l.e.b. (finally reached Super Saiyan 7)

Usually I do these as NRHH, but there's some fun hip hop stuff to talk about for once:

1. What do you think of Lupe's Lasers Redemption project? Specifically, do you think Lupe is right to "destroy" an album (obviously not literally since the album already exists permanently online and in our collective consciousness) simply because fans generally don't like it?

http://www.stereogum.com/1827926/lupe-fiasco-offer...

2. What are your thoughts on BDK's comments about Macklemore's "Downtown"?

http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.35318/title.big-daddy-...

3. Have you been following the Funk Volume vs. Horseshoe G.A.N.G. beef? The diss songs released so far are pretty funny but it's nice to see a beef for once that isn't between a bunch of famous people. It's nice to be impartial for once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfZfZOU-6Vk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SEE_EMcADo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXrv31SKiA

I'm mostly a hip hop listener, but I've really been enjoying the new albums from Tame Impala, Purity Ring, Pinkshinyultrablast, GYBE, Viet Cong, Algiers and Leprous as well as the It Follows soundtrack. So I'm pretty much open to anything you've got to recommend, but I'd prefer less abrasive, dreamier music. Thanks for any help!

Let me rephrase the question to be less academic - how do you when the artist him/herself is speaking, and when a persona/alias/alter ego is speaking? This has obviously been a mainstream issue for hip hop ever since Eminem caught fire for it with the MMLP, and I don't think it's ever been properly answered. Using the MMLP as a talking point, here's why it's complicated:

We could simplify the issue by just taking a typical literary approach to it. The same way we know Edgar Allen Poe himself isn't actually the murderer in any of his short stories, we could say that hip hop artists are never actually being themselves in their lyrics. To extend this: Eminem is Eminem, Slim Shady is Slim Shady, Stan is Stan, the Marshall Mathers in "Kim" is not the same Marshall Mathers we know in real life; so at the end of the day Marshall Mathers is not any of those people and he isn't doing any of the things he may have said he's doing while he occupies their personas. But is this oversimplifying? Hip hop tends to be remarkably autobiographical and rap lyrics often take place in the space of the real world as they often contain allusions to pop culture/current events. Hell, Eminem has a song called "Marshall Mathers" on the project where he talks about walking a decapitated rottweiler yet assures us that he is, in fact, "Marshall Mathers... just a regular guy". Isn't that confusing?

Wow bruh drugs are amazing. I'd feel transcendent if it weren't for the gauze padding inside of my mouth. And the surgery took like 30 minutes - I was literally in and out. My tongue and jaw are numb but otherwise I feel pretty great. No wonder people do drugs lol.

But as for the actual question: Ever had surgery? How was it? Did you have any memories of what happened during the surgery?

I used to make these fairly often way back, but I haven't done one since returning. It's just a bunch of scattered interest questions where you answer whatever applies to you in as much detail as you see fit.

1. Have you ever had to hurt a friend (physically or emotionally, whichever fits)? If so, why? A good example of this would be Jay-Z's song "You Must Love Me" where he shoots his brother to stop him from selling their mother's jewelry for drug money.

2. Do you collect anything (e.g. baseball cards, stamps, women in your basement)?

3. Are/Were you in any clubs? Gangs and white supremacy movements don't count.

4. What is one physical object that you've lost that took you a long time to get over? By "physical object", I mean that you can't use people (as in losing a parent to cancer or losing a girlfriend to another man) or intangible things (like your self-esteem or your virginity) to answer.

5. Do you litter?

6. What was the last bad movie you went to see in theaters?

7. Have you ever held a gun? Fired it? If so, at what?

8. What kind of pants do you wear most often (e.g. jeans, shorts, sweatpants)?

9. What was the last book you read? Your opinions on it?

10. If you're not too busy, do you wanna answer the last "Some randomass questions" I posted from over a year ago? It only got one answer :(

/question/index?qid=20140...

This doesn't have anything to do with the excruciating pain I'm feeling down in the ol' Hershey factory. I'm actually being kinda serious here.

