Pete Rock speaks, Fantasia Pregnant?, Ja Rule album Snippets, New Styles P track, Freeway - Free At Last LINK FIXED, new music, BMF Judgment Day

Lupe Rhyming from the perspective of a cheeseburger...strange

November 14, 2007, 2:05 PM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
Rapper Lupe Fiasco embodies multiple characters and concepts on his sophomore album, "Lupe Fiasco's The Cool," due Dec. 18 via 1st and 15th/Atlantic.

Among the characters are Michael Young History, the Game (described as "a male personification of a hustler's damaging influences") and the Streets ("a female embodiment of an urban area's corrupt allure").

Throughout, dark production by Soundtrakk, UNKLE and Chris and Drop enhances the weighty themes, particularly on "Street on Fire" (about a burgeoning epidemic) and "Put You on Game." Among the few guests are Snoop Dogg, who turns up on "High Definition," while Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump serves as the producer of "Little Weapons."

A number of tracks diverge from the conceptual theme, including "Gold Watch" and "Paris Tokyo," on which Fiasco longs for a simpler life atop a jazzy backing track with shades of A Tribe Called Quest. Perhaps the oddest song is "Gotta Eat," which is apparently written from the perspective of a cheeseburger and is rife with food/life metaphors.

Fiasco makes at least two allusions to quitting the music business after one more album, "L.U.P.N.," but he ends "The Cool" on an up-tempo note with "Go Baby Go." "Congratulations ladies, this one's for you," he says.

"The Cool" is the follow-up to last year's "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor," which spawned the Grammy-nominated single "Kick, Push."

Here is the track list for "Lupe Fiasco's The Cool":

Iesha Poem
"Free Chilly"
"Go Go Gadget Flow"
"The Coolest"
"Superstar" featuring Mathew Santos
"Paris Tokyo"
"High Definition" featuring Snoop Dogg and Pooh Bear
"Little Weapon"
"Hip-Hop Saved My Life" featuring Nikki Jean
"Gold Watch"
"Street on Fire" featuring Mathew Santos
"Hello Goodbye"
"Gotta Eat"
"Dumb It Down" featuring Gemini and Graham Burris
"The Die" featuring Gemini
"Put You on Game"
"Fighters" featuring Mathew Santos
"Go Baby Go"

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Pete Rock Speaks on how Beats are Weak these days

In the summer of 1987, E-mu Systems released the SP-1200, a drum machine and sampler designed for dance-music producers. An update of a previous model known as the SP-12, the souped-up edition allowed for the recording and manipulation of a 10.07-second sample with gritty 12-bit sound quality—now you could craft a complete instrumental on one portable machine.
Just as the Stradivarius or the Fender Stratocaster were standard-bearers by which other instruments were judged, the SP-1200 quickly became the tool of choice for East Coast beat-makers during rap's so-called "Golden Age," a period during the late '80s and early '90s, when sampling laws were still being meted out in courtrooms. Such artists as Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, Gang Starr, Main Source, and the Notorious B.I.G. created classic joints over beats concocted on the SP-1200. The machine rose to such prominence that its strengths and weaknesses sculpted an entire era of music: The crunchy digitized drums, choppy segmented samples, and murky filtered basslines that characterize the vintage New York sound are all mechanisms of the machine.

Long ago toppled by more powerful equipment and computer-based production programs, the sampler continues to inspire enough cultish devotion that any prospective knob-twister still must shell out around $1,000 to go retro. We spoke with several of hip-hop's must celebrated veteran producers about their experiences with the SP-1200 over the last 20 years."

"When I first got the SP-1200—I think that was back in '87—I was going to sessions with my cousin Heavy D, and he was working with Marley Marl. I would just be looking around and looking at the stuff they had and looking at what he was doing. Eddie F had the drum machine, and he showed me how to work it. I basically studied the manual—read it beginning to end and learned it like that. I used it all day, every day. I never came outside—just woke up happy to have a piece of machinery that made music. I didn't give a damn about anything else once I got that drum machine."

"Everything that you ever heard from me back in the day was the SP-1200. That machine made "Reminisce" ["They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)"], "Straighten It Out," "Shut 'Em Down," "Jump Around." When I made "Reminisce"—I had friend of mine that passed away, and it was a shock to the community. I was kind of depressed when I made it. And to this day, I can't believe I made it through, the way I was feeling. I guess it was for my boy. When I found the record by Tom Scott, basically I just heard something incredible that touched me and made me cry. It had such a beautiful bassline, and I started with that first. I found some other sounds and then heard some sax in there and used that. Next thing you know, I have a beautiful beat made. When I mixed the song down, I had Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School in the session with me, and we all just started crying."

