It’s back to the block and the mixtape after a sophomore slump
By Chris King
Of the St. Louis American
Something is up with DJ Bishop. His mixtapes have been attracting a who’s-who of drops and exclusives. The dude has rubbed elbows with the bigs in Miami and New York. Both Ali and Chingy leaked him tracks in the silly feud between G.I.B. and Derrty ENT.
So STL has its own real-deal mixtape playmaker on the streets right now.
Let’s state propers up-front as an antidote to hating. Bishop is on the grind. He’s in the clubs, at the flea markets, barber shops and hair salons. He’s popping the trunk of his ride and making sales. He’s not waiting for it to come to him.
And the man has good ears. He hears hot tracks and tight transitions. The All Stars gave him All City to sequence because they trust him absolutely, and I hope you devote an hour of your life to listening to that record top-down and hearing how Bishop helped them tell their story.
What’s next? A pretty hot development, which marks a transition in the history of the STL scene as it absorbs the culture of mixtapes in relation to how the record industry is changing.
This is a Chingy story. Chingy is changing.
Everybody knows by now that Powerball didn’t do it for Chingy the way (can’t help but make the comparison) Nellyville did for Nelly. Call it the sophomore slump, or Ludacris and Shaka Zulu sabotaging Chingy’s radio plays with their industry connections. I, for one, am still waiting for a good explanation for why “Balla Baby” didn’t blow up.
So, whatcha gonna do? All pimped out with nowhere to go. Sales slow.
Here’s what Chingy did: He asked Bishop to do a mixtape for him.
Bingo, powerball, jackpot: good idea. If the industry snores on you, go back to the block. Chingy humbled himself an inch. He also did a smart thing that spotlights exactly where Bishop stands on the scene. He’s the street/club cred dude with his mixtapes right now.
Jackpot, Powerball: now Scratch Off. That’s the Chingy mixtape that Bishop is grinding. It’s coming to deejay booths, clubs and barber shops near you.
The concept is Bishop’s. Bishop has matured enough to know that a concept is exactly what he brings to projects. Chingy, acting fast on a connection he and Bishop made at South Beach in Miami, brought Bishop out to his St. Charles spread and dumped a gang of songs into him.
“He gave me 22 songs for free,” Bishop said to thank his boy. “Original beats.”
Bishop listened and picked favorites. Chingy said, “I need a concept.”
Bishop said, “You done Jackpot and Powerball. Now you need Scratch Off.”
Bishop should be teaching college literary criticism. Scratch Off is just the right gambling phrase for a step down and into the streets from where Chingy has been. It’s also an invitation for a brother to scratch off his past and start over.
Chingy is pressing up copies of the mixtape within his own organization and using his soldiers and Bishop to put them on the streets and in the clubs. This is down-home and dirty, if not Derrty, compared to sitting back and waiting to get serviced by an international music group.
The music? Check it yourself. At mixtape prices, anybody can afford it. That, of course, is the wake-up call to the industry. Industry heads, if you think we need you, then watch Bishop get mobbed when he walks into the club with copies of his Chingy mixtape.
My take on the music? Chingy has got to live a bit more. Take some chances, show some emotion, crack a book. Too much fretting over “haters” and filling gaps in verses with the “G.I.B.” shout-out here. Tell us a story, man. God knows you know some.
But give the brother respect. He teamed up with a local guy to revive himself locally. He remembers how sweet it tastes to get love from the Lou. And he is going for it.
“The dude is so cool,” Bishop said of Chingy. “This mixtape is actually giving me a step ahead in the game.”
Two personal notes over here. Checking the Hip-Hop Grapevine archives, I see in our review of Powerball we urged Chingy to lighten up and make a mixtape. Thanks for reading!
And, hey, Chingy. I left you a message from Bishop’s cell phone. Guess you were too busy to make a drop on this story. Anyway. I gave Bishop a book called I, Ching, to give to you. Check it out. You got a great record about changes in you: I, Chingy. Study up. Change, change, change.
