So this is how fucked up the “game” is these days.
Last night I get word from the TDE camp that they will be dropping a new Black Hippy video in the morning, and true to their word I get the YouTube link for it. Unfortunately when you clicked that link you got this message. Why? Maybe in the video there’s a clip of them chopping it up with Rihanna or Drake. Maybe there’s a half-second snippet of a song from either Ace Hood or even Ace Of Base. Whatever the case, Universal Records and their misguided witch hunt has not only fucked over Top Dawg Entertainment (an independent record label who, while fully capable of being a successfully running independent label, doesn’t share the reach, budget or sheer magnitude of one of the “Big 4:” Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Music Group and (you guessed it!) Universal Music Group) by blocking the video for whatever likely trivial reason, but they’re now essentially denying TDE from essentially gaining new fans, more exposure and – at the end of the day, since that’s what it comes down to – eating.
And this is what the “game” has boiled down to these days. Rap entered the digital age a few years ago, and once again the label are still trying to catch up and figure out how they can get a piece of the pie, similar to how they tried to shut down the iPod when it dropped over a decade ago, when they tried to talk down about iTunes single sales and how they now consider sites like this nothing more than bootlegging cyber terrorists. What they fail to realize is that sites like this essentially promote their artists for free to (in our particular case) millions of potential album buyers and concert/merchandise purchasers, essentially eschewing their already menial budgets (trust me, I don’t need record label money; I’m doing just fine). Yet for whatever reason – be it their incessant insistence and insipid belief that someone like YC of “RacksOnRacks” infamy can do Watch The Throne numbers (*Cam True Mag Face*) or that in the world of digital music people still purchase CDs (the first compact disc I will be purchasing since 2007’s Desire by Pharoahe Monch will, coincidentally, be Watch The Throne, and that is because of the dope-as-hell artwork) – they continue this asinine train of thought that, thanks to a few actual jackasses that have fucked it up for all of us, we do absolutely nothing for their cause. Whatever though; when sites like the dopehouse and our contemporaries decide to go “fuck Universal” and not support any of their endeavors, I’d like to see who they’ll blame that time.
I did, however, receive word from TDE that the video is being uploaded to another site, and will be available soon. Once it does, it will go on this post.
