Before our ceremony begins please rise for the playing of this years Playahata.com Anthem, “Crazy” by Gnarles Barkley. …………I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind / there was something so pleasant about that place / even your emotions have an echo in so much space / and when you’re our there without care / yeah I was out of touch / but it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough / I just knew too much / does that make us crazy / does that make us crazy / does that make us crazzzzzzzyyyyy …. Probably…………(Okay you may now be seated)

Rap Album of the Year: Food and Liquor - Lupe Fiasco

With heavyweights like Jay-Z and Nas both releasing highly anticipated albums this year, Kingdom Come and Hip-Hop Is Dead respectively, a betting man might have wagered one of those LPs would have been this year’s best. In choosing an album title Nas had a point but he didn’t get it all the way right; Hip-Hop isn’t quite dead. It’s just gravely ill, kidnapped by corporations, handcuffed by thug and drug dealer fantasies, gagged by misogyny, and stuffed in the trunk of a luxury vehicle sitting on 22s’. A prisoner of artistic cowardice, lack of creativity, and the profit motive rap in it’s most visible and heavily promoted form some would argue is not even Hip-Hop. We’re not sure what Lupe Fiasco would have to say in the rap Vs Hip-hop debate but it’s clear from his debut LP, Food and Liquor, that musically there is a distinction to be made between his work and the kind of Hip-Hop whose vitality is deserving of being questioned. With Food and Liquor, Fiasco also adds his name to a growing roster of artist from Chicago or “The Go” as some natives call it, such as Kanye West and Common that are helping keep Hip-Hop music off a respirator. His association with Kanye West, a strong cameo appearance here and there, and working the mix-tape circuit got Fiasco’s name a decent buzz but honestly and regrettably the Soundscan numbers were less than stellar for this album. Unfortunately in the rap music market of today for a new artist using strong sales and quality music in the same sentence is often an oxymoron, just ask last year’s runner up for Rap album of the year Little Brother. If we could, we would tell the world to buy millions of copies of Lupe Fiasco’s Food and Liquor and help win him a Grammy award, but as it stands Lupe just got something more important than a Grammy award – praise from Playahata.com.

Runner Up: Turf War Syndrome -  T.Kash 

T.Kash’s Turf War Syndrome could have easily fallen victim to the “early year bias”, where an album released at the beginning of the year seems to lose some of it’s kick by end of year review time, but even in the United States of Amnesia Playahata.com remembers. Coming on the heels and under the tutelage of fellow Bay Area product, Paris, Turf War Syndrome works overtime to uphold that “Hard Truth Soldier“ moniker. With just the right mix of a refined delivery, clear social awareness, tight beats, and humor, T.Kash’s solo debut hits all the right switches musically and on top of that gets added props for being a truly independent and non-major label release.

R&B Album of the Year: None - Nobody

No there isn’t an album called “None” by an artist named “Nobody”, we just don’t have an R&B album of the year. You see, “what had happened was”, well we’re not quite sure what happened but it was a combination of things. We got a little more unbalanced than usual with rap reviews dominating our music review ratio and there wasn’t much in R&B this year that truly touched the Playahata.com team by consensus. Maybe there’s an R&B album out there that was great and mired in obscurity, but if that’s the case we didn’t hear it, so rather than give someone undeserving the only award more prestigious than a Grammy by default, we decided to just hold on to the praise. We might be able to use it for something else.

Movie of the Year: Akeelah and the Bee

In telling the most needed of stories, Akeelah and the Bee is a rarity in cinema and a desperately needed offering that all families, but especially working class Black and Brown families should see. We can’t really say enough about how uplifting yet grounded the films’ storyline is or the importance of the message it delivers to both young people and adults. If you didn’t pay to see Akeelah and the Bee in a movie theater and you didn’t buy the DVD, then go do the latter, or we don’t ever want to hear another word from you about the dearth of positive representations of African-Americans in film. The people that hold the purse strings in Hollywood understand one thing better than anything else, profit, and if an uplifting, inspiring, and well-done movie such as this can’t make a decent showing at the box office then we have to take some of the blame for that. We at playahata.com did our best for the film helping spread the word and encouraging people, particularly educators, to see it and whenever possible to take their students. Akeelah is not just a film with a great message; it’s also a very good movie for audiences of all persuasions.

