More on Drama and Cannon

First up, they're out on $100,00 bond. Drama was on ATL radio but didn't mention much about it and mostly just talked about his upcoming album. Over at Mixunit.com, mixtapes are gone. Reports from Idolator indicate you can still buy Drama mixtapes on iTunes. All is not lost yet.

HoustonSoReal breaks it down in three different ways

• One from Davey D and one from Drama's sister
• Hearsay and what not direct from the RIAA

As mentioned in the hearsay article above

• This could be a setup by BCD distribution who lost a court case to Drama the day before.
  

New York Times Weighs In

• With Arrest of DJ Drama, the Law Takes Aim at Mixtapes

Lil Wayne Responds

• Weezy says "Play the Game Fair"
• Why is Weezy throwing dude under a bus? I really can't figure him out at all. Does he have any idea what hes talking about? Weezy, you wouldn't have charted a million without Drama.
  
• Meanwhile DukeDaGod from Dipset is actually talking sense:
• "Why are [the RIAA and FBI] getting involved?" Duke asked. "Leave us alone. Let us make our hip-hop. Nobody is dying, nobody is killing nobody. It's just music being made. Everybody is gonna feel it whether you're on the radio, not on the radio. Even if you're a consumer, you gonna feel it, 'cause it's gonna be hard to find certain tapes. Certain people are not going to carry the mixtapes anymore because they know what could happen. It's so many people that wanna hear our stuff. We get e-mails from all over the world. They don't care about the RIAA, they wanna hear some Dipset, they wanna hear some Drama. So it's messed up for the whole world."

Finally one last thing to leave you with from someone who works in the industry for a major

not to make things worse... but...

I sadly have too much insight into this situation due to my job....

I can guarantee you Drama had rights to every song on those tapes....

the majors have departmetns dedicated to "mixshow" ya know, the whole hot 97 funkmaster flex or cipha sounds playing what they're "feelin" on the radio. that whole thing is orchestrated. just like radio spins

basically, there are local people in every city (I'm sure you DJs know them) who tap the "heavy hitter" djs and have them on lock... a "promotional team" so to speak. so the mixshow department at the major label will PAY a "promotional team" 10K or more to get a song on the streets... in reality, that money is being funnelled directly to DJs for ideal placement on a mix tape and to get the single played extra at the club.

Drama is taking the fall for the INDUSTRY. since payolla is illegal, all the majors will deny any involvement and say they just paid the promotional team. Drama takes the hit.

and when you clear a track, you need publishing AND master clearance

the publisher -- whoever owns the samples, rights to the song etc. AND
the master -- the artist -- they have to say its ok for you to use their voice/likeness

when a major puts a song on the streets, they have cleared it already (it sucks i do this on a daily basis and its like pulling fucking teeth).

its all tied up together and this dude got his hustle on and put on SO many people, and do you think the majors are going to expose their ways and show that their "street cred" is just paid off? HA. theyre gonna let him fall.

the RIAA sucks and has this delusional ideal that they can "clean up" the industry. Taking down someone who is trying to get music out there is NOT the way to do it. Exposing the way things are TRULY done is. too bad there are so many multi million dollar majors with loobyists and shit making sure they dont get touched by the law.

i am yet again disgusted by the machine that pays me. and sadly every day learn more and more that my dream of "changing the industry" was incredibly naieve.

on a more refreshing note -- i met lil flip today and he actually went outside, climbed up a pole and put up his own posters. kinda funny watching his bling swing around in the freezing cold, but i thought y'all would appreciate that image.

More updates when I find out.