Bambaataa vs. Kweli - Is Talib part of a "Luciferian conspiracy"? - RESPECT.

They say the devil is in the details. For DJ Afrika Bambaataa, the devil is hard at work in the lack of them.

“Hip-hop has been hijacked by a Luciferian conspiracy,” he says, quite matter-of-factly. “People have used hip-hop in a lot of ways that cause a lot of mind problems. They use the word wrongfully. They use it to mean a part instead of a whole. Like many of these [radio] stations say they’re hip-hop, they’re playing hip-hop. I go to these stations, and these so-called program directors don’t know jack crap about hip-hop culture. They know rap to a certain extent. But I question them. I say, ‘Where’s your go-go, your hip-house, your electro-funk, your raga, your R&B and soul?’ They get real quiet.”

As the man often credited with inventing the term “hip-hop,” Bambaataa has the right to quibble over its application.

—Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 23

Talib Kweli admits that he doesn’t drink a lot of soda, and that he knows “very, very little” about professional football. But when the Brooklyn rapper was approached to star in a TV spot for Pepsi Max’s NFL playoffs campaign, Kweli saw an opportunity to bolster awareness around his self-released fifth album, “Gutter Rainbows,” which was digitally released today (Jan. 25).

“There’s a segment of my fan base that wants to believe that I’m in some basement somewhere with a notebook, with a backpack on, writing rhymes to Eminem instrumentals or something,” says Kweli. “So the idea that at this point [is that] I’m 35 years old and there’s no music business, and I have grown man responsibilities, so of course I’m going to get paid for my craft. And I’m going to work with companies that are willing to support the lifestyle.”

“There’s a generation growing up that doesn’t understand that music is paid, but just because you get it for free doesn’t mean that someone’s not paying for it,” says Kweli. “Someone’s still got to pay for it. So you’ve got to figure, ‘Well, how is this person going to pay for it?’ You’ve got to maybe loosen your idea of what selling out is, when you’re not participating in supporting the culture.”

—Billboard, Jan. 25