Rick Ross: Devil in a New Dress (Video)

Rick Ross- Devil in a New Dress from n8bombay on Vimeo.

'Left of Black': Episode #12 featuring Marc Lamont Hill and Salamishah Tillet

Left of Black Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal discusses the crisis of Black Males and schooling, the de-skilling of the American Work-force and Social Media with Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill. Neal is also joined by University of Pennsylvania Professor Salamishah Tillet as they discuss the career of Kanye West, the impact of Nicki Minaj and definitions of musical genius.

→Marc Lamont Hill is Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University. A regular contributor to Fox News and CNN, Hill is the author of Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity.

→Salamishah Tillet is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the forthcoming Peculiar Memories: Slavery and the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke University Press). Tillet is also Founder of A Long Walk Home, a non-profit organization and a regular contributor to The Root.com.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Talks Kanye West

from The Liberator Magazine

Mumia comes to the defense of West from behind enemy lines, almost saying for him now what Kanye might say one day for himself when he's older and wiser -- Mumia has nothing to lose. For now, Mumia says Kanye speaks directly through his art as one of the "most brilliant musical artists of his generation."

Listen HERE

O-Dub on the New Kanye West

Kanye West Gets 'Twisted,' But Misses The Beauty
by Oliver Wang

On Monday one of the most anticipated — and most leaked — albums of the year hits stores: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. The rapper began releasing several of its songs on his own website since the late summer, and he even produced a 35-minute music video to go with it. Now, the final, complete album is in the offing.

Show Some Compassion for Kanye

What you saw in that interview with Matt Lauer and all the recent antics is an artistic genius who is in pain. Right now he needs our support, not derision.

Show Some Compassion for Kanye
by Bassey Ikpi

I've joked that Kanye was hugged too much as a child. It was a tongue-in-cheek observation, given how the same mind that gave us the 30-minute, visually and metaphorically stunning Runaway movie is prone to hissy fits and meltdowns when he doesn't get his way or award.

There were hints of this from the moment "Jesus Walks" exploded into our musical psyches, but after the death of his mother, Donda, it seemed as if Kanye became even more impulsive -- all act now, think later. Open book -- no filter. Queue up his infamous and inappropriately timed statement "George Bush doesn't care about black people." This is a man who doesn't mince words or hold back his emotions.

In a recent video making the rounds, Kanye discusses his last year and the penalties of being outspoken in a business that is all PR and photo ops: "If you say anything, you lose everything." Honestly? It's a refreshing approach in a society that seems to value politically mute buttons for celebrities. And refreshing, especially, for young black men who would rather stuff the pain until it eats them from the inside than let anyone see even a crumble of emotional dust.

It took me a while to admit to being a Kanye West fan. I loved his music and definitely saw hints of genius in his earlier productions both for other artists and for himself. But I found his arrogance off-putting. I appreciated his talent, but from the second I heard of this "Kanye West, son of college professors, raised to be intellectual and artistic," I expected more from him. At the very least, humility. Where I simply ignored the Soulja Boys and Ying Yang Twins of the world, I was disappointed in Kanye -- his swan dive into the hip-hop pitfalls of materialism and braggadocio bored me. I just expected more than the "Louis Vuitton Don" image and ridiculously ostentatious displays of wealth.

Still, as time moved on, so did my opinion of Kanye. I began to admire his ability to own himself, to express his unabashed love of fashion even while demanding that his fans think bigger, smarter. Different. Like when he openly challenged homophobia within the unabashedly homophobic rap community (we'll forgive him for not yet speaking openly about misogyny -- baby steps). Or his refusal to advance the gun talk. He's the anti-thug antidote -- the representation for the other side of the game.

Read the Full Essay @ The Loop

***

Bassey Ikpi is a Nigerian born poet-writer and mental health advocate. She is currently working on a memoir documenting her life living with bipolar II disorder. Follow her on Twitter.

