RIFF MARKET

He Got Shot, Let It Go

Download: "Who Shot Ya Studio Freestyle"

You and I both would love to make a bigger deal out of this than not but frankly I don't think Beanie Sigel can afford to get shot as some elaborate publicity stunt. Did you read the reports? Dude drives a Chevy Impala. Do you know what that is, in terms of laptop computers? It is my friend Reefer yelling out into the hallway of my college dormitory "YO! CHECK OUT MY NEW LAPTOP!" and the rest of us all hurrying into his room really excited, only to see that his "new laptop" was just his old laptop with an expensive speaker system hooked up to it. Then he'd scream "CHECK IT OUT!" again, and we'd all laugh, and it was never a publicity stunt.

To say nothing of: publicity for what? If there's anybody who wants to get back under the radar it's this guy--any time he surfaces he either gets thrown in jail, stuck on alimony payments, or criminally underrated for the albums he's released. And this is especially true in Philly--zero respect. Contrary to popular opinion, Sigel is not the king of South Philly, not even close! He's more like the head programmer for Geno's website, or the systems manager at Philadelphia Magazine. Obviously I'm the king.

Like when kids in my grade school all started campaigning for student council treasurer by photocopying their faces onto dollar bills, staged shootings are blase anymore anyway. Why don't rappers have better publicity stunts? BMX tricks, ollies on a skateboard, something like that? My videographer brother's always looking for guys who can do BMX tricks and rap at the same time (licensing fees), so it's not like rappers don't have a captive audience already.

There's always the internet too, which remains totally underused in the rap publicity stunt sector. Everybody has blogs, sure, and everybody's sick of porn, but here's an idea for a rapper: What about pictures of men having sex with older women, with rapping? You could even have little clips of the porno that people could watch for free--something like a teaser. Then if the people like it they can give you their credit card number--and if the right media people get ahold of your website and porno clips, well! They can give you their credit card numbers too.