August 1, 2025 • 29 mins
On this week's episode, Ghostface Killah officially announces, "Supreme Clientele 2." Joey Bada$$ airs out Columbia Records on IG Live. Vegas reflects on 30 years of Raekwon's debut classic album, "Only Built for Cuban Linx." Let's talk about it!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
On this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast, Ghost
Space Killer officially announces the release of Supreme Clientele Too,
Joey badass Ig live about Columbia Records delaying his album
It's Crazy, and thirty years of Purple Tape, Ray Kwan's
(00:24):
debut album only built for Cuban Links. We're gonna definitely
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let's do it. Welcome to jipp Hop Now Podcast. Ask
should do from the future?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You know what to do?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Joe ass out.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So disrespectful leg like hip hop is say to stay.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Let's get rating to the business. What up, y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I am your host Vegas and this it's hip Hop
Now Podcasts, a podcast specifically design to keep you caught
up on all things hip hop, music and culture that
happened throughout the week. Big shout out to the audio
listeners over at Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, pocket Cast, wherever
you get your podcast listening. I appreciate you for subscribing.
(01:19):
Did you review the podcast on Apple Podcasts?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You should? You really should.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Also big shout out to those watching right here on YouTube.
If you're an audio listener and you like word is
a YouTube version. The link is in the description of
this episode, but shout out to those subscribers. Welcome to
all new subscribers to this podcast, Hip Hop News and Perspectives.
That's what it's about. You know what I'm saying. Really quick,
(01:47):
if you missed last week's episode, I went to Philly
to see NAS and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Concert performing Illmatic.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
It was great my reviews up. You can check it out.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It was more than that, and I had a lot
more to say than just that, but nevertheless, it was
you know, it was worth it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It was definitely worth it. So check that out on
the channel.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It'll either pop up somewhere here on the video or
just when you get to the end, because I know
you will of the video, just click on the linked
and then you can watch and you can check it out.
You know, what were your thoughts? Did you go see
NAS and concert with the Orchestra? Leave your comments in
a comments section below. But let's get right into a
(02:36):
big shout out to Hip hopdx dot com and I'm
just going to say Instagram this week for helping me
get some of these stories.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Let's get right into the business stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So just recently, ghost Face Killer announced officially that Supreme
Clientele two will be dropping in August. This will be
the third album in Massiveppill's seven album seven Icon run
(03:13):
started with Slick Rick with his album Victory. Then we
got Ray Kwan's The Emperor's New Clothes, and now, even
though we don't officially have a date because he didn't
say a date, we have the announcement of ghost Face Killers,
sequel to probably his best album, a undeniable classic from
(03:37):
the year two thousand, Supreme Clientele. And he also kind
of put an explanation point on that announcement by dropping
a new single call Rap Kingpin, and people seem to
be excited for the most part. I like it right,
(04:00):
it's it's not extra gruff voice ghosts, So I like that.
I like the way he rhyme in his ghost face.
But the beat, it kind of it kind of pulls
you in at first. You're like, Okay, this is old school. Okay,
I'm feeling that. Wait a minute, is that a mighty
(04:20):
healthy sample? That kind of threw me off, you know,
because I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's a sequel to.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Hands down, in my opinion, your best album. I know
some people love iron Man, but whatever, uh, and the
callback is not necessary because the last thing you want
to do because people are gonna do it anyway. And
maybe that's his philosophy, like you're gonna you're gonna compare
the albums anyway. But I don't want to compare this
(04:54):
song Rat Kingpin to Mighty Healthy. You know why, because
there's no comparison Mighty Healthy. It's crazy. Okay, So I
still like the track. I still like Ghosts and what
he brought to the track. I wish there was a
third verse something of that nature. Shout out to the
(05:15):
homie AC I think he said, considering that beat having
to check out by melody basically style beat, he should
have just put rock him on the end of that joint.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
But who knows. Maybe he asked him, maybe he didn't.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
But it's a decent start for a supreme clientele too.
But like I told you all before, man, it is
a tall task to do a sequel, and not many
people have been successful at maybe not capturing the same
(05:52):
amount of success as the original, but being like a
proper sequel that you could feel like I could listen
to part and part two is an extension of it
or evolution of it. Most recently, a success story would
be Redman. Right, he did Muddy Waters. I was Muddy
(06:12):
Waters is a classic to me, arguably his best album.
When he announced Muddy Waters Too, and when he took
ever to drop it, I was nervous as hell listening
to it, like, man, this, maybe he shouldn't have called
it this, But it didn't matter. It turned out to
be a very very good album, a very notable sequel
(06:35):
to a classic album, and one of Redman's best albums
in probably more than a decade.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And I'm not lying. I did a wholetel list.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Okay, not to say everything was whack, but this was
clearly one of his better albums. It just shoots right
up to the top somewhere, you know, either before or after.
Doc's the name. I might say before, Okay, I might
say before, but with Supreme Clientele too. Remember what Supreme
Clientele did? Right, dropped in two thousand at a time
(07:09):
where the rap game was very different, you know, like
certain artists that kind of you know lost that way.
