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- » Name: J. Burnett
- » Location: Atlanta, GA
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hip hop • rap • t.i. • the dirty south
Why Think Let Me Do That...Jesus Approved Commentary
It's Been a Long Time...
I bet alot of y'all would expect this to some hyped up/controversial/hatin' ass megablog where I announce my triumphant return...Nope. This ain't that; just some random thoughts scribbled together during my break from writing lesson plans.
Double Take (DJ snatches the vinyl off the Technics)
Yeah, I said it: lesson plans. I've been teaching summer school for about 3.5 weeks now and the training program I'm in is intense (imagine a Bolo facial expression after punching a hole in someones stomach or being on Maury wondering if you wore the raincoat that night you was layin' in the neighborhood J.O.) Shied, I've been waking up at 5:30am and going to sleep at 2:30am. You do the math. But dealing with young black folk and them has given me some interesting insights into Hip Hop. Mos wasn't lying when he said Hip Hop goes where the people go.
Because of confidentiality issues, I can't go into detail about my students but it's summer school. So it's not hard to imagine why they're there. And it's not so much that they are slow slow. They're just so damn lazy. Most of them are looking for the easiest path to their destination which in this case would be their diplomas. Message. When you look at Hip Hop, it's the same thing. Let me throw some ish down, market, youtube and get paper. But yeah I'm not on that soapbox ish today so I'll chill on that tangent.
I said I wasn't gon hate but I gots to say sumthing about Young Buck. There is no redemption from those phone convos. His man card has been confiscated, shredded then burned and then the ashes were taken to Chuckie Cheese's and distributed. 50 took the quarter from his hand and put it in his backside. I won't even bother listening to any diss tracks. Game Over.
Funny thing I noticed: Trend Hop has gone out of fashion; almost. All you old heads/purists can rejoice. Even though these cats bombard the blogs & such they're barely making any waves. No attention = no dollars & when you take the guapo out of the occasion typcially the rapper disappears too. I mean, rapping is still a job & ain't no black folk going to work without a check. Am I right or am I right?
Nas = irrelevant
Ice T/Soulja Boy Beef = who cares
Soulja Boy = this gen coming up's Jay
Hip Hop is nothing but old men fighting to be the man and young guys acting like they are the man.
What up to all my folks: 2DB yall are killin the game right now. Kudos fellas. What up WEKIII, Mr. Paine, Bassa, D. Howse and all of the other DX fam. I'll be back on my post July 12th.
BTW, is there anyway to collectively permanently ban C tha God from blogging? I'm just saying...
I'm BSing. Keep up the good work homes.
No, but seriously...See y'all July 12th
T.I.'s Resume Checked
Video on WSHH
Truthfully, I don’t give two spits where Clifford is from. It makes no difference to me but it’s kind of funny that this Shawty Lo/T.I. fiasco has unfurled the way it has. The reason being is that T.I. has always branded himself as “Mr. Real,” you know the REAL tRapper. It’s kind of ironic that in constantly calling out Bankhead over records that someone finally er…checked his resume. Lo and behold, Riverdale High School seems to be where T.I. attended school. Needless to say, Riverdale is far…far…far…faaaaar from Bankhead (15-25 minutes away). Now, don’t take this blog as me questioning his seedy past as his record sheet of 7 8 felonies seems to speak for itself but I’m glad Shawty Lo is pulling his card.
There’s only one genre where someone can profit out of fabricating their persona and it’s Hip Hop. In the bizarro Gangster Rap realm, it almost seems the more gangster you are the more $$$ you get. The inverse is true as well.
We’ll use the Ja Rule as well as the Dipset case study. Ja Rule’s status before Fiddy came through was comparable to…Fiddy’s now. He was in movies. He was on mad feature appearances. He was running around shirtless. In fact, it’s almost like 50 bodied Ja to be Ja. Nevertheless once Fif Kembo Sliced Ja on wax it was pretty much a wrap. Similarly examine Dipset’s descent off the planet of relevance. Once cats started getting their kuffis slapped off in the streets, trademarks impacted on their eyes and such, their popularity on the block waned.
