"Them other nigga's I don't Vibe with."

-'Hi-Definition' Lupe Fiasco's The Cool

Hey Guys...Much Love to ya'll...I'm taking this time out to inform you beautiful guy's and gal's about a few things that seem out of order and rather odd to me...I pose the question...

Does the media in hip-hop conspire to create controversy and tension in the culture just for the sake of publicity?

Vibe.com recently started a campaign with the intention of crowning one lucky artist from the vast talent pool of hip-hop as "Best Rapper Alive" (FYI the notion of someone being the "best" of something especially in a category as subjective as music is a rather impossible idea to bring to fruition with any credibility. Its based on bias and political maneuvering when in the public realm. I mean in private you simply like what you like as it fits to how you live your life and how you feel at a particular point.) I do find these rather unfounded events entertaining and even in some instances rather valid when a large amount of research and an unbiased, objective approach is taken using damn near scientific methods to make a list of criteria that tests artists in various formats and divisions to really reach a conclusion that is "This Person Is Based On This List Criteria Is The Best Of Something..." But when these spectacles are done just for the sake of manifesting publicity and controversy at the expense of someone's physical safety and overall state of mind I find them rather disgusting and an abomination of the lowest caliber.

I thought at one point that is was "Us vs. Them" however much a misconception or an overwhelmingly idiotic notion when you take into accounts the odds that are against "Us". "They" have superior weaponry, superior discipline, vast amounts of resources and lack morals and ethics to the highest degree. The fight against them in a rational mind seems rather futile but in a mind taught to believe that the "pen is mightier than the sword" and the weapons of the weak can overcome the mighty weapons oppressive when in the hands of the righteously motivated few. And that you had allies in your elders and in the trusted institutions that were set up to safeguard the truth and use it to empower the individuals who were under their charge. Our source of unbiased, uncontaminated truth that was our beacon to the North guiding us in the darkness to freedom and enlightenment. Faith is ignorance and faith is tested when you become informed and that is what makes you strong. All you have to do to make people weak and keep them weak is to let them have faith, let them be tested by becoming informed and let them even feel that they are becoming stronger but make sure the information they are tested with is tainted and poison. And to make sure they keep taking the weakening poison make it so that they give it to themselves. I ain't a saint. Never claimed to be. But I did believe in ideals and I believed in "Us". And I fought for "Us". I continue to wage war against "Them". Sacrificing wealth and fame for the sake of the state of mind of "Us". I started to realize in the course of my career that "Us vs. Them" is now "Us vs. Us". Our institutions of information are just interested in creating spin, feeding controversy and pumping out useless information in between vibrant ads for things we don't even need from companies without souls.

Why would you create a forum under the guise of "friendly competition" in which you pit individuals whom have at present or have had in the past friction in the real world in direct competition with each other in a virtual setting that you know will re-ignite feelings of ill will amongst the constituents of these people and quite possibly the individuals themselves???

This is insidious and reckless action. And I will not be apart of it.

So I humbly ask all of my fans and friends to boycott any voting and refrain from any participation whatsoever on my behalf in the Vibe Magazine and Vibe.com "Best Rapper Alive" Tournament.

The love and continued support of my musical career and my endeavors outside of music that you guys give are immensely satisfying accolades in themselves. The shine of any trophy on my mantel pales in comparison to the light that I see in the smiling faces of my fans...

Peace & Much Love To Ya!!!

Lupe...Z q

LUPE!!!

Shit your thread is long.. I'll read now happy to see you though!!

No prob Lu, I'm not takin part in any Vibe related activity. Their magazine is shitty as fuck anyway.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: M.I.K.E.,

omg Lu... I talked about this 2 weeks ago with someone in my neighborhood.. He keeps asking me who i believe is the best rapper alive and I keep saying "In my opinion Nas is the greatest to me because he has influenced me the most and because I love his music, plus he always has something to say" then he started asking me how I feel about the artists I manage, and who I think is the best, and I told him I wont respond because I have respect in my artists and I WILL NOT choose favors because thats like choosing favorites between a son and a daughter. I told him it was very disrespectful to ask me that kind of question and he didnt understand why I couldnt just tell him. To me Nas is my favorite, but so are Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, the list goes on. I cant choose favorites.

