hiphopmusic.com:

When I looked around blogville for reactions to Cochran's death, most of what I saw was straight up despicable. So I'm glad Rosa Clemente passed this along. (If you don't know the story of Johnnie and Geronimo, this book is highly recommended)

Alisema Kama Atakuja
(He said he would come)

I woke up this morning at 4 am, wide awake. Something led me out of my bed, and out the door of my shamba home here in Tanzania. I walked outside and looked into the Afrikan sky and wondered what this strange feeling was that had come over me. It wasn't bad, it was just a feeling that something was amiss. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I walked back inside and went to the computer and right away i saw Johnnie's face, and i knew it was Johnnie who woke me up. Johnnie, who last time we spoke had told me, "G, I'm coming. I told you I was coming. I am coming to the mama land with you!!!" And true to his word, he is right here with me. I can feel his presence grow stronger as the sun ascends over these sacred lands of the Great Rift Valley where life began. He is talking to me now. "Look out for Chief." "Tell Ed to be cool." "Tell Stu not to worry." "Take care of Ginny."

Davey D has the scoop on just how deep this thing goes:

Gangsta GOP: Conservatives Set to Pay Rappers Like McDonalds

Coming at the heels of the recent announcement by marketing firm Maven Strategies to pay popular rap artist to spit lyrics about the virtues of McDonalds, in particular the Big Mac sandwich, other marketing firms have taken note. It has become glaringly obvious to Fortune 500 companies and Madison Avenue advertising agencies that the best way to sell a product is to employ the rhyming services of Hip Hop artists.

The successful marketing campaign behind Seagrams Gin via North Carolina artist Petey Pablo who drove sales through the roof after he rapped about it in his song ‘Freek-A-Leak’ has helped open the flood gates. That particular song was played a whooping 350 thousand times last year on commercial radio outlets and reached closed to 1.5 billion people (yes you read that correctly- 1.5 billion) world wide with its enticing message. That’s far better marketing penetration then anyone could hope for with traditional advertising.

Enter the Tokeback Institute out of Resslin, Virginia. This is an ultra conservative marketing firm that specializes in mainstreaming right wing values that are being championed by the current Bush administration. They pride themselves on being the marketing gurus behind getting Americans to buy into the policies supporting the War in Iraq as well as the new love and desire for ‘High Morals’.

The secretive conservative institute now has set its sights on Hip Hop. They not only want to, but fully intend to follow in the footsteps of McDonalds and Seagrams Gin and will began paying popular rap artists as much as a million dollars plus bonuses to rap about conservative policies. It’s called political product placement...

My esteemed colleague Dan Charnas started a blog, and the first post is a monster. Behind the scenes accounts of the birth of commercial hip-hop radio, and the revolutionary origins of the "Baby Got Back" video. A long read but well worth it. (Also peep the mp3s and the yoga tutorials.)

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Elsewhere, The Music Issue reminds us why all eyes should be on Vatican City:

Thing is, this is an important, world-affecting regime change with no democratic input and the potential to lead to further conservative standpoints (on women in the priesthood, family planning, gay-rights, celibacy etc), or even brutally regressive stances that will no doubt curry favor with our charming right-wing 'culture of life' and conservative social systems in Catholicism's worldwide followings. In other words, I'm not one for praying, but I today I pray for a new, liberal and progressive hand driving the Pope-mobile.

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And O-Dub recounts an experience I have all too often, except for me it usually involves Bobbito, Slug, or Gil Bellows from "Ally Mcbeal"

Mark Cuban wonders if the music industry's math is fuzzy:

Let's Test the RIAA Logic

At a CEA event I attended a couple weeks ago, I listened to a panel where Mitch Bainwol, the head of the RIAA, basically put out the argument that it was obvious that illegal downloads were hurting music sales. It was obvious because the advent of file sharing coincided with a decrease in music sales. Therefore A lead to B.

...Since Mitch thought it was important to use RIAA Logic to show how obvious the link was, I decided to test Mitch’s logic by applying it to other digital content. So I’m putting together a list of digital media content types that are sold, and looking and asking if they have seen an increase or otherwise in sales since the introduction of Napster. I was hoping blog readers could contribute their thoughts to the list as well. Here is my list:

DVDs - Huge Increase in Sale
Digital Photographs - Huge Increase in Sales (see Corbis and other outlets)
Video Games - Huge Increase in sales
Software - Not huge increase percentage wise, but increases in actual dollars… I couldn’t find a specific reference. Anyone have one?
Ringtones - Huge increases in Sales

So, using Mitch Bainwol/RIAA logic. If 5 digital based products sold since filesharing came on the scene are showing flat at worst, up huge at best sales, doesn’t it hold true that filesharing can’t hurt and must BENEFIT digital product sales?

