Cozmo D

Understand now, don't get me wrong! I'm NOT saying that Will got "help" on "Summertime" or that Rakim was his ghostwriter, I'm just saying that until you guys telling me that he has done this on other records I would have never considered it a possibility. I still believe it was a pretty damm blatant bite. Will throughout his career has had the skill to adjust his style and flow to what was happening at the time. He went a little too far (in MY opinion) on "Summertime", but it achieved the desired effect.

No.

Really? Name one.

BTW, another light just went off in my head. I have always felt that Will bit the HELL outta Rakim on "Summertime". Never would've crossed my mind that it possibly could've been ghostwritten, or that Rakim might have "helped" him. Hmmm....... :shrug:

Well, I have no knowledge whatsoever of this outside of what you guys say, so I'm the last one to pass judgement. If somebody helps you out with your lyrics it depends on what kind of help. What a lot of us older rappers will do sometimes is check with younger rappers on our lyrical content, to make sure that we have the current slang and vernacular, and are properly conveying what we are trying to say. After all, you want to connect with the current young audience as well as your traditional base. There's nothing wrong with that and it's nowhere near the same as someone writing your lyrics for you. I can even see someone helping you out with hooks, or a line here or there. If that is what Will and Chuck did it's all good.

I have no problem writing for somebody else, just as I have no problem producing for somebody else. I do both for the money. I do ME for the LOVE, and ain't NOBODY EVER gonna do MY trax or MY lyrix! Before it gets to that point I'll hang 'em up.

A real Hip-Hop MC who's true to their craft doesn't let somebody else write their rhymes. Period.

True Hip-Hop is about the love, not the money. A true Hip-Hop MC who still loved his craft would wait every 5 or even 10 years to put out an album rather than have somebody write their lyrics, I don't care WHO we're talking about. It's like Michelangelo getting Da Vinci to do paintings for him because he's too busy doing the Sistine Chapel. If he did you know it's only about one thing... money! Hell, I don't expect most of y'all to understand that. Obviously Will and Chuck don't, and I consider them true Hip-Hop, even though they weren't there at the start. As a matter of fact, the guy we made fun of in our records, Grand D, was a rapper (he doesn't deserve the MC mantle) in our crew in the '70s and he didn't do his own rhymes either, so even then there were some of us who didn't have that pure love. We clowned the hell out of him for it though. I am glad as hell though that Brakes and Ace DO understand! It justifies what I have sensed in them from the beginning. Keep that understanding of TRUE Hip-Hop with you forever y'all, it will take care of you the same way you take care of it. I'm 47 and it's STILL taking care of me, and I ain't lettin' nobody write NONE of my sh!t! I don't care if my albums only go tin!

WORD! I was really surprised when I heard that about Will. I just chalk it up to the fact that he's grown too busy in other endeavors to devote the amount of time and effort that is necessary to his first craft. I can understand that, but before I would disrespect my craft by using a ghostwriter I would stop rapping all together.

WORD! I will NEVER respect ANY MC or even ANY rapper who lets somebody else write their rhymes!

You know, IF what my son and I were originally thinking, that Em was biting Proof's style for the earlier stuff, then it may just follow that he started biting 50's stuff when he came on board. This joke of yours might not be as funny (or maybe it's even funnier) than you think! Again, I am clueless because I have totally tuned out to Em after "Lose Yourself" or so. However, bite or ghostwritten, there is NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that Em's and Proof's styles used to be identical!

