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Hip-Hop News Plus Tupac Shakur Info |
« November 11, 2007 - November 17, 2007 | Main | November 25, 2007 - December 1, 2007 »
The Best Of 2Pac, Part 1: Thug
The Best Of 2Pac, Part 1: Thug and The Best of 2Pac, Part 2: Life are due December 4th from Interscope Records.
The Best of 2Pac, Part 2: Life
At Hip Hop Press:
New 2PAC CDS Captures the Complexity of a Lyrical Genius
Eazy-E - Featuring Eazy E
I hadn't seen the album cover art for Featuring Eazy E coming December 4th from Priority Records. It's really quite nice. Almost like he's laid out.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton 20th Anniversary Edition; Plus, Featuring...Eazy-E
The next time your boss says, "Can't we just make it viral?", as if that was the cheap and easy solution, point him to this behind the scenes article about making a video go viral.
After reading this article I've decided to nuke certain commenters that are likely to be publicists posing as human beings. My apologies in advance to the innocent.
Update:
Dan Greenberg follows up his post with a number of comments and clarifications.
Flo Rida's Low featuring T-Pain moves up two spots to no. 4 on the Hot 100 singles chart.
Fergie makes 21st Century history as Clumsy enters the top 10:
making her the first female artist since Paul Abdul in 1989 and 1990 to take five songs from a debut album into the top 10.
Top 10 Singles on the Hot 100:
1. Alicia Keys - No One
2. Chris Brown - Kiss Kiss
3. Timbaland - Apologize feat. OneRepublic
4. Flo Rida - Low feat. T-Pain
5. Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
6. Soulja Boy - Crank That (Soulja Boy)
7. Kanye West - Good Life feat. T-Pain
8. Fergie - Clumsy
9. Baby Bash - Cyclone feat. T-Pain
10. Kanye West - Stronger
Jay-Z's American Gangster drops to no. 8 on the Billboard 200 album chart as Alicia Keys dominates the top 10 with As I Am debuting at no. 1.
Top 10 Albums on the Billboard 200:
1. Alicia Keys - As I Am
2. Josh Groban - Noel
3. Celine Dion - Taking Chances
4. Now That's What I Call Music 26
5. Garth Brooks - The Ultimate Hits
6. The Eagles - Long Road Out of Eden
7. Led Zeppelin - Mothership
8. Jay-Z - American Gangster
9. Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride
10. Chris Brown - Exclusive
The Vibe Q - Raw and Uncut
The Vibe Q: Raw and Uncut is a selection of interviews from Vibe magazine covering the last 15 years. What I'm seeing suggests that it may have material not in the magazine.
I'm not sure about that detail but it's Thanksgiving and no more research for me until late tonight at the earliest. I have turkey to eat with a major nap to follow!
Rolling Stone Cover to Cover - The First 40 Years
I'll definitely check The Vibe Q out as I'm gradually building a hip hop reference library to support ProHipHop and related projects. On that note, I'm hoping to be the happy recipient of Rolling Stone Cover to Cover: The First 40 Years this Christmas cause Santa is still my main man.
From the Amazon description:
Mac and PC compatible searchable software archive. One of a kind package contains searchable digital editions of every page of every issue ever published during the magazines celebrated 40-year history, all accessible with user-friendly Mac or Window compatible software platform.
Obviously this will be a rock-centric publication so maybe I'll find out what these kids have been up to in the last decade since I stopped listening to most new rock music. More importantly for my purposes Rolling Stone does have some solid rap interviews and coverage, the coverage predates and reveals the emergence of hip hop historically in the rock press and may also include the advertisements that will give one an opportunity to see when hip hop started impacting advertising in such publications.
Honestly I wish all the big hip hop magazines would put out similar editions for the first 5 to 10 years of their coverage. That would be really great.
What's doubly fun is that I'll get to check out all the 60s coverage that happened right before I started reading this kind of thing in the early 70s as a tween. That's a fascinating time period and you get to see Rolling Stone when it was a counter cultural publication on newsprint in the midst of a revolutionary situation.
Clayton M. Christensen - The Innovator's Dilemma
Rolling Stone is probably the most mentioned symbol of magazine publishing success among hip hop publishers, especially Dave Mays, who actually had a similar beginning with The Source but lost that script. Rolling Stone's beginning is even more interesting if you consider the fact that Rolling Stone's trajectory is another example of a publication that began as a disruptive innovation and then worked its way up the food chain to the top and then got to see what it's like to play defense while introducing sustaining innovations.
