Black Music Month 2008: Perfect Combination--The Soul Duets

from Critical Noir @ Vibe.com

This is the third in a series Black Music Month Playlists that will explore common themes explored in the Soul Music Tradition.

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In 1984, Stacy Lattisaw recorded "Perfect Combination" with Johnny Gill. Lattisaw was a teen sensation recordings hits like a remake of The Moments' "Love on a Two Way Street" and "Let Me Be Your Angel." Atlantic hoped to capitalize on her success in order to break a teen-aged Boston vocalist by the name of Johnny Gill. It would still be years before Gill's body would catch up to his grown man vocals and eventually an audience that appreciated his talents. But "Perfect Combination" was an earnest attempt to capture that Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell magic. When Lattisaw was on the downside of her career and Gill's star was finally on the rise (courtesy of his spin with New Edition) the two collaborated again on "Where Do We Go from Here?" The songs with Lattisaw and Gill are a reminder of other great Soul and R&B duets, like these below.


"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"--Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" borders on being cliché, as it is so often referenced as the quintessential Soul duet. True there's an innocence and sexiness that's palpable in this classic pairing of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and Motown milked it for all they could releasing three album's worth of material by the duo including classics like "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," "You're All I Need to Get By" and "Your Precious Love", the song that Terrell was signing when she collapsed in Gaye's arms at a concert in Virginia in 1967. Ironically, Gaye and Terrell weren't even in the studio together--Gaye added his vocals long after Terrell laid down hers. Yet the energy is real and for that we can thank the writers, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who gave Marvin and Tammi songs drawn from their own romance. Terrell died tragically in 1970 of a brain tumor.


"Ain't Understanding Mellow"--Jerry Butler & Brenda Lee Eager

Jerry Butler had been in the music business for nearly 15 years and was on the third stage of a career that began as the lead vocalist of The Impressions (with Curtis Mayfield). Butler was on the downside of the most popular point of a career that was largely resuscitated courtesy of Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble (a few years before PIR) when he teamed with Brenda Lee Eager for the ultimate breakup song "Ain't Understanding Mellow." This was serious grown folk music about a man showing appreciation for a partner, who was honest enough to admit to her love for another man. In turn she shows appreciation for him understanding her situation. This ultimately a song about a couple who were grounded in friendship, even as the romantic relationship starts to sour. And yeah, what's the deal with that title?

Read the full playlist @

Shaq's Rant?: Some Perspective from Stephane Dunn

Shaq’s Bad Rap

By Stephane Dunn | TheRoot.com

Was The Big Man's Youtube rant against Kobe so wrong?

June 27, 2008--Truthfully, when one considers the art of the rap diss and remembers some legendary signifying, say, between Tupac andBiggie, Jay-Z and Nas, and more recent I-am-the-best-you-can't-touch-me rap bragging (Ne-Yo and Chris Brown, for example), Shaq's recent attack on his rival and former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant, was, well, pretty amateurish.

And yet, the fall-out over his recent performance at a New York nightclub, captured on YouTube for all to see, continues. Shaq unhurled a few choice words that have probably been simmering since his controversial Kobe fall-out and exit from the Lakers. He sent a shout out to his ex-teammate, "Kobe can't do without me," and instigated a little call and response chant: "Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes."

Instead of verbal whippings for the weak rap (sorry Shaq), the Big Man's being skewered for ego-tripping and speaking a bit too much truth. ESPN commentators actually put him on blast for so-called racialized comments that dissed poor Kobe—the same guy who helped facilitate Shaq's departure. It derailed a potential dynasty and forced me to suspend my long-time Lakers love.

Nevermind that Kobe actually hasn't come up with a ring since Shaq left for the Heat where he won ring No. 4 and recently went off to the Phoenix Suns. The gleeful debate and condemnation over Shaq's rap completely overlooks the nuances of hip-hop and rap-music culture.

Read the Full Essay @

Stephane Dunn is a writer and author of (gulp) "Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films" (August 2008). She is also an assistant professor at Morehouse College.

