What is Prison?
By, Frank Berryman

PRISON IS:

A place where u write letters and can' think of anything to say...

A place where u wait for letters that come less and less often...

A place where u gradually stop writing altogether.

A place where u lost respect for the law because you see it raw, naked, twisted, bent, ignored, and blown out of porportion to suit the people who enforce it...

A place where it is proven that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A place where u wait for a visit that doesn't happen...and although u know the real reason, u have to accept the lies.

A place where u learn that nobody needs u...u r forgotten man, and the world goes on without u...

A place where u discover that all of the talents and abilities u have r worthless, for u r a man in blue.

A place where u receive your divorce papers and u learn the meaning of the words 'TIL DEATH DO US PART',...for to the outside world u r a dead man.

A place that doesn't exist in the minds of friends, for they cannot put it on an envelope, nor can they find it in a car...

A place that exists only in a time warp, for u r only rememberd in past tense...and that's probably appropriate, for u can see no future.

A place where days blend into weeks, months merge into years, and eons pass without feeling the touch of a human hand unless it is raised in anger...

A place where a kind word and an affectionate touch r only dim memories.

A place where basic humanity is ignored, discarded, and eventually forgotten...

A place where men r stripped of their clothes as well as thier dignity, and herded like the beasts society believes them to be.

A place where u go to bed early, even when u are not tired; u walk in circles, even though u have nowhere to go; and u pull the covers over your head, even though u r not cold.

A place where escape is possible, but only through reading, dreaming,or just plain going mad.

Can a man survive prison and resume a useful life? If he can overcome the degradation that is heaped upon him, society will continue to remind him that he is tainted.

Does he deserve what he got? Of course! And smug society can be assured that it has done the right and proper thing. Unti........circumstances, errors, accidents, or mistake in the judical system flips the table and they find themselves in the shoes of the man in the cell next door!!!!!

(This was shamelessly stolen from Jeff Chang's Blog at www.Cantstopwontstop.com because it was too brilliant not to share with y'all....sorry Jeff, I love you!!!)

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
The Death of Vibe And The Future Of Magazines :: A Roundtable with Alan Light and Raymond Roker


Vibe’s death yesterday sparked conversations across the blogosphere about the future of magazines, especially the kind many of us most care about–urban culture and music magazines. I wanted to surface one of them here.

It began with a Twitter post that reposted to my Facebook account. Here was that original post (re-rendered into something resembling proper english).

Jeff Chang: I could live with a smaller media landscape–but we need that middle between 1m+ circulation mags and circs of less-than-100,000 zines back.

And who should reply but Alan Light.

Alan was one of my first editors at Vibe. (He actually did me the favor of sinking a horrible Tribe Called Quest piece I did, easily the worst interview I ever did…a long story for another time.) Alan started at Rolling Stone and went on staff there from 1989 to 1993. He moved over to become Music Editor at Vibe in its inaugural year and took over as Editor-in-Chief the following year, where he worked until 1997. He edited Spin from 1999-2002, then broke out to start a new magazine called Tracks.

Tracks is a really interesting story. It launched with independent capital in November 2003 with a circulation of about 150,000. It targeted readers from 30-50, a bit of an older audience, more white than not. This group was thought to be the holy grail of the dying music industry–they were folks who actually still bought music. The writing got better, they started moving more urban (Prince was on the cover at the time of “Musicology”) and they built an audience, doubling their circulation.

But by April 2005, they folded. The magazine industry had shifted dramatically. The middle–as in all media and entertainment industries, hell, in American society–could not hold.

Let’s pick this up where Alan responded:

Alan Light at 1:00pm June 30
you have no idea how right you are…well, ok, you have some idea. but take it from one who’s been there – it has become almost impossible to make that model work. which is awful, because it’s obviously the most interesting place to be.

Jeff Chang at 1:33pm June 30
Damn Alan. That hurts to hear from you because I know you know this better than anyone else. I’m sure in fact it hurts you more.

Alan Light at 1:35pm June 30
no more, no less – we’re all out here together. but you isolated the exact right issue, in all types of media. you can be mega or you can be niche, but very difficult to play in between. magazines, movies, music…all the same drill.

