Like my wife. She thought this was insignificant. My Tim Tebow song on the front page of the Houston Chronicle?? (It will be gone before you read this.) That’s big willie. The full article is here. That means I’m probably huge with Brian Cushing and the janitorial staff at the Houston Galleria food court. I was finally able to post a screen shot below. WordPress’ latest software update is apparently “updated” in such a way as to not allow me to easily upload any media. That’s pretty useful. So much for my ode to Kim Jong Il, which I recorded today. My kids have been humming it all afternoon. Pretty catchy.
Well, at least they labeled me a “Christian rapper” as soon as humanly possible to ensure readers would be able to formulate as many preconceived notions before not depressing the link. I also appreciate the implication that I’m Delilah-Late-Night-Dedications serenading the Denver QB, to whom I’ve “dedicated” the song. Wait, I should be grateful. No, I shouldn’t. Yes, I should. This just in: “Christian Rapper Argues with his Christian Id and Buddhist Super-ego Over Religious Labeling!”
Super, super thanks to Sketch the Journalist who made all of this happen and who has quietly and selflessly served rappers like myself in the press for years. (If you wrote the copy for the front page link, brother, please pretend the penultimate paragraph was a glitch in the WordPress matrix or something Plastic embedded as a prank, while I will proceed to spoon out my eye.) I can’t say thank you enough.
Really? sigh. This is depressing. I mean, on the one hand, those who aren’t TOTALLY TURNED OFF BY THAT LABEL will find more than what they were expecting on your blog (if they even look for more, which, coincidentally, was something I was going to blog about myself pretty soon). So, at the very LEAST you’ll get some more traffic on here…by a few people, perhaps.
It would have been more beneficial of whomever hooked that news source up with what you did to have possibly mentioned a few other blog postings you did on some other notable things. (Lord forbid anyone go the extra-mile of pointing out more than just another Tim Tebow story…)
But, hey, since we’re on Mr. Tebow, check out the last sketch on the recently hosted by Jimmy Fallon episode of SNL. They do a sketch where Jesus shows up in the Broncos locker and has a few words with Tim. Its funny and well worth it, for no other reason than echoing a few notions people have had about the whole “Is God blessing Tebow because he espouses his Christianity so largely in public?”
Hope to hear the Kim Jong II song hopefully soon.
Hey Conduct, thanks for posting here. I recognize your name from the Sphere of Hip Hop message boards.
I’m the one that hooked up the pub and authored the blog post. I wrote the internal headline – “Another (less pom-pomy) Christian hip hop Tim Tebow song” – but the front page online staff wrote the “Christian rappers dedicate songs to Tebow” headline.
I kept it to the topic of the post to the Tebow song because it was the most timely after a weekend with the Broncos loss, the SNL skit, AND the fact that just the day before I had posted about the FIRST Tebow song I found by a different Christian rapper named Brinson. So this was a bit of a follow-up to that one.
I enjoy the full spectrum of what Sintax brings here and am actually in the process of pitching a story about the whole site/project to the Chronicle that could possibly appear in their print edition as well. But for the purposes of that one post, I needed to limit my scope to the Tebow piece.
Also, as much as I’d love for all the guys I cover to be judged on the merit of their work/lyrics/talent instead of just their faith or the “gospel hip hop” label – at this point and for this media outlet I often still have to trade off the novelty of the “Christian rapper” title to break through the clutter and get any attention at all outside of my blog and posts that are off in their own, separate Houston Belief subsite.
It’s a little easier for me to do that with posts on The Rap Up mainstream hip hop site (www.therapup.net) I contribute to because the audience is already accepting of the music as a whole and the conscience-flavor of it in particular. (There, I’ve written about guys like Sintax, Playdough, theBREAX, Heath McNease, and others without having to overtly use that “Christian rapper” label.) But the Houston Chronicle has a much different, and broader, readership I must consider.
Anyway, I hope this provides some insight into how this came about and where I hope it’s going.
Yeah, and I meant to bounce on this earlier. I’m all good with the coverage. Fully grateful. As I told Sketch offline, it was just something to riff on. All jokes. That’s a super old debate that I’m too old to care about. No offense really intended to the Chronicle and certainly not Sketch. I would be lucky if they called me a Potty Trained Rapper or Soup Slurping Rapper or whatever. Just call a brother!
Indeed. Me and Sin are still BFF’s.
I totally understand. Press is…funny that way. NO disrespect. Also, I didn’t know you were a contributor to that site. That’s pretty neat. You should hit me up sometime because I would love to know all about how one gets a work submitted for review or coverage there.
ipoetblog forever!
Loved seeing this! Also, I love what unsung heroes like Plastic and Sketch have done for just plain ole hip-hop. Way to go Sintax! My favorite soup-slurping rapper!
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Sorry, Sam, for the delay. I really appreciate it. You got to find your niche. I suppose mine is chowders and bisques.
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