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hey Rawkus.... · by Rafi Kam
I’m on the mailing list of a publicist who handles some rappers I like.
Today this guy sends me a press release from Rawkus records. I’ll now rip it apart message board style because it fully deserves it.
My comments in bold.
March 9, 2007
A date which will go down in infamy.
Uh, you guys weren’t interrupting anything today on the hip-hop sites, right? A pointless beef, Puffy somehow connected… I’m having this weird sense of deja vu but I’m not sure why.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Co-Founders Of Rawkus Records Address El-P’s Attack
Hm, what gives? I read hip-hop news items all day, every day yet I had no idea there was an El-P “attack” going on. Have the Boston P.D. been notified?
Is there somewhere maybe that I can see his comments?
To see El-P’s comments, please click the following link: http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.4967/title.el-p-blasts-rawkus-records
Wow, you totally read my mind, you unnecessary press release, you. If you hadn’t existed, who would have even known about that article?
Re: the Hip Hop DX “article”... What’s up with writing a story covering something posted on a blog and not even linking to the blog so people can go beyond your excerpts and see the original in its actual context?
Sketchy.
Here’s the El-P blog post they were reporting on: http://iswyd.blogspot.com/2007/03/new-rawkus-records.html
To summarize, El-P got mad at what he perceived as his former label Rawkus going after him in the way they posted the Puffy photo that he and others had put on MySpace.
He acknowledges that part of the reason the photo is awesome and the reason he posted it is because of the oh shit factor of “el-p and puffy?????” yet he sees rawkus posting it and linking to the post as fucked up.
At this point I’m thinking El-P might be a little too defensive about it… until I remember that I am in the middle of reading a goddamn press release responding to his blog post.
We thought the photo of you and Puff was cool.
totally kewl
We posted it without comment.
“El-P (Company Flow) With Puffy?” is a question – not a comment.
We immediately removed it upon request.
Now we request the immediate removal of your foot from our ass.
But you had to go there… Straight attack our credibility and intentions with that slanderous rant. Keep in mind WE HAVEN’T SAID A WORD to you since 1998.
We thought nine years of silence would have settled this.
Why are you salty?
Just guessing, but I think he addresses why he’s salty when he calls you “shit eaters who stole money from everyone they worked with, fired their staff a few days before christmas, signed amazing artists and never put their records out, blocked artists they had under contract from signing to other labels even after they had driven their label in to the ground and werent even functioning” etc.
Be happy, you are successful and rich.
For some reason I get the impression that El-P is not the type of person who responds well to someone telling them to “be happy”. Also I get the impression that the 2 rich kids who started Rawkus are still quite rich. El-P? Not so much.
Regardless of our obvious distaste for one another, we’ve admired Def Jux’s success and sincerely respect your roster of artists.
We hope to find some pictures of Aesop Rock playing foosball with Ma$e
But you had to go there…...
Repeat 2X for emphasis
El-P, your recent post…
Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me this is a blog post being replied to. What the hell is a record label doing responding to a blog post in a press release anyway?
We of the blog era applaud your transparency, thanks for letting us know these theatrics are merely a play to get press. Too bad nobody cares. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have just replied directly and candidly in a post at Rawkus’ blog?
Oh wait, you can’t do that because the Rawkus blog is just another news-recycling waste of space just like 4 out of 5 hip-hop blogs these days. Way to miss the point on blogging everyone!
Hey check it out, they didn’t even run their own press release. Is HipHopDX your proxy voice or something? I see they ran this press release in full too.
... has drawn attention to our intentions as promoters and marketers in the Hip Hop community.
And when our intentions are known it really messes up our hustle bro.
Haters, like you, seem to suffer from historical amnesia. We thought it was time we directly addressed the Hiphop community and post some facts.
Get your story straight Rawkus. Is it the “Hip Hop” community or the “Hiphop” community? Looks like someone is ruining their own credibility. I thought press releases get proof-read.
Our mission at Rawkus.com is to create a vibrant supportive community for hip hop, including all factions and styles. The post showing El-P and Puffy was in no way meant to discredit El-P as an artist or producer. Puffy is a mogul and his appearance with an underground artist like El-P was news worthy and interesting. However, we have a strict policy against creating bullshit beefs and reserve the right to delete comments and posts that overtly create hate instead of fostering creative debate. This post was removed once it was brought to our attention that El-P was offended by it.
For the past ten years our mission has been to help artists promote and make money—-a mission we were very successful at. We have contributed HEAVY financial resources into promoting Black Star, Mos Def, Kweli, Pharoahe Monche, Big L and many other underground artists in our history of Soundbombing, Lyricist Lounge, and 100s of 12” releases.
contributed HEAVY financial resources.
contributed.
like most record labels we are a charity of sorts. but in our case, conscious rappers were our big-eyed african babies with flies around their face.
Our history is full of success and breakthroughs.
Especially if you avert your eyes after 2000 or so on the timeline.
Mos Def and Kweli have sold almost 1.5 million albums each and are both powerful stars now.
Free to suck at a level that was impossible before they came to Rawkus
While we worked together, Pharoahe Monche had two huge hits (“Simon Says” and “Oh No”) and sold almost 300,000 albums.
After re-couping on the video costs, he was able to buy a late-model mid-sized sedan which now has 140,000 miles on it!
