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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; hip-hop</title>
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		<title>Change The Game</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/change-the-game-1/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=change-the-game-1</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/change-the-game-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2014 04:58:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Change the Game]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Sonnie Johnson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["In my very first 'political' speech, I did a comparison between Jay-Z and Ronald Reagan."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/sonnie2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240323" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/sonnie2.jpg" alt="sonnie" width="310" height="415" /></a>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Sonnie Johnson, the CEO and inspiration of <em>Change the Game</em> (<a href="http://www.ctghq.org/">ctghq.org</a>), the new website and activist program launched by the David Horowitz Freedom Center that sets out to expose the failure and racism of progressive policies and to use hip hop culture to reach constituencies previously untouched by conservative messages.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Sonnie Johnson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>Thank you for having me. I have the feeling this will be the first of many.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>You have great intuition!</p>
<p>So let’s begin:</p>
<p>What is <em>Change the Game</em> all about and what inspired you to create it?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>I never wanted to start my own project. I wanted to bring my talent to projects that currently exist, and I tried. It wasn&#8217;t long before I realized if I wanted to do something different, if I really wanted to change the conversation, I was going to have to do it myself.</p>
<p>Plus, there are a lot of black conservatives holding on by a thread. They are one Bundy Ranch, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown story away from leaving the conservative movement. We&#8217;ve lost some really great advocates already. They say they don&#8217;t have a home on the conservative side of the aisle. I wanted to provide that home.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Why has hip hop and its constituency been so insulated from conservative messages? Why have so many conservatives been insulated from hip hop?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>Excellent question. If both sides asked themselves and answered honestly, we could actually have an honest conversation on race and culture.</p>
<p>In my very first &#8220;political&#8221; speech, I did a comparison between Jay-Z and Ronald Reagan. I took quotes straight from Reagan and mirrored them to lyrics by Jay-Z. I thought I was nailing my political coffin, but I wanted people to see we are saying the same thing. Every Tea Party speech I&#8217;ve ever given has hip hop symbolism or direct quotation. When conservatives don&#8217;t know the message is coming from hip hop, I get standing ovations.</p>
<p>When talking to lovers of hip hop, I don&#8217;t focus on blacks and social conservatism. While issues of black marriage, abortion, and protection of religious rights are important to me, I understand a single mother of three is more worried about not having her lights cut off than any of those issues.</p>
<p>If I want to talk to the hip-hop generation about inflation, I talk about my recent trip to the grocery store. If I want to talk about energy independence, I focus on the price of gas and the rise in electricity bills. If I want to talk about limited government, I talk about the heavy police presence and heavy taxation through the ticketing process.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t believe in utopia. We may never get on the same page and speak the exact same language. Damn it, that&#8217;s the purpose of a republic. We don&#8217;t have to like the same music, the same movies, or arrive at our principles by taking the same road. We just have to respect each other enough to fight for our freedom. After that, you do you and I&#8217;ll do me.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Why has there been a one-party monopoly of black voters for so long? Why has this monopoly occurred and what are its consequences?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>If I were your average black conservative, this is where I would start to blame the Democrats. I would regurgitate how Democrats formed the KKK, started Jim Crow laws, and are the real racists. And I would be telling the truth, but I would still be highly ineffective in changing any minds in the black community.</p>
<p>There is a one-party monopoly in the black community because the Republicans don&#8217;t show up. They spend more money on polls and studies about engagement than actual engagement. When approached with fresh ideas (yes, I&#8217;m talking about you, Reince), they continue with the same tired policies of the past.</p>
<p>In this 2014 cycle, there is no real black engagement because the polls are calling for a Republican sweep. They don&#8217;t need the black vote. Having said that, I see you, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. If the Republicans don&#8217;t want to listen to me, then they should at least follow the moves of some of their own.</p>
<p>Progressives were able to destroy the Republican legacy on civil rights issues because the Republicans weren&#8217;t there to defend it. Your average Republican starts every conversation with &#8220;Reagan said&#8230;,&#8221; like Reagan started the Republican Party. They only claim the party of Lincoln when trying to dismiss calls of racism.</p>
<p>Most Republicans don&#8217;t know the history of the Republican Party. They know the history of Ronald Reagan. How do you sell and defend a legacy you don&#8217;t know?</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> To be sure, progressives wear the mantle of caring about black Americans, but the historical record and empirical reality tell us quite a different and disturbing tale about the earthly incarnations of their ideas. Expand for us on what progressive policies have actually done to minorities and the poor in the inner city.</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>Wow, that question makes me want to give a highly historical answer. Or maybe biblical.</p>
<p>What I do best is make it about the people because those are the real victims of progressivism. Growing up, I never knew I was poor. I had three meals a day, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and a loving family unit. My mother made me go to church and had very high expectation for my education. I didn&#8217;t know we lived below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Things start to change when people start telling you what you can&#8217;t do. Your parents say no to the latest trends due to financial restraints. Teachers tell you what you can&#8217;t do because of societal constraints. Your pastor tells you what you can&#8217;t do due to biblical restraints. Your race tells you what you can&#8217;t achieve due to racial constraints. More and more laws tell you what you can&#8217;t do because of criminal constraints. And no access to capital, training and financial education. What is left?</p>
<p>That&#8217;s when you get, &#8220;F&#8211;k the world!&#8221; As Wale would say, &#8220;If a young n&#8212;er can&#8217;t dribble, can&#8217;t rap, can&#8217;t act&#8230;he ain&#8217;t got no options.&#8221; That&#8217;s what progressivism breeds: a society of zero options. They want you to turn to government, but blacks, especially black males, have refused. They would rather enter the drug game and risk their life in the streets or behind bars than living under the thumb of government dependency.</p>
<p>People think young black males sell drugs for the money. No. They need the money to escape their current situation. They want to live a life not held down by the constraints of progressivism. Until conservatives take a money message, a true money message of capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship into the inner cities, they will progressively move towards further socialization, death and destruction.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>And so now we come full circle back to <em>Change the Game</em>, because you are all about using hip hop to help pull people out of the inner city trap and prison created and enforced by progressive policies. You have noted how hip hop, including gangsta rap, represents the rediscovery of the individual and how it complements the conservative message and the American Dream. Rappers like Ice T, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, as you have pointed out, are individuals who embody the capitalist reality and message. Enlighten our audience about this reality and how it &#8220;changes the game.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>First, I love that you used the word &#8220;trap.&#8221; Hip hop created that word to describe a street corner or hustle location. We know it&#8217;s a trap. The more it became a part of our vocabulary, the more it started to include public housing as a whole. I always want to point out that progressivism built those traps. Progressives wanted blacks all in one place to create a supply of workers. Now they value blacks as a supply of voters. That&#8217;s the real trap.</p>
