Excerpt from article written for Twine Interactive

Since MySpace began to take a downward spiral in user traffic, many musicians have been left wondering where they can direct fans to discover their music. For years, MySpace has been the central hub of music promotion for both artists signed to major record labels and independent musicians. These musicians have used their MySpace profiles to gather as many fans as possible; who have inflated their song play counts and in some cases created enough exposure to take an artist from being an internet sensation to a household name.

We can now say; the bubble on MySpace has officially burst. Users have become tired of the constant spamming that has corrupted the network and are now flocking to other outlets like Facebook and more recently, Twitter for promotion. Rather than jockeying for song plays, artists are now competing for followers and are using networks like Twitter to build more personalized relationships with fans.

Musicians are implementing a variety of methods to interact with their base of followers on Twitter and are routinely trying to instigate new promotional methods that will attract the attention of the Twitterverse. One genre of music seems be succeeding at utilizing Twitter’s broad range of application more than any other; hip-hop.

In some cases, hip-hop artists are generating buzz on Twitter without even owning an account themselves. Jay-Z, who recently released the album Blueprint 3, has been a staple of Twitter’s trending topics on almost a daily basis due to his legion of fans who are constantly posting updates about his album release and promotional appearances to promote the album. The artist does not have a personal Twitter account, but has demonstrated he has the fan base capable of making him one of the network’s most discussed celebrities.

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I was on Facebook last week and put Joe Budden on my list for top 5 favorite MCs for one of those Living Social surveys. I knew I was going to get called out on that pick, but I was ready to defend it by specifically citing “Dumb Out” as the best mixtape track of all time. Any MC that can keep me captivated with every bar for over 7 minutes (or 15 on WHO), is top 5 in my book.

I saw Joe perform “Dumb Out” live a few years back at an Allhiphop Week event and have the same gripe with this performance; he doesn’t have the breath control to rock the entire track over a beat. I’m not knocking the dude because it’s a long track, has no hook and he doesn’t use a hype man. I just wish he could do it.

Try the patch Joey! It works!

Regardless, both of these videos are hot and “Dumb Out” is such a lyrical masterpiece that it sounds great acapella.

Hit the jump for Part 2

Props to Nah Right and OKP

Read more »

About two or three years ago, had someone given me the opportunity to choose any two rappers to battle one another, it’s quite likely I would have picked Saigon and Joe Budden to exchange bars. Now that it’s actually happening, I’m glad I didn’t waste my picks.

These are two emcees who rank in the 99th percentile amongst their hip-hop peers in the creative writing category, but have struggled to find (or maintain) much commercial success in the hip-hop industry.

The pair have gone back and forth on four diss records recently, with little hope for resolution in sight.

As I understand the chain of events that brought about the situation, it went something like this:

1) Budden mentions Saigon in the context of a song.

2) Saigon interrupts Budden’s name check as a diss. Puts video on World Star Hip-Hop discussing various topics, one of which being his dislike for Mr.Budden.

3) Budden claims original song was misinterpreted by Saigon, proceeds to release a real diss track- leading to subsequent back and forth by both sides.

The reason this beef sucks because there’s no compelling back story. The catalyst behind this drama is hip-hop’s equivalent to a dirty look. It’s tough to believe there’s sincerity from either artist on any of the tracks they’re exchanging because we all know these two aren’t really pissed off at one another.

Today, hours after Saigon’s newest diss track became the star of every hip-hop blog, Budden released the video below- which is incredibly dull compared to many of Budden’s previous installments of JoeBuddenTV, but closes with a suggestion that fans should expect something to happen at an upcoming show. Ironically, Budden and the Slaughterhouse crew (Budden, Joell Ortiz, Royce the 5′9 and Crooked I) have a show tomorrow night at S.O.B’s in NYC.

And for those with short memories, don’t forget Saigon has a history with S.O.B’s as well.

Budden’s label, Amalgam Digital, has also arranged a live web stream of the show (all drama aside this should be worth watching for the talent) and it’s a safe bet that at least half the people in attendance will be bloggers who will provide a play by play of the evenings events.

Hopefully someone will do something stupid to really escalate this shit, making further installments much more interesting and surely delivering hip-hop another black eye.

And this folks is the most interesting thing that’s happening in hip-hop these days…

This was actually intriguing and insightful.

Props to Vlad and Joe for presenting their cases well.

Why do we let Bill O’Reilly get away with these constant attacks on hip-hop? My IQ is above 75, therefore making me predisposed to hating Bill O’Reilly. I wonder about the type of person that listens to this sort of rhetoric and is actually amused by this attempt at a joke. Bill’s condemnation of hip-hop is nothing new, but his attacks are becoming outright disrespectful to the entire culture of hip-hop and have absolutely no substance to back them.

Love him or hate him, Diddy is a power player in the hip-hop industry and epitomizes the success that is obtainable in the business. To put the man on the same playing field as Paris Hilton or to characterize him as a socialite is unfair to someone who has worked hard to achieve success. Furthermore, O’Reilly’s inability to give a reason as to why Diddy will be able to continue to do whatever it is he does, demonstrates that O’Reilly is once again taking a cheap shot at hip-hop to stir the pot, with no political rationale to support his statement.

There’s no denying the fact that O’Reilly is a threat to hip-hop. Most shrug off his remarks as having little impact on the industry because of the assumption that most of the people watching his show don’t listen to hip-hop music. They’re right. But that mindset is a little too obtuse because it ignores the trickle down effect that these attacks have on the people outside of the industry who, unfortunately, gain insight on hip-hop culture from people like Bill O’Reilly. His derogatory remarks about hip-hop cut off potential revenue streams outside of the musical realm, as was demonstrated during the Pepsi-Ludacris fiasco a few years back.

How is it that we can be so powerful as a culture, yet can’t silence a man as weak as O’Reilly?

Jay-Z was honored by the United Nations this week for his humanitarian work that has helped bring clean water to various villages in Africa. When was the last time O’Reilly was recognized for his positive contributions to anything?

Joe Budden made a good point about O’Reilly in the October issue of XXL when discussing the inexplicable reason we let O’Reilly play the role of the hip-hop police.

Who does the checking in hip-hop? In hip-hop? There’s nobody out there. Nobody does it. And then we leave all these people, like Bill O’Reilly, that have no idea what hip-hop means, or what it stands for, or what it’s about, to check hip-hop. They can’t do that. They don’t know shit about hip-hop.

It makes no sense that we have yet to create our own outlet, outside of the music itself, that can counter-balance the viewpoints of people like Bill O’Reilly and others who share misguided opinions on hip-hop. Why is it that any rapper willing to make a fool of themselves on national TV can get their own reality show, yet we don’t have a single show that regularly features hip-hop artists speaking intelligently on the actual reality of the world and issues that are important to us?

We can blame the large corporations, the networks, or the Republicans in general for our lack of progress in presenting an educated hip-hop culture to the mainstream, but I don’t buy it. The power is there, it’s on us to take the initiative to create the outlet. Regardless of what people will say about the intelligence of hip-hop music today, you cannot deny that there are plenty of artists capable of presenting and defending an argument on the same issues O’Reilly talks about every night.

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I dream of the day a rapper can make an intelligent statement on a social or political issue which will be appreciated by the mainstream media for the profound thought and original viewpoint that is being expressed and CNN doesn’t have to create a special segment that says “Look! A rapper had something smart to say!”