hip hop is dead: esco killed it

"I killed it, you killed it, we all killed it." - Nas

Every time I hear the phrase, "hip hop is dead", what I really hear is, "i killed hip hop". It's the kind of dazed wording a psycopath would use after killing a room full of people. He wouldn't stumble out of the room with blood on his hands and say "i did it". Instead, he'd be dazed, confused, mumbling, "they're all dead". And that's exactly what our beloved lyricist from Queens Bridge is doing by naming his latest album "Hip Hop Is Dead...The N". It's not just an analysis of the culture, it's a confessional of sorts. No, Nas alone didn't kill hip hop, he had plenty of help. Consider the likes of Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Suge Knight, 50 Cent, Jimmy Iovine, Hype Williams, beef, r&b samples, clothing lines, ghost writers, video vixens, and Madison Avenue--there are plenty of others equally as guilty who won't be professing their guilt any time soon. The truth is, for years hip hop culture has been compromised. The artistry has taken a back seat to marketing the sensational--east coast/west coast feuds and despicable displays of capitalism. Meanwhile women and the preservation of life have continued to be devalued on a street level. Hip hop isn't even rebellious youth culture anymore. It's what grown ass millionaires use as an excuse to be gaudy. Welcome to the hustle n' no flow era of the culture. Today's hip hoppers still rep where they're from, but they are far more divided by age beefs than geography. (30 plus vs. under 30, or those old enough to remember hip hop before the blinging started, and those who aren't) Staring at it all is the 33 year old rap phenomenon Nas. Now that he's parted his lips to mumble hip hop is dead, will those same parted lips give us another classic album to stimulate the rebirth of the culture?

"Yeah, Hip-Hop. The sh*t was exciting. But it ain't the ghetto secret no more. Kids everywhere know it. And that's what we want - we want it to be heard. But now it's really corny. And I still love hip-hop, but it's like, the way the game is now, it's like, f*ck rap, get money. I don't think nobody cares about respect as an artist, because at the end of the day, everybody is just chasing the paper. So f*ck it." - Nas (xxl magazine interview)

If Illmatic was a climactic moment in hip hop, then It Was Written was the beginning of the end. Don't get me wrong, the growth of Nas's pen on his second album was crazy. The flow style was more complex, the lyricism was elevated, and the concepts were definitely a notch above Illmatic. The problem is, hip hop had changed. Illmatic was dope and didn't do numbers. By '96, doing numbers meant r&b samples, a famous r&b singer on your hook, a street alias name, and rampant materialism in the lyrics. Nas, like Big and Pac during the same era, went there whole heartedly and found fame and success. Nasty Nas quickly became Esco or Escobar, miming the ruthless Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar. But the problem is not so much what this new turn in hip hop did to Nas, because Nas was able to go to that place while maintaining a high level of creativity in his art. The problem is what it did to an entire generation of future rappers. The advent of rappers as these big street millionaires involved in illegal dealings killed the notion of the street poet from around the way. Personas were now primary, and skills were secondary. Backpackers did their part to fight this notion, but lost. With magazines, videos, and television projecting these images to the masses, it's really easy to see how the Frank White's and Esco's of '96, gave birth to the crack rap of today. No wonder Esco is feeling guilty.

"I feel like a black militant taking over the government / can't turn my back on the hood too much love for 'em" - Nas (taken from from the song "Black Republicans" off the "Hip Hop Is Dead...The N" album)

When Tupac was alive, he was the most polarizing person in hip hop. You either loved him or hated him, no in between. Today, I think Nas occupies that space. Ever since he claimed hip hop is dead, a new pissed off Southern rapper has been sounding off each week. Many are taking Nas's declaration as an East Coast diss to the South for rising to the top of the rap game. While other Nas haters include young rappers who consider the QB emcee too old and in need of a retirement. Then there are the choruses of "Nas lost" that echo across the internet because of Nas's decision to work with the man who once slept with his baby's mother. How does Nas bark back-- by continuing to repent his sins. The way Nas says he's sorry for the commercial sound and drug selling lyrics in the Esco era is by releasing a very personal underground sounding double album like "Street's Disciple", which much like Illmatic, was critically praised, despite limited record sales. The way Nas says he's sorry for posing for hip hop fashion ads in the mid 90's is by his refusal to do any advertising what so ever today. And the way Nas says he's sorry for all the wack beef records that "Ether" influenced, is by deading his personal beef with Jay-Z and signing at Def Jam in the name of unity. But for all of Nas's nobleness, and attempts to rectify his wrongs, there's only one way he'll ever be able to forgive himself for his part in hip hop's death--by delivering another classic album.

On December 19th, "Hip Hop Is Dead...The N" will provide us with a ton of answers. We'll learn whether over 30 emcees will be relevant in 2006 and beyond. We'll learn if this album feels like a hip hop version of Revelations, or Genesis. And we'll learn if Nas is still lyrically capable of carrying an album that presumably features the top producers in the game. The countdown has begun. Nas may have had his part in killing hip hop, but he's also been one of the few bright spots to rest our hopes for the culture on. So Esco, there's no need to feel guilty anymore kid, it's okay. We forgive you.

60 Things That Killed Hip Hop:

A&R's
mic ratings
beef
black on black crime
mtv cribs
big name video directors
cristal
rolls royce
size 4XL white tee shirts
guns
the "i don't write my rhymes down" myth
video vixens
tell all books
r&b samples & hooks
car detailing
platinum plaques
weed
scarface the movie
corn rows
keeping it real
hot 97 FM
drug dealers
napster
madison avenue
moguls
the ipod
ghost writers
name dropping
studio gangstas
alias names
representing record labels
radio singles
release dates
rapper endorsed clothing lines
the forbes money list
the 40 o.z.
ring tones
double albums
super head
wendy williams
the red carpet
gang banging
the n-word
high school drop outs
the hood
suburban america
radio
dj's
superstar producers
diamonds
guest appearances
sagging
throw back jerseys
tatoos
egos
pro tools
myspace.com
mp3's
wack concerts
the sound man
sell outs
biting
seven album record contracts
no publishing
breakups
album leaks
playa haters
stans
BET uncut
and finally
money

moment of silence

1941 - 2006



1966 - 2006

We'll miss you Ed, you too Gerald.

VOTE NO ON PROPOSAL 2!

catch 22

they catch ya if ya
shooting the shit
or shooting pain in your wrist
they even catch ya if ya shoot and ya miss
but if ya shoot and ya hit
someone black like a pac or a chris
they’ll all sit
while the hands on the clock all twist
they catch actors
for tax evasion and hip hoppers with guns
cuties with ganja
look they even caught martha
insane
they’ll catch ya in the white house getting brain
from head doctors
but they still can’t catch the tower droppers
it’s dumb
to think amerikkka’s dumb
they run the country through fetch
throwing diseases that we all gone catch
these are my theories
they’re not far fetched
they’re far Left, far from Right but not wrong
they want us black not strong
they’d rather catch us in a crack house blown
or spinning chrome in a lac
long as it means another lien on our home
i bleed in my poems
the blood of generations in litigation
state cases
then off to overcrowded state places
what do ya do
silence ensures ya will lose
speak out
they medgar evars ya
you’ll die with no clues
that there’s a catch 22
i’m on the run in an emmit smith jersey
try and catch 22

decipher my logic (freestyle)

who's the mystic
my life is all spit i'm liquid
lougies of life harked from my throat
prolific
meditate eight hours straight
it's so holistic
glow in the dark
sorry you too slow you missed it
my bravery
Nat Turner'd slavery
Gil-Scott and Umar's DNA in me
a king's reflection
lives in my mirror it's clearer
with each breath i breathe out
death comes nearer
call me sushi
i'm yellow tail raw no hooptie
imported whips, wine marinates my lips
nationally known
flown to the mics we bless
speakers blown
we blow till the mics compress
jedi knight
mysteriously led by right
euthanized wrong by penning poems on red eye flights
pheromones strong
tribal i don't need cologne
magnetic aurora
ladies think i'm leading'em on
sugar free
zero estrogen in me
achilles hill covered by a suede Timberland tree
rooted in pain
the block is hot who do you blame
the guns that aim
or governments who fund the game
i flicker the flame
with slicker nouns i'm licking the verbs
the sicker i roll
the quicker i'm inflaming the herbs
the bombest chronic is a dope cat exhaling his words
the weakest shit is poets selling crack instead of their words
decipher my logic
nah, i ain't trying to get brolic
but either man up or step your ass out of the closet
a crystal sphere
i rub it til the future's clear
look at me now, it's obvious the truth is here.....

eternal (2pac: 1996 - forever)

"I'm gonna be so far from where i am right now in four years...........god willing i'm alive." - 2pac (august 96')

Numb was the feeling. It felt dark and silent. It stung so bad our under developed emotions couldn't quite deal with it, so we just sat there. Me and a couple of the fellas. Drinking and drifting off, deep into space. The only voice in the room, 2Pac's. Every so often, the music would get turned down as we watched another news flash. Same heartbreaking news, just on a different channel. "Famed rapper, Tupac Shakur, dead at twenty five." Then Pac would speak again. "Will I survive until the morning to see the sun/ lord forgive me for my sins / cause here i come." Songs we had listened to a thousand times over, were being HEARD for the first time. And felt in a way they had never been felt before. The weight of those lyrics seemed to sit on our backs, cutting off all circulation, simply adding to the numbness.

