Rather see the above links in your inbox or feed reader?
Subscribe to our Links for hand-picked items from around the web
never taking shorts cuz brooklyn's the borough? · by Rafi Kam
It makes Spike sad too.
When news leaked at the start of the year about a return of the Crooklyn Dodgers series featuring Mos Def, Jean Grae and Memphis Bleek with production from 9th Wonder, there was grumbling and WTFs from oldsters discerning fans on a bunch of message boards and at least two blogs.
This week the track has been going around. It’s eh, which means it’s a failure as expected. It would be an adequate but instantly forgettable collaboration under a different name but who can defend it as a continuation of this series?
Oh wait, a blogging nation of Mos/Jean/9th spoon-warmers1 – that’s who!
Why are Idolator, Prefix Mag, and even our friends at Dork Mag and Rock the Dub endorsing this? Have you all been beaten down so much by the state of hip-hop that you actually think this is dope and worthy of the Crooklyn Dodgers name? Maybe it’s the lack of standards that’s killing hip-hop. I’ll be talking about this extensively on my debut rap album, Illmatic 2.
I don’t mind that 9th isn’t from Brooklyn (neither are Primo or Q-Tip) but the original tracks assembled three kings of rhyme all hailing from Brooklyn to bless a ridiculous beat. It doesn’t matter how long he’s been in the game, we all know Memphis Bleek hasn’t earned his stripes. Jean Grae isn’t even a Brooklyn native and is best known today, as she was five years ago, for rumors of her awesome potential.
Idolator believes the hype and refers to her as “the great Jean Grae”. She is truly unique to be the only great MC without any great music to speak of.
It probably sounds like I didn’t listen with an open mind but really I tried. I could have put the pedigrees aside if they had floored me with something. Maybe actually saying something would have helped.
Play the videos that follow and see what it means to be a real mc. If you tell me that Mos, Jean or Bleek delivered anything up to par with any verse spit on the first two Crooklyn Dodgers tracks or that you feel any of the same feeling from it, you need your ears or your heart checked.
1 With acknowledgment to Dallas Penn for the phrase, a spoon warmer warms the spoon for someone else’s nuts.
This just in: apparently Magoo, Project Pat and Brian Austin-Greene are getting Jermaine Dupri to produce their new record: “South Bronx Part 2”.
— Robbie Oct 5, 07:20 PM
I will simply hate by osmosis…No need whatsoever to hear this. Never cared much for Jean Grae, nor Memphis Bleek. I won’t get into my feelings about Mos these days…
I had no idea heads were chomping at the bit for a new incarnation. As if two installments wasn’t enough?
Now on the other hand, “The Symphony pt.3” with all the original emcees, that may tickle my ageing b-boy fancy.
Or has it already come out and I missed it?
— *midnightheory* Oct 5, 08:57 PM
I posted about this track on Prefix. I like the track, but I do admit that it’s not at the level of parts 1 and 2. Then again, what nowadays is.
I like the track mostly because it makes me think of the first two and the feeling that hip hop gave me growing up. It also brings some press to the original track. If you look at my post I posted the first two Crooklyn Dodgers songs and talked about them versus the new track.
— Dave Park Oct 5, 10:08 PM
“Now on the other hand, “The Symphony pt.3” with all the original emcees, that may tickle my ageing b-boy fancy.
Or has it already come out and I missed it?”
Sort of. Frankie Cutlass did “The Cipher Part 3” with Craig G, Shante, Biz and Big Daddy Kane.
— Robbie Oct 5, 10:31 PM
I feel like this is what Rawkus was going for
— BKBomber Oct 5, 11:45 PM
Meh, memphis bleek and fabolous as the crooklyn dodgers 07 is disheartening
hey rafi did you check your mail yet ; I sent you the longawaited aes rock review
— Jay B Oct 6, 12:39 AM
“the only great MC without any great music to speak of.”
Eminem.
Perhaps others, but he always comes right to mind.
— nesta Oct 6, 12:55 AM
The song isn’t bad. I like the track more than I thought I would. I normally can’t stand Bleek, I’m indifferent to Jean, and I haven’t listened to Mos in years. None of them totally sucked though, and Mos’ verse was interesting at points.
