First off let me say that no scene is without its own brand of politics and many are waaaay worse than ours. in fact i feel it is not our own brand of politics that is the problem but the small amount of space in which it occurs in. this can lead to politics which would seem mundane or harmless in a large scene like say New york to be considered colosal in Seattle. being one of the priveleged few with access in such a small market gives you a lot of power and this is totally fine (people forget there is a degree of business to this). what is not okay however is to deny that this network even exist at all and to straw man the argument into oblivion.
For clarification
THE "CIRCLE JERK", CHAIN OF COMMAND, ECHELONS OR ANYOTHER NAMES FROM HERE ON OUT IS NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT GETTING ON A SHOW.
the echelons are not i repeat ARE NOT Vitamin D/jake one/larry mizell jr/john moore/dave meinert (or mein millie)or any other name that you heard of as prominent in the town. in fact all those cats mentioned (and many more) are nothing but helpful.
The circle jerk lies in yes men cosigning hip hop no-no's in the hopes of getting in good with artist. as frustrating as Fyle Formatz post could get at times they happened to get 1000 replies at a time because they obviously struck a nerve with people. worse still, a glaring majority of the post weren't even from the people he was offending but from legions of zombies fighting a proxy war on their behalf in order to gain favor with higher ups. this isn't limited to online nut-hopperism.
D-dot had an argument with a man at party who was going hard on defending vitamin D as the greatest hip hop producer in the town and yet he couldn't name a single vita track. worse still he questioned dot's knowledge of vita (Dot is vita's brother. irony at its finest in that situation).
To avoid being one of these zombies it is important to follow the guidelines below to see if your part of this seattle hip hop douchery.
- Do you in ANY way shape or form try to argue that the reason someone isn't into your favorite local act is because they quote "don't get it"?
- [proof specific] Do you see the song of the week name and post a critique or compliment before you have really listened to the track?
- Do you go to shows or encourage others to go to shows to "Support"?
- Have you ever started off a critique or opinion of someones music with any version of "such and such is a good dude" or "i have known such and such X amount of time"?
- Have you ever stepped in to attack someone who has stated they dislike a song because "this person is an icon"?
If so you are a zombie and part of the reason artist get passes for putting out crap or make questionable moves so you really can't get mad when you see up and coming artist doing the same thing on a much smaller scale.
more on this later as we next discuss upper echelons.
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