Friday, January 9, 2009

Our First Sorely Disappointing Track Of The Year



Wildly sloppy, but you get the point.


So Wayne and Pharrell put out a track today called 'Yes' over a Neptunes beat. (Thank you, New Music Cartel, for being the FIRST to share this crap with us.) Basically the same melody-less beat that Pharrell's been peddling since Chad reportedly quit collaborating with him, this kind of caterpillar bass (see 'Can I Have It Like That,' Gwen's 'Wind It Up,' 'Mr. Me Too') and not much else. Pharrell imitates Wayne's flow and voice on 'A Milli,' with little hints of Pusha's inflection sprinkled in. Pharrell can be quite a dullard when he isn't being his own goofy self. (He can also be as entertaining a rapper we've got when he is; see his mixtape with DJ Drama.) He also talks about Ace of Spades a lot. Look, just because Jay cut an endorsement deal with them doesn't mean you have to push it too. Wayne lazily mumbles into the autotune and laughs at his own jokes, none of which are funny ("I asked her do she want to fuck, before I asked twice she said - [Sample]: 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.' [Wayne:] hahahahahahaha"). He also says that the 'F' in Weezy F Baby stands for 'phenomenal.' He has a few typically random lines - I think this song may make him the first rapper to boast that he keeps his hands sanitized - but somehow the effect is overwhelmingly boring. The sad thing is, you kinda get the sense from the minimalism of the beat, the repeated screwed vocal sample ('yes, yes, yes, yes'), Pharrell's blatant bite of Wayne's 'Milli' flow, and Wayne's semi-recycling of same on his own part that this song is intended to be Pharrell's answer to 'A Milli.' And not that I even liked 'A Milli' that much, but this song is about 1% as good as that was. What a snoozer.

In completely unrelated news, I was looking at allhiphop.com to see if there were any comic nuggets in their recent interviews I missed, and Prodigy had this to say about the relative merits of fiction and non-fiction:

I just read everything that has something to do with black history and s**t to do with this planet earth that we live on. Just factual information you know what I'm saying? I'm not really into fiction and all that s**t know what I'm saying, I'm really not with that. I'm gonna use my brainpower and time and energy to read big thick ass books. I want it to be something that I’ma learn some information that's factual that I can do something with you know what I mean.... I got a lot of books man. They’re all factual, just real good information; that's what I'm about.

Prodigy - using his brainpower and time and energy to read big thick ass books.
He also found time to scoff at those who get writers' block:

Nah, I don't never have a creative blocs, I don't never have writer’s block. I don't even know what that means. People say, "I got writer's block," I look at them like they crazy because that's just a personal problem that they have to learn how to overcome.

Of course, it isn't hard to avoid getting writers' block when your lyrics have devolved into shit like "Yo P, I can rhyme/50 Cent did it, I can do this shit too/But you not 50, he an individual." Or this enthralling, albeit somewhat disjointed depiction of a stay in the hospital:

I remember laying up fucked up in the hospital
Troy and Bags would visit; Troy had Sickle-cell
Me and him use to kick it and Bags' baby moms died giving birth
'Cause of Sickle-cell problems
And Shamik from Lefrak would bring me Red Lobster.

Smooth transition from the trials and tribulations of Bags' baby moms to the Red Lobster.

9 comments:

Trey Stone said...

i actually think this is one of Wayne's best recent performances, but you're right about the beat. sounds like something that could potentially be good if Pharrell fleshed it out more, dunno what's up with his drums.

Asher said...

Yeah, the weird thing is the comments everywhere are like "what a great beat, if only Pusha were on it." He has one element of a good beat here, but that's about it. As for Wayne's best recent performances, you could be right, I'm not as up on his recent performances as I could (should?) be, but haven't his recent performances been pretty bad? Mrs. Officer sounds like genius compared to this.

bding7 said...

those cheddar biscuits are the shit, though i haven't been to red lobster in a very long time.

also, in terms of the album covers you posted, which one do you think represents the greatest drop-off (and LR doesn't really fit, in my mind)? i go with doggfather.

Asher said...

I may be alone on Late Registration, but I actually think College Dropout is a great album, and LR pissed me off so much that I sold it back to the store I bought it from. This is a tough question, Doggfather vs. Immobilarity - Robbie recently did a poll on unkut.com, at which time I took the position that it was Doggfather, because Cuban Linx is really a group record (Rae, Ghost, and RZA), and Rae was probably the weakest member of that group, so to be disappointed when Paul McCartney puts out a weak album because the Beatles were great doesn't make a lot of sense, you know? And it's not like his rapping on Immobilarity is so poor, the problem's more bad beats and bad guest appearances. But then again, you could say the same of Doggfather, that Doggystyle was a Snoop/Dre album so what do you expect - no more than you should expect from a Guru solo, right? The thing there is that, yes, the beats are worse, but Snoop's extremely lazy on that record too.

Asher said...

That said, I don't know if there's anything as aggressively bad on Doggfather as Roses, Hey Mama, Bring Me Down, or Addiction, or anything as full of shit as Crack Music. Of course, there are several very good songs on the album too, you could make a decent EP out of the highlights.

bding7 said...

Yeah, LR is a mess, while The Doggfather has absolutely nothing to offer listeners. there's only 'Snoop's Upside Ya Head' and a whole lot of Uncle Charlie Wilson. "Still a G Thang" trumps that whole album.

Asher said...

I actually like 'Freestyle Conversation' and 'Gold Rush'... Snoop as a cowboy stopping in at the local outpost to get some bacon and eggs is an appealing little conceit. But sure, pretty easily the worst album of the three.

MAYNHOLUP! said...

MAYN HOL UP IN DIS BITCH MAYN!

all i got 2 say mayn iz dat dat line about 50 being an individual wuz de second best line uv de year behind Ross' "tight wit her momz (whaa)' one on dat single mayn.

woud it kill you to listen to 'Look What You Did to Me' Tray mayn? i dont give a fuck either way but you seem to like rap an dats de best album form de best rapper eva mayn so stop bumpin Doggfather, shief on sum kil, and bump dat Rother!

Asher said...

"would it kill you to listen to Look What You Did To Me mayn?"

Not at all Mayn, it's on my to-do list after finishing up my law school applications. Tight with her moms (whaaa) is one of the best lines of the year for sure.