I don’t condone violence but I don’t condone lying either. It’s wacksauce that rappers can scribble down a persona on paper and act it out in public and cake substantially. Someone had to put an end to it. We should thank Shawty Lo. He’s championing honesty amongst other things. If T.I. ain’t from Bankhead then he should be yelling Bankhead. It’s as simple as that. I hope the two can settle it nonviolently but if a midget man cage match needs to go down so be it. Sidenote: what the hell is that on top of T.I.'s head in that video at the top?
Rappity Rap Raps
So I was listening to Rising Down and after my first few listens I was sort of disappointed. Sound-wise it’s not that much of a progression from Game Theory. Then, I turned it up louder and the shit sounded great. Rising Down lyrically and sonically is a response to the cruddy state the music industry is in. You get the feeling throughout the pilgrimage that the band is pissed (“75 Bars”) about something but it’s not them just screaming “Yo, we’re pissed off.” That’s what is expressed by the music. Therein lies the genius of the Roots. They draw the picture with the music and allow you to interpret the vision as opposed to the vision being shoved down your throat Sasha Grey style.
And that’s what a lot of those SUPER HIP HOP acts don’t get. I’ll focus on MC Jan Sport for now though. How asinine is it to write raps about rapping and the rap game and blah blah blah? The meaning of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. How many cats have said the rap game is ass cheeks but you (MC Jan Sport) expect stardom because you say it in different word order. Nah, bruh. As opposed to writing rhymes about rhymes why not talk about life? That’s something that’s unique to anyone. Maybe your life sucks but it’s still your life and no one can reproduce your basement tales better than you.
Same thing with alot of mainstream cats. Everyone’s making it rain, cashing checks but few cats actually make you feel like “yo, this nicca’s actually rich.” You got cats talking how cheesed up they are and in their video they're riding around in Chargers. Nicca please. That’s where Rick Ross’ last album Trilla suceeds—yeah I said it. It's actually pretty damn good as far as mainstream rap goes. He’s selling the lifestyle and it actually makes for a better listening experience. I mean there’s some explicit references but listen to that jawn one time and tell me you don’t feel like maybe he is who he says he is despite you can clearly cops his velours from Marshalls.
Final point: Nas and his recent leaked track (Be a Nigga Too). I mean it's like a nicca always talkin' bout smackin cakes. If you getting skins then cats will recognize. The lame-os are the ones who have to constantly stress it. Like the track is too extra; too much of an attempt to be revolutionary. It comes off as unnatural and the beat is Mo' cheeks. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come but the other track he leaked is Steve J Garbow too.
I’m just saying writing raps about rap = wack
Thoughts?
A Call to Arms
I, like many of you, have heard about the Sean Bell case. And I, like many of you, chalked it off as another sad story; another injustice that was beyond my control. Before I attempted to do anything, I had already concluded there was not much I could do. I've come to determine this is an erroneous conclusion. Allowing what happened to happen to this man without saying or doing something will assuredly make America an immensely less safe place for anyone--not just men of color but EVERYONE.
I can and WILL do something. It's never too late to do something.
Here's the details as I know them. That night Bell and two others (and possibly a third individual) celebrated Bell's pending wedding to Nicole Paultre with a bachelor's party at a seedy strip club named the Kalua Cabaret. Said club was under surveillance for its owner allegedly "fostering" a prostitution ring. With that said there were undercover officers on the premises who were building a case against the establishment and its owner. Upon witnessing a heated argument between a member of Bell's party (Guzman) and one of the dancers, one of the plain clothes officers overheard the man from Bell's party saying "Yo, get my gun" (NY Post). The detective proceeded to following the party out of the club.
Now, here's where details differ depending on the perspective. The plain clothes officer was said to approach the car with his gun drawn. At this point Bell who was driving a Nissan Altima pulled off hitting the officer and colliding with an unmarked surveillance van--either in fear of an ensuing carjacking or fleeing arrest. This we'll never know because Bell was slain in the shooting that commenced following that sequence of events. Whether the officer--as protocol calls for--identified himself as a police officer before he drew his gun, or after, or if he did at all has yet to be determined. After all the dust had settled, Detective Michael Oliver had shot 31 times (a full two clips); Detective Isnora fired 11 shots and Detective Cooper fired off 4 shots--a total of close to 50 bullets to subdue a car of 3-4 men.
