HustleKnockin'

P.T., Cruisin’: Myspace is about to get a Proper Butt whoppin'--

This is from knockthehustle.com's HUSTLEKNOCKER Interview Series. HustleKnockers fight constructs and whatnot. Each month or so, I'll interview/profile one. Here's the first, an interview with teh one and only Phil Tadros.

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P.T., Cruisin’:

Myspace is about to get a Proper Butt whoppin'--

soon as Phil Tadros gets his vibe back.

    By: Hadji Williams

It’s mid-August and Phil Tadros is sweating out another day in front of his computer screen. MetroProper.com isn’t ready; not in his mind, at least. “We pulled the whole thing down and started over!” That’s been his response to just about everyone when they tell him how cool MetroProper already is. He seems happier knowing that he’s found a glitch to fix. “But we’re going live September 1.” He states, almost apologetically. You get the feeling that Phil will be chasing gremlin ghosts on 8/31.

AKEELAH’S COMING

In my “Good Buy, Bad Sell” news… 2006’s highly underrated kid flick, AKEELAH AND THE BEE (LionsGate, $29) drops on DVD on Aug 29.

Now in case you missed it—as most of the country did—Akeelah is a bright young Black daughter (Keke Palmer) of single mom (former Oscar nom Angela Bassett) with an incredible capacity for spelling. She’s a really smart kid who (like most youngsters) is a little awkward, lacks some confidence and isn’t too sure what the point/purpose is of being smart. So sometimes she dumbs it down just to fit in. It takes a teacher, Laurence Fishburne, to show her the light embrace her brains and push her to do her best which leads, to well, you know... [Insert Big Uplifting Finale here!]

Think Rocky meets Search for Bobby Fisher. Akeelah was a hot little movie. Too bad we all slept on it—which is precisely what makes it a “Good Buy Bad Sell” is the marketing.

NPR is still boring and white...

This was sort of disappointing to read—not only because I was on Ed Gordon’s show a little over a month ago, July 5th or 6th, I believe—but also because I came up on BET and remember Edo G from their Nightly News shows. Now BET is, well God knows what BET is, these days. But I’ve been pulling for him for a minute. He’s a solid journalist—and is as good a talking head as any of the mainstreamers.

I can’t call myself a NPR head, but I’ve listened off an on for years. Bores me to tears, mostly. No flavor whatsoever. But that’s their crowd, their choice I guess.

Personally, I’ve always wonder about NPR’s commitment to diverse programming. Ed Gordon was in a no-win deal here. And if he’s a detached dude then your commitment to diverse programming should demand that you get more appropriate talent. But all that’s predicated on truly giving a snot.

Some companies are stubborn on this. They either expect people to just come to them and focus on their core or—I dunno know what they think. They just make these alf-hassed efforts then turn around and blame the consumer for not getting it.

What troubles me more and more is how often Black consumers and audiences get the short-end in situations like this. It’s a if NPR came a day late and a dollar short and then said, “Well we tried! See, we like diversity. Not our fault. They (black audiences) just don’t care about our offerings.”

I think I’d rather deal with companies who just ignore black audiences and consumers and do so on some sort of “they’re just not our audience” or overt bias… It’s way better than this condescending self-denial white liberal crap.

Karsh Kale: No mash-ups needed.

ARTIST: Karsh Kale
ALBUM: Broken English
LABEL: Six Degrees, 2006
STANDOUTS: Manifest, Innocence and Power, Louder than Bombs, Rise Up
REMINDS ME OF: An East Indian Beck, Andre 3000 goes to Nepal.

Indian music is hot. The latest flavor to be eaten alive by The Hustle… By 2008, East Indian-everything will be the flavor of the month all over the US… and it’ll have a friggin’ logo on every incarnation. So, until in the meantime, you might want to get exposed to some really good Indian music before Viacom, Clear Channel, and the boys get around to programming the soul out of it.

Percussionist/DJ Karsh Kale's Broken English is one of the better albums of its kind.

