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The Undisputed Truth
The Rap Time Machine
Since it's Halloween and all, I figured I should put some not so pleasant thoughts into your head. I'm going to take you on a verbal journey to the future. Somebody bring a video camera, because this could be scarier than any stupid ass horror flick you'll catch on TV tonight.
This concept started to dawn on me while I was flipping through channels and caught the tail end of Run's House on MTV. I mean look at the guy. He has grown kids now and everything. He's surely not getting any younger. Hell, nobody on earth is getting younger. But for a rapper…this means something. Perhaps I understand why Jay-Z took the retirement route now (even if he didn't stick with it).
See, a lot of the clout that rappers maintain comes from their image. This is why Abercrombie & Fitch wearing white guys couldn't get away with talking about the stuff that, for instance, Tragedy Khadafi would speak about. It just doesn't look right. Well you know what else doesn't quite look right? Old people rapping. Eventually these guys are going to get old, granted they're fortunate enough to live that long, and you can't escape the aging process. So how's T.I. going to look like when he's some 70 years old talkin about "what you know about that?". I sure as shit don't need to know about your constipation problem, that's for sure. I mean I don't see too many 70 year olds banging groupies and pushing drugs. The content matter is suddenly gone and all he has to talk about is his past. Which we've already heard. And that's only if people can get over the fact that he's 70 and trying to rap.
Geriatric rappers just don't work. So this Halloween, take some time away from working out the fine details of your Michael Vick costume and think about what your favorite rapper will be looking like 35 years from now. Hell, if you want it to be even scarier, think about what the video models will look like come that time. But I'm not trying to give you nightmares and shit, so don't think too hard about that one*.
Need inspiration? Creative thoughts lacking? Shit, 35 years from now Eminem might not be too far off from this…
Have a safe Halloween, everybody.
*Gravity. It's real, son.
Gone In 60 Seconds
So apparently Jay-Z fans have an impeccable reaction time to things and their motor skills must be on point. On genetically altered point levels. The guy’s whole American Gangster tour sold out in sixty fucking seconds.
Sixty. Seconds.
A five city tour. Sold out.
Hell, the Chicago venue sold out in eight seconds. EIGHT SECONDS! If you so much as dialed a phone number wrong, or entered a verification code improperly, you were short. That’s like trying to call a radio station for tickets to the Scream tour for your daughter and actually being the 93rd caller. Hell, it probably took me 8 seconds or so to write that last sentence. It might have even taken you that long to read it if you read slowly. Now think that a whole show just sold out in the time you read that sentence or up to this point in this whole paragraph.
Insane.
Now this makes me wonder one of a few things about Hov’s fans…
1) They have entirely way too much time on their hands and were diligently waiting for the tickets to go on sale.
2) They’re on speed. Laced with caffeine. Laced with some Red Bull. Laced with some weird kind of tropical rainforest herb. You gotta have those Tasmanian Devil speed fingers to dial or click fast enough to get through the rush!
3) They’re making more money than me. If I had the loot to be dropping on shows like that, I might have been one of those caffeinated goons trying to get tickets in 8 seconds my damn self.
But as fast as the tickets sold out…they made it to eBay even faster. Yeah, that’s right folks – get your American Gangster tickets on eBay! I’ve seen prices ranging from one cent to $1,375 (not including shipping) as of 4:11am this morning. Gotta love the eBay generation. So don’t fret if you clicked the wrong button in your frenzy to get the tickets to the show nearest you, eBay always has your back.
Why Are Celebrities So Important?
First of all, let me just say that these fires out in California are no joke. If the person who the FBI is looking for in connection to starting one of these fires is reading this blog right now – you need to stop reading and get to running your ass across the border to Mexico. Because you’re seriously in some shit. You probably had no idea your fire would get so damn big, unless you’re an environmental scientist or something, in which case you should consider yourself one sick bastard.
