Hip Hop

Goodbye G.O.O.D. Fridays

blame it on Shake September 30, 2010

Earlier this week an unfinished song from Ye’s album leaked on the internet. As usual, most sites (including us) grabbed it and ran with it. Once Kanye got wind of the leak he asked for it to be taken down. Realizing the mistake, 2dbz (and the majority of the NMC) complied without question. All seemed to blow over, until tonight… when another unfinished track leaked (seriously?). Kanye wasn’t so generous this time. And as you can see by the Twitter update above, he decided to cancel G.O.O.D. Friday (thankfully/hopefully for this week only).

This post wasn’t meant to wash our hands of any wrong doing. We fucked up by posting the song for the short period of time we did. But the blame is still thrown in the direction of the folks deciding to purchase unauthorized leaks, slap some tags on it and throw them to the e-wolves. This battle will forever continue as long as hackers folks think they are doing something beneficial for the culture. Who am I kidding? They don’t give a shit, they just want their bank account to rise. And things like this always put our site (and others alike) in a tough position. We post because we have to stay ahead of the curve so that we stay relevant. Which in turn gives us the opportunity to give up and coming artists more shine, help more established artists promote their albums, entertain the likes of y’all during the day, etc.

Is there a solution or any common ground to be found? I honestly don’t know. Of course you will have the people that say “well, bitch ass Shake and Meka should just stop posting the leaks”. True. But once a leak hits the internet, it’s too late to pull it back. Who is to say what will really hurt an artist and what won’t. And who is to say what exact leaks should be ignored and what should be posted? If we didn’t post anything, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. There would be no websites for y’all to visit. There would be no place for y’all to get music early/on time. No place to discuss what’s came out. Nothing. During the years of doing this I’ve seen leaks work both ways with artists. I’ve seen songs hit the net without knowledge and it’s skyrocketed the stardom of the owner. And on the flip side, I’ve seen it crush them (be it emotionally or statistically). The fact is records leak. They have for YEARS now. And as the last few years have proven… they’re gonna happen more frequent as time progresses. And while the internet continues to grow as a strong force in advertising and record sales we’ll always be left with this same argument. To leak or not to leak?

To our defense, we don’t post full albums. Hell, we even make a conscious effort to limit the amount of songs off one album to be posted on the site in general. And while that doesn’t directly relate to this Kanye situation as only a few songs leaked. It still stands for debate. I’ve always believed that if a fan was planning on buying an album, he/she would do it anyways… regardless of a leak or not. But what do I know, I’m just a “blogger” that most of y’all hate haha. But I do ask y’all… where do we go from here? Let the discussion begin.