• » Name: Meka Soul
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Slap-Boxing With Jesus

The Vastness Of The Internets And Its Attached Fagitry

In case you’ve lived under a rock for the past year or so, chances are that if you’ve visited this site on any given day since April of 2007 you’ve either seen a minstrel picture or a shot of some wild, bushman-looking eyeball glaring back at you [1] followed by some self-gratifying non sequiturs and a few smart-ass remarks. And chances are you’ve either chuckled at or agreed with what was written (I know I do!), rolled your eyes at my words or gotten asshurt, called me all kinds of homosexual jibba jabba, sent an insulting email, or a combination of the latter three.

I never knew so many goobacks cared.

In any case, I may talk my shit and ruffle a few feathers, but the one thing I’ve never done was threaten anybody, particularly over the Internets, because a: cyber-thugging isn’t my style and is about as mentally, physically and spiritually beneficial as a foot tug job from a Catholic priest, and b: given my slender stature and ethnic background, I’m more likely to send you an email fronting like I’m a widow of a deceased, high-ranking prime minister from Nigeria offering to hide a few million dollars in your bank account if you give me the account number, or kick a soccer ball into a net for my national team, than I would trying to get you to circle yo’ crib to come punch you in the face.

Besides, I could never be a thug; they don’t dress this well.

But the real reason I won’t is simply because I never saw the deal with browbeating others on the World Wide Web, particularly when not only most people not share any kind of connection with each other, but some may not even be in the same country, much less the same city, with each other as well. To paraphrase, ironically, an old e-nemesis of mine, fighting over the Internets is akin to winning the Special Olympics: even if you win, you’re still retarded.

But leave it to some random-ass younglings to get asshurt over some forum thugging and react by fucking up the ever-loving shit out of some hip-hop sites, shutting them down in the process. While the sites’ misfortunes will almost certainly help the bottom lines of my overlords here - not to say we pulled that stunt off for the sake of boosting our visitors that is, but I’m not gonna front like someone taking out our competition for us is a bad thing – the fact that a 15 year-old would ether the holy hell out of a company’s site because a registered user whose own opinions are largely unfettered and probably have nothing to do with them per se is pretty fucked up.

* Sees disclaimer at the bottom of blog *

So that’s why they put that shit down there.

While on one end it tempts me to curb my eloquently dismissive shit- talking for sake that I wouldn’t want the MySpace page I rarely use hacked into, at the same time I figure I haven’t shot out enough madness to warrant that to happen in the first place, so at the end of the day I must be doing something right.

[1] I would switch the current picture up, but truth is that I don’t really care much for the Internets outside of music grifting, my side hustles and the occasional (read: more often than I should) porno viewing.

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Nas: WTF?!

You know, real talk is that I have issues when it comes to one Nasir Olu Dara Bin Soo Chimichonga – or whatever extra’d out names he got – Jones. See, if it wasn’t for duke’s seminal debut masterpiece [1], coupled with Christopher Wallace’s frosh effort, you probably wouldn’t even be reading this shit, because I’m sure I would have stuck to listening to the same soul, world and R&B music my sisters would bump. And too much of that shit is proven to be more detrimental than anything. Have you seen Maxwell?

The problem I’ve had with duke is that he tends to make the most Bizarro World choices for his career. But being a fan I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt each time. Sure he’ll switch out from rocking bubblegooses, Timbos and skullys to pink suits and pointy white hardbottom tap dance Ben Vereen specials and back again at the drop of a peso, but haven’t we all been guilty of not sticking to the script? If anything, his contradictory nature is the preeminent example of the quintessential human being. It’s like when I was in college and, even though I associated myself with the pseudo-“conscious,” nag champa crowd, I found myself wanting to poke the brick-thick power forward with the jellified donkey on the women’s basketball squad when I was in college. Repeatedly. From the back.

Oops, went off on a wild random tangent there.

At the same time, his flip-floppy behavior has also become a nightmare for anybody who dares be in the vicinity of that shit. Running around and talking about going back to the “country of Africa” while oxing down Jamaicans in Belly was one thing, and coming out with some ugly-ass 310 Motor shoes [2] a good five years after the “rapper-sneaker” trend came and went quicker than a Wes Unseld throwback was somewhat troubling, but when Lil Homey reneged on the original titling of his album – which, if he kept, could have possibly been the single-most important thing to ever hit hip-hop (and yes, bigger than BET Uncut!) – should have been a sign for everyone. But supporting Shaq’s request for Kobe to describe the taste of his ass cheeks (extra naux haux maux) – then I see this shit over at eskay’s - pretty much re-deaded any interest I held in him. I mean Benzino? Word? What did he do, promise you a Hip Hop Weekly cover? Duke hasn’t done anything memorable in rap outside of having his goons knife up Paul Pierce. I’m still wondering if he’s gonna return on that fucking white horse he promised to do so after he got kicked off The Source for calling women all kinds of slut monkeys and whatnot.

