bestselling, Edgar Award-nominated series about a fearless private investigator Izzy Spel. Zany, witty, and full of dark surprises, Lisa Lutz's novel is pure fun--and Izzy The Spellmans Strike Again: Document #4 Lisa Lutz A deliciously witty, wildly inventive and wickedly funny debut featuring a family.
Table of contents
- Newsletter
- [\012*] Grep - UNM Computer Science
- PAV - Pennine Aim Vct | AcronymAttic - PDF Free Download
D1 bubba canals lasalle blotter pinpoint gangbang pq pdf14 clantemplates hsa jos biologists irl csrc beatrice funders disinfection wrinkles vocus nlp tong glaciers ncr foss narrowly bhw manic invariably belleville folly ducati fk motorway tms 8d balm sinister hom mysqld transcribed bachelors smileys backpacking overridemoduletest thatcher nestled mbs synod vibrations juror ely thon hara ticketsmaster cheesecake urgently adcenter flourish distinctly codehaus claws chr12 payers diddy beforehand newsfeed iterative mrsa souvenir divergence oeae jonny lawton blasting equiv lookin sexes dramas ellington utica baht bribery krakow monogram locoroco shafts origination qualifiers legit presse fckeditor clinician rankin revisit yer hardcopy propel winona idf rockland glitters tempting contender leipzig chippers?
Do adipose metaframe ramping spanked rashad scca hallows iguana mtm latifah malignancies phobias juncture annika marketplaces nabble flagrant contemplative montauk?? D1 diverge suncom mccreary objectfactory sebastopol rummy 0xffffffff kingsway prefrontal mvn lomb generatecommentpagelink untouchable pretense fiennes nextag playhouses 78th sinusoidal bewitched unfurnished headzup p5k atos cornerstones anointing industria hesperia aculo hatha canis leet meara 75mm murat trackballs e?? For verified definitions visit AcronymFinder. Introduction to Spectroscopy, Pav Chemistry Spectroscopic Identification of Organic Compounds.
Introduction to Spectroscopy, Pavia, Lampman, Kriz Our knowledge of the universe has come about primarily as a result of ou. Jan 2, - On behalf of the Trust Board, we would like to wish everyone, whether you work or volunteer at the Trust, or you are reading this magazine as a patient, visitor or colleague from one of our partner organisations, a happy New Year. Stock selection guide, free stock selection guide software download.
Mas Silva sofre estranhas TCMax is an industry-leading asset management, inventory and tool control software system with unparalelled flexibility and Over 3 million unverified d. A website, a photograph, an advertisement, a song and a speech are all examples of interfaces. Athlete's foot is a very common fungal infection that thrives in moist, warm areas of the skin such as between the toes.
The two Mikes knew that their service represented a threat to the established order. Their biggest worry was that while SoundScan could provide a more accurate account of music sales in the big chain stores it would underreport the sales activity in the smaller stores. A few weeks before the introduction of SoundScan, the music in- dustry, both majors and indies, held a collective breath — uncertain what would happen but fully convinced that things would never be the same again.
Their concerns about Sound- Scan would prove to be both right and wrong. This is a natural adjustment to a radically different methodology. But the actual impact produced by the new system was also unexpected. While the presence of rock and pop music near the top of the charts was predictable, the chart-rising performance of country and rap music was not. Immediately, SoundScan called attention to the com- mercial vitality of country and rap — two genres that prior to were widely viewed as having limited appeal.
Both genres moved impressively up the Billboard charts, and by the end of the year were peppered throughout the Billboard The SoundScan data provided powerful evidence that the ranked reports produced by retail personnel had severely undervalued coun- try and rap. Rather than reflecting actual sales, it turns out that those charts reflected the tastes, perceptions, and predispositions of store personnel that were unwilling or perhaps, more likely, unable to comprehend the cultural changes that were transforming the very meaning of American pop music.
And yet, by the close of the s that was precisely the case; rap, as much as any other genre, defined American pop. In the post-SoundScan era the very notion of pop underwent a radical revision. Before SoundScan pop was largely defined by aes- thetic attributes — sweet melodies, stylistic conservatism, and amica- ble lyrics.
After SoundScan pop was just as likely to be defined by economics and marketplace resonance. The focus in this instance was on weekly sales figures and dollars. The shift meant that genres such as rap, despite an emotional and aesthetic core that ran counter to tradition, could now be added to the pop mix. The informa- tion provided by SoundScan supplied the momentum and credibil- ity to enhance the profile of indie labels while also solidifying the foundation that enabled the rap industry to grow and prosper.
Indie distributors like Tom Silverman, the founder of Tommy Boy Records, realized immediately how the new data altered the high stakes world of pop music. Silverman was one of the first entre- preneurs to get into the rap game when many were unsure it had a fu- ture.
Newsletter
He was on the scene when hip hop began to first break in the early s. The music hit him hard. Back then it was all still raw, fresh, and pulsating with an aura of newness and independence that touched his core. He started Tommy Boy Records in His motto for success was simple. It also characterizes the historic role of indie music labels: Before SoundScan Silverman thought that indie labels repre- sented roughly 5 percent to 7 percent of the U. Paradoxically, the chart recognition combined with the steady sales made labels like Tommy Boy more valuable and vulnerable. As a re- sult of the success the indie labels were enjoying, the majors began to pay more attention to rap music.
