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The Science · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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Coming up on this week's episode of hip Hop Now podcast, Offset Thinks Me
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Goes is a top five old time group West Side Gun takes credit for a
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trend that isn't new, and my thoughts on the recently released album by main
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Source The Science. Yes, old Heads Rejoice, Let's do it. Welcome
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to hip Hop Now Podcasts. If you're from the future, you're gonna to
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do your aside with disrespectful hip hop and saity stadium. Let's get right into
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the business. What up, y'all? I am Host Vegas and this is
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hip Hop Now podcast, a podcast specifically designed to keep you caught up on
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all things hip hop, music and culture that happened throughout the week. Big
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shout out to the supporters, the producers over at patreon dot com and if
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you would like to become a producer, will visit the link. In a
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description, it says patreon dot com slash hip Hop Now fifty years of hip
1:19
hop before I begin, Before I begin next week. Come on, man,
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we're not gonna play those games. If you're from the future, you've
1:30
already seen this. It's already happened. But next week it's officially the fiftieth
1:40
anniversary of hip hop music and culture, and I have a very very special
1:48
episode for you. Now, I'm not going to say what it is,
1:51
but I'm going to say that considering its fifty years a hip hop, considering
2:00
we've seen a lot of coverage and will continue to do so. I assume
2:06
after the birthday of hip hop, it's difficult sometimes to say, what can
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I do that I haven't already done to celebrate hip hop? What can I
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do to commemorate the birthday of hip hop? Now, I've already done an
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entire show going through the timeline and history of hip hop. So if you're
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a person who is just new to this game, whether it's because you're young,
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whether because you never got into hip hop really and you're just kind of
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wanted to know the gist of its history throughout time, the players, the
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people, the impact players in particular, please please, by all means check
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out the episode at that time in hip Hop where we celebrate fifty years with
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my co host Tony from into the Doome dot Com and Yince for from a
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show that I used to do called hip Hop Twitter. I guess it would
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be hip Hop X Man. I'm glad we stopped when we did perfect time.
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But nevertheless, next week, next week's episode for Hip Hop Now podcast
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No yo, I enjoy this podcast. Y'all should check it out. That's
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all now. Big shout out to hip Hop Dx dot com, Ambrosier Forheads
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dot com, Double XL Magazine dot com, and a couple of places where
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I'm getting these stories from let's get right into the business. Say so Offset
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of me Goes. If you don't know, head this to say, and
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I'm reading this from hip Hop dx dot com. Offset argues me Goes are
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top five old time hip hop group and this is what he says, he
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changes the sound of music. Now, let's get let's get a little deep
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into those quotes. It depend on how people looking at it. If you're
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talking about culturally changed the sound of music, because then because then we went
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past hip hop and we went to country and all the different genres. I
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just feel like we could have got top five. Okay, so let's not
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get too deep into it. You can check out the article on hip hop
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dx dot com. Let me say this first, I'm gonna represent the old
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hits if you don't mind, I like me Goos Now, am I buy
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every album like every song kind of dude? Not really, I'm more or
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less I like the songs. I like, there's probably one album I prefer
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over the rest, And for the younger cats, they're probably like, yo,
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that's not the one. But for me, it was what I liked
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about Megos when they dropped was they had a unique flow for the time,
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right, not just all time, but for the time they had a unique
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flow, and the flow was so unique that their peers, including Drake,
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who I don't believe was a peer, but I guess you can call that,
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call them a peer, you know, kind of bit their style,
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right, they started rapping like them, and it was a thing where it
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was kind of corny because everybody was rapping like that. But then when you
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heard Megoes rap, you felt like, no, this is the origins of
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that style, and only them doing that style matters because it's their style.
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I agree with Offset from that standpoint because, whether you want to like it
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or not, as an old head, they did that. They had their
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own style, right. They stood out, They did the hip hop thing.
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They stood out from their pads, from their counterparts with their style.
