People, Places & Things

_Looking for a little mood music to go along with all the commemorating you're doing over Frank Wills and Garrett Morgan and his life saving traffic light during this Black History Month?  Check out my friend, John Morrison's mixtape called, Black History Month Vol. 1: Africa: Center of the World.

Morrison plans to do a series of FREE mixes in celebration of Black History Month. This particular one takes us back to the root of it all with songs celebrating the people of the global African Diaspora. The next mix, which will probably be upload online in a week or so, will be called It's Nation Time and feature artists such as Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, Jayne Cortez, Amiri Baraka, Tupac, among others - or what Morrison calls, "some Black Power radical shit." I'm trying to get him to put it all on one site for yall but you know, Black folks don't listen. Anyway, check out the playlist and then hit play. If you like it, share it. And you can follow him on Tumblr.

 1. Intro: (featuring Diop Olugbala & Dr. Cheik Anta Diop)
2. Fela Kuti & Roy Ayers: Africa Center of the World
3. Bob Ohiri & His UHURU Sounds: Africa is Free
4. The Last Poets: Tribute to Obadi/ Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln: All Africa (Blend)
5. Pretty Afro-Pop Jam I can't remember the name of....
6. Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln: All Africa/Alice Coltrane: ISIS & OSIRIS (Blend)
7. Sakara de Ketou (Yoruba de Benin Chants)/Albert Ayler: Spirits (Blend)
8. Living Colour: History Lesson
9. Madlib: Africa
10. Peter Tosh: Mama Africa
11. J. Dilla: African Rhythms
12. Lawal Gaspar- Awon Ojise-Oluwa/Liturgical Chant of the Ethiopian Jews: Yibarek (Blessing of the Sacred Sabbath)
13. Hukwe Zawose: Munyamaye
14. D' Angelo: Africa
15. The Abyssinians: African Race
16. Nas & Damian Marley: Promised Land
17. Nas & Damian Marley: Africa Must Wake Up
18. Gelede Iwoja (Yoruba De Benin Chants)/John Coltrane: Africa (Blend)
19. Archie Shepp: New Africa

I've always said that this was our number issue as the Black community. However, listen as Wise Intelligent, formerly of the Poor Righteous Teachers, says it better than I ever could:

_Oh you didn't know?

From Wiki:

"Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)" is Grammy nominated collaboration song between Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One that is produced by Rick Rubin. The song was released as a single on February 20, 2007 by Nike Records. It was performed live at the NikeAir Force Ones 25th anniversary party shown on MTV2."

P.S. I know I've been M.I.A from the home post for a minute now.  This is because I suck at blogging. For real. I have all these great ideas for post swirling around in my head but I'm so lazy sometimes that I neglect to actually put them up. I offer this too as a partial explanation of why I haven't answered back all the letters I've received. Yes, I do read them and I appreciate you all for writing them (even the ones from folks telling me to go to Hell).  And one day, when I'm not so lazy or am not genuinely busy I will draft a post, answering and responding back to all of your letters. Or at least that's the idea I have swirling around in my head :/

In the meantime, here's another DJ Premier/Nas collab. And yes, this hotness is courtesy of some sort of marketing ploy to reach the "urban" market:

"Presented by Hyundai Veloster, RE:GENERATION is a documentary film that follows DJ Premier, Pretty Lights, The Crystal Method, Mark Ronson and Skrillex as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music."

Sigh. Hip-Hop.  But it's still kind of dope though.

I like this picture. It really makes me think. In fact, here is a working theory:

The amount of media attention being spent on the demise of the Kim K affair seems rather trivial in the grand scheme of all the other much more important things happening in the world.  However, when you stop to consider why the sordid tales surrounding her ill-fated, or planned, love affairs seems to spark our collective interest, it actually makes a bit of sense.  And its not so much that the story feeds our need for gossipy tabloid news (although that has a part in it) but more interestedly, Kim K kind of acts as the personification the modern day version of Marie Antoinette. 

