Month: October 2005

Detroit rapper Champtown is not exactly Proof’s best friend. He openly shows his disgust of D12’s gifted rapper on his personal website.
If you want to understand how it all got started, you gotta go back to the early 90’s, at a time Champtown was collaborating with Eminem.
White rapper Shortcut introduced Eminem to Champtown.
For those who don’t know yet, Eminem was featured in one of Champtown’s videos « Do-Da-Dippity » and actually did a song with Champtown, What Color Is Soul.
The friendship between both men ended, because Eminem thought Champtown wanted to have sex with Kim.
Eminem dissed the Detroit rapper in a song called « Fucking Backstabber » in collaboration with DJ Butterfingaz that was released in 1995.
We may ask the question: Champtown had a beef with Em, but why is he so mad at Proof? Matter of fact: rapper Champtown has released a whole Fuck Proof EP Vol.I (according to his website, Volume II will follow).
Champtown was featured in an article from The Source in February 2004, probably (sorry I don‘t read the one sighted Source magazine),the one that totally misinterpreted and misrepresented the truth about Eminem’s former tapes. In this article, Champtown stated that Eminem was a racist. Chaos’ Kid’s words were totally misquoted by journalist Kim Osorio.
Then Champtown got mad at D12, calling them slaves and « house niggas ». You guessed it, Benzino lacked originality and picked up Champtown’s expression in order to defend his position regarding Eminem and his fellows.
Champtown’s point of view is that Eminem lets D12 down and doesn’t sign them to Shady Records on purpose.
Champtown is quite mad at Paul Rosenberg too:
“I feel that Paul Rosenberg is prejudiced. I heard from inside the camp about how Blacks are being underpaid…I know who introduced [Rosenberg] to Eminem and he is no longer on the map. He was fired. He was the last Black survivor with any authority in the camp and he was fired recently.�
On his « Fuck Proof » EP Volume 1, Champtown made some allegations about Deshaun Holton aka Proof, Shady Records and Eminem’s manager.
The lyrics are quite funny and made on an Eminem and Obie Trice musical background, but Champtown’s voice sounds quite horrible.
I don’t think those songs should be taken seriously.
Champtown punches Proof verbally claiming: «  “Remember nigger, you swung the first punch … You a disgrace to the black race, you make us all look so bad out there, jumping around like a muthafuckin’ kangaroo … Hype man for the white man, that’s all you is muthafucka… ». In another verse he goes on, stating that Proof is « broke as shit »:
« What’s goin’ on? Em got money! … Proof so broke he can’t buy a muthafuckin’ taco from Taco Bell. »
I find those lines funny, but not credible. Since he started rapping, Proof’s discography is quite impressing. Not only did Deshaun collaborate with 5Ela, Dogmatic, he also released two amazingly good mixtapes, I Miss The Hip Hop Shop and Grown Man Shit.Besides his mainstream work with Eminem and D12, Proof has a lot of local Detroit underground collaborations at his active: Mu, J-Hill, Dogmatic, just to name a few.
His solo album, Searching For Jerry Garcia, is a masterpiece.
While it is true that Proof is sometimes in Eminem’s shadow and often ignored by the public as a brilliant lyricist and emcee, Proof is nevertheless a very valuable emcee. However, his decision not to get signed at Shady Records and to choose Iron First as his label was strategically made by Proof. Not that Em would refuse him (he is best friend, remember?) to get a deal with Shady Records, but Deshaun has something to prove to the public, that he can achieve something by his own means.
Champtown might be a veteran in Detroit, but very few people know about his existence out of Detroit.
Nearly each Eminem fan has heard about Proof. Champtown, your allegations about Deshaun are totally unjustified.

Check it out here!

