COME OUT TO PLAAAAY

Like Cam throwing that laughable dis at Hov in '05, I feel I will ultimately lose a battle with Hua Hsu but someone has to throw a shot here.

The impetus for the gig comes from a Hsu Slate slideshow documenting in slapdash fashion the way YouTube has caused the demise of rap battles.

My main beef here is that, according to Hsu, rap battles go back to '96 (some might say they go back further but let's stick within the guy's argument). Despite this long and storied history and the elapsed time between the epic battles (often years), it's only been like six to twelve months since rappers have been using YouTube, and although maybe some of this idea about using a new medium to replace dis tracks has some weight, I can't help but think that in six more months we'll have a "The Rap Battle's Rebirth: Rappers Using YouTube To Do Awesome Freestyles," all because rappers went back to rapping after dabbling in the vids.

I'm thinking it'd be very easy for a rapper to say something like "You don't even rap you just YouTube" but making it rhyme, and suddenly everyone will be back on the mixtapes. But it might not even have to go that far ... Allhiphop.com shows Gucci Mane dissing T.I. in a (strictly!!!) audio file that was uploaded two hours and thirty six minutes ago, showing at least a little heartbeat on the dis track's monitor.

Beyond all that, Hsu's claim that YouTube vids are unimaginative neglects the creativity involved in the new artform. Cam and 50 are throwing cool video shots at one another, the disses aren't as "unimaginative" as is claimed, and video and audio are by no means mutually exclusive, so even if YouTube replaces the mix tape, who's to say it's bad for the music or the creative expression?

Add those shakey stilts to the massive counterexample of Lil Wayne's audiofiles actually posted on YouTube (often only with only a still shot of himself kinda like the TK thing I wrote about earlier). The "Ether" and "Show Me What You Got" disses on Jay-Z basically put the one nails not hammered by Kingdom Come firmly in the pinebox. I'm shaking mad at arguments made more to get a piece together than to show something really happening. Like the YouTube thing is a bit in itself, why throw in "It's bad for rap" for almost no reason.

So the whole thing just makes me a lil frowny on the edges.