Community | ProHipHop

January 09, 2012

Chrishun ‘Rapstar’ Moore Dies of Heart Attack

Hip-hop artist and rapper, Chrishun ‘Rapstar’ Moore, a native of Memphis, TN, died over the weekend on Friday, December 30. The Memphis-born rapper was pronounced dead after suffering from a heart attack. Moore was 21 years old, at his untimely death.

Since Moore’s death, the hip-hop community in Memphis has been grieving his loss over the internet to provide support to his family and his small children, whom he leaves behind.

P. Moses, CEO of Let It B Known Records, whom Rapstar was a protege of, spoke highly of the rapper and his future and quest to super stardom to MemphisRap.com.

The female rap artist, songwriter, activist, and close friend of the Moore family, invited MemphisRap.com out to Club Stop 345 in Memphis, TN to listen to and hang with the rapper, for the first time 5 years ago, at the start of Moore’s young career during a birthday party celebration.

“I was on my way out of town.. I was driving when I found out,” P. Moses told MemphisRap.com.

P. Moses claims young Chrishun ‘Rapstar’ Moore was a very talented young rapper who surprised and inspired many in the community with his talent, positivity and motivation.

“I don’t think I wanna rap anymore… I can’t stop cryin.. just grieving [the] lost [of] my lil homie,” she revealed previously on her Facebook.

Countless number of posts of “Chrishun ‘Rapstar’ Moore miss you,” “R.I.P.” and “gone too soon” repeated on social media sites Twitter and Facebook, revealing that the young rapper had built quite the following amongst the community.

Hip-hop artist Miscellaneous states, “I’m in such shock right now… so please take a moment of silence for the Lil Brother Rapstar LocalCeleb aka Chrishun Moore!! … I’ve watched you grind since you wuz a yung’n with your mother who truly believed in your talent!!!”

The rapper added, “Don’t let [Rapstar] passing be in vain, we should all take this as a wake up call for us all to get a relationship with your creator like our beloved young brother was starting to do.”

In 2008, Rapstar was the opening for hip-hop artist Bow Wow. The following year, Rapstar would open for rapper Yo Gotti and R&B singer Pleasure P at the Liberty Bowl, then for Young Jeezy and Plies at the Summer Jam 2009.

R.I.P. Chrishun ‘Rapstar’ Moore

Posted by yodee on January 09, 2012 in Community | Permalink

April 01, 2011

Snoop Dogg Gives Back to the Youth of Chicago

Rapper Snoop Dogg has decided to expand his Snoop Youth Football League to the city of Chicago. For the 2011 football season, he is planning to start at least eight chapters, which will cover different parts of the city. Chicago is the first city on the list for the expansion of the league.

The first four chapters will be the Chicago Chargers, the Jets, the Southside Seahawks, and the Raiders. Each chapter will have six different divisions for football and cheerleading. Other chapters may be started at a later date.

Appointed President Tonja Styles and Vice President Otis Wilson will run the Chicago league.

Styles is the owner and CEO of I Am Image Entertainment and use to serve asthe Director of New Business Development at Danielle Ashley Communications. Wilson is a former Chicago Bears football player, a Super Bowl champion, and operates the Otis Wilson Foundation.

According to Styles, the youth of Chicago really deserve this opportunity and Snoop’s program is a great alternative for keeping kids out of the streets.

The Snoop Youth Football League was started back in 2004 in the city of Los Angeles to allow underprivileged kids to play football at a low cost. Snoop donated $1 million dollars to start up the league. There are currently over 4,000 kids, who are part of the league in the State of California.

In order to play on the league, kids must be between the ages of 7 to 14 and must keep at least a 2.0 GPA to remain on the team as a football player or a cheerleader. Each year an all-conference championship game is held to reward the students for their educational progress and sport skills.

There are plans in the near future to expand the Snoop Youth Football League into Las Vegas as well.

Posted by yodee on April 01, 2011 in Community | Permalink

September 07, 2010

College Students Needed for Interviews

Clyde Smith would like to speak with anyone who bought college textbooks this semester about their bookbuying experience.

The interview should only take around 10 minutes by phone or email and will be used for College Textbook News.

If you're up for helping me out, please be in touch:
hiphoplogic(at)netweed(dot)com

Posted by Clyde Smith on September 07, 2010 in Business News, College Textbook News, Community | Permalink

August 20, 2010

Wyclef Jean Disqualified from Haiti Run for President

Wyclef can’t run for President of Haiti due to not having lived there enough:

“[Electoral] Council spokesman Richard Dumel said election officials have accepted 19 candidacies and rejected 15 others. The Haitian-born singer’s candidacy was turned down because he did not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Haiti for five years before the Nov. 28 election.”

And that’s probably for the best.