We'd still be numb when the video for "I Ain't Mad At Ya" debuted a few days later. The video depicted the late rapper being shot, dying in an ambulance, and going to heaven. Ironic? Indeed. Then the rumors began to circulate about 2pac being alive. I remember this kid from Florida telling us the theory in such a compelling tone, that we were all sitting around smiling like, "could it be"? He theorized Pac survived the shooting, and for his safety, was snuck out of the hospital, pronounced dead, and put on a plane heading out of the country. I think he mentioned Cuba or something. Looking back it all sounds pretty far fetched, but at the time, we WANTED to believe, so we did.

"Remember me as an outcast, outlaw / another album out, that's what i'm about more / getting more to the day i see my casket bury me a G / while the whole world remembers me / until the end of time" - 2pac

I also remember when the Makaveli album dropped. The first words on the album were "Suge Shot Me", whispered in a voice that sounded like Pac's. Then on the song "Hold Your Held", there was a cryptic message hidden in the song. Twelve seconds in you hear Pac whisper, "Look and see me". Another voice whispers, "I see you". Then Pac whispers back, "I'm Alive". Add in the fact that Makaveli was based off of Machiavelli, a political theorist who advocated faking one's death to fool his enemies and, well, let's just say those alive theories began to seem very real. There were also number theories that revolved around the number seven. For instance, Pac was shot on the 6th, and died 7 days later on the 13th. Pac was 25 when he died, 2+5 = 7. Pac died at 4:03 p.m. 4+3=7. There were tons of them, and well, at the time, we ate it all up.

It's weird. When most people die, you see them one last time, and you never see them again. Not 2pac. Not only did two videos featuring 2pac drop for the Makaveli album, but in 1997, he seemed to be everywhere. As a person whose relationship with Pac was only through music and the tv screen, it really was as if dude was NOT dead. Two movies starring 2pac made their way to the big screen, Gang Related, and Gridlock'd. And both movies were accompanied by a soundtrack that also featured 2pac. To top it off, later that year his mother released a double album of lost songs titled "R U Still Down". Then the bootlegs began to surface. First it was Makaveli 2. Then what seems like endless volumes of 2pac material began to surface on the streets in every city. I read somewhere that all those bootleg albums unofficially sold around 20 million copies. According to Afeni Shakur, Pac left well over 250 unreleased songs, so suddenly it became apparent to me and everyone who loved Pac. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

In subsequent years came more albums, picture books, dvd's, poetry books, live concert footage, and interview cd's. There were tee shirts, wax portraits, and murals. Even a couple of unreleased videos popped up. It was as if every time you thought 2pac was gone, he kept fighting to live. And he keeps winning that fight. 2pac is the best selling hip hop artist of all time, with well over 35 million record sales and counting. Mind you, he's released more music in his death than he ever did in life. A full length documentary about his life, appropriately titled Ressurection, was nominated for an Oscar. And in Stone Mountain, Ga., the Tupac Amaru Center for The Arts sits on a 3 and a half acre plot, giving interested children a chance to participate in the arts. A lifesize bronze statue of 2pac stands in front of it, greeting all who enter.. So what does it all mean?

It means 2pac was more than a man. And far more than a rapper. Tupac was an idea, and ideas don't die. Although 2pac was only famous for five years, the impact he left on the world is immeasurable. As a flesh and blood anti-hero, muscular with wild eyes and flashes of brilliance, 2pac wooed us all. He eloquently represented our most menacing nightmare, and our fondest dream. He was all things, to all people. But mostly, he was beautifully flawed, like all of us. That human element is what made him this universally loved figure. He spoke to our pain, our insecurities, and our hunger to be rich, and powerful, and fight back. He spoke to ideals like unconditional love, loyalty, and honesty. The rebel we all wanted to be, he became, and continues to become. Ten years later, and I'm not numb anymore. But not a day goes by that I don't feel like I was robbed, of something irreplaceable. The reason I write, is because of 2pac. The sheer amount of work he created in his short life is simply remarkable, and continues to inspire me. After he died, I could no longer wait for him to say what needed to be said. He put the pen in my hand, and basically said it's my turn to say it. So each day, I keep trying. And each day, millions of others use 2pac's legacy as a reason to keep trying as well. Look around, it's pretty obvious. Tupac Lives! One luv.

PERSONAL PAC FAVORITES

ALBUMS - "ME Against The World" & "Makaveli"

SONGS - "Death Around The Corner", "Who Do You Believe In", "Pain", "So Many Tears", "High Til I Die", "Point The Finger", "Ambitionz Of A Rider", "White Man's World", "Staring At My Rearview", "Words Of Wisdom", "Thug Style", "What's Next", "High Speed", "R U Still Down"

VIDEOS - "I Get Around", "California Love", "Strictly For My Niggaz"

QUOTES - "I didn't invent Thug Life, I diagnosed it" - 2pac, "Why lie when I can dramatize" - 2pac

MOVIES - "Ressurection", "Juice", "Gang Related"

DVD's - "Live At The House Of Blues", "Tupac Vs.", "2pac 4Ever, "Ressurection"

BOOKS - "Ressurection", "Got Your Back, "Tupac Shakur: From The Editors of Vibe"

POEMS - "The Mutual Heartbreak"

straight from the horse's mouth

It's been years since we've seen them in the same video and there are no plans for them to perform together in the near or distant future, yet the members of Outkast maintain that they are not broken up. Andre 3000 took it upon himself to clear up the rumors, phoning in to MTV News on Tuesday night to dispel the demise of the group.

"We want to keep it on the low so expectations won't be a certain way. But we're still doing music." — Outkast's Andre 3000

"Yesterday I got a phone call from Big Boi and he said that on some hip-hop Web sites that the headlines were reading something to the effect of, 'It's Official: Outkast Is Broken Up,' or something like that," Andre said. "And man, we're looking at it like, where is this sh-- coming from? I was on 'TRL' today to release a new video, and I meant to say something [about the situation] on the air. But the way they had the questions set up, I didn't have a chance to do it."

Andre says that the rumors are not just on the Internet, but very much in the streets.

"N---as hit me in the street like, 'Yeah man, I heard the bad news. Sorry to hear about that,' " Andre continued. "I'm like 'Man, what are you talking about?' Everything is still tight, most definitely."

Fueling the rumors of the 'Kast's separation have been the fact that both Dre and Big are appearing in separate videos for two solo songs ("Idlewild Blues" and "Morris Brown," respectively) to promote their upcoming film and video instead of releasing visuals for the cut "Mighty O," which features both of their raps (see "Missing Outkast? They've Already Lined Up Three 'Idlewild' Singles"). Dre blames that on not being able to find the right way to present "Mighty O" in a timely fashion.

"Really, we were supposed to shoot the 'Mighty O' video, but we were shuffling around with too many treatments and it got too late," 3000 explained. "The record company and film company felt that it was probably better off to help sell the movie to go with these songs ["Idlewild Blues" and "Morris Brown."]. But originally we were supposed to come out with just one single."

In addition to the hailstorm of Internet rumors, there was a May feature story in Entertainment Weekly that painted the twosome going in separate directions musically and personally. More recently, some radio shows and news outlets started to report that Outkast had turned down an invitation to be on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" because the group could not match up schedules.

"Really man, this album, it's been a whole bunch of crazy rumors. [One said] we turned Oprah down and all this type of stuff which was totally not true," Dre added, audibly registering his disappointment in the falsehoods that have been spread.

"We went to Oprah because we were pumping this 'Idlewild' film and soundtrack. They sent her a copy of the movie. But the [film's] release dates kept being pushed back and Oprah's show is dormant during the summertime, so there was no chance for us to do it. Next thing we see on the Internet is, 'Outkast turns down Oprah.' They make it seem like we're jumping on the bandwagon with 50 Cent and Ludacris and some people boycotting, which is totally not the case' " (see "Oprah Says She Doesn't Have Beef With Hip-Hop ").

Despite Mr. 3000's public affirmation that he remains a part of the legendary duo, he says there are still no plans for Outkast to tour or even perform one song together live.

"But that's not even new news," he said of his lack of interest in performing live. All that has been going on for years. ... Big Boi knows I'm in no position to be thinking about hitting the stage. ... I'm just more focused on producing and writing like I been doing and staying in the studio."

So what is Dre coming up with in the studio? Could it be material for a traditional studio album from Outkast?

"We're holding it under wraps," is all he would say. "We want to keep it on the low so expectations won't be a certain way. But we're still doing music."

Dre and Big are trying to decide what the next single from the "Idlewild" soundtrack will be, but they are leaning toward a song called "Hollywood Divorce" which features Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne. Dre says if they do choose that track, you'll see him along with Big in the video.

things fall together

THE BAD NEWS: "Game Theory", The Roots highly anticipated first release on Def Jam Records was leaked to the internet a month and a half before it hits stores. THE GOOD NEWS: It's the best album the group has released in years!

Let me start by saying, I'm not an OKAYPLAYER, so consider this an unbiased opinion. Don't get me wrong, I always liked The Roots. Their first three albums were beautiful moments in hip hop. No, those albums weren't political, controversial, or extremely conceptual, but they were solid as hell. Good music, nice flows, you know, solid. I even consider "Things Fall Apart" more than solid, to me it's an undeniable classic. What happened to The Roots after that, well, that's where it gets weird. Hip hop is one of the few genres of music where, the better people get at it, the more they feel a need to get away from it, or to somehow extend its boundaries. (Or maybe it's the more people evolve as musicians and people, the more they get bored with hip hop, see Andre 3000). The Roots are no different. "Phrenology" and "Tipping Point" were two albums that could be labeled "experimental", or "wack", depending on who you talk to. For me it felt more like they were being defiant. As if to say, "we know yall want that boom bap sh*t, but allow us to be artists while we give yall this other sh*t." So we waited. Well, actually, I didn't. I kind of wrote The Roots off as dope live performers who COULD create something good if they wanted to, but chose not to. I stuck a fork in'em and moved on.

Then something happened. Unlike some, I'm not gonna give the credit to being on Def Jam, or being under Jay-Z for that matter. I give the credit to hip hop. Hip hop demanded a return to greatness by The Roots. Hip hop always demands that of a worthy few. Hip Hop demanded Rakim to come back in the late 90's. Hip hop demanded Nas to return to defend his throne in the new millennium. And yes, hip hop demanded The Roots to be more than Jay-Z's back up band of choice, so The Roots got real. And Black Thought got real like I've never seen him. I think Black Thought is dope. My problem with him has always been, he busts a rhyme, you nod your head, and you smile with approval. But one minute after he's done rapping, you have no idea what he was talking about, even though it sounded so good. Why? Maybe because he hardly ever writes rhymes to a tight knit concept, "What They Do" being one of those rare times. Or maybe because The Roots don't rely on memorable hooks as much as they do melodies. Whatever the case, this song writing deficiency has left Black Thought an after thought when people mention their top emcees, even though he's unmistakably ill with his. Well, on the new album, Black Thought is flexing a pen that just might shut all of his naysayers up. And the return of Malik B. seems to be that secret intangible that makes this Roots records, a true return to their glorious past.

"Game Theory" is appropriately dark. No, it doesn't make you want to cut your wrist. But it's somber in a way that begs you to sit back and think. It's the hip hop album you'd expect from Kurt Cobain. Not quite straight forward hip hop, but not so far from the essence that you can't just sit back and nod to it, and relate to it. Stand out cuts include "Game Theory", "In The Music", "Long Time", "Clocks With No Hand", and "Don't Feel Right", which previously didn't feel right to me, feels better in the context of the album. The Roots are older, and this music definitely feels older and more mature. I applaud them for stepping out of their box, without stepping away from hip hop to make this album. I hate using the classic word, but off a few listens, yeah, I think it has all the ingredients of a classic, but time and the fans will ultimately tell. Although this album is leaked, do cop your official copy from stores when it's finally released. Hip hop is good for demanding greatness, and terrible for supporting the more creative side of the genre. So definitely support. As for The Roots, I guess they are living proof that sometimes things have to fall apart, before they can fall back together. Peace.

double standards

After years of rumors surrounding steroid use, Marion Jones is back to her winning ways.

Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, and Lance Armstrong all have something in common. All are/were considered the top athlete in their sport. All have also been plagued by rumors of steroid use. Although none of the three have tested positive for steroid use, they have all been hounded by rumors, and first person accounts from people who used to be in their inner circle, so-called "ex-friends", who claim they did indeed use steroids. Yet, where as Marion Jones and Barry Bonds have been villified in the media, Lance Armstrong has been celebrated. Just last week, he won yet another "Best Male Athlete of The Year" honor from ESPN. Jones, whose performance started to slip after the birth of her son in '03, had been banned from certain meets on the European circuit because of the speculation. And Bonds, for all of his home run hittng ways, continues to be the target of a federal investigation of steroids in baseball. Even though the steroids issue has to be bigger than one player, all the attention lies soley on Bonds.

QUESTION 4 THE DAY Is this simply an example of racism in its highest form? Or, is there a better explaination for the disparity? You tell me!

today

today
by hardCore

you were there this morning
staring through my window
bright round and yellow
ready to burn yesterday's bad memories from my eyes

i slept under your warm smile
adjacent with death
cocooned in last night's dream
about past life's love

flashes of
ocean
a forgotten island
tribal drums
a sea serpent
mountains
thick forest
rain
and yes

her

all so tangible
before me

a thousand haikus
tatooed on the inside of my eyelids
begging to be forgotten
less quickly than i usually forget

i only remember the god speed rhythm
past the voices
and familiar faces
fighting demons
to join angels
who left me
one

with the blowing wind
that tips over the vase
breaks my sleep
jump starts my heart
and opens my eyes

to you

word of the day: karma

*sound of Shaq's evil laughter echoing across the hillside*

"boycott sal's!"

All you blue chip high school athletes starting with the class of 2007, listen up. I'm calling for an all out boycott of Division-1 universities by all black athletes. Why? Because for far too long, our college athletes have been exploited, and unfairly compensated for all they bring to the NCAA. Instead of taking those four year scholarships to prestigious white universities, I think it's time to set a precedent, by being the first class of blue chippers to choose historically black universities across the board.

What do you get by performing at the highest level for a big time athletic program?

An all paid four year scholarship. Mind you, your athletic requirements to keep that scholarship will severely cut into the time it takes to truly be a student-athlete. And although coaches bend over backwards to keep the failing athlete passing, nobody bends over backwards to make sure the B athlete makes A's. Oh yeah, you'll get the glitz and glamour of seeing your face on tv, and maybe even on video games. The papers and magazines will write about you, Sports Center will show your highlights, and you may win some big award. All which will come as a great benefit to you when you realize you don't have a suit for the award ceremony, because every time you go to the ATM for a withdrawal, it keeps saying insufficient funds. The fact remains, unless you are one of the few fortunate ones, chances are, when you finally leave college, even if you leave with your degree, you'll leave broke, in search of a way to feed yourself. Yes my friends, this is the thanks you get for your all the money you made your university.

What does a prestigious white university get by you performing at the highest level on the field?

Millions in ticket sales, merchandise, television deals, and licensing. Your coach gets a hefty salary, a shoe deal, and immediate consideration for the next big job on the college or pro level. The univerisity also continues to brand itself by using your name and accomplishments to seduce the next blue chip athlete into their web of deception. And when you finally leave college with your degree, you will leave a university that has built athletic facilities, lecture halls, and purchased planes, with all the money YOU generated during your time there.



( Ty Willingham, unjustly fired by Notre Dame after the third year of his five year contract, despite a ten win season and a trip to the Gator Bowl )

So class of '07, '08, '09, '10, you're probably wondering, what's the alternative?

The alternative is simple, black institutions of higher education. If all the best athletes started to choose HBCU's, suddenly you'd see HBCU's in the Final Four, in the Fiesta Bowl, in the College World Series. This would generate a huge amount of revenue for schools, many of which are barely able to keep their doors open. It would make the black coach a significant part of the college athletic experience. And where the best athletes go, so will the television dollars, the licensing money, and the shoe deals. Imagine Grambling St. being a bigger football power than USC, on a consistent basis. The more big name black athletes choose HBCU's, the quicker you'll see marginal talent representing what used to be athletic powerhouses. Suddenly the Big 10 wouldn't mean anything, and the SWAC would mean everything. On an academic level, all the new revenue would help grow HBCU's into huge institutions that are every bit as big and nice as the state universities are today. The growth in these schools would create jobs for black professors, and black administration. That's how powerful you are as today's college athlete.

How long does the boycott last?

In theory, it should never end. Why not make our institutions rich with the very best instead of spreading our most talented thinly across institutions that don't have our best interest in mind. But this is a boycott, so I guess it would be okay to end it if certain terms were met.

1) Athletes should be paid a scale wage, and they should receive bonuses based on the amount of revenue they generate through the success of their particular sports team.

2) In cases of all merchandise that feature a particular player's name and/or number, the said athlete should receive no less that 50% of the total sales.

3) Thirty percent of the overall shoe deal done with universities should be put in a trust fund, and held for athletes pending their graduation date.

4) A Diversity Council should be put in place to ensure fair hiring practices of not only black administrators, but also black coaches.

5) A percentage of all of the annual money netted by the athletic department should be donated to inner city schools.

6) The age ban on entering all professional ranks should be lifted.

7 A Vocational Program should be set up to help former college athletes who don't make it to the professional ranks, find jobs.

