Track of the Day: 'Maxell UR' by Has-Lo

A taster from his forthcoming album 'Conversation B' on Mello Music Group Records, this is a reworking of the track 'Untitled #2' from his album 'In Case I Don't Make It', released earlier this year.

The lyrics tell the story of how Has-Lo got into hip-hop, from liking the music to becoming an artist himself -it's great how a record about hip-hop is actually a good hip-hop record in its own right! Download the track above and read the words below.

From the moment of my conception 
The foot of my fate using the effort of every muscle he could in his frame 
To put on his weight, to push on the gas peddle 
Propellin me here, to be the cat you might’ve slept on 
Who deads your career 
Is destiny. All I had to do was stay alive 
Biding my time waitin for a sign to arrive 
It came in the form of L.L.’s tape 
The one that had the same title as the picture on the front of the case 
9 years young in ’88, Rob Base 
Easy E, Cube, Ren & Dre, G and Kane 
Hammer on the first lp, EPMD 
Nike, Reebok, Fila 
Scrape a little tar off the curb, hold the needle on your spinning top 
Dubbin the cassettes on my double deck boom box 
Funny 3-quarter length tube socks 
Run to the Koreans on the ave for a stop watch 
Until the next thing; black, red & green 
Black power, and Islam and talks by Farrakhan 
Pete Rock and the Mecca Don 
Groomed in the game by an array of all of the ultimate in rap ever 
In any era to do it. ’92: Redman, ’93: Black Moon 
I’m into high school, mad puerto ricans 
In came the Wu-Tang, everything changed 
The world of hip hop watched Rza make 7 straight classics 
Nas shredded my dome with Illmatic 
I spent ’95 married to the Mobb 
When a mixtape used to be a Maxell U-R 
S&S, Tony Touch, Clue and Doo Wop 
Me and mike used to swap lps in class 
He let me hold both Jeru and Gang Starr 
We’d bang a joint like 3 days and trade off 
When the real heads owned and shaped the heart and the soul of the art 
That we authored and sold 
Until them devils strong armed the control 
And now it’s all corporate, but I ain’t in the pulpit 
I just remember Tribe. I just remember walkin to the store in the summertime 
To cop Stakes Is High 
I just remember Com’ Sense, Bootcamp Clik 
Black scully hats and my first pair of timbs 
I saw rappers locked up, saw them get free 
I saw rappers lose their careers over beef 
I saw rappers on coke, crack, weed and d 
I saw them in their prime die younger than me 
I saw Biggie die on the eve of Life After Death 
To see him alive in the video is eerie inside 
Murdered by his own people. I guess ‘Pac wasn’t enough 
I thought that all we got is us 
The world of hip hop had hardly even gotten up 
Then Big L took a frickin bullet in the brain a couple of weeks past 
When my born day came, and Freaky Ty from the Lost Boyz got slain 
And Big Pun’s health caught up and his heart failed him 
We sat angered ‘cause we ain’t have the power to save him 
But all things come to an end. Spring, summer to fall 
Winter to spring and summer again 
Now I’m hearin hip hop is dust in the wind 
6 feet deep covered in dirt and dead under my timbs 
Like it was one of our peeps, so we keep the essence alive 
‘cause that’s the way that some of us live 
I feel the hunger in my stomach and ribs 
I’d rather starve for my craft, than slob for the math 
And it’s a couple cats holdin it down 
but in the mainstream current overflow and they drown