Your Racial Politics are a Wonderland

One of these is not like the rest..

So John Mayer singlehandedly halved the number of rap-approved rock artists from two to one (congrats on the W Coldplay) with his astoundingly casual racism in his awful Playboy interview.

You know how sometimes, people say "I was taken out of context"? Well in this case the context was even worse than the racial comment he got in trouble for. The interview was filled with just sort of unfiltered frat boy douchiness that you'd expect to find in the male portion of his fanbase.

But this is Start Snitching so let's get into the racial parts after checking out a piece of the interview,

• MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’"
  
  PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.
  
  MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.
  
  PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?
  
  MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.
  
  PLAYBOY: Let’s put some names out there. Let’s get specific.
  
  MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s superhot, and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, “Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever.” And you’d be like, “What? We weren’t talking about that.” That’s what “Heartbreak Warfare” is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.

Re: Nigger Pass

As a privileged white boy, what he was TRYING to say in the first part of the interview was actually pretty self-aware. He was dismissing the foolish notion of a 'hood pass' and recognized the limits of 'black acceptance.' 

Even the coolest affirmative action supporting white person in the world, whose ancestors were abolitionists, marched on Washington, and voted for Obama, can't drop a N-bomb without getting curbstomped. It's just that simple. 

Had he made that point intelligently, no one would be talking about this shit, and he would be getting more praise than scorn from those that caught it.

Re: David Duke Cock

His second point betrays any intelligence he tried to display in the first part of the interview. Calling your cock David Duke might make for an awesome quote and get you booked as a keynote speaker at the next Teabagger Convention but again it's not the smoothest way to make the point that you may have found some black women attractive but never dated one.

Guess what John Mayer, tons of black women have found plenty of white guys attractive, but also have not dated any of them either, probably because many are worried that white dudes are secretly racist. See the cycle of bullshit we're dealing with here?

Saying Kerry Washington is 'white-girl crazy' and will 'break your heart like a white girl' means nothing at all. ALL RACES OF WOMEN ARE EQUALLY CRAZY AND WILL BREAK YOUR HEART IN THE EXACT SAME WAY. Ask any dude of any race.

Women of all races are also great in the same ways. White women do not put up with less or more bullshit from men than any other race of women. I'm not being glib about this at all, because domestic abuse is serious shit, but an abused women shelter is a pretty diverse place. 

Kerry Washington's alleged proclivity in casual dick sucking doesn't advance the racial dialogue at all or make me want to check out your song about crazy women any more than I did before the interview.

Holly Robinson Peete is not feeling Mayer at all on this and Jessica Simpson wasn't feeling Mayer's comments about her super V either. Hilary Banks was unavailable for comment.

So what have we learned here? Whether saying something insightful or ignorant, John Mayer has no subtlety. Also, you should probably not do interviews drunk.

But he cried about it at a concert y'all,





So expect the prerequisite  minority girlfriend and Kanye duet (who is still awaiting white redemption for rapin, er stage-bumping Taylor Swift) soon.

Snitch of the Week: 11/4 - 11/10 (Lynne Spears)

(Stay classy, Lynne)

Lynne Spears snitched on herself bigtime when she blamed herself for the walking pantyless diaster her daughter has become and at the very least I have to give her respect for that.

• I blame myself,” she tells Life & Style Weekly magazine. “What mother wouldn’t?”

  “I wish I’d been there more while she was touring,” Spears says. “But I couldn’t be. I had the other kids to look after.”

  Spears, the mother of three children with ex-husband Jamie Spears, is writing a memoir about raising her family in the public eye. “Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World” is set for release May 11, which is Mother’s Day.

Of course she probably just said that to promote her new memior.

Either Lynne Spears is the Snitch of the Week.

Pure Hilarity

Straight from my boy at StraightBangin.com

http://www.slurb.com/rfrancis/ebonics.html

As a Tribute to the Notorious B.I.G.

This paper was turned in by an Oakland High school student who received the highest honors at the school district's ebonics translation competition.

Assignment:

Please translate the following song lyrics from ebonics to standard English.

Artist: Notorious B.I.G.
Album: Ready to Die
Song: One more chance (remix)

First things first, I poppa, freaks all the honeys Dummies - playboy bunnies, those wantin' money Those the ones I like 'cause they don't get nathan' But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation Garbage, I turn like doorknobs Heart throb, never, black and ugly as ever However, I stay coochied down to the socks Rings and watch filled with rocks

TRANSLATION:
As a general rule, I perform deviant sexual acts with women of all kinds, including but not limited to those with limited intellect, nude magazine models, and whores. I particularly enjoy sexual encounters with the latter group as they are generally disappointed in the fact that they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis. Although I am extremely unattractive, I am able to engage in these types of sexual acts with some regularity. Perhaps my sexuality is somehow related to my fancy and expensive jewelry.

And it only gets better on the site.

This may be old, but I never saw it.

Oink Oink Bitches

(Boo hoo)

Like every breathing 20-year old in America I have used P2P and I fully advocate a recreation of the music industry and I am against DRM, so I am not declaring any moral high ground here, but I am pretty glad that Oink, a super-duper illegal and private file sharing network for indie rock and hipsters got raided by anti-piracy agencies.