So here we are, back at square one, wondering where in the blue hell Nas is going with this shit. My guess is that he’ll play the revolutionary role he’s been doing since “One Mic,” drop another underwhelming album (although I heard his mixtape was hard as shit!) and go back to twisting out Kelis. And in the case of the latter, I can’t be mad at that. Shit, if I were in his shoes – and good thing I’m not – I’d be too busy climbing out of Kelis’ walls to worry about ever dropping an album again, and popping up periodically to rag on Soulja Boy or some retarded shit.

[1] Illmatic > everything else he’s done after. Tell me I’m wrong.

[2] A little trivia for anybody who’s ever bought a Hurricane Game sneaker: 310 Motor Shoes produce Hurricanes. 310 Motor Shoes are owned by Skechers. Skechers are made by the same yenta who made LA Gear shoes. So basically anybody who rocks Hurricanes or Nas shoes are pretty much rocking the bastard stepchild of those shoes that would light up when you walk. No wonder why the rap game is softer than baby wipes.

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TIs R N Danja

I was talking to someone the other day about the dilemma I face in the entertainment industry. On top of the normal stressors of elongated hours, low pay and years of sacrifice and effort to even make it to a level that’s barely above coffee getter at times, it can be morally confusing at times knowing that budgets for anything from commercials to music video – although greatly lower than what they were in the past – can essentially cost double the amount of my yearly salary.

Score one for me though; I knew all that community college training would come in handy someday!

Real talk is that I’ve split my time post-college either in the commercial production/entertainment field and music journalism. And I’ll be honest: if I wasn’t so conflicted I’d probably had been cooning it up at Monday night’s listening party for The Game’s new album as so many others did. Not to say I’m the “realest ni**a” around these here parts, but I know I’m definitely somewhat of an anomaly.

But perhaps I’m not the only one who feels that way, as it is somewhat refreshing – albeit ultimately facetious – when artists and executives within the industries supposedly quote-unquote “care about their community, comrades and country” through various organizations, donations, programs and activities. But let’s be honest: anybody who honestly believes that a rapper is preaching about the conflict in Darfur while rocking the same sinew-soaked conflict diamonds whose revenues are likely used to finance those battles in the first place has got to be out of their fucking mind. That shit is about as see-through as a cold, wet t-shirt draped across the ample bosom of Summer Walker.

So it felt a little bit good reading that blood diamond pusher Jacob The Jeweler (too easy) got sentenced to spend about 30 months having to protect his asshole from repeated violent entries in the bing. Not to come across as vindictive, but it’s about damn time that a TI – albeit a low-ranking one – gets locked up for doing illegal shit, because Lord knows what else they’re doing. For all I know a TI could have been the one who supplied T.I. with all those Megatron blammers, because we all know he couldn’t have gotten it from some backwater country bumpkin. Tell me I’m wrong.

At the same time, it’s not like I can exhale a sigh of relief, considering that they’re like roaches to begin with; one gets knocked, and ten others take its place. And considering that most rappers tend to like expensively gaudy trinkets, it’s only a matter of time before another harbinger of desolation pushes off glorified rocks in the name of stunting. On top of that, it’s just common knowledge that urban folks love shiny shit, which is why they go to ridiculous lengths to glow the brightest. Speaking of which, I wondered what happened to Paul Wall and that Asian fellow he used to make grills with. As soon as they jumped the shark, them shits fell out of the stratosphere faster than Cory Lidle’s Cessna plane.

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Don’t Blame Soulja Boy, Blame A Tall Israeli

A few weeks ago I played co-pilot as my friend spun records at a local bar, and it gave me the itch to try to restart learning to spin records, a knack I had picked up in college but eventually deaded once my friend graduated from college, taking his equipment with him. Last I heard duke doesn’t even do it anymore. Sad, really.

Anyways, the experience led me to slowly building a vinyl collection [1], so I went to the local Amoeba [2] and went digging through their vast selection, weeding through the shitloads of meatwatcher-rocking hipsters along the way. I’ve always felt conflicted about going to Amoeba; on one hand they have a pretty surfeit choice of music from any genre at practically any timeline, but going to that store – or the Hollywood store at least – is like walking into a pseudo-beatnik workshop on any given day. It’s like the times I would go to Starbucks for my old job and get weird looks because it was painfully obvious I was out of place while there. Fuck a $5 cup of liquid crack anyways.

Fortunately I have a reasonable knowledge of music anyways, so it was easy to zone out while digging for “Funkin’ For Jamaica," although I’m salty that my homeboy copped Thriller for $5. Corey, if you’re reading this, sleep with one eye open.

But then I stumbled across one particular vinyl which was, to quote my Long Beach blogging brother from another mother, coontastic that I couldn’t not buy it, just so I can frame the shit and hang it next to my autographed Pete Rock record [3]: Process And The Doo Rags.

If you honestly think I’m joking, think again: you’d be surprised at how a quick YouTube search can validate things.

