Another year has passed with great memories, events that took place this year in the National Football League.

We had the domination of rookie wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. one-handed catch. Including another collapse by Peyton Manning and company.

A very exciting year in football had its closure last night with the defending Champions the Seattle Seahawks taking on the legendary Brady and company. Of course everyone is playing for that title of being called champions.

Last night what seem to be another upset with the Seahawks up by ten points in halftime was just another ending of another successful season for the Patriots.

However, it did not come easy for the New England football club. Tom Brady was even scared when he remembered the “helmet catch” made by David Tyree. He could have sworn it was going to happen again when Russel Wilson threw a bomb towards the sideline to Kearse and he made an incredible catch.

The Seahawks find themselves on the goal line with a little over a minute left. Hello, Seattle Seahawks did you forget that your running back was arguably the best running back in the league this season. That is like Dallas Cowboys forgetting they had Emmit Smith and on goal line just throwing it to Alvin Harper.

The unfortunate thing here is that this bozo play will go down in history. I can already see myself on the couch watching NFL rewind or NFL Films on the NFL Network. I can hear that ole guys voice saying the biggest controversial play calling in Super Bowl history.

One of my favorite parts of the game is seeing Richard Sherman signaling the number 24 calling out Revis. Hey, Sherman your team lost. How about calling your number out.

Overall it was a great game, very close and very competitive. Oh, I forgot to mention, halftime my girl Missy Elliot did her thing, Katy who??? Peace.

Google announced its Google Fiber service is coming to 18 new cities across four metro areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, andRaleigh-Durham. This is in addition to the existing Google Fiber areas of Kansas City, Provo, and Austin.

That’s not all. Google says it is still exploring the option of bringing Google Fiber to five additional metro areas: Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and San Jose. These potential cities will be getting news about whether they made the cut “later this year.”

While the announcement may be official today, Google has been working with city leaders over the past year to prepare. Here is how the company outlined its plans:

Our next step is to work with cities to create a detailed map of where we can put our thousands of miles of fiber, using existing infrastructure such as utility poles and underground conduit, and making sure to avoid things like gas and water lines. Then a team of surveyors and engineers will hit the streets to fill in missing details. Once we’re done designing the network (which we expect to wrap up in a few months), we’ll start construction.
Google has also been very busy with growing Fiber in its existing cities. In November, for example, it promised free Internet to Austin’s public housing residents, and kicked off its Google Fiber for Small Business option in select areas of Kansas City.

As it moves forward, Google’s pitch has naturally been transforming from “this is an experimental project” to “gigabit broadband is the future.” Today, the company referenced last week’s U.S. President Obama’s State of the Union speech calling for faster networks, research showing gigabit networks are contributing billions of dollars in economic growth, and U.S. communities in general demanding more speed for their homes and businesses.

Rumors of Google’s plan to expand its Google Fiber service to more cities have been ongoing since at least February 2014. In fact, they continued right up until yesterday, when The Wall Street Journal reported on the upcoming news.

Glassdoor’s list is ordered by a job score the firm gives each position. This score (based on a 5-point scale ranging from 1.0 as very low to 5.0 as very high) is determined by three key factors weighted equally: earning potential, career opportunities rating, and number of open job listings.

Without further ado, here is the list of the top 10 U.S. tech jobs:

Software Engineer
Database Administrator
Product Manager
Data Scientist
Solutions Architect
QA Engineer
Network Engineer
IT Project Manager
Mobile Developer
Sales Engineer
Only the first three tech jobs placed in the top 10 of the full list. Software engineer was #1 in tech, and it placed second overall. Database administrator was second in tech, but seventh overall, and product manager was third in tech, but eighth overall. Software engineer jobs were found to be in highest demand, while solutions architect positions had the highest average annual base salary among tech jobs.

Glassdoor’s report is based on what employees anonymously say about their employer. In this case, job titles that were considered had to have at least 75 salary reports and at least 75 career opportunity ratings shared by U.S.-based employees over the past year. Job openings per job title (normalized to account for similar titles for the same position) were counted by adding up the total number posted on Glassdoor over the past three months.