When and if all these demands are met, the black athlete would make a return to what we currently refer to as big time college athletics. But before we can get to that point, we must address the point we're at right now. And right now, black athletes are being exploited. So before you sign your letter of intention, think twice black athlete. Ask your friends to think twice. It's finally time we consider what's right for us as a whole, rather than always doing what's best for us as individuals. Too many of yesterday's big time college stars, have ended up broke, on the street, with nothing but memories. One luv.

10 questions

10) Does Billie Holiday's life fortell how the Whitney Houston story will end?

9) Why would the Root's name their new single "Don't Feel Right".........when it doesn't?

8) How come you always hear a huge buzz surrounding women who pose for Playboy, but you never hear anything about them afterwards?

7) If all the rappers are making drug dealer music, who's going to make something creative or something regular folks can relate to?

6) If you slid a white sheet over Bill Cosby's head, would it make him sound any more uninformed than he already does?

5) Is there a correlation between a black man cutting his mustache and rumors about his sexuality?



4) Wouldn't shooting yourself in the head be a lot better than joining up with these fools?

3) Isn't it hard to believe that back in the day this lady was actually a very pretty woman?

2) If Bonds and other hitters did use steroids, did they really have an advantage if the pitchers were using illegal substances as well?

1) Will "Hip Hop Is Dead" be proof that hip hop actually isn't?

the is iz

the ground is shaking
you shook
the epicenter is you
the sun is gone
the sky is black
you still thinking it's blue
the weed is bad
the brew is weak
niggas sniffing on glue
the cows are mad
the pigs are sick
chickens claiming the flu
guess what, Rosa Parks is dead
Coretta Scott too
uncovering evidence and clues
but we burying Proof
when broke
i often dream about what i would do
with a check for 50 mill
dave cut his in two
they saying detroit is bad
like every where else ain't
saying africa is starved
like every where else can't
lost for words
i find myself listening more
got a flow
but lately the kid don't care to pour
pain is exciting
trying to heal makes me a bore
the masses are sleep
why wake'em
why not let'em all snore
i say i'm done
yet and still the kid writes more
a genius or lame
will somebody tally the score
you get oscars for being black
and boned on the floor
you get shit for being black and blown to bits in a war
3 dollar gas
2 dollar niggas robbing for mo'
i've ran out of prayers
north pole about to run out of snow
from mitchcon, ameritech, and dte
to state farm, blue cross, and sbc
they screaming "only ten dollars" and i paid the fee
for an unmixed and unmastered burned cd
is it shame on them for selling it
or shame on me
for backing negligence
intelligence, i hope it's in me
what you got, an incurable STD
cancer or AIDS
prognosis got you afraid
wallgreens, the biggest drug dealer i know
even nancy reagan's hooked
i told her, "just say no"
waking up to the sun used to be the bomb
now it's feeling played out like blackplanet.com
the flesh is prison
an inmate, i do time slow
scratching days off the wall like i'm ready to go......

back in the day moment #27

When I was a kid, if you wanted to know the exact time and temperature, you had to dial a number. How crazy is that!!! I remember how it would go down. A storm would come through and the lights would go off. Not long, just long enough to mess all the clocks up in the house. So my folks would tell me or my sister to, "call time". Now, I was like every other little kid. I could tell you what time it was just by what was on TV. It was pretty easy for me to turn to Different Strokes, and figure out, since they had gotten to the "message" part of the show, that meant it was roughly about seven minutes to the top of the hour. My logic didn't work for my folks. They wanted the exact time. Mind you, this was before cable tv, and that station with the program guide that always posts the correct time. This was before everybody had a cell phone, or a laptop that kept the exact time for you. This was back when wind up wrist watches were the norm, and everybody's wrist was about 5 minutes off from the next man's. So what did we do? We "called time". The time number was usually a number to a bank or a local tv station. When you called, you got an automated voice that told you the exact time and temperature. I remember having the number memorized, so I guess that means we must have been resetting our clocks a lot. I know I'm not the only one who remembers doing this. Anyway, "calling time", back in the day moment #27. One luv.

revolutionaries' day

Happy birthday Malcolm X.

Happy anniversary Last Poets.

Happy anniversary 3rd Eye Open.

The revolutionary spirt of Malcolm lives on!

writing revolution

"i don't wanna write this down,
wanna tell you how i feel right now" - mos def

Nobody wants to write anything down anymore, or so it seems. I know I'm guilty. The only time I use a pen these days is when I'm confronted with a bill from a company that doesn't have online billing. In which case, I have to physically write out a check, including my signature, which now resembles something the creators of the Palmer Method would never recognize as their teachings. A pen is as foreign in my hand as a good idea is in the head of emperor Bush. But that's another story. It seems we are in the midst of a writing revolution my friends. One which has more people than ever writing, although, nobody seems to be physically writing.

The last time I wrote a letter? Hmmm. I think it was in '97. It was one of those, "you gonna lose your booty privileges if I don't get a love letter", love letters. Before that, I think it was '88. And maybe one in '87. In my entire life I've probably written less than 5 letters by hand. In each one, my writing style was somewhat formal. I even remember looking up examples of a letter before writing them. How things have changed. Nobody looks up an example of an email before you send one, because all that formal crap has been thrown out the door. On the average day, I send off a hundred electric (e) mails easy. Some are just phrases. Others, one line sentences. While others are long and thought out, consisting of several paragraphs of edited copy. We've all become masters of this new form of writing. Tone of voice is the one thing we've all learned to be careful of with emails. Jokes don't always come off as jokes. And sarcastic statements tend to sit there flat on the page, making the sender seem less like a person with charisma, and more like an a**-hole. So in our quest to communicate as clear as possible, we created emoticons like (lol) and (rofl). These emoticons allow us to convey complex emotions without explanation. This is especially affective in modes of communication with quicker response times like, two-ways, text messages, and instant messenger. I don't think people today have more to say than people of past eras, but technology has bridged the distance gap that makes us feel alone and distant. So not only does everybody have some device or form of staying in touch with his fellow man, we all have plenty to say-- I mean, write.

The blog world is the biggest example of the enormity and regularity with which people are writing these days. Some of these blogs are maintained by people whose full time job is do nothing but blog. In other words, these are people who do nothing all day but WRITE. Writing has become a past time that is considered, FUN. The only thing better than reading a provocative blog is responding, provocatively. We all have thoughts and opinions. Before these opinions went unsaid, unshared, and unheard. because the only uniformed way of sharing them was the editorial page of a newspaper. But now the physical ease with which we type on a keyboard invites us all to join in on the conversation. Typing, although a skill, isn't as painful as writing by hand. In grade school I had a callus on the middle finger of my writing hand from writing with pencils. I hated the feeling, which made me hate writing. Even typing on a type writer back in the day was painful. But as technology improves, we are finally able to communicate through the written form, at a rate much closer to the speed at which we think.

Technology isn't the only reason we're writing more. Lifestyle is important. And the hip hop lifestyle begs us to write like no other. The emcee is the most celebrated aspect of hip hop culture. Few people want to be the b-boy, the graph artist, the dj. But everybody wants to be the emcee, why? Maybe it's because the essence of emceeing is writing, and everyone feels they too can write. When I was a kid, we all had little rhymes and stuff that we did for fun. Well, today, it continues but on a whole other level. Kids aren't writing for fun, they are writing to get rich, as a way out of the hood. The degree of intensity with which young people write now is so different from back then. Everybody has a rhyme. Some are better than others but everybody has one. I have a little cousin who is quiet who I never would have thought of as the type of little kids I'm talking about. But sure enough, at a family gathering, I look over in the corner, and guess who's busting a self written rhyme? She is. When I thought about it, it made me smile. We perceive the youth of this country as fat spoiled kids whose brains are eroding as they watch TV and play PlayStation all day. Yeah, that is true for some. But many others are spending their spare time writing. No, it's not always with a pad and a pen. Often times it's on a computer. But they're still trying to unlock new ways of conveying their thoughts and emotions. They are creating witty rhymes as a means of exercising their brains. Today, writing it down means typing it in. And tomorrow, it may mean speaking into a device that types it for us. Whatever the case, not only is technology and lifestyle revolutionizing what we write, when we write, and where we write. It's also revolutionizing HOW we write it. One luv.

so what

I will return to the blog world next week. Peace.

crazy

10 biggest lies about us

1. The Tale Of Tarzan

This is the belief that African people were totally uncivilized until whites came in and conquered them. False.

2. Free Whites, Black Slaves

20 Africans landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619, a year before the arrival of the Mayflower. They were free. When the pilgrims arrived, they came with indentured servants, i.e. white slaves. Some of the first whites were slaves.

3. The Immaculate White Creation

The belief that America was the exclusive creation of Europeans. Africans were actually the first explorers of America. When
the first Spanish and French explorers entered America, they noted that Africans were living among the Indians.

4. Sambo in Wonderland

Although the shiftless shuck and jive Sambo image has been exploited, most slaves responded to slavery with tremendous resistance, often resorting to the ultimate rebellion, suicide.

5. The Great Emancipator

The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves, nor was it intended to. That document was written in a way that it left 95% of the slaves in bondage. Our people were actually freed by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified on December 18,1865.

