BrotherKool

The Hard Core Of Cool
Confidence, Grace And Underneath It All, the Need to Be Recognized
by Donna Britt, Washington Post Staff Writer

Confidence is cool's most essential element. Perhaps that's why black men -- for whom the appearance of assurance can be a matter of life or death -- so often radiate it. Perhaps that's why in the United States, where men as different as Frank Sinatra, Joe Namath, Bruce Lee, Sean Connery, Benicio Del Toro and Johnny Depp have been deemed cool, black men remain cool's most imitated, consistent arbiters. I mean, there's cool -- and then there's brothercool.

Think of Barack Obama's instantaneous ascension to "coolest man in Congress." Observe Denzel Washington's loping stride. Ponder Dwyane Wade's sweet-as-a-caress ball-handling, Terrence Howard's slumberous gaze and Mos Def's straight-ahead poetry and crooked grin.

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JB Home on the Night Train

Listen to JB with Terry Gross in 2005

Beyond Beats & Rhymes in the New York Times

CHICAGO — Byron Hurt takes pains to say that he is a fan of hip-hop, but over time, says Mr. Hurt, a 36-year-old filmmaker, dreadlocks hanging below his shoulders, “I began to become very conflicted about the music I love.”

A new documentary by Mr. Hurt, “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” questions the violence, degradation of women and homophobia in much of rap music.

Scheduled to go on the air in February as part of the PBS series Independent Lens, the documentary is being shown now at high schools, colleges and Boy’s Clubs, and in other forums, as part of an unusual public campaign sponsored by the Independent Television Service, which is based in San Francisco and helped finance the film.

The intended audiences include young fans, hip-hop artists and music industry executives — black and white — who profit from music and videos that glorify swagger and luxury, portray women as sex objects, and imply, critics say, that education and hard work are for suckers and sissies.

What concerns Mr. Hurt and many black scholars is the domination of the hip-hop market by more violent and sexually demeaning songs and videos — an ascendancy, the critics say, that has coincided with the growth of the white audience for rap and the growing role of large corporations in marketing the music.

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MAN on NPR's Rough Cuts with Michel Martin

Grooving to a Different Beat

So we were thinking about the holidays and we started thinking about the whole "white Christmas" thing -- as both a song and a metaphor. That got us to thinking about how and why African-Americans started putting their stamp on the holiday. Which led naturally to thinking about the great holiday songs we all love, from the Jackson 5 to the mighty Temptations.

We started looking around and soon found Mark Anthony Neal, a professor at Duke University who actually studies African-American history and pop culture (that's what's so great about America -- and Google). We got his take on the subject and listened to some great tunes. We were grooving all week long!

Listen to the Segment

A Soul Christmas: The Jackson Five and the Temptations

A Soul Christmas: The Jackson Five & The Temptations
by Mark Anthony Neal

Like most kids who didn't grow up in a house, I guess I was perplexed for much of my childhood, trying to find out how some 300-plus pound man in a red suit -- in the absence of a fireplace and a chimney -- managed to deliver gifts every year to the five-story walk up I lived in. On more than one occasion I asked my mother whether or not Mr. Claus had keys to our apartment and in that classic "shrug -- don't ask me no more questions -- I don't know" mode that I have now perfected for my daughters, my mother dodged yet another life altering question from her budding seven-year-old ghetto existentialist.

I was perhaps also perplexed by the Christmas music that my parents played every Christmas -- music that I never heard in the department stores where we did Christmas shopping, never heard during television commercial breaks and we for damn sure never sang in grade school. In my young mind the Christmas music my parents listened to, didn't venture too far from the down-home, down and out Soul music that they listened to every other time of the year. Somehow the voices of Otis Redding, Joe Tex and Clarence Carter, never seemed to conjure the "White Christmas" dreams I thought I should be having.

