Juelz Santana-Back Like Cooked Crack 2

Juelz Santana, Back Like Cooked Crack 2

Juelz Santana, Back Like Cooked Crack 3

Dip Set Dip Set Dip Set. I love 'em, you love 'em, everyone loves them. Last year, Cam'ron took the mixtape world by storm with the many jawns that dropped before his album, Purple Haze. Hell, the entire Dip Set phenomenon is a product of the tapes that constantly drop, extending into the minor leaguers of Purple City. This year, the youngest member of the gang ran things, as Juelz Santana put out the biggest album and the best mixtapes from Harlem's finest.

Back Like Cooked Crack 2 was my choice for the better of the two, although my favorite song ("Murder Murder") is on third installment. The entire series is amazing; these are mixtapes that took all of the potential heard before and brought it to the next level. It is a great CD, doing what all of my favorites did this year: great songs from the upcoming album, lots of good freestyles, good talk intervals (either funny shit or hood wisdom shit, choose one). Juelz has proven himself to be one of the best, and a worthy heir to Killa's throne.

Oh, and this is a DJ Green Lantern production, a name that is the gold standard in mixtapes. I kinda forgot about bol this year, what with my attention focused down south, and much of Lantern's best work coming outta the East Coast (Beanie Sigel, Beastie Boys, 50 Cent). However, he deserves more attention and respect, as he is arguably the man responsible for the mixtape as art movement. His Jadakiss and Beanie mixes of the last few years elevated the game to whole nother level that Kay Slay and Clue had no vision of.

-Miami Ink is back like cooked crack tonight with new episodes. This is seriously one of my favorite shows on TV (ok, basic cable) and I highly recommend it to anyone who is into reality TV that isn't about humiliation, sex or craziness. It follows the day-to-day scene at a tattoo parlor on Miami Beach, and follows the artists a bit in their personal lives. It's amazing to watch the process unfold, to see how a tattoo comes to creation, and just how creative an art it is.

-There Stands The Glass is a new blog that is off to a great start. There is nothing better than a site dedicated to "overlooked and forgotten music," as I think that that spirit guides our site here, as well. Anyway, go check it out here and listen to some great music from genres all over the map. Tech N9ne today!

-One can only hope that New Orleans can make it back to the boisterous, imperfect city that it was before Katrina. Go here, here and here to read more on the development process. After that, please make sure to check out this masterful essay by critic Mike Davis in Le Monde Diplomatique on the dangers of reconstruction, the fear of gentrification and the forces more than happy to use this tragedy for their own causes. Here is another Davis piece on the gentrification angle.

-Most importantly, I will be back in the next few days to wrap up this end-of-the-year mixtape look. I know that I originally said that I would only be doing a Top 5, but I was wrong. This is a Top 6 list, as my small brain has constantly looked at the next two as #1 and #1A.