Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast.
So Eminem didn't call ryn Fest the N word and
there is video receipts to prove it Outcasts and Salt
and Pepper make it into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. Have some thoughts on that. And Lloyd Banks,
(00:22):
Benny the Butcher, and Jericho Jackson. I know you thinking
that's somebody like the Jackson Five. It's not drop new
projects and it's going to be a speed round of
reviews just for you happy holidays. It's not a holiday.
(00:43):
Let's do it. Welcome to your pop Now podcasts. Shit
you from the future. You know what you do, so
disrespectful leg lead hip hop say this today es get
(01:04):
rightful to the business. What up, y'all? I am your
host Vegas and this is Hip Hop Now Podcasts, a
podcast specifically designed to keep you caught up on all
things hip hop, music and culture that happened throughout the week.
Big shout out to the supporters of this podcast on
audio form, whether you're listening through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
(01:30):
any third party podcasting app. I like to use pocket cast.
I just prefer it. I'm just saying, and they're not
giving me a dime to say that. By the way. Also,
also if you are watching on the video side of things,
(01:50):
we have been on a mission that started last year
to get to one thousand subscribers by the end of
twenty twenty four. We want up hitting that right before
the new year. And then we kind of blasted off,
and so I was like, okay, well, let's go for
five thousand at the end of twenty twenty five. But
(02:11):
then before we can even hit the halfway point, because
we're not there yet. Within twenty twenty five, we hit
five thousand subscribers, and then you know, it was kind
of cool and steady, and it was more subscribers that
came through appreciate you, new, past, present, whatever. And then
I said, okay, well, let's go for it. Then by
(02:35):
the end of twenty twenty five Hip Hop Now Podcasts
and video form, we want to hit ten thousand subscribers,
and people are here to tell you we are not
at ten thousand yet, but we are at eight thousand.
And if you watch this show or you listen to
this show, you know, just a week ago, just a
(02:58):
week ago, on this podcast, we were at six thousand.
So that's two thousand in a week. My numbers are up. Okay,
I'm up, all right. So I appreciate everybody who subscribes
to this channel again, whether you come here for this
weekly news program or some of my media stuff coming
(03:19):
out but the program podcast, or you come here for
you know, the shorts, you know, and for people who
don't know, who've probably been following for a while on
my ig, which you can follow me everywhere, but at
Vegas World, I NC in my stories. You know. I
(03:41):
like to like share dope hip hop content I see
coming from other individuals, whether that's a video, a freestyle
or rap battle. You know something about hip hop, I
like to reshare. So my whole vibe is to reshare
other people's content as well, because I think it's dope.
(04:02):
So I started doing the very same thing right here
on YouTube, and people appreciated and sparking conversation about artists
and things like that. But there are some people who
also subscribe to this channel because they like the historical
podcast that I do call that Time in Hip Hop
with the Homie Tony from Into the Dome podcast, and
(04:25):
we have like seventy something episodes talking about albums in
history moments in history, producers, labels, films, artists, obviously all
kinds of things right in hip hop. Seventy something episodes
and it's right here on this channel. But we just
did a new episode and this episode is dedicated to
(04:51):
Ruthless Records. We talk about the impact of Ruthless Records,
not only at that point in time in history in
the early nine or really I mean the late eighties,
but also the tree, the roots of the tree that
extend from Easy taking his straight money and funding Ruthless
(05:18):
Records to start UH and and have groups like n
w A and the d O C and even on
the R and B side Michelle a above the law
like obviously bone Thugs. Also so me and Tony. In
this podcast, we literally go from the beginning. We talk
about the impact of the label. We talk about how
(05:39):
the label doesn't get talked about enough. Obviously, we talk
about Easy, the whole thing with when Dre and sug
Knight and d OC left the story about you know
the story air quotes about you know, Easy being forced
(06:01):
to sign them over and we dispoke, We debunked that,
and it's pretty it's pretty simple. You don't even really
have to hear that much from the people back then.
It's just some logic. So again we talk about the label,
we go over everything, we talk about. You know where
it stopped obviously with easy E check that out. That's
(06:23):
on the channel that time and hip Hop the impact
of Ruthless Records and for you audio listeners is also available.