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It's no different from Dos effect style or someone else's style. You know,
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they separated themselves. So I agree with him in that regard as far as
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the impact of megos on a culture, on a generation at that time.
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But when you say top five groups of all time, who woo wow,
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I have to stop you there because the criteria kind of shifts when you're talking
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about that, right, it's not just about style it's not just about success,
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it's not just about impact. Now, sure, their generation bit off
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their style for the most part, so you can say this impact, but
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you're talking about a generation that does that all the time so much that it's
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defeated the purpose to even defend stealing styles because it's commonplace to do that,
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and fans, it's not all fans, but most fans don't care about that.
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Old heads are the one who uphold the rules. Now there's some younger
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cats who do care. Right. For example, I'm not the biggest Little
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Baby fan. I'm not the biggest Future fan, but I prefer Future over
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a little Baby. And I remember looking at some reviews in the past of
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his albums and I never knew or I never paid attention to the fact that
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there are people who felt like he just a lackluster version of Future, And
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I was like, wow, I think that's the first time I ever heard
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that. And then I did some more research and I was like, oh,
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it's not common ass, that's what everybody thinks about them. But there's
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a good amount of people who don't mess with him for that very reason.
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So it's like it's the rules that they're but they're not, you know what
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I mean. But when it comes to Top five All Time changing the culture,
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you can look at groups who didn't have a counterpart similar to them at
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all. Like you can look at Run DMC, who are uniquely them and
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in a lot of ways, their music shift to the culture Outcasts, Right,
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nobody was doing what Outcast was doing. Right, of course, their
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styles shift to the culture. You could even look at artists that are just
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as unique, right, like Mob Deep is a very unique group with a
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distinctive sound. Right, I'm pretty sure they influenced a bunch of people.
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Now, the thing is, what is the crime tior for Top five All
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Time? So if I'm going with offsets definition, what I think it's what
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he's saying. It's about It's about megos to style. It's about how many
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people follow that style, right, It's about their success and in their place
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in hip hop. And I think in a lot of ways they are one
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of the top groups or one of the best groups in hip hop history,
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but they're not Top five. I can't look put it this way, y'all
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before we move on. When I think about Top five and placing somebody somewhere,
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the first thing you have to say to yourself, is who are you
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gonna put them in front of? Are you gonna put Megos in front of
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run DMC? Are you gonna put Megos in front of Outcasts? Are you?
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Or you're gonna put Megos in front of nWay or Public Enemy? You
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might? I mean they kind of kept the group. They ain't a live
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in hip hop because it's rare. They might be the only ones. Are
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you gonna put me Goes in front of a trial Coal Quest Daylight song?
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I don't know. I don't think so. So whereas they may be able
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to eat into a top ten maybe and old heads calm down, we can't
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talk about bar kings, right because at the end of the day, when
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it comes to Locke's albums, you know, like I know, there's some
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great songs and it's some really bad songs. So I'm just saying the criteria
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just shifts all around the place, and some people look at top groups based
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off of the music skill and that's it. Which is cool, Me Goes
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falls way down that list, probably damn it fall out the list at least
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as far as the top ten goes. So yeah, I'm not mad at
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its comments, but at the end of the day. I'm kind of like,
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come on, come on, Mike, come on. I ain't say
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like that on purpose. I'm just saying, come on, we you are
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entitled to your opinion, but you already know the internet start saying top five
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place of your group in that the comments is on fire, your timeline,
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it's on fight. So what's our gun? Did something that caught my attention
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because I get it. It's kind of like sports right where they're talking to
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a player and it would do you feel like you're the greatest of all time.
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Of course they're supposed to feel like that. That's a competitive fire.