<p>When Dr. Dre released &#8220;The Chronic,&#8221; he was cemented in hip hop history. It will always come up in conversation about the best hip hop albums ever. Recently, Dr. Dre sold his company <em>Beats by Dre</em> for over 2 billion dollars. I&#8217;m guessing if you ask Dr. Dre about the greatest decision in his life, it would be deciding to be a businessman instead of just an artist.</p>
<p>We are constantly talking about the failing school systems in America. If you care about the issue as more than just a talking point, then understand what it means for the kids having to come up through that failing system. The progressive public school agenda tells them America is unfair because they are black. They believe the nonsense.</p>
<p>Hip hop has become a vehicle to uplift a portion of black society. In addition to the artists, there are promoters, dancers, backround singers, bloggers, reporters, bookers, stylists, makeup artists, DJs, and the list goes on on; all getting paid from hip hop. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry nationwide. It all started at neighborhood parties and out of the back of car trunks.</p>
<p>Hip hop is Capitalism 101. Find a service that needs to be filled. Produce a product. Introduce it into the marketplace. Work hard to have the best product in the market. Receive financial success. They weren&#8217;t taught the basics in school, but they had no problem figuring it out naturally.</p>
<p>Hip hop artists today have taken it a step further. They own their labels, the rights to their music, the studio where they record, a clothing line, a brand of vodka, shoes, purses, perfumes, and even water. They have broken the progressive dogma of zero options.</p>
<p>What I want to do with <em>Change the Game</em> is move that same influence and drive towards all forms of industry. Science, math, electronics, and technology are the future and we aren&#8217;t preparing our kids. While hip hop is proof capitalism works, we can&#8217;t stop at having only music, sports, and Hollywood as access points out of poverty.</p>
<p>Listening to 50 Cent say, &#8220;If I can&#8217;t do it homie, it can&#8217;t be done&#8221; while trying to find the cure to cancer; to me, that&#8217;s &#8220;changing the game.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Let’s focus in on you for a moment. Sonnie, can you share with our readers a bit of your own background and journey? Tell us about your upbringing and youth. You were also once a Democrat. How did you ultimately find yourself on the conservative side and then as someone who, as a black American dealing with the issues confronting the black community, wanted to change the game?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>I always wish I could say, &#8220;Two parent home. Stable upbringing. Move on.&#8221; Every time I tell my story people look at me with such sympathetic eyes. Like I must need a hug. No. My past didn&#8217;t break me; it made me.</p>
<p>My biological mother was addicted to drugs when I was born. She couldn&#8217;t take care of me. So, I went to live with my father. He was still running the streets and he couldn&#8217;t take care of me, either. That&#8217;s when I was given to my adoptive mother, my Angel.</p>
<p>I traveled between my mother in public housing and my father in a country house with no plumbing. I was eating government peanut butter one day and picking tomatoes off the vine the next. One night I&#8217;m going to sleep to the sound of gunshots and the next night I hear a thousand crickets at once. I had a very interesting childhood.</p>
<p>When I was 10, someone reported my mother to social services. Since I wasn&#8217;t her biological daughter, I was no longer allowed to live with my family. Everything I had ever know was taken away from me in an instant. (You know, the progressive zero options model.) My mother made me go to church, do my homework, and volunteer in the neighborhood. With my father, there were no rules, no guidelines and it didn&#8217;t take long before I started running the streets.</p>
<p>I didn&#8217;t stop running until I was diagnosed with Crohn&#8217;s at 17. Even then, my run became a jog; drinking, smoking, and partying all night. My illness kept me in check because I was constantly in the hospital but I had basically given up on life. Finally, I decided a scar on my stomach would be worth removing the pain and constant trips to hospital (yes, I suffered a year and a half because my vanity didn&#8217;t want a scar).</p>
<p>After six weeks of healing, I went to visit my friends, and they were right where I left them. They were all smoking, drinking, and having a good time. For the first time I thought there has to more to life than this &#8212; within 24 hours, I left Richmond. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.</p>
<p>My transition to conservatism started with another progressive zero options formula. Doctors told me for years I would never be able to get pregnant and if I did, I would never be able to carry full term. God thought differently. It&#8217;s why progressives hate Jesus and want him out of the public arena. Nothing crushes what you can&#8217;t do like believing in the great &#8220;I Am&#8221;; through the Son, all things are possible.</p>
<p>The day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, my adoptive mother was called home to be with the Lord. That was the day my life changed. I fell on my knees and turned my life back over to God. And I promised my mother I wouldn&#8217;t try so hard to give my daughter the things I didn&#8217;t have that I would forget to give her the things I do have.</p>
<p>I had to ask myself some tough questions. How am I going to teach my daughter how to manage money when I barely know myself? How am I going to teach her about the laws of the land? Who will be her role model and what do I know about that person?</p>
<p>By the time my daughter was ready to go to school, I had given myself a stay-at-home mom education. I knew how to balance a budget and the cost of living outside your means. I understood the necessity of protecting and defend your home. All the lessons mothers learn when starting a family. But I also taught myself to run a website, web code, and some basic design. I read history, outside of the progressive context, and was introduced to Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and Maggie Walker.</p>
<p>I started <em><a href="http://didshesaythat.com/">DidSheSayThat.com</a></em> and it&#8217;s been a hell of a ride ever since. At first, I didn&#8217;t know I was conservative. I didn&#8217;t understand what the term meant. If I didn&#8217;t seek the information, I never would have made the transition.</p>
<p>Looking at the black community, I always humble myself. I understand these lessons aren&#8217;t being taught in schools, in churches, in groups of friends or circles of acquaintances. I always remember myself at 17 and all the things I didn&#8217;t know.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t hold judgment against someone&#8217;s past; especially due to a lack of information or the knowledge that the information exists. I will, however, judge harshly those that know the truth, but choose to ignore. My journey to conservatism started with a hard knock life education, that&#8217;s where <em>Change the Game</em> starts the conversation.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Booker T. Washington is a central figure in your vision, and the last person the Left wants to talk about – or say anything good about. Why?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>In 1912, the Tuskegee Institute graduated more self-made millionaires than Harvard, Yale and Princeton combined. Booker T. Washington exposed a truth progressives don&#8217;t want you to see. Fortunes are built by doers with intellect, not intellectuals.</p>
<p>When Washington first started Tuskegee, he was surrounded by former slaves. Now that they were freed men, they believed they should no longer have to work hard. Manual labor was now beneath them. Washington told them, &#8220;Now that you are freed men, you have to work twice as hard because you are now working for yourself.&#8221; If I asked you to break down conservatism, could you do it any better with one line?</p>
<p>Booker T. Washington advocated a money message. &#8220;At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.&#8221; It&#8217;s why I skip the social issues and focus on the pocket book.</p>
<p>Booker T. Washington understood progressives and their position in racial tension:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don&#8217;t want the patient to get well.</p></blockquote>
<p>Which is why I don&#8217;t put a focus on Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. With <em>Change the Game</em>, I want to celebrate all the beauty in the hip hop culture while simultaneously trying to fix some of the issues that plague the black community. I don&#8217;t pretend blacks don&#8217;t have some legitimate grievances. The question is, do you want them solved or do you want to keep the civil rights lifetime job security in-tact?</p>
