Any of yous heard Game’s latest album? I can’t be fucked writing a review of it haha, but I thought I’d share my thoughts on a couple of the tracks I like and also up a link to a zip of all them for you good folks without Boxden accounts and such. So, aside from the already released tracks in Dope Boys, My Life and Game’s Pain, here’s my top 5 - download them here.

Share your thoughts on the album in the comments section. Where does LAX fit with Game’s previous two albums?

LAX Files - Cool JR Rotem beat with Game explaining what it is to be gangsta - I’m sure you cynics will find some irony in that.

State of Emergency feat. Ice Cube - Damn Cube shoulda got a verse on this, not just the hook. This is some old hard West Coast shit, no singing, no g-funk - just some punch you in your face type stuff. JR Rotem again.

House of Pain - This is in a similar vein to the above - although not so West Coast besides the lyrical content. DJ Toomp this time on the beat.

Let Us Live feat. Chrisette Michelle - I fucken hate Scott Storch usually, but this beat is bad. If you have decent sounds at home or your car, give it a hoon.

Angel feat. Common - Out of the 5, this is the most different. It’s way more laidback, funky synth type shit. What’d you expect though, Common ain’t gonna rap on something like State of Emergency. Produced by Kanye, the man yet again.

Raphael Saadiq has long been the man in my books. Whether it’s with Tony Toni Tone, Lucy Pearl or his solo shit, this cat is super talented. Aside from his own projects, he’s also contributed production or instrumentation on several other artist’s tracks, like D’Angelo’s Lady, Total’s Kissing You, John Legend’s Show Me & Kelis’ Glow among others. He’s also done shit with the likes of Joss Stone, Anthony Hamilton, Mary J, Snoop and the list goes on. If you know even a fraction of this guy’s body of work (and I don’t proclaim to know allll his shit) one thing should be apparent to you - he’s got soul. Haha it’s sort of a cliched thing to say, but it’s the simple truth and it’s something that sets a lot of artists apart from the rest. Anyway, the reason I’m blogging on this guy is cos I recently came across a sampler of his next solo album, which is called The Way I See It - and it sounds like it’s gonna be mean as fuck. As the cover suggests, Saadiq’s gone for an old school feel and is out to reproduce that soulful sound of the Motown era we all know and love. The album’s not due out ’til September, and as far as I know it hasn’t leaked on the net yet, but below is a link to the sampler which has 5 full tracks to tide you over. The full album tracklist is after the jump if you’re interested.

The Way I See It sampler (Megaupload): Click here.

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Man, I don’t usually get into the straight up blog jacks but this shit is too much. Props to TSS for unearthing this gem.

“it was gettin wicked and shit… all we did, was jus kick it and shit”

What the hell is the Spanish Olympic basketball team up to with this photo?? Doing slanty eyes for an Olympic shoot? Man, saaaad guys. Read more about it here. It would seem Spain is about as non-PC as it gets - remember the Lewis Hamilton racial taunts thing in Spain? Where’s their Olympic spirit?

There’s just nothing better really. For the athletes, the Olympics drives them to surpass previous physical limits imposed on the human race by the gods - all for the glory of a medal. For people like myself, the Olympics simply drives you to watch more TV in a 2 week stretch than you’ve watched in the 4 years since the last Olympics - that’s what’s up. In all honesty I haven’t felt like doing SHIT since the Olympics started, and I don’t see that trend discontinuing, at least until the good track and field events are over. However during my viewing of this XXIX Olympiad I’ve been getting increasingly pissed at TV One’s coverage, or more specifically the events they choose to cover.

I hadn’t intended to watch the womens cycling road race cause I thought it would suck, but after 15 minutes viewing I found I was quite engrossed by it. This Russian chick had made a break and was a minute ahead of the Peleton with like half an hour to go, the race was reaching an exciting climax. Then TVNZ, true to their name come through with a deft show of nationalism and cross over to the kick off of NZ vs Brazil…. in Soccer. WTF ? Are you serious ? I wanna watch individuals surpass human limits and win medals, I want the excitement of competition, I don’t want to see our fifth tier soccer nation getting their ass kicked by the best in the world in fucking pool play. That’s a foregone conclusion, that ain’t exciting. I know there’s people that DO want to see the game (families of the players etc), but fuck, we don’t need to see this shit from minute ONE ! Let’s catch them up in the second half TVNZ ! don’t leave me hanging when there’s actual victories to be seen.

