Tag Archives: God Hop

Eminem provides a teachable moment on his song Fall off his surprise album Kamikaze

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Before I get into this, a recent reflection (at least I think it’s recent) of Eminem rocking a Paris/The Devil Made Me Do It shirt surfaced which caught many who don’t really care for Em or listen to his music off guard.

I explained to them Em is a true student of hip hop music. His love for artists like LL, Treach of Naughty by Nature, Redman and Rakim is well documented. He is not one of those weirdos that think hip hop began with Biggie and 2pac. I remember well reading an article in which he mentioned how he used to listen to X Clan and thought they were racist which made me chuckle.

Anyways on his song Fall, Em goes at hip hop legend, let me repeat that, hip hop LEGEND Lord Jamar with the following lyrics…

“And far as Lord Jamar, you better leave me the hell alone
Or I’ll show you an Elvis clone
Walk up in this house you own, thrust my pelvic bone
Use your telephone and go fetch me the remote
Put my feet up and just make myself at home
I belong here, clown, don’t tell me ’bout the culture
I inspire the Hopsins, the Logics, the Coles, the
Seans, the K-Dots, the 5’9″s, and oh
Brought the world 50 Cent, you did squat, piss and moaned
But I’m not gonna fall… bitch!”

Now….while I can appreciate the reference to Brand Nubian’s classic Love Me or Leave Me Alone, he can chill with the white hip hop savior shit and did he really say Lord Jamar did squat!? Em is smarter than that. Em may have inspired many of those artists he mentioned but he is also the father of the pill poppin’ mc and this newer drug culture in hip hop, much of which he seems not to care too much for in various verses off his new album. Lord Jamar, an affiliate of the heavily influential Native Toungues crew which included other influential acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers and De La Soul to name a few, brought dead prez, a much more important hip hop act than 50 Cent, D12 and Obie Trice to Loud records who as Lord Jamar mentioned on my show created some of the most revolutionary music in hip hop to date, the type of music that adds on to the culture of hip hop and instills a sense of racial pride, brings credibility to the music d’void of all the disrespecting of women and genocide on wax, just as Brand Nubian did before them. What exactly does Em with a lot of his shock rap and 50 Cent with his tired gangsta, bitch, ho, I get money, nigga nigga nigga rap inspire or inspired? Most of these new wack rappers every body can’t stand (especially the ones with winy wack ass irritating voices like Em) guess what? They grew up listening to and were inspired by Eminem and 50 Cent! Artists that listened to and studied Brand Nubian and dead prez nowhere near as wack, in fact they tend not to be wack period! Chew on that shit. Reminds me of a KRS line, “People that buy KRS-One goin places. People that buy your shit, they catchin cases!”

Take Eminem and 50 Cent out of the equation when it comes to hip hop like they never existed, guess what? Hip hop is ok, maybe better. Take Brand Nubian, Native Tongues, dead prez and other contributions Lord Jamar made to hip hop like his 5% Album and hip hop is missing something very special along the same lines as other great black artists in music like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Prince, 2pac, Public Enemy, Bob Marley etc etc etc. I can’t put a 50 Cent or Eminem in that tradition of great artists.  Seriously, what makes Eminem and 50 Cent special? Is Eminem a great mc? YES! But there are many great mcs, what makes him special? Because he white!? Gotta come with more than that. So you brought the type of music rapping about killing ya moms and in a video burying her to hip hop culture (wtf!?) But that’s not how we get down in the environments hip hop was birthed out of. Keep that trailer park trash shit to ya self. Even though we may have beef with our mothers we don’t air it out on song like that. A great example of how we get down is Pac’s Dear Mama in which he says, “even as a crack fieeeend mama, you always was a black queeeeeen mama!” Just one of many examples as to why Em will never be as great or important to hip hop as an artist like 2pac. We love our mothers, I fast and pray no brother in hip hop in front of a sellout crowd asks them ,”if you got beef with your parents put your hands in the air.” Something Em has done, we don’t need that in hip hop. Keep that energy.

I can go in more about what you can expect to hear in hip hop music vs what is not welcome but I already went over that when I wrote a review on the shows we had Lord Jamar as a guest here. You say Get Rich or Die Trying was a hip hop classic? Whatever, you know what was better by a group Lord Jamar introduced to the world? How about Get FREE or Die Tryin’?

Em’s new album Kamikaze is dope as well, but you know what album which had the same title I enjoyed more that flips that speed rap much better? Check it…

Lastly, I already built on the importance of stic man’s (again, an artist that Lord Jamar introduced to the masses) Workout album on a previous show here. But what I wanted to build on next is the advancement of hip hop culture. At first I felt God Hop was the next wave but it was just too many heads co opting the term that don’t necessarily live out it’s principles as with hip hop. So now we have something much more concrete and defined with what stic is bringing with Fit Hop which is defined as….

