Open Letter to Hiphop America

September 2010

Peace to all of you. I am writing this letter from Brooklyn, New York, where I am currently a Democratic candidate for Congress. For those who do not know, there are 435 United States Congresspersons in America, and 100 United States Senators, all based in Washington, D.C. when not in their home districts, and all of them together represent the 300 million Americans living in our nation. That is power. The power to provide resources, services, information, jobs, and loans for small businesses. The power to help people to help themselves.

That is why I am running for Congress. I come from a single-mother led household, I had no father figure whatsoever, and grew up in the kind of poverty, violence, and confusion I would not wish on anyone. But a few things definitely saved and empowered my life. One was a belief in God, instilled by mother. Second was definitely my moms and her giving me a love of education, in spite of she herself only having a grade school education. And finally it was definitely music and culture, especially hiphop as I came of age in the 1970s and through the 1980s.

I was a dancer and I tagged my nickname—“kepo1”—any and everywhere in my native Jersey City. I was at all the famous hiphop clubs of the 1980s, like Union Square, Funhouse, and The Rooftop. I helped to produce, along with youth activists like Sister Souljah, those big outdoor rap concerts on 125th Street in Harlem in the late 1980s. A writer since I was a child, I was a founding staff member at Vibe, and interviewed Tupac Shakur more than any other journalist when he was alive. And I was the curator of the very first exhibit on hiphop culture, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.

I am hiphop. And I am also a public servant and activist for people, all people. For the past 25 years, in fact, since I was a youth.

That is why I am running for Congress. Not only would I be the first true hiphop head in Congress, but I also would be bringing a fresh take on leadership, blending the best of grassroots politics with Washington, D.C. maneuvering, all to that boom-bap beat.
And, as dead prez once famously said, this is actually bigger than hiphop. This is about my being a leader, a bridge-builder, and all of us weaned on hiphop music and culture understanding the power of this, the most dominant art form of the past 30 years.
If not us, then who?

Respectfully,

Kevin Powelll

Via: Allhiphop

Forbes has dropped its annual list of the top money makers in Hip-Hop music and rap mogul Jay-Z has topped the list for a second straight year.

According to the report, Jay-Z, born Sean Carter, raked in $63 million over the past 12 months.

He will pay the government about $22 million, more than any other artist earned on the entire list, excluding Sean “Diddy” Combs, the #2 earner with $30 million.

“We put together this list by applying the same rigorous methodology we apply to our research for the Forbes 400, the Celeb 100 and other specials,” Forbes writer Zack O’Malley Greenburg told AllHipHop.com.

Greenburg, who is also penning a business-focused biography on Jay-Z told AllHipHop.com that information was gathered “concrete data” provided by companies like Billboard, Pollstar, Niesen Soundscan, the Recording Industry Association of America.

Additionally, Forbes conducted its own investigative research through interviews with executives, lawyers, media buyers, label executives and various artists.

“This year’s rankings show that Hip-Hop’s most financially successful artists continue to be the ones who’ve diversified their revenue streams,” Greenburg told AllHipHop.com.

This year, the rappers earned a combined $300 million in earnings, which is almost equal to the amount that was generated last year, despite a troubled music business and an ailing economy.

Both Jay-Z and Diddy’s income was generated by their various business ventures.

Jay-Z still has a stake in Rocawear, owns the 40/40 nightclub, is still touring and owns a stake in the New Jersey Nets.

Diddy made his cash from his television businesses, including his Diddybeats earbuds and his partnership with Ciroc vodka.

“Ten or fifteen years ago, everyone had to have their own record label; a few years later, the trend was to have a clothing line,” Greenburg continued. “Now, those are prerequisites for a Hip-Hop empire, and the new must is having your own brand of alcohol. Diddy made more from his Ciroc deal than from any of his other sources of income, and Ludacris, T.I. and others are following suit.”

Akon checked in at #3 with $21 million earned through a deal with Pepsi, his Konvict Clothing line and his Kon Live record label, which is home to Lady Gaga, T-Pain, Kardinall Offishall and others.

Lil Wayne checked in at #4 with $20 million earned from his hit album Rebirth and through his endless touring schedule.

Super producer Dr. Dre was #5 on the list with $17 million earned, while Ludacris was #6 with $16 million earned off movie roles and his exclusive new line of cognac, Conjure.

West coast rap veteran Snoop Dogg’s appearances on television and in films and a worldwide tour landed him at #7.

Famed Producer Timbaland is listed at #8 with $14 million, followed by fellow producer Pharrell Williams, who raked in $13 million to take the #9 position through his Ice Cream/Billionaire Boys Club clothing line, as well as his involvement in creating the soundtrack to the animated hit, Despicable Me.

Despite a low profile over the past 12 months, Kanye West landed at #10 with $12 million earned through his various business endeavors, including producing hit records.

The rest of the Top 20 are listed below:

11. Drake $10 million
12. T.I. $9 million (Tied)
13. Swizz Beatz $9 million (Tied)
14.Eminem $8 million (Tied)
15. 50 Cent ($8 million (Tied)
16. Young Jeezy ($8 million) (Tied)
17. Common $7 million
18. Soulja Boy $ 6 million (Tied)
19. T-Pain $6 million (Tied)
20. Lil Jon $ 5 million, Tied with Gucci Mane, who earned $5 million despite being incarcerated most of the year.

At a recent show, 50 mocked Diddy by dancing and singing “Hello Good Morning,” he asked the crowd “Ya’ll like that sh*t?” Then dropped the beat to a song he dedicated to him…

If you aren’t familiar with the beef–click here:

50 Cent Started A Petition For Diddy To Stop Using B.I.G’s Name For Profit

I am hip-hop! If there’s anyone that’s the personification of hip-hop, I’m probably the most hip-hop nigga out of all these hip-hop niggas. But hip-hop editorial and blogs and even some of the hip-hop fans don’t see it that way, which is cool. I’m going to win. I’m going to win and win bigger than all these niggas are winning. And they probably don’t see that. I’m winning regardless of what hip-hop thinks of what I am. I won’t shrivel up in a little ball and not continue to rock, rock planet rock, don’t stop just because a few people think the [Black Eyed Peas] is just a pop act.

I [always] knew I was going to move more into dance and club. That’s the reason I produced Nas’ “Hip Hop Is Dead.” People forgot that hip-hop was a bunch of things back in the days. Hip-hop was the Jungle Brothers’ “I’ll House You.” When someone is denying what they are, then that’s when things start to spiral down. Hip-hop is limiting itself and that also goes for editorially. Magazines and websites are the gatekeepers of what people think hip-hop is, but they actually end up limiting what hip-hop can be.

I can do a Talib Kweli track [“Hot Thing”] and Estelle’s “American Boy,” and co-write “Ordinary People” with John Legend and I’m still hip-hop. If Nas calls me for another track, I can do that. But at the same time, if Usher calls me I can do [an “OMG”] as well. Songs like “OMG” are international hits, not just hits on American urban radio. I’m talking about the fucking world! And those kind of accomplishments don’t get you the cover of VIBE. I don’t need anyone to validate me. I am hip-hop.

Source:

Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo popped the big question to his long time girlfriend! The ring is gorgeous! It’s so great to see rappers settling down… Congratulations to Shawty Lo and his new fiance!

jam (origin unknown) – 1. to drive or wedge forcibly into a tight position. 2. to fill often to excess. 3. to make unintelligible by sending out interfering messages or signals. 4. to force one’s way into a restricted space. 5. to take part in a musical jam session.

hip-hop – (hip — derived from the African Wolof language hipi– to open one’s eyes, to be aware; hop – derived from Old English hoppen– to move with light, bounding skips or leaps) – the popular street culture of inner-city youth, characterized by graffiti art, break dancing, and rap music.

