VMA's 2008

Ummm, yeah. I really have no words for this. This picture was taken from the MTV VMA's last night during the performance of Lil Wayne and T Pain. They both have an album coming out collectively with each other entitled, "T-Wayne." Oh...that's great; this album sounds promising. LOL. I am writing this to ask you (hip-hop fans), ain't you tired of this phony shit?

Damn, Erykah droppin' science!

*Also posted on Connoisseur533.com*

Erykah Badu speaks on how to "make it" in the music business

This is some real ass shit right here though; even through all the sarcasm that she is speaking through this montage you can tell that she is serious about how female R&B singers have become more like whores than singers. In the recent ten years, R&B, hip-hop, rock, pop, etc have all had this "commerce over art" makeover where you now get models that cannot sing singing and dancing on your television screens instead of truly talented artists. It has become truly disheartening nowadays when you finally do find an album that has songs greater on it than the singles you've been brainwashed into loving from the radio and TV, you feel like you've had a breathe of fresh air from a truly talented LP.

I'm sick of going to buy an 18 track long album for $15 dollars and finding out that only 3 of the tracks (usually the singles) are the only good songs on the album. The music industry is not about talent anymore; it's about commerce. It's about having models that cannot hold a note singing off key with the Roger & Zapp robotic voice over 80's enthused house beats and making up a stupid dance to get kids to download your ring tone rather than buy your album. Everything has it's time, and the music industry is due for a huge makeover when these house niggas on TV are tap dancing in iced-out nooses and shackles to ignorant songs. Everything is due its time; real music will takeover the fake hella soon.

Hip-hop Vs. Hip-POP

Hip-hop in the nature of the threat of capitalism is a problem that is not new to the culture. Venture capitalists such as Viacom, MTV, and BET have come into the hip hop culture and turned it into a cash cow. What a lot of people do not seem to realize about hip-hop is that it is much more than music, it is a culture. Break dancing, graffiti, and turntablism are the 3 other corresponding elements of the hip-hop culture that are often forgotten and misinterpreted. It has always been a truly interesting thing to me to see how conglomerate companies like Viacom could take a culture as raw as the day it was birthed in the streets of New York City, and strip down the music into a minstrel entertainment ground for the current generation that are now in there growing teenage and elementary years. But, the so-called genre of hip-hop that is portrayed through the mediums of radio and TV airwaves to the youth is what I like to call “hip-pop.” The whole message in the music has been lost; you now can turn on your television set to MTV or BET (both owned by the same conglomerate, Viacom) and see the 21^st century minstrel show for yourself. This diamond-laden jewelry that these cats worship and exalt so highly looks like an iced-out noose and shackles to me. The overly-gaudy clothing that these cats rock shuckin’ and juvin’ on the television sets looks like the stereotype of the Zip Coon here to entertain the middle-class white kids that consume 70 percent of hip-pop albums.

Viacom has stripped down the true hidden message of upbringing, pride, and self-awareness that was birthed and installed into the true essence of hip-hop music. Since Viacom and Clear Channel damn near own all of the television and radio stations in this country, they control the mainstream music market. Why would they distribute hip-hop music with a higher message and purpose when they can keep the youth in disarray and brainwashed with the minstrel show rappers out now? Exactly; it’s a huge cash cow to them. What sense does it make to be a “hip-pop” artist when you do not have the control over what can be placed on your album? The more ignorant the music gets, the more ignorant the youth become. Hip-hop music is a huge influence on people’s lives (our youth’s especially); as long as hip-hop artists still allow themselves and their talent to be stripped down and glittered up in the ridiculous jewelry, hip-hop will forever in Nasir Jones’ words be dead. But, to me, it will never be dead; it’s just on life support. Support the independent hip-hop music movement.

Another BS 'smash hit!'

Every year there's more and more commercial hip hop artists that come out with more and more plastic songs. These are the artists you can find on your local FM radio station and on MTV and BET in heavy rotation. Artists like the Shop Boyz and their 'smash hit' (I beg to differ) "Party Like a Rock star." If we as blacks in the U.S. didn't need more shit to be embarrassed about from ignorant Zip Coons like these tap dancing and minstrel flamboyant black males on TV. The more and more ignorant and degrading a song you come out with, the more promo you will get. But behind all the smoke and mirrors, the Shop Boyz like (D4L, Franchise Boyz, MIMS, etc.)are doing all this tap dancing, shucking and jiving on TV screens throughout the world, but are not making truly enough money for the degradation they put themselves for. I cannot blame the record label heads at Columbia and Universal for slaving these morons on TV and FM radio until their overly gaudy lyrics and Nintendo-like production are forgotten by the teeny-bopper generation who have forgotten what to "Walk It Out," "2 Step," "or "Chicken Noodle Soup" is.

