The Walt Report

Genius Camp

2007-07-10T12:39:00.000-04:00

Now, as many of you know, in my youth I was purported to be some kind of boy genius or whatever. Which is to say that people still think of me as some kind of boy genius when they figure out how old I am, but I digress. Anyway, for much of my early adolescence my enterprising mother made several efforts to find constructive uses for my time that didn't involve the shit that most of my friends were doing (ie smoking weed). To make a long story short, I ended up attending a whole lot of gifted and talented kid programs. This is when I was like 11-12, mind you, so I was either in or fresh out of middle school, what with all that entails.

As it turns out, this is more or less when I figured out that there were different economic classes of people in America. I show up, longish hair, probably some kind of t-shirt, Carharrts (sic?), and all the kids there are from like East Lansing, Haslett, Okemos, Grand Ledge and other wealthy Lansing suburbs and their parents are all MSU faculty. I figure all this out on the first day when we're introducing ourselves, and I also figure out that I'm a fucking space alien to these kids. My whole speech pattern, mannerisms, and of course my answers when they ask where I go to school, what my parents do, what I do for fun on weekends, the whole deal. It was almost like I was in the wrong room or some shit like that. This was eventually compounded by the inevitable moment in which the conversation turned to something I was interested in or the moment in which I decided against my better judgement to actually answer a question. From that point onward it was pretty much a given that I'd be kicking it with the other "weird kids." Being that we were already at a genius camp in the first place, I'm sure you can imagine how it feels to be relegated to that status. I'm not going to touch on the issues I had with the adults at these places, but needless to say it entailed a couple awkward conversations with my moms about my "home environment", "social group", "parental involvement", and all that. Basically:

FUCK YALL KRAMERS DOING SENDING YOUR BROKE ASS BRICKLAYER LOOKING KID HERE! THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING KINAWA MIDDLE SCHOOL! WE ONLY LIKE NICE CLEAN MIDDLE CLASS WHITE AND ASIAN KIDS FROM NICE FAMILIES WHO COME PICK THEM UP IN SUBARUS! FUCKOUTTAHEAH WITH THIS GETTING OFF THE CATA BUS AND WALKING HALF A MILE FROM THE NEAREST STOP BULLSHIT! THIS AIN'T JUVIE HALL PLAYBOY THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING SMART KID CAMP! SHIT!

And god forbid some kid would say some sideways shit to me and I'd reply in the vernacular of a young man of my stature. That's when I get a stern lecture about problem solving and communication and shit. So basically I ended up with the message at the end of the day that in our society if you're a young man from a working class background, you better not even think about being smart. And if you're smart, the only way to redeem yourself other than being the best damn gas station manager of all time is to completely remake yourself in the image of kids named Caden who reside in Whitehills Lakes and have a private tutor for mathematics. In short, there is no room for literacy, culture, or articulatedness (sic, muhfucka) in your identity. Choose one or the other.

And in a lot of ways it got to the point where these issues would actually manifest themselves physically. What I mean by that is that in come cases my detachment from the traditional student at these programs would actually, like, fuck my shit up. A clear example of this is in the case where I had to fill out a form to evaluate the program, but to ensure anonymity I could leave off my name and just put my school district. Ha. I'm probably still the only person other than my little brother to come from said district (Dansville bitchflake, act like you know), so obviously if I put that shit on there they're gonna know it's me. As if the "I often feel that my enthusiasm for No Limit Records alienates me from my peers" wouldn't already do the trick.

In short, they ain't want me there. I didn't really wanna be there either, a fact that my 6th grade math teacher repeatedly intoned to my parents when they were tryna sign me up for one program in particular, by telling them that I wouldn't feel at home, wouldn't get along with the other kids, wouldn't be sufficiently motivated to complete the tasks, etc. This is especially ironic given that most of that is exactly right, but you know my moms had to be like BITCH HE GONNA FEEL A LOT LESS AT HOME IN A MOTHERFUCKING JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER WHICH AS YOU ALWAYS BE IN MY GRILL TELLING ME IS MORE OR LESS WHERE HE'S HEADED AT THE MOMENT YADADADAMEAN?

And so, the last one that I attended (because I went to Europe the following summer and then after that I was in high school, so, heh) was down at the MSU campus, which wasn't much of a stretch given the fact that I was down there most of the time anyway. It's the third day, and we're at the MSU planetarium standing around in the lobby waiting to be let in to peep a show at said planetarium. Cliques have been formed, violins chilling with violins, chess with chess, model railroad enthusiasts beefing with the model airplanes, but mainly all the white and asian kids are standing in an amorphous suburban mass in one half of the room. I'm in the corner.

A couple dudes were themselves standing in the other corner, and I ended up kicking it with them. Once you figure out exactly why they were in the corner, you'll understand why I identify myself the way I do culturally.

Not sure who reads this anymore.

2007-07-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

But if I'm gonna be posting retarded blogs on myspace I might as well start doing it here again as well. I'ma have to warn you though, from here on out shit's gonna be deeply personal and all I'm pretty much gonna talk about is race and class. Beginning with an excerpt from the infamous "How we both white but our son bi-racial."

"Alright white folks, it's like this. You done did it. I'm through with you. Nah nah, don't try to say you're sorry and that you can change, fuck that. It's over. You never really loved me, and now I can see that, so I'm gone. I'm serious.

I ain't saying I won't kick it with you, go to your parties, listen to your lame ass watered down versions of black music every once in a while, or that I'll start breaking into your cars and stealing your stereos or whatever, it ain't even like that. And I'm not going to stop hanging out with you if we're friends and you happen to be white (unless you show up in the comments and scream on me.) What I'm saying is, I'm not one of you anymore. I am officially, as far as I'm concerned, no longer a White Guy. Genetically I'm descended from people who got all pale and shit from hanging out in caves and somehow ended up with pigment in their eyes and hair, yeah.

But that's it. That's the extent of my White-ness.I'm tired of making excuses for you guys. Tired of being like "Well, not ALL white people are like that.", "Most white people only say shit like that because they don't know any minorities." "He has good intentions, he's just confused." "Yeah that joke about sickle cell was foul but he's not a racist." "He was just having a bad day and needed to vent some anger and a Mexican dude just happened to cut him off in traffic." FUCK THAT SHIT. Y'ALL MOTHAFUCKAS IS RACIST. And if I have to retire from White America in order to say that, so be it. You guys are all too pussy to confront each other's racism, and more importantly can't even look yourself in the face to see what you are. A beneficiary of hundreds of years of rape, murder, theft, kidnapping, torture, slavery, apartheid, genocide, and just plain ol' bullshit."

read more here, and start checking back every tuesday for some of that good good.

I enjoy glasses of red wine, I have a nice computah.

2007-04-13T08:44:00.000-04:00

Shouts to Noz on the heads up.

We Don't Talk Pretty For Boppers Mayne

2007-04-11T11:20:00.000-04:00

First things first, Brother Ali's new album is on sale at Worst Buy for 7.99. So go get that shit today. I mean, that's usually the amount of money I spend on an outing to Wendy's, so even if you don't like the album it ain't like you just broke the bank. Nahmsayin.

Speaking of Muslims, BBC News has added a section dedicated entirely to documenting Muslims in Europe. Now a lot of you kramers know that's one of my favorite subjects, so expect me to jack mad shit from them in the next couple months. The most interesting thing about this whole situation, is, of course, the role of religious and cultural conflict in the context of the socio-economic situation between indigenous Europeans and Muslim immigrants. It's a chicken egg situation, but obviously if you have equal access to education, housing, and jobs, you have more resources to resolve cultural differences.

"Young Muslims growing up in the Netherlands are finding different ways of creating new identities.

Some use music to give voice to their frustrations. There's a lively Moroccan rap music scene - part of a vibrant and essentially secular youth culture. Yet when you ask young rappers if they are Muslim, they unhesitatingly reply they are."

See, ha. I told you. Rap solves everything. Read the first one too.

Sing City city council members are getting their laptop on. That's some real Michigan type shit right there. I'm going to touch on this in a latter post, but seriously. The median income of the state of Michigan is 68,337 for a family of four. I'm about to skate out for lunch, but I'll be back later with some stats to let you hoes know that:

1. We pay some taxes up here, so the problem ain't the tax base.
2. Somehow we end up with poor public education, infrastructure, et. al.
3. Ergo, the issue with Michigan is the channels by which tax money reaches public policy.

And don't get all knee jerk with me either. Dollars to donuts I'm more liberal than you.

Waltcosby@gmail.com. And "Holla at a playa when you see me on the street TRICK!" (c) Polow.

Now Suzie Screw had a patna named Sasha Thumper...

2007-04-09T20:03:00.000-04:00

Note: I don't feel like going through and asterisking all the inappropriate words in this piece, so keep in mind that I'm quoting The Poet.

" Now suzy skrew had a partna named sasha (sasha), thumper (thumper)
I remember her number like the summer
When her and suzy yeah they threw a slumber - - party
But you can not call it that cause it was slummer
Well it was more like spend the night
Three in the morning yawnin dancin under street lights
We chillin like a villain and a nigga feelin right
In the middle of the ghetto on the curb, but in spite
All of the bullshit we on our back starin at the stars above
(aww man) talkin bout what we gonna be when we grow up
I said what you wanna be, she said, "alive" (hmm)
It made me think for a minute, then looked in her eyes
I coulda died, time went on, i got grown
Rhyme got strong, mind got blown, i came back home
To find lil sasha was gone
Her mamma said she with a nigga that be treatin her wrong
I kept on singin my song and hopin at a show
That i would one day see her standin in the front row
But two weeks later she got found in the back of a school
With a needle in her arm, baby two months due, sasha thumper"

To me, this is more or less the greatest verse in all of rap. A close second would be Common's joint on Respiration, then followed by All I Got Is You (it's one long ass verse, right?) I mean shit, look at all the topics he touches upon. Drugs, domestic violence, anxiety about success, love, low expectations of life for po' folks, all that. As it stands, you could also see Sasha as a metaphor for mad different shit. Atlanta itself, the women Dre grew up with, hip hop (especially now that everybody thinks it's dead), whatever. Just not his cat, that shit would be cornball.

Basically, the point is: you can't go home again. Especially if you grew up in the proles.

"Shit's reeeal out here."-Dilla Dawg.

I'm Rich Biatch, My Moms Was Like You Wish Biatch!

2007-04-04T10:11:00.000-04:00

Well I was certainly halfway through a post a minute ago, but of course Firefox decided to crash and delete my shit. So in the interim, read as much as you can handle of the second comment to this post.

I only approved said comment so my dear readers can see how insane some people really are. The mission of every people is to disappear and leave no descendants? What the hell?

PUT DOWN DA GUNZ RUDEBWOY

2007-02-26T13:26:00.000-05:00

If grime was a high school these kids probably got their ass kicked every day.

I Practice Lookin' Hard

2007-02-22T13:04:00.000-05:00

What up doe.

Last night I watch Beyond Beats and Rhymes on PBS. I was expecting it to be standard booshwa propaganda about how hip hop used to be a righteous man but now he spends all his time all the mall looking at Nikes or whatever, but surprisingly it was actually pretty poignant. The main focus was less saying that hip hop was totally way better in the days of the Boogiemonsters, instead the goal was taking a seriously look at elements that have been present in hip hop culture from jump.

My favorite part of it was the analysis of how the social conditions that young working class men of color, and, uh the absence of color create antisocial behavior, which manifests itself in hip hop. This comes of no surprise to me, but the homeboy Byron (not the bespectacled fellow in the Ecko shirt) cut right to the quick on it. The basic thesis was that the youth sans guap feel like they have little power in society, but they do have physical control over their bodies, so they resort to walking around Safeway/Meijer/Costco/the mall in oversized Dickies suits snarling in everybody's faces as a way to assert themselves as men. Then they went on to discuss homophobia in rap because dudes feel emasculated, etc.

The biggest problem with these issues is really, how entrenched they are in the culture of young working class dudes. Look, check this. I'm a proletarian. Growing up, I caught a lot of flak for reading books and whatnot, so as a defense mechanism I got caught up in the same cycle of violence that all of us do. From maybe 2nd grade to my exit from the public school system halfway through 8th, it was all fights all the time. Over dumb shit. Some things changed, and I ceased to be in situations like that on a regular basis, but still on a subconscious level it's still hard to not think of terms of fucking people up, feel me? Not too long ago I was in a position where a dude committed an offense against me of a nature that, when I was younger, we would have had a problem. But fact is, it was right next to campus in an establishment I frequent on a semi-daily basis. So obviously doing the Ingham County thang wasn't an option. So in situations like this, young dudes like me are put in a situation where your integrity as a man is placed on the scale with your chances of making it in society. And for those of us trying to rise above said cycles of violence through education, we get up in the position of not getting to beat people up, but still having no protection from violence or guarantee that it won't be directed at us. So yeah, it's messed up to walk around looking hard and not be smiling at dudes all day, but what other option do we have? Once again, society gives up on us, and we're left holding the bag of the results. Ain't that a bitch. The fact is, issues in our society which result in 15 year olds carrying guns around go way deeper than listening to Young Jeezy, and it's hardly fair to put the burden on hip hop to resolve them.

It's the same thing with hip hoppers being obsessed with expensive clothes. Growing up poor, you don't feel like society values you as a person, so by buying Polo shit you make an attempt to purchase a sense of self-worth. As if the self esteem of the youth is robbed from them and sold back. Scandalous. I guess in this way, kramers spending Pell Grant funds on 150 dollar Gino Green Global polos (seriously, why does that shit cost so much? It isn't that well made) are doing the exact same thing as anorexic 14 year olds 15 miles away in the suburbs. Validating themselves by over-subscribing to societal conventions. Of course the caveat here is that cops don't shoot Girl Interrupted extras down in the streets for having black cell phones.

And I wish eliminating these issues was as simple as taking off the jeans and fitted hat that I put on when I stole hip hop (thanks M1! go steal a pizza, asshole), but it's not. You're not going to get me to start walking around handing out smiley face cookies. And am I going to stop donating 300 dollars a semester to Ralph's grandkids when financial aid comes through? Haaayall no. Hip hop isn't going to stop being "homophobic" overnight either. The people controlling society aren't willing to change the conditions that produce our behavior, so how is it fair for them to expect us to change the way we respond to them? It's not, but I guess it falls on hip hop to change the game anyway.

Hallelujah holla back!

Barack Obama-Your Momma's White!

2007-02-12T12:43:00.000-05:00

So these days (by which I mean the past 6 months or so), one of the main controversies about Barack Obama is that he's, uh, not really black. I take this to mean that he does not meet the traditional definition of "blackness", which I guess decribes somebody of West African ancestry who's family has been in the United States for hundreds of years as a result of chattel slavery in the South. Also, to be considered "black", one has to have parents that both meet this criteria. While I suppose a decent case could be made for this concept, it excludes a significant number of prominent "black" people. By this logic, Frederick Douglas, Langston Hughes, The Game, Busta Rhymes, Notorious B.I.G., etc aren't "black." Yet, these dudes still get put in the "black category."

The reason for this can be outlined by James Baldwin, who states that "As long as you are white, I will be black." The fact of the matter is, that minutiae such as where your parents are from and whether or not your mom is actually white only matter to people with a nuanced understanding of racial politics. The fact of the matter is that the majority of voters in the USA are middle class white people who are either center left or center right depending on who we hate this war and who fucked shit up last term. And those folks aren't sitting on blogger arguing about race all day.

The fact of the matter is, that in the collective subconscious of America, blackness is more of stain than an identity. Hence, if you got the mark of blackness on you, you're black. So Barack Obama doesn't have a choice but to politically identify himself as a black dude. Whether or not he's more acceptable to the white population because his dad is from Africa and his moms is probably from Wisconsin or some shit is an interesting idea, but at the end of the day he's still black to the majority of people who self-identify as white.

There's a rapper named Slug who's 25% black and identifies himself as a black man. Everybody thinks this is cute and errthang, but when people see dude in the street he still gets the benefit of more or less looking like a white guy. Now, Malcolm X was 25% white. What if he came out the blocks saying he was white? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over for him all that well. But that was the 1960s Walt, shit was different then! Dave Chappelle is 25% white too. Nobody's about to recognize him as a white person.

At the end of the day, the basic point here is who runs shit in our society and what rules they like to set. White people decide who is black and who isn't, consciously or unconciously. And sorry folks, Barack still gets put in that box.

Buy Jesus Price Superstar Tomorrow

2007-01-29T12:46:00.000-05:00

Sean Price's new album drops tomorrow, and if you don't buy it then YOU KILLED HIP HOP.

More Importantly, Music For Today

2007-01-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks So Many Shrimp.

Two is not enough for me either Mr. Dilla. We miss you.

3 Movies, Part 1.

2007-01-22T12:50:00.000-05:00

So, I watched Idiocracy, Menace II Society, and Bowling For Columbine in one sitting friday night, more or less for the first time and also more or less at random. The interesting thing about these three movies is that all three of them examine basic issues in our society: the media, violence, and racism. I'm going to do three posts, one analyzing each movie, and this is the first one, duh.

