As yet another year is poised to go the way of DMX's career (and personal freedom) and Diminutive Dwayne sits comfortably atop the hip-hop throne as the best rapper alive not married to Beyoncé or about to do a stretch for mistaking the ATL suburbs for Fallujah, I—a young, inquisitive, and handsome magazine editor—have been thinking about what exactly the Martian's accomplishment really means.

I was all set to hit you with a hot 16-part blog series on Wayne's inability to correctly complete a simile ("Abra cadabra, I'm up like Viagra/I just do this shit for my click like Adam Sandler") or make anything resembling sense ("Money so old it's growin' white hair/Young Money, baby") and how this is either a side effect of living on a diet rich in sizzurp and cannabis or a revolutionary act of linguistic (t)errorism aimed at lames such as myself who insist on reading things like books and magazines when the educational paradigm has shifted completely to start and stop with YouTube videos and blog posts, but, as an early X-mas present to all y'all, I decided to spare you that. For now.

So back to the point at hand: The Lilliputian's rare double of commercial and critical success—a million in first-week sales and best-of-the-year nods from sources as diverse as New York magazine and your mama—has truly made Wayne an alien in the music world. What sticks out about Wayne's accomplishment is how rare it is in today's game—to get both sales in the stores and plaudits in the press. And, yet, the fact that Wayne's two-headed success is still the exception and not the rule illustrates perfectly hip-hop's inability to deal honestly with how it figures achievement.

What I'm talking about is the way rap has become, and stayed, all about SoundScan numbers, and, more precisely, those for the first week. All we ever hear about is sales sales sales, as if the success of the label's pre-release marketing blitz and the traction of radio singles with Midwestern White sorority girls is what it's all about. Out of the other side of hip-hop's collective maw comes all that talk about niceness, about spittin' how you live it, all that Cornel West-type chuuch-ing about providing a voice for the voiceless, about refusing to be silent or silenced, all that lip-service to uplift and empowerment and repping the hip-hop culture and for us by us and…

Indeed, rap has been having it both ways for quite a while, with its expressed desire for g.o.o.d. music and its bewildering insistence that quantity has something to do with quality. That said, no one can stick to the narrative for too long, because it's not really possible. When you really stop to think about it, all this shouting out of SoundScan numbers makes about as much sense as Baby with a pack of gum in his mouth.
Take, for instance, the case of young civil rights activist Soulja Boy, on the one hand, and, on the other, Killer Mike. All this is fairly obvious, I know, but it still seems worth saying. The reason SB (and Kanye and Wayne and T.I., and whoever else is still caking up in these breadless times) sells is because he appeals to a broader audience than do the Plieses of the world. (Check Plies's first-week numbers Wednesday for confirmation of this fact. My prediction: 724. Note: Not 724K.) The reason Killer's last platter—which had some heads around tha office wanting to horseshoe an XXL-rating wreath around Mike's neck—had all the suction of Superhead with strep throat is because, when you really get down to it, the hip-hop audience as a whole is no more interested in complex, cultivated, or cutting-edge music than is the audience that buys records from four-leaf chancre Nickelback or Billy Cyrus's daughter/penitentiary enticement.
Or, rather, it's that the rap audience, whatever it might say with its jewel-encrusted mouth, tells the true, and different, story of what it wants and needs with its biker-chain, hipster wallet. Although the likes of Jay-Z, Eminem, Kanye, Wayne, T.I., and 50 Cent are indeed hugely talented, high-quality artists, their true genius is their ability to make music that appeals to people who listen to music other than rap. Big SoundScan numbers reveal the breadth of someone's audience, not necessarily the quality of their music. The music may be remarkably good (Wayne, 'Ye, Em, Jay, T.I. [except T.I. vs. Tip, of course]), or it may be laughably bad (Soulja Boy, '90s Puff), but it sells big numbers for the same reason: commercial pop appeal, with the right marketing/imaging/branding push behind it.

Just compare the sales histories and the awareness by the larger, non-rap-head culture of Killer Mike and Mike Jones if you really want to blow your mind. That Killer has more years in the game than MJ has actual brain cells means nothing, in the end, when it comes to record-industry success. And if rap really is just about the by-any-means-necessary, get-rich-or-die-tryin' race to the paper, then how much smarter, really, is Mike, Killer than Mike Jones—or Soulja Boy, for that matter?

Unfortunately, Wayne's amazing year won't make rap fans any more honest about the way they talk about their favorite music; it won't make anyone stop equating big sales numbers with big quality, big achievement, and big success. In fact, it's likely to have the opposite effect. So just remember: Every time you bring up someone's SoundScan figures in an argument over this or that rapper, what you're really doing is laying the groundwork for the next Mike Jones, who, well, might actually be Mike Jones. And if that happens, not even Hova will be able to save your souls.—Devo

http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=32847

As if it's any surprise to folks who really pay attention to rap music, before this culture went completely pop it was sort of a rags to riches experience for people who made it in the music business. Even legendary author Tom Wolfe knows that.