My sense of Christmas and Christmas music forever changed when my mother bought me a copy of The Jackson Five's Christmas Album. It was 1972, I was seven, and the Jackson Five were the most important people in my life. And true indeed, more than 30 year later, I can't imagine a Christmas without hearing The J5's Christmas Album or The Temptations's Christmas Card, both recently re-issued as The Best of the Jackson Five: The Christmas Collection and The Best of The Temptations: The Christmas Collection (Universal/Motown).

Released in October of 1970, The Jackson Five Christmas Album remains not only one of the most exciting pop Christmas albums (The J5's "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" ranking with Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" in my mind), but also of the great performances by the J5 in their developing years. The Jackson Five were at the height of their popularity when The Christmas Album was released having dropped three albums from late 1969 through 1970 and achieving four number one pop singles in succession with "I Want You", "ABC", "The Love You Save", and "I'll Be There" and the group didn't disappoint bringing their pop-inflected proto-funk to Rudolph, Frosty, and a host of other melodious icons of holiday cheer.

To this day, the Christmas season begins for me the first time I hear Jermaine's plaintive and still underrated tenor singing "Have Your Self a Merry Little Christmas," the song that opens The Christmas Album. Though the first part song is performed in a fairly traditional mode (the same with Jermaine's reading of "The Christmas Song"), it is the hoot and hollerin' breakdown that begins mid-way through the song that announces that "Christmas Wont Be the Same" after the Jackson Five gets done celebrating it. And make no mistake about that energy had everything to do with the still evolving soul prodigy who would one day become the biggest pop star on the earth.

Throughout The Christmas Album then 11-year-old Michael Jackson captures all of the bright-eyed joy of Christmas. When he yelps "Wow! Mommy's kissing Santa Claus" on the album's closing tune, your heart tugs at the fear, bewilderment and naiveté that only a child could express in that situation. It was a fleeting early glimpse into the world of a young man, who would always perform in his music, the childhood that he was never able have as a pre-pubescent pop star. Michael sounds on the verge of a head explosion as he yelps "Santa Claus is coming to town" turning the always happy holiday tune into a JB-inspired fit of frenzy. And "Up on the House Top," a Motown original, sounds right out of the session that gave the world "ABC." The combination of Michael's earnest vocals and classic J5 funk, makes for a joyous and ebullient holiday recording.

Unlike the Jackson Five, The Temptations were past their commercial prime, when they released Christmas Card in November of 1970. Two years removed from the classic Temptations formation that featured David Ruffin as lead vocalists, the group was still in transition trying to compete in an ever-changing industry, in which the stamp of Motown no longer guaranteed hit records. This partially explains why Christmas Card was the group's first holiday album. If Motown wanted to exploit the J5's immense popularity with The Christmas Album, with Christmas Card they wanted to squeeze what they perceived as the last bit of commercial viability out of the Temps.

Though The Temptations would have its biggest hit in 1972 with the very capable Dennis Edwards at the helm of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone", the essential core of the group would be gone after Eddie Kendricks's departure in 1972 and the death of Paul Williams in 1973. In this regard, Christmas Card represents one of the last sonic glimpses at that core group.

Given that they were The Temptations, the quintet is to be commended, for not phoning it in and actually delivering a project that spoke to why the group was so important in the first place. Given ample and inventive arrangements by producers Clay McMurray and Barrett Strong, on tracks like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (bottomed by Melvin Franklin, of course) and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," it is hard to hear these songs without imagining the Temps up on stage showing the world why the were pop music's greatest dancers. But the clear favorite on Christmas Card has always been the Temptations's rendition of "Little Drummer Boy" which suggest that lil' homie was hearing that Motown back-beat when he rolled up in the manger that night. Eddie Kendricks shines throughout particularly on tracks like "White Christmas" and "My Christmas Tree" (unforgivably left off the Best of… collection)

The history of the Temptations has been rife with debates over which version of the group was the best and it's no different in a discussion of Temptation Christmas albums. A decade after the release of Christmas Card, the Temps (minus all of the originals, except Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams) went back in the studio and recorded Give Love at Christmas. Dennis Edwards' always commanding vocals were on display on tracks like the group's remake (and tribute to) of Donny Hathaway's Christmas standard "This Christmas" and "The Christmas Song". But the highlight of the recording and arguably the best Christmas song ever by the Temps, is their six-minute version of "Silent Night" which draws on Edwards's sanctified riffs, Glenn Leonard's lilting falsetto and the oceanic boom, that could only be the voice of the late Melvin Franklin. Christmas Card may have been the better album, but the later version of "Silent Night" represents the Temps at their best.

