Yeah! OC and El The Sensei came thru and rocked the instore at City Fellaz in a major major way. El did his thing and respect to Artifacts but OC really pulled out the big guns.
Læs videre Word…Life, it ain’t nothing like the original
Bruce “I hate hip-hop” Willis making rap-soap?
Okay I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard the news. I mean, I dig Bruce Willis I think he was great in the 6th Sense and off the hook in 12 Monkeys, but it just didn’t add up. The admitted member of the Republican party, Planet Hollywood owning, presently living in Trump Towers, Bruce Willis is executive producing a rap music soap??
I guess he is. It’s called Word Life, in a move that’ll surely upset some John Cena fans, I mean Chain Gang members, out there. You can view the trailer here in all its glory.
This is just plain wrong for a couple of reasons but they didn’t dawn on me right away. The first one is obvious. Remember The Last Boy Scout? It Willis in the role of bad-ass detectice Joe Hallenbeck and it featured a conversation that went like this:
Milo: You think you are so fucking cool, don’t you? You think you are so fucking cool. But just once, I would like to hear you scream in pain… Joe Hallenbeck: Play some rap music.
You may think that’s just Willis acting, plus he was for god knows which reason signed to Motown Records so he obviously appreciates black music in general. But after a while I realised I had actually read Bruce Willis hates rap in real life as well. It was the book “Naked Under Our Clothes” by former Yo! MTV Raps hosts Dr Dre & Ed Lover. I bought it in Chicago like ten years ago, read it quickly and haven’t really flipped thru it since. But somehow the quote stuck in my head anyways of Ed Lover and Bruce Willis exchanging opinions. I’ve scanned the conversation for you here:
Yeah, that’s right, Bruce Willis ain’t got love for us, so why should he make money off of us? In the words of all-mighty OC (who by chance I hope will sign this album tomorrow) “Word life…it ain’t nothing like the original!”
Reaping the benefits of blogging
As the mighty Stetsasonic once proclaimed on Talkin’ All That Jazz “What you reap is what you sow”, well after having rocked this funky blog for over a year, some blogging benefits are starting to show.
First off, when my friend Ann Noyd, multitalented artist and hip-hop commentator, traveled to Japan she was kind enough to bring me back a present. Now this is from Tokyo so it could really have been anything ranging from sushi to ricecakes. But knowing my passion for professional wrestling from The hip-hop, the simpsons and wrestling blog, she brought me something from the Tokyo dome. The Tokyo dome plays host to many events but New Japan Pro Wrestling also have their events here, and wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan, Terry Funk and Chris Benoit have wrestled in it, and of course national legends such as Antonio Inoko (owner) and Masahiro Chono have had their share of glory within the squared circle there.
In any case she brought me back an awsome New Japan Pro Wrestling mini-titlebelt which is now prominently featured attatched to my mp3-player. Thanks a million Ann!
Secondly and more related to blogging as such and not so much The hip-hop, the simpsons and wrestling as blogging in general the people behind Gam3 streetbasket have asked me to be their liveblogger for their annual tour around Denmark’s streetbasket courts. While I’m most certainly appreciative, it comes as a slight surprise as my prior engagement to Gam3 included a rap-set for their finale-show in Copenhagen, which I guess went all right. The second set the same night at Rust, however, did far from that, as I had no DJ, was slightly tipsy and only had the instrumental for one song. This resulted in me doing a sort of stand-up act comprised of blue humour and vicious personal insults.
In other words, the good people at Gam3 are either really overbearing or do in fact read this blog from time to time. I definitely give daps to them also, and look forward to their tour round the country in the beginning of July. Come check us out!
Gimmie dat design foo, it’s the blog with a new look
As you may have noticed, I’ve tried to change the look of the hip-hop, the simpsons and wrestling blog lately. Upon doing so I figured a selfmade background would be more stylish than something readymade. Yet, I just don’t have the time for a great design at the moment, so I ended up stealing one from Koba of Model Minority, an awsome rapper who I hung out with on mIRC back in the day-o.
Neat, right?
When I get the time I’ll hit you with something designed just for the blog, but as the following update should disclose I’m kinda hung up these days :-) Oh, and by the way, my counter was somehow reset doing the process, so if you check it, it doesn’t mean I’ve had zero trafic – though probably close to it – just that it hasn’t be tallied.
Norwegian rapper with (nasty) Simpsons gimmick
Gotta love people giving their own take om The Simpsons these days. First we had Masta Ace’s Spread It Out getting love on the radio, and now our Norwegian brotherbloggers are upping their game as well.
Skurkesprett, seriously deranged MC from Stavanger (aka Sta-BANGER) has opted to use the above pic as cover art for his new release. Defaming all of the cast may seem a little harsh, but hey, props for having non-regulars such as Fat Tony and Kearney featured so prominently!
You can visit Skurkesprett on myspace, and oh, according the foamfinger rating system we award his coverart one of these:
Masta Ace, The Simpsons and this Blog – almost – makes it to the radio
Last Saturday during the broadcast of Klub P3 on Danish National radio this here blog almost came into play. The reason being Szirhley Nova Beanca Rasmussen (sic) asked Noize, veteran battle DJ, if he remembered whether Masta Ace had rocked over a sample of this Simpsons theme. Noize wasn’t quite sure, so he came up with this reply. To my knowledge there’s never been played a PTA track on Noize’s show, but thanks for the shout in any case :-)
Naturally here at the hiphop, the simpsons & wrestling we follow all hybrids of our three spearhead topics, so Masta Ace‘s “Spread It Out” is a classic to us. Produced by Domingo is first saw light on his “Game Over” compilation which had a comic/videogame theme. Aside this track it had “Supa Brooklyn” (Smif N Wessun rocking over the theme for Super Mario Bros), a spliced together collabo between Ace and Eminem and a lot of forgetful crud. But peep the track, it’s double tempo and Ace does his thing with Homer ad lips.
Of course we expect this to be the beginning of a host of media coverage for the blog, so cheers Szhirley and Noize.
Phun Phact: Szhirley herself has covered The Simpsons theme on the short vignette that functions as the opening for Den Gale Pose’s Definitionen af en stodder album.
Not Ms. Teasley but Gisli be doin’ his dang!
One of my favorite rappers is this guy called Gisli. As you can tell by the name he’s of Islandic descent, but got all his street knowledge dippin’ thru the back-streets of Horsens.
He’s known for his ability to bring his creativity into projects with great variation. You may remember him from my autograph post, in which he had signed his first EP, which was straight hiphop, but since then he’s rocked everything from jazz-hop with the Lucie Baines trio to bossanova rap with legendary house-dj Kenneth Bager. In all the projects his managed to convey his own style with a passionate and very sencire delivery. As of right now you can check him soon guesting Ibi Støvrings new song and video.
What people may not know is dude is heavily into down-south rap. Not just in the regular “My main influences are Jay-Z and Rakim but I can listen to Scarface and Andre3000 without becoming physical ill”-way, he is a genuine fan of everything from Three 6 Mafia to Trick Daddy and Lil Jon. That said he’s also way nerdy in some areas, and at more than one occation I’ve dared him to rhyme Gisli on Ms. Teasley the principal of West Beverly High from Beverly Hills 90210.
He combined my request with his passion for the dirty-dirty and made an impromptu rhyme on his site www.myspace.com/gisli, you can find it listed as “podcast”. This is indeed a joyous occation for the hiphop, the simpsons & wrestling blog, as it gives me the chance to crack open the brand new foamfinger system. Here’s the grade:
That’s right, Gisli and his rhyme, not to mention his combination of dirty south and shout to yours truly gives him the highest rating possible and sets the bar high for all future material to be rated.
The hiphop, the simpsons & wrestling blog gets a rating system
As I’ve decided to review and/or insult items, events, people and such related to hiphop, the simpsons & wrestling I figured we needed a personalised rating system. While based on Siskel and Ebert’s thumb system, it is personalised by the use of foam fingers.
The foam fingers were bought at two different wrestling events; The Hulkamania foam finger is from the WWF European Rampage in Kiel’s Kieler Ostsee Halle in 1991, and the other at Summer Slam at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1992. They carry the following meaning:
2 foamfingers up: The epitome of greatness. Best thing event. Past, present or future classic.
1 foamfinger up: Pretty cool. Worth spending time on. May have flaws but more than makes up for this in other areas.
No foamfingers: It could go either way. Nothing that would make or break your day.
1 foamfinger down: Definitely not the way to go, and if it does have positive aspects they are overshadowed by the negatives.
