Now I Really Am On Vacation
See you in a couple of weeks. Don't do anything newsworthy while I'm gone, ok?
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« June 11, 2006 - June 17, 2006 | Main | July 2, 2006 - July 8, 2006 »
See you in a couple of weeks. Don't do anything newsworthy while I'm gone, ok?
I finally found the full press release from Roederer that, to date, I'd only seen one sentence of in the English-language online press, though that one line sure got great distribution on hip hop news sites. Too bad there's no market for a serious hip hop news operation in this country.
Special thanks to Awer who was going to look for and translate a French version. His take on the lack of interest in France is included in the previous post along with links to news about some upcoming hip hop events in Paris:
Hadji Williams: How Cristal Hustled Hiphop (Plus Updates)
Alright, now I'm really going on vacation. Peace, y'all.
Champagne Louis Roederer President Addresses Comments in the Press
Tuesday June 20, 6:48 pm ET
REIMS, France, June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement was issued today, by Champagne Louis Roederer President Frederic Rouzaud:
It has come to my attention that unjust accusations are being made against Champagne Louis Roederer following my recent interview in The Economist. A quick-spreading rumor falsely attributes me with the reference "unwelcome attention." I did not use this phrase and I did not imply such sentiment.
The House of Louis Roederer could not have been in existence since 1776 without having the utmost regard for, and interest in, all forms of art and culture; this encompasses the most contemporary of fashions and music, which allows us to keep in step with the modern age. Cristal, like other great fashion names, has earned greater renown by being adopted by some of today's most recognized artists, entrepreneurs and opinion leaders.
Our goal is that Cristal be most appreciated for what it is: a wine which is always produced without compromise in limited quantities and to which the greatest care is applied to safeguard its quality. Our constant efforts are to ensure that those who love Cristal can appreciate it for the wine that it is.
As winemakers we cannot deny that we have occasionally been a little dismayed at seeing our wine sprayed around in celebration instead of being savored in a glass. We have routinely been questioned on the subject of extravagant displays of consumption, but of course we understand that such a form of celebration is part of champagne's mystique and heritage.
I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight and express our gratitude that people from a diversity of cultures and countries have been enjoying our wine for so long and have allowed us to prosper since 1776.
Frederic Rouzaud
President / CEO
Champagne Louis Roederer
Contacts:
Xavier Barlier
Vice President Marketing & Communication
Maisons Marques & Domaines
Email: xbarlier@mmdusa.net
Tel: 510-286-2000
Theresa Wray
Public Relations Associate
Maisons Marques & Domaines
Email: twray@mmdusa.net
Tel: 510-286-2014
Source: Champagne Louis Roederer
The Complete Account:
ProHipHop Coverage & Analysis of Jay-Z's Cristal Boycott
Marketing industry veteran Hadji Williams, author of Knock The Hustle, shows there's still plenty worth saying about Jay-Z's Cristal boycott, but you may not like it:
Rouzaud is shooting his mouth off now, because he knows Cristal doesn’t need hiphop’s praises anymore. The Jig’s up and they’ve moved on. The whole “black kid made good” angle is played and upscale consumers aren’t feeling us anymore. You can only play dress-up for so long before the clock strikes.
Peep the complete essay at Hip Hop Logic:
Everybody in Hiphop hates Chris, but so what?!
Nice work, Hadji!
Available from Amazon:
Hadji Williams - Knock The Hustle.
Update: Looks like more thoughtful people are starting to weigh in on this issue. The clowns will hate this but I can update while I'm on vacation. After all, I'm a blog addict! But I won't comment on Jay-Z's lyrical product deplacement. I'll let all the hip hop news sites carry that one exclusively! [lol]
From Playahata.com:
Jay Z’s Cristal Boycott leaves “Reasonable Doubt” with true hip hop fans
If you've missed the pics of Kimora Lee Simmons [allegedly] getting a Cristal soaked pedicure, check 'em out at Playahata.com!
From the French Hip Hop Resistance:
I also got some email from Awer who was writing to tell me about the PARIS HIP HOP 2006 festival. He states:
About Jay-Z and Cristal, in a certain way i think he is right to act like that as he definitely help the brand to become famous worldwide... But to be honest, here nobody care about Cristal... Cristal is an "american thing" as the cognac (i guess it'll be the next boycott), this is a part of the US "bling bling" rap "folklore"...
