim of my criminal ways
I wanna walk in the image Christ
But that bitch Vivica nice
And I'm still swimmin' in ice
I'm just livin' my life

I'm just livin' my life

Lease a Lamborghini for your pussy rate
Life is just a pussy race
Snatch a bitch, take her back to ya place
Next morning I can tell you how the pussy tastes
I got expensive taste

Verse three
Last night I cried tears of joy
What did we do to deserve this

Not to dwell on the past
But to keep it real, I got to represent for Emmett Till
All the dead souls in the field
Lookin' at my Roley, it's about that time
White man had a problem with mine
And we supposed to be shy
The revolution's televised

Bobbies still on the rise

Ether

(via)

Um, yeah. That will do. Although, if we ever do see a war of banners, Miami can't lose:

Update: In my haste, I didn't really consider how a Cleveland fan might use this second banner. Oh well. It's either a boastful retort to the Delonte ad or a perfect farewell for the angry Cavs fan. Either way, it's a win-win, and we can order lunch.

Today on the Internets: Star Wars Lives Forever

Somewhere along the way, I stopped posting random shit that interests me or makes its way into my internets life. As usual, I blame law school and the pretend lawyering I do in the summer. Not only does it diminish my time for blogging, but that diminution in creativity time compels me to write about the subjects that matter most: basketball, rap music, and the inexorable decline of American society. Who has time for whimsy when such critical matters are at issue? Didn't you hear that new Curren$y?!

Well, to quote Owen Hart's theme music from when he was with the Nation, enough is enough, and it's time for a change. (P.S. Shouts to the WWE for once upon a time giving the wrestling crews continuity across theme music. Consider what the Rock's music used to be when he was with the Nation and just trying to be intercontinental champion. Strikingly similar, right? Anyway...) I thought we might all enjoy some fun internets just because.

Start with this stuff:

- Star Wars Semiotics

- Improv Everywhere's Star Wars Subway Car



It was a good day for nerds.

You also must peep ShawtBusShawty, which is on some epic rap-music-lampoon win:

RIP Bawse

To this day, I don't really care much about baseball. After building somewhat steadily during my grade-school years, all of my enthusiasm for the sport peaked sometime around 1995. By then, I had stopped playing the game regularly, the exciting '89 Giants had broken my heart, my favorite player, Will Clark, was on the decline, and my other favorite player, Frank Thomas, couldn't save the sport for me all by himself. (Watching it on television remains insufferable.) Besides, I was raised in an orthodox, observant basketball household, and my life remains monotheistic.

My indifference toward the national pastime has left me in the somewhat precarious position of being a New Yorker without a baseball team. Even in this spiritual capital of basketball, baseball commands its own reverence. I once tried to embrace the woe-is-us, it's-endearing-because-it's-awful Mets lifestyle, but it didn't take. Neither did rooting for the Yankees. Not only did it feel too easy and uncomfortably sterile for an outsider, but my mother had forbidden anyone in our family from saying anything nice about the team. She hated George Steinbrenner, whom she believed represented everything bad about corporate greed sacrificing public good. It's part of why she also hates New York's imperial mayor, Michael Bloomberg. (I think that's her objection to Donald Trump, too, but he might just be a preening schmuck.)

For now, I shall set aside any moral judgments of Steinbrenner (who was a Buckeye; that's not good) and just celebrate the way I knew him best--channeled through Larry David on Seinfeld. David's exaggerated, hilarious portrayal of the cartoon Steinbrenner saved the Yankees for me a little bit. I could never watch their games or otherwise meditate on that interlocking N-Y without wondering what the assistant to the traveling secretary was working on, whether the uniforms might shrink in the wash, and why the Yankees had ever traded Jay Buhner. I also happen to love that fancy mustard. Thanks to Seinfeld, Steinbrenner was always a jovial, warmly furious character, and I liked it that way.







Seinfeld's Steinbrenner clips are compiled here and here.

...Or the Most Dangerous Street for Everyone Else

As usual, (1) Kevin Drum wrote something engaging about the economy, and (2) my mother sent me an email about it. Here's the gist of the post, "The Safest Street in America," nicely captured in this passage:

The financialization of the American economy has been a disaster. Forget all that stuff about the hollowing out of our manufacturing base or increased global competition or waves of immigrants taking away our jobs. Those are all legitimate issues of one stripe or another, but the far bigger issue is that a gigantic chunk of our productive capacity — Wall Street — is deployed almost solely to make money for one sector of our economy: Wall Street. Until that changes, until the financial industry is focused primarily on providing capital and services to other people, we're always going to suffer from either (a) underperformance in the real economy or (b) an endless boom and bust cycle. Take your pick.

