What does Jean Grae have against O-Dub? (sng incl)
Gnat
1,183 Posts
So I'm listening to "Think Twice" by Herbaliser and Jean Grae, and I swear at the 2:04 mark, she says, "gunning hard for motherfuckers like Ol!^%r [email]W@#&"[/email] and I wonder why she's mad at him...of course, I might be hearing things...tell me I'm not crazy.http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0RN5QHOAVFG383QLWWDYFENJTJ
Comments
I could not anti-co-sign harder. Jean is dope. Why she'd get all pissy over Ol*ve*'s review - so much so that she felt the need to call him out in a song - is beyond me...
She needs to get on some dope beats. I always think the beats she picks are kinda
Link to review?
Agreed, Jean Grae is one of the better female rappers out right now, its a pity she hasn't found success yet. Guess thats the price you pay for going the indy route.
The O-Dub diss is pretty old, It was discussed on here a really long time ago. Plain and simple O-dub is the Guzzo of the music review world. He makes people mad at him, I think O-dub even retorted somewhere too (but I oculd be wrong)
On the brighter side beef between him and PUTS was squashed right here on soulstrut.
fuck being disconnected we are the digital streets
where you been at mang?
next time y'all perform at the Knitting factory you gotta bring me and that one dude up on stage for a cuddle cypher
I been out the loop, laying low, battling minor depression, getting ready for the new PUTS album to hit the streets (april 18th).
We need to have a BBQ. I need to get drunk. now.
Mr W*ng??? Can you help out?
Perhaps your next release, N*t????
Oh and dude... that order for the Break In The Road is coming next week... long story short - I'm a broke ass student and we got an unexpectedly high electrical bill. Fucked my finances up sumtin goooood. I'm dying not having a copy of it!!! FUUUUUCK!!
Wassup chemist
my friend sent me this email with some articles
Hope this clarifies it.
Jean is a great female emcee but her hype has died out she should have released that Jeanius lp even if it was leaked. She may still have a great album under her belt though (passio does that some times)
The song I posted was released on Herbaliser's Take London in May of 2005...apparently the beef didn't die.
Oh wait, I have to finish something else real quick. Be back in a minute...
(heh, couldn't resist this one)
Sorry but I don't have the time or patience to do it again. Here's the short version:
1) Gnat: you could have just emailed me directly to ask me this question. I don't mind talking about it in public but you're stirring up old shit that doesn't really need to be rekindled.
2) What sparked off the row was this review, Summer 2002, in URB Magazine:
3) A few months later, Jean wrote an email to my editor where she wrote something to the effect of, "if I ever see Oliver Wang, I'm going to punch him in the face!"
4) I thought she was being playful so I emailed her back and said, "Hey, sorry you didn't like the review, but if you want to beat me up, get in line: PUTS already dissed me on their recent record. How gangsta."
I was being playful but Jean thought I was actually challenging her to one-up PUTS.
5) On her next EP, she has a freestyle where she calls me a "dumb fuck" and in the liner notes writes, "Oliver Wang, you don't know what gangsta is." Notice: she's clearly referring back to the email I sent her.
6) A few months later, this topic comes up on Soulstrut, someone forwards my comments to Jean (which, in hindsight, wasn't very cool but whatever) and she manages to get my home number from her publicist (which wasn't very cool either but when they realized they fucked up, they apologized).
The conversation Jean and I have is rather meandering. I know she didn't like the review but I ask her, "for years, I've written extremely supportive things about you and Natural Resource in URB and you've never written or contacted me to thank me for that. Why do I get dissed for a constructive - but critical - review?" Jean has no reply. Seriously, she didn't have anything to say in response to that...she only muttered something about not liking my attitude. We hang up and it's not clear what the phone call has settled.
7) I write an editorial for URB (also posted to my blog) where I basically tell all these sensitive thugs to go get hugs. I figure this is the end of it.
8) 2005, "Think Twice" comes out and Jean is dissing me again. However, from what I was told by Ninja Tune, this was actually a song the Herbaliser recorded back in 2003...it just wasn't released until 2005 so it's not like Jean was STILL bearing a grudge two years later. I mean, maybe she is, but I heard she now has beef with an XXL writer because he dared to give her last LP only an "L"). Maybe he'll get dissed on her next album.
9) This whole affair has been both humorous and sad. I think most critic/artist beefs are completely ridiculous but especially in this case, it was sad because I probably spent more time big-upping Jean in the pages of URB more than any other artist (with the possible exception of J-Live). Frankly, the fact that my initial review snowballed into two disses on record plus the liner notes slap says a lot more about her and her insecurities than anything I did as a writer.
10) This is why I have nothing but love for PUTS. After Double K dissed me on the OST LP, he actually sent me an autographed copy of the album, and used a Sharpie to hand-draw a pistol into his hand, thus referencing his line, "I got piece for any Oliver mark-ass twang". It was hilarious and I seriously treasure the gesture. It also showed that Double K had a genuine sense of humor unlike Jean.
Thats NON[/b]sense.
Call me weird, but isn't a good way for an artist to avoid a critical review of his/her LP is to um...record a dope album? Artists should assess their work with a more critical eye themselves before releasing it to the public. After that, come what may in the way of opinions about it. Labels also need to do more work in the way of artist development and production coordination.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Big Stacks: This sounds quite wise to me, but apparently, what artists want is for critics to give them blow jobs on demand. In fact, I think they'd prefer if publicists simply ran the magazine industry (which, to be honest, isn't that far from the truth sometimes).
In all seriousness though, there are some Big Dude artists who can take a knocking: Common and ?uestlove are both open to criticism over their respective work. Even Jay-Z.
The problem is that many labels truly don't promote the "album concept" anymore. Now, the convention in rap seems to assemble a bunch of loosely related songs (geared solely toward record sales versus LP quality) with little or no continuity whatsoever. I miss the days when albums "flowed" and the quality of songs was consistently high throughout. That day has passed...
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Massive cosign
Stax: Let's not start this up again
There are still albums that "flow" with a consistent quality of songs. Right now, I'm listening to the new Ghostface and shit is
And I've gone back to old "classics" and start reaching for the FF key a lot more than I thought I would, including "Midnight Marauders" and "One For All."
-"Pretty Toney".
-"Grind Date.
-"Minstrel Show" (sort of).
-"U In or U Out"-The U.N.
-"Further Adventures of Lord Quas".
-"Long Hot Summer".
-and so on.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak