One Year Later AKA Thoughts Of A Subject, Verb And Predicate Felon

It was exactly one year ago today that I decided to post my first blog (as Poisonous Dart) on AllHipHop.com's Ill Community. Little did I know that it would start me blogging and writing nonstop damn near every day since. Back in the summer of 2006, XXL blogger, mixtape DJ and Atlantic Records A & R Sickamore started these series of blogs called "80 Reasons You're Not An 80's Baby" . I thought that he had a point to some of the stuff he was saying though I didn't totally agree with his viewpoint. However, most older heads just got pissed off and attacked him and the younger generation for not knowing their Hip Hop history and revelling in their ignorance of it. Every Hip Hop site with a message board seemed to have a flame war going on with older heads on one side and younger heads on the other (usually Dipset fans...why was I not surprised?).

Rather than take part in this "divide and conquer/Willie Lynch" mentality, I decided to stay out of it and try to bring the sides to a middle ground if I could by posting on AllHipHop.com with more regularity. I was already running a stickied thread called "School Me On Some Hip Hop" along with some other regular posters but I wasn't big on posting in "The Reason" cuz it was wild ass hell on that messageboard (those that used to frequent it before the new version went up can attest to that) and it was hard as hell to get a point across to readers as The Reason wasn't really used to reason, ironically enough.

After Sickamore fanned the flames with the second post of what was to be a four part series I could see that by reading the third part that he really ran out of stuff to write about and began using shortcuts. I knew that he probably didn't feel like doing a fourth part and that he would only do one at his own leisure because it seemed like his heart really wasn't in it. I figured that if I made my own version of his blog series, but for older heads it would help the situation out some. I had to go all out, though. I decided that I had to do "100 Ways To Know If You're A 70's Baby", my first draft was about Coleco Vision and Atari 2600 and shit only a kid born in the 70's would be able to relate to. I realized pretty quick that my blog would actually help more if it could be relatable to a wider cross section of readers. After all, most heads that old weren't the ones actively frequenting Hip Hop messageboards anymore. I wrote another draft of my blog and began revising it all night until I got it where I wanted it to be.

I posted it up on my MySpace page first (the same place I posted all my early blogs that only about 20 people read) and then I posted it up in The Reason section on AllHipHop.com early in the afternoon. I was surprised to see that people were reading it like crazy. Eventually it got stickied and I began getting PM's and e-mails from all over the place. I thought that would be the end of it...not even close. That night, Sickamore posted up a new blog on XXLmag.com ...mine.

It turns out that he went on to AllHipHop.com that afternoon and read it himself and liked it so much he posted it where even more eyes could see it. Now the e-mails and PM's really started coming in like crazy. It got to the point where I even asked Odeiesel (of AllHipHop.com) for a bigger PM box. He responded by saying yes provided a post a regular blog each week on AllHipHop.com and posting it in The Reason. I said "Hell yeah".

That one blog ended up being posted all over the internet and MySpace. If I Googled it I'd find it all over the place. I was in shock that so many people read it and responded to it. It was then that I decided that as much as I posted on all of these messageboards all over the internet that I might as well write. It's pretty much what I had already been doing anyways if I really thought about it.

After four months of blogging every week on AllHipHop.com, I decided that on January 1st, 2007 I would start my own blog where I could write about whatever the hell I wanted at any time. Blogging was like playing Uno with two people to me...mad fun ("Skip you back to me, skip you back to me, reverse you back to me, reverse you back to me, Wild draw four and the color is green...Uno!" and the one card you have left is a green nine that looks like a six with the line underneath it).

I decided to call it Poisonous Paragraphs after the underlying name of my blog series on AllHipHop which was called "The State Of Hip Hop: Poisonous Paragraphs". I initially started that series to combat Bryon "Bol" Crawford's blog at XXL.mag, he had what I wanted...mad readers. I eventually realized that he's a grown ass man that has to answer for his own ways and actions and going at him was a waste of time when I should be focused on myself and my own writing (though, he still does piss me off with the ig'nant shit he posts from time to time).

To read any of my old ass blogs from the State Of Hip Hop series read 'em here (some have been posted here already). I'd like to thank my boy Rideout from Detroit who first encouraged me to blog by doing his MySpace blogs. I'd like to thank Odiesel and all the heads and moderators from AllHipHop.com for being first to acknowledge me and giving me a forum to address people.

I'd also like to thank all of my fellow BostonRap.com, RepDaBean.com. Okayplayer.com and Dissensus.com posters for trading information with me and putting me on to things I normally wouldn't be into. I'd like to thank all of the bloggers I met when I did those legendary threads on Okayplayer where I'd go around the internet finding links to out of print albums for understanding that I wasn't just jacking their links and not giving them credit..that's how I met 50% of the bloggers I know now.

I'd also like to thank all of the regular readers of this blog for bearing with me even when I didn't know how to post links to albums until February, post pictures on the blog until May and imbed YouTube videos until April. I wish knew when I started to switch to Firefox to post blogs from my Mac so I could use "Compose" and add functionality to my blog. That's enough thanks...I'll leave you with this self parody blog that I did that almost no one got when I first posted it on the 'net on September 20th, 2006:

