Thursday, January 22nd, 2004

NOT IN MY BACKYARD

Keyshawn Johnson got jacked while waiting for a haircut right around the corner yesterday. What can I say? Fools in South Berkeley do NOT play!!!

posted by @ 9:36 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, January 22nd, 2004

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I think I wrote this earlier but Years of the Monkey are straight bananas. Revolution years. I mean check this out:

1968–French student uprising, Columbia University takeover, MLK assassinated, Chicago Democratic Convention, return of the gangs in the South Bronx

1980–Iran hostage crisis, Reagan Revolution

1992–LA Rebellion, “Cop Killer”, Gang truce movement goes national, Clinton’s “centrist” victory

Whoa. Enjoy, or better yet, per Tanya Stephens, handle the ride!

posted by @ 8:01 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, January 21st, 2004

MORE DIZZEE-NESS

Not talking Gephart’s stunning fall. Oh yeah, Jon Stewart’s line of the night, on John Kerrey: “They don’t call him Mr. Excitement for–well, they don’t call him Mr. Excitement.”

Anyway, the time-killing topic at hand is Ben Williams sez critics don’t know where to place Dizzee in relation to American rap. Resisting the snarky urge to say it’s because they don’t know how to, while not resisting the urge to beat this topic into the ground (because for us bloggerati Dizzee is so, you know, ’03), let me float a few comparisons…

*”I Luv U” updates Ice Cube’s “You Can’t Fade Me” topically (you remember the aggravating track in which narrator imagines “kicking the bitch in the tummy”–another irresponsible lad not dealing well with the consequences of casual sex) with the dialogical method of “It’s A Man’s World” (tho the woman goes uncredited here, wow). A double-whammy. (Actually a triple if you figure in the college-girl turnabout thing of “Look Who’s Burning Now” from DC.)

*”Sitting Here” recalls Nas’s “Life’s A Bitch”–life as a mask or a front, the strange in-betweenness of trying to detach from the street while having to engage it to survive, the feeling of time slowing down and speeding up at the same time, everything bad happening in John Woo slo-mo at the same time youthful innocence is stolen prematurely. (Plus there’s AZ’s oh-shit-I-got-the-mic-first enthusiasm which brings us to the next thought…)

*Rascal’s delivery recalls young LL Cool J (or if less generous, MC Shan)–excitable, high-pitched, aggressive. Downside of this analogy: Britrap still awaits its Rakim.

posted by @ 1:30 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, January 19th, 2004

RAS DIZZEE & THE FUTURE SHOCKERS +

THE HIP HOP STATE OF THE UNION

If you’re in the Bay, here’s an event to get excited about…

What: The Hip Hop State of the Union

When: Tuesday, January 20th , 6:00-9:00 pm

Where: Progressive Nerve Center, 1751 Mission Street, San Francisco CA

The Dennis Kucinich for President campaign in San Francisco will host the Hip Hop State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 20th, to coincide with President Bush’s State of the Union address. Adisa Banjoko, AKA The Bishop of Hip Hop, host of One Mic hip-hop and politics talk show (910 AM KNEW), will MC the event, and DJ Rob Reyes of M1 Promotions will spin records throughout the evening.

The event will begin with a live talk back to President Bush’s State of the Union address, followed by a viewing of Dennis Kucinich’s “State of the Nation” speech, taped earlier in the day from the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

After the televised speeches there will be a panel of prominent activists and artists speaking on the Hip Hop State of the Union. Panelists include Billy Upski Wimsatt, author of Bomb the Suburbs and the forthcoming How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office; the Reverend Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, National Director of Community Outreach for the Kucinich for President 2004 Campaign and the author of Urbansouls; and Mr. Taylor of the Who Ridas. The speakers will address issues of importance to the hip hop community as we mobilize to pick a presidential candidate to represent our interests in DC.

Mike Stern AKA Think will be doing live graf canvases throughout the event. Other invited guests include Paris, Lyrics Born, and E40.

posted by @ 6:00 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, January 19th, 2004

FEELING DIZZEE

Here’s something on Dizzee Rascal in the Voice. Enjoy the text and hypertext.

OK, back to the manuscript. Got 25 pages cut. Only 175 to go!!!

———————

Dizzee Rascal

Boy in Da Corner

XL

Was only yesterday when London’s Black dance music scene seemed to cast off history’s weight and speed toward the millennium. To Black British music critic Kodwo Eshun, sociology, biography, and a fixation on “the real” had shackled Black music. While hip-hoppers strained to keep it real, Eshun wanted to take the brakes off the breaks. Black Atlantic Futurism had arrived, and promised great leaps forward into “possibility spaces.” The tempos rocketed, the colors blurred, and the streets disappeared beneath the clouds.

