Spotted over at my former colleague and good friend Bfred’s blog, the definitive Gorgio Moroder collection. The fact that he compiled and uploaded this right now is rather convenient, considering I’m in the middle of reading And Party Every Day, a new book about Casablanca Records, who Moroder recorded and produced artists for.

Says Brendan,

It’s hard to imagine a time when synthesizers didn’t dominate popular music, but in the early 1970s, anything beyond acoustic was a pretty avant-garde act. Producer/singer/songwriter Giorgio Moroder was at the forefront of making electro go pop, through his innovative work in disco, pop, and film scores.

Raised in a German-speaking part of Northern Italy, Giorgio made his career in Germany’s music scene in the late ’60s when krautrock artists had started sprinkling synths into their traditional rock formulas. In 1976, he hit it big with Donna Summer’s “Love To Love You Baby,” a funky, orgasmic club anthem that turned the unknown singer into the definitive artist of the disco era. A year later, Summer, Giorgio and longtime partner Pete Bellotte released “I Feel Love,” a hard-hitting electronic disco record that is often credited as the missing link between acoustic disco and modern house music. Other German electro artists like Kraftwerk might have been more musically radical, but Giorgio brought the synthetic revolution to the dance clubs and pop radio before anyone else. He would go on to compose a string of hugely successful soundtracks, from 1978’s Midnight Express to 1983’s Scarface, phasing out classical-style scores in favor of futuristic sounds that would dominate the ’80s. I collected over 25 of my favorite Giorgio songs for the latest Uggh…Nice Watch compilation…
THE GIORGIO MORODER COLLECTION:
1. Giorgio “Tears” (1972)
2. Donna Summer “Working The Midnight Shift” (1977)
3. Giorgio Moroder “Chase” (1978)
4. Janet Jackson “If It Takes All Night” (1984)
5. Giorgio Moroder “Tony’s Theme” (1983)
6. Blondie “Call Me” (1980)
7. Donna Summer “I Feel Love” (1977)
8. Giorgio Moroder “E=MC²” (1979)
9. Freddie Mercury “Love Kills” (1984)
10. Munich Machine “It’s For You” (1978)
11. Donna Summer “On The Radio” (1979)
12. Giorgio Moroder “Theme From Midnight Express” (1978)
13. Roberta Kelly “Trouble Maker” (1976)
14. Donna Summer “Hot Stuff” (1979)
15. Giorgio Moroder “Evolution” (1978)
16. Donna Summer “Dim All The Lights” (1979)
17. Berlin “Take My Breath Away” (1986)
18. Donna Summer “Love’s Unkind” (1977)
19. Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder “Together in Electric Dreams” (1985)
20. Limahl “The NeverEnding Story” (1984)
21. Giorgio Moroder “From Here To Eternity” (1977)
22. Paul Engemann “Scarface (Push It to the Limit)” (1983)
23. Donna Summer “Love to Love You Baby” (1975)
24. Irene Cara “Flashdance…What A Feeling” (1983)
25. Pat Benatar “Here’s My Heart (Classical Reprise)” (1984)
26. Giorgio “Son Of My Father” (1972)
DOWNLOAD: [ usershare | mediafire ]

Shalom! Just in time for Purim, the first ever twitter trending topic-inspired mixtape is finally here- “The #Jewishrapnames Mixtape- Kings of Schlock”

Presented by hip-hop journalist Paul Cantor, urban culture photo blog UpNorthTrips.com and mixed by The Smoking Section’s own Trackstar The DJ, Kings of Schlock is a humorous tongue in cheek take on Judaism’s role in hip-hop music.

“Once you get past the glitz and glamor, everybody in hip-hop wishes they were a little bit Jewish,” says Paul Cantor. “It behooves you to be a stand-up guy in rap, a mensch. Still, times are tough in the record business, and it pays to be tight with your money, a miser. So there’s a bunch of different Jewish characteristics or stereotypes, which we’re actually poking fun at, that lend themselves to thriving in the rap game.”

Guest starring HOT97 morning show radio personality Peter Rosenberg, hip-hop sketch comedy duo It’s The Real, and the OR (original Rabbi) Mike Moskoff, the project was inspired by a random twitter hashtag phenomenon that occurred last weekend (2/19-2/21), which saw the 140 character micro-blogging service turn into a #jewishrapnames free-for-all. Everyone from Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenberg to tastemaking DJ A-Trak to Samantha Ronson was in on the act. www.Jewishrapnames.com was launched instantly. A top #jewishrapname list was compiled by Paul Rosenberg and can be accessed at his site www.PaulRosenblog.com

“What we did was basically curate the top #jewishrapnames, the ones that tweeters kept repeating, and compiled them on one long-playing mix,” says Cantor. “The mixtape name and artwork is a play on Run DMC’s classic ‘King Of Rock’ LP cover, and then we added some skits to sort of create this Jewish rap narrative. The thing to keep in mind is that it’s all in good fun. Definitely for comedic purposes first and foremost.”

Kings of Schlock is the first of many proposed Jewish hip-hop-inspired projects. A second volume, featuring more original content, is already in the works.

Tracklisting
Dr Demento- Hebrew Rap
Meshugah Hill Gang- Rabbi’s Delight
Sephardic-Cyde- Passover Me By
Beastie Boys- Passover the Mic
Yiddish Ebonics Interlude
Brand Jewbian- Schlep to the Rear
Jew Tang Clan- Shame on a Meshugganah
Souls of Mitzvah- 93 til Yontifinity
Main Schwartz/Nasty Nashkenazi- Live at the Bar Mitzvah
Biggie Schmaltz- Jewcy
Dr Dreidel- Nothin but a Jew Thing
Old Dirty Mamzer- Shimmy Shimmy Yahweh
Craig Maccabbe- Flava In Yahrzeit
Jerusalem The Damaja- Brooklyn Tuchus
Method Manischevitz/Mary Jew Blige- I’ll Be There for Jew
Queen Haifa- JEW.N.I.T.Y
The Lox feat Lil Yom Kimpur- Gelt Power & Respect
2 Live Jews- Oy It’s So Humid
Hasheminem aka Slim Zadie- I Just Don’t Give a Schmuck Lauryn Hillel- To Zion

DOWNLOAD LINK

Artwork by Mark Malazarte
front

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Theo Martins “Veni Vidi Vici”  has been officially tapped to appear in the Jerry Bruckheimer-helmed show The Forgotten, which airs on ABC Tuesday nights at 10pm, after everyone’s favorite show in the entire universe, Lost. “Veni Vidi Vici” will appear in next week’s episode. Please tune in!

Additionally, Theo will be performing on a bill at Haverford college in Pennsylvania with Guilty Simpson next week, February 12th. If you’re in the area, stop by and give us a shout.

“Veni Vidi Vici”

Alternate download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?yozztbxwnal

About Theo- The 23-year old hails from Providence, Rhode Island and in 2008 dropped a highly acclaimed mixtape project called The Birth ( download HERE). In the fall of 2009 he toured the nation as a DJ/performer with U-N-I and Kidz in The Hall on the Warren G tour. He also finalized a deal with Hall of Justus to release You Can’t Do That On Television, a collaborative project with upcoming Ohio-bred producer $port, due out in March of this year. “Channel Surfin” with DJ Wreckonize drops this month. Additionally, Theo has upcoming fashion collaborations with Street Etiquette, J. Elquist, The Madbury Club (Award Tour), AnmlHse Clothing, and Minoru Blvd, among others.

Last week I was on twitter when someone with the handle Sweatshirt replied to something I’d tweeted about bitter people fucking the music industry up. I kinda just glanced at the twitter page and thought the name Shirt sounded familiar. I asked him if he was the kid who made a mixtape with all these rock samples and he replied that he was. The mixtape was called Unsigned In New York (DOWNLOAD). I remember the mixtape because it had to be something like 2005, and he was rapping over all these Nirvana samples and whatnot, and at the time, nobody was doing that (or at least nobody on my radar). They weren’t complete flips of the samples, more like reworkings of the songs so that he could rap over them. I thought back then that he had a good flow, solid voice and was doing something forward thinking. It was rap rock, but over classic shit.

So I sent him this beat that I’d originally made a year ago with The Knux in mind for, and I actually told Krispy Kream that I was going to send it to him when I saw him at the Knux Redbull secret show in January, but  just never got around to it. T-Shirt jumped right on it and sent it back to me the next day. He didn’t flip it into a song, more just like a two minute verse, a freestyle. I came away rather impressed by it. His voice and flow just sounds right on these types of tracks. He took it upon himself to send it to some blogs, with the following message attached

Famed writer, Hip-Hop journalist and producer Paul Cantor and I had an ill conversation last night. Turns out my man Ayes gave him my first mixtape 6 years ago in Staten Island and he went crazy. He told me it was “wayyyy ahead of it’s time”, and was “one of his favorite mixtapes in years”, you know, back when mixtapes meant something. This was so ill to me. Paul Cantor is like the real deal as far as industry guys go. He sent me over some music reminiscent of these big rock remixes I used to do. I’d rap on anything man, it’s so fucking fun to me. Anyway, the joint he sent over was from that era of music I was doing and at first I was a little taken back haha. It’s not what I do anymore ! I slept for about an hour, woke up this morning, and wrote and recorded this just to show ole Paulie what the fuck I’m still doing over here haha.