Without giving away too much, the first film is based on the premise that because of a lack of natural predators, human evolution has come to reward people who reproduce more, as opposed to people possessing intelligence, sociability, etc. The film then illustrates this by showing us an "intelligent" couple discussing why they don't want to have a kid right now, then flashes to the obvious "trailer trash" couple in a domestic dispute about how the wife is pregnant again. Hee hee. The next couple minutes are spent detailing "Clevon"'s production of more and more kids while the smart couple continues to not reproduce. Then a bunch of other shit happens, and this one dude ends up in a coma-like state until the year 2520, when the world is populated by idiots.

Problem is, to this movie, "idiot", clearly means poor white, black, or hispanic person. Everybody walking around is clearly a "redneck", "jig", or "cholo" stereotype. Now to all of you this might not seem odd, but think about it. Basically, the nightmarish dystopia predicted by this film involves the domination of public life by the marginalized population groups currently excluded from it, except on the terms of the dominant culture. What I mean by this is that when mass media is utilized by people from outside the cultural mainstream (rich white people), it's only in a way that's acceptable to people holding the purse strings. In this movie, the president is a porn star and professional wrestler, and Costco functions as a bunch of different businesses. Cause y'all know, poor folks love some Costco.

You know, this is oddly similar to that Pat Buchanan book where he predicts the demise of civilization if white people disappear. Except "smart" people are used as a proxy for middle to upper class white folks. So basically, the message here, to me, is that if you don't fit into "society's mainstream American dream", you need the aforementioned group to police you to make sure you don't fuck the world up. Now, had idiotic soccer moms, suburban teenagers, and golf buddies been included, I probably wouldn't jump to these conclusions.

Cuddly. It's also pretty funny and everything, but you guys know me, I can't ignore shit.

Walt Is Back W-W-W-Walt Is Back

2007-01-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

Yeah bitches, that's right. In the 07 I'm back in full force with that Redneck Ghetto Steez. I've been on hiatus, but the streets been calling me. So starting next week, I'm gonna be doing posts on whatever I want. So, all my prior readers, go head and tell everybody that Walt is back off in this bitch. And weak ass bloggers, go back to Xanga, because the King Back.

I Ain't Playin Witcha Haters

2006-12-06T09:21:00.000-05:00

I love this shit.

Favorite Lines:

"Put a x on a bussa like the Super Bowl"

"Walkin' through the projects wit the choppa like Rambo"

"I'm from Miami, no dudes from South Beach/At the budget inn, with some south freaks!"

Honestly

2006-11-30T10:06:00.000-05:00

The police have stepped their asshole game up to a degree where speaking out against them is actually cliche.

"JONESBORO -- Officials at Jonesboro Middle School say police tasered an 11-year-old student Wednesday as a last resort. The incident immediately prompted an internal police investigation.
Channel 2 was told the incident began after something happened at lunch to spark a verbal argument between two 6th graders. The verbal argument turned physical and a school resource officer with the Jonesboro Police Department says she had to resort to using a taser.
Channel 2 cameras were rolling when police left Jonesboro Middle School with what appeared to be a male student handcuffed in the backseat.

School officials confirm that an 11-year-old, 6th grade male was tasered by a school resource officer. They say the boy was physically assaulting a female 6th grader and refused to listen to verbal commands to stop. As a last resort the officer tasered the boy twice – once to get the students separated and a second time when the boy tried to attack the girl again.
The male student was taken to juvenile detention – the female was treated by emergency personnel and released to her parents.

Opinions are split on whether this kind of force should be used a school.
“I would tell them if my child got out of hand and they couldn’t control him they would have to taser him,” said one parent. “I know what it is and it doesn’t scare me – so long as it’s used properly it’s not serious.”
“No, it is not necessary…school is a safe place, right?” said parent Syeda Nessa. “They don’t need that, they don’t need that in the school.”

Channel 2 tried to speak with Jonesboro Police but they refused to comment pending an on-going internal affairs investigation into the incident."

Look, police are supposedly trained to be able to subdue and restrain adults right? What the fuck is this?

I'm pretty sure I could bounce from the LCC comp lab right now, head to the nearest middle school, find the toughest 11 year old up in that piece, put little homie in a headlock and be done with it. And I'm hardly a karate master mind you. Just a young man of average build.

If this lady is unable to handle gully preteens, maybe she shouldn't be a police officer.

The Final Blow

2006-11-28T17:50:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official. As soon as I became a full time college student and wasn't surrounded by trill gangstas every time I rode the school bus I started listening to softbatch retro powerpop sung by small Japanese women.

Asobi Seksu-Thursday

This shit bangs doe! Stop hating.

Anyway, I continue to jam that new Clipse too.

ANTE UP!

2006-11-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

AOL NEWS SEZ:

"BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Nov. 22) - U.S. and Argentine media reported that one of President Bush's 24-year-old twin daughters had her purse stolen while being guarded by the Secret Service during a visit here.

ABC News, citing unidentified law enforcement reports, reported on its Web site Tuesday that Barbara Bush's purse and cell phone were taken while she was dining in a Buenos Aires restaurant.

La Nacion newspaper, citing anonymous government sources, said in its online edition early Wednesday that one of Bush's daughters had her purse taken Sunday afternoon in the popular tourist district of San Telmo.

A pair of thieves removed the purse from under a table while Secret Service agents stood guard at a distance, La Nacion reported. La Nacion said its sources did not reveal which of the Bush daughters had her purse stolen.

Argentine police told The Associated Press they had no complaint of any such incident on file, and the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires said it would have no comment. In Washington, the White House, Secret Service and State Department also declined comment.

CNN cited a law-enforcement source who was briefed on the incident as saying that "at no point were the protectees out of visual contact and at no point was there any risk of harm."

Argentina's largest-circulation daily, Clarin, ran an online report citing the government news agency Telam as saying that Barbara Bush had her purse taken along with a cell phone that was inside it. Telam cited an official source who did not wish to be identified by name and who provided no other details.

Barbara's twin, Jenna, visited neighboring Paraguay last month to take part in a UNICEF program for young professionals."

You Will Get Shot, You Will Get Stabbed

2006-10-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

CSS-Let's Make Love Video

2006-09-28T21:00:00.000-04:00

Uh yeah. This song is bad as hell.

Prussian Blue Debuts at No.4?

2006-09-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

First note, I'm kinda worried about losing my LCC computer priveleges now because I may have inadvertently looked at some white power websites by way of Google Images. So, whoever may be looking at this screen: "I ain't no racist" in the words of Saigon. Anyway, Prussian Blue's new album supposedly is number 4 on some Billboard chart.

"This week, the Billboard albums chart's top five is packed with nothing but new releases, with Bakersfield, CA Pop duo Prussian Blue shocking the nation by taking ..4 after selling 91, 000 copies of "End of A Black World" its first week out. The album is also serving as the soundtrack to a remake of one of the most controversial movies in U.S. history "Birth Of A Nation". "End of A Black World" is the third and most successful album for 12 and 13 year old Lamb and Lynx, who have recently relocated to a private compound in Salt Lake City, Utah after their last album gained them national attention and death threats. The girls were lost, especially in December of 2005 when their father was shot twice by an AME Minister. However, their father survived and their career was revived by what seems to be an unfathomable paradigm shift in American values.

Lynx was speaking of Actor/Comedian Dave Chapelle and his comic sketch depicting a blind, African American, Ku Klux Klan leader who was unaware that he was not white. Dave Chapelle is also believed to be the inspiration of their single, "Funny Nigger, " which describes the gruesome fate of blacks who taunt whites. Dave Chapelle was not availible for comment. Prussian Blue appear to have gone from one of America's dirty little secrets to Pop princesses overnight. The group is now fielding offers from major record labels such as MGM and Geffen. This may be only the beginning."

I'm even uncomfortable copying and pasting that. Somehow I doubt a white supremacist album is doing that well, being that the critical audience for music is middle class white teenagers, of which a small portion are actually out and out white power folks. Whether or not a good number of them are actually white supremacists and not admitting it is another story though. Either way, this kinda looks like a hoax.

However. In the event that said album actually did move that many units (and not just on the Dumbass Racist Music chart), then....damn. I don't even really know what to say about that shit. Are there really that many hardcore white racists out there? I know I grew up around some people of that ilk, but by and large the white power movement seems to consist, of, well, disenfranchished poor whites who want something to belong to. Not unlike various other race-based movements. While the KKK and some sections of the Aryan Nation have had some influence, by and large most neo-Nazis or whatever are basically Dungeons and Dragons nerds who have failed in life and decided to blame all their problems on other people, instead of taking responsiblity for themselves. The idea of those people having enough resources to put an album that high on the billboard charts is almost frightening.

Kinda like retards with scissors. But yeah, white supremacism is still a problem though, especially in rural areas like that which I inhabit.

I saw a dude wearing a Confederate flag as a cape the other day, and while rudebwoy nah gwan into the details, one of my relatives and I directly experienced some racism on sunday.

Anyway, ever notice why Klan hoods look like dunce caps? Ain't a coincedence, dunson.

Oh, and by the way.

The Genesis

2006-09-21T11:20:00.000-04:00

" my 7th grade escapade used to watch and observe
same fella's who could rap feathers flocked to their words
lunch room tables knocking beat boxing preferred
situation inspiration now im plotting my splurge
in the classroom opposite nerd, im in the back
teacher thinking im taking notes, but im jotting a verse
next day im in the lunch room bobbing at first
caught my man off, he ran off shocked when he heard
seen a couple of jaws drop to the shirt,
over night i went like yeah she aiiight.. to the popular skirts
parents couldnt understand the plan, how could it work
and now my grades spelt E D D I E so the problem is worse
you dont wanna be a grown man not getting work
better yet a famous rapper on the top getting jerked
plus the talent that you got is from the god of the earth
provocative words, lesson learned, knowledge is first...."

-One Be Lo

I Gotta Say What's Up

2006-09-18T15:23:00.000-04:00

To Unkut.com.

Because I kinda feel bad for jacking mp3s from them all the time, so I'm going to send all of my readers over there to peep their superb hip hop coverage.

So go check that shit out, dunson.

Middle Finger To The Law

2006-09-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

"It didn't amass to a large citywide coalition as predicted, but hundreds of youth from Cabrini-Green did manage to stun downtown Chicago Thursday and its financial district with a loud protest of the multiple shooting of a 14-year-old boy by police on Monday.

Ellis Woodland Jr. was shot several times by Chicago police after allegedly refusing to drop a BB gun from his hands that police said looked like a real semi-automatic weapon.About 350 people, mainly adolescents and teenagers, marched from the Cabrini-Green Housing Project down LaSalle Street to the doors of City Hall where they were met by approximately 50 Chicago police officers on foot, bicycles and four-wheel motor vehicles.

The marchers, led by Willie J.R. Fleming, chairman of the Hip-Hop Congress of Cabrini-Green, and Deidre Brewster, were met halfway inside the downtown Loop area by mayoral candidate William "Dock" Walls, Fred Hampton Jr. and Derrick Harris, head of the North Lawndale Accountability Commission, among others.

The situation became tense between protesters and policemen when the agitated crowd was initially denied entrance into City Hall to speak with Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"We are taxpaying citizens. We have a right to go in and address the mayor," someone shouted out as a sea of blue and white police shirts blocked the entrance of the locked City Hall doors."

1. Fuck the police. I don't care what anyone says. If your dad is a cop or whatever, I don't care. Tell him Big Walt says he can serve and protect deez.

2. Those replica weapons are bad news. A couple friends of mine have been drawn down on by pigs, even with the orange tip on the airsoft rifle or whatever.

Lightheaded-Soul Power video

2006-09-14T11:03:00.000-04:00

Just so you know, the first rappin' dude in this video recently told me that drinking paint is bad for you.

Happy birthday to me.

2006-09-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

Speaking of anniversaries of pivotal events and shit, the anniversary of my entrance to the world is tomorrow!

What?

2006-09-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

I don't know why rappers think snorting cocaine is cool.

Shit, where I come from we make fun of people that do shit like that. If anything, Rae should be using that shit to lose some damn weight.

That White Man's Ice Is Just A Little Bit Colder

2006-09-05T10:41:00.000-04:00

In so called conscious/underground rap circles, a central issue has always been the ethnicity of the fans. As pointed out in a couple recent debates, your average pro-black revolution rapsters have majority white crowds, whilst Yung Joc usually plays to an all black audience. And also, it isn't even really a race thing. In my opinion it has more to do with free time, disposable income, access to the internet, and personal interests. But the people it's hardest on are usually so called conscious rapsters. Being that they're trying to reach poor and usually black people with their music, and we all know that kids on the block in Brooklyn aren't jamming Dead Prez like that.

The effect of this is that so called conscious rap really isn't that anymore. In American Pictures, Jacob Holdt said that the function of the American mainstream left/art industry is to take art from the underclass, convert it into expression versus protest, and then redirect it away from the white supremacist power structure. Obviously the whole point of NWA/PE/BDP etc was that they were black people from the ghetto making revolutionary music for themselves to spread knowledge and empowerment back to their neighborhoods. And the exact reason they avoided the fake liberal art trap is because they were such badasses about it. You think the Democratic party was bumpin' some "Sound Of Da Police"? Nah son. It was too abrasive, urban, and for lack of a better word, black for even the supposed white mainstream left.

Then came the Native Tongues. No disrespect to the architechts, but a lot of what they did and almost all what their successors did was water down hip hop to appeal to a white suburban college student context. And then bingo, critical and commercial success. It's a lot easier to deal with Q-Tip saying that everybody should group hug and forget 300 years of racism than it is to deal with Ice Cube busting in your house with a shotgun and blowing your lily white face off. This is not unlike white hippies embracing watered down "one love" reggae.

Mos Def lamenting the black struggle in a passive way can be appreciated as art, enjoyed, and then ignored. If the ghetto produces such beautfiul music, why do anything about it? Basically, most current "underground rap" is not true to the definition of hip hop.

It commodifies black/hispanic/working class struggle to be consumed and voyeuristically enjoyed by rich white people. So, I ask Phonte, how is that not a Minstrel Show?

Which is not to say I don't enjoy this music, or find it to be positive, intelligent, etc. But for certain musicians to be mad at black people for not buying their tape is kinda dumb. The reason youths from disadvantaged backgrounds don't jump on the whole backpack bandwagon is not because they're too ignorant to appreciate Black Thought talking about how's he's the dopest dope rapster in the world of dopeness. It's because, unlike white burban youth, they don't need to be part of a subculture to develop their cultural identity. Because they're ALREADY on the fringe of society, and don't have the option of being part of the dominant culture!

Anyway that's just my take on the issue. Poor people often don't go out of their way to relate to "conscious" rap because it isn't made for them in the first place. But they relate to Trae because he DOES make music for them, and not for white backpackers who don't listen to him because he's "gangsta", and not "an acceptable black man", as Nas put it. White liberals don't want to listen to unabashed black rage from the ghettoes of America, they want it watered down and whitewashed first.

"We can't free ourselves unless we can be ourselves." By the way this relates to poor white people too. You can't rock Dickies suits and read books. There have been times when teachers at my high school would try to make me their acceptable pet cracker, and I ain't having that.

Yeah, Ok

2006-08-31T11:08:00.000-04:00

So I was gonna buy Game Theory yesterday, but then I said fuck that and bought Do You Want More?!?!?! instead. I'm weird like that, when I'm getting into a new artists I usually go back and look at their early shit. That's how I do thaaangs.

Well needless to say, I know what all the noise concerning The Roots is. Before this, I always assumed that because the headwraps and white college kids were going nuts over them, they couldn't be that sweet.

Well they are.

I Gave My Momma The Diploma, Said I'll Holla At Ya Later

2006-08-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

I posted Biggie's picture today to thank him for helping my find my world civilizations classroom today.

Well now I've been to all my classes, and they all seem manageable with the possible exception of my math class. But that ain't a big deal, I'll just have to work a bit harder. I'm either going to buy The Shining or Game Theory tomorrow. Any input on that? I know The Shining is gonna be the shit, but I hear good things about Game Theory too.

Pat Buchanan sez:
" That’s one thing. The second thing is Mexicans, unlike Irish or German folks, never claimed America as their country. They owned it. 58% of Mexicans believe the southwest belongs to them. The third thing is, they were assimilated. There powerful assimilation movement in this country that does not exist right now and in so the point of the thing is, they are not assimilated into America. Many Hispanics, as a matter of fact, you know what culture they are assimilating to? — the rap culture, the crime culture, anti-cops, all the rest of it."

Yes, scary Latino people assimilating to hip hop culture is going to destroy America. Is this motherfucker out on a day pass?

Earl Hutchinson sez:
"The racial gap yawned clearly in the gap between black and white reaction to the Bush administration's first fumbled relief efforts. In polls, most blacks hammered Bush as meanspirited and callous. Conspiracy mills churned furiously. Many blacks publicly, and even more privately, saw racism in the turgid response. Many cheered hip-hop artist Kanye West's assertion that Bush didn't care about black people.

Most white respondents to polls were critical - but they attributed federal sluggishness to bureaucratic bungling, not racial malice.

Many whites find it too painful to think that the federal government, their government, would cold-bloodedly leave Americans - even black, poor Americans - to suffer. And many blacks find it too painful to believe that racial indifference wasn't the prime motive for the government to leave so many poor blacks to twist in misery in New Orleans."

