The Budget-Ass video series returns with “Xan4merz: Tha Xanimated Series” by Rootbeer & The Rawhide Kid. Or should we say Bae da Male & NyKwill MadeIt?
You can also stream just the audio here:
Spotify
Soundcloud
Xan4merz is part of the forthcoming album, Whiteout! 2 which will be available to stream October 4, 2019.
It’s time to get misty eyed. Rootbeer & The Rawhide Kid are proud to reveal “Rain,” the second single from Whiteout! 2. Stream it from any one of the following links:
“Rain”
Written by A. Wells & M. Gardner
Produced by The Rawhide Kid
Mixed by Nick “Scoops” Dardaris
Single art by Andrea Malatesta
Whiteout! 2 will be on streaming services October 4, 2019!
In Episode 10 – which is also the shortest episode because there was an immense amount of dumb-fuckery to edit out – the guys make their official predictions for the 2019 XXL Freshman cover. They are almost convincing as they attempt to prove they understand modern hip-hop. Some highlights include:
Be sure to listen to the end as Rootbeer discusses a surprise guest who will be appearing on his upcoming solo album, In/Stability, as well as some other details about the album itself.
If you’ve been listening to the Rootbeer & Rawhide Rate Rappers podcast (and if you haven’t, you should), it was announced in Episode 9 that a promotional single from the upcoming Rootbeer & The Rawhide Kid collaboration album would be released May 3, 2019 to commemorate the 8th anniversary of their first collaboration album.
Hey, that’s today!
So…coming live to you and yours:
This song was produced by Anno Domini for AnnoDominiNation. It was mixed by Nick “Scoops” Dardaris. Former fans of nu-metal (Rootbeer and Rawhide are the only current fans of nu-metal) will quickly recognize that the song is a take on Limp Bizkit’s “Getcha Groove On.” That hilarious artwork was put together by none other than the talented Andrea Malatesta. How can you not want to listen to something accompanied by a starfish squirting mustard into a hot dog’s mouth? If you’re humorless sack of shit, that’s how. So take your head out of your chocolate starfish and give it a listen.
If you’d like to be among the first to hear new songs as they’re released, there’s a new Soundcloud you can follow as well as a new Spotify artist page which hasn’t been approved yet because Rootbeer did everything at the last minute like always. But that link will get posted below as soon as it exists.
After a weeks-long wait, Rootbeer & Rawhide Rate Rappers, Episode 3 is available to stream, download, turn off and delete. In this episode, each of the guys discusses five albums they consider underrated and why. Plus, Rawhide announces a new EP titled Beyond Belief which includes some songs cut from Reason to Believe as well as an alternate version of the album’s title track, a new song with Rootbeer & Inspectah Spark called “Axis of Axes” and more.
Some other highlights include
Shout outs: Inspectah Spark, Speedway gas stations, The Suffering for Xbox
Oh, also there’s a Podcast hub in the main nav now so you can bookmark that if you want to.
Episode 2 of Rootbeer & Rawhide Rate Rappers is live! In this episode, our heroes discuss their dream collaborations. Also the duo gives an update on their upcoming collaborative project, reflect on the release of Reason to Believe, Rawhide reveals the origins of his rap name and he finally shares his hostility toward a guy who worked at Best Buy in 2002. Give it a listen!
The Rawhide Kid just dropped his powerful fourth solo album, Reason to Believe.
Stream and download from your favorite platform
Bandcamp
Soundcloud
The Rawhide Kid has opened his vault and given us a chance to hear four years of unused instrumentals he produced. Collecting the Kid: The Epilogue contains 60 tracks that span a number of genres including hip-hop, rock and metal. Give it a listen below and keep an eye out for his next LP, Reason to Believe.
Almost every song on this album has some depressing backstory, rendering the Rootbeer Reports unenjoyable. This song is the exception. Every memory surrounding it is fun or hilarious.
The song was actually inspired by one specific night. You might not be able to tell by looking at us, or listening to the song about Pokémon, or considering the fact we have a song about Pokémon in the first place, but Rawhide and I don’t exactly party. A typical evening for us in college was him trying to listen through the wall to our other roommate having sex and describing it to me while I play Wind Waker and tell him to take his ear off the wall and get back to watching reruns of The Nanny.
So one weekend the semester after I graduated, but Rawhide was still in Potsdam doing student teaching, I took a trip up to visit. Rawhide had just survived a traumatic break-up, so a bunch of us decided to take him out to a club. Not sure why a group of people who had collectively stepped feet in clubs fewer times than they had feet seemed like a good idea, but it’s what we did. And while there we did exactly what you’d expect a group of people like us to do: we stood in the corner and made comments to one another when the DJ played something we actually liked. At one point a girl came up to us and just started rubbing her ass on us. She was a little heavier (so my type) but I wasn’t single at the time so I just stood there frozen until she went away. She tried to get at least three of the guys in our group to dance before giving up. Of course, when I wrote the lyrics I exaggerated her size and made it the focal point of my verse.
Eventually we all walked swiftly back to campus after a growing need to take a shit led to the discovery that the men’s bathroom had no doors on its stalls. Six months or so later I would include the concept for “Standing Around” in the first message I sent to Rawhide about the in-progress album. Shortly thereafter I selected a beat he had produced called “Dubstep” for the song.
I met Mike Larry Draw when he did a show in Albany, NY. It was in the back room of McGeary’s Irish Pub for a fairly small crowd. In settings like that, the majority of the audience is comprised of real hip-hop heads. Mike went on as the fourth of four equally-billed acts. Two of them were Knowle’ge and Hired Gun – both brilliant artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Mike, and I don’t think he would disagree with this statement, was a bit of an oddball by comparison. Songs about scooters stuck out like sore thumbs on the fists pumping for Hired Gun’s “Arrest the President.” The crowd was a little confused at first, or at least I was. Then he performed “Get Lite.”
