Top 10 Spins

It's time again for one of my bi monthly hip hop charts return. I'm really trying to keep with all the music dropping lately. I can't say hip hop is as good as it used to be, but there is a lot of "good" music out there, more than I can my tabs on. While there is a lot of "good" music out there, I've been stuck in some of my favorite albums of late. Sometimes I get stuck on certain albums, just because I don't feel like trying to digest something new. Ahhh the life of a hip hop head.....



Tracks

10. (TIE) Abdominal - Pedal Pusher & Father Jah - 5 Fingers

Abdominal comes to me from my T.Dot connections. I remember this album from last year, but I'm not sure if I ever listened to it or not. I suppose I should pull it out and see if the rest of the album is good as this track. The subject matter is not your traditional hip hop fare, but it sounds good. The beat is done by Ugly Duckling's Einstein, who I've always been a fan of.

Father Jah is one of those multi dimensional cats from the south. His music contains a little bit of everything, from the dirty south style, to straight up battle rap, to an almost NC sound. While I'm not as crazy about him as my man A-One, I do think the cat has extreme talent, although he might not always be my thing. This song, "5 Fingers" is my type of thing. Jah does his thing lyrically, as he flows along with a hard edged track that has a great electric guitar sample.

Father Jah

Abdominal

9. Rashid Hadee & Analogic - Explode


I've grown pretty tired of the whole "soul" sample movement, just because everyone and their dog is doing it. There are still some good "soul" productions out there, and this happens to be one of them. Rashid Hadee is one of those cats I keep waiting for to "blow up" on the underground scene, but just hasn't gotten over that hump as of yet. Analogic is a producer that keeps gettting his name out there and sounds good everytime I've heard one of his beats. This track is just a great combination of both artists strengths.

Rashid Hadee

Analogic

8. Yameen feat Maylay Sparks - The Atmosphere

My man Stinke aka Yameen has dropped an album that I would totally expect not too like, yet I've given it more than just a few spins this past week. I guess my older age has expanded my musical tastes a little more. With Maylay Sparks on the mic, it was the song that grabbed my attention before even listening to it. Maylay was down with Ill Advised back in the day, a group that I'm always on the look out for more music. This is something different, and that's something I've been bitching about a lot lately, nothing is "different". This is "different".

Yameen

7. Soul Occs feat Punchline - Dedicated to the B's

WYDU's on SoulClap graces the countdown with his rhyming partner, Tony Tigerstyle and special guest, Punchline on "Dedicated to the B's". I ain't going to lie, I begged Clap for an mp3 of this track when I first heard it a couple months ago. Clap is at his best here and Tony does his thing as well. Very smooth track, that should be in the top 100 at the end of the year. If this didn't make the album, then I can't wait to see what did.

Soul Occs

6. Freddie Joachim feat Aloe Blacc - 24 Hours

My man Names from Brews Rhymes With Crews put me on to this cat, and it's a good thing. I have to admit, this particular song sounds more like an Aloe Blacc track from his last album than anything else. That is alright by me, since I've always dug Aloe Blacc solo or as part of Emanon. Good track for those are into the light, mellow sounds of "adult contemporary" hip hop.

Freddie Joachim

5. Basic Weaponary - Lockem In

Basic Weaponary is my man Weapon X and his partner Basic. I'm a sucka for songs with angelic strings, and that's exactly what this song has. They are crazy. The track actually reminds me a lot of something you'd hear from Jedi Mind Tricks, with that gruff tone and flow. They both hold their own on the mic, thankfully, but the beat is the highlight for me, and that's not taking anything away from Weapon X and Basic.

Weapon X

4. Has-Lo & Small Professor - Molotov Cocktails

Has & Small Pro might as well become official spokesmen for this blog, or they should just hire me for their promotion team. I'm sure you'll see more from both of these Philly cats in the very near future on WYDU. I'm not thru trying to convince my readers that both of these cats deserve the their valuable iPod space. Small Pro turns what was probably my least favorite from the original conception of "Fuck Has Day" and turns it into my favorite track found on the "Remixed But Still Fucked" version. Stay tuned, more to come from these two.