Seeing the C.D. brand slapped on this song is bullshit, though, and I’m not even a New Yorker, let alone a BKite. It reeks of Little Brother type “nostalgia”—the same lame marketing gimmick that hooks their younger, more ignorant fans.
Anybody familiar with the previous 2 installments knows that this just doesn’t FEEL like a Crooklyn Dodgers track.
First, the beat is all wrong. 9th Wonder is hit or miss. While this beat is closer to hit I guess, it’s not exceptional. It sounds like a track De La rejected.
Second, they completely neglect the darker socio-political and economic themes that the 1st 2 songs explored. It’s almost as if they’ve never heard the other 2. For some reason, Jean and Bleek thought it would be a good idea to talk primarily about themselves as rappers.
I can hear someone pitching this: “We’re gonna do Crooklyn Dodgers 3…make sure to mention Brooklyn!”
— eauhellzgnaw Oct 6, 04:44 AM
at the end of the day, I cannot deny a dope beat. In terms of the stale sound that 9th has been churning out through the last LB album, the Skyzoo CD, that Big Pooh album, and the Chemistry collab, I really feel that beat. I will admit, the quality of rhyme goes down with each verse. Does this hold up to the quality of Parts 1 and 2? I will say it does not; those tracks helped throw shine to some cats that really held it down for BK. I think the only true representer in this one is Mos, because I hear him shout out BK on the regs, and he is the caliber of MC I like hearing on these “BK Tribute” tracks… still in all, I’ll rock this track 7 ways to Sunday before putting on Jibbs or any of that other nonsense. And @ the commenter before, I think you are right—- I highly doubt someone like Bleek has heard the first 2, and I hadn’t even thought about that. Good point.
Reminds me, I need to go rent Crooklyn and reminisce…
— khal Oct 6, 06:16 AM
what happened to mike tyson’s whiney ass at the start of the original video?
— reeshard Oct 6, 11:45 AM
when I first heard pt 2..i was like why’d they choose Chubb Rock? I slept on him (no queer eye-o). Even now though. I think his voice doesn’t fit with Jeru and OC..but back to the subject at hand..pt 3 is boo-boo..totally the wrong direction..how can you not talk about Brooklyn?
— evolved once Oct 6, 01:01 PM
Whuut? The Chubbster STEALS Pt. 2. He kills that shit. That’s one of the all time one-verse-comebacks.
Seeing both those videos back to back just drives home how much the people doing Pt. 2 understood what made Pt. 1 so great.
Pt. 3 on the other hand plays like desperation. Dang.
A good question is which 3 emcees SHOULD be on it?
An ageing Kane, Jay-Z and AZ are the most obvious ommisions. Or perhaps a stray Biggie or ODB verse could get on there…
Personal choice would be Smoothe and Trigger.
— bse Oct 6, 07:42 PM
Enjoying this song because it conjures up feelings of the old ones is crazy. “Return Of The Crooklyn Dodgers” is the shit whether or not you heard the first one. Rappers have to stop relying on cheap referential bullshit to appear “deep”—and just because the listener gets the references, it doesn’t mean that a meaningful connection has been made between him and the artist. People gotta raise their standards, like Rafi’s saying.
Oh and Bleek obviously, most certainly heard the originals, come on…
— Nikhil P. Yerawadekar Oct 7, 12:25 AM
Ya Kid K will be guesting with MC Frost and Shaq for IV.
— sankofa Oct 7, 10:47 AM
“Ya Kid K will be guesting with MC Frost and Shaq for IV.”
Zing! Sankofa you’re so witty!
— *midnightheory* Oct 7, 05:37 PM
i don’t understand what this song has to do with the chronology of the first two. is it from a spike lee film or did they just slap the name onto their wack, unaffiliated collaboration?
— noz Oct 9, 04:15 PM
The song is really – ok..nothing much you can say about that.
Maybe it’s cos they didn’t really tap into the essence of the previous two? I’d have preferred a diff lineup. Actual BK greats..
— esbee Oct 9, 05:54 PM