2 foamfingers down: How sucky can you get? This sucky!
To be the man – you gotta beat the man
Battling is alotta things but first and foremost it’s a surefire way to avoid writing new material, thus keeping your song production at an absolute minimum. It can however, bring you to crazy ass places and get you in situations where you have to sober up within an eyeblink and get your arsenal of lyrics ready to square off against some famous jamous hotshot, who everybody knows and likes more than you. Here are some of the famous people I’ve battled:
The setting was the first Aarhus Took It ever in 2000, after Eyedea and Slug had guested Frez Force‘s show. For the unaware Eyedea is this youngbuck from St. Paul Minnesota who’s down with Rhyme Sayers and at the time was a big part of Slug and Atmosphere‘s live show. In 2000 he had also won The Scribble Jam, The local Blaze Battle and was on his way to winning the national Blaze battle.
So, I talk a short while to Slug who’s this lanky rapper that stares at you with his dead eyes when speaking (I’m surprised he’s not a scientologist). I then ask if Eyedea has battled anyone in Europe, and Slug replies no, so being the cocky teen that I almost was I ask why can’t I battle him on stage the next day. Slug’s smart idea however is to have me battle Eyedea right then and there, leading to me standing in front of this youngster grinning with a gab between his teeth the size of Dave Letterman’s and an aura around him that he’s unbeatable.
After I’ve said about a minute and a half of rhymes it only takes him 8 bars to take me down and the rest of his verse is pretty much just a victory showcase. T’was a good learning experience, that paired with losing to Per Vers around the same time reminded me that you need to change mindset when you battle someone much more confident than you, which came in handy over the years.
And yes that’s us in the picture. Back then I bleached my hair and everything. Man, what was I on?
This battle is kinda funny, ’cause in a lot of ways it was totally unfair. Chords is this Swedish rapper whose rep at the time wasn’t that big, but now he’s down with Timbuktu and Jujurecords and everybody rightfully considers him the man.
He entered the 2001 MC’s Fight Night, as did I and we drew each other in the first round. However he rapped in English in front of a Danish audience and I rapped in Danish so it was really easy to clown him. At the time it was a pretty big win for me, but it did start a trend for a certain MC’s Fight Night judge. He’s since, as he did in that battle, voted against me every time he had the chance. You can check the battle for yourself here. You can check the battle for yourself.
FEMone is a rapper from Norway with a Chilenian background. He belongs to a crew called Equicez (it means x’s in Spanish), and whenever someone asked him about certain rappers he would reply “fuck ’em” hence his name F’EM. I entered this freestyle contest in Oslo called Straight Spittin cause Definite, a friend of mine, who’d end up winning the Norwegian-rhyming part was also entering. It turned kinda ugly during the battle as we both lost our temper a bit, and I ended up losing after a bonus round. But in the end I think it was an entertaining battle, where I got to showcase I’m a lot better at freestyling in English than Danish.
I returned for the Norwegian Rock The Spot freestyle contest a couple years later and won that with FEMone as a judge so I don’t think he carries grudges. You can see pics from the battle here, and the events actually ended up in a chapter of Hip Hop Hoder about Norwegian hip-hop which can be read here.
Those are the people I can think of off the dome, that made most of a name for themselves. Holla back tho if you want more warstories from the battlefields, cause I’ve cunningly saved a few tales. I’m glad I got to face off against some of the people that I like to call friends such as Strøm, Jøden, C-Style and Per Vers over the years, but as I’ll be a judge as this years Fight Night I’m winding down my battle-career these days.
I have a blog!?
Dang.
I musta just plum forgot.
Anyways, summer came early round here. (assumingly as compensation for spring being about a season late) so I’ve been spending alotta time in the real world.
What’s really good? Well, I’ve been hired as a judge for The MC’s Fight Night competition after 6 years of loyal freestyle service, of course I’m really grateful for that. I’ve caught up on The Simpsons again – having seen all the episodes of season 17 so far, hopefully there’ll be some blogging about that.
Thursday I was the host at a one-day hip-hop festival in Elsinor. It was all kinda hectic, but I did get to hang out with J-Ro and watch an awsome showcase by Warlocks in front of 10 people at 2 o’clock at night.
So now that me and the blog be reacqainted I promise to hit y’all off with some more fun stuff in the nearer future.