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Transcript

Still The Blueprint? · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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Speaker 1: Coming up on this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast,
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Speaker 1: we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jay-Z's The Blueprint album.
0:11
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg's biopic has now cast its Biggie Smalls. And
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Speaker 1: do fans consider Kendrick Lamar to be a lazy artist
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Speaker 1: based off the lack of frequent releases? We're going to
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Speaker 1: talk about it, man. Y'all young. Get out of here.
0:30
Speaker 1: Go to the store. Let's do it. Welcome to Hip
0:37
Speaker 1: Hop Now Podcast. If you from the future, you know
0:43
Speaker 1: what to do. Get your ass out of here. Don't
0:48
Speaker 1: disrespect the legend. Hip Hop is here to stay. Let's
0:54
Speaker 1: get right into the business. What up, y'all? I am
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Speaker 1: your host, Vegas, and this is Hip Hop Now Podcast,
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Speaker 1: a podcast specifically designed to keep you caught up on
1:04
Speaker 1: all things hip hop, music, and culture that happen throughout
1:08
Speaker 1: the week. Big shout out to those who've been listening
1:10
Speaker 1: to the podcast for more than 10 years. And it's
1:14
Speaker 1: been more than 10 years, but we're just going to
1:15
Speaker 1: call it the 10th year anniversary because honestly, I didn't
1:19
Speaker 1: think I'd be doing it this long. But in audio form,
1:22
Speaker 1: it's been around for that long Not necessarily in video form.
1:28
Speaker 1: You know, we've done some things here and there, you know,
1:32
Speaker 1: to try. But officially, probably two years ago, consistently releasing
1:38
Speaker 1: a video version of the podcast. So if you listen
1:42
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1:44
Speaker 1: part of your rotation of podcasts you listen to, you
1:48
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Speaker 1: look like, even though I've been on the cover every
1:55
Speaker 1: damn time. And, you know, subscribe to the channel, hit
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Speaker 1: the like button, hype the video and all that good stuff.
2:03
Speaker 1: YouTube keep changing the rules. But, you know, we're going
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Speaker 1: to go by the rules because we are on the
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Speaker 1: road to 50,000 subscribers right here on YouTube by the
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Speaker 1: end of 2026. We're really close. So if you haven't subscribed,
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Speaker 1: please do if you have. Share it with some hip-hop
2:24
Speaker 1: heads you know. Okay? Let's get there. All right? We
2:28
Speaker 1: got to get right into it. We got to get
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Speaker 1: right into it. So, big shout-out to hotnewhiphop.com. Social media, hip-hop, right?
2:38
Speaker 1: You know, this is everywhere. And a couple of places
2:41
Speaker 1: where I get some of my stories from. Let's get
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Speaker 1: right into the business now. So, September 11th. 2026 marks
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Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks on America. For
3:02
Speaker 1: those who don't know, I'm a New Yorker, but I
3:05
Speaker 1: wasn't living in New York when that happened. I was
3:08
Speaker 1: living in Baltimore, hosting the radio show Strictly Hip Hop
3:13
Speaker 1: and B-More and working full time in the school system, right?
3:18
Speaker 1: Special ed school system. That's what Young Vegas was doing.
3:21
Speaker 1: I was a newlywed, not even married one year yet.
3:26
Speaker 1: And I had a one month old baby boy, right?
3:32
Speaker 1: This was all around the time when 9-11 happened. And
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Speaker 1: I remember, you know, waking up for work, you know,
3:40
Speaker 1: kind of getting ready, kind of laying there, you know,
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Speaker 1: before we had these, you know, the cell phone where
3:45
Speaker 1: you kind of, you're just in the bed scrolling through
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Speaker 1: before you get up and handle your business. I was
3:50
Speaker 1: just kind of, there and the news was on and
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Speaker 1: um kind of glanced over you know my wife was
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Speaker 1: getting dressed baby I think was asleep glanced over at
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Speaker 1: the tv and I'm like oh a plane hit one
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Speaker 1: of the towers right and my actually my wife was
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Speaker 1: the one who told me because I really wasn't paying
4:15
Speaker 1: attention but she said it and I kind of like
4:18
Speaker 1: brushed it off a little bit because I'm like yeah
4:22
Speaker 1: It's New York. It's a bunch of buildings. That was
4:26
Speaker 1: probably inevitable. Even though it kind of looked bad, I
4:29
Speaker 1: was like, that's a bad one though. And then another
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Speaker 1: plane hit while I was watching the news. And I
4:37
Speaker 1: was like, oh, nah, this is something else. This is
4:42
Speaker 1: just feeling like it's some kind of attack. You know
4:45
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like suicide bomber style or whatever. And
4:49
Speaker 1: then Sitting there, you know, watching, looking for information. And
4:54
Speaker 1: then the Pentagon story popped up. Now I'm in Maryland.