Jeff Chang at 1:54pm June 30
Yes. How do we get it back? My first gut instinct is stronger anti-trust enforcement, but that’s just one side of it. Plus how does one begin to reverse consolidation? After all it’s a global thing. I worry we come out of the depression and the big are still bigger and still stepping on or casting long shadows over the seeds of the new stuff. You all have any ideas?

Jeff Chang at 10:40am July 1
(crickets) Haha! Oh well, fam, we all stay grinding.

Alan Light at 10:43am July 1
All you say is correct – but it’s a market issue more than a legislative one. On the one side, it’s too expensive to produce “old” media without sufficient ad/sponsor base, and on the other hand – though we love the democratizing part of “new” media – until it can be monetized, how does a single outlet get enough visibility to feel like it has any impact?

Jeff Chang at 10:56am July 1
Alan, is there any middle ground at all to be found? Is it possible to concoct a web/print model that can diversify income beyond ad/sponsor revenues? E.g. For what it’s worth, and forgetting how I feel about it for a second, most of the mags I know in the high10K/low100k circ realm have become quasi- or real marketing agencies.

Alan Light at 11:01am July 1
I honestly don’t know – can anyone point to an example of such a business that’s working? I didn’t get enough time or runway with Tracks to really learn any conclusive lessons. And that was pre-web-takeover, anyway.

Another question someone asked me yesterday that I couldn’t answer: Who’s winning? Who in the media space, print or web, is gaining any ground at all?

Jeff Chang at 11:04am July 1
I guess I think of magazines like URB, The Fader, and Juxtapoz, and Swindle as businesses that are working. But again, there are a number of ancillary units working there aside from the content work. All of them have massive marketing arms. Juxtapoz is part of the Upper Playground clothing/street art business. Swindle is part of Shepard Fairey’s empire.

But yeah, media qua media? Not so much…

Alan Light at 11:07am July 1
if anyone sees this who works with any of those, please chime in. but my understanding is that the magazine parts of those companies do not make money – but rather are a good investment in terms of visibility. as a kind of calling card for the rest of the operation where the profits are. Raymond? Andy? You guys out there?

And here’s where my man Raymond Roker, my very first editor-in-chief at URB Magazine jumped in.



Since 1990, Raymond has built URB from a free tabloid newsprint broadsheet into a magazine whose circulation is now 50,000. “But,” he says, “I believe that the model for 2010 is smaller still. And with more direct to consumer distribution. The newsstand market will continue to deteriorate and be hostile to indie mags. The decline of big titles make it even tougher for the newsstand business, so real estate could be harder to find. Plus, I don’t believe in the lowest common denominator of the newsstand marketplace. I’d rather go directly to potential readers.”

In order to survive, URB has branched into marketing in a big way over the past decade, now offering these services, according to Raymond: “creative direction, Web promotions, custom media/custom publishing, music consulting, viral video production and seeding, experiential marketing.” The website relaunches next month. Back to our conversation…

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:27am July 1
I agree with Alan for sure, the model is not workable in its current state. Just look at Paste–a “perfect” model in terms of great audience, good advertisers, and plenty of bells & whistles (CD, added value programs, sponsored events, etc). And look at Vibe now–how does *that* not work anymore?

The advertising model is broken because not enough marketers believe in it from a traditional (read: old media) vantage. They don’t believe in the metrics of it or the effectiveness. Except in massive terms a la Oprah, In Style, etc. And even that at aggressive CPMs, more akin to Web numbers.

The Web promises (in theory) a perfectly delivered demo with measurable metrics and perfect data. And the CPM efficiency is akin to the largest mags in many cases.

So…

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:32am July 1
The ways us smaller print brands have a chance is to become boutique agencies. Filter, Cornerstone/Fader, BPM, et al, everybody is in the agency game. The magazines become the branded company pitch. A measure of credibility and clout.

But as print continues to melt away, in the eyes of clients and under the weight of constantly increasing production costs, some of these brands may drop their mags too.

The assumption is that magazine brands, if they walk away from print, can’t survive. That hasn’t been proven one way or another yet. But IMO, the only way they will is by becoming media marketing companies instead. Ones where content and marketing blur (hello ASME). But the standalone magazine model died years ago.

Alan Light at 11:34am July 1
there’s a pretty key “(in theory)” in there – all this is true about the web but are even the larger web outlets able to monetize effectively? what is Pitchfork’s business?

I will tell you what will drive me crazy until my grave – when Vibe came up for sale a few years ago, why would nobody major step in and grab it? It was a total category leader, virtually unchallenged in a desirable space, and had an 800K circ with absolutely no spending behind it – one push by a real company and it’s a million without breaking a sweat, plus a brand built to extend beyond the pages. Why did it not even get a long look from one of the big publishers?

Raymond Leon Roker at 11:37am July 1
I can’t a answer why the big publisher’s didn’t look at it. Unless they ultimately didn’t understand or believe in “ethnic” media. That’s the only answer I can fathom given the numbers and apparent opportunity.

Jeff Chang at 11:45am July 1
Uh first off what’s a CPM? And to both of you, I feel like we moved from a mini-consolidation phase–Spin + Vibe merging–to a VC phase. Are either of those to blame for Vibe’s closing?

Jeff Chang at 11:46am July 1
And I note the irony of looking at VIbe as ‘ethnic media’ when the urban category was invented by Black marketers and other marketers of color to get beyond that box…

Alan Light at 11:51am July 1
First, publishing is a terrible place for VCs to be, the return is too slow and too gradual. And are there other examples of consolidation other than Vibe/Spin?

And FYI, I don’t know how these numbers developed over the years, but in the years I was at Vibe it was amazing how close a 50/50 split we had in black/white and in male/female readership. Which was a bit of a problem until sales team were able to convince people it was a strength.

Jeff Chang at 11:58am July 1
Re: that’s so telling on the ad tip. And so when Wicks Group bought Vibe the writing was on the wall?

Alan Light at 12:00pm July 1
who knows? i mean, i guess there was cause for concern if, as i said, no magazine companies wanted in. i can’t comment on the state of things as of time of sale, long after i was gone.

Raymond Leon Roker at 12:04pm July 1
CPM = cost per thousand. Sorry. Term for what a marketer is paying per thousand people/eyeballs reached. The lower the better, for them.

Jeff Chang at 12:07pm July 1
So what do we all do now?

Jeff Chang at 12:08pm July 1
After all this, I won’t be offended if the sound now is of (crickets).

Alan Light at 12:08pm July 1
from my end? i don’t miss being in the editor’s chair right now, so i am spreading my bets and working various projects in various media and very happy with the juggling act.

Raymond Leon Roker at 12:25pm July 1
We embrace the new. Don’t lament too much on the past. There will always be old media support groups and once URB’s archive site goes live, you can relive the rave scene virtually

But today, it’s about social media, shared content, multiple distribution channels and creative financing.

Good night and good luck.

Classic!!!

The XXL Editors received this letter from Louis Vuitton concerning the May 2009 cover of Rick Ross.

Dear Editor:

We were dismayed to see the cover of the May 2009 issue of XXL Magazine, which features a photo of Rick Ross wearing a pair of sunglasses prominently featuring counterfeit Louis Vuitton trademarks. Because the photo has generated considerable confusion among your readers and Louis Vuitton customers among others, we feel it is important to clarify several points.

The first is that the sunglasses Mr. Ross is wearing were not made by Louis Vuitton, and in fact, are counterfeit. Louis Vuitton did not grant permission to Mr. Ross or to whoever did make the sunglasses to use our trademarks. The second is that no affiliation, sponsorship or association exists between Rick Ross or XXL and Louis Vuitton. The third is that counterfeiting is illegal.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to correct the confusion.

Sincerely,
Michael D. Pantalony, Esq.Louis Vuitton Malletier
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Former Drug Kingpin, Ricky Ross, Returns To Society A Better Man

For Immediate Release...Texarkana, TX...On Monday, May 4th, Freeway Ricky Ross will finally be released from prison after serving 20 years for being a “drug kingpin.” The real Ricky Ross over saw a Los Angeles based multi-state drug operation in the early 1980’s, which earned upwards of $2 million dollars per day at its height. After L.A.P.D. set up a sting operation to bring him down (The Freeway Taskforce), Ricky finally turned himself in, weeks after a rogue police officer attempted to set him up and murder him in an alley. Ricky was sentenced to prison and released in 1996. After 6 months, his former cocaine distributor, who was working for the CIA (unbeknownst to Ricky), asked Ricky for a favor—it turned out to be a set up, and in 1996, Ricky Ross was sentenced to life in prison for orchestrating the purchase of over 100 kilos of cocaine from an undercover federal agent.

Ross’ sentence was later reduced through appeals and after a series of explosive articles by the late Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb. Webb wrote a three part series titled “Dark Alliance” for the San Jose Mercury News, which investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly smuggled cocaine into the U.S. that was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. Webb also alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan supplied cocaine sparked and significantly fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas in the US. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel, and further alleged that while Ricky was sentenced to a harsh prison term, his Nicaraguan cocaine distributor was placed on the payroll of the CIA.

That news series turned into the best-selling book, “Dark Alliance,” that blew the lid off of the alleged CIA complicity in the importation of cocaine into the US, creating the exceptionally profitable, and damaging, crack cocaine epidemic spread through many inner city neighborhoods. Congressional Hearings, in the late-90s, found the book’s facts to be true.

As Ricky Ross’ story reads like a page-turning novel or a blockbuster film, it has inspired rappers to name themselves after him, style themselves after him, and even retell his stories as their own exploits, gaining international success. Although a pawn in a bigger scheme, Ricky realized that the damage done to inner city neighborhoods was unacceptable. He has devoted himself to making a difference in his community by teaching financial literacy to urban youth and teaching legal ways to financially empower themselves. When Ricky first went to prison, he was illiterate—the educational system in South Central L.A. had failed him, even though he went on to become a multi-millionaire savvy at numerous legitimate businesses, and a tennis pro. Reading a book a week during his lengthy incarceration has since made Ricky wise beyond his years.

Ricky oversaw an empire that reached numerous states and that is rumored to have brought in millions of dollars a day at its height. His plan is to return to society and accomplish that again, but this time through legal means. Upon Ricky Ross' release, he is focusing on:
• a book and a film (currently seeking deals for both),
• a new record label in conjunction with industry legend Wendy Day,
• a Foundation to help innercity youth at risk,
• a reality TV show,
• his social networking site, www.FreewayEnterprise.com that he built while incarcerated
• speaking engagements to share his story and experiences





A film crew is following Ricky’s release from prison and his trek across the country to a halfway house in California where he will interact with, and impact youth in juvenile detention centers along the way. Already the topic of one of the most successful episodes of BET’s American Gangster series (1st Season), the real Ricky Ross is a cultural icon and hero in communities across the US. Now he is able to make positive moves with that status.

Ricky can be reached at TheRealRickRoss@aol.com or through his social networking site www.FreewayEnterprsie.com. He will be available for interviews beginning the week of May 11, 2009.

For more information, please contact Wendy Day at 404.474.1999 or RapCoalition@aol.com.

Gordon Gecko For President: Obama and Pop Culture Can Do What Rick Santelli and Sean Hannity Can’t
By, Cedric Muhammad

If I could have gathered an orchestra, I would have had them build up to a crescendo during this portion of President Barack Obama’s Address To Congress: “People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway.”

Unfortunately, I would have had to send them home, because the show stopping punch line was never delivered. President Obama never explained why “banks and lenders…pushed those bad loans anyway.”

A few days I presented a blog, “Securitization As Satan,”:

http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/securitization-as-satan/

In it I explain that despite what you may be led to believe by listening only to CNBC’s Rick Santelli (“This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbors’ mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? … President Obama, are you listening?”) and Fox’s Sean Hannity (“Government influence and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused this!”), the undisputable truth – which no media outlet will present and no respected economist or financial historian can deny – is that a significant majority of loans in this country were orignated, not because of the primary motivation of a bank or mortgage lender to make money off of interest rate payments, but rather its desire to make more money by selling that loan to a third-party investor: an investment bank, commercial bank, hedge fund, government sponsored entity, pension fund, or insurance company.