Anyway…
As much as I feel for all the people who have houses in the path of the fires, there is still a small group of people that I have trouble sympathizing with. Maybe I’m the sick bastard here, but I can’t help it. For those that for whatever reason need to be told – there are quite a few high profile, A-list celebrities that live in Southern California. Yeah, the Southern California that suffers from earthquakes, landslides, flooding, and fires (although not always as large scale as the ones that started recently). But I have serious problems feeling sorry for people who make more money in a month than I might ever see in my lifetime.
See, I live in Virginia, right? And for the time being, I’m stuck here. I don’t have the money to get up out of here right now. I’m trying to put myself through college, and aside from that putting me in debt, it’s a pain in the ass to transfer credits. So for all intensive purposes, I’m seriously stuck here. Now, let’s say for some reason I’m making 50 million dollars a year. For starters, I wouldn’t need to be in college if I’m already making that much money. So that’s one thing that’s keeping me here that’s now irrelevant. And if I was making 50 million a year, it really wouldn’t be a problem for me to just up and move my ass somewhere else whenever I please. Buying a house would be about as significant as getting three guaranteed-to-fuck-your-stomach-up taquitos from the nearest 7-11 is to me today.
Which brings me to my (half?) point. At least the point to the intro* of this thing…These rich ass celeb folk chose to live where they live. And they could easily leave because their financial situations allow them to. If their extravagant mansions get fucked up in some natural disaster? Whatever. Shit, it should have been expected when they built/bought the damn place on the top of a hillside of a known active fault zone. And even if something unfortunately happens to their property, they have the money to go get new property in a more environmentally friendly region with ease.
So why is it that these celebrities, who can move on with their lives easily after the fire fiasco is said and done, are actually getting talked about on the news? Seriously, why? They’ll be fine eventually, and probably sooner than later. It’s the people who aren’t as well off who are losing everything that we need to be worried about. And granted, they’ve been getting coverage too, but not in the same way as the celebrities do. Hell, I saw a map of SoCal with points on it where various celebs' houses were in relation to fires that were burning. Pamela Anderson was the only one that stood out to me, but perhaps that’s because her tits are big enough to be a point on that map on their own. But forget about that (as if you can now)…you don’t see them mapping out random average people’s houses on CNN or MSNBC now, do you? It’s a little sickening how money equals power in our society. But then again, watch me cop a billion dollars and then ask me that. I can’t even guarantee that I’d still be complaining.
I find it quite disgusting that when Britney Spears lost the little mind she had and shaved her head that it made the top headlines on my local news. She doesn’t even live anywhere near me, and I’m hearing about the nutjob’s haircut. Cancer patients who lose their hair due to chemo – they deserve shine. They’re fighting one hell of a battle. Britney Spears? Not so much. Yeah, divorce court sucks, but let’s be real – she was kind of asking for it. Just like the rest of these celebrities with the mansions on hillsides that are slowly creeping closer to sea level chose to live where they do.
Why do these people deserve so much TV time for doing basically nothing? Why aren’t we hearing more about how Katrina victims are doing and the hardships they’re still facing? What makes celebrities more important than the rest of us? I’d really like to think it’s more than just money, but I have a feeling it’s not. Perhaps it’s their questionably beautiful faces? But then again, maybe not. Whatever it is – it ain’t cool. I think it’s time that the people who are out there trying to make the best out of their 9 to 5 paychecks get some shine. The single parents trying to raise kids. Those who were taken from us too soon. Not Ellen DeGeneres and her dog fiasco.
*Remember how I said I could stay up later than you? Yeah, it’s 5:26am and I’m up writing this thing. Gotta wake up at 11. So you know what? This is one big ass insomniac rant. If you don’t appreciate the disorganization? Too bad.
The Idiot's Guide to College Pt. 2
Continued from yesterday's post...
Here’s some more of the rules I live by to get me through the progressively more stressful days of college. Don’t say I never tried to do anything for you.
