The Clearance Rack: Beanie Sigel – The Reason

 

The vast majority of the albums I find in the clearance rack are from underground or local artists. Although at this point I’ve bought 3-4 of Busta’s projects off the rack, for the most part, CD’s from main stream, commercially viable rappers are extremely difficult to find for $2. If they do exist, 99% of the time they are edited, or from an artist the Hip-Hop community is blissfully happy to have forgotten about, a la Lil Bow Wow or Will Smith. Still, every now and again you get surprised. Chances are, it won’t be by a corporate icon like Eminem or Jay-Z, but it is possible to get projects from their homies or label mates such as Obie Trice, or in my most recent case Beanie Sigel.

This past Wednesday, thanks to our incredible veterans, I had the day off from work, and decided to spend it by buying new music. Apparently no Hip-Hop fans had even glanced at the clearance rack in Amoeba for weeks, because by the time I was finished scanning all the rows of plastic rectangles, I had a stack of literally 30 rap CD’s that I had serious interest in, and I still had plans of picking up some jazz as well. In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be a problem in the least bit, but I have a limited income and had to cut the number down to around 9 discs, which is never an easy task for a music addict. After mixing and matching to have as diverse a line up as possible, I ended up with one commercial rap album: Beanie Sigel’s The Reason.

Simple Mathematics: Blueprint 3 Outtakes > Blueprint 3

Excuse the lateness if you’ve been all over this, but Alex Goose has made Jay-Z look a bit foolish.  While we all recover from how disappointing Blueprint 3 ended up being, we can take some consolation in Goose’s Blueprint 3 Outtakes.  According to TheBlueprint3Outtakes.com, he submitted a bunch of instrumentals for Blueprint 3 through “an A&R affiliated with the Roc”— none of which ultimately made the final cut.

For the most part, Goose’s joints, filled with live drums and sharp, soulful brass, wouldn’t have fit in sonically with the rest of Blueprint 3, but Hova also missed out on what could have easily been the best song(s) on the album.  Considering how Blueprint 3 turned out, Jay’s allegedly acute ear for beats has been called into question.  Frankly, I was feeling Nas’ Untitled album a whole lot more, but that’s just me…

Peep a couple of the joints below, and head over to the Blueprint 3 Outtakes site to cop the collection in its entirety.

Alex Goose – Hova’s Back

Alex Goose – Fire

The Murder Game is Tru Life

Tru Life eventually landed an audition with Jay-Z. After more than ten minutes of Tru Life was able to convince Jay-Z, which prompted him to reply “Somebody, get this kid in front of a camera!”. He was signed to a six-figure record deal later that evening

The term ‘rap star’ is assuredly overused. Depending on what region of this country one represents, one could be a rap star and not even know it.  For example, to reach rap star status in NYC, all one has to do is win a few battles with tiring Manhattan MC’s and secure a six figure deal from a major or a psuedo-major i.e. Dipset. Clear cut example is Papoose who has dominated the NY rap hype for the last 4 years, ever since signing that six figure deal with Jive. Papoose didn’t even end up completing an album and split from Jive with bitters in his mouth. Yet, there was a while when all one would hear about regarding New York rap was the soon-to-be stardom of Papoose and Saigon. All this Big Apple chatter secured careers for many MC hype machines. Saigon went Hollyhood and did everything from network T.V spots to landing a guest role on Entourage. Meanwhile Tru-Life attracted Jay-Z’s attention post-beef fiasco the same way an injured insect attracts a robin. Jigga signed Tru to a major deal despite Tru’s industry beef with NY heavyweights 50 Cent as well as Dipset. In the midst of talk regarding the first Tru Life LP to be released in 8 years, Tru turned himself in on a murder charge stemming from a fatal stabbing incident last Thursday. The stabbing appears to have been a premeditated response to the shooting of a drug dealer and acquaintence of Tru. Accordingly, Roc-A-Fella has just released the troubled artist, because they are in the business of gangsta rap not Tru Life.

MPFREE – Tru Life – Tru York (Mixtape) 2007