All Write Already

However, despite all the knocks hip-hop/Black writers face, Danyel says:

"We can't stop writing because the jobs and assignments we feel should come to us, don't come to us. We can't stay angry at the fact that hip hop didn't pay off in the cultural way we actually placed our faith in. And we can't wish this whole hip hop thing would die already so the kids can come up with some new musical genre that we can pretend will change the world. We'll be old, anyway! The Next Big Thing will be for folks not born yet. Hip hop's all we got, and if we don't tell it like it is and was, and tell it in a way that is true to each of us--black, Asian, Latin, man, woman, gay, straight, all of it!--we'll be some bitter old fools playing dominoes, drinking too much, and trying to act like we never gave a f--k, when really, we did."

Danyel then wonders if blogging is the new medium that we need to publish our rejected stories to. I say yes, it mos def is!!

I've been promoting blogging for two years as a way for unique voices to reach out to an audience. Where else but on a blog will someone write over 400 words about Young Buck's chain and reach readers that care? That's a silly example, but you get my point. Blogs are like the new printing presses, which opened up a market for new writers hundreds of years ago.

So to all you pro and amateur scribes- start up a blog and let's document our culture the way it really is, good, bad, and beautiful! And props to SOHH for being the first to create a space for this to happen on a higher level.