Thursday, January 19, 2006
NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (f/ P. Diddy, Nelly, Jagged Edge, Avery Storm)
Listened to Nasty Girl on the radio on the way to work this morning.
The official billing is
The official billing is
Nasty Girl
by
NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (featuring P. Diddy, Nelly, Jagged Edge, Avery Storm)
The truth, of course, is that Biggie Smalls only contributes one verse (the first), and while his is definitely the best (Nelly and Avery Storm bore) it still feels like a hatchet job in which someone found a session tape with Smalls spitting a rhyme which Sean Combs could then have grafted onto a groove and augmented (think silicone implants) by the rest of his entourage.
I've come to make peace with the way that Hip-Hop squeezes hits out of any scrap of recorded material by its martyrs (Tupac is also still alive and well on radio with Thugs Get Lonely Too).
But what grates me about Nasty Girl is to what extent Hip-Hop (and not just modern Hip-Hop) hollers the rappers name all over the place.
Here's a count(number of times that a rapper's name is used) for Nasty Girl.
btw. This excludes the intro and outro choruses which essentially consists of nothing other than namechecks of the rappers.
Notorius B.I.G. (and variants) - 9
P. Diddy (and variants) - 3
Jagged Edge - 2
Do I smell a hierarchy here? Think 'Hey muvafucka, how come your name is called more than mine? I'm higher on the featured list!'
Now, is there any other genre of music that does this (namechecks the artist in the song)?
Have you ever heard a Country and Western song that goes
by
NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (featuring P. Diddy, Nelly, Jagged Edge, Avery Storm)
The truth, of course, is that Biggie Smalls only contributes one verse (the first), and while his is definitely the best (Nelly and Avery Storm bore) it still feels like a hatchet job in which someone found a session tape with Smalls spitting a rhyme which Sean Combs could then have grafted onto a groove and augmented (think silicone implants) by the rest of his entourage.
I've come to make peace with the way that Hip-Hop squeezes hits out of any scrap of recorded material by its martyrs (Tupac is also still alive and well on radio with Thugs Get Lonely Too).
But what grates me about Nasty Girl is to what extent Hip-Hop (and not just modern Hip-Hop) hollers the rappers name all over the place.
Here's a count(number of times that a rapper's name is used) for Nasty Girl.
btw. This excludes the intro and outro choruses which essentially consists of nothing other than namechecks of the rappers.
Notorius B.I.G. (and variants) - 9
P. Diddy (and variants) - 3
Jagged Edge - 2
Do I smell a hierarchy here? Think 'Hey muvafucka, how come your name is called more than mine? I'm higher on the featured list!'
Now, is there any other genre of music that does this (namechecks the artist in the song)?
Have you ever heard a Country and Western song that goes
On the road again (with Willie Nelson)
Just can't wait to get on the road again (yeah that Willie cat sure is wild)
The life W.N. love is makin' music with my friends (hollaback Julio Iglesias!)
And I can't wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been (rolling with ol' Willie boy)
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again.
// posted by werner @ 8:08:00 am 
