THE REAL OF 2012 @ PREMIERE HIP HOP

THE REAL OF 2012, my year end review is @ Premiere Hip Hop

Do the knowledge: REAL OF 2012

Much thanks.
Peace,
Sunez

N.W.A. Vs. N.G.E. : The Cipher for the Best Part

[ Note: As published in The Nation of God and Earth 5%er Newspaper October 2012]

Only one is real.  Awkward, a nation with no citizens, only holders of birthrights.  Impossibly sexy where the loveliest of women are soiled by understanding then bloomed by the culture, beyond the power of plucking to  the deep nourishing of equality’s seeds.  Honorably disrespectful in minding oneself to build a Nation, to then mine past the borders of every country of the world.  All to mind all the human families with offerings, guidance and leadership. 

41 years of the most dastardly, defiling and debasing acts done to devilishment in the name of Allah.   All from a time with ideals and principles conveyed via the fist as often as the word.  When poor was not perceived as poverty but the valiant intent to share unconditionally.  Now, there are far more pages to click leaving the leaflets of the returned and aging sages to wither beyond the reasons of their broken grammar.

Wherever our destination, the swine of its doorman and the putridness of the halls are telling.  That the smell of intoxicated escape battles the invigorating aroma of learning children is a script of hypocrisy.  It is played by actors that come in the name and rarely lack in the rambling of their information, masquerading as knowledge.  If I find solace in the embrace of this cipher to share ideas, it is that the Nation itself is not saved from the hells it loves through for right.   There is honor in a knowledge of self when it survives its fad of membership and is a way of life in any era.  So we must war through hypocrites, devils and ignorance not as the chores for the grand title of Allah but as the lived history of those with sincere intent (Love) of (conscious or unconsciously) chosen work (Hell) that borns all for more righteousness (Right).  For us, it must be real to be, not merely to be with.

And as I have the honor to share at the root, Allah School in Mecca, I see a people I must speak of, a place our mind must be at and a thing that we ought to live.  The cipher of people are not mere African Americans but the entire population of Original people throughout the world.  The knowledge of self extended throughout the United States by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and understood by Allah, the Father, was formatted for the masses of African American oppressed here.  Elijah warred against Christianity with its own weapons pitting himself as the evangelist of truth with a rivaling institution that could protect the people better.  Yet, throughout the history this G has studied, no one has shared the truth of God, as man, to the young until Allah, the Father.  It is on this poor part that Mecca exists again and where all the human families collide for the truth.  We must teach this way and know the Ecuadorian, the Mexican, the Vietnamese as we know the so-called Negro.  We must understand 9,000 miles of water is not all swam or drowned in the same manner.  There are no Original people of Black.  All Original people are Black, of the 16 shades from Black, Brown to Yellow.  Our Original people have only suffered differently but we are all biochemically and mentally supremely a-like at our core.

The place our mind must be at is in the Real.  Who can learn who God is if they have not let go of the mysterious being, energy and/or force that they actively believe in.  The student is in the perfect equality when they are willing to be wrong about anything at any moment.  They now can learn at all times.  So as they have a comfort in being wrong, even as they do wrong, they will develop the willingness to be right, even if they are alone.  The Real is in living a life of learning beyond necessity and just for the love of it.  A poor righteous teacher, sacrificing what they have to teach all that they have to those who may use it.  Those willing to prepare for the separation of inner enlightenment and societal success if they can only be merged hypocritically.  Here, the teacher performs unconditionally in a full school but prepares intensely as the student in his empty classroom.

All for that thing we ought to live, a life of innovation.  Innovation that honors the truth of what must be preserved.  Innovation that is as dynamically unique as the preserved root it came from.  Mere preservation produces an enforced tradition whereas proper innovation applied promotes a writing of a rejuvenated history.  The babies are the greatest through our mere offering of forums.  A forum for them to experiment with their explosive ideas, challenging thoughts and precocious insight.  Showing them the honor in consistent principle as well as the universal change they may instill as creators. 

Without this cipher fulfilled, we could be left with kids of the worst part.  Peddlers of truth, Kings of tiny corners and gods that pray for...just some weak Niggas With Allah.

Peace,

Sunez Allah

Kevlaar 7 & Woodenchainz – Sophisticated Movement Album Review

An immediate return by Kevlaar 7, who just released the opus Die Ageless (http://lavoerevolt.blogspot.com/2012/05/kevlaar-7-die-ageless-review.html) in May, continues the legacy of Detroit’s Wisemen with Sophisticated Movement, an effort of the toughest Blues you can find.  Sophisticated Movement is a classically cohesive, short LP that is beautified by the wonderfully crafted worried notes of Woodenchainz and verses from one of the most poetic hardcore MCs in Hip Hop today.

The sophistication of this album is its focus on Kevlaar’s greatest MC gifts- that poetic engagement of detailing our oppression, viciously brutal battle rhyme phrasing and insightful love for our people.  Many greats have these sentiments but cannot transform them to acetate as easily as Kevlaar.  The movement is in the track by track surge of such clear anthemic material that is bedded lovely by Woodenchainz’s sample choices and arranging along with great Boom Bap programming.

Thus S.M. is a duet where the best addictions of the former feed the addictions of the latter promoting a new Wiseman top for the junkie listener.  From the title track with the horns punctuated by snapping high hats and sandy snares of which become a defining element to Woodenchainz’ superior work here.  Kevlaar then introduces the progression of the movement as that dream for the people isn’t being waited on but grabbed for.  With “Detroit’s Agony,” a brutally wailing track with bass drums punctuating throughout Kevlaar is wildly pissed spitting, “Eastern promises/ felonious for commerce, students stroll the school and made them come out their Converse/ converse with my daughter while I sip a Corona…resurrect dead presidents/ impressed at the decadence/ celebrate no evidence…,” as he is on “Ask About Me,” where funk stabs, clipped lady soul wails and a reverberating guitar lick let Bronze and Styles P grind rugged militancy with Kevlaar leading with “Ask about explicit life like writtens laid back between reality and carnivorous intentions/ unshaven heathen spitting live on location scraping bones with a blade with the turntables blazing…Godly heathen shoppin’ out in Sweden/ autograph seekers seeking/ validation, vintage dreaming…hell is empty and this is where all the devils live in…”

There is also the beautifully Womack’d soul of “At Last” to the roaring vocals spilling on the incredibly sharp drums on “Life’s on the Clock,” Woodenchainz promotes Kevlaar’s lyricism just as much as he zombies the listener with the cacophony of massive snare tricks he employs.  The features are all well done (from Wisemen's June Mega & Illah Dayz to Willie Waze, S-Class Sonny & Shake C) with the future spotlight clearly being on Rain The Quiet Storm with a dynamic verse on “Life’s on the Clock.”

 Kevlaar is an MC with tons of ideas, themes and manners to convey the struggle with the answers.  On Die Ageless, he gives a deep portrait to offer himself while here on S.M., his thematic concepts are deliberately narrowed but exploration is broadened yielding beautiful line after line.  On S.M., his annunciation and lyrically dexterous phrasing continue to excel offering a greater mastery of the track.  Ultimately, the entire LP is quotable because there is his obsession with saying all, even “Fuck You,” in the illest way.  That greatest peak is on “Why” where Kevlaar’s timing is supreme from acapella to beat drop building and destroying vividly with, “Brush my life on the canvas/touching the Earth cuz life’s so candid/ inundated both  will never understand it/ perfect planning just off the papel/ burn a plantation question everything…” With Sophisticated Movement, Woodenchainz emerges as one of the new producers to immediately listen to whilst Kevlaar 7 continues to be one of the great lyricists of this era.  

-Sunez
http://kevlaar7.bandcamp.com/album/sophisticated-movement

INNOVATIVE THOUGHTS: WILLIE COLON is the RZA of Salsa!

Willie Colon, performing this Saturday night, August 18th at the Bronx Lehman Center, immediately conjures thoughts on innovation.  Hip Hop rooted, I immediately think of The RZA's classic and superior albums with Wu-Tang Clan then with Method Man, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, GZA, Ghostface Killah and himself as Bobby Digital.  That Willie has the same track record with Hector Lavoe, Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, Ismael Miranda, Mon Rivera and himself, the wonder of their innovation is evident.  Rooted in the essence of their genre yet their work propelled the genre by its frenetically intent experimentation. 

