March 2008 Archives
Bastards out of Diaspora: On the Unfortunate Circumstance Surrounding Sean Levert's Death
Like the rest of you, my heart goes out to R&B legend Eddie Levert in the untimely loss of yet another child. But news of Sean Levert's death just two years after his brother Gerald's doesn't just remind us all of our mortality but call attention to an issue plaguing Black American communities: fiscally irresponsible fathers. For Sean Levert spent his last days in jail for non-payment of $80,000 in child support. $80,000 is a lot of money but please believe many fathers with lesser demands on their income, also don't step up to the plate. Roots affiliate Dice Raw once rhymed, "I leave niggas missing in action like the Dads in the projects," and I can personally attest to MIA fathers in the Black middle class as well. To have a father indifferent to his financial responsibilities is crippling. Lest you think this pain is relegated to childhood, imagine perusing the aisles of Papyrus or Hallmark each Father's Day or Christmas. All those cards touting a father's sacrifice, support, stability, well, they not only don't fit your situation but they remind you what you missed. Should punishment for absconding child rearing responsibilities be jail? I don't know. America is overincarcerating her people, especially her Black and Brown citizens, and locking a deadbeat dad up prevents him from marshaling any additional resources to pay his debt but I can't say that I'm totally against it. Punishment might be what's in order. If you can't turn a deadbeat dad into a provider, you sure can lock his triflin' ass up. I mean, really, what kind of person can't get enough get right to meet the needs of his children?! Too many and the situation is critical because it's not just the usual suspects, not just "the shiftless, no good men," as Photographer/Blogger Sandra Rose noted in her valuable criticisms of the criminal justice system but many otherwise sensible working men raised in 2-parent households who should know better and with that I'll cede the floor to Ed O.G.
I Am the Black Gold of the Sun
Tags: MP3, Stevie Wonder
Per Stevland Morris [MP3]
Per Abbey Lincoln [MP3]
Source: ile oxumaré
Per Frank McComb [MP3]
This is an affirmation/aspiration. Take and do with it as you please.
PS-Wonder-FULL NYC is Saturday May 10, 2008.
Hip Hop Quotable
So I'm skimming through "Because Prodigy Says So", Prodigy of Mobb Deep's Vibe.com guest blog, and happen upon this succinct comment on Ballerina P's post by qnz finest:
"gangstas dont keep blogs"
Thanks for my evening dose of laughter. I'd also have you know that when you run a Google image search for ungangsta, a photo from my blog is the 4th hit after the Game and a peace-throwing hat-to the-back-sporting white girl. It might be time for me to finally get that Thug Life tatted on my chest.
On "Stuff White People Like"
For whatever reason, I thought at least one of the founders of the Stuff White People Like blog was black. It turns out, according to a Boston Globe article published today, that the blog was the brainchild of two Canadians, one white, Christian Lander, and one Filipino, Myles Valentin. Although the conceit has since struck me as stale, I was an early fan, which may have been attributed to Lander's understanding of white privilege
This is the stereotyping of people who have tried to distance themselves from what they perceive as white stereotypes: the white trash, the Republican," says Lander, 29, who works as a copywriter at Schematic, a new media marketing company. "Well, you're still white, you still have white privilege. It still exists, believe it or not. No matter how much you donate to charity or how much organic food you eat, you still have white privilege.
And that is something good intentions and guilt on the palms out hand or dreams and hopefulness on the Black side* cannot erase.
*I chide because I love.
It's the not so little things...
Tags: Brooklyn, Journalism, Media, Race, Writing
This Easter evening, as I was sorting through my Google Alerts, I came across this superficially benign neighborhood profile on Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, "Elegance is Abundant; Groceries Are Less So." That the article's discussion of the neighborhood's alluring features, including a survey of the real estate market, was targeted towards white yuppies was not surprising but the blithely covert manner by which that was communicated was disturbing. In the article, under the subheading, "WHAT YOU'LL FIND," reporter Gregory Beyer broke down the neighborhood's demographics:
A stroll through the neighborhood -- about three-quarters of a square mile, from Flushing Avenue on the north to Atlantic Avenue on the south, from Vanderbilt to Classon Avenue -- reinforces its claim to racial and ethnic diversity. (The Department of City Planning, drawing on census data, estimates that of the more than 20,000 residents, 60 percent are black, 15 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian.)
Now, you'll notice that the percentage of whites was not mentioned; strangely whites, in Breyer's telling, don't count towards the ethnic diversity of a community and worse yet are in their absentia (and relative minority) the presumed, the unnamed, the control, if you will. But what's even more grating was what Breyer wrote next,
There is also the whiff of impending change.