1. Make friends with at least one person in each course that looks like they’re a hard working student who always comes to class and get decent grades. Yeah, it sounds a little wrong, but I’m serious. When you sleep through your alarm (a la the stunt I just pulled yesterday by accident), it’s nice to have somebody that you know takes good notes on your side. They’ll probably share. And if you get on really good terms with them, they may even cover for your ass or call you to make sure you wake up. Sometimes the only reason I’ve made it to class in time to take an exam or turn in an assignment is because said good student friends happened to call me.
2. Stay away from the questionable on-campus food. Eat what you know your stomach can handle. That food will fuck your stomach up something horrible sometimes. If you have some downtime before an exam, and you’re hungry? Tough it out. Eat after the exam. For the record though, ideally, try to eat your own food most of the time. It’ll save you a lot of money. Speaking of which…
3. Save money. I can’t even begin to stress this enough. After college, you’re going to be in the real world and probably pinching your pennies. So take the years you’ll be in college to get used to saving money and not blowing every paycheck you get on some fresh kicks or whatever it is that happens to catch your eye. Plus, graduating with debt really blows. Any step you take to save the money is going to help you in the long run. That means resist the temptation to call out for pizza, and just cook something your damn self sometimes. Don’t take senseless drives – gas is expensive. You get the point. It’s really not so hard, it just takes some self restraint.
4. Prioritize. If you need sleep, and you know you have a class tomorrow that you don't absolutely need to attend…sleep. Yeah, I said it. Skip class. Nobody’s taking attendance anymore (well, in most cases) and your immune system (and sanity) will benefit more from the sleep than it would from trying to keep yourself awake in class but really not paying attention at all. Most of the time if you stay up on the reading that’s assigned for the course, you really won’t miss any information anyway.
5. Stop distracting yourself! Damn! I’m pretty sure at some point we all do this. Shit, I do it every day, and I therefore know it’s easier said than done. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to work on a paper that’s due the next day (see rule from yesterday: don’t procrastinate) and I’ll stop to listen to the newest album that dropped or something, and next thing I know an hour went by and I haven’t gotten shit done. Or maybe a re-run of an old show comes on TV and catches your eye. Perhaps you just wanna spend time on you tube looking for videos of girls doing the Hot Fuk dance. Whatever it is, stop. For the most part it’ll be there when you get finished with whatever it is you have to do, and if it’s not? Chances are it wasn’t worth your brain cells anyway. Let’s face it, most of the things that end up claiming our attention on a daily basis are pretty senseless these days. Credit to the newest medium of mass debauchery - the internet.
6. Don’t catch an itch. I gotta end on this note because it’s just too important. I know it’s college, and there’s co-ed poon running rampant, but chill out. Don’t get so plastered that you forget how to be safe about things. The only thing you wanna leave college with is a diploma - not the herp. And seeing as how all the people on a campus spend a lot of time there with not many outsiders partaking in the sexploits, when one person catches the itch it’s going to spread like wildfire. A lot of campuses will have health centers that give out free condoms. It’s free shit, people! I know you love it! Get some. And then go get some. Yeah, the other some.
And such ends the brief list of some of the rules I live by to get me through this god awful college shit. If you’re still in your first or second year? Live it up. By the time you hit the 4th you’ll be so over it. Props to everybody that just made it through the midterm season – take this weekend to unwind.