6. The Black Family Myth

Believe it or not, according to plantation records, most blacks during slavery grew up with a mother and a father. In fact, all the way through Jim Crow, census reports show the black family was every bit as stable as those in White America. This dispels the myth that the majority of our people came from families ripped apart by slavery.

7. The Missing Economic Gene

There is an overwhelming belief that there is no black business tradition. By the American Revolution, there were scores of prominent Black business leaders, including Samuel Fraunces, owner of New York' s Fraunces's Tavern, the favorite watering hole of George Washington, and James Forten, who employed 40 workers, Black and White, in his Philadelphia sail factory.

8. Fairy tale of White Generosity

The majority of black slaves reached freedom because of internal giving within the race, not white generosity. By 1831 there were more than 43 Black benevolent or mutual aid societies in Philadelphia alone, runned by free blacks.

9. Crabs in a Barrel

We have been generalized as a people who continually try to pull each other down. False. In every era of our history, you'll see prominent black leaders and businessmen who had full support of the people.

10. Myth of the Absent Black Worker

We have been labeled as a lazy people. However, the wealth of this country was founded on what Abraham Lincoln called "the 250 years of unrequited toil" of Black men and women.


(paraphrased from: Bennett, Lerone Jr, 10 biggest lies about black history. , Ebony, 05-01-2001, pp 86.)

a moment of silence

1973 - 2006



The entire 3rd Eye Open family sends our deepest regrets and sympathies to the family of Deshaun "Proof" Holston, D12, the Iron Fist Records Family, and the entire Detroit artist community. Proof's loss comes as a shocking blow to our tight knit circle of Detroit artists. Another unnamed man is also in critical condition following the early morning shooting that claimed Proof's life. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, as well as our brotha Khalid El-Hakim who was very close friends with Proof. Keep your head up Khalid.

R.I.P. PROOF

blue devils or white devils?

I'm definitely no religious freak, but I've always felt weird about universities who use words like devils and demons in their team names. It always seemed odd and inappropriate to me. What are they really trying to say? Is this some kind of not so subliminal, subliminal message? Should we write it off as nothing, or take it as a compelling statement about that university? Well, how's this for irony, it seems the blue devils, who are actually young white men, have indeed been up to some devilish activities. Not only are there allegations of a rape and sodomy, but now there's an email that graphically discusses torture and murder fantasy. All this from a lacrosse team, at one of the nation's most prestigious, widely celebrated universities.

If FORTY supervised college-aged men, wearing uniforms, working together to win a game, is a TEAM. Then FORTY unsupervised college-aged men, out of uniform, in concert during a criminal activity, is nothing more than a STREET GANG. Make no mistake about it, that many unsupervised college aged men, plus three naked women, is a recipe for disaster. Even if the women in question had been white, from privleged backgrounds, and were also students of Duke University. So one can only imagine how this scenario plays out when the victim in question is black, and alcohol, racism, and white privilege are present. As of now "mums" the word from the lacrosse team. But already many of the seniors from the team, who had accepted jobs, are having those jobs renig on their offers. See, there's more than one way to skin a cat. And I'm sure, it's only a matter of time before members of that team begin to come forward and tell all. But the question still remains, why did "it" happen in the first place?

The alleged victim was black, and also a non-Duke University student, which is very telling. As a black man who attended a university where blacks were less than 2% of the population, I understand that blacks, ON CAMPUS, despite all the drama, stick together. When I was in school, if a sista who attended the university, was raped by a gang of white dudes, in say, a nearby frat house, there would have been hell to pay. The night it happened, there probably would have been a black contingent at that house, looking to take names and ask questions never. The culprits would've had to deal with every black person on campus who knew the victim, or who heard of the racial implications of the event. Because blacks on white university campuses have no one to rely on accept themselves, they self-police. And a lot of this 'self-policing" prevents certain racial situations from happening. But the girl in the Duke scenario was a local, an outsider to the Duke world. She was also a stripper, who probably hadn't made her occupation public knowledge to all of her friends. And she attended an entirely different school. For those guys on that lacrosse team, she didn't represent someone they had to see one a daily basis. Or someone who's boyfriend they might bump into on campus. To them, they were white, powerful Dukies, and she was simply, black and disposable. And that's, why "it" happened.

If this were just about a rape, it'd be disgusting enough. But it's not. It's about the clash of out of towners and locals. White privilege vs. black working class. And university athletics vs. society at large. And the saddest part of all is, it unveils the progressive mask this country hides behind, to reveal the ugly racist face of past generations. If it's possible that "Duke's finest", educated children of privilege, who many would consider the future leaders of this country, are guilty of what they've been accused of, then what does that say for this country's future? May the truth come to light. One.

made (freestyle)

made by god above
a man made to sin
feelings within him
with bullet momentum i pen'em
frown a lot
like i wasn't made for grinning
concerned, i made a serum
an anti-venom
made my fingers curl up
until i made a fist
it made me proud
red black and green ever since
lying buzzards
i made'em foes
one was my closest homie
another was the virgin who wasn't
got a cousin who ain't seen his mother
in about eight years
so i made it like we ain't cousins
made close friends
who rep for life
purchased the best one a ring
then made her my wife
i made mistakes
big red marks on my past
once lied on a friend
and said she gave me some ass
ouch
i was just a lad
it made me mad then
today it still makes me mad
i've made poems
that made me erase the pad
every chapter of my life
ain't meant to be shared
seen cold rain turn to ice
i've even seen hot lights
that made the dopest freeze up on mics
i've laughed
watching movies that the burn man made
i've made love
to slow songs sade laid
no my name ain't special
so i ain't got it made
much like most
i just want to net what i gross
made to teach
i'm yelling skin made with melanin
hardcore
don't mistake my heart for gelatin
no gun just art
and incense of sage
morphing ink into sound
playing back what i made

keep asking

"The great mass of people...will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." - Adolf Hitler

What really happened on 9-11? I know this isn't the hottest story of the day anymore, but don't let 9-11 become old news my friends. If you do, you won't truly be able to process the events surrounding this wicked war we're fighting, and you'll be duped into accepting the long stream of lies and excuses that continue to filter from the oval office. New York magazine is keeping the issue front and center. This week, their feature article centers on the conspiracies that continue to swirl around the events surrounding September 11th. What's more revealing is, there seems to be an awful lot of truth found in what they are writing off as conspiracies. It's up to us to keep asking questions until we get the whole truth.

DO THE MATH

1) 1,800 degrees The temperature at which hydrocarbon-fueled fires max out. 2,700 degrees The temperature at which steel melts. So how did the towers weaken sufficiently to fall in such a short time--56 minutes in the case of the South Tower?

2) 19 The alleged number of terrorists who ALL were able to trick security in different locations with fake ID's and passports, and get on board airplanes with boxcutters. Plan doing something illegal with nineteen of your closest buddies. I guarantee at least ONE person will get caught.

3) 5 The number of men spotted filming the attacks the morning of 9-11 from a near by park. They were pulled over by cops near Giants Stadium. All were Israelis with ties to Mossad. Was 911 Israel's way of getting the U.S. to support them against their Muslim foes?

4) March 4th, 2001The date "Lone Gunmen", a conspiracy-themed drama on Fox, aired a show about a government plot to crash a remote-controlled 727 into the World Trade Center, as an excuse to raise the military budget. On the show, the government planned to blame the attack on a "tin-pot" dictator", who was "begging to be smart-bombed".

5) September 11th - The date the founding fathers of this nation, who were mostly Masons, opened the Constitutional Convention in 1786. The date accepted amongst theologians and scholars as the accurate birth date of Jesus Christ in 3 b.c.. The date ground was broken to build the Pentagon in 1941. The date Kissinger chose in 1973 to overthrow the Chilean government. The troubled Munich Olympic Games, in which 11 Israelis were killed by terrorists, end on this date in 1972.

6) 0 - The amount of plane debris pulled from the Pentagon attack. How does a 757 crash into a building, yet there is no black box, no wings, no engines...and where are all the bodies?

7) 58 - The number of people assumed to be on Flight 77 that allegedly crashed into the Pentagon. If no plane crashed into the Pentagon, what really happened to all those people?

8) 3 - The number of World Trade Center buildings that collapsed on 9-11. Building 7 wasn't hit by a plane, so why did it also collapse in a calculated way, much like towers 1 and 2?

9) 30 - In 1999, the armed services hit it's lowest recruitment numbers in 30 years. Just after 9-11, a huge recruitment resurgence began, and recruitment numbers were once again being met.

Something foul happened on 9-11. A lot of innocent people died on tv, and our government knows why. Something just as foul happened in New Orleans. Too many accounts of the sounds of bombs going off right before the levies broke, and lots of innocent people died on tv. We can't just accept this people. We have to keep asking....why. One.

negro pleez!!!

"Just seeing the way they performed, it kind of broke my heart though” - terrance howard (speaking about three six mafia's oscar performance of "it's hard out there on a pimp" at the oscars)

NEGRO PLEEZ!!! HOW COME IT WASN'T BREAKING YOUR HEART WHEN YOU WERE SINGING IT IN THE MOVIE?

I guess what disappoints me about Terrance's statement is that he threw Three Six Mafia under the bus when he didn't have to. I totally understand and agree with his decision not to perform the song at the Oscars. It would have been redundant, and a bad look for him, and us. Was it a bad look for us when Three Six Mafia performed it? Mos def, but that's not the point. The point is, he used that song as a vehicle to deliver a performance that garnered him mad kudos. And he embraced those kudos whole heartedly. How can you embrace that song and performance for your benefit, but then distance yourself from it, when the guys who created it perform it? To me, it was unbrotherly. And Terrance comes off as if he's trying to prove to hollywood that that song is beneath him. I just don't understand why he believes it's "art" to embrace pimpin' for a movie, but it's not "art", it's "heartbreaking" when Three Six Mafia embraces pimpin' for a song. On a certain level, for me, seeing Terrance's portrayal of a pimp held up as great acting, was just as "heartbreaking" as Three Six Mafia's performance. So for him to turn around and criticize them is mad hypocritical. How can he diss Three Six Mafia's expression, while standing proudly by his? If that image was so "hearbreaking", he wouldn't have taken the role of a pimp in the first place. But he did, $$$$$$$$$, ching-ching. So I have no problem saying NEGRO PLEEZ!

corporate cotton

"The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable."
- andrea dworkin

Aren't we all just share croppers, on a corporate plantation? I know, the analogy may seem a bit extreme to some, mainly because the terminology brings to mind the painful images of the black holocaust that happened right here in this country. But, there is something to be said about the relationship between you and I, corporate worker, and the corporate giant that employs us. In many ways, the dependent nature of that relationship is very much like the share cropper and the plantation owner. In the beginning, our labor earns us very small amounts of money. Just enough money to make us dependent on the existing system of things. And every day, while on the plantation, we see workers who have been working there longer than us, who are making MORE money than us. This plants the seed in our heads that if we KEEP working there, over a period of time, we too will make MORE money, maybe to the point where we can live comfortably. Meanwhile, we make a little money. So to live the life we really want to live, we use credit cards. This puts us in debt. Our debt makes us even MORE dependent on the plantation. So we invest years of our lives on the plantation, trying to gain seniority, busting our asses to be NOTICED, in hopes of being rewarded monetarily. And often times we are. According to the current standard of things, you have it going on if you make 100 grand and over, own a big foreign luxury car, a house in the suburbs, and are able to take a trip afar once or twice a year. This is the American dream, so to speak. Let's say you finally reach that American dream status where you're making plenty of money on the plantation. Enough money that you're finally able to pay off all your bills, and you're living more comfortably than you've ever lived in your life. The skinny of it all is, you're STILL more dependent than ever on the plantation. You need the plantation to maintain your NEWFOUND lifestyle. And although you're making good money, you are far from being SET for life. Not to mention, although you have put in enough time and learned the system well enough to possibly be able to run your own plantation, you don't have enough MONEY to walk away from your current plantation, to start your own. This my friends, is why way too many American are putting in 40 plus years on a job, picking corporate cotton for the man, without ever putting themselves in a position to BE the man.

America is a place where we define ourselves and each other by what we do. Status even moreso than money, becomes the determining factor that keeps us dependent on the plantation system. Think about it, there are far more people who'd love to be a top notch executive for say, a Microsoft, than there are people who'd like to be the CEO of their own really small business. Here in lies what makes the corporate plantation system so powerful. The mentality of the people! We not only love the plantation owners, we have bought into how powerful they are, and we take pride in saying we work for them. We are sold these notions at univerisities, which are really just training grounds for the plantations I speak of. Hopefully, all of you will get fed up to the point where you're willing to take a chance, or you're financially secure enough to stop picking the man's cotton, and go out, get your own field, and start picking your own. Until then, we're all nothing more than a bunch of yassuh boss'n cotton pickers. *tips hat, smiles, and shuffles along* Peace.

free throws

"Anybody can make a free throw..."
- Coach Collins (Northside Youth Association; St. Louis, circa '82)

The gym went silent. And there I was with the ball. Alone at the free throw line. Tied ballgame. (BOUNCE!) Ten years old. No. 32, like Magic. White leather Converse, like Doc. (BOUNCE!) No time on the clock. I make it, we win. I miss, overtime. (BOUNCE!) I spun the ball in my hands. Bent my knees. Stared at the goal. (RELEASE!) The minute I let it go, I knew. Even though I was ten, I knew. I knew right after the one point some odd second it took that ball, to travel from my hands, to that hoop, I'd be a completely different person. Needless to say, I was.

To this day, I have never cried as hard for anything, as I did losing that game. After going to two overtimes, we lost when my friend Michael missed a free throw that would have sent us to a third one. I don't really remember shaking hands with the opposing team. All I know is, when we finally made it back to the bench, our hearts just exploded, simultaneously, as we sprawled out all over the floor. It wasn't that slow pitiful cry either. It was that loud hurtful cry. The one where your insides convulse repeatedly every few seconds, and you catch chills, but can't catch your breath. It was a sad sight. At first, all the parents gathered around smiling, saying "awwwww", like they thought it was cute that we were crying that hard - halfway amazed kids that young actually cared about something. But after fifteen minutes had passed, we were still there. Crying tears that would flow all the way home.

My forehead rested on the cold frosty window of our car on the ride home. We ended up stopping for a cheeseburger. But I couldn't eat. Hell, I could barely breathe. I spent the rest of the weekend walking around the house with a blanket wrapped around me like I was sick. Actually, I think I pretended to be sick after that. It was the perfect excuse not to talk much, plus it made it easier to hide the heartbreak. My family loved to tease and joke around. Showing too much emotion over something as simple as a game would have made me and easy target. So I stayed in bed a lot over the next few days, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. I replayed the moment over and over. I imagined how good it would have felt had I hit that free throw. Everybody would have been screaming my name. Lifting me in the air. "Go Corey, go Corey". Every time that dream got too good, it would evaporate, right before my eyes, until all I saw was our white ceiling. Then Coach Collins's voice from practice would echoed in my head. "Bend your knees. Take your time. Anybody can make a free throw". He always said he wouldn't blame us for things we couldn't control, but free throws? Free throws were the one thing we had total control over, so we had to come through. And I hadn't. That weekend, I promised myself two things. One, I would never cry that hard over anything for the rest of my life. And two, if I was ever put in a similar position, I would not miss that free throw.

Twenty-two years later, and that missed free throw is still a huge source of inspiration for me. See, free throws are bigger than basketball for me, they always were. Free throws are simply opportunities in life, when the ball is in our hands, and we alone, have total control to decide the outcome. Every morning I get my ass out the bed and go to work, that's a made free throw. Every time I tell someone "I love you", that's a made free throw. Every day I eat right, remain a loyal friend or stay on the right track, that's a made free throw. There are so many things in life we have absolutely no control over. So the few times in life we do have an opportunity, to make good on small things, it's important we take our time, bend our knees, and make our free throws. In basketball, when you miss a free throw, you lose a game. In life, a missed free throw leads to lost love, lost income, and unfortunately, sometimes a life is lost. I was lucky enough to learn this lesson at ten. By the way, as far as basketball, I never found myself at the free throw line with no time left and a chance to win the game, ever agin. And no, I've never cried that hard since. But as far as life goes, I find myself on the free throw line every day. Knocking'em down one after another. Like Coach Collins said, anybody can do it, in fact, everybody should. I can't help but think, that every day, I'm making my former coach proud. One luv.

moment of silence

1912 - 2006



"You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show beauty with it; you can do a lot of things. You can show--with a camera you can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both. And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well. It's all there, and you've only done half the job if you don't do that. You've not really completed a task. - Gordon Parks



American Gothic - 1946



20 Nurses - 1963



Chain Gang - 1956



Ali - 1966

jobbin'

Jobbin' - actively looking for a job, while having a job; the process of making a power move to put yourself in a much better $$$$ituation.

It's been a minute since I last blogged cause I've been jobbin'. Taking flights, going to interviews, weighing the pros and cons of leaving versus staying. And man, it's been hectic. In the past two weeks I've had some pretty hot and heavy dealings with a couple of companies who made it quite obvious they had a lot of interest in me. Of course they promised me how much better things would be, and how great things would be if I came to work for them. Eventually, we all come to this point on our jobs, when we begin to question, "do these fools really know what they have in me?" And if they do, "why aren't they acting like it?" At that point, I'd advise you all to start jobbin'. For whatever reason, you are always more valuable to the next company than you are to yours. That's power. Problem is, most people are working too hard on their jobs to ever take a moment to stop, look up, and tap into that power.

