"Control" / "Exhibit C"

It's just past midnight. I should be waking up in a little under six hours. But I can't sleep. New school year starting, not to mention our wedding taking place in two weeks, so my head is going around with lots of fleeting thoughts. To-do's, itineraries, schedules, packing lists. Etc. Thought I'd sit out here and put up some tracks I've been listening to the last few days.

The first is "Control" and needs very little introduction, except that some smart dude came up with a flowchart to help you decide whether you should follow the multitudes and create a response to Kendrick's verse. Fuck it, just skip to around 3:00 and listen to Lamar's verse on repeat. It's crazy.

Second is Jay Electronica's "Exhibit C"... Not sure how I missed this when it dropped. A beautiful, hypnotic beat by Just Blaze and a song-length verse by Jay that's chock full of crazy rhyme schemes that just sound plain badass. Love the tight, clipped lines and the question-and-answer go-around on lines like "You either build or destroy/Where you come from?/The Magnolia Projects in the Third Ward slum / Hum." That double rhyme at the end recalls the primest DOOM. And, yes, Jay Electronica does have a lot of that classic Nas flow.

Jonwayne's Cassette 3: Marion Morrison Mixtape

This week I was treated to two of the best albums/mixtapes I've heard in a while. The first is Jonwayne's Cassette 3, the third in a trilogy of cassette mixtapes. The beats are on point and the lyrical tornadoes range from poetic to inane. From "Mean Muggin": "You know these rhymes recall because I knew son / and then he slipped the noose on / with his loose arm / and sang a new song." Here it is, below. Listen repeatedly.