Cuuurtis Jackson and Obama: Brothers In Arms?

(See this shit ASAP)

I tried to stay away from the Negro Circus that is 50 Cent's and Cam'ron beef but then last week I was told something that got me thinking.

"Hip-hop has destroyed the black community."

Hearing that statement in the context of seeing the above PBS doc last night and reading about all the fights that broke out at every rap related party during the NBA All-Star Game got me thinking about how that statement would have been heresy to me 10 years ago and how I completely agree with it now.

And then I saw Cam'ron's diss track "Curtis" on the YouTubes (I really was trying to avoid the beef.)




Watching the 50 Cent / Cam'ron "beef" take place in the hyper speed world of Internet time (From radio beef to music video in 24 hours? Can you say staged?) was interesting in its own sick way but the shit that really caught my ear was Cam'ron's attacks on 50.

Cam was basically was checking 50's hood status because 50 has a house in the suburbs.
Cam'ron has a house out in the suburbs too.
Who is he fooling? Do black people really believe this shit?

Anyone think Cam is really eating General Tso's Chicken on the stoop of some project where the feces odor from the stairwell and urine smell from the elevator lingers over his meal?

The NY Times recently pointed out that rappers are flocking to Alpine, NJ for mansions like it's the new Section 8 and Cam's mortgage dealer was interviewed in the article.

From the article,

• But what about lyrical content? Can a rapper really stay true to his street roots when his neighbors are horseback-riding hedge-fund managers and wild deer are scampering across his dew-covered front lawn?

  “First of all, when you talk about New Jersey, you’re not talking about Beverly Hills,” Mr. Harrell said. “The influence of the urban experience is 30 minutes away, but you don’t have to be in the noise all the time.” He added, “You have to have quiet as an artist to hear your inner voice.”

  And Fabolous said he had not entirely isolated himself. “I still go back to Brooklyn all the time,” he said, “just to remind myself how far I’ve come and get inspiration from that. And I don’t think if I see a deer on my lawn, it will shake me too much.” He added, laughing, “If I do see a deer, it might be something funny I can put in a rhyme.”

Even if Cam did stay in the "hood" would that claim even still be relevant?
Most hip-hop today sounds like a commercial for a hedge fund managers weekend vacation.
The shit is so out of touch with modern black life and American life as a whole that it really doesn't speak to most black people. And the people who are selling these pre-packaged urban Happy Meals are frolicking with dear out in the fucking woods somewhere.

The hood is not a place anyone should come back to once they leave, but don't pretend you're authentic because you film your street DVDs in the projects. C'mon.

I'm not breaking any news by saying that rap glorifies the most destructive aspects of the African-American experience. A recent article about DJ Drama in the NY Times (good read) ended with this sad little blurb,

• In fact, Julia Beverly, the editor of Ozone, a Southern hip-hop magazine, suggested that it was more likely to improve his image and album sales. “Really, this takes him to a gangsta level,” she said. “It gives him a little something extra. It’s messed up, but if someone goes to jail or dies, it elevates his status and just makes him more of a star than he was before. That’s the way the entertainment industry works in general. So, having cops at your door with M-16’s at your head, and MTV News reporting on the raid, calling you the biggest D.J. in the world? You can’t pay for that type of look.”

Most black people ain't making it rain. If they could there wouldn't be a riot every time some dumb jig rapper through money in the air.

This beef and the whole Obama controversy all traces back to the question of "What is Black?" and who controls that blackness.

Peep this dumb bitch Debra Dickerson on the Colbert Report,




I'm starting to get really tight over this whole issue of who is allowed to be black and hatred old guard blacks are throwing at Obama.
Last week Robert Ford said about Obama,

• "Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything.

He later apologized.

From the same article,

• Darcel Lancaster, an 18-year-old Claflin freshman, spent nearly two hours waiting in the morning's chill to be the first in line to see Obama. The biology major said she wouldn't commit to Obama's campaign.
  "I'm going to look more into others," she said. She doesn't expect him to win every black vote — including hers. "Some people think he's not black enough," Lancaster said. If she picked Obama, it wouldn't be because of his race, she said. "He's not full black," Lancaster said.

Full black.
Wow.
What the flying fuck does that mean? Who is full black? Who is full anything?

