"I Get Money"? Money...

The Village Voice ran my Wu-Tang Clan’s 8 Diagrams, one of like three or four pieces they seem to have run on the album if you include their critique of the new Ghostface, The Big Doe Rehab. I make the point in the rev that 8 Diagrams – maligned in the press by three of Wu-Tang’s own members (GZA since recanted) – is at least as good as what Jay-Z and Kanye West put out this year. I just read my man Shaheem Reid’s year-end list over on MTV.com, with Jigga, Ye, and no Wu-Tang but 50 Cent! (We once worked at Vibe together… peace Sha!)

For my money, the most interesting news in hiphop all year was that Trent Reznor got behind the boards for the latest Saul Williams record, chockfull of trashing, headnodding Public Enemy/NIN hodgepodges. As 50 Cent studiously pieced together Curtis for his multiplatinum fanbase, what seems to have escaped him is that his audience consists of mostly white collegiate wannabe-downs of the type that bought over seven million Vanilla Ice albums 17 years ago. (That crowd eventually started buying The Source, dumped their MC Hammer CDs and quickly got hip to what’s really good in the hood.) It’s not an audience to be that proud of, as arrogant as the SoundScan-killa businessman acts about the whole thing.

That’s all.