hip hop music

The negro we love to hate, Toure, had a big piece in Sunday's NY times.

So many people bash him I almost feel bad to join in. I think Toure is a really bright guy, and might be a great writer on other topics. But I can't deny his career as a "hip-hop journalist" has yielded some of the worst, most pretentious writing I've ever seen. He really deserves a lot of the hate.

This new piece is actually not too bad...by Toure standards. But since someone on okayplayer asked for my opinion...

Here is Toure's article...

And here is my angry rebuttal:

1. First of all I always have questions about a writer who takes a couple of artists that nobody really cares about yet except some critics and industry people (and web nerds like us), lumps them together and tries this hard to hype them up as a "movement", then starts appointing leaders and spokesmen for this "movement" he discovered.

2. Toure is pushing this notion that there is a "movement" to shift from Hip-Hop to Rock, this is obviously the "angle" he used to convince the times the piece was worthwhile. But he does a lousy job of backing up and exploring that premise because none of the people he interviews were ever a part of hip-hop to begin with, and never would have been (except a brief quote from kamaal which did nothing to backup the premise).

He starts out by referencing Mos Def, Goodie Mob and Outkast, why are none of them quoted? If you want to illustrate how and why artists have become alienated from hip-hop, but you only interview artists who never were hip-hop in the first place, this is self-serving and specious.

3. I'm gonna give these artists the benefit of the doubt on the quotes in here, cuz it's quite likely Toure was asking leading questions to elicit quotes that would bolster his premise. BUT, When Toure claims that Rock has more emotional range than Hip-Hop the reasoning he offers to back up is weak as hell.

First he tells us Cody "even mentions that he sometimes cries". Wow, no rapper has ever talked about crying, Right? I can go to OHHLA right now and grab a dozen lyrics to prove this wrong, but I'm sure that's not necessary.

Then he tells us via Martin Luther that "Vulnerability doesn't work at all in hip-hop, You don't want to expose a weakness in that arena." Nobody shows vulnerability in hip-hop? Negro, PLEASE.

Have you ever listened to Will Smith tenderly doting on his child, or Tupac fondly reminiscing about his mother? Heard Puffy or CL or Ice Cube mourning their dead homiez? Heard Ghostface weeping aloud or watched DMX cry onstage in mid-song? Heard Ja Rule asking his girl "what would I be without you"? Heard Eminem admitting all types of emotional problems, just like Bushwick Bill admitted to his suicidal depression ten years before?

I could keep this going all night, without even reaching for any "underground" or "conscious" emcees.

(and I'm not even gonna MENTION anticon.)

Please.

The more I think about this piece, the less I like it. He offers a half-baked premise, pads it with quotes that don't really apply, then pulls it all together by peddling antiquated stereotypes. I really dig all the new artists he interviewed here, and it would do them a terrible disservice if the media keeps steering them towards using hip-hop as the reference point for defining themselves and validating their expression.

Here is an email I wrote that has been forwarded around quite a bit, in response to this nonsense from the ever-annoying Minister Paul Scott.

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I'm all for constructive criticism, and Hip-Hop music is as deserving of it as any other art form. But criticism can only be constructive if it is fair, balanced, and well-informed. The essay below does not meet those standards, as it is driven by a mix of stereotypes and straight-up misinformation. For example, the song he quotes in the first paragraph,. "Because I Got High", is in fact not a Hip-Hop record at all, and has no "brotha rapping" on it whatsoever.

Hip-Hop has grown into a global phenomenon of incredible diversity, with countless different sounds and subcultures, and to cite the 5 songs played on MTV as representative of the culture as a whole is simply dishonest, and renders subsequent analysis bankrupt. Furthermore, even the mainstream artists dismissed as only rapping about "bling-bling" often have a good deal more substance and complexity to their lyrics, if you take the time to truly listen. Jay-Z kicks rhymes about Mumia, but these self-serving critics won't tell you that because it doesn't fit into their agenda.

This Paul Scott piece has been deconstructed at length in other venues, so rather than a point-by-point breakdown I will offer some excerpts of how Hip-Hop artists did in fact respond to 9/11. You may find these responses rather different than Minister Scott would have you believe:

"What Would You Do" by Paris:

"Now ask yourself who's the people with the most to gain (Bush)

before 911 motherf***as couldn't stand his name (Bush)

Now even brothas waivin' flags like they lost they mind

Everybody got opinions but don't know the time

'Cause Amerikkka's been took - it's plain to see

The oldest trick in the book is MAKE an enemy

Of phony evil now the government can do its dirt

And take away ya freedom lock and load, beat and search"

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"What Goes Around" by Nas

"Never to worry, all the wrong doers got it coming back to 'em a thousand times over

Every dog has its day, and everything flips around

Even the most greatest nation in the world has it comin back to 'em

Everybody reaps what they sews, that's how it goes"

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"Makeshift Patriots" by Sage Francis

"Who's going to make that call to increase an unknown death toll?

It's the one we rally behind. He's got a megaphone...and he's promising to make heads roll,

So we cheer him on, but asbestos is affecting our breath control.

The less we know...the more they fabricate...the easier it is to sell souls

An addictive 24 hour candle light vigil in TVs.

Freedom WILL be defended...at the cost of civil liberties.

We'll show you which culture to pump your fist at and what foot is right tokiss.

We don't know who the culprit is yet...but he looks like this. "

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"Satisfied" by J Live

"By the time Bush is done, you won't know what time it is

If it's war time or jail time, time for promises

And time to figure out where the enemy is

The same devils that you used to love to hate

They got you so gassed and shook now, you scared to debate

The same ones that traded books for guns

Smuggled drugs for funds

And had fun lettin' off forty-one

But now it's all about NYPD caps

And Pentagon bumper stickers

But yo, you still a nigga

It ain't right them cops and them firemen died

The shit is real tragic, but it damn sure ain't magic

It won't make the brutality disappear

It won't pull equality from behind your ear

It won't make a difference in a two-party country

If the president cheats, to win another four years"

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"Home of the Brave" by Mr. Lif

"Headline: Bush steals the presidency

He needs the backing of the media what could the remedy be?

The country's headed for recession reminiscent of the Great Depression

Are lives worth a world of power? Easy question

Planes hit the towers and the Pentagon

Killing those the government wasn't dependant on

It's easy to control the scared so they keep us in fear

With their favorite Middle Eastern demon named Bin Laden this year

Bush disguises blood lust as patriotism

Convincing the living to love "Operation Let's Get 'Em"

But when he realized we don't support their attacks

They needed something to distract, hmm, anthrax

This further demonizes Afghanis

So Americans cheer while we kill their innocent families

And what better place to start a war

To build a pipeline to get the oil that they had wanted before

America supported the Taliban

To get Russia out of Afghanistan

That's how they got the arms in

They're in a war against the Northern Alliance

And we can't build a pipeline in hostile environments

Here's what your history books won't show:

You're a dead man for f**king with American dough

They killed several birds with one stone

While you're at home with anti-terrorism up in your dome

But my eyes are wide open and my TV is off

Great, 'cause I save on my electricity cost

And you can wave that piece of s**t flag if you dare

But they killed us because we've been killing them for years

Sucker MCs. 1983.

I was ten years old, sitting on the top bunk of my bunk bed, listening to the radio. what station would i have been listening to then, BLS? 92 KTU?

I used to put the sheets over my head like a tent every night, and pull the radio under there, to create a universe where there was nothing but me and the music. A song came on that I had never heard before, and it was entirely different from any other rap I'd hever heard. As if it had been dropped down from another planet.

So bare and minimalist, so gritty, so propulsive...so HARD. It just sounded so much more....serious...than any rap I'd heard before. So serious it made everything else sound like a joke. I sat there huddled in my little tent, mesmerized.

I wasn't able to really comprehend the feeling coming over me, at that time. But looking back now I know it was my first time feeling something that only comes a few times in your life, the music lover's sweetest epiphany. That moment when you hear a song and know instantly that a new horizon has been opened, a new world has been created, and music will never be the same.

I, also, would never be the same, of course. You might say that was the night I discovered who I am.

I just discovered that the Federal Emergency Mangement Agency, one of the creepiest branches of our government, has their own official rap song! I'm not kidding. Check out the audio here, and read along here. Our tax dollars paid for this.

This is part of their FEMA for kids website, teaching kids about FEMA's programs that help America deal with various types of "disaster". Here is one such plan they developed in the 80s:

On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's new goals...to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt. Col. North was the architect. National Security Directive Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National Guard Troops to Quell Disturbances."

The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power to turn the United States into a police state in time of a real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established the apparatus for dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General prevented the plans from being adopted. But intelligence reports indicate that FEMA has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the framework of North's concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly abandoned.

Someone needs to make a parody of this site where the little cartoon characters teach kids about martial law. "Hey boys and girls, have you ever heard mommy and daddy saying naughty things about the president? Call this number and let us know, so we can give them a free trip to our Happy Funtime Internment Camp!"

You can tune in live to the webcast of our radio show, The Underground Railroad, and talk to us live on the message board while you check out the sounds. The Underground railroad airs every saturday night from midnight to 2 AM on WBAI 99.5 FM in NY.

The new 8 Mile DVD has a nice little segment where some of the extras got a chance to come on stage and get filmed battling Eminem.

Since Em was losing his voice, the director asked him not to rap out loud, so he was just silently miming his response after the other guy went, which was pretty funny looking. But once they got going I guess Em's pride wouldn't let him pretend like that, so he turned his mic on and started battling for real. A nice little bonus, getting a chance to see him really spit off the top agianst a couple of people.

here is an excerpt (this file will only be up temporarily)

Also entertaining is the chance to watch the movie with french or spanish dubbing, although sadly they didn't try to translate the battle scenes. That would have really been a treat.

Fabolous arrested, on gun charge.

Before we jump into another rant about how ignorant all these dumbass gangsta rappers are, let's take a good look at what really happened here. Police found a gun in their car, the bodyguard explained it was his and showed a permit, but the permit was only good in another state, not NY. And for this they arrested not only the self-professed owner of the gun but everyone else in the car as well.

In other words, Fabolous didn't actually do anything. But spicy headlines about rap-related crime sell papers, so why let the something silly like the facts hold you back? Right?

The Miami Herald dropped a nice interview with Maseo today. He discusses making Florida his new home, and De La's plans to release the "AOI 3" album on his own independent label, Bear Mountain Entertainment.

Originally the word was Prince Paul would rejoin and contribute to this third album in the AOI trilogy, but now it doesn't look like that is happening. Still, I'm looking forward to hearing what they do with their independence.

"And in a few years, you will see
a Dr. Jekyll Mr Hyde University
With mixing as a minor and rapping as a major
be on your best behavior (owwww!)"
-Dr. Jekyll (aka Andre Harrell) and Mr Hyde, "AM/PM"

When that song came out in 1984, none of us would have imagined those lyrics could come true. But it has already become a reality, and Jam Master Jay was leading the way into this new frontier with his Scratch Academy, profiled on today's AP wire: DJ School Teaches the Art of Scratching. And I'd bet it won't be long before programs like this aren't even newsworthy, as it becomes commonplace for established schools to include hip-hop in their curriculum. We've come a long way.

"Stephen Webber, a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, believes deejaying is moving toward widespread musical acceptance, much like jazz overcame its rejection as unstructured folk music, and rock its dismissal as amplified noise.

"We have crossed a threshold," Webber said. "It's just starting to make the transition, much like jazz once did, into a legitimate part of the conservatory curriculum."

If you heard the voice mail message at the end of Snoop's latest album, congratulating him for standing up to Suge Knight, you probably wondered like I did whether it was a real message or just a skit. It turns out that message was real, and now the guy who left it is real scared. Or at least he's claiming to be scared so he can get paid.

I've got to give utmost props to Snoop for openly standing up to Suge, and calling him the punk that he is. Suge Knight is a disgrace to the culture, and the Hip-Hop community should not let itself be scared into silence by his thug bulls***.

Our friend Amy Goodman talked to Michael Franti yesterday about the current climate of censorship and intimidation, as the government and media seek to suppress anti-war voices. He told a bizarre story of government agents visiting his bandmate's mother:

Well, what’s happened most recently is that we performed at a rally on March 15th in San Francisco and the next day on the 16th—that, that rally was out here—and on the 16th on the East Coast, a band member of mine who prefers to go unnamed, his mother received a visit from two plain clothes men from the military and this band member of mine has a sibling who is in the Gulf. And they came in and talked to her and said you have a child who’s in the gulf and you have a child who’s in this band Spearhead who’s part of the “resistance” in their words, and they had pictures of us performing the day before at the rally, they had pictures of us performing at some of our annual concerts that we put on that are in support of peace and human rights. They had his flight records for the past several months, they had the names of everybody who works in my office, our management office “Guerilla Management”. They had his checking account records. They asked his mother a lot of questions about where he was, what he was doing in this place, why he was going here. They confiscated his sibling’s CD collection that they had brought over to listen to while they were in the Gulf, and basically were intimidating—told her which members of the press she could talk to and which members of the press she should not speak to.

You can hear the interview in its entirety here

Ras Kass, who is currently on the run from both the law and his label, just leaked a new track from an undisclosed location.. you can check it out at trickology.com. Interesting that he seems much more concerned with his label difficulties than the actual imprisonment that is most likely in his future.

Ras is the only "conscious" emcee who can start a song by comparing himself to a porn star (Mr. Marcus) and nobody bats an eye. This song is also noteworthy because finally somebody quoted that Amistad "give-s us free" line in a rhyme!

ODB placed in Mental Institution

I'm not going to make any jokes. I hope the man can get it together. They were supposed to start filming him for a reality show as soon as he was released, a la Anna Nicole/Osbournes, which I found kinda tacky and exploitative. Putting him in this situation where everyone's hoping for him to be as outrageous as possible is not gonna help him get his life back together. Ok, it's probably a longshot either way. But still.

A note about my post title: Most people think that line from Brooklyn Zoo goes "energy building, taking all types of medicine", but it is actually "in a g building", slang for a mental hospital. I believe it is derived from the psychiatric ward of King's County hospital.

From Australia comes more coverage of Hip-Hop's increasing acceptance into academia:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/03/1048962877005.html

So, like, yo dudes, listen up: hip-hop is da bomb, fool, da real dope. Forget all that wack stuff laid down by tragic MCs like T.S. Eliot, the Bronte sisters and that Shakespeare snowflake. Check it: if a US education trend spreads to Australia - and it probably will - the nation's school kids could soon be getting down to the likes of Tupac Shakur, Ice-T, Eminem and Cypress Hill.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. Kind of a scattered and oddly reasoned piece, and yeah his attempt at slanguage is unfortunate. But at the very least it's an interesting peek at how the American Hip-Hop scene is interpreted from afar.

Let's review two of the new tracks posted on trickology.com:

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Roscoe P ColdChain - "Delinquent"

Beat: Nasty. This is a first-rate average Neptunes banger, built around the "South Bronx" horn stab. You know that scrunched-up "got damn this is funky" grimace you make, when you're nodding your head to something serious? Those ugly faces abound in the studio, when 3D plays this on the radio show.

Rhymes/Flow: Not bad, voice reminiscent of Ras Kass, or Vakill with more bass in his voice. Sprays quick blasts of verbiage that land all over the beat, but he makes it work, never crosses that thin line between syncopated and sloppy.

Content: Well, here's the chorus:

"When a nigga is delinquent with cash in hand even if it's just a couple of grams do what the f*** I do nigga pop that motherf***er drop that mother f***er"

Yawn.. what is it they say about the banality of evil?

I guess Roscoe is down with the Clipse, and judging by this track he certainly shares their unwavering (and unwaveringly dull) fixation on guns, drugs and cash. There are some mildly clever lines, like "I done squeezed more guns than Charlton Heston". But after reading his rather thoughtful interview here I was surprised to hear a thug-life infomercial as his debut. And I wonder how Pharrell reconciles this with his own words on "Run to the Sun": "I'm so embarrassed for mankind, they have the nerve to let their weapon shine.. they're so stupid.."

Verdict: Decent, if you can let the trite thuggery float by, and just enjoy the funk.

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Non-Phixion - "Caught Between Worlds"

Beat: Cinematic Isaac Hayes-y loop with a sped-up vocal sample, what you might call RZA's signature sound. Nothing mind-blowing but it fits well with the mood of the lyrics.

Flow: Ill Bill starts out sounding a lot like Ghostface, perhaps inspired by the RZA-style beat. Then they revert to the standard Non-Phixion sound, with lots of punchy multisyllables.

Content: Standard "it's tough growing up in the hood" fare, but delivered in a mournful tone far from glamorizing street life.

Verdict: Not bad, worthy of a spot on the playlist.

The latest issue of my favorite magazine Wax Poetics is now on sale, check the website for where you can cop it. This installment has interviews with breakbeat legends like Clyde Stubblefield, Manzel, and Galt Mcdermot, plus graffiti pioneer Tracy 168 and a whole bunch more for the hardcore heads.

And you might say I make my debut as a published photographer, cuz they have a two page spread of my pics from the Jam Master Jay memorial that I posted here a few months ago.

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Also, just so this post won't be completely self-serving, here's a bit about Martin Luther Kings's importance as a voice against war, on the 35th anniversary of his death. And here's an excerpt from his landmark speech, "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam", courtesy of my peoples at Democracy Now.

I had heard about Jay-Z bhangra collabo with Panjabi MC, but didn't know till Lynne mentioned it that he drops some anti-war couplets in there:

Jay-Z Drops War Rhymes On Remix Of International Hit

Jay-Z has broken his silence about the U.S.-led coalition's war with Iraq. In the remix of European artist Panjabi MC's overseas hit "Beware of the Boys," Jay mixes his Brooklyn braggadocio with anti-war sentiments.

"We rebellious, we back home/ Screamin' 'Leave Iraq alone,' " Young Hova rhymes over a sample of the theme from the "Knight Rider" TV show. "For all my soldiers in the field/ I will wish you safe return/ But only love kills war/ When will they learn?"

I'm only posting this because I love the portentous tone of that opening sentence:

"Finally Jay-Z has broken his silence about the U.S.-led coalition's war with Iraq. Ever since he shook up world politics with his bold stance in favor of Che Guevara t-shirts, Jay has become perhaps the most influential statesman on the global stage, and the world has anxiously awaited his judgement on the war in Iraq. Said one U.N. leader: 'We've heard from France, we've heard from Germany, but one question continues to haunt us: where does The R.O.C. stand on this?'

The Bush administration is rumored to be deeply shaken by Jay-Z's searing condemnation of their policies. No word yet on how the stock market has been affected."

I guess every 3 months we have to see another one of these:

Is Rap Dead?

Is hip-hop dead? It sure sounds like it if you turn on the radio. What used to be exciting, groundbreaking music seems to have been reduced to a one-note din. The only topics discussed are bling-bling materialism, how many guns you have, and "ho's." Hip-hop poster boy 50 Cent appears on the cover of Rolling Stone with the caption "Mastering The Art of Violence." There's the raunchy Lil' Kim, and of course, top dog and now Oscar-winner Eminem, who has threatened to kill his wife numerous times on his records.

I don't have time for a detailed response, but in short, the answer is of course not! These "is hip-hop dead" pieces always rely on highly selective evidence to back up their generalizations. Sometimes they are selective to the point of being disingenuous, as in the description of Eminem above.. to suggest that quote sums up the range of Em's expression is absurd. About as accurate as designating Jimi Hendrix "the man who sang about killing his wife and fleeing to Mexico..."

Perhaps I will come back to this later. Obviously Hip-Hop is nowhere near what it once was, in its glory days. Surely there is ample room for improvement. But we are a long way from dead, there's lots of creative stuff out there right now.. more than enough for us to fill 2 hours every Saturday.

This is not too bad though, as these pieces go, and a lot of the quotes are sharp..especially Bill Stephney's.

Tune in here and catch us live on the air, tonight from 12 to 2 AM EST. I heard a rumor that Jean Grae might be on the show tonite. This has not been confirmed. I repeat, this has not been confirmed.

EDIT: Jean Grae has entered the building.

I just set up a new chat room, to make it easier for y'all to kick it with us during the show. Try it out and let me know how you like it.

Somebody just came to this site by searching in google for hip-hop negro "non-phixion". I like that one.

A pleasure to have Jean Grae on board last night, one of the smartest, most creative emcees around. She kept us cracking up with her ongoing crusade against big hats, and let us world premiere 2 new songs, including a remake of Jay-Z's "Excuse Me Miss" that was pure hilarity.

I'll post some audio tomorrow, but for now here is photographic evidence. The third pick is Jean and her betrothed (with Democracy Now's office in the background):

MTV Cry to Artists: Stop the Shilling

Network tries to cut product placement in its music videos

In her recent music video, rapper Ms. Jade is swerving on a dark city street to the beat of her song "Ching Ching." She's behind the wheel of a sparkling, tank-sized Hummer H2, as is a rival racing alongside.

The Hummers seem to get as much screen time as Ms. Jade.

That bit of product placement cost the Hummer's manufacturer, General Motors Corp., some $300,000 - more than half the expense of the video produced by Interscope Records. It also represented another win for record labels in the catch-me-if-you-can game they're playing with Manhattan-based MTV, which has prohibited advertising in videos.

Major record companies, strapped for cash amid flagging CD sales, have been defying MTV, teaming up with advertisers willing to help finance costly videos in exchange for product visibility.

In the past, MTV screeners - worried the cable channel's savvy teen and young-adult audience would rebel against that kind of selling - have forced labels to blur images of products or logos that found their way into videos. But "Ching Ching" and other clips financed in part by corporate sponsors have sneaked in under the radar.

Faced with the record industry's miserable economics, MTV's gatekeepers now suggest gingerly that they may allow some marketing messages in videos - but only if they decide that a product placement is discreet and fits with a clip's theme or story line. So far, they haven't.

"We're trying to be as sensitive as we can to the labels' financial issues without risking the trust of our audience," said Tom Calderone, MTV's executive vice president of music and talent.

I am amused by MTV's high minded stance, claiming they are simply worried about "maintaining trust with the audience".. I'm sure the fact that they are missing out on money here, and these companies are basically getting to advertise on MTV without paying MTV, does not factor into their concern at all.

Also, this goes to show that the music industry will use their financial woes much like the Bush administration is using the threat of terrorism, to justify all types of shady dealings, and expand their powers as far as they can push them.

PLATINUM TAKES THE WHITE ANGLE: Drama to feature white rapper.

The upcoming UPN series "Platinum" knew they just had to get themselves a white rapper character after what's going down with Eminem an' what not.

Kevin Bray, who produces the show about two brothers who run a hip hop record label in NYC, says the show wants to reflect reality.

"Thanks to Eminem, hip-hop is an art form that's been made accessible to middle America, to every race and class of people, and we want the show to reflect that. We decided to have a white rapper as the biggest act at the label because that's being truthful to what's going on in hip-hop today."

Thanks to Eminem, hip-hop is an art form that's been made accessible to middle America, to every race and class of people?

Excuse me? So Hip-Hop was not accessible to middle America until Eminem came out? People of every race and class didn't listen to Run DMC, or NWA, or Will Smith? Lauryn Hill didn't have universal appeal that cut across all boundaries? White kids in the suburbs never listened to Pac or Biggie?

I'm sure Eminem himself would be the first to tell you how insulting your comments are, how disrespectful to the art form that happens to be making you rich.

Seriously, Kevin Bray. Just STFU. Never talk about Hip-Hop again.

Hip-Hop Disc Jockey Pleads Guilty To Harassing Rival DJ

A disc jockey for a popular hip-hop radio station was ordered to serve 35 hours of community service after pleading guilty to harassing a rival DJ.

Funkmaster Flex, 35, whose real name is Aston Taylor Jr., was arrested on assault charges last September after he allegedly choked and punched a female DJ from a rival radio station.

Taylor pleaded guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday to lesser charges of harassment. He was also issued an order of protection to stay away from Stephanie Saunders, 29, who is known as Big Steph Lova and works for WWPR-FM (105.1).

Taylor, a DJ for WQHT-FM (97.1), was accused of confronting Saunders outside his Greenwich Village radio station on Sept. 20. He was reportedly upset over allegations, made during an on-air interview that Saunders conducted, that he accepted bribes to play certain songs.

Murray Richman, Taylor's lawyer, acknowledged Monday that the two disc jockeys had a "shouting match," but said his client "never touched" Saunders.

To be fair, we should note that he was not found guilty of assaulting her.

But, now, about that payola...

I'm working getting the audio up for our Jean Grae interview, but in the meantime, here are my photos from the concert at Roseland on Sunday:

click on each thumbnail to see the full size picture

common 1	common 2	floetry 1	floetry 2
guru	hitek observes dj dummy	hi tek and natalie (floetry) watch the electic circus	hitek, kanye west, kweli
hitek, kweli	hitek puts up the peace sign	kanye_hitek, kweli	kweli 1
kweli 2	kweli 3	kweli 4	primo

Here are the new tracks Jean Grae played for us last Saturday. That is me and my co-host Damali talking to Jean before and after the music:

Excuse Me (remake)

Very Bad Things

Let me know what you think. She said one of these songs will be on her new album, "The Official Jean Grae Bootleg Album", and one will be on a mixtape.. or something like that? I'm getting old, the memory is going.

How about we just let Rick out of jail, send this other guy back to England, and call it even?

Tried to Disrespect Who? The Grand Wizard?

A 28-year-old man is accused of diverting mail intended for old school rapper Ricky "Slick Rick" Walters and trying to cash his royalty checks.

Walters, whose hits include "La-Di-Da-Di," and "Children's Story," is being held in Bradenton, Fla., by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS is attempting to deport Walters, who is British, over an attempted murder conviction in a 1990 shooting, for which he served six years.

Steven Burke Glenn was arrested April 3 and charged with three counts of forgery, two of obtaining property under false pretenses and one of identity theft, Raleigh police Sgt. Chuck Hurst said Thursday. Additional charges were being considered.

Glenn was still in custody Thursday on $30,000 bond. Hurst did not know what sentences Glenn might face if convicted on any of the charges.

Hurst said Glenn apparently submitted a change of address form to the U.S. Postal Service asking to have mail forwarded from Walters' production company in New York to a Raleigh address.

Within a week or so, staff at the company became suspicious about the lack of mail and contacted postal authorities in New York, who involved Raleigh police in the investigation, Hurst said.

Bill Adler, a spokesman for Walters and his wife, Mandy Aragones, said Glenn forged Walters' name on royalty checks, deposited them into Walters' bank account and then tried to withdraw the money.

"Likewise, he registered a car, received hospital care, sent out express mail packages and answered his own phone under Rick's name," Adler said.

Glenn ultimately got Walters' home telephone number and reached Aragones, identifying himself as Slick Rick and saying he was not in jail but in North Carolina. He apparently didn't realize he was talking to Walters' wife, Adler said.

Yuck. No more of this please.

Gunman Opens Fire On Snoop Dogg And His Security Team

An unknown assailant opened fire on Snoop Dogg and his entourage on Thursday night in Los Angeles, injuring one of the rapper's bodyguards.

Police said that at about 9 p.m. on Thursday night, Snoop was in a car traveling south on Fairfax Avenue and was accompanied by five other cars, which an LAPD spokesperson referred to as "security vehicles." A sedan carrying an unspecified number of black males that was traveling in the opposite direction then shot at Snoop's crew. Two of the cars were hit and one of the security guards was grazed by a bullet in his back.

The injury was not life-threatening and no one else was struck, police said. Snoop and the individuals with whom he was traveling were questioned as witnesses. No arrests were made, and there are no suspects and no motive.

The spokesperson for the LAPD did not release the identity of Snoop's injured bodyguard. However, the Los Angeles Times reported that he and several other members of the security team were off-duty police officers who work in the Inglewood school district.

By the way, look at how misleading this other blurb is with its title and intro, covering the same story:

Snoop Dogg questioned in shooting, one injured

Rapper Snoop Dogg was being questioned Thursday night following a car-to-car shooting that left an off-duty police officer wounded...

Snoop is the victim of a crime in which one of his security guards gets injured, and these guys still manage to make it sound like Snoop is the criminal here.

Here's a pretty good one from the Japan Times, picking the brains of hip-hop kids in Shibuya. Maybe our resident Japanese ambassador Kyo can let us know how accurate this is.

Who Copped My Hip-Hop?

On a visit to Tokyo's trendy Shibuya Ward several years ago, I came across a Japanese teenager dressed from head to toe in baggy hip-hop wear, one of the first "B-Boys" I'd ever seen here. Still relatively new to Japan, I was curious about whether this young man represented some growing awareness of black America among Japanese youth, and as an African-American myself, it was an issue close to home.

I couldn't help asking him: "Say, have you ever heard of Malcolm X?" I was referring, of course, to the black political activist memorialized in the Spike Lee movie and easily the most influential figure in modern black America after Martin Luther King, Jr.....

I haven't bothered to post about this story yet, because I didn't feel like give Star any more publicity. But yeah, the controversial (read: loathsome) host of Hot 97's morning show here in N.Y. is in trouble once again, and off the air for who knows how long.

In the past Star has been attacked for his alleged anti-semitism and had infamous on-air clashes with Tigger, Prodigy, and Conrad Muhammad (who gave him a hearty thrashing). He was also suspended once before after mocking Aaliyah's death, which endangered Hot's cash flow since it outraged her fiancee Damon Dash. This also inspired Q-Tip to read a letter on the air criticizing Star, which inexplicably led to Q-Tip being banned from Hot 97 by their widely reviled VP Tracy Cloherty (as revealed in our interview here).

Now Star (along with his longtime companion Bucwild) has been off the air again for about a week, and as you can see here Hot's management has been tight-lipped about exactly what he stepped in this time. But I've done some snooping around, and heard from good sources that Star was suspended for comments relating to AT&T, who unfortunately for him is one of Hot's sponsors. It seems the station lost a $50,000 deal due to his corny jokes.

"The reason is not for general consumption - not even something the audience would understand," said Tracy Cloherty, Emmis' programming VP. "The rule he broke was not supposed to be broken," Cloherty told The Post.

So I guess you have some rules that are supposed to be broken? Evidently this translates to: "Disrespect jews, women, our own people? Whatever. But disrespect our advertisers and you've got trouble."

A new mix posted in our radio show archive

Jeff "Chairman" Mao is well known as a founding member of the Ego Trip crew, and all-around top hip-hop journalist. But you might not know he is also a top-notch DJ and vinyl collector, and spins regularly at one of NY's trendiest spots, APT (where our own DJs Monkone and Emskee hold fort every wednesday night).

The Chairman showed us just how deep his crates are when he stopped by the radio show last month, and dropped a set of insanely rare 12-inches from the mid 80's. I just uploaded his entire set to the mixshow archive, take a listen and see how many songs you can name. I'll be impressed if anyone can identify even 5 of them.

Oh and here are a couple of pics:

one - Chairman Mao on the wheels, as Tomkat and Monkone look on.
two - Jeff and the rest of the Ego Trip clique, Elliot Wilson, Gabe Alvarez, and Sacha Jenkins.

I probably won't be posting much this week, as I am getting ready for my trip to Montreal in a few days. This is my second time heading up there, when I went for the first time a few months ago one of the things that impressed me most was thwe quantity and quality of graffiti over there. It seemed like every block I passed by had an alleyway with a breathtaking mural spanning across it. Here are some photos I took while exploring the city:

click on each thumbnail for the full-sized image

As much as I despise Suge Knight, this time I've got to agree that blaming this murder on his or any record label is just ridiculous. The lawsuit alleges that Big Lurch killed his roommate and ate her lungs because he was encouraged to do this by his label, as a marketing tactic. I find that outlandish, to say the least.

When a man kills his roommate and eats her internal organs, that's not about hip-hop, that's not about the music business, that's about this one man's psychosis, plain and simple.

Tha Row Removed From Wrongful-Death Suit

Tha Row Records has been removed as a defendant in a wrongful-death civil lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles, Billboard Bulletin reports.

The complaint was filed by Carolyn Stinson, whose daughter Tynisha Ysais was allegedly killed and partially eaten by aspiring Texas rapper Antron Singleton (aka Big Lurch). Tha Row's removal from the suit follows CEO Marion "Suge" Knight's public claims that his label was never associated with Singleton.

...A spokesperson for Tha Row says, "Every time there are problems on the West Coast, people always try to involve Suge. What's unfortunate about this is that it's difficult to un-ring a bell."

Well, I'm not quite ready to play a violin for poor beleaguered Suge, especially when he puts nonsense like this up on his website. But in this particular case I'd agree he shouldn't be held responsible, even if his label was associated with this guy.

Last week I criticized the producer of Platinum, Kevin Bray, for his assertion that "Thanks to Eminem, hip-hop is an art form that's been made accessible to middle America, to every race and class of people". It would appear Mr. Bray came across my comments and posted a reply, as you can see here.

Evidently he didn't mean that to come out the way it sounded, and meant to convey how in the minds of TV execs it was Eminem's success that made this show possible. He also informed us that "as for me and hip hop i go waaay back...look it up or ask russell."

Assuming of course that he meant Russell Wong from that old kung fu show "Vanishing Son", I gave Russell a call. He said he's never heard of this Bray guy. But some googling did turn up this page, with a lengthy list of the videos Kevin has directed.

My search also revealed that when you search for "Kevin Bray" in google now, the third and fourth links that appear are me telling him to STFU. Gotta love the power of the internet!

(my reply to his reply is also there, in the previous post.)

As quoted on okayplayer, here are the words of Jack White of the White Stripes, in the latest Rolling Stone:

RS: You're not a hip-hop fan.

JW: Not particularly. I find OutKast and Wu-Tang Clan interesting. But I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm. I don't find much emotion in that.

No wonder I find his music so dull..

Coincidentally, I just discovered that Simon Reynolds has a blog, and his recent post about the Stripes sums up my feelings perfectly. He also thinks to another cool blog that deconstructs their latest album in much greater detail.

EDIT, 8/7/03: I hate to do this, but I'm closing the comments on this post because all you soccer hooligans don't know how to act (on both sides of the argument). Perhaps my flippant approach to the subject (as opposed to my "serious" commentary here) combined with a high ranking in google was a deadly combination..

Okay, that title is corny. But this is a solid profile of Boston's MVP, from the Chicago Sun Times. Always refreshing when the mainstream press notices a rapper for some reason other than his arrest record:

Beantown rapper gives hip-hop an intellectual lift

Mr. Lif, a huge New England Patriots fan, jokes he recently moved from Boston to California to operate the team's West Coast offices.

He adds he had nothing to do with the signing of former Chicago Bear Roosevelt Colvin. "I understand there may hostilities about that in Chicago, so I'll let Coach Belichick handle those," he says with a chuckle.

Joking aside, Lif has meant more to New England's hip-hop than he ever could to its professional football franchise. He may be the region's most important export since UConn women's basketball and Trader Joe's grocery. He's an MC whose delivery places more emphasis on lyrics than barking; returning the music to a time when rappers relentlessly deconstructed popular culture.

This, he says, comes "from being alive and being a fan of hip-hop during the era of conscious rap, when the predominant image was an intelligent black man whose power was his intellect. It also comes from seeing the struggles of my parents..."

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Jack White of the White Stripes explains his opinion of Hip-hop thusly:

"I find OutKast and Wu-Tang Clan interesting. But I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm. I don't find much emotion in that."

He's certainly entitled to his opinion, and there is no such thing as right or wrong (in any objective sense) when it comes to personal taste, so I'm not mad at him. But I will point out that Jack White is missing at least one basic element of music, one that is particularly important to Hip-Hop. Let me tell you a little story:

For 6 years I was a teacher/counselor for "emotionally disturbed" teens at a group home upstate. One day we went on a field trip and walked by a construction site, and the sound of the drilling rattled our bones. As we went by one of my favorite students, Kelly Miles, turned to me and said "That sound is dope! Somebody needs to sample that and make a beat with it."

I knew exactly what she meant, and what made that drilling sound so dope had nothing to do with rhythm, melody, or storytelling. It was the noise itself that had an irresistibly visceral quality to it. As Public Enemy so wisely observed, that's one of the most important qualities found in any good hip-hop - you have to bring the noise.

If I played you a Premier snare drum and the snare from a Celine Dion song, isolated and removed from its original drum pattern, you could easily tell me which was which, and would probably have a strong preference as to which one sounded hotter. Most anyone who listens to Hip-Hop could easily make that distinction, and its not because of rhythm, melody or storytelling. It's because noise matters.

This is not only true for hip-hop either. The tonal quality and timbre of the sounds is a crucial element in our experience of any music. For example D'Angelo's Voodoo album, and the other Soulquarian releases of that "neo-soul" boom, were such a stark contrast to the other R&B of that time period, but not primarily because of the melody or rhythm or storytelling. What made them stand out, more than anything, was that they just sounded so raw. The vintage analog instrumentation they worked with, and that gritty sound they achieved while recording it and mixing it down. It was quite simply a different type of noise than the polished, plastic synthesizer music that was dominating R&B up until then.

This is one of the biggest reasons Hip-Hop has had such a tremendous influence: we changed the face of popular music with our focus on refining the art of noise. We took that element of music that is so often forgotten, and brought it to the forefront.. reminded everyone that noise matters, and showed the world how to bring it.

Any attempt to judge Hip-Hop will always be off the mark, if it fails to recognize this fundamental aspect of the music. That's why I must beg to differ with Jack White. And he really ought to know better, since he clearly pays close attention to the power of noise in his own music, striving to bring a full, rich sound out of a band with only two instruments.

I'm back in town. Hope you guys are still out there, I'm really digging all your comments and feedback.

Turns out Montreal is even more beautiful when the weather becomes suitable for humans. Many pictures later.

So anyway. Nina. Wow.

I saw her name go by on the Times Square news ticker as I came back into NY this morning. That's the second time I walked by there and found out a childhood hero had died, the first was Curtis Mayfield.

For me, Nina was one of those very first artists your parents expose you to as a child, who teaches you what music is supposed to be, lays down the foundation for all of your tastes. When you have that kind of connection, it really feels like you lost part of your family, when they die.

I hate to see some obituaries that only highlight her harmless pop songs like I Loves You Porgy and My Baby Just Cares For Me. What really makes her important to me are the ones like Mississippi Goddam, Backlash Blues, Four
Women, To Be Young Gifted and Black, etc.. where she was saying something.

I''ll post my favorite Nina song here, its a big file but worth the download. Nikka Costa did a sweet cover of this on her last tour:

Nina Simone - Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter

..

Very interesting story in the Dallas Morning News today. Needless to say, the kid should have known those rhymes were not appropriate for a classroom setting. But taking them as a "terroristic threat" worthy of removing him from the school? Unless there is some history between them that we don't know about, that seems kinda wacky.

This goes to show how the same words can have very different meanings to different people, depending on their cultural perspective. I'm sure the boy thought to himself "how could anyone think they were supposed to take that rhyme literally?", and the administrators were equally certain of themselves in thinking "how could anyone think you're not supposed to take that rhyme literally?"

Teen put back in school after 'terroristic' rap

Judge orders return after poem called threat got him suspended
-------------

Terry Carter might make Dunbar High's senior prom after all.

The 17-year-old student, banished from the school in February after reciting a rap poem deemed a "terroristic threat," was reinstated Tuesday by a federal judge who said the Fort Worth school district had violated his constitutional right to due process.

"I order that Terry Carter be returned to Dunbar High School tomorrow morning and be allowed to participate in all activities," Judge John McBryde ruled from the bench after a daylong hearing.

Attorneys for the school district said they are considering an appeal.

...When the decision was announced, Lee Robinson stormed out of the fourth-floor courtroom. It was his daughter, Allison, to whom Terry had referred in his poem.

"It was already decided before we came here today," Mr. Robinson said afterward. "This was already predetermined."

Allison, 18, appeared shaken but she vowed: "I'll still be valedictorian. If he tries to say anything to me, then we'll be right back where we are today."

The episode began in January when a teacher in Terry and Allison's theater-arts class allowed students a variety of ways to get extra credit. Terry, who was ranked sixth in the 186-member class, chose to do a rap poem.

In one stanza of the 16-verse poem, he said, "Allison #1, but I got myself a gun, ready to pull the trigger, for any gold digger."

Allison, who ranks first in the senior class, told the teacher that she felt threatened. Dunbar officials immediately suspended Terry. Later, at a school district hearing, he was assigned to an alternative school for 90 days, in effect for the remainder of the school term.

After an administrative appeal, Superintendent Thomas Tocco reduced the alternative school sentence to 10 days. But later, after meeting with Allison, her parents, Dunbar school officials and a community leader, Dr. Tocco decided that Terry should be transferred for Allison's "safety." He was eventually reassigned to Trimble Tech High School for the rest of the year.

...The suit said Dr. Tocco acted unfairly because he considered adverse information against Terry without informing the youngster, his family or Ms. Edmonds of the allegations or giving them a chance to respond.

...Dr. Tocco testified that after reducing the suspension to 10 days, Allison's parents asked him to consider harsher punishment. The superintendent said that after listening to them, however, he wasn't convinced.

They asked him to go to Dunbar the next day to talk to teachers and other school officials, and he agreed. While there, Dr. Tocco said, he initially didn't hear anything to make him change his mind until he spoke to two teachers who said they thought Terry might pose a threat to Allison if he was allowed to return to Dunbar.

The judge asked Dr. Tocco whether he informed Terry or Ms. Edmonds that he was considering information that was adverse to the youngster's case. Dr. Tocco said he did not.

Then Judge McBryde asked whether Terry or Ms. Edmonds had been given a chance to rebut the information the superintendent had been given.

"No," Dr. Tocco said, "because all of the information I needed from him I received when ... [Terry] denied that he threatened Ms. Robinson."

At one point, Dr. Tocco said he would have reversed Terry's punishment again and moved it back to 30 days at an alternative school, but he thought that doing so would have been tantamount to "double jeopardy"...

This Dr. Tocco is evidently not the brightest light on the christmas tree.

The judge should have just ordered the girl to do an answer record, and let them battle it out on the next Kay Slay mixtape.

A little more of the rather quirky coverage Hip-Hop gets from down under:

Rap's white invasion

On last year's Eminem Show album, the world's most popular rapper rhymed a snide prediction: "A concept that works/20 million other white rappers emerge."

He may be off a bit in his maths, but Eminem's forecast of a white rap invasion seems to be coming true.

Thirteen years after the thawing of Vanilla Ice, and three years after Eminem himself became the most famous rapper in hip-hop history, a new wave of Caucasian emcees is swelling.

True, there have long been isolated pockets of palefaced rappers - from the Beastie Boys and Third Base to Bubba Sparxxx and Haystak. But the next few months will see the largest wave to date, including Stagga Lee, Poverty, K-Mo, DF Dub and the first white female rapper, Sarai (promoted by her label as Feminem)...

The first white female rapper? Don't you guys remember Tairrie B.?

A profile in The Korea Herald of their nation's top emcees, Drunken Tiger. I've heard these guys and they are actually decent, maybe I will put up an MP3 later. I'd say this article overplays the discrimination angle somewhat.

Tigers roar, who's listening?

Asian rappers have more than "8 Miles" to go to be successful in the United States and in Korea.
Drunken Tiger, Korea's best selling and most respected Korean-American rap group, would be an automatic candidate for a lifestyle of "bling-blings" (diamonds), Lexus SUVs and a crib in the Hamptons, much like such successful African-American rappers as P. Diddy and Nelly. But the members of Drunken Tiger - DJ Shine, Tiger JK and DJ Jhig - will have to wait, realistically several years, for hip-hop fans to accept a serious Korean rapper.

Hip-hop's ugly side, consisting of racism, stereotypes and prejudice, stands in their way of being played on radio stations across the United States. No other excuse explains it, given the band's credibility with East Coast legend Wu-Tang-Clan, who asked Drunken Tiger perform with them this summer...

I wrote this a few months ago, in response to a widely forwarded article proclaiming that hip-hop is dead or at least dying. I am reposting it here since j brotherlove, and many others, have wondered aloud whether this may truer that we care to admit.

I meant this to be a part 1, hopefully I will get around to a part 2 sometime.

--------------

Regarding the Bennu piece, "A Eulogy to Hip-Hop": there is some truth in what he says, and the issues he raises have caused me much frustration over the years. But to extrapolate from these trends that hip-hop is dead, I see as a gross overreaction.

Hip-Hop will never be what it once was, there's no getting around that. It began as a form of expression that was of us, for us, and by us in many ways that it will never be again. We watched it grow and bloom within our community, then saw it shift into the American mainstream, who now leases it to us with no option to buy (as a friend once put it). For those of us who saw this evolution and experienced both sides of it, Hip-Hop will never again mean to us what it once did.

From its birth in the 70's through much of the 80's, Hip-Hop was basically a self-contained entity within the community that created it. If you were an emcee stepping into the studio to make a record, your target audience was basically your own community.. you were one of us talking to us, and the value of your music came from how it resonated with our own shared experiences. There was no possibility of your song getting regular rotation on any radio station, or your video getting played anywhere but Ralph Mcdaniels' Video Music Box and local public access shows. No chance of your work being acknowledged by any such mainstream outlet, so you had no concern for making music to please those outside ears. All the criteria, all the parameters set for the expression came from within the community that created it. It was a means for us to communicate with ourselves.

But nowadays the playing field is completely different, and we have a completely different relationship with the music, both as producers and consumers. When someone steps into the studio now their success hinges on pleasing MTV, Clear Channel Radio, and the mainstream american consumers that these outlets have made hip-hop's primary audience. This audience is kids from outside of the community the music came from, who do not share the experiences that drive the music. As Mos Def says:

"The difference between '88 and '98 is that most of the people who were fans were also active in the culture in some way. In '88 you'd have kids watching Video Music Box in their living room, working out dance routines. That might seem real trivial, but that is a fan watching these videos to learn these dances created by people in their community, more likely than not, somebody that probably lived on their block. It was interactive. Now the average hip-hop fan is into hip-hop because they like watching somebody else live."

It's become much more of a spectator sport than a participant sport?

"Definitely. I mean, let's be real -- these white kids in the suburbs that buy their first Wu Tang record and lose their damn mind -- they could play an active part in the culture if they wanted to, but that's not why they bought that Wu Tang record. They bought that Wu Tang record to live out their fantasy of themselves as Raekwon or Ghost or Method or whoever. A lot of hip-hop nowadays seems like the primitive prototype for what virtual reality is going to be in the next few years -- live somebody else's life, feel somebody else's pain and frustration."

I don't feel the need to be as judgmental about those suburban white kids as Mos seems here, but the dynamic he describes is undeniably at play. In today's world the ideal hip-hop product is not one that rings true for those who shares the artists' experiences, but one that provides a vivid, cinematic fantasy for those who will never share the experiences conveyed. This has radically changed the creative process, or should I say the manufacturing process of hip-hop, much more than I think even most artists realize. We also touched on these issues in my interview with Q-Tip (click part 6).

So no, hip-hop is not what it once was, and that golden age will never return. And in the last decade that has been damn hard to accept, if you were around when it was still pure. But that being said, I thought the conclusions drawn in the Bennu piece were overblown.

------------

Hopefully i'll get back to this sometime..

This is disappointing but not surprising:

Hunt For Rap Legend's Killer Comes Up Empty

Nearly six months after the execution-style slaying of rap legend Jam Master Jay, the identity of the killer and the motive remain a mystery.

Detectives in Queens _ where the pre-eminent DJ and founding member of Run-DMC was killed on Oct. 30 _ call the case a top priority. The city and music industry notables have offered more than $60,000 in rewards for tips leading to an arrest.

"We're not at a standstill," said Lt. Alfred Murphy, a detective squad commander. "We're still hopeful."

But NYPD sources close to the case concede the investigation has been hampered by dead-end leads and uncooperative witnesses. "No one in that industry wants to be a rat," said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity...

They go on to discuss the widespread rumors that the NYPD has a "hip-hop desk", permanently assigned to monitoring the hip-hop world. This program sounds eerily similar fo the FBI's Cointelpro operations, that focused on monitoring/infiltrating/destroying the Black activist movements of the 60's and 70's.

Someone should forward this article to the NY Times critic Ann Powers, who hilariously asserted that "bling-bling" was the slang term for shooting a gun:

It's all about the bling-bling

Elizabeth Taylor dripped it, and Liberace flaunted it. Carmela Soprano's a walking advertisement, and P. Diddy's real-life poster boy.

This year's Oscars consciously toned it down, while the "Ab Fab" girls giddily talked it up.

Now the Oxford English Dictionary is about to officially induct it into the lexicon.

"Bling-bling" -- America's latest verbal fling.

Unless you've been vacationing in Tibet, you've probably heard it a lot lately. The hip-hop expression bling-bling, or sometimes just bling, has been popping up everywhere -- television, radio, and newspapers -- spoken and written by folks who are several steps removed from pop culture's cutting edge.

Coined in 1999 in a same-named song by a New Orleans rapper named B.G., bling-bling applies to big showy jewelry -- the kind typified by razzle-dazzle designer Chris Aire that gets Lil' Kim's heart racing, sets off alarms at airports, and goes bling when it collides with other bling (hence the name).

"Bling-bling really became popular with me when Shaq and the Lakers were using the term for their championship rings" in 2001, says Californian Jeffrey "Halfshaq" Marino, who sells lots of bling online at www.pimphats.com -- one of several Web sites that revel in metallic excess. (Another, MrBling.com, for example, sells custom-made teeth in yellow gold, white gold, and platinum.)

If the sports world was quick to embrace the word, all of television is on a bling bender. CNN Headline News has been using "bling-bling" and other hip-hop terms in its headlines and graphics as part of what the network's general manager has called an aggressive attempt to stay "relevant, smarter and cooler" to a younger audience.

The cooler-than-thou term has clearly exploded into the unhip mainstream -- which is why it's headed for the dictionary.

"We're going to draft an entry, which we'll probably publish soon," says Jesse Sheidlower, principal editor of the OED's North American Editorial Unit, who says it will be added online (as all new entries are) and will probably include several senses of bling-bling as a verb, noun, and adjective. "We decide based on currency. In a case like bling-bling, it's very widespread..."

Although it is usually credited to BG, and he certainly popularized it and established its current meaning, I will point out that the phrase "bling bling" was heard long before his record came out. The first time I remember was Jesse West a.k.a. 3rd Eye, on Supercat's "Dolly My Baby" remix in 1993: "Bling, bling! yo who's that with Supercat..."

I'm sure you've all heard about the shooting of an obscure rapper known as Freaky Zeeky. Although I hope he recovers and my condolences go out to the family of his friend who died, I didn't really see this story as worth posting about.. it's getting more attention than it needs, to be frank.

However, I must comment on one line in the Daily News' coverage, yet another example of how all journalistic standards seem to evaporate when Hip-Hop is the subject:

Investigators do not believe yesterday's incident stemmed from an ongoing feud among rappers that heated up after last year's murder of rap pioneer Jason Mizell, better known as Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC.

WHAT..THE..HELL..ARE..YOU..TALKING ABOUT????

There has not been any "feud among rappers" that was related in any way to the murder of Jam Master Jay, that is completely fictional. Where the hell did you people get that from?

Is this based on some vague fragment of a memory that JMJ was affiliated with 50 Cent, and 50 Cent also has some sort of beef? None of 50's beef has even the most remote connection to the JMJ shooting, and even the NYPD seems to realize that.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that such a major publication would state as a fact something that has no connection with reality whatsoever. This happens all the time, and not only in hip-hop coverage. But it's still jaw-droppingly ignorant.

Especially considering that four writers are credited for this story: Tom Raftery, Michele Mcphee, Maki Becker, and Edward Barrera. It took four people to come up with this crap? Four people, and you still couldn't manage the most basic fact checking?

So to whichever member of this elite think tank provided that sentence: you really, really need to STFU. And I'm keeping my eye on the rest of y'all.

EDIT: If any of you read this, please don't try to cop out by telling us that technically you did not assert a cause-and-effect relationship between JMJ's death and the current wave of beef, when you said this beef "heated up after" his death. You did not explicitly state it but the implication is unmistakable, and if you did not mean to indicate such a connection your writing skills are severely lacking.

ADDENDUM, 10-1-03: In the interest of fairness I should mention I just got interviewed by Michele Mcphee in reference to the Matthew Hall tragedy, and at the very least she seemed sincere in her desire to report the story fairly and accurately.. Afterwards I remembered posting her name here, and looking at it now I may have been a bit harsh. But just a bit.

My twin brother Jon at hiphop anonymous, posted this story about Kay Slay speaking out against beef, which is rather like Colonel Sanders speaking out against chicken. :

DJ Tells 50 Cent, Ja Rule: One More Dis Record, Then Quit It

When a war of words is becoming too dramatic for the Drama King himself, maybe the situation is getting out of hand.

"If you have some other drama, I ain't gonna front, I'mma hit it," DJ Kay Slay said during his "Double Drama Hour" show on New York's Hot 97. "But this beef in particular with Ja Rule and 50, this is it for me."

The rivalry between Ja Rule and 50 Cent recently elevated on Slay's show, and if the mixtape don has his way, it will end on his show.

Three weeks ago, Slay premiered Ja's freestyle, which the streets have dubbed "Loose Change." In it, Rule comes at the Shady/Aftermath camp, Busta Rhymes, Lil' Mo and manager Chris Lighty. A retaliation came the next week via the Em and 50 freestyle "Hail Mary." Last week the saga continued when Kay played a new Benzino dis record aimed at Shady/Aftermath along with Ja's latest abrasive retort, "Guess Who Shot Ya."

Now Slay is saying enough is enough.

"I'm putting it out there for them, have one [more record apiece] made and take it out that way," Slay suggested. "There's no other way. People are harboring feelings and they need to put everything they got to say and feel on one last record. Get everything out and then just keep it moving. How many more ways can Ja Rule dis 50? How many more things can 50 Cent say about Ja Rule? Most of them records kind of channel through me, and I feel like they need to cut it out now."

This reminds of how Richard Pryor said he knew he hit rock bottom when even his own dealer said he was doing too much coke, and refused to sell him any more.

(BTW, the co-writer of that article is one of my oldest friends in the "hip-hop industry", Minya Oh. We both wrote for The Source wayyyyy back in the day, when it was still respectable.)

I just posted a new mix from the mighty 3D in the Radio Show Archive. hope you enjoy!

By the way, that's 3D's picture on the right of our front page.

Fortune Magazine has a very lengthy article on Steve Jobs' new attempt at an online music service, the "iTunes Music Store". My preliminary verdict: a noble effort, but any attempt to make people to pay for downloads will always end in disappointment.

Interesting stuff though, and there was one segment I especially enjoyed:

His adventures in the music business have led to other changes in Jobs' thinking. During the photo shoot with Sheryl Crow for this article, he acknowledged to the singer that he had never really understood what rap music was all about. But while playing with a prototype of the iTunes Music Store on his Mac at home in recent weeks, he had started downloading some of Eminem's tracks.

"You know, he really is a great poet," Crow said.

To which Steve replied, "Yeah, he's starting to kind of grow on me."

I don't really have anything to say about that quote, but it amuses me.

I'm sure both of the corporate media conglomerates involved in this "battle" are doing just fine, but is the audience getting any benefit from this competition? Honestly I almost never listen to either station, so maybe those of you from NY can tell me, has their been any change in the quality and diversity of their playlists?

Hip-hop turf makes room for a new player

It's been a year since WWPR (105.1 FM) sauntered into town to start a hip-hop turf war with WQHT (97.1 FM) - and both sides say they're winners.
Moreover, they can both be right.

"There isn't just one size pie," explains program director Vinny Brown of WBLS (107.5 FM), which is also a player in hip-hop radio. "When another station comes in, the pie can get bigger."

In the January-March quarter of 2002, WQHT and WBLS between them averaged 10.3% of the city audience. In January-March this year, WQHT, WWPR and WBLS combined to average 12.6%.

Between WQHT and WWPR, which compete directly for the younger hip-hop core while WBLS mixes in more R&B, WQHT (Hot-97) has a clear lead.