The Idiot's Guide to College
It’s been quite a long week for me, and once again I apologize for the absence and rushed blogs. But midterms are officially over for me now, and after some time to myself to breathe and get some energy back after all the practically sleepless nights filled with caffeine boosts and headaches* I’m back on DX, ready to release the most random of my thoughts into pixel form. Naturally though, after all the stress I still kind of have school on the brain. So, in hopes of getting it all out of my system, I thought I’d share with you some of the valuable lessons I’ve learned throughout my three and some change years of college so far. These rules, although seemingly questionable on the surface, have gotten me many an effortless good grade. Treasure these. I wish I had known these before I went into the whole thing…my first year would have been a lot better. Anyway…
1. Take the easy opportunities to make yourself sound interested with the least effort possible. During the first week of classes, don’t skip the first class or two knowing you’re not going to do anything except get a syllabus and listen to how much work you have to do. No. Banish the thought of sleeping in and then going in next week saying you just added the class. The first week is your time to shine. See, the first week of damn near every class you’ll take is either fluff with the teacher reading the syllabus to you despite the fact you can do it yourself, or a review of common sense knowledge you should already know. If the first week of class material is over your head, drop the class immediately. This rule will not work for you. During this first week, despite the fact that you probably know everything already, act like you don’t. You heard me. Act like an idiot and it will help your grade. Ask questions about the material even if you know the answer to your own question. Make eye contact with the professor. Write vigorously, as if you’re taking very detailed notes, even if you’re just doodling in a notebook or writing a rhyme for some beat you just made. You’ll look like you’re interested in the class, paying attention, and putting effort into comprehending the material. But we all know you’re really daydreaming, not learning shit, and could care less anyway.
2. Learn your parking lot etiquette. This may not apply to some of you if you live on campus at a school that doesn’t have many commuters…but for those that do? Listen up. It’s a warzone out there sometimes. And people who don’t follow the unspoken rules of the parking lot are going to waste a lot of time and deal with a lot of fights.
2A. Learn to stalk people…but don’t scare them. Be polite. If you see somebody walking towards the parking lot looking like they’re going to leave, put your window down, and with a smile on your face ask them if they’re leaving. At this point it may be a good idea to turn down the Necro and Ill Bill, because if they listen to the sick, twisted music that you have on, they may run away scared. If they say that they’re leaving though, the battle is halfway over. Follow them, going 2mph or so with your turn signal blinking in their direction, until they make it to their car. If you feel that you’re capable of defending yourself without fail, you may want to offer your catch a ride, so as to reduce the risk of your spot being intercepted by somebody else.
2B. Realize just because you found somebody, the spot is not guaranteed. This means step your parking lot stalking game up. Learn how to not lose sight of them when they turn a corner. Know the logistics of your parking lots. If you know that the catch has to walk down a path that doesn’t quite follow the road, and perhaps goes through some trees for a little bit, the second they hit the path (when nobody else can follow them properly either), put your rpm’s to good use and get to where that path ends as fast as possible. You don’t want somebody else waiting on the other end for them.
2C. If you lose sight of your catch, and somebody else finds them? Admit defeat. You didn’t properly stalk your catch and you lost your chance. It’s survival of the fittest out here, parking lot stalkers, so you have to give credit where it’s due. Keep driving and you’ll find one eventually. Failure to adhere to this rule will result in some quite nasty fights in the parking lot, and games of chicken for the spot. It never ends well.
2D. Correct your parking. Please. There is nothing more frustrating than when there’s an empty spot next to somebody, and they chose to park just a little too far over the line and you can’t fit your car in the empty spot. Please don’t cause this problem for people. It kills the efficiency of the parking lot, as it reduces the number of spots available. It also messes up the stalking process, because you may see the open spot thinking you can fit in it, and thus leaving your catch for somebody else to find.
3. Acquaint yourself with your textbook. This step will save your ass on tests. In our technology obsessed society, most textbooks now are affiliated with their own website. Somewhere in the pages of the book you’ll find that website. Find it. Immediately. Become one with it. These websites hold treasure chests of cramming materials. Online quizzes, sample test questions, simplistic activities that don’t take a while to do, etc. In more cases than not, in my experiences at least, a lot of exams that I take end up being very similar to the ones found on these websites. When it’s 3 in the morning, you realize you took shitty notes, and you don’t know what you’re going to do? Hit up one of those practice tests on the website for 10 minutes. Review the ones you got wrong. It helps more than you’ll probably realize.