The other day I found out that my English professor probably won't be teaching the Fall semester class that I signed up for under the pretense that she would be teaching the class. I think I mentioned briefly a couple of weeks ago that I'm pretty sure I'm in love with my English professor and my feelings have only grown stronger since 'cause she cute AF. Anyway, finding this out kind of bugged me because I had this whole grand relationship scheme planned out for us, but at the same time I'm wondering if it was ever really possible. I mean I'm all for "love whoever you want" and "age ain't nothing but a number" and so forth, but she's a professor. Can I, an emotionally distant young adult who listens to rap music actually have a successful relationship with an English professor (ten years my senior, more or less) who writes articles about Victorian literature? But probably the biggest thing is that, like Matthew Broderick in WarGames, I thought I had more time. An additional semester of ostensibly convincing her to like me is a comforting thought, and one that probably keeps me away from the very likely truth that she doesn't (and will never) like me. And that gets me depressed.

I'm not asking for advice, I'm just venting. Feel free to share your own experiences, whether they relate to mine or not. Thanks.

Again, this is part of a series of updates I'll be posting this week to survey opinions on the finer points of the tournament. Today's topic is voting methods: Should winners for each battle to be decided based on popular vote, judge decision, or a mix of both?

In the past we've used popular vote for the most part, but this can get messy as random users who aren't regs can cast a vote, plus people can create fake accounts to vote for themselves. So we would need to pick which votes we're counting and which ones we won't. There's also the problem that this can sometimes become a popularity contest rather than a tournament because some regs will only vote for people they like (or vote against people they don't like). When I hosted way back, I allowed users to privately request a "nullification" against a reg if they had issues with one another.

Judge decisions are a little safer in that they leave judging to prominent regs that we can trust. It goes without saying that a judge cannot participate in the battles. They need to be impartial and they should have a fairly open idea as to what makes a verse good. It can also be a tricky thing, because it also places a responsibility on the judges to make good and sometimes unpopular decisions which can easily be criticized by everyone else.

Hi y'all. Thanks for the responses yesterday; I feel really good about this and I'm deciding to move forward with it. I'm gonna be posting updates like this throughout the week so that I can get general opinions on how to conduct the tournament. I'll try to incorporate feedback I get from you guys into my updates and ultimately we'll be able to flesh this out together. I'm also hoping more people will join in once they have a better idea of what's going on.

If we did hold a tournament, would you like it to be only written verses, or would you like there to be a performance aspect to it?

In the past we had people send in recordings of them rapping their verses and that was cool. Even if they're just recording on a phone it's nice to hear the verse the way the writer wants us to hear it. Plus, a lot of people agree that it can’t be a “rap” battle if there’s no actual rapping to it. However, sometimes people have problems getting time to record or they just don’t wanna do it, which is fine but it makes the battles a little weird since some people will have voice accompaniments and others won’t. It’s up to y’all - if it's easier to do written verses or if you're just not comfortable with the possibility of strangers masturbating to the sound of your voice, that's fine. I don't wanna complicate this, so whatever works best for everyone should be the primary concern.

Opinions? And please help repost this question so that all interested regs can see it. Thx

The possibility of holding a tournament was brought up last week, and a lot of people showed support for it. It doesn't look like anything's been done about it since then. So I'm just taking the temperature here: Are y'all still interested in holding a tournament? Please note if you're interested in any aspects of it, which includes participation as a writer/performer, organization, judging, or even if you're just going to be a spectator and you want to see this tournament happen. This isn't a legally binding contract or anything, I just want to know if y'all are serious about this. If enough people are interested, I'll post some follow-up questions later so we can work on specifics.

To clarify: I don't mean a rapper you discovered in 2013 that you didn't know previously but who had been around before then. I mean a rapper who didn't even make music or that virtually nobody had heard of until 2013 (or later).

Here's an example of an OG troll that actually made people laugh using their imagination and didn't rely on bull$#¡t gossip like these wacka$$ new trolls. I'm posting these because not only should you know what good trolling looks like, but because these things are still pretty damn funny 3 years later.

These are some from Postal, probably my favorite troll who had an epic trolling run for about a month in early 2012. He began a story where he was hunting down Cheesy, another OG reg. I can't find the original question, but here are some of the "updates" he posted.