"People with money are coming into the area," Ms. Neinast said, and developers have responded. On Myrtle Avenue, the Absolute, a five-story glass condominium at Steuben Street, radiates luxury. Nearby, on Classon Avenue, is the Azure, a six-story glass building that bears signs reading, "Cool Contemporary Condos" and "Join the Brooklyn Evolution." Reuben Pinner, the developer, said it would open by summer.
It's clear that the impending change Breyer refers was white gentrification by not naming white's residence in his earlier description of the neighborhood and by his decision to follow that assertion with a quote from Ms. Neinast (who coincidentally is my former landlord) that "people with money are coming into the area."
Reading this fanned my longstanding concerns about audience and exclusion in mass media. Like many music magazines, particularly within male dominated genres, imagine their readers male and address them as such, most American mass media outlets imagine their audiences white. So reading mass media publications is a persistently taxing and annihilating endeavor as I'm constantly reminded of my own insignificance, invisibility. It's not just who, what, when, where, why but to whom, by whom, for whom.
In this instance, what was inferred is in part what is insidious and poisonous about being Black or any other 'other' in America, a country founded in and persisting in white supremacy (and be advised: white supremacy extends behind the hood. There are plenty of books and articles on the subject. See your local library for more info.) People like me aren't inferred in mass media. People like me aren't normative. That's why media talks about the woman and the black woman or the man and the Arab man. The unmodified individual is almost always white.
Photo source: The Box Tank via Urban Cartography
Amandla!
Tags: Hip Hop, Jazz, Jean Grae, Sathima Bea Benjamin
A dear friend of mine from high school lives in South Africa. I was hoping to jet down there this spring for her wedding but it's not happening. God willing, I'll make it down in 2010 to cheer what's left of the French team at the next World Cup, but until then the Ibrahim/Benjamin family--jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, jazz vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin and their daughter discerning hip hop fan favorite, Jean Grae-will have to hold me down. My favorite audio blog, Breath of Life has got an excellent post up through Saturday spotlighting this continental nuclear. Check it out!
I Heard A Word: For Colored Girls... to Return to the Great White Way
Tags: For Colored Girls, Ntozake Shange
So a little birdy whispered in my ear long ago that India.Arie would star in a to be mounted revival of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, but now that the cat is officially out of the bag, I'll weigh in. I know it is par for the course in contemporary Black performing arts to tap a recording artist for theatrical or film roles but I still don't think its a good idea. Of course, there are some singers and rappers who rise to the occasion but in most cases they fall flat. And it would be sad to see a work as classic as For Colored Girls... tarnished by a so so performance by Ms. Arie. Not to mention, I know too many exceptional out of work trained Black actresses and dancers who could really do Shange's masterwork justice. Nevertheless, please believe that I will pony up the funds for an orchestra ticket. I seldom miss a Black Broadway staging, and For Colored Girls... is too important to Black women to skip. Now I took a acting class at Spelman and selected a monologue from For Colored Girls... for my final performance. I'll share an excerpt of that monologue with you now:
one thing I don't need
is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs
i don't know what to do wit em
they don't open doors
or bring the sun back
they don't make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didn't nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
cuz of sorry
cosign.
*Pictured above are the playwright and a cast member in a vintage For Colored Girls... staging
The Audacity of Entitlement: Feminists and The Devolving Clinton Campaigning
Whomever you may support in this coming election, you have got to be appalled with how the Clintons and their surrogates, including many old guard feminists, have shat upon Black people and manipulated feminist ideals and societal criticisms. Diversity, equality and justice, it is now crystal clear, are only laudable when they vault white women to the echelons of power and Black folks of any gender can't get ours until a white woman gets hers. How else to explain their nonsensical suggestion that Obama should wait 8 years for Hillary Clinton two serve two terms before he assumes the reigns he improbably rassled from Clinton. Of course, this is old news to long time Black feminists like myself. I have been suffering the hypocritical yin yang some of these white feminists stay talking since I was a teen emissary at the Northwest International Women's Conference and feminist tomes have been vomit worthy at best, their world view and interests so narrow and normalized. Let us not assume that all white feminists are lovers of freedom, the social justice movement has always been stratified. Everyone wants their due but few want everyone to get their due. The shameless SNL stumping Tina Fey's, "Bitch is the new black" is just "all the women are white, all the blacks are men" in snazzier get up. What about us?
Groundbreaking former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro is the most recent desperate entitled white woman to exhibit her true colors (which I should add are not beautiful, or inclusive, like a rainbow). Her misreading of the nomination race as documented in this article by Jim Farber is abominable:
"I'm on Hillary's finance committee. I've done a fundraiser for her here at my firm. And I went and worked the phone banks before Super Tuesday. I have to tell you, this is a very emotional campaign for me," Ferraro said.