If you don't get that and you want to understand the current challenge to MSM, major labels, etc. by the disruptive innovations of bloggers and other lowlifes leveraging the web for the big takeover, read Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. Be sure to study the chapters on the history of the disc drive industry and the mechanical excavator industry with care. You'll totally trip when you start recognizing the same process occurring in relationship to online media.
And you'll kick ass in the New Year with your clearer, stronger vision of what is and what could be!
PS - Encouraging you to read this book is my Christmas present to you this year. On the real.
I'm happy to announce that Netvibes invited me to create one of their Universes and the initial result is the cut and paste ProHipHop Network @ Netvibes that combines my main content feeds with visual material from other sources.
There are some other possibilities including gaining additional control of the design and creating a widget with all my content feeds. I'm focusing on getting the widget next and hope to continue with whatever else they have to offer.
The Universe startpage is basically a Netvibes startpage made public and they will be opening this option up to the general public at some point. Definitely one of those things to do, like so many other Web 2.0 sites with an open web aspect, whether or not you plan any further involvement with Netvibes.
Update:
Actually it looks like you can now apply for Netvibes' various programs via the right sidebar on their Ecosystem homepage.
Netvibes is also my biggest single source of ProHipHop newsfeed subscribers with 216 subscribers prior to the debut of the ProHipHop Network.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
ProHipHop Network Widget Available for All Websites
Netvibes Releases ProHipHop News Widget
www.flickr.com
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I can tell this widget thing ain't going away and I actually have a backlog of interesting widgets to post so, here it is, the birth of ProHipHop's Widgets Category presented by SugarSkull!
Widget by Flickr badge.
It's not that I don't find Seth Godin's thanks sincere but the fact that he doesn't run ads or charge for subscriptions doesn't mean he's not monetizing his blog. If Seth wants to focus on the attention aspect then one could say he's monetizing that attention.
Books, speaking gigs, consulting, involvement with web startups. Those are the elements of a much better game than CPMs, clickthroughs and preroll ads which are the elements of a really sucky game I know far too well.
Awful title but that's how it goes sometimes. I was just reminded that when I unsubscribe and ask to be removed from a mailing list, folks have all sorts of assumptions about what that means and may be misinterpreting subscriber choices more generally.
I personally keep up with information in multiple ways including going to sites [I have a group of sites I check multiple times a day], subscribing to RSS feeds, subscribing to email newsletters [at addresses that may not clearly identify who's receiving them], following links from blogs, following occasional email suggestions, keeping up with press releases and mixing feeds and then following the results [like at World Cypher where I currently track 75 sources with more to come].
That means that I could be following you very closely and you'll never know unless I write about you or contact you.
But I've found more than once that folks have thought when I unsubscribed to their unrequested email that I wasn't interested when I've often been getting news of their updates before their email gets out.
That means that there's probably a larger number with that view who haven't told me that's what they think.
I could go on but the point should be obvious, people don't really know what's up with their subscribers, in the broadest sense of the word, and may never really know. If you base your evaluation on too little info, in this case an email subscriber list, when you don't have the names of your RSS subscribers and web surfers, then you're deluding yourself that you have a clue about what's going on when someone unsubscribes from one source.
On a related note, I've started creating filters for newsletters that I don't want that don't have an unsubscribe option. I can glance at it once a week, in multiple accounts, to confirm that there's little there for me while keeping those size-queen list maintainers happy and collecting their profits. It's a rapidly growing list and a reminder of why most email blasts are a waste of your money.
Lynne d Johnson shares two pieces on the hip hop/urban portal scene, circa 2000, that she wrote for publications helmed by Jason Calacanis.
She also offers a challenge:
Let me know how much any of this sounds familiar.
The big comparison here is obviously 360HipHop and Global Grind (globalgrind.com):
Both were founded or cofounded by Russell Simmons during a heated period of Web-related M&A activity.
Each concept involves a content play from different generations of the web. 360HipHop focused on editors selecting the content while Global Grind has users selecting the content.
Each company attempted to position themselves as the key starting place or destination for those seeking hip hop.
360HipHop is said to have overreached its users by being too cutting edge with technology.