Turns out the real future shock is Dizzee Rascal, the U.K.’s 19-year-old Mercury Prize winner. When the sun rises on Dizzee’s “Brand New Day,” he is kotched up in the flat, punching out riddims into cheap PC software, beats born of ringtones, video games, and staticky pirate-radio sounds. They quiver and throb, struggle for internal equilibrium, and often refuse to groove. His processor works differently–on “Jus a Rascal,” for instance, he pulls together T.O.K.’s hysterical dancehall harmonies, a synthesized guitar line halfway between death metal and the English Beat, stuttering Southern hi-hats, and a kick drum retarded to a crawl. His is a William Gibson mirror-world, patterns de/recontextualized at the edge of recognition and seen in syrupy slo-mo. Dizzee’s sound of Young Britain doesn’t torque up and go, it just turns round and round.

When he opens his mouth, words pour out at a high pitch and pace, as if syllables are the only thing that can hold back a scream. Ms. Mills’s only son tells what he calls “the same old story”: fatherless child coming up in the East London council estates, aimless youth failed by the schools and the shitstem but saved by music, bedroom beat-head who went top of the pops by representing his streets but can’t escape their judgment. Right outside his front door, mates have turned predators. The future, he admits, “ain’t right.” On “Sitting Here,” what he sees burns his eyes. Police and thieves. Shottas and hotties. Childhood school chums who grow up to knife and shoot each other. There are no great leaps here. The daily is never routine. There are only moments for Dizzee to capture, encapsulate, and preserve, griot-like. East London calling, futurism is dead. Millennial velocity has crashed.

By now the scene has dumped both “speed” and “garage,” dragged its asphalt-gummy bass down to half-speed, and embraced the term “grime.” Where the futurists wanted a hermetic world of sound, grime’s voices attract the masses with sociology, biography, and the real. So Solid Crew’s members are hounded by coppers. Beefs multiply. Dizzee shows his stab wounds to interviewers, and British music writers and the global bloggerati hail him as the British 50 Cent or 2Pac. He represents the same old story told from Vallejo to Kansas City to Kingston to Cape Town, rap that talks locally and connects globally. Boy in Da Corner’s one concession to the hip-hop motherland–the Billy Squier “Big Beat,” back-to-the-Funhouse freestyle of “Fix Up Look Sharp”–is far too eager to please. Blame that one, and an assortment of other battle-rhyme clichés, on youth.

But when Dizzee thinks very deeply—worrying about growing up, about those around him who won’t grow up, about dying before he grows up—he sounds like, what else can we call it, the real thing. He delivers threats with KRS-style meta-awareness. “Just remember this: I am you,” he shouts on “Cut Em Off.” “So if you think you’re real, do what you gotta do.” Like Tricky or Massive Attack, the boy is best at taking you inside, at internalizing rather than externalizing. He can be even more specific and desperate. His breakout “I Luv U” describes two teens in a high-stakes stalemate over an unwanted pregnancy. Locked in the estates’ web of relations, they use sex as blackmail. By the end, the boy is reduced to fantasizing about a college girl, someone who has escaped but still gives ghetto head. Then the frenetic beat seems to take over and the boy freestyles his last lines as if once the music fades he too might disappear. Dizzee manages to make this all sound funny and horrifying at once.

It’s a measure of just how much Brit-rap has matured that a year ago, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Culture Minister Kim Howells turned the bully pulpit on Black music, blaming rap for “glorifying gun culture and violence.” Hysteria followed–same old story. Perhaps Dizzee’s Mercury coronation late last year should be read as the redemption of Brit-rap and Black British music, and a sign of the permanent American-style culture war to come. In the U.K. press, Dizzee’s line is quoted everywhere: “I’m a problem for Anthony Blair.” If he remains this compelling, that’s one boast he will undoubtedly be called upon to back up. His future–and that of Black British music–isn’t the one Eshun envisioned at the millennium. But it’s full of possibilities.

posted by @ 3:33 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, January 16th, 2004

A HIP-HOP GENERATION AGENDA: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Brilliant discussion between Davey D and Cedric Muhammad of Black Electorate.com here, regarding the stakes for 2004 for the hip-hop generation. Definitely check it out, debate, and circulate.

posted by @ 8:19 am | 0 Comments

Friday, January 16th, 2004

A DIVIDER, NOT A UNITER

And paper-thin, too. Here’s insider coverage of the protest against Bush at MLK, Jr.’s memorial yesterday. King’s message in 68–stop the war, give us jobs and justice–seems pretty on-point.

Chinese astrology trivia: ’04, like ’68 and ’92 (the LA Rebellion), is a Year of the Monkey. Let’s get ready to rumble…

posted by @ 8:14 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, January 15th, 2004

CAWKUSSING AND MANLIMAN-NESS

Mosely-Braun’s gone, endorsed Dean, with a bid for a cabinet position in hand, most likely. Next fallout comes after the Iowa primary on Tuesday.

Caught Dean’s pitch to union members last night on C-SPAN. He was full of let’s-organize-the-unorganized fire in his long, rambling speech. Will the machine follow the rhetoric?

LA Weekly’s David Corn thinks Dean can’t win.

