If you’ve been here before, you already know the soap opera that is the career of Charles Hamilton is pure entertainment to me. I won’t even drop my own commentary this time, this stuff speaks for itself.

1) Hamilton gets lyrically massacred by Serius Jones at his own show.

2) Hamilton’s label, Interscope, cleans house  letting go a number of employees, which was described by one source as “a blood bath.”

Odds of an actual album release by Hamilton reduced from Probably Not Gonna Happen to It Will Drop Right After Detox.

3) Rhymefest, a Grammy winning MC, takes offense to Hamilton’s use of his name on various occasions (including the Hamilton v. Serius battle) and begins venting his feelings publicly.

First a series of Twitter messages appeared where Rhymefest made it clear he was no fan of Hamilton.

Later in the week Rhymefest decided Twitter wasn’t the most effective way of sharing his thoughts and delivered Super-Sonic, a diss record aimed at Hamilton.

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4) Since it’s almost a certainty that Hamilton will try to cash in on this (negative) publicity (again) with a diss record of his own, we’ll go ahead and include that as a failure as well (unless he gets Serius Jones to write it for him…).

I really hate when labels try to use these manipulative musical soap operas for promotion. It would be one thing if these artificial beefs were clever and at the end of the day those involved looked at the camera like “Gotcha!”, unfortunately we’re not dealing with good writers here in the hip-hop industry.

This week two unlikely foes have engaged in another case of beef 2.0 by exchanging unpleasantries through blog posts, videos and Myspace bulletins. In one corner, you have a new artist by the name of Charles Hamilton (see Sonic the Hamilton is a Reminder of Why Hipster Rap Sucks). In the other corner, you have Soulja Boy, a Green Beret when it comes to online warfare.

So here’s their story in a nutshell. Hamilton goes on the radio and gets agitated (as many artists do) when confronted with the topic of Soulja Boy. He proceeds to throw a few jabs at the youngster and blames him for many of his own struggles, mostly his trouble being taken seriously by the music industry. Soulja Boy was quick to take notice of the statements made by Hamilton and on Tuesday afternoon the rapper released a video responding to Hamilton’s attack.

Soulja Boy Responds to Charles Hamilton (VIDEO):

I’ve done a little bit of research and decided to unravel the horribly executed online marketing campaign Interscope Records attempted to pull off to spark the career of Charles Hamilton, while prostituting the names of two of the label’s biggest acts in the process.

1) The disappearing mixtape.

Called The Hamiltization Process, Charles Hamilton recently released a series of mixtapes- each in conjunction with a separate hip-hop blog with the final release in the series, titled The Pink Lavalamp, scheduled to be released with OnSmash.com on Monday Dec.8.

For reasons unknown, the mixtape never reached OnSmash.com, but miraculously found a new home the very same day on 50 Cent’s Social Network, ThisIs50.com, where Hamilton received a warm reception that included a complete Charles Hamilton site makeover featuring ads that covered the site promoting the release of Hamilton’s mixtape and prime real estate on the homepage for a video interview, which featured the now infamous remarks he made about Soulja Boy.

Hamilton offered the following explanation for the change on his blog:

Thanks to thisis50.com, onsmash.com…. from what I hear there’s a lil controversy as to what website got what. That was an administrative decision, and I was not behind the scenes on that. Then again, if bloggers aren’t political, I shouldn’t feel any kind of backlash at all.

According to Quantcast (a web traffic monitor), OnSmash.com pulls in over 250K unique visitors each month while ThisIs50.com is said to reach roughly 413K people each month. While the increased exposure is attractive, it’s hard to believe that any rationale “administrative decision” could warrant alienating the high traffic blogs like OnSmash that have been vital to promoting Hamilton’s career.

2) Soulja Boy Responds!

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at first. Was Soulja Boy really upset about the comments from Hamilton? Out of all the bad things people have said publicly about the kid; was it really possible that Hamilton blaming him for his hedgehog getting no respect warranted Soulja Boy taking the (online) gloves off again?

As I watched the video, I began thinking- this video is actually pretty good…a little too good. I started noticing things that weren’t typical for Soulja Boy’s video masterpieces like editing and adequate lighting.

Here’s what I’m used to seeing:

It wasn’t just the quality of the video that seemed uncharacteristic, but Soulja Boy’s entire demeanor during the video. While he was no Barack Obama, Soulja Boy was surprisingly articulate and charismatic when speaking to Hamilton. This obviously was not the same Soulja Boy who made the nine minute dis video aimed at Ice-T, which featured about 30 seconds of relevancy surrounded by eight and a half minutes of name calling. If one didn’t know any better, they might just say that this seemed rehearsed…

3) The Marketing

The irregularities of Soulja Boy’s new video continued when instead of debuting the video on his Youtube channel, which makes him money on every click and comment according to the latest issue of Billboard, he opted to host the video on WorldStarHipHop.com.

The video went live on World Star Hip-Hop at approximately 3:40pm on Tuesday. Within the hour, the video was receiving a push from both Soulja Boy and Charles Hamilton.

