THE TOKEN "MAGNA CARTA HOLY GRAIL" REVIEW BECAUSE I'M A WHITE PERSON WHO LIKES RAP

       So to start off, this has been a pretty big month for rap music by the numbers. Wale, J Cole, and Kanye moved some units. Problem is, I don't listen to J Cole because the only thing he raps about is graphic details of sexual encounters that just make me uncomfortable because I have sex with the lights off in complete silence, and Wale thinks he's Socrates. He's the only rapper I've ever heard that spends 2 minutes on every track before his beat kicks in to make a Dr. Seuss rhyme about monogamy, or whatever shit he's trying to sound profound talking about. He's like a walking musical Aesop Fable. So as far as I'm concerned, both of those guys suck. I had my hopes up for "Yeezus" because Kanye's child was born that week, and that was just marketing genius, meaning his album had to be good right? WRONG. Holy shit this thing was a heap of garbage. Just incoherent blabber from a man who clearly just has his head up his own ass at this point and has nothing left to say because he's rich, arrogant, and fucking crazy as cat shit.

      Needless to say I was pretty pissed off until I started seeing these Samsung commercials for Jay's new album. Jay+Rick Rubin+ Swizz Beats+ black and white filter= cool commercial. Then I started remembering that a lot of Jay's albums kind of suck (shoutout to "Kingdom Come") and I got nervous. I couldn't handle another let down, not after fucking "Yeezus" which I've embraced as the biggest musical disappointment of my life (because it sucked THAT badly). I was having panic attacks, guy. "WHAT IF TIMBALAND'S BEATS SOUND EXACTLY LIKE THOSE NELLY FURTADO BEATS?"......."WHAT IF JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TRIES TO RAP ON HIS FEATURE?"......."WHAT IF NOTHING HAPPENS AFTER YOU DIE?" (That one has nothing to do with the album. My therapist and I are working it out, we'll get there). 

      I heard the album for the first time on Saturday night in my friend's car (shoutout to Ryan Cisek) because he has a Samsung S whatever it is, and I loved it. Unfortunately, I was drunk as hell, and when I'm drunk as hell I also love fat bitches, Hawaiian shirts, and sandwiches deep fried in sandwiches.  Clearly I had to give it another, un-beer-biased listen, and I did.

     THE VERDICT--------Better than fucking "Yeezus".

    No shit this thing was going to be better than "Yeezus", I just can't get over how pissed off I still am at Kanye for thinking this thing was good and releasing it to the public.

   In all honesty, I do really like "Magna Carta Holy Grail". I'd put it in the top 3 and I'm going to get fucking reamed out for my opinion for this, but hear me out.  "Reasonable Doubt" is obviously his best, and I think, "The Black Album" is number 2. Yes. I think "The Black Album" is better than "Blueprint". "Blue Print" is still bad ass but "The Black Album" is just splattered with Just Blaze and Kanye in their hay day and that goes a long way for me. This album is his best in the last 10 years, hands down. The reason why I think it's so good is that Jay is acting his age. He's not rapping about moving weight anymore, or guns, or (insert rap stereotype here). The argument is that that content makes lyrics more interesting, but if you're not really doing it, isn't it worse to pretend? Wouldn't we be more mad if Jay was rhyming about how he's still out in streets when we fucking know he's a business man with an office and a daughter now? That shit would be ridiculous. He's 43. He's an adult, he shouldn't be making dance tracks anymore, he shouldn't be rapping about dew rags anymore. He's a rich middle aged dude, and that's what he's giving you. I'm a fan of honesty, and that's exactly what I got from the album.

  The good thing about being Jay-Z is that your boys bring their A-game when you're putting an album together. Pharrell, Timbaland, Swizz Beats throw some wild beats on this thing. People are talking reckless about "BBC" and they say it's a weak beat but I think that's bullshit. I also think Nas bodies the track and it makes me happy seeing him on anyone's albums because I still believe he's the best rapper alive. My favorite thing about Jay-Z though, is his sheer power and influence. He reminds the whole world that he's above the current trends, condemning them, kind of. He goes after Miley Cyrus (aka Nazi haircut) and her stupid obsession with twerking, and the use of molly in "Tom Ford", because once again, he's 43. If he was taking club drugs that'd be pretty fucking pathetic, and I know that I started this thought with his power and influence, so I'll tie it back in right now, but I need a new paragraph, guy.

