did you know my grandmother can say "mooncake" with impecable accuracy. no accent at all.

I'm Trying To Help With Aesop Rock

ok, ok, so i have been putting up a lot of aesop rock stuff lately because his new album just came out. but contrary to all my school girl squealing, i have not personally listened to it. why? you ask. well, simply put, im not going to pirate it off the network at school just so i have it in my itunes. i want to hear it in its entirety with it physically in my hands.

in addition to this, aes' has been getting a lot of attention from mtv. he recently did a string of videos for their "overdrive" section of mtv.com, which includes blockhead as a co-host and a monkey named charlotte. you can view it at mtv.com. as for other footage, you'll probably have to watch it the old fashioned way - through an actual tv.

in response to this however, blockhead has shared a nice little post on his own myspace with his thoughts about the mtv exposure. its a pretty accurate summation of those who have been disillusioned by mtv, (myself included), long ago, but still believe artists like aesop rock need to feed the fam at the end of the day.

MTv , integrity and and bullshit backlash

ok, so, as you may know, aesop has been featured at the mtv artist of the week. all week he is being featured between the shows and pretty much getting more press then ever imagined. so, when he got offered this he was obviously torn. for one, it would be more exposure then he's ever gotten but on the other hand, it's also mtv and we all know mtv isn't exactly killing it in terms of musical quality (or music at all). after considering it and getting the terms right (not financial terms but actual control over how it would all go down) he decided to do it.
now, when i heard, i was amped. as bad as mtv can be , i'd be full of shit if i said i hated it. i watch it and make fun of it...but i also know the power it has. he then asked me to join his as his sidekick on some comedy relief shit so i was definitely down. i was super hyped about that cause, well....shit, it sounded like fun. so we did it. it went great. the mtv people were mad cool and totally accomodating. they gave aesop full control and he had input on everything that went down.
so, today, it gets put on tv. i'm amped. aes is excited. little did we know the shit storm that would kick up from it.
we get on the internet today and people are losing their shit like it's the end of the fucking world.
so, that long winded explanation is really there just so i can say this:
chill the fuck out
no one has sold out. no one is changing.
let me explain something. if, as an artist, you do whatever you do as you would like to do it, there is no selling out. is aesop's new album a pop album? of course not. is he rapping about doing the fucking soldja boy dance? is he rapping about cars and clothes? not at all. in fact, he pretty much made the most personal album he's ever made. pretty much the opposite of selling out.
another hunk of shit i've been hearing is people saying "when the teeny boppers get a hold of his music it'll get played out!". here's a huge problem with underground music. everyone wants to have the underground musicians as their own little secret. something only they're up on and no one else truly understands. but the problem with that is when that artist gets some light, all of sudden motherfuckers act like they're selling out or falling off. this is bullshit. sure, coincidentally, some do fall off or sell out when they're faced with fame..but it's not a rule. let the music be the judge. holler at me when aesop does a song with jermaine dupri about his rims. the point of making music is expressing yourself. when people pick up on what you're doing it's an amazing thing. weather that attention grows or stays stagnant isn't really in the artists hands. it's in your hands. if you love aesop, don't let the thought of someone you don't approve of liking him sway your opinion. that is trulely some bitch shit.
on another tip, all you complaining about MTV only playing shitty music and thinking that will somehow effect aesop or his music.. you ever think for a moment, perhaps, this is a step in the right direction? them recognizing an artist like aesop is pretty crazy. maybe, if this continues, it won't be all fall out boy and hey bay bay and they'll actually get back to what the station was intended for. exposing people to good music.
all i'm saying is judge the artist by his music. never forget, we are musicians for a career. this is how we cloth and feed ourselves. if we are still able to do that without compromising our music, then you should all be happy about it. turning down major exposure like that is pretty much self defeating no matter how you slice it. it's our job to make good music. it's your job to enjoy it. let all the middleman stuff happen and start complaining when you no longer like the artists music. there has been no intergrity tarnished. i promise you, aesop has the most musical integrity of any artist i've ever met. he wouldn't change the way he does things for a million dollars. in fact, he's made a career on doing what he wanted to do. if anything, it's that intergrity that got him on mtv. so calm down and enjoy the good music. it's not going anywhere.
thanks.

St. Apollonia

today is the start of football season. a big deal for buffalo. if only their team didnt suck.

today is also when aesop rock will be playing irving plaza.
its rainy and dismal. maybe this is why i dont feel well. things seem very grim.
a day meant for coffee inside and reading, or even jotting down silly thoughts.
a day for watching tv and eating ice cream on your boyfriend's bed in your underwear.

Spank Rock and Benny Blanco are...

Spank Rock and DJ Benny Blanco are putting out an 2 Live Crew inspired EP that places ass, tits and pussy in your face. Although vulgar to the extreme at times, spank rock's rhymes are undeniably good and catchy. Feeling a little bit of guilt just comes with the territory. However, is there a line that is drawn between this album and mainstream hip hop? Probably not. Although there are differences, it is an album that should be taken with a grain of salt. The lyrics seem so extreme at times, they seem completely fictionalized and romanticized. While, mainstream hip hop completely legitimates cheating and objectification of women. What I've always liked about Amanda Blank is her ability to rap about her own sensuality and femininity in the same fashion a man would talk about his penis. She appears on one of the tracks on the album (as well as other collaborations with spank rock, m.i.a, etc) and provides that juxtaposition that perhaps, isn't seen in a lot of hip hop nowadays (except for maybe khia).
This is really an informal rambling, but I am a lover of spank rock and if you are too, you should definitely give it a listen.

hello freshmen.

while i was unpacking the random crap box (yes, i'm sadly still unpacking), i found a drafted letter to my freshman RA. it was a complaint letter about the noise upstairs. notice the high volume of grammatical errors and sarcasm due to being enraged and sleep deprivated.

october 25, 2005
dear patrice,
without fail, almost EVERYDAY, at 1am, people come out of their rooms and the noise level rises dramatically. i'm not sure at what exactly is the cause of this, but this happens almost everyday. i do not mind this on the weekends, but on weekdays it is highly intolerable. i would like and hope that every person that comes to this academic institution is literate, in which they would be able to read the signs telling them the exact times of "quiet hours". if they do not understand, i would be happy to explain it to them. not only are walls paper thin in this dormatory, but there is an extremely loud echo in my particular room. this would lead me to address the noise level upstairs as well. although this is momentarily muted or muffled due to the large volume of complaints lately, the fourth floor will surely wake me up again.

clearly, this letter was an unfinished one that i never slipped under the door or gave to my RA.
after reading this actually, i have come to wonder just how i got an A in english that year.
i look at the new freshmen and scoff, just as i had last year. how silly we were (and drunk, mostly). how young and almost too carefree to realize that we were stupid. or in my case, how small and scared i looked. inside i felt and knew i wasnt that person, but it seemed as if my insecurities were transparent. i look at the new freshmen now and wonder if i looked the same as they do in someone else's eyes.



oh, by the way, listen to mad decent radio. its quite ill. podcast yourself.