Latest / Hip-Hop Now Podcast / Won't He Do It
Transcript
- 0:01Coming up on this week's episode with a Hip Hop Now Podcast, a trip
- 0:06call quest is snubbed again at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Easymob
- 0:14gotta pay for his own flowers, and my thoughts on a new album by
- 0:21Conway the Machine. Won't he do it? Spoiler alert? He did it?
- 0:29Let's do it? Welcome to a Hip Hop Now. Podcasts get you
- 0:39from the future. You know what to do. Show as out of don't
- 0:45disrespect the leg hip hop and say this dadium. Let's get right into the
- 0:52business. What up, y'all? I am your host Vegas and this is
- 0:57hip Hop Now podcast. A podcast is on to keep you caught up on
- 1:02all things hip hop music and culture that happened throughout the week, and we
- 1:07do it in a brand new format for those that have been listening for however
- 1:12many years. We don't launch track now. We probably already hit the three
- 1:17hundredth episode. I can't remember. I'll find out. But we do a
- 1:22format that's top stories, top three stories. But in cases like episodes today,
- 1:29you get kind of a little like a mini review impressions of a new
- 1:32project that's out. So stay tuned for that big shout out to the supporters
- 1:37over at patreonon dot com slash hip hop now. If you would like to
- 1:41learn more, the link is in a description and and and of course you
- 1:48can't forget we do some specialty stuff here. I did an episode on AI
- 1:53and hip hop from a different perspective. But the reason why I want to
- 1:59just speak once again on AIS because Timberland put out an Instagram post talking about
- 2:07you know this one guy he always wanted to work with it never got the
- 2:14chance, and that's Biggie until now, and he played this track where he
- 2:21had this beat and AI Biggie was rapping, and social media went crazy.
- 2:29People just don't like it. Big did not write this. It's wrong.
- 2:34But I ain't gonna front y'all. I was tapping my feet. I ain't
- 2:38gonna line just like, let me let me hear a little bit more than
- 2:40the new Biggie Timbo. Let me what else you got now really quick,
- 2:46because I know we're kind of going off topic and blah blah blah, and
- 2:49this isn't one of the topics. But you know what, it makes me
- 2:51think about what if we hear like right now, it's the wild wild West
- 2:58with the AI stuff. So it's doesn't really work right. It just seems
- 3:01like people playing around with people who passed in their voices. I think if
- 3:07someone's a state gives permission to do some things right with it so big you
- 3:14can't do nothing about it. If his family or whoever's in control of the
- 3:17state does it. You don't have to buy it, you don't have to
- 3:20click on it or anything. It could be unsuccessful and it will stop it.
- 3:23But if you found someone who could, who's really good at writing in
- 3:31the style of a Biggie, you can get away with probably a song that
- 3:38people will be like, Yo, that's right. But to me, it's
- 3:39sort of like aster it next to it because it's not Biggie, right.
- 3:46It's not like Biggie was here and instead of continuing the career of rhyme and
- 3:52he just gonna put the rhymes he writes in this machine and the machine the
- 3:55AI performs it. That's different. Still came from Biggie. This can come
- 4:00from anybody, could come from me as a ghost writer. But if I
- 4:03could write in a style of Biggie and its new lyrics, the only drawback
- 4:08and this is what the people who love it love what they hear. The
- 4:12only drawback from things like that bars is the fact that, oh man,
- 4:16I'm getting busy with the bars. Is the fact that hip hop is about
- 4:24one's expression, and you would never get Biggie's true feelings about anything to day.
