Download Raven EP

Highly Highly recommend you check this out!:

Download the Raven EP for the best in underground hip hop.
Raven - MC, lead writer on all tracks


You know that feeling you have when listening to Atmosphere get on a roll with tight lines packed in an intricate rhyme scheme? Or how you feel when Aesop Rock is hitting his stride in a song to just blow you away with image after image, each multi-syllabic rhyme pemutation interlocking perfectly with it's successors? You know how you feel when Qwel is rapping in unfathomably intricate, perfectly designed rhyme schemes and he finds his sublime & aesthetic vocal tones?

Now imagine the euphoria you get from all your favorite rappers doing their dopest songs; how awesome would it be to hear the MC who sounds and writes as ill as that all the time.

Get ready to turn your speakers and your headphones up as Audiocrats Productions now presents: RAVEN ODIN.

MP3s and Whole EP Available Now at:



http://www.soundclick.com/Store/byArtist.cfm?bandID=991385

See also the 1st link on the right side of this blog!

Also might check out these (same artist)
http://www.myspace.com/ravenodin
www.soundclick.com/ravenodin

Thanks all and have a GREAT Holiday!

2009 updated top MC list

I always saw this as a blog where hip hop, politics & economics could all be discussed, even if overlaps were few and far between. So in the spirit of integrating the overlooked interest, here is the updated list of my favorite MCs
for 2009.

Top MC's:

1 Qwel
http://galapagos4.com/release_view.php?release_id=85

2 Sage Francis
3 Aesop Rock
4 Eligh
5 Slug (Atmosphere/Rhymesayers)
6 Abstract Rude (Haiku d'etat/Project Blowed)
7 Mikah Nyne (Haiku d'etat/Project Blowed)
8. Josh Martinez (Camobear)
9. Sleep (Oldominion)
10. Grouch (llcrew.com)
11. Lyrics Born (Latyrx)
12. Busdriver (Project Blowed)
13. Lateef (Latyrx)
14. Mos Def
15. Coley Cole (Lost and Found Generation)
16. Ex-I (Thunderhut Project)
17. Aceyalone (Haiku d'etat/Project Blowed)
18. Gift of Gab (Blackalicious)
19. Common
20. Breez Evahflowin
21 MF Doom
22 2Mex (Project Blowed)
23 Immortal Technique
24 Nas
25. Tupac
26. Redman
27. Eminem
28. Chino XL
29. Promoe (Looptroop)
30. RZA (Wu-Tang)

I'm sure there are some omissions and the order may be a bit rough, but it's enough to get you started (obviously you can google any of these names) if you're looking for an answer to the conundrum of monotonous graphic commercial mainstream rap and are willing to experience the artistry of underground hip hop. That Qwel link allows you to hear the first 2 minutes of every song on each of his 13 full-length albums.

Banks, Insurers, and PMCs receive hundreds of billions in subsidies to cover their lack of efficiency relative to the government doing the same task

Think About This:

1. Banks receive subsidies to the tune of about 80 Billion dollars per year to make student loans.

2. Private Health Insurers receive 50 Billion in Medicare/Medicaid subsidies as extra money beyond how much it would cost the government to provide the same coverage.

3. Private Military Contractors (PMCs, or mercenaries) are paid much more per person than a soldier to do the same job. They each usually make more money even than David Petraeus when he was running the entire war.

What do these cases have in common? In each case, in the pursuit to transfer as much of what might be a public good as possible over to the private sector, in the rush to idolize the market and kill off the government, 50-100 Billion dollars per year has to be paid to private companies to do the same thing the government could do itself without paying all or most of that money. So what does it say that Banks, Insurers, and Military Contractors all require such massive infusions of billions of taxpayer dollars on a constant IV drip, all in order to do the same thing that the government could do (lend to students, pay doctors, fight a war) for much less? It says that A) there is such a thing as market power and B) there is such a thing as economies of scale and C) Government doesn't pay bloated executive salaries. Therefore, among many other reasons, government is more efficient than the private sector in the delivery of these public goods, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars wasted per year, in checks written to banks, insurers, PMCs, private prison companies like the GEO group, charter schools, and on and on in a failed pursuit of ideological purity, despite this being the perpetration of an ongoing fiscal disaster.

Health Care Key Points

Please see my key points on Health Care, concise and with references, at:

http://salsa.missioncollege.org/files/moglen/HealthCareKeys1.doc