What happened to Hip Hop? I'll tell you.

Yes, yes y'all. It's been a while but I'm back and for good reason too. In my super busy schedule I stumbled upon a Canadian hip hop collective called THE FREEDOM WRITERS with a track called ARIZONA BAY featuring FRANZ THOMAS. In my opinion, I haven't heard a soul awakening track like this in YEARS. It brought me back to when hip hop use to also be about social awareness and empowerment. Believe me, there still are some true heads out there trying to keep the ancient hip hop spirit alive by producing them gut wrenching beats and crazy lyrical flow, but they ain't gettin' no shine compared to the craptacular material some "Hip Hopers" are flooding the mainstream airwaves with today. Don't get me wrong, hip hop back then had their fair share of party songs and dance tracks, but hip hop also had something important to say.

Back then, you might have had a conscious sound to your rap and your track might get out there, but it's only hitting underground ears and college radio. If you were lucky, you would get signed to a small indie label with an even smaller budget to shoot a music video. And once your video is done it only gets played once a week on your music video station, while rock and pop tunes were on such heavy rotation, you can memorize the lyrics in one afternoon without buying the album. (I STILL know every word of Never Tear Us Apart by INXS). Back then, hip hop wasn't making real money, yet more and more people were paying attention and listening...including white middle class America. And that got the attention of the major record companies. They had the perfect plan to capitalize on both hip hop and the middle class American listeners...simply change the message of hip hop from something meaningful to something meaningless.

They took out all that conscious empowering stuff they feel was "useless" to the TARGET market and decided to give them something more "real". Major music labels thought it was good that these rappers would rap a bit more about what happened in their "hood", and convinced them to "share" their experiences of drugs, gangs and violence. The record companies embellished on the their bravado, and thug mentality, and developed "the gangster rapper".

It was a lot easier to rap about slinging some dope or blasting soe foo' on your block because he owes you 20 bucks than how to keep your ass in school and discovering your self worth. Gangsta rap help perpetuate a stereotype in the Black and Latino community and some people who lived in some inner cities believed what they were listening to about themselves was actually what they ARE and they themselves buy into that stereotype and make it worse by slinging more dope or blasting some foo' cause he owes them 10 bucks. Middle America couldn't get enough of this. They were buying into it like crazy pushing rap album sales from BARELY GOLD to an almost guaranteed DOUBLE PLATINUM. More and more people began to believe this quality of hip hop was the new quick way to get over. It quickly became the career of choice for young inner city idiots. 'Get in the streets, get into some trouble, get a criminal record or some dirt on you, grab a mic, and hope you get paid for your so called "struggle". White kids in middle America were doing it too. Some of them would throw on some gear, some J's, twist their cap back and spit in the mic swearing they're hard. Some of them would go as far as doing dumb criminal stuff so they can earn some of that sweet precious "street cred" they hear about but ain't worth jack. But it didn't stop there.

Gangsta rap begat THUG rap. What's the difference? Not much, really. Except dudes think they're more grimey, hungry, broke and will do whatever they can (illegally) to merely get by. Then Thug rap begat The Flossin' Flows when it wasn't too much about being a THUG, but about being a filthy rich thug. Y'all know, 'throw them Rollies in the sky, and wave them side to side and keep them hands high'? You got cats wearing the super expensive designer gear, in super expensive mansions, pushin' super expensive rides that even Bill Gates had to put on Layaway. They throw cash in our face like they're Scrooge McDuck and have more jewelry than Liberace. Thanks to these guys we now got a new term that ended up in Websters Dictionary...Bling Bling. Hip hop became the global voice of influence and over the years look what the influence was, nothing substantial really. It sold a lot of records, and sold a lot of guns, clothes, jewels, cars, women, and lets not forget RIMS. Hip hop single handily sold A LOT of RIMS. Some jackass even put rims on running shoes....good one douchstick. What do we got left when it comes to the essence of hip hop in the mainstream? Nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch and a whole lotta diddley squat. We went from Grandmaster Flash: The Message to Solja Boy Tell em and his Superman song that he should have been SUED OUT OF HIS SKIN for infringement. And Solja, if you're reading this, I know a lot of people were feeling that song when it came out, but you made a stupid song and we learned actually how many stupid people there are in America based on your record sales. So thanks for the consensus count on idiots, the record companies appreciates it.