You know, production was kind of weird around that time.
Everything and the wo definitely was down. Like remember when
the Woo launched, they had all these hits. It was
like they got to a point where all these artists
(07:31):
started returning with albums, their second albums, and they just
weren't good, and it just felt like the wool was
going down. And then ghost Face dropped Supreme Clientele. He
recaptured that feeling that we remembered considering iron Man was
already dope. He was His sophomore was not a jinx.
(07:54):
It was really it was really dope to see and hear.
So there's a lot with that album that people are
going to have expectations for. I'm sorry, it's just the
way it goes. People are going to have expectations that
are huge. But from what I've seen online, most people
like the song that's out, so we'll see. Obviously, I'll
(08:15):
do a review when it drops next. So Joey Badass
took to Instagram Live recently to talk a little bit
about Columbia Records delaying his album. He dropped a single
not that long ago that I thought it was pretty dope,
(08:37):
and he had a performance on Jimmy Kimmel that I
thought that was dope too, And he was telling his
fans August first, which is the day of this recording,
you're gonna get this album and to be quite honest,
considering what I've seen that has dropped today, it would
have been perfect because not to say everybody's whack that
(08:59):
dropped today. It was just as far as my interest.
I'm a fan of Joey Badass, so I was interested.
But when I saw this video like two days before
and he's talking about, you know, the momentum he built,
how he dropped, like everything he dropped, as far as
the disc records and singles, they went straight to YouTube
(09:23):
first just to put it out to the people. And
he was doing the same thing here right, Well, I
guess trying to get Columbia to just like Yo, I
got the momentum drop it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
For whatever reason, they delayed it now.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I don't know if it's delayed until the next week
or next month or next year, I don't know. But
what was interesting about watching him talk about this and
how he was saying how Columbia records, you know, they
don't get it, they don't understand on what it is
him as an artist feeding the people, you know, all
(10:04):
the all the rappers speak, And I felt I fell
on two sides right of this conversation or or argument
if you arguing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Uh, one.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I feel Joey bad As because at the beginning of
the year when he decided to like basically beg Kendrick
to hey, battle me too, and Kendrick just been on
tour for like the majority of the year, and it's
like we nobody wants to see that Drake and Kendrick happened.
It was what it was stop Okay, who knows, maybe
(10:43):
that was ordered by Columbia records because regulabels do get
down like that, like, Yo, this Kendrick, see if he
can give us some of you know, some of that
like this Drake right, like Drake stock ain't dropped that
much if he will engage because he looking for something,
so you should have went to them. Kendrick's kind of
like who what, I'm GNX, I'm in Barcelona. But with
(11:07):
Joey Badass, you know, I could feel him because him
coming off of that, you know, dropping those songs early
on that was kind of like and then get into
a basically a real twenty v one right where he
was really fighting off a number of mcs from the
(11:29):
West Coast based off of what he said. He kind
of got a lot of credibility out of it. I know,
some people didn't like his records. I don't care. I
don't care. The last two they were good. They were
good enough for me to feel like he won, considering
he was literally fighting like a bunch of dudes. Drake
(11:50):
in his case, he made I think it was pushups.
He made one song and addressed a couple of people,
but after that it was all Kendrick focused, whereas you know,
with Joey was sort of like, oh, you want to fight,
Oh you want to fight. Oh you want to fight,
Oh you want to fight. So it was a couple
of it was a couple of songs right that everybody dropped,
and it was kind of it was like a dope time.
(12:11):
So Joey had some momentum off of that. And then
when I heard this single, even though he's still taking
some shots, which I'm like, all right, man, move on,
I felt it was dope. And when I watched a
Jimmy Kimmel performance, I was like, this is dope. I'm
curious as to what this album is going to sound like.
So on August first, I'll be in.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Line, not.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You know what I mean, I'll be online, not in line,
but I'll be in line to hear it and it
got delayed. But I also fall on the side of
the record label when it comes to this. Joey, you
have a contract. We know you want to be freedom
(12:58):
of expression, we know you kind of want to move
like an indie person would, but your label has to
be behind that market and strategy. Right There are people
who get paid to come up with these things, or
at least work in tandem as they should work in
(13:18):
tandem with you as an artist, to help really build
that thing to a fever pitch. And I think maybe
they felt like, you know, even though he had some momentum,
it kind of slowed down what you did right before
this album is supposed to drop.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So I get it from both angles. But I just
got to.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Look at somebody like Jokie Badas and say, like, dog,
if you want to do that, what you're saying. Oh,
he also threatened to just put the album on YouTube,
but they will take you to court, come on, man,
or they'll take some money from me or whatever. But
I think at the end of the day is you
(14:07):
got to get off the label if that's the case,
if you want to roll like this.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Because that's what other people do.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Nine times out of ten, they're either independent artists or
there's someone there's someone who are a group or artists
who are on a label that is one hundred percent
with them, right, one hundred percent, Like oh.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You want to draw, Oh you want this, Drake, you
want to.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Do that, Let's do it like right, like rognation, Like
look at what the clips were trying to do. And
Kendricks Verse didn't really even have anything controversial, and death
Jam wasn't with it. Push your t calls jay Z,
he say hold my beer or hold my lots or whatever,
(14:56):
my red stripe whatever, which is beer for those who
don't know, and they are not a sponsor of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And then you know they were out of the deal.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
But they got the ideal rollout for themselves, like one
of the best rollouts for an album in hip hop history.
