obie trice - "rap name"
you may have heard the first line of this one already - "obie trice, real name, no gimmicks" - and immediately it's very, very exciting to hear what actually folllows from that little clip that's probably still playing on a radio nearby right this second. its em's production, which means a) its stuffed with little keyboard/sampler tinkerings that make little difference to how your body or mind responds to the beat, and b) it has that really bad hi hat sound he used on too much of the eminem show! still, the main hook is good, maybe because it's already so familiar, and obie is at least better than any of d12. he already sounds like he's trying to put across his rhymes to a global audience instead of just headz or his friends - maybe some mcs automatically do this from day one. (or perhaps it's because he has the biggest pop star in the world singing the chorus.)

i'm not always sure its a good thing, particularly if the audience doesn't turn out as large after all, or if there's a sense of pandering to taste - for some reason i almost wish a lot of the time that producers would make music with popular trends in mind (you know, like umm "dirty pop"), but with mcs it can lead to a smaller-every-day bag of references and phrases and delivery styles that get tired a lot quicker, with no sense of the individual history thing which can increase interest so much and actually make you want to follow what the mc will put out next.