Here is batgirl arguing for equal pay. Thanks to feministing for the cool link.
And Big K.R.I.T. with the remix of Country shit featuring Ludachris and Bun B. Yowza.
Juxtaposion: Hip hop/homophobia/queeriodic table of elements
Artifact 1:
T-shirt at Summer jam 2011
Artifact 2:
In Hip Hop this repressive denial often takes the shape of hypermasculine narratives with a no-homo brand of homophobia functioning as the frosting on the cake. Check out Funkmaster Flex’s seething defense of his homie Mr. Cee delivered in response to a rival station’s bit about Mr. Cee’s alleged public fellatio scenario. Flex goes on for at least five minutes straight, berating the entire station, defending Mr. Cee, and intimating that (gasp) there may be some folk at that other station who are actually gay, not (as Flex suggests re: Cee) framed by the NYC Hip Hop police.
But let’s pretend for minute that Mr. Cee is gay. Does that mean that his show, “Throwback at Noon” isn’t hot like fire? Does it diminish his pivotal role as Big Daddy Kane’s DJ? Is Ready to Die any less dope to you now than it was before you thought about the possibility that Mr. Cee was gay? I hope that you answered NO to all of these rhetorical questions and I hope that starting now the Hip Hop community can at last be persuaded to confront its irrational fear of the full range of our community’s human sexuality.
via NewBlackMan: Hip-Hop is Gay: Seeing Mr. Cee.
Artifact 3:
The queeriodic table of elements
Filed under hip hop, human rights, learning
Pharoahe Monch: Renegade
Ain’t no conscious hip hop left. Those that were conscious, now are just working to eat.
Pharoahe Monch never pretended to be simple and clean. His work with Organized Confusion was lyrical, dense, and complex. I think Monch is an intellectual roughneck — capable of pushing some thin ideas to the point of breaking. Hold no rapper to the ethical standards of a priest or a politician. Monch shares ideas — you don’t have to like them.
In fact, I didn’t like his video of “Black hand side.” It’s a good tune, and it encourages peaceful resolution of conflict among African Americans. But it also includes a domestic violence scene which seems to get the same treatment. Sweep violence under the rug. I’m not feeling that. So I’m certainly not gonna post a video with some ideas I feel need to be challenged.
But Pharoahe’s We Are Renegades (W.A.R.) is dang good as an album. And I don’t have any need for Pharoahe Monch to match my politics. Just to keep making good music. I’ll decide what fits me.
Witness “Clap.” The first single from the album that gets a relatively lush 10 minute short movie. Winter in America indeed. Ice cold and not getting any warmer. The only spark of warmth comes from gun barrel. 110%.
Filed under art, hip hop, human rights
Anthropomorphism and maps
Donna Seger has a lovely blog Streets of Salem. She has recently collected a nice gathering of maps represented via living creatures. Kicks ass.
Filed under academics, art, colonialism
Happy birthday prince
Questlove from the Roots was keeping a celebrity blog. Despite it coming down (boo!) I found a copy of my favorite Prince/Questo story.
valentines 2005.
grammy weekend in la.
it was a great weekend for us. our grammy jam went BEYOND our expectations.
parties out the wazoo and my girl was with me and we were like two kids in a candy store.
that monday marked the end of the weekend and my manager was smart enough to make sure that jill’s show coincided with the festivities.
rapheal sadiq was the opener and his set smoked. jill came shortly thereafter and backstage was like a list central. midway through her set i got a text from P’s assistant (he never calls, he has assistant call first to tell you “he will call you”. this time the text said that there was a rollerskating valentines party and invite some “cool” people.
confused about that last line i asked for clarification. cool meant my crew: mos, kweli, jill, erykah, com etc…
so i made some calls and truly realized how conservative my crew was…half them mofos was talking about “im tired”. even after the show jill was like “im tired” and what the hell was kweli doing in bed before midnight?
don’t answer that.