It was just like they were gonna make sure the
hype was always there, there was always something added. They
were everywhere you can imagine, write, breakfast club, tiny desk,
(15:28):
just everywhere, all at the same time. And then everybody's
loving the album, buying vinyl and all that stuff, and
then boom tour perfect similar to what Kendrick did off
the strength of gn X like every time you thought, oh,
he gonna respond, no, he's doing the super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Oh he gonna respond, No, he's just wanting a bunch
of Grammys.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So Joey, if you want the same kind of deal
out of Columbia, you guys probably should have been on
the same page. And I'm not saying they weren't. Maybe Joey,
maybe they were. Maybe everything Joey did was a part
of Columbia, and Joey vadd as his plan, but he
felt the album was ready to be dropped and they
(16:12):
were like, nah, but just wait.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Maybe that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
But nevertheless, from what I can gather from the video,
he seemed like, you know, obviously extremely disappointed that the
album wasn't dropping, and I feel them As an artist, man,
when you feel like it's go time right now, you
want to. But I'm also curious because he obviously, as
(16:41):
an artist, believes in this project. I'm just wondering how
good it will be. I'm just like, I'm hopeful. I
just hope it ain't one of those things where you know,
as an artist, you feel like it was my great
work blah blah blah, and then we hear it and
We're like, it's I.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know what I'm saying, So it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Did you see Joey Badass on IG Live complaining?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Do you Well, here's a better question.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Do you think artists who want to be artists and
don't want to know executive producer dancing all in the video?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
All right, I'll relax. Do you think.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Artists who want to be artists should just skip major
labels all together? We know these things sometimes comes, these
deals come with having like nice budgets and stuff like that,
But do you think we're just at a time where
you don't need them.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You can build this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
You may have to hire a couple of people who
did certain things you can't do, but beyond that, it
may cost you way less just to drop your music
and have a team that can give you a significant rollout.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So leave your comments in the commons section below.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And lastly, the date is August first, two and twenty five,
and it is the thirtieth anniversary of Ray Kwan the
Chef's debut classic album only built for Cuban links. If
(18:27):
it was around back then and you bought the cassette,
you know it's also referred to as the purple tape
because the tape was purple.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I don't believe I lost my purple tape a long
time ago. I even lost the purple CD. But I
have the purple vinyl and it's pretty dupe. Right, it's
right back there and behind me. If you're watching on YouTube.
For myself personally thinking about this album thirty years later,
(19:03):
the first thing that comes to my mind is the
fact that it's coming up on actually towards the end
of this month, thirty years since I started my freshman
year in college, which is crazy. Nineteen ninety five was
a crazy year for hip hop. Same thing with ninety six.
(19:24):
So I'm in school and all the things that people
talk about, debate about all that, it was just happening
in real time and I was just surrounded by hip
hop heads.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
But I remember when I remember where.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
My hype started for this album, and it was in
I believe in ninety four, either ninety four or early
twenty nineteen ninety five, when I saw that Ray first
of all, I heard on the radio, so I went
(20:02):
to go get it because you know, I could hear
the hook. But Ray Kwan and ghost Face had the
song the single Heaven and Hell that was featured on
the soundtrack to the movie Fresh. Now, I never saw
the movie Fresh, but I saw that video and I
heard the song and I was like, Yo, that don't
(20:24):
sound nothing like the Wu Tang album. Like that song
is crazy, you know what I'm saying. And I kept thinking, Yo,
Ray Kwan's album might be legit. So when it dropped
day one, I was writing the record store, I know
my spot back in the day's Beach Street in downtown Brooklyn,
(20:49):
Fulton Street, and went there. I think I bought the
CD first because I don't remember, well, you know what,
let me take that back.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I did buy the tape first.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Later when the tape broke or somebody stole it, is
when I got the CD. But I just remember, I
don't think I had a working walkman at the time,
so I had to just you know, open it on
the bus and look through and you know all of that.
