The Audacity of Dope

For time. Complete all reps of each exercise before moving to the next.

100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 air squats

Broke my last time of 19:54 with a PR of 18:46.  Chyea.  All about improvement people!  Shout to Foundation.

Move over Pau Gasol, the 2008 Federation Cup Spanish Tennis team now has their own racist controversy. Gawker posted up this picture, apparently hosted on the official Spanish Tennis Federation’s site right here. I assume that link will be taken down shortly, but perhaps they’ll leave it up and try to defend this one too.

“Some of my best friends in Toronto are from China” – Jose Calderon (actual quote)

Oh, well in thaaaaaaaat case.

The latest edition of GGR has arrived, just in time to toss on the iPod for the weekend.  I was beginning to wonder when Tay and Brainchild would drop episode 7, and here it is.  Random Hyphen trivia: 7 is my favorite number.  Just thought you should know that.

This week, Phonte pays tribute to Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac, explains why some women are attracted to married men, and makes his case for legalized prostitution.

1. Bernie Mac Intro
2. J Rawls presents the Liquid Crystal Project “Digital Funky”
3. Daru & Reggie B “Good Love”
4. A Tribe Called Quest “Keepin’ It Movin”
5. Grooveman Spot “Benzaiten Love” (DJ Mitsu The Beats Remix) (feat. Count Bass D)
6. Lanu “It’s Time” (feat. Kero One)
7. Reggie B “Time”
8. J*Davey “Slut Daddy”
9. Lloyd “Girls Around The World” (Chuck’s Remix) (feat. Lil’ Wayne)
10. DJ Mitsu The Beats “Right Here” (Seoul City Remix)
11. Luke Vibert “No Stone Unturned”
12. Squarepusher “Squeak”
13. London Funk Allstars “Love Is What We Need”
14. Cvees “Spread Love”
15. Dwele “Brandi” (feat. Slum Village)
16. Sam Sparro “Cottonmouth”
17. Horace Brown “One For The Money”
18. Kurious “I’m Kurious”
19. Questionmark Asylum “Hey Look Away”
20. Heavy D & The Boyz “Got Me Waiting”
21. Nightmares On Wax “Morse”
22. Jay-Z “Dead Presidents”
23. Georgia Anne Muldrow “Larva”
24. Reggie B “We R Here”
25. Ta’Raach “Yeah”
26. Comfort Fit “True Form”
27. De La Soul “Shoomp”
28. Isaac Hayes “A Few More Kisses To Go”

Download here.

Perhaps the blog is getting a little serious lately, but it’s important.  As I’ve watched the Olympics every night this past week, it’s been great to see athletes from all over the world come together and put our petty differences aside.  Unfortunately, these moments are really just brief respites from the daily onslaught of ignorance and animosity that normally pervades societies all over the globe.  Inspired by the controversy over the Spanish basketball teams, Complex Magazine (the fine folks who brought you the fine Cassie photoshoot) ranked a few other recent anti-asian examples.  Check ’em out right here.

In a related topic, I recently read a great piece by Matt Bai in the New York Times, where he asked if Obama represented “the end of Black Politics.”  Peep it here.

The uneducated will see Obama’s ascension to the highest rank in the United States as a sign that racism has disappeared in our country, but that’s obviously not the case.  Intelligent people will surely agree that it’s a step in the right direction, but I worry that our society, and especially our media, will focus solely on white/black interaction.  If we do that, we’ll continue to overlook the shockingly prevalent racism towards Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.-Americans that exists all around us.  If it’s not ok to use racist images and terminology attacking black people in our media, why do we let it pass when it’s aimed at other groups?  It’s unacceptable, and we all need to start calling attention to it when we see it.  If someone says something ignorant, call them on it.  If you see an offensive commercial, complain and spread the word.  We have the power and obligation to demand better from ourselves.

Shout to Yang Wei for killing it in the all around gymnastics competition last night, and shout to Info for the Complex post.

Ruby Hornet just posted up a great interview with Rhymefest that I highly recommend y’all check out.  They talked about how Fest’s approach to music has changed over the years, his “Stolen” video, how you have to be the change you want to see in the world, and much more.  Here’s a sample:

RubyHornet: When you speak about that perspective, how important is it for you as an artist to be able listen to other people’s experiences and stories? We think of emcees as great speakers, but is there an exchange that has to happen? Do great artists need to also be great listeners?

Rhymefest: I think anybody who is going to be successful in anything needs to be a great listener. Let’s take Barack Obama. The other day Barack Obama was speaking at a town hall meeting. Somebody stood up and started yelling, and the people started booing him. He said, ‘wait, wait, wait. Don’t boo him. What is he saying?’ And the guy said, ‘you never do the pledge of allegiance. Do you love your country? We didn’t even do the pledge of allegiance, and you’re talking about America.’ And people started booing him. [Obama] said, ‘wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We didn’t do the pledge of allegiance. Somebody was supposed to do that before I got up and started speaking and they didn’t. You know what sir? You lead us in the pledge of allegiance and I’ll say it along with you.’ He put his hand on his heart and the audience roared. What if he wasn’t a good listener? Imagine how the Republicans would have killed him with that. You know, he played it smooth. Listen, this song that I’m coming out with, “Stolen.” It was because I was listening that I had the inspiration to make another song. It’s because I really listened to somebody who really lived through it. Don’t get it wrong, Alex. You can listen, but I’m not making any excuses for ignorance. Ignorance has no refuge.

