“Im so hood that (Ron Artest) should have been on the original version”

This cut had to have cost at least 50 or 60

If you haven’t heard, Ron Artest has been traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Houston Rockets in what can only be described as a salary dump for the Kings. The Rockets in turn sent the Kings this years draft pick, Donte Greene, next years number 1 pick (probably number 23-30), and veteran guard Bobby Jackson who has 1 year and 6.1 million left on his contract.

Great trade for both teams. The Kings weren’t going anywhere with Artest and weren’t going to resign him anyway, and the Rockets get that all important third star that should help them finally get out of the first round of the playoffs. So that’s the end of the story right? Wrong. This is the NBA, and there is always a story.

Ok so some reporter asks Yao Ming how he feels about the trade and he responds this way”:

When I text messaged with [teammate] Luis [Scola], we talked about team chemistry. That’s only what worries us. We worry about the new attitude to the team. We are adding talent to the team and we need that, but building team chemistry is important. This is not bad. I don’t mean he is not welcome to Houston. But a new player always needs some time.

“There’s worry. Obviously, yes. We will think about it, of course. Hopefully, he’s not fighting anymore and going after a guy in the stands. I haven’t talked to Ron yet, so it’s hard to say. I have to find a way to talk to him and see what we can do as a basketball team. He has a history. But we know he is a physical player. He is a good player. He really can help us. And Ron is on a contract year, too.”

With all that Yao said, or course only the part I highlighted was relayed back to Artest. Some hack reporter then asks Artest how he feels about what Yao said and Artest drops this gem:

“I understand what Yao said, but I’m still ghetto,” Artest said, according to the report. “That’s not going to change. I’m never going to change my culture. Yao has played with a lot of black players, but I don’t think he’s ever played with a black player that really represents his culture as much as I represent my culture. Once Yao Ming gets to know me, he’ll understand what I’m about.”*

Man, that Artest guy is special. I don’t really blame him for his response ‘cus I would have been heated too if I had just expressed my excitement at being traded to the a playoff contender and the teams “leader**” had some shit to say. This is once again a case of the media creating the news instead of simply reporting on it, but what are you going to do. We live in the ESPN age of sports journalism.

I want to know your thoughts on what he said though. Agree? Disagree? Both? Holla

*At least he didn’t throw up a gang sign a’la Paul Pierce

**People act like Yao is the leader of that team but its really T-Mac, don’t believe the hype

“Some how, some way, we gotta make it up out the hood one day”

Glorification

So I was over at allhiphop earlier this morning reading an interview they had with Charles Cosby, the star of the new documentary, “Cocaine Cowboys 2″. The 2 part interview was interesting for two reasons: First were Cosby’s statements about how most of the drug dealer stories of guys like Alpo, Supreme and Freeway Rick are greatly exagerated. The only “hood dealer” he said that really was making millions a day was D.C. kingpin Rayful Edmond.

The second interesting part of the article was the interaction on the comments section of the second part of the interview. While allhiphop.com does have its faults, I enjoy it more than other hip hop websites because the people who comment aren’t five year olds who think typing in all caps and slaughtering the English language is the best way to get their point across*. In turn the comment section of this interview had some real good insight into where exactly the line between glorification and simply telling a story lies.

I want to give an accurate description of what was said so here are a couple of excerpts from comments that I felt were most interesting.

“WHEN NIGGAS GOING TO LEARN THAT THIS SHIT IS JUST GLORIFYING A LIFE OF DESTRUCTION FOR OUR YOUTH… HOW BOUT PROMOTE SOMETHING POSITIVE, BUT ALL YOU DOING IS PROMOTING THE SAME SHIT THAT IS KILLING OFF OUR NEIGHBORHOODS…..

ILL SEED WTF….TYPE OF COMMENT WAS THAT…INSTEAD OF AHH BEING THE MOST DANGEROUS SITE ITS BECOMING ANOTHER PUPPET FOR WHITE AMERICA…..

KRS 1 “YOU MUST LEARN”

In response to this someone who I am assuming works for the site wrote this :

Documentaries like this end up how they are supposed to : with everyone dead or in jail.  there are consequences in this life.  just like when you beat a chick with no rubber.  you coud get them pregnant you can get aids.  but everyone doesn’t bag up all the time.