Ira Tucker Drives that "Christian Automobile" on Home...

from the NYTimes

June 26, 2008

Ira Tucker, Gospel Singer Who Gave Dixie Hummingbirds Emotive Edge, Dies at 83
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Ira Tucker, a little man with a giant vocal range and acrobatic stage antics who as lead singer of the Dixie Hummingbirds helped propel gospel music toward a harder-edged, more emotive style, died on Tuesday in Philadelphia. He was 83.

The cause was heart failure, his son, Ira Jr., said, adding that he had earlier suffered two major heart attacks.

According to publicity material from 1950, Mr. Tucker joined what became one of the longest-lasting groups in gospel music when he was 14. Other sources say he joined in 1938 at 13. In any case, he never left.

At its peak in the 1940s and ’50s, the group was one of gospel’s most popular and innovative, using shouting lead parts and walking basslines in songs like “Thank You for One More Day,” “Trouble in My Way” and “Bedside of a Neighbor.” The back-and-forth singing of Mr. Tucker and another tenor, James Walker, is legendary.

In the 1970s the Hummingbirds attained a new and different sort of popularity when they backed up Paul Simon on his hit “Loves Me Like a Rock,” then recorded the same tune themselves and won a Grammy.

Mr. Tucker was a tenor when he started, moved on to baritone and sometimes eased into a rumbling bass. His scream, though, was his defining characteristic: it originated far back in this throat and issued forth at a high register in perfect pitch. He then returned to the baritone range without missing a beat or lyric.

Mr. Tucker added fire to the group’s performances. With a style borrowed from Southern preachers, he wailed, hollered and gesticulated in what today sounds like a precursor to James Brown.

It is hard to gauge how much influence one musician truly has on another, but many articles suggest that Mr. Tucker’s highly stylized singing may have inspired Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, the Drifters, Hank Ballard and the Temptations.

Mr. Tucker had no doubt of his power to inspire. His son remembered him recently listening to a Sly Stone record and smiling broadly at an idiosyncratic inflection. “They heard my old records,” he said.

Anthony Heilbut, an author, producer and expert on gospel and other music, called Mr. Tucker “the presiding intelligence” of gospel music.

Jerry Zolten, an associate professor at Penn State Altoona and author of a book on the Hummingbirds, termed Mr. Tucker “one of the top echelon of gospel lead vocalists who inspired others to sing like him.”

Aside from Michael Jackson, few performers showed as much eagerness to emulate the way Mr. Tucker flung himself from the stage, ripped off his coat, ran down the aisles and finally wilted to his knees in prayer.

Read the Full Article @

Denise Richards - Portraits At Her Home In Calabasas

Denise Richards Profile

Name: Denise Richards

Birth Name: Denise Lee Richards

Height: 5' 8"

Sex: F

Nationality: American

Birth Date: February 17, 1971

Birth Place: Downers Grove, Illinois, USA

Profession: actress, model

Education: El Camino High School in Oceanside, California (graduated in 1989)

Husband/Wife: Charlie Sheen (actor; born on September 3, 1965; began dating in 2001; engaged on Christmas 2001; married on June 15, 2002; divorced on November 30, 2006)

Relationship: Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi guitarist; born July 11, 1959; dating since May 2006; split in March 2007), Patrick Muldoon (actor; born on September 27, 1968; costarred together in Starship Troopers; began dating in 1998)

Father: Irv Richards (former telephone-company employee)

Mother: Joni Richards

Daughter: Lola Rose Sheen (born on June 1, 2005; weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces; father: Charlie Sheen), Sam J. Sheen (born on March 9, 2004; father: Charlie Sheen)

Claim to fame: as Carmen Ibanez in Starship Troopers (1997)

Denise Richards Biography

Denise Lee Richards (born February 17, 1971) is an American actress and former fashion model. She came to fame in the late 1990s, after a string of films that highlighted her sex appeal, including Starship Troopers, Wild Things and The World Is Not Enough.