Oink web site
Oink Wikipedia page
Peep the story here.

• Jeremy Banks, Head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, said in a response to the news: “OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online.”

I hate the RIAA and the music industry's approach to the internet, it's suicidal and short-sighted, however exchanging money for leaked pre-release albums is stealing no matter what hipsters tell themselves.

Besides being illegal, Oink was the most annoyingly pretentious site ever.

When I first checked out the site, I saw a request for an essay as to why rock is the greatest musical genre in order to get an invite.

Are you fucking serious?

I used to buy CD's often and I lived in the used CD stores around Ann Arbor, but the size of my wallet could never watch my curiosity. And then when the CDs I paid for and burnt to my PC got wiped out it P2P came to the rescue.
I've been using a music subscription service which I sold my remaining CDs to pay for, for over a year and it's pretty great.

It's like Netflix for music.
Unlimited music for a fee, recommendations, radio stations and all that.

The upcoming revision of the Microsoft Zune music store looks pretty good as well.

If people are willing to buy DVD's, go the movies and/or pay for Netflix, then what is the objection to a subscription service?

Do people not love music enough to pay for it?
Or do they just not like the purchasing options?

Jay-Z: American Gangster and Other Hip-Hop Thoughts

(Never underestimate the importance of good album art.)

I have no logical reason to be excited about this album based on Jay-Z's recent track record (Kingdom Come, R. Kelly and Linkin Park collabo albums) yet I am. Probably because I've been ping-ponging between Reasonable Doubt and Blueprint.

Although what I am about to say is clear hyperbole, the concept album (in theory) is hip-hop's savior.

Let's be clear, concept albums are incredibly pretentious and notoriously difficult to pull off
but when done right

Deltron 3030



Kool Keith with Dr. Octagon



They can circumvent the main problem that makes rap music the incredible bore it is today; the inability to detach an entertainment persona from reality.

Much of rap's allure was built on the danger the artists presented to white suburban boys who ate it up, but it seems that shtick is wearing thin.

Where is the growth?
Where is the sense of perspective and grasp on reality?

People don't expect James Gandolfini to choke out or shotgun blast his cousins in real life even though it was amazing when he did it in the Sopranos.

Yet T.I. felt the need to attempt to acquire a machine gun at the peak of his career despite the fact that he is an ex-felon.

If these charges are true, what a dumb nigger T.I. is. And I don't mean that in a friendly kinship slang way.

On top of T.I.'s colossal boner, Wycelf calls T.I. a prophet and compares him to Malcolm X. Um, ok Wyclef.

That Malcolm X poster with the machine gun is cool on your college dorm wall, but less so in reality.

Other evidence of rap's waning grasp on reality and it's own devolution.

• Ja Rule is still beefing with 50 Cent even though both of their career's are jokes.
  
  • "I have conversations with myself," he told MTV News late last week about The Mirror, which is set to arrive in stores November 13. "I talk to the guy in the mirror. He never answers back; it's always the same guy that asks the questions and answers the questions.
    
    
    Ok...
    
    
    "[50] was no different," he continued. "He wanted to be where I was at. He wanted to be me. He just didn't know how to go about it. He didn't know how to go about and say, 'Yo, Ja, I want to do a record with you.' So his thing to get in the game was to insult everyone in the business.
    
    Yawn...
    
    
• Puffy is still attacking people at nightclubs.
  But as he said in his own words, more or less,
  
  "Diddy did it, but Diddy's lawyer is so with it that Diddy got acquited."
  
  
• Prodigy just got pinched for 3.5 years on a gun charge after dropping "Return of the Mac" a fairly solid semi-concept album about gully ass pre-Guiliani NY.
  Guess he missed the concept part.

Hopefully Jay-Z's American Gangster lives up to internal hype level I've set and it doesn't inspire Jay to try to buy an AK-47 from an Arab arms dealer working for the FBI in the back of Newark Airport or some shit.

Stay on your corporate game Jay.

________________________________________


Other shit:

• Why is Ghostface is crying like a bitch over the fact that Wu-Tang wants to drop an album on a day that impedes with his 34th album in two months. Fall back for the fucking group.
  
  There's this thing called supply and demand that Ghost isn't grasping. Stop dropping albums faster than my birthdays.
  
  
  
• Nas in a desperate attempt for attention, names his next album "Nigger."
  
  ...Sigh...
  
  Naming his last album "Hip-Hop is Dead" started an interesting convo and it sold about 700,000, but it didn't obscure the fact that the beats were embarrassingly minor league and the tone of the album was confused at best.
  
  Nas is a pseudo-intellectual of the worst sort who gets a pass from everyone because of his casual mix of Islamo-Christian iconography, old school nostalgia and because they want him to be something he is not.
  Smart.
  In terms of singles he has a solid back catalog, but if you drill deep into the content of his "political/conscious" songs or his interviews he is usually just spitting bullshit.
  
  Take his explanation of using "Nigger" as his album title.
  
