FALL CLASSIC: 1st Rd. Group C

OVERVIEW: You probably know what's going on already. If you don't, look around, it'll make sense. The official shit-talkers are John Dawson (JD), Keenon Mobb (KM), Mike DIKK (MD), and me (RM).
What It Is of the nerld-famous Tree Beats blog won the last round's voting poll, with final score going like this...
What It Is - 17 pts
Jay Pud - 13 pts
Dart Adams - 5 pts
True Hip Hop Entertainment - 1 pt
So the What It Is homey joins PSY/OPS in the final round after we finish these last two first round bullshits. Probably one of the second place fuckers will get in as some sort of wild card too but I don't think we've drank enough cough syrup to come to an agreement on how that'll work.

Here's what's on tap this round, which is, by far, the best group (and we've got the last group already set, so we know this is the best group)...
ENTRANT #1: Choplaruski's The Chopping Block mix - Choplaruski is the man behind The Chopping Block blog.
ENTRANT #2: Swann's Fall Classic - Swann is the asshole who does the incredibly great Invincible Bully blog.
ENTRANT #3: Keenon Mobb's Fucking UFO Hooptiedonk mix - Keenon is the token mulatto on the Expert Whiteboy Panel, which means we send him to the ghetto grocery store to buy the Private Stock.
ENTRANT #4: D-Mo's Sunday Morning Special - D-Mo is my homeboy in real life, and he's an artsy-fartsy painter, oblivious to our intense musical dorkeries online.
Here's our rankings for these four mixes (for winning purposes, what we rank as #1 gets 3 pts, #2 gets 2 pts, and #3 gets 1 pt; and the open public poll scores 6 pts for #1, 4 pts for #2, and 2 pts for #3, so your public consciousness is worth double and has the power to heavily sway but not completely overrule what we think)...

THE NUMBER ONE MIX OF THIS SET:
MD: DJ SWANN MIX - I don't know the origins of DJ Swann, but I imagine he put in some time as a college mix show DJ because that's what this sounds like. It's definitely my favorite mix yet, and it's sure to piss off the pro-southern rap Dumpin readership. I grow tired of the blog format, but I'd like to think Dumpin is the blog that appeals to not only the typical old school east coast hip hop listening blog viewing public, but also the few southern rap dudes. It puts a smile on my face, but not really because I don't ever smile. Anyway, I'm pretty pumped to hear what DJ Swann does next, assuming he makes it to the next round.
RM: I picked Keenon's mix, not because I didn't like Swann's mix as much, but his mix was a really good one, but as predictable as I predicted the stupid internet rap nerd scene would deliver. He did do it better than anybody else has though. But Keenon had some wacky shit that touched my heart and made me want to roller skate with sluts.
KM: Me. I listened to the first round of this before recording my set, and the soundclip thematics had me jonesing to use this idea. I have a copy of that King Kong song from King Kong vs Godzilla where the island people are singing this gibberish during their sacrifice thing. I was gonna have that going and put in Robert Tilton gibberish and then finish with this Dolemite gibberish profanity thing BUT the Kongsong won't burn to CD. So that got scrapped and I went with the UFO thing. I normally am pretty hard on my own shit because I hear every mistake (there are 5). Dunno how anyone else records theirs, I just do it live in one take and if the fuck-ups don't outweigh the spots where I'm like "I did that? Huh." then I fix the volume and call it a day. For this tournament thing I decided to listen to everything as if I didn't do it. So that's why I picked mine. If it's NYC vs. Cali AND the South, you better find something more interesting than 30 minutes of Premo.
JD: I caught shit from the rest of these "OMG RARE SOUL TRACK" fucks, but Swann hit what I was bred on. If you are a fan of straight-up NYC hip hop mixed well, DL this. Swann threw in a couple of Masta Ace tracks to further dig deeper into my heart. If I wasn't married and if Swann was some ratty Jap porn star with giant meat drapes, I would fuck him. Hard son.

THE NUMBER TWO MIX OF THIS SET:
RM: I put Swann here, no doubt. I like how John gets in stereotypical expert white boy defensive mode about how this mix is the straight up rillest shit ever, because he grew up with it when he used to roll with black dudes back in the day. It is good, but like I said in my Keenon shit, this was what I expected from the internet. But don't get my meaning twisted, this shit is top-notch, and you would be best advised to DL this shit. This was easily the best group of the first round (and that most likely counts the last group as well from what we've heard so far).
MD: KEENON MIX - Swann did an east coast college mix set and Keenon ended up doing a southern flavored set for da club. Both mixes were really fucking great, but I ended up choosing the mix show over the club set because I really miss that mix format and I don't hear it enough because I hardly ever listen to the radio. I still advise everyone to download this mix too. I am really surprised that we've received so many gold star mixes and so little doo doo ones.
JD: Keenon is my mulatto homie, and I don't know if he could read my mind, but the "Flowers" into the Billy Squire was just fucking brilliant. "Flowers" is off Ghost's least-jocked - but not jocked enough in my heart - album Bulletproof Wallets. I love that shit. Keenon didn't throw any Wyclef on the album, and his mix made me want to see him do a live DJ set for just Raven, Mike, BWT, and I while we drink Woo-woo's in our flip flops and Jamz.
KM: Swann's mix is technically proficient, but he didn't really try anything that daring. There's only so much of that Preemo shit I can sit through at once. It's like he marked off a list of NYC boom-bap nerd cheap pops he knows other boom-bap nerds will probably go crazy for.
BIG L, check
NAS, check
KRS, check
LORD JAMAR, check
MASTA ACE, check
DJ PREMIER (or dudes who sound like him) the whole goddamn way through, check
And then he throws that one People Under The Stairs bit at the very end like a twig of parsley afterthought, so it doesn't come off like a Digging In The Crates circle jerk. So while I can't know for sure he did this thinking it would get in with fellow Xpert Rap Nerdz, I can know for sure that it was tedious after a while. I could get blazed to this but it would be depressing 10 minutes in.