I'm inclined to say it was more based on economics, but in a predominantly black city such as NOLA, the two are kinda the same thing. Then again, I did see a bunch of poor white folks on When The Levees Broke.

New Murs interview. Y'all know dude is pretty much my favorite rapster.

If you don't go to this, you are a herb.

2006-08-24T11:12:00.000-04:00

If The Record Is A Smash, I Could Still Survive

2006-08-24T10:40:00.000-04:00

Well folks, it's that time again. The days of watching Seinfield, drinking chocolate milk, and sleeping in till noon have come to an end. And as Spike Lee would say, school daze have resumed. So that means that I'm back off in this bitch posting shit.

But for today, I'm just going to hit you guys off with some mp3s from my favorite current rap artists, being that this is a rap blog and all.

Brother Ali-Original King

If you ain't up on Bro Ali, you need to do a Trillville and GET ON MY LEVEL. A lot of people hate on Rhymesayers Ent. because they got Atmosphere on there and Slug raps about girls and shit, but they forget that Brother Ali is on there. Dude is one of the best rappers alive, period. All of his albums are sick. Anyway, this song is some braggadocious shit, but knocks anyway. It's from his upcoming album, The Undisputed Truth.

Senim Silla-For The Record

This isn't new in the strictest sense of the word, but being that Binary Star is supposedly back together, I figured I would throw up my second favorite song from Silla. This is just a dope song, basically. Also speaking of Binary, I have a show on september 2nd with One Be Lo. What you know about that.

Cormega-Dirty Game

If you don't like Cormega, please give me your address so I can come kick your ass. Thanks.

You Either Ride With Us, Or Collide With Us

2006-08-02T17:01:00.000-04:00

From the Outlawz interview on Bol's site.

"EDI: Also we kicking it from the addict’s point of view. Stic got a real dope song called “Open Window” talking about his brother’s addiction and just addressing that. A lot of times in rap, you get cats kicking the drug culture from the drug dealer’s perspective being the hustler or selling it. This one of the first projects, probably ever that you get a perspective from somebody dealing with an actual addict in their family."

I mean, except My Brother's A Basehead.

Just sayin'.

Been Through So Many Struggles, Only To Perservere

2006-07-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know me, I had some stuff go down recently. But I'm gon' be alright, don't worry.

I can't think of anything to post about today, sorry. I've been working on music all week, and haven't had much time to do anything else.

Tell Me When To Run Walt Over

2006-07-20T16:48:00.000-04:00

I'm sure Bol will be interested to know that today, the hyphy culture was almost involved in the accidental slaying of a young rural white blogger.

A few minutes ago I was headed across campus to drop off some paperwork. A dreadlocked fellow in "stunna shades" comes through the loading zone rather fast, and I'm about to cross to the other side of the sidewalk.

I step out, and in a split second I realize "shit, that dude ain't stoppin'", as he barrels past.

But I'm still here. Yadadadadadadadadadadamean.

Teachers Unions

2006-07-20T11:38:00.000-04:00

So I'm working out my employment for this coming school year, and it's looking like I'm going to be joining the teacher's union we have in Michigan. Now I ain't about paying anybody anything out of my paycheck for any reason in most cases, but the 1 percent or whatever that they take out for union dues isn't that bad. Also, it'll be cool to have job security and such. Oh and Michigan is not a Right To Work state, so I'll be paying duez either way so I might as well have a shiny union card and be able to roll up to teacher's union meetings in my 1972 blue GMC truck on spokes, step out in a 1000 fur coat, and say "what up doe."

But, the other day I was thinking about the ethics of having unionized teachers at a 2 year community college. I mean, obviously there should be some form of unionization so they can't pay us chickenshit and make us perform sexual favors on our superiors, but striking? I don't know about that, Chester. And here's why.

Now, the majority of a college's revenue is made a couple times a year, therefore it doesn't work like most businesses where money is made off the workers 365 days a year. So if teacher's go on strike for a week or so, the college doesn't lose that much money. This is different that the situation of coal miners going on strike, because unless Mr. Bushwazee wants to mine the coal his damn self, well, the coal doesn't get mined. If teachers go on strike, a bunch of people don't have to go to class, and can go listen to the new Ray Cash album instead. However.

What if you work in a community college in a low income area in a economically depressed state, and your job explicitly involves educating low income high school dropouts who want to turn their life around by going back to school? Well if you strike, they get hit the hardest. Especially if the college denies them their credits and just shuts down the whole program. I mean, that has the potential to fuck people's lives up. I personally would rather give somebody a second chance at not getting caught up in the system than have a paid vacation and a coffee mug or some shit.

So, folks, holler at me. Is a strike by teachers a strike against the common good, and therefore immoral? Or is it just a neccesary evil?

BTW my myspace finally has music on it. Peep game.

YouTube Sucks, And So Does Blogger.

2006-07-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

So I try to post the trailer for the M1-Confidential, and youtube doesn't want to host it, and blogger doesn't want to delete the post. So fuck y'all.

M1 Confidential Trailer

2006-07-20T11:33:00.000-04:00

The Walt Report

I Do Not Celebrate Bubba Sparxxx

2006-07-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

But I used to. Like, a lot. When I first heard Deliverance, man holy shit. Here was a rapper who was from almost exact the same background as me (major difference being side of the Mason-Dixon), talking about the shit that I saw around me every day. That remains one of my favorite albums of any genre ever. He even got political and started talking about racial unity and revolution at some points. So at that point dude was one of my favorite rappers.

So when I heard that he signed with OutKast and was releasing a new album, I about lost my shit. I was expecting a whole album of Organized Noize bangers and the kind of country rappin' that convinced me when I was 12 that I too could someday be a rapper. Then came Ms. New Booty. I chalked it up as a loss, and waited for the next single, which I thought would be some dope shit. I was wrong. Heat It Up sucks ass. So does the video.

So pretty much Bubba Sparxxx is dead to me now. It saddens me deeply, but that's how it is. Dude has lost touch of what made him great in the first place, and is just trying to do the popular thing to make money. I don't know if he realizes this, but he's blowing it on a much bigger scale than the average rapper. Bubba, like it or not, is one of the only working class rural white people prominent in the media right now. I was in the car with the homeboys last month talking about how much I hate Blue Collar Comedy, when the co-d Crash pointed out that Bubba Sparxxx is actually more negative because more people are exposed to his negativity. That's some real shit. Not only is he making it harder for all the other broke rural crackalacks trying to come up in the rap game, he's also making it harder for us to be taken seriously as a community. I mean, what does it say about us if the minute a young rural proletarian man becomes successful he runs off and buys a big ass house and doesn't do shit for his community? It's like dude says in No More Prisons, instead of fighting the establishment these days rappers are trying to be the establishment. Yeah Bubba, you're living lovely. But your folks back in La Grange, Georgia sure ain't.

So Bubba, you have officially lost your country pass. Make some positive shit, and you'll get it back. Until then, you do not speak for me or my people.

Termanology-Watch How It Go Down

2006-07-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna be real with you. Something about traditional East Coast gunclapper rap never really gets old to me. You give me some old school boom bap and a guy with MC skills talking about real life shit, and I'm straight. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I don't care. This is Termanology's new song, and it is sick as fuck. Even DJ Premier woke up from his perennial slumber and delivered a beat that doesn't sound exactly like his shit from 1995.

Termanology-Watch How It Go Down

New York still needs to get off its own dick though.

Yo, Let's Talk About De Man

2006-07-06T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Walt Report

Eminem Is Not Elvis

2006-07-06T09:06:00.000-04:00

But Kid Rock is.

Often in discussions of Eminem's place in rap music, he's been compared to Elvis, being that they're both white dudes who made black music. The problem with this is though, is that that isn't exactly what Elvis did.

See, let's flash back to the 1950s. The new developments in black music following the Great Migration have produced a myriad of new styles, one of which is rock and roll. The problem with rock and roll is that most white people see it as "race music", and it's not palatable to a mainstream audience. Now, rural white people were already being musically objectified through "honky tonk", "country/western", and other such things. Country music was marketable, but rock and roll and other forms of black music were not. The solution?

Combine them*! Lo and behold Elvis steps on the scene, producing music similar to that of black music, filtered through his own country background. The result is the rock and roll many of us know today, as well as one of the first significant developments of youth culture in America. However, the racial element of this transaction was largely ignored in white communities. The fact is, what Elvis did was take black music and make it safe enough for white people to listen to. But, some of Elvis' fan base may have begun to question where he stood on the color line. He dealt with that by saying racist shit on the radio so people would know where he stood. Supposedly, he went on the radio in Boston and said something to the affect of "The only thing Negroes can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my records!". Cuddly!

The reason that Eminem doesn't fit this description is rather complicated. The first being that Eminem, like most white rappers, tries as hard as he possibly can to be THE white guy. He's always surrounded by black guys, is in movies with black guys, makes music with black guys, etc. The key difference between the two of them is WHO their image is being marketed to (word to MM). In Em's case, his image was marketed to both black and white consumers. Elvis was basically just marketed to white people. Eminem's goal was the crossing of the color line, whilst Elvis' was simply bringing music OVER the line, capture the flag style. However, Eminem did have a close peer who was, in fact, the next Elvis. That was Kid Rock.

Straight out the gate, here he comes, from rural Romeo,MI. Combining "redneck rock" with rap, and in his own words "rocking out for the white kids". Back when he was popular, in my own home of Dansville,MI, he was a god. Everyone had his albums, and some cats even started buying fedoras just so they could look like him. All the rebellious white kids who were too racist/scared to listen to actual black rappers could listen to Kid Rock, a safe, white alternative. According to most of his old material (which I own, hey I said everyone), he was also very active in the Detroit rap scene back in the days, which I don't really know much about. However, I've also heard from multiple sources that the man is racist as hell. Now I know the Insane Clown Posse** may not be so reliable, but according to them and other people, dude would straight up say such things as "never trust a black person in this business." Again, cuddly!

Which is not to say that combining a rural white aesthetic with inner city black music is a bad thing. One word, Deliverance. Hell, even I have a song that was kind of a country swang to it. But I don't water my shit down so that racist white people will buy my records. So whatever.

*Note: This is not to discredit the genre of rockabilly or the cultural mixing that occured between rural whites and blacks in the mid 20th century, as it produced some amazing music. Witness Louis Armstrong's country album and one of Aretha Franklin's first singles.
**Note: ICP actually has convinced an entire generation of poor white kids to not be racist. A number of their songs are about killing bigots, and there's one called Fuck Your Rebel Flag.

Don't Make Me Remind Y'all Of What Happened In D.C.

2006-07-01T23:23:00.000-04:00

Now, when visiting our nation's capital, there are certain rules one must follow. In a helpful guide to the city on Yahoo Answers, one resident urged tourists to:

" stay away from the bad area of DC (ghetto area)...take metro much easier to get to if needed"

Or you could be like me and walk 20 blocks through it this afternoon. From that Jamaican restaurant by Georgia Ave. I strolled through the northwest side of DC until finally saying fuck this and taking a cab to where I needed to go.

What's up with this go go shit? I'm going to check some of it out monday night, as well as some documentary about the DC punk scene. And where are the damn record stores at? I was in one today and all they had was bullshit indie rock.

Anyway, I'll take some pictures tomorrow. I'll be here till tuesday, so if you want to do something, in the words of Paul Wall, holla at me.

McDonald's Is Fucking Disgusting

2006-06-06T09:36:00.000-04:00

Alright, so a couple weeks ago I was at a show kicking it with some folks and we got to talking about vegetarianism etc. So I decided that I was going to stop eating fast food and drinking carbonated beverages. I lasted about 12 days, ending on my senior class trip ('06, whooo!), when I relapsed into drinking Coke and what have you. And being that sunday I recieved a working bicycle and returned to my old habit of biking 6 miles a day, I decided that I could now return to eating fast food in moderation.

Last night, I hit up McDonald's for the first time in over 2 weeks, and those 4 burgers were amongst the most disgusting things I've ever eaten. I don't remember McDonald's food tasting like that at all, on the real. And seriously, I've been eating the shit on a regular basis ever since I was about 4. Actually, that period was the first time I can remember ever going more than a week without eating at McDonald's. Therefore, before that, every time I ate at McDonald's, some of whatever I ate there the last time was still in my system. And when whatever that was was not in my system, the food tasted absolutely rancid.

Therefore. We can deduce that McDonald's puts shit in its food to not only make it addictive, but also to make you not notice how fucking disgusting it is. I have yet to eat at Wendy's again, but as soon as I do I'll let you know what the dilly-o is. Also expect similar analyses of Taco Bell and Burger King.

If there's one positive to this, it's that I definitely managed to kick eating at at least one fast food joint.

also, sorry I've been gone for so long. I was a bit busy being in Florida, graduating, hitting on girls that work at Pizza Hut, drinking Kool Aid, and recieving the Big Walt Scholarship for Excellence in Badassology.

Shots-Welcome To The Suburbs

2006-05-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

So I'm at a show this weekend, I see my man Shots, he gives me this mixtape, and says I should review it on here. I take it back to the Waltcave, throw it in the stereo, and listen to it. Suffice to say, it was pretty badass. It's 4 tracks deep, and as far as I can tell the theme is using moving to the suburbs as a metaphor for being successful in life. Also, the idea behind the beats seems to be using samples from well known records, whilst making new beats. Lyrically, Shots kills it, especially with a reference to the immortal Value Village, which as I recall was where I bought my first Lions jersey as a young tyke way back in the 90s.

Anyway, his myspace is here. Go holler at him.

Also, if your name is Cedric and you called my place about rap related stuff yesterday, call again. I was eating.

Man, Who Cares About The Dixie Chicks?

2006-05-23T17:24:00.000-04:00

So today I'm reading my grandma's Time magazine and there's an article in there about how the "radical" Dixie Chicks are making a stand for what they believe in. That's some bullshit if you ask me. I find it interesting that the act they honor for being radical or whatever is a supersafe white country act that soccer moms listen to, and they haven't mentioned the Coup's new shit at all. And how much can we really trust Time's opinion, when just ten years ago they were running article about Violent Gangsta Rap. Fuck Time.

They Schools Can't Teach Us Shit!

2006-05-11T18:02:00.000-04:00

For those that care, I just got a 4.0 on my Honors Writing portfolio and ethered my Intermediate Algebra final. Which means that now all I have to do is test out of Economics and show up to government class I believe 8-9 more times to get my Dip-loma.

And if you don't like it, I'ma smack ya kufi off.

So, to continue all my dumbass Dipset references in this post:

Dear Redneck Ghetto High,
You suck. Soon I will be graduating, and moving on to better things. But don't worry, I'm not about to be one of those skeezos who hangs out in the parking lot after I have no reason too. No, I will be too busy sipping sizzurp and putting the killa season on swagger jackers, and will be forced to Leave You Alone.

We Don't Drink Pepsi We Just Sell............Amway!

2006-05-11T13:01:00.000-04:00

Alright, so last night some dudes came through to the Waltcave, trying to sell your boy on Quickstar. Now Quickstar is basically what happened when everyone figured out how fucking stupid Amway is. So they decided to change the name to Quickstar and switch the shit up a little bit, and then continue to try to sucker people with it. So what I was expecting was my friend (what's up Nick) and one of his friends to come through and drop science about economics and what have you for an hour, so that I could get back to studying for the daunting mathematics final that I have in about 3 hours. As it turns out, it was some hardcore Jehovah's Witness style "you will be assimilated" steelo. Anyway, so directly after that I went upstairs and listened to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and drank Kool-Aid for a while. Now, thinking about Scamway and selling yayo in the same 2 hour space got me thinking that selling cocaine (or meth, weed etc) and scammin' folks with Amgay are really the same thing, when it boils down to it. And here's why.

1.You have a bad reputation.
2.Nobody wants you in their house.
3.The only way you make money is being at the top of the pyramid.
4.Barely anybody understands how you actually do business.
5.Your trade will be forever immortalized by a classic rap album (oh wait, that only applies to one of them).
6.There are cities that are more famous for it than others (Grand Rapids being the Washington D.C. of Amway).

There are key differences though. For example, if you know drug dealers you have street credibility and can make rap records. If you know Amway people, odds are you're a weirdo Jesus freak. Oh and like I said, there have never been any awesome rap records made about Amway.

I'm On Fresh Mode

2006-05-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

The final death blow to New York rap hath been struck. See, whenever New Yorkers get all defensive about how bad their city fell off, they usually say something about the last old guard of NY rapsters who stay "grimy with it". This "old guard" generally includes Fat Joe and Jadakiss. Well, they have officially fallen off.

Paris Hilton feat. Jadakiss and Fat Joe-Fightin' Over Me.

It's The Little Things

2006-05-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

Man, is it just me or is solidarity with proletarian whites and minorities starting to pop off? In this long ass rant from Breakdown FM, Immortal Tech starts talking about how much he has in common with working class white people at about 4 minutes in. Cool shit.

http://odeo.com/audio/1013231/view

So No Shenanigans

2006-05-02T14:12:00.000-04:00

Tell me when to go. Well, as we all know, yesterday was the day without immigrants or whatever. Obviously I was expecting to go without being affected by it at all, which was not the case. Apparently the dude that buys the groceries for my cooking class decided to assert himself by being an hour late. Which was wack as hell. Anyway, it's link day in Waltville.

The ACLU wants people to protest funerals of soldiers.
Sorry dude, if my friend or relative got killed in some desert somewhere and some people were disrupting his funeral with this homophobic shit, it would be bad. Hate speech isn't protected speech right? I see this as the equivalent of yelling fire in a theater, because it could potentially cause violence. Namely me beating somebody's ass.

Apparently there aren't any "conscience" rapsters in the south.
1.All rap reflects its surroundings, therefore is conscious. Conscious=non threatening enough for white college students.
2.Dead Prez are from Florida you cockass.

We're getting a new Johnny Cash album.
As the Kool-Aid man would put it, OH YEAH!

X Amount Of Thoughts Carried Out In My Mind

2006-04-25T14:18:00.000-04:00

Hey! What did I tell you little fags about not telling me when Mr. Lif has a new album coming out? Holy shit. Maybe you guys didn't know, but Mr. Lif is basically one of the most slept on MC's ever. These two songs cribbed from the always coming through Art Of Rhyme, are from Mo Mega, which drops June 13th.

"Brothaz"

"Take, Aim, Fire "

This is why Def Jux is the shit, Regina.

Prom Prom Prom

2006-04-25T10:51:00.000-04:00

Well, the big day/night is about 3 weeks away. 3 weeks from now, we'll all be given an excuse to spend amounts of money that a lot of us don't have, and make a fool of ourselves for a few hours, all to the applause and fanfare of our vicariously living weirdo parents. Now this isn't postworthy in and of itself, but if you look at proms in their social context, it seems bizarre and almost inappropriate for them to still exist. That is, if you take a look at what prom is to a good number of the people that participate in it, and to a good number of the abovementioned sicko parents. But before I go all "school spirit is for herbs" on you good people, I feel the need to make a couple important points real quick.

See, the thing is, a lot of church type people and what have you hype prom up to be this horrific night of satanic debauchery where our children finally become adults amid a sea of drugs, drinking, and sex. This is quite obviously not the case, if you actually go to a high school and talk to at least one teenager a month. The fact is that teenagers get drunk and have sex with each other all year round. It's just inconvenient to center in on those activities then because then you kind of have to look at what creates those things, as opposed to just blaming it on a school activity. Simple enough. So in effect prom is overrated in the first place, and far too much bearing is placed on it in the big scheme of things. End of story.

But, I think we overlook how destructive the whole thing can potentially be to young people. The case that I myself have observed several times is that the male pays for everything and provides transportation, and the female.....uh "pays". How that situation is in any way positive or constructive is totally beyond me. I mean seriously, it pressures dudes to come up with excorbitant (sic) amounts of cash (which if you're like me, is damn near impossible), and girls, to well "fulfill their duties to the party"-1984 style. Now this wouldn't be so important, had we not observed so much of this in our own society outside of prom. This system has been deeply rooted in our society since jump, but should we really be encouraging and fostering it in a school atmosphere? I mean it's at the point where if you DON'T engage in this behavior you're looked down on by the adults that are supposed to be in charge. I've even had teachers tell me that such behavior is part of the experience. I hate to sound repetitive, but, ahem, that's whoa.

I don't know, then again I could just be bitter because I don't have a date yet, which was theorized yesterday. So uh, if you're ten kinds of hot and want to go to the Redneck Ghetto High School Prom with me, fire an email my way. And preferably be somebody I know in real life, I don't want to get axed murdered.

Why Nazis Suck Balls

2006-04-18T18:02:00.000-04:00

What a brilliant fucking idea.
Apparently "Prussian Blue", who we were all tired of hearing about anyway, decided to send a bunch of donations to all the white people affected by Katrina, albeit with white power pamphlets enclosed. Gee! Let's help Caucasians out by giving them food and clothes, but also providing them with more of the same racist bullshit that's been holding them back for 300 years!

So what we have here is kids that were homeschooled by racist parents espousing racist beliefs in public? Holy Shit!

Stuff For Today

2006-04-18T13:10:00.000-04:00

Well, the LCC semester is coming to a close. Counting this week there's 2 weeks left and then finals. Senior skip day is "tentatively" Friday, and I'm about a month away from being a full fledged human being. Well not really because I'll still be 15 and shit, but I'll be a real live college student and as of September I'll be able to drive around the redneck ghetto at 10 miles an hour listening to KMD-Black Bastards at a pull-me-over-please volume. That's a weird weird feeling. Anyway, all I did this weekend was make Easter dinner and see a movie with my token burban friend. Yeah I know ivory, and......poor ivory. I'm being a lazyass today, so all you hoes get is a bunch of links to shit.

You all know how I feel about Diamond's first album (nullus of course)
This is a post from Spliff Huxtable about his career, being the last of seven posts about him. Quite a good read, with some of those weird rap songs with no rapping on them at the end.

The dude who Proof allegedly shot died.
This is basically just a messed up situation all around. Being that like 2 people self included showed up to the forum here to discuss Proof's death, I still have no idea exactly what transpired. So stop emailing me about it.

Rappers continue to show up in comment sections.
This is old as hell but I don't know if anybody noticed it. I don't know, I guess I'm kind of a backpacker myself but I really like Little Brother and 9th Wonder. His using of the same fuckin' drums every time aside, most of his shit is dope as hell. Especially that new Murs album.

And this is the gayest thing I have ever seen. Nullus x90000 for even posting this on my blog, for real. But I'd figure I'd clue people in to Pac's....uh...gayness.

Hyper-Sexualization Of Rural Women

2006-04-11T17:05:00.000-04:00

So today I was reading Model Minority's post on the relationship between Buffie The Body and Venus Hottentot, when I decided to do what I always do, being that it got me thinking about the hyper-sexualization and objectification of women from my own community. Now the other day the homeboys and I went to see Slither at the local "we don't check ID theater". In the movie, a stereotypical "redneck girl" who tries to get with the alien infected guy ends up being forced to bear alien children and what have you. So basically what happens is a cliched figure from a community whose women are stereotyped as oversexed welfare mothers falls victim to her own, well sexuality with her illegitimate baby in the room, and is eventually turned into a giant womb and destroyed by the spawn she's forced to bear. As our friend Black Rob would say, that's whoa.

See I'm always bitching about how much it blows to be a young white working class male, but the fact is females from my background have it even worse in some cases. Every time you see one of the women from my community on television or in movies, she's either a sex fiend like the one pictured above or a morbidly obese chain smoking "giant womb". For the first stereotype, think of Daisy Duke, Joy from My Name Is Earl, or that one Jessica Simpson video. For the second, think of Cletus' wife on The Simpsons, or all the women on Maury/Montel/Springer. Now, these can both be seen as basic sexist archetypes of women that we hold in our society anyway, but in the case of the working class rural caucasian ones they're blown way out of proportion. Also not helping is the "Redneck" side of modern country music. "I'm a redneck woman, ain't no high class broad." translates directly to "I don't have enough confidence or self-esteem to resist a race/class system that hates me, so I'm going to resign myself to redneck status". Gee, with images like that in the media being the only role model for millions upon millions of young rural girls, is it any wonder they have the 2nd highest teen pregnancy rate?

The fact of the matter is, as funny as these stereotypes are, nobody thinks about the consequences that they have for young rural working class women. The basic message is, be really hot and have sex with whoever you want until say, age 20, when you get pregnant, sign up for food stamps, and resign yourself to a life of raising kids and screaming at them in either a trailer park or backwoods shack. The question is, how do the people that write all of that shit into movie and televison scripts sleep at night? You ain't gotta tell me what that causes, my little brother tells me about the effects of it that he observes on the school bus. Matter of fact, I myself observed the effects at uh every school day/dance/football game I've ever been to. Everyone who buys into these stereotypes is part of the problem. At least people with y-chromosomes from where I'm from have 2pac and Eminem to relate to. Whatever shortcomings both of them have, they're a HELL of a lot more positive than Gretchen Wilson.

The question is, where do images such as these come from. The thing is, the bakra need to feel better about themselves. Now what's the easiest way to feel better about yourself? Hate on other people. So they encourage negative stereotypes of everybody who isn't a rich white person through their control of the media. You'll notice that you can't think of any negative stereotypes of rich white people, but our folk wisom is full of unpleasant images of minorities and poor white people. The concept is that obviously nobody in the suburbs is sexually perverse, drug using, and lazy, because everybody that does that is poor and lives in either a project or a trailer park. You can't do that stuff and be rich! There's no way you'd be successful! Therefore, anybody who's poor is poor because of their own stupidity, laziness, and hypersexuality, because that's what all the poor people on television do. Why else would they be poor? So the end result is that rich white people feel better about themselves, AND they have a reason for why so much of the country is poor. It's killing two birds, and the self-esteem of millions of girls with one big rich white fat cigar smoking stone! Think about it.

Rest In Peace Proof

2006-04-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

Proof of D12 was murdered last night. God, first we lose Dilla, and now Proof? What did he do to deserve this? When's it gonna end? Rest in Peace.

BLOGGER FUCKING SUCKS

2006-04-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

So of course the one day that I decide to post something other than "uh school sucks really bad, this is what rap music I like", bitchass blogger decides to be suckass and delete it. It was a post about images of rural women in the media, and I thought it was really good. So I'm probably gonna post it sometime in the near future, but I took a whole hour to write it, so now I have to go eat lunch and of course study for my weaksauce math test. God this fucking sucks. Anyway, expect it by thursday, if not tomorrow.

Immortal Technique Becomes Kool

2006-04-06T18:12:00.000-04:00

"What do you think Down South MCs are bringing to the table?

I mean, no one expects miraculous lyrics from a Down South artist, but them niggas ain’t stupid. They experience more racism, more government abuse and more poverty than any part of the country, except maybe Michigan and some [Native American] reservations. So regardless of lyrics, they sound hungry to express their pain. Sure, we hear the commercial tracks on radio from them, but the others songs have content. We, as the East Coast, are held to another standard though, by people like you, by the hip-hop community."

Church!

I Want A West African Rhino So I Can Slam Wack MCs Right In They Spinal

2006-04-06T08:39:00.000-04:00

I got the internet goin' nuts too Paul. What it do.

Anyway, today's post is going to be about the meth problem in the Midwest, because as far as I can tell I've never done a proper post about it, which is pretty ridiculous. It's a huge fucking problem everybody. Especially in the rural Midwest, it's basically everywhere. I remember when I was 11 there was a whole apartment building down the road from my house blown up by a "gas leak". Yeah right. Obviously there are no "statistics" about this shit, because for the most part the government doesn't give a fuck about us, unless they have a war for us to fight in. I don't hang out with people that are involved with shit like that anymore, but I've heard from people on the school bus and whatnot that as much as 1 in 10 houses out here is a meth lab. Now that's probably not the exact number, but seriously. It's at the point where I know middle schoolers that know more about the shit than I do. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic but it's a BIG problem. It's been spreading east from Washington state since the early 90s, but it didn't hit here until maybe 2-3 years ago. Still though, shit is bad. People in the country in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and what have you are getting blasted right now at higher rates than in New York City. How long till that starts happening here?

Also, the problem is being compounded by the fact that the government is doing so little to stop it that they may as well make it legal and serve it with school lunches. From refusing to regulate the 9 factories in the world that produce pseudoephedrine, to allowing cops to be herbs about busting meth labs. Seriously, the cops are totally bitch about it. Yeah I know the shit could blow up and kill you, but it's also blowing up and killing little kids and babies at disgusting rates. I thought your job was to protect and serve, faggot. And not to protect your own ass and serve coffee and donuts either. Anyway, more on the regulation of the pharmeceutical companies that produce ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine, the prime ingredients of crystal meth. The shit is produced by 9 factories in the world, and when the DEA/FDA told the companies that buy from those factories to change Sudafed and such to being over the counter as opposed to just sold on the shelf, they had a conniption. "Wahwahwah, you can't blame the ingredients for the problem! What if you have a cold??? Waaaaaaaaah." What a bunch of corrupt bitches. The real reason they don't want the stuff to be regulated is that they're making millions of dollars off of something that's gutting my people. If I ever see that dude that was the spokesman for the pharmeceutical companies in "Faces Of Meth" around here, he's going up in ICU.

So think about that. Basically, for Uncle Sam, meth is a dream come true. It fucks up poor communities, and they don't even have to smuggle it in like they did with crack. It's already here, in every pharmacy and grocery store. And if they allow it to continue, maybe they'll be able to further infringe on our civil liberties to "protect" us. Anyway, rural peoples wake the fuck up, and stop making meth, and stop selling it, and stop looking the other way when people do both of those things. The government is going to help us. They hate us. They've hated us for the last 400 years. It's up to us to do for self and fix our shit up so that the next generation of kids to grow up here doesn't have to deal with all this shit. Stop sitting around waiting for Uncle Sam to spoon feed you your Nascar, wrestling, and oppression. And stop blaming all your problems on Blacks and Mexicans. They didn't do anything to hurt us, but the man whose flag is hanging outside your house did. Know your enemy.

Anyway, this is fucking hilarious. Anticon sucks ass.

I'm A Lazy Boy, Because I Do Flip Out

2006-04-04T10:35:00.000-04:00

Yeah I know, cheap joke but whatever. School is turning into a nightmare as it usually does around April, so today's just going to be a bunch of links.

The Liuns Den are a crew out of Long Island, currently residing in Atlanta, and they are sick as fuck. There's like 15 of them, and they all spit fire. Also, they distinguish themselves from all the other underground rappinators in that they have kind of a reggae flavor to some of their rhymes. This is significant, because before this basically all mixes of reggae and rap have sucked to me, but this shit is dope. Hopefully this will be the new trend in conscious rap.

Well actually that's it, I need to go study for my math quiz this afternoon. Read my whole blogroll if you're that bored.

I'm Not Trying To Sound Anarchist, But...

2006-03-28T13:18:00.000-05:00

If you, like me, fashion yourself to be a "revolutionary" and all that corny shit, you will immediately click here and purchase "A Disjointed Search For The Will To Live" by Shaka N'Zinga. It's a relatively typical "prison intellectual" diatribe, but it's consciousness expanding as hell and resonated with me on a huge scale. Especially this passage here.

" That which has been taken from us will not be regained back overnight, especially not after 400 years in this insanity, and then the history of our own individual experiences of being exposed to the deadly effects of the culture of death. We each have had to (and if we haven't we have to" wage an internal struggle to disengage the full effect of our enemy's world view. It will take time, but we will have to do it if we are ever going to win that which is ours by birthright: Independence and Self-Determinatrion."

That's the edited version, so edited to provide the way I look at a lot of shit lately. As a "conscious" member of a marginalized and underpriveledged group in this country, you find yourself sometimes slipping and having predjudiced thoughts almost on reflex. I usually catch myself, but then I'm fucked up and disturbed about it for at least an hour or two. I find myself thinking "am I really conscious, or just predjudiced as hell and pretending to be conscious so I can fit into the scene that revolves around the music I like???". I obviously can only speak for myself, but I have a pretty good idea other people have this problem too. People of all colors coming up in this country definitely have to disengage themselves from the racist and classist "folk wisdom" that pervades it, but because of how much of it's been implanted in our minds that process is really fucking hard. And the fact that more of it gets put in our brains by the media every day isn't really helping either.

Mitten Flavor-Elzhi

2006-03-23T10:59:00.000-05:00

See I told you. I'm once again going to try to give some dap to rapsters in Michigan, home state of Malcolm X and where I currently hang my Kangol. Anyway, a perfect example of the way people not from New York get kind of phased out by critics is the way rappinators from Detroit and the music they make recieves very little attention from Bitchfork and their ilk. This is odd, because I'd venture that as non-New York rap styles go, Detroit rap is very grounded in old schoo NYl boom bap. That is, Lawless Element has more in common with De La Soul than E-40 does. But yet their album last year "Soundvision:In Stereo" wasn't jumped all over like anything Dipset related was. And it should have been, I don't own that album yet but I've heard it a couple times and it's fucking sick as hell.

Anyway, the main point of this post is to discuss Elzhi, who in my opinion is a prime candidate to be the next "God MC". Obviously due to the issues discussed earlier, very few people are up on him, and if they are he's "one of those metro Slum Village guys". While I will admit SV isn't exactly my favorite group, the criticisms directed at them should in no way go toward Elzhi. If you ever hear any of his solo shit, dude is grimy as hell. His solo mixtape Witness My Growth (which you need right now) is probably the best mixtape I've ever heard. Granted I usually hate mixtapes, but this shit is just sick. Honestly I don't know much about Elzhi's history other than he's been rapping for a while now and was in a couple of groups before SV (F.O.D., 9-2-5 Colony). All I know is that he makes some sick ass rap music and that if he gets all the right producers for his solo album and doesn't compromise his creativity at all, he could potentially make the best rap album ever. So you guys can know what I'm talking about, I'm going to throw up two songs from the abovementioned mixtape.

Boomerang Slang (prod. DJ House Shoes)
This is an older song from Elzhi, produced by House Shoes, one of the more important DJs in Detroit. Flipping an ill sample of "Mercy Me" by Marvin Gaye, it's just Elzhi rapping about living in Detroit and all the the stuff that he sees there. Probably one of the better songs on the mixtape.