4:59
Speaker 1: I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. So I'm about an hour outside
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Speaker 1: of DC. So now it's getting crazy. Now I'm thinking,
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Speaker 1: we're not going to work. And this baby definitely not
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Speaker 1: going to no daycare. You know, we're staying here. And so,
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Speaker 1: you know, like everybody else, you kind of watch everything
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Speaker 1: that happened and You know, all the tragedy and, you know,
5:23
Speaker 1: the rumors, you know. And for those who know who
5:29
Speaker 1: are in New York, but also those who are outside
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Speaker 1: of New York, you know, we had cell phones. We
5:35
Speaker 1: just didn't have smartphones like that. And I remember trying
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Speaker 1: to call like my moms and people I knew and
5:44
Speaker 1: family could not get through on the cell phones. And
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Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't remember the situation with like
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Speaker 1: the landlines, but I just remember I was trying to
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Speaker 1: call people and I could not get through. So it
6:01
Speaker 1: was weird. It was kind of scary on the low
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Speaker 1: because you didn't know what was happening. Like those were
6:08
Speaker 1: things that we saw in movies like Independence Day, right?
6:13
Speaker 1: You know it's fake, but it's fascinating to watch. You
6:16
Speaker 1: can't take your eyes off of it. And that's what
6:19
Speaker 1: this was. It was just so interesting to try to
6:25
Speaker 1: break down what happened. How did this happen? And unfortunately,
6:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people lost their lives. A lot of people,
6:36
Speaker 1: even after with the whole cleanup and all that stuff,
6:40
Speaker 1: got cancer. I think I saw a number this morning,
6:43
Speaker 1: like about 8,000 people died as a result of just
6:47
Speaker 1: being around you know, that when the buildings collapsed, which
6:52
Speaker 1: was crazy just to watch the buildings collapse, that didn't
6:55
Speaker 1: make any sense to me at the time. So, you know,
6:58
Speaker 1: it was a, it was a crazy day that I'll
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Speaker 1: never forget. And I feel, I feel like in a
7:05
Speaker 1: lot of ways, my, my kids, cause I, you know,
7:09
Speaker 1: I wound up having two kids and both boys. And
7:13
Speaker 1: I feel like, man, when I talk about or like
7:17
Speaker 1: when they were in school and talked about 9-11, is
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Speaker 1: that like Pearl Harbor to them? Like how Pearl Harbor
7:25
Speaker 1: was to us? Like to me, when I learned about
7:27
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, it was so far from what I was
7:31
Speaker 1: experiencing as a kid now that it was just like,
7:34
Speaker 1: you might as well say that was centuries ago to
7:37
Speaker 1: me at that point. And it wasn't that long ago
7:40
Speaker 1: in the 80s, right? When you're looking at the 80s.
7:42
Speaker 1: But that's probably how my kids looked at it like
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Speaker 1: 2001 i was on earth but i didn't know anything
7:53
Speaker 1: you know i'm an infant you know and my son
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Speaker 1: that was born in 2007 forget about it that thing
8:01
Speaker 1: happened like six seven years before he was born so
8:06
Speaker 1: it's it was just an experience that i'll never forget
8:09
Speaker 1: um But again, rest in peace to the people who
8:14
Speaker 1: passed away as a result of those attacks. But one
8:19
Speaker 1: of the things that I always would forget is that
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Speaker 1: Jay-Z's album, The Blueprint, dropped that day and still sold. Now, granted,
8:35
Speaker 1: the 9-11 thing happened at, I think like 9.30, as
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Speaker 1: far as New York. like nine something in the morning.
8:44
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure some people in New York who
8:47
Speaker 1: were like heads who were going to buy that album
8:50
Speaker 1: probably before work, probably went and got it. It could
8:54
Speaker 1: have been like some midnight releases and stuff like that.
8:57
Speaker 1: And then you got the rest of the country in
8:59
Speaker 1: the world, you know, purchasing that album. But the simple
9:03
Speaker 1: fact that it still sold well for what happened on
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Speaker 1: that day was just crazy. But, as it relates to me,
9:13
Speaker 1: I already had it. Okay. Cause I kept thinking like, damn,
9:19
Speaker 1: did I not hear the blueprint until after like the
9:24
Speaker 1: whole nine 11 stuff started to die down. And that's
9:27
Speaker 1: not true. 2001. I'm wired. Naps is still around. This
9:33
Speaker 1: is when we started to get all those blogs that
9:36
Speaker 1: would just upload albums before they released. Um, One of
9:42
Speaker 1: them was like my go-to and it eventually became Boxton.
