February 2012
1 post
Nothing Like This © J Dilla
Today is the sixth anniversary of the passing of James Dewitt Yancey, a man widely acknowledged by many as the greatest Hip Hop producer ever. We knew him as Jay Dee and later on J Dilla to avoid confusion with contemporary Hip Hop & R&B producer Jermaine Dupri. The game hasn’t been the same since Dilla passed away. The first time it really hit me that Jay Dee was actually killing...
January 2012
2 posts
Born Into The 90's © R. Kelly & The Public...
I previously touched on the era that led to the birth of the original backpackers (1990 & 1991) as it was a transition period between the First Golden Era Of Hip Hop (1986-89) and what would eventually become the Second Golden Age Of Hip Hop (1992-96) in a piece called “A B-Boy’s Alpha © Cannibal Ox (The Evolution Of the Backpacker 1991-2011)”. I went into depth about the...
Top 100 Hip Hop/Rap Albums Of 2011 (According To...
I’ve grown to abhor doing these end of year lists. I’m currently entering my 6th year of Hip Hop blogging and as opposed to becoming a celebration of the best and often most overlooked Hip Hop releases of the year, it’s merely a long list of albums that were largely ignored by the majority of Hip Hop fans and Rap music listeners. I see these lists differently because of the...
December 2011
2 posts
Survivin' In The 80's © Andre Cymone
This particular post was inspired by my younger brother and I watching the documentary “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” yesterday with his sister (my niece) yesterday afternoon. While I was born in 1975 & he was born in 1978 we were well aware of this era and what happened through our mom and older siblings (our eldest sister was born in 1967 and our eldest brother was...
Enjoy The Silence © Depeche Mode
Twas the weekend before “undun” dropped and all through the Hip Hop bloggerverse sites are posting videos from it and Twitter is alight with talk of the album, including shining review after shining review of it. However, on some of these sites, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. This is odd given that when other major label album dropped these same sites either heavily...
November 2011
3 posts
Tags, Throwups & Pieces: Another Extended Blogging...
In the world of graf writing as in the world of blogging there are different philosophies as how to go from being a toy to becoming All City or attaining the title of King. In graf you can bomb relentlessly with tags displaying your your unique handstyle opt for throwups to save time and get up quicker and more frequently and when time and space are no issue, put effort towards banging out a...
Why There More Than Likely Won’t Be Another...
One of the biggest complaints I hear from heads that can recall the two previous Golden Eras of Hip Hop is that mainstream/major label Rap/Hip Hop has strayed too far from what made many of us initially fall in love with it. Now, it’s almost 2012 and things still aren’t getting any better. If anything it seems things may be getting exponentially worse for Rap music quality wise. For those of us...
What Happens To A Dream Deferred? © Langston...
I was in the 7th grade at Boston Latin School and my big brother Dave and his friends were picked to be in a Black History showcase. In it, the showcase ended with the acting out of the famous Lorraine Hansberry play. The sad part is while my mother and sister both had the book I’d never even attempted to read it. I remember catching pieces of the movie with Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee in...
October 2011
2 posts
Everything Is Everything © Donnie Hathaway
Let me rehash my day for you all. First off, it’s a holiday so there’s no mail. Secondly, I’m watching my nephew for the extended weekend. Third, benefits don’t kick in until the 11th and it’s the 10th so I can’t shop for food until tomorrow and I’m down to three slices of bread in the loaf so only the nephew gets the luxury of having toast with his...
Dig! © Ondi Timoner
Nostalgia has all but been ruined by advances in modern technology. There was a time growing up when I was convinced that there were things or details from my past that I’d never be able to find again. Things, products and items that would just go completely forgotten about as the years passed. Now even trivial minutiae can be looked up, searched for and found thanks to search engines....
September 2011
1 post
Things Fall Apart © Chinua Achebe
It’s finally over. The dread I’ve been feeling for the past four weeks came to a head earlier tonight. I’m familiar with this feeling, actually. Growing up in Boston being a Red Sox fan I’ve had it often. The last time I had it was back in October 2003, I almost forgot what it felt like. Back then Red Sox fans expected everything to go wrong. They HOPED things would go...
August 2011
8 posts
25 Hip Hop Album Fails Complex Forgot To...
First off, let me just say that I was more than pissed off at a fair amount of the selections on Complex’s recent list of “The Worst Rap Album Fails” which was compiled and written by Chris Yuscavage.
In particular, the inclusions of albums such as Eric B. & Rakim’s “Don’t Sweat The Technique”, Brand Nubian’s “Everything Is...
100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life (Compiled...
