Murs is bringing the fun back to hip-hop with his zany video for "What up Tho," which is from his final collaborative album with 9th Wonder called Final Adventure.
In the clip, Murs plays the worst high school cafeteria server on the planet. Not only does he leave pubic hairs in the potato salad, he busts people in the face with whipped-cream pies. Oh, and he also starts food fights, as well.
Directed by Hobostewd, the video has an ending that will probably raise eyebrows -- it has something to do with snorting pork grinds. The clip is all kinds of food porn.
Check out Murs at the Paid Duest Festival this spring and summer.
It's always great to hear Public Enemy frontman Chuck D's baritone voice command people to "Get up" and "Stand up" and fight against social injustice.
"I ain't on nobody's Power List / I ball my fist with my audience / I raise my fist with my audience like this," spits Chuck D.
The new P.E. visual for "Get Up, Stand Up," directed by David C. Snyder, features footage of Chuck D. and his hype man Flavor Flav rocking the crowd on their U.S. tour. Brother Ali joins the duo to light a spark in our brains with his fiery rhymes.
The funky Gary G-Wiz-produced anthem "Get Up, Stand Up" is from Public Enemy's new album Get Evil vs Heroes, which is available here.
I can't stop playing Drake's newest joint, '5AM in Toronto.' Much like 'Started From the Bottom,' this Drizzy's testament of why he should be considered one of the hottest MCs in the game (no MTV).
I haven't done this a while, so let me start this up again.
Every year on Beats and Rants, I nominate one or two songs to be my "Get Money" anthem for the remaining calendar year. My ideal of a "Get Money" anthem is a song that either makes you think or motivates you to go out and achieve your dreams and accumulate that "paper" (i.e., money, greenbacks, Almighty dollar).
In 2010, Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" was my get-money anthem.
In 2013, Drake's "5AM in Toronto" is my get-money anthem. I wrote it about here at my day gig.
On the track, Drizzy takes aim at his detractors who hate from the sidelines. He throws a subliminal jab at his haters (namely Chris Brown) in one verse. “I got a gold trophy from the committee for validation / Bad press during the summer over allegations / I ain’t lyin’, my nigga, my time is money / That’s why I ain’t got time for a nigga whose time is comin'," he raps.
The Young Money rapper even takes a swipe at the much-ballyhooed "Hottest MC" list by MTV. "I made Forbes list, nigga / Fuck your list, everything’s looking gorgeous," he spits.
There are plenty of rewindable one-liners on here and they all sting. Hearing Drake be so confident and determined on this song makes this an anthem song for me. The beat is pounding, the synths are eerie and dreamy at the same time. It's a great song.
"Niggas make threats I can't hear ya / That's because I'm headed to the bank, nigga!"
Drake started from the bottom and now he's trying to win here again.
Take care.
**Oh, I also included the instrumental for your downloading pleasure. Get motivated.**
Up-and-coming rapper Apollo the Great, who is from my neck of woods of Camden, N.J., drops this head-nodding banger called "Banner Day." The Shugawater-produced track find the rapper vividly describing the crime-riddled streets of Camden, N.J.
"I'm from where niggas get murked outside of the club I'm performing in / Every other day the task is swarming in / Chink food orderin' / Another homie dead and gone again," he raps.
And yes, Camden is laying off its entire police department, so the county government can replace it with a bigger and cheaper police force. It goes into effect April 30, 2013.
Props to Apollo for flipping Drake's infectious "Started From the Bottom" hook, broken english and all. It goes:
"Y'all ain't from the bottom but we is / Y'all ain't from the bottom but my whole team really is / Rapping about some shit you never did / We rap about the shit we really live, what it is nigga."
We also have to give an R.I.P. salute to the late singer Melvin Bliss for which "Banner Year" utilizes the beat from his classic song, "Synthetic Substitution."
It's been sixteen years since we lost the great one -- Notorious B.I.G.
You know how the story goes -- On March 9, 1997, the late Brooklyn rhyme-spitter was shot and killed in Los Angeles by an unknown gunman. The murder still remains unsolved despite various people popping up with their own conspiracy theories of who committed the dastardly act.
In conclusion, Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading -- who was assigned to investigate B.I.G.’s murder case between 2006 and 2009 -- told Complex magazine that the Biggie murder case may never get solved.
Although Biggie is gone, his musical legacy continues to be remembered by fellow hip-hoppers and fans alike. They are a slew of B.I.G. tributes on the Internet, here are just a few that may interest you:
Check out Beats and Rants's Notorious B.I.G. Big-Ups Tribute in 2012.
DJ Rhude Presents “The Notorious 9"
DJ Rude always wondered what if Biggie would sound like it he rapped on today's producers' hot beats. That experiment comes to fruition on his Notorious 9 EP. The collection features the late Frank White spitting bars over popular beats by hit-makers No I.D., Large Professor, Harry Fraud, the Alchemist, Jahlil Beats and a few others.
Watch: The Notorious B.I.G. & Puff Daddy live in London in March 1995. (Courtesy of Tim Westwood)
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