4. Visit 2dopeboyz.com on your free time. Enhance your mind with the latest happenings in hip hop, learn about the sampling history behind some of your favorite songs, and let the verbal stylings of Shake and Meka quench your entertainment thirst. Yeah, this one was an advertisement. Get over it. Go to their site.
5. Try not to wait until the last minute to do things. Yeah, I know, people have been telling you this your whole life. And believe me when I tell you, it’s a hard habit to kick. I still haven’t done it. But I know that if I didn’t wait until the last minute, I’d be a lot less stressed. Stay on your grind hard for at least the first couple weeks of classes when the work is still pretty easy and just get a lot of it out of the way. Come midterm season, you’ll be very happy that you did.
Keep an eye out for Part Deux.
*I am the queen of staying up late. Seriously. I don’t care how long you think you can make it…I can take you. I stay up when I don’t even have anything to do. Most nights, I’ll be awake to see the sun come up. I dare you, try to stay on my schedule and still function in your daily life.
Nas...What Are You Doing?!
A little while ago I was enraged after I saw footage of Bill O’Reilly blasting Virginia Tech’s choice to have Nas perform at the free concert hosted for students at the beginning of the semester. I found O’Reilly’s mispronunciation of Nas’ name a blatant sign that O’Reilly didn’t know a damn thing about what he was talking about. First of all, if he actually listened to some of Nas’ music before the show like a well-trained media pawn should be doing, he surely would have heard Nas say his own name somewhere on some track at some point. I’m willing to bet money that O’Reilly wouldn’t recognize a Nas song if it went and bit him on his right-winged ass. But that’s not the point. I honestly felt that Nas would come back at O’Reilly in a more civilized manner, prove his case with integrity and credible information, and keep it movin’. Well, that didn't quite happen.
I thought after that I might not have to worry about Nas so much. He’ll take a media hiatus and go back to making beautiful afternoon noise with Kelis. Once again…Nas went and proved my ass wrong. Now, of all times to go and pull a stunt like this, he wants to talk about putting out an album called N****. (I hate bleeping out my own shit, but that word isn’t a part of my vocabulary, so for the purposes of this blog I’m going to refer to the album as “The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!”). I knew this was going to stir up some controversy, but I have a feeling this might blow up more than I thought. Especially since yesterday’s Oprah show was dedicated once again to bashing hip hop and discussing the evils of the dreaded N-word (word to Meka). Oh, and did I forget to mention that Bill Cosby was on it too? Man, Middle America is probably crying tears of joy for the fact that two of their favorite media icons were on the same show at the same time. This, however, is my worst nightmare. Majority of people tend to believe every insanely biased word that comes out of these people’s mouths. It just never ends well for hip hop when it comes to these two. So, now the N-word debate and the evil entity that is hip hop is back on the minds of most of the country that typically wouldn’t be concerned with it at all anyway, and Nas is back at it causing commotion at just the right time.
This sucks for various reasons. First of all, even if “The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!” never comes out, the publicity it’s attaining is going to leave some aftermath around to be dealt with. People might want to interview Nas to see what sort of logic is behind his choice in naming his album “The Fuck Are You Thinkin?!”, but what if those people are O’Reilly or Oprah? Is he going to get back on there talking about acting like an animal and shit? It just doesn’t work in his favor. Mr. “Shoot ‘Em Up” is gradually losing his claim to promoting any sort of positivity, and therefore any basis to defend hip hop the way it needs to be defended in the public eye. It’s a damn shame, too, because he’s such a large name in the industry and it would be nice to have somebody that has such a large part in the culture represent it properly and with the integrity it deserves in the media.
“The Fuck Are You Thinkin’?!” also means that Sharpton and all of those types are going to hop in on criticizing Nas for his choice…and all that ever tends to decay into is some high profile show taking the opportunity to once again blame hip hop for every negative thing going on in our country. Some kid shoots up a school? It was hip hop. Some kid starts a fight with a cop? It was hip hop. Somebody trips and falls down a flight of stairs and breaks their ankle? It was hip hop.
