Ethan Brown on Investigative Hip Hop Journalism

Snitch by Ethan Brown

While researching my previous post, Doing Hip Hop Business in a Hostile Environment, I came upon this awesome interview with Ethan Brown at The Smoking Section.  Ethan is the author of one of the few must-reads in hip hop writing, Queens Reigns Supreme, and of the upcoming Snitch: Informers, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice.

To show you what a total geek I've become, here's the part that got me all hot and bothered:

I did a cover story for New York Magazine in the fall of 2003 called “Got Beef?” that was about the war between Ja Rule and 50 Cent and the very beginning of the feds looking at Murder Inc. As I was researching for “Got Beef?” I was doing Lexus Nexus searches and looking at all the news clips from the 80’s about the Supreme Team and Fat Cat. I’d seen just a few things and thought that it was a vastly under covered subject in every way and that it would be a great book...

Most of the first half of the book actually came from a gigantic document dump I was able to get from the feds. I put in a request to have a look at all the case files for Fat Cat, Thomas Mickens and Supreme. I expected maybe a couple hundred pages for each person, and it turned out to be 1000’s of pages each. There was everything from file transcripts to wiretaps. I remember when I got that document dump I thought, "This is the entire book right here." I knew how valuable it was, and it was astonishing. A lot of people who have read the book say, "It seems like you were actually there in some parts." All those quotes and specific details come from 1000's of pages of documents.

Mmm, documents...

And here's the part that makes me sad because of its implication for the future not only of serious hip hop journalism but of all investigative journalism:

Anyone who does investigative journalism is not in it for the money. Investigative journalism by nature is the most work intensive kind of journalism you can take on. That’s why you see less and less investigative journalism at newspapers and magazines. No matter what you’re paid for it, you put in so many man-hours it’s one of the least lucrative aspects of journalism you can take on. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from doing this stuff, but when Queens Reigns Supreme was brought out to publishers in the spring of 2004, basically everyone passed on it. The book was published in paperback original, which is the least lucrative way to publish a book...

The amount of investigative work it takes to put together a project like this...in the end it doesn’t turn out to be some big payday. I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it to tell great stories, to talk about moments of history that are forgotten, and also to get into the nitty gritty of drug policy that you don’t really see written about anywhere else.

Queens Reigns Supreme by Ethan Brown

This interview is just too awesome and there's a whole lot more over at The Smoking Section.

Let's close with a reality check for most of the hip hop industry idiots who claim to be following the code of the streets:

I hope I can say very loud and clear to everyone in the hip hop business..you are not in the streets. You’re insane if you think you live by street rules...You’re in legitimate businesses. You can call the police if there is a problem and you should call them if there is a problem. If someone near you is attacked or killed, talk to the police. It’s crazy how these hip-hop guys have convinced themselves that they are somehow like street guys. What's even worse is they are going around like, Cam’ron did on "60 Minutes" and giving a completely distorted interpretation of what actually happens on the streets. When people say "Oh, no, no one snitches on the streets" and "There's a stop snitching code on the streets", that's absolute bullsh*t. There's no "stop snitching" anything on the streets. Everyone's snitching. If you knew anything about the streets you would know that.

This is where hip-hop has become so doomed lately, in this confusion that rappers are street guys. You are not street guys. Get out of that mentality. It’s killing hip hop creatively, and it’s killing [it] morally. I just think it’s a disaster. A big part of what my first book is about is the historical moment in which hip-hop began to adopt all these street ideas and street icons like Supreme and what the consequences were. I think now we're living with those consequences.

While I think there were many moments that preceded this one, he makes a strong case for his argument in Queens Reigns Supreme.  I've often lamented the lack of both serious business coverage and investigative journalism related to hip hop.  Big ups to Ethan Brown for doing it.

Hey, Ethan's got a blog!

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Ethan Brown Moves to New Orleans

Comments

[Hashim]

Particulary in hip-hop business, the coverage and research sucks.

Part of the problem is that we're dealing with companies that aren't publicly traded, so there's not a lot of info out there.

Second, magazines are quick to repeat business numbers that are thrown out there by the artists, with no context or investigation. 8 dollars a record? 400 million for vitamin water?

Another problem is that journalists often talk to the figure head emcee CEOs of the companies and are not interested in or not granted access to the real movers behind these companies. Forget Jay-Z and Dame Dash - I want to hear from the two Russian dudes who helped them start Roc-a-wear.

[Clyde Smith]

If I was interviewing folks on a regular basis, I wouldn't be talking to the artists very much.

One things that bothers me is most hip hop business news shows up in the Entertainment section and that's not where they tend to encourage actual journalism. Even when it involves public companies that doesn't seem to help the coverage.

The "two Russian dudes"?

Yeah, I want that story!

[Hannah Smith]

Well that book's really an extended essay - two thirds of it are pointless, and towards the end he tries too hard to force through links between crime and hip-hop that aren't there (or aren't specific to Queens).

[Clyde Smith]

I thought Queens Reigns Supreme was an awesome book and a great resource. I didn't find it forced and it's important to take in-depth studies and look at how they relate to larger contexts.

A coherent book is essentially an extended essay so I think you wasted your time if you actually read it and found that to be a problem.

Since I've mainly read about the Jam Master Jay case online, I'll have to say this is the only thing I've read worth reading in terms of understanding why that case will probably never be solved.