I mostly just chuckled when I read the other day that one of the guys from the Smoking Section was concerned that the commercial failure of Slaughterhouse might discourage the TIs from releasing further albums by supergroups consisting of aging former major label tax write-offs. On my own site, I lamented the fact that we'll probably never get that group album by Pitbull, Lil Mama, Memphis Bleek, and Twista. No shots at Memphis Bleek. (God forbid.)

But then I got to thinking, I should probably clarify, in case the TIs really do decide to not invest any more money in quote-unquote real hip-hop. Let's get this straight: People who give a shit about Slaughterhouse are hardly an accurate representation of - for lack of a better term - the real hip-hop community, i.e. aging haters such as myself, who swear by Illmatic, Wu-Tang and what have you, and can't stand the garbage discussed on Cocaine Blunts and its ilk.

I'm not sure who these kids who jock Joe Budden are, but I'm thinking there must be some sort of generation gap. I'm more or less the same age as Budden himself, and these kids must be in their late teens and early 20s, and hence not old enough to know from good rap music. Back when the Wu was at the height of its powers, in the mid to late '90s, they were into the Teletubbies. I remember there was a controversy at the time that one of the Teletubbies was teh ghey, and it would cause an entirely generation of kids to become fruits. I'd say whoever came up with that theory is owed an apology. When I was a kid, we still had manly cartoons, like He-Man, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And look at how well I turned out.

But I digress.

Anyway, I was on Twitter just now, cracking on Aaliyah's corpse (my bad, Dame), and I got to thinking about the fall of 2000. Up until that point, I was a pretty hardened Wu-Tang stan. Then I heard the W, and I was like, Man, these guys suck now. Then I went on with my life. I was still a teenager, but I was beyond the point where I needed to make excuses for shitty rap music. I just don't have it in my personality to be a very big "fan" of anything other pr0nography. And that's different, since my appreciation of pr0nography is naturally refreshed on a 12 hour cycle, even in my old age, whereas rap music is more of a youth phenomenon. Otherwise, I might have ended up one of the guys who still walk around in tattered Wu-Wear gear well into their 30s, like my cousin who lives around my corner from me. And I'm thinking, if I was a few years, maybe I would have gotten really into Joe Budden. There might also be a regional element to this. eskay is really into Joe Budden, and he's got several years on me. Dallas Penn is even older.

However these people came to be convinced that Slaughterhouse is a good idea, the thing to keep in mind is that there aren't very many of them. Hip-hop heads on the Internets aren't obsessed with Slaughterhouse - just a few random idiots. The real reason Slaughterhouse the album only sold 18,000 copies is because Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, and Royce the 5'9 combined only have about 18,000 fans. The dead giveaway was the fact that Joe Budden put out an album of his own the same day, and it didn't even sell enough copies to crack the Billboard top 200, in an age when you can sell in the tens of thousands and have a number one album. I'm pretty sure even I could crack the top 200. Then again, I'm the 29th best blogger evar. Joe Budden didn't quite make the list of the top 50 rappers.

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