The Great Rap and Roll Swindle

I’ll cut a typical crappy skate punk D.I.Y. effort a lot of slack when they show enthusiasm for the music, so why not the same for a rap group? It’s not because I’m a racist, or don’t like hip hop. I have a small percentage of groups like Tribe called Quest, De La Soul, Digital Underground, and Public Enemy in my collection. Sure, that’s a pretty white bread selection, but I don’t dislike the genre on principal. This “group” Board Bangers reeks to high heaven of a marketing decision manufactured by producers trying to cash in on the hip hop and skateboarding connection. unfortunately, it’s most likely at the expense of the kids in the group, who it appears, actually do a fair bit of skating. if there are any doubts, all you have to do is visit their web site to be bombarded with a poorly disguised infomercial “to get this special price you must buy now!”

Visit the Board Bangers web site and you have to sit through a commercial for all the discounts the “band” is going to give you if you buy one of their package deals before leaving the web site. They even go so far as to make it sound like they will actually cover these discounts out their own pockets, which doesn’t seem that far fetched considering that their contract has them shilling CD’s and t-shirts like used car salesmen. The price does in fact go up if you return to the web site again. Since we’re “power to the people” types here at Skate and Annoy, you can probably get the cheap price again by deleting the cookies and cache in your web browser. Stick it to the man!

Putting aside the fact that I don’t like top 40 rap, the music sounds canned. The spent a lot of time and money though. There are two separate debut CD’s – “The World Ain’t Ready For This” and the creatively titled “Skateboard Thug.” There is a documentary called “Breakin Boards” on the convergence of skating and hip hop in inner city neighborhoods. You can watch a trailer. It looks like a hastily put together affair without a lot of depth. Both albums have a music video for each song. You can watch a bunch of them on the web site, make sure you check out the very cheesy “Droppin Hammers,” which is about skateboarding and was shot at a skatepark. Gratuitous skateboarding in videos isn’t anything new, but the Board Bangers take it to a whole new level by dancing with their skateboards for no apparent reason, as in the video for “‘Cause the Beat’s Hot.”

Not surprisingly, the Board Bangers are the brainchild of an outfit called Jaded Entertainment. They have a press release that talks about all the groundbreaking things like the fact that the “the group is also debuting their own ‘skurban’ (skater/urban) clothing line featuring over 100 items.” They must have subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly. Really, “the group” is launching all this? I doubt it. More like the management company. I hope these kids have good lawyers and financial advisors, because they won’t have much credibility on the street after being involved with such a transparent front. Make sure you check out the web site.

Do kids really fall for this? Maybe I don’t get it because it’s a cultural difference. An I don’t mean street skating vs. bowls! I mean top 40 punk rock pretends to be about not selling out, while top 40 hip hop is all about the sell out.