Some interesting things here as always from the leader of PE..
More so I think on where he sees the future of hiphop and the business side.
Thought yall might find it interesting.
The Comeback Of Music?
October 20, 2006
I've been writing these Terrordomes since 1998, before things like these we're being called 'blogs'. This look in from the outside was seized and cherished the minute I discovered the digital road to do so. I've done a lot of commentary on what I've seen across these past eight years of analog to digital. As expected I've seen some of the same characters who rebelled against this business practices into this space; via email, crackberry, SMS, into Myspace, now the masses and the labels get it. The past week while on PE's 55th tour in Europe, Air America Radio goes bankrupt for reorganization (my On The Real radio show), Tower Records (my label SLAMjamz largest supporter for national CD/DVD distribution) goes bankrupt and liquidates, and ELEMENTAL magazine (my monthly printed article and advertising periodical) sells to another publisher. No fret, as a life in the entertainment biz prepares one for things to open and close like a play. Gotta keep a lotta irons in the fire, thus this iss where a business is different from a j-o-b.
It is with contempt that survival of my business is faced against a person with a paid job to do. Never looking for any glory, the price to pay for raging against the machine is becoming somewhat a burden for my independent surrounding. I remind artists in a world of highly banked art, that much of so called 'urban' is a televised illusion. What’s seen on screen is set to deflate independence and inspiration. The cost of getting down has big business only considering big business for a very incestuous relationship. The radio playlists, the video picks, the VIBE stories are about the most programmed en masse responses. Now these same responses are now trying to dictate a new way in multimedia formats.
In my musical independence I've had an awesome time of it since we walked away from the big contract and spoon to grill position at DEF JAM / UNIVERSAL in 1999. After help pave the road of respect for rap music so that cats like Jay-Z and DMX can ride their vehicles on to riches, one could compare PE to baseballs CURT FLOOD. Simply I wanted to chop down the growing middleman passage that all creativity had to run through in order to get to JOHN Q PUBLIC. Years of this I also expected leper behind the door treatment for making and taking these bold moves and steps to artistic freedom.
In my freeing up of creation of doing many things, one night I got to point where I temporarily thought I lost interest in practically everything I was involved with. Everything. The record label, the music , the books, writing, the ventures and adventures of all. It was a rare case of me being burned out. So I took immediate therapy and took a midnight drive upon the dark Long Island highways.
WBLS the legendary truly black station in New York City has a quiet storm midnight segment, where the DJ named Champagne often opens up the lines to play requests. This night some brother called and asked for a Commodores song that mentioned fly away in it. She filled in his blanks and told him the record was ZOOM. Then she proceeded to play it. I swear it was some of the best three minutes I heard on radio in quite a long time. It cleared and opened me immediately, showing the power and the glory of music. Yes the music...
The corporate idea of a record company has rarely been about anything other than the selling of a quantity of what is simply deemed as product. Simple as figuring the big four (ain't that a shame) would sell a CD smothered in peanut butter and jelly to the masses if they could. DEF JAM head, JAY-Z, said it best by saying that while the record business was suffering the music business was growing tentacles of health.
Yes, the music business is diversified and breathing quite well, ask Steve Jobs of Apple. Itunes is the fourth largest retailer after WALMART, Best BUY, and Target. These stores sell other items and music CDs as a lure to get folks in those stores to sell bigger items like plasma TVs, computers, and giant car stereo systems, etc. At the same time while all of this is happening digital distribution is on the rocket rise, because fewer people want to lug the once portable CD along. Independent retail and archaic record companies should not continue screaming at the digital weather, instead they should be the best equipped to adapt. And now with the global mobile delivery systems forming, independent recorders need to celebrate these options before giving in.
Eric Levin owns and runs Criminal Records in the little five points section of Atlanta. He has just recently built a coffee house next door to his record store which sells comics, magazines,and other paraphernalia. Although the place is a music lovers dream, Eric realized that the corporate monster stands a greater chance of killing themselves off than a march of independent shops putting them out of business.