We supported Common during his label
transition by successfully promoting “Respiration” and “1999.”
He hasn’t made a decent record since!
Big L went GOLD!
Another financial success story! Big L would have really enjoyed that money.
The Soundbombing and Lyricist Lounge compilations sold over 1 million copies. Remember “Body Rock”, “Definition”, “Ms. Fat Booty”, “Umi Says”, “Simon Says”, “The Light”, “Respiration”, “My Life”, “The Blast”, “Get By”, “Oh No”, “Flamboyant”, “Fortified Live”, “Universal Magnetic” and “End to End Burners”?
What have you done for me lately?
Of course we could not hit home runs every time, and some VERY talented artists experienced frustration as Rawkus hit temporary obstacles in dealing with MCA/Universal in 2003-2004. Everybody knows how treacherous the music industry is. If you stay in it long enough, you will have your fair share of doors slammed in your face- we have! You stay in the game because your will to succeed, far out weighs your fear of defeat. We are proud of RAWKUS.COM’s growing community of driven artists and individuals. While the game has changed, our mission at RAWKUS is still on point; market and promote NEW under-appreciated artists and respect the older generation of hip hop.
Zzzzz… meaningless PR drivel
We firmly believe the community should decide the value of music, not critics or haters.
Excuse me but the community isn’t a euphemism for people on the Rawkus mailing list. Everyone is allowed to be a critic and a hater and the hip-hop community would be better off for it if people took these roles seriously.
Jarret Myer & Brian Brater
RAWKUS
Co-Founders
Comments for "hey Rawkus...."
Rawkus still exists?!?
PS. I am looking forward to the Marco polo release tho.
— matthew Mar 9, 07:30 PM
They are promoting El-P’s new record and don’t even know it.
— Hashim Mar 9, 08:42 PM
So you’re on Matthew Brown’s mailing list too, Rafi? I thought the Rawkus email was one of the better promos I’ve received recently.
— fresh Mar 9, 08:47 PM
Fuck Rawkus. Ever since they started that obvious ass campaign of sucking the tits of the mainstream to “stay relevant” I lost all respect for them.
— P-Matik Mar 9, 09:05 PM
Hydra Entertainment > anything Rawkus ever put out.
— Robbie Mar 9, 10:06 PM
Agreed with Robbie on Hydra. Rawkus ceased being relevant years ago – does anyone really give half a shit about them anymore?
— floodwatch Mar 10, 11:53 AM
Yeah, file this under “Who cares?”
What happened to T.W.I.B. this week though??
— ian Mar 10, 01:07 PM
It looks like I started this little “rawkus” today, just by writing about an artists’ blog. Never saw the press release coming from mbrn. I assume Rawkus will use just about anything and anyone to “seem relevant”.
Relevant enough to merit online beefs, enough to merit news on a slow day, enough even to make nice, THEN send out the release.
— rilla Mar 10, 06:24 PM
i’m gonna try and bust t.w.i.b. out now ian.
sorry for the hold up. i got caught up in other stuff yesterday.
— rafi Mar 10, 08:21 PM
Such a shame. I have such found memories of rawkus and their emergence in the late nineties. Many a beer and blunt to the beats on their roster.
— Pj Mar 11, 01:49 AM
The thing is, my understanding of the Rawkus/El-P relationship is that Funcrusher was released as an EP on a label called Juvenile Techniques. It sold out. It may have only sold 10,000 copies, but it sold out none the less, and CoFlow was able to keep their own masters (and most of the subsequent money from it). So Rawkus steps in and puts out Funcrusher Plus as a full album—AFTER CoFlow was in talks with major labels, but went with Rawkus so he could keep his publishing rights. CoFlow was already an established group. The thing that I haven’t heard anybody comment on yet through this whole ordeal is how much the Stretch & Bobbito show did to promote CoFlow when they were doing the Funcrusher EP and starting out. So if anybody can “take credit” for “discovering” El-P/CoFlow, it should be Stretch, Bobbito & Lord Sear. Although, I’m not from NYC & wasn’t around for the Stretch Armstrong/KCR days, so if anybody else has any more info on this, or corrections to make, please do.
— twistedtrees Mar 12, 03:58 PM
Co Flow was definitely known before Rawkus. The Funcrusher EP did sell out—I was told that when I tried to buy it c. 1996. They were definitely getting played on Stretch and Bob in the mid-90s (before the LP), and probably earlier.
So, I guess have nothing to add, but to confirm what you said.
Co Flow did get bigger while on Rawkus, but that’s mostly because they dropped an album—releasing something always increases your exposure. Now, a lot of cats were big Rawkus heads, and probably checked out the Co Flow album just based on the label. So did they get bigger than they would have had the album come out somewhere else? Maybe marginally, at one time.
Anyway, whoever continues this beef any further is a loser.
— nesta Mar 12, 10:02 PM
Re: 11, this is absolutely correct. Rawkus jumped on a bandwagon that already going as far as CoFlow goes (in the underground at least). This was around the time of the “8 Steps To Perfection” single and Bobbito having a vintage sneakers and vinyl shop down in the LES predating Fat Beats, TTLab, Dave’s Quality Meat, Alife Rivington etc. by over or damn near a decade.
— ian Mar 13, 10:21 PM