Hot-97 is second overall in the city, averaging 5.1% of all listeners. WWPR (Power-105) is seventh, averaging 3.8%. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, Hot-97 is first with 10.2% and Power-105 third at 6.9%.

Last summer, the stations were almost tied. Since then Hot-97 has pulled ahead and while it is down from 6.1% a year ago to its 5.1% today, it has been moving up lately.

"What happened is exactly what I predicted," says Tracy Cloherty, WQHT program director. "They got some early sampling, then they fell back and we stayed right where we were - number one."

Even more gratifying, WQHT is now one of the top 10 stations in the country for ad revenue, suggesting Madison Avenue now sees hip-hop fans as a broad audience, not a bunch of wise-guy kids.

Advertising revenue is a big reason that Michael Saunders, program director of WWPR, says he, too, is a happy man.

"Our ratings are about what we projected," says Saunders. "We have a solid core and we're pleased. But our ad revenue has already exceeded our expectations."

From parent Clear Channel's perspective, Power-105 is an even bigger hit, because its ratings exceed those of WTJM (Jammin'), which it replaced last year.

But just in terms of hip-hop, Saunders says the last year was good for everyone. "It has invigorated the stations," he says. "And when that happens, the listeners win. I also think it shows the whole hip-hop world you can have a strong competition without bloodshed..."

A visitor just brought to my attention that there is a website named hiphopcaucasia.com, which describes itself as representing "rap's silent majority".

Upon first glance, I'm not sure how i feel about this site. My initial reaction is to find it a little weird and creepy. But is there any concrete reason to be disturbed or offended? What do you guys think? It's evidently not very well-maintained, more than half of the links seem to be broken..but besides that, what's your verdict?

A while ago the esteemed okayplayer drapetomaniac asked me to identify Hip-Hop's earliest allusions to poetry.

Nautrally the BDP classic "Poetry" came to mind immediately, from possibly the greatest hip-hop album ever "Criminal Minded". But surely someone before KRS must have made the obvious connection between emceeing and poetry? I'm almost certain an earlier reference must exist, but so far I haven't been able to remember it or google it.

Around the same time as "Poetry" we heard Rakim declare himself a "melody arranger, poet, etc." on "Check Out My Melody", and soon after that he coined his oft-quoted definition of rap as "rhythm and poetry" on "Follow the Leader". Also in 1987, LL told us he was a "poetry technician" on the less than memorable (yes, I googled this one) "Clap Ya Hands", from his third album "Walking With a Panther". Then there's always Guru's "a poet like Langston Hughes and can't lose" on DWYCK.

And who could forget the late 80's appearance of a rapper named MC Poet, a Juice Crew affiliate who joined in their ongoing feud with Boogie Down Productions by dropping two anti-KRS anthems, "Beat You Down" and "Takin You Out". KRS then effectively derailed MC Poet's career with his brutal response on the Numero Uno remix of "I'm Still Number 1" (which was also notable as one of the first hip-hop records to incorporate a salsa sample, in the form of the Symphony Sid Theme). Poet made a brief comeback in the 90's as part of a group named PHD, then resurfaced once again as a member of Screwball. But much like Frederic Weis will forever be inextricably linked to Vince Carter, Poet will always be best known as guy who got dunked on by KRS.

But all this just leaves us back where we started, at BDP's "Poetry". Is this possible? There were so many rhymes spit by so many old school crews: Cold Crush, the Crash Crew, The Treacherous 3, the various Fours (Funky and Fearless), the numerous Fives (Furious and Fantastic-Romantic)... surely somewhere in these early days there must be a reference to poetry? But I can't think of it. Maybe somebody can help me out.

Yes, Jon is right.

Once a new idea has been discovered and implemented in the digital world, and the public has seen that it is useful, you cannot use brute force to make the public unlearn what it has learned. The meme cannot be un-memed, so to speak.

Any attempt to do so, in defense of that which has been rendered obsolete by this advancement, will accomplish nothing but further alienating the public from whatever product you represent in your quixotic misadventure.

File-sharing is here to stay. We're here, we peer-to-peer, get used to it.

For every finger RIAA lawyers stick into the P2P dike today (I mean dike as in dam, Beavis), ten new holes will open up tomorrow. If the music industry keeps flushing resources into this desperate attempt to flee from the 21st century, this is the surest path to their extinction.

The industry can only survive by learning to adapt to this new technology and live in harmony with it. Apple's latest attempt at adaptation, the iTunes Music Store, is a baby step in the right direction. But if they think the public is going to abandon Kazaa (or the other ones I won't mention, so as not to give the RIAA any ideas) for a system that charges a dollar per download, Q-Tip must be right about them smoking crack. The only hope I see lies in charging a flat monthly rate for unlimited downloads, and you'd better be offering a selection of files on par with Napster or Audiogalaxy in their prime.

I'm not even sure that would work. But I sincerely hope there is a solution, and wish the industry would take their heads out of the sand and start looking for it. Because in the long term, noone will benefit from anarchy. We need a system that ensures artists will be justly compensated for their work, I would never deny that this is a legitimate concern. The problem is that such a system has never existed, within this industry.

The RIAA's attempt to portray their war on file sharing as a noble defense of the downtrodden artist is the epitome of hypocrisy. They are fighting to defend a system that is obscenely exploitative of artists, designed to keep them rich by keeping the artist in shackles. The RIAA is basically an association of pimps, concerned about getting maximum profit from their hoes.

So although it is usually portrayed as endangering every artist's very existence, the file-sharing revolution may well bring about the liberation of the musician. Whatever system takes music through the 21st century will have to be radically different than the one that preceded it. It's quite possible artists will find themselves in a much more equitable position than they'd ever achieve under the current regime, if musicians (and the audience who values them) seek an active role in shaping the new system.

Because one way or another, a new system soon will be. The meme cannot be un-memed. And for the music industry, this is your final warning: it is time for you to STFU, and WTFUBYGE.

Your judgement day is at hand in the Court of Natural Selection. Your current strategy, pretending you didn't get the subpoena, is not going to save your ass. You must evolve or perish.

-----------

*WTFUBYGE=Wake the F*** Up Before You Go Extinct

The latest issue of Newsweek has opinion piece declaring that poetry is dead:

Poetry Is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?

It is difficult to imagine a world without movies, plays, novels and music, but a world without poems doesn’t have to be imagined. I find it disturbing that no one I know has cracked open a book of poetry in decades and that I, who once spent countless hours reading contemporary poets like Lowell and Berryman, can no longer even name a living poet.

All this started to bother me when heiress Ruth Lilly made an unprecedented donation of $100 million to Poetry Magazine in November. An article published on the Poetry International Web site said critics and poets agreed that the gift "could change the face of American poetry."

Don’t these critics and poets realize that their art form is dead? Perhaps not. They probably also don’t realize that people like me helped kill it...

Well, I'm glad us hip-hoppers are not the only ones being told that we have gone extinct at least once a month. But this piece is pretty weak to me, for numerous reasons. For one thing I find it strange he devotes an entire piece to measuring poetry's place in the zeitgeist without any mention whatsoever of the spoken word/slam poetry scene, now slickly repackaged as "Def Poetry". Nor does he mention Hip-Hop at all. In fact, it does not appear that anything involving people of color has ever showed up on his radar.

Now, I myself have issues with categorizing hip-hop as a form of poetry (I'd define it as music that often has a poetic element, but not necessarily poetry..I'd probably better make a separate post about that later), and much of the spoken word scene is really more like performance art or stand-up comedy than actual poetry. So if he wanted to argue that Hip-Hop and slam poetry do not meet his poetic standards, that would be one thing. But for him to go through this entire piece without mentioning those movements at all...

There are quite a few historical events whose date I always remember by reciting a classic rap lyric:

• The L.A. Riots: "April 29th was power to the people, and there might just be a sequel.." - Ice Cube (Wicked)
  


• The Death of Biggie Smalls: "That s*** was the worst rhyme I ever heard in my life, cuz the greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th" - Canibus (2nd Round Knockout)
  


• The Million Man March: "Slangin bean pies and St Ides in the same sentence, shoulda repented on the 16th of October.." - Common (The Bitch in Yoo)

Am I the only person who does this?

These charges have been around for a while now, as was reported comprehensively by my homey Minya back in January. Other than the accusation about 50 cent, this seems to reiterate what we already knew they were investigating, but with a little more detail:

Affidavit: Drug Money Backed Murder Inc.

Rap industry insiders have told investigators that the successful Murder Inc. music label was bankrolled by a notorious drug dealer who also was involved in a shooting of hip-hop superstar 50 Cent. The allegations were detailed in a newly unsealed affidavit obtained yesterday (May 1). The document was filed under seal in January in a federal money-laundering investigation of Murder Inc. and other rap industry enterprises.

The affidavit, signed by an Internal Revenue Service agent, accuses Kenneth McGriff -- the convicted leader of a murderous drug gang in Queens -- of forming an illicit partnership with Murder Inc. owner and longtime friend Irv Gotti. It alleges McGriff provided drug proceeds as "start-up money" for the label in the late 1990s. Murder Inc. is now home to top-selling recording artists such as Ja Rule and Ashanti.

Neither McGriff nor Gotti have been charged in the money laundering case, which prosecutors have refused to discuss. McGriff's attorney, Robert Simels, called the allegations groundless. "As far as I know, he and 50 Cent had a good relationship," he said...

As noted in Minya's original piece, Ja Rule has bragged openly about Murder Inc's connection with Preme, including one rhyme that boasts: "funds unlimited, backed by my 'preme team crime representatives.."

Canada's music mag Exclaim has a decent Prince Paul interview up today:

Prince Paul Battles the Hip-Hop Robots

"Either you’re gonna get it, or you’re not," says Prince Paul of his latest opus, Politics of the Business. "I don’t think the average hip-hop head will understand what I’m doing." Throughout his 19-year career, the visionary producer has consistently stretched the boundaries of hip-hop, from ushering in the Daisy Age with De La Soul’s seminal 1989 debut, 3 Feet High and Rising, to introducing the world to oddball Jewish rapper MC Paul Barman on 2000’s It’s Very Stimulating EP. Left-field projects like the latter, however, have increasingly polarised fans and critics alike, and Politics of the Business is bound to be no exception.

At first listen, Politics of the Business appears to be the very antithesis of a Prince Paul production: no-nonsense beats, standard samples, and occasional hints of hit single material. The only similarity is the sheer number of guest artists involved. "I think God purposely made me not able to rhyme because if He did, it would be a mad house. It’d be really insane," Paul chuckles. The vocal spectrum encompasses everyone from hip-hop stalwarts Chuck D and Guru to underground MCs MF Doom, Planet Asia, and Jean Grae, aka What What. The album also marks Prince Paul’s first collaboration with Canadian artists; Kardinal Offishall lends his slang on "What I Need," while Saukrates will appear on a forthcoming version of the same track.

Still, further listens to Politics of the Business reveal a closer semblance to Prince Paul’s previous solo efforts than the "fast food music" of mainstream rap records. Much like its critically acclaimed but commercially rejected predecessor, 1999’s brilliant hip-hopera, A Prince Among Thieves, Prince Paul’s new LP is a veiled criticism of the hip-hop industry. "It's a well-done spoof, and I wanted to do it without smiling," he explains. "People expect every record that I put out to [somehow] change the world. I’m gonna do what people wouldn’t expect me to do, even though they expect me to do the unexpected."

Smoking Gun has the complete affidavit released by the government in connection to their investigation of Murder Inc.

Normally I wouldn't be giving this much attention to a "Hip-Hop Crime" story, but this one looks like it is going to be pretty serious. These documents are no joke.

In Minya Oh's latest report on the Murder Inc investigation she drops a nice little scoop about Ja Rule's much-ridiculed misspelling of his own crew's name:

Meanwhile, the incredible scrutiny of federal agents seems to have had an effect on Murder Inc.'s music. According to Murder Inc. artist Blackchild, an apparent slip up on Ja Rule's recent anti-50 Cent track "Loose Change" was more calculated than clumsy. Blackchild insisted to MTV News that when Ja raps, "50, you gon' get shot again by the M-U-R-E-D-R Inc.," he misspells the name of his label in order to avoid making a self-incriminating statement.

Incredible. They've come up with an explanation for the stupidest rhyme of the year, and it actually makes the rhyme sound even stupider than it did before. I wouldn't have thought that was possible.

This week we were blessed with an appearance by four of the Anomolies: Helixx, Big Tara, Pri the Honey Dark, and DJ Kuttin Kandi. They gave a solid live performance that I'll try to post this week.. for now here are a few pictures:

one - Helixx, Tara, Pri, Kandi
two - Tara, Pri
three - Kandi

It's always hard to tell whether there is really a cause/effect relationship in studies like this, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe we'll finally get a few hip-hoppers to let go of their homophobia, if we can prove there's money in it.

Gay-tolerant societies prosper economically

If you object to homosexuality on moral grounds, as Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., recently did in an interview, you may not be swayed by economic arguments. But if you are a fan of entrepreneurship and business growth, you should know the economic price of intolerance.

The key to understanding America's technological and economic vibrancy lies in our openness to new people and ideas. Tolerance of immigrants, gays and other minorities is much more important to sustained economic growth and the high-paying jobs than the tax cut President Bush has in mind.

Research I conducted with Gary Gates, an Urban Institute demographer, shows that the big new-ideas and cutting-edge industries that lead to sustained prosperity are more likely to exist where gay people feel welcome. Most centers of tech-based business growth also have the highest concentrations of gay couples. Conversely, major areas with relatively few gay couples tend to be slow- or no-growth places. Pittsburgh and Buffalo, which have low percentages of gay couples, were two of only three major regions to lose population from 1990 to 2000.

Studies controlling for a wide range of factors also show innovation and economic vitality closely associated with the presence of gays and other indicators of tolerance and diversity, such as the percentage of immigrants and the level of racial and ethnic integration...

Anyone who was around to witness it will remember the classic Marley Marl In Control show that aired on WBLS, possibly the hottest ever heard on NY radio, successor to the legendary Mr. Magic's Rapp Attack.

In more recent years, Pete and Marley kept that tradition alive with the Future Flavaz show on Hot 97, but that station's allergy to quality music started acting up and the show got canned. Since then they have kept it going at Future Flavas Online, sending out live streams every weekend along with such other luminaries as Premier and Evil Dee.

And now I'm happy to discover their show has been picked up by NY's other major hip-hop outlet, Power 105. It will air every Friday from Midnight to 2, with a rotating line-up of DJs that consists of: Marley Marl, Pete Rock, Evil Dee, Lord Sear, Premier, and Jazzy Jeff. How's that for an all-star lineup? Maybe this will help me stay up for Cypher Queenz at 4.

While perusing Mike Barthel's blog I found a report in the Harvard Gazette about an academic symposium devoted to Tupac Shakur. Mike got the link from this blogger, who seems awfully offended that such an event would occur.

As I said to Mr. Barthel, I'm not sure I understand why some people find this so outlandish. I mean, of course whenever academics tackle a pop culture topic some silliness and pretension will ensue, as witnessed in the article below. But that doesn't mean the subject isn't worthwhile.

Why wouldn't Tupac be worthy of scholarly analysis, as a cultural phenomenon? It's not like this symposium was based on the premise that Tupac composed literature worthy of replacing James Joyce in Harvard's English curriculum, or anything like that. As far as I can tell, it focused on his impact as a cultural icon, which has certainly been profound. So why do folks find it so absurd that Harvard might devote a few hours to him? Is it an assumption that all pop culture is irredeemably frivolous? Or is there a more specific bias at play?

Symposium analyzes, celebrates 'thug': Tupac looked at as cultural artifact, force

Few spaces at Harvard are more burdened by symbols of the University's glorious past than the Barker Center's Thompson Room.

While the room itself is not particularly large, everything in it is on a grand scale, from the towering grandfather clock to the walk-in stone fireplace topped by a bust of John Harvard, both prominently inscribed with Veritas shields. Standing portraits of Theodore Roosevelt, Percival Lowell, and other Harvard notables hang from the floor-to-ceiling oak paneling, in which names such as Emerson, Longfellow, Bulfinch, and Agassiz have been carved in bas-relief.

But for one day last week (April 17), these dignified totems of authority and rectitude were all but effaced by portraits of a young black man, his head shaved, his muscular arms and torso heavily tattooed, and his heavy-lidded eyes conveying an expression both menacing and soulful. In several photos he brandished a handgun, and in one he wore a large automatic tucked into the waistband of his boxer shorts.

The occasion was an academic symposium titled "All Eyez on Me: Tupac Shakur and the Search for the Modern Folk Hero." It was co-sponsored by the Hiphop Archive, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, the Program of Folklore and Mythology, and IKS University of Oslo, Norway...

...Mark Anthony Neal, an English professor from the State University of New York, Albany, gave a talk titled "Thug Nigga Intellectual: Tupac as Celebrity Gramscian," in which he argued that Shakur could be seen as an example of the "organic intellectual" who expresses the concerns of his group, a concept articulated by Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist political theorist...

...But the guy who blew everyone away was the keynote speaker Michael Eric Dyson, Avalon Professor in the Humanities and African American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur"(BasicCivitas Books, 2001). Speaking in an intense, cadenced, crescendoing style that clearly derived from black preaching, Dyson combined the vocabulary of post-structuralist theory with the language of the streets while quoting liberally from Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dog, Nas, and Mos Def.

Dyson, who has written books on Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as issues in contemporary culture and race relations, said that when colleagues heard he was writing a book on Tupac Shakur, they asked "Why would you waste time and energy writing about this thug?"

Dyson's answer was that "Tupac spoke to me with brilliance and insight as someone who bears witness to the pain of those who would never have his platform. He told the truth, even as he struggled with the fragments of his identity..."

Props were given to Grandmaster Flash in this weekend's Daily News. I'm glad to see that unlike Paul Cashmere, David Hinckley knows the difference between a DJ and a rapper.

Hip hop's frontier scout: Grandmaster Flash is still out there on the trail

Since most hip-hop careers don't last much longer than the pair of sneakers you wear when you sign the contract, perhaps the best tribute to Grandmaster Flash is that 30 years after he helped start the hip-hop game, he's still out there playing it.
Flash is working the clubs, touring Europe, spinning on Sirius satellite radio - doing the things deejays like Grandmaster Flowers and Pete Jones started doing in the parks and basements of the Bronx in the early '70s, when this new dance-and-party sound barely reached beyond the five boroughs.

Flash, born Joseph Saddler on New Year's Day 1958 in Barbados, was a teenage electronics wizard who soaked it all up and pushed it forward, exploring new possibilities for the turntables and the music.

It would be nice to say he lived happily ever after, too, but sometimes it's not all good. Flash battled with record companies and drugs. There were career dips.

"I've had some rough times," he says. "But I'm not bitter. I'm not angry. About 10 years ago, when things weren't working out, I went back to the basics, back to my turntables. I reinvented myself by using the same formula I did when I was first deejaying. I refused to be a myth, to be folklore. If I played someplace, I didn't want to tear up a room on sympathy. I wanted to tear it up with music.

"Remember, when I started, 'Apache' was a new record. There was no door open then. I had to kick it down."

Flash and the Furious Five graduated from block parties to records in the late '70s with tracks like "Freedom" and "Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel." They exploded in 1982 with "The Message," a stark warning in the style of Marvin Gaye, the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, with a hip-hop beat.

"Don't push me," it went, "'Cause I'm close to the edge."

By then, national magazines were picking up on Flash and his rappers, including Melle Mel. "Flash is fast," sang Deborah Harry. "Flash is cool."

But hit songs weren't a ticket to the American Dream...

It's funny to see the criteria used when our legal system wants to determine whether one rapper is biting another.

Jubilee's expert witness asserted that both songs have the same hook, similar tempo and arrangement, while Juvenile's counter-expert pointed out that among other things "Jubilee's is in the key of A-flat, a major key, while Juvenile's is in D minor".

Although I haven't heard Jubilee's song, going by Hip-Hop aesthetics I'd think if you took the hook then you are probably biting, regardless of what key you are in. But the court's standards are obviously based on very different musical sensibilities.

Rapper Juvenile bests Jubilee in court

The question facing a federal jury was: Exactly which rapper was the first to "Back That Azz Up"?

Was it Jerome Temple, the West Jefferson High School special education teacher who, as his alter ego DJ Jubilee, is a favorite at local block parties and dances? Or was it Terius "Juvenile" Gray, whose version of the song made him a star and introduced the New Orleans "bounce" sound to a nationwide audience?

At stake were millions of dollars. The success of Juvenile's version helped sell millions of copies of his 1998 album "400 Degreez," establishing the local Cash Money Records as a major player on the national rap scene.

Jubilee and his local record label, Positive Black Talk Inc., doing business as Take Fo' Records, claimed in a federal lawsuit that Juvenile, Cash Money Records and Cash Money's national corporate partner, Universal Records, violated federal copyright laws by using the Jubilee song "Back That Ass Up" without permission.

But a federal court jury ruled Monday in Juvenile's favor, deciding that the song was his creation and was not cribbed from Jubilee's song. The verdict capped a five-day trial at which both rappers testified. Ultimately, the jury of five men and one woman came down heavily for Juvenile.

Attorney David Patron, representing Juvenile and Cash Money, said the lawsuit had cast his clients as "thieves," but that the jury's verdict vindicated them as "independent, creative artists."

No word yet on how Rick Santorum feels about Backing That Azz Up.

Although their music does not suit my personal taste, I've always respected Anticon's efforts to innovate and pursue their own musical vision. I sometimes have less respect for how they represent themselves outside of the studio, where they (and some of their fans) have been prone to gut-wrenching spasms of arrogance and elitism. Sometimes they seem to show a profound lack of respect for the musical form they are largely drawing from, and the people who created it.

I could write at great length about this, and perhaps I should, since the topic strikes a nerve for both fans and detractors. But for now here's a recent Anticon article I just came by, in what seems to be a student newspaper from Scotland. It's an interview with the member known as "Why?", and there are several passages I found rather troublesome. I'm especially disturbed by his attempt to discount the relevance of race in 21st century America, in the second excerpt.

Anticonservative Sounds

Revolutionising the outmoded concept of hip-hop, Anticon are taking on the world with their unique brand of 'independent-as-f**k' beats and rhymes.

"I THINK as much about hip hop these days as I do about Shania Twain, Clint Black and Limp Dickstick..." From the outset, Yoni Wolf, a.k.a. Why? of Anticon, the West Coast-based music label, makes no bones about his feelings towards a homogenised, corporate-led music culture. "I think it has become an irrelevant teeny-bopper/ wanna-have-all-the-decadent-shit-rich-people-have-even-though-I-can't-afford-to-eat phenomenon... The phrase 'hip-hop' doesn't mean anything worth meaning anymore – if it ever even did..."

...Anticon releases music which could loosely be tagged as underground white West Coast American hip-hop but, as Yoni suggests, the act of description is often one which delimits musical potential. Anticon have received a bad rap, if you'll pardon the pun, from much of the hip-hop community for producing music not perceived as being true hip-hop. "I think as time goes on we grow increasingly more accepted by the music/art community and increasingly distinct from other movements at the same time," he says. "The more confident we become in our own individual artistic skins, the less pretentious we seem, and the more people are willing to accept what we do. As far as being white and male goes, I don't think it's a negative or a positive. Although we have all had very different upbringings in all different parts of the country, we do all have the white male rap kid thing in common. As time goes on though, I tend to think less and less in terms of race and more in terms of culture and class. So let's not say 'white' and 'black', 'cause I think those words are too abstract and the lines are too blurred – I think more of the separation and fear between people in this country can be attributed to class and culture than to the colour of people's skin. It just so happens that because of a shitload of blemishes in this country's development and current state, a whole lot of people of African, Asian, Latin American, and Native American descent are quite poor; and in turn a number of people of European descent have a great deal of wealth and power. There are also a great deal of poor people of European descent in this nation. I think there is just as much disconnection between poor whites and privileged whites as there is between privileged whites and poor blacks, or wealthy blacks and poor blacks, and so on. Those who have the power and wealth want to keep the power and wealth and only share it with others who are powerful and wealthy. So eight lower middle class kids of European and Middle Eastern descent happened upon each other's music and felt related? Is that a bad thing? I don't think so..."

A court has decided that Def Jam owes $132,000,000.00 to TVT, the label where Ja Rule made his debut on a Mic Geronimo single, and later got signed along with his group the Cash Money Click. $108 million seems like a lot of damn money for punitive damages, I wouldn't be surprised if that changes on appeal:

$132M awarded in Ja Rule dispute

A small independent record company won a $132 million US verdict against industry heavyweight Island Def Jam Music Group and its top executive on Tuesday in a dispute over an unreleased record by rapper Ja Rule.

The verdict in the penalty phase of the trial provides roughly $24 million in compensatory damages and $108 million in punitive damages to New York-based TVT Records. Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, started his career with TVT in 1993 and moved to Island Def Jam with president Steve Gottlieb's blessing five years later, TVT lawyer Peter Haviland said.

In spring 2001, Ja Rule and two friends tried to make an album for TVT that included early Ja Rule recordings, but Def Jam's parent record company Universal Music Group blocked its completion, the lawyer said.

Haviland said Gottlieb was "left in ruins" when he could not release the album he was counting on...

And Dr. Dre also took a loss in this case involving the sample used for "Let's Get High". My question here is how much of that $1.5 million will ever make its way to the actual members of Fatback? I hope the answer is not zero, but I have a funny feeling..

U.K. Label May Get $1.5M From Dr. Dre

A federal jury has recommended a $1.5 million award to a British record company that sued rapper-producer Dr. Dre for song plagiarism, attorneys for both sides said.

U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall has yet to sign the judgment, Dre's attorney Howard King said Tuesday. A recorded telephone message left after business hours for King to elaborate on the award wasn't returned.

London-based Minder Music Ltd., sued Dre in 2000, claiming his 1999 song, "Let's Get High," used the bass line of Minder Music group Fatback's 1980 song, "Backstrokin," said Minder Music attorney Alan Dowling.

That second link also has info on the lawsuit filed against 50 Cent by the surgeon who treated him after his shooting. As many times as 50 refers to the shooting in his rhymes and press appearances, that surgeon should be getting a percentage of his sales.

This op-ed piece from a local paper in Oregon places 50 Cent alongside America's Founding Fathers:

A real American hero

It's a good bet that moralizing cultural arbiter William J. Bennett wouldn't agree, but you could argue that rapper 50 Cent is a classic American hero.

Perhaps this seems an odd description for the hip-hop newcomer, whose instantly mythic celebrity persona is based not so much on his rhyming skills as on his tough-guy physique and a rough past of drug dealing and violence. Despite being the most powerful nation in the history of the world, America retains an enduring fascination with triumphant underdogs; after all, even the most lovingly institutionalized heroes, the bedrock figures of our social and political establishment, were rebels: the Founding Fathers broke King George's laws in order to make their own rules. Those boys kicked it really old school, straight outta the Continental Congress. Talk about your Original Gangstas.

But because the vast posse that T. Jefferson and his crew eventually attracted included so many underdogs -- too many poor, huddled masses to all triumph by socially proper means -- we also came to love those who go down scratching and clawing and causing trouble along the way. We love winners, but we love bad guys, too...

Here is a letter I sent in response to this piece in today's Orange County Register:

From: Jay Smooth To: 'bwener@ocregister.com' Subject: Snoop and Suge Knight

I enjoyed your piece today about the Biggie and Tupac documentary. But how could you say that Snoop is "terrified" of Suge Knight? He has been by far the most courageous member of the hip-hop community in publicly standing up to Suge and calling him out for the disgrace that he is. Take these lyrics from "Pimp Slapp'd", the track devoted to Suge on his latest album:

>Your only gain is to try to get me to fall down to your level
>Man you worser than them devils
>A lotta niggas should've said it, f**k em
>But I'ma say it for em, stop it, pop it, rewind and play it for em
>This nigga's a bitch like his wife
>Suge Knight's a bitch, and that's on my life
>And I'ma let the whole world see
>Cos you f**ked up the industry, and that's on me

These hardly strike me as the words of a terrified man. I liked your piece otherwise, but I think Snoop deserves more credit than you gave him.

