Is Hip Hop Dead? Part II - SHONLOCK vs. WORD RECORDS

Listening to a bass ridden Pimp, it becomes convincingly obvious that the cancer of Christian perception still reigns over its efforts to win the dying souls that rap has the capacity to reach. And so it goes: “I never been a pimp / wouldn’t call myself a playa / can’t deny my hustle though I’m out here getting paper / what’s been on your mind / shine’n for the Savoir/ only spit that real and put the pressure on a faker / Never been a pimp.” Lock professes with an assertive truth that, “Everything in the song was combating the idea of being a Pimp and degrading woman but they pulled it.” According to Lock, in addition to fighting to water down his lyrical content, A&R at the label initially held his project up because of the opinion that Lock’s recorded material was not suitable for Caucasian-based radio. “They initially held my record because they said that I didn’t have a song for CCM radio. It’s a well known fact that a majority of the big hitters in CCM radio don’t even play hip hop, so why not go to urban stations that do. That was the worse part of the deal.”

Lock, who is currently touring with Gottee frontrunner Toby Mac, says that the ultimate reason given for his release from Word was that they would never be able to satisfy him. Ironically, freshman-artist-pleasing 101 has never been a part of label culture, especially if it has anything to do with negatively impacting the bottom line.
What is next for Shonlock? “I do what I do. One bad deal doesn’t stop the show. I can’t stop now. At the end of the day I know that God has my back and everything will work out right.”