Thus he's built a coffee house that may house the performance of acts. The idea of retail-venue hybrids is nothing new, but seriously needs to be revisited for independent survival both on the retail end and indie record company tip. Hip hop acts need to know how to diversify their act and learn how to perform their songs well.
Although I ain't one for gifts and surprises, Public Enemy winning the founders award at the Billboard R&B conference in Atlanta, was appreciated because of recognition of my partnerships. Sharing the stage with Flav and Hank Shocklee made it a special thing, although it all seemed like a blur. Anytime accolades toss my way, I retreat and divert it to St. Elsewhere because it seems fleeting and no big pun intended.
Waiting on security lines be a triple bitch I say. To turn in lotion means a lotta ashy black people gonna be in the airport. Flight dries out the skin and dry skin = ash to darker skinned folk. I'm the unofficial king of ash, and it ain't a good look.
So PE embarked on tour 55. Originally tour double nickel was the canceled OZ tour. This run had a new lineup readied for the next two years. There's been a slew of good songs to learn and do, as there's some tunes to relearn for the 20th year of Public Enemy.
The lineup 2006-07 > BREAK IT TO PIECES > INTRO > NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASEHEADS > WECLOME TO THE TERRORDOME > BRING THE NOISE > WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES > SON OF A BUSH > SOUL POWER > GOTTA GIVE THE PEEPS WHAT THEY NEED > SHUT EM DOWN > BLACK STEEL > COME TOGETHER > HE GOT GAME > CAN’T HOLD US BACK > BRING THAT BEAT BACK > CAN’T TRUSS IT > GROUP INTRO > MIUZI WEIGHS A TON > GRIFF/ REVOLUTION > FLAV/ 911 IS A JOKE > CHECK WHATCHA LISTENING TO > RUN DMC/TIMEBOMB" > WU TANG/ DO YOU WANNA GO OUR WAY?? > PUBLIC ENEMY #1 > DJ LORD > FLAVOR FLAV segment 3-5 songs > GRIFF/ BREAK THE LAW > GIVE IT UP > PAYBACK > DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE > BY THE TIME I GET TO ARIZONA > BALL OF CONFUSION > FIGHT THE POWER
Getting some mail about what tunes aren’t in the lineup. There's a sprinkle of Rebirth and NOW in the attitude of the set...as well as sampling off of the Bring That Beat Back project. Just wait till December's Beats And Places project and next year's How You Sell Soul disc, coupled with this months Flavor Flav solo record in the middle of the set; a lineup is determined on what songs fit the flow. Surprises like the Confrontation Camp Break The Law and Yo Bum Rush The Show's You’re Gonna Get Yours have been added.
As for the Eurotour, we make it a standard of limiting international runs to fourteen days max. This tour is no exception. Fourteen days consecutive. It takes 3-5 three hour non - stop shows in a row to get voice and wind right. Ten days to get my body back at performance weight. By the end of fourteen I'm set like a boxer. There's no other workout like it, mainly because of the movement AND fast rapping. Just my luck would have, I strained my right Achilles in Spain, but I was fine in two days as far as movement was concerned . The UK-Ireland dates were a great way to tune a 2007 show. It was PE's first time playing Liverpool home of the Fab, and Cork, Ireland. The ride through Ireland offers the green hilly, yet flat sprawl that you all heard about (reminded me of parts of Suffolk County Long Island ). Ireland has totally dumped the pound and gone Euro and really this time around appears to be a country split between the UK and US. As a matter of fact Ireland reminds of Canada, while Australia gives off California -Florida looks.
With the US dollar getting its ass whipped worldwide, I see how Europe, and Asia have closed the gaps on the quality of life as compared to the states. Starting off in Marseille the France, who have worked to maintain their architectural flavor, the festival was practically on the Mediterranean, what a great gig.....