<p>But one of the greatest facts about Booker T. Washington is that he was actually born a slave. If you think about the modern civil rights movement, they are living off the souls of slavery, the lynchings of Jim Crow, and the water hoses of their parents and grandparents (not referencing those that actually suffered the abuse). They travel first class on their flight, have a car waiting at the airport and stay at a five-star hotel; all while screaming how unfair it is for the black man.</p>
<p>Booker T. Washington didn&#8217;t think about fair or unfair. He only considered results. If history repeats itself, I pray for another Booker T. Washington age in black America.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What are some of the strategies you will utilize to change the game? You have stated that one of the crucial things to do is to win hearts within the black community by talking about the issues that matter to them &#8212; in terminology that resonates with them and that they can identify with. I think we can fairly say that conservatives have been a failure in this regard up till now.</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>I don&#8217;t want conservatives to come out with a rap song, &#8220;Can&#8217;t we all get along,&#8221; with a remix by Karl Rove. Actually &#8230; never mind.</p>
<p>I like Ayn Rand, so I hate contradiction in my world. I stand beside people who yell, &#8220;Protect the Constitution,&#8221; &#8220;Don&#8217;t tread on me&#8221; and &#8220;Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.&#8221; Mention hip hop and they turn into progressives that would run every lyrical artist out of the country. Then these same people talk about the Left&#8217;s hypocrisy when it comes to the First Amendment. Check your own backyard first.</p>
<p>But what really pisses me off is when conservatives take a shot at hip hop but don&#8217;t want to defend their position against another conservative who likes hip hop. I&#8217;m not calling him a conservative, but Bill O&#8217;Reilly instantly pops into my head. He does a talking points memo about the &#8220;thug culture&#8221; in black America and brings on Beckel and Carville to check him where he&#8217;s wrong. Seriously? Then for a different perspective, he brings on a black progressive that dodges every question or a black conservative that agrees with his every talking point.</p>
<p>Bill O&#8217;Reilly has gotten Jessica&#8217;s Law on the books in over 45 states, but every talking point, race conversation, or serious attempt to change the focus of discussion towards healthy families, thriving communities, and a first class education falls on deaf ears. Every issue becomes an &#8220;us vs. them&#8221; battle to the death.</p>
<p>Especially with O&#8217;Reilly, everything is the fault of hip hop. I will give O&#8217;Reilly credit: He has tried to have a conversation with the hip hop community. Camron and Lupe Fiaso are the two interviews that pop into my mind, but I&#8217;m sure there have been others. But he invites them into a hostile environment where they are in a defensive mode instead of a conversation mode. They are expecting a fight with Bill O&#8217;Reilly.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll just throw this out there. Bill O&#8217;Reilly, if you want to stop wasting your breath having the same conversations and getting nowhere, maybe you should <em>Change your Game</em>.</p>
<p>BET recently ran a biopic look at hip hop in America. Obama was included in this three-part mini-series as a lover of the hip hop culture. (I&#8217;ll pause here for the right side of the aisle to insert a snide remark out loud or under their breath.) When the right thinks about hip hop culture, they think about what progressive radio has shown them. Every hip hop song isn&#8217;t about shaking your ass, pop, lock and drop it, selling drugs, or taking another human life. If you think it is, that&#8217;s why I left the pause especially for you. I&#8217;m never going to win you over and I really don&#8217;t care.</p>
<p>The easiest part about <em>Change the Game</em> is it is effortless. All I have to do is be me. I&#8217;ve a built a team around me; Kevin Daniels, Pudgy Miller, Tracy Connors, Javonni Brustow, Kira Davis, Tezlyn Figaro, Nadra Enzi and Chidike Okeem, and for them it&#8217;s effortless as well. We all care about the people more than we care about the politics or politicians. We aren&#8217;t looking at a single election or election cycle. We are in for a long-term Renaissance in black America; starting with winning the hearts of the people.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>So you gonna change the game?</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>My presence here shows God is faithful to his word. I will continue to pray for wisdom and strength, and by the Grace of God, we will <em>Change the Game</em>.</p>
<p>In Jesus&#8217; Name Amen.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Amen.</p>
<p>Sonnie Johnson, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>And thank you for changing the game &#8212; and we wish you the best in achieving it!</p>
<p><strong>Johnson: </strong>Thank you.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss Sonnie Johnson&#8217;s powerful testimony in her video, </em><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title  " dir="ltr" title="A Trip Thru Liberalville"><em><strong>A Trip Thru Liberalville</strong>:</em> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9kV8Dfy0lz8" width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
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		<title>Sonnie Johnson: How to Change the Game</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/sonnie-johnson-how-to-change-the-game/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sonnie-johnson-how-to-change-the-game</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/sonnie-johnson-how-to-change-the-game/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 04:59:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservative]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[hip-hop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Progressive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sonnie Johnson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West Coast Retreat]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222450</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A fearless trailblazer demonstrates the power of hip-hop and why it belongs in the conservative tent. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: Below are the video and transcript of Sonnie Johnson&#8217;s address at the Freedom Center&#8217;s West Coast Retreat, held at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, California from March 21-23, 2014:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/89889904" height="281" width="500" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Sonnie Johnson:</strong> Hip-hop didn&#8217;t start &#8217;til late &#8217;70s, early &#8217;80s.  By then progressivism had already infiltrated our communities, and we have been going through birth pains in the hip-hop movement since then.  This year, this summer, three hip-hop artists came out with albums and I put these albums – they were my favorite albums of the summer – and I put them together into one coherent thought using the names.  And it tells you progressivism in black America and how we fight to get out of it.  The three albums were &#8220;A Good Kid in a Mad City Will Turn a Born Sinner into the Gifted.&#8221;  And that&#8217;s what happened.  We have good kids being raised in bad cities, and they take what they&#8217;ve been given, and they turn it into a gift, and they put it out as a product, and they sell it, and they become multi-millionaires.  And it is a beautiful thing.  It is capitalism.  It is the American dream.</p>
<p>So, I start off most of the time with a Sonnie-ism, so I want to give you guys a Sonnie-ism.  This is how I mix conservatism with hip-hop, and this is one of my favorites.  Created equal does not mean equal results.  Because I can&#8217;t flow like Jay-Z doesn&#8217;t make it Jay-Z&#8217;s fault.  And it&#8217;s a simple, basic concept that we all preach when we talk about the Constitution, when we talk about our founding principles.  That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to get people to see.  But it goes straight over their head.  But if you put someone in that they listen to and they care about then they start to understand it a little bit better.  And that&#8217;s what we want to do. But we also have another thing, where we say we don&#8217;t talk about the game, we be the game.  So, we&#8217;re not gonna talk about it, we&#8217;re gonna show you how we change the game, so that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m up here to do that.  And I hope you like it.</p>
<p>This is how we plan on changing the game:</p>
<p>I&#8217;m a born sinner asking the Lord why me. He said it ain&#8217;t about you, so let it be.  And when I question my role, he didn&#8217;t send me a priest.  He sent another born sinner to sing to me.</p>
<p>J Cole cowrote me a love song.  Freedom of jail, a purchase or sale, daughter in the womb, momma angel raised from this hell.  It was the end before beginning.  How you gonna change the world, curled in all its traps and sinners.  Well as far as that go, it&#8217;s only natural.  I explain my plateau and what defines my name.</p>
