Inspired by Quez's post regarding "Go" as Com's next single, and more importantly, by a project that Khrysis is working on with a young cat from the Bronx....

So Khrysis comes to the crib last night and plays me 13 tracks from this young cat he's working with outta the Bronx. Most of his album is straight street shit, but not without insight, intelligence, and most importantly, skill. The nigga is knockin' em out the park for the whole album until track 12 comes on, and I shake my head in desperation.

Another street MC who has fallen victim to the biggest album trap since the Busta cameo: the "girl" song.

Now, I know this may seem funny coming from a cat who's group made waves off the strength of one such song, but on some real shit, "y'all" liked "Whatever You Say" waaaay more than me, Pooh, and 9th ever did. Not to say that we disliked it, its just that we were REAL surprised at the feedback it got. We'd always envisioned that one as a cool little "album joint."

But listening to dude's album got me to thinking about albums like "Illmatic" that were successful WITHOUT a girl song, or even an album like "The Documentary, " where the absolute WORST song on his shit was a pandering ass "girl" joint ("Special," the OTHER Nate Dogg joint....).

It really got me to thinking that "girly" joints are really fucking unncessary most of the time. There's more than one way to make a single that appeals to females without blatantly pandering to them. (Note: "Minstrel Show" does contain ONE girl song, but it is nowhere near as juvenile as "Whatever You Say," nor is it slated to be one of our singles.....as of right now....).

I guess my advice to up and coming emcees is to just DO YOU. If you're a drug dealing murderer in real life and just happen to rap in between drug transactions, I would rather hear you go hard on 12 tracks of pure unbridled thuggery, rather than:

4 "street" tracks
4 "club" tracks
4 "girl" tracks

I think fans fucked the game up when they started demanding "diversity" from niggas, and started asking cats to "grow."
So now, you have cats like Jada doing "Why?" and Kweli doing "Never Been In Love" (which I like, btw, but I can name several other cats who's attempts to show their "range" have been less than successful).

I don't go to Mickey D's and ask for filet mignon. Nor do I go to a Kobe beef house in Japan and ask for a double cheeseburger.

The point is, just do the best you and stick to whatever THAT is. And if "girl" or "club" joints ain't your forte, then don't force it. Because the average rap fan ain't as dumb as you think, and niggas can tell when some shit ain't genuine.

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