Richards was born in Downers Grove, Illinois to Joni, a coffee shop owner, and Irv Richards, a telephone engineer, and she has one sister, named Michelle. She graduated from El Camino High School in 1989, Oceanside, California, where she was a cheerleader.

Before she was an actress, Richards was a fashion model. Richards spent the majority of the 1990s appearing in lower-budget films and TV shows like Saved by the Bell, television movies, and guest starring in episodes of several television shows. Her first starring role in a wide theatrical release was Starship Troopers in 1997, which was followed by her role in the moderately successful cult film Wild Things in 1998. Richards was subsequently cast as Dr. Christmas Jones in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999), which had a high box office gross and contributed to Richards' renown. In addition to her film work, Richards has made regular appearances in the situation comedies Spin City, Two and a Half Men, Friends and Seinfeld.

Eva Mendes Nice Photo Shoot Pics

Eva Mendes Profile

Name: Eva Mendes

Height: 5' 7"

Sex: F

Nationality: American

Birth Date: March 5, 1978

Birth Place: Houston, Texas, USA

Profession: actress

Education: Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California
California State University in Northridge (majored in Marketing; dropped out to pursue a career as an actress)

Claim to fame: as Sara Harris in Training Day (2001)

Eva Mendes Biography

Eva Mendes (born March 5, 1974) is a Cuban-American actress. She began acting in the late 1990s, and became known after a series of roles in several major Hollywood films, including 2 Fast 2 Furious, Hitch, Training Day, Ghost Rider and We Own the Night.

Mendes was born in Miami, to Cuban-American parents and was raised in Los Angeles by her mother after her parents' divorce; Mendes has said that her mother "suffered so much to make my life OK" during her early years. Her father was a car salesman and her mother, also named Eva, is now an elementary school principal. She is the youngest of four children (she has two sisters and a brother). She was raised Roman Catholic and aspired to be a nun. As a child, Mendes was teased about her "buck teeth".

As a child she lived in both Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. She never saw herself as an actress while she was young and deigned to pursue other interests. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale and later attended California State University, Northridge to study Marketing, but dropped out after meeting boyfriend Zedrick Threatt, who helped her to seek an acting career. She studied with Ivana Chubbuck. (according to an interview @ Howard Stern show, she claimed to be from Jersey City)

Alexis Bledel [Wallpapers]

Alexis Bledel Profile

Name: Alexis Bledel

Birth Name: Kimberly Alexis Bledel

Height: 5' 7''

Sex: F

Nationality: American

Birth Date: September 16, 1981

Birth Place: Houston, Texas, USA

Profession: Actress, Model

Education: Page Parkes Center of Modeling and Acting; Houston, Texas
New York University's Tisch School of Arts, New York (studied film)
Saint Agnes Academy in Houston, Texas

Relationship: Milo Ventimiglia (actor; born July 8, 1977; dated since 2002)

Father: Martin Bledel (Argentinian)

Mother: Nanette Dozier (Mexican)

Brother: Eric David Bledel (born in 1986)

Claim to fame: As Lorelai 'Rory' Leigh Gilmore on TV Series Gilmore Girls

Alexis Bledel Biography

Kimberly Alexis Bledel (born September 16, 1981) is an American actress and former fashion model. She is known for her role in the television series Gilmore Girls, as well as the films Tuck Everlasting, Sin City, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She goes by her first name, "Kimberly", with family and friends, but is known professionally as Alexis Bledel.

Bledel was born in Houston, Texas. Her father, Martín Bledel, is Argentinian, and her mother, Nanette, is Mexican. She has one younger brother, Eric, born 1986. Her first language is Spanish, and she did not learn English until she began school. In fact, her Sisterhood co-star America Ferrera was surprised during an interview with a Spanish magazine when Bledel started speaking Spanish. Bledel's mother encouraged her to try community theater when she was a child to overcome her shyness. She subsequently appeared in local productions of Our Town and The Wizard of Oz before being scouted at a local mall and given work as a fashion model. She attended St. Agnes Academy in Houston and is a Roman Catholic. She went to Page Parkes Center for Modeling and Acting and majored in film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for one year. She previously had appeared in the film Rushmore as an extra in a classroom scene.