Global Grind doesn't seem that technically out of reach though a Google search currently returns the following:
Global Grind - Incompatible Browser
Oops, Global Grind is not accessible in your browser yet. We are still building this out, however in the meantime try to launch the site in Firefox or ...
www.globalgrind.com/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
But there are obvious differences as well:
Bloggers still reference 360HipHop as an example of what not to do.
Bloggers aren't talking much about Global Grind.
Additional issues with Global Grind:
The current landing page, if you don't have one of their cookies installed, does not reference hip hop or anything else related to their stated positioning.
If one clicks through without choosing content, the article currently featured is titled "Hillary Snubin' Sikhs??" under the section heading "The News You Need".
If one searches Google for sites that link to www.globalgrind.com one gets around 36 results.
I don't know what exactly to make of the last point. It's been puzzling me since they launched and that number certainly doesn't reflect the coverage that I've seen but I haven't yet dug into Google watcher blogs to try to figure out what may be happening.
However, the content related points seriously undermine Global Grind's attempt at positioning itself as one's core destination for hip hop. I appreciate the fact that there are no garish graphics on display but hip hop is not the place to be coy with one's intended audience.
If you read the coverage that appeared mostly on tech and business websites when Global Grind officially launched, you'll see that they were also strongly targeting such sites with the message that Global Grind would take the Ajax and Flash powered start pages like Netvibes and Pageflakes out of the realm of geeks and into the mainstream.
Combine the somewhat unfocused content with the fact that a site like Netvibes may initially make more sense to newbies than does Global Grind with the fact that GG focused their biggest publicity wave on tech and business media outlets with the fact that we've heard no announcements regarding great leaps in membership numbers and you get a business headed for a similar fate as 360HipHop.
Sure, there are many differences as well but 360HipHop was a success for those who sold it and Global Grind seems likely to follow that route except for the fact that it doesn't appear to be gaining traction and that nobody really seems to care enough about Global Grind to even come out and bother dissing it.
I'll be honest, I've actually avoided heavy criticism of Global Grind because I wanted to see what they could do without making any kneejerk assumptions regarding Russell Simmons' involvement.
But my most consistent feeling has been that Global Grind would fail. It's certainly not over yet and they could very well prove me wrong but that's always been my core response.
As I mention in passing above, there have been no follow-up announcements of great gains at Global Grind.
One of the things I've learned following hip hop related companies is that many can get a lot of buzz initially but, if things aren't working out, they just stop making announcements and quietly disappear.
This pattern of initial buzz and quiet disappearance is one I've noticed most frequently with businesses tied to Russell Simmons. That's due in part to the fact that he wants in on everything, he can get publicity for whatever he does and he's employed a consistent pr strategy of covering up failures.
Such a pr strategy usually works out quite well, in part, because hip hop business news is usually dealt with by entertainment reporters and they ain't looking back for failures that no one's talking about.
On that note, whatever happened to:
DOD?
DefJamMobile?
Yoga Live?
I'm particularly interested in talking with folks who know the backstory on the demise of DefJamMobile.
On the publicity tip, I was initially impressed by the tech media coverage gained by Global Grind but I was always underwhelmed by their outreach to hip hop sites or to any audience of likely users.
In retrospect the outreach to tech media now looks more like a pr strategy focused on investors rather than users.
It's smart to include tech media if there's a tech angle whether or not you're looking for the big buyout but doing so without a strong campaign focused on your potential user base after one has already received serious funding positions one for failure. To get bought, you've got to have something people want. At this point in time, a niche site using me-too technology needs a rabid user base.
Absent something startling and fresh, Global Grind may actually end up a bigger failure than 360HipHop because not only does it not meet people's actual needs or desires but it may well not reach a successful liquidity event.
Sneak Peak of 50 Cent's Mansion on MTV CRIBS
After a brief delay the above video proceeds with clips from Sucker Free's Full Sneak Peak of 50's Crib.
That's right, 50 Cent is giving YOU a tour of his mansion on MTV CRIBS, December 29th.
Assuming the property hasn't sold since going on the market back in May, this may be the biggest real estate ad on prime time tv to date.
Matt Sonzala is moving to Austin for a job with SXSW. This is great news for hip hop at SXSW which has already been showing strong growth, in part, with Matt's help.
Buried at the end of the post:
The hip-hop portion of SXSW is gonna be bigger and better than ever next year. I'ma get all the good ones in one place at one time and we gone ride on the enemy. I'm working to bring some serious international flavors that you need in your life and a lot of our favorite DJs and such will be there as well. Seriously SXSW 2008 is gonna be ridiculous. Get your passes now.
