It’s time to put the smack down on these Republicans and their sickening behavior in the House and Senate. Not only are they being contrarian just for the sake of arguing, they have absolutely no legs to stand on. When you’ve run the country into its lowest point since the Great Depression and have made wrong decision after wrong decision, your opinions and theories are null and void. You had your chance and you failed…epically.
I’m glad Barack is playing nice with these fools, but they’ll soon find out that all their whining and complaining is going to be moot as he gets to work. I just wish they’d spare us the show. STFU and sit your ass down in the backseat. You drove the country off the pavement at every fork in the road, and now you’re trying to tell us how to drive. Why on earth should anyone listen to you?
Do your thing Barack and let’s get this headed in the right direction.
This is pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll try to sum it up for you. One of the dopest MC’s around, the big homey Braille, has linked up with one of the dopest producers, S1 (of Strange Fruit Project fame), to create a project called CloudNineteen. Along with making an incredible record, there’s a larger purpose with the album. I’ll let Braille explain:
In my last Newsletter, I shared details about my vision for this record. It was really hard for me to share the vision at first because I feared that people wouldn’t understand. At this point, I feel very comfortable with the vision and I am confident that this is what I’m supposed to do. Starting February 25th, me and S1 will begin traveling around the U.S. with the intent of giving out as many CD’s as we can press. My hope is to press 30,000 copies and in order to meet that goal I am accepting donations and financial contributions to help with the manufacturing cost. None of the donated money is going in my pockets, and with a total goal of raising $20,000 – every 70 cents we raise represents a CD being given away to someone. Rather then continuing to type out the vision, I filmed myself on DJ Idull’s computer so that I could verbalize the vision in a video.
If your interested in contributing to the cause then my PayPal is braillehiphop@hotmail.com. If you’d rather send a check in the mail then just email me and I will hit you with my address.
It’s crucial to mention that these 30K CD’s that will be given away will almost all go to at-risk and incarcerated youths across America. The same kids who see all the negative images that are most visable in hip-hop will be directly touched by positive, genuine, and dope music from their culture.
If you’ve read my blog over the past year, you already know that with all the problems in the world, America, and hip-hop, I think the solutions lie in education. We have to teach the next generation how to act and right now, hip-hop just isn’t pulling its weight. Huge shout to everyone who is doing something positive with their music and careers right now, Braille and S1 especially.
I just wrote Braille a check for $100 to help support the project and I hope you’ll join me in getting CloudNineteen out to as many kids as possible. Like he mentioned, every 70 cents he raises represents giving one CD to a kid locked in juvenile detention or in a tough neighborhood. Instead of going out to dinner and a movie one night, shoot Braille some $$ and help out.
More true words from Jay Smooth. Like I said in my last post, we have to “be the change” we want to see. That means we have to get to work and take pride in what everything do.
I’m making 2009 a huge year for myself and I hope y’all do the same. Live better in every aspect of your life and get things moving in the right direction. Do your best to really experience life. Remember what Jimmy V said?
To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.
In spite of this picture, the most important thing to remember today is that Obama is not alone. We cannot expect him to solve all our problems and make the world a better place without buying into his vision ourselves. As he’s mentioned numerous times, “be the change you want to see in the world.”
If you want things to be better in your life, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your country, or in the world, you have to take responsibility. Be smart. Be positive. Be caring and be there for other people. We can do this, but we have to pull together and demand the best from ourselves and each other.
(Pardon the language, but I never did get the chance to use one of my favorite pics of the year)
Alright, there are two things that are slightly bugging me right now, at least enough that I felt the urge to blog ’em. Welcome to the rant.
Issue #1: The buzz around the net about the new Common album is off the charts. Unfortunately, I’m seeing damn near nothing but negative reviews. What album are y’all listening to? You really wanted him to make a 3rd album in a row that sounded pretty much the same? Eff y’all, Universal Mind Control is heat. My dude Dru suggested I do some reviews every now and then, but working 2.5 jobs kinda kills that. Here’s my track by track faux review:
“Universal Mind Control” – you’ve heard this. Either you like it or you hate it. If you’re fun, you like it, it’s your jam when you hear it in public, and you can’t let it finish without attempting some horrible popping and locking. If you don’t like it, your Jansport might be too tight.
“Punch Drunk Love” – Dope. Kanye + Skateboard + Com? Say no more. “Am I crazy”?
“Make My Day” – Love this record. So bouncy, so melodic. [Thugnificent] stop hatin’, get money [/Boondocks].
“Sex 4 Sugar” – Fair enough, swing and a miss.
“Announcement” – Nice ode to Biggie and P kills his verse. Nobody at Geffen/Interscope will tell me why they pulled the video down, so I’ll have to ask Com on the 13th. The animation was dope.
“Gladiator” – FLAMES. Hard ass beat, crazy horn sample, classic Com battle rhymes. Absolutely insane in concert too. “Are you not entertained?”
