InkogNegro 1.5

(btw..this is why i fuck with David Letterman)

Yes.  I have always been a Roots fan.

But THIS…is their finest work in a MINUTE.

This ain’t no threat so take it personal -Keith Elam, 1992

This whole Jeremiah Wright thing has opened my eyes to my personal political leanings.

As I said Yesterday, Jeremiah Wright is somewhat of a spiritual giant in my eyes.

Conversely, Barack Obama is about as close to my personal Ideology as any single political figure in history, living or dead.

I can see exactly what it was that led Obama to TUCC.

I have no doubt that the relationship between Obama and Wright is EXACTLY how my relationship to my childhood pastor would be if I were still a member of my childhood church.

Let me be ABSOLUTELY clear.

IF Barack Obama has to Sista Souljah Jeremiah Wright to gain the presidency…then the presidency is not worth having.

And I WILL take that Personal.

Frankly, I am not sure which.

Say Hello to Nas’ Be a Nigger, Too.

“My Flow tight as Tootie’s Braces” <—-that’s slick right there. Can’t front on that.

Listen (with your headphones, of course) and let me know what YOU think.

Third time through and I’m not sure if I can endorse this or not.

As art, it’s good stuff.

As political commentary….uhhhhhhhhh.

While a bunch of folk spent this weekend discussing the bitterness of small town folk, the Black Blogosphere got their feeding frenzy on at the expense on the young lady below:

By now you have heard the punchline of the story:

We’ve been talking about Keys’s early jones for the Notorious B.I.G. “My favorite Biggie song is ‘Me & My Bitch,’” she says, licking a stray globule of jam off her finger. “That title doesn’t make you think he’s speaking about the love of his life, but he is. She throws his shit out the window, she flushes his drugs down the toilet—she’s crazy! But if you grew up like that, then you understood, that was love in that world.”

We ask what other gangsta rappers she liked. And that’s when Keys drives a steamroller through the wall.

“‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other,” she says, putting down the sandwich. “‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

Come again? A ploy by whom?

She looks at us like it’s the dumbest question in the world. “The government.”

Sigh. The easy way out is to pounce on Alicia Keys and fit her for a tin-foil hat. More interesting, as usual is the REST of the story.

From reading the WHOLE story you get a glimpse at an artist in evolution.

Alicia Keys has been the 21st century Whitney Houston. A creation of the Clive Davis Arista/J Records hype machine who rode a debut album to that exalted Grammy status first occupied by Lauryn Hill and later by Norah Jones, Beyonce’, and most recently, Amy Winehouse.

She went from random new chick on the block who could sing and play the piano to playing second banana to Scarlett Johannson in the Nanny Diaries and bussin Caps with Common and Ari Gold in Smokin Aces.

Of course, as is the norm with anyone with an abundance of Melanin, talent, and success, there is a certain need for us to pull down that which we were so instrumental in building up (Barack Obama, take note).

I was on the other side, albeit silently when the great Alicia Keys vs. India Arie debate was held back in 2001-2002. I, being the bougie elitist artsy fartsy type that I have been known to be, was bitter towards the astounding success of Ms. Keys and felt that India Arie was being slighted.

In time, I have learned to save my slings and arrows for THEY (yes, the mysterious They; it always seems to be about them)…and not Ms. Keys (or Beyonce…or anyone else getting more shine than I feel they deserve) and she has grown on me. Each album has been an improvement over the last and I find her down to earth nature refreshing.

I don’t think she REALLY believes that the government created gangsta rap as a ploy to get Black folk to kill each other. (The government would  NEVER be complicit in the death of its own citizens…ESPECIALLY the ones of color*blink*)

What I DO think is that Alicia has gotten too close to the blinding light of overexposure and she now sees how the game has been played.

She wants to step out of her comfort zone and enter the next stage of her career.

She wants to do her “What’s Goin On“

While this was an awkward place and way to explain her evolution, It is an evolution that we should all applaud.

