Rick Ro$$

[Panch]

Man, I never really got into Rick Ross while I was in Miami, but respected his position in the Miami hip-hop game. Adam was more into him than me. I tried out his new album Teflon Don and boy was I surprised. Comparing him to Biggie really isn't fair, but this guy should be heard. Here's some notable tracks from the album...

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[The NZA]

i know a lotta dudes that got into this one, but...dude's got an ear for production, ill give him that.

past that - not saying anything, nothing special about his style, got ether'd by 50, etc. if i had to run with out mainstream local scene, he gets points for not being Pitbull, but still not my thing...but you knew that.

[Panch]

Yeah, I knew, but I was hopin'. Wouldn't have made this thread if I knew it was gonna die after 3 posts, but it looks like it's gonna happen...

[The NZA]

yeah, i plug away at my i heart hip hop thread sometimes, but we both know this isn't really the scene for that...there's a few here who dig it & might check stuff out (haku, DoJ, perhaps Logans & few others), but i go to other communities to talk hip-hop, philosophy and a few things, no harm in that. i mean, i know gunsmith goes elsewhere, but you got a few onto the sports forum, that scene barely existed here a few years back.

 

but yeah, didnt wanna just come in here & hate...again, dude knows good production (i know you disagree with me here, but i still think that's Nas' weakness sometimes).

[Panch]

Yeah, I completely disagree. Nas' production is amazing. I think people gave him shit during those two albums cause they were so commercial. While Ross isn't anyway lyrically like Nas, clearly he has street shit. He has no auto-tune. No catchy gimmicky shit. I don't know. I've heard his radio stuff only. Never a whole album and I feel like I've been missing out. I didn't think like you about Rick Ross, but I did write him off. Listen again...

[The NZA]

i haven't sat down with Teflon Don (or whatever his latest was) but ill give it a go at some point when im more caught up on my queue - @ Nas though: you take Stillmatic, and he's got great shit like 9th wonder on there. you take Streets Disciple, his last album, etc...dude is notorious or not getting the right beats. it's not the same as saying Kweli who a) has a style that mostly only works with Mos and b) doesn't have the versatility...Nas can get almost any producer to fuck with him, you know? ive heard him with Alchemist, with Pharell, with Doom & Dilla, with super well-known and super underground producers. i'll put it to you like this: 9 times out of 10, when you find yourself skipping over a filler track on these albums, is it his lyrics, his flow, or the production? for me, im saying its most often the last one...even when we both agree he gets lazy ("Mastermind", tracks like that). dont view me as saying he's shitty at it, im saying its the weak link in the experience sometimes.

 

again, ive not tried Ross' latest or the whole way through (never did check out Whodey's mixtape recommendation on Lil Wayne either, come to think of it), ill post back when i do, didnt mean to hijack your thread.

[Panch]

It's fine. This thread wouldn't get action otherwise. Yeah, usually I skip over songs on an album if the beat doesn't catch me right away. No, I'm lying. I ALWAYS give songs one go, THEN on the second or third listen I skip if the beat's not to my liking. Hooks also sometimes ruin songs for me. For example, when a song is on the borderline of being good or not, if the hook sucks I drop it (50 is the best at hooks... I can't think of an artist right now that has continuously bad hooks). Anyways... people like Nas, Eminem and 50 get passes sometimes cause I REALLY want to hear their lyrics. This used to happen with 2Pac as well. Rick Ross' lyrics are pretty good, he has great production and cool guest stars. I feel dumb for lettin' this one slide.

[The NZA]

 

this is how i see "miami's own biggie".

[Panch]

I never knew you were into 'realness' in hip hop. I was just saying cause he's fat and raps about the same stuff.

[The NZA]

they see me trollin', they hatin'

 

you're right, i try not to, but it's hard to avoid that shit - you know when a rapper goes on about this & that to death and then gets shown to not be that at all, it affects how you hear their stuff...imagine a story gets out that Jadakiss somehow went to the same private school i did and grew up on jamaican drive, you know? anyway, 50's "officer ricky" shit only worked on me cause i like 50 > ross.

that said, ive listened to a few of your tracks here but not the album yet, so i shouldn't speak on it, my bad man.

