Dr. Jelani Cobb calls Ludacris, 50 and Ice Cube SNITCHES.

I am on my blog gully today blog fam.

Rafi, I gotchu on the Stop Shooting post. I had to get these out the way. Babygirl been backed up. I promised Gotty this one first. You up next fam:)

Dr. Cobb aint really call 'em snitches. I just wanted to get yall attention:0

But what he did do was point out how they can go after Oprah, but not after Bill O'Reilly (at least with the same vigor) or after Jerry Heller, who gaffled Cube for HELLA paper in the 80's.

This post started out from a forward from Gotty. I been sittin on the train marinating on how I was gonna go at it. Please enjoy.
*****My response's to Dr. Cob's essay are in blue.

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We Still Wear The Mask

By Dr. William Jelani Cobb

Part I. 50 Cent and the Mask
We could have known that it would come to this way back in 1896. That was the year that Paul Lawrence Dunbar dropped a jewel for the ages, telling the world that "we wear the mask that grins and lies."

The poet's point was that beneath the camouflage of subservient smiles, black folks of the Jim Crow era were hiding a powder keg of other emotions, waiting patiently for the chance to detonate. The thing is, Dunbar never got the chance to spit bars with 50 Cent or throw in a guest collabo on a Mobb Deep album. If he had, then he would've known that grins and lies were only half the story.

These days, camouflage is the new black. Glance at hip hop for less than a second and it becomes clear that the music operates on a

single hope: that if the world mistakes kindness for weakness it can also be led to confuse meanness with strength. That principle explains why there is a permanent reverence for the thug within the music; it is why there is a murderer's grit and a jailhouse tat peering back at you from the cover of damn near any CD you picked up in the last five years. But what hip hop can't tell you, the secret that it would just as soon take to its deathbed is that it this urban bravado

is a guise, a mask, a head-fake to shake the reality of fear and powerlessness in America. Hip hop will never admit that our assorted thugs and gangstas are not the unbowed symbol of resistance to marginalization, but the most complacent and passive products of it.

[ The Thug Mentality cannot be discussed with out mentioning American Pop culture and its reverence for the bad guys. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Scarface. The list goes on and on. My intent isn't to let any of these cats off the hook. My intent is to ensure that it is being properly contexualized. I would make the same argument about Lil' Kim and sexual lyrics.]

We wear the mask that scowls and lies.

Part II. Dr. Dre Fist and Dee Barnes Face
You could see which way the wind was blowing way in the early 90s when Dr. Dre was being ripped off by white Ruthless Records CEO

Jerry Heller, and nonetheless got his street cred up by punching and kicking Dee Barnes, a black woman journalist, down a flight of stairs. In this light, hip hop's obsessive misogyny makes a whole lot more sense. It is literally the logic of domestic violence. A man is abused by a larger society, but there are consequences to striking back at the source of his problems. So he transfers his anger to an acceptable outlet – the women and children in his own household, and by extension, all the black people who constitute his own

community.

Nothing better illustrates that point than the recent Oprah Debacle. Prior to last month, if you'd heard that a group of rappers had teamed up to attack a billionaire media mogul you would think that hip hop had finally produced a moment of collective pride on par with the black power fists of the 1968 Olympics. But nay, just more blackface.

[ Well Duh. Then the question becomes, if being a thug is not anti

society , then what exactly does being Thug Mean? How can you be an unbowed symbol of resistance when your only language is violence, would be my follow up question. Ask Eskay. He will tell you that I am a firm believer in violence. In a way, waking up every day and trying to be contrsuctive in the face of unsurmountable odds will make you wanna be violent ock. Sometimes VIOLENCE is necessary to get the attention of your adversary. Why you think we at war? However, it can be only ONE of the tools in your tool box.

Not the only one.]

Part III. Oprah and Hip Hop

In the past two months, artists as diverse as Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube have attacked Oprah Winfrey for her alleged disdain for hiphop. It's is a sad but entirely predictable irony that the one instance in which hip hop's reigning alpha males summon the testicular fortitude to challenge someone more powerful and wealthy than they are, they choose to go after a black woman.

[ Female Model Minorities are easy targets ock. And you know the media loved that sh*t too. Ohhh, two black stars talkin' sh*t about each other, breaking news].

The whole set up was an echo of some bad history. Two centuries ago, professional boxing got its start in America with white slaveholders who pitted their largest slaves against those from competing plantations. Tom Molineaux. First black heavyweight

champion came up through the ranks breaking the bones of other slaves and making white men rich. After he'd broken enough of them, he was given his freedom. The underlying ethic was clear: an attack on the system that has made a slave of you will cost you your life, but an attack on another black person might just be the road to emancipation.
The basis for this latest bout of black-on-black pugilism was Oprah's purported stiff-arming of Ludacris during an appearance on

her show with the cast of the film Crash.

