I don’t know where I’d place Jay-Z in my pantheon of MCs, but I do know that all these kids tryina tell me that Lil Wayne is the best one doin it now just need to listen to Mr. Carter. There’s no comparison. At all. Hov CRUSHES Weezy.
Not to mention that Wayne even admits he didn’t understand Jay’s lyrics.
On “Mr. Carter,” Jay-Z calls you “my heir, Young Carter” — that had to feel pretty cool.
That line right there was hard! Unbelievable. I didn’t even realize it at first. My homie had to tell me “You know what he said, right?” I didn’t even get it. I was like, “Why is he saying ‘air’? Is he just talking about the air?” But I’m smart enough to know that he’s smart enough not to just be talking about the air. I felt real dumb, but then I felt so good. It was an incredible compliment.
Wayne should’ve just deferred and let Jay have the last verse.
There’s a little uproar in Philly over malt liquor advertisements. But in thinking about it, it has to be the style, because it can’t be the substance. Not with all the malt liquor ads I see when I go up there. So then it’s not that they’re advertising Colt 45, it’s that they’re advertising Colt 45 in mural form, without the proper certification from the city.
Now me, I came up listening to songs like 1 Million Bottlebags, in which Chuck D decries the placement of malt liquor in the Black community and the accompanying advertisement. Bearing that in mind, I’m perfectly sympathetic with the community activists who want the advertisements pulled. But Chuck kicked the science perfectly, balancing the responsibility between the alcohol companies and the consumers.
Who’s sellin’ us pain
In the hood another up to no good
Plan that’s designed by the other man
But who drink it like water
One and on till the stores reorder it
Brothers cry broke but they still affordin’ it
Thing is, though, the biggest complainant is SCRUB, Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight. They’re not interested in the message, they’re interested in the style. A few years ago, they fought to have graffiti-style advertisements for PlayStation removed too. I suppose they could be said to be concerned about the community, but only insofar as it relates to their vision of what is proper for a mural. That, I do not agree with. If a private property owner is comfortable with a particular style of advertisement being posted on his property, then the discussion should be between that property owner, the potential advertiser, and maybe – maybe the city. To the extent that regulations are placed on advertising, that’s an area of the city’s oversight. However, for a 3rd party to come in and try to get the advertisement taken down because of the style of the ad, that’s out of bounds.
In addition to having a successful playoff record and winning the Super Bowl, one of the marks of coaching success in the NFL is having a “coaching tree,” or for a coach to have his assistants hired as head coaches around the League. In a post on Sports Illustrated, Don Banks shows the coaching tree of two coaches who worked under Dennis Green, Brian Billick, who formerly coached in Baltimore, and Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. The significance is this: Dennis Green was given a shot in the pros after a very successful stint as head coach at Stanford. A major voice in getting him that job was Condoleeza Rice.
Looking particularly at the Dungy branch of the Green tree, I think that’s how Affirmative Action was supposed to work.
Dungy also has four of his former assistants in NFL head coaching jobs, and all of them worked for him during his six-season tenure in Tampa Bay (1996-2001): Kansas City’s Herman Edwards, Chicago’s Lovie Smith, Detroit’s Rod Marinelli and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin. Coincidentally, all four worked on the defensive side of the ball with the Bucs, but that was Tampa Bay’s strength as well as Dungy’s background too. Whenever Dungy retires, he’ll have a fifth member of that club, because the Colts have already named assistant head coach/quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell as his successor.
Somebody gave Denny a shot, then Denny gave Tony an opportunity to shine, and so on. This ain’t a question of hiring somebody who’s not qualified just because he’s Black, it’s about giving highly-qualified Black candidates the chance to shine. If we were focused on that, government intervention might not be as necessary.
As I mentioned last week, I’m hitting up the Hitchhiker’s Guide again. Of course it’s online, although I’m reading my yellow-paged compendium. At any rate, here’s a link to Chapter 25, which explains Deep Thought.
A question I’ve been forced to ask myself over the past few years is this: is Rakim overrated? My initial reaction to this question would be to shoot the half-closed eye Wu-Tang look. It’s a legit question, though. If you go lyric for lyric, line for line, is Rakim THAT much better than Kane or Kool G Rap? I can’t say for sure. Not only can I not say that he’s far superior, I can’t even necessarily always say that he’s superior. Not anymore, at least.
