The 37th Chamber 09.19.09: NEW YORK STAND UP!!!

Posted by Patrick Robinson on 09.19.2009

With 2009 entering the final quarter, New York artists have certainly made an impact this year in hip-hop! Also this week, thoughts on the Jay-Z/T-Pain situation, Snoop Dogg's discography and some dream collaborations!

SIX DAYS! Currently unbelievably psyched and unbelievably lazy in regards to doing this final assignment due Monday, mainly because I asked four agencies if they would mind talking to me for 5-10 minutes as part of the assignment and of the four:

- One told me in slightly more polite terms to kiss his ass
- One helped me instantly and was amazing
- One took my number and never got back to me
- One hasn't responded to my email or phone call

But hey, I should have expected that because the area I'm operating in, the average house price is $1 million and the waterfronts START at about $5 million so I should have known the agents were going to be a bit stuffy.

Still, FIVE MINUTES is all I needed. Now to stretch half a page of interview questions into a five page report on the rental market in the area. Can my elite powers of bull-shittery hold up?

Reader Feedback

Please note, I am not in charge of what comments are approved on the site

"The Def Jam celebration sounds great but in reality...LL needs to be there. There's no way around it.

LL gave Def Jam their first big hit, he kept that label alive. I don't care what it takes, but Def Jam and LL need to get their shit together and reunite just for one night."

I agree completely. When I think Def Jam, I think Rick Rubin, Russell Simmons and LL Cool J, and then more names come later, but those are the first that come to mind. If there is a video montage/package of "Def Jam Through The Years" etc., I sincerely hope that someone puts LL Cool J in it somehow and that management at Def Jam don't ask him to be removed from the video, which I can see happening. It depends I guess on who has the bigger pride. Will LL swallow his pride and make an appearance after saying negative things about how the label was being run, or will Def Jam bite the bullet and ask him to appear (after which I see LL asking for an incentive etc.).

"BTW, Max B going to jail for 75 years is NOT "Ballin!", in his case." - nastrodamus

75 years is the complete opposite of "Ballin!". I haven't really heard of people breaking down doors for a Max B hook so I guess hip-hop won't miss him much.

Moving on and ignoring the poor effort troll last week…



"who said Jay had to be talking to someone directly? Everybody knows there was an abundance of acts comin out hoppin on auto-tune to make it hot, Jay was shoutin at the lack of creativity

And did you hear T-Pain's excuse? I just watched the tape, Jay did none of the things he was accused of"

Yeah the thing is, it's not like T-Pain hasn't done a track WITHOUT auto-tune as I think on Epiphany and Thr33 Ringz he did a couple of tracks with just him singing/rapping on it. I can't really remember that well though as I've tried to largely forget those albums.

So really, this was a great chance for T-Pain to reinvent himself AND gain a bit of a rub from Jay-Z by proclaiming "The auto-tune IS dead, just as Jay said, and I'm going to kill mine" proceeding by destroying some auto-tune box on stage. I bet people would have loved that…well I would have.

It's getting to the point where if we gave auto-tune to say, OJ Da Juiceman, Gucci Mane, Yung L.A., Young Dro (reeeeally don't care if I've mixed up Yung/Young there at all) and some other rapper I don't particularly care for and had them rap on a track, I would honestly have even less of an idea of who each one was then I already do now.

I don't know why T-Pain is getting so cut up about it either. Seriously, make a track without auto-tune, or just shut up and keeping making songs like he does now! Nobody really cares that much unless there's the chance that Jay will completely and utterly shun him for being an idiot.

"oh yeah, Skyzoo's "The Salvation" comes out on the 29th, I'd love to see a review on 411" - Joe

Oooh if I can track down an Advance copy to review, I most certainly will try although I do have Ghost scheduled in for before I leave so we'll see how things go.



"Really looking forward to Skyzoo's album.
As for Saigon, Crooked I, Papoose, and those other fuckers who underground heads cream their pants about: they need to drop GOOD albums, I don't care about mixtapes. Sure they're okay, but I don't judge based on mixtapes, make an album or shut the fuck up." - Foolio

It really is put up or shut up time for most of them. Crooked I's situation I can sort of understand as he's been shuffled around the labels a lot but his EP that was meant to come out on September 2 is nowhere to be seen with no explanation of why it got pushed back. Papoose I have officially given up on until an album comes, I can't be bothered getting his mixtapes anymore. Saigon did have that one-day project he released, but that was more of a mixtape thing than an actual album still. If his album is completely like he has said many times, why the hell can't he just put it out on his own label or independently like on E1 (Koch). Hell he's on Amalgam Digital now and still hasn't put an album out yet.

And I don't care whether the album is hot enough for the streets or if he has that raw shit because I reckon there are a LOT of people out there who are not caring the longer he takes to get an album out. Just put SOMETHING out because people WILL buy it if it's good in comparison to what we get in hip-hop today. A 500 pound gorilla eating bananas and burping for 45 minutes would probably be more tolerable than Soulja Boy's next work of crap, so by comparison, Saigon's absolute worst effort is still probably going to be a 6.0-6.5 album in the end.

"Normally I'd join in a fuck Jay-Z chant but I'd need a reason for it. In T-Pain's case, Jay-Z clearly said he's not after T-Pain, Wayne or Kanye because they "do a good job at it"

Now I said fuck Jay-Z after he makes that statement after releasing a song called D.O.A. Oh and you can find tracks that didn't make the album that HAD AUTO-TUNE! This is complete bullshit."

"On To The Next One" has ever so slight hints of auto-tune and a direct reference to it as well. Also I seriously doubt Jay's ear if he thinks Wayne was doing a good job with it after the hundredth song to pop up on a mixtape featuring it. It's gotten to the point where I'm surprised to actually hear Wayne rap on a record instead of auto-tuning it.

"Now with T-Pain fuck T-Pain because he was at an actual concert with Jay on stage he performed it co-signing and then turn around and say "Fuck Jay-Z" and then say it was to get his name out there. WTH is wrong with Hip Hop?"

The even stupider thing is that T-Pain reacted to Jay's actions that are actually PART OF THE SONG as opposed to something Jay directly did to him of his own accord. Like the "I don't want anyone smiling" and "Good riddance" is actually PART of "D.O.A.". Perhaps T-Pain is actually (tone) deaf and a) needs the auto-tune to sing/rap and b) hasn't REALLY heard "D.O.A." properly.

"Both men contradicted the shit out of it and people are gonna turn a blind eye and somehow support these overrated morons. Fuck this" - Jesuszilla son of Godzilla

Which is worse, Nas declaring hip-hop was "dead" back in 2006, or Jay-Z declaring auto-tune was dead in 2009? I'm just glad Young Jeezy isn't an auto-tune user (although he might be, someone correct me if he HAS used it before) because I remember his moronic ass took "significant offense" or something like that to Nas' comments that hip-hop was dead.

Yeah offense because you feel GUILTY FOR HELPING TO KILL IT!

"Hey Pat when are you gonna start doing 37th Chamber without reader response because I don't want to do this without a response. We're almost halfway through September and all I got to say is September is saving Hip Hop. Jay-Z's album was good (but not a 9) Raekwon's album was worth the wait and I just heard MOP and Kid Cudi's album and both are simply great. Cudi's album is like no other in Hip Hop it's what I thought 808s would be." - Jesuszilla son of Godzilla

My rant this week is actually about how good September has been so more on that in a bit, anyway it's probably time I laid out a proper schedule of events for anyone wondering.

I fly out of Australia on the 25th of September which is this coming Friday, so The Hip-Hop Herald on the 24th will air as normal. The 37th Chamber due for the 26th WILL feature Reader Feedback as normal as well unless someone makes a comment after Thursday night when I intend on writing it because naturally I won't be able to see it in time.

I won't be writing The Hip-Hop Herald from the 1st of October until the 15th of October and will resume business as normal on Thursday the 22nd of October.

The first 37th Chamber therefore without my Reader Feedback section will be airing on the 3rd of October and Reader Feedback WON'T commence again until the 24th of October.

Please feel free to comment on things otherwise though as I shall hopefully get to a computer at one point or another to check things and may leave some responses in the comments section myself. It might be better then, if you resume your discography run-downs on the 24th of October.

Kid Cudi's album was definitely the dark horse of hip-hop this year as I really had no idea what to expect. I wasn't feeling "Day N Nite" as much as other people were but it was definitely a surprise. Like you said, it is what 808s SHOULD have been instead of some auto-tuney mess that it ended up being.



"Snoop Dogg was at one point my favorite rapper he's definitely a legend in west coast rap.

Doggystyle: It's pretty obvious what this album's gonna get. This is some of the best flow I've ever heard in my almost 20 years of listening to Hip Hop. That's saying A LOT. This was the early 90s where the content was fresh and it wasn't shoved down our throats so we could enjoy Snoop's style 10/10"

There are very few albums that impressed me as much as Doggystyle did the first time round. I honestly have no idea WHY Snoop doesn't flow like this anymore, it's certainly, well I don't rap but I don't believe it's something you can suddenly lose like a hat or anything. I think the only other artist who really made me sit up and say ‘Wow' with their flow was Pun's Capital Punishment and Eminem on the Marshall Mathers LP albums. Definitely a Classic album that has withstood the test of time since its release.

