another gripe spawned at the bookstore. so i flipped around some various music magazines while i was doing the dinosaur/scantily clad women thing. hip hop has come to the brink and everyone is coming up with "the top ten ways to fix hip hop." and related shit like that (although one particular article was penned by the esteemable common). vibe was featuring something about the hip hop hollywood phenomenon. the source was featuring some hip hop article too. as it should, since it is a hip hop magazine (i had no clue benzino was a co-owner of the source).



anyhoo. the main source article was not about naked dinosaurs hip hopping around but rather the way records are only getting radio play nowadays based on kickbacks and greased palms. the clipse couldn't find any radio play for their hit single, grindin, in their very own hometown because they weren't well connected enough. they had to do some grass roots touring to get the radio punks to play their music. and that song is a butt moving classic. the conglomerating and consolidating of radio stations has led to a very difficult environment for up-and-coming artists to break into. many radio djs and owners are getting paid to play singles and sometimes won't play tracks without some payola. this means that however hard you might struggle, however good your music might be, you might never get that breakthrough moment due to twisted shady economics. one agent even said that he could hardly get any love for a guru/premier/krumb snatcher track. not that gangstarr ever gets radio play anyway. but the fact of the matter is that radio is soon (if not already) becoming as homogenized as your local starbucks (not to drag them into it, i actually like starbucks). the little people get left starving on the sidelines while the crap gets distributed. i hate capitalism. oh wait, no i don't. i'm randian. whatever.



does this whole thing not make you outraged? does this not make you wonder how you'll ever make it in this big bad noon to five world? yeah okay. me neither. but seriously, this ain't funny so don't ya dare laugh. just another case about the wrong path, straight and narrow, or your soul gets cast. good night.