  He's the top of the food chain, and sets the trends instead of trying to fall in line with the rap cliches. Nothing about turning up, nothing about molly, or lean, or racks....unless he's making fun of it. I honestly think you're going to see some hip hop trends die out a little bit because Jay makes them sound silly on the album. Don't believe me? Remember when T-Pain had "beef" with Jay because of the autotune craze that was happening in hip hop at the time? Well it happened. Then Jay released "DOA" (Death of Autotune) in 2009 when "Blue Print 3" came out, and I haven't heard a peep from T-Pain since then. He ended a man's CAREER with one song. I mean I'm sure T-Pain is still playing colleges and shit like that, but shawty isn't snappin' the way he used to be.

Anyway, I'm buying this thing when I get paid Monday, and it's worth the listen for sure, so check it out. Let me know what you think, hit me up on Twitter and Instagram- @mikecoscarelli, and like the Facebook page. The podcast hiatus is over, and I got new episodes coming for you guys next week, and HIT THAT FOLLOW BUTTON.

PEACE OUT
 

THE DAY THE BLOG GOT POLITICAL

      Happy 4th yall. Hope you're funneling some sort of alcohol sucking down a few Sabrett's. As you can see by the title I'm shifting gears for a moment. We all knew this day was coming, let's be real. I talk way too much shit about young Hollywood, and the music business to not weigh in on the disgusting behavior of regular human beings, and June has been a big month for that. Before I start with the slander, you need to know my political views. I consider myself a middle-ist (just made this shit up right now, holla back). I make my efforts to see every situation as rationally as possible. I'm conservative sometimes. I'm liberal other times. For example, I go heavy for gay rights because c'mon man, it's really none of my business who is sucking what. On the flip side of that, people on welfare gotta go out and try to find a job because my taxes are paying for their 6 oz carton of chocolate milk. See what I'm saying? So here we go. The first political opinion of my "journalistic career." So can I get a drum roll? Please? No? Because it's a blog? Gotcha.

     Edward Snowden is a rotten, scumbag traitor. Holy shit I cannot believe that this is happening right now. This is possibly the biggest scandal of my life thus far. You can argue Clinton...I guess. Let's be real though, the Clinton thing always just circles back to the fact that the most powerful man in the world got his dick sucked by an intern at work, because he's the most powerful man in the world and he should be able to get his dick sucked by an intern at work. Doesn't seem like such a big deal to me seeing as how Henry VII be-headed 3 of his wives and started his own religion. When you really compare the two, Clinton's rub and tug seems pretty microscopic.

     The facts of this shit storm are still bubbling to the surface because all the 24 hour news networks are having a giant bukaki over the juiciness of the story and forgetting to bring credible news to the airwaves. The basics of what I've been able to gather from all this is that this shifty eyed muppet spilled the beans on standard US, and UK security practices. The information that he turned over to the press was about 3 major NSA surveillance programs, PRISM, MAINWAY, and Boundless Informant. The overview of these programs was that the government was asking Verizon and AT&T and all these other phone companies for phone records. Not transcripts. Just records. Like when you get your phone bill and you can see who you called at what time..... basically the NSA had our phone bills. I could call prostitutes for regular appointments, but if you look at my monthly statement, unless the number is 1-800-NIPPLES (that's 1---800-N-I-P-P-L-E-S) you would have no clue who I was calling. The only time the government would be able to tap your phone, and this is information that has been submitted into grand juries and written into law, is with a warrant. Basically, if you're calling certain area codes too often that look out of the ordinary, the NSA would go get a warrant and tap your phone to make sure nothing fishy is going on.

    First of all.....so what? Didn't we kind of have an idea this was happening in the first place? Haven't the vast technological advances since 9/11 been paramount in stopping and containing these goddamned terror attacks? There are cameras all over Times Square, CAMERAS. You want to bitch about that too? There are people literally keeping tight surveillance on 9 blocks in New York City watching every single fart blown from 41st street to 50th street in between 7th and 8th Avenue. Aren't cameras worse? They can actually see you and what your shitty face looks like, but obviously you're not going to complain because the NYPD busted a guy with a bomb in his car in 2010 and we averted a devastating crisis that would have killed tons of people. The same thing happened in Boston (shout out to Boston) with these scumbags who bombed the marathon. They had an ID on them in a day and a half. We don't complain about that because it's a good idea that keeps people safe in a world that is just soup to nuts fucking crazy.