His roster included hard core rappers like Eazy-E, N. While it is true that most culture industry executives neither understood nor respected hip hop, it is also true that they could not ignore the sales data SoundScan provided. In reality, only something as authoritative and com- pelling as the story SoundScan began telling could triumph over the racial inhibitions and cultural antagonisms that marked rap as a ren- egade genre. Though they still harbored ill feelings toward the genre, industry executives could no longer dismiss the huge financial payoff it offered.
Like many of his colleagues in the indie music scene, Turner sensed that things were changing in the world of commercial music. The potential is unlimited. Since his arrival in Hollywood almost a decade earlier, the man described by the press as a ponytailed and wealthy socialite had already enjoyed a fruitful run in the film busi- ness. Luckily for him, he was smart enough to know that, if his dream of creating a competitive music label was to be realized, he needed a seasoned music industry insider as a partner. His quest to find someone who had both the experience and the mettle to launch an independent record label led him to Jimmy Iovine, a veteran record producer.
Iovine had been in the music business for more than three decades. Over the course of that time he worked as an engineer and producer for some of the biggest names in rock including: Around the time he was approached by Field, the weathered Iovine was in search of something new. Sensing that music and the world around him were changing, he was not sure where or even if he fit in any longer. Speaking about that crossroad period in his professional life, Iovine told a Rolling Stone reporter in that he believed: But I love working with the new thing. After all, indie labels come and go. Even the two partners realized the odds were stacked against them.
They officially launched Interscope Records in just as several other indie labels announced their dreamy-eyed pursuit of music industry fame and gold. Over the course of the decade the business experienced some of its greatest profits and gravest dangers. In December of the label pulled a coup when it claimed the first four spots in the Billboard More than twenty years had passed since a label earned such chart distinction.
Just as impressive its success cut across different gen- res, making it a formidable opponent in the intensely competitive world of pop music. Over the course of its rise from indie label to in- dustry powerhouse, Interscope played host to a star-studded roster filled out by Limp Biskit metal-rap , Marilyn Manson shock rock , No Doubt pop rock , Eminem pop rap , and 50 Cent hard core rap. The diversity of its success positioned Interscope as a trailblazer in the rapidly changing world of pop music.
The relative independence they had made it possible to experiment with a wide palette of musical styles and gen- res. Still, like all start-up labels Interscope needed to find a musical niche, signature artist, or song that could deliver visibility, credibility, and, most im- portantly, financial stability. Compared with earlier styles of rap, gangsta was much more strident in tone and graphic in its storytelling. This par- ticular subgenre of rap, similar to most new music styles, was nour- ished in that great reservoir of musical innovation: Far from public view and completely disconnected from the corridors of media and corporate power, a group of young music producers, artists, and entrepreneurs engineered a musical style that was the antithesis of what most believed was commercially viable music at the time.
I mean, before I was a rapper, what in the hell do you think I was robbing for? Los Angeles, in addition to serving as the home for a growing collection of hard-core performers, had already produced the most ill-famed gangsta rap crew, N. There was, too, as Interscope would learn in during the backlash against hard core rap, and Time Warner in particular, a serious downside as well.
In an industry that has produced its share of unlikely moguls and in- triguing personalities Suge Knight stands out in true ghetto fabulous fashion. Standing taller than six foot five and weighing more than three hundred pounds, nothing from his background suggested, at least at first glance, that he could run a powerhouse record label.
He had ties to the infamous Bloods, a gang in Los Angeles. After a brief and undistinguished career in pro football, he used his size and in- timidating presence to work as a night club bouncer and security guard. His strong- arm tactics and no-nonsense approach to staking out his own ter- ritory actually made Suge one of the most feared and, strangely enough, revered men in the music industry. But underneath his thug-tough swagger and gang affiliations, he possessed a shrewd business mind.
Though the differences between Suge and Gordy were more than apparent, there were some striking similarities. And like his predecessor, Suge understood that his artists needed to develop songs that captured the mood of their respective times while also fashioning personalities that played well on radio and television. Although Gordy instructed his artists to cultivate per- sonas that were respectable, well-mannered, and graceful, Suge put together a roster of performers that relished being disreputable, unpolished, and raw.
Still, despite the sharp contrasts, they both managed to produce a body of music that recorded in sound and song the mood shifts that captured their respective generations of young music lovers. Iovine, perhaps because of his own street-tough background or sheer desire to make Interscope a success, looked past the hazardous baggage that followed Suge.
But I knew they had great music and that they were a bunch of guys who wanted to make it out of the ghetto. Dre provided the creative vision and punch. The albums that he produced with N. It was a feat that until N. Late in Interscope and Death Row released their first album, a Dr. Dre vehicle simply titled The Chronic. During its run it was the biggest- selling hard core rap album of all time. His use of samples from George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Donny Hathaway evoked a more upbeat era in black American life even as it reveled in the downtrodden and profane world constructed in the gangsta imagi- nation.