A troubling fundamental cleavage revealed for the public during the financial collapse was the gap between the health of Wall Street banks and the health of the American economy. Soaring bank profits, then and, sadly, still now, are not directly connected to tangible production and prosperity across the economy. That was the allure of derivatives: with very little terrestrial value and even less transparency behind them, derivatives (and credit default swaps) offered an opportunity for banks to gamble. High-finance people used complicated models to layer debt on top of debt, all the while attempting to mitigate their exposure to actual risk. The connection between the transactions and the underlying commodities grew ever more attenuated while bankers structured deals using everyone's money that either earned banks an undue share of the profit or cost them a smaller portion of the loss. It was nice for them that they always could rely on the government to bail them out and the larger economic system under their control to provide a cushion of moral hazard. Not exactly fair, or healthy, or responsible, as we've all learned.

But Drum's post highlights a more prosaic version of this syndrome. Banks are incorporated to turn a profit. No one begrudges them that goal, just as we don't hold it against any corporation. The point of a business is to make money. But Wall Street firms are engines of American capitalism, enjoying a unique position where private concerns mingle with public duties. Government uses the big banks to help manage the economy and steer monetary and fiscal policy. It doles out cheap money to these institutions hoping that the cash will be diffused through secondary and tertiary transactions that fuel smaller businesses, long-term investments, smart risk taking, and job growth. The system sounds great, and when it works as envisioned, it can create historically prosperous society. (In conjunction with other factors, of course.)

A peril encountered when the system doesn't work, though, is the polarity created between the haves and the have-nots, the banks and everyone else. Look no further than the current economic environment, which Drum calls out. The Federal Reserve is giving banks money with little interest attached, and credit markets are supposedly thawing. Only, the banks appear to be in control of some weird one-way heat, because they are are making money but the private sector isn't growing at a meaningful clip and unemployment remains uncomfortably high. Everyday people continue to struggle while the government and banks pretend that circumstances have improved in any real way. We're only two months removed from the four largest firms reporting perfect quarters, after all. I'd imagine that banks are likely only lending money at high rates in the service of existing debt, and likely targeting a relatively small class of those in "need." The cheap money meant to fuel growth has not found its way beyond the skyscraper canyons in which banks horde their cash and figure out ways to thwart meaningful financial reform.

That needs to change. Left unsaid but quite apparent from Drum's report is another of the inconvenient truths that emerged amidst the recent financial ruination. Free-market theory--the religion that casts regulation as the devil's spawn and holds sway over too many comfortable policymakers--almost always presumes rational actors making the systemically "right" choice. It almost never accounts for actual avarice, actual cynicism, and actual sociocultural constructs. Until political leaders acknowledge these truths and become evangelists for a more realistic approach, the Scott Browns and Charles Schumers of the world will be replaced but the structural problems will remain. Making those necessary, hard choices would not be some concession to socialism or a sign that the Russian spy scheme worked. Instead, it would represent the sort of vision and courage that this country appears to lack in all precincts of its supposed leadership.

Who Likes Free Music?

I've been sitting on this for over a week and am only now throwing it up. My bad. Your boy A to the L, who made a mixtape, Spam Filters, that I still rock to this day, has come back with a new tape four years in the making. You can read about it here and download the audio here. It's worth your time.

And here's your tracklist:

01) A to the L – Elevator Intro
02) Stevo – Dreams
03) A Rebbi – Caring Touch
04) Red – Pictures On My Wall
05) Miri Ben Ari – Chillin’ In The Key Of E
06) Mr Green – Sky’s The Limit
07) Depakote – Surelock
08) Lennon – Our Fascination
09) DJ Premier – Trackhorn
10) Substance – Better Food
11) Wizard – Face Down
12) Black Grass – Nobody Knows Its Sunday
13) Kan Kick – Take My Hand
14) Junior Panfast – Tell Them To Get Their Bones Ready
15) Gumbo – Basement Music
16) Flowlife Bums – Collorado Breakz
17) Miles High – Horizon
18) DJ King Flow & DJ PLK – I Agree
19) Gagle – Populace
20) 14KT – The Name Game
21) Eligh – Tundra Dome
22) 9th Wonder – Beat 5a
23) Blockhead – Jewish Wedding
24) Jackson Jones – Pygmalion
25) The ARE – When You’re Down
26) DJ King Flow & DJ PLK – Baby Love
27) Erik Rico – Clapper
28) Lennon – Elevator Music
29) DJ Cam – Gangsta Shit
30) Miles High – Island Jazz
31) Large Professor – Listen Blast Off
32) Roddy Rod – Beat 01
33) Jay Dilla – Grannie
34) Freddie Joachim – Joy & Pain
35) DJ Smash – Mad Graffiti
36) Pete Rock – Smooth Sailing
37) Nima Fadavi – We Are
38) Flako – Welcome
39) Damu The Fudgemunk – LB
40) Damu The Fudgemunk – Randi
41) Soul Supreme – Beat 20
42) Depakote – I Hold
43) Apathy & Celph Titled – Naturally Nasty
44) 45 – Once Again
45) Kev Brown – Beat 12
46) Zion 1 – Boom Bip
47) Nima Fadavi – Caviar
48) Blue Sky Black Death – Nobody’ll Do It For You
49) The Roots – The Juice of Chicago
50) A to the L – Elevator Outro



I have been home in New York since the beginning of May. In that time, I've heard a lot of Hot97, which means all I've heard on the radio is Drake, Drake, Drake, Drake, Ursher, Ursher, Drake, Ursher, Alicia Keys, Alicia Keys with Drake, Ursher, Gyptian mixed with Drake, Ursher, Drake, and Nicki Minaj mixed with Drake and Ursher and Gyptian. Toward the end of the week, I'll have a half-year music check-in post ready to go, and we'll get into this some more.

If you have comments about the SB redesign, please leave them below. One yourselves.

Bear with Me

Weird. This place looks different, right? I am undertaking the laborious process of updating its look a little. Blogroll and some other stuff will be back soon. In the meantime, bear with me. And if you think I've accidentally omitted you from the blogroll, send me an email: straight.bangin@gmail.com. Gracias.

Make It Stop

GET THE EFF OUT OF HERE:



Really, Donnie? Why? Is it because...

...Isiah turned the Knicks into a league-wide joke by seeking out every awful contract possible and trading away draft pick after draft pick?

...Isiah instigated a fight against the Denver Nuggets when he was on the bench?

...Isiah coached the Knicks to seasons of 33-49 and 23-59?

...Isiah ran the team as it accumulated a cumulative record of 112-216 in his four full seasons as president?

...Isiah never saw any of his Knicks teams make the playoffs or finish higher than 4th in the Atlantic Division?

...Isiah cost the team more than $11 million after he sexually harassed Anucha Browne Sanders?

...Isiah got into a fistfight with Stephon Marbury during a team flight?

Or, and maybe this is it, is it because Isiah tried to kill himself and then blamed it on his daughter?

WTF?

Donnie Walsh needs to retire. Seriously. He has come to the Knicks and hired a coach who doesn't believe in defense; tanked two seasons in order to sign LeBron James; failed to sign LeBron or any other max-worthy player; overpaid for Amare Stoudemire; drafted Jordan Hill instead of Brandon Jennings and Ty Lawson despite a hardbody PG being a near prerequisite for D'Antoni's system and championship contention.

The NBA has passed Walsh by. Period. He may be playing chess, and not checkers, but he can't manage the clock. To wit, Walsh showed up to court LeBron James in a wheelchair and neck brace, and he then sent Isiah F. Thomas to be the team's closer. That doesn't exactly present a reassuring image of stability, vitality, and excitement. It's not all Donnie's fault directly, but the end results rest with him. For comparison's sake, consider that Pat Riley was clandestinely testing James's emotional constitution, scheming up a free-agency recruiting plan for months and months that didn't depend on throwing an opulent party with famous people, and performing the NBA GM equivalent of Neil Kadakia's word-memorization system. Walsh is a fossil.

But even Donnie answers to someone, and that someone is the single worst owner in sports: James Dolan. This withering Sports Illustrated profile should have been enough to compel the New York City Council to pass a law mandating that Dolan sell the team so that it might be rescued. Somehow, inexplicably, it wasn't, and Dolan has instead carried on his work as a heartbreaking magician, making the Knicks disappear in plain sight. Nothing in the ESPN story about Thomas's prospective return was more damning than this passage:

Before Thomas began recruiting [Joe] Johnson a few days before free agency began on July 1, the Knicks "weren't even on our radar," according to the person close to Johnson. But the Knicks ended up being the first team to meet with Johnson after the Hawks. After both clubs offered Johnson maximum-salary contracts at their first meeting, Johnson was thinking of joining the Knicks.

