By now, everyone knows that something went down at The Source to cause Editor-In-Chief Joshua “Fahiym” Ratcliffe to step down from his short lived post at the mag. The fiasco in question was the rating of Little Brother’s album The Minstrel Show of which Fahiym stepped down after being told to knock the rating down from 4 ½ mics to 4.
In the days following, Phonte of Little Brother interviewed with hiphopsite.com and spoke of the events…
He first spoke of XXL…
“I was told, by some of the writers when we had the listening session in New York, that our album was better than Common’s album. So I’m thinking that if Common’s album got a XXL, and cats is sayin that The Minstrel Show is better than that, then ours would be up there too.” He then continued, “Basically we was told by XXL that ‘Yo the album is dope but we don’t want to give two classic ratings in a row.’ So either they are feeling like they already gave it to Com so they can’t give it to us, or they are about to roll out the red carpet for Kanye.”
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And then of The Source…
“The Source man… basically Fahiym felt that the album was dope and deserved a 4 and ½ and the writer who wrote the review and alot of the staff felt the same way. But Benzino and Dave Mays just didn’t agree. From what Fahiym told me, it was mainly Benzino that acted crazy about it. So basically it was told to Fahiym that this is what we do, we sign your checks and if you don’t like it then get out. Fahiym was like ‘Aiight well then I’m out!’”
Phonte went on to speak on the music industry as a whole and gave a very insightful look on the state of hip-hop and the meaning behind The Minstrel Show…
“The title comes from the minstrel shows of the late 1800’s/early 1900’s where you had white performers in blackface singing and dancing- essentially making a mockery of black people… That’s a pretty crazy parallel to now- you have niggas in the game who want to rap but in order to do so they feel that they have to talk about guns, or they have to talk about drugs, pimpin or whatever. That essentially is the new blackface.”
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Look for The Minstrel Show September 13th
