HIP-HOP SHRUGGED: A Dystopian Fable for the Recession Xmas of 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen: Your favorite blogger will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to read a post covering bullshit black gossip, stupidity in the form of “urban news” or the current legal fuckery of your favorite rapper—whatever you normally check for on the internet that has recently occurred in the world of Hip-Hop and/or politics. That is what you are going to hear.

For two years, you—the dying music industry of Atlanta—have been asking axing, “Who is Mike Jordan?” This is Mike Jordan speaking. I’m the guy who loves and values Hip-Hop. I’m the cat who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the dude who is relieving you of your victims and thus destroying your world.





And if you wish to know why your record labels are perishing—you who dread fresh, innovative, empowering and creative Hip-Hop music, I am the writer who will now present it to you on this post.

You, the A&R, music executive, program director, record label owner and--hell, yeah--magazine publisher, have said that this is an age of creative crisis in the music business and that southern rap’s sins are destroying Hip-Hop. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice. You have sacrificed innovation to sales. You have sacrificed empowering lyrics to demoralizing chants. You have sacrificed development to current market conditions. You have sacrificed art to commerce. You have sacrificed talent to hustle. You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil, and achieved all that which you held to be good.





Why then, do you shrink in horror at the sound of the Hip-Hop music that surrounds you in your Mercedes-Benz’s Bose stereo system? That music is not the product of your sins. It is the product, the rhythm, melody, lyrical content and chorus of your virtues. It is the moral ideal of your musical reality brought into its full and final perfection.





You fought for it. You have dreamed of it; you have wished it… And I am the man who is helping to grant you your wish. I am removing the sources of all those evils you are sacrificing—one by one. I am ending your battle; I am stopping your cipher. I am depriving your world of The 5th Element.

Writers do not represent the culture, you say? I am withdrawing those who do. Writers are insignificant, you say? I will withdraw those who aren’t. I’m showing them the way to live by another morality: mine. It is mine that they are choosing to follow. Will you soon be crying that this is not what you wanted? The culture of Hip-Hop in ruins, abandoned by its embedded and entrenched yet mentally emaciated writers, reporters and journalists is not your goal? You did not want us to leave?

You damned Atlanta. You damned Hip-Hop but never dared to question your code.

Yes, this is an age of creative crisis but it is not Hip-Hop that is on trial. It is your moral code. And if you wish to go on existing in this culture, what you now need is not to return to creativity but to discover it.


Sincerely Yours,
Mike Jordan

a.k.a. The Underwriter
a.k.a. the black John Galt
a.k.a. The Best Writer Alive
a.k.a. Jihad Ballout Jr.
a.k.a. Perry A. Pelagreeno
a.k.a. Mickey Reagan
a.k.a. Grumpy McNasty


[This blog was inspired by Atlas Shrugged, a book that I highly recommend to any serious reader, writer or thinker.]

ANOTHER WAY TO DIE (Besides reading my blog)

I hope you didn't come here looking for reassurance about the debates last night. EVERYBODY SAYS that Senator Barack Obama won the night. The whole country. Most surprising is the fact that FOX NEWS even had to relent and say that Senator John McCain didn't pull it off. In other words, this race is over. You know as well as I do that the next POTUS is also going to be the first black African-American one. And "that one" happens to be Obama.



But enough of that. I'm kind of tired of politics for a minute anyway, and I've noticed that I'm slacking on Hip-Hop, which in my absence has been seeing its vital statistics slipping a bit. Yet before I get back to wifey, I still feel like cheating a bit with R&B and rock & roll. Pardon me while I lose myself...


One of my favorite groups is The White Stripes. Jack White is murder on the guitar, and it just so happens that he's one of those multi-talented cats that can write lyrics, produce them (without computers) and perform them--both vocally and instrumentally--at a higher grade of artistic delivery than most, if not almost all rock artists in modern music.

