These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

So here we are. 2010 is over. It had it’s moments, that’s for sure. Some great ones. And some, well, challenging ones too. But, as you get a little older you realize they’re pretty much all like that. Wins, losses and draws in relatively similar proportions. The other thing I’ve realized watching the years peel away is that no matter how much we decry the current crop of tunes (compared, say, to the sweet sounds of high school), each year produces an enormous wealth of great listening. With that in mind, a couple of years ago me and my best friend Dart Parker challenged each other to put together our Top 100 songs of 2008. Not as a countdown, but as a playlist—our personal soundtrack to the year.

THE MOST RACIST MOMENTS OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

from complex.com

Okay, so check this out—apparently America’s wild racist. Yeah, get this: a half-black dude is running for president (ya mighta missed this ‘Plexers, ’cause it’s non-sneaker related news) and it’s looking like he might actually win, too. So, of course, a really ignorant faction of our nation has been going absolutely apeshit as a result. It’s been all over the boob-tube of late, ’cause the pundits and anchors are, like, totally shocked to discover that there’s this much overt hate in this fine land of ours….Clearly, they don’t get out much.

From Complex.com

You know how today there’s, like, a zillion blogs dedicated to rap and its various niches? Well, back in the ’90s, that’s what it was like at every newsstand. On any given month you could find dozens of hip-hop magazines offering every take on the scene, from the most mainstream (like VIBE or RapPages) to the most avant-garde (The Nü Skool), to the most absurd (ego trip), to the most arcane (Elementary). Some were full-color glossies with polished art direction, and others were newsprint ‘zines laid out by hand, but all lived and breathed the scene they documented. Unfortunately, as hip-hop moved away from the thinky to the thuggy in the late ’90s, the audience for analysis shrank—and so did the ad dollars. Some soldiered on through the next decade or so, but between rising paper costs, competition with free online content, and dramatically downsized marketing budgets, our current economic crisis has made print publishing rugged like Rwanda.

THE UNAUTHORIZED HISTORY OF CHAIN SNATCHING IN HIP-HOP

from complex.com

Middle-aged white guys buy snazzy sports cars and flaunt them as if they’re chrome, fuel-injected, super-charged effigies of their now flaccid cocks. Rappers, on the other hand, buy gaudy medallions attached to equally gaudy links and rock them as if they’re platinum-and-gold-plated, diamond-encrusted effigies of their now flaccid cocks. So you can imagine how emasculated your favorite rapper feels when another rapper, or local stick-up kid, comes along, takes their shine, and leaks a picture or youtube video. It’s like they’re holding their penises (¡NH!) fully exposed for the world to see! Ay Carumba!