(21:22):
And I think I wrote a chapter about this in
my book. But I just remember when I got home,
there was some things I needed to do before school, right,
like kind of getting clothes together and stuff like that,
and I was it wasn't like I was leaving tomorrow,
but you know, I think I might have had a
week or so left, and I just remember like getting
(21:46):
myself situated to that album.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right just my moms wasn't home.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
We had like this big boombox joint, and you know,
the base was crazy on there, so I was like,
I'm gonna play this on there, and I just remember listening,
and I remember the intro striving for Perfection, And I
remember at first not just really like knowing like what
(22:12):
kind of skit is this? Until I started listening, I'm like,
oh wow, this is like a we got one more
chance at this, you know, to get out of this
street stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
You know what I'm saying, Like this is it.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
You know, this is glory, you know, like like they
were saying, I'm not trying to be, you know, sitting
on a little two hundred doll my life.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I got big and better.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Plans like and I was just sitting there like, you
know what for somebody like me who's getting ready to
go to college, this intro is so relatable to me.
Like sure, I wasn't no drug dealer, you know what
I'm saying. But I wasn't. I'm not a part of
a family. Well now I am, right, because we all
(22:57):
had a lot of us have degrees, but at the time,
my brother, my older brother, was like the only person
in the family with a degree, and I was up next,
and I knew what I wanted, so I was looking
at striving for perfection, like word, you know what I'm saying, God,
when my my babies in there, God mess around my
grand Like I was on. I was feeling all of it,
(23:20):
and I just remember, you know, all the songs like
Hitting in the Wool, Features and obviously Knowledge God was
dope and Incarcerated Scarfaces Knives was on head. You know,
everybody had like another name other than their name, right,
(23:43):
Like this was the first time you saw that on
only built for Cuban links because that's how they were listed,
like method Man aka Johnny Blaze, you know, ghost Face
Killer aka Tony Starks, iron Man. That's where all these
other monikers came from. And then it was dope because
Nas was the only feature outside the WU and it
(24:05):
was like Nas aka Escabaar and it was like, yo,
this is just dope. And then you know we heard
songs like verbal Intercourse and Nas. I think he might
have got a hip hop quotable and a source for
that joint. It was just top to bottom a very
very dope album. And I really liked the way they
(24:28):
set it up in the Wu Tang American Saga Show.
Now I know, ghost Face and Ray Kwan say, oh
it's not true and all of that, who cares.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It was still good television.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And even if they tell us the real story, just
knowing how it was done on this show, it just
tapped into the nostalgia I had for the album. Now
with Ray Kwan, obviously he just dropped the new album
and he went on to have Only Built for Cuba
(24:58):
Links two, which was another great sequel to a classic album.
And you know he had his slip up with the
Immobilarity after this album.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
But I did.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Basically an album ranking for Raycorn albums, and the majority
of his albums are good.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Mobilarity is really.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
The only one that I could comfortably say it's whack right,
and everything else is either good or great or classic right.
So I just feel like on the anniversary, the thirtieth
anniversary of Only Built for Cuban Links, it should be celebrated. Man,
(25:40):
if you loved that album for back in the day,
played today, you know, if you got t shirts.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I don't know, the sneakers.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That came out a while ago, the actual purple tape
that was re released, the vinyl whatever go on social
media celebrate the classic hip hop album. It was just
one of those albums like the Ellmatics and It Takes
a Nation of Millions and the Paid in Full and
(26:10):
run DMC's Raising Hell. It's like them cornerstones and hip
hop that to me, are similar to people loving like
Marvin Gaye's What's going On and Stevie Wonder's Songs in
the Kia Life and Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. Like
even though I love those albums too, this was my
time and you know, get ready to go off to
(26:32):
college and kind of ever since high school really and
maybe even junior high.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
School, like sinking myself into music.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And the messages and kind of learning from certain rappers
good or bad, but at the end of the day,
being entertained only built for Cuban links.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
If I was describing for.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Someone who's like, Okay, well, what kind of album is it,
think of it like Street Mafia flick right, It's Coke
Rat before Coke Rat was Coke Rat. You know, there's
even sniffing at the beginning of one of the records, right,
(27:13):
and they don't have a cold. You know, it's this
predates the clips, you know what I'm saying. This predates Griselda.
You know, it inspires all these guys who we like now.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And it's just a very dope album.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
So I know there'll probably be sales on vinyl or
new vinyl release and things like that. You know, and
if you had the album digitally for a while, just
go and support it, man, because the more we support
what we consider to be real hip hop, the more
the people with the power to present real hip hop will.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Feel like, not only is it profit the bulb of
this interest.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So there you have it. Where were you when ray
Kuon dropped only built for Cuban links? Were you in
the essence because you wasn't even born yet, or you
a grown man with kids, or were you like me,
about to go to school, college or high school or
whatever and you had the purple tape in your deck?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Leave your comment to the common section below. That's going
to do it for me.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You can follow me on social media at Vegas World,
I n C Everywhere, Same name everywhere. Also, you can
subscribe to the podcast first and foremost, if you like
audio and audio form and dooesesn't matter if you're on listening,
if you're listening through YouTube or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
(28:46):
if you would prefer to watch the video or watch
me say it look at the purple vinyl in the background,
you can visit the YouTube channel hipop Pod, Subscribe, share common.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Man like for most importantly, don't just.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Share it to share shape to share shape for SHARE's sake.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Share it with people you know.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You know them more than I do, but you know
they would enjoy this kind of content.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Until next time, y'all. I'm not a critic. I'm a
fan of peace.
