conscious remake of Lil Wayne - A Milli
Current mood: intense
Category: Music

my remake of Lil Wayne's "A Milli"

I call mine A Million which is of course the low ball figure
but a basic unit of measurement of the people they have killed.
let me know what you think

6:18 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

10,000 Strong Boston - Sunday June 22nd 2008
Current mood: determined
Category: News and Politics

1:31 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Jamarhl on Tom Finneran show WRKS 680 am Boston
Category: News and Politics

12:55 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Boston Police "Safe Homes Initiative" Town Hall Meeting 2/21
Current mood: awake
Category: News and Politics

3:43 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

TOP 10 Best MC's for our people right now!!!!
Current mood: creative
Category: Music

In no particular order
and with current or fairly recent projects
all of thee folks are on myspace!!! check em out!!
support the music and the message and the mission!!
If you got links for shows, interviews get at these folks!!
and we need a top #10 list of Black Women Queens of Hip-Hop!!!
Wanna change the game?!?!?
Support the Positive. Abort the Negative.
you can check out all these folks and more at
http://www.hip-hop4blackunity.org   plug, plug Holla Black!

TOP 10 Best MC's for our people right now!!!!
with bonuses!!! (in no particular order)

1. Wise Intelligent (Poor Righteous Teachers)
Blessed Be The Poor - The Unmixed Tape
http://www.myspace.com/wiseintelligent
lyrics, lyrics, lyrics
Wise goes back and forth from a collection of material over the last few years, moving in and out of Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Poetry with West Indian overtones with ease.
Joints to check:
Mr. Rocket Launcher... Globe Holders... Niggaz Iz... Rock The Vote...
Can't Afford 2 Luv Her... Somebody Told A Lie...

2. XCLAN
Return From Mecca
http://www.myspace.com/xclanmusic
an updated funkin lesson... ridiculously sick!!!
Straight from the rip, this album hits your chest with deep resonating bass and funk, combined with the booming voice of Bro. J who has not missed a lyrical step since "Grand Verbalizer"... my ear drums were like "Aaaaaaah Vanglorious"
Joints to check:
Aragorn.... Voodoo... Why U Doin That... Prison... Americans...
Brother, Brother... Space People... Speak The Truth

3. NYOIL
Hood Treason
http://www.myspace.com/nyoil
all around hip-hop album with revolutionary tendencies
This joint reminds me of a combination of the 2nd PE album plus the 1st Nas album... not that NYOIL sounds like either one, but his album gave me the combined feeling I got from listening to those two.  Revolution and Hip-Hop thrown in Blender on the rocks over hot beats. This dude had youtube on smash from his 'y'all should all get lynched' song over 6,000 hits in 48hrs and banned!!!
Joints to check:
Hip-Hop ya don't stop... HoodTREASON... Self- Destrukkktion... Y'all Should All Get Lynched... You're a Queen... What up my Wigga Wigger

4. UMI (from Dead Prez)
A Race Against Time
http://www.myspace.com/umisworld
a mix of everything south north funk hop soul and RBG
Many of you already know UMI as the DJ from dead prez and on his own with the POW, this project is different... all UMI all the time. Umi explores all sides of his musical talents and influences in this. The CD is a melting pot of Black Music North South and all points between.
Joints to check:
Young World... When Mama Cries... Home is... Fuc a Stereotype...
the Souljah... State 2 State

5. A-Alikes
I Eat U Eat
http://www.myspace.com/aalikes
revolutionary but gangsta
These dudes remind me of what Mobb Deep could be like if they were conscious.  The A-Alikes are another group out of the dead prez, RBG, Peoples Army camp and if you like edgy music this is the jump off. A-Alikes go hard on beats with a back and forth duo flow like all the great 2 man groups, RUN-DMC, EPMD, etc.
Joints to check:
We Hungry... 'Til We Free... They Wanna Murder Me... What's Your Politic?... Share... Child of the Street... Heaven on Earth

6. dead prez
pick any of the material + side projects
http://www.myspace.com/m1rbg
http://www.myspace.com/sticman-deadprez
you already know what it is
A group like dead prez is pretty much standard at this point, by now you have seen the performances & the videos, maybe even saw the BET Starz Special or you have heard them on 101 mixtapes (their own and others) or you've peeped the collaborations with other like minded artists most notably Tupac's camp The Outlawz. Name your pleasure at this point, pick any of the material you are bound to find and of course if you don't have it get the 1st dead prez album... classic!

7. Public Enemy
A New Whirl Odor
ReBirth of a Nation
http://www.myspace.com/publicenemy
the latest from the legends... like the good ole' days
Public Enemy maybe the most important Hip-Hop group of all time. Chuck D. possesses one of the most distinct voices and unorthodox flows in Hip-Hop and lately PE has been even more experimental with their sound infusing more live band rock and turntabilism while still not forgetting  to butter the bread.  These last 2 albums (A New Whirl Odor and the Rebirth of a Nation produced by Paris/Guerillafunk) from PE in my mind have recharged the group and is the most reminiscent of the PE we know and love. Once again with PE as the benchmark of Revolutionary Hip-Hop you can pretty much just pick anything out of their discography and be satisfied. Definitely get the 1st 3 albums and check these most recent ones.

8. Paris
Sonic Jihad
http://www.myspace.com/guerrillaparis
the Hip-Hop panther and CEO, I call him Suge Right
Paris has been consistently delivering the good word for over a decade, broadcasting loud and proud from the West Coast.  Paris' Panther tendencies are symbolic in a region that birthed both "Niggas With Attitudes" and the original Black Panther Party. So to me he lies somewhere in between the two. Fuck the Police has become Fuck Bush, in other words the lyrics have more depth and content and Paris has made a name for himself with a clean sound and outspoken uncompromising lyrics.
As a businessman Paris is laying it down having produced projects for legends Public Enemy, MC Ren, Kam and laying the ground for the next gen. T-Kash, UNO The Prophet, Truth Universal
http://www.guerillafunk.com
Joints to check:
Field Nigga Boogie... Spilt Milk... Tear Shit Up... Ain't No Love...
Evil... Agents of Repression.. What Would You Do?

9. Black Thought from the Roots
http://www.myspace.com/blackthought
if his solo shit ever comes out your head will explode
OK this is a hard one because no one has really heard his solo joints. There are rumors of a solo project, but like BigFoot no one can bring me a body, some hair or some dookie. I had the fortune of being in a session when the man himself was recording, so I know it exists! All I can tell you is this... Black Thought may be the nicest MC since Rakim. I can't see anyone seeing him except maybe Wise Intelligent or Talib (on a good day) For this entry I have no current data other than to say this brother puts words together... well. Write letters, make Black Thought release his project!!!

10. and still..... Rakim
just on general principle alone
The God MC is still just ridiculous... His flow is untouched and unmatched and I still after all these years say the same thing... Rakim is so ill no one knows how to produce for him, promote him, market him, so he is in a messed up position. Best in the game and can't get in the game. No matter if its Dre, Premiere it just won't seem to work.  Well, If this number hits tonight, me and Rakim is both on!!!

AND..... Tied for the
#11 spot
Talib, Mos Def, Common
stuff been getting a little too flowery for my tastes lately, but they get the benefit of the doubt...

*love to Mos Def for Katrina clap and the Tall Israeli comment
boo on 16 blocks and the black doctor movie...

*love to Talib for lie alot
boo for getting slapped and being at 50's house... love for not slapping
back

*love to Common for Assata
boo on pink kufis and leather vests with no shirt on
http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/images/artist/c/common/az_official/281x211.jpg


and I will add myself to the damn list too!!!
UNO The Prophet aka Nat Turner Devil Burner
http://www.myspace.com/unotheprophet
Strictly Conscious Revolutionary Pro-Black Bangers
HOLLA BLACK

PEACE

Hip-Hop 4 Black Unity
http://www.hip-hop4blackunity.org
join the message board!

8:29 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Short Film about Corporations selling Drug Paraphenalia in the Hood
Current mood: angry
Category: Blogging

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1108002868

Check This one out and Holla Black...

Corporations only sell these types of things in our Hoods

go to any suburb across Amerikkka and you will not find these items used to assist in the intake of hard drugs ie: crack and heroin

1:01 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Short Film about the Gentrification of My Hood
Current mood: angry

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1112067479

Check it out and let me know what you think...

It's going on in your Hood too.... from coast to coast

HOLLA BLACK

12:58 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Starving Artists Feeding The Multitudes
Current mood: angry
Category: Music

Starving Artists Feeding The Multitudes                  2-28-01

If you never believed that life ain’t fair, there’s the proof.  Obviously, skill, content, delivery, talent, conceptualism, intelligence, articulation, integrity and depth have nothing to do with success in the music industry.  Industry rule number three thousand and eighty one, “suppress the truth.”   One of the primary components of the very much active COINTELPRO program was the mandate to discredit Black Power movements and prevent the rising of a “Black Messiah”  Is it too far fetched to believe that this idea is also present in the music industry?  An argument could be made that Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur, Eazy E, all died under suspicious circumstances and were all perceived as threats to society on one level or another by those in power.  If they can’t keep you poor, they can keep you silent…like dead silent.

Sometimes, conscious artists slip through the cracks and reach the pinnacles of success with all the financial benefits that go with it.  Lauryn Hill, Erikah Badu and Jill Scott are all doing quite well for themselves.  If you notice, however, most of these artists are Black Females often erroneously seen by many people as posing less of a potential threat than Black Men.  Also, if we look a little beyond the surface, we can see that most often these chosen few conscious artists promote messages that are people friendly, commercially appealing and less threatening than their more revolutionary and militant peers, such as the aforementioned Dead Prez and Poor Righteous Teachers for example.

The serious artist of any discipline is most concerned with the masses to whom their work will be transmitted and hopefully have an effect on.  Often artists operating on a grass roots level have to struggle to create masterful testaments amidst financial realities and everyday necessities and are forced to feed the multitudes with only the few fish and loaves of bread available to them.  This lack of resources can be stifling and limiting, unfortunately causing their overall artistic vision to suffer, which because of their close relation to the community is often the vision most in tune with the needs and concerns of the people they need to reach.

Popular culture makes millionaires out of undeserving people everyday.  A catch phrase, public scandal or outrageous act is often enough to propel one to instant fame and fortune.

Darva Conger, Survivors, Tom Green,  Whazzzzzzup!?!?  What’s up is that no one is saying anything important and getting paid inordinate amounts of dough for it while true geniuses and innovators are forced to remain at minimum wages by the unscrupulous boss that is industry.

For commercially successful artists, wealth creates a buffer of isolation, separating the now wealthy entertainer from the low to middle income masses listening to the outputted material.  Jay Z can talk about Bentleys, Belvedere, tropical islands and model groupies but if I am hearing him on a dubbed mixtape in a project apartment with my round the way girl, it may be slightly hard for me to relate to the Jigga man’s heavily ornamented life style.  Consequently, how long can a Thug stay mad at the world, keep his street edge and find inspiration once he has been removed from the environment which made him and thrust into a world of silk sheets and posh restaurants?

Constantly artists with nothing much to say are rewarded handsomely and made into overnight individual corporate entities with huge budgets to manufacture meaningless and mind-numbing merchandise without limit.  Master P can produce “Bout It, Bout It” with a low budget at low quality and sell out, literally, at a high volume to an all too eager public waiting to gobble up more urban fluff.  “Bout It, Bout It” landed in Blockbuster video while Haile Gerima’s “Sankofa” although critically acclaimed, is critically obscure.

Imagine if conscious artists were as popular and lucrative with multi platinum sales behind them to bank on.  The hope would have to be that their money would be put where their mouth is and the Black Community would be the beneficiary of schools, hospitals, banks and businesses financed by these artists’ fortunes.  We would also have to assume these conscious artists would probably have the same personal interests, if not more, in the extracurricular endeavors of most of today’s music moguls.  They would most likely delve into the genres of fashion and film, possibly publishing or distribution. 

Consider the effect on cultural pride if Afrocentric fashion was made as popular as Sean John is.  Industry standard, high-quality Black Film and Black Literature in addition to the exposure and access of a Black Distribution company would pose a serious threat to the existing pecking order, providing consumers with options while exposing peddlers of bogus Blackness in the process.  If these conscious artists were controlling the substantial fortunes that some others have been granted, they could become the artistic vanguard of a new Black aesthetic, participating in the liberation movement through the promotion of cultural consciousness in all disciplines of the Black Arts.

 It is in the best interest of the oppressor that Artists who espouse high ideals and visions of liberation be kept poor so their ideas will never manifest fully and have as powerful an effect on the larger audience they could potentially reach.  We can always expect vigorous and zealous efforts by those with the money to keep it, and the simpler it is for them to make it the better off they are.  The less they have to compete with quality substantive product the more they prosper.