     Hippies and radical libs are calling this guy a hero, further proving how stupid hippies are. In their granola, candyland minds, the world needs more hugs and scented jasmine tea and life is just one big drum circle, and if we're lucky maybe Sting (I call him Stink, because he stinks) will sit in and throw some good vibes our way. I got news for you cousin, as cute as all that shit sounds and as ideologically sincere those ideas might be, people want to blow us the fuck up. We no longer live in a time where we can just give people the benefit of the doubt.  Dudes are walking into airports with plastic explosives in their jockeys. Obviously they shouldn't do that because it harshes our buzz bruh, but they do, so we have to put cameras next to the Roxy Delicatessen and keep an eye on people's phone bills.

    The other side of the argument seems to be coming more from the right. Some people on the left are bringing this up also, so I won't leave them out, but apparently people are talking reckless amounts of shit about the government and the administration. Bush did the same shit, first off, and if you don't think he did, you're crazy. Kennedy, and Lincoln, and FDR would have done the same thing if they had a heavy threat cloaked in invisibility like we do right now. (The irony of this is that Kennedy and Lincoln were shot in the fucking face by civilians that could have been eavesdropped on in 2013.) These are the drawbacks of living in a nation that is a super power, and if someone could please explain this to fuck face Tom Morello who constantly has this "woe is me" complex with the government, that'd be gr8.

   
   Canada doesn't have this problem, because no one gives a shit about Canada. Are they French? Are they English? They like hockey? No one knows. No one cares. If you want to live in a non confrontational, mediocre (and that's generous) country, pack your shit, bring a coat, make sure you have money for crepes, and get on the Amtrak to your new life. 

 Snowden himself is a man who took an oath of secrecy and then just decided to be an Indian giver with government secrets. When someone is given a job involving any sort of government intelligence like this they take their oath for a reason. If everyone knew all the moves our military and defense agencies were making, it wouldn't be intelligence, it would be trivia. The government is there to protect us, and sometimes it takes liberties. For you to make an effort to be apart of the bureaucratic machine by entering the military as a special forces operative (the original plan, until fart head broke both of his legs during a training exercise) and not know this going in is just silly. You mean to tell me that homeboy was going to secretly kill people under the veil of darkness on foreign soil, but handing over phone bills to the government clouds his conscience? Get that shit out of here, b. Just look...at his stupid....face.

     The more you dig into his psychology the more he looks like a total asshole. He thought he'd be a national hero, and it kind of seems like the results are split amongst U.S. citizens. Just look at this quote.  

   "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong."

    This is a quote from the guardian in regards to Snowden's actions. A quote that came out while he was hiding out in China. So to reiterate, "I got nothing to hide, b......but if you need me, I'll be hanging out on the farthest possible point on the Earth from the people that would want to put me in jail." I don't know about you, but if I did some wild shit that I wasn't afraid of getting in trouble for, I'm still going to Zarro's in Penn Station before work to get my coffee, and carrying out my day as usual because I have no fear of being called in for questioning. Then to make things worse, he flies up to Russia (who is kind of still our enemy on the low) and meets with top officials over there. Then to make things even more worse, he expresses his interest to fly down to Cuba which is 20 miles away from Florida (Cuban missile crisis, ayyyyyy). Snowden, my guy, you have to understand how this could like like you were selling secrets to people that might want to be top banana on planet Earth. 

     He has applied for asylum now in 20 nations, and no one wants a piece because they don't want green berets at their border tearing shit to pieces at 3 AM, so I'm happy. If you did nothing wrong, come home and face the music dude.

    To be fair, I wouldn't truly be in the middle if I didn't listen to some other opinions from people who know what's going on. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Hit me up and lemme know. 

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The podcast comes back next, so be sure to check that out too. Happy 4th once again, and much love to anyone who put eyeballs on this.

PEACE.