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In this issue |
• latest news
• Sharpton on RAP
• Females in Hip Hop
• Soul Is.
•Kanye's New Mix Tape |
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Soul: |
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Latest News |
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Can't Tell Me
Nothing (Mixtape)
Artist: Kanye West
Title: Can't Tell Me Nothing (Mixtape)
Rating:
Reviewed by: Alex Thornton
If there’s one thing that brings fans
of hip-hop together from coast to coast, its the feeling of
frustration you get when you cop a new mixtape and, instead of
hearing some fresh heat from your favorite MC, you hear a DJ
screaming his name and dropping explosions all over the track. All
you want is to hear that new remix with so-and-so on it, but
instead, you get explosions and gunshots with the music buried in
the background. Luckily for his supporters,
Kanye West
is a fan first. In this spirit, he gives us Can’t Tell Me Nothing,
a mixtape of (mostly) full-length songs that you can actually listen
to. Here’s hoping that this is the next Kanye trend to catch on.
While Can’t Tell Me Nothing is billed as a Kanye West effort,
it’s basically a primer for the next year or so of product from the
G.O.O.D. Music family as a whole. Two (excellent) tracks from
Common’s upcoming Finding Forever join sneak peaks at
releases from GLC, Sa-Ra and Tony Williams, among others. Mr.
Bentley tosses his fedora in the ring with “C.O.L.O.U.R.S.” which
surprises on two fronts. First, it’s not nearly as wack as one would
assume and second, on a track with Bently, Pimp C and Lil’ Wayne,
Bentley’s verse isn’t even the weakest of the bunch. Huh?
Kanye’s troops carry the flag proudly, but the star of the show is
obviously Mr. West himself. Besides the title track, Kanye gives us
a preview of “Stronger,” and the full version of “Us Placers” by a
new super group composed of Kanye, Lupe Fiasco and Pharrell. Defying
expectations, “Placers” opts for low-key, conscious raps rather than
some flashy jaunt about pink sneakers and diamond encrusted
laptops. Kanye’s usual goofball
irreverence returns for his remix of “Throw Some D’s” (its not about
rims) and a hilarious rant about DJ Premier and his love of porn.
His guest spot on Kid Sister’s “Pro Nails” (another chick rapping
about her makeup) is probably pushing it, but even when it doesn’t
quite work, his willingness to experiment deserves credit.
If packaged a little differently, Can’t Tell Me Nothing would
be suitable for an official release, so it more than gets the job
done as a mixtape. Yes, the mixtape is basically just a fancy
commercial for a handful of upcoming albums, but as commercials go,
this one is pretty damned G.O.O.D. |
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Sharpton
pitches rap cleanup in Detroit |
THE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT -- The Rev.
Al Sharpton has brought his campaign to clean up
hip-hop lyrics to Motown, and organizers hope to
collect thousands of bars of soap as symbols of the
effort.
Sharpton and the Rev.
Horace L. Sheffield III, pastor of New Galilee
Missionary Baptist Church, talked about the campaign
Saturday outside the Motown Historical Museum.
Sharpton said it made
sense to promote the hip-hop campaign in Detroit
because NAACP leaders plan to conduct a mock funeral
for the "N" word during the group's July convention
in the city.
"The 1960s were the
Motown sound and James Brown," Sharpton said as he
stood in front of the museum, which includes the
former Motown Records studio. "But they did not call
us the 'N' word and they did not degrade women."
The campaign began
last month in New York City with Sharpton
challenging the recording industry on denigrating
lyrics. Organizers say they plan to soon roll out
the effort in Los Angeles.
The bars of soap will
be donated to shelters and halfway houses for women,
organizers said.
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Female
hip-hop fights a bad rap |
By Mariel Concepcion
Reuters
Monday, June 4, 2007; 3:35 PM
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Before 2007 is out, Eve, Missy Elliott, Foxy
Brown, Trina, Shawnna and Remy Ma should have new albums in stores,
setting the stage for a banner year in the world of female rap. For
the long-suffering genre, that would mean that more than two or
three titles could finish in the top 100 of Billboard's year-end Top
R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Female rap shows few, if any, signs of growth. In 2006, only Remy
Ma's "There's Something About Remy: Based on a True Story" cracked
the year-end top 100, just making the cut at No. 92. Since Nielsen
SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, only 13 female rappers have
appeared on the year-end chart out of a pool of 585 artists.
The genre's biggest stars all seem to be winding down in terms of
sales. Lil' Kim cracked the million-selling mark with three straight
albums, beginning with her 1996 debut, "Hard Core," which has sold
1.42 million copies. But her latest, 2005's "The Naked Truth," has
shifted a mere 388,000, a 73 percent decline. Brown, Elliott and Eve
also have seen their album sales slashed by more than half in recent
years. To be fair, these numbers are in line with the overall
slippage in hip-hop market share, which amounted to 107 million
albums in 2000 but just 59.5 million in 2006.
RULES OF THE GAME
It has grown so bad for female rappers that the Recording Academy
did away with the best female rap artist category of the Grammy
Awards in 2004, two years after its inception, due to a shortage of
eligible entries. The category was combined with best male rap
artist to create the best rap solo performance field.
"We try to have at least 25 entries minimum because that gives a
good variety and cross-section of music," said urban music/awards
project manager Alan Foster, who revealed that the category won't be
present in this year's Grammys either. "The problem we had with the
female rap category was we only had like 13 entries."
It wasn't always like this. In fact, Brown was once a bigger star
than Jay-Z. But the truth is, females have been playing by male
rapper's rules almost from day one.
"I believe that is mostly attributed to what being an MC is all
about: being arrogant, braggadocious and aggressive," WQHT (Hot 97)
New York program director Ebro Darden said.