  
  • "I wanna make the word easy on mutha----as' ears," he explained. "You see how white boys ain't mad at 'cracker' 'cause it don't have the same [sting] as 'nigger'? I want 'nigger' to have less meaning [than] 'cracker."
  
  Nas, you dumb nigger, your shitty album will not lessen the sting of racial epithets.
  
  "Yo I just copped "Nigger" at Best Buy. Racism is over son!!!
  
  No.
  
  White people don't care if you call them cracker because they still decide whether to sign your check or hire your ass.
  
  Nigger will always be nigger and nigga will never be acceptable other than something for black people to say to each other.
  
  For a man that hates Bill O' Reilly as much as Nas does, they sure play from the same PR handbook.
  What's Nas' next album going to be called?
  
  "I Miss Slavery?"
  
  Method Man sums it up best,
  
  
  • "Nas knows what he's doing. He's a smart brother. He keeps his name in the game," Tical offered. "Last year, when he put out Hip Hop Is Dead, I was being interviewed, everybody was asking me what I thought about his album. ... I think it's too much emphasis on just the word. I know a word worse than 'nigger': Darfur. Real talk. I'd like to see Reverend Al take a walk out there. Let's stop focusing on the wrong sh--."
    
    
  
  By the way, the tracklist for his greatest hits album is horrible. Did Jay-Z ask Rihanna to pick that shit out? Oh wait, it comes out on Columbia, not Def Jam. There goes that excuse.
  
  
  
• I am growing really weary of this whole white hipster music critic movement. You know, Tom Breihan, Kelefa Sanneh, Sasha Frere Jones (SFJ) etc, legitimizing god awful music and writing lazy criticism with lengthy graduate thesis apologias.
  

Generally they write well, although SFJ uses the term "musical miscegenation" four times in his last piece, but the conclusions they reach are usually complete bullshit.

SFJ newest thesis is that indie rock isn't black enough (Warning: long article full of bullshit and dubious conclusions.)

• "How did rhythm come to be discounted in an art form that was born as a celebration of rhythm’s possibilities? Where is the impulse to reach out to an audience—to entertain? I can imagine James Brown writing dull material. I can even imagine the Meters wearing out their fans by playing a little too long. But I can’t imagine any of these musicians retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity and significance."

He reaches this conclusion because it was hard for him to add authentic Nigra vocals to his own band's funk soul-dub music. And because Sufjan Stevens doesn't lean or rock with it.

I guess that means that Soulja Boy isn't white enough?
What about completely amelodic rap like Anticon and Def Jux?
Give me a fucking break.

Slate tears SFJ apart while calling out his own contradictions and recognizing that the problem with Indie rock is a class issue.

• While it's possible to cherry-pick exceptions ever since, Frere-Jones does so selectively, overlooking the likes of Royal Trux or the Afghan Whigs in the 1990s, or more recently, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon, Battles and the dance-punks LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and Junior Senior, almost all of whom appear on his own best-of-the-year list in progress. Last March, in direct contradiction to what he says in this week's New Yorker essay, Frere-Jones wrote in an LCD Soundsystem review: "About five years ago, indie rockers began to rediscover the pleasures of rhythm." Where are those indie rockers now? Vanished, because they would mess with his thesis. He isn't really talking about all of indie rock, but a folkier subset that's hardly trying to be rock at all. But to say so would be less dramatic.

And...

• Ultimately, though, the "trouble with indie rock" may have far more to do with another post-Reagan social shift, one with even less upside than the black-white story, and that's the widening gap between rich and poor. There is no question on which side most indie rock falls. It's a cliche to picture indie musicians and fans as well-off "hipsters" busily gentrifying neighborhoods, but compared to previous post-punk generations, the particular kind of indie rock Frere-Jones complains about is more blatantly upper-middle class and liberal-arts-college-based, and less self-aware or politicized about it."
  
  

Ouch. SFJ needs to ask the internets to recall that piece. It's really indefensible.

• Big Q4 coming up for rap.
  
  We have new
  
  
  • Jay
  • Nas
  • Wu
  • Foxy (holy shit, it's 1997)
    
  • Lupe
    
    Also for industry purposes only
    
    
  • Three 6 Mafia
  • Cassidy
  • Lil Mama (who will outsell Foxy)
  • Rick Ross
  • Ja Rule
  • Saigon
  • Wyclef
  • G-Unit (Six weeks and Curtis still isn't platinum yet...)
    

• Looking at that list of releases I feel like we need new RIAA certifications. People just ain't going gold (500K units) or platinum (1 million units) anymore.
  
  I propose
  
  White gold: If you are stuck in that 650K - 800K range, which is a bitch to get out of. (Nas)
  
  Silver: If you cross 250K units but can't hit 500K. (Lupe)
  
  Bronze: If you cross 100K and stop, check the Soundscan, a lot of people are missing that barrier. (Foxy)
  
  Wood: Anything under 50K. (Ja Rule, I hope.)
  

Start Snitching Needs Jazz

What's good party people?