The global mobile conference was a peek into everyone's future. I did a keynote on the virility of hip hop as a thread to business foundation. I had never seen a convention laced with so many CEOs. They were not playing. I've been a digital player for eight, understanding years now. And I won't disappear, as the battles and conversations are high realm, and while the people don't read the fine line of what I do, they'll just think JAY Z is leading the pack because HP hired him for a commercial. Well that's cool too. Because the inevitable happening is a million artists and labels like I've been saying for eight years. Myspace and You Tube furthers that existence.
Speaking of YOUTUBE and collapse of TOWER RECORDS, if you have no idea what business model is working, you just need to stop right now... It was eerie seeing peeps in Seattle as well as Long Island with "Everything Must Go ' signs pointed towards the closing store.
Flav on TYRA A Flav typo on the Tyra Banks show had Ms. Banks reading a script reporting PE as broken up etc. Flav had to correct her saying we travel all over the earth still. Also Tyra introduced PE on Soul Train years back. In the days of GOOGLE the editorial /production staff should easily look things up, there's simply no excuse for it.
ELEMENTAL Magazine has been bought by a larger publishing operation, thus I'm up in the air regarding the delivery of my monthly piece ON THE REAL. It's been a good ride and have come a bit way from their modest one floor office in Decatur, Georgia to offices in NYC. Often much of the commentary ends up before or afterwards on this Terrordome need I say it......blog.
Speaking of....I just knew that VIBE would edit my article down to BS proportions...that's why I do these Terrordomes....maybe its why I considered it a colored coloring book at times...How bout the congressional Black Caucus gathering this year...sht can I tell you how much I hated to being with those people. Tipsy black politicians and entrepreneurs, I felt I was at a college frat gig.I introduced Chaka Khan to the audience and they would'nt shut their drunken asses up to give her the need respect for an introduction. And the black democrats are confusing the fk outta me. Charles Rangel calling G Bushit our Bull Connor, after criticism of Son Of A Bush by President Chavez of Venezuela??
The new fight the power I would say is a supported women's movement in rap music and hip hop. With the debut of female rap squad CREW GRRL ORDER on SLAMjamz their cd/dvd is called B GRRL STANCE, the fact of them merely existing period is a feat. Although they haven't figured how to condense a dissertation of a women's movement into a three minute song as some critics have suggested, I applaud them for working together and digging it, something that conscious artists need to do. More groups I say, less individualism.
Speaking of groups a solid school of emcees hail out of Kansas City, the HEETMOB. Again I'm digging my association of a organized camp of stellar emcees and deejays. Call them a more structured Wu-Tang Clan. Very solid in their SLAMjamz distributed effort THEY FROM WHERE?
Oh yeah, I caught heat on the ENEMY BOARD for stating that JAY-Z ranks as the GOAT as far as rappers go. If there was a picture in a dictionary next to rapper, simply he'd be it. It's the right time, dude, and circumstances for him to be it. Yes, the skill, wit, and distinct voice are solid testimony but the time he exists in dictate the status. Just as 1988-89 dictates PE's legend, or 1956 defines Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Elvis. The Nets ownership. HP and BUD commercials and anticipated albums all fall into the fact of the time being right and matured. This is not even discussing subject matter, nor accountability. Just the facts. Now when we're talking about the most feared emcee ever, hands down its Mr. KRS ONE. His ability is changing the atmosphere of any room he walks into. Making rappers either hide or change their game. I only seen one rapper ever do that, him. Like a shot blocker in basketball, altering the realm. So comparing KRS to JAY Z is like comparing Bill Russell to Jordan. Different eras, competition , dedication and standards....
AIRAMERICA radio is still on and my ON THE REAL radio show is still on 11PM -1AM on Sunday nights with my co host GIA'NA GAREL. 47 markets across US, 167 XM Satellite and AIRAMERICARADIO.com . Speaking of , I'm interviewing Knick guard, Stepon Marbury, who’s STARBURY footwear and sports gear line has taking the revolutionary stance with affordable gear for the community. Sneakers that rank with Jordans pound for pound @ $15.99 ...also the fact that he bought barbershops in his hometown of Coney Island, Brooklyn, put the barbers on salary therefore making all who step in there receive a free haircut. That's amazing community service there. Never heard of something so revolutionary yet so simple.