Here is the full list of 25 best jobs in the U.S.:

Physician Assistant: 4.8 job score, 45,484 job openings, $111,376 average base salary, 3.5 career opportunities rating
Software Engineer: 4.6 job score, 104,828 job openings, $98,074 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
Business Development Manager: 4.6 job score, 11,616 job openings, $94,907 average base salary, 3.5 career opportunities rating
Human Resources Manager: 4.6 job score, 8,073 job openings, $96,443 average base salary, 3.6 career opportunities rating
Finance Manager: 4.6 job score, 9,728 job openings, $122,865 average base salary, 3.4 career opportunities rating
Marketing Manager: 4.6 job score, 14,647 job openings, $100,130 average base salary, 3.4 career opportunities rating
Database Administrator: 4.5 job score, 9,790 job openings, $97,835 average base salary, 3.4 career opportunities rating
Product Manager: 4.5 job score, 10,294 job openings, $113,363 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
Data Scientist: 4.4 job score, 3,449 job openings, $104,476 average base salary, 3.8 career opportunities rating
Sales Manager: 4.4 job score, 26,193 job openings, $76,556 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
Solutions Architect: 4.4 job score, 3,982 job openings, $121,657 average base salary, 3.4 career opportunities rating
Mechanical Engineer: 4.4 job score, 16,065 job openings, $73,015 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
QA Engineer: 4.3 job score, 26,383 job openings, $77,499 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating
Business Analyst: 4.3 job score, 21,337 job openings, $74,638 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating
Electrical Engineer: 4.3 job score, 10,435 job openings, $76,803 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
Network Engineer: 4.3 job score, 14,092 job openings, $87,518 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating
Civil Engineer: 4.3 job score, 6,120 job openings, $73,383 average base salary, 3.5 career opportunities rating
Audit Manager: 4.3 job score, 4,585 job openings, $69,271 average base salary, 3.9 career opportunities rating
Physical Therapist: 4.3 job score, 27,579 job openings, $64,806 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating
IT Project Manager: 4.3 job score, 5,700 job openings, $103,710 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating
Client Services Manager: 4.2 job score, 2,377 job openings, $103,736 average base salary, 3.7 career opportunities rating
Supply Chain Manager: 4.2 job score, 3,754 job openings, $83,795 average base salary, 3.4 career opportunities rating
Mobile Developer: 4.2 job score, 4,651 job openings, $79,810 average base salary, 3.3 career opportunities rating
Nurse Practitioner: 4.2 job score, 15,341 job openings, $95,171 average base salary, 3.1 career opportunities rating
Sales Engineer: 4.2 job score, 6,007 job openings, $91,318 average base salary, 3.2 career opportunities rating

Apple’s Craig Federighi announce iOS 8, the next iteration of the company’s mobile operating system, at its WWDC in San Francisco. The new iOS brings new features that include an interactive notification system ​and enhancements to messaging.​

Learn more here

Remixes didn’t always exist in this form, and the term “remix” itself wasn’t as ubiquitous. Thanks to the research of the team at EveryInstrumental.com, they’ve broken down the many facets of the “remix” and how they have evolved with our “History of the Remix” infographic.

The prevalence of remixes has exploded over the past 30 years. There were only 79 officially released remixes in 1980. By 2010, that number jumped to more than 30,000 released remixes! Remixed releases went from being a sliver of available music in 1980 (0.1%) to an entire FIFTH of all music released in 2010 (20%).
The remix actually began as we know it today in Jamaica in the 1960s, where studio geniuses such as “Scratch” Perry and King Tubby stripped the instrumentals from tracks to create new versions of a record. As time went on, Americans in the 70s started to play around with original records during the Disco era to create dance versions of tracks. These two aforementioned sounds collided in New York to create hip-hop. The 80s saw a rise in remixes in pop, as well as the beginnings of “sampling” records, seen in electronic and hip-hop music. The 90s saw the rise of the remix as it is more commonly known: new instrumentals, new verses, sometimes both on a song to create something entirely different than the original record. The 2000s saw the rise of the freestyle, as well as chopped & screwed music. Near the end of the aughts and the beginning of the 2010s, we end up where we are today, with the resurgence in electronic dance music thriving off of remixes to get shows hyped up.

We utilized the twitter following of our sister site DJServicePack.com as well as currently published rankings to determine the GREATEST remix of all-time. Without a doubt, the majority of the love was for Craig Mack’s “Flava In Ya Ear” remix featuring Busta Rhymes, Diddy, LL Cool J, The Notorious B.I.G. & Rampage. The 90s and early 2000s are strong on the ranking, with ATCQ’s “Scenario” remix and Talib Kweli’s “Get By” grabbing the next two spots. Biggie’s “One More Chance” is at #4, followed by the most recent entries, The Game’s epic “One Blood” remix featuring most of the music industry, and Jermaine Dupri’s all-American “Welcome To Atlanta” remix. MOP’s “Ante Up” remix rounds out our list.