Seriously, get your passes now!
Official Site:
SXSW
Coming Soon:
AustinSurreal
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Hip Hop Showcase at SXSW
SXSW Pics, Interview & a Vibe.com Feature
Kanye West on the Cover of GQ
GQ 2007 Men of the Year include Kanye West, Bill Clinton, Daniel Craig, Ron Paul and "Workaholic" Lil Wayne.
Kanye gets one of three alternate covers along with Bill Clinton and Daniel Craig.
Rick Ross Turkey Give Away at Hip Hop Grub Spot
YouTube is acting up at the moment so I'm posting this video without seeing the whole thing, not something I'd normally do, but I have the feeling after the pics of Rick Ross greeting people that eventually he gives some turkeys away. Hopefully the beat changes by then.
This is one of a whole series of promotional videos from the Hip Hop Grub Spot about which I've previously posted.
They all are rather rough edged but do a nice job of providing an alternative to endless press releases about minor steps along the way. However there's plenty of time for the traditional penny stock pr approach if they do go public in such a manner. Wikipedia's entry on penny stocks, whose details may or may not be accurate, gives one a sense of the downside of such stocks.
Press releases for such companies often become a way to attempt to turn minor announcements into positive investor response. The Hip Hop Soda Shop's press releases [for H3Enterprises/HTRE] managed to mostly avoid that fate until Ben Chavis showed up and a brief period that included some fairly ephemeral news ensued most likely to spur investor interest. However they've general stuck to real announcements.
As Hip Hop Grub Spot moves forward it will be interesting to see how their marketing approach changes as they attempt to go public.
Note:
I had to close comments on my previous post due to folks attempting to boost one company over another in the traditional manner of attempting to influence investor opinion.. I'll probably have to do that with this post and, knowing that, I'm reminded of the fact that I would never take a company public in this manner because the penny stock sector is way too vulnerable to scams that can make the company look responsible for outside attempts to game the stock.
MarketWatch's Andria Cheng Interviews Nike President Charlie Denson
Nike and Converse together under one roof. At last!
Nike and Foot Locker announced plans for up to 50 House of Hoops stores back in May to be opened over a three year period:
Foot Locker and Nike, the supplier of half of Foot Locker's shoes, are trying to spur sales of high-end basketball apparel at urban stores outside malls as customers buy more general-use sneakers instead of shoes for specific sports. Most of the basketball stores will be converted Foot Locker locations.
"These stores are too small to merchandise Foot Locker's entire offering, and they need to be upgraded," said John Shanley, a New York-based analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group. "It's a good way for Nike to keep competing brands out of the picture.
At about 2,100 square feet, the average U.S. Foot Locker store is about one-sixth the size of a typical Niketown store, which sells shoes and clothes at high-profile locations such as Chicago's Magnificent Mile and Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive.
I have been in the same room for 3.5 days straight...
The room is 104 degrees.
It is Africa.
There is a wilderbeest under the console...
Saigon’s [hair] looks like Don King right now.
He has a pompadour or something.
He’s been camping out here.. but he gets to sleep.
I haven’t slept since i walked in on Friday.
I QUIT........
You see I got into rap a very very long time ago [on a far distant planet, ed.]...
No more interviews, no more mixtapes, no nothing....Im not a rapper anymore, Im done...
I wouldve given my life trying to save my people and died in vein like alot of people did...
SAIGON IS DEAD...
I QUIT, Now I have time to focus on my non profit organazation...
now I gotta figure out how Im gonna break this to Just Blaze......THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD....hahahahahahaha PROPHECY
Breakfast was good this morning.
They ran ot of English muffins though.
I am losing my mind.
Wow.
I think it just ran across my foot.
BTW I am going on a hiatus after this.. for quite a while...
Maybe you’ll love me when I fade...
EDIT: BTW.. anyone who knows me has known about the hiatus thing for a second.
Not a marketing ploy, and nothing to do with whatever people are flooding my inbox about in reference to Saigon’s blog.
Hey, guys, just don't make Thanksgiving a living hell for all your loved ones this week. OK? And no more of the brown acid. Didn't you see Woodstock?
Saigon link via Baller Status.
From the list of winners of the 2007 American Music Awards:
RAP/HIP-HOP
Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Favorite Male Artist: T.I.
Favorite Album: T.I. / T.I. vs. T.I.P.
What a sad time for T.I. this must be as many great victories are overshadowed by a major defeat.
Somebody around here forgot all about the Hot 100 top 10 singles late last week and when I get my hands on them...
T-Pain is the true ruler of the Hot 100 singles chart with features on four tracks. That's some real presence especially since T-Pain's voice often defines a track rather than being a guest appearance as with most rapper features [except for Lil Weezy grabbing that duffel bag full of cash].
Flo Rida has a big week as Low featuring T-Pain rockets from no. 64 to no. 6. Low is the first single off what will be Flo Rida's 2008 debut album.
Top 10 Singles on the Hot 100:
1. Chris Brown - Kiss Kiss feat. T-Pain
2. Alicia Keys - No One
3. Timbaland - Apologize feat. OneRepublic
4. Soulja Boy - Crank That (Soulja Boy)
5. Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
6. Flo Rida - Low feat. T-Pain
7. Kanye West - Good Life feat. T-Pain
8. Baby Bash - Cyclone feat. T-Pain
9. Kanye West - Stronger
10. Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
DJ Felli has this week's top debut in the Hot 100 at no. 44 with Get Buck In Here featuring Diddy, Akon, Ludacris and Lil Jon, a "career high chart placement for the KPRW Los Angeles night DJ."
Over at VidRap:
Flo Rida f/T-Pain - Low
Jean Grae - The Orchestral Files
To receive this report separately each week, please visit Weekly Hip Hop Albums and sign up for our free weekly newsletter delivered every Monday with Tuesday's releases.
The following new releases are available from Amazon.
5th Ward Boyz - Ghetto Dope [Reissue]
5th Ward Boyz - Rated G [Reissue]
Apathy - Hell's Lost and Found
Atmosphere - Sad Clown Bad Fall 10 [EP]
B-Legit - Throwblock Muzic
Cali-Rap Radio: Most Requested
Cormega - Who Am I?
Demigodz - Deluxe Edition: The Godz Must Be Crazier
[Dual Disc]
Eddi Projex - Now Or Never
Freeway - Free at Last
Jae-P - Atrevete
Jean Grae - The Orchestral Files
Kwest "Tha Madd Lad" - These Are My Unreleased Recordings
Lay Low - The D.Boy Chronicle
Mike Jones - The American Dream [CD/DVD]
Mr Sche - Pimp & Gangsta Supa Star
Psychopathics from Outer Space, Vol. 3
For a database of upcoming and past releases with updates,
please see Hip Hop Albums @ netweed.
Def Jam Sessions, Vol. 1 is due December 18th and features tracks by Nas, Fabolous, Ne-Yo, Method Man, Redman, Rihanna and Bobby Valentino.
Billboard has the complete track list.
Music industry news from Hypebot:
RCRD LBL founded by the minds behind Downtown Records and Engadget launched with an ad supported model giving away DRM free mp3's from a blog like web site. Industry reaction was mixed.
Prince is suing notorious P2P enabler Pirate Bay.
EMI's new owners Terra Firma are telling investors that they will make deep cuts in expenses particularly in the US as well as increase cash flow by an amazing 766% over the next five years.
The new Zunes are finally in stores with some strong upgrades and options for personalization.
Hacks of MySpace pages are on the rise including a major attack on Alicia Keyes.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: imeem's CEO Dalton Caldwell continued Hypebot's new 4QFor (For Questions For) series by answering four questions about the future of the music industry.
Social Music Marketing - A Quick Handbook provides a brief overview of the big changes happening that could finally change the way music is promoted.
Matt Graves has moved to imeem leaving Real/Rhapsody looking for a new head of music PR.
Hypebot updated its most popular post ever, "The Top 100 Free & Affordable High & Low Tech Music Promotion Tips" and put all 100 on a single page for easier viewing.
For a different perspective, Hypebot's sister blog OurDigitalMusic looks at the digital music revolution from the consumer's perspective and tries to show them ways to save money and enjoy music more and TheRockDose provides a daily dose of pop music wisdom.
See ProHipHop's Hypebot Industry News category for past roundups.