The secondary market for mortgage securitization and not the primary market for mortgage lending is more to blame for this mess that we are in.

And the shadow banking industry that purchased these securities became more important than the commercial and mortgage lenders who originated the mortgages they were based upon.

Now, I gather that this truth won’t be popularized until Jay-Z makes a track called ‘Securitized Gangster,’ or, Britney gets the phrase tatooed on her ——; or Michael Douglass can be coaxed into starring in Wall Street II in the role of Lewis Ranieri of Salomon Brothers or Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide.

But it sure would be helpful if our Beloved new POTUS would take a few moments to explain to the American people how we really got into this mess, and the reality that because so many banks sold their mortgages to third parties, he and Congress are really limited in their ability to stimulate the economy or repair the housing market. (Hey Lil Wayne, how’s this for a song - ’A Bank Can’t Change What A Bank Don’t Own.’)

As I have previously blogged, this is why the privately-owned Federal Reserve’s TALF program (designed to revive securitization) is more important to understand than the U.S. Treasury Department’s TARP program (designed to revive commercial bank lending). Credit won’t unfreeze because securitization controls room temperature.

The reason this basic truth is important is because it leads to another – the fact that the American economy became too dependent upon its financial services sector, moving away or taking valuable capital and talent from other sectors like manufacturing, agribusiness, general services, and even information technology, not to mention unknown areas of innovation.

Statistics show that an American economy that had manufacturing as 29.3% as a share of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1950, with financial services representing 10.9%; by 2005 had eveolved into financial services with a 20.4% share of the American economy and manugacturing down to 12%.

Securitization, which moved beyond mortgages in the 1970s to everything from credit card receivables, student and small business loans, computer leases, and corporate borrowing (even music royalties see ‘Bowie Bonds’) in the 80s and 90s, has become the lifeline of a significant portion of economic activity in America and the world.

In short, if a primary economic activity like a loan, receivable, or revenue stream can’t be bundled and resold as a security in the secondary market, it may not be produced in the first place. It is estimated that without securitization markets $2 trillion in lending is no longer possible.

How important is this?

$4 trillion in total is what was lent to businesses and consumers in 2007.

That’s the real definition of a credit freeze.

Yes, this is the financial version of the tail wagging the dog - a situation where a small part (securitization) is controlling the whole of something (real economic activity).

If the President really hopes to stimulate this economy and save the housing market, he will have to bring balance to an economy that grew to devalue produce from the earth, the entrepreneur with a great idea, a profitable local factory, and even the simple purchase of a home – if it could not be turned into paper profits, over and over again.

If he can’t do it I and we will have no choice but to turn to what Sean Penn, in his Oscar accpetance speech, called the ‘Commie, Homo-loving, sons of guns…’ to get the message across.


Cedric Muhammad’s ‘The Eclectic Economist’ blog is available at Cedricmuhammad.com (http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 12:59 PM and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition

Mark Curry is my new poster child for Rap Coalition, but he doesn’t know it yet. Not because he has written a tell-all book slamming Puffy’s business practices, not because he takes responsibility for his own bad decisions, but because he tells his firsthand experience about the shadier practices in the entertainment industry that prevail in almost every company. And he tells it loudly, with examples, and from his experiences in the music industry being signed to Bad Boy for more than a decade.

This is a similar story that I have heard over and over and over in my 17 years in this industry. The story hasn’t changed much in 40 years since artists were given fancy new Cadillacs in exchange for their music, nor does my reaction to this and similar stories change (it always depresses me; I am not desensitized to it). When I sit down with most artists, it’s more of “to what degree did you get jerked?” than “did you get jerked?” Obviously they got jerked. Most do. Sadly, it’s the price many creative people are willing to pay for their chance at “getting on” or some primal need for money and fame. Every time I hear this similar story, my first question is always “why did you stay so long?” The answer always floors me: I believed him. We were family. I knew he needed me so he’d have to do right eventually. He said if I would just wait a little longer, all of my dreams would come true. It’s a building process. My turn would come. All I wanted to do was buy my Mom a house, and he was on his fourth Bentley so I knew he’d break bread eventually. Blah, blah, blah.