I think Jay Z must say "stop drinking alcohol" it'll be more positive... Hip Hop got nothing to deal with Cristal...
Drink water !!!
Awer also wanted to pass on word about events at the Festival including THE WORLD FAMOUS WAKE UP SHOW - LIVE IN PARIS on June 28th and DJ REVOLUTION & FRIENDS on June 29th. For more info, write contact(at)hiphop-resistance(dot)com or check www.paris-hiphop.com.
Just added: English Language Press Release on Pari(s) Hip Hop Events
The Complete Account:
ProHipHop Coverage & Analysis of Jay-Z's Cristal Boycott
Check it:
Gangsta Folk: Acoustic Covers of Gangsta Classics
Includes video of Snoop Dogg and Taylor Hicks performing Gin and Juice in Birmingham earlier this week. Peep it while it lasts.
The following new releases are available from Amazon.
7L & Esoteric - A New Dope
Afroman - Still Drunk and High
Big Sty - Stycology
Blaze Ya Dead Homie - 1 Less G in the Hood Deluxe G Edition
Country Boyz - Dirt Road Pimpin
DJ Spinna - Intergalactic Soul
Tha Dogg Pound - Cali Iz Active
Dyscyple - No Weapon
El Angel - Mexaton on the Rise
El Hector el Bambino Presenta: Rompe Discotekas
Fiend - The Addiction: Hope Is Near
Hawk - Since the Gray Tapes, Vol. 4
Kool Keith - The Return of Dr. Octagon
Large Professor - Beatz, Vol. 1
Lord Jamar - The 5% Album
Mr. Del - Holy South: Kingdom Crunk
Poor Righteous Teachers - Rare and Unreleased
Ray Cash - Cash On Delivery
Shawnna - Block Music
Spanish Kid - Tha Dog is Out
Young Gotti - Same Day Different Sh*t
Z-Ro - 4/20 the Smokers Anthem
For more current releases, see Hip Hop Albums.
In a move eerily reminiscent of hip hop media's boosting of the Tupac Shakur/Biggie Smalls beef, Hashim Warren at Hip Hop Blogs boosts L.I.F.E. DVD magazine with an "exclusive" video of Tru Life making violent threats against Cam'Ron and Dipset, describing Cam as wanting to be like 50 (shot numerous times) and Pac (murdered in a shooting) and stating "my Dominicans will put one in your face", etc., etc.
Beneath the video Hashim states:
Because I'm feeling how L.I.F.E. DVD gets down, I joined the team to help them push this web video movement. Cop the latest DVD - it's crack.
There's at least one version of the core threats with clearer audio as well as at least one other "exclusive" video [Hashim is treading a well worn path here] posted at YouTube. In my aging curmudgeonly fashion, I must point out yet again to members of the hip hop media, exclusive doesn't mean you were the only one talking to the interviewee at the time or that you had a unique camera angle, exclusive means you were the only one who has anything.
I know, I know. I'm too damn serious for my own good, expect too much from bloggers, only look at the surface of things, read Bill Cosby and Stanley Crouch when no one's looking, and so forth.
Besides, beef doesn't kill, members of rappers' entourages do.
In all the excitement regarding Marc Ecko's Air Force One tagging video promo, I never heard it was anything other than Marc Ecko putting some money into a nutty idea that blew up. David Kiley writes that they shared the "top cyber marketing award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival" with that Helga chick Crispin Porter + Bogusky spawned.
'boards has more on the Droga5 story.
Glad to see Droga5 getting that credit. I had mixed feelings about the campaign but could not deny its effectiveness for putting Ecko in the news. I have no idea what it did for sales of Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure and I'm not sure how you could decide given the wide range of activities Ecko had going for his game. But, hey, it won an award and that's what matters!
I'll admit I never checked out any of Helga's online presence that includes both the test drive site Kiley mentions that shared the award and a MySpace page. She's just not my type.
You can check ProHipHop's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure coverage in the M. Ecko category.
Here's the ad that I think introduced Helga to the world. As I mentioned at Altered Television, I love this ad for a variety of reasons but feel it's relationship to hip hop is tangential at best.
Big ups to Busta Rhymes for The Big Bang taking the top spot on not only the Billboard 200 albums chart but also on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts. SoundScan figures hit 209,000 units moved the first week and that's cause for congratulation.
