Bay Luv

Here's a mix I did at a good friend's recent birthday party. It's a bunch of mostly 90s-era Bay Area gangsta rap featuring the likes of Too $hort, the Luniz, Mac Dre, Mac Mall, Cellski, E-40, JT the Bigga Figga, San Quinn, Dubee, IMP, RBL Posse, Dangerous Dame and 11/5. Hope you enjoy it, whoever you may be.

My Favorite Albums of 2012

While it's already 2013, the new year is less than a week old, so I think it's still reasonable to talk about my favorite albums from the year that just ended. In terms of new music, I listened to rap almost exclusively in 2012, so that's what dominates this list. Here are my favorite albums from the past year in no particular order.

A$AP Mob, Lord$ Never Worry: It seems that you either love or hate A$AP Rocky. Personally, I enjoy most of the songs he's released thus far, regardless of the fact that he basically swagger-jacked Houston rap. But Rocky isn't the reason I loved this tape - A$AP Ferg is, which I've made no secret about. This tape didn't make any of the year-end lists I've seen and Fergie doesn't seem to be too critically acclaimed, but I'll be damned if his crazy raps aren't fresh to me.

Chief Keef, Finally Rich: This one totally surprised me. I loved "I Don't Like" and Keef's song with Fat Trel, but I wasn't sure how a full album of Chief Keef would be. Turns out it's pretty fucking great. And it's probably even better if you're on drugs, but I wouldn't know for sure. You definitely won't improve your IQ by listening to this though.

Van Halen, A Different Kind of Truth: Some people I know who are more rabid Van Halen fans than me and more knowledgable about rock didn't like this album at all. Sure, Diamond Dave has lost some range and some of the music is decades old and Michael Anthony and his falsetto are nowhere to be found, but anytime the brothers Van Halen and David Lee Roth make new music and it's not terrible, I'll eat it up. Maybe my ear isn't too discerning, but I listened to this album again this past week and it's still enjoyable to me, so it's presence on this list isn't merely for nostalgia sake.

Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE: Nothing I can say about this album that hasn't been said better elsewhere. This was basically the soundtrack to my summer. The music was much more exciting than anything I did.

Waka Flocka Flame, Salute Me Or Shoot Me 4: This is what Triple F Life should've been: a bunch of hard ass beats and yelling. I'm glad Waka still has this type of music in him. This shit knocks in the car too, and makes you drive with greater abandon, which isn't really a good thing. Be careful.

Cousin Fik, Sickest N***a Healthy: I just found out about this album within the last month and this and Chief Keef are pretty much all I've been listening to since then. I've always liked Fik and I really enjoyed his Hacksaw Ben Thuggin album from 2011. I'm not quite sure how Sickest and his Tonight Show tape came out this year and I missed them until recently, but I'm glad I finally found out about them.

I probably could've thrown on Roach Gigz for Bugged Out and iamsu! for either KILT or the more recent $uzy 6 $peed, but as much as liked those albums I didn't bump them that much last year.

So that's about it. I'm hoping I can add the new Tegan and Sara album to the 2013 version of this list.

Get In Your Skin Like a Dermatologist

A$AP Rocky is nothing new to the blogosphere and neither is his fellow A$AP Mob member A$AP Ferg, who just happens to be my favorite new rapper of 2012. He's a borderline lyrical genius. Listening to his verses is like listening to an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo...if Eddie was on lean and listened only to mid-90s Memphis rap. Not to take anything away from the rest of A$AP Mob, but Fergie's songs/verses are the clear highlights of the A$AP catalog in my opinion. With that in mind, I decided to make a little greatest hits mix of all the Ferg songs and features I have. Nothing too fancy, just some easy listening crazy ass rapping. Check out the mix here.

Image via who-shot-ya.com

The Best Album of 2012 and Why the Niners Didn't Win the Super Bowl

I finally figured out why the Niners had to lose the NFC Championship. First of all, if they had beaten the Giants, like they should have, they would've gone on to handily defeat the Patriots and Tom Brady's handsomeness in the Super Bowl. Then I would have been super happy. But then two days later (today) the new Van Halen album would've come out and I would've listened to it and found out that it sounds like vintage David Lee Roth-era Van Halen, which would've totally blown my mind. The Niners winning the Super Bowl and Van Halen making a legitimately great album in 2012 clearly would have combined to kill me with joy. Thus, the Niners had to lose because they didn't want me to die. Thank you, Kyle Williams, you saved my life.

Go buy A Different Kind of Truth by Van Halen right now, otherwise you don't love America.

Image via moviespad.com.

