ProHipHop

July 12, 2011

Miami Rapper Cartoon Launches Website

Scooter Entertainment recording artist, Cartoon known for his intensity and variation of hip hop- pop style announces the official launch of his new website. The website was released on July 11, 2011.

The site, www.CartoonXL.com not only reflects a greater image and functionality from the former site, but it reflects the aspects of life that have come to inspire Cartoon. On the heels of his growing popularity in the south, he began to spark an interest and appreciation in the visual arts. His exposure to abstract and contemporary art developed during personal road trips Cartoon made in support of recording new music in different cities.

Not only will www.CartoonXL.com feature Cartoon’s music, but it will feature the musical talent of other artists as well. “I make music that is based off of my immediate emotions. I want to hear other songs that tap into those feelings as well. This will be my way of blogging,” Cartoon explains.
He adds, “I am more than an artist. I am a real person dealing with life’s obstacles and besides airing it out in my music I want to provide a bigger platform for artists that inspire me through artistically and musically.”

www.CartoonXL.com is easy to navigate through. It welcomes and introduces internet users to visit the various social networking sites utilized to maintain a personal relationship with his fans.

Posted by yodee on July 12, 2011 in Weblogs | Permalink

June 09, 2010

StreetArtStickers.com

It's a sticker blog!

Posted by Clyde Smith on June 09, 2010 in Art/Photo, Arts Fashion Film, Books Magazines Websites, Weblogs | Permalink

June 01, 2010

Music Of Treme Blog

I've been avoiding all images from and discussions of the HBO tv show Treme till it comes out on DVD but the Music of Treme seems like an interesting project worth pointing out.

Ok, head back in the sand!

Posted by Clyde Smith on June 01, 2010 in Books Magazines Websites, Weblogs | Permalink

May 22, 2010

Blogging Tools: Google’s Blogger Not Recommended

I helped a friend set up a site on Blogger about a week ago for an arts related project she was doing.  I suggested Blogger because I was under the impression that they'd improved a lot since my use of that platform up to a few years ago.

Man, was I ever wrong.  There are so many things that just aren't working it's nuts.  For example, I set the comments to require Captcha but allow anonymous commenting.  The Captcha never appears and some choices of login don't even work and keep your comment from posting.  The comment just disappears as if it was never in the system.

There are many other very basic things like that going wrong.  My friend was trying to add live links via the dashboard.  She had her first experience of searching the help forum for answers and found one, so that was a plus for her learning curve.  But basically Blogger's dashboard solution didn't work and folks explained in the forum what you needed to do instead of what Blogger's software does.

When I went looking for answers to the oddities I was finding, I found lots of people on Blogger's help forum asking about the same things I was finding with no response from anybody at Blogger (owned by Google, the company that does not understand that good customer service eventually requires human intervention, f*cking robotic freaks!).  I did see some incorrect answers from someone apparently trying to build his rep by helping others but that was also a FAIL.

So we're moving her blog to a different platform.

It's important to remember that all blogging platforms are going to disappoint.  Nothing on the web ultimately fulfills the claims put forth and no matter how big and trusted the brand, they all eventually drop the ball in a dramatic manner, so it's tough to find a platform for blogging or any other tool that works right all the time.

That said, when serious problems immediately arise and it's clear that there is no real customer support, it's always better to cut and run than to stick around with false hope.

Feel free to suggest your favorite blogging platform in the comments.  I'm using Typepad and they've gotten a lot better on all levels but, if I hadn't felt locked in once I got ProHipHop going, I would have moved it late in that first year.  In fact, I probably should have anyway because they really screwed me over and it revealed serious problems within their company because the help I received was from someone not in the department responsible for those problems.  She was just really nice but had to handle things in a manner that would allow that department to think they came up with the solution!

So, yeah, the web's a mess but sometimes things work and the best course of action is to focus on maximizing what works rather than obsessing over what doesn't.