Nothing reminds your current job of just how valuable you are quite like walking in and dropping off a two weeks notice on that ass. It's one of the most empowering things you'll ever do in life. And shortly afterwards, you'll see them scrambling around as you quickly begin to get treated like the most trusted valued employee in the building. Suddenly they have all these plans, new titles, and new money for you. Yet, in the back of your mind, you can't help but wonder, "where was all of this last week?" In the end, it's all business. The quicker you realize your job doesn't love you, the better. And it's not just your job, it's any job. There are only two types of people to work for in corporate America: the devil you know, and the devil you don't know. The devil you don't know will always look better, when really, he's most likely just as bad, if not worst, than the devil you know. You have history with the devil you know, and most likely, that means you have some major issues with him. But you also know what to expect from him. You know when he's lying, when he's plotting, and when something big is about to go down-- because you've already endured his worst. Ultimately, the words "great job" are an oxymoron. All jobs have drawbacks, but you live, learn, and do what you have to to get paid. For now, I'm done jobbin'. I won't get into what route I chose exactly, mainly because I don't know who reads this page, but it definitely worked out well for me. I encourage you all to do more than just complain about what you hate about your jobs. Ultimately, the only person to blame for your unhappiness is you. Quit bitching, and get out there and start jobbin'.

JOBBIN' TIPS

1) Research the industry and industry trends. See if it's a good time to make a move.

2) Update the resume ASAP.

3) Reach out to friends. Companies tend to interview people who come recommended from someone within a lot faster than they would an average Joe off the street.

4) Take many interviews. Every company has a different need, and the better you fit that need, the more you are probably worth to that company. Give yourself as many options as possible.

5) Negotiate. Stand firm on your salary demands, but don't be stupid. Allow some room to trade off certain perks, for salary.

6) Wait for the official lettter. No job is official until it's in writing. Before you start to celebrate your new job, get it in ink.

7) Resign with class. The corporate community talks. Don't burn bridges on the way out the door. Make your resignation letter very impersonal and to the point.

8) Before you accept a counter office, get it in writing. If your job doesn't want to lose you, they'll come back strong. But hold them to the same expectations as you would a new company. Make them put it in ink, before you assume it's official.

9) If no counter offer comes, or if you decide to leave anyway, make sure you've saved all your files to a zip disc before you resign. Some companies want you off the premises immediately, and won't give you a chance to remove any information from your computer. Remember, you may work on that computer, but it very much belongs to the company.

I hope this helps. Peace.

moment of silence

1947 - 2005



"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
- octavia butler

whus fa dinnuh?

As a kid growing up, what we had for dinner was more than food. It told a story. It gave deep insights about the state of the household. After a while, it became so predictable that just by smelling what we were having for dinner, you knew whether times were good, bad, whether new money was coming in the door, or even someone in the family had just died. Each meal articulate something very specific, and even as a young kid, I quickly learned to decipher the language of our household meals.

BAKED HAM - My folks weren't big ham eaters. So if you smelled ham, somebody was dead, straight up! What followed was an impromtu haircut, a lot of cleaning up, and tons of phone calls to the house. We were either about to have a lot of company, or go to someone's house who already did. We had a few deaths in the family as a kid, and the smell that sticks out to me is ham with pineapples and cheap beers.

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER - Breakfast for dinner meant there were absolutely ZERO groceries in the house. You know that sad sight of opening up the fridge and seeing the back of that mofo. We all know it! So to play it off, my moms would fry some eggs and bologna, bake some biscuits and it would be on. We'd all sit down to the table, passing the jelly for our biscuits, as we washed it down with Pepsi.

SUNDAY DINNER - Sunday dinner was the shit. But the cool thing about it at my house was, it wasn't only served on Sunday. Any time my mother was off from work, I can remember walking home from school and time we stepped onto our street, we could smell the food just oozing out the house. My moms got down on her off days. You could smell fried chicken, candied yams, macaroni and cheese, collard greans, and all kind of other goodies in the air. If you smelled a Sunday dinner, and it wasn't Sunday, my mother was really relaxed, which translated into her going way over the top to please the family.

SUNDAY DINNER ON FRIDAY - A Sunday dinner on Friday meant important guests were coming in from out of town. Either our grandparents or someone they were trying to show off for.

MIKEY D's - At my crib, McDonalds was reward food. I hated going to the doctors as a kid, and since I had asthma real bad when I was younger, that was all the damn time. Mickey D's came after a visit to the doctor's or dentist's office. You leave the doctor's office mad, lips poked out, arm sore from the shot dude just gave you, and fifteen minutes later, you had a shit eating grin on your face as you stuffed a cheeseburger down your throat followed by the cold chaser that was always orange drink!

CHILLI AND HOT DOGS - Chilli and hot dogs meant the first cold Saturday of the winter had arrived. We usually ate off it two to three days.

SALMON CROQUETS - This was one of my favorite meals, but my old man hated it! So if you smelled salmon croquettes, with white rice and gravy, the old man was out of town on business. It also meant I got the lion's share of the dinner. This meal made me feel like a man. So what I was eight. I'd even slide over into his chair to complete the effect!

BAKED BEANS & HOT DOGS - If I smelled this shit, moms was out of town and pops was cooking. To this day, my old man is no chef. In fact, besides some really bad scrambled eggs, this is the only meal I ever saw him cook up as a kid. Sometimes my mother would go out of town for a funeral or something and the rest of us would stay home. Each time, my sister and myself were fed large plates of my old man's specialty. Oh yeah, he had the nerve to serve it up with Ritz crackers on the side. Like it went together or something. We always complained when he cooked it, but I secretly didn't mind the taste at all.

SPAGHETTI OR LASAGNA - This was my mother's way of saying "I will not be cooking for the next three or four days, so eat up." My mother made the biggest pots of spaghetti, and the biggest pans of lasagna. We'd eat on it forever, and never got mad about it cause it was so good.

VIENNA SAUSAGES, POTTED MEAT, & SPAM - Believe it or not, there was a time in my childhood when I cheered when this stuff was served up. If you could get past that nasty ass yellowish meat jelly that hung over the meat like a dark cloud, it was smooth sailing. My folks pushed this on us when they had to go out, and they didn'ty want us messing with the stove. So it was a big box of Premium white crackers and all the canned meat we could eat.

PINTO BEANS & RICE - My pops is a souther dude who don't give a damn about meat, but he loves beans. So this meal meant my old man had to go out of town on business for a while. So moms usually blessed him with one of his favorites.

NECK BONES & BUTTER BEANS - This one meant my old man was just getting back in town from a business trip, and moms wanted to greet him right. If you've never had the pleasure of sucking on a neckbone, consider yourself lucky. It's all kind of weird juice and white stuff that comes out of them bones. At the time it was good. (Now you can understand why I stopped eating pork in '91)

CUBE STEAK & BAKED POTATOS - This was our "let's celebrate" meal. It usually meant some new money had come into the house. A promotion or something like that. We always ate a salad with it. And this was one of the few times we ever had desert with our meal. My folks didn't do desert. Desert for us was usually Jello with fruit cut up in it. But when we had cube steak and potatos, there was usually an apple pie sitting on the stove to go with it.

Q-KING - Back home in St. Louis, there used to be this spot on Kingshighway called BBQ KING. Man it was good. My barber shop was in the vicinity, so after I got my shag trimmed up and lined, (yeah fool, I had a shag growing up, like 82-83) my pops would stop at a pay phone to get my mother and siter's order, and it was always right over to Q-KING's. My favorite was the hot link sandwhich with that white ass Wonder bread with barbeque sauce poured over it until it just melted in your mouth.

PIZZA - If we were eating pizza at my house, throw some confetti in the air and pop open a grape soda, IT'S PAY DAY. Each pay day like clock work, we ate pizza. In other words, every other friday we were eating pizza. Sometimes we ordered it, sometimes we went out to get it. But the mood was always vibrant and happy when pizza was served up.

FRIED BOLOGNA OR GRILLED CHEESE - I grew up in a house were food was always plentiful. So when we started eating too many grilled cheese sandwhiches or fried bologna and crackers back to back, you kinda knew, somebody must be broke.

FEND FO' YA'SELF - Fend for yourself was my mother's "pissed at the world" meal. This was served when my mom, an overworked school teacher, got home tired as hell, and me and my sister had messed the house up real bad. The demand was simple, "clean up the damn house and fend fo' ya'self". If pops was in town, he'd bail us out with White Castles. If he was out on work, we usually ate cereal, and always got in trouble later for "eating up all the breakfast food". Oh well, you gotta eat.

So there it is. And I know I'm not the only one. I'm sure the food served up at your crib as a child held hidden messages too. And if you think back hard enough, you might even remember a few. One luv.

matches made in heaven

What if Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner were buddies? And Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin had joined forces to save black America? Luckily Miles and Coltrane played together. Luther and Anita Baker just never got along. In '92, the Dream Team showed us how it's turns out when it's done right. Bobby and Whitney? We all know that's just wrong. At least there's Will and Jada. Go back to '84, can you imagine Prince and Michael Jackson on the same song? Gamble and Huff stayed together, why not didn't Snoop and Dre? Or Rufus and Chaka Khan? Would Brian McKnight have made Take 6 better? James Brown once fired Rick James from his band, imagine that. You'd have thought Stevie and Ray Charles would have been great friends. Kinda like Reaganomics and crack. Magic had Kareem. What if Jordan had Hakeem? If Carl Lewis and Flo Jo had a child, it'd win every race by a mile. Imagine if the real kings of comedy could have shared the same stage, Pryor, Murphy, Rock, and Chapelle. Would a Deathrow Record reunion today, be more heaven or hell? We still long for Pac and Big. Is there anybody you could pair Jimmy with that would have made him seem more special? Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston never made up. Nas and Jay did, and that's big. Imagine Eric Dickerson or Barry Sanders with Emmit Smith's line. Or Garvey with Oprah's dough. What if the world was ready for a Black Jesus and a black pope, a match made in heaven fa sho!

