Big, big shout out to my man Donovan X. Ramsey who put me on to this new blog from some of my favorite members of the rising new black intelligentsia, including Cord Jefferson of Gawker, Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl, and others. 

You can read more about it here, but definitely check out the blog -- there are some incredibly incredible photos on there that justify the name . I won't be able to join "You Ain't Got The Answers" Trivia Night tonight due to standing obligations, but I'm betting it's going to be particularly black, meaning awesome.

You'd never believe this shit, but there is a such thing as journalistic integrity. When you're credited or recognized for having it, you've usually shown that you are careful to only report facts, able to remain as objective as possible, and those kinds of things. One major no-no is taking money for your content without stating to your reader that you're doing exactly that.

Hey, bills. They've gotta be paid and all; I get it--I get it. But there is a long-standing model for how you do this. Major newspapers, magazines and websites have been doing this for much longer than blogs have existed. All you basically do is have some way of alerting your reader that what they're laying eyes on has been purchased.

Why does it matter? Simple, really. When you buy something, you own it. If you own something, you control it. If you control the message, you usually don't follow anyone else's rules, although there's no rule saying that you couldn't follow them if you wanted to do such a thing--it'd be weird and strangely altruistic, but pretty awesome as well. Of course this doesn't happen often.

So when a hip-hop blog, which was once the premier source for quality underground and mainstream music, decides to just all of a sudden start dick-riding Moet & CHandon, well, it's kind of depressing. Not just because it's written in a very lame manner by the well-respected founder of the website, but mostly because never once does he come on out and say he's being paid. And really, is this bottle really that nice? Not that I'm an authority on Champagne bottles, but really. It's pretty loudly out of place, and by linking to Moet's Instagram account--twice--Eskay is damn near pulling a hamstring bending over to touch his toes for the brand that's quietly backing him up on this (I mean financially, of course).

Now, have I ever written about new alcohol products or packaging designs? Maybe. Hell, I'm drinking wine now, so I'm not exactly of sound-enough mind to recall, thanks. But have I ever been paid for doing so? Nope. As someone who  attended media tastings and knows what these folks ask "journalists"(bloggers) to do in return for their invitation to the free food-n-drank event (and future invites, ahem...), I can tell you that Eskay is doing exactly what a publicist or marketing rep wants him to do just by the language and links. NahRight is too big of a brand (or at least I thought it was) to be doing this kind of stuff for free. Eskay may be reckless by drunkenly putting overpriced bubbly ads, cloaked as content, in between posts about rap artists Hopsin and Roc Marciano (I know..., "Who?," right?), but yeah, I guess I'm hating or something...

Anyway, read the post here; tell me if you think I'm just tripping. Better yet, tell Eskay in the comments of his blog. He could use the feedback (not as many comments these days), and I wouldn't count on my comment passing approval...