I searched around for some other debated online documents…
Check out this song, and the comments….
Some people think that rapper 2Pac is actually alive, and is rapping under the false name ‘Black Haze’
Some people don’t think so:
The Willie Lynch letter appeared only on specific black nationalist, hip hop activist and anarchist library sites, while more mainstream sites called it an urban legend. This is contrary to the 2Pac-Black Haze similarity, which is enough proof that 2Pac is Black Haze on most mainstream platforms (YouTube, Yahoo), while questioned on more ‘underground’ sites.
it seems that whoever is doing the questioning, a source’s sole existence on the WWW creates room to question its validity.
Does a document carry more weight if if it’s origin is verified to come from the ‘real world’ of print or hardcopy albums? It seems that people recognize the internet’s lack of control, feel its loosening of boundaries between author and audience, producer and consumer, see the snow-ball effects of digital spheres. So it looks like people don’t really trust sources that aren’t tied to a tangible source. So much of our identity is created by documents tied to our names. Willie Lynch can’t be found in any documents of that time period. There are no videos or information from rapper Black Haze.
So what does this mean about the so-called equalizing and democratizing effect of the web 2.0? All of this content is generated completely online. What if down the line, there are so much fraud, identity theft, and copyright infringement that a law is passed that makes anything published only online (mixtapes, blogs, ezines, wikis etc) cannot be credited to a certain author or publisher or record label. And I wanted to prove that I wrote all of my posts on this blog. but there is no hard copy of this classwork, there is no confirmation that i was the one who wrote this. when you turn a paper into the teacher, at least they see your face and take the paper from your hand (or your TA).
Kind of the opposite effect of Google’s big brother approach–it seems the internet knows too much about us, but we dont have as much control over our creative content. hmmmmm…. conspiracy theory??
Possibly Relevant Posts:
- conclusion: conspiracy theories, myths and power (0) | petra
- willie’s origin (1) | petra
- who was willie lynch? (2) | petra
6 Comments
Hmm…this is certainly an interesting topic. Having read your travelogues, i now liken the Web to a myth-making machine. I’m also reminded of Walter Ong’s theory of secondary orality ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_orality ). Humanity started out as an oral culture, where exchanged ideas were transient but immediate, and with the advent of writing technologies, shifted into a literary culture. Secondary orality refers to the half-oral and half-literary culture that we’ve become due to the aid of new media, among other modern communicative technologies. While things are written and read on the web, the content is transient and immediate as if it were orally delivered. Myths were created and passed down orally, so maybe it’s natural for myths to develop in the secondary oral culture of the web.
For me this sort of sounds like a conspiracy theory in some way as well. I agree to the myth part too though. I think that we will keep on questioning the “truth” of the Internet. But what is really true and what is made up today? I find it just really important to stay critical. So now I know about BLACK HAZE, whom I haven’t heard about before. This topic keeps my interest I will start searching for a connection between 2pac and Bhaze but this could all just be a waste of my time. At the end I am the one deciding if I want to trust different sources, or “waste” my time in this way
2pac is balck haze git if you dont got you daed
I im tupac i now am blac haze playa hatas
OK WE NEVER SEEN BLAC HAZE BUT ALSO RAPS JUST LIKE TUPAC IN EVERYWAY SAME FLOW SAME STYLE.AND PEOPLE THAT DONT BELIVE HIM TO BE TUPAC SAY THAT HE WANTS PEOPLE TO THINK THAT….BUT NO ONE HAS EVEN SEEN OR HEARD OF BLACK HAZE EVERSINCE HIS ALBUM.FOR ALL WE KNOW HE’S DEAD.HIS ALBUM CAME TWO YEARS AFTER PAC’S DEATH 1998′AND WE NEVER HEARD OF BLAC HAZE EVER AGAIN…
wats the name of the album doe