<p>Short story.  No need to fit it all in.  I live a life of compromise.  Backsliding is sin.  It was expected.  See the hue of my skin.  This sickness in my body, I don&#8217;t want to go and party.  The devil claimed my soul wasn&#8217;t good for nobody.  My girl is out tricking, my dude&#8217;s out dying.  God bless me, would he see the doctors were denying.  Then he called my name, and I couldn&#8217;t stop crying. But I stood in defiance, see.</p>
<p>&#8216;Cause I&#8217;m gonna do me.  Not looking for no one&#8217;s goddess, not even from he. &#8216;Cause God wanted perfect. And in all honesty, I was not worth it.</p>
<p>Then 50 said God give me style. God give me grace.  God give me style and God give me grace.  And God used 50 to put a smile on my face.  And J said kneel before God and pray for a better cause, sometimes to no avail, and that made me wake up and stop feeling sorry for myself. &#8216;Cause if I went to heaven I had to escape hell.</p>
<p>And Kanye. Jesus walks and I thought I&#8217;ve been afraid of God for so long.  What can I do to right my wrongs?  And this is where the song switches. Because God said speak, so I let spoken word flow from me.  I&#8217;m not a rapper, so lyrics don&#8217;t flow from me, but I&#8217;m a thinker, so a thousand thoughts flow from me.  God said speaker louder.  What do you want from me?  Then he put a tea party in front of me.</p>
<p>Now I&#8217;m no longer black.  My fam turned on me. &#8216;Cause I try to paint a picture of the world I see.  That&#8217;s the meaning of hip-hop.  What it&#8217;s supposed to be.  How did I turn into the enemy?  And on the other side it&#8217;s few that believed in me.  I wear my ghetto on my sleeve.  Ain&#8217;t no change in me.  I&#8217;m the rough cut that God made of me.  Exposing my diamond now &#8217;cause Cole sang to me.  Hip-hop sung me a love song.</p>
<p>Politics are archaic, formulaic with the outcome.  They don&#8217;t know.  They just studied the charts.  Me I studied my black.  The people studied their hearts.  I had a feelin&#8217; I was killin&#8217; with the speeches I was spillin&#8217; out.  I could change lives forever.</p>
<p>Keynote, big speech, Jay-Z is what I talk about.  It would have been mixed tape Jay Cole, but I was like, nah, I was wonderin&#8217; why you were full, when two years ago I was sayin&#8217; who dat.  Praisin&#8217; hip-hop for its switch up in rap.  But as my speech is slow, I thought they must be insane.  But Bannen said play the game and change the game.  And then I heard my love song.</p>
<p>&#8216;Cause I always believed in a bigger picture.  If I can get my people to stop the names, feel my core, I could open up doors.  Reintroduce honesty, show them they deserve more.  The difference between black leaders, poverty pimps, and whores.  I wasn&#8217;t asked to fall.  I was demanded to stand.  MLK on a mountaintop with a cross in his heart.  In his hand was a cross.  Not that civil right that you bought, so his statue removes Christ, and they call it art.</p>
<p>If this be my last essay, know it comes to my heart.  No apologies for embracing hip-hop as a art.  &#8216;Cause I&#8217;m here for a purpose, though I doubted to start.  I&#8217;m just a woman of the people, not above, but equal.  And for the greater good, destroy both sides of evil, so don&#8217;t cry for me.  This is a life I choose myself.  Just pray along the way I never lose myself.  And for those who said black conservatism is dead, I&#8217;ll go to hell to resurrect it, and I will be respected &#8217;cause hip hop writes me love songs.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Ignoring Hip-Hop Ensures a Democratic President in 2016</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/ignoring-hip-hop-is-ensuring-a-democratic-president-in-2016/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ignoring-hip-hop-is-ensuring-a-democratic-president-in-2016</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:25:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[entrepreneur]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hip-hop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hispanic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jay-Z]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[youth]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221676</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Right seals its own fate by rejecting a popular genre of music and its millions of fans.    ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Hip-Hop-graffiti1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221677" alt="Hip-Hop-graffiti1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Hip-Hop-graffiti1-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a></span><strong>[This is the third part of Ronn Torossian&#8217;s three-part series on why hip-hop and Jay-Z are worthy of America&#8217;s respect. To read part 1, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/bill-oreilly-is-wrong-jay-z-is-worthy-of-americas-respect/">click here,</a> for part 2, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/welcome-the-hip-hop-world-into-the-conservative-tent/">click here</a>.]</strong></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Wise conservatives might ask why Barack Obama was re-elected despite terrible approval ratings. According to Gallup, Obama averaged 49.1% job approval during his first term in office.  His performance was subpar, he broke repeated promises, and the economy still struggled, yet he was handily re-elected. Despite the facts that it will be an 8-year Obama reign and that there’s no strong GOP candidate, conservatives continue to claim to know it all.</span></p>
<p>Conservatives don’t open their minds – and Democrats are likely to win the election again in 2016.  Conservative ideology shouldn’t be changed &#8211; it is right and the left is wrong on the issues.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">However, dictating to people what they should listen to and how they should dress is un-American. Hip-hop crosses all racial and ethnic lines – all across the country. Conservatives who endlessly criticize hip-hop are wrong and don’t understand what hip-hop is. They also don’t have a clue what their children are listening to, nor do they have any clue how to affect popular culture.  Wake up – the world has changed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On college campuses nationwide, youth listen to hip-hop. Leaving aside the fact that hip-hop crosses all racial boundaries, are these haters aware that hip-hop’s largest consumer base is the Hispanic community? With the continued growth of Hispanics in America, how does the GOP intend to capture these votes? Consider hip-hop. It is so hypocritical for pro-capitalism conservatives to<em> hate</em> on an entire industry which has such mass appeal.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hip-hop has empowered a whole new generation of people who were previously disenfranchised. Few American industries are more entrepreneurial than hip-hop. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Take these lyrics from Ma$e: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“Now what the hell is you lookin&#8217; for?/ Can&#8217;t a young man get money anymore?/ Let my pants sag down to the floor/ Really do it matter as long as I score?&#8221; </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In America, whether you wear a hoodie like Mark Zuckerberg or a 3-piece suit, indeed you can succeed. In a shock to some who read this site, kids today grow up wanting to be entrepreneurs, not doctors or lawyers. Hip-hop encourages that. We don’t want government hand-outs, we want to earn our money.  Conservatives should let hip-hop fans know they don’t judge and accept people who want to create their own rule book.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So many of us, whether it is Jamie Glazov, the editor of Front Page Magazine, who came to this country as a refugee, or me, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/5WPRSpeakers">Ronn Torossian</a>,<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> who grew up in the Bronx with a single mother, need role models and people we can relate to. Kids today who don’t have huge opportunities need positive thinking – and so too do people of all ages. That’s offered in hip-hop.  Take the words of Eminem, who says, “You can do anything you set your mind to,” or the greatest rapper alive, Jay-Z, who says, “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant.” Dreaming big is important and hip-hop allows us to envision and realize those dreams. In contrast, Americans don’t see government officials as enviable no matter where they fall on the political spectrum.</span></p>
