Oh My God, Whatever, Etc: November 2011

Ahem, it is with slight regret that I come clean and confess to months of distraction, procrastination and general otherworldly pursuits. This has led to a lengthy dry spell for the blog, limiting, er, severing rather my entries entirely since the dwindling days of summer. I had scratched together a rough draft for posting at the end of summer but even that seems irrelevant some 3 months later, so back to the drawing board as they say. How could I have left my corner of cyber-space and it's loyal reading public without a report on how my summer progressed, or lulled for that matter. Far be it for me to have denied them my up-to-date reports on what's next in the world of hip hop, however nostalgic, biased and uninformed they may be. Pas de insight into the mindless nuclear winter the NBA and it's players had depressed into, delaying and ultimately putting the start of the 2011-2012 season. in jeopardy. Ludicrous. Zero response on my behalf, equally ludicrous. Not even a taste of what was to be, and has come to pass within the NFL - something I follow with a near dogmatic indoctrination. (At least from a gambler's perspective.) Instead, nothing, nada, zilch.

It is in this regard that I've failed the readers, but guess who's back, at least for now. My abrupt departure should not come as much of a surprise, at least it doesn't to me. "Why?" you say? I've drawn this unlikely parallel. I like writing. I like blogging. And like many other things I like (re: girls) it ended with out provocation or warning. My blog followed a similar path as do many of my relationships. A passionate and ambitious, if not overly amorous, beginning, a keen desire for acceptance and understanding. Once it became comfortable it was followed by an inevitable and eventual case of "Swayzing" (See: Film, Ghost )(RIP Sir) on my part. As Elliott Smith (Again, RIP) once sang "I'm a junkyard full of false starts". That said in an effort to buck the tread I'm bringing the blog back. Just gonna try and keep the passion going and make it happen. No promises or proposals as far as entries limits or expectations, I'm just going to try and devote my energies to writing and I remain hopeful that keeps all of you reading. Assuming you are still out there and up for a second go around - blog readers that is, sorry babes.

So where do I pick this up. I can't very well just pick up from where I left off as that leaves me buried in months of news, sport, as well as film and album releases. That said I'll try and do a bit of back tracking on a few of the issues most prevalent to me over the past few months. To the Delorean we go. I'm proposing I ask a series of questions that would have plagued me back in August, only now I'm blessed with a comfortable seat in the quarterbacks Monday morning armchair with my 20/20 hindsight vision googles feeding me the facts in full effect. None the less keep a keen eye, I may still screw this up. Let's tackle and respond to some of the intriguing questions of that at the time that I feel still hold some semblance of importance at this point in time, it being only a short few months later. So without further ado here comes a visit from the ghost of blogger's past.

To the questions!

"Will the 2011-2012 NBA season start on time?"

Much like I anticipated then, (an easy thing to assert using my powerful system of knowledge of times already passed) I can assuredly report that the NBA will not see a tip off on October the 30th, as originally planned. I've you've followed the blog at all to this point, (a tortuously depriving experience, I know - you poor soul - get a hobby.) you know that I eat, sleep and breathe basketball, and have done so since my days of using my right hand on the left side. (Wait, I still do that - cue the opposing coach's unflattering but ultimately strategic chide of "force him left, he only wants to go right!" Damn you opposing coach. Damn you.) Clearly the answer to this question could be seen miles away. Players representative Billy Hunter has claimed in numerous interviews, he "knew this day was coming", and the NBA owners have openly used, "we don't care if there is no season, we want to change the current system." as their point of leverage all along. What infuriates me is that if the players rep knew this since way back when - why didn't they decertify the union way back on July 1st so they could get the sense of urgency underway. Or even August 1st or September 1st, once they had established that "negotiations in good faith" were going to be fruitless.