Here we go! This is the final edition of the “100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life” series. Rather than just pick 100 random songs from Hip Hop history, I decided to back back through my life as really think about the songs that influenced me on a personal level throughout my young life.
Most young people get into music between the ages of 9-13, during this time they begin to develop their...
100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life (Compiled...
In this edition of “100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life” we are now deeply entrenched in what has been unanimously considered the first Golden Age of Hip Hop music. During this time in Rap music there were numerous innovators and greats in direct competition at all facets of the artform.
Whether it be lyricism, production or in terms of DJ’ing every discipline had reached it’s apex it...
100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life (Compiled...
The last edition of “100 Jawns That Changed My Life” covered the years of 1983 to 1985. During this time, Hip Hop and Rap went from being a subculture that some thought was a fad to a national then global phenomenon after the fallout from the release of two seminal Hip Hop films, “Style Wars” & “Wild Style”.
After these two movies were released, Hollywood and Madison Avenue came calling....
100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life (Compiled...
I will continue with my introspective, semi autobiographical and chronological countdown of 100 Hip Hop jawns that changed my life. The first 20 songs spanned the years of 1979 to 1983 and these 20 cover the years of 1983 to 1985. Why is that? Simple, because the first steady wave of consistent LP releases began in 1984, after Hip Hop broke nationally post the spread of the seminal...
100 Hip Hop Jawns That Changed My Life (Compiled...
This is not a list of the greatest Hip Hop songs ever. Nor is it a list of the songs with the greatest beats or lyrical content. This list is deeply personal and autobiographical. Writing has helped me to overstand myself and through writing I can more easily understand the world around me. I think, therefore I am and I am, therefore I write. That being said I first felt the need to do this post...
Dart’s Next 50 Favorite Cult Films Of The Internet...
My last post was fueled mostly by anger and it showed. People keep congratulating me for it but I didn’t think I did that good a job on it personally. I decided to instead write about something I actually loved for a change and resurrect one of my old series’ from Poisonous Paragraphs that I began way back in 2007.
I haven’t done a cult movies list since December 2009 so I...
Watch The Throne But Mind The Gap...
I’ve been dreading this day for a long time now. Ever since Kanye West & Jay-Z began the serious push for “Watch The Throne” once the cover art was revealed more than a month ago. I saw it and I immediately thought of when I saw the many different versions of Kanye West’s cover art. This album was simply not made with me in mind. When I finally heard the album, my...
July 2011
3 posts
BOOK REVIEW: The BeatTips Manual by Amir "Sa'id"...
I’ve been obsessed with the field of Hip Hop production since the 1st Golden Era of Hip Hop (1986-1989) so it should come as no surprise that I’d be interested in reading the “The BeatTips Manual”. From the opening chapter it was apparent that this isn’t the average book about Hip Hop production.
As opposed to approaching the subject from a purely academic standpoint removed from the culture....
Hollywood Shuffle © Robert Townsend
Back in the Summer of 1986, my sister had finished her freshman year at Wellesley College and she brought her schoolbooks back with her. One of them being this thick yellow book about the long and storied history of Black cinema. I read that book from cover to cover and I became acquainted with Oscar Michaeux and his pioneering plus I found out about all of the work Melvin Van Peebles had to put...
Project: Wideawake © Chris Claremont & Bob McLeod
On August 26th, I’ll officially enter my 5th year of blogging. The game has changed dramatically from the days back when I used to read Soul Sides, Vinyl Athletes, Broke B-Boys, Eric’s Archives, DaveyD.com, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Cocaine Blunts, B Side Wins Again, DallasPenn.com, Rappers I Know, Wake Your Daughter Up and Rock The Dub. See, these blogs had something to...
June 2011
1 post
Game Of Thrones © George R.R. Martin
The last time we were in a Hip Hop Golden Age (1992-96) was also the last time there was a great amount of quality competition at the major label level of Hip Hop/Rap music. At the top of that widespread competition was the Hip Hop battle royale for the once mythical title “King Of New York”.
The original King Of New York concept was derived from Abel Ferrara’s 1990 cult...
May 2011
2 posts
Take It Personal © Gang Starr
Few of you that follow this blog now know that around the same time I’d originally decided to go back into having a personal blog (I’d discontinued Poisonous Paragraphs New Years Day 2010 in order to focus all of my efforts on Bloggerhouse), the news came down that Guru was in a coma. I scrapped all my previous blog ideas after hearing that. I was in complete shock.
Since...
I'm A Fuckin' Walking Paradox. No, I'm Not! ©...