9:46
Speaker 1: Shout out to the Boxton folk. We still out here.
9:50
Speaker 1: So I had the album probably a week early. So
9:55
Speaker 1: I had already heard it. And then eventually I went
9:58
Speaker 1: and bought it, of course. and not on 9-11. But
10:03
Speaker 1: for me as a hip hop head, I wasn't eager
10:06
Speaker 1: because I already had the album before 9-11. And reflecting
10:12
Speaker 1: on it and listening to it, like today I listened
10:14
Speaker 1: to the album while I was in the gym because
10:17
Speaker 1: I've listened to it throughout the years, but It's kind
10:20
Speaker 1: of one of those things where it's not one of
10:23
Speaker 1: my Jay-Z albums that I go to to listen. That's
10:27
Speaker 1: usually like Reasonable Doubt, American Gangster, you know, from time
10:32
Speaker 1: to time. And believe it or not, Volume 1, I
10:35
Speaker 1: still skip. But the way I'm from in a million
10:40
Speaker 1: and one, like those are my joints. But the Blueprint
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Speaker 1: was just never one I went back to. And I
10:46
Speaker 1: think it's because of the climate around it, right? Like,
10:52
Speaker 1: internet is kind of becoming internet that we know, right?
10:56
Speaker 1: Social media ain't really there like that, but that's what
10:59
Speaker 1: the forums and the blogs, that's what that was, you know?
11:05
Speaker 1: These sites where you can give your opinions, basically like
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Speaker 1: social media. So there was a lot of conversation around
11:12
Speaker 1: the album, obviously Takeover because... Jay-Z, during Summer Jam, had
11:19
Speaker 1: teased his verse dissing Nas by just saying, ask Nas,
11:23
Speaker 1: he don't want it with Hov. And then, you know,
11:26
Speaker 1: they went to another record, but that was the controversy.
11:29
Speaker 1: And now you had the full Blueprint song with the
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Speaker 1: Nas diss in there and another verse after that. And
11:40
Speaker 1: it was just one of those things where it was like, wow.
11:44
Speaker 1: First of all, this album is hot. because of the
11:48
Speaker 1: samples and the beats and Jay-Z is just in pocket.
11:53
Speaker 1: He's probably like at the height of his powers. He
11:57
Speaker 1: was already consistently having hit after hit after hit. He
12:02
Speaker 1: was dropping an album every year, right? I know to y'all,
12:05
Speaker 1: that don't mean anything because your favorite artist dropped three
12:08
Speaker 1: albums in the same year. But back then, dropping an
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Speaker 1: album every year and still being successful, it was almost
12:16
Speaker 1: unheard of. like that kind of consistency. And then now
12:20
Speaker 1: you break, you got a song where you're dissing Nas
12:23
Speaker 1: and you break it down his career. And I remember
12:27
Speaker 1: when Jay-Z said in the takeover, yeah, I sampled your voice.
12:33
Speaker 1: You was using it wrong. You made it a hotline.
12:36
Speaker 1: I made it a hot song. And you ain't get
12:42
Speaker 1: a coin, nigga. That's, I was just like, yo, Now, granted,
12:47
Speaker 1: at the time, Nas' last album was Nostradamus and it
12:52
Speaker 1: was not good. I bought it out of straight up
12:57
Speaker 1: support as a fan, you know, as a brother in Queensbridge,
13:02
Speaker 1: brother from another mother, Queensbridge, Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy, you know what
13:06
Speaker 1: I'm saying? But it was not good. And for Jay-Z
13:11
Speaker 1: to be this popular... hit after hit dropping album after
13:17
Speaker 1: album to, to break down Nas career, right? His albums
13:23
Speaker 1: and his, uh, how he would produce and the average
13:27
Speaker 1: of those albums being hot over a period of time
13:30
Speaker 1: when really he just was saying like, yo, it was
13:33
Speaker 1: just illmatic and it was written was there, which is
13:36
Speaker 1: not true. Uh, and then, you know, the other ones
13:40
Speaker 1: were trashed. It just seemed like, man, he just destroyed Nas.
13:46
Speaker 1: There's no coming back for this. The Rockefeller takeover is on.
13:54
Speaker 1: But beyond that, H to the Izzo with the dope sample, right?
14:01
Speaker 1: You don't know. The Jay-Z version is already crazy. Then
14:07
Speaker 1: he does the remix with M.O.P., which was perfect. Song Cry,
14:13
Speaker 1: Heart of the City, Girls Girls with Q-Tip, Slick Rick,
14:21
Speaker 1: and Biz Markie, all taking turns at the hook. He
14:29
Speaker 1: brought Michael Jackson out on the stage. It was just like,
14:34
Speaker 1: this is probably Jay-Z's highest point that we're witnessing. He
14:41
Speaker 1: can't be stopped. What'd he say? I will not lose.