Runner Up: Blood Diamond 

Of Course, Playahata.com was talking about “Bling” and “Blood Diamonds” roughly 7 years ago and it’! s just now, being discussed by general audiences courtesy of a big budget film. It’s too bad the mainstream media spends most of their time on the issue being apologist for the diamond industry or this film might have had a truly momentous effect on the industry’s business practices. As it stands the jury is still out on the affects the film will have on the public. If only Playahata.com had the media reach of a FOX, CNN, NBC, ABC, etc just imagine what we could accomplish.

Honorable Mentions: This was actually a good year for movies regardless of whether it registered in box office money. Despite Akeelah and Diamond being our clear frontrunners, other films released on 2006 that come with a strong recommendation to see from playahata.com included An Inconvenient Truth, Dreamgirls, The Good Shepherd, and The Departed.

Guilty Before Proven Innocent Award: Busta Rhymes

With so many rappers under indictment, accused of crimes, or getting arrested it was hard to choose just one person for this award but Trevor “Busta Rhymes” Smith actually made us rest easy when we looked at his track record of violence and unnecessary beefs. You can blame steroids or a bad public relations firm but the truth is that Busta Rhymes is out of control. It’s bad enough he didn’t help bring the killers of his bodyguard to justice and that he is accused of applying a beat down to teenagers, and an employee who simply asked for his back pay so he could buy Christmas gifts for his family. He’s already been ordered to pay a sum of $100,000 in damages to a man who said he was beaten up by Busta and his bodyguard back in 2005 for simply seeking an autograph. In short for 2006, Busta was charged with possessing a weapon (a machete), assault, attempted assault and harassment. How many coincidences make a fact?

Runner up: Jacob "The Jeweler"

Born Jakov Arabov and known as Jacob Arabo the celebrity world has embraced him and affectionately re-named him as “Jacob The Jeweler”. Any way you look at it Jacob is a shady dude from what we hear. He’s been accused of exploiting rappers by selling them low quality diamonds and overcharging professional athletes. He has proclaimed his innocence about such rumors but the world will soon see what’s fact and what’s fiction if he is forced to open up his books in a court of law. In June 2006 the U.S. Government came after him with a money laundering charge. Jacob was arrested by the FBI on money laundering charges claiming he used his jewelry business to help launder up to $270 million for an Atlanta-based drug cartel known as the Black Mafia Family, or BMF. Jacob was arrested at his midtown Manhattan store, and also charged with conspiring to distribute over 476 kilograms of cocaine for BMF. It appears that in order to beat this case Jacob would have to do some snitching on BMF and that would not be a “good look” for him. If it makes any difference he still has a pending case from Cartier, who filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Jacob, claiming he took Cartier watches and added diamonds, then resold them without permission.

Chevron Award (Most Overrated and/or Gassed up Artist): Lil' Wayne

We almost changed the name of this award for this year to the "Kanyeezee" in honor of Kanye West even though it isn’t going to him. West undeniably has talent and frankly there are few celebrities out there more openly in love with themselves than West, but if we just went on that then we would have to give him this award every year. Instead this year’s award goes to the self-proclaimed “Best Rapper Alive”, Lil’ Wayne. This year he outdid himself by claiming to be “better” than Jay-Z, before later trying to clean up or clarify the quote. The “clarification” didn’t come however, before Wayne went so far as to record his own vocals over the track for the lead single (“Show’em What You Got”) to Jay-Z’s come back album and let the remix hit the mixtape/DJ circuit. We’re actually impressed with Lil’ Wayne’s ability to be so full of himself despite all the rumors surrounding him. It’s been a tough year for Lil’ Wayne, first there was “Gillie Da Kid’s” public claim that he was a primary ghostwriter for Lil’ Wayne’s rhymes. Wayne’s public disses or snubs of The Clipse and the aforementioned Jay-Z. And of course who can forget the now infamous image of Wayne and Bryan “Baby” Williams openly kissing on the lips that surfaced this year, and rumors about their sexuality. 2007 even started with a rumor that Wayne received a broken jaw from a member of his entourage during an altercation. We’ll see how true that is if Wayne is unable to speak fondly of himself for a couple of months. He’s still not releasing a bunch of hit records but he’s managed to keep himself on people’s lips – no pun intended. The least we could do is give him this award.

Yeaaaahhh! Jeezy doesn’t talk about himself much more than any other commercial act currently considered hot, but it’s clear he’s feeling himself at this point in his career. He’s sold a significant amount of records and actually took offense to fellow rapper Nas’ claim that Hip-hop is dead. Exactly what skill that has anything to do with music, Jeezy is supposed to be good at, playahata.com is not sure. Maybe he’s good at picking beats for his albums but we’re not impressed about that either. Maybe he’s supposed to have ‘street credibility”, we can’t call it. However in terms of lyrics and delivery Young Jeezy is less than mediocre, in terms of content and creativity he has about as much range as Shaq’s jump-shot, and his songs are made even more annoying by his repetitive adlibs which we hoped were a gimmick that would be restricted to his first album. Hip-hop may or may not be dead but if Young Jeezy and acts of a similar caliber are all we have to look forward to then not only is Hip-hop dead, it has been resurrected as a zombie.

He’s Blaaaacccckkkk! Well not really, but after turning in his soul pass in when he left Janet Jackson hanging following “Nipplegate” at the 2004 Superbowl, it seemed like Justin was going to grow a mullet and get as far away from Black folks as possible. Turns out he was just redeeming one of his White privilege coupons until the heat blew over. While Janet Jackson struggled to maintain her pop music prominence Timberlake’s 2006 sophomore album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, featured two number one songs – “SexyBack” and “My Love” and became one of the most popular albums of the year. How did he do it you ask? By linking up with producer Timbaland of course. Timbaland if you’re reading this you and Timberlake should be fine just don’t do any provocative video shoots with him. If you get in trouble for it you might find Mr. Timberlake not returning your phone calls.

Most Likely to Succeed: Jennifer Hudson

We guess not winning on American Idol won’t be the end of the world. In fact for Ms. Hudson it seems it may just be the beginning. With the heavy Oscar buzz surrounding her performance in Dreamgirls, where she stole the show despite being on a bill with much bigger names like Beyonce, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Foxx, Hudson’s star is on the rise. It’s not clear how welcoming Hollywood is prepared to be to plus-sized actresses but an Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls should earn her at least a couple more major opportunities if she wants them, and there is little question she can belt out vocals with the best of them so look for her to capitalize her newfound notoriety into an album some time in 2007.

Least Likely to Succeed: John Kerry

The 2008 Presidential jockeying had hardly even begun and it seemed that John Kerry was already ruining his presidential chances by flubbing a joke that Republicans were all too happy to exploit for political gain. You guys remember, the punchline right? It’s the one where he was trying to refer to Bush by saying if “you don’t do well in school you get stuck in Iraq” but it ended up sounding like he was talking about all the soldiers. The mainstream press and GOP were all over him for that, but the unfortunate thing is even without the play on Bush that is a pretty accurate description of today’s military. It’s not to say the soldiers are not intelligent but most entered the military due to a lack of economic and educational opportunities, not due to some warped sense of “service to their country”. Besides the fact that Kerry is status quo Democrat, Bush’s “Secret Society” Frat brother, and probably won’t offer much in the way of meaningful change this is America and elections here in many ways are still popularity contest, like elections in High-School. For instance, ask somebody who is in love with the "Barrack Obama for President idea", what Obama’s position is on anything and they’ll probably draw a blank. We’re sorry folks but John Kerry is just not one of the “cool kids” he won’t win the Democratic Party nomination much less the presidency.