Esther Iverem and MAN on Wisconsin Public Radio

Mark Anthony Neal talks about his book, "New Black Man" with Steve Paulson. Neal considers himself a feminist and thinks that the traditional stereotypes of the Strong Black Man have contributed to the problems that Black men face today.

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Esther Iverem is the author of "We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986 - 2006." She tells Jim Fleming about the first time she saw Spike Lee's film "She Gotta Have It" and why she thought it marked the start of a new wave of Black cinema. And we hear clips from several of the films she cites.

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...Edward P.Jones hates on hip-hop and ball players somewhere in-between

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Listen Here...

Happyness Is...

Reprinted from SeeingBlack.com


'Pursuit' and Survival
Review By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

A film based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a struggling Black father who sought a change of career as a stockbroker, could have easily turned into another corny tale of American ambition. Instead, The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith, is a poignant reminder of the frailty of American families and the so-called American dream.

For its particular meditation on time, place and Black humanity, “The Pursuit of Happyness” is destined to become one of our movie classics, alongside “Claudine,” “Cooley High” “The Color Purple” and “Antwone Fisher.” I can’t think of another film that has so capably captured the social and economic upheaval of the 1980’s, when Reaganomics and “economic restructuring” widened the gap between the very rich and poor, when legions of newly homeless filled the streets of big American cities and the American workforce quickened its daily lock-step in order to survive.

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Esther Iverem is founder of www.SeeingBlack.com and author of a forthcoming book on Black film, We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007). Her review of "The Pursuit of Happyness" also appeared on www.BlackAmericaWeb.com

A Gentle Goodnight to John C. Mohawk

I first met John C. Mohawk in the fall of 1993, when I entered the Ph.D. program in American Studies at the University of Buffalo. John co-taught with the late Larry Chisolm the year-long introductory seminar in American Studies. 13 years later that course remains as the most intense intellectual experience of my life. Hopefully John and Larry are someplace sitting around a table, conjuring the spirits for the next generation of scholar warriors.

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from the University of Buffalo

John C. Mohawk, UB American Studies Professor, 61
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- John C. Mohawk, Ph.D., of Buffalo and the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, Gowanda, died Sunday (Dec. 10, 2006) in his home in Buffalo. He was 61.

Mohawk was a beloved and highly respected associate professor of American studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo and a distinguished author, editor, conflict negotiator and champion of the rights of indigenous peoples.

A member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Mohawk was widely recognized as a leading scholar of Seneca culture and history. He also was an expert in Native American economic development and cultural survival who emphasized the relationship between the treatment of indigenous groups and the state of the earth's environment.

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Esther Iverem on Blood Diamond

The violence of “Blood Diamond,’ the new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou, is barbarous but cannot be accused of being over-the-top. And much like the Oscar-winning “Crash,” this film asks us to see something good in bigots, to see that they, too, have positive qualities.

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A Nation of Millions?

One Mic:
If hip-hop is a nation of millions, then what does it stand for?
By David Swerdlick

Hip-hop is as American as apple pie. It is also materialism, the n-word, and general double-talk. So now that hip-hop has solidified itself as the dominant youth culture of our times (enough that BET and VH1, two networks owned by the same company, both have competing hip-hop broadcasts), the question hip-hop nation must ask itself is if it only wants apple pie, or if it wants to have a meal first?

