Donald Trump Vs. 50 Cent: Please Battle, Please!

Donald Trump holds court and disses 50 Cent:

"I'm in many, many rappers songs. And I know them. 50 Cent is sort of a friend of mine. I mean, he likes me. He just did a show. It was a copy of 'The Apprentice.' It will fail because he's not Trump, but he's actually a nice guy. And P. Diddy did a show which, by the way, I think bombed, but it was a copy. I wrote him a little note, 'Good luck with the copy.'"

This is actually the sort of thing 50 would say if he were on the radio undermining the competition though "he likes me" is very grade school.  Then again, most battles are.

So will 50 Cent fire back?

WoooHa says not. ProHipHop, in a fit of wishful thinking, says "Donald Chump better prepare for war!"

Oh, and Diddy?  I'm sure he'll drop some crazed rant on YouTube sooner or later regarding the matter.

Via Real Talk NY.

Hip Hop Bloggers Critique Nas' Album Title Switch

I previously mentioned that Nah Right's Eskay was rather disappointed by Nas' bait-and-switch tactics regarding the title of his upcoming album but it looks like a lot of bloggers are reacting so let's what they have to say!

Nah Right:

"It’s not really a surprise that all that talk from L.A. Reid turned out to be just that, talk. This is wack all around. Nas should’ve been prepared to fight this one to the death, or he should’ve never opened his mouth...There too many losses in this situation to even keep track: Nas, Black music industry executives, Hip-Hop fans, Black America."

MissInfo.tv:

"After all that talk of disarming the word, and not caring about the effect on sales, and the mission to spark debate...its hard not to feel a bit scammed. 'Hey, lets talk about race and class and generation gaps! But...uh...there’s a timer on that debate, and it runs out about a month before my album release. Alrighty?'"

"Hey, it’s good to be realistic about the financial repercussions of your title, but weren’t there ways to get around that? Packaging for Walmart and Target that just say 'N'? Limited edition copies with the full slur for the collectors?"

The Smoking Section:

"Nasir Jones changed his album title in what is suspiciously beginning to look like just another sales gimmick."

"I hate to say I told you so...well, no actually, I don’t hate to; I’m loving this quite a bit."

"Most Nas heads are busy doing one of two things. Either they are rightfully calling Mr. Jones a punk for not being the giant he claimed he was, and not walking the path of hot coals he laid forth."

"Or they are grasping onto ghostly fumes of whatever great vision may have once existed, that could still be."

"I’m still singing the same song as before: Cut the bull, save face, drop the album, Mr. Jones."

The Rap Up:

"The men in suit finally convinced Nas to drop that cockamamie idea of naming his album Nigger. The newly christened album, Nas, is still scheduled for July 1st..."

"So much for detoxifying the N-Word."

Real Talk NY:

"Lame move by Nas."

And there you have it.  Some of the best and brightest giving Nas the business.

But I think Miss Info's got the right idea in terms of creating alternate versions and so forth.  Given that everybody also puts out so-called "clean" versions and that Nas is the kind of cat that has a lot of collectors' interested, a deluxe version with the "real" title and a Wal-mart version with the title "N" would be a very smart move.

Since Nas claims that the streets will know the real deal, the smartest business move would be a bootlegged version with the N-Word title.

Get on it people.  Nas couldn't do it but you can!

Related ProhipHop Coverage:
Nas' Next Album to be Called Nas [or Not]

50 Cent Says Young Buck Out of G-Unit

Apparently 50 Cent went on Hot 97 to say Young Buck's out of the G-Unit crew but still on the label.

Miss Info has more commentary & stuff.

Audio of 50 Cent's call via Nah Right.

RZA Responds to Ghostface, 8 Diagrams Pushed Back

RZA's Response to Ghostface

Mixtape Monday brings all sorts of NY goodies, from Nas to Cam to American Gangster.  Most importantly, they've got RZA's statement to Ghostface regarding the conflicting album dates and the news that the Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams album has been pushed back to December 11th.

RZA responds:
"The blame can't fall on me like that," RZA said about the dueling release dates. "Wu-Tang Clan is a bunch of brothers working on one common cause. ... We planned to put that record out in September, then October, and it kept getting pushed because it's just a lot of work, yo. ... I wasn't really conscious [Ghost] was dropping an album on December 4th, but yesterday we moved our [group] record from the 4th to the 11th. We gave that spot to Ghostface ... because of how he felt. ... I had to make that call. [SRC label head] Steve Rifkind also, he was getting bashed up by Ghost [in the Mixtape Monday interview]. So ... we moved.

"We didn't have him move, we moved," RZA continued. "I think that shows the kind of bigger men we could be. Ghost is my brother, [I] love him to death. But we're in this business, and it's hard to kind of discern what's right and what's wrong. ... But I will say that, when it comes to a Wu-Tang Clan album, I plan on making it a 60-, 90-day type of schedule. ... It turned out to be a 200-day schedule ... and I didn't want to wait until next year [to put out 8 Diagrams].

"But Ghostface, we moved it to the 11th. You got that 4th. Do your thing right then, double up [the] next week, make mad cream this year, family."

RZA remains the man.

Nas Says Def Jam Cool With N-Word 2 & N-Word 1

Nas says Def Jam didn't have an issue with his album when it was called N*gga and they don't have an issue with his retitling it N*gger making me realize that my instinct was right when I thought that maybe we were being a bit quick to trust Fox News claims on this topic.

MTV interviewed Nas about the album and he has a lot of things to say about the title and his relationship to the NAACP and so forth.

Some of it's worthwhile:
You ain't got no business worrying about what the word 'n*gger' is or acting like you know what my album is about without talking to me. Whether you in the NAACP or you Jesse Jackson. I respect all of them ... I just want them to know: Never fall victim to Fox. Never fall victim to the sh-- they do. What they do is try to hurry up and get you on the phone and try to get you to talk about something you might not know about yet.

If Cornell West was making an album called N*gger, they would know he's got something intellectual to say...To think I'm gonna say something that's not intellectual is calling me a n*gger, and to be called a n*gger by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counter-revolutionary.

Some of it is delusional:
We're taking power from the word...No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil-rights movement, but some of my n---as in the streets don't know who [civil-rights activist] Medgar Evers was. I love Medgar Evers, but some of the n---as in the streets don't know Medgar Evers, they know who Nas is. And to my older people who don't now who Nas is and who don't know what a street disciple is, stay outta this mutha----in' conversation. We'll talk to you when we're ready. Right now, we're on a whole new movement. We're taking power from that word.

After talking to so many writers about Nas' tendency to give less than a sentence at a time in response to questions it's always interesting to see what happens when he opens up.

You can decide for yourself or wait for this "whole new movement" to appear but, whatever you feel about all this, Nas' title game has it going on from a marketing perspective.

Ghostface Mad at Wu-Tang "Hierarchy", Unpaid for Tour[?]

Ghostface is upset with the unspecified "hierarchy at Wu-Tang Clan" for the fact that Wu-Tang's 8 Diagrams got pushed back to his album date and that he allegedly still hasn't been paid for previous Wu-Tang touring.

Turns out that Ghostface had the December 4th release date for his own album, The Big Dough Rehab, for quite a while.

According to MTV:
"I had December 4 for the longest," he explained. "But the Wu album, brothers was kinda late on doing whatever they were doing and pushed it back ... on my date. You can put this in there, I'm not [mad at] all the members. It's not based on the members, but the hierarchy at Wu-Tang Clan is on some bullsh--. They trying to f--- around and make me push my album back and doing all this. But n---as ain't f---ing around or give us money when we did them Wu-Tang tours. The first one, they paid us after a while, but this last one, n---as is holding onto a lot of money...It's a battle right now."

