Enjoy the weekend!

Old School Jam of the week

A song from way back (okay, 2005). It's from England, so you've probably never heard it. Either way, it's good. Enjoy!

Swiss feat. Sharifa - Cry

One of the best to ever do it....

My favorite basketball player of all time, Isiah Thomas.

Remember the NBA Superstars VHS tape every kid had back in the day?



You had to love his fiery attitude!

Interesting, to say the least....

An interview with Amar'e Stoudemire that delves into his interest/background of Jewish culture.



And, yes, that is a yarmulke on his head.

I think it's time to let go, Cleveland...

When the night comes...

Heard this song last week on one of the only television shows I watch on tv, Friday Night Lights. For some reason, I never checkd out Dan Auerbach's (vocalist and guitarist of The Black Keys) solo album, even though the group is dope. Anyways, the song is ridiculous. Enjoy!



This song is sick, too.

(There's nothing like a good book)

Some books are so enjoyable that you have to read them more than once. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, a novel set during India's transition from post-independence to their Emergency period, is one of those novels.

The cover is ridiculous!

A wo[MAN]'s best friend...

The Nike MS78 LE. This colorway is sick!

This colorway will also work just fine.



I HAVE to get these. And they're only $64.99?!

And the winner is...

Only a few weeks until the start of the Premier League season! Looking at the list of teams, you will have the usual teams fighting it out for the four Champion's League spots. Each team has their share of weaknesses:
Manchester United (still haven't found a creative midfielder & over-reliance on Rooney)
Manchester City (more money, more problems)
Arsenal (major goalkeeping issue, reliable goalscorer)
Liverpool (huge problems if/when Torres gets injured, need for a solid left back)
Chelsea (not getting any younger)
Tottenham (struggle to win both in the league and Champion's league this year & defensive injury worries)
Aston Villa (the strain of playing so many games with such a small squad)


Realistically, Aston Villa's squad is far too small to compete over an entire season. Too much strain is placed on Ashley Young and Gabriel Abonglahor. - 7th (at best)

6th - Tottenham had a great year last season. They were solid defensively and Ledley King played his way into a starting berth for the national team before getting injured. I just feel injuries will catch up to them defensively this year. They have more than enough talent to finish in the top three; it just won't happen.

5th - Liverpool (my team) just finished the purchase of Joe Cole and added Milan Jovanovic earlier this summer. Without a great deal of money to spend, they stil need a good left back and another forward. Not having much money, however, they will probably settle for a subpar left back (Konchesky) and depend on Kuyt (he secretly wants to be a defender) and Babel (talented but far too lazy to ever be great) as backups.

4th - Manchester United (the team I hate) at this point have done nothing in the transfer market (not that they can afford to). They are in dire need of a creative midfielder and reliable striker. As much as Sir Alex can talk about it, there is no way Rooney is scoring that many goals again. Unless Valencia and Nani have great seasons and Berbatov plays really well (+15 goals), this might be their most disappointing season in some time.

3rd - Arsenal, for all of their injuries and their poor start to last season, finished the year extremely strong. They tried to shore up their defense this summer with the purchase of Laurent Koscielny, who quite simply won't make the impact Thomas Vermaelen made last year. I think Marouane Chamakh could be a huge purchase for them, especially considering he comes on a free transfer.

If injuries never happened in soccer, I might give Arsenal the title. But the nature of the Premier League always leads to multiple injuries. In their defense, their injury list surely can't be worse than last year. I'm looking for van Persie, Theo Walcott, Arshavin and co. to have big years. Just not big enough for first.

2nd - Chelsea is an OLD team. There's no getting around that. With the likes of Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Malouda and Cole, they're too good to struggle. But they absolutely need the likes of John Obi Mikel, Essien and the already mentioned Drogba to stay healthy. If Drogba is out for an extended period, Anelka and Kalou won't get it done as a duo. Benayoun is a great pickup, and he'll be used plenty this season with their injury worries that are surely to come.


