Hip Hop Blogs

The Internet Got Elliott Wilson Goin’ Nuts

Elliott Wilson, the editor of XXL Magazine, has lost it. I thought marriage was making him soft, but it seems like something else is making him paranoid. For the last few months Elliott, who usually uses his rambling editorials to attack his rivals at Vibe and The Source, has been aiming his poison pen at hip-hop bloggers.

Yes. Hip-hop bloggers. And I may be ego trippin, but I think he’s been spitting subliminals directly at me! With Kris Ex dropping homophobic slurs on my name last week, August has been a crazy month for me. I thought blogging about music would be bliss, but right now it feels more like wrestling.

Here’s Elliott’s latest:

"This one’s dedicated to you inferior fucks and jealous bitches who envy me. To the anonymous assholes hunched over your keyboards writing erroneous shit to get a rise out of YN: You’re beneath me. You wanna know why I ain’t gotta answer niggas? ’Cause I truly understand these niggas—sneak dissin’ haters who want to get put on. You just want my autograph on your copy of ego trip’s Book of Rap Lists or, better yet, on a XXL contract. You’d be doing naked cartwheels if I ever gave you a byline. You don’t stand for shit, so sit. Just wait for your moms to go to sleep so you can get back on that computer. I’m ready for a blogger geek burial." 

See? I told you he’s p-noid. Elliott has probably been reading too much Media Bistro and thinks bloggers are going to take his job away!

But about his rant - first off, who are these “anonymous a-holes” that Elliot is referring to? My name is Hashim Warren, from Harlem. This is Michael Miraflor, from Cali. He’s Ian from the UK, and he’s Byron Crawford from Missouri. Anonymous, who?

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Photo from Marc Ecko's "Getting Up" Festival

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All-white parties in Williamsburg "parody" Black hip hop culture

This story (which I am not claiming to have broken first) is currently blowing up the internet Paul Wall style. Check the soulstrut forums, for example.  I think it was the "bucket of fried ckicken gets you in at the door" part of the article that set a lot of people off.

Every so often you come across a news article that completely flips you out.  This is one of those articles.  I'll let this speak on itself, via the Washington Post:

"Tha Pumpsta, who happ ens be white, has built a following in the past few years by staging monthly "Kill Whitie" parties in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for large groups of white hipsters. His proclaimed goal, in between spinning booty-bass, Miami-style frenetically danceable hip-hop records that are low on lyrical depth and high on raunchiness, is to 'kill the whiteness inside.'"

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Beats Made Overseas?

More on the hiphop international tip... what if in the not too distant future, hip hop and r&b artists could outsource their beats to China and India?  Am I serious?  Yeah I'm serious.  It's all speculation of course, but think about this scenario:  You're an upcoming MC with skills, but you can't afford to pay someone for original beats and you damn sure can't afford your own MPC.  Rapping over other people's beats is played out and you don't want anyone's throw aways.  So what do you do?  Drop $20 for 25 fresh tracks with the BPM count and samples you request.  From a hip hop producer in India.  Welcome to the future.

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Is South Africa's Kwaito Hip-Hop?

Today Kelefa Sanneh of the New York Times profiles internaional hip-hop and explores how the genre twists once it hits other lands. Two examples- London's grime, and South Africa's kwaito.

Wikipedia explains kwaito as:

...a South African form of house music that originated in Johannesburg in the mid 1990's. The beat in Kwaito is slower than that usually found in house music and contains melodius African loops, deep bass and often vocals. Charactaristicly the vocals are male and shouted or chanted and for the most part not sung.

In other words, African dance music with raps over it. Somebody, please school me - other than the rapping, what makes kwaito so "hip-hop"?

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Grafh's Preview - this year's best album that you haven't heard

I've been reading a few early "best hip-hop albums this year" lists (see Ian and Bol's).

Two trends I see. First, people seem to feel this year so far has sucked for hip-hop. Secondly, no one has listed Grafh's debut album, The Preview. I think the two are related.

The Preview is a great intro to Grafh's unique flow and glowing charisma that rose him up the ranks of the crowded mixtape scene. The disc plays like a collection of his greatest hits, rather than a polished album. And that's on purpose. As the title suggests, this is just a preview of your boy's ability, until his label situation gets straightened out (Grafh is on Blackhand Ent. which is under the Damon Dash Music Group).

However, even as a glimpse of Grafh's talent, this album is top ten material for this year. Don't sleep.

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