Metal Lungies

For most Americans (i.e. stupid people) Canada is sort of like mad-cow disease. Its something you hear about or make fun of every once and a while, but nothing that you really take seriously. Well, now that I am a resident of this fine country I am making it my business to show that Canada is more than just dank maple syrup and liberal marijuana laws. Case in point: The Juno Awards. On Sunday Calgary will host what some have called Canada’s version of the Grammys. In my mind nominations for guys like Marco Polo and Skratch Bastid put the Juno Awards on a completely different level. Then again every other nomination went to Michael Buble, Celine Dion, and Avril Lavigne, so there ya go. Heres a run down of some noteworthy nominations:

JUNO FAN CHOICE AWARD (PRESENTED BY DORITOS)
Avril Lavigne J/RCA*SONY BMG
Celine Dion SONY BMG
Claude Dubois Zone 3*Select
Michael Bublé Reprise*Warner
Nelly Furtado Geffen*Universal

The other night Avril Lavigne was playing Montreal and she said “It’s so great to be here…in Ontario!” Montreal is, in fact, not in Ontario, which prompted a backlash from uber-nationalist French Canadians. If she wins the fan choice award, the irony will almost be too much to bear. Also, since this award is sponsored by Doritos, I would like to request that anyone who wins it goes up to the podium and does the Waynes World Dorito scene. Haha, thatd be awesome.

SINGLE OF THE YEAR
Girlfriend-Avril Lavigne J/RCA*SONY BMG
1234-Feist Arts&Crafts*EMI
Paralyzer-Finger Eleven Wind-Up*Warner
Seven Day Fool-Jully Black Jully Black Entertainment*Universal
Everything-Michael Bublé Reprise*Warner

I really wasn’t kidding when I said Michael Buble was nominated for everything. If he wins this over Feist, I really won’t have much left to say for you Canada, sorry.

ALTERNATIVE ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Neon Bible-Arcade Fire Merge*FAB
LP-Holy Fuck Young Turks*Select
Close To Paradise-Patrick Watson Secret City*Fusion III
The Con-Tegan and Sara MapleMusic*Fontana North
Welcome To The Night Sky-Wintersleep Labwork*Sonic Unyon/EMI

This category does a little bit of justice to the quality of music that Canadians enjoy (seriously though they have better taste than Americans). Holy Fuck’s LP is lively, refreshing, and exhiliarating, and they are more than worthy of the nomination. Arcade Fire is Arcade Fire, they kick ass. Patrick Watson is a little bit too im-dark-and-mysterious-and-nobody-understands-me for my liking, but he’s undoubtedly a great songwriter. All in all its a solid category; why the hell weren’t these nominated for album of the year.

RAP RECORDING OF THE YEAR (SPONSORED BY 91.7 THE BOUNCE)
The Revolution-Belly CP*Fontana North
The FEWturistic-Brassmunk EMI
Memoirs Of A Playbwoy-JDiggz Maxamus*KOCH
Port Authority-Marco Polo Soulspazm/Rawkus*red ink
The Old Prince-Shad Black Box*Fontana North

“Nostalgia” is still my favorite hip-hop song from last year. Marco Polo gave Masta Ace a gift with that one, and he responded with conviction, and a passion for the struggle that is conspicuously absent from most rappers lines who claim to be true to the game. “Now a days it feels a little different when a man raps.” Tell me about it, Ace, tell me about it.

The Juno Awards will air Sunday April 6th on CTV. Check here for more info.

Note: Generalizations made in this article are only meant to spark a meaningful debate about the quality of Canadian culture. If I have offended you in any way feel free to contact me at canada.sucks@yourapussy.com

MTV has new show premiering tonight dubbed Rock The Cradle, which features the offspring of various musicians competing to see who has the most talent. 

The cast is:

Landon Brown (son of Bobby Brown),                                                                    A’keiba Burrell-Hammer (daughter of MC Hammer),                                             Lara Johnston (daughter of Tom Johnston /The Doobie Brothers),                Chloe Rose Lattanzi (daughter of Olivia Newton John),                                 Crosby Loggins (son of Kenny Loggins),                                                                      Jesse Money (daughter of Eddie Money),                                                                 Jesse Blaze Snider (son of Dee Snider),                                                                      Lil Al B Sure (son of Al B Sure),                                                                                Lucy Walsh (daughter of Joe Walsh/The Eagles).

You already know we are pulling for Lil Al B. Show premiers tonight at 10pm EST on MTV.

Some videos after the jump.

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We don’t post much about fly sneaker/clothes around here but we know it when we see it. Given how much we’ve been posting about YO! MTV Raps’s 20th anniversary lately, I thought I’d highlight the awesome PUMA/YO! cross marketed gear that’s been coming out. This isn’t everything, just my favourites.
First, the Dre & Ed Lover kicks:

The Big Daddy Kane Puma Clyde:

The Shan sneaks:

The YO! MTV Raps hoodie:

Puma put together a nifty little flash site to promote this line of sneakers and threads. You can see more of the Puma/YO! clothing line there as well as read some bios of the rappers and DJs promoting the line. It also measures its loading percentage by “freshness”, which gets a lot of points in my book.

I’m aware some of this is old, but I still think this is pretty dope.

Any show that shows Ghostface love on their show gets a leg up in our TV watching preferences, one of those shows is Human Giant.

I could’ve sworn I posted this before, but I couldn’t find it. Anyway, Human Giant is back for a 2nd season (hopefully with another 24 hour MTV take over, which featured The Wire actors, random hilarious actors and white rappers at 3:45 am).

Season 2 premiers March 11th @ 11pm… but that’s not all folks(on that infomercial tip), if you are impatient, you can cop the first episode of season 2 here on itunes. You can catch up on a bunch of skits here or pick up the DVD of season 1 on March 4th.

A season 2 sketch & a season preview after the jump (which was also spotted at our friend @ Know The Ledge):

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So a fake doctor, a lawyer and a baseball pitcher walk into a bar…

So I’ve been trying to just get a look at the top 10 plays of the day or some NFL Live in my free time today, but this Roger Clemens/Brian McNamee congressional hearing is eating up all of that. Instead I’m listening to all sorts of fun discussions about fake diplomas, Clemens butt bleeding (NH!!), a nanny attending a Jose Conseco’s party, with committee members cracking jokes/zinging in between. They could’ve ended it about after about 5 minutes of talking and easily solved the matter. Since one of them is CLEARLY lying, get a lie detector on both guys and we can all resume our regularly scheduled programming. Although, it still is more entertaining than this.

(Image: NYTimes)

I was browsing some pictures over at Dutch Labs from a Wu-Tang show last month and could it be that Method Man is supporting the soon-to-be-over writers strike (he was a writer on that quickly forgettable Method & Red show on Fox) ??

Also check the eclectic mix a Wu show attracts:

Petey Pablo:

Diddy & Tracy Morgan (aka the reason 30 Rock rules):

(all Wu pictures from Dutch Labs)

Late pass please! I just saw this on E!, it looks like Hip Hop has FINALLY infiltrated young kids television programming with Hip Hop Harry. I can see it now, kids during recess claiming they are hip-hop cause they watch this. But why isn’t there a Rock N’ Roll Robby or Country Chuck??

Anyway here is a magical clip dealing with dried apples:

For some reason, I think Soulja Boy’s agent better be on the phone right now trying to holla at HHH’s (no wwf) people.

In the mad scramble to clean up rap music (which is certainly taking its sweet-ass time, isn’t it?) and Russell Simmons’ desire to remove the N-word, “bitch,” and “ho” from all rappers’ vocabularies, all in the wake of ex-shock jock/Golden Girl Don Imus’ now-infamous Rutgers women’s basketball team comments, everyone appears to be overlooking a couple of important factors.

For one thing, a change to the image of hip hop music may be long overdue, depending on who you ask, but using the Imus incident as a catalyst for this change is crucially misleading. All of the news coverage of Imus and his comments have focused on the specific words he used — say it along with me: “nappy-headed hoes” — but not the discussion with which those words came about (scroll down here for a transcript). He’s referred to the Tennessee players (Rutgers’ opponents) as “cute,” and the Rutgers players as “rough” “nappy-headed hoes,” with his producer adding that they were “hardcore.” Looking at Tennessee’s ’06-’07 roster, you’ll notice 4 of the 11 players pictured are white, in addition to their star player Candace Parker, who is pretty light-skinned. Looking at the Rutgers’ ’06-’07 roster, you’ll notice that 2 of the 10 players are white, and of the 8 remaining black players, most of them are rather dark in complexion (at least in comparison to Parker).

I think — or, at least, I hope — that I’m not offending anyone by saying that, in today’s society, light skin is often looked upon as being “more attractive” than dark skin. You don’t have to walk too far past a newsstand to see a magazine cover with shot of Beyonce or Halle Berry or Tyra Banks being praised for their beauty. It’s a stereotype, plain and simple, and that’s why major news outlets like Fox News and CNN never brought it up in the midst of their Imus coverage. I mean, when Mel Gibson went off in a drunken delirium about how the Jews “own” Hollywood, there was no CNN Special Report entitled “DO The Jews Own Hollywood?” (Although, that would have made for some compelling television.) It seemed as if everyone got mad at Don Imus for his comments, and rightfully so, but never really thought about why they were mad. As offensive as the phrase “nappy-headed” is, there’s far worse things that could be said about African-Americans (and Don Imus has said such things in the past). And as far as the word “ho” goes, I’m a follower of J-Zone’s school of thought — “If you’re getting offended by it, then I must be talking about you!”

