DOD2

After hearing her MTV Unplugged performance, I decided Lauren was on a level most artists many in the music industry can never hope to reach. In fact, many listeners including 50 cent couldn't even understand the depth she was delivering and mistook it for insanity.

 I wonder what happened to Lauren Hill? The last time i saw her, she was performing in Brooklyn at Wingate Park back in 2007.

She was  two hours late, so we suffered through an amateurish performance by kiddy rapper Sean Kingston, sticky heat and government stooges delivering speeches about their gifts to the borough until she finally hit the stage.

When she emerged with a large red leather jacket singing songs no one had heard of everyone seemed confused. Some people stormed off after a few songs, yelling "I want a refund" (this was a free concert), and some stayed until the end. Of the around 12,000 people, my rough estimate would be about 5,000 people stayed long enough to hear elements of her old material mixed in with her new songs. The best of which being Zion where she seemed to calm down and show us a glimpse of her old self.



While I wasn't completely impressed by her last performance, I  am not  ready to write her off either. If there is any hope for the future of our the industry, lets pray she will rediscover herself so we can rediscover her music.

Robin4Hood

Did you happen to catch the Jay Z/Oprah interview?

Click the picture to view the video. 

 I did. As someone below 25, I'm not particularly a huge fan of Oprah, in part, due to her rigid, and in some ways, ignorant views on hip hop. I did however, give her a chance and watch this segment. What I found was a gushing Oprah, and the typical nonchalant Jay Z. She seemed amazingly surprised that he was a nice guy.

Not surprisingly, she asked Jay Z the typical questions such as, what happened with your dad, why is the N word ok to use, and did you do drugs when you were dealing. He seemed to answer each question honestly.

To my dismay the conversation didn't cover the reason many young black men feel they have to deal drugs. They also didn't mention the effect his music has on making drug dealing acceptable to youth. Rather than having constructive dialogue, she chose to state her static position that we shouldn't use nigga because our forefathers suffered severely. An issue hardly relevant to the 5 million Americans who's only source of income is EBT.

This is where the huge disconnect between a woman running a corporate monolith and the hip hop community become most evident, because J is thinking about what he went through, and she is thinking about what we look like. Then again, Jay Z never really makes an effort to say anything socially conscious and if you see Fade to Black,one may find out why. 

In a rare scene inside of Jay-Z's office, he is told repeatedly that he is not that type of rapper. That people don't expect that type of thing from him, only girls, guns, and jewels. Maybe both Jigga and O should step back from their mountains of cash and ask themselves, "Am I helping or hurting"?