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No one should be mad at that, even if they are far from the
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best of all time. That's the way they're supposed to project, right,
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because sometimes you project that and you kind of become that in the eyes of
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the public. It's like Floyd Maywell, right, the best to ever do
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it or whatever, best ever, the best ever TV. A lot of
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people go with it, go to got his head, best to ever do
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it? No, no, no, no, no casuals no. The
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best to ever do it will forever be Sugar Ray Robinson unless somebody who does
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what he does and more comes along. Now the way Terrence Crawford beat up
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Errow Spencer is pretty close. Especially if you've watched Terrence Crawford fighting, you
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know his style. But nevertheless, west Side Gun on a regular basis will
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grandstand and promote himself as the greatest curator in hip hop today. And you
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know, whatever top spot he can claim, he will claim. And some
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of it I like because that's what I like about him. Rapping this one,
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I don't know. He takes credit for hidden album features trend saying he
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is ten steps ahead. Now if you're listening and you're like, well,
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what does that mean? It means having somebody on your album, and generally
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in general, it means having a feature on your album that is like a
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big feature, but it's a surprise, like you either won't know until you
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hear it for the most part, or see it because you know dropped at
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midnight. Now you see the features and it's like, oh, I never
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noticed that jay Z was on the joint. It didn't say jay Z,
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or they released a fake list or whatever the case. Maybe now we are
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living in the feature heavy time, so heavy that now before they even release
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a single, releasing that artwork and more importantly, releasing the track listing is
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a thing. It's a thing people like. It is a thing, And
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the first thing people do in hip hop today is just scroll down that list
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and find out who's on it. Right, That's almost become more important than
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just seeing an album cover is seeing the titles and being interested in y'all,
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I wonder what that's about, what that's about. It's really like the features.
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Oh he got blah blah bo. And sometimes depending on the amount of
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features or the combination of features, people will get excited because they feel like
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it was crazy. He got got everybody only got hold, he got nine,
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he got Jada Kiss, he got eminem he got this one, he
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got Travis Scott, I guess whoever. And people will get excited because of
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that, and it is a thing. But he didn't really invent it.
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Now, if you want to say he played a role in popularizing that,
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maybe maybe, okay, maybe, because I don't think anybody thinks about that
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now. There's another thing with that. Also, it's great for the fans
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because it just builds excitement. But is he saying I started the trend of
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like making that a popular things because fans get into it or a trend of
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just and he probably means more so this but a trend of other artists using
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the same marketing tactics to build excitement and anticipation for the album by having a
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hidden feature. Right. I remember by albums back in the days where I
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don't know if it was on purpose or not, but you know you're listening
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and you know you hear the rapping, you like, we look at the
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track listen like, rights that red man on that song? Do you realize
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he is? And in some cases you know you didn't see the credits,
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and you don't know if there's a mistake, right, And what I say
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credits, like when you look at the track list and you see featuring blah
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blah blah blah blah blah. I remember looking at one album I can't remember.
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I think it was a Sticky Fingers album, Black Trash, the autobiography
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of Kurt Jones. Don't Sleep Side, one of the best concept albums of
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all time in hip hop. But I think I remember that where I think
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I had a copy where it didn't say the guest appearances on this one particular
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song, and then I recognized the voices and I'm like, oh, I
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know they were on here, and sure it built some excitement in the moment,
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but what's that gun? Stop it stop it. I like your music.
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I mean you got me to like you as an artist over the years
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to the point I anticipate your music because I think he's right when it comes
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to the curation for his projects, at least, it's usually it usually looks
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promising and sometimes it meets those expectations. So you can say he started the
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train, but I say no, he did not. Maybe he made it
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popular again, who knows. And lastly, so recently the anniversary of Main
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Sources debut album Breaking Adam's Past. The album was released in nineteen ninety one.
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It is an album that it's clearly a hip hop classic for that time.
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I think in a lot of ways, Large Professor was ahead of his
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time lyrically and mostly based off his social commentary. It wasn't that, oh,
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you know, looking at the Front Door is a record about a relationship.
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It just was like a real relationship, like the perspective he spoke from.