[Panch]

50 IS > than Rick Ross, but not because he 'exposed' him. That's 50's thing and honestly it's one of the things I don't like about him. It's kinda childish, really. Still, 50's 50. As far as the 'officer' thing goes, dude was a corrections officer. That takes a special breed of person. I know cause I was one. It's also why I didn't last more than 3 months. The 'officers' were more thugged out than the detainees.

[Panch]

For Nick. Nas is... fuck, I mean, damn... just listen.

http://youtu.be/ZHudPfvuUNM

 

Produced by Timbo. Hot track, but I'm posting mostly for the visual. Woah!

http://youtu.be/P1BL9MAJzH4

 

[Mortiis558]

Rick Ross > 50 That is all...

[Panch]

Explain.

[Mortiis558]

I just hate how 50 "raps" it is very monotonic and a lot of his beats are in my opinion minimal. Now I haven't listened to near all of 50's stuff, but what I have heard has not grabbed me.

 

On the other hand, I like how Rick Ross flows.

[Panch]

I can understand what you're saying, but I don't personally agree. 50 is all I want out of a rapper. Hard, arrogant and real. He's about the money. That's it. Even his "love" songs have prostitution undertones. I don't listen to music unless its the extreme. Same with rock and techno. 50 is that guy to me. Click the link below and give some of that a chance. Let me know what you think.

 

http://www.hondosbar...__fromsearch__1

[Mortiis558]

"Mean Mugs" was good. But really I am a fan of older late 80's/ early 90's gangsta rap. 50 is the epitome of the new style that I don't really like. Not to say I love Rick Ross or anything I was just saying I thought Rick Ross was a better rapper than 50. The Geto Boys are better than both of them combined.

 

I can tell you LOVE 50 Cent, and that is cool, my wife LOVES 50 cent as well. I just don't get much feeling from him for some reason.

[Panch]

I'm also a fan of "golden" era gangster rap and its the reason I love 50. To me, he is the last of of that era. A throwback. While not actually being from that era. AND you're still gonna get the best of the new. That's just my opinion.

[The NZA]

Ross still bores me, but id be lying if i said he hasn't stepped his style up a bit.

and fuck @ verse 1...hungry Nas is best Nas. i should really reign in my expectations on this next album of his.

 

ps okay having them side by side: panch how can you still argue nas' weakness isnt his ear for beats? its like Ross' ace in the hole, man!

[Panch]

Maybe somewhere I said Nas' choice of beats was weak, but I've since changed my mind (or maybe I've thought this all along, I can't remember). I LOVE Nas' production! Now, not every song on every album is tolerable, but I haven't found a Nas album that hasn't made me fall in love with him all over again every time I hear it. I know there was a couple there that were iffy, but the production wasn't the problem. It was they didn't work with his mostly underground sound and lyrics. Or, really, it was his attempt at being a commercial success that hurt those albums.

 

Ross is good, man and it ain't just his ear for beats. While Nas is from the old school of hip-hop, Rick Ross is from the new. Sometimes pure oldtimers like us can get blinded by that. He says some ill shit and he reps Miami more than anyone. But he's hood and that's global. Dudes in New Orleans used to bump the shit out of Ross. It's what made me appreciate him more. You can dislike the guy, but he's better than 75% of the crap that calls itself hip-hop nowadays. Lastly, it's not fair the comparisons to Biggie. He's no Biggie. He's just fat like him.

[The NZA]

 

...are you really gonna tell me about dudes being close-minded to new shit in hip hop?

really? hahaha ima start giving tanning advice soon. im fucking with you but you know what i'm saying here.