 

There are great bandleaders that have the legacy of countlessly successful albums with others from Tito Puente to Celia Cruz yet, for Willie, the genre continued to be explored and expanded in his collaborations.  A major difference is that studying the diversity of albums as say, Lavoe's debut La Voz from 1975 and Ruben Blades debut Metiendo Mano of 1977, there isn’t an application of a set band sound to a new Sonero; rather, Colon is constructing a sound for the artist, drawing out their greatest techniques, accentuating their most melodious pitches, adjusting to their inflections and offering backdrops that propel the character of that Sonero.  Other great bands have made superior works with new Soneros (i.e. Ray Barretto's Indestructible after the departure of Adalberto Santiago and other band players, Tipica '73 after Adalberto Santiago using Tito Allen, Jose El Canario Alberto, etc.) but when Colon had a new artist he explored the depth of their character via content, charisma, delivery, cadence, vocal power and intentions.  It's why the classic Willie & Lavoe albums of the early 70's capture the perfectly executed rawness that exemplified Lavoe's vocal strength and uplifting brashness and style in being a rooted Boricua, despite being here in New York, uprooted.  Then as Lavoe goes solo, there is an epic elegance brought to his presentation by the strings and layered production that graduates Lavoe to the deserved title as a legendary Sonero representing the peoples' hopes, yet still reflecting their character without compromise (i.e. the signature classic of Lavoe's catalog, "El Cantante" off the 1978 LP Comedia).  

To add to the RZA comparison, there is the diversity of the two volume Maestra Vida albums he did with Ruben Blades telling the story of a family through generations. Larry Harlow's grafted Hommy off the Who's Tommy was earlier yet mainly respectable because of the lineup of singing characters from Celia, Cheo Feliciano and Adalberto. Still, Maestra is so much more well written and composed, where the story is dependent on the music guiding its sincerity and furthering the sensitivity we feel for the characters.  It has an insight in approach that is reminiscent of RZA’s Afro Samurai soundtracks where RZA uses classic Soul, Rock and Hip Hop to represent the killed father samurai, the villain and the avenging samurai son, respectively.  While RZA achieved a classic score with the great indie film Ghostdog, Willie’s 1977 El Baquine De Angelitos Negroes could be made into an intriguing movie.  

 

As an MC, RZA is often criticized for his flow and limitations dexterity wise.  However, he may be the deepest and most intelligent lyricist of Hip Hop’s history.  The entire direction he took Wu-Tang Clan is one that can be studied as the peak of Hip Hop lyricism from storytelling, abstract lyricism, arcane ideas, spiritual insights and pure science to just elevated battle raps.  With Willie Colon, the expansion of his compositions allowed for expanded lyricism of the genre from the very beginning.  Lavoe merely needed a forum and direction to speak on all things and the stylings of the great Jibaro singers (i.e. Chuito) and Ismael Rivera’s stylings, dialect and rhythmic mastery to Cheo Feliciano’s technical superiority, all catapults Lavoe to really become the icon of his generation and a historical great for us all.  Willie also molded Ruben Blades from just a precocious songwriter, yet vocally a Cheo clone, to a Sonero of his own command and cadence.  Siembra, the 1978 sophomore album of the Colon/Blades union, is noted as the greatest selling Salsa album in history.  Opening up Salsa to being overtly acknowledged as a listening music (though this writer feels musically it always was) where Blades himself noted fans just watched them perform; Colon is really just projecting the Bomba, Plena and Latin folk genres of lyricism to the forefront.  Throughout Colon’s solo career, he would be not only one of the deepest, socially conscious lyricists but one of the most cleverly lined and dynamically inflected.

It actually may be an understatement to only compare Willie to the RZA.  With the impact of Willie Colon (along with Eddie Palmieri and others) making the root Son (and its tempos guaguanco, guajira, etc.) into Salsa (the improvisation of Jazz) with all of the merging and inclusion of genres (i.e. PR Bomba, Plena, Colombian, African styles, etc.) and the freeing up of the actual Puerto Rican New York experience at its peak (i.e. Lavoe) he really is also like the Marley Marl of Salsa.  Just as Marley Marl isolated drum samples and really propels the Boom Bap sound, the ideal Hip Hop track, so does Willie from his heavy trombone sound (with great credits to Mon Rivera and also Barry Rogers of Palmieri's La Perfecta band) and exploration of genres do the same.

