Sambo Grows Wings

Disney's Princess and the Frog promises some familiar but not necessarily welcome archetypes of the good old South. Did they have to give the firefly a toothless grin to go with his "authentic dialect"? I dunno if I'mma let the kids peep this one:



I'm reading a lot of ish on the net saying "we're" too sensitive. Ha.

Watch This: NOTORIOUS Casting aka How Gravy Got His Groove Back

I think Gravy might actually be LESS attractive than Biggie. Good thing he got the gig though because it would suck to be famous for shooting yourself outside of Hot 97 for the rest of your life.

RE: This movie -- everyone is bracing themselves for disappointment but I'm really hoping they'll pull this one off.

Coming Attractions: This Should Be A Riot

The trailer for W. Oliver Stone's biographical look at our wackest president ever has been leaked. Looks like the whole world is finally gonna get a close look at Dubya in some in all his glory.



It looks like they're not sparing the puppeteers from the spotlight either. I'm eager to see how much the strings will show this time.

Read This Ish NOW! August Issue of SPIN Speaks On D'Angelo

Click here to read...

Dope Boys Reunited

More from my bipolar boyfriend...



I like the song, I think I would also like the video if his eyes didn't scare the shit out of me.





And looky what we have here... Buck and Game reunited. How lovely.

Check out a few more shots of the "My Life" video shoot. Cool & Dre, who produced the song were also on set. Game and Wayne look like they fell asleep and the kiddies went to town with magic markers on their faces.

Watch This: Joell Ortiz ft. Dante Hawkins "Memories/Letter to Obama"

"Life As A Shorty Shouldn't Be So Rough"

Listen to This: Game ft. Lil Wayne "My Life"

When I heard this song waaaaaay in the early stages of mixing it blew my mind and gave me a greater respect for Cool & Dre, Weezy, and even Chuck Taylor himself. Sometimes lyrics don't convince me... this wasn't one of those times.



Since that first listen the intro has added, a touch which I think is a little over the top. The song, particularly Wayne, who sounds convinced of his mortality on this track was already strong enough to summon the specter of Tupac for me (and probably Biggie for others) so the addition of the gunshots and even more of the name drops that have become Game's hallmark have possibly hurt what in my opinion was best left in its raw, poignantly gripping early condition. T

hat said, I still think it's hot, and I still will be bumping it. I fucks with this one...

Listen to This: Cormega ft. Kool DJ Red Alert, Parrish Smith of EPMD, Grand Puba, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One

The old guy(s) still got it, lol.





Right Chere...

Happy Birthday Jackie O!

WNBA: Go Hard or Go Home

In last nights game between the Detroit Shock and LA Sparks Candace Parker and Plenette Pierson managed to create havoc that is already causing sports writers to draw parallels to the infamous Pistons-Pacers brawl that spilled into the stands years ago. The fight resulted in Pierson, Parker,Shock assistant coach Rick Mahorn and DeLisha Milton-Jones getting ejected, while Cheryl Ford -- the Shock player whose defensive moves set off Parker in the first place, ended up injured from the brawl with a high likelihood of being benched for the entire season.

Not a good look at all... Play nice ladies.

Politics With Pitbull

I don't always agree with Pitbull's politics (we are on two different sides when it comes to Fidel Castro, but I have to respect his feelings, particularly since he's Cuban and I'm not) but this time around I think we're finally on the same page. The images in the video are powerful, I only wish that rappers who seek to speak out against the war and George W. would have made their voices heard earlier in Bush's presidency (preferably during the first term). The war in Iraq may soon be over -- but there will be troops there (and definitely in Afghanistan) for long after.

Anyway, I can't say I'm in love with the chorus of this one but Pitbull you get an E for effort -- along with the powerful video -- and DJ Noodles great job with the track!

Happy Birthday Kissey Asplund

I love this chick -- I'll post some music from her later but I'm falling unconscious -- going straight from dozing off into full R.E.M.

Happy Born Day Kissey

Best Use of Auto Tune Outside of Zapp & Roger and "Sexual Eruption"

Question though? When Kanye says he lost "the girl that know me best" is he talking about his Mama or Alexis? Or the chick he bought implants for?

Hot video though -- I like the camera angles and speed and how the video starts out in that fog of rubble and woods.

Whatchyouknowaboutthat?

Sesame Street is in Brownsville???

Gotta love it.

Common Resurrected

Fuck all that "the DJ is dead"bullshit! Kill that noise. The DJ and the DJ/Producer is very much alive and well and one of the biggest forces in breathing some life into the oversaturated hip-hop landscape.

Leave it to two of my favorites - K-Salaam and Beatnick to remix Common classics...

K-Salaam & Beatnick are currently working on a Common Remix Album titled "S.T.O.R.Y." (Stories Told Over Remixed Years.") which will be available for free download everywhere. The Album was created by the production duo as a salute to one of Hip-Hop's greatest lyricists; and also to combat the current stale state that Hip-Hop is in right now.

"Resurrection Remix"



"Go Remix"


"The Corner Remix"


"The Light Remix"



You can download these joints

The Corner Remix

Resurrection Remix

Go Remix


The Light Remix

Be Blessed.

