In the middle of this older post I link to two other bloggers attacking Sanneh for no apparent reason….
[www.ohword.com]

KS does very good work and I’ve yet to see any of these arguments against him make any sense at all.

Adam Bernard on the other hand wrote this bullshit

[adambernard.blogspot.com]

and as a result was the target of my derision (and it totally went over his head)

[www.ohword.com]

Just be warned, you might get dirty, you’ll have to experience underground Hip-Hop up close and personal.

You may dislike my opinions, but I really do appreciate the fact that you talk about them. I’m not writing to make everyone agree with me, I’m writing to create conversation. Clearly, if you’re, in turn, writing about me my goals are being accomplished. This is why I will continue to thank you even though you don’t understand why.

And Jordan, I totally agree with you on how different publications should cover different things, depending on their audiences. Adam may not think this is important, writing for the illustrious publications that he does, but Sanneh was stretching pretty seriously for the NYT’s audience and I applaud him.

this seems like something more suited for the voice to be honest. maybe im just being an optimist. i think it’s a victory that a rapper like turf talk is getting written up in the new york times!! i can’t really help you if you think it’s a problem.

going back to the Project Pat example, let me tell you about Pat & Three Six Mafia circa, oh, mid-1990′s. Nobody was interested in what they were doing and they were all struggling in relative obscurity in Memphis in what was referred to as an “underground movement”. Today, Dirty South style is the commercial favorite and is very popular. Three Six Mafia are Academy Award winners…..WHAT? Everything runs in cycles.

Considering that the style and content of their raps haven’t changed, you can’t exactly label rappers who managed to have made it out of the underground on their own merits as “sell-outs”.

How deep in it am I… deep enough to have been knowing Stronghold since before any member had any kind of deal (Walz included). I’ve been in the scene since the late 90′s, when KS was still up in Boston.

And the NYT should care about the non-label artists because a lot of them, whether you like their business model or not, are living full time off of their music WITHOUT the indie labels, and WITHOUT the major labels. THEY are the real stories.

My beef with KS is that he has never, and seems to never plan on, being a part of the NYC Hip-Hop scene, and being a writer for an NYC paper (yeah yeah, world paper, yadda yadda, NY is in its name) he should be at least attempting to get to know it.

I am now officially done with this thread because it’s turning into silly personal jabs.

if you’re asking senneh to write about rappers w/ 85 friends that toil away in clubs and on open mic nights then you’re pretty fucking delusional. to be completely honest, why should i care about those people (esp. when you’re writing for something as big as the new york times!!)? the story of someone not making money of rap (or idk making a little $$$ off selling mixtapes out the trunk) and where they are going with their “art” is way more common and way less interesting than someone like turf talk- or artists on koch or koch in general- that have found a way to beat the system so to speak in a genre where indie artists are very rarely rewarded handsomely.

What’s your real issue here, man? Is it that K Sannah wrote about an issue you think is “over?” Or is it that he didn’t write about artists who you think are “underground” enough? If it’s the latter, recognize that nobody cares about the business model of some dude passing out his own flyers.

And when I asked for credentials, I meant how do we know you’re so “deep in NYC’s independent scene,” but now that you mention it, all of those magazines have sucked for a long time now.

I’ve been bitching about this NYT clown for years, though: [adambernard.blogspot.com]

And if you’re truly starved for credentials (which I find kind of laughable since we’re all on the same website here) I’ve written for essentially every major Hip-Hop magazine (The Source, XXL, Vapors, Elemental), I feature an interview with an underground artist on my site every Monday and that site was just named one of the top five music blogs in a Hey! Nielsen / Billboard.com poll.

I’m done now. You may continue your banter.

Also, as someone who traffics in the world music sub-basement of the music industry, I gotta say that 25,000 sales is a figure that some labels would kill for.

It’s all a matter of perspective, people.