"It's a male domain, and the theme, the images, the styles, the
outlooks and perspectives have been driven by men," said author and
University of Pennsylvania humanities professor Michael Eric Dyson,
who has written extensively about hip-hop.
"The success of women (rappers) has suffered as a result of the
prerogative of men to set the standards for what's acceptable and
not acceptable in hip-hop and, quite frankly, to set the rules of
the game as to what lyrics, what styles and what genres will be most
popular," Dyson said. "So, it has been difficult for women to fit
in."
DISCOURAGED AND INTIMIDATED
The danger for female rap now is that the lack of success turns off
tomorrow's would-be stars. Jazmin Polanco, who organizes the yearly
"Unanimous Decision" MC battle in New York and also serves as
general manager of Def Jam imprint Roc La Familia, said she's been
impressed by underground female MCs like La Bruja and Patty Duke.
But she said women are "usually outnumbered when they come out to my
showcase, and they become intimidated by men."
"Girls used to approach me like, 'I rap,"' said Eve, whose first
album in five years arrives August 7. "But now it's usually guys
that give me demos. No girls have come up to me in a while."
An artist like Trina illustrates the uphill struggle for female
rappers. Her 2000 debut, "The Baddest Bitch," sold 684,000 units,
while 2005's "Glamorest Life" has shifted 398,000. But the latter
album spawned Trina's biggest hit to date, "Here We Go" featuring
Kelly Rowland, which reached No. 3 on Hot Rap Songs and No. 8 on Hot
R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
That success wasn't enough to keep Trina at her longtime label home
of Atlantic, however. "Because of where Trina is with her career and
where we are with our label, we felt we could put out her record on
our own," said Slip-N-Slide project manager Aaron Lucas, who inked a
new deal with EMI to distribute Trina's "Baddest Bitch II," due
August 14.
"The consumer, the public, they believe in the females in the game,"
said Trina, who claims the new album will make people listen again.
"I'm stepping my game up like 10 notches, and somebody is going to
tell somebody about it, and they might just want to pick it up this
time."
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
Billboard spoke to artists, managers, executives, retailers and
radio programmers to get a sense of why female MCs still lag behind
the commercial achievements of their male counterparts.
Some claimed the extinction of the female MC began when Lil' Kim and
Brown made it trendy to be high-maintenance. "They were overtly
sexy, their rhymes were raunchy, they only wore designer outfits,
and their attention to hair and makeup rivaled Diana Ross in her
prime," former Vibe editor-in-chief Mimi Valdes wrote in a March 2
blog post. The problem was that dressing like a diva required a
budget traditionally unavailable to a rapper. "That's why labels
only release a new female MC every few years," Valdes observed.
"They're just too damn expensive!"
"When labels are losing money by the boatload and records aren't
selling, it takes a lot of money to break a rap artist," WQHT's
Darden said. "You can double that for a female artist with clothes,
makeup and hair stylists because there's no way a female can wear
the same pair of shoes every time the people see her."
Labels may perceive a female rapper as a bigger risk or at least
less of a sure thing. "No one wants to invest in something that
sells 100,000," Brown said. "They want to go with the sure shot."
IMAGE VS. SUBSTANCE
Maybe female rappers have just run out of ideas. After the rise of
Brown and Lil' Kim, "every crew was like, 'We're gonna go get a girl
and she's gonna rap and she's gonna wear a bikini and open her legs
and that's gonna be fly cause that's what Kim did,"' Brown said.
"Or, 'I'm gonna get a dark-skinned chick and she's gonna be sassy
and controversial and she's gonna be Foxy.' They were clearly carbon
copies and people know that. I believe right now people want their
stars to be stars again, not just fabricated."
Dyson singled out Lauryn Hill as one of the few female rappers who
have been able to court fans of both genders. "When she was with the
Fugees, she spit serious game and talked about the issues men think
about: police brutality, struggling against a white supremacist
society, dealing with ignorant Negroes who didn't want to learn and
forcing them into different pastures," he said. "She was able to
hang with the fellas at that level. Then when she did her solo
album, she was able to send wisdom to young women who were being
seduced by and hoodwinked by these men."
Chicago rapper Shawnna, who guested on Ludacris' 2003 Billboard Hot
100 No. 1 hit "Stand Up" and was a member of his Disturbing Tha
Peace clique up until last year, suggested that female MCs try
tackling more in-depth subjects. "Fans are tired of hearing rappers
talk about being the top chick or the richest rich or the one with
the most diamonds," she said.
Warner Bros. VP of urban A&R Naim Ali feels women need to stand
alone rather than align themselves with male rappers. "In the past,
many of the new female rappers came in on the momentum of being in a
clique, either with a group of guys or on the heels of a producer,
and their careers were subject to how popular the clique/crew, male
artist or producer was," he said. "Female rappers need to be
competitive with the guys and be looked at by consumers as having
their own identity. If they don't, then whenever the association
with the clique, artist or producer expires, their career expires as
well."
Miami rapper Jacki-O believes that relying on men for credibility
and support hasn't gotten female rappers far enough. "The majority
of the female artists that came out were backed by males. So, why
didn't they sell?" she said. "You don't need a man to back a woman
up. We are natural-born leaders. If we ride with each other, we get
our strength from each other. We just need to work together and stop
trying to always be No. 1."
The numbers tell a different story. Ten of the 13 charting female
rappers, and all five of the biggest sellers, were closely aligned
with a male crew or leading male rapper.
But Jacki-O, who has teamed up with Shawnna and Remy in hopes of
releasing an album together this year, says it's time "to try
something different. If we get together, my fans can listen to what
you do, and your fans can listen to what I do. You put that
together, and we've got a big impact."
Reuters/Billboard
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