The Art of Hip-Hop

One of these days I am gonna write a book called 'The Art Of Hip-Hop' Hip-Hop and the Art Of War.

Hopefully I'll get Steph or Joey (real writers) to help me.

One of the most important lessons of The Art Of War is to assess your own strengths and weaknesses. This is a lesson MC's and executives alike should live on the daily.

I was riding the bike this morning (for those familiar I rode from 5 Corners to State Beach and all the way around past the high school back to 5 Corners...whatever who cares Wes, you geek). Anyway was riding listening to the iPod and that Common joint on the new Dilla album came on and I realized there are several rappers who are simply better than most. And I wonder if other rappers make this assesment before they record and/or release their music.

Can you honestly compete with the leaders in your field? The flood of mediocre music and the failure of Tower Records lead me to believe the answer is no. And on the other side executives clearly regulaely miss the mark when they select the music suppposedly the public wants to hear. Have they (we) assessed our own strengths and weaknesses? Speaking from experience -definitely not.

A sample of the 'Sorry but I am better than you list':

Kweli
Common
Rakim
De La
Jay
Scarface
Black Thought
EPMD
Lyor Cohen
Puffy
Steve Hindy
Steve Jobs
Google
Dwayne Wade
Nelson George
Spike Lee
Dilla
Madlib
Kanye
Scott Storch
Ghost

some of these are not the best at what they do from a creative standpoint, but you must respect their hustle and lay your hustle next to theirs and asess your strengths and weaknesses.

Then when you arrive at your answer do you move, or remain still.

(sorry for any typos no spell check on the Treo)