woebot, ach, didnt know you were there too! would have been good to hook up. yeah i think simon and don were trying to make the best out of the situation. i suppose i just hoped more sparks would fly (if not in the antagonistic sense) and it would take flight a little more - they didnt seem to quite get on mutual ground like id hoped. but it was still good to hear their perspectives.
xxxxpost - its true that winhouse, joss stone et al are basically doing older more acepted, already approved forms of black music (albeit with some hip hop production influence and its pretty obvious they were inspired to go that way cos of neo soul artists from the last 10 years like erykah badu or lauryn hill, esp in winehouses case) and i think everyones said almost everything you can about why hip hop hasnt been co opted like blues in the 60s or soul in the 80s so not much to add there but hey, who knows yet, maybe uffie, amanda blank, goldilocks will storm the charts this year. most black genres dont really take off in the hands of white artists until theyre pronounced creatively dead (or once white artists/audiences really adopt those genres, they tend to get left alone somewhat by their core audience, or at least thats how it used to be, im not so sure if that still holds true w/r/t hip hop) and seeing as hip hops been going through that for a while now, and seeing as how many white rappers from over here are signed and black ones arent, who knows. it could actually happen yet. its not going to be the examples or professor greens though (signed to the streets label), probably more the uffies and people like her who arent trad hip hop.
as far as the book, i just finished reading the radiohead piece from the wire thats in there - really inspiring stuff.