so backstage i saw alan leeds and figured id extend an invite to team sadiq. leeds cracked the door open and there was chris rock, sadiq and eddie. alan laughed like “you’d soon as see me in the grave for you see me in skates. im going to sleep”
rock was like “sheeeeeit i aint rollerskating with these knees”
sadiq: “dog im too old for that shit….”
i mean none of them saw the light!…..all except.
murph: yo man…i think this is historical. i think i need to see if this cat can rollerskate. that is comic gold alone.
damn….he saw it the way i see it….i mean sure, my ex and i had an awesome valentines day and mr romance was in overdrive and what better way to end the night doing couples only rollerskating?—
but dog i went just so i could live to tell yall this story.
the rink was waaaaay out in glenside cali. and it was so empty i knew we had to wrong rink. until i saw dj rasheeda and her 3 girlfriends skating. they were so happy to see us like yay! more people!–i felt bad like i shoulda invited more people but rash told me this is how he rolls….like 12 is a crowd to him. im like “how can you dj with no energy….you know how hard it is to keep 12 people happy?–
the staff was even more hilarious cat napping in the back (it was 1am) i asked “how often does this happen?” the manager was like “he’s paying for us to stay open until 4 so….what is your skate size?”
my ex and i did a good round alone for an hour. i told her just pretend that i rented this out. but then the more i thought about it the more i pondered “is this what i wanna aim for?” like the fame that isolates you? i mean jay does this family night stuff too but at least with him his fam of 25-30 is festive this is….scary. i mean the pizza concession guy looks like he should be studying for finals instead of watching a pizza rotate in the heated lamp umpteenth times.
come 2am we decided that maybe P changed his mind and we went back to get our shoes when suddenly
eddie comes in.
he whispered ventriloquist style “umm you just might wanna put those back on” i *winked* back.
sure enough p his then wife mel, larry g and his wife tina g and some friends i didn’t recognize (im sure kids and grandkids…which struck me odd that i knew someone besides me that was allowed to be up after 2am on a school night and be under the age of 10…..but showbiz kids are like no other kids)
p had a large pulp fiction like briefcase in his hand and he hesitated to open it in front of me. so he walked over.
p: where is your phone?
?: my phone?
p: yeah i know you ahmir…where is it?
? (thinking he wanted to make a phone call) uh here?
p: (inspects the phone)….ok your coat is in coat check?
?: lol…..wait….you think imma record something? bwahahahahah
p: uh uh….coat check this phone….
?: awww man! what about HIS PHONE! (points at murph) that is Dr. True Hollywood Story)
EM: heeey man! don’t point over here! my phone is in the car! (at this moment i was like “OH SHIT! I AM REALLY TALKING TO EDDIE MURPHY!!!!!” inside)
i sarcastically put the phone in coat check and wonder what the deal is…..i mean this man wears high heels and he dont want me to record him in skates? as if i wanted that footage?—
then he opens the briefcase…..
pulls out the most unique skates i ever seen in my life. they were clear skates that not only lights up but when you skate the friction of the wheels to the ground causes sparks to come into your trail….
sorta like the billie jean video for the skating generation.
he did a lap around the rink leaving a rainbow trail of light and sparks in his trail. and the nigga could skate!!!!!
murph caught up with me like
“imma get your phone for you…..”
lol
– From the Prince Message board, http://prince.org/msg/7/289607?pr
And here is Questlove’s top ten Prince tunes. Thanks to Questo, Rolling Stone, and Soul88 for the repost.
Filed under funk & soul
Racist geography visible in signs
One of my favorite writers is James Loewen, a Sociology professor who wrote Lies my teacher told me. The book is an analysis of the most popular US history text books assigned in high schools. Loewen cruises through outlining how the texts are written to exclude and teach generations faulty understandings of our history. His work uncovered “an embarrassing blend of bland optimism, blind nationalism, and plain misinformation . . .”
