A Letter To… (Rhymefest)

Rhymestyle says he’s cool, so I figured maybe he’d read this, maybe not…either way, I feel like I’m not the only person that feels like this, so I decided to post my letter here. If he responds, I’ll post it here too.

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Dear Rhymefest,

I have a confession to make… I’m a little worried about you. A couple of things have happened recently that makes me wonder if you’re still the same artist that you were at the time you wrote “Jesus Walks” for Kanye West. So when I found your twitter profile, I honestly was excited because I thought you were one of the REAL rappers in hip-hop. Smart beyond your years, and mature about situations from the little that I did hear about you since the first album came out.

So without hesitation I followed you. My sister didn’t understand the excitement. She says you sucked. I just waved her off, because who needs a hater, right? Anyway, I’m on the internet a lot because I’m a writer, so a lot of times I cross over to hip hop websites and I listen to music and read articles and whatnot, because I enjoy every aspect of hip-hop. I’ve learned a lot about it in the process as well, so it’s been a good thing for me. You probably don’t care to hear all of this, but one of the best songs I’ve listened to personally is the song “More.” It hit me in my heart. I still connect to it today because the couple of songs that was hot on your album had timeless meaning. I wish more artists would do that nowadays.

But you don’t care about that…

Anyway, I listen to a lot of artists out, so you can kind of imagine my surprise when I go to AllHipHop.com and I see this “Chuck E. Cheese” supersonic diss. And I listened…and LAUGHED MY BUTT OFF. It was too funny, and although I didn’t know the whole situation behind it, it kind of got me excited to see how Charles would respond.

But he didn’t.

And that was weird to me because a month or two earlier, he ripped Soulja Boy a new one with his “Can’t Believe It” sing-a-long… which is classic. You should check that. Hot. Anyway, I was curious as to why he didn’t respond… but before he could do anything, another video surfaced, telling the situation about the comment that led to the call about taking it to the streets and how you maturely said “I’ll break every bone in your body” and how he hesitated on the phone and all of that.

And I was disappointed. Because even if it was a shock value statement or if it was a legitimate threat, it still was immature to even take it that far. So I was a little shocked…I don’t know, maybe he was too. Maybe that’s why he supposedly “hesitated”. So I figured, “Ok, well, he aired it out. C.H. didn’t respond. Let’s move on…”

Then he sends twits that say stuff like, “Name the hottest three r&b groups out” and posts C.H. as one of the answers. Wow…that was kind of mature… but whatever. And then I get more twits similar to this, and I’m like “Wow… not exactly what I was expecting.”

And then I begin to notice that as Charles gets on Twitter, Fest disappears…and then comes back after he’s off again. Then I notice that Rhymefest follows C.H. on there, although he supposedly doesn’t like his ego. So it seems to me he’s anxiously waiting for homie to respond. Which is cool.

Only homie isn’t responding. It’s obvious that he’s not responding for a reason now. Mr. “I drop 5 mixtapes in three days” isn’t responding to an obvious prod for a diss? Weird…but I respect that. And I didn’t see anything for a minute, so I figured you did too.

And then I see the video about the punchaniggaintheface-itis…

And this is where I unfollowed you, because by now, I’m completely disgusted as a hip-hop fan and as the only person I know that actually bought your first album….no diss… I’m just saying that when everyone else around me was buying Cassidy and Kanye, I spent my last 20 bucks I had at the time in Karma music shop on 86th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana because I wanted to support real hip-hop. The reason I’m disgusted is because you keep claiming this is for hip-hop and that you’re trying to reach and teach people through your words.

I’m a writer, and I can tell when something is off about another writer’s comments. If you’re honestly trying to teach people, then you wouldn’t try to provoke and diss people that aren’t currently responding to you. This basically – to me – puts you in the category with Rick Ross, because right now it seems to me that you’re doing this in order to get promotion for your new projects. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it seems like to me.

It just trips me out that someone so mature could stoop to the level of using hip-hop as an excuse to “TRY” and bully someone else. Because you’re not exactly a bully. Bullies pick on people that are smaller and more fragile than them, and the way you’re acting makes you seem more like a …

I don’t even know. But I do know that mature people find smart ways out of situations. If the video was your idea or not, there was always the choice to NOT do it. If it’s about hip-hop, then you didn’t have to piggyback off of someone else’s experience and try to cash in on it for promotion or whatever. Because that video wasn’t for the love of hip-hop. Encouraging other people to (jokingly or not) break a dude’s face because he didn’t get an interview…yeah…that’s suspect…

But I digress. There is more than one way out of virtually every situation, and only smart people realize that, so I know you know this as well. But it seems like in some cases, you’re not even TRYING to look for an alternate option. It’s like you’re WAITING for him to respond for all of the wrong reasons. It would be different if this was about hip-hop, but it’s not to me…

One of my friends is this dude Rhymestyle. You’ve talked to him a few times, and we even share the same passion of BEATING HIS AZZ in Street Fighter, haha… I told him I was doing this and he told me not to because he had clarity on the situation. One of the things he said was that hip-hop replaced gang violence in the 70s…which is true. But if you used that at an excuse, that directly clashes with what YOU said that YOU said to C.H. on the phone about “Breaking every bone in his body.”

So now it’s double-talking…

And yeah, C.H. did say y’all could take it to the streets, but that’s not necessarily a fight threat. But that’s how you took it, and for you to say you would do that makes me honestly wonder about YOU…not him.

So I’m hoping that you respond to me. I figure that since you respond to people that try to ignore you, you’d respond to an honest fan. I’m a fan of both of your music. I’m not defending him. I’m not defending you. It just sucks that you would waste so much energy on something and claim it’s in the best interest of hip-hop…

When it seems to me it’s not. Especially when he sends out open invites to cipher online…

C.H. – “matter fact, @RHYMEFEST @phontigallo @realtalibkweli let’s have a Twitter cypher… nothing wrong wit that… right?” 6:53 PM Mar 12th

That seems like an olive branch to me…sign of peace. Maybe I’m tripping. But then, maybe you’re tripping.
I hope you respond… But yo… you might not, because I’m not C.H. I’m not as famous as him. I don’t have music for days like him. I might not even pose a threat to you like him…but I’m the only person I know in the state of Alabama that messes with you musically. I literally told one of my friends you wrote “Jesus Walks” and his response was, “Damn, I’m glad Rhymefest gave that away, because I wouldn’t of like it if he did it.”

But anyway… The power of words are immeasurable. There’s no limit to what words can do, especially if you’re in a position where people listen to you. And whether or not people pay attention toyour music, people have been paying attention to your words thanks to hiphopgame.com and your journal over there…me included.

I can’t call you on calling him out on his ego, because by me calling you out on what SEEMS like immaturity and promotional purposes, I’d be doing the very exact thing I’m accusing you of, and that’s not the point. So I’m not going to do that. It would defeat the whole purpose of me writing this…

So hit me back. Give me a reason to think that you’re not an attention whore right now.. to quote “Newborn Rodeo”. Not my exact words…but I can’t defend that statement like I can defend that you have the ability to make good music.

So help me out…

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There were a few errors, but this is the exact letter i sent to him, and I wanted to hit him up before he got offline… hopefully i get a response. Hopefully it’s a long one. Either way…that’s just how I feel right now.

I’ll keep y’all posted…

King Eljay