Can't Knock The Hustle

Something must be wrong. It's currently 9:48 at night and I am just now having my first Arizona Iced Tea. Usually it's one in the morning and then another late afternoon and sometimes (depending on how crazy I'm feeling of course) a final one when I gets home from work. I have a problem. To counter act the large amounts of iced tea I do drink a lot of water (to protect my kidneys and all) but lately I don't know if I'm keeping up with my large iced tea in take. Things to consider. Drink more water and maybe less Arizona? Hmmmm...

A full day has passed since the release of O.A.R.'s new album King and I'd say I've listened to it one and a half times (I jumped around a bit). Intital reaction... I really like it. It's definately a return to form, it's got the reggae undertones and upbeat feeling that I associate with O.A.R. music. This is something that pleases me. I want to listen to it again fully a couple of more times before I fully fall in love with it, but as of 9:51 today and I'm happy.

We're not here to talk about O.A.R.'s new album though. Yesterday we got ourselves a little bit of Biggie (I think that might be an unintential oxymoron) and today my ipod chose to stay in the same gangsta vein by giving us some Jay-Z.



Now I have no plans on knocking the hustle (pun intended here) but that Carlito's Way like intro probably would have worked a little better if Jay-Z had probably used an actual line from Carlito's Way. Although I do appreciate the effort. Every turns to Scarface for their latin, Al Pacino gangster ways and often forget about this masterpiece. Carlito's Way may not have the quoting magnitude that Scarface has but for Gods sake couldn't we have taken an actual piece of the movie instead of getting this guy at the start of the song who sounds like he's doing a bad impression of Al Pacino's bad impression of a latin person? But I digress.

Can' Knock the Hustle is made by Mary J's hook here. There's no mistaking that Jay-Z's rhymes and flow here are top notch (when aren't they though?) but that hook brings the song together. It's the foundation. I don't know how many of you have heard Jay-Z's Unplugged album (the Roots play as his band for the night), but the version of Can't Knock the Hustle is pretty awesome. As a matter of fact that whole Unplugged album is pretty awesome. You wouldn't think that a rap unplugged would be able to work but Jay-Z pulls it off. I think it has a lot to do with the Roots kicking out the jams.

Speaking of MTV I believe yesterday was it's 30th birthday. It's a milestone no doubt but I thought you stopped really celebrating birthdays when the thing died (oh snap!). Yes I know MTV still exists but not in the same capacity that it once did. Growing up MTV was everything, acutally music videos were everything. That time has passed. MTV has become less and less and less about the music and more about the crappy reality TV craze. Shows like Road Rules and the Real World used to be the minority, not it's all the station shows. I actually take offense to the fact that they still have the VMA's. How is it possible to dedicate a three hour show to music videos when your station only plays them at one o'clock in the morning?! So yes lets celebrate the fact that MTV has turned 30 but lets be realist here. The only music that can be heard there anymore is the crappy pop crap that they use during reality TV montages. Makes my 90's self sick.

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