Mark Curry was signed to Bad Boy Records through a production company that was bought out almost immediately. It is a way for people behind the scenes in the industry to get a quick pay check. Someone finds an artist and brings the artist to the record label (in this case, a well known street dude). The label recognizes the value of that artist and wants that artist in their camp. The label “tests out” the artist’s talent by giving him, or her, an assignment. The assignment is usually to write a song or make a track for another already signed artist who is struggling for a hit record to “help” the family, or company, or team. In Mark Curry’s case, it was P Diddy himself looking to make a hit single for a soundtrack to a Godzilla movie. Mark delivered.

Once the label is convinced the artist has value, it comes time to pull out the paperwork. In Mark’s case, he says Puff gave him a contract to sign with the middleman. When Mark asked why he couldn’t sign directly to Bad Boy instead, he was told because the middleman was Puff’s friend (as an ironic twist, this same friend is the person Puff testified in front of the Grand Jury that he didn’t know his real name—the same crime that sent Lil Kim to prison in a different case) and actually found Mark and brought him to Puff. After Mark balked at the language in the contract that he was unable to understand, he says Puff was kind enough to send him to an attorney (after Puff allegedly asked that famous question, “Don’t you trust me? I thought we were cool?!”). That attorney, Kenny Meiselas, turned out to be one of Puff’s entertainment attorneys at a strong and credible law firm. Conflict of interest? Not exactly, Mark wasn’t exactly signing to Bad Boy. Mark was advised to sign the deal by counsel, so he did. Puffy then bought the contract from the middleman, thereby putting a wad of money--recoupable money from the artist, in the middleman’s pocket and landing Mark Curry on Bad Boy.

That contract, entitled Mark to a $75,000 advance: $25k was a signing bonus (recoupable), $25k was for the rights to half of his publishing (recoupable), and the remaining $25k would be given to him upon release of his debut album (also recoupable)--an album that never came. Since the middleman had taken half of Mark’s publishing off the top, he received that $25k, so all Mark received for signing to Bad Boy was $25,000. He knew it didn’t feel right, but he focused on the future and what other ways there were to make money in this business—touring, endorsement deals, etc. I wonder why we didn’t see this scenario on any episode of The Making Of The Band. It’s all too commonplace in this industry.

As Mark was consistently promised the opportunity to work on his own album, he was side tracked with tours, writing songs for Puff, and teaching Puff how to deliver his rhymes. Basically, he was put on hold to build the artistic career of his boss. Mark went along with that because he saw everyone else in the camp doing so, and figured it was the way things worked. He watched Puff enact sales pitches on the “Bad Boy family” of other artists and producers to get them to do whatever he needed done. He watched Puff get into numerous legal scrapes to emerge victorious. He watched Puff use Biggie’s death to increase his own popularity, fame, income, and fan base. Mark watched one disgruntled artist after another leave Bad Boy. He babysat other artists under the guise of “developing” them at the label. And Mark watched promise after promise fade into dust, even when he was most desperate.

When Mark Curry reflected on why he spent ten years at Bad Boy without ever releasing his own record, he surmised that he had more value to Puff building Puff’s career. He also felt that it was because he was trusting enough to believe his mentor and label president when he spun him by telling him the timing wasn’t right, or that he was busy with the planning of his next party or his clothing company or his world tour…or the most common excuse: we’re waiting for your budget to be approved (a lie that a label accountant finally exposed upon telling Mark that Puff never had submitted a budget for Mark’s project).

