How I Spent my Summer (Jam) Vacation...

So it's a bit late, but here's my rundown of Hot 97's 2007 Summer Jam. We rolled into Giants Stadium around 1:30, thinking that the pre-show started at 2 and the main show started at 3. Turns out the main stage wasn't scheduled to kick off until 6:30, so we ended up skipping the pre-show altogether (Does part of me regret that I still haven't seen "Lip Gloss" performed live? Maybe.) and boozed in the parking lot until it was time to head inside.

The chronology of my synopsis might be a little out of wack, given the schaefer, pbr, and nutcrackers that flowed through my bloodstream, but I do know that Mims jumped out on stage to open the show almost immediately after we made our way to the floor. I have a theory about Mims. I'm convinced that his career is one big inside joke that he's playing on the public, an Andy Kaufman-esque joke.

For a while I just thought Mims was the worst rapper of all time and nothing more. Then I noticed the line "This is why I'm hot, I don't gotta rap, I can make a mil sayin' nothin on a track." So Mims is knowingly churning out garbage, laughing himself all the way to the bank as the public eats it up. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit as an evil genius, but I think I'm right. All that being said however, I still had no interest in sitting through a whole set of him, so I could not have been more happy with what happened. He came out to his hit "This is why I'm hot" and then immediately afterwards closed the set with "This is why I'm hot (reggae remix)". Baby Cham and Junior Reid came out for the remix, which I loved, plus Mims was on stage for probably under 10 minutes. It was perfect.

Then we had T-Pain, who can ACTUALLY SING. I always assumed that since he had all those heavy vocal effects on his songs, it meant he was completely devoid of talent. Not the case, however, since he performed completely sans effects.

Ciara was pretty awesome, dancing on big white letters that spelled out her name. It kind of reminded me of something that the wonders would have appeared on TV with.

Swizz Beatz was rocking a pretty ferocious set, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't wig out like a 12 year old girl when Kanye West walked out so they could have a "songs I've produced that are awesome" battle. The DJ spun "Takeover" first for Kanye and I don't think I would've been able to count the number of dynasty signs that got thrown up on the floor alone. Plus Lil' Wayne came out later in the set for the first of several cameos before his own set.

wheelchair rocking, like murderball

Ne-Yo was awesome, although a bit disappointing. Maybe it's just me being a Ghostface fanboy, but when Fabolous turned out to be Ne-Yo's surprise guest I was kinda let down. Fab still rocked everything rightly though, so all's well that ends well. The Ne-Yo set gradually morphed into a Fab set, then a Young Jeezy set, then a Ludacris set. All of them were enjoyable, but Ludacris really out shined the rest. I had heard from people who'd seen him in the past that he was a lackluster performer, but none of that showed last Sunday. I've never seen someone have such a strong hold on a crowd that large and Luda literally had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

Then came Chris Brown. I've always grouped "Excuse Me Miss" and "Run It" as guilty pleasures, so I was looking forward to his set, but I definitely wasn't expecting him to put on half as good a show as he ended up giving. He performed with a full live band and sang and danced his fucking balls off. I read somewhere that Ne-Yo is supposedly working on the new Michael Jackson album, so there had been some jokes about Ne-Yo maybe bringing out Michael Jackson. Well when Brown threw on his red jacket and single rhinestone glove, then did "Rock with You" and some other Jackson tunes, it might have been better than the real thing. I mean, I'll take young Michael or black Michael any day, but an appearance from current Michael probably would've just been creepy.

Chris Brown's set ended with the emergence of my personal favorite dip, Juelz (A!), and the re-emergence of Lil' Wayne for the "poppin'" remix, then things went into Weezy's set. As much fun as the show was, there was a monsoon going on, and we were not prepared for the weather. It was starting to get to the point where the dance time/shivering time ratio was shifting in a negative direction, so we headed out right as "Stuntin' Like My Daddy" started. Apparently I missed seeing T.I., which is a bit of a bummer, but I'm really okay with not seeing Diddy, Akon, or Rich Boy. I actually assumed Rich Boy didn't show up, until someone told me yesterday that he closed the show. I really wouldn't have expected that Rich Boy was the headliner. I can't wait for next year.

"Buy You a Drank" remix feat. Kanye West & UGK by T-Pain

"Promise" by Ciara

"Get Down Like That" remix featuring Ghostface by Ne-Yo

"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" by Chris Brown

"Black Republicans" Remix feat. Juelz Santana by Lil' Wayne

"Stuntin' Like My Daddy" by Birdman & Lil' Wayne

samplus ad infinitum

So it's not that uncommon for multiple songs to gank the same sample, I wrote about one example of it not that long ago with Ghostface and M.I.A.'s different interpretations of Dr. Buzzard's "Sunshower". See what I think is an even cooler production phenomenon is the sampling of a sample.

The sample in question? Ini Kamoze's "World A Music"

"World A Music" by Ini Kamoze


Just as is, this song is really nothing special in my mind, which is why it's so interesting that it could make such a great sample with that famous line, "out in the streets, they call it murrrrderrrr". I really prefer "Hotstepper" to this song overall. That song was on FIRE back in the fourth grade.

So from there, we find ourselves with Jr. Gong.

Mr. Damian Marley twisted one line from "World A Music" into one of the most infectious hooks in recent history. To his credit, the youngest Marley has made a lot of awesome music that hasn't been exposed to the masses in the way "Jamrock" has been. Regardless of his other songs though, "Welcome to Jamrock" is radio gold, plain and simple. There was a time in my life where I loved Hot 97 and airhorns (I still love the airhorns) and I owe it all to this wonderful song. This and "Satisfy Her" by I Wayne, but that's a story for another day entirely.

"Welcome to Jamrock" by Damian Marley

The success and the rockingness of the single brought us a ton of remixes, but most stuck to just throwing their own verses on and naming their own city along with the chorus. It works sometimes, it fails other times, but either way it's never terribly exciting. Busta and Kano both offered up versions in this fashion. Kano's is pretty cool. Busta's, ehh.

"Welcome to Jamrock New York" by Busta Rhymes

"Jamrock Freestyle" by Kano

Now, enter Human Crack in the flesh, A!

Juelz was the first one I heard to pop up with a new take on "Jamrock" that wasn't just a new rap done over the same beat. Dipset may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't my cup of tea. Or at least one variety of tea among many that I do enjoy. One of the things that I love about this song is that Juelz samples a great hook, uses it for the beat, then makes his own great vocal hook to go over it. Maybe there'll be some disagreement out there over whether or not "Murder Murder Murder Murder Ma Murder" constitutes a great hook, but as is the general rule with the Diplomats, it's not neccessarily about content, it's all about delivery.

"Murda, Murda" by Juelz Santana



ALSO,

I got the new Decemberists album, expect a full critique by Thursday or maybe later, who knows. There's a new female vocalist who pops up, I dunno how a feel about it. This track is pretty cool though, partially because it makes me think about the New York Yankees being speared by knives on guns.

"Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" by the Decemberists