I would like some American Negroes to show me the DNA tests that prove their great-great-great grandmother didn't get raped on the plantation somewhere down the line. Show me that and I'll stop riding with Obama.

That should be the new black card. Official DNA composition results.
I've 99% West African fool, my 7X great uncle hung out with Nat Turner and I was the secret fourth man in the Sean Bell car.
And what fool?!
Beat that.

Snitch of the Week: 2/11 - 2/17 (Make It Rain For Sean Bell)

(1-800-LAWYER worked for me!)

A picture of a random jig taking MySpace pictures with his money isn't that shocking without a bit of context.

My mans and 'em over at www.DallasPenn.Com/weblog put me onto this link and what I saw made me a little bit nauseous.

The above jig is Trent Benefield, who was in the car with Sean Bell and Joseph Guzman when the NYPD sprayed their car up on Sean Bell's wedding day. He caught a few bullets in the process.

As the link says,

• Various people through out the community came to the side of these young men. Donations were made to help out the victims in order to somehow help ease there pain through this time.

What did Trent Benefield do with the support and donations of the black community and all those who felt for him and showed their love?

He set his MySpace page up with pics of his newfound balla status.

Fuck a Sean Bell, I'm getting paid nigga!!!
Ballin!

Shit like this is why reparations will NEVER be a real political issue. There are just too many coons out there ready to act the damn fool for that second of shine.

This also raises the question of what exactly where these dudes doing in a shady strip club that night. I still think the NYPD officers involved fucked the fuck up and deserve serious prison time for what they did, but Sean Bell and everyone in the car all had real criminal records (I'm not talking about jaywalking) and shit like this makes it seem like profiling only happens to "bad" black people.

When Trent Benefield is the face of your tragedy it makes it harder to unify your cry for racial justice.

For calling out your coon status and shedding light on the many social issues this case brings up, Trent Benefield is the Snitch of the Week. It's over for black people.



Dead Prez said, "Would you rather have a Lexus or justice?"

Fuck Justice.
Let's just make it rain.

Snitch of the Week: 2/4 - 2/10 (Italy)

(And that's just the pre-game party...)

I'll make this quick and give the SofW to Italy for banning fans from stadiums during games after a police officer was killed during a match in Sicily.

• Matches were suspended last Friday after rival fans battled each other and the police during a game in Catania, Sicily. Amid exploding bombs and thugs wielding steel bars, a 38-year-old officer, Filippo Raciti, was killed.

Damn. Didn't a French police officer just shoot a soccer fan who was about to kill a Jewish fan?

And you thought being at a NBA game with Ron Artest was dangerous?

I learned this lesson long ago and heard it best put by Star and Bucwild, "the white man is the original gangster."

For calling out the European soccer savages and myth of European sophistication, Italy is the Snitch of the Week.

Boston Is The Worst City In The World

This is the funniest parody I've seen of that whole Aqua Teen debacle in Boston a few weeks ago.

2007 Grammys: How Bad Can It Get?

(Cure for narcolepsy)

I watched the Grammys last year and I don't remember it being so damn boring. Mopey ballad after mopey ballad and overwrought celebrities milking their tired personas for the few seconds of camera time they could muster. Good round up here.

Perfect example was Jamie Foxx who said "When they announced that The Police would be opening up The Grammys, I saw Snoop Dogg sneaking out the back door."

No one laughed.

Foxx then offered this wisdom, "That joke would have killed on BET."
Guess what Jamie, the Chicken Noodle Soup kills on BET, so be funny or shut the fuck up.

The real kick is that the ratings actually went UP from last year.

• An estimated 20.1 million people watched the Dixie Chicks take home every trophy they were eligible for Sunday night. That's up 18 percent over last season, according to Nielsen Media Research.

With Mary Blige, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dixie Chicks taking home the most awards, it seems like the industry would like to pretend it's still 1997. You know, when sales were good.


Observations from when I was awake:

• Who actually likes the Dixies Chicks?
  There is nothing worse than whiny-ass protest music. I would bet that the Democratic National Committee bought most of the 2 million records they sold.
  
  
• "Tonight we celebrate the better human being because for so many years, I've been talked about negatively," said Blige, who during her 15-year career has often discussed her past substance and self-esteem problems. "But this time I've been talked about positively by so many people."
  
