Lil Flip + Cam'ron in the NY Times
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
You gotta love the fact that the NY Times now runs stories about the contrasting fates of Houston's Lil' Flip vs. Harlem's Cam'ron. This may not matter to most of you who don't read the Times, or, you know, newspapers at all but a story like this is something you'd expect to find on a blog rather than the flagship of American journalism. That's not a criticism; it's a consideration of how these different media outlets are starting to resemble one another more as time goes by. Anyways...December 29, 2005Critic's NotebookA Rap Tale of 2 Cities and 2 StarsBy KELEFA SANNEHThis was a great year for Houston rappers. (Probably the best ever.) And it was a terrible year for New York rappers not named 50 Cent. (The worst, perhaps, since the early 1990's.) Southern beats and rhymes boomed out of cars on 125th Street; the vendors on Canal Street hawked CD's from that faraway place they called "Downsouth." While a bunch of Houstonians (and other drawlers) stormed the charts, New York seemed like a fading empire.But sometimes there's nothing more lethal than a hot streak, and nothing more invigorating than a slump. One of this year's most talked-about rappers is a chart-conquering Houstonite who has come out of 2005 looking much smaller. And another of this year's most talked-about rappers is a not-quite-mainstream New Yorker who has come out of 2005 looking much bigger. Neither of them released an album this year; in fact, both have been lying low. But while they stayed still, everything else shifted.Cam'ron is a Harlem native whose surreal swagger makes other rappers seem downright diffident. And he ended last year with a disappointment. His fourth album, "Purple Haze" (Roc-a-Fella/Island Def Jam), hit stores on Dec. 7, 2004, even though his record label hadn't yet found a hit single. Sales were slow, and the album seemed to get lost in the end-of-year rush. This year, Roc-a-Fella disintegrated and Cam'ron (who had never been close with Jay-Z, the new president) left, eventually signing with Atlantic. "Purple Haze" could have wound up just one more major-label misfire.Could have, that is, if it hadn't been one of the greatest hip-hop albums New York has produced this decade. It's full of gruff but nonsensical tongue-twisters and jokes that get funnier the more you listen. All year long, people seemed to be discovering it. (Last week, the indie Web site Pitchfork ranked "Purple Haze" No. 9 on its list of albums of the year.) According to Nielsen SoundScan it has sold a respectable half-million copies. Even without a huge promotional push, some radio stations played "Down and Out," a song from the album featuring Kanye West, turning it into a minor hit.In a city bereft of stars, Cam'ron looms that much larger. His crew, the Diplomats, keeps pumping out mixtapes; his prot??g??, Juelz Santana, released an entertaining album, "What the Game's Been Missing!" (Diplomats/Roc-a-Fella/Island Def Jam), which made him one of the most popular rappers in a city that used to have more. Cam'ron himself contributed an astonishing 28-bar verse to Kanye West's most recent CD. And his reputation only improved after a recent incident in Washington, when gunmen opened fire on his famous blue Lamborghini; true to form, Cam'ron drove himself to the hospital and, according to Juelz Santana, declined to cooperate with the investigation.Cam'ron addresses the shooting on "The Title Stays in Harlem" (dipsetmixtapes.com), a Diplomats mixtape that proves he's still the best rapper in New York. "I been hibernating," he announces, before explaining that his assailants were jealous of his Lamborghini: "They mad my car's like a elephant: the trunk in the front." (He's obsessed with animals, as he has proved dozens of times.) In a song called "Love My Life," he gives admirers some friendly advice: "If you happen to brush shoulders with me, play Lotto; 9 outta 10 times you gon' win."While Cam'ron survived a botched album release, Lil' Flip is trying to survive a successful one. Last year, when he released "U Gotta Feel Me" (Sony Urban), Lil' Flip instantly became the most popular rapper in Houston. He has a singsong delivery with a comedian's sense of timing. In his shameless love song "Sunshine," he promised, "I'll treat you like milk, I'll do nothing but spoil you"; the song became one of the most popular rap records of the summer of 2004.Then came the onslaught. Lil' Flip's hits may have inspired more resentment than pride within the Houston hip-hop scene, and when he became embroiled in a feud with the Atlanta rapper T.I. (a slick but less lighthearted rhymer), many Houston rappers seemed to take T.I.'s side. Early this year Lil' Flip teamed up with the underground Houston rapper Z-Ro to make a strong mixtape called "Kings of the South" (Clover Geez). "Outta all other rappers, I got the best home," he declared, and when he bragged about his trips overseas, it seemed self-evident that none of his hometown rivals could match him, even if he wasn't the most streetwise.But as more Houston rappers succeeded, Lil' Flip's position became more tenuous. He was conspicuously absent on major-label debut albums from Houston's Mike Jones, Paul Wall and Slim Thug, though he did make a brief appearance on Bun B's. He responded this fall with a pair of mixtapes, "Houston Is Mine" and "Houston Is Mine Part 2" (both available from mixunit.com). It's not his, of course, which is part of the reason he had to make the tapes. The situation is reversed: now everyone else is making major-label albums and he's working the mixtape circuit.Some of his old glee remains: when a prot??g?? is thanking Lil' Flip for some jewelry, Lil' Flip interrupts the rhyme to add, brightly, "You're welcome!" It's hard to understand how the tide could ever turn on a rapper this genial. But you can also hear plenty of petulance, maybe even a bit of paranoia. It sometimes seems that Lil' Flip has been pushed into a role that doesn't quite suit him. He'll never be a savage underground battler, but he has already been - and may again be - an enormously likable star.As it happens, Lil' Flip and Cam'ron have previously collaborated, though these days the Houstonite seems prouder of the connection than the Harlemite. And both had planned to release albums this year. (On "Houston Is Mine Part 2," Lil' Flip can still be heard urging fans to buy his CD on Dec. 26, and BET is already playing a new and rather underwhelming music video, "What It Do.") But both discs have been delayed until the spring, which gives the two rappers something else in common. Now both of them are looking - eagerly or anxiously - toward 2006.