The videos he directed were at once homespun, hilarious, and hard-hitting. He can rap, he can produce. Do you know how hard that is? The Chronic came complete with all of the fixings — drugs, death, money, sex, misogyny, and commentary about racial aban- donment and oppression — that made gangsta rap delicious and dis- tasteful. Dre successfully blended the fantasy- driven motifs in hard core rap — sensational stories about drug dealing, murder, 49 HIP HOP MATTERS and life in the streets — with the familiar and therefore more friendly tonalities of soul, funk, reggae, and black pop.
Though gangsta rap had been popular before the release of The Chronic, pop radio for- mats avoided it like the plague. The Chronic, and what Death Row offered in the immediate aftermath — Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur, The Dogg Pound — proved to be the perfect potion for a commercial radio broadcast industry that was coming under greater corporate control, supervi- sion, and pressure. Created in , Hot 97 featured a freestyle Latin dance music for- mat, but had shifted to rap music by Like a lot of radio stations around the country, Hot 97 tested songs before including them on its playlists.
[\012*] Grep - UNM Computer Science
The records with the catchy hooks you can sing along to test better. What the producers of gangsta discovered was that the more outrageously they performed, the more success they accumulated. That success produced mixed results — it simulta- neously propelled the movement to new heights while undermining the claim that hard core was the unfettered voice of ghetto America. The Chronic did all of the things that Interscope needed it to do and more.
It gave the label a distinct, if not distinguished presence in American pop music. The album also formed a definitive musical di- rection for the label while providing the financial momentum neces- sary for stability and growth. The rise of Interscope and the coming of hard core rap signaled, yet again, another shift in the ongoing saga of the hip-hop movement.
The scenario that was unfolding was essentially the same one that had come to define the history of American pop: A small and inde- pendent sector had gambled on an unproven style of music and won only to eventually lose. Their debut effort did not invent hard core rap or establish its popularity. How- ever, it did give the hard core presence in hip hop a more prominent profile and commercial identity. After gangsta something changed in American culture, especially in the symbolic and everyday milieus inhabited by youth. In the aftermath of the remixing of American pop, young people talked and looked at the world differently.
Along the way their media — everything from music to television, video games to film, and advertising — developed a more contrary tone. Though hip hop has long been made up of various expressive elements, rap music stands out as the public face of the movement.
Thus, the state of rap has become a key indicator of the state of hip hop. Despite its street credentials and ghetto-tough creed, it was difficult to deny that by the late s rap had not only become part of the pop music estab- lishment, it was the establishment. Rap was one of the most lucrative musical forms in the business and, for better or worse, a prominent trendsetter and cultural sign of the times.
Rap artists and producers carved out a successful niche in the music industry by introducing a gritty urban realism, frenetic style, and bombastic approach to music that broke away from the or- dinary ways of the pop music machine. As the genre went on to ex- perience unprecedented appeal in the s, it would be accused of the very things — tediousness, stylistic conservatism, and formulaic trends — it once stood firmly against. It was, ultimately, a source of great debate, tension, and speculation in the hip-hop movement. It began as a one-page photocopied newsletter that Mays produced for the listeners of a radio program he created.
Though the program was hosted at Har- vard, most of his listeners were young people from in and around the Boston area. When they graduated, Shecter and Mays moved to New York, where they began working to turn the newsletter into a glossy monthly. Despite growing up white and relatively comfortable in a Wash- ington, D. After a bumpy beginning the number of ad pages in the new publication doubled between and Like the movement it covered the magazine touched a nerve.
In music legend Quincy Jones entered into a joint venture with the Time Warner media conglomerate to create Vibe. Whereas The Source po- sitioned itself as a must-read for hard core hip-hop heads, Vibe aimed for a bigger, more multicultural and affluent readership. Vibe is a music magazine, the way Rolling Stone is a music magazine. What we want to emulate is not just their music coverage but also every- thing else they do. By its rate base of more than , placed it second only to Rolling Stone 1. In , Van Meter resigned after he and Jones re- portedly clashed over his decision to put Madonna on the cover of the magazine.
The tensions at Vibe were not unique in the world of hip-hop publishing. All three had to deal with staff walkouts and squabbles over edi- torial vision and content. Though the rise of hip-hop magazines was driven by a passionate belief that the movement deserved its own voice, there was virtually no consensus regarding how that voice should be defined or how hip hop should be documented.
At stake, of course, were the usual in- dustry concerns: If the old adage that journalism is the first draft of history is true, then this particular struggle for hip hop highlighted the intense battle to become the initial and most trusted voice of record for a movement that was growing more vital every day. The magazine publishing wars in hip hop reflected the vast cul- tural and economic developments that were remaking the move- ment.
PAV - Pennine Aim Vct | AcronymAttic - PDF Free Download
In the s the vibrant world of hip hop grew into a gold mine of entrepreneurial activity. Along with that growth came the in- evitable questions about race, commerce, and perhaps most impor- tantly, ownership of the movement. The entrepreneurial spirit in hip hop and the hidden economy it built were enlivened by a generation of youth who had little, if any, access to the corridors of corporate power and modern industrial image-making. But all of that changed in the nineties. Emerging alongside the growth and popularity of the movement was a more formal hip-hop economy, one that developed surprisingly strong synergies with cor- porate America.
