What is up? It's
been a crazy week on my side. My boy was doing a panel discussion on "White
Noise" which talked about white people stealing black music and he asked
me to be on it. Great. I really don't like talking about race because nothing
good ever comes out of it. Usually everyone just gets mad if you don't agree,
and if you do agree, what's the point in talking about it? Anyway, my boy asked
me to go and I said yes, because he's my boy. Then he invited two wannabe PhD
candidates and a local rapper. Great. The whole fucking time was the two wannabe
PhD's showing how many big words they knew. I really don't give a fuck if you
read a dictionary. That doesn't make you cool. All the shit was was everyone
throwing big words around. One of the wannabe's even talked about the authenticity
of "freestyling." The other wannabe talked about how he was going
to perform at an open mic poetry night and how bad everyone was so he wouldn't
do it. Ok Saul Williams Jr. Graduate students are the scum of the earth. All
they do is try to throw around big words and act like they know shit, but they
really don't. And I know they didn't know anything about Hip Hop because they
kept on changing the topic to Plato, Thomas Jefferson, and anything else that
didn't have to do with the words Hip or Hop. They were all idiots. If all you
can say is "Eminem copies black music" then you really don't know
much. What about all the other white dudes that have done Hip Hop without disrespecting
anybody and having their own style, such as the Beastie Boys, El-P, 3rd Bass,
and even the new school of rappers that do the shit right, like Scram Jones,
Jojo Pellegrino, Born Unique, Little Vic…I respect all those dudes not
because they're white but because they make honest music. Anyone that's read
this column knows what I'm about. I haven't had to "change" to get
ahead in this Hip Hop shit and I haven't had to pretend at all. I do me, try
to support good music, help up-and-coming MC's, and write columns that make
A&R's that play electric guitars cringe. That's what I do. I'm not trying
to "steal" culture or be anything that I'm not. If you disagree, fuck
you. And if you're one of those condescending grad students that has to use
big words to cover your insecurities, then fuck you too. No need to go Canibus
on the rest of the population. And another thing, I was making a point about
how no one forced those laffy taffy dudes to do the song, and a student said
he was proud of the song because it showed his culture's "freedom of expression."
If you're proud of that then I guess I should be proud of Ted Bundy and Charles
Manson. Why is the majority of Hip Hop fans so damn wack? I really don't know
what the solution is, but it's got to be out there. If anyone has any ideas,
please send them to me because that discussion really showed me where people's
heads are at. In real life I really try to avoid discussions about Hip Hop because
I deal with Hip Hop almost every hour of the day, whether it's responding to
emails, listening to demos, or conducting and typing interviews. So I really
don't know how some people feel about the music today because I don't ask them.
I know how the artists feel about music because I talk to them, and they don't
like what's going on. I hate what's going on. And this will probably be one
of the only times I talk about race because it only invites arguing about shit
that most people will never agree on. Please email me your thoughts and let
me know if you agree with me or if I really am going crazy. I really don't know.
If you get a chance
to see Muggs, GZA, and Self-Scientific on tour, I suggest that you do so. They
put on a crazy show. I saw some people on message boards complaining that GZA
is not that live, but if you listen to his music, do you really expect him to
be running around on stage screaming and bouncing off the walls? I got to see
them at a tour stop and it definitely went down. One of the most stressful situations
I've been in recently happened when we tried to find GZA's hotel room. It was
me, GZA, and Armel driving around trying to read numbers on the sides of buildings.
Anyway they definitely put it down and lived up to their reputations. Props
to them.
This Busta Rhymes
situation just continues to linger. I'm sure Busta wants this all to just disappear.
The bad thing is that everything is tied to people at his label. If he goes
to police, there's the potential that Tony Yayo gets in trouble. Obviously the
boss won't be too happy about that. Hopefully Busta sees the big picture in
this and sees that the real problem comes with the people he invited to be in
his remix. Where are the Q-Tip's and De La Soul's? Busta came in on some happy
Hip Hop shit and now he's rolling with the superthugs. Busta, please don't compromise
your creativity for street points. If you just do yourself and do what made
everyone love you in the first place, you'll be good. You may not be rap's #1
superstar, but you'll be eating and you'll be out of trouble. This case is not
what you need before your biggest album to date is preparing to drop. Worrying
about being subpoenaed is not a good thing. You need to be worried about doing
enough interviews and drops, not whether or not you're going to lose points
for "snitching." You know Hip Hop is wack when all we're known for
at the moment is Busta staying silent and Kanye West wearing glasses fit for
a giant. Oh yeah, and Jay's open-toed sandals.
And just when you
think Busta's situation can't get any worse, he gets sued by a 37 year-old dude
asking for an autograph. Asking for autographs is not cool if you're above the
age of twelve…And I can't really see Busta knocking the dude out if that's
all he was asking for. I've heard of fans getting denied autographs by athletes,
but never assaulted because of it. How many times have you heard of Tony Gwynn
or Dan Majerle throwing haymakers because a fan asked for a John Hancock? I'm
guessing Busta should just sign anything placed before him at this point.
Shouldn't someone
tell Cam to give up and stop coming at Jay. It's not working, and bringing out
a Jay look-a-like is not going to help your situation. People love Jay more
than any other rapper alive, and I don't think that's going to change by making
a couple of diss tracks and a video. I think Cam is actually going to lose more
fans with this move.
I really like that
idea of "Rep Your Set" on Shade45. It's about time an area's local
artists get some national exposure. It's dope that DJ Obscene has one of the
first slots because that kid is like 17 years-old and already ahead of the game.
He's on Sirius and probably hasn't even taken his SAT's yet.
Rest in Peace to
Kirby Puckett. It's a sad time for baseball right now. Dude was only 45 years-old.
That's about all
I got for this week. As always, the email address is whattime@gmail.com.
05/13 - 
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