When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro's comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.
"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.
So Obama's ascent is attributable to luck? Think being born black/bi-racial in '61 gave Obama a leg up? Really, think he became the first black/bi-racial president of the Harvard Law Review on account of luck? You think he ascended to the senate, challenged the inevitable 'coronation' of Ferraro ace Hillary Rodham Clinton on account of luck? You think he took whitebread Iowa on account of luck? You think he's won he majority of states and the majority of pledged delegates on account of luck? If Obama is to Ferraro the Affirmative Action candidate, purportedly handicapped for success, than she has a false impression of Affirmative Action's primary beneficiaries who are, altogether now, white women. Obama undoubtedly benefits from male privilege, a privilege that is cut by his Blackness and Clinton undoubtedly benefits from white privilege, a privilege that is cut by her gender. But America's peculiar institution, although a century and half ago abolished, begat some pesky satellites, Jim Crow for one and whatever you want to call what makes Black life so invaluable to all races that cops would shoot Diallo 41 times, Bell 50 and the mainstream media not give a good cot damn whether Black female kidnapping victims see their family's faces again. This institutionalized racism, germinal to this nation--and on account of imperialism and colonialism, the world--embedded in its politics and cultural production makes it all the more difficult for Black people to secure power, and makes life for me living at the intersection of race and gender challenging.* Unlike straight white women who although hampered by the global scourge of sexism, can often derive power from their empowered white husbands regardless of intellect or achievement, which Clinton does boast. Their whiny tearful complaints are so typical of them in that their purported fragility restricts them but also, when wielded timely, enables them! And this attempt to turn the Democratic horse race into the oppression Olympics evinces the hollowness of their claims for equality. Those of us who work sincerely for a day when people are unhindered by racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, xenophobia and other ills, don't soap box bollocks to advance our careers.
*But still, to paraphrase my former professor Gloria Wade Gayles, every day I thank God I was born both woman and black!
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato
West Side Story: Bilal and Choklate at the Highline Ballroom
Tags: Bilal, Choklate, Concert Reviews, Music, Soul
The wind whipped so viciously Saturday night in New York's Meatpacking District, I was forced to take cover in a Maritime Hotel alcove as I advanced the final block to the Highline Ballroom. Unprepared to cede my few valuables to the boot-lifting gusts, I removed my earrings and my iPod earbuds and slipped both into my back pockets. Having rekindled a rocky rapport with New York Sports Clubs just a few weeks ago, I felt reasonably confident I could forge forward and when I finally arrived to the bi-level performance space, there were quite a few buppies, bohos and a smattering of white folks awaiting headliner Bilal and upstart Choklate.
With only one independent release to her name and Seattle residence, Choklate still claimed a few ardent fans at set start and quickly charmed the many more unaware with her unassuming brand of soul. Perched on a stool centerstage with her sole accompanist, acoustic guitarist Shelton Garner, seated at her left, Choklate opened with "Thank You." Augmented by adlibbed appreciations for Bilal, his management and the crowd, she quickly closed the cool distance between opener and diffident New York audience. Although confessedly nervous, Choklate comfortably addressed the crowd at length between selections, cracking up the ballroom with her unvarnished honesty and self-deprecation. She tackled 8 songs in all, showcasing her gravelly voice and her nuanced delivery throughout and wrapping her impressive set with an improvised number.
The soul brother of the hour made his appearance at 10:34 PM, his band already 4 minutes into a groove. He looked much like he did when I saw him kill in the very same venue in August but his temperament was distinctly different. In the many times I have heard Bilal live, beginning with Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival in 2001, I have never observed him so ebullient, so seemingly happy to be on stage and demonstrably appreciative of his fans. And it was an eager cabal assembled. I had to restrain myself from cursing out one hyper young lady who screamed requests for "Soul Sista" at every lull. Word to all concert goers, excepting Meshell Ndegeocello, most artists will perform their hit singles. No need to burst the eardrums of your fellow concertgoers or nag the artist. As I expected, Bilal eventually lowered the stan in question's blood pressure tackling "Soul Sista" last and satisfised the rest of us with the 13 preceding songs ranging from Sa Ra's "Hollywood," whose lyrics he forgot, to the J Dilla-produced "Reminisce" to unlikely throwback "All That I Am," sung along note for note by the audience. My only complaint were the levels. I mean the sound man's incompetence made for a frustrating hour and a half. The guitar, keenly played by Michael Severson, was too prominent and Bilal's mic, as those of his two backing vocalists', was too low, . You just could barely hear him and from his expressions and contortions it was clear he was sanging. The highlight for me was "Love Poems," my favorite song from 1st Born Second, after "When Will U Call." Oh for a return to decent major label soul songwriting. But with a parting "I Love Y'all" to the crowd, the concert soon came to an end expelling us all back into the whirlwind.