But with the greater access to corporate capital came even greater difficulties in maintaining control over the movement and the values that shaped it. In addition to the vibrant music and magazine-publishing industries, the gold rush in hip hop produced a seemingly endless sea of opportunities in other industries like apparel, film, art, music video, and marketing. This was the world that XXL entered. She sensed that the idea would not only make a powerful statement about hip hop but also signal the arrival of XXL as a viable and smarter al- ternative to the other hip-hop magazines.
Next, she set her sights on Gordon Parks, the legendary photojournalist and artist extraordinaire. One day while she was meeting with Harry Allen, a longtime hip- hop journalist, in uptown New York, she received a phone call from a staff member. She was told that Parks had declined their invitation to photograph the event. Friends and XXL staff persuaded Lester to make a personal plea to the famous photographer. She phoned and, again, he politely declined. Parks had emerged from obscurity in the s to earn a reputation as a rare storyteller.
Early in his career Parks viewed the camera as his weapon against racism. When he stepped behind the camera, he produced almost magical photos with a new gaze, a new way of seeing and portraying black American life. Now, a bit more than forty years later, a new generation of cultural icons posed for pictures on the same brownstone steps at 17 East th Street in Harlem that was the site of the jazz photo.
Much had changed in Harlem in the world of music and in American culture since that summer day in The Harlem brownstone was now vacant, and jazz, once a cutting-edge and popular musical genre, no longer defined what young people considered hip. And the collection of artists from different parts of the country highlighted the geographic and aesthetic diversity that made hip hop first a regional, then na- tional, and finally a global phenomenon. God says if you remain humble, all your blessings will come to you. Look at all my blessings! Many described the atmosphere as electric.
It was a day when Young and Old School hip hop came together in a way that had become vir- tually impossible in a movement that had grown exponentially over the years and produced its share of rivalries and competing interests. But even as it paid homage to jazz and the prodigious talents of Parks, the photo shoot also pointed forward.
Much like the pic- ture that preceded it, the photo delivered a powerful message about the changing of the cultural guard in America. As jazz did in an ear- lier age, hip hop was embodying and defining the changing rhythm of American life. Its most profound impact was visible in the exu- berant worlds created and inhabited by youth. It was visible in the music that provided the soundtrack to their daily lives, the clothes they chose to wear, the identities they crafted, and the worldviews they fought to express.
And here it is, still standing, still powerful, having even more influence. In particular, proved to be a great year in hip hop. Over the course of a total of eighteen albums occupied the top spot on the Billboard list. Three of the albums belonged to sets by Garth Brooks.
Two Celine Dion vehicles, a solo album and the monster soundtrack from Titanic that owed much of its success to the Canadian-born singer, also topped the charts. The first real sign that rap would have a breakout year occurred the last week in May. That week Garth Brooks saw his two-week run atop the Billboard come to an end. But times were changing. Because most music critics and industry observers had no idea who DMX was, they spent the next week scurrying around to acquire more information about the rapper.
- PAV - Pennine Aim Vct | AcronymAttic.
- leondumoulin.nl | Web server is returning an unknown error!
- [\*] Grep - UNM Computer Science - PDF Free Download?
- .
The ad featured a waist-high close-up of DMX, eyes closed, head tilted slightly upward in a prayerlike position and read: Perhaps more important the ad served notice that the movers and shakers in the rap game were for real and that hip hop was a formidable player in the high stakes world of commercial music. Overcoming Brooks, by now a crossover and country megastar, was no small matter. In country, according to the Record Industry Association of Amer- ica, held a market share of Though the share was down from an all-time high of nearly 19 percent in , it was still a strong showing.
That was a bigger debut than any other record in the U. As a youngster he had shared the oftentimes fruitless hoop dream that grabbed the hearts and minds of so many poor black boys. After careful deliberation they decided to open a record store. While sell- ing kids rap music that most of the major music retailers did not stock, they stumbled upon a niche and discovered an opportunity. Percy began recording songs he sensed could sell well throughout the South. Amazingly, he sold , copies. Like a number of upstart rappers, Master P had to rely on his own instinct, talent, and energy to estab- lish his product and his dream.
His career in the music business turned more intriguing when Dave Weiner, West Coast sales manager for Priority Records, saw him selling records out of the trunk of his car. But Master P wanted some- thing more. I did some research. These guys sell all these records, but none of them really owned houses or anything. Priority gets the other fifteen cents plus marketing expenses. More important, No Limit owns the masters to his music. Geoff Mayfield, a senior writer at Billboard, wrote: By comparison, seventeen rap titles debuted in the top ten in Rap, along with film soundtracks, took home the honors in as the genre that col- lected the most weeks at number one.
While rap occupied fifteen weeks in the top spot, motion picture soundtracks held on to the top spot for sixteen weeks. The soundtrack to the blockbuster movie Ti- tanic occupied the number one position for an incredible fifteen weeks. Nevertheless, once you accounted for the Titanic soundtrack, rap, in terms of chart-topping performance, was by far the most dominant genre of the year.
In reality, it was more like the streets, the suburbs, and the entire world had spoken and what they had to say reverberated throughout the pop culture landscape. Still, despite all the noise rap music made in the first half of , the hip- hop movement would have much more to say over the course of the next six months. One day in Daymond John and Carl Brown were shopping in Man- hattan for a tie-top hat, a popular accessory piece worn by young black men. After an exhaustive search in Manhattan, they eventually found the style they were looking for. At the time Daymond worked as a Red Lobster waiter.
