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Well folks it's that time of year again for the annual Davey D 2007 End of Year Hip Hop Awards. This is where we dig deep and reward those for their distinguished and dubious accomplishments within the world of Hip Hop and urban music. Let's get right to it and kick things off...
Now intially I was gonna give this award to Akon as he seemed seemed to be ahead of the pack but that all changed when we opened up the new Britney Spears album 'Blackout' and saw Lil Wayne cheesing it up and rapping on the remix of her hit song 'Gimme More'. Lil Wayne and Britney? Need I say more? Dude went there. 
The cut that absolutely took the cake and left many of us scratching our heads was one that even sparked an in-depth Village Voice newspaper article. This write up came complete with pie charts, graphs and analysis of the song's lyrics. The song I'm talking about came from a gifted rapper who can really spit. 
Nice Guys Finish Last Award: There's an old saying, 'No good deed goes un-punished and that was definitely the case for Monie Love. Folks may know her for the hit song 'Monie in the Middle'. She was also the sister who rapped alongside Queen Latifah on the female anthem 'Ladies First'. 
Another dumb move was Cam'ron sitting up on 60 Minutes acting all smug while doing an interview about the Stop Snitching Movement. Instead of taking advantage of being in front of a large nationwide audience and talking about all the scenarios where hundreds of innocent people get locked up on the coerced & false testimony by government informants who oftentimes have questionable and shaky backgrounds, he tried to act cool and wound up making us all look bad and sound stupid when he said he would never snitch even if it was a child molestor living next door to him. All sorts of folks got on Cam'ron's case after the show aired and he later apologized, but the damage was done and all of us were left asking 'What the hell was he thinking? 
With all that being said we have to give this award to our hands down winner Atlanta rapper T.I.. He started off this year on a serious roll. He had a slamming album TI vs.TIP and high profile movie roles in flicks like 'American Gangster'. He was starting to garner favorable press for his charity work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and for his entrepreneurial endeavors. T.I. owns his own successful construction company. He was doing it big in 2007. 
Case in point his war of words with Civil Rights leader Al Sharpton who he felt wanted to censor artists. Banner via the press said Sharpton was out of touch and the only worthwhile thing he could do was orally stimulate his private parts. Sharpton's camp infamously responded by thanking Banner for the offer but declined citing that the good reverend often receives sexual advances, but he's not gay and therefore could not accommodate Banner… That retort gave Sharpton the coveted 'Comeback Response of the Year Award'.
The most over-hyped up feud of the year went to 50 Cent vs. Kanye West. Many people saw this as an epic battle between two of rap's biggest superstars who were releasing their albums on the same day-September 11th. At first Kanye tried to duck a challenge issued by 50 who wanted to see who would sell the most albums that week. Kanye wisely told the public September 11th should be viewed as a day when people have an opportunity to purchase good music. 
The Feud of the Year:Lupe Fiasco vs. Tribe Called Quest & Hip Hop backpack fans. Who could forget that one? It was a bloggers dream as hordes of scorned backpack fans screamed, howled and disowned Lupe forever. 
2007 had some memorable moments of R&B artists shining on Hip Hop records. I enjoyed Diddy getting down with Keyisha Cole on the song 'Last Night'. She really stood out on the song 'Dreamin' with Young Jeezy. R. Kelly got down with Snoop Dogg on the cut 'That's That Shit'. Hell Snoop caught the R&B bug and went out and sung his own hooks on the song 'Sexual Eruption' and came off sounding like T-Pain. Check out the video here: 
But the award has to go to Rihanna and Jay-Z for the monster smash Umbrella. How can you deny the potency of that cut? The Cinderella remix featuring Jay-Z and Chris Brown was equally dope. Rihanna was this year's R&B Queen. 
Mob's 'Circles' as well as Common's two stand out jams the Gil Scott inspired 'The People' and 'I Want You'. Hip Hop artists who embraced melodies and harmonies are what caught my ear this year. 
For me the song of the year a favorite for many of us who get to program radio, but rarely saw the light of day because folks were too scared to go there. I'm giving the award to Pharoahe Monch and his incredible jam 'Push'. The lyrics to the song set the theme for this year encouraging us to put our shoulders to the grind and push for new heights. A big gas face goes out to all those who slept on this song and let it go by.
like Jay-Z who supposedly doesn't write down his rhymes and records albums like 'American Gangster' in 3 weeks time. I always like to point out that Jigga sold himself short. If AG was a good album-and it is. It by far one of the better albums for 2007, but I can't help thinking that it could've been so much better had he taken more time. In other words, his album is good, but it was mediocre for a guy of his talents especially when compared to some of his other albums. We've heard and seen jigga do all this before. The bottom line is fine wine doesn't come in two weeks time and neither does a great album. 
Talib Kweli's pretty good 'Eardrum'. Talib seems to finally be coming into his own. He along with his partner Corey Blacksmith started their own label, signed a strong stable of artists including Jean Grae and Strong Arm Steady. Then Talib did what any President of a label should do, he kicked things off and set the standard with his best album in years. 
Jennifer John's incredible 'Painting on Wax'. She made the Bay Area proud and is well on her way to redefining what it it means to be a Hip Hop Queen. She has an incredible voice that will send chills up your spine. Her flava is intoxicating. Rarely does her album leave my CD player.