  Mary J. Blige, you were a drug addict until last year. You were probably too blunted to realize what was really happening at the last 10 Grammys. You cleaned up and sang songs crossover songs with U2 to make the soccer moms like you and now you get your awards. Chill with the "They like me, they really like me!" shit.
  
  
• Slavemaster Timberlake got to choose one of the three blacks girls to take behind the plantation , er I mean to sing a duet with. It's been a while since he popped Janet's titties and hid away in the Mickey Mouse club while she took all the heat. I guess it's time to bring slavery back. Yea!
  
  
• Giving Ludacris an album for the superbly mediocre "Release Therapy" was actually a happy moment because for a second I thought Pharrell was about to win for the "album" he made last year, "In The Toilet" or whatever it was called.
  
  
• Corrine Bailey Rae and Nelly Furtado can get it. But even they could not save this show.
  

I actually ended up changing the channel and watching a PBS documentary on the history of the Supreme Court which I found about 3498 times more interesting than the Grammys. I am officially 73 years old.
Seriously, did anything interesting happen? At all?

I also found this more entertaining than the Grammys. Props to Joey on it.




In the meantime you can ready for the Oscar's with this gully ass and highly illegal site that lists torrents for every single movie nominated. (www.oscartorrents.com) Pretty gangster if I do say so myself.

A Mormon President? Nah, I'm Good On That...

(Mitt Romney, not your daddy's Mormon)

Is it me or is 2007 off to a weird ass start?

- We got Mormons trying to step up to the presidential plate that have less of a chance to win than a black man with a white mom.
Isn't an HBO show good enough for Mormons?
They need a visible platform too?
I'm still getting used to the political destruction the Evangelicals Christians have unleashed on America and the world and now I have to learn about another scary branch of Christianity?

Give me a break.
Please.
I'm starting to miss Catholics...


- Meanwhile Negroes ran the Superbowl and the half-time show (let's go lightskinned blacks!)

Prince masturbated behind a sheet in front of all of America and no one even noticed.
It goes to show that it's all about subversion and subtlety Ms. Jackson, not popping the titties.


- Anna Nicole Smith died (or killed herself) and I actually ended up feeling a bit sorry for her. Hm.


- And the NBA has gay players. What a shock...
The closet homos don't matter, it was the ignorant homophobic reactions I was looking for.
The most ignorant comment to come from this story was from Shavlik Randolph of the Sixers who said,

• "As long as you don't bring your gayness on me I'm fine," Randolph said. "As far as business-wise, I'm sure I could play with him. But I think it would create a little awkwardness in the locker room."

Steven Hunter, another Sixer said,

• "As long as he don't make any advances toward me I'm fine with it," he said. "As long as he came to play basketball like a man and conducted himself like a good person, I'd be fine with it."

Someone please get your batteries ready to throw at the next Sixers game.


- And it's been over 5 weeks and I haven't heard a decent album yet. Granted there are a few things I need to listen to again and a lot of other good shit is supposed to come out later this year, but most of the shit released so far is straight garbage. (Am I wrong?)

No wonder the albums sales of 2007 are already off by 15% from 2006, which was off from 2005, which was off from 2004, and so on and so forth.

It's sad because the RIAA doesn't understand the industry they are supposed to be in and their backward ass policies have created one of the worse train wrecks I've seen in a while.

First they raided DJ Drama and alienated most people who actually buy rap CDs and most recently Steve Jobs just asked the 4 major labels to drop their DRM requirements for digital music and the RIAA thanked him for offering to license more DRM.

• "Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a licence to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time."

Fuck the What?!
Apple never offered to license their technology. In fact they said it would be a horrible idea for them to license their technology.

You thought Hip-Hop was dead?
It's whole damn industry.
Check your business model man. It's broken.

Snitch of the Week: 1/28 - 2/3 (Ted Johnson)

I've always hated Bill Belichick for his general arrogance and slovenly persona but this shit puts him on a whole new level of hate.

Peep the NY Times article where retired linebacker Ted Johnson did a bit of class snitching on Bill Belichick and the NFL regarding their disregard of brain injuries and the general well-being of NFL players post-career.

