The Year In Rap: 2014

Another year goes by, another roller coaster ride of rappity rap is put in the books, and more New Years resolutions are going to be made that probably won't pan out to be followed as planned (I however am planning to listen to little to no amount of music from Rae Sremmurd, so far I've kept my promise and it's not even the new year, isn't that amazing?). From elevator fights over who knows what to the incredible rise of one of the hottest new rappers out, to rap reaching new levels of fan interaction and battle rap pummeling it's way into the mainstream, 2014 was absolutely filled with excitement. Where do we even begin?

In terms of albums being released, J. Cole has seemingly owned the year, and just within the last month of it all. Cole had only announced his 2014 Forrest Hills Drive this November and it has without a doubt been the most interesting story in rap, quite possibly in all of music this year. With little to no promotion for the actual album itself, Cole still made headlines over the incredibly humble moves he made involving his fans this year, hosting events like album listening sessions at his own house, random stops at events and performing for fans, and there was even one instance where Cole showed up to a fan's house to give out signed copies of the album, take pictures and even hang out with the fan for a little bit. To top it all off Cole's newest release has just recently been certified gold by the RIAA, and it's certainly well deserved. Other successful album releases included Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Royce Da 5'9, and Kevin Gates even charted with a specially released mix tape.

(Cole performed his song "Be Free" on Letterman to promote not the new album, but the recent Ferguson violence and Erick Sermon's death by chokehold. His sweatshirt reads "Fuck Money Spread Love" in logos. Is Cole the new Tupac?)

Another huge story that took over headlines the time it had happened was the famed Beyoncé, Jay Z and Solange Knowles elevator incident. This led to jokes, memes, interview questions, and even (alleged) song lyrics talking about the matter. The story is that supposedly Solange got very angry at Jay Z (why, nobody knows, she might have been drunk) and the surveillance video shows Solange continuously punching and kicking Jay Z while he just stood there and took it (like a man should of course). Was Solange trying to stand up for her sister?  Could Jay really have cheated on Beyoncé?  Was Solange in need of money and did Jay just tell her to go start her own label?  All of these could have been plausible questions that still nobody has any answers for. Check out the surveillance video below.

Iggy Azalea had an absolutely huge year as well, and it's hard to deny that she got massive attention even if you don't like her music, but the attention was hot one second then cold the next. Her constant beef and involvement with other rappers/celebrities on social media probably wasn't the attention she was looking for, but the saying "any press is good press" comes to mind when you think of Iggy (maybe not if you're really a fan). I'm not exactly a super fan of Iggy myself, but you have to respect what she is doing and how much of a following she's built in such a short period of time. I do know that she can rap given the chance, even though The New Classic isn't the best evidence of that claim. Her huge year was more evidence of how the Grammy's overlook other truly great music though, and in terms of rap Macklemore definitely wasn't the most deserving candidate for best rap album (he even admitted it and put out an apology to Kendrick).

Macklemore's apology to Kendrick seemed to get mixed opinions and views from people, some people said Macklemore shouldn't have apologized seeing as it takes away the competitive aspect of rap, while some others gained a newfound respect for Macklemore and saw it as him "seeing the unfairness to hip hop from the Grammys." This unfairness has been a thing for quite some time now, and it became even more of a thing when Kendrick's album, Good Kid Maad City, which some people highly consider the best hip hop album of the past 20 years or so (although the word "classic" has been thrown around many more times than it should), got snubbed at the Grammy's and lost to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' The Heist. To many people The Heist wasn't even as good as any of the other nominees, which included Drake's Nothing Was The Same, Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail, and Kanye West's Yeezus.

The mix tape circuit has been almost as exciting as the album circuit this year, if not more so. There are many that stand out among the best, a few that got a bunch of attention were ones like Mick Jenkins' The Waters, Kevin Gates' By Any Means, Lil B's 05 Fuck Em, and many more, but the one that garnered my attention the most had to be Mac Miller's Faces. Being a Mac hater (admittedly) since his mix tape days of course I saw this mix tape and didn't bat an eye at it at first, but I had a friend introduce me to Faces and I have to say I was immediately impressed by not just the skill, but the musical range of Mac as well. What he can do with a song is truly amazing, his production skills are almost as good as his rapping abilities, and he know how to truly entertain someone with his abstract writing ability and topics, and Faces is the absolute pinnacle of Mac's abilities. Faces doesn't seem like a mix tape at all, it seems more like an album to me, I mean why else would it not have any DJ tags?  The rumors of his being on drugs during the entire process is certainly plausible (I mean come on, have you LISTENED to it?), and his mental state is something you'd certainly worry about if what he raps about is true, it almost seems as if Mac has entered this sort of "Slim Shady" phase where he feels like he has to do drugs to draw the influence and become great. The music is great and the fans are happy, but when it comes to Mac being healthy, you have to wonder.