Get It Up (prod. Young RJ)
Another banger, this is a slower more electronic track produced by Young RJ from B.R. Gunna. More on a normal braggadocio tip than Boomerang Slang, but dope nonetheless. This is typical of Detroit rap, in that it bangs in the ride, yet can still be listened to while you're drinking coffee at 2 in the morning or whatever.

Anway, Elzhi is dope. Go get his mixtape here.

I Know, I'm Retarded

2006-03-21T11:19:00.000-05:00

I know this is what happened last semester, but right now I'm pretty much swamped with school and I can't do a post right now. I know this is the second time in a row and everything but hey, school is important right. I mean the sooner I get out of college the sooner I can start being Hip Hop again, right KRS? So I guess instead of doing a real post I'll just throw up a video or two and hope you'll forgive me.

This is the video for "nerd rapper" Apathy's new single. I know Apathy hangs out with doofusfaces like Celph Titled and he's from Connecticut (hahahahaha), but this video is pretty fucking grimy. Did he fly out to NY to film it, or is this the 4 block ghetto in CT? Or did his homies at Greenbriarbrooktown Technology Magnet High School take a video of him rapping in front of the pop machine at lunch and then digitally put him in the e-ghetto. I'm just kidding, I'm sure there are bad parts of Connecticut (hahahahahahaha) but it's kind of weird that he hangs out with the Demigodz (hahahahahaha) and then makes a video with all of these random gangsta looking dudes. Is he trying to be hard now? At least nobody from the Stales Of Beyond is in it. This song is dope btw.

Gone Fishin'

2006-03-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm going to put myself on a "Soundclick Remix" of this shit too (thanks Art Of Rhyme). Actually, maybe I'll do a whole mixtape of my "agro-centric knowledge" verses on songs with other conscious rappers, which would probably suck but it would be cool to hear my perspective on the above song, talking about how Bush fucks my people over too. Anyway, you guys aren't getting a post today, I'm off in the LCC library studying for my math test in 5 hours (which I hopefully won't bomb). Also, I want to shout out my DHS government teacher Mr. H, if he's reading this. Even if I disagree with a lot of what he teaches in that class, he at least listens to what I have to say and respects it. I mean obviously a Government class taught in a school run by the US government is going to be the diametric opposite of what I believe in, but whatever, I need the credit so I can graduate from the slave machine and go to college etc. And as a class it totally murders my Modern History class last semester, in THAT class I was rapping "They Schools" in my head every day. I mean with classes like that it's no wonder rural kakazians at the bottom of the ladder in terms of education.

Rural Gentrification-A Double Edged Sword

2006-03-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to take a picture of the field across the corner from my house (which is getting all built up), but of course my camera's out of batteries so we'll have to suffice with this lovely photograph. Anyway, I was reading the homeboy Phil's post about gentrification in the ghetto, and I had the idea to do what I always do. That is, take a problem in the inner city, discover the exact same thing is going on down the road from where I live, and then do a blog post/rap song about it. As it stands, Dansville (my town) is getting built up, what with a subdivison popping up on the south side of the village proper, and expensive ass houses sprouting up like corn or some shit. The situation that's arising is suburban expatriates having little "immigrant communities", going to each other's parties and what have you, totally ignoring the people that have been there for generations. Now this is somewhat hypocritical, as I'm originally from the Detroit area anyway and my family moved here when I was 2, but I grew up here blah blah blah. Anyway, this is the part where I stop being a weirdo and actually discuss the issue at hand.

The first thing we're going to look at in terms of rural gentrification is the (groans) positives. As limited as they are, there are a couple good things that could happen as a result of burban ass yuppies moving here. The first is pretty obvious. Education. I don't think I need to tell you how awful and underfunded rural schools are. I mean shit, DHS still has textbooks from the 1980s talking about this new amazing thing called computers. So obviously if there's rich people around, they aren't going to stand for that crap. They (unlike so many of my people) actually care about education, which is obviously going to have a positive effect on the rural community in general. Also, if there are lawyers and what have you living around here then the Ingham County Sheriffs might actually come around more than once a month to do something other than pointlessly mess with people. Beyond that, having more people with money around will probably bring some more businesses, which will create more jobs. Now, I will tell you how none of that is going to benefit my friends and I AT ALL.

Obviously if people keep moving in and building expensive ass houses, everyone's property values keep going up. The result of this is property taxes going so high that all the poor and working class people can't afford to pay them, therefore they move further out into the country where the land's cheaper. Now think about it, how are these people going to reap the benefits of the improvement of somewhere they had to move away from? And even if they DO stay, the class tension is going to be just insane. Already at DHS there's a "white trash table" and a "white trash hallway". People of different social classes go to different parties and everything just like their parents do. Obviously I'm going to be getting the hell out of here in the next year or two, but I'd rather be hanging out with a bunch of people with the same struggle and problems as me than a bunch of people who look down on their neighbors. The question is, how this happens.

Well as any geography class will tell you, the basic structure of America is as follows. Every metropolis has a core downtown area where all the businesses are and the "young urban professionals" live. An example of this is downtown Brooklyn or Lansing. Outside of this is the "zone in transition" of the inner city, where poor minorities tend to live, such as Bed-Stuy or South Lansing. Now as the downtown are expands, part of the zone in transition becomes gentrified, forcing poor minorities farther into the zone in transition, which causes the zone in transition to expand. This in turn scares the shit out of all the rich people in the suburbs, who flee the coming of the scary minorities and move further from the city. Now eventually as this process continues, the burbans run into the scary country people. Then the above detailed property tax process drives the country folk further out into, well, the country, which further messes up their access to education, housing, and what have you. So basically at any given time the makeup of populations looks the same, though the basic model is expanding rapidly at the moment.

I'd Rather Be Gunned Down Than Dumbed Down

2006-03-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

This is the video to one of the songs from M1's new album "Confidential". See this is what I'm talking about when I say that I love and hate Dead Prez at the same time. This song is just the illest shit ever. K'Naan and M1 just come with it. I like this song so much I might have to do a remix with myself in there, Soundclick style. This is the kind of music I want to make. Anyway, I'm not doing anything at the slave machine right now so I figured I would post what my favorite music is right now, in terms of songs, artists, and producers. Natch.

Songs:
1.Dead Prez-Hip Hop (see what I mean?)
2.Juvenile-Get Ya Hustle On
3.Outkast-13th Floor
4.Phat Kat-Dedication To The Suckers
5.Memphis Bleek feat. MOP-First Last and Only
6.One Be Lo-Axis
7.Asylum 7 feat.Magestik Legend-Hold Ya Weight
8.Ghostface-All I Got Is You
9.Lil' Wayne-Hustler Musik
10.Saigon-What Am I Gonna Do

Rapsters
1.One Be Lo
2.MF Doom
3.Saigon
4.Scarface
5.Ghostface
6.Juvenile
7.Brother Ali
8.Murs
9.Nas
10.Common('s old shit)

Albums
1.One Be Lo-S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M.
2.Cannibal Ox-The Cold Vein
3.Goodie Mob-Soul Food
4.MF Doom-Operation Doomsday
5.Raekwon The Chef-Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
6.A Tribe Called Quest-The Low End Theory
7.Cage-Hell's Winter
8.The Last Poets-S/T
9.Miles Davis-Kind Of Blue
10.Mongo Santamaria-Skins

Producers
1.Jay Dee
2.Madlib
3.Jake One
4.Ant
5.No I.D.
6.Just Blaze
7.Mannie Fresh
8.DJ Premier
9.MF Doom
10.Kuraden

On a darker note, the whole fucking Midwest is being torn apart by storms and tornadoes. So hopefully my house doesn't get blown away Wizard Of Oz-style.

This Is Legit Rap, IRS Can Suck My Books

2006-03-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

As anybody who read my post Monday or knows me personally (and was annoyed because I wouldn't STFU about it) knows, last night I went down to Detroit to see Ghostface Killah and a couple other dudes. The club was pretty packed, and contrary to what I expected was actually somewhat diverse. I was basically expecting it to be all White dudes, but it was about half and half with Black dudes and a few Latinos in there. It was obviously a religous experience, aside from the fact that they played Young Zee-Musical Meltdown on the PA like 6-7 times instead of just having a DJ spinnin' up there. But I digress. What follows is a rundown of what transpired, and what awesome awesomeness it was. Sorry there's no pics, but security was everywhere and getting my ass beat and thrown out for trying to take a blurry ass video of Trife and Cappadonna screaming wasn't really in the game plan.

When I walked in with a couple dudes I was with (no homo) to the warm Christian brotherhood of Young Zee telling me how wack I was, there were maybe 50-60 people there already. We waited around and bullshitted with some dudes from Royal Oak (bougie as hell) for a minute, and then one of them looked at the program (gasp) and came to the stunning revelation that Buff 1 from the Athletic Mic League was going to do a set before M1, who was in turn performing before Ghostface. Now all that meant was that I was going to have to wait around even longer for the dude I paid like 30 dollars to see (no homo), which kinda pissed me off. Anyway, after a couple more minutes of standing around Buff 1 and his DJ came on and did a set. I'm not a big AML fan by any means but dude fucking ripped it. He had mad energy, which obviously opening rapsters need to have. You don't want folks falling asleep, catch? Just straight up Michigan rap the way it's supposed to be. So even though he was an unexpected addition to the lineup his performance definitely didn't leave a foul taste in my mouth.

So after he was done and they put Zee on again, we pretty much just stood around and waited for M1 to come on. Now y'all already know how I feel about Dead Prez, so I was pretty much expecting to be really pissed off and annoyed after M1 did his shit. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't. He did some stuff with his little weed carrier dude, did a joint or two from his new album, and then did some Dead Prez stuff. Now I gotta be honest, when he did "Hip Hop" and went batshit and jumped up and down screaming the whole song with him. That's seriously one of my favorite songs ever. Of course he was doing his whole political steez the whole time, but that was straight. Like I said, I agree with him and sticman about basically everything aside from their dumbshit racism and some of their economic views. We all screamed "Fuck The Police" a bunch of times, and he actually made some references to racial unity. So maybe he actually read my post, ha ha. Anyway his set was hype as hell and got me ready to go out and take aim at some Crown Victorias. He didn't say anything stupid, so I could kind of pretend he wasn't an ignorant loser for 45 minutes.

After that, guess what. More waiting. We just stood around, and then when the lights got all dim and J-Love starting yelling into the mic we all went crazy and starting screaming "GHOSTFACE!" and allathat. But when the lights came up, guess who we say. Fucking Trife and HIS weed carrier! Now I love Trife and everything but c'mon, don't get us all excited and then go on and do some of your shit that nobody's heard before. He did a couple ok songs, then the lights went all dim again and we all started screaming again, and.........Cappadonna. He ran out and did some of his corny ass songs (yet not 97 Mentality, the best shit he's ever done), then Slang Editorial. Now I gotta say, Cabbbadriver is a fucking beast. For some reason I always pictured him as a short fat dude because that's how he looked in Raekwon's old videos, but he was all tall and muscular and shit, inexplicably. So after his shit the lights went down again and I didn't bother to scream because I figured it would be, like, the Easter Bunny or some shit next, but then the beat for Criminology came on and I just went crazy. Some dude shoved past me trying to like slap hands with Ghost or something and apparently also tried to shove past some other dudes who promptly beat his ass. So my man's Fishscale poster ended getting stomped on and fucked up but it's gravy, because now it has character or whatever. Ghostface then ripped through a couple more songs, then screamed something about how his crew was in the building, so then they did a couple Theodore Unit songs, which were kind of boring. Anyway after that he started taking requests as to what songs he should do, which resulted in him performing the awesome "Apollo Kids" and "Holla", both of which I lost my shit and screamed along to.

After that he had the genius idea to ask all of the chicks in the house who wanted to dance with Ghostface to come up to the stage, and because my buddies and I are souljahs and we were up by the stage we were literally knocked over by a wave of women. Maybe half of them were hot, the other half looked like crack prostitutes. So then he had J-Love put some music on and had them all dance, which I guess was kinda cool, and then launched into Ghost Showers, had some chick pretend to be his girlfriend while he did "Back Like That" (which I seem to be the only person who liked), and then performed "Wildflower" acapella. While he was doing "Wildflower" this White hipster chick standing behind him rapped the whole thing with him, which was awesomely awesome. After that he did a few more songs, said the whole "Peace out" thing and told us to go buy some shit, and then ran back out and did "Mighty Healthy", which was awesome. There were a couple cool parts in there that I didn't mention, like when he had a moment of silence for ODB and played the "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" instrumental and had the crowd do all the words, and when they did that whole "which side of the club is louder" thing. All in all, it was a sick ass show, and could only have been better without all the weed carriage in Ghost's set and the abysmally bad sound quality. OH and I bought a huge ass Fishscale poster from a homeless dude that ripped it off one of the rafters. That too was awesomely awesome.

US Race Statistics=Skewed?

2006-03-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

I guess it's really ironic that while I think race is a hoax, I spend a lot of time thinking about it and it's one of my favorite things to write about. It's obviously one of if not the single most important issue in this country right now, as it's inseperable from class, politics, economics, religion, and all the other things in my profile under "interests". So of course I've spent alot of time thinking about it for the past couple years, as well as whether or not it's even looked at correctly. I mean seriously, we're obviously moving toward a new race situation, from the old Black/White/Native model to Black/White/Hispanic/Asian/Arabic/Native and all possible combinations. So the question is exactly why the way we look at race is incorrect and our statistics regarding it also incorrect?

Well obviously the first answer is that the model of race which has been accepted by the general public since like 1492 or whatever was wrong and racist in the first place. This whole Black/White thing in itself is bullshit. My arguments about whether or not people from my background should be considered White aside, as I look at my hand right now it's more of a light pink. And when I said what's up to this dude I was rappin' with on Saturday he looked pretty brown to me. Pink and brown aren't opposites, black and white are. So is it really any question why the people in control of colonial US society made all those race divisons? Not to me. After you read maybe half a book on the subject it becomes pretty obvious that race is a social construct created to justify slavery and oppression in the 16th century. So in effect this whole post is moot but the fact of the matter is most people still think in terms of race so if we want to be able to have a conversation with pretty much anybody we have to do that too. And on what I said earlier about not being actually "White" is my next point on why all of our studies on race have been erroneous.

Look, ever since there's been a "White" population here there have been two distinct groups of "White" people. So basically all of our statistics involving White poverty/crime/drugs/education are messed up, because we're counting two different populations as one and assuming they have the same characteristics. If it were possible to statistically seperate these two groups (it probably isn't) shit would be way different. I imagine the "lower whites" would have ridiculously high crime and poverty and drugs and much lower education than the "upper whites". As it is, "White" poverty and such is lower than that of non-"Whites" simply because both groups of "Whites" have each other to balance out said statistics. If you count the "lower whites" as a seperate group there's a chance they would have similar characteristics statistically to other minority groups. Also important to this argument is the fact that in America's popular culture and folk wisdom there are already two distinct groups of "White" folks, yet they aren't counted seperately in the census etc. So basically "white trash" people are a phantom population that exists on TV and when you drive through the country on your way to grandma's house, but not as a seperate entity in government studies. I guess it's pretty hard to help people that don't exist, eh? But that's not all.

Anybody else who saw that trainwreck of a movie "Domino" like I did Friday night also witnessed the somewhat offensive portion where "Lateesha Rodriguez" goes on Jerry Springer and attempts to educate her peers on her new system of racial classification, with colorful terms such as "Blacktino" and "Japanic". As ignorant as this is, it's also a really insightful look into California's racial politics right now. My dad was recently telling me that the affirmative action system out there is breaking down because there's a rapidly expanding mixed race population. Especially in the case of Latinos, who was I'm told are often composed of several different races already, it seems pretty absurd to try to put people inside boxes like that. I mean shit I may be Kakazian/Native American, but my family has like 3-4 "races" in it and I have several mixed race relatives. A couple generations down the line my folks are going to start needing like 8 boxes when they take the SATs and shit. So why not just throw race as a concept out altogether and stop trying to label people? (Voice in back-"Because as long as people are divided along color lines they won't figure out that the government's oppressing them"). OH YEAH that's right. Thanks Voice In Back. Look out for his new blog coming next season, the Voice In Back Report.

So the basic gist of this is that our concept of race to begin with was incorrect and messed up, but now is TOTALLY breaking down, which is entirely a good thing. So Babylon is either going to have to come up with new ways of dividing people are we'll have the "resurrection of the multi-hued insurrection". Peace.

Note: LCC is on break, so I might be posting every day this week. Also, guess who I'm seeing tomorrow night.

Voice In Back-Billy Joel
Walt-Nope. I'm seeing.....GHOSTFACE! YAY!

What's School For?

2006-03-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

Why, to enforce your radical politics on everyone else in the class, what else? And if the above image offends you, welcome to my world. The other day we were discussing racial slurs in my college writing class, and of course the dude in the row behind me decided it would be a good idea to use the word redneck as a catchall for people who use such words. C'mon duke. If you're gon' use that word make sure there aren't any Agro-Centric lunatics in the class who have been reading Howard Zinn and drinking coffee all day. Not that I was a dick to him or anything, but soon the whole class was full of the usual bewildered terror that usually results when a "redneck" asserts his cultural identity and suggests maybe he has a right to not be slurred and discriminated against. Shit, you should have seen the faces of the crowd when I did a spoken word piece about the Redneck Ghetto at an open mic the other day. I guess being one of the first rural rapsters to be all KRS-1 about their situation is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I'm gifted with the opprotunity to be one of the originators of a new movement for empowerment in my community, and maybe someday my picture will be hanging on people's walls and shit. The downside is that nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about at the moment and all they see is some lanky hick in a camo fitted and Avirex pants trying to be Gil-Scott Country with his bama ass.

