MTV's Mixtape Monday - March 6th '06

Artists: Ghostface Killah and DJ Green Lantern

Representing: Cyber thugs

Mixtape: Internet Invasion

411: Considering that this mixtape features one of the game's most innovative MCs and one of its most creative DJs, you'd have to pay attention off name value alone. But there's a special twist here: You can only get this mixtape via the Internet — for now, anyway. It's designed to be distributed not on a blanket by your favorite sidewalk bootlegger, but strictly through cyberspace (for promotional use only, of course). There isn't even a CD: It's all MP3s.

Green Lantern continues to distinguish himself from most other mixtape DJs because he actually produces these mixtapes like albums. On this one, he really put his foot in, because the selections are truly a team effort: Green was given a gaggle of Ghost a cappella tracks about a year ago and sat on them for quite some time. He recently started to build songs around them, teaming Ghost's vocals with some instrumentals that we've already heard along with some brand-new beats. Green made all the original tracks, of course.

"I don't know, son. I just be doing sh--," Ghost said when asked about the mixtape, adding that he hadn't heard it yet. "[Green] be doing everything. He told me he was gonna do something special — I didn't know it was gonna be that big."

"Big" isn't a word that applies to the mixtape's length, as Green noted. "It's just 20 minutes [long]," he said. "It's a new tool. Instead of doing a full 80- or 90-minute CD, in the short-attention-span theater we live, we kept it nice and sweet at 20 minutes. It doesn't take up too much of your hard drive. This is the new era we in."

Joints To Check For:

* "Blow His Head Off" (featuring Busta Rhymes). "That was an a caprella of something he did," Green Lantern said. "It was a fast record he did. I got a gang of a caprellas a year ago and I went and made a slow beat [to this one], half-time of the song he was originally rapping on. I chose Busta because I could just hear him on there. Busta is real versatile. I knew he could flip that style.

"I took the song to Bus with Ghost's parts on there, and he was like 'I need that now, most immediately,' " Green said with a giggle. "He banged it out. The song is also on my new tape, Alive on Arrival [see below].

* "Bounce Through the Projects." This is a dope record, but Green really teases the listener. "It's real short," he said. "His verse is some random a caprella, I don't even know what the [original] song is or where it came from. I was thinking I could flip it and make a hook out of it. I tweaked it and made this one beat — it's a straight original beat. After I heard the original product, I was like, 'I need this for my album.' "

* "Deep Cover" and "Ambitionz Az a Ridah" freestyles. "I done walked on fire, never got burnt/ Slept on glass, never got cut," Ghost raps over Tupac's old track. "That's something you want to hear him over, that type of sh--," Green concurred. "That's really what I like to do, just bring people to where I feel the masses want them to go. I'll go and take a Ghost a caprella and match it up with a different type of beat than you're used to hearing them on."

Don't Sleep: Other Notable Selections This Week

* Burn It Down Music's F--- Ya Life, Vol. 2
* Cutmaster C/ Gravy's Welcome to Brooklyn: New York to Miami, Part 1.5
* DJ Sure Shot's Who Got Next, Vol. 4
* DJ Bijal's Project Puerto Rico and Love Potion R&B
* King Smij's Jay-Z Sings the Blues: Gangsta Hymns
* DJ Lil Raskal's Straight-A Student
* DJ Big Mike's Welcome to Cain Field

'Hood's Heavy Rotation: Bubbling Below The Radar

* Lloyd Banks - "You Already Know" remix
* E-40 (featuring Game and Keak Da Sneak) - "Tell Me When to Go" remix
* Fabolous (featuring Paul Cain) - "Murda"
* Scarface featuring Z-Ro and Ice Cube - "Definition of Real"
* T.I. featuring B.G. - "I'm Straight"

The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground

In addition to the cyber-release above, Green Lantern's had his plate full cooking up beats for other MCs. He produced four records for Papoose, three on the new Ice Cube album, Ludacris just took two tracks from him and Lantern also slid beats to Fat Joe and Busta Rhymes.

With all this work for other people, when is the Evil Genius going to get some time for himself? Well, he just dropped his first mixtape of '06, Alive on Arrival. He described the set as a real street album: He produced 20 songs for the mixtape, including appearances from Pharrell Williams on a track called "Ice Cream" (you'll hear pieces of the old Eddie Murphy "Ice Cream" comedy routine on there) and Fat Joe and Styles P. together on a song called "Shot Gun Season."

"I flipped the whole Junior Walker [song] 'Shotgun' on there," Green said. "It's flagrant."

The first single (yes, a single from a mixtape — he's taking it that seriously) from Alive on Arrival is "Show U What I'm Workin' With" by Juelz Santana and Dem Franchize Boyz. ...

Comedian Katt Williams is definitely the go-to guy for rappers wanting to add humor to their records and videos. Since Ice Cube put him in "Friday After Next" as a pimp, Money Mike, Lil' Kim, Ludacris and most recently Paul Wall have asked to get in the studio or in front of the cameras with him.

"I'm the go-to guy because I'm consistent," said of his popularity. "I'm funny every single time. You not finnin' to get me and not get funny. I do my job."

In addition to acting and stand-up, Williams now has a third job to add to his résumé: rapper.. His debut LP, It's Pimpin', Pimpin', is coming out later this year on Universal. He says it'll be part stand-up, part rap songs — real rap songs, not parodies.

"I'm not gonna ever be a great rapper," he said. "But I can flow better than 36 percent of the rappers out there. As long as 'Laffy Taffy' is out there, I could be a genius, lyrically."

Williams made his mixtape debut last year alongside the Game, with a dis freestyle directed toward the Young Gunz. You may recall the Gunz took aim at the character Williams played in "Friday After Next" in their track "Set It Off" ("We don't mess with the funny types, fake-ass pimps like Money Mike" — see "Mixtape Monday: Game Embraces His Inner Mr. Potato Head").

"Chris and little Neefy," Williams sang, mocking Roc-A-Fella's Philadelphia duo.

"I didn't do that," he said in an effort to clarify who started things. "They did that. They did a song called 'Set It Off' — any time a song is called 'Set it Off,' it's incendiary. It means something is gonna happen. The only name that was called in the song was mine. I don't know these dudes, never met them, and the only name that was called out in the song was mine? You just gonna call my name because it rhymes?"

Williams said he's been in Philadelphia to perform several times since the freestyle, but has never heard a response form the Gunners.

"I thought we would get a response of some kind, but I've got nothing," he added. "The longer it goes without a response and me seeing their [low] sales, I'm really sorry. I wanted it to go one way or another. Either we would have a battle or it be tongue-in-cheek."

Williams gets enough love from other rappers, though. Snoop Dogg, Paul Wall, Mike Jones and E-40 are all on the LP, as is singer Lyfe Jennings. Lil Jon and T.I. are also slated to get on Williams' LP this week.

We all know that any true rapper has to make at least one mixtape before his album drops. Katt said he will not be following suit.

"Mixtapes are for professionals. That's for dudes that have rhyme to spare," added the Ohio native, who said he began rapping before he followed a career in comedy. "If you can do like 50 Cent and have a hundred mixtapes out before the [official] album, then you're a real rapper. That means you have 99 extemporaneous verses you can just throw out. Mine always have to count: I'mma host a few mixtapes and maybe throw a song out." ...

Last week we told you how Lil Jon was mixing it up with E-40. Well, he has another Bay Area legend on his radar as well. Too Short. The mixtapes should be pumping out the new Jon-produced Short single "Blow the Whistle" any day now.

"My new single is another Lil Jon big bass club song," Short said on the set of his video in Oakland, California. "It's just a fun song about blowing the whistle, like a referee, on anybody that ain't supposed to be in the game. It's not a Too Short pimp song and it's not too explicit. Just shake that monkey and dance!"

Short's 16th album, Up All Night, comes out later this year.

Source: www.MTV.com