All will be carved

This year, there will be no leftovers!



Damn my lack of wit! Hope yours was a good one. -dronkmunk

Funny Business

Ballantine Speaks to Broken Equipment




Out of Atlanta, Georgia, brothers Twinn and Fatt Kidd have been taking the internet by storm as the rap-parody duo Broken Equipment. Writing, producing, and creating animated music videos and cartoons lampooning the likes of Lil' Wayne, Kanye West, Cam'ron and others, they have brought their skewered view of the hip-hop music industry to the forefront. Chances are these guys are your favorite rapper's least favorite rappers. To them, that's not necessarily a bad thing. We were able to get the chance to do a quick Q&A with the group for their first online interview ever. Jealous? You should be.

First things first, how long have you guys been making music?
We been rapping since we was like 7. That was back when we used to plug headphones in to the microphone jack and freestyle to Puff Daddy and Master P instrumentals. We started making beats at around 11 when Fatt first got a keyboard. we started taking it serious after my partner Lil' Dee started a mixtape featuring everybody at our middle school. That's when people realized that we actually had talent.

What role does each person play in the group?
I make all of the Dipset cartoons. I can do more to improve. Fatt Kidd does the Lil' Wayne and Baby skits, and he is good at the animation and drawing. We both are funny. Both of us do the music parodies and beats so when you add it all together its just about equal.

When did you or what made you decide to start doing the parody thing?
We just used to mess around on the mic when we got done doing whatever. We always had parodies that we put out but nobody gave a shit really, until Dipset the Movie came out. We was just trying to promote our beats to be honest. We recorded on actually broken equipment. After we lost all of that after hurricane Katrina we kinda stopped being so motivated. (Then) We built a attitude like, "If these mother fuckers wont let us in the game, then we gonna get in ourselves." One day I sat at my moms laptop and made fun of Dipset. Got on paint and drew some wack cartoons and started a internet craze. Look where we are now.


You mentioned that you lost motivation after losing your
equipment in the hurricane. What made you decide to go at it again?
Being in Atlanta and seeing how they have fun with their music. You go anywhere outside Atlanta and its not the same love for the music. no matter how wack or non lyrical the music really is, they don't care. Its all feel good music. It made us be more open to do music that made us comfortable and free and not just music that our normal crowd respects.

Do you plan to do an album or tour of some sort, or are you keeping it all on the net? Yeah, we got a few songs ready. We just waiting on a few deals to go through and we gonna see whats up with that. Until then we just share with our friends on Myspace. Its always gonna be a hater or somebody who wont take us serious but who cares? Rap ain't making money anymore. You seen what happened to Soulja Boy?

Wait, I thought soulja boy was considered successful. "Crank Dat" was a huge hit and from what I understand his ringtone sales are through the roof right now.
Soulja boy is successful but he got alot of money that needs to be paid back to his label. that 20,000 or whatever he sold won't be enough. Not to mention he had over 14 million people crankin da soulja boy. Thats karma for him stealing the song and dance. Looks like he gonna need to start crankin dat on the corner for change.

You guys really seem to have your finger on the pulse of the ridiculous things that happen in the hip-hop world, and you nail it every time. How do you keep up with stuff that is going on in the industry?
A lot of our fans tell us about the new things that go on. I don't watch tv and I can't stand the radio. If I get any news it would be from allhiphop or sohh. We get a lot of inside stuff about some of these rappers too. We work with people who already in the music game. They give us info that the average people don't know on some of your favorite rappers.

Have any of the artists that you guys lampoon seen your work?

Yeah. Cam'Ron was the first person to give us props on what we doing. Of course Freeky Zeeky was in GIANT magazine with us. Young Jeezy, Fat Man Scoop and Rick Ross like what we do. I talked to Gillie Da Kidd after he put our "Make-up sex" video on his myspace page. My mom is friends with Slim from Cash Money and she showed them what we do. We just got a lot of connections with a lot of these music artists. We got props from some big DJs, big producers. Everybody love us for real.

You mentioned that you talked to Gillie the kid. Did he ever see the video you made about him and the Clipse, "Put Pharrell on the Track"? Was he cool with that?
I never talked to him about that. but he cant get mad cuz he had his fun when the joke was on Weezy. Gillie is a funny dude so I doubt he would get too pissed. I mean he know the stuff we say in the parodies are not true. It would be stupid for him to diss us though. I don't care, its free publicity.

Are you going to put out more original material, like the "Role Model" joint that Fatt Kidd did?
Yeah. My partner Chris trying to get us in the studio to record some stuff. But for now, I like working on other peoples music. We try to get collabs from our fans. Let them see that we can do more than the comedy. The stuff we do put out people love it.

What are some future videos or projects that we should be looking out for?

Of course A Bad Rap which got a good response from the 8 minute clip we put out. We gonna be doing a few projects with Sony / Epic Records. Really, we tryna get to Radio or TV. We just linked up with Jon Shapiro who is Sean Kingston's manager. He has a project coming up that he wants us involved in. If everything looks good then its gonna be a great year in 2008 for us. I'm tryna kill somebody career.

It must be stressful doing all the voices and creating all the music for your videos, because you guys seem very prolific, so that must be a lot of work. Do you ever consider adding more members to the group? What are you looking for and how can people get in touch?
Yeah. We cant even do normal stuff anymore because we so busy. We actually need more people. More than anything we need females who are not shy. I'd love a female comic to touch up on what females find more funny. Broken Equipment is looking for animators too. Really we looking for anybody who can do something 100 percent. just hit us up on myspace.com/brokenequipment with some of your work.

Anything else that you would like to tell your fans?
Keep supporting us. We love all the fans and (another) Dipset the Movie is coming. We bringing it back like Juvenile fades. Tell a friend to tell a friend to subscribe to us on youtube.com/filnobep. If you wanna be a part of what we do, show us what you can do.

New Outkast

Outkast ft. Marshia Ambrosius - Da Art of Storytellin' pt. 4 (CD Quality)

Thanks to Nahright.com

Make-up Sex

Interview with Broken Equipment Coming Soon is up now!




All I get these days is Make-Believe sex..

Take it Back.

New Wu from 8 Diagrams. Not half bad, actually, if you ask me. I am going to go ahead and co-sign Rza on this one. Rae might want to take it back.

Shame on a RZA?

Who tries to run game.

Today is a very sad day for me. Well, moreso than usual. It seems as if the Wu-Clan Dynasty is writing their final chapter. In the following video, Raekwon (apparently speaking on behalf of the whole group) expresses his discontent with RZA, the Wu-Tang mastermind who is helming the production on the new album 8 Diagrams.





Also, Ghostface Killah had some words for The Abbot regarding getting ganked for some tour money. Everyone knows I love the clan so this makes me a sad panda. However,There are 2 rays of silver lining that can come out of this. First of all is the fact that there are 2 sides to every story and we have not heard Rza's side yet. Secondly, it sounds like if this album doesn't live up to the group's expectations, they will be making another one. Thanks to MissInfo for the, um, info.

UPDATE : Rza Responds: "My idea with this album was to have an hour of your day be different -- you go into this other world of beats, hardcore lyrics and imagery of hip-hop," he said. "I wanted the listener to be stimulated by the music. I don't know if everybody agreed with it. Everybody has their own opinion. This is in my vision at the end of the day."

Heeding the Call of Duty

Call of Duty!!!!

I was kind of skeptical about how good this game would be... I mean after all the hype of Halo 3, most people I know are back to playing Gears of War and and Rainbow 6: Vegas. Now the word on everyone's lips is that Call of Duty 4 is the killer app with the bestest multiplayer evar. I completely missed out on the Beta, and after watching some youtube videos, I remained unimpressed. That is, until I saw this one. The ending gives me chills.



After seeing how incredible this looks on a youtube video with like, NO resolution whatsoever, I made a resolution of my own. I plan to add this game to my library, as per the advice of just about everyone on my friends list, next weekend. So add me on XBL and let's party up. You already know the Gtag..

Off the Dome

Chappelle improvises almost an entire set in London

Another Day...

Another video.

Adventures in Female Douchebaggery

It exists.


Stacy Hedger Blows


What's funny is that we never really think of what douchebags women can be. What this video teaches us is that they are just as capable of making ass of self as the male species. Ah, Women. So stupid. Yet so hard to trick into sipping the Kool-Aid.


More Examples here, here and here.

We in the House...

Well I guess I got my swagga back..

Jay - Z - Roc Boys

You already know Ballantine has your back. We will give you the good stuff without you having to pull your papers out.

Candy Apples and Razor Blades

I would call this the Obligatory Halloween Post, but I am only doing a halloween post because I found a funny video.


I was reading the comments section in youtube on this video and the discussion has turned racial. Did this kid flip out because he's black? Or because he has big nuts? Or just because he happens to be an aggressive person? This video of a harmless prank gone wrong raises some deep questions. Is this video interesting because it is a example of the propensity of Africans (and African Americans) to towards violence? Or because it is a rare occurence that was caught on tape? I know a lot of heavy brothers that would at least be a little startled by someone jumping out of a trashcan. All I have to say is, I am glad this shit was videotaped, otherwise Tyrone here would have some 'splainin' to dooo...

And for the listening pleasure of the depraved and howling flesh of your human earlobes:

Misfits - Halloween [1]
Dead Kennedys - Halloween
Misfits - Halloween II

[1] I would do a little extra about the Misfits, because they are great, but I have a cold or something going on, so I won't!