Song of the Day - DJ Jazzy Jeff w/ J-Live: "Practice"

Sometimes all I need to hear is a great sample to remind me how much I love hip hop. Truthfully, I haven't been listening to as much hip hop as I'd like to, which is nothing more than my music ADD-riddled mind not having enough bandwidth to process everything I should be listening to at the moment. That means hip hop often gets the short end of the stick on my playlists, but it really shouldn't since every time I actually make the effort to listen to new hip hop I end up finding something worth playing on repeat.

Yesterday my brother Damian introduced me to this little gem from DJ Jazzy Jeff's latest album, Return of the Magnificent. All it took was listening to the first five seconds of that Allen Iverson sample and I was hooked. Not only was it funny (Iverson's monologue about the importance of practice was one of the best press conference moments by an athlete I've ever heard), but it fit perfect within the rest of the song, which shouldn't be a surprise with a beat master like DJ Jazzy Jeff and an MC with skills like J-Live. As J-Live declares "I've been doin' this for years/my rep is legit. It's like the mic is a cancer stick/I can't quit," it sounds like he is giving voice to what Iverson was trying to say in that press conference. Just because he may not take practice as seriously as others that doesn't mean he isn't pouring every ounce of heart and effort into the game he loves. In fact, anyone who watches him on the court should know that Iverson's rep in the NBA is unimpeachable, just like J-Live's in the hip hop game.