Focusing on Colon as the solo artist, thought turns to one of the greatest composers in American history, Miles Davis.  Miles never stayed in one sound and constantly blended genres as new ideas into the structure of his compositions and the stylistic variants of his tempos and lyrical presentations.  It isn't a consistency of sound but a consistency of experimentation that has propelled both Miles’ and Colon’s music.  Willie's solo career incorporating English Pop sounds, new digital techniques, explored singing formats and new lyrical ideas, went from huge orchestras (i.e. 1979's Solo), diverse worldly orchestras (i.e. 1989's Altos Secretos) back to the perfection of the pure Salsa record (i.e. 1993's Hecho En Puerto Rico). If the genre of Salsa is now stagnant, it is the lack of excavation into Willie's music, the blueprint for the resurrection of it.  Uncovering the Willie Colon catalog is to better understand creativity in all its forms.  While the popped ears fatally seek to pick a sound, the point lost is that perfection of the song is by expressing oneself completely with great vigor.  

Willie Colon’s catalog also gives insight to a time just as records by Bird, Diz, Billie, 'Trane and Miles can.  Salsa, the first urban genre of New York City has a captured realness that is classic in recovery just as Rakim, KRS-One, Gang Starr or Wu-Tang is.  The respect for Willie Colon is immediately noted as not merely being an incredible champion for the preservation of the music.  Latin music, particularly everything that is from the family of Son, is often preserved with excellent musicianship but none of the character of an oppressed people, a people with blatant subcultural contributions and powerfully subtle and most relevant counter-cultural ideas, insights, experimentations and revolutions proposed and demanded.  The edge to Salsa, and any genre of our Black/Brown peoples, is lost with cover traditionalism, where young bands just harken the acceptable styles, techniques and lyric ideas of the past.  True innovation is far more balanced, with a preserved ethic and wildly experimental dynamism that is ultimately necessary to our music.  Our music that keeps being the voice of our very real people.

Peace, Sunez

KEVLAAR 7 – DIE AGELESS Review

Now, this music done right you could lose your hand gambling on the real when the time’s reading famine o’clock.  Someday passes again and again with federal reserve notes selling out more tracks.  So are we wrong for trying if this is life then we gon, then we gotta make it breakout?!  Still, if it stays like this solstice to solstice, there’ll be nothing else my people got to get them open.  No more ill changes like lyrical duels of the mind, stories of fallen angels or the metamorphosis of kings into sons of the most high.  Lately, it seems like the Wisemen are of the few to heed the final call to keep this Art to the lean-not traditional rap-just Hardcore Hip Hop.  Far more than a wet pen moistening a glittered scroll but a liquid sword through the mind that dies ageless.

So to Die Ageless, Kevlaar 7 has the intention to leave a poignant work that lasts.  The audacity in that daring is achieved with a very carefully crafted debut that loudly yells a wakeup call to our people as one of its sufferahs. As the first Wisemen solo album to be released not from Bronze Nazareth, it also makes the Wisemen movement official, a movement that prospers from its extraordinary talents as it is also hurt by its lack of proper coverage.

The Wisemen are the Hip Hop ghetto dwelling Blues builders, reppin’ Detroit and they are their own entity.  Due to the Bronze Nazareth being named a Wu-Element producer by the RZA, their a-likeness to the Wu-Tang is acknowledged.  However, unlike the immediate Wu-Fam generation, not one Wisemen-affiliated album has ever been officially produced, executive produced, presented or even overseen by RZA or Wu-Tang Clan.  Yet, it is the Wisemen that have mirrored the spirit of the Wu the most as they have elevated street lyricism and beat making uniquely.  They have earned everything making and growing their albums from the beginning.

Die Ageless becomes an ideal representation of this as throughout he displays a complete portfolio of his many developing techniques and varied sounds they have been prospering with since their last collective effort in 2010, Children of a Lesser God.  This isn’t the exhaustive debut of all that an MC has left but literally a long sampler of how diverse Kevlaar is and where his growth will take place.  Kevlaar’s themes are his most powerful gift as an MC, where he constantly rhymes verse after verse as a soldier in the field taking shots at the fakes, snakes and devils, always showing you his wounds.  His stories suffer setbacks that push us all back (“Solstice,” “Fallen Angel”) and yet line after line there is exposed artistry that paints for us the “beautiful nightmare” he triumphantly comes out of (“Sons of the Most High, genuine article/ blow apart my crown, you better cop a particle/ turn a page/ autobiographical stage/ raw realness/ my soul speak in the zenith…” – “Sons of the Most High”).

