MJ3: King Of Pop Vs King Of Hip Hop - CR The Beast

The DJ CR The Beast released “M3: King of Pop vs King of Hip Hop” in 2009 and it finds, just a week after Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 3” came out, that he mixes together instruments from the East Coast Hip Hop artists eleventh album and classics from the late Michael Jackson.

1. “Talkin’ About Butterflies”

The mixtape kicks off with words from a news report about the death of the singer as the thing confusing starts off with Jay-Z’s ...
...“You Rock My World”, before it actually gets into the Marsha Ambrosius-written song “Butterflies”. It is an odd mix and one that I wouldn’t say was really that effective as the thing opens up and shows you what to expect here.

**Two Stars**

2. “Thanks You For ABCs”

Carrying through with it “ABC” (which had actually started on the track prior to this one) you see that here the first and second tracks merge as ... more

The DJ CR The Beast released “M3: King of Pop vs King of Hip Hop” in 2009 and it finds, just a week after Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 3” came out, that he mixes together instruments from the East Coast Hip Hop artists eleventh album and classics from the late Michael Jackson.

1. “Talkin’ About Butterflies”

The mixtape kicks off with words from a news report about the death of the singer as the thing confusing starts off with Jay-Z’s introduction tune’s instrumentals added to a tune that begins with “You Rock My World”, before it actually gets into the Marsha Ambrosius-written song “Butterflies”. It is an odd mix and one that I wouldn’t say was really that effective as the thing opens up and shows you what to expect here.

**Two Stars**

2. “Thanks You For ABCs”

Carrying through with it “ABC” (which had actually started on the track prior to this one) you see that here the first and second tracks merge as the DJ throws down the killer Jackson 5 cut on more beats that really don’t seem right when you consider just how Pop the song is and so it really doesn’t make for a very nice listen and needs effort to really feel as a result to show that really things are being forced.

**One Star**

3. “D.O.E.S (Death of The Earth Song)”

Here Jay-Z’s “D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune) is brought together with “The Earth Song” and in this case you see that you simply can’t put the two together at all as much of what makes the MJ tune so effective is how well his voice works with the production of the original and nothing else will do, and so it simply sounds empty here and sounds like another wasted track that makes you think that nothing good will come of this release.

**One Star**

4. “They Don’t Care Who Runs This Town”

This one sounds like a much better matching of tunes as you see that the dark single that Jay-Z dropped is brought together with a track that gets Michael in a rage and is mixed in a way so that sounds as if “Run This Town” was actually made for it. This is the first successful matching here and the near-raps from the singer make it this one what it is and to show that perhaps there is some potential here.

**Four Stars**

5. “Empire State Rockin’”

This one just wasn’t happening I really can’t see the vision of the DJ as he somehow things that it is right for The Jackson 5’s “I’ll be There” to be brought together with Shunx’s heavy Hip Hop beats. The ballad is simply a stupid choice and you see that this is soon replaced with “Rockin’ Robin” for another wasted track that shown how he just doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing with the tracks he has picked out.

**One Star**

6. “Got To Be As Real As It Gets”

This is another track that really just didn’t go anywhere, and as you move away from some of the most popular Jay-Z material from the album, you see that he once again chooses to go for some emotive Michael Jackson material, but doesn’t really have the right idea and loses the messages behind the original tune in doing this. Young Jeezy is on the hook and it shows just how mismatched everything is.

**One Star**

7. “On To The Next Trip On Me”

On this one you get a terrible mix as it is off-time and you find that you have some of the later Michael Jackson material brought together on club beats from Swizz Beatz. The Swizzy loop drowns MJ’s voice and means that you can’t actually take anything from it as a result as shows that the DJ is clearly running out of ideas of where to take things as is coming out with straight pointless tracks by this midway point on the mixtape.

**One Star**

8. “Blood Off That Dance Floor”

Here you find that you have a tune that brings together a pair of club-set tunes for the artist, and I have to say that the DJ was close to getting to where he wanted to take it here, but it wasn’t quite as effectively as I would have expected. There aren’t too many in this high-tempo and style from the singer and so I would have expected him to come up with something decent, but it simply didn’t come and made for another weak one.

**Two Stars**

9. “Remember The Time A Star Is Born”

Here Kanye West and No I.D.’s beats are mixed in with the breakthrough New Jack Swing track from Michael and you see that again you see that he just doesn’t have anything near the right tracks placed together as the pace of the jay-Z one is so slow that he has to add his own cuts to give it a New jack Swing feel as Teddy Riley had before and does a simply awful job of it all to waste for big MJ material.

**One Star**

10. “Venus vs Mars... Who Is It”

This is one that seems to have a much better connection and so I felt that it was able to help the DJ to show that he was, at times, able to find the odd tune that fits in with this Jay-Z album, but I felt that it got boring quite quickly and once he had shown that he’d been able to do it, he should have just moved on as Michael does his thing over Timbaland production that has faced heavy criticism.

**Three Stars**

11. “Never Can Say Goodbye To Home”

He takes things back as Kanye West gets the lead in the production and you have both Jigga Man and KiD CuDi performing together on the hook and the DJ looks right back to the seventies for Michael’s work as part of The Jackson 5 and brings up a tune that is able to fit the theme of the music, but isn’t really that special here 9and isn’t helped by one of the weaker Jay-Z tunes from the album either).

**One Star**

12. “Billie Jean Is A Hater”

It was bound to happen at some point, and you see that it does here as he forces amongst the most popular Michael Jackson songs together with a Kanye West-produced tune that its built up from a heavy electronic influence that sounds like it could have been taken directly from his fourth album “808s & Heartbreak”, and it just doesn’t have any place being placed with a Michael Jackson song on this level.

**One Star**

13. “Reminder To Rock With You”

Here is another a heavily-forced on as you see that you have them putting together another Timbaland cut (one that had Jay-Z putting out one of his worst rhyming sets) with a Disco tune from Michael. They have no place together and the way that they are made to fit, by speeding up Michael’s vocals just sounds so wrong and makes it such an effort to listen to it (even with it being a fairly short one).

**One Star**

14. “Will You Be Ambitious”

You get another relatively short one here as The Netunes’ only appearance on the jay-Z album is brought together with a nineties track from the late, great one and really it doesn’t go anywhere at all as you get an emotive performance from Michael being forced to fit into a track which features such laid-back and passive production that takes away from the aim of the artist when he originally recorded it.

**One Star**

15. “Ben Young Forever”

The album is brought to a close with a track that begins with words from Paris and Jermaine before they throw out “Ben” on more Kanye West beats that are done in the futuristic stlye. You can’t possibly enjoy the song that Michael performs here if you put it together with this one as it really doesn’t have any purpose here and although I understand that it is down to the fact that it fits in with the themes of the Jay-Z track, you could have picked another.

**One Star**

This mixtape is simply wack and one that does nothing for either artist as you see that you get a series of predictable Michael Jackson tunes forced to fit in with Jay-Z’s eleventh album and only on the odd occasion does it actually make sense with what is brought together. I can’t recommend it, and I can’t see who would actually enjoy it.  

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