More so I think on where he sees the future of hiphop and the business side.
Thought yall might find it interesting.
The Comeback Of Music?
October 20, 2006
I've been writing these Terrordomes since 1998, before things like these we're being called 'blogs'. This look in from the outside was seized and cherished the minute I discovered the digital road to do so. I've done a lot of commentary on what I've seen across these past eight years of analog to digital. As expected I've seen some of the same characters who rebelled against this business practices into this space; via email, crackberry, SMS, into Myspace, now the masses and the labels get it. The past week while on PE's 55th tour in Europe, Air America Radio goes bankrupt for reorganization (my On The Real radio show), Tower Records (my label SLAMjamz largest supporter for national CD/DVD distribution) goes bankrupt and liquidates, and ELEMENTAL magazine (my monthly printed article and advertising periodical) sells to another publisher. No fret, as a life in the entertainment biz prepares one for things to open and close like a play. Gotta keep a lotta irons in the fire, thus this iss where a business is different from a j-o-b.
It is with contempt that survival of my business is faced against a person with a paid job to do. Never looking for any glory, the price to pay for raging against the machine is becoming somewhat a burden for my independent surrounding. I remind artists in a world of highly banked art, that much of so called 'urban' is a televised illusion. What’s seen on screen is set to deflate independence and inspiration. The cost of getting down has big business only considering big business for a very incestuous relationship. The radio playlists, the video picks, the VIBE stories are about the most programmed en masse responses. Now these same responses are now trying to dictate a new way in multimedia formats.
In my musical independence I've had an awesome time of it since we walked away from the big contract and spoon to grill position at DEF JAM / UNIVERSAL in 1999. After help pave the road of respect for rap music so that cats like Jay-Z and DMX can ride their vehicles on to riches, one could compare PE to baseballs CURT FLOOD. Simply I wanted to chop down the growing middleman passage that all creativity had to run through in order to get to JOHN Q PUBLIC. Years of this I also expected leper behind the door treatment for making and taking these bold moves and steps to artistic freedom.
In my freeing up of creation of doing many things, one night I got to point where I temporarily thought I lost interest in practically everything I was involved with. Everything. The record label, the music , the books, writing, the ventures and adventures of all. It was a rare case of me being burned out. So I took immediate therapy and took a midnight drive upon the dark Long Island highways.
WBLS the legendary truly black station in New York City has a quiet storm midnight segment, where the DJ named Champagne often opens up the lines to play requests. This night some brother called and asked for a Commodores song that mentioned fly away in it. She filled in his blanks and told him the record was ZOOM. Then she proceeded to play it. I swear it was some of the best three minutes I heard on radio in quite a long time. It cleared and opened me immediately, showing the power and the glory of music. Yes the music...
The corporate idea of a record company has rarely been about anything other than the selling of a quantity of what is simply deemed as product. Simple as figuring the big four (ain't that a shame) would sell a CD smothered in peanut butter and jelly to the masses if they could. DEF JAM head, JAY-Z, said it best by saying that while the record business was suffering the music business was growing tentacles of health.
Yes, the music business is diversified and breathing quite well, ask Steve Jobs of Apple. Itunes is the fourth largest retailer after WALMART, Best BUY, and Target. These stores sell other items and music CDs as a lure to get folks in those stores to sell bigger items like plasma TVs, computers, and giant car stereo systems, etc. At the same time while all of this is happening digital distribution is on the rocket rise, because fewer people want to lug the once portable CD along. Independent retail and archaic record companies should not continue screaming at the digital weather, instead they should be the best equipped to adapt. And now with the global mobile delivery systems forming, independent recorders need to celebrate these options before giving in.
Eric Levin owns and runs Criminal Records in the little five points section of Atlanta. He has just recently built a coffee house next door to his record store which sells comics, magazines,and other paraphernalia. Although the place is a music lovers dream, Eric realized that the corporate monster stands a greater chance of killing themselves off than a march of independent shops putting them out of business.
