Some Good New Rap You've Already Heard Everywhere Else!

This Royce/Phonte/Stat Quo 'Homage To Premier' is the type of thing that Premo used to do back when he was still a great producer. Seriously, first great scratched hook in a while. Rae, Jay, Nas, Lupe (he's surprisingly tolerable in 2-second excerpts), 50 from 'In Da Club,' Big - real ecumenical! And how about that weird looped noise that kinda sounds like a rainstick? Phonte's verse sucks, as should be expected from Phonte (he actually complains that "young'ns [have] no sense of history" and think that "that nigga from Coldplay" did the beat when they see 'C. Martin' in the credits - haha, very funny, and way to sound like a 50s grumpy grandmother), but Royce and Stat are the solid rappers they are, if not quite the most brilliant slept-on rappers in the world some people think they are, or rather think Royce is. Best of all though, the guy who produced this brilliant Premo imitation is Focus, who previously brought you bad Game and Tony Yayo album tracks like 'Where I'm From,'* 'Eastside Westside,' and 'Project Princess.' Yep, a D-List G-Unit producer can do Premo better than Premo can nowadays. Oh well, at least somebody can still do that sound well. On the other hand, I'm not feeling this well-reviewed Rick Ross single, 'Mafia Music' (though surely this is just the "street single," not the real first single, right?). It's quite lyrical for Rick, takes some random shots at 50, but the beat is forgettable, boring imitation Runners, there's no hook, it's just Rick's surprisingly okay attempt to black out over a track for four minutes, and you know, I don't think that anybody listens to Rick Ross for lyrical workouts. We listen for the goofy sense of humor, the bullshit bravado, the colossal beats, the surprisingly tender girl talk, the ignorance... all of which is in short supply here. But if the only standard by which you judge rappers is their big word count, you may be pleasantly surprised by this track.

* Actually, 'Where I'm From' is pretty good imitation Dre, the only problem with that track is that Game's retarded.