Set List: (Choklate) Thank You, Never Change, Dedicated to Music, Wish I Hadn't Told You, Bigger Than You, Incredible, Improvised Song (Bilal) Look Good?, Something to Hold, Got to Be Cool, For You, Hollywood, Let it Go, Reminisce, All That I Am, Sometimes, All for Love, Fast Lane, Make Me Over; ENCORE: Love Poems, Soul Sista
*Photo from Bilal's August show at the Highline Ballroom
On Spitzergate
Tags: Politics, Prostitution, Sex
Today news surfaced that New York Governor Elliot Spitzer patronized a high end call girl, quite possibly repeatedly. This is big news for tax-paying New Yorkers like myself and the nation, if the generous time allocated Spitzergate by network news programs is any evidence. I know prostitution is the oldest profession in the world but I don't understand its appeal from Black male Brazilian sex tourists to Charlie Sheen to Cristiano Ronaldo to Jewish political golden boy Spitzer. That so many would jeopardize their careers and sully their reputations for it is just astounding. That paid sex with a stranger appeals to so many is confounding. I guess it's a man thing. Any insights, please leave in the comments, anonymously if necessary.
The good news is the possible ascent of Lieutenant Governor David Patterson. Were Spitzer to resign, Patterson would become New York's first African American governor (he already holds the distinction of serving as New York's first African American Lieutenant Governor) and while I haven't scrutinized his CV, I did leave impressed and inspired after hearing him address the mourners at Max Roach's funeral this past fall at Riverside Cathedral in Harlem. His prospective governorship would also be notable in that he has a severe visual impairment and accordingly an awareness of issues around ableism. The broader perspective that could bring is absolutely exciting for progressive New Yorkers.
Alice Smith at the Highline: A Review
Tags: Alice Smith, Concert Reviews
Alice Smith is every bit as pretty in person as her admirers claim I can now attest after braving a monsoon to hear her at the Highline Ballroom last night. She wore a thin grey sweater that draped in the front and was cropped in the back to highlight her assets on display in these incredible stretch cuffed indigo jeans, which obscured most of her chic black Louboutin boots. Grinning at the enthusiastic welcome offered by the racially diverse crowd of stans, she hugged the mic and began with "Gary's Song," backed capably although not extraordinarily by her three man band. (Background vocalists would have been a nice addition). As Craig Ferguson noted in her performance on his program she's "adorable" in the least put upon way. She's got a playful and unassuming stage presence and she clapped giddily along with the crowd after each song. She's no showman, just a singer and she did that powerfully belting in much lower registers that she does on record throughout the night. I'm not enamored of her thick wail. She's twangy on record but exhibited much more affect live. It was Tina Turnerish times ten and worked best and the loudest rockingest moments. She's got serious lungs and at the crescendo's her voice is just devastating but at slower moments I was less enthralled. I really liked her cover of Bonnie Raitt's "Have A Heart." It was a great song choice and switched up the pace significantly. I've included the set list below. Not sure what the ninth song was. I believe it was a cover. Joan Jett maybe. It rocked!
1. "Gary Song"
2. "Fake is the New Real"
3. "Dream"
4. (New Song)
5. "Woodstock"
6. "Know That I..."
7. Cover: Bonnie Raitt's "Have A Heart"
8. "Desert Song"
9. ?
10. "Do I"
Encore
11. "New Religion"
12. Cover: Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face"
13. "Love Endeavor"
Seattle Soul: Choklate
Soul singing has become an increasingly fraught vocation; the Brit revivalists are cracked out or allegedly boinking for tracks and the run of the mills mask their mediocrity with Auto-Tune, designer beats and chest-popping choreography. But as Barry O and India.Arie remind me, there's hope. Moments of brilliance lurk in overembedded corners of MySpace, the low rent live circuit, DIY labels and occasionally a major label worth their weight in surplus jewel cases. I've recently been intrigued with Seattle-based soul singer Choklate. Her full-bodied voice, laid back melodies and judicious storytelling recall Jill Scott and Georgia Anne Muldrow. Check "Now What" on Choklate's MySpace page for a sample or if you're in the New York area, stop by the Highline Ballroom Saturday night when she opens for the inimitable Bilal. I caught up with Choklate via e-mail as she prepped for the Highline show and a number of Southern dates, including SXSW, after which she'll return to Seattle to record a follow up to her eponymous 2006 release.