Thus he's built a coffee house that may house the performance of acts. The idea of retail-venue hybrids is nothing new, but seriously needs to be revisited for independent survival both on the retail end and indie record company tip. Hip hop acts need to know how to diversify their act and learn how to perform their songs well.
Although I ain't one for gifts and surprises, Public Enemy winning the founders award at the Billboard R&B conference in Atlanta, was appreciated because of recognition of my partnerships. Sharing the stage with Flav and Hank Shocklee made it a special thing, although it all seemed like a blur. Anytime accolades toss my way, I retreat and divert it to St. Elsewhere because it seems fleeting and no big pun intended.
Waiting on security lines be a triple bitch I say. To turn in lotion means a lotta ashy black people gonna be in the airport. Flight dries out the skin and dry skin = ash to darker skinned folk. I'm the unofficial king of ash, and it ain't a good look.
So PE embarked on tour 55. Originally tour double nickel was the canceled OZ tour. This run had a new lineup readied for the next two years. There's been a slew of good songs to learn and do, as there's some tunes to relearn for the 20th year of Public Enemy.
The lineup 2006-07 > BREAK IT TO PIECES > INTRO > NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASEHEADS > WECLOME TO THE TERRORDOME > BRING THE NOISE > WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES > SON OF A BUSH > SOUL POWER > GOTTA GIVE THE PEEPS WHAT THEY NEED > SHUT EM DOWN > BLACK STEEL > COME TOGETHER > HE GOT GAME > CAN’T HOLD US BACK > BRING THAT BEAT BACK > CAN’T TRUSS IT > GROUP INTRO > MIUZI WEIGHS A TON > GRIFF/ REVOLUTION > FLAV/ 911 IS A JOKE > CHECK WHATCHA LISTENING TO > RUN DMC/TIMEBOMB" > WU TANG/ DO YOU WANNA GO OUR WAY?? > PUBLIC ENEMY #1 > DJ LORD > FLAVOR FLAV segment 3-5 songs > GRIFF/ BREAK THE LAW > GIVE IT UP > PAYBACK > DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE > BY THE TIME I GET TO ARIZONA > BALL OF CONFUSION > FIGHT THE POWER
Getting some mail about what tunes aren’t in the lineup. There's a sprinkle of Rebirth and NOW in the attitude of the set...as well as sampling off of the Bring That Beat Back project. Just wait till December's Beats And Places project and next year's How You Sell Soul disc, coupled with this months Flavor Flav solo record in the middle of the set; a lineup is determined on what songs fit the flow. Surprises like the Confrontation Camp Break The Law and Yo Bum Rush The Show's You’re Gonna Get Yours have been added.
As for the Eurotour, we make it a standard of limiting international runs to fourteen days max. This tour is no exception. Fourteen days consecutive. It takes 3-5 three hour non - stop shows in a row to get voice and wind right. Ten days to get my body back at performance weight. By the end of fourteen I'm set like a boxer. There's no other workout like it, mainly because of the movement AND fast rapping. Just my luck would have, I strained my right Achilles in Spain, but I was fine in two days as far as movement was concerned . The UK-Ireland dates were a great way to tune a 2007 show. It was PE's first time playing Liverpool home of the Fab, and Cork, Ireland. The ride through Ireland offers the green hilly, yet flat sprawl that you all heard about (reminded me of parts of Suffolk County Long Island ). Ireland has totally dumped the pound and gone Euro and really this time around appears to be a country split between the UK and US. As a matter of fact Ireland reminds of Canada, while Australia gives off California -Florida looks.
With the US dollar getting its ass whipped worldwide, I see how Europe, and Asia have closed the gaps on the quality of life as compared to the states. Starting off in Marseille the France, who have worked to maintain their architectural flavor, the festival was practically on the Mediterranean, what a great gig.....
The global mobile conference was a peek into everyone's future. I did a keynote on the virility of hip hop as a thread to business foundation. I had never seen a convention laced with so many CEOs. They were not playing. I've been a digital player for eight, understanding years now. And I won't disappear, as the battles and conversations are high realm, and while the people don't read the fine line of what I do, they'll just think JAY Z is leading the pack because HP hired him for a commercial. Well that's cool too. Because the inevitable happening is a million artists and labels like I've been saying for eight years. Myspace and You Tube furthers that existence.
