Dispatches from The Stadium

Joba Chamberlain is now exiting the bullpen and entering home games to the sound of 57,000 fans and Tommy Lee's toms and Mick Mars' riffage.



One day we'll get to a place where a Major League Baseball reliever will feel comfortable using Guitar Wolf's "Sex Napoleon" as entrance music. "Shout At the Devil" will have to do for now.

Quotables

The world weariness in Jayceon's voice is getting fairly epic. Maybe he just stepped to the booth after a 4 a.m. karaoke slumber party on this one, but I hope that hoarseness is here to stay. Too bad that voice and an always welcome Keyshia appearance are wasted on a track that rocks its audience gently to sleep.

The endless run down and reverence for Luke, Kane, Jay, Cube, et. al. was old on the last album. There are better places than lead singles to waste time worrying about who is getting enough votes for entry into the canon. Like, maybe, here. Game, you are not a Nah Right commenter. You are a sometimes more than serviceable major label rapper with a decent following and production budget. Live in the now, man.

Also, it would appear that Raekwon has taken to the Baron Davis/Rick Ross-inspired beard trend. Check the 2:40 mark. This is cause for celebration.

I'm a hustla, baby.

Skateboard P! You sort of had me on the hyperjazz tip until the patented Neptunes piano shmaltz at 2:00.

In 20 years people are going to be paying $1,000 a plate to have Pharrell croon the hook to "I Just Wanna Love U" on the main stage at Caesar's Palace.

So can anyone enlighten as to what, exactly, this song about?

UPDATE/REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMIX!:



If only every meh N.E.R.D. song got a 24 hour makeover and some double-time raps from P to the Ush Ah.

Loose fit

After repeated listens, the new Rich Boy mixtape is officially an unexpected gem. It is straight up heartening to see a dude with promise come back from a half-misfire of a debut by playing totally to his strengths. With summer approaching we could all use a fresh batch of drawled out car talk over in-house down south production.

That said, it's still hard getting used to snarl-mouthed rappers rapping raps about Ecstasy.



Dude? Robert Miles? The circa 1997 Euro-club takeover of rap is unstoppable. Probably not a bad thing.

To complicate the mix even further, "Rollin Rollin" was a Jackie Chain joint before Rich Boy got his hands on it. He actually makes references to catching back rubs in the VIP in the original. Apologies for showing up five months late to the party Jackie.

Here's hoping "Go" supplants "Scarface" as default hip hop movie reference, if only for a few months.