Eclectic Relaxation

My...goodness...gracious

2009-05-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

This was worth resurrecting the blog.

The World Is Yours

2009-03-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last summer, my then-girlfriend asked me to put her on to some hip-hop.

Whenever I get a request like this from someone relatively uninitiated in the genre, I seldom know exactly where to start. After some consideration, I did what I thought made the most sense and started her off with the best: an 80-minute CD-R of Nas' finest tracks.

It's apropos. Fact: Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones is the best rapper ever. Bar none. Period. Accept no substitutes.

Next month marks fifteen years since the release of his seminal freshman album Illmatic. XXL Magazine - a periodical that long ago lost relevance - celebrated the event with an article on the album's making of; with interviews from all the beat makers, producers and the man himself on how each track and the album as a whole came together.

The pictures of a 20-year-old Nas and company capture the true grit of New York hip-hop culture during its renaissance period, and the stories behind the album's ten tracks shine a new and intriguing light on material that I can recite from front to back. ("N.Y. State of Mind" first verse in one take! Busta Rhymes could have taken the beat for "Halftime"!)

Illmatic is one of the top three best hip-hop albums of all time, one of very few perfect records and the best example of the genre's finest producers behind truly prolific wordplay that has withstood the test of time. No matter what Nas does for the rest of his career, no one can take this from him.

For your consideration (click on each scan to bring up the whole thing):

Pac and Primo: A long-awaited union

2009-02-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, aiight...this time I PROOOOMISE to keep up with this blog. As we get through the first quarter, hip-hop starts getting better and hence there's more to talk about.

The first thing that truly hit my radar this year is The Don Primo Edition, a mixtape of classic 2Pac verses over classic DJ Premier joints. Though I'd imagine that two of hip-hop's true talents blended together would be difficult to muck up, I'm sure it's possible. Fortunately for my treadmill run last night, it wasn't.

Twenty-eight tracks with a few interludes and some otherwise pointless guest artists fill out this bad boy. While I don't gush over 'Pac like so many of my contemporaries, I believe - nay, I KNOW - that Primo is literally the best thing that's ever happened to the musical aspect of hip-hop. My favorite cut from the mixtape is definitely "My Enemies Give Me Power:" It's "When We Ride on our Enemies" - that old Mobb Deep diss cut - over Nas' "I Gave You Power." The intro with Bishop yelling at Q in Juice gave me goosebumps.

I miss hip-hop. Download the link above and enjoy.

01. Intro - Primo Pac F Kanye Common
02. Holla If U Friend Or Foe
03. Gettin Money
04. Open Fire W A Full Clip
05. Understand My Style F Nas
06. Sleep On Me
07. Primo Speaks
08. Its All Real
09. Interlude - War
10. My Enemies Give Me Power
11. Here I Am Fk Yall
12. Paper On My Block
13. Hail Mary
14. Interlude - Hip Hops Influence
15. Old School Memories
16. Neva Call U Bth F Jeru Da Damaja
17. Against The World
18. So Ghetto Out On Bail
19. Thug Style
20. A Classic Combination F Kanye Biggie Big L
21. Interlude - From Ny 2 Cali
22. Better Dayz
23. Interlude - Origin Of Makaveli
24. Thugz Mansion
25. This Life I Lead
26. Throw Ya Gunz Up
27. Ready 4 Wuteva
28. Outro

Not gangsta...SO not gangsta!!!

2009-02-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

The most anyone's seen Ray J since...ever.

Last Saturday afternoon, following a hellish journey home from Los Angeles, I was too catatonic to do damn near anything, let alone get up and find a remote control so as to change the channel on the television.

And so it stayed glued to VH1 as I played catch-up on my computer. I endured the drivel of reality shows with washed-up 90s stars and camera whores before I finally got up to switch on the PS3 so I could continue watching my "The Tudors" DVDs.

As I got up, "For The Love of Ray J" came on. The pilot episode. I had read about it briefly on the plane ride in that abortion of a hip-hop periodical known as The Source, so my curiosity was ever-so-slightly piqued. I stayed through the first commercial break. Then the second. And then, before I knew it, I'd reached the elimination portion of the show and lost a good hour of my life that I'll never get back.

First off, it's safe to say that VH1 has become the Krispy Kreme of basic cable: Everyone knows the shit is not good for you in way, shape or form, but folks can't stay away. I never, ever go looking for VH1 shows, but if I end up glued on the station for whatever reason - usually a result of being in front of someone else's TV who has it on - I find it difficult to turn the hell away.

But I digress. "For The Love of Ray J" is constructed with pretty much the same formula as all these other "find love" exercises in putting society's dregs out there for public consumption. But for some reason, this series is even less palatable than than the others. I think it has to do with the fact that there is absolutely, positively nothing compelling about Ray J.

Flavor Flav? Interesting motherfucker. Bret Michaels? Former rock god. Who can name more than one song from Willie Norwood? If you can, email me and I'll hit you in the face with pizza dough for being a tool. This cat wouldn't exist in anyone's mental Rolodex if big sister Brandy hadn't had her run. The only reason anyone has mentioned his name in the past three years is because he railed half-Armenian, half-horse socialite/social disease Kim Kardashian and put the shit on videotape for all to see.

Leaking an intimate sex tape to the public without the expressed permission of his partner is plenty enough for any respectable woman to not want anything to do with a guy. But we're definitely not dealing with respectable women. VH1 is single-handedly setting the feminist movement back years with every one of these reality shows, just as the negroid males on the same shows probably took a handful of votes away from Obama.

Jimmy Kimmel put it perfectly when he addressed some of the Flavor of Love stars at The Roast of Flavor Flav: "Now where was I before I was interrupted by these whores?" Each of them get on the show and talk in the private camera room about how they're "different" from the rest of the women in the audience because they're "actually here because I am looking for something special; something real." And yet, they all end up 7/8ths naked in front of the camera embarassing the dogshit out of their parents. Dumb broads.

I mean, where do they find these women?? When they're all getting to know each other and rattling off their respective professions, all I wanted to hear -for whatever reason - was "medical school, lawyer, retail buyer." Nope. "Hairdresser. Waitress. Slutpiece." And as fine as most of them are, several of them screw up their natural beauty with terrible makeup, tawdry behavior and clothes that'll never get them invited to any man's dinner to meet the family. I mean honestly...a tattoo of a fucking jungle cat on the side of your face?!?!?!? I hope ol' girl comes from money...

And then you got Ray J himself feigning genuine interest in the women while projecting a not-so-modest solipsism that has him looking like a utter stooge. I always thought Flav was playing something of a caricature of himself on his show, but Ray J doesn't seem to be acting; the D-level singer is probably as surface-level as he'd have you believe.

I'm definitely done after one episode of this show. Especially since he kept the dirty, buttcheek-clapping stripper. If any of you are convinced these shows have any tincture of reality or genuineness, joke's on you.

...And That Right Soon: The Best of 2008

2009-02-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

So better later than never, right?

Please forgive my infrequent blogging as of late -- life has gotten in the way of the time/motivation to flex my creative headbone. But as I've done every year for the past half-decade or so, I want to present my compendium of best hip-hop songs of the year.

While 2007 was a boon year for the genre, 2008 left a bit more to be desired. At the end of '07, I had to sit down and make some serious choices regarding what would make it on an 80-minute CD-R. This time, I had to go back and really think hard about what actually made it out last year, and what was worthy of actually making a CD full of my favorite stuff.

It seemed that there was a bit of a dearth in the year's midsection in terms of quality music; the first quarter was uncharacteristically decent (The Roots, Elzhi) and the fourth also provided a few gemstars (Black Milk). But the summer of 2008 was a period in which I truly immersed myself in the world of alternative rock music for the first time in my life. Playing Radiohead all day, every day made up for the lack of good hip-hop to round out my mix CDs.

Royce Da 5'9" and Black Milk both continued their supremacy from 2007, and by extension made it on more than a few cuts on the best-0f mix. Somehow, Kweli made it on this bastard twice, which is interesting considering he's such a fallen star in my estimation, despite being one of my favorite emcees. Skyzoo probably made it on the mix for the last time, as he's getting exceedingly uninteresting and worthy of checking out only for beat choice.