Well…ok. That was a stretch. But you get my point.
This is not what hip hop needs right now. We need undisputed positivity coming out and getting media attention so that the Oprah-esque media heads can stop trash talking the culture. We need notable figures representing the culture with class, intelligence, and a level head.* What Nas is trying to pull is doing nothing but putting a big ass target on hip hop’s back. I tend to think that this is all a publicity stunt, and one that’s working, but Nas needs to take a step back from furthering his own personal agenda and realize that this is having a negative impact on the culture as a whole. And although I don’t really give a fuck at all what he names an album that he may or may not be putting out, I do give a fuck when I see something that’s such a large part of my life becoming the media-determined cause to the world’s ills. And Nas is only giving O’Reilly, Oprah, Cosby, Sharpton, etc. more shit to bitch about.
*Credit to Common, because so far I haven’t seen him fuck up in public. And he’s doing some good things.
So THAT'S All It Takes
I think I finally figured it out. It took me long enough*, especially considering I live in what’s technically considered the South…but I think I get it now.
Are you an aspiring starter of the newest youtube dance craze? Looking to put out the next snap music hit? Do you want to be the next Lil Jon? Well, stress your little vocabulary deficient brains no longer, seekers of one-hit-wonderdom, for I hold the answer to your success.
Bass.
That has to be what makes some of these shit-tastic songs get half the play that they do. A lot of people these days have a bass addiction. The surgeon general is going to have to put out a warning soon, because sometimes I feel like people are so hooked on it that they take it too far. Next thing you know you’re sitting in somebody’s car who has a system, listening to some Three 6 Mafia (any basshead knows the beats bang), and you’ll fuck around and catch a collapsed lung.
But this bass serves a very useful purpose to the up and coming shitty lyricist – in the amateur system of the average neighborhood bass fiend, it will probably distort the sound slightly, make odd parts of your car that you were never aware of before begin to rattle and make obnoxious noises, and overpower the song so much that you can barely hear what the person that’s rapping on the song is even saying. This is your dream come true, future maker of music devoid of intelligence. You could say whatever you like and nobody would seem to care because they’ll be so engulfed in the vibrating speakers. Hell, you could talk about a recipe for buttercream frosting and the best methods for cake baking, put it to a bass-heavy beat, and some idiot out there will probably end up bumpin it in the whip, or crankin dat bake a cake in the club.
It’s as simple as that, folks. If you know your lyrical skills are lacking, just take the instrumental and turn up the bass. Make sure the whole album is like that, too. Because God forbid somebody actually hears every word to one of your songs and realizes that you lack any sort of talent. Just keep the beat banging, keep the listeners’ asses comfy off the bass massage they’ll get in their cars, and make sure you have a good lawyer in case somebody wants to try and pull a fast one and sue you for collapsing their lung. See you on the top of the Billboard charts. I better get a shout out on the album, too, for sharing this valuable info with you. But you better make sure I can’t hear it.
*My apologies for my sudden absence of sorts. Midterm season does that to you. Don’t be surprised if I pull another disappearing act in a month or two when finals roll around. Such is the life of somebody trying to get out of college ASAP. Just don’t go thinking you guys got rid of me that easily.
The Mandatory Hip Hop is Dead Blog
I got so sick of the “Hip Hop is Dead” concept. The subject got played out to death on damn near every hip hop related website known to (wo)man. But being that this is a new day, I’ll be different (and [not so?] fashionably late) and bring it back. I mean, really now. What kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t do a post about my thoughts on hip hop’s mortality at some point in my life?
