Elmatic Instrumentals is pretty dope, very good for dayjob listening (ie keeping it real without getting fired). Will Sessions interpolate and riff on the originals subtly but enough to make these new versions interesting on their own terms. At it’s best points this album reminds me of El Michels Affair’s The 37th Chamber.
I’m singling out “Represent Intro” because it’s the album’s most significant deviation from the original Illmatic tracklist, and it’s good enough to make me wish the band did more like it. And “It Aint Hard To Tell” is getting posted simply because it’s “It Aint Hard To Tell”.
Big brother blogger T.R.O.Y. dropped this last week. 17 tracks that either represent the 90s, sounds like the 90s or contains music from artists from the 90s. Peace and enjoy! –Philaflava
01. Roc Marciano – Firepower
02. Kool G. Rap – Sad
03. Black Milk – Deadly Medley feat. Royce Da 5’9 & Elzhi
04. Reks – This Or That
05. Elite Fleet – West Philly Anthem feat. The Last Emperor, Maylay Sparks & SM Squad
06. CurT@!n$ – Dope Goes To Hollywood feat. Kurupt
07. Blaq Poet – Power Music
08. Hell Razah – Return of The Renaissance feat. R.A. The Rugged Man
09. Pete Rock & Smif –n- Wessun – Prevail feat. Raekwon
10. El Da Sensei & The Returners – Knowledge Be The Key feat. Rakaa Iriscience
11. Group Home – G.U.R.U. feat. Jeru The Damaja
12. Von Pea – Boombox
13. Automatic – The Natural
14. Beneficence – Heavy Hitters (prod. Diamond D)
15. Maylay Sparks – You & Yours
16. Shad – Yaa I Get It (Oddisee Remix)
17. Atmosphere – The Best Day
El – Why do you even bother anymore? You’ve been phoning in verses for years now. What happened homie? You used to be the future star. You were that ’87 Topps Bo Jackson Future Star at one point. You continued to steal the show and we all rooted for you. Are you bored? Are you uninspired with rap? Are you all disgruntled because the Fat Beats album wasn’t promoted well or that Slum Village is run by snakes? Black Milk deserves better. We the people deserve better. Enough with this bullshit. Don’t waste anymore time talking about T3. Stop with the Nas remake. Get your shit together or just fall the fuck back. And you owe Mic King his $ back for that wack verse too.
Let’s not be naive, the ONLY reason why Elzhi isn’t all over this new SV album is because he shitted on all of them. This video is proof that T3 has hurt feelings that he isn’t considered as dope.
When Employee asked me to write one of these I was at a loss for what to talk about…as I often am when people ask me to tell them stories about where I go and what I do. It’s kind of a problem I have where I’m not as mindful of my accomplishments as I should be because I’m always trying to get to the next thing. I also hate qualifying. I’m the dude that’ll tell a hot bird my dayjob is picking up animal dookie at the petting zoo. However skimming through the writings of the other guys (except MB…I totally skipped that philabuster) made me get more perspective on my year. Then I wrote it and it was dumb long and I had a nightmare where I was pelted with “didn’t read” emoticons.