"It was 50-50 between New York and Atlanta at that point," the person close to Johnson said. "Joe was going to have to leave that $30 million on the table to go to New York, but he was still considering it. If Isiah had been in pocket with the Knicks, meaning if he had still been working for their organization, there's a strong possibility that Joe would have ended up there."

While Thomas has a poor reputation in New York because of the team's struggles -- as well as his primary role in an embarrassing sexual harassment case -- during his tenure with the Knicks, the Hall of Famer is widely respected by players and those in their inner circles throughout the league.

In other words, Dolan is so oblivious, misguided, and vain that he has allowed the Knicks organization to decay. It is now bereft of anyone with any juice in the league. New York's best recruiter, it's most credible personality in today's NBA, was fired by the team two years ago after earning a deserved reputation as an inept disaster who disgraced the team in every way. That is James Dolan's go-to guy.

Mike Lupica had more about this today, and it hits every key note.

The hardest part of rooting for the Knicks is waking up to a new disaster every few weeks or months. Some infuriating, shameful insanity that would strain credulity were it not so common.James Dolan is hazardous to basketball.

Everybody Loves a Winner

While you were listening to Nicki Minaj tread water by exaggerating the bass in her voice for the twelve-millionth straight verse, Black Sheep dropped a new record, From the Black Pool of Genius. It's a pleasant surprise in several ways. First, who knew that Black Sheep Dres could still rap well enough and smartly enough for an entire record? Wolf in Sheep's Clothing dropped nineteen years ago, and aging well is not a hip-hop skill. Second, it's a dusty, sleepy record, but who knew it would create such an easy atmosphere? The album can be repetitive, as much of the production is a simple drum program underneath a looped melodic excerpt, but that keeps it consistent. In classic Native Tongue-knockoff style, it is unassuming, unintrusive, and smooth. Dres remains crafty and comfortable on the mic, infusing a steady procession of the same sound with the peaks and valleys of his personality. And third, we were, indeed, due for something noteworthy and familiar from Anthony Cruz, right?. He doesn't disappoint, doing what AZ always has done: defiantly rip verses with that strained, high-pitched exhortation of a voice.

Black Sheep ft. AZ, "Victory"

LeBron James Just Ruined the NBA

That's it. Shit's over. The NBA is done, and we can all thank LeBron James. (You know, assuming that this report holds up and James opts to join the Heat. If he announces something else later tonight, feel free to come back and taunt. But for now, let's get our hate up.)

LeBron in Miami sucks. It's just awful. For so many reasons:

1) It is cowardly. Since high school, LeBron has cultivate his regal image, the king of kings, host of hosts, lord of lords, and all that. He has presumed to claim a monarchical lineage, and for a while he's backed it up. Who was fucking with LeBron? No one. Until the Magic and Celtics had the temerity to do so.

LeBron has been troubled and tried these last two years. Rather than fighting back, though, instead of plotting a new course of his own, he's taking the easy way out. Getting help is one thing; fleeing to someone else's Super Friends party is just bitch-made, scared-ass shit. Miami is Dwyane Wade's team. LeBron is now a member of it. That's how the king rolls? You're a customer, dunny.

2) It is lazy. Grow, motherfucker! Grow! Go out and work on your game. Develop a mid-range jumper so that it's not as easy for KG and Perk to converge on you at the rim when you're not launching a fadeaway three. Better yet, figure out how to lead more. Identify what really maximizes your skills and find it. Get a different team and new teammates, but do it on your terms. Be the man you claim you want to be. Which icons with respected brands--because that's your shit, right, Bron Bron?--tried a little, failed, quit on the struggle, and then piggybacked onto something else?

And which basketball deities throw up their hands and jump on the most convenient path to success? Help is one thing, shortcuts are another. Michael needed not just Scottie, but also Horace and Dennis and even Stacy King and Brian Williams. Hakeem needed Kenny and Sam and Robert and Otis and Mario. Those teams were built, though. They were drafted, crafted, aged, cultivated. They weren't sold prepackaged out of a Wal-Mart. Earn something, don't just buy it because you can!