14:46
Speaker 1: You know what happened. But in that moment, before his birthday,
14:53
Speaker 1: Jay-Z was it and the blueprint was crazy and the
14:57
Speaker 1: production was crazy. It was just, for that reason alone,
15:05
Speaker 1: I would have to call this album a classic. There's
15:08
Speaker 1: just so much hip-hop positivity, besides the diss record. But
15:13
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Even with that, this battle rap,
15:16
Speaker 1: there was just so much dope about this album. Now,
15:19
Speaker 1: there is one song that I skipped because I felt
15:22
Speaker 1: like it didn't match with everything else, and that's the
15:25
Speaker 1: Hola Jovito, right? It just didn't match a lot of
15:34
Speaker 1: the records I had mentioned, right, production-wise. And sure, everything
15:37
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be the same, but it was like, eh,
15:40
Speaker 1: And then when he said, if I'm not better than Big,
15:45
Speaker 1: I'm the closest one. As a born and raised Brooklyn Knight,
15:53
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? That bothered me. Any true
15:58
Speaker 1: fan of Big had to look at the speakers in
16:01
Speaker 1: that moment and say, what'd he say? You know what
16:06
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Big died in 97. I don't believe in
16:11
Speaker 1: the whole, like, oh, he's gone. No, we don't do that.
16:15
Speaker 1: We got to honor the people, especially if we know them, right?
16:18
Speaker 1: If you know their personality, you think Jay-Z could have
16:21
Speaker 1: said that with Big being here? It would have been
16:24
Speaker 1: a problem, right? Even if Big was saying, oh, I
16:28
Speaker 1: got to get out of the way because cats like Jay-Z. Yeah,
16:31
Speaker 1: Big could say that. But if Jay was like, if
16:33
Speaker 1: I'm not better than him, I'm close as one. Like, what?
16:37
Speaker 1: What are you saying? So we didn't know that was
16:39
Speaker 1: a goal. And it's not. But that's the only song
16:45
Speaker 1: that even to this day, I might let it play
16:49
Speaker 1: if I'm just driving in the zone. But for the
16:52
Speaker 1: most part, that's probably my skip. Everything else, I'm cool with.
16:56
Speaker 1: I either like it a lot or I just think
17:00
Speaker 1: it's good and let it rock. And let me just
17:06
Speaker 1: say this to end this about this album, because this
17:09
Speaker 1: is going to be sort of a long episode. What
17:16
Speaker 1: is the blueprint, right? Because when Nas responded to the
17:22
Speaker 1: takeover in December of 2021 with Ether, and he said,
17:32
Speaker 1: And your manuscript just sounds stupid when KRS already made
17:38
Speaker 1: an album called Blueprint. First biggies your man, then you
17:42
Speaker 1: got the nerve to say that you better than big. Okay.
17:46
Speaker 1: Not that part. I just needed to, I needed to
17:48
Speaker 1: get that out. Okay. They're looking out now. It's Brooklyn. Right.
17:53
Speaker 1: But the manuscript, the blueprint, what is the blueprint conceptually? Right. What, what,
18:01
Speaker 1: For someone who's never heard Jay-Z's The Blueprint, and you
18:04
Speaker 1: hear all of this about that album, you're probably interested
18:08
Speaker 1: in the concept. And to me, nothing on the album
18:15
Speaker 1: is like a blueprint as far as coming from a
18:19
Speaker 1: point of instruction, right? Like how Redman had How to
18:24
Speaker 1: Roll a Blunt, but he's actually telling you how to
18:26
Speaker 1: roll a blunt step by step, right? But the blueprint
18:32
Speaker 1: was kind of like, well, blueprint for what? And in hindsight,
18:38
Speaker 1: especially for me, I looked at it more like, oh, well,
18:43
Speaker 1: it's more about Jay-Z's success. Because if you look at
18:46
Speaker 1: a lot of the songs, there's a lot of Hova
18:48
Speaker 1: puns in there. Jovito and H to the Izzo. There
18:54
Speaker 1: are a lot of records where he's obviously talking about himself.
18:58
Speaker 1: But I think It's the blueprint for, like he said
19:04
Speaker 1: on Lyrical Exercise, for his flow, beats, party records, street records.
19:14
Speaker 1: I think that was the idea of, I'm going to
19:17
Speaker 1: show everybody the song, show you how to do this, son.
19:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you how you can be successful
19:27
Speaker 1: and still check all of the boxes of And I
19:32
Speaker 1: think he accomplished that. Now, where do I rank this
19:38
Speaker 1: in Jay-Z albums? I think it's in top five for sure, right?