Now I had written a bunch more on this subject on Friday November 25 when I originally began writing this whole blog and at that time I used my crystal ball of things seen to try and prognosticate what would happen in my crystal ball of things unseen, which was considerably far snowier. At that time I believe I concluded that we had all become much more familiar with the college players of the day, because that was the only meaningful round ball we were going to see this winter. And as is the case with most things unseen, I have no idea what's going on. And as the crystal ball of the future of the NBA became less of an unseen and more of a "oooh, ah, ok, very good." I am happy to report that in less than 24 hours, I vehemently deny and rebuke my initial prophetic statements, to bring you the exciting news that the NBA will play a 65 game season and that the season will begin with a triple header on December 25th. Merry Christmas everyone. So instead of doing a report in my next blog chronicling the path the NBA took to it's own destruction, I plan on dosing out a little slice of "why this lock out and everyone involved pissed me off" along with a side of "why I will still love the NBA and will watch it this winter". Kind of a door/window thing there. But to answer the initial question, no you will not be able to watch the NBA and enjoy your Halloween treats at the same time, unless you are enjoying Halloween treats you stocked up on after the fact at a major discount. A classic 'cake and eat it too' instance, congrats.

Next up:

Will J.Cole's debut album "Cole World: The Sideline Story " sufficiently blow my mind?

Let's start with the disclaimer that my mind was at all time weak stage after having been sufficiently blown by season 4 of Breaking Bad, but that's a story for another day. Couple that with how low I think the current state of hip hop has lowered the bar, an I may be more easily impressed. That would certainly be the case if ancient relics the compact disc didn't still exist from my youth. As far as mind blowing debut albums let's set the bar at 4.5-5 out of 5. Numerical values set let's compare some mind blowing solo debuts of the past, it's gotta be on par with greats like Nas' "Illmatic", Jay Z's "Reasonable Doubt", Rae's "Only Built for Cuban Linx", Kanye's "College Dropout"', Snoop's Doggystyle and the list goes on and on from there.... but the fact remains all of these album's were game changers, I was looking for the same thing from J.Cole in 2011.

One thing that I think has shifted our perspective of how we rate debut albums is the current mix tape movement that didn't exist during the era of the albums I mentioned above. Because of this I feel J.Cole's debut is a bit different, this isn't the first we've heard of J.Cole, Cole has been around for a couple years now, hence the subtitle, "The Sideline Story". To take the influence of the mixtape and our mass-media-open-source-viral-video-you-tube-crazed-world further, I'd already heard plenty of the tracks on this album before the actual album dropped Sept.27th. The mix tape is now used as your entry point into the rap game.To me, this kind of takes away some of the novelty, atleast from the concept of an album as a whole, where in the past it's like a scavenger hunt and you're sifting through the album looking for the buried treasure of singles. We don't have the same type of "OMG! Have you heard this new cat Eminem's album? This guy is bonkers!" In the case of Nas and even Kanye West, we had heard them in limited cameo roles and anticipated their albums but we still didn't have an in-depth idea of what sort of flow and content they we're going to bring, I felt I did with J.Cole. Are mix tapes ruining albums, IMO I think in a way they are, because there is now so much crap to get through to find the good stuff, and on top of that, the goal is no longer to construct a 5 star album but instead to create a media sensation and a 5 star single - which will in turn either sell millions individually on itunes or lead listeners to buy the album solely for that song. But again, story for a different day. So all of my former diatribe aside - I'd say the J.Cole effort is deserving of 4 star praise, slightly below "mind blowing" and in the realm of "sensory popping".

I really liked the album, I think it's consistent from start to finish. Looking back over October and November I can say the album has had consistent rotations in my apartment and I rarely jump around from track to track, often preferring to let it run from start to finish. Two of the tests for a great album in my perspective are: a) Can you play the album from start to finish without feeling bloated by what I call "filler", b) Am I still looking to listen to the album 3 months and on after its release. While it's only been 2 months so far I can say that I will continue to listen to the album moving forward.

