Doc Brown Interview

It has been a good few minutes since Doc Brown was last on the UK Hip Hop scene. In that time he has been ripping up clubs not with his rhymes but with his wit.

I caught up with him to see why he left us all out on the cold and what happened to his elusive album but in the corse of our conversation he hada few things to say about the music industry and the state of Hip Hop to.

"The internet has changed the music industry. Every type of music and every type of musician is suffering to a different extent. You know, a couple of years ago a Robbie Williams album came out, I think it was called Rude Box, on EMI and they sold so few that they actually had to destroy a load of pre-orders. I think it was one million pre-orders had to be destroyed before they were even delivered. They were made in Beijing and they stayed in Beijing and they crushed them and used them to form the basis of roads in the provinces of Beijing.

When I read that story in the newspaper I did start thinking, ‘Jesus if Robbie Williams can’t sell records then how the hell are we going to do it?’ I realised that the internet had really changed the way people were experiencing and enjoying music. A lot of artists get really angry about it, and sometimes it makes me angry but at the same time I can understand. You know no-one’s got a lot of money, so why would you risk forking out some money on a rapper [where] you don’t really know if the album's all going to be good. You might just pick your favourite song and roll it from there, if you don’t want pay 79p on iTunes for it then you can probably find a way to copy it from somebody else. It doesn’t seem like a crime that would affect anyone but we are the victims, obviously. Rappers are the victims.

It’s so natural now that people don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Even now I get people emailing me, emailing my website, asking how they can download my stuff for free. Even on my videos on YouTube all the comments are talking about how to get my songs on LimeWire or how to rip them off youtube, as if I wouldn’t notice or mind. But the fact is that it’s happening to everybody and I think it’s increasingly hard for people to sell records.

To me the music industry has shifted to its original way of reaching the public when popular music came out in the fifties, which is the live circuit. So live music is massive again now because music as it was has become faceless. What I mean by that is everything is a downloadable MP3 or is copied from someone else on a blank CD there’s no liner notes there’s no artwork. People are enjoying our music for free but they’re not getting to know the artist anymore, so ultimately they can enjoy their pirated music for a while but if they really enjoy it at some stage they want to connect with that artist on a deeper level.

If you look at the upper echelon or artists like at contemporary stuff, not the Bruce Springsteins of this world, but the Lily Allens. They are making a living now not through selling records but through the live circuit. It’s real and actual. You have to gig like 300 days of each year to really make your money back. It’s gigs and merchandise now which is massive.

In the UK rap game, which kicked off from vinyl and then moved on to CD and briefly had a resurgence of income through legal downloads, now it’s tough because rap gigs have never really been a big deal. Rap gigs are coming back in the States now but even like ten years ago in the States rap gigs weren’t that big because promoters didn’t want to risk it. They felt there would always be some sort of street element attached to a rap gig and we’ve always had that problem here and so rappers can’t even get paid gigs."

Read the rest of the interview and find out why the Doc left Hip Hop.

Social scientists waste time and money on Hip Hop

For a totally different purpose I was leafing through some electronic journals when I came across an entry from the January 2009 edition of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, which is an American publication. The study in question was called Controversial rap themes, gender portrayals and skin tone distortion: A content analysis of rap music videos, an informative if less than catchy title. I thought it might make for interesting reading but then the abstract went like this:

"A content analysis of rap music videos aired on BET, MTV, and VH1 examined the occurrence of controversial themes, gender differences, and skin tone distortion. The results of this study found that current rap music videos have placed an emphasis on themes of materialism and misogyny. Additionally, men and women in the videos differ in their portrayal of these themes. Specifically, female characters are significantly more likely to appear as objects of sexuality. Men and women also differ in their appearance with more African American females appearing to have Eurocentric features. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed."

If any over-payed American professors want to pay me for sitting on my ass watching MTV and eating Cheetos in exchange for a few insightful notes, get in touch.

Image courtesy of ricardo.martins

Hip Hop's career advice

Now you could well be forgiven for thinking that the only career advice you could learn from rap records is the intimate details of how to be successful at rapping, how to (as Biggie put it) "sell more powder than Johnson and Johnson", or how all government's are bad and out to screw you over. Maybe if you're lucky you might pick up a few tips for the ladies from Too $hort, but that's about it.

Hip Hop career advice ain't for the everyman right? Wrong. There are many things the average Joe can take away from the world of Hip Hop to advance their own careers, you've just go to know where to look.

1. Do one thing well

Ghostface has been schooling you all to this his whole career. He makes sure to remind you on every album he makes. As soon as his raspy voice starts crooning in his usual mock soul stylings you know he should just stick to what he does best. If you're still in doubt check out that deleted scene from Ironman.