Though Ghostface did not specify who constitutes the "hierarchy", he did clarify who does not:
"It ain't got nothing to do with the regular members. 'Cause I love Raekwon, Masta Killa, U-God, Genius, all them. But it's on right now."

Apparently Ghostface also feels his album would already be complete if he had not chosen to join Wu-Tang for the Rock the Bells tour with Rage Against the Machine, the tour for which he says members have not been paid.

He also claims that Steve Rifkind, who's putting out 8 Diagrams on Loud Records, made some phone calls in hopes of getting label execs to change the date for The Big Dough Rehab.

Sounds like Ghostface was pretty much done with the topic by the end of the interview:
"N---as better pay my f---ing money. Matter of fact, they can keep the money — just get me out of their life right now. They can keep that money, it's all good now. I don't even wanna talk about it no more."

Wow, no wonder Miss Info is sad.

What's Up With Cops Attempting to Shut Down Swizz Beats?

First off, the cops that are interpreting the following lines as "anti-snitching sentiments" are clearly off the mark as far as I'm concerned:

The city's police department has called for Swizz Beatz to renounce anti-snitching sentiments or it will drop sponsorship of a "Peace on the Streets" rally.  In his current single, It's Me Snitches, Swizz raps: "Freeze, you know who it is/ It's me, snitches" and "I ain't gonna shoot ya/ I could just choke ya."  It's lines like those that appear to advocate violence and silencing snitches — or police informants — that concern police in a city that is among the nation's most dangerous.

That seems more like a smack talk moment that's relatively gentle in a context of gangsta rap and hypermasculinity.  That's been one of my favorite singles since it came out and I'm no advocate of the stop snitching movement.

You can check it out in low rez glory over at  VidRap.

Sure, it's a fairly macho statement but the video as a whole is mostly fun and upbeat.  There are beautiful women but they are presented in a context that most professional performers would be comfortable in.  They're sexy and have on somewhat revealing clothes but nothing debasing or exploitative.

Plus, it's got some of the greatest dancing from both the woman on the platform and a kid that's just an awesome dancer.

But I don't know Swizz Beats body of work very well.

What do you think?  Is this a fair reaction to Swizz Beats despite the fact that it misreads this song or is this another of what may be many incidents ahead where valid concerns about specific aspects of rap music are being turned on the wrong guy?

Given that I still regularly see news accounts of small clubs around the country getting shut down because people say they can't control certain elements that show up on hip hop nights, I'm concerned that this kind of thing has the potential to disrupt even more attempts to conduct legitimate business or even to promote peace as this event is intended to do.

Seriously, Swizz Beats fans in particular, what do you think?  And how 'bout that awesome choreography.  Anybody know who choreographed this?

Master P is Not in Competition w/50 Cent, Seriously

Today Master P announced that the release date of Hip-Hop History will be September 4th, the same day as the new release date for 50 Cent's Curtis.

The press release stated:
The date was not chosen to compete with Curtis Jackson's delayed release, but rather to create balance in the marketplace and give kids a freedom of choice.

This announcement follows a previous statement in which Master P got all het up about 50 Cent's take on hip hop controversies or maybe it was 50 saying that poor record sales motivated Master P's embrace of the new hip hop order.

Come on, 50.  Can't you see it's not always about the money?

Master P also announced the simultaneous release of Guaranteed Success, a "book on how people can achieve and maintain financial success".

PostImus Marketing: NYOIL Leverages March for Decency, Sance Debuts Profanity-Free

Not only did NYOIL attend Al Sharpton's Glorious People's March for Decency but he blogged a response that others soon picked up and then put out a press release entitled:
Walk into a Record Store and Support Good Music...That would be a True March for Decency!!!

Sance, who bills himself as a "responsible rapper", is promoting his debut release 2829 as a Profanity Free Hip-Hop Invasion!!!.

Hip Hop Controversies & Business Effects: 60 Minutes, Chamillionaire, LL Cool J

It's interesting to see how the responses to controversies over rap lyrics and snitching quickly lead to marketing moves, whether self-protective or opportunistic.

Ethan Brown, whose work I'm just getting up to speed on now, makes the argument that 60 Minutes Stop Snitchin' show strongly ties together corporate profits from hip hop and hip hop's connection with the stop snitching perspective:
I think that the fanatical emphasis on hip-hop and its “corporate” backers was meant to put the music in the shaky spot occupied by Death Row in the mid-1990s. Remember that back then (1997 to be exact) Interscope actually sold off its interest in Death Row under pressure from hip-hop critics like the late C. DeLores Tucker...Hip-hop execs need to think fast about how to counter this sort of criticism.

It's important to remember that Imus wouldn't have gotten fired if corporate advertisers didn't withdraw support.  On a related note, Brown points out that "Geoffrey Canada wonders what the shareholders of major corporations would think if they were played hip-hop records which used the 'N Word' liberally."

Though the widely noted closed door meeting of industry bigwigs regarding rap lyrics seemed to lead nowhere and initial pr was badly fumbled, I think the HSAN statement from Russell Simmons and Ben Chavis was the initial outcome under another name.  It's pretty clear who they're protecting with the banning words approach.

Lots of rappers have joined in the discussion regarding rap lyrics but the first truly opportunistic business move in that discussion seems to be from Chamillionaire who stated:
On my new album I don’t say the word n***a, I don’t curse nowhere on my whole album...People are not even gonna know it. I guarantee if I don’t go out and say it in the media they’re not even gonna realize that. People go back and listen to all of my old mixtapes and don’t even realize that I wasn’t even doing all that type of stuff. I was saying n***a, but I wasn’t saying the 'f' word or [the] 'b' word. I was never saying those types of things...I hear that so much and it restricts your creativity and how far it can go.

However, opportunistic may be the wrong word here, since he's simply pointing out that he's tended to use less profanity and now will let it all go.  The response will be interesting but it also seems to fit his public image.

In response to reporters at the Plymouth Jazz Festival, LL Cool J put the depiction of women in videos directly on the women who are paid or even volunteer to perform and have the least power on a set, letting artists, directors and execs off the hook:
I have always been respectful of women. I am a lover of women and I always uplift them in my music . . . but I also would love to see the women who are in the videos take responsibility for their actions.

I think that women got cut out of the loop and somewhere along the line someone said women cannot make decisions on their own. I am wondering why rappers have to be responsible for the decisions women make when they decide to get in vidoes and do certain things.  I definitely think women are intelligent and strong enough as human beings to decide whether they want to be in videos that portray them in a certain way.

LL Cool J smartly couches his approach in a seeming respect for women as a whole that will appeal to many of his fans while doing nothing for any kind of improvement for the situation.  He also suggests that everyone needs to take more responsiblity, effectively cutting off attacks and continuing with business as usual since he's unlikely to be a big target in this whole affair.

It sounds like he's pretty good off the cuff but it's looking like there will have to be a much bigger response from hip hop business people, especially those tied to mainstream outlets.  In addition, if the industry starts policing itself further or is generally reined in, that will open up a lot of possibilities for uncensored products.

Interesting times, to say the least.

Tech Bloggers Step Up to a Community Challenge

I'm amazed at the reactions to Kathy Sierra's exposure of the a-holes who have been harassing and threatening her online.  If she were a hip hop blogger, she'd be ignored or ridiculed with folks discussing it privately.

But she's not a hip hop blogger, she's a tech blogger.  And though tech bloggers have a long history of ignoring racist and sexist commentary on tech websites, apparently a lot of folks feel it's time to step up.

You can check Sierra's post for the story but be sure to check the comments.  I've never seen anything like this in hip hop unless it was something like Katrina [i.e. a no-brainer, though I'm glad folks cared].

Robert Scoble is not blogging for a week in protest.  Though silence is not typically the best response, in Scoble's case, the post will remain at the top of a highly trafficked and influential blog.  Again, the comments in Scoble's blog are amazing in their support for Sierra.

