Fake For Real - Tag - 2007The English written companion of Fake For Real: since 1997, reviews and articles about rap music2024-03-11T20:40:46+01:00Sylvain Bertoturn:md5:a035ff44a020bb716e18191580d6e9ecDotclearMAX B - Public Domain 2: Rise Of The Silver Surferurn:md5:68600db24f786620f3deaa4116df53b02020-02-26T22:49:00+01:002023-02-07T17:32:33+01:00codotusylvMixtapes2007Max BNew York <p>In 2007, Max Biggavelli was already impacted by the sordid affair which would lead, a few years later, to a 75-year prison sentence. Two years after his liberation in 2005, he was already back to jail, for having supposedly ordered a murder. This was, already, the beginning of the end. So that he stayed free until the final judgment, he had to pay 2 million dollars to be released on bail, an amount he obtained through a quick deal with his associate, Jim Jones. This agreement, though, would be the cause of the contractual and financial dispute between the two rappers, that would lead to Max B's music being embargoed. Also, since misfortunes never come singly, his friend Stack Bundles had been murdered, just one month before his release on parole.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2007/max-b-public-domain-2-rise-of-the-silver-surfer.jpg" alt="MAX B - Public Domain 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="MAX B - Public Domain 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer" /></p>
<p>Max B was jinxed. And though, he was productive. He had just started a mixtape releases marathon, that would - almost - stop only with his final incarceration in 2009. The first two editions of the <em>Public Domain</em> series, as a matter of fact, had been released while he was imprisoned. And the second one, <em>Rise of the Silver Surfer</em>, would become a fans' favorite. Actually, due to the presence of other ByrdGang members, it was not too different from other releases from that collective. Indeed, it was full of arrogant songs and looped sample that would have done well on a Dipset album, like with "Drop That Top", or "Lump Sums", featuring Jim Jones and NOE. And some other tracks were typically from their times, like with the screwed sample on – well... – "Screwed", or the reference to Soulja Boy's "Crank That" on "Ready to Go".</p>
<p>Max B, though, was central to his mixtape, thanks to some peculiarities, like his sing-song, and his hissing raps. They were both reminiscent of 50 Cent's formula, but in a more plaintive and throbbing way. Also, he liked to joke, and he enjoyed bragging, and celebrating drugs ("50's of Sour"), as well as girls ("Flash Dance", "Reign", "Need a Lil Treat", "Give Dem Hoes Up", and more). The rapper, also, played with hip-hop's legacy. He sampled 2Pac on "Bring Another Ounce". "Thug & Harmony", was, expectedly, influenced by the same-titled band. And he named another track after De La Soul, where he appropriated one of the trio's most iconic songs, "Ring Ring Ring", changing it into an ego-trip. Max B was at the top of his talents, and he would use them again, on many other mixtapes, before being sentenced to a too long silence.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.datpiff.com/Max-B-Public-Domain-2-Rise-Of-The-Silver-Surfer-mixtape.648459.html" hreflang="en">Download the mixtape</a></strong></p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2020/MAX-B-Public-Domain-2-Rise-of-the-Silver-Surfer#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/3036EEKWOL & MILS - The Listurn:md5:ba1007ed7eaeba150be1b6f524b955062019-10-01T22:54:00+02:002023-01-13T18:03:42+01:00codotusylvAlbums2007CanadaEekwolMilsMils Productions <p>In 2004, when she released <em>Apprentice to the Mystery</em>, Lindsay Knight, a.k.a. Eekwol, was primarily presented as a rapper from the First Nations. She is, indeed, a member of the Cree community, later on she would be a lecturer in Indigenous Studies, and on a track from this first album, she paid a tribute to her origins through the presence of a pow-wow singer. However, reducing the niece of Chester Knight, the folk musician, to this sole quality, is unfair. The aforementioned record talked about other matters. And its successor does it as well.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2007/eekwol-mils-the-list.jpg" alt="EEKWOL &amp; MILS - The List" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="EEKWOL &amp; MILS - The List" /></p>
<p>Eekwol mentions her ethnicity on "What's Good", a song from <em>The List</em>, and she urges her people to act on another one, "Let's Move". But her themes are broader. She philosophizes, a lot. She reminds people about their individual responsibilities on "The Tree". She seeks to reenchant the world on "Magic". To a large extent, this record is made of "conscious rap". As a matter of fact, its most famous guest is Stic.man, of the very political Dead Prez – who doesn't show up in the video, though, where he is replaced by Luckyiam. And in addition, Eekwol talks about personal matters like her addiction to cigarettes, on "Smokitine", or her relationship to rap, art and creation on the excellent "Catch 22", a track we'll talk about in a short moment.</p>
<p>Three years earlier, when some praised <em>Apprentice to the Mystery</em>, they talked primarily about Eekwol. But the rapper had a close collaborator, her own brother Justin, and he is no stranger to her music. Actually, his renown predated hers. Before Eekwol joined Innersoulflow, the man known as Mils was a pillar of this familial collective. He was a respected producer on the indie hip-hop scene, who had offered some beats to underground heroes like the Living Legends, Pigeon John and Paul Barman. And naturally, he's been the beatmaker on her sister's albums.</p>
