Pharrell threw a launch party in Houston for his new liquor, Qream. The event was all types of cool–good music, great crowd, and the best part? Free drinks. Duh. I was there in my Sunday’s best to witness the launch, along with a shitton of other Houstonians. It was a crazy fun cocktail party. I even spotted a few celebs in the building: rappers Bun B and Slim Thug, Swishahouse singer Hazel-E, among others. Peep the photos.

Henry Adaso
Roc4life

“Sure Thing” is about being madly in love and all that mushy stuff but, Miguel being Miguel, occasionally slips in sexual innuendo wherever he sees fit. “You be the match, Imma be your fuse/Boom!” Oh Miguel, you sure have a way with words. “Motivation” needs no introduction. It sports some of the raunchiest lyrics on radio this year, and finds Rowland mewling, “push harder,” “go longer” and “go, go, go!”

A few notches down at No.7 is Trey Songz’s “Love Faces,” a paean to post-coital expressions. “Don’t it feel good when I touch on it,” Songz sings, “Wouldn’t it be nice if all night I was in you? Come kiss me, come with me down the hall to my bedroom. Tonight we’ll be making love faces.”
You’ve definitely heard Jeremih’s “Down on Me” at some point, unless you’ve just returned from a trip to Mars. “Down on Me” is at No. 19, thanks to Jeremih’s sexually charged poetry: “I’m gonna lick it lick it lick it till her hickey have that river running.”

At No. 22 is Waka Flocka Flame’s strip-club anthem, “No Hands,” which features Roscoe Dash and Wale. If you’re wondering why this song is still enjoying major buzz, the lyrics may offer some explanation: “Well I’m tryna hit the hotel with two girls that swallow dick/ Take this dick and swallow Bay Moscato got her freaky.”

Clearly, program directors have a thing for Bay Moscato references.

Sex, ladies and gents, guarantees airplay. But that’s not the only way in. After poring over the YTD chart for a minute, Rocks Off found a few other ways to get your song on the radio.

​1. Pony Up!: No pay, no play. Duh.

2. Get a Hook From Drake: Do whatever you can to legally secure a hook or, better yet, a verse and a hook from Drake. Artist X + Drake is a proven formula.

Proof: Drizzy sings or raps on five of the songs in the top 20.

(Pro Tip: If you’re really serious about scoring a radio single, consider signing to Young Money or Cash Money. Five of the cuts in the Top 10 featured at least one YM/CM artist.)

A scene from Trey Songz's "Love Faces"

​3. Get a Hook From Chris Brown: If Drake isn’t available, try Chris Brown’s Blackberry. Breezy sent three songs to the top 20. He’s also singing on Big Sean’s “My Last” (No. 7), which gives him a total of 4 active radio hits.

4. Become Lil WayneWayne boasts four hits in the Top 20. If you’re that desperate for a hit, you’ll just have to find a way to become Weezy F. Baby. You’ll probably need waist-length dreds, a bizarre fascination with the letter “F,” height-reduction procedures, and surgical implantation of the brain cells responsible for random outbursts of “ya dig?”

Take a gander at the urban radio Top 10.

1. Miguel, “Sure Thing” – 86,785
2. Kelly Rowland feat. Lil Wayne, “Motivation” – 83,597
3. Chris Brown, “Look at Me Now” – 75,488
4. Lil Wayne feat. Cory Gunz, “6 Foot 7 Foot” – 69,744
5. Nicki Minaj, “Moment 4 Life” – 68,362
6. Big Sean feat. Chris Brown – “My Last” – 67,339
7. Trey Songz, “Love Faces” – 63,470
8. DJ Khaled, “I’m on One” – 63,456
9. Chris Brown, “She Ain’t You” – 63,280
10. Kanye West, “All of the Lights” – 62,732

Henry Adaso
Houston Press

Unlike the imaginary audience the station’s program director has been instructed to reach, you’re not a robot; you’re a member of theHomo sapiens species and you naturally crave variety. You don’t have satellite radio, so you immediately reach for your CD case.

You’re not alone.

According to a July 2011 Arbitron survey, 68 percent of people now rely on CD players as their main in-car entertainment, up from 58 percent in 2003. In-car satellite radio usage also ticked up to 8 percent from 1 percent in 2003. Equally disconcerting for radio stations: The rate of people listening to AM/FM radio in their cars fell to 84 percent from 96 percent just six years ago.

The slump has serious financial implications for the radio industry. If the trend continues, we could see ad revenues plummet and commercial radio render itself irrelevant.

Unlike the music industry’s sales struggles, though, this is one nosedive you can’t blame on the recession. The radio industry slump started long before the recession cast its evil spell on us in 2008. Besides, the shitty economy hasn’t stopped people from shelling out for pricey satellite subscriptions, as the Arbitron survey confirms.

The stark reality is that radio listeners are increasingly bored by the mind-numbingly homogeneous, humdrum programming being cranked out round the clock. People are tuning out and seeking out exciting alternatives. That’s nothing new.

Pages of ink have been spilled to wax concern on the redundant nature of radio. The latest survey only adds another framework to those arguments. And though the study is titled “The Road Ahead,” it doesn’t spell out a map for the future.

Maybe it’s because the way forward isn’t as clear as the issues plaguing commercial radio. It’s not like all program directors can suddenly decide to start playing whatever they like.

People like to think of companies in anthropomorphic terms – as one big, lifelike entity. It’s inherent in our nature as humans to point fingers at some invisible monster when things go wrong.

We imagine radio as a funnel-eared ogre in a swampy igloo constantly pushing “play” on the same bland tune every six minutes. As it turns out, it’s taken a million tiny steps to bring the radio industry to its knees.

It’ll definitely take several calculated moves to jolt it back to life. Better salaries, innovative programming, and a vested interest in digital outlets are all part of the way forward.

​ Radio is doubtless in for a long-term decline, even if it’s in decent shape right now. Driven by political season, radio industry revenues rose 5% to $14 billion in 2010. Still, that’s scary for an industry that was raking in $20 billion just 10 years ago. The golden age of radio is long gone.

The industry dilemma comes down to this: Digital forms of radio will continue to proliferate, thus giving listeners a larger menu of music programming. Sadly, digital radio still lacks a viable economic model. And without that, it won’t make enough revenue to replace traditional outlets.

So radio still has time to rebound, considering that the alternatives are still evolving. Podcasting is far from being a feasible option. Sirius/XM is seriously expensive – what was the FCC thinking when it allowed the two companies to merge? And sure, you can stream music and talk shows on your smartphone apps, but that’s not practical on a coast-to-coast trip.

If alternative outlets somehow figure out a way to pluck listeners from terrestrial rivals, then we’ll see traditional radio revenues wither. Even well-established radio conglomerates could see ad revenues dip as newer, sexier rivals snatch their clientele.

Commercial radio is akin to the Titanic -an unprecedented machine built with what was once considered cutting-edge technology. Titanic was designed by the finest engineers, using exhaustive safety features; radio blossomed from the amplification of high-tech telegraphic codes. Both made their debut at the turn of the 20th century.

Both had a hell of a ride. And if the latest projections are any indication, radio, like the Titanic, is destined for a perilous end.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press

​Last week, the music world laughed up a hiccup as Lil Wayne pranced around the VMA stage in nut-suffocating, Le Tigre-inspired jeggings. While that performance affirmed that Wayne is no fashion guru, his chart performance a week later reminded us that he’s very good at something else-selling records, tons of ‘em.

His latest, Tha Carter IV, docked at No.1 on Billboard after moving a staggering 964,000 units in one week. That’s more than double what Jay-Z and Kanye West posted on their joint effort and 9 times more than Diddy’s last outing. It’s the second-best opening week performance this year, behind Lady Gaga’s 1.1 million outing. Call it the Jeggings Bump.

But Wayne’s case is an oddity in a crippled industry. In fact, the feat stunned everyone – including Wayne himself – and had industry insiders wondering if Birdman bought extra copies of Carter IV to spike sales. The Cash Money honcho denied it. And frankly, it doesn’t make sense to buy a million copies of your own album in this economy.

For most artists not named Weezy or Gaga, however, a million units will remain a fantasy. Record sales continue to plummet across the board, and labels are still trying to map out a way forward. If you’re wondering why Wayne and Gaga seem to consistently buck the trend, while others continually struggle, let’s establish that it’s not because Weezy’s latest is the nicest thing since white loaf.

When Rick Rubin took over the mantle of leadership at Columbia Records, someone asked him how to rejuvenate the music industry.

Some argue that piracy is still the biggest catalyst for spiraling sales. Drew “Dru Ha” Friedman, co-head of revered indie label Duck Down Records, recalls a time before HulkShare and Megaupload.​His response? Make great records. But that argument doesn’t hold up when you look atBillboard charts over the last five years. The two first-week champs of 2011 - Born This Way and Carter IV – rank among the most disappointing albums of the year. With a few exceptions (Kanye West, Adele), there’s no correlation between quality music and big sales.

“Roughly a decade ago the debate took place on whether giving your music away for free on the internet or allowing illegal downloading was healthy for artists and record labels,” Dru Ha tells Rocks Off. “Working through years of declining sales, I can say with confidence that illegal downloading and the legal sites that find ways to share artist’s music without payment are the direct cause for sagging music sales.”

Piracy, no doubt, plays a major role, but is it still the leading factor? Tha Carter IV, for instance, leaked ahead of its street date and still scanned 964,000 in a week. If piracy isn’t the culprit, then what is?

It’s impossible to ignore the role of technology in all this. Modern advances make it easy for aspiring artists to saturate the market and easier for consumers to ignore them. “Consumers have a lot more music to choose from, and tough decisions when it comes to what to buy and what to pass on,” says veteran music journalist Alvin Blanco, author of The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA: A Trip Inside the 36 Chambers.​Paul Porter, erstwhile BET program director and founder of Industry Ears, cites the unbundling of the album. “The recording industry is once again a singles-driven market,” explains Porter. “The digital download is the new 45. Thank iTunes for making it possible to buy just your favorite song instead of a mediocre album.”

Experts disagree on the factors fueling strong sales, but the general consensus seems to be that consumers are becoming more selective. “Listeners understand bad product these days and refuse to waste space on their Ipods,” says Porter. “Commercial radio can shove all the fake hits down the throats of listeners but nobody is buying it.”

But what’s the way forward for the rest of the industry? “Ultimately it comes down to quality and the strength of your fanbase, which is a lot tougher to extend from online into tangible reality than it seems,” says Blanco. “Record sales may be down, but both Lil Wayne and The Throne (Jay-Z and Kanye West), or better yet Adele, have no problem selling records, last I checked.”​It’s not all doom and gloom in the music industry. Through the first half of 2011, Universal Music Group saw its revenues drop 1.9%, an improvement over the first six months of 2010 when UMG suffered a 5.4% decline. Second half releases by Lil Wayne and The Throne should further strengthen UMG’s numbers.

The music industry needs to shed its skin every now and then in order to grow. The current business model is broken and will eventually pave way for a new system. For now, there’s one thing that continues to yield results in the system: branding. Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and Adele have no trouble selling records, because their fans are buying the brand not the product.

There’s a lot of good music out there and you can find it if you know where to look. But it’s not enough. At a time when labels are unwilling to get under the hood and get dirty, artist building is more crucial than ever.

“If the industry returns to building artist instead of creating hit songs, the industry might see an Adele type resurgence,” says Porter.

The message is clear: build a unique brand, and-bada bing!-success will follow. Jeggings are optional.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press

​No one’s willing to confirm anything, but all indications point to the same scoop: Facebook is planning to launch a new music service this fall. Here’s what we know so far.

CNBC’s John Fortt broke the news Kanye West-style – in ALL CAPS: “YES INDEED NEXT MONTH IS GOING TO BE A BIG ONE FOR MUSIC I’M HEARING FROM SOMEONE FAMILIAR WITH THE PLANS THAT FACEBOOK PLANS TO LAUNCH ITS LONG RUMORED MUSIC SERVICE AT THE F8 CONFERENCE ON SEPTEMBER 22ND. NOW, IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT FACEBOOK WON’T ACTUALLY HOST THE MUSIC, BUT WILL PARTNER WITH OTHERS WHO DO THAT. BUT FACEBOOK TO LAUNCH THEIR MUSIC PLATFORM AT THE F8 CONFERENCE ON SEPTEMBER 22ND.”

And who’s the lucky partner in Facebook’s press-stopping, caps-locking tango?

Business Insider offers some specifics, replete with a silhouette of Mark Zuckerberg to punctuate the impending apocalypse from this news. Word on the street is that Spotify may have already signed up for the partnership: “Facebook will integrate existing third-party services. Spotify is a likely choice, as others have reported before.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, however, is a J. Dilla fan and understands that one just won’t do. So FB is joining hands with not one, not two, but three music services. According to Mashable, MOG and Rdio are the other two dance partners. Hot.

Reports of MOG’s involvement stemmed from founder David Hyman’s remarks to CNBC last week. “MOG already has a strong relationship with Facebook,” Hyman gushed. “It uses Facebook’s social graph to help subscribers discover new artists based on those their friends already “like” on Facebook.”

The music platform is expected to be announced at Facebook’s f8 developer conference on Sept. 22. If early reports are any indication, the service will allow users to stream music directly from within Facebook.com a la the Facebook video chat.

​Every day, Rocks Off is reminded that we should have taken rapping a bit more seriously in our younger days. Today’s friendly reminder comes in the way of a report saying that Eminem cashed a $3 million check for two nights of work at the UK’s V Fest.

Em’s scenario isn’t typical, though. Concert fees run the gamut from $50 (for amateur wedding singers) to $150,000 (for Drake or Weezer). Most artists get a base pay during the booking; the sum rises if you sell a pissload of tickets and merchandise. Say what you want about the music business, the live arena remains a lucrative area for most musicians. Not to mention the multi-billion dollar performance-rights industry.

We’ll leave you with this list of eye-popping performance tags, while we go dig in the basement for that dusty ol’ rhyme book.

Justin Bieber: He may look and sound like a girl, but Justin Bieber is caking. Last year, the Biebz topped Smoking Gun’s list of highest-grossing performers. His asking price of $300,000 could buy you some Egyptian charm.

Groovehouse

​KISS: The Bieber Machine is dirt-cheap compared to these freaky clowns. Their concert tag is a hefty $500,000 per night.

Ivete Sangalo: Sangalo is Brazil’s answer to Shakira, if you will. The Latin Grammy-winning singer is not cheap, though. Expert Tip: Don’t book her on New Year’s eve. Sangalo demands $275,000 for regular shows, but special occasions will run you $1 million.
Rascal Flatts: Country-rock gurglers Rascal Flatts will grace your party for a mere $702,000. Well, that was their asking price before they had a song with Justin Bieber. Now they probably charge $2 million, plus Converse shoes in every color.
Mariah Carey: Chicken-faced Libyan nutcase Gaddafi/Gadhaffi/Quadaffy/Kadafy once paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing four songs on the Caribbean island of St. Bart’s on New Year’s Eve 2008. Carey said she didn’t realize she was performing for the Libyan neanderthal at the time. “I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for,” read her statement. El Oh El. For $1 million we’d do the show blindfolded, too.

Michael Jackson You can’t discuss eye-popping performance fees without mention the king of eye-popping everything. In 1996, the Sultan of Brunei hired MJ to entertain guests at his birthday bash at the Jerudong Amusement. Jackson reportedly took home a $20 million check for the gig.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press 

​Google stunned the tech world last week when it tied the knot with Motorola for $12.5 billion. But it’s the music business that should be raising its brows at the union.

Like any typical suitor, Google weighed Motorola’s considerably large assets in its decision to get in bed with the mobile giant. On one side of this pairing is Motorola Mobility, a pioneering cell-phone company with more than 17,000 patents.

On the other is Google, which commands roughly 40 percent of the Android market share. Both already had a successful fling when they teamed up on the Droid X and the Motorola Xoom; imagine the damage they could do long-term.

There are a million and one new developments that could result from this matrimony, ranging from mobile technology to music and TV. A couple interesting ones below:

Patents Portfolio: Many tech experts believe that Google made this deal primarily to gain access to Motorola’s vast patent portfolio. Sounds about right. Before the Motorola deal, Google was in danger of being chased off the Android playground, what with Apple hammering their competition with infringement lawsuits.

Which is why Google wants Motorola’s patents more than it wants Motorola. It makes sense, since Motorola practically invented cellphones. Motorola brings 83 years of expertise and dizzying mess of Android patents to the table. They pioneered flip phones in the 90s, and enjoyed moderate popularity with the RazR in the 2000s. Sure, that thing was butt-ugly, but it was the “cool” phone before iPhones and Androids.

This isn’t to say that Google won’t face stiff competition. Apple still rules the smartphone market, which means that MP3s and other streaming content will likely reach more iPhone fans than Droid users. But Motorola’s patents should give Google a new place at the smartphone table.

Google Cloud: Google’s music service, Cloud, is still in beta, but you can request an invitation via the service’s website. The service automatically uploads your personal music collection, including iTunes and all those playlists you made for your crush, and keep everything in one place. You can store up to 20,000 songs, which is double what Amazon offers. Oh, and it’s free. If Google is smart, it will incorporate aspects of Motorola Mobility into the music service.

​Music Streaming: With Spotify, Rhapsody, and iTunes battling for music streaming supremacy, Google has a chance to blind-side them. Expect a streaming service (some incarnation of cloud seems feasible) that could be synced with Google smartphones. It will take some time but if there’s a company that can give Apple a scare in this field, it’s Google.

The handicap to music industry innovation isn’t technology, it’s the obsolete business models originally designed to stifle competition. For the longest time, major labels couldn’t risk the economic transition from profitable CDs to MP3s.

Now that they absolutely have to, tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and increasingly Google offer incentives to change those business models. Google and Motorola Mobility have the tools to change the rules: A treasure trove of patents, the possibility of vertical integration, tech expertise, and a shit-ton of market share.

Google, more than ever, has a chance to become a serious player in music. Someday you could be listening to a Google-distributed artist on your cloud-enabled Google smartphone while googling yourself on your Motorola-laced tablet. In the famous words of Kevin Garnett, anything is possible.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press 

Jay-Z's business plan: Don't leak the masters, get a Rolex.

The kingdom is safe. The throne has been watched. In an age where albums spring leaks like baby diapers, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne arrived on the appointed date without even as much as a drip.

For the first time in over a decade, we witnessed a major label release with no leaks. Aside from one isolated case where someone posted a few muffled snippets – and was roundly flayed in the Internet Court of Public Opinion – the album arrived intact.

The excitement that led up to its arrival was unparalleled. With no video or club single on hand, they still managed to garner enough buzz to shut down Twitter. Still more impressively Billboard reported today that first-week sales should top 500,000.

Imagine the frustration bootleggers must have felt as weeks turned to days and days turned to “Oh shit, Watch the Throne is almost here and I still don’t have a copy!”

But Jay-Z and Kanye didn’t leakproof their first collaborative album to spite bootleggers. Obvious economic motivation aside, they envisioned Watch the Throne as a game-changer that would restore music to the good ol’ days when you rushed the record store, bought a CD, ripped the plastic seal and sank your breath in the complete body of work for the first time. How did they accomplish that?

Showing up at every listening session with burly guards didn’t hurt. “Kanye and Jay are just very tight with the music,” Jycorri Robinson, Def Jam director of digital markerting, toldXXL. “Even so far as to where they’ve been, Kanye and Jay have been at every listening session, every event, that there has been and that’s because they’re holding that music so tight to them.”

Also, recording the album the old-fashioned way helped keep digital gremlins out of the equation.

​”They just took it back to the old school, man,” Robinson continued. “They recorded the entire album together; no verses emailed back and forth. It’s just tight eyes on it, only one or two people having access to it.”

One oft-ignored key to staying leak-free is keeping your team happy, starting with your engineer. Disgruntled employees are the No. 1 source of mischief in these situations. Jay and Kanye, with admirable foresight, decided to give their soundman Young Guru a Rolex during the recording of Watch the Throne. If Jay-Z gives you a Rolex and begs you to guard his DATs with your life, would you look him in the eye and say no?

Keeping the engineer content was important, but not nearly as vital as the next step. WTT had independent stores going WTF? when the pair opted to debut the album via iTunes. Adding salt to injury, the physical copies of the deluxe edition will be limited to Best Buy through August 23.

Feeling left out, indie stores wrote a letter to The Throne (as Jay-Z and Kanye are collectively billed for this project) asking them to reconsider their digital-first approach. When asked about this, Jay explained that, while he sympathized with mom-and-pop stores, they favored iTunes to prevent leaks.

“The real reason behind it is we didn’t want the music to leak,” Jay told Hot 97 FM’s Angie Martinez. “We wanted to present to the people in its entirety. When you send it out, once it leaves the plant and that’s the end of it.”

​If you think that’s business-guy bologna, feast your eyes on the infographic above. Albums that leak a full month before their street date usually slip out while being shipped out for pressing. The ones that turn up on the Web two weeks ahead of time are typically swiped from the warehouse where they dock briefly before being shipped to retailers. By releasing the album to iTunes, Jay and Kanye eliminated both issues.

Will this move revolutionize the music industry? Yes and no. The lust of embracing digital outlets to rake in larger online revenues is too sexy to resist, so you can expect other big-name acts to emulate the pattern laid out by The Throne.

But don’t expect the entire industry, particularly independent labels, to make a habit out of digital-first projects. Indies generate most of their income from touring and merchandise. While they stand to gain a lot from ample sales, bootlegging isn’t exactly high on their list of concerns.

Cash cows like Jigga and Yeezy will always sell out arenas; they figured they’d make extra change from digital revenue to temper the bootlegging that will hurt the physical sales once the music is out. For indies, new music is an incentive to shell out for show tickets.

This is still far from a major game-changer. The overall aim of this approach – to put Hulkshare Records out of business – will still remain a music-industry fantasy. People will still download music illegally; they’ll just have to wait a few more days to get their bootlegging on.

But note that The Throne accomplished something that many have failed to do in recent years.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press

Big Sean at Reliant Arena Wednesday night Photo by Marco Torres

Every rapper brands himself as an original, but few merit that distinction. The ones that do rarely profit from their innovation.

When it comes to emceeing, those who favor intricate rhyme schemes will scoff at a technique known as “hashtag rap.” G.O.O.D. Music rapper Big Sean is credited with pioneering the style. But I’m not even sure that Sean thinks it’s a style worth pursuing full-time; he rarely employed it on his own debut, Finally Famous. Still, Sean wants his just dues.

“It’s crazy because the whole rap game did it, so I was sitting back,” he told Detroit’s Big Boy in a recent interview. “At first, I was like, ‘Man, this crazy! Everybody doing this!’ But then I thought about it and I was like, that’s not the way to be. You gotta keep it G, man. G’s don’t get mad. G’s is like, that’s what it is. They congratulate you. I changed the game, so I’ma keep changing the game. It is what it is.”

​What the hell is “hashtag rap” anyway? It appears in many incarnations, but there are three main ingredients: a metaphor, a pause, and a one-word punchline, often placed at the end of a rhyme. Let’s look at some examples: “You’re the type to get wet [pause] — diapers.”
Here’s another one, this one you might recognize: “Swimming in the money, come and find me – Nemo,” from Drake’s “Forever.” Sean and Drake have been embroiled in a mini-feud lately over who truly pioneered that style.

“Drake is my homie,” Sean said in the same interview, trying his best to remain diplomatic. “[Drake] gave me a lot of credit, because I came up with rhyme scheme a lot of people thought that he came up with,” he said. “I called it ‘Supa Dupa Flow,’ but he kind of made it more popular on the song ‘Forever’ with him, Wayne and Drake, it was kind of the one-word punchline.

“I did that on my second mixtape I released in ’09 where I was like, ‘I’m supa dupa troopa/ Used to the bottom scoopa.’ I just gave them line after line after line of bar-code. He kind of took that and used it on his track. A lot of people thought he did it. The thing is, he gave me credit for it like a real G.”

Drake posted this presumed response on Twitter earlier this week: “Damn i just took the beard down and realized I’m still the same age as ya’ll boys… 447,000 first week off my flows. See you in the fall.” Ouch.

Now here’s the ice cold truth, fellas: neither of you invented hashtag rap. It’s not well-trod ground, but it’s definitely been around before Sean and Drake.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and take a look at other MCs who espoused the style long before Big Sean and Drizzy. Boyeee.

Cam’ron:
Cam’ron practiced this style religiously in the 2000s. Aside from his chewy syllables and silly non-sequiturs, one-word punchlines popped up on many a Killa Cam joint. Here’s Cam on 2004′s “Girls”: “And hope is hopeless, disappear in the air — Hocus Pocus.”
 

MF DOOM:
While discussing this topic with Rocks Off’s own Shea Serrano the other day, he mentioned DOOM. We went back and re-listened to some old DOOM joints and, sure enough, you can find traces of so-called hashtag rap here and there. Here’s one from my favorite DOOM album, MMm..Food: “Look like a black wookie when he let his beard grow — weirdo.”

Lil Wayne:
Lil Wayne is remarkably ki-yoot in his approach to this style. He’s also damn near abusive with his. If he could teleport himself to his kiddie-rap days and pepper those songs with hashtag punchlines, he would. No complaints there, since he actually gets the Most Creative Use of Hashtag Rap award. Rather than employ the same ol’ one-word punchlines, Wayne favors witty one-liners. For example, here’s a line from “Wasted” off his No Ceilings mixtape: “I’m a New Orleans nigga — I get Super Dome.”

​PM Dawn:
OK, now we’re going way back. Remember “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”? Of course you do. It’s a sentimental rap gem. This is “hashtag rap” at its finest: “I guess I’ll leave that question to the experts, Assuming that there are some out there/ They’re probably alone — solitaire.” Drake was five when this bad boy came out. Big Sean was three.

Jay-Z:
Jay-Z may have actually popularized this without trying. He utilized the technique a lot throughout the ’90s and still does from time to time. Here’s one from ’96: “At the end of the fiscal year than these niggaz can wish to/ The dead presidential — candidate.” Here’s another from “Hard Knock Life”: “Where all my niggas wit the rubber grips — bust shots.” There’s no question that all these New School MCs grew up on a substantial Jay-Z diet. We wonder how many of them picked up the style from Jigga.

Surely, there’s a host of other rappers who made careers out of this style. Feel free to add on to the list.

Henry Adaso
Houston Press

                                                                        – Herman ‘Hesh’ Rabkin (Jerry Adler), The Sopranos

Yes, that was their name.

​Freshman year of college. One of my good friends was a white kid who loved Jay-Z like crazy. He knew every song, owned every album, and once built an academic thesis around a Jay-Z quote. So, one day we’re sitting in his red Ford jamming The Blueprint for absolutely no reason other than we just wanted to sit in the parking lot and jam The Blueprint.

Like I said, this guy adored Jay-Z. Anyway, “Takeover” comes on and we’re both rapping along. The Jay-Z vs. Nas beef is arguably the greatest battle in rap history. The genius of that beef was that both MCs started out with jabs and gradually progressed to haymakers. Jay teased Nas on the original version of “Takeover.” Nas teased back on the “Stillmatic” freestyle. Then the body shots started pouring in.

Anyway, we’re sitting in this guy’s red truck outside the parking lot bumping “Takeover.” Jay starts off shouting out his weed carriers: “Memphis Bleek, we runnin this rap shit/ B. Mac, we runnin this rap shit/ Freeway, we run this rap shit…” We’re both rapping along to every word, heads bobbing. Once Jay is done saluting everyone who’s allegedly running this rap shit, he dives into the first verse, starting with the usual chest-thumping:

“The takeover, the break’s over, nigga.”

​I’m not sure how I heard it over those ear-splittingly loud speakers, but I somehow heard my boy drop the N-bomb. The record immediately came to a screeching halt in my mind. The look on my face was not a look of disappointment. I wasn’t angry. In fact, I’m not even sure I cared.

The look was more like he had come to my house and peed on my carpet. It just didn’t sound right, and my expression immediately communicated this. I can’t even tell you why, but it just didn’t feel right. Obviously, the racial slur has a painful history and still spells hatred for the African-American community today.

But that’s not why it bothered me. I mean, this guy didn’t even say “nigger,” he said “nigga.” I just remember feeling utterly disrespected, even though I had clearly said “nigga” a la Jay-Z on “Takeover.” My boy saw the look on my face and promptly apologized for dropping the N-bomb. Then, I felt bad for feeling disrespected.

When it comes to the N-word, context is everything. But even that can be tricky. To some, it’s a term of endearment. To others, it still conjures images of people dangling from ropes. The word will never be 100 percent acceptable, not even among black folk. Nas already tried that. Ehnn… didn’t happen.

It’s a complete no-no among white rappers, but that hasn’t stopped a few from dropping it anyway. Here’s a few white rappers who found themselves in hot water for dropping the N-bomb.

Kreayshawn

​Kreayshawn/V-Nasty: Kreayshawn is a Screw-banging, weed-smoking white rapper from Oakland. She throws the N-word around on Twitter, but says she’s never used it in a song. Her sister V-Nasty, on the other hand, loooooves the N-word. Kreayshawn recently explained that the reason V-Nasty feels comfortable using the word is because “she goes in and out of jail for armed robbery all the time.”

V-Nasty

​Aside from the obvious implication that jail is a place where black people go, her statement also suggests that gaining the endorsement of one group of black people gives you what John Mayer would call a “nigger pass,” because, you know, the black community is a monolithic group.

​Young Black Teenagers: Young Black Teenagers were young and teenagers, but definitely not black. They formed in the early ’90s and signed to S.O.U.L. Records, a label founded by Bomb Squad producer Hank Shocklee. No one understood why a group of Caucasians and one Puerto Rican called themselves black, especially at the height of hip-hop Afrocentrism.

One song in particular, “Daddy Called Me Nigga ‘Cuz I Liked To Rhyme” had everyone looking at them sideways. “In the communities where I was raised,” said YBT’s Kamron back then, “whatever I did – how I lived, talked, and dressed – I was considered as being so-called black.” As genuine as their intentions were, the group wasn’t ready for the backlash that would eventually drive it into oblivion.
Ill Bill: Ill Bill is one of the best white MCs not named Eminem. He’s also a perfect example of a white artist who gets away with the context excuse. Bill once made a song named “White Nigger” and it’s exactly what you think it’s about. “They called me ‘white nigger’ and every name in the book,” Bill raps on the autobiographical track. Throughout the song, Bill details his struggles in his early days as a fledgling MC, while dropping jewels on race and stereotypes.

But even Bill kind of misses the mark here. He’s confusing ignorance with racism. Being called “white nigger” isn’t the same as being called “nigger.” Bill can take off his hip-hop mask anytime he wants. A black rapper, on the other hand, can’t take off his skin and hang it in the closet.
Eminem: There are those who contend that it’s never ever acceptable for white folk to say the N-word at all. No, not even if your girlfriend leaves you for another man. In fact, in the book of excuses named for using the N-word, this one is as weak as it gets. Just ask Eminem, who had to apologize endlessly when Benzino released tapes of a young Marshall Mathers using the N-bomb. On one of the songs, he raps, “All the girls I like to bone have big butts/ No they don’t, ’cause I don’t like that nigger shit / I’m just here to make a bigger hit.”

Another track finds Eminem referring to black women as money-hungry “dumb chicks.” Eminem blamed his words on being young and immature and reacting foolishly to a breakup with an African-American girl. He apologized on “Yellow Brick Road.” Sure, he also refers to his friend Proof as “my nig Proof” on a pre-Slim Shady LP song “Bitterphobia,” but even Al Sharpton would’ve been okay with that one.
My opinion on the word “nigga” has evolved over the years. Things like “context” and “historical reference” have finagled their way into my reasoning on its usage. My philosophy on it is a slight variation of the “if you’re only comfortable doing it in the privacy of your home, then don’t do it at all” principle.

If the N-word makes you or the people around you feel awkward, you’re only going to ignite fury by uttering it, no matter how well-intended. This rule is even more important if you happen to be a rapper of the Caucasian persuasion.

When Rolling Stone asked Eminem why he never uses the N-word in his songs, he said: “It’s just a word I don’t feel comfortable with. It wouldn’t sound right coming out of my mouth.”

Henry Adaso
Houston Press