S.P. News/Industry Wind Chill

Sordid Puppy, in a gesture befitting of his reputation, steps out to meet -- and amaze -- his adoring fans.

S.P. is not going to fib -- he was enjoying the tropical lifestyle afforded us all by weak fourth-quarter '06 coke rap album sales. However, with the arrival of snow and cold and winter throughout the U.S.F.M.T., I'm genuinely pleased with the return to seasonal normalcy. Worrisome were projections of the 007 as the hottest year ever, and 75 degree weather in December doesn't bode well. I apologize for the dearth of updates as of late, but my coat of (allegedly) 100% faux fur had been stunted in its proliferation by the warm weather, and is only now in full effect.

If you don't care about Stones Throw Records, then you probably don't care much for S.P. News, but, then, if you don't like Stones Throw Records and don't like S.P. News then you probably don't like fun. Here's all of Chrome Children Vol. 2, available as a free download on Stones Throw's website. While you're on the site, buy Chrome Children Vol. 1 if you don't already have it, because it's a damn good album. Just forego the biggie-size option next time you're at your favorite fast food eatery. Music is better for you than high fructose corn syrup.

S.P.'s been bumpin that (DJ) Greyboy as of late; he's a guy who, like, makes ill beats and sometimes lets rappers -- who, let's be serious, are predominantly douchebags at this point -- spit over them. Fortunately, the tracks tend to dominate.

I'm also willing to listen to John Legend occasionally, but I don't like to admit it, save when cloaked by the anonymity that FMT provides. Here's "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)." Shut up and impress a girl with it.

I've been thinking a lot about all the effery that was made of the DJ Drama/Don Cannon RIAA shakedown fiasco that occurred a lil while ago (millenia in hip-hop bloggart time). The bloggartz seem to be missing the point: the RIAA is bugging the fuck out because no one's buying rap records any more and they're scrambling for an explanation/solution. They've been picking up illegal downloaders for a while now, and it's not that surprising that mixtape DJs came up in discussion as to who to go after next. I agree that the way Fox News handled the story was on some straight racist/classist/fuckingasshole shit, but I can't believe that no one saw this coming. People aren't buying albums any more -- particularly not people who spend all their time downloading the latest, illest leaked track off so and so's hot new record -- and the hip-hop industry is dying. S.P. predicts that pretty soon, the major department stores like Walmart and Target, not to mention the chain bookstores like Border's and B&N, will shrink their music sections significantly and eventually eliminate rap from their inventories altogether. These places care about only one thing: the success of their corporation, their Christmas bonuses, and the happiness of their shareholders, and they could give a fuck if some rappers can't buy the newest Escalade. Repeat: they do not give a fuck about how you feel about the Dedication series or how cool DJ Drama is.

FMT's rival bloggartz will probably respond that real music fans don't shop at stores like the ones mentioned above, that I don't understand how the rap industry works and that I should eff off with my DJ Greyboy and my Chrome Children. The fact is, though, that the hundreds of millions that the powers that be over at the major labels (should be) make(ing) at big chain stores are the same ones that fund Styles P's (nonexistent) music videos. In the late '90s and early '00s, peripheral members of Bad Boy, Ruff Ryders, Cash Money and No Limit Records were going platinum, and the big stars were selling spectacular units. Granted, a great deal of the music that fueled this explosion was mainstream pop-rap that lacked depth or longevity, but the fact that RAP was POPULAR widened the shelf space for the genre at Best Buy and KMart and wherever and thus opened the door for cats that were actually worth listening to. Only a small handful of rapping artists sold well last year, and with less demand comes less supply -- the hip-hop industry has dwindled and will only continue to do so, unless rappers start making great pop records that 15 year olds devour and purists shake their heads at. Whatever happened to the days of your favorite MC dropping one bouncy megahit to sell the album to teenyboppers and then filling (most of) the rest of the record with the shit that you really wanted to hear? Apparently, the music industry in general isn't struggling, and fucking High School Musical sold something like 4 million copies last year and I worry that, in a couple years, it's only records like that, My Chemical Romance, and maybe the latest Tony Bennett joint, that will be sitting on store shelves, let alone moving off of them.

This bozo -- and I call him a bozo because he writes things like "cultural sea change" -- points out that rap album sales dropped off by twenty percent, which is a spectacular amount, but rap lost yet again because New Age experienced an even worse year. All the hip-hop bloggartz have been in a frenzy about all of this, but they seem to fail to understand that their relevance, and indeed their occupations, are in jeopardy, that if no one cares to buy the Lupe Fiasco album then they certainly don't care about how they feel about it.

Finally, Disco D died, and that really blows. "Ski Mask Way" is an amazing song. The hip-hop community may miss him, but it probably didn't deserve him. R.I.P.

FMT up.