"Tha Doggfather: As a kid I would have given this a 10 but now that years have passed I've matured there are some WTF songs on the album. It's still a sick album though. I think the big mistake was no Dre 7.5/10"

I get the feeling that working with Dre is an extremely double-edged sword. One one hand, you're almost guaranteed excellent production as I don't think I've ever really heard a terrible Dre beat. On the other hand however, getting an album out (these days anyway) is virtually impossible under him. Tha Doggfather is also a bit guest-heavy and I think this perhaps started a trend with his later albums and the luxury of sharing the mic with so many other artists has lead him to become a bit lazy with his flow these days.

"Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told: I'm not sure but Snoop may have had some label issues that's the only way to forgive this album. I almost stopped being a fan of Snoop because I thought the album was annoying. No I know what the problem was No Limit + Snoop= awkward style 5/10"

I give Snoop a pass for this one because much like G-Unit were from 2003-2006, No Limit were THE people in rap at the time so you really can't blame him for wanting to capitalize on that. Still, the album isn't very good and I blame it, as you said, on the fact that the No Limit style and Snoop really don't mesh that well. The opening track "Snoop World" I did enjoy though.

"No Limit Top Dogg: Much, much, MUCH better album. Dre did some really good production and the No Limit + Snoop combination was nice. I think my biggest complaint was that Snoop slowly stopped flowing from this point on. 8/10"

"Bitch Please" is one of my all time favorite Snoop tracks, Nate Dogg appearances and Dr. Dre beats so it basically wins on all fronts. It's a strange balance this album, between No Limit and West Coast artists in that it somehow works although it WAS the third album in a row to feature 21 tracks which really is a bit much so it lost a couple of points from me there.

"The Last Meal: I love Lay Low. Everyone came off as pimps in the video and even Master Ps verse was quotable. This also made me a fan of Scott Storch. I may be overrating a little but 9/10 I love the album my second favorite to be honest"

"Lay Low" is another excellent Nate Dogg appearance (I think he really brings his A game when he works with Snoop) and another of my favorite Snoop tracks. Reduced No Limit influence helped a bit too in my opinion and I think this marked Snoop's beginning of better rap albums from here on. I actually picked this up on sale earlier this year for $5 which was a nice bonus too. I'd probably give it an 8/10 though.

"Paid the Cost to be the Bo$$: This album probably had more possible hits then any of his other albums except Doggystyle. This is the rare occasion where I pretty much like all the features to an extent and the cool this was one song had like 4 people the next had none. 8.5/10 simply because its screams "hits" IMO"

"From The Chuuuch To Da Palace" actually got a fair amount of airtime here in Aus and I remember that vividly because I was looking up exactly how many ‘u's were in the song name for some reason. "Beautiful" continues to get very regular plays and I think it's his second most popular song (to the mainstream anyway) behind "Drop It Like It's Hot". It was pretty cool hearing Snoop on a Just Blaze track ("Lollipop") too.

"Rhythm & Gangsta: I don't own the album but heard it was good. A friend said about 7-7.5/10 don't take my word for it. Who WASN'T dancing to "Drop it like it's hot" tho. Hell it still gets crazy play here"

It's pretty much a club staple by now. There are some very good tracks such as "Ups & Downs" (was Game in that video, or am I thinking of something else?) and "The Bidness" but there were some bad ones too like "Let's Get Blown" which was just too drawn out to be enjoyable after the first minute or so. Your friend's rating is pretty accurate though.

"Tha Blue Carpet Treatment: Everything was good with little standout IMO. Snoops albums are known for having 20 tracks but this is the second time I felt it was WAY too long. 6.8/10 Vato is the shit tho so 7/10"

I've said on quite a few occasions that "Think About It" was Snoop at his Doggystyle flow best and "Round Here" was pretty good but the problem I had was that the majority of the beats were very sugary and also "I Wanna Fuck You" goes down as my absolute least favorite Snoop song. I want to punch something every time I hear it.

