RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Tuesday, May 30

#99 RAP TAPES: No One Can Do It Better


If ever there was somebody who coulda been a contender, it was the D.O.C. He had the west coast gangstaism rub from Ruthless Records association, and he had the east coast heady lyricism, all with a long-winded thick voice to back it up. Then he went and got his voicebox crushed, leaving his future to dwindle away in obscurity, but getting paid writing lyrics for Dre for years and years. Ghostwriting doesn't get you mad blowjobs. This tape itself is pretty good - probably of the top three that Ruthless ever put out - but also suffers early from what later shitty Ruthless outputs had big problems with in there being too much bullshit filler or fake commercials or semi-comedy crap that isn't worth listening to more than twice.

Friday, May 26

#100 RAP TAPES: Gettin' It (Album Number Ten)


Too Short is an underrated genius of rap, but there were a few albums there after his move from Oakland to Atlanta where he seemed sort of unsure of himself and kind of played it safe with "beeyotch" heavy songs and cameo appearance by obscure Dangerous Crew allies. This is one of those albums, also Too Short's "retirement" record, although he's retired more than Terry Funk by this point, and currently is the motherfuckin' shit like Funk in ECW in '97. If you had to pick out a Too Short album, I could give you four or five to think about buying before even looking at this one.

Tuesday, May 23

100 RAP TAPES: Let My Tape Rock Till My Tape Popped

I was lamenting the loss of tapes, as when you go to the airbrush store to buy some mixtapes, they're always CDs. Mixtapes seem to carry more weight than ever in hip hop lately, which is odd considering DJs have less mixtape skills than ever before as well, and rely on "exclusives" and repeating their name or catchphrases for Pavlovian responses.
So fuck it, I dug around the house and found 100 hip hop tapes I have, original tapes, not dubs, from back when I couldn't get enough of this shit (and also before the internet took away all desire to buy shit anymore ever). My car has the tape player style, so my deal is all mathematical nonsense as always, one tape vs. one tape side, double elimination super battle. So there's a lot of leeway - it's not a bonafide Top 100 Rap Tapes of All-Time, nor no regular blogosphere bullshit like that. You could probably shuffle around all sorts of orders, so I don't need the two people who look at this arguing with me how there's no way #78 is better than #82 or no shit like that. But this is the order they played out in the random order I put them in for the double elimination car tape player showdowns of endlessness while I drink and drive back and forth from work through the spring and summer.
So we'll be taking a trip down memory lane, I'll be dogging out shit I used to like, liking shit I used to dog, and remembering crap I had forgotten I owned (also wondering sometimes why I still had some of this shit). It's pure whiteboy analysis nerdery, and thus, deserves to be on the stupid internet, so you can hopefully laugh a minute while wiping yourself up from jacking off at bigtitsroundasses.com or healthfoodstorepickup.net.

Wednesday, May 17

Death Valley Driver Video Review #157 Hype!


DVDVR #157
This is the David Von Erich Memorial issue. The cover stays fly and was done by me motherfucker, fucking around with photoshop like every half-assed web design bartender who ever lived and is gonna set up somebody's webpage and get paid but never does.