rainbow coalition?

honestly, i'm not THAT mad at jesse for this ... i feel that since it wasn't a public statement then he can say what he like. granted, the statement revealed jesse's bitterness, jealousy, and slight mental illness. other than that ... i think the only one who loses from this display of ignorance is jesse. he don't need more people telling him he was wrong ... i think he knows it deep down in his heart.

nikki giovani once wrote: black love is black wealth. is that why we so poor?

hip hop cadillasick #4081

i'ma be highlighting some hip hop classicks ery now and again ... because. i want to.

first and last time: a classic sticks with you through time. classics are timeless even if they capture a specific moment of time and truth.

A) this first one is a joint i'd love to hear at a party ... but no one ever plays it.

B) this song captures the spirit of hip hop in the mid to late nineties --- q-tip and mobb deep on the same song rapping bout materialism and alchohol ... and by materialism i mean that gear we used to rock ... what was i doing in size 38 guess? jeans???!

C) the track is dope - i don't think you can hear the fly horns so good or the bassline on computer speakers but we gon do our best ...

D) favorite line: "and guess? was hot/so guess what"

E) bonus* question: on what song does q-tip reference #4080?

(to listen you will have to turn off the page music -- to your right and scroll down to turn off the music player ...)

love triangle tangle

1) first, i want to bring your attention to the fact that obama mentioned weezy B. in a speech and here is what he said:

"You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school," Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia.

&The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need for people to be committed to working hard in school so they can get a job after school.

Obama said he knows some young men think they can't find a job unless they are a really good basketball player.

"Which most of you brothas are not," Obama, who played basketball in high school, a sport he continues to play to this day, said jokingly. "I know you think you are, but you're not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA."

2) second, i want you all to read how TIME is analyzing the connections between obama, weezy, hip hop, and blackness in a swampland blog titled, "the politics of lil wayne". i want to reserve my opinion about this blog ... and then i don't.

3) my opinion: the TIME blog is condescending and ever more illuminating about the culture clash between white and black america ... or money vs. poverty ... or youth vs. oldheads ... whichever way you want to group folks ...

it's a clash and there is something lost in translation.

i think hip hop has always been political; TIME mag might consider it "crude" but that's a value judgement. cuz i think highwaters are kinda crude. and i bet most of the TIME staff got their pants jacked up under their chests.

hip hop is political but it just don't fit in a little box. hip hop has always engaged contemporary politics and current events. hip hop doesn't belong to a political party. that is a limited idea of political. hip hop comments on the human condition which to me is ... political. hip hop advocates for individual, civil, and human rights on the regular ... and that ... is ... POLITICAL.

4) i love hip hop ... and i am woman. i am so tired of people trying to make hip hop ANTI-WOMAN.
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& hip hop loves ME back.

it probly don't love you cuz you act like a BITCH, BITCH.

yeah i said that ... and if you know hip hop you know how i mean it.

and if you don't know what the fuck just happened don't ASSUME, don't take it personal ... listen to more hip hop.

the zahir

another book by paulo coehlo.

simply put zahir means obsession in arabic ... it's more complicated than that but not very ...

your zahir could be different from my zahir ... mine used to be a man/men. a boy(s)? ok, maybe it still is.

when a man didn't love me the way i thought i was supposed to be loved by a man; i would obsess.

by reading 'the zahir' (in the winter of 2007) i truly started to understand the concept: that love is everywhere and in all things.

that it is a matter of perception ... as most things are. (i first confronted this concept in the mastery of love by don miguel ruiz but it seemed very distant and very impossible.)

sure, i could stay in my little box (or hole deep in the earth) and keep insisting that i should be loved in a specific way ... or i could CHOOSE to accept the little love i received from a man ... and the abundant love i receive from the universe.

it's not easy to try to see love from a tree as equal as love from a man (or whatever gender you are loving) ... cuz we get told all our lives that romantic love is the ultimate love ...

i have experienced something more these days ... and the zahir set me on that path ... at the time that i read the book i was obsessed, i was fixated on a person ... just like the character in the book whose wife left him ...

you, yourself might say oh, well if my wife left me ... that would be the end of my world too ...

that's just what the character had to ask himself.

why don't many of us feel GOD's love? is it because it's not out there? or is it because we refuse to SEE it?

do we INSIST on love coming in and from a certain package? ask yourself.

LOVE,
this blogger right to you

on vacation ... top 7

yep, i was on one. i was too busy relaxing to blog.

and i should have wrote this BEFORE i went on vacation but it's just my style to be prepared after the event. ask my mama ...

sooooo while i was away you shoulda read the OLD, OLD shit ... na mean? here's my top 7 blogs in no particular order:

1. the kingdom -- about how to forgive folks for genocide

2. self-reflexive racism or vomit in your mouth -- the most profound shit i ever had to say about racism (in my humble one-person opinion)

3. your breath smells like love -- i tell things bout myself others might consider embarassing, i connect the dots, and i'm honest with you and myself

4. tastes great/less filling: we could all be wright -- some of my thoughts on the rev wright/obama debacle (it will resurface in november or early october)

5. pump the brakes on the auto-assumption -- oooh VIDEO blog for those of you with short reading spans, i love this white pastor who is almost rev wright's best friend; he GIVES it to FIX news

6. pigs part two -- this a young brother who is doing something to make the world a better place ... no more whining about dirty cops ... wash ya mouth out with soap

7. will afrika unite -- pan africanism ... figure it out ...

yawn. i'm tired. need another vacation.

UPDATE: i went on another mini-vacation - i forgot it was july 4th weekend. you know even though we aint free black folks love to celebrate july 4th at a cookout or SOMEthing. so i did.

pre-baby

it wasn't that i didn't believe in God.

i just thought he didn't believe in me.

this was around 2001-2004.

so, i don't want you to think i have been a pious, prayerful somebody all my life.

God saved my life and i'm not going into the details in this particular blog but that's what i consider the truth.

i think happiness and love are hard to achieve without some kind of faith ... i don't care if you call it God, yahweh, muhammed, or the wind ... but faith that our existence is meaningful, that there is an energy force greater than ourselves, that there is a positive direction to the universe ...

i used to think not ... so ... much. i doubted that 'things' would work out either for me or for others who were suffering.

that doubt left a little crack in the wall which left me vulnerable to dark and negative thoughts. doubt drove me to fear. and fear kept me miserable. and you know ... misery loves company. then before long all you can see is misery all around you in the faces of others you have made miserable.

i encourage you to examine your faith. do you have any? if no - what is standing there in its place?

again - no prosletyzing here, no conversion tactics ... believe in the wind, believe in good people and good wine, believe in your own powers and capabilities, believe in the god in you, believe in love.

just please have faith ... in something GOOD because it will carry you through all your days and it will be the pre-dawning of your future love and happiness.

can't forget zimbabwe

you know mugabe ... he's famous for kicking white people out of africa ...

he's trying to be president for life ... just a little violence to keep your political opponent on his toes ... sweet, sweet africa ... learn you some here

cuz we all connected whether we like it or not.

this is Tsvingirai who thought he would be president (cuz he won the elections) but sometimes elections don't mean much: