Music Dude presents: The Kanye Critique

Yeah, it's finally here. A bunch of minor things I gotta get out the way before I get into the grits and biscuits of the post. I’m sure these minor things will result in a novel…so feel free to skip my babbling and head right to the critique.

--- Probably the two most cliché things in the world right now, are blogs and Kanye. I hate when things I appreciate become clichés. I'd like to think I caught onto this blog thing before it became cliché, but that's probably a blindly ignorant statement. But over the past two to three months, EVERYONE kopped a blog. It almost makes me wanna quit my blog. That's the type of dude I am. It's like, I wore button ups in high school, so when Jay-Z told the masses to get their "grown and sexy" on and kops some button-ups, I felt wack...the saving grace was that the button-ups every tom, dick and dong decided to rock were the wackest of wack and looked nothing like anything I'd ever sport or anyone even half-way fashionable (I'm 1/8 fashionable) would wear.Kanye is the new cliché that wrenches my massive gut. I like Ye a lot. He makes music I'm proud to promote and champion. But when white people start dropping your name as good music, it gives me pause. There are two types of whities. The Wiggers. Wiggers like 50 Cent and Ying Yang Twins. And the Posers. The Posers believe they validate hiphoppers music pass when they give them favorable reviews. Right now, Kanye is the hiphop dude that you can name drop that makes you seem knowledgeable or well versed. That's like me droppin Cold Play. But the foul thing is that, no matter how large Kanye or Cold Play's bandwagons get...they make deft music...so you can't just STOP liking them, even though you want to.That's what we used to do as teens. You used to have a fav group that got big or fav show that got big or fav style of gear that got big and then rebel individualist self in you made you quit whatever it was.I'm just not willing to do that with blogging or Kanye.

--- Time for me to get new speakers. Pops blew my current joints. But I can't really get to upset, because they're his. Back in 2001, about a month after 9-11, my lil cornball stereo broke down. I think Trane's Transitions shorted it out. So I called Pops like, "Yo Pops, my poor stereo is finished, Man. I'm musicless." Well, the very next day, he got in his van and embarked on what he called -- very insensitively, mind you -- "The 9-11 Emergency Burn Relief Voyage". (Note: we call the jazz music we listen to, "The burn". when we listen, we say "we're burnin". We say so, because the music we listen to supposedly seers the lobes.) Pops is an audiophile, so he has random equipment collecting dust. So he bought me this dope amp and two solid speakers.Well, in early August, when he helped me move in to my Florida spot, we threw on some Burn while we were setting things up. He put in some VSOP Quintet. We wanted to see how loud we could turn it up. That was perhaps the illest thing about having a crib to myself -- no neighbors within ear shot. So he started blastin and I walked outside to see if you could hear it from the street. The second I came back inside the crib, the speakers started shorting.Now, Pops -- an audiophile -- was telling me it was the amp. So I brought the amp home Labor Day weekend so his dude could look at it. In the meantime, he gave me a makeshift amp (makeshift to him, is state-of-art to us) to take back with me. I finally set it up today and found out that it wasn’t the amp, it was the right speaker. So, long story short, I need new speakers. Regardless, one speaker produces enough volume to give this Kanye a good home-listen.

--- Listening is a serious thing with me and some of my crew members. We all have our particular settings that we like. Back when I had my own spot in DC, I'd kop a CD, come home, shut off all the lights, poor some wine, cognac or brandy, pop the disc in my stereo and zone out.I have a listening primer-song. It's "Lost" by Wayne Shorter (So far, the particular rendition of Lost has been on repeat for the past hour). Wayne is the greatest American song writer of his generation. It goes Wayne, then Quincy Jones, then Stevie Wonder, then Burt Bacharach, then Paul McCartney. That's the top 3 to me and I guarantee you I'll win any argument defending that top...remembering of course that I'm talking music and arrangements and lyrics, not just lyrics.Anyways, this song "Lost" is a mofo. It's off Wayne's "Soothsayer" album. Wayne is a saxophonist and made his initial name in Miles Davis' great quintet of the mid-late 60s. Wayne, in fact, wrote much of that music, while Miles arranged it."Lost" is just an absolute heart-breaker. The jazz "head" (a jazz head is basically its chorus) may be the illest ever. It loops, it winds, it sings, it leaps, it falls, it jabs, its twists, it challenges, it extends its hand...it makes me shake my head each time I hear it and I've heard it well over 1,000 times.The thing about lost, too, is that I’ll prime with various renditions of Lost, because they’re all monumental. The way the song is written ensures that, even as the various musicians interpret it in their own way.

These days, all the young boys (we call any jazz musician under 35 a young boy) like to do "Lost" reprises. Bruce Williams was the first young sax kat that I heard reprise "Lost". I was in the front row of Twins Jazz on a Sunday night, alone of course, just listening. And Bruce was killin his set, murderin it...great set. Then after an interlude, he launched into the "Lost" head. I leaned back in my chair and let out a jubilant groan so loud, I think it threw the pianist off. I gave Bruce a hug after the set was over. Since then I've heard Abraham Burton do a reprise and I believe my man Vino told me Wayne Escoffrey performed a live rendition. But by far, the best and nastiest rendition is by my lil nigga Marcus Strickland. I feel like I was the Listener (although we aren’t musicians, my crew and I call ourselves Listeners…like jazz’s 12th man) that discovered lil Strick. He came to DC back in early 2001 with bassist Lonnie Plaxico’s octet. Strick was a lil 5’7, skinny dude, playing that big ol’ tenor sax. The big sax looked heavier than him, but he we handled it. Like a lil dude that’s got a big ol’ wife, but keeps Big Mama in check. Well, I’ve been checkin for him ever since. And, what young jazz dudes do, is they often put live songs on their websites as mp3s, since – as I’m sure you’ve heard me whine before – they can’t get recorded by a label.

The Strick reprise is so dope, because he makes the song sound so modern…not that Wayne’s initial recording sounds dates, it’s just that the rhythms and ethos that Strick articulates is something that is so Now. Plus, he has his lil brother, EJ, destroying the drums and my fav young pianist Robert Glasper on keys. Family always has a special connection in whatever they do. Probably the illest jazz album of the last 25 years was Black Codes of the Underground, that was Wynton Marsalis’ album and it featured his older brother, Brandford on tenor sax. Well they spoke to each other constantly during that album. When it came to harmonize it was like…it was just like some ol’ other stuff. EJ and Marcus Strickland have a similar relationship with their instruments. Jazz solos are rooted in call-n-response between soloists and the rhythm sections (rhythm sections being piano, drum and bass) and EJ is always on top of where Marcus is goin. And my Glass is a felon on the keys. His solo on Lost can get criminal at times. Just when you think it’s reached the apex, he keeps goin, throwing out the most soulful chords. The song is a monster and a great primer.

Well, back to the subject…I listen to Lost as a primer because it really gets your ears on alert. It’s like jogging before a workout. Lost makes your ears break a sweat and afterwards, your really ready to do the knowledge on whatever album your about to consume. (As I wrote that, Strick just blew a sax riff that made me twitch.)

--- So this is how I’m gonna do the critique. I’m gonna just put on the album and let it play all the way through and type my thoughts on each song as they come. Since most of my posts are stream-of-conscious, unedited and riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, you should be used to reading this type of babble. However, as soon as each song is over, I’m gonna quit bloggin on that track and head to the next.

--- One more thing, real brief…Ye has a short documentary-like show on MTV that semi-chronicles the makin of this album. It’s important for three reasons: 1) it’s fun and informative. 2) it shows how much of a Music Dude, Kanye is and let’s you get a whiff of him when he doesn’t smell so arrogant. 3.) another classic example of the media’s thirst and promotion of white-piracy.

--- Aight. I’m bout to dim the lights, poor this cup of Shiraz and get to bloggin. Let’s get it poppin.
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KANYE WEST -- LATE REGISTRATION.

-- Wake Up Mr. West: “Oh-ho-ho-ho”. That was the theme of my trip home. the reaction for everything comical.

-- Heard Em Say: The way this comes in is straight up gutter. Always loved the trippin snare. Also, big ups to Ye for koppin Adam Levine from Maroon 5 for this joint. He sounds similar to Timberlake, but unlike Timberlake, he doesn’t slut himself for black-approval. Levin is a soulful lil dude though.