When we publish positive stories you don’t read them.  That rockesteadyjoint published a day before got like a thousand hits.  This shit had 5000 before 3 hours.  i didn’t se eyou posting in any “positive” story we did.  Not for the entire Black Music Month or anythin gelse homeboy. Cat’s be couch revolutionaries.

I personally find the author of that comment to be fairly disingenuous with his assessment of his detractor. For one thing this story is the prominent feature on the site, complete with interesting picture and back story, so of course it will have more hits than a fluff pieceabout a black record company executive or a black music month article. Everyone is always trying to blame someone elsefor their own shit. They put out stories promoting gangsters because it gets more hits is the same logic a corner boy uses. If I don’tdo it, someone else will because the demand is still there.

I will readily admit that the inner workings of a multibillion dollar drug ring is ten times more interesting than any article that is “positive”. My problem is with the glorification of this Cosby character and the Rayful Edmond’s and the Alpo’s and Supreme’s, all of whom snitched by the way. The interviewer does not ask any tough questions and the article is littered with pictures of Cosby flashing money and cars and guns, all the while he is railing against being flashy and murdering people. I dontblame Cosby for this because he was saying some real shit, but allhiphop surely dropped the ball again on how to best report on this guy. He was a drug dealer who directly helped destroy the African American lower class and is even remorseful for his role in this. Yet he is treated like a hero in the interview. Some of us need to get a fuckin’ clue.

*Im looking at you WSHH and HiphopDX

“Dear Summer I know you gon’ miss me”

Great cover

With summer being in its last month I thought that a summer music wrap up would be in order. Im trying to think of what this years song of the summer was and I am coming up blank. I mean I guess you can put “A Milli” up there, you could also arguably put “Lookin Boy”, “Bust It Baby”, “Love in the Club” and a number of other songs. So if you, the readers, have a definate summer jam for this year please comment because I can’t figureout/remember what it was. There was no “Ballin” or “Hot in Here” to speak of.

Meanwhile here are some upcoming August releases to close out the summer that should be making an appearance on my Zune*:

D-Block – Prepare For Glory – August 19 (What a great album title)

**Young Jeezy – The Recesion – August 19

Ice Cube – Raw Footage – August 19

The Game – LAX – August 26

With the dissapointment that was “Tha Carter III***” this summer has been a bit of a snoozer. However with Nas album being absolute fiyah, Jigga supposedly droppin’ in the 4th quarter along with Em’ and the good Doc and “Detox”, this might turn out to be a pretty good year musically.

*Yea I said Zune, me and the other person in America who have one are very happy

**Not really excited for this one but it will be a big release

***Part 2 remains his best album

“Why do rappers lie in 85% of they rhymes?”

Ha!

The Boss-Boss-Boss-Boss-Boss-Boss-Boss…………

- The lyrical Shakespeare, T-Pain

So everyone has presumably heard about the situation Rick ‘The Boss’* Ross now finds himself in. Ross, government name William Leonard Roberts, it seems has been outed by an anonymous tipster who has provided the media with pictures of him when he was a corrections officer in Florida. Ross claimed that the man in the photo was indeed him, but that the picture must have been photoshopped. The anonymous tipster then struck again** and released negatives of the photo which then proved to the masses that Ross had indeed been ‘cuffin em’ before he started his illustrious rap career.

He He

 The whole situation is pretty funny if you ask me, but what I can’t understand is all the people running around the Internet acting hurt. You see it on comment boards on allhiphop and especially those cess pools of ig’nance, hiphopdx and worldstarhiphop about how Ross is this that and the third. Pump your brakes children, Rick Ross is a rapper. Of course hes not a real drug dealer! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a man who is 31 and claims to have known Pablo Escobar personally, is probably lying about his past. Its entertainment folks.

Lol

 

I put rappers in the same lane as I do actors. Do I believe that Al Pacino was a Cuban exile who came to this country for a better life and ended up with a double barrel shotgun slug in his back? Absolutely not. Do I believe that there is a big fat guy delivering gifts to children who have been nice every Christmas Eve? Absolutely not. Likewise I don’t believe you Tupac, Biggie, Nas, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Plies, T.I, Ne-yo, Beyonce, whoever! Does that mean I cant enjoy these peoples music? Absolutely not. Rick Ross wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining if he was rapping about his life as an overweight corrections officer as opposed to him rapping about his life as an overweight drug kingpin who knew Pablo Escobar at the age of 12. Which brings me to my final point.