Correction. Eminem WAS major skilled correction eminem IS MAJORED SKILLED I honestly don't see how anyone can say that Em is still skilled! What was the last decent verse he put out when he wasn't babbling?? Look back over 'Infinite' 'SSLP' and 'MMLP' and tell me thats the same Em spitting today. Its incomparable! His rhyme scheme has fallen waaaaaaaaaaaay off, his subject matter, everything about him! I used to be the biggest Eminem fan back in the days when he was lyrical but not it annoys me now to listen to anything he is on! He is not the same rapper as he was early on in his career. FACT! Here is Em in my opinion at his peak: Jay Z feat Eminem - Renegades Since I'm in a position to talk to these kids and they listen I ain't no politician but I'll kick it with 'em a minute Cause see they call me a menace; and if the shoe fits I'll wear it But if it don't, then y'all can swallow the truth grin and bear it Now who's the king of these rude ludicrous lucrative lyrics Who could inherit the title, put the youth in hysterics Usin his music to steer it, sharin his views and his merits But there's a huge interference - they're sayin you shouldn't hear it Maybe it's hatred I spew, maybe it's food for the spirit Maybe it's beautiful music I made for you to just cherish But I'm debated disputed hated and viewed in America as a motherf***in drug addict - like you didn't experiment? Now now, that's when you start to stare at who's in the mirror and see yourself as a kid again, and you get embarrased And I got nothin to do but make you look stupid as parents You f***in do-gooders too bad you couldn't do good at marriage! (Ha ha!) And do you have any clue what I had to do to get here I don't think you do so stay tuned and keep your ears glued to the stereo Cause here we go - he's {*Jigga joint Jigga-chk-Jigga*} And I'm the sinister, Mr. Kiss-My-Ass it's just a And this is his recent offering Akon feat Eminem - Smack That Ooh! Looks like another club banger. They better hang on. When I throw this thang on. Get a little drink on. They goin' flip. [ these lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ] For this Akon ****. You can bank on it. Pedicure, manicure, kitty cat claws. The way she climbs up and down them poles. Lookin' like one of them Pretty Cat Dolls. Tryna hold my woody back through my drawers. Steps off stage, didn't think I saw her. Creeps up behind me and she's like, you're - I'm like, yeah I know, let's cut to the chase. No time to waste. Back to my place. Plus from the club to the crib's like a mile away. Or more like a palace, shall I say. And plus I got a pal. Every gal is game. In fact he's the one singing the song that's playing! (Akon!) Now look at the way the sentences are constructed and the rhyme pattern! You'd think two different rappers wrote and recorded this. Think what you want but to call the Eminem that is out now 'majorly skilled' is just plain wrong! :shakehead: OK, I probably shouldn't even be sharing this, and I want to preface it with a disclaimer that I am not stating an opinion one way or the other, and that y'all should draw your own conclusions. However, I know what students of rhyme styles many of y'all are, and I know y'all definitely follow Em a great deal more than I do, so here goes. When "My Name Is" first came out I was introduced to Em at my lawyer's office, who was also Em's manager. I complemented him by saying that "yo, you're mad funny man, but you really got some skills too." He said "that's cause my boy here is my ghost writer" and introduced me to his black homeboy that was rollin' with him, Proof. I said "get the f*** outta here" and Proof jokingly said some nonsense about "yo, I sit down with my pen and morph into a whiteboy" or sumthin stupid like that. I was kind shaking my head after that, I mean even if it was true why would he admit it? However, when I talked to other peeps about it they quickly convinced me that I was being clowned, which made all the sense in the world. After all, I was probably just some obscure one-hit-wonder Old School cat from the '80s to them. A while later I shared this with my son, who is himself a rapper and a serious rap aficionado (he's 23 now), and of course he thought I was being clowned as well. Then D12 came out, and it seemed real funny to me that Proof's flow sounded EXACTLY like Em's. I pointed this out to him and he thought I was right, but chalked it up to the fact that they had been down with each other and so close for so long. Of course I pointed out to him that in TRUE Hip-Hop that was the exact reason that MC's went through great pains to NOT sound like each other. After all, nobody wants peeps to think that they bit their boy's style. But, I just settled that it's a new age in Rap and cats these days don't care about sounding unique. Then last April, tragically, Proof was killed. I liked the cat even though I only met him that one time, so it saddened me. Still, it's been a long time since I checked for Eminem as a rapper seriously, since I have been on my Music Industry Anarchist kick for a minnit now. But, tonight I saw this thread, and a little light went off in my head. I haven't heard anything by Em in some time, so I'm totally in the dark here, but it's funny that somebody, ESPECIALLY a rapper like Brakes who's lyrics and style I admire and respect, would say that Eminem's lyrics and flow then and now sound like they were written by two different people. Then, as I'm writing this post, my son calls home from work and I ask him his opinion, and he says yeah, he's thought this for some time now, and that he noticed the change right about the time that Proof was killed. My son then said "maybe there was more truth to what he told you than I thought..." Hmmmm........ :shrug:

Definitely gonna support. What I've heard so far is DOPE! :wickedwisdom:

I guess it could be real, just seems too vague and non-specific. :shrug:

Yes to all but the last question. The days of what we now think of as commercially successful are numbered. There will probably always be mega-stars of some sort, though the route to mega-stardom will likely change. However, the NEW form of commercial success will be better, because artists will have much more direct control over their craft and it's marketing and profits. The days when going gold is an immense achievement are returning, and 100,000 sales will be thought of as highly successful. The key to remember, is that an artist on a major is lucky to clear 50 cents per CD. As an independent artist with control of his masters he clears at least 10X as much. In fact, on iTunes alone he would make more per single track download than he would make on a major for the entire CD. The math spells doom for the majors from every direction. Here's a nice article on radio from the NY Times that is sure to make you smile. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/business...=rssnyt&emc=rss Note this lovely tidbit: :wiggle:

It's a spambot.