Especially since he's far more likely to face retribution than Nick Broomfield. Suge has usually shown an awareness that he's more likely to get away with his thuggery if he keeps it within the Hip-Hop community. As documented in Ronin Ro's book "Have Gun Will Travel", when conflict started in Death Row's offices, the intended victim would often try to escape by fleeing to "the white section" of Interscope's office, where Suge's crew was reluctant to get their thug on.

One of the few times they did cross that line was their assault on Steven Cantrock, of the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand. Cantrock and his associates then showed Death Row the difference between chess and checkers, when they went to federal agents with details of Suge's financial dealings, and helped bring about his downfall.

-Jay Smooth, WBAI

Here's a lengthy feature in the Guardian breaking down the history of Black folk (anti)hero Stagger lee. It's written by Cecil Brown, who wrote the cult classic novel "The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger", and just released a non-fiction work named "Stagolee Shot Billy", from which this essay is drawn.

Brown was immortalized on Richard Pryor's concert album "Bicentennial Nigger", when Richard pointed Cecil out in the audience and talked about how much he liked "Jiveass Nigger", plus how jealous he was that Brown came to the show with Rosalind Cash.

I think he may be reaching a bit with some of the connections drawn between Stagolee and Hip-Hop, such as when he points out that they both make use of cliche.. similarities don't always indicate influences. But this is still a nice offering, highly informative. I recommend reading the whole thing but I will paste some of the section that deals with Hip-Hop:

Godfather of Gangsta

In the red-light district of St Louis in 1895, a pimp shot a man dead in an argument over a hat. The ballad telling the story has been recorded by hundreds of bluesmen and jazzers - and even the Clash. It also helped create modern-day rap. Cecil Brown tells the remarkable tale of Stagolee...

...In the development of rap music and hip-hop culture, Stagolee's influence is very clear. It persists in rap in the use of the first-person narrator, the performers' adoption of nicknames, the social drama, the humour, and participation in the commodity culture. From the 1930s to the 1950s, most reciters of Stagolee told the story in the third person. After the rise of the toast tradition in the 1960s, most reciters told the story in the first person. The audience sees through the eyes of the character the rapper creates. The "I" is the bridge between the "I" of the rapper and the "I" of the character.

A reciter of Stagolee associates himself with the hero, but he also makes clear that he is not Stagolee. He can effectively change himself in the eyes of his spectators and listeners. In gangsta rap, the performers are acting out the lives of the criminals in an effort to dispel the criminal from their midst, as a way to get rid of the negative energy.

Stagolee is also present in rap music in the use of cliche: Stagolee is composed of cliche lines that are easy to remember. In rap music, performers found it necessary to use such cliches to keep the rap going.

The final influence that Stagolee has on rap was participation in commodity culture. In the 1890s, the Stetson became a symbol of black male status; in the late 1990s, baggy pants became a signifier of status. As in ear lier generations, ghetto blacks fight against a white appropriation through weird dress. To be able to purchase these commodities, young people in the ghettos resort to hustling, as their parents and grandparents did. They can't afford to believe that a nine-to-five job would solve their problems, because they could never get those jobs.

So gangsta rappers use the lifestyle commodities - cars, clothes, girls - as signifiers of success and wealth. They scrap the old cliche of the ghetto hustler with a slick suit and a truckload of hot goods for the new archetype of the rapper. The term and the concept of the modern-day "mack" are a retrieval of the old cliche of the St Louis mack that Lee Shelton once embodied. And it is not just the mack who is revived, but the women who will do anything for him, including sell their bodies. The girls rappers talk about are whores, or "ho's", just as they were back in the pre-industrial ballads of Stagolee...

Our friends at Democracy Now have the audio of Russell Simmons' speech calling for a repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws, you can listen to it right here.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws Turn 30, Activists Vow to Overturn Them

This week is the 30th anniversary of the Rockefeller drug laws. In 1973, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller pushed through State legislature the first laws in the nation that require minimum sentences for first-time drug users.

The Rockefeller drug laws mandate a minimum of 15 years for first-time, nonviolent drug users who are caught with small amounts of drugs.

Dozens of other states and the federal government rushed to adopt their own versions of the Rockefeller drug laws when New York State set the precedent.

But people like Barbara and Jenna Bush don't need to be too afraid. Most the people imprisoned by these laws are poor, and most of them are people of color.

Yesterday in New York, a coalition of politicians, celebrities, and mothers of prisoners rallied outside Governor George Pataki's office to demand the repeal of the drug laws. Hip-hop promoter and producer Russell Simmons, former New York Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and New York Reverend Al Sharpton were among those who spoke.

Also, check out this site that Becca pointed out to us with more good info.

When I started on Christian Hoard's review of Fabolous and Freeway, I was afraid I might get a headache from struggling to parse his hipster gibberish, as often occurs when I read the Village Voice. But this one turned out to be kinda funny, and perceptive at times:

New Thugs on the Block

Next-Big-Thing Rappers Arrive With Wheeze, Breeze, and Cheese

Even though 8 Mile turned it into a heroic, Rocky-style archetype of urban odds-beating, battle rhyming (and the raw talent it assumes) is an oft overvalued part of rap-game success, especially among heads. Despite the attractiveness of summing up skillz so succinctly, it's easy to forget that most next-big-thing rappers arrive in your stereo with equal measures good luck and assistance from well-established backers, and also that first-rate rhymes often make for third-rate records. And whatever the case, most new thugs on the block will at least get a second shot, if only to ensure their label gets a return on its investment.

All of which is fairly obvious, I suppose, but which is thrown into sharp relief by Freeway and Fabolous, two comparably blessed rhymers whose newish records (Free's first, Fab's second) nonetheless end up miles apart. Freeway, an Amish-bearded Sunni Muslim with the obligatory dope-slinging background, signed with Roc-a-Fella after his old Philly buddy Beanie Sigel introduced him to a soon besmitten Jay-Z. (Hova was so confident in the upstart MC's flow that he wagered cold cash on Hot 97 that no one could match Freeway in battle. To date, no one's taken up the challenge.) Fabolous, who debuted two years ago with a terrific, loose-tongued single (the Nate Dogg-assisted "I Can't Deny It"), is a 23-year-old Brooklynite with fashion model good looks and a honeyed, Mase-slow flow. On both of their cameo-stuffed records, their distinct voices are subsumed in production as bouncy and r&b as it is pricey. But where Free's album works its way up to a lively, beat-wise sleekness, Fab's jiggles like week-old Jell-O while the platinum kid gets drunk on his own hype. (Speaking of production, really the deciding factor with both albums, I find the recent r&b-electro-synthy turn among big-name—especially East Coast—beatmakers a little disturbing. Realized most vividly on current albums by Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, and Snoop Dog, this boombapless music is sleekness for its own sake: a bling-bling equivalent of '80s studio slickness and unfeeling art-rock. Never mind that undie producers like El-P treat fun[k] like a big pile of anthrax; that's a trend that has yet to bubble up aboveground. But from the big boys, I do ask for a little meat and potatoes to go with all the caviar and Cristal. Maybe even some new James Brown samples...)

Wait a minute. Did he just say Fabolous has "fashion model good looks"?? I retract my earlier statement about the headache.

All the Hip-Hop message boards were buzzing today with rumors about it, and it is now confirmed that MF Grimm is once again a free man, after nearly 3 years in prison.

I used to spend a lot of time at Stretch and Bobbito's show in the early 90's, and remember him well from back then, when he was still known as Grim Reaper (and before a horrific shooting incident left him paralyzed). He always had new rhymes ready whenever he came around, and would eagerly gather people around to hear his latest compositions, and check out the new angles he was exploring. He delivered each rhyme with such intensity, and always struck me as fiercely devoted to his art.

That strength and commitment has shown itself in his incredible ability to overcome the hardships life has placed in his path since then, finding himself confined to a wheelchair and then confined to a jail cell, but never losing the drive to make his voice heard. It is truly wonderful news to hear he is free, and I hope this is only the beginning of of many good things to come for MF Grimm.

Grimm has a new album slated to come out sometime this summer, under the auspices of Day By Day Entertainment.

I just posted two excerpts from The Anomolies' appearance on our show last week, in the Freestyle Archive.

We may soon be running out of space for our soundfiles, so if any one has webspace they could donate for the cause, or can recommend a reliable host that gives a lot of space for a low price, please let me know. i'm hoping I won't have to take down any of the older files to make room for new ones.

A new development in Rosa Parks' old lawsuit against Outkast. This seems to be another case where our legal system is assessing a work of art it is poorly equipped to judge.

I'd think it would be clear to most who read this that Outkast was not hoping to trick anyone into thinking this was a product affiliated with Rosa Parks, to capitalize on her "brand" or anything like that. Just as it should have been obvious in 1989 that Luther Campbell was not trying to pretend his booty records were affiliated with the Star Wars franchise, when he named himself Luke Skywalker. But the courts, made up of folks with different cultural sensibilities (and beholden to legal technicalities that can override common sense), had a different interpretation.

Rosa Parks Trumps "Rosa Parks"

A federal appeals court on Monday cast out a ruling in favor of OutKast and reinstated the civil-rights pioneer's lawsuit accusing the Grammy-winning hip-hop duo of profiting off her moniker by appropriating it for the title of their tune "Rosa Parks" and falsely suggesting the song was about her or endorsed by her.

In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Detroit sided with the 90-year-old Parks and declared that while OutKast is protected by the First Amendment, the Atlanta-based rap outfit still must demonstrate to the court why they decided to name their song after the Detroit resident when the lyrics barely mention her.

"The fact that Defendants cry 'artist' and 'symbol' as reasons for appropriating Rosa Parks' name for a song title does not absolve them from potential liability for, in the words of Shakespeare, filching Rosa Parks' good name," the judges said in their ruling.

The heart of Parks' case is that OutKast used her iconic name for commercial gain without her permission...

..."Rosa Parks" was one of the more popular tracks off OutKast's multiplatinum-selling 1998 Arista release Aquemini, but contains no references to Parks in the song aside from the title and the line, "everybody move to the back of the bus."

OutKast's lawyer, Joe Beck, argued that the rap duo's use of her name and the back-of-the-bus lyric did not constitute false advertising nor infringe on Parks' right to publicity as Parks' attorneys previously claimed. Rather, Beck said that while Parks' act of defiance inspired the line, it was really a symbolic slam to rival rappers looking to surpass OutKast's success...

I must say that choice of title always was a little mysterious to me, as was Bombs Over Baghdad. I often wished, during the recent war, that the latter's lyrics actually related to the title in some way, it could have been put to such great use.

But you might say there's a tradition in Hip-Hop of seemingly topical song titles that have no relation to the actual subject matter: A Tribe Called Quest's "Steve Biko"; LL Cool J's "Def Jam in the Motherland"; and "Free Mumia by KRS with Channel Live, which did a nice bait and switch by mentioning Mumia in the chorus but then devoting the song to a well deserved assault on C. Delores Tucker and her self-serving ilk. Are there any other examples you guys can think of?

I stopped by Joe's Pub last night, where Evil Dee and Buckshot rocked along with Starang, Ruste Juxx, and Ruck AKA Sean Price.

The show started with a projection of the new Style Wars dvd running on stage as the crew set up for the show. Then Mums (Poet from Oz) introduced a pretty good short film named "What's for Breakfast" starring Andre Royo, who was also in attendance. He plays Bubbles the crackhead on The Wire, and also stars in one of those really annoying beer commercials where some guy expounds on his philosophy of life.

Then Evil Dee came out with Sean Price, who got off to a slow start, and seemed to be throwing off the Joe's Pub audience (which contained more females that the average hip-hop show) a bit with his ho/bitch/ho-centric verses.

But after a while he picked up some momentum, and once Buckshot came out things really got rolling.. Buck still has great stage presence, and he and Evil Dee adapted well when both the 1200's and CDJ1000's started skipping. With help from Ruck, Starang Wondah and a few other BCCers they rolled through most of their classics and a few songs from a possible new album, that sounded pretty solid.

The set ended with everyone on their feet for "How Many MCs" and "Who Got the Props", and getting folks out of their seats is no mean feat in such a pomo-afro-boho-bougie establishment. Pretty cool show. Here are a few pictures I took:

click on each image to see the full size photo

As mentioned on Okayplayer, indie-rap icon Sage Francis recently signed with the Punk label Epitaph records, and this news has started a fierce debate on Epitaph's website. Some fans are lamenting Epitaph's attempt to "sellout" or "go commercial" by signing the "OG Rapper" Sage, which has to get a chuckle from anyone familiar his work:

"oh my god..this is the demise of this label. Whats next Brett? you gonna sign 4 cute boys to dance and sing like the backstreet boys?"

"there should be some type of cleanliness left on our labels, and not the infiltration of bad music such as rap."

Yes, because as everybody knows, Punk is all about cleanliness.

Who woulda thunk the Punk world could be populated by such narrow-minded sheep, who embody everything Punk (as i understand it) was meant to rebel against? But to be fair, the majority of replies are more sensible:

"I am thoroughly glad about this. Punk doesnt have a sound, but a feeling. Sage has seen the problems of our society and expresses them. That IS Punk. The most Punk song ever is 1920's The Jazz song "Strange Fruit" By Billie Holiday. It speaks of taboos and she fought to perform it wherever she went. The racism spoken of in that song still exists. Bravo Epitaph."

A friend who graduated from Columbia's Journalism School alerted me to this recent discovery there:

1963: When Malcolm X Visited the Journalism School

On November 20, 1963 -- two days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- Malcolm X visited the Journalism School to speak to Professor Mel Mencher's class. Their remarkable dialogue can now be read on-line for the first time.

Download the complete transcript here.

UPN's much hyped "Hip-Hop Drama" Platinum, which sparked a lively discussion here last month, seems to have met its demise.

Platinum Gets Cancelled

The hip-hop drama "Platinum" has not been renewed for the fall season, representatives for UPN confirmed with AllHipHop.com. After starting with near record-breaking ratings, the show’s Nielson status plummeted.

“Its not coming back next year,” a rep for UPN said, "The ratings were the same as 'Haunted' was when we cancelled it last year."

"Platinum" was a hip-hop family saga based on two brothers, Jackson and Grady Ellis (Jason George and rapper Sticky Fingaz of Onyx), who ran an independent record company.

The Sophia Coppola-produced show was a huge success initially, garnering it extremely high reviews and generated significant controversy for its content. Even mogul Russell Simmons spoke out in support of the realism of the plot.

The show delved primarily into the seedy underbelly of the music industry, something that Naji [sic] Ali of Project Islamic H.O.P.E. said was the curse of the show.

"If they were true to making a real hip-hop show, they wouldn’t have focused on the negative," Ali told AllHipHop.com. “We are vindicated.” When the show debuted Ali and his organization proposed a boycott of the show if the creators didn’t attempt to change the content...

This show didn't spark enough interest for me to keep watching after the first two episodes, but I'm not happy to see it disappear so quickly, and I'm skeptical about Najee Ali's claim that his protests are vindicated by this result. As far as I can remember, commercial television has never gotten comfortable with any Black oriented show that wasn't a straight-up sitcom, from Frank's Place on down to City of Angels.

Our DJ 3D (who is going out on tour this week with Prince Paul) played a nice little instrumental on the last show, by a group named Ugly Duckling. I hadn't heard of them before, so I did some googling to see what they are all about. The answers I found were not very pretty:

Ugly Duckling's Politics Are Even Uglier

Where I'm from—that'd be the German port town of Hamburg—Long Beach's Ugly Duckling are one of America's more noteworthy exports. Their videos are all over TV. Music magazines compare them to the likes of De La Soul, Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic 5 and Black Star...

...Ugly Duckling has toured most of the U.S. and hit 20 other countries. Here, Andy Cooper, one of the band's two MCs, joined Young Einstein and me in the abandoned garage beside the house. Taking note of the derelict surroundings, I asked if they've ever thought about leaving.

"Never!" Einstein said. California is home, and that seems a natural enough reason to stay, along with family, friends and the sun.

But why not move to Europe, where the band's fame might bring them big euros?

This is where my conversation with Ugly Duckling, a band I've admired from another continent, went suddenly south—or rather rightward. It turns out Ugly Duckling are standard-bearers for conservatism.

"I don't want to pay 50 percent of my income to the government. I don't want to be controlled by the state!" Cooper said.

I was taken aback. I paused. I looked around. My English isn't perfect, and I wanted to diplomatically point out that the band doesn't have much to show for its reliance on the American marketplace.

Wouldn't it make sense, I asked, to pay more taxes for a better social welfare net and an innovative health-care system?

"No, it wouldn't!" Cooper said. Innovative health care? When Americans are sick, they go to "the doctor and pay him cash!" Social welfare? "Why should the government give unemployed people an apartment and some money to stay alive?" Cooper asked. "It just makes the people unproductive! They should get out and find a job."

Well, I offered in halting English, maybe it's harder for people to find a job once they're homeless. Ugly Duckling didn't want to hear it. "You can just write down the address of your homeless shelter on the job application," they offered...

Are any of you guys familiar with this group? Hopefully somebody can tell me this is some sort of Onion-style joke.

But if this is really what they are about, do these guys have any chance of being accepted with these politics? Should they be accepted? Would it be wrong for them to get reverse dixie-chicked by hip-hoppers because of their politics, if the music itself is on point? Or do they deserve to get dissed?

A few months ago I was honored to be in the house for Bobbito's last night on WKCR. It was like a great big family reunion, a trip back in time for one night, to a time when there was a real sense of community in the NY Hip-Hop scene. Here are a few of the photos I took:

Bobbito
Annabella, Pete Rock
Annabella, Pete Rock, Damali, Wordsworth
Percee P, Kool DJ Red Alert
Lord Sear, Pete Rock
J Love, Bobbito, Lord Sear, Pete Rock
DJ Mighty Mi, Wordsworth
Pumpkinhead, Wordsworth
Mr. Len
The crew back together one more time: Bob, Stretch and Lord Sear

Don't call it a comeback! I'm back in NY and ready to get this train rolling again, starting with a 50 minute addition to the radio show archive, from our good friend Oneman.

I've done a little bit of freelance music writing over the years (in Vibe, The Source and XXL), and this column gives some idea why I never did more than a little bit. I think JR Taylor's tone is a little unfair to the subject, who is just being real about the world she works in, but the picture painted here isn't far from the truth. If anything, the reality is even worse than this, in the world of "Hip-Hop journalism" at least.

It doesn’t take much for a professional music journalist to tell the truth. About $65, in fact.

I’ve seen the future of rock ‘n roll, and it is Brooklyn’s Mink Lungs...

Caitlin Cary’s second album makes a perfect soundtrack for the sorts of days evoked on the languid, unhurried "Sleepin’ In on Sunday"...

Mix a half-cup of Jeremy Enigk’s Return of the Frog Queen, two tablespoons Ron Sexsmith and one quart Neutral Milk Hotel. Stir counterclockwise, and you have a serviceable description of Castaways and Cutouts...

Such is the state of modern music journalism. Such is the lack of inspiration and opinion. Even in the service of minor bands, writers desperately churn out meaningless hype, sad cliches and vapid non-opinion toward two goals: pleasing the publicists and allowing the writer to blather on about more useless acts in the future.

Though I offer this statement as fact, you needn’t accept my humble, free opinion. For $65, a successful music journalist named Shirley Halperin was willing to help aspiring hacks at her May 15 MediaBistro seminar, "Almost Famous: Breaking Into Freelance Music Journalism."

What's more, Halperin takes pride in knowing the truth about her profession...

..."Seventy to 80 percent of the time, you’ll be writing about artists you don’t like."

This could actually be construed as good news. Somebody, after all, has to note that N.E.R.D. is getting critical acclaim for ripping off bands like Styx and Slipknot. And why is Aimee Mann only now discovering that moths can get burned by a flame?

Sadly, Halperin doesn’t seem to understand that writers—even those with a "passion for music"—can express negative thoughts. We will find ourselves writing positive things about artists we don’t like, she informs us. For all intents and purposes, Halperin is warning that 70 to 80 percent of the time, we will be expected to tell lies...

..."How many of you," she then asks, "if you hated the band ethically and morally, wouldn’t write about the band?"

Two people raise their hands.

"You have to learn how to temper your reaction," she explains. "They don’t want to hear [deep sigh]. They want to hear ‘Cool!’ ‘Great!’ ‘Awesome!’"

Besides, Halperin adds, you can always express your disdain for the band "after the article’s been edited and published."

Halperin also warns us about all the trouble that comes with having an opinion. She cites Spin’s hard lesson after they put Creed on their cover, accompanied by an article that mainly goofed on the popular band. She wants us to consider the long months spent trying to placate the publicists afterwards: "Half of your year has been spent thinking and analyzing about how to get out of this mess with this band… It just becomes a mess that takes up half your life. So, that’s that."

As noted, Halperin’s seminar does some good. There’s some occasional useful advice, like her suggestion not to ask predictable questions. Halperin even suggests that it’s okay to sometimes print controversial news about a popular band—that is, once you’re sure that the band’s publicist represents so many bands that he or she "has to work with you."

Most importantly, Halperin does an excellent job of representing the banality of modern music journalism. She is the true face of pandering, and is completely honest about how well this serves her. It would take a lot less than three hours for her to convince anyone with integrity to walk away from the business, and I would’ve paid a lot more than $65 to be talked out of this business back when I was younger.

A post in this fresh young blog speaks of "Hip-Hop Blasphemy". He throws a bunch of different ideas out there, and I'm not going to touch most of them right now. But I will say that Hip-Hop's fundamentalist sect has been a concern of mine for quite a while. Some of us have been taught to enforce such a rigid orthodoxy that we risk stifling growth in the name of upholding traditions.

The most common example is the Gospel of the Four Elements. Personally I do not subscribe to this, partly because graffiti was a distinct culture of its own before Hip-Hop was born, so I wonder whether it is fair or accurate to classify it as a subset of Hip-Hop. On the other hand, I'm all in favor of celebrating the great contributions that writers and b-boys/girls have made to the culture, and ensuring they are not forgotten just because they couldn't be commodified as effectively as the music. So I suppose this bit of dogma is fairly benign. But it gets a little silly when folks come at you like "thou shalt love and cherish each of these four pillars with equal fervor, or be subject to stoning". If you have a passion for the music you should feel welcome to express that without fear of being chastised cuz you don't know Taki 183's birthday.

Other strains of Hip-Hop's fundamentalism may be more troublesome. My least favorite trend of recent years is how the term "freestyle" has been redefined as referring only to rhyming off-the-top, which has led to a vehement (and IMO irrational) disdain for performing written rhymes in any cypher or live venue. I believe this mindset is entirely misguided, and can be terribly unhealthy for the art form. I'm sure I'll get deeper into that in a future post.

I think this strict constructionism is often a product of insecurity, especially among younger heads who weren't around for Hip-Hop's early days or the Golden Age of '85 to '91 (or thereabouts). Without these credentials they need a concrete list of rules to which they can conform, and thus reassure themselves that they are "real" or "true". Which isn't necessarily a bad thing I suppose. There's nothing wrong with putting together a system that helps you maintain a sense of tradition.

But you've got to keep it in perspective. A system of law should serve to protect your freedom, rather than take it away.

In a solid new interview on allhiphop.com, Dead Prez reveal that they've been kicked to the curb by Columbia Records, who will not be releasing their completed sophomore album:

dead prez: Plantation Life

Fans have anxiously awaited an album release from internationally acclaimed rap duo, dead prez, for several, painful months. While it has already garnered stellar reviews sources at Columbia Records have revealed (off the record) that dead prez was no longer on its payroll. The group was allegedly dropped according to unofficial reports as a result of what was deemed “as poor projection of sales.”

The politically charged group's debut Let's Get Free, moved approximately 300,000 copies in the United States. Execs were apparently concerned about the upcoming project, despite already being completed.

In an interview prior to the disappointing, but not surprising news, M-1 likens industry life to plantation life and explains why they "stic" with it.

AllHipHop.com: when you and stic first started looking for a deal who did you reach out to and what was your experience?

M-1: We had a few friends that gave us some names and numbers because in the beginning we didn't know all the names and titles of those people at the labels. Then we started calling people and going up in the offices like you need to see us. We approached Russell a few times up in the elevator and his words to us were. ' Y'all need to stop cursing so much.' Cause he knew…he knew we was cursing at the government. He could get with DMX but he couldn't get with us cause he knew our intentions were different. We tried to get with this lady at Columbia but at the time she took a little too long so we went to Steve Rifkin's office at Loud Records. They had a good rep in the streets.

AllHipHop: What was your experience with Loud?

M-1: We were on Loud for 6 years. Four of those years were spent without releasing our first album, Let's Get Free even though it was ready to go. We saw Big Pun come, we saw Wu-Tang come with albums, we saw a lot happen while we was just sittin. Then, Loud started going through a lot of changes with its distributors we were caught in the middle. Every time they switched distributors, our release date was pushed back. Because once the distribution changed, the partners changed and the company began a new relationship in dealing with the money exchange. Those distributors were the beneficiaries who bankrolled what would happen to Loud Records, the backers. How the checks got cut, new deadlines were set, everything would change each time. That's why it took four years until we finally saw Sony.

AllHipHop: What happened when Loud finally folded?

M-1: Once Loud became unable to keep up with Sony's high standard to put out the kind of records that it sells for the 40 million dollar per year entity that it is. I mean you really have to do a lot of platinum to keep up with that and Loud Records was not a powerhouse platinum label like a Def Jam. For the most part their artists had a cult following but they needed that attention paid but they wanted Mariah Careys. Eventually, that worked to the detriment of Loud because eventually their departments became swallowed up as they couldn't produce. Loud itself fell into Sony companies, dissolved it and sold it to different parts. That's how we ended up on Columbia.

AllHipHop: Was that your choice? Did you have any say so?

M-1: Oh hell no. Hell no. I would have been free. We tried to run from the plantation. We saw the plantation was burning down we was trying to escape in the middle of the night. Ol' dude was standing in the corner and snatched us up when we were trying to sneak into the woods and took us to the next plantation.

AllHipHop: same shit different day, huh?

M-1: That's my total analogy. For anybody that can't understand that I don't know how to get it through any clearer than that. We were sold like slaves in the middle of the night...

Russell Simmons organized another rally against New York's atrocious Rockefeller drug laws today, and brought out a bunch of his a-list friends. I've got to give Russell credit where it's due, his forays into the political arena have sometimes struck me as self-serving but this one is certainly for a good cause.

With the powers that be claiming to be sympathetic but mysteriously failing to act upon this sentiment, maybe Russell's media savvy can help tip the scales and make something happen here...especially if we the people make our voices heard and show them this is not just the latest celebrity be-in. On that note, I should give a shoutout to The Kunstler Fund, who were on the front lines of this battle long before Russell brought it into the limelight.

Diddy, Jay-Z, Susan Sarandon Rally Against New York Drug Laws

Russell Simmons and friends such as Susan Sarandon, P. Diddy, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Fat Joe, Tim Robbins, Dead Prez and Dame Dash made their voices heard Wednesday (June 4) at City Hall, where they rallied against New York state's strict drug sentencing laws.

"When I was younger, I would see kids get caught with an ounce [of narcotics] and do 10, 15 years," Dash said. "I never understood that. I don't think they deserve 10, 15 years. There's a lot of other things that need to be addressed at that time to make the person a better individual and make them evolve as a better human being, rather than come out [of jail] bitter."

"The laws aren't fair," said Jay-Z as he made his way to the stage. "I personally know a lot of people that's locked up unjustly and unfairly. [The MCs] have got the streets, so we gotta come out here and show our support, our strong voice."

Diddy said rappers should pay especially close attention to the state's Rockefeller drug laws — enacted in 1973 when Nelson Rockefeller was governor — because of the enormous impact they've had on the hip-hop community.

"This law has affected hip-hop, our families, our friends, our future," Diddy said backstage. "Ninety-six percent of the people incarcerated by this law are minorities. It's one of the most unjust laws in history...

This review of Tuesday's Summer Jam concert has a tasty tidbit at the end:

Some low points during the evening were Nelly and the St. Lunatics being booed during their performance of "Dilemma" and a chorus of boos when Nas performed a verse from his Jay-Z diss record "Ether."