Ludacris later complained that the host had made an issue of lyrics she saw as misogynistic. Cube jumped into the act whining that Oprah has had all manner of racist flotsam on her show but has never invited him to appear – proof, in his mind, that she has an irrational contempt for hip hop. Then 50 threw in his two cen

ts with a claim that Oprah's criticism of hip hop was an attempt to win points with her largely white, middle class audience. All told, she was charged her with that most heinous of hip hop's felonies: hateration.

Part IV. 50's Love and respect for the President
But before we press charges, isn't 50 the same character who openly expressed his love for GW Bush as a fellow "gangsta"

and demanded that the black community stop criticizing how he handled Hurricane Katrina?

Compare that to multiple millions that Oprah has disseminated to our communities (including building homes for the Katrina families, financing HIV prevention in South Africa and that $5 million she dropped on Morehouse College alone) and the idea of an ex-crack

dealer challenging her commitment to black folk becomes even more surreal.

In spite of – or, actually, as a result of -- his impeccable gangsta credentials, 50 basically curtsied before a President who stayed on vacation for three days while black bodies floated down the New Orleans streets. No wonder it took a middle-class preppie with an African name and no criminal record to man-up and te

ll the whole world that "George Bush don't care about black folks." No wonder David Banner – a rapper who is just a few credits short of a Master's Degree in social work -- spearheaded hip hop's Katrina relief concerts, not any of his thug counterparts who are eternally shouting out the hoods they allegedly love.

[50 love the Hood though. Right ock.]

The 50 Cent, whose music is a panoramic vision on black-on-black homicide, and who went after crosstown rival Ja Rule with the vengeance of a dictator killing off a hated ethnic minority did

everything but tap dance when Reebok told him to dismantle his porn production company or lose his lucrative sneaker endorsement deal.

[ Say word. I wasn't even knowing about the back yard boogie

negotiations].

But why single out 50? Hip hop at-large was conspicuously silent when Bush press secretary Tony Snow (a rapper's alias if ever there was one) assaulted hip hop in terms way more inflammatory than Oprah's mild request: "Take a look at the idiotic culture of hip-hop and whaddya have? You have people glorifying failure. You have a bunch of gold-toothed hotdogs become millionaires by

running around and telling everybody else that they oughtta be

miserable failures and if they're really lucky maybe they can get gunned down in a diner sometime, like Eminem's old running mate."

[The buck stops here. This is inaccurate, untrue and a mistatement. There are as many flavors in Hip Hop as there a varieties of people

in this country. Some glorify failure. Others glorify they hood, they trees, they cars, they mommas, they baby momma's, they drive by's

, the list goes on and on. While the point is understood, when talking about art it is very important to resist being didactic otherwise you come across as not respecting the form.]

(We're still awaiting an outraged response from the thug community for that one.) Rush Limbaugh has blamed hip hop for everything short ofthe Avian flu but I can't recall a single hip hop artist who has

gone after him lyrically, publicly or physically. Are we seeing
a theme yet?

Part V. Ludacris, Bill O'Reilly and Oprah
It's worth noting that Ludacris did not devote as much energy to Bill O'Reilly --who attacked his music on his show regularly and causedhim to lose a multi-million dollar Pepsi endorsement – as he

did to criticizing Oprah who simply stated that she was tired of hip hop's misogyny.

Luda was content to diss O'Reilly on his next record and go about his business. Anyone who heard the interview that Oprah gave on Power 105.1 in New York knew she was speaking for a whole generation of hip hop heads when she said that she loved the music, but she wanted the artists to exercise some responsibility.

But this response is not really about Oprah, or ultimately about hip hop, either. It is about black men once again choosing a black woman as the safest target for their aggression and even one with a billion dollars is still fair game.

Of all their claims, the charge that Oprah sold out to win points with her white audience is the most tragically laughable. The truth is that her audience's white middle-class kids exert waaay more influence over 50 and Cube than their parents do over Oprah. I long ago tired of Cube, a thirty-something successful director, entrepreneur and married father of three children making records about his aged recollections of a thug's life. The gangsta theme went cliché eons

ago, but Cube, 50 and a whole array of their musical peers lack either the freedom or the vision to talk about any broader element of our lives. The reality is that the major labels and their majority white fan base will not accept anything else from them.

[I made this same connection when we discussing this over at Nah Right.]

And there we have it again: more masks, more lies.

Part VI. Hip Hop and N*ggas
It is not coincidental that hip hop has made Ni@$a the most common noun in popular music but you have almost never heard any certified thug utter the word cracker, ofay, honky, peckerwood, wop, dago, guinea, kike or any other white-oriented epithet. The reason for thatis simple: Massa ain't havin' it. The word fag, once a commonplace derisive in the music has all but disappeared from

hip hop's vocabulary. (Yes, these thugs fear the backlash from white gays too.) And bitch is still allowed with the common understanding that the term is referring to black women. The point is this: debasement of black communities is entirely acceptable – required even – by hip hop's predominantly white consumer base.