The fourth man who allegedly had the phantom firearm supposedly fled the scene although no evidence of his weapon, persona or actual presence has been confirmed. Alot of the details have shifted and there's alot of room for speculation in either direction. What remains is that Sean Bell, a father and soon to be husband, is dead and there was no weapon in the vehicle that was fired upon. What about his wife, his daughter? And nearly 50 shots fired, if not more, shots to stop them..."Excessive force" is an understatement. According to protocol, gunshots should not be used on moving vehicles (even if the vehicle is being used as a weapon) and regardless of that, some of the shots fired nearly injured innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with the incident. Several similar incidents have occurred in Georgia and they occur all over the nation. When does it stop? To add insult to injury, in the criminal trial for the three officers all were acquitted of their respective charges which included manslaughter and reckless endangerment.
I'm not sure what course of action needs to be taken but something needs to happen. If you'd like to mobilize in the name of justice contact me directly (email's in the contact section). We can discuss the facts, details, (or vent) and decide what the next action may be. But we can't continue to allow things like this to happen without doing something.
If you'd like to find out more about this case and read a bevy of newspaper articles about this, click here
Justice for Sean (Sean's Family's Website)
Please spread the word. Copy and paste my note in another note and tag as many people as you can.
Woooooord
(note: I may be late on this but I haven’t watched more then an hour of TV in about 2 months or been into Politics that much as of late, so if this isn’t news to you keep it pushin’ and accept my insincere apologies.)
Hmmm...Basically, it's surfaced that while Billy Boy was going through that whole Monica Lewinsky ordeal he requested religious and spiritual consul from a number of well known leaders in that realm. In attendance, was the man pictured above, Jeremiah Wright--the same man Mrs. Clinton continues to hurl about in hopes that white folks won't cast their ballots for Barack. Recently, she mentioned his ties to Farrakhan (i.e. the ill angry black man) attempting to link Obama to Farrakhan. You see a pattern. Hill's tactics prey on the most vile, reprehensible deep-seated biases of those who still fear men of color. Let's make sure this thing gets the proper coverage because it's time for her political gamemanship to be revealed. She'll say anything to get that seat.
Hillary Clinton = the illest demagogue EVAR
Read the full article here
PS
Busted...
HipHopDX Cage Match: The Indisputable Top 5 SOLO Catalogues
It's been a long time...yall know the rest. Well some of you do but if you don't know a line like that then you're pretty much worthless--at least in this sphere. So I was thinking of uber-insightful shit to blog about and a few days turned into a week or so. Yall know how it goes. Plus news in Hip Hop has become more like watching America's Most Wanted or Cops then anything that's even remotely close to relevant in my day to day life so I just been grinding out reviews, interviews and shit like that; you know stuff that pays. The price on Corn Pops and milk for that matter is up and props from a blog can't afford you those luxuries.
I don't think some of you understand how difficult it is to sit down at a cpu at your full time gig and blow something coherent out of your ass [paws] while cascading windows of B&B, King photoshoots and bizarre shit i'd rather not discuss. But on my side, side hustle, SOP, I decided to rouse up some rabble as I'm wont to do with this post. Basically, it's a picture of Com's One Day It'll All Make Sense and a title that says it's his hottest shit EVAR which it is. But that got me thinking with the catalogue Com's got, he's a legitimate candidate for G.O.A.T. I'm not going to go there--at least not now--but me and my Co-D began ranking cats and their catalogues and my joints goes like this.
1. Jay-Z
2/3. Nas/Com (neck and neck)
4. Ghostface
5. LL
Like this is pretty indisputable but I know some of you yokels have differing opinions. Let's get it cracking though. What are yall's lists?
Bidness Don't Give Two Fucks About You
Maaan...you ever been at your job and someone asks you to do some shit at like 4:59pm when you get off at 5pm and then it's some shit that'll have you there until 7pm??? Well 90% of you probably still feeding off ma dukes bosom so I guess this is for a select few, the creme de la creme that hustles 9-5 so they can afford dem Corn Pops in da mornin' (not me though, I can't afford breakfast yet). But they know it's some BS and you know it's some BS. But your boss' boss don't give a shit. They don't care about your time or your feelings as long as the end result remains the same.
