Say what you will about Justin Bieber's place in pop music and his diabolically squeaky-clean image, the young man knows his hip-hop, evidenced by interviews and numerous cosigns. Plus, the young man sounds like a damn cherub. Add his charms, a verse from Rae and Ye, and an interpolation of the Wu classic 'Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothing to F*ck With', and you have one hell of a crossover hit. Kanye was always a Bieber fan, but the Raekwon cosign was a pleasant surprise. It's refreshing to see that musicians aren't above accepting other types of music or other musicians, regardless of genre. To all of you 'hip-hop' purists saying Rae is selling out by adding Bieber, please go fall into a woodchipper. It's sad that people can't show flexibility without stans getting their panties in a bunch about 'real hip-hop'. Take the chewsticks out of your butt, turn off your Atmosphere album, and figure out why you're mad, while the rest of the world rocks out to this trill Justin Bieber chorus...
The Republican National Committee has just over $5 million in the bank for the final stretch of the 2010 midterm election campaign, according to an unannounced filing with the FEC disclosed Friday night.
The report also indicates that the national party headed by embattled chairman Michael Steele is carrying just over $2 million in debt.
There was no press release from the RNC attempting to put a positive spin on the grim numbers. Rather, officials from the Democratic National Committee flagged the RNC's report, which was posted on the Federal Election Commission’s website Friday night.
It indicated that the committee brought in slightly more than $5.5 million in July — less than half of what the DNC raised — while spending $11 million.
Wow, RNC... Just, wow. If you opened up your metaphorical wallet right now, what would come out? My guess is dust and a lot of receipts for humble pie. That's because you guys are broke. Point blank. As a party your net worth right now is just over $5 million. $5 million???? LeBron James and Kim Kardashian get paid more to tweet! 'The Situation' from Jersey Shore makes $5 million!! And you guys are saying your budget is so dry that you can't outbuy a steroid-pumped, fake-tanned reality star? C'Mon son. This is one of the many hypocrisies that plague the Republican party. You guys are so adamant about fiscal responsibility and cutting back spending, and keeping the government out of the economy. Yet, you can't even pay your own bills. How can the country trust a party that's less solvent than the country itself? How can you guys profess that the Dems are full of it economically, when they don't have to start rock on the corner to fund mid-term elections.
It's even funnier, because your party has been gaining some steam, with all of the snafus that the Dems have been encountering. The Tea Party has a healthy following of idiots and Sarah Palin is using feminism to tout her own brand of stupidity to a loyal following. If you guys had half an idea about how to handle money, maybe you'd be able to capitalize. Not that I'm upset your party can't balance a checkbook, but it just goes to show you that those who constantly talk the talk most likely can't walk the walk. It just sucks you guys might have to go to CashForGold.com to pay for a midterm election period. That's sad. Imagine if you guys had this opportunity during a Presidential election and couldn't foot the bill. I think America would just be forced to pull the plug on you, GOP. Whatever the case, keep on tossing out drivel and expecting the rich to back you, when you guys are two late fees away from the poorhouse. I think some menial labor and accommodations are just what you need. Then we'll really see what you think about jobless benefits and financial overhaul...
Bun tore this guy a new one and made this message clear: Respect the MC, especially if you can't do it.
One of my friends dropped a serious gem on me a few weeks back: being a blogger (especially dealing with music or sports) is essentially being a professional hater. Now all you bloggers and hip-hop fans out there, let that statement sink in and marinate for a few seconds. As a blogger or a rap fan, you specialize in hating. You might very well love and adore a few acts, genres and movement among the greater movement of hip-hop, yet a great deal of your time is spent actively, vehemently and vocally disliking other entities, if not for page views and ratings, then for e-props and an ego boost. That said, I can't even distance myself from that bug. This blog, in many a post, has been a forum for airing out my grievances with issues in rap, rather than bigging up those that I side with. The whole hip-hop universe is riddled with hate, from angry Twitter rants from artists and fans alike (guilty), to random beefs, to the blogs themselves being partial. It's as if we've forgotten the fact that hip-hop was supposed to be fun at one point. Gone is the jovial, gregarious nature of the inner-city art form, as hip-hop becomes cold, impersonal and pugnacious behind computer screens. You'd think that at a showcase of the purest form of hip-hop congregation, the freestyle battle, heads would be able to chime in on the victors without the jeering and hate coming from the crowd. That clearly wasn't the case.
Bun B is the trillest. Point blank. If you have any questions as to why all of his albums include the word 'trill', it is because Bun is simply trill. That's why you can't be mad at Bun issuing a challenge to one of you, a cynical, hating, hip-hop concert dweller, probably fresh off his millionth listen to Atmosphere's 'Overcast' and donning his traditional backpack. As a cynical hip-hop fan, this fool jeered and taunted the contestants from the crowd for the whole show, only to be called out on stage by The Trill One and fumble over a really, really shitty freestyle. That freestyle, and the deafening boos from the crowd not only gave him a first class ticket to the exit, they showed the dangers of being a hater.