- 4:34It will always be someone's interpretation of how they think Big would feel about
- 4:42something today, and that you can never predict that. You can't you know,
- 4:48put out there and say, you know, bigod what a Big would
- 4:51have been, like I'm vote for Trump. We don't know a couple of
- 4:56years ago, had the stuff that Kanye said, you wouldn't have known that
- 5:00either. So it's it's a sticky situation. But the Timberland joint with Biggie,
- 5:04I get it why people don't like it. I'm just saying it didn't
- 5:08tell that bad. I don't want it. I don't want a new Biggie
- 5:11album featuring not Biggie. I'm just saying when I heard it, I was
- 5:14like, this isn't that bad. This is actually better than hearing Biggie's voice
- 5:18map to like New York state of Mind, because to me, that just
- 5:23sounds like, oh that's cute and stupid. Stop it. But when you
- 5:27don't know the lyrics, I don't know y'all. Give me one single,
- 5:30one single, biggie, That's all I'm saying. Big shout out to hip
- 5:34Hop DX dot com, All hip Hop dot Com and Brochures for Heads Double
- 5:41lootell Magazine dot Com. I think I messed with y'all too a couple of
- 5:46places when I'm getting some of these stories from let's get ready into the business.
- 5:50So the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has had they had a couple
- 5:58of nominees, you know, posted on the hip hop side, and let's
- 6:01just keep it. Let's just keep it a buck so I don't miss out
- 6:04on anybody. But I think, honestly, I don't think well, okay,
- 6:12So on the hip hop side of things, there were a couple of
- 6:17nominees. The nominees that got in Missy Elliott. Big shout out to Missy.
- 6:25She is the first female rapper to go into the Rock and Roll Hall
- 6:29of Fame, which seems really weird considering those who aren't in yet. Who
- 6:36you would think when it comes to female rappers, who's who should be going
- 6:41in first? Mytifa can't get injuring, so power should be able to get
- 6:46in, you know. Like, but I digress and Missy should get in.
- 6:50But should she be the first? Who knows? But Missy is being
- 6:55inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so is Djko Hurt.
- 7:00Jay Z went in before him. But that's okay. Jay Z went in
- 7:03before Djko Hurt. It's not just about jay Z. It's just the principle,
- 7:09you know what I mean, Shaka Khan, Don Cornelius and more.
- 7:15But but what's kind of been talked about, mainly because consequence is always talking,
- 7:25is that a tribe called Quest was nominated and did not get in.
- 7:30And tribe fans, for those that care, are up in arms. People
- 7:38who like to be mad, up in arms because they like to be up
- 7:42in arms. Right. I'm a I'm a huge tribe fan, and my
- 7:48opinion is, so what so what they didn't get in? Who cares?
- 7:53It's the rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not too Not that long ago
- 7:58they started to induct hip hop acts into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- 8:03They never had this many even nominated. It was like one at a
- 8:07time, y'all, one at a time, one per year, and you
- 8:13see the order in which things play out. Missy gets in before at mc
- 8:16light or anybody like that, what's their criteria or obviously when you look at
- 8:22them, the from the l L's to the nwas to the jay Z's to
- 8:26Missy, when you look at them, what's consistent about them? They're successful.
- 8:35There are plenty of people in the hip hop game who are dope,
- 8:39very few who are highly successful. Missy Elliott is more successful than probably almost
- 8:45every female rapper you could think of, to be honest. And it's not
- 8:50just her with her music, but also her pen game right just overall artists.
- 8:56So Missy, Missy deserves it. But I've never really respected it because
- 9:01it's the rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not the music Hall of Fame,
- 9:05and it kind of, you know, not in a bad way,
- 9:09but puts a cloud over the nomination and the induction for me because it's not
- 9:18a thing that was designed to induct hip hop artists. Therefore, those who
- 9:24may sit on the panel to induct artists. And even though it's different now
- 9:30because the names I read that wasn't a man named rock and roll people,
- 9:33wasn't, you know what I'm saying, So that's you know what I'm saying.
- 9:37It kind of it's it's like, how can I really respect it?
- 9:43And I feel like more so just okay, well, I'm just give Missy
- 9:46her flowers, right, just like you gave LLL jay Z and everybody else
- 9:52because at the end of the day, Missy's dope. But it's again,
- 9:56it's just like those lists, right, Rolling Owns Top fifty hip Hop Albums
- 10:01of all Time, and everybody's up in arms again, right, got their
- 10:05arms up up in arms about who placed where and what and why you know
- 10:09why Cardi b here and Aromatic there. But it's but it's Rolling Stones,
- 10:16right, It's it's not it's not us. That's how we see it.