I could literally look at photoshopped Ross pictures all day and be entertained

Trilla, Ross’ latest album, is absolutely fiyah! I wasnt even a Ross fan until this album, that’s how good it is. So who cares if hes a phony. Keep making good music and don’t worry about nothing else and you’ll be fine.

*As in “I dont want no trouble boss” and “Which way is commissary boss”

**HA

“Thats how it went, when we were kids”

"I did it because its fun. Fun to do bad things"

I was up late last night trying to think of a topic to post about this morning. Unsuccessful, I simply went to sleep and figured something would come to me in the morning at work. I mean I have had 3 days off, there must be something I am angry/excited/happy/scared about, right? Wrong! Ive got nothing, except for a story from my childhood that is pretty funny now that I think about it, but wasn’t so funny when it happened. I remembered this story after chilling with a friend on saturday I graduated with in 2005.  It takes place in the year 2000 when I was in the 8th grade.

So my friend was the hell raiser at my school. He was constantly getting in trouble for dumb shit such as but not limited to: Waking up the principal of our school, who was asleep in our class,  by slamming a book on the table by his ear, acting a fool during assembly, mocking and mimicking teachers to their faces, destroying shit and pretty much anything else you can think of.

composite sketch of my friend

My school was a small private school full of lower income families, so the facilities were hood to say the least. Our classes were divided by these ten foot Styrofoam dividers. My friend thought it would be funny if during class he would ask to go to the bathroom and while outside shoot rubber bands over the dividers into other classrooms and then run. While I never joined him in this foolishness, I thought it was funny as hell. They never caught him but there was this big investigation into who was doing it and everyone knew who it was, but there just wasnt any proof.

So one day the teacher in the class next to ours comes to my class. My friend isnt there, but me and another classmate are and she starts letting me have it. She proceeds to yell at me about how she knows that its me and my friend doing it, and that if we dont come forward then we were going to get in more trouble and all that bullshit. She leaves and Im pissed like shit like ’how dare that heifer accuse me’! I hadnt done anything wrong. So im talking to my other classmate, and I quote “Im not doing this shit, but if they are going to accuse me I should start” and at that moment, the rubberband I was playing with accidentally shoots over the divider and lands into her class. She comes back and screams ‘I knew it was you’ and promptly takes me to the principal’s office. I remember I got into so much trouble meanwhile the real culprit was still on the loose shooting rubber bands into other classes.

Now I was never mad at my friend. It wasnt his fault I’m a clumsy idiot, but I was mad at myself and that whore of a teacher for getting me in trouble. Even though I got punished for it* its still a very funny episode.

*Im pretty sure I got a beating when I got home lol

“Even though it seems heaven sent, we aint ready to see a black president”

Be afraid. Be very afraid!

 

 

The main stream media needs to cut the shit! Stop the bullshit sensationalism, I’m tired of it. A year ago you know what they were asking about Barack Obama? Is he black enough? Will the black community embrace him because he’s not really black? He grew up in Hawaii, he had a white mother, he has not had the typical African American upbringing so he’s not one of them. Does anyone remember this? They brought out polls* to show that the majority of African Americans were going to vote for Hillary. And now?

Oh my 91% of African Americans are going to vote for Obama in the upcoming national election. The question the main stream media is now asking is “Is this right”. They say “black people are blindly following Barack, just because he is black”. Wow, just wow. While the 91%statistic may be true**, it is disingenuous to come to the conclusion that blacks are simply flocking to Obama because of his race. Newsflash, 65% of African American voters are registered Democrats!  I’m tired of the black vote being belittled in the mainstream media. According to this MSNBC article in 2004, the vast majority of African Americans who were eligible to vote did vote. Blacks represent 13.2 percent of this country’s population and in turn represented 11.2 percent of the voting population. 84% of the 16 million registered African American voters voted. From the article:

According to a 2002 survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 63 percent of African-American voters consider themselves Democrats, while 24 percent call themselves independents; only 10 percent call themselves Republicans.

