Hip Hop tales woven from the streets is nothing new.  Hip Hop was birthed on the streets, so it was only a matter of time before the realities and dark side of the street life ended up being spit on wax.  In my opinion, the major difference between the way street life is being represented in the music now versus back in the day is the these days its about as real as a reality show.

Previously, you were presented with a real depiction of the street life.  MC’s spoke on all of the trappings that come along with the fast money lifestyle but you would also get a healthy dose of where you could end up going that route.  A good example would be a song/video like Ice T’s High Rollers.  All throughout the video, he shows the cars, women and money while all along, warning you of the 2 places that lifestyle usually ends up.

Today’s Hip Hop is more of a cartoonish version of reality.   As Jay Electronica said, “It sounds really good and you play the part well but the energy you giving off is so unfamiliar, I don’t feel ya (We need somethin’ realer!)”  Enter Saigon.  His album, Greatest Story Never Told gives some of the realest depiction of the street life released in a while.  I guess thats why his label held up the completed, classic CD for so long.  On Enemies in particular, I love how it seems he speaks to the streets or the drug game throughout the song.  “With friends like you, who need enemies? Brought a Nigga bad luck like a Kennedy.  Had a Nigga ass up in the penitentiary…”

Although the album was released last year (I’ve been bumping it faithfully since then by the way),  I didn’t see the video for Enemies until just recently. I love when he flips to all the brothers that have been on lockdown with their sentences and charges listed, including himself.  To see some of the consequences depicted is just a breath of fresh air.  I’m looking forward to hearing The Warning Shots 3: One Foot in the Grave project a little later this month.

Whatever so-called Hip Hop folks want to listen to is fine with me.  I just can’t help but notice the variety in the music is all but gone.  I’d have less of a problem with all the Waka Flocka’s, Gucci Mane’s and Lil Wayne’s if more Lupe Fiasco’s, Saigon’s and Immortal Technique’s were out there.

A while back, Hip Hop represented a myriad of different viewpoints and lifestyles and I enjoyed listening to them all.  Now, only one ignorant, shallow perspective is being promoted by record labels.  The rappers portray the role and the REAL people in the streets are dying or wasting their life away in prison to keep up with that bullshit image.  That’s why so many people from my generation have given up on the music, scratch that, CULTURE they started.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s real Hip Hop to the death for me.  I’ll keep searching for the realness and support it.  I’m not complaining, I’m already doing something about it.  Check out our monthly podcast The Jersey Connect Show if you wanna hear what we feel is real.

From The LA Times

A Los Angeles woman was arrested on suspicion of prostitution after she allegedly offered sexual favors in exchange for Chicken McNuggets, Burbank police said.

Khadijah Baseer was seen opening customers’ car doors in a McDonald’s drive-through on the 1700 block of Olive Avenue late Wednesday night, Officer Joshua Kendrick told the Burbank Leader.

A customer told police that Baseer asked for free Chicken McNuggets in exchange for sexual favors. The man said he declined the offer.

From USAToday

The captain of the Costa Cruises ship that partially sank on Friday after hitting rocks off the coast of Italy had diverted the vessel onto a route not authorized by the company, its CEO says.

“It is human error here,” Costa chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi told reporters dialed into a conference call this morning. “The captain did not follow the authorized route that is used by Costa ships very frequently.”

Foschi says Costa ships travel the passage near where the ship ran into rocks on Friday more than 100 times a year but always stay further out to sea. There only has been one other time when a Costa ship has traveled close to the island of Giglio, where it ran aground, he said, and that was in August 2011 to view a celebration. In that case, the maneuver near the island was authorized and the ship stayed a safe distance from shore.

When asked if he knew why the captain, Francesco Schettino, had taken the ship off course, Foschi suggested that the 10-year veteran of the company wanted to show off the ship to the port area of Giglio that it was passing.

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This yr. in review is brought to you is brought to you by me…you know the code don’t like what you read there are safer sites for you to digest. On to the good stuff.
Atlantic records how does it taste to let all that money go, you know the money you should have been getting from Saigon while riding his star but instead you fumbled that ball on the goal line. Big ups to the Yard father keep doing big things homie.
Shady 2.0 paragraph starts and ends there nothing left to say. Why am I the only one that sees Bub B fitting as the 5th member though?
Busta signing to Young Money….. I’m just gonna say this they just hired a professional assassin if you follow music no more needs to be said.
Ye and Jay Watched the throne but it got rocked; jay subtle shots no longer frighten people
M.O. Roll up your f’n window you bout to get shot P Still at it still hungry why people still over look?
Mob Deep came back cooking up a little something a nice little tease
Evidence left the west and east banging to the red carpet