50 Signs That You May Be An Underground Hip Hop Fan (A Self Parody Of My Own Dumb Ass Lists) 50. You have several instrumental versions of albums that sold less than 50,000 copies. 49. You don't lend out your CD's because you're not definite you can get another copy of that album again if you lose it. 48. You keep checking back on Def Jam's website to see if there is ANY information on Nas, Redman or Joe Budden's new album up there anywhere. 47. When asked what producers are killin' the game right now some of the first names out of your mouth are Ayatollah, Nicolay and Oh No. 46. You still get mad when you read that another one of your favorite DJs has switched to Serato. 45. If you'd ever had a discussion about any of the artist/groups on Rhymesayers Entertainment that DIDN'T start with "Who the fuck are.." 44. If "Hollywood Divorce" was the song that finally convinced you that maybe Lil' Wayne is actually nice on the mic. 43. If it took your friend to force you to listen to T.I.'s verse on "Cannon" to convince you of the same about T.I. 42. You say shit like "I'm sick of all of this ignorant ass, shoot em up, thugged out, smoked out, coked up, misogynistic ass gangsta shit!"...meanwhile, you have every single Mobb Deep, M.O.P., Cage, Beatnuts, R.A. The Rugged Man, Screwball, Non Phixion, Necro, Tame One, and Kool G Rap album ever made. 41. If people around you start dissing the South, and the groups you use as examples to defend Southern hip hop are Cunninglynguists and pretty much the entire roster of the Justus League. 40. All of your favorite 50 Cent songs were on the first 3 G Unit mixtapes and/or you know all of Madlib and MF Dooms aliases. 39. You can make a good sized list of rappers/groups from Cincinnatti off the top of your head. 38. When you first started seeing pictures of Scott Storch often in magazine interviews you slowly began to like him less and less...now you just think he's a complete asshole. 37. You think J Records didn't do nearly enough to promote Rhymefest's album "Blue Collar". 36. You actually recognize the music they use during the Adult Swim breaks on Cartoon Network. 35. Your favorite magazines are Mass Appeal, Insomniac, The Ave, Elemental and Wax Poetics. 34. You own compilation CD's arranged/mixed by Bobbito Garcia, DJ Spinna, Madlib, Rich Medina or Questlove? from The Roots. 33. You think the best Gangsta Grillz mixtape ever was Little Brothers "Separate But Equal"...but to be fair, its the only one you ever actually listened to...... 32. You're actually pissed off at RJD2 for abandoning hip hop....and you're madder at yourself for even owning albums by a dude named RJD2 in the first place. 31. Approximately 10% or more of the songs in your iPod were produced by J Dilla. 30. Anytime an article is published about Slept on classic hip hop albums you immediately read it to find out how many of them you own or have at least heard of. 29. Your Top 5 MC's right now list consists of Ras Kass, Lupe Fiasco, Elzhi, Royce the 5'9 and Vakill . 28. You actually enjoy listening to and own CD's consisting of nothing but compositions made by tuntablists (some people call them scratch DJ's). 27. When you wear T shirts of your favorite groups you attract a lot of attention...mainly from people asking you who the hell they are . 26. You actually have heard or own your own copy of Jin's "The Emcees Properganda" or think that if Serious Jones didn't start with the asian jokes that Jin could've probably roasted him...and I stress the importance of the words "could've" and "probably" in that sentence. 25. You're rooting for Lupe Fiasco to do big numbers....just not TOO BIG...just big enough to be #1 or #2 for his opening week. 24. For some odd reason you have a newfound respect for Christina Aguilera.... 23. Your two major sources for music videos are YouTube and VH1 Soul. 22. If you've uttered a variation of this sentence recently "Game don't want it with Ras Kass!" 21. You actually know what the new Ghostface/MF Doom album is going to be called and WHEN its coming out. 20. Your version of Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor has 20 songs on it and half of them have the wrong names. 19. You can answer the online question "Whatever happened to Crustified Dibbs?" with detail and provide links to recent pictures of him and a downloadable link of his scrapped debut LP "Night Of The Bloody Apes". 18. Babygrande, BBE, Nature Sounds, Stones Throw, Think Differently, Shaman Work and Duck Down are all among your favorite hip hop labels. 17. If you believe that the best female emcee in the game is Jean Grae, hands down. 16. You don't regard signing with Koch as being an industry death sentence and you cant believe how many folks have slept on Fat Jon's beats for this long. 15. You have a MySpace, Soundclick, Bandspace and Kind Industries page but NO official website. 14. You actually know the difference between the Demigodz, Weathermen and Army Of The Pharoahs. 13. You're hoping Mos Def and Talib Kweli return to their old selves on their new albums. 12. You're anticipating Raekwon's "Only Built For Cuban Linx 2" more than Dr. Dre's "Detox" even though neither has an actual release date. 11. The only major label debuts you're really looking forward to in the near future are Saigon and Papoose's. 10. You own more Hieroglyphics crew projects than you can count off the top of your head. 9. You knew who A Trak was WAY BEFORE he became Kanye West's DJ. 8. You have NO PROBLEM with an all male rap group naming themselves after a woman (Tanya Morgan). 7. You maintain that Stoupe, The Enemy Of Mankind is like A Tribe Called Quest or A Pimp Named Slickback, you gotta say the WHOLE THING. 6. You think its uncalled for when Snoop Dogg keeps calling women bitches and hoes in his songs, but when Slum Village do it, for some reason it just doesn't seem to bother you as much..... 5. You cant wait for the new AZ, Hi Tek and Cormega albums to drop. 4. You are convinced that if Method Man had made a video for "Say", "Fall Out" or "Presidential MC" his album would've sold much better. 3. You believe that Jay-Z and Nas albums coming out coming out one week after the other on Def Jam could help to bring hip hop "back". 2. You concur with Lupe Fiasco that Byron Crawford (Bol) is indeed a faggot ass nigga. 1. The term backpacker pisses you off so much that you write a long ass blog about why it's a divisive term and tie it in to some wild conspiracy theory involving the government, corporations, media outlets and record labels removing all of the consciousness, creativity and balance from mainstream rap music.

Get it NOW, people? One.