Welp, that was fast. Kendrick Lamar reaches 500,000 copies of his debut album, Good Kid, m.a.a.d. city, as the album is now officially certified gold. K. Dot had the highest first-week debut sales this year from any male hip hop artist. Capping off quite the year for Kendrick Lamar, no?
When you look at the names on this track you can't help but get excited about the potential of the song, and I have to say that it lived up to the expectations. All the verses were solid, the production was dope and Kris Stephens sounded great. Make sure to go grab Trouble Man Heavy Is The Head today.
I wasn't the biggest fan of Soul when I first heard him, now every time I hear a new track from him it seems like he's getting colder. TDE has to have the strongest camp right now and Soul is furthering that belief for me right now.
The reason this song made the list this week had nothing to do with song and I want to make sure I put that out there first. The reason I put this song on the list was soley because my name was spelled out in the hook, and I imagined me leaving a club one night and the hook playing as I walked out the door. Call me what you want but everybody wishes they had some sort of theme music or exit music now I do.
I feel like this was probably the most overlooked but cold as hell song from last week. Gemstones take on December 21st and what's to come for the world period I feel like musically came across great. Regardless of what you believe something is happening in the world and shout to Gemstones for speaking on it.
Dido has great taste when it comes to the rappers that she works with, going from the amazing voice that was on Stan with Eminem now featuring Kendrick on her newest single. The song is dope as hell and K-Dot compliment the track perfectly.
That's this week list, as always let me know what you think in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.
This morning, T.I. let Sway premiere this bonus track off the upcoming album, Trouble Man: Heavy Is The Head, dropping tomorrow. It has heavy-hitting feature verses from B.o.B & Kendrick Lamar... and this story I can tell from the Trouble Man listening party last week in Chicago... (stay tuned for our interview later today!)
This was the last track that T.I. played for us. He prefaced it by saying that it samples a song we'll all know, but the sample couldn't get clear for the album. He then added he has plans to re-work it to go around that sample with B.o.B & Kendrick Lamar for a single and that a version would be available on the iTunes version of the album.
The song that he played was different than the version above and sampled the iconic chorus (and more of the production) of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" - a perfect fit for the track as all the emcees reflect on an early girlfriend from their upbringing (somebody that they used to know...). Let me tell ya, the way everything came together for this version was an instant hit with the whole room. And flat out, better than this re-worked version released above.
I honestly just had a little moment of silence. Wishing everyone could hear that version as this one just lacks in comparison. Having said that, this stands alone as an instant *Tibs Fav. - a record you should rock in your rotation, stat. T.I. & B.o.B are candidly descriptive in their stories of past flames comin' up in school while Kendrick bats last with what many will consider the best verse of the three. Kris Stephens is on the new chorus and does a good job providing that female voice to link all the verses together. So all in all, this is already a nice track. But as you can tell, it's certainly leaving me wanting the original. Maybe that will surface as a free download sometime? *crosses fingers*
Tags for now, hopefully a CDQ hits with a better mix - will update if/when it does.
I had a feeling this was gonna be fresh. Dido's eerie voice from Eminem's "Stan" will always be mine (and most everyone's) first association with the British singer, but she's coming back with a brand new single and tabs Kendrick Lamar for that dope new feature. This one's nice from beginning to end - an instant *Tibs Fav.