How many times have we seen mediocre entertainers achieve unbelievable success while artists with more talent are scraping by on whatever meager funds trickle their way?  Can all this be coincidence or at some point do we recognize a pattern.  Legends whose music is still in heavy rotation die in poverty while the young artists who sample some of that same music are living lavishly.

8:45 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Keepin’ It Real; The Keepers of the Faith
Current mood: angry
Category: Music

Keepin’ It Real; The Keepers of the Faith

Strangely, it came to me after watching a videotape of Eddie Murphy imitating Jesse Jaxon singing “HymieTown.”  Like a revelation from Heaven I envisioned the real Jesse giving a similarly rousing rhetoric riddled rendition of “Keep Hope Alive” for the Hip-Hop generation. Sampling that phrase in true Hip-Hop form we breathe into it new life and givie it new meaning to ask the question, Who is keeping Hip-Hop Hope Alive?

There is much talk nowadays of “keeping it real,” with probably as many definitions as there are people saying it.  For the Hip-Hop Culture, hopefully keeping it real translates into maintaining the integrity of the principles that were present at its foundation while still evolving for the future.  True appreciation for this culture would mandate that we acknowledge and love it for what it was at its origin.  In other words, if Hip-Hop started with community standpoints and goals then keeping it real would mean building off of that foundation and not recreating it.

Similarly, political parties join together around common principles and build a platform that they then propogate through all of their supporters.  Democrats stand for this.  Republicans stand for that.  You then decide which to join based on what you stand for.  Later, if what you stand for changes, then you switch affiliations and join whatever is in line with the moral, ethical, spiritual and cultural convictions that you follow.

Like the historical debate surrounding the Afrikan origins of civilization, there is much debate on the origins of Hip-Hop and if a people have a right to claim it as theirs by virtue of the fact of creation.  I say if I made it, that makes it mine.  The concept is plain and simple, black and white.  The gray area is, although Hip-Hop culture is an offshoot of Black Afrikan Culture reacting to captivation in Urban America, it is supported by the European Culture which now controls it.

The infiltration by domination theory dictates that I control winning if I am the coach, the owner and the player.  The person who created the game is irrelevant and dies in obscurity.  You don’t know who invented basketball but you know the players they popularize.  Hip-Hop has now been about as far removed form its origins as it could become.  They say it could always be worse and looking at the remnants of rock & roll, jazz and blues I say Hip-Hop better protect it’s neck.

Who is willing to do the work of keeping it real and mainitaining the very things that made hip-hop what it was?  It would seem that the originators have taken a back seat to a new and youthful generation x, who gladly snatched the baton like a purse and ran with it in the opposite direction.  There is little to no communication between the founders and the followers and therefore a crucial transfer of information has yet to take place. Keep It Real, people like myself who were youngsters in the early eighties are now becoming old heads.

The fact of the matter is that it is largely only white youth who are still interested in breakdancing, graffitti, MC’ing and DJ’ing, activities which the now damn near thirty-something hip-hoppers of back in the day have traded in for families, jobs and the trappings of adult life.  I myself have to confess that the windmills and kickworms will be left to someone else.  In days when black men are dying from holding wallets in our hands, you won’t catch me in a dark train yard with a shiny spray can giving a crazed pig another reason to shoot me dead, as if they need one.

8:40 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Convenient Controversy
Current mood: angry
Category: Music

Convenient Controversy                             2-25-01

It has been quite a while since Prince’s (or the Artist formally known as, whatever, Mama named him Prince, I’ma call him Prince) song “Controversy” yielded him yet another chart topping hit.  In the current world of music many others have taken this lead and sought to top the charts with songs of controversy all their own and not quite as “princely” in symbol (no pun intended) or substance.  The sad state of affairs of today’s music industry has spawned many millionaires who use controversy as just another tool in the shed to sell records.

Controversy, at least to me, is most often good.  Generally, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Nat Turner and musically Peter Tosh, Public Enemy and Dead Prez were and are very controversial.  The question, as always, is defining the line between being controversial because your beliefs are in direct contradiction with the current power structure and being controversial because it’s all you have that makes you special and gets you all the attention you so crave.

