About Me
Best MySpace Music
Joe Good and Mac Lethal "Welcome to My MySpace Page"
Musicians all over the country must have slapped themselves on their foreheads when they first heard the chorus to Joe Good and Mac Lethal's MySpace song. Everyone knows that MySpace is the No. 1 networking tool for garage-made American idols. A song devoted to MySpace itself? The idea was so obvious that no one thought of it. Then Joe and Mac came along, rapping scatological rhymes over a joyous, horn-honking beat. The song, which can be heard upon arrival at www.myspace.com/maclethal, is stuffed with clever MySpace inside jokes, calling out names of such MySpace celebrities as Tom and Tila Tequila. After a random tangent in which Mac touts Omar Epps' underappreciated acting skills, he raps, I really want to tell guys with this song/MySpace girls don't wanna get hit on. He continues: Motherfuck Friendster, that's Mike's Hard Lemonade/And MySpace is a nice-tasting glass of vodka mixed with ice and pulp-free Minute Maid. And any MySpace junkie knows where Mac's coming from when he says, I'm addicted to it/ Man, I love it/MySpace.com, I wish that I could fuck it!
Best MC
Joe Good
Jamal Gamby had already gained recognition as one-half of the MC-producer duo SoundsGood, whose Biscuits & Gravy came out last year, to much acclaim. As a solo artist on his and Mac Lethal's Black Clover imprint, Gamby -- aka Joe Good -- truly came into his own as a rhymer and stage rocker and, basically, an MC in full. His confident flow, tempered by funk influences and hard-ass beat poetics, was the kind of delivery that blows air out of the speakers on every consonant and transforms the mic into a crowd-controlling megaphone. No longer the party-boy rapper backed by can't-fail beats, on Hi May I Help You? Good displays the kind of skills that don't even need a thumpin' 808 behind them to grab attention. Meanwhile, offstage, he has worked to unite the fractious hip-hop community, appealing to fans of the backpack hip-hop set and also to hardcore rappers who ride east of Troost. Because Joe Good ain't in it just for himself -- he's here for KC.
Best Rap Track
Joe Good "In Ya Mouf"
There's civic pride, and then there's the earnest search for a local identity. "In Ya Mouf" from Joe Good's mix Hi May I Help You? goes way beyond the Chiefs, the Royals and barbecue. It calls for all local hip-hop artists to rise up, resist the temptation to ape any of the game's commercially accepted styles (East Coast, West Coast, Down South) and be "simply homegrown." Good proves that it doesn't take a fat cat to pronounce our scene legit -- what it takes is a group of local artists who believe in themselves enough to remain locally based and to rep KC whenever they leave it. If hip-hop was born of the streets, why pretend like you grew up slangin' beats and rhymes in somebody else's hometown? We got all we need right here, and we can still innovate. Thanks, Joe Good, for reminding us.
