A recent petition on www.raskass-central.com in coalition with www.allhiphop.com has given you a voice to help Hip Hop's most under-rated lyricist out of his contract with Priority Records.

The petition reads as follows :

The members of the Hip Hop Community are hereby issuing this petition to Priority Records on behalf of John Austin (alias: Ras Kass). This petition's main objective is for the contractual release of John Austin from the recording label Priority Records. In return, John Austin will return all Priority "owned" materials in his possession. The reasoning for this petition stems from the mistreatment of John Austin and the inappropriate and irresponsible management of his music career, which includes album release delays and cancellations, a consistent lack of support and coherency, financial ineptness, and many more related problems in a course of approximately 48 months. This petition is not to degrade Priority Records in any way, but to give John Austin his fair due which is to release him from his music recording contract.

If this demand is not met, then the Hip Hop Community is prepared to use ALL MUSIC RELATED VENUES AND ASSOCIATIONS to construct a ban on ALL PRIORITY RECORDS RELATED ACTIVITIES, FUNCTIONS, AND MUSIC INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT, which includes every affiliated Artist and Product. Other than being Hip Hop music fans, we are also consumers that put money in the pockets of corporations like Priority Records, and we feel it is our sole responsibility to use our positions in the community and the economy to push for a "cause". In this case, the "cause" is to "FREE" RAS KASS from his music recording contract.

Thank you.

Sincerely Yours,

You can find the petition here : http://www.raskass-central.com/raskasspetition.htm

i put my name on it... im not a hip/hop artist but ill stick up for my hip/hop brothers and sisters... free me from your chains and let the music play

FYI - according to priorityrecords.com, here are the artists on the Priority label:

Big Air Experience
Big Mo
Big Pimpin' Compilation
Choclair
Dilated Peoples
Toni Estes
Funkadelic
Godhead
Ice Cube
Lil' Romeo
Lil' Zane
Mack 10
Master P
MC Eiht
Mototrax 1
N.W.A.
Next Friday
No Limit Records
Belle Perez
RA the Rugged Man
Ras Kass
Sauce Money
Nysa Shenay
Silkk tha Shocker
Stephen Simmonds
Snoop Dogg
Svala
Young Breed
WWF Aggression
Training Day Soundtrack

If I really supported this "genre" of "music" I would help out. Buttttt....they are all still sellouts in the end.

Every genre of music could be consider to be sell outs.

Sell outs is a bullshit term. I hate it.

You have no arguement or reason.

Sure, the definition of sellout is doing art for money. I won't debate that. An even bigger sellout does it more for the money than anything else.

A lot of rap music (main stream at least) glamorize what big sellouts they are.

I'm sorry if I appear closed-minded and ingorant to people, but I have a very very very strong grudge against rap and pop music, one of the reasons is because that they are so easily manipulated with money, they are the ones most likely to protest file-sharing and all that stuff, just because the RIAA tells them to.

I live in the past. The pop of the 60s and 70s is not the same as pop of today. My goal in life is to bring the past back to the present. It has been hiding away for far too long...

The pop of the '60s and '70s, much as I love it, was no more "pure" than the music of the present day. Listen to clips of the Box Tops and the Jefferson Airplane doing songs (unnervingly close to their own) shilling for Coke and Pepsi. It's more obvious now because it's marketable now.

But what I take issue with most, Aero-Zeppelin, is your use of quotation marks around "music." Are you suggesting that these artists (who are predominantly hip-hop) are not creating MUSIC? That they are creating something inherently inferior? I am troubled by your implications. Say what one will about the crass money-centric perspective of Master P, there is definite and undeniable MUSIC being made by the likes of Dilated Peoples and Funkadelic. (And Choclair, if the buzz I'm hearing is warranted.)

Just a reminder that "rock & roll" (or "rock & soul," as I prefer) takes on many forms ...

Cheers!

Personally, as long as the artist(s) actually work to create their music to the utmost of their abilities, I believe they *deserve* the money they earn, just as some hard-working coal miner-turned-owner does. No, this doesn't mean they're excused from gouging their fans, but if the fans are stupid enough to let them...

Doh... I forgot to address the concern I have with a lot of the "hip-hop" type of music... much of it seems uninspired to me, as well as being near carbon copies of other artists' work (Spears, Aguilera, etc.). This does not mean that every hip-hop musician does not put forth effort into their music; I'm just tired of the ones that don't appear to.

I'm not a big rap fans myself. I think I'm one of those old rockers that Aero-Zeppelin might like.

But we're not talking about redefining the genre, evaluating its motivation, market and commercialism. We're talking about saving some poor fool from a bogus record contract.

He got my vote. And if it works for him, well, who's next? Let's help them ALL get out of their contracts -- rap, rock, reggae, world, folk, country, classical. All of them.

Yeah, I know. He might not be a fool. But hey, he did sign the contract.

If you didn't know Aero-Zepplin..

The Beatles started out just like any so called manufactured pop groups do today...listen to their very early stuff...every song had the word love in it...and there was nothing new about what they were doing...until they started on drugs did they start making the music we love them for today..

just one thing "aero-zep" wasn't that an aerosmith song I heard on a dodge commercial lately? and who was mugging it up with insync and britney at a super bowl a while back?

please, get down off your pedastal. aerosmith are five of the biggest industry whores in the game. they've sold out themsevles, their fans and any integrity they might have ever had.

you get nowhere with me bad mouthing genres of music you clearly have no understanding of while pompously taking a name like "aero-zep".

get a grip indeed.

Here is the record Industry at it's worst!

yeah and dont forget the Stones they are the worst when comes to high dollar merchandise and tickets and crappy music... or Paul McCartney, tickets were outrageous