Anyway, this is all leading into an excerpt from the paper I wrote for that class about the word redneck, which Model Minority suggested I post here. This is just a paragraph, email me at here if you want to read the rest.

"Before we can criticize a word, we must examine where it came from, what it means, and the sociopolitical conditions that created it. In the case of the word redneck, it is evident that it developed during the colonization of the Americas and the slave/servitude system that was devised to fuel that colonization. Beginning as soon as the European aristocracy discovered the New World, poor Europeans (primarily of Irish descent) and enslaved Africans were relocated to North America, South America, and the Caribbean to build settlements, harvest the new crops found in these regions, and generally to provide labor at a negligible or abysmally low cost. In the case of the Caucasian slaves and servants, debtors, criminals, political prisoners, and sometimes even kidnapped children and orphans were taken against their will to these parts of the world and condemned to a life of servitude. In the fledgling American society, a system of a European aristocracy oppressing with equal fervor Caucasian servants, African slaves, and Native Americans soon arose. It was in this environment that the word “redneck” originated. The melanin deficient members of the workforce who were bending over in the fields of the New World harvesting and planting crops soon developed painful sunburn on the backs of their necks. Similar to having dark skin and worn hands in the fields of Cambodia in the 20th century, having a “red neck” was a sign of being part of the worker caste. One of the symptoms of the horrific oppression of this group soon became its only identity.

Obviously in the enforced and “standard” language of the European upper class, this word soon became a catch all term for the rural Caucasian working class. As words tend to do, it followed this group as it either remained in the South or migrated throughout the Midwest and West. Today they reside in diverse locales such as inner city project buildings, working class suburbs, and the abovementioned rural areas and trailer parks. The stereotypes attached to them still persist in the collective unconscious of America’s people, and can be found in most if not all facets of our popular culture. It is not uncommon to turn on Comedy Central and see a Caucasian man wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt espousing the virtues of “country livin’” and proudly claiming to be a redneck, when in reality this is anything but comedic.

Even in rural communities, the people who would reasonably be expected to rail against this word embrace it proudly, along with “hillbilly, hick, and cracker”. Even some of my best friends (I am from the above detailed demographic) use the word and its ilk excessively. Just last week one of my friends declared our section of the cafeteria to be the “white trash table”. The question is why members of my community choose to go down such a self-deprecating route to self-determination. The obvious answer is that the constant barrage of images depicting us as “rednecks” has subconsciously conditioned us to accept our position as members of the lowest echelon of society. The use of the word represents a subconscious resignation to be a “ignorant redneck hick”. This self hatred is obviously very detrimental to the progress of the working class rural community as it further tries ( or does not try) to integrate into mainstream American society. Obviously, Toby Keith and Jeff Foxworthy aren’t helping anything either."

Niyabinghi and peace out.

Ghostface and Doom=Doom's last chance?

2006-03-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, MF Doom is one of if not my current favorite rapper. However, with all of this overexposure he's getting and that mediocre as hell DangerDoom album, I'm really worried about his career. Everybody from DJ Nu-mark to all the hipsters at Bitchfork etc are jocking him, and it's looking like he may almost be starting to fall off. Now, Ghostface is another one of my favorite rappers, so when I heard the two were working together I damn near shit myself. As a matter of fact, I made the face which currently adorns my Blogger profile. And then I heard Charlie Brown. As you could see earlier, I was feeling it. Then I listened to it more than 4 times and realized it was wack as hell. Then yet again I heard one of the tracks from Fishscale with Doom on the beat (Clips of Doom). It's dope as hell, and so is this. The song from the link is called "Angeles" and is some sort of Charlie's Angels thing. The beat is nice, and both Ghostface and Doom correct.

So I guess I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. As Robbie was quick to point out, it's common knowledge that Doom and Ghost are either "cookin' up some marvelous shit" or making ridonkulous wackness. As it stands right now, the jury's still out. Furthermore, I'm going to agree with the Robster in that if Doom doesn't make it happen on Swift and Changeable he's pretty much done. I'm still waiting on Madvillain 2, but that'll probably be his last big shit. As sad as it is to say, that's the way it is. Doom's given us a hell of a run, and here's hoping he keeps going. And this isn't to hate on him AT ALL, I'm just saying the public might lose interest in him and people will stop recognizing him for the genius he is. Of course people like me are still going to be running to the record store at 8 in the morning to pick up Vaudeville Villain 4, so maybe that's all he needs.

Islam In Europe Is Really Hard To Talk About

2006-02-27T10:28:00.000-05:00

Well I'm at Redneck Ghetto High School with nothing to do as usual, so I figured I'd throw a post up just for shits and giggles. Also, I may not be able to post tomorrow so I thought it would be prudent to provide you with some mind expansion just in case. Obviously if you haven't guessed from the title of this post, today I'm going to be talking about the growing problem of radical Islamic violence in Europe. This is a really touchy subject for a bunch of people for a bunch of reasons. Obviously it's touchy for people on the left who don't want to be called racists, and because they don't want to get, well, killed. It's projected that before the end of this century Europe is going to have a Muslim majority, so obviously people are going to have to fix up this situation pretty quick here before it gets even worse. I mean seriously, I was down with the riots, but all this hullabaloo about those cartoons printed in Denmark is just ridiculous. I hate to bust on people's religion but to try and control free speech in a country you were ALLOWED to emigrate to is kind of insane to me.

But that's really aside the point. The real interesting thing about this problem is that for the first time in , you know, ever a threat to Europe's "liberal multi-cultural tolerant" society isn't coming from white Christians. What this creates is a reluctance to speak about issues coming from immigrant communities, all of which were created by Europe's "liberal" policies anyway. If you look at how and why the majority of Muslims came to Europe, it was as guest workers. They weren't allowed to integrate into society, and were/still are kept in disgusting project buildings far away from Europe's "vibrant cultural centers". So all of this conflict is, in effect, the hate that hate produced. Who wants to bet that had Europe not abused and isolated it's immigrant workers so much and allowed them to become a part of its society, this whole culture clash wouldn't be happening.

To quote Bawer "Europeans … will allow immigrants into their country; they'll pay high taxes so that their government can dole out (forever, if necessary) rent support, child benefits. … But they won't really think of them as being Norwegian or Dutch. And they'll rebel mightily against the idea of immigrants living among them as respected, fully equal professionals." Gee, is it any wonder these people have a hostile reaction to Europe? Which is not to justify all of this violence and intolerance, but you can only tease a dog so long until it bites you.

The fact of the matter is that Muslims are a large part of Europe now, and as long as they live in Europe they're going to have to adjust to the society they live in and respect other people's idealogy. On the other hand, "liberal" "tolerant" Europe is going to have to accept them as full citizens too. It's a. not fair and b. typically European/aristocratic to expect people to live in dilapidated public housing 50 miles away from you, work in a factory, and then keep quiet when you disrespect their religion. Protesting the cartoons is straight, but threatening to kill people over them isn't. There's a place where stuff like that is ok, it's called whichever Muslim country you guys came from. If you're going to live somewhere else, you're going to have to play by their rules.

Footnote: Earlier in this situation, I declared solidarity with the oppressed Muslim youth of Europe. I still retain that, and am in no way against immigration to anywhere. And if you didn't guess, I still see Europe as being more in the wrong in this whole ordeal. And I still rock my "RAKAILLE" shirt proudly. Fuck the police relates everywhere. Mort Pour Rien, suckers. But then again, killing innocent people isn't cool, especially for exercising rights given to them in a democratic, pluralistic society. Peace to all the "rakaille" throughout Europe, but some of you need to get it together a bit more.

Saturdaaaaay

2006-02-25T14:44:00.000-05:00

This weird guy that lives in my house and yells at me all the time to turn down Ice Cube (pictured above) finally got his associates degree yesterday. Holler at him here to tell him congratulations and thank him for giving me my awesome first name. This might seem irrelevant to everybody else but it's a big deal to me and my family, and I thought it would be cool for everyone to know that. Speaking of the Cube, his new song "Race Card" is actually pretty awesome. As Serg pointed out he's pretty much a massive sellout right now, but does that mean that as conscientous hip hoppers we can't still enjoy his music? That's kind of a plaguing question.

And while you're here, I also want to take the time to talk about something important to me. Around the late summer of last year, a 7 year old kid named Ricky Holland from my area (town to the north) went missing. There was a huge search effort to find him, all in vain. He had some issues and a history of running away from his home where he lived with his foster parents. A couple months later, both of his foster parents ratted on each other and his body was found on a roadside a couple miles away from where a bunch of my friends live. However, when his adopted father was confessing, the idiot cops didn't read him his Miranda rights correctly so they have to throw his confession out.

The reason I haven't posted about this before is because it hadn't really been on my mind as much as it should have been. But then Natalee Holloway's all on the news again, so I thought I needed to give Ricky his respect on my blog. A rural kid from a working class family disappeared and was found murdered in my area and got no media coverage outside Michigan, but Natalee the blonde upper class suburban girl who disappeared in "paradise" is still on CNN. That ain't justice. Why is her life more important than little Ricky's? That's a pretty hard question. Anyway, I feel horrible for not posting about this earlier. Rest In Peace Ricky. You'll be remembered.

Common Sense=Droppin' Bows

2006-02-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Common, apparently his years of coffee house intellectual masturbation (no homo) haven't softened his natural Chicago gulliness. Apparently there was a "skinhead" at one of his recent shows who was heckling him and giving him the finger, and Common slapped the shit out of his stupid ass. Now my first thought is that not all bald caucasians are skinheads. I myself recently shaved off my "anglo" (18 inch hair) and am currently rocking a pseudo-baldhead and I'm obviously not a skinhead. This could have just been a caucasian with short ass hair who really really didn't like Common. Now he was probably a skinhead, because people said he looked like one, and I'm glad he got slapped up. I'm just, you know, sayin' shit.

Yeah, linking to AllHipHop is pretty corny, but I'm still having trouble coming up with what to post. I've been busy all week doing homework, studying for exams, and meeting members of the Last Poets and haven't been able to come up with brain shattering knowledge for the masses. Expect more awesomeness next week, as well as another Mitten Flavor post. Probably that one about Elzhi I was going to do like a month ago.

Note: Gwen Stefani has made a piece of music worth listening to. It's entitled "Crash" and is kind of a mix between 80's funk and my mom's new wave records. Anyway it's badass.

Oh And...

2006-02-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, all the Rolling Stones followers who looked at me funny when I told them to STFU about the new Common album. Remember when I said he used to be like 900 times better? This is what I was talking about.

Mitten Flavor-J.Dilla

2006-02-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

I decided to cancel today's Mitten Flavor post about J.Dilla for a couple reasons. The first and most obvious one is that everybody and their grandma has already done a feature on him, so it's really not worth going there again. And also, I'm not familiar enough with his career to do it justice in a post that wouldn't look exactly like everyone else's. My final word on this whole thing is going to be that J.Dilla has been one of my favorite beatsters ever since I've been into hip hop, and that I'm still really fucked up about his passing. I was going to do a post about white rappers converting to Islam, but it came out kind of offensive so I decided today's just going to be a day of silence for Dilla. Peace out.

Why I Want To Like Dead Prez (And Why I Can't)

2006-02-14T10:53:00.000-05:00

Dead Prez is my favorite rap group that I don't like. Seriously. They have sick ass beats, good flows, and really good rhymes. A lot of their stuff really speaks to my experiences growing up in Dansville, and my feelings about how to make sure future generations don't go through any of that shit. A lot of their revolutionary sentiment and all their ideas about knowledge and self-improvement are right in line with what I believe. All of their stories about public schools, the cops, and the system in general I can identify with on some level. Seriously. I can't say I've never had ideas about whether or not a communist state would be better than capitalism. But I don't like them. As a matter of fact I think that what they're doing is counter-productive and is only going to make racial and social equality in this country that much harder to bring about.

A couple other people have already spoke on this, but these dudes are almost psychotic in their anti-white rhetoric. Look, if they weren't talking about how much they hated white people on every other song I wouldn't have issue with "I went to school with redneck crackers". Now I hate both of those words but I can understand the sentiment. How do these guys think that isolating an entire section of the population that has a lot of the same issues as their community's going to help anything? Sorry dude, people descended from deported criminals, indentured servants, debtors, and yes even slaves aren't oppressors. There have been two distinct groups of Caucasians in the United States ever since there's been a United States. I find it odd that while M1 and stic.man were reading all those books they didn't realize that. As Bomani pointed out, robbing the pizza man isn't jacking the system. So theoretically, attacking both the "white servant class" and the white aristocrat class doesn't make sense. Especially according to Marixst class dialectic.

See, us in the "white servant class" are put in a really weird situation when it comes to this stuff. At the heart of it is the question as to who we identify and align ourself with as a community and as a culture. Now to me, and the other politically aware, hip hop obsessed, working class rural whites (hey, there might be another 3 or 4), the choice is obviously to align with Blacks and Latinos, both of which we share a common history and struggle with. As the book I linked to up there will tell you, Blacks, poor Whites, and Native Americans had tons of insurrections together way back in the 1600s and 1700s, and the number one fear of the White aristocrats was that all the people of different colors and cultures would get together and rebel. So then they took steps to keep them all apart. And the connection with Latinos is a bit different. At least in the Midwest, Mexicans and Whites share the same jobs and live in the same areas a lot of the time.

The sad part is, most working class rural whites choose to align with the other class of white people, which is what holds us back in a lot of situations. And in a perfect world we wouldn't have to "align" with anybody, and everybody could just relate to each other as human beings. But it doesn't work like that. I can't expect to walk into Little Caesar's in Okemos wearing a fitted and a Carharrt hoodie and expect to be treated like an equal. I've actually heard people from the suburbs say to my face that they "get a lot of reverse discrimination from redneck types who think we think we're better than them". Well you just called us rednecks, what are we supposed to think? I have love for all humans forever, but I can't just pretend like everything is hunky dory and that it's just a few bad apples in the burbs making the rest of them look bad. The fact of the matter is that stereotypes of my culture and all other cultures are put in people's minds by the media, and people think that's the reality. I've had and still have friends from the suburbs, but a lot of those friendships are over because of this shit.

So in closing, I ain't mad at Dead Prez. They're not as enlightened as they think they are, but they still make bangin' music. They're only falling victim to the attitudes that the man wants us to have about people of different colors, so I kind of pity them. The ants are gonna conquer the elephant, but only when they learn to not hate on the other ants because of the color of their skin.

Rest In Peace, J.Dilla

2006-02-11T10:10:00.000-05:00

Born James Yancy in Detroit on February 7, 1974, Jay Dee/J.Dilla passed away yesterday from kidney complications at the age of 32. He was one of, if not the most important figure in Michigan/Detroit hip hop and will be dearly missed by all the hip hoppers in the Mitten state, and many others all around the world. He was one of the greatest hip hop producers ever, with a distinctive soul/jazz influenced sound that had a huge impact on the sound of hip hop during the late 90s/early 00s. The Walt Report sends its regards to all of his friends and family in these trying times and hopes that everyone else will recognize his legacy and profound influence on the sound of hip hop.

Needless to say, I'm really fucked up about this right now. And if you aren't, shame on you. Expect the mother of all Mitten Flavor posts about him on Thursday.

Nazi Rap Is A Myth

2006-02-09T10:43:00.000-05:00

Ok one of the things that's popping up (nullus) everywhere in the hip hop internet world is the supposed rise of "white supremacist rap" in Germany. Now I had already been familiar with all this German gangsta rap stuff since about July, and I found it interesting that these dudes were being labeled Nazis. Especially judging by the fact that like half of them are Turkish in the first place. Most of the claims leveled at them seem to be kind of empty, so it's kind of looking like these guys aren't actually Nazis. One example is Bushido's line "I'm the leader like A". While that does kind of sound like a Nazi reference, it wouldn't make sense to be because Bushido's half North African. But because I hadn't peeped any of their stuff for a while, I decided to investigate. I watched Fler's video Neue Deustche Welle (New German Wave) in which he supposedly "struts through Berlin, while Aryan-looking thugs wave an enormous German flag and battle with swarthy immigrants".

That above statement is a bunch of bull. Yeah there are "swarthy immigrants" in the video, but they're walking around with him, and one of them is even on his label. And yeah, he is waving a big ass German flag around and his album art is pretty heavy on the pan-Germanic imagery, but how does that make him a Nazi? Germany was around thousands of years before Naziism. What about the Diplomats wearing US flags and waving them around? Does that make them nationalists? Same thing with that Oye Mi Canto video with all the flags from Latin American countries. They aren't racists, they're just proud of their language and their culture. Same thing with Fler. If you watch some Bushido videos, there are dudes wearing Muslim garb waving Turkish flags. And these two dudes are down with each other.

