Lawsuits, Downloading And The Digital Revolution

Ayana Soyini, a music promoter (www.goldeneyes.com), was served with a lawsuit for posting an MP3 of a new Jay-Z song apparently given to her by Universal (rumor? fact?) to promote to her constituency… Def Jam then sued; her website was shut down… Chuck D wrote a response which she posted to her website… slightly inflammatory… […]

Ayana Soyini, a

music promoter (www.goldeneyes.com), was served with a lawsuit for posting an

MP3 of a new Jay-Z song apparently given to her by Universal (rumor? fact?)

to promote to her constituency… Def Jam then sued; her website was shut down…

Chuck D wrote a response which she posted to her website… slightly inflammatory…

Peace Ayana, Chuck

D. from the mountains of Brazil where real black folk answer the greed of the

rich haves. Really they (Lyor, Russell) need to get a life.. and see the big

picture and think outside the box they are in.

So these cats get

the say so on what is and what is not promotion?

Do we wait for

the big white man to finally say its legit and cool, just as they finally accepted

mixtapes…which to me are no

different?

Again when these

companies went digital some knew exactly what they were dealing with in order

to triple charge the consumer. With digital comes liquid risk, and these Gestapo

tactics are stupid as immediately files are in Singapore, New Zealand, China,

Budapest and East St. Louis. What the f*ck is one American company gonna do

here when increasingly American opinion is becoming a smaller part of the world?

Earlier this year

there was a television commercial with a backing of what was obviously an older

Isley Brothers song. I fiended to find this song, and it happened to be ‘I Turned

You On’ which I bought in the stores in both catalog and the "Live at Yankee

Stadium albums. I’ve played it 1000 times. So much for people saying downloading

hurts, which proves that people will continue to support and buy was great,

not just barely adequate.

Def Jam built its

company on sampling and the swap meet trade to get people alerted on rap music,

all so Russell and Lyor could sell it to Universal for $160 million

They press up 5000-10,000

pieces of vinyl on most rap artists, shipping them to DJs in hopes that they

would play it over some radio….how prehistoric and $$$ wasting is this?

Video clips cost

$300,000-600,000 average, with no residual benefit other than promotional, plus

the fact that 85% of outtake footage is a waste, never used again and no one

seems to know where they are ultimately stored.

A Jay-Z promo record

is not as accessible in places like where I’m at now, Rio DE Janeiro Brazil.

The web promotes that beyond a shipment.

Some white business

cat(s) now navigates how word moves in the streets? Well maybe the streets were

his in the first place, eh?

I was told by these

same Universal legal cats, I wouldn’t see royalties ever..after 10 million records..because

of legalities. Well aint this a……"Cool" I said and began to tear

the whole **** down. They know my name and I know theirs and the truth is they

don’t give a damn about any of this…it’s a control issue of

the format.

Universal bought

MCA which bought Chess (pioneering label that recorded such greats as Bo Diddley,

Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James, etc.) amongst many other

companies….how many Blues/Soul cats see Universal checks?

They shouldn’t

even dare go after you…as you’ve been trying to help in a progressive forward

manner..only simple minds stay stuck in old rules that no longer apply. So it’s

war with me. I deal with 50 countries…and connected into peeps like the World

Zulu Nation.

Universal’s Slave

pimp Doug Morris sicced LL and Lyor on me in DC last month. Here’s what I had

to say about that:

A Family Letter to Lyor and LL: The p2p File Sharing Senate Hearings in Washington

DC September 30th 2003

Well I don’t really

know what good to say. I think Doug Morris has pimped your brains out or something.

The R.I.A.A looked and called Morris who probably rang your bell thus you and

LL proceeded to do a tap dance in front of the US Senate with your strings in

his back, Doug Morris’ strings in yours and the R.I.A.A in his. Thinking that

it would neutralize the grassroots effort of all this.

I didn’t get into

this digital whirl for fanfare …you know me. I never sucked no ass to get

to a place…it’s about the art, integrity and commitment as well into the connection

to the world, because I refuse to be submissive to the corporate dominance and

collusion of the Radio networks, TV outlets and film, record and

media companies that now feel they own and dictate the culture.

This collusion

has stifled the growth of grassroots businesses who can’t afford to build themselves

without some drug dealer backing. Seriously you guys have separated yourselves

into the same aristocracy we rebelled against in the first place. Being that

I spend half my time outside Amerikkka and you have such international ties

abroad, we should know that stuffing your pockets and altering a domestic law

in the U.S. has little bearing on world thought, even in music.

The masses of the

people are important and somehow using mass media to control their thoughts

is becoming a more expensive task with dwindling result. The public opinion

swayed by propaganda, marketing, and promotion will not make the masses sorry

for perceived millionaires. It’s arrogance.. typical Amerikkkan arrogance that

increasingly is becoming a symbol of world angst and anti-opinion.

The haves over

the have-nots ..although it may not be true, it seems that you’re responsible

for keeping the artists of your company dumb or seemingly dumb to reach the

dumbed down masses to buy dumbed down product.

At the end of the

day the black artists remain childlike under your wings with no world opinion

whatsoever, pending the existence on "Soundscam" and units sold while

people still look to White icons like Bono, Paul McCartney, Madonna and even

"Governator" for the statements on where we really stand.

It’s hypocritical

for LL to say what’s stolen from him when 75% of his and most of our catalog

was also taken from musicians who never controlled their copyrights..

LL is family as

well as you musically speaking, but really your calling misses the points of

origin that allowed us to do this in the first place…

Some points:

I’m aware that

my copyrights were never really mine and were unprotected anyway to the point

of Universal lawyers saying I’d never receive a royalty from them again.Well

aint this the blues all over again

1. If I knew that

LL or any rapper was on some government hearing opposing my view, I would’ve

bowed out regardless because all they would do is play up two dueling blackmen

against each other..like they did. The last thing I expected was that you and

he would be positioned against me. Or maybe I should’ve expected it….yeah.

2. Def Jam and

other 80’s started rap labels were built off swapmeet and mixtaping throughout

the years, sampling and unauthorized usage, which made $$$$ for you to sell

the company in the mass millions..and now you wanna get righteous?

3. Isn’t Russell

a board member of Altnet (a company that does business with Kazaa)?…How many

sides of the fence do you guys play?…oh, the one that lands in the biggest

pile of cash?

4. The companies

knew that the second they digitized music into a CD that it was let out of the

bag unprotected and easily transferable. Its was a matter of time a compression

such as mp3 would roll along…we’ve all profited off that technology and now

you wanna say its evil?.

It aint bitterness

but its clarity. I thought that making music was a great way to make a living,

thank you. Aligning yourselves with the same peeps we fought against has

altered this game into "The Greed That Has To Make A Killing" so I

can survive. But others must have a grassroots of a chance (since most are shut

out from the club of the music business).

These conglomerates

have really have you in the wrong place on the right stuff you built and sold

your thing on..

If you have any

threats from Universal, or anyone, send them to me. They should be screaming

on their Nation’s President spending $87.5 billion dollars of their $$$

instead worrying about some damn record….

I’M VERY ACCESSIBLE

AND WAITING and can get my e-mail in a country of 80 million black people who

are puzzled at the backwardness of American blacks dancin the ‘electric slave.’