I tend to take things seriously that the overwhelming majority of people could give less than a fuck about. I get frustrated and rant at the drop of a dime about subjects that make others stop and wonder to themselves “What the fuck set him off now?”. I usually write mad because something has to move me enough to write about it. Either that or something I saw or heard recently reinforced my belief in music, film, literature or humanity as a whole.

This post was originally supposed to be an ether job of Hamilton Nolan of Gawker for writing an article suggesting that Jay-Z’s “Decoded” was unnecessary due to the fact Jay-Z is only an “adequate” rapper whose lyrics aren’t hard to interpret because there is no message or deeper meaning.

I saw a link to this piece and in typical Dart Adams fashion I went ham on the article (I don’t think the original comment I posted on Gawker ever got accepted). Once someone posted Hamilton Nolan’s Twitter up in my timeline I just went at him directly.

His response  on Twitter was: @hamiltonnolan @Dart_Adams I bought Reasonable Doubt in 96. My point is, you don’t need a book to decode his lyrics. Do you? Don’t underestimate yourself.

My take was he was either ignorant of the depth and complexity of Jay-Z’s lyrics and wordplay or completely oblivious to any potential hidden meanings or lyrics that fans would seek clarification about.

If you include the fact that Jay-Z still hasn’t disclosed a great amount about his past (including the Dream Hampton penned Jay-Z autobiography that has gone unpublished) that there’s a great amount of things he references in his lyrics that the listener couldn’t possibly know without his explanation so Hamilton Nolan was clearly wrong in his myopic view of the book.

When you have a great artist with fans from different walks of life that spans generations (urban music has new generations every 3 to 5 years) people tend to want to get into the mind of said artist or wonder what inspired them to make their art.

Apparently, most other Hip Hop writers and bloggers simply paid Hamilton Nolan no mind whatsoever because it was obvious he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

It seemed to merely be a shock post generated to bring in traffic or comments. Why else would a site like Gawker even post anything Hip Hop related? Their writer’s opinions about anything dealing with the culture of Hip Hop or Rap should rightly be ignored.

I was still seething with anger however. I rushed to finish my reviews blog for Bloggerhouse so I could clear up enough time to sit down and properly eviscerate Hamilton Nolan. I was constructing paragraph after paragraph of ether in my head but as time passed I noticed no one else but me even cared.

No one else initially took the incident seriously as I had done. It was because they saw it for what it was immediately and just decided to ignore it and focus on something else instead.

By the time Sunday morning rolled around, I’d realized that everyone else had managed to do something I typically prided myself in doing. Namely, to not get distracted by petty or unimportant things that deter me from focusing on things that are of real consequence.

Here I am looking to decapitate a fool thinking I’m doing it for all of the wronged Hip Hop heads, bloggers and media when in reality they’re all like “So what? Fuck Gawker. Who even cares?”. They simply don’t fuck with Gawker blogwise. Give me the gun, Tre © Furious Styles

I fly off the handle far too much. For example, take my recent Twitter rant about the new site We Don’t Fuck With You Musically. My take was the site left me cold because it actually posted pics, links & audio to artists they supposedly DON’T endorse which I felt could be construed as free publicity to said artists they claim to not fuck with.

I further explained that if you go to Bloggerhouse it’s apparent who we don’t fuck with musically because their material is nowhere to be found on our site. We instead prefer to focus on the music and artists that serve as alternatives to the seemingly endless sea of bullshit out here.

I’m just overly cautious about corporate interests pervading the blog world and it just seemed like a potential covert jawn where cats jump on a popular internet meme and promote mainstream music via a blog through the guise of not doing so. If the new Ludacris leak that’s on every other site is wack to you why be like everyone else and even post it for? Who actually runs the site? Are these t shirts theirs? Who’s really behind it?

This sparked yet another Twitter rant by yours truly (I was due) about how Hip Hop bloggers need to make sure they don’t end up shills for record labels and corporations. I stressed the importance of being selective in what they choose to post and doing your own legwork looking for artists rather than solely relying on inboxes or posting links to the same damn leaks or audio everyone else got from the same damn sources.

Then I tweeted about how I don’t let corporate influences sway me or hold my tongue including a piece about how I’ll probably never be included in Best Music Writing, how I told eMusic to eat a dick when they started ducking me to avoid paying me and how I once told Joe La Puma that 66% of Complex’s lists suck.

That particular tweet was RT’d  by a few heads and it  eventually got back to Joe who responded with the following: @JLaPuma @Dart_Adams Good thing we never listened to you, we’d have a site no one reads.

I have to admit I felt some kinda way about that response given that Combat Jack had just made what I feel is one of the top 3 Complex features of the year on the site alongside Kon & Amir’s and Cipha Sounds’ (which inspired me to make a spinoff of it on Bloggerhouse).

The reason people had such an overwhelming response to Combat Jack’s post because it had substance and insider info in addition to resonating with readers and reaching them on an emotional level as well. How many conversations did that post spark since it went up?

How many young people learned about music they may have not heard before due to that post? How many oldheads dug out old tracks and reminisced because of it? How many iTunes sales did that post lead to since it was posted on Complex?

Isn’t that what every writer worth their salt aspires to do with their individual pieces? That wouldn’t bring in readers? It JUST happened! What the fuck, Joe? After going back and forth with a few people on Twitter (and Gmail. And Skype. And text messages) I came to the realization I’d overreacted & that I should probably let it go.

Everyone already knows my philosophy regarding writing and blogging and Joe La Puma clearly doesn’t give a FUCK what Dart Adams thinks or what subjects I choose to write about. Honestly, why should he?

I came up emulating what I felt to be the height of Hip Hop writing and journalism, the original Mind Squad era of The Source, Rap Pages, Beat Down, Ego Trip, Stress, On The Go, Elemental, Insomniac, Mass Appeal, Blaze and Hip Hop Connection. Those publications all have one thing in common. They’re all either no longer in operation or a shadow of their former incarnations/selves.

Complex Magazine is essentially a corporate entity. The most recent issue has a double cover featuring Kid Cudi & Nicki Minaj on it. I hate the both of them more than Lindsay Lohan hates sobriety so why the hell WOULD the editor of said magazine care what an oldhead backpacker that seemingly abhors anyone that actually gets played on the radio or gets their videos played on Viacom networks thinks? *Lightbulb goes off*

What the fuck was I supposed to do anyways? Go to war with Complex over a tweet? Tell Eric & Travis that we should run a top 25 list of Complex Magazine’s worst lists? Why? They wouldn’t give a fuck and neither would any of their readers (as well as few of mine). They have offices. In a building. I have a couch and a coffee table. In my apartment. I should do the same thing everyone else did when they saw Hamilton Nolan’s shock post on Gawker and keep it moving.

Joe was right, if he listened to me it’d surely be a wrap for Complex. I’d do something stupid like putting Black Milk, Sean Price and Guilty Simpson and Andreya Triana on the cover instead of Gucci Mane and Katie Perry. Lord knows no one who actually buys magazines cares about either those artists. I get it. Complex Magazine doesn’t fuck with me journalistically.

I’ll just continue to do me and focus on my lane rather trying to go at everyone else all the damn time.

*Puts the AK back on the shelf*

One.