Drama - Gangsta Grillz: The Album
This may not be the first album to result from mixtape releases but it feels like a symbolic moment as DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz mixtape series results in an album. I haven't been keeping up with Drama's activities since the mixtape busts but DJ Drama has and that's included feeding the streets with what I assume are legal mixtapes [another practical yet symbolic step] while Gangsta Grillz: The Album got pushed back for a year:
My fan base and what I represent is real different from a regular artist because I consistently feed the street with product, with my mixtapes. As long as I keep doing what I do, as long as I stay hot on the streets then I'm good...I garnered a lot of publicity that a lot of people would usually have to pay for. Me and my movement, The Aphilliates, have done a lot and yeah it would have been good to come out around that time, but that's not the end of my story...it's just a chapter in my book.
Actually seeing the album cover today for the first time brought back a lot of that energy from the mixtape raid period but with what felt like a fresh look after the recent trough fest surrounding all things American Gangster.
Drama says his business is doing fine:
It basically just affected my business positively. It put me on a larger scale. I did a lot of travelling, I got booked for a lot of international gigs and you know the mixtape game as a whole slowed down so that was a definite turn of events, but I think that's slowly, but surely coming back to life because of people like myself and a lot of other people who are putting in a lot of work to bring the game back to life.
DJ Drama is also feeling like he's got to show Atlantic what he can do before they'll fully support his albums:
I think in some ways they have yet to see that I have a movement. It's not something I would say I blame Atlantic for as I do the music industry in general. A lot of labels have got caught up on singles, ringtones and things of that nature. We've all seen Shop Boyz with their big song and Sean Kingston...they have these huge singles but they sell no records. Then you have an artist like Common who hasn't had a lot of video play or radio play out the box and still sold 150 thousand first week because he has a movement, a core fan base and I believe I'm the kind of artist who has a core fan base. People love Gangsta Grillz because of what it represents.
Common actually has a huge media presence these days that isn't just foam but we take his point about building a deep base that will sustain an artist regardless of frothy media attention.
Overall Drama's got a very positive take on the situation:
I'm here to put out a great album, I'm here to make myself money, I'm here to make the Aphilliates money, to make Grand Hustle money and I'm here to make Atlantic money; at the end of the day they gave me the opportunity to do this album and this is business, I know it's nothing personal. This is my first time out the box so I just want to prove to the people that I have a great album and then do another one and another one and another one...So if it takes me to drop this album and to do most of the promotional work for them to understand what my movement is about, then so be it.
The whole interview by Archna Sawjani is quite nice.
Sawjani hits the high notes, politely asks some pointed questions and gives Drama a forum for covering all things Drama including T.I.'s arrest.
You can peep the video for the first single off Gangsta Grillz: The Album over at VidRap:
5000 Ones - Drama f/Nelly, T.I., Diddy, Yung Joc, Willie the Kid, Young Jeezy & Twista
Official Sites:
DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz
DJ Drama @ Myspace
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
ProHipHop's Official [Belated] Stance on T.I.'s Arrest
ProHipHop Posts: DJ Drama/Don Cannon Mixtape Arrests
In the original version of Mixtapes Go Legit: DJ Drama - Gangsta Grillz: The Album I discussed ProHipHop's take on T.I.'s attempt to buy a bunch of guns and his possession of a bunch of marijuana. But I realized I should pull that out into a separate post for the record regarding T.I. and the response to his activities.
On the T.I. tip, the official ProHipHop stance is that T.I. is a rich gun nut who digs ganj. That's about it until I see some real evidence of real crimes being planned or carried out.
I had a close relative, now deceased, who I recently found out always carried a concealed weapon when he was out of the house and had at least four more guns concealed in his vehicle at all times. He had a concealed carry permit but I don't know about those other guns. Another close relative, who I don't believe knows the full story, said the man wasn't worried about anything, he just liked guns.
I'm not a huge fan of guns myself but I know a lot of people who, if they had T.I. money, would have a much more startling collection than T.I. was building. For that matter, I knew teenagers in the 90s who were buying illegal automatic weaponry and hand grenades at gun shows, an outlet that has only been shut down in a serious way (supposedly) in recent years.
This is America. We built a gun nut nation and hip hop helped. Seriously, if you listen to a lot of music featuring guns and watch a lot of movies featuring guns, i.e., support gun-focused media with your money and/or attention, and then went and blogged about your disappointment at T.I., you need a very deep reality check.
He broke laws but he didn't do wrong as far as I can tell based on the culture in which I'm a 24/7/365 participant observer.
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