The first part is certainly understandable, but why was Nas booed for doing Ether? Has public opinion swayed back towards Jay Z's corner? Or maybe people are just generally tired of beef?

Here are a couple of noteworthy events coming up this weekend..

On monday:

Cuban Hip Hop Groups Join The Roots In A Historic Concert At The Apollo Theater

The Fourth Annual Hip Hop Theater Festival, The International Hip Hop
Exchange, The Apollo Theater Foundation and OkayPlayer.com present:
THE HIP HOP UNITY CONCERT
Monday, June 9th, 2003 @ 8 pm

In its continuing effort to promote cultural exchange, The Hip Hop Theater Festival and The International Hip Hop Exchange will unite Cuba's leading Hip Hop groups, Doble Filo and Obsesion with America's leading politically and socially conscious Hip Hop artists: The Roots, Common, Tony Touch, Soul Live w/J-Live, Kanye West, El Meswy and Tomorrowz Weaponz with other special guests.

and coming up tomorrow:

A TOWNHALL MEETING ON THE STATE OF HIPHOP MUSIC AND CULTURE on Saturday, June 7, 2003

12 Noon-8PM (DOORS OPEN AT 11:30AM)

at THE RIVERSIDE CHURCH
490 Riverside Drive
between 120th and 122nd Streets
New York City

Moderated by DAVEY D

Panelists:

ELIZABETH MENDEZ BERRY, Assistant Music Editor, VIBE

TONI BLACKMAN, Emcee, U.S. hiphop ambassador

SWAY CALLOWAY, MTV News reporter/veejay, radio personality

REBECCA FABIANO, Director of After-School in Lincoln Square at
Martin Luther King, Jr. High School Campus

BABA ISRAEL, Beatboxer, emcee, and educator at The Door and with Urban Word

DJ KAYSLAY, Legendary graffiti writer formerly known as "Dez," popuar mixtape deejay, Hot 97 radio personality, SONY recording artist

DJ KUTTIN KANDI, Turntablist, member of DJ team champions the 5th Platoon and all female hiphop group Anomolies, and the first female DJ to make it to the DMC USA Finals (1998)

JORGE "FABEL" PABON, Hiphop pioneer, Senior Vice-President, Rock Steady Crew, and hiphop historian

KEVIN POWELL, Community activist, writer, public speaker, and cofounder of Hiphop Speaks

FATIMA ROBINSON, Award-winning hiphop choreographer

ROKAFELLA, Bgirl, choreographer, cofounder of Full Circle Productions

Plus, a Conversation With The Elders....

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA, A founding father of hiphop, creator of the Universal Zulu Nation, and mastermind behind Hiphop History Month (November)

ERNIE PANICCIOLI, legendary hiphop photographer, historian, author of Who Shot Ya? Three Decades of Hiphop Photography (Amistad/HarperCollins)

CAMILLE YARBROUGH, Poetess, soul singer, actress/dancer, award-winning author of four children's books

Moderated by THEMBISA MSHAKA, SONY advertising executive, former Gavin Rap Editor, and author of the forthcoming book Handle Your (Music) Business (a resource guide for women in the music industry)

On the 1s and 2s: DJ DRAMA...www.djdrama.net

Admission is FREE and seating will be on a first-come first-serve basis.

I've discussed in earlier posts how our court system may not understand the inner workings and the particular moral/ethical boundaries of Hip-Hop culture well enough to make a fair judgement in the many lawsuits filed within the industry.

Looks like this British judge had similar concerns, more or less:

Judge fails to unravel rap lyrics

A high court judge did his best to get to grips with the lyrics of a rap song - and came to the conclusion that he really couldn't understand a word of it.
Mr Justice Lewison was faced with the task of deciding whether the composer Andrew Alcee had suffered damage to his honour or reputation through the "derogatory" use of his UK garage No 1 hit Burnin.

Mr Alcee complained under the Copyright Act that Burnin, released as a single by the concept group Ant'ill Mob, had been distorted or mutilated by its use as backing for a rap by Heartless Crew, which contained references to drugs and violence.

The judge said the claim "led to the faintly surreal experience of three gentlemen in horsehair wigs [himself and the two barristers in the case] examining the meaning of such phrases as 'mish mish man' and 'shizzle my nizzle'."

In any event, the words, although in a form of English, were "for practical purposes a foreign language" and he had no expert evidence as to what they meant...

thanks to Hadiya for the link.

About a month ago I posted an excerpt from Cecil Brown's new book "Stagolee Shot Billy". Todd Boyd reviews the book in today's NY Times, and he's not too impressed.

I'm pasting in the entire article since the NY Times decided to start making links unavailable for free after 1 week. (Although given recent circumstances it's easier to understand why they want their older material hard to access).

Is Stagolee's Stetson Like a Rapper's Baggy Pants?

By TODD BOYD

Stagolee has been immortalized in song for years by Ma Rainey, Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and the Clash. As the legend goes, Stag Lee Shelton shot a man in 1895 named Billy Lyons in a barroom brawl in St. Louis because Lyons touched Stagolee's immaculate Stetson hat.

To Cecil Brown, a novelist who heard the story while growing up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina in the late 1950's, "Stagolee is a metaphor that structures the life of black males from childhood through maturity." The very name, he writes, "is an in-group catchword conveying knowledge of what it means to be a black man."

In "Stagolee Shot Billy," Mr. Brown sets out to trace the Stagolee legend and explain how it still resonates today. In his eyes, Stagolee is the forefather for what in hip-hop is often referred to as an "O.G." or "original gangsta," a direct link for gangsta rappers with their gun-toting, womanizing and utterly nihilistic ways.

Yet if Stagolee is this important, why is it that no one born after the assassination of Malcolm X, much less someone born into the hip-hop generation, has much knowledge of this supposedly transcendent archetype?

Mr. Brown's personal passion for the legend comes through in the pages of his book, and his skills as a novelist shine most brightly when he relates the details of Stagolee's life. But that passion seems to have also clouded his judgment of the Stagolee character's importance, especially its significance to contemporary culture.

Sure, it is easy to say that all of black masculinity owes a debt to Stagolee in the same way that one could argue that contemporary Hollywood movies are really updated Greek tragedies. But Stagolee, a legend of oral culture, is about as relevant in today's mass-media-dominated digital age as a horse-and-carriage on a crowded Los Angeles freeway during rush hour.

It is interesting how both haters and defenders often try to link hip-hop — the prevailing popular-music form of the late 20th and early 21st century — to older black music. The haters make the link to minimize its cultural impact by portraying it as a copy, not an original, the defenders to argue for its acceptability as an updated African-American folklore with beats and rhymes.

Yet if anything, hip-hop is indebted to more recent cultural products. Tony Montana, the Cuban drug lord in the 1983 film "Scarface," in all his excesses, has much more impact on the mind-set of hip-hop gangstas than does a figure like Stagolee. So does Christopher Walken's living embodiment of Norman Mailer's "white Negro" in his portrayal of the character Frank White in the 1990 cult classic "The King of New York." Neither of these characters are African-American, but many hip-hop gangsta figures have been able to appropriate their imagery and make it specific to their own circumstances.

Alas, Mr. Brown's attempts to analyze contemporary culture often come across like Bill Cosby trying to do Chris Rock. This shortcoming is most apparent when Mr. Brown tries to equate Stagolee's life as a pimp with the use of the pimp metaphor in present day hip-hop culture. Relying on the work of the historian Robin D. G. Kelley, Mr. Brown writes, "It is difficult to understand the reason for recent glamorizations of the pimp's image without also looking at the origin of the pimp in the 1890's in cities like St. Louis."

What is missing here, though, is a discussion of the way the culture of pimping offered a certain power to those engaged in the practice. The pimp or mack functions like the Mafia don in Italian-American culture. This character is a cipher that helps critique mainstream capitalism while also affirming it in a most extreme fashion. One need only check out Iceberg Slim's novel "Pimp," the 1973 film "The Mack" or the Hughes brothers masterly documentary "American Pimp" (1999) to find a sustained counterargument to both Mr. Brown's and Mr. Kelley's weak analysis.

Mr. Brown also misunderstands the style of hip-hop, writing, "In the 1890's, the Stetson became a symbol of black male status; in the late 1990's, baggy pants became a signifier of status."

First of all, the baggy pants, or saggin, as it is called, originated with prisoners, who were not given belts, so their pants sagged. In addition, many hip-hop-inspired fashion labels, starting with Cross Colors and Karl Kani and now with Sean John and Rocawear, began making strides in the marketplace and culture by designing jeans cut specifically for blacks. (Other labels designed for whites were often too tight, so people bought them several sizes too big to fit better.) This style was never about status in the way a Stetson hat was or a Gucci hat is now. Instead, it could be read as hip-hop's ability to redefine the culture around it.

Blacks were not being manipulated by the culture, as Mr. Brown suggests, but rather transforming it.

Stagolee and the more mainstream character of Uncle Remus are often part of nostalgia for the kind of Southern existence that can be found in guided tours of former slave plantations, and they have become quite popular. It is this nostalgia that seems to drive Cecil Brown and his attempt to resurrect a long dead icon from a forgotten era. But while the history of Stagolee, both real and imagined, is useful, the application of his aura falls short when trying to ascertain the meaning of someone like 50 Cent and his restoration of the gangsta aesthetic in the present.

This week we were greatly honored to have two of Cuba's foremost hip-hop groups represented on the radio show, Doble Filo and Obsesion. It was sweet meeting these young guys with such a great energy, representing a hip-Hop subculture that thrives despite the many obstacles in its path, lack of resources, and little chance of fame or fortune. In other words, a place where people live hip-hop for the love of it, like it used to be over here.

I'm on my way to see those guys perform at the Apollo tonite, with the Roots backing them up. I'll make a more complete post with pictures and audio later, but for now you can check out Jon's comments at hiphopanonymous.net, since he was also in the house on Saturday.

Politicians and media folks love to play with our heads by making up new slang. The government will concoct a certain word or phrase and then repeat it again and again, every time they get in front of a microphone. They never really explain where it came from, or what exactly it means, but by sheer power of repetition they get the media to pick it up and join in the chorus, beating it into our heads every time we watch tv or read (surf) the paper. Pretty soon we are all swallowing their slang and regurgitating without a second thought.

Like when America decided Manuel Noriega was no longer a useful partner in crime, we started calling him a "strongman" every night on the news. Pretty soon whenever reporters talked about him he was Panamanian Strongman Manuel Noriega, and it seemed like none of us ever thought to ask "wait, what the hell is a 'strongman' anyway? And how come nobody called him that until 4 months ago?"

They do this because they know that by controlling the language used to discuss an issue they can shape the way that issue is delivered to the public, shape the direction and the boundaries of debate on that issue.

So I always try to pay close attention to language, and I'm always concerned when people start repeating a phrase over and over without establishing a definition for it, and confirming that what it describes is something that actually exists.

Lately I've been seeing the phrase "Hip-Hop Activism" thrown around a quite a bit, but I'm never clear on what exactly it's supposed to mean, and if there really is such a thing. It certainly sounds nice, but I don't want to slack on my critical thinking just cuz the propaganda is coming from our side and I'm sympathetic to the cause.

So when I see pieces like this one below, I always wind up yelling at the screen "But what the hell is Hip-Hop Activism?" ..does this describe any action carried out by the "Hip-Hop Generation"? Does it mean activities led by actual Hip-Hop artists or industry figures? Are there certain Hip-Hop tactics that must be employed for an activity to qualify as Hip-Hop Activism, just as Hip-Hop fashion requires wearing certain clothes, and Hip-Hop music requires certain musical elements? Just what are we talking about exactly?

Hip Hop Activism Buds Beautifully

Harry Belafonte stated to me in an interview that entertainers have the responsibility to speak out on issues concerning the community. He also said that entertainers are so often used to take people's minds off real issues and that entertainers who do not act are part of the problem. In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, "Mean Street Theater," written by John McWhorter, he called social and political contributions to the community made by rapper's "sideline donations." About the recently slain rap artist Camoflauge, McWhorter writes, "Despite his searingly profane, violent lyrics, [he] was regularly invited to speak at Savannah high schools." This article could have been more appropriately titled, "Mean Muggin' Hip Hop."

There's more. The article went on to run off other artists, i.e. Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay as products of the genre. Never mind the failings of law enforcement who have yet to find the killers of any of these men. But, they could find any small-time hustlers in the hood and lock them up for years and years for a nonviolent offense, i.e. drug possession.

This brings me to the most appealing part of the piece. While the author gave credit to Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Action Network for setting a goal to register millions of hip hop voters for the 2004 elections, he asked a poignant question. "What does the organization want the hip-hop generation to vote for?" If for nothing else, his article should have been printed for this query.

It is true that Hip Hop has to have a political issue or issues to mobilize around. And we got issues; no doubt about that. Well, Russell Simmons, P Diddy, Jay Z and many other hip hoppers are right on point in their effort to address what should be the number one issue to focus hip hop activism – fighting against the failed war on drugs. These celebrities are doing exactly what Mr. Belafonte says is expected of them.

This is a perfect issue for hip hop activism because the lives affected the greatest are in the same communities that Hip Hop most represents. In addition, the unchecked drug war is now devastating lives in white communities as well. But what makes this an even greater issue for the hip hop generation is the fact that it is The Issue of our time...

...Hip Hop is coming into political maturity and can work to change some of the realities that are reported so vividly in rap lyrics. It is so fascinating how music has always been a part of social action in the black community. During slavery, coded songs were used to take persons to freedom. In the civil rights movement, marchers sang songs like, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round." Now, there is an entire genre that is budding into full political awareness. How beautiful. And, it does not look like a mere "sideline donation" to me.

I'm sympathetic to where this guy's coming from, and all in favor of organizing against America's bonehead drug policies. But I'm not sold on this assumption that there exists a particular entity or tradition we can accurately label Hip-hop Activism. And I'm damn sure not sold on the assumptions drawn about it here, based mostly on the Russell Simmons Celebrity Be-In: "Hip Hop is coming into political maturity" ..is it really? "Now, there is an entire genre that is budding into full political awareness" ..is there? What does that even mean?

Today's Newsday profiles Clyde Valentin, a cool brother who accompanied the Cuban emcees up to my show on Saturday, and also runs the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, taking place here in New York for the rest of the week. I'm gonna do my best to catch some of it and I encourage y'all to do the same.

Of Hip-Hop, Doo-Rags and Free Expression

"...What we're doing here is reclaiming what is the truest, most ancient form of cultural expression. And that is the inherent magical combination of the audience and the storyteller," said Clyde Valentin, co-founder of the 3-year-old Hip-Hop Theater Festival, whose Manhattan run extends through Saturday at P.S. 122 Theater (First Avenue at Ninth Street) and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (236 E. Third St.). The collection of 30 performances includes instrumentation, rap, song and dance, performance poetry, plays, public dialogue on topical issues, some street theater moved indoors, B-boy choreography from a guy whose movement is based on primal instinct and bits of his more formal training.

Valentin has produced, marketed and, with the others who round out the festival's staff, provided context for the days' events. He is 31 and, on the second day of the festival, had a bandana draped around his head. He was weaned on hip-hop, he said, disavowed drugs when he was real young because his mother and father delivered the finest, up-close examples of why one should never touch the murderous stuff.

He left his native Brooklyn to study literature/rhetoric and sociology at Binghamton University, returning home to spend a few years publishing a magazine devoted to hip-hop thought. Somewhere along the line, his father died from AIDS. "My uncle and half of his friends, too," Valentin said.

That pain informs his work. And the broadest work of hip-hop cannot be constrained by those unfamiliar with what is at hip-hop's core, Valentin intimated. It is more than the gangland, sex-obsessed, name-calling stylings that keep a handful in the record business, raking in more money than they've rightly earned, and brings suburban kids, at the sight of idolized 50 Cent, to tears. He has been shot, stabbed, done some dirty-dealing, too, and bankrolls his rapper's account of that life.

"Rise up!" "Resist!" "Build." Those words are pasted across the poster advertising the current festival. Valentin hesitates to call it an underground endeavor. The lineup of its Unity Concert last night uptown at the Apollo was, after all, to feature The Roots, a politicized crew with enough notoriety to be recognized by one completely unqualified to claim hip-hop membership. One for whom the mere sight of a doo-rag elicits an adverse and visceral reaction, something akin to fear and loathing.

Valentin does not seize the chance to enumerate some in the wealth of wrongs inherent in the strain of hip-hop that so dominates the commercial markets. He will agree that it is, in part, angry and uninspiring, a bottomless rehashing of ghetto tales that never call upon people behaving badly to simply cut it out.

"This is an alternative but it's not a reaction to what exists. It's being proactive," Valentin said. "This space exists. That space exists. It's about creating more spaces like this."

I wouldn't agree that popular emcees with negative messages are getting "more money than they've rightly earned".. if people want to spend money on the art you created, you deserve to get that money. But anyway, I'm glad Clyde and his festival are getting some love.

In my previous posts that gave props to Russell Simmons for his recent protests against the Rockefeller drug laws, I've made a point to acknowledge the other folks who were fighting this fight long before Russell joined in, such as Drop the Rock and the Kunstler Fund. Well it turns out there is some tension between those groups and Russell's people, disagreement over who should speak for this movement and what path it should take, according to the Village Voice:

Movement Hijacked by Hiphop?

...There is a sense that the momentum gained by ties to the hiphop community has eclipsed the activists who were the movement's catalysts. More importantly, activists are worried that lawmakers will just offer the new negotiators the same compromise deals that have been rejected in the past. The assembly has already presented the same legislation offered last year; Gangi called it old wine in a new bottle.

"I think that there is a concern," said Gangi, "that out of this momentum could come a 'deal' or 'compromise' that is very limited and that would be worse than no deal at all; that the governor and the legislative leaders will use the cover of Simmons's intervention to come up with a half-baked compromise that doesn't really advance the cause."

Simmons says that he is not alone in the negotiations, and progress is being made: "Deborah Small is doing negotiation. She's been working on this for many years. She's committed to closing. I'm committed to closing. We have a draft of something that we are going to circulate from the governor," said Simmons. "A lot of people are calling it a jailbreak or saying what they want to say about it, and there are other people who are saying that it's too much of a compromise, but I'm a deal maker and I want to make a deal."

But it is just this rush on Simmons's part to make a deal that has activists fearful. "There's a mixed message out there," said Credico. "Someone says that he'll take any deal. He's a deal maker. Well, you got to talk to the people you are making that deal for."

Simmons reacted strongly to the tensions that have arisen since the rally. "I've heard a lot about that. I don't give a f**k about them. All I care is that I appreciate their hard work and they are the true heroes," said Simmons. "I love Randy Credico's work. He's been excellent. But to criticize somebody for coming and adding to your effort, creating awareness of your effort— I'm not saying he's done that, but anybody who does that is missing the point. I don't give a f**k. I want to get people out of jail. That's my only objective. Get people out of jail and make the laws more fair..."

This profile from Toronto has a rather annoying headline but gets a little better from there, fleshing out the sordid details of J-Lo's hijack of "Hi-Jack".

People probably think they are joking about that "polish jazz" thing, but DJ Spinna has told me several times about his pursuits of polish jazz, it seems to be a goldmine of undiscovered beatmaking material.

HIPHOP'S ULTIMATE PARTY ANIMALS DELIVER THE FUNKY BEATS THAT KEEP HEADS NODDIN' AND RIDES ROCKIN'

..."The stuff we do ain't for everybody. If you want to hear some socially conscious joints, pick up a record by Dead Prez, Common or the Roots. But if you wanna wild out with some funky beats, then you need to come to us."

The Track Masters writing/production team appears to be making a career of doing just that. Back in 97, when Will Smith's Men In Black theme needed to be funked up, they sampled the same Patrice Rushen jazzy disco tune, Forget Me Nots, that the Beatnuts flipped for their righteously raunchy Give Me Tha Ass, released just a few months before.

A coincidence? Perhaps.

But then came Jenny From The Block. The chart-topper the Track Masters produced for Jennifer Lopez was built around a catchy flute loop and beat structure strangely similar to that used by the Beatnuts for Watch Out Now. Yet the Beatnuts aren't credited as writers or arrangers on Lopez's This Is Me... Then album...

...The sample at the centre of the controversy is taken from the song Hi-Jack, originally recorded by the 70s jazz-rock group Barrabas and popularized by Herbie Mann. So some have argued that since anyone could've grabbed a copy of Herbie Mann's HiJack and chopped it, the Beatnuts have no beef.

Only the Beatnuts didn't use the Herbie Mann version or even the Barrabas take. Psycho Les and JuJu take far too much pride in uncovering obscure breaks to use something as obvious as a Herbie Mann disco joint...

"...People like Q-Tip and some others have been saying we flipped the Herbie Mann track, but that shit we used wasn't Herbie Mann's Hi-Jack; it was some other jazzy Project 3 shit. If you listen to Herbie Mann's version you can barely even hear the flute part. It ain't even close.

"We'll have our lawyers sort this out, believe me..."

Note from the founder: Since it is hard for me to keep the site updated as often as I'd like, I've been scouring the earth for worthy guest bloggers who can help keep things flowing. Today I'm honored to introduce our first recruit, okayplayer.com's notorious iconoclast Kari Orr.

-jay smooth

---------------

Much has been said about Russell Simmons involvement in the repeal of the Rockefeller laws.

Some have suggested that his involvement borders on negligent leadership. If he doesn't do it right it could wreck the whole movement. He's using money, starpower, and hip hop to take over important activism. (what's really behind his reparations now?)

Others are glad to see that, despite not having a PE/Dead prez/Coup under his label, he's using the profits of drug war stories to combat mandatory sentencing. (I just through that in there, cause it's a claim folks used to use against the Hughes Bros, and Cormega used against Nas in Thun and Kicko)

Me?

I'm vex because people are hi-jacking hip hop in order to push their political causes.

To be accurate, Russ ain't really using hip hop, he's just using hip hop's name in vain.

There is this thing called, "hip hop activism". Yet you ask anyone to describe it, let alone describe it, and you find yourself listening to bootleg version of "Stupid White Men".

The politics of hip hop activism
- anti-capitalist
- pro-choice
- pro-education
- anti-war
- pro-labor
- anti prison-industrial complex
- meat is murder
- pro-affirmative action
- pro multi-culturalism
- pro-conspiracy/pseudoscience

et cetera. In essence, if you go to your local university's history and english departments, and look at what issues they are concerned with, you can pretty much be sure that's what "hip hop" activists are concerned with.

I see you getting heated...but lemme ask you dis

What do any of those things have to do with hip hop?

Do any of those platforms reflect the lyrics pumped out for the past 25+ years in hip hop? When you talk about hip hop that people really listen to, most of the time the issues are not addressed, or when addressed they go opposite of what hip hop activists want.

Do many of these ideas run with, or run against the values and beliefs held in the "community"?

What portion of that community? If you think C.Delores Tucker, Dionne Warwick, and Rev. Calvin Butts were right, maybe hip hop activism reflects their views.

I cram to understand where these people get off labeling hip hop this way.

Still, what bothers me more, is do our "activists" really listen to us? Or are they just deciding that they know best what we want, what we need, and what we have asked for?

It's very clear to me, on most issues, hip hop activists are neither N'sync with the art nor the audience.

But let's be clear on these particular facts?

How does hip hop feel about mandatory sentencing?

More specifically, how do NYC rappers, who for some reason which I don't understand represent the community at large, feel about mandatory sentencing in drug cases?

You having a hard time coming up with something?

Me too.

I can think of one cat, but seeing that I don't think he counts cause only NagChampions bang his record, I dare not mention his name.

Plenty of mc's talk about
- catching a case
- dodging a case
- people that snitch and get lighter sentences
- how much time they're facing if they get caught/convicted
- crooked judges and prosecutors
- crooked lawyers

At the end of the day, you can describe the "hustle" raps as either endorsements for that lifestyle or cautionary tales.

But you can't make the argument that NYC Hip Hop wants to end mandatory sentencing.

So I'm just troubled by this whole turn of events.

-k. orr

As this goes to show, the only thing worse than rocking a tired cliche in your rhymes is rocking it and then acting it out too. He must be damn embarrassed that he left such a corny rhyme around to be discovered.. like getting in an accident and while you're in the ambulance you realize you're not wearing clean drawers.

THUG FACES COP-SHOOT 'RAP'

A man accused of shooting a rookie cop at point-blank range after writing a rap lyric about wanting "to shoot a cop" went on trial for attempted murder in Brooklyn yesterday.

Trevor Johnson, 26, fled when police raided his East Flatbush chop shop in April 2002, but returned with a gun and fired seven shots at Officer Michael Kreiman, Assistant DA Edward Boyar told jurors.

One bullet pierced Kreiman's abdomen, but he survived.

After Johnson was nabbed, a search of stolen cars he allegedly was cutting up yielded a notebook containing a rap verse about "popping shots and shooting cops," Boyar said.

Defense lawyer Gregory Watts told jurors that Johnson's prints were not found in the notebook.

If the next line of that rhyme contained "glock", "on the block", and/or "selling rocks", he should get life without parole.

KRS is always such an entertaining read, there's really nothing for me to add here:

Angry At 'Devious' Record Label, KRS-One Halts Sales Of New LP

"...This is insane, this is insane, this is so egregious, this is so devious," KRS-One fumed on Monday, angry at Koch Records' plan to release an album by him called Kristyles. The Bronx battle king, alleging that the record Koch was putting out not only did a disservice to him as an artist and a businessman, but that it was an affront to hip-hop culture as a whole, won a court injunction on Monday to stop its release.

"They don't have the full album," KRS explained. "They have stuff that I wasn't even putting on the album. I have no idea what's on the album [Koch put together]. I don't know what the artwork looks like, I don't know what the album credits look like, I don't know nothing. What they did was go behind my back and release the album. I got word just in the nick of time last week. I got my legal team together and we slapped them with a court order to cease the distribution and the pressing and manufacturing of this album..."

...KRS-One said he's still working on his album, which he plans on calling The Kristyle, and trying to secure appearances from Dirt McGirt and Wesley Snipes. But ODB and Snipes aren't the only things missing from the version Koch has assembled; the disc also lacks KRS' tribute to Jam Master Jay.

"Do they care about the death of Jam Master Jay?" he continued. "Oh, you mean to tell me that the fake album you're putting out right now, you omitted KRS-One's tribute to Jam Master Jay? Oh no, no, no. That's ridiculous. That's wack. This is a problem. This ain't about no money, this ain't about me not selling a record, this is about principle. We cannot allow these record companies to dictate to us how we are going to present hip-hop to the world."

KRS-One also said he's upset about Koch's naming the disc Kristyles rather than The Kristyle, which he explained is an acronym for "To have everything, keep radiating in spirit through your love everyday..."

Herbie Mann, Jazz Musician, Is Dead at 73

erbie Mann, who helped to popularize the flute as a jazz instrument and to introduce the music of other cultures into the mainstream of American jazz, died late Monday at his cabin in Pecos, N.M., near Santa Fe, where he lived. He was 73. .

The cause was prostate cancer, his family announced.

Mr. Mann's first instrument was clarinet, and when he began his career he was primarily a tenor saxophonist. But by the late 1950's he was concentrating on flute, a choice almost unheard of for a jazz musician at the time.

Within a decade, the flute had become far more common in jazz, although then as now it was usually a second or third instrument for saxophonists. Much of the credit for its higher profile belonged to Mr. Mann, who by then had achieved a degree of popularity extending well beyond the confines of the jazz world, largely because of his willingness to look beyond that world for inspiration.

In 1962, he became one of the first American jazz artists to embrace Brazilian music and work with Brazilian musicians, recording an album in Brazil with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and others. He later incorporated elements of African, Japanese and Middle Eastern music into his repertory.

American blues and soul were also part of the mix. His live recording of "Comin' Home Baby," an up-tempo blues with an infectious dance beat, was a hit in 1962. Later in the decade he expanded his audience with albums like "Memphis Underground," on which his working group was supplemented by Southern session musicians and the repertory had a contemporary rhythm-and-blues flavor.

The critics, for the most part, were not impressed. "To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G," he said in an interview with United Press International last year. "I was too successful. I made too much money. Alternate fringe audiences liked me too much, so obviously that can't be important."

