Sometimes Mondays can be a drag - the weekend is over, you still have several days left before you get to the next one and, between in-office duties and other commitments outside of work, there can be a sense of mental fatigue associated with the most dreaded day of the week. Thankfully, we here at HNHH have a reliable remedy to those Monday blues and it's called Mean Mondays. Every week for a year, rapper R-Mean is handing us a different track and taking us on a musical journey that will brighten the day of every hip-hop head who currently feels trapped in their cubicle.
Today's installment in the Mean Mondays tradition comes with an extra-cool featured artist tagging along: the legendary Karyzie Bone. A veteran rapper who's a part of the popular group Bone Thus-n-Harmony, he's also released some really dope solo work that reached its peak in 2006 when he guested on Chamillionaire's uber-popular track "Ridin'." Though this may not rack up the gratuitous radio spins in the same way, "Real Ones" is a solid effort that makes a point of calling out the fake ones who are simply hangers-on and not contributing to any meaningful relationship with R-Mean.
"They only pray when it's for my downfall" is a line that could very well act as the track's summation about the acquaintances that surround the lead artist on the regular. The production from Viruss Beats takes a bass-heavy beat and injects it with some strings, possibly a violin, to ground it in some sort of emotional center. Krayzie Bone wades in and cleans up any doubts about this release in the song's second half, using his typical rapid-fire delivery, which is still an absolute joy to listen to after all these years. Props to R-Mean for bringing the legend out on this one.
Quotable Lyrics
Who's real, who's not, who's real
Who's fake around me
F**kin' with me when I'm winnin'
They don't really know a thing about me