On Friday nite I traveled into the bowels of Brooklyn under the Williamsburg Bridge to hang out with Meyhem Lauren and his Outdoorsmen comrades.
The video shoot was reminiscent of the time I hung around the Diplomats. It was that decadent. That crazy and that frivolous. I was that drunk. The Lo-Lifes came thru to represent for J-Love and Meyhem. Graff writers came out as well. I miss seeing these underground street Hip-Hop movements. Everything in rap music right now is so polished and overproduced.
Not so with the Outdoorsmen. This is that raw and unrefined gem. Meyhem Lauren’s ‘Just Can’t Win’ is hardbody NYC rap. Go get the CD with the pillow on the cover if your ears want that soft shit. These boys are going hard [ll].
* MEYHEMLAUREN BONUS BEATS *
Meyhem Lauren featuring AG da’ Coroner – ‘Sound Boy Massacre’
* J-LOVE BONUS BEATS *
J-Love featuring Meyhem Lauren – ‘Contraband’
Q: What’s up with Outdoorsmen logo? Were these guys wasting ‘gooks’ or whatnot in ‘Nam with their automatic weapons or are they just another bunch of juvenile rap asswipes who like “Scarface” (which is maybe DePalma’s worst fucking movie) a little too much?
I say this to provoke dudes to up their fucking game, because musically there’s some potential there but goddamn, how silly is this shit? Oooh, they KILLERS!
Dudes in Auburn, Dannemora, Sing Sing might think otherwise but hey.
remember how the Dips had the american bald eagle holding two uzis?
Its the rap music nom de riguer of symbols
oh shit!! look @ just in contraband video… i c u ma g…..
The outdoorsmen / lo lifes music and movent is dope and about to make some real noise, I’d bet my house on it. Keep dropping that heat!
I feel you DP (II), I was just a little edgey and want Mayhem to do well– better than that, even, and gunplay ig’nance isn’t the type of retro-futurism I hope that he’s developing, i.e. we’re all fiending for a contemporary “Criminal Minded” to (the real) “Ghetto Music” to “Return of the Boom Bap” type progression.
Also, tho’ I’ve tried to ignore it, even the peripheral LIES LIES LIES LIES and bullshit about the Jay-Z “book” are nauseating, so I hate to see otherwise smart dudes feel the need to play with that shit…
Tho’ it’d be real interesting for Jay to talk about Dannemora, Auburn, Sing Sing etc and how close he came– or didn’t, REALLY– to being resident there.
Has it ever occured to anyone that there ARE some real street niggas out there? Just because our music and culture has been tainted by fake stories and Thug dreams doesn’t mean that everytime you hear some violent shit it’s fake,as a former street runner and Convicted felon I must say that you can gut check a nigga just by looking in his eyes,Now Mr. Saratoga N Blake I can understand your position to an extent but who are you to judge anything that these dudes say? Do you personally know what kind up lives they have lived? What kind of upbringing they had? What they’ve seen or done to feel comfortable saying what they say in their rhymes? I would say that none of us do,therefore we cannot judge without knowing what makes them who they are
Up North–
No, of course but I assume– perhaps wrongly (and if so I apologize)– if these dudes are there grinding out mixtape verses, slapping up stickers etc. that they have, thankfully, stayed out of hard time trouble.
What I was reacting to, mostly, was the use of the automatic weapon in their logo, which struck a wrong chord with me tho’ I can see it as just playing with iconography too.
Also, of course, anybody should be able to tell their story without censure for the telling of it– we can critique but at least, if you or anyone is sincere, we should respect the individual travails and effort behind that verses.
Most of my favorite MCs, by the way, are those who capture the ambiguities of the street– Ghostface, Scarface, Heltah Skeltah, Smif ‘N Wessun, Prodigy, etc.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Very well said
J-Love is a funny lookin dude no homo
I could give you a run for your money in a cluttered house coetpmition Vix, this place is terrible, at least your clutter is attractive! I love your prezzies from Clare, that top is lovely and I'll always love mixtapes, when you make one and it's loved it's the best feeling. xx