...The RIAA claims that sales of the top 100 CDs sold 195mm units in 1999, materially above the 154mm units sold in 2004. Which leads to a question. Are sales down due to filesharing, or have RIAA members just lost marketshare?

I contend RIAA sales are down because they lost marketshare. There are more CDs being self published or released by non RIAA members than ever before. Sales from websites, concerts and car trunks are taking away sales from traditional labels. Access and awareness of that music has exploded through webradio, websites, p2p, satellite radio and tours ...What I don’t know is how much these alternate music sources are selling.

When the RIAA refers to the “record industry”, they are always misrepresenting themselves. In this era of massive self-publishing, they have no idea what sales are for the entire record industry. Only what soundscan or their members report to them. Both of which under report the incalcuable number of self publishing artists.

Which leads me to finally agree with Mitch Bainwol. RIAA logic says that if every other digital content products has seen increases in sales since the filesharing era began, than music should see an increase too. I think the RIAA logic holds. I think total music sales are up significantly since 1999. I’m just looking for the proof. Anyone able to help?

Industry types, what sayest thou? Is it wishful thinking to imagine that self-publshing etc. can account for such a steep drop in the total numbers?

I just listened to Arular for the first time, and I will now make the most unnecessary post ever, just to make sure my blogville citizenship is not revoked.

Straight up love:
Hombre. Oh hell yes.

Like, but not enough to take Hombre off repeat:
Pretty much every other track. Except for the baile funk stuff which doesn't do much for me at all. But then again I was never into miami bass either. In fact (blasphemy alert) I wasn't even crazy about Planet Rock back when it came out, and thought then as I do now that 8th Wonder was 100 times better. Which may tell you all you need to know about my relationship with "authenticity." (or maybe not)

Cory Daye, Ghost and Dougie made much better usage of that:
Sunshowers.. I'd probably like it better without the chorus there evoking those comparisons.

As for the war to end all wars, wading through the wreckage to determine my position seems far less interesting than queueing up Hombre again. But feel free to change my mind in the comments section.

EDIT: This piece is pretty dope though. And it reminds the me that the person who first got me into blogging was Tamil, or Thamizh as she preferred. I wish she was around now to weigh in on this business.

Different Kitchen has urgent breaking news!

Also, lots of good reading about the Pope here.

The latest on gospel rap in Botswana here.

The Great Cash-In on southern hip-hop continues here.

And these guys are finally getting to meet with Hot 97 today, as Davey D details here.

Batty, batty, batty!

Game on for "Ultimate Hustler"

What happens when The Apprentice goes hip-hop? It becomes The Ultimate Hustler.

BET has announced the launch of a new series that The Hollywood Reporter calls a "hip-hop version of The Apprentice." ..a cut-throat competition between would-be business people that will hosted by Roc-A-Fella Records C.E.O. Damon Dash.

In the now-infamous Donald Trump role, Dash will create his own version of the famed "You're fired" line by yanking Roc-A Fella gold chains off the necks of the losers.

(Am I showing my age with the Hollywood Shuffle references, or do people still remember the classics?)

Everybody's going on about how hip-hop has turned into pro wrestling, but have y'all noticed how pro wrestling has turned into hip-hop? For years now WWE all-star John Cena has been kicking freestyles in the ring every week, mostly ghostwritten by his Boston brethren Esoteric, as I understand it.

Check this in-depth interview with John Cena, on his daily struggle to keep it real as a hip-hop wrestler:

John Cena: From the Ring to the Microphone, He's All Real!

...So what do you say to people who are overly critical about hip-hop’s advancement into markets and outlets where it wasn’t originally accepted or available?