So you can imagine how crunk I became when I heard a while back that Jack White and Alicia Keys are comiserating together on the new, Amy Winehouse-less theme song to the upcoming JAMES BOND film, Quantum of Solace. The title of the song is the same as the title of this post, if that helps at all.





I can't lie; Alicia Keys is dope. And even though they could have put some T-Pain in there somewhere, I have to say that this is a funky ass song. I dig shite like this; you can catch me at any moment on the interstate in your hometown, blasting some wild rock song with heavy bottomed bass drums and a slap-happy snare and cymbal mash-up. My only real complaint is that White and Keys sound amazingly off-pitch on the chorus, trying to hit the same note with two different sets of vocal cords. As a remedy, I would have had Jack sing in the lower octave, which would have added a fuller sound and given it even more funk. It's not like they asked axed for my musical expertise, but it's here anyway, so I might as well speak when I see fit.

Either which-a-way, I'm still going to download this song as soon as I can find it and create a new Rock mixtape for the ride to and from work for the next week. Hopefully this shit doesn't make me ghost-ride the whip into a graveyard as a result of trying to crank that air guitar while driving. If somebody finds a link, send it on. Yes, I'm weird. Learn to love it.

GRAFFITI IS ALIVE IN ALABAMA

Jesus; I can't even tell you how proud I am of this. I've only posted one frame of this photo shoot from a guy named Banksy because you really need to click the link below and see what this is all about. If you knew about this dude already, you can hand me a late pass whenever you're ready.

Shout to NAHRIGHT for making this public, and big ups to Banksy again, whoever the hell you are, for keeping it ultra gully in my homestate. Very much appreciated.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SOURCE OF THIS BANKSY FUCKERY.

POETIC JUSTICE: WAKING UP THE DEAD

I haven't found an embeddable video of HAIK HOISINGTON & TAALAM ACEY'S "TRUE LIES" POEM, but if you have 2:03 to spare this morning, you really need to click that link. The wordplay and animation combined are ill.


Here's a different poem, same poet, no animation. Still dope.




If you wanted to wake up this morning thinking that everything was right in America, now that the Democrats are about to officially nominate the first African-American major party candidate for POTUS, then don't let me keep you from dreaming. Snooze on, and if you have a vision of euphorian utopias, write it down when the alarm clock goes off. Maybe we can sell your notes as a bedtime story for children.

That was a joke. Seriously - wake your tired ass up and smell the rotting corpse of our free democracy burning through your nasal passages. If we're going to celebrate the death of the true American dream, let's just call this convention what it really is - a "second line" parade. Let's bring out the brass band, do our dances and get it all over with. You know I'm down.


However, if we intend instead to resurrect our democracy and bring America back from George Bush's hell, we've got more work to do than partying in Denver. So let's not get carried away with all the hype. Feel the momentum, breathe in the fresh air and get ready to buckle down. The Republickins are going to do anything and everything to keep a Democrat out of office. If necessary, we're going to have to fight back.

If, by chance, you were already awake, here's another dose of black coffee. Oh, if only "if" was a spliff...


There's nothing wrong with a pep rally, as long as you win the game afterwards.
- The Underwriter
(hell yeah, I quote myself when I say fresh lines like that)

ART IS DEAD

This is a painted piece I recently peeped that my homeboy Dubelyoo did (that shit sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme if you say it out loud). Dude is a pretty cool cat. You see him in the "civilized" Hip-Hop spots all over Atlanta if you involve and associate yourself with the "music industry." Always wearing some crazy looking outfit that somehow fits together; a real artist type. I'm posting it because I probably can't afford it, so I take what I can get.


If you can guess the name of the image without CHEATING, you get the official FREE UNDERWRITER PRIZE for this winning weekend!!!

But seriously, the painting is kind of ill. I might cop one. When I get paid. If you got it, go ahead and trick on a print or something. Support graffiti and the art which it has inspired over time.

Or just kill yourself and hope that Hell doesn't sell spray paint to its residents.