Forbes Avenue » tigger500

What Was That about Eminem Being the Greatest Rapper Alive?

tigger500 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:23:31 +0000

Seriously.

As good as Em is, this is a perfect example of just how overrated an emcee he is. He’s embarrassingly outclassed here.

And I do like Eminem, so no “you hater” comments, kids.

H/T PostBourgie

America’s Paralysis

tigger500 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:47:34 +0000

Bob Herbert takes all Americans to task in his column in today’s Washington Post:

Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable (I think frightening) degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins. Where people once might have deluged their elected representatives with complaints, joined unions, resisted mass firings, confronted their employers with serious demands, marched for social justice and created brand new civic organizations to fight for the things they believed in, the tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.

This is so wrong. It is the kind of thinking that would have stopped the civil rights movement in its tracks, that would have kept women in the kitchen or the steno pool, that would have prevented labor unions from forcing open the doors that led to the creation of a vast middle class.

This passivity and sense of helplessness most likely stems from the refusal of so many Americans over the past few decades to acknowledge any sense of personal responsibility for the policies and choices that have led the country into such a dismal state of affairs, and to turn their backs on any real obligation to help others who were struggling.

Those chickens have come home to roost. Being an American has become a spectator sport. Most Americans watch the news the way you’d watch a ballgame, or a long-running television series, believing that they have no more control over important real-life events than a viewer would have over a coach’s strategy or a script for “Law & Order.”

Dope dope dope!

No related posts.

The Roots Ain’t Torture

tigger500 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:45:29 +0000

So I’m at work, minding my own business, gettin my write on and I stumble across this post on ACLU’s Blog of Rights:

Today, a group of musicians, including REM, Pearl Jam and The Roots filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out whether their music was played at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. The request for information stems from former Guantánamo detainees’ testimony and released government documents that document that music has been used as part of interrogations.

The Roots said in a statement, “When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people — we were angry. Just as we wouldn’t be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure we wouldn’t allow him to use it to torture other human beings. Congress needs to shut Guantánamo down.”

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, another of the artists who initiated the FOIA request, stated, “Guantánamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantánamo now.”

Documents that the ACLU has uncovered through our five-year-old FOIA request about the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody detail how “torture music” was used.

Umm, say what?!?

I’m still unsure why torture is a controversial issue. You’d think this’d be the one thing we all could agree we should not be doing.

Sad.

No related posts.

Falling in Love with Lalah Hathaway – All. Over. Again.

tigger500 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:25:39 +0000

Lalah Hathaway has been all over the place, showing the world just how dope she really is.

I pretty much think that once you see Lalah sing you can’t resist her, so I’ma hit y’all wit two live performances.

Here she is on The Mo’Nique Show, doing a beautiful cover of Luther Vandross’ Forever, For Always, For Love:

And here she is on Lyric Cafe on the new Centric network singing a beautiful rendition of Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly:

Her latest album, Self-Portrait, is in stores. Go get it.

Run, don’t walk.

Album Review: Chrisette Michele’s Epiphany

tigger500 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:31:43 +0000

Chrisette Michele is one of those artists who suffers from the bifurcated way black music is marketed and sold—and consumed. She’s too good a singer to be a pop star. And too young and hip hop-inspired to be relegated to the neo-soul, adult contemporary section of the record store. (Is there even an AC section on Itunes?)

Or so we are told.

Because she is in a not-so-enviable position, her record label tried to position her on her first album, I Am, as a torch singing sentimental by releasing two torchy ballads—“If I Have My Way” and “Best of Me”—leading many people to think that was all that her debut had to offer. Even though I Am was as varied a debut we’ve seen, boasting better than expected production from will.i.am, exceptional work by Salaam Remi, and a rejuvenated Babyface, it seemed that audiences and critics were reacting to Island Def Jam’s marketing of Michele, not the music on her album. By the time “Be Okay” came around and won Michele a Grammy, Island Def Jam was already sending Michele out, new haircut and all, to remind people that she is only 26, likes to have fun, and isn’t just a “singer.”

At first blush, Epiphany, with its executive production by industry darling Ne-Yo, would seem to be Michele’s studio-crafted and approved official coming out party—an apology of sorts for saddling the record-buying public with too much emotion and nuance the last go-round. But Epiphany is not all that different from I Am.

Go read the rest at Popmatters.

Solange in Honey Magazine: A Breath of Fresh Air

tigger500 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:59:45 +0000

So few artists come across like human beings in interviews. Many of them are not supposed to.

Then there are those that have the regular round-the-way image, but it is really pretentious and affected (Hi Jill!)

Solange is neither. She genuinely seems human.

Despite being gorgeous and a Knowles, her declarations about not giving a fuck sound like, you know, she doesn’t give a fuck. It’s amazing to me that someone so young and someone raised by Matthew Knowles (who is evil) is so believably regular. She’s like the exact opposite of her sister, but naturally so. I never once get the sense that she’s trying to be edgy and uncompromising, just that she is edgy and uncompromising.

Her new interview in Honey magazine reads like someone interviewed a smart young mother off the street about her life. It doesn’t read at all like an interview of a young woman who is probably the most promising young Black woman artist in the game right now.