Cynical hip-hop fans, how many of you can rap? ...I mean really rap. How many of you can piece together a verse over a beat, or write an ill chorus, or go off the top of the dome in a battle? How many of you can rock a crowd and have thousands singing along to your songs? *crickets* My guess is few, if any of you; myself included. Too often do you find that the ones criticizing the art form the most are the least exceptional at that artform. They say those who can't do, critic, and those who can't critic simply sit on the sidelines giving sideways comments. We can all name at least one head whose life goal and prerogative is to rake muck at every possible instance. Unfortunately, not all of them have or will have the blessing of being publicly embarrassed by a hip-hop legend to humble them. That said, it's not really our job to put you in your place, oh scornful hip-hop fan. Where did all of this hate come from anyway? Whether you're a failed rapper, producer, or manager who started a blog, or you've had a hip-hop snob license for over a decade, keep the hate to a minimum, especially if you can't rap to save a second of your life. Lord knows I might have needed this letter more than you, to remind me not only that not everything has to be battle, but also to work on my freestyling, in the event that I ever do get called out. To you, oh cynical hip-hop fan, I hope the same wisdom be imparted. Maybe you'll get to see the show instead of getting booed out of the venue...
Let me get this off my chest first Lupe: That BMF freestyle was WEAK!!! Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here goes:
It's a sad day in music when a person has to finally admit that their favorite artist, contrary to popular belief, CAN do some wrong. Lupe, You've been my favorite rapper for the latter half of the decade, replacing whatever crap I was listening to previously. For those years of fanhood, I've had to sit through countless hip-hop arguments with people who thought you were lame, convoluted, whiny, overrated, too nerdy, not hood enough, and whatever other knocks they could find on you. For those years of fanhood, I toiled scouring lyrics and songs for instances that you shined. For every Weezy punchline, I had an entire verse that trumped it. For every Jay-Z song that became an earworm, I had a track bumped harder. Yet, for every album you released, I had a complaint. Yes, a complaint, Lu. You see, for an artist as talented as yourself, there always has to be a catch, and with that catch, a complaint from fans:
Your first album, while good, was NOTHING compared to the original, leaked version. From beginning (Theme Music to a Drive-by is one of the best intro's I've ever heard) through the middle ('Trials & Tribulations' and 'Real Recognize Real' still are in rotation) to the end, the ORIGINAL Food and Liquor was damn near a classic. Pulling it, then re-releasing it with wacker versions of original songs and throwaway tracks was a mistake. Your second album 'Lupe Fiasco's The Cool' was also good, but was riddled with tracks that probably should've been B-sides rather than album cuts. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't bump both of them into the ground due to my immense fanhood, but 3 years without a release makes for a rough time as a fan.
It is now 2010, three years since a Lupe Fiasco album, and 6 months since an official Lupe Fiasco mixtape. In today's industry, and to today's fan, that's entirely too long. Your name is out of the loop, people forget about you, and then give you the 'huh?' look when you claim you're the best. As much as it sucks to admit, promotion is EVERYTHING, and you've been lacking in that department for a while now. Now that Lasers is supposedly done, and you're being held from releasing it by Atlantic, you want to whine and complain about label woes and how their not pushing it for you. Lupe, you've got to remember that the industry owes you NOTHING!!! You hear that? NOTHING. The amount of artists who've had their careers chewed up and spat out within the course of a few months is constantly rising. And here you are, signed to a major labor, sporting a large and dedicated fanbase, getting mad because your stuff gets leaked and the label won't do anything about it? Lupe, grow up!
You ever take note of Wayne or Gucci when they went to jail?? No one really missed their presence in hip-hop because they constantly have stuff coming out, whether it's throwaway tracks, mixtape features, or just mixtapes in general. Lupe, in the last year, I think I've heard a total of 10 tracks from you. That's sad. No artist can put out less than a track per month and expect a label to be behind them (except Jay Electronica). Lu, going back to the fans (myself being one of them), there's been a #WeWantLASERS trending topic and petition on Twitter for about a week. Is it just me, or does it look like these fans are going to be tweeting and petitioning for naught? I know you'd like to say no, just so it sounds like you're trying, but we know that the Lupe we love on wax may never find his way back. It's not that you've lost your talent. It's that you got caught up in trying not to be 'the Cool' and stopped putting out what made you in the first place: the music. It's not enough to just sit there complaining about what people aren't doing for you or are doing to you. If you don't try to overcome it by doing what you do best, they win; labels, leakers et. al. Please Lupe, put us fans out of our misery and put out music that's worthy of your imprint, not random freestyles complaining about why you've got no buzz. If you're ever going to 'blow' you'll need a lot more than a subpar freestyle to a Rick Ross track...