So about a month or two ago, I found myself in the midst of welcome week on campus (it’s relevant, I promise). For those that might not have hit up college yet, all welcome week consists of is a bunch of shit put on to make a nice little show to convince you that the rest of the semester won’t be hell and might actually end up being somewhat fun. Don’t fall for it. In a month you’ll be pulling all nighters and praying for the end of it all. Anyway, after some of the festivities were said and done one day, a stage devoid of human presence, but still filled with audio equipment, remained. The next few hours would consist of music being blasted from the speakers in the middle of campus and pissed off professors coming out and complaining that it was too loud. But between the complaints and odd looks from some people when the most random songs imaginable filled the air, a beautiful thing happened. I’m tempted to say that it was the fact that they were giving out free snow cones, as I am a lover of all things free, but it wasn’t.
Towards the end of the span of time that the music was being blasted, the person in control of the music was getting on a sort of “fuck all of this figuring out what to play next” mode. Solution? Just play an album the whole way through, start to finish. Why not, right? Well, next thing you know Common’s “Finding Forever” was acquainting itself with the ears of passersby. By the time “I Want You” came on, I noticed something. I think it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling in my soul. Well…maybe that was the 90 degree heat and the fact I had been baking in it for a good two hours and I was probably beginning to cook my own internal organs. Whatever. But all of a sudden people started coming up to us and asking things like, “is this that new Common album? That shit is hot! I’ve been meaning to listen to this!”, and “are you playing that album the whole way through? Go ahead with that.” Not only was this a pleasant change from the complaints about disrupting classes, but in my eyes it answered that now played out question: is hip hop really dead?
Man, it never even got close to dying. It’s still alive and kickin’. Sure, stylistically it has evolved since its birth due to changing times, technology, and the gradual maturing of your favorite lyricists and producers, but the same can be said for any other genre as well – rock, country, classical, etc. It’s still alive. What really died was just people’s tastes. For some reason people started buying into the straight doodoo stanky music that was coming out moreso than they did the decent music. Yes, contrary to semi-popular belief, high quality, non-dance tracks were, and are, still being put out. You just have to look a little harder for it sometimes. Perhaps people have simply gotten too lazy to put the effort into searching out artists worth their brain cells. However, if this was the case, everybody would end up like me – still listening to that good ol’ 90’s era music and not really caring much about what’s coming out today.* So yeah, the majority of consumers’ tastes changed, and people just allowed themselves to be force fed crappy tunes.
What happened that day on campus though, with the random people asking about Common’s album, gave me hope. That consumer taste for quality music that seemed to fade (and is still questionably shitty, considering Soulja Boy’s debut at #4 on the charts) may not be dead after all. It’s coming back. Slowly but surely I’m seeing a greater amount of people seek out a more sophisticated sound in their music. I’m seeing people diversify their musical interests. I’m seeing people demand more than what the radio gives them. And all of that, in my eyes, is hope for the future of hip hop. A culture that never died, is still thriving despite the current hate towards it from certain media outlets, and will surely be around for decades to come. The catch is that we have to keep the desire to keep the culture powerful and productive alive. And what better time than now? With people like Oprah and Bill O’Reilly shitting on hip hop, it’s even more important that the consumer support the music that promotes the positive growth of the culture. The more we support the shitbag music, the more we’re solidifying the points that people such as those I mentioned before are trying to hold against hip hop.
Nothing is dead. The music is still very much alive. It’s the desire for quality that I was worried about. But you know…I think it might not end up so badly after all.
*I have since made a conscious effort to overcome this personal flaw and check out newer artists of the present day and age. I have been pleasantly surprised, I might add.
Stick to One Talent, Please.
We’ve all seen it happen. The lyricist turned <insert second entertainment industry profession here>. Maybe it’s vice versa and it’s the professional sports player turned musician*. Perhaps an actor turned politican (because we all know politics is nothing but a big show anyway…), or music producer turned rapper. The multitaskers. The people who think they’re just blessed with all the talent in the world and can do anything.
Yeah…no. While some people just flop at doing this (read: Mariah Carey in Glitter), some actually pull it off pretty damn well (read: Tupac going from Digital Underground dancer to rapper…) But switching to a new profession (or trying to handle two at once, a la Kanye West) isn’t an easy task to accomplish. You have to fine tune your skills that probably didn’t come as naturally as those that put you into the game in the first place, you have to have some good networking connects to get you the opportunity to pursue your second talent…it’s not easy!
