What Death of Auto-tune meant to me: Letter before your demise

[OFFICIALLASTWORDONLINE.COM]

Only rapper to re-write history without a pen, No ID on the track let the song begin

Last night at 9 p.m. Jay-Z along with producer No ID capped off the perfect week for me and hip-hop. Last night at 9 p.m. I decided that I was going to become a killer, shooter for hire.

Last night was the last loose screw in the iron mask that was on my face for so long when it came to hip-hop and the ugliness that surrounded the culture that I grew to love. It was tonight that it all fell into place. I now knew why I was so jittery and impatient. I know why I walked around with my tape recorder playing interviews for my friends. Last night I was firmly reminded me why I picked up a pen in the first place and decided to dedicate my life to writing about hip-hop and everything great about this culture.

The de-briefing really started off earlier this week when I interviewed MOP. The Brooklyn shit starters are living legends in hip-hop, world wide stars. And from the moment I got on the phone with them I felt an energy. As a writer, I have to listen to a lot of music. You have to always stay current and know what’s hot and what’s about to be hot.

But lately, I just haven’t been feeling it. I do stories for SLAM magazine too. I was telling a friend of mine no too long ago that, “when I interview basketball players, I know they’re multi-millionaires. But they are some of the most humble people. Yet when I interview rappers, I get some of the most un-grateful arrogant, self-centered people” It was turning me off.

That was again, until this week. When I got on the phone with MOP I felt something that I haven’t felt in a while, passion. They talked about being “kids from one block in Brooklyn” who have seen the world all because they make music that people can relate too, even if they weren’t from that one block in Brooklyn. When I got off the phone, I smiled. Hearing people humbled by what the culture made them started to remind me of what the culture made me.

The next day, I had phone interview set-up Maino. Again, from the moment I was transferred over I felt an energy. This time from a man who described sitting in a jail cell dreaming of just rocking the mic and making up for lost time. He talked about how his biggest dream was to just put out a song. And now he’s performing at T.I.’s Going away concert with 2 songs on the Billboard top 100.

That appreciation for the culture. That appreciation for an opportunity. The chance to have just one person hear you. That’s what I was missing. I felt a dedication. Two separate acts who were connected by one thing, hip-hop. And they dedicated themselves to a music and a culture that may or may not ever really recognize what they sacrificed just so we can say, “that’s my shit”

“My raps don’t have melodies, it should make you want to commit felonies”

I don’t know where the hip-hop that I grew up loving went wrong? Actually, yeah I do. It was the first time I saw Nas and AZ in a Sprite commercial. It was the first time I saw Foxy Brown in a Calvin Klein ad. I remember when I first saw those ads and I remember thinking “that’s good and bad”

When I first found hip-hop, I was around 8. My neighbor Rassan would sneak his Fathers boom box out the house and we’d listen to “The Adventures of Slick Rick” and Shine head in his backyard. It was there I discovered Public Enemy’s “It takes a nation of Millions” I remember being so enamored with P.E. that I went home and drew my emotions. That’s how hypnotized I was. I couldn’t even write it out, I had to draw it! From there, I was hip-hop. I was a B-boy standing in my B-Boy stance. And I knew I would spend the rest of my days trying to write what I felt when I heard that music.

I found NWA on the streets, literally. I was walking from school and there was the tape, “100 Miles and Runnin” sitting on the ground. I picked it up, went home and went into my basement and played every raunchy, violent track. I came out a changed man. These four gangsters from LA made me fully realize the world that was going on around me. The drug dealing, the prostitution, the gangs, and the music.

My parents hated the music. All they saw was the shoot-outs and drug dealing that infested my neighborhood and saw hip-hop as the soundtrack of that chaos. “That shit aint gonna last, its just noise” my dad used to say. But me and my sister, we did more that listen, we go it. At the time, we lived it! Hip-hop wasn’t a fad back then like they thought. It was the soundtrack to my life. Like how James Brown played out the moments of my parents lives, Dj Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, De La Soul and NWA played out in ours.

But as the music got bigger and more controversial, the more marketable it became. The sagging pants, pagers and gold chains that I saw as the D-boy dress code, became popular culture. We were no longer cutting edge and counter culture. We were as blah and bland as the people who now saw it as “interesting” and “cool” Before you knew it, the people who were once ducking bullets and police were now on in prime time and selling Forbes 500 companies to mainstream America!

“This aint a #1 record, this should be assault with a deadly weapon”

When Chuck D said “Rap is the CNN for the streets” he was right. Rappers spoke about the destruction going on in their communities. They talked about crooked cops, selling drugs and dodging death. And they rapped about getting away from it all by going to the club, meeting a girl and doing your dance. Rap was and still is the only real voice of what’s going on in the streets. When Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson was pandering for cameras, trying to show mainstream America they weren’t all that revolutionary, Chuck D, X-Clan and KRS was talking about what was really happening to inner city America.

The music was real and it spoke to you no matter where you was at. Music made you feel something, even if it was just the ass of the girl in front of you in the club.

Fast Forward to today and all you feel is used. The culture has been turned into a business. Producers, Dj’s, Program Directors, people who are supposed to be tastemakers are no more than spokes models schilling whatever someone wants them to if the price is right. Doesn’t matter if these same people cant play the music that they promote by themselves when they’re alone, if the money’s right and you can help support my conference/show/magazine then I got you!

