Last night I was watching this thing on MTV2 about how much money rappers make. Actually, it was about how they don’t make any money at all from record sales, because labels basically fuck them over a barrel. Cleverly, of course, they didn’t mention the flaw this highlights in the reasoning of groups like the RIAA who claim that you downloading music hurts artists. Since it’s actually the labels that hurt the artists.

But anyway, I’m getting off topic. The interesting thing that they talked about was how hip hop artists basically only make money by diversifying into other types of products and services besides lyricism.

It turns out rappers are not the only ones in this game though. The other night I was listening to Coast to Coast AM and I heard an interview with channeller JZ Knight (no, not HOVA). Knight is the mastermind behind the quasi-cult of Ramtha, who is a 35,000 year old Lemurian or Atlantean or something who supposedly conquered the antediluvian world, then sat on a rock, became an enlightened god, and disappeared. Only to return in 1977 through a Pacific Northwestern housewife, of course.

Knight runs a hugely successful business around the story and teachings of Ramtha. It includes a publishing company (JZK Publishing), intensive workshops - she even sells antique furniture for some reason. The real kicker though is that she seems to run a company that sells “elfin magical capes and wizard robes.” The elfin cape website says:

Elfin Magical Capes and Wizard Robes is inspired by a dream, a vision, of a time when the Elves and Wizards freely roamed this Earth in their gallant cloaks and robes. It was a time when these wise immortal beings had adventures that have now become our legends and myth. These handcrafted hooded capes and robes come to you from those that are lovers of the immortals, the keepers of the Legacy

And if you think that shit is cheesy and embarrasing, then just take a look at the splash page graphic on the Ramtha website.

I have nothing in particular against JZ Knight or whatever it is that she’s teaching through all this Ramtha stuff. She had a few semi-interesting things to say in her interview, and she seemed pretty together overall. I didn’t listen to the whole thing about Ramtha’s teachings, but it seems to be pretty much standard New-Ageisms, none of which I’m particularly interested in. Interestingly, I just found out via Fantastic Planet that the Ramtha group is also behind the creation of the cheesiest most embarrasing New Age “documentary” to come out last year, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” Portland’s Willamette Week Online has a pretty good article about the movie, the group, JZ Knight and Ramtha.

What I don’t understand is why such cheesy shit as this movie gets such raves from people. I mean, no, I take that back. I understand it. I realize that it has to do with a very strong craving in people for information of a spiritual nature, or even just of a nature that’s a radically different viewpoint from what’s being forced down our throat’s by mass media. But god, this movie just sounds so stupid.

Anyway, like I said, the whole thing has gotten me thinking more about this diversification thing that hip-hop artists especially get into. They get famous off one particular product, and then they use that leverage to carve out a bit of an empire for themselves. But thank fucking god that no rappers are out there selling elfin cloaks. I mean, maybe they’re ripping people off just as much. Or rather, maybe like Knight, they’re providing people with what they really want: easy to digest, stereotypical images, but just in a whole other direction, centered around a different value system. It also reminds me of this great quote I found about branding a while back:

Often we don’t want things. We want stories. Sometimes we buy things to get the stories.

It’s too bad people can’t just give each other stories, or even better, make them ourselves, instead of gobbling up somebody else’s nonsense.