Let the fools have their TAR-TAR sauce!

Meant to post this one last week, but with all the holidays craziness, I forgot. I vote that the next phase of blogging include the ability to automatically publish material as you think of it.

Anyway, to the point.

It seems three people were stabbed at the recent Notorious B.I.G. record release party. In addition, three men were shot just around the corner from the club hosting the party at roughly the same time as the stabbings.

Forget for a moment the standard argument concerning the negative image these incidents project on the hip-hop community. That's a baggy to smoke on a different day. My larger concern (as it generally is) has to do with the karmic message and the effects of our unyielding pursuit of capitalist ambitions.

While I'm not happy to see violence of any kind, I do feel a slight sense of satisfaction in watching Biggie reach from beyond the grave to bitch-slap a few folks in an attempt to convey a very key point -- "Let me die already, fool!" Biggie and Tupac have been dead for a number of years now, yet it doesn't stop the record industry and its accomplices from continually drudging up old material, rehashing it and selling it as a new product. Make no mistake, releasing the latest posthumous Biggie material in time for the holidays was no accident.

Those who keep telling B.I.G. to rest in peace apparently aren't the same folks continually profiting off his name. Back when Diddy first issued some tributes and unreleased material (you recall the song Diddy did with Sting's help), he caught a lot of flack for making money off Biggie. I was willing to give him a pass at the time, as I felt it came from his heart.

But enough is enough already, and I think Biggie is with me on this one. The violence on the night of the release party seems like a loud-and-clear message to me. Unfortunately, I think it's lost on most.