“My Aunt Pam couldn’t put the cigarettes down, so my lil cousin pickin up them cigarettes now. His job claimin he actin to niggerish now. Is it because his skin blacker than licorice now?” A lil profound, but so simplistically rhymed.

Ye is one of the best producers on the mic, but that’s not saying much. His skills are marginal when it comes to spittin. But he has enough content and charisma to hold his own.

Brion’s influence apparent off the bat.

-- Touch the Sky: The ill thing about the Curtis Mayfield horn jacking was that my cousin DJ Digga’s (my real blood cousin) producing-partner had used the same horn sample from Mayfield back in 2004. I stayed with Digga for the first week of my AJC internship, I heard a lot of what they were cooking up..and I loved the track Taj made with the Mayfield horns. Matta fact, the “You on top of the world baby!” bridge actually sounds like my cousins voice. Eerie.

Lupe Fiasco spits the illest verse of the whole album. I’m sure it made my man Tony proud.

Love the hook. “I gotta testify. Come up in the spot lookin extra fly.”

Kanye is almost womanly with how much he puts into his look, but I gotta admit his ensembles are fly.

-- Gold Digger: It was ill seeing how Jamie flipped this in the studio. They gave us a look into it on the MTV special.

I can see no-rhythm white girls dancing to this in the club already. All shoulders-n-arms and no hips.

I used to dig this track a lil something. Classic Kanye-charisma track. Ill Ray Charles sample, with the ingenious idea of adding Jamie to it. But, as with any, No. 1 Billboard record, I’m sick of it.

Plus, this is also a classic Kanye tryna be extra ghetto track. He has an exceptional ability to, one hand, play to the music snobs and then, on the other hand, appeal to the lowest denominator.

(NOTE: his Broke-fi-Broke fraternity skits wear on. Frat niggas must hate the way he gets on the Greeks. But I feel the way. Outside of a few, black frat niggas are the corniest of corny.)(

-- Drive Slow: I love the fact that he made an ill track with a southern white dude. I’m like Ye…I don’t mind these southern dudes anymore. Matta fact, kinda dig em. Not on some ‘solid music’ steez, just on some entertainment steez.

Paul Wall is one of the kats that I think is slick.

The horn riff is magnificent. Sounds like the same sax riff that Evil D used for the Sh*t Iz Reel joint off the Black Moon. Both trax were exceptional. Plus I like how Kanye had the hollow snare and the slidin hi-hat/

“My cars like the movie, My cars like my crib. I got mo TVs in here than where I live” I thought that was dope, just because Ye spit it with a lot of personality.

-- My Way Home: A Gill Scott Heron sample. This song alone is more thoughtful and substantial than 50% of College Dropout. Common’s good for that. To this day, I only have two Scott-Heron albums. Shameful.

“Might not be a bad idea if I never went home again.”

If you grew up in the hood you understand.

-- Crack Music: I like the way Ye starts his verses off. “How do we stop the Black Panther’s? Ronald Reagan cooked up the answer”. Referring to Reagan’s plan to drop coca and crack in the ghettos. So profound, because it's true. That's unwelcome news for some of my white and/or suburban visitors, but its absolutely. Ye sets off another verse with Bush reference and anthrax that I'm not entirely sure I agree with.

Track ends up sounding semi-revolutionary. Like, you’d put this on if you were marching to the capitol hill steps.

I love The Game. I just think he’s such a genuine dude. And I feel Ye putting him on the chorus.

Keisha Cole is a principle of the “la la la laaa” in the background. I mention her, just because she is one sexy vixen and I’d be on time for that.

Brion’s fingerprints on the end of this track. Some real dark chords and then some eerie string arrangement. Its what sets this album apart from every other hiphop album.

-- Roses: “I ask the nurse did you do the research? She asked me ‘Can you sign some T-shirts?’ B***h is you smoking reefer? Can’t you see that we hurt?” Come on Kanye…can’t u do better than that?

“So many aunties we can have an auntie team” Come on Ye!

Those are two examples of how he lacks as an emcee. But he also has this other line where he says, “My grandfather tryna keep it together he SKRONG” replacing a ‘t’ with a ‘k’ in ‘st’ words is a Chicago thing…and Ye knows that that line right there will be repeated by so many lil girls and white people. He’s smart like that, even thought it’s a wack line.

Meanwhile, very honest song. I imagine that if you had a sickness or death in the family recently, this is especially powerful.

Backup singers sound like Patti LaBelle and Ceelo Green, but the liner notes don’t say so.

-- Bring Me Down: I hate this song. Brandy is wack. Sorry. She’s not a great singer. Her voice is weak. Now if he got Fantasia on the track, he might be into something, cause that wide-mouthed chick has got some soul. Brandy is very light.

“Your girl don’t like me, how long has she BenGay?” Come Ye!

This is the least impressive song on the whole album.

-- Addiction: So sexy.

I’m grooving right now. I don’t even wanna type, ‘cause I just wanna do my groove thang right now.

“Roll up the doja, Henny and c-c-c-cola” Wack, but so catchy. That's classic Ye. It's now my mission to ask a bartender for a "Henny and c-c-c-cola."

Congas add that element that very few hiphop producers have the prescience to roll with. And the Etta James sample is right on point.

Watching the MTV special and seeing how he layered the track to make it a whole beat was very revealing.

Plus, as a young Christian dude, the contents of the song are semi-identifiable.

The end of the track is dumb. Don’t know where he was goin with this. But to his credit, is sort of like the new millennium-hiphop version of the way old should niggas used to talk at the end of tracks. Its like the hiphop version of the last 40 seconds of a Chilite song. You know, where they’re talking in the highest pitch, saying things like, “Oooh baby. I just wanna sit you down on the couch and pour you a glass o’ wine and love real tender-like.”

-- Diamonds from Sierra Leone: Never liked this track. But the first verse does mean a lot as far as bringing to the forefront how all these rap and drug niggas kop these diamonds that our people in Africa die over.

And as always, the white man profits ridiculously.

Not especially moved by the whole Roc-a-Fella, Jay/Dash quarrel and where Ye fits into that. My fav new Jay joints are the joint he did about the summer and his remix to the Mike Jones “Back Then”

Ye was real extra in this video too.

-- We Major: Cot Dam! When this song drops my chest cavity vibrates. I kid you not.

Really Doe’s verse is wack. But his name is gangsta.

The hook is wack (until Nasty lends his raspy vocals to it).

“Until you have a daughter, that’s what you call karma and you pray to God she don’t grow breast to soon” I feel that so much. So many niggas go around sluttin women out and it’s like, “Sun, would you want your daughter getting done like that?”

Nas comes off as usual. He remains the most important artist in hiphop because he’s our moral compass, not to mention a gremlin on the apparatus.

My nigga Tone hates all the singing on the album. He thinks it’s popish. I don’t agree. If he had Avante on every hook, then yeah. But its actually singing with some thought put into the arrangements and it has an old-soul feel to it. I mean, Sally-Sue from Fairfax, Virginia probably doesn’t even appreciate the singing on this album. It’s not that type of pop-R&B, like throwing Ashanti on the track.

My thing is, stick with what works. Like, I hate the fact that John Legend was all over Common’s album, because I always loved the way Bilal sounded on Com trax (Bilal is the illest out right now. It goes Bilal, D’Angelo, Sadiq, Musiq, Dwele, Raheem DeVaughn….then John Legend..and it’s a shame, cause Legend is immensely talented, there’s just something corny about the music he produces). Well Ye almost force-fed Legend on Common, but then when it came time for his album, he pushed Legend to the side and used some schmuck named Tony Williams..this is sacrilegious, since Tony Williams is the name of the greatest jazz drummer – and therefore drummer period – in the history of music.

But this dude Williams’ voice is kinda lackluster. A lil disappointing.

I do like the end of the track when Ye comes back on the track for the ride-out.

Brion doing great things on the keyboard again. As much as I’ll scream white-piracy for years to come, Brion was really doing his thing on this album and really made his presence felt.

