TALKIN' VIDEOS

SOHH.com video of the week, as dictated by Ronaldinho, is the long-awaited first installment of our good friend and aspiring rap star H.D.’s “Behind The Grind” series. [watch it now] The collection follows H-Dottt through the process of making his first release, the “Almost Famous” mixtape (hosted by Donnell Rawlings AKA Ashy Larry). The long-time anchor of our HDTV series, SOHH.com’s inside man gets career advice along the way from some of the biggest names in the game.

Fun, fun for everyone.

So yeah… H.D., the dark beanpole with the SOHH mic, is actually filthy on record. As we all know, filthy isn’t enough to get where you wanna go in the game. Dott asks Puffy, Fat Joe, Jim Jones AKA “Shower Strike” and others what it takes to get that leg up and foot into the industry.

Almost all of his interviewees agree on the mixtape as a means of being heard. However, they don’t include that there is a big fucking difference between being on a Kay Slay payola tape and making your own shit and trying to hock it at people with the reckless abandon of the local paperboy (or late night dopefiend if you live in the hood where they ain’t got no paperboys… or porches).

“They’re going further and further away from what we came here to do… Right now hip-hop is fucked up.” –The Game AKA Mariah Carey “The Butterfly,” in reference to “mixtape rappers.”

Jon "Shipes" Shapiro (of Cinematic Music Group) is the little white guy who is just as fed up with mixtapes as I am. He actually believes MySpace is the wave of the future. You would think with the 450 requests from bands that you get daily on there that this shit is Underground Idol. Therein lies our little chicken vs. egg problem. Now, anyone can be exposed, but only the talented will stand out.

While entertaining and seemingly informative, I want to thank H.D.'s panelists for giving us... pretty much nothing to go off of.

I know what happened here. H.D. saved the real jewels for himself.

See, that's why niggas can't go nowhere as a people! Can't wait for part 2. I hope he talks to niggas who have already fallen off so we can know how not to follow in their footsteps.

talkinvideos@sohh.com