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*note, that subject line is the abridged version, for any who don't feel like reading the long one you can stop here and save time by scrolling and not replying 'too long' underneath*
I don't know if he was has ever been good, based on what I've seen/heard I highly doubt it, so I can't speak to a decline.
I can however, agree that he sucks and that he is an embarrassment on some level but I'm embarrassed by lots of white people every day so that's not particularly the reason it's aggravating for me.
The problem is in Roseberg's case, like Riley Cooper on the Eagles or Mario Chalmers during this year's playoffs, I'm actually forced to endure him to watch/hear something bigger and more interesting.
That's mostly based on Juan Epstein because the rest is not something that I'm forced to be confronted with most of the time.
I'm sure there's 50-100 known DJ's in a club setting I'd rather hear, the on-air morning stuff before Ebro took over paled (no pun intended) to the mostly great work done by Charlamagne the God further down the dial.
The Breakfast Club's interviews are usually good, particularly the ones with actual interesting people rather than some chick from one of those awful-looking VH1 shows.
But they're usually only a half hour or at most 45 minutes on youtube, plus not available as podcasts.
Juan Epstein is an actual podcast that as a hip-hop fan has to be listened to since it's one of basically two hip-hop podcasts that center around long-form interviews with artists on the internet.
Combat Jack dwarves it in terms of quality but there's enough time to listen to two hip-hop interviews in pod format every 10-14 days so the ones with decent guests are rarely missed.
But it's often underwhelming.
Basic steps when walking thru an artist's history are often forgotten.
They often run out of time before a big payoff event if they've gone for more than an hour.
Which doesn't make sense to me in a podcast format but they probably have Mister Cee or Flex wanting to use the room they're recording in for their own purposes.
Even within the timeframe they work in, that often could have been avoided if Rosenberg didn't make useless interjections.
Or if he/Cyph didn't waste time with this Odd Couple schtick which no one being interviewed ever really seems to care about nor do I as the listener.
Or if Rosenberg had any understanding of his own limitations.
Or the gaps in his knowledge as a 'hip-hop head' (which is typically anything that happened before the mid-90's or was made outside the Northeast).
And those gaps wouldn't even be a big deal, if he'd just listen to the people who were actually participating in said times/spaces rather than brazenly displaying his ignorance while still thinking he's the smartest guy in the room.
Peter Rosenberg doesn't really seem to grasp that his own 'hip-hop experience' of going to buy Aquemini at the Sam Goody in the Montgomery Mall with his friend Skip whose older brother had gotten his license that week, while Skip instead bought Hard Knock Life, isn't an important piece of information to share with Big Boi in the middle of his story about actually making the record.
Aquemini sold three million records in the United States alone and debuted at #2 in the country behind Hard Knock Life.
In other words, you and Skip ain't special.
Stupid.
Fall back, listen to whichever architect of audio you're blessed to have with you actually tell the audience his story.
Unless by some rare miracle you have something interesting to ask about in follow-up that is actually based on what the artist is actually discussing or falls under the realm of general human-interest rather than your own self-important rabbit of hole of pseudo-understanding.
Mind you, I don't actually remember much about Big Boi's Juan Epstein interview, nor did the scenario above actually happen.
I've just listened to enough Juan Epstein eps with misplayed interviews/moments with interesting subjects and spent time in Maryland so I can give you that fairly 'real' sounding approximation of his line of bullshit.
Sidenote: an example of a good interview with Big Boi would be his appearance on 'Bullseye' with onetime OKP regular Jesse Thorn (aka PolarBearsToenails): http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-big-boi-catherine-ohara-and-pop-culture-advice
^^^If you haven't heard it, give it a try when you got the time, I promise it's worth it.
Now Jesse isn't a DJ on New York's biggest rap station or sound/speak like he even listens to rap music but clearly he does.
However the reason he's good at doing interviews is that he does his research before speaking to his subjects, is respectful to each of them in particular by actually listening and does his best to solicit their best answers rather than act like he's got something to prove to the folks he's speaking to or that his own opinion is as relevant.
So Rosenberg has neither the charisma/wit to be independently interesting, which is why that show he and Cyph have about Hot 97 will fail despite the best-backed efforts and black-book of cameo calls they make before it does.
He's also not skilled enough in interview style to be a Terry Gross, Jesse Thorn, Marc Maron, Charlie Rose in the broader sense.
He's just another mediocre dude who got put into a spot, thinking his opinion means a lot because he's in that spot, who may or may not be aware that despite his own best efforts he's really just benefitting off hip-hop while essentially adding nothing much to it outside of being in the room.
He is good at getting checks for it, however since none of those checks feed me I'm inclined to not give a shit about that skill he holds even if it appears to be his only one.
It also doesn't help that him getting onto the scene in 2004 or trying to feel like he's been a part of something important at sometime during his Hot 97, which is why he's resorting to pretend like seeing Young Buck back onstage with G-Unit was some monumental moment on par with Run-DMC at Live-Aid, rather than 50 dotting his i's and crossing his t's for a high-profile set then trotting out his old tax-write-offs to bolster his own legacy rather than Eminem bringing out Obie Trice.
This dude tried to go by PMD and tries to trot out a backstory about it like it matters.
He made a diss record for Duke but did it as a Maryland fan trying to piggyback off North Carolina's actual rivalry.
He brags about discovering rap acts who already have been making money and booking shows nationally for years.
Throws a festival for his own birthday and gets artists who either want to be 'discovered' on his 'underground' show or want more Hot 97 coverage to show up to perform there.
If you mention a rap record you like, Peter 'PMD' Rosenberg wants you to know he has it on 45........He collects them, you know.
He's got the most rap 45's and was the first to start collecting them, if you mention Mark the 45 King he might begrudgingly give it to you but then backdoor in a reason why it doesn't really count.
PMD, Rosie, Pete Dawg will have the balls to correct Dante Ross that the movie 'Colors' came out in '85, not '88 as Dante said.
Even though either way he was watching cartoons when it did and Dante is calmly trying not to embarrass him by quietly telling Rosenberg 'I don't think so' but when he won't relent in his wrongness having to reveal that he was at the film's premiere.
All the while Rosenberg won't actually believe or concede being wrong until he gets done doing the Google search he should have done before he started to avoid this awkward asshole moment.
^^^That actually did happen.
He's the precocious teenager from out of town who stops by the barber shop one day, then begins to annoy the fuck out of people in there as time.
Then one day feeling himself and feeling comfortable hops into an argument the old-heads are having comparing two basketball players he never saw but read their playing cards and stats.
The kind of douchebag with balls big enough to believe that he and Chuck D are in the same universe in terms of contribution to hip-hop, enough to have a dialogue with him point-counterpointing him rather than just being quiet and learning or at least minimizing the damage done.
But maybe just being a dude who's getting a W-2 at 'the place where hip-hop lives' even in an era where terrestrial corporate local market radio couldn't have less relevance (yet are still underachieving even by that standard) gets some of these folks gassed.
Because I now count at least three of their biggest currently active personalities embarrassing themselves publicly in the past week.
And I'm not sure any of them even realize it, least of all Rosenherb.
A dude who has his own segment unironically titled 'The Realness'.
A forum where he gets to vent about what's wrong in hip-hop which holds all the gravitas of Jerry Springer delivering his oblivious finger-wagging on 'Final Thought' after they just got done watching the guests brawl onstage while the audience chanted his name.
The type of dude who would tell a black man who is now reflecting on his experience at the Million Man March how he doesn't think it was as important event as he was making it sound because he was growing up near DC at the time but none of his friends were talking about it.
Then mention he's got no beef with Farrakhan but point out he's not well liked by most of the Jewish families he knows, nor the man who owns Emmis Broadcasting which signs his checks.
Come to think of it, PMD just realized that Chuck D isn't either.
So despite Chuck being a legendary figure with four decades of time served in this space, so he can call him a troll who 'isn't president of hip-hop' but then when speaking on behalf of hip-hop from Rosenberg can say 'we'.
So short story long, allow 'me' as in myself, speak for the 'we' Peter purports to be representing.
Dear Mr. Rosenberg,
WE think that YOU are a complete fucking clown of the highest order.
You ain't doing that much but at the same time you are once again doing way too much.
Delivered With The Sincerest Set Of Rap Hand Gestures,
Bombywannacracka
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