Chris Harbem  

Has Heroine

Ended Rapper Jay Z’s Career

The stories of musicians and artists becoming addicted to drugs is nothing new.

Elvis, Rick James, Aerosmith band members, Whitney Houston, and even Jay Z.

In Amy Winehouse’s very catchy song the hook rings:

“They tried to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no
Yes I've been black but when I come back
You'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time
And if my daddy thinks I'm fine
Just try to make me go to rehab
I won't go, go, go”

The remix of the song included a rap sung bridge by hip hop star and New York sports teams owner Jay Z.

How a kid who grew up in the ghetto, who never got an education in the world that we live in makes it, is beyond me, but the state of New York and the city of Manhattan has a way of making it easy for their ghetto kids to get an opportunity to tell the world that their kids are better by repeatedly GIVING them opportunities to have success.

It’s no secrete that Jay Z was financed by a New York aspiring Hip Hop executive who used money from drug dealers, or gangsters, to start the career of the rap singer. The Hip Hop executive was later imprisoned by the FBI.

What gets me is how the aspiring executive was able to get a job working at a large corporation like Universal Music Group without a college degree and only one song that was good enough to get a label interested in Jay Z’s music.

It’s a New York thing.

Only in New York can two undeserving admitted criminals be GIVEN a chance to be noticed GLOBALLY as legitimate world class highly skilled, very informed, or educated, experienced major music industry talent, when the truth was that they were only ghetto kids with a good song that could get a little radio airplay.

Jay Z is no fool, nevertheless, he played the stupid New York City suburban reared Universal Music execs into millions of dollars that he invested into his own label and ownership of New York City sports teams.

He later told the world that he was ending his music career.

The questioned remained; why did he do a rap song telling the world that he was a heroine addict before he left. Not many people knew.

I believe that Jay Z comes from, and continued to remain very involved in, the degenerate subculture knows as hip hop, and he has never let go of the idea that hip hop is acceptable to all.

The fact is, however, that hip hop is only acceptable to those who engross themselves in the culture, and it is not, nor will it ever be, mainstream culture.

I believe that Jay Z let the world know that he was a heroine addict so as not to hide his addiction.

Jay Z may believe that his wealth hides all; his inability to shake using the highly addictive drug; his hidden shame for being an addict to a drug that is know as BOY, because it turns grown strong men into boys; and his ignorance of the fact that he really does not realize that he is not, nor will he ever be, truly equal to all professionals globally who educated themselves and worked hard to accomplish in the world.

Personally, I knew the guy was on something any time he called himself J-Hovah, which is short for Jehovah, which is the name of the God of the Jews, Muslims, and the Jewish Rabbi Yeshu now known as Christ Jesus, so that made Jehovah the God of the Christians.

Drugs kill a mind, but New York made their ghetto kid with a heroine addict a multi-millionaire businessman.

Who would think?

Only in childish New York.

Timberland, Hip Hop’s Sell-Out Producer

In the world of music making there are your players and then there are your aspiring players.

Though mega-producer Timberland was introduced to the music business by R&B producer DeVante from the famous late 20^th century singing group Jodeci who gave a few poor kids a chance to learn and record at no cost in a group learning environment within a house in New Jersey, and he was GIVEN a developmental recording contract even after the group learning opportunity did not work for him; he has proven that his take on music has been able to keep him working for over a decade since his very humble start in the field.

The time working as a producer has taken him from aspiring player to definite player with mega-producer credits and standing amongst his other hip hop producing peers.

Timberland became known as a member of the Timberland and McGoo production team of the 1990’s of the 20^th century.

The production team, both from producer Devante’s New Jersey housed group learning project, worked with another of Devante’s group learning prodigies Missy Elliot. The three of them made hits that made Timberland and Missy Elliot mega stars in the hip hop music genre.

In the 21^st century, however, Timberland has left behind his New Jersey ghetto roots, his humble urban group learning beginning, and the hip hop culture within which he was reared.

Timberland of the 21^st century is now a wealthy gentlemen who works from a quiet suburban/rural area of the southern state of Virginia far away from the rough streets of New Jersey.

The new Timberland now boasts of charging record labels $500,000 for his remix productions of songs, and he never gives any complements to others from similar backgrounds to his own who were not GIVEN the same opportunities. In fact, he is known more for disrespecting, or putting down, all that are not living up to his economic class or social standing much like a 19^th century wealthy European aristocrat, and not like a poor kid from New Jersey.

Even more, Timberland of the 21^st century cares not to even produce or make music for African American entertainers, but only Euro-American entertainers. Any African American singing a song with production work done by Timberland has to get someone to pay $500,000 for the work to be done.

Being a poor kid from New Jersey GIVEN a chance to learn from a producer like Devante, who learned from producer Al B.Sure, who learned from classically schooled brass musician/composer/ & producer Quincy Jones, and later being GIVEN another chance to record at no cost by a MAJOR record label when he did had not yet produced a breakthrough HIT record for them to sell, which means he was not supposed to be signed, must be a truly distasteful experience for this ex-ghetto kid turned millionaire ghetto or urban music producer.

Hell, if I was given chances to record for free like the unemployed get welfare checks, I’d want to forget about where I came from too.

Or would I?

I don’t think so.

I think I’d rather be cool and not forget where I came from and not be a sell out like Timberland.

It seems like Americans have spent up all of the counties credit cash flow and decided not to repay it.

Now the American government has chosen to force poor people to pay it back by paying more taxes to front the bill to repay money borrowed by people in a larger tax bracket than themselves.

Isn't that American like?