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Right, It wasn't like, oh, these are the things that people
19:27
do when then together and they fight. It was relatable, right, It
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wasn't cliche and what you know you would see or here. It was extremely
19:38
relatable and you know, with the glasses was in mustache. For some reason,
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he looked like it was thirty seven years old, but he was not.
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So the anniversary came up and for those who don't know, let's just
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go over the brief history. Main Source was a group released their debut album
19:56
nineteen ninety one, one rapper being Large Professor who's also a producer. The
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group also featured two of the DJs and it's a famous line on Tribe called
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Quests Midnight Marauders where he disses them, which is kind of dope at the
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same time. But they split up, right, And this album also is
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speaks about police brutality. Yes it didn't just happen, y'all. We can
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go back before I Main Source, but a friendly game of baseball. Check
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it out. Listen to the lyrics. It's about police brutality. But probably
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one of the biggest things that people take away from this album is this was
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the introduction to NAS right live at the Barbecue nineteen ninety one. Nas is
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you know I went to help of stuff in Jesus and that's all people could
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talk about, right, Like, yeah, who's this, dude, Nas,
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You're already said, So that's breaking Adams in a nutshell. They eventually
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broke up and Large Professor went solo the two DJs. I don't know where
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the hell they went. I didn't even know. I don't know where they
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went, honestly, I forgot. But you know, the anniversary came up,
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and I believe you know, they kind of squashed that long standing beef
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from years ago, rightfully, so it's been a long time. But more
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importantly, they have now released a sort of lost tapes album. Right This
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album is a couple of songs they recorded between the release of their debut,
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Breaking Atoms and the breakup, So it's like ninety one to ninety four songs
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they were working on I guess for what would have been their sophomore album and
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I'm not gonna hold you, I really really like now. Lost Tapes is
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essentially unreleased records, in some cases, unfinished records, and it's just this
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compilation of best of what wasn't released. You know. Na's famously has an
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album, NAS The Lost Tapes, which in my opinion, is a hip
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hop classic and the only musicians and y'all can name some in the comments.
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But the only musicians are artists to me that has ever released a unreleased situation
22:30
or even up that stuff that people could consider a classic. That's an elite
22:37
level of accomplishment. But nevertheless, the name of the project is The Science,
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and what I like about it most is it is like a time capsule
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of hip hop around that time. The sound, the way rappers wrapped,
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the types of beats that were popular, right, the techniques like this album
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is just like trumps. All the drums is like loud, and you know
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what I'm saying, and Large Professor just shows that man, this brother you
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talk about concept albums, this cat could have done a concept album easy because
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he just has songs about everything. You know what I'm saying. And what
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I like about this album is you really have to put yourself in the mindset
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for context of the time. Probably the best way to do this if you
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weren't around for the release of Breaking Atoms to even not the sound of early
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early nineties hip hop's to go to listen. Go listen to Breaking Atoms and
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then listen to this and think of it as a sequel. Not a sequel,
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think of it as a second album on addition to that, because the
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sound on Breaking Atoms mirrors the sound on this new album or this Lost Tapes.
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The Science. It's so it takes you back to that point. And
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what I love about this, I mean, it's not gonna be my top
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five of the year, but for them show it's gonna be one of the
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best of the year is how they did it. A lot of times a
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Lost tapes, an unreleased album is just give it a title, give it
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a cover, throw the songs on there, and you go through listening knowing
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this is just random songs, don't rhy a reason this joint has interludes all
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throughout that featured context for the records for the time, and it just sets
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up the songs lovely because you just know, like, oh, okay,
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this is this now let me let me just go through and not just talk.
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Let me just look at the album as I speak to you about it.