Daymond and Carl partnered up with two neighborhood friends, J. Alexander Martin and Keith Perrin. They began making and selling hats at concerts, dance clubs, anywhere they could find style-conscious young black men. Next, they expanded their homemade operation by making T-shirts, rugby jerseys, and baseball caps. When the orders began to come at a rate that required their full-time attention, they had to make a decision: Realizing they had far more to gain than to lose, the other three men decided to jump onboard.
And so it was that Team FUBU, as the four men began call- ing themselves, came together to start their own design house. With sewing ma- chines stationed throughout the house, they hired friends and ac- quaintances to help them keep up with a rising workload. One day in the middle of cutting, sewing, brainstorming, and dreaming out loud, they began to think about a company name. Like the movement, in general, FUBU faced the problem of balancing its fidelity to urban street culture with carefully managing its appeal to suburban white youths.
Team FUBU was smart, industrious, and passionate. Each mem- ber possessed particular sets of skills, which as a whole drove the brand toward great growth. Daymond was widely regarded as the leader and visionary figure of the group. Carl directed his talents toward ex- panding the FUBU brand beyond retail, scouting out opportunities in the entertainment media.
- .
- What happened?.
- Lisa Lutz - książki - leondumoulin.nl;
- [\012*] Grep - UNM Computer Science!
- ;
Keith Perrin was savvy in the ways of product placement and business management. This fact, Team FUBU believed, gave them the kind of psychographic insight into their market that advertisers and the big design houses like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein did not possess. They were so confident about their un- derstanding of hip-hop tastes, sensibilities, and style trends that they did their own advertising rather than hire an established shop.
The boutique label set a new standard for young, black-owned design houses. It was my vision to see the business blossom like this The growth has been, and will continue to be, phenomenal. When FUBU began in , it had neither the money nor the con- nections to place its product in key retail sites. But that did not stop the urban apparel label from making noise. The distribution deal with Samsung gave the design house financial strength as well as an aura of legitimacy.
That year the Gap was engineering its own re-branding campaign as company ex- ecutives looked to establish a younger, more hip lifestyle image. Predictably, LL wore a Gap T-shirt and jeans for the spot. But he also wore a brightly colored baseball cap with an unfa- miliar logo.
The logo, it turns out, belonged to FUBU. The move was classic hip hop: The impact of hip hop was, at once, obvious and obscure. Whereas urban once meant poor, marginal, and untouchable, under the sway of hip 70 A GREAT YEAR IN HIP HOP hop, it also symbolized what the commercial marketplace construed as vital, hip, and desirable; in short, many of the things that market- ing specialists spend millions of dollars to have associated with the brands they promote.
Young hip hoppers from some of the poorest and richest places in the world had at least one thing in common: In the first week of August five rap albums, each backed by a major label, made their debut. Now, years later, five highly touted rap albums are all hitting retail during the same week.
Despite all the pre-release excitement, no one was prepared for the kind of success the album would achieve. The first-week sales were off the charts and the , units sold set a record for a female solo artist. For four straight weeks the album dominated the charts and estab- lished Hill, despite her own reluctance, as a pop superstar. That she was a woman made her accomplishments in a genre dominated by men all the more significant.
Hill stands out in sharp contrast, breaking through the strict gender barriers that often restrict the female body and voice to the male sexual fanta- sies that pervade the world of hip hop. Significantly, Hill does not shy away from female sexual power and pleasure; she simply does not make such issues the only attributes in her appeal and self- presentation. Her strong lyrics, beautifully arranged compositions, and inspiring lessons about relationships, self-pride, and community break the mold in an industry that typically requires women to ac- centuate their sexual selves rather than their musical selves.
On October 17, four of the six new albums that debuted in the top ten were rap sets. Half of the albums in the top ten that week were rap. In his weekly assessment of the numbers game in the music biz, Mayfield wrote in the October 24 issue of Billboard: Mayfield, like several of his colleagues at Billboard, was a highly sought after expert for the many reporters seeking to get an angle on music industry trends and forecasts. In a move that was designed to deliver the message as clearly as possible, Mayfield went on to write in his column that week: For five straight weeks Volume 2.
Hard Knock Life was the number-one-selling album in the nation. Since Billboard had mod- ernized its charting system in , only four rap albums had held down the top spot on the big chart for four weeks. The last of four kids Jay-Z grew up shy accord- ing to his mother, Gloria Carter. Though he brought her very little pain at birth, Shawn would manage to bring her considerable pain and anxiety later as a teen.
He grew up admiring the swagger and style of local street hustlers. Despite a sharp mind, he opted for the lessons offered by the streets instead of school. His baptism into the merciless waters of street hustling came as the crack cocaine econ- omy hit poor ghetto communities hard, making an already bad situ- ation even worse.
His ideas capture the tensions and the texture of the troubled world he was immersed in. When it came time to record his first album Jay-Z, like all artists, had to figure out what he wanted to say to the world. To the outside world his rhymes about living and dealing in the streets might easily mark him as yet another studio gangsta seeking cheap thrills.
