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In general, I don’t like to blame the creators. They are making work that appeals to them and the people in the room with them. They are making something that is, at some level, genuine. But the distributors, the networks that bring art to the population, they are the ones who ensure that there’s a flattening and narrowing. The younger me may have sat up all night with bandmates raging against Puffy or DMX or whoever, but the fact is that they were never the problem. The problem was that someone in the corporate chain of command felt that there was a need to play those songs fourteen times a day and to eliminate alternatives.
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Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson (Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove)
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DMX Death Threats Gun Death: 35, Generic Threat: 20, Beat Up to Death: 6, Non-Gun Weapon: 5, Robbery Death: 2, Death by Truth: 1 “Niggas wanna lie/Then niggas wonder why/Niggas wanna die” There are 69 death threats on DMX’s It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot
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Shea Serrano (The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed)