EPISODE 45: I GOT RICH OFF COKE-ANOMICS

EPISODE 45: I GOT RICH OFF COKE-ANOMICS

First off, I wanna give a few shout outs. BIG UPS to everybody at Central Soul Music and Crownn Recording Group (Jerome!) who’ve been working so hard on getting my first album (I’ll Be Alright, Book One) and first tour together and into position. Much love to my man Rey who’s dropped this blog a few times in his posts at IATS and alumnah these past couple months. Also, much respect to all the websites and blogs that have been supporting my art (too many to name). I promise, 2009 is gonna be our year!

Welcome back everybody to the wide world of WEB. I’ve been busy as hell this past month and a bit but that should come as no surprise to anybody who has been reading and keeping up with me. At present time I’m currently gearing up and getting ready for I’ll Be Alright, Book One’s official release on January 15th and subsequent tour which I will be calling the Please Buy My Tape Tour. Right now I’m just waiting for the album artwork, masters and tour confirmations to come back to me. For anybody who has the leaks that I’ve let go from Book One, don’t dismiss the idea of purchasing the album. I have since gotten all of the songs mastered and I guarentee you it will be well worth your purchase. So as of right now, I’m in the process of planning out 2009 with my trusty sidekick who shall remain anonymous at this point in time. We’re currently developing a press release and EPK that should be available in the near future. I’m also planning a large online project that will result in the launch of an official Central Soul Music website which will include artist blogs, news, videos and lots of other cool shit. Definitely something to look forward to.

Now for the shitty part. I’M STILL STUCK IN VANCOUVER. I was supposed to leave here over a month ago for New Orleans, but due to natural disasters and a few personal ones, I have remained in the place from which I started. On the bright side, plans have been put into effect for a trip to Berlin, Germany and then the inevitable move to New Orleans and return to LA. So everybody PLEASE keep your fingers crossed since I can’t do a fuckin thing stuck in this cold, boring corner of Northwest America. I love my city but it just has nothing to offer when it comes to my personal life or career.

So since I went in on hipsters in my last post (EPISODE 44: DEATH TO ALL HIPSTERS) I figured I go in the opposite direction and tear a new asshole in another group of people that drive me up the fuckin wall….

RAPPER GUYS aka COKE RAP aka MAKE BELIEF aka DISNEY RAP

I opened my email this morning and began my daily routine of fishing through various garbage emails. Since I’m in the loop in the magical world of the “hip hop industry” I get hundreds of emails a day from record labels (NEW JAY-Z!!!! Yes, I believe I will open that one), promo companies (NEW STREET BANGER FROM YOUNG LIL GEE WHIZ!!!! Much success to you but I think I’ll pass) and PR agencies (PRESS RELEASE: JIM JONES SAYS, “T.I. STOLE MY SWAG”. Fuck, I hate the word “swagger”). So as I woke up and sent hundreds of emails to their resting place in my trash bin with my glass of cherry kool-aid, my version of morning coffee, I spotted a headline that jumped out at me. It read, “RICK ROSS ADMITS TO BEING A CO”. For those of you not up on your rapper guy news (I don’t blame you), a few months ago the south’s newest coke rap officiando, Rick Ross, was exposed for his past proffession as a corrections officer complete with pictures and pay stubs as proof. It was at that point that him and his people (Def Jam) went into a PR tailspin and went into “deny mode”. They did everything they could to bury this story but as the old saying goes, “the truth always comes out”. So now apparently Rick Ross has done a new interview where he has finally admitted to having once been a CO. Personally, I don’t really care if he was a corrections officer or not. I never listened to his music and even if I did, I think being a CO is the same as being a millionaire drug lord. You’re both contributing to the same system that is destroying the ethnic (black, latin and native american) people of this continent at a rapid pace. Therefore you’re all (and myself for a portion of my life) in the same boat. But of course, hip hop in all it’s shining ignorance, doesn’t see the correlation between the two. In our minds, having anything to do with the justice system whatsoever is far worse than pumping death into our communities. So as it goes, this could and probably will be the end of Rick Ross’ short career. Now, if when he first came out he had’ve said, “Yeah, I was a CO and I sold powder on the side” or “I was a CO until I realized that the real money was in the streets”, I think hip hop would’ve bought it. We maybe even would’ve still been down after he was exposed. But that wasn’t good enough because he apparently got rich before rap. Yeah, he had millions before he ever even touched a mic. If that’s the case then I ‘d like to ask this question, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU RAPPIN THEN?!?! Do you like all the politics and stupidity you have to deal with in this industry? Or is it that you just wanted to shove it in all of our faces? That’s not very nice. There’s millions of starving people in North America. Are you really that evil? NOOOOOOO, YOU MADE IT UP. Of course, that’s why all of the facts and figures you rap about don’t make any sense. And it’s not Rick Ross I’m talking about cuz I’ve never actually listened to his music. I’m talking about all of the frontin rapper guys around the world. You know, that dude that used to get chased around the neighborhood, never sold a dime bag in his life and now all of a sudden he’s a fuckin kingpin. I laugh when I hear some of these dude’s songs cuz I wonder how many people actually believe their bullshit. I know a handfull of dudes from my city (everybody in VanCity knows who I’m talking about!) who try that shit in their music. I remember once sitting in the studio with my ex-fellow Usual Suspecs member, E.D.G.E. (sorry about the name drop, D!) saying, “Holy shit dude. This guy just took elements of your life and put it in a song. What a herb! Hahahahaa!”. When we approached this rapper guy about his blatant and constant breaches of “keeping it real” he whined like a little girl and sat in a corner. You see, we are artists and despite what we’ve done in our pasts, we are not or no longer gangsters/thugs/whatever other word you can think of for it. We make music and if you are even somewhat serious about what you do, you have no time for the street shit. Which makes me wonder about all the other rapper guys in all the other cities around the world. What happens to them when the real G’s who are still in the street get ahold of them? I hope they extort these little fuckers til their pockets bleed. I hope they make them regret ever concocting their stupid little pretend personas in the first place. The truth is, If you’ve ever been involved in anything to do with drugs, you know that there is only so much you can say in a song. You can’t go too far because you risk getting other people caught. When I wrote, Cutlass Supreme (which was originally an interlude called Criminal Breakdown) I had to be extremely careful of what I said. I had to keep everything fairly general cuz if I went too far with it I could compromise other people’s interests. And those people don’t like to have their interests compromised at all. So when I hear these rappers saying, “I got (insert weight here) of (insert drug here) from (insert place and/or person here) for (insert price here)”, I know you’re lying. There’s NO WAY you could ever say something like that, and if it’s true, not have somebody gunning for you. I just wish everybody knew that so it would force all these rapper guys to admit that they’re just assuming a role for the sake of entertainment. If that’s the case, that’s cool. It’s like watching wrestling. You know the shit’s fake, you know they’re not really fighting but whatever, it’s fun. Leave the UFC fighting (aka real shit) to those that want some reality in their music. But of course, they can’t do that because in hip hop you’re supposed to “keep it real”. So they go into the studio and spit the most out of this world shit they can think of and people believe it. And when the people figure out that it’s all made up, they get mad. So mad that they stop listening to your music and your career ends up in the “Vanilla Ice files”. Why anybody would try to portray such a stupid image in the first place, I have no idea, but they do it time and time again. I know that in a lot of cases it has a lot to do with having industry people in your ear telling you what to say, which I can understand. You have mouths to feed and a family to take care of. You only live once and you should try to get as much money as you can before you go. Why not? It’s your life and it’s yours to live. All I ask is that you don’t pull the rest of us down with you. When people here my music and say, “Why don’t you talk about more of the other shit? Why don’t you sound like (insert rapper guy’s name here)? You were there and even if you didn’t do some of it, you at least were there to watch it”. To which I have to respond, “Well, I have 3 reasons. One, I love this art and what I say should and will directly reflect who I am. Two, my soul is worth waaaayyyy more to me than any amount of money. And most importantly, Three. I don’t feel like getting found face down in a lake with holes in my head. Have a nice day!”.

Also, I’ll be giving a realistic drug rap story on a new album I’m working on with my brother/homie/producer Shane Eli, coming summer 2009.

Album Of The Day: Queen, A Night At The Opera

Best Song: Bohemian Rhapsody