And I mean, if you're subscribed, you already know it's
in your feed. But if you're an audio listener who
came across this video and wants to go subscribe audio form,
you can also listen to it there. Those videos tend
(06:45):
to be longer form videos because we got it. You know,
we gotta say all the things. But I mean we
got to say all the things. You know what I'm saying.
So it is what it is. First of all. Next up,
okay Morgan say yousity as well. This is for all
the video people watching. This is sound dressed. And I
just said that for the audio people watching, So big
(07:08):
shout out to hip hop DX dot com, especially all
hip hop dot com coming through with the receipts in
some of the places where I get some of these
stories from. Let's get right to the business. So last
week I reported, well, first of all, if you're from
the future and it's already happened, and come on, dog,
(07:29):
get your ass out of here. You you every you
know everything already okay, But last week I reported on
Romfest talking about a rap battle that took place in
I think like ninety eight again, you know, with him
versus Eminem, And in this interview that he was in
(07:50):
he said that Eminem called him an N word, which
was like WHOA what to you to your face in
front of people, and nothing happened. It was almost unbelievable,
but we had no reason not to believe him unless
you were there, right, So it turns out that was
not true. That was not true. So as a hip
(08:14):
hop journalist in this sense, because that's what my podcast is,
you know, we were looking for the truth and shout
out to all hip hop dot com who received the
complete footage. Now I'm not trying to be that guy,
but we know in twenty twenty five things could be edited.
(08:38):
Of course, that could happen anytime, but you know, with
AI we can tweak things, right. You know, you can
watch a video that's blurry from ninety eight with Eminem's
back to you and you hear the rym and rom
could be edited right, But we're gonna go where the
story is because I don't think rom festus said anything
(08:59):
about out. Here's the story. We're being reported by hip
hop dx dot com. Ronfest claimed that he was called
the N word by Eminem during the rap battle in
the late nineteen nineties. However, it appears that was not
actually the case, according to All hip Hop, who received
complete footage of the rap battle in question from D
(09:24):
twelve's Kuneva. I didn't listen to D twelve. I don't
know what Timmy David said. Who are these niggas? I
just never listened to D twelve. I'm sorry. Eminem does
not say the racial slur at any point during the exchange.
The footage proofs that Romfest misremembered the line Eminem threw
(09:47):
at him, and you can go to All hip hop
dot COM's instagram. They have the video up there. I'm
just gonna warn people who probably like to listen to
this podcast and don't generally hear curse words, you might
hear a few when I play this video, so let's
play for the audience. So there was a lot of
(10:10):
cuss words, but I didn't hear the N word. So
let's see if he said anything else. Okay, I'll just
read the lyrics also if you couldn't hear that. However,
in the footage, Eminem can clearly be heard rapping, I'll
let my razors split you till they have to staple
(10:33):
stitch you, and everybody in this fing place will miss
you if you try to turn my facial tissue facial
issue into a racial issue. And at the end at
the end of this article, it says Rampest has yet
to comment on the development. While Eminem did not respond
to the initial accusation, bad Boys Moving silenced, twelve Guy
(11:00):
added back, So honestly, it was reported people reacted to
it because there was no reason to not trust ron Fest,
because I don't think he gave us a reason to
not trust him at any point. You know, but this,
and I watched the video when he talked about it,
(11:21):
hearing this, knowing what he was saying, watching his face
as he was saying it in the interview. He knew
he was lying because he had an interview and he
wanted to, you know, say something that would get some
traction with news media, and it did well hip hop media,
and it did. But Now this looks bad. This looks
(11:43):
bad because if ron Fest came out and be like,
hey man, I'm standing right there that video was edited,
then whatever, But clearly it was not said. So let's
move on. So this past week it was announced, well,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced who was
(12:05):
going to be inducted into the twenty into the twenty
twenty five class. And they've been doing more than one
hip hop artist seems like each year, which I think
is dope, and this year is outcast in Salt and
Pepper getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now,
(12:26):
I know cats have been saying this for years, and
maybe you are young hip hop head, you know, getting
your feet wet mouth full of similarc I guess pause
on that whatever bars also, but you may be saying,
but it's the rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Who cares?
