By – Dank Lucas

I’ve decided to take my “This Shit Right Here” column in a different direction. I don’t want to lazily rush through whichever uninspiring album, by whatever recognizable name that gets put on my plate for me to write an absurd review about. I feel these reviews are oftentimes rushed. And seriously, what do I look like dissecting someone’s art they might have worked on for years in just a few listening sessions in my Volkswagen? I also don’t think new albums should be getting all the pub just because they are new. Who the fuck says you have earned any of my precious listening time?

The reason I decided to run off in this new direction is because of seeing a review so fucking rushed, lazy, and uninspired, about an album which is obviously the most notable release in hip hop this year so far (and for the foreseeable future) ­– Joe Budden’s Padded Room. This review is on a respected and successful site, though which one I won’t say. I just really felt after reading it that the writer’s week had absolutely no time for some of “Jump-off Joey’s” finest penmanship, and I don‘t want to write reviews like that.

Now I ain’t a writer, I just cuss a lot (I kill me). But I got to be the one who gives Joey his props. Last year around this time my music collection had zero Joe Budden in it and now you search his name in my iTunes library and you will find all of his acclaimed Mood Muzick mixtapes and a bunch of shit he tricked me into buying off iTunes late at night when I was smoked out. (Yo Joe, you owe me about 20 bucks for renaming your shit and putting it back up dude!). The Padded Room, album after a few days of riding to it, is a banger. Period. This track called “Exxxes” is some dark and sexy shit, my people. “She fucks me every time she sees me” says Joe about a girl we all know. If you don’t get it, you’re probably the dude in love with that girl! I think there is a metaphor somewhere in this song but I prefer to leave it about a couple sexy sluts I used to know for now.

The next track on the album, “I Couldn’t Help It”, is Joe doing what he does best, which is express his vulnerability. The track is two stories told intricately over a melody with no drums whatsoever. The first is about a subject, if you know a lot of them chicks from “Exxxes” then you know all about abortion. Joe tells the story with a sense of humility and self examination only rivaled in hip-hop by Slug, or maybe Nas. Speaking of rappers with loose better halves, the second part of this song is a rap nerd’s wet dream. Joe tells the story of a threesome with a famous rapper’s wife in Vegas. Instead of boasting like most rappers would have done, a remorseful Joe spits lines like “she starts telling me bout how she’s so abused/how he beats her ass and he takes that figure/in my head I’m thinking/I don’t blame that nigga/she got on her knees stated playing with the head/all her dude lyrics start playing in my head.” Damn, whoever that rapper is better never, ever, ever, piss off Joe Buddden (apparently his label shipped his CD with his last name spelled with three d’s instead of two).

Some other dope tracks on the album getting spins in the Jetta, with no rims, are “If I Got to Go” and “In My Sleep” (although he completely jacks Jigga’s flow on that track from “Pray”). It’s hard to even get mad at him for the couple lame attempts at crossover success though (he took a shot like Calogero) on “Adrenaline” and “The Future”, the latter features The Game (a rapper who’s entire career was created so Royce 5’9’’ could make “I’m Nice“).

“Angel In My Life” is another standout track where Joe assumes the role of a Looney Tune in a padded room. Joe’s storytelling skills are on par with the best out there (such as Outkast and Ghostface) and as it shows on the closing track “Pray for Me”. A conversation with God that Joe has after a fictional carjacking results in his chest playing Pudge Rodriguz for bullets. This is not your typical pseudo-Christian rap song. Joe rebuttals “God” on a lot of subjects such as AIDS, poverty, and even mental retardation. At the same time he uses the “God” character to apologize for crimes he’s committed like robbery, dealing drugs to parents, and domestic violence.

All in all Joe has set the bar for hip-hop high in 2009, even if his label can’t spell his name right. Now we all get to just sit back and knock this album until his Slaughterhouse brethren release projects of their own.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS ON MUSIC THIS WEEK

• I attempted to listen to Charles Hamilton’s new mixtape Every Charles Hamilton’ Ex-Girlfriends Worst Nightmare where the youngster rhymes over what I think are Kanye West beats from that retarded shit he put out over Christmas (I wouldn‘t really know though, didn‘t listen to that shit except for Apathy laying to rest the “Love Lockdown” beat). My listening session lasted about two and a half songs until I had this overwhelming feeling that if I kept on I would be forced to sit down and piss for the rest of the day.
• Oh yea, the “This Shit Right Here” column officially has its first theme song thanks to Kentucky’s finest, Cunninglynguists. Their lead single “Never Come Down (The Brownie Song)” from their upcoming release Strange Journey is an instant classic and the video is dope as fuck too. You ever been high from the inside out?!

• ŸI’m still knocking Jadakiss’ latest mixtape Kiss My Ass too. The “Letter to B.I.G.” over the reminisce beat is so nice, although I don’t even think that’s on there.

Until next time, FRESH FOR ‘09 YOU SUCKAZZZZZ!