But real talk is, I’m less perturbed at the fact that a group of jigs willingly paraded themselves in their search for the almighty golden watermelon, errr, money – shit, I worked at Waste Management for a few months, so I know about selling out to pay bills – than at the (probably crotchety) TI who cosigned the shit in the first place, similar to how some curly muttonchopped overlord was quick to snatch up Soulja Boy and sign him to a deal after seeing him rap about spermatozoa spray-painting a hapless cluck cluck’s back while swinging through trees like that cartoon monkey in those old-ass Cocoa Krispies commercials on YouTube.

Wait, he wasn’t swinging through trees singing about chocolate frosted, deep-fried rice being the diabetic part of your complete breakfast? You could have fooled me!

So while Ice T’s intentions on calling Soulja Boy the hip-hop killer were in earnest, instead of focusing his disdain for the ninth grade dropout, which to me is about as unreasonably inequitable as, say, Vodka Drunkenski teeing off on a wheelchair-bound Little Mac, he should bark on the record executive who had to gall to sign the stupid muh’fucker in the first place. After all, Soulja Boy is nothing more than a product of his (waterlogged) environment that is, interestingly enough, the same region of the States that’s produced such notable characters as the bipolar MARTA broad and Gangsta Ass Laterian Milton. So while something is definitely not right over there, Ice and the rest of us shouldn’t entirely be too aggy at the new-millennium Process.

[1] Yes, I yoke albums off the net, but I purchase vinyls every now and then. So you can’t tell me nothing about supporting artists.

[2] bananaclipse, Brills, Malcontent, 420, eighties and all the other West Coast proprietors of this site and c-section, you know what’s up.

[3] It also helped that the thing was only a half a dollar anyways, so it’s not like I was losing any stimulus check money on the shit anyways.

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The Comeback Kids

Real talk is even though I’m Nigerian, I’m not the biggest fan of soccer. Although my country’s team is supposed to be one hell of a squad – they even took the gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics, beating Brazil along the way – thanks to my upbringing here in the States (some call it Americanization) I never really dug the game as much as my parents.

Shit, I don’t even have an accent, so that should tell you something. Well, I did have one, but it washed out as I grew up, so now my siblings and I have this weird suburban/Naija tone in our voices. But whatever.

Anyways, these past few months were probably as good a time as any to be a sports fan, if not only a soccer fan. Chelsea bested Manchester United and – although I’m not a soccer buff – apparently the game was akin to, say, the tennis matches that Venus and Serena Williams had against each other when they were numbers one and two in the world. On a side note, I know a few people say that she looks a bit, well, mannish, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t scrape Serena if she popped up in my studio apartment tomorrow wearing nothing but a too-small wifebeater and a landing strip. She ain’t got shit on this one Brazilian chick Andressa Soares though. There’s thick-bodied, then there’s motherfucking thick-bodied.

What the hell was this blog about? Oh yeah...

Just last Sunday Turkey scored an incredible three goals in fifteen minutes against the Czech Republic to stage one of the best come-from-behinds in sports history, only to be outdone by Tiger Woods, who basically played on one leg, who came off of knee surgery to win the US Open. Then of course there were the Celtics, who did a 180 of their own to win the NBA championship. Shit, even back in February the New York Giants made an epic comeback to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Point being, while difficult at times comebacks are possible. LL Cool J has done it a myriad of times throughout his career. Ice Cube has reinvented himself, and now the guy who acts in child-friendly movies also drops surprisingly good rap albums with a socio-political twist in them like the old days. Robert Sylvester got acquitted of doing a Cleveland Steamer on a teenager, and this muh’fuck pretty much had Bebop and Rocksteady as his defense attorneys. Even rap’s beloved tree monkey came back from what was essentially a self-ethering when those pictures and stories of him and Bryan mmm-mmm kissing were all over the place to be the first person since Fiddy did it back in 2005 to sell a million copies in his first week. So I’m sure that Young Buck can make his own comeback as well. Who cares if he was crying over the phone; it’s wrong – and kind of creepy at that – for Curtis to either record or allow someone to record a phone call anyways. That’s some straight voyeur, “I-beat-off-to-old-lady-panties-in-a-Sears-dressing-room,” weird shit. Besides, people cry all the time. I’ve shed tears while talking to my moms at least twice this year, and once over a girl; that doesn’t make me, or anybody that’s done the same, bitchmade. Nope, bitchmade is someone tapes that shit, which is pretty troublesome as is; this is why people, not only rappers, have to front like battle-weary warriors like Leonidas all the time. Sad, really.

So am I really worried about Young Buck? Not really, especially considering he was the best one out of the group. We all know this was nothing more than another marketing stunt to build hype for that disaster of a G-Unit album dropping next week. Let’s just hope Buck doesn’t go batshit crazy and starts stabbing random-ass people. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind that at all; I’d even give him the Spork to use if he knifed up Tony Yayo.

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Wow, Young Buck. Wow

We’ve all had those moments. Damn if you’re the hardest thing on the shelf, everybody who visits this site and reads this shit; we’ve all had those crossroads in our lives where things do not make sense. We vent to our parents/guardians, our other halves, our friends, even random strangers who just happen to be around sometimes.