Bledel made her TV debut on The WB series Gilmore Girls in 2000. She portrayed Lorelai Leigh "Rory" Gilmore, the daughter of single mother Lorelai Victoria Gilmore. Initially, Rory was a high school student living with her mother, but later moved on to college at Yale University, where she, among other things, worked as the editor of the Yale Daily News. Bledel has said that she feels she can relate in some ways to Rory, both when it comes to some personal traits and her relationship to her own parents. She also sees the family structure and mother-daughter relationship on the show as something to which many people can relate.

In 2002, Bledel was voted one of Teen People's "25 Hottest Stars Under 25". She appeared as the main character in the video for Less Than Jake's "She's Gonna Break Soon", lead single from their 2003 album Anthem. The single charted at number 39 on the UK charts. In 2005, she starred in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants based on the book by Ann Brashares. She played Lena Kaligaris, a talented artist on a journey with her three best friends, linked over the summer by a pair of magical jeans.

In 2005, Bledel made a shift from previous TV and film characters while portraying Becky, a prostitute, in the movie Sin City. "She's a very professional prostitute. She carries a gun and she kicks ass," said Bledel of Becky. Despite her tough and precocious exterior, Becky gives the impression of being the young and insecure one among the women of Old Town, because of her young appearance and her close relationship to her mother, from whom she keeps her profession a secret. Sin City is shot almost entirely in black-and-white, with splashes of color here and there, such as a red dress, blood or an entirely yellow evil character. In Becky's case, it was her eyes that kept their color, as director Robert Rodriguez claimed that he found Bledel's eyes to be "so amazing I had to keep them blue in the picture."

Black Music Month 2008: The Thom Bell Sessions

This is the second in a series Black Music Month Playlists that will explore common themes explored in the Soul Music Tradition.


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When Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, it put again placed a focus on the legacy of "Philly" Soul. The success of Philadelphia based acts like Boyz II Men, Jill Scott, The Roots, Musiq, Eric Roberson, Jaguar Wright and Kindred the Family Soul has helped give the very idea of Philly Soul contemporary cache. But all too often memories of the classic days of Philly Soul fail to recall the impact of Philly based doo-wop acts, which featured high-pitched lead vocalist and many of the forgotten musicians and producers that gave the city its signature sound. At the height of their power, Gamble and Huff managed Philadelphia International Records (the groundbreaking black boutique label) and presided over a music publishing company known as "Mighty Three Publishing." The third member of that triad was Thom Bell, a staunchly independent, Caribbean bred musician and producer who always resisted joining into the Philly International's camp. Instead Bell chose the role of the free agent, who would have the liberty to work with artist that he wanted to work with. The product of that independence are definitive Soul recordings from The Delfonics, The Stylistics and The Spinners. Here's a playlist of some of the best of the Thom Bell Sessions:

"La-La (Means I Love You)"--The Delfonics

The Delfonics were the first Philly Soul group that Thom Bell had regular success with. They would never reach the supergroup status of groups like The Stylistics and The Spinners, but like their New York City based peers The Main Ingredient, they were the quintessential East-Coast Soul harmony group of the late 1960s. And "La-La (Means I Love You)" is just timeless, from the simplicity of the lyrics: "Now I don't wear a diamond ring and I don't even have song to sing, all I know is la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la...la mean, I love you" to the earnestness of lead singer William Hart's soaring falsetto. The genius of the song was not lost on a young Michael Jackson--a big fan of Hart--who recorded his own classic version of the song on the Jackson Five's ABC (1970) recording.