AN EMINEM fan who wore the rapper’s Anger Management T-shirt to court was told he needed anger management lessons, by his own lawyer.
Richard Jeffrey was wearing the tour T-shirt when he admitted making threatening phone calls to a doctor’s surgery.
Rory Bannerman, defending, said: “It is appropriate he is wearing an anger management shirt because lessons in anger management are exactly what he needs.
“The doctors had done nothing wrong but he clearly lacks self control and has a problem with drugs.”
Jeffrey, 34, of Kelso, Roxburghshire, was jailed for five months for breach of the peace at Jedburgh Sheriff Court

You think that Deshaun Holton aka Big Proof has squashed all beefs with his fellow Detroit emcees?
Proof recently reconciled with Esham on stage while performing for his birthday party. An enormous victory in local hip hop history. His long term beef with Royce 5.9 has been squashed recently too.
However it looks like some Detroit underground rapper doesn’t exactly like Proof. His name? Champtown.
Very few people have heard about Champtown. He is nevertheless a key person in Detroit’s hip hop history of the early 90’s. Curious to know why Champtown hates Proof and why Proof dissed him first?
Stay tuned, folks! The story is quite interesting…

Uncle ILL is giving a show on October the 29th. Be numerous to support the talented emcee!

Many of you have earned my respect. If you’re not on the following list, please don’t sweat it: it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect your artistic qualities. I just wanted to gather the artists who have impressed me most on the Detroit scene since I started exploring it…
I- Mac
I have discovered Detroit group I-Mac thanks to Omar De Fati’s Detroit blog. I first listened to the Rep Tha D track and got hooked immediately. Then I explored the Ruthless Aggression mixtape and was impressed with their immense talent.
I-Mac manage to bring the raw 313 dimension in their music. They are not afraid to make you feel insecure and rep the D in a tough way. I Mac introduce you into the Detroit hood and prepare you to get ripped lyrically.
I-Mac is currently one of the dopest Detroit groups.
Hush
Mc Hush is quite a legend in Detroit. His underground work has allowed him to earn a lot of respect on the local scene long before the release of his Bulletproof album.
Hush’s numerous musical influences are present in the music of the gifted artist who intelligently marries rock and rap and who handles words in an astute way.
Although people are more focused on Hush’s latest release, I’d strongly advice them to have a look at his former Roses And Razorblades album.
Hush’s music gives you a unique taste of the streets of Detroit.
Uncle ILL
How did I find out about Detroit veteran Uncle ILL?
In fact, my passion for Eminem’s music lead me to explore his underground work in detail. I have also been very curious about the many artists who have collaborated with him. While « googling » my search in 2003, I found out about the Silent Records website that featured Uncle ILL.
Uncle ILL is very unique on the Detroit scene. He doesn’t resemble any other of his Detroit fellow emcees. Uncle ILL has a unique and raw voice, his music is rich of many different styles, the talented artist manages to mix up tango sounds as well as blues and soul with his rapping style. The instrumentals are usually very well handled. However, Uncle ILL’s instrumentals are not his only force: whoever has heard him rapping on a track can confirm that he is no stranger to wordplays and metaphors. Combined with his good flow delivery, Uncle ILL manages to give a unique taste to his art. No, Uncle ILL is not your average Detroit emcee. Not really hardcore, but still-dope as fuck.
16 years of rapping experience, an undeniable talent, an original style and the unique taste he puts into his music will enlighten the rapping master.
Check some of his music out here.
Lazarus
While doing some research about Detroit underground rappers, my eye suddenly caught a thread on a hip hop forum about an emcee called Lazarus. Since the people on this forum said this rapper was exceptionally skilled, visiting his website was the least that I could do.
Lazarus managed to bring me back to the passionate atmosphere of the 8 Mile battles. The young emcee spits with an amazing dexterity and rips his enemies off with no mercy.
Trick Trick
Trick Trick owns the streets of Detroit. Trick Trick immediately earned my respect when I started listening to his music. He has a tough gangsta-pimping style that fully represents Detroit and a lot of artistic qualities. His particular voice, his good instrumentals and beats, his attitude make him so likeable on the Detroit scene.
You wanna know how Trick Trick rolls? Check out his sound click page here.
It will also allow you to discover the various panel of artists Trick Trick collaborates with.
Big Verb
Big Verb is one of those Detroit artists who will barely leave you indifferent. Detroit’s battle cat. Verb handles his words, instruments and beats very well.
His honesty and his dedication to the Detroit hood fully appears in his music. The emcee can be characterized by his realness. A nice flow delivery combined with rich instrumentals make this emcee really worth your attention.
Big Verb is real and talented. He doesn’t always get the attention he deserves. I wish some major label focused on the talented Detroiter soon.
P Dog
Detroit DJ P Dog is currently my favorite Detroit DJ. Honestly, I think that nobody handles turntables as well as him.
P Dog earns his Turntable Bully nickname very well, he bullies his adversaries on his tracks and leaves them no chance of survival. He has a raw and unique style.
P Dog talks with his hands with an amazing dexterity. He manages to communicate his enthusiasm and passion to his listeners. His art is rich of many interesting Detroit artistic collaborations such as Proof, Bizarre, Purple Gang, Moe Dirdee and many more.
P Dog handles scratches and sharp sounds very well. He is probably one of the most underrated Detroit artists, but he has the potential to make it real big someday.