- 10:18It's not us. It's not a magazine, a publication design for hip hop
- 10:24heads. So the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not designed to be
- 10:28the elite of hip hop heads going in. It has more to do with
- 10:33record sales and popularity and also dope music, and they're just many artists that
- 10:41don't reach that level of success. Tropical Quests is known, Tropical quest is
- 10:48revered, their legends in the game, but they are source award level,
- 10:54so trained music awards levels, not even Grammy Award level, right, because
- 11:00we know a Grammys get damn. What I don't understand is why they always
- 11:05angry Q Tip, who had a rant in his kitchen when he didn't get
- 11:09a Grammy for the album. I think they kind of deserved it that year
- 11:15when you looked at the albums that were nominated and didn't get it. But
- 11:20I wasn't mad at it, right because you know, unfortunately Tropical of course
- 11:24is getting their flowers off the strength of Fife passing away. But nevertheless,
- 11:28everybody's paying attention to try again. And I just don't know if they're popular
- 11:35enough to ever make it into the rock and roll Hall of Fame. I
- 11:41just I don't like you think about their catalog and everybody knows first album's good,
- 11:50second album, second album classic, third album classic, and then it
- 11:54gets sketchy and you never really get a classic album, and you get a
- 12:01good album with in my opinion, with their final album. When it comes
- 12:07to beat RUMs in life, it's very debatables, some skippable joints on there.
- 12:11It's not really the tribe, you know, because Fife is on there
- 12:15less. And then the love below is just a disaster, and you have
- 12:18all these years passed and then you get the thank me later everybody already ate
- 12:24I was the album called I Can't remember whatever. But the thing is,
- 12:31it's like, why be upset? Now? I could see Tribe getting in
- 12:35there because they may not have been as big as L L's and the Missas
- 12:41and all of that. But again, when Fife passed, they are more
- 12:48Tribe fans than you think, just like I was surprised at how many Daylight
- 12:52fans they actually were, because I felt like I only heard certain people talk
- 12:56about Daylight Soul on a regular basis new music and old music. But that
- 13:03better not happened. No one from the native tongue better get in before a
- 13:07tribe. I'm sorry, it's just better than not happened. And if it's
- 13:11already happened, please point them out because I already named the top two groups.
- 13:16These are the New School not get in shout out to dress, but
- 13:18Black Sheet not getting in. But we all know this right, even though
- 13:22the choices rys need to get put that in there. But nevertheless, don't
- 13:28be mad tribe fans. Just spend your records. You know, tribe is
- 13:31still dope. You know what, that's who you're going there. You need
- 13:37to put slick ricking there. I don't care about the sales and stuff.
- 13:43Easy Moobi gotta pay for his own damn flowers. So y'all with the whole
- 13:52hold up, No, we're not doing that. We're not getting hit up
- 13:54when any kind of copyright. So here we go. Let me just read
- 14:00this tweet from Easymobi for y'all, so you kind of give y'all the context.
- 14:05It's not intech. Well no, sorry, wrong tweet. Let's see
- 14:11this. See this is just one of the beautiful things about social media.
- 14:18Let me clear this up once and for all. Matter of fact, I
- 14:22will be playing it Saturday night at the Gene Brown be down in the NC.
- 14:26So he posted a picture of jeeps, lex Coops, Bens and Beamas
- 14:35the credits for the Lost Boys single and it says produced by Easymobi for b
- 14:41more easy productions. Now, for those that don't know what the hell I'm
- 14:45talking about, maybe you never heard of Easymobi. You've heard his tracks.
- 14:48He's done some music for Tupac in his glory days. He's done music for
- 14:52Big Lost Boys and many others. But there's this humentary, so to speak,
- 15:01or series that's kind of tracing the steps of I think it's Life After
- 15:09Death right, and I believe Angie Martinez is the host, right, But
- 15:16let me let me just get with the sound, because I don't want this
- 15:18dude to start talking and I get hit up, you know what I mean.