"People Make the World Go 'Round"--The Stylistics

As would be a regular occurrence with Bell, once he did all that he could with a group, he would move on to the next challenge. That next challenge was Russell Thompkins, Jr. and the Stylistics. Thompkins, who is one of the most legendary falsettos of all time, fit perfectly into Bell's Philly-Soul sensibilities. With new writing partner Linda Creed in tow, the Stylistics recorded a string of simply classic recordings including, "You Make Me Feel Brand New," "Betcha by Golly Wow" and "Break Up to Make Up". Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Al Green, notwithstanding, Bell's work with the Stylistics in the early 1970s was the definitive Soul sound. But I always go back to that very first album, when the stakes were less, and find the brilliance of "People Make the World Go Round." Powerful and subtle social commentary (with the winds of change literally blowing in the background) with an insurgent energy that aimed to find the human connection of it all. The song was never more powerfully employed that in the opening segment of Spike Lee's 1993 period piece Crooklyn.

"You Are Everything"--The Stylistics

"Today I saw somebody who looked just like you/she walked like you do/I thought it was you/As she turned the corner/I called out your name, I felt so ashamed, when it wasn't you..." Damn. Thom Bell and Linda Creed wrote those lyrics only a short time after Bell mistakenly believed that he saw someone he knew in the street. And I cite these lyrics to again highlight how Bell and Creed often took simple everyday experiences and turned them into lyrics and melodies that just tugged at the heart. I mean damn, who hasn't thought they saw a long lost boyfriend and girlfriend walking across the street or on a passing subway train and then spent the next hour lamenting about what could have been? Cards on the table, I'm a romantic cat, and Ne-Yo ain't writing nothing like this.

Read the Full Article at Critical Noir @ Vibe.com

TiVo Alert: John L. Jackson, Jr. on BookTV (C-Span 2)

Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness

Author: John Jackson, Jr.

Upcoming Schedule

Saturday, June 21, at 9:00 PM
Sunday, June 22, at 3:30 PM


About the Program

John Jackson, author of "Racial Paranoia," discusses the current state of race matters in the United States. Mr. Jackson uses recent events, like Hurrican Katrina and the walk out of Dave Chappelle to deconstruct the idea of racial paranoia. Mr. Jackson spoke at the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore in Philadelphia.

About the Author

John L. Jackson, Jr., teaches at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America and Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. His writing has appeared in numerous academic and popular publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, South Atlantic Quarterly, and the American Journal of Sociology. He lives in Philadelphia.

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women

from William Jelani Cobb:

Dear Friends:

I am one of the contributors to the anthology Be A Father to Your Child, which focuses on encouraging healthy fatherhood development in the black community. We felt it necessary to issue the following statement and petition in response to the recent verdict in R. Kelly's child pornography trial.

Please read and, if you agree, sign and forward this to your networks.

Sincerely,

Jelani Cobb

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Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly's absurd defense and find "reasonable doubt" despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman [in the courtroom] was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly's claims to innocence. It is about our survival as a community. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood


We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:

Who's Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:

I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Organizations:

The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

Snoop, Soccer Dad

from NPR's News & Notes

Larger than Life Black Dads on the Small Screen

News & Notes , June 13, 2008 · This Sunday is Father's Day, a day of celebration for dads across the country. But in the black community, the role of the father can be complicated.

For some, the only time they see an African-American father and his children together is on television.

From The Cosby Show to The Bernie Mac Show to today's spate of reality shows starring famous rap stars, NPR's Tony Cox examines the images of black fathers on television with Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African-American studies at Duke

Listen Here

Obama, the Father

from The News & Observer

Point of View: A Father's Day Message
by Mark Anthony Neal

DURHAM - The dap-love that Barack Obama and wife Michelle shared at a recent rally highlights one of the most refreshing, yet seldom talked about aspects of his candidacy. This was Barack Obama not simply as the first African-American nominee of a major political party, but Barack Obama as African-American husband and father.

The Obama campaign has tried throughout this year's presidential campaign to downplay the significance of the senator's race, yet he stands as such a stark counterpoint to long-held stereotypes about African-American men as fathers and husbands. In this regard, his ascendency challenges myths not only about the capacity of African-Americans to serve as commander-in-chief, but also about black men as fathers.