The cornerstone songs (“I’m Open,” “My People”) of the album that call out to our Black and Brown people suffering are sincerely delivered and simply stated (“We was built from grains of sand, born from the base of pyramid lands, it was never in our plans/we caught in a concrete war/gun stores and liquor on all corners…My people, let’s learn confederate flags burn/My people, let’s uplift, knowledge of self’s the gift” – “My People”) setting up the sculpted scrolls that close the album (“Now,” “Final Call”).  Yet before Die Ageless’ closing, we have that complete package portfolio to bang out too.

Sonically, this is obsessive Boom Bap where the Blues, that tone of soulful warring in song, that every Wiseman release has furthered, becomes a unique sound for Kevlaar.  While the aforementioned cornerstone songs are slow tempo, hand clap, soul grinders, the majority of the production (most by Bronze), bangs breaks and snares and is arranged to drum stutter and roll to refresh and recharge each verse.  The arranging exposes the real time taken on this album as they catch Sha Stimuli perfect on the snare on the Kevlaar produced “Sons of the Most High,” Bugsy da God’s verse on Bronze’s “Famine O’Clock” rolls and cymbal crashes him into his smooth, up tempo flow or the conga tumbao and lady wail on “We Gon Make It” from Central Intelligence that seems inspired by a monk out of Sabu’s Afro Temple.

As an MC, there is a major technique displayed dominantly on so many songs.  We can shift from the rugged stream of conscious phrasing of “Kings,” (“I bleed a hard road to follow, swallowing shadows/ the past left me hollow, xylophone sutra.."), the metaphor of female gaming extended on “Losing Hand Gamble,” the build on the corruptive legacy behind money (“Federal Reserve Note”) or the rapid fire battle beasting on “The Lean” (“…Compose notes from hunger and bungalows and froze deserts with blessings from natives/originating the making of molecules/ consume melodic skills/ and robbed and killed Emmett Till’s killer’s spirits on bleeding hills…”).  All to include one of the most beautifully soulful and poetically mastered Hip Hop songs in years with “Someday.” Here Bronze’s lead verse is guided by a long held churched organ note and vaulted by the precise beat crescendo.  The verse is pure poetry that is literally greatness relived as Kevlaar shadows the verse with his own that is identical in rhyme structure, theme and both are at the same exact bar for the summative line (“when Granddad died I felt a little less alive” – Bronze, “when Tyler died I cried and felt less alive” – Kevlaar).  June Megalodon’s binding bars in the center will become another of those wonderful subtleties to explore that the Wisemen work offers.

Die Ageless will live as such because it is the work of a writer with heavenly thoughts, right out of hell.  As the album closes with “Now,” Woodenchainz gives a straight Blues belly with that ol’ guitar plucking coupled by an elegant piano touch and a sharp swishing snare.  This Blues literally adapts to Hip Hop before our ears as the drum stutter reloads it ready for some of Kevlaar’s best verses, if not his most summative of the entire work.  Lacing three verses from the hell he is fighting through (“I’m a descendant of masters raping slaves…navigating on elevated thinking, swing my fists... ) to embracing the knowledge of self and getting the fatigues on (“ink from my pen bleeds, blink some, my pen falls asleep, deep history, Peep the Black sand ministry/modest man dealt an honest hand, awaken my inner mystery…”) he eventually works to march us into victory (“But we survivors from Black bottom to the top of the mind cuz we accomplish plans of Sudans and yachts, exotic amounts, we open business accounts, no losses, just ain’t hit the Forbes yet,..Today begins forever…”).  Hard work done, Die Ageless will be key to the Wisemen movement that innovated Hip Hop music in its fourth decade of industry warfare.  It’s also another great, honorable work in music for the people.
--Sunez

Revolving Revolt Review - April 2012

"I rather write for myself and have no listeners than to write for the listeners and have no self."
-Bronze Nazareth
 
KEVLAAR 7 feat. SALUTE -  "Kings"