(12:48):
And why and why do they get in versus somebody else.
I'll into both for you, shorty, okay, and don't call
me young. I'm not your uncle, okay, but you can
call me o G. That's cool. I kind of like that.
But I felt like, well, I feel like, on the
(13:09):
one hand, with the first question or whatever, is the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as it relates to
rappers getting in. When you look at Outcasts and Salt
and Pepper, who are hip hop legends in the game,
They've done so much to represent hip hop in so
many different ways, especially being from two different regions. So
(13:32):
I kind of like that as well. This hip hop
is not one burrow. Hip hop is not one city
or coast or nothing. It's all of it. It's global now,
let's just keep it a buck. It's global now, okay.
But I kind of feel like when it comes to
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a rapper,
(13:55):
they do look at a certain level of success, right,
which is not exactly how we look at it, right,
Like they Outcasts have sold records, Salt and Pepper have
sold records. They have whether it was intentional or not,
they have crossover hits, right. They have fans that are
(14:17):
not just all hip hop fans. And I'm not saying
that's a bad thing. That's actually a good thing, right
because you spread what real hip hop is and some
have played with that and you know, kind of gone
off the deep end and lost a little integrity with
what they create. But at the end, of it all.
(14:42):
It's about the fact that this group is bigger than
just the hip hop category, right, and that's how they
get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And
it makes sense for that kind of criteria. But when
hip hop heads talk about, well, you know, like which
(15:04):
is gonna happen because there's the hip Hop Museum going up,
but we talk about our Hall of Fame, well, then
it's different because it's not just about sales. Sometimes it's
not even I mean, you have to have impact, Like
they're not letting anybody into a hip hop Hall of Fame.
You have to have some form of impact, but it
(15:26):
doesn't have to mean that you've sold you've went platinum. Right.
Rockhem is one of the greatest rappers of all time
Cougi rap. Also, they've fathered in style and cadence and
influence some of your favorite rappers to this day, some
(15:48):
of the people you feel comfortable calling to go. Those
are just two examples. Similar on the West Coast with
Ice Cube and Snoop. They've influenced so many, right. But
the thing I want to get back to with rock
Him and Kuchi raps specifically, they didn't sell a lot
of records now, the way you hear us talk about them,
(16:10):
you would think platinum was easy, especially for an album
like Everic being Rock. EM's paid it full. It's it's
a monument in hip hop because it was just so Uh.
I was gonna say Mount Rushmore, That's what I really meant, uh.
(16:31):
But it's just such a staple cornerstone within hip hop
that the minute you mentioned it for hip hop has
that's the thought like, and if it was an official
hall of Fame that hip hop has tried in the past,
it kind of failed and didn't have the I think
(16:53):
through the so and so so didn't have the staying
power of what the rock and roll rock and Roll
Hall of Fame is to feel like the official hip
hop in a hall rock him's getting in quick, He's
getting in before a lot of the people who are
in the rock and roll Hall of Fame, and I
(17:14):
don't believe rock is in the hip hop Hall of Fame.
And that's why that's the difference, right You, for one,
the people who are kind of running this and you
get to vote, because I voted myself for Outcasts and
Salt and Pepper, But the people who like at the
end of the day would probably decide this, And I'm
(17:36):
kind of loose on you know, how these things work,
because I doubt it's just to vote, because I think if,
for example, rock Him started to put Up started to
do a campaign to get into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame next year, and it was solely based
off of public voting, he getting in because hip hop
(18:01):
is gonna show up for Rocket. But that just makes
me think this is a different kind of hall where
you have to have some commercial success and he just doesn't, right,
he doesn't. He doesn't come close to having the type
of success that Salt and Pepper had with some of
(18:21):
the hit records in the nineties that you know people
love like Shoot and What a Man and all of
that and all the other work they did, but also
their foundation within hip hop, like I love Tramp to
this day. I love that record. It's probably my favorite
Salt and Pepper record. I'm not gonna lie. And then Outcasts,
what more can you say? Outcasts? Shout out to Tony
(18:47):
from Into the Dome podcast. He put it best on
on Twitter where he said Outcast doesn't have an album
that sounds the same, not one, not one our When
I think in total, they have what five or maybe
six counting Idlewild, Let's go through it, Southern playlistic at Aliens,
(19:12):
stink on the stink on Her. What's what's the other one?