So to this point I've written plenty, but I haven't actually talked about the album itself. Cole's album's concept tells the story of how he has gotten off the sidelines and become a major 'player' in the game. (See what I did there) Through a series of weaving intro, interludes and skits we are given the story of how Cole got signed by Jigga and how ultimately the album and the artist came to be. The album starts out strong with an updated version of "Dollar and a Dream II". "Lights Please" is an enjoyable track, though I had heard it some 6 or 8 months before the albums release, on some mixtape somewhere. Jay-Z shows up on "Mr. Nice Watch" and helps out his new label mate, though I'd hesitate to say he outshines Cole here, the track is quite catchy, even if the hook doesn't say a whole lot. The next song "Cole World" sees J. go in over a great beat. Cole handles a lot of the production on the album so major kudos to him for that. "Lost Ones" sees Cole tackle a more serious topic in what I feel is a modern day take on Tupac's classic "Brenda's Got A Baby". Missy Elliott pops out from whatever rock she's been living under (in Missy's case it must be a rather large boulder) on "Nobody's Perfect" which is a good, lighthearted follow up to the heavier subject matter on "Lost Ones". The album is a bit top heavy with it's highlights but is still a strong lyrical effort throughout before finishing with the pre-released single "Work Out". If you got the deluxe version you'll enjoy "Nothing Lasts Forever" and lastly a much older track "Who Dat", which is a question listeners may have had when they heard it the first time but by now many of us know about the flow that is J.Cole. Would have liked to see them throw in a couple of the other singles that helped build his buzz like "Return of Simba" or "How High" over the past couple months int he deluxe edition but no such luck. 4 stars out of 5 is nothing to sneeze at so if you haven't given the album a listen yet, I highly recommend you do, it just may blow your mind.

And if you missed the BET Awards, hopefully you didn't miss the cyphers: Here's my favourite.

On to the next one...

Will anyone be able to stop Mike Vick and his "Dream Team" Philadelphia Eagles with all of their big off-season acquisitions? Ha! Taking a page out of the Miami Heat's book the Philadelphia Eagles had a monster off-season. Acquiring "shutdown" corner back Nmandi Asomugha, d-end Jason Babin, corner Dominic Rodgers-Cromartie and former Tennessee starter turned Vick back-up Vince Young. Also like the Miami Heat before them, the Eagles celebrated their off-season as if that is where the Superbowl is won and not at the end of a long gruelling NFL season. At 4-6 trying to recover their season from an irrelevant abyss heading in week 12 of the NFL season, the team once coined by Young as "the dream team" (for the record, there has and will only ever be one) has been an absolute nightmare. Vick has been under fire all season leading him to miss time at multiple spots this season; putting a smile on the face of all those who claimed he didn't have the durability to be relied upon as a fantasy no.1 overall pick. DeSean Jackson has let contractual issues result in him behaving like a petulant child on and off the field throughout the season. Sooking his way to a shitty season. Nmandi has hardly been the cover corner corner he was billed as, but that may be more the fault of the Eagles who have used him in a much different sort of defensive role than the Raiders had used him in the past. All the way around the season has been a disappointment for Philadelphia fans, a strong reminder that the football is the ultimate team game. Chemistry and ultimately execution are developed on the field through hard work, not merely through signatures on paper in the off season. The Eagles may pull it together moving forward but 2011-2012 will not be the season of the Eagle.

Some of the other surprises over the past couple months have been, the Cards pulling off a World Series calibre turn around to their season, can't mention that with the surprising collapse of the Red Sox that led to a full upheaval of another squad seemingly anointed for greatness. I've found the lack of quality films in the theatre(s) (Only Trinity with Crystal Palace out of the equation.) to be less surprising that frustrating. Maybe there's no good films out there, maybe they've been waiting for Oscar season to release them. But it seems to me we didn't get J.Edgar, we didn't get The Descendents, where is Driver? I would have liked Moneyball to stick around an extra week as I didn't get to it, instead we get Hugo, Arthur Christmas, Happy Feet 2, Jack and Jill, Puss in Boots? Is this some sort of joke? Anyway the movies have sucked, and I didn't know where else to get this in.

Lastly, something I would have questioned back in August and still have some doubts about is... what would a new version of my Hip Hop 2.0 look like? With so many new albums released between my last top 20 and today. (J. Cole, Drake's "Take Care", Jigga an Ye's "Watch the Throne", Wale's "Ambition", Game's "Red Album" and Luda dropped a solid mixtape as well.) So much music in there to select from, not to mention the countless singles and mixtape tracks that have been released so I've spent the day sifting through and compiling some kind of list. So here goes a whole new top 20 from scratch.

20. The Resurrection of Hip Hop - Lyn Charles Ft. Big K.R.I.T.

19. Here Ye, Here Ye - T.I. Ft. Pharell

18. Underground Kings - Drake

17. Say It To My Face - Ludacris Ft. Meek Mill

16. 5 on the Kush - B.O.B. Ft. Big K.R.I.T., Bun B