<p>My children are blessed to attend private school with very smart and well-connected kids and families – I wasn’t able to do that. Thankfully, they have so many opportunities I didn’t have, and the non-stop work ethic is something that is hard for many of us to associate with good ol’ boys in the GOP.  Can’t the GOP adopt some of the quotes and language from hip-hop to widen its base?</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Sean “Diddy” Combs has a work ethic unlike anyone else. As he says, “I demand the best. Sleep is forbidden. If you work for me, you have to roll how I roll. I’m not really human. I’m like a machine.”  Or Will Smith, a brilliant actor, whom so many watched on TV as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Smith said, “The first step before anyone else in the world believes it, is that YOU have to believe it.”  They are so right &#8212; and we need to know we don’t need to go to Harvard to be successful and make it. Why not identify with these people and let them know that the conservative movement believes they should be rewarded for their hard work, by paying lower taxes and keeping more of their money? Conservatives would gain so many votes.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How about this gem from Birdman? “Your work ethic has to be to the ceiling. You’re gonna get out of this what you’re putting into it.” And while the conservative movement struggles with ways to balance social values with a conservative ethos, aren’t there “values” related issues on which we can cooperate? </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Take Jay-Z’s great song “Mama I made it”: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“I told you one day I&#8217;d get you a home /I didn&#8217;t know it could possibly be in Rome/ Told me don&#8217;t wait on nobody get your own/ So with me myself and my microphone I made it. &#8230; Mama I made it.” </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Is it not completely hypocritical to attack these lyrics or values?  How many welfare cases have become millionaires because of hip-hop?  How many honest businessmen used to be criminals because of hip-hop?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose father was killed when he was 33, was a criminal. Yet he says: “This is my plan. When I’m in the studio making a hit record, I’m not trying to make a hit record; I’m making one. This is what I studied. This is why I stay up twenty hours a day.” His children will have great opportunities in America – and that’s the American way.  True conservative values.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">LL Cool J, the rare Republican in hip-hop, said, “Success is achieved and maintained by those who try and keep trying.”  If one reads the comments from conservatives on recent FrontPage hip-hop related articles, we are destined to fail yet again amongst the young and amongst pop culture because our minds are closed. Conservatives aren’t trying – they know it all. It’s unfortunate.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A classic hip-hop song, one I remember hearing ad naseum in the Bronx in the 1980s, featured a rapper named Special Ed rapping, &#8220;I&#8217;m talented, yes I&#8217;m gifted/ Never boosted, never shoplifted/ I got the cash, but money ain&#8217;t nothing.&#8221; I remember hearing countless people understand the importance of making money and doing good things in the world.  Even if one is unconventional, he should seek to make big things happen. Closing out hip-hop completely is simply absurd and a definite way to close out major segments of America.  It’s a major mistake.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Every day before I go to work, I listen to Jay-Z’s “My 1</span><sup style="line-height: 1.5em;">st</sup><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Song,” as it inspires me to work hard and always challenge myself for more: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I&#8217;m just, tryin to stay above water y&#8217;know/ Just stay busy, stay workin/ Puff told me like, the key to this joint/ The key to staying, on top of things/ is treat everything like it&#8217;s your first project, knahmsayin? Like it&#8217;s your first day like back when you was an intern/ Like, that&#8217;s how you try to treat things like, just stay hungry/ Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first/ And my thirst is the same as &#8211; when I came/ It&#8217;s my joy and my tears and my laughter it brings to me/ It&#8217;s my ev-ery-thing/ Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first/ And my thirst like the first song I sang.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">My </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.5wpr.com/">PR firm</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> has grown because we will not be outworked – no one will ever try harder than us.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">President Obama will go down in history as one of the worst presidents ever. One of the reasons is that he has made an enemy out of anyone domestically who disagrees with him. The many conservatives who have issues with hip-hop should make more of an effort to understand the movement and why it appeals to so many who are outside of the norm. Don’t make them your enemies, especially since Hispanics keep growing in America.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The world has changed. There’s a multi-racial President in the White House.  It’s not all the same as it used to be. Conservatives should start figuring out how to move on and capture more youth, minority, and Hispanic votes, or they can forget winning an election for the near future. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The challenge, as Jay-Z put it in “A Dream,” is “Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.” The GOP needs to open the tent to people who understand the reality of America in 2014 and beyond.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The Legend of The Blind MC</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ben-horowitz/the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-legend-of-the-blind-mc</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Mar 2014 04:33:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blind MC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hip-hop]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How Hip-Hop became the inspiration for all my thinking on leadership. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/bmc.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221691" alt="bmc" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/bmc-450x303.png" width="360" height="242" /></a><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://www.bhorowitz.com/">bhorowitz.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p><em>Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, <a href="http://www.a16z.com/">Andreessen Horowitz</a> and writes <a href="http://www.bhorowitz.com/">a blog</a> of advice on how to build and run a business. It is one of the most popular blogs on the web with 10 million followers. Horowitz begins every blog with a Hip Hop lyric, a practice that has drawn some puzzled responses. He recently wrote this blog to explain why Hip Hop plays an important role in his thinking. Ben Horowitz is the author of &#8220;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062273205/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=B00DQ845EA&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=055F3DQSYH5R4XNBJ2HP">The Hard Thing About Hard Things</a>&#8221; which is currently number one in three categories of Amazon business best-sellers. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bhorowitz.com%2F&amp;screen_name=bhorowitz&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@benhorowitz. </a></em></p>
<p>People say I’m crippled, but that’s a lie<br />
they’re just mad ‘cause I’m so fly<br />
being handicapped is a state of mind<br />
I’m not disabled I’m just blind<br />
—The Blind MC</p>
<p>People often ask me why I feature Hip Hop so much in my blog posts. In the past, I have given short and incomplete answers, but here is the full story. It probably belongs in <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2865614/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/The-hard-thing-about-hard-things" target="_blank" data-id="2865614" data-embed-url="//rapgenius.com/annotations/2865614/embed" data-editorial-state="needs_exegesis">The Hard Thing About Hard Things</a>, but I did not know how to tell it without Rap Genius.</p>
<p>In 1986, I was 20 years old and attending Columbia University in the City of New York. I received a phone call from my mother on the shared dorm room phone:</p>
<p>Elissa Horowitz: “Ben, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I am just going to say it. Seth has been shot.”</p>
<p>Me: “What? How? Is he alive? How could that happen?”</p>
<p>Elissa: “He’s been shot in the face. He’s alive, but the doctors say he will never see again.”</p>
<p>I dropped the phone. Seth Clark and his family—Joel, Adam, Dana, Joel, and Penny—were my family too. We lived two houses away from each other. We ate dinner with each other almost every night. We saw each other every day. I went on their family vacations. He was my brother and he was 13 and he was blind for life.</p>
<p>I tried to imagine what he was feeling and I couldn’t. Seth was smart and athletic. He stood over 6 feet tall at 13 and every high school football coach in the area wanted him on their team, but there would be no football. The more that I thought about it, it seemed like there would be no anything. What could a blind person do? Who would his friends be? Where would all his dreams go?</p>
