How many years has Hip Hop been around now? …and media is still talkin’ “Hip Hop Situation”????? As in, “What’s the situation with hip hop…”, the naysayers keep naysayin’.
How many more times do we need to wait back it up, easy back it up?
Apparently a few more.
Afrika Bambaataa is famously quoted for saying, “Hip-Hop is Universal”.
If Hip Hop is universal, and it is, then here is your situation right here, Hip Hop is alive and well and everybody’s still dancing.
So it’s been a month, time for my first video rap battle between The Pack’s Vans vs. Cool Kids Black Mags to end. Let’s recap. A month ago I posted each video and asked you guys to click the blue link of the video you wanted to win. The Vans video had 31,540 views while Black Mags had 1,706,755. I love these two videos, make sure you gosee them, if you haven’t already.
As of now, The Pack’s video has 33,747 views, and the Cool Kids video has 1,810,991.
Before you jump to conclusions, let me drop science on all y’all.
I did the math and calculated the odds, and Vans wins by 0.78%!
Say wha’? Meany meany meany meany. Hold up, wait a minute!
Vans views increased by 6.54% while Black Mags increased by 5.76%. Sure, Cool Kids’ Black Mags had 102,029 more views than The Pack’s Vans, but to be fair, the ratios have the weight (it’s not always about volume, there’s bass too!). Thanks to Matt, for making the choice to comment. You came correct!
I want to thank all for playing! Stay tuned for more random video rap battle throwdowns!
The usually disorganized chaos that is a VH1 show rang true on Monday night television with the VH1’s Hip Hop Honors 2008. I guess they were trying to say that they knew the time since they didn’t get played on prime time, airing at 10pm Eastern, but with Flavor Flav announcing the honoree who had just been on stage, at least twice, it became quite clear that they really didn’t know what time it was, let alone what time it is.
But really, who cares about post production when you have a list as long on legends like HHH has.
The Honorees
Cypress Hill
De La Soul
Naughty By Nature
Slick Rick
Too $hort
Performers
Wyclef Jean
Kid Rock
Lil Jon
Big Boi
Ghostface Killah
MC Lyte
Bun B
Biz Markie
Q-Tip
Scarface
Busta Rhymes
Cee-Lo
PE in almost full effect aka Public Enemy - “Mista Chuck” D & Flavor Flav
Estelle
EPMD
Fat Joe
Gym Class Heroes
Jim Jones
Juelz Santana
Mack 10
and…
Luther “Luke” Campbell
“The Queen” Latifah
Eve
Joy Bryant
Hosted by “$2 gets you to all the Boroughs” Tracey Morgan
There is no greater honor than being sent up by your peers. If having Fat Joe and Busta coming out in full Cypress and Ricky D. styles wasn’t enough, there was a full on tribute to Isaac Hayes, in true hip hop form. With a list like the one that Hip Hop Honors delivers, it’s tough to separate the best from the best, but I have to say that Fat Joe’s send up of Cypress Hill in particular stole the show, and Lyte’s flow is always unstoppable. It was also great to see PE and EPMD… ah hell, it was great to see hip hop on TV period.
It’s really too bad that any cats outside the US are blocked from watching the video clips on VH1, I mean really. Just who do the corporate legal suits think they’re kidding… the cool kids know proxies.
Oh and, why did VH1 make De La rap Me Myself & I?
Plug 1… Plug 2… Don’t they know that they hate that song??? I mean, they really do hate performing it, and it shows. I feel for them everytime they struggle through it. I mean, if they are being honored, then let them choose a damn song that they love and want to do. You corporate types better lay off the “remember when” crack pipe. Hip Hop needs to breathe. The only thing that lives in a vacuum is dust. and mites. and Aunt Beatrice’s nose pickins.
September 18th, 1970, Jimi Hendrix passes on leaving us a wonderful legacy of fantastic rock & roll. The music that Hendrix created has played a vital role in the music of hip hop culture. I’m not going to just spoon feed you this one, you’re going to have to look it up. The world of hip hop is forever indebted to this musical soul. Rest In Peace Jimi! Hip Hop says Thank you.
