I know I give New Yorkers a hard time but, man, this Times Square situation on top of everything else makes my heart go out.  I don't really know what to say other than hang in there and keep moving forward.  Sometimes that's all we've got.

I know I should go back and find a legitimate source of news for this item, since Angry Ape takes news but doesn’t tell you where they got it and you know they weren’t on the scene, nevertheless, since nobody really cares about such things, what about that Lupe Fiasco three disc retirement album?

Not only is it kind of sad when a young artist claims, while they’re practicing an art form, that they are going to quit while they’re still young but, anytime an artist goes past a single disc, it’s typically a sign that something’s wrong inside of them and they’re in the process of making it worse.

Matt Sonzala seems to be going through some post-SXSW angst partly in relationship to media coverage of the festival focused on celebrities:

"Every f*cking writer that hit me up about this sh*t had the same questions. They weren’t asking things like "What’s the deal with these Norwegian rappers you are bringing?" "Who’s SouthBound and Ryno & Slim Gutta? Are they cool?" No they asked me how to get in touch with Ice Cube, Clipse and Bun B. They barely even gave a sh*t about Dizzee Rascal or Devin."

"Then I sit and read the blogs and the papers and the magazines and it’s all about all the bands you would expect them to be about. It’s sad, cuz when I was growing up we had about 1/10th of the magazines, 1/16th of the radio stations, no internet, no satellite radio, and I think back then more music got thru to the masses than is getting through today. You can challenge me on that if you want to, but I pay attention and all I am seeing is a bunch of copy cat lazy ass motherf*ckers all clamoring for the same thing…"

"That my friends, is my biggest beef. The lazy ass media."

Well, that should help improve future coverage!

On the one hand, I’m sympathetic.  On the other, the media’s focus on the obvious isn’t all that new and given the financial realities that now challenge professional media, it’s only going to get worse.

And, given the fact that all the upstart bloggers who are making money have figured out that it’s all about celebrity gossip, short bits about breaking news and audio/video drops, it’s only going to get worse.

And, given the fact that you can’t go to SXSW if you’re not getting paid, unless you’re paying out of pocket, the focus on things that get people paid, i.e. celebrities, will only get worse.

And, given the fact that the people Matt list don’t seem to be reaching out to mid-level bloggers like myself, it’s only going to get worse for them.

Honestly, anybody that thinks you can book celebrities and not-so-famous people at the same festival without the celebrities sucking all the air out of the room is setting themselves up for disappointment.  And I don’t care how many bands you book, once the celebs start showing, it changes the game and SXSW has changed in that regard and Matt is part of that process.

The lesser known artists that build both online community and buzz are going to get the attention online and, to be honest, I don’t see or hear anything from the artists or their people that Matt name checks in his post as deserving more attention.

He mentions Dizzee Rascal as someone that didn’t get much coverage though, as you may recall, he got quite a bit when he first came through SXSW.

I’ve been following Dizzee Rascal, writing about him occasionally and almost always positively, posting his videos and so forth since he did his first show at SXSW, which I attended and wrote about, and I have to say that I never get any pr on him that hasn’t been a generic outreach and I’ve seen less pr work for this visit than ever before.  The buzz has died for Dizzee, though I hope the Def Jux involvement helps, but without buzz you don’t get coverage at SXSW.

I should note that being on Def Jux makes it even less likely that I’ll get any kind of direct outreach regarding Dizzee.  I’ve given that label and that label’s artists more attention than any other indie label since I started blogging over 5 years ago and they’ve never reached out directly though I do get on certain publicists’ mailing lists.  But those lists are all managed by people to which Def Jux outsources their pr.

I should also note that as soon as news got out regarding the Dizzee Rascal/Bun B video for Where Da G’s, lots of bloggers picked it up.

Hmmm, maybe dropping an embeddable video a bit earlier would have changed a few things for Dizzee’s SXSW appearance?

