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Outsell The Bible?! · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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Coming up on this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast, Tribe and Woolves
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celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their classic albums. Little Kim's book The Queen Bee
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has a release date, Plus she gives some details and my thoughts on the
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new album from Meek Mill and Rick Ross. Too Good to be True.
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This title is fitting you'll see Let's do it. Welcome to Hip Hop Now.
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Pop Facts. Did you from the future? You know what to do?
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Show ass out about past life. Don't disrespect the leg hip hop is
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say this today? Escat rightful to the business. What up, y'all?
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I am your host, Vegas invests. It's Hip Hop Now podcast podcast specifically
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designed to keep you caught up on all things hip hop, music and culture
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that happened throughout the week. Big shout out the supporters, producers, patrons
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over at patreon dot com, slash hip Hop Now and if you would like
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to support this podcast, support the production of this podcast, support what's coming
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to this podcast production wise, visit the link in the description of this episode.
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Doesn't matter if you're watching on YouTube. It doesn't matter if you're listening
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on your favorite podcasting app Show some love and through that portal. You can
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also throw me some ideas for shows, special shows like if you want me
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to talk specifically about an album a time in hip hop, whatever it may
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be. That is the place to get down. Because they brought you the
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video version of this let me just let me just sold bots for a minute,
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fifty years of hip Hop. I've been doing this podcast for a very
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long time, and I got to a point in time right before the fiftieth
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year of hip Hop where I was like, yeah, it might be time
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to like stop. And it was only an audio form and I had been
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asked before, like yo, why don't you do a video version or do
2:21
some kind of video something, And you know, I dabbled here and there
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and it didn't really make sense at times, and you know, I didn't
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have the equipment, but the Patreon supporters kind of came through in some regards.
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I was able to purchase a couple little bit you know items here and
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there to kind of boaster up the production of the podcast and video form.
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And you know that continues so again, Patreon dot com slash hip Hop Now
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is the place to go to get down with that. Also, No,
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I have merched t shirts, hoodie stickers, whatever logo items. Check it
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out the links in the description of this episode. Big shout out to hip
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hopdx dot com, iron All hip Hop dot Com, the Source magazine Yeah
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them too dot com, and a couple of places where I'm getting some of
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these stories from. Let's get right into the business. So November ninth,
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twenty twenty three is Wu and Tried Day. I know what New York said,
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Today's officially Wu Tang Day. You know, November ninth is Wu Tang
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Day, and that's cool, but hip hop has no November ninth, nineteen
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ninety three was a special day for hip hop. It could sort of serve
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as a barometer for those that talk that and you asked them what they were
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doing at that time, because most hip hop heads were buying a tribe called
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Quest's third album, Midnight Maradas and Wu Tang Clan's debut album Into the Wu
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thirty six Chambers, two bona fide classic albums. I know they don't.
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I know. People say, yo, you can't really call it a classic
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when you hear it, But sometimes you just know something special, like really
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special, as you're listening to it. You know it then and air everything
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you hear everything is coming together perfectly, and that was the thing for both
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of those albums. I did not do a special on it because during the
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twenty fifth anniversary, I did a whole podcast which was only in audio form,
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but you could also listen to it here on YouTube. I posted reposted
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that just so people could check out my thoughts, because that was my thoughts
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kind of fleshed out around that time about my experience. But just for you
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who are listening today in twenty twenty three, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of both
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of these classic albums, my experience was just as a hip hop head,
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I knew that both of these albums were dropping on the same date and typically
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around that time. Because I have a lot of money. Maybe you had
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some bread, but I ad it, okay, I ad it like that.
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What I did was I literally saved my money so I could be able
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to afford both albums on a day it released. I didn't have like a
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portable CD player. I don't even think my stereo play CDs. My stereo
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at the time was like tape deck and vinyl, and I kind of used
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the vinyl, you know, to do my little Wigga Wiggers. As far
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as mixing. But you know, I bought both cassettes that day, and
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I remember like when I got him, it was like, you know,
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I was hyped because Lowen Theory is my favorite Tribe album, so he's the
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sequel, and War Tour had me amped. But then there was the woo
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you know, Protect your Neck was crazy. Method Man was crazy. And
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then I had already heard like unreleased versions of Cana, B and Cream and
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I was like, I don't know what this is, but I gotta have
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this album day and day. And the biggest dilemma for me walking out of
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B Street in Brooklyn. You already know that was my spot to get on
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the fifty to B fifty two to go back to Gates AV was which one
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am I gonna listen to first? And I wound up listening to Tribe first
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because it was highly anticipated for me. Right, they already had a track
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record with this group. They were basically my favorite group at this point besides
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you know, EPMD. But I just remember saying, yo, I gotta
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listen to this first. I gotta listen to this first. And I was
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blown away by the production, by you know, the rhyms, just everything,
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you know, large pro feature everything lyrics the gold God Lives Through.