I’ve had my moments. Don’t let the mean-spirited banter fool you; Mek Dot has those times where he’d rather just sit back in the warm embrace of a loved one than clutching a near-empty bottle of Smirnoff drinking the pain away. This rap shit won’t allow it, though. We’re unable to let the guard down, not even in our private lives anymore, shrouding our inner selves in levels of testosterone-fueled machismo. In a sense I understand why rappers tend to drown themselves in pills, purple and Patron until their brains have gone completely numb. Then again, my logical side doesn’t get it at all: if rappers are swimming in the various amounts of vaginal orifices– and to a lesser, more meaningless effect, the number of Stanleys that give this as the first reason why people “hate” on them so much – they’ve shilled for profits in the first place, why literally self-ether yourself with crack, sour diesel, PCP, HGH and whatever man-made narcotic is out there? Rappers stay losing.

The problem with being unable to do so is that it looks hilarious when you actually do so sometimes. Not to say that I’m an uncaring bastard (right...) but I’m likely going to laugh each and every time a supposed hard-nosed rapper breaks down and starts weeping because they can’t keep it together. Aside from proving to me that their supposed 24-hour toughness is about as official as this Iron Man DVD I made sitting on top of my television, watching a grown man – particularly a rapper – cry just tends to crack me the fuck up.

But this shit right here… this shit is just all kinds of wrong.

But damn if I didn’t crack the fuck up while listening to it though.

Yesterday this audio of current G-Unit castaway Young Buck not-so-mysteriously sprouted up all over the Internets, and if you’ve never heard it yet, I invite you to click that link below to hear it, as the rest of this post may be a bit of a spoiler.

Young Buck’s Phone Call To Curtis (audio)

Now, I have two theories about this phone call getting leaked: some random-ass G-Unit flunky who obviously isn’t pictured here was perhaps yearning for a promotion and Linda Tripped this “private” convo with Curtis and Darnell for everyone to hear; or – to use R. Kelly’s mole/Little Man defense – it was a Buck sound-alike openly weeping on the line. Mind you, it was the kind of bawling that only happens when your pet puppy dies, but whatever.

What makes this more impacting was the fact that Buck was screaming all kinds of “Fuck G-Unit” at this random-ass show, which made its way onto the new mixtape just 24 hours prior, which to me seemed more of a self-assertion, like when someone looks in the mirror and says positive things about themselves to build up their confidence before breaking down like Janet Jackson did in Poetic Justice, than an actual bold statement especially given how small and ratty-looking the club he performed in was. Have you ever seen those neon orange, pink or yellow posters in bold, black letters that advertise said rappers performing at some nondescript venue tacked up to a light pole chilling on the side of a freeway entrance next to the peanut peddler? It looked like one of those types of shows, where security doesn’t even bother searching anybody for weaponry because they’re like, “Fuck this, you couldn’t pay me enough to touch all next to some guy’s balls to look for a blammer.” So obviously Buck isn’t as well off as he was when he used to carry Curtis’ bags off the airplane in Angola.

Once again, I’m not sure what happened exactly nor have I heard the phone call in its entirety, though I’m pretty sure most of it will be left out to better Curtis’ standing, but isn’t this all a bit too coincidental considering there’s a new G-Unit album dropping next week and I’ve barely heard anything about it? You would think by now that the marketing plan would have changed after so long, but then again it’s not surprising at all.

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YouTube Is The New Mixtape

Real talk is that a lot of rappers shouldn’t even be rapping anymore. Not to question their skills on the mic – though I’m sure I can think of a couple goobacks whose rhyme books should be tossed into the same flames that’s blackened my heart – but everybody knows you can’t make money rapping. You think Weasel gets his codeine and Dimetapp money off his hash trays?? Never. He’s either getting guap from fronting like Whitney Houston at concerts or his allowance after tonguing down his illegitimate father. I wonder what he got Bryan for Father’s Day. Then again, I don’t.

The only reason people get into rapping is because if you’re one of the lucky few smart enough to think you’re tricking a TI to spend a couple thousand on your dumb ass, you can parlay it into trying out different business ventures, like nasty-tasting bum wines and designer skinny jeans. My thing is, why hasn’t anybody done anything remotely lucrative with their slave owner playing cards? If I had that kind of change, I’d build more Laundromats in the hood and stock it full of Latino employees. Shit, in this recession most of them would be happy to be working for pennies on the dollar. You should see the Laundromat I live next to. Shit looks like a damn club with all those Mexicans fighting over the big dryer. Shout outs to The Tunnel.

But now you don’t even have to be a legitimate artist to jump into the game and grab a deal. Pharrell got that “Google Me” chick after seeing her on My Super Sweet Sixteen. On a side note, I flipped it to MTV the other day and Bow Wow had a super sweet 16 party although he was 21. Mr. 106 & Park can’t even get the numbers right? Maybe that’s why he’s going to war with random-ass used draws sellers and former jump-offs. I guess that bodyguard who raped him when he was Riley Freeman’s age got him looking for his childhood like he’s Michael Jackson now.

