Mos Def, Talib Kwali, Ghostface and more 11/1/05 - Santa Cruz

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I saw Organized back in the "Stress" era

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You sir, are my hero.
[bragpost] I saw Aceyalone on the Balls Don't Bounce tour...[/bragcrap]

but yours is more better...2x awesome rappers.

As a hijack...Does being in a group (remember that ? rap "groups"...) diminish the individual greatness of rappers?

If you were to make a top 10 greatest rappers list, wouldn't it be hard to put say, a certain member of the pharcyde on it, even though their first album would easily make the 10 greatest records ever? Individual awesomeness > group efforts (?)

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well, my counter bragpost...last year when I was briefly stinting as a writer for a friend's startup music mag, I interviewed Haiku De Tat, and I have a recording of me freestyling back and forth for a couple minutes with Mikah Nine. Now there is one really good freestyler - it's too bad that his talent never translates that well to wax.

Oddly enough, Aceyalone was supposed to perform this past Friday night at the Normandie casino, a sh*thole place in Gardena, CA - I hadn't seen him in ages so I figured I'd head down there, play some 4/8 and dip in to see Acey (my distaste for most new underground stuff plus my age relative to the rest of the crowd usually results in me skipping openers these days) - I mean, come on, how can i pass up the combination of hold 'em and classic underground hip-hop 50 feet away from each other? Plus, what was really intriguing to me was the prospect of seeing such an odd MC perform for an audience which wasn't going to be the standard lame underground hip-hop audience (read: 95% white)...but unfortunately not enough people showed for him to perform. Weak. At least I took $200 from the 4/8 game in about 2 1/2 hours.

As for the group question, I don't think being in a group diminishes if your verses really stand out from the other MC's, especially if you've dropped a good solo record, both of which apply to acey and pharoahe, maybe Q-Tip. Defintely Zev Love/MF Doom. Ice Cube (don't front, pre-acting Cube was great). Whatever Wu member you like most. etc etc...the Pharcyde, however, is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Nobody really stood out and nobody had any solo success. that's actually what made the album kinda great. I think Fatlip was probably the most talented though - i mean look how uninspring they are without him.