Starbury's: Great product, bad marketing!

When I first heard about this from cats I knew, I thought it was a joke. Then here it was in Brandweek: Starbury pushing Dime ‘n’ Five kicks from... Steve & Barry. Now, Mitchell & Ness, I get, but Steve and Barry?

My ample gut's told me that it’s just another sign of a brother falling on hard times. Steph brought the Showbiz to KG in Minnesota. Shoulda been Shaq/Kobe 1 minus the rape trial and infighting. Definitely one of the greatest mag covers ever. (Ups to SLAM!) One of the true and living streetball legends to break an owner’s bank before the salary cap—and back it up on the court. Mostly.

He was like Iverson without the (mainstream paranoid-media-hyped) thug passion. Grip. Speed. Could go baseline or the lane on just about anybody. Better passer than AI. Could give you 40 most any night. (Might require 25 shots but he’s good for 40.) Star’s heart was questioned on occasion. No real love for the game. In short: Typical block to the top hood baller.

personal responsishmiliteeee!!!

Rumor has it knockthehustle.com is going live this week. Here's an excerpt from a monthly feature called "THE HUSTLE OF THE MONTH," which is all about constructs and paradigms that have gone way too far. Check in every month for a fresh HOTM.

THE [PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY] HUSTLE

“I can’t do nothing for you man—
I’m busy trying to do for me.”
—Flava Flav

Personal Responsibility. Might be the biggest cliché in modern pop culture. Personal Responsibility used to be about fighting for control of your destiny. Living your life instead of being a bystander Ownership... But at some point, Personal Responsibility became one of the great modern hustles running. Personal Responsibility is my generation’s Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware, Seller Amoral.

Recently in Chicago a huge mass of (mainly black) parents, lead by Rev. James Meeks, blasted Mayor Daley for Chicago’s failing inner city schools. They claimed the mayor, the school board, teachers’ union, etc just don’t care enough about inner city (lower income black) students to provide them with the quality education that suburban (think: white) students get.

we're all the same, right? uh-huh.

And you can sell us all in the same way, right. Yup... let the slow trickle of "oh yeah, watch this!" begin.

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Yankelovich study: African Americans show strong reconnection to heritage

(August 15, 2006) African American and Hispanic consumers are reconnecting with their roots more so now than at any other time in the past, according to the Yankelovich MONITOR Multicultural Marketing Study 2006 released today from marketing consultancy Yankelovich Inc. For Hispanics, this strong reconnection means growing the bi-cultural segment of the marketplace; for African Americans, it means creating a new Black renaissance.

The big greene machine is smashing

Tim Greene… TG is killin’ it! This is my guy from Philly. Tim’s a hot underground director. He’s underground because he’s doing things outside the Hollywood studio system… And because he’s black—that’s a whole extra layer cats fight through, even in entertainment. He’s out to do more than the typical gangsta shoot-em-up babymama-stereotypical junk that so many get hustled into doing for the silver screen.

It’s been paying off on the low for a minute… Now it’s starting to pay off above ground, too.

I've got a big secret!!!!

And this one's too good to keep to myself. Seriously, I got my hands on a cool book a not long ago. If you're a small business person or brand-side person, this is your kind of book. --- TITLE: THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS CARDS (and what your brochure is saying behind your back) AUTHOR: Sonya A. Lowery $14.95/2006 Paperback, 85 pp. ISBN: 1-8793552-8-0 Jordan Maxwell Publishing www.thesecretlanguage.com

Why pharma ads suck. still.

Pharma ads suck. they're boring. or frightening. or stpid. or misleading. or not informative enough. or all of the above. almost always. why?

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Why Pharma ads suck. Still.

Last week I discussed the new doctor dominated XXX television ads. This week a new style emerged. The new sleeping aid Rozerem from Takeda decided that rather than use doctors, they would use new spokespeople.

Abraham Lincoln, a talking beaver, a backwards facing underwater diver in the old style suit represent Rozerem. Clearly this commercial does not fit into the meat and potatoes new style of doctor ad. It does not fit the old style either with no beach, no mountains, no skiers, sail boats or other active lifestyle scenes.

