Negropedia took a deep breath before explaining himself to Jody Rosen. He liked solving mysteries, but hated being critical of people:

Well I dunno, Mr. Rosen, I guess the first thing is that you're so mean about Jay's age. Here you two are born the same year, and you've written a book about an old christmas song, and another one where you collected old novelty Jewish songs, it seems you'd have an appreciation for Jay's desire to get back to traditional basics. When you wrote about Run DMC being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame you said, "Hip-hop may have gotten more sophisticated in the decades since, but Raising Hell (1986) has never been improved on."

Well gosh, I don't want to argue with you about all the great albums in the past twenty-three years, a time frame that spans the entire career of artists like Public Enemy, Outkast, Eminem, Snoop, Kanye, The Roots and more, but if Jay is a curmudgeonly hip hop purist, wouldn't that make you — excuse me, Mr. R, I lack your vocabulary — but what's, like, bigger and even more curmudgeonly than a curmudgeon?

I don't want to belabor other blind spots or inconsistencies in your hip hop files: in your Kingdom Come review you say Jay has 11 solo albums, he had 8 at the time; you suggest 50 Cent is the"pioneer of the hip-hop beef as postmodern marketing strategy", which willfully ignores a lot of hip hop history (KRS-One, LL Cool J, Ice T, just a few curmudgeons to use "beef" to market); you psychoanalyze Biggie as a "thugged-out neurotic" in the mold of Woody Allen (please someone comment with mash-ups of Biggie lyrics in the style of Woody Allen schtick).

These things are odd, Mr. Rosen. But they're just nits, fodder for us to discuss while we sip lemonade on a Saturday afternoon and get to know each other. I don't have your years of wisdom, but it seems inconsistency is human. Blind spots, too. So all of this amounts to arrows and flags pointing to a problem best captured in your third paragraph.

Who exactly Jay-Z is taking on in this polemic is unclear. [—snip—] In lieu of picking a fight with human beings, Jay-Z disses technology itself, calling out not just pitch-correction software but iTunes and ringtones. (We await the release of the rapper's forthcoming Blueprint 3 album for Jay-Z's rants against the cotton gin and the steam engine.)

Well golly, Mr. Rosen, why in heavens would you take Jay-Z's lyrics so literally? His seond line says, " this [song] ain't for itunes." It's just illustrating a manifesto. You think this multi-millionaire artist who just purchased the rights to be independent with his next album is really anti-itunes?

When Lady GaGa does a song about "Paparazzi" we don't stop to ask if she's considered what would become of her career without paparazzi. We accept it as a piece of art, and deconstruct it as such.

I love Run DMC, Mr. Rosen, and I think it's easy to say nice things when they get honored. And I'm sure it feels good to find the positives in a rather pedestrian mainstream biopic of a hip hop legend, because not many of those exist. But you wouldn't treat other genres with such kiddie gloves; your take down of the Decemberists concept album is amazingly incisive. You pull apart the pretensions, and show where "the whimsy is suffocating".

Meanwhile you claim Jay is anti-technology because he does a song against digitized singing? I think a dumbed-down hip hop critique just makes hip hop seem dumb.

A song like DOA provides the opportunity for a thoughtful meditation on the import of auto-tuning as a "sign of the times". A technology that only two years ago you clunkily described in a T-Pain review as: "a talk box, or some synthesizer-simulated version thereof-a gizmo that transforms the human voice into a kind of robo-drone."

Now we all know about auto-tuning, the en vogue technique for digital voice correction. It's kind of like Photoshop for graphic artists! Or maybe the audio equivalent of editors at a magazine.

Which means, I guess, that you're not so bad Mr. Rosen. It's just your hip hop criticism is a little off and could probably use some auto-tuning.

Come back next weekend for The Case of Vanity Fair and Is Obama Gonna Have to Smack a 'Trix? (the solution will be much shorter!)

illustration via Brandon

Mr. Brown was the chief media mind on matters of race and culture. The CEO or Chief Ethnocultural Officer. Whenever a TV station or radio show or magazine needed counsel on issue relating to race/culture, they'd ask Mr. Brown. And Mr. Brown always had a good answer for them. His track record in the realm of race was without blemish since 2005.