And do not even think of marketing your shit as a super team, or super group, or logical successor to the titans of yesteryear. Yes, there used to be godbody teams--the Celtics, the Lakers, the 70s Knicks. But they were rare, and all the more sacrosanct for it. Moreover, they were born and raised. Fewer teams made it possible, and that's not LeBron's fault. He plays in this era, and that's how it is. But no one smart will be duped into thinking that this unholy union in Miami is on par with the truly legendary teams. Because part of being a legend is putting in work, not staging a protracted play date. Weaksauce!

3) It is boring for basketball. You know what? For twenty or twenty-five games, this will be cool. Wade and James will soar in from the wings, Bosh will do whatever he does--rebound, face up and shoot, cast pensive looks, smile when Dwyane or LeBron winks at him with approval. They will play Team USA ball against pedestrian NBA also-rans. The Heat will kick the shit out of plenty of teams and Kevin Harlan will probably have an aneurysm. We'll all get a good laugh when Miami invades Phillips Arena and destroys the Hawks as Joe Johnson soaks his feet and wraps his knees with hundred-dollar bills. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh will all teabag Rudy Gay as Miami destroys the Grizzlies by forty on one of those nights when no one on Memphis remembers to show up. Gay will take a post-game swim in his Scrooge McDuck vault.

Only, then it will turn excruciating. By January, the NBA will be a horrible exercise in predictability and fetid stories. What is going to be interesting about this coming season? There are two-and-a-half teams that have a chance to win--the Lakers, the Heat, and the Celtics if they're healthy. In any given year, only a handful of contenders can entertain realistic championship dreams, but we don't always know which teams are truly elite. Further, with the final chapters all but written, this year's coming subplots will be skimmed over. Oklahoma City building, Dallas experimenting, the New Jersey reconstructing, Chicago soul searching, New York reviving, and Milwaukee goring are the sorts of stories that can color a typical NBA season. But this year, they already feel worthless. The NFL might as well extend its season to 40 weeks because no one will need to give a shit about the NBA until May.

4) It undermines the NBA. Structurally. A league losing money and filled with owners who are only intermittently competent as a group was going to experience a competitive restructuring that realigned the power and energized the competition, the narratives, and the fans. The free agency bonanza would redistribute talent in a way that created a legion of aristocratic franchises fortunate enough to have secured elite players, but there would be enough tandems and new permutations to enliven the mood. Maybe LeBron would blaze a path from Newark to Brooklyn with Carlos Boozer at his side while Amare and Wade ran the South, Bosh and Joe Johnson made the Clippers relevant, Ray Allen gave the Bulls their missing sniper, and Dirk opted for a larger stage and doppelganger in New York. The details don't matter; make up your own fairy tale. You get the point, though. This was supposed to give the NBA a unique commodity: widespread elite competition, parity among a full upper tier, not just a small few looming pillars of strength.

But LeBron has gone and fucked that all up. Now, the Association looks like a joke, a place where three individuals have held seemingly everyone hostage. New York's rebuilding is a sideshow. Prokhorov's participation in Russia's insidious spying mission in America is something to track tepidly. Who even cares what the Clippers do now? The whole league has been submarined by LeBron, whose hubris these last few weeks has been ugly and costly. Outside of Miami, who will be left rooting for LeBron, especially after his made-for-TV drama? An NBA diehard, I am so disillusioned. This doesn't feel right or fun. This feels terrible.

5) It insults history. No matter what happens, Miami's legacy will come with an unofficial asterisk that is never recorded but always in full view for anyone who truly cares about basketball. You thought the Celtics of recent vintage were somewhat suspect? They look plucky today. The Miami Frankensteins are about to terrorize the league using synthesized spare parts, and everyone will remember them for the player collusion which enabled this ugly creation. No one is going to look worse than LeBron. Forget spurning his hometown. He spurned the whole league. Happy to reduce teams and players to supplicants, LeBron wielded all that power...to turn his back on forging his own legacy. He chose against being his own man, and that will harm him in ways that far exceed whatever you want to say about Oscar needing Kareem.

And about that. If Miami wins two, or three, or four titles, I hope that no self-respecting fan anoints LeBron as a historical equivalent of Michael, Magic, Larry, and them. Those are NBA greats who sacrificed, who struggled, who worked to impose their will, believing that ultimately they would find a way to emboss the designs for a title with their unique signatures. LeBron has chosen otherwise, shrinking from the obligations of true greatness. This is a herb move for a man who will remain lost despite a new direction.

