HEAR THIS: Baby Wayne & Leroy Smart ‘Money Friend’

Special request to all hypocrite and parasite.

Sometimes the trials and tribulations of life are really blessings in disguise. For one thing they let you know the real people around you, and help you weed out the hypocrites and parasites. Case in point: I was a founding editor of a little magazine called VIBE. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Put in mad work there for 16 years. If you don’t know, ask somebody. Just don’t ask anybody at Mitch Schneider Organization, the PR firm repping this year’s Rock The Bells Tour. Funny enough, VIBE was an official media sponsor for Rock The Bells this year. We ran full-page ads and the whole nine. Then not quite three weeks ago, VIBE pop down. Folded, just like that. Came as quite a shock to me and my peoples. But the real people stayed down while the bandwagonists jumped off. Others, like our friends at MSO PR, just fell off.

At this very moment I was supposed to be at Jones Beach taking in RTB, which for the first time features a reggae headliner, namely Damian “Junior Gong” Marley, who’s top-billing with Nasir Jones this year. Me and Gong go back—I put him on national television when he walked away with the Boomshot Award at the 3rd Annual VIBE Awards. Did a cover story on Nas too, back when he first fell in love with Kelis. I was at the Queens House of Detention with Gong and Nas covering the “Road To Zion” video shoot. And this blog has supported their forthcoming album Distant Relatives from day one. But hey, why should I get a press pass to the show? I’m only an unemployed rap mag editor, right? Think again. This Boomshots.com thing is a movement, Mitches. If you don’t know now you know.

But as Don Smart sings on this 1993 Niney The Observer classic: “When you’re down, there is no one around.” And then Baby Wayne (RIP) steps up to burn out all backbiters: “Me know me friend, different from me enemy dem / Me know me friend, me friend dem from way back when / Me know me friend, who nah forsake me again.” Guess I’ll just have to wait to catch Gong and Nas at Reggae Sumfest this weekend. Ha! Run the track…

[audio:https://www.boomshots.com/tunes/MoneyFriend.mp3]

Leave a Reply