Kanye West featuring Jay Z and Swizz Beatz--"Power Remix"

Kanye West feat. Jay-Z & Swizz Beatz - Power (Remix) by uristocrat

Gil Scott Heron on the Culture of Sampling

Scott Heron riffs on the sampling of his music by hip-hop artists, before going into "Your Daddy Loves You"

Staging Impropriety: Jes Grew at the VMAs

hat-tip to Jeff Chang & Salamishah Tillet

Staging Impropriety: Jes Grew at the VMAs

by Mark Anthony Neal

Twitter and Facebook were aglow, seconds after Kanye West’s most recent flare-up, this time snatching the microphone from a bewildered Taylor Swift, who had just won the “Best Female Video” award at MTV’s VMAs. West was ostensibly “protesting” Swift’s victory over fellow nominee Beyonce Knowles. West’s behavior at such events has become something of a cliché and as such it was almost to be expected. But this time was a bit different, in that West was not protesting on behalf of his usual favorite charity—himself. Something was afoot.

In a weekend that was in part defined by black impropriety—Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech and Serena Williams vitriolic verbal attack on a line judge at the US Open—West’s moment seemed like staged Jes Grew, as Ishmael Reed might refer to it, in response to what has been several months of improprieties liberally taken at the expense of black bodies, be it the late “King of Pop” or the current President of the United States. It is part of a script that West has carefully crafted, in the best (post-modern) spirit of P.T. Barnum. The boos that appeared whenever West’s name was mentioned throughout the evening were also part of that script and we all sat enraptured wondering how Knowles might respond to West’s misguided attempt to “speak” on her behalf. After a stirring performance of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” all eyes were on Knowles when she received the award for “Video of the Year” and called Swift to the stage to recover her interrupted moment.

What immediately stuck me about Knowles’ gesture, were the cynics who suggested that Knowles did so at the behest of MTV and that Knowles’ kindness was essentially staged by the network. Plausible indeed, but if that is plausible, why isn’t is also plausible that the whole experience was in fact staged, to generate the kind of buzz on social networking sites that translates into increased viewership and traffic at MTV.com? Now in its 25th year, the VMAs are an aging and fatigued brand. As such the “drama” of the awards—remember Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s staged kiss—has become more integral to the success of the awards than its performances.

There was no risk in having Kanye West act a fool, because it is what we have come to expect from him and fair amount of people will grant him his eccentricities, because of his genius. As for Taylor Swift, she now has increased visibility because she was the victim of black impropriety, something she shares with Kim Clijsters, winner of the US Open. Beyonce Knowles is now granted a level of gravitas for her public graciousness or what critic Leonard Feather once termed “a rare noblesse oblige gesture” in response to Aretha Franklin giving her 1973 Grammy Award to fellow nominee Esther Phillips. And finally for MTV, they have produced the most talked about VMAs since that Jackson and Presley kiss.

Even So-Called "Conscious" Rappers Cross the Line

"Make Her Say (Poke Her Face)”:
Un-conscious Hip Hop, Oral Rape and the Silencing of Women
by Jennifer McLune

Author’s Note: The following essay represents my attempt at articulating a response to Kid Cudi’s “Make Her Say (Poke Her Face),” featuring Common and Kanye West. I’d like to be honest in stating upfront that, during the process of writing this piece I only listened to the song and read over its lyrics on an absolutely-as-needed basis. The words & the images these contempt-ridden lyrics created in my mind left me feeling physically sick and emotionally depleted, even at times to the point of being traumatized.

As a female listener, one willing to allow herself to really hear this song’s words and take them to heart, the message was painfully clear: women like dick; we like it violently shoved in our faces, and, according to Common at least, we want oral sex forced upon us, however brutally men see fit to give it. We even enjoy having a man’s penis shoved down our throats, pushed up our mouths, literally rammed through our faces so far and with so much force that a penetration of the internal matter of our skulls occurs, i.e. the man hits “brain” with his dick. According to Common, Kanye and Kid Cudi, some women enjoy this kind of brutal, body punishing oral sex; they can learn how to beg, not only to be used as receptacles for men’s semen, but to be violated to the point of physical injury. Having to deal with this type of pure, unmitigated misogyny, and needing to think about it for an extended period of time in order to write about it made the completion of this piece extremely difficult. I enlisted the help of another radical feminist, Stephanie Cleveland, whose support and contributions in editing and writing spared me the ordeal of having to complete this essay all alone.

