Top 25: Bink

Young Guru was a guest on the Juan Epstein podcast last month and as he was going through the history of the Dynasty and Blueprint and how Kanye West and Just Blaze got their starts, Cipha Sounds asked why Bink is never brought up in that discussion. Guru admitted that he should be part of that discussion and then danced around why that isn't the case. There were a couple theories. Bink chose not to sign to the same management that grabbed up Kanye and Just right after The Blueprint. Based on twitter scuffles from a few years back, Bink and Just had some issues. Regardless, Bink wasn't on any Jay-Z album after The Blueprint and as a result his career went in an entirely different direction.

Today Bink showed up on Juan Epstein. It unfortunately is a pretty short interview but he addresses this issue directly. According to him, he didn't get anymore placements after 2001 because he didn't sign with the same management team. But he says he didn't sign because he felt like he and Just Blaze had too similar a sound, and that is where his real problem lies. He feels that the Just Blaze sound is really just the Bink sound, specifically that you don't get "U Don't Know" without "1-900-Hustler." And if the narrative tells that Rocafella's sound was architected by Kanye and Just only, you can see why he would be bitter. I actually don't agree that they're that similar. On the surface, sure. But I think Just's stuff is generally much more grandiose and their drum patterns are distinct. And it's probably not fair for him to assume that Just ripped him off specifically, although Kanye's stuff sounded nothing like Bink's. It's also very possible that this is only his side of the story, and he was not offered any work because how difficult he was being, both with Just and otherwise.

His sound throughout his career has been pretty consistent. He leans towards the uptempo, organs and horn stab "1-900-Hustler" type beats, but there's ones that he's done that are smoother than any Just or Kanye soul beat. His drums are definitely his signature. He has maybe the most crisp drums by any rap producer ever.

He is an essential part of Rocafella's history based on his contributions to the Dynasty and Blueprint alone. His songs on The Blueprint might be the best on the album. He deserves his props as a producer generally but also, especially given the above story, for his longevity.  He started with Teddy Riley in the 90s, worked with The Lost Boyz, was signed to Stevie J and later partnered on production with Missy Elliott all before the Rocafella stuff happened. The placements after that are with pretty random major label mid-level artists until about 2010 when he finds his way into both Kanye West and Dr. Dre's camps. I'd like to hear him with so many artists today – imagine Vince Stapes over a Bink beat – because the music is still top notch. Here are Bink's 25 best beats.

Listen on Spotify.

Bink Top 25:

1. Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek & Freeway - 1-900-Hustler
2. Jay-Z - All I Need^
3. Jay-Z - The Ruler's Back^
4. Jay-Z - Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)^
5. Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek & Amil - You, Me, Him And Her
6. Freeway - When They Remember
7. Pusha T - I Am Forgiven^
8. Kanye West - Devil In A New Dress (feat. Rick Ross)
9. Rick Ross - We Shinin'
10. GZA - Animal Planet
11. Young Gunz - Future Of The Roc
12. Method Man & Redman - Four Minutes To Lock Down (feat. Raekwon & Ghostface Killah)
13. Amerie - Paint Me Over^
14. Beanie Sigel - Raw & Uncut (feat. Jay-Z)
15. Tamia - Can't Go For That
16. Blackstreet - Don't Leave Me
17. P. Diddy & The Bad Boy Family - The Last Song
18. Freeway - Victim of the Ghetto
19. Currensy - What It Look Like (feat. Wale)
20. John Legend – Who Do We Think We Are (feat. Rick Ross)
21. Cassidy - Damn I Miss The Game
22. Memphis Bleek - The One (feat. Rihanna)
23. Skillz - (for Real) He Don't Own Me
24. Mr. Cheeks - I Apologize
25. Dr. Dre - It's All On Me (feat. Justus & BJ The Chicago Kid)^

^Not on Spotify

Previous Top 25 Lists:
Cool & Dre
Hi-Tek

Drake – Views

We're officially eight years into Drake as a thing. That's pretty amazing to think about. Views is Drake's fourth album, fifth if you count So Far Gone, seventh if you count If You're Reading This It's Too Late and What A Time To Be Alive. With those first four projects (up until NWTS), everything seemed to go as planned. By Take Care, he was a legit superstar and with NWTS he didn't stumble. The Drake train kept on going and I was mostly there for the ride. I can't say the same for IYRTITL. It was way too long. It had a bunch of missteps and that doesn't even include the gun talk. Culturally though, nothing seemed to change. When Meek spoke up about the ghostwriting, the world took Drake's side. (We don't have to acknowledge WATTBA.)