FESTAC, Nigeria — As patient as fishermen, the young men toil day and night, trawling for replies to the e-mails they shoot to strangers half a world away.
Most recipients hit delete, delete, delete, delete without ever opening the messages that urge them to claim the untold riches of a long-lost deceased second cousin, and the messages that offer millions of dollars to help smuggle loot stolen by a corrupt Nigerian official into a U.S. account.
But the few who actually reply make this a tempting and lucrative business for the boys of Festac, a neighborhood of Lagos at the center of the cyber-scam universe. The targets are called maghas — scammer slang from a Yoruba word meaning fool, and refers to gullible white people.
Samuel is 19, handsome, bright, well-dressed and ambitious. He has a special flair for computers. Until he quit the game last year, he was one of Festac’s best-known cyber-scam champions.
Like nearly everyone here, he is desperate to escape the run-down, teeming streets, the grimy buildings, the broken refrigerators stacked outside, the strings of wet washing. It’s the kind of place where plainclothes police prowl the streets extorting bribes, where mobs burn thieves to death for stealing a cellphone, and where some people paint “This House Is Not For Sale” in big letters on their homes, in case someone posing as the owner tries to put it on the market.
It is where places like the Net Express cyber cafe thrive.
The atmosphere of silent concentration inside the cafe is absolute, strangely reminiscent of a university library before exams. Except, that is, for the odd guffaw or cheer. The doors are locked from 10:30 p.m. until 7 a.m., so the cyber thieves can work in peace without fear of armed intruders.
In this sanctum, Samuel says, he extracted thousands of American e-mail addresses, sent off thousands of fraudulent letters, and waited for replies. He thinks disclosure of his surname could endanger his safety.
The e-mail scammers here prefer hitting Americans, whom they see as rich and easy to fool. They rationalize the crime by telling themselves there are no real victims: Maghas are avaricious and complicit.
To them, the scams, called 419 after the Nigerian statute against fraud, are a game.
Their anthem, “I Go Chop Your Dollars,” hugely popular in Lagos, hit the airwaves a few months ago as a CD penned by an artist called Osofia:
“419 is just a game, you are the losers, we are the winners.
White people are greedy, I can say they are greedy
White men, I will eat your dollars, will take your money and disappear.
419 is just a game, we are the masters, you are the losers.”
“Nobody feels sorry for the victims,” Samuel said.
Scammers, he said, “have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There’s this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way.”
What makes the scams so tempting for the targets is that they promise a tantalizing escape from the mundane disappointments of life. The scams offer fabulous riches or the love of your life, but first the magha has to send a series of escalating fees and payments. In a dating scam, for instance, the fraudsters send pictures taken from modeling websites.
“Is the girl in these pictures really you?? I just can’t get over your beauty!!!! I can’t believe my luck!!!!!!!” one hapless American wrote recently to a scammer seeking $1,200.
The scammer replied, “Would you send the money this week so I may buy a ticket?”
“Aww babe. I don’t have the money yet. I will get it, though. Don’t you worry your pretty lil head, hun,” the victim wrote back.
The real push comes when the fictional girlfriend or fiancee, who claims to be in America, goes to Nigeria for business. In a series of “mishaps,” her wallet is stolen and she is held hostage by the hotel owner until she can come up with hundreds of dollars for the bill. She needs a new airline ticket, has to bribe churlish customs officials and gets caught. Finally, she needs a hefty get-out-of-jail bribe.
The U.S. Secret Service estimates such schemes net hundreds of millions of dollars annually worldwide, with many victims too afraid or embarrassed to report their losses.
Basil Udotai of the government’s Nigerian Cybercrime Working Group said 419 fraud represents a tiny portion of Nigerian computer crime, but is taken seriously by authorities because of the damage it does to the country’s reputation.
“The government is not just sitting on its hands,” he said. “It’s very important for the international community to know that Nigeria is not glossing over the problem of 419. We are putting together measures that will tackle all forms of online crime and give law enforcement agencies opportunities to combat it.”