2. Don't give your mates a job
If there's anything that you should take home from a Memphis Bleak record this should be it. Rappers have been filling up label rosters all over with guys who used to be their security guards and it doesn't make any of you look clever.

3. "Even if you've only got 1 target aren't you better off with two darts?"
J-live breaks down having a back-up plan. No jokes.

4. Don't know how to do something? Blag it
The rap careers of The Beatnuts, J-Zone and Lil Wayne are just some of the examples of how you can get around not being very good at something as long as you carry it off with enough swagger, you'll be fine. And you best believe it took a bit of blagging for a couple of college kids to build the biggest label in Hip Hop. Note: This does not apply to heart surgery.

5. Get your mates to give you a job
Just because you're not going to fall into this trap is no reason to not trick some of your more gullible circle into hiring you, at the end of the day it's not what you know. Think Estelle would be huge in the US without a Kanye verse, unlikely. Sad but true.

Image courtesy of Steve and Sara

Top 5 NBA Name Drops

So for those that don't know the NBA play-offs are well and truely under way and Kobe and my boys are looking good to take it deep into the finals, provided they start playing like they did a few months back.

In honour of this I've compiled a little list of the best NBA related rhymes I could find. Just to quickly explain the arbitrary ranking system here, points are awarded for originality, accuracy and quotability. Then promptly disregarded based purely on which one I like best.

I've also kept it quite current so I don't want to hear any cries about why i left out some unheardmix tape rhyme of Bushwick Bill comparing himself to Muggsy Bogues, OK?

1. "Money long like arms on Alonso Morning" - Dice Raw on The Roots' Here I come
This is made 100 time better by the fact that it comes in the middle of a verse of some of the most random boasts imaginable. The next line is, "Vampire chicks suck from dust till dawnin," brilliant nonsense.

2. "Ni***z will pull heat longer than Shaq's shoes" - Black Milk on Losing Out
I'd like to point out that when it comes to rappers dropping Shaq's name into a verse they're always very clear never to do so by comparing their mic murdering ability to his.

3. "I ordered the Kobe beef like Shaquiel O'Neal" - Kanye West on Back like That (Remix)
Another appearence for the big deiesel here. Only Yeezy can really pull off a line that seems this obvious and then round it off with "When we walked in the whole room got stil/I Dunno how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal." Post-South Park Kanye would be appauled.

4. "When i come back like Jordan, wearing the 45" - Jay-Z on Encore
Ok normally Jordan is about the laziest basketball reference point you could ask for but this is so far off the mark it's painful. Having retired for 5 minutes Jay did come back and his comback album, Kingdom Come, was far less spectacular than his Heirness's return to his former team in 1995, where he was the difference maker in getting them to the conference championships. Instead Jay's was al imp bloated set of selfindulgent toss, with the exception of the title track, which was a certified banger.

5. "So we rock it like Tracy Macgrady" - The Game on Too Much

It'd be disrespecting The Game to do a top five of name dropping and not include him even if this lines pretty played out.

Now, the only thing I'm left asking is, "Where's all the British rappers referencing basketball flopster and 'only gay in the NBA', John Amaechi?"

Image courtesy of  Shaun Wong

Rappers on Twitter

If your into your web 2.0 gizmos and like to stalk famous people, you might want to check out this handy resource to follow all your favourite emcee's every move. Rappers on Twitter displays all recent tweets form a veritable who's who of modern Hip Hop.

However I'm not too sure about the authenticity of some of these accounts especially given that Biggie seems to have found the giant broadband connection in the sky.

Why are their no rap songs about darts?

The title of this post was a tweet I put out a few days ago and it seems that there is no answer. Which I happen to think is a bit of a shame. And no, all those Wu-Tang references don't count because The Clan, like everyone else, never actually rap about darts in the Lakeside sense.

Given that the rappers are predisposed to comparing themselves to comic book characters, soap stars, TV chefs and every major athlete going it seems unfair that darts players have been overlooked. Especially as it's possibly the most Hip Hop friendly sport around.

The gaudy jewellery; the over sized shirts; the plethora of nicknames; the conspicuous consumption of alcohol; the overbearing smell of testosterone; the token hoes in the crowd. Sounds rather like every gangsta rap video you've ever seen, doesn't it?

Yet they've been cruelly ignored by the Hip Hop community when clearly they're desperate for our acceptance.

To rectify this situation I would like to offer a four pack of Stella to anyone who sends me an MP3 of a rap about professional darts. No it does not count if it is in Dutch.

Image courtesy of johnwobert