Has-Lo
Small Professor

3. eMC - Leak it Out

I'm still playing this album almost four months after it was released in retail, and five months after the "leak". I guess this album is just that good, or this year is that boring, or maybe a little of both, but my plays resurged after they released "Leak It Out" as a single. It was already one of my favorite tracks from The Show, but with a video, it made it come back some. Now if I could just figure out who the EXTREMELY hot chick is on their myspace default photo, I could die a happy man.

eMC

2. ST - Miss Beautiful


Myspace is good for something after all. Last week a group from Alabama of all places requested me as a friend. I don't really turn anyone down, because really, why is that big of a deal? But I check their music just to see what it's like. When I went to ST's (pronounced Esss Teee), Miss Beautiful was the track playing and it immediately grabbed my attention. So much so, I went and bought the track off of their snocap store....and I don't do that if it isn't the Smile Rays or K-Def. I'm not going to say this is on some "next shit", cause it's not. It's just good music and I'm a-ok with that.

ST

1. Hip Hop - Mr. Green & Pacewon


I was a HUGE Outsidaz fan back in the day, with Young Zee and Pacewon being my two favorite members. I've enjoyed Pace's solo material, although besides a couple 12 inches, not a lot of it made much noise. I'm hoping that changes with the release of his colabo album with Mr. Green. Yes, we've probably had our fair share of "hip hop" is great and reminiscing type of songs, but if it's good, it's good and this is....well, it's great.

http://www.myspace.com/paceandgreen

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Best Of Albumbase/Trav's Favorite Top 25 Albums

Lot's of things going on today, mainly because I'm backed up after not posting anything up the past three days. For that reason, and the fact I come up with many of my ideas while laying in bed listening to stuff before drifting off into dreamland, I have a few things on my plate that I'll throw out today while I'm still trying to finish up a guest post I have on another site and my own colossal series that (fingers crossed) I hope start this week.

I miss doing my Sunday Lite posts, they were fun, a break from the norm, and let me spew some of my rants and raves. So, fuck it, we'll work this post something like one of those. I don't really have any individual songs to post up today, so we'll run with the albumbase links again and hopefully I've dug up a few things that are new to those albumbase members and new to those who don't have albumbase. We'll get those out of the way for those visitors that don't have the attention span to actually read....

Royce Da 5'9 Aftermath Demo

1. Another Hit
2. King Of Kings
3. United Divided
4. The Desert ft WallStreet
5. I Dare You
6. Clap To This
7. Flash On
8. Friends

When Em signed with Dre's Aftermath label, he originally brought his boy Royce along with him. Together, they would work together on Dre's "2001" album, with Royce, reportedly, doing a chunk of the ghostwriting for Dre. There would be leaks of tracks that contained appreances from Royce, one being the original version for "Xxplosive" and some others. Royce would then, allegedaly, get a bit too cocky for Dre's tastes that was fuled by some misconceptions that Royce was actually signed to Aftermath. One thing led to another (meaning I'm not sure exactly happened myself) and Royce bounced from the project.

I honestly haven't heard what this "demo" is yet. Nine times out of ten, it's some kid with a computer that has more time than he knows what to do with on his hands and puts together a bunch of early Royce tracks from that time that had already been leaked and called it a "demo". Hopefully though, this does contain some of those earlier tracks, because regardless if this is a demo or not, they are nice tracks to have/hear.

Atmosphere - New, Unreleased & B-Sides VOL 2 *LINK FIXED**
(There were no track numbers, soooooo)
American Idle feat Busdriver & 2Mex
Better Man Feat Creature
Cats Van Bags (remix) feat Brother Ali
Fallen feat Vakill
Get Depressed
Gotta Love Em' feat Eyedea
H Overkill feat Mac Lethal
Hold Mine feat Blueprint, Aesop Rock, Eyedea, & Illogic
Insomnia 411 feat Roosevelt Franklin & Jean Grae
Knock Knock Joke 2
Ooooh
Outro
Seven Goes Bonkers pt 1 feat Dose One
Seven Goes Bonkers pt 2 feat Dose One
Sick Pimpin' Remix
Snapshot feat Booka B
Steel Toe Verses The Rookie Feat Micranots
Windy feat Mr Skurge
Wooden Ships feat PNS

I seemed to get some fanfare for the Aesop I posted up last time, so we obviously have some "Nerd Rap" fans that frequent the site. I hate using that term, just because I think it's stupid, although I don't care for most of the music that would be classified in that vague label. I've never cared for the Sage Francis', the Aesop Rocks, and I would rather listen to country music than listen to any Anticon material, but one such group/artist that I've liked from said "genre" is Atmosphere. Maybe it's the fact in all my "whiteness" and alcoholic tendicies, I can identify with the "emo-ness" that is Slug and Atmosphere's music and topics. If I actually had the talent to rap and make music, I'd be a cross between Atmosphere and Run DMC, with a Bomb Squad/J-Zone sound.