- 15:24But we're talking about Nashem what's Nashim's name, nashm marick Rick whatever,
- 15:35part of a bad boy back in the days. He's on this rightfully,
- 15:39So he's on this series. They you know, they're talking about Biggie in
- 15:43general, life after Death, but he's he's talking about Big not wanting to
- 15:50do records like Big Papa and Juicy and stuff like that. And he's talking
- 15:56about Big Papa specifically the beat as if he produced it. He also,
- 16:04well, let me take that back. He says, we we did this
- 16:10record. He also says something about another record that we did that went to
- 16:15Lost Boys, which was the record I mentioned. But anybody who's anybody knows
- 16:22Easymobi has credit for those records. So what does he mean by we right?
- 16:30And obviously again here we are social media's up in arms, Hip hop
- 16:33has are up in arms. They're going in. I didn't even do the
- 16:37due diligence to see if it were squashed because I was just so disgusted by
- 16:41the idea. Now, let me tell you why. Easymobi is one of
- 16:45those hip hop producers who's still here, who was like a part of a
- 16:53time in hip hop some consider to be the greatest time in hip hop,
- 16:57you know, mid nineties or whatever. Ever, he's making hits. He's
- 17:02a hot commodity. Right, He even had when he was rapid is Fundamental
- 17:10or just Easy Mob. He even done some stuff with Miles Davis. Right,
- 17:12this man is really like important in hip hop, but most people kind
- 17:19of ignore him because he's not a household name. But he kind of used
- 17:23to be because of his association with producing for Pock and producing for Big and
- 17:30others. Right, and the Lost Boys joint was ahead, and he had
- 17:36other records he did that were crazy, but you seldomly hear about him.
- 17:41And here you have a dude talking about we had to do this to the
- 17:47beat, and we did that to the beat, and we gave that beat
- 17:49to this person and he didn't produce it. He's not credited in the credits
- 17:56as producing it, but yet here he is talking to Angie Martinez about it
- 18:03as if he worked on it in this way, Right, And I wasn't
- 18:10there so I don't know, but I believe Easymobile. You know why because
- 18:14the man who has had this kind of impact on the game and most people
- 18:18don't know him, but yet he stays cool and humble, and he on
- 18:22Vlad couch, you know, crying about blah blah blah. Well, at
- 18:26least I would know because I don't watch, but you know what I mean,
- 18:32it's a type of cat you want to step up for because he just
- 18:36chilling. But what struck me the most, and it's off the strength of
- 18:42M Bonus episode I was gonna do about. You know, it's hip hop
- 18:48media to blame for why things are whacking hip hop in general, right,
- 18:55and and you know, the debate was more so about you know, dudes
- 19:00considering themselves call themselves content creators and journalists. I think content creator is something
- 19:07that's acceptable, acceptable because everybody says it, but it's become hollow in modern
- 19:12times because everybody does it and they right, it's the way that badge.
- 19:17But some of these casts will refer to themselves as journalists and all they are
- 19:19tabloid dudes who spread gossip. Right. I don't see why someone like Angie
- 19:27Martinez cannot only let this clip go to the public. But if not heard
- 19:37somebody on the team to do the research to say, you know what,
- 19:42he didn't produce that, So why did he keep saying we maybe we need
- 19:47to fact check or who produced it. Let's look at the credits, Easy
- 19:51Moobi, Let's go ask Easymobi. Let's have easy Moobi on this series.
- 19:57I don't know if he is or not, but it seems weird, right,
- 20:02So it seems irresponsible. That's my great more than everything it's And again
- 20:08maybe they did it on purpose, right, because there wasn't no real buzz
- 20:12if you ask me for this upcoming series. But now you got everybody's attention
- 20:18because of this situation for the wrong reasons. But sometimes they want the wrong
- 20:22reasons because clicks don't have no bias, right, you click on that bone,
- 20:26that's a bonus, that's a positive. So it was just kind of
- 20:30weird to see Homie say we with such confidence, and see Easymobi literally has
- 20:40to essentially defend himself and his work when someone's trying to take credit and just
- 20:48a little backstory on me, not like I'm some kind of anointed golden child
- 20:53that somebody needed to come and get to be a part of something in the
- 20:57record industry. But when I was in college, I knew I was going
- 21:03to do something with music, you know, media was in radio in particular,
- 21:08was my focus. But I was flirting with the idea of, well,
- 21:14maybe I could work in the record industry because I follow the business of
- 21:18it so closely, or as closely as you could, and I had opportunities.