Asishana Okauru, acting director of financial intelligence for the government’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said $700 million relating to 419 crime had been seized in the two years since the establishment of the EFCC. There have been 12 convictions in such cases brought during that time, he said. Okauru said he felt this was a good result given the sluggishness of Nigeria’s legal system, but critics say the courts are too slow and corrupt.
Nigerian authorities, extremely sensitive about 419 crime, say the scammers are mostly from other countries, and that any Nigerians who participate do so because of high unemployment and, above all, the greed of victims.
When Samuel, at age 15, sat down in a cyber cafe and started drilling away at the keyboard, he had no idea he was being watched by one of Festac’s cyber-crime wizards. After noting Samuel’s speed and skill, the crime boss, nicknamed Shepherd, invited him to his mansion to try extracting e-mail addresses using search engines. Then, to make Samuel feel special, he took him shopping for designer clothes.
“He’s fun to be with. When you’re around him he makes you feel you have no problems,” Samuel said. Shepherd hooked him with the same bait he uses for maghas.
“He said every hour I spent online I could be making good money,” Samuel recalled. “He said, ‘The houses I own, I got it through all this.’ And they’re not just ordinary houses. They’re big, made of marble. He’s got big-screen TVs, a swimming pool inside. He lives like a prince. He’s the biggest guy in this town.”
A teenager who didn’t really know about the scams, Samuel was “a bit confused” when Shepherd offered him 20% of the take. “But I looked at everything he had, and it got into my head, actually. The money he had, the cars.”
Eager to impress his new boss, Samuel worked for six-hour stretches extracting e-mail addresses and sending off letters that had been composed by a college graduate also working for Shepherd.
He sent 500 e-mails a day and usually received about seven replies. Shepherd would then take over.
“When you get a reply, it’s 70% sure that you’ll get the money,” Samuel said.
Soon he was working for two bosses, Shepherd and Colosi, both well known to authorities but neither of them bothered in a place where police involvement in the scams is widely alleged.
“Most of the time you look for American contacts because of the value of the dollar, and because the fraudsters here have contacts in America who wrap up the job over there,” Samuel said. “For example, the offshore people will go to pose as the Nigerian ambassador to the U.S., or as government officials. They will show some documents: This has presidential backing, this has government backing. And you will be convinced because they will tell you in such a way that you won’t be able to say no.”
After a scam letter surfaced this summer bearing the forged signature of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, police raided a market in the Oluwole neighborhood of Lagos, one of six main centers that provide documents used in the 419 scams. They seized thousands of foreign and Nigerian passports, 10,000 blank British Airways tickets, 10,000 U.S. money orders, customs documents, fake university certificates, 500 printing plates and 500 computers. A stolen U.S. passport fetches $2,500 on the black market here.
The scams often involve bogus Internet sites, such as lottery websites, or oil company, bank or government sites. The scammers sometimes use London phone prefixes to make victims think they are calling Britain.
Though the fraud is apparent to many, some people think they have stumbled on a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and scammers can string them along for months with mythical difficulties. Some victims eventually contribute huge sums of money to save the deal when it is suddenly “at risk.”
Stephen Kovacsics of American Citizen Services, an office of the U.S. Consulate, spoke to a victim who had lost $200,000.
Kovacsics says he is awakened several nights a week by Americans pleading for help with an emergency, such as a fiancee (whom they have only met in an online chat room) locked up in a Nigerian jail. He has to tell them that there is probably no fiancee, no emergency.
Kovacsics said victims can’t believe that a scammer would spend months of internet chat just to net $700 or $1,000, not realizing that is big money in Nigeria and fraudsters will have many scams running at the same time.
By 2003, Shepherd was fleecing 25 to 40 victims a month, Samuel said. Samuel never got the 20%, but still made a minimum of $900 a month, three times the average income here. At times, he made $6,000 to $7,000 a month.
Samuel said Shepherd employs seven Nigerians in America, including one in the San Francisco Bay Area, to spy on maghas and threaten any who get cold feet. If a big deal is going off track, he calls in all seven.
