Dear New York Times: Get Your Rap Right

This post is a bit off topic, but the 50 Cent review in Thursday's New York Times really bothered us. If you're a frequent reader of the Times, you know that their style guide dictates that when they refer to people in articles the first reference uses their full name and future references use a salutation (e.g. Mr, Ms, Mrs) and their last name. For example, in the aforementioned article the Times references Kanye twice in the first paragraph:

... the same day Kanye West released "Graduation," his third, and Mr. West outsold him by more than 250,000 copies.

The Times also apparently has a policy of using stage names or pseudonyms in full throughout the article. For example, they always refer to Fiddy as "50 Cent." Cool.

Here's what really bothers us about the article: they give Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks the proper name treatment and not the pseudonym treatment. See for example the seventh paragraph:

... 50 Cent is the gravitational center, and Mr. Banks (the clinitian) and Mr. Yayo (the jester)...

The problem of course is that Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks are as much Marvin Bernard and Christopher Lloyd's real names as 50 Cent is Curtis Jackson's real name. So what gives New York Times? Did you not know that Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks were pseudonyms? A quick trip to Wikipedia could have cleared that up for you. And if you did know, how do you decide when to treat a pseudonym like a proper name? Sure they sound like proper names, but they're not proper names. Tony Yayo certainly took a real first name, but he combined it with slang for cocaine. Does that qualify as a proper name for the times? If we used the stage name Kanye Cocaine, would the Times refer to us as Mr. Cocaine?

As another example, the Times reviewed super-group Lucy Pearl in May 2000. Lucy Pearl sounds like a name to us. It certainly passes the Tony Yayo criteria of a first name followed by a second proper noun. Yet the Times refers to them fully as "Lucy Peal" throughout the article. Seems to be a contradiction to us. If we didn't just spend so much energy writing our longest blog post ever, we might just write the editor.

[Photo via watz]

Don't Be a Fake Gangsta

Leaders of the New School were hot as hell. The Coming and When Disasters Strikes are arguably classic material. But we've gotta say we're really not feelin the new Busta. We know you've caught a few cases recently and oddly enough your bodyguards keep dieing, but to be honest Busta, "we don't believe you, you need more people." No matter how hard you try, we're just not buying that gangsta image. Sorry Trevor.

[Image via minusbaby]

Do Your Internet Thing

Whatever you think of the whole Ice-T vs Soulja Boy thing, you've gotta admit that Soulja Boy is an outstanding internet marketer. We aren't going to say dude is a great rapper, but you can't hate on the way he used the internet to get paid. Young bucks are gettin it done! Over six million ringtone and single downloads: what rapper wouldn't kill for that? And just when we thought it was over, dude got play in the New York Times (scroll to the bottom). How many rappers does the old gray lady cover? Do your thing Soulja Boy.

[Photo via Johnthan Speed]

Improve Your Google Rank

Had to shout-out our girl Teyana Taylor on this one. You should already know the deal, but we're gonna tell you anyway: you wanna be a star? Up your Google results. Six Mics is number two, so you know we gotta work on that. Don't sleep on your Search Engine Optimization game! And don't hate on our girl because she beat you to the punch, making that Google Me shit when she was 16.

Update: You already know who's got the first seven results for best rapper alive. Who's gonna try to take that belt?

If You Can't Rap, Act

We learned today via our friend Perez that Fitty is apparently starring in a movie with Val Kilmer. We'd be more than happy if Curtis gave up rapping for acting and we never had to hear another 50 Cent album. Of course Curtis is following in a long line of terrible rappers who went on to act including Kid 'n Play, DMX, LL Cool J and Ja Rule.

Don't Marry Foxy Brown

You already know how we feel about Rick Ross, but we've gotta agree with Nah Right on this one. Marrying Foxy Brown is definitely not a strong career move, Ricky. Now we know we already told you to marry an R&B singer, but the same just don't go for a female rapper. And it definitely doesn't apply for someone with such a long rap sheet of crazy shit as the Ill Na Na. Thank God Wayne smartened up before he married Trina. Who knows what kind of damage that could have done to the best rapper alive.

Be The Best Rapper Alive

We feel like we can't really say anything about Wayne that hasn't been said in the past couple of weeks. But we will say this: can there be any doubt that dude is the best rapper alive? A million sold in one week? Amazing. Young rappers: adjust your sites accordingly.

[photo via Georgetown Voice]