In the 1970's Mr. Mann put even more distance between himself and the jazz purists with albums whose titles — "Reggae," "Discothèque," "London Underground" — were often self-explanatory. He had two singles in Billboard magazine's Top 40, "Hijack" in 1975 and "Superman" in 1979.

Mr. Mann had recently been devoting more time to playing the Brazilian jazz and bebop that formed the core of his repertory early in his career. But while he acknowledged that he had sometimes been guilty of "accommodating the market," he never entirely disavowed his more commercial work. "I made disco records," he said. "Some of them I liked, some of them I hated."

Born Herbert Jay Solomon on April 16, 1930, in Brooklyn, Mr. Mann had his first clarinet lesson at 9, soon mastered saxophone and flute, and began performing while stationed in Italy with the United States Army in the early 50's. After being discharged in 1953, he worked with the Dutch jazz accordionist Matt Mathews and the arranger Pete Rugolo before going out on his own, first as a freelance soloist and then, in 1959, as the leader of his own group, the Afro-Jazz Sextet.

Mr. Mann toured extensively in the 60's, traveling to Africa under the auspices of the State Department as well as to Japan, Europe and Latin America.

After recording for Savoy, Verve and other labels, he began a long association with Atlantic Records in 1960, and a decade later he undertook a second career as a record producer and executive for the short-lived Atlantic subsidiary Embryo. In the early 1980's, after leaving Atlantic, he started his own label, Herbie Mann Music. He later briefly ran another label, Kokopelli.

Mr. Mann was an astute talent scout. Over the years he hired a number of young musicians who later became stars, among them the pianist Chick Corea and the vibraphonist Roy Ayers.

He is survived by his wife, Susan Janeal Arison; a son, Geoffrey, who played drums in his band, Sona Terra; another son, Paul; two daughters, Claudia Mann-Basler and Laura Mann; his mother, Ruth Solomon; and his sister, Judy Bernstein.

After four decades of multicultural exploration, Mr. Mann finally got around to the music of his own people in 2000 when he recorded "Eastern European Roots," an album of traditional songs and new compositions evoking his Jewish heritage.

"I wanted this to be my musical statement above all the rest," he said last year. "I love `Memphis Underground.' I loved the Brazilian music I played. But this is finally me. For the first time I think it's really me."

I hope I won't have to post too many of these in a row.

R&B Legend Barry White Dies

Barry White, the legendary R&B singer whose smooth, deep baritone set the standard for romantic crooners for years to come, died Friday after a lengthy battle with numerous health problems. He was 58.

White passed away at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Friday morning, according to a spokesperson for the late singer. White suffered kidney failure last fall and had a stroke in May. He had been waiting for his health to improve in hopes of undergoing a kidney transplant.

"His generous nature, courtly manners and timeless music made him the most giving and sought-after human being I’ve ever known," White's longtime manager, Ned Shankman, said.

White's voice — at once booming and tender — seemed an extension of his imposing presence. The singer's large frame seemed matched only by his charisma and his talent. His career spanned more than three decades, but he is perhaps best known as the velvet voice behind such classics as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" and "You're the First, the Last, My Everything."

White's first foray into music came at age 16 when he recorded the song "Little Girl" with the group the Upfronts. He later worked as an A&R rep (with the 5th Dimension and the Bobby Fuller Four) and as a producer (putting together Love Unlimited). Soon White began working on demos of his own, which eventually yielded his first album, 1973's I've Got So Much to Give.

White then joined forces with Love Unlimited, rechristened it the Love Unlimited Orchestra, and began to churn out a string of hits that made him one of the most successful R&B artists of the '70s. Songs like "It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me," "You See the Trouble With Me," "I'll Do for You Anything You Want Me To" and "Love Serenade" established White and Love Unlimited as the music of choice for many a romantic evening through the disco era.

The '80s brought a handful of less successful albums and eventually a hiatus for White. However, he re-emerged in the '90s with the albums The Man Is Back, The Right Night & Barry White and Put Me in Your Mix. Despite his early success, White would not win his first Grammy Award until 2000, for his album Staying Power.

White was preparing a "duets" album for release on Def Soul later this year.

White is survived by eight children: La nece, Deniece, Nina, Shehera, Barriana , Barry Jr., Darrell, and his stepson, McKevin. He is also survived by his companion (and the mother of Barriana), Catherine Denton.

One of the reasons it's hard for me to keep this blog updated everyday is that there's very little published music criticism I find worth reading. Nine times out of ten, when someone gets paid to intellectualize about music, it's very hard for me to make it past the first paragraph without my eyes glazing over.

Like this Rolling Stone piece about Eminem by Kelefa Sanneh, I'm sure it's interesting enough but I just can't bring myself to trudge through it, there doesn't seem to be any point.

So I'm always delighted to find a piece like this one from the New Yorker, which was truly a pleasure to read, and never lost me as it jumped through a wide variety of topics. Coincidentally this guy's main focus is pop music scholarship itself, and he captures pretty well why I find most of it irrelevant, while proving by example that all of it need not be so:

ROCK 101: Academia tunes in

Duke Ellington once had to field a barrage of questions from an Icelandic music student who was determined to penetrate to the heart of the genius of jazz. At one point, Ellington was asked whether he ever felt an affinity for the music of Bach, and, before answering, he made a show of unwrapping a pork chop that he had stowed in his pocket. “Bach and myself,” he said, taking a bite from the chop, “both write with individual performers in mind.” Richard O. Boyer captured the moment in a Profile entitled “The Hot Bach,” which appeared in this magazine in 1944. You can sense in that exquisitely timed pork-chop maneuver Ellington’s bemused response to the European notions of genius that were constantly being foisted on him. He said on another occasion, “To attempt to elevate the status of the jazz musician by forcing the level of his best work into comparisons with classical music is to deny him his rightful share of originality.” Jazz was a new language, and the critic would have to respond to it with a new poetry of praise.

Now Ellington is himself a classic, the subject of painstaking analytical studies. He occupies a Bachian position in an emergent popular pantheon, which is certain to look different from the marble-faced, bewigged classical pantheons that preceded it. The very idea of a canon of geniuses may be falling by the wayside; it makes more sense to talk about the flickering brilliance of a group, a place, or a people. In the future, it seems, everyone will be a genius for fifteen minutes. The past decade has seen the rise of pop-music studies, which is dedicated to the idea that Ellington, Hank Williams, and the Velvet Underground were created equal and deserve the same sort of scholarly scrutiny that used to be bestowed only on Bach and sons. Pop-music courses draw crowds of students on college campuses, and academic presses are putting out such portentous titles as “Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience,” “Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture,” and “Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music.”

Pop-music professors, especially those who specialize in rock, are caught in an obvious paradox, which their students probably point out to them on the first day of class. Namely, it’s not very rock and roll to intellectualize rock and roll. When Pink Floyd sang, “We don’t need no education,” they could not have foreseen the advent of research projects with titles like “Another Book in the Wall?: A Cultural History of Pink Floyd’s Stage Performance and the Rise of Audiovisual Gesamtkunstwerk, 1965-1994.” (That comes from Finland.) Ever since Ellington, Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton struck up the soundtrack to the bawdy, boozy twenties, popular music has been the high-speed vehicle for youth rebellion, sexual liberation, and chemical experimentation, none of which yield willingly to the academic mind. The pop scholar is forever doomed to sounding like the square kid at the cool kids’ party, killing their buzz with sentences like this: “From the start, hip-hop’s samples ran the gamut of genres, defying anyone who would delimit hip-hop’s palette.”

Then again, maybe it’s not a problem that so much pop-music scholarship sounds conspicuously uncool. For decades, jazz rhapsodists and rock poets were so intent on projecting attitude that they never got around to saying much about the music itself. The pioneering rock critics of the sixties, such as Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, wanted to mimic the music in their prose, and they had enough style to pull it off. Bangs, whose writings have been collected in a new anthology from Anchor Books, lived the life of a rock star, or at least died the death of one. But his writings are a better guide to the mentality of smart people who went to rock shows in the sixties and seventies than they are a reliable record of music and musicians. Discussing the Rolling Stones in 1974, Bangs wrote, “If you think I’m going to review the new ‘It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll’ album right now, you are crazy. But I am going to swim in it.” Between prose poetry and academic cant there has to be a middle ground, and pop-music studies is searching it out...

At some point in the next week, this man will turn to his family and ask "So you mean it's 2003? And people are still listening to that 'rap music??'"

Man wakes after 19 years in coma

Accident victim stuck in 1984; believes Reagan still president

The words began tumbling out — at first just a few nouns and eventually a torrent of phrases. Terry Wallis, who had been in a coma since a 1984 car accident, regained consciousness last month to the surprise of doctors and the delight of his family, including his mother, who heard his first word in 19 years...

In another sign that American journalistic standards are plummeting, the LA Times yesterday cited our site, hiphopmusic.com, as a credible source of hip-hop opinion:

'Bling-bling' in the Oxford dictionary? That's phat

Imagine the lofty air of expectation for the next edition of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary — an unprecedented revision is underway that, finally, authoritatively, is expected to nail down those vexing questions of lexicology. To wit: What is the etymology of "bling-bling"?

The editors are drafting a possible entry for the hip-hop slang, which usually refers to diamonds or other flashy jewelry that clinks together, said Jesse Sheidlower, principal North American editor of the dictionary.

Sheidlower is exasperated these days by news reports that have jumped the gun, such as MTV.com's headline saying that "bling-bling" had already made it into the Oxford dictionary, the definitive chronicler of the English language. "I expect that 'bling-bling' will be entered at some point," Sheidlower said...

...In hip-hop circles, such a mainstream nod can be a turnoff. On hiphopmusic.com's online forum, one fan complained that the Oxford English Dictionary would be co-opting "bling-bling" as "... yet another black colloquialism is blanched and neutered to make the white establishment seem 'more relevant, smarter and cooler.' "

Proper credit should go to Nakachi, whose reply to my post was the source of their quote.

You've gotta love anyone who can find common threads in Gangstarr, Harry Potter and Finding Nemo, and then bundle them all together as ammunition against Bush.

Rapper's tip: World's scary, so teach your children hell

For 14 years, Guru has been one of hip-hop's most respected ''conscious'' rappers, and in the spoken introduction to The Ownerz, the new CD by his group Gang Starr, he expresses the anxieties of many parents -- particularly those caught up in the oh-so-ironic post-9/11 baby boom. He speaks for those of us who had the brilliant idea, ''The world's going to hell in a hand-basket; hey, let's bring some more innocent lives into it!'' and now smack our heads and wonder, ``My God, what have we done?''

How do you raise kids in a world where death and destruction continually preempt their favorite pastime? Where schools value testing over teaching? Where neighbors are not to be trusted and, in fact, should be reported to the nearest FBI hotline? Where in family after family, attention deficit disorder trumps unconditional love?

Easy: Teach your children hell...

Oh, this is excellent. I'll never pass up an opportunity to revel in Suge Knight's defeat. Few in this industry are more deserving of failure than Suge. And he's been slouching toward irrelevance for a few years now, I'm surprised it took people this long to notice.

Suge's rebuilding hampered by arrests - Mogul having trouble returning Death Row to glory

California (AP) -- When rap pioneer Marion "Suge" Knight was released from prison two years ago, he vowed to return Death Row Records to the top of the charts.

At the time, he told The Associated Press that it was "time for great records."

It hasn't happened. Aside from two albums of old Tupac Shakur material, Death Row has produced next to nothing. And for the second time this year Knight was behind bars, awaiting a hearing on a suspected parole violation.

Some wonder if Knight -- who helped muscle rap into the mainstream a decade ago with superstars such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and later Shakur -- is still a force in the music industry.

"He has to prove himself all over again," said Erik Parker, music editor of Vibe magazine. "As time slips by, people care less. There's no production, no real hits..."

An interesting take on sports writers' attempts to judge the "street credibility" of NBA stars:

Learning the nuances of street cred takes time

Whenever a tide of hip-hop terminology begins to flow from the mouths of people who have no connection with the culture, it can either be a blessing or a curse - a blessing in that a certain level of acceptance has been reached and a curse in that the term is now subject to be used out of context.

All of which brings me to the case of the term, "street cred" (credibility).

Personally, I can count the number of times I've ever used this term on one hand, yet for the past two weeks it's been all over the sports media.

I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's beginning to get its fair share of overuse...

And thus Rakim joins the club of high profile Dr. Dre signings (Eve, Last Emperor, King T, who else?) who wound up languishing on the shelf for years, and finally dropped with nothing whatsoever to show for their time.

Disappointing but not surprising, after seeing the project drag on for so long. At least he and Dre actually spent time in the studio and made an attempt, which is more than can be said for some previous casualties. When I went to Gangstarr's listening party at the now defunct D&D studios, Premier mentioned that Rakim was asking him to come over to Cali and help with the album, because Aftermath didn't know how provide the proper sound for him.

Rakim Leaves Aftermath Entertainment

Legendary rapper Rakim has split with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment record label, due to what Rakim's management deemed "creative differences."

"Rakim and Aftermath have mutually decided to part ways," Rakim's manager Zach Katz told AllHipHop.com. "Rakim is presently in talks with three powerhouse record companies."

Recently at the BET Awards, Rakim presented with Baby from Cash Money Records and boasted that his album would be in stores by the end of the summer on Aftermath.

MTV reported last week that Dre and Rakim had finished 16 songs and were working to finish seven more, before picking a single to release.

"He can bring the best out of me, and I want to make sure that I bring the best out of him," Rakim told MTV of Dre. "He goes in the studio from 3 [p.m. and] goes home 6, 7, 8 in the morning, so to me, that's all right. My man wants to work, so let's get it poppin'."

The legendary rapper had been signed to Aftermath for almost three years and fans have been anticipating the release of Oh My God, despite the constant delays.

Ok, now somebody hurry up and get these outtakes on MP3.

I'm sure most of you saw this already, but it is just too delicious not to savor.. cops offering a formal apology to the author of "f**k Tha Police":

Police sorry after rapper alert

Chicago's police department has apologised to rapper Ice Cube after it said a man suspected of a number of sexual assaults bore a resemblance to the hip-hop star.

Police issued a warning to the public on Sunday as they searched for a man who allegedly attacked three women in the Wicker Park area of the city.

Local television station WBBM-TV then broadcast one of the rapper's videos alongside a report of the story during an evening news programme.

The police alert said the man they were searching for "resembles the popular rap artist Ice Cube".

Cast members working alongside the performer on the film Barbershop 2 saw the news story and video on the channel.

"This is an unfortunate and hurtful situation for Ice Cube," said his spokesman, Matt Labov.

"That his good name ever came up in association with the events currently taking place in Chicago's Wicker Park area is damaging to Ice Cube as a father, husband and artist," he added.

Mr Labov said the TV station had also apologised to the rapper.

A spokeswoman for the channel admitted they had used the video, based on the police alert.

"Our information was taken directly from the Chicago Police Department community alert," said Elizabeth Shapiro.

The warning was later reissued by police with no reference to Ice Cube.

"We took immediate corrective action," said police spokesman David Bayless.

"We apologise to Ice Cube for what was an honest mistake and came with no ill-intent," he said.

Last week we had a star studded affair on the radio show, with dozens of luminaries passing through, in town for the Rocksteady Crew anniversary festivities.

The All Natural/Family Tree crew dropped some verses and schooled us on the hip-hop scenes in Chicago and Gary Indiana. Then towards the end of the show, a man walked in looking very intense, marched into the studio, ripped his shirt off and started dong pushups in front of the microphones.

I was almost afraid to see what would happen when we turned the mics on, but this mysterious strnager, who turned out to be C Rayz Walz, then delivered one of the sharpest interviews and tightest freestyles we've had on the show this year. Here are some excerpts (the other voice on there is G Man):

C Rayz Interview
C Rayz Freestyle
Photo of C Rayz on the mic

Those of you in NY can catch C Rayz at the Union Square Virgin Megastore tonight at 6PM, and everybody else should seek out his new album, released on Def Jux this week.

Note: when I saw "seek" I don't mean soulseek!

1. Why isn't Invincible of the Anomolies ever mentioned in these articles?

2. "she actually sounds a bit like one-time Jay-Z protege Amil" ..was that meant to make her sound more credible?

3. Does Princess Superstar mean to suggest, with her comments, that she herself should be considered a serious emcee and not a novelty act?

4. I downloaded Sarai's song this afternoon. It was poor. She might be marginally acceptable given better producers, who didn't burden her with this bubblegum pop sound. But her name ought never be uttered in the same sentence with Mr. Mathers.

Can Sarai become ‘Feminem’?

20-year-old hopes to become 1st white female rap star

Eminem has disproved the notion that white boys can’t rap. White girls, on the other hand, have had almost zero impact on the genre in its 30-year history.

Remember Tairrie B? Probably not. Wait, there’s ... hmmmm. Actually, the most influential white woman in rap history may be punk princess Deborah Harry, whose rhymes in the 1980 hit “Rapture” helped take rap mainstream.

But now a new face, Sarai, is raising hopes that there might be someone new - a Feminem - to go where none have gone before.

"Eminem has definitely opened people’s minds, that there could be a white artist actually mastering the skill," says Sarai (rhymes with "goodbye"), a 20-year-old, blue-eyed blonde from Kingston, N.Y., about two hours north of the city where rap was born...

This Sunday August 10th the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement will hold its 6th annual Black August concert here in NY:

Black August: A celebration of Hip Hop and our Freedom Fighters is a project of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which strives to support the global development of Hip Hop culture by facilitating exchanges between international communities where Hip Hop is a vital part of youth culture, and by promoting awareness about the social and political issues that affect these youth communities. Our goal is to bring culture and politics together and to allow them to naturally evolve into a unique Hip Hop consciousness that informs our collective struggle for a more just, equitable and human world.

Since August of 1998, Black August has had benefit concerts in (1998) New York City at Tramp's, (1999) the Bowery Ballroom, (2000) the New Age Cabaret, (2001 and 2002) Synod Hall, and three shows at Cuba's National Rap Festival and five shows in South Africa, including a show at the United Nations World Conference on Racism in Durban. All Black August concerts in New York, South Africa and Cuba have been sold out. In New York, Black August has featured artists such as, Common, dead prez, Black Star, Fat Joe, the Roots, Les Nubians and Gil Scott-Heron. In Cuba, Black August artists included Black Star, Common, dead prez and Tony Touch and in South Africa, Black August shows included dead prez, Talib Kweli, Black Thought, Jeru and the Coup. The international shows were electric and, the responses, euphoric. In addition to the shows, MXGM has had political education workshops with the participating artists. The benefit concerts coupled with the political education workshops have made Black August an unforgettable experience for participants, which has increased the political commitment and dedication of Black August artists and activists to radical change.

The 6th Annual Black August Benefit Concert (2003) will be taking on more human rights issues, while continuing to organize cultural activists and artist to bring about global change and solidarity. Black August will highlight political prisoners in the Americas, discussing how activists have been jailed because of their political activities to end racial and economic oppression.

If you tune into WBAI right now, you can hear more info on Black August from Rise Up Radio, our stations weekly program for and by youth activists.

There also may be an artist or two from the concert appearing on our show this week, but one never knows what will happen on a Saturday night.

For a while now we've been expressing misgivings about Russell Simmons' efforts to position himself as a leader and political power broker for the black community and the Hip-Hop nation. His assumption of prominent role in the movement to repeal/reform the Rockefeller drug laws has aroused similar concerns for many in the activist community, and Amadi Ajamu's piece at allhiphop.com does the best job yet of summing up why:

Russell Simmons: Def Sham?

The emergence of Hip Hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons as an establishment-endorsed political leader of the new generation of Blacks gives me pause. Being a member of this new generation, I think this should be put on the table for discussion.

Why have mainstream media's political pundits given Russell Simmons an open mic? He's a guest on Charlie Rose; he's become a constant feature in the New York Times, Newsweek Magazine and many other newspapers and magazine across the country. Hailed as among the one hundred most influential African Americans by Crain Magazine, can helicopter to Albany for private meetings with New York Governor George Pataki on the Rockefeller drug laws. He has organized fundraisers for senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, works closely with former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, teams up with democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton to register new voters, and dines with Shimon Peres, Israel's former Prime Minister discussing a possible Middle East youth summit.

Either the king makers have peeped Simmons' ability to use his influence over urban youth as leverage in his business and political ventures and they want to control him, or the severity of the US economic recession deems it time to send in the clowns...

I thought this bit was particularly interesting:

...Simmons also launched a special "reparations" sneaker brand in his clothing line. Advertisements for it have proclaimed that a percentage of the proceeds from the sneakers would be donated to the reparations efforts. When a youth organization working on reparations issues contacted sales executives at Phat Farm about donations, they were told that a larger percentage of the proceeds were applied to advertising the sneakers so that the idea of reparations is being exposed. This maneuver is the extent of company's contribution to the struggle for slavery reparations...

This year's nominees for the Shortlist Music Prize have been announced, and you can see the complete list here, along with which hipster luminary selected each nominee.

Most of these picks are mighty hip indeed, but there are a few headscratchers in there too. Like, what's up with Source Editor-in-Chief Kim Osorio choosing the Dip Set's emphatically nondescript "Diplomatic Immunity" album? I respect her efforts to buck the more-indie-than-thou vibe of these awards, but surely she could have picked a more interesting record from Hot 97's playlist to foment this rebellion. Although I suppose we should just be glad she didn't throw Benzino in there.

But the real shocker here is ?uestlove's selection of the already much hyped and widely reviled Northern State record. ?uestlove had invited the regulars at his website, okayplayer.com, to help him pick his selections for this year, and got over 500 responses (only one of which suggested Northern State, and did so sarcastically).
Not surprisingly, those regulars are now unanimously aghast at this choice.

Personally I don't hate these Beastie Girls as much as most heads seem to. If it wasn't for the noxious hoopla that surrounds them I might enjoy this gang as harmless lighthearted fun, which is all they probably aspire to. They don't seem to take themselves too seriously as far as I've seen, don't pretend to be anything they're not.

Unfortunately their hype machine is asking us to take them much more seriously than they take themselves, and is presenting them as many things they're not. So although I don't hate the Northern State girls themselves, I am quickly growing to hate the Northern State Phenomenon. And that's why I'm puzzled that ?uestlove would take this award, meant to shed light on groundbreaking artists who haven't yet received the attention and acclaim they deserve, and use it to trumpet such a lightweight act that's already getting far more hype than they need (for their own sake).

I recommend keeping an eye on okayplayer, things should get interesting when ?uestlove surfaces to confront this angry mob.

Fox News has decided to sue Al Franken, claiming they have exclusive rights to the phrase "Fair and Balanced". I am unable to muster a sufficiently sarcastic remark to accompany that first sentence. It may not be possible in the English language.

But I will join in with Atrios and the many others who are changing their blog's title in honor of this dumbassery.

Greetings Earth people. I have recently returned from an splendid vacation in Vancouver, hence the lack of bloggery here. I suppose I should have posted some notice about that beforehand, huh? My bad. But we will get things rolling again shortly.

And speaking of comebacks, you'll never guess who i ran into on the street this weekend: A Butta of NY's legendary underground crew Natural Elements (who got their start on our radio show, back when founding member Mr. Voodoo was our intern). He told me Voodoo (who now goes by his real name Agu), L Swift and himself are each working on solo material these days, as well as working on new tracks together. Hopefully we'll be getting our hands on this stuff soon.. you'll be the first to know.

And speaking of speaking of comebacks, Kim Jong Il just started posting in his blog again!

Speaking of Vancouver, here's a profile of an up-and-coming emcee who originates from there, now based in Toronto. Can any of you Canadian folk give us the scoop on this young lady? I guess if she's down with Eternia she can't be too bad.

Not your usual rapper chick

Masia-One gives western 'burbs a voice

"You know, you're the first reporter who didn't ask `what's it like to be Asian and female' as the first question," says Toronto-based Masia-One. "Because really, I've already got that answer down pat." She should, considering she's been both for the past 24 years, but when you're likely the only small, female Asian rapper freestyling with the boys on one of the many mic nights around town, it's pretty easy to draw attention.

But the independent artist is strictly business and she's ready for her close-up. Her independent debut album, Mississauga, has started to make the rounds of local record shops and she's ferociously gigging, last weekend in Ottawa, at T.O.'s Dundas Square as part of Style In Progress last Thursday and on Saturday night at a female showcase at Clinton's. This Thursday she's the headliner at Reillys, where's she's holding her CD release party.

Although she's really a British Columbia native (née Masia Lim), she decided to name her album after the west 905 suburb because that's where the majority of her collaborators — producers and musicians — were located.

"I think it needs a better transit system, because that's how I was getting around up there," she laughs. But she wants to help shed a light on the several sick beat makers that live in the 'burbs. "With hip-hop kids always wanting to represent their area — so with Scarborough, 'cause it's more hardcore and gangster — but there's so many amazing musicians and producers coming out of Mississauga that have their own home studios and get no recognition because everyone associates some suburbs with nerdy, white picket fences. But a lot of brilliant music is coming out of there."

She has moved from Vancouver to study architecture at University of Toronto, and has been listening to the music since she was 9. She started writing in her teens but kept it to herself. Two and half years ago, she performed at a showcase called I Used To Love H.E.R. (after the Common track) that was put on by her then-roommate (and now co-manager) when someone dropped out. She took the spot to conquer her stage fright. From that single performance she snagged a commercial for MuchVibe and from there she's been rolling...

?uestlove has finally resurfaced to explain his baffling nomination of Northern State for the Shortlist Awards.

It seems this was a mixup between Questo and the awards people, and he hadn't intended for the terminally overhyped lite-rap trio to be his final pick, but he never got to send in his real choices because his computer got hit by the virus that was going around a few weeks ago. Fair enough. my faith in the order of the universe is restored.

And I'm still trying really hard not to hate Northen State. I swear if I had never read any of their interviews or seen any of their press coverage I would enjoy their stuff for the harmless fun that it is. It's only how seriously they are being taken that makes me want to throw dead animals at them.

It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was marginally tolerable as a grade b movie actor, but being asked to take him seriously as a candidate for governor renders him insufferable.

Our friend Peter Scholtes at complicatedfun.com just published an excellent oral history of Minneapolis' legendary First Avenue club, with quotes from Jimmy Jam, ?uestlove, Slug, and many others. A must-read for all us Prince fans, and good reading for non-believers as well:

The legendary bands. The terrifying toilets.

An oral history that goes so far behind the music it will leave you at a gun range beneath the stage.

If there's a spiritual equivalent to lust--and Prince knows there must be--I've felt it for First Avenue ever since I first set foot there. That was 1990, so my feelings don't have much to do with Purple Rain, the Minneapolis nightclub's only real claim on the national imagination. But look at the crowd shots in that 1984 movie and you'll see a social mixture that really did exist at First Avenue. The movie mythologized something true about the Minneapolis that Prince helped create. But it didn't tell an even better story: how a bunch of ambitious black teenagers and crazed punk rockers saved live music here, and helped reinvent rock 'n' roll worldwide.

Prince and the new wave were no further from each other than First Avenue and its adjoining room, the 7th St. Entry. The dance nights and live music in both venues reflected the uniquely cosmopolitan vision of the club's longtime manager, Steve McClellan.

Now, as First Avenue struggles amid club competition and real estate development, it seems like a good time to tell this story again--and let those who were there put things in their own words. The history of First Avenue is the story of segregation in downtown Minneapolis, of sex, cocaine, mud wrestlers, businessmen, gangsters, and idealists. It's your story, too, if you are among the millions of people who have passed through the venue's doors since it opened in 1970 as a hippie rock and soul club called the Depot, in the old Greyhound bus station...

David Rees (creator of Get Your War On) has a new book coming out, and in this essay he explains how it was largely inspired by his fascination with Hip-hop:

Behind the Scenes of "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable."

...Temp jobs are the ideal creative environment for me: I usually have few serious responsibilities, but enough busy work so that any time spent making comics on the sly feels like a great feat of creative rebellion. All the means of artistic production -- computer, internet clip art, laser printer, photocopier -- are within reach. I have to work quickly, printing comics as soon as I make them, in case someone else has to use the laser printer. The more limited the tools and resources, the more I have to strain my imagination to create amusing situations, and usually, the funnier the final product is.