The only thing bigger than Russell Simmons wallet is probably his ego and love of a dollar. Even before the movie Blood Diamond made it to theaters the Diamond industry was terrified about the films’ less than positive, but accurate depiction of the criminal manner in which the industry is run. Companies like DeBeers knew they would need more than their own public relations people to deflect the negative attention the movie would cause, due to the racial undercurrents in the history of the industry. Leave it to Russell Simmons and his sidekick, Benjamin Chavis to come to the diamond industry’s rescue. It seems Simmons and Chavis have been on a 24-hour a day PR campaign for the industry trying to reassure the public that everything is fine and there is no reason to be concerned about “conflict gems” or issues of exploitation. He went on CNN essentially slamming the movie Blood Diamond leading to some barbs being traded publicly between Simmons and the film’s director Edward Zwick. Simmons had DeBeer company representatives at his New York press conference regarding the film and he allowed himself to be used by the industry as he traveled on a “fact finding” mission to South Africa and Botswana, while of course ignoring any number of African countries where the trade in gemstones is and has been far more problematic politically and economically, such as Sierra Leone or Congo. Meanwhile Chavis was taking the diamond industry’s PR campaign to the people in his own way, as we heard him on New York’s progressive, independent media radio station WBAI (99.5FM) defending the industry and it’s practices. You have to wonder are these guys really this gullible are have they been paid off? We also hear Simmons is working on a line of diamond jewelry himself, likely in partnership with a large-scale corporation in the industry. Hmm, we’ll leave it up to you to guess which corporation it is, and if his positions defending the industry have anything to do with his hope of selling you some expensive jewelry you don’t need somewhere down the line.

Ever come across one of those people who just wants to be contrary and intentionally trying to annoy his community and neighbors. Already he has carved out a space for himself as a leading minstrel in his efforts to push the envelope in comedy. There is nothing he won't do for a laugh. In 2006 we learned that comedian Damon Wayans had spent the year trying to copyright the N-word so he could put it on clothing, apparel etc. He was not successful but can you imagine young people of all walks of life wearing that word emblazoned on shirts and hats. It would seem like it was chasing you. If that denigration was not enough later that year he got banned from The Laugh Factory for saying the N-Word 16 times during his 15 minute set ; which of course he did right after the Michael Richards fiasco. Yes he wants attention at any expense, if he was really funny maybe he could get it legitimately.

The Antonio Fargas Award (Pimp Player of the Year): Flava Flav

Last year Flava Flav was getting the Sleep-N-Eat award for his numerous cooning VH-1 shows, but at this point he’s not just cooning, but pimping and being pimped. In either case Flava Flav is Pimp-Player of the year, I guess this is a move upward or at least sideways. When confronted with accusations that his show was a minstrel show during a radio interview on New York City celebrity shock jock Wendy William’s radio program Flava seemed more than a little offended, going so far as to make veiled threats at William’s co-host. A runner up from his old show, “New York” had her 15 minutes of fame extended to 20 when she was given a show on Viacom’s station VH1 called “I Love New York”, which is a reversal of fortunes of her time on “Flava of Love”. In “I Love New York” she tries to “find love” from a cast of about 30 men (about half of them being closeted gays from what we can tell). We know the show will be nauseatingly bad but the jury is still out on what the ratings will be.  The second season of “Black People Behaving Badly” a.k.a. Flava of Love debuted to VH-1’s highest ratings ever so if Flava Flav is a pimp, can anyone guess who his hoes are? Well there are a few million of them out there working the stroll from their couches with remote in hand. They better have Viacom’s and Flava Flav’s money…… Bytches!

As Ice Cube said in Boyz N the Hood, “Hoes gotta eat too...”. celebrity worship culture in the U.S. has grown so sick that it’s spawned a whole new industry of "derivative celebrities"; people who are known for no other reason than their connection to actual celebrities. Karrine “Superhead” Steffans and Carmen Bryan have chosen to try and ride this notoriety or infamy all the way to the top, or bottom, depending on how you look at it. Yeah we know Steffans book came out in 2005 and she has about 30 seconds left in her 15 minutes of fame but we had to mention her since she set it off. First Steffans, whose nickname “Superhead” comes from her reputation for giving male celebrities exceptional fellatio, penned a tell-all book, Confessions of a Video Vixen, recounting her sexual encounters with countless rappers, professional athletes, and other entertainers. One thing is for sure the fact that celebrities were still having sex with Steffans despite her reputation proves she wasn’t the only nasty one. 