Kevlaar 7 is a militant poet and his lead street single for his upcoming album DIE AGELESS is filled with abstract phrasing that dives itself back to the concrete with militant ideas and revolutionary ideals and then back again ("All these rappers they rich off some bullshit...I bleed a hard road to follow, swallowing shadows/ the past left me hollow, xylophone sutra..cut ties with bankers a long time ago, fuck escrow, I use the fertile Earth, bury assets, watch plants grow... I'm alive, y'all die for the Pennzoil, I die for my pencil...")
Here Salute follows with a long verse that profiles the truth that all of the Wisemen have such paused time exquisite flows.  It also is filled with some ill lines like the classic "Paragraph niggas, intent's indent..."
The Woodenchainz track has a snared break that keeps the chaotic consistency in this lovely.

O.C.  & APOLLO BROWN - "The Formula"

The entire TROPHIES album is an immediate near classic.  Beatwise, Detroit's Apollo gives his bombastic snares and drowning basslines to the best MC he's ever made an LP for--O.C.  With his dynamic pitch, articulate punctuation and calm demeanor, there are a hundred listenings this album deserves.  "The Formula" is a beautiful re-introduction to the world of O.C. and should be a thrust for younger listeners to be Hip Hop--dig in the crates and get the rest of one of the greats.

UNDENIABLE feat L.I.F.E. LONG  - "Can't Believe That"

TIMING, PRECISION with the ill VISUAL!
UNDENIABLE (07 and SINNAGI) are gettin iller song by song. Love this lead verse by my brother Omnipotent as it's so technically sharp it's addictive. "Over the years there been some important revelations/a whole lot of refection, evaluation/it's been quite a bit of speculation about the reputation of the Hip Hop nation/all the money that's it's been generating/and if what we seeing is evolution or degeneration..." And Sinnagi's conversational verse is perfect on that stoop ("Ya shit's remixed homie/ it ain't the real thing!..probably rewrite history if you was left to tell it...").
L.I.F.E. Long's "Time changed but we still in the same place" sums up a tough concept done non-preachy.
This is just one song on an entire 5 volume set of 5 Finger discount mixtape series that will be entirely FREE @ www.undeniablemusic.com. 

KA - "Summer"

 "Dope plot/sold rock/hold down/whole spot/go cop/ product slide up from out/ the stove top..."
The 7th video from the supreme GRIEF PEDIGREE album.  Ka makes you listen to his words and his  pattern is with all the greatest MCs of today with mastered timing, use of silence and emphasis.  Ka has all of that and some of the illest lines out.  Check this writer's review of the entire album @  http://premierehiphop.com/2012/03/24/ka-grief-pedigree/

SHAZ ILLYORK - "I Ain't the One"

One of the illest MCs out with no album but with original material mixtapes that are better than everyone else releasing albums.  Search deeper and one will notice that rappers are being pulled out into stardom from the same ciphers MCs as Shaz, Spit Gemz and others are tearing through.  This is the truth of commercial rap on true music.   Shaz has a voice that keeps getting grimier, presents a modernized version of 1994 and has a lyrical dexterous flow that makes his battle raps epic.  Here, the visuals literally flash verses to help baby b-boys get the shit.  These are the MCs that should be deep in their album careers with our full support.
The track is some of the ruggedness from the free BEFORE IT ALL HAPPENED mixtape @ http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2012/04/07/2dbz-presents-shaz-illyork-before-it-all-happened-mixtape/

CHIEF KAMACHI - "City Blocks" 

Another superb lyrical album that I was honored to explore in detail @:  http://premierehiphop.com/2012/04/05/chief-kamachi-rise-rhyme-vol-1-album-review/ 

WU BLOCK (GHOSTFACE KILLAH, STYLES P,  SHEEK LOUCH) - "Shrooms"

THE ORIGINAL: GHOSTFACE...There is a special high pitch, punctuation and intensity that increases without the use of speed that are just more reasons Ghost is G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) level.  This verse is so perfectly wound that shouldn't be dismissed as a just a coke rap. Plus that ill horn blares and the piano keys chime tight. "Pretty drops of water that turn into hard glaciers/Bob Barker microphones, I get paper"--Sick!!!