What surprised me most was the fact that she asserts that Go Ahead was actually about President Bush and not about some dude.

Seriously.

Sounds different when you look at it that way, huh.

note: The subject matter of this song has little if anything to do with the subject matter of this post, other than I have been repeating the hook over and over again while setting up my new desktop.

Hot Damn, It’s a New Day.

The PawnShop special served it’s time.  February 2005-March 2008.  Rest in peace.

So, I am now officially in the era of Vista.  I will gladly accept any comments or warnings here.

So, I am working on the NEXT post you will see on this blog while Listening to Real Late with Peter Rosenberg (required listening for all you grown up Headz)  and I hear this new Snoop Song talking about how being scared of marriage will mess up your relationship with a good woman.

*pauses to cue record  scratch*

Yes, the man who brought the world a debut album with such insightful relationship commentary as “We don’t Love them Hoes” and “Bitches ain’t shit but Hoes and Tricks” is now exalting the joys of Monogamy.  There is hope for HipHop after all.

Uh….small problem.

He didn’t write it.  Or Sensual Seduction.  Or anything else on his upcoming album. 

Back to the album. Initially, there weren’t supposed to be any guest artists on Ego Trippin’. Why the switch?
It just happened. That might be me ego-tripping. The real ego-tripping on this record is that I let people write songs for me.

Singing songs? Rapping songs?
Everything.

Have you run out of things to say yourself?
Nah. I’m ego-tripping. I was watching Diana Ross getting inducted into a Hall of Fame, and she got up there and named all these great songwriters. Her biggest songs were written by somebody else. So I’m thinking, Wow, there’s nothing wrong with my pen, but I’m going to let other people write for me.

Has the recording process become easy?
Yeah, because I know what I want. When you know what you want, you aim for it and shoot for it. I was talking to Quincy Jones. He told me that, when he used to make records, there was a target they used to aim for, whether it was a No. 1 song or a hot artist. If you aim for a target, you’re either going to hit it or go higher. That’s what I’m on right now.

So there you have it.  The VERY second I get ready to praise Snoop for FINALLY growing up, It turns out that someone GREW him up.  (Although I can’t front, The Blue Carpet Treatment was not without its positive points.)

More on this as it develops.

Client, Client Number Nine,

New York Gov He might do time

20 Yrs for the Mann Act

WTF, WTF, WTF

Get out your notepad and take notes. Dude is a long way from his Ruff Ryders days.

The embed ain’t workin and I don’t feel like foolin with it

Talib Kweli - Hostile Gospel Pt 1.

Freedom’s a road that’s seldom traveled, watch hell unravel
Right before the eyes of the soldier who fell in battle
The single mother who raised her daughter to bear the sacred water
And not take the hand of every man who make a offer
To black kids wishin they white kids, when they close they eyelids
Like, “I bet they neighborhood ain’t like this”
White kids wishin they black kids, and wanna talk like rappers
It’s all backwards it’s identity crisis
The industry inside us is vipers with fangs trying to bite us
Drug suppliers is the health care providers
We cakin, makin narcotics outta household products
We ain’t workin out ’til we exorcise the demons that’s inside us
Plus they seem to just provide us with enough rope to hang ourselves
Enough dope to slang ourselves, enough toast to bang ourselves
It’s officially nigga season, these niggaz is bleedin
That’s why I’m spittin freedom we had enough of trigger squeezin

I can’t put my finger quite on what did it this week. But I am completely without respect or any empathy for the Clinton Campaign.

If I had a larger profile, I would probably keep this off my blog. But since I am lowgrade at this particular point, Screw it. Ima do me tonight.

Ordinarily my fishscale quality hometraining would prohibit me from going there.

But right now.

RIGHT THIS SECOND?

This right here is exactly how I feel. (hat/Tip to Post Bourgie)

NSFW.

I will be apologizing for this in a few days. But right now?

I don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuuck(Smokey,1995)

*replays and proceeds to get his two step on*