Represent Represent (Nas NYC Alife Performance)

We're called Bravehearts for a reason... Big ups to the man of the hour*, Nas, who dropped his Untitled album yesterday.

Shouts to my dude Green Lantern! Congrats on your latest production accomplishments on Nas' album.

Check out the footage of his performance at the Alife store this week below:



I gotta give it up to Nas for taking it directly to the crowd -- something not too many MC's do anymore -- there he is in the midst of his audience, performing some of his greatest hits and taking the time to address a lot of the bullshit going on in current events and captivating the people. Granted, that audience looks pretty similar to most of the industry cats I see at every listening event I go to -- but I gotta give it up to him anyway.

*disclaimer: This blog is authored by a serious Nas fan, I can't even pretend I'm unbiased.

Take It To The Addic W/ J*Davey

On some "I Really Miss L.A." shit I gotta post this Vimby video of Jack Davey & Brook L'eau chillin in their studio and performing at Grand Star.

VIMBY - J*DaVeY

You know we love being different. Especially when it works :-)

Cool Outrageous Lovers Of Uniquely Raw Style

Not quite sure "raw" is the right word. Might have to help them out with an edit. I'm brainstorming over here -- check out the video and let me know if you can think of anything more appropriate.



So Bentley’nem (aka Cool Outrageous Lovers of Uniquely Raw Style) are jumping on the retro soul bandwagon taking notes from The Temptations and Four Tops to create a video the likes of which have been seen umm- not so much at all in the recent video game. Why – there’s not even a big bootied video girl in the entire 4 minutes. I don’t think this is gonna help Bentley with his closet case rumors – at all. But I guess he fits right in with Ye, Dre & Sa-Ra for being comfortable being “different.”

You can’t tell me this ish ain’t entertaining.

Watch What You Watching

Amen to this song -- which I was already feeling -- and the excellent video Rik Cordero put together to go with it. Fox News is the worst, the timing is crazy with this joint, especially with all the hubbub over Jesse Jackson having mic slips and ish talkin about Obama... Anyway peep and I'll discuss further.



Gotta love the Jay Smooth cameo -- Jay Smooth is the man.

While we're on the subject of the whole Jesse/Obama/Fox debacle I have to share this blog from my dude Biko that puts a brand new spin on the whole situation. Things that make you go hmmmm right?

And just when we thought it was dead hip-hop from Nas and Killer Mike are making music to get us thinking again.

Power to the People

Bring it On Home... D'Angelo's Back? With Q-Tip? & Raphael Saadiq?

I don't usually blur the lines between SOHH Soulful and I Fux Wit It but considering how passionate I am about D'Angelo (and shit, I won't lie, Q-Tip) when I heard that in addition to his rumored J Records project, he's also working on a Linwood Rose project with Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammed and Raphael Saadiq I had to blog about it -- well pretty much everywhere.

Here's the link to my Soulful post about D from Wednesday and I'm posting a video from an earlier incarnation of Linwood Rose that included ?uestlove.




I'll also post a link to this banging (but long as hell) interview ?uestlove did with D awhile back (shouts to Angela Yee for sharing).

I think now is a totally appropriate time for me to say Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

The Abstract

This is how you freestyle...

He's wildin though, I know you heard him shout out my homegirl Angela Yee. Good luck with that one Tip. It ain't gonna happen!

Erotic City: Reading Nin While Listening to Outkast

One of my editors recently joined blogger so I stopped by Naked With Socks On to support and found the current entry to be extremely - uh- titillating. I'm not one to shy away from explicit content, I mean shit -- my first foray into fiction publishing was this joint right chere:



Look it up on Amazon if you're curious. But back to the point at hand, reading Anslem's "I Found Love In this Club" entry made me encourage him to try writing erotica, and it also reminded me of that first published story. I don't give much commentary here, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to share a little about that experience.

My mentor Samiya Bashir edited TBBWE2, and she encouraged me to submit something. At the time I'd been reading erotica for a minute, since childhood really. After shocking first encounters with Judy Blume (Wifey) and Rosa Guy I was about 13 or 14 when I became completely intrigued by the mysterious hardbound copy of Anais Nin's "Delta Of Venus" sitting innocently enough on the family bookshelf.



Inside were tales of people whose lives spilled over with adventure, passion, the arts, love, lust, beauty and travel. The kind of lives I thought glamorous, but more importantly, satisfying. When it came time for me to write my own erotica I thought about what I valued so much in "Delta" and rather than emulate (by then I had read enough bad erotica to know the difference between sublime and ridiculous)I thought about the purest elements of Nin's writing. I channeled my most intense relationship -- the greatest love I ever knew (and perhaps the best lovemaking at that) and combined it with all the sounds, smells and feelings that had made the most intense impression on me.

For me some of the best moments in the bedroom have been accompanied by candle light and music -- Sade, Miles Davis and Lenny Kravitz have all provided for some great mood music (as I documented in the poem "Soundtrack for Us") but the most appropriate song for me and my "Best of Black Women's Erotica 2" contribution was Outkast's "Funky Ride" which happens to also be the title of my submission.