DJ Jazzy Jeff's Magnificent 'Return of the Magnificent'. DJ Jazzy Jeff is a long time fixture in the game who has quietly innovated (brought us the transforming scratch) and pushed Hip Hop to new heights. We all know and love him as the sometimes 'sidekick' of Will Smith when he was known as the Fresh Prince. The irony is when they first started it was the other way around. It was Jazzy Jeff and his incredible deejaying that drew the large crowds. 
As for the album of the year, I'm gonna have to give it up to Brother Ali out of Minneapolis'
There were two excellent documentaries that took on Hip Hop media and showed us how things operate behind the scenes. Both documentaries were done guerilla style with very little money but had great impact. The first one is 'Turn Off Channel Zero' featuring Professor Griff of Public Enemy. 
1)Hip Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa was not voted not the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame this year. It was a big disappointment especially when you consider all that Bam has done. Here's a guy who helped spearhead the movement to turn gangs around and make them productive. 
1) One of Hip Hop's lowest moments came in January of 2007 when the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) teamed up with the police to raid the offices of DJ Drama and DJ Cannon in Atlanta. It was a foul move when you consider that for years the industry especially on the Hip Hop side has depended upon mixtape deejays who usually at great expense to themselves have gone out and literally laid the foundation and blown up the careers of the artists they featured. 
3)The untimely death of Kanye West's mother Dr Donda West. For people who had an opportunity to meet her she was a down to earth incredible woman who had made name for herself teaching for 31 years in the Chicago school system. Many of us felt we knew Dr West personally because Kanye always talked about her and even wrote a heartfelt song about her. Our hearts broke alongside the young rapper when it was learned she died during a routine surgical procedure. 
1)Master P stepping up, apologizing to Black woman and making a promise to turn things around and release positive music. He came across as an esteemed elder statesman and repped us well during the contentious Congressional Hearings last Summer.
5)Watching Mos Def on Bill Maher show alongside Dr Cornel West speaking out and let the world know about the plight of the San Francisco 8 political prisoners. as well as the Jena 6. Maher tried to over talk Mos Def and throw all sorts of crazy arguments his way, but Mos swatted them away and went on repped for us real hard. It was beautiful thing.
8)In the same vein we have to give it up to New Orlean artists like Sess 4-5 who not only dropped some lyrical bombs with songs like 'Stayed in the Ghetto' and 'Blackman', but he was one of those artists who has long put his money where his mouth was. When I was out there in August for the Hurricane Katrina Tribunal he was out there leading the march through the ravaged lower 9th Ward. He was out there standing tall with the people helping lead the charge to stop the recent demolition of public housing. WSe give Sess 4-5 The Unsung Heroe Award
10)The formation of the Hip Hop Chess Federation in the Bay Area and witnessing Rza and his fellow Wu-Tang family members Gza and Black Monk take the championship for the federation's first tournament. Big shout out to long time journalist Adisa Banjoko who put this together. he brought together a gang of chess playing Hip Hop artists ranging from Casual of Heiro to Paris to pioneers like Popmaster Fabel to DJ Q-Bert to Raaka from Dilated Peoples to Sunspot Jonz of Living Legends along with martial arts experts and chess masters to go head to head in the ultimate thinking game. Things went so well this past summer that HHC is gearing up for a own's chess tournament called the Queens Invitational. Banjoko noted that its important to get people to think long term and if they're gonna battle, battle on the 64 squares as you comtemplate your next move opposed to having meaningless battles in the streets over nonsense. Check out Rza winning the tournament.
His books were written when gangsta rap first started to come out of Los Angeles and LA gang culture began to makes its way to Utah in the late 80s and early 90s. He continued to update his findings till the day he retired two years ago. His books are department issued self-publications which have been read widely by his fellow officers. They are extremely thorough, very detailed and have a keen political analysis that would actually shock most people outside of law enforcement because of some of the positions and conclusions Stallworth takes.
His name came up in the most usual way. You see about 30 years ago Stallworth made a name for himself by infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs. 
Out of necessity Stallworth had to become an expert in this new subgenre of Hip Hop. The rest they say is history. Stallworth felt it was important to truly understand the culture of He then began to see how police misconduct had fueled a lot of the rage being expressed in the songs. This led to Stallworth writing a ten page paper which contained his conclusions and observations became the basis for his first book. 
Stallworth noted that today rap music has been neutralized and has lost a lot of its urgent message. He says today kids are all about making money and that's clearly reflected in many of the songs that are commercially viable. Says we live in a time when people want to escape poverty. 
My KRS-ONE plates got stolen at an Afrika Bambaataa show. When I bought my brand new Honda Civic at age 18, I was more excited about getting my customized KRS-ONE license plates than I was about the actual car itself. 
"It's all vibration," KRS explains, "Word combinations give your thing value or decrease your value."
KRS continues, "That sums up the whole of America. That sums up my America, the America that I live in. And I tell you, its denial.
Everything cool though, we gettin' money today. Everybody gettin' money today. You really don't have too many murders today, crews runnin' up on crews, there is a respect that has been established today. 50 Cent and others would never disrespect KRS-ONE and I would never disrespect 50 Cent, but notice what I said:
KRS: But look how they got shut down. East Coast/West Coast. That's the first East Coast/West Coast beef. Fred Hampton on the East coast, Huey P on the West coast, locally. F.B.I. was all in it. How long we gonna keep going for that shit? How long is the black and brown gonna keep fightin'? That's why I say, your people goin' to jail? My people goin' to jail. For some reason, you and I are sittin' here in Heaven. We in the kingdom of heaven. Be thankful that your role is what it is. 
