Backyard Playlist

The Definition of a MC

I have seen and heard a lot of rappers, but it’s only when you see or hear a true MC that you understand the difference between the two. Nitty Scott MC has been killin the cypher for a few years now. I first discovered her on youtube a little over a year ago.

As if those bars weren’t enough here’s another amazing collab she did with Kinetics Music and One Love:

I gotta give shine to a female MC bringing positivity,substance, linguistics, and finesse to the rap game. With new artists like Nitty Scott on the rise I might actually call it hip hop again.

-Lex

Track By Track Album Review: Common The Dreamer/The Believer

1. The Dreamer-feat. Maya Angelou 
Ricky: Thick bitches, Ferraris? And Maya Angelou. I’d be pissed, too! Nice,Common. Next.
Lex: Superficial, materialistic and insecure. 

2.Ghetto Dreams-feat. Nas
R: This is my favorite instrumental on the album. Old school hip hop meets superhero theme song vibe. 
L: A raw, gritty track about the streets. Every album has it. It’s the Rick Ross bark of the album. 

3. Blue Sky
R: This is the Common I know and love. Dignified emotion, right amount of confidence, signature poetic bars. ”silhouettes of dreams” love that. 
L: The beat is tough. My favorite instrumental. Very anecdotal about his come up. 

4. Sweet
L: One word: SIGH. It’s the diss track.
R: Hahahaha, ok, we’ll skip it. We’ve heard it everywhere else. 

5. Gold
L: Why didn’t they just get Drake to sing the hook?
R: <falls out of lawn chair> Who is that, doe? Anybody know? Lex & Ricky wanna know!

6. Lovin’ I Lost 
L: Most of his albums have that love story song. “I Used to Love Her” from Resurrection, “The Light” in Like Water for Chocolate, “Come Close” with Mary J. Blige, “I Want You” with Alicia Keys. For me, this is that love story track that you anticipate when you put a Common album into the CD player. 
R: I forgot you still buy CDs. “is this our new forever?”  Dope verse. This is my top track on the album. Solid lyrics and beats. It’s the whole package.  This is the new fly love song.

7. Raw [How you like it]
L: I’m mad that Raw comes after “Lovin’ I Lost”. It just kills all my nostalgia. And on a serious tip, raw how you like it? It’s 2012. You’re grown. You have a kid. Wrap it up. Bad subliminal. 
R: He’s not really here to party. Nobody buys that. I hate that cornball shit.  

8. Cloth
R: Don’t like the music but the lyrics are Common.
L: Yeah, the lyrics are fine but the music doesn’t fit with the rest of the album. That hook is not hook-ing me, SON.

9. Celebrate
L: Another materialistic celebration track. 
R: Cool sing song vibe but you’re popping bottles. You told us on the first track. We know, man. We know. 

10. Windows
L: This is the proper evolution of Common. This is grown man hip hop. 
R: You can’t hate on the ode to the daughter. 

11. The Believer: featuring John Legend
Ricky: I walk where money talks and love stutters. I love a good hip hop fight song. 
Lex: John Legend’s voice with the drums makes it sound real epic. It’s intellectual. It reminds me of “The People” off Finding Forever. It’s the lesson

We love Common but we had to set the bar high because it’s Common. For a lot of other rappers this would be a phenomenal album hands down. But when you acknowledge the fact that it’s Common, The Dreamer The Believer is just not on par with his other classics. It’s still a good album though.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-dreamer-the-believer/id484275413  

Don’t forget to let use know what you think!

My favorite Black Spade track is “Presence of You” featuring Seymour Liberty. Check it out:

Lex and I believe that you should support good music whether it’s showing the artist love on twitter, tumblr, etc. or buying their EP/LP and sharing it with your friends. Here in the backyard we play the music loud so everyone can hear!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/black-spade/id81088370

-R

Black Spade

Ricky’s On One… OVO that is and why we love producers

Over here at Backyard Playlist, we get a little nerdy about production, and we also know about the infamous Common-Drake “beef”. We were looking into this Noah “40” Shebib guy, (Drake’s producer) and found this article over at GQ: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201111/noah-shebib-40-drake-take-care-producer along with this picture:

(Photo courtesy of GQ)

It’s a great article, so if you’re interested, we suggest you read it. If you don’t want to read it—- GQ interviews this 40 guy and the guy is really close to Drake, will only produce for him, although he’s done stuff with other people, like Alicia Keys-but he’s basically produced everything Drake has ever put out. Anyway, in this interview, 40 says, “I had a very distinct taste for R&B music, growing up listening to it my entire life and I love producing it first and foremost.” Drake and 40 like R&B. They know they’re R&B, ya’ll. They’re ok with it…we are sharing this memo because rappers are apparently losin’ it right now over music genre technicalities.

Aaaanyway, a bunch of other awesome artist/producer duos came to mind. Some of our favorites:

Timbaland & Aaliyah:

Remember  “Are you that somebody?” , “One in a Million” and “ Try Again”?  Yeah.

(photo courtesy of dancehallareaz.com)

Neptunes & Kelis: 

Neptunes produced Kelis’ first (and in our opinion, best) album, Kaleidoscope”. 

(Photos courtesy of www.mtv.com & www.neptunes.org )

Neptunes and Justin Timberlake:

(photo courtesy of www.theneptunes.org)

The Neptunes also produced most of the tracks on Justin Timberlake’s “Justified” debut solo album. 

What are some of your favorite artist/producer duos? Let us know!

-Ricky & Lex