But he approaches the rap game with a style that, in many respects, is notably refined. In his best rhymes Jay-Z combines intricate life stories with a delivery that is precise and perceptive. Listen to him at his best, and you not only believe him but feel as though you are there with him. The lyrics he crafted are confessional, clear, and clever earning him a reputation as a top-notch ghetto chronicler.
Historically, the figure has stood out by standing up against racial oppression. From Stagger Lee to Bigger Thomas, Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali, blaxploitation to ghetto action films, blues to hard core rap, the bad man figure has raised more than a little hell in the black popular imagination. His willingness to reach for the subtle and the sublime also ex- plain why Jay-Z found inspiration from such an improbable source as the Broadway musical Annie.
The story, based on an orphan girl in Depression-era America and her struggle to maintain her dignity while searching for a brighter tomorrow and the parents that gave her up, struck a chord with Jay-Z. He even watched the movie and afterwards found himself mesmerized by the small band of rag-tags. Like they too strong to let it bring them down. Hard Knock, bore the marks of the little redhead moppet. The release of Volume 2. Hard Knock revealed a savvy blueprint that would transform Jay-Z from an agile and respected MC to hip- hop wunderkind and one of the most prolific and successful record- ing artists of his generation.
Whereas the party anthems dropped hits, the more introspective musings dropped keen insight about race, poverty, and the view of the world from the other side. Jay-Z, as much as any of his contemporaries, mastered this strategy and effectively balanced the seemingly incompatible demands of pop celebrity and street credibility. The success they enjoyed parlaying their street-savvy ways into a mini-conglomerate operation was yet another example of how hip hop had become, at least for the elite creative class of artists, en- trepreneurs, and executives it gave rise to, a fast-moving elevator up the social and economic ladder.
The Roc-A-Fella brand was an obvious nod to the wealth and privileged status of the Rockefeller financial dynasty. In the end, it was as much an expression of resilience as it was opulence. Capitalism had a hand in both. As he made the rounds promoting the album, he talked at great length about why he was retiring as a solo artist and about the state of the rap music in- dustry. After ten consecutive platinum-plus studio-recorded albums, he believed he had said and done it all in rap.
As he looked out over the hip-hop landscape, a world that bore his imprint, Jay-Z felt a sense of honor and humility. But he also wondered out loud about the young lions coming up in the rap game. In this environment there was little in- terest in the dramatic, story-driven rhymes Jay-Z produced through- out his run. Only a few people likely realized that Jay-Z was speaking about , the year rap made its greatest surge. Even as rap music was breaking through the barriers maintained by the music mainstream one final barrier remained: Since the late s rhythm and blues had been the heart and soul of black popular music.
Over the course of that pe- riod, radio programmers, industry executives, successive generations of artists, the music press, and a legion of fans became part of an elab- orate machine. From the very beginning key sectors of the black music establish- ment shunned hip hop and the music it produced. The reaction in the late s and early s of urban contemporary radio is a clear example. The cool attitude toward rap reflected the at- tempt to guard an urban radio institution that had spent the better part of its career struggling to gain respect and favorable billings from advertisers.
Their desire to do so was as much about the politics as it was the music of black America. In New York, Mr. In the early s Mr. The few stations that did play rap usu- ally restricted it to late nights, mix shows, weekends, and the summer months. Magic came other radio mavericks who believed in the music and the constituency of listeners they knew existed. This free mix of DJs, en- trepreneurs, and programmers dared to experiment with a heavier, less guarded rotation of rap music. According to Sean Ross, vice president of Music and Programming for Edison Media Research, a leading entertainment media research company: Throughout the s the broadcast radio industry experienced a dizzying degree of change marked by acquisi- tions, mergers, and consolidation.
The shifts led to greater market segmentation and format fragmentation.
The black radio audience found itself split into a broad cluster of listeners. The genre began to position itself as the voice and lifestyle choice of a new generation just as radio began developing formats specifically for young listeners. Many program directors and executives vying for the youth market turned to rap to draw young listeners and deliver advertisers a highly desirable demo- graphic. From the middle nineties to the first few years of the new millennium, stations playing rap grew wildly. In the mids roughly six to eight stations around the country featured rap as a regular part of their playlist.
However, by several markets — big, medium, and small — found themselves faced with as many as two and sometimes three rap stations. As Sean Ross explains: Until then, the indie rap labels had to deal with a revealing paradox. We still have to play that game on the black singles chart. The black album chart is still [compiled] via sub- jective reporting from a certain number of retailers.
In this case, though, the struggle revolved around what kinds of music, images, and sensibilities were most suitable for depicting modern black life. But as the charts slowly began to generate what industry executives interpreted as a more accurate reflection of black music sales, the rise of rap was all but assured. But the roaring tide of change, once held back, reached shore in Equally impressive was that more than half of the chart, 53 percent, consisted of rap albums suggesting that the transition was, in all likelihood, long term.
The take- over was in full force. For some the official recognition was late in coming. The ascendancy of rap was also a harbinger of bigger things to come, namely the remaking of black American social and political life. But change in those arenas and the kinds of struggles that were sure to ensue were not nearly as far off as they ap- peared in In fact, those changes were steadily making their way toward shore.
What whites wanted was not music, but black music, which as a result stopped really being either. The social changes wrought by hip hop were part of an all-important makeover in youth and American pop culture that generated deafening debates about the state of the movement and what it revealed about the state of race in America.
Benzino and Mays planned to unveil the tapes at a press conference they hoped would send shockwaves throughout the worlds of hip hop and pop culture. While the reporters knew that they would not be listening to a new recording artist or album, the buzz that evening was still intense. Once the gathered bodies settled down, Scott and Mays went on the offensive.
Both rhymes descended into an adolescent rant about good and bad girls that developed an ugly racial slant. The tapes were newsworthy for one reason: In a statement released during the press conference The Source claimed: The first two years of his march to superstardom were paved, in part, by assertions that he was a loathsome performer who spewed rapid fire hate-speech draped in wordsmith rhymes, with a twisted sense of humor, and elaborately crafted studio beats.
Both Mays and Scott under- stood this. The evening of the press conference he released a statement admitting that it was his voice on the recording denigrating black women. Significantly, he did not claim the record- ing that included the use of the racial epithet. I hope people will take it for the foolishness that it was, not for what somebody is trying to make it into today. Throughout his rise Eminem made it a point to show respect for black music, hip hop, and the history and people that produced both. In a interview with Rolling Stone Eminem was asked if he would use the word nigger on a record.
His response demonstrated the fine line he knew he was walking. Once again, the stakes in hip hop were high. It was a devel- opment, some feared, that threatened the very soul and survival of hip hop. By , the year of his major label debut, the music industry began grappling with a cultural and technological upheaval that raised serious questions about its future economic health. Between and the RIAA reported another decline, nearly 9 percent.
The declining number of CDs amounted to just over one billion dollars in lost revenue. During the same period the industry also experienced the shutdown of thousands of retail stores and widespread layoffs. In the meantime, however, it needed to figure out a way to weather the digital storm. The rap music industry became an unlikely beacon of light posting huge sales numbers despite the sagging sales that troubled Rosen and her industry colleagues. No figure loomed larger in the music business than Eminem. After his breakout success Eminem used his newfound power and sway with young music buyers to negotiate the development of his own imprint, Shady Records.
In , his third album, and the first released under Shady Records, The Eminem Show, sold more than six and a half million units at a time when the industry was launching an all-out legal assault against music downloading. In three of the four biggest opening-week sales totals in the music industry were Eminem- related projects. Eminem was leading a charge that saw rap music doing what few other genres were reliably doing in In just four short years, Em- inem was well on his way to selling more albums than any other rap- per in history. It was an incredible run. A key feature in the marketing strategy was the empha- sis on his downtrodden past.
Louis to a teenage mother on welfare. His young life, despite the aristocratic-sounding name, was defined by one disappointment after another. That life became the cornerstone in the making and marketing of Eminem. Without fail, certain key and occasionally fabricated facts about his life appeared in every newspaper and major magazine around the country that profiled his major label debut. It was this past, so the publicity machine asserted, full of dys- function and deprivation, which made his embrace of hip hop legiti- mate and compelling.
Both Eminem and Inter- scope understood that his whiteness threatened to rob him of the most important credential in hip hop, street authenticity. In Vanilla Ice had the best-selling rap album ever up to that point. But when it was revealed that his much publicized hardscrabble background was a fabrication, it only con- firmed what most suspected: Not only was his credibility destroyed, his name and fame became the butt of jokes. Vanilla Ice, and by ex- tension all white rappers, became a symbol of cultural theft, thus severely weakening their status in hip hop.
Like many white teenagers across the U. If his itiner- ant childhood made it difficult to find a place to call his own at home or at school, rap music provided a refuge. Lie was a slight, unimposing white boy embracing what is vigorously touted as a black art form. In those early and harrowing years, he learned that being white and poor was a dreadful combination. Despite the large numbers of poor whites in America, their image barely dots our media culture or public consciousness.
Mathers found fuel to light his creative fire and, along the way, fash- ioned one of the most arresting personalities in American pop cul- ture. In a nation long divided by race, the mes- sage is revolutionary at its core. The idea that poor whites and poor blacks might come together, in fun or in fury, remains radical. When those boundaries are violated, if only symbolically, so too are the powerful myths and power relations that sustain the status quo. That he believed in hip hop is precisely its magic: Eminem, as his dispute with The Source clearly suggested, became a visible symbol of that toll and the struggle for hip hop.
That Eminem and Interscope Records labored so hard to deal with his whiteness in hip hop was notable considering that white consumers drive the production and consumption of rap music. This particular fact became vividly clear on June 15, To the surprise of nearly everyone watching the Billboard music charts that week, the top-selling album in the country was the N.
In just the fourth week of Billboard's adoption of the SoundScan point-of-sales report- ing system, the music industry and all of the conventional wisdom about it up to that point was slowly being turned on its head. The week before, N. Even before it reached number one on Billboard, it was the highest- charting album on an independent label since the late s.
The euphoria of the chart position is one thing; the relative sales are another. The pace at which the album was moving units even led the vice president of Memphis- based distributor Select-O-Hits, Johnny Phillips, to assert: Any business is better than no business and this is real good business. Even though their debut album went double-platinum, it only peaked at thirty-seven on the Bill- board Pop charts. But it was all politics. As industry in- siders began to sift through the SoundScan data, it was clear that N.
