ByronCrawford.com

O-dub fellates a mannequin

There's a brief item about yours truly and the hip-hop George Takei*, Oliver Wang in today's SF Weekly. Nullus.

The gist of it is that the Weekly is making fun of O-Dub for being this politically correct ethnic studies-type who somehow managed to get labeled a racist.

Says them:

Oliver Wang is perhaps the Bay Area's most politically correct journalist, which would put him well in the running for the most politically correct journalist worldwide.

...Imagine Dog Bites' surprise, then, when we came across a blog post titled "Oliver Wang called me a nigger." Dated last October, it appears on St. Louis hip hop writer Byron Crawford's eponymous blog.

It sort of neglects the fact that this whole thing started when O-Dub and fellow Ph.D Clyde Smith decided they were going to team up and drive me from the Internets, which is unfortunate because it's likely that someone from Entertainment Weekly would've seen this article and decided to do a story on Pro Hip Hop.

Anyway, here's what they quoted me as saying:

"I don't really have anything against him personally," Crawford says of Wang. "When it started, I thought he was kind of against me, and I was pissed off about that. But I'm not anymore. It's just that I've got to write something every day, and he's so oblivious. It just goes to show the way the Internet works; it's not too difficult to spread misinformation about people."

If you're in the San Francisco area, you might sleep with one eye open try to pick up a copy. Otherwise, you can always check it out on the Internets.

• An Oliver Twist (scroll down) [SF Weekly]

*I started calling him that way before it was revealed that the guy who played Dr. Sulu on Star Trek is a fudge and long-time closet case. But here's the thing: If you ever hear one of O-Dub's things on NPR, he sounds exactly like George Takei. Seriously.

Jim Jones run out of Pittsburgh

Word on the Internets is that Jim Jones and some of his Dipset fruits were literally run out of Pittsburgh (of all places) recently:

Apparently Jones and his crew had some bad dealings with local street cats a couple of months which resulted in payback. That payback came in the form of Jones and his crew being beaten with chairs and other objects as they attempted to get on stage in the downtown night club called Chemistry.

And for all that BS Cam'ron talks about not snitching, come to find out Jimbrah Jones had requested police protection for the event:

What stands out here is that Jones had reportedly asked promoters for police protection prior to going on stage which is crazy wack considering the 'anti-snitch' credo that Dipset has long stood behind. That request was denied and mayhem broke loose. More information will be provided as this unfolds.

Was that because Koch "$8 per disc" Records wouldn't pop for private security?

Damn.

links for 2005-11-30

• Will pay Web sites succeed like HBO?
  Why TimesSelect is not like cable TV.
• Media Age Business Tips From U2
  The band is running a corporation, yet the fans don't seem to mind.
• Blogging With a Wooden Tongue
  The generic language of officialdom infiltrates the blogosphere.
• The Source Under Fire
  Here's Your Guide to the Lawsuits, Criminal Charges, and Beefs
• Man runs down purse snatcher with his car
  Police say he had witnessed the man rob his girlfriend at gunpoint.
• Billy Joel
  Oh, the squandered genius!
• Motor Home Used As Strip Club at Bucs Game
  A 40-foot motor home was converted into a strip club on wheels, offering alcohol and lap dances to football fans outside the stadium before kickoff of Sunday's Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, police said.
• The Cross-Pollinators: Jazz Meets Indie-Rock
  An unlikely phenomenon has become a trend: the flirtation of jazz musicians with the world of indie-rock.

The best rap song ever

Branching off from today's list of the best songs ever, by genre, I noticed there was some controversy over what's the best rap song ever.

Songs mentioned so far:

• The Choice Is Yours, Black Sheep. My original choice. I wasn't that certain about it when I selected it, but it's definitely one of the all-time greats.
• Time 4 Sum Akshon, Redman. A pretty good song with a classic video. But better than the Black Sheep song?
• Jersey, Yo, Redman. Um, no.
• Luchini, Camp Lo. Good, but not on the same level as those first two.
• Welcome to the Terrordome, Public Enemy. Great, but if I was going to go with a PE song it would be Fight the Power.

So what is the best rap song ever, anyway? And does it strike anyone else as odd that there's no definite consensus now, like 25 years into recorded hip-hop?

The best songs ever, by genre

The best songs ever from 15 of the top genres in music.

INDIE ROCK: In the Mouth a Desert, Pavement. Does anybody have any idea what this song is about?

RAP: The Choice Is Yours, Black Sheep. The absolute height of recorded rap music. Unfortunately, for many of my younger readers, it happened a long ass time ago.

HAIR METAL: Sweet Child o' Mine, Guns N Roses. An easy pick. Hair metal as a genre wasn't exactly known for the quality of its music.

CLASSIC ROCK: More Than a Feeling, Boston. As ridonkulous the 10,000th time you hear it as it was the very first time you ever heard it.

COUNTRY: To Be Young, Ryan Adams. A credit to its genre, though it could probably be more accurately categorized as something else entirely.

GRUNGE: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana. The obvious choice, but what else was I gonna do?

RAP METAL: Killing in the Name, Rage Against the Machine. Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!

TEEN IDOL: Foolish Beat, Debbie Gibson. Did you know Debbie Gibson wrote and produced all her own music back when she was like 15 or whatever?

POP PUNK: Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard. I don't generally fuck around with a lot of kids music, but I found this to be a genuinely great song.

R&B: Rock Steady, The Whispers. R&B's last gasp as a genre, but what a hell of a song it was. My old man wore this out on cassette back in the day.

EASY LISTENING: Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn. A spiritual tale of one Jewish fellow's pilgrimage to the home of such great musicians as Elvis Presley and Al Green.

ELECTRONICA: Smack My Bitch Up, Prodigy. Admittedly, I know next to jack shit about electronica music. This at least had the best video.

EMO: Screaming Infidelities, Dashboard Confessional. As Juelz Santana would say, this is powerful music. Also, no homo.

JAM BAND: Two Princes, Spin Doctors. One of the only two jam band songs that should have ever been recorded.

SOFT ROCK: Glory of Love, Peter Cetera. Brings to mind romantic visions of knights in shining armor (nullus) and castles far away.

Feel free to discuss.

links for 2005-11-29

• Black Sabbath Finally Make Rock Hall Of Fame - Whether Ozzy Likes It Or Not
  After eight tries, legendary heavy metal act Black Sabbath will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a March 13 ceremony. They will be joined by the Sex Pistols, Blondie, Miles Davis and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
• Big Google Becomes Big Target
  Long considered the David to Microsoft's Goliath, Google is increasingly being thought of as a Goliath itself.
• Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales
  Drug companies seeking attractive sales representatives have opened a recruiting pipeline to top college cheerleading squads.
• Tags Sort Out Music Mess
  The need to organize thousands of MP3s on my hard drive turns me from a music lover into an unwilling librarian. Thankfully, tagging software can help out.
• Addictive Dragon Quest Awes
  Forget role-playing games that attempt to reinvent the wheel -- Dragon Quest VIII weaves a captivating adventure out of classic gameplay.
• Downloading for Dollars
  The future of Hollywood has arrived.

Lil Wayne - Tha Carter II: Album Review

Lil Wayne, Tha Carter II (Cash Money, 2005)
Question for my 3 southern readers: Is Baby from Cash Money doing Lil Wayne's mom, and is that why he's always referring to him as his pa? Because that would just be wrong on so many levels.

50 Cent's blue motorized dildo, nullus

First the whole dressing like a fudge thing and now this. Could it be that Fiddy Cent is trying to tell us something?

Rapper 50 Cent is planning to release his own new line of condoms and sex toys.

50 tells GQ magazine, "I need to make a 50 Cent condom, and a motorized version of me.

A "motorized version of me," eh?

"A motorized version of me will definitely have to be waterproof, so you could utilize it in the tub. A lot of them (vibrators) aren't waterproof.

"Blue is my favorite color, so it would probably be blue. But I don't know how big. I don't know if big is better because I'm not sure a man wants his woman playing with a really big dildo.

Um, why would he make it his own favorite color unless he plans to play with it himself, Bill O'Reilly-style? As Fiddy himself recently put it, "In hip-hop, there’s certain standards of things you can’t do."

Nullus on all of this.

links for 2005-11-28

• Dave Chappelle Is Alive and Well (and Playing Las Vegas)
  After a spectacular flame-out, comedy's most visible invisible man is back.
• Are Interracial Couples in it for Money?
  Rather than just trading gender and economic status, many believe that interracial couples also trade on differences in racial status.
• Kids Gone Wild
  After decades of indulgence, American society seems to have reached some kind of tipping point, as far as tolerance for wild and woolly kid behavior is concerned.
• Scenes From an Arranged Marriage
  To sell an unknown act, pair him with a mentor, real or otherwise. That was the Atlantic Records plan for an R&B singer called Governor.
• The Plight of Public Universities
  Access to public education is under assault. Let's fight back.

He's One Of Those Hip Hop Rapsters!

The worst nightmare of all wannabe gangsta fourteen year olds has finally come true. According to AllHipHop, some random 14 year old white kid from Pennsylvania got himself expelled for "battle rhymes" and was awarded a settlement from the school that expelled him. Seriously. They called the ACLU and everything.

AllHipHop.com sez:

A 14-year-old rapper who was arrested and then suspended for two years by The Riverside Beaver County School District in Pennsylvania for posting his battle raps on the internet has been awarded a $90,000 settlement over his expulsion from school. Anthony “emceeaccident” Latour, member of an upcoming group Just Business, was handcuffed and arrested in middle school in April of 2005, after another student rapper’s mother saw lyrics the two were posting back and forth on the internet.Latour was charged with terroristic threats over the lyrics to the rap songs.

The same day Latour was arrested, seven police officers with a K-9 dog searched his parents home and confiscated $10,000 worth of recording equipment Latour’s parents had purchased for him.The rapper spent a week in a juvenile detention facility over the incident and was eventually expelled for two years because of the violent lyrics that allegedly threatened other students.