After numerous Windows failures and hard-drive crashes I am finally making a proper attempt to rebuild my jaw-dropping, awe-inpsiring jazz collection. Ahem...

Since I know the Start Snitching crowd fucks with cabernet sauvignon and turtlenecks, I'm sure y'all can recommend the quality albums that deserves to be in any real jazz collection.

I do it all.

Fusion.
Bossa Nova.
Latin Jazz.
Vocal Jazz.
Bebop.
Modal.

Just list the album names, I can acquire the actual files myself.

Any Kenny G recs and I will block your IP address.

Update:
If you name a big name like Miles, Coltrane, Monk, etc. then you need to name a specific album or three.

Obscure jems are appreciated.

May the Lesser Evil Win: Kanye/50 Showdown

(Click to enlarge)

Kanye may be a petulant little bitch, but I'm stilling riding with him to outsell Fiddy Sent on this 9/11 release week.

Based on the iTunes sales Kanye is #2, right behind the daughter of Fleetwood Mac's producer.
Curtis is at #9.

Yikes.
Peep Pitchfork's ethering of 50 Cent,

• In this week's Rolling Stone feature on 50 Cent, the rapper claims, "I'm King Kong. Kanye is human. Humans run when they see King Kong, because they're scared." He's right. Hulking, inelegant, and hopelessly primitive, 50 Cent is hip-hop's doomed beast. On Curtis, he sets out to re-energize his base by reminding us of his strengths: He fucks and kills with ease, he needs five deposit envelopes every time he hits up an ATM, and he's a hit with the ladies. But, as Greene makes clear, there's no depth or dynamic to that kind of perfection-- it's like watching a big dildo machine make big dildos all day. While 50 never made a habit of flaunting his faults like Kanye (or Em or Big or 2Pac…), he could usually back up his tales with indelible beats, swaggering hooks, and a flow that slithered like original sin. But those once-bountiful gifts are all heavily downgraded-- or altogether absent-- on Curtis.

Granted digital sales cater to a different demographic, but this is still a good indicator that Kanye will end 50 Cent's career.

My prediction is

Kanye (Graduation) - 550K - 600K

50 Cent (Curtis) - 400K - 450K

Mark my words. If I'm wrong I'll just edit my guess.

For The Love of Jesus, Buy Kanye West's Album

Kanye West's "Graduation," which I have no idea how I feel about might just save rap in more ways than one...

Peep the quote from the 50 Cent circus,

• 50 Cent Bets Career, "If Kanye Sells More Records... I Won't Put Out Any More Solo Albums"

Peep the SOHH article here.

Can the Black Eyed Peas, Akon, Nickelback, the American Idolers and all the ringtone rappers join in on this bet?

Sometimes the Interwebs Scare Me

Can anyone tell me what the fuck a Tay Zonday is and why he has nearly 2 million views on YouTube?

I know this video is old in Internet time but I've been processing it and I've only become more confused... and a little bit frightened.

This guy got more buzz in two weeks with "Chocolate Rain" than any of the garbage singles 50 cent dropped this summer.

Seriously I don't get it.
He looks like he could be a 13 year old boy or one of Snoop's girlfriends from the Wire.

Can someone educate me?

Fiddy vs Kanye vs 9/11

I never thought I'd reach a point in my life where I'd be cheering for Kanye, but Fiddy has truly embraced his self-proclaimed stride as the George Bush of rap and now that Kanye and Fiddy's albums will both be dropping on 9/11, I hope Kanye somehow manages to outsell 50 and end his career.

It's sad how quickly went from beloved street underdog with "How to Rob..." to the boring special ed analogy raps of "Amusement Park."

This uncut interview with 50 at Spin magazine is actually pretty incredible and gives a pretty honest look at his vulnerability after being shot and the fact that he's intelligent until the interviewer and Fiddy go into a room with Fiddy's weed-carriers and devolves into the rich-boy bully shtick that's worn terribly thin. It's sad because the beginning of the interview shows he's smarter than what comes below.

Example,

• What about the MCs -- Chamillionaire, Ghostface Killah, Master P -- who have said that they're not going to curse in their music anymore, in response to the post-Imus outcry?
  None of those people sell records.

  Chamillionaire sold more than a million records.
  Let him go sell gospel records, if he's so fuckin' righteous. I can write around the curses if I want to, but you can't tell me to write around the curses. First of all, there's a clean version of the record available, anyway, if people don't want to hear that content. This is adult entertainment. Why is pornography legal? Wouldn't you say that the women who do pornography are hos? They get paid $1,000 to fuck on tape. You understand? And we can't say 'ho'? And who's the leading consumer for pussy on a tape? Middle-aged white men.

  The peanut gallery: "White men, yeah. They buy all of it. They're spending way more."

He also states that music cannot be good unless it sells.

• Yeah, it's hard to imagine Ghostface is going to stop cursing, especially considering his last couple of records.

  The peanut gallery: "Nobody even cares what he does." "Who's listening to him, anyway?" "That was the '90s, B. Kids don't even know Ghostface anymore." "The streets are different now," says Yayo. "Guys like Ghostface don't matter. They don't. They had a run, but it's over."

  But can't he just make a great record, even if it doesn't sell, and we can appreciate it as listeners, as hip-hop fans?
  No, because a great record is embraced and enjoyed by the public. And it's played in cars and clubs.

  What if it sells a couple hundred thousand copies, isn't that valid? Or does it have to sell millions for you to take it seriously?
  In my camp, a couple hundred thousand records is a failure. From my perspective, if I sell 200,000 copies, after selling 12 million records, it's considered terrible.

  But maybe he's trying to make a different kind of record?
  What, the kind people don't buy?

  No, one with incredible, detailed storytelling that's moving and powerful, and isn't dependent on some obvious hook.
  Look, I understand all that. But if you're on a major record label, and he [Ghostface] is, and you sell a couple hundred thousand records, that was a failure. Your fuckin' photos and videos aren't recouped with 200,000 copies sold.

By that logic all popular music is good, all top-selling books are art and the highest grossing movies are the true classics.

Bad Boys 2 > Donnie Darko
Pearl Harbor > Waking Life
Etc...

Thanks for the heads up Curtis.

Meanwhile, Kanye is ready for that ass (pause) on September 11th.
This may be the first year where people might actually be allowed to enjoy September 11th. Unless Guiliani links Curtis and Kanye to 9/11.

In the meanwhile, Chamillionaire's new Mixtape Messiah 3 is better than the last 42 albums G-Unit put out.

Read A Book N!&&@!!!

Stolen straight from Dallas Penn,



YouTube was worth the $1.65 billion.

Monday Night Brain Dump

(Fat men, stand up!)

I don't feel like creating a coherent topical post so I'm just going to post a bunch of links to shit that raised my eyebrow in the last few days.


- Joell Ortiz is that shit. Dallas Penn knows the deal. I've haven't smiled this much listening to a hip-hop album in a hot minute. I tried to sleep on him because he looks like a guy that would harass me with his freestyles and mixtapes in the local barbershop. He may be that guy, but he's also the one guy who does that and is actually good.

He says bitch, ho, nigga and a whole bunch of other bad words and it's all gravy because the dude has the self-reflection and the perspective to elevate it above the level of coonery. Plus he's wicked with the pen. You will hit rewind

Between this, Sean Price Superstar and Prodigy's Return of the Mack album things are looking good for NY. If only we could get rid of Mims.



- I am so glad that Bjork has embraced her Debut/Post sound once again. Homogenic and Vespertine are that hot fire but between Medulla and that freaky "Drawing Restraint 9" soundtrack she did, even my whiteness was pushed to the limit.

The NY Times gave her a nice profile and I look forward to catching her new upbeat persona live sometime soon. I saw her in Coney Island with Sigur Ros a few years ago and the shit was insane.

If anyone knows of a rip to her Coachella set last weekend please pass that shit on.


- Market for Niggas from Oh Word.


- Apparently it is impossible for white men from Alabama and Cubans to be terrorists. The hypocrisy is so bad that even Saudi Arabia wants to stop fucking this us. When the Saudis don't love Bush, things are bad.


- Interesting bit of photo journalism about China.


- They still have segregated proms in America. It's all fun and games until someones girl gets caught looking...


- Luxury prison spas for rich people who break the law.
This shit bugged me out even more than normal because I just watched that Enron documentary.


_____________________________


Randomness over.

Responsibility? Nigga Please.

I saw this banner on Davey D's website. Supposedly he is a big hip-hop blogger or something.
This banner is provocative and seems witty enough but if you examine it with any honesty you realize that this is pure coonery.

Look at each of these images. Who do these men protect by not snitching?

• Dick Cheney: Other crooked rich white Republicans who are fucking you in the ass.
  
  
• Generic Police Officer: Other crooked cops who are fucking you in the ass. Sometimes literally.
  
  
• Karl Rove: Other crooked rich white Republicans such as Dick Cheney, who as I mentioned before, are fucking you in the ass.
  
  
• Lyor Cohen: Rick Rubin and other Jewish music executives? I really don't get that one to be honest.
  

Now let's look at snitching in the inner city.
Who does the generic crime witness in the hood protect by not snitching?

• A rapper, who would call the local precinct he has on speed dial if he saw you sauntering into his gated community?
  
  
• A drug dealer, that decimates your neighborhood while dropping innocents with stray gunfire?
  

Criminals have gotten gen. pop. to embrace prison values and help their business. Rap is the best thing to happen to the drug game in a minute.

The argument that white people don't snitch argument is weak and intellectually dishonest.
Don't defend the indefensible.

Anyway, this post-Imus/60 Minutes climate has got rappers running scared.

Apparently Cam'ron apologized for his coonery on 60 Minutes. Is this real?
T.I. believes we should take our moral example from George Bush.

• "I honestly feel it's a lot more important things [to worry about]," T.I. said last week in his Grand Hustle Studio in Atlanta. "If you want to fix America, you have to start at George Bush and work your way down — you can't start at hip-hop and work your way up."
  
  

I ain't talking to no police until Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2009 son!!!
Obama holla at me!

