Any excuse to repost this logo again though

For the past week, the controversy over Prime 6, an in-the-works "Yo MTV Raps 'bling-bling' vip club" set to open on 242 Flatbush Avenue, has stayed at the top of our Google Reader and Twitter feeds since "Jennifer McMillen," a woman who claims to live on the same block, created a petition suggesting that the club switch over to indie music, despite the fact that "R&B and rap happen to be [her] two favorite types of music."

Last night Community Board 6 met at Long Island College to discuss this and other, less bloggable matters. Although nothing was voted on (there will be another meeting a week from today), Permits and Licenses Committee head Mark Shames stated the community's position, and did so without having to name-drop his "African American friends and colleagues."

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​"Reality rap" was once a phrase invoked by gangsta rappers to defend their music against moral outcry from the mainstream media and pesky suburban dwellers. These days, the term largely refers to the slew of emcees lining up to star in their own TV shows. While Boogie Down Productions associate Heather B gets a nod for posterity for her role in the first-ever season of MTV's The Real World, and the sight of Run-DMC's Rev Run closing out every episode of Run's House by lazing in a bubble bath and typing out motivational mantras on his Blackberry has inspired its own Twitter feed, most times the results are a lot less decorous. So in somewhat celebration of the March 15th release of the debut album from $hamrock, the winner of Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show, here's a batch of rappers playing themselves.

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Alan Simpson, former Senator and current co-chairman of President Obama's deficit commission, went on Fox News' version of 106 & Park (that would be Your World with Neil Cavuto) to discuss Social Security. Politico reports Simpson argued that old people were being oversensitive with their Social Security funds (it is worth noting that Simpson is old himself). In demonstrating that the elderly resent the youth of America, he evoked hypothetical grandparents, a hypothetical thank-you card, and the rappers "The Enema Man" and "Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg."

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The real Fab Five Freddy probably neither wrote nor signed any of these petitions, just FYI.

So last week a brave young Park Slope woman named Jennifer McMillen entered the fractious debate over Prime 6, an allegedly hip-hop-friendly club set to open at Flatbush and Sixth in Brooklyn, to the trepidation of some neighbors who feared, in the memorable coinage of her Internet petition on the matter, the presence of "another Yo MTV Raps 'bling-bling' vip club." Despite clarifying that Park Slope is not at all racist, she personally loves rap/r&b, and has several African-American friends, McMillen (whom no one, from the Voice to the Wall Street Journal, has yet been able to find, leaving open the possibility that this is all an elaborate prank) was nonetheless showered with derision, which at first took the form of people signing her petition under amusing fake names (Whitely McWhite, Lou Dobbs, Fab Five Freddy, U Haz No Blak Frenz, etc.), and has now spawned the inevitable: answer petitions. Let's take a closer look at two of them.

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​You will by now be familiar with Prime 6, the soon-to-be Park Slope club and already the site of much controversy. Will the neighborhood descend into an orgy of Yo MTV Raps, "Henessey" [sic], and "bling-bling" on account of the club's plans to play rap music? Or will the forces of "indie" prevail? Who knows, but the latter seems increasingly less likely. Since the petition to inform owner Akiva Ofshtein that "Indie Music Will Earn You More Than Hip-Hop!!!" leaked earlier today, the internet has stuck back, flooding the document with "signatures." We use quotation marks because, well, look above. Shout out Das Racist, Will Smith, Mel Gibson, Fab 5 Freddy, and Barack Obama, and no love to the people getting all ad hominem with this surely already deeply regretful woman (click to enlarge):

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So there's a hot new club/bar/live-music venue called Prime 6 in the works down in the Atlantic Yards nexus at Flatbush and Sixth in Brooklyn, inciting the usual neighborly trepidation, because this club might play rap music. There is now a petition circulating, not to stop Prime 6 from opening, you understand, but just to suggest they find a . . . friendlier style of music. "Indie," for example, which'd make the place "a vibrant artistic hub instead of another Yo MTV Raps 'bling-bling' vip club." And here we go.

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Asher Roth, one of the good guys

Today, the Internet is filled with more depravity and embarrassing footage than anyone could have ever thought possible. Fortunately for us, people like Connor Toole are seeking out the best of the best (or worst of the worst), and posting these .gifs or YouTubes for all to see. His particular specialty, as his Tumblr puts it, is White People Rapping Poorly, and over the past month he's uploaded 12 pages of the most obscene, cringe-worthy stuff he could find. We talked to Connor about his favorite videos, his thoughts on hip-hop, and his own nascent rap career.

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​We did it, Internet! This week's subject of Deborah Solomon's occasionally derided, frequently entertaining, CONDENSED AND EDITED "Questions For..." column is none other than SOTC pals Das Racist. And if you thought they were backing down upon reaching the New York Times Magazine, well...

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​So Atlantic Records has been sitting on Lupe Fiasco's new record, Lasers, for a couple years now, an untenable state of affairs given that "he's really much more than just a rapper from Chicago -- he represents a generation, and a movement," as it was explained to us last week by the guy planning a full-scale protest march culminating at Atlantic headquarters. More than 1,100 have vowed to attend (on the Internet, but still). And yet, we have a development:

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​So yesterday, our friends at Miami New Times made an amusing discovery: Seems the cops down there unveiled a new "Report Gang Activity" banner on their official website, featuring a drawing of a totally hypothetical and not even remotely menacing five-person gang with, uh, a few faces you might recognize.

Or, as New Times puts it, "By our estimation, forty percent of the gang's population is Jay-Z." Observe:

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