For the ladies do some R&B in review
Marsha Ambrosius Damn and the music is good too
Jill Scott Damn, Damn, Damn let me holla at her ex a sec…is you buggin? Ok now on to Ms. Jilly from Philly’s cd first of all Boycott the Grammies for not nominating her but Beyonce was nominated of course, her cd was hot
Ledisi miss Patti’s handpicked successor wow need I say more?
Kelly Price love your voice missed you while you did your gospel thing What? How about some dudes ok dang fine
Mint Condition the band came back with it even did a song with Kelly price same song 2 versions for both of their cd’s
Johnny Gill came back out……(insert your own jokes/ opinions/ other things) He came back with some really good music

Now to the, you know who you are Section names will be withheld to protect the innocent.
Who is more White than Black but accuses other mixed people of non-blackness, owns a pizza empire and apparently was doing more than flipping pizza’s while building it.
Self-proclaimed Bishop of a African American Baptist Church (quick lesson there is no such title in the Baptist Church) allegedly *coughs* had sexual relations with several young men, then his with after yrs. of marriage couldn’t decide what was best for her.
Next we have the Director who often dresses up as an elderly woman in plays and movies when asked why he decided to have a  famous starlet not known for her acting ability, he said that if he could add someone like her to his movie show the spiritual message it would reach more people…we don’t believe you, you need more people.
The rapper who likes to refer to himself as an alien…Jeggins??? Really?? I mean really, really?
The Award show which apparently doesn’t give awards to those who deserve it only who they think should have it an artist has the #1 album and #1 single yet not nominated artist didn’t have any of that and got nominated by popular vote.
The dude that thought he was going to hide forever.. Gotcha nigga Uh huh
Gone but not forgotten
Heavy D you are gone but your music and inspiration lives on
Steve Jobs
Amy Winehouse
Troy Anthony Davis (no justice I hope you rest in peace)
Joe Fraizier buried back where he started
Patrice O’neal
Vesta Williams Congratulations still brings a chill lovely voice

The New thing
Goolge + it’s starting slowly Facebook keeps trying to fight off it’s furry let’s see how long they can keep them down , google doesn’t like to be told no.

The year in review is something we started doing here at What’s NOT Good one year and it really became the catalyst that got many people reading and checking for the site all year long.  One day, That Nigga Jhamal and I were having a conversation in my office, laughing heavily and talking about some of the best and worst things we saw that year.  Next, he sent me a email, where he compiled everything we had been discussing from his end into a group of best/worst lists.  That was back in 2006, before the website was even a blog.  The rest is history as they would say.  Let’s crank this thing up shall we?

Tags

These are our most popular tags on the site to date.  Kinda gives you an idea of what we’ve been talking about over here.  For some reason most of the funny, crazy, sad stories we covered, have somehow involved one of these tags.

• Fail
• Adults vs. Kids
• Facebook
• Economy
• Social Networking
• Police

The Roxanne Roxanne Award. 

Otis by Jay-Z & Kanye West – I’m showing my age a little here but for Y’all young-ins, Roxanne Roxanne was a song by rap group, UTFO released in 1984, where the MC’s were going off about this girl they met Roxanne, who they each tried to get with but she wasn’t giving them the time of day.  Roxanne Shante released a response/dis record and the 2 songs were so popular, everybody followed suit with their own versions.  Soon you had the Real Roxanne, Roxanne’s Parents, Brothers and a bevy of others.  Although they were not answer answer/dis songs, everybody and they Momma had a freestyle to the Otis beat, until Otis Redding turned over in his grave several times.

The Easy Laugh Award

Herman Cain.  Nuff Said.

My Favorite Music Releases This Year

• Saigon – Greatest Story Never Told
• J.Cole – Cole World
• Jill Scott – Light of The Sun
• Pharoah Monch – W.A.R. (We Are Renegades)
• Bad Meets Evil – Hell, The Sequel EP
• Elzhi – Elmatic

The Great Expectations Fail Award

Google Plus.  I’m not saying it’s dead in the water or anything but it had so much potential as a facebook killer.  The ease of putting people into different groups (circles) based on who they are to you and a bunch of other features facebook later stole.  They had a closed Beta for GMail subscribers and then afterwards opened the floodgates for everyone else to join but no flood.  I’m sure there is a respectable amount of members (I’m one of ‘em) but when I saw the TV commercials for Google+ a couple months back, it was pretty apparent it didn’t meet up to Google’s expectations either.

Stupid Products

We added Stupid Products as a new category this year, due to a shitload of dumb products that prove the old saying, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”  I think the one I loathe the most of them all is Forever Lazy.  Someone obviously saw the Snuggie craze and said, “Hey, what if we came up with a Snuggie you can wear?!!” (while passing the crackpipe to the next person).  For some reason the products inventors think people want to walk around the house, reminiscing on the days of childhood when they wore pajamas with the feet in them.  Either that or they thought we had a desire to look like Teletubbies.  The worst part of all is they think grown ass people are actually going to go outside wearing this fuckery.  I promise that if I see someone actually wearing this crap outside, I will stop whatever I’m doing to get a picture and put them on blast here.  It’ll probably be at Wal-Mart.  Don’t forget, when nature calls, it’s has a shit flap you can zip open in the back.

Scary Technology

Did you get the new iShiny shit?  Yeah the iPhone 4S.  The one with that chick that talks to you and acts like your personal assistant?  As hot as it is, am I the only one a little scared of how deep that artificial intelligence goes?  One of the funniest things I saw this year though was a video of Siri rapping the lyrics of Notorious B.I.G. – Hypnotize.

Justice…Really?

We witnessed 2 huge miscarriages of our justice system this year.  Namely Casey Anthony and Troy Davis.  One got off and one was executed.  Since both of the cases were covered in the media  ad-naseum, I won’t start recapping them here.  I’ll just say that every time something like this happens, there is so much outrage (so-called) in the beginning but it fizzles out in the end.  Everyone is posting or talking about how upset or outraged they are, how they can’t believe what’s going on and how much of a travesty it is.  A week after the Casey Anthony verdict or the day after Troy Davis was executed, all is quiet, nobody has anything to say and people go back to treating each other like shit and talking about the latest reality show.  Real outrage is not some update on a Twitter feed or a facebook status unless it leads to activism.  We are all guilty of Troy Davis death through inaction because no one really cares until it hits close to home.  Very few run out to get active in a cause.  We all just sit around, watch and talk.

So there’s what I felt like sharing.  I don’t care to talk about everything that happened last year.  If you’ve been following, that’s not how we get down over here.  It’s just my observations and snapshots of stuff I wanted to talk about from last year  On a personal note, I look forward to getting a little better every year.  2011 was a rough year for me personally but I refuse to say it was a bad year because it could have been so much worse.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, prosperous 2012.

We lost a lot of iconic folks this past year.

R.I.P.

• First and foremost, My Mother.  THE most iconic, influential person in my entire life span.  I will miss you more than anyone.
• Amy Winehouse
• Patrice O’Neal
• Heavy D
• Joe Frazier
• Steve Jobs

There’s probably a little more stupid people in this story than stupid product but when any product makes people go this crazy, I think both categories are appropriate.  The economy is pretty bad but it can’t be that bad if people break down the mall’s glass door to get their chance to spend $180 on some sneakers….Collectible or not.

From indystar.com

Van Coates knew what to expect when he and his sister, Asia, went to Lafayette Square Mall early Friday and tried to warn her.

“I said, ‘Be careful, because when the doors open, they will run you over,’ ” said Coates, 20. “Sure enough, they almost did.”

The Coateses escaped unscathed in their pursuit of a pair of $180 Nike Air Jordan 11 Retro sneakers, but not everyone was so lucky. A crowd of about 250 pressed against the glass door and broke it as the mall opened. The accident sent about a dozen people tumbling, with clothing and other personal items flying about, even while shoppers leapfrogged them to get into Foot Locker.

“There were gloves, hats and pieces of clothing everywhere. One guy lost both shoes and went in anyway,” said shopper Balint Nagy, 30, Indianapolis. “A guard said, ‘What about your shoes here?’ and the guy kept going.”

Fueled by holiday season shopping frenzy and a high demand for shoes considered collectible, mob scenes like the one at Lafayette Square played out Friday across the country. And though dangerous, sports marketing experts said, the hysteria only boosts demand for the shoes.

“I don’t know if all the publicity is necessarily positive, but what it does do is signal that this is a hot item,” said Stephen McDaniel, a professor of sports and marketing at the University of Maryland. “You put a bunch of excited people in a line for a scarce product, and it creates a frenzy.”

John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Intelligence, a market researcher in Glen Mills, Pa., said Nike is expert at creating buzz.

“Nike always has a limited allocation,” he said. “They could sell 10 times as many shoes as they do in the first week, but this gets them pent-up demand.”

Officials said the stores in Indianapolis had approximately 100 pairs of the $180 shoes, a supply dwarfed by the numbers of shoppers trying to buy them.

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It’s a couple years old but new to me and hilarious.