Working late, yet again, I often have a news/current events program running on one of my 3 monitors. Today I had to listen to some elitist guys praise the last Kanye West album as "one of the best Hip Hop albums ever made".

Please. Kanye West is of Puff Daddy/Diddy whatever caliber: he sucks. I'd even go as far as saying that kind of stuff is not even Hip Hop.

A few months ago (better late than never) though I discovered a new combination that is stepping up to represent the real hardcore Hip Hop, Hip Hop as it's meant to be: La Coka Nostra. From the Soul Assassins network, you can expect little less than excellence. And La Coka delivers.

La Coka, of course, isn't perfect. It's lyricists consist of Slaine, Ill Bill and Everlast. Slaine's an excellent lyricist, though he seems a bit off sometimes. Everlast at times seems out of time: the style that suited him well in the House of Pain seems out of place at times. But other times he shows the type of skill that validate his position as an all time classic. And then there's Ill Bill. Well, I have no comment on Ill Bill, that guy is just plain awesome. In the above clip you'll also see B-Real, Cypress Hill front man and Soul Assassins catalyst, it would be ridiculous to review his skills.

On a serious note:

Someone on that program explicitly praised the accessibility of Kanye West's work. That's not the right reason to praise an album. I don't like classical music, if I praise someone for making classical more accessible all I'm really saying is "this didn't suck as much". Or is Beethoven praised for the accessibility of classical music that his familiar tunes provide?

Where's all the good Hip Hop?

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