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I'm talking just to get to it, like you know, like I
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can't cuss, but you know what I mean, I'm beat essen to get
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there so I can read. Okay. So The Science is thirty minutes in
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length, which is great. Don't take up a lot of my time,
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you know, give me an opportunity to hit rewand bars sixteen tracks. But
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again you're talking about intro, song, interlude, song, interlude, song,
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interlude, song, song, song, interlude like that, and it's
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not annoying. Typically that would be annoying. But it's almost like walking through
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a museum, a very short museum of main source and unreleased material and having
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for the most part large professor from the past guide you through, which is
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just why if it's from the past, you know what it is. The
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brother's voice hasn't changed at all, so you can't even tell. So I
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don't know he could have added these, but regardless, it just sets things
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up, purpose up, you know perfectly. Now. What I like about
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it is there's songs on here I never heard of before, right, Like
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there's a song called Hellvision. And what I like about it that stood out
26:26
is like back in the nineties and eighties, people thought about especially hip hop,
26:34
thought about television in the same way they think about social media and the
26:41
internet. It's not good. Kids shouldn't be all engrossed in that. You
26:45
know, it's nonsense happening and misinformation, faked news, all of that.
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Helevision is that, But about television, which is crazy, right, he
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made a whole song that's like a this record through television called television, but
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it's it's the social commentary on television and his perception and a lot of rappers
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procession perception from back then. That to me mirrors a lot of what we
27:15
see today. But what we see with social media and the Internet, it's
27:19
the same. It's the same argument, which is crazy to even think about,
27:23
right because probably now most people think television is harmless in comparison to the
27:29
Internet. So, but what I also like is looking at the Front Door
27:36
is on here, but it's an uncut version, which is crazy because the
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beat is different. The rhoms are kind of the same, but not in
27:45
a lot of ways, you know, the way they roll out. So
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it's like, oh, so that was like a take on like jazz,
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right, there was like a take on the song. What we originally heard
27:56
was the final product. It was ready for the street, it was ready
28:00
for video and radio and all of that. But this was like what we
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had first. That's what I like about it. Also, unreleased version of
28:11
Faking the Funk. Now, I believe this might have been on something.
28:15
I know they say unreleased, but I swear it was on something, but
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you know, it's a different beat, totally different vibe from we first heard
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faking the funk on the White Man Can't Jump soundtrack, which that version ends
28:29
off the album. But I gotta tell you, man, I'm not even
28:33
gonna hold you. If you consider yourself on any level a hip hop fan,
28:42
you love the history, not just love it. Oh I love me
28:45
Ghosts and everybody that's new. Oh I love the nineties only like if you're
28:51
a hip hop fan, and with fifty years of hip hop, you get
28:55
really get into the history now more than ever because of the already behind this
29:00
short lived group that could have been one of the best groups of all time
29:07
in hip hop, having a debut album that most considered to be a classic,
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having a second album that was not because it didn't feature Large Professor,
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so most people didn't care a public you know, battle between Large Professor and
29:25
nose Cats, and just to have something a project like this years later that
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it leads for the most part, most having heard and have it play out
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in a way it does where again, it's like it's like an artifact,
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It's like a snapshot, it's like a capsule, a time capsule, of
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not only nineteen ninety one, but also this group and what could have been.
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That's what makes it though, It's the what could have been. And
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when you listen to this, it's like, man, I would have loved
30:00
to see, you know, them get to like four or five albums,
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Like, what what does it look like? Because we because Lars Professor has
30:08
some joints in the mid nineties, what does it look like if you had
30:12
main source the group? Not that the DJs did much but as a group
30:18
as we know knew them, just go through the years creating albums right,
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could have been really dope. But I'm glad we got this. So when
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it comes to the science, I think, if you're a hip hop head,
30:33
especially from back then, a main source fan, do you want to
30:37
listen to this even if you're curious check it out. I think it's worth
30:41
it. So that's gonna do it for me. You can follow me on
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Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, spill and threads I guess at Vegas World.
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I n c also know that this podcast is available where else when you get
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oh your podcasts no matter where you come. You know what I'm saying,
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But I'd be ap Spotify Google Podcast, overcast or whatever. Subscribe to Hip
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