We have lived enough history to know better by now – to know that

gangsta is Sonny Liston, the thug icon of his era, threatening to kill Cassius Clay but completely impotent when it came to demanding that his white handlers stop stealing his money. Gangsta is the black men at the Parchman Farm prison in Mississippi who beat the civil rights workers Fannie Lou Hamer and Annell Ponder into bloody unconsciousness because their white wardens told them to. Gangsta is Michael Ervin, NFL bad boy remaining conspicuously mute on Monday Night Football while Limbaugh dissed Donovan McNabb as an Affirmative Action athlete. Gangsta is Bigger Thomas

with dilated pupils and every other sweaty-palmed black boy who saw method acting and an attitude as his ticket out of the ghetto.

Surely our ancestors' struggles were about more than creating millionaires who could care less about us and then tolerating their violent disrespect out of a hunger for black success stories. Surely we are not so desperate for heroes that we uphold cardboard icons because they throw good glare. There's more required than that. The weight of history demands more than simply this. Surely we understand that these men are acting out an age-old script. Taking the Tom Molineaux route. Spitting in the wind and breaking black bones. Hoping to become free.

Or, at least a well-paid slave.

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J, TPW, Gotty, Vik, where yall at? Watch'all think? That post was a few days in the making.
Now imma take me a nap or get me some more Zen Tea so I can write this stipulation letter for my boss. And where inna h*ll did the sun go. The Sky is gray again. I tell you, July weather got more personalities than a gemini (hi gotty:).
~m dot.
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You Need More People!!!!!!

This shirt from Lemaur and Dauley is that trill sh*t. While J Does not like these Hipster T's I think they are downright fresh. In fact the t-shirt represents the essence of me. BL allways has to tell me to take of my running shoes and put on my boxing gloves.

But 'chall, I don't be wanting to fight sometimes. But 'ol boy be like, if you want your dreams, you better get them boxing gloves and work on your fundamentals baby:)

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6 Asian cats beat the snot out of a latino dude in Frisco aka the Sucka Free. Mac Jay, why yo people acting up?

Prosecutors are gunning for the hate crime.

Why can't modelminorities just get along?

Why do we keep hearing about these cases?

Is it that the prosecutors are pursuing these cases more vigorously, or they just getting more media coverage.

This is the second time today that I heard of a gang beating someone and it being treated as a hate crime which is a federal felony.

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Vibe has been sold. And Danyel is back at the helm.
Where Oakland @ Nuccas!?!?!!?!?!

And where is her blog? Its been hijacked by a japanese cat.

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So we learned last week that Gil Scott has The Virus and left rehab last week. Is it legal for a newspaper to print someones HIV status? That's my question. I am under the impression that ones status is HUGELY confidential and to mention it is a breach which will have yo @ss up in court with the quickness.

He gon' mess around and die in jail if he keep on acting up.

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I like reading the wedding sections of The Times. I like to see, who married "UP" or "down". I envision what the babies are gonna look like. Im a nerd. I know.

I like to look at the descriptions of the families and I wonder how the "receptionist mother" feels about her daughter who just graduated from Harvard Med School and had just married a man who has graduated from Harvard Med School.

I look for brown people. It do Be some model minorities in the wedding pages from time to time.

Elizabeth Dee and Doug Wada were married on Thursday at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The Rev. Thomas W. Ahern, a Roman Catholic priest, officiated at the ceremony.

The bride, 33, is keeping her name. She owns Elizabeth Dee Gallery, an art gallery in Manhattan. She graduated from Mount Holyoke. She is a daughter of Bonnie Grayson Dee and Arthur Hollis Dee of Frederick, Md.

The bridegroom, 42, is a painter whose work is on display at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts. He is the son of Alice Wada and Robert Wada of Claremont, Calif.

I pay attention to whether the people are smiling in their shots.

I love when I see someone who just got and mba/jd/md from Columbia, Yale, Harvard and I see that their parents are good old working class folks (ie receptionist, mechanics, bus drivers. I am curious when the parents and or their employment IS NOT mentioned. I wonder how they handle thanksgivings. Do they invite their Ivy league friends home. Do the front about what their parents do. Do their sibilings resent their mba's/jd's/md's.

Awww. The good ald fashion questions of class mobility.


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Scarface in Bk. Moes. Sunday night.
The writing in the movie was priceless. I knew that it was about gangsta's and what not.
But I did not know that it was a immigrant tale also.

How can you understand Hip Hop with out analysing Scarface. In fact that would be a dope documentary. Fools talking about how the film influenced their rhymes and their style.
I stay seeing dudes, with scarface, hats, t-shirts, hoodies, leather jackets. Infact, for the past few weeks I have been playing around with the idea of a series of street portriats with dudes explaining where their from and why the rock the 'face.
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N*ggas love eating chicken.