(get used to this, Chelsea fans)

1st - Manchester City?! They have made far too many moves these past two summers NOT to challenge the entire season. If they manage to get Balotelli (less than 50%) and the left back Kolarov (very likely), then there is no excuse if Roberto Mancini can't bring the title to Eastlands.

Their squad depth is ridiculous. Just check out their depth for defensive/engine-room midfield:
1st string - Yaya Toure
2nd string - Nigel de Jong
3rd string - Gareth Barry
4th string - Patrick Vieira (*When Vieira, even at his age, is 4th string, your squad is sick!)

Just for the sake of things, let's assume they get those two players. This could be their potential squad:

Balotelli Tevez

Silva

G. Barry Y. Toure Johnson


Kolarov Kompany K. Toure J. Boateng

Even without Balotelli, they still have Adebayor and perhaps, even Robinho.

Either way, we'll know how serious their title aspirations are after their first two games of the season:
away to Tottenham
home to Liverpool

Jams of the Week...

Jam of the Week



Ol' School Jam[s] of the Week (tie)

Naughty By Nature - "Jamboree"



Noreaga and Carl Thomas - "I Love My Life"

I just came across this clip of an Emmitt Smith roast. I don't know what precipitated this, but Jamie definitely killed this comedian's night.

What The Feature!

________ + Raphael Saadiq = Sick!

So, I couldn't resist NOT listening to the album ahead of time. And even ahead of the Jay-Z feature, I absolutely knew the track with Raphael Saadiq would be ridiculous. Why else would he appear on a Rick Ross album?

Rick Ross f/ Raphael Saadiq - "All the Money in the World"



Just might be my favorite song on the album.

Finally!

After months of trying to find the new Twizzlers Sweet & Sour filled twists, I finally got my hands on them. While they don't top the original strawberry Twizzlers, they are a solid product; at the very least, Twizzlers introduced a style for the first time in awhile.

So, how are they? Well, the red twists are much better than the yellow twists. The yellow twists are a bit too tangy, and you can only have two or three at at time before feeling queezy. Hopefully, Twizzlers will switch out the yellow twists (maybe replace them with a sour apple) and keep them with the red ones.

Rankings
#1 - Twizzlers Original
#2 - Twizzlers Pull 'n Peel
#3 - Twizzlers Sweet & Sour (red twists only)
#4 - Twizzlers Nibs

Song of the Week - Big Boi f/ Big Rube - General Patton

A Big Rube feature on an Outkast/Dungeon Family record is always classic. He never disappoints. This is him from one of the first seasons of Def Poetry back in '02.
ALPHABET ACROBAT - CLASSIC!



My vicerous vigour verifies I'm victorious

I'm young yet I yearn for the year when the youth learn
Get zooted to the zone in the zone where the truth burn

I could be wrong, but...

This might be the best album of the summer. Unlike other albums, I want to try and avoid the temptation of song/album leaks before July 20th.

Reasons the album might be great?

1)There are only 11 tracks. I'm hoping the expression "less is more" applies here.
2)The single "Super High f/ Ne-Yo" is the song of the summer. Count in your head five better songs that have dropped this year.

3) "Maybach Music I" and II have been great. The third feature has Jadakiss (he can't make a good album [excluding his first one], but he kills on features) and Erykah. Nuff said.

4)Kanye and Ross have already stated that the "Live Fast, Die Young" record will be classic. Could be blowing smoke. I doubt it.

5) "Free Mason" f/ Jay-Z. O BOY!

6) He's doing a record w/ Cee-lo. Have you heard his recent material?! [Scroll down to the earlier blog posting this week]

Reason the album might be so-so?

1) There is a feature on EVERY song except for one.

2) The "MC Hammer" track f/ Gucci. Has a feeling of a track that's skippable and/or one that I would like if I was 16 with a bowl cut and still living at home and pushing his mom's old Nissan like it was a Ferrari and needed something to get me in the mood right before I went in to work at Burger King for the next 8 hours where I would get yelled at by two gross, fantastically bloated manager-monster twins who didn't do anything and got upset when none of us kids wanted to wash their candy-red spray-painted Honda Accord.




