Supporting Artists

Today I just spent $14 on Little Dragon's Ritual Union and Median's The Sender... and I legitimately fell good about doing that.

You see, I'm the kind of person who's unfortunately hypocritical about how I spend my money. I'll whine and moan about having to spend a few dollar's on something I actually need (like socks or laundry detergent), but will see no problem in using my last six bucks for a large value meal and wonder why I'm almost 300lbs.

This was different, though. When I decided to spend my money on these albums, I felt good. I didn't feel like my money was going to two guys whose best work happened when they were beefing with Nas and were still that goofy kid who made beats but could rap. I still come back to Median's Relief on occasion, and Little Dragon's music just sounds cool. That's what I want from my albums: less buyer's remorse and more satisfaction. I want more of that.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

Big Sean's Finally Famous...But What Does It Mean?

Congratulations, Sean Don! After three mix-tapes under the same title, Finally Famous: The Album is finally in stores. Have a glass of cold Spades on us!

But what have you really accomplished, Mr. Westside (Detroit)? If we're being honest with ourselves, this isn't the perfect album every artist wants their debut to be.

It's great, don't get me wrong. The overall feel of the project is that of a man finally getting his due after grinding for so long, and I commend you for that. Songs like "Wait For Me" and "Memories (Part 2)" make me appreciate "My Last" and "High" that much more. Much to my own surprise, my favorite track features Roscoe Dash, an artist who's sing-song rapping style I personally can't stand by itself. Then again, that's where Roscoe shines: great, lightweight hooks tailor-made for the clubs.

Then you follow the incredible "Marvin and Chardonnay" with the fucking "Ass" song. MC Hammer can't help you, boi, that track sucks. Other than that, though, the album's good.

Good, not great. It's a perfect hip-pop album: accessible enough for the Top 40 crowd, but hard enough for cats who hate everything on the radio to still dig it. It's a strong 3.5 or a weak 4 out of 5 stars. It's not Illmatic, but for real, nobody's made anything close since Nas did it the first time, and you're not trying to. This is a album for the summer: fun, happy, a little melancholy, and the kind of thing that'll put a smile on your face.

Plus it's better than Thank Me Later, so there's that.

#FinallyFamousInThisBitch

Song 10: To All Those Gone

I'm going to try something a little different. Whenever I have my Zune or Windows Media Player on random, I'll do a write-up on the tenth song that plays. Its kind of like The Smoking Section's iPod Shuffle except, you know...Zune

Song Title: "One Mo' Time"

Artist: Freddie Gibbs

Album: midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik

TSS described Freddie Gibbs' style for their Freshmen 10 of '10 as a mix of Tupac Shakur and Bone Thugs n' Harmony because he can blend gansta with intelligence while rhyming like he was from Cleveland circa 1995. I'd describe "One Mo' Time" as his "Crossroads" (at least for now) since its dealing with the death of loved ones. The first verse has him lamenting the death of a close friend who he personally saw go from dealer to one of Freddie's customers. (Basically what happened to Pookie, but the he fell farther.) The second verse is about his inability to really cope with lose, even though he knows those he lost are in a better place. It's a heartfelt ode to those that are gone, but not forgotten by Gibbs.

I'm not that emotional of a person, but I feel where he's coming from when it comes to loss, as I'm sure everyone else has experience loss themselves.

To me, death never really seems...real, if that makes any sense. I know I won't be seeing friends and family that have gone on anymore in this world, but I can never seem to really let go. I'll see a car like the one a friend used to drive and expect to see them in the driver's seat; I'll sometimes see someone that looks a little like them, and I'll be reminded that they're gone and, even though I don't think it's right, my day will be a little ruined because they died. I can't help wanting those who went on to still be here, even the ones who were sick. I hoped that they would get better when they were here, and I still hold out for Hollywood endings when I hear someone's in a bad way.

I made a pact with myself that I wouldn't go to anymore funerals after a friend of mine past in 2008. Its the open caskets, the body of someone who only days before I was talking to about band or relationships or whatever, lying there made up while their mothers, fathers, sibilings and friends cry out for them, that I can't stand. Not everyone's strong enough to remember that their loved ones have gone to someplace better. They just want them back here, now.

I don't know what it says about me as a person or my mental health, but I've never cried at the funeral or the grave. When I cry its days or weeks later, in the middle of the night. Tears running down my face as all the emotions I don't show rush out, and I try to push them back in without waking anyone up.

When I die, I want a New Orleans style funeral.

Semi-Legal

The thing about being broke and an addict is that you have to be creative with the ways you get your vice. For my particular substance of choice, music, that means walking a very thin and controversial line between rabid fan-dom and outright crime.

If you think in dial-up, I'm referring to file sharing.

Now to me, file sharing falls into a legal gray area I like to refer to as "semi-legal" activities. (Weed's the only other real member of this group in my opinion.) This means that while under the letter of the law these actions are illegal, the reasons behind their legal status have as much to do with business as they do with public safety.
Family Guy aired an episode recently dealing with the issue of marijuana legalization. Sure, it dealt with the subject like Family Guy, but still...
Basically what Seth McFarlane was saying was that while weed ain't exactly the best substance to be on when, say, reporting the news, the reasons for it being illegal might have as much to do with the business as much as the social issues of the drug.

The same thing can be said for file sharing. In the late 90's, recording artists attacked Napster for allowing people to share songs freely without any consideration towards the artists. They claimed that this would cause the downfall of CD sales and bankrupt the music industry. Well of course, we now know that the industry didn't die; the times just changed. Some had a hard time reconciling with the way things were and how things are. So the industry is still attacking the can when the worms are already loose.

Just as recently as last week the RIAA was still in court trying to crack down on file sharing. Meanwhile SoundScan first week numbers for albums are in the six figures, and Weezy was the last dude to do a mil in the first week. ITunes is the new king of music distribution, and artist can get rich off one song rather than a whole record. So was the advent of file sharing really that bad?

Money aside, file sharing opened up the doors for Zune and iPod to be invented. Soulja Boy owes the dude who came up with Napster some residuals. Still, one could see how a dude with a record contract would be pissed off at the fact that they could be making money off of 1,000 downloads that no ones paying for.

Free Music.

Black Hendrix

I've been listening to the three Jimi Hendrix Experience albums lately and am currently reading Midnight Lightning, a book about Hendrix and his place in Black American music, and I've noticed something that seems messed up to me: Jimi Hendrix played a lot of music that could be considered early funk, and even has straight - up blues songs on record. Yet I've never heard his music on any Black radio stations. Obviously, I don't expect to hear "Purple Haze" on V103, but if he's not on straight rock stations, then he isn't heard on the air. Yet "Red House" would fit perfectly on a blues playlist.

I hope it's just me. I hope that I'm just not listening to the radio at the right time. But it's not just radio. Hendrix isn't usually seen as a great Black icon within the community. Then again, in Febuary you only hear King, Shabazz, Parks, so I shouldn't be to surprise that Hendrix is left out if Huey P. Newton's or Stokely Carmicheal aren't top tier Black folk. I'd just like to think that we could see Jimi Hendrix as being one of us rather than an outside playing "white" music.

But maybe that was the point. If I had never checked out that book, I would have only thought of him as a great guitar player. Maybe it's not so much that we don't see him as Black, it's that we see him as a musician first. I'd like to think that. That sounds right.

Peace.