I'm forgetting Quemini and yeah, so it's six because Love
Below and speaker Box and then Idlewild soundtrack, which I love.
I don't know why people hate it it. I like it.
It's good. But none of them sound the same. All
(19:33):
of them are different. And you know what what Idlewold
the movie was whack. I agree with that, boss, but
the music was great. And when you think about all
this stuff about Delta Blues in the movie centers idle Whild,
it is kind of ahead of its time. You know,
my voice get high. You know, it's go back and
(19:57):
go back and watch the movie. It's terrible. Let's just
go back and watch it. There's no vampires, and it relaxed.
But when you listen to the music and those influences
and what they were going for, they were kind of
already putting the spot like on black music in that way,
or blues in general as far as influences back then
(20:21):
and Outcast has so many different albums like It's almost
like you can pick a version of Outcast that you like.
You know what I'm saying. So they've sold records, They're
a huge group. I would love for them to after
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announce, just do it,
right on stage, announce a shadow drop. Okay, I said
(20:41):
it like an old man. But that's because I listened
to the children. Okay, I listened to the kids when
they talk gay Vegas. Love the kids. A shadow shadow
drop for people who are older is basically like a
surprise drop of music, or that term is kind of
popular in the video game world. But right there on
(21:04):
the stage, you know, we want to think, we want
to think, we want to think, we want to thank South.
Got something to say out New Outcast albums dropping tonight
at midnight, boom. The frenzy that would ensue online on
social media anticipation would be crazy. And I ain't talking
(21:26):
about no EP. Also, don't want no thirty songs, right,
just a clean, maybe twelve song new album from Outcasts.
Here you go tour with whoever coming later. Man listen
first of all, Pauls. But man, listen, listen when I
(21:46):
tell you. Okay, that's how the old heads used to
talk to us and be like what it was just
it would just be dope, So we'll see. Congratulations to outcasts,
Congratulations to Salt Pepper, who don't always get mentioned when
we're talking about female mcs in a hip hop game.
Salt Pepper got something to say, all right. And lastly,
(22:12):
so this week we got a couple of new drops
of music or projects in general, and I was trying
to decide on which album EP I should review, and
then I kind of thought like, well, why don't I
just do a quick review of all three? Now I
(22:34):
do these reviews just to inform the hip hop heads
who might be looking for something new or want to know, like, yo,
is this still good? Is he still good at what
he does? What else is out? Blah blah blah. So
if you don't know, I rate albums and EPs and
projects by giving them three listens. The first listen is
(22:55):
just me kind of vibing and listening to what's being presented.
Can listen is now I'm gonna listen more intently to
the lyrics, connect the concepts, all these different things, like
really get a deep dive into the album, really pay
attention to what the artist is presented and the third
(23:15):
listen is just to confirm my thoughts. So first up,
we're gonna do three albums, real quick, three projects, real quick.
First up, brand new album from Lloyd Banks, who has
been feeding the hip hop public. It was like Lloyd
Banks disappeared for a while, even though some of us
who know, especially in that fifth days the Halloween, having
(23:40):
mixtapes crazy and I kept wondering, like why does he
make more music? Well, when the pandemic went down, Lloyd
Bank say, you know what, y'all're about to get a trilogy.
Upon trilogy, He's released probably like six albums and something
crazy and a couple I think like two or three mixtapes. Well,
his latest album AO and three, despite my mistakes, it
(24:04):
is eighteen songs. And when Lloyd Banks, he don't do
he doesn't do a skits. So he giving you eighteen songs.
And I'm not talking about two minutes here, one minute
and twenty one seconds. No, he old school. He giving
you a couple of five minute records and all at
(24:25):
eighteen of them joints. But it only clocks in at
one hour and five minutes, which is still fun. Guest
features include Ransom Styles p ghost Face. First of all
those three, they're versus on his album Chef's Kiss, perfect
(24:46):
collaborations on perfect songs. What do I feel about this album?
