Our First Good (Make That Great) Anthem Of The Year...

ABSOLUT PATRIOTISM.

comes courtesy of NORE and it's called 'NY Groove.' It's no Ja's 'New York' (though it's certainly a lot better than Busta's much-ballyhooed but resoundingly disappointing 'New York Shit'), but in a way that's all to the good. A lot of anthems try a little too hard to be Event Records; this is just a jubilant song about Nore's hometown. With a great Kiss sample. As for NORE himself, I've been very underwhelemed by his post-Oye Mi Canto output, ever since he lost the ability to charismatically rap about the most boring/meaningless shit (how many other rappers could make a hot line out of "it's the remix to the remix with Yankee on it") and get away with rhyming "my pops just died" with "my pops just died," and by last year he was sounding awfully stale. He isn't anywhere near his Smash Mouth-quoting heights here, the best part of his performance is when he shouts "I'm back, yall!" over the hook [actually after listening to this a few times, something really grabs me about his bragging that in New York you can go out to Queens and catch a Venus/Serena tennis match - both his pride in his town and in the Williams sisters], but he does sound like he's having fun in the booth again. Which is all I guess you can realistically ask of a rapper in the 13th year of his career these days.

N.O.R.E. - NY Groove.