Some time ago, I wrote What ever happened to headphones? in reaction to the declining appearance of headphones on peoples heads. Fast-forward 2 years and the onslaught of Beats by Dr Dre gracing the heads of athletes and celebrities traveling has had a huge impact on the how people listen to music. Slowly the fad of the white ear buds are being replaced but brightly color headphones.

I’m glad to see that headphones are making their comeback, gaudy designs and all. I just can’t imaging a DJ in front of his MP3 mixer (smh) cranking out music. But we can’t all be DJ’s so when I see them on the train, bus, airport or walking down the street, I smile.  It lets me know that the person is serious about the sound of their music and recognize the difference in quality the two systems produce.

Not only is Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg (Skull Candy) endorsing headphones but also 50 Cent with SMS and Ludacris with Soul. Personal I think the team behind 50’s brand didn’t do their research or even a simple Google Search. Had they, it would’ve been immediately clear that the acronym SMS has been used in so many ways, most notable in relation to cell phone text messaging (Short Message Service) they would have chosen a better name.

Where all of these endorsements fail except Skull Candy is price point. When you’re setting the bar at $100, it suddenly becomes very costly to buy into their products. Especially since the most abundant material in their products is plastic. Anyone that has owned a pair of headphones of any price dreads that snapping sound. It’s the worse sound any headphones can make!  Second to that is the more silent wire short. That problematic, unfixable issue that has you twisting, rubber-banding and bending the wires just to correct a faulty speaker.

When it comes to which headphones to go with make sure you test them out first for the best sound. The artists themselves didn’t design or create these products but they did put their names on them so don’t let the name fool you.  They just want you to buy them because their name is on it and they get a check every time you do. No matter which way you go to enjoy your music make sure you buy that warranty if they offer it. A couple extra bucks right now could save a whole lot of heartache later.

You might think it strange that I start off an article about Whitney Huston with a video about Biggie but there’s an important message there that’s universal:

“I would never wish death on nobody because they ain’t no coming back from that”

– Notorious B.I.G.

I always dreaded the day this would happen. Not because of the great loss to R&B but because I would be disgusted with the reactions of people. It seems that quite a few of our greatest can’t pass in glory; James Brown, Michael Jackson, Rick James, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Easy E, Big Pun, Left Eye, Ol’ Dirty Bastard. And just like them, if you look at any article on the internet referencing their deaths you will find many comments about how they should be dead or the problems they had while they were alive. Which brings me back to B.I.G.’s comment above that even with the strife he had with Tupac, there was still a respect for him when he died.

We all know about Whitney’s problems with drugs and her infamous interview where she made some comments about crack. What I find hypocritical is that many musicians boast about their drug habits and are praised for it. Many even make songs about. It always easier to condemn a person and make jokes for their faults than it is to help them with them. This has become one of the mantras of the world but most notably the hip hop generation. There’s a serious lack of support for the older generation in hip hop.

But let’s not get side tracked. Whitney went from singing at a gas station one day to singing on the worlds stage the next. She really was in the right place at the right time. I really hope that her legacy isn’t tarnished by the naysayers, jokers and disrespectful people looking to get a quick laugh. I don’t think it will matter much what I say so I will just have to let Whitney’s voice silence them herself. Good bye love…

I’ve come to know that I see things with different eyes than the rest of the world which often leads me to different conclusions than most people expect so when this video came across my screen I had to watch it a few times.

The first time I watched, I was curious to what they were trying to do. I listened and identified the songs:

1. Family Affair – Mary J. Blige
2. In Da Club – 50 Cent
3. Lose Yourself – Eminem
4. Hard Knock Life – Jay-Z
5. Changes – Tupac

Simple enough. Next I watched again and did my usual color count. Not a black face in the whole video. That’s not exactly a bad thing nor is it a big deal, I just often take inventory of the things black people are doing but then it hit me, how many current black artists play instruments?

Sure there’s a somewhat long list: Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, John Legend and Jamie Foxx all play piano; QuestLove of The Roots plays the drums; Prince plays guitar and pretty much every produces uses a synthesizer. Miri Ben-Ari has labeled herself a “Hip Hop Violinists” which to me is just her capitalization on the music. Especially since very few in the genre actually play an instrument. This is one of the few genres where words matter more than sound.

Gone are the days of Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes. Not because two of those guys are no longer with us. It’s because these guys knew how to compose music. They could take the sounds of the different instruments they could play and put them all together and make a song. That knowledge of music helped them create their great careers. That’s not to say that people today don’t make music, it’s just not made the same.