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
On this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast, Ghost
Space Killer officially announces the release of Supreme Clientele Too,
Joey badass Ig live about Columbia Records delaying his album
It's Crazy, and thirty years of Purple Tape, Ray Kwan's
(00:24):
debut album only built for Cuban Links. We're gonna definitely
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let's do it. Welcome to jipp Hop Now Podcast. Ask
should do from the future?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You know what to do?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Joe ass out.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So disrespectful leg like hip hop is say to stay.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Let's get rating to the business. What up, y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I am your host Vegas and this it's hip Hop
Now Podcasts, a podcast specifically design to keep you caught
up on all things hip hop, music and culture that
happened throughout the week. Big shout out to the audio
listeners over at Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, pocket Cast, wherever
you get your podcast listening. I appreciate you for subscribing.
(01:19):
Did you review the podcast on Apple Podcasts?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You should? You really should.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Also big shout out to those watching right here on YouTube.
If you're an audio listener and you like word is
a YouTube version. The link is in the description of
this episode, but shout out to those subscribers. Welcome to
all new subscribers to this podcast, Hip Hop News and Perspectives.
That's what it's about. You know what I'm saying. Really quick,
(01:47):
if you missed last week's episode, I went to Philly
to see NAS and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Concert performing Illmatic.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
It was great my reviews up. You can check it out.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It was more than that, and I had a lot
more to say than just that, but nevertheless, it was
you know, it was worth it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It was definitely worth it. So check that out on
the channel.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It'll either pop up somewhere here on the video or
just when you get to the end, because I know
you will of the video, just click on the linked
and then you can watch and you can check it out.
You know, what were your thoughts? Did you go see
NAS and concert with the Orchestra? Leave your comments in
a comments section below. But let's get right into a
(02:36):
big shout out to Hip hopdx dot com and I'm
just going to say Instagram this week for helping me
get some of these stories.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Let's get right into the business stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So just recently, ghost Face Killer announced officially that Supreme
Clientele two will be dropping in August. This will be
the third album in Massiveppill's seven album seven Icon run
(03:13):
started with Slick Rick with his album Victory. Then we
got Ray Kwan's The Emperor's New Clothes, and now, even
though we don't officially have a date because he didn't
say a date, we have the announcement of ghost Face Killers,
sequel to probably his best album, a undeniable classic from
(03:37):
the year two thousand, Supreme Clientele. And he also kind
of put an explanation point on that announcement by dropping
a new single call Rap Kingpin, and people seem to
be excited for the most part. I like it right,
(04:00):
it's it's not extra gruff voice ghosts, So I like that.
I like the way he rhyme in his ghost face.
But the beat, it kind of it kind of pulls
you in at first. You're like, Okay, this is old school. Okay,
I'm feeling that. Wait a minute, is that a mighty
(04:20):
healthy sample? That kind of threw me off, you know,
because I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's a sequel to.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Hands down, in my opinion, your best album. I know
some people love iron Man, but whatever, uh, and the
callback is not necessary because the last thing you want
to do because people are gonna do it anyway. And
maybe that's his philosophy, like you're gonna you're gonna compare
the albums anyway. But I don't want to compare this
(04:54):
song Rat Kingpin to Mighty Healthy. You know why, because
there's no comparison Mighty Healthy. It's crazy. Okay, So I
still like the track. I still like Ghosts and what
he brought to the track. I wish there was a
third verse something of that nature. Shout out to the
(05:15):
homie AC I think he said, considering that beat having
to check out by melody basically style beat, he should
have just put rock him on the end of that joint.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
But who knows. Maybe he asked him, maybe he didn't.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
But it's a decent start for a supreme clientele too.
But like I told you all before, man, it is
a tall task to do a sequel, and not many
people have been successful at maybe not capturing the same
(05:52):
amount of success as the original, but being like a
proper sequel that you could feel like I could listen
to part and part two is an extension of it
or evolution of it. Most recently, a success story would
be Redman. Right, he did Muddy Waters. I was Muddy
(06:12):
Waters is a classic to me, arguably his best album.
When he announced Muddy Waters Too, and when he took
ever to drop it, I was nervous as hell listening
to it, like, man, this, maybe he shouldn't have called
it this, But it didn't matter. It turned out to
be a very very good album, a very notable sequel
(06:35):
to a classic album, and one of Redman's best albums
in probably more than a decade.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And I'm not lying. I did a wholetel list.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Okay, not to say everything was whack, but this was
clearly one of his better albums. It just shoots right
up to the top somewhere, you know, either before or after.
Doc's the name. I might say before, Okay, I might
say before, but with Supreme Clientele too. Remember what Supreme
Clientele did? Right, dropped in two thousand at a time
(07:09):
where the rap game was very different, you know, like
certain artists that kind of you know lost that way.
You know, production was kind of weird around that time.