At the temp job where I made "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable," I spent a lot of time perusing rap music websites. The limitless amount of new singles by new rappers is exhilarating. One of my favorite things about rap music is that many performers take on new identities while they're on the mic. Rappers rarely perform under their given name. Seeing a long list of new songs by new rappers is like seeing a long cast of characters for an exciting new play, without actually having to sit through the play. I spent more time reading rap reviews than listening to the songs.

Kool Keith is a great rapper. He has released albums under many different personalities. In cataloging esoterica about his multiple personalities, Kool Keith reminds me of the days in elementary school when my friend and I would fill sheets of paper with data about scores of imaginary characters: names, pictures of their faces, and major characteristics. We never went beyond these massive lists of characters. We never made up stories about them.

This is the data for one of Kool Keith's personalities:

"Mr. Gerbick; Age: 208; Birthplace: Jupiter; Likes: fishing, swimming; Dislikes: wolfmen, flossing; Quote: 'Skin like an alligator, carrying a dead walrus.'"

Another element of rap music that comes across in my book is the obsession with fighting, and the importance of technique. Most freestyle battle rhymes are explicitly about language. Growing up I loved hearing so many people rapping about rapping -- making songs about, while exhibiting, cleverness with language. Why is this genre so fascinating to me? It's almost like I don't want language to get beyond itself and actually talk about anything in the world -- I like keeping it wrapped up in itself. I think this is why I studied philosophy in college and got really into Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Staten Island's Wu-Tang Clan is a musical collective that appropriates the language and sound effects of martial arts movies into their lyrics and their beats. They exploit the analogy between fighting technique and lyrical technique very effectively. Some astute readers have picked up the Wu-Tang's influence on my book.

The greatest single influence on "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable," however, is Davey D's 1998 "KRS-One Will End Your Career", an analysis of then up-and-coming rapper Canibus's chances against the fabled Chris Parker, aka KRS-One. Canibus had made a name for himself as an excellent battle rhymer, one who took on popular favorite LL Cool J in one of the truly high-profile MC feuds to play big on commercial radio. Davey D's essay is filled with words of caution for the upstart Canibus, and confirms KRS-One's reputation as one of the greatest battle rhymers of all time:

"(KRS-One) pointed out that he was like a martial arts master and that he is always prepared. He noted that when he released "The Return of the Boom Bap' album in '94 that he put all rappers on notice. He said that anyone who came out after '94 were subject to having their careers end at any given moment. KRS claimed that when he hears a new artist come on the scene that he immediately writes a rhyme that will totally dismantle him and his career. He keeps those rhymes in the back of his head just in case he has to take some kid out..."

I think the character of Karate Snoopy in "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable" is based in part on KRS-One. Karate Snoopy seems capable of ending careers of other fighters "at any given moment." He seems very sure of himself, as do most good rappers.

Well it certainly bodes well for me if surfing hip-hop websites all day at your job is the path to stardom.

I'm glad to see somebody has some sense around here:

Artists Blast Record Companies Over Lawsuits Against Downloaders

Recording artists across the board think the music industry should find a way to work with the Internet instead of suing people who have downloaded music.

"They're protecting an archaic industry," said the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir. "They should turn their attention to new models."

"This is not rocket science," said David Draiman of Disturbed, a hard-rock band with a platinum debut album on the charts. "Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet."

After three consecutive years of double-digit sales losses, and having lost a court battle against file-sharing Web sites such as Kazaa and Morpheus, the Recording Industry Association of America -- the industry's lobbying arm -- trained its sights on ordinary fans who have downloaded music. On Monday, the RIAA filed suits against 261 civilians with more than 1,000 music files each on their computers, accusing them of copyright violations. The industry hopes the suits, which seek as much as $150,000 per violation, will deter computer users from engaging in what the record industry considers illegal file-swapping.

This unprecedented move brings home the industry's battle against Web downloads, which the record business blames for billion-dollar losses since the 1999 emergence of Napster, the South Bay startup the RIAA sued out of existence. The suits are expected to settle for as little as $3,000 each, but the news was greeted with derision by the very people the RIAA said they moved to protect, the musicians themselves.

"Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo."

"File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow," said genre-busting DJ Moby in a post on his Web site . "Record companies suing 12-year-old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse-and-buggy operators suing Henry Ford..."

What a splendid coincidence that this was published in USC's paper, the Daily Trojan:

Condom innovator incorporates hip-hop culture into designs

...Jimmie Hatz is the world's first line of condoms designed specifically to attract black and other minority youths by launching a product with a hip-hop theme.

The name Jimmie Hatz is a play on urban culture's slang for condoms. Rapper and hip-hop pioneer KRS-One popularized the term "jimmy hat," after releasing a song called "Jimmy" in 1988...

...Blacks accounted for 12 percent of the U.S. population in 2001 but represented more than half of all reported HIV cases that year, stated the 2001 national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report...

...By integrating hip-hop with safe sex, Common Ground USA said its mission is to mold condom use into part of urban culture and ultimately bring the statistics down.

Jimmie Hatz, the self-proclaimed "official condom of the hip-hop kulture," strives to make condom use cool again, Terrell said.

The condoms come in three basic styles: Rotweiller (the standard size), Mix Breed (with ridges and contours) and the Great Dane (an extra-large condom).

Wrappers are adorned with graffiti-style labeling and a fearless bulldog dressed in a beanie and hoop earring. His "ice" is a dangling gold condom...

You can check out this company's official website here, where we are informed that their flavored condoms are "tasty like a now and later."

When I read about this case elsewhere it was reported that these arrests were for marijuana possession, that detail seems to have been omitted here. But I am posting this mainly to point out that these folks accompanied their article with a picture of Tragedy taken by yours truly, which they took from here on my site without permission and used without credit. It's not polite to bite, people!

(This not to make light of the incident described, which was indeed unjust if the story is accurate)

Tragedy Khadafi Detained Following Arrest With Noreaga

Throughout his career, and for his upcoming fourth solo album titled Still Reportin..to be released 10-21-03 on 25 to Life Records/Solid Records/Caroline, rapper Tragedy Khadafi's message has always been about the plight of the underclass and its struggle against indifference. From "Arrest the President" in 1990 to his discovery and development of Capone N Norega for their debut gold selling album, The War Report, Tragedy Khadafi's underlying theme of struggle informs his work. Yet, last Wednesday evening on September 3, in a horrific and terrifying display of police abuse, Tragedy Khadafi's public message of struggle has become, once again, very personal.

On September 3, Tragedy Khadafi, along with Noreaga,and several other persons, were forcibly stopped, searched, and arrested by approximately 30 to 35 New York City Police Officers at gunpoint in downtown New York City, for simply driving a vehicle lawfully.

Tragedy Khadafi, along with others, were forced to stop the vehicle, threatened at gunpoint by numerous officers while still in the vehicle, forced to exit and shoved to the ground while approximately 30 to 35 guns were pointed at their heads amidst a barrage of threats by the officers.

The "pretext" for this horrific display of police power, was their alleged belief that the vehicle, or one of its passengers, had a gun, which of course, was not true. According to his attorney, Renata Lowenbraun, Tragedy Khadafi is evaluating whether a civil rights action will be filed on his behalf.

I thought nothing could ever top the time OJ Simpson compared himself to Moses and Jesus, but R Kelly has blessed us with an even loopier quote:

ME AND OSAMA

...In a recent interview with a US magazine, Kelly took the opportunity to claim he's been the subject of the sort of vilification normally reserved for the Globe's most hated individual.

He told Blender magazine: "People can say whatever they want about you without knowing the facts. They can criticize you without even knowing you and hate you when they don't even know you.

"All of a sudden, you're like the bin Laden of America. Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through..."

Yeah man, that poor Osama, why are people always judging him?

I just (finally) posted some new audio in the radio archive, 3D's latest set from last week's show. New music of the highest quality.

NY's hip-hop and youth activist communities are mourning today for the loss of Matthew Hall, shot in the back as he left a Zulu Nation meeting in Harlem. Though only 18 Matthew had already made a mark with his activism at Hunter College, and also emceeing under the name Optimus Rhyme, at local venues including End of the Weak. Here are further details from some who knew him:

For those who have not heard or seen today's Daily News, Matthew Hall, a student at Hunter College, brother, activist, member of the Universal Zulu Nation, was shot in the back Wednesday at 9pm, and passed away yesterday at 4:30pm at Harlem Hospital. Many may not know him by his legal name, but when you see the front cover of the daily news you will know that face, Matthew was involved in so many things, he was at every major rally, protest, always at meetings, and last year had put together an event at Hunter College, to expose students to the political nature of hip hop culture, Immortal Technique, the Welfare Poets and I were part of that event, it was such a success that he was going to continue to do more events at Hunter and was evolving into an amazing young revolutionary and activist. Matthew was also part of the Nu-Sense Collective a youth collective that has its roots at WBAI. I had the pleasure of seeing and chilling with Matthew last thursday night at Hunter College for one of the ACLU College Freedom tour stops. He was excited that we had chosen Hunter, and I said to him, it was his doing, in choosing colleges for the tour, Hunter was the natural choose as so many great activists come from their, and as usual he was there supporting, and seeing what more he could do.

In the last two years we have lost two great brothers in our generation, Rohan Wedderburn and now Matthew Hall, both shot violently. Let us not forget them or their contributions to our people.

***Hunter College Students are holding a vigil sometime next week.

-Rosa Clemente

----------------

yo... some sad shitty news...

word is that our homeboy Optimus Rhyme aka Matt was shot and has just passed away...

the man is our brother in struggle for justice and equality such as fighting against the war, right to palestnian state and against police brutality just to name a few...

Matt also kept it real for hiphop... hes down with the Guerrilla Words cause, EOW and Cajo.. Matt organized the Immortal Technique, Oktobre, LIFE Long and Welfare Poet show a couple of months ago in his school Hunter College..

i still can't believe homeboy is gone.. i was just asking him bout a j-live song yesterday and now word that hes gone... i was even bugging him to get a friendster account...

just shows us how we gotta cherish every moment..

we gotta continue the struggle for matt and all of our peoples that held the truth...

- Jose of Guerilla Words

And here is some press coverage of the tragedy, most of which thankfully avoids the typical "rap-related violence!" sensationalism:

NY Daily News

NY Times

New York Post - even the post is somewhat respectful, other than their vaguely paranoid assessment of the Zulu Nation.

We will pay tribute to Matthew tomorrow on our radio show, which will feature the EOW crew.

This week we are once again welcoming the EOW crew to the Underground Railroad, with a radio version of their already legendary open mic night. I'm putting up this MP3 as a taste of what you can expect from EOW tomorrow night, it's an exceypt from their last appearance when they brought along one of this year's most talked-about emcees, Immortal Technique.
Immortal Technique on the Underground Railroad, August 2003

According to an e-mail we received from activist and fellow WBAI producer Rosa Clemente, "Members of the hip hop group dead prez were assaulted and arrested by NYPD in Brooklyn today, Saturday September 27th, at approximately 3:30pm, while conducting a photo shoot in Crown heights." They were scheduled to be arraigned yesterday, we will post any further information we can find.

Here is a letter forwarded to us from a friend of Matthew Hall, the young emcee and activist who died tragically here in NY last week. The letter addresses the media's increasingly negative take on his ties with hip-hop and the Zulu Nation in particular.

The death of Matthew Hall has been widely publicized lately by the media circuits here in New York and there have been numerous despicable assertions, which are trying tarnish his legacy. He was a good friend to me so please read this first if you will write a news article about him. If you are not planning to write one, I encourage you to because the media has been portraying Hiphop, the followers of Hiphop, and progressive elements (particularly the Zulu Nation) as negative influences to society in this incident.

Matthew Hall is known as Optimus Rhyme in the underground Hiphop scene here in New York. As you may probably have heard, he was a member of the Zulu Nation founded by Afrika Bambaata. He was also a member of the amazing break dancing crew Motion Sickness. Although he performed poetry numerous times, he was more known in the New York open mic scene for his freestyles. As a matter of fact, he was 2nd runner-up on the freestyle competition at the first ever Hiphop Summit of Russell Simmons when it was held at Riverside Church, Manhattan.

Recently, the NYPD has been implicating his Zulu brethrens as his shooter. The Zulu Nation is a movement that promotes peace, equality, spirituality and justice and in no way did advocate violence or racism which the media has been implying. I have talked with his Zulu brothers and they have informed me about the disgusting strategies the NYPD has been imposing on them such as coercing them to give false testimonies. His Zulu brothers are greatly devastated and are mentally and emotionally tortured because aside from Matt’s departure, they have now become suspects (because they would not oblige to the demands of NYPD like lying). Although I am not a Zulu, I can personally attest that it was not a Zulu who was behind Matt’s death—Matt was even wearing an “I LOVE ZULU” shirt when he was shot. The NY Post particularly has been spreading atrocious lies suggesting that Matt provoked a physical altercation that led to the shooting. But anybody and I mean ANYBODY THAT KNEW MATT knows that he would not instigate such incident. In my years of knowing him, I have never even seen him close to getting mad even during the time when he was harassed by security personnel at Hunter College when he organized a free show.

Matt was also politically active. He was involved with the political organizations Refuse and Resist (www.refuseandresist.org) and Not in Our Name (www.notinourname.net). He was a strong advocate for the liberation of Palestine and the elimination of the oppressive social system. Matt played critical roles on the October 6, 2002 rally in Central Park (which was attended by 30,000 people), November 20, 2002 student walk out converging at Union Square and the February 15, 2003 rally in New York City where conservative estimates was at 500,000 but perhaps had 2 million people. He lived what he preached. In my recent visit to his building after he passed away, a worker in his building showed me a book by Gore Vidal Matt gave him to clarify the worker’s disillusioned thoughts on American politics.

Events have been organized to commemorate his legacy. On Tuesday, September 30, students of Hunter College are having a memorial (6pm @ Room 105 Thomas Hunter Bldg.). October 7, Guerilla Words (a monthly open mic which Optimus used to help promote, 213 2nd Ave corner 13th St.-8pm) will dedicate the October open mic to Optimus Rhyme. Cajo Communications is organizing a October 29th show with numerous artists (Immortal Technique, C-Rayz Walz, L.I.F.E. Long, Oktober and dead prez to name a few) at Lion’s Den (214 Sullivan St.) for him. Act Your Rage, a defunct monthly open mic Optimus hosted twice (he hosted the last one), will be revived to be held outdoors but specific information are not yet available. 99.5 Pacifica Radio and End of the Weak’s radio show gave tribute to Optimus.

Once again, the NYPD has shown incompetence and impatience to the point that they are ruining the lives of Matthew’s friends. Once again, corporate media’s thirst for profit (by writing burlesque articles to draw readers and viewers) is damaging an innocent man’s name.

To describe Matt is beyond adjectives so I guess when people ask me to describe him; I always have a hard time to. To name a few descriptions fitting to him, he was definitely smart (reflected by his GPA) he was definitely caring (proven by his works) and he was definitely responsible (balancing his studies and school activities, work, healthy social life and political involvement). I am not just saying this because he passed away; I am saying this because it is the truth.

On behalf of the mourners of Matt who wish the truth to be known, thank you for reading this letter.

- jose

Another conservative stance from LL, who made a public endorsement of republican George Pataki for governor over democrat Carl McCall (who if elected would have been NY's first Black governor).

If the RIAA ever wants to get public support for their agenda they might want to consider putting smaller, struggling artists out there as their representatives, instead of the big names they've brought forth so far. This endless parade of millionaires claiming to be economically oppressed by college students just looks absurd.

Dueling Rappers Debate Downloading Music

Rapper LL Cool J Tells Congress He Backs Moves Against Music Downloaders; Chuck D Disagrees

Rapper LL Cool J joined entertainment executives Tuesday in defending the music industry's lawsuits against hundreds of Internet users who illegally distribute music online.

"My question is, if a contractor builds a building, should people be allowed to move into the building for free?" the rapper, dressed in a black suit with an earring glistening in his right lobe, asked senators. "That's how I feel if I record a song or make a movie, and it zooms around the world for free."

Another rapper, Chuck D, founder of Public Enemy, testified at the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing that people ought to be able to distribute the songs they want to hear on peer-to-peer Internet services, known as P2P.

"P2P to me means power to the people," said Chuck D. "I trust the consumer more than I trust the people at the helm of these (record) companies."

"LL's a staunch American," Chuck D added in a brief interview. "He's my man and all, man, but when you solely have an American state of mind, you're increasingly becoming a smaller part of the world."

The music industry's trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, has filed 261 lawsuits against people it accuses of illegally distributing music online. The RIAA blames lagging CD sales on the downloading of music.

The subcommittee chairman, Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, called the hearing to look into whether the recording industry's tactics were too heavy-handed.

"As a former prosecutor, I am troubled by a strategy that uses the law to threaten people into submission," said Coleman, a former roadie for the '60s rock group Ten Years After. Coleman referred to the rappers as "Mr. Cool J" and "Mr. D..."

I started writing this as a reply in an earlier post, but it's gotten long enough to require a space of its own. In response to a rather, uhh, colorful denouncement of the anticon scene, 1200th Hobo wrote:

The simple fact that you said "art-fag shit" shows simple-mindedness and the sad state of this bullshit hip hop culture. As long as Nelly is selling albums to third grade girls, hip hop is dead. EL-P is only underground because he saw the direction the movement was taking. He could easily be signed with Rawkus and making a video on an mtv special.

How can any of you deny the talent of anticon? Sage francis anybody? Buck65, Sixtoo? Anyone of average intelligence can see the rhyming skill of these artists, and beatsmiths like Nosdam, Jel, and controller7 know how to complement the styles. So all of you shut your loudass internet mouths.

Although I don't support "art-fag" epithets, I must say the noxious elitism emanating from above is exactly what has alienated so many people from anticon and the subculture they have come to represent.

"As long as Nelly is selling albums to third grade girls, hip hop is dead..."

"Anyone of average intelligence can see the rhyming skill of these artists..."

The only thing that should be obvious to "anyone of average intelligence" is that musical taste is entirely subjective, and by definition nobody's taste can be more or less intelligent than anyone else's. A preference for Anticon doesn't make you any smarter than a preference for Nelly.

Personally I am not a big fan of either, and I'd say each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Anticon places much more emphasis on lyrical exploration, to be sure, but to my ears Nelly is more rhythmically and musically compelling (though compared to lots of other hip-hop he may be sub-par on these levels as well). I find most anticon material lacking in musicality and richness of rhythm, missing the vibrant sonic texture that is usually hip-hop's greatest strength. It generally appeals to me more if I think of it as "spoken word" rather than Hip-Hop.

But that is just my opinion. No more or less valid than anyone else's. I don't believe I am right about this music and other people are wrong. The only time anyone can be wrong about their musical taste is in the belief that they are right, in any objective sense.

Just to be clear, I'm certainly not saying that everyone associated with anticon exhibits these traits, nor do all or even most of their fans. That scene has no monopoly on this brand of delusional arrogance, you can find it in every corner of the Hip-Hop nation. And this vibe always saddens me, because I can remember when the lite comedy rap of the Fat Boys, the smooth R&B rap of Whodini, and the straight-up hardcore sound of Run-DMC could all share the same stage and rock the same crowd without anybody worrying about which style was "true" or "real". We were proud of this incredible music we had created, in all its forms, and celebrated its diversity instead of being frightened by it.

Since then Hip-Hop has grown so much, and expanded to embrace so many different styles and sounds, and this is a beautiful thing. But instead of taking pride in this growth we react with fear and segregate ourselves, retreating into separate camps and proclaiming that only those in our little tent represent "real hip-hop", and anyone else is a traitor helping to kill the culture. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of Hip-Hop's (d)evolution into a billion dollar industry, and its incorporation into the American mainstream. But it really depresses me.

Our friend(ster) Jean Grae has risen again, bearing a brand new CD. Thou shalt purchase it. It hath been decreed. Here is a review:

The Bootleg of the Bootleg EP

Jean Grae will smack the average rapper with a lyrical two-piece and a biscuit (that’s slang for a smack down for all you squares reading this). The femme fatale has the rhyme chops to hang with the big boys like Jay and Nas. Word. Her debut full length, Attack of the Attacking Things was heralded by pencil pushing, keyboard tapping music critics and underground rap fans. Her new effort, The Bootleg of the Bootleg EP, (what is it with these double word titles?) is more of the same thought provoking and technically precise lyricism with even stronger beats. Thank you Jean.

Before Jean was out of her teens she was a member of the heralded but now defunct underground group Natural Resource. No disrespect to the other members, Meat Pie and Ocean, but Jean, then known as What? What?, was the star of the trifecta. The same way Lauryn Hill initially stood out from her Fugees partners, Jean was the lyricist heads were checking for. On top of her skills with words, her production credits (as producer alias Run Run Shaw) were top shelf beat spirits as well.

The album is kicked off by its lead single, the incendiary “Haters Anthem” where she spits one liners like, “I’m more necessary than violence on the Amistad,” over an intense four-note key loop that has it’s tension released by the chorus’ refrain, “You f**k, you f**k, you f**k!” On “Chapter One: Destiny” she molds her lyrical clay is into a vivid Bonnie minus the Clyde tale that would make Ghostface. Meanwhile, relationships and friendships are expounded on over airy vocal snippets and sharp snares on “My Crew.” Nice collaborative assists are accepted from Cannibal Ox on “Swing Blade” and from Block McCloud and Pumpkinhead on “Code Red.”

The problem with this disc is that being an EP, and only six songs deep at that, you can’t help but asking, “That’s it, that’s all?” Grae tries to make amends by tagging a “megamix” of freestyles and older material at the end of the album. Beginning the bonus cuts with a blistering freestyle over Jay-Z’s own hidden gem “Breathe Easy” is a nice touch. She hold her own over a few Jigga instrumentals including the “You Don’t Know Remix” where she sums up the reason for her relative obscurity: “Not a thug, not a drug seller, not a gun shooter, not a stripper sex symbol…or anything your used ta/Marketing nightmare, I don’t fit into categories/I just rap, make beats and shit and sleep a;; these stories/All I want is the voice, all the people need is a choice, if there’s no competition, then what is the f**king point?!” Two tracks from her neophyte emcee days with Natural Resource, “Negro League Baseball” and “Bum Deal,” will make rap historians grin.

Maybe it’s the general public’s snail pace in checking for her that has frustrated Grae; and perhaps that frustration is why her lyrics are so venomous. It’s just a theory but if it makes her keep making superior hip-hop music (no need to addendum her being a chick, please refer to KRS, “A dope emcee is a emcee.”), then let’s hope she can keep finding shit to piss her off. Though, more overdue recognition will be welcomed and is sure to come.

For those who don't know End of the Weak is a collective of emcees who also run New York's hottest and longest running open mic. We've been working with them to bring their breeding ground for local talent to the radio, and tonight we will have them on again with another hour of live emceeing at it's finest. Here are some highlights fom their last appearance:

• Clip One - The EOW crew rocks the mic.


• Clip Two - The radio debut of Chocolate Thai, winner of EOW's emcee challenge, and star of Showtime's upcoming hip-hop series "The Next Episode".


• Clip Three - Underground vet and Stronghold representative Poison Pen returns to the Railroad. Check out his last appearance back in 1998 at the Freestyle Archive.

DJ Qool Marv (Underground Railroad Alumnus) has put together a really cool event here in NY, here is the info he passed along about it. Marv will also be on our radio show this Saturday at midnight, with a few of these Manchester luminaries.

Qool DJ Marv with DJ Misbehaviour & Madison present: Bring It V.1 - The Manchester Invasion

October 20th - 11pm
@ Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street
No Cover

Featuring artists from Mark Rae's Grand Central Records:

Fingathing LIVE (Turntablist Peter Parker, Double Bass Player Sneaky, with interactive visuals by Chris Drury)

and DJ sets from Grand Central artists Funky Fresh Few, Only Child, & Jon Kennedy

Plus DJ sets from Fat City Records Darren Laws & Matt Triggs

And DJ sets from Twisted Nerve (Badly Drawn Boy) label head Andy Votel, Martin Brew (1/2 of East/West recording artists
J-Walk), and Subtub Players Records label head Tim Gilles (whose label featured one of the UK's biggest feel good tunes of
the summer "Wesley Music" which was featured on Giles Peterson's latest Worldwide compilation.

Even more details and information can be found at these websites
http://www.grandcentralrecords.com
http://www.transatlanticexpress.co.uk/diary/20th.php

Much to our surprise, we have discovered that we will be doing our fundraising special this Saturday night from 12-to-2 AM on WBAI 99.5 FM in NY, and also heard around the world right here. That's right, for those who like to hear a grown man beg, this is the show for you!

Regular listeners will know I always have some special giveaways for those who pledge $75 or more, and this one is no exception. I've been digging into my vaults and found a tape with some incredible highlights from 1995, including Jay-Z's appearance on our show back then, in which he rhymed with Natural Elements(!!), and extended freestyles from AZ, the Cella Dwellaz, and Madd Skillz with Lonnie B. Ive put this all together on a CD for anyone who makes a $75 pledge, and also thrown in an exclusive Emskee mix as a bonus CD.

Of course it's not about the giveaways, it's about keeping this alternative media outlet alive, which is more precious now than ever as the Clear Channel types gobble up more and more of the airwaves. But yeah, you will be getting something nice, in addition to doing something nice.

So please tune in, and give if you can! $50 will get you regular one-year membership and $25 gets a low-income membership, for students or other broke people.

We will also be having DJ Qool Marv and some special guests from overseas, as mentioned below.

Here is a press release that just came to the inbox:

HIP HOP ARTISTS TO SUE THE N.Y.P.D.

dead prez files civil suit in response to unlawful physical assault and arrest by police officers.

Hip Hop artist Stic of the acclaimed group dead prez and members of A-Alikes are filing suit against the City of New York as a result of the New York Police Department’s unlawful assault, arrest and detainment of the artists on September 27th, 2003.

While asserting their right to congregate in a public place, dead prez and members of the A-Alikes were taking pictures when approached by two police officers and asked for identification. Refusing to provide a coherent reason when asked by the artists why id was necessary, witnesses say the officers requested back-up and upon it’s arrival, physically attacked the men in broad daylight.

“I was harassed and attacked by the police in my neighborhood,” says Stic of Dead Prez. “There were no complaints and I wasn’t violating any laws,” he explained.

To date, there are no state or federal laws that deem it unlawful for one to question or deny the demand for identification by a law enforcement officer. Attorney Kamau Karl Franklin who will represent the artists in the suit states that “Even if we walk away with monetary compensation…which we’re almost guaranteed given the illegal detention, it’s important to be an example to other victims of police brutality, be they recording artists or everyday people.”

dead prez, along with A-Alikes, the People’s Army and other fellow Hip Hop artists is organizing a call for action amongst New York attorneys, community leaders, political activists, musicians and supporters to help them fight back. “We can’t allow the daily occupation and brutality by the police against our community to go unchecked,” says dead prez artist M1.

On October 29, 2003 at 9:00 am, dead prez will hold a press conference before entering court that day to address the case.

Coming from a paragon of journalistic integrity like Benzino, i'm sure this "evidence" will be totally unimpeachable.. Eminem must be shaking in his Air Force Ones.

Benzino's Evidence Says Eminem's A Racist

Source Magazine's president and Rapper, Ray Benzino stunned the media by releasing this statement last night.

Benzino said that he has damning evidence against his nemesis Eminem that will seal his fate in hiphop, he acquired an original cassette recording of a Detroit basement tape which features a series of raps by the Slim Shady himself that contain blatant racist and derogatory statements about black women and black people in general.

The songs from that tape are dated back from 1995, the alleged tape will be revealed in the January issue of The Source magazine, which hits the newstand in December.

(note: original article had many spelling errors I could not bear to reproduce here)

Labor activist Charles Kernaghan, who proudly lists "making Kathie Lee cry" on his resume, has uncovered evidence that noted marathon runner Sean Combs' clothing line is yet another product of sweatshoppery:

P Diddy in sweatshop row

The US rap performer, P Diddy, has promised to investigate claims his clothing company uses a sweatshop factory in Honduras.