Didn't TI get his friend murdered because he was making it rain?

Seriously, has anyone seen a rapper intelligently discuss this issue?
Pass a link on if you did.

P.S. - I found one. Underground rapper Paris handled the issue well.

Peep more spineless evasion from Hu$tle $immon$ on CNN,




Why does it sound like Anderson Cooper knows and cares more about black people than Hu$tle?

Run DMC would NOT get signed today.
That is a fact.

And peep Hu$tle Simmon$ cleaning Bill O'Reilly's shoes.
Iza sowwee Massa O'Reilly,




Does Hu$tle really think O'Reilly gives a fuck about poor black people? Or is his entire media frenzy an attempt to get people to purchase his new bullshit self-help book called "Do You" that is currently #34 on Amazon?

I see your game Hu$tle. Nice try though.

The Black Crusaders Have Shut Snoop Down

You may have heard that Snoop Dogg has been banned from Australia.

Australia said he didn't pass their character test.
I wonder why.

• 1990 - Convicted of felony drug possession and possession for sale (cocaine) and a member of Los Angeles gang the Crips.

  1993 - Acquitted of a murder charge after a rival gang member was felled by shots alleged to have come from a car he and two fellow gang members members were in at the time.

  1994, 1995 - Fought charges pending from attempted murder case.

  1997 - Pleaded guilty to assault charges before he promised to make public service announcements against violence in exchange for three years probation .

  2002 - Announced that he would be giving up drugs and women.

  2003 - Snoop and his entourage implicated in a civil rape case from when he guest-hosted the TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live. One month before the 36-year-old plaintiff filed her suit, Snoop sued her accusing her of extortion. Both suits were dropped.

  2006 - Snoop and entourage banned from the United Kingdom and British Airways after a fracas at London's Heathrow Airport. Snoop was later cautioned for affray for using threatening words or behaviour.

  2006 - Detained at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California by airport security in September because his carry-on bag contained a collapsible police baton which was deemed to be a dangerous weapon. Pending.

  2006 - Arrested in October at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California in possession of marijuana and a firearm.

  2006 - Arrested in November for possession of marijuana and a firearm after performing on The Tonight Show.

  2007 - Arrested after performing in a concert with P.Diddy in Sweden for suspected drug use. Released after providing a urine sample. Denies all charges.

  2007 - Escapes a jail term on gun and drug charges in April but sentenced to five years probation and 800 hours community service.

This fool got himself banned by a country/continent that originated as a refuge for unwanted convicts. Talk about forgetting your roots.

Those in the know realize that the Black Crusaders are behind Snoop's recent string of bans.

First they got Tracy Jordan, then Snoop.
Who's next?

Wu-Tang Archive

(Get it...)

Y'all should be messing with Spine Magazine, one of the few hip-hop news sites that finds shit worth your time.

Recently they posted a link to a 215 song list of FREE MP3's from the Wu-Tang clan.

I don't even know what to do with all that or when I'll be able to listen to it.
But that's what external hard drives are for.


- Also, Spine Mag also put me onto Brooklyn Radio Dot Net, which hosts all types of hot radio shows. It's all worth checking out, but the shit that caught my eye was one radio show called The Rub which recently finished making mixtapes for every year of hip-hop from 1979 - 1989. Some years are obviously better than others but the sheer anthropology of it alone makes it worth some of your time.

Let me know what y'all think of this.

Someone should do this for 1990 - 2000. I'd kill for that.


What hidden podcasts and radio stations are worth checking out?
I know y'all are holding out on me...

Stop Snitching On 60 Minutes

(Start snitching, before it's too damn late.)

I finally managed to hold back the vomit long enough to watch the 60 Minutes Stop Snitching segment that is tearing up the Interwebs.

It was hard to sit down and watch this shit knowing how ignorant it would be.
Regardless, I'm glad that hip-hop is getting put up to the fire now.

To think that all this self-examinaton is coming from Don Imus' firing?
Shit, I wish more old white men would start insulting black people if that's what it takes to get the mirror up.


Part 1,



Part 2,




Meanwhile many of the most popular rappers have been snitches when it helped them out.

From Dallas Penn,

FISTY SCENT turns states’ witness against KENNETH ‘Supreme’ McGRIFF

LIL’ WAYNE is the biggest snitch in the rap game

CAM’RON talks to police about his beating incident at Rucker Park

BUSTA RHYMES goes to the police about his violent B.M. (babies’ momma)

But here is Dead Prez skirting the issue and playing the favorite role of the modern Negro, hapless victim.




I always knew Dead Prez was into ridiculous conspiracy theories and anti-establishment, but they just lost all respect after that bullshit interview.

Despite the title of this blog, it's clear to anyone that the anti-snitching movement is a complex issue stemming from several issues:

• A deserved apprehension of the police by the black community.
• The failure of police protection.
  
• A misguided sense of anti-authoritarianism based on centuries of systematic oppression.
• The refusal to acknowledge hypocrisy.
  
• Sloppy group-think and the comfort of playing the victim.
  