It seems like the mere use of the word “ho” has brought hip hop into the spotlight, and the so-called need to clean up the lyrics and the use of foul language. But if you ask any stuck-up old person who hates rap music what they would rather do without — the violence and perceived negative messages in the music, or the use of foul language — they’d likely choose the former over the latter. And, truth be told, these two things are not necessarily tied together. Exhibit A: Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby.” (I’d YouTube it, but this is my first post here and I don’t want everybody to hate me.) I know you remember it, because I know I remember it, and I’ve tried SO hard to forget it. Here are some choice lyrics from the song that, in 1990, was simply unavoidable:

“Jealous ’cause I’m out getting mine/
Shay with a gauge and Vanilla with a nine/
Ready for the chumps on the wall/
The chumps acting ill because they’re full of Eight Ball/
Gunshots ranged out like a bell/
I grabbed my nine — All I heard were shells/
Falling on the concrete real fast/
Jumped in my car, slammed on the gas/
Bumper to bumper the avenue’s packed/
I’m trying to get away before the jackers jack/
Police on the scene, You know what I mean/
They passed me up, confronted all the dope fiends”

Shootouts, police chases, dope fiends — all in language that’s PG-13 at best. You can disrespect women without calling ’em “bitches” and “hoes.” You can be a killer (on wax, at least) without screaming “Die motherfucker! Die motherfucker! Die!” (which, in German, would translate to “Thee motherfucker! Thee motherfucker! Thee!”) And even if the N-word somehow got “outlawed” and no rapper ever uttered it again, would that really significantly alter the music that’s coming out nowadays? Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I don’t think it would.

But don’t get me wrong here — I commend Chamillionaire for “stepping up to the challenge” and making his upcoming album profanity-free. And I also (reluctantly) commend Master P for doing the same thing, although I have to agree with 50 Cent’s statement that Master P isn’t selling records anymore, and I personally am not buying Master P “taking a stand” against explicit lyrics — if anything, Master P is taking a stand against the fact that no one cares about Master P anymore. All I’m saying here is that there is no “solution” to how to “fix” hip hop — simply put, it is what it is. And if there is a solution, it sure as hell isn’t the removal of three words from all rap records from this point on.

Oh, and Don Imus is a prick, but that should go without saying.

Over at Digg there was a link to a countdown of the Top 20 Nike commercials. Being a big Nike head (and watching way to much TV), I have seen most of them that are from my TV watching lifetime. Check the list here.

Sadly my favorite commercial is omitted. But don’t cry, I got it here for you.

What’s yours?

I was about to turn off the TV last night when something caught my eye. It was the last few minutes of egotrip’s White Rapper Show. I decided to check out the show just because egotrip was handling the show. A little background info, Egotrip is a now-defunct magazine/set of books/TV show maker for VH1. I own all their books (Big Book of Racism & The Book of Rap Lists), I’ve seen all their previous VH1 show specials like race-o-rama, and they made some of the best hip-hop television I’ve have ever watched. If you’ve ever read any of their written product (that written product is what’s hot yo!) you can see the seamless transition from the minds that brought you the magazines/books working to transport their genius to the TV medium. Anyway, back to show, its hosted by MC Serch of 3rd Bass, who is a heavily slept on icon in hip hop (I would consider him as a link to the bridge between Beastie’s and Eminem). Serch really shines on the show, by not putting on some sugar-coated survivor TV reality host shit act. You get to see who the true Serch is, the one you’d be staring down in your A&R meeting. I kind of wish they will incorporate some white rappers outside of Serch into the show to the contestant how it is done. I’m not necessarily talking about Eminem, people like Bubba Sparxxx, Lil Wyte, or even ML favorite Hot Karl would suffice. From what I saw at the end, egotrip’s humorous touches are incorporated into the show, their dedication to hip-hop history isn’t either. I didn’t get to see much of the episode, I hope to catch the rerun, but it looks like the people involved are true hip-hop heads. They have to be, by getting people from Grandmaster Flash to Prince Paul to be a part of the show. As for the contestants they don’t seem too bad, defiantly not some rapping American Idol rejects, I look forward to see how they develop. It airs Monday nights, check out the VH1 site for the show. Maybe I should liveblog/episode recap for this series or something.

As for Tyrese thing I mentioned last week, apparently the whole incident was “distorted”, riiiight.

p.s. I did see the Snoop movie, a post should come soon.

out.