This host gives me a headache. I love how they start off totally misrepresenting Paul Porter's position, cuz they're so fixated on their formula of conflict-driven theater. Then when the discussion doesn't match his preconceived notions, the host resorts to drowning out the conversation with condescending grunts and grumbles.

In case you missed it, the Rick Rubin profile everyone's talking about, from Lynn Hirschberg who also brought us the legendary Suge Knight profile back in the day, and had people asking why non hip-hop journalists were doing the best hip-hop journalism..

Rick Rubin: The Music Man

Rick Rubin is listening. A song by a new band called the Gossip is playing, and he is concentrating. He appears to be in a trance. His eyes are tightly closed and he is swaying back and forth to the beat, trying at once to hear what is right and wrong about the music. Rubin, who resembles a medium-size bear with a long, gray beard, is curled into the corner of a tufted velvet couch in the library of a house he owns but where he no longer lives. This three-story 1923 Spanish villa steeped in music history — Johnny Cash recorded in the basement studio; Jakob Dylan is recording a solo album there now — is used by Rubin for meetings. And ever since May, when he officially became co-head of Columbia Records, Rubin has been having nearly constant meetings. Beginning in 1984, when he started Def Jam Recordings, until his more recent occupation as a career-transforming, chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning producer for dozens of artists, as diverse as the Dixie Chicks, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Diamond, Rubin, who is 44, has never gone to an office of any kind. One of his conditions for taking the job at Sony, which owns Columbia, was that he wouldn't be required to have a desk or a phone in any of the corporate outposts. That wasn't a problem: Columbia didn't want Rubin to punch a clock. It wanted him to save the company. And just maybe the record business...

Kanye explaining the rationale behind his funding for programs that integrate hip-hop into public school systems:

If you can approach hip-hop from a standpoint of, “How did they put this together,” and get past the fact that they use profanity, realize that you are a reflection of your parents, more so then the music. Let’s get more into the music itself. How does Dr. Dre, a musical genious, layer all these sounds? What about engineering and Pro Tools and the poetry aspect? We can teach about hip-hop history, we can teach about legends, hip-hop theory. It’s been around so long that text books can be written about it. This is a perfect time to capitalize on and get kids excited about [music] education.

More details on his Kanye West Foundation here:

Kanye West and 50 Cent Rolling Stone Cover Photo

I'm gonna indulge the obvious and point out that this pic seems inspired the "you lean in 90%" kissing scene from Hitch. NTTAWWT.

No disrespect to Bobby Rush (co-founder of the Chicago Black Panther chapter, I believe?) but I can't really see much coming out of this.. though it could provide some nice theater. I'll be tivo-ing C-Span for sure, hoping Jim Jones is among the "executives" called in.

Congress To Question Major Label, MTV Chiefs about Hip-Hop Videos and Lyrics

wired

Members of Congress plan to grill top major label executives about the depiction of African-American women in rap videos and lyrics, according to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois). The hearing he is organizing, called "From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degradation," is tentatively scheduled for September 25.

Rush plans to ask Edgar J. Bronfman, Jr. of Warner Music Group, Philippe Dauman of Viacom, Doug Morris of Universal Music Group, and others to change the depiction of African-American women in rap videos and lyrics, according to Variety, although the hearing could be delayed because the labels claim that decisions on which acts to sign are made at lower levels within the companies. Rush says he "want[s] to talk to executives at these conglomerates who've never taken a public position on what they produce. But it's been surprisingly very difficult to get them to commit to appearing..."

Ok, so I know you're all excited about Apple's new iPhone With No Phone Attached, but there's a few things you might want to consider before shelling out that $300. Check out these flaws that my advance research has uncovered:

9. The iPod Touch battery lasts approximately 8 minutes.

8. The iTunes WiFi Music Store is still in beta, and currently only offers Peter Frampton albums.

7. The iPod Touch is coated with special chemicals designed to make Black men turn impotent.

6. The iPod Touch thinks Dane Cook is hilarious.

5. 50% of profits from the iPod Touch will be funneled into a Larry Craig presidential campaign (on the newly formed Wide Stance ticket).

