Notorious.

After taking one black film class I feel qualified to review the film Notorious. Just kidding, there is no way that I could be considered qualified to do anything besides chill and drink thanks to my liberal arts education. But, I am willing to put my honest to god opinion on screen so others know what they're in for before they go.
The film does has it's fair share of problems, the biggest might be the casting of the film. Aside from BIG the only good physical match was Naturi(the dark 3lw girl) playing little kim. The biggest failure was the actor choosen to play Tupac. he looks nothing like Tupac, and captured none of Tupac's energy or charisma. The actor playing faith bore a passing resembelence to the real Faith, but from the videos of faith that I've seen not much else.
Overall the acting was pretty terrible, with Naturi providing the best performance, ie capturing the sexuality of lil Kim by baring her breasts early and often, and actually at times becoming hard to distinguish from lil kim. The only thing Gravy managed to capture from biggie was his nasally breathing difficulties, but then he was also a fat bastard in the movie so that might've come naturally. Even the usually respectable Angela Bassett seems like a bad actress in this movie.
The cinematography was for the most part basic, I don't know who shot this but he fucked up by not borrowing from the cinematography of BIG's music video's. The final scene focused on Biggie's mother's face and the video of Biggie's last ride through brooklyn does redeem the director.
The dialogue and storyline are at best uninteresting, and it feels like very little is done to really flesh out biggie's character. My overall verdict is to download this, but don't waste your money.

New day, same shit.

It's the 14th of January, in 6 days George W. Bush will finally be out of office, and the great Black(or half black) hope will take office. Some people, white people, see this as the end of Racism in the United States, and as such an end to any claim that blacks have to affirmative action. Some people, black people, see this as the beginning of the government taking an actual interest in the well being of Black Americans. The sad and true reality is that Obama's victory may strengthen certain forms of racism and undermine attempts to advance minorities to social equality.
First, racism is not dead. It actually cannot be pronounced dead until all minorities accomplish permanent equal social standing as whites. This is when all the measured statistics that are used in some circles to rationalize black inferiority, after the decline of biological racism, are the same across all races we can say that racism is dead. That will be the day that blacks and latinos are no longer disproportionately represented in the underclass and incarcerated, which would reflect unbiased education and justice systems. On that day minorities and women will also be equally(proportionate to their population) represented in all levels of business an industry, which would reflect unbiased advancement opportunities. If this was all naturally occuring then you could declare racism dead.
What is preventing this from occuring? Colorblind racism for one, colorblind racism is the child of the right wing, yet is fostered by the left's acceptance of the main tenet needed to apply colorblind racism. That tenet is that since the civil rights era blacks(or all minorities) have had the same opportunities as whites. Thus blacks failure to accomplish is due to the inferior nature of African American culture, and blacks are as such still inferior and worthy of discrimination.
Of course there is the discrimination thatand the inequal inheritance of generational wealth that affects all blacks ,and the cycle of poverty that affects those in the lower class that represent the actual barriers to black achievement and need to be addressed.
Second, the government will not magically start caring about black people. Why, congress and the senate remain overwhelmingly white, and represents mostly white people. As such just as missing little white girls are always big news stories, and missing little black girls go virtually ignored, the legislature will continue to not give a fuck about black people.
Yeah reparations will not be forthcoming, what will be forthcoming are attacks on affirmative action using the shift in public(white) opinion about racism.
As such, what can Obama do for black people. Well for one, he is likely to try to try to protect affirmative action by nominating liberal minded supreme court judges. In an interview, I believe on CNN, Obama when questioned about affirmative action said it was necessary but he did not want people who did not need it, such as his daughters, benefitting from it. He also plans to attack poverty which will be heartily welcomed considering the current financial environment and educational reform. This puts blacks in a position to advance their social position greatly. Also I feel like in ads there has been a visible shift toward representation of blacks as middle class this could possibly represent a shift in media attitudes in general and could help positively influence white attitudes toward blacks.
I guess that my title is a little more pessemistic than my post, and a change may finally be coming.

Let's get the ball rolling again.

I'm going to, yet again, try to get back into blogging. I don't know exactly what I'll be blogging about, but hopefully it will be funny, informative, or entertaining. If anyone is reading this wish me luck.