Feel free to focus on the positives, or to disagree entirely. But hear this: LeBron has committed a crime against himself, against the league, and against history. He just fucked it all up.

D-D-uh-Dallas, take us the fuck out of here:

Boy, Stop!

This isn't even a surprising picture, is it?

My dirtiest hip-hop secret is that I don't particularly love Outkast. I never have, and as time has marched on, it has become the kind of supposed blemish that eclipses even ill-considered purchases like my Bishop "U Know U Ghetto" maxi single.

To be clear, I like Outkast. I respect Outkast. I admire Outkast. I value Outkast. Over the course of their collaboration, Big Boi and Andre have made music that has been superlative, creative, and influential. They've each ripped verses that embody nearly everything nice that music critics like to recite when explaining why lyrics standout on their own. Similarly, they've flowed; they've created moods; they've selected beats; they've taken risks. Anything that great rap groups have ever done well, or for which great rap groups have earned our esteem and acclaim, Outkast has done. Just as Outkast has helped tear down the synthetic walls between hip-hop and mainstream culture as well as anyone. Find something nice to think about a rap act and then give Outkast a gold star for having earned it. I am sure it's warranted. They're great. I know.

John Stockton was great, too, and I never really loved him, either. Sometimes, sounds hit your ear a certain way and you just don't prefer them in the same way that you prefer others, despite recognizing their quality. That's been my relationship with Outkast--I've spent my life aware of the ineffable, inscrutable barrier than separates them from my heart, no matter how happy I am to accept their objective achievement. Some of the records have had great songs but haven't avoided the valleys of a discordant moment, or a sequence of tracks that make my interest wane. Others have offered so much music, imagination, and risk that I've resented the time spent cultivating the failures at the expense of the successes. It has just always been something, and whatever my problem with Outkast is, it has kept the group on the shelf just below the one where I store my De La Soul, Roots, Tribe, and Wu-Tang music. Sorry. Deal with it.

My other dirty Outkast secret--though this one is less likely to elicit the howls--is that I have always preferred Big Boi to Andre. His voice is more complicated, the bass cut by an ever-present note of mischief. His cadence is crisper, the syllables hitting harder. His flow is more direct, the sound exploding out of the speaker. His persona is cooler, the intelligence and common sense matched by the disaffected demeanor and matter-of-fact perspective. Since Stankonia, nearly everything I've read about the group has dispensed with these more precise distinctions to instead paint a simpler picture of two rappers who grew in different directions, one grounded in the hip-hop bona fides, the other soaring after fantasies in the clouds. Andre, the latter, became a media darling because any black man who is so earnestly thoughtful and then also so purposely creative--"a creative," if you will--is going to get a critic's skinny jeans wet, his self-conscious retro frames all foggy. He'd probably need to strangle himself with his own scarf just to control the enthusiasm.

Suddenly, Andre was Prince in a Brooks Brothers waistcoat, his children's cartoons, his devastating guest verses, and his ecanasia all working to remind critics that he was the deep part of Outkast, the nuanced, sensitive guy who nonetheless commanded respect in the street. Big Boi was just the other guy, and why couldn't he have the same vision instead of making that loud, sharp, vulgar Speakerboxx? When the duo split for the public's purposes, Andre took on a persona like Lauryn Hill's--the pseudo-tragic, perpetually transforming genius beyond reproach--and Big Boi was left to collect token props while he hung out with Killer Mike in relative obscurity.

Lost amid this change was that the Outkast MC who had always been so engaging was growing, as well. This isn't news to anyone who has listened to the two Purple Ribbon mixtapes that Big Boi put out with a grip of partners in 2005. Far less garish or obvious, Big Boi's modern artistic development took hold on Got That Purp?, volumes I and II. Those mixtapes were hip-hop heavy, happy to allow thudding beats and even weightier verses from MCs like Killer Mike and Bubba Sparxxx to carry them for a majority of the time. But interspersed among standard rap songs like "Get 'Em Shawty" and "Body Rock" were the playful and rollicking "Wonderful; the smooth, sanded down R&B captured on "What Is This?"; and the 80s pop compositions "U Got Me!" and "Lettin' Go." Seeking to launch a new imprint in the process, Big Boi demonstrated a broad appreciation for all kinds of sounds and the musical talent needed to pull off so many of them so well. Those Purp tapes remain great fun precisely because the same Antwan Patton who could out-rap damn near anyone also could pick out and cultivate music that recalled everyone from George Clinton and Bill Withers to Michael Jackson and the Miami Sound Machine.

Big Boi's new album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, recalls and improves upon the best of the Purple Ribbon work. Left Foot is going to be a fixture at the top of all the year-end lists. People love it. The album has earned praise for executing a vision that is different and cohesive, a certified rap album that nonetheless resembles few other hip-hop LPs. But this is nothing new for Big Boi. What does stand out, though, is the engulfing experience that Left Foot creates. While those Purple Ribbon tapes were varied and fun, they were easily picked up and then put back down. The new Big Boi is more demanding. Despite encompassing a range of styles and sounds, the record is tightly knit together, and it requires a listener to give it his full attention for its full duration to really enjoy the music. There is so much ambition within reach on Left Foot that considering it in pieces, or coming to it casually, obscures the art.

This is a gift and curse. Big Boi asks a listener to accompany him across electronic production that creates a perfect contrast for his commanding voice, bombastic choral swells cut by his soothing rhyming rhythm, lonely guitar and piano riffs isolated even when mixed with other sounds, and interludes of R&B, funk, and rock. A standard hip-hop track like "Shine Blockas" is one of the few moments when a listener can comfortably identify and anticipate what's going on. It's a nice break, although its straight-forward appeal betrays the subtle pleasures that the record's less standard music delivers. Those twists are the album's true strength: the way that Big Boi blends the styles and asks his audience to recognize just how much music it can get with is exciting. However, the drawback is that there really aren't single on Left Foot. Beyond sales, there just aren't many songs that are great when removed from the context of the record. Whereas the Roots' How I Got Over is both a large-scale experience and also a record with smaller pieces than can be pulled apart easily, Left Foot is an album whose worth is exponentially greater than the sum of its component parts.

If Left Foot asks the listener to put in work, though, that's only because it is the rare record that reflects craftsmanship, not merely something passed off as professionalism. After all, Soulja Boi is a professional rapper. Big Boi is something far greater, and Left Foot is the best evidence yet that whatever he is, Big Boi should never be relegated to Outkast's or Andre's shadows. I don't think this record makes me love Outkast, but it certainly reinforces what I've always felt about Antwan. That may not even be a dirty secret at this point.

Somewhat Taller and Talenteder

Done made a dollar out of fifteen.

Well, we're a few horses short of apocalypse. Joe Johnson is not riding through that door. Rudy Gay will not serve as the gilded vessel of New York's latest suicide. For now, the fiery visage of War appears to have arrived in Manhattan, where he's biding his time and watching the red horse graze. Were LeBron or Dwyane Wade to sign up with the Knickerbockers, it would be anything but the end of the universe, so here's where we'll set aside the eschatology and talk turkey.

Amare has cut an auspicious figure in the news media since Friday, hasn't he? He has projected strength, confidence, redefinition, and stateliness. Have you not heard? Tony and Carm are coming; basketball renaissance is coming; who is Mike Jones comin'. He's rockin' the Yankees fitted, he's going to the theater, he's strolling through Madison Square Garden like he's the honored guest at a surprise party. He's chesty right now, and the Knicks haven't had a reason to feel that way since they had Oak and Mase. We're even told that LeBron and Dwyane would like to play with Mr. Amare. According to Mr. Amare, of course. And probably Chris Broussard depending upon the hour.

Nothing about Amare coming to New York has been quiet or understated. You can't arrive in the City as some conspicuous conqueror, happily bathed in camera lights, and proceed as though you're some unassuming tourist. And yet, if proclaiming that "the Knicks are back" can be muted, that's how it sounds coming from Amare Stoudemire. Maybe not muted, but meek, rather. Sure, he has said those words and meant for them to convey triumph. He has strutted around carefree, intending to lift the mood. He has comported himself in a fashion that indicates he fully believes a new sun has risen. However, he doth protest a little too much. Stoudemire's insouciance resonates more as contrivance than assurance.

Consider the source. Amare has always been direct but opaque. He's comfortable dispensing with formality and ceremony, but that doesn't mean he champions, or even readily accommodates, transparency. There have been times when he's been openly displeased but for ill-articulated reasons. He has failed publicly but shrouded his anguish. In victory he has appeared content but not especially joyful. His physical prowess on the floor is almost a microcosm for his demeanor: so easily can he explode at the rim, absorb contact, or lose his man on defense that everything seems to roll off of him. There may be an occasional scream or the furious look of a put-upon man, but he has never been especially demonstrative. Accordingly, Amare Stoudemire doesn't have a public profile informed by any widespread appreciation for his emotional spectrum. We don't really know how to calibrate what he says or how he acts. But here he is now, tucking New York in at night, promising to provide sweet dreams and a happy tomorrow. It's weird.

Taken in concert with the whispers that appear to always surround him, this assertive Amare is even weirder. Few NBA players have so steadily seen rumors crystallize as self-fulfilled prophecies. Typically, when the nameless team and league sources that hatch most rumors have spoken about Amare--he's dissatisfied with this touches, he feels embarrassed by the coach, he doesn't remember to work on defense unless he's reminded each possession--history has ultimately validated them as prophetic. He would, indeed, want to score more, to be given more leeway, to have a helpful reminder. The Suns would lose, or the Suns would win despite tension beneath the surface, and eventually whatever had been said about Amare would be confirmed and then accepted as convention. Sometimes the order would be reversed. But always, Amare appeared to be a rogue, a player divorced from any agency over his destiny by the screaming whispers that proceeded nearly everything he did, said, or endured. His rehab was slow; his conditioning was off; his attitude was bad. Usually, these truths would reveal themselves, but the narrative framework infantilized Stoudemire in the process, rendering him an obstinate and naive NBA child.

But here he is, now, a self-possessed man intent on leading a new franchise to the promised land.

If he does that, he'll have to use a reconstructed eye, knee, and, perhaps, attitude. Ultimately, those suspected infirmities are the most damning, and the most fertile ground for the skepticism that has bloomed amidst his resplendent arrival. The Knicks may well be back, but nothing Stoudemire has done, nor nothing that Stoudemire has been, allows us to accept him at his word. Skeptics understand his language--verbal and otherwise--but can't trust that he means it. And even if he is sincere and not merely playing the free-agent game, there is not yet a record of success that can easily allay legitimate concerns.

So despite the arrival of something different and better, this Knicks offseason remains beyond any true measurement. Who knows what this commodity really is? If Amare, consciously or otherwise, convinces LeBron James or Dwyane Wade to sign with New York, his contract, which is both massive and conceived in relative haste, seems far less expensive, and perhaps even a smart bargain. If the Knicks cannot attract another premier player, Amare's cost goes up. If the Knicks instead spend remaining cap room on the Mike Millers and Ray Ray Feltons of the world, then Stoudemire, who would become the de facto centerpiece of the franchise, seems like a reckless, speculative, uninsurable bet. There is no such thing as a credit-default swap in free agency. (Though the Knicks should seek to add one into the next CBA.)

And, of course, we need to deal with that--the CBA. Various reports have said that LeBron James is intrigued by the prospect of the Knicks' "plan" to sign Stoudemire this season and then add Carmelo Anthony in 2011. Only, calling that scheme a "plan" is a generous, and perhaps unfortunate, use of the word. Carmelo Anthony has a stark choice to make right now: accept Denver's lucrative extension or embrace free agency next year, despite an impending new CBA that is expected to reduce the amount of money players can earn, overall and individually. If the percentage of basketball-related income players can enjoy goes down, so, too, will maximum contracts. By declining the existing extension offer, Carmelo would be leaving a lot of money on the table. So that's obstacle #1. The Knicks also would have to hope that after choosing to walk away from a sure thing and much more money, Carmelo would opt to move across the country, change teams, and install himself as a clear second option after years of leading his own team. That's a plan in name only.

Amare has enjoyed his greatest success while playing alongside Steve Nash. Rather than banking on a LeBron-Carmelo miracle, and rather than spending for the sake of putting its cap space to any old use, the Knicks would be smartest to seek out the highest likely return on their Amare investment by finding an elite point guard. With Eddy Curry's expiring contract and Chris Paul's discontent, Donnie Walsh should be harassing New Orleans every day. The Hornets, who might also want to unload the debt obligation known as Emeka Okafor's contract, would perhaps listen to a reasonable offer, especially if worn down over time. Any team with Paul, Gallinari, Stoudemire, and Okafor would be competitive, exciting, and built for credible title contention. If that plan didn't work, the Knicks could move on to another primary ballhandler. Inspiring that sort of measured, thoughtful decision making would instantly enhance Stoudemire's legacy and begin to back up his energized posturing. The process might also fill in what is a fairly blank canvas, despite all the colors already strewn across it.