<p>When I would call home, things sounded worse and worse. “He has pellets from the shotgun blast in his brain. He is having seizures. He is totally depressed. He hasn’t spoken a word to anyone in 3 months.” I felt completely helpless. We were losing Seth. I felt like a part of me was slowly dying.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I was in <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2875726/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/New-york-city-in-1986-and-there-was-an-explosion-of-a-new-kind-of-music-called-hip-hop" data-id="2875726" data-editorial-state="accepted">New York City in 1986 and there was an explosion of a new kind of music called Hip Hop</a>. It was unlike any other kind of music because the rappers were celebrating having nothing while aspiring to have everything. The songs were about growing up in the housing projects, surviving in the streets, and how great it was and how great they would become. At the time, Rock n’ Roll was about rejecting the world, but Hip Hop was about embracing it with all of its flaws. In an era of <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2876989/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Super-groups" data-id="2876989" data-editorial-state="accepted">super groups</a> and over production, rap groups <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2865067/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Didnt-even-need-instruments" data-id="2865067" data-editorial-state="needs_exegesis">didn’t even need instruments</a>. It was mind blowing and I was captivated.</p>
<p>For people in New York, the music came primarily from two radio stations: WBLS and 98.7 KISS. The important DJs were <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2876724/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Cool-dj-red-alert" data-id="2876724" data-editorial-state="accepted">Cool DJ Red Alert</a> and <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2876748/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Chuck-chillout" data-id="2876748" data-editorial-state="accepted">Chuck Chillout</a> who not only played the songs, but also significantly enhanced them through amazing scratching and sampling. As I listened to Red Alert one evening, I thought, “This is so inspiring that nobody could listen and be depressed.” I immediately grabbed a cassette tape and inserted it into my boom box. I recorded that show and every Red Alert show from that point forward. I would then mail the cassette tapes to Seth every week.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/384e3fcac1f1478908a58df3276dc90e.517x301x1.png" /></p>
<p>After a few months of mailing the tapes, I called home and got a different response. “All Seth wants to do is listen to Cool DJ Red Alert. Can you send more tapes?” Then the next call: “Ben, Seth isn’t talking, but he wants to talk to you about Chuck Chillout and how he remixed something <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2876770/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/From-this-guy-ll-cool-j-called-rock-the-bells" data-id="2876770" data-editorial-state="accepted">from this guy LL Cool J called, &#8216;Rock the Bells&#8217;.</a>” Seth was coming back. Hip Hop was bringing him back.</p>
<p><i><a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2874904/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Dont-need-no-help-dictionary-or-thesaurus-my-dog-dino-hes-a-brontosaurus-the-blind-mc" data-id="2874904" data-editorial-state="accepted">“Don’t need no help dictionary or thesaurus<br />
my dog Dino, he’s a brontosaurus”<br />
-The Blind MC</a></i></p>
<p>As summer approached, I became overwhelmed with the thought that I had to continue what I started. There would be no summer internships with computer companies or summer classes. This would be the summer of Hip Hop and Seth. Maybe we could do more than listen to the music. Maybe we could get into the game. As soon as I returned home, I started writing rhymes.</p>
<p>The first song that I wrote was based on an obsession with the Flintstones and was naturally called &#8220;Bedrock&#8221;. I showed it to my friend David Stern who said that his friend Keith McArthur was a musician and could help put some beats together. I then called Seth and told him that we were forming a rap group and needed him. He was excited.</p>
<p><i><a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2874908/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/The-blind-def-crew-you-know-were-fly-3-of-us-but-we-got-4-eyes-the-blind-def-crew" data-id="2874908" data-editorial-state="accepted">“The Blind Def Crew you know we’re fly<br />
3 of us, but we got 4 eyes”<br />
-The Blind Def Crew</a></i></p>
<p>Keith was amazing and figured out how to make my rhymes into songs. We all came up with proper rap names. Seth was The Blind MC, I was Tic Toc and Keith was The Phantom. Heavily influenced by Russell Simmons’ Def Jam records, we decided to call the group Blind and Def.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/fa11398c6f8642cc3594ce3c8ca375bf.517x349x1.png" /></p>
<p>We were hanging out, listening to Red Alert and writing songs. It was heaven. One thing that I noticed at the time was that everyone other than Keith and me were extremely sensitive about the shooting and the resulting blindness. It was almost as though they were tiptoeing around Seth as so not to offend him. Meanwhile, Keith and I were relentlessly cracking jokes about how he couldn’t see and how funny that was. Within the context of the blindness, it was like there were two possible views of life: Either life was horrible and tragic or life was extremely brutal, but you had to embrace it—you had to be in the game. We chose the Hip Hop way; we chose the latter.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/5e72b92b7a09cb3ff7feab8a604d28e6.517x335x1.png" /></p>
<p>Perhaps because of that, we thought a great way to open the mixtape was with <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2875921/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/An-amazingly-racist-sample-from-the-disney-movie-dumbo-from-the-black-crows-scene" data-id="2875921" data-editorial-state="accepted">an amazingly racist sample from the Disney movie, <i>Dumbo</i>, from the black crows scene</a> followed by The Phantom and me screaming at The Blind MC: “That’s the wrong record blind man, can’t you hear?”</p>
<p>Eventually, we recorded 4 songs on Keith’s 4-track recorder and were extremely pleased with the result. We were so excited that we decided to take a road trip to LA to try to record on my brother Jonathan’s 8-track recorder for higher quality and maybe get signed to a big time record contract.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/11dbd1c39c21d895c3844d77eac185c1.517x363x1.png" /></p>
<p>The road trip didn’t go quite as planned, including the car overheating on the Grapevine and us getting stranded on the side of the highway, but we did record on 8 tracks. More importantly, through Hip Hop, Seth found his new self. Today he is a PhD student of history at UC Davis and has a beautiful family with his wife Chris.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/73466992d3b7348127e06a2320912673.517x319x1.jpg" /></p>
<p>I have posted <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2874883/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/The-original-mixtape-to-rap-genius" data-id="2874883" data-editorial-state="accepted">the original mixtape to Rap Genius</a> and annotated it here. It’s not a lost classic and it probably makes sense that we didn’t get signed, but if you listen close enough, you can hear the resurrection of The Blind MC.</p>
<p>That’s why I love hip-hop. So when people complain about the rap lyrics in my blog being hokey or gimmicky, I just <a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2876863/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Defer-to-nas" data-id="2876863" data-editorial-state="accepted">defer to Nas</a>:</p>
<p><i>&#8220;This our thing, you know what I&#8217;m saying<br />
This came from the gut, from the blood<br />
From the soul, right here, man<br />
This is our thing, man<br />
You know? So I say what I say”</i></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://images.rapgenius.com/0294421375da8f8e7f30162ca742794d.517x331x1.jpg" /></p>
<h1>THE MIXTAPE</h1>
<p><a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2867326/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Bedrock" data-id="2867326" data-editorial-state="accepted">Bedrock</a><br />
<a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2867319/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/Blind-and-def" data-id="2867319" data-editorial-state="accepted">Blind and Def</a><br />
<a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2867315/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/The-phantom" data-id="2867315" data-editorial-state="accepted">The Phantom</a><br />
<a href="http://news.rapgenius.com/2867322/B-horowitz-the-legend-of-the-blind-mc/The-legend-of-mc-h20" data-id="2867322" data-editorial-state="accepted">The Legend of MC H20</a></p>
<p>*</p>