• The denial of (c)rap music's power.
  
  And most importantly,
  
  
• The slow assimilation of prison culture into hip-hop culture
  

The rapping ex-convicts who flooded the rap game in the 90's and the 00's and the studio gangsters who ride the coattails of their image would like you to believe that being a witness to a crime and not wanting crack addicts in your neighborhood is the same as someone who turns on their criminal associates to dodge a bid.

If they can get all the little jigs to soak up this ignorant code while doing a Chicken Noodle Lean With It, Pop Shake and Snap dance on BET, then they can murder a rival in broad daylight or firebomb a community advocate's house in Baltimore, (Remember when white people used to be the firebombers? Those were the good old days.) and have no one say a word.

Angela Dawson shouldn't have been snitching right? Then her, her five children and husband would all be alive if she just shut up right?

Kelefa Sanneh, the bitch-ass rap apologist who gets paid to make most disgusting hip-hop palatable for the Upper East Siders who read his reviews, chimed in on the issue:

• But it wouldn’t be surprising if the big record companies eventually decided that brash — and brilliant — rappers like Cam’ron were more trouble than they were worth. (Cam’ron’s last two albums haven’t sold well.)...
  
  ...What if hip-hop’s lyrics shifted from tough talk and crude jokes to playful club exhortations — and it didn’t much matter? What if the controversial lyrics quieted down, but the problems didn’t? What if hip-hop didn’t matter that much, after all?

I could and may write an entire post detailing why I despise his criticism, but i'll just focus on the fact that people like Kelefa and Tom Breihan extol the most despicable elements of hip-hop as "brilliant" but when the heat is on they are quick to deny the power of the institution that pays their bills.

That is dangerous cowardism.

Convenient statements by Hu$tle $immon$, fresh off of promoting blood diamonds and telephone psychics, and about banning the words, "bitch, ho and nigga/er" after he earned his millions pimping those very words mean nothing.

The power of rap needs to be acknowledged and addressed in a way that doesn't involve banning naughty words. I'm too much into that whole free speech thing to go down that line.

The solution is to get to a point where so many rappers aren't tripping over each other to be as fucking negative and nihilistic as possible. That's what I learned from the Top 25 Rap Album list.

It's about a balance of the images.

Mixing the light fluff of "This Is Why I'm Hot" and with "Kill a Nappy-Headed Snitch Ho" ain't quite balance.

Save Internet Radio!

Dead Prez said "Turn Off the Radio" damn near 10 years ago and since then I feel like most people with an IQ in the double digits have given up on the incestuous pool of AM/FM radio save for the college stations and the hidden gems buried on the dial.

I literally have not turned on a radio since Star and Bucwild got fired.

Even satellite radio, which is attempting to emerge as a breath of fresh air to stale closet of terrestrial radio falls into the same repetitive clusterfuck as terrestrial radio at times.

So where was the intrepid music listener supposed to go?

Internet Radio.

Or at least that was the solution, until the SoundExchange decided to raise the royalty rates of Internet radio to a level most smaller companies can't afford and that most larger companies won't put up with when their profit margins start shrinking.

That means no more,

Last.FM

Pandora

Woxy

Soma

Launchcast

Y'all know how much I love me some damn Launchcast. I got put on to so much diverse shit I probably would have never heard if it weren't for the customized recommendations and the Payola-free environment you can only get online.

From the Yahoo! Music Blog,

• Compare the implications of this decision to terrestrial radio which pays NOTHING to SoundExchange, or even satellite radio which pays only 3-7% of their revenue to SoundExchange, and it’s hard not to be left scratching your head. The irony of all this, of course, is that this ruling will keep LAUNCHcast, Pandora, and the like out of your living room and push you toward FM, where the labels are paid zero. This decision cuts off a genuine future revenue stream before it has had a chance to grow.

I have never seen an industry respond worse to technology and innovation than the music industry. I smile every week when I read the Nielsen Soundscan numbers and witness the rate at which the industry is imploding.

Keep fighting the Internet and I'll keep fighting gravity.


JP just commented on my last post

• "I probably do need to look a little harder for some of the real music being made. I don't want sound too nostalgic. I just wish I could still turn on the radio and hear something a little better than 'This Is Why I'm Hot.'"
  
  

Net Radio was the place to go for that. But the music Nazis think bleeding a bunch of Internet station will save their industry.

If you have any love for Internet Radio visit SaveNetRadio.Org, click a link and let your thoughts be heard.

Start Snitching's 25 Rap Albums of All-Time

(If he's on your list, you're at the wrong blog.)

Doing this Top 25 shit reminded me of how much I loved rap once upon a time.
And not one type of monolithic backpacker-approved "rap", but all types of shit.
Old school boom-bap, gully bang-bang nigga die slow shit, happy bohemian rainbow rap, sample drenched jazz-rap, slap your mom rap. It was the balance that really did it.

Rap was once a medium that captured a plethora of black experience.
Now it's just the prison industrial complex's number one recruitment tool.

Things I learned doing this list,

• I have problems with many of Pacs records.
• The Roots don't have an album I like from front to back.
• The East Coast really ran the critical table.
• Topical references kill the longevity of rap albums.
  