Meanwhile, in news of other “hoe-fessionals” turned authors, in 2006 word came that Carmen Bryan, mother of Nas’ 10-year-old daughter Destiny will be releasing a "tell-all" autobiography, “Sex Drugs And Hip-Hop – Oh And Did I Mention Love”, detailing her sexual experiences and relationship with celebrities such as Jay-Z, Allen Iverson, and Nas. I can’t help but wonder what she is going to tell her daughter Destiny when she grows up? Nas for one thing seems to be doing his best to ignore her but this can't be a "good look", maybe he needs to up them child and adult support payments.

The Ozzy Osbourne Award (Most Deluded or Strung Out Personality): Naomi Campbell

We’re not sure if Naomi Campbell still gets high but she still has a mean left, anger management issues, and probably class issues too judging by her history of assaulting! “the help”. Still reeling from past and unresolved legal cases where she is accused of physically attacking several people, 2006 featured several more Campbell assaults. Former assistant Armanda Brack began legal proceedings against Campbell claiming the supermodel abused her verbally and physically on three continents. Campbell is in the process of settling a suit by Italian actress Yvonne Scio after Scio claimed the model left her "covered in blood" after a argument at a Rome hotel. Scio claimed: "She punched me in the face. She was like Mike Tyson." In March Campbell was arrested for assaulting her housekeeper with a jewel-encrusted mobile phone, resulting in a bloody head that required several stitches. In October 2006, she was arrested in London on suspicion of assault and then in November, another former Campbell housekeeper, Gaby Gibson, began a new court case against the supermodel seeking unspecified damages, and accused her ex-employer of being a "violent super-bigot.". Busta Rhymes, eat your heart out!

Runner Up: Terrell Owens

There was time when we used to try and defend Terrell Owens but at the end of the day Owens is just a self-absorbed prick and a bad teammate. He’s a hell of an athlete and an explosive wide receiver but personality-wise he’s the kind of guy who would talk about himself in the third person. Nothing is ever Terrell Owens fault, even when he drops the ball. In his approximately 10 year career he’s hung about three different quarterbacks out to dry making all kinds of accusations about them and questioning their abilities. Owens most recently signed with the Dallas Cowboys after a tumultuous two-season stint in Philadelphia and rumor has it his stint in Cowboy land might not last beyond this year after developing a less than comfortable relationship with Coach Bill Parcells, a number of outburst on the sidelines and after games, and a few less than stellar personal interviews. The incident that took the cake for Owens this year was an alleged suicide attempt in September that later was explained away as a bad reaction to pain-killers. T.O. gets more than his fair share of bad press and he would probably explain this as part of a media conspiracy, the same way he can drop a pass late in the game and then blame the team because they didn’t throw him the ball early and often enough, but it’s clear to us this guy never learned to play nice with the other kids.

Is there anybody in the mainstream, corporate media who has kept it real like Keith Olbermann did in 2006? The answer is a resounding and easy, NO! If you are unaware of the “fire” (truth) Olbermann spits on his MSNBC show “Countdown”, well you have been missing a lot. Once a mere ESPN sports anchor and personality Olbermann brings the truth of what is happening in the world consistently night in and out. Some might say that he has taken the news world by storm but the fact is that in 2002 he was writing columns for Salon.com were he showed signs of being a “truth telling Playahata”. Its no longer a secret, he has a lot of people listening now. Playahata.com has uploaded many of his commentaries to “youtube” as an example of what the nightly news could be like. Olbermann’s style is that of fast-paced delivery, historical and pop culture references, and signature witty interjections. It’s a key in reaching a certain demographic in America, who normally might not pay attention to important stories. Olbermann combines serious news stories with humorous segments and at large commentaries that force people to pay attention. It’s been a gradual process, the show's ratings have increased by 41% from early 2005 to early 2006. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, in the first quarter of 2006, the ratings for Countdown surpassed CNN's Paula Zahn NOW in the 25-54 demographic, marking the first time in five years an MSNBC show had beaten a CNN show in prime time for this demographic. In April 2006, Olbermann’s ratings continued to climb, showing a 35% increase in overall viewers from the previous month's ratings, while O'Reilly's had dropped to "his worst month in nearly five years among viewers age 25 to 54." To climb up and push Bill O’Reilly down simultaneously is a treat nobody expected. Since late August 2006, Olbermann’s nightly audience has increased 69%, according to Nielsen Media Research. The best thing is that his bravery in opposing FOX News and other Right-Wing talking points, and savaging the Bush administration has forced many people to take notice.