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I like that " you need more people slang". I think that it is quite fitting at this point in my life where I am learning that I am only as strong as my network and my consistency. Es Verdad? What have you learned about yourself recently, blog fam. Where yall at. The boards been 'lil quiet since the n*gga post.

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You Can't Blame the Youth

Cant blame the youth. Hot jawn right!?!?!

It is a parents responsibility to ensure that their children learn how to read.
It is a societies responsibility to step and and assist parents, when the parents are unable.

We either pay to educated 'em now, or pay to inprison 'em later. Our choice.

When the kids grow up to be grimey hoods with few legal "marketable" skills sets, you can't blame the youth. FA 'SHOW.

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Cat on on 125th was selling a book called the "Destruction of the Nigger Mentality". Full disclosure. I HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK. Based on reviewing the table of contents it, humorous, serious, relevent, with a big gulping dosage of a pre mecca Malcom. ______________

White Boy creates a Hip Hopera that he desribes as a ghetto comedy and a social drama. Er. Ok. I would like to see it for myself. Tix are $8.

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He was one of these seen the world men. These done things they afraid to tell their momma men.

- Yolanda Joe, "Video Cowboys"

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Today was one of the first rain free Saturday's in a hot minute. I spent the entire day in Harlem. Showing apartments, running around like I had no business. BL and I be straight symbiotic. We will see someone w/ the crazy outfit on, and look to get the other persons attention. The problem with that is when one of said indiviuals with a crazy outfit is a grizlle uptown chick, with a wifey on, some uptowns, metal chain for the keys. The whole nine. Did I mention that she outweiged me by a good 40 pounds. Now yall know that the 'town is gully, but laughing in the face of uptown grizzley females is the equiv of plain asking for an @ss whuppin. I can't help it. I get the giggles. It was cool, in the end. It was just hard to keep it in given some of the combinations I saw. What I DID see that was fly was the SOURCE of all them PUNKY brewster style colorful uptowns. I hit the mother load. They actually had uptowns with RAINBOWS on them blog fam! WHHHUUUUT? _______________
I recently came across a quote that said that perceived,
Sports as societys proving ground for moral and ethical issues. - NY Times Quote, May 2006

This statement resonated with me because of how closley the "moral value" or " moral impact" athletes actions OFF THE COURT afffect how they are perceived as atheltes and in general as human beings. Kobe anyone? Marian Jones. Barry Bonds.
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According to the New York Bar association 10451 is the POOREST ZIP CODE in the country. It is located in the bronx. Deep Right. They sitting up her talking about Hurrican Katrina ("HK"), and we have some HYPER vulnerable folks with in 10 miles of Wall Street. Say Word!

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Yall remember Gloria Naylor. She wrote "Women of Brewster Place". I just finished her new book, "1996" and it is BUGGED(literally and metaphorically, more about that below). In the book, Gloria is the main protagonist, (its a fictionalized memoir). She is living in a recently purchased home in the Sea Islands. She messed around, after only being there for a few months ,and killed the neighbors cat. Then all h*ll breaks loose. The neighbor's brother WORKS FOR THE "N" "S" "A". Spoliers below.

Gloria goes on to be tapped, followed, chased, have her mind read using advanced electronic miliatary mind reading equipment. Blog fam. Could I make this up? Peep this excerpt of a review,

The fictionalized memoir purports to detail what became of
Naylor's life after she moved to a secluded stretch of St. HelenaIsland. Her intention was to spend a year writing in the serene island setting, plant a garden and spend time enjoying the lifestyle she had worked hard to obtain.
But shortly after moving into her home, Naylor has a run-in with an eccentric Jewish neighbor who "had at least a dozen cats." When "Eunice" refuses to keep the cats out of Naylor's garden, and Naylor ends up taking matters into her own hands, the dispute turns ugly.
Eunice's brother also happened to be the head of the National Security Agency. The bad blood between the women led to Naylor's being investigated as a drug-dealer and labeled as a dangerous anti-Semite. It wasn't long before Naylor discovered that she was being followed everywhere she went. When the harassment became unbearable, Naylor fled her Southern refuge and returned to New York, where the scrutiny escalated into mind-control.

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So much bloggy goodness coming up fam. How was your Warm July Weekend? I danced in Fort Green Park so hard yesterday, my feet needed three showers! ____________________

Hip Hop Told Me it Loved Me.

How do I know Hip Hop loves me?

Well. A few songs can illustrate said love.

1. Bonita Applebum- Tribe
That video was so, fun and playfull, brimming with whimsey.

I like to tell you things, some brothas don't.

Satisfaction, I have the right tactics/ and if you need 'em I got crazy prophylactics/
So far I hope you like rap songs/ Bonita Applebum/ You gotta put me on.

It reminded me of kids at the "popular table in the cafeteria", banging out a beat, serenading the a sista' who was president of the drama cluba and still didn't give him any play.


2. My Favorite Ladies- Doom
The song opens up with,

"girl/ you make me wanna eachu/ everytime I see you/ its like the first time a sentchu/."

"She from Columbia so she really Spanish/Cookie know how to make a bank account vanish."

Yeah. It do go down like that from time to time.
What. Doom got game like that.


3. On the Road Again- JB's
There is something about this song that I have allways liked. Um. The singing on the hook.
The Horns, the bass line. It allways reminded me of running through the jungle, looking for my love.

4. Hot Sex Onna Platter- Tribe
This bass line is sick. And the fact that Tip just started it off w/ "Where ya At", like what nigg@, where yo a$$ at, cuz I got something for you with them broad a$$ shoulders. Hello!

5. Freaky Tales- Too Short
This was the most raunchiest song I ever heard up until that point.
It was differnt from 2-live Crew, cuz luke and 'nem would Rap n' scream. 2 short, would, just slur his sh*t out, so you could hear ever nasty 'lil word.
Whereas short, was like, "I met this girl, her name was brenda",
with that crazy a$$ 808.
That jawn would lbe rumbling the trunks of mad oldsmobiles in east oakland.

6. Paper Thin- Mc Lyte
She started it off right. Just brining it to heads.

/When you say you love me/ it doesn't matter it goes in my head as just chit chatter/.

That was BBC's ring tone when I couldn't talk to him last fall. Lyte put a FOOL on blast
IN A SONG. Again the bass line was all swirley and fast. When I hear it I think of riding downhill on path in the woods, hair blowing, smelling jasmine blossoms.

6. Why You Wanna- TI
What can I say. He killed me with , "give him back his ring/ and his key". Those two issues are hugely symbolic in a relationship and he hit the nail on the head!

He ends the song with , I got one question, "Is you happy?". Thats that trill right there. Because, if you are not, then it is the perfect segue for a conversation on why TI needs to be given a chance.


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Men are interesting in the way they are able to compartmentalize.

BL and I go at it b/c he can separate sh*t out, and put it in categories, whereas I see things as being Super Connected and related.

For instance, when he introduces me to people, I wanna know a little bit about their story jus to get some context. It helps me see how they fit into his relationship web. Wherease he doesn't really see the back story as being relevent.

Another example was a conversation that I had with Gotty about an estimated 40 thousand women being brought to Germany to have sex with World Cup spectators.

Gotty was on some 'ol, I can't do sh*t about it, so why should I trip.
I responded stating that, dude, that is out and out slavery.
And of course it deserves a response, simply because it reflects global societies view of
poor women as available sexual objects.

No one "chooses" to be human sex pods, and if they do, they deserve, health care, 401k's, vacations and childcare. Don't half a$$ it, give it the structure and respect that the "oldest" industry deserves.

Its human trafficing. Its slavery. It does not need to be happening. If it is going to happen, it needs to be monitored, analyzed .

There was no way, upon learning about these women, that I could not connect
their position to the often powerless position that poor women, and poor people as a whole, around the world, have been in.

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Apparently Big Pun usta smash his wife's face on the regular. It will be interesting to see HOW MANY MORE women speak up.

Sista's who were in relationships with and had been physically abused by rappers are speaking up. Muy interesante.

Can we call this the Ms. Stepphans affect? (Women in the game that live to tell it, tell it.)

I procured this from www.newblackman.blogspot.com
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Wow. It is the fourth of July in '06.

I think I ate my weight in watermelon.

I have some Brooklyn, Coney Island, kids throwin' sand stories to tell yall.

How was your fourth?
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The Beauty is in the Bassline.

Yes. Dear friends. This image is BEING SOLD ON T_SHIRTS. Excellent dude!

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10 Things That I Have Learned about Myself Since I Have Last Blogged.
1. Failure Can Be Career Defining.
2. Bullies at work, continue to bully because no one has stopped them.
3. It is painful to watch hundreds of Black and Brown People fight eviction, without and attorney, in Housing Court.
4. I really like the Gap Band.
5. You can tell alot about a person based on how they handle a crisis.
6. People Really like to Argue over the word N-GGA.
7. Jay- Z likes to announce concerts that we can't afford.
8. American Apparrel Dresses are really snug and sexy.
9. A diner that me and BL brunch at from time to time was in the Soprano's Grand Finale. Deep Hunh?
10. If a man does not feel like he is making you happy, he will bounce. ____________________
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Who innna h-ll is Saalam Remi and is it legal for him take haunting, Queensbridge, doing 80 on the freeway type beats.
The beauty is in the bass line yall.

Peace to Spinemagazine.com for the laink.

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Lady gets bucked at for tryning to rid her building of D-Boys.

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This dude was posted up in Union Square train station with this. I thought it was very "Berkeley" and decided to take a picture of it. And I dontated a $1.

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Washington Post done went ahead an did a whole series on Black Men. It is not as substatitive as I would LIKE for them to use their powerful resources to produce, it certainly is better than that Doom and Gloom Orlando Peterson piece in the NY Times earlier this year.

African American Men: Moments in History from Colonial Times to the Present Colonial Times, 1492-1776

1492: Among the crew on the Santa Maria during Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas is Pedro Alonzo Niño, a black man. Africans also accompany Ponce de Leon, Hernando Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Soto, and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the early 16th century.
1623: William Tucker, the son of indentured servants living in Jamestown, is the first recorded black birth in America.
1625: A census of Virginia counts 11 black men among a population of 1,227.
1641: Mathias De Sousa, a free black man, is elected to the Maryland General Assembly. He had come to the colony as an indentured servant.
1644: Lucas Santomee, a black physician and one of the major landowners in what is to become New York, is granted a tract by the Dutch that stretched from modern-day Greenwich Village to Brooklyn.
1700: About 60 percent of all African Americans in the colonies (16,390) live in Virginia.
1712: Though other colonies had passed laws regulating the behavior of slaves, South Carolina passes a slave code that becomes the standard for slave-owning states. It proscribes escalating punishments for rebellious acts including death for escaping, authorizes whites to punish any slave found violating the law, and prohibits slaves from growing their own crops, working for money or learning to read and write. 1729: In an early precursor to lynchings, Maryland passes a law that mandates savage punishment for slaves accused of violent crimes: decapitation, hanging, or having a body's remains publicly displayed after being drawn and quartered.
This info was, er- procured from washingtonpost.com

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I had to wade through, six or seven paragraphs before the New York Magazine article on Damon Dash got to his conflict with Jay Z. No one ever talks about power dynamics, atleast not in a transparent, constructive way. And finally they did here. Reading is confirmed that men take their friendship losses hard too.

Although Jay-Z had already spent years searching in vain for
a record deal, Dash says he was drawn to him from the outset. “Everybody thought he was too old; they didn’t like the way he dressed: like a Harlem dude. He wore Nike Airs, which everybody called uptowns.” The class distinctions were lost on
nobody. “The Brooklyn cats who were more dominant were known for doing things like gold teeth, much more ghetto,” and they viewed Harlem’s aesthetic as soft.
But Dash saw in Jay-Z a sort of uptown swagger. “I was shocked. Here was a guy with the same aspirations that I had. We wanted to be known for making money.
All we talked about was making money and how to spend it, what the best of everything was and how bad we wanted it.”

“He said, ‘It’s business,’ ” Dash says. “But we were always
supposed to be about more than business, Jay especially.” Dash saw his own role as the executive’s so that Jay-Z could remain an artist at all times. “I did everything I possibly could so that he didn’t have to raise his voice. He just had to whisper something in my ear and I’d take care of it. The people I fought with to make money for him, Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles”—executives at Def Jam—“he’s made friends with. He hangs out with Puff now. It’s like if your brother leaves you.”

Dame's comment regarding the fact that Jay is now friends with the people that Dame usta negotiate with. It is almost as if Jay is parlayed his intelectual property into leverage for his career and Dame does not feel useful anymore. Men take the breaking up of menships hard too. Sometimes the thing you want the most is the thing that money can't buy, friendship.

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So the sandals are out. The two for $12 Old Navy tanks are getting rocked. I got hella competitive playing Taboo in Staten Island (which looked like the Bay, by the way) last night. Life is good. What's cracking wi'chall?

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Model Minorties Love.Hate.Love Their Fathers.

Our fathers. We wouldn't be here without them right?!?!?! Well. I thought of putting together a post listing books and songs that speak on what it means to be a father. First up. Is Ed Og and the Bull Dogs, be a "Father to your Child".

I got a Uncle who will tell you inna heart beat, that "Be A Father to your Child" is his all time favorite rap song. He is old school. In his heart music needs to have a positive message. While I don't agree 100%, I do understand his reasoning. Where is Ed OG? Didn't he put out a EP Pete Rock?


Second is RM Harris's series of Books. Now RM is one of those dudes that let you know from jump street that he is writing about the brotha's and that he loves them, the all good AND the all bad.
RM Harris is on some other sh*t now. However his first novels, are written so lovingly about black men, abandonment and trying to hold your family together in face is insurmountable obstacles. (Did I just use insurmountable inna sentence? I need to stop going to school).
The next up is. His book Finding Makeba by Alexis D. Pate. Finding Makeba is beautiful. It is about rediscovering your daughter. Thinking that you can live without your her only to learn that she is a essential part of your life.

In a Philadelphia bookstore, African American writer Ben Crestfield asks a young woman for her name so that he can autograph a copy of his first novel for her. When she replies, "Makeba Crestfield," he realizes she's his only child, the daughter he hasn't seen and he left her mother when Makeba was 10. Ben's novel is the thinly disguised story of his marriage to 19-year-old Helen, who was pregnant with Makeba when he was a 22-year-old part-time English major studying on the G.I. Bill in the 1970s, and how the relationship unraveled over the next decade as he tried to be both an artist and a responsible family man, churning out copy at an ad agency to pay the bills.

