NOTE: This "column" was published as a lead off for my web magazine, after Flynt Publishing sold Rap Pages and everybody associated with the publication was sent packing. I was like, "who needs 'em?" and set off on my own. Whee.

10/31/99: Damage Control is a column formerly published monthly in Rap Pages magazine. With the betrayal and murder of that publication after eight years of profitable and loyal service, Flynt Publishing proclaimed itself as a beyotch to the world at large.

Bygones.

The Operative (Hannibal Tabu) had been writing Damage Control for almost three years as a regular column, and decided to carry on, sans backing, skrilla, or regard for what some might call common sense. As the operative has always relied on the kindness of his own proliferate skillz, his finances and personal scenario are secure enough to continue the reign of doom, gueca solo.

It all started when "The Commissioner" Allen Gordon called the operative up and asked him to write a regular column to "end careers, put people out of their misery," and generally follow in the tradition of Rap Pages' own Empress, A&B, the Source's Reggie Dennis, and so on. In the column, many MCs have been called upon to retire (Heavy D, LL, Rakim, Q-Tip), many professional "music journalists" have been called varying degrees of wack by name (Mark Armstrong, Jesse Washington, dream hampton), the demise of urban late night talk was predicted, not to mention the operative's continued claim of involvement in the deaths of Brandon Tartikoff, Gianni Versace, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, and Tupac Shakur.

The atrocities will continue unabated.

Damage Control discusses issues of music, technology, and culture predominately. It more often than not does it in a brutal and honest fashion. The general feeling on people who get offended or bothered by it is "get over it." If you want shiny happy people, you'd better find R.E.M. or something.

Enjoy the carnage or surf somewhere else.

Damage Control is a fully owned property of The Operative Network LLC, all rights reserved.