With Ghost not releasing no new album in 2011 let a lot of "similar" rappers get more action.  And it means more than this writer with a death wish.  For the real writer, the written part we get paid minimally for is on Hip Hop music, not our creative art.  We can say all day what we like but if we dislike anything, even with legitimate ideas of proof, we easily can ruin our entire credibility--actual fact. That's why so many journalists like...everything.  I won't do it.
Ghostface is an MC with an entire repetoire that is being jacked from his cadence, word doubling, vowel emphasizing and even how he goes into a stream of conscious style.  Even if Ghost himself was peace with it, the dilution of his technique lets a weaker content be promoted with an already mastered style.  This Hip Hop is a special forum and all a writer should do is sincerely note the purity of the Art when he sees and hears it. So that all the new artists working so hard to rep themselves right can develop and be heard.

And Styles P is right too-- "Niggas hustle hard like the Gods don't believe in god"  We, the Gods?  Word! For us, ain't no mystery god chillin on a puffy cloud but brothers on the street lost selling white bitches needing a knowledge of self...


NaS - "Daughters"

We can argue the selling out with a un-commercial verse on a Nicki Minaj song but he also did one of the worst songs of all time - "Hate Me Now" with PDiddy back in 1999.  From red leather suits to "I Can" NaS shows the effects of marijuana as much as the difficulties of making Hip Hop music a commercial career. A conscious lyricist, who still has exceptional detail and righeous awareness as the entire Distant Relatives album showed, he is the only MC of his kind, the proper Hip Hop variety, that is left on a commercial label.  The video treatment for "Nasty" was about making music for the people while "The Don" shows him as a King of the people.

Now with "Daughters" a mastery of the Tupac legacy, which is deeper than bandanas and belly tats, is manifested as NaS shares a sincerity this writer knows well.  The one error is in the version most circulating with the chorus of "Shit for niggas with daughters."  Now, being anti the nigger word grossly limits the truth of all our Black, Brown and Yellow niggas niggering savagely.  Still, here, it is awkward and rhythmically off where the best version is the chorus of "For my brothers with daughters" as it reflects the beauty captured through the No I.D.'s  tambourined track.   BUT the version "For my brothers with daughters" is more sincere, logical and way better rhythmically:The general scenarios of worry for his daughter, which contrary to his baby momma's denunciation, do not come off as autobiographical but rhetorical.  A listing of a daughter's missteps that a father must blame himself for.  Indeed.  The love is beautifully punctuated by the last line voiced acapella, "And I ain't trying to mess your thing up/ I'm just trying to see you dream up...When she date we wait behind the door with a sawed off cuz we think no one is good enough for our daughter's love."  Classic!


BRONZE NAZARETH - "Records We Used To Play"

More classics from School for the Blindman, still the #1 album of 2011
 (http://lavoerevolt.blogspot.com/2012/01/real-of-2011.html)
"Burn the incense while I indent/eyes squint/Turn the leaflet to gold to scribe with..I broadcast adverbs and we the back lane renaissance masters/paint shadows of my DNA...My struggle's so deep/Titanic manic releases.."  This album can only be appreciated if every lyric is analyzed and enjoyed.  The poetic prose I keep exploring on here continue to astound and inspire. The visuals of real places, beautiful art match the track nicely.  Remember Hip Hop filmed in the ghettos it was crafted in?  Just like this...



Peace, Sunez

FUCK SOLAR! WHY? Rest in Peace GURU!

Today, I saw a new video posted by Solar's 7 Grand Records on YouTube. I felt compelled to comment appropriately to the disingenuous posting with two comments. “RIP TO THE GOD GURU” and “Fuck Solar!” On YouTube, I’m listed as Sunez7 [7 meaning God] so Solar blocked me from commenting and lashed out on my channel page saying,

What does 7 Mean? I think you are a Jive percenter. If not lets here your answer? and who gave you knowledge of seff? and how long ago? 8 if your 7? Peace

He also messaged me saying:

You dealing with your own Inner Devils hating on some one you know nothing about,(Solar) except the lies you read perpertrated by snakes. if you call Guru God Then you know God is right and exact in all things. Meaning Guru chose Solar as god and you have to respect that Period if you know degrees? or keep burning in your own self hate.(most likely) But do not claim your righteous,cause your not if this is how you move(snake like) your ways and actions as stated(shown) here are that of a snake. And you are muredered by your own self hate you are projecting on guru and Solar. If you are perp. 2 11 then hit back if not. Burn eaither way.