A guy like me would believe that real hip hop died, and it's greedy, show-off, retarded cousin took over in it's place. A guy like me would think that anyone who actually had something to say on a track would instead say "what's the point?" because messages of true awareness don't reach who should be listening. A guy like me would rather tear a twenty dollar bill into little pieces and mix it with dog food than use it to buy ANY Lil Wayne CD. No diss to Lil Wayne personally, I'm sure he's a nice person, but his music annoys me like a wild hair growing up my butt that severely needs to be plucked. But I now see that guys like THE FREEDOM WRITERS are trying to get to broadcast level like Morpheus and his crew and are waking up people from this wackadocious hip hop matrix some of us are plugged into today and taking us back to where true hip hop lives.

But knowin' is hoping that YOU GET IT.

freedomwritersmusic.com

Lista.

Windows XP on a PC is a lot like bad relationship.

Sup y'all. Forgive me for sounding ignorant on this one, I'm just frustrated and have went through a very bad break up.

Ya know, I use to be a big fan of the PC and the Windows platform and I would defend it tooth and nail whenever someone tried to bash it. Especially back when I was in school and my design professor cramming the love of all things Apple down our throats. But today, it's different.

My STUPID PC is acting like a complete A-HOLE right now, and I think she's not gonna go back to how things use to be. Thinking of this made me come to a realization, OWNING A PC AND USING WINDOWS IS A LOT LIKE BEING A BAD RELATIONSHIP.

You start off nice. A fresh new PC and a fresh new Windows XP installation right there in front of you as bright and promising as that grassy hillside meadow on your first desktop. And the only thing on your virgin desktop is that little cute recycle bin which appears to have NO BAGGAGE. Hell, it even gives you some important tips before you start your new relationship, like to make sure you got your crap detector up (firewall) and to be sure you supply yourself with some cyber condoms (virus protectors). It even tells you to where to go for updates so it can rock your world and be the BEST OPERATING SYSTEM you'll ever have. You start to install needed programs and customize your settings to your sweet specifications. Yep, you're in like Flint and you know you're gonna put some work in on this hottie and feel good about it too. This PC is gonna teach you things, make you money, and take you places and show you things you'll never imagine.

Then you have to connect it to the INTERNET, which is like bringing your sweetheart out into the cyberworld. You both get to visit this site and that site and watch this and listen to that, but eventually you will his restrictions, such as; in order to see THIS, you gotta install THAT. Or if you wanna install THAT, your PC need THESE. You shrug your shoulders and download whatever it takes in order to have a good experience with your PC.

But after a while, you notice you're PC talks a bit TOO MUCH with it's pop ups. Then it says, "If you wanna shut me up, then you're gonna need to install THIS". Next thing you know you're installing programs to eliminate spyware and malware. Yeah, your PC is now chatting to other programs and they're giving it ideas on how to mess with you. Also your PC keeps it's mouth shut whenever something goes wrong internally. Bad coding, a hidden virus, or a failed driver. Does it come outright and tell you? NOOOOOOO, it either keep it to itself or communicates in KLINGON and says confusing mess like, "error 4956848550000: The blah of the blah cannot operate of the whosis in my whatzits". Now you're trying to reason with it. You gave it the drivers and protection it said it needed, and now it's being all cold to you. After a while, your PC started being cold and bitchy, and starts telling YOU what you can and can't do with it, like it's on some eternal PMS or something. You're sitting there wanting to get it on like in the old days but all it does now is turn over and tells you it's got a headache by showing you a bunch of other error codes leaving you cold and confused for another night.

