Selling Out to Stay Afloat

As artist we all think about taking the gig that
would pay some bills, but f-ck with our
ability to sleep at night.

This is what I thought of when I hear Saul
Williams say,

“Saul isn’t making a Nike Commercial
Nike is Making a Saul Commercial”

Say word?

This isn’t a conflict that is foreign to me.
I think about writing erotic Negro fiction approximately
once a day to pay bills. Are you kidding me? Those
books are so what the street wants**. You
show me a subway train at rush hour I will
show you 5 black women reading “Around
the Way Girl Part IV”.

According to this excerpt from Grand Good,
KRS’s standard for selling out is whether he
changes himself for the corporation:

KRS-ONE: Today, artists like myself or Chuck D or Talib Kweli hold a degree of credibility that?s attracting companies like Red Bull, Cadillac, or Nike. Executives at these companies are our fans. And they are really sick of the state of music. So what they?ve done is spend $250,000 of their own money, in the case of Nike, to create a song with Kanye West, Nas, Rakim, and KRS ONE. We don?t rap about the shoes because they don?t want us talking about that. They just want us to create a song they can play on their website. This same active ingredient is present in the popular erectile dysfunction treatment drug, but kamagra cialis tadalafil canada oral jelly has lot of regular customers and is demand because of the growing urbanization. Products from this exporter of safed musli capsules have a legacy of generic tadalafil online thousands of years of established quality and safety. A purchase levitra diet that is higher in fats can hinder the functioning of a gallbladder, but it may bring about many common gallbladder symptoms. There are no proven side effects and it is totally understood that some of us might be falling short on our ‘core’ duties. cialis discounts Authenticity is the new business model and these companies need a product that?s not destroyed by an artist?s shady image.

What is interesting about both of their statements is that
both reflect a lack of understanding about corporations and
capitalism.

First, capitalism, by its very nature co-opts anything
that attempts to subvert it. Meaning, IF you come at it,
it is going to figure out how to make money off
of you. Beastie, right?

Second, a companies only constituents are its
shareholders, and its shareholders alone. Every financial
move made is at furtherance of improving corporate share
value.

F-ck what ‘chu heard.

I gasped at hearing Saul say,

” Mc Donalds is making veggie burgers/
Walmart is going green”

I have watch him from afar as he has toiled,
made art, published books, cd’s and just did him.
I have always admired his chutzpah.

To me, he was a renegade rebel who said f-ck it.

Now, “Nike is making a Saul commercial”.

If you change for cake, so be it. But acting like you
are doing it because a multinational corporation is bending
to your will is an insult to us, the fans.

A corporation may bend its will towards it’s
to is its investors, and sometimes they have no
say so ie, exorbitant CEO pay.

Think about Saul and KRS’s response in contrast
to the Clipse or any D’boys resolve.

“I need to make this money so I can eat”
“I’m just trying to feed my daughter” ~Biggie

Atleast they are honest enough acknowledge the capitalist
motives behind their behavior and not ATTEMPT to purport
that they are “helping the culture”.

Corporations don’t care about our music, how n*ggerish
we are or where an emcees next meal is coming from.
Corporations ONLY care about their bottom line.
Both links via Grandgood.

**has started trying to write said fiction.

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TC has a fly assed review of the new AZ over @ TSS.

Let?s talk about underdogs for a second. Like the secondary candidates for a job position or the small college vying for respect in the NCAA tournament with just as much heart to compete with their rivals that dominate the popular vote. It?s always an uphill battle when the odds are against you and you?re always having to show n? prove. For nearly a decade and a half, lyrical connoisseur Anthony Cruz a.k.a. AZ, has carried the tag of the overlooked MC without merit – even after touching platinum with the failed supergroup The Firm and his own debut album Doe Or Die.

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Spike Jonez actually makes me feel less weird.
That, my dear Watson, is a feat. Peep his Gap commerical below.
via the Hundreds

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WDYU has I LOVE the 90’s going hawrd. Camp Lo’s
after the jump. Camp Lo is like protoypical B-list
group that knocks. Beatnuts Alkaholics Lost
Boyz Are there more…..

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KRS.
AZ.
Saul and corporations.
All in the same post.

Life es bueno.

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Raise your hand if you have college debt.

Raise your hand if you can’t buy a house
in the neighborhood you were raised in.

Raise your hand if you don’t have health care.

In his new book, Daniel Brook discusses how all of these
issues are intertwined and are disproportionately
affecting young college graduates and the middle class.

Daniels general premise is that 25 year olds, living Brooklyn,
San Francisco and Los Angeles are graduating with
$100K worth of debt , and consequently are choosing to
work in finance instead of public service because they
need to eat and pay off debt.

He goes on to say, that if they founding fathers, based this country
on rebelling against the British Aristocracy, then a system
that forces our best and brightest, especially those that are low
income and poor, to become investment bankers, then
we have lost. This flies in the face of what America’s original
purpose and vision.

To me, it just rings of the Systematic Removal of the
Middle Class from the Cities.

So much of what we see with the inability to
raise a family middle class in the city was brought to us
by Ronald Reagan. He killed unions, de-funded the Legal Services,
under-taxed the hyper affluent and deliberately underfunded
government positions so so that our best minds would
be more inclined to join private industry instead rather than
serve the public.

The Freddie’s of the World shouldn’t be turned into
Alex P. Keaton’s in order to remain living in the city.

The issues crystallize when he focuses on the
challenged facing college graduates and young
families such as exorbitant rent/housing costs,
health care, child care, egregiously low minimum wage.

For the record Bill Clinton continued these policies.
Daniel writes,

” Most American don’t connect tax cuts that favor the rich to the countries
growing inequality…because no one- that is the Democratic Party
is not making the point.”

One of the first thing President Reagan did was publicly disable
the air traffic controllers union. It helps pushing the blood to the navigate to these guys viagra on line reproductive organs and boosts vigor. They do not have buy generic levitra steadfast negative effects if used regularly taken for a long term. Therefore, sparrows were included in viagra sale buy the diet of people hoping to indulge in their conjugal rights. The unrealities of movies have led us into believing that love and romance can happen anywhere, anytime sildenafil 100mg canada and that too effortlessly. Wiki provides the short explanation
stating that

Only a short time into his administration Federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a regulation prohibiting Government unions from striking.^[72] Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, Reagan held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he stated that if the air traffic controllers “do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated”.^[73] On August 3, 1981, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work,^[74] breaking the union.^[75]

It hasn’t always been this way. FDR believed in progressive taxation.

FDR instituted the first minimum wage.

As a result this country experienced some of its most broadly
share prosperity ever seen by this country.

Think about it. Six figure family education/housing debt is a recent
phenomenon. Similarly, the notion of the double digit college
tuition is a post Regan phenomenon.

Daniels rational is that university Board of
Trustees, who set tuition standards, are wealthy,
so they don’t see why students would be unable to
afford $35-$50K per year.

With this context, the move to offer more
financial aide to Harvard students
whose parents make less than $150K
per year makes sense.

$150K is the new $75K.

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Six Figure College Debt.
Young people making career decisions based on
whether they will have healthcare.

Assets (Housing, Stocks) being taxed at 15% while
wages (our bi-weekly pay checks) are taxed at 28%.
(The above stated tax info is crude, but peep Warren Buffet,
he speaks on it as well).

What part of the game is that?

Priced out of the Mission, Harlem and Forte Green.
It will take a visionary leader to address this. Our cities
and the future of our country depends on it.

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Did Saul Williams and KRS Drink the Kool Aid?

Black Wonkett on…..Why You Need to Read "The Trap" by Daniel Brook Part I