Views is the first time the general consensus for a Drake album is as mixed as it is. It's hard for me to reconcile if Drake has regressed or if my taste has dramatically changed. It's probably both, but I listen to So Far Gone and sometimes it's hard for me to take any of those lines seriously. Maybe this is what Drake was all along? Or at least, you know, partially.

It's possible that Views is as long and sprawling of an album as it is because of the RIAA streaming rules and sales equivalents. The album's long but songs are also long. Vocals end and then the track doesn't end for another 18 seconds. This seems very much on purpose especially if streaming services pay out more if you listen to 4+ minutes. But jesus man, it's like he wasn't even trying with this one. Or this is the result when he writes rhymes by himself again. There's no Quentin Miller. There's no Hush. Maybe there should have been?

I find it very annoying how aware he is of his memeability. He's also aware of his demographic and their listening tendencies. Views is an incredible passive listen – while you're reading an article or studying for midterms. It's a pretty not-so-good active listen. And while I love "Find No Ways" and the dancehall tracks, this is not an album that someone who implies he's more significant than successful conventional rappers like Kendrick and Jay should be able to drop. This is a very pivotal point in Drake's career because the sales are still in his favor, but does he off and decide to become Flo-Rida or does he take his next chance seriously?

Film School: Art of Organized Noize & Iversion

I can't say that I've seen countless documentaries, but with streaming and digital rentals I've gotten the chance to watch more than I typically would otherwise. I still can't quite put my finger on what makes a great documentary, but I can definitely tell when the subject of a documentary is more interesting than the quality of the documentary. The two docs I saw recently, The Art of Organized Noize and Iverson, covered people I wasn't quite old enough to follow properly but whose stories and careers are practically legend. 

The Art of Organized Noize

My experience with OutKast started when I was eleven with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and while I still discovered the singles from the previous three albums on my own at a younger age, Organized Noize were not on my radar. I didn't know who they were or that they were responsible for those OutKast albums, but unfortunately they weren't largely celebrated by the media that covered and documented that era as they probably should have been. 

It seemed like they were pretty closely involved with the making of this documentary. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the story was told. I'm glad it's out and accessible. If they can get a resurgence from it, that's wonderful. I still wish it was directed by someone else. The right people are interviewed and the general story is told. It would have been cool there was more video footage. I'm sure there were tons of photos from the time. There was no focus on Aquemini or Stankonia. What I liked about Michael Rappaport's Tribe doc was that it told a story while presenting a narrative of the present day's tour. The Organized Noize doc had Rico, Sleepy and Ray tell the story from memory, in what looked like only one or two sittings. The music nerd in me wishes there was a bit more detail to it all.

Iverson

My dad never watched basketball or baseball, only football. The NBA wasn't something I even acknowledged until the 6th grade when I went to a school of basketball fans. That was 2002-2003, so I already missed the Lakers - Sixers finals. And I didn't really watch much basketball then anyway. I knew of Iverson from different pop culture references, Sportscenter mentions and NBA Live 2003, which is unfortunate because realizing an athlete's greatness in retrospect is never the same as watching it happen. There was a lot I learned about his life from this doc. I didn't know about the high school arrest or that the Sixers almost traded him the summer before they went to the finals. I feel like the Reebok deal was a bit too overlooked. Those were a huge deal at the time. And I wish there was something about the stories of the crazy money he spent, buying clothes when he reached a city and leaving them at the hotel. Overall, I enjoyed it. 