4) Anti-Viral Video

The Soulja Boy video racked up over 500K views on World Star Hip-Hop during it’s first 24 hours of release, but all press hasn’t proven to be good press for Hamilton, as almost all reviews have favored Soulja Boy.  Hamilton has already started waiving the white flag and claims his words were taken out of context.

Hamilton has even proposed a collaboration between himself and the artist he blames for:

…ruining the opportunity of people such as Cory Gunz, Mickey Factz, Kid Cudi to be accepted in the mainstream.

5. How It Failed

It’s very simple to figure out why this marketing plan blew up in Interscope’s face. They got greedy.

This plan could have worked and caused the sort of controversy they were seeking, but they let the entire story unfold in a day. We all know things move quickly on the internet, but this was too quick. They ran through the introduction, built the story, climaxed and then concluded the saga within twenty four hours.

It also may have worked better if all the players involved weren’t signed to the same label.

Interscope was trying to establish Hamilton as an anti-hero. He was their answer for all the hip-hop fans who reject Soulja Boy’s music. They assumed his online presence was strong enough to compete with that of Soulja Boy and attempted to instigate a fight between the two respective fan bases. Nice try.

The problem I have with all of this nonsense is exactly what I said when I reviewed Hamilton’s mixtape a few weeks ago; I’m sick of major labels diluting the talent pool of hard-working artists by trying to buy their way in. Say what you will about Charles Hamilton’s work ethic. All credibility he had was lost when he sold his soul to the suits and allowed them to turn his career into this cheap marketing campaign. In the end he disrespected the blog sites that he owes his career to, embarrassed himself and insulted the intelligence of his fans by expecting them to buy into the gimmick.

Like I said before, hip-hop fans are too smart for this stuff. Someday you’ll learn…

Since Soulja Boy gives a proper recap of what perpetuated his new beef with Charles Hamilton, we’ll start with his video:

…and now for Charles Hamilton on why he shouldn’t be compared to Soulja Boy:

FIGHT!

LOL!!! Now I can see why a couple of you are so heated about my review..given that it’s right there like a skull & crossbones on DatPiff! Sorry about that Charles. It’s on you to prove me wrong. Good luck.

Shout outs to DatPiff and CeleBully for showing love!

Maybe I just don’t get this new hipster rap trend. I don’t even like using the phrase hipster rap because I really don’t think this new sub-genre of hip-hop has been clearly defined. If the new mixtape from Harlem’s Charles Hamilton, Sonic the Hamilton, is supposed to represent this new movement- I’m not down with it.

Hamilton is an MC that has gained a heavy internet buzz over the past few months and become a favorite amongst bloggers, who give him enough praise that it could lead you to believe he’s already a power player in the hip-hop industry. He’s hard to miss with his flashy attire, usually highlighted by tones of hot pink and purple, and is generally pictured with a smug facial expression that can lead one to wonder what the kid has accomplished to make him so cocky.

I’ve been reluctant to explore Hamilton’s music, based off my natural instinct to resist something I feel someone is trying to force down my throat. I feel as though some of the new artists that are breaking out right now have earned their way into the big leagues, while others are the work of major label piggybacking that has diluted the talent pool.

With the blogs in a frenzy over the release of Sonic the Hamilton, I finally gave in and downloaded a copy- really hoping that I’d be asking for a late pass on this artist and beating myself up for being overly judgmental. Unfortunately for Hamilton, I feel more like a prophet than a hater right now.

Hamilton’s wordplay is your standard braggadocio lyricism that is common for NY hip-hop. His delivery is lazy and lacks the sort of punch needed to stand out over the sample-heavy beats and quirky sound effects that are commonly used throughout the mixtape.

As you may have figured out from the title, Hamilton has a strange obsession with Sonic the Hedgehog and the old Sega Genesis game system. I thought this fascination would be explained through some clever metaphors on the mixtape, which would allow me to understand why this dude wants to be a hedgehog. Nope. I’m still confused.

To Hamilton’s credit his lyricism isn’t bad and he is capable of stringing together a few clever bars, but overall he lacks the consistency and creativity in his rhymes that would have him competing with any well-known lyrical MC.

The conclusion I’ve drawn after listening to Sonic the Hamilton is that the hipster rap movement is nothing more than recycling of what we called backpack rap until about a month ago. The same people have traded in their backpacks and Ecko hoodies for Louis Vuitton man-purses and designer brand flannel.

The characteristic of both genres that I believe is going to remain the same is the lack of commercial viability for this type of sound. The major labels that are starting to hedge their bets on this movement should realize that artists like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, who have to be viewed as the elder statesman of the movement, are anomalies in the hip-hop industry that can’t be recreated through marketing. Most hip-hop fans are too smart for that.

If you’re really intent on checking out this new crop of talent that is buzzing in hip-hop; check out Wale or B.o.B. and unless you’ve been waiting for an MC to pop up that shares your passion for Sega and hedgehogs, go ahead and pass on Charles Hamilton.