To wit:

One thing that’s kind of been confusing me is that I keep hearing people say ‘Oh, great you’re going natural.’ Does that mean weave-free or does that mean perm-free? Because I haven’t had a perm since I was 13. It’s interesting how much hair plays a role in your life and character and schedule. I remember when I was 13 I went through my ‘I-am-Miss-Natural, incense-burning, Bob Marley-playing, only-vintage-shop-wearing Solange.’ So of course that included cutting my perm off, being a Vegan. I didn’t quite understand yet that my hair did not define me. Then I remember being 16 and being like ‘Okay, I can still be smart and I can still have the same beliefs that I have, but I did not have to have red Rasta braids. I can do that with straight hair. I can do that with a ‘fro. I can do that with a weave down to my butt.’ That was when I first cut my hair off. When I was 18 I got a hot flash because I was pregnant with [Julez] and I was like ‘It’s hot as hell so I’m cutting this shit off.’ But this time it was definitely more so about the growth and the energy and the time I was spending. It was about to be summer, and I didn’t want to have to worry about swimming or going to the park with my son or how hair was going to fit into my life. It was too much.

[Y]ou probably will still see me rocking animal print as I did the other day. Someone cracked up laughing and was like ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going with flannel, leopard and stripes?’ I was like ‘I’m going to tackle my day.’

In a world with vacuous pop stars and pretentious pop alternatives, Solange is just an artist. If her next album is as strong as Sol-Angel, she’ll join the ranks of Black woman artists like Joi Gilliam, Sy Smith, Jaguar Wright, Adina Howard, Yahzarah, and Truth Hurts who defy with graceful aplomb the commercial v. underground, pop aesthetic v. soul aesthethic paradigms that are choking the life out of Black music.

In other words, this chick is major and most people will never buy her albums.

Good for her.

Raphael Saadiq on NPR

tigger500 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:59:19 +0000

I love Raphael Saadiq. I think Instant Vintage and As Ray Ray are two of the best albums released this decade.

But eh, I’m lukewarm on The Way I See It. I wanted to love it more, but pleasant though it is, it felt like he was ripping off the 60s, not reinterpreting it (as he did with 70s funk on As Ray Ray).

That said, this video of Ray Ray’s acoustic performance of three of the better tracks from The Way I See It is proof that this dude is dope. Really – people should stop treating him like an afterthought.

Enjoy.

Side note – If Raphael Saadiq doesn’t produce the new En Vogue album, I don’t want it.

Dope Black Maleness – Brendon Ayanbadejo and Murs

tigger500 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:34:49 +0000

I present to you two dope examples of progressive, radical brothers.

First up. Brendan Ayanbadejo

Ayabadejo plays for the Ravens and just published a pro-gay marriage column on The Huffington Post, dropping obvious and rational observations like:

If Britney Spears can party it up in Vegas with one of her boys and go get married on a whim and annul her marriage the next day, why can’t a loving same sex couple tie the knot? How could our society grant more rights to a heterosexual one night stand wedding in Vegas than a gay couple that has been together for 3, 5, 10 years of true love? The divorce rate in America is currently 50%. I am willing to bet that same sex marriages have a higher success rate than heterosexual marriages… I think we will look back in 10, 20, 30 years and be amazed that gays and lesbians did not have the same rights as every one else. How did this ever happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Are we really free?

Indeed.

With John Amaechi coming out, gospel singer Tonex coming out, sports and “homophobic” black church folk are whippin the ass of hip-hop and R&B in their support of LGBT folk’s basic civil and human rights, this despite the fact that the imaging of black men in popular music is so homo-identified it almost approaches parody.

Next up. Murs, rapper extraordinaire, drops rational on why it’s hard to be a female emcee in hip-hop:

In my mind, Murs’ candor here is as radical a statement as Kanye’s about homophobia, if not more. We are far too complacent about Black women’s role in, and relationship to, hip hop.

Dope dope dope.

Domonique Foxworth Is Cool

tigger500 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:37:06 +0000

So I never even heard of this cat, Domonique Foxworth, before. Apparently he plays football and is good at it.

Interestingly, he has quite the collection of civil rights era memorabilia.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has a dream in the cover of an autographed memoir. Malcolm X defies a detractor in a typed letter from 1963. Rosa Parks sits, Tommie Smith clenches and Thurgood Marshall reasons in framed and signed artifacts that form Foxworth’s growing museum of the civil rights movement.

I’m not sure if I’m more impressed with Foxworth or the fact that the pre-eminent newspaper in the country has covered what is a pretty non-newsy story about a Black pro athlete and in so doing has managed to humanize one of the men it usually doesn’t even think of as human.

Nice.

The best part of the article?

Later, looking at the collection, he said: “Not often, but on occasion I feel guilty. I have all this because I run real fast and I tackle people. I recognize why I’ve been able to do this. It’s not all because of me or my family or my teammates or my coaches. It’s more because of the faces on the walls in my basement.”

Indeed. I may watch a Ravens game now.

Maybe.

Dope Black Maleness – Brendon Ayanbadejo and Murs

Album Review: Calvin Richardson’s Facts of Life

tigger500 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:00:16 +0000

Covering a song is hard. A singer must find his or her own approach to material that is often beloved. Do it right, like Blackstreet’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s In Need” or En Vogue’s cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “Giving Him Something He Can Feel”, and you can spark an endless debate among music fans about which version is better. One wrong step, though, like Christina Aguilera’s atrocious cover of Donny Hathaway’s “A Song For You” or Boyz II Men’s cover of New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain”, and you can alienate an entire generation.

The greatest challenge lies in trying to put your own stamp on an artist who is a singular figure, and do it for the entire length of an album. Such is the case with contemporary soul star Calvin Richardson’s new album of Bobby Womack songs, Facts of Life: The Soul of Bobby Womack, named for Womack’s 1973 album.

Anyone who has heard Richardson might think this is a match made in heaven. From the moment he dropped his criminally ignored debut, Country Boy, Richardson has drawn frequent comparisons to Womack, partly due to the fact that he included a very good cover of “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much” on the Country Boy.

Go read the rest at Popmatters.