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		<title>Hip-Hop Celebrates Ambition &#8212; and Shows Why O&#8217;Reilly Should Think Again</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/hip-hop-celebrates-ambition-and-shows-why-oreilly-should-think-again/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hip-hop-celebrates-ambition-and-shows-why-oreilly-should-think-again</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/hip-hop-celebrates-ambition-and-shows-why-oreilly-should-think-again/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Mar 2014 04:55:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[byonce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservatives]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Jay-Z]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221527</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A music genre goes in-your-face to grievance mongers, stands up for honest work and for self-esteem through earned income.  Why hate on it?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/american-flag.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221530" alt="american-flag" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/american-flag-450x256.jpg" width="315" height="179" /></a><strong>[Read Ronn Torossian&#8217;s two-part series on why hip-hop and Jay-Z are worthy of America&#8217;s respect, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/bill-oreilly-is-wrong-jay-z-is-worthy-of-americas-respect/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/welcome-the-hip-hop-world-into-the-conservative-tent/">here</a>.]</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>Editors&#8217; note: Hip-hop goes in-your-face to grievance-mongers, stands up for honest work and for self-esteem through earned income, puts down the anti-One Percenters and the welfare hustlers, celebrates ambition and shows why O’Reilly should think again:</em></p>
<p>&#8220;All these bitches and niggas still hatin&#8217;<br />
I used to be ballin&#8217; but now I Bill Gate&#8217;n<br />
I got a list full of problems, I&#8217;ll tend to them later<br />
Life is a bitch, but I appreciate her&#8221;<br />
-Lil&#8217; Wayne</p>
<p>&#8220;I used to roll up, this is a hold up, ain’t nothing funny<br />
Stop smiling, be still, don’t nothing move but the money<br />
But now I learned to earn cause I’m righteous<br />
I feel great, so maybe I might just<br />
Search for a 9 to 5, if I strive<br />
Then maybe I’ll stay alive&#8221;<br />
-Eric B and Rakim</p>
<p>&#8220;Got everything, I got everything<br />
I cannot complain, I cannot<br />
I don&#8217;t even know how much I really made, I forgot, it&#8217;s a lot<br />
Fuck that, never mind what I got, nigga don&#8217;t watch that cause I<br />
Came up, that&#8217;s all me, stay true, that&#8217;s all me<br />
No help, that&#8217;s all me, all me for real&#8221;<br />
-Drake</p>
<p>&#8220;They tryna blackball me, they say I get too much money<br />
They want my name from me because they know what it do<br />
They say I&#8217;m A-Rod, nigga, cause I got the juice<br />
They tryna blackball me, went and bought a Ghost as a coupe&#8221;<br />
-Future</p>
<p>&#8220;How you a man waitin&#8217; for the next man to get rich?<br />
Yo&#8217; plan is to stick out yo&#8217; hand real quick?<br />
So if he feed ya family and he serve you shit<br />
Then he need that head you get and he deserve your bitch<br />
Since you wishin&#8217; cash fall from the sky all ya life<br />
Dwellin&#8217; on the past when you was alright&#8221;<br />
-Nas</p>
<p>&#8220;Hmmmmmmmmmmm, now what&#8217;s a title to fit me?<br />
A champ like Tyson, a Captain like Kirk, no<br />
Employee of the Month, cause yo, I do work&#8221;<br />
-Big Daddy Kane</p>
<p>&#8220;Baby I&#8217;m a boss, I don&#8217;t know what they do<br />
I don&#8217;t get dropped, I drop the label<br />
World can&#8217;t hold me, too much ambition<br />
Always knew it&#8217;d be like this when I was in the kitchen&#8221;<br />
-Jay-Z</p>
<p>&#8220;Break records at Louis, ate breakfast at Gucci<br />
My girl a superstar all from a home movie<br />
Bow on our arrival &#8211; the un-American idols<br />
What niggas did in Paris, got &#8216;em hanging off the Eiffel<br />
Yeah I&#8217;m talking business, we talking CIA<br />
I&#8217;m talking George Tenet, I seen him the other day<br />
He asked me about my Maybach, think he had the same<br />
Except mine tinted and his might have been rented<br />
You know white people get money, don&#8217;t spend it<br />
Or maybe they get money, buy a business<br />
I rather buy 80 gold chains and go ign&#8217;ant<br />
I know Spike Lee gone kill me but let me finish&#8221;<br />
-Kanye West</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Welcome the Hip-Hop World into the Conservative Tent</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/welcome-the-hip-hop-world-into-the-conservative-tent/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=welcome-the-hip-hop-world-into-the-conservative-tent</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/welcome-the-hip-hop-world-into-the-conservative-tent/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2014 04:59:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Beyoncé]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill O'Reilly]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221413</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hip-hop crosses racial and class boundaries -- and so should the Right. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/featured-image-hip-hop.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221436" alt="featured-image-hip-hop" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/featured-image-hip-hop-437x350.jpg" width="262" height="210" /></a>Conservatives were outraged at my article, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/bill-oreilly-is-wrong-jay-z-is-worthy-of-americas-respect/">Bill O’Reilly Is Wrong: Jay-Z Is Worthy of America’s Respect</a>, published earlier this week.  While hip-hop transcends cultural, racial, ethnic, social and class lines, it hasn’t yet transcended political lines. Conservatives have little understanding of what hip-hop is and the tremendous impact this powerful movement has had upon popular culture. Worse is that they condemn it without knowing anything about it.</p>
<p>At CPAC this month, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, who is running for Senate in Virginia, spoke of the need to reach out to minorities and other groups instead of letting the left “fill that vacuum.” He claimed, “I do think we have huge opportunities here to make gains with young voters.”  However, consider the recent blanket condemnations of Jay-Z, the greatest rapper alive and one of the greatest artists of all time. How can one even begin to think that the Right is even remotely inclusive or that anyone in the communities that love hip-hop &#8212; black, white, young and not-so-young &#8212; would ever vote for a conservative?</p>
<p>Forty-four-year-old family man Jay-Z is absolutely not a gangster rapper. For Bill O’Reilly to selectively criticize hip-hop, saying that young males idolize “these guys with the hats on backwards” and “terrible rap lyrics,” and that these “gangsta rappers” and “tattoo guys” need to speak to kids and tell them that they’ve “got to stop the disruptive behavior or you’re going to wind up in a morgue or in prison” is a double standard. What does wearing a hat backwards have to do with anything? Why not mention Marc Zuckerberg’s hood? What makes these “gangsta rappers” different from actors in violent movies like Vin Diesel or Jason Statham? Or someone with offensive speech like Howard Stern?</p>
<p>If conservatives hope to succeed in reaching the minds – and votes – of an enormous segment of society that crosses all American boundaries, they need to better understand hip-hop.  News flash: The majority of hip-hop consumers aren’t black, and hip-hop reflects the mosaic that represents this great country.  While there are countless terrible things that are indefensible about the hip-hop industry, many of these problems are shared by the likes of Madonna, Lady Gaga, Brittney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and other popular white performers.</p>
<p>Moreover, the reality is that so much of hip-hop is uplifting and positive. Countless movies, video games and other forms of entertainment unfortunately celebrate bad behavior &#8211; yet conservative media targets hip-hop.  This double standard should come to an end.</p>
<p>Bill O’Reilly claimed Beyoncé is not a good role model for young girls, stating,</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;She puts out a new album with a video that glorifies having sex in the back of a limousine. Teenage girls look up to Beyoncé, particularly girls of color. … Why on earth would this woman do that?&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Why didn&#8217;t O’Reilly ask this question during the many years of the amazingly successful cable series &#8220;Sex in the City,&#8221; which glorified sex among single women? (Beyoncé at least is married.) As David Letterman rightly noted, why didn’t O’Reilly comment on Miley Cyrus swinging nude on a wrecking ball or her “twerking” Robin Thicke at an awards show watched by teenagers? O’Reilly said, “I missed that. I don’t know how.”  Selective commentary – even if his statements are right.</p>
<p>Conservatives should spend more time listening to hip-hop and<b> </b>making an effort to understand urban culture. (Hint: Accentuate the positive.) Like the music or not, hip-hop is the most popular form of music today and it isn’t going anywhere. It’s a new way of thinking, which crosses racial and demographic boundaries.  Kids today in Scarsdale dress the same as kids in Harlem, and South Central doesn’t look that different style-wise than Beverly Hills. (This white, 39-year-old <a href="http://www.5wpr.com">PR firm</a> owner listens to hip-hop daily – and so do people older and younger, in every state in the nation, of every color of skin.)</p>
