Have you ever seen the movie They Live?  It’s a great movie from the 80s.  It’s about a guy that gets a pair of glasses that allows him to see through certain hidden messages on TV screens and advertisements and spot aliens.  Essentially, the aliens are trying to use mind control over humans to keep them enslaved.  Most of the time I feel like I’m living in that movie.  Seeing things that others don’t see, and when you point them out you get looked at as being crazy.

And when it comes to Hip Hop, I feel like I have been living in a 10 year Twilight Zone episode as I have seen Hip Hop music descend from amazing art to a real life enactment of Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled.

Recently my friends James Davis and Martin Usher  made a video that you all knows a Baracka Flacka Flame.  I’m not going to speak into too much detail on what their intentions were making the video since I haven’t asked them outright just yet, and  I already know I’m going to be somewhat biased since I’ve known these cats since high school.  But when I got the link in my email from James it said “Do not watch if easily offended”.  I thought “Uh oh”.  James has done parodies before, but I’ve never known him to go too far.  I clicked on the link and saw the title “Baracka Flacka Flame” and I knew where it was going.  It wasn’t even a minute into it that I texted James “I’m not even a minute into the video and I’m dyin laughing!”

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So I just got hip to MTV’s 2010 Hottest in the Game.

In the top 10 of worst Hip Hop lists, MTV makes the #2 spot and BET #1.  MTV only makes #2 and not number 1 because the list changes year to year, and really only talks about who was hot THIS YEAR.  BET actually tried to go for the hottest MC of the 21st century.  I guess this means they shouldn’t be doin another list for another 100 years.  lol

But seriously, BET really tried to say the hottest MC of the century with some questionable people on the panel and questionable rules.  But as with all of these lists they are based on opinion and it’s hard to gauge the balance of data and facts with art…

But since we’re all into ranking and lists, I decided to make a list of my own.  Here we go…

10 HIP-HOP ARTISTS THAT SHOULD HAVE MADE A TOP TEN LIST THIS YEAR.

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In this final installment, we talk about the state of mainstream music and how, in reality, the joke is on us.

If any of you are fans of Little Brother, Phonte’s original group, you know that around 2005 their video for “Lovin It” was not accepted to be aired on BET because it was deemed “too intelligent” for BET’s audience.  The immediate backlash caused a denial from BET (even though they still didn’t air it), but it made people fully aware that now the gatekeepers were seeming to dumb down their material ON PURPOSE.  I suppose things were reconciled later once Phonte was included on the Hip Hop Award’s cipher, but not much seems to have changed overall.  Groups like Little Brother who don’t fit the mold of what’s “hot” right now hardly seem to get any mainstream support.

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We continue with part 2 of the 3 part interview with Phonte and Nicolay.  In this part we talk more about their creative process.

It’s interesting to see people who say “Thank you” when being told their style is unique and different.  It’s actually probably one of the best compliments you can give any artist.  Every artist’s goal is to create something that adds to the pot of greatness to blend in with the history, but stand out enough to be noticed.  The recognizable aspects of the artist (“branding” so to speak) is what makes the listener already know when the product is hot.  “Oh this is a Premiere beat…this sounds like a Timbaland beat”.  And when the recognizable voice comes over it, it creates just the right unison.  Phonte’s voice and flow are like no others I can think of.

Part 2: The Process

- Nicolay on his production style and sound

- Phonte on writing & “The Jay-Z Method”

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It was around summer of 2004, I was visiting a friend from college.  I was about to start grad school at UCLA and he was going to law school at UCLA, and we were talking about being roommates.  Before I left, he asked,
“Yo, you heard that Foreign Exchange?  It’s the new album from Phonte of Little Brother and this cat Nicolay from the Netherlands.”

He played me a few tracks and burned it for me to play on the way home.  As soon as I put that CD in my player and heard that amazing intro, I was zoned out.  The music was everything I’ve always wanted to hear.  It was melodic, but still funky, and hard hitting.  It had different changes.  It was that next level I was looking for.  And I always knew Phonte could sing from little things he did on The Listening album, but now he was doing full songs as a singer.  I wore that CD out that summer.

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