“FitXHop is a rising new sub-genre of hip hop with themes of health fitness and well being founded by dead prez ‘s Stic.man with the release of his critically acclaimed full length album THE WORKOUT. FitXHop is a vision for a refreshing alternative to counter balance the current negative, drug promoting hyper consumerism wave of mainstream contemporary music, providing street certified affirmation, and inspiration for healthy transformations.”

So pretty much if an artist is not coming with any of that above they cannot lay claim to Fit Hop. This is some truly next level shit, this is what an artist Lord Jamar introduced is bringing to the culture. So 50 Cent made the 50th Law which reads like it borrowed much from Supreme Understanding’s How to Hustle and Win. Well you know what’s better than the 50th Law? Check it……

In closing, in a culture that birthed the likes of LL, Rakim, Chuck D, KRS One, Lauryn Hill, Kane, Outkast, Black Thought, Common, Paris, Wise Intelligent, Brand Nubian, 2pac, Nas, Wu Tang, Guru, etc etc etc, an artist like Em will NEVER be the greatest. I don’t care how good of an mc he is, AN ARTIST LIKE HIM with his content will NEVER be the greatest, that is all.

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The Miseducation of James Todd Smith

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“The Champ doesn’t fight every challenger, not because he is afraid to lose, but because every challenger is not worth the unnecessary sweat…In other words I don’t acknowledge all bullshit and I don’t budge unless it benefits. Folks will bait you to get a response, just to qualify. Don’t let anyone control your mind”

-Kalonji Jama Changa

The quote above is the route I have decided to take after Mr. James Todd Smith bka LL Cool J said on wax he wanted to give a shout out to that slave master Abraham Lincoln for freeing him. He was sounding more like LL Coon J or LL Fool J with that type of sentiment which also has folks calling him the GOAT meaning Greatest of All Toms.

At first in response to this I was on some boycott the Kings of the Mic tour he was doing with PE, Cube and De la Soul and f the other artists if they didn’t drop off the tour……….after some time, cooler heads prevailed. Being that I see myself as a supreme being, king or champ I can no longer devote energy or dissatisfied reactions to the type of fuckery that has been going on in rap music. When Lil Wayne came out referencing Emmitt Till in a crude way I was adamant about discussing how wrong it was, the same when Rick Ross was bragging about rape in a song. It took LL Cool J, an mc I have defended in many heated hip hop debates on why he is the greatest because of his ability to persevere longevity wise with his career and stay afloat in what many consider a young man’s game. It took him for me to realize how much I am wasting my time getting upset every time a rapper says something that is ill advised. There is always going to be some clown distracting us from reporting on the hotness and things hip hop that are more worthy of telling like say a dead prez, NYOil, TRUE SKOOL RADIO, Treble Army, Jasiri X, Wise Intelligent, Wrath of the Siafu and God Hop. I no longer have the energy to speak ill of other black folk (in public that is, dealing with the beast is hard as is) there’s enough people doing that, but there is not enough of us speaking on the great things going on in hip hop. There’s a lot, but lets keep it real we can never get enough of it…………or can we? Maybe we should enjoy the fuckery that comes out because it’s obviously what we want right? Conscious rap is corny these days, nobody trying to hear that ish right? Public Enemy dropped two phenomenal albums last year ( shouts out to all the folks who say PE need to come back, catch up) that speak on the wants and needs of our communities, but they too old right? I don’t hear rock n roll heads or alternative heads saying that ish about Rolling Stones or R.E.M.

Anyways, LL, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross……..those are my brothers (even if I don’t respect all of them) as I have many friends and acquaintances who are a lot like them. Did NYOil and myself go hard on LL on a previous TRUE SKOOL RADIO show ( http://bit.ly/XsY8PQ ) after NY dropped his great take on LL’s Rock the Bells called What the Hell, yes we did. But as NY said we were mostly venting. I know many rappers on a personal level who have said things just as damaging as the 3 brothers I mentioned earlier. Now do they have a wide audience like the “mega stars” I am speaking of? No, my point is why do we really get mad at these rappers? I really want those reading to ask themselves this. I think a sports analogy is the best (but not only) answer to this. Often fans will “hate” ( more like dislike ) a particular team that is always winning because they want their team to be in that spot. Deep down I feel many of us really just want or feel there are other mcs that deserve to be in the spot of the ones who are being bombed on, because we don’t say jack about the lesser known artists saying things that are just as bad. You would think if we really wanted our fav mcs in that spot we would do a better job of putting the word out about them instead of focusing on the bs. I can’t count how many times I have heard folks say, “if you don’t like something, well then speak on the hip hop you do like because there’s plenty out there” and then they don’t even reference anyone, lol. I have listed some references in this piece, if you missed them read this pieace over again.