Everything and the wo definitely was down. Like remember when
the Woo launched, they had all these hits. It was
like they got to a point where all these artists
(07:31):
started returning with albums, their second albums, and they just
weren't good, and it just felt like the wool was
going down. And then ghost Face dropped Supreme Clientele. He
recaptured that feeling that we remembered considering iron Man was
already dope. He was His sophomore was not a jinx.
(07:54):
It was really it was really dope to see and hear.
So there's a lot with that album that people are
going to have expectations for. I'm sorry, it's just the
way it goes. People are going to have expectations that
are huge. But from what I've seen online, most people
like the song that's out, so we'll see. Obviously, I'll
(08:15):
do a review when it drops next. So Joey Badass
took to Instagram Live recently to talk a little bit
about Columbia Records delaying his album. He dropped a single
not that long ago that I thought it was pretty dope,
(08:37):
and he had a performance on Jimmy Kimmel that I
thought that was dope too, And he was telling his
fans August first, which is the day of this recording,
you're gonna get this album and to be quite honest,
considering what I've seen that has dropped today, it would
have been perfect because not to say everybody's whack that
(08:59):
dropped today. It was just as far as my interest.
I'm a fan of Joey Badass, so I was interested.
But when I saw this video like two days before
and he's talking about, you know, the momentum he built,
how he dropped, like everything he dropped, as far as
the disc records and singles, they went straight to YouTube
(09:23):
first just to put it out to the people. And
he was doing the same thing here right, Well, I
guess trying to get Columbia to just like Yo, I
got the momentum drop it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
For whatever reason, they delayed it now.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I don't know if it's delayed until the next week
or next month or next year, I don't know. But
what was interesting about watching him talk about this and
how he was saying how Columbia records, you know, they
don't get it, they don't understand on what it is
him as an artist feeding the people, you know, all
(10:04):
the all the rappers speak, And I felt I fell
on two sides right of this conversation or or argument
if you arguing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Uh, one.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I feel Joey bad As because at the beginning of
the year when he decided to like basically beg Kendrick
to hey, battle me too, and Kendrick just been on
tour for like the majority of the year, and it's
like we nobody wants to see that Drake and Kendrick happened.
It was what it was stop Okay, who knows, maybe
(10:43):
that was ordered by Columbia records because regulabels do get
down like that, like, Yo, this Kendrick, see if he
can give us some of you know, some of that
like this Drake right, like Drake stock ain't dropped that
much if he will engage because he looking for something,
so you should have went to them. Kendrick's kind of
like who what, I'm GNX, I'm in Barcelona. But with
(11:07):
Joey Badass, you know, I could feel him because him
coming off of that, you know, dropping those songs early
on that was kind of like and then get into
a basically a real twenty v one right where he
was really fighting off a number of mcs from the
(11:29):
West Coast based off of what he said. He kind
of got a lot of credibility out of it. I know,
some people didn't like his records. I don't care. I
don't care. The last two they were good. They were
good enough for me to feel like he won, considering
he was literally fighting like a bunch of dudes. Drake
(11:50):
in his case, he made I think it was pushups.
He made one song and addressed a couple of people,
but after that it was all Kendrick focused, whereas you know,
with Joey was sort of like, oh, you want to fight,
Oh you want to fight. Oh you want to fight,
Oh you want to fight. So it was a couple
of it was a couple of songs right that everybody dropped,
and it was kind of it was like a dope time.
(12:11):
So Joey had some momentum off of that. And then
when I heard this single, even though he's still taking
some shots, which I'm like, all right, man, move on,
I felt it was dope. And when I watched a
Jimmy Kimmel performance, I was like, this is dope. I'm
curious as to what this album is going to sound like.
So on August first, I'll be in.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Line, not.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You know what I mean, I'll be online, not in line,
but I'll be in line to hear it and it
got delayed. But I also fall on the side of
the record label when it comes to this. Joey, you
have a contract. We know you want to be freedom
(12:58):
of expression, we know you kind of want to move
like an indie person would, but your label has to
be behind that market and strategy. Right There are people
who get paid to come up with these things, or
at least work in tandem as they should work in
(13:18):
tandem with you as an artist, to help really build
that thing to a fever pitch. And I think maybe
they felt like, you know, even though he had some momentum,
it kind of slowed down what you did right before
this album is supposed to drop.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So I get it from both angles. But I just
got to.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Look at somebody like Jokie Badas and say, like, dog,
if you want to do that, what you're saying. Oh,
he also threatened to just put the album on YouTube,
but they will take you to court, come on, man,
or they'll take some money from me or whatever. But
I think at the end of the day is you
(14:07):
got to get off the label if that's the case,
if you want to roll like this.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Because that's what other people do.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Nine times out of ten, they're either independent artists or
there's someone there's someone who are a group or artists
who are on a label that is one hundred percent
with them, right, one hundred percent, Like oh.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You want to draw, Oh you want this, Drake, you
want to.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Do that, Let's do it like right, like rognation, Like
look at what the clips were trying to do. And
Kendricks Verse didn't really even have anything controversial, and death
Jam wasn't with it. Push your t calls jay Z,
he say hold my beer or hold my lots or whatever,
(14:56):
my red stripe whatever, which is beer for those who
don't know, and they are not a sponsor of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And then you know they were out of the deal.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
But they got the ideal rollout for themselves, like one
of the best rollouts for an album in hip hop history.
It was just like they were gonna make sure the
hype was always there, there was always something added. They
were everywhere you can imagine, write, breakfast club, tiny desk,
(15:28):
just everywhere, all at the same time. And then everybody's
loving the album, buying vinyl and all that stuff, and
then boom tour perfect similar to what Kendrick did off
the strength of gn X like every time you thought, oh,
he gonna respond, no, he's doing the super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Oh he gonna respond, No, he's just wanting a bunch
of Grammys.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So Joey, if you want the same kind of deal
out of Columbia, you guys probably should have been on
the same page. And I'm not saying they weren't. Maybe Joey,
maybe they were. Maybe everything Joey did was a part
of Columbia, and Joey vadd as his plan, but he
felt the album was ready to be dropped and they
(16:12):
were like, nah, but just wait.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Maybe that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
But nevertheless, from what I can gather from the video,
he seemed like, you know, obviously extremely disappointed that the
album wasn't dropping, and I feel them As an artist, man,
when you feel like it's go time right now, you
want to. But I'm also curious because he obviously, as
(16:41):
an artist, believes in this project. I'm just wondering how
good it will be. I'm just like, I'm hopeful. I
just hope it ain't one of those things where you know,
as an artist, you feel like it was my great
work blah blah blah, and then we hear it and
We're like, it's I.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know what I'm saying, So it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Did you see Joey Badass on IG Live complaining?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Do you Well, here's a better question.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Do you think artists who want to be artists and
don't want to know executive producer dancing all in the video?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
All right, I'll relax. Do you think.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Artists who want to be artists should just skip major
labels all together? We know these things sometimes comes, these
deals come with having like nice budgets and stuff like that,
But do you think we're just at a time where
you don't need them.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You can build this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
You may have to hire a couple of people who
did certain things you can't do, but beyond that, it
may cost you way less just to drop your music
and have a team that can give you a significant rollout.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So leave your comments in the commons section below.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And lastly, the date is August first, two and twenty five,
and it is the thirtieth anniversary of Ray Kwan the
Chef's debut classic album only built for Cuban links. If
(18:27):
it was around back then and you bought the cassette,
you know it's also referred to as the purple tape
because the tape was purple.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I don't believe I lost my purple tape a long
time ago. I even lost the purple CD. But I
have the purple vinyl and it's pretty dupe. Right, it's
right back there and behind me. If you're watching on YouTube.
For myself personally thinking about this album thirty years later,
(19:03):
the first thing that comes to my mind is the
fact that it's coming up on actually towards the end
of this month, thirty years since I started my freshman
year in college, which is crazy. Nineteen ninety five was
a crazy year for hip hop. Same thing with ninety six.
(19:24):
So I'm in school and all the things that people
talk about, debate about all that, it was just happening
in real time and I was just surrounded by hip
hop heads.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
But I remember when I remember where.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
My hype started for this album, and it was in
I believe in ninety four, either ninety four or early
twenty nineteen ninety five, when I saw that Ray first
of all, I heard on the radio, so I went
(20:02):
to go get it because you know, I could hear
the hook. But Ray Kwan and ghost Face had the
song the single Heaven and Hell that was featured on
the soundtrack to the movie Fresh. Now, I never saw
the movie Fresh, but I saw that video and I
heard the song and I was like, Yo, that don't
(20:24):
sound nothing like the Wu Tang album. Like that song
is crazy, you know what I'm saying. And I kept thinking, Yo,
Ray Kwan's album might be legit. So when it dropped
day one, I was writing the record store, I know
my spot back in the day's Beach Street in downtown Brooklyn,
(20:49):
Fulton Street, and went there. I think I bought the
CD first because I don't remember, well, you know what,
let me take that back.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I did buy the tape first.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Later when the tape broke or somebody stole it, is
when I got the CD. But I just remember, I
don't think I had a working walkman at the time,
so I had to just you know, open it on
the bus and look through and you know all of that.
(21:22):
And I think I wrote a chapter about this in
my book. But I just remember when I got home,
there was some things I needed to do before school, right,
like kind of getting clothes together and stuff like that,
and I was it wasn't like I was leaving tomorrow,
but you know, I think I might have had a
week or so left, and I just remember like getting
(21:46):
myself situated to that album.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right just my moms wasn't home.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
We had like this big boombox joint, and you know,
the base was crazy on there, so I was like,
I'm gonna play this on there, and I just remember listening,
and I remember the intro striving for Perfection, And I
remember at first not just really like knowing like what
(22:12):
kind of skit is this? Until I started listening, I'm like,
oh wow, this is like a we got one more
chance at this, you know, to get out of this
street stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
You know what I'm saying, Like this is it.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
You know, this is glory, you know, like like they
were saying, I'm not trying to be, you know, sitting
on a little two hundred doll my life.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I got big and better.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Plans like and I was just sitting there like, you
know what for somebody like me who's getting ready to
go to college, this intro is so relatable to me.