Comments
Ha ha ha ha...hey mang, don't you know? Pitchfork is the new authority for all things musically Hipsta???.
though that is saying very little
Bun B:
"Cause you fronting rap sanger, be creamy like a Zanger
You ain't from the major boy, but you gets the middle finger
Humdanger, rum dranker, occasionally take
Your bitch to the Tilly and be a dick and cum slanger"
It's like RD gets a hard-on every time he sees me post. I'm actually blushing at the attention.
Rice-ist!
Hmmm, doesn't seem remotely bloggish to me, but I am glad to see some of the best and/or most prominent American papers and magazines (NYT, the New Yorker) publishing more and more thoughtful and informed writing on rap music. I think it says a lot more about how much rap has moved into the mainstream than the convergence of media, though.
M******,
It's an article on two artists that most "mainstream" readers of a paper like the NY Times are not going to be that closely connected to, especially Lil' Flip, despite the success of "Sunshine" and "Game Over." Moreover, Sanneh depends heavily on using mixtape songs by both artists as part of his story and while mix-CDs have certainly become more mainstream, it's not like The Washington Post and LA Times are regularly posting up mixtape columns. Stories like these have very much been in the realm of the blogosphere for the last two years: the writing isn't as edited/polished, but the mind-set, to me at least, is very bloggy.
So I agree with you: it is that rap has moved into the mainstream but I also think it's a sign of how mainstream media (by which I mean print journalism) has, in select instances, started to pattern their thinking for stories around blogs. I do think, in this case, it has a lot to do with Kelefa being the author. I wouldn't have expected to see this from, say, Jeff Leeds.
For another example: see how the "Chronicles of Narnia Rap" has been covered by NPR, Slate and the NY Times in the last week. That's totally a blog story that's been picked up by more mainstream outlets.
I don't buy into the notion that their journalism is generally limited to the world of the "mainstream" reader. The NYT writes about lots of stuff that readers (you, me, whoever) aren't closely connected to-- what makes it a great paper is that they usually manage to make a subject interesting to the general reader, whether the subject's a trite one or a recondite one. True, many Times readers may be more familiar with Norah Jones than Mike Jones, but both are mainstream figures. You ought to be writing about both if you're covering current American pop music.
As for drawing on mix CDs, I just don't see how anybody could write credibly about current rap music for ANY publication without keeping an eye on the mixtape game. To me, the article just shows that the Times is doing a decent job.
Changing my mind, one element of the article is moderately bloggish-- the piece is not tied to a current release or performance (i.e., a news event), so in a way it does echo the "this is some shit I just happen to be thinking about" mode of many blogs.
Matthew
I wish more editors agreed with you on this note. Hip-hop still gets shorted in most publications and I don't see this changing until the older generation of pop critics all retire (or, as in the case of the Post's senior pop critic...die) AND the incoming wave aren't just all recycled rockists more eager to talk about Babyshambles than BG. I don't think the NY Times is the exception here: I think Kelefa Sanneh is the exception. Which probably speaks well for the Times for hiring him.
I was going to disagree that Norah Jones and Mike Jones are in the same league when it comes to "mainstream figures" but then again, I just noted his album sold better than Rob Thomas, Faith Hill, and Hillary Duff's this year. That said, Mike Jones isn't getting play in Starbucks. Yet.
And the mix-CD thing is very, very new as far as most newspapers are concerned. Hell, Blender just ran a mix-CD primer in their October issue and they're supposed to be closer to the cutting edge of maisntream music mags than others. Even most alt-weeklies don't talk about mix-CDs as a part of the routine music coverage and they're more likely to be able to get away with it.
The mental image of ice grills on lattes with Mike Jones blasting out of suburban coffesshop speakers sent chills, laughter, and anger down my spine.
Thanks, I needed a new location.
I was going to include other adjectives to that list of chills down my spine but I figured those three were enough
seriously??? "come home with me" is better, and that's not saying much...
I think this is an important distinction to make because, as pleased as I am with Kelefah's work over the past eighteen months, I still don't think it bespeaks a larger critical commitment to covering rap at the Times... just a commitment to giving Kelefah pretty free reign (although am I the only one that has noticed the way that he seems to have been roped in lately?; lots of capsule reviews of rap albums that he might previously have devoted a full piece to).
When Kelefah moves on from the Times, I suspect that it will return to ignoring mix CDs and many of the other things that interest him.
However, much love to Kelefah for writing me up in The Paper Of Record twice in the past couple years though.
No doubt... also for showing love to snowman tees in the nation's paper of record.
I'd be interested in seeing what kind of a book he might write.
you guys are really fooling yourselves if you think Purple Haze is anything but a random collection of throwaways with a few good tracks sprinkled in...
but Come Home With Me has "oh Boy"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
welcome to NYC????????????
Isn't that on the first Diplomats jawn?
the track with Jay Z? "birthplace of michael jordon"... no, it's on "come home with me"...