Not since the early days of rock and roll has a Black-driven cultural phenomenon taken such a strong hold of mainstream American society as hip-hop. Begun in African- and Caribbean-American dance clubs, discos and block parties in the South Bronx section of New York City in the late Seventies, hip-hop became identified with four related artistic expressions: the turntable wizardry of the DJ, the directly African-derived rhythmic recitation tradition of the MC, the spray-can dexterity of the graffiti artist and the explosive gymnastics of the break dancer.

The standard repertoire of the DJ consisted of deconstructing and reassembling “found sound,” or “sampling” — using the turntable as an instrument. Selling recordings that included sampled music came with its own set of problems, calling into question copyright and intellectual property rights. Some artists claimed that by sampling recordings of a Black artist like George Clinton or James Brown (the two most sampled artists), they were challenging white corporate America and the recording companies’ right to own Black cultural expression. Be that as it may, this explanation didn’t take into account James Brown’s, George Clinton’s, and other artists’ right to own, control, and be compensated for the use of their own intellectual property. By the early 90s, a system of compensation was developed for sampled artists, and exposure of the work of earlier artists through sampling engendered a sense of musical history among younger Black (and white) audiences. DJ Spooky says, “I think of sampling as a form of ancestor worship.”

DJs, at first, provided a backdrop for other aspects of the burgeoning hip-hop movement, specifically dancing and graffiti art. But by the late Seventies, DJs became an attraction of their own and dancers would stop in their tracks to watch a skillful turntablist. DJs recruited MCs, or “mic controllers,” to keep people moving by instigating call-and-response or urging the crowd to “get up” or “get down” or “jam on the beat.” MCs’ exhortations have origins in the performances of James Brown, in the gospel tradition, and can be traced back to musical traditions of West Africa. Grandmaster Flash’s MCs, the Furious Five, completed the development of rap when they began speaking in rhyme to the rhythm of the music. In 1979 the first rap records appeared, “King Tim III,” by the Fatback Band, and “Rapper’s Delight,” by the Sugarhill Gang.

The thematic content of a lot of rap — the concerns of daily life, stinging social commentary, humorous boasting or playfully attacking a competitor — comes directly from African musical traditions and African- and Caribbean-American “toasting” and “signifying.” Rap also draws from the urban street jive that developed in Chicago in the Twenties. Rap, like jive-talk, subverts standard usage and creates a code language that only the initiated can understand, an African-American cultural survival tool utilized since slavery times. Rappers also referenced the patter of jive-talking radio DJs from the Fifties onwards. In the 1960s, Black Nationalist H. “Rap” Brown’s oratory style not only inspired rap, but also gave it a name. By the late 60s, the Watts Prophets, on the West Coast, and East Coast Last Poets, pioneered a style of proto-rap by setting H. Rap Brown’s speaking style to a rhythmic, musical backdrop.

Whether hip-hop primarily reflects the culture from which it arises – the violence, despair, the sexism – or gives vent to the frustrations of that culture, remains a question. What is clear is that hip-hop’s main concerns, from simple human relationships to the burning social questions of the day, echo the voices and traditions of every African-American musical genre throughout the generations.

– Meredith Rutledge for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame

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The tracklist for Distant Relatives, the long-awaited collaboration album between Nas & Damian Marley, has leaked.

1. As We Enter
2. Tribal War (feat. K’NAAN)
3. Strong Will Continue
4. Leaders
5. Wisdom (Sabali)
6. Count Your Blessings
7. Disappear
8. The Promised Land (feat. Dennis Brown)
9. Nah Mean
10. Angola (Friends)
11. My Generation (feat. Lil Wayne and Joss Stone)
12. Africa Must Wake Up (Feat. K’NAAN)
13. Ancient People (feat. Junior Reid)

Another song called “In His Own Word” is also slated to appear on the album.

Source: XXL

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