Hip Hop Culture Is LIke A Homeless Emcee

I sort of spontaneously combusted when I discovered D-Nice's blog at the start of the year. He was trotting out these amazing, beautifully composed (i.e. visually) "True Hip Hop Stories"; interviews with hip hop legends that mostly may have fallen off the radar a bit. My initial post had clips from Master Ace and Dana Dane.

I remember feeling some pride thinking I was going to help unleash a beast on to an unsuspecting internet population. I mean it's like a hip hop head's wet dream (next to a film version of "Secret Wars" using real-life rappers as the heroes and villains). And I'm definitely happy to see D's still doing his thing.

But I'm sort of amazed and given pause to see the clips aren't doing bigger numbers. The joint with Buckshot of Black Moon broke into the six figures, but many more are sub-10K. I don't know, I just don't see how it gets anymore hot-like-fire than this. And it is what it is, but gives some perspective on the *hip hop space* and overall bottom-line impact. A few years ago, if in the position, I would have thrown mad bankroll at this thinking we were sitting on a goldmine. Maybe a few years ago with proper packaging, distribution etc, it would have been.

AnyD, here's Special Ed.



Word. But I was refreshed on this series because I saw a clip of a new school dude (via rap radar), and the kicker is he's homeless. The Homeless Emcee. And I've long been a fan of trying to access the homeless sensibility/situation for content. There's comedy, tragedy, drama, human condition. All that and more.

But here's the emcee:



Now that's probably gonna be too dark and gully for most (I had been thinking a lot more sketch comedy, "Pimp My Box" or something). But still. Dude's a thinking man, obviously. And that's the ultimate point. The best "freshest" content accesses how people think in situations we haven't thought about. The triumph of The Sopranos or The Godfather movies is dramatized verisimilitude for italian mafia life. I bet the homeless have enough thinking people, and culture, to support a hit series or two. Unfortunately, he's a rapper not an actor, so he might be able to drop some hot mixtapes, but I don't know if it's gonna get him off the street.