Growing up I’d never thought I’d be that old person sticking my nose up to new music but in the case of hip hop/rap it is totally fucking warranted. Not sure what day the music died for me but I think it was about 5 to 6 years ago. There have been a handful of solid albums over the years but for the most part everything has been shit. Now, listen, I know everybody has their own opinion and that’s cool but this is mine so shut the fuck up and listen…

Drake, Lil’ Wayne, J. Cole and Rick Ross are all dog shit. Occassionally, they have a track with a sick beat or they lay down a solid verse a couple times an album but for the most part their music is fucking atrocious – at least for my standards. I grew up, like most of you, in the heyday of hip-hop (I’ll argue this with anyone). We had Jay-Z coming up and actually spitting real shit (unlike the garbage he has put out lately) and obviously we had Biggie and Tupac but let’s even put them to the side for a minute. My favorite artists were any LOX member, Andre 3000, Eminem, Raekwon, Ghostface, Big L, Redman, Mos Def, Talib, Nas and pretty much everyone in the east coast rap scene from 1995-2001. Now I know all these artists are still around but they will even admit their best days are behind them. Nobody was just yelling over tracks and throwing out 4 syllable sentences.

That all said I’m in love with Common’s new ablum, The Dreamer/The Believer. This has the feel of that late 90′s/early 2000′s era. The lyrics are still raw and better yet they tell a story. The shit is refreshing I tell ya. I’ve listening to the entire album about 5 times this week already. It brings ya back. Maybe I still have hope for rap…

Again, if you like listening to Lil’ Wayne then do your thing it just isn’t my cup of tea. I’m for the days when you could just nod your head to Styles P spitting with Pharoah Monch in the summer on loop with the windows down. Give me some ‘Can I Live’ by early Jay or Outkast’s first album. Rap was rap then. Shit is terrible now.

Holiday…