Speaking of YOUTUBE and collapse of TOWER RECORDS, if you have no idea what business model is working, you just need to stop right now... It was eerie seeing peeps in Seattle as well as Long Island with "Everything Must Go ' signs pointed towards the closing store.
Flav on TYRA A Flav typo on the Tyra Banks show had Ms. Banks reading a script reporting PE as broken up etc. Flav had to correct her saying we travel all over the earth still. Also Tyra introduced PE on Soul Train years back. In the days of GOOGLE the editorial /production staff should easily look things up, there's simply no excuse for it.
ELEMENTAL Magazine has been bought by a larger publishing operation, thus I'm up in the air regarding the delivery of my monthly piece ON THE REAL. It's been a good ride and have come a bit way from their modest one floor office in Decatur, Georgia to offices in NYC. Often much of the commentary ends up before or afterwards on this Terrordome need I say it......blog.
Speaking of....I just knew that VIBE would edit my article down to BS proportions...that's why I do these Terrordomes....maybe its why I considered it a colored coloring book at times...How bout the congressional Black Caucus gathering this year...sht can I tell you how much I hated to being with those people. Tipsy black politicians and entrepreneurs, I felt I was at a college frat gig.I introduced Chaka Khan to the audience and they would'nt shut their drunken asses up to give her the need respect for an introduction. And the black democrats are confusing the fk outta me. Charles Rangel calling G Bushit our Bull Connor, after criticism of Son Of A Bush by President Chavez of Venezuela??
The new fight the power I would say is a supported women's movement in rap music and hip hop. With the debut of female rap squad CREW GRRL ORDER on SLAMjamz their cd/dvd is called B GRRL STANCE, the fact of them merely existing period is a feat. Although they haven't figured how to condense a dissertation of a women's movement into a three minute song as some critics have suggested, I applaud them for working together and digging it, something that conscious artists need to do. More groups I say, less individualism.
Speaking of groups a solid school of emcees hail out of Kansas City, the HEETMOB. Again I'm digging my association of a organized camp of stellar emcees and deejays. Call them a more structured Wu-Tang Clan. Very solid in their SLAMjamz distributed effort THEY FROM WHERE?
Oh yeah, I caught heat on the ENEMY BOARD for stating that JAY-Z ranks as the GOAT as far as rappers go. If there was a picture in a dictionary next to rapper, simply he'd be it. It's the right time, dude, and circumstances for him to be it. Yes, the skill, wit, and distinct voice are solid testimony but the time he exists in dictate the status. Just as 1988-89 dictates PE's legend, or 1956 defines Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Elvis. The Nets ownership. HP and BUD commercials and anticipated albums all fall into the fact of the time being right and matured. This is not even discussing subject matter, nor accountability. Just the facts. Now when we're talking about the most feared emcee ever, hands down its Mr. KRS ONE. His ability is changing the atmosphere of any room he walks into. Making rappers either hide or change their game. I only seen one rapper ever do that, him. Like a shot blocker in basketball, altering the realm. So comparing KRS to JAY Z is like comparing Bill Russell to Jordan. Different eras, competition , dedication and standards....
AIRAMERICA radio is still on and my ON THE REAL radio show is still on 11PM -1AM on Sunday nights with my co host GIA'NA GAREL. 47 markets across US, 167 XM Satellite and AIRAMERICARADIO.com . Speaking of , I'm interviewing Knick guard, Stepon Marbury, who’s STARBURY footwear and sports gear line has taking the revolutionary stance with affordable gear for the community. Sneakers that rank with Jordans pound for pound @ $15.99 ...also the fact that he bought barbershops in his hometown of Coney Island, Brooklyn, put the barbers on salary therefore making all who step in there receive a free haircut. That's amazing community service there. Never heard of something so revolutionary yet so simple.