When the song “I Poke Her Face” was first brought to my attention, I thought that, if nothing else, at least Common’s “consciousness pimping” would finally being exposed. I imagined the singer would no longer be able to hide behind what we his listening public have so long pretended he’s about; this songs lyrics seemed to make it painfully clear who Common really is, and has in fact always been: a consciousness pimp who likes and expects to get my dick sucked by “stripper bitches,” just like any other woman-hating guy. Common seemed to be indisputably articulating that sentiment in the song, but leave it to one of his male fans, DC area poet and activist Kenneth Carroll, to dissent with a comment that is not only unoriginal, but also does exactly what Common and Kanye must have banked on—it demonstrates how their fans will dismiss any song, even one this overtly hateful, as a mere “inconsistency” in their struggle to be better men, certainly not an overt manifestations of the sadistic, full-blown misogynist these men really and truly are. Carroll writes:

I like Common, but this song reminds me of the Gil Scott Heron admonition to rappers on his album Spirits, when he told rappers "You can't be progressive on every other song. She's your queen on one song and your bitch on the other." Inconsistency is an issue for all of us however, that's part of the struggle to live to our highest ideals.

Why did the above statement make me feel almost as nauseated as the actual song itself? For starters, Carroll's response demonstrates no mere inconsistency, but rather, a particularly dangerous form of hypocrisy with respect to violence against women. He purports to care about honoring black women, but then proceeds to mask the sexual abuse of his sisters in callous euphemisms. "Inconsistency" is way too mild a term to use for inflicting the kind of sexual abuse on a woman Common sings about. Often times, I have noticed that most men, who won’t actually bring themselves to defend a song like “Poke Her Face,” but will instead use vague excuses in order to avoiding critiquing its message, may be doing so in order to continue living vicariously through these kinds of misogynist lyrics. Common creates a fantasy with these songs that many men can relate to, a fantasy world where men can be sexually dominant over a woman, and, at least in their own minds, put her back in her place.

Read the Full Essay @ Celie's Revenge

Filtering Kanye

from The Root

In 808s and Heartbreak,Kanye West filters his grief with the help of Auto-Tune.

Kanye's Pity Party
By Mark Anthony Neal | TheRoot.com

Dec. 16, 2008--For those who like to draw a line in the sand to distinguish between "real" hip-hop and that which is not-so-real, Kanye West has shown a consistent ability to blur the line. Since his 2004 breakthrough album, The College Dropout, there have been many rap artists as prolific and visible. But where so many of his peers simply have collections of songs, West has amassed a body of work—and there are few who could claim that since "Rapper's Delight." It is this body of work and the devoted fan base that comes with it that allows West to take risks; and this partially explains the oddity that 808s and Heartbreak represents.

808s and Heartbreak is the artistic culmination of a year of tumult in West's life, beginning with the tragic death of his mother, Dr. Donda West, after botched plastic surgery, and his breakup with longtime girlfriend and fiancé Alexis Phifer. What is quite clear, even after a quick listen, is that West would like to publicly mourn the death of his mother, but his bitterness toward Phifer becomes the default emotion. If there were an artist within hip-hop who would have license to mourn, especially for his mother, it would be West, but he chooses not to take us there—or so it seems.

One of the marked differences between 808s and Heartbreak and West's previous efforts is his reliance on Auto-Tune, the audio processor, which corrects the pitch in singing performances. As described by the New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, "Auto-Tunes locates the pitch of a recorded vocal and moves that recorded information to the nearest 'correct' note in a scale, which is selected by the user." Though Auto-Tune has been used by many mainstream performers, the technology found a new purpose among a young generation of hip-hop and R&B performers, notably T-Pain, who has translated his marginal skills as a vocalist and creation of memorable hooks, into a career of some distinction. And Kanye West is just the latest of several high-profile rap and R&B acts to experiment with the new technology.

Read the Full Essay @