But Mr. Brown had a secret weapon. And that was his son, TAN. No one would believe it, but it was really Negropedia that provided Mr. Brown all his insightful fodder! The streak since 2005 was no coincidence; it was also when young TAN started his blog.

Now TAN would typically help his father solve cases for free. But after a while he realized he enjoyed ethnocultural matters so much he should open up a detective agency to help others bridge culture gaps and generally get along. So he stole some money out of his father's wallet, rented out a bodega, and set up shop. He hung up a sign to advertise himself:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

One Saturday afternoon while Negropedia was sipping on some lemonade, Jay-Z came into the office. "Allow me to reintroduce myself..." he proclaimed over a thundering backbeat. Of course Negropedia was very familiar with the superstar rapper Hov, and needed no introduction.

Mr. Carter scanned the cozy confines and then a couple assistants followed him in and dumped buckets of money on TAN's desk, "I want to hire you. I got 99 problems, but maybe you can help solve this one."

Negropedia looked at Jay and said, "thanks, but like the sign says, I only need a quarter. And considering who you are, I would be honored to help you. What appears to be the problem? Is it something with Beyonce?"

"Nah, she's off showing off her booty and overachieving somewhere. This has nothing to do with her" Jay responded.

"OK" said Negropedia. "Well, what problem could the Black Warren Buffett possibly have?"

"Well I released my new single, Death of Auto-Tune. Did you peep it?"

"Oh yeah, in fact I was reading the rhymes earlier this week."

Jay nodded in approval, "Well, here's the problem: I want to be great. But in order to make history I have to get these older white people down with the program."

TAN looked at his diploma hanging on the wall, "I know what you mean, Jay."

"So I don't know, I mean if the young grasshoppers start chirping, I'm not worried about that. I understand where they're coming from. But this guy Jody Rosen, this blog he wrote about DOA — which B told me was featured on Slate's front page and all this — I don't know, it's just rubbing me the wrong way."

Negropedia mulled, "Hmm, well Jody's a great writer. And he's got to cover a lot of different music for Slate. What did he say?"

Hov started pacing, "well first he's like the beat is a "snooze". And honestly, diss my lyrics and flow all you want. But the drums by NO I.D. on that track are incredible. Even Jody himself called them "walloping". How can you be walloping and noodling and still be snoozing?"

"Valid point, I guess" Negropedia offered. He hoped that wasn't all.

"Then this guy is trying to call me a "curmudgeonly hip hop purist". And y'know, maybe I'm getting sensitive as I approach the big 4-0 (and I'm not talking about the club) but just seems like some toss-off shit to say..."

Negropedia rubbed the melanin on his skin. He always did that when deep in thought.

"It is a little odd that he would call you out for that, Jody wrote a book about the song "A White Christmas" and what could be more curmudgeonly purist than that?"

Jay raised his eyebrows, "That's what I'm saying, Negropedia. That's why I need you to investigate!"

"He also wrote this piece hating on Akon a couple years ago, so you'd think he might agree with the spirit of your song. Unless ..."

Negropedia continued to rub his melanin. Slate was one of the bigger media bullies on the block, no one wanted to pick a beef with them unless they had their facts straight. Finally he sprang to life, "Alright, let's go talk to Slate and Jody and get to the bottom of this."

Jay said, "Word, let's take the baby blue Maybach."

TAN mumbled, "ok."

After driving around the neighborhood they saw Jody sitting outside a coffee shop, he was listening to Jewish minstrelsy songs on an old transistor radio.

Negropedia went up to Jody and asked him about the review.

"What can I say, that's what I think." Jody responded calmly. "Artists and critics disagree all the time. It's the nature of the business. Sorry."

"Yes, but you're a music purist who hates autotune. Shouldn't you love this song? There seems to be a disconnect. Even one of the Slate commenters wondered if something was amiss."

"Yeah, well, obviously I'm not trying to be racist. Look at all the black music I've written about in my archives. Shoot, I might know hip hop better than you, Negropedia."

Negropedia pulled out his iphone and started surfing hither and thither. Jay walked around composing new songs in his head.

As Negropedia surfed he thought it was a sticky case. He wanted to help one of his rap heroes, but he didn't want his blog detective agency to be thought of as Race-Police. Hov was getting old. And Jody did have a track record with hip hop music.

All of a sudden Negropedia stopped dead in his tracks. He looked up confidently and asked, "You wrote this piece on 50 Cent?"

"Yessir", Jody responded.

"And this one on Eminem for The Nation?"

"Yeah, that's me. You're really going back now aren't you." Jody was starting to fidget a little.

Negropedia continued, "And you wrote this Slate review of Jay's Kingdom Come, right"?

"Yes, yes, yes. Annnnd?"

"And, well, I think Jigga-man has a point here. You may have been better off sitting this one out, Jody"

Jody was dismissive, "No way, I'm the editor."

Yeah, but looking at all of these it's clear your grip on hip hop is not as firm as you would like to think. Maybe you should have let one of the young grasshoppers handle this one.

WHAT DID NEGROPEDIA SEE IN THE ARTICLES?

(click/turn to page 91 for the answer to The Case of the Undead Autotune!)

Illustrations by Brandon

That's a seriously hot couple on the cover, no? Did they have Photoshop back then, or is that straight natural melanin?

AnyJet, WTAN is back in the building this weekend. For those just tuning in, I'm your host "The Assimilated Negro". And I'll be holding your hand as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death for the next few hours.

For entertainment purposes, we're going to get a little conversation flowing on the rising interest in taxing weed. I've got blogger and weed-olympian Jason Mulgrew, left-coast hip hop music columnist Jeff Weiss, and an Anonymous Hedgefund Guy (but not this one) to comment on getting green for green. Always a fun topic.

And then, with any luck, we're going to debut "Negropedia Brown, Blog Detective" as he attempts to solve a couple Media Mysteries. We have Jay-Z and "The Case of the Undead Auto-Tune". Here I will only use the words "Slate", "Jody Rosen" and "smackdown" to get the advance notice on the Google Alerts popping.

Then to celebrate the one year-ish anniversary of Vanity Fair's blog matrix, we have something along the lines of "The Case of Black People Using the Internet, Too". If you want a little more background on what that will be about, check out the Blog Matrix VF put out last summer and try to figure out if anything's missing. I mean really, what would Obama think about that?

But for now, what's hotter than a Swedish indie siren covering old school hip hop? Absolutely nothing. Totally fanning out on Lykke Li right now.

Lykke Li - Can I Kick It? (A Tribe Called Quest cover) from yelloyello on Vimeo.

Back soon ....

Ladyman on Rosen: "He truly acts like the rock-and-roll or the music critic. And if you don't talk to him right away and for as long as he wants to, he feels slighted."

From copying writer in question, Mark Williams, who claims he found all the material he plagiarized in press releases:

"Mr. Rosen: I suppose it is time that we made contact, since I seem to be your favorite new obsession. For such a heralded and busy journalist, it is obvious that you have an abundance of free time in your daily schedule. You have done an exemplary job of exposing the seedy underbelly of duplicitous small town weekly newspapers and the evil doers that run them. You have indeed brought us to our knees."

"I sincerely apologize for my crimes against you and any perceived damage done to your person or your career accomplishments. It was never my intention to cause you harm. The article in question was included in other press materials I had received via e-mail. I used parts of the article as background and did so thinking it was cleared for such use; but, as you have so subtly pointed out, I was mistaken."

"...It must have taken years of seasoned investigative know-how to push me off my lofty perch. It takes a dogged, intrepid journalist to expose the alleged wrongdoings of a 44-year-old college dropout who drifted from one lousy media job to another for 20 years; it takes courage to debase someone with a mouthful of cut-rate dentures who, up until 2007, lived in his parents' home for seven years due to near-fatal bouts of clinical depression; it takes a journalist of a certain caliber to torpedo a pathetic hack who has barely squeezed out a living for nearly a decade at seven cents a word."