I offer these 3 artists a sincere "mea culpa"..

Mea Culpa:(MAY-uh KUL-puh, KOOL-puh) An expression from Catholic ritual that assigns blame to oneself: “I gave you the wrong directions to my house—mea culpa.” From Latin, meaning “my fault” or “my blame.”


I know that I can be brutal when it comes to what I consider to be legitimate and what I consider to be a steaming pile of artistic crap, I'm aware of that. Some people would consider what I do as "hating", which I reject flatly, I recognize that the same people who feel I'm a "hater" are probably just offended by me saying that "Cam'ron is so wack that he probably sold his soul to the devil" and how "I'd rather hear a great Dane get neutered than be forced to sit through a P Diddy listening party". There are certain things that I'm sure of, I'm going to die one day, my favorite pastime is eating mac and cheese off a woman's butt-cheeks, Rakim is the best rapper ever, and that I'm always right motherfucker!! Ok let me come clean, there have been a few occasions where I have been wrong, not based on my god given instincts, but based on my desire to blaze my own path. Let me explain:

This is going to sound retarded, but I have openly rejected musical artists not based on whether their material was good or not, but because of what I considered to be "too many people liking them". I know, it's stupid, but I was so into not being what everyone else was "into", I didn't give certain artists a proper chance. So what happened was I denied myself the opportunity to really digest some dope music just because I didn't want to seem like I was on the back of some proverbial bandwagon. Believe it or not, here are some of the artists that deserve a "my bad" based on my my silliness.(Ok, I guess I should have said "Mea Culpa".)

The Beastie Boys: When the Beasties came out I remember being in Junior High, and being utterly disgusted by some of my white classmates that openly rejected Hip Hop before now suddenly being the biggest fans of the genre based on the verbal stylings of three cats from New York City. Looking back I was the worst militant ever, a black skateboarder raised in a city that is 71.4% white, but I was militant nonetheless. As time went on, if I had remembered the reason that I had rejected the Beastie Boys in the first place, I would have realized how silly my grudge against them was and bumped their shit like a herpes outbreak. But like most silly beefs, I had forgotten why I hated them, but that didn't stop me from making sure that MCA, AdRock, and Mike D didn't see a dime of my money.

But as time went on I saw the error in my ways, not because of some sort of "moment of clarity", but because a chick I was dating said that she wouldn't fuck me until I gave their entire music catalog an unbiased listen. As I listened I realized of how I had kept myself from some good music, an all around dope Hip Hop group, all because I had a teenage grudge on these three fellows from the Big Apple. Plus, based on the current musical landscape of sub-par wordsmiths and tone deaf beat-makers, I appreciate The Beastie Boys even more. So yeah, mea culpa like a motherfucker.

Wu-Tang Clan: My relationship with Wu Tang is like a dude who has a dope wife at home, but still proceeds to ignore the fuck out of her and fuck less desirable chicks. When Wu first came out all of my friends acted like they invented a fucking Aids vaccine or some shit, it was hysteria that was unparalled to say the least. Because of said hysteria, it was my main agenda to hate on the crew from Staten Island like nobody's business. But it was weird though, because deep in the recesses of my mind I knew that I liked some of their songs, my stupid desire not to be a follower didn't allow me to enjoy their music with everyone else. If I'm in a club nowadays and I am nodding my head to some classic Wu Tang song I keep expecting someone to come out of thin air like a Hip Hop Bagger Vance and call me on my hypocrisy. Again, mea culpa.

Jay-Z: Besides my silly hesitation to seem like I was following in anyones footsteps, I think I resisted jay-Z based on all the people that claimed he was a better MC as Rakim. That's Hip Hop blasphemy in my opinion, so I gave Jay-Z the short end of the stick like women married to midgets, when it came to his music. But as years have passed and I can be more objective, I can admit that Jay-Z is a talented MC that I should have given a chance. Granted, I'm still not a fan of some of his more commercial songs, or the fact that he openly admitted to dumbing down his lyrics, but those are semantical arguments based on me coming to terms with the fact that the guy is a much better MC than I gave hin credit for. Yeah Hova, me cupla.