The next up is, writer who, if I were his friend, I would e-mail him every day and tell him that you need to write about being a Black Male Father, who IS committed to raising his son, who is largely motivated by the fact that his OWN father left him. Maybe I will summon him with this post. Smile.

Samori Maceo-Paul Coates is the big-headed result of my union with Kenyatta Matthews. We met during a mutual stint at Howard University and have been together ever since. Before we met, she had a dim view of men as fathers. Her plan for parenthood was basically: get pregnant by some dude and then conveniently lose him. A father would only complicate things, she thought. When she got pregnant with Samori, I was able to convince her otherwise, but during my time as a dad, I have given my share of evidence to bolster her original view, and today's trip in the rain only promises to add another letter to the file.

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On a personal note. I scared the bejesus out of my father last week . I did not call him back and I was going through that 'ish getting grades back and adjusting to a "few" new jobs. He panicked. It was the first time, since 9/11, that he showed up at my moms front door, first thing in the morning. Real Talk.

Suffice it is to say he got a taste of what it was like to try and contact me, and I was unreachable. Historically, he has been the one who dissapeared on me. He conceeded that, in an ironic twist, he got a taste of it last week. Full disclosure. I did not do it on purpose. In fact, I never thought of it like that until he brought it up.

It was very comforting for him to concede how panick inducing it is to try and contact your father/daughter, when you know they are going through some 'ish, and you can't reach 'em.

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How 'yall spending fathers day blog fam-a-lam? Its hot all-across the country. Summer here. The feet are out!
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Blogger is really tryna rock with me yall. I have been trynin' to post this post since Friday. Come on blogger, don't start tynaa front, just when the comments section start poppin off.
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Rock music is SMARTER than rap.

Ummm. Yall ever peep how Tina's I Can't Stand the Rain, is the Grandfather of all Neptunes beats. Think about how spare the drum is, and those forshawdowy 80's keyboards. For some reason that song popped in my head last week and it has not let go. You can tell that when she was in the studio, she got on her knees singing" Can't stand, stand, stand, tha RA HAAAAIN". Speaking of Tina. Can I rock like that in my 60's. Damn. Black REALLY DON'T crack.

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There is a comment by Eric Nord in the post section over at Hip Hop-blogs that lit a fire in my n*rrow a$$. Peep it below:

Let's face it, hip hop has become focused on selling macho-ness. It is now an alpha male enterprise. "Conscious" isn't macho.
Compare rap with rock. Rock has its fair share of macho-ness. But it has a place for non-macho stuff too.[Yes, there is a balance in Rock that is not in rap. In fact there is a balance of how white folks are represented in the Media as a whole, where there is an IMBALANCE of how non-white folks are portrayed. For instance, for a "black movie" to come out there has got to be a whole lotta coon factor. Dancin, smiling, shuckin' and jivin. I enjoy happy darkies as much as the next, but stories that reflect the range and depth of the brown experience is not coming to the silver screen or even tv frequently if at all. Perhaps HBO/Showtime will try, but they don't get it right all the time either. And don't even start with how my other MM's (Latinos, Asians, Muslims) are presented by Hollywood]. In the rock market, there is audience for both macho and sensitive (often combined) and even artsy. But in the rap world, it's pretty much 99% macho. [This goes to my point that unless you are in control of your image and how the will be used, the money is ONLY short term pay-off].

Whites have always been the primary consumer of Black music, but I think the relationship has changed. Black men are now free to make macho music and white people will buy it. We can go into the reasons for that, but that's a side discussion.
Back in the 1960s, there was simply a much bigger audience for
non-macho music. [I think this lets music listeners off a little bit too easy. I think that people can be smarter than this. But sex and violence is sooooo seductive. Who can beat it?] And also I think black men were also more receptive to non-macho music. I mean, how many old school artists are like "Yo, I love the new beats... but can't take these aggressive (read: macho) lyrics." [I don't have anything to say to this. I think that I have to process it a little bit more.]

In short, I think there is an attempt to equate black maleness with being insanely macho [re: a hypersexual, hyperviolent idiot who is only capable of singing a song or carrying a ball provided he can stay away from the 'roids]. and I think black people and white people buy into without realizing what a bunch of idiots they are. Green Day might call them American Idiots. On that
note...

how the eff did white people become the most prominent voice of political consciousness?????????

That is a good a$$ed question. Y'all tell me.

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When was the last time you read a book and knew that you would HAVE to read it again? Or at least buy it. Not since Danyels or Nichell's have I known that I needed to own my own personal copy of a book. I grew up using libraries, so if I come outta pocket for your jawn, it is special to me. That is how I felt while reading Martha Southgate's "Third Girl from the Left".

In the first 20 pages she tackles, the Tulsa Riots and the burning/murdering/genocide of Black Wall Street, Blaxsploitation Films, Class Mobility, The Playboy Mansion and sex in the 70's.
It has been a long time that a novel required me to read it with an index card and pen handy because I knew that at any moment, I would have to reocrd something because it was so beautiful.

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How this n*igga Randall Kennedy gon' testify that the "N" word is used by NON Black kids all the time, and consequently, supports the inference that Minucci did not commit a hate crime. F*ck outta here ock.

If you are a white dude with a bat and you tell a n*gga, what up n*igga, you have clearly declared that you are FOE not friend fam.

Mr. Minucci's lawyer, Albert Gaudelli, said he hoped Professor Kennedy's testimony would convince the jury that the mere use of the epithet did not constitute racism. On the stand yesterday, Professor Kennedy's explanation of the modern usage of the word seemed to support Mr. Gaudelli's claim.

"The word is a complex word," he testified. "It has many meanings."Professor Kennedy had just taken the stand in a packed courtroom and rattled off his impressive credentials — which include attending Princeton, Oxford and Yale, a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his membership in the Bar of the Supreme Court.

He said the epithet was "a word that can be put to many different uses," ranging from a pejorative term to a friendly salutation.Mr. Gaudelli asked Professor Kennedy, who is black, about his
book on the subject.

"My second book is entitled, 'Nigger: The Strange Career
of a Troublesome Word,' " the professor responded. Mr. Gaudelli handed him a copy of the book, and had it entered into the case as Exhibit W.

In the cross-examination, Mariela Herring, a Queens prosecutor, asked Mr. Kennedy, "Are you here to tell us the "n" word is no longer a derogatory term?" She then asked more directly, "Is it a derogatory term?" Professor Kennedy responded, "It can be."

They called it unfair that Mr. Minucci, who they said grew up in the ethnically diverse neighborhood of Lindenwood and had many black friends, could face up to 25 years simply for confronting [in his skull with a bat], who admitted to a history of violence and criminal encounters, and to hoping to steal a car that night. [He hangs out with negros, how could he ever beat one. Right, ock].

Oh. The dope thinkers at Biochemical Slang, which allways represents lovely, has a great take on the Minucchi case.

Black boys up to no good in the wrong neighborhood. White vigilante with a bat makes a sound like "Barry Bonds." Minucci, with racially motivated crimes on his record, is arrested.

Case closed.

But, this guy is part of the new Howard Beach.

Racism, that's an autosomal recessive trait. We wear G-Unit, Sean John, and bump Snoop D-O-double G in our $60,000 Escalade. DWU. That's Driving while unemployed. "What up, nigg__?" (that's Howard Beach talk, it means I am protecting the neighborhood).
This wasn't a hate crime. This was a white kid that grew up near the projects, with Hot 97. He's got Black friends, too.

Question for juror # 12: "Do you listen to rap music?" Then you must be familiar with the new and improved n-word. They use it amongst themselves, he grew up around them. He's a product of his environment.

Lawyers are geniuses. The original hustlers. They'll sell you ice in the winter.[ Hey hey hey now. Thats what they get paid to do now. Hate the game. Hate the game]. He spells it nigg_, not nigg__. He fell on
his head. Minucci loves Black people. Look, he's reading a Randall Kennedy book, and he's a Black Harvard professor.

Yeah. I jacked they post. Couldn't help myself.

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Umm. Oakland Spanked them Yankies. Thatiswhatiamtalkingabout!

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So 'yall, I ain't go all Wil E. Coyote with the post. I kept it nice and light. I guess my version of lite at least. So the sun was out today. But it was hella windy. Dude. And I ask again. Where is summer? Anybody go to the Rhino show? It was so overcast and gray, I am glad I did not buy tix. It would have been nice to see The R. though.

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What if Rakim had the Internet?

If Rakim had the internet in 1990 Hip Hop would arguably be different. I think that people like us, who adore music from the back pack, boom bap era would have a constant cycle of music to listen to and tours to attend.

Think about it. The problem isn't Hot 97 or KMEL. The problem is how a few artists are played over and over again and how their artistic range is tied to Universal Music's shareholders dividends *[more on this in the next post].

If Rakim had the internet in 1990 perhaps:

1. Eric B could have e-mailed beats to Rass Kass.

2. We would have an online distribution network of emcees and artist.

3. You Tube in 1990 would have circumvented the power of MTV. N*ggas could just put their videos up on YouTube.

4. VIBE arguably would not have been as powerful, as there would be OTHER sources to get hip hop from and consequently Biggie and Pac would not have been murdered. Nah. That prolly would have happened. With Rapcointelpro and all:(

5. Doom woulda been doing jawns with Del and Souls of Mischief.

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That you are getting paid for your images does not make you powerful. That is my argument regarding the popularity of Buffie the Body. But I think that it can be extended to hip hop also. Getting paid is one thing. Being in control of your images is another.

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Nahright has the Jay-Z HP commercial. I don't know how I feel about it. Watch it and tell me what you think.

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I have been away blog family. I missed 'yall. How do you think HH would be different today if Rakim had the internet in 1990?

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