"Ego Trippin: Why doesn't Snoop get the Kanye treatment of a good experimental album? He did ONE track with auto-tune nothing more nothing less. It wasn't annoying or basic it was typical fun Snoop trying something new and it worked. No one bitches because he did a good job and didn't over do it. As time passes I like to lighten up on experimental CDs because I can appreciate them for what they are instead of what I envision. 7.5/10 not bad at all." - Jesuszilla son of Godzilla

I quite liked it and I actually liked the experimental tracks much more than the ‘Snoop just doing Snoop' tracks for the most part. I mean, whoever gave Snoop the idea that "Celtic Rain" would be a good sample to use on the album ("Why Did You Leave Me") was a genius because that was easily one of my favorite tracks and it showed a more…softer side of Snoop we don't really see much.

Snoop's career certainly has been an interesting one but what has constantly annoyed me is his insistence that 19-21 tracks on an album would be much better than say, 15 tracks. Ego Trippin' certainly cut down the average number of guests on a Snoop album but I think it was his fourth, maybe fifth album to contain 21 tracks which is far too much. Trim the fat and give us 15 excellent songs instead of a combination of excellent, good and mediocre ones!



"Since we're making lists of underrated producers how about a list of dream collaborations?

Eminem/Nas (this one is very obvious)"

Yes I don't have any record (iTunes) of them actually doing a track together. Eminem did production on "The Cross" for Nas but they haven't actually rapped together I don't think. I could be wrong though.

"2Pac/Biggie (another obvious one)"

Hearing "Runnin' (Dying To Live)" on the 2Pac: Resurrection album just makes me wonder what exactly the two of them could have accomplished with proper time and effort on a collaborative track or even album. Had they been given the chance, NOTHING would have settled the Coastal rivalry like a collaboration track or album.

"Slaughterhouse/Wu-Tang (new meets old)"

I'd also like to see a Slaughterhouse / HRSMN team up one day although I think Slaughterhouse and Wu-Tang could be good too. ESPECIALLY if they get all 8 Clan members on the track – make it a 10 minute session of dope verses please, "Triumph" style if you will.

"Eminem/Asher Roth/Atmosphere (just cuz they're white)"'

Hahaha although to be honest, this would be quite an interesting combination as each rapper's personality is very different to the others.

"Nas/Dre (to me "Nas is Coming" doesn't count 'cuz Dre didn't rap)"

I thought there was a Dre/Nas track floating around there for Detox at one point, "Top Back" or something like that. Nas was confirmed at one point to be on Detox so you may just get your request…if we ever get Detox that is.

"Dre/DJ Premier (not necessarily rapping just these 2 making a beat together which would give my ear an orgasm)"

I think that would be an excellent idea as they have two very different styles which would probably mesh well together given the right balance. Perhaps bring in the current heavy piano sound Dre's rocking lately and match it up with the lighter drums and tempo Premier uses and see what happens.

"Soulja Boy/Lil Wayne (this would make me piss my pants out of laughter)"

Oh man, be careful what you write, you might just give someone the idea! Given Lil Wayne's general level of incoherency and Soulja Boy's constant incoherency we may end up with one of the most incoherent rap tracks ever until Sylvester Stallone and Governor ARNOLD decide to make a rap track together.

"That's all that come to my mind at this time for me so i hoped jyall enjoy and yes i put that J in front of the Y on purpose

Oh and yes Pat i was talking about Arizona" - Fuckwhiners

Ah got it…unfortunately I still don't know haha

"Boi-1da did the beat to "Forever".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boi-1da" - Jim the Honkey

Ah thanks for that! He's done some good work with Drake recently although I don't really know anything else on the list there, I'm not that familiar with Kardinal Offishall otherwise I might have been.

"So unrelated to this column--- but I noticed that every album you've reviewed in the past few months has been a 9 or 9.5. I'm curious how you come up with your rating? Any of the album's you've reviewed recently not hold up as well as you expected?" - Michael James

Hmm that did come to mind actually when I was writing the M.O.P. review and I was tempted to try and find something crap in order to break the streak.

Anyway, first off, I have very low expectations from virtually every artist apart from a very small select few. Those would include Royce Da 5'9", Little Brother and Pharoahe Monch (as irregular as he is) as I have not once been disappointed by these artists when it comes to their albums. Even some of my other favorite artists such as Canibus, Common, most of the Wu-Tang Clan and Ice Cube have thrown an extreme curveball or just released a very average album at one point or another and I've been disappointed in it.

In that sense, and given how terrible mainstream hip-hop has been lately, I've learned not to get my hopes up about virtually any album as depressing as that may be, hence I end up going into albums expecting the worst and coming out of them quite happy on most occasions.

What I do to review an album mainly involves listening to it 3 times, never in a row. The first time I absorb the beats and make notes of any particular things of interest. The second time I pay extra attention the lyrics and again, take note of any small things, such as Styles P's reference to The Purple Tape on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. The third time, it's a matter of how well they sound as a cohesive product.