My Favorite Albums of 2011

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If It Isn't Love On Top

What the shit, Beyonce? You jacked New Edition's dance moves for your VMA performance, and then you use them again in the actual video too! In a rehearsal studio, no less. I've seen this video before and it was better when Ralph Tresvant was singing lead. Paying homage to the greatest R&B video of all time is all well and good, but at least give New Edition some credit in the video so all the youngsters know where you got your moves from.

Be the judge yourself, here's Beyonce's video for "Love On Top":



Here's the original, far superior New Edition video for "If It Isn't Love":



Also, here's where Beyonce got her moves at 1:21 of "Love on Top" (O:51 of "Every Little Step"):



I will say that Beyonce's T&A > Ralph T.

Also, special thanks to Juanito for the title to this post.

My Favorite Albums of 2010

Before we get too far into 2011, I wanted to write a post about my favorite albums of 2010. Initially, I planned on listing all the albums I thought were good that I came across in 2010, but that list was getting kind of long and who am I to judge what's good and what's not? So here's a list of the albums I listened to and enjoyed the most in 2010. I tend to fixate on an album if I like it a lot, so this list isn't terribly long, and it's not organized in any particular order.

Big. K.R.I.T., K.R.I.T. Wuz Here: This was a free mixtape released digitally in the summer of 2010. I discussed it previously on this blog, but basically it's much closer to a legitimate album than merely a mixtape, and was received as such, with Big K.R.I.T. ultimately getting a record deal with Def Jam based on Wuz Here's success.

Die Antwoord, $O$: Another album I discussed in the post linked above. My sense is you either love Die Antwoord or you hate them. Clearly, I fall in the former category, but I can definitely understand that these guys aren't for everyone. I still love this song and this one too.

Das Racist, Shut Up, Dude: Another free digital mixtape that has been on heavy rotation for me since I first downloaded it. From what I've read on message boards, it doesn't seem like internet rap nerds think these dudes are that technically proficient at rapping, which I don't necessarily agree with, but even if they aren't they more than make up for it with their subject matter and wordplay. Just about every time I listen to a Das Racist track I pick up on another arcane reference, and they have some classic lines, i.e. "white people's skin is their jewelry". Das Racist also released a second free mixtape in 2010, Sit Down, Man, which isn't bad by any means, but Shut Up, Dude is my favorite for tracks like this and this.

Sleigh Bells, Treats: The debut album from this Brooklyn-based "noise pop" duo, is hard as fuck. I saw them live opening for Hot Chip and my ears were ringing for at least two days afterward, which isn't that great of thing for my long-term health, I suppose. I actually think i like their "softest" song the most (who doesn't love a song with a girl singing "666"?), but the heavier songs aren't any less appealing and they sound great blasting in your car.

Yelawolf, Trunk Muzik: Yet another free digital mixtape that got, and still gets, heavy rotation from me. I discussed this in that one post along with Wuz Here and $O$, and I'm getting sick of typing, so I won't go into too much detail here. Plus, Yelawolf has been getting a lot of press lately after signing to Eminem's label and following the release of his official ablum, which is basically a re-worked Trunk Muzik.

There you have it; those are the albums that served as the majority of the soundtrack to my 2010. There were plenty of other albums from 2010 that I thought were pretty good, including, but not limited to: Sufer Bloods' Astro Coast; The Jacka & Lee Majors' The Gobots 2.0; PRGz's Hood Headlinaz Vol. 2; Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Fantasty; Mark Ronson's Record Collection; E-40's double album; Reflection Eternal's Revolutions Per Minute; Big Boi's Sir Lucious Left Foot...; Vampire Weekend's Contra and Roc Marciano's Marcberg.

Image via NH7.

I Used to Sell Mixtapes...

Kinda, but not really. I did, however, make an "underground hip-hop" mixtape sometime around 1998. It features a lot of the groups I was listening to back then: Living Legends, Freestyle Fellowship, C.V.E, Goodie Mob, Outkast, Bored Stiff, Organized Konfusion and some other artists I've since forgotten and most people haven't even heard of. I made it on an old analog 4-track and then burned it to CD using what is now an obsolete CD-burner. I made a handful of actual cassette tape copies and made a half-assed attempt to sell them, but mostly the original CD copies just sat in a random binder for the last decade or so. Then sometime last year an old friend started a new website, mixcrate.com, where DJs can upload digital copies of their mixes and anyone can listen. If you want to download the mix you just need to sign up for a free membership. In addition to my mediocre mix, there a ton of really great mixes by some of the top mix DJs around. If anyone is reading this and likes music, you should go check out mixcrate.com right now.

And if anyone is interested, here are the links to my mixes (remember it was originally an actual mixTAPE, so it has two sides): Side A & Side B