November 21, 2008

• No one needs to tell you these days that the rap game's life support is money, bravado, and a bit of misogyny. However, I have my eyes on Chamillionaire and Ludacris. They recently came out with a single. The content has totally been dumped down, but, as someone said, Ultimate Victory had decent content and it didn't sell. So, of course, the single has to be simple bravado to catch attention. However, Cham has a bit of wordplay, which is nice. Ludacris, however, uses none (that I caught) and his rhyme scheme wasn't that impressive. Not to say that he cannot spit. He's one of the few mainstream rappers who actually can use decent wordplay.

  To be honest, my evalutation of rap has risen the bar so quickly within the past 6 months that I'm still trying to run up and catch it. A lot of what I used to enjoy I'm starting to wonder why it couldn't be better. Not to say that there isn't a lot of good rap out there. You just have to find it. You may have to sacrifice the nice sounding beats, but good lyricism is out there.

  Which brings me to my own hesitive album, which is set back further than before. Reasonable Doubt is daunting to try to match (yes, I probably will refer back to this album a million times in my life).

  I've decided to make a slight tribute to Biggie with a similar intro. to Ready to Die. Biggie's intro. started with a heart beat. As the sound slowly increases, you hear the husband telling the wife to push. As you start to hear crying (due to Biggie's birth), Superfly starts to play. As it that fades out with the screams of joy from the father, The Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight starts to play. Layed over this are Biggie's parents; reflecting a troubled home, the father comes in screaming at the mother, demanding she control her son. In retaliation to the abuse, the mother curses the father out. Nothing gets resolved as the cusses and the song fade out once more. Audio Two's Top Billin' comes in as B. I. G. and a handiman argue over robbing a train. In an epic fashion, this closes out with Biggie shouting, "Everybody get on the motherf-ing floor!" and letting off a shot. After this fades, Snoop Dogg's Tha Shiznit (whose beat is a lot more appealing in sound than the title) comes in, followed by Biggie's name and cell number. It ends with the guard telling B. I. G. that he's be back to jail, all blacks eventually wind up there, to which Bigge just laughs, saying that he has "big plans".

  As you can see, quite cinematic. The other appealing aspect of it is the reality of it all. While not entirely sure how I'll put it all together, the intro. I have so far is Dr. Jekyll talking about dual personalities. After this, there will be similar birth. Since a good deal of the album will deal (and already does deal) with parental influence and how you behave as a parent affects the child, the intro. will have a fight between the mother and father as well. Instead of a train robbery, however, I think it'll be an attempted homicide on the parents. The argument will be between the two personalities that will emerge later as the insanity sets in. While it'll fade out before you know if anyone gets hurt, the parents will survive, I think. They'll play a part later. For the final portion, instead of jail, the scene will open up in a mental ward with the doctor talking to the main character; he/she will be reading off the mental illnesses the main character will have gotten over. I still need to figure out what songs to use during these scenes, however. I do have a feeling D12's Revelation will be used for the 3rd scene.

  The album then proceeds to follow "Dr. Jekyll's" life. Which of course brings forth the other problem. I've cut most of what I've recorded thus far. I have kept the Train remix, Conversation In Song, my un-titled one that's one long verse, and the Miseria Cantare remix. I have kept my other one, which I posted the lyrics to multiple times on her before (you know, the one that took me about 2 years to finish, has the warning before it, and is basically simply bitter (though lyrically, it's quite good)). The Bitch Please remix (off Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP) is really more like filler, but I actually stick with the beat decently (Train was near impossible to get a decent flow with the beat; I rather suck at it, unfortunately) and there's a bit more emotion than I usually put when I perform (something I do need to work on). Plus, despite the content, my verse is funny at points, and rhyme-wise it is good.

  I just need to step back and take a look at the content I want to put out. And my delivery needs a lot more help. I get off of the beat so easily, let alone I tend to sound monotone all too often. I suppose that's part of the drawback from starting with just writing and not bothering with performing to begin with. But oh well, I'll just work with it. It'll be a long route until it's finished, but it'll be a ton of fun to work on, undoubtedly.

  • 5:11 pm
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