Nobody can count on getting online attention just for putting in work, especially offline work.  You’ve got to put in the right work.  Today that means doing things like dropping cool videos and being in touch with folks.  But to expect bloggers to play Alan Lomax and search out folks they’re not hearing about is wishful thinking.

I posted the K-Rino video Matt dropped at Houston So Real over at Hip Hop Logic and at VidRap but do you think anybody’s going to even say anything if I didn’t point that out?

Will they say anything now?

Will K-Rino’s people start sending me pr material?

Will doing that help me fund a future visit to SXSW?

No, probably not, no, no.

But I’m glad I posted that video cause it’s meaningful.

I’ll be honest, I’ve had some limited contact with Matt from a distance and it’s all been positive.

But I’ve posted links to his blog lots of times and do I get any mentions on his blog?  Do I get any email about what he’s up to?  Does he send me any videos, even via a generic email list, of artists that he’s repping?

No on all accounts.

Love is at least a two way street but I don’t need love from artists and their people.

I need acknowledgement.  I need information.  I need videos.

Plus I need a reason to give a damn.

And just because you do something cool in public doesn’t mean that folks are going to pick up on it or care.

I’ve experienced that plenty of times at ProHipHop when I’ve done something I consider special and had no one seem to even notice.  I even had a former writer scoff when I referred to "my work at ProHipHop" which includes things like exposing lies from people’s heroes, sharing useful information for up and comers and making strong political statements that work against my bottom line.

So I have to accept that the things I do to make money, all involving celebrity coverage, have obscured the more meaningful things I do at ProHipHop.

I’ve also boosted countless blogs and blogger project for years.  But when I did an Ebay auction to try to make some much-needed cash off some hip hop domains did any of those people link to me even after I made a separate post asking for support?

No.  And after healing my wounds, I had to accept that my needs did not catch their attention in a meaningful manner.  I guess I should have reached out individually but I was as hurt and surprised by the lack of blogger support as Matt seems to be by his recent SXSW media experience.

So if you want to get that attention for yourself or others, pay attention to other people’s needs, not your own, and reach out in a manner to which they’re receptive.

And if you invite a celebrity to your party and everybody keeps paying more attention to them than to you and your buddies and that hurts your feelings, maybe you shouldn’t invite the celebrity next time.

But we all know that next year will bring more celebrities to SXSW and less coverage of folks who don’t have considerable buzz going in.

And anybody that doesn’t see that coming is playing themselves, no matter how right on and heart felt their feelings about the situation might be.

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
What Should Future SXSW Bands Do to Maximize Impact?

Can I tell you that I’m really upset by the abusive actions of the California Supreme Court?

"For years, Braxton Berkley was exposed to chemicals while helping build top-secret military planes at Lockheed Martin’s storied Skunk Works plant. He says those chemicals made him ill – but his case reached a dead end at the state’s highest court."

"The California Supreme Court has refused to hear his appeal not on legal merits, but because four of the seven justices cited a conflict of interest because they controlled stock in oil companies that provided some of the solvents at issue in the case."

""It’s unfair and I am very disgusted with the courts," said Berkley, who worked at Lockheed during the height of the Cold War and is now a minister in Pacoima, Calif. He suffers from diabetes and arthritis that he says were caused by the chemicals. "A lot of my friends died because of the toxic chemicals we handled.""

These guys should not be allowed any investments at all and this is a very clear reason why.

Now’s your chance to get famous in the blogosphere and possibly beyond if you’ve been working on that one without success.

Whatever you think about Gizmodo’s pranks at CES, there’s a lot of attention right now on a crew who’s only used to dealing with oddball programmers who got lucky, tech bloggers, bourgeois presenters and venture capitalists, know what I mean?

Somebody with a hard core approach and a keen eye for the legal details could now mount a nonviolent, legal, offline guerrilla attack on the Gizmodo crew and get a lot of attention and support.

They’ve removed any reason to be hands off so they’re very vulnerable right now.

Just take some time to analyze the legal implications of whatever you do and take into account the possibility that Denton will sue if he’s seriously embarrassed.

The people that support Gizmodo can’t really say anything at that point without getting all mucked up in the details which they’re currently able to skirt by laughing.

The people that are angry at Gizmodo will, at worst, shake their heads at your childish response but some of them will say, Gizmodo had it coming!

All who know will find it difficult not to write about you.

GET FAMOUS!  DISRUPT THE GIZMODO CREW!

This feels better.  Getting moralistic about pranks isn’t my usual path, though I haven’t fronted about any of my opinions, I’m just working through the implications at the moment.

But leveraging the positioning of other pranksters is something about which I know quite a bit.  And that too can be a community service if done correctly.

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
CES: Gizmodo Staffer Permanently Banned, More to Follow

Seriously, I hate to be rude, but Slumping Record Sales Good for Real Hip Hop Artists?  That’s crazy talk!

According to Charles Jones:
"This current recession in the hip hop economy will be a good thing if it runs off all the rappers and potential moguls who only got into the game for the money, hos and clothes. In fact, it seems like recently hip hop has retreated aesthetically and sentimentally back to the hood. Some of the biggest songs of the last half of 2007 like "Duffle Bag Boy" and "I’m So Hood" and even "Crank That" have been directly and definitively made for the hood."

"Artists are trying less to cross over into White America and more to gain their respect and notoriety from people who look like them. And that is a beautiful thing because hip hop first and foremost is a street culture and rap is street music. Maybe this will be the beginning of a new golden age one where the culture controls, exploits, and owns its image and therefore directly reaps the financial benefits."

This variation on the fantasy land argument that if there’s no money to be made real artists will return to the forefront has little historical basis, at least, none of these people ever give historical examples and I don’t know of any.

In this case, the idea that music for the hood will not be about stacking dollars when the basic idea is that the real hood is full of poor people who want to stack dollars is crazy talk that ignores the actual products coming out of the hood.

Didn’t Mr. Jones pick up on the content of Duffle Bag Boy?  Sentimentality for the hood or for those big bags of money?

But even in situations where people aren’t poor but don’t emphasize money in their lives, you don’t automatically get good art.  If you spend a lot of time in truly grassroots settings where people are making art for the love of it, you still get as much bad art as you do good, sometimes more.  I was in that space for many years.  I listened to a lot of stupid poems and lousy musicians in between the occasional worthy act and that was fine most of the time.

It wasn’t about great art, it was about community.  And that made some not so great art quite meaningful but it didn’t have anything to do with how much money other people were making through their art.  It had to do with our values and where we focused our energy.

We can’t make change if we’re disconnected from reality.  Come on, people!

While the Chris Stokes/B2K media circus plays out, you’ll have to listen to a lot of nonsense from fools who think they know something about the subject or who just want to share their "common sense."  Some of them don’t actually mean to be hurtful but I know that doesn’t change the effects.

Stay strong and remember that a lot of folks really do care and are on your side.

- Clyde

The swift chancellor report offers an interesting take on the widespread assumption that rappers can and maybe should be full-time businessmen as well as artists.

After invoking the relationship of Busta Rhymes and Chris Lighty:

Often times the spirit of entreneurship breeds self reliance which often mutates into arrogance. That arrogane often leads the artist to take on responbility they are simply not trained to handle…like booking, marketing, contracts, merchandising…

An artist who does all the aformentioned duties loves to fancy himself a renaissance man. I call him or her naive. Your primary job is to write rhyymes and songs. Inspire and be inspired. Be the icon. The candidate. Of course you must have a working knowledge and/or supervise the nuts and bolts but that is not what you are built for. No more than I am built to kick 36 bars to a crowd in Dusseldorf…

Play your position.
Let the plumber fix the pipes and let the exterminator kill the roaches.

And maybe we’d get better art if artists focused on making it!