It's all for sale

Peace,

For today, I had some other things that I wanted to build about, b.u.t. then I saw it: The B.E.T. Hip-Hop Awards. It sat there as a topic that just would not let me ignore it, hard as I tried. For the sake of not being redundant, I'll keep my statements brief. Here we go:

- Is Hip-Hop the only musical genre that must promote itself incessantly? Every rapper doesn't have to tell us when their album comes out. Not to be sarcastic, b.u.t. that's what your marketing budget is for. I do understand that HH is somewhat crowded these days, and sales are down, b.u.t. there are times when you can focus on being a artist

- Katt Williams as Money Mike in Friday was his gift & his curse: It's what made him, b.u.t. it's doubtful that he'll ever be that funny again. I must tip my crown to the Dips on welcoming him into the fold; great marketing & branding move, as it makes this talk of a "movement" (however laughable) seem reasonable. To me the funniest thing he did last night was doing the prison-style push-ups during Jones's set

- Why were we exposed to that much outright product placement? The camera would focus on a ad for 10 seconds before going to commercial

- They could have condensed the Ozone Awards & last night into one, based on how the south ran away with all the awards. There's one concept that NY was able to ignore for about 20 years of this art form: Most black people have 1-3 degrees of separation from the south. The whole Mid-West has some family member in Mississippi, and there doesn't seem to be any real difference between LA/The Bay & the south other than location. On the serious side though, when the south started to embrace the blues, they started winning & it doesn't like it'll stop anytime soon

- I'm not convinced that Lil Wayne is the "best rapper alive". Maybe it's the Philly in me

- Doesn't Snoop come off as a dude who should be wearing a captain hat & a playboy chain?

- Jeezy wore a portrait of Big Meech (BMF) during his performance last night. When the smoke clears, it'll be a story worth writing about regarding the rise & fall of that organization

- B.G. is like the M.O.P. of the south. Eveyone recognizes that he's good, b.u.t. he doesn't sell any records

- For all of his buffoonery, Busta Ryhmes still represents some morals within the HH game. To me, his tirade was well overdue

Bonus:

- Where is Osama & Mullah Omar, & why aren't they part of any discussion?