March 6, 2014

HBO Hopes to Grow “Game of Thrones'” Audience Through The Power of Hip-Hop

HBO

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Behold the greatest sentence I’ve read this week/month/maybe ever:

Time Warner’s HBO hopes to attract more rap fans to watch Game of Thrones with a hip-hop mixtape featuring rappers like Big Boi.

Game of Thrones, HBO’s hit fantasy saga of blood, sex, and politics, returns for a fourth season in April. The season premiere will be preceded by this 10-song mixtape, titled Catch the Throne, which is set for release on Friday. (Click here for the track list; songs are based on specific episodes of the show.) The featured artists, such as Common, Wale, and reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, seem super-enthusiastic about nerding out over this fantasy epic. For instance, here is “Mother of Dragons” by Big Boi (of Outkast fame), which includes the lyric:

“Fuck the Lannisters and everybody ridin’ with ’em / Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch finna slide some iron in ’em.”

(“HBO has not revealed if a Tyrion response track is forthcoming,” reported Rolling Stone.)

And here’s “King Slayer” by Wale:

“Usin’ my king knack for words, as a actual sword / I could decapitate a rapper / If he be lacking, he gone.“

(Wale has previously rapped extensively about his love for the TV show Seinfeld, and has even collaborated with Jerry Seinfeld himself.)

George R. R. Martin, the famous 65-year-old author of the books on which the show is based, was not available to comment on the Game of Thrones rap mixtape. “I am sure he loves it but I won’t be able to get a quote for ya,” says Vince Gerardis, Martin’s manager and a Game of Thrones co-executive producer (along with Martin). “I love it,” Gerardis added.

While we’re on the subject, watch our Game of Thrones attack ads—in which we imagine what it would be like if super-PACs and dark-money outfits existed in the Seven Kingdoms.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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