98% YAYO FREE

Right now, I'm listening to the new G-Unit album, Terminate on Site/Sight. This is odd to say the least because after the travesties of Curtis, Massacre, and whatever failure of an album Banks released, I pretty much gave up on seeing good music coming out of the G-unit camp.
TOS, however, has produced a glimmer on the horizon. I once again feel like the Unit can produce a solid album of bangers, which while not greatly lyrical provide a good balance of swagger, gun talk, punch lines, and general entertainment.

But, I'm being generous. The version of TOS I'm listening to is 98% Yayo free. The only times that you are forced to suffer Yayo's voice are ad-libs and choruses. No more terrible punchlines, terrible flows, or general wackness. It makes TOS a pretty decent album.

I first heard about the existence of a Yayo free TOS in MuzikSupremacy's IRC, after i had downloaded 2 tracks off TOS and said that I would probably DL the album, had Yayo not been on it. Lo and behold the heavens parted and a link to a yayoless album descended to my web browser. Well someone gave me a link.

As I play the album, I wonder, what would drive a person to edit a rappers verses out of an album. Yayo is a wack rapper, but, what would possess someone to sit down and edit out each of his verses.

I feel like this is indeed a testament to the level of wackness in which Yayo lies. Someone went through the trouble of editing out his verses. They, rather than not dl the album or just skipping his verses, created a monument to how bad a rapper he is, and then proceeded to distribute it.

I sincerely hope that in an interview someone asks his opinion on the Yayo free album. Hopefully it will enlighten him to how little the general public likes his rap and he'll become to 50c what Farnsworth Bentley was to diddy.

It's only right after all that 50 has done for him.

Be a Nigga Too.

Be a nigga too is a flawed ass song in term of logic and subject matter, but fuck it, the intro and cinematography are great. Fuck Nas for biting the 25th hour in a completely uninspired manner though.

Number 2

Waysssss hoss the way you play you rel deserve that number
any other person woulda conceded 2 corners, but no, you just had to cause 2 goals.
Best case senario, IE had the two men that throw way scored, 2-1 win
worst case senario same score line, or a 2-0 or 1-0 scoreline.

2 posts in one day, damn I'm on a roll.

I was driving home today, playing Kidz in the Hall's latest release (The In Crowd) on my Ipod. As I skipped driving down the block, it hit me, I hadn't listened to radio in a long ass while. The digital age, well really apple's Ipod and the apple care replacement plan, made it possible for me to never have to listen to the radio or buy CD's.

Judging from apple's brisk sales of Ieverythings I am definitely not alone. This got me to thinking, with the cost of computers, Mp3 players, and broadband internet connections declining, how long much longer will the vast majority of people listen to the radio? Think about it. Primarily, I used to listen to the radio while in cars. However, with the advent of the CD player and cd player cassette adaptors the radio was abrubtly cut out of my life. With cars becoming more and more digitally intergrated, as any Cadillac or Ford Commercial will attest, will radio completely die out?

Well maybe I'm being a little morbid, radio will live on, I think that there will always be people who will listen to it the profitability of sattelite radio seems to attest to that. But the CD's lease on life seems to be inching toward a close, with declining CD sales and increasing use of the internet to get music it seems that the internet is quickly replacing CD stores. In my three years at college I have bought less than a quarter the number of CD's that I bought in my last three years of high school. This is not to say that I bought fewer albums, the number of itunes charges on my credit card statements can speak to that, but I made fewer trips to the CD store.

The greater implication for the death of the CD format is what will happen to music distibution. Itunes has been a great success, but it essentially works within the confines of the traditional label machinery. Radiohead's digital release of in Rainbows is a different beast, done without a label, their radiohead's independant digital release might revolutionize the music market. Why shouldn't independant artists raise money through shows buy hot beats, make a hot album, and sell it to people through the internet. They can build buzz via youtube, myspace, facebook, imeem, countless music forums, and countless music blogs. Think about all the possibilities of actually doing this, the main and most important one would be real artistic Freedom. Had Nas done this we might actually be looking foward to an album with the powerful name Nigger, instead of a much less interesting sounding title, Untitled.

I mean there's nothing new under the sun, so I'm sure that someone has begun the process I've described above already. I wish them luck

in the meantime I'ma leave you with some radiohead, complements youtube:



enjoy!