Our culture got bastardized by the same people who claim they’re saving it. The same one’s who take pride on breaking the next big dance hit or the next big trap song, don’t notice when they miss real talent or a real message. That is until our their new bosses, whoever is paying them, decides to change the music.

And this is something that has been going on in music, fuck hip-hop, for years. Payola is so real that you can’t mention it to any Dj (try to ask Red Alert about payola. I did, it wasn’t good) ask these record pools, “what determines a hit” and they’ll eventually tell you, “what’s your budget like” Ask a magazine to listen to your music, just for a review and you’ll hear, “an ad is $300”

So don’t be shocked that all we hear is a watered down version of a music that we all love. Blame the person who pretends to “know what’s hot”

I made this for Flex and. Mr Cee, I want them to feel threatened

Hip-hop was so good and so real so on time that it used to scare people. The same people who eventually would pay big money for Young Jeezy to “sing” at their grand-daughters sweet 16 party. The same people who burned piles of CD’s and backed Tipper Gore. The same people who called this “jungle music” wouldn’t stand next to some of the artists who now sell you everything from sneakers to soft drinks to house hold products.

They’re not scared anymore and there is a reason. The music has no teeth. We don’t “Fight the Power” we’re not trying to “H.E.A.L.” ourselves from “Self-Destruction” and we aint all in “The Same Gang” unless that gang meets in the Hampton’s for the fourth of July.

There’s nothing to be scared of. The people who “know what’s hot” made sure of that! Every time you take a big check from a company who in return just wants you to “shout out” their product. Every time your basic flyer picks up more logo’s, then you’re ensuring that your music and the music you promote wont make people angry. No anger at all! You might feel hungry or thirsty, but not angry.

Because if we’re telling people to “hit the bar and sip Nuvo” or “check out my True Religions” you’re not saying “this recession is a bitch” or “why am I getting taxed so much” You’re not speaking about the lack of fathers in households and mothers for that fact. Your talking about hitting the club in my new Dodge Charger and leaving in my Chevy Caprice.

“This aint for Z100...this is for Hot 97”

So where are we going as a culture? You can tell were at a crossroads right now the more you hear regional arguments of “we better than you” I mean again, its all planned. Its working out in our faces. I get lectured on by people all day about “read this book…it will tell you about all the conspiracies” What about opening your eyes? What about opening your ears?

There’s a conspiracy being played out in hip-hop right now and all I see people doing is playing into it. Instead of pointing fingers at these “tastemakers” who always seem to know what’s hot, we argue about who’s running hip-hop? Who is running hip-hop? You hear a lot of southern voices on the radio, do they run hip-hop? Jay-Z just made a song that in 3 hours seemed to bring NYC back to the forefront, but are they running hip-hop? No!

Nas had it right when he said “whose your sponsor lady and she said ‘Bill Gates’ Who runs hip-hop are these companies that we allowed into the mix. They dictate what you hear by dictating what these “tastemakers” want us to hear and all this is done with the writing of a check and the selling out of values and integrity.

The Willy Lynch letter was real. You divide a race and then you conquer them. North vs. South, South vs. East. Have any of you noticed that no matter where you are from, all you hear is the same 10 songs. There’s like a global 10 song mix that all Dj’s are allowed to play it seems. That’s what were all hating. New York hip-hop head doesn’t hate Soulja Boy? He hates hearing Soulja Boy every 2 minutes without hearing anything else. Atlanta hip-hop head doesn’t hate New York, they hate the labels in New York who laughed at the “country rap” tunes they were being played because they couldn’t figure out how this music can sell these products.

But who are the ones making the decisions? Isn’t that who we’re really mad at? Isn’t that who we really want to see shot in Las Vegas or gunned down in front of the Peterson Automotive Museum? Hating each other is fruitless and all it does it stop us from making music that incites feeling.

Yeah, this is just violent, death of auto-tune moment of silence

So, are you mad yet? Are you offended? Have you recently sold your “taste making” talents to the highest bidder? Are you a radio Dj and find yourself playing the same music over and over so much that you know what’s going to be played quicker than the computer? Are you a blogger that spends more time trying to find out who’s gay or who’s not than finding that next big voice? If so, kill yourself! Cause if not, we’re going to do it for you!

And by “we” I mean me and everyone else who didn’t feel shame when they read this. Everyone who felt angry. Everyone who felt used and betrayed. Everyone who felt like they were sold into audio slavery by those we thought were our own! Everyone who read this and went back into their mental vault and pulled out that memory. Everyone who went back to the exact moment when the music spoke to them. Cause at 9 p.m. last night I felt like the nameless antagonist in the book Invisible Man. I just wanted to blow some shit up!

So kill yourself before we do it! And we aint killing you slowly! With the help of George W. Bush (this recession is finally good for something) you bloated, ego filled phony’s are going to fade to black. And when you come back, if ever, I want you to come back with the same feeling that all your assailants felt when we put your head on the chopping block. That feeling of relief like, “real rap is back” and it sounds so good that it should scare you. It sounds so good, it should start arguments and fights! It sounds so good that the check writers should be locking their door and telling their kids, “turn that jungle music down” It sounds so good that if you don’t like what you’re hearing then leave!

But when you leave make sure you close the door behind you. Don’t worry, we’ll drop the lid on the coffin later. We finally got violent! Death of hypocrisy, moment of silence! Death of greed, moment of silence! Death of Tom-ness, moment of silence! Death of conformity, moment of silence! “Hey, hey, hey, good bye.

The only rapper to re-write history without a pen, No ID on the beat, let the track begin”