Michael Moore is endorsing Wesley Clark. Just gets more interesting…

COMMUNITY INPUT IS HOT, FIGHTING CONGRESS IS NOT

Just in time for 2004, here’s your new community-friendly Clear Channel. Too bad there’s no primary elections for these boards.

posted by @ 8:04 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, January 14th, 2004

GOOD/BAD/HORRIFYING, VERSION #9843

From the They Know The Time file:

“Kucinich Campaign uses Hip Hop Organizing to Get the Vote Out in DC

For Immediate Release: Jan. 12, 2004

In the final days before the DC primary, Kucinich Campaign is using a Hip Hop street team combined with traditional local campaign volunteers, the campaign has distributed 35,000 pieces of literature, knocked on doors, made phone calls to registered voters, and raised visibility for the their candidate by posting signs and posters throughout the District. Working with Brent Joseph, a local dj and his organization, Groove Gumbo, the Kucinich Campaign’s Hip Hop Street Team distributed literature at local Hip Hop clubs and poetry sets; talking up Kucinich to partygoers and poets and at various metro stops in targeted locations. Congressman Kucinich’s number is the 5 on the ballot. Hence, the number was emphasis on the campaign materials. The residents of the District of Columbia will also be receiving a phone call today from actor/UN Peace Messenger, Danny Glover, asking them to vote for Dennis Kucinich in tomorrow’s primary.

‘In a primary where its not receiving a lot of national attention, we are trying to use innovative ways of getting out the votes not only to raise awareness for our candidate, but to also support a primary that is trying to bring awareness to the fact that residents of DC lack representation in Congress,’ said Yu-Lan Tu, the DC/MD State Coordinator for the Dennis Kucinich for President Campaign.

On January 9th, 2003, Congressman Dennis Kucinich announced that he will be introducing legislation to obtain DC Statehood once Congress reconvenes for the 108th Session…”

Meanwhile, on the White House side of town, Bush advanced his Pigs In Space agenda today. Quick, somebody please cue Gil-Scott Heron!

This next item is not so funny. From AP…

U.S. Soldiers’ Suicide Rate Is Up in Iraq

January 14, 2004 09:20 PM EST

WASHINGTON – U.S. soldiers in Iraq are killing themselves at a high rate despite the work of special teams sent to help troops deal with combat stress, the Pentagon’s top doctor said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, about 2,500 soldiers who have returned from the war on terrorism are having to wait for medical care at bases in the United States, said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The problem of troops on “medical extension” is likely to get worse as the Pentagon rotates hundreds of thousands of troops into and out of Iraq this spring, he said.

Both situations illustrate the stresses placed on the troops and the military’s health system by the war in Iraq.

Suicide has become such a pressing issue that the Army sent an assessment team to Iraq late last year to see if anything more could be done to prevent troops from killing themselves. The Army also began offering more counseling to returning troops after several soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., killed their wives and themselves after returning home from the war.

Winkenwerder said the military has documented 21 suicides during 2003 among troops involved in the Iraq war. Eighteen of those were Army soldiers, he said.

That’s a suicide rate for soldiers in Iraq of about 13.5 per 100,000, Winkenwerder said. In 2002, the Army reported an overall suicide rate of 10.9 per 100,000.

The overall suicide rate nationwide during 2001 was 10.7 per 100,000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By contrast, two U.S. military personnel killed themselves during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, although that conflict only lasted about a month. The Army recorded 102 suicides during 1991 for a rate of 14.4 per 100,000. The Army’s highest suicide rate in recent years came in 1993, when the rate was 15.7 per 100,000.

The Marine Corps has the military’s highest suicide rate. Last year the Marines’ rate was 12.6 per 100,000. During 1993, the Marines’ rate was 20.9 per 100,000.

In 1993, there was U.S. military action in Somalia and Haiti…

posted by @ 3:22 pm | 0 Comments

Tuesday, January 13th, 2004

Augustus Pablo-King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown Deluxe Edition

Not as revelatory as the Catch A Fire Deluxe set a couple years back, but it’s excellent to have a remastered version of the album. Better yet, four extra versions! These tracks are re-cuts to “Keep On Dubbing”, “555 Dub St”, “Satta” (uncredited on the original LP), and “Cassava Piece (Tubby Meets The Rockers)”. The first three emphasize Pablo’s slow-river meandering. Points out that the album was really about Tubby–Pablo’s name on the thing notwithstanding. The “Silent Satta” version is not as sonically bombastic as the original “Satta”–which pioneered those EQ mashing tricks that are so common in house sets these days. Tubby liquefies the organ and guitar and Pablo plays on. The last, called “1-2-3 Version”, is just phenomenal. If “Tubby Meets The Rockers” was thunder-hurricane dramatic, this version lingers on Carly Barrett’s rain-on-a-zinc-roof hi-hat work and Robbie Shakespeare’s brain-gripping bassline. Different kind of drama.

posted by @ 9:37 am | 0 Comments



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