Like sure, I wasn't no drug dealer, you know what
I'm saying. But I wasn't. I'm not a part of
a family. Well now I am, right, because we all
(22:57):
had a lot of us have degrees, but at the time,
my brother, my older brother, was like the only person
in the family with a degree, and I was up next,
and I knew what I wanted, so I was looking
at striving for perfection, like word, you know what I'm saying, God,
when my my babies in there, God mess around my
grand Like I was on. I was feeling all of it,
(23:20):
and I just remember, you know, all the songs like
Hitting in the Wool, Features and obviously Knowledge God was
dope and Incarcerated Scarfaces Knives was on head. You know,
everybody had like another name other than their name, right,
(23:43):
Like this was the first time you saw that on
only built for Cuban links because that's how they were listed,
like method Man aka Johnny Blaze, you know, ghost Face
Killer aka Tony Starks, iron Man. That's where all these
other monikers came from. And then it was dope because
Nas was the only feature outside the WU and it
(24:05):
was like Nas aka Escabaar and it was like, yo,
this is just dope. And then you know we heard
songs like verbal Intercourse and Nas. I think he might
have got a hip hop quotable and a source for
that joint. It was just top to bottom a very
very dope album. And I really liked the way they
(24:28):
set it up in the Wu Tang American Saga Show.
Now I know, ghost Face and Ray Kwan say, oh
it's not true and all of that, who cares.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It was still good television.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And even if they tell us the real story, just
knowing how it was done on this show, it just
tapped into the nostalgia I had for the album. Now
with Ray Kwan, obviously he just dropped the new album
and he went on to have Only Built for Cuba
(24:58):
Links two, which was another great sequel to a classic album.
And you know he had his slip up with the
Immobilarity after this album.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
But I did.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Basically an album ranking for Raycorn albums, and the majority
of his albums are good.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Mobilarity is really.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
The only one that I could comfortably say it's whack right,
and everything else is either good or great or classic right.
So I just feel like on the anniversary, the thirtieth
anniversary of Only Built for Cuban Links, it should be celebrated. Man,
(25:40):
if you loved that album for back in the day,
played today, you know, if you got t shirts.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I don't know, the sneakers.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That came out a while ago, the actual purple tape
that was re released, the vinyl whatever go on social
media celebrate the classic hip hop album. It was just
one of those albums like the Ellmatics and It Takes
a Nation of Millions and the Paid in Full and
(26:10):
run DMC's Raising Hell. It's like them cornerstones and hip
hop that to me, are similar to people loving like
Marvin Gaye's What's going On and Stevie Wonder's Songs in
the Kia Life and Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. Like
even though I love those albums too, this was my
time and you know, get ready to go off to
(26:32):
college and kind of ever since high school really and
maybe even junior high.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
School, like sinking myself into music.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And the messages and kind of learning from certain rappers
good or bad, but at the end of the day,
being entertained only built for Cuban links.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
If I was describing for.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Someone who's like, Okay, well, what kind of album is it,
think of it like Street Mafia flick right, It's Coke
Rat before Coke Rat was Coke Rat. You know, there's
even sniffing at the beginning of one of the records, right,
(27:13):
and they don't have a cold. You know, it's this
predates the clips, you know what I'm saying. This predates Griselda.
You know, it inspires all these guys who we like now.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And it's just a very dope album.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
So I know there'll probably be sales on vinyl or
new vinyl release and things like that. You know, and
if you had the album digitally for a while, just
go and support it, man, because the more we support
what we consider to be real hip hop, the more
the people with the power to present real hip hop will.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Feel like, not only is it profit the bulb of
this interest.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So there you have it. Where were you when ray
Kuon dropped only built for Cuban links? Were you in
the essence because you wasn't even born yet, or you
a grown man with kids, or were you like me,
about to go to school, college or high school or
whatever and you had the purple tape in your deck?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Leave your comment to the common section below. That's going
to do it for me.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You can follow me on social media at Vegas World,
I n C Everywhere, Same name everywhere. Also, you can
subscribe to the podcast first and foremost, if you like
audio and audio form and dooesesn't matter if you're on listening,
if you're listening through YouTube or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
(28:46):
if you would prefer to watch the video or watch
me say it look at the purple vinyl in the background,
you can visit the YouTube channel hipop Pod, Subscribe, share common.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Man like for most importantly, don't just.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Share it to share shape to share shape for SHARE's sake.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Share it with people you know.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You know them more than I do, but you know
they would enjoy this kind of content.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Until next time, y'all. I'm not a critic. I'm a
fan of peace.
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