“Changes” – Good positive joint inspired by the late stages of Barack’s candidacy. Would fit right in on Be or Finding Forever.
“Inhale” – Smooth. Crazy synth and percussion. Ill record.
“What A World” – Com kills it with the old school flow and them Chester French boys add some Freddie Mercury-esque swag. All that’s missing from the beat is Pharrell’s “sexy breath” style adlib in between the hook and verses. Could easily be a Kenna song…and that’s a good thing.
“Everywhere” – Reminds me of the new Foreign Exchange record. Great way to end it, but I would have let this one ride out for like 8 minutes and let the beat/melodies go crazy.
So look. 9/10 songs are good and one isn’t. That’s 90%…that’s a A-. You messageboarders, bloggers, and Debbie Downers in general need to calm down. If you want to hear Resurrection again, go put in your CD.
*bangs gavel*
Issue #2: The political pundits (worth about as much as hip-hop pundits) are getting all worked up because Barack has been hiring people associated with both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and they’re wondering what happened to “change.” First off, the people he’s picking are very qualified and are all excellent choices. Secondly, these people are respected across party lines, which was a huge theme of Barack’s campaign. When I worked for them, the official mantra was “respect, empower, include.” You can’t change things for the better when you alienate half the people in the country. This is the beginning of a new way of politics, perhaps not ‘post-partisan’, but moving towards that. And it’s certainly a HUGE ‘change’ from Dubya’s (mis)management style.
Thirdly, Barack has been set up for these attacks since day one. Regardless of what he does, people will try to criticize him because they are, rightly so, fed up with government. However, let’s not forget how we got here and who was at the helm. We’re at the lowest point in American history since the Great Depression. Literally every day for the past 2 weeks I’ve heard of either personal friends losing their jobs or seen large business make massive cuts. Finally, at the first of the month, CNN sent out the hilariously titled “breaking news” that we were in a recession since last December. Thanks for the update fellas.
If Barack picked a team of brand new faces, he would be ridiculed for selecting unknown commodities when we’re in such dire straits. When he picks a balanced and diverse group of accomplished and, gasp, intelligent appointees, people flip because they aren’t “change-y” enough. Miss me with that, please. Anyone want to let these people actually get in office for…I dunno…a week…before trying to tear them down? Barack’s not going to be able to fix things completely in 4 full years and you already want him solving the world’s economic crisis 2 months before he’s sworn in? Wow. We really do live in an “instant gratification” culture. Speaking of which…
*pops dinner in microwave*
Ok, I should wrap up this rant. Before I do though, I need all you conservatives, particularly the bombastic, comically dimwitted talking heads on the “news” to do one thing. Shut. the hell. up.
Really now, these people shouldn’t even be allowed to speak about issues. You lost your rights when you voted for George Bush. TWICE! This is like getting driving erratically and crashing your car, only to tell the ambulance driver to be more careful as he’s taking you to the hospital. No. You can’t say anything right now. Just sit in the back and let the adults try to fix the problems you created.
If your beliefs and policies have brought America to its knees, I refuse to sit there and let you talk about what ANYONE should be doing. Do you let Shaq coach your free throw technique? Do you let Soulja Boy help you with your bars? Do you let Chris Webber handle your clock management down the stretch in a NCAA Championship game (still bitter)? NO! So why listen to former Bush sycophants whine about what we should do to fix any of the myriad of problems they helped create. Like George himself said:
Don’t get fooled. These people have no ground to stand on.
As I mentioned earlier, Tuesday was an incredible day in history and damn near everyone/thing I was rooting for ended up winning (*crosses fingers for Al Franken’s recount*). However, in the same day that we took a huge step towards equality by electing Barack Obama as our 44th President, Californians voted yes on Propisition 8 and banned gay marriage. Again, the idea that one could vote for acceptance and discrimination on the same ballot is sickening, disappointing, and confusing.
People have been protesting in the streets all over California this past week and the court battles have just started. It’s critical that they keep up that fight and it’s important for us non-Cali residents (*hides Cali driver’s license from WA DMV*) support as best we can.
One simple way is to cop these “Repeal Prop. 8” t-shirts from ChunkyTees right here. You can either buy one for $10, or more than 3 for $8 each, with all the money going to the cost of pressing and shipping them. In other words, this isn’t a money making venture. This is an important statement we can make to the world about equal rights. Dr. King’s words have never been more true than they are today.
Some footage of Capitol Hill here in Seattle after Barack’s our victory swiped from Blogs Is Watching. Do you realize that Obama literally had people dancing in the streets throughout the entire world? I’ve been telling you this is big. [Usual Suspects] I mean ‘orca’ big [/Keyser Soze]. We’ve never seen anything like this and it’s almost like all our mistakes have been erased. We have a chance again…
