I remember when I was a young tyke and I used to spend extra money on Hip-Hop rags. The coveted holy grail was The Source and their rating system. Before my distrust of critics and people who get paid to review things, I put all my faith and trust in the 5 mic review system they had. I even went on to try and cop all the 5 mic albums before they started giving them out like candy (look towards the bottom of that list). Some of those praised albums still get rotation in my deck today... (aquemini, blueprint, low end theory). They even RE-REVIEWED some albums that WEREN'T 5 mics before (some of those 4.5 mic albums are better than those 5s). Cue Miss Info...
I was first intro'd to Miss Info on one of those VH1 list shows. Many of y'all know my penchant for funny girls, asian girls, and hip hop girls. She was all THREE. Insta-celeb-crush. Then I did more digging. She was also a writer for practically all of the major hip hop publications. This morning, I learned she was one of the people who dubbed Nas' "Illmatic" with that dubious 5 mic honor. The following video is her describing it. Why she gave Nas the 5 mics though isn't why I posted this video... it's what she says towards the end of the video about how hip-hop now has many hands in it. To think that she received "Illmatic" as a handwritten preview tape shows it was REALLY about the music back then.
(All I need is) 5 mics from Gasface on Vimeo.
With the release of Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II" (who's original copped 4.5 mics)... I'm hoping that there will be a resurgence of real hip hop.
then again, no one is buying it... so the marketers won't cater. ahh.. then endless cycle.
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