<p>One of his strengths is his ability to play "real" instruments. Thanks to them, his production style has an organic flavor. A few moments on <em>The List</em> are synthetic, like "Tree". But others, like "Smokitine", have brass-wind instruments and a piano, that break the monotony of the loops. There is also a guitar (along with Mils' own raps) on "The Gauntlet", the single, that ends with a nice solo. And the same instrument shines on the gem of the album, the gliding "Catch 22" that we discovered a while ago, even before the album was released, on <em>Hue And Laugh And Cry</em>, a compilation of the softer kind of indie hip-hop released on a Japanese label. Considering how decisive such beats are, it is fair that, this time, the album is credited to both Eekwol and Mils.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://amzn.to/3TE7oAc" hreflang="en">Buy this album</a></strong></p>
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https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2019/EEKWOL-MILS-The-List#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/3284FIGURES OF SPEECH - The Last Wordurn:md5:a23bfeab7ec46bb4ef5e578266196d222017-07-31T15:30:00+02:002023-08-22T20:24:40+02:00codotusylvAlbums2007Ava DuVernayFigures of SpeechLos Angeles <p>One peculiarity with the Good Life Café, is that it was headed by a woman, B. Hall, and open to feminine talents. The Project Blowed compilation shows this clearly. One of its highlights, the "Heavyweights Round 2" freestyle, has as many femcees as males on it. There, Medusa and her cousin Koko - a.k.a. S.I.N. - Nefertiti and T-Love challenge males such as Mikah 9, Self Jupiter, Volume 10, and a few others.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2007/figures-of-speech-the-last-word.jpg" alt="FIGURES OF SPEECH - The Last Word" class="media-center" title="FIGURES OF SPEECH - The Last Word" /></p>
<p>The best song with women, though, is "Don't Get It Twisted". Delivered by Jyant (Ronda Ross) and Eve (Ava DuVernay), collectively known as the Figures Of Speech, it is a perfect sample of the Good Life style, with its erratic and unpredictable music, full of versatile flows and rhythm.</p>
<p>This track will be, for a long time, the only available music from the duo. No album will ever be released by them, indeed, until <em>The Last Word</em> in 2007. By then, however, both women have more or less put an end to their rap careers. This record, actually, is a compilation of songs recorded here and there, between 92 and 96, and collected by Omid Walizadeh, the producer, a heir of the Project Blowed scene.</p>
<p>The hazardous origin of most tracks is quite perceptible, their sound quality being often low, and some tracks like a "On The Road" - actually the hook of a song from The Nonce, sung by the two ladies - look somehow like a filler.</p>
<p>Most tracks, though, have something in common: on them, the Figures Of Speech look like a feminine Freestyle Fellowship. Their music is delicate, jazzy, and at times experimental, like with the strange "Last Minutes". They are equally distant from New-York's boom bap and California's own g-funk. Both women - one of them, Eve, studied at the UCLA when attending the Good Life sessions - look quite literate. Their raps are fast, especially on "Doe See Doe" and "Avoidance", when competing against NGA FSH's supersonic delivery. Their flows are constantly moving and changing. They even sing. And they go beyond rap music, like when turning reggae with Abstract Rude on "Babylon".</p>
<p>This compilation is a precious testimony of a time long gone, along with another document, put together by some of the same people. Around the same time, indeed, supported by Omid, Eve shots a documentary about the Good Life Café called <em>This Is The Life</em>. Ava DuVernay, actually, has just started a career in cinema under her true name. She will eventually become famous with <em>Selma</em>, a movie about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, made with the help of heavyweights like Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt. While Jyant will vanish, Eve's career as a director will help her reaching levels of notoriety she could never have expected as an underground rapper. Thanks to <em>The Last Word</em>, though, her hip-hop background will be recalled.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Figures+Of+Speech/The+Last+Word" hreflang="en">Listen to this album</a></strong></p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2017/FIGURES-OF-SPEECH-The-Last-Word#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/2620LIL WAYNE - Da Drought 3urn:md5:ed4ece8b45f590935d698f9b9662914d2016-03-02T23:18:00+01:002020-12-01T19:55:48+01:00codotusylvMixtapes2007Lil WayneNew OrleansYoung Money <p>And if, in his heyday, by the middle of the noughties, exactly when he pretended to be "the best rapper alive", Lil Wayne's <em>opus magnum</em> had been none of his official albums, <em>Tha Carter II</em> or <em>Tha Carter III</em>, but a mixtape? As a matter of fact, this could have been <em>Dedication</em> 2, in 2006. Or maybe, one year after, the third installment of his <em>Da Drought</em> series, a project where Weezy was so prominent that the cover art didn't mention the DJ, and that he postponed the release to take the time to record a double-album, with no less that 29 tracks, and almost zero filler.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2007/lil-wayne-da-drought-3.jpg" alt="LIL WAYNE - Da Drought 3" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="LIL WAYNE - Da Drought 3" /></p>