Posted by Clyde Smith on August 20, 2010 in Community, Politics | Permalink

August 05, 2010

Disaster for Haiti: Wyclef Jean to Announce Candidacy for Haitian Presidency on Larry King Live Tonight

In a press release issued by Wyclef's camp, Wyclef Jean is expected to announce his candidacy for President of Haiti in a live broadcast of Larry King Live with Wolf Blitzer from Haiti's Le Plaza Haiti Hotel in Port-au-Prince tonight at 9 pm.

Wyclef is said to have resigned from Yele Haiti, an organization which has been associated with fiscal mismanagement and related disasters, and will go into campaign mode in preparation for the forthcoming elections in Haiti on November 28th.

Update:
It's official: Wyclef Jean To Run for President of Haiti

Posted by Clyde Smith on August 05, 2010 in Bad Looks, Business News, Community, Politics | Permalink

August 02, 2010

Gil Scott-Heron in The New Yorker & the False Claims of his Role as an Inventor of Hip Hop

The upcoming issue of The New Yorker features a profile of Gil Scott-Heron [abstract, sub required] that reveals his surprisingly open use of crack. It makes me want to f*cking cry. This man is an American treasure and we've lost so much by not giving him the support he needed whenever he first needed it.

Yet, at the same time, he hasn't given up and is enjoying what I hope will be more than a short resurgence of interest in his work including new projects involving other artists. I haven't had time to check out the whole article but it's definitely worth reading from what I see. Lots of background as well as current information.

I received an advanced copy because they're apparently reaching out to hip hop media based on the fact that Gil Scott-Heron is one of those guys who is sometimes referred to as a creator of hip hop as are The Last Poets and even Muhammad Ali!

But the obvious reality, if you step back and take a historical view, is that Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets and, yes, Muhammad Ali are part of the rich African-American verbal arts from which hip hop emerged but they weren't the creators. The thing is you could make an even stronger argument that the creators of hip hop were the folks from the 1800s who developed such practices as the ring shout or other examples of the forced merger of African and European culture to which Africans and African-Americans responded by taking uptight traditions and bringing new life to them through rhythm, voice and instrumentation.

But I wouldn't make that argument either. Hip hop emerged as a distinct art form in the 70s in the Bronx. And I have yet to encounter a convincing argument to the contrary cause the logic of such arguments immediately points to precursors that are even more credible and wishful thinking will not change that historical reality.

Besides, do you really want to get into an argument that would inevitably lead to the conclusion that hip hop was invented in the South? I thought not.

Posted by Clyde Smith on August 02, 2010 in Community, Culture | Permalink

July 29, 2010

Wyclef Jean for President of Haiti?

As 26 year-old Haitian Marie Lacrete told the Christian Science Monitor:

“I don’t have a problem with Wyclef, but he’s not the right person to be president. He’s a musician, not a politician,” says Ms. Lacrete, adding that the singer didn’t graduate from college.

Lacrete, who has a degree in agronomy but works as a secretary, said that Haiti’s problem is that the right person is never in the right place. “Still, people will vote for him, because he has money and he’s popular and because they don’t know what they are doing.”

Given the history of our presidential elections, not knowing what they are doing seems to be a common flaw of the electorate.

Without even referring to his Yele Haiti Foundation scandal, Lacrete later states:

“He can’t even manage an enterprise properly,” Lacrete shuddered, talking about the Haitian TV company Telemax, which she charges has been “going down” since the singer became a shareholder. “How is he going to manage Haiti?”

How indeed?

Posted by Clyde Smith on July 29, 2010 in Bad Looks, Community, Politics | Permalink

July 23, 2010

Why I Hate Facebook: Sunday School Soundbites

Maybe it's just my circle of friends, cause I see some pretty harsh stuff on my network of Facebook hip hip contacts, but much of what I experience on my personal Facebook account has led me to feel that Facebook's semipublic nature has caused a lot of folks to default to Sunday School behavior, as if the conversations I have with those people in real life don't exist.

Since I don't fit in real well at Sunday School, it's kind of weird to have to see old friends in a context in which they act like their parents are watching all the time. Of course, sometimes they are!

But what's also weird is the soundbite aspect, especially with people who I don't see very often or who won't communicate much through other means. I'm not one of those people who talks like I'm at a superficial cocktail party. "Hello, how ya doin" just ain't me on a daily basis. But if I say more than three lines on most people's accounts, you can tell it's too much.

Last night I posted what was probably ten sentences all together in an exchange that would have taken less than two minutes in real life and I got ribbed a bit about the length. The dynamic was a bit more complex than that, even in so short an exchange, but it reminded me that I need to mostly focus on Facebook as a Rolodex and take the real where I can find it.

