Now, we all know that in this day and age, the internet has completely change the way that we as consumers interact with the music genre. Before the explosion in computing and interconnectivity, we pretty much took what the media companies gave us and that was it. Now we can pick and choose and cast our judgment on an artist almost instantaneously through blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This was given consumers unprecedented power in the marketplace to some extent. Now with this power there has arisen a never before seen class of rapper that owes most of their buzz to the love that consumers have shown them on the internet. Rappers like Charles Hamilton, Wale, Kid Cudi and Drake etc. have mostly had their career fed by the internet community had their mixtape hustle game. This can be seen as either a good thing or not depending on your view of the situation. That is an entirely different discussion in itself.

However, one of the main people I see as being extremely exposed to the whims and hype of the internet community is Drake. Now I cannot front, I did like his mixtapes (Room For Improvement, Comeback Season and So Far Gone). I didn’t like every single song, but I heard promise is the concepts and execution of these mixtapes. I felt that he still had a ways to go, but that he was definitely on the road to being a major player in the music industry. However, as his buzz grew and he started being associated with Young Money an Lil’ Wayne, i could see that the buzz was getting ahead of the actual product. Lil Wayne is already a product of this phenomenon (competent rapper yes, Best Rapper Alive hell no) where people let the hype and other people’s opinion bully them into believing something that is not true. Everyone was knocking themselves (no Jadakiss) out trying to put the maximum praise on damn near every Drake track featuring Lil Wayne once it came out. In my opinion, Drake’s body of work before the Lil Wayne affiliation outshines what he has done since. But the masses are not seeing it. They are attached to the cult of personality that is Lil Wayne and figure that if Drake is attached to this, he can go nowhere but up

This is not a forgone conclusion though. Drake is good, but has no album so already he is wasting the buzz he has garnered so far. (independent albums are such a possibility in the game right no, that with his buzz he should had been had an album out. For advice on that ask Blu) People are fickle and his behind the scenes people are not making the best moves to capitalize on his buzz for the long term (Remember Papoose? exactly…) Now with the recent news of Drake’s signing to Young Money, I think that he is on the beginning of the road to irrelevance. While the mixtape game can sustain a career to some extent (Lil Wayne), it does not work effectively if you are not the main focus of the label you are on (everyone else on Cash Money besides Lil Wayne). You will put out grips of mixtapes but with no album to follow, it is a waste. I have the feeling that this fate might await Drake. Young Money is already a conglomerate of second rate rappers with albums coming out on Nevuary 32. And while people might think that the fact that Drake is better than pretty much everyone on the label will give him priority, you have to remember who the golden child of the whole Cash Money empire is: Lil Wayne. While Wayne may be cosigning Drake and Drake may be arguably better than Wayne (another article for another day), Drake is not overriding Lil Wayne ever. Lil Wayne and Birdman have first priority on that label until the day they decide they never want to rap again. Think its strange that you cannot name one project or artist on Young Money besides Nikki Minaj? (If you can, I commend your grasp of useless information) All those YM artists are on the shelf until the unlikely gap between either a Lil Wayne release or a Birdman frisbee (or Bad Ass Grasshopper’s debut, you never know) This just is not a good look for Drake.

There were some better options out there it seemed that would have fit Drake wayyyy better than the Young Money signing. My partner JJG theorized that Drake could have been going to Roc Nation because of Drake’s rumored feature on Blueprint 3. This would have been a great look for Drake. There would be no congestion for releases since there is only one other artist on Roc Nation as of now, J.Cole. You have the cosign of someone who is inarguably more important than Wayne, Jay-Z. And you have the push that his name will bring in the industry. That would have been a perfect fit for Drake’s emerging career. Now he might have just started his walk into the sunset with this seemingly ill-advised grab at captializing on the buzz right now and not looking toward the future.

-SR (yes, i write articles sometimes too, not just JG!)

Brother Ali

Ali Newman, known better as Brother Ali, is a talented rapper.

Anyone who has heard him rhyme knows that the Minneapolis-based artist really puts his heart and soul into his work, both in terms of effort, and in terms of making it intensely personal and spiritual.

Moving from town to town in the midwest as a young kid, dealing with identity issues as a white albino who identified with and was essentially raised by African -Americans, as well as the normal baggage that comes with trying to make it in the hip-hop industry…Brother Ali has more than enough to talk about, and uses his booming and reverent voice to tell tales and teach lessons.

In an interview with Jesse Thorn of the NPR Radio Show and Podcast “The Sound of Young America,” Brother Ali discusses the aforementioned issues, as well as his own perspectives on hip-hop, music, and life in general.

Alot of insight and knowledge dropped in this one, kids…You can tell how passionate Ali is about his craft. One of RZ’s favorites, no doubt about it.  Download the interview right here:

Brother Ali Interview

Every wondered how these 3 elements could ever possibly be combined into one? Well, our homie Johnathan over at www.headlessgiant.com has done it. Go check it out and leave a comment.

We are backon our twitter grind fam! We trying to get our twitter network up to par, so if you visit our site and have a twitter account, hit us up. We are at twitter.com/RecruitZero. Thanks and hope to get messages from you guys!!

Now I just happened across this really good article on the evolution of the (now-squashed) beef between Nas and Jay-Z. I really liked this article becasue of how it refers back to lyrics from their respective songs that shows how the beef started and built into what we are familiar with. For hip-hop heads and casual rap fans alike, this is a must-read. Props to Kevin Nottingham for the article. Read the article after the jump. Read more

Aight, I know we might be a little late on the scene. But we here to test it out and see whats good with this. Hit us up at www.twitter.com/RecruitZero and build our twitter family! And let us know if you’re on twitter so we can follow your page too, we want to know what’s going on with our fam!

Now as you know me and Julian rep New York all day, even though both of us are currently out of state getting our higher education on. Given that I am exposed to the lackluster service that is the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Association, seeing the MTA step its game even farther out of the reach of other cities puts a smile on my face.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has installed replicas of famous art work in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station. With over 50 pieces installed just walking through the station will give you a nice crash course in at even if you don’t have the time to make it to Manhattan and go to MoMA. If you are in New York for the spring break coming up go check it out for sure.

More heat from our friends to the north. K’Naan is a Somalian-Canadian rapper currently residing in Toronto. As a child, he fled Somalia on the eve of the Somalian Civil War and moved to Harlem and then relocated to Toronto. As an artist his experiences in his early life have definitely influenced his style and content and does it in a very refreshing way. With his fusion of tight delivery and socially conscious themes, K’Naan is onto something, especially with the state of the music industry today.

Check out this track from his new album,Troubadour, “America”.

Read more

K-Os is a rapper out of Toronto, Canada. I had previously heard of him because of his album Atlantis: Hymns for Disco. However, I listened through that album and didn’t really pursue his work any further. But changed a few days ago when I heard the song “4,3,2,1″ which is the single off his new album Yes! due to drop this month. This song for some reason really caught my attention and the music video is a really great concept with amazing execution.

Check the video, let me know what you think.
-SR