19:44
Speaker 1: But I kind of feel like at the time, and
19:46
Speaker 1: I know me at the time, my review of it wasn't.
19:51
Speaker 1: Jay did more rapping rapping on previous albums as far
19:57
Speaker 1: as like bars he played around with flows for the
20:02
Speaker 1: sake of party records more on a blueprint than he
20:06
Speaker 1: did on previous albums right including Hard Knock Life. There's
20:11
Speaker 1: so many quotables of Jay-Z rapping is kind of flawless,
20:14
Speaker 1: whereas this one, I think he felt like he arrived.
20:18
Speaker 1: So a lot of records, the bars are crazy, but
20:22
Speaker 1: then there's some like, he just trying to flex a
20:27
Speaker 1: little bit, which is nothing wrong with that. But that
20:30
Speaker 1: was what I thought about the blueprint in hindsight, 25 years.
20:35
Speaker 1: Where were you When this album released on 9-11, did
20:38
Speaker 1: you cop it the same day? What did you think
20:41
Speaker 1: about the album? And what do you think about the
20:43
Speaker 1: album today? Leave your comments in the comment section below. Next.
20:50
Speaker 1: So after the Michael Jackson biopic, biopic, whatever, did A Billion,
21:02
Speaker 1: and everybody loves it. Well, not everybody, but the fans
21:07
Speaker 1: love it. Critics got it completely wrong. But the success
21:14
Speaker 1: of that biopic felt like it energized a couple of
21:19
Speaker 1: other biopics that may have been in development or on
21:23
Speaker 1: the shelf or whatever. And one of them is Snoop
21:27
Speaker 1: Dogg's biopic. And they've been casting. They casted Snoop. They
21:32
Speaker 1: casted Suge Knight. Dr. Dre, a couple of people. Well,
21:37
Speaker 1: now they've casted Biggie. And playing Biggie, which is kind
21:43
Speaker 1: of surprising me, is D'Angelo and Angie Stone's son. Rest
21:47
Speaker 1: in peace to both of them. Swayvo Twain. I don't
21:53
Speaker 1: know if that's his rap name. Like, is your name Brian?
21:57
Speaker 1: And you just Swayvo Twain. Now, I know what you're saying. Well,
22:00
Speaker 1: your name Vegas, like, dog, my name is Steve, okay?
22:04
Speaker 1: This for y'all. But he's been casted in the role
22:11
Speaker 1: of Biggie. And obviously this isn't a huge role because
22:15
Speaker 1: this is about Snoop. This is more so maybe a
22:20
Speaker 1: portion of Snoop's life story and career that he wants
22:24
Speaker 1: to tell about interaction with Biggie. Then that's when they'll
22:28
Speaker 1: bring this guy out. As a certified Biggie fan because
22:35
Speaker 1: he is my favorite rapper all time is he the
22:38
Speaker 1: goat no that's LL Cool J but he is my
22:44
Speaker 1: favorite rapper all time and I don't know man I
22:48
Speaker 1: just feel like when it comes to anything related to
22:51
Speaker 1: Biggie if if somebody says oh he his flow remind
22:55
Speaker 1: me of Biggie or he's cast as Biggie it's just big, black,
22:59
Speaker 1: and fat. Oh, you black, you dark-skinned, and you fat? Biggie.
23:06
Speaker 1: That's what they do. You ain't got to look like him.
23:10
Speaker 1: You ain't really got to talk like him, for the
23:12
Speaker 1: most part. Like with the Wu-Tang joint, where they used
23:17
Speaker 1: the same guy from that Tupac and Biggie series, and
23:23
Speaker 1: he looked like a version of Biggie when Biggie wore
23:28
Speaker 1: a fedora and a suit right frank white biggie and
23:33
Speaker 1: gravy during the notorious big film didn't necessarily look like
23:40
Speaker 1: big but man he had his mannerisms and his voice
23:45
Speaker 1: down he had him down pack so he reminded you
23:49
Speaker 1: of biggie as an actor this being a snoop biopic
23:53
Speaker 1: again The actor that's playing Snoop is the one who
23:57
Speaker 1: has to convince us. But we know how that go. When,
24:03
Speaker 1: you know, you following. Okay, we following. Like, here's an example, right? Notorious. B.I.G.
24:10
Speaker 1: 's biopic. Following along like Biggie going to a photo shoot. Okay,
24:17
Speaker 1: that's Faith. I see the blonde hair. Okay, Faith. But
24:20
Speaker 1: who's that other dude? And then we realize that's supposed
24:23
Speaker 1: to be Craig Mack. And there's nothing about him that
24:28
Speaker 1: even reminds, the way he looked, the way he was acting.