This brought me to a realisation, for the most part I don’t really like seeing any sports which are “games” at the Olympics. Soccer, Hockey, even things I like watching like Tennis and Basketball. I wouldn’t really bat an eyelid if these were all canned. The wack ones take up hours of coverage time, and the good ones we see all year anyway (Grand Slams, NBA, Premier League etc). When an Olympic medal ain’t really the pinnacle of achievement for your sport, which it isn’t for a lot of these.. it just makes it wack. Back to “games” though, I’d make the exception for Indoor Volleyball, cause it’s bad ass and I never see it normally. Anyway here’s my viewing wishlist for the rest of the Olympics, someone word up TVNZ

No more Equestrian - I know NZ is in this, I don’t care. It’s boring as fuck.
No more Board Sailing - Same as above.
Rowing - Coverage has been all good, it’s good to watch, and NZ has been goin hard. Win/win
Swimming - They’re covering this all good, keep it up. How was the Mens 4×100 relay ? Ho-ly
More Weight Lifting - They’ve showed fuck all, this is some real Olympic shit.
More Boxing - Only seen 1 fight.
More Wrestling - Gladitorial activities is what the Olympics is all about.
No more Beach Volleyball - Fuck this, too much court and too few players = boring spectacle.
No more Shooting - Guns aint sport, I’ll let Archery ride.
More Gymnastics - Seen hardly any gymnastics, which is a shame cause people doing flips is all good.
Diving - Diving’s all good.
Cycling - Will be mean once the indoor shit starts, Pursuit is ill.
Heaps of Track and Field - Bar maybe the 15000 meters which i only wanna see the end of, any Track and Field is all good.

This looks like the place to be if you’re in Auckland city tonight. Propers to Pause and everyone else involved for bringing this event back and putting something on for the DJ’s. Underground heads can rejoice too as Blu should be sick. Shotthen would like to wish best of luck to all the entrants.

It’s been a lengthy solo hiatus, but the new shit from P-Money has finally surfaced. Featuring the vocal talents of Mr Vince Harder, P is coming on a whole new angle with this one. Check his blog for the scoop on the track. Meanest.

If you frequent our blog you’ve probably noticed we’re all about lists and here’s another one to debate over. XXL has put together its top 10 hip hop remixes and surprisingly I’m largely in agreement with it. The #1 spot in particular is bang on, one of my top songs full-stop. If I could rework the list though there’s a few personal favourites I’d have to fit in there somewhere: Common - Resurrection (Large Pro remix); Mobb Deep - Temperature’s Rising Remix; Smif n Wessun - Sound Bwoy Burriel Remix feat. OGC; and Boyz II Men - Vibin Remix feat. Treach, Craig Mack, Busta & Meth (if a hip hop remix of an R&B song counts heh). There’s heeeaps of mean remixes in the history of hip hop so what would your top 10 be? Don’t feel like you’ve gotta stick to the mid-90s theme me and XXL have gone with… maybe you think the I’m So Hood Remix is top 10?? Ha.

10: “Rainy Dayz” (Remix)- produced by The Rza

9: “Street Dreams” (Remix)- Nas ft. R. Kelly

8: “Ebonics” (Remix)- Big L- produced by DJ Premier

7: “Nappy Heads” (Remix)- The Fugees- Produced by Salaam Remi

6: “I Gotcha Opin” (Remix)- Black Moon- produced by The Beatminerz

5: “Paid In Full” (Coldcut Remix)- Eric B and Rakim- produced by…

4: “California Love” (Remix)- 2pac- produced by Dr. Dre

3: “One More Chance” (Stay With Me Remix)- The Notorious B.I.G.- produced by ????

2: “Scenario” (Remix)- A Tribe Called Quest- produced by Q-Tip?

1: “Shut Em Down” (Remix)- Public Enemy- produced by Pete Rock

Sheeit, I saw this article about the top 16 80’s cartoon villains and it had me doing imaginary face-offs between characters in my mind. I have a nephew and niece so I often find myself watching the current crop of after school cartoons with them and it has to be said - “action” cartoons nowadays are all shit. It’s not like the 80’s shows didn’t revolve round selling toys too, but man.. at least when they’d have a fight, they had a fight. In these post-Pokemon shows they always fight each other - by playing WITH the toys (think Bey Blades, Card Captors etc). Even the kids think that shit sucks.

Back to this list though, I think they’ve come through with most of the major players. I’m in disagreement with some of the ordering but that’s bound to happen. I would probably put Starscream above everyone, even Megatron. He’s the most ruthless, has zero loyalty, and is a funny cunt to boot. When he threw Megatron into space because Megatron was weighing down the space shuttle, that was a GOAT villian moment. Skeletor to me can’t be the GOAT simply cause he’s just comedy, the look of him, the voice - everything. In fact Masters of the Universe characters in general just make me laugh as soon as I see them(Trap-Jaw, Stinkor) .. cept for Man-At-Arms, he’s mean.

As far as oversights go, they missed my man Doc Terror from Centurions (Centurions was mean as fuck!). Also Saw Boss (what a bad ass name) from Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors. I would probably throw both Bebop and Rocksteady from Ninja Turtles in there too, Bebop is trueschool as and Rocksteady had all the quotables. Props for no mention of Krang too.. fuck him. Take a trip down memory lane 80’s babies.

The Top 16 80’s Cartoon Villains

A few weeks ago The Smoking Gun broke a story about Rick Ross supposedly being a former corrections officer in Florida, which is not a good look for a rapper by any stretch. Since then, as is the norm in this day and age, a whole bunch of people have gone hard with Photoshop and done up some pretty crack up cop movie poster remakes and other shit. I’ve uploaded a couple of my faves to see here, but for a bunch more check out this blog.

*Remember Carl? I forgot all about that bastard ’til I saw this one.