Recession Dog

The papaya/hot dog spot in Tribeca's City Hall district has this sign posted in the window. Didn't the media just admit that we are in a recession? If the government could only move as quick as the hot dog spot. Oscar Meyer in the (white)house.

Em on Funkmaster Flex '99- Part 2

Here is the audio for part 2 of the Flex interview. It starts with a freestyle you probably have heard before, and goes into a little bit about Em's battling history, The Outsidaz and Proof. My favorite part is Em getting away with the on-air curse in the freestyle.

Early Spring Break

Yes it's the dead of winter. So here, to warm you up, are 2 of my favorite hip-hop MTV Spring Break performances from the '90s...

3rd Bass- The Gas Face

Cypress Hill- How I Could Just Kill A Man

Collie Buddz- "Blind to You" NY Giants Dub

Check out the vocal remix/dub of dancehall/reggae artist Collie Buddz song "Blind to You". Even though this guy is born and raised in Bermuda, he's rooting for the G-Men in the big game a week from today... (Although I suspect this came with substantial prodding and urging from his NY manager Dino!).
If you haven't bought it yet, Collie Buddz' debut self-titled album is out now. It's very solid... I especially like "Come Around", "Sensimillia" & "Defend Your Own".

Em on Funkmaster Flex '99- Part 1

I've been digitizing old cassettes lately (with the help of Chris in my office of course!) and came across this interview from 2/11/99. If memory serves me correctly, The Slim Shady LP came out on 2/23/99, so this is right around when things started to get really nuts.
The interview is particularly funny to me because a) Em sounds like he's on helium, b) I answer questions from Flex about who passed on signing Eminem, c) we talk about getting a deal for our own record label (no Shady yet), and d) Flex was meeting Em for the first time so he had some really basic questions about his early career.
I'll post the second half next week, which includes a freestyle and referenced guest background appearance from Shecky Green.

The Rhythm Kitchen Flyer

This probably won't be very interesting unless your are familiar with or fascinated with the '90s Detroit hip-hop scene (isn't everyone?). The Rhythm Kitchen was the original epicenter of the rap music club scene in the early '90s in Detroit. Founded by clothing designer, clothing company owner, The original Hip-Hop Shop creator and Detroit music scene impresario Maurice Malone in (I'm guessing) 1991, The Rhythm Kitchen was Malone's Detroit version of New York's legendary Soul Kitchen. This weekly function was held at a Chinese restaurant called Stanley's Mania Cafe in the New Center Area. They cleared out all of the tables, brought in a heavy sound system and continued selling take-out Chinese food along with 40's of Colt45. The Rhythm Kitchen was the real inspiration for using The Chin Tiki as a hip-hop club in 8 Mile.
This Rhythm Kitchen scene (which came before The Hip-Hop Shop, but was open concurrently with St. Andrew's Hall "3 Floors of Fun"/The Shelter) spawned the modern Detroit rap movement (Phat Kat, Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, etc.) as well as Eminem, Proof, D-12, Slum Village, etc. and earlier legends like Dope-A-Delic, 5th Chapter and my own Rhythm Cartel, of course (sorry to anyone I left out but this isn't meant to be exhaustive). More on the Detroit Hip-Hop scene to come here on Rosenblog...

Shady Nursery

New advertisement debuts in March books for Shady Ltd.
Maybe this was what Em was really doing in the hospital over the holidays? (Don't be stupid I'm joking).

Pop-Up Blocker

I know I'm not the first person to write about popped collars, but this one was a doozey. I spotted this guy at Newark airport sporting this arrogant neck flapper with pride, strutting like a peacock. Now, I'm no fashion plate whatsoever. But enough is enough. This thing must be a solid 8" of collar. It covers part of his ears for Christ's sake.

Karmic Cast?

Can it be that the Patriots' karma is catching up to them? Let's all stay tuned. And as posted below before the pre-season started (The End 12/11/07), I have adopted the Giants as my second team. Its totally valid, I've lived in NYC over 10 years... And give a guy a break. Remember, I'm a Lions fan.

Cuban Says: Season of Music

Check out this link to Mark Cuban's blog (I didn't know he had one either) posting about his take on the music industry. Cuban suggests that there is strong evidence that folks are willing to buy digital singles, but not albums (physical or otherwise), because it's easier to stomach spending $.99 a pop, and that if an artist released music over a "season", like a television series, people would get interested in stringing the purchases out over time. While I agree that it's certainly easier to get consumers to pay $.99 a song rather than shell out $13+ for a whole album, Cuban is missing a key fact. The songs that people are purchasing in high volume at $.99/song are hits. If it was so easy to record and produce and market and promote a string of bona-fide hits, his suggestion might make some sense. In fact, Cuban points to Flo Rida's "Low" as the illustrative example. Yeah, #1 record, tons of sales. But how much money does a label have to spend to make a hit? And, how many artists are signed that the same amount is spent on that don't have hits and thus can't sell- singles or otherwise. Unfortunately, that's why I think Cuban's argument fails. But I like the fact that someone is thinking differently, because the way we are thinking now obviously isn't working at all.

UPDATE: Here is a response to this article from Steve Guttenberg hoping that the creativity of the album as an artform is presrved.

L.V. Loses a Bet!

I have a friend and business partner named L.V. who lost a bet to me. See, around the 5th week of the NFL season (Oct. 12th to be exact) when I was foolishly boasting (see post below 2-0 Swag) about the potential of the Detroit Lions, L.V. started in about his Oakland Raiders. L.V. bet me that if the Lions ended up with a better season win/loss record than the Raiders he would deface his car with pro-Detroit slogans and drive around L.A. with it for a WEEK. Needless to say, I won... The other condition of the bet was that MarK Hoppus would get to blog about it mercilessly. This is all very satisfying. Oh... if I lost? I would have had to wear a Raiders t-shirt for the day and have myself photographed and for Mark to mercilessly blog about that too. But, I won and its very satisfying. He even added a "Kitna window" for extra measure.
Doesn't L.V. look so happy? He even decided to bring in a football as a prop. How cute.

New Year Wishes Deadline

I'm not like a particularly grumpy person, although I do have my moments (see before 10 a.m.). I do, however, have some very particular pet peeves... One of them is people wishing me "Happy New Year" more than a couple of weeks after the 1st of January on any given year. Now, I know that's kind of unfair because maybe I didn't see someone or talk to them for the first couple of weeks of the year. But, by this time, I'm over it. It's 2008, and we are living in it. The holiday festivities are over, man. Done. If you are going to wish me a Happy New Year after a couple of weeks in, why not call me in 2 more weeks and wish me a Happy February? Once, someone actually had the nerve to pull this stunt half-way through February. "Happy New Year, man!" No.
The official cut-off date was today, Jan. 15th. So cut it out.

Travis Barker- Flo Rida "Low" RMX

This is the drum recording session for Travis's rock remix of Flo Rida's hit with T. Pain "Low". Just focus on the drumsticks for a second... It's remarkable how quick they move. This guy deconstructs rap hits and turns them into high energy rock n' roll bangers. Enjoy.

Giants/Cowboys

This video is unreal. I don't know what better results Giants fans could hope for than a video of TO crying about their loss. It's like a late X-mas gift for Big Blue. Somebody needs to stop this guy from talking to the press after games. Ok, maybe before and during the games too.
The stage was set in Irving TX for the Cowboys' 21-17 upset loss to the New York Football Giants yesterday. From Romo's exploits with Daisy Duke to the Giants' excellent play in the last few games of the season and Wild Card, we all felt this was gonna go down. I am satisfied that one of the 2 teams I really hoped wouldn't make it to the Superbowl will not be there. The other team? Well, that's another story that seems written in scripture on tablets of destiny, unfortunately.

Pre-Gaming Video

Somehow, I feel partially responsible for stuff like this when it happens. I think they are in on the joke, anyway. The second guy rapping looks like Mike-D from the Beasties.

Death & Taxes

Check out this article from Tech Crunch writer Michael Arrington on the criticism of the idea of a "music tax".
While I don't agree with Arrington's belief that music should become entirely free and that artist's future income should depend on live performances (What if the artist doesn't want to tour? Who is going to pay to have these albums recorded and created?), I do agree that a ISP tax is not the answer.
Getting people to pay to have all of the music all of the time is the right philosophy. But their method of getting the music needs to be completely changed. If the music industry does this right, the concept of owning music will be dead. Forget a cd, no reason for a hard-drive full of music files, not even an mp3 player will be necessary. All of our industry's efforts should be placed on creating a service of convenience.
If everyone has the option to either spend their valuable time downloading, file sharing, organizing, burning, etc. to get music for free or to cut out all of that and hear whatever they want whenever they want on a new (read: not yet created) portable and multi-use device (goes in car, home, on-the-go) through a service, I believe that they will pay for that convenience. A global streaming jukebox, with an incredible interface, videos, suggestions, playlists, you name it.
Now, I understand that this isn't an easy overnight thing. The wireless networks (except actual Wi-Fi) are not advanced enough to carry this bandwidth yet. But the newer generations are faster and faster, and this capability will come. And I hope that this SERVICE (and whatever device that Apple or someone else creates to carry it) will come along with it, sooner than later.
Until then, this is certainly the winter of the music industry's discontent.

Rosenborg Olives

Paulrosenblog.com and Paul Rosenberg the person have joined forces to bring you the hottest in pickled garnishes. Rosenborg olives! Don't worry I didn't eat them they looked pretty suspect to me too...
P.S. A few people have asked if or why I haven't posted any information on Em's recent illness. I thought about it for a minute, and I decided that's not what this blog is for. It's not an official news source on serious matters effecting people's lives. It's for entertainment, and I've never been an official publicity source in the past, so I'm not going to start to be now just because I have a blog (that posts random stupididty like pickle brands that have a cyborg-jewish name that sounds like mine). I hope everyone understands and respects that.

Blestenation "Blackout" Video

Here is another great clip from Blestenation's stunning forthcoming Welcome to MmmBugout City album. The song was set to an original short animated film by Saiman Chow. If you are in a bad mood or just don't like violence in stuffed animal films in general, skip it. If you'd like to take a short trip to your animated dark side, check it out!

Behind the Boards- Part 1

Over the holidays Shade45 broadcast the debut of our new program, Behind the Boards. Its kind of a "Inside the Actors Studio" for rappers, producers and/or DJ's where our very own Cipha Sounds interviews subjects about the creation of some of their most important work. The first installment of the show featured (of course) Eminem. I was prepared to hear a lot of stuff that I have heard before, but I was in for a surprise. Listen to the below clip from the special and discover for the first time what Eminem's alternative moniker almost was instead of Slim Shady...
(I hope you are all getting the hint- if you don't have Shade45, you are missing some good radio people!)

Decorative Football Face Paint

I don't really like this. Grease paint on football players' cheekbones is supposed to prevent glare from the sun and the stadium lights from bouncing off of sweat and oil on players faces into their eyes... Ok, fair enough. But when you paint white letters and numbers over the black paint, it kind of defeats the purpose. Furthermore, why are supposed tough guys painting cute little letters and numbers on their faces? Its almost as bad as those stupid little elbow ties that players wear, a la The Ultimate Warrior. Do those serve a purpose? I don't see how. The NCAA should ban this silly area code and random message practice.

Fast Wendy

Is it just me, or is there something really perverted and wrong with this sign hanging at the Wendy's cashier?