Cena – That’s where this comes from … [Points to his baseball cap.] It says ‘F**k Rules.’ There are two sides to that coin. There are mainstream people who are not ready to accept hip-hop, and then there are the hip-hop people claiming sell-out! Either way, their thought process is wrong. The hip-hop people claiming sell-out … I can understand when it’s just someone trying to make a buck off the music. I’ve got an album that’s gonna drop on May 10th that’s been in the works for three years. I put forth my own money; I signed all my rights over to WWE. I’m not making a penny off of this. I’m doing this because I love hip-hop. For someone to scream sell-out is the wrong way to go. They need to be proud that, f**k man, hip-hop has finally got to wrestling. So if I’m a hip-hop head and I’m watching wrestling … but I can’t tell my boys about it because it’s a rock’n roll sport, now you can get out of the closet. You can f**king say, yo, we’re repping hiphop on WWE. My boy Cena is kicking ass for all of us. Hopefully, it’ll open the door for more people. My boy [Rey] Mysterio is rocking the Gucci baggy pants … it’s getting there...

...for certain people to say hip-hop is growing too fast or selling out, those people should be happy that their monster has grown into this u n s t o p p a b l e Frankenstein. That is the utmost form of flattery to those true, true hiphop heads that bleed underground hip-hop and hate on c o m m e r c i a l . They need to embrace the fact that hiphop, their art form, the art form that they love so much that they’ve gotta hate it on the other side, has gone everywhere. True fans of the music will be able to tell – ‘okay, that mutha f**ka is trying to make a quick buck, he’s real, he’s not, he’s just going off somebody else.’ So there is a little decision making process to determine who is repping hip-hop and who is ripping off the culture...

How does all that make you feel?

Cena – I love the fact that it’s spreading, man. The fact that a kid from West Newberry, like me, can go out and breathe hip-hop life into a culture that doesn’t have any is fantastic. And I can still go in the hood and get rep! I walk in Jamaica Queens where I buy my jewelry and cats is like, yo that’s Cena, man! That’s the kid! That’s hip-hop, man. It’s not about your color; it’s about the culture. And that’s a wonderful thing...

Reminder, tomorrow night from 9PM until they kick us out:

Our 14th anniversary party!
at the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. Bet. Church and Broadway
FREE, with very cheap beer and a bunch of giveaways.

Music from our all-star DJ alliance, and probably some special guests.

This week has become crazy hectic for me between this party, two writing assignments kicking my ass, the panel I'm on at the Grassroots Media Conference, my secret invitation-only appearance in Connecticut on Friday, and my trip to Seattle next week for EMP. So I can't wait to chill with all of y'all tomorrow night and get my spirits back up.

Tonight I celebrated the 14th anniversary of my love affair with hip-hop. Or at least the anniversary of the day we made it official, because lord knows we were in love long before that.

I know that in this post-sincerity age it is no longer cool to believe in anything, much less publicly admit to an unabashed, passionate love. But the reason I created this radio show, and this website, is because I love hip-hop.

My love for hip-hop is the essence of who I am. It defines how I see the world and how I see myself. My love for hip-hop gives my life meaning, when the world so often seems to have nothing for me. So I have committed every day of my life to loving it, to representing it, to defending it, to supporting it, to cultivating it, to nurturing it, to living it.

I have devoted my life to loving hip hop. And not a day, not one single day goes by in my life, when I am not awed and amazed by how much hip-hop has loved me back.

So thank you to all my family and partners who have kept the Underground Railroad alive all these years. And thank you to everyone who shared this evening with me, wrote and called to send their good wishes, and everyone who has ever tuned in or logged on to share this music with us.

But most of all, thank you. You are the love of my life, and I'll always be here, as long as you are.

Spent a lovely Friday in New Haven, where my hosts were quite gracious about my inexperience with public speaking. The only downside was I missed out on the chance to scoop Benzino's resignation from the Source:

Benzino Quits Source

Blaming irreconcilable differences with both The Source magazine and its investor, Black Enterprise, co-founder Raymond "Benzino" Scott stepped down as chief brand manager on Friday (April 8). "I want to step down from the magazine and sell my stock effective immediately," he said in a statement...

"...I don't want to take away from what The Source has built up, but I got issues with The Source and magazines like that. Everyone is too politically correct. They're not thinking about the little guy who can't afford to pay for high-priced ads. It's like a monopoly."

Now come on, that's a little unfair, I mean the Source gave full pages of ad space away every month to such obscure artists as Ray Benzino!

...The feelings were apparently mutual as, according to a spokesperson for The Source, Black Enterprise disliked Scott's practices. "Our other partner, Black Enterprise, is another reason why I've decided to leave," Benzino said. "I don't like how they perceive me. There are too many things that I don't agree with, so I am moving on."

