It’s fair to say that the internets have not been kind to rappers. While DJ’s and producers have been able to use the new avenues to their advantage, most MC’s just end-up playing themselves when they get online. It all started with message boards, where ‘underground’ rap dudes trying to kill time until Fat Beats opened up would attempt to defend their reputations against anyone who posted about how shitty their latest 12″ was. This always ended with the said rap dude getting PWND pretty badly, making me wonder why they even bothered. Come to think of it, I seem to remember one of the dudes from Cannibal Ox getting snuffed by someone from a message board related dust-up. Call me old fashioned, but I preferred it when rappers just made records and lef tthe extra commentary to the shout outs on the back of the album. We’ve just listened to you flap your gums for 40 plus minutes already, no one needs to read you blog about it (other than hardcore Stans). Having endured painful blog entries from Lupe and Joe Buddens, to name just two – it’s fair to say that MC’s suck at blogging. As for emotional rants on MySpace pages? The less said on that topic, the better.
Not that I want to stereotype all lyricists as being retarded at writing online – both Prodigy and Bun B have produced some quality keyboard insanity, but for the most part it seems that only people who don’t get the chance to say their piece on record that are capable of making worthwhile posts. Stretch Armstrong and Just Blaze = good. Phonte and Naledge = not so much.
On the same topic, ?uestlove – who also considers himself spomewhat of a rap scribe – breaks down the creation of his okayplayer site in the new HHC:
“I started OkayPlayer because my partner, Angela Nissel, was desperately tryin’ to talk me out of gettin’ a jeep, without havin’ a license first. Back then, rappers bought vehicles and just had their boys drive. I thought, ‘Okay, Biggie had an SUV and had Lil’ Cease drive it. So I’m gonna put down money, get an SUV, and get one o’ my boys a suit. And that’ll be my car.’ And she was like, ‘This is the stupidest thing I ever heard, Ahmir!’
“Basically, Angela said, ‘You should invest in your future. If you’re gonna squander 11,000 dollars, at least put your future behind it.’ She told me we needed our own website where it’s built every day, with good graphics, where we can communicate with our fans.
“As they were buildin’ the site, I was in turn goin’ on every website just lookin’ for how we could stand out. How could we be different? And whenever I went to the black websites, I didn’t learn anything different. All I learned about Lauryn Hill was that she lo-o-o-ves reggae. The most I learned from the Tribe Called Quest website was that it had a recipe for Tip’s Famous Spaghetti Sauce. Meanwhile, the Beastie Boys were leakin’ new material to their fans every week; Courtney Love would be arguin’ with and talkin’ to fans on everyone else’s site, and Michael Stipe was communicatin’ on a weekly basis on REM’s site.”
So it cost him 11 grand to make a message board and some site pages? That’s the old site too. I shudder to imagine what they dropped on the upgraded version. I mean, it has Flash and junk. Shit must’ve cost like a quarter mil, minimum. No wonder The Roots are always touring. I would’ve gone for the jeep, personally. Especially since he was going to get a weed carrier to drive him around!
haha.
that’s so right.
Oi Rob, was Unkut.com the result of a toss up between buying a new wheelbarrow and starting a blog? ;)
True about rappers blogging, reading Prodigy’s blog is very funny in a retarded kind of way. Look at what he brought to the table.
Lol @ paying 11 grand to get hated on by your own fans, i do find okayplayer entertaining tho
I cant listen to the Roots.
A few songs here and there, mainly pre 1998.
?uest is mad gay.
I’m changin my name. That dude is giving us Ahmir’s around the world a bad name.
Who can forget the rants on MySpace tho.
Mini-blogs.
Saigon’s super crazy mini blog about Atlantic, and Just Blaze, etc…
Hahaha
Rappers need not write.
Or use teh internets
Let me see if I get this straight. Your stating that Prodigy has a better blog than Phonte? I’m not really understanding that. I’ve read both of their blogs and only one is interesting and that would belong to Mr. Coleman. The Prodigy blog was all over the place and contained several typos and grammatical errors. Plus his posts have been mad ignorant. This is the same guy who stated that jail would be a good thing for him because he has never had a proper vacation??? Meanwhile Phonte writes very insightful, witty and at times laught out loud funny blog posts. If your agrument hinges on the beleif that the only good blogs are from someone like Prodigy, I will file you in the never listen to this guys opinion again.
It’s funny you brought up the Cannibal Ox incident, because I have this vague memory of it from a few years back but couldn’t find anything on google about it. From what I remember, some kid showed up at one of their shows after an extended message board beef and k.o.’d one of the members of the group (I’m pretty sure it was one of the emcees, not Cip-One) as they were walking through the crowd after performing. Turned out the kid tagged the one dude from the group who wasn’t on the message board (and allegedly didn’t even own a computer).
If anyone can hook up a link to the original message board thread on that, please get at me.
The dude snuck Vordul(from Cannibal Ox) blindsided him as he was walking thru the crowd and broke his jaw… This was some big dude that got locked up for the incident, but the funny thing was that he had a beef with El-P, but El-P was with his peoples all night and playing the back………….Dude was hopped up on steroids and other drugs and just totally blindsided Vordul for no reason totally out of the blue………This fucked up a lot of things and also explains why jux doesnt have a forum anymore……shit imagine walking thru the mall with your chick and some big 280lb dude just punches you in the jaw out of nowhere…………because he had beef with one of your boys and you knew nothing about it. Shit Big L was killed for something his brother did.
Ahmir forgot to mention he used it to pick up his female fans.
the average man: that shit is hilarious
i can see how reading an ignorant blog by an og like prodigy would be way more interesting than reading about phonte’s experiences drinking sweet tea and crying over 9th wonder ditching his crew, you should not be allowed to rap if you get owned in a forum flame battle, kinda funny that vordul got clocked, seems like el-p has a lot of enemies, i like sole a smidge more because of his el-p diss record
Thak you for the news