P Diddy, otherwise known as Sean Combs, said he was "shocked" at the allegation by an American organisation campaigning for workers' rights, which said conditions at the factory were wholly unacceptable.

The National Labor Committee (NLC) claimed workers were paid less than a dollar an hour, forced to work overtime, subjected to body searches and dismissed if they got pregnant.

But Combs said at a news conference there would be a "zero tolerance" investigation by his company, Sean John.

He said he grew up among working people and empathised with their struggle.

Combs told journalists: "I'm as pro-worker as they get.

"We are shocked at this information. We are launching an investigation into this matter, and if there is any proof of wrongdoing, we will terminate our relationship with this factory immediately."

Combs said his company, Sean John, had employed a compliance officer to make five inspections of the plant this year...

Are any of you out there in blogville familiar with these guys? I want to hear their stuff.

Brunei's ‘best rappers' to release debut album

Local hip-hop group, MNC (Magnific Crew) consists of Hasrin Hj.Mahmud (Maxxx), Muhd Nazmi Mahali (Nazmo), Muhammad Fadhil Hj.Abdul Kadir (Skye), Ak.Md Amiridden Pg.Hj Md Daud, Hj. Abd Rahman Hj.Mohd (Nukky), Ak.Ros Iskandar Pg. Sufri (Is), Ak.Azrol Pg.Hj Ahmad (Ajoe) and the female vocalist, Fatin Nadzirah Ahmad Al-Shokry (Fatin). Crowned as 'Best Rappers' in Brunei, MNC has appeared on numerous public performances. The group is currently recording their debut album with a local music company, Phuture Phase.

It's about damn time. You may remember this judge as one of Clinton's failed nominees for Attorney General back in 1993, part of that whole "illegal nanny" scandal.

Slick Rick Released From Jail

One and a half years after "Slick Rick" Walters was jailed for immigrations violations, the rapper's release was ordered by a U.S. District Court Judge and his deportation was halted.

Judge Kimba Wood reinstated a 1995 waiver that allowed Walters to remain in the country despite having been convicted of a felony (an attempted murder charge from 1991, for which he served more than three years in prison). U.S. law specifies that foreign nationals who commit crimes must be deported, but due to Walters' family, business and career -- all rooted in the U.S. rather than England (where he was born) -- the ruling permitted him to stay. The Bureau of Immigration Affairs tried to overrule that ruling in 1997, a decision which Judge Wood said denied Walters due process.

Walters had been on a Caribbean cruise in the summer of 2002. Upon his return on June 1st of that year, he was arrested for illegally re-entering the country. He made four requests for bail, but INS declared him a flight risk and he spent the next eighteen months in a Bradenton, Florida, jail. Last December, he was to be deported, but Wood intervened.

"I am grateful that the judge stopped my deportation," Walters said just last week. "I totally understand that homeland security is going through changes. But this back and forth with INS is unfair..."

As you all surely know Jay-Z's long-awaited Black Album was leaked on MP3 yesterday, sparking the biggest downloading frenzy since the Great "Hail to the Thief" Epidemic of March 30th 2003. Jay (according to okayplayer) is pissed and mystified by the leakage, and planning to move the release date two weeks earlier, to nov. 14th.

My preliminary review? Hard to make a call on this one, because I've really never been able to swallow a Jay-Z album whole. It's like when I was a kid, I once bought 50 caramels from the store and tried to eat all of them at once. At first it seemed like a dream come true, but when I got halfway through they started to taste like peanut butter and I didn't want to see another caramel for a week.

For some reason that's what Jay has always been like for me, tasty in small doses but a whole album tastes like peanut butter. I would never deny he is a brilliant emcee, and I always enjoy hearing him on the radio or in a club, but I never feel the urge to put on one of his albums or go out of my way to hear him.

That being said, I did quite enjoy my first run-through of The Black Album. Much of it is driven by the lush classic-soul loops that Kanye and Just Blaze have made the new standard, plus a few doses of the obligatory Neptunery. Rick Rubin serves up raw guitar and drums (think Raising Hell outtake) for "99 Problems", in line with Jay's original plan for a strictly back-to-basics raw hip-hop album. Timbaland's offering is also spare and kinda retro, perhaps trying to fit that original mold. Most downloaders seem lukewarm on this one so far but I dig it, maybe I'm biased when it comes to Timbo. Okayplayer hero 9th Wonder (of Little Brother) delivers a highlight with "Threat", and giving props to 9th may help Jay quell the underground heads who are angered by the absence of Primo.

DJ Quik has quite a following as a beatmaker but his contribution here, "Justify My Thug", will not bring me into the flock. Yes the chorus is what you are thinking it must be, and it sounds just as corny as you are thinking it must be. On "Moment of Clarity" Eminem drops another of his bland Korg Triton noodlings, which everyone but me seems to like, so who am I to judge? On this track Jay spits a line sure to be quoted in many reviews:

if skills sold, truth be told

i'd probably be, lyrically, talib kweli

truthfully, i want to rhyme like common sense

but i did 5 mil, I ain't been rhyming like common since

Which at first sounds like a mighty cool thing to say, until you listen a few more times and ask yourself "but really why couldn't he be rhyming like Kweli right now?" He's surely sold enough already that he can go the Prince route and do whatever he feels from now on, without fretting over charts and plaques. He doesn't need to keep making pop hits, he is choosing to stay on that path, so although I like hearing him say it this line also rings hollow in my ears. Not to mention how the last line implies that early in his career he did rhyme like Common Sense, which is a phase I must have missed. (Whether Common rhymes like Common Sense anymore is a debate for another day).

But this is nothing new, Jay-Z has always tried to play both sides of the "conscious" fence. He tells us his rhymes about the drug game are only cautionary tales that he spits so his young fans "won't have to go through that", yet he constantly leans on that drug game experience as basis for his credibility, as proof he is more "real" than Nas and other foes, and so on. You can't have it both ways, Jigga, either you're proud of selling rocks or you're not.

Regardless, Hova's revelation of his inner boho is only one of countless quotables on the album, as Jay proves yet again he is among the nicest to ever touch a mic. Actually the line that has lingered most in my mind (for its sheer oddity) is on "What More Can I Say", where he proclaims himself "the martha stewart who's far from jewish". I'm sure the Prime Minister of Malaysia just breathed a sigh of relief..

This has been endlessly hyped as Jay's final album (although I can't imagine anyone actually believes that) and he spends much of it wistfully recounting his life story and pointing out all his virtues that you will truly understand once he's gone. It's like he knows he will never get the adulation Pac and Biggie earned by passing away, so he's getting the next best thing by telling us he too must disappear now, and then writing a eulogy for himself.

Dunno if he succeeds at that, but as faux-farewell albums go you could do far worse. I'm betting he's smart enough to wait at least 2 years before his return, so he can make the "comeback" album seem like a major event.

----------

EDIT: For those who read this far, as a reward I'll let you know there is an exclusive Jay-Z MP3 up on our main page right now, a live performance on our radio show back in 1995.

USA Today has taken notice of hip-hop's rising influence among youth in Israel. Just like in Cuba, South Africa, Brazil and elsewhere, seems like young people who have something to say are finding hip-hop the perfect medium to make their voice heard. Interestingly this case it is the chosen medium for both the left and the right, it would appear..

Israeli hip-hop takes on Mideast politics

Thousands of teenagers shrieking at the sight of Israel's hottest pop idol packed a soccer field in this Tel Aviv suburb late this summer, two days after twin suicide bombings killed 15 and wounded dozens.

Wearing baggy sweat pants, a baseball cap pushed off-center and a glittering, rhinestone-studded Star of David necklace, Kobi Shimoni (known by the stage name Subliminal) swaggered on stage as if he were the Israeli incarnation of Eminem. With a booming rhythm track and an Israeli flag draped from the DJ stand, the show turned out to be as much a patriotic pep rally as a rapper's delight.

"Who has an Israeli army dog tag, put your hands in the air!" Subliminal called out in a mix of Hebrew and English. Hundreds of hands shot up. "Who is proud to be a Zionist in the state of Israel, put your hands in the air! Hell yeah!"

The patriotic appeal at the concert won chants of support from the rocking crowd, mostly adolescents grappling with weekly terrorist attacks and a crippling economic recession.

With sidekick Yoav Eliasi (aka The Shadow), Subliminal has parlayed nationalist themes into a chart-topping album, transformed the Star of David into a fashion statement and helped integrate the music of urban America into the fold of Israeli pop...

Here, maybe, is the scoop on what Jay-Z will be doing next, posted by a certain Kareem Burkett in response to my Black Album review.

(Also, stay tuned because I will be posting an exclusive Jay-Z MP3 this weekend)

okay..i see you guys are discussing this "fade to black" that jay-z supposedly has dropped to be his final album. i work for the promotions department here at universal records. im not an a&r, or anything special. i am a runner(basically a "gopher"). but in my everyday work, i sometimes get into casual conversations with record label honchos, a&r's, etc...i will not profess to be the biggest jay-z fan..but i thought the following would be interesting to know.."The Black Album" is technically not jay-z's last album...sometime next summer (the word around here is mid-july)..jigga will drop another album that will consist of some his tighter collabos, unreleased material, and 4 to 5 new songs..in the vein of NAS "lost tapes" album. the album is tenatively titled "THE ENCORE: roc-a-fella records presents FEATURE PRESENTATION"..the marketing ploy will be, dame dash releases this without jigga's approval, because he felt the public demanded it. so on and yadda yadda..i was given a tentative tracklist from one of the a&r's in the office. this could be total bullshit for all i know..but it sounds very legit and has actually came from more than 3 reliable sources at the def jam offices in new york and an a&r at the los angeles office.

1."renegade" featuring eminem prod. by eminem

2."4 alarm blaze" feat. m.o.p prod. by dj premier

3."one minute man" feat missy elliott, ludacris produced by timbaland, co produced by big tank

4.*"lobster and scrimp"(rmx) feat. skillz, timbaland
prod. by timbaland

5.*"sneakers and jeans" feat. 50 cent prod. by red spyda

6.*"stop"(rmx) feat. bubba sparxxx prod. by
timbaland

7."big pimpin" feat. ugk produced by timbaland

8.*"casualties of the hustle" feat. notorious b.i.g
prod. by younglord

9.*"as good as it gets" feat. big l, camron
prod. by dj premier

10.*"stand up" (rmx) feat. ludacris produced by kanye west

11."is that yo bitch" (original version) feat. twista prod. by timbaland

12.*"platform" feat. phonte of little brother
produced by 9th wonder

13."aint no nigga"(rmx) feat. lil kim
produced by ski

14."this cant be life" feat scarface, beanie sigel
prod. by kanye west

15.*"still(auto)matic" feat.daz dillinger produced by scott storch(dr.dre)

16."money aint a thang" feat jd produced by jermaine dupri

17. "change the game" feat. beanie sigel, memphis bleek prod. by rick rock

18.*"hovi baby" (rmx) feat. twista, xzibit prod. by just blaze

19.*"early morning" feat. d'angelo prod. by dj premier

disc 2
20.*"get by"(rmx) feat. talib kweli
prod. by kanye west

21.*"brooklyn's finest"(rmx) feat, notorious b.i.g remix produced by just blaze

22."5 minute freestyle" feat. funkmaster flex
prod. by dj clue & ken "duro" ifill

23.*"fade to black" feat. dr. dre
prod. by dr. dre & focus

24."money, cash, hoes" feat. dmx produced by swizz beats

25.*"that aint it" feat. bonecrusher
produced by 9th wonder

i guess we will see

If anyone cares:

Rapper Tray Deee Arrested in California

Rapper Tray Deee, a member of the hip-hop group Tha Eastsidaz, was in custody Saturday after being arrested for allegedly shooting at people outside of a business, police said.

No one was injured and the 37-year-old rapper, whose given name is Tray Muhammad, was arrested at his Fontana home Friday several hours after the alleged shooting, said Officer Jana Blair of the Long Beach Police Department.

He was booked for felony assault with a deadly weapon and was being held in the city jail with bail set at $50,000.

There was little information on the shooting's circumstances, Blair said.

"Someone fired a handgun in the direction of individuals in front of an establishment. Someone identified him as a possible suspect," she said...

EDIT: PLEASE DO NOT LINK DIRECTLY TO THE MP3.

Since Jay-Z and his Black Album are the hot topics for this month, I went digging in my crates and found an old episode of my radio show from the summer of 1995, when Shawn Carter himself dropped in for a quick interview, and then sat in on a cypher with Mister Voodoo and L-Swift of Natural Elements (with DJ Qool Marv on the turntables):

• Natural Elements w/ Jay Z on WBAI, 8/24/95

That's me talking to Jay at the beginning. I'm only gonna keep this mp3 up for a little while, so grab it while you can. And don't forget you can hear many more classic live performances at our Freestyle Archive.

(note regarding usage of the word "freestyle": I am a member of hip-hop's older generation who does not subscribe to this new-fangled notion that "freestyle" can only mean rhyming off-the-top.. so please don't get your knickers in a twist if sometimes I use the word in reference to a live performance of written rhymes.)

Damn I just walked by this bar yesterday, it's right next to my favorite beef jerky spot, Jung's Dried Beef. I could make some kind of pun here involving the word "beef" but I'll skip it:

ASIAN RAP SHOOTING IN CHINATOWN

A clash between two Asian rappers - up-and-coming star Jin and another rapper linked to a vicious gang - sparked a shooting in Chinatown early yesterday that sent a third man to the hospital, cops said. The incident began at about 2 a.m. in the trendy new Yellow bar at 32 Mulberry St., when the rappers started arguing.

Another man, Christopher Louie, 23, stepped in to defend his pal, the newly popular Asian rap star Jin, who appeared last summer in the drag-racing sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious" with hip-hop star Ludacris.

During the argument, the rapper linked to the gang - whose name was not released - pulled a .40-caliber gun and shot Louie once in the lower back. Jin, whose full name is Jin Au-yeung, was unharmed. The gunman - who fled the scene - is a reputed member of the Ghost Shadows street gang, police said.

Sources said the argument between the rival rappers may have been sparked by the shooter's jealousy of Au-yeung, who spent part of his summer on MTV's "You Hear It First" tour.

Au-yeung, who was born in Elmhurst, Queens, raps about race and being Chinese-American. His debut album was released two weeks ago on Ruff Ryders/Virgin Records. The 21-year-old star has already won rapping competitions where, like white Eminem before him, he has turned taunts about his ethnicity into his own rap disses.

Louie was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where cops there said he is expected to survive.

Wait, Jin's album did not come out, did it? Good old NY Post, always on the ball.

BTW, I notice some other sites have posted this story without crediting the Post as their source. Come on guys, just cuz your source has no journalistic ethics doesn't mean you should have none either!

Jin just posted a video shoutout on his website, that makes a brief reference to the shooting.

Rappers are getting political in Paris, and damn near the only rapper getting political in America is named Paris. What does this mean?

French rappers in war of words with government

A rap song which calls on fans to "screw France" and "exterminate" government ministers has so enraged the interior minister that he has threatened to take legal action against the band responsible.
But the group, Sniper, has responded in kind, threatening to sue Nicolas Sarkozy for defamation for calling them racist and anti-semitic.

Critics have denounced their music as anti-women, anti-French, anti-European, anti-semitic and anti-police. The lyrics of La France, a tirade against the inequalities of French society, triggered Mr Sarkozy's anger. The song describes France as a "bitch", and suggests that the only way for disaffected young people with "hatred running in their arteries" to get their voices heard is to go out and start "burning cars".

Another song on the band's latest album Stone Throwers attacks the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and suggests that "carnage" is a logical response to destruction of homes.

Mr Sarkozy said last week that he would launch legal proceedings if the band again performed in public material which he described as "perfectly scandalous... racist and anti-semitic". He added: "Democracy dictates that one respects the rules. Those people who don't will have to answer to the nation's justice system."

This year Mr Sarkozy pushed through a bill which made "offending the dignity of the republic" an imprisonable offence.

The band's four members, El Tunisiano, Aketo, Black Renega and DJ Boudj, all from the northern Parisian suburb of Val d'Oise, said: "We are not anti-semitic, but we are on the side of all Israelis who want peace... You are wrong to think that we are racist.

"We are French like you, but we are beginning to wonder whether you accept us as such."

Raising the possibility that the minister had not listened to their songs, they added: "We would like to believe that you were ill informed and carried away by temporary demagogic hysteria, and we are ready to accept your excuses."

This triggered a fresh salvo from Mr Sarkozy, who said: "To say that 'France is a bitch' and a 'nation of fascists' which one 'should screw' is insulting, to say that one should exterminate the 'ministers' and that police officers are 'arseholes' is insulting."

Benzino AKA the Paris Hilton of hip-hop (famous for no reason) is making another desperate bid for attention.. I suppose I shouldn't be enabling him by posting about it, but he's just so much fun to ridicule. Plus we actually have a bit of a personal connection, through David Mays with whom I had a colorful confrontation once. I'll tell that story another time.

Benzino Disses Westside Connection

Ray Benzino was recently on radio station 100.3 the beat in LA promoting his new found ally Ja Rule's album and he had alot on his mind. The rapper/magazine owner went on to attack the usual people he attacks, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Dr Dre. However, he has added a few names to that list which included Westside Connection, D-Block and Fabolous......

He was furious that the Westside Connection was taking shots and making fun of his 'close friend' Ja Rule. He went on to call them a 'bad influence' in hip hop and 'fake gangstas' and also went as far as saying that he regrets allowing them to be on the cover of 'The Source'. Then he moved on to attack Fabolous and D-block for 'being down with 50'!

He went on ranting and raving for about 25 minutes until the DJ, A-One, interrupted him to take phone calls. Unfortunately the calls were not pleasant, which made Benzino even more irritated. He ended up storming out in the middle of the interview.

Thaformula.com, a site you can always count on for the best hip-hop interviews around, just posted a new one with our good friend Evil Dee. Here's an excerpt on the evolution of the mixtape:

...ThaFormula.com - Now I got to talk to you about the mixtape problem happening now. You being in New York where all the dopest producers came from, what happened, and why the hell did every DJ start screaming on CD's?

Evil Dee - First I'ma tell you my history with the mixtape thing. I was making mixtapes since '88 or '89. Now my thing uh I'ma tell you why I started talking on my mixtapes. What happened was I used to do parties and I would you know make my tapes at the parties. What happened was I would sell my tapes and I went to the park once and this guy was playing my tape. So you know how you hear your joint and you go "yo who made that?" he was like "I made that," and I sat there and heard like three mixes I did and I'm like "no I made that!" He was like "prove it." I couldn't prove it so I decided that on my tapes I would just be like "Evil Dee is on the mix, come on kick it," and that's how that whole thing started. Now ok with like myself, I did my i.d. on my tape I do it once, I don't shout out nobody who you don't know. Now what happened was, you had S&S, Ron G, Doo Wop, and other cats come out and what they would do is like, S&S took it to another level where instead of being on some "It's S&S in full effect," he was just "YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYAYAYA" So S&S was the first cat I heard yelling on his tapes. S&S was also one of the first cats that I seen take it from skills to exclusives. I used to make my mixtape to show that I was nice as a DJ. f**k an exclusive. Any idiot can make an exclusive mixtape. My mother can make an excusive mixtape. I'm not saying she's an idiot, but you know. The whole thing with the mixtape is it was to show the DJ's skills. What happened was it went from that to exclusives and then DJ Clue was the first person that I seen put it on a CD. So Clue took it to the digital revolution...

Not only the drummer for Chic and The Power Station, but also on David Bowie's "Let's Dance", Madonna's "Like A Virgin".. he filled a whole lot of dancefloors (and digital samplers) in his lifetime.

Chic's Tony Thompson Dies

Tony Thompson, one of the premier session drummers of the past twenty-five years, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles of renal cell cancer at age forty-eight. The former member of Seventies disco funk band Chic, Thompson had worked with everyone from David Bowie to Madonna to Diana Ross.
Born in New York on November 15, 1954, Thompson came to prominence on the late-Seventies disco scene, thanks to his funky, rock influenced big-beat style. After sitting in with LaBelle, Thompson met Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, with whom he formed Chic in 1976. The band's 1977 debut featured the hit "Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)," but they became disco legends with 1978's C'est Chic, which contained the number one classic "Le Freak," as well as the rollerboogie anthem "Good Times."

"The thing that was most apparent about Tony as a drummer was his sense of inventiveness and cleverness," says Rodgers. "All three of us had roots in jazz, fusion and rock, which is why he would never think of the typical R&B drum fill . . . He just cherished those brilliant moments to sparkle."

Chic disbanded in 1983, and Thompson became an in-demand session musician, working with Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, David Bowie and Madonna.

In 1985, he joined Duran Duran members Andy and John Taylor and the late Robert Palmer in the supergroup Power Station, whose hit singles "Some Like It Hot" and the T. Rex cover "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" were driven by Thompson's propulsive drumming.

A longtime rock fan, Thompson got the gig of a lifetime in 1985 when he was asked to sit in with the remaining members of Led Zeppelin when they played at the Live Aid benefit concert at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium. Thompson then joined the Zeppelin trio for some secret recording sessions in 1986. Rumors of a reunion were quashed, however, when Thompson was involved in a serious car accident later that year.

He remained a prolific session drummer throughout the late Eighties, working with Robert Palmer, Duran Duran, Rod Stewart and Jody Watley, though he was less active in the Nineties...

Some righteous audio courtesy of our friends at Democracy Now:

Tell Us The Truth: Billy Bragg and Hip-Hop Artist Boots Riley On Music, War and the Media

Democracy Now! interviews British singer-songwriter and political activist Billy Bragg and Boots Riley, rapper with the Oakland hip-hop group the Coup. They joined other musicians to kick off the Tell Us The Truth Tour at the opening session of the National Conference on Media Reform last Friday.

Back when word of this tape first arose, I told my friend Irina that Eminem will ultimately go with the disgraced congressman's defense, writing it off as a youthful indiscretion.

Em will surely take a hit in the short term, and he'll have to put in a lot of work cleaning this one up. But in the long run I'm sure he can work past this. Though I would never trivialize his usage of the N word or disparaging Black women, this really does sound like a frustrated, ignorant little kid who is in a very different place mentally than Em is today. Although he often seems immature nowadays, I'm inclined to doubt that these lyrics reflect the mindset of Eminem in 2003.

The Source Digs Up Tape Of Eminem Using Racial Slurs

Eminem found himself on the defensive Tuesday (November 18) after The Source magazine owners Ray Benzino and Dave Mays held a press conference to play a recording of the MC delivering racial slurs.

On the first of two tracks purportedly recorded in 1993, an audibly young Slim Shady raps, "All the girls I like to bone have big butts/ No they don't, 'cause I don't like that n----- sh--/ I'm just here to make a bigger hit."

The second track featured Eminem rapping about a black girlfriend he broke up with. "Blacks and whites, they sometimes mix/ But black girls only want your money, 'cause they're dumb chicks," he rhymes. Later in the freestyle Em raps, "Never date a black girl, because blacks only want your money/ And that sh-- ain't funny."

The first track was only a few lines long, but the second track went on for several minutes with Em — seemingly rhyming off the top of his head — repeatedly saying he did not like black girls and that they were only out to get money. Both tracks sounded amateurish.

"Don't make this right now a double standard," Benzino said at the press conference. "We gotta treat this the same way you treat Mike Tyson, like you treat Kobe Bryant, like you treat R. Kelly, like you treat O.J. Simpson."

Eminem responded by insisting he isn't racist and explaining that the recording was made when he was young, foolish and angry.

"Ray Benzino, Dave Mays and The Source have had a vendetta against me, Shady Records and our artists for a long time," Eminem said in a statement. "The tape they played today was something I made out of anger, stupidity and frustration when I was a teenager. I'd just broken up with my girlfriend, who was African-American, and I reacted like the angry, stupid kid I was. I hope people will take it for the foolishness that it was, not for what somebody is trying to make it into today..."

Benzino's rant about about Tyson, Kobe, R Kelly and OJ is silly for numerous reasons. All those guys were accused of criminal acts against women, in incidents that occured at the height of their fame, very different from uncovering some offensive remarks made long before one's career began. A better comparison, though not dug up from his past, might be Jesse Jackson's Hymietown interview.

Not to mention that except for Mike Tyson, so far all those guys have more or less come out on top (we'll have to wait and see about Kobe). And just like those guys (and Jesse), I think Eminem will outlast this scandal. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out though.

As you all know by now, Benzino (who is NOT a co-founder of the Source, as is often reported) has released tapes of a much younger Eminem using the N word and bad-mouthing Black women in a rambling, amateurish freestyle.

But what Benzino's not telling you is that he himself was once affiliated with a white emcee, and that white emcee used the N word on the track they made together. In fact, it appears that Benzino told his white emcee to use the N word.

The emcee in question is named Bawston Strangla, and his connection to Benzino is detailed on his web page here, where you can also download the song he and Benzino worked on together in 2000, "Shamrocks and Glocks". About 35 seconds into the song you will hear Strangla drop the proverbial "N" bomb, in a passage that sounds very random and out of place alongside his other lyrics.

Through some rudimentary googling I got in contact with a representative of the Bawston Strangla today. He indicated that Strangla is no longer associated with Benzino, and explained that while recording Shamrocks and Glocks, "during the session benzino told him to use the N word in the song".

Benzino told him to use the N word.

This does nothing to minimize the offensiveness of Eminem's newly unearthed lyrics, but it certainly places Benzino's righteous indignation in a different light. Just in case anyone was starting to take him seriously.

Edit: Dru Garrity of Commonwealth Rcords hit me off with a little more info on what Bawston Strangla is up to now: "Bawston Strangla is finishing up his next LP "BEDLHAM IN BOSTON 1998-2004" which will feature the Benzino track as well as tracks produced by D-Tension, Dickie Skinz, RayBoy, Irish Devil.. We also just shot a video for the lead single "Got To Do"..

Super-producer and frequent Jay-Z collaborator Just Blaze got in touch with me last week (I'm about 95% sure it was really him), and wanted to clarify that all the rumors swirling around about Jay-Z's future projects are fictional, especially the supposed new tracks mentioned by "DJ Dubb" in the replies to my earlier post. If you look around in there you will notice Just Blaze himself also commented in the thread a couple of times..

While we're all so busy digging up 15 year old tapes, might as well take a fresh look at "Paid In Full":

. . . AND BLESS THE MIC FOR THE GODS: RAKIM ALLAH

In this journey, you're the journal, I'm the journalist / Am I eternal, or an eternalist?
— Rakim Allah, "Follow the Leader"

That's from Rakim's "Follow the Leader", though it could be Roland Barthes convincing us that authors are the creations of texts and that texts are the recreation of closed cultures and close readers . . . the crisis thrown up in Rakim's rhyme-the poet pondering whether he's a modernist or a postmodernist, a creative God or a revised body of texts-is rendered moot in the next line: "I'm about to flow, long as I can possibly go / Keep ya movin' 'cause the crowd said so. Dance!" Here Rakim locates his immortality in African culture's call-and-response continuum.
— Greg Tate, "Diary of a Bug", The Village Voice (1988)

When Greg Tate published his groundbreaking essay "Diary of a Bug" in 1988 it was an event -- 17 fragments, a literary mix-tape from the seminal Afro-Pomo-Boho of his generation -- the birth of Black Popular Post-Structuralism. And when he finished name-dropping the sources of his inspiration -- F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante -- and finally got down to critical business at hand, the first "text" he took up was none other than Rakim Allah, the Poet Laureate of the Hip-Hop Nation. Indeed there's never been a hip-hop artist (with apologies to my man Mike Dyson and his muse Tupac Shakur) who deserved top-shelf scholarly love from the camp of the Blackademe Niggeratti more than Rakim.

Four lines from the b-side of that first 12-inch single -- "I take seven MCs put 'em in a line / And add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme / Well It'll take seven more before I go for mine / And that's 21 MCs ate up at the same time" -- and the lyrical gauntlet was forever thrown down, forever reified, as every up-and-coming ghetto wordsmith (Big Daddy Kane, Nas, Rass Kass, Treach, Canibus) is introduced as "the next . . ." and 17 years later we can only say "still . . ." The rece