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All 'Growed' Up: Rethinking Jay Z

'My Passport Says Shawn'
By Mark Anthony Neal

The Branding of Jay Z: Whereas most hip-hop artists simply adopt alternative personas, often referencing an underground drug lord or fictional Mafioso figures, Jay Z has created a complex hip-hop identity that speaks to concepts such as fluidity, mobility and social capital.

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Also...

NPR's News and Notes with Farai Chideya
Jay-Z, Offering Hip-Hop for Grownups
December 6, 2006 ·

Jay-Z's latest album, Kingdom Come may speak more to older listeners than to college students. Commentator and professor Mark Anthony Neal is an associate professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University.

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Minstrel Rap?

Racial Stereotyping in the Music Industry

The use of the N-word and the recent popularity of so-called "Minstrel Rap" songs and VH1's "Flavor of Love 2" show are raising concerns about the depiction of black people in the music industry. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal, and New York Times pop music critic Kelefa Sanneh weigh in.

Party with a Purpose!

VIBE and VCARES, Karen's Body Beautiful, AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc., S.Lydia & Associates, and allhiphop.com

cordially invite you to
KEVIN POWELL'S 6th ANNUAL HOLIDAY PARTY and CLOTHING DRIVE
Friday, December 8, 2006
7PM-11PM

at TRIBECA CINEMAS54 Varick Street, 1 block below Canal Street
between Avenue of the Americas and Varick Street
AND right near the Holland Tunnel
Downtown Manhattan, in the Tribeca section
NEW YORK CITY
Take A, C, E, or 1 trains to the Canal Street stop

Music by DJs Cosi, Herbert, and Marc Smooth
of THE FREEDOM PARTY

PLEASE RSVP to trueyorkrsvp@aol.com
You MUST be 21 or over with I.D.
DRESS...Fashionable, casual chic, or business attire
CASH BAR

Admission is FREE with the donation of CLEAN CLOTHES ONLY, NEW OR USED, to benefit the SAFE HORIZON STREETWORK PROJECT, a New York City program that annually supports over 7000 homeless young people between the ages of 13 and 23

WE NEED winter coats and jackets, hats, scarves, gloves, ear muffs, thermal underwear, shoes, boots, sneakers, socks, backpacks, jeans, tee shirts, etc...ALL SIZES

For more info on the SAFE HORIZON STREETWORK PROJECT contact Ines Robledo at 212-563-9648

Skin Color, Stereotypes and 'Flavor of Love'

Skin Color, Stereotypes and 'Flavor of Love'
News & Notes, December 1, 2006

How does the hit reality show Flavor of Love play on black America's long war on racial stereotypes? Commentator Mark Anthony Neal is an associate professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University and author of New Black Man.

Listen Here

Daphne A. Books on Suga Mama "B"

from The Nation

Suga Mama, Politicized
DAPHNE A. BROOKS

The video for Beyoncé Knowles's latest single, "Ring the Alarm," shows the stunning 25-year-old singer, dressed in a caramel-colored trench coat that matches her glistening skin, being dragged away by policemen in riot gear and locked in a padded cell. An "alarmed" Beyoncé struggles and writhes, is brought to her knees and pulled by her arms and legs, in a scene that should ring familiar not only to fans of early Sharon Stone spectacles (the clip pays clear homage to Basic Instinct) but to those who still remember Diana Ross and her image-shattering star turn as a drug-busted and jailed Billie Holiday in 1972's Lady Sings the Blues. (Comparisons between Ross and Beyoncé are in abundance now as the latter jettisons her Supremes-inspired vehicle Destiny's Child for a full-fledged solo career and takes on the Ross-inspired lead of Deena Jones in the upcoming film adaptation of Dreamgirls.) The gloss and glitz of this shock-value video may cause casual viewers to write off Beyoncé's newest album, B'Day, as just another collection of sexed-up club jams. But they'd miss out on listening to one of the oddest, most urgent, dissonant and disruptive R&B releases in recent memory.

Read the full article

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Daphne A. Brooks, an associate professor of English and African-American studies at Princeton University, is the author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Duke) and Jeff Buckley's Grace (Continuum).