• A weekend is not enough time to do this shit.
  

This list is perfect until I change it again.
Here it is party people, the Start Snitching Top 25:

25. Ice Cube - Death Certificate

So many rappers on this list have tried their damnedest to get kicked the fuck off. Despite a slate of embarrassing films, albums and tv shows (Black, White on FX) the dude was spitting that gospel at one time.

24. Dr. Dre - The Chronic

Duh.

23. Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth - Mecca and the Soul Brother

They
Reminisce
Over
You

22. Camp Lo - Uptown Saturday Night

How fucking fun is this record? I still don't understand it and that makes it even better.

21. NWA - Straight Outta Compton

The effects of this record still leave me confused as to what the net effect of N.W.A. was on rap.

20. Digable Planets - Blowout Comb

Maybe the jazzy of all the jazz-rap albums out there.

19. Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride To The Pharcyde

Some groups were put on this Earth just to leave one record. This was that group.

18. The Fugees - The Score

I spent an entire school year explaining this record to white people only for Lauryn Hill to break all their hearts when she said she hated them.

17. Eric B. and Rakim - Paid in Full

Duh again.

16. Common - Like Water For Chocolate

I think everyone has a different favorite Common album. This is mine.

15. Dr. Octagon - Dr. Octagonecologyst

Who knew rap could do this or that this record would one day create MF Doom? Thank you Dr. Octagon, you ran my voicemail messages in college.

14. Mos Def - Black on Both Sides

This is the sound of a man who had shit to say and about a dozen ways to say it. Sadly it was all he had to say.

13. Slick Rick - Adventures of Slick Rick

Triple doy.

12. Outkast - Aquemini

You gotta have one Outkast joint on here.

11. Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt

Jay copied from the best to come up with this one.

10. Gza - Liquid Swords

The best solo continuation of the classic Wu sound.

9. Ghostface Killa - Ironman

Who would have thought Ghostface would been the last Wu member standing?

8. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

The best thing drugs have ever done to the black community.

7. Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded

How can you front on this?

6. Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions
I dropped this album several spots because of Flavor of Love.

5. De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising

Ignoring that this album basically created the sample and skit, you have to give De La credit for capturing some of the joy when black people actually knew their parents.

4. Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die

Christopher Wallace single handedly gave a generation of unattractive overweight men the courage to stand up.

3. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders

This record showed me it's not all about the God-Body lyricism. Some emotion, good chemistry, lyrical cohesion and wit is enough for a classic.

2. Wu-Tang Clan - 36 Chambers of Death

A group of nerds from Staten Island mixed kung-fu, obscure mythology, gully talk and a cult religion to change rap forever.

1. Nas - Illmatic

"Nas what the fans want is Illmatic still."
- Nas "We Major" (2005)

He said it himself because he knows the damn deal. This dude launched a career on the strength of the sheer hope that he'd make another record this strong.

_______________________________________

Shit that would have made it full it was a full moon or the wind was different..

• LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out
• Lost Boyz - Legal Drug Money
• Dead Prez - Let's Get Free
• OC - Word, Life
• Diamond D - Stunts, Blunts and Hip-Hop
  
• Black Moon - Enta Da Stage
• Main Source - Breaking Atoms
• Mobb Depp - Infamous
  
• MF Doom - Operation Doomsday
  
• Big Daddy Kane - It's a Big Daddy Thing

Put your lists up. I'm down to hear any classic shit I missed or what issues you have with my list.
And check Straight Bangin all week to see how this shit adds up.

Snitch of the Week: 4/15 - 4/21 (Harry Reid)

Let's keep it real here, America lost the war in Iraq.
And it's not because the troops failed, but because the "leaders" who planned the war thought we were so popular that Iraqis would be lining up to buy "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs as soon as Saddam was on the run.

Since we are now building a wall in the middle of the country to stop them from murdering each other, it's safe to say that things didn't quite turn out that way.

But no one wants to hear that, so when Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, told Bush to his face the war was lost, the Republicans dug out the old talking point of "not supporting the troops."

Here's what he really said,

• "I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and -- you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows -- [know] this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,"

How does that hurt the troops?
The troops didn't even know who Donald Rumsfeld was after he got fired. Do they give a shit what Harry Reid thinks?

Even after Vietnam, America still doesn't like the idea that some wars cannot be won.
Ego is a motherfucking bitch and the truth is toxic.

Harry Reid, for spitting that truth from the White House roof, is the Snitch of the Week.

I will be following up Cam'ron's ignorant ass appearance on 60 Minutes later this week. Good looking to everyone who e-mailed me about that.

Stop Snitching Examination on 60 Minutes.

Top 25 Rap Albums Of All Time

(What else can be number 1?)

My mans Joey and them over at Straight Bangin' are bringing the entire Internet together for the Top 25 Rap Albums of all time.

I'm still perfecting my list but I already know what number one will be.

Damn you Joey, I had shit to do this weekend. I can't fight the lure of a list though.
I'll post my mine on Monday.