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God Lives Through is probably my favorite, and you know, I was just
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on the bus, like, man, they did it again. This album
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is better like but in the back of my mind was like, I can't
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when I get home, I'm going to listen to the Woo in the crib
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and I popped in the tape and shame on an N word because it's a
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family podcast, we don't cuss and all that, shame on an N word
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came on, and I just remember feeling like like it was Shane on an
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N word. And then when I heard Clann in the front, because remember
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I had already heard a couple of joints ready, I was like, I
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don't know who these dudes are Riza. This is my first experience with his
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production, but everything about this album is legendary, you know what I'm saying.
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And I wasn't even a big Ghostface fan around this time because I didn't
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really like them that much. Obviously, Cuban Lank came out and then that
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changed that quickly or really Heaven and Hell when I heard that joint. But
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nevertheless, you know I like them on cannib don't get it twisted, but
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I just remember listening to the album, and the crazy part was I started
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to feel like I was listening to the Woo more I was listening to the
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Tribe Joint, and I loved both, but the Wu Joint was something I
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hadn't experienced or heard from before. And it's all these group members and all
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these references to Kung Fu movies. It was just like and it was all
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grimy in comparison, the sound was just grimy, like you could tell they
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were in some mighty crib recording this. It just classic. Now obviously Midnight
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Marauders after, you know, I bumped the Wool back to back to back
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for so much of my room had to put that Tribe on and it was
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just a magical time for a hip hop head. And obviously throughout the years,
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there are dates throughout hip hop history where you had some dope albums,
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even classic albums drop all on the same day. But it was like there
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was nothing else dropping, you know, like they probably was some things that
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dropped that day, but it was everybody had these two or they bought one
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and they homely bought the other, and they would trade and all that,
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but it was it was like that. It was a magical time. So
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if you've heard about these albums or you heard this story, just take yourself
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back to a time. Think about a time where music released on Tuesdays and
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CDs were around, but po folk like me was still getting cassettes. Actually,
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I think the cassettes that I purchased are actually back there. Let's check.
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Try to be real quick. I don't think my wool joint is back
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here. Yeah, we'll maybe we'll splice that into the video at one point
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so you can see when I find it. But nevertheless, man, just
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a dope time in hip hop. So thirty years of Woo Tang debut album
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and Tropical Quest's Midnight Marauders go out listen cop the vinyl. I had Woo's
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debut on vinyl because I only collect the classics. I can't do like buying
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everything because I ain't got no space for all of that, and I already
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have the music, but I don't have Midnight Marauders on vinyl. I have
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lowen theory because I said that's my favorite, right, But now I'm starting
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to feel like I need to make that happen. So there you have it.
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Little Kim has a new book coming out, well, not a new
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book, I guess. It's her only book, called The Queen Bee,
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and it's obviously about her life story. But she said it will be the
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first book to outsell the Bible. Now that's a pretty bold claim, but
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she's a rapper. That's what rappers do. Rappers are like boxes. I'm
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the best. I don't care who has all the belts. I'm the best.
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And I understand she's hyping it up, but honestly, I don't even
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think she needs to say that because some of the things that she mentioned about
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the book are probably enough to get most people to buy it, pre order
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it or whatever. Because I don't buy a lot of books, and I
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don't always get through them in record time. I have to be so locked
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into what's there that I just keep going and going and going and going,
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and then the book is done right, like the Dealer Book, which I
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still haven't finished, but it is good. It's a good book, the
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Rock Cam book, even Prodigy's book. You know, there are books that
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I just kind of just ran through. And when I heard Little Kim was
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dropping a book and some of the things she talked about that being there,
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I was like, I think, I think I need to get this one
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to read. And mainly because just like with Rock Him, there was a
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time where Rock Him didn't do many interviews, so therefore it was like,
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sure, you know you talk. When he would do interviews, you would
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hear some of the same things, right, the things you already know if
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you're a hip hop ed about the music, about his history. But to
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know that he had an autobiography coming out, I was like, oh wow,
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I'll get a deeper look at his life and his accounts, right.
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And I think the same could be said for some other artists who haven't necessarily
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not shed or address but talked about everything in their life and their career in
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detail in every interview or on every album. So there was a little intrigue
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there for me. With Rock Kim, it's the same with Little Kim.
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You don't always see her granting interviews, and a lot of times we're at
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the mercy of the interviewer's questions and sometimes you already know somebod These cats asked
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the same dumb questions all the time, and you don't get any depth out
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of these interviews. Book is intriguing. This is on Hip Hop DX dot
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Com. It says Little Kim claims her Queen Bee book will surpass sales of
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the Bible. Yeah, here's some quotes from her, and that's crazy.
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And the thing is, it's like the Bible, Like I don't take that
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lightly. I already know that. But it's like some crazy ish going on
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behind the scenes. I guess she's referring to what's in the book. The
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Bible is the highest selling book of all time and is believed to have sold
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between five and seven billion copies. We already know, Little Kim, you're
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not breaking that record. Stop it. Okay, here's another quote. You
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have to be really careful when you deal with these book companies because they try
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to like literally take advantage of you. Let's get to the parts where she
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talks about, well, let's just do this. The Queen Bee, which
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is the name of the book, is expected to be released in March of
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twenty twenty four. According to a press release. It will deal with her
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complicated, high profile relationships, the misogynistic industry she fought to change through sex
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positivity, the challenging double standards of self image and beauty in the spotlight,
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and the momentous act of loyalty that ultimately landed her in prison. She also
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well The Queen Bee will also see Kim's take on her romantic relationship with the
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notorious Big which is alleged to have been fraught with domestic abuse. Oh boy,
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this is going to be crazy, and in a lot of ways,
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I'm not. Look, Biggie's my favorite rapper, but I'm not surprised to
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hear her say that. And if she wanted to capitalize off of him,
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she would have done it a long time ago. Little Kim is our own
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star. Like when Big died, it was kind of like it wasn't like,
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oh, well, we got this offshoot. No, Kim was a
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star in our own right. And I think it's similar to what we've learned
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about Big pun Right. You know, he abused his wife, you know
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what I'm saying. And for me as a fan of his music, you
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know that takes a little bit away, right, like not like he's rapping
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about you know, he ain't father him se right, like he's rapping about
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the opposite of what he's doing. But in the same sense, you think
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about it and it's just crummy, you know. Sometimes you know when you
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learn more about the celebrities, whether it's actors or musicians or whatever that you
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admire, and then you find out that you wouldn't like this person if they
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weren't this, and you found out all this other information about them. I
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try to separate from time to time, Like I was a big R.
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Kelly fan, but it was just too much to separate the art, especially
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when he didn't separate the art from his personal life. It was embedded in
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his music. So it made it easy for me to just be like,
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I can't rock with that dude no more. But with Big it's going to
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be complicated because, for one, he's not here to defend himself, so
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we don't know what is what. But I can't see a reason why Kim
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would wait this long just to you know, disparage him after to basically him
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and bigging them up. And he'd been dead forever at this point. So
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we'll see, because we don't know what she's going to say, but we
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just know that she said what she just said, and I'm interested in all
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of it, especially everything that was mentioned there. I think that's pretty dope
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because when you look at the industry now and all these female rappers, a
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lot of which don't really have skill. They just naked on the stage and
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they just talking about sex. That's not what Little Kim was. Little Kim
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was a little bit more than that. There was a little bit more substance
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to what she had to say. Some of those things were there, obviously,
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because I'm not knocking these women for talking about something that happens every day.
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Sex sells, and I mean, you got free poem on the internet,
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right and it ain't blocked and all that, so they're not out of
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line. But it's a different conversation when you talk about that time and what
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Foxy and Kim probably went through trying to liberate women in a art form that
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was dominated by males. That was misogynistics, that was double standed out.
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And honestly, that's why we liked Kim and Foxy because they broke that mold.
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I don't have to put a bunch of baggy stuff on in order for
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dudes to like me. I'm going to be sexy. I'm a spit like,
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come on, man like that. Let's just not ignore that. So
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March twenty twenty four, the Queen Bees coming out. I think I'm going
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to pre order just so I don't forget. I'm already got it saved all
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my Apple books. So we'll see what it says, you know, because
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at the end of the day, you can have a bunch of things in
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there and it could still be a terrible read. So we'll see. But
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I definitely plan to review it for this podcast. And lastly, so I
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didn't episode not that long ago talking about the upcoming album from Meet Mel and
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Rick Ross entitled Too Good to Be True, and I talked about my hype
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for it. I talked about hearing I think three songs at the time,
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three or two songs at the time and feeling like shry, I heard a
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dud, yet I'm ready. I'm excited for this album now. Whereas this
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is my impressions because when I record this, it's only been a couple of
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hours since the album dropped. But what I like to do is listen in
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the gym in the morning, I don't stay up at night, and you
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know, tweet and call it a classic, like y'all. Then at another
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point in the day I'll listen, and then I'll listen again just to kind
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of confirm my thoughts and my impressions, and just so you don't have to
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wait for those just want to know straight up, I think it's good.
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I don't think it's one of the best of the year. I think it's
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one of the better albums of the year. But I think if you know
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both artists, you won't hear anything new production wise, content wise, flow
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wise. It's exactly what you think it will be. And that doesn't mean
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that's a bad thing if you like what they do. But if you don't
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or you're kind of tired of this, this album's not going to move the
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needle for you at all. So let's just get into what I think about
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it in detail. This album is seventeen tracks deep comes in right at one
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hour, which is perfect for me. The lead single Shock and Kobe's Here,
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but also the remix featuring Shack. I've never heard that one, and
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I don't think I want to hear it. I like the Shaq and Kobe
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song. I can't hear Shack on it, but he's probably dope on it,
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so let me not say that. I mean I heard it, but
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you know the various features a lot of R and B on here, Tianna
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Taylor, the Dream is on here, Jeremiah's on here, a French Montana's
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on here fabulous cool and Dre did some tracks, and when I heard the
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Shaq and Kobe joint, I was like really into it, like show this
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is this is dope, this is like this is a great idea, right,
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like, because we would do a Meek album, and we would kind
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of do a Rick Ross album. It's fifty years of hip hop, why
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not? But then they get together and put an album out and you you
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kind of get, like, if you've been listening to their albums in recent
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years, you kind of get a blend of what their albums typically sound like
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when they're separate. So I thought that was kind of commendable because I never
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felt like anything was off. Really, they are joints that sound like Rick
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Ross. They are joints that sound like Meat would have them. There's one
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record and I can't remember which one it is, but where I think it's
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some old meet vocals because he sounds really young on it. Like it took
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me a minute because when you listen to Shaq and Kobe, you know,
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and Meat likes to yell. We know that, but when you listen to
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Shaq and Kobe joint, you know, you recognize that's Meek today the way
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he sounds. But then this other joint, there was something about his voice
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that made me feel like, this's got to be an older track from when
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like first Signs, you know, not the debut, but you know,
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just younger Meek because it sounded different. It wasn't a bad thing, it
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was just noticeable and it made me wonder like, oh, well, maybe
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this is like a combinations of records they recorded a while ago and they were
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in the vault, and then they just added a couple of joints. Now,
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there are a number of songs on this album that got that feel and
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that type of beat from the record Chack and Kobe, which is what drew
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me in, like, ooh, this joint it's hot, Like I like
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it. I love the feel of it, love the swag talk that you
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know they both tend to do. But for those who don't like beats that
24:45
sound like trap, because Futures on here also Hilet's on Hell as well.
24:51
But anybody who doesn't want to hear anything that sounds remotely like trap, you're
24:56
gonna be disappointed because NB between the boom back sounding big hip hop record sounding,
25:04
you know, boom boom, there's the trap. Now. I don't
25:10
mind trap music, and in particular, I like what Meek has done in
25:14
his last maybe two projects where he takes a familiar sample, typically associated with
25:22
a nineties hip hop record, that you can recognize, and they flip it
25:26
into a trap beat without losing the essence of that baseline, and I think
25:30
it's dope. I love it every time they do it. I think it's
25:33
dope. So I would say, just to wrap this up, that this
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is probably one of those albums I'm just gonna keep listening to because I like
25:45
it. But I can't when I think about the albums I have in my
25:52
top five, like right now, and we're getting real close to the time
25:56
where you know, we solidify that far and the rest are just honorable mentions,
26:03
it's difficult to take this and place it amongst those albums because those the
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albums that I typically end up with at the end of the year, are
26:12
so much more than beats and rhymes. Sometimes there's that one album, that
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one project that's just the bars and the beats are so potent, and there's
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maybe there's no concept, they're just talking about the same thing, but I
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feel like it's infectious it's always one that makes my top five, but the
26:32
rest are always you know, like for example, like Killer Mike's Michael,
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Like, That's what I'm talking about, Like real quality work, like quality
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like a shirt right, like the threadn or sheets right like the threadning we
26:45
got a six million? They don't really have this, or maybe they have
26:48
it for rich people. Six million thread sheet right, detail upon detail upon
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detail upon detail. That's typically what's in my top five. Right. It's
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not just the production, it's how everything comes together. This album isn't that
27:07
by a long shot. It's just what you expected from these two as a
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group. So there you have it. What do you think about Meek Mill
27:18
and Rick Ross's collaboration on this new album Too Good to Be True? Leave
27:23
your comments in a comment section below. Are you looking forward to Little Kim's
27:27
book? Are you looking forward to learning some of the things about not only
27:32
her life, but let's just say, you know, the cosmetic surgery and
27:37
the abusive relationships she was in. Leave your comments and a comments section below.
27:45
Subscribe to this channel hit that like button subscriptions. Subscribing and sharing helps
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grow the podcast, helps grow the audience. So I need you to come
27:57
through for me, I just hit a hand on you with you whatever.
28:02
Uh, But until next time, y'all, I'm not a critic, I'm
28:07
a fan. Please