He also has a nice book on American monuments Lies across America: what our historical sites get wrong.
Gwen Sharp is working out some recent work on whiteness and geographical markers in Sociological images. Here is the discussion of historical markers that identify whiteness.
So what story about our nation do these two monuments tell? The only information contained on the two-sided Fall City monument refers to the activities of Whites; the Native residents were important only when they lost land. For all intents and purposes, the history of the area started only once a White man had set eyes on it. Similarly, Tallent’s arrival in the Black Hills is memorable largely because she was a White woman, whose presence is by definition worthy of note and celebration — imagine, a vulnerable White woman braving the wildness of the Dakota territory! The fact that she was an illegal prospector camping on land she didn’t own while in the pursuit of quick wealth is neither worth mentioning nor a cause to question whether she’s a laudable figure deserving of a monument. Thus, the effect of both of these monuments is to normalize colonization and illegal settlement, and present the arrival of Whites as the beginning of meaningful history.
Filed under colonialism, Native, propaganda
Pissing and our parents
Kalamu Ya Salaam is a star. I know him from Neo-griot, but his reflective essays are pretty sharp. Here he is reflecting on the practice of flushing the toilet before you are finished peeing. He believes that he borrowed this practice from his father. Which leads to a reflection about what we get (good and bad) from the previous generation. Here is Salaam:
whether we know our parents and forbears, whether we look like them, whether we have their temperament or proclivities, their way of walking or talking, way of bearing pain or grudges, whether we love them and talk with them often, or could care less and have not seen them in decades, whether they live now or have transitioned to ancestorhood, whatever, whether whatever, the simple truth is: an essential part of all we are is shaped by whatever our parents have been (even if we don’t know who or what they were)—their influence on our fate is inescapable.
via ESSAY: FLUSHING BEFORE FINISHING – WordUp – kalamu’s words.
A little tinkling of a feminist thought. I doubt as many folks who pee sitting down wind up wanting to push the lever that is behind them.
Yerba Buena Hydrosol
I like the smell of Yerba Buena. A relative of the mint family, it has light aromatics but some depth of flavor. I had been plucking sections of the herb and rubbing it between my fingers, enjoying the smell. I sort of wanted a way to capture that, but didn’t want a big hassle.
Hydrosol is the answer. Water extraction to get all the smelly oils. Pick a couple of hands full of the herb. Put a brick in the bottom of a large pot (I used an inverted pyrex pie plate) and fill up the pot with water up to the top of the brick (or pie plate). Put a bowl on top of the brick to catch the hydrosol.
Add plant material to the water. Turn up to medium. Put on the lid. Add ice to the top of the lid. This will condense the oils on the lid of the pan and then drip the oils into the bowl below.
Worked like a charm for me. I got a quarter cup of essence of Yerba Buena. Thanks to Kami McBride for the methodology and Yerbamansa for the tip.
Arab spring in context: Talking blues about the news
Thanks to Reuters and the Atlantic for the photo of protesters in Yemen
My kin has laid out some good old fashioned cynicism about the Arab spring uprisings.
People everywhere hoped that the Arabs would overthrow their dictators and enjoy democracy, political freedom, and economic opportunity.
That would have been nice. But instead what has happened is slaughter. The rulers of Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain decided that the revolutions could be defeated by mass murder and indiscriminate torture, and, so far, that tactic has been 100% successful. Nothing good has come of it. The Mideast is more unstable, Israel is more paranoid and aggressive than ever, Arab demonstrators have been shot down by the thousands, and no one in the entire region is yet enjoying any increase in democracy, political freedom, or economic opportunity.
via Sad But True: The “Arab Spring” Is A Pipe Dream « Talkin’ Blues About The News.
Zing! Can’t disagree with any of that! It’s a good argument, and important to make in this time, where our impulse to action (read helicopter gunships in Libya) obscures reflection.
Filed under capitalism, human rights
Life of refinement 