It wasn't very long after rap blogs like OnSmash.com and Dajaz1.com (whatever that is) were shut down by the Department of Homeland Security, on Thanksgiving, that I saw where someone had pointed out where Kanye West himself had once linked, via Twitter, to a video on OnSmash. One of his own videos, natch.

It may have even been on Thanksgiving. I remember I blocked out the half of the day before I went over to my parents house, to eat and drink (at someone else's house) like it was going out of style, to make good use of this BangBros passweord that I've had for the past few months now, in case it should ever stop working. *shudders at the thought* I hadn't been as diligent about actually downloading shit as I should have been. At the very least, I wanted to make sure that I had all of the really good Ass Parade videos. Not to let you in on any more than you need to know about me. (But in case you were wondering, of course I already had all of the good BTRA videos. That's how I roll.) A lot of people might not be aware that the BangBros site also went down that day. I went to DL a video of an admittedly not conventionally attractive (at least by western standards) hispanic woman, and up popped some shit about how this site has been pwned by Such and Such HaX0rs Group, and how hacking is not a crime. (Oh, really?) I hurried up and got the fuck out of there, before something bad happened to my shitty $300 Wal-Mart laptop, which would still be difficult for me to replace. I clicked over to Twitter, and all anyone wanted to talk about was how OnSmash and several other sites had been shut down by the Department of Homeland Security. Which seemed ridonkulous to me, because I thought DHS was supposed to be concerned with checking beneath people's balls at the airport, especially on one of the busiest travel days of the year. I thought this may have also been the work of haX0rs. At any rate, it was fucked the fuck up - like another 9/11, for dudes whose lives revolve around pr0n and rap music. And I know I'm not the only one. There was an episode of MTV's True Life about a white guy out in California, my white cousin.

Fast forward a few weeks later, and I see OnSmash is in the New York Times, one of the few newspapers I've never been so much as mentioned in, as far as I know. Haters. But not for any reason you'd want to be mentioned in the New York Times, if you were a professional rap blogger. Like, if I'd been successful in my plan, as detailed the one time they let me write something for the superior print version of XXL, to trick one of these video hoes into letting me hit it; or if I'd been successful in my campaign, way the fuck back in like '04, to have Kanye West banned from the Grammys; or if Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher ever decide to make a movie about my life, of course starring Denzel Washington. The bit about how even Kanye himself once linked to OnSmash appears about three quarters of the way through, and then again at the very end, for good measure. OnSmash founder Hoffa himself brings it up. Come to think of it, he may have been the one who pointed it out in the first place. It would make sense, if he was. Kanye's been all over the place for the past several months now. He might not be the most popular artist in terms of people giving a shit about his music (after all that BS, Dark Twisted Fantasy hardly sold any better than 808s & Heartbreak), but he's the most popular artist by far in terms of being mentioned in the paper, on the Internets, on TV, so forth. And he must be one of the very few rappers who's so much as turning a profit for the major labels at this point. It'd be one thing if the Clipse were big supporters of OnSmash, which, as I recall, they are. Who gives a shit. But you'd think Kanye would be able to call someone from the Illuminati, of which he must be a member, since he's so adamant about the fact that he isn't (alway a telltale sign), and tell them to call off the dogs. He probably could, if he wanted to. And the thing is, we know he's aware of this issue, because his name is mentioned twice in a story about it in the New York Times, which I'm sure will set off the Google Alert he has for his own name.

It just goes to show you that some of these artists who we like to pretend benefit from us giving away their music for free on the Internets could be collaborating with the government to have us tossed in Gitmo. (And by us, I mean people whose blogs are primarily concerned with posting a lot of free music.) At the very least, they probably wouldn't be too concerned if that's what ended up happening.

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