Amen.  Read the entire interview here, and be on the lookout for El Che when it drops.  It’s going to be a great record.

Musiq – “Radio”

This is so wack.  Not only is the song awful, but it’s such an obvious attempt to pander to the dumbed down radio audience.  Horrible beat, horrible melody, horrible lyrics, and a blatantly moronic hook.  I know some of y’all thought this song was a joke of some sort when I first posted it up, but it looks like Musiq is really going to put all of us through this.  I’m looking forward to hearing the album (apparently titled Aijuswanaselle), but if there’s any more crap like this on it, I’m taking him off my list of favorite singers.  “I’m not mad Musiq…I’m…I’m disappointed.”

And just cause I can’t leave you with that atrocity, peep a flashback to the better times.

I have no idea which one of these dudes rapped on their completely unnecessary and awful remake of H-Town’s classic (LOL @ the video), so I’ll give them a collective WLotD.

“I’m known for turnin’ women on like a lightswitch”
–Pretty Ricky, “Knockin’ Boots”

It’s 2008.  You have to come with a better simile than that.  That’s wack.

It’s so painful when Jeezy tries to be lyrical:

“I really ain’t buyin’ all this bull***t they sellin’ me/
When the government throwin’ more curves than the letter C/
I said the letter C, I guess that’s for correctional/
They tryna box me in, sit me still like a vegetable”
–Young Jeezy, “Crazy World”

Reminds me of his other epic food reference, “it’s goin’ down on aisle three/I’ll bag you like some groceries,” from “Love In This Club.”  Get ’em Jeezy.

(Yang Peiyi on the left, Lin Miaoke on the right. Both look adorable to me.)

I’m really enjoying the competition so far, but stories like this and the racist Spanish basketball advertisement are starting to take away from the Olympic spirit. Granted, there are also the tiiiiiiny issues of human rights abuse, pollution, and censorship that the Chinese government has failed to address, but is that really surprising? Not so much. This, however, is.

China’s made no secret that the 2008 games are their welcoming party to the table of world superpowers. To that end, they’ve controlled every last aspect of the presentation, crafting the exact image they want to project to the world. This happens everywhere – currently evident in Vancouver’s ongoing efforts to force their homeless outside of the city in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics – but it’s almost always troublesome. In this situation, the Chinese deemed a 7 year old singer named Yang Peiyi “not suitable” to perform at the opening ceremonies, even though they wanted to use her voice in a key part of the festivities. Apparently she wasn’t cute enough to represent the country on the world stage. So what to do? Simple, they found 9 year old Lin Miaoke to lip sync the song. Miaoke has since gone on to become an international celebrity, while the controversy over the decision just broke in the press. You can read the full story here.

At the moment, both girls and their families seem to be ok with the whole situation. That’s good, and I hope they continue to feel that way, but it doesn’t fix the larger problem here. The fact that a country would blatantly attack the self-esteem of one girl, and consequently, a whole generation, is appalling. China has all the tools to be a world leader, but there are certain areas where they’re failing miserably.

On Sunday, the Guardian reported on the image above, which features the Spanish men’s national basketball team in an advertisement for the Beijing Olympics.  The dragon in the center circle?  Clumsy, but admissable.  The fingers pulling back the skin around their eyes in an attempt to mimic asian features?  Yeaaaaaah, I’m going to go ahead and hit you with the:

You’d think that the European country closest to Africa (separated by only 8 miles at the Strait of Gibraltar) might be the most racially tolerant member of the E.U., but unfortunately, you’d be dead wrong.  Spain has a long history of racism, and in recent years, it’s repeatedly reared its ugly head in their sporting events.  From the abuse Lewis Hamilton received earlier this year, to Luis Aragones’ moronic comments about Thierry Henry, it seems like a new incident pops up every few months.  We also can’t forget about when Samuel Eto’o almost left the pitch a few years back:

And now the Spanish basketball team, one of the best squads in the world, has again demonstrated the ignorance and racism that appears so prevalent in their culture.  It’s shocking enough that this actually made it’s way into an officially sanctioned advertisement (apparently involving the female team in the same pose on the opposite page), but how could players who’ve spent time here in the NBA agree to this?  You’re telling me Pau and Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro, Jose Calderon, and Jorge Garbajosa didn’t know any better?  Wow.

I don’t want to sound too high and mighty, because we clearly have lots of race issues here (cough, cough, cough), but it’s time for Spain to get a grip on this.  If they’re going continue campaigning for Madrid to host the 2016 or 2020 Olympics, they have to get serious about this problem.