Audio By Carbonatix
Give me the mike: Late last February, Miami-based MC Peedo traveled up to Manhattan to participate in MTV’s first on-air freestyle battle, a competition it had limited to the first 1000 contestants who showed up at the Minskoff Theater in Times Square. What he didn’t bargain on was a riot. “You know how it is … with so many MCs in one spot, everybody’s hungry,” remembers the 23-year-old Dominican in an animated voice. “Everybody was throwing hands, pushing, and shoving.”
Unfortunately MTV responded to the surreal scene by shutting down the battle before it even began, leaving the former Bronx native with nothing to do but hang out and visit his family. Luckily another opportunity unexpectedly presented itself in the form of KRS-One. The legendary “teacher” of hip-hop had run into Peedo’s cousin and producer, Ariel “Gato” Luna, on the street near the latter’s day job at a FedEx store. Luna breathlessly told Kris that he was a producer, his cousin was an MC, and that he had beats; Kris invited them both down to the studio where he was recording tracks for his new album.
The result, “How Bad Do You Want It,” is an amazing song, a give-and-take between KRS-One and Peedo over Gato Luna’s dramatic, string-filled beat. “I saw you down the street at FedEx/You said you had the beats/Was coming like I Got Next,” says KRS-One. “How bad do I want it?/I’m ready to die like Big,” answers Peedo.
“How Bad Do You Want It” was scheduled to be featured on KRS-One’s new album, The Kristyle. But just before its June 24 release date, the rapper won a legal injunction against his label, In the Paint/Koch Records, charging that it had retitled the record Kristyles and taken off a dedication to late DJ Jam Master Jay without his permission. “They don’t have the full album,” he told MTV.com. However, copies of Kristyles had already been shipped out to stores, and enough had been sold for it to place at number 186 in this week’s Billboard album sales chart.
Peedo, for his part, respects KRS-One’s decision. “Sometimes things happen for a reason, and I just go with the flow,” he says, adding that he’s been staying abreast of the controversy through the fellow Bronx legend’s management company. “I’m rolling with Kris.” Nevertheless the collaboration has added considerable fuel to Peedo’s career: The track is a highlight of Leave it To The Streetz Vol. 1, a mix CD he recently released with his crew, Luna Empire. He also says he’s talking with several unnamed indie and major labels about a possible album deal. “It’s crazy, man, I got to work with a legend!” smiles Peedo.
Post-Nas sedative: Did anyone attend the Nas show on Monday, June 30? It was an initially thrilling affair — the crowd went crazy when he launched into “The World Is Yours” — that quickly grew depressing as he began forgetting the rhymes to his own songs. More frustrating was how he used up the audience’s enthusiasm as if it were crack, then quickly lost interest once it settled down and expected him to actually put on a good show.
Earlier this year, Hiphopsite.com, an online music retailer based in Las Vegas, released a trio of special “remix” CDs of Nas’s recent albums Nastradamus, Stillmatic, and God’s Son. Out of the three, produced by underground sensations MF Doom, Soul Supreme, and 9th Wonder (beat maker for North Carolina’s Little Brother), respectively, the latter’s handling of God’s Son (retitled God’s Stepson) is the most noteworthy. It resonates with warmth.
9th Wonder’s beats are reminiscent of Nas’s own Illmatic and an era when hip-hop seemed to be a happy confluence of past, present, and future, before too many of its artists abandoned black history for sci-fi booty music and lost their souls in the process. He interpolates a Curtis Mayfield sample into a reworking of Nas’s “Book of Rhymes,” then uses what sounds like a Free Design cut (don’t quote me on that) for “Made You Look.” Throughout, there’s a leisurely quality to the music that fits Nas’s wintry voice. God’s Stepson is one of the best and most unusual projects of the year, a sure cure for a Nas fan’s postperformance heartbreak.