Suddenly, an audience that was listening intently to the politically-charged lyrics of the previous acts had begun raging. I knew I needed a feature from this guy. I reached out to both Mike and L One Crackeriffic about “Standing Around.” Mike got back to me first and, no offense to L One because he had a dope verse on the “Rush Hour RMX,” I’m really glad he did. Not only did he turn the verse around in just a couple of days, he renegaded Rawhide and I.
I had the pleasure of seeing Mike perform recently at the 8th Annual Beatshot Festival and, instead of rapping, he played some of the beats he produced and invited everyone to get onstage and spit their best 16. We had a nice chat afterward.
Rawhide wrote and recorded his verse when he visited me in Schenectady in 2014. Since he had the final verse, he was going to be the last of us to want to stay at the club. As such, his plan was to spend 14 bars discussing how awesome the club is, then let the most minor occurrence completely ruin it for him. There was a point where he suggested a girl say to him “eww, no, this club is no-creepers-allowed” and I asked him who he had in mind to recite that line. Halfway through my question I realized who I was talking to so, yeah, that’s me rejecting Rawhide’s sexual advancements like I do off-record at least twice a week.
During that visit, Rawhide and I also recorded the interludes. I said last week that it’s an unspoken rule Rawhide has to re-record his adlibs until I laugh so hard I have to leave the room. You’ll notice I don’t say anything else in that interlude after he says “Have another Utica Club” because I literally had to cover my mouth and walk away after that. I had no idea what that was at the time. As he would explain to me, and I would later see while visiting him in Boonville, is that it’s a Central New York beer. No one outside of his Trump-voting, tractor racing section of the state would get the joke so naturally, the duo who brought you “Upstate Upbringing” would keep it in the song.
I actually did record a chorus for this song but the pitch has been lowered and the interludes are recited over it. Can you figure out what I’m saying?
It’s 4am. I’m sitting in an airport waiting for a plane to fly me to a city I’ve never been to. I haven’t slept.
A lot of rappers tweet like the above while they’re on tour. My trip is for business, but it has nothing to do with music. In fact, my presence here writing this blog entry is the very essence of Fear of Success. I’ve chosen the 9 – 5 life, but there are parts of my dreams I can never let go. Hip-hop will always be in my blood, like white cells, fighting what ails me.
I’m going to read that metaphor tomorrow and think it’s much less clever.
And if hip-hop is the white blood cells, then the red ones…they, well, they look kind of like Pokéballs don’t they?
Ever since I was gifted Pokémon Blue on my 10th birthday I’ve been, to an extent, obsessed. My entire circle of friends at college, including The Rawhide Kid, was addicted all the same. It’s a beautiful coincidence that I get to write this Rootbeer Report at the height of Pokémon GO’s rise to popularity.
In fact, I’ve got my phone on the chair next to me, keeping an eye on the airport gym, making sure it stays in the glory of Team Valor. Dammit, someone just took it. When Dan shows up I’ll have him watch my luggage so I can get it back.
Anyway, you didn’t click on this post to read the ramblings of my overtired brain, though you should know by now to expect it so you get no sympathy if you are thus far bored. Now I’m going to actually discuss “Battle Rap.” This was a concept I sent to Rawhide when I first told him I was working on a new album, though I did worry that if it went viral my music would instantly be written off as a gimmick. I then decided a viral gimmick wouldn’t be the worst definition my music’s been given.
Normally, I tell Rawhide a concept, he plays me or sends me beats he’s already made that best suit it and we tailor each other’s work from there. With this song, Rawhide crafted the beat specifically for the concept with the exact sample I had in mind. We started writing to it on the spot. We got through maybe the first verse-and-a-half during that early 2012 listening session and finished it over a year later. We double-checked every reference to make sure each Pokémon we chose had a proper moveset.
Aerodactyl actually couldn’t learn Earthquake until the second generation of Pokémon games so while this line is accurate, the game from which I captured the Pokémon footage in the video (Pokémon Stadium) is a Generation 1 spin-off title. While brainstorming what to do for that part, Andrea came up with the idea of stealing a scene from San Andreas. I happened upon a Blu-Ray copy on Black Friday for $10 so I picked it up, watched it and identified the perfect scene to integrate.
To film, we borrowed my friend and coworker Karina’s camera (which I still haven’t given back) and went to the field near my dad’s house. This was an ideal location, not only because it is private property so we wouldn’t be disturbed, but because it was balls hot outside and my dad’s house was nearby and available for us to takes breaks in air conditioning. Andrea Malatesta, who also created the single cover and the album cover, operated the camera.
You may notice there are a couple scenes where Rawhide’s hat is on frontwards. This was initially an accident but after noticing it, we decided to keep it in as a sight gag. It’s a video of two white guys rapping about Pokémon. A well-made video wouldn’t have done the song justice. It isn’t that the video is bad. It has a finely-tuned balance between being professional and not taking itself too seriously. It’s “Strategically Shitty,” as I like to call it.
You know how on Arrow Oliver keeps revealing skills and connections as the flashbacks show where he first got those skills or connections? This is like that except instead of surviving on an island, I was recording a childish music video. As I write this sentence I’m sitting in Chicago Midway Airport having just watched my coworker, John, eat some pancakes. Flashback to the song now, which ends with Rawhide and I getting pancakes. That is actually a reference to a reference. Rawhide got pancakes at the end of his song “Kung Fu You” which was totally my idea. That idea, which was mine, was inspired by the Prince sketch on Chappelle’s Show where Charlie Murphy ends his story by saying Prince made him and his crew pancakes.