I shared part of my response at Brand Destruction Research where Ron E. of brandcurve informed me of their zero violence blog graphic and campaign in response.  I can't honestly post a zero violence graphic at ProHipHop but it's a good thing to see.

If you do read the comments on Scoble's blog, you'll notice that a lot of people are talking about taking action and it sounds like Scoble's in.

I think this is going to be kind of fun.

Via Seth Godin.

SRC & Pure Games Debut Battle Rap, Um, Wait a Minute!

The news that Steve Rifkind's SRC and Joseph Safina's Pure Games are partnering on what seems to be a new version of Battlerap.com is kind of interesting, especially since questions raised about Battlerap.com remain unanswered.

What's doubly odd is that the press release is claiming this as the "debut of Battle Rap" though it's certainly not.

In other SRC news, BeatPhone is now offering over the phone previews of SRC singles via the SRC Hotline.

Jin The Emcee Fires Rosie O'Donnell w/Donald Trump's Cosign

Jin The Emcee f/Donald Trump - You're Fired

The sparse graphics for the above tune were added by the YouTube uploader and the disses are mostly fat jokes but Jin's Rosie O'Donnell diss track You're Fired featuring Donald Trump is worth a listen, if only for the cruelty of the Donald's soundbites.  I know fat jokes are weak but so is mocking folk's language when you're fronting as a comedian with a socially progressive agenda.

Look for the real video appearing soon as part of the buildup to the release of Jin's upcoming album ABC.  You can download the audio now at abcjin.com.

2006: The Year Of The Choke Out

Adisa Banjoko Chokes Opponent Out at Gracie Open

I was checking out the above footage off the 101 Submissions: Chapter 2 DVD and I remembered a surprising discovery, after losing yet another blog battle, Kris Ex ditched yet another blog and nobody even noticed [because nobody really cared].

But it also reminds me of Adisa's exchange at Stanford with KRS-One.

While most of what I know I can't share publically, I can say that after the incident in which KRS-One talked a lot of junk from behind the table in a crowded room but refused to talk with Adisa one on one without a group, a number of serious martial artists contacted Adisa to express their admiration for his ability to keep himself in check because they realized what Adisa was capable of doing to KRS-One.

In the above video, in which the choke out is shown from two different angles, the details are rather difficult to see but you'll notice that Adisa, who is on his back throughout, has a grip on his competitor's gi with the right forearm behind his neck, frees up his left arm and snakes it in front of his competitor's neck getting a hold on the other side and proceeds to crush the guy's windpipe and both major arteries cutting off blood and oxygen to the brain.

Adisa could tell the guy was going under but he refused to tap out so Adisa kept the Ezekial or loop choke in place until the ref ended the match.  Note that the competitor who is on top rolls off with a goofy look and a weird arm shape because he was going into some kind of seizure.  He then passed out but came to before the EMTs arrived and was able to make it home ok.

Adisa felt bad about that.  I say the fool should have tapped out.

Coming in 2007:
The Year of the Poison Hand

ProHipHop Coverage of Adisa Banjoko vs. KRS-One

I was referencing ProHipHop coverage of the encounter between KRS-One and Adisa Banjoko at Stanford earlier this year and realized that I hadn't tied the posts together so, here we go:

2006: The Year Of The Choke Out
Adisa Banjoko On Doing Business Right
Looking for KRS-One Audio Via East Bay Express Article?
KRS-One/Adisa Banjoko Truce Emerging
You Be The Judge: KRS-One Stanford Session Posted
KRS-One's Sanity Questioned in Web Forums
So Many Styles on KRS-One at Stanford
More KRS-One Audio, Silence From Writers on the Scene
"KRS-One Threatening Adisa Banjoko at Stanford Univ."
KRS-One Melts Down at Stanford Hip Hop Archives

Disclaimer:
Adisa's one of my closest friends and I've got his back.