I was expecting Earl Graves and the BE crew to dump Benzino when they first bought in years ago. I guess they finally woke up and realized they better step in to protect their investment.

Though his tenure at The Source has been rocky, Scott said he's looking forward to new publishing opportunities. "I plan on creating another magazine that has my voice, which represents the little guy. It's because of the manipulation of SoundScan and radio that hip-hop is losing its edge. I want to come out with a magazine that will reflect that. I want to start from the ground up and speak for the artists," he said.

I'm hoping he'll go the Oprah route and call it "B" magazine, with himself on the cover of every single issue offering self-help advice for his fellow "little guys."

Once again we hit the airwaves tonight at Midnight EST, with our radio show the Underground Railroad. You can hear us online here, or on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area. And while you check out the sounds you also can talk to us live in the chat room.

Looks like serious trouble for dumb and dumber. Respect to Kim Osorio and Michelle Joyce for stepping up.

The Source Magazine Hit With Employment Discrimination Claims By Former Top Women

Former Editor-in-Chief and Vice President Accuse Owners of The Source of Subjecting Women to Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, and Retaliation

EEOC Charges Filed on Behalf of All Current and Former Female Employees

NEW YORK – April 11, 2005 – Earlier today, two of the highest-ranking former female executives of The Source magazine, the self-proclaimed “Bible of Hip Hop,” filed charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing co-owners David Mays, the Chief Executive Officer, and Raymond “Benzino” Scott, the Chief Brand Executive, of committing gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and unlawful retaliation against women at the Company.

The charges were filed by Kimberly Osorio, who was the first female Editor-in-Chief of The Source, and Michelle Joyce, who was the Vice President of Marketing. According to the charges, female employees were consistently discriminated against on the basis of their gender in favor of male employees, particularly with respect to hiring, promotions, compensation and benefits, working hours and discipline.

The charges also allege that:

Responding in allhiphop.com, David Mays is the epitome of class crass:

...Dave Mays denied the allegations and took aim at his accusers credibility.

"Neither of those women ever filed any complaints during many years of working at The Source it raises a lot of questions when these types of charges are made subsequent to valid and legitimate terminations of their employment," Mays said in a statement. "Also it is a fact that Ms. Osorio had sexual relations with a number of high profile rap artists during her employment as Editor-In-Chief."

Even if we assume this is true, what in the hell does it have to do with anything? If this is how you plan to prove that you really do respect women in your workplace, you're in a lot of trouble.

Meanwhile as I expected, reports of Benzino's departure were too good to be true. Here's yet another bizarre press release I got in the mail, also posted by Jeff Chang. Anyone who doesn't understand why this press release is dripping with hypocrisy/absurdity should read the chapter in Jeff's book about Benzino's role in the rise and (mostly) fall of The Source.

Partners and Black leaders Appeal To Benzino To Continue His Fight For Artist's Rights and Empowerment in Hip-hop Industry.

Def Jam Records Shocker Cause of Benzino's Resignation Decision on Friday, April 8, 2005. Chairman LA Reid Pulls Def Jam Advertising From The Source After His Job Is Threatened By Interscope's Jimmy Iovine.

Benzino To Stay At The Source, Vows Not To Make Anymore Diss Songs… In Partnership With Reverend Al Sharpton's Movement For Non-Violence In Hip-hop.

April 11, 2005- New York, NY- On Friday, April 8, Ray Benzino announced that he was stepping down from his position at The Source Magazine, as Co-Founder and Chief Brand Executive. At press time, however, many community leaders called an emergency meeting and told him he must not leave The Source...

Adisa Banjoko tells how the Source tried to bring him in for a hatchet job on Jimmy Iovine. "Long story short, they tried to use me to attack Iovine, I would not do it and their new Editor, FAHIYM IS THE REAL SLIM SHADY..."

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Susie Bright remembers Andrea Dworkin.

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William Jelani Cobb remembers Harold Cruse

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O-dub + Junichi = Poplicks. Stack and attack!

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Andrea Duncan-Mao has now been assimilated into the Blog Collective. Resistance is futile. (yes i'm talking to you, Chairman.)

In case you missed the fun, here's Sage Francis' take on Common's Be album:

It is definitely head wrappy.

Not to discredit the I Used to Love H.E.R. guy...I know he is infallible due to his ability to break dance on stage while smoking faggots like incense, but I just don't buy into the image he projects.