“They’re all graduates and very smart,” Samuel said. “Four of them are graduates in psychology here in Nigeria. If the white guy is getting suspicious, he’ll call them all in and say, ‘Can you finish this off for me?’
“They’ll try to scare you that you’re not going to get out of it. Or you’re going to be arrested and you will face trial in Nigeria. They’ll say: ‘We know you were at Wal-Mart yesterday. We know the D.A. He’s our friend.’ ”
“They’ll tell you that you are in too deep — you either complete it or you’ll be killed.”
Samuel said his mother, widowed when he was 16, was devastated when she saw him in the street with Shepherd and realized what he was up to.
“She tried to force me to stop, but the more force she applied, the more hardened I became. I said: ‘You can’t give me what I want. I want a good life.’ ”
But Samuel began having second thoughts when a friend was arrested after ripping off a boss for $17,000.
The friend was badly beaten before disappearing into the depths of the labyrinthine Nigerian justice system. Samuel thought of his mother and how she would be left alone if something happened to him.
When he gave up cyber crime at the end of last year, he said nothing to his mother. But she noticed.
“She said she was happy and she could sleep well,” he said. “Actually, I started crying. I couldn’t control myself. I realized there was more to life than chasing money.”
Now when he sees Shepherd in the streets, his former boss just grins.
“He says: ‘Don’t worry. You’ll come back to me.’ ”
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
The many forms of 419 scams
Advance-fee frauds, also known as 419, appear to offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich or find the girl of your dreams. The scams can involve phony websites, forged documents and Nigerians in America posing as government officials. Here are some of the most popular:
• The “next of kin” scam, tempting you to claim an inheritance of millions of dollars in a Nigerian bank belonging to a long-lost relative, then collecting money for various bank and transfer fees.
• The “laundering crooked money” scam, in which you are promised a large commission on a multibillion-dollar fortune, persuaded to open an account, contribute funds and sometimes even travel to Nigeria.
• The “Nigerian National Petroleum Co.” scam, in which the scammer offers cheap crude oil, then demands money for commissions and bribes.
• The “overpayment” scam, in which fraudsters send a bank check overpaying for a car or other goods by many thousands of dollars, persuading the victim to transfer the difference back to Nigeria.
• The “job offer you can’t refuse” scam, in which an “oil company” offers a job with an overly attractive salary and conditions (in one example, $180,000 a year and $300 per hour for overtime) and extracts money for visas, permits and other fees.
• The “winning ticket in a lottery you never entered” scam — including, lately, the State Department’s green card lottery.
• The “gorgeous person in trouble” scam, in which scammers in chat rooms and on Christian dating sites pose as beautiful American or Nigerian women, luring lonely men into Internet intimacy over weeks or months then asking them to send money to get them out of trouble.

Find it out in my upcoming article! I have gathered the main Detroit underground artists that matter most to me.

You gotta love the way his beats and instruments introduce you into a battling atmosphere. Technique De Elite manages to give you the feeling of a man who is running against time, because he wants to achieve his goals. Bass , drums and electric guitar sounds introduce you into a man’s daily stress while listening to Untitled.
Technique De Elite handles beat and instruments very well. You could barely ignore his good sounding instrumentals.
Head to the sky raises the many difficulties of an aspiring emcee who produces dope rhymes, but whose struggle to get a record deal is far from easy. This is the story of a 14 year old man from the ghetto who faces many obstacles. Yes, it is hard to be positive when you come from a harsh environment. Head to the sky is like a prayer addressed to God. Many aspiring emcees can relate to rough and broke days.
People always praise artists when they are at the top. However, they barely realize the huge investment, the years of hard work in the shadow along with the harsh ghetto experience a rap artist can get through before getting into the spotlight of an enthusiastic public.
Technique De Elite has some real good beats and lyrics to offer to his listeners. Curious to know more about his music?
Check him out here.

This picture is for you!