Hiphopnerd

I got an email last Monday from lala.com, a used CD community, inviting me to join. I don't remember exactly where I heard of lala, but I was intrigued enough to give them my email address. Here's how they work:

1) Enter CD's that you want by searching through their catalog of CD's and selecting "Want It"
2) Enter CD's that you own the same way and selecting "Have It"

If someone has a CD that you want, they can opt to send it to you via a prepaid mailing envelope (provided by lala). Lala charges you $1.49, and upon receipt of the disc you have to login and specify whether it was sent in good condition or not.

If you have a CD that someone else wants, you'll see a button that says "Ship It" next to that album in your collection. You're under no obligation to do so...in fact, you can click a different button that says "Keep It" and you won't be asked to ship it again. If you do agree to ship it, lala will give you the requesting members address, which you write on the prepaid mailer. Insert CD, close, and drop in mailbox.

Obviously, in order for the system to work, you have to send out some CD's in order to receive any. But it's a rather economical way to clean out some stuff from your collection, and get some stuff you've been looking for. I'm using to pick up some old-school albums to fill out my collection in that area. Things I don't really want to pay full price for, but definitely want to have. The site is also a community, setup similar to myspace where you can define friends, leave blurbs or tidbits for others, and maintain a blog of your own. At any rate, here's my tally so far, at a cost of $6 (the first cd upon joining is free):

CD's I'm receiving:
Digital Underground - "Sex Packets"
Das Efx - "Dead Serious"
Prime Minister Pete Nice - "Dust To Dust"
Masta Ace - "Sittin' On Chrome"
Jaylib - "Champion Sound"

CD's I've sent:
Mike Ladd - "Welcome To The Afterfuture"
Badmarsh & Shri - "Dancing Drums"
Bone Thugs N Harmony - "Art Of War" (both discs)

The funny part has been trying to decide whether I want to keep an album or not. Well, this Esthero EP only has 2 non-album songs on it...are they good enough for me to keep it? Is this Dead Prez mixtape any good...i certainly haven't listened to it in forever. Man, I was the biggest Bone Thugs fan around (no, seriously...I was. I had a baseball cap AND boxers with their logo on em)...do I really want to get rid of this double album magnum opus?

To that end, I was listening to the Bone Thugs album on Friday, and it was funny because I found myself singing along. I was thinking, man, it's easy to see how I got so into them back in the day...solid beats, catchy hooks, the sing-songyness. They did what they did very well. Krayzie Bone was always my favorite...he seemed to have the strongest verses and the best voice, and usually did the hooks. Wish Bone though...man is he awful. He sounds like someone's relative that they just allowed into the group to be nice...and his raps often suggest that themselves. I swear he had a line expressing 'i'm so glad to be part of the bone thug family!' in each of the first five tracks on that "Art of War" album. I still have to get through disc two, but I decided to send the CD out anyway. I still can't see myself listening to it all that often.

Now...do I really want to keep these Coldplay discs??

After years of being a hater...years of insisting that I didn't like a single one of his songs, or really anything about him...I did it...

I purchased a Jay-Z album.

"Reasonable Doubt" - the classic debut, or so everyone says. I figured that was the place to start...see if I could like him a bit more when he was young and hungry, see if I might find an appreciation of his music.

I think I knew beforehand that I wouldn't hate it. I mean, if I expected to hate every song on it, then I wouldn't have wasted my money. But I also knew that I'd never really given him a full chance. I missed this when it originally came out in 96...and everything I'd heard from radio & MTV tracks never really appealed to me. And then as his popularity grew, so did the ego and persona, and I just got turned off by Jay-Z and his music.

But man, there is some nice stuff on here. Having Primo produce a few tracks certainly never hurts. "Feelin' It" is probably my favorite song...and to think...I could have been listening to this song for the last 10 years if I didn't have this (mostly) irratational hatred of Jay-Z. "Dead Presidents II" is damn nice too...what's the story with this song? I know I have the reissue of the album, hence the "II" on the end of this track, so what did it sound like on the original pressing?

I can't say I'm in a hurry to collect the rest of his discography...but I'm a lot more interested than I was a week ago.