Shout out to Domingo for his album and for getting in Urb’s latest issue. I’m real happy for him and all, but something is really bothering me. On pg. 119 of the magazine, Domingo is asked to name his five favorite breaks. That’s cool and all, but what the fuck is in his drink? Why does it look like he’s holding a plastic cup full of carrots, green beans and onions? Is that the new drink? Why wasn’t I told of this? And I could be wrong on this, but if that is indeed vegetable soup, shouldn’t Domingo have a spoon somewhere? I see sunglasses, keyboards, computers and records in the picture but not the slightest hint that a spoon is somewhere in the room. Wouldn’t it be hard drinking vegetable soup? I’ve never tried it but I would think the broth would go down first and you’d be stuck with a plastic cup full of soggy vegetables.
And even if you don’t like Domingo, you have to love him for the fact that while Slim Thug and Paul Wall are slamming red cups of cough syrup, Domingo’s in his studio getting his vegetable soup on. Hey, it’s better than chicken noodle soup.
After I finish this column I think I’m actually going to cop some vegetable soup, pour it in a cup and drink it (no spoon) and see if it helps me on Fruity Loops. Props for Domingo for giving up his production secret. Maybe if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses in his dark studio he would have realized what he was doing. Hopefully Domingo will have an explanation for us next week.
One rapper who’s probably not in the running for the tough guy award this year is Tony Yayo, who beat up a 14 year-old for wearing the wrong t-shirt. It just so happened that the kid happens to be the son of Jimmy Henchman and the shirt he was wearing was of his father’s company, Czar Entertainment. Tony, no matter how disrespectful a kid is to you, you really don’t have the right to beat them up, especially when you have a few years on the kid and probably a hundred pounds.
What exactly provokes you to beat up a kid? I’ve never punched someone half my age so I really wouldn’t know. What could a 14 year-old possibly say to you to make you want to punch him? “No, you can’t borrow my skateboard?” I’m pretty sure the kid was just trying to give Tony some constructive criticism on his last album so his new album didn’t have to be titled Thoughts of a Predicate Retail Bust.
And when you’re rolling with one of the richest entertainers in America, should you really be concerned with what kind of shirt a kid is wearing? What if Michael Jordan beat up all five kids who wore the Shaq’s in the early ‘90s?
I can’t wait for the Yayo song describing the incident to leak. “Eighth Graders Can Get It” is sure to have the clubs swinging and the halls of every junior high looking like a University of Miami football game. And no, Miamians, do not ask me to call it “The U” because I won’t.
I’ve met Jimmy Henchman before. He seemed like a nice enough guy when I met him. He also impressed me as the type of guy you don’t want to piss off, and I’m pretty sure beating up his 14 year-old son for wearing a t-shirt would get him pretty angry. And who can blame him? From everything I’ve read, I’m mad at Tony Yayo. Even Young Buck sounds mad at Tony Yayo. And Young Buck’s a cool guy, so if he’s mad, then you know you did something wrong.
If Tony Yayo really did beat this kid up, what happens to G-Unit? Young Buck has said he doesn’t rock with people who beat up kids, so is one of them going to have to go? If you’re 50, do you give Yayo his walking papers? It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next here.
And I’ve worked with kids that age for the past two years. I know how they can be. One of the kids I tutored got suspended for suggesting in class, out loud, that the reason his teacher was so uptight was because she wasn’t “sexually active.” I can see how people might want to beat up kids when they say things like that. The only thing is, 99.99% of people don’t do it because they realize they’re just kids and they’re just saying what they’re going to say to get a reaction.
I also don’t think Tony Yayo realizes how much worse he made it on himself either. If all it takes is a t-shirt to get him swinging, how many people are going to be looking for a Czar Entertainment shirt now? How many kids are going to be rushing to buy a pair of Hurricanes in the hopes that they may run into Yayo and have a potential payday coming up? Tony, Tony, Tony…
I thought the news of Yayo beating up a kid was pretty disturbing, but what could be worse is how the Scott Storch/Timbaland beef is being taken to the computer screen now. Scott Storch’s video looked like a reject from America’s Funniest Home Videos until DOE dropped one and made himself look just as bad. Getting a white dude with big sunglasses to hump a piano just doesn’t cut it. The song sounds completely rushed and I really thought DOE would have revised his version after seeing the Scott Storch video when it becomes clear that he didn’t drop the n-bomb. You can’t say, “We got another Kramer, y’all” when the dude didn’t really say it. I think the word was strategically placed in there at that time, which could be just as worse, but Scott really didn’t say it.
I wasn’t even going to write anything about the videos until I got this email blast from DOE: “YEAH THATS RIGHT, I WENT THERE! I SHOT A VIDEO TO THE HILARIOUS DISS RECORD GOING AT SCOTT STORCH. THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINING!!!” Let’s hope this is not the beginning. How much more mileage can this lame horse of a beef have? Thankfully DOE did tell me his real tracks were coming.
I think the craziest thing about that whole situation is you have two very well-paid producers resorting to camcorders and gossip. Either get on the phone and hug it out or just don’t say anything. Neither one of those guys should be complaining about getting jerked either. With the lawyers they can both afford and the experience they have in the music industry, how could they ever get taken advantage of? If you have a team of lawyers and years of experience and still get jerked, then you need to be a little more careful because the only way a lot of people in the industry get rich is by taking advantage of others.
Rich Boy didn’t really sell a lot of albums his first week out, so I’m not sure what kind of D’s he’s going to be throwing on that bitch now. I know I said I wasn’t going to talk record sales in the column and that I wasn’t going to even look at them, because that’s not really hip-hop. But I think it’s important to make an exception here in order to prove a point to all these cotton candy-eating, Birkenstock-wearing fruitcakes who call themselves part of the “industry.”
Here’s the deal. Rich Boy sold 112,000 copies of his debut album with the smash single “Throw Some D’s.” That’s all he sold! With a smash single like that and every potential R.Kelly target singing the words, wouldn’t you have thought Rich Boy would have been Super-Rich Boy after dropping an album? He might have to change his name to Middle-Class Boy now.
I would never want to see anyone do badly, no matter what I think of their music. But, in Rich Boy’s case, I think it’s important to see the silver lining in his low sales. Besides the point that CD sales are tanking, hopefully this proves to A&R’s that you need more than a brainless single talking about how you ride in a car “with no tint so the haters know it’s me.” If you read those lyrics line for line, your IQ will actually drop. No, really, it will. We can bring in some HHG scientists to prove this. Everyone’s looking at the internet for the reason sales are tanking, but maybe it’s just because everyone’s wack. Maybe people just don’t want to spend $15 for one song on an album when they could get it for $.99 on iTunes. Mims could go platinum this week and that would kind of negate this whole argument, but for now there’s no reason to buy an album off a single when you know how the rest of the album is going to sound. The only good that can come of all this is that labels finally start building artists like they’re supposed to. We’ll see…
Here’s proof that the rich may not have it better, but they’re definitely weirder. Will Smith just bought a $350,000 toilet that “cleans the user” so he won’t have to wipe after he gets jiggy with it. The best quote is how Will Smith justifies the toilet by saying it will pay for itself with all the money he will now save in toilet paper. $350,000 in toilet paper? Do you use a roll every time? Did no one ever teach him how to wipe? Mathematically, is it even possible to have spent $350,000 on toilet paper in a lifetime, even if you’re buying the 8-ply kind? Tubgirl thinks that amount of toilet paper is ridiculous.
And what’s going to happen to the Fresh Prince when he goes on the road? Does the toilet come with him? From what I’ve heard, wiping your bottom is not the same as riding a bike. Once you stop wiping, you forget how to. He’s going to either be stuck in his hotel room waiting for the sprinkler system or walking around caked up, if you know what I mean. It’s times like this when you really, really want to feel sorry for the rich.
The New York Daily News is reporting that Jay-Z’s contract at Def Jam is up for renewal at the end of the year and he wants a raise upwards of a couple million dollars. I’m pretty sure everyone on the label not named Rick Ross or Young Jeezy is very happy to hear about that. I’m pretty sure you’ll see Method Man, Joe Budden, the Roots and Redman all outside picketing until Jay gets his raise.
In all honesty, what has Jay really done over there? The Roots and Method Man never got the push they deserved. Nas’ album did okay but that could have always done better. The only album that really got all the bells and whistles on the promotional end was, surprise surprise, Kingdom Come, which was also a relative disappointment. I’m not an expert on business, but usually when you ask for a raise, you have to show why you deserve it. What has Jay really done up at Def Jam to really prove that he’s an asset to the company? And I’m not asking this out of spite or anything. I’m really asking, what has he done?
Personally, I really don’t think being the President of Def Jam is the right role for Jay. He may be a hustler and all that, but people don’t really care about that now. Do people really want Industry Jay? All the people really want is some good music, and Jay hasn’t proven that he can deliver a classic Jay-Z album while being Mr. President nor has he proven that he can consistently deliver quality albums from other artists.
My boy DJ Truth was out in LA watching some games at a bar with none other than the Shermanator. He didn’t get a drop for me, which was disappointing, but apparently the Shermanator doesn’t like to be called that because as Truth was walking out, some dude was on his cell phone screaming into it, “Whatever you do, don’t call him the Shermanator!” I guess he prefers “that loser from Angus” much better.
Shout out to my boy Eli all the way out in China, which is where the Eli who plays for the Giants should be…He wrote an open letter to Uncle Murder and I’m running it because I like it and because it confirms that me and my boy JP are not the only ones morbidly fascinated by his music. The letter:
I just came to a startling realization listening to Uncle Murda's new song- "Bullet Bullet."
After claiming to be an expert in ballistics, Mr. Murder's story begins to test the limits of credibility. He states "You can run but can’t hide from the bullet bullet." Wait, wait, Mr. Murder, you can run but you can't hide from the bullet bullet? I'm afraid it is the other way around! Forgive my confusion- I did not major in murda, as evidently you did (I was cultural anthropology)- but my understanding is that you can hide from a bullet, because it is not very good at changing direction or looking under the bed, but challenging a bullet to a foot race is not a good idea.
Perhaps the only answer is that a "bullet bullet" is something different from a "bullet" entirely...
Perplexed,
Eli Sweet
The microwave is beeping. The vegetable soup is ready.
05/13 - 
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