That’s what Ron Nelson said to me once, after the ending of a school jam. This was pre Reggaemania of course, when he held it down Saturday afternoons on Toronto’s CKLN, with a show called The Fantastic Voyage. He handed down the afternoon hip hop show to DJ X’s Power Move to change formats with Reggaemania, at the time, he wanted to step away from the commercialization that he felt hip hop had become.
This man has been in Toronto Radio for a long time and deserves all the respect and accolades he gets, but even when he was controlling the airwaves of Saturday afternoons, he was somewhat of a legend. So one fateful day in class when I saw that there was a flyer being passed around, I immediately got excited. It was Ron’s sound system flyer, and it was in the hands of the class president, and I just had a feeling that Ron would be coming to my school.
Sure enough, the fateful night came and I was there loving it, to have the one and only Ron Nelson DJ at my school’s dance. Only problem, this was Deer Park Sr PS, and the P stood for Preppy. I knew Dave would probably be rather disappointed at the energy, playing to the crowd meant more of the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees than it did KRS One. I was disappointed too, somewhat ideally, as being enrolled at this school meant I knew the 411. I knew better but I had hoped that more of The Fantastic Voyage and less of The Breakfast Club could come to this dance and turn on more ears to the energy of Hip Hop. Sure, I was deluded. Delusional. Then Disillusioned.
So after the show, I went up to Ron, caught him on the stairwell, and told him there was a fan of Hip Hop (and The Fantastic Voyage), as I was empathizing about the lack of knowledge. In my own way, I wanted to cheer him up, as not all of us were Zombies there that night. I wanted to make a request, I had the request in mind, and I said it, as politely as I could.
Now maybe I didn’t realize how disappointed he was, and possibly mad, at how the night turned out, so this may have had something to do with his response, but not entirely. He ended up saying…
Ask Dave to play Whodini.
Now the Dave he was referring to is Dave Ahmad, another Toronto Radio personality and legend from CKLN. Dave hosted Dave’s Dance Music on Sunday Afternoons, which was more dance oriented in format. Ron was telling me that they were more funk and R&B and would get play on Dave’s show, but not on his.
Respect to Ron Nelson, but Whodini is hip hop.
The moral of the story?
Play lots of Hip Hop (and learn the history) and also listen to Reggaemania, Friday 9pm - Midnight on CKLN FM, Toronto.
Back in the Day, it was fairly easy to pick out the “sellouts” and artists that were commercial yet lacked any real talent. It was, for the most part, mutually agreeable upon whom to give the gas face too, and who was safe from such disrespect. Back in the Day, artists like Hammer and Vanilla Ice, though able to run arena shows, couldn’t get any props from any block within the city limits of any said arena they played. Back in the day sold out shows didn’t equal street cred, in fact the opposite was true. Now, I don’t remember if these cats actually had sold out shows at arenas or not, but for the sake of my argument, I am assuming they did. What is true is that even in nice Toronto, you were asking for trouble if you wore a Hammer t-shirt. Now that’s a great story involving HDV that I’ll save for another time.
These days, it isn’t always so easy to draw these type of lines. Most definitely, it is still true that a large proportion of talented Recording Artists get dissed by the majors, even cats who have a catalogue are shown the door or encounter closed doors. It seems to be getting worse with these labels becoming super labels and then mega labels in turn. The media is even spinning types like Vanilla Ice as talented from their generation, as media seems bent on being history revisionists for the masses, makes me wonder who’s controlling the ropes.