Me and M dot was having this convo yesterday. You can almost apply that to anything. Take that Lebron cover. I don't know if the editor was trying to make him look like a monkey or not but truth of the matter is it doesn't matter now anyway. If blacks lined up on the capital that shit would probably become a more profitable issue in the end making it more a success then just ignoring it which is what I did to an extent. I already knew it was about making cake. But, it generated the buzz probably making them more $$$ then they've seen in a minute and like I said before dollars make sense. So all of that outcry amounts to nothing.
Apply that to Hip Hop. See what many of you artists/fans/people don't understand is that when the first record was pressed up this shit became a business. All that artistic shit is cool, I love it and respect it but the idea behind a business is to turn a profit. That's why you got cats making .08 cents on each of their albums so someone else can make mad dust. Bidness don't care if you take 20 years to make an album and if after you've sold 15K you have to go live in a homeless shelter which is probably a real story for someone. If they make $1 off that ass the machine will continue to churn and you can spend the next 20 years of your life making the next joint so Cohen and them can light up another Cohiba. That shit sounds wild crazy but it's the truth. Kinda fucked up ain't it???
Yall remember the Roc right (one of our greatest dynasties)? Now, I can look back at it and laugh because Jay played the shit like a business. Now look at what he's doing...the rest of the Roc, not so much. There's no principles/morals in a business. It just make that dough. C.R.E.A.M. dollar, dollar bill yaaaaaall.
That's Gangstalicious My Dude
So, like a good number of my blogs, I began to ruminate on this topic (gangstaliciousness in rap music) in the drive-thru of Popeye's while I was mulling over the decision to go with the popcorn shrimp meal or the, tried and true, 3-finger chicken strip meal. What prompted these thoughts was the playing of Bloodraw's (damn can you get a more gangster name than that? I think not) "In My Louis" featuring Young Jeezy. It's one of those joints were the entirety of the song is centered around a phrase similar to Juvie's "Ha." The phrase on this occasion happened to be a "in my Louis bag," which struck me as a bit odd. When you think about it's a bit gangstalicious in that these are the same K-totin', bird-flippin' "gangsters" but they got a whole song about what they put in their bags...Hmm...similarly, I find my self having identical thoughts about Rocko's "This Morning" where in the chorus he grabs his hat, then his bag then his strap...interesting combo. In fact, Rocko often talks about matching his bag with his hat. I'll leave yall to draw conclusions.
There's nothing wrong with being fly. That's cool but this swagger business is getting out of hand. When it was Gucci sneakers that was cool even the Prada sneaks get a pass (shit i'd cop some of those to this day) but this along with the Rick Ross "no draws incident" are making me have some interesting thoughts about where rap music is going. Fly shoes is one thing but I'm not going for this bag shit. C'mon, these are "gangsters" talking about toting bags around. Some of this ish sounds a lil sus to me. Maybe I'm just a hater. I'm not saying I wouldn't cop a Louis bag if I had an excess of cash--albeit not braggin' about what I stash in it--but some things not jiggin' about these thugged out images and these bags. What do yall think?
Gangstalicious or am I just hatin' as I'm prone to do?
U.B.M.
Once upon a time I used to be just like you--minus leaving in my mom's basement. I came to DX read blogs, commented here and there and enjoyed the free content especially the pics of ginormous who-whos that can be found in the wonderful B&B section. Now, this is before I was granted this space to spew my invective, random fuckery and such. But what actually kept me coming back to this site for a long time was the blogger you love to hate, Meka Soul. What I dug about his blogs was that he was willing to take it where many of us wanted to take it but didn't have the squabbles to. You see some of us have that lil' man standing on our shoulders that says "hey, don't say that" or "whoa buddy that's politically incorrect" but M Dub my friends does not have that. Call it a gift and a curse but rest assure if he was hurting this site he'd be gone. But the truth is you sadistic phukks are just like me...You want to see what he's going to say next and despite your calls for his head you still frequent his blog.