If these numbers hold true, then where does the 91% figure come from? Well let’s look at the last 8 years. African Americans were already down on the Republican Party, and now the rest of the country seems to have caught up to what we already knew about the neo-con movement. So not only are we down on Republicans, but there also is not a strong Independent candidate running. Nader has fallen out of favor with just about every bloc of Independent voters and with the Republican/Libertarian option off of the table, WHERE THE EFF ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO!

I would have voted democratic in this election if the candidate had been white, blue or green. The fact that Barack is black is only an added bonus in my book. Hell yea I’m proud of what he is doing, hell yea I’m happy that a black man is in this position, but I am not voting for him because of his race. If it were really true that blacks were so politically inept that they just vote their race, then why haven’t Jesse or Al had the same following as Barack. Why haven’t we elected Puff fucking Daddy to office yet. Huh?

Hes black, and even wearing a suit. Will never be President!

 

 

The black middle class in this country, happens to be the largest segment of blacks, is habitually belittled by everyone from BET to Fox News**and I am absolutely sick of it. Blacks are more politically savvy than just voting for the guy who shares the same color. What about whites who will NOT vote for Obama because of his skin color? I would be willing to bet that that number far exceeds the blacks who will vote for him for the wrong reasons.

The youth vote in America has risen over the last 8 years to unprecedented levels. And you know which communities had the largest jump? Ill let you see for yourself. I am voting for Obama in November not because of his skin color, but rather because I can ill afford not to.

*You can make a poll say anything you want it to. A great quote about statistics as a science is that statistics is the only “science” where two different statisticians can see the exact same data and come to completely different conclusions

 

**How the fuck could you possibly know that?

 

***One in the same in my book

Oh and one last thing. Peace to Derrick Ashong, who if you havent heard of him is this kid who was interviewed by this real agressive white guy on the street about why he was voting for Obama and completely owned the fool. Heres the vid.

“Dream Team, this is the Supreme Team Squad”

In my past life I could do this

The World Cup is such a great sporting event because it only happens every four years and it allows fans to get behind their teams on a deeper, more patriotic level. With that being said, I am never more patriotic* than during the Olympics when basketball is on. It only happens every four years, and I actually cheer the U.S. on as the beat the living crap out of other teams. That is until recently. The first Olympic team I was really cognisant of was the ‘96 Dream Team and the dominance that they showed will never be imitated again on the global stage. The 2000 Athens team, mistakenly named the Dream Team also, won the gold but the world showed the U.S. the strides it had made over the last 2 decades. Then comes the debacles that were the 2002 World Championships (6th place finish), the 2004 Athens Olympics (Bronze finish), and finally 2006 bronze finish at the World Championships.  But now…

PG: Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Deron Williams

SG: Kobe Bryant, Michael Redd, Dwyane Wade

SF: Lebron James, Carmello Anthony, Tayshaun Prince

PF: Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer

C: Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandeler

Damn straight!

While we don’t have our very best players going – Amare Stoudemire and KG come to mind – we do have a very good team going to Beijing. What this team lacks in size down low, especially defensively, it makes up for with pure athleticism and perimeter defense. Against the international pick and roll style of basketball, perimeter defense is of utmost importance. Kidd, Wade, Tayshaun Prince and Kobe Bryant – whose role on the team has been described as defense first and scorer second – are all excellent defenders. Down low, both Howard and Chandler are rebounding blocking machines, and the scoring can be taken care of by LBJ, Mello and Redd. Can you say Dream Team.

During the FIBA Americas Championship tourney last year Lebron averaged 18.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg, and 4.7 apg all while shooting a ridiculous 72% overall and 84% from inside the 3 point line. In other words, HE WAS UNGUARDABLE! LBJ, the King, will be able to both showcase his talents on the world stage and sell a couple million shoes in China for Nike** in one fell swoop. With LBJ dunking, Kobe defending, Redd shooting, and Dwight Howard being the absolute monster that he is, I dont see any team coming within ten points of the U.S team. And I say good, because its about time we reclaimed our spot as the best basketball playing country in the world.

*Whatever that word means

**I wonder how mucha  pair of Jordans cost in China

Dark Knight Movie Review

Are you scared yet?!

Howdy all. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I sure as hell did after seeing “The Dark Knight” Friday night with some friends. I hate when people ruin movies for me so this review will be spoiler free, so lets just jump right in.

The Dark Knight picks up where the last Batman movie, Batman Begins, left off. The city of Gotham has been inundated with criminals who escaped from the town’s insane asylum. The crime rate in the city is on the decline however due to the vigilante work of the Batman, played by Christian Bale. This tranquility however is not meant to last as a new villain has emerged to disrupt the order of things. Enter the Joker, played by Heath Ledger. The Joker is a sick lunatic who unlike his mob counterparts is more interested in chaos than he is money. In a much less interesting subplot, Aaron Eckhart plays Harvey Dent, the city’s new District Attorney who is working with Batman to rid the city of crime but who draws the attention of the Joker and is caught in the battle between the two. Commence intricate battle sequences and special effects that we have all come to love in superhero movies.

What sets this movie apart, and really this franchise, from other superhero movies is its attempt at realism. The whole fantasy of Gotham City being policed by a masked vigilante seems plausible thanks to the writing and direction of the Nolan brothers. Batman has no superpowers, if anything radioactive touched him he would probably die just like any of us*, but he does has a very relatable love for his city and disdain for crime. This realism draws one into the characters and makes you concerned about their outcome more so than one would for another superhero movie.

How about now?

The other thing that separates this movie from its summer-blockbuster pears is the performanceof Heath Ledger as the Joker. The best way to describe Ledger’s version of the Joker** is absolutely terrifying***. From the makeup to the laugh to the affinity for knives, the Joker is what a villain should be, evil. Nolan saw fit not to give the Joker a back story which only adds to his ghoulish persona. We don’t know why hes doing what he is doing other than the fact that he is crazy. Money doesn’t motivate him, women, glory, nothing - just pandemonium. The movie simply is not the same when he is not on screen. While I love Tim Burton’s Batman incarnations, Batman and Batman Returns, and while I also love Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker in those movies, in my humble opinion, this Joker is the greatest movie villain ever! Heath Ledger’s performance alone is worth the price of admission.

Now on to the bad stuff. Maybe it was because the AC in the theater I was at was broken, or maybe it was because the movie ran for over 150 minutes, but gotdamn was that a long movie! I like my movies shorter in general, but I can stand a long movie if the culminating scenes are spectacular and The Dark Knight simply failed in this regard. The final battle between the Batman and the Joker wasn’t really a battle at all, and the introduction of another villain in the final 2/5ths of the movie just added to the run time. Batman himself was disappointing as I found myself not caring about him much halfway through the movie. The character the Nolan’s spent the majority of Batman Begins developing seemed flat and uninteresting, any further character development was almost completely ignored by the script.

With all that said this was a great movie. I give it 4 and a half (ill think of a better rating system soon) stars out of 5. I will definitely be plopping down another $9.50 to see this flick again.

*Im looking at you Incredible Hulk

**As opposed to Ceaser Romero’s version

***Terrifying as in if I met him in a dark alley I would run the other way

“When I come back like Jordan”

Does this look like the face of a man whose ready to retire?!

 

 

LaDainian Tomlinson is quickly becoming one of my favorite players in the NFL. I admire any athlete that has the balls to say what he actually feels about a situation and not have to sugar coat anything. These are the type of players that keep the league interesting. With that being said, Tomlinson has completely changed my view on this Brett Favre saga that seems to be the top story on ESPN, C-Span, The Weather Channel, and BET* for some reason. Here are some excerpts from what LT had to say about the situation:

 ”Brett Favre should have the opportunity to control his own destiny,”

“If he wants to come back and play football, then let him come back. I think that he was forced to retire prematurely. He finally realized that’s not what he wants to do.”

Since I am not a huge Brett Favre fan I blindly accepted the whole situation surrounding his retirement at face value. Instead of asking questions and thinking practically about the situation, I just assumed what the media was telling me was true**. But lets be real people, does anyone really believe Favre wanted to retire? Why would he, he was one dumb interception away from the Superbowl last season***. Favre doesn’t seem like the type to quit abruptly when he was so close to the glory of the Lombardi trophy.