I’m often asked how to become a successful blogger. I usually answer “Do the opposite of whatever you see me do”. I also often get asked why I haven’t cracked the so-called blogger ceiling after almost 5 years of nonstop writing. I know why. It’s because I’m too fuckin’ awesome and people are just jealous of me.
It’s because the entire Hip Hop...
April 2011
3 posts
No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn © Beastie Boys
If you read my previous post “I Wonder If Heaven Got A Fat Beats?”, I was trying to make it to New York at some point during the final week it’s retail store in Manhattan was still in existence. I didn’t succeed. I then vowed to make it to New York for any of the Dilla events or the Beat* Society showcase in February. That didn’t happen, either. Folks probably...
Said The People © Dinosaur Jr.
My last post was about how the way we once came into contact and were once exposed to music changed dramatically in a 5 year span (1996-2001). This post is about one of the byproducts which prompted me to go a tangent that resulted in a 5000 word Tumblr blog that no sane person would dare even attempt to read. It’s about music in film and television and how it affects the listener and in...
Things Done Changed © Notorious B.I.G.
Back in the days, we are all exposed to music in an extremely different way than we are currently. For one thing, you could turn on the radio and be exposed to new music enough where the average fan kept a blank tape in their radios for pause tape purposes to capture those new songs. For the same token, folks with VCR’s (and cable) used to keep a videotape in the VCR for when a new video...
February 2011
2 posts
I'm Not There © Todd Haynes
It happened again. XXL Magazine recently revealed it’s 2011 Freshman cover and in all honesty I’m in shock that it might actually be worse than all the previous ones. This is discouraging to me because I felt as though since my blogging career started almost 5 years ago I was making some headway in the Hip Hop publishing world. All I need as proof to the contrary is this magazine...
Hole In The World © Eagles
As we all know within the Hip Hop community there’s a stretch of 8 days between February 7th to February 15th where we acknowledge the lives, art and works of three of the greatest luminaries in Hip Hop history. Those three artists are James “Jay Dee AKA J Dilla” Yancey, Christopher “Big Punisher” Rios and Lamont “Big L” Coleman. I often find this...
January 2011
3 posts
A B-Boy's Alpha © Cannibal Ox (The Evolution Of...
I’ve written about how the “Backpacker” went from becoming a term that meant “thugged out Hip Hop head” to “cornball indie Hip Hop purist” in the past. Now I’m going to explain how the “Backpacker” came into being in the first place.
Let’s first retrace our steps and go back to the end of the end of the 1st Golden Era Of Hip...
The Limits Of Control © Jim Jarmusch
Things are broken. The industry is failing. The current business model is simply not working. The artists the media are forced to write about are exceedingly mediocre. Remember when awards shows used to be looking forward to because it was a showcase for the best and most talented artists to perform alongside the most popular artists of the day? Well, awards show nowadays have completely lost...
Recovery © Eminem
As I’ve mentioned before in a previous post, the one thing that separates men from animals is the fact that they’re “time binders”. Men feel the innate need to catalog and keep records of past and current dates and events. I’m no different. Back when a music fan could actually be introduced to new music via the radio or Viacom owned music video stations I made it a...
November 2010
3 posts
The Future Is Now © Non Phixion
In the past few months, buzz surrounding the young crew of California emcees and producers collectively known as Odd Future Wolf Gang has spread like wildfire. Not only have they amassed quite a following via free albums released through OddFuture.com but they’ve also captured the imaginations of Hip Hop oldheads as well. This is actually quite intriguing since we oldheads typically hate...
Strange Days AKA When Parody Met Reality
I am thoroughly confused by the present day as a whole. Why lie? The lines have completely blurred and I have trouble determining reality from parody in today’s music and entertainment industries. Things that people use to joke about as extremes are often happening and being passed off on us as our regular entertainment. Is this an alternate reality? Are we through the looking glass? Has...
The Rap Game Is On Steroids AKA Dart Adams Is A...
Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday” has been making the rounds with the Bloggerati for a least a week and it hit the internets between one and two days ago. The general consensus is that Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday” sucks. The project’s buzz was enormous. Nicki Minaj also broke a Billboard record for having the most songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same...
October 2010
1 post
What Was That? An Exhibition? We Need Emotional...
I’ve noticed that in recent years the aesthetic of what an emcee is supposed to be like and sound like has changed drastically from what it’s been in the past. So much so that emcees and rappers from bygone eras still in the game look at the rappers out now in disgust and sometimes even disbelief. Even older fans aren’t immune. They just don’t understand what the new...
September 2010
2 posts
Everything Is Illuminated © Jonathan Safran Foer
I tend to take things seriously that the overwhelming majority of people could give less than a fuck about. I get frustrated and rant at the drop of a dime about subjects that make others stop and wonder to themselves “What the fuck set him off now?”. I usually write mad because something has to move me enough to write about it. Either that or something I saw or heard recently...