I came into my awe of Rakim honestly. I wasn’t one of those people who had been all hyped up on the legend before I heard him. I don’t even remember hearing people talk about him before I heard My Melody. It was a song on a dubbed tape I had jacked from a friend. I didn’t know who was on it. Just songs dude liked. But I remember that I was crossing Roosevelt Boulevard the first time I heard, “I’ll take seven MCs and put ‘em in a line…” That moment is frozen in time. It’s also a big part of the reason that I revere Rakim in a way that I never did with Kane. Rakim was somebody I listened to, not for the songs themselves, but strictly for the lyrics. Songs like Chinese Arithmetic and the other instrumentals on Paid In Full actually made me not wanna listen to the tape. It was only the lyrics that got me. But even then, it wasn’t like I was walking around quoting Rakim. I was just in awe of his skill.
Kane, on the other hand, had lines that I just couldn’t help walking down the street quoting. Put a quarter in your ass cuz you played yourself? When I clear my throat, that’s AWWWLLLL she wrote? Come on. Where Rakim was that calm, laid-back, seemingly silent killer, while Kane was all bluster, swagger, and skill. And let me emphasize ’skill.’ Kane was that dude in a way that Rakim wasn’t. In a way, it’s kinda like Marvin Harrison versus Randy Moss. There’s Harrison’s quiet, efficient excellence and there’s Moss’s showy, braggadocios excellence. I don’t know that it’s fair to say that one is better, it’s just a matter of preference.
Disco To Go – Brides of Funkenstein Oops Upside Your Head – GAP Band Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II) – Handsome Boy Modeling School Jack The Ripper – LL Cool J Live At Union Square – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince Miuzi Weighs A Ton – Public Enemy Buck Whylin’ – Terminator X Gold Digger – EPMD My Part of Town – Tuff Crew My Melody – Eric B & Rakim Superbad – The Beatnuts Daytona 500 – Ghostface Killa Brothers On My Jock – EPMD, f. Redman You Can’t Stop The Prophet – Jeru Tha Damaja Get Me Back On Time Engine #9 – Wilson Pickett The Bristol Hotel – LL Cool J Sister Sanctified – Stanley Turrentine My Philosophy – BDP
The Washington Post reports that 3 in 10 Americans admits to race bias. Is that supposed to be surprising? I mean, I guess the question that I’m asking is which part is supposed to be an attention grabber: that THIRTY PERCENT of Americans admit to being prejudiced, or is it that thirty percent of Americans ADMIT to being prejudiced? Personally, I don’t find it surprising no matter where the emphasis is placed, but I am curious as to how people read it. Even before I read the article, I knew that the thirty percent figure is supposed to represent a significant portion, but “racial prejudice” is such a nebulous term, who can know what that actually means? I’ll tell you flat-out that I’m prejudiced, although that basically amounts to me rooting for Black folks in sporting events and on television game shows, provided I have no overriding interest. Meanwhile, I’m sure that there are people who wouldn’t let their child date a person of a different race who, only because they’ve never actually had to confront the issue, wouldn’t think of themselves as being prejudiced. So it’s a loaded term that actually means nothing. Kinda like race itself, in some ways.
Besides, with a sample size of under 2000, I’m not sure how valid any extrapolations are, anyway.
Listening to the Disco to Go by The Brides of Funkenstein, on the uncut version, the song starts out with this tremendously interesting horn lick. Totally different from the rest of the song – it almost sounds unrelated to the song, but it’s quite, quite funky. Later, I’m listening to Oops Upside Your Head by The Gap Band, and I hear the exact. same. lick.
Similarly, there’s this joke I’ve heard from both Redd Foxx and Flip Wilson. The only difference is the setup and the percentage. The joke is this:
Recently, doctors have reported that 75% of breast cancer can be attributed to men who smoke.
I never commented on the R. Kelly fiasco because, quite frankly, I’ve been avoiding it. BUt suffice it to say that no matter what we want to believe, if the girl says it wasn’t her, and her people say it wasn’t her, then it’s just about impossible to get a conviction based on video evidence. Not that the state necessarily put on the best case, and it certainly didn’t help that the trial was SIX YEARS after the discovery of the tape. Given his track record, I wonder how much of his money Kelly has spent on keeping young girls and their families hushed up.
Could the word “okay” actually have African origins? I know all that “oll korrect” stuff I’ve read as the source of the term never really made sense to me.
A 61-year-old city woman was arrested by Reading police for beating her granddaughter with a cane and belt after finding the girl in bed with another female teenager from the neighborhood, investigators said Saturday.
What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:
“Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.” And thus began our ten-week course
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