Is it effective? I do not have a clue. I assume it has been tested by Takeda and their agencies. I also assume that Takeda management must have had many debates about whether to let this ad run. I like Lincoln, have nothing against beavers, and admire the courage of undersea divers. That being said, I wonder if the use of these curious characters, will overpower the message. Rozerem has a unique mechanism of action and supposedly a better residual side effect profile. The risk of these ultra creative devices are that they may mask what are really good benefits of Rozerem.

breakin atoms and bread and constructs...

TIME TO BREAK BREAD…

ARTIST: Lecrae
ALBUM: Real Talk
LABEL: Cross Movement Records, 2006
(www.lecrae.com / www.crossmovementrecords.com)
STANDOUTS: Tha Church, Crossover, We Don’t, Wait, Who U Wit, Nothin’
REMINDS ME OF: Fire ‘n’ Brimstone with southern bounce. Ludacris with a bible. Holy Rukus.

Ahh, Christian Rap the stepchild of Black Music… You almost smirk whenever someone says it, even today. And as a Christian (a highly flawed one, but one none the less), there’s not a whole lot of hiphop rappers that I get into. Mainly because so much of it has just been bad.

But there’s a generation of spitters and flowers out there that are really nice. Not just “nice for Christian rap,” but nice period. Lecrae is one of ‘em.

How Soccermoms Killed Soccer

Why write about soccer? Because i think there's an interesting marketing component that few are afraid to discuss. It's lot easier to just bash soccer fans and ignore the sport. But can 2 billion people just be insane?

So here's my thoughts.

How Soccermoms clocked American Fùtbol.
By: Hadji Williams

It’s late summer. And once again Soccer fever has come and gone like a fart in the wind. How can the most popular sport on the planet (over 2 billion fans and causal players worldwide) lose out to poker stateside? As much as we love overhyped competition, swollen balls, and corruptive sponsorship ops, why do 300 million sports fiends continue to sleep on soccer? The only thing most Americans can recall about this past World Cup is that one WWF move that cost [some country?] the crown.

We’ve tried everything to make soccer hot in America: We dig up Pelè every 5-7 years. We over-hyped Freddy Adu... We flashed sports bras. We pretended Mia Hamm had a marketable personality... We threw in Nike loot (Truckloads of Nike loot!)… Not even Mr. Global Godbody a.k.a. David Beckham has been able to bend the masses to dribble with our feet.

The theories are many: odd scheduling, lack of scoring, lack of superstars, too many foreigners,… But I think it comes down to two simple factors: Soccermoms and Shot Clocks.

Coming soon...

Interviews with Sam Greenlee author of "Spook who sat by the Door" and Phil Tadros founder of Metroproper.com. But not together, that'd be weird. but separately, they're gonna be cool. I just gotta write one up and sit down and write the other one up....

It'll be hot!

country girl from UK...

TIME FOR ANOTHER HUSTLEKNOCKIN’ HEADBANGER…

ARTIST: Corrine Bailey Rae
LABEL/YEAR: Capitol, 2006
STANDOUTS: Lots. Trouble Sleeping, Put your records on, call me when you get this…
REMINDS ME OF: Joni Mitchell’s horny quirky black teenage niece from London who came up on Sade and Stevie Wonder. Norah Jones with more flavor and less hype.

How many constructs do black females face? Corinne Bailey Rae’s still has to answer condescending questions like “What made someone like you wanna pick up a guitar?”

Critics are actually talking about CBR as an “alternative” to the sisters in the thongs. Like one’s got something to do with the other or like the music industry cooked Corinne up to solve a problem created by dumb consumers. People actually brag about the fact that she’s a black singer songwriter like we ain’t never had such a thing before.

Brian Urlacher is a baby daddy. Again!

For all you sports fans and marketing heads here’s a fun one for you:

B-Urlacher, aka #54, the second coming of Dick Butkus himself, and one of the NFL’s superstars, is in court for child support.

