The Source Magazine's "Power 30" was once looked upon as a reference guide to Hip Hop's top collar poppers who could help hungry artists and indies enhance and capitalize on their grind. To keep it 100 wit' the readers of HHNLive.com, 2006's list of artists, producers, and hustlers looked more like the Dirty 30 (shout out to Harlem USA's crooked ass 30th Pct.). The best thing they tried to do was create a "Power Hall of Fame", to which Russell Simmons and J Prince were affixed in their well deserved positions... but damn, after 11 years of being amongst the top advertisers of the Hip Hop culture which is almost 40 years deep, you would think that they would have more than just two people. No Afrika or Herc in the Hall of Fame?? You buggin... I'm not even gonna sit here and try to pinpoint every fuck up, just the biggest ones that will even make Fahiym bark on these half wits in his office for not thinking of this first..

BET 1st? Has BET really been presenting an accurate image of Hip Hop or even the community it came from? OK, BET is the only Black operated (not owned) programming channel in the country. Big deal. Maybe they deserve some type of recognition, but definitely not #1. Puff before S Dot? Jigga should've definitely been in the Top 3, especially after his pillage and conquest of Def Jam and its once closely affiliated subsidiary. Without Bad Boy South and B.I.G. posthumous projects, Diddy wouldn't stay afloat on the music side of things. He's somewhere in the 30, not # 3, though. Numbers 6-11 was strictly biz. MySpace ranking above Def Jam is just a sign of the times showing the current state of Hip Hop publications and our precious culture as a whole.. and you dudes know the rules, no biting. The MySpace template was wack. No producers touched the list until number 19 with Timbaland, but Pharrell got next to last?!.. And where's Dr. Dre?? You wildin'..The Dirty South couldn't be ignored reppin' with the likes of T.I. and J.D.; 50 and G Unit are hangin' in there. They better watch out because the G U Not campaign headed by Jimmy Henchmen AKA 21st Century Suge, Deebo-ed his way into the Power elite. I don't know how in the hell Clear Channel or VH1 made the list. I hope it wasn't because of that crossover, Graffiti Rock-esque Hip Hop Honors shit..

The way I see it, the music is being swiftly and inconspicuously being snatched from us, so the structure of influence and the degree of people's importance is a constant but negative dynamic. As much as people hate Star (and he loves it), he's definitely more influential in Hip Hop than this clown Steve Harvey. Having Cam and Scott Storch in the Top 25 forces you to look at the future of the creative side of this rap shit. To top it off, they used Wu Tang's "Triumph" as their profile song and don't even include one of the Shaolin Islanders (Rza in particular) in their ratings. I guess at this stage of their dilution, their props don't count. If that ain't a microcosm of what Hip Hop is about now, I'll never steal another Source mag again!