Internets,
During Talib Kweli’s beef with Complex (not to be confused with Talib Kweli’s beef with Pitchfork, Don Lemon, Mark Dice, random CACs in Denmark, almost everyone who follows him on Twitter, so on and so forth), Combat Jack turned up a pic of the staff at Complex.
This pic was a revelation in that it called to mind that video of Bobby Shmurda dancing on a table at Epic Records, but without Shmurda. In other words, there were boatloads of CACs who might otherwise be selling insurance, and maybe one or two black people.
No wonder Complex seems so committed to trolling black people as of late.
In addition to the beef with Talib Kweli, which is understandable because Talib Kweli (I swear by the Black Star album, but I’ve been trolling the guy since I was a child — where was Complex when Kweli got married to a bottle of Hennessy?), there was the time they suggested that no one really likes To Pimp a Butterfly, and the time one of their editors used the dreaded n-word and laughed at Trayvon Martin’s death.
That’s enough separate, distinct incidents to make it an official trend per the New York Times’ rule, and who knows if that’s all they’re guilty of; I stopped reading the Internets back in 2012, and I’ve barely been able to pull up Twitter on my phone once or twice a day since I started working for a living. These things don’t even come to my attention unless quite a few people are upset about them.
I watch a few YouTube videos when I got home in the evening, since I gotta go on there anyway to peep the latest twerk videos. (Priorities.) This afternoon (i.e. Thursday, when this was written), I saw that the foundering, lamentable Hot 97 had uploaded a video of some kids from Complex, who visited the station to discuss their list of the top 50 albums of 2015.
It may have been necessary for Complex to ensure that a certain number of people click on that list, for the benefit of the corporation for which it serves as advertorial. The Fader, which invented “sponcon,” pulled a similar scam with its 100th anniversary issue, a few weeks ago, including an appearance on the Combat Jack Show. The fact that the FCC didn’t see fit to get involved may have emboldened Combat to record the hilariously brazen Tristan Walker episode — essentially an hour-and-a-half-long recording of Combat complimenting the show’s only consistent sponsor.
But I digress.
I can’t remember if there were two or three black people working for Complex, according to that group photo (they must send a Christmas card to the owners of private prisons and subprime lenders — including the people who actually own Bevel, natch) but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say there’s as many as five, of like 50 total. Two of them were selected to appear on Hot 97.
One of them was actually the guy who played the two-bit hustler sidekick character in Beat Street (same coat and everything). The other black guy was the guy who said that people don’t actually like To Pimp a Butterfly (which is actually true, but that’s neither here nor there). And then there was a white chick, the deputy music editor, presumably the Barney Fife to Lauren Nostro’s Andy Griffith (or as he’s known in the black community, Andy Griffin).
Nostro, the alleged racist, who’s been vehemently defended on Twitter by Craig Jenkins, the same guy who defended George Zimmerman, couldn’t appear on Hot 97, because that would have been too interesting for me personally, though I’m sure they could have convinced Ebro to abide by the same embargo that’s prevented any music sites that I’m aware of from reporting on the allegations against Ernest Baker, one of the most amusing stories to come across my desk in years (but not because of the abuse).
You could tell shenanigans were at work because Ebro, it seems, was instructed to refer to them as the Complex Family, and made a whole ordeal of repeating it a few times at the beginning of the interview, so that it stuck in the minds of the impressionable children who listen to Hot 97, along with whatever messages they’re taking from Future and Rae Sremmurd.
The conversation, which got kinda heated, was obviously just a charade intended to boost the view count, to justify the half an hour or however long the video took to record, time Ebro and Rosenberg might have otherwise spent taking a nap (together), but it’s still kinda interesting. Ebro reveals that Rae Sremmurd don’t write their own rhymes, and took off running from the station when asked to kick a freestyle, after the kid from Beat Street said that the rapping on their album was “extremely high level.” Complex had Rae Sremmurd at number three on their list of the top albums of the year, behind Kendrick Lamar and Future.
But here’s the thing: If Ebro don’t fuxwit Rae Sremmurd, how come they were there at the station in the first place? Hot 97 isn’t in any position, morally, to criticize someone’s taste in music. If they just had to have people from Complex up there, I can think of much more interesting things they could have been discussing.
Take it easy on yourself,
Bol
Originally published at tinyletter.com.