Flattering to say the least. So without further ado, here’s the Paul Cantor freestyle.

DOWNLOAD- T-Shirt “Paul Cantor Freestyle”

Last night Just Blaze held the final goodbye for his legendary Baseline recording studio. Naturally, I found out about the evening’s festivities, which reportedly were a walk-through and tour sort of thing, super late. I wound up making my way over around 10pm, after leaving the ego trip film screening. Timmhotep came with. I entered the studio to see what looked like actual organized confusion in the lounge. Boxes everywhere, records packed up, gear laying around, sneakers, pool balls and assorted memorabilia. I’d once been involved with the closing of a major studio (Mystic Studios, in Staten Island, where a lot of classic material was recorded), and remember the disaster which became of the studio space when the equipment was broken down and storage spaces were cleaned out. It’s really a trip down memory lane.

I wish I could say I had a really close relationship with Baseline, but I didn’t. That’s not to say I don’t have my memories of it like anyone else. Here are a few that come to mind.

- My first time playing beats in the A room. This was around December of 2002. The Blueprint 2 had just come out, and somehow someway a friend of mine met Geda K at a party or something, and asked him for music for these DJ Storm mixtapes we were recording out of the Staten Island studio I had at the time. We wound up at Baseline that night, and playing beats for Geda K and the rest of the Get Low Records artists. That was the first time I met Just Blaze. I recall being ushered out of the studio super late that night- Mariah Carey had arrived and to the best of my knowledge they cut “Oh Boy” in that session.

- I would occasionally go back to check the Get Low Records rappers, and they cut a few songs to beats of mine, but nothing ever came of it. I didn’t get back into Baseline really until the Spring of 2004, when Matt Fingaz brought myself and my  then manager, Gello Jones, up there during a session with Ayatollah in the B room. During that session I met the rapper Smitty, who at the time was signed to J Records, and gave him a beat CD, but didn’t really get his contacts or anything. The results of me handing him that beat CD wound up being the song “It’s Alright” which somehow got miscredited to 9th Wonder when it was released on an independent Smitty album in 2006. Till this day I’ve probably had five conversations with 9th Wonder and have never once broached this subject. I don’t even think he knows about it.

- A few months later I wound up interviewing Just Blaze for a XXL article on Beat Society that never made it into the magazine. That was my first front of the book piece for XXL. At the end of our interview I asked if I could play him some beats. He obliged. He picked two that he liked. One he wanted for Saigon, the other he asked me to bring back so he could re-produce it. I remember dropping the files off at Baseline a few days later and exchanging some emails with Just about it, saying that I don’t give files out for anything unless money is exchanging hands, but that I trusted him. A few days later I was at the XXL office and Bonsu Thompson told me Just was talking to him about me. I think he embellished a bit and said Just might want to sign me or something as a producer. That was a nice pipe dream while it lasted. Ha!

- The next fond memory I have of Baseline is coming up there to play beats for Freeway. This was either December of 2004, or 2005. Caveman Rosario, who cut my first check ever for a beat (”Through My Rearview” on Freeway’s Ice City: Welcome to the Hood LP) in 2004, wanted me to get on Free at Last. Free had already recorded to one of my beats and I was there to play more. I waited hours for Freeway to arrive. Scram Jones showed up too. I ended up playing the tracks at like 2am or something. The interesting thing about this night was this was the infamous session Freeway claims he didn’t have with Just Blaze, when he said Just was too busy for him. In fact, Just spent hours working on this one beat for him. So that’s the end of that.

- We also did the Scratch Magazine feature (NOT the cover story with Saigon) with Just Blaze and Roland V-Synth GT that was in the last issue of the magazine ever (with 50 Cent and Timbaland on the cover). I remember Scratch’s Editor-in-Chief looking at me kinda crazy when I suggested Just Blaze to do that review. He was like, “Are you just trying to get the biggest producers possible for your section of the magazine?” I replied, “Ummm… yeah.” And sure enough, Just was down for it. And in that interview is where you first heard him talk about doing more electronic-sounding music, a la TI’s “Live Your Life.”