- 21:22I had people who were looking for college reps who were really just gonna
- 21:27nah, man, you ain't got to do anything. You just take this
- 21:30and da da da, and I would have had my first step into that
- 21:34door, right But what turned me off were stories and knowing people around my
- 21:44way, Like there at one point there was like three or four people around
- 21:47my way who had death Jam deals. They never came out, never came
- 21:52out. I know people who had production deals with death Jam never came out.
- 21:56Now, I'm not saying that to say, hey, yo, record
- 22:00industry is the devil. All I'm saying is what Nasheim is doing. His
- 22:03is the reason why I couldn't be a part of it, because I don't
- 22:08know how to handle people being sharks in that way. There's only one way
- 22:14to handle it to me, and that's not the way to handle it,
- 22:17to be honest and shout out to those who've been in the industry for a
- 22:22long time or whatever and having really well having they've survived any of those kind
- 22:30of encounters to be able to either retire or just be comfortable. But this
- 22:37is the reason why, man, people will take your pennies because they need
- 22:41some pennies. So I don't know's it's insane to think about, but it
- 22:48happens. Shout out to Easymobi, give him his flowers, look him up,
- 22:52look up his credits and see how much he has contributed to hip hop
- 22:56in very dope ways East and West Coast saying end. Lastly, so Conway
- 23:06the Machine dropped a new album called what Won't He Do It? Uh,
- 23:14just just recently. If you're from the future, you're you know, making
- 23:17your ast out of here. It's fourteen songs, forty nine minutes. It's
- 23:22on his label drum Work. Um you heard the single called Quarters if you
- 23:27have to go check it out. And my first impression of this album is
- 23:34it's kind of more of the same. But is that a bad thing?
- 23:41I don't think it is. Conway at one point, I think from from
- 23:48King to a God was him stepping out in a new way, right,
- 23:53stepping away a little bit from the from the drum list beats in the kind
- 23:57of the Griselle down and putting something out that was a little bit deeper lyrically,
- 24:04a little bit more bigger when it came to production, a little bit
- 24:10more varied when it came to production. And to me, hands down,
- 24:14if I had to pick like an album from him that that is his best,
- 24:21it's from King to a God. I think it's the perfect balance and
- 24:25he should do that all the time, and I think with this album he
- 24:29was attempting to do that, but I could see there's going to be people
- 24:33who won't like it because he's trying to give you these different looks. But
- 24:40I feel like the looks are so different on these tracks. Stay there to
- 24:44the extreme, right party record to the extreme. I'm going all the way
- 24:48there. You know what I'm saying, trap music to the stream, I'm
- 24:49going all the way then. You know what I'm saying A Grizzelda drumless beats,
- 24:55You know, Darren je I'm going way back to the mixtape days.
- 24:59And when you hit they're all cool. He can still run, but it's
- 25:04not what I think he hoped it would be. And I'm not predicting the
- 25:10future, but I had saw an article where they talked about, you know,
- 25:14like m Conway wants to reach you know, top of the billboard or
- 25:21they were predicting that one or the other, and that right there told me,
- 25:26okay, okay, so we're not getting Circa Grisel to mixtape days here.
- 25:32We may get a couple of those joints, but he's trying to have
- 25:36some radio singles and do some videos and stuff. I'm starting to feel a
- 25:41little bit sad for him because it's not that he can't, but it's like
- 25:48Jada Kiss, right you are popular to a point. Jada Kiss has hits,
- 25:56but not hits in a way as as a like a jay Z you
- 26:00know these timeless hits that always get played. Jada Kiss has some of those.
