Role Models for Girls Suck Sometimes...

Originally Published in the March Gleaner Issue...

Why can ANYONE in the entertainment business, at any time, become an “aspiring singer?” These artists are just trash, and their music is over commercialized for the consumption for the mindless MTVers that buy the songs. Very few female artists out there now promote a positive message for girls. Stars these days seem to have some racy mishap surrounding their careers. I’ll count down from number four to number one of ladies that are ruining music right now.




Have you seen Heidi Montag’s (#4) new video? If you haven’t seen it, the song is called “Higher” and it features Heidi and her new “twins” rolling around a deserted beach in a teeny weeny little bikini. This Hills star is the just the newest “celebutant” on the block.




Coming in at number three is Brooke Hogan. She starred on VH1’s Hogan Knows Best, leading to her official debut album in 2006. She had a semi successful hit in “About Us” with Houston rapper Paul Wall, made popular only by the viewers of her show. Her father/manager, Hulk Hogan, has done everything he can to keep her positive and “clean.” However throughout the season of the show we see her desire sex up her appearance for the limelight. Since then she has had little to no success.





Number Two. Lindsey Lohan. The interesting thing about Lindsey is that she’s had a fairly decent music career sales-wise. Her first album, Speak, actually went platinum (one million units sold) and her second album, despite lack of promotion, went gold (500,000 units sold.) However since then she has been in the news as a frequent partier and cocaine aficionado, which is exactly what shouldn’t be in music marketed towards teens. While she and her manager may claim that her music is for adults, her fan base is comprised largely of young teens. Her role model status fails in my eyes.




Finally We’re at Number One. You know her, you love to hate her…Paris Hilton. Through her rich upbringing, she’s moved into the celebrity class, starring in a number of failed movies. She is the quintessential B-Actor, so naturally she decided to try her hand at music. Led by the single “Stars are Blind,” which became a dance club hit; her 2006 album Paris was a flop. To this date she has sold only 607,000 copies worldwide. She’s also had a nice video adaptation of her romp in the sheets, as well as her stint in jail for DUIs.

These girls are treated as stars by the media and by many of our very own friends and siblings. The problem with these four stars is the message they portray to our youth. Each of them has had some controversial situation that we would not want our sisters or daughters to emulate. Why should we allow this to happen? We are the ones perpetuating them by watching their TV shows and movies. As many of you know I am a music producer, and am starting to experience many of these people first-hand. What I have seen is that the businesses COUNT ON VIEWERS TO SELF-PROMOTE THE MUSIC. I am asking that we all stand up for good, meaningful music from quality acts. Now I haven’t mentioned rock or rap groups, and trust me they’re not faultless either, however these acts seem to have more of an influence on older people, who have a choice on their behaviors. These young people are shaped by their surroundings, and need more Miley Cyrus’s and Hillary Duffs to look up to.

Sampling in Hip Hop Part 1

Sampling’s Origins and Legality

A Hip Hop On My Mind Three Part Series

Sampling has been a part of hip-hop since it’s very inception. It was the main lifeblood of a musical genre that grew out of the funk and disco scene in the seventies and early eighties. As of late, articles written by bloggers Gooch from XXL, and Ivan from Hip-Hop is Read have brought an old topic back into the hip-hop community’s forefront. The issue of sampling and its legality has and will always be a dividing force between the new and old school. However that will be discussed in Part 2. First, for people unfamiliar with sampling, I present a brief, and I mean BRIEF history.

The earliest Party DJ’s would find the musical break portion of certain records and blend or cut them into one long musical vamp. Often times you could take seemingly corny records and turn them into party smashes. For example, the Run-DMC song, Mary Mary comes from the Monkees.

Many songs like this received new fame as the pioneers of hip-hop scrambled to find the best records with the best breaks and grooves. The new culture of hip-hop started as a South Bronx underground scene and grew to a nationwide, and eventually a worldwide phenomenon. 

This form of sampling dominated the early era of hip hop until DJ Marley Marl accidentally discovered that you could chop up drums from one drum break, and play them as his own drum kit over another musical groove. In the movie, The Beat Kings, Marley Marl describes his initial epiphany:

“I made a mistake at unique recording studios…sampled a snare by mistake when I was trying to get a vocal sample of the record. I started to play the snare on the beat, and I told the engineer to turn that old weak ass snare down, and now I’m poppin’ a James Brown snare on top of the beat I just made! I’m like you know what this means? I can take any kick, any snare, any hi-hat on any record and make my own kits?!?!”

This brought about sampling how it is today. The procedure is basically the same, with the equipment evolving, though many producers stick with old stand-bys like the Emu SP-1200, Akai MPC series, and Ensoniq ASRs.

Now when hip-hop began to reach mainstream status, the issues of copyright came to light. Before, producers had been making beats from any record, not clearing the samples. Clearing samples refers to the process of obtaining permission from the original copyrights owner to use the sample, and also distributing royalties from and profits made. However there hadn’t been any cases against the producers or rappers for this infringement of copyright, so the trend continued. This would all change with or old friend BIZ MARKIE.

In 1991 the first case was brought against a hip hop song from its original copyright holder. The song “Alone Again” by Biz Markie used a piano loop and three words from the Gilbert O’Sullivan song “Alone Again (Naturally).” O’Sullivan’s publishing company, Grand Upright, brought about a lawsuit against Warner Brothers Records, to whom Biz was signed. Warner Brothers actually had contested the fact that O’Sullivan hadn’t actually transferred copyright to Grand Upright, which really hurt their case, when they should have contested the rights of musicians to sample one another. Anyway, the judge had proclaimed that sampling was thievery and now for a song to be officially used in a profitable sense, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder, and subsequent royalties must be paid. 

Even though the result of the case deemed uncleared sampling illegal, there are ways around this,. Many producers have replayed samples themselves, essentially turning their creation into a “reinterpolation” or better known as a cover song. Like other musical acts that play cover songs, a less significant portion of profits is paid out.

To this day there are “sample police” that search through songs for uncleared samples in order to collect royalties. Usually working for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA,) these agents also go after “piracy” cases, most notably the raid on DJ Drama and the Aphilliates in January of ’07. Again the legal heads said that these mixtapes were illegal, copyright violating material, and so they were arrested on Racketeering charges.

Most influential musicians have a problem with samples and clearing them at some point in their career. While some have the funds to just pay for the rights, other artists have to find unique ways around them. This is the basis for the recent debate on identifying samples, and I will get into that in Part Two.

Just a Thought

Ok so this isn't anything I wrote for anyone, just something to think about...

What's with these so-called "Little Debbies?" They're too damn small if you ask me. Sometimes, when I'm realy hungry, I can down a whole box in a matter of minutes. These are the occasions where I think to myself, "I just need to find this Debbie chick, so I can tell her to make the full-size Debbies, not these little guys." Maybe it's just me, but I'd love that.

OK so this is the earth...

Haha just kidding. If you're reading this you're probably wondering WTF? Well basically I've had 3-4 other failed blogs before, usually it is because I haven't been the greatest at keeping tabs on it. Well not anymore! I'm really going to make an effort this time! Mainly the reason for this is because this blog will be a lot of articles that I've written for other people, or other publications. There'll always be a link to the original listing, but if you can't get enough Nick Cicero, come here! Also I will be setting up some sort of iMeem account where you can listen to my original musical compositions, and other audio files I feel relevant. So comment, email me, whatever, just read them! Thanks.