You know something’s up when the normally calm Internet erupts in threats of violence. That is, threats of violence that might actually come true.
Let me back up for a second.
If you’ve ever worked with me in an office environment, or even had the blessing of sitting next to me in Powell, you know that no work gets done until I pore over the updates at XXL magazine’s Web site, for hip-hop on a higher level, of course. Due to my addiction to this Web site, I’ve become exceedingly familiar with the bloggers, whose output is of surprisingly high quality. The personalities run the gamut from the party-hopping New Yorker Billy X. Sunday, the industry and instrumental dissecting Paul “Gooch” Cantor, the controversy-courting (self) hater and St. Louis resident Byron “Bol” Crawford, and the always-composed vlogger Jay Smooth. However, the atmosphere at the XXLmag.com blogs has been tense as of late, because of the efforts of one blogger and his target: resident rapper conduct-critic Ron Mexico, and Detroit rapper Trick Trick.
For the most part, little skirmishes between uppity rappers and snarky bloggers are nothing new. However, this conflict between Messrs. Mexico and Trick sets itself apart because Trick Trick responded by calling Ron Mexico out by name and explicitly threatening violence against him in an interview with DJBooth.net rather than just recording a vague diss track. The other interesting thing that this way over-the-top feud illuminates is the stratification of music blogs, which I think caused this ridiculous beef in the first place.
Basically Ron Mexico accused Trick Trick of extorting his own Detroit buddy Eminem by exchanging protection for a guest verse on his album. Clearly, Mr. Trick took great offense to this accusation, threatening to bust Ron Mexico’s head open once he saw him. However, aside from Cro-magnon-like threats of head-bussin’, Trick Trick supplied this illuminating quote: “The people who really piss me off the most are bloggers who disrespect artists. … They hide behind that laptop or hide behind that keyboard, say whatever … they want to say.”
I almost lol’d at that last part. God forbid someone should say whatever they want! And on the Internet! Well, I never!
This sort of anti-blogger sentiment has run rampant in the hip-hop community, and it’s always surprised me. You’d think that rappers, especially rappers like Trick Trick, who portray themselves as consummate gangsters, would have or would at least pretend to have thicker skins. Who cares what you say? I’ve got a deal with Interscope and you’ve got a deal with Harris Publishing. But on the other hand, so much of hip-hop posturing is pretending like you won’t ever, ever be criticized.
Although I’m quick to scoff at Trick Trick for basically assaulting bloggers’ right to free speech because it upsets him, he may have a right to be mad, since Ron Mexico’s since-removed posts could be construed as defamation per se, (what up, Prof. Hobbs!), since he basically accuses him of committing a crime, namely extortion. Not like crimes would be defamation for most rappers anyway, since a criminal history is almost a prerequisite for succeeding. If Trick Trick were the boss that most rappers think they are, he would have quietly dropped a lawsuit on Mexico’s head, like Jay-Z would have done in that situation. In every hip-hop conflict, there’s a white tee solution and a button down solution, and the rappers who have become truly successful have left the white tee behind.
But besides the wholly unexpected and ridiculous reaction to Mexico’s posts, the whole fracas made it clear to me that there is a fundamental problem in the stratification of music blogs, and especially in hip-hop blogs.
This whole scuffle between Trick and Mexico never would have happened if the ranks of bloggers weren’t so split between update-based posters and content-based posters.
Most popular music blogs don’t have much in the way of written content, preferring to stay current with constant postings and minimal explanations in writing, as seen in hip-hop tastemaker nahright.com, or in any number of indie music blogs such as Palms Out Sounds, Missingtoof and many more. In contrast, most existing publications prefer content-based blogging, where posts are made at around the rate of five per week and are longer and more essay-like, as seen in the now defunct Status Ain’t Hood at the Village Voice’s Web site, and of course, all of the blogs at XXLmag.com.
Because update-based posters like Eskay at Nahright have taken off so unbelievably, magazines and newspapers’ Web sites have basically given up at trying to directly compete with compiling all new media in a given interest and reposting it. Since just posting new songs and videos is out of the question due to the stiff competition, and newspapers and magazines still want to have online content unique to the Web site, newspaper and magazine Web sites have gone the opposite route, hiring writers with unique voices not to repost news items from around the Internet but to comment on them. I applaud this choice because I often find myself watching a video on Nahright, wishing I knew more about it. In short, sometimes it’s nice to do some good old-fashioned reading for more than one digitized paragraph.
However, because this format of online blogging content is so dependent on the notion of commentary, and because the updates have to be frequent enough for ongoing readers, too often the bloggers are forced into idle speculation and gossip. This is especially true on XXLmag.com, and no more than in the posts of Byron Crawford, who has famously accused multiple rappers and other celebrities of being gay, including Jay-Z, Larry Johnson and Will Smith . In order to compete with daily new music postings at other Web sites, magazine bloggers, like those at XXL, end up writing sensationalistic pieces with little or no merit that are meant to shock people into clicking the link (I know because it’s worked on me). While public figures are subject to such discussion, it ends up being antithetical to what a music blog should be all about.
A music blog should be about music, as simple as that sounds. But some blogs get so bogged down in the controversy, gossip and outrageous conduct that surrounds music (hip-hop in particular) that they often lose sight of the original mission. In-depth music blogs can survive without sounding like loose-lipped hairdressers. For example, ohword.com put together a mammoth post about all of the samples featured on Nas’ “Illmatic.” And out of the goodness of his heart, a few days ago XXL’s own Billy X. Sunday wrote a post about how underrated hip-hop supergroup 213’s album was.
So please, bloggers, let’s try to focus on the music, and rappers, you get free publicity, so relax with the death threats. I mean, I know how cold it can get in the D, Trick, but don’t bust Ronny Mex’s head open. Can’t we all just get along? Because if I have to read about how Diddy is cheating with Cassie one more time, I’m going to burn my Danity Kane albums in protest.
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If you think Trick Trick should calm down then e-mail Ayres at jayres@media.ucla.edu.