Outside of that, I can remember meeting DJ Green Lantern at Baseline for the first time. I can remember Dan Solomito allowing me to come play beats for Naledge and Double-O of Kidz in the Hall during their 3-marathon recording session of School Was My Hustle. I remember giving Royce the 5′9 some beats outside of the studio one night. I remember playing beats for Young Guru one night when I was there for god knows what reason.

Let me not forgot, there was also that night I waited outside for something like three hours for Just to show up, just so I could play him some new shit. That was the grind back then.

To sum it up, it was a great place, a sort of crossroads for a lot of different types of folks in the music and media business. There used to be many of those types of studios in Manhattan. Now sadly many of them are gone, and we add Baseline to the list.

Just Blaze with the last call for alcohol

Just Blaze freestyling over Exhibit C

Pardon the terrible quality on these videos. I found out about the baseline closing event super late and was armed with only a blackberry camera phone.

Had a little down time one night in 2006, just started messing with some wu-tang acapellas and the melody from “All That I Got Is You,” and came up with this remix. Was going through a hard drive and found it, thought I’d share. Enjoy.

Plus I needed a reason to unearth the Ghostface doll picture.

download HERE.

Beats: XL
Lyrics: L
Originality: L

The success of Playaz Circle’s chart-topping, Lil Wayne–assisted single “Duffle Bag Boy” may have eclipsed that of their 2007 debut album, Supply & Demand, but don’t write them off as one-hit wonders just yet. Even though the DTP, Atlanta-based duo’s debut stalled out at around 96,000 units sold, Tity Boi and Dolla Boy are looking to reach new heights with their sophomore LP, Flight 360: The Takeoff.

The opening track, “Turbulence,” with its wailing guitars and distorted vocals, gives off an airy feel, as Playaz Circle take the album’s theme to task. “Look What I Got” finds PC giving listeners a taste of first class, when they incessantly boast about the finer things in life, alongside rolling bass licks, hypnotic synths and a screwed vocal hook. Material possessions aside, jet-setting has other perks. On “Can’t Remember,” featuring Bobby Valentino, Dolla Boy loses track of his various hoes and their respective area codes, when he spits, “I be travelin’ like a muthafucka/I should have gave that fine bitch there another number.” Then, on the haunting “Big Dawg,” the group reunites with Lil Wayne to plant their feet in the trap.

This ride’s not without some bumps, though. “Weight Droppin’,” with its bright horn stabs, is too saccharine-sounding for these d-boys. And the trite “Hold Up,” whose sparse chorus just repeats the song title, sounds lazy and unfinished. Luckily, the boys get back to piloting their ship right with the raucous “DJ Know Me,” while confronting the elephant in the room (Tity Boi: “I walk in the club, me and my comrade/Nigga talkin’ ‘duffle bag,’ well, we already done that”).

By the time the LP wraps, it’s clear Playaz Circle are deserving of more than just a cursory listen. No longer one-hitter quitters, with Flight 360, Tity Boi and Dolla deliver a pretty fly follow-up. —Paul Cantor

originally published at XXLMag.com

Music is like the movies in that there’s only so long certain characters can remain in supporting roles. Ask the The Kickdrums. The Cleveland-bred duo, comprised of singer/songwriter/producer Alex Fitts and DJ/producer Matt Penttila played the background in the hip-hop world as beatmakers for a number of years, crafting tracks/remixes for artists like 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, Ray Cash (peep this XXL review from ‘06, where I was first drawn to their sound), Kid Cudi, Joe Budden and Little Brother, among others. But it wasn’t until 2007, when they decided to fall back from producing others, and start working on their own material, that they began to see the cameras shift in their direction (well, sometimes they still play the background). Earlier this year, The Kickdrums left Cleveland and settled in New York, and in June they released their debut project, Just A Game. The album was well-received and by September they were opening for Miike Snow at Mercury Lounge. Earlier this week, the group teamed with URB.com to release their second project this year, the EP There Might Be Blood. We recently talked via email, our conversation follows.

Your new EP’s title is a play on There Will Be Blood. What’s the story behind that?

Alex- Originally the EP was going to be called “no-fi” but after watching that flick I thought of that play on words and it stuck in my head. It ended up being a solid theme for us as the songs developed. Almost like a concept.

Matt- The name matches the tone of the album and definitely grabs your interest when you hear it. It sounds threatening and kind of reckless, like the music.