Again, I think these are someones homemade collections, but they are pretty good collection of his non-album stuff. There are three volumes floating around that I know of, which I only have the first two, so if someone else has the third volume, hook a white boy up.

DJ Premier - New Zealand & Australia Mixtape 2004

Not sure what this is, but it has Primo, so it has to be half way decent. I'm guessing a live mix from a tour overseas, but hell, check it out. (Edit) It's a mixtape of sorts, judging by the tracklisting (it's already in there, I don't feel like typing it out right now)

Black Star - B-Sides and Rarities

A collection of Mos & Talib apprearing on tracks together and the such. SOme stuff on here I hadn't heard before, so worth checking for Mos/Talib/Black Star fans.



Trav's Top Spins For The Week....

1. Evidence - The Weatherman LP
This album just keeps getting better and better. I think the Alchemist production on this is much better than his production on the new Prodigy album. It's not a classic by anymeans, but it's a good album to pass the time.

2. El-P - I'll Sleep When Your Dead/ Brother Ali - The Untold Truth
I went a week without listening to this and got back on the bandwagon again last week. You either love this or hate it. I haven't liked Brother Ali in the past, mainly because his voice bugged the fuck out of me, but I'm getting used to it on this album

3. Stricklin - The Resume Mixtape
Masta Ace's protege, I expect big things out of Strick in the future as a solo artist and as part of eMC with Ace, Punchline and Wordsworth. This is a collection of all the material he has released so far. Pick it up here

4. WYDU Presents Slick Rick's Greatest Hits & WYDU Presents Schoolly D's Greatest Hits (Tie)
Yeah, I got in the mood to listen to these two artists, after all, they are my favorite songs.

5. Storm Davis - Kegstand Poetry for the Recovering Alcoholic
I got this off of HHB out of curiousity, since the title and artist name contained two of my favorite things in life, alcohol and baseball. I gave it a listen then put it to the side for awhile. About a week later I had a tune stuck in my head, but couldn't remember where I heard it. I went back and found it on this album so since then I've been giving it some listens.

Trav's Favorite 25 Albums of All-Time

Since all the cool kids are doing it in blogger land, and I was asked to compile a list by none other than the almighty Jeff Weiss of Passion of the Weiss (if you don't read his blog, you suck) I figured I'd turn one into the Weiss/Straight Bangin' poll they are doing. Add in the fact that I am some kind of sick and perverted list junky who likes doing this kind of thing anway, so I had to do it.

Once again, this is MY personal favorites, not what I would consider THE top 25 of all-time. Lists are like assholes, everyone has one. My age is bound to show a bit, and it's probably not terribly different than the others I've seen so far, so without further suspense, here is my list.

1. Slaughtahouse- Masta Ace
2. Takes A Nation Of Millions..- Public Enemy
3. Raising Hell- Run DMC
4. Whut..Thee Album- Redman
5. Low End Theory- A Tribe Called Quest
6. Bigger And Deffer- LL Cool J
7. Stakes Is High- De La Soul
8. 21 & Over- Tha Alkaholiks
9. The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick- Slick Rick
10. (Tie) Dare Iz Da Darkside- Redman
Criminal Minded- Boogie Down Productions
11. The Infamous....- Mobb Deep
12. Wolf In Sheeps Clothing- Black Sheep
13. Pauls Boutique- Beastie Boys
14. Enter The 36 Chambers- Wu Tang Clan
15. Illmatic- Nas
16. Illdelphhalflife- The Roots
17. Disposable Arts- Masta Ace
18. Liscense To Ill- Beastie Boys
19. Labcabincalifornia- Pharcyde
20. Momma Said Knock You Out- LL Cool J
21. Death Certificate - Ice Cube
22. Kings Of Rock - Run DMC
23. Tha Trifflin' Album- King Tee
24. Things Fall Apart- The Roots
25. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx - Raekwon

There are a lot more I wanted to fit in, but in the end, this was it. Don't give me "Illmatic is only 15th?", cuz it's my list and my likes. A lot of the stuff has to do with the memories it leaves on me, what I was doing when the album was popular, where I was at in life, ect....Besides, they are all my very most favorite albums, so there isn't a lot of difference between number one and number twenty-five.

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