However these days, an artist or song will receive some commercial success and it isn’t wack, sometimes these songs are really good. Also, however these days, is the fact that the rap loving public isn’t so polarized, so an artist may be hot to some while others would disagree. So while the same radio stations play the same songs and artists, a new dichotomy has emerged. Rap music no longer has a single voice. Gone are the days of lamenting for real success, as in when will hip hop go from underground and be welcomed by mainstream, and this has been replaced by who can bang out the dopest track the fastest. Hip hop has gone mainstream and a second reactionary underground has emerged. The new underground is diehard and unlike the old one, the underground loving public’s voice completely rejects anything that smells of pop.
So this new underground voice may have the same slogans as before, and in fact use the same slogans as before, but the difference is, the old underground disseminated what was and what wasn’t, and wanted in. The new underground disseminates what is and isn’t and is radically entrenched on the edge, completely rejecting the idea of welcoming the establishment.
So here we are, I’ll use a very specific example, 50 Cent. This guy was underground, has street cred (no, I’m not talking about the drug type of street cred) and went pop. He is hated and loved. Does he have banging tracks? Some will say yes and some will say no. The iconic-in-their-ability-to-polarize Hammers and Vanillas have long gone but the public sentiment of villian still remains. This sentiment even affects groups like Public Enemy. Artists that have stayed true have their share of haters, in modern times. So are we in an age of hate? Not exactly.
I don’t know if it’s just me… well, I know it’s not just me… when you reach a certain age, there are many of us who dread the Holiday Season. Commercialization Overkill. Too much time spent with relatives. Or on the other hand, nobody to spend the holidays with. These are but some of the reasons why many of us simply do not look forward to this particular time of year. Now the religious scholars will say this season isn’t about you or me, it’s about him (fill in the appropiate seasonal deity here). …But here is where I take a break for old time tradition. Christmas tradition. Sure, the holiday Chanakwanzamas tree in the lobby of my work brought me cheer this year, most notably because management stuck to their guns and put up a Christmas tree in 2007, so I renamed it as a Chanakwanzamas tree, but thinking about it now, I really should have named it a Diwanakwanzamas tree, to be fair.
Getting back to the story…
I’m not sure why I dread this season, all I know is that it has been awhile (many years) since/that I have felt this way, and I’m sure I had a damn good reason when I first started feeling this way, though I cannot remember the exact cause now. What I can tell you is that it is not a grinch-esque hate-on. I don’t hate this season, it’s more like a bad movie that you just want to stop watching, not so much emotional as objectionable. It’s personal in nature, and I am fine with anyone else’s opinion, be it good, love, or otherwise - their Christmas truly is their Christmas.
Today started like years past, no wait. Last night was when it really started. The night before Christmas. The time closest to Christmas. Ugh, great, Christmas is finally here. I had to run out to get mundane stuff like milk and toilet paper (if you must know, now you know) last minute, and everything was… capital C L O S E D. The corner variety stores would make a killing if anyone was actually out. Got back, ate something and wrapped presents. G’D Nite.
Back to today… it started like years past, so very… unexciting. Usually the kids’ joy brings me joy… but not this one day of the year. Except… Christmas dinner at my Dad’s. Title it “Presents and karaoke”. Now let me get to the good part:
(fast forward)
Time for karaoke and we are doing the usual Christmas jingles, and after we exhaust those (don’t get me confused, this was our first karaoke), my Dad starts looking through the menu for other songs we can sing… and I see… Hood Figga. Wait A Minute. What a moment. I not only get my Dad to select it, but he didn’t even miss a beat the whole time the song was in play, he hit every lyric right on point! That’s right, on this night, I lost the karaoke battle, but gained one of the best Christmas’ ever (and my Dad gets to retain his Cool as Ice title belt)!
Now… sing along with Zoe! (peace, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that!)
So I’ve been listening to this for awhile, http://aloeblacc.com/. Check the link, and rock yeh head to the track on the flash, I emailed the addy at the site, and also Aloe Blacc’s myspace page, for the name of the track, but everyone’s too busybody to reply or something. …but they ain’t turning me off that EZ! My machine’s time on this site is large, just for the beat! oh… - …and you can thank me later… that is you’re welcome if you just rock your head to the beat!
