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Tupac: Robbing Men of Their Boners and Women of Their Conjugal Bliss, Even From the Grave

Now I've seen it all.

The Associated Press (killing local reporting since 1846) offers up this report about a lawsuit between civil rights activist C. DeLores Tucker and two Philly newspapers. At issue? "Her dispute with the estate of slain rapper Tupac Shakur," according to the article.

What did that naughty Tupac do? He rhymed "Tucker" with "motherfucker." Oh SHIT!

But wait -- the shit has only begun to fly. According to the AP article,

"Tucker had sued Shakur, alleging, among other things, that her husband, William Tucker, had suffered loss of 'consortium' because of the emotional distress brought on by Shakur."

Oh yes. Consortium. If you think that sounds like some kind of awful Freudian metaphor for something, award yourself one point. Baby, Dictionary.com gives us this legal definition:

"The legal right of husband and wife to companionship and conjugal intercourse with each other."

So let me get this straight: a so-called activist is suing a newspaper for mischaracterizing a Tupac lyric which was so scathing that it prevented her husband from getting a hard-on?

I've got one word for ya:

By the way, have any of you seen the movie Tupac: Resurrection? (Thanks, Olympia, for sending it my way.) It's interesting in the way Born Into Brothels is interesting, which is to say that if you peel back the cutesy, crowd-pleasing surface, there are some very ugly monsters lurking underneath. The selling point is that it's told in "Tupac's own words," and indeed it's compiled from a number of interviews and monologues. But a careful listener will hear that many times, Tupac's speech is spliced together from several different interviews, often in mid-sentence! His speech, his life -- they're so heavily edited to put a positive spin on a man who was one of the most internally embattled characters of his day. By the end of the film, Pac is basically being cast as a black Jesus figure, a patron of the arts, and a sensitive gentleman who only occasionally ran into trouble with the press and the law. It's no coincidence that the film was made by Tupac's mom, Afeni Shakur. You can just see her pulling the strings the whole time.

Guess she had to get him back for "Dear Mama" some way or another.

Apathy Tears Collabos a New One

Check out Apathy's post on MySpace where he shreds one of hip hop's most abused institutions: the collaboration track.

Icepick, Motherfucker

For those of you who aren't up on your hardcore history, here's a crash course: hardcore evolved from punk rock in the very early 80s. Much of its roots are located here on the East coast. In D.C., bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat were crystallizing a scene that had outspoken social/political lyrics. Meanwhile, up towards our neck of the woods, NYC bands were taking a slightly different tack. Groups like Agnostic Front and Sick of it All (both of whom are amazingly still active) were a bit less political and a lot more thuggish. These bands and their crowds had much more of a "street tough" appeal -- they were more working class and less intellectual.

It's that influence that carried through to a lot of CT hardcore. If you've ever heard of Hatebreed, then you probably know that CT has a reputation for cranking out thugged-out NYC-style hardcore (especially southern CT -- Hatebreed calls New Haven home).

Well, Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta has a CT/NYC-based side project known as Icepick that recently released an album, Violent Epiphany. While many hardcore and metal fans wring their hands over Hatebreed (and there's admittedly a lot to dislike: the band's willingness to "sell" hardcore to MTV and Hot Topic; their enviable success; their repetitive songwriting; their major-label backing; the constant violence at their shows; their appearances on Hollywood film soundtracks and other "sellout" areas), Icepick is much easier to like. A good part of it may just be that it's a different band with a different reputation. But a cursory listen shows that Icepick has something that Hatebreed doesn't. Icepick's songs are inexplicably simple, unapologetically dumb, and undeniably HARD.

This shit is unbelievable. Put on "Real Recognizes Real." That's ICE-T talking all that trash at the beginning. Ice Motherfucking T. Foul-mouthed doesn't even begin to describe it. I have been known to play the intro to this song over and over just because it's so incredibly in-your-face-offensive and badass.

Violent Epiphany is available on Jasta's label, Stillborn Records.

http://myspace.com/icepick

Things that make me go apeshit crazy #2501: Racist Double-standards

So, I'm listening to Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele, because

• it's off the hook, and
• I want to refresh myself on what I like about him in preparation for delving into his newest LP, the critically-acclaimed Fishscale.

And Ghost hits this line in "Mighty Healthy":

"Livin' off land you god damn right I fuck fans king me
Check checkmate props like the micro chip founder
Neck to neck stocks with Bill Gates now."

(The bolding is mine.)

It got me thinking about how the media faults rappers for their promiscuity. Promiscuity is second only to rap violence on the list of "things rappers do that are bad examples for the youth." Question: why is this being painted as a black-only problem? Why don't we fault [white] rock stars for their promiscuity as well? More critically, why is promiscuity so characteristic of musical success in the first place?

It seems rather Puritanical for media pundits to fault ANY musician for their philandering when that same media sensationalizes groupie sex as one of the signs of artistic achievement. It seems equally foolish for musicians to buy into such a worthless standard -- but then, I suppose if you asked most of the "successful" male musicians today why they went into the biz, picking up chicks would rank pretty high on the list of responses.

I fuckin' hate double-standards. Can I get a witness?

d_CYPHERNAUTS got some new tunes up!

Peep the MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/dcyphernauts

The new ones are "Suffer and Sacrifice" and "Murder Music."

The Nauts have also announced that from now on, they are requiring every song title to have alliteration.

INCREDIBLE Looking Hip-Hop Fest in April

Looks so awesome I'm gonna do an article about it!

Keep your eyes on the Advocate as the date draws near...

New Sun Zoo album -- Free download

CT/RI rapper Sun Zoo has just released his new LP, Hope Flies. Want it? Have it. It's an online release, 100% free, and unlike a good 60-75% of free shit in life, it's awesome.

http://sun-zoo.com/

or download directly from Rapidshare (scroll down, click the "free" option, and then when the next page loads, scroll down and wait for the download link to appear).

I, for one, am really feeling "Escaping" (track 2).