Peace

Another message immediately followed:

I will lift the block when you show you are who you say you are.

My fans do not want to hear your snake devil thoughts masquerading as god. we know who the devil is and do not need to be bothered with his stench(foul smell)/.

Solar deserves a response. A response because he has used the name of the Nation of God and Earth to shield himself in justifying his alleged actions towards Guru and certainly the repercussions of Guru’s returning. There is no mystery and Guru is most responsible for himself. However, the demise of one’s brother in such fashion demands that those close humbly accept the failures they have committed. I do not believe. So I can hardly believe Solar’s contentions despite his insistence and amongst countless trusted counter-sources that I see as legitimate. My response to Solar is:

Indeed, I appreciate that my tough comment was even responded to. It's an emotional response to the disingenuous presentation you, Solar, have had since Guru's passing. I come in the name of Sunez Allah, teacher of the P.E.A.C.E. Course at Allah School in Mecca. Call Allah School in Mecca @ 212 665-4175 and ask about M.aster E.quality or just do a search for Sunez Allah on youtube itself and you'll see me teaching at the Nation of Gods and Earths' first school. Also, check the book I co-edited to see more of my history and what I share with the people through my Nation: http://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Self-Collection-Science-Everything/dp/0981617026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331145131&sr=8-1

NOW IN MY NATION OF GOD AND EARTH, WHO ARE YOU?!

I'm not sure who I'm speaking to--Solar or a representative for Solar. Either way, Guru was righteous and returned to the essence in the middle of a lesson. A lesson we, the true and living, can manifest now. That mastering a cipher by going into another weak cipher is not the answer. Bloodsuckers take the opportunity when times are tough. Times were tough for Guru. So don't mystify or make a mystery god out of Guru as if his "choice" is automatically correct. The Original man is God and so the Creator/Original man builds Creation by learning and [living] lessons. Guru returned before he could show and prove his lesson but Allah is One and All so we, the Original man complete his lesson.

My issue with you is you ride that you are in my Nation and yet can't even prove what positive thing you did for Guru. The Father [ALLAH, founder of the Nation of God and Earth, officially in 1964] was a man of the people and whether they knew him as Clarence, Puddin or Allah they saw a true worth in his presence. Please show and prove that. You tell how others didn't help Guru but how did you help him? I haven't seen that.

Critically, can you show and prove your music was ever Original other than reworkings of some of the [most] abused samples. You made a weak album with a legend (Street Scriptures) and no where near Gang Starr albums. Jazzmattaz 4's countless guests should have prepped a classic and it was just average. Guru's work with Gang Starr and his first 2 Jazzmattaz's are his legendary legacy. Actual fact.

The testimony of many go against the weak responses you've given thus far to justify adding on and helping Guru. Guru did not get better with you. In your company he was not able to unite with his family and friends. If that isn't your fault, that's peace but why do we have to hear how you helped him better than others. Everyone should mourn honorably and take the loss. In the end, his family didn't even know where he was dying slowly. How could that ever be positive? It's not your fault. It's the fault of everyone and all should be humbled accordingly. To be God means that we may have insight that takes us beyond those around us but we are always lovingly around them and with them in our actions.

I've never seen you at a Parliament [monthly gathering of the Gods and Earths with the community] in Mecca/New York. I didn't see you at any of the Show and Prove's [yearly celebration of all children, the proof of the future in the present, by the Nation of God and Earth] that commemorated Guru. You ask who I am? Who gave you knowledge? What understanding do you have that could even show and prove you added on?

Peace, Sunez Allah

Guru is a teacher on vinyl for me that inspires my quest for knowledge and his sincerity is what will be impressed on me forever. If those that really loved Guru were a-like him they would be identified easily—by their sincerity to take the loss, admit their errors and learn the lessons. We knowledge/memorize 120 Lessons to learn our past, present situation and know the immensity of our future. We live Supreme Mathematics via the principles of righteousness we naturally engage in. We thus create reality with a sincere respect for honor and dignity that takes mistakes and builds new lessons.

RIP the GOD 7 GURU

-Sunez