Another question is why these dudes' critics are always claiming that these guys have a large fanbase in neo-Nazis in East Germany. Ok, here's a thought:70% of American rap record sales are to a white middle class audience. Now I'm betting that a lot of that audience is racist (consciously or unconciously) against Black people. Does that make Black rappers racist against themselves? Also important is the way that Bushido's neo-Nazi fans are being all cool with him and asking him to sign their heads (which is kinda odd). If these non-Aryan is espousing Aryan hate against non-Aryans, why are Aryans being down with his non-Aryan-ness? Is it a bad thing that his music is bringing people together? In the minds of the people in charge of Germany, the answer is yes. It's no unknown fact that the governments of ethnically mixed countries have always been terrified of young working class dudes of different ethnicities hangin' out.

So the powers that be in Germany, which is as racist and classist as pretty much every other government in the world, saw that the cherished ethnic conflict that helps them hold down working and poor people is coming apart because of hip hop. So what are they gon' do? Ban that shit. A lot of people think that Europe is some classless paradise, well that's bullshit. Talk to a kid from the Berlin projects. Or London, Paris, or any other major EU city. Shit over there is just as fucked up as over here. So anyway, back to the point. The German bakra take a look at what's happening and decide to put an end to it by labeling the German rappers DUHDUHDUH Nazis! So then the people over here take the Germans' word for it, and now everyone thinks that that's what's up. Which it isn't. Yeah the shit is ignorant, misogynist, and violent, but isn't a lot of US rap? The fact of the matter is, that's how it is in Germany's inner cities. You can't ban rap music and make crime and poverty go away.

And this is totally unrelated, but in Bubba's new video he's rocking a flannel jacket. Which means he beat me to the punch in bringing flannel to hip hop, but is totally awesome anyway.

Big Walt the Libertarian?

2006-02-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

Weird as it sounds, I'm actually considering it. I know I've always said that the hip hop nation can't endorse any political party (Eminem that means you), but I've been looking over the Libertarian Party's website and it's looking pretty much in line with what I believe for the most part. Now obviously at this point what political party I endorse is pretty much as significant as what my favorite kind of car is (ha ha), but I figure it's good to know where I'm going to stand in the 2-3 odd years before society gives any sort of shit what I think. Obviously I'm not about to be a Republican because ... and I'm not going to be a Democrat because not only did they arise from the Old South and allathat they're also partially responsible for the corrupt and failed welfare system that's holding all poor people back in this country. I mean c'mon, it's pretty much all the same clowns in DC anyway.

However, I do disagree with the Libertarians on a couple really important points. The first is immigration. Now everybody that knows me I have no issue with immigrants, shit I don't even have an issue with illegal immigrants. But I do have an issue with people illegally hiring them, which drives down wages and raises the cost of living for American citizens. Now I understand people gotta feed their kids, and they need to do so more than I need to buy sneakers and rap music, but the shit just isn't right. People should at least be penalized for hiring undocumented workers, in a way that makes them compensate for the economic problems their activities cause. That seems fair enough right?

Another thing I disagree with them on seems pretty petty but is important to me anyway. It would be the "censoring" of computers in public libraries. Now seriously I'm for the first amendment to the furthest extent in pretty much all situations but this one. If you don't think skeezy ass weirdos looking at hardcore pornography in front of little ass bebbies in the library isn't a problem you are sorely mistaken. I mean shit even in the small ass Dansville library it happens. From the way it was worded on the Libertarian site it seems like they don't want ANY of the computers to be filtered, much less having some of them unfiltered and in another area. That's just retarded. What's more important, the right of some nasty ass loser to look at porno in a public place, or the right of someone's 8 year old daughter to not see that shit while she's looking for a book for a school project? Put on your thinking caps kids.

As a totally unrelated note, I met POS, Mac Lethal, and Sims last night and they're some cool ass dudes. We also did a rap cipher, in which it became apparent that......RAPPAZ R N DAINJA

Mitten Flavor-One Be Lo

2006-02-02T11:13:00.000-05:00

As a note, I was gonna do today's Mitten Flavor post about Elzhi, but I forgot to get my audio straight so I decided to go with One Be Lo, the illest MC from Michigan ever. Period. I was listening to his 2005 album S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M. last night, and came to the realization that I was being a dumbass in this post. That shit is album of the year last year without a doubt. Anyway on to the main event.

Some of you may know One Be Lo from his days in Michigan duo Binary Star as One Man Army with Senim Silla. They put out two albums, Waterworld and Masters Of The Universe before eventually going their seperate ways due to creative differences. After that, One Man Army found out there was a punk band called One Man Army so he changed his name to One Be Lo to avoid copyright issues. After that, he started his own record label, Subterraneous Records, and put out a couple compilations and an EP of sorts called Project F.E.T.U.S.. Finally in 2005 he released his first solo album S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M., which as I stated earlier is some of the most awesome shit ever. That album is straight bananas from start to finish, aside from like 2 tracks. Anyway he's one of my favorite MCs ever, and if you don't check out that album I just told you about as well as his upcoming project with Magestik Legend you're either a hater or don't actually like rap music.

Now in my eternal gulliness, I've decided to jack the audio links from UGHH.com because I'm too gutter fly to hook up a yousendit. I don't love you hoes.

Deceptacons (Pete Rock Remix)
This is the remix of a song from S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M. about problems in society and shit like that. The beat and rhymes are both dope as shit, and this version is actually better than the original.

Binary Star-Solar Powered
This is an older track from the Binary Star days, but is still sick as hell. The beat is beyond description and One Be Lo and Senim both come correct. Both of their albums are worth picking up, as is anything that says One Be Lo, Magestik Legend, or Senim Silla on it.

Big Walt, You're Fired!-Official Press Release

2006-01-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

Honestly I can't blame him. The direction that the BC dot C's taken and the direction of my writing are obviously inconsistent. The situation and the rules changed, and both of us have to change with it. I'm trying to mature as a "writer" and focus more on rural issues and politics etc, but I felt weird posting about my views on some other dude's shit, so I just wrote about silly shit, which apparently is bad for business. Apparently my Oprah post crossed some sort of line, which is pretty indicative of the current situation. Anyway, I'm grateful to him for giving me the opprotunity to get my name out there a bit more and wish him the best in all his future endeavors.

How Non-Commercial Is Non-Commercial Rap?

2006-01-26T09:24:00.000-05:00

One of the most common tropes in the parts of the hip hop underground consisting of either headwrap spoken word neo-soul types or backpack rocking "it's next shit" Def Jukies, is that whatever rappin' they're listening to instead of Beanie Sigel or U.G.K. is superior to those two groups/rappers because it "isn't commerical" and "it's about the music, not the bling or the bitches". The question seems to arise, how non-commercial are Mos Def and The Roots? Seriously? The most obvious idea is to take a look at the world "commercial". The typical backpacker definition of "commercial" is a rapper who isn't true to themself and who they are and totally sells out, trying to maintain a false "image" so that a certain section of the population (in the backpacker's mind usually a mysterious terrifying population of scary Black people) will buy their records. So in the four-elements mindset of the average "real hip-hopper" these rappers are just worthless liars and discards whereas their underground heroes are the last real MCs alive, pursuing a dying art for the last few believers.

So first off as an example, let's take a look at the idea of rappers not being true to themselves. Obviously using Mos Def as an example, is he really running around being righteous all the time? Is he not eating pork and praying on mountains and shit every day before lunch? I think not. He probably just hangs out, eats, drinks, and lives just like the rest of us. But for some reason on all of his records he's on some holier than thou mic prophet "let me educate you" steez. Another example of this is Nas, who for some reason is the "acceptable commercial rapper" to these heads, probably because he gave them Illmatic to scream about. I don't think I even need to go into how much of a hypocrite he is. What kind of "underground street corner poet" tries to sound like Jay-Z and Biggie and then pretends he's Pablo Escobar or some shit? Neither of those dudes are really like what they're like on wax, so that's one check against them. But what audience are they tempering their image for?

Duhduhduh duh. Backpackers and headwrap dudes! These non-commercial rappers obviously have a built in audience, that is pretty much guaranteed to buy all of their records. Another important point to this concept is that the people who buy "conscious" rap records probably have way more disposable income than the people who bought Let's Get It. I'm also betting they buy more band merchandise, go to more shows, and buy more "Freestyle The Art Of Rhyme" DVDs. So let's take a look see. So far it's looking like a lot of if not most "conscious" "underground" "real hip hop" is made by people who pretend to be something they're not so that their built in audience (a bunch of internet White kids in the burbs) will run out and buy their records and then scream that it's "Next Level Shit". Isn't that usually the criticism leveled at commercial rap?

Now let's look at the word underground. In these people's mouths it usually means rappers who aren't on major labels and who stay true to themselves and push that "real hip hop". Think about it, what about all the hundreds of West Coast, Southern, and Midwestern rappers who are on their own label, make their own records, and are huge in their respective cities and regions without ANY radio or MTV play. There are a lot of rappers who everyone in their area knows and loves, and they make enough money to feed themselves and their families just from that. And because these artists still live in the city and own their own businesses they're keeping money in their own community and stimulating their neighborhood's economy. Now there's also a huge amount of "real hip hoppers" that do this (Boot Camp Clik comes to mind), but for some reason all the Lil' Kekes, Mac Dres, and Blade Icewoods of the world are just as bad as 50 Cent but the Clik are underground heroes. Who's more underground? Mac Dre who put out like 20-30 albums on either Romp records or Thizz entertainment and kept money in his community (RIP) or the abovementioned Mos Def who put out his last album on Geffen and had two songs all over MTV? Think about it.

Disclaimer: I have no issue with underground rap. Look at the "favorite music" in my profile. I only have issue with the fans of underground rap who try to secede from the rest of hip hop so the emo chicks they're trying to scheme on won't think of them as "inferior" for listening to what I've actually heard them describe as something I'm not comfortable typing.

Oh and Ghostface-Charlie Brown Snippet sounds fucking sick. I can't wait for Fishscale.

Why Are Abortion Jokes Off-Limits?

2006-01-24T11:22:00.000-05:00

Ok first off, this isn't going to be a "Walt's View On Abortion" post. How I feel on the subject isn't relevant to this discussion, so don't expect to see it anywhere in here. If you care that much about how I feel on a woman's right/lack thereof to choose go ahead and email me. Anyway, back to the main topic of this shit: the fact that you can't make jokes about abortion, period. Makin' cracks about the termination of a pregnancy seems to be the only thing that liberals and conservatives agree on. If you do it you're a insensitive monster and should be locked up in a box and dropped in a lake or some shit. I understand it's a touchy subject, but isn't it the touchy subjects that make the best humor? I mean shit the other day I suggested that the remains of aborted fetuses be made into a kind of protein shake to end world hunger and both the Rethuglicans and Democrips at the lunch table got all pissy about it. The question is why.

Obviously the first conclusion is that the three things you don't talk about ever in polite company are sex, politics, and religion. The issue with abortion is that it cuts across pretty nicely into all three categories of forbidden topics. It's such a charge issue that even mentioning it puts everyone in the room on edge, and an air of "somebody's about to start screamin'" settles into the room. I mean seriously, it's essentially a given that any time abortion discussed a female in the room is eventually going to start screeching about either the murder of unborn bebbies or the government trying to fit itself into the uteri of America's women. So perhaps you can't joke about it because you can't talk about it. However, my theory is a little bit more complex than that.

See, abortion is one of the last great wedge issues of the United States. I understand gay marriage and the war in Iraq are pretty big dividers, but no single issue puts a big ass line between people than abortion. And because of this situation, anyone who has an opinion about it is militant in said opinion. The right views it as a despicable form of murder against the helpless bebbies of America, and the left views it as a beautiful right of every woman that must be fought for at all costs. So in effect, my above meat shake comment makes rethugs go insane because I'm making light of the eventual demise of western civilization, and granola munchers have bitchfits because I'm either making a joke of a neccesary female bodily function or mocking modern liberalism's most cherished institution. So in either case I'm being either a disgusting pinko commie leftie or a Jesus freak redneck vagina nazi. When in reality I'm just goofing. So does this point to the way Americans really think about abortion, or am I just being an asshole by making jokes about something that really isn't funny? Just some food for thought.

Smif N Wesson-Gunn Rap Video

2006-01-19T18:18:00.000-05:00

As Peggy Hill would say, hoyeah.

Mitten Flavor-Tasherre D'Enajetic

2006-01-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

In the first of my new every other Thursday MI rap feature, I'm going to discuss "Ambassador Of Michigan Hip Hop" and Big Walt personal acquanitance, Tasherre D'Enajetic. Tasherre is a rapster/producer/DJ/activist/tons of other stuff, and I might add, a cool ass dude. He's an instrumental figure in the Michigan scene, and hosts the internet radio show Underworld Radio, which spins Michigan hip hop and was at one point a radio show. And on top of that, he also organizes shows in the Mitten state, puts out all MI mixtapes, and runs the "Best Hip Hop Night In Michigan" every Tuesday (which I would hit up were I not 15 years old). Now one would think that a cat who runs around doing all this crazy stuff wouldn't have time to sleep, eat, or release bangin' rap music.

If you thought that you would be sorely mistaken. Tasherre's "Enavisions" from what I heard is one of the best records to come out of Michigan in awhile, and his upcoming album "Looks Like A Job For" is without a doubt going to be the truth. Tash's style is energetic (not surprisingly) and hard-hitting, yet deft and lyrical. In short he sounds like he could either school you on some history or fuck you up at the same time, not unlike KRS without the TYPING IN ALL CAPS and gospel albums. His latest project is called Endeed, and is a series of collaborations and remixes. I understand he had a bit of a problem with it, but it should be out soon and in the meantime there's a special edition EP of collabs and remixes available. The full version is coming soon, and if you want an introduction to underground Michigan rap that'll be a great place to start (watch for my man Kuraden's remix of "Never Will I"). It's from this project that I bring you two mp3s, that showcase Tasherre's lyrical stylings.

HPM ft.DJ PrimeMinister
This is a dope song with DJ PrimeMinster on the cuts and on the beat and Tash on the rhymes. Not that much to say about it, just straight up Detroit rap, soul samples and all.
Nothin To Lose ft. Smoke The Addict
Another banger with a cat called Smoke The Addict who I was majorly sleeping on until I heard this song. Some hard ass horns and Tasherre and Smoke just killing it.

Anyway, get your ass over to NEIRecords.com and check Tasherre D'Enajetic out. There really isn't much left to say, just that he's a sick ass rapper. Watch out for his upcoming projects, and pick up his album "Enavisions". And with that I'm out. The next Mitten Flavor post should be 2 weeks from today, so be on the lookout for that too.

Things I Want From Hip Hop In 2006

2006-01-17T17:49:00.000-05:00

Ok when I said last week I was going to start hitting my readers with raw Redneck Ghetto flavor (nullus) again, I meant starting this week. My bad if anybody like ran to their computers and saw the same dumbass post 2 times last week. Anyway, this is an overdue list of stuff I wanna see from hip hop at large in this coming year. Some of it is pretty obvious but whatever.

1.No More Stupid Ass Beef
I'm about bored to tears with all this Desperate Housewives ass studio gangsta drama. With the only beef anybody with a life cared about (Jay/Nas) over, other rapsters should take notice and either settle their differences like men face to face (and stop making records about each other like some scared bitches) or at least have actual battles. I mean seriously, what's gully about stealing somebody else's beat, calling another grown man a homosexual and making it rhyme, and then calling that an "attack". This isn't 7th grade people, act like grown ups.

2.Collaborations Between Different Regions/Styles
Now this is already happening quite a bit on a mainstream scale, but I'm talking about a different kind of collaboration. Not just some random Southern dudes showing up halfway through an East Coast album, yelling "WE GET CRUNK" and then next track back to soul samples and introspective street corner philosophy. Also out is the new trend of getting Kweli on a track so you can be conscious (guilty parties=David Banner and Styles P). I'm talking about dudes from totally different backgrounds linking up and makin' tracks together, with at least the beat being in tune with the rest of the album it's on. A good example of this is the upcoming Ghost/Doom project and the "Callin' Out" remix with E-40 and Casual. Think about say, Bubba Sparxxx and The Coup, Skepta and Young Zee, Saigon and K'Naan, or One Be Lo and Z-Ro. That would all be some seriously dope shit.

3.More Internet Coverage Of Underground Artists
With the internet's nature, it seems to me that it would be really easy for cats to put on people from their area to give them some more shine . While there are a couple sites that do this, it seems to me like there should be a lot more coverage of rapsters that aren't in URB every month. Yeah I know your parents don't know who MF Doom is, but most hip hop fans do and I don't need 800 posts about him. Any idea who Tasherre D'Enajetic is? Well come Thursday you will. I'm going to practice what I preach and give some love to rapsters from my home state of Michigan, because Detroit is going to be the next place to blow in the world of hip hop. Believe that.

4.More Videos From Underground Artists
Now that there's MySpace and YouTube, and digital video cameras cost less than a thousand dollars, rapsters have no excuse for not making a little video to promote their album. Is it really that hard to stand in front of a corner store in your neighborhood and rap in front of a camera for a couple minutes? Video editing software is cheap as hell and uploading to one of the abovementioned sites is child's play. In my humble opinion the best rap videos are just dudes hangin' out in their neighborhoods and rappin' anyway, which seems pretty easy when you look at it. Not to take anything away from masterpieces like "Drop" and "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See", but the challenge is pretty much gone out of making videos. Rapsters need to get their shit together, spend like 6 hours, and have a neat little way to get their shit out to people.