24:31
Speaker 1: It was like, I think this might be a disservice
24:33
Speaker 1: to Greg Mack. So I say that to say, you
24:40
Speaker 1: want the films to be good, but you don't want
24:44
Speaker 1: certain characters to be a distraction. Because what was that?
24:47
Speaker 1: And you can leave this in the comment section below
24:49
Speaker 1: because I can't remember whether it was a show or
24:53
Speaker 1: a movie or... television movie but remember there was there
24:58
Speaker 1: was some kind of movie or show or whatever where
25:01
Speaker 1: the character walked in and it was supposed to be
25:04
Speaker 1: i think it was notorious the character was supposed to
25:08
Speaker 1: be buster rimes and i'm like i i wish like
25:16
Speaker 1: i get it but you kind of feel like when
25:18
Speaker 1: they show these characters they're They're acting like what we're
25:22
Speaker 1: used to seeing in music videos and not when you
25:27
Speaker 1: meet Busta Rhymes. You think when you meet, if you
25:31
Speaker 1: met Craig Mack, I saw Craig Mack back in the
25:33
Speaker 1: days in Brooklyn at Beach Street. He ain't walking like, ha, whoa, boy, whoa.
25:41
Speaker 1: I would have been like, yo, what's wrong with him?
25:45
Speaker 1: Some of y'all maybe expect that, but they're human. He
25:49
Speaker 1: just walked in like, what's up? So even though we've
25:55
Speaker 1: seen Busta Rhymes be boisterous, I just don't want to
25:59
Speaker 1: just see like, oh, fat black dude put Versace shades
26:05
Speaker 1: on him. Biggie. I just want him, even if he
26:09
Speaker 1: just sort of looked like him. Damn, he might have
26:13
Speaker 1: to cut his hair because I think he has locks.
26:18
Speaker 1: And he says what's up in a way that sounds
26:21
Speaker 1: like big. That's all I need. I'm going to be like,
26:26
Speaker 1: get that boy Oscar. But who knows? We'll see when
26:30
Speaker 1: it comes out. I'll tell you, I like this. When
26:32
Speaker 1: it comes to hip hop biopics, straight out of Compton
26:36
Speaker 1: is the bar. It's the bar. And I see it
26:41
Speaker 1: all the time when the trailer was crazy because you're
26:44
Speaker 1: seeing guns and jerry curls and you know what I'm saying?
26:47
Speaker 1: Leaping over cars. You're like, oh, it's about to be crazy.
26:50
Speaker 1: But when me and my wife was in the movie
26:53
Speaker 1: theater and it opened up and I'm like, oh, we
26:55
Speaker 1: got easy going to a crack house. And then the
27:02
Speaker 1: cops tanked a raid. I was all in because to
27:09
Speaker 1: me it was a movie. Not just, oh, play my
27:13
Speaker 1: favorite tunes. It was a movie. And I wanted to
27:15
Speaker 1: learn more, even though there was a lot I already knew.
27:19
Speaker 1: I was locked in. So I kind of feel like
27:21
Speaker 1: with this, with Snoop early on, it's going to have
27:26
Speaker 1: to be like a movie. It can't just, I don't
27:28
Speaker 1: want to hear catchphrases from songs when he's a kid. Well,
27:33
Speaker 1: you know, it's me, the Snoopy D, a double D.
27:36
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear that. Unless he was actually
27:39
Speaker 1: doing that. So I don't know. Are you looking forward
27:41
Speaker 1: to Snoop Dogg's biopic? Have you seen the cast? leave
27:47
Speaker 1: your comments in the comment section below. I believe it's
27:49
Speaker 1: supposed to release, uh, 2027. So we'll see. And lastly,
27:58
Speaker 1: so this was a topic that kind of came up around, uh,
28:02
Speaker 1: 2024 during the Kendrick Lamar and, um, Drake battle, right.
28:09
Speaker 1: And J Cole, I guess was part of it. Uh,
28:14
Speaker 1: And one of the, like, as fans are fighting back
28:17
Speaker 1: and forth for who's better, even before they started to
28:21
Speaker 1: really engage on some battle stuff, you know, Drake sells more,
28:27
Speaker 1: and Kendrick hasn't had a good album since Damn, and Mr.
