Back again with another Complex Top 25, this time for the Boot Camp catalog. I was a little hesitant to take this assignment because, unlike with the VH1 Southern Producers lists, my knowledge of the BCC catalog leans superficial. Which is to say I owned Enta Da Stage, Dah Shinin in high school and know a handful of the bigger singles from the same era, but not much beyond that. But one of the nice things about my job is that I sometimes still get paid to learn and learn I did. It turns out that BCC didn’t really fall off after 1997, they just turned inconsistent.

But in retrospect I’m not entirely sure if their catalog necessarily demands the 2500 words of intellectualizing/contextualizing that I gave it over there. There wasn’t a grand narrative to Boot Camp Clik, with few exceptions (”Therapy”) they didn’t/don’t make idea driven or conceptual music, Da Beatminerz perfected their sound early on and didn’t do much to expand or evolve it. They lack the built in folklore of Wu-Tang or the eccentricity of the Native Tongues. Their records aren’t unfairly slept on, their members haven’t suffered from dramatic personal crisis or made miraculous comebacks. In putting this list together there points where I felt like the entire song could be concisely summed up by just two words: MADD BLUNTED. Or maybe three: MADD BLUNTED, SON. Their music did exactly what it was supposed to and nothing more. This isn’t a knock at all, quite the opposite. These are classic and very important underground hip hop records and maybe they aren’t as frequently brought into the discussion precisely because they didn’t come with those conversation points attached. Which is shame. But you don’t need to read or write or argue about them. You just roll up a blunt, nod your head and stfu.

After the jump are a few more Boot Camp youtubes, just random joints that were either cut from the list for space or that I just stumbled upon in the process of compiling it: (more…)

I have finally stepped up and have given this site a much needed redesign. It’s lo-fi as fuck and far from ideal, but I have been fighting against it for several months now. Let me know if you see any glaring errors as I will probably continue to toy with the Frankenstein code in the coming weeks. So if you think it’s ugly now then it’s only gonna get uglier. (Yeah but bet my words are cute.) I do not care. The purpose of this site is to sit here and provide content.

The one major change to that content is that the latest updates to the annex site, Tumblin Erb, are now fully accessible on the sidebar. This will function as a multimedia version of the old Shared Items sidebar. If you haven’t looked at that site yet, I’m over there trying to fast blog with taste. Basically it is an off the cuff take on whatever rap crosses my brain on a daily basis. The main site will remain as a slow blog, home to longer think pieces, musical retrospectives and (hopefully) more interviews and features. Either way if you need the newest Rick Ross leak check elsewhere. Unless, of course, the newest Rick Ross leak is particularly notable, interesting or outstanding.

A couple other minor changes to the site: (more…)

Doing some rap vinyl spring cleaning over at ebay. I don’t usually plug my auctions but this week there’s a bunch of joints we’ve talked about here like Suga Free/Pure Pimp, Pentouse Players Clique, MUCH Posse, Fat Rodney, MC J’Ro’J, 3rd World Assassins, U Know Who and RCU. Plus a ton of obscure indie stuff that people sweat on ebay and classic LPs from Too Short, OC, Pete Rock, The Coup, Master P, EPMD etc. And THE MUHAMMED ALI MIMIC RAP. Audio clips on just about everything. (Tip: Coppertone Conspiracy might be my favorite record in the batch, total slept on Texas banger that I am going to write about in detail more over here one day soon.)

Now that the mind numbing task of listing this stuff is behind me I can focus on the equally mind numbing and long needed site redesign. And with it will come new content. I promise.

We’re back again with another Complex/Vh1 Top 25, this time looking at the Rap-A-Lot legacy. I work in a field where I’m often asked to write lists and this was probably the hardest one I’ve ever had to put together. The RAL catalog is just so incredibly deep and rife with more fan favorites than really obvious megahits. In fact for a long time they weren’t even dropping many singles, but six track “Hot Club Wax” samplers, which left DJs to their own devices as far as what would become the hit. Already in looking it at it I’m noticing omissions. But what am I gonna do? Cry? No, instead I wrote a list of 25 mo’ good ones from off the top of my head after the jump. Look them up on Youtube and collect them all. Also be sure to hit the old Tumblr for more RAL randomness. (more…)

I put a list of the Top 25 Organized Noize productions together for Complex.com in preparation for the forthcoming VH1 Hip Hop Awards. It’s a singles driven selection, so it might seem like old hat to the initiated Dungeon fans but if arguing intangibles like whether or not “So Fresh, So Clean” is better than “Jazze Belle” is your thing then have at it. In the coming weeks we’re going to have similar lists for all the artists and labels featured at the VH1 show.