Pitchfork

There's nothing like an internet beef to boost the buzz around a new record, and either El-P knows this fact and is using it to his advantage or his war of words with his former label, Rawkus Records, coincidentally comes a week and a half before the release of I'll Sleep When You're Dead. We're not ruling out either possibility, especially since this beef was set into motion by Rawkus.

"But wait," you say, "I have a life. I don't spend all my time on hip-hop message boards. What beef?"

Let us explain.

Here is the chain of events that led to a blow up on El-P's MySpace blog, a Rawkus email missive dissing/apologizing to the Def Jux honcho (is that called a dissive?), a reconciliatory phone call between both parties, an apology from El-P (again on his MySpace blog), and El-P's postscript withdrawal of that apology (MySpace) after discovering the Rawkus "dissive" email seemingly after the phone call.

And yes, Diddy is somehow involved in all of this.

1) El-P and his live band are rehearsing in Brooklyn when they decide to ask Diddy, who has been around the space for a week for some unknown reason, if he will take a picture with them. He agrees, and they send the picture out to their friends and post it on MySpace.

2) The folks at Rawkus post the picture as an entry in their news blog, with minimal comment.

3) El-P takes this as a malicious gesture implying that he sold out when all he wanted to do was take a picture with Diddy, whom he anachronistically refers to as "Puffy" in a MySpace rant that digs up his painful past as an artist on the label.

4) Upon realizing that it offends El-P, Rawkus takes the blog entry down.

5) El-P notes this fact and adds that he meant no disrespect to any artists signed to Rawkus in an addition to his original MySpace blog entry.

6) Rawkus sends out an email that: explains the decision to take down the blog entry, calls El-P a "hater," and defends the label and its history.

7) El-P takes to the MySpace blog again to say he just got off the phone with Rawkus co-founder Jarret Myer and that he now has no beef with them, wishing the best to artists currently on the label's roster.

8) El-P adds a postscript to the new MySpace blog post, saying he has just read the Rawkus email (see point 6) and that he was silly to believe Myer when he said the label had no intention of pursuing a negative campaign. He calls them "motherfuckers."

What this situation amounts to-- other than a subliminal advertisement for MySpace-- is a misunderstanding, and El-P's last post could very well be the end of the beef, though his semi-retracted apology makes it hard to tell. But at least, in the picture that started it all, Diddy seems pretty happy.

We've reprinted both of El-P's posts and the Rawkus email below, unedited and in their entireties. Spelling and grammar freaks beware.

In other El-P news, he also announced a ton more U.S. and European tour dates. And since those are less tedious to wade through that the overlong email and blog posts, we've listed them first.

Dates:

03-16 Austin, TX - Emo's (Def Jux SXSW showcase) *#
03-19 Miami, FL - TBA
03-22 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *^
03-25 San Francisco, CA - The Mezzanine *^
03-26 Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour
03-29 Berlin, Germany - 103 Club
04-01 Hamburg, Germany - Grunspan
04-02 Cologne, Germany - MTC
04-03 Munich, Germany - Atomic Cafe
04-05 Geneva, Switzerland - Electron Festival
04-06 Paris, France - Palladium
04-07 Bourgoin-Jallieu, France - Abattoirs
04-08 Mulhouse, France - Noumatrouff
04-10 Nantes, France - Lieu Unique
04-11 Brussels, Belgium - Wieloobar at Botanique
04-12 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg (Old Hall)
04-15 Dublin, Ireland - Crawdaddy
04-17 Leeds, England - Leeds University
04-18 London, England - Dingwalls
04-19 Oslo, Norway - Fabrikken
04-20 Madrid, Spain - La Casa Encendida (Minifestival Electronica)
04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-01 Boston, MA - Middle East
05-02 Montreal, Quebec - Le National
05-03 Toronto, Ontario - TBA
05-04 Cleveland, OH - The Beachland Ballroom
05-05 Columbus, OH - Little Brother's
05-07 Cincinnati, OH - Top Cat's

* with Aesop Rock
# with Cage, Rob Sonic
^ with Mr. Dibbs

EL-P's original MySpace blog post, with postscript:

THE NEW RAWKUS RECORDS. SAME ASSHOLES THEY ALWAYS WERE.

so the other day me and my band took a picture with puffy. he had been in our rehearsal spot in brooklyn the entire week and we thought it would be something we would regret if we had missed the chance to get a flic with dude. this is for many reasons. there are the obvious points of irony (el-p and puffy in the same room together!?!?!?! but how? why?), as well as the fact that he is simply one of the most famous people in the world. so we went in to the hall and asked him if he would take a picture with us. he was on a conference call but told us as soon as he was done he would come in to our room and take a flic. yeah right, we thought. so 15 minutes pass and we had all but forgotten about it. we were in the middle of rehearsing TPC when the door swings open and puff walks in. i had a full band there so we just kept going with the song. diddy chilled in the corner dancing (i shit you not) and waving his hands in the air. when we finished he came over and we took a flic. he shook everyones hand, smiled, was gratious, asked for a cd then bounced. a true gentelman (at least to us). we couldnt wait to get home and put the picture up on our respective myspace pages. i have met a lot of people but there was something so hilarious and wonderful about this picture. maybe it was that we were all genuinely having a great time. the smiles you see are not sarcastic or smarmy, they are real smiles from a group of guys having a blast. and of course... el-p and puffy????? so up on myspace it went. out to all our friends it went. a proud and hilarious, unexpected moment of very differet musical worlds converging. one of the those rare funny/fun/cool moments that come out of no where and is completely unexpected but great.

in steps WWW.RAWKUS.COM.

these twisted, corrupted shit eaters who stole money from everyone they worked with, fired their staff a few days before christmas, signed amazing artists and never put their records out, blocked artists they had under contract from signing to other labels even after they had driven their label in to the ground and werent even functioning, sycophanttically attempted to attach themselves to anyone in the mainstream they possibly could, etc. etc. etc...

well here they are again. the "new" rawkus. launching again for any sad sap of an artist who wants to wake up one day and realize they are getting screwed, for any staff member who wants an honest pay only to eventually realize they are disposable. the "new" rawkus. the ones who are literally dispersing questionairs in europe to fans asking what type of music they should be releasing. the "new" rawkus. so these motherfuckers take the picture that was taken with my camera and post it up on their site with a news piece entitled something to the effect of: "company flows el-p and puffy?" that's it. as though the picture is some sort of statement about me. as though the picture is proof of me "selling out". then they have one of their staff members go around to various message boards like OKAYPLAYER and the post about it in any and every post about my new album. oh yeah? you like the el-p record? check out this picture of him and puffy! oh word? you think el is a dope producer? check out this picture of him and puffy!

the "new" rawkus, eh? great start, fellas. jump start your new era with a half assed smear campaign against the guy that literally delivered you the first album that jumpstarted your entire label. a guy you stole dough from, dissrepected, etc.

this is the kind of spirit that coarses through the clotted, stinking lifeblood of that label, and this is why i believe in my heart of hearts that the label is as corrupted and doomed as it ever was. there is no picture of me that exists that can wipe away the guilt of the way these guys operated and clearly continue to operate. there is no moment or image that can take away the fact that while you were whoring yourselves and destroying everyone that worked with you and believed in you i was doing what i thought was right, and still do.

how insulting. how pathetic. how mean spirited and how completely useless and missguided. get off my dick.

i would sooner spend an eternity hanging with puffy than involve myself with the douche bags behind rawkus, be it the old one or the "new" one. as far as im concerned you can keep that picture up there forever. please do. that one moment was more entertaining and fun and genuine than the enitre sum of our business relationship.

ps: they took it down.

pps: now just so im not misconstrued here, im not shitting on rawkus artists. i just feel for anyone who thinks at the end of the day they are gonna get fair and just treatment from these dudes. i may be wrong, though. i hope i am. every artist on a label deserves to be treated right. sometimes shit doesnt work out that way, sometimes it does. i had a bitter experience, yes. but i had no intention of bringing it up publically cause i've moved on and im happy as hell. but seeing them put the flic up of me struck a nerve. it makes me think that in fact nothing has changed. but hey, what do i know. its hard running a label. i know for a fact that even if you do everything within your power to make it work, sometimes you can (as a label owner) get assigned blame for things that are out of your control. but god damn theres a classy way to do things and theres a shitty way.

The Rawkus email:

We thought the photo of you and Puff was cool. We posted it without comment. We immediately removed it upon request. But you had to go there... Straight attack our credibility and intentions with that slanderous rant. Keep in mind WE HAVEN'T SAID A WORD to you since 1998. Why are you salty? Be happy, you are successful and rich. Regardless of our obvious distaste for one another, we've admired Def Jux's success and sincerely respect your roster of artists. But you had to go there......

El-P, your recent post has drawn attention to our intentions as promoters and marketers in the Hip Hop community. Haters, like you, seem to suffer from historical amnesia. We thought it was time we directly addressed the Hiphop community and post some facts.

Our mission at Rawkus.com is to create a vibrant supportive community for hip hop, including all factions and styles. The post showing El-P and Puffy was in no way meant to discredit El-P as an artist or producer. Puffy is a mogul and his appearance with an underground artist like El-P was news worthy and interesting. However, we have a strict policy against creating bullshit beefs and reserve the right to delete comments and posts that overtly create hate instead of fostering creative debate. This post was removed once it was brought to our attention that El-P was offended by it.

For the past ten years our mission has been to help artists promote and make money---a mission we were very successful at. We have contributed HEAVY financial resources into promoting Black Star, Mos Def, Kweli, Pharoahe Monche, Big L and many other underground artists in our history of Soundbombing, Lyricist Lounge, and 100s of 12" releases.

Our history is full of success and breakthroughs. Mos Def and Kweli have sold almost 1.5 million albums each and are both powerful stars now. While we worked together, Pharoahe Monche had two huge hits ("Simon Says" and "Oh No") and sold almost 300,000 albums. We supported Common during his label transition by successfully promoting "Respiration" and "1999." Big L went GOLD! The Soundbombing and Lyricist Lounge compilations sold over 1 million copies. Remember "Body Rock", "Definition", "Ms. Fat Booty", "Umi Says", "Simon Says", "The Light", "Respiration", "My Life", "The Blast", "Get By", "Oh No", "Flamboyant", "Fortified Live", "Universal Magnetic" and "End to End Burners"?

Of course we could not hit home runs every time, and some VERY talented artists experienced frustration as Rawkus hit temporary obstacles in dealing with MCA/Universal in 2003-2004. Everybody knows how treacherous the music industry is. If you stay in it long enough, you will have your fair share of doors slammed in your face- we have! You stay in the game because your will to succeed, far out weighs your fear of defeat. We are proud of RAWKUS.COM's growing community of driven artists and individuals. While the game has changed, our mission at RAWKUS is still on point; market and promote NEW under-appreciated artists and respect the older generation of hip hop. We firmly believe the community should decide the value of music, not critics or haters.

Jarret Myer & Brian Brater
RAWKUS
Co-Founders

El-P's follow-up MySpace blog post, with postscript:

BEEF IS WORTHLESS

i just got off the phone with the owner and co founder of rawkus records. he assured me that they meant no dissrespect and that he had the news posting taken down from his site the second he learned about it. i appreciated the call.

so fuck it. i have no beef. im just trying to do my thing as i assume they are. fact is, just cause i had a less than positive experience with them doesnt mean everyone else will. i cant and wont apologize for how i see the way shit went down, but thats between me and them and i have no time or intention of bringing that old shit any further in to the public eye.

so good luck, rawkus. may the future bring you joy and success. this culture and this business is hard enough without motherfuckers beefing. do you.

easy,

el-p

edit:

i just saw the rawkus press release on "el-ps attack". ok. after i just got off the phone with jarret meyer and was assured they had no intention of continuing a negative campaign. motherfuckers. ok. silly me. silly fucking me for once again going with my word as told to jarret and doing my part to smooth out anything negative. awesome. at every single turn you people shit on the face of honor. haters like me. poor you. yeah, i "had to go there".

im a "hater". i have "historical amnesia". oh wait.. im "rich". ok fellas. i guess it looked to0 good on paper for you to resist. i tell you what. im gonna go to my rehearsal now. you guys are great. and important. good luck with being so great.