Now you're pissed off. You paid good money for that damn PC and you want it to do what you expect it to do. You search forums looking for advice on how to "FIX" it, just to find other hapless saps like yourself who aren't able to do it in their own relationship with their PC. You get desperate and started doing radical changes. You start uninstalling this and removing that, trashing these and those. Scan disks, defraging, clearing temp files, new ram, I mean some real drastic stuff to show this battleaxe you mean business and you're not gonna tolerate it's shit no more. And the fight begins. It starts messing with you RIGHT BACK by making certain files unreadable, deleting folders, corrupting programs and inviting more bad characters than a Mexican block party. Error code after error code, over and over again. You get new software and install, it rejects it because it's missing an internal driver or something. You call tech support and it freezes your mouse and keyboard so you can't do SQUAT with it. You then go berserk and resort to good old comforting violence. You start slaping that PC around like a pimp from Oakland just to feel better and also because you can get away with it. But then it pulls out it's ACE card, it's Coup de grace, and give you it's monumental last SCREW YOU by giving you the dreaded BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH and DUMPS your sorry ass. Oh, and it wipes you CLEAN too. It takes everything. The photos, the programs, the videos, EVERYTHING. That mechanical heffer doesn't leave you with just 'half' like in a real relationship, IT TAKES IT ALL. I'm sure if it had the ability it would frame you for murder and inform the cops just to watch you get arrested and be led away.

So there you are, alone and cold with no PC and no connection to the precious cyber world you were once a part of. So you install a NEW Windows XP to your machine and when you are asked if you want to format the drive, you think of the craziness and all the problem it has given you and press ENTER to get rid of every remnant it may leave behind of itself. You then install a fresh new copy of Windows XP on your computer and you're back to square one and become EXTRA careful this time in customizing her for a much wiser, harmonious relationship.... Until you notice you're PC is talking a bit TOO MUCH AGAIN. DAMN!!!!

So that's it for me. I'm changing sides. I'm tired of watching those Mac commercials with Justin Long and that white nerdy guy and defending this stupid Windows XP. I don't trust it's "upgrades" either. They can call them whatever they want Vista, Windows 7, Windows Best Ever, WHATEVER! They can all kiss my behind then kiss it again. I'm gonna wait for my welfare check, and mug a couple of tourists and get the money I need to buy me a new MAC.

Lista. (I don't look like that white guy there, hugging his Mac)

Check this guy out.

Maaaaan, I can do that.

Lista.

Dear Roland Emmerich

What is your lousy problem with mankind and human civilization? I see you have damned us all to die in some horrific, out of nowhere fashion in your new film 2012. Like, what happened to you as a child to make you want to destroy the planet and us in the process? Someone should take away your film directing license so you won't have to make movies like these again.

Ya see, when you started to give us catastrophe you at least gave us hope like in Independence Day. You made aliens from outer space come and blow us to bits with those cool lasers. BUT you gave us a young Will Smith and kinda young Jeff Goldblum to cram a nuke up E.T.'s ass and blow them to hell. Yeah our planet was littered with space crap, but the ending message was, don't eff with the earthlings. Good job.







Then came Godzilla. Not a lot of people liked that movie but I loved it because you made that giant iguana tear New York a new poopshoot, deservingly so. I haven't been that excited seeing New York get trashed since Ghostbusters and the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man. But who did you get to try save the day? You made New York City rely on FERRIS BUELLER to save them from total destruction. He's Godzilla you idiot, not Mr. Rooney.







Next, you made The Day After Tomorrow. Now what's the big idea having half the world looking like an unthawed freezer at Costco? And this time you send no one to save our stuck up, frozen asses, but you sent Dennis Quaid to save his gay, cowboy son, Jake Gylenhall, or Gylenhale or Glycerine or whatever his name is.









You also made some uber lousy movies that ended up on the $5.99 shelf at Blockbuster, like 10,000 BC, which probably stands for Bull Crap because that's what that picture is. I haven't seen it myself, but it looked like a long, boring, realistic, unfunny adaptation of The Flintstones, so PASS.