<p>None of the beats he used was his. On <em>Da Drought</em>, a true mixtape, Lil Wayne looted the music from the most famous rappers of his times, those from the East Coast like Jay-Z, Nas, Cam'Ron, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones and Young Gunz, and those from the South, like T.I., Young Jeezy, Young Dro, Lil Boosie, YoungBloodZ, Yung Joc and Mike Jones. He also went much beyond rap music, using songs from people like Beyoncé, Ciara and Robin Thicke. And he went far back in time, like with "Everlasting Bass", the old West Coast classic from Rodney-O and Joe Cooley.</p>
<p>Also, he appropriated each of these songs. He did it so well that they didn't sound that diverse or eclectic anymore: they were fully his. The rapper did even better than that: he made them stronger than the originals. Mike Jones' ordinary "Mr. Jones" became an irresistible "Ride 4 My Niggas", transcended by its exalted hook ("The sky is the limit"...). That was true with the most obscure tracks, as well as with the most famous, more particularly Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents", Nas' and Lauryn Hill's "If I Ruled the World", and "Crazy", the hit single from Gnarls Barkley.</p>
<p>All over that mixtape, Lil Wayne was on fire. He rapped along a hundred intense minutes, with limited support – the only guests were Juelz Santana, Brisco, and the then unknown Curren$y and Nicki Minaj – in a verbal deluge, in long verbal marathons like "Back on My Grizzy". Sometimes, he referred to the artists he was stealing beats to, measuring himself against T.I., or declaring his love for Ciara. He talked about pretty much everything: money, sex, guns, "bitches" or "niggas", with no other motive than self-affirmation. All of this was mixed with a juvenile energy, Lil Wayne being more interested in music and creativity, than in making sense.</p>
<p>Same with his flow: he would constantly play with it, moving from a shrewd to an oneiric tone, and sometimes being literally possessed, like on "We Takin Over". He sang on "Boom", or he turned dancehall with the introduction. And for his own art, rap music, it was nothing less than liberating. If the 2000 decade is the time when we realized that a hip-hop mixtape could be superior to a regular album, Lil Wayne and <em>Da Drought 3</em> indubitably contributed to this.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.datpiff.com/Lil-Wayne-Da-Drought-3-Disc-1-mixtape.4313.html" hreflang="en">Download this mixtape</a></strong></p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2016/LIL-WAYNE-Da-Drought-3#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/3066RUMI - Hell me WHY??urn:md5:5db67ece8d6dc0e004d14b8728e1155b2011-06-21T23:08:00+02:002022-10-25T17:56:03+02:00codotusylvAlbums2007JapanRumiSanagi Recordings <p>No country other than Japan - at least in the most marginal parts of its scene – appropriated hip-hop music that well. Contrary to others, the Land of the Rising Sun did more than just adapting the formulas of this American music to its own languages and realities. Oh, sure, it did that as well. But sometimes, on the opposite, it utterly transformed it into something brand new, thanks to some very strong characters. Coming from the entourage of the great DJ Baku and the band MSC, the particularly eccentric rapper named Rumi is undeniably one of those.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2007/rumi-hell-me-why.jpg" alt="RUMI - Hell me WHY" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="RUMI - Hell me WHY" /></p>
<p>The first album of Rumi, <em>Hell Me Tight</em>, was particularly experimental, gothic and exhausting. On the opposite the third one, <em>Hell Me Nation</em>, sounded at times like some embarrassing J-pop. The second, however, <em>Hell me WHY??</em>, was a good compromise. It was equally weird and catchy. The fantasque Japanese was more appealing than ever, even if she was still very far from the norm. Her possessed and off-beat raps were still impressive, especially – essentially? – to those not familiar with her language. At times, her art looked like theater, more than songs, especially on "CAT Fight!!", where she played a farouche kitty. Rumi easily changed her tone or the sound of her voice, outshining Primal and O2, two male guests who sounded quite lame, compared with her. As for the music, produced by various beatmakers like Goth-Trad, DJ Dogg, Kemui, SKE, Skyfish and Tha Blue Herb's great O.N.O., it sounded as insane as our Japanese lady.</p>
<p>The "ouhs" at the beginning of the album, were evocative of Björk, but in an infinitely more hysterical version. The crazy organ on "Hell Me WHY??" suddenly exploded into some kind of drum'n'bass furry. The Japanese traditional tune on "heso-CHA" was assaulted by much more modern and electronic sounds. "Fever!" looked like some nonsensical mákina, while "Gokurakutoshi" was ambient and had strange feminine chants. The little melody on "Chain" was irresistible, while the gabber "CAT Fight!!" was threatening. Rumi pulled it in mutliple directions, and at times it was properly impressive. With her, heads were banging, listeners were both seduced and terrorized, and even more. It was anything but boring, except maybe with the languorous "Asagaeri". All along, <em>Hell me Why</em> was one of these rare and precious albums, where a bizarre singer started being accessible, without turning – yet – into a sell-out.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://amzn.to/3Dam5o6" hreflang="en">Buy this album</a></strong></p>
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