Gangbangin' Fo' Life -- Is Gonzo Filmmaking Hip-Hop?

Gangbangin' Fo' Life Vol. 2: Out On Bail

I think the answer is yes, but let me explain.

Last year I interviewed Alex Alonso, a Bronx native now living and working in Los Angeles whose sole occupation is to study gang life. In a nutshell, Alex is a gang scholar. Well, after interviewing Alex and writing up the interview for AllHipHop.com, I got a call from Jason Brooks through Alonso. Jason is a filmmaker like no other all right, that much became evident pretty quickly after we talked.

Basically, what Jason and his crew did is go to Compton and film some Crips and Bloods in their native habitat. To say that this stuff is raw would be an understatement of course. Or, let me put it this way: ask an economist why real estate prices are lower in Compton than the rest of the South Bay area of L.A. -- which is near the beach -- and the B's and C's probably have a little something to do with it.

In any case, Jason Brooks' Jay Gee Entertainment signed a distribution deal with Koch and Gangbangin Fo' Life: Out on Bail Vol. 2 is the first DVD out of several that will be the fruit of the deal. I spoke with Jason today and he informed me that the DVD is moving about 7,000 units per week and is doing magic at YouTube as well. Check out the trailer here.

*Disclosure: Hip-Hop Files and ProHipHop.com does not endorse gang life as a way of life but understands that it is the reality of inner-city living. Slav Kandyba, a freelance journalist who writes Hip-Hop Files, a Hip-Hop journalism column at ProHipHop.com, is not affiliated with any gang and never has been. Living in L.A., he does understand that Bloods and Crips and other gangs have influenced Hip-Hop culture and vice versa.

LA-based Record Label Sound in Color Partners w/Koch

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens

Los Angeles-based record label Sound In Color, which has most recently released an album from Fishbone, has signed a distribution deal with Koch, says label's President Diego Carlin.

This is no shabby achievement and could in fact be a watershed moment for L.A.'s burgeoning underground scene, about which this journalist is working on a book. SIC's signing with Koch means that the new album from Blu, a rapper currently on tour with the Strange Fruit Project and one of my personal favorite up-and-comers out here in the West, will have national distribution. The album is called "Below the Heavens" and is produced by Exile.

The street date is July 17, 2007, and you can find out more about Blu here.

- Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files.

Help The Source - And Help Hip Hop

Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files, a hip-hop journalism column at ProHipHop.

The first shall be last, and the last shall be the first. Everyone knows that, because if anyone knows anything it's that cycles are part of existence on planet Earth. With that sentiment in mind, take the following as seriously as you would take death or birth of a loved one. Oh, and just to be blunt before going any further, The Source Magazine is a loved one to me and not just because I write for it and occasionally get a check.

The Source Magazine began in 1988 out of a Harvard dorm room at Harvard. The intent was simply to journalize Hip-Hop culture, nothing more or less. Not Dave Mays, not Ray "Benzino" Scott, not any other person affiliated with the Source knew that the magazine -- and Hip-Hop culture -- would become a billion-dollar industry in the 1990s. The Source certainly had its cake and ate it too back then, just ask Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, its former editor in chief during the heyday (who attended Princeton, not Harvard, how do you like the irony?) In any case, over its almost 20 years in business, The Source has seen the highs and right now, it's seeing the lows. There's no need to explain here what those lows are, suffice it to say that intra-Hip-Hop beef leads to self-destruction faster than the lives of hijackers aiming two planes for the World Trade Center.

With Internet becoming the 'new media' in more ways than one and Web sites such as AllHipHop.com, HipHopDX and XYZ Hip-Hop Web sites trying to do battle each other for the Hip-Hop-attuned audiences, it's no surprise that anybody and everybody is taking it out on the Source at any given chance. While in my four years of practicing journalism professionally I've noticed enough backstabbing, hating and other games people play, I've never observed the sort of hate and ill will wished upon a seminal news source by it's own audience. It's like waking up one day and watching each and every Jew hate the New York Times, arguably the world's best newspaper that, for all intensive purposes, wouldn't have become what it is without a Jew named Adolph Ochs (you gotta love that irony with a name like Adolph).