Much like the war in the Middle East;

The American government expects the poor working and middle class to volunteer to fight a war that really doesn't benefit them much, and a war that they never really understood from the beginning.

Always the poor dying and suffering for the ignorant weaker upper class in the US.

If the poor chooses no to adopt the culture of the careless upper middle and the upper class in the US, they are not allowed to progress in society.

It really doesn't pay to be smart in a country whose God is the dollar bill.

I remember reading once that money was the root of all evil; Or, is that the pursuit of money is the root of all evil.

Either way, the country is not rooted in centuries old wisdom, but more in adolescent ignorance backed by a government that will fight to keep it that way.

21 Century Music War

    Not to be a bad guy, but Janet Jackson is on tour, again?

    When was the last time she actually had a song that anyone actually wanted to hear?

    I believe it was something like, 1997.

    That was over ten years ago.

    I would like to see the world move on from the old school performers of the 20^th century and move into the 21^st century with some of the new artists and performers out there.

    Most of the newbies are indies, so the chances of the world hearing what they have are slim unless you surf the web to find them, or get a hit squad together and murder all of the major label execs that don't work with indie acts; and then hire all of the well informed, resourceful, and well connected indie guys to replace them.

    The chances of a war like that to end 20^th century music acts recording or touring in the 21^st century are slim, so don't plan to have your world rocked any time soon.

    Do, however, plan to see lying overweight women over 40 acting like their still in their twenties on television and on stage.

        By the way was Janet married or not; 

        Did she do 250 sit ups a day for those abs or was that lipo;

    did she have a gay relationship with her choreographer or dancer or not;

        Did she date some estranged guy before the Janet CD or not;

        Is she really bipolar paranoid schizophrenic or not;

        Did Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis make her worth $150,000,000 when she wasn't smart enough to be worth $18,000 a year in the US or not;

        Did she do a video with J-Lo and learn how to be hot or not;

        Did she have a child and then give it up or not;

        Did she use her ex-boyfriend/ex-husband to keep her stable in the public and then throw him away without giving him a going away million or not;

        Did Jant and her ex-boyfriend/ex-husband really illegally buy Hepititas/Aids medication using their cooks name and the FBI and California state government covered up the crime;

        Did Janet really file false documents in Los Angeles Superior Court against an east coast indie music producer containing false statements that he sent threatening letters, emails, and made threatening calls to her from the east coast when the music producer was living in Vegas when the incident allegedly occured and he never had her telephone number or address, and then Janet allowed the news media to say the she accused the indie music producer of stalking her when the indie music producer never even followed her around which is necessary to claim such a thing;

        Did Janet Jackson really steal all of Maddona's ideas, turn them into pop/urban music styles and tour using all of those ideas after every one of Maddona's CDs or not.
        Does Janet really weigh 250 pounds

    It all seems interesting, the way a big fat over-weight crazy chick can fool the public into buying millions of CDs and admiring her as if she was Madonna or something.

    Getting back into the here and now, I thought the 21^st century was supposed to be about people getting smarter.

    If Janet's able to sell tickets or records now days, people are getter dumber as opposed to smarter.

        How the 21^st Century Cold Music War Began

    The 21^st century music war is not one yet fought with guns and explosives.

    It is a war fought with dedication and determination from normal people who have the extraordinary gift of making music which makes them artists.

    The war is fought against major corporations like Sony, Universal Studios, and Time Warner who in the late 20^th century bought out all of the independently owned and operated record companies like Mercury Records, Island Records, Polydor Records, Hollywood Records, Def Jam Records, Virgin Records, Tommy Boy Records, Sire Records, Motown Records, and even EMI Records and their affiliates that gave very gifted artists a chance to develop and grow before a major label would be interested in signing them.

    Now there are only a handful of indie labels in the US. Most of those labels lack the executive creativity and experience necessary to spot, sign, and allow the development of new highly creative and musically inclined artists.

    That leaves the new highly creative and musically inclined artists financing their own music, one CD after another.

    It could take an artist 10-15 years to develop on their own, because of the amount of time it takes to pay for studio time, CD pressings, and any promotion.

    It takes an artist 10 years to truly develop with major label backing. A good example of this is artist Alicia Keys. Her first CD was never released  by Columbia Records. The next CD was OK, but was only marketable and appealing after other producers were hired for large sums of money to make the songs sound that way. Her last CD however showed her talents after approximately ten years of recording learning and growing.

    The problem is that when the indie artist is finally ready for a major label investment, the major labels often claim that the artist is not the type of person that the major label wants to sign, but after working very hard, like a slave to music for years, time to recover is needed.

    Often the major label offers to give one of the older artist's songs to a singer, who is usually much younger, for the singer to perform without the artist being involved.

    More, the labels often tell a developed world class artist to go somewhere else, when they are investing in ghetto kids with no musical abilities, no knowledge, and no skills. I think that major labels think that hip hop and urban music, teen pop/rock, and country music are the only styles of music that sell in the global music market, but the fact is that urban, teen pop/rock, and country music globally have a mere 250 million record buying fan base combined.

    There are over 5 billion people on the planet, and over half of them buy records.

    No wonder the majors are losing so much money. They don't think.

    Now the music world is at war, because the indies are left out.

    To top that off, the best outlets for indie artists like Myspace cater to the majors; which is majorily urban, teen pop/rock, and country.

    Do something different why don't you?

    People are tired of Britney, Justine, Shit Hop, and twangs. Redoing old style r&b won't get the job done either.

    Great minds don't reissue.

    They create something new.

    All indie artists, who are the greatest creative minds, want to kick some major label ass.