That's about it. Any Michigan/Midwest rappers who want coverage in the future go ahead and email me and we'll work something out. Hell any rapsters who want coverage.

I'm Back (For Real This Time)

2006-01-09T18:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in like a month or whatever. Now that the semester's over and my bullshit high school schedule has ceased to exist I'll be back in full effect hittin' you with the raw Redneck Ghetto flavor every Tuesday and Thursday. For now peep this YouTube jacked grime video, "Private Caller" by Skepta. This is some slick shit.

D.I.T.C. Group Album?

2005-12-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

I was reading an interview with Lord Finesse and AG today where they discuss where DITC is going, Fat Joe's beef with 50 Cent, etc. Finesse mentions that not only is he making a remix album to "Funky Technician", there have been talks of a DITC reunion (?) album. Not to be a hater or anything but I was hugely let down by Street Talk. The little that I bothered to hear of it was pretty much just rarities and old 12"s thrown in with AGs weed carriers over generic NY thug beats. Hopefully on this next album they get EVERYBODY on it and Showbiz actually tries on the production. Read the interview here.

Walt's Senior Picture

2005-11-29T19:41:00.000-05:00

Well, at least that's the one I put in the yearbook teacher's mailbox this morning. Yeah boyeeee!

Oh Man, You Assheads

2005-11-22T19:43:00.000-05:00

How come none of you assholes told me their was a samurai/mafia movie with RZA beats for the whole soundtrack? I saw Ghost Dog last night and right now it's one of my favorite movies. The cinematography, music (dur) and characterization are pretty much flawless. All these different concepts and mythoses (sic?) are brought together into a story about honor and the inevitability of death. So if you didn't not tell me about the movie because you didn't know about it, get off your ass and go watch it.

Special Friday Edition

2005-11-04T13:30:00.000-05:00

What's the business. I'm supposed to be taking some math placement test or whatever but fuck that. I'm chillin' here at the LCC comp lab once again with nothing better to do, hence I've decided to post about something I've wanted to say on here for quite a while but for some reason haven't had the opprotunity. Grime is the shit. If you don't know what grime is, it sounds like the gulliest of down south rap crossed with ragga, drum and bass, and general sweetness.

The picture above is me with Dizzee Rascal throwin' up the Agro-Fist (which is not a gang sign, fuckface), after a show I went to with Lil' Gird. That show was probably the illest shit I've ever attended. The crowd was obviously wack as hell, a bunch of hipsters and hygiene deprived ravers. Aside from me and Gird there were only like 10 real hip hop dudes in attendance. It was still fresh, however. This dude DJ Wondah stepped up first and dropped a grime mix I would love to purchase, (come to think of it he was mixing off his Ibook and one of those digital turntable things so he could have burned it during Dizzee's set and sold the shit), then Dizzee proceeded to rip shit. By the end of the show that shit had gotten so crunk that I couldn't even feel my legs from jumping up and down and screaming so much. Not that I don't usually yell "GET PAPER" and "FIX UP LOOK SHARP" on the regular, but shit was dope nonetheless.

Anyway this may seem like a retarded and incoherent post but I thought I'd just take the time to observe how fucking ill grime is and the likelihood that I'll end up spending an extended amount of time in London being a part of it is as high as your sister in the adhesive section of Wal-Mart.

Dualism In Hip Hop

2005-11-01T19:16:00.000-05:00

If you're expecting me to drop some Agro-Centric science about the nature of dualism in Western thought and the existence of polar opposites in the world of hip hop: too bad. I'm in a very non-intellectual mood today, and would rather talk about the latest song on the radio that I fucking hate and "needs to die" as Crash would say it. However, first I need to give you guys some background. Today, I was kicking it with an instructor, and we were of course discussing dualism in western religion (well, Eastern Orthodox Christianity isn't exactly "western" in the classical definition but whatever). So I had dualism on the brain.

Anyway, on my way over here to LCC for Spanish class, I listened to the top 5 countdown on "Power 96.5" (generally never a good idea) and was subjected to the "NUMBAH ONE MOST REQUESTED SONG IN DAH GREATA LANSIN' AREA". "Laffy Taffy". I can safely say that this is the single worst song I have ever heard in my entire life. Easily. I'm not even going to go into the moronic lyrics, but I can assure you that my 2 year old cousin could program better keys than this tardfest contains. Anyway, I was contemplating the fact that every time a horrifically bad rap song comes out, and I think it's the worst rap song in history, something worse comes out. First it was "Tipsy", then we had "White Tees", and now this.

How this relates to dualism is that obviously (to me) hip hop is the most sublime music in existence, but to compensate for that sublimity spontaneously generates the worst music in the universe. Not to dwell on the song's awfulness, but I'm pretty sure "Laffy Taffy" can give any song in Brian Adams' catalog a run for its money. Name any awful song, and I guarantee this shit is worse. So think about that: does hip hop produce both the best AND worse music in the world?

Why Does A Seagull Fly Over The Sea?

2005-10-25T19:41:00.000-04:00

Because if he flys over the bay he's a bagel, doofusface. The above picture of MF Doom isn't on here for no reason, it's to give me an excuse to point out that I've been bumping Doom records ever since I've been into rap music, mainly because I've been into comic books hardcore (nullus) since I was maybe 6, and I googled Dr. Doom one day. So he was one of my favorite MCs BEFORE Madvillain. Nyeah nyeah hipster ass bitches. And according to Hip Hop Site, he and Danger Mouse are going to do a DangerDoom tour. Judging by the way MI rap shows work, I'll be hearing about it from my friends that are old enough to get into the indie rock bar of the month, but it's dope nonetheless.

However, it really pisses me the fuck off that every time he says any sort of anything to anybody, he doesn't mention Faces Of Doom. For those of you who are here because you googled comic books, Doctor Doom, or hipster ass bitch porn, Faces Of Doom is going to be his collaboration album with Ghostface. The reason I'm pissed about him not mentioning it is that Faces Of Doom is probably going to be the shiznit, and I want to know when it's coming out so that I can start marking the days on my calender. Obviously the shit's gonna be on Doom beats, but we all know that all of his collabo albums>>>>>Operation:Doomsday,Mm Food, and Take Me To Your Leader. Not counting Vaudeville Villain 2, that shit was just ass.

Las Vegas Rapper Marriages

2005-10-18T19:42:00.000-04:00

The other day I was contemplating my eventual matrimony to a Hispanic woman from a music video, when I came upon a new idea as to how marriages can be conducted. It essentially boils down to this: rappers from a million years ago that nobody gives a poo about show up in Vegas and marry people. Don't you dare say Reverend Run. because he's actually still kinda cool. I'm talking about (whoever was in Cypress Hill), Kwame, the Fu-Shnickens, Kamal (whom nobody really liked in the first place, and Everlast (for our Muslim friends). Obviously the ceremonies will be really corny and based 80% on the rappers' respective corny gimmicks.

In perhaps my favorite, MC Hammer does the ceremony in full Hammer garb (pictured above) and throughout the vows repeatedly stops and announces that it's Hammer time, followed by ridiculous corny dancing for like 2 minutes. In Everlast's case, he simply announces that he's Black Jesus, hence he can just say that the people are married and order in from White Castle. Oh, and maybe Das-EFX (still cool anyway) can do one. You know how it goes: I priggity pronounce yiggity you miggity man and wiggity wife. Come to think of it, after Gang Starr broke up nobody cares about Guru, but he's just to boring in the first place to make jokes about. Seriously.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

2005-10-07T12:17:00.000-04:00

Pretty much all I did this summer was sit around on my porch drinking RC Cola and listening to rap music, so what I'm going to do in this post is tell you guys what rap music I was listening to. I'm not joking, that's really all I did.

1.Goodie Mob-Soul Food
It might be because I'm country or whatever but this has to be one of my top ten rap albums ever. The production by Organized Noize is nothing but fire from start to finish, and lyrically this shit is just amazing. From an acknowledgement of rural white poverty on "Cell Therapy" to Cee-Lo's spoken word breakdown on "Fighting", it's an album that you can play over and over without getting tired of it.

2.Diamond and the Psychotic Neurotics-Stunts Blunts and Hip Hop
My man DJ Benny Ben hipped me to this lost classic, and even though Diamond starts to sound like a rappin' Steven Hawking on like the 3rd listen the beats totally make up for it. However, the one thing that bugs me is that Big L pops up on an interlude but doesn't rap at all. He would've tore shit down on some of these beats. Also listen for one of the wackest verses I've heard on "Pass Dat Shit", makes you wonder why Diamond let Fat Joe anywhere NEAR the studio.

3.Madvillain-Madvillainy
If you don't know why I was listening to this I'm not sure you should be on this blog, go buy it and you'll know.

4.OutKast-Southern.../ATLiens
Kind of the same thing as the last one, but either way these are two of the best rap albums I've ever heard. The first one isn't nearly in the class of ATLiens or Soul Food, but is dope nonetheless and kinda serves as an introduction to Southern rap. Noz over at Cocaine Blunts has made reference to two varieties of Southern hip-hop, and these two albums are shining examples of the "mellow soul-based" variety.

Yeah aside from a couple mixtapes and various jazz/soul/old country it was pretty much those 5 albums on repeat all summer. I think I may have also helped my grandmother move in to the Geezer Projects, gone to the fair, and mowed a couple lawns to buy rap albums too, but all I definitive memory of is the abovementioned activity. On a related note, maxin' out on your porch all summer with some Royal Crown/Iced Tea/Kool-Aid listening to rap music and reading is probably the best thing ever. It's right up there with ethnic girls and b-movies.

Teenager+Car+Alcohol=Natural Selection

2005-10-04T22:11:00.000-04:00

Ok putting pictures of random women in my posts is kind of a Captain Bee trope, but whatever, call it an homage. Anyway, I know I've been kind of erratic with the posts lately, but that's largely a result of my insane academic situation.

This post is about the phenomena of teenagers getting drunk, crashing cars and dying. One of my favorite groups to hate on is old people, but at least they cause accidents because they're old, blind and retarded as opposed to doing stupid shit like getting trashed and driving. Of course whenever the latter happens the whole goddam community has to get together and have candlelight vigils and such, as I touched on in this entry. This shit really pisses me off. For some reason coddlers find it neccesary to try to "ease the suffering" of all the various tardos that run around schools in particular crying into each other's Taking Back Sunday shirts and similar shit.

This is nothing against people who have lost friends to this shit, but if you wanna mourn them than that's cool, just don't call me insensitive for not doing likewise. I don't know this person, and the fact that they decided to commit suicide has no bearing on me and mine. Obviously if someone close to me dies because of that shit I'm going to be upset, and I'm not (usually) going to walk up to you and be like "Durkeh dur your friend just died" but be real, seriously.

I don't know if it's because I live in a area with horrible unpaved roads and lightless intersections, but it seems like every year at least one dumbass teenager dies from some alcohol related scenario. And I'm tired as hell of hearing about it, if the person in question was stupid enough to do that shit it's probably better that they don't grow to be a Piss Walt Off old person.

Bonus: The Coup ft. Talib Kweli & Black Thought "My Favorite Mutiny"

Thasright homies, more thought-provoking music to kill your landlord to.

DITC Vs. Wu-Tang Clan

2005-09-22T19:52:00.000-04:00

In the event of me having to defend King Of tangible in the cafeteria tomorrow and a new DITC album coming out in like 2-3 weeks, I've decided to do a post on who would win in a lunchroom-style battle between my 2 favorite crews in Hip Hop, DITC and the Wu Tang Clan. Obviously I'm not going to do every MC in DITC versus every MC in the Wu, because there's only like 4 compared to 8-9. Of course I've paired cats with their rappin' equivalent in the other crew for maximum accuracy or whatever. Also, I might pop in tomorrow and add pictures for greater effect.

Big L (RIP) vs. GZA
Now this is a pretty hard one. GZA is widely considered to be the best lyricist in the Clan, despite Rae dropping the best solo album (Cuban Linx for the bebbies), and Big L is probably the best punchline rapper in history. But I'm gonna go with the late Lamont Coleman on this one, because while GZA's artistic output totally schools L, his raw talent can't stand up to Corleone's multi-syllabics and abovementioned punchlines. It would be close though, damn close.

Lord Finesse vs. RZA
I think RZA has it on Finesse in this case, primarily because he'd be rhyming about all sorts of weird spaceship shit and Lord wouldn't know what to come back with. Also, RZA is just the better rapper. Not to diss Lord Finesse but I can't remember him having any crazy ass lines like "Here to stop the inauguration of Satan, some say it was Reagan, for I come to slay men"

U-God vs. Fat Joe
When I was talking with Zodiac Digital about this, he said that "U-God vs. Fat Joe...heh" was the rap-nerdiest joke he ever heard. Which is probably true, being that Joe Crack is widely considered to be the weak link in DITC much like U-God is to the Wu. Anyway I think Diamond is wacker than Joe but that's beside the point. He would totally slay U-God.

O.C. vs. Raekwon The Chef
This one's probably been the hardest to decide so far. Raekwon is the "master of slang", but O.C. is one of the dopest in DITC and was in serious shape around "Bon Appetit". In the end though I have to give it to Lex Diamonds simply based on his wordplay and "fresh slang". He'd get the crowd's mouth waterin' on some "oh shit!". Rap nerd joke number two.

A.G. vs. Ghostface Killah
Now in terms of albums Ghost hasn't dropped anything aside from Pretty Toney that even comes close to "Runaway Slave", but his bizarre choice of words and furious vocal style would shred Andre like confetti. Not to be "all, like whatever" but to me A.G. was like the precursor to "cookie cutter thugs". Either that or Guru.

Diamond D. vs. Cappadonna
I know, I know 'Chino isn't original Wu member but he's pretty much the only Wu MC aside from U-God that would be a fair match for Diamond. As much as I love "Stunts, Blunts, and Hip Hop" Diamond's rhymes are really corny and boring to me after rocking that shit nonstop all summer. I know Cappadonna himself isn't really the God MC, but he has it on the Best Kept Secret.

Well from what it says up there (4-2) the Killa Beez have it on the crate diggers pretty well. In terms of artistic output they also totally destroy DITC, which only produced like 3-4 classic albums. I'll post a picture of my lunchroom battle tomorrow (en battle, so as not to show a crying freshman, which would just be undignified). Peace, and maybe I'll do Native Tongues vs. Boot Camp Clik next time I can't think of any shit to post.

Blogger Is From Satan

2005-09-21T23:05:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this, I fixed my blog. If not then that really sucks.

You Must Learn!

2005-09-07T20:00:00.000-04:00

Yeah I know I said I'd only be posting on Tuesday and Thursday, but I'm at LCC with some time to kill so 'ere it is. I was doing some internets stuff, and decided to check on the Temple Of Hip Hop, which in turn produced this interview

Templeofhiphop.com sez:
"ZIN- But what is the focus? What should we be focused upon right now?

KRS- Well, first let us define WE. WE means OUR. It means US. So, what is it that creates US? Answer? Shared interests. The concept of WE, US or OUR is born out of shared experiences amongst a specific group of people. These people share interests that are directly related to their unique experiences. In fact, these people are even defined by the rest of the world according to their collective experiences (history). Now Hurricane Katrina has displaced over 2 million people and a large percentage of the displaced are clearly part of the Hip Hop community. THESE ARE OUR PEOPLE! This is OUR “WE”, Hip Hop Kulture. Not Black folk. Not White folk. Not Asians, Native Americans or Mexicans; but HIP HOP! This is our WE. This is our US. Hip Hop is US!"

Looks like the Teacha is up to his old science droppin', which is good to hear. I was waiting for his response. Also, this review says it was conducted after a concert in the park in Detroit less than a week ago with KRS, and I'm not even going to think about the possibility that I missed a KRS-One concert. Nofuckinway. I'm at the LCC computer lab right now and don't want to scream loud profani-tees and have a fit rolling on the floor. Man I sure hope KRS is on Saigon's album, no disrespect but he's like a young KRS. They even share a penchant for self-contradiction.

What Is This? Walt's Back To Business.

2005-09-06T21:06:00.000-04:00

Hey hey hey, what's happening. From now on you miscreants only get posts from yours truly Tuesday and Thursday night because I'm puttin' m'edacashun first. However for those of you (Lame Girls, relatives, Wisemen) that wanna read more than that you can check me on Bol's site on the weekends. Other than that, I've just been kickin' it, waiting on Street Talk and the Minstrel Show, and like sleeping and stuff.

Went to Cincinnati with the folks over the weekend and visited Newport,KY (new sister city to Dansville), which was quite an experience. Await a post on it on Thursday. It involves shootings, homeless drunks, packin' steel at a firework show, and most importantly spending 24 hours more than 30 miles from a Quality Dairy. Aside from when I was in Europe that was a whole new experience. So that's pretty much it I guess. See you all on Thursday.

Bonus:
Showbiz ft. AG, Ruck & Party Arty "You Ain't a Killer"
this album is going to be sooooo bananas.