Not that she is royalty, although she make like to think she is, but there is no denying the grand frivolous and superficial nature of her lifestyle including her fairytale wedding, complete with three designer gowns, half a million dollars in champagne and almost a million dollars worth of grub. And it was all captured on tape to be played ad nauseam to for our adoring eyes.

The egregious displays of wealth normally wouldn't bother folks. In fact, in better times, we have all enjoyed the spectacles of lavish spending and grandiose affairs. However, these are not good times. And  the country - hell, the world - is in the throes of declining wealth among the middle class, high unemployment and poverty and insurrection in the streets, via the Occupy movements.  All the while the top tier elite continue to get richer and spend frivolously.

Now Kim K and her affairs may not be warranted all this attention or even ridicule. I mean, what does she have to do with politics, poverty and world affairs? However, some would argue the same for Marie Antoinette, who after all, wasn't exactly the most influential member of the French monarchy. But she was a part of the french monarchy, which had been wasting a good amount of tax dollars on themselves while their citizens starved. By beheading the many nobles at the time sent a as a message that profligates would no longer be tolerated. So perhaps like a modern-day Antoinette, it makes everyone feel better to crowd around the guillotine, chanting "off with her head," while Kim K is executed - or at least dragged through the tabloid gutter - for her crime of being extravagant and recklessly wasteful.

Again, that's a working theory. Don't hold me to it.

Can I get real, and I mean really, really real, with yall for a moment and ask this question: Is anybody else irked by Steve Stoute and his mission to whitewash, or at the very least tan, black culture?

He seems to be on a mission to present this Kumbaya version of current race relations in this country, which doesn't jive with the reality of America. And truthfully and honestly, that gets under my skin. Like his new book, The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy, Stoute, who started out as a Sony executive and is now an award winning marketing whiz, discusses how what he sees as the impact that Hip Hop has had on how people in globally spend their money.

To help promote his book, recently Stoute has produced a series of videos with Hip-Hop’s biggest names to discuss ways in they all realized that Hip-Hop had fully crossed over to white, mainstream audiences. His first video installment features Jay-z, who is not only a client of Stoute but also business partner to his Translation Advertising, an ad firm specializing in connecting huge corporations to "urban" celebrities for ridiculous amounts of money.  Together, Stoute and Jay-z discuss how Hip-Hop has brought the world together and more importantly, has enable them to see their brands across a wider demographic, thanks in part to the new generation that no longer sees color.  Also, they suggest that the concept of ‘selling-out’ just does not apply anymore because more and more black folks are invested in the new aspirational culture of the Hip-Hop. 

Well I give both Stoute and Jay credit for recognizing that authenticity, creativity and in some cases talent have certainly given way to a more materialistic and denigrating aesthetic in hip-hop.

But this whole idea that Hip-Hop has somehow changed the global landscape is nonsense. First off, white people gravitating to what some would call as black music is not a new phenomenon. Likewise Black culture, more specifically musical culture, has and will always be popular around the world. Prior to hip hop, there was Jazz, Rock & Roll, Soul and Reggae – all with roots in the black community – which had and continue to have wide mainstream and global appeal. But while white folks, as well as folks of other colors, have gravitated to the music, never really meant much for race relations.  That’s why the James Browns and, Chuck Berrys, as well as many black artist before them, used to have to enter and exit through the back door just to play to all white audiences at white only establishment. In other words, just because people enjoy our music doesn’t mean they like us. Furthermore, selling our art form to corporations, whose sole purpose is profit, hasn’t really help to mature the art form itself besides making Stoute, Jay-Z and a few other acts here and there rich.  Before profits became the motivating factor within Hip-Hop, the music and the culture around it was much more political, much more relatable and more importantly, much more empowering. All we have now is a bunch of white boys calling each other niggers and that somehow we are supposed to see this as progress? Negros please.