More MobileMusiCon Coverage

MocoNews.net continued its coverage of the MobileMusiCon with guest blogger Todd Beals filing reports on the rest of Day 1 and Day 2.

Infinity Cleans House

As both the FCC and Eliot Spitzer continue to investigate the relationship between radio stations and independent promoters, Infinity Broadcasting has fired a radio programmer for allegedly pocketing gift certificates theoretically intended for station listeners.

Hip Hop Artists Make Sexiest Men List

Kanye West and Andre 3000 make the list for People magazine's Sexiest Men Alive.

Sugar Hill vs. Beastie Boys

The Sugar Hill Gang have sued The Beastie Boys for allegedly illegal sampling in a situation that may be based on flawed legal research. Which side is misinterpreting the evidence remains to be seen.

Editorial Moment: Why Support Suge Knight?

Jay Smooth, at hiphopmusic.com, expresses his frustration with thuggery and asks why Suge Knight would be invited by Vibe to the Awards Show in the first place. Given Knight's reputation as a man responsible for setting violent acts into motion and the fact that insiders never seem to come forward in his defense unless they gain to benefit, why is Suge Knight still supported by a publication with the reputation of Vibe Magazine? What does it say politically when hip hop artists and business people spend huge amounts of time and money in the hopes of removing a President they widely disparaged while giving huge amounts of time and money to a man who has a long history of ripping off his own artists?

And who came up with the seating arrangement? Do they still have a job?

This is very bad for business, not to mention our souls.

Encore Expected to Remain on Top

With Eminem's Encore expected to continue it's presence at No. 1 for the second week in a row, Geoff Mayfield places the figures in relationship to early Eminem releases and discusses the impact of street-date violations on the charts.

Interview with Jerry Wexler

Jerry Wexler discusses the early days at Billboard and the shift in terms from "race records" to "rhythm and blues."

Thanks For Your Help

I want to start the week with shout outs to the folks that made ProHipHop's first full week in action a surprisingly gratifying experience.

Special thanks go to the hip hop bloggers who know me from earlier projects and mentioned me in their blogs or sent mail.  In particular, I want to thank Hashim Warren for being someone with whom I can discuss what I'm doing and what I hope to do without having to explain much of anything about topics like hip hop, weblogs, online journalism, domain mapping and why I moved across the country when I got an offer of (relatively) cheap rent.

Lucy Beer, of Elemental Consulting, helped me get the early word out to a variety of sources, from online hip hop publications to publicists for hip hop businesses.

I also want to thank Cabal, an award-winning hip hop artist from Brasil who also has a company named ProHipHop.  Rather than lashing out at someone displacing him from the search engine rankings, an option many artists and businessmen in almost any field might choose, he reached out without any demands to see what ties were possible.  I look forward to the possibility of interviewing Cabal and finding out about the difficulties of music enterpreneurship in Brasil for my upcoming interview series tentatively titled, "Talking Hip Hop Business."

ProHipHop has many challenges ahead and I have much to learn.  I look forward to being schooled by business people, hip hop people and hip hop business people.  It's on!