The answer, of course, is simple:

IT'S RACIST!!!

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For Vanity Fair, a publication that reps a cosmopolitan city like New York, at the heart of the world's melting pot, and now finds the Obamas moving more units than pretty models, to have such a narrow commercial perspective on their website is disappointing. You shouldn't need Bono to force you to open up your worldview a little. But also, luckily, this is all very fixable! Nothing some tweaks and a new matrix can't get right. In fact we might be able to get started here.

Negropedia rummaged around in his knapsack then emerged with this:

We have about 30 sites on here. We lose the continuum of news/opinion — since most sites seem to offer a mix of both as a matter of course — in order to add a cultural continuum. Feel free to add tips, suggestions etc.. Next weekend we'll have the full updated clickable Blog Mela-Matrix.

Send hate-mail, crickets, tar feathers and the rest to my home base. And with that, I'm off to lick my wounds and nurture my page-view sensitivity with a tall refreshing girly-drink. XOX -TAN

It was only hours after Negropedia had declared Slate's Jody Rosen to be in need of hip hop autotuning. And the crowd disappeared as quickly as they had arrived once the case files fell off the front page of the blog where he stashed his evidence, but the dank smell of defeat lingered.

Perhaps humbled by the angry mob, Negropedia was still undaunted. He knew he was the best — in fact, only! — Ethnocultural Blog Detective in town. More important: He knew the stately town of Mediaville needed someone to solve these mysteries of ethnocultural dissonance.

See, Negropedia felt strongly that people's perspective and choices were inevitably informed by their ethnic/cultural background. And often in Mediaville, despite no obvious ill intent, there were weird mysteries of slights, misinterpretations, and lack of sympathy resulting from what Negropedia's father called "culture gaps".

Negropedia found it odd how the folks in Mediaville loved to talk about how technology was changing the town, but never about how the face of the population was changing as well. It seemed to him that as long as America was a melting pot, someone would need to watch over mixing the ingredients to make sure things didn't get salty.

Still, these cases were tricky. And people weren't always receptive to being called out in this manner. So he'd have to be on top of his game. Even he thought the casework on the last mystery was sloppy.

As Negropedia rode to his office, he noticed a cavalcade of cars streaming alongside him. And as he turned the corner of the block where his Astoria bodega office was located he noticed a throng of men in suits looking very serious in front of his door. Negropedia didn't need to be a boy-blog genius to know what Secret Service looked like. And just as Negropedia was about to ask what was going on, the crowd of uniformed men parted and out stepped the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Negropedia immediately stood to attention and saluted his president, "Mr. President, sir, what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Barack looked at Negropedia warmly. He paused, nurturing the moment with his poise:

"Negropedia, as you know, my father was a black man from Kenya. My mother a white lady from Kansas. I've run on the beaches in Hawaii, and shoveled snow in Chicago. I regard diversity in experience as the primary currency for a rich perspective."

Negropedia could feel his eyes welling from emotion. Obama always made him cry.

"You know, that I know, there isn't only one way. One color. One truth." Obama continued, "And I sought you out, here, in Astoria Queens, where Greeks and Arabs both fry falafel in peace, knowing that, neither will succeed if they bicker over who originally came up with the falafel. But both will have made the world a better place if they just make the falafel as best they can."

Negropedia listened intently, but was getting hungry.

"I came to seek you out because there is a mystery that I do not understand."

Negropedia was excited for the opportunity to get started on a new case. But business is business, and times were tough, so he pointed to his sign:

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Obama smiled a broad grin, his ears radiating charm. "Oh, of course I'm going to pay you." He fished around in his pockets and then flipped a quarter in the air.

"At your service, Mr. President." Negropedia declared. "What's the problem?"

The President pulled out a magazine he had been holding behind his back. Vanity Fair.

"I'm a fan of Vanity Fair, Negropedia. I consider it one of the pillars of America. The editor looks like George Washington, and it's one of the flagships of our biggest media institutions. I know the book itself can skew towards a certain demographic, so I went to their website, because that's where magazines keep their freshest most up-to-date content. And I've been feeling a little behind what with Iran, and the economy, and walking the dog..."

Negropedia nodded.

"So on their home page they have a technology section. And they offer a "Blogopticon" with this description:

Navigating the blogosphere can be trying, what with everyone from Al Roker to your Wiccan cousin out in New Mexico vying for the attention of the world's billion-plus Web surfers. In an effort to make some sense of it all, Vanity Fair has charted the most influential or amusing blogs about politics, gossip, Hollywood, media, and miscellany, and located them on two basic continuums: tone and content.

And I think, awesome! Because I agree, the internet can be totally overwhelming. But as I'm looking — and it's a very handy and functional charticle-thing — but I keep looking back and feeling as if something is missing. Like there's another continuum that should be incorporated in a service like this."

Negropedia took Obama's blackberry and looked at the matrix. He started rubbing the melanin on his elbows, he always did that when thinking at maximum capacity.

Barack was now pacing, "It being Father's Day weekend and all, I can't help but wonder if there are any internet sites out there that would speak to/from his perspective (bless him). I am a man of two worlds, after all. Perhaps since entering office I've taken the "politically correct" thing to heart, but I wonder from looking at this Blog Matrix if the internet is really just a World White Web?

Negropedia gasped at the phrasing, then returned to looking at the web page with his brow furrowed. He then looked the President in his eyes earnestly,

"No, Mr. President. You're right to ask me about this. And there's two words that will quickly solve this mystery."

WHAT WERE THE TWO WORDS NEGROPEDIA USED TO SOLVE THE CASE OF THE WORLD WHITE WEB????
(click/turn to "Page 91" for the answer to the Case of Vanity Fair and the World White Web)

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:

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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 ....