Just straight up on a rated I think it's definitely
one of the best of the year. I wouldn't put
it in my top five because I feel like he
could have even though the songs are dope, he could
(25:07):
have removed maybe four or five songs from it because
Lloyd Banks is very monitor his delivery. His inflections really
don't change that much. But he's dumb nice with the pen,
so that's why you pull up to listen to what
(25:27):
he got to say. And again, the guest appearances are great.
But what I like most about this album is sometimes
sometimes Lloyd Banks can put out a project and the
beats are so so right, Like the last Halloween Havoc,
it was like, oh, that's cool. My expectations were much higher,
(25:48):
but it's all right this one though. The beats of
fire and again, these songs are longer than you're used
to hearing. Hopefully I don't have to say pause after that,
but it's just like it's it's great. So I think
(26:08):
that was it for me, right, Like when I'm getting
to like the tenth song. I kept feeling like the
album was about to be over and I didn't. I
didn't realize, like, yo, there's mad songs left, you know
what I'm saying. So it's kind of it's kind of
like a gift in a curse, right, Like it's dope.
You should love it. I think if you don't listen
(26:30):
to a lot of hip hop, and you know, you
kind of like live with the one or two things
you like, and you like Lloyd Banks, you'll like this album.
It's enough there to keep going listening. You know, you
can recite the lyrics and all that. I really like
what he did with art of rap if you want
some real hip hop lyricism, wordplay, flipping, you know things,
(26:56):
you know, because it's about rap and he does a
lot of mentioning names of rappers. But you'll see just
listen to that record. It's the way he ties it together. Though, yeah,
I think it's a dope album. Won't be in my
top five because of what I said earlier about how
long the album is and with him kind of being monotone,
(27:21):
you know, you can My mind started to drift a
little bit as we got like past track twelve, So
but it's a it's a great album. Listen to it
for yourself, Decide for yourself. Another project that dropped. It's
being listened as an album. But dog, this is an
EP A need a Butcher released at EP called Excelsior
(27:44):
Right where did I hear that from? Like Back to
the Future or something like that. Whatever, But it's seven songs,
twenty minutes in twenty three seconds, so that is definitely
EP territory features. He has, Uh who else is on hand?
(28:06):
I can't see most of these people. I do not
know who they are, Okay, but Bodie James is on hand,
and y'all know, or maybe you don't know. I'm not
the biggest Bodie James fan because I'm not the biggest
fan of his style of rap, which is that disinterested,
you know, stupor kind of rap flow. But boldly showed
(28:29):
up on this record. He got a little energy on it.
It's called a duffel Bag Hotti's Revenge, and I think
I know when I said that he played like what
I think the idea was kind of like a real
laid back kind of joint. As far as the album,
stoles p is crazy on here on a song called
Toxic stoles P. I know he mentioned maybe a year
(28:51):
ago that he was going to record a final album.
I think that final album is going to be crazy
because Stiles. When I heard him rapping on it and
he's on the Lloyd Banks joint, I'm like, Oh, that
doesn't sound like a man who needs to retire. No,
that sounds like a man who needs to just don't
(29:11):
make albums all the time. At one point, Stoles People's
coming out with albums like it felt like every week.
And it was a lot because some albums were really dope.
He was never really whack, but some albums were just
kind of like yah, And I said, I'll do a
tear pist. A tear pist? Wow, what is a tear pist?
What is that? Blame it on the allergyes, y'all tearless?
(29:36):
Where I rank Styles Pie's catalog. I thought about doing
it for the Locks in general, but not just as
group albums, but just all the Locks solo joints. The
Jadakiss is the one where you can look at it
and say, oh, it's just a couple of albums. I'll
do that, But Styles and She have so many albums.