Speaking of beat choice, just as is the case every year, a couple of these cuts are here for no other reason than stellar, infectious production (The Jake One, Nicolay and Kidz In The Hall joints). I'll never claim to be more righteous than the next listener for appreciating shit with empty lyrical content that either bangs in the whip or has fantastic musical quality. The difference is, I just don't make it a habit.

A few more thoughts:

- There are a lot of mixtape tracks on here with cats rhyming over other folks' beats. Every year someone else does far more justice to a beat than the original artist. See Royce and his decimation of every Lil' Wayne beat he goes over.

- Where the fuck is Saigon's album?!?!?!?!?

- This mix features what will probably be the best flipping of a song from a Corey Feldman movie (#10)

- The Foreign Exchange should have been on this mix. But Phonte wanted to make the sophomore album all about substandard crooning, so...

-Nas is still a fucking monster on the mic, but his beat selection has probably faltered forever.

- Termanology basically blew an album full of the best production lineup in like 13 years. But "The Chosen" has a Havoc beat that takes me back to the old Queensbridge days. And Term blacks out over it.

- Elzhi's solo album was a bit disappointing overall, but Detroit hip-hop still trumps everything else.

1. "The Leak" - Slaughterhouse (Royce Da 5'9", Joe Budden, Crooked I, Joell Ortiz)
2. "Done Talkin'" - Royce Da 5'9"
3. "Believe It" - Saigon
4. "Momma Can You Hear Me?" - Talib Kweli
5. "The Necessary Evils" - Skyzoo
6. "What We Live" - Nicolay and Kay
7. "A Billi" - Jay-Z
8. "Let Your Hair Down" - Kidz In The Hall (feat. Skyzoo & Lil' Eddie)
9. "Home" - Jake One (feat. Vitamin D, C-Note, Maine & Ish)
10. "Thou Shall Not Fall" - Joe Budden
11. "America" - Nas
12. "Long Story Short" - Black Milk
13. "Hot Thing" (Remix) - Talib Kweli (feat. Jean Grae)
14. "Royal Flush" - Outkast and Raekwon
15. "Motown 25" - Elzhi (feat. Royce Da 5'9")
16. "Heart Breakers" - Son of Ran and The Messengers
17. "Criminal" - The Roots (feat. Truck Turner and Saigon)
18. "The Chosen" - Termanology
19. "What If We Cry?" - Jay-Z and Coldplay

Waitin' for the porn to change

2009-01-23T12:51:00.000-08:00

If there was anything that 15-year-old Dustin knew well, it was the many resplendent joys of pornography.

I couldn’t get a girlfriend to save my natural life, I wasn’t involved in sports and video games didn’t have that six-hours-a-day appeal that they did when I was an adolescent. So I spent my formative teen years chasing after and amassing a collection of hardcore, softcore and HBO-late-night-programming videotapes that ultimately filled a military footlocker so heavy that I needed another hand to help me carry it – often at the cost of loaning out some of the material inside.

In high school, I was all about collecting black porn: the massive-titted bleached-blonde white women most conventionally associated with porn, while nice, became far too quotidian to keep my interest. Thanks to a very open-minded dad and friends in high school who were actually old enough to procure the stuff for me, I got my ample share of chocolate booty on film.

I was an early (read: underage) loyalist of Video Team’s Afro-Centric material -- namely the “Sista” and “My Baby Got Back” series. Fellow connoisseurs will recall the days of black porn laureates like Janet Jacme, Ron Hightower and Dominique Simone, on whose breasts you could balance three dwarves holding meal trays.

I knew all these porn folks more intimately than I probably should have. I knew Midori was singer Jody Watley’s sister. I knew that Crystal Knight actually performed when she was pregnant for a while. I thought that Mr. Marcus was the luckiest motherfucker on two-and-a-half legs. Hell, I still do.

As the years have elapsed, however, I’ve found that my attitude toward black porn has been tangential with my attitude toward hip-hop: the halcyon days have long fallen away, and now we have to dig a bit deeper for quality where there once was an abundance.