But that's the thing. Most people can only be real in private. 4 or 5 years ago, I thought you could be real in hip hop media but then I realized that all the harsh-edged talk and boisterous exchanges were also pretty superficial and simply followed the rules of a different setting than I had experienced as an isolated hip hop fan.

For example, Russell Simmons talks about speaking truth to power but when you speak truth to his power, he and his people cut you off. I guess lying liars are like that!

On my personal Facebook account I don't associate with people who are two-faced like that but I have to keep watching myself. The illusion of free and open dialogue is just that for the most part.

And then you get some f*ckhead like Zuckerberg saying that folks who have more than one identity don't have integrity when what we're actually dealing with, in the case of Facebook, is a communication context in which many forms of integrity are not allowed.

Our forms of communication are some of the few things that differentiate humans from the mammals we enjoy eating. So you can take your Sunday School Soundbites and continue to inch closer to the level of a well-dressed cannibal with great table manners and a single, sad identity. I'd rather communicate like a real human being and celebrate the multitudes within that Walt Whitman spoke of in Song of Myself.

Update: I'm realizing that as more people arrive on Facebook, as it becomes more like the local mall where everybody shops, the more opportunities for alternatives will emerge, rather than less. But only if they're well-targeted to niches and specific sectors of the population. Luckily for Facebook, everybody in social networking is either trying to be all things to all people or make claims about their niche that just don't hold true. Regarding the latter, I've seen way too many social music networks launch claiming to be able to build audiences for bands when they don't even have an audience yet.

I'm not original in this kind of thinking but I am a recent Facebook user so having the experiences I've been hearing about has gotten me thinking about FB in a more grounded way as have indicators that some teens are losing interest in Facebook, though what that means given Facebook's amazing growth remains to be seen.

Posted by Clyde Smith on July 23, 2010 in Community, Hip Hop 2.0 | Permalink

July 19, 2010

ProHipHop & Hip Hop Press End Banned Spammers List Experiment

I've been posting the names and email addresses of folks who have been spamming me at email addresses other than the official hip hop pr address for ProHipHop, Hip Hop Press and netweed, which is:
hiphoppress(at)netweed(dot)com

When folks have emailed me at other addresses, I sent them two emails. The first time, I send them an email politely asking them to remove whatever address they've used improperly and to use the above address.

If they continue to send email to the wrong address, I do a follow-up email telling them that, unless they can step up to the occasion, they are banned from all outlets.

What I've found is that the people who are going to follow through generally do so with the first email. Those people are generally quite polite and quickly take care of business.

I've also found that folks responding to the second email who ignored or missed the first, are much more likely to become abusive when they finally clue in to what's happening. Which, of course, seals the ban and adds them to the banned list.

But, after posting a number of names and emails identifying spammers, I've had only one person step up at that point and address the issue, though they were ultimately unable to do so, even after multiple exchanges.

So I'm removing the banned list posts and, in the future, will be sending only one email requesting a change of address. After that, if spamming continues, the person will be banned without being informed unless they contact me to ask why their stuff isn't going up. Otherwise, they and their clients won't appear on my sites and, in extreme situations, I'll remove all past content as well.

At this point, that seems to be the easiest way to maintain my sanity and continue to give the best service I can to those people who know what's up.

Note:
There have been a handful of people with whom I've had an initially tense exchange who finally agreed to work with me and send their stuff to the hiphoppress(at)netweed(dot)com address which is where I go when it's time to post (i.e. they finally get the idea that this is all about putting their content into my work flow in the easiest manner possible).

Despite some of the harshness expressed in those exchanges, once they agreed to simply send things to the right address, I've always let the negativity go as best as I can. In any case, I start posting their stuff again.

It's so damn simple. Send it to the right address and I'll try to do something with it. Why is that so hard to understand?

Posted by Clyde Smith on July 19, 2010 in About, Business News, Community | Permalink

July 17, 2010

I’m Loving Hip Hop Right Now

Since stepping back from the cesspool of hip hop web publishing, though it did mean losing track of a handful of really awesome bloggers, my love of hip hop has returned with a vengeance. And while I lost some interesting commenters, I've gained a great deal of psychic freedom from the riff raff who attack every manifestation of culture that doesn't follow their anal retentive guidelines.

I'm especially digging the fact that so many of the voices now coming to the forefront have mostly taken guns out of the guns/drugs/sex triumvirate. I'm so sick of p*ssy ass b*tches and their guns. Cause if a gun is what made you a man, then you're still not a man, homey.

And if your prison-oriented take on gender and sexuality is disturbed by gentler young men wearing scarves, you're the one that's dead inside.

Oh, and by the way, rap necromancers ain't bringing nothin' back.

Stop digging in the graveyard and go plant a new garden.

Posted by Clyde Smith on July 17, 2010 in Community, Editorial | Permalink