Brands couldn’t let such a cultural paradigm shift go to waste at this point, now could they? Large companies such as Starbucks, Ford, Sprite, and more worked “Remix” into various marketing and ad campaigns, with the “Sprite Remix” soda line being the most noteworthy.

Source

HatTip: Matt Tompkins

Not only has sleeves been added to this year’s special uniforms, but the Celtics will bring back the gold trim on their jerseys to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,

Guard Jerryd Bayless got the lucky assignment of modeling the jerseys.

Then again, the late move by the Indiana Pacers might wind up shifting the league’s balance of power after all.

Overall, though, picking out winners and losers when teams are dealing from such different positions—and with such disparate goals in mind—isn’t easy. A salary depot for one team looks like an acceptance of defeat, while it’s a crafty move for another.

For the most part, teams shuffled smaller assets in an effort to trim salary, bolster benches and add leadership for playoff runs.

The brightest actions may have been the ones that didn’t happen, though. After all, I think we can all concur it’s probably best for the New York Knicks to not take part of the trade front. They maintained the little bit of hope they have for the future by avoiding a panic trade.

So, I guess congratulations to the Knickerboxers?

The Knicks will get a “winner” tag for doing nothing.

Let’s see how the more active trade participants graded out.

Winner: The Reality in L.A.

To see Steve Blake leave the Lakers was unseen by many involved with the club. Fans and teammates will miss his rough, hard-nosed play. The entire organization will be sad to lose a genuinely good guy.

Even Blake himself completely is less than totally excited in the outcome of the deal, Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times mentioned: “Real mixed emotions. The hardest thing is for my family, really. I’ve got a wife and three little kids and now I’m going to have to spend four months probably away from them.”

But relocating Blake to the Warriors for Kent Bazemore and MarShon Brooks—a move announced by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports—had to happen. It was an uncomfortable, necessary acknowledgement of reality in L.A.

Blake is a important piece to any club, but he’s simply worth more to a team interested in winning games. The Lakers officially acknowledged their truancy from that category by saving a few bucks and adding a pair of young talents likely to get better.

It’s nice to act like things will always turn out fine in Los Angeles. In fact, that’s something of a pastime among many diehard fans. But taking a aggressive approach—even one that involves making painful moves —is probably a better way to go.

Winner: Brooklyn Nets and Sacramento Kings

In the exchange that sent Marcus Thornton to the Brooklyn Nets in swapping for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans was the rare deal that aided both clubs.

USA Today reported news of the trade on Feb. 19.

The Kings get a combination of bad players for the price of one, which sounds like a bad thing. But it’s a whole lot easier to move a pair of cheaper unwanted equity than one big one.

In fact, Rob McAllister of CBS Radio has a hunch Terry won’t be in Sacramento for long. He tweeted: “Reading into Coach Malone’s comments it is clear Jason Terry is never going to get on the floor or is getting bought out.”

Whether Terry winds up elsewhere immediately or not, the Kings did well in this deal. They got rid of an overweight, overpaid shooting guard who had pretty much lost the ability to shoot. Thornton had abandoned the concept of defense this year as well, although he’d only ever embraced it loosely in the first place.

For a rebuilding team, jettisoning a guy who had quit trying is a good thing.

Despite his warts, Thornton is a younger gunner than Terry, and one with a more recent track record of semi-effective play. At 26, he’s owed more than $8 million in each of the next two years, so he’s going to punish the Nets by running their luxury tax bill up to about $89 million.

But as we all know, Brooklyn just doesn’t care about money. So, in getting a slight upgrade over Terry, they’re winners in their own free-spending way, too.

Loser: Chris Grant

It’s not cool to kick a man while he’s down, although we could probably have a long discussion on whether or not getting fired from the Cleveland Cavaliers qualifies former general manager Chris Grant as being “down.”

Some might say he escaped a sinking ship, even if he was the one who drilled the holes in the hull.

At any rate, interim Cleveland GM David Griffin is working a little magic lately, which makes Grant look pretty bad by comparison. We probably can’t attribute the Cavs’ six-game winning streak entirely to Griffin, but his slick exchange of Earl Clark, Henry Sims and a couple of second-rounders for the expiring Spencer Hawes (as reported by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst) was exactly the kind of solid, necessary move Grant rarely made.

Hawes and his $6 million deal will come off the books after the season, but he’ll be a huge boost for Cleveland in the meantime. Anderson Varejao’s bad back is becoming a concern, and Hawes gives the Cavs a nice replacement if things go south for the big Brazilian.

More than that, he adds a floor-stretching dimension to the frontcourt that simply didn’t exist before. And in being liberated from the increasingly dreadful Philadelphia 76ers, it should go without saying Hawes is a huge winner in his own right.

(Oddly, the 76ers replaced Hawes with Byron Mullens, getting the Clippers big man for a second-round selection, per Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times. They clearly weren’t ready to have a void in their jump-shooting-center department.)

Apparently, making smart deals isn’t all that hard. Don’t tell Grant, though; it’ll just make him feel bad.

Winner: Andre Miller

Let’s get this straight: Andre Miller showed up Denver Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw with a sideline tirade, was paid to go home for a few weeks and now winds up on a playoff team in desperate need of a backup point guard.

I’m prepared to call him a big-time winner.

Miller is headed to the Washington Wizards in a three-team deal that’ll send Jan Vesely to the Nuggets along with Eric Maynor and a pair of second-round picks to the Sixers, per Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

The Wizards are duking it out for the No. 3 seed in the East with a handful of other competitors, and they’ve now addressed their most glaring weakness by adding Miller to back up John Wall. Maynor had been terrible in limited minutes, and Garrett Temple wasn’t much better.

The ageless Miller won’t suddenly put Washington on the level of the Miami Heat or Indiana Pacers, but he’ll be a significant upgrade. If he’s motivated, he might be enough to push the Wizards to the top of the Eastern Conference’s second tier.

At the same time, his contract isn’t fully guaranteed next year (only $2M guaranteed). So if things don’t work out, he could be the subject of a buyout that would—yet again—pay him to not play basketball. This guy’s got it all figured out.

Loser: Milwaukee Bucks

It’s never a good sign when acquisitions that were supposed to help a team get over the hump turn into salary dumps in the span of a few short months. That’s exactly what’s happened with the Milwaukee Bucks this year, and the deal sending Gary Neal and Luke Ridnour to the Charlotte Bobcats for Ramon Sessions and Jeff Adrien (as reported by CBS Sports’ Ken Berger) is proof of how badly things have gone for the Bucks in 2013-14.

Neal—signed in the offseason after a stellar run with the San Antonio Spurs—was supposed to offer shooting off the bench. And if he brought over a dash of winning pedigree from the NBA’s most successful organization, all the better.

But Neal has hit just 39 percent from the field in only 20.2 minutes per game this year. He’s best known for screaming at teammate Larry Sanders about failing to earn the big bucks Milwaukee paid the disappointing big man.

So, Neal is gone now, exchanged along with Ridnour for a couple of fungible goods and a few million bucks in cap relief. Sessions and Adrien will save Milwaukee about $2 million this year and another $3.25 million in 2014-15.

Ultimately, trading Neal is a minor move. But it’s one that signals just how quickly the Bucks’ plans have fallen apart.

Bad times.

Winner: Expectation

Despite five straight losses that have driven the Denver Nuggets 6.5 games out of the No. 8 spot in the West, they made a move to shore up their point guard position by snagging Aaron Brooks from the Houston Rockets in exchange for Jordan Hamilton, per Wojnarowski.

It was a somewhat desperate deal for the Nuggets. After all, teams now know enough to avoid dealing with deadline shark Daryl Morey unless it’s absolutely necessary. But it also indicates an optimism within the Denver organization.

The front office seems to believe this season isn’t a lost cause.

Hamilton is a younger, more athletic, more promising player than Brooks. He’s not somebody to let go on a whim. But Brooks addresses a position of desperate need; the Nuggets basically don’t have a point guard on the roster behind Ty Lawson. This is a move that indicates Denver believes it should be trying to win games, rather than lose them.

It’s a low-risk acquisition, to be sure. Brooks is on a league-minimum deal and will come off the books this summer. Hamilton will also hit unrestricted free agency after the season.

Denver’s hopes of playoff contention—if that’s what this move indicates—are probably a little misguided. There’s an awful lot of ground to make up in the West and little time in which to do it.

But let’s not bury the Nuggets for hoping. It’s kind of endearing.

Loser: Roger Mason Jr.

Getting traded is hard on an NBA player. It’s a life disruption, one that forces a professional and personal recalibration.

Getting traded for absolutely nothing is even harder.

The Miami Heat sent Roger Mason Jr. (and cash!) to the Sacramento Kings for a heavily protected second-round pick. Per Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein of ESPN, it’s unlikely that selection will ever be conveyed to the Heat.

Mason’s exit opens up a roster spot Miami hopes to fill with a veteran at some point in the coming weeks. The same roster availability worked out pretty well for the Heat last time around, as Chris Andersen came out of nowhere to become a rotation staple during Miami’s championship run.

The Heat are clearly hoping to add a similar high impact player this year.

Mason, though, is stuck with the distinction of being traded from a championship contending team to a rebuilding franchise for nothing.

Winner:Rationality

The New York Knicks were mixed up in what seemed like a dozen different trade rumors heading into the deadline, each one less plausible than the last. In the end, they did nothing.

In many ways, that’s a victory.

Nobody trusted the Knicks to make the right decision in the first place, and with such limited options, few assets and zero leverage, any potential deals would have been desperate ones. If they surrendered first-round picks for the likes of Andrea Bargnani when there was relatively little pressure to make a move, how big of a disaster would a deadline deal have been?

It’s hard to know whether the absence of activity by New York’s front office was a result of wisdom or a simple inability to offer anything trade partners would want. If it was the latter, we can’t really credit the Knicks for trying (and failing) to do something dumb.

But if there was a small kernel of caginess behind the Knicks holding onto their few remaining assets, I guess they deserve some praise.

Score one for sanity.

Winner: Continuation

Moments after the deadline passed, Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Spurs’ acquisition of Austin Daye from the Toronto Raptors. To get him, they surrendered Nando De Colo.

At the same time, Turner Sports’ David Aldridge informed us the Clippers had shipped Antawn Jamison to the Atlanta Hawks for the draft rights to household name Cenk Akyol (h/t to ESPN’s Arash Markazi on Akyol). It appears the Clips are freeing up a roster spot in the same way the Heat did by dealing Mason.

Both reports came in a little past the deadline, but we’re going to give Wojnarowski and Aldridge the buckets. They’d started the reporting motion before the whistle blew.

Ultimate Winner: Indiana Pacers

Nearly a half-hour after the deadline had officially passed, Wojnarowski reported the Indiana Pacers sent Danny Granger and his expiring deal to the Sixers for Evan Turner and LaVoy Allen.

Put simply, this is a massive win for Indy.

Turner isn’t a star by any stretch; his numbers are inflated by the 76ers’ fast pace and lack of capable scoring options. But he’s a heck of a lot more useful than Granger, who has averaged 8.3 points on 35.9 percent shooting in 29 games this year.

As a capable ball-handler who can score, get to the hoop and bolster the second unit, Turner has real value to the Pacers. Plus, Indiana can simply let him go this summer by not offering him a qualifying offer in free agency. The same is true for Allen.

And even if the Pacers want to keep Turner to replace Lance Stephenson (if the breakout guard gets a big offer as an unrestricted free agent), they can do that, too.

In short, the Pacers got markedly better for their upcoming playoff surge, took on no extra guaranteed money for the future and got themselves an insurance policy in case they can’t keep Stephenson. That’s a complete and thorough victory.

Loser: Blockbusters

Rajon Rondo stayed put in Boston. Harrison Barnes is still a Warrior. Pau Gasol remains a Los Angeles Laker.

Meanwhile, non-needle-movers like Miller, Blake and Hawes dominated the deadline news. Turner joining the Pacers was a solid, highly intelligent move by Indiana, but it was hardly a huge deal. After all, Granger, whom the Sixers got in return, is little more than an expiring cap figure.

The message is clear: Blockbusters are dead.

Well, at least at the deadline, anyway. This is the second consecutive year in which the league’s supposed hot-stove season never heated up. There was plenty of talk, more than a few unsubstantiated rumors and pipe dreams galore.

But in the end, nothing big ever materialized.

Maybe it’s the CBA’s elimination of long-term, huge-money deals. Perhaps teams now realize it’s just as good to keep expiring contracts as it is to trade them. Who knows?

General managers are getting smarter and perhaps more careful. That’s probably good for organizational stability, but it’s not any fun for deadline observers.

So long, panic trades. Farewell, mega salary dumps. You’ll be missed.

Ye and his G.O.O.D. Music signee Big Sean join forces on “Sanctified,” while Weezy appears on a cut called “Thug Cry.” As for The Weeknd’s collab, it sounds druggy with the title “In Vein.” Mastermind clocks in at 16 tracks, plus three bonus tracks including a reprise of “FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt,” Rozay’s collaboration with Hov from Magna Carta Holy Grail. In addition, Ross announced Diddy is the album’s co-executive producer.

Rick Ross’ Mastermind tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Rich Is Gangsta
3. Drug Dealers Dream
4. Shots Fired
5. Nobody
6. The Devil Is a Lie feat. Jay Z
7. Mafia Music III feat. Sizzla & Mavado
8. War Ready feat. Jeezy
9. What a Shame
10. Supreme
11. BLK & WHT
12. Dope Bitch Skit
13. In Vein feat. The Weeknd
14. Sanctified feat. Kanye West & Big Sean
15. Walkin On Air feat. Meek Mill
16. Thug Cry feat. Lil Wayne

Deluxe tracks:
17. Blessing In Disguise feat. Scarface & Z-Ro
18. Paradise Lost
19. FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt (Reprise)

While I have a hard time accepting Macklemore as the best rapper in the universe or Justin Timberlake for supposedly having last year’s best R&B song, there’s something about Lorde’s Grammy win that irks me even more.

It’s not that I have anything against Lorde. She’s unique, talented, and she’s still a kid after all. “Royals”, her chart-topping ode to those who will never live the life of pop music royalty, sounds like the musings of a typical, newly self-aware 17 year-old girl just coming into herself. When I first heard the song last summer, I was taken back by the idea of a pop singer taking shots at mainstream rap’s addiction to materialism, not because she was wrong in her criticism, but because the teenage pop vocalist didn’t strike me as the ideal spokesperson of the “anti-bling movement”.  Still, part of me found it slightly refreshing that a song with substance was climbing the charts.

As Royals rose in popularity, Lorde faced accusations of racism as some took issue with her lyrics that were believed to target African American artists.  She denied it, proclaimed her love of rap music, and said the song was merely a commentary on pop culture’s obsession with riches and fame.  Drama averted.  All was well again and the song continued to gain momentum.  I generally hop all over this type of story but for some reason, this one just didn’t pique my interest.  Being a Hip Hop head, heated discussions about excessive materialism in rap are old news and the pop tune wasn’t breaking any new grounds in my world.

Then the song shot to #1 on various urban radio stations across the nation, the same ones that promote the kind of music Royals trashes. Well alrighty then.  Welcome to Bizarro World! With Justin, Robin, and Macklemore holding top chart positions as well, Lorde was in good company.  Coincidentally, Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” poked fun at rappers’ obsession with the finer things in life a few months before Lorde did.  Do I detect a pattern here or am I just imagining things?

So the song’s playing all over the place.  The video has three quadrillion views on YouTube.  Young and old people are singing it.  Rappers like Rick Ross and Wale are hopping on official and unofficial remixes. It’s annoying as hell but Lorde deserves her 15 minutes of fame.  Then out of nowhere, the Go Go version drops.  WHAT THE? Well….good for you Lorde.  Keep rising to the top.

Man…this music business is something else.

With all this success, her Grammy win was inevitable.  But my problem isn’t with sweet little Lorde who’s just living out her dream.  My problem is with this manipulative industry that plays artists like pieces on a chessboard. It ignores the talents of some and promotes that of others to fulfill God-knows-what agenda. It took a 17 year-old girl from New Zealand to bring attention to a problem that’s been plaguing rap music for years while a 1000 rappers who have been trying to do the very same thing for the last two decades have been overlooked, silenced, and even mocked for being relics of a bygone Hip Hop era.  Even the mainstream rap industry who’s quick to ridicule conscious rappers for being too preachy welcomed Lorde and her “positive” message with open arms. The moral of the story is that the only way to make music with substance acceptable to the masses is to deliver it in a delicate little package over sparse kick drums and finger snaps. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Taylor Swift drops an anti-police brutality song.  Lorde knows we need it.

But then again, Darius Rucker won a Grammy for best Country Solo Performance so I guess we’re even.