Good luck out there!

Posted by Clyde Smith on May 22, 2010 in ProHipHop Tools, Weblogs | Permalink

April 13, 2010

Twitter Media Offers Twitter Insights for Journalists

Twitter recently launched Twitter Media, a blog for media folks using Twitter, with topics already ranging from Twitter Journalism to a look @SmithJoanna’s Haiti tweets.

Posted by Clyde Smith on April 13, 2010 in Books Magazines Websites, Marketing, Media Coverage, Online Marketing, ProHipHop Tools, Weblogs | Permalink

February 18, 2010

Clients From Hell: Horror Stories from Designers

If you've ever been in the business of providing professional design or related services, you'll recognize many of these Clients From Hell.

Posted by Clyde Smith on February 18, 2010 in Books Magazines Websites, Comedy, Weblogs | Permalink

October 27, 2009

Addressing the Journalist/Blogger Divide

Here's more ammo for those bloggers who still have to fend off claims that journalism is inherently superior to blogging, leaving aside emergent facts such as more and more journalists are blogging, some bloggers break news before the journalists get to it and some bloggers have exposed serious journalistic errors.

In the above linked article, Adam L. Penenberg, author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves and a "journalism professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University", points to examples of the betrayal of journalistic ethics in relationship to book reviews. Short for time? Check the last third of the page.

Note: It's not that I think journalism is totally bankrupt, though some of my comments along the way probably sound that extreme. It's that defenders of journalism who attack blogging almost always do so in an extreme, all or nothing manner, so I respond in kind.

In the grand scheme of things, my arrogance only undermines my progress in the world but the arrogance of journalists has helped to undermine their own profession as it faces the failure of a long-standing business model.

Posted by Clyde Smith on October 27, 2009 in Books Magazines Websites, Weblogs | Permalink

September 16, 2009

Complete List of Nominees for the BET Hip Hop Awards ’09, New Blog Category, NY Media Counterrevolution Complete

Here is the Complete List of Nominees for the BET Hip Hop Awards '09.

  Best Hip-Hop Collabo
  Jim Jones & Ron Browz f/ Juelz Santana – Pop Champagne
  Lil Wayne f/ Bobby Valentino – Mrs. Officer
  Rick Ross f/ John Legend – Magnificent
  T.I. f/ Rihanna – Live Your Life
  Young Jeezy f/ Kanye West – Put On

  Best Live Performer
  Busta Rhymes
  Jay-Z
  Lil Wayne
  T.I.
  Kanye West

  Lyricist of the Year
  Drake
  Eminem
  Jay-Z
  Lil Wayne
  Kanye West

  Video Director of the Year
  Gil Green
  Anthony Mandler
  Mr. Boomtown
  Chris Robinson
  Hype Williams

  Producer of the Year
  Ron Browz
  Cool & Dre
  Tha Bizness
  T-Pain
  Kanye West

  Track of the Year
  Day "N" Nite – Kid Cudi
  D.O.A. (Death of Auto Tune) – Jay-Z
  Every Girl – Young Money
  (Lil Wayne, Drake, Jae Mills, Gudda Gudda & Mack Maine)
  Live Your Life – T.I. f/ Rihanna
  Turn My Swag On – Soulja Boy Tell'em

  CD of the Year
  Eminem – Relapse
  Q-Tip – The Renaissance
  T.I. – Paper Trail
  Kanye West – 808 & Heartbreak
  Young Jeezy – The Recession

  Rookie of the Year
  B.O.B.
  Dorrough
  Drake
  Kid Cudi
  Wale

  Best Hip-Hop Video
  Dorrough – Ice Cream Paint Job
  Eminem – We Made You
  Jay-Z – D.O.A. (Death of Auto Tune)
  Kid Cudi – Day "N" Nite
  T.I. f/ Rihanna – Live Your Life

