Wednesday, November 6, 2024

So He Gets A Second Term

After losing the popular vote in each of his first two Presidential bids (one a win over Hillary Clinton via Electoral College, the other a loss to Joe Biden), Donald Trump won against Kamala Harris in a crushing manner despite polls having them at a dead heat tie for four months and appearances of empty Trump rallies versus a general public look in cities that inspired confidence for the Harris camp. What happened? We know Trump was going to want to cheat and steal his way to victory, from stacking the Supreme Court in his favour, preemptively filing countless frivolous lawsuits contesting results, to Tweeting about possible fraud in philadelphia the day of, to his admitting to having a "little secret" with House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson: It sure feels like the election was stolen...

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Video Of The Week: Ice Cube

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The "best rapper of all time" debate is one that always ignites passion, some willing to hand it to 2Pac because of his highest peaks and untimely death but forgetting that his immense output includes a lot of sub-par work; others prefer The Notorious B.I.G. because he, too, died too soon; others go back to the first masters of the genre, your street intellectuals Rakim, LL Cool J, and KRS-One. Millennials might have a soft spot for Jay-Z or Eminem, while the best voice in the game is undoubtedly Snoop Dogg, but he disqualifies himself for contenting himself with spelling his name out for over a decade, mid-career.

However, when it comes to square, 4/4, old-school rhyming, no one comes close to Ice Cube, save perhaps Everlast. Cube invented gangsta rap with N.W.A., became an even bigger star by going solo after refusing to get screwed over in a poor record deal, became a film star when he lacked inspiration in music, and came back to rap with material more incisive than ever at the turn of the millennium. Here he is, back again, doing what he does best: claiming he's the best: That's It's My Ego, from the forthcoming album Man Down!, directed by Gabriel "Videogod" Hart.