The ongoing brinkmanship in President Obama and John Boehner’s discussions about an increase in the national debt ceiling has got us at Flavorpill feeling just as nervous as everyone else in the country. Surely two educated and intelligent men can sit down and have a civilized discussion to thrash out some sort of deal and prevent the world’s largest economy from going into default? Um, apparently not. So we got to thinking that, well, maybe they need a soundtrack so make their discussions more pleasurable — or, perhaps, just to focus their mind on not fucking this up. Either way, we’ve composed a mixtape of ten topical songs for the debt crisis. Your suggestions are, as ever, welcome.
It’s one of the enduring mysteries of the hip hop world -– who shot Tupac Shakur in the lobby of Quad Studios in New York in November 1994, thus catalyzing the ongoing East/West feud that’d eventually leave both Shakur and East Coast rival Biggie Smalls dead? Shakur was robbed and then shot five times, but somehow survived –- in the aftermath of the shooting, he accused Sean “Puffy” Combs (aka Puff Daddy, aka P Diddy, aka etc etc) and his protégé Smalls of ordering the attack, leading to a cycle of recrimination and revenge that led to both rappers’ deaths. Whether Tupac’s accusations were founded or not has never been clear, but now the mystery may be solved –- according to hip hop website allhiphop.com, a gentleman named Dexter Isaac has apparently confessed to the shooting, and claimed he carried it out on the orders of record executive James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond. Read on for the gory details.
Here at Flavorwire, we’re seriously going to kill someone if we hear “in this economy” used much more as a catch-all excuse for just about everything. Still, there’s no doubt that we do live in straitened economic times, and with the NME‘s Listomania blog recently posting a bunch of songs about money, we got to thinking about songs about a much more familiar experience these days – not actually having any money. There have been some great songs written about being dead broke over the years, and we’ve pulled together ten of our favorites after the jump.
Thanks to “Thriller,” Michael Jackson costumes have been a Halloween favorite for years. His untimely death, however, just moved the costume from parody to homage. This Halloween, you can expect a glut of glove-toting tributes — but that’s no reason to follow suit. Many other deceased musical icons deserve your hastily thrown-together attention. After the jump, our picks, from Biggie to Kurt, along with the essential-icon items that will make you sure to be recognized.