 

and i think it's cool that miami has a rapper that gets play beyond ATL, and again he gets work for local artists which is really cool (pitbull does this too), doesn't mean he's not boring as hell for me style/content/everything-but-production wise.

i honestly don't hate/even mind him at all. it's indifference - imagine how you change the station when something comes on that you just don't enjoy vs how fast/angry you do it when drake is on again for the 5th time that hour. i'm dong the former! if he's on the radio and the other station is doing rack rack city chick or some throwaway shit, i'll let ross play. but for me he's like the hip-hop equivalent of say, oatmeal (to borrow a page from yahve's awful food analogies™): you'll get by eating it when the cupboard's bare, and it's not even bad, but you don't go out seeking it.

[Panch]

The state of hip-hop is in a bad place, man. I'm not saying we gotta start listening to crap, but Ross is one of, ONE OF, the shining lights in this otherwise toilet we call our favorite musical genre. I'm not talking about all that obscure stuff you post in the hip-hop thread either. There's a place for that, but I'm talking radio stuff. Think of someone, ANYONE, that's not Jay or Kanye that are even doing anything listen-able. Even 50 has to get on r&b joints to stay in the mainstream. Rick Ross is all you got left. Even Wayne is going the way of his buddy Drake.

[Panch]

And I'm not closed minded man. You're calling the kettle black on this one. I give ALL forms of the genre a chance. Just cause I don't prefer your "hipster-hop" don't mean anything. You don't prefer my popular shit. I think we're at a stalemate on that.

[The NZA]

anything that isnt by an artist established nearly 10 years ago you just label "hipster". it's like you don't even use the word right - i'm not just posting dudes who recorded in an underground basement in vancouver or some shit, i'm posting stuff that's coming up huge in other regions (or even this one), but again, you've the same mindset ario gets at the club - if it's not a namebrand, file it under "underground" (for you, that's "hipster" now, which used to interchange with how you used "conscious" sometimes).

 

you're literally talking about a genre and listing either irrelevant leftovers like 50 or stuff that clear channel radio has on loop (YMCMB, ross, etc etc). you absolutely don't give "all" forms of the genre a chance, because you're legitimately unaware of entire segments - you're gonna take that as an insult but its true. some friends of my friends DJ/produce and i pretty much sample the mixtapes/b-sides and even big releases from all kinds've places - bay area is blowing up these days, but a lot've the east coast (NY) scene has moved up to canada and is trying out some new shit by reviving old sounds/styles there as well. and there's tons of shit i don't even get around to checking out either, or post here because its not the right place.

but you don't seem interested in any of that, because i dunno, it's not 50 or wayne did it before (like the simpsons).

 

you've been saying hip-hop is dead but radio hip hop hasn't been very open since it blew up in what, the early to mid 90s? it's the same as its ever been, just with a smaller playlist. a sound is popular, it blows up & gets emulated. sometimes we get lucky and talented mc's/lyricists have a hit (almost accidentally in some cases, usually due to promotion though) and that's less frequent right now, but that's all that's changed.

likewise, your accusation that i don't do mainstream is ridiculous - i listen to more of it than you, between Drake, Watch the Throne, even some Minaj shit: i literally just don't care for much Wayne's done since Carter/Drought 2/3.

 

TL;DR you frequently say "hop is dead" because you only wanna hear the radio and stuff you know already. coming at me like we're both open-minded is silly.

 

*edit haha, Flockavelli chopped & screwed came on my shit while i was writing this, that's irony.

[Panch]

This is the hipster shit I'm talkin about. Just cause it's unknown don't make it good. I believe you have NO IDEA what I know about the genre. You still think I think Busta is the shit. No. He's become the poorman's Ludacris. Getting on any track that will have him. I know about shit going on in Cali and Canada. Don't get me started on folks trying to capitalize on Drake's lightening in a bottle. Hip-hop isn't dead. It's on lifesupport. Listen close to where this genre is headed. To the techno age. Everything is electronic now. Your poor little underground acts will stay that. Underground. Unless they sell out and make Rack City Shit. Soon rap will be an afterthought and I'll be talking of the glory days of Lil Wayne. Pffft. At least in post hip-hop apocalypse you'll have plenty of that "hipster-hop" on backlog to sustain you. I won't be so lucky.