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When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong: McDonald’s Edition

October 15, 2011 in Flicks, Speak of Freedom

I have friends who’ve either worked or are currently working fast food. They complain, they grit but it’s still a grind to get them somewhere other than where they are. Society looks at them as if they’re on the bottom of the food chain in terms of respectable jobs and all of that friction leads to pent up anger, waiting to be unleashed. The video above has made national news for all the wrong reasons as the frustrations of a job and the customers it brings brought out the worst in Rayon McIntosh.

McIntosh, a convicted felon was working his shift at McDonalds late Thursday night when two women came into the store making demands and being unruly, cursing at him. What followed is something both graphic and also open to morbid curiosity.

Was McIntosh right for jumping over the counter and assaulting the woman after she slapped him, essentially acting in self defense? Not at all. He lost his temper and more than likely will find himself back in prison. It’s just certain things the public won’t stand, regardless if you’re in the right or the wrong. He may have been in the right but to be challenged in such a manner produced the worst possible outcome for McIntosh.

Tags: denise darbeau, mcdonalds, rachel edwards, raylon mcintosh
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Mos Def Urges Troy Davis Tribute At BET Hip-Hop Awards

October 2, 2011 in News, Speak of Freedom

Mos Def urges BET to pay tribute to the public murder of Troy Davis during their upcoming awards show.

“The BET Awards are happenin’ in Atlanta, Georgia, apparently this weekend on Saturday, right? I’m making a strong, serious recommendation and suggestion.In the interest of humanity and the rights of human beings all over God’s spaceship, Earth. If you are doing or hosting this event in Atlanta, Georgia, right after this young man, Troy Davis, was brutally murdered, in public for the whole world to see, you should definitely dedicate one part of your show.

If it’s the opening, the beginning, the middle, or the end … Bring his mama out there, show her your support and show her some words of comfort and encouragement.This is not the moment for your silence, BET! Or anybody else! And that goes to every peep from Oprah to Obama: When you get a free moment, call Troy Davis mama.”

[via Rap Radar]

Tags: atlanta, bet, mos def, troy davis, yasiin
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Will There Be Justice For Troy Davis?

September 17, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

If the story hasn’t been laid out in front of you on national television and given the sort of sensationalism as some of its counterparts, you may not have heard of it. You may not know about Troy Davis and the unwanted situation he is currently facing. Davis is facing death square in the face, for something he claims (and others have testified to) he didn’t do.

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Tags: georgia, jasiri x, troy davis, youtube
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The World Doesn’t Want Authentic Texas Rap

September 16, 2011 in Features, Speak of Freedom

New York City hails itself as the birth place of hip-hop, an area that claims it has produced the best rappers and still dominates discussions in terms of who runs the genre regionally. Their radio stations matter, if an artist from another city goes there to perform, it’s a big deal. Despite all of the grandiose notions about NYC hip-hop, it’s most promising rookie at the moment doesn’t even sound like a NYC hip-hop head.

ASAP Rocky represents Harlem, which according to Diddy is the swag capital of the world. Rocky is different in some areas. He doesn’t tweet (although his fan handle @LIVELOVEASAP does), thought selling drugs was stupid so he stopped and by and large has developed a cult following thanks to his flow & cadence. That flow? An elongated stutter step where everything is punctual, made to be understood in its simplicity, not for complex. He can dance around a beat with the best of them and despite everything about him that screams another Texas rapper, he still gets “HARLEM!” chants the same way Vado does.

Rocky’s music is perfect for the new age wave of screw culture and how it’s territorial markings in Houston have evolved all over the globe. The druggy mindstate has now gone pop, appearing on shelves in forms of carbonated drinks, R&B singers with rapper mentalities and more. There’s a glaring issue with this however. Can you name a Southern rapper who at present time is the titan of all things “purple swag”?

You can’t. Because that guy’s actually from Toronto.

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Tags: asap rocky, doughbeezy, drake, killa kyleon, lil wayne
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The Bridge Between Mississippi Hate & Burning London

August 11, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

Mark Duggan.

It’s not a class problem, it’s a human problem.

While our country finds itself in economic turmoil, it also deals with the sort of climate amongst its people that has been long reported, unreported or dismissed by its media. Caring more for issues going on abroad rather than issues at home, the television screens of America have been filled with images and video of a burning London, beseech by rioters angered over racial tensions in a small neighborhood.

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Tags: commentary, james anderson, london riots, mark duggan, mississippi hate crime
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The Fight to Put a Hip-Hop Blog on the Map

July 6, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

Being accepted as a hot blog is like a job interview. Trust.

In 2007, during the great blog creation period and also when rappers still thought ringtones were going to be career savers, multiple blogs sprouted up across the country with each one aspiring to become the next big blog. Problem was, out of the hundreds of rap blogs that sprouted, only ten or so truly matter when you open your Google Reader in the morning, looking for either new content to read or poach.

The rap game and the blog game are fraternal cousins, one of whom looking for the other to prosper and vice versa. Some bloggers decide to write up rules for posts, why they choose to cover certain artists and maintain a holier than thou mentality. By indirectly working in both fields, one as the blogger who writes this column on a whenever I can basis and as someone who notices rappers burgeoning inside of a rarely covered area, there really is no true answer to success in this industry.

Look, female & Hispanic rappers have it the worst in the genre based upon the fact that A) even as diverse as it is, rap fans still feel that rap belongs to black people (when white people have owned it since they started signing rap acts to labels) and nobody trusts female rappers unless they’re selling sex and B) female bloggers will infinitely get ahead of your typical male blogger because rappers like females who ask them interesting questions.

But how does one get ahead?

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Tags: 2dopeboyz, blogs, commentary, houston hip-hop, nah right, rap radar, speak of freedon
6 Comments »

The Limits Of World Star Hip-Hop

July 5, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

The Source is currently running an article questioning the merits of WSHH (if they have any) after the site allowed the posting of a video in which two Kenyan men were accused of stealing a sack of potatoes. The men were then beaten, tied up and then worst of all – doused in gasoline and set on fire.

All for the rabid and curious watchers of WSHH to comment and drop insensitive messages in an attempt to either be funny or depraved.

You can read the article here but honestly, you have to have limits in what content you get. WSHH has cornered the market in outlandish actions by human beings, allowing their web space to be considered the zoo of life where you can pretty much see anything.

Why did they allow this is beyond me.

READ: Has WSHH Gone Too Far? [The Source]

Tags: articles, kenya, the source, world star hip-hop
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Lauryn Hill: Hip-Hop’s Madame Of Trainwreck

May 25, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

Before we get into this Lauryn Hill piece, allow me to take time to bury the megamix once and for all. I loved “Racks” when it was simply that regional song you didn’t know the words to. There’s no possible way you’re going to get <a title="Listen & Download!" href="“>its bloated remix on the radio after a few verses. Can we please just keep the remix spots to maybe four artists and leave the rest to mindless freestyles? At this rate, somebody’s going to want to make a remix to Harold Camping’s rapture prediction and still be wrong.

But I digress.

Today is Lauryn Hill’s 36th birthday, one of hip-hop’s brightest stars once upon a time and now someone who should either be an ambassador for the genre or someone who should cake off of her one solo album. That being said, the days of Lauryn Hill being a well paid headliner are over.

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Tags: columns, commentary, lauryn hill, rock the bells, Speak of Freedom
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On Budden, Baxter & Bossip

May 10, 2011 in Speak of Freedom

Relationships breed a different type of journalism.

Anything with a little pulp to it, a worldly figure cheating on his wife with multiple women, famed running back becomes high profile murder suspect, the Lakers walking along the streets of Downtown Dallas like they’d just experienced a Zombie Apocalypse will get attention from every angle, covered from every source and talked about for days – months and possibly years.

Most things that deal with Joe Budden, hip-hop’s most personal on wax and plighted star are talked about for a few days and mostly forgotten. Yes, even his stans will run the gamut of trying to tell you that Joey is the second coming, a man who’s been through so much label wise that if he found a second hit, he’d be plotting rap takeover and wouldn’t need three extra guys to showcase his own singular talent.

Because there is no closure to the cycle of Joe Budden, not as fate would tell it.

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Tags: bossip, columns, commentary, esther baxter, joe budden, Speak of Freedom
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