ByronCrawford.com

The first rap song about Obama's assassination

My gmail account got to 99% full, and I can't afford the $20 it costs to purchase additional storage, so I figured I'd buy myself some time until I can find a solution and/or a 20 by deleting any emails with mp3 attachments.

I know, it doesn't even seem right that this much fail could be concentrated in the life of one person. To think, I came thisclose to not even being able to afford free email. I was at least fortunate in that today is the last day I have off from the BGM until like, December or some shit.

You'd be shocked at how many mp3s you have in your gmail account. Or do you only get that if you're a blogger? At any rate, I only deleted about two weeks worth, and I'm back down to 95%. I might go ahead and call it quits for the evening just out of sheer laziness.

Most of the stuff I deleted looked like bullshit from artists I've never heard of, or could have just as easily never heard of. But this one caught my eye. It's a song by the East Coast Avengers where they fantasize about Barack Obama getting assassinated. It's some pretty crazy shit.

It was sent to me on October 30th, i.e. less than a week before the election. I can only imagine what the response would have been had it been widely circulated at that time. It's too bad I have to have anything that looks like it might be promotional garbage from artists and labels filtered into its own special folder before I even see it, so I don't have to feel guilty about not reading it.

This isn't on the Avengers' Prison Planet album, nor is it on the EP of leftovers from that album I got for free with my copy.

Checkit: East Coast Avengers "The Day Hope Died" [zShare]

Dick Cheney gets paid when you go to jail

I was listening to yesterday's Democracy Now! and they were talking about how Dick Cheney has been indicted down in Texas. Some inmates at this prison he owns down there had gotten abused. They didn't say whether the prisoners had gotten fucked in the ass, or if they'd just been beaten with night sticks - just that they'd been abused.

Elliott Wilson-style sidebar: If you were in prison, would you rather be fucked in the ass, or beaten to a bloody pulp with a nightstick? If you chose the former, it probably wouldn't hurt nearly as much [||], but you'd never really be a real man again. If you chose the latter, you'd be putting yourself in grave danger, but there's also the possibility you could heal up and become more or less normal.

Anyhoo, it occurred to me, how is it even legal for the vice president to own a prison? It's no wonder people are getting thrown in jail for years at a time just for getting high - the god damn vice president gets paid every time someone goes to jail! You would think that would constitute some sort of conflict of interest, but how should I know? I was pre-med.

They say the indictment has yet to appear before a judge, and that the judge could throw it out. Even if he doesn't, President Bush would probably just pardon him anyway. It's getting close to that time when President Bush is gonna have to start pardoning all of the criminals in his administration, and his family. Remember that niece he had down in Florida who was a tweaker? I think I was saw her in an episode of the Bang Bus. Or was that just some other rocked out latino broad?

Elliott Wilson sidebar #2: Remember when Joanna Angel did that special get out the vote pr0n? Well I heard this week's episode of the Bang Bus takes place down in Miami while there was an Obama rally going on. Of course I wouldn't have any way of knowing myself. I stopped watching pr0n when I heard Noam Chomsky finds it degrading to women.

Finally, to give you an idea of the scope of my media consumption these days, after the jump is video of Cornel West's appearance on that same episode of Democracy Now! I know these videos from Democracy Now! can be more boring than watching two old people fuck, but this really is one of the best things I've ever seen on that show. At one point, Cornel West actually starts dancing in his chair to that silly Kidz in the Hall, Obama record. And then at the end, he spits a hot freestyle.

Still closeted after all these years

Remember that guy Khalil Amani, your favorite gay rapper's favorite supposedly straight blogger, or whatever his deal was? He didn't stop blogging just because I stopped mentioning him here. It's just that most people stopped paying attention.

I checked the site he blogs for, Hoodgrown Magazine, to see if he was up on this beef between Trick Trick and the teh ghey rap community, and, wouldn't you know, he's been all over it.

I suppose I should have known.

Also, I see my boy Glock De Niro da Godfather is still giving him hell. You heard me? I said, also, I see my boy Glock De Niro da Godfather is still giving him hell.

I was gonna spend the time it would take to wade through that foolishness myself, but I figured I'd better get something together for XXL before it got too late in the afternoon. So I did.

Checkit: Ether these fruits, Trick Trick [XXL]

UPDATE: I published this post, then I checked my email, and I see the XXL post has disappeared. My bad. You'll just have to imagine what it was like.

Ludacris - Theater of the Mind: Album Review

Ludacris, Theater of the Mind (Def Jam, 2008)
Ludacris is big time now. A couple of years ago, he was in that movie Crash, which cleaned up at the Oscars. Last year, the TIs let him win the rap album of the year award for an album hardly anyone really seemed to like. Was calling his new album Theater of the Mind an attempt to rub his newfound success in our faces [||], or is this a genuine attempt to make a pretentious artistic masterpiece? Let's have a look.

• Ludacris @ MySpace

al Qaeda calls Obama a house negro

For a little background, you might want to check these posts from XXL about al Qaeda's recruitment attempts in the hip-hop community.

• Are black Muslims with the terrorists?
• Is Killer Mike with the terrorists?

I might have more on this for XXL in a minute, but we'll have to see. Extreme poverty has been causing my fingers to cramp up.

UPDATE: As Run-DMC would say, there it is.

After the jump is the actual al Qaeda broadcast.

Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak: Album Review

Akuma writes:

Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak (Roc-a-Fella/Def Jam 2008)
So this is Kanye’s ‘pop’ album. God knows what the other ones were meant to be. This is inspired by a break-up with his woman, who probably got tired of his latent homosexuality and poor choice of lead singles.

Trick Trick & The Curse Of The Yung Berg Chain

Best hip-hop web video evar?

After the jump is a clip where Trick Trick expands on his views on teh ghey people. Turns out his comments on AllHipHop were taken out of context. He isn't a homophobe per se. It's just that he doesn't want to see it. Also, he responds to the fruits who were talking shit about him on AHH the other day. He more or less threatens to bust their head wide open, like he threatened to do Ron Mexico, if he sees them in person.

Could we end the bailout if we wanted to?

I don't know how true it is, but I remember reading, around the time the bailout of Wall Street was passed by congress, that President Bush had the military line up in the street outside the Capitol Building, and that, if congress didn't pass the bailout, he was gonna declare martial law.

I'm not sure what that would have entailed. You would think that having the military point their guns at members of congress alone would constitute an act of martial law, but I guess it doesn't really count as martial law unless the they actually start spraying people, like in Tienanmen Square. Does this mean the president actually threatened to kill congress if they didn't pass the bailout?

You'll recall that the bailout had been put up for a vote once before, and too many people voted against it. I remember hearing on cable news, where I get a lot of my information, that most of the people who voted against it were people who faced contentious reelection battles, and they knew good and well that, if they voted for the bailout, it would be used against them in 2010 or whatever.

I wonder how concerned they should have been though, given that Barack Obama and John McCain both supported the bailout, and plenty of people voted for those two. Maybe they were concerned that some douche who isn't in office at present, and hence doesn't have to sweat voting on the bailout, will come along in a few years and claim that he would have voted against it.

Just like Barack Obama would have voted against the Iraq War, had he been in the senate in 2002 or whatever. This despite the fact that he stays voting to send more money to fight the war, and his plan for ending the war isn't to end the war per se, but to leave 50,000 soldiers in Iraq indefinitely, and to send the guys he does pull out of Iraq to Afghanistan, to fight "the good war."

But I digress.

I consulted the Google just now, and I didn't find a whole lot of "legit" news organizations reporting on the president threating to kill congress - mostly a bunch of blogs and far right wing news sites. (Hmm...) But I did find a video of an actual congressman complaining, during a session, that he'd been told there would be martial law in America if congress voted against the bailout.

You might also want to check this clip of the same guy, Brad Sherman, on Alex Jones' radio show.

After the jump is video of Naomi Klein on Democracy Now! yesterday talking about the bailout. Surprise, surprise, it sounds like the TIs split that money amongst themselves, rather than using it to lend people any money.

She claims it's not too late to somehow rescind the bailout. But I'm wondering how true that is, if the president was willing to shoot congress in order to get it passed. This could be like the Vietnam War, where JFK was supposedly gonna have the US out of Vietnam by 1965, but then he ended up getting assasinated. Coincidence?

Don't tell me Prince is an ex-gay homophobe

I thought the whole point of Prince was that he was a straight guy who would occasionally act like a fudge just to piss people off.

I remember reading that, early on in his career, he would open for the Rolling Stones wearing nothing but his undies, as if he was that fruit from Of Montreal (never look at the Jumbotron during an Of Montreal concert), and people would get all pissed and start throwing things at him.

I know there's that line in "Controversy" that goes, "Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?" And I do seem to recall him doing that thing where he'd pretend to kiss one of the other guys in his group, though I can't remember any instance in particular.

But for what it's worth, Prince also once had a song about banging his sister, and I'm assuming (praying, actually) he didn't go there. And remember when Kurt Cobain used to kiss Krist Novoselic? I guess that makes him a fudge now, too? (I could see if it was Busta Rhymes...)

jimbrah izrael, in a post on his blog over at The Root,  suggests that Prince may have been a fudge all along, and now he might be one of these ex teh ghey types who live to throw their fellow fruits under a bus.

Say it ain't so!

In a story in this week's New Yorker about Prince's new crib out in LA (the fuck?), it sounds like Prince might be espousing the Fred Phelps point of view when it comes to teh homosexuality.

And I quote:

When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ”

This story took place "just before" the election, out in California where Prop 8 was a major issue, and you know how fruits out there are up in arms now that Prop 8 passed. Does this mean the teh ghey community is about to turn on Prince? Is Prince really that big amongst fruits anyway?

jimbrah izrael links to a teh ghey guy talking about how Prince inspired him to be more of a fudge or whatever, but I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It sounded like it may have just been a matter of Prince dressing like a fruit, and this guy copying some of his wardrobe.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm buying jimbrah izrael's suggestion that Prince might be a closet case. You would think that, with as much that has been written about Prince over the years, we would know if he's taken it up the coat.

True story: If I had a dollar for every time someone emailed me wanting to know if jimbrah izrael is a closet case, I'd have $3. My response is always that, while he might openly admit to wearing a skirt (my bad, a sarong), if he claims to be a straight, I'm willing to believe he's a straight.

How Obama got elected

This video was probably put together by some racist sack of shit, but the points remain: a) Obama mobilized a lot of smokin' hot white chicks in this election (what's the secret, bro?), and b) Obama's supporters don't know shit about shit.