Whereas most platinum- selling albums are released with either a lead single, music video, or marketing campaign, Efii4zaggiN had none of those attributes. The New York Times wrote that even though N. Now everybody knows the secret. The revelation altered the very character of hip hop, or at least its commercial identity. After that June in , corporate hip hop, though few would admit it, was manufactured first and foremost with young white con- sumers in mind. Several theories have endeavored to explain the inexplicable. Still, the degree to which white youth immersed themselves in hip hop was different, both quantitatively music, film, magazines, videos, apparel and qualitatively lifestyle, attitude, language.
The fact that young whites were willing to welcome ghetto-derived narratives and images into their bedrooms, peer groups, and spaces of leisure — in a way that was sim- ply unlikely a generation ago — highlighted, some contended, the erasure of longstanding racial repulsions. Whatever the reasons, the producers of rap music did not stop to dissect N. As a youngster Eminem looked at N.
Unlike the relatively privileged and middle-class white youths who found great pleasure and safe distance in their consumption of N. In his mind N. When Eminem met Dr. Dre, the architect behind the sonic mayhem and lethal lyrics that pulsated throughout N. Dre, to be Ice Cube. This is the biggest hip-hop producer ever. As far back as the pioneering days in the Bronx, battles between aspiring MCs, DJs, graffiti writers, and break dancers were how reputations, respect, and even rewards were earned.
For Eminem the battle rap competitions were more than an op- portunity to display his skills as an MC. Eminem not only survived the rough-and-tumble world of battling, but also learned how to use the constant racial put-downs he faced as part of his own arsenal. In many of the interviews he conducted for 8 Mile he dis- cussed the significance of battling. You lost, try again. Most people who heard him conceded that he had style and skills. Nonetheless, his desire to sign a major deal was undermined by one obvious obstacle: Becoming a respected and successful rapper was the only thing he really cared about in the world.
Despite the constant hustling, battling, and deal-shopping, he could not persuade a label with national-distribution clout to sign him. The album was barely noticed and even provoked charges that Eminem was imitating black MCs. Reflecting on that first recording, Eminem says: It was a growing stage. I felt like Infinite was like a demo that just got pressed up. His sense of rejection worsened. The character provided the creative spark and voice to fashion an identity that was bizarre and beguiling.
The new identity separated him from virtually every other rapper and al- lowed him to play with various sides of his temperament, which in- cluded among other attributes, a demeanor that could be vicious and dark or humorous and colorful — but always entertaining. Throughout the late s Eminem continued to compete in rap contests bringing home several first-place prizes.
Despite all of this, he had no money or recording contract to show for his hard work and dedication. With no prize money or the chance to leverage a victory into a re- cording contract, he returned home not really sure what the future held. But then for one of the few times in his life, Eminem was struck with good luck. The various accounts explaining how Dr. Dre discovered the bleached-blond kid from Detroit have become part of the Eminem myth.
In his biography of Eminem, Anthony Bozza asserts that assistants brought the demo to Interscope execu- tive Jimmy Iovine, who asked Dre to listen to it. Whereas the major labels feared that signing a white rapper would be rejected as a gimmick, Dr. Dre sensed an opportunity to make music history again. He had recently started his own label and was eager to try something different. Nothing could be more different than an outrageously badass white rapper from Detroit, who had a great flow and a greater sense of theater.
Not even Hollywood, the ultimate fan- tasy factory, could have created a wackier idea. Since his arrival on the pop culture stage in , Eminem has been compared most often to one figure, Elvis Presley. As irresistible as the comparison is the parallels between the men who engineered their successful launch — Sam Phillips and Dr.
Dre — are equally telling. But his enthusi- asm for the music was tempered by the racially segregated customs of his day. By law in the South and by custom in the North, blacks and whites lived in separate neighborhoods, attended separate schools, and even gravitated toward separate entertainment venues. Phillips understood the implications immediately. Here, he thought, was the perfect opportunity to carry the music he enjoyed to a larger and much more lucrative market, young white music buyers. It was Dre, a black music producer, who recognized the op- portunity to carry a black musical style to white consumers.
Based on his experiences with N.
Earlier in his career, the thought of producing a white rapper would have seemed outrageous, even treasonous given the racial au- thenticity claims so pervasive in hip hop. Dre believed that he had been burned not once, but twice in the industry by shady types who used his cre- ative talents to sell millions of records and then cheat him out of what he believed were his just desserts.
That both of these instances involved black businessmen made it all the more painful and any claims of racial loyalty, from his vantage point, superficial. Dre was the musical mastermind behind N. The lessons Dre learned while with N. What mattered in the end was not how good your music was but rather how well you were compensated for it. Despite or maybe because of their dizzying success, the partnership between Knight and Dre soon began showing signs of stress.
Dre wanted to expand his creative wings by experimenting with various musical styles and genres. But Knight insisted that the label maintain a strict focus on the ghetto- tough anthems that made it an instant hit factory. Knight took on anybody and everybody — the music industry, critics, politicians, black spokespersons, and perhaps most significantly, rival rap labels.