This record is noticeably darker in tone than Just A Game, the riffs are faster, everything is just more aggressive. A little more heavy metal than soul rock. What influenced that change in sonic direction?

Alex- After Just a Game we wanted to do something a little heavier and faster. Just to blow off some steam. I guess playing that fast in general will make the songs come out more aggressive. Just A Game had a lot of dark lyrics too. The music was just lighter.

You’ve said the project was inspired by trying to create something containing natural noises- reverbs, echos, distortion, feedback- an effort to use these things in a musical way, to have them be instruments unto themselves. Do you think that you achieved your goal, were you able to successfully pull this off?

Alex- I was always a big fan of Sonic Youth and the whole Lo-fi movement while growing up. They would build their own stomp boxes while recording to create weird effects and crazy distortion tones that would define each project. I thought that was the coolest fucking shit you could possibly do as a musician. I can’t really build my own stuff like them but I really wanted to try and create some signature tones for the album. I wanted everything to be somewhat distorted but still listenable. I also wanted to incorporate a lot of vocals that weren’t necessarily saying anything like “la la la’s” ect. That’s where a lot of verb and echo came into play.

I think I’m most proud of the guitar distortion I designed for this album. It was so intense that the second I stopped playing it would feedback like crazy but I kinda learned to control it and strategically cue it up. In my opinion it’s terrible sounding in a beautiful way lol. It happens through out the whole album but the best example might be the eight bars after the chorus in “Walking Dream.”

A song that really jumps out at me is “Watch for White Noise,” which doesn’t even have any real song structure from a lyric standpoint, but has these sort of repeated chants and the words “bring out the dead” taking center stage. I can’t even tell if that’s your voice or something you sampled. Talk to me a little about that song, how it was conceptualized and put together. It’s such an interesting piece of music, I feel like I can literally see it in concert while I’m listening to it.

Matt - When searching for samples you look for things that sound good or for things that make sense. In this case, it sounds good and makes sense, which is the best possible scenario. This record works in so many ways. It contains a sample of punk garage rock pioneers, MC5’s classic, “Kick Out the Jams.” Our album leans in that direction so it feels right to pay homage to the originators by respectfully flipping one of their cuts and adding our own Kickdrums twist to it. Besides, it just makes sense for The Kickdrums to flip a track called “Kick Out the Jams.”

Besides the obvious answer (”just something cool looking”), is there anything more to the EP artwork than meets the eye? It’s a very striking image.

Matt- I heard a quote once that if it’s not about life and death, it’s not worth talking about. I think Alex does a great job tackling the subject in his lyrics without spelling it out for you. I wanted the cover to be the same way. If you read between the lines, you’re staring Death in the face, you’re life and possibly your soul is on the line, and you’ve gotta make a move. There “might” be blood, or there “might” not be, depending the choice you make. What do you do? I kept it simple to leave more to the viewers imagination. On a lighter note, we were releasing the album on Halloween and we wanted something spooky looking.

Was the record’s release around Halloween a planned approach or was that something that just happened coincidentally?

Alex- That idea happened in one of those “light bulb” moments. It wasn’t planned very far out though. We we’re looking for a cool way to release it because it had been done since June and we hate hanging on to music (or even worse, potentially never putting it out.) With our next major album Meet Your Ghost slowly wrapping up the window was closing. Halloween seemed to fit just right for it.

How did you link with URB.com to present the project, and what went into informing your decision to go ahead and do it with them?

Alex- We were introduced to Joshua [Glazer] over there through Mick Boogie. We’ve always been fans of their magazine and thought it would be a good home for the album. I think partnering up with a site/publication is a win/win for everyone. They get some cool exclusive content and get to introduce people to a new act and we get exposure in a different demographic.

This is your second project that you’ve given away for free. What are your goals moving forward, will you be continuing to give away free music in attempt to get more shows and so on, or are you looking to start charging for the music at some point?

Alex- This project was kinda short and sweet. I guess we didn’t see the value in going super hard for sales on it. Although we did team up with a great distro company, Foundation Media to make sure it was on all the digital sites for the people who wanted to show us love or get the high quality WAVs. The plan is still to take a chunk of our first months iTunes sales and dump that into limited edition 10″ vinyl. To us that’s where an album like this belongs.

Meet Your Ghost will be our first pure retail album. We’re hoping that through these first two releases we’ve made a lot of fans and gained people’s respect. We’re gonna really step up the number of shows as well. It’s been so busy that we had to adopt a “one step at a time” approach to manage everything. So we’re just getting around to the full production of our live set. We’re putting together our performance like an album in itself.