I'm going to [II] this whole verse...Don't you know this man is the backbone of these blogging sections. He's single-handedly given HHDX's blogs an identity. No offense to any of the other bloggers contributions but who's delivered when Hip Hop has had the BIG headlines and when it's been in the Drought; summer, winter, day, night. Not me for damn sure. When Hip Hop gets wack, I get ghost until someone says or does some really stupid shit which typically doesn't take to long in the rap game (read: T.I., Beans, Prodigy, Remy, etc. nice jobs guys HH has been set back another few light years and Billy O has another set of clips to use when it's time to etherize HH culture). M Dot is one of the few cats who's able to sustain just talking about life as opposed to reopening up the Hip Hop is SO Dead dialogue. Why does every cat who revisit that topic think it's a brand new discussion???
What I've come to learn from frequenting this blog and sharing my opinion with the world is that there's just too many pussies in this world. What does that mean? It doesn't matter what you say someone's going to get all "asshurt" and throw a pussy fit. And it's the same thing with rap. Pussy fits single-handedly got "Birthday Girl" removed from Rising Down. How fucked up is that? I mean whether you like the track or not the bitchfits completely redirected the course of an album--slight exaggeration, somewhat--but damn. It's like you cry for the art and when it's given to you you stone the shit out of it. That's too much control for a fan. Now let me bring it full circle for M Dot. Although the language in his posts is often crass, unruly and vulgar his point is usually far, far removed from Ron Paul like racist rants (search the Ron Paul Letters). But if you get all bitched out before you get to the end then you'll never get the true beauty of his posts. But if you get this man banned from this site which would in essence be a censorship of art--free speech, free speech--then no one's ever going to address anything taboo, say anything controversial and basically these blogs will become like SOHH's, a barren wasteland full of toilet tissue. The decision is yours; choose accordingly, yentas.
Angry Black Sistahs Unite!!!
So I was listening to Atlanta’s Frank and Wanda radio show (V103) and they were discussing the above cover and the outrage it’s caused amongst SOME—not all—black women (surprise, surprise). The issue appears to be two things: the photo can be paralleled to King Kong scaling the building with the blond chick in hand (which in this case would make Lebron = King Kong, a monkey, which isn’t a cool comparison obviously) and the main issue, which was why can’t Lebron be on the cover with a black woman despite the caption that reads "Gisele and Lebron: The World’s Top Model & Star Athletes.” Doesn't really seem like a race thing to me; more so a status thing but hey why use common sense when you can go off of a raw emotion. After a few angry black sistah calls about how Lebron needed to be hanged for being pictured with a white chick etc, etc I turned the radio off in disgust.
I don’t get it. In this day and age why are we still having these conversations? Isn’t it just a big deal to have Lebron on the cover of Vogue? And wasn’t J. Hud on the cover a minute ago with a really positive representation of black women? What are some of y'all black chicks so aggy about, like for real. So here’s the underline issue in my mind: black chicks are tired of seeing successful brothers go white which is fair but reaming black men and these type of dialogues produce the opposite effect of what’s intended. Same thing with Rap, castigating the Hip Hop community about its language and its ills is about as pointless as hoping for an unbiased view of politics from Fox. And if a black man wants to go white who cares? Nobody’s tripping about Halle Berry or Kerry Washington or about that one Sanaa Lathan flick that blew balls. Ahhh…the hypocrisy unfolds. To me, the shit's a contradiciton because you see plenty of successful black women with white men but black dudes ain't tripping now are we? No, we're cool like that.
Also, lets keep it funky. In SOME educated black women circles there’s a lot of “all black men are dogs" rhetoric. Am I lying? On one hand, black women call us hard-working brothers who just happen to not have the coins yet dogs but yall are mad that the paid brothers ain't diggin you. Hmmm...it seems like all of the answers are in the sentence that precedes this one. And this to me, really seems more like why can't a well off sister get a black dude that's not broke and if that's the case isn't it wrong to be judging a person's merit off of their cheese. What’s really good??? Interracial dating dialogues are sooooo 90s, get with it. I’d like to hear y’all thoughts. Maybe I just need some black woman perspective and don’t be afraid to chime in white people. There’s obviously another side to the coin here. Thoughts???
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