"I used the MPC [a technologically superior sampler line first introduced in 1988] on Soul Survivor II. That was kind of the beginning of using it. I thought it had a thinner sound than the SP, but it had way more sample time—like three minutes. So, can't beat that. I got hundreds of beats on the SP-1200, but I like the MPC. I'm really starting to get in the midst of it now."

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0746,detrick,78335,22.html
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Fantasia Pregnant by Young Dro?

There are rumors that Fantasia is pregnant and the father is rapper Young Dro, who is signed to T.I.´s label Grand Hustle.
According to an insider, Fantasia Barrino has been talking openly to the cast of the Broadway show "The Color Purple" about her new condition.

Congrats to Fantasia and Young Dro!

In other news: Young Dro will release his second album titled "Young & Restless" in February 2008. The album will be released on Grand Hustle. It is rumored that Dro will be working with producers Lil C, G-Harp The Producer, DJ Toomp and more.
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Ja Rule Mirror Snippets

1. Father Forgive Me
2. Uh Ohhh
3. Body
4. Sunset
5. 300
6. Judas
7. Rules of Engagement
8. Enemy of State
9. Ladies
10. Something New
11. Damn
12. Hearsay
13. It’s All Hood
14. The Mirror
15. Sing a Prayer 4 Me
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Styles P ft. Max B - Holiday (off his new album)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4913967acc3ec6/
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01 03:44 This Can't Be Real (featuring Marsha Ambrosius)
02 03:40 It's Over
03 03:45 Still Got Love
04 03:41 Roc-A-Fella Billionaires (featuring Jay-Z)
05 03:43 When They Remember
06 03:42 Take It To The Top (featuring 50 Cent)
07 03:43 Spit That ****
08 03:59 Reppin' The Streets
09 03:38 Free At Last
10 03:27 Baby Don't Do It (featuring Scarface)
11 02:55 Nuttin' On Me
12 04:06 Walk Wit Me (featuring Busta Rhymes & Jadakiss)
13 03:43 Lights Get Low (featuring Rick Ross)
14 03:11 I Cry

LINK FIXED
http://rapidshare.com/files/69870147/FFAL-07-cleanupman.zip

Thoughts on the album? How much is it gonna sell first week? I'm saying 35-45K at most, unfortunately

Please support the artist and buy the album on the 20th...Free has been spitting crazy stuff lately.
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New Music

Big Kuntry - How we Rockin
http://www.zshare.net/audio/49123550f3c686/

Freeway ft. Rick Ross & Fabolous - Gettin mine (not on album)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4912374af5e068/

Wyclef ft. Shakira - King and queen
http://www.zshare.net/audio/49084902177811/

Jag ft. DJ Unk - Trap Walk
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4912531d7a28b2/

Katt Williams ft. Paul Wall Mike Jones & Young Redd - Shining
http://www.zshare.net/audio/49124929f7afc0/

Young Buck - Ghetto Superstar
http://www.zshare.net/audio/491243339b9e75/

Jay-Z ft. Obie Trice - Fallin
http://www.badongo.com/file/5128030
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Black Mafia Family (BMF) Judgment Day Coming


Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory had a certain style of doing things: way over the top.

When he traveled, his entourage numbered in the dozens. When he threw parties, he stocked them with high-priced champagne, ice sculptures and zoo animals, and enough eye candy to cause a stomachache. Inside the sprawling DeKalb County home where investigators say he lived, the walls were hung with framed photos of mob boss John Gotti and fictitious drug lord Tony Montana. One of his alleged associates – who's now a convicted cocaine dealer serving a life sentence – was Mayor Shirley Franklin's son-in-law.

Even some of the crimes of which Meech was suspected (though never indicted) have been of mythic proportions: the 1997 murder of a federal witness the day after the witness was released from custody, the 2003 death of Sean "Diddy" Combs' former bodyguard in a gun battle behind a Buckhead club.

But perhaps the most outsized of all is Meech's reputation – whether legit or not – as a ruthless yet magnanimous don, one who frightened his enemies and lavished generous rewards on his friends. His defense team will try to deconstruct that image, but one thing can't be disputed: No matter what the occasion, Meech did it big.

His federal trial, scheduled to begin Nov. 26 in Detroit, will be no exception.

Court documents filed by the prosecution allege that with Flenory and his younger brother at the helm, the organization they created – the Black Mafia Family – was one of the country's most prodigious cocaine rings. (Meech and his alleged criminal enterprise were the subject of a three-part series published last year by CL.) BMF is believed to have moved thousands of kilos of coke each month and laundered more than a quarter of a billion dollars in drug proceeds. Along the way, the organization was aided by a strict code of silence that blanketed crew members – at least for a time.

In an attempt to prove a "historical conspiracy" that dates back to the late '80s, the government has amassed more than 11,000 pages of evidence – an unusual amount of documentation, according to Drew Findling, an Atlanta-based attorney who represents Meech.

Read the rest of the interesting article at:
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A337283