(29:59):
I don't if I could do it, I don't know,
So maybe I'll just do that tearless for Styles because
he's put it in a lot of work and I
think his catalog is step slept on. As far as
this Benny the Butcher project, I'm a big Benny the
Butcher fan, and I gotta watch my words because last
(30:20):
year I wasn't like too hyped about his album and
then I wind up not the summertime Benny joined the
one like Everybody Can't Go. I think that was the
name of the title. I'm the name of the title
name of the album. We're going to end this podcast
quick boy, because I am the meds got me going
(30:42):
crazy with this allergy. But I talked about that album
last year and I was like, yeah, I'm kind of disappointed,
but da da dah. And then the more I listened
to it, I was like, Okay, I like the album,
but what was I thinking? I think it's going to
be the same for this whereas I don't feel like
this is top notch. Benny the Butcher rhymen like his
(31:04):
best rhymen. Ever, I like the beats, I like some
of the rohms. You know, I think it's good. I
don't know if it's gonna make the Best of the
year because it's not extraordinary to me like the albums
that I would add to the best of the year
so far, at least right now. Maybe it would make
(31:28):
the list, but that's recentcy bias basically when it comes
to that. So that's that. If you like Benny the Butcher,
this may be hit a miss. I'm curious to see
what people think. Leave it comments in the comments section below.
And lastly, there was a new EP from Jericho Jackson. No,
(31:49):
that's not the other Jackson brother who was adopted. That's
a group featuring rapper l Zi and producer Crisis. They
did a project a while back that is really dope.
I think it was self titled Jericho Jackson. Yeah, Crisis
and Elzi are Jericho Jackson. I'm probably gonna spend that
(32:11):
again because it's been a while. They released that in
twenty eighteen. It was like critically acclaimed when it came
to the hip hop heads. I believe I had it
as one of the best of the year, maybe not
top five. They got a new EP called I Am Him.
But I will say this, it's cool, but it's really
(32:32):
only three songs, three short songs, and the other six tracks.
I mean the other three tracks are instrumentals of those songs,
So it's thirteen minutes total. And I'm a little disappointed.
I'm not gonna front. I kind of expected more. I
(32:54):
guess my I was hyped a little bit because I
thought we were getting an album, right, and maybe this
is to lead to an eventual album. And these are
the quote unquote throwaways from what we're going to get
to that I say you should have dropped the album,
(33:15):
because honestly, I'd rather you just go for it with
everything you've got than to give us three songs that
are not whack at all but just kind of like cool.
So again, if you're a person that don't listen to everything,
and you have the things you like and you like
that first album, this might be a nice little, you know,
(33:37):
sample size for what's to come. But I was just
disappointed because I expected a little bit more. And when
I say that, I mean just more songs. So I'm
definitely gonna be listening to it, but I don't even
feel like as an EP it's gonna make my top
of the year, because for me, I'm listening to a
(33:58):
ton of hip hop and and that competition is crazy.
You know, you gotta have something that's dope. And we
got so many albums that we know are coming this year.
I mean, I'm saying, so, there you have it. Have
you heard Roy Banks's new album, Benny de Busher's new EP,
(34:20):
Jericho Jackson's new VP. Leave your comments in a comments
section below. What do you think about the whole ron
Fest and eminem and the fact that it's a video
receipt and like, is this like one of them hip
hop media gold viral moments that ron Fest thought he
could just get in Why would he say that? Leave
(34:40):
your comments in a comment section below, And also obviously
about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. How do
you feel about it doesn't need anything to eat anything
to you as a hip hop fan? Follow the podcast
in audio form on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcast to. Let's sit do in this one.
(35:01):
Subscribe review it on Apple podcast I have five stars,
but I don't have enough reviews to really, you know,
feel like, yeah, my podcast has five stars. So go
to Apple Podcasts if you already do and review the
podcast for me. Whatever the review is doesn't have to
be going when you say, yog I don't like you, whatever,
(35:23):
I do not care, just go and review. But also
on this channel on YouTube, we are closely closing in
on ten thousand subscribers. We want to get to ten
thousand by the end of the year. So if you
came across this podcast, like the content, but the like
button if you love it, subscribe, but more importantly share
(35:46):
with people you know enjoy this kind of content. Until
next time, y'all. I'm not a critic, I am a
name fan case