Choosing Favorites rips Hip Hop apart actually, because then you just get Stans, and with Stans they dont give other artists much chance. "Fuck (insert name here) I only listen to (insert name)."

"Friendly Competition" will turn into a war, this competition aint even based on an artist's skill.

besides, you cant compare different styles, for example you cant compare someone from the west coast to someone on the east coast, or you cant compare a lyricist to Dr. Seuss's booty music... so that entire competition is BS

Opinions anyone?


BTW I'll see you and the crew on the 30th at IU, JRoc called me asking about Gemstones opening and Im working on that right now, but Ill let you guys know as soon as I get a response.

media is the devil man.

the companies dont care about nothing but profits. no matter who gets hurt or not and the easiest targets are us...black people. what other way than to raise magazine sales/ website views than to bring back squashed beefs. now we got some artist who don't care about being "the best" but we have other mostly new artist who live off that type of limelight and vibe sees that as there ignition...damn i didnt even know vibe was still relevant, but oh well.

its up to the fans to stop the madness....or we could go to school, get our degrees and fix the problem from the inside out..but how many of us have that option? exactly

.......
oloni kill yo self! lol

I can feel you on this.. to answer your question, of course it does. Controversy means publicity, ratings, and of course you know that.. in fact, you even making this post is sure to make someone google it right now... as you know, the media is an industry in itself and it doesn't just go for hiphop.. its a problem with ALL media... I don't know just how big of a deal this competiton will be but there is no reason for it and all I can really see it doing is build more tension between artists and force competition.. Seriously, I laughed last night when I saw some of the people they were comparing... on what credentials? And some people just coincidently paired up to face each other... most of them with similar audiences.. Mos Def vs Talib Kweli?? Are you serious? How does someone decide something like that? What would it benefit for one of them to have the title of being a "better rapper alive" than the other?..

I thought it was always obvious that the media tried to create any type of controversy when it came between artists. They don’t care about anyone or who gets hurt, its sad. Aren’t they always after one thing? Just for different kinda demographics.. I havent read vibe do they even have it in London?? Meh..


----
I knew I was going to get roasted but please understand I was in shock! Capt leave me alone!

Really, we as fans are allowed to debate who we think is better, but it always doesn't go anywhere. Because when you have someone that wants to compare two rappers based on flow, you gotta take into account that some artists are better in certain areas that might not be flow i.e. delivery, wordplay, etc. Either way, one artist isn't better than the other based on a set of rules that determine these kinds of things, not that such rules have ever been written.

It's the same thing with Politics, we have a two party system that forces people to take sides. When you have sides it pits our country(like the hip-hop fans) against eachother. Shit is a brick wall, it's actually a waste of time to talk about cause with this I am taking a side, this would be against Vibe...lol.

This whole who is the best rapper blah blah is BS and always has been.

Everyone has to decide for themselves..and seriously is there anyone on here who would say that they just like one rapper and don't care about the rest?...There are so many great artists out there and a contest like that will never be able to reflect all of that.

And of course Vibe or MTV try to get as much media attention out of it as possible.

Its money.. its all for money, and lmao I agree with June on this, I saw the list too and they had comparisons that shouldnt ever be compared.... Lil Kim vs Lauryn Hill?? Mos Def vs Kweli?? and more... I think that was the same list, the one i saw was on a forum

LMAO MTV is a joke... I remember when they had the top 10 artists list... its BS...

Come on man, its the fucking media...what else did you expect? They need to sell magazines and the masses, unfortunately, are kept stupid to buy into this bullshit. It is pretty funny though that they would do this just for spite. I know you're mad and understandably so but I laughed when I first saw this.

BTW its nice to see Lupe getting his "Kanye" on...You should do this more often. Keep us updated on how you feel about these kind of situations.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shahanshah129,

Yup, I heard about this Vibe poll a while ago.

And I dont care. Then again Im not an artist so it doesnt effect me as much. But I am interested in seeing peoples views and opinions on the subject.

I would like to see how people rate different artists overall. But obviously Im not gonna take the poll seriously, because when it comes to things like this, people are unrealistic and it really does come down to "Stans" vs "Haters" with no sense of reason.

BTW!

"I aint graduate from school nigga
Them big words aint cool nigga!"

might wanna tone your fancy vocabulary down for us lesser beings.

EDIT:

BTW AGAIN. I dont see a problem with "harmless" polls if they are on a subject like this. Because anyone who takes someone elses opinion as universal fact is a retard anyway.

If someone came up to me and said "yo "blah blah" is best rapper alive" and I say "How'd you come up with that" or "WHY do you say that" and they say "because Vibe magazine did a poll on it, and its official hes the best", then I would not take that person very seriously anyway.

page 1 reply on a future 50 page thread

hmmm... makes some sense. But yo, artists nowadays aren't even considered "artists" anymore. Unadultered grade A festering in the ills of society propaganda... Its basically the hype (publicity as you stated) and this could be the organized version for Hip Hop of what Survivor did to TV... ruin it lol

It just blows the culture out of perspective... I'm pretty sure everything isn't a war, nor does it need to be. There really isnt a "best rapper" thats a child mindset, (and I consider myself a grown man) since Obama got everyone fired up to vote, Vibe is taking advantage of this! fuck that, I'm Swiss haha

I can see why you want to write books.

The only issue I have with this is that people don't want to hear it. When I try to tell people these kind of things they just can't be bothered with something so complicated. It requires effort.
I get why people think conspiracy theories are a joke, but why can they not accept the fact the WTC collapsed too fast, that it's steady support had molten cuts in the basement, the building 7 collapsed without a plane...
Things like that. I'm not saying who did it, or who was involved. I don't know. All I know is that the answer we are presented and the facts don't match up.
The Government pulling what I like to call the Bible scam. Creationism as everyone knows is bullshit. So what they do is have an answer and pick facts that match. That's what the US Government did for 9/11.
This is what Fox news does on a constant basis (meanwhile portraying the exact opposite in their non-news broadcasts), hell, this is what most media is doing today. Why do you think there is suck a struggle to keep the Internet the way it is and non of that corporate bullshit? It's the only medium left where information can be accessed as seen from different perspectives.
Believe nothing and know all.

P.S.: I pointed the Lu v Q-Tip battle out right away at lupEnd... so obvious it hurt.

Not all Controversy in the media is bad it depends on the topic and type of controversy, which can actually generate worth-while debates, but in the case of Vibe, this issue has been thrown around since the rumblings of Nas's Hip hop is dead album, ever since Wayne uttered that quote, u could hear the wishers and rumblings of that debate on every street corner and Music blog, it was something hip hop heads and music lovers alike felt strongly about, causing senseless rivalries putting artist and against artist fan against fan until it was no longer Us vs them it was Us vs Us, everyone was blind to the one thing that really mattered, the music, Vibe is using regurgitated rhetoric to create a mass hysteria over an irrelevant topic in hopes to rekindle old flames and generate revenue for themselves, but I think and I hope that everyone is past that now there are more important topics in this world and certainly more important votes to be cast and "best rapper alive" is not one of them.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Aziz,

too bad Kayne doesn't feel the same that he doesn't need awards.....

I know these polls are just to create fuss and make money, but that is what the magazines are in bussiness for, they cant do it for fun , they need to make money to survive as a bussiness - people who care about these polls are stupid anyway, preaching to the convertyed comes to mind telling us on the board lol


edit: lmao at eminem and soulja against each other
soulja boy being in the 2pac bracket btw hahaha

also - can you not ask to not be a part of it - cant you get a copyright infringement or something?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: lm_wfc,