Five years have passed since that story went to press, since it was excerpted for the back cover and since Black Issues Book Review singled me out for a quote in their review of the anthology. Being a writer of "erotica" temporarily changed my life. Family members smirked at the mention of the book, I blushed voicing the title a time or two myself, and men who read the story sometimes pursued me for all the wrong reasons. Fortunately those issues have passed. I've since gone on to write about other things, but I'll never be embarrassed about being included in TBBWE2 or my love for Anais Nin and Outkast.

And Another One (Jiggaman in Britain)

On "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" I love it...





very cute sense of humor there Shawn.

Hov Reigns Supreme At Glastonbury

After much ruckus from Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher and other prominent UK rockers -- last weekend Hov headlined the Glastonbury Festival and I don't think anyone in the crowd had a complaint in the world. In case, like me, you are currently stuck in the states -- I'm posting some footage from the show. If you'd like a full review check out Fat Lace Magazine. Enjoy!

Need U Bad

I've been blogging about J Records newcomer Jazmine Sullivan since I took over for Soulman at SOHH earlier this year and I'm happy to see she finally made a video for her Missy Elliott-produced first single "Need You Bad." Check it out below:

Get Deprogrammed

I been saying this for years -- since I listened to him go off for two hours straight during an interview I was conducting -- but Killer Mike has got some real shit to say.



The homie Maurice Garland has been comparing Killer Kill to Ice Cube for some time now, well they finally teamed up and made a video that it's doubtful any Viacom station will ever air. Reese has been telling me about this one for weeks and it's finally here.
You think heads are finally ready to pay attention?

Burn Hollywood Burn

Do you remember where you were April 29, 1992 when the LA Riots broke out?

I was in Iowa City, Iowa - where believe it or not students at my alma mater West High School were staging walkouts in protest of the jury decision to acquit four Los Angeles police officers charged in the videotaped beating of Rodney King. I might not have loved living in Iowa City, but one thing I can say is that my generation of residents was very socially aware and if something was going on in the world - damn right we knew about it and wanted to do something.

What we did didn't come close to the wakeup call sent out by thousands of people living in the Los Angeles area, who rioted over a six day stretch. The widespread looting, arson, and murder resulted in over 1 billion dollars in property damages and 53 deaths.





I was living in New York city eight years later when on March 25th,2000 a jury in Albany acquitted four NYPD officers who fired the 41 shots that killed Amadou Diallo. There were no riots the second time around, but once again I was in a socially aware classroom, being taught by one of the most revolutionary women on campus -- Tricia Rose. Look her up if you've never heard of her.

It's a damn shame all that devastation happened in L.A. but without that devastation - how would we ever remember the anger and frustration felt by people who in a city without justice? After all, who truthfully remembers the stunted protests lead by Al Sharpton in the wake of the Diallo decision? Who will remember the injustice of Sean Bell? How will anyone understand how angry their deaths made us?

It's important to also recognize that the uprising stemmed not only from the beating of Rodney King (who has subsequently been arrested 11 times since on charges ranging from domestic abuse to a hit and run and other misdemeanors) but also from the lack of justice for Latasha Harlins, killed by a Korean store owner over a $1.79 carton of orange juice, as well as the extremely high rate of unemployment in L.A., and ongoing mistreatment of the black community at the hands of the LAPD. All of these aspects are documented in the Perfecto song "L.A. Riots"

Big shout out to DJ Strong for sending me this video.

My Theme Song for the Month

Let's see -- major deadlines, a huge move, workplace hacked and a 12 hour interstate drive... Yeah I can feel this song right now

Get DJ Cipha Sounds presents Daytona's 'A Tribe Called Fresh'mixtape here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/evkklz

You Think You Know Who We Are

But you really have no idea...



CNN has finally gotten around to setting the record straight about black people. I wonder how many white folks will tune in for this one. But more importantly -- how many people period -- black and white and everything in between-- who really need to see it, will miss it?

Shawty Pull Your Pants Up

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0624081constantin1.html?link=rssfeed

JUNE 24--A Florida man shot a teenager after ordering him to pull up his sagging pants, according to police. John Constantin, 54, was arrested Saturday afternoon after allegedly shooting David Mitchell, 18, once in the stomach. According to witnesses, Constantin directed Mitchell to pull up his pants while he followed the teenager in the courtyard of his Jacksonville apartment building. After Mitchell asked Constantin why he was trailing him, the pair began to scuffle. During the confrontation, Constantin shot Mitchell with a small caliber handgun (the teen was later released from the hospital with the slug still in his side). Constantin, who works at Light Bulb Depot, told cops that he ordered Mitchell to pull his pants up, "but then the victim assaulted him." As he was being transported to jail, Constantin told a cop, "This is bullshit" and that, "an innocent man is going to jail just because I was just protecting myself." Constantin, pictured in the mug shot at right, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, a felony. He may also face a drug rap pending lab results on a "white rock like substance" that field tested positive for crack cocaine.