guess who's on the cover of URB?um....aceyalone & rjd2?
nope.
um....gnarls barkley?
nope.
murs & ninth wonder?
nope.
um....some weird techno guy i never heard of?
NOPE--JUELZ SANTANA, DUKE DA GOD AND JIM JONES!
seriously. i'm not making this up. unreal right? when did this happen? granted i havent read an issue of URB for like 2 years. i kinda got bored of it because because there were too many pictures of 16 year old girls at raves in portland. but what happened?
i guess i was right about the hipster set digging on the crack music. now i know for sure.
urb loves dipset. i wish i had it in front of me so i could quote some of the praise they have for these guys. the writer even said that he wishes jacques derrida was alive so he could deconstruct juelz's lyrics. what?! did someone just mention jacques derrida in an article about juelz santana?
i kid you not.
don't take that the wrong way. i think dipset is worthy of some real serious thought, critique and discussion. it's just strange who is embracing them now.
i like dipset too, but im a rap dude. im way more like a yo than a hipster (actually way more like a geek than either). while i might think about deconstructing dipset, i would never say it out loud. that sounds like the name of a paul barman song. deconstructing dipset.
but like urb is not a hip hop mag that you would expect to cover dipset. they should be covering rhymesayers compilations and watching wizard of oz and listening to paul oakenfold in perfect sync. not dipset.
so whats going on?
this confirms what i said in the breihan blog. the cool music types are sick of shit like vast aire. bring on dipset. thats the real hip shit.
but the thing is, its not as simple as that. this has implications. i was talking to my man daryl a/k/a quartermaine of the now-unfortunately-defunct critically acclaimed about dipset a while ago. he was like, i like em, but i can't forget about the fact that there are 14 year old kids in the hood who LOVE them.
he's right. thats not a good thing. the last thing they need is to have trapping (whatever that is), and crack and all that shit glorified more. so when white music critics sing their praises and don't even mention that fact its like they are oblivious to whats going on. or they don't care. i think the latter. i think they are too concerned with being hip to even acknowledge that maybe it ain't all good with dipset, jeezy and the like.
so i don't give a shit if you're tom breihan or the dude from URB or some other guy who lives off the lorimer street subway stop and you want to love that music. but please--at least acknowledge that there's something weird about this stuff being sold to the people who need it the least. enjoy it--but maybe mention that you wish little kids weren't enjoying it also.
1 comment:
bside,
I agree whole heartedly with your comments about the kids falling into the new sexy thing, hip hop. Personally I have been into hip hop since Run DMC and the Fat Boys were being played on the radio, WPGC, yes by the call letters you get an idea of where I am from. I can remember going to Beltway Plaza to break dance for money so we could get into a movie like "Beat Street". The whole problem with the industry to day is that the record companies have lost sight of the artistic aspect of music period. To everyone involved music is now a big commercial for whatever some wants to hock. Now I can't honestly say that I don't forsake the industry for what it is doing, its business for them and me. I can however say with a clean conscience that I do play a good bit of commercial hip hop, but I make sure to throw in a just as much conscious hip hop. There are plenty of artists out there that have a voice for something other than following what records execs put in front of them. I think it is up to Dj's both on the radio and the club scene to make sure that those voices are heard. If URB magazine wants to classify Dipset as a movement that’s on them. Remember that they might be the only rag around saying that. I honestly don't play into the Dipset movement . I might have played the new Juelz like three times and people like it cause its catchy, but I can also say that it is not a highly requested album. Just my two cents...
Great Blog.
Dj Profit
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