[Side story - I DID work at Burger King. On two separate occasions. I hated it the first time, but I could never get a job at a more desirable teenage workplace (Foot Locker, Nautica, Polo) and needed money; consequently, I went back.]

3) Diddy is 1] his manager now I guess and 2] is on the album. Take that, take that.

Anyways, here is the tracklist.

1. I’m Not A Star
2. Free Mason f. Jay-Z
3. Tears Of Joy f. Cee-Lo
4. Maybach Music III f. T.I., Jadakiss & Erykah Badu
5. Live Fast, Die Young f. Kanye West
6. Super High f. Ne-Yo
7. No. 1 f. Trey Songz & Diddy
8. MC Hammer f. Gucci Mane
9. B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast) f. Styles P
10. Aston Martin Music f. Drake & Chrisette Michele
11. All The Money In The World f. Raphael Saadiq


July 20th.

One of my favorite rappers...

Skyzoo - My Interpretation

It's been a while...

Some things I've been feeling over the past few hours,days,weeks,months

Fashawn's homage to Nas' clasic Illmatic album:



http://usershare.net/XclusivesZone/kcud82gn36gi <- Copy and paste to get album (don't have time to figure out how the fancy blogs do this, sorry). It's been on repeat for the past two week.

I haven't heard ANYONE talk about the Cee-lo mixtape that dropped a few weeks back. But, with the songs I heard on it plus the "Georgia" single (my song of the year so far), I'm excited for the album to drop.



Hmm, pretty good...


Another good song...


Are you serious?!


Speaking of good music, it goes without question that the Roots' How I Got Over is a sick album:



It's too much strain, phenomenal gain
I'm goin thru thangs, headaches, abdominal pain
Tryina numb it with that kettle like I'm from the Ukraine
Check the blue flame, lighter runnin' out of bhutane

Drake - Overrated? Yes (and yes, I was listening to his stuff way before the So Far Gone mixtape when he was "underground")
Disappointing album? Not really. He can't spit like Nas and can't sing that great. What'd you expect?
Great album? Not even close.
A few songs that can be played over and over again? Absolutely
My favorite: "Show Me a Good Time" ("The Resistance" a close, close second)

Songs of the week

Song of the week: Jay Ghartey - My Lady
(Note - I have no idea how I found out about this song. It was completely random typing into youtube)




Pillow song of the week: Jamiroquai - Blow Your Mind
(One of the few songs that NEVER gets old!)

Can a man still dream?

At first glance, $3500 might seem a bit pricey for a television. But a 72-inch 3-D television?



By last count, I have 520 "friends" on Facebook (with a couple awaiting confirmation). If each person, I mean friend, were to donate $7.00, the television could be all mine (and, well, partly yours).



Here's my jingle to promote the fundraising: New TV, y'all be the tree!

This could grow in popularity and be a big chant across the Facebook kingdom. Think about it. It might sound a bit like this:
'New TV, y'all be the tree, What! (DMX-esque bark) New TV, y'all be the tree, What!
Listennnnn (DJ Khaled-esque plea)

Let's get it! (Jeezy-esque voiceover)

Two films I must see in the next week...

Ajami




A Prophet

YES I'm a Discovery nerd!

I cannot wait until this Sunday! The Discovery Channel is beginning the first in an 11-part series: the LIFE series. For those of you not up on your discovery, we all remember Discovery EARTH many years ago. If you went to a school with bad science teachers, you probably watched it three times a year.

**Side note - I did had an AP History teacher named Dr. Miller in high school that, not only was not a doctor, but she did not have a degree. We watched Braveheart at least four times within a year.

There's a connection there somewhere, I'm sure.

Anyways, be sure to tune into Discovery this Sunday night. I hope it lives up to the hype.



**Side note #2 - Not sure what the point of including this either, but Oprah Winfrey is the narrator.

Pillow [Slept-on] Song of the Week

A pretty forgettable album besides "Let's get this Paper" and, of course, "Throw Some D's", this song was the best of them all and deserved a video.

Luda's "Runaway Love" had NOTHING on this song.

Judge for yourself.

Song of the week

A video for my song of the week: perfect.

David Banner - Strange