Book Club: Ready Player One

The basic premise of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is that of a great modern sci-fi story. In a post not quite apocalyptic but somehow affected by climate change world, the most popular pastime is a virtual reality video game accessible to all people. The game's creator, billionaire James Halliday, dies and leaves his fortune hidden somewhere within the game. Whoever finds the treasure gets the money. As an elevator pitch, it's tremendously effective. It makes all the sense in the world that Steven Spielberg is directing the film adaptation. Typically this type of treatment happens with worthwhile stories. Ready Player One stops being one worth reading after the tenth page.

There's plenty to be frustrated about in the novel. The dialogue, the character interactions, the lack of character development, the unimaginative story arc, the insensitivity to race. Let's start with the 80s references. Before Halliday passes, he publishes an almanac of all his interests, potentially with clues to the location of the keys that lead to the treasure. What is supposed to be a collection of personal interests is actually a summary of anything and everything culturally relevant during the 1980s. Here's what Cline gets completely wrong about how pop culture works. While it's not uncommon for a person to have interests across several mediums, it's close to impossible for someone to profess a love for an array of video games as accessible as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and as obscure as text-based adventure games, coupled with obsessions with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club and then a craze for the band Rush. There are people that admit to liking everything, but someone, let alone a video game designer egotistical enough to publish a book of all the shit he likes, would never like everything. All the name drops of 80s phenomenon are cheap pulls for nostalgia for, one would assume, 40+ year olds looking for young adult science fiction? If anything, it makes the film production that much more difficult and expensive, given all the clearances.

The obsession with the hunt and as a result the almanac results in the modern world becoming entirely obsessed specifically with 80s movies, music and TV. Again, that's not how pop culture works. There's a point in which Wade, the protagonist, bemoans the modern era corny sitcom that's constantly on TV and then chooses to binge Family Ties, a real television show. But how can you expect the writer to understand any of this when an actual sentence in this book describing Halliday's favorite directors goes, "Spielberg, Lucas, Tarantino...and, of course, Kevin Smith." Cline also wrote the movie Fanboys. Do with that information what you will.

There are three keys that lead to three gates, the last of which guards the treasure. It's a pretty standard storytelling structure. Whenever the players are stuck solving answers to clues that lead to the next key, however, there's no callback to something previously established or reference to lore established within the universe. Every single time, Wade simply remembers some video game that had never been mentioned previously or some other random trivia from the almanac and that's it, he solves the riddle. Every time.

If you're trying to do a Hunger Games and put together a story that doesn't really make that much sense but has characters you can root for simply based on the fact that they're trying to win a contest and beat a villain – a corporation that wants to monetize the (currently free) video game, then fine I get it. It gets the job done. I don't totally fault you for ignoring some of the more interesting possible themes given the premises: the future of technology and virtual reality, consequences of lack of human contact, love in a virtual world, racism in virtual reality, class issues in the real world. Why bother with those topics when the dialogue reads like it was written by a child, or someone that never attended a school, or spoke to a member of the opposite sex as a teenager, or participated in any sort of competition? Why even touch on how pop culture permeates in a world in which so many choose to exist in a virtual setting when a scene describes Wade downloading a how-to-dance tutorial for his avatar so the avatar can appear to be moving to the music correctly and this is viewed by others as something that is cool to do. Fuck this book.

Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

We're far enough in Kanye West's discography at this point that the comparisons and the rankings conversations become more complex. And while they're all great and necessary and impactful in their own way, the conversation is important because Kanye is one of the few artists today and probably the only rapper to literally disregard everything that he had done before, revamp and find a way to push music and the culture forward with each new album. We're also two albums into a time period where music may not be 100% his sole focus. There's the clothing lines, the ambitions to run established clothing empires, Donda, attempts to fund Donda. It took over a year to get this album from the release of the first single. Part of that was probably figuring out a direction, but you don't have a year's worth (2 songs, but still) of false starts without some distractions.

And yet this album sounds nothing like "Only One" or "All Day," to the point where you have to imagine it may have mostly been created in the last month or so. We essentially saw the album be finalized from the sidelines based on Kanye's tweets. And now that the album is out, it's a weird thing to think about. The album is good and there are songs that are great, but it's also much more disjoint and almost random than any other Kanye album. Personally I think an album being "cohesive" is totally overrated, but "Ultralight Beam" into a rap about bleached asshole into a solo song by Fake Future?