VIBE: For those unfamiliar with your music, which of your songs best encapsulates what you do and why?
Choklate: That's hard to answer because each song encapsulates a different side or layer of what I get to do and there are many sides and layers. "Incredible" is the one though. I've just realized that theres a bit of greatness in me that I didn't know existed and that God put there and it (HE'S) really on display within the music and that song kind of captures that.
In what tradition of musicians do you see yourself working and what uniquely Choklate are you bringing to that tradition?
I see myself working with people who don't see dollar signs when they create their music. I envision being completely immersed in the moment of creation and looking over and the person I'm working with and seeing them be the same way. I don't know who that is yet though. I'd like to work with Mos Def, The Roots, Lauryn Hill, Bilal, Talib Kweli too--that'd be kewl. Brandy & Alicia Keys, maybe (they're really talented and Aquarian too. I like Aqua people). I could go on forever. It'd be a dream of sorts to work with Yo Yo Ma just because of the Silk Road Journey: one of my personal faves.
What are some hallmarks of your corner of the Seattle music scene and why do you think Seattle hip hop and soul artists have so infrequently garnered national attention?
You know what? I'm going to be completely honest with you. I have absolutely NO idea why that is. I will say this though: We have some institutions in place systematically that create the illusion of success to a handful of Seattle artists that doesn't always transfer outside of our little corner of the world, so perhaps it's the idea that what your trying to do, musically, is good when really you need to stop trying so darn hard. But that's me being smart mouthed in a way. Truthfully, I don't know.
You're playing NYC with Bilal as well as Dallas and Miami with Yahzarah. Tell me a little about your experiences with the larger indie soul community.
They're all really kewl people and I admire quite a few of them. I see their hustle and drive to exist in this industry and they all have genuine, unique stories. I've enjoyed meeting them and working along side them. I see that it gets a tad competitive sometimes and political just like anything else. It has been a roller coaster ride: sometimes up and sometimes down, at points, really wonderful and sometimes a smidgen of disappointment creeps in along the way but generally it's been fun to deal with the larger indie soul community. If people like the music you create, they support you and that's been nice to witness and experience.
What's next for you?
I get home from traveling late March and I'm going to make a pallet in the recording booth and have Vitamin D slide bread and water to me underneath the door till this next record is finished. We're not too far from completion so I should have to endure too much torture.
*Photo Credit: Jawara O'Connor
Demystifying Brooklyn: On Colson Whitehead's New York Times Essay
Tags: Brooklyn, Colson Whitehead, Fort Greene, Writing
When I moved to New York City, after a lifetime of longing, I did not look for an apartment in Brooklyn. In my weekly Village Voice and New York Times red-penned trawl, I only circled flats in Manhattan. I had, of course, spent an earlier summer living the highlife on Goldman Sachs' bill in Murray Hill and my sister was living on the Upper West Side but I had mainly been discouraged from settling down in Brooklyn, rather irrationally, by a college friend. Months and months of searching for a clean habitable studio $1250 or less in Manhattan came up wilted roses, so I had to expand my search and, whaddya know, my first venture to Brooklyn-Park Slope to be exact-resulted in finding an absolutely lovely and relatively modern studio in a condo building with elevator and laundry room for just $1225 (to be hiked to $1410 in the second year of the lease). Still in those first few years here, I spent little to no time in my own 'hood. Life was, for me, in the city despite having closely followed the nineties Brooklyn cultural boom or what writer Colson Whitehead deems the "Black Renaissance" and attributes to African Americans Spike Lee and Branford Marsalis and strangely the staunchly Puerto Rican Rosie Perez-whose connection to the African diaspora is as tenuous as it is phenotypically obvious-in a recent New York Times essay. For Whitehead, a Harvard-educated and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow-garnering author who held the late Norman Mailer in his celly's top 5, if I interpreted the essay's name-drop correctly, is unwilling or unable to discern how Brooklyn's brownstone-lined streets could enhance or develop the creative capital of all the journos, bloggers, poets and novelists therein. I may have at onetime shared his cynicism or fear of becoming a cliché but mostly my Manhattan-centrism was practical: My friends lived there, school was there and so was nightlife, Veg-City Diner (RIP), House of Field (RIP) and Otto Tootsi Plohound. It was only after full-time employment, and freelance life that I really attempted to dig my heels into my new Brooklyn haunt, Fort Greene, and I wish I had been more attune to my environs earlier if not for blind-eyed pride or in Whitehead's case, a muted strain of elitism?
Check out Whitehead's essay yourself. Any thoughts?