 

Can you imagine the Bulls not letting him come back?

Meanwhile Greenbay drafts Aaron Rodgers 4 years ago to be Favre’s heir apparent. He has under 60 career passing attempts and is going into this season, his last under contract with the Packers, having never started an NFL regular season game. This is the future of the Packer’s franchise and if Brett was allowed to play again this year then they would have received absolutely nothing in return for their investment in Rodgers. The Packers have probably been trying to get Favre to retire for two seasons now. After the ‘06 campaign there was no reason to believe the Packers were going anywhere finishing the season 8-8 and why not cut your losses and start all over. Meanwhile Favre says nothing about organizational pressure for him to retire because of the backlash the team would face.

Fastforward to this off season and all of a sudden Brett Favre is the bad guy. He wont let the Packers move on, hes being selfish, hes being hardheaded, when in fact all he wants to do is play. In fact his need to play exceeds his love for the Packers because he is willing to play nearly anywhere else**** that wants him. No matter how much I think Favre is overrated, I believe in players rights and Favre should have the right to continue to play the game that he loves. So if the Packers have indeed moved on then also allow Favre to move on because as LT put it he does deserve at least that much.

*Sike, yall know BET don’t have nothing constructive on

**Ha!

***And one dumb interception 4 years ago, and one dumb interception ……..

**** Lol except the strip club capital of the US

 

“Im non-violent like Martin before his death”

In normal life I am a very laid back  person. I enjoy reading, the bible and a good puzzle to pass the time. However whenever Im doing anything competitive whether it be football, basketball or Taboo* I go fuckin’ insane and my temper has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion**.

So yesterday after a long day at work I decided to see if there was a game going at my school. My man told me that a bunch of people would be out there at 6 and boy was he right. I arrived at 7 and there was a 3 team wait to get on the court. So I am already aggrivated by this long ass wait. I dont even get on to the courts until it is 8:15 upon which time I have been stewing for a good hour. First play of the game is pretty physical as I rip the ball from the kid I was guarding. The next two trips down the court he gets a couple of lucky baskets which annoy the hell out of me because his little friend starts saying slick shit like “all day” and “mismatch”. To cut this part of the story short let me just say that this punk aint score another bucket all game and I fouled the shit out of him on a play.

camera phone picture of the foul

After all this commotion the other team ends up winning by 1. I’m walking off the court and the friend says some slick shit under his breath. I say “why don’t you speak up like a man” and this fool replies with “this is basketball not football, you need to learn how to play”.  Now I’m thinking in my head that this kid barely even touched the ball the whole game, the only reason why I know he was in the game is ‘cus he was talking to me at that moment. So without hesitation I say, “how bout you play me one on one and well see who knows how to play”. So now the stage is set in front of about 20 people and I give him ball first***. After about two seconds I knew I had made the right decision because this kid was absolute garbage. He misses his first shot, gets his own rebound and then I block the second. I finally get a rebound and get on offense. And this is where it all goes downhill.

 

I fake left and drive right, get past this bamma and go in for the layup and he fouls me. At this point I’m not even angry at the foul because I’m happy that I got past him so easily, this game was going to be a piece of cake. We check the ball up after the foul, and as I am talking trash with my hands on my knees I look away for a split second and as soon as I do this kid throws the ball at my face. I catch it, just because my reflexes are like a ninja, and without thinking drill the ball at his chest and start walking towards him. Now again I am non-violent, but I’m no punk either, so if young boy wants to wreck we can wreck. But of course he was a punk and just quit the game and told me to calm down. Making me look crazy for wanting to fight, which infuriated me more! I end up just walking away knowing two things, 1)this dude was a bitch, 2) I was better than him at basketball, and that’s all that really mattered to me in the end anyway.

*Ive broken more than one hourglass pieces after hurling them in a fit of rage

**Ive had a “gun” pulled on me and been jumped over basketball and trash talk

***cus bitches go first

Todays title comes from one of the illest songs ever, Cassidy feat Frankie Krutches “Hop Out”. On monday I will retroactively be going back and uploading these songs. So if you dont feel like downloading them independantly (lazy bastards) I got you.