In the past, it was safe to assume every decision on every Kanye album was intentional and vetted by a committee. With Yeezus, Rick Rubin said that many songs were recorded in the final week before deadline, but in retrospect that album seems much more focused than it did on the initial listen. So I've learned to trust Kanye, and again, the product is solid. But in its current form – it was literally in flux until the final hour – I can't tell if this is the way it is by chance or because of the deadline or entirely randomly. Or maybe it still is entirely intentional and Kanye has the ability to see the bigger picture at all parts of the process. Even the title. To go from Swish to Waves to The Life of Pablo. Does he see the album as symbolically similar to Picasso's works as a whole, to a specific Picasso piece? Does he just really like Pablo Picasso? Is he even talking about Picasso? Every Kanye album is very representative of how Kanye felt at that moment of time, but this album is representative of this literal two week span.

I love "Ultralight Beam." I love "FML" and "Fade." "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1" is fire right up until the verse. You've got to appreciate "I Love Kanye." I can't be the only one confused by the presence of Desiigner. "Wolves" is still not that interesting. "30 Hours" and "No More Parties in LA" sound great but feel weird here even as bonus tracks. Every Ye verse being about sex and sex with women that may or may not be his wife in language that is ridiculous and so totally misogynist is weird and strange but so Kanye. Everything he does is honest and honestly flawed.

Some quick thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS:

As soon as the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but think, “Huh. So that...was it?” I’ll watch it again next week, but there was a lot going through my head during and after seeing it so here are some quick thoughts. 

First, what I liked. Finn and Rey are great characters, played by fine actors. I loved their introduction, their dynamic and how they were generally used. I realize now we got a lot more out of them than we ever did out of Luke, Leia or Han but obviously these characters mirror qualities in those three. I didn’t like how fan service-y the first trailer was, but I ended up totally liking how involved Han and Chewie were (but that’s probably because of what happens to Han). The visuals were fine. I like that there were jokes, but it was maybe a bit too much for my liking. I could change my mind about that later. Miles from Lost! Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata was great. I loved that character and her line about people’s eyes. Han dying was an interesting twist. I kind of figured Ren was his son (Kylo/Solo).

I enjoyed most of the movie, but I didn’t really like how the whole last third of the movie was handled. Yes, the movie was an exact rehash of Episode IV. Yes, it was the easiest of the three to do. And there’s story left to conquer with the next two and the one-offs also. But I wanted a real movie not just a jumpoff point.

That final lightsaber fight didn’t seem like a final battle to me. I checked the time around that point thinking there’s got to be another 45 minutes left, right? Even if Ren is mid-training, shouldn’t he whoop both of their asses? If you handed me a sword right now and asked me to fight, I would be killed immediately. And for the Death Star/battle station/whatever to just blow up that easily felt really cheap. They probably cut a lot at the end, but it still felt rushed.

Ren taking his mask off twice was weird because Driver has such a baby face and to hear his voice without the mask and voice effect reminded me of Rick Moranis as Darth Helmet. I almost laughed at that scene where Ren and Rey are trying to out-force each other. People would have clowned Lucas for doing the same thing. 

It was weird seeing a talented actor as Oscar Isaac work in such a limited role. 

Another Death Star? It’s bigger and destroys more planets at a time but planets that we as viewers have no connection to whatsoever?

If it takes my iPhone at least an hour to charge, it should have taken like six weeks for that battle station to charge regardless of how powerful the sun was. 

Don’t like Snoke portrayed as this large figure. I get that it’s a hologram, but that’ll ruin things when we see him in person and he’ll obviously be smaller.

Do no intergalactic contractors build handrails onto their elevated walkways???

When they showed the AT-ATs on the desert planet, I couldn't help but think, "Man, climate change has really done a number on Hoth."

If you’re going to redo the desert planet, forest planet, ice planet trope, how you gonna end on the ice planet?

R2D2 jumps alive then and there...because?

Captain Phasma gotta be fired.