For child number 3. Now he’s paying for his kids, but the women of course believe he should being paying more. Much more. 2 kids were from a marriage and this one whose getting 2G’s a month wants more. Her contention is that when a father pulls in $240,000 per game for 16 games a year plus endorsements, he can do a little more than one percent of his on-field salary.

What’s interesting about this story is that Chicago’s mainstream (white) media has all but ignored it. I found this one in the Chicago Defender, a historically black newspaper.

What’s funnier is, probably dude to journalistic standards and the fact that the Defender’s audiences is a little older, not once does the story use the phrase “baby daddy” or “baby mamma drama” or “triflin’ ingrate” or anything of the sort. But the attorneys for B did call “the mom of Urlacher’s son" (Babymama just flows better, doesn’t it?) a “gold digger”.

here comes mr. cory!

I took a special interest in the story because I’ve been a boondocks fan for 5 years now. Not even the great Jason Blair’s editorial muscle at U of M could squash it. Yes that JB. Him and AMG were classmates—he was McGruder’s boss at Maryland when Aaron started the strip. Also I interviewed McGruder a while back, write before Boondock’s went national. We had a convo that I’ll never ever be able to repeat in public.

Anyway, this O2 kid might be the new truth. So don’t say you weren’t told.

greene lantern...

THE GREENE MACHINE

I’m not sure how I ended up on Tim Greene’s mailing list, but I did. Been getting mail from the guy for a couple years. Always the same: Tim Greene’s indy flick #5 just went platinum in Beglium!” or some place overseas. “Tim Greene is casting for another flick.”
“Tim Greene, this,” “Tim Greene that.” Yak-Yak-Yak…

After I’d always think the same: Who is Tim Greene.

Like a man once said, real bad boys move in silence.

Back in June I was at the Power Networking Conference in ATL, arguably the largest networking conference for black professionals and movers and shakers in the country. Everybody from AL Sharpton and Dr. Cornell West to Ron Freison, COO of BellSouth and Less brown, motivational Speaker, extraordinaire were there. (I’ll write more about this one later.)

our mayor's a tool!

This story’s pretty close to my heart, mainly because I’m a product of the CPS—Chicago Public School System. Daley was the mayor for part of my academic career after beating out a buncha goofs who fought for the crown once Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor died in office.

I always get wound up when I hear white folks, particularly politicians, talking about who should and shouldn’t be using the n-word. There’s such disingenuousness in the discussion. I mean, who invented the word, in the first place? Who gets to use the n-word these days is more about making white liberals comfortable with their unspoken biases than showing any level of respect towards black folks.

Richard Daley’s a tool. He runs what may well be the most biased and segregated big city in America. It’s a majority black and Hispanic city yet we’ve got the worst schools, the worst hospitals and the most problems with the cops and the worst political representation—no matter who we vote for.

Anyway, here’s the story. My analysis follows.

Another hot review of KTH!

Okay folks, another book review came in. Woohah!!! Gettin’ some luv from the south now. From Miami… Urban America Newspaper, run by Tony Muhammad and Faisal Tavarnier, covers urban culture and issues related to urban culture. They’ve got about 100K in readers.

It’s a solid paper—one of many—that cover urban culture around the world very well. They mainly focus on Florida and the south, but they’ve got an international base and scope. This was a strong take for KTH.

Anyway, here’s the review:

Not Cosby's Camille, the other Camille

HUSTLEKNOCKIN’ MUSIC

One of the things I want to do with my blog is highlight artists, obscure one ideally that are pushing boundaries. I think it’s important because so much of the stuff that becomes popular one became so because it was either shoved down our throats or because there was so little exposure and opportunity for alternative voices.

So every now and then, I’ll hit you with a review of some joints. Some will be new. Some old. I’ll develop a rating system soon. But for now, it’s just stuff I’m feeling for all sorts of reasons that I’ll get into.

With that said, right now I’m feeling this chick named Camille.