THE NUMBER THREE MIX OF THIS SET:
MD: Choplaruski - I feel bad this dude got stuck in this group. I am a real big fan of the cut and paste style that he utilized here, but the song selection and the fact that Swann and Keenon were so pro about their shit made Chop get stuck down all the way at number 3.
JD: Choplaruski. You could have been a contender if there wasn't this GIANT FAG section of Wyclef butchering Pink Floyd, some Nickelback sounding shit, and the gayest Eminem song ever.
RM: I mega-dittos the Choplarockski. It made me really sad to hear that Wyclef/Pink Floyd shit. I wish Wyclef would fucking die. Lauryn Hill is crazy and shit, Praz is awol, and Wyclef is still the 3rd best Fugee.
KM: Chop's mixtape is high-end on that style that we've seen in the tourney so far. It's borderline blending, which is great in its own right - especially the Queen/Nas/(Dunno who that is) part. The Simple Minds/Collective Soul (not Nickelback!) was left field. Was that you putting in Usher saying "Yeah"? If so, good looking out. Z-Ro too. But yeah, a good chunk of this is the other kind of cheap pops I was talking about in the other bracket. Common, Kanye, and Wyclef. My first question is, why in the fuck is everyone using that "Dollar Bill" joint? If you'd stuck with either of the first two you went with, I would give you a pass on the Wyclef knock. I actually use that "Stayin Alive" remix at the club sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with old Fugees. Pras isn't AWOL, he was doing this documentary thing where he lived on Skid Row and may have smoked crack like Raven Mack. I read about it somewhere. This would put Pras at the head of the list, with Clef 2nd and Crazy Jesus Lauryn Hill dead-ass last. Wyclef Jean is an okay dude, I think this tourney has overexposed him to the panel and therefore ruined appreciation for the better parts of his oeuvre. Ooh yeah, $5 words. Bookending this with The Who was a nice touch, too - Mike and I both dug the "Gravel Pit" mash-up at the beginning. This was a tough bracket for the start-stop mixes, yup.

THE WORST MIX OF THIS SET:
RM: My man D-Mo does not indulge online, which is a good thing, and had no idea coming in of what type of music this blog would be into or anything. So basically he sat down and smoked a bowl one Sunday morning and put a mix on an actual cassette. I ripped it to the computer, but with internet welfare, had to take it to my boy the PSY/OPS house for him to up it to the internet. D-Mo's mix is universally (meaning EWA Clubhouse-wide) derided as the worst one thus far. And it is. But D-Mo's my boy, and there was one song on there I meant to ask him who did it so I could search out more shit by that dude. There was also stuff I never want to hear again.
JD: D-mo. This sucked hard, and I think I heard a Grateful Dead song in there. I can handle sucking in a cool sucking way like the kids from Seattle, but not in a "this really sucks" way. Go pretend to drink beer with Raven you dirty hippie.
MD: D-mo - You have to appreciate people that are detached from the internet, but yeah, like John said, I think I heard some Grateful Dead on here, and that will always get you last place in my book. The rest of it was pretty balls too. I think there was a song I liked on here but I can't remember now and I'm definitely not going back to check.
KM: First things first, ol' boy deserves props for being the one and only entrant in this whole fucking show with an actual mixtape recorded on cassette tape. Out of the four here, I rank it last. That said, it's not the worst one in the entire tournament because those Shaq Stomping prep schoolers win that by leaps and bounds. I don't care what John says, that one was fucking painful. I want to know what the song is after that Roots joint. And also that bluegrassy thing two songs after that. And also the last song. Grateful Dead's not my bag, but I can tolerate them in small doses. If not for the Modest Mouse-sounding shit in-between, I would probably rank this higher. Since I don't hate hippies (maybe because I don't know any), I could listen to this again if it came up on my winamp.

YOUR VOTE TIME:
Our pre-rankings has the shit set up at this point with Swann and Keenon with 10 pts, that Choplaruski cat with 4 pts, and my man D-mo at zero. Point values are doubled Family Feud style for the public poll, so you can pretty much decide which one between Swann's or Keenon's is best, though Choplaruski can make a strong showing and fuck shit up as well. I'm fairly certain the fourth group of four is set, so fuck off if you were thinking about doing one. Too late you lazy fucker.