T4TD: Instead of divide and conquer, let's just conquer, together. Peace.

superman

superman
by hardCore

if i could
i'd dump my darkest secrets
in your lap

just to watch your eyes BULGE and POP
wide open

with surprise, with disappointment , with resentment

as you slowly changed the way you look
and think
of me

but deep down
i've always known

i was never the brotha
you thought you knew

i was the brotha
you wanted to know

when you didn't know nothing
when you wanted to know everything
when you needed to know something
or someone

when you needed a hard laugh
a dry place to cry
a tight hug
an ear

i became that brotha for you
strong
and perfect

i put forth the best of me and hid the rest
now the years are swelling inside my chest

YES!

there is more to me

there are insecurities, regrets, indiscretions
weaknesses
unhappiness
loneliness, evil
sensitivity

even cowardice thinking

feelings i'm dying to share with you
feelings i never wanted to conceal from you
feelings i always wanted to reveal to you
but i can't

cause you never really wanted to know me

you?

you only wanted to know... Superman

© 2002 3rd Eye Open Publishing

hip hop mortality

"I'll probably get shot". The whole room of 90 some odd students turned towards us in horror in that lecture hall. It was my sophomore year of college. And my entire sociology class was staring at me, and the only other brotha in the room, like they couldn't believe their ears. What were we discussing? Mortality rates and lifestyle. The professor asked us, if we died tomorrow, how did we see ourselves going out. I watched about 70% of that white classroom confess they saw themselves going out in an automobile accident. The other 29% said heart attack, cancer, or some other unspecified health complication. The last two people in the class also happened to be the only blacks in the class. Both male, both hip hoppers. Our answer? We both said the same thing. "I'll probably get shot".

The tragic number of young lives we continue to lose in hip hop makes me wonder, are there any parallels between the lifestyle, and the mortality rate of our peers? The easy answer is yes. We've all seen what happens when hip hop turns violent. And no, I'm not talking Pac, Big, and Jam Master Jay stories. I'm talking about our countless peers who were cut down in the prime of their lives. I'm talking about all those people who live in those sad stories spoken softly at small gatherings when people bring up their names while reminiscing. Although they may have never picked up a mic or scratched a record, they were hip hoppers. They wore the gear, blasted the sounds, and lived the lyrics--and other hip hoppers, who lived the culture too, gunned them down. Gun violence has devastated hip hop. But so has the drug trade. We always hear about the overglorified drug dealer, but the reality is, for every dealer shot dead on the streets, there are three or four young homeless junkies dying slow in an alley somewhere. And nobody's gonna tag a wall for them. Nobody wears R.I.P. tee shirts for crack heads, but those people are as much a part of the culture as anybody. It's just they belong to that unspoken part that's often overlooked.

As a lifestyle, hip hop has always been about excess. The biggest chain. The most money. The most girls. The most expensive cars. Who could smoke the most weed. Or drink the most liquor. But all this excess is having a tremendous affect on our mortality. Case in point, the same excessive, wild, adulterous lifestyle Eazy E glorified in his lyrics, eventually led to his untimely death. And he's not alone. African Americans below the age of 25 continue to be the group with the largest growth rate of HIV infections. But it makes sense. Simply listen to the songs we digest, or the images we see in all the hip hop videos. It's sex sex sex. Not protected or monogamous sex-- just sex. Now think about alcohol and cigarettes. I love going out to local hip hop venues to check out the shows and what not. But one of the things I hate is all the cigarette and weed smoke in the venues. Hip hoppers are smoking their asses off. And at this point, alcohol is a hip hop staple. But it's not the alcohol or cigarettes alone that I fear. It's hip hop's excessive way in which we consume things. Hip hoppers don't want to have A joint. They want the biggest bag of weed. It's not cool to have A drink or two. It's all about who can drink who under the table and be the last man standing. With all this excess, I can easily foresee a time, when many of our most loved hip hoppers will succumb to lung and throat cancer. As well as kidney and liver disease, at an epidemic-like rate. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine Snoop Dogg with lung cancer? Or any of our Hennessey guzzling emcees with liver failure? Well for every famous person who we loose, they'll be thousands of non famous hip hoppers succumbing to the exact same lifestyle.

Don't let me paint a hopeless picture. I've seen hip hop's finest sell their chiseled bodies to the hip hop nation causing many to watch calories and exercise. Also seeing emcees drink water on stage has created a huge push for youngsters to consume more water, which is a great thing. But make no mistake, overall, the hip hop lifestyle can take quite a toll on ones health. Gun toting, fast food, drugs, insufficient rest, excessive drinking, smoking, and casual sex, are all playing a part in what seems to be an ever lowering hip hop mortality rate. Just a few days ago, we lost legendary producer, and Detroit icon, Jay Dee. Mind you, Jay Dilla died of lupus, which is a serious disease that is unrelated to how we live as hip hoppers. Yet, it serves as a reminder of how fragile we all are, without abusing our bodies. So just imagine, how much more susceptible we become to various health risks, when we do everything in excess. It's time we all begin to embrace the notion of growing old, because too many of us have been bright flashes in the night that burned out far too quickly. In '06, visit a doctor, wear condoms, drink less, smoke less, and please, leave your guns at home. We can either grow old together as a hip hop nation, or we can continue to live like we want to die tomorrow. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

moment of silence

R.I.P. Jay Dee

a letter to aaron

aaron,

i've been reading the boondocks comic strip for a minute now, and for the most part, it's been consistently funny, edgy, political, and thought provoking. i've found myself emailing my favorite ones to friends, and i've noticed my friends emailing theirs. there is something beautiful about the small confinements of your animated strip that allows you to push our buttons, and remind us of ourselves, or those we know, without being too preachy or intrusive. but what i've learned from watching your boondocks series on adult swim is, it's all about dosage. whereas the comic strip feels like a shot glass of reality, harsh but easily digestible, the series often makes me feels like i'm being hosed down with "nigga" and "nigga-isms". even THAT would be okay IF there was a point to it all. if i knew what was meant to be funny, and what was meant to be serious. but that ever elusive sharp angle is what i'm missing. there's simply no point to it at all.

it's obvious you are a huge fan of the chapelle show. unfortunately you haven't quite figured out there's a method to dave's madness. mind you, dave has a few sketches, like the whole Lil Jon bit, that have only one purpose, to be funny. but for the most part, his sketches are designed to do one specific thing--turn racial stereotypes on their head, exposing them for what they really are.... ridiculous! your shows on the other hand seem to be all over the place. i could take "the itis" as being satirical. but MLK cursing seems edgy just for the sake of being so. i could even dig out an underlying message in the r. kelly episode. but granpa and the prostitute? a nigga moment? nabbing oprah? come on son. hearing "nigga" a thousand times EACH AND EVERY episode is not shocking, thought provoking, or genius. if you had made one episode where all everyone said was nigga, that would have made the point very strongly that we overuse the word, it would have been talked about, it would have been edgy, and you could have moved forward. instead, by over using it every week, you come off like a dude on some "pre-trip-to-africa" richard pryor renaissance sh*t, or some "post-cosby-rant" sympathizer. either way it's wack. let it go and move on.



instead of writing you off, for now, i'll continue to consider you smart and talented, just confused. maybe the change in medium has been overwhelming for you to figure out. maybe you're still searching for that balance. or maybe, this half an hour format with music and full dialogue has simply exposed you for who you really are. a dude who understands a comic strip, but has yet to understand the RESPONSIBILITY that comes with sending something as powerful as television, out to millions of people. once you put those images out there, they don't belong to you anymore. they belong to the people. and since most of those people are white, forgive me for being terrified and ashamed when all you keep giving them is "nigga" and "nigga-isms". i started off watching the show as a fan of the comic strip. now i watch the show, waiting for you to get it right, the whole time cringing, while you get it wrong.

peace.

p.s. can anybody authentically explore the best and worst parts of black culture, exposing our truths, making us laugh at ourselves, without selling us out? it's a great question. and aaron, i think, it can be done successfully. i think chris rock does it well for one. the key is balance. the "nigga" sh*t is real, show that. but show it in reference to the positive sh*t. that's just as real. make people feel it's being done out of love, to make us all better, not in some condescending tone that makes us question your motives. i'll be watching you. we'll all be watching you. good music, nice illustration, and the n-word does not a good show make. the show needs a definitive perspective. get one and holla black!