1. Busta Rhymes - The Big Bang
2. The Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way
3. AFI - Decemberunderground
4. Soundtrack - High School Musical
5. Three Days Grace - One - X
6. Soundtrack - Cars
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
8. Rascal Flatts - Me and My Gang
9. Yung Joc - New Joc City
10. Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later
Not surprisingly, sales of cds overall continue to slip:
At 10.4 million units, overall CD sales were up 9% from the previous week and down 13% compared to the same week a year ago. Sales for 2006 are down 4% compared to 2005 at 251.6 million units.
I'm not in her blogfam or on her blogher blogroll (which would be odd, I guess), but I did make Lynne d Johnson's Top 10 Favorite Blogs, at least for the moment!
Seriously, it's a surprising honor and I'm honestly touched by being included. And I'm in impressive company. Look, Rizoh's on there too!
Read her bio and that may help you understand why I consider it such an honor.
While you're there, check out her blog.
Thanks, Lynne!
Since the issue of adult content will continue to be an important one in both hip hop and in online publishing, I think it's cool that my newsletter service, FeedBlitz, now offers the option of asking subscribers a Yes/No question such as "Are you 21 or over?" in order for them to subscribe. Though folks can always lie, it does give publishers (from bloggers to adult website owners) a basic tool for responding to concerns that I haven't seen before from such a service.
I don't know what else you might want to ask instead but the form of the question is up to you.
Since I wrote about Gnarls Barkley, a group that I can't really bring myself to label a hip hop act, I guess I can write about Kevin Federline, who is actually attempting to rap. In any case, there are so many bad jokes ahead about K-Fed's new Virgin campaign that I won't even go there.
By the way, it was seeing the video of Gnarls Barkley in the Star Wars outfits that was the final blow to my interest in that duo. However, I am now a fan of Cee-Lo and that's a good thing.
I wonder if this means I'll end up writing about Paris Hilton? I've really been hoping to avoid that heinous topic.
I recently received a review copy of Sunday Driver, a film about the oldest black lowrider club in LA (Compton, that is), that was recently released on DVD and about which I've written previously (that post includes the movie trailer).
Mine looks like the above except with a much cooler paint job and add-ons. Plus it's from Lindberg not Craft House.
I have to say that the most fun part of the Sunday Driver promotion as a reviewer was the accompanying Pocket Hopper '63 Impala Lowrider toy. It looks great in the package but I really want to take it out and watch it hop. It comes with a battery so it's good to go. If my old hangout wasn't shut down for remodeling, we'd have been playing with it on the patio and enjoying the endless destruction of time.
I assume this was just sent to reviewers and press people and it did the job of catching my attention and making me smile when I saw it. The only other extra I've gotten that caught my attention in the same way was a cd from Northern Cali that was sent with two individually wrapped, flavored blunt wrappers. Again, it predisposed me to respond to the album amidst a mass of submissions.
The Santana
What fascinated me about Sunday Driver was discovering things like the differences between African-American lowriders and Latino lowriders, at least from the Majestics perspective. One of the big differences is the emphasis on car shows in the Latino community. An important part of the story line focuses on a car that Gangster, the president of the Majestiks, decides to rework for a car competition, apparently a first for the group that emphasizes street culture. Since the director filmed these guys over a course of years, the bonus footage includes a look at the really rough beginnings of what became an incredible showpiece called The Santana.
I was also drawn to tales of the early days, including the outlawing of lowriders in 1959. The best early days stories came from Doc Get Low, who started painting cars in 1958 and whose aesthetic and background emphasizes getting low rather than high. He points out that nowadays the emphasis with lifters is making the car hop but, back in the day, they emphasized dropping the car low. In fact, what he dug was literally dropping the car all the way to the ground so it would scrape as he drove. He also enjoyed dropping it so low that it wouldn't move while he burned rubber and created a great cloud of smoke.
Doc Get Low
Relating this account makes it sound a bit ridiculous but when you catch Doc Low telling the tale, you'll get an inexcapable sense of the pleasure he derived from such antics. There's a lot more where that come from in this well shot and edited documentary directed by Carol Strong.
On a related note, I have to say I'm rather surprised that the LA Times' 125th Anniversary Car Special doesn't have a feature on lowriders. They may be in the mix but lowriders are one of the most distinctive elements of LA car culture and I think they deserve a bit more attention.
