Raw Thoughts 6.20.25

as i'm typing this i'm sitting in a dos toros eating a carne asada burrito bowl. i'm listening to the erykah badu and alchemist single that just came out, which rerocks the beat he did for "the realest" on mobb deep's murda muzik. i am in pain both psychically and existentially. to be fair my physical pain is back pain which is rooted in psychological turmoil. as lupe fiasco once said "my only enemy is my inner me."

the single is being promoted with a cover using ai. not really surprised. alc and earl made nfts for voir dire. that's why i bootlegged it off of soulseek. i'm not going to get into the whole "is alchemist a zionist" thing just because he's of israeli descent. he hasn't started spouting a bunch of angry gibberish about how palestinians are either fake or demons or whatever sort of poorly written nazi bullshit you see when you translate anything in hebrew on twitter so he might have done the thing where, you know, you're around people a lot so you learn to appreciate as people? but he's a goof for doing nfts and ai art. and he's kind of been phoning it in? he's the "real hip hop/one of them ones/boom bap" guy now.

i don't want it to look like i'm comparing them because they both happen to be jewish but alc does kind of serve the same purpose as woody allen. woody allen is in a strange position in hollywood and has been for a while. he makes movies on the cheap, he admits to being kind of lazy(that's why all his films are filmed in the same city/cities and why they all have that one shot) and yet actors are willing to work with him for the sag minimum because they know that it gives them credibility. also although they usually profit there's the chance that the studio will luck into a midnight and paris and make 150 million off of something that was really cheap to make.

all of this applies to __________ x alchemist albums. outside of the big box office part but they seem like they do well enough. they get you buzz and they make people take you more seriously because he made the beat for the best hip hop song of all time and a bunch of mobb deep shit.

it would have been cool to see mos def in a 90s or 2000s woody allen movie actually. i think he would have been great in sweet and lowdown or something. something that would showcase all of his charm. but it'll never happen just like that yasiin bey x alc album.