28:31
Speaker 1: Morales and the Big Steppers wasn't that great. Y'all just,
28:34
Speaker 1: he don't release enough music, and I feel sorry for y'all. Well,
28:39
Speaker 1: this conversation keeps coming up, thanks to academics. And I
28:45
Speaker 1: had to think about it, right? Because being a music
28:51
Speaker 1: fan and a hip hop fan from a time where
28:55
Speaker 1: you got to sit with albums for a while because
28:58
Speaker 1: you wasn't going to get your favorite artists dropping like
29:02
Speaker 1: every week. And I'm talking about if you're a fan
29:04
Speaker 1: of multiple artists, chances are you can go a while
29:09
Speaker 1: without one of them dropping something new. You can go
29:12
Speaker 1: a year or not even a year, you can go
29:15
Speaker 1: two years or more without your favorite artist dropping. But
29:20
Speaker 1: we were used to that. And that's kind of what
29:24
Speaker 1: made it so like the albums that we really liked,
29:28
Speaker 1: we knew them word for word because we weren't just
29:32
Speaker 1: listening to them for a week. Sometimes we was listening
29:35
Speaker 1: for years, right? And not just that, obviously other records
29:39
Speaker 1: were released. But if you, like, for example, really enjoyed
29:44
Speaker 1: this EPMD album, you're listening to it all the time.
29:50
Speaker 1: So now you know the words, word for word. You're
29:52
Speaker 1: not even thinking about a new album until a new
29:56
Speaker 1: album is announced. and eventually drops, and then you go
30:00
Speaker 1: get that. And depending on how you feel about it,
30:03
Speaker 1: that becomes a part of this rotation of albums that
30:07
Speaker 1: span two to three years. And again, these are albums
30:11
Speaker 1: that you like, not just in general. So fast forward,
30:16
Speaker 1: when someone like me and people from my generation are
30:20
Speaker 1: used to that, looking at Kendrick Lamar's output does not
30:26
Speaker 1: bother us. at all two to three years between releases
30:32
Speaker 1: it does that doesn't bother us at all especially in
30:34
Speaker 1: a time where other artists release way more frequently so
30:41
Speaker 1: whereas I still bump GNX when I'm in the mood
30:46
Speaker 1: I'm not like but damn why doesn't he have a
30:49
Speaker 1: new album because I feel like well he's not done
30:53
Speaker 1: So he'll have a new album. But in the meantime,
30:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to listen to this Ransom. I'm going to
30:58
Speaker 1: listen to this other album. I'm going to listen to
31:01
Speaker 1: this album and that one. And, you know, as the
31:04
Speaker 1: years pass, then it's like, oh, K-Dot about to drop again.
31:10
Speaker 1: I don't think fans who maybe from the 2010s on,
31:16
Speaker 1: and maybe it could be early 2000s as well, But
31:21
Speaker 1: definitely the 2010s on their appetite is you either drop
31:28
Speaker 1: in every year, multiple times a year, or maybe two
31:36
Speaker 1: to be safe. But two is almost like a death
31:39
Speaker 1: blow for their attention span. Like they forget about you. Oh, damn,
31:45
Speaker 1: I almost forgot. I've been bumping this and bumping that
31:47
Speaker 1: and bumping this. So is it actually a problem that
31:53
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar doesn't release as often as some of his peers? Now,
31:59
Speaker 1: let's not revise history, right? Let's talk about the former
32:04
Speaker 1: big three. Drake and J. Cole also didn't release as
32:10
Speaker 1: frequent as some people make it seem. I think Drake
32:14
Speaker 1: picked up the pace later in his career, but His
32:18
Speaker 1: official album was always a year or two apart. It
32:23
Speaker 1: was just that he would drop what was essentially like
32:26
Speaker 1: mixtapes in between. So you were always getting some nugget
32:32
Speaker 1: of new music. Same thing with J. Cole at one point.
32:36
Speaker 1: His albums aren't like dropping every year. But in between then,
32:41
Speaker 1: you're getting features and you're getting little mixtape series, which
32:44
Speaker 1: is kind of the part I miss about J. Cole,
32:46
Speaker 1: like the little mixtape. you know, like dropping mixtapes just
32:52
Speaker 1: because that's what he came from, the blog era, mixtapes
32:55
Speaker 1: and all that. And Kendrick doesn't do that, but Kendrick
33:02
Speaker 1: will feature in between albums. He'll feature everywhere, right? Like,
33:06
Speaker 1: or in the case, right, GNX dropped, what was that?
33:10
Speaker 1: Was that 2024 or 2025? I think it was late 2024, right? 2026, right?
33:18
Speaker 1: He's all over this Baby Keem album, right? Who was
33:22
Speaker 1: his cousin. But nevertheless, he's all on there. He's on
33:25
Speaker 1: the Clips album that dropped. He's done features here and there.
33:29
Speaker 1: So he's still around. He's just not dropping an EP
33:35
Speaker 1: or mixtape in between his next album. And one thing that,
33:43
Speaker 1: credit to Academics, because he did say it, that Academics
33:46
Speaker 1: did point out while he was... Down in Kendrick Lamar's
33:51
Speaker 1: release rate was him trying to get out of his deal,
33:55
Speaker 1: and that being his deal with TDE, and that being
33:58
Speaker 1: the reason why there was a gap between Mr. Morale
34:02
Speaker 1: and the Big Steppers and GNX. Now, I feel like this.