Which causes me to wonder: if you’re going to put that much effort into trying something new that you’re probably only mediocre at talent-wise, why not put that effort into the talent that you discovered first and made a name for yourself with? To bring up Kanye again, since that seems to be the thing to do lately…I always felt like the guy was a way better producer than he was a rapper. But look how much effort Mr. West puts into promoting his rapping skills. Imagine if he put that sort of energy into progressing his already decent producing skills! This is the point I’m getting at here – if these second professions of sorts came naturally to these people…wouldn’t they have started out doing that instead? Why put your efforts into something that you have to force yourself to be good at, when you could put that same amount of effort into something that comes naturally to you, thus making you a prodigy of sorts at your craft?
If you ask me, if these people (and you could really go on for days naming the people that fit into this description) just focused their sights on one goal, instead of two or more, the final product of their labor could probably be even better than it already would have been had they tried to diversify their talent. I mean shit, look at how Mariah Carey ended up – she learned her lesson. She stopped acting, recovered from her loss of mental stability, and then came back with an album that would earn her a grammy, the title of having the best selling album of 2005, and a porn star look alike that wants to jack her name. Now, who the hell wouldn’t want that?
*Don't act like you don't remember when The Rock was trying to make music.
You Tell Me
Note: Yeah, I know, I’m late with this. It went down in July. But guess what? Amanda has a life. What a concept. And I like to assume that anybody reading this has a life too, so I still feel a need to talk about things like this in case somebody reads this that didn’t know about the incident in question. It’s never too late to spread the word and attempt to educate.
Rather than spew my opinions in your face about an injustice, I shall (isn’t that an uppity ass word?) take a neutral stance in this instance and present you the facts, and then let you decide. Warning: this girl can scream, so you may want to turn your volume down. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Background: The girl in the video was 15-year-old Shelwanda Riley of Fort Pierce, Florida, and the officer is Daniel Gilroy. This footage was taken from the patrol car’s dashboard camera. Riley was approached by police after a 911 call reported suspicious activity in regards to the minor being out late and walking around with a garbage bag. In the bag were found clothes that appeared to be brand new. The teen was breaking the local curfew laws as well. If you watch closely in the video, there comes a point when it appears that the girl tries to bite the officer near his hand. Supposedly the girl tried to kick the officer and swing at him before the officer turned on the dashboard camera. The girl is facing charges of resisting arrest and battery of a law enforcement officer. Fort Pierce’s Police Chief has made public statements supporting the officer Gilroy’s actions, stating that he would have done the same if presented with the same situation.
So I ask…do you feel the officer exhibited excessive force? Did the girl’s actions merit the charges that she now faces? Was the police chief correct in co-signing the officer’s actions?
People Still Love New York?
Ah, the things I learn from my TV Guide. I was reading up on what shows have yet to start up this season in hopes of finding something interesting to watch on my down time. Not much of anything seemed great to me, but I did find out something fascinating…
VH1 is premiering a new season of “I Love New York” (is this news to anybody but me?) on Monday. What’s worse is that the premiere of the show is being used as the lead in to the Hip Hop Honors. Seriously?! If you ask me that’s the most indirectly disrespectful show that they could have chosen to put on before something that’s supposed to be so serious in capturing the essence of and appreciating the legends of hip hop. I mean let’s look at what made New York “famous”: the fact that she was on “Flavor of Love”, which had to be the most ridiculously disturbing show to hit TV in a long while. The whole fact that somebody from a group so influential in rap music and so focused on rhyming about real issues, Public Enemy, could end up on a romantically focused reality show is bad enough. Then the show just turned into a bunch of idiocy and basic examples of how girls should not act (read: shitting themselves, getting into bitchfights, and acting whorish), which made it even worse.