Speaking of YouTube fuckery, Jermaine Dupri recently signed up some youngling to a deal just off the strength of her own YouTube videos. You know rap’s in dire straits when that happens. But blame the RIAA for all of this to happen. Instead of performing useful tasks, like limiting the number of prom night dumpster baby albums to come out, they shut down Napster, not knowing the unbridled power that program could have brought to the entire music industry, unleashing hordes of copycats in the process. Guarantee if they worked with it instead of dismantling Napster I’d probably buy albums more. Then again, we’d still have this dumbass in office wiping out jobs around the country, so I doubt it.

You don’t need to rap to get a good enough buzz; Shawty Lo’s been laughing straight to the bank, and he raps about as good as my moms, which is to say not at all. All you need to do is cause enough ruckus on the Internets, and pretty soon you’ll be in a music video with Weezer also. Then you can own your own line of bedazzled Capri pants with the back cut out to sell to all the boys in the yard. Like Gangstalicious.

Naux haux maux to that last line.

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A Rapper’s Mixtape > A Rapper’s Album

Not to say that I’m in cahoots with duke – seeing as how I wrote what I now refer to as the tipping point of this blog section a year ago – but I’ve found that no matter what you say, any kind of reference to Lil Wayne in written form will usually result in any wild random number of comments ranging from slovenly quips about his lack of lyrical prowess to people proclaiming him as the second coming of Black Jesus (no, seriously), either of which is pretty disturbing; given the current rise in unemployment, one could say that it could be attributed to the idiocy of the American peoples alongside a rapidly deteriorating economy.

But if there was one thing where both the dissenters and plaudits actually have some kind of agreement on, it’s for the fact that his latest album didn’t quite match the lofty expectations he’s built up since the last album, regardless of album sales. On a semi-unrelated note, I honestly think that if you cannot secure an illegal copy of an album these days, you must either don’t understand how to open a .rar file or have a lot of disposable income to burn. My money’s on the former, and don’t give me that “I downloaded it but I’m still gonna buy it” shit; nobody’s that dumb enough to believe a person is going to buy a retail copy of the same exact album he or she snatched off the Internets for free, and if they are I need their email address so I can ask to send me their bank account number so I can wire my late uncle’s oil fortune into it so that the Nigerian Feds can’t get any.

Anyways, despite the fact that most of them can – to quote the great poet Beanie Sigel – eat a dick with AIDS on the tip, there have been some great mixtapes released by actual DJs and not Internets Ninjas. The sad thing is, however, when the rapper’s own mixtape ends up being better than the actual album. Understandably, whereas on a mixtape said rap act is free to loot whatever instrumental they so desire since outside of fagtastic cover art [1] there’s no real budget for them, it’s that same factor which masks the rapper’s shitty techniques, which is eventually exposed on their long player. A perfect example would be Jadakiss, who – despite dropping one of my favorite mixtapes ever – ended up releasing that God(dess) awful follow-up to Kiss The Buzz Goodbye. Even with all that talent, duke still couldn’t make a good album? No wonder you were on Hot 97 a few years ago threatening to drop a Maytag off of Empire State and onto Puffy’s skullcap if you didn’t get your publishing back.

If I ever had the fortune of landing a seat at the Tall Israeli House Of Overlords (though I’m pretty sure my conscience would prevent me from actually doing so), I’d simply have it so that the artist’s mixtape would be their actual release. Not only could I guarantee platinum sales each and every time, but I’m sure that, at the very least, for the right price I could make your shit tighter. Word to Ketchums.

[1] Shake, if you ever start doing these shits, I will stop you. Immediately.

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The Price Of Fortune

Q and A time, peoples: what would it cost if you found a means of getting seriously gwopped up and draped out on some Coming To America, “I have my own country” type of shit? If it meant doing something you otherwise wouldn’t think of, like murdering a loved one or jerking your closest friends, would you still be able to go through with it?

Some people will not hesitate to say yes quickfast, but I honestly believe that there’s always going to be that morally conscious side that tells us not to, even if only for a second. Given that I reconnected with my own conscience earlier this year, I wouldn’t have had a second thought to royally fuck over somebody I felt deserved it. And believe me, I can name a couple schmucks who are more than deserving the Holy Hand of Fire, if not more.

Then again, therein lies the problem with having a conscience: said conscience will never let you sleep peacefully knowing that you pulled some fucked up stunt to get into a higher position of power. Which essentially comes down to the original questions I proposed. And at this point now, unless said person in question was a societal or personal virus that needed to be expunged, I likely could not fuck anybody over for a financial gain.

I’m likely in a minority group of people, however. The reason I proposed this food for thought is because I just read an article on the most powerful celebrities in the world according to Forbes, and while I’d like to believe that the people who made the list had a similar train of thought as myself I’m pretty sure they didn’t, hence why they made the list to begin with, not to mention that some of their, errr, discretions, have more or less been publicized. For example, the writer failed to make a mention of Oprah’s – who reached the top spot for the second consecutive year – endeavors in South Africa, where her school for women, which I’ve always assumed was nothing more than a front for an illegal blood diamond operation, was under fire when one of the matrons was caught giving the love below into some of the students, nor does it make a note of Jay-Z essentially bending Dame Dash over and going in dry while yoking him for damn near every business the two had together, leaving duke with nothing more than the clothes on his back and a truckload of ugly-ass, clear Pro Keds to try to make a living off of.