<p>Hip-hop moguls like Jay-Z, Sean Combs, and Usher are people who have that hip-hop spirit – <em>there&#8217;s nothing getting in my way, nothing stopping me from getting where I want to go</em>.  Hip-hop is about ownership, about self-reliance, and empowerment.<b> </b>What could be more conservative than that? Conservatives are hypocritical when attacking the capitalist business of hip-hop. Hip-hop and the urban culture has helped to create an entire new area of economic opportunity for people who were generally outside of the system.  How many millionaires have been created because of this industry? How many jobs?</p>
<p>Hip-hop is about creation &#8212; owning something.  Is that not the story of this great country? And is not the cultural significance of that – particularly for the underprivileged and immigrants amongst us &#8211; something conservatives must celebrate? At some point, people of the hip-hop world, who have mostly been locked out, should be heard by conservatives in the land of opportunity.  Even if certain attributes of the hip-hop business aren’t good, one must not throw the baby out with the bathwater.</p>
<p>Recently, I went shopping without a watch while wearing a sweat suit. The store was empty, but still I had to wait a long time for one of the countless salespeople to come over to see what I wanted. I asked to see an expensive watch, and the clerk asked me, with a straight face, if I was a construction worker before he took the piece out of the case. That “language” certainly sent me a message – if you aren’t dressed our way we don’t think you can buy from us. It also sent me away. They ignored the fact that I could easily afford the uber-expensive watch.</p>
<p>In many ways, the message the watch store sent me is the message conservatives are sending hip-hop fans. Tattoos and hats on backwards don’t define a person. Hip-hop culture is bigger than the Beatles – it has impacted culture indefinitely and isn’t going anywhere. Youth culture is always revolutionary and wants to do things differently – from Elvis’s swiveling hips to Madonna in the ‘80s.</p>
<p>The Right’s attacks on hip-hop are wrong and misguided. When we conservatives proclaim our desire to be inclusive, how can we have so little tolerance and understanding of a phenomenon as popular and American as hip-hop?  Hip-hop crosses over boundaries – now conservatives need to let them in.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Bill O’Reilly Is Wrong: Jay-Z Is Worthy of America’s Respect</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/bill-oreilly-is-wrong-jay-z-is-worthy-of-americas-respect/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bill-oreilly-is-wrong-jay-z-is-worthy-of-americas-respect</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Mar 2014 04:55:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hip-hop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jay-Z]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[my brother's keeper]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221227</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A powerful example of the greatness of the American system. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/120907_LF_jayz.jpg.CROP_.rectangle3-large.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221229" alt="120907_LF_jayz.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/120907_LF_jayz.jpg.CROP_.rectangle3-large.jpg" width="291" height="241" /></a>Count me as a fan of the divergent brands of Fox News, hip-hop and Jay-Z. Growing up in the Bronx, New York in the 1980s and 1990s, a product of the New York City public school system, hip-hop is in my blood. It has changed my life for the better, as the hip-hop lifestyle teaches so many important American values. From the importance of rising up no matter what your circumstances, to constantly working hard and seeking more and more, to personal responsibility, there are so many hip-hop values that all Americans – including political conservatives – must appreciate. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As CEO of a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.5wpr.com">leading New York PR agency</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, we have represented countless hip-hop artists, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ice-Cube, Snoop Dogg and others &#8212; and it’s been a great experience. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As readers of FrontPage Magazine know, I am a proud conservative – for many reasons. Foremost among those reasons is the fact that I shouldn’t be penalized tax-wise for my success. No one gave me anything.  As a conservative, it is evident that the media are often liberally-biased and Fox News, the fair and balanced network, has eliminated liberal bias from at least one station.  Yet, too often conservatives are out of touch with youth culture, and a perfect example of that is overlooking the countless ways that hip-hop has made America a better country. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Bill O’Reilly’s perpetual attacks upon the hip-hop industry are wrong and misguided. This week, O’Reilly confronted Valerie Jarret, a senior advisor to President Obama, on-air as they were discussing Obama’s new “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which seeks to help minorities find role models. O’Reilly said, “You’re gonna have to get people like Jay-Z, alright, Kanye West, all of these gangsta rappers to knock it off. That’s number one.” He continued, saying that young males idolize “these guys with the hats on backwards” and “terrible rap lyrics,” and that these “gangsta rappers” and “tattoo guys” need to speak to kids and tell them that they’ve “got to stop the disruptive behavior or you’re going to wind up in a morgue or in prison.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">O’Reilly continually speaks negatively about hip-hop, and inaccurately claimed that Jay-Z and Kanye West were “gangster rappers.” They aren’t. While Jay-Z made many mistakes growing up – as a drug dealer he undoubtedly hurt many people &#8212; none of us are perfect. The man is tremendously influential and has shown so many of us how to overcome adversity and become successful. With sheer determination, Jay-Z has succeeded as a world-class entrepreneur, and demonstrated how self-confidence, passion and a strong work ethic can allow anyone in this great country to get anywhere. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">At times, as an entertainer, Jay-Z curses and is inappropriate. &#8220;The Terminator&#8221; was inappropriate as well, as were other characters played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in countless movies. Indeed, there are PG-13 and R-rated movies and actors. But the real life of Jay-Z today is parental-encouraged, and worthy of being viewed by all. People should watch and learn from Jay-Z. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Neither Jay-Z nor Kanye West are “gangster rappers” and the fact that they may wear their hats backwards, and may have tattoos, doesn’t say anything more about them today than the clothing style of someone wearing a suit says about that person. Marc Zuckerberg, Jan Koum of Whats App and many others have non-traditional viewpoints on corporate rules and how to dress. Whether it’s a hoodie, or someone with a tattoo, people cannot be defined by how they dress or what they look like. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So often, hip-hop represents the greatness of America – opportunity, risk-taking, thinking outside of the box &#8212; and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://ronntorossian.com/hard-work-jay-z-vemma-henry-swieca-more/">Jay-Z</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> is at the forefront of that movement. Hip-hop embraces entrepreneurship and a culture of self-sufficiency. As the American business icon Warren Buffett said: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“Jay is teaching in a lot bigger classroom than I’ll ever teach in. They’re going to learn from somebody. For a young person growing up he’s the guy to learn from.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">From becoming one of the world’s most recognizable artists, to investing in professional sports teams, cosmetics brands, restaurants and much more, Jay-Z shows first-hand the results and importance of hard-work, responsibility, and risk-taking. Jay-Z’s values today are of a family man who is the face of major American brands – married to one of the most beautiful, charismatic artists of our time. He has taught so many of us to strive for more, to work hard at what we love. Jay-Z is worth $475 million dollars according to Forbes Magazine and is still going. For so many Americans, myself included, Jay-Z is worthy of our immense respect. As a grown man, Jay-Z is a business role model for so many people.  (His political viewpoints, on the other hand, leave a lot to be desired.) </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mr. O’Reilly: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  As Jay-Z said, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” Jay-Z’s business skills show so many Americans that even if we aren’t Ivy League graduates, we can still succeed in a major way. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">P.S.: For those who will disagree with this article, I will offer this qualifier: As a marketer and a father, I agree with what NBA legend Charles Barkley said in his famous Nike commercial: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Amen. </span></p>
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