/question/index?qid=20120...

/question/index?qid=20120...

Notice that everyone (including a young kid new to the streets by the name of l.e.b.) found him FUNNY. No playing on people's emotions and making personal remarks. Just weird deranged hilarity.

Here's Postal's retirement question (he never finished his story, sadly):

/question/index?qid=20120...

Again, notice that people were actually sad to see him go. A good troll is a part of the section that keeps it alive; not some douchebag who uses anonymous posting to point out other regs for being who they are. Trolls make the section fun and inviting because you don't know what you're going to see everyday. They should aim to bring people together, not bug them about their eccentricities.

Well that's my spiel about trolling. Thanks if you read.

Let's face it: that last Wu-Tang album sounded outdated as hell (my apologies if you did like it). Thankfully Wu-Tang appears to be over as a group and are moving on to better things. But what if we made a new Wu-Tang, one that stayed true to the nature of the group while being more attuned to this generation's listening habits?

So here's what I'm asking you to do: create a new Wu-Tang clan of sorts using rappers who came out in the last 5-10 years. Pick a rapper to take the place of every member of the original Wu-Tang (that means no Cappadonna). Remember that each new member should retain some characteristics of the member they're replacing: picking Big Sean to replace ODB prolly doesn't make a lot of sense. Obviously you don't have to pick rappers who sound EXACTLY like the rapper they're replacing; we want a group that can work together and have a modern sound while staying true to what the Wu-Tang stood for. Other than that, you have a fair amount of leeway in who you want to pick.

Hypothetical question!

Let's say, for whatever reason, you're going on a road trip with three rappers to Mexico (or Canada if you already live in Mexico). You all agree to bring along one album/mixtape for the ride.

So here are the questions:

1. Which rappers would you choose to go with?

2. What album would you choose? Remember that you want to pick something that these rappers probably haven't heard so that you can impress them. You also want something that you can play over and over, because this is a long road trip.

3. What albums do you think each of the three rappers would bring? They can bring their own albums if they want to.

4. Do you think all of the rappers will like the albums the others chose?

Haven't done one of these in a while. Just answer whatever you want to.

1. Surprisingly no one's asked about this, so what did you think of the Strangeulation Cypher? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXIc03slT64

2. If you had to be stuck in an elevator for 2 hours with one rapper, why would you choose Cage?

3. Ever had that weird feeling like somebody's watching you? I'm stalking this girl right now and the b!+c# won't stop looking at the tree I'm hiding in.

4. What albums that are going to be released in the 22th century are you excited for (besides Detox)?

5. If you had to write a short (10 minutes or less) horror film, what would it be about?

6. What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you on the way to school?

7. Have you ever known someone who didn't like a type of food/drink that almost everyone likes? I know someone who actually doesn't like vanilla ice cream, which scares me.

8. Do you like squirrels?

9. If someone decided to do a modernized remake of the movie Scarface, who would you choose to play Tony? Keep in mind, it has to be an actor from this day and age, preferably in his 30s.

I enjoy both artists but I was pretty disappointed with it. I think everyone rightly expected the song to be a rehash of "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" judging from the name, but it doesn't add anything new to the song and feels more like a sample rather than a collab. On top of that, Kendrick sounds way too angry. The original song has such a smooth ethereal vibe to it but Kendrick just shouts through most of it. There isn't even a build up to it the way he did on the "Radioactive" remix; it's just yelling through and through. The lyrics didn't impress me either. What are your thoughts on the song?

If you haven't heard it yet (in which case, you're probably lucky), you can listen here: http://www.xxlmag.com/rap-music/new-music/2014/03/...

BQ: What are your thoughts on alternative acts working more and more with rappers as of recent?

Shouts out to all the gentlemen treating their ladies today (I'd shout out the ladies too but we all know I'd be lying to myself by implying that there are any women in this section). Keep it classy and stuff like that. Wear a condom. Questions below.

1. What did you do for Valentine's Day? Did you celebrate it? If not, why?

2. Favorite hip hop song about love?

3. For anyone who applies, how'd you deal with the snow yesterday? Sh!t was rough.