The year beginning 2007 marks 20 plus years since Davey D has been down with Hip Hop. He's been down with Hip Hop since his days in the Bronx where he started out as an emcee for 2 different crews; TDK [Total Def Krew] out of Co-op City and the Avengers out of the Marble Hill Section of the Bronx. Later Davey D would move to California to go to school at UC Berkeley and started deejaying in the Bay Area. Davey-D is a Hip-Hop historian, journalist, deejay and community activist who is currently experiencing a “best week ever” expanding into a year. In 2006 his mobile deejay/host work led him to interview nearly every major artist as well as up and coming artist. His community activism has lead him to shine light on unknown talent, political people in the community who are often overlooked, and highlight stories often untold. Davey D who is no stranger to controversy has stood his ground in the often controversial Hip-hop arena and was one of the first to begin to revolutionize audio on the web allowing listeners access to hundreds of hours of work in insightful interviews from the likes of well known Jerry Heller to lesser known but equally important Bobby MCCall, Money-B and other Black Panther’s on their 40th Anniversary.

Evolution Award: Kevin Powell

We have mixed feelings on the whole idea of “Black Leaders” in current times, especially when such people are usually appointed by the mainstream media. However this award is about transformation and we’ve certainly had a watchful eye on personalities like Powell who have been grooming themselves into socio-political acolytes if not “leaders”. On the first season of MTV’s Real World this journalist, poet, activist, and lecturer was the “Angry Black Man”, this year he entertained a run for the United States House of Representatives in the 10th Congressional District of New York before pulling out. Don’t be surprised if he gets a little more money and connections together and tries that run again, sooner rather than later.

We heard “mother#$%ers saying they made Hov, made Hov say ok so, make another Hov” - or if you can’t do that my goodness do something! With all the money Dash has made in entertainment he should never be broke again but you have to admit he hasn’t been hitting many home runs since the Roc-a-Fella Records breakup. There have been rumors of artist signing up with “The Dame Dash Music Group” and an alleged album from the late Old Dirty Bastard, but at last check we hadn’t heard any music. Not to mention Dash has been rumored to be quite the shady businessman as Larry Davis accused him of attempting to steal the rights to a movie about Davis’ life.

Runner Up: President (current) George W. Bush 

Nowadays they have countdown clocks to the end of the current Bush presidency. It seems most of the country is more than a bit disgusted with the Bush presidency even many of his Red State former supporters. Now Bush is ignoring the overwhelming sentiment of the entire country, most of his generals, and governmental panels put together to study the situation, and planning to send another 21,000 soldiers into the meat grinder in Iraq. Someone stop him before he kills again! It seems the only people who can stop him are Congress, by pulling any new funds for an escalation but it’s going to take a lot more public anger to make them willing to try it. Even with all his transgressions and his penchant for completely ignoring the most basic democratic principles it is likely Bush will pay a political price such as impeachment, which is clearly deserved. Perhaps we should have nominated him for the Teflon Don Award.

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Top 3 Playahata Moments of 2006

1) Stephan Colbert ROAST Bush 

2) Democrats gain control of House and Senate 

3) Keith Oberman's Nightly lambaste of the Bush administration

 

Top 3 Playerhater Moments of 2006

1) Israel Lays Waste to Lebanon 

2) Police up the ante on killing of unarmed Blacks 

3) Michael "Kramer" Richards “wilds out” with racist rant at Laugh Factory comedy club

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