Instruments themselves are starting to become scarce in schools due to the funding of music programs being cut. School is often the place where people learn how to read music and play it with other instruments. Exposure to a variety of sounds people often shape the minds of people. This often the argument between home-school vs. traditional school. Not many people are skilled enough to properly teach music in the home. Pots, pans and buckets make nice pseudo-drums but they’re not a replacement.

The music behind many hip hop songs is rooted in actual instruments and not just synthesized sounds. Many use the samples of other songs but their sound often features a prominent instrument.  The instruments themselves add so much character to the song that they are like a second layer of lyrics and speak for themselves. They are so powerful that in some songs, featured below, they extended the music without the words to add to the mood.

As digital takes over, it will never take the place of the sound of instruments themselves no matter how well it can copy them. Hopefully those involves with hip hop culture won’t let instruments fall by the wayside for much longer or we will have a whole segment of the population without the skills and tools to make music should the lights go out other than a bucket.

If you don’t know this man by name then you don’t know history. If you don’t know this man’s impact then you don’t know Hip Hop.

Don created one of the longest-running syndicated shows on TV, exposed many popular artists and dancers to the world and owned the rights to the Soul Train making him the first black owner of a nationally syndicated TV show.

We will miss you Don, and we will continue this hip trip knowing that you set the course.

Today we lost Etta James. One of the most widely know R&B artists of all time.  Read more here on her history and life.

Note: This is the actual image

UPDATE: It appears that the link to the bill is very busy so you may have some trouble getting through today. You can either view the breakdown from Mashable or check out the Wikipedia article.

Imagine if you when can to this site that the lyrics on the right weren’t displayed.  Imagine if you went to SOHH and or HipHopDX they didn’t have a link to the latest song leak or video release.

What’s worse which is actually happening, imagine these sites didn’t tell you that there is a way that something like this could happen and you could prevent it.

There’s a bill being proposed (and yes you should read it all and understand it), which is being pushed by movie studios and the recording industry, that gives the government and law enforcement officials (read police) the right to shut down a site such as mine or anyone other, with notice or trial if it is suspected that they can link or have linked to copyrighted content.

Why is this bad? Because in many ways, this prevents the internet from being the sharing environment that it is. Yeah I know there are plenty of ways to illegally download songs and movies on the net but there are also legal ways to do it also do it.

If you want a breakdown of the bill you can check out Mashable or you favorite non-hip hop related news site. I say non-hip hop related because chances are pretty high that they will leave you ill-informed!

When I first looked at this I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was good that hip hop was the dominate genre but on the other hand I realized that the people who are buying ringtones may be those that are not as tech-savvy as they may think.

If you go back to my first statement, a ringtone is different than a song file. Many smartphones on the market today can play music files as a ringtone. The exception are the phones that play either polyphonic or midi files. If your phone can play music files chances are it doesn’t play one of these older music format files.

So this begs the question, are people that are buying ringtones being ripped-off? I’d say so. Advertisers are quick to push a commercial telling you to text some code to some number to download a ringtone and there are plenty of website offering the same. The unknown fact in this survey is the age of the buyer. I wonder if the people that buy ringtones are either teens or 36+. Why those ages? Well teens like conveniences and the 36+ group aren’t as tech-savvy as their younger counter parts.

That’s right I’m back! In the time off I’ve made some changes around here.  First you’ll notice the site looks a little different. I’ve switched to WordPress  from BlogEngine.net (for those of you that care or know the difference) because of upgrading issues on the backend. I’m a software programmer by trade so I’m more comfortable with the technology behind BE but WP is offering me a better choice in terms of getting posts out there from my phone. So now I’m picking up a new skillset!

With the new platform came a new layout which is always nice to switch up every now and then if need be.

I’m still in the process of converting everything over and feeling my way around WordPress so there may be a few issues here and there but I’ll have them ironed out soon enough. For now, have a look around and get ready for new things to come.

It’s has a lot of promise and I hope that it exceeds its funding or if it doesn’t continue to look for funding because I really like this project.  It’s good to see a creative way of using Hip Hop that isn’t being utilized anywhere else. I’m sure there will be others that will come along and still this idea and use it in other forms of music but I hope it’s this project that spins off into other genres. 

Pledge you support today as there are only a few more days left to donate.  There are incentives depending on how much you donate from chocolates to beta or lifetime access to the site.  I’ll be pledging my support because every dollar counts!