Steve 'Flash' JuonThe inconsistency of Wikipedia’s “notability” policy is vexing. I’m not saying Bang Belushi should be removed — I’ll get to why not in a moment — I’m saying that better known rappers HAVE been challenged for “lack of notability” and/or removed from their pages. The idea of a comprehensive global encyclopedia that anyone can edit is hard to refute for its usefulness, but that use slams into a brick wall at a hundred miles per hour if even an artist or album released on a major label can’t get a single page of bandwidth. The argument that nobody would read it is equivalent to saying it would cost nothing to host it, and thousands of these albums and artists can be found on Discogs. You can either try to be authoritative and comprehensive or you can let biased human beings choose who is “notable” and who isn’t.
Would artists like Ketch P and Rim from the song “Knuckle Up” be considered notable? “Belushi On Ghawd” is an obscure album from a fairly obscure rap artist in the first place. As affectionate as I always have been and still remain for Michigan rappers, it almost feels like a slight for Bang Belushi’s entry to read that he’s “Obie Trice’s hypeman.” It’s also TRUE. I would argue that Belushi is more notable than that because he’s been releasing albums, mixtapes and extended plays since the mid-2000’s and has dozens of features on other rap releases than his own. Based on his discography it feels like Ketch P should qualify too, but given that a majority of his work is self-released through Bandcamp, it feels like his page would get deleted the moment you tried to create it. The same thing would happen to Pro Dillinger from “Hardcore.” It’s hard to argue Discogs isn’t better when it comes to researching the careers of rappers at the independent level.
Although I consider Bang Belushi notable and would even make the argument for some of his friends on this album, this is where I have to admit a Wiki editor might have a case for removal. As of this writing only 80 people follow Belushi on YouTube, and the amount of views (which doesn’t even necessarily mean a song got listened to start to end) on any song from “Belushi On Ghawd” is 20-200. Perhaps being Obie Trice’s hypeman or one member of the defunct Fat Killahz rap group helps Belushi get more exposure than he otherwise would. I’m not less interested in his music due to the low numbers, but the low numbers speak for themselves in how many people are banging with him album to album.
I’d like to reiterate that this has nothing to do with the QUALITY of the work here. Wavy Da Ghawd creates symphonic head nodding tracks and Bang Belushi has that no-nonsense gritty Detroit flow written all over his bars. Songs like “Run Shit” and “Lights, Camera, Action” are one Bacon number removed from being Royce Da 5’9″ x DJ Premier. If I can hear it I know you can too. This duo may not be as dynamic as that one, but they’re close enough you can feel this music when you listen to it.
At the end of the day I would venture to say this review was an excuse for me to get on a soapbox and rant about what “notability” really means. Whether or not Bang Belushi is “notable” is less important to me than getting you to think about what “notability” is in the first place. It’s not as though I don’t understand the principle of it. If the threshold is set so low that anybody who records an “album” and uploads it to Bandcamp, Soundcloud or YouTube qualifies, the site could wind up with tens of millions of pages for artists with an audience of zero. “If everybody is notable, nobody is notable.” I get it. That said don’t ever lie to me and say you’re authoritative and comprehensive or that your site isn’t routinely vandalized and/or filled with inaccurate information. Don’t trust everything you read just because you can find it online — and that includes me.