Dis record roundup #1
In celebration of Jay-Z's tepid new "not a dis" record "Lost Ones," I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at several other dis records that have been posted here in the past few weeks.
In rough backwards chronological order beginning with today.
Jay-Z "Lost Ones"
While it shares a title with Lauryn Hill's anti-Wyclef diatribe from the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (still haven't heard it), it's worth noting that "Lost Ones" is the first track leaked from Kingdom Come so far that doesn't feature a sample from some '90s pop rap record.
As far as I know.
After "Show Me What You Got" and the album's title track, "Lost Ones" is refreshingly devoid of any Just Blaze-isms, but that's about the best thing you can say about it from a musical standpoint. Otherwise, this is some really boring, budget rate mid '90s piano loop bullshit. I mean, if the aim here was to not draw attention away from the lyrics with the track itself, then fine. I guess. Similarly, if Jay was going for an "I'm so distraught I can no longer rap well" sort of thing with the lyrics, then... um, mission accomplished again, I suppose.
But nevermind any actual artistic merit this may or may not have. The real story is who Jay is "not dissing" here. "Lost Ones" tells the story of three well-publicized breakups Jay has had in the past year or so - with Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash, with his wailing, bedazzled yokel of a girlfriend Beyonce, and with his poor unfortunate nephew who died in a car accident. All told, Jay comes off like that one 50-year-old man who's been at the strip club everytime you've everytime you've ever been there going back to 1999.
The Game "Soundscan"
On "Soundscan," the Game borrows the Rick James-sampling beat from the title track to Jay's Kingdom Come to run down yet another week of lackluster album sales (Diddy came in number one, but with his worst first week sales evar) and then launches into his umpteenth tirade against G-Unit, even though their beef has been officially deaded on several different occasions now.
For what it's worth though, I happen to enjoy the Game's quixotic jihad against G-Unit. At the very least, it gives the guy something to rap about. Plus, the longer it goes on, the more interesting it gets in an R. Crumb's brother sort of way; how much shit can one man write about the exact same thing? Otherwise though, this isn't particularly remarkable. Moving on.
Ras Kass "Game Over"
Speaking of the Game, him and Ras Kass have got beef over the fact that the Game beat the crap out of him in a club a few weeks ago. It wasn't really a fair fight though in the sense that the Game is much bigger than Ras Kass, and it's just not fair when big people beat up little people, even when the little people ask for it.
Or so I've been told.
At this stage, I'm not sure what Ras Kass could do and not come off like a bitch. He should just be like, Fuck it, I got my ass kicked, and go back to making more records like "Nature of the Threat." I mean, that's what people actually want. I guess he's hanging out with a lot of white guys these days, so he can't really go there like he used to.
Final Thought: It's been a minute since there's been a really good, really devastating dis record. There's one where Gillie the Kid goes off on Lil' Wayne and Trina that I recall being fairly amusing, but that's been a while ago and I didn't feel like digging it up. One thing I have noticed is that it seems like there's more and more of these being released now than ever. If you dig through the Bangers section of this site, you can find one on pretty much every page.
Head any good dis records lately?
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