True Urban Legends

or emcees or lyricists or whatever the hip-hopolitically correct term of the moment is.

"9th Wonder is so my boyfriend" 

i said this in the car with my girls the other day.

"that's such a hip hop girl thing to say. Common is my MAN"

was the response from the backseat.

"hmm...let's not get started on Common. you know i have issues with him."

"uh-UH. Common is FINE. and he can dress too!"

chimes in the driver, who, to her credit, was bumpin' the Strange Fruit project (yes, i roll with amazing women all the damn time)

"SHE has issues with him. I have no issue."

about me.

but both of us chime in to say:

"and he can't really dress. he can dress NOW that he's in Kanye's camp and hired a stylist, but he was looking jacked before."

me alone: "too bad he dresses better than he writes these days."

driver: "MOS DEF is my boyfriend."

Common lover: "sometimes you have to let stuff go. we're too hard on them."

me: "that's because we expect our HEROES to adhere to a certain standard"

CL: "but they're not heroes. single moms, community workers, THOSE are heroes, they are just entertainers at the end of the day."

final thought: SEEN. 

hip hop ain't dead, it's just human. so go on and rock your designer handkerchief hijabs, fellas, i ain't mad at 'cha.

star track: this ain't sex 

is sorry for this man. i mean, it's not like he doesn't try hard for attention, cavorting with Superhead, sex tape with Kardashian (who isn't as offensive as Paris Hilton only because she's more attractive), even getting with Whitney for a minute, but i guess this one isn't going to live down Brandy's shadow, though he might be trying to outdo her with the "edgy" angle. whatever.

yes, a doubly use-full title. in the interests of brevity and ADD (no, i will not default to the mash-up equivalent to writing, but blogs are kind of that anyways). also, now that i have a full time job and stuffs, i am introducing the 5 point review:

this show's so good, you forget that you already know how to read. morgan freeman was a literacy pimp. alert your friends and loinfruits, this programming is serious, son.

hmm, still not sure about "album number TEN" (kind of the opposite about how i felt about 2$hort's opus of the same landmark) but i think with the roots, that their works must be listened to from front to back to be fully appreciated (like the cohen brother's cannon). they make it kinda hard, what with releasing four videos (all of which are kind of ?uestionable for different reasons/to different degrees-my favorite is "get busy" for the drummer formerly known as ?uestion's drum face and the afro pick USB key) before the disc even drops. and from what i've heard, it's the first time i haven't heard mister trotter's flow and been like, "wow, it's a good thing malik b quit the group so that thought could become so increasingly fierce on the mic", but maybe it's because he's giving more verses to (relatively) unknowns than he's keeping for himself. it's bad enough that he's already not the front man of his group, but now he's sharing the sliver of the spotlight that he's worked so hard to earn? oh well, time will tell, but like finding forever made me run back to electric circus, the cuts i've heard from this one have me hibernating with phrenology and game theory.

but it's freakin' delicious, and if it works for o'shea jackson (he has one every time he rolls through vancouver)