KRS-One & Buckshot: Robot [Video]

ILL. Album will be LAVA.

Although I completely understand the annoyance with what some would deem the lack of creativity or originality in the music these days, the oxymoron is that if it wasn’t for the cookie cutter/sheep mentality there would be even more urban brother and sisters (our friends and family members) dead or in jail for lack of a better capitalistic enterprise of which to create viable, legal revenues from. I can recall how the Stop the Violence Movement came after the emergence of continual and senseless black on black on brown violence. The crack epidemic brought about a decimation the hood had never seen before or since. The same hoods many of today’s artist hail from. To make matters worse, even more violence and self-destruction was perpetuated in the hood by the glorification of the so-called gangster rap generation by the same greedy, self-serving media conglomerates that brought about the demise of two of the most influential artists Hip-Hop/Rap had ever created thus far. . I say all that to say this: Each and every one of us has to eat and provide for our families and I’d rather see a cat on stage or video vice an alleyway behind the barrel of a burner trying to come up. We (including myself) put so much emphasis on the who, what, how, and why of another person trying to get out the bucket, yet fail to acknowledge or criticize the cat that put us in the bucket and keeps us there until we all self-destruct. Clear Channel = Cancer in my opinion, but thank god for Kevin and sites like his that give us independent and mainstream alternatives. This art form, this culture is so much bigger than the hype. It is a billion dollar industry. Sadly, like all good things we create, it is no longer controlled or respected by those that wish only to feed off the next mans plate. I end this rant with this thought. FUBU, Sean John, Phat Farm, Ecko, Tupac, BIGGIE, Jay-Z, Rakim, Jay Dee, Primo, Nas, Wu-Tang, Poor Righteous Teachers, Run-DMC, Lauryn Hill, etc. were all inspired and allowed to manifest because of the revolutionary idea that something “different” was what was needed in the sea of similarity. So why keep knocking what might spawn the next great phenom or enterprise from our culture? And why hate another man for trying to eat?

Peace