White people dance like this, black people dance like that

Yes, I shamelessly and unapologetically jacked the idea for this post from that TAN dude, but it’s a fuggin brilliant idea, so there. Imitation=flattery and all that…

So dig it: this little slice of minimal excellence is straight  from the Berlin based mind of  electro producer Squarespace. A little B-boy, a little modern, a little Fosse, a couple pencil skirts and some skinny ties.   So clean and sharp, with a controlled boogie and bubbly aftertaste.

Then we have this.

Filed under: Dance, Video , Dance, House Music, squarespace, fosse, b-boy

Michael Jackson Memorial tonight in Oakland

Anyone in the Bay Area looking for some Michael Jackson communion tonight should head over to the Black Dot Cafe,

1195 Pine st in West Oakland from 7pm-10pm. Folks will be reading memorials, poems, playing music (bring your axe) and watching the CNN memorial. call 510-594-4340 for more info.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Michael Jackson, Oakland

Death of Autotune or Death of Hip Hop?

Alright, I’ve been thinking about this for the last few weeks as I’ve been rewinding the hell out of Jay Z’s latest and I want to get a couple things out of the way from the jump. 1) Autotune is hella overused and kind of annoying after the 50th listen. 2) In a sea of catchy hooks and brain dead verses, Jay Z’s DOA is like a Super Lyrical life preserver. Granted, Jay’s call for an end to all things Autotuned isn’t on par with that original Big Pun joint but still, as my man DKing says- “That dude there, he raps. That’s what you call RAPPING.”

So for the first 15 or so spins of Death of Autotune I had to geek out on the head nod. Of course there are mad underground heads making dope songs but I’ve still got a soft spot for old school terrestrial radio, so to hear a mainstream cat going in like this touched off some back in the days nostalgia. It almost felt like the mid 90’s again.

But with all that being said, once I took off the hip hop cheerleader’s helmet and picked up my critic’s notebook my opinions shifted a bit. Where once DOA sounded like a breath of fresh air and a rallying cry for “Real Hip Hop” (does anyone even seriously have this debate anymore?) it was now beginning to sound like the last swan song of a style past it’s prime. A damned fine swan song, but still one that signals the beginnings of a march out the Exit door.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Art, chuck palahniuk, Death of Autotune, DOA, essay, fight club, Hip Hop, hipster rap, Jay Z, Kid Cudi, Music, T Pain, Wale

There’s deep house, then there’s Thunderbolts

This, good people, is house music.

I’ve been hearing this joint for a hot second.  I never knew the producer but the cut is fire.  Some serious dancefloor deepness.  Turns out it’s called “Thunderbolts” and it’s by a young cat by the name of Ezel, an NY by way of Puerto Rico house head recently signed to Carlos Mena’s Oakland based Ocha Records.  

Filed under: Music , Carlos Mena, Ezel, House Music, Nina Simone, Oakland, Ocha Records, See line woman

First MJ, now Vibe. But Vibe kinda sucked.

Although I’ve gotta say that while I’m sincerely sad about the first, the second is a pure nostaligiac respect based on three things:

1. Vibe was the 1st mag I ever bought a subscription to with my own hard  earned yout’ money (The only thing I had to show after a high school at Taco Hell, save a longstanding and unhealthy obsession with 7 layer burritos).
2. Quincy Jones  has always been, and will continue to be The Fucking Man.  Anybody who can roll with Miles and Sinatra’s gotta command a little respect.
3. Eff what ya heard, Daniel Smith was the best editor of any Hip Hop mag ever. EH-vah.  When I heard she was going to be back at the helm I actually considered subscribing again, for like 3 whole seconds.  Ah well, maybe this means she’ll have time to get back to blogging (her kaleidoscopic  didact rants on entertainment, politics and sports are still an inspiration. )

Filed under: Hip Hop, Media, Music

What the Fuck? Michael Jackson is dead.

Alright, this is depressing as fuck.

I first heard the news as a rumor between two cats outside the corner store about 4 hours ago on my way downtown.

“Yo, you heard Michael Jackson died?”

“Naw, man I heard that was just a rumor.”

A small lump in my stomach started to throb. The kind you get when you realize something’s gone irreversibly wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it.

As I kept walking the sounds of “Thriller,” “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” blasting from nearly every car that passed confirmed it and by this time the lump had blossomed into a full blown sadness. What the Fuck? Michael Jackson is dead?

For a minute I felt like pulling an old-black-moms-at-her-son’s-funeral and break down right at the corner of 17th and Telegraph. What the Fuck? Michael Jackson is dead?!

Filed under: Art, Music , Billie Jean, jimmie Hendricks George Clinton, Michael Jackson, prince, RIP, Thriller

Red Clay and Bukowski are better artists than you

If you don’t have to make art, don’t.  This shit is difficult and the hourly pay sucks.

I remember when I was in college one of my poetry profs would regularly deliver the one two reality punch of encouraging students  to write as much as possible, right before stressing that you should only make it a career if you had no choice.   The ones that had no choice knew who they were.  We were the ones with that far off look in our eyes and wandering gaze, the ones who walked into class on clouds and talked sestinas and sentence structure till 3 in the morning clutching a jug of wine and chain smoking hand rolled cigarrettes.  We’re all broke now.

But of course, it’s what we do.  No regrets over here.  Especially when you run across a work that changes the way you look at life, offers a new vantage point, or gives you hope regarldless of the stupid shit that happens on the day to day.  There’s that old saying that “hearts speak to each other” and while I’m not ready to get on The Secret Metaphysical, I do believe that you can spot a true artist a mile away, someone who does it because they have to, cuz there is no other option.  Who, even if they were down to their last dime, dumpster diving they’d find a top to bang on, a pencil to write with or a song to sing.

Filed under: Art, Hip Hop, Music, Poetry , Art, Charles Bukowski, Hip Hop, Music, Poetry, Red Clay

Tehran poems, open sex and the freedom to move

A poem on Tehran’s streets:

This is one of the most moving things I’ve read in a minute.  It’s been making the internet rounds since last weekend went things in Iran went Ballistic.

While everyone I know has been stunned silent by the Neda video, to me this young woman’s words are just as moving.

In that respect, here are a few more pieces that take an unexpected sidedoor into the revolutionary ideology.  Nothing’s loud or obvious, just enough to challenge conceptions.

Read more. 

Filed under: Activism, Poetry

It’s Tricia. Dr. Rose If You’re Nasty

My god I think I love this woman.

I read Dr. Tricia Rose’s first book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, a couple years out of high school and it was one of the first pieces of critical text to really make the hard connections between Hip Hop, black inner city culture, technology and social justice.

Judging from this video , recorded at the Columbia College a few months back, it looks like Dr. Rose is still dropping jewels on the sometimes staid halls of academia.  Here she discusses the idea of a post racial America in the time of President B-Rock.

Props to The Black Report for the link.

Filed under: Activism, Authors, Books, Hip Hop, Politics

Martin Luther: “Home” live

“You see my neighborhood’s already been gentrified

SinFrinpsycho killafornia was my home…”

The funky man name after a monk kills this live perfomance.  I’ve heard this song  a lot and I have no idea how I missed the lines above.  But given the city by the Bay’s current state of mass exodus, it’s an apt statement.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Martin Luther, San Francisco, Video