For the unfamiliar, the title is actually a quote by Pablo Picasso and has to do with drawing inspiration from something while putting your touch on it. There’s a thin line between blatantly jacking someone’s idea and flipping it enough to make it your own. It’s not an unfamiliar concept to Hip-Hop, with sampling and copyright infringement banging heads since Biz Markie’s “I Need A Haircut.” I’ve never been a fan of copyright laws because of the sheer amount of Hip-Hop songs that have never seen the light of day because some forgotten artist hates the genre and doesn’t clear the sample. Shepard Fairey, the creator of the now iconic image above, is being sued by the AP for not getting proper permission to use the image in his design. Read the rest of this entry »

Before this thing unravels any bigger to reveal more fuckery, let us just remind Jesse, who should’ve remembered anyways because of “Hymiettown,” that nothing you say as a media entity goes unheard. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the statement (audio assist by RTNY)…

“During a conversation about Jones’ run-ins with the law, Imus asked, “What color is he?” Sports announcer Warner Wolf said Jones — formerly known as Pacman — is “African-American.” Imus responded: “There you go. Now we know.”

ABC’s head honchos didn’t respond yesterday, instead electing to have faithful listeners & all others who were seeking an explanation to tune in today (“Yes! Tune in! Click us and boost our ratings!”).

On today’s show, the clarification…

“Don Imus said Tuesday morning on his radio show that he was trying to “make a sarcastic point” with his latest on-air remarks about race, but that they had been misunderstood…What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason,” Imus said Tuesday. “I mean, there’s no reason to arrest this kid six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once.”

Al Sharpton, who speaks for all wronged & unfairly treated Blacks, said… Read the rest of this entry »

Welp, no backtracking now. Shots fired.

The bad part is, overlooking the obvious focus of this song, Buck is and has been in a good zone lyrically. At this point though, the question is can he break out of 50′s web of distractions and publicity stunts and make the music he’s capable of making…and recoup some of his lost cred that Hip-Hop so dearly values. Read the rest of this entry »

Words By Darius Sinclairâ„¢

Pic Property of ABC

Geriatric fights are commonly funny. Seeing two 70+ year old guys fight over Bingo was the main reason I’d go with Great-Grandma. One time, both of the guys had heart attacks and were still swinging at the other as they clinched their own chests. But it wasn’t funny after that. Uhn uh.

I bring up this scene because two veterans in the movie “industry” have started a “beef”, if you will, and are throwing “controversial” verbal “jabs” at each other. I added the quotes for theoretical satire. For those of you that haven’t heard, Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood have been exchanging over-the-air disses towards each other. This is all after Spike’s direction of the war film, Miracle At St. Anna, about the unrecognized Black soldiers in WWII, specifically the Sant’Anna massacre. Mr. Lee emphasized his contempt of Hollywood’s lacking to show Blacks’ efforts in WWII. He took umbrage specifically with Eastwood’s lack of color in his 2006 films, Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. I must admit, I didn’t see one brother is Saving Private Ryan or Flags Of Our Fathers and the last brother I saw in a war flick was in either Dead Presidents or Forrest Gump.

Eastwood goes on to say the whole movie had no African-Americans because they didn’t help raise the flag, tells Lee to learn his history, and, most notably, to “shut his face.” That’s good. I was worried he would’ve said, “Do you feel lucky?” Then Lee, being the radical he is, tells Eastwood, “you’re not my father,” “We’re not on a Plantation” and that [Clint] “sounds like an angry old man.” Read the rest of this entry »

Words By David D.

Let’s suppose that Nas changing the title of his album wasn’t a publicity stunt. Let’s suppose that all along Nas and Co. wanted to stick with the original title. Maybe I’m naïve, but I’m gonna go ahead and believe that Nas was intending to go forth with an album entitled Nigger.

After listening to the first two singles, “Be a Nigger Too” and “N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave & The Master),” there seems to be a perfectly sound reason for the title change. Maybe L.A. Reid realized Nas was not able or willing to construct an album capable of bearing the political and social responsibilities of being called Nigger. The singles lacked the approach necessary to affect any sort of social change in regards to using such a word.

Throughout the history of artistic attempts at social change, there seem to have been two predominant methods that have been maintained for the past few hundred years. One of these methods was popularized by Charles Dickens who would create stories of a singular family or even one or two individuals. But these stories would be so emotionally resonant, pulling upon real life events and situations, that the main characters would represent the everyman who could be associated with society as a whole. Lupe Fiasco’s narratives found on The Cool are perfect examples of this sort of approach. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the missing (and forgotten) links in the whole late Cash Money era is TQ. AHH apparently caught up with him while he was on his cig break @ Piggly Wiggly, asking him about Baby & Wayne’s man-love…

I guess some of them other ni**as recognized the look on my face and ran to the rescue. “T, don’t trip, that’s jailhouse love.” Jailhouse love? What the f**k? Them two ni**as and never been to jail! I’ve sent my fair share of Kites homie and I ain’t never heard of two ni**as kissing as being jailhouse love unless they was… ya dig? That sh*t was disturbing to me pimp. They say it’s a father-son thing. Ni**a I ain’t kissing my daddy in the mouth!

To each his own… I ain’t questioning a ni**a’s sexuality cuz I just don’t get down like that, and I know for a fact that both of them cats like women. But it f**ks me up when them ni**as do that sh*t in public…

The Verdict — I ain’t a female so I don’t have the sharpest gaydar. But I suspect he’s just separating himself from any possible sex tapes that he could be featured on.

C’mon, buddy wore an S-Curl.

Trials of TQ: The Secrets Behind Cash Money’s “Jailhouse Love” [AHH via RTNY]

Words By Contraâ„¢

Nasir Jones changed his album title in what is suspiciously beginning to look like just another sales gimmick. Read the rest of this entry »