In “Dancing With The Devil,” Mark pointed out numerous ways that Bad Boy and Puff, directly, was able to profit from artists. In most Bad Boy contracts there is a clause stating that the artist has to pay Puff for appearances on a record. Since Puff is creating the album, he controls those appearances on all singles and album cuts. At $40,000 per appearance (even if just whispering “Bad Boy! Bad Boy!” in the background), he can make a fortune on appearances on his own artists’ records. Bad Boy artists often record at Daddy’s House, a studio owned by the mogul. If an artist receives a recording budget of $250,000, that fund can easily be spent with Hitmen producers (you guessed it, producers who are signed to the mogul with a stake in the publishing rights) at Daddy’s House studio (rumored to be the current going rate of studio time at $125 an hour in the late 90s). Not only does the production and recording fund go to Bad Boy owned entities, but it is all recoupable from the artists’ budgets—a double win for any company willing to do business this way.

Mark also pointed out that when Mary J Blige was recording at Daddy’s House, for example, she would be billed for 8 hours in the studio, but may have only used 6 hours. Those additional 2 hours would be paid from her MCA recording budget, but would be used by Bad Boy Recording artists to record-- artists with no ties to MCA. Mark also set the record straight about Kirk Burrowes, a former Bad Boy President, who was allegedly threatened into signing away his 25% ownership in Bad Boy, but was strung along long enough (apparently with the promise of money) to miss the statute of limitations deadline to sue for what he claimed was rightfully his. Once he filed suit, he was falsely painted in the media as a disloyal, money-grubbing liar out to gold dig a mogul (for the record, Puff spent more on jewelry for his women than he paid in annual salary for Kirk Burrowes to run the label during the early years of Bad Boy--his argument being that Kirk was a 25% owner of the label and would make money in the long term). The “relationship” that Puff had with his artists and staff seems to have been a powerful hold which kept them around long enough that they couldn’t do anything about it, and close enough that they didn’t want to….until they caught on and it was too late. In which case, either violence allegedly ensued, or images and careers were destroyed.

There are two things I didn’t like about “Dancing With The Devil,” although it’s an amazingly honest, insightful, and brave book. The way Mark listed names of street dudes who were in Puffy’s circle was a bit excessive. Now, I’m not saying he did not tell the truth, but I don’t feel he needed to discuss by name who allegedly shot Tupac in Quad, or who allegedly killed Puff’s bodyguard Wolf, or who allegedly shot Jake that fateful night that is credited with kicking off the East Coast/West Coast beef. Secondly, while there are more artists than not who’ve signed to Bad Boy and eventually cried foul, shady industry tactics are not the sole dominion of Bad Boy. Shady and fraudulent practices exist at many other companies throughout the music business. It doesn’t seem to be a Black or white problem specifically, but a green (money) problem. I realize Mark is speaking from his personal experience, and it is his autobiography, so he is only speaking about what he knows. Bad Boy is NOT the only company, by any means, in this industry that has been accused by its artists of shady business practices. Although it IS one of the most successful, and has been accepted without due diligence by journalists, the media, fans, executives, the industry, star fuckers, hoes, and party goers alike.

All in all, “Dancing With The Devil” was a riveting read, and a must for anyone who takes a career in the music business seriously. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down til I was finished the book. It is available at www.MarkCurryBooks.com.

“I told you that we won’t stop…” –Sean “Puffy" Combs

"My President Is Black...." --Young Jeezy

For the first time in my life, I feel proud to be an American. I realize the enormity of that statement, but it's how I feel.

My boyfriend can look at his sons today and tell them both that they can be President if they work hard and really want it. How amazing is that!?!

But I don't want to dwell too long on Barack Obama's skin color and the historical aspect because there are two other things to discuss: he is qualified, and we need change. I was dumbfounded when this country voted Bush back into office 4 years ago, and am thankful those of us who saw the idiocracy of that went to the poills yesterday and fixed it.

The bulk of the vote for Barack came from the Hip Hop generation. 18 to 34 year olds turned out in record numbers to vote this man into office. Minorities turned out in record numbers to vote this man into office. Not because he is Black, but because the country is fucked up.

The highlight of my night last night in watching the election coverage were the phone calls and emails that came to me from the Federal Correction Institutions. Even the forgotten, with no votes, were celebrating this man's ascention to power.

Yep, a change is coming. Now the real work begins....

Gangster won first place for his Halloween costume at his Vet's office...