I use iTunes religiously now and every time I listen to a song, I give it a rating out of 5, using the stars available. I then change this rating as I see during the course of listening to the album a fourth time as I write the review to pick up any lyrics I want to mention, or how a particular beat feels.

The final rating out of 10 however, comes from taking an average of the star ratings (say 5 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 5 = 25), working out an average of all ACTUAL songs, so Interludes/Skits, spoken Intro/Outro tracks aren't included (in this example, 25/6 songs = 4 and 1/6) and then multiply it by 2 to get a rating out of 10 (8.3 recurring). I round up or down to the nearest 0.5 depending on how much I enjoyed the album overall.

Listening to an album that I can see as a reviewer is an excellent album but doesn't necessarily appeal to ME personally will incur a rounding down by 0.5, such as A Tribe Called Quest's albums as I've never particularly enjoyed them, but appreciate them as good albums. By comparison, Maino's album, which I had coming in at about 7.2, I eventually gave a 7.5 because I enjoyed the album as a whole and have kept listening to certain tracks months after I reviewed it, and have gone looking to buy it (only to be shut down by Australia's lack of hip-hop retail support).

It's a somewhat technical system and I suppose it may be flawed, but I find it works for me and I'm happy with the result.

To be honest though, 2009 is shaping up to be an INCREDIBLE year for hip-hop, probably the best we've had since 2005 I think.

"I got a kick out of the opening rant. Thanks Pat" - Guest#1968

You know, it's still going. These two girls I know are at this very moment. One is uploading pictures, the other is commenting 2.4 seconds after they go up on like, EVERY PICTURE, "Eww I look gross in this delete it!"

Seriously, WHO is the one who struck the ugly-ass pose and WHO is the one who was had to upload the picture to the computer, upload it to Facebook, tag the dumb bitch in it and now has to delete it?

One of the many, many reasons I take like, 10 photos at parties and be done with it. And when they ask why there are so few, I tell them precisely why and they have no idea what I'm talking about ("what are you talking about LOL") is the standard reply.

My life is like one seriously long headache sometimes.

The Mini Rant

NEW YORK STAND UP!

After ages of people claiming that "The South is running the rap game", I'm surprised that more people haven't caught onto the fact that 2009 is turning out to be New York's year for hip-hop with quite a number of significant releases coming from there this year.

I myself have reviewed albums from Jim Jones, Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes, Red & Meth, Maino, the Wu-Tang Clan, Jay-Z, Raekwon and M.O.P. which I've given 7.0 or better. Cam'Ron got a 6.0 although the majority of the comments, apart from those which suggested I was a 50 Cent fan also suggested I like Soulja Boy so I can tell what kind of people were reading the review to say the least.

Anyway, New York has covered a huge amount of ground this year, and that's just based on the albums I've reviewed and not other releases that I have most likely forgotten about. The music has also shown a fair amount of diversity in it. You've got Jim Jones and Jay-Z being a fairly commercial orientated acts, Jadakiss and Maino rapping for the streets, Busta Rhymes bringing a nice blend of styles, Red & Meth, Wu-Tang and Raekwon for the throwback (and also being simply dope) releases and M.O.P. being M.O.P. which is usually a fairly good thing.

In a time when people are still worried about the state of hip-hop, we've had an incredible month in September alone (including now Kid Cudi) and the last 6 months have yielded some of the best releases I've heard in ages (and also left me relatively broke).

Needless to say, with Ghost's album on the way, we could be up for a 5th quality album this month which would be probably the best month of the year I think for hip-hop so far.

I'm expecting the West Coast to take 2010 though. If Dre gets his bloody act together and gets Detox out, combine that with potential albums from Xzibit, The Game and maybe even Crooked I, Glasses Malone (if his doesn't come out this year) not to mention Snoop and Cube are working on albums I think although I can't remember where I heard that so don't quote me on it.

There are probably dozens of other acts I'm forgetting but this IS just a mini rant after all, but 2010 is shaping up to be a good year for hip-hop too.

With 2009 entering the final quarter it will be interesting to see what else is planned for release. Eminem's Relapse 2 is rumored as is 50's album, Wale's album.

Needless to say, I'm excited and haven't been this happy to be a hip-hop fan for a long time.

The Signoff

Remember it's business as usual next week, but starting the week after, I may pop by in the comments section while roaming around Japan, but don't bank on it as all my money could well have been spent on various DVDs and Sony products…given we're going to the Sony headquarters at some point hahaha

Catch you next week!