Now you wanna make a film on how the ancient Mayans predicts the world will end December 21st, 2012? FOUR STINKIN' DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS? Dude, you crazy? What makes you think that just because their over-glorified, Fisher Price, calendar ended on that date, the world is gonna END? Of course almost ALL ancient civilizations said the world was gonna end the same time, but that's because they were probably lazy and copied the Mayans. If the Chinese gave a different date first, we'd believe them instead. Hell, if the date of the last day on earth appeared in a Chinese fortune cookie, we'd believe that over some Mayan coo-coo calendar. I think the ancient Mayans stopped their calendar on December 21st, 2012 because the calendar guy either got fired or found another job. Or maybe he just died and his boss said "aaaaah well, that calendar is long enough the way it is".
You wanna call ME ignorant? Go ahead, doofus. But at least I didn't sink Los Angeles into the Pacific killing millions like in that picture up there. Click on it and see.
What do you expect would actually happen when that day comes, Mr. Emmerich? Nothing I bet. I bet you're gonna be in your Hollywood mansion busy counting your money laughing like Stalin while the rest of us are all huddled in caves like Osama Bin Laden and his band of flunkies, all paranoid and afraid to come out because of your stupid' movie. But a couple days before December 21st, 2012, I plan on going to YOUR house to find YOU. And I'll be right there to ruin whatever secret plan you have cooked up so you can kiss your own sauerkraut butt goodbye like the rest of us. Believe that.

Lista.

TYCO RC vs. AIR HOGS

This month we're going to look into one of the biggest battles in history of all that is cool. We have TYCO RC against the new kid on the block, AIR HOGS. Both companies are fighting each other to the death over remote control supremacy and it's up to us to choose the winner. So first, lets take a look at our RC killers.


They gave us the coolest looking thing on wheels. I don't know what they came out with first, but I remember one of the first commercials I seen was for the AERO TURBO HOPPERS. Yeah, it looked like the other RC cars that came out before, but Tyco decided to blow our minds aways with their patented 9.6v TURBO battery. And when the kid in the commercial flips that switch, you see the car just take off like the De Lorean in Back To The Future . Since then Tyco continued to amaze us with cooler vehiclesThe Granddaddy of RC fun for just about everyone. These guys came out back in the 80s and completely DOMINATED the remote control market. They made sure their designs were ultra-cool, aerodynamic and killer fast. Such as Terrain Twister, Ricochet and Rebounds, Fast Traxx, Turbo Wheelie, Air Blade and Shell Shocker. However their ideas right now are more tame for some unknown reason and I hope they grow a new set of balls soon.

The only problem is that none of us had the same specially constructed rugged terrain sets that were built for the commercials. If I was able to play with my Tyco toys in the Grand Canyon or on some damn dusty Oregon trail, then I'd have hours and hours of fun. But most of us were constricted to the boring flats of the driveways or parking lots and school yards and that took away almost all the appeal of the RC right off the bat.
My Rebound was the RC car that had 4 huge wheels that were bigger than the car itself so it was able to do flips, wheelies and you could smack it around like a Harlem crackhead and no matter what it will always end up on it's wheels and keep on going. But all I could do was run it into the wall over and over like some retard with OCD just to see it flip and do tricks. On a sad note, my dear rebound went out with a BANG when I underestimated it's speed and lost control as it ventured out into traffic. It scared the living crap outta a lot of drivers, but met it's end by a roofing truck. Oh well, it deserved my salute and moment of silence, but it STILL went down as one of my favorite toys ever. But now I have a new personal favorite, the TERRAINIAC.




What Tyco did for the terrain, Air Hogs did for the air. These SOBs made RC flying in the air SUPER EASY. I remember when a guy had a real expensive remote control plane he got at the hobby store, he had this remote that was as big as an 80s boom box had more controls than Teletron 1 in autobots headquarters. Problem is, he crashed it. And not just crashed it, he CRASHED IT so bad it ended up on the news that evening. Air Hogs developed RC planes that can take off instantly, requires only regular batteries, and can sizable enough not to cause an accident at Hindenburg proportions. They do take some getting use to, but once in a park or a play field they are SO COOL to watch in action. Just don't play slick and have dogfights with another person who has an AIR HOG or else you will have to end up buying a new one, guaranteed. Their main kickoff vehicle was their STORM LAUNCHER, and followed up with a couple of lousy helicopters but moved forward in their airplanes that just kicks major ASS. What would make Air Hogs better? If they teamed up with Nerf and outfitted their RC planes with those suction dart shooters...or maybe team up with Hasbro and outfit them with mini Super Soakers. Air Hogs may seem to be the new revolution of aviation RC toys and they are going to keep coming up with cooler and cooler ways to dominate the air. This company is young so stay tuned. Oh yeah, check out what else they got on the their site like the Switchblade or my favorite the JETSCREAM. http://www.airhogs.com/