With Father's Day almost upon us, Barack Obama, the African-American father, offers needed affirmation of the black men who toil and struggle to be effective parents.

There's a veritable cottage industry associated with so-called black fatherlessness, as many books and studies make the link between under-achieving black boys and the lack of father figures in their lives. The very idea of the shiftless, lazy, irresponsible black male has reached such mythical proportions that when black men show evidence of even the most basic of parenting skills, it's cause for celebration. Indeed, much of Obama's appeal lies in the fact that he has overcome the absence of his own father.

In his best-selling memoir "Dreams from My Father," Obama provides a heart-wrenching account of the effect that not having his father in his life had on him. Obama's parents divorced when he was a child and he had little contact with his father, who died in 1982. Obama literally had to conjure a father, whom he saw only once after his parents' divorce, recalling, "I would meet him one night, in a cold cell, in a chamber of my dreams."

Yet there's no secret to Obama's success. Even without his father present, he was a product of strong parenting and adult presences, such as his grandparents, in his life.

Read the Full Essay @

NBM Book Notes: In Search of the Black Fantastic

from Oxford University Press

In Search of the Black Fantastic:
Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
by Richard Iton

Prior to the 1960s, when African Americans had little access to formal political power, black popular culture emerged as a tool to forge community and effect political change. However, with the new avenues opened to African Americans in the post-Civil Rights era, many believe the influence of black popular culture on the political sphere began to diminish steadily.

Yet as Richard Iton shows in this uniquely trenchant volume, despite the changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement--and contrary to the wishes of those committed to narrower conceptions of politics--black artists have continued to play a significant role in the making and maintenance of critical social spaces. Here, Iton offers an original portrait of the relationship between popular culture and institutionalized politics, tracing the connections between artists such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Pryor, Bob Marley, Erykah Badu, and those individuals working in the protest, electoral, and policymaking arenas. With an emphasis on questions of class, gender, and sexuality--and diaspora and coloniality--the author also illustrates how creative artists destabilize modern notions of the proper location of politics, and politics itself.

Ranging from theater to film, and comedy to literature and contemporary music, In Search of the Black Fantastic is an engaging and sophisticated examination of how black popular culture has challenged our understandings of the aesthetic and its relationship to politics.

Reviews

"Iton's work possesses the depth of wide reading in modernist theory and the breadth of wide-open eyes and ears for the popular... challenging, illuminating and groundbreaking. For both lay reader and academician, it may well 'compel a revision of our notions of the political.'"Richard Iton is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the winner of the 2001 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book award and the 2000 Best Book Award on the Social, Cultural, and Ideological Construction of Race from the American Political Science Association for Solidarity Blues: Race, Culture, and the American Left ."

--Publishers Weekly

"Iton has committed what many will see as a double professional sin. He has taken the vernacular cultures of black Atlantic people seriously and has used them to produce this deep and stimulating exploration of their political aspirations and achievements. There are exciting and challenging arguments on every single page of this tour de force."

--Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, London School of Economics

"Richard Iton's book is an impressive work of scholarship, combining dense analyses of black popular culture with rich insights rooted in political theory. It is a superb contribution to our understanding of the political importance of black popular culture."

--Robert Gooding-Williams, Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor, University of Chicago

"In Search of the Black Fantastic is a bold and thoroughly original exploration of the knotty relationship between politics and popular culture of the black diaspora during and after the civil rights era. In this learned, eloquent, and persuasively argued book, Richard Iton analyzes the transformative power of a stunning array of cultural forms."

--Valerie Smith, Director, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University

***

Richard Iton is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the winner of the 2001 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book award and the 2000 Best Book Award on the Social, Cultural, and Ideological Construction of Race from the American Political Science Association for Solidarity Blues: Race, Culture, and the American Left .

Lalah Hathaway: Soul Sister

Amid a sea of rump-shaking R&B starlets, Lalah Hathaway shines with herbrand of grown-woman soul.