That final scene. I feel like it would be more of a twist if Rey wasn’t Luke’s daughter but that scene was strange. To literally end the movie with a helicopter shot of Rey holding out the lightsaber like five feet away from Luke. And he doesn’t grab it or move closer or anything? Just continues to stand there. Why was he standing there? He doesn’t have a house or a cave or a Playstation or anything. There was literally nothing else on that island. We’re supposed to believe he’s been standing there for some number of years? Though, this does raise interesting questions about the interactions of this whole family and when and where Ben turning, Rey’s abandonment, Han and Leia’s split all fit in.

It’s easy to clown Lucas’s prequels but it’s way easier to write a sequel to 4,5 and 6 than it would have been to write prequels. At least the prequels had some new elements to them.

Theories: 

Like I said before, you can do a lot with Han/Leia/Ren/Luke/Rey as one big family how the disconnect occurs. The arc of the three movies seems like it will be Ren going from bad guy to good guy, but can you really just redo Vader’s storyline? Obviously lots of story to cover, but it’ll interesting to see how Rey’s flashbacks(/future visions???) turn out. There’s lots of history to cover too. I’m sure Luke trained other Jedi. Where did the First Order originate? Why does the Rebellion have so few ships? What hair product does Poe Dameron use? I didn’t really like 

TV Recap: Master of None

The reaction to Aziz Ansari's new show Master of None has been so overwhelmingly positive, it's easy to forget that no one expected the show to be what it is. Aziz and his co-creator Alan Yang came from Parks and Rec, a lovable, single cam mockumentary. Mike Schur, one of Master's producers, worked on Parks and also Brooklyn Nine Nine, which has the same format. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix's only other half-hour comedy isn't quite that but has a similar aesthetic feel to both of those. It was safe to assume that Aziz would follow suit with his show.

The other aspect was how ubiquitous he had become as a comic. His last special, while taped at Madison Square Garden, wasn't his best to put it politely. Would the show be more of that mediocrity? But the show is a significant marker in his career. Aziz has had four hour-long specials in six years, all before he turned 32. He starred on an NBC sitcom for seven years. He wrote and starred in his own major movie. He is literally one of the most successful comics out, but he's never been considered the guy. This was a chance for him to quiet naysaysers.

The show is good. It is shot beautifully. It makes New York look so warm and welcoming in a way that no big city could ever be. I love that episodes revolve around these candid conversations, with shots of people just walking and talking. The music fits in really well. Then, of course, there are the special episodes: "Parents," "Old People," "Indians on TV." My parents are immigrants from India. I understand the emotional distance that exists within an Indian family. I'm sure that episode — and the fact that it was so early in the series — hit home for many. What separates this show from a Louie or Girls is that it views these topics in an optimistic manner. And there is a conscious decision to focus on that topic and not just Dev's relation to that topic. It's fun for me to see people of color on screen. It's fun for me to see Indian people on screen. It's cool to see an interracial romantic relationship played out on screen where one of people isn't white or black.

But this show isn't the end all be all of the minorities on TV problem. It definitely isn't the blueprint to fixing the problem. Dev has an Asian friend Brian, but Brian is really only used in the episode "Parents". Eric, the white friend, is in almost every other episode. All of Dev's romantic interests are white. The one that's not is an Asian girl that was only on the date for the free food. Outside of Aziz's mom, there are no Indian women in the show at all. It's difficult to see how this kind of thing was overlooked in the writer's room. I get that it's his show and it's semi-autobiographical, but these things do matter. There's little things too. His name is Dev Shah, which is a name that's easy for white people to say, but it would also make him Gujarati which means his family wouldn't speak Tamil. Maybe this isn't the show to establish the nuances of Indian culture to an American audience, but you don't have to brush those things to the side either, even if the show is less about the Indian American experience and more about a single dude that hangs out with friends and likes tacos.

I do appreciate the depths of the show. I've been so jaded by 30 Rock style pacing, it almost made me uncomfortable to hear the (noticeably long) pauses in conversations. Normal people don't talk like that, right? But it is funny. And it is enjoyable. Also, I need to get into acting if commercial actors really get paid enough to live in an apartment that nice.