For a guy as knee deep in the entertainment business as I am, I still keep things pretty ground level. So I come in contact with a fair share of street corner CEOs. These are the guys who read some article in XXL or Vibe about how such and such rap CEO (take your pick: Suge Knight, Diddy, Jay-Z, 50, Ted Lucas, J Prince) flipped some street money into an independent record label, which in turn became successful and them yielded them millions. Dudes come out of jail and the first thing they want to do is own a record label. That's just the way it is.

But if you do the knowledge to the music business, you'll know that the business of music has always had some aspect of street corner culture involved in it. This goes all the way back to MCA being tied up with Chicago mob connects, band booking, and things of that nature from the 1920s on. This is a seedy racket, no matter how you cut the cake.

So it was interesting, yesterday, when I was on the line with a rep from Sweetwater. Anybody who buys music gear knows about Sweetwater, they're one of the best companies in the business. They provide more than customer service, those dudes are your friends. (Could be criminals too though, hey ya never know)

Somehow, in the midst of our friendly conversation, we get to talking about fraud. He told me that with gear purchases, most of the incidences of fraud that the company experiences come from the production and DJing world. That people will make huge purchases on big ticket items like MPC 5000's. They'll make the purchase with stolen credit card numbers and then ask for overnight delivery, tell the sales rep that they need it ASAP for a session or something. He said a lot of these people won't have any sales history with Sweetwater (they've got past purchases on file), and so immediately a flag goes up. He indicated to me that there is a LOT of this type of fraud taking place, and the biggest sector, again, is with gear that is used for production and DJing.

Now how we got to this topic, that was from us talking about Sweetwater's marketing and advertising efforts. I basically asked why Sweetwater never advertised in Scratch when the mag existed, and he said because of all this fraud, they're not really sure how much they want to target that audience. I thought that was a decent explanation.

It got me thinking (and as you can see now, writing) about people's goals and aspirations in the music business, and the topic of conversation sort of jibed with Clover Hope's "Why Be A Rapper?" blog post from yesterday. I think on the whole, people look at the music business as as get rich quick scheme, or at the very least a viable business that can be used to "clean" money (see: BMF).

Now that's not to say every street corner hustler with a dollar and a dream is trying to flip stolen credit card numbers into a full-blown production studio. No, a lot of folks are legitimately taking the cash they have stuffed in between a mattress and buying music gear, trying to make something out of nothing. And even if I think on the whole that they're fucking up the game and don't really know how to do business, I've got to applaud their effort.

One could only imagine how well their efforts would go over though, had they invested their hard earned (or stolen) dough in a business that was actually experiencing some growth. Far be it to call the music business a place where people can get rich right now. In fact, if you're thinking about getting into the music business, you might actually want to reconsider, and possibly go back to selling crack or what have you. There is a strong possibility that you might make more money doing that. What with the country in such a depression and all, it's just a matter of time before folks– not just the hood– turn back to that rock to console them. Better yet, if you have a stolen credit card– fuck an MPC– right now you might actually want to just stock up on the essentials, like food.

But in all seriousness, I kinda sorta felt good when he told me that the frauds try to buy MPCs. In my twisted logic, the way I see it, this again reinforces just how popular hip-hop is. People wanna get in so bad that they're committing crimes to make hip-hop. How many people you know slanging rocks for a guitar or drum set? Ok then. I don't know that many folks just getting home from prison and talking about how their guitars going to get them out of their fucked up situation. In fact, it's all the rich suburban kids, who actually have garages, messing with that kinda shit. They've got garages, hip-hop has garageband.

It really just begs the question, this music, how bad do you really want it?

http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=32761

We just featured the Nike Air Max ‘95 - London City Pack and now we wanted to bring to you guys the Nike Air Max ‘95 Manchester which also sport an all black colorway with 3M specifications. The silver designs along the side panels represent the cityscape of Manchester, England. Other features include perforations along the side panels, as well as a visible air sole unit at the heel and front end. These are also part of the Nike City Pack which pays homage to certain well known cities worlwide. pics via JDSports.

http://www.kicksonfire.com/2008/12/02/nike-air-max-95-manchester-city-pack/

As part of the London City Pack Nike is scheduled to release this pair of Nike Air Max 95’s which have been dubbed the Londons. They sport an all black colorway constructed from leather along with 3M materials. They also feature silver streaks that run across the length of the shoe along with gold accents that are overlaying a small bit of London’s map. The inner lining even features the area code for London, England. They are definitely a unique design. pics via JDSports.

http://www.kicksonfire.com/2008/12/02/nike-air-max-95-london-city-pack/