Think about it, would Uncle Luke be as famous today if he hadn’t been propelled from mediocrity to super stardom by being “Banned in Amerikkka?”  Would Eminem have gotten as much attention if he weren’t so crazy and so white?  I can hear the lyrics of the Prince song come back and replay over and over like an urban radio nightmare….. “Controversy” and then in the mixer of my mind splice in the sample of a well-placed “Isn’t that convenient” courtesy of SNL’s church lady.

It does seem that ass-backwards Amerikkkan society has remixed controversy from something to be avoided and ashamed of into something to be embraced and even sought out sometimes I’m sure.  The News these days is sprinkled with stories of rappers gone wrong.  It would be interesting to track the increase in sales after an artist grabs a criminal headline, even if it could be attributed to a curiosity factor it still generates money and exposes the artist to a whole new market.

Believe it or not there are people who had no idea who Puff Daddy was until they saw him on the news, but they know him now.  No press is bad press seems to be the operative cliché for many of today’s artists who for the most part never face serious consequences because of money, popularity & influence, until now.  It appears the public is getting tired of high paid entertainers and their “Bad Boy” images (no pun intended again). The tides of public opinion are changing quickly and if past experience is any indication I would guess that young black male artists will be some of the first to be swept away and drowned in the current.

In the meantime, the flock of mindless sheep that make up the majority of today’s artists will continue heading straight for the slaughterhouse of faux thuggism and the dire consequences sure to follow.  Shock rockers, like Marilyn Manson, have mastered the use of controversy as a platform for the free advertisement of their beliefs.  Other artists, particularly in Hip-Hop, have not yet mastered the PR savvy required to pull off brazen ‘Fuck You’s’ to society and still maintain artist viability let alone their freedom.

In Amerikkka it seems that the best type of controversy is that which is convoluted, trivial and superfluous.  Any nut with a megaphone and a monologue can get an audience with the media in these days of quick fix headlines and tabloid journalism.  Simultaneously, artists who are posing questions and raising issues which are not only explosively controversial in nature but are also serious, intelligently thought out and well-spoken are shunned by the media, thus forced into a silent sabbatical of excommunication. 

There is apparently a conscious effort (conspiracy) underway to separate the needy masses from the artists who bear uplifting messages of righteous revolution.  Instead, people are exposed to a type of lowbrow controversy, usually superficial and harshly in contrast to social ideals, thus desensitizing them to future controversy based in fact and reality bringing to light those issues for which the masses need be outraged.

Amidst racial injustice, abuses of women & children, war, government induced poverty, famine & drought; there are too many items to choose from to focus our outrage.  The controversy at hand should not be bringing guns to clubs but taking up arms.  Rather than the controversy being found in empty lyricists whose only creative display is new and clever ways to use profanity and espouse outrageous concepts, the controversy should be pushing the envelope of artistic integrity, interrogating the naked emperor and holding society accountable for its many shortcomings.

Shine in a club with a gun? That ain’t gangsta.  Let the controversy be when the Hip-Hop generation can throw their guns in the air in an effort to end oppression and liberate our people.  Now that’s gangsta.  Controversy is misused conveniently by artists who see it only as a tool of exposure & notoriety and by the media who use it to sell papers and boost ratings.  God forbid anyone be motivated or encouraged to become a catalyst for change, or even be provided with the correct information so that they can choose for themselves.  On the contrary, all options are pre-chosen and the general public is only privy to controversy that is hollow and serves as a distraction to what really goes on in the world.

When all this controversial junk food goes away, Eminem will retire an old man (if he doesn’t overdose in a motel somewhere first) and still be able to take full advantage of all the glories and privileges due to any other white man in this society.  People will see him as a man with a rebel past and it will probably make him mysterious and dangerously appealing to the new set of young groupies.  Eminem can go out like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra, romanticizing past indiscretions in novel or interviews.

Shock value alone should not be enough to make someone valuable or viable as an artist.  Too often today’s musical mixed messages are given more credit than they deserve.  Empty rhetorical rants and raves are called ground breaking and pioneering while artists who are on the cutting edge and exploring new concepts are most often forced into underground anonymity.  It is incumbent on the masses of consumers and listeners to expand the musical horizons so the sun can shine even on those outside of the matrix of popular music.  Otherwise the blind are leading the blind, crying wolf and shouting fire in crowded theaters all at the same time and we have afforded fools the conveniences of wise men.

8:31 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment