Six Alternates For Time's "Person Of The Year," Five Good Rap Videos, And One Great Heavy Metal...
Six Alternates For Time’s “Person Of The Year,” Five Good Rap Videos, And One Great Heavy Metal Video
People that would definitely not be named “Person of the Year” by Philadelphia rappers Black Deniro and Freeway:
1) The “Twitter Thug”
2) The “Fake Baller”
3) The “Bougie Chick”
4) The “Phone Gangster”
5) The “Goon Rat”
6) The “Sneaky Groupie”
Man, I love this video. The song is basically Ludacris’ “Move Bitch” combined with Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” but I really like it anyway. That’s mostly due to the presence of Freeway, I suppose, for whom I’m a well-established geekdork fanboy. But the video is maybe even better than the song. With its silly concept and super-outdated computer effects (Look, there’s Freeway rapping through a bullhorn! And now, suddenly, for no apparent reason other than that someone on the production team knows how to do it, he’s underwater, in James Cameron’s The Abyss!) it hits that sublime sweet spot for ridiculous fun. And as always, Freeway’s rapping is super-terrific.
Houston’s venerable Bun B references that same Cameron effect — “My liquid flow is plasma/Terminator 2/I’ll terminate a crew or two to say I paid a due…” — over the lovely piano, organ and strings of “Never a Dull Moment” from Lawrence, Massachusett’s Statik Selector. Statik’s hometown partner Termanology joins in, as well, along with the increasingly irresistable Queens gourmand, Action Bronson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xELE-dYL_AQ
Pharell Williams has given T.I. a total gold-star Neptunes beat for his upcoming album. And a very strong vocal verse, too. And then he dressed up like Billy Idol or something for the video. Somehow, oddly, even that works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5mSBisOMAQ
Detroit’s Danny Brown has been making a lot of videos lately for songs from his XXX album, which is ending up on a lot of “best of 2011” lists, and rightfully so. He is talented and deranged and someone made him a customized Monopoly board, which, that’s pretty cool.
Lastly, I’m surprised how much I like this one from Rick Ross’s old friend Gunplay. A lot of it is the nice white suit that you’d expect someone from Miami to wear when he goes down to Colombia to buy cocaine. It looks breathable. A lot of it is the lush scenery, like a Tropicalia jazz aesthetic. And a lot of it is the song itself. That beat would make anyone sound great. My mom could read me her Christmas shopping list over the phone to that beat and I’d be standing on my chair, pumping my fist. However long Ross’ Maybach Music Group producers ride these big, ominous church-bell beats, I’ll probably ride right along with them. I just never tire of the stuff. Maybe because it always reminds me of Black Sabbath. Because of the church bells at the start of “Black Sabbath,” and the overall vibe of badassness.
I wonder if there’s any way the Sabbath reunion album will be good? Seems hard to imagine. But stranger things have happened, I guess. Anyway, someone put a full, hourlong video of them playing a concert in Paris in 1970 on Youtube recently. I watched/listened to the whole thing the other night. It is so insanely awesome that even my childishly exuberant hyperbole can’t do it justice. There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world. I don’t know what to do with myself. Here’s “War Pigs” from the show, below, but you should really watch the whole thing. No one has ever ruled as hard as Sabbath, ever in the history of the universe.