                                (*I do not own any of these videos, songs, or the rights to them*)      

So with the elevator fights, the crazy amount of good music, the snubbing of rap at awards shows (as usual) and so much beef you could cut it with a knife, you have to wonder what 2015 will bring. Rumors are there will be new albums from Kendrick, Drake, Kanye, Mac Miller and too many more to name, the anticipation is always there but you never know how the year will turn out until it's actually happening (or if you're like me and you really don't think about it at all until just now). Rap is constantly on the move in terms of advancement of the culture and how people see it and how seriously they take it, and I feel like there will always be that certain audience who can't take it seriously just because of the egos involved, but if you're not confident and can't take pride in what you do, then how can you say you love it?  The competition will only get better (especially as Kendrick continues to slowly slither his way back into the music scene), the music will only be top notch, and the rhymes will be so much farther ahead of us than we even know. So to end the last post of the year, allow me to leave you with some advice:  take time to enjoy your music, the times in your life, the people in your life, and the ride of what's to come. As Weezy said:  life is like a fuckin roller coaster then it drops!  Be ready for your next hill.     
         








  

Road To Total Slaughter: Episode 4 Recap

And now the moment of truth. With Total Slaughter nearing its close, each battler seemingly more annoyed with the others by the episode and the drama reaching a peak, you know it had to end some time. Normally I would be whining about not being able to see Total Slaughter the night of it airing, but I got the pleasure of actually having a Time Warner Cable connection at my disposal this past Wednesday night (thank you Lil B). Now to kick off the final episode recap of The Road Total Slaughter!

This episode starts off on a different note, but an interesting one at that with Dizaster singing in a room with Daylyt, Mook, and Joell Ortiz present. Mook and Ortiz are clearly impressed with his talent as they give him props for the quick ballad and Mook goes on to say that "nobody would expect that" out of him. And I certainly couldn't correct him when he said that. Diz goes on to say that he has always had interest in pursuing a musical career, but has been sidetracked on sticking with it because of battle rap. If my voice carried any weight, I certainly would encourage him to stick with this path as he clearly has talent not only in his lyrical miracle type of battle rap, but in his singing voice as well.

But this leads into one of the two final battles heading into the headlining event of Total Slaughter. The first battle up is T-Rex vs. Big-T; the battle of who would be the better T (better, not bigger, clearly Big T earned his name). This battle I had many questions for, especially after the battle, mostly stemming from why they would bring T-Rex in out of nowhere 1 episode in and just have him dominate everyone the way he has throughout the show? And when Mook says "may the Rex man, I mean, may the best man win." What is that? Why were they pulling for this guy throughout the entire show like they did? Personally I hated seeing it. I give respect where it is due, and Rex is one hell of a battle rapper, but why bring in a guy who no one has any clue about and have him dominate everybody? It almost ruins the competitive aspect of the show I think. It certainly added to the "expect the unexpected" aspect of the show, but watching it and not having a clue of who he was at first really threw off my focus from the other battlers. I like the unexpected a lot, especially in a show like this, but to bring him in with the timing they did, it didn't seem right to me.

Now aside from all the T-Rex hoopla (you can call it hate if you want, haters), we still had a whole second battle to deal with, and that battle was Dizaster vs. Daylyt. With all the drama surrounding these two, inside and outside of rap, how could this not be entertaining? Diz has come out saying if he didn't succeed he was going to quit rap for good, just recently the two had apparently gotten into a pretty big fist fight with each other before Total Slaughter aired (Google it, Twitter it, wherever you'll find it), and on top of that they're best friends? I didn't even know that until I watched this episode myself. This battle was nothing short of epic, very hard to pick a winner for anyone, although I had a winner in mind. No spoilers here except for the Cain and Able references for each? How did they even know to do that? Must of had discussions with each other beforehand. Regardless of all the chatter outside of the microphone, this battle was something to see.

And that does it for this recap of  the final episode of 'The Road to Total Slaughter." Despite the downs and the negative attention it might have gotten, with the fights and egos colliding, all the way down to some contestants getting banned from battle rap circuits outside of Total Slaughter, most of the attention it got from people was very good. But you know what they say, any press is good press. Whoever those rap fans were that didn't know about battle rap before certainly know about it now, I know that was the case for me. As for the Total Slaughter event in NYC? Some disappointing news for Budden fans I hear. I haven't seen any of the footage yet, but I'll certainly be checking that out as soon as possible. All I can say is it sucks that it's over, but it's cool that it happened. I'll definitely be tuned in for next years edition, if they choose to continue it. Check out episode 4 in full below.

  


(*Disclaimer: I do not own this video or the rights to it*)