So as not to consume too much of your precious time, let me jump right into the nitty gritty with a proposal. Since it looks like the Source is up you know what creek these days financially and it's current owners are African-Americans who don't care too much for Hip-Hop as much as they do for publishing, I say it's time that the Hip-Hop nation help the Source. While this is not a call for a fundraising drive by any means, what it is is simply an appeal to common sense of anybody that gives a damn about Hip-Hop. Rest assured, with or without anyone's help, the formidable brand that is The Source will live on. The question is whether it will live on with or without your help.

Slav Kandyba is a staff writer at the California Real Estate Journal where he writes about the commercial real estate industry in the Inland Empire (the 909). A former staff writer for AllHipHop.com and former editor in chief of the Daily Sundial at his alma mater California State University, Northridge, he also writes for The Source.

The Source Bankruptcy: How the Hip-Hop Media Got It All Wrong

I feel like I'm on a roll today, so I figured why not teach.

The subject at hand is The Source Magazine. Yes, that rag that Dave Mays and Ray Scott started, pillaged, then walked. The news came late last week that the magazine has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Since I write for this rag as of this writing and once in a while cash checks from it (believe it or not, more $$$ than I've ever seen from Web work), I have to come to its defense.

Or rather, I have to attack the purposefully ignorant or those that lack thoroughness, which in this case happens to be all Web sites on record that write about Hip-hop, unfortunately, because they are misreporting facts by withholding information from their audience.

I'll make an example of HipHopDX.com, where a personal friend of mine, Starrene Rhett, wrote this story about The Source's (lack of) fortunes.

Now check out this story from the Associated Press story posted at Forbes.com. It includes the following line:

Harrison III, an attorney for Source, said the company plans to "exit bankruptcy as a reorganized entity."

While I don't claim to know everything (although I strive to everyday), I do know that a bankruptcy spells financial trouble, but by no means that spell an end to anything. Airlines, you know those, right? Well, they've been in bankruptcy a few times.

Same goes for publishing. I will go ahead and say on the record here that The Source will "excell and prevail," to borrow from Nas, with its current editorial leadership in place that includes co-executive editors Ryan Ford and Soren Baker.

Take my word for it.  Or take the Hip-Hop Web media's ... it's up to you.

- Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files, a Hip-Hop journalism column at ProHipHop.com.

*Update 5/8/2007

So perhaps I did rush to judgement a bit. AllHipHop's Roman Wolfe did include the aforementioned quote from The Source's lawyer. Still, it lacks background and pertinent questions that need to be asked about what bankruptcy is and how it affects The Source.

Monday Musing on Hip-Hop Journaminimalism, AllHipHop and more

Journaminimalism: a boutique investment banker's loving nickname for a profession I so deeply adore.

This post may come as a surprise or it may not. Yours truly has de-committed himself from the staff writing gig at AllHipHop.com because, frankly, I've come to realize that it has no redeeming value. While I wish the AHH enterprise great things, I also hope that in their pursuit of funding to help the site grow bigger and better, company principals learn how to not make promises they can't keep, and most of all, start breaking hard-working writers off with bread. (bragging in national magazines about millions in advertising revenue also isn't a good look, they should just know better, but we can chalk that up to well, what they think is standard business practice in anything Hip-Hop).

While I hate to make your Monday morning sour, the news alert is that grass is always greener on the other side, or so they say. So, I'm happy to announce that I'll be joining Scheme Magazine in the capacity of contributing editor and you may also see my byline over at HipHopDX once in a while. Neither of these is going to make me rich (my day job is still at the California Real Estate Journal), but equity and integrity at this point are more important than everything else.

Oh, and I still write for the financially bankrupt but morally and ethically sound The Source Magazine. Ryan Ford, what it do?

Peace world.

-Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files, a column about Hip-Hop journalism.

Live Nation to Restore Hollywood Palladium

Chances are if you're going to a Hip-Hop show at a House of Blues anywhere in the country or a bigger venue, Live Nation is putting that show on. The L.A.-based company's announcement Wednesday that it has signed a long-term lease with the Hollywood Palladium should mean that the 4,000 capacity venue will be the spot to see some of your favorite Hip-Hop artists in the years to come. L.A. has lacked that mid-size venue for years, with the Staples Center being the arena for big wigs and Gibson Amphitheatre (formerly Universal Amphitheatre) being the next in line.

Hip-Hop in L.A. has been relegated to smaller venues because venues probably don't want to deal with security nightmares and already have enough rock acts to fill a year's calendar.

Live Nation has also partnered up with Guerilla Union to throw Rock the Bells Festival in New York on July 28th. That show will be at Live Nation-promoted Randall's Island in Queens, and is already sold out, meaning NY's finest will have to reckon with a few dozen thousand heads who love some Wu and Rage.

Gotta love it.

- Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files.

Hip-Hop Dead? No, Just Too Much Analysis

I'm a reporter and writer, but once in a while I write opinion/editorial pieces and essays. This is the latest one to get published: "Hip-Hop Isn't Dead, It's Just Being Analyzed to Death."

I think the title is self-explanatory, but it is important to note that this essay will be expanded in the future as my post-journalism work.

- Slav for Hip-Hop Files

Jerry L. Barrow's Writer's Block

Ya'll don't know hustle. Ya'll don't know hustle until you've phoned/emailed 5 different editors in the same day with the same pitch, get one of them to bite, finally deliver on this grandiose idea you had, only to have it edited into something completely different by said editor, then have to wait four times as long to get paid for it as it took to turn around...and you're smiling the whole way cuz you got to eat doing something you'd do for free (or have done for free...sometimes not intentionally).

The above is taken from a MySpace blog post of Jerry L. Barrow, the former editor-in-chief of Scratch Magazine who interviewed none other than Vida Guerra for the cover of this month’s KING. You either love the grind or you don’t make it through. Period.

- Slav for Hip-Hop FIles

Steve Stoute in BusinessWeek.com

You know Steve Stoute the music executive and urban marketing guru. But in this BusinessWeek.com piece (via NahRight), Stoute explains the Hip-Hop community so precisely that it will end up in many an academic journal and book footnotes, besides, of course, new marketing books and manuals:

... he's helping executives understand a phenomenon that he refers to as the "tanning of America." It's a generation of black, Latino, and white consumers who have the same "mental complexion," he says, based on "shared experiences and values." Rap and hip-hop, starting in the late 1980s when white suburban kids began snapping up music by mostly inner-city artists, provided the first glimpse into this shift. "Rap was a litmus test for where the culture was headed," he says.

So simple, so pragmatic. No wonder he is a brand all by himself.

-Slav

Slav Kandyba writes Hip-Hop Files.

Media Moves: Sidik Fofana New Associate Editor at AllHipHop.com

AllHipHop.com Music Editor Alvin "Aqua" Blanco announced last week that Sidik Fofana has been named assistant music associate editor at the Hip-Hop web site. While I believe this is a part-time gig for Sidik, who is a staff writer for AHH, it involves assigning, coordinating and writing DVD and book reviews; basically, Aqua, who is also editor-at-large at XXL Magazine left Scratch Magazine in mid-January, where he was editor at large. He is also a contributor to The Source, among other pubs, will now be focused on music solely at AHH. Labels, publicists and such: you can look up AHH's staff list to contact these guys.

Congrats to Sidik and Aqua, who I'm sure is getting much needed relief!

Slav for Hip Hop Files.

Media Moves: Former Source Editor Lands at XXL

Since Hip-Hop Files is an avid reader of Mediabistro.com and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (or so Ii've been told), I am starting "Media Moves," a Hip-Hop Files sub-section that will update on the ever-changing personnel moves at Hip-Hop-related media outlets. If you have a "Media Move" to submit, please send an e-mail to slavkandyba (at) gmail.com for   prompt consideration. (Moves in PR, executive and other sectors are also welcome.)

So without further adieu, the first "Media Move":

• Bill Heinzelman, former assistant music editor at The Source Magazine, was hired by XXLMag.com as online editor. Bill began March 5th and joins Eskay (of Nahright.com fame) at the Web presence of the leading Hip-Hop magazine, and will be "handling all the features/interviews/album reviews/news," he says in an e-mail forwarded to Hip-Hop Files by one of the publicists he works with. "Our other Online Editor, Eskay, will be handling all the blogs/audio/videos/news," he adds.

Photo courtesy of Bill Heinzelman

Contact:
Bill (at) Harris-Pub.com. XXL Magazine's address is 1115 Broadway, 8th Floor,New York, NY 10010.

Slav Kandyba writes Hip Hop Files.

Former Source News Editor Starts Web Site; Journalisticks.com to Serve 'Journalists of Color'

Yes, the Source is in the news again. Well, sort of. Recently departed news editor at the magazine, Chloe A. Hilliard, has started her own venture. It comes in the form of a Web site Journalisticks.com, which she says in a news release will be "a one-stop shop for media companies to find young, talented writers, editors, producers, broadcasters and web reporters of color." The release touts Hilliard as a "young journalist" who has written for King, Vibe, and appeared on CNN, ABC News.

While I don't know Chloe personally, I do know her professionally through a Yahoo! messaging group, Young Black Journalists (or YBJ, for short), where she has been posting with increasing frequency. About a month ago, she declined a request to be interviewed for this column.

Personally, I like Chloe's new venture and highly suggest it to anyone interested in pursuing journalism as a career. In fact, I suggest that any aspiring journalist of non-color read it as well, despite how prohibitive the tag "of color" may seem.

While the news of the site's launch is great overall, I do take a slight exception in the following statement that Chloe gives about her run at the Source:

"As an editor at an urban publication, I had a difficult time finding young writers of color."

As a contributor to various Hip-Hop media and a "person of non-color" (because I know that having a child with an African woman doesn't color me at all), I attest that the "difficult time" isn't just being had with writers of color. It's more complicated than that, and I won't get into it too deeply here except to say that very few people are cut out for the thankless, glamour-less, often pay-less grind that Hip-Hop journalism truly is.

Perhaps that's why  Chloe turned down my interview request. 

Slav Kandyba writes Hip Hop Files.

Staff Cuts, Departures at The Source, Future Uncertain

This month, I’ve been very fortunate to get three assignments from The Source: two album reviews and a “Back to the Lab” feature. Although the assignments were made by two of the top editors at the magazine, my attempts to find out what’s going on behind the scenes have been largely unsuccessful, although Senior Editor Soren Baker today confirmed that Editor-in-Chief Fahyim Ratcliffe and News Editor Chloe Hilliard had left the magazine last week. He didn’t say whether the two quit or were fired. As far as I know, the magazine is now edited by Baker and Executive Editor Ryan Ford, both of whom are based in Los Angeles.

In its Feb. 26 report on the shake-up, SOHH.com quotes Hilliard, who calls the situation “sad” but commends the recently departed staff:

“People have been focusing on the lack of focus and lack of ads … The content improved immensely while they were there. When the book is 96 pages, that's what people focus on."

The future of the Source it looks like is in the hands of its financiers (or overseers, however you put it), the Black Enterprise/Greenwich Street Corporate Growth Fund, which is sponsored by Black Enterprise magazine and Travelers Group, a predecessor of Citigroup Inc., according to business newspaper The Deal. The Fund has sustained the Source financially since ousting Mays and Benzino from the magazine last year, but how long that will go on is unclear.

I personally hope that the BE fund continues to support the Source. Competition is good in any industry, especially media, and while Harris Publications is doing a commendable job, I believe competition can only help – not hurt – its titles.

Lastly, I want to point out that Good Magazine recently listed The Source in its list of the top 51 magazines ever, giving the following reason:

“Started in 1988 as a Harvard radio-show ’zine, it was the first magazine to give frontline coverage to the war on drugs, expose NYPD brutality, and introduce the world to a guy named Biggie Smalls. Its fall from grace was wince-worthy, but it wasn’t called the hip hop bible (by its own founders, mind you) for nothing.”

-Slav

Slav Kandyba writes Hip Hop Files.

AOL Sportswriter Disses Hip-Hop Unjustly

As a working journalist, I've come to understand what the public often does not: there are reporters and there are commentators, also known as editorial writers or opinion writers. Jason Whitlock of AOL.com is in the latter mold, and the First Amendment guarantees him his right to speak his mind.

However, I believe Mr. Whitlock went a little overboard in his vitriolic commentary, headlined "Mayhem Main Event at NBA All-Star Weekend." In particular, this paragraph is extremely faulty and reckless in its mis-characterization of a culture near and dear to me: Hip-Hop.

David Stern seriously needs to consider moving the event out of the country for the next couple of years in hopes that young, hip-hop hoodlums would find another event to terrorize. Taking the game to Canada won't do it. The game needs to be moved overseas, someplace where the Bloods and Crips and hookers and hoes can't get to it without a passport and plane ticket.

I highlighted the most egregious and inflammatory words and phrases. The more I think about it, it becomes clear that Mr. Whitlock is miseducated about Hip-Hop because he is associating it with stereotypes subscribed to by a number of people and publications and  TV networks, including BET.

Besides, I am rather certain that the "Bloods, Crips and hookers" who drive expensive cars and wear expensive clothes, will be able to pack their passport in their Louis Vuitton luggage and take a first-class flight to wherever they please.

I think today must be an "Assault on Hip-Hop Day", as CNN will air Paula Zahn's "Hip-Hop: Art or Poison?" later tonight.

Stay tuned to ProHipHop.com for analysis.

-Slav

New Hip-Hop Magazines Make Debut: STASH & Antenna

STASH Magazine Debut Cover

While at MAGIC last week, I came up on two new Hip-Hop magazines: STASH and Antenna. Both are impressive, for different reasons.

STASH

This magazine, which launched with the Jan/Feb 2007 issue  with Mistah F.A.B. on the cover, is published out of San Francisco by Nino Pelaez and Arlene Romana. The first issue of the 100-page, free glossy – which is 4-by-6 inches in size – contains Q/A with the Zion-I and The Grouch, Dan the Automator, J.T. the Bigga Figga and various other Bay rappers, DJs, radio personalities – and a model or two. STASH sticks to the Bay Area Hip-Hop scene like white on rice.

In focusing geographically, STASH manages to cover both underground and mainstream scenes pretty thoroughly (perhaps somewhat telling of its slant is a rather harsh review of The Game’s Doctor’s Advocate), which I’m sure will win STASH no points with Geffen/Interscope.

The good news for potential audiences is that STASH is free and can be looked up online at www.stashonline.com.

Antenna Preview Issue Cover

Antenna

Antenna is a new magazine from New York-based Harris Publications, the folks who bring to the market XXL, KING, XXL Presents: Scratch, and other successful titles. Its prototype issue was also available at MAGIC, and frankly, I would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for the fact that I get in the habit of stuffing my conference bag with complimentary magazines for the hell of it.

I’m excited about Antenna because of the masthead and the content. The magazine’s premise is clearly to write about the newest, freshest electronic gadgets, sneakers, clothes and the people behind them – first and at-depth.

Antenna is edited by Tony Gervino and its preview issue is written and photographed by top-tier Hip-Hop journalists. While Antenna’s not exactly original – Overamerica Group’s Vapors Magazine* is very similar, although it’s slanted more towards skateboarders who love Hip-Hop – its content represents a branching out for mainstream-driven Harris.

I’m not sure when Antenna will make its debut on newsstands, but hope it’s sooner than later.

*Disclosure: I am an active contributor to Vapors.

-Slav