Raekwon featuring Mika!

I guess I've been upset with Hip-Hop... but you can only get mad with things that you care about. I love Hip-Hop and how it has been an empowering voice for young people of color and poverty.

Much of my problem has been with the regional unoriginality. For example, when Jay-Z breaks in New York, every other New York rapper tries to sound like him. When Snoop breaks in the West, every other west coast rapper tries to sound like him. Most recently, with the success of Andre 3000, there's a trendy hipster movement happening in the south.

I'm not a fan of alot of the rap out now because most of it is a bad offshoot of something that was good in the past. However, I love anything original. I like some of what Lil' Wayne is doing, I love Andre 3000, I like Charles Hamilton, I still love Jay-Z (pause), I still like Fifty, still like the Game, and I still like Ludacris. I guess it would be cool to say I like The Cool Kids but I'm not that cool and I havent taken an earnest listen.

But at the risk of sounding like an old head (see Sickamore's blog), my favorite song of the day is by Raekwon featuring Mika. This song is called "Once in a Lifetime" and it just sounds special to me. Check for it on his Only Built For Cuban Links 2 album.