I have come not to praise The Source....but to bury it...in the bottom my wastebasket...underneath the rest of the garbage.  The recent Eminem and Benzino feud has encompassed The Source Magazine, which is co-owned by Benzino.  Benzino has charged Eminem with being a modern-day Elvis, a rap Hitler, as well as any other inflammatory rhetoric he can think up while he's being interviewed by various news publications and media on why he doesn't like Eminem and Eminem's cultural significance.

For its part, the editors of The Source, David Mays and Jonathan (not another) "Gotti" Bonnano have both expressed their deep concern for Eminem's growing cultural significance in hip-hop and how Eminem's success is influencing how the media is covering hip-hop and how it may come to change public perception of what hip-hop is and what it will become in the future. 

Wow.  First let's consider The Source.  This is a magazine whose commitment to social responsibility to the communities it purports to serve is dubious...at best.  Quick, name a political candidate that The Source has endorsed.  Quick, name a political position The Source has endorsed.  Quick, name any social causes you can identify championed by The Source.  Just one.  And don't cheat.  What was the last thought provoking article you read in The Source?  When was the last time you read an article in The Source that challenged your perception?  They will swear that they are reporting on what's going on in the streets.  They aren't reporting it, they're exploiting it.  They're creating it.  They have editorial discretion on what goes into that magazine and use very little of that discretion when it comes to advocating positive or responsible changes in our music or our communities.  The limited social issues they do cover are usually done from an unbelievably outdated socialist viewpoint that is not consistent with logic, our political reality, the music it covers, or the communities it purports to serve.  If hip-hop is supposed to be the voice of struggle for communities that have been discriminated against and subjugated, what part has The Source played in getting these messages of political and social urgency out?  None.  Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. 

What message has the Source been putting out consistently? Well, they've got their BEEF issue, where they talk about the "beefs" in hip-hop.  That's real deep.  They've got their annual "Sex" issue.  Girls in Bikinis...Nasty Talk...That's hard-hitting journalism guys.  And they've got their annual "Power!" issue, where they talk about who they think are important: friends, people who kiss their ass, people whose ass they have to kiss,  the artist with the biggest rims who's renting a house, the next artist to make 20 million and then declare bankruptcy...yeah, that kind of "Power".  There are high school newspapers with better journalism and much more integrity than The Source.  That is a fact.

The Source fretting over Eminem's cultural significance in rap is a joke.  Considering the quality and content of their magazine, it is the pinnacle of hypocrisy for the Source to say the attention Eminem is getting may lead to the cultural degredation of hip-hop. Is The Source claiming they are the guardians of hip-hop and rap culture?  Because if they are, it would explain a lot.  It would explain why the predominant themes you hear in rap music today are money, drugs, crime, misogyny, irresponsibility, immaturity, and materialism.  How you ask?  Because of the ads they choose to run, the nature of their articles, the writing quality of their articles, the people who they choose to put on the cover of their rag, the issues they cover, their lack of a coherent focus on anything of cultural or social relevance to the communities they serve...I could go on for days.  They support the worse impulses in hip-hop.  If anything, what is contained within the covers of that rag is a Source of refuse.      

What's even funnier is the editors, the guys coming out against Eminem...Mays and Bonnano AKA"Gotti" are both white.  Two white guys, claiming they're trying to preserve the cultural integrity of hip-hop, coming out against another white guy.  The irony is so thick it's unbelievable.  If they're protecting hip-hop from Eminem and mainstream media, who's protecting hip-hop from them?  Are you going to tell me that either of those clowns, who can't even publish a respectable rag, one of whom went to Harvard (Mays), can identify more with the issues facing the communities of hip-hop than an artist like Eminem who grew up in a predominately black community and who has firsthand experience with poverty, abuse, victimization, discrimination, and struggle? Mays and Bonnano don't represent me, they don't represent the streets, and they don't represent the everyday struggle most of the young Black and Latin fans who make up the core hip-hop audience face.  

What's even more comical is that Mays and Bonnano purport to have "discovered" Eminem in their "unsigned hype" column.  Are you kidding me?  These guys probably couldn't discover their own asses if their heads weren't shoved up them.  Now they discovered Eminem.  Next they will claim they created the Internet. 

^{David Mays....our Savior.}

And what about Benzino?  When has his music been anything other than violent, irresponsible, materialistic, misogynistic, and bad?  If it was Outkast coming out against Eminem or the media attention he receives, I'd listen...if it was Ice Cube (unbelievably, Cube was left out of many if not all of the Source's All-Time"Top" lists a few months ago) who, for most of his career,  produced brilliant groundbreaking music that has both entertained and provoked thought, I would listen....Erykah Badu, Common, The Roots, Wu-Tang, DMX, the Fugees, Nas...I would listen.  But Benzino?  Nah.  I'm not buying it.  Since when did he care about rap's history and its future?  Wasn't his big hit called Bootee?  Where does that one fit in the history of hip-hop? 

Look, I'm not saying that all hip-hop has to be socially responsible.  I'm not saying that every rapper should do a Stop the Violence song or any of that.  Not at all. But when a magazine like The Source, that has been so flagrantly irresponsible to those it serves, acts like it is protecting or guarding the integrity of hip-hop culture, people who know better must speak out.   And next time you hear Benzino talking about the negative effects of Eminem, or a couple of dudes, one a Harvard alum and one whom calls himself "Gotti" (whose real name, Bonnano, apparently wasn't Italian enough for him, so he had to take a name even more widely affiliated with the Mafia than Bonnano. Very mature. Genius.) say they discovered Eminem and are protecting hip-hop through a bloated magazine with excessive ads and no substance....consider the Source.