Joell Ortiz – Food For Thought
“Food For Thought” is classic Joell Ortiz at its best, with quick witted lyrics and a deep meaning woven into the song. On this track, Joell likens hip hop to a woman whom he has fallen in love with. He starts off reminiscing about being a kid and finding out who hip hop was back in 1992, by listening to neighborhood ciphers and trying to emulate what he heard. This determination to get into the game at a young age developed into a skillful craft that was quickly noticed by the neighborhood guys and helped Joell generate a buzz around being nice with words.
On the second verse, Joell talks about sharpening his pick up lines and recording them to make sure he delivered them just right. (He is still speaking as if Hip Hop is a beautiful woman which he would like to get to know). He then gets deep with the line, “through trying to find you it was myself that I would find, so I told you who I was in the chronicles I would design.” Joell points out that by trying to become a true hip hop lyricist, one has to really get to know themselves in and out. Joell gets back to his life story speaking on his label deals and how Nas getting the world to believe that hip hop was dead affected his life.
On the final verse, Joell Ortiz does a great job of summing up today’s hip hop sub-genres based on style and sound. He spits:
“No one’s actually met you, they just write and hope you hear it,
and hope that your attracted to the person in their lyrics,
some people try to bag you by telling you what they have, hoping your materialistic and like to brag,
Others try to scoop you by betraying that they tough, praying that you’re a good girl and you like ‘em rough,
the newest sensation is trying to get you through a dance, so if you bump heads at a party you’ll give ‘em an extra glance,
Then there’s a couple people like I, That let you know exactly who they are why not,
but not a souls met you face to face, so with every word they write is where they place their faith.”
Joell Ortiz does not diss any of these sub-genres, but tells it how it is. He uses this song to spit true hip hop, in an effort to find himself and give respect to the craft that he fell in love with as a young kid in Brooklyn.
Also, in addition to the song being great, the video capitalizes on the current Twitter hype within the hip hop community by keeping the verses under 140 characters, using emoticons & abbreviations, and by using @Reply’s to speak to the other members of Joell’s SlaughterHouse group! When the song ends, they even throw up some #FollowFriday shout outs!
Kidz In The Hall – Flickin’
With a sound that is far from what you would expect to hear on a new hip hop track, the Kidz in The Hall single for their upcoming album Land of Make Believe is getting added to play lists nationwide! The song reminds me of the Basement Jaxx’s breakthrough track “Where’s your head at,” because both records share a bunch of the same sounds.
This unique sound featured on “Flickin’, “ is nothing new to the hip hop duo (Naledge and Double-O) that formed after meeting at a University of Pennsylvania talent show. However, this song’s smooth, chill feel matched with its unique sound will definitely create a bunch of cross over appeal with fans of other genres of music.
The lyrics on this track are nothing special, yet do a good job of putting the track in the laid back, stunt, swag category by touching on clothes, cars, glasses, fashion, etc. The hook of the song is somewhat hypnotizing, and with the line “Every time you sleep at night, that’s what I be living like,” sums up the song’s imaginative aspect.
Kidz in The Hall did a great job of setting the tone for their Land of Make Believe album with this single!
Lil Boosie – Better Believe It
Even though the video could have been a bit better (Boosie simply chillin in jail until Webbie picks him up?), this track goes hard. The Baton Rouge rapper brings the same amount of intensity to this track as he has with all of his club bangers of the past few years. You can not ignore the fact that Lil Boosie has consistently gotten people hyped in the club year after year.
Looking at the lyrics, it is Lil Boosie who puts forth the best verse on “Better Believe It.” He wastes no time, starting off the song by stating:
“Ladies and gentlemen its Boosie Boo,
King of Louisiana I’ve been the truth,
If you don’t know better ask somebody,
I am the show and the after party,
I’m stacking dough, aint got to sell dope no more.”
That is not to say that Young Jeezy and Webbie don’t put forth good efforts, but they simply do not do anything out of the ordinary on the track to outshine Boosie. Jeezy kept his lyrics about the trap and Webbie touched on his quick rise to fame spitting, “It’s crazy aint it, hard to explain it, I done got famous, all I did was bring it.”
All in all, this is another banger to add to Lil Boosie’s growing collection. ( A collection that includes Zoom, Wipe Me Down, and Independent.)
Pac Div – The Mayor
“The Mayor” is the lead single off of Pac Division’s latest mixtape Church League Champions, which was well received by hip hop critics everywhere. These positive reviews coupled with the group’s long deserved record deal, are creating a tremendous amount of buzz around the LA rap group that has been kickin their rhymes for quite awhile now.
The video to this song compliments its fun playful theme of deciding one day to run for mayor. The video also does a great job of portraying the carefree LA lifestyle. (I really want to move to LA after watching this video!)
Looking at the song’s lyrics, we see that the group decided to simply have fun with this track and not spit anything of deep importance. All three members of the group simply rap about LA, their lifestyle, clothing, cars, and women. (Not bad subjects, but nothing that’s quotable!)
The hook does a good job of summing up the song’s feel:
“Just another day out in sunny L.A.,
It’s dealers in the streets and coppers don’t play,
Got my 501 Jeans, my crew neck sweater, saggin in my pants cause I don’t know better,
In any weather, we stay the fliest,
Killers on my side In case you suckers wanna try us,
Numbers in my phone, Im so player,
Feelin so good, I think I might run for mayor.”