MUSIC VIDEO CODES By Offuhuge.com

DAMN! That was so funny, I forgot to laugh. No really..I forgot to laugh.

It's kind of interesting how we as minorities (blacks especially) are the scapegoats and entertainers for people of Anglo-Saxon descent. The brunt of all jokes, I guess. I know this video above is completely and utterly ignorant in all of its intent to marginalize and degrade all black people into one stupid and utterly feeble-minded attempt at comedic fruition. Yes, I do realize that to those of you that aren't of Black descent will consider this merely a simple joke, but it isn't. This is the kind of buffoonery and lackluster attempts of comedic skits and vignettes that grace the TV screens. This skit in particular came from a show on the FUSE network called "The Whitest Kids You Know." You can also find skits of the "Hitler Rap" and of "Timmy Poops His Pants" on their YouTube account. I didn't realize that my generation was so absorbed with championing mediocrity through the arenas and venues of mainstream TV channels, magazines and websites. But, yes...these guys on "The Whitest Kids You Know" are basically just following in the footsteps of MTV's "Jackass." What could you expect from pseudo aspiring actors that received prime time TV slots on two very prominent networks owned by the same conglomerate corporation? Exactly! Nothing much, right?

Why must my generation be known as the 'lazy, ignorant and completely insipid' generation? Why must we be consumed with exalting mediocrity through our arenas of entertainment? I don't see what's funny or even amusing about this kind of crap! But, go figure.

The underground scene has always been seen by large mainstream record labels such as Atlantic, Arista, and Columbia as a threat. There actually are a certain large number of artists that could careless about being on MTV's number one requested show, TRL, or being in heavy rotation by one of Clear Channel's radio stations. The main problem I have with the commercial music scene is that the artists don't have complete artistic control of what they can produce on their albums. They have to go through A&R's and then a board at their record company before their music can even be heard by the masses. If the music that they want to produce isn't of a "bubble-gum pop" nature, then it generally won't be made public.

The mainstream music scene is entertainment; the underground (independent) music scene is art. It's sad how music is an element of art (such as sculpture, drama, or dance) but in the mainstream circuit, has become more of an entertainment ground to produce some of the most untalented people that call themselves "artists." Since when did shaking your ass in a video like the "infectiously" popular Pussycat Dolls become popular? Oh...yeah...that's right...I forgot! They only became popular because "sex sells!" The mainstream music motto of 'showing a little ass" can be seen in both genders of male and female.

The independent and commercial music scenes are polar opposite, but when people choose music saturated with sex, drugs, and violence just because it's the popular thing to do, that's utterly sad.

Reality television has become the new phenomenon of programming over the past 15 years. FOX's "COPS" was the very first reality TV show to be broad casted in the US in 1989. Almost 20 years later, we (as television viewers) are more obsessed with whose going to win FOX's"American Idol" or whose going to get voted out of the house of CBS' "Big Brother" than we are with our own lives. We schedule our lives around the broad casting schedule of these reality shows. And if you can't be there for the live broad casting of your favorite show...alas, there is the great invention of TiVo! There are people in this world that "can't live" with missing one episode of ABC's "Extreme Makeover" or the Bravo network's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." We feel disconnected when we are having water cooler talk at our jobs about the latest winner of CBS' "The Apprentice," and don't know
what Donald Trump said to Mike Travis (fictitious name) after he "fired" him.

We are consumed with this "reality" of normal people (such as ourselves) being broad casted on TV for the whole world to see. Do you honestly think that shows such VH1's "I Love New York" or "The Flava of Love" could possibly not be supposititious at all? Are you serious? Is it even viable that people could parade around
a numerous amount of producers, and television cameras
ignorantly making complete asses of themselves for their 15 minutes of fame? Sadly, YES!

We are more engrossed with what's happening on falsified productions of reality on the small screen than we are with our own realities in our own lives. We also live as characters on reality TV ourselves; the audience isn't millions of people in their homes laughing at our mishaps and problems though. The audience is the organizations formed by the government used to scan, scrutinize, and perlustrate our lives. Don't believe it, huh? Smile for the camera next time you are walking with your iPod blaring totally disconnected to your surroundings down Embarcadero in San Francisco, Melrose in Los Angeles, or 55th St. in New York.

No longer do we need to be consumed with the pseudo lives of actors on these "reality" TV shows; we need to be more worried about what we do in our everyday lives that's being broad casted to governmental firms to keep you disconnected to true reality.