I’m not gonna front as if I wouldn’t think twice about Effing someone in the Ay fiscally if it meant that I’d stand to make a huge come up, however. But I’m pretty sure I couldn’t sleep at night at least a few times a year knowing what I did to get there. The slightly disturbing thing about all of this is that despite banking upwards of over a quarter billion dollars, some of these people are still going in on that gwop, which makes me shudder at the thought of the limit, if any, they supposedly have when trying to cake up. Oh, the depravity of it all.

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Adventures In The Land Of Racial Profiling

“Damn, hope that ten Gs aint hurtin that man's pockets. It's funny, a lot of rappers get pulled over for "routine traffic stops." I can't stand the damn police.” – Some random-ass commenter on Coolio’s (I know, right?) arrest on a random-ass site

Story time, everyone. Gather around.

The day after I moved into my new shindigs in downtown Los Angeles, I got pulled over by the police while returning back to my former shithole to clean it. Maybe it was the fact I had on a green doo-rag, which could have been easily mistaken as a show of gang appreciation for the crew Mitchy Slick (what up IFux!) runs wild with down there in San Diego, or the fact that it was karma biting me in the ass for the one time that – on the way home from a club where I ended up drunkenly tonguing down a complete but fine-as-shit stranger – I asked a cop for directions to the freeway while still heavily shitfaced and like a dumbass he helped not knowing I was drunk as shit to begin with, but the next thing I know I had to turn off the car and place my hands on the wheel with one cop asking me if I had been drinking – at eight in the morning, nonetheless - while his partner did a background check, possibly seeing if I had a warrant thanks to the decade-old foot race that went down.

Eventually I was let go with a warning. Here’s a word of advice, peoples: if you get pulled over for no reason, particularly when you’re alone, know your role and shut your mouth, because the chances of you catching a night stick up the sphincter increase tenfold when you step out of pocket. It sucks, yes, but at least you’ll get to rest your head on your pillow at night instead of biting down on it.

While the average victim is quick to call racial profiling – which would be entirely logical under certain circumstances – people have to realize that despite the advances in technology, the quasi-improvement of race relations and the fact that Amerikkka may actually get a Negro (Halfrican?) to “run” this country, minorities [1] are still susceptible to the most basic of bullshit, such as being followed by Korean shop owners while inside their store, getting funny style glances when walking into a clothing spot or catching wreck from a cop, thanks to the actions of a few idiots in this country (read: the whole "one person fucks it up for the rest of us" ideal). In laymen’s terms, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It also doesn’t help that these rap yaki tossers are doing absurdly obnoxious shit as well, essentially fucking it up for the rest of us. Had Clifford not been trying to be all The Punisher and cop an assortment of blammers and, to a lesser extent, that one jig from Bone Thugs-N’-Harmony who thought it’d be a great idea to shoot pigeons off his roof with an AK-47 [2], then rap about the mess to begin with, or had people not decided to take their vengeance on a rapper by lighting the ever-loving shit out of a weed carrier’s chest cavity, we probably wouldn’t have a Hip-Hop police to begin with. I mean, you don’t see 5-0 (no Curtis) following Daughtry, Scarlett Johansson (that YT got some tig ol bitties!) or 3 Doors Down because of the shit that Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osbourne did back in the day. For the record, chewing the head off of a bat > ethering a piff pocketer.

I’m not saying that being racially profiled is perfectly fine because it really isn't even legal to begin with, but it isn’t a coincidence that it happens so often to the average citizen once you take into account all the bullshit rappers do in the first place. You don’t see that one guy (not Pharrell) from The Neptunes get caught up in anything, and I barely see any cop cars in Koreatown. Maybe it has to do with the whole skinny jeans look though.

[1] Note that I didn’t say a specific race but rather minorities, also known as the 95% of this country that isn’t in that 5%. Fuck what you heard, I’ve seen White, Latino and Asian people unjustly catch hell from cops too.

[2] Seriously, folks, how in the blue hell are these idiots getting such easy access to super heaters? My friend couldn’t even cop a pair of blast knuckles from the swap meet without catching stares from a rent-a-cop of all people.

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See, This Is Why I’m Misogynistic Sometimes

For the few people that actually know me – not the kumquats who think they do because they’ve visited this section over the past 14 months and thus have a good idea of how I look and think – I’m your typical single Afrikan male in my mid-twenties trying to figure out what exactly I was placed on this planet for. And if you’re one of the fortunate few that I actually allow into my cipher, you’d know I holds my peoples down like none other and – despite the voracity that’s displayed here – he majority of my thoughts and ideals aren’t that far-fetched.