4. All other profits go to Steve Jobs' dog. His grandchildren get NOTHING.

3. After 20 plays, the iPod Touch's DRM protection automatically remixes every file into a reggaeton song.

2. The iPod Touch's special touch screen is made with the eyeballs of baby pandas.

1. Every iPod Touch contains a secret pinhole camera that sends a live stream of your face to Steve Jobs' office where he spends each day cackling maniacally at your visage, "LOOK AT MY LITTLE DANCING MONKEYS! I OWN YOU, SHEEPLE!"

Just trying to help you be an educated consumer, my friends.

getting my nat king cole on

Setting a challenge for myself to step the game up, in honor of ill Doctrine's feature in Wired Magazine, and our selection as "Best Video Blog" in the Black Weblog Awards.

Who held the torch at the VMAs and who dropped it? View the results here.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in Los Angeles, a continent away from my family — my biological kin on the East Coast and my metaphorical relatives, the people of New York. The worst part, for me, was not being here.

Later that morning, I finally got my father on the phone. Dad doesn’t get mad, but sometimes you can hear him quietly seething. As he watched the smoke rise from Ground Zero, he said: “What good is all this power if we can’t use it?”

I don’t think my father meant that the United States immediately march off to war, much less invade the wrong country. But I understand the frustration. We are rich. We are strong. We are smart. Why can’t we have more control?

What my father said on the morning of September 11 brings to mind another quote that answers his question:

“Those magnificent Americans. So much power and so little understanding of what to do with it.”

Apparently Miri Ben-Ari is out to shut down other hip-hop violinists? If you search in Google for hip-hop violin, the top video results have been removed by Miri Ben Ari's lawyers.

Does Miri Ben-Ari hate musicians and Hip Hop? It's beginning to seem that way.

This week, Ms. Ben-Ari and her legal team have unleashed a war on instrumentalists -- specifically violinists -- within the Hip Hop world. I personally have received two threatening “Cease and Desist” letters via email (one of which I have blogged about in an earlier post), and it seems other violinists experimenting with Hip Hop music are getting attacked as well... continued here

Maybe I should trademark "Hip-Hop Videoblogger" and stop everyone else from talking about hip-hop on Youtube. (If Ms. Ben-Ari or her people read this, I'd love to post your side of the story if you want to clarify what's going on here.)

Just when I was starting to feel bad for clowning the guy so much:

O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants

Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O'Reilly added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' "

"...it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all." O'Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the [Rev. Jesse] Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it."

Love behind the scenes creative process footage like this. Kanye calls in Timbaland AKA Mr. Wolf to analyze why his kick drums don't hit hard enough in the club:

(via morris

If the Sylviagate incident proves anything, it’s what happens when you let your opponents control the debate.

As hip-hop grew ever more commercially successful, criticism of hip-hop enjoyed a similar boom, to the extent that the term “hip-hop” itself became synonymous with misogyny, violence, hypersexuality, and crime.

Not that hip-hop’s critics hadn’t always laced the culture with those adjectives. And not that hip-hop didn’t do everything it could to encourage that criticism by its failure to support the artists who could make it a well-rounded genre. But hip-hop itself has begun to accept the fallacy that it is, by and large, a liability. What a shame.

It pains me, in 2007, to have to defend hip-hop against the charges of people like Bill O’Reilly. It’s like being asked to defend Evolution from its Creationist opponents. Or putting Ahmadinejad (or Bush for that matter) onstage with academics looking for straight answers. In a proper debate, you and your opponent play by the same basic logic. In the above discussions, none of that happens. Science cannot debate Belief, because Belief doesn’t care about evidence. Humans cannot debate their humanity against people who believe them ultimately inhuman.