-- Hey Mama: I hate this song. This is a song for mama’s-boys, women and white people – not music dudes. But mama’s boys, women and white people make up about 85% of America, so smart move Ye…just not the right move.

The illest mother song is, “Heaven” of Nas’ God’s Son album. Check it. Its powerful, emotional and loving. This track is sappy and stupid. Save this for Boy II Men. When he starts singing at the end, I throw up in my mouth.


-- Celebration: It’s crazy, but I thought of two friends. One was Chuck, you’ve read much about him on this blog. We had a hiphop session and he has the world’s weirdest and nastiest taste for food. The other was Kyle, he’s a former co-worker of mine at the Orlando Sentinel. I thought of both when I hear this track.

I thought of Kyle because he seems to idolize Dave Chapelle…he punctuates many sentences with “Sun!”, which I would’ve thought only white people did, but that was Kyle’s move and he made it work. Well when I heard this track, I could just see my dude K, after he had a couple glasses of that good stuff, with his arm around someone, cheesin as wide as the Sahara, singing along with this track. I know it’s happened.

Now I thought of Chuck, because Chuck loves to sing along with tracks, as I do. I just remember sleeping on my futon this summer, in their living room, and it’d be like 3am and Chuck would be in his room playing some EASports game singing along with Lenny Kravitz, or something, in the most brain-battering falsetto ever. So there’s no way he hasn’t had this joint on at 2:30 am, playing Madden 2006, singing along while he tweaks his team in the Franchise mode.

-- Gone: Cam’ Ron sux. The Otis Redding sample is on point. I need more Otis in my collection….currently I just have a greatest hits.

No Consequence track was iller than the track Ye did w/ Consequence for his first album that never made it on the actual album. Cons has a nice lil flow, although I hated him on that last Tribe album.

I love how Ye reappears on the track after the strings take a looping solo. The dark strings over the sterile drum tack is a lethal combo.

“What the Chi got to offer an 18-year-old? Sell drugs or get job, you got to play Euro.” I can feel that. That’s what a lot of dudes feel are the sole options for a young black dude.

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BONUS TRAX ---

-- Diamonds (w/o Jay-Z): Not a fan.

-- I’ll Be Late For That: OH MY! This is my anthem right now. The track slays me.

BTw: I’ll be late and/or on time for: Christina Milian, Eva Mendez, Serena Williams, Sanaa Latham, Megan Good, Jessica Beal, Halle Berry, Trina, Beyonce, Eva from Top Model, that Asian chick I worked with in Virginia, Erykah Badu, Amel Lareiux, Theresa Randle, Regina Hall, Kim Bauer, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Scarlet Johansen, J-Lo, Shakira and the women of Washington, DC.

Back to the track though, it’s a Music Dude classic. He actually has someone playing a Fender Rhodes piano…that’s just never happened in hop before.

This is an example of a Groove. And that’s all that I dig on. The lyrics, as usual with Ye, aren’t anything special. But the groove, mixed with the bridge, mixed with the sped-up sample, mixed with the fender-bender chords…immaculate.

The Saturday I came home to Buff, there was a whole host of people in town. About half of us that moved away, came back and that Saturday all the returnees and the current Buffalonians were supposed to get up and head to one of these chic club/lounges that keep poppin up around the Elmwood area. Most people got in Friday and everyone was at this anniversary party Saturday evening. I got in Saturday and skipped the anniv shindig and linked up w/ Rek and Vino, probably the only kats that didn’t hit the Thorton’s anniv thing. We immediately went to the LQ store and kopped 1.5 liter of single malt scotch and 12-pack of brew. Headed back to Rek’s crib (Rek’s wife was at the anniv thing so we were rollin like we roll), and started Listening. Started off with some blues…played this Hendrix blues track from a live performance, then a Miles blues track and then Rek pulled out this kats we’d never heard of and slayed us. Then we started just goin off, playing songs all over the board. The night ended with Rek and I playin this Ye track at least 7 to 8 times in a row and singing along long with the chorus until we were horse. By the time Rek and Vino’s wives got to the crib and started rousting us to get ready to meet the crew at Lotus, Rek and I sprawled out on beds in separate rooms, toasted off the single malt. I didn’t see everyone until the following night.

I was late for that.