Even when it comes to my standards on women. Granted, like every red-blooded hetero male I may want nothing more than to slap it in a cola bottle-shaped dimer every now and then, but for the most part I’d like nothing more than to come back home to a smile from the round-the-way woman of my dreams which, to others, may be surprising given a torrid past loaded with one-night stands and random-ass freaky tales in random-ass scenarios.

Those were the days.

Now that I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to not listen to my johnson as much; Lord knows I have too much to risk (read: an Xbox, fly sneakers and a pet turtle from Chinatown) being caught up in some bullshit, what with divorce rates at an all-time high (maybe it has something to do with gas prices?), phony reality programming on the tell-lie-vision that provides the false world of securing love via ass-backward physical challenges designed to make the smartest person come off as a two-bit, walking STD case and other random acts of fuckery.

Yet despite these frightening factors, there’s still those Maury Povich cases that can’t get it right for anything, as if the shit Robert Sylvester is going through right now isn’t enough of a warning sign. I can’t blame them for the most part; when many of these high school hoes portray an adult, it’s pretty difficult to tell these days, what with all the hormones in Chicken McNuggets ramping up their puberty to the point where they actually look 18. When I was at that age, most of the girls in my high school looked younger than they actually were. Hell, the other day I was told I look 19, so that should tell you something about how the female contingent looked in high school.

Real talk though I can’t feel entirely awful for those guys who think more with their bozack [||] than with their brain and end up becoming pillow biters in prison. Much like the skeezers who lie about their age on MySpace, the blame can be placed squarely on their own inability to judge from right and wrong. While some may contend that poor parental skills could be to blame, you can’t blame Mom and Dad when a person is in their twenties; a muh’fuck should be able to think, “Hey, this shit could get me anally violated in prison” at that age.

At this point, I feel it helps that I come off as an anti-social misogynist at times. Not only does it keep the skeezers away, but also it’s been proven to keep me AIDS, baby-momma and man-on-Mek Dot butt sex free [||]. And isn’t that what the so-called Amerikkkan Dream is all about?

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Wood Is The New Gold

You cannot really be this narrow minded and hateful, and if you are, then I feel sorry for you. Part of a random-ass email from a concerned fan I received the other day

I think I asked this question around the same time last year, but I think it’d be thoughtless if I didn’t ask it again: have there been any rap albums that’s gone platinum this year? Once upon a time a rapper would make like EPMD and go gold in thirty days; now they just seem relieved to break the 500,000 plateau after damn near a year. Word to Algernod and Wasalu.

While most people are deft at throwing the blame at the lack of quality music and the eschewing of such sounds for ringtone bleeps and bloops, I’d like to think that a good chunk of the accountability could be placed squarely on detesters such as, well, a good chunk of the contributors on this site.

Contrary to what others may lead you to believe, most rap fans are nothing more than sheeple – lemmings, if you will – that will hop right on the ratchet of an artist who otherwise wouldn’t even be allowed to push a cripple across the street, much less sell records. It’s this slow-mo train of thought that allows label overlords (it’s gotten boring to call them TIs as of late) to prey on such weak-minded individuals, passing off shitbag reverberations as quality music. And to an extent the shit has worked, which is why you see more God(dess) awful rappers trying to emulate the sounds of today’s top-selling shit monkeys for fear that being different will garner no wages to spend making it financially precipitate on Nappy-Headed Whoreos in nudie bars and the like.

On the flip side, you  also have the types who are simply fed up with t he bullshit in the Matrix and refuse to be caught up in it. No, I’m not talking about Internets Ninjas like DJ Chuck T and The Empire (although their cyber-martial arts ain’t nothing to fuck wit’ either), but the ones who see past the madness and – in their strange way of rebelling against (pimping of?) the system – plunder the music of their choosing. Shit, some of them even get lucky and get to spread their unholy gospel across the world in mediums like, well, this very site.

* Moves away from computer desk, stands on the arm rest of my couch and poses a la Randy Orton *

Then again, with gas hitting well over $4 a gallon in certain areas (read: where I live), the job market becoming ridiculously thinner by the minute (read: where I live) and the impassivity of a future without a cause running rampant (read: my narrow-minded, “hating” ass), some people would rather save their money – or spend it on items more worthwhile, like condoms and animal-style Double Doubles with cheese – than buy an album which the artist will likely never see a penny from. Shit, I just downloaded, hooked up and tossed three albums in my iPod Touch (fuck a Zune) as I wrote this mess; I’m pretty sure Mad Skillz won’t be mad that I just saved the non-existent royalties he’ll never see off of From Where??? from going into some Führer’s silver-lined pocket.

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Who Else Saw The Kimbo Slice Fight?

Outside of random-ass YouTube videos I had seen way the fuck back in college (go Toros!), I’d never really seen anything substantially intriguing about this backyard... errr... street fighter named Kimbo Slice. See, I’ve never really found the display of the Black man at their most primal all that interesting since Mike Tyson was the toughest video game boss ever. To this day I’ve still never beaten him; one-hitter quitters drove me insane when I was a child.

