Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day drops on September 15th, and promises to be one of the best albums of the year.  The whole album flows really well, especially with Common narrating between the different stages.

One song that does a great job of summing up the album’s feel is “Soundtrack 2 My Life.”  Cudi speaks about his life on this record, touching on his family, emotions, and current feelings toward his rise to success.  He uses this track to vent and open up to fans, and at one point takes shots at bloggers and his haters:

“If I never did a show, then I’d probably be a myth,
If I cared about the blogs, then I’d probably be a jackass,
Don’t give a shit what people talk about fam,
Haters shake my hand, but I keep the sanitizer on deck!”

That last line is being quoted quite a bit since the album’s leak.  It’s no secret that Kid Cudi has strong feelings toward people critiquing his music…

The hook on this song is a good summary of what the album has to offer:

“I’ve got some issues that nobody can see,
And all of these emotions are pouring out of me,
I’ll bring them to the light for you, it’s only right,
This is the soundtrack 2 my life,
The soundtrack 2 my life.”

Man on the Moon: The End of Day is truly a work of art where Kid Cudi skilfully brings us into his world!

Raekwon – Ason Jones

All hip hop fans have a special place in their heart for the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and lucky for us, Raekwon took the liberty of dedicating a track on his critically acclaimed OB4CL2 to the late ODB.

This powerful record’s sad and beautiful lyrics will give chills to any ODB fan.  Raekwon speaks on how much Ol’ Dirty meant to him as he reminisces on how powerful and fly the late rapper was.

The end of the song has Raekwon summing up what ODB meant to the world:

“That was the black man,
Rap baby jesus in the black lam,
Few jewelry pieces with his gold fangs and his fam…
Yea the lover,
The father,
The hustler,
The rap professor,
Now he with the Lord, that’s a blessing.”

In addition to Raekwon’s lyrics, the song contains Ol’ Dirty Bastard excerpts which greatly add to the track’s feel.

Here is a quote from one of the ODB excerpts:

“Where I come from, in my neighborhood,
My people know me, you know what I’m saying,
See if I try to come any different,
They ain’t goin to respect me no more…
See Wu keeps it real, we always gone keep it real,
You can’t knock what’s real, you know what I’m sayin,
We tellin the truth man.”

Ol’ Dirty Bastard truly was a hip hop genius. I can’t even imagine how popular Wu-Tang would be if the ODB was still alive!

XV – Mirror’s Edge (Remix)

DJ Benzi and XV are creating Everybody’s Nobody (We Got The Remix), and the first track to get the remix treatment is “Mirror’s Edge.”  XV brought in some big names to go in over the Seven-produced beat for the remix.

Mike Posner steals the show with his raspy voice on the hook, giving the song more of a misty dream-like feel than the original!

Bun B, GLC, and XV all do a great job with their verses, but more time from XV on the track would have been nice.  Lyrically, XV stays true to his style and throws in an Aladdin and Lucy Lawless reference.

This track is a great prelude to the upcoming remixed mixtape.

Fat Joe – Hey Joe

“Hey Joe” marks the third single off of Fat Joe’s 9th studio album, Jealous Ones Still Envy 2 (J.O.S.E. 2), which drops on October 6th.

Fat Joe really goes in on this awesome remake of the Jimi Hendrix song, “Hey Joe.”  The video, which was shot all around New York City and the Bronx, adds a lot to this song.

Fat Joe strictly spits violent lyrics on this track with lines such as, “Drop more shells on your block than Palm Beach,” and “Bullets like easy pass, they run right through ya.”

Hopefully Fat Joe keeps making records like “Hey Joe.”

In light of Everybody’s Nobody’s recent success in the mixtape world, XV and his producer Seven flew to NYC to celebrate at the mixtape’s official NYC release party.

HipHopAtLunch.com met up with this Kansas duo who is causing a stir in the hip hop world, and asked them some interesting questions to give you a better understanding of both their careers and personalities!

Here is a video of our interview with XV, where he touches on coming up in Kansas as a hip hop artist, his favorite video games, how he uses twitter, and of course his feelings on Everybody’s Nobody.

Now I know all the real XV fans will appreciate the following interview with Seven, who is responsible for 90% of the production on Everybody’s Nobody.  Seven touches on what he uses to produce beats, the response Everybody’s Nobody has received within the hip hop community, and gives advice to up and coming producers.

Since we were already introduced to XV’s career with our previous post, I am now going to dive further into his DJ Benzi and DJ Enuff hosted mixtape, Everybody’s Nobody. (touching on the mixtape’s tracks which I didn’t speak about in the last article.)

One of the best things about this mixtape is its wide range of sounds and styles which XV uses to show his versatility.  By the end of Everybody’s Nobody, we realize that this kid from Witchita is about to put his city on the map!

Lets start with XV’s up tempo tracks “Awesome” and “A.D.D.,” which show the artist having fun on the mic while creating great party music. Where as  “Awesome” is more of what you would expect to hear on a hip hop mixtape, “A.D.D.” has a real electro funk feel to it and sounds like it belongs in dance halls.

Now if your looking for more lyrically promising tracks, then “Bad News” and “The Rabbit Hole” should meet your needs. On “Bad News” which samples Kanye West’s song of the same name, XV spits:

“I’m dying to see the day that I finally get on,
Sometimes I think I wanna make it just to prove people wrong,
I did this all on my own and never asked for handouts…
How can a blog say I’m not nice, the only dude from Wichita to spit on NahRight!”

With “The Rabbit Hole” XV talks about the negative aspects of being successful over the track’s eerily creepy beat:

One of the song’s strongest verses is:

“Everyone got an opinion and you sit there and listen,
They looking in your eyes, but they do not see your vision,
They say they got your interest, but who are you fucking kidding?”

He also uses this song to touch on losing friends, drug addictions, people who used to give you cold shoulders wanting hugs, girls who used to ignore you wanting to hang out, etc.

XV puts together a great commercially marketable track with “Mirror’s Edge.”

This track’s clean sound makes it great for use on the radio, in commercials, or in video games. (Hopefully the video game fanatic gets “Mirror’s Edge” featured in the commercial for some upcoming game.) Even the lyrics give you the feel that XV is a video game super hero! “Till I’m in the place where reapers go, Im running on walls and leaping poles.”

A fan favorite from Everybody’s Nobody is the track “Come Back Down.”

With this song, XV brings his story full circle…a story that has been told over a handful of mixtapes on which we saw XV leave Earth for planet Squaria. Having been on Squaria for awhile now, XV hears the screams for him to “Come Back Down to Earth!”

Finally, we come upon “Undeniable” the motivational track that will leave you wanting more from XV.

XV’s flow over the cold piano keys coupled with his witty lyrics, puts this track in contention for his best record yet. The beat to”Undeniable” builds as XV’s momentum gains speed, and we hear XV spit some of Everybody’s Nobody’s most memorable lines:

“I’m just asking for cats with passion in this, is there any left….
Niggas try to improvise while I try to improve it,
Take a look inside just so I can out do it,
Nights on the mic, but I’m making the meanest music,
If they call it garbage, I swear I’m making the cleanest sewage…
Tired of trying to make these labels understand…
Stay sunnin’ rappers hope u fagots need a tan,
Call me Adam cause you know that I’m the man.”

And

“I try to see what they see,
I get it, you hear music everyday,
but you can’t hear my tape and say that my shit is not crazy,
20 mixtapes later,I am still not lazy,
and red lights still don’t break me!”

If you are impressed by what XV can do on the mic with no features, check out the Everybody’s Nobody tracks below where he teams up with artists such as Colin Munroe, Ne-Yo, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, and Harlems Cash.