Cormega

Adrunk:
>Busta or Finesse or Biz are far more talented artists in my eyes
>than somebody supposedly lyrical like say, Cormega, because Cormega
>can be such a mumbly repetitive QB muhfuck a lot of the time, and
>his energy and charisma is almost non-existent
You picked the wrong example. Cormega does have charisma and also
flows very nice. Listen to Whats Ya Poison (on Mobb Deep's Murda
Muzik). Cormega rips the track, plus I think it's great he punches
in his lines. On that particular track the effect is a beautiful
constant wave after wave of words and emotions, it builds to
perfection.

I definitely like a Busta or a Biz, but their whole stilo is so
different it makes little sense to put them on the same line with
Mega. Biz is no Cormega, nor is Busta, just like Cormega can't do
what Biz or Busta do. Their thing is totally different. Cormega is
the type of MC that hip hop will always need: a talented rapper who
keeps his hip hop straight with no chaser, does it well, has enough
personality to rise above the masses, and also has considerable
clout and credibility both on and off the wax. It's crazy to say
he's got no charisma. There are oodles of underground MC's who have
zero charisma and Cormega is definitely not one of those. Without
his charisma, he would have had no chance to succeed after all the
backsteps he has had to take to keep his integrity, such as refusing
to sign the Trackmasters contract he was offered, which lead to him
being kicked out of The Firm project altogether. I also like the
way he made a recent video for Built For This, which is practically
a song with only a long verse, no chorus. Pure hip hop.

Rant time. Sometimes people totally overlook what Cormega has gone
through. He has shown great character in not compromising his art.
That is an achievement worthy of respect. I find it outrageous when
people try to discredit him from their armchair. Frankly it fucking
sickens me. It really shows some people have no sense of reality at
all. Cormega could have easily sold out years ago, he didn't. Think
about it. An ex-con who lives in QB housing projects receives a
tangible chance to get the big dollar. How many people in that
position turn the chance down? The answer is: very few. Cormega had
confidence in his ability to make it on his own. He worked on an
album, even completed it, but his label never released it and it
was left in the basement. Cormega didn't lose faith, he started
again from scratch and finally managed to get his business running
and wrote another album that finally got an official release. Don't
get me wrong, Cormega is not perfect, he talks way too much about
Nas etc. but I have a lot of respect for him. I feel good buying
his work brand new.

People really need to wake up to the realities and reasons why some
rappers might "sell out" though. It's because they have no safety
net to make a decision in, they have no fallback to a house in a
middle-class suburb and a high tech job in some computer company.
They may also be ex-cons, or people who are used to getting their
money thru more or less illegal ways. They might not have much
institutionalized education either. Partly it is a state of mind.
You don't just go back to school after you made a decision to drop
out for good. A lot of people may not be able to sustain wounds in
their pride, which means there is no chance they'll go for a legal
poorly paid job after they realize they are trapped like animals
who built their own cages. Instead they go all out by the illegal
route and eventually they just don't give a fuck anymore. Most often
it backfires and they end up dead or in jail or in misery otherwise.
At best they suddenly find belief from spirituality and then build
enough strength to stop the cycle. Let's face it though, even Nas
thought he had made it after Illmatic, but he had to _go back_ to
the projects, because he didn't get enough sales. After listening
to business people and to the whispers and promises of label staff,
he made the egoistic yet quite an understandable decision in the
position he was in: go for a wider audience with a more commercial
sound. One of the best MC's not getting out of the projects even
after putting out a classic hip hop album... you'd need to have
amazing belief not to compromise your art.