Yeah I wish i believed what Coz predicts would eventuate :shrug: Beatstreet here in Brooklyn closed last month. Music Factory is going under now. Tower is gone. The fat cats are losing money. Here's an article I got from IODA this week. http://www.metrics2.com/blog/2006/11/22/di...on_by_2010.html Believe it. :smart:

I dont really agree with that.. Off course everybody wanna make more money.. And when they are desperate then they do thing that you call a "sell out" would do.. But that's life.. Peace It should be about artists making better music if they want to make more money and if an artist just stops making music just 'cause they don't make enough money then they don't have passion for their music, it's like ball players who liked playing ball in the park all day but when they get to the major leagues they get fat off their contract and they lose the love for the game, that shouldn't happen, but in sports though the ones who work the hardest are the ones that have the most success, I'd like to see the music industry be like that, the artists that put their heart into their music the most should be the ones on top The big guy is absolutely right. The industry is over-sturated with too many no-talent havin', garbage makin, copy cattin', gimmick needin f'artisits. They came in as sell-outs and they'll go out the same way when there's nobody left for them to sell-out to. It will be then that the true artists will be heard from again. The ones who never sold-out and so couldn't get any play will shine like beacons. The ones who lost their way and did sell-out will stop their whorish ways and follow those beacons back to the art.

:switch: :switch: :switch: :switch: :switch:

So looonng, farewellll, auf Wiedersehen, good byyyye! :wiggle:

Hip-Hop ain't dead, they just don't play it on the radio anymore.

I've become a Music Industry Anarchist. I want more and more peeps to download music, more and more artists to be dropped, more and more labels to go under! Seeing Tower Records go down warms my heart! You want to save music in general and Hip-Hop in particular? Download everything you can and only buy what you LOVE! Make the music hating, artist despising industry fat cats die! SUPPORT INDEPENDENT LABELS AND ARTISTS!!! BTW, if you buy an album with 15 tracks and 12 of them are wack, then YOU are part of the problem!

Yep, that would be a change in syncopation. Mind you, ALL rap that is rhythmic (unlike most spoken word) is syncopated, it's just some styles of syncopation are more advanced than others. It is usually the syncopation first and foremost that either draws us to or makes us dislike a rapper. And, advanced does NOT necessarily mean better. Just like judging a drummer, it is still largely a matter of taste. There is no denying that E-40's flow is very advanced, but it still might not be your cup of tea. After all, Das FX and the Fu-Shnickens had very advanced flows too. :blabla: This is a good point, and the truth is I've only realized the complexity in the last year or so. I always realised I liked souls of mischief, I thought they had greater skills than most of the rappers I heard. But I didn't really know why. Studying the way they use their cadences, the way they work around the beat, and just going back to these albums I've realized why it sounds so good, why they were ahead of their time and how they advanced the rhyming. Knowing this I can now pick rappers who sound exactly like them, they've probably copied them, or copied someone who copied them. Now whats interesting..if I take Tajai from souls of mischief..he has really expanded his style, its more complex, its more difficult but I think he flowed better, he sounded better in 1995 than he does today. Sometimes I think simpler can be better. EXACTLY! Sometimes you can be too good for your own good. A real good MC, just like a real good musician, will find the best way to express himself in his flow, instead of just showing off. He will find the best flow that complements the beat and sets the mood with what he's trying to say. Syncopation, which is an extension of the beat and sets the tone and flavor of the rhythm, has an emotional content just like any other instrument in a piece of music. We know you're dope son, you don't have to over-do it.

NOW you get it, and the key is it's their style of syncopation that sets them apart. It's exactly the way we judge drummers or tap dancers. THEN, add whether they are good lyricists as well, and VOILA! Dope MC! Well, what's different about him?

Yeah, I'm not too crazy about the offbeat styles either. That is only 1 type of syncopation. Rakim is 1 of the funkiest rappers ever with his syncopated flow. Take a good listen to "I Ain't No Joke" for an education.