The Black Bar Mitzvah, or: The Death of Rick Ross

First things first: I don’t give a flying jack about Rozay having been a C.O. in the past. Everybody get on their grind while they have to. No matter what that might be. As long as you’re not snitching on your people, it’s cool with me.
Also – I love Ross for what he’s done so far. He’s put out some QUALITY music over the past years. But, let’s keep it 100: he’s gotten lazy. The bigger his status got, the lazier he’s gotten. God forgives, I don’t was…mjeeeeh…aight… But what’s up with this The Black Bar Mitzvah-thing?!
Let’s put all the ridiculous-artwork and title-stuff aside. Let’s focus STRAIGHT on the music. Let’s call it how we see it: it’s lame. Word is bond.

I’ve seldomly heard a project as monotone and uninteresting as The Black Bar Mitzvah. Almost EVERY song sounds the same, with heavy (808) basslines, sped-up hi hats and a gruntling Rick Ross, assisted by occasional guest appearances.
Tales of coke snorting, drug trafficking, hoe banging and bottle popping – the MMG-magic formula – repeated during 18 tracks of musical monotony and lyrical, artistical, pseudo-made man-jibberish!

That was the first spin. I really wanted to like this mixtape, so I gave it a second try. Nope. Still the same. While young cats like Kendrick Lamar or A$AP Rocky push the envelope and try to advance into new spheres of an old fashioned aesthetic, Ross seems too settled in his ways.

It feels like the hustler persona he’s established over the years, got chubby and moved to Miami (no pun intended).
Where there was pure game and hustle-antics in the past, you now have blueprint-ish, predictable, exchangeable verses of identical subject matter, with almost no „swag“ at all.

When Tony Montana went off with a tremendous ending, being shot for being too greedy and paranoid, the rap-version of Freeway Ricky Ross seems to die in cold silence, due to the fact of being too self-righteous and modest with his original hustle…

R.I.P. – Rick Ross, a hustler we used to love.

Choppin‘ it up with A$AP Rocky

Recently I had the chance to touch down with the hottest MC in the game right now: A$AP Rocky that is. He and his crew invaded Berlin on his European tour…and boooooy what a blast this was! Venue filled with weed smoke, fine girls everywhere and the A$AP Mob doin‘ what they do best: raisin‘ hell!

Right before the concert took place, John and me sat down with Rocky and chopped it up for 93.6 JAM FM Berlin. Talk was about Screw-Tapes, haters and stardom.

We kicked it off with the obvious: DJ Screw! The man & the myth has been referenced continously in Rocky’s music, so I grabbed my vintage 3 ‚N The Mornin‘, pulled it out the pocket and asked the Pretty Flacko what he knows about the maze!

So after the foundation was built, we got a lil‘ deeper into it, talking about how Rocky was first introduced to Screwed Music. By the way: his favorite Screw-song is „25 Lighters„. How could you not love DJ DMD, Fat Pat & Lil Keke?!

Things got a lil‘ more serious afterwards when we talked about Hip Hop’s No. 1 Topic: haters! Hear how Mr. A$AP deals with hate and how he explains hateration as a whole.

The Pretty Muthafucka seems so vivid, so graphic – it’s almost impossible to believe A$AP Rocky is a real person but more of a piece of art. Rocky breaks it down pretty simple though…

With the Rakim-reference bein‘ made, I had to ask Rocky about the interview with Angie Martinez, when she brought the God Rakim in the studio and introduced him to A$AP. Now, since it’s pretty sure to say Angie’s his favorite radio personality for that, I wanted to know WHO I had to introduce to Rocky for that new No. 1-spot.

Now, the next question is pretty strange from a retrospective, since there’s some MAJOR funk goin‘ on between Rocky’s A$AP Mob and SpaceGhostPurrp’s RVIDXR KLVN, but two weeks ago, this is what Rocky had to say about SPG and their „situation“.

Comes across pretty awkward considering all the twitter-beefin‘, the youtubin‘ and all the rah-rah goin‘ on right now between A$AP and the KLVN! Let’s just all hope the funk ain’t gonna get physical but that they’ll squash their situation and continue to produce heat like they did with Purple Swag, Pretty Flacko and all that good shit.

Nonetheless, we finished off the interview with a lil‘ insight on how stardom comes naturally to the leader of the Mob, even though it’s puzzling sometimes when you wake up in a hotel room and don’t really know where you are…

Right afterwards Rocky invited us to stay with him and the Mob to hang out and have a good time. Just after we got ourselves something so smoke, I sat down with A$AP Yams had some mad conversation about Screw tapes and hoochies and just zoned out. Mad respect at Yams for that Screw-skull on his neck and the whole Mob for all the love they where showin‘ me. Special shout out goes to Geeno for the company and his hospitality and also J Scott & Chace Infinite.

Oh…and for all of you that weren’t fortunate enough to witness the show, just peep this as a lil‘ glimpse of what went down when A$AP crashed the Festsaal Kreuzberg: