Where Hip Hop Lives

Who would have ever thought that an old white man would have this much effect on the hip hop culture? We all know the Don Imus story and I’m not going to speak on that situation here, but what kills me is how the blame all seemed to goto hip hop and not to the individual! If someone shoots someone it’s not hip hop’s fault it’s the shooters fault! When the kids at VA Tech got killed last week (R.I.P.), it wasn’t the Clipse, Missy Elliott or Pharrell’s fault, it was the fault of the shooter!

Now radio stations around the country are vowing to limit or not play songs with so-called offensive language. Hip Hop mogul Russell Simmons recently stated that he’s all in favor of limiting the offensive language (Read Here) The Rev Al Sharpton has also added his name and image to this movement to stem song lyrics. Haven’t we gone through this in the late 80′s early 90′s with the Two Live Crew and The Geto Boys? Isn’t freedom of speech still a right in this country? Next they will want to sensor your blog entries and comments and we can’t have that! People need to take responsibility for their actions and don’t use hip hop as your own personal scapegoat.

The-XFacta

Unless you’ve been in a box the last couple of days, you’ve heard about Cameron and the “Stop Snitching” debate on CBS’ 60 Minutes. See Here
Does the Stop Snitching movement cause more crime in your neighborhood? Would snitching make our streets safe? If someone shot your mom would you want a witness to let the authorities know? How can I snitch on my man and then still live in that same hood, won’t he be after me next?

Where I’m from you keep your mouth closed and you live a hell of a lot longer!

The-XFacta.Com

In 2006 Nas asked the world if hip hop was dead? That question upset many an artist in the Dirty South and the West Coast. So Nas decided to “save” hip hop by dropping his strongest effort since Illmatic, Hip Hop is Dead…. The N.
Jay-Z, the selfprocalimed “God M.C.”, dropped his post retirement album Kingdom Come. With these two legendary artist releasing albums in late 2006 hip hop was saved right? Wrong! Nas has only sold 700k (and I’m rounding up) and Jay-Z, after a hefty marketing stategy, where he partnered with Budwiser (Don’t even get me started with this) and Dale Earnhardt Jr (You really think he bought an album?), managed to sell a respectable 1.4Million, but 1/2 of that total was sold in the first week of sales. Lloyd Banks, who sold 3 million his first album, didn’t even go gold and Fat Joe’s album bricked, even though he had Lil Wayne on his first single.

With their failures enter 2007 and the highly anticipated 3rd release of the best selling rap artist the past 4 years, 50Cent. Fifty has sold 8 Million (Get Rich or Die Tryin’) and 5 Million (The Massacre), and he now looks to continue the multiplatinum sucess with the release of the tentively titled, “Before I Self Destruct” With no other anticipated albums from marquee artist from the east coast besides Fabolous, this may be the last stand for east coast hip hop!

I was at my gym last week preparing to crush some clowns on the hardwood. You know, take some lightweight punk down to the paint and Shaq O’neal his ass. In between me posting my third consecutive “triple-single” (I have a patent pending on that term), the age old debate came up of who are the greatest rappers of all time? We decided to pick the top five of all time, you know what I’m saying the hottest, most lyrical mc’s ever! Now let me keep it real with you and let you know I’m a 30-something (The new 20) black man from the Bronx NY, now living in Raleigh, NC. A lot of the cats at the gym are 16-21 and they were showing no love to the originators and pioneers or rap. Here are average top 5 from those 16-21 and remember this GREATEST OF ALL TIME!

1. Lil Wayne
2. Young Jeezy
3. Jay-Z
4. 2 Pac
5. Biggie Smallz

Are you kidding me? How is Rakim, KRS-One, or Big Daddy Kane not on this list? At least one of them! It seems the young headz today have forgotten, don’t know, or don’t care about the past. How can Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy be better then Rakim? How are they better then Nas for the matter? I would even take Bun B over Young Jeezy! Why is it that the younger generation dismiss the past legends of the game?

For the record my top 5

1. Biggie Smallz (Simply the Greatest with all styles)
2. Rakim (The God MC. Made being lyrical a must)
3. 2 Pac (Inconsistant at times, but very powerful)
4. Big Daddy Kane (The original P.I.M.P.)
5. Q-Tip (The wild card! Check out the first 3 Tribe album and then disagree)

With the recent arrests of mixtape dj’s Drama and Don Cannon for selling unauthorized music, the mix tape world is in a frenzy! What would your music world be with out the mixtape set? You would only here 8 songs for 3 months, somthing by Ciara, Chris Brown, and Ludicris for sure 50 times a day. What’s even crazier is that most of the music played by mixtape dj’s are given directly by the record labels so that their artist can get free promotion via the mixtapes. I find it crazy that they give the music but they don’t back the dj’s once/if they get busted for selling unauthorized music. The mixtape circuit must stay for the good of hip hop! We as consumers, dj’s and music lovers alike must all stand up to fight for good and fresh music… Please comment!

Since the latest Nas album dropped in late December 2006, the streets are buzzing with one question… Is Hip Hop Dead?

The New York artist think the Dirty South artist, just make dance songs and have nothing to talk about worth merit!

The Dirty South artist think the New York artist are a bunch of haters who are upset because they are eating well and the spotlights on the south.

What do you think?