34:10
Speaker 1: When the battle kicked off in 2024, I can't remember
34:13
Speaker 1: when Mr. Morale dropped. It got to be like 2022,
34:15
Speaker 1: maybe 2021. I'd be surprised if it was 2023, but
34:23
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like we got the Kendrick feature
34:27
Speaker 1: on the Like That song with Future and Metro booming.
34:33
Speaker 1: And this was Kendrick, along with some other features, but
34:36
Speaker 1: this was Kendrick kind of doing what he does, but
34:39
Speaker 1: he was stoking the flames of a battle. And as
34:42
Speaker 1: a result of Drake and J. Cole taking him to task,
34:48
Speaker 1: You got basically a diss record EP. He dropped like
34:53
Speaker 1: four songs, right? Like what was the first one? Damn,
34:58
Speaker 1: now I'm forgetting. What was the first one? I was
35:01
Speaker 1: going to say Elements. It's not Elements. It's the show, Euphoria, right?
35:06
Speaker 1: So it was Euphoria, then 616 in LA, then Meet
35:12
Speaker 1: the Grams, and Not Like Us, right? So while he's
35:17
Speaker 1: destroying Drake, because that's what happened, you essentially got four
35:21
Speaker 1: songs from Kendrick. And when Not Like Us started to
35:27
Speaker 1: feel like it might start to die down, he dropped GNX.
35:31
Speaker 1: And then the Super Bowl happened. So it was unprecedented
35:37
Speaker 1: to the point of Kendrick not dropping for him to
35:42
Speaker 1: put in that much work between albums. then to drop
35:46
Speaker 1: an album and do a tour. And now people feel
35:48
Speaker 1: like now Kendrick not giving y'all nothing, but he's just
35:51
Speaker 1: back on his schedule of doing features here and there
35:56
Speaker 1: before you eventually get an album. So is he lazy? No,
36:04
Speaker 1: he's just old school. And I think his fans are
36:10
Speaker 1: pretty okay with his output because when he does drop,
36:15
Speaker 1: He doesn't cheat you, right? If it's a bop, sometimes
36:22
Speaker 1: it's a little potent. Like, yeah, people like myself were saying, oh, yeah,
36:27
Speaker 1: Not Like Us is a bop. But when you got
36:31
Speaker 1: bars in there, you know, mustard on the beat, ho, Deebo,
36:35
Speaker 1: any rap nigga, he a free throw. Like, there are
36:40
Speaker 1: bars in there. There's substance. There's something, like, you can...
36:45
Speaker 1: Listen to the lyrics and say, oh, right? React to them.
36:49
Speaker 1: There's so much music where you can't really do that.
36:53
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about hip hop and shit, not just
36:56
Speaker 1: hip hop. But you know what I mean? Like it's
36:58
Speaker 1: one of those things where I'm fine if Kendrick wants
37:03
Speaker 1: to take time before releasing albums because I don't think
37:06
Speaker 1: he got a whack. Some are better than others. Don't
37:11
Speaker 1: get me wrong. But his catalog is, one of the best,
37:18
Speaker 1: even if it's not 10, 15 albums on it. So
37:22
Speaker 1: I prefer if he's going to release albums and I
37:26
Speaker 1: like the music and this is his process, I'm good
37:32
Speaker 1: with it because he's not the only hip hop artist
37:35
Speaker 1: I anticipate, right? If K-Dot don't have something new, I'm
37:40
Speaker 1: listening to these other artists that I like who are
37:44
Speaker 1: dropping music. In the meantime, and then when K-Dot's ready
37:47
Speaker 1: to drop, I'll be there to hear what it sounds like.
37:51
Speaker 1: So what do you think? Do you think dropping multiple
37:56
Speaker 1: projects a year or one album per year is the
38:01
Speaker 1: way to go? As a fan, do you feel like
38:04
Speaker 1: that's what you need to feel satisfied as a fan
38:07
Speaker 1: of your favorite artist? Or do you prefer the old
38:10
Speaker 1: school way of an artist feeling like they're taking their
38:14
Speaker 1: time with the album but you may not get it
38:19
Speaker 1: uh until two to three years later leave your comments
38:22
Speaker 1: in the comment section below you can follow me on
38:24
Speaker 1: social media at vegas world inc subscribe rate it review
38:31
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38:36
Speaker 1: you like this kind of content hit that like button
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Speaker 1: hit that hype button but most importantly share with people
38:42
Speaker 1: you know Enjoy this kind of content. Until next time, y'all.
38:45
Speaker 1: I'm not a critic. I'm a fan. Peace.