We didn't forget about Dre, but we forgot about Mike Jones

There have been numerous examples of musical admiration societies. Gene Simmons admired Van Halen. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and Prince all admired Joni Mitchell. Eminem, Dr. Dre, and others formed a mutual admiration society both in the recording studio and outside it.



Of the various musical genres, rap seems to lend itself best to collaboration. It seems that most rap artists have appeared with at least one other rap artists at some point in their careers, and some artists continue to work together for years.

But in some cases, there is neither mutual admiration nor continued collaboration.

To me, Mike Jones is just a part of a ComaR mashup. But at one point, Jones was a big deal. Emerging from Houston, Texas, he scored some big hits on local label Swishahouse Records.

But then he left the label. Jones' story:

AllHipHop.com: Why did you leave Swishahouse?

Mike Jones: You see a lot of people give them too much credit. They say that Swisha’s the reason that I blew up. But it’s talent. There’s a whole lot of talent there that ain’t moving nowhere. It started out with Ice Age Entertainment. I was already big off the strip-club scenes, and they came to me. They had a bigger machine at that time, and I got down with them.

Swishahouse artist Paul Wall has a different take:

When he left Swishahouse, he was dropping salt on everybody from Swishahouse and not giving us any credit at all. He was talking down on a lot of us and he would never directly say our names, but he was still hating. There were times when I felt disrespected and I would call him out on it, and he’d be like, “Nah, I wasn’t talking about you. I would never do that.” I’m sure there’s a psychological term for this problem that Mike Jones has. He has a problem. His perception of reality ain’t the real perception of reality. In his mind he feels like he hasn’t done anything wrong to me, Trae, or Chamillionaire. He feels like everyone else is trippin’ and he’s the victim. But that ain’t how it happened. We always say there’s three sides to every story. There’s your side, the other person’s side, and then there’s the truth. But in his mind, he’s the victim and he never did anything wrong to anybody.

In the end, all that's left is the music.



In ComaR's mashup, Jones' lyrics are paired up with the melody from the Cure song "A Forest" - a song that I've liked for years.

Oh, and Jones' "American Dream" movie did come out - but perhaps the less said about the movie the better. Here's part of a review:

The scenes involving the chess match were especially pathetic. The chess boards are clearly set up wrong with pawns beside castles, they are moving the pieces all wrong also if you look. If you are trying to develop a character in a movie and show him as smart, don't make him move a bishop straight downwards through a pawn....This movie was actually hilarious but it's sad it was supposed to be serious.