Official site: Sunday Driver
Official site: Majestics Compton
Available from Amazon: Sunday Driver DVD
I think a lot about MySpace and track all the news I see but most of my thoughts aren't about marketing so I haven't been writing much about the company. For what it's worth, I want to make a quick point about the lawsuit against the company by a 14 year old and her mom.
Here's the short version:
A 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace.com sued the social networking Web site Monday, claiming it does not take sufficient steps to protect underage members. The girl says a 19-year-old man lied in his profile about being a senior on a football team to gain her trust and phone number.
Assuming she was assaulted, how was MySpace supposed to protect her? What if he had been a senior on a football team? Would that have protected her?
To be honest, I don't think MySpace is handling these concerns very well and they're setting themselves up for a lot more problems in the days ahead. These kinds of concerns have been raised repeatedly in relationship to online meeting spaces such as AOL's chat rooms and Yahoo groups. MySpace does need to put additional controls in place but they also need to educate their users about safe use of such services and reframe current concerns in relationship to past examples. These issues are not new by any means.
We should also consider the fact that our society oscillates wildly between overprotecting teens from the world and overexposing them to the world. Parents and educators have to take some of the responsibility if they are not educating young people about how to conduct themselves in a safe manner with both old and new contacts.
The last time I checked, young people were most likely to be abused by people they already knew, often by trusted members of the family or related institutions. Telling kids to behave, monitoring their media consumption and emphasizing abstinence without educating young people to take care of themselves when they have the opportunity to choose for themselves is a fool's game. Its hurting young people much more than its hurting those who refuse to educate them, whether that refusal comes from parents, school boards or MySpace.
Update: I just registered at MySpace as a 15 year old and see that they do post safety guidelines and require you to check a little box saying you've read them, sounds like a lawyer approved method that will not reach young people. I've heard that they're also doing PSAs but havent seen them. MySpace may need to be targeting parents and educators and offering educational materials as well, perhaps in a public/private partnership.
Let me say that I recognize that I don't have an easy solution and this is not a simple problem. But, so far, I feel that MySpace is trying to look good without truly addressing the issue. That will help them in court but it does not address the real problems at hand.
The following new releases are available from Amazon.
Bullys Wit Fullys - The Infrastructure
Field Mob - Light Poles and Pine Trees
Lil' J - Back Like I Left Somethin'
Obie Trice - Second Round's on Me
Reek Daddy - Babbi Land
Soundtrack - The Fast And The Furious Tokyo Drift
Three 6 Mafia - Most Known Unknown [Special Edition]
Turf Terminators - Welcome 2 Da Turf
Universal Latino - Hip-Hop Super Hits
For more current releases, see Hip Hop Albums.
StarStyle, a site that focuses on buying fashion and related items that celebs wear or that you see on tv, has launched StarStyle Music. It's a simple idea with the visitor choosing from a currently short list of Universal Music Group videos to stream with a handful of fashion items seen in the video that are displayed next to it and are for sale.
I haven't dug deeply into the site. I notice they include some blog and podcast activity and I think the whole idea is very smart and something that we'll be seeing more of elsewhere in various forms. It also heightens the potential for product placement synergies [that's the first time I've used synergies in a sentence and it actually works but I promise not to do it again!].
From the release:
UMG -- whose artists include trendsetters Lindsay Lohan, Gwen Stefani, Black Eyed Peas, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood and the Pussycat Dolls -- will work with StarStyle staff to identify branded products featured in the music videos. Until now, many apparel brands have given their clothes to music videos to reap free product placement and generate buzz, especially for new lines. StarStyle benefits brands by allowing them to clearly identify themselves and to give consumers a direct purchase opportunity, while also helping labels and artists by creating new revenue streams.
I think it suggests possibilities for indie bloggers and small site owners as well, though the ongoing crackdown on YouTube presents a problem. StarStyle has a deal with UMG who has yet to make their videos available to bloggers as Sony BMG is doing but that may well happen on down the line. You could even use celeb promo photos as a base.
Unfortunately for rap video enthusiasts, so much of what is shown are luxury goods and I'm not sure how you'd capitalize on that. For lower end items, you could join affiliate programs, including Amazon, and that might work for some luxury items as well.
One idea would be to do a blog where you run a music video with high end items and then share options for achieving a similar look on a budget using items from a handful of affiliate programs.
I wouldn't be surprised if related pitches are occurring in street sales but it might be a differentiator to hawk your bootleg wares with references to the music videos that show the real thing.
Official Site: StarStyle Music
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