Good Pub, Bad Pub? or Bad Pub, Good Pub?

When you think of publicity, is 'BAD' publicity good publicity; or is 'GOOD' publicity bad?? Think about it. With all the tough guy personas, 'street cred', and 'diva-ness' that stars bring, its kinda hard to stay focused on celebrities doing the right thing for his/her community; since the microscope is so targeted on which pop diva showed her vagina....again, and which rap star has the most guns in his house.

Philanthropy has seemingly taken the backseat to who has the toughest image. For example, examine the 2009's of hip-hop superstars Kanye West and T.I.. West, known for his artisty in music and apparently for his show stopping antics("George Bush doesn't care about black people"), was in the news again for only speaking his mind at the MTV Video Music Awards, at the expensive of Taylor Swift. Ye' hops on stage during Swift's acceptance speech only to let the 11 million viewers know that he thought Beyonce had "the best video of all time!" The fall out from this 'publicity stunt' (if you will) cost Yeezy three major fashion endorsements, sidelining the release of his own clothing line 'Pastelle'. Throughout the year, Kanye was the bud of many jokes from many different TV shows and syndicates, from Saturday Nite Live to Leno. Although publically apologizing on The Leno Show to Taylor Swift, which she accepted. However, the damage to Yeezy's public image was done, cementing him as the most hated man in hip-hop. Bad job Kanye!

On the opposite side of the publicity spectrum we have the case of T.I. and his felony weapon charge. The Atlanta rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris and who is also a convicted felon, was 'caught' with machine guns, silencers, glocks, and an atom bomb in his Atlanta home. TIP was convicted and sentenced to a year and day in federal prison. Upon his release from prison, TI was on TV station after TV station giving interviews about the situation, even stopping by CNN for his own special with Larry King. TI's self-proclaimed "King" status was never more apparent, as he was recieving tons of media attention and was being championed for doing community service promoting anti-gun rallies and speaking to children around the country about violence, guns, drugs and the street life, even though throughout his songs there is tons of glorification of guns, drugs, sex, and money. TI now has a movie coming out as well and doesn't seem to be effected at all by his brief prison stint. Good job TI!

So who's at fault here?? Is it the media for being so obessed with street cred and prison tales?? Should the artist have more control over there own public image?? Are celebrities greater than regular people?? Are drugs, sex and money good things, while art, expression and truth are bad??? Who's accountable??

You decide.