I like to imagine him and Kanye hanging out at a high school party playing dominoes while Common schools Kanya on how to seem more spiritual.

they exchange guilty glances in between cheerleaders and coke lines.

Speaking of Coke, that commercial he did is proof that not only will the revolution be televised, but it will also come with diabetes and union busting action! order now, before the neo-soul movement becomes even less interesting

For a rather less obnoxious take, check the excellent blog belonging to Wes Jackson. Andthanks to Wes, Alma, Kim, Ian and crew once again for putting last week's party together. Been too busy to post pics but believe me it was a stone gas honey.

BTW I spoke very briefly to Common about the Sprite thing, may post later.

For those who don't remember, which is probably most non-fanatical folk: Common did a Sprite Coke commercial a few years back with Mya, centered around a remake of Eugene Mcdaniels'/Roberta Flack's/Les McCann's "Compared to What." Quite a few fans were put off by this at the time, and I've seen it come up in a couple of places recently. So I asked him about it real quick while doing an interview you'll see soon elsewhere (couldn't fit it in the assigned piece cuz it had a very specific focus). Here's what he said:

One thing that I still see mentioned a lot is the Sprite Coke commercial you did with "Compared to What," people saying you shouldn't have done that. What's your your response to that?

Honestly I don't look back at nothing I did and say "man I shouldn't have done it." Cuz all of it is part of the process. I mean I can laugh at certain things and be like "damn why did i do that?" at that time, but you know.. if I hadn't done Electric Circus people wouldnt as excited about "Be" being what it is right now you know what I'm saying?

Do you understand what I mean? I mean, the point being it's all part of the journey. You go through those struggles, people see you go up and down, rollercoaster, and they can relate to it more. They're more connected to it cuz thy seen you. And they understood that I was being true to me, they know that "man, even if we didn't like that, that dude was being himself. He was being true to who he was at that time, and that's waht he wanted to create. He ain't just no ass-kissing ass artist, where he's gonna try to make anything, amd whoever's popular he's gonna do it with just to be a part of what's popping off. I ain't never been that type of artist.

So to you it's like somebody saying Malcolm shouldn't have done this or that in '62 or '63, when you're judging him by where is was at in '65, you gotta see that was a part of the path that took him to that?

Exactly bro, that's a great analogy.

So, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI. Advance word pegged him as the worst possible choice, so far as any hopes for the church becoming more progressive. I'm gonna go see if there's any good analysis up yet.

Ezra Klein notes these highlights from Ratzinger's Washington Post bio:

He wrote a letter of advice to U.S. bishops on denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights, which some observers viewed as a slam at Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry. He publicly cautioned Europe against admitting Turkey to the European Union and wrote a letter to bishops around the world justifying that stand on the grounds that the continent is essentially Christian in nature. In another letter to bishops worldwide, he decried a sort of feminism that makes women "adversaries" of men. ... He is a lightning rod for church liberals who see the hierarchy as reactionary. Ratzinger was active in stamping out liberation theology, with its emphasis on grass-roots activism to fight poverty and its association with Marxist movements.

He once called homosexuality a tendency toward "intrinsic moral evil" and dismissed the uproar over priestly pedophilia in the United States as a "planned campaign" against the church.

Being around so many people who have devoted so much time to thinking about music was rewarding in ways I'm not sure how to summarize here. I found myself wanting to experience without recording, whether through notes or photos. (I will get a few pics up later)

So many cool people, all with such passion for ideas, as Oliver said. Invigorating (and humbling) just to absorb that passion itself, along with all the ideas and avenues of thought it has produced..

Our music-blogging panel noted an obvious but crucial fact about blogs: they are made for and by people who spend a lot of time on the internet. Among other reasons, this is relevant because when we look for stuff to write about, we tend to draw from the pool of ideas already documented on the internet.

Which means that no matter how tight your news.google game, is you're working from a very limited palette.. cuz less than 1% of the world's ideas are documented anywhere on the internet (much less whichever 10 sites comprise your daily routine).

So the feast of ideas that EMP laid out was hella inspiring, sparked a hunger to get out there into that world and bring home new colors for the palette.

That said, I'm off to catch up on my 10 sites now. Back with photos and shoutouts later, hopefully.

Obvious must-read of the week: that monster Reginald Dennis interview at hiphopdx.com: Part one, two and three. Good friend that he is, Reggie realized I'd never get around to the sequel for my Real History of the Source, and stepped up with everything I was gonna cover and then some. Save it, print it out and study it, present a paper on it next year. I do have one more historical document that I'll post next week, a tasty little supplement to Reggie's thorough rundown..

Meanwhile Jeff has the latest on the Source's financial woes, backed up by the NY Post. Which reminds me, I never got a chance to post this peculiar e-mail someone passed on to me.. it was sent out by David Mays to the Source's business partners, attempting to explain the Source's withdrawal from official auditing of their circulation. I'll post it below, for those who enjoy corporate damage control at its most desperate:

Once again we hit the airwaves tonight at Midnight EST, with our radio show the Underground Railroad. You can hear us online here, or on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area. Our old chat room finally bit the dust, but we can talk in the comments section here, unless anyone can recommend a temporary chat space? Let me know underneath here...

Here's the bonus Source material I alluded to last week.

In Reginald Dennis' interview he describes the pivotal moment when everyone decided to walk away from the Source once and for all:

We’ve still got James’ resignation letter and we plan to fax it out to The Power Network: The Source’s list of 5000 key industry insiders, radio DJs and retailers. We are joined by another one of our interns and we send it out. We wonder what the reaction will be. These days you can send a million emails with the push of a button but back then we had to do it the hard way – a preprogrammed fax list. All over the country people read James’ letter and pagers and office phones begin blowing up. At RCA Dave is trying to manage the situation and calm Ray down. The fax arrives. Dave reads it and he and The RSO drop everything and dash back to The Source, hoping to catch us in the act. Dave also calls the phone company to stop the transmission, but because he doesn’t have the correct password the faxes continue to roll out. By the time they get up to The Source we are long gone and James’ letter is the talk of the industry.

I happened to be one of those 5,000, and it turns out I still have my copy of the fax. So here it is, the Fax Heard Round the World in jpg form (If anyone can pdf it up for me please do):

Page One (cover sheet)
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
Page Five
Page Six

Latest Source mag business: I interviewed the lawyer for Kim Osorio and Michelle Joyce, Kenneth Thompson, you can check that out here. And in case you haven't seen it the illustrious team of Jeff Chang, Lizz Mendez Berry and Joan Morgan (Fieldston represent) started a petition to help keep the pressure on these fools..

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Meanwhile back in Gotham City...

The R.E.A.C.Hip-Hop coalition, formed in the aftermath of the Tsunami song fiasco, finally got to meet with Hot 97 a few weeks ago and present their concerns about the station. Up until now they haven't been able to speak publicly about what went down in the meeting, but that is about to change.. look out for news on that front.

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Overdue Seattle linkage: Cool photos here, every other link imaginable here. Most important is O-Dub's remix of Matos' Apache paper.

I hate when stories look all cool and positive, then the details ruin all the magic. finding this article was like biting into a chocolate bar and finding out it's really carob. I hate carob.

Ludacris first U.S. Rapper to Shoot Video In Africa

Lucaris recently became the first American rapper to shoot a video in Africa with in his new “Pimping All Over The World” video.

Atlanta native Ludacris picked a Zulu prince and also a local police officer by the name of Desiree Phillips to join African models in the video.

"I never thought that something like this actually happen to me," Desiree Phillips commented. Ludacris said, "I wanted the video to be a true African experience."

Interesting quote from Game, this afternoon on Hot 97: "It's McDonald's. Dre owns the Mcdonald's, Em is the manager, I work the fries, 50 Cent does the burgers, we sell a happy meal and the kid goes home happy." (wonder if Mcdonald's is sending him a check now)

It's painful hearing Hot's jocks struggle to feign excitement about these b-list Summer Jam performers they're announcing.. "YOOOO, CIARAAA!!?!??? SAY WORD, SON SHE IS GONNA RIP THAT STAGE!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!"

Which is not to knock Hot per se, at any commercial outlet you're gonna have to sacrifice your dignity sooner later, pretending to be geeked about some product that nobody with half a brain could possibly be so excited for. Thank Jebus I work at WBAI..

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And in case you thought Hot 97 (or hip-hop radio in general) had a monopoly on stupidity, check these bozos out. Meanwhile the backlash against Hot still isn't done, with NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi speaking up now. Also, Dan Charnas posted the next installment of his take on things.