Y'all be the judge on who rules the RC. As for me, I love both companies and as soon as my welfare cheque comes in this month, I'm gonna get my favorite of each. Hotcha!

Dear "geniuses" at Capcom

I just seen the trailer of the opening to the new addition of the timeless franchise, SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4. and I have to ask...are you freakin' kidding me? If you wanna make an interesting kick ass Street Fighter opening how about USING OTHER STREET FIGHTERS? I seen enough of Ken and Ryu knocking each other around like Stooges for the past 20 years and WE GET IT, They are equally good and equally matched. We don't give a crap anymore.

Lemme see the other fighters in action. Do animations of Alex shoving his army boot up Charlie's ass. Or that Asian skateboard kid getting his snotbox rocked by Dudley. Or Chun Li, Elena and Cammy making out with DeeJay.

whitest lookin' nigga I ever seen.

Rivalries this long only belong in sports, not in some rainy open field at night in Japan. I think it's only fair to give permission for EA Sports so they can have SICK opening intros like that in their NHL, NFL or NBA games. It would make perfect sense to see an opening animation of the Blackhawks trading some KILLER blows with the Vancouver Canucks in the parking lot all jacked up on some steroid/crack/gensing concoction before they take it on the ice. THAT would be cool.

"count the rings, sucka!"

And the next time you're going to put all that money in hiring futuristic Korean cyborg animators to create the trailer for a NEW Street Fighter game, do me a favor first, LET US SEE WHAT RYU'S FINISHING FIREBALL DOES TO KEN FOR A DAMN CHANGE.

Thunderstorm

I was jamming on my computer last night going over this stupid blog and noticed that it got real dark in my room. It was around 8 in the evening so I know there should a bit of twilight, but I mean it got DARK...like 4 in the morning dark. I glanced outside to see the a wicked dark cloud just slowly creeping over the city. It was like that movie Independence Day when the alien ship just peeked from the clouds over New York.


Yeah, kinda like that but with a little more HOLY S#!* in my reaction.
So I'm staring at this unholy sky wondering if this was the last day on earth, because if it was, then my client in ATL would've gotten off scott free for not paying me yet. The view I had was amazing because even though I was on the 7th floor, it was still one of the tallest buildings in my community among a lot of houses and I can see for miles ahead. I looked at this slow menacing cloud and noticed a small section of the cloud was swirling pretty fast as if it was trying to form a tornado. DAMN! I thought. I just got this blog site running and now this tornado is gonna rip my building to rubbles. However it started to rain hard as if Noah was scheduled to launch his ark that evening and that wind was blowing something fierce. I'm seeing crap fly past me like...well, nothing really, but I was looking out for flying stray cats and squirrels. Then it happened.


Freakin' lightning just came out of nowhere and everywhere. Setting off car alarms, cutting the lights in and out and scaring nuns out of their granny panties. With all that lightning flashing around I was certain some poor bastard ended up twitching like a crack addict with a epileptic seizure. I had to call my boy in the east end of town and he ran to his balcony to see the devil cloud creeping his way. He was like "HOLY S#%&, IT'S LIKE THAT CLOUD FROM GHOSTBUSTERS!" I'm sure y'all seen many many thunderstorms and you're probably thinking that I just wasted my time writing about this one. And maybe you're right. But this one was one for the books for me because we didn't had any real weather all June or July in Toronto and all of a sudden this storm showed up like Johnny Come Lately and kicked our city in the balls...metaphorically of course.

Lista!