From the article,

• According to Patriots medical records that Mr. Johnson shared with The Times, the only notable concussion in his career to that point happened when he played at the University of Colorado in 1993. Against the Giants on Aug. 10, 2002, those records indicate, he sustained a “head injury” — the word concussion was not used — and despite the clearing of symptoms after several minutes on the sideline, he did not return to the game.

  Mr. Johnson said that four days later, when full-contact practice resumed, Mr. Whalen issued him a red jersey, the standard signal to all other players that he was not supposed to be hit in any way. About an hour into the practice, Mr. Johnson said, before a set of high-impact running drills, an assistant trainer came out on the field with a standard blue jersey. When he asked for an explanation, Mr. Johnson said, the assistant told him that he was following Mr. Whalen’s instructions.

  Mr. Johnson, whose relationship with Mr. Belichick had already been strained by a contract dispute, said he interpreted the scene as Mr. Belichick’s testing his desire to play, and that he might be cut and lose his $1.1 million salary — N.F.L. contracts are not guaranteed — if he did not follow orders.

  “I’m sitting there going, ‘God, do I put this thing on?’ ” Mr. Johnson said. “I put the blue on. I was scared for my job.”

  Regarding the intimidation he felt at that moment, Mr. Johnson added, “This kind of thing happens all the time in football. That day it was Bill Belichick and Ted Johnson. But it happens all the time.”

So Belichick basically dared him to risk his sanity and future for pennies relative to what Belichick gets paid to blow 18 point leads to the Colts and then shove cameramen out of the way.
No wonder Ladanian Tomlinson said something like "The Patriots' actions after the game reflect their coach" after the Chargers lost.

Again,

• Mr. Johnson said that the first play called after he put the blue jersey on, known as “ace-ice,” called for one act from him, the middle linebacker: to sprint four yards headlong into the onrushing blocking back. After that collision, Mr. Johnson said, a warm sensation overtook his body, he saw stars, and he felt disoriented as the other players appeared to be moving in slow motion. He never lost consciousness, though, and after several seconds regained his composure and continued to practice “in a bit of a fog” while trying to avoid contact. He said he did not mention anything to anyone until after practice, when he angrily approached Mr. Whalen, the head trainer.

  “I said, ‘Just so you know, I got another concussion,’ ” Johnson said. “You could see the blood, like, leave his face. And he was like, ‘All right, all right, well, we’re going to get you in to see a neurologist.’ ”
  

  Dr. Cantu said that he was convinced Mr. Johnson’s cognitive impairment and depression “are related to his previous head injuries, as they are all rather classic postconcussion symptoms.” He added, “They are most likely permanent.”

  Asked for a prognosis of Mr. Johnson’s future, Dr. Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery and director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., said: “Ted already shows the mild cognitive impairment that is characteristic of early Alzheimer’s disease. The majority of those symptoms relentlessly progress over time. It could be that at the time he’s in his 50s, he could have severe Alzheimer’s symptoms."

Johnson came forward with his story after ex-Eagle Andre Waters committed suicide after severe concussions caused him to enter a deep depression after his career ended.

The NFL's treatment of concussions and player's pressure to ignore them to get their contracts is a real issue, one that is infinitely more important that Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire banging needles into each others ass (No Dipset) to hit homeruns.

Ted Johnson, for calling out NFL culture and ending the myth of Belichick's greatness, you are the Snitch of the Week. Please sue the shit out of that fool.

The Internet Hates Me

It's hard to stay in a flow on this blog shit.
Especially when you can't stay online longer than five minutes.

But my Indian fam over at Linksys believed that my router was less than a year old (ahem) and my new out-of-date router is on the way. Indian call centers are awesome that way.

Serena Williams On Conan

If you didn't get enough Serena Williams last time, peep Conan O' Brien busting her ass in Nintendo Wii Tennis.



Good ol' Conan.
When is Leno leaving again?

Snitch of the Week: 1/21 - 1/27 (Father and Son)

This is old news by now but I'll put it out there anyway.
Some crazy 17-year old Turkish kid murdered a writer who spoke out for Armenian rights a few weeks ago. (Turkish people like to pretend the Armenian genocide never happened.)

It was a big deal and everyone was outraged about what happened but the real kicker here is that the father of the murderer called the police on his own son after identifying him in the police video.

That's some hardcore shit.

Random Turkish father, for ratting out your own family you are the Snitch of the Week.