Anyways, needless to say I wasn’t particularly adrenalized when his “skills” would be put on display for the world to see for free on television. On top of my apathy I’d also gotten into a pretty huge argument with a good friend, so I wasn’t riveted to watch a multi-hour spectacle (on CBS of all channels) as is. But since I ended up spending my Saturday night at the studio mansion anyways, I watched the fight.

And as I expected, it turned out to be a load of shit.

Well, not entirely. Although there was roughly thirty seconds of actual fighting in the first ninety minutes of the show, as well as some semi-decent shots of especially skanktastic women “dancing” around in pum-pums, the best fight was yet to come, as two women – whose names I can’t remember right now – scrapped it out in the what was easily the highlight of the show. Unfortunately it didn’t go the distance, as by the end of the middle round the referee had thrown in the towel for one of the chicks whose eye had gotten beaten in so much it made the shiner Iron Mike gave Mitch Green back in the day look like a bee sting.

After that, there was another fight was shaping up to be another one that I actually thought that would turn out to be a great match as well, until one of the fighters ended up getting poked in his eye Ric Flair-style, abruptly ending the match. “What a load of shit,” I thought, so I ended up checking my email for the brazillionth time, finding out that my high school class is having a ten-year reunion in a few weeks. Time flies when you’re having fun talking shit on the Internets.

Finally, the much-ballyhooed Kimbo fight hit the screen, and it ended up being a bigger mess than the botched rappelling incident that ethered the ever loving shits out of Owen Hart live on pay-per-view way the fuck back in 1999. Disgustingly freakish cauliflower ear aside, the heavyweight-sized Kimbo clearly isn’t ready for even the likes of middleweighter Anderson “The Spider” Silva, as though he’s loaded with powerful punches and a steel chin, his stamina and – more importantly – his mat skills leave a lot to be desired.

Oh, and over the weekend Internets Ninja DJ Chuck T supposedly leaked Lil Wayne’s overhyped but essentially underwhelming Tha Carter III album. I spent a good amount of time listening to it – because when my cousin dropped me off back home he had it playing in the car so that we could all clown the shit out of it – before deciding that dedicating a shitload of energy to it unless I was getting paid to review it was useless.

See, while the hip-hop world – stans, dwyckriders, fans, haters and all – were up in arms about arguably the most anticipated rap album since Kanye West’s last album, I can’t and won’t simply because I could give three-fifths of a shit about the thing in the first place. I’ve spat out my fair share of ignorant diatribes, and I can honestly say that his kind doesn’t appeal to me anymore. So, I’d rather do other useless things – like watching shirtless men beat each other’s ass on this train – than talk about, in my opinion, a horrible album from an artist who’s too slurred out of his skull to quite possibly ever reach his full potential.

*Anticipates “no pussy getting hater” comments in the c-section in 5, 4, 3, 2...*

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Violent Rap Is The Past, Present And Future

Being that I barely have a social life outside of drunken escapades at a party every now and then and random-ass sexual romps once in a while – although most would consider that a pretty decent social life, but I digress – I spent the majority of this past weekend watching a plethora of violent shows on television: Saturday morning cartoons, the Kimbo Slice fight and the first two Ninja Turtle movies. Reliving a past childhood and realizing how silly being fascinated at watching a group of people run around performing ninja moves in green turtle costumes as a child was, I actually had to sit back in amazement at not only how it enthralled me when I was younger, but also how aggressive said programming was, even when aimed at a juvenile demographic.

It’s not surprising, however, given the ruthless nature of man and woman. I can’t recall where or when, but I think I was either told (or maybe I read it somewhere?) that it was in man’s psyche to be violent; it’s why we have children like Gangsta Ass Laterian Milton [1] running wild in this world. To be quite blunt, we’re savage by the time we pop out of our mothers, but for the most part we’re taught to not indulge in such tendencies.

By that (admittedly bizarre) logic, I can see why rap music is so bloodthirsty more often than not, as well as why that form of sound sells more than random-ass shit about seashells and tulips. Well, it used to sell before Internets Ninjas like DJ Chuck T [2] began dropping off bootlegs on the fly. It panders to our natural human instincts, and gratifies our own delusional grandeurs of mayhem. It’s why we’re more drawn to songs about ether than songs about salad tossing. Hell, it’s why I’d likely listen to Clipse before Talib Kweli on any given day.

Contrary to what the likes of Oprah, Bill Cosby and Al Sharpton may claim you can’t blame hip-hop music for society’s ills, not to mention: fuck Oprah and Al Sharpton. Bill Cosby gets props cuz I used to dig Ghost Dad, but that’s where it stops. If anything’s to be the scapegoat it should be our own innate tendencies – as well as man’s greedy, capitalistic nature as well – for bugging the fuck out.

[1] As a side note – as well as a cheap plug – my pat’nah Shake and I’s side hustle is going through some changes, so you may want to hit its cyber-skins with this prophylactic for the time being: http://2dopeboyz.wordpress.com/.

[2] What I found particularly hilarious was