Where Da Ladies At?
Recently BET aired a documentary called “My Mic Sounds Nice” addressing the history of female emcees as well as their sudden scarcity of in today’s major label Rap industry. The main issue I had with the documentary was that it was only an hour so it only scratched the surface and that it comes from a network that has done zero to help with the issue at all.
Being a Hip Hop...
August 2010
3 posts
I Wonder If Heaven Got A Fat Beats?
Back in January 1999, I’d just been recently promoted to manager @ Tower Records & Video in Boston. Within two weeks, I’d become the senior manager of the 1st floor. Within a month’s time I was in charge of the entire video & magazine floor. After 6 weeks past 6 PM every night I was second in authority to only the store’s key supervisor. This meant that I was in...
17 Days © Prince
I got a call from the homegirl TeLisa D on the first of the month (no Bone Thugz N’ Harmony). She told me that she was going to do a special edition of her online radio show (“The B Word”) about the 15th anniversary of the release of Raekwon’s “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” and wondered if I could share some of my memories. Of course, I said yes.
As I called to...
Inception (Or Not, Since Your Mind Can Always...
I’ve had several small ideas in the past that have grown to become very large and very real over time. My father once told me that anything Man dreams up, either he or another man will then set out to create and make it real. One idea often inspires another and sets in motion a chain of events that leads to either a historic breakthrough or a major innovation.
One creation can influence...
July 2010
2 posts
Never Go Back © Special Ed
Recently, I began a project on my site Bloggerhouse entitled “Bloggerhouse presents 75 Backpack Bangers” (1994-2000). The post was a reaction to the recently posted list on Complex dubbed “The 75 Greatest Tunnel Bangers” which was compiled by Cipha Sounds. As I perused the list I realized that about 33% of that list were songs that I hated at the time and a few more were...
I Must Not Fear. Fear Is The Mind-Killer © Paul...
If you grew up in a major city during an economic blight assisted by Reaganomics coupled with an influx of drugs that turned your part of town to a war zone full of zombies & kids with guns, cars and armies of child soldiers ready to kill for them at a moments notice then you may understand the concept of fear.
My older brothers and their friends made it a point to try to toughen me &...
June 2010
3 posts
Fallout 3: Epilogue
It was the moment I feared. For the second straight playoffs the Boston Celtics championship hopes were felled as they took a 3-2 series lead by a knee injury. Last year, it was the knee injury of Kevin Garnett and this year it was a Game 6 knee injury to Kendrick “The Hulk” Perkins.
There was no inspirational Willis Reed cameo. There was no lucky high bounce on a key jumper that...
Lost In The Translation: A Rant About Comic Book &...
I understand. I get it. Hollywood simply does not respect the comic book or graphic novel as a serious medium. Forget that “Watchmen” was easily one of the greatest pieces of literature produced in the past 25 years. Completely disregard the fact tomes such as “God Loves, Man Kills”, “Arkham Asylum” and “The Sandman” inspired a throng of widely...
History Repeats Itself AKA I Am A Celtic Pt. 2
The 2009-2010 Boston Celtics aren’t the same obviously dominant team that their 2007-2008 incarnation was. For one, the key players (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce) were all two years younger and supremely motivated to get the monkey off their collective back and add banner 17 to the Garden rafters.
That team dominated the NBA from wire to wire and finished with a 66-16...
May 2010
6 posts
Dispelling Old Myths AKA I Am A Celtic Pt. 1
I was born and raised in Boston during a very volatile time in it’s history. Back when I was a kid the city was still experiencing fallout from the numerous uprisings in the 60’s and the era of forced busing in an effort to desegregate the schools beginning in 1974.
The end results were mass school closings, White flight from the Boston Public School system and even more...
Yo Dito! You Rock Or Disco? © Laurie, Diane &...
One of the reasons I loved radio as a child growing up was even though the stations I listened to had set formats and were classified as “Black” or “urban” they still played whatever the hell they felt like.
I can remember a great number of artists that one wouldn’t consider exactly urban music getting considerable burn on the radio in the late 70’s up into...
Once The Face Got Revealed The Game Got Real ©...
This past Saturday night I attended the Boston Hip Hop Unity Fest, an event I’ve been looking forward since it was first announced. It was organized by none other than Boston Hip Hop legend Ed O.G. Since the passing of Guru, the man that left Boston for New York on a quest to finally put Boston Hip Hop on the map for good I felt this show was necessary for several reasons.
I had a hell...