Should people expect some Rik Cordero-directed videos from this EP?

Alex- Yeah we’ve talked about it! I guess the right answer would be “Walking Dream” but to be honest, I’d rather do “Merry Go Round.”

What’s going on outside of The Kickdrums as a band? You’ve both moved to New York, is anything in the pipeline production-wise?

Alex- Ironically, we really moved here to be a band. We’ve had a ton of people reach out for production but its just not as appealing as it used to be. We rather just keep building our own brand as artists. But I’m sure well end up producing a few tracks next year.

DOWNLOAD THERE MIGHT BE BLOOD

Jay and the Beans Talk from jeff on Vimeo.

Shouts to my buddies The Rosenthals. They echoed this perfectly.

Since Beanie Sigel’s halfway dis record against Jay-Z, “What You Talkin Bout” debuted on Kay Slay’s show on Hot97 last night, the internets/streets are going nuts about the Broad Street Bully airing out Hov.

First, the song. People are going ape shit but in reality, this song is like, not good. The beat, a middling drum pattern with a tick-tocky clock-like melody, is a mellow backdrop so you can clearly hear what Beanie’s saying. Except he’s not really saying much. which makes this song itself a total non-event.

Secondly, the interview. In the first half it sounds like Beans is genuinely peeved about a bunch of things that went on with Roc-A-Fella, all legitimate beefs. He talks a bit about going to jail, how the Young Gunz were only getting $1200 a night on the road with Jay, himself not being paid on tours, money that he thought he was due through a sneaker deal with Pro Keds, so on and so forth. Without any intimate knowledge of the business affairs that went on at Roc-A-Fella, I’ve no doubt in my mind that the  funny money situations Beans speaks about with album advances, recording budgets and Roc-A-Fella’s various business, were really occurring. This is the record business, shit happens.

The most striking part of the interview to me though, was when Beanie says he hasn’t spoken to Jay-Z in two years. He mentions that he can’t get in touch with Jay, that it takes talking to 5 people to speak with him. To hear Beanie tell it, Shawn Carter is like the Michael Corleone of the rap game. Except he’s really not.

Beanie Sigel thinks that Roc-A-Fella was a family. It wasn’t. Beanie Sigel was signed as a recording artist to Roc-A-Fella Records, given an album budget to record songs which the label could then exploit in the marketplace. In terms of that avenue of business, not mixtape songs or whether Beanie Sigel is “nice” or he bodied so and so on a track or went to war with Jadakiss or Nas, he was not very successful. To the best of my knowledge, only one Beanie Sigel album went Gold, and that was his first LP, The Truth, which was spearheaded by a Jay-Z single, “Anything.” Keep in mind this was the year 2000, when a rapper could literally take a piss on a record and it would have sold platinum or better. That Jay-Z had the single from another artist on his label’s debut LP should tell you something- Beans was a commercial liability from day 1. As Beans alludes to in his new song, he “brought the fellas to Roc-A-Fella.” Yeah, that’s exactly what he did. He lent an element of goonery to Roc-A-Fella when all they had was Jay and Bleek (hardly what I’d call goons).

Beanie was like Jay-Z’s Tony Yayo, except less paid.

On top of all this, Beanie signed with Dame Dash Music Group back in 2004. In a wikipedia entry on Beanie, it says he made the decision to sign with Dame over Jay because he’d never spent time around Jay on and off day. That he had a more personal relationship with Dame and Biggs. Now here he is, five years later, saying they were like a family, that he wants a phone call blah blah blah. He didn’t want that phone call in 2004, when he was sitting in Jay’s office (according to the Charlemagne interview), asking to be let out of his contract. So what’s the real story?

Perhaps Jay is like Michael Corleone, and once you take sides with another family, you’re done in his eyes. Or perhaps it’s a lot less dramatic, and it’s more like, as I alluded to above, Beanie never really being much of a marquee player, more like a Rick Mahorn-style bruiser who was on the team just to rough up the other team’s best player (Jadakiss, Nas, Jaz-0, etc).

In that respect, Beanie would fall in line with a whole assortment of characters who Jay-Z has left by the wayside as he’s moved on to bigger and better things.  Take a number- R. Kelly, Foxy Brown, Jaz-O, Amil, Dame Dash, DMX, Irv Gotti, Ski Beatz, Sauce Money… this list goes on and on. My thought is, Beanie should add his name to the list of those who may never get a return call from Hov. This whole scenario is sounding like a Tweet song right about now.