Rap [Names] Is Outta Control, Vol. 3

I really have been delaying this latest installment, which provides a doozy in terms of creative, uncreative, and just plain weird and strange stage names for the latest and often not so greatest members of this unique fraternity we affectionately refer to as the rap game.

It's to the point where my eyes have almost reached a state of absolute numbness when they scan over new rap offerings spattered across the latest blogs and other music sites.

But the truly sad part is that many renowned and accomplished rappers and producers that we know and grew up with are collaborating with these said artists; and seemingly have no problem doing so.

Is Jay Electronica the Carlos Boozer of Rap?

Six years ago Carlos Boozer accepted a $68 million offer from the Utah Jazz, which came as a total and complete surprise to his then-current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Six years later, LeBron James spurned the same team via a grandiose, drawn out announcement on prime time television that once again broke the collective heart of Cavaliers' fans.

In both instances, the Cavaliers were seemingly caught off guard and not expecting to lose their star players under any circumstances.

And now, just a few weeks ago to every one's surprise, Jay Electronica did the equivalent in Hiphop by signing a record contract with Jay-Z's record company, Roc Nation.

Now, it is no surprise that Electronica would enter into a record deal. In fact, it is what his fans were hoping for so that his music would be distributed in a wider and more professional manner than random Internet "leaks" every now and then.

But now details are emerging that suggest Jay Electronica pulled a Carlos Boozer and surprised everyone including his closest adviser, Just Blaze, who most likely had hopes of signing him to his own Fort Knocks Entertainment imprint.

Just Blaze didn't go as far as Diddy did by expressing his outrage via Twitter for the world to see (although Diddy recently rebuffed that notion), but a new video has recently surfaced in which Just says that while he and Jay Electronica are "still cool, there's things that we gotta talk about."



Just doesn't go into great detail, but he does say he understands how Diddy feels, which lets on that Just himself probably does feel some sense of betrayal from Jay Electronica.

It almost seems as though Jay Electronica and Just Blaze had an unwritten, binding understanding or agreement that Jay would be signed through Just's company and then sign with a major label. But it looks as though Jay has eliminated the middle man and gone straight to the cash cow, Shawn Carter.

Electronica can't be blamed for his decision, considering most of what Jay-Z touches turns to platinum or better. But lately Jay's track record hasn't been so stellar, what with J Cole floundering in the underground and Willow Smith making the most noise of all the artists on the Roc Nation roster.

On the flip side, Just Blaze is notorious for his problems with securing record deals for his artists, and Jay Electronica probably wants to get his career moving and not be relegated to being an Internet artist.

And aside from Biggie, Diddy's track record with signing rappers to Bad Boy have been nothing short of disappointing, disastrous, and in some cases demented.

At least with Jay-Z, Electronica will ideally have ready access to the best of everything, including an upper tier production team that is not solely made up of Just Blaze, as well as a guarantee of worldwide distribution.

As with Boozer and LeBron, it seems that Jay Electronica went not only to the highest bidder, but also to the team that gave him the best chance of winning immediately, and he can't be faulted for that.

Note to Just Blaze: No Idea's Original

One of my biggest pet peeves with Hiphop music today is its serious lack of creativity.

Many times this dearth rears its ugly head in the form of musical output from rap music producers.

Some of today's best [and worst] producers routinely "flip" old beats, trying to pass off new versions of old songs as their own original creations.

And as much as I respect Just Blaze for his contributions to my favorite genre of music, I have an equal amount of disdain for the way presents his music as his own compositions when the true inspiration is from a rap record years earlier.

Then we have the youth -- who has never been widely exposed to some of Hiphop's older songs because of the perennial disrespect for the culture's pioneers-- who go ahead and crown certain folks the best at their craft without ever taking the past into consideration.

Case and point: Saigon's newest song, "Get Busy."



The beat samples the melody from Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. video game, and the drums knock hard and the lyrics are nice too. However, a closer listen from a refined, learned ear reveals that the track is nothing but a sped up reprisal of the Coco Brovaz's [then-groundbreaking] song Super Brooklyn, released in 2000.

It was just a few weeks earlier that rapper Jay Electronica (who is a frequent musical collaborator of Just Blaze) released his new song with Jay-Z called The Shiny Suit Theory, which also is nothing but a slightly altered version of Pete Rock & CL Smooth's I Got a Love released 15 years earlier.

A deeper look into Just Blaze's production credits shows these are not his only jacking-for-beats offenses.

He shamelessly bites and simultaneously bastardizes Public Enemy's 1991 hit Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos for rapper Game's 2006 song Remedy.

He took the same production route for Beanie Sigel's 2001 song So What Cha Sayin, which is identical in music AND name alike to EPMD's classic released in 1991.

Then there's Jay-Z's Public Service Announcement, a track that is made up entirely from a loop of an interlude from OC's timeless debut album, Word...Life:



This last example, however obscure, is still considered a major bite because of the context in which its presented -- as his own. Unlike The Kid Daytona, who recently released an album made up of full length songs inspired by random interludes from rap albums over the years, Just Blaze is NOT paying homage to the producers who came before him.

Does any of this take away from Just Blaze's talent? Of course not. He is still the man responsible for some of rap's best beats over the past decade, including Freeway's What We Do, Cam'Ron's Oh Boy, and Joe Budden's Pump It Up, which are all instant classics.

But it certainly does water down the overall product enough to leave Just Blaze out of the larger debate about who the best Hiphop producer (current and of all time) is.