This topic has been on my mind because I have family members that have said some pretty disparaging comments about Mexicans and things like Africa (in front of my children at that) that speak to their self hatred and bigotry……….they are STILL my family and I love them (although I may not like them), because hey, nobody else has posted $6,000.00 to bail me out of jail. There’s more to it than that though but I don’t have to elaborate on the importance of family. But am I to just throw everything out the window that LL has inspired and influenced me to do positively because he was misguided or poorly executed something in which he had good intentions of (because straight up Accidental Racist is probably the worst song I have ever heard in my life) Those who do not hate LL Cool J and don’t feel he is the sole person responsible for destroying hip hop and are not bias can say they saw what LL and Paisley were trying to do with the song. It was just about respecting the past and moving on, but again…….poorly executed.

With all that being said…………………let’s talk about that “shout out to Abraham Lincoln for freeing me” line. First off, FUCK ABRAHAHAM LINCOLN and everyone who respects him (Obama) Any intelligent individual knows slavery was never abolished and that it’s borders were just expanded if you will. Check the following excerpt from Assata’s autobiography in which she speaks on Lincoln and slavery….

“Little did I know that Lincoln was an archracist who had openly expressed his disdain for Black people. He was of the opinion that Black people should be forcibly deported to Africa or anywhere else. We had been taught that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, and it was not until I was in college that I learned that the Civil War was fought for economic reasons. The fact that ‘official’ slavery was abolished was only incidental. Northern industrialists were fighting to control the economy. Before the Civil War, the northern industrial economy was largely dependent on southern cotton. The slave economy of the South was a threat to northern capitalism. What if the slaveholders of the South decided to set up factories and process the cotton themselves? Northern capitalists could not possibly compete with slave labor, and their capitalist economy would be destroyed. To ensure that this didn’t happen, the North went to war.”

And to add on further peep this excerpt from Supreme Understanding’s How to Hustle and Win…

“The Civil War wasn’t fought because the North believed slavery was wrong, but because the industrial cities in the North, which relied less on slaves, were losing money to the South, which was getting rich off slave labor. Chattel slavery ended in the U.S. 1865, less than 150 years ago, but slavery was allowed to remain in effect for those convicted to prison. (While some countries abolished slavery before the U.S., many others continued the practice well after 1865, and some still do. According to iAbolish, there are 27 million people enslaved around the world.)”

And just one last tidbit from HHW……

“All hurricanes and tropical storms that violently hit the Americas begin in West Africa and follow the same path as the slave trade.”

Mmmm…….marinate on that one. Next time someone says Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves or the Civil War was about freeing the slaves, do not sit there silently, ProperEducationAlwaysCorrectsErrors. I know brother James Todd Smith would like to thank me on an upcoming track for setting the record straight, so I will say, “You are welcome” in advance

PEACE

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God Hop Mixtape review

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This project right here was a long time coming. I remember when Kalik Scientific first asked if I would be interested in the God Hop Confederation. I remember filling out the membership forum, participating in a couple of conference calls and all that, even having Kalik Scientific, Kil Ripken and others involved in God Hop on TRUE SKOOL RADIO to promote.

What is God Hop you ask? Well as Kalik Scientific alluded to on TSR, imagine a plane called hip hop taking off and elevating as high as it could  till one day it was hijacked and then crashed. Imagine only a few original passagers surving, emerging out from the debris who then built a space craft that could not be compromised. THIS is God Hop! As Sol Messiah says in the Intro, it’s hip hop all grown up with no negativity and only positive energy and elevation.

Often hip hop heads will complain about the lack of any good female mcs anymore. Well, one of the most impressive features of this mixtape is the number of sharp, witty, intelligent female mcs with crazy flow on here, from the queen of God Hop Sa-Roc who gets the cuts scratches and beats party started with Scarlet in which she pays respect to KRS by saying, “the teacha told me knowledge reigns supreme over churches”, to Stahhr who channels Rakim on Microphone Fiend 2013, to the author of one of the hardest hip hop tracks ever called White Man’s Bitch in Aisha Sekhmet who comes correct with Iggin on the mixtape, as well as Narubi Selah’s Hookless which Sol Messiah does justice to the original with his remix taking nothing away from Selah’s potent darts like, “you listen to Minaj? Word? You should kill yourself and everybody that you came with!” There is just so many other dope female mcs who are dope mcs PERIOD! Elijah Muhammad said a nation can rise no higher than it’s women and it’s great that Sol Messiah made it a point to have such a female presence on the first God Hop mixtape as when we think of the golden age of hip hop to now, that presence has been missing (at least in the lamestream)

To have some sense of familiarity Sol Messiah also includes joints from well known artists in J Electronica who channels and pays homage to Rakim as well on Atom Anthem with spoken word great D. Prosper “Jay Elec get stronger as I get older/I’m measured with the heat that’s made by Solar/I represent the UPT Magnolia…” There’s also Immortal Technique included, Big KRIT, Lupe Fiasco, Planet Asia, Nas, Ab Soul and 2pac with the joint Unchained that many first heard for the first time during one of the more memorable scenes in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained movie starring Jaime Foxx and Leonardo Dicaprio.

Some more stand out tracks are Pharoah Monche’s Haile Selassie Karate, Kil Ripkin’s Timeless, the phenomenal Regan by Killer Mike, Jasiri X’s Pillars with Brother Ali, Scarface’s Rain and On the Air by Labratz who are very reminiscent of Outkast. Jay Z’s controversial Open Letter is included as well however the crown jewel of the mixtape is the first single for the Organizing is the New Cool documentary in Wrath of the Siafu

which is a posse cut featuring some of the hardest “conscious artists” out the ATL letting you know “the A” got more than just the crunk dboy trap ish you been hearing as Zayd Malik, El Sun, Ekunday, Methuzelah Gem, Mike Flo, Great Scott, Flux Wonda, IsReal, Sa-Roc, Chosen and Stahhr all show and prove. Check out the great interview with Kalonji Jama Changa discussing Organizing is the New Cool on TRUE SKOOL RADIO here

Now, while you can just press play and pretty much listen to this whole joint without getting mad or shaking your head in disagreement, the mixtape does run kind of long and everything on it is not as superb as what’s mentioned in this review but instead of knocking anything I’ll let the listeners decide that for themselves. Personally I didn’t care too much for the cursing or use of the n word on some songs I heard and would have liked to seen the inclusion of individuals that I knew to be God Hop affiliates like Kalik Scientific and Haiti Bluez or at least been able to hear the full version of United Nations……http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejiRG7b2pE

and I was expecting to hear a lil more scratching however for the first God Hop mixtape I’m not mad at this joint at all and I highly doubt those that are looking for more hip hop music devoid of the coonery buffoonery Uncle Tom Man Tan sellout yassa bossin’ rap, I highly doubt they will be disappointed. This is just the beginning, it’s only gonna get better. Let the devil have hip hop, because for everything the beast steals and destroys we always build something new and improved. That plane hip hop crashed a while ago, instead of trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, recognize that GOD HOP is the future. You can cop the God Hop mixtape here

God Hop Mixtape tracklisting

intro

1.Sa-Roc Scarlet
2. The Ritual- Ahkil Heru
3. Atom Anthem- D. Prosper featuring J. Electronica
4. Hookless 2.5 – Narubi Selah (sol messiah remix)
5. Sheik Ron- Moslem of The West
6. Isis the Savior – Street Chronicles
7. Immortal TechNique- Sign of The Times
8.Big K.R.I.T – REM
9. Ptah Ra Tehuti ft. Kektet – Lyrical High
10. Lupe Fiasco- Around My Way (Freedom Aint Free)
11. Stahhr – Microphone Fiend 2013
12. Quadir Lateef- Whos Gonna Save My Soul (Sol Messiah Mix)
13.Planet Asia and Elemental Rhymes – Reflection
14..Amun Ra – Ancestral Magic
15.Nas- Chain Glow
16. Ab Soul – The Book of Soul
17.2Pac- UnChained (The Payback Untouchable)
18. Chop – School is in session
19.Red and Blu Pill- Transform
20. Dynasty- Stay shining
21.Mighty Kalipssus – Supreme Elohim
22. Obi1 – Doing It
23. Pharoahe Monch featuring Denaun Porter- Haile Selassie Karate
24. Aisha Sekhmet- Iggin
25. Thaahum Mst3k- (My Soul Transcends Creating Perfect Kingdoms)
26. Kil Ripkin- Timeless
27. Iron SHeik – The Real Active Moor
28. AA Rashid – Racist
29. Kiiler Mike – Regan
30. Jasiri X feat. Brother Ali – Pillars
31. Abiye – Blind Man
32. Scarface – Rain
33. Labratz- On the Air
34. Jay Z- Open Letter
35. Methuzelah Gem ft. Boog Brown – Pay Homage
36. Ekundayo -Light Writer
37. Translee Ft Raheem DeVaughn- Does Anybody Love Anymore
38. Zayd Malik, , El Sun, Ekundayo, Methuzelah Gem, Mike Flo, Great Scott, Flux Wonda, IsReal, Sa-Roc Chosen, Stahhr – Wrath of Siafu

PEACE