- 26:04But I kind of feel like what Conway he's reaching like Jadakiss and sometimes
- 26:11recent albums. For sure, he's reaching for the things that are commercially accepted,
- 26:18like features right now. Has he had features before, of course,
- 26:25but there are certain features on this project that to me suggested, oh,
- 26:30this is a dislike reading a strategic plan, right, These cats are on
- 26:36here on this song with this specific sound to be played in a specific region
- 26:41that the drumless beats won't get him. There's certain areas of fandom, you
- 26:48know, trap won't get you into the boom bap house and vice versa and
- 26:52stuff like that. So if you're a person who likes variety and you like
- 26:56Conway, well you might dig it. I mean, I think it's cool,
- 27:00but I'm not gonna lie. This is the second album in a row
- 27:06from Conway. The last was his Shady debut, right debut that can't touch
- 27:12From King to a God. It's just king from King to a God.
- 27:15Production Wise, it's on point. There's not one record where I feel like,
- 27:21why they use that beat? All they're could have did this this album,
- 27:25you know, you know, I feel like it's okay. And over
- 27:32the years watching his response to others response to his music or like thereof,
- 27:38he can be really sensitive about it, and I just don't think this is
- 27:45it. I don't think this is I think he's starting to get to a
- 27:49point where, no, he's not a whack. He will never be whacked,
- 27:52but he's starting to get to a point where I think he needs to
- 27:56find the thing that people like about him and just do that right west Side
- 28:03Gun, though, He's like, people just want to hear, Hey,
- 28:07yeah, you know, we opened up a box of Cherry's box of charity.
- 28:12People love that. They may not know what he's talking about, why
- 28:18he said it, why it's popular, they make joke about it, like
- 28:22I did. But guess why I'm pressing play Why Because at this point there's
- 28:26a thing that West Side Gun does that I tune into here, and as
- 28:30long as he does that, I'm typically satisfied with it. And the same
- 28:34thing goes for Benny. I feel like Conway's trying to be this bigger presence
- 28:41as a rapper, and I think it's probably best for him to be featured
- 28:48more on other projects than to bring them into his projects and have them sounds
- 28:55so different from the other records that they become forgettable. So y'all know how
- 29:00I do when it comes to recommending, I'll say this, if you're a
- 29:04Griselda fan from day one, and all you want to hear and gun shots
- 29:11and drumless beats, you're not gonna like it. You're gonna like the songs
- 29:18that sound like that on him, but you're not gonna like it. In
- 29:19general, if you're a person who doesn't like a lot of features, well
- 29:22guess what fabs on head? West Side Gun is on him, Benny's on
- 29:29here, Goose by the way, I don't know who that is, um
- 29:33Love the Genius, Sauce Walker, Juicy Jay, like, there's ransoms on
- 29:38here to join Ransom's kind of crazy. It's called stab out. I like
- 29:41that joint. You might not like it. But if you've been a fan
- 29:48of of Conway and you want him to spread his wings a little bit and
- 29:52do different things, and you feel like, anytime I want that traditional Conway,
- 29:57I don't need him to to turn the clock back. I can just
- 30:02go listen to the old stuff. I want to hear something new. I
- 30:04think you'll like it. But I'm gonna tell y'all, like this, well,
- 30:07my list of best albums of the year so far come out. I
- 30:14don't think this is gonna make it, and not because it's bad. I
- 30:17just think by the end. Oh I'll say this. I think by because
- 30:21I'm gonna keep listening. But I think by the end of the year there's
- 30:25gonna be so many albums that come out that are so much better that it's
- 30:29just not gonna make the cut, and that's okay, all right, but
- 30:33that's gonna do it for me. You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter,
- 30:34and TikTok at Vegas World I n C and subscribe to the channel on
- 30:40YouTube it's called hip Hop Now Podcasts. Subscribe like comment. If you have
- 30:45a comment, I will respond, I will like it. I mean,
- 30:48do the pin joint because maybe you had the best comment or whatever. Definitely
- 30:56subscribe to the YouTube channel. Also know that it's an audio version available wherever
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- 31:33critic. I'm a fan. Peace