Hip Hop Blogs

There Is No Hip-Hop Violence Epidemic aka The State of Online Hip-Hop Media

I've read many discussions around the flood of rap related violence this year, starting with the attempted murder of Obie Trice on New Year's Eve, and continuing with the murder of T.I. and Busta Rhymes' weed carriers. The Source even chose this topic as their cover story this month, which makes sense, because it's such a huge problem in hip-hop.

Only it's not.

I don't believe that people in hip-hop are shooting or getting shot this year more than last year, or ten, or thirty years ago. What has increased though is the news coverage of these events.

It wasn't that long ago where you could be an obscure mixtape rapper, get shot 9 times, get one write-up, then be forgotten about. Now, any dude with a demo or connection to a rapper gets full coverage of his shooting in dozens of hip-hop news sites, with daily updates on his recovery or death.

This cluster bomb of news coverage for every shooting creates a sick illusion that there's more gun violence in hip-hop than ever before. The reality is that gun violence is not a hip-hop thing, or even a Black thing. It's an American thing, word to "Bowling for Columbine".

And violent crime has declined for the past decade all around the country. So in reality, there's probably less people getting shot in hip-hop. But you wouldn't know that from reading Allhiphop, SOHH, HiphopDX, and XXL.

Back in the day, you had to wait to read the R.I.P. section of an album's credits to find out which entourage member died recently. Now names like Philant Johnson and Izreal Ramirez are propped up as major news stories, deserving days of coverage.

Rafi Kam chin-checked the hip-hop media yesterday with a devastating blog post that examined the negative skew being pushed by our favorite sites, which exposes the low brow opinion they have of their readers. Because he's a good blogger, he did some research and found that a third of SOHH's pages that are indexed by Google have the word "beef" in it.

I'm sure their defense will be, "negativity sells", but as I've said before, if a reporter only knows how to use sex and violence to make a story pop, then they aren't much of a writer to begin with. And maybe that's the problem.

Vibe's Janet Cover vs XXL's Tupac Cover

Last month, on the Hip-Hop Advertising email group, I started a discussion that compared the covers of various rap magazines using Google Trends, the site that charts search term popularity.

From my outsider perspective, it seemed like cover subjects are chosen based on the editor's intuition, rather than hard metrics. The only numbers it seems they rely on are record sales, which are a terrible way to judge if an artist can sell a magazine, word to Outkast. The rest is guesswork.

I figured a tool like Google Trends could help predict which magazine would sell well, if we compare current interest  through searches. This whole process is far from scientific, because well, I'm no scientist. 

The round up looked like this:

• Vibe: Outkast
• XXL: Jay-Z
• The Source: Ice Cube

To my surprise, Ice Cube was coming in strong with search interest, while Outkast was not.

Let's compare cover subjects this month from the same mags, minus The Source, who decided to run an article on hip-hop violence (more thoughts on that later).

• Vibe: Janet Jackson
• XXL: Tupac

• A = "Janet Jackson"
• B = "Tupac"

Wow. A decade dead rapper generates more search interest than a gorgeous R&B singer!

Vibe.com Beats SOHH and XXL

Imagine how I feel today. Vibe.com, my new home where I play editor, has been trending upwards in traffic since we launched some new features, including the monster gossip blog, Vibe Confidential.

Today, I went to the traffic monitoring site Alexa and found that not only have we've blown past XXLmag.com, where I was offered a position back in January, but we've also climbed past SOHH.com, where I used to work. It feels good to be on the winning team, word to Alonzo Mourning.

Click on the chart for the full sized version:

And we did it all vegetarian style, which to me shows that there are ways to sell hip-hop, outside of the beef box we put ourselves in.

Yahoo!'s Grown and Sexy Radio Station

I've been using Yahoo Music Unlimited for over a year now, and the service keeps getting better. This week, the internet radio part of the service, called LaunchCast added a new station - "Adult R&B". It's a combo of old school and current R&B, strictly for the grown and sexy set.

Featured artists include Luther Vandross, Anthony Hamilton, Heather Headley, and Donnell Jones. They also include a guy named Urban Mystic, who I'm not familiar with. And that's the part that makes it cool - I get to discover new artists, as well as gems from familiar artists.

LaunchCast features a bunch of other niche stations that slide down the long tail of music, ranging from Neo Soul and Quiet Storm, to Hardcore Rap and 90's Hip-Hop. A powerful feature of the service is the ability to mash stations together to create your own "mood". For instance, I have a mood named Sleepytime, that helps rock me to sleep. It consists of Smooth Jazz and Quiet Storm R&B, and only plays songs that I like from both of those sub genres.

Who needs regular radio anymore, satellite or otherwise?

Vibe Confidential

No ghetto celeb is safe.

VIDEO: The Pack- Vans "Got my Vans on but they look like sneakers"

"We be sportin Vans and we throw away Nikes...."

This summer has been devoid of any big, quality hip hop singles.  Those that were pushed on the radio (ex: "Deja Vu") had a shelf life akin to some corner bodega milk, and the only truly big club hits were crossover collabos from marginally talented R&B females (ex: hot ass Nelly Fertado, i-can't-sing Cassie, i-can't-sing either Rihanna).  That being said, I declare The Pack- Vans as the summer single of the year.  No, seriously.  The kids like it, and the Vans footwear + Bay Area Hyphy tempo + skate culture angle is unique and fresh. 

So why have you not heard of this song? Because 1) radio is wack, 2) hip hop skate culture is being peddled by the likes of pharell and lupe fiasco (neither of whom can really skate), and 3) E-40 ruined the Hyphy Movement

If I were a label head, I would NOT have had E-40 introduce the Hyphy Movement to the rest of the country.  Yes, 40 water is a Bay Area legend, but outside of California his credibility takes a hit.  No disrespect, but dude must be pushing 45 years old and does not look like the Bay kids whose culture and style he is supposedly reflecting and perpetuating.  Hyphy needs something younger, more authentic and representative.... like The Pack.  Feel me?  - Michael

Update:  Exclusive interview with The Pack regarding the Vans collabo coming soon on Hip Hop Ads.  Yadidamean?

JR Writer's Player Hater Anthem

What's remarkable about JR's Writer's single "Grill Em" is that it's a club song made for the 80% of party hoppers who can't get in the VIP, don't have a cute chick on their arm, and get harassed by the  bartender. That's not your typical club banger.

JR tells the losers who fit into this category to shoot their offenders a hard stare, to grill 'em. A gangster would be threatening these people with his guns. A hustler would be too busy on the block slangin' his crack to be in the club. And none of this would ever happen to a pimp or baller.

JR recognizes that most people are none of these things, so he aims this track at the regular dude who gets hassled by the cool kids and gate keepers. Which is a mistake. The best party songs help you escape your everyday reality, and live the good life though someone else. If fans wanted truth they would write their own rhymes.

Ironically this is a party song that probably won't get much play at an actual party. But I can certainly see it getting rotation in cars outside of the club, while the driver waits for the bouncer to start letting the ugly people in.