  MVP of the Year
  Drake
  Jay-Z
  Lil Wayne
  T.I.
  Kanye West

  DJ of the Year
  DJ AM
  DJ Drama
  DJ Khaled
  DJ Tony Neal
  DJ Greg Street

  Hustler of the Year
  Diddy
  Drake
  Jay-Z
  Lil Wayne
  Kanye West

  Made-You-Look Award (Best Hip-Hop Style)
  Jay-Z
  Kid Cudi
  Lil Wayne
  Soulja Boy Tell'em
  Kanye West

  Best Hip-Hop Blog Site
  All Hip Hop
  Nah Right
  SOHH
  This Is 50
  World Star Hip Hop

  People's Champ (Viewers Choice)
  Dorrough – Ice Cream Paint Job
  Fabolous f/ The-Dream – Throw It In The Bag
  Kid Cudi – Day "N" Nite
  Soulja Boy Tell'em – Turn My Swag On
  Kanye West f/ Young Jeezy – Amazing

Note: For those who once considered blogs a revolutionary media tool, this is how the game of counter-revolution is played and is an excellent example of what the Situationists termed "recuperation":

"The counterrevolution does not take up revolutionary ideas because it is malign or manipulative, let alone short of ideas, but because revolutionary ideas deal with real problems with which the counterrevolution is confronted."

"Official 'revolutionary' thought is the scouting party of capital."

Knew that revo theory ish would come in handy one day!

Key Point: The sweet twist of BET's knife comes with the focus on New York based blogs and sites. Except for World Star Hip Hop, whose location is hidden as much as possible and is still unclear, all contestants in this category are based in the New York area, unlike absolutely every other category on this list.

A double edged recuperation at the very least though I would argue that, in the long run, it's actually an endgame and therefore a temporary recuperation at best.

Enjoy it while you can!

Over at Hip Hop Press:
The BET HIP-HOP AWARDS '09 Complete List of Nominees

Posted by Clyde Smith on September 16, 2009 in Awards, Books Magazines Websites, Business News, Events, Weblogs | Permalink

September 10, 2009

Jay-Z for Rhapsody, ProHipHop for Old School Bloggers



Jay-Z Rhapsody Commercial

I'd missed out on this commercial for Rhapsody but was alerted by Oliver Wang's Blueprint 3 review on NPR that it existed and, look, there it is!

I love the concept of a Jay-Z photo shoot in which he runs through a series of moments based on his album covers. It's smart because it works for those who know what they're looking at but also for new fans since they can appreciate the commercial without knowing the background and then get drawn in deeper when and if they find out what's up.

But the fact that I didn't pick up on this is reminder that I need to plug back into a group of blogs with which I've lost touch as I focus on rebuilding ProHipHop after a rather down period.

In particular, I'm currently thinking of:

Notes from a Different Kitchen

Grandgood

The Couch Sessions

The Smoking Section

This is not to say that they all would have run this particular bit of content or that they're the only great blogs with which I've lost touch. I'm partly saying that they're all worth following and if I was on my game, you'd see a lot more links out to such folks since they all pick up on certain content before it makes its way into my current news gathering system. But I'm also saying that I simply regret losing touch with their fine work.

Note: Oliver Wang was a big time hip hop blogger just a few years back but now he mostly blogs at Soul Sides. I found out about his review on NPR from an old friend, John Dancy-Jones, who was driving around when it came on and immediately called me!

Posted by Clyde Smith on September 10, 2009 in Books Magazines Websites, Jay-Z, Weblogs | Permalink

September 04, 2009

Blog Updates: From This Business of Blogging to ProHipHop

I decided to make my last official post on This Business of Blogging an overview of what's happening with all of my blog or blog-related projects. I'm mentioning it here because it's relevant to my hip hop projects and I know a few folks find behind the scenes info of interest.

Posted by Clyde Smith on September 04, 2009 in About, Books Magazines Websites, Business of Blogging, Weblogs | Permalink