Sister Soul
By Mark Anthony Neal | TheRoot.com

June 9, 2008--For much of her musical career and indeed her life, Lalah Hathaway's legendary last name likely mattered most to the people who encountered her. There was a novelty to Hathaway's debut recording in 1990-the daughter of a legendary soul singer makes good-though 18 years and four recordings later-Hathaway is a fully-grown woman who can stand on her
own musically. Self Portrait, marks Hathaway first recording since Outrun the Sky (2004) and also her first recording from the newly-revamped Stax recording label.

Given Stax's singular position as a great-if not the greatest-soul label, it is only fitting that the daughter of the late Donny Hathaway, whose music trafficked in a range of musical genres including gospel and blues, would find a recording home there. "It's really cool," Hathaway says of her relationship with the new Stax, "I'm excited just being mentioned in the same breath of such an iconic legendary label that is just synonymous with\ the concept of soul music all over the world."

On the new record, Hathaway pairs with producer Rex Rideout on most of the tracks. Rideout also produced Hathaway's earlier version of Luther Vandross' "Forever, For Always, For Love" which appeared on Outrun the Sky and the Forever, For Always, For Luther smooth jazz tribute to the late Vandross. Hathaway is quite happy with the work she did with Rideout noting that, "Right now for me, he's the cat." According to the singer, Rideout was able to "get things out of me that I did not know were there yet. And it's not by forcing or prodding-there was an ease working with him that I hadn't felt with a producer before."

Additionally as the recording's title suggest, Self Portrait, is the first recording that Hathaway has done in which she could control every aspect of the process. In that sense, the recording offers more of a glimpse into the woman, who as a little girl had access to one of the true geniuses of black music. "Absolutely," she responds when asked about the personal touch of Self Portrait, "more than any other record, just because of my involvement and that is at every level like choosing the producers and the musicians and the rooms that we mix in and the arrangements and writing and producing.and that's not to claim it and have it, but it's really a way to get it like I want it."

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Priyanka Chopra & Harman Baweja On The Sets Of Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Taj Hain

Priyanka is truly gorgeous and Harman is quite the handsome debutante, but are the two smarter than a 5th grader? The two were put to test and took the challenge for the ‘Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?’ finale at Film City.

SRK teased his ‘Don’ co-star Priyanka, and Harman couldn't help, but laugh.

Aishwarya Rai & Abhishek Bachchan @ Sarkar Raj Premier Green Carpet Pics - IIFA Awards 2008

Aishwarya & Abhishek Bachchan At Tree Plantation Event

Adam Mansbach on "White Privilege"

From NewsOne.com

OP-ED
Former VP Candidate Fails to See Her Own White Privilege
by Adam Mansbach

"Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment."

When former Vice Presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro made the remarks to which she refers in her May 30 Boston Globe op-ed, pundits and commentators across the ideological spectrum consistently fell all over themselves to avoid accusing her of racism. Seldom in political life has the sinner been granted so much immediate distance from her sin.

What Ferraro actually said bears little resemblance to the facile pseudo-summary she offers in her editorial. Her comments were not about "the influence of blacks" on the Obama campaign. Her exact words to a California newspaper were "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," and she defended them by arguing that she, likewise, would not have been on the 1984 Democratic ticket if not for her gender.

Ferraro appeared not to recognize the obvious difference between being appointed to a ticket, as she was, and winning a record number of primary votes across the entire nation, as Obama has. In the days following her initial remarks, she claimed, as in her Boston Globe op-ed, that "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

Ludicrous-and sad. Ferraro has officially ruined her own obituary by adding a crimson asterisk of aggressively divisive, ill-informed, race-baiting to her own trailblazing career in public service. More important than assessing the magnitude of her self-destruction, though, is examining the notion she puts forth: that whites in America have been rendered voiceless, that "you can't open your mouth without being labeled a racist," that to be black is to be 'lucky' (to paraphrase another of her comments about Obama).

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Adam Mansbach is the author of the novels The End of the Jews (Spiegel & Grau, 2008) and Angry Black White Boy (Crown, 2005).

Avril Lavigne - Superb Shoot Pics