Back in the day, black porn starlets looked like they actually took into consideration that the world would see every bit of their creation and thus stayed in the gym. They were beautiful, diminutive and relatively innocent-looking, which made it delightfully shocking when they took penises the size of baby arms in their back doors like it was just another day on the job.

The black women in contemporary porn have devolved significantly. Honestly, these dames look like they’re smooth out of a strip club on the east side of Detroit. Broken press-on nails, belly folds, foot-long stretch marks and faces so buttery you’d think the beautiful women actually developed a collective sense of self-worth and left the porn to their busted brethren.

I think black porn reached its apogee around 1998, when Dee – one of my favorite “black” porn stars who’s actually Puerto Rican – was in her prime. Back then, you could pick up a title like “United Colors of Ass” or “Booty Talk” and know you would get at least three scenes with slammin’ women you’d actually consider taking home to mom if it weren’t for the whole porn thing. Now, I just assume that the sisters are gonna be all grody-looking and I will examine a DVD box much more closely before checking it out.

I can’t even tell you who the hot black actresses are today. It may be a result of a generally decreased interest in porn, as I can’t really rattle off the names of new porn starlets of any race (actually having a sex life drastically alters one’s overall interest in licentious viewing material, I’ve learned), but I pay enough attention to know that the “My Baby Got Back” series fell the hell off after, like, volume 25, and that that’s a reflection of the overall black subgenre.

Since the porn industry is in no real danger of suffering from the recession anytime soon (two things Americans will always need: health care and orgasms), I’m thinking we can get some of these beautiful sisters graduating college to a depressed job market to consider jumping into adult and increase the tone of black porn while netting six figures in the process.

I’m sure Mr. Marcus would be pleased to go back to the days of old. I know I would.

"Notorious" film review

2009-01-18T16:17:00.000-08:00

It would be an understatement to say that my expectations of the Notorious movie were abysmally low: The trailer was cornball, the folks responsible for the movie include P. Diddy as a producer and the guy who wrote Biker Boys, and (speaking of Biker Boyz) Derek Luke hasn't been in anything watchable since Antwone Fisher.

And yet, the film wasn't exactly a terrible piece of tripe.

Maybe it's that I see so many movies of a myriad genre and range that my expectations are low, but as far as biopics go, I think this could have been executed much worse...a sentiment not exactly shared by all.

The acting overall was not as bad as it could have been; newcomer Jamal Woolard did a pretty good job filling the titular character's sausagey shoes. He appropriately captured the presumed swagger of Christopher Wallace, as well as the emotional depth of his more reflective moments with his mother and his children. One of the most resonant scenes was Biggie's response to finding out his mother had breast cancer, as I could envision many young men responding the exact same way he did.

This Woolard guy is actually a real-life rapper with the stage name "Gravy." Is it wrong that I just blindly assume that this dude can't rap? How negative I've gotten toward my beloved genre...

But I digress. The story lines involving Lil' Kim and Faith Evans were interesting, if for no other reason than that I was curious how two relatively attractive women gravitated toward the fattest, nastiest, blackest motherfucker I've ever seen get famous. Kim's character did spend about 72 percent of the movie with her knockers out and pissed off at Big, so I guess I can see why the real-life Lil' Kim might be ticked at that. Not that I don't believe for a second that shit actually did go down grimy between the two of them.

The film would have us believe that 2Pac, Suge Knight and other devious West Coast rap personalities waged a one-sided war on the East Coast during the infamous mid-90s coastal strife. Was 'Pac the asshole they made him out to be and Biggie completely devoid of any wrongdoing? Perhaps, but I take into account that Notorious is a film basically made by the folks that loved him the most, so I'm going to assume some level of creative bias.

Things I didn't like? The movie deferred to the saccharine quite often; especially near the end when Big supposedly made peace with everyone in his life right before he was killed, as if he knew for sure it would happen. I didn't like that Angela Bassett used a fraction of her ass to execute Violetta Wallace's Jamaican accent. In fact, I'm mad that she's typecast period as the maternal figure of trouble famous figures.

This movie is no Ray, and it sure as hell is no Walk the Line. It isn't even quite as enjoyable as 8 Mile (though I may be biased). But if you do what I do and buy the "child" movie tickets with your debit card from the Fandango machines, you shouldn't consider this a waste of your $7.50.

Also, any hip-hop nonfiction piece that's set in the early- to mid-1990s (a la 8 Mile) is likely to have a very dope soundtrack. Notorious is no exception.

Rappers are fucking idiots

2008-12-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

FACT: Real street niggas move in silence and under the radar to do dirt...they don't record ridiculous assaults and post them on the internet.

FACT: Showing up at an innocent man's doorstep unexpectedly with like 9 other motherfuckers and pretending like you're brolic for delivering an open-handed slap does not make you gangsta. It makes you a herb.

FACT: Talking about how you're gonna pay so-and-so a visit if they ever speak your name on wax is silly bitch shit.

FACT: Almost none of what rappers say is worth believing.

Remember KRS-One and MC Shan? Roxanne and Roxanne Shante? LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee? Common and Ice Cube? Nas and Jay-Z? That was hip-hop beef. It was about territory, bragging rights and rhymes. You had a few verses, lots of shit-talking and the fans deciding the victor.

This shit right here? This isn't a true rap battle...it's ignorance personified. Joe Budden and Ransom, semi-successful and virtually unknown Jersey rappers respectively, have had something of a "beef" for a while now, but I couldn't tell you if or when either of these rat bastards actually put any verses out about it. But I can point to several videos in which BOTH rappers are talking copious amounts of trash and threatening one another with physical violence. Now while I'd be all about seeing rappers go at it in a fair battle of fisticuffs, there's nothing to gain aurally, and at the end of the day, this is the only relevant purpose rappers serve to me.

I just don't like this back-and-forth loser shit...especially what Ransom did by showing up to this guy's doorstep. You got beef with one man so you go out and attack his best friend, who had NOTHING to do with anything?!?!? This does not make you hardcore - anyone who knows anything about the laws of the street knows that this is not how real cats handle business.

Hip-hop is always kinda dead in the fourth quarter, so before I post my Best of 2008 blogs, this silliness should tide you over.

"YES they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!!!"

2008-12-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

Some four years ago, my then-girlfriend Robin and I drove from Chicago to Ann Arbor to catch a football game at our alma mater. During a pre-game gathering of her sorority sisters at a residence close to the Big House, a raucous drunk cat walking up the street engaged us in smack talk that not only made them uncomfortable, but pissed them off as well.

As if through some weird twist of kismet, the dude ended up focusing much of his attention on Robin…of all the women there. And because I was basically the sole male representative there (There was another dude, but he was like 5’ 3” and I think he was gay. Not to say that short gay brothers can’t scrap, but…well…), surrounded by women who were yelling at him and basically provoking him, I was in the unenviable position of trying to diffuse the situation.

This cat ended up getting uncomfortably close to Robin with all his discursive bullshit, and though she was herself prepared to start throwing blows, he didn’t push any of us to the point where we had to lay our hands on him before he went about his business. He even got to the point where he was ready to square off directly with me, but I gave dude a lot of rope because he was drunk as fuck at two-something in the afternoon.

I haven’t been in a real fight in over a decade, and I do think that grown men fighting is a loser’s gambit. But that whole time the thought kept swirling in my head, “I’m really gonna have to earth this nigga!” If he’d laid so much as a thumbprint on Robin, for any reason, I would have done so with no compunction. Hell, she and I would have been pounding on him together.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the merits of the nonviolent mentality – the idea being that the total energy of the world is negatively affected for every person who commits themselves to even the desire of violence. The sheer number of people who carry around that baggage apparently help stimulate the abundance of conflict and human atrocity on the planet. (Yeah…blame this spiritual kick I’m on. Better yet, blame Thomas)

However, I think there’s something to be said for having it in you to be able to get down with your knuckles if necessary. However uncommon or unlikely it may be given one’s living situation, there could arise a need to defend at some point.

A fundamental tenet of martial arts is that one should only use their training if absolutely necessary. But the people that actually have said training sit a few echelons above the schlubs who would fold if they had to go head up and defend themselves or their loved ones.

I think one’s approach to fighting or conflict in general is a reflection of how they came up. Chances are, if you went to a nice artsy school in the suburbs where the students are on a first-name basis with the teachers and everyone participates in thrice-daily hand-holding “comfort circles,” you’ve never seen a fight in your life and wouldn’t know how to handle yourself if one came about.

I came up in Detroit, and went to public school K-12. I think my fellow natives of the D will agree that there’s a certain “edge” present in folks who grow up in or around the hood. I’m always tickled when I hear my city channeled as a noun of aggression: “I’m cool now, but they don’t wanna see me bring Detroit out!”

I grew up fighting, often because I had to. I was a short, skinny cat who would get trapped in school bathrooms by big motherfuckers who meant me harm, and I had to either throw them thangs (yes, I said thangs) or fall. Sometimes both happened. I won mine and I lost mine…but as an adult, I now know how to handle myself if someone decides to get brolic.

But that’s just one aspect of the whole violence piece: what about those situations where the average person would just feel inclined to commit violence as a result of the actions of others?

On occasion, I think about what it would take for me to truly harm another human being, and it always comes back to the rapists and murderers. If someone were to do something heinous enough like rape my hypothetical wife, daughter or another loved one, I would have a very, very hard time not going Samuel Jackson “A Time To Kill” on their ass instead of waiting for the law to take care of business.

I believe with every fiber of my being that the world is actually a better place if the truly malicious people aren’t allowed to continue living with the same privileges/faculties that they used to either violate or eliminate someone else’s life. Think about how many rapists have repeat victims because they were never reported – let alone punished – the first time around. Maybe if a sexual predator were violently castrated after his first victim, then he wouldn’t be able to potentially ruin other lives. I’m just saying…food for thought.

Many moons ago, I had a “requirement list” of things I expect from a woman I would wanna settle down with (I’ll post it someday if I can find it). While the very concept of the list is entirely obsolete, let alone the contents, I remember one of the requirements was a “ride-or-die chick:” a female who’s willing to battle – verbally and physically – for her man if necessary. A scrappy dame, if you will.

It’s not as prosaic as it reads, really: I feel more comfortable if I know a woman will be ready and willing to fight for both her life and the life of our children if need be. When the fit hits the shan, “survival of the fittest” doesn’t always allow for nonviolent conflict resolution. Unfortunately, that’s just not the fucking world we live in.

My questions to you all: is violence ever an answer? Should people have it in them to respond violently if NECESSARY, or is it better to grow up a complete pacifist? Is Dustin way off-base in his spiritual journey? Or is he justified? How would you respond if someone killed or heinously attacked a loved one? Would you just let the law take care of it or would you whip out the iron and go a-huntin’?

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts…

Random Ish 37: The Bailout Edition

2008-12-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

You gotsta chiilll.....

Early on in my college days, back when a pack of 10 74-minute blank CDs still cost damn near $20, I burned a compilation of music that I affectionately dubbed "Random Shit." If I remember correctly, the compilation included some old Craig Mack, Big Noyd and Brand Nubian stuff, as well as a random DMX mixtape track.

Throughout the decade I've made several "Random Ish" mixes that often consisted of several tracks from a single album, as well as other loose change that I'd pick up on sites like Napster and Audiogalaxy (don't y'all just miss Audiogalaxy?!?!?!?). Most of my earliest mixes fell victim to heavy scratching and chipping, with much of the source music from them contained on old computers that will never boot up again. I'd actually pay good money that I don't have to get some of those CDs back...mainly because there were some pretty obscure cuts on them that I can't just go buy from iTunes; and because it'd be a nice, nostalgic trip back to when life was hella simpler.

I haven't made a new one since early last summer, so I figure it was only apropos to share the newest collection - and all future editions - with you all. There's some fire on the 37th iteration of "Random Ish," if I do say so myself; take special note of a track from EPMD's new album (!) and this cat Son of Ran from California. I think he might actually be a Christian emcee, maybe, but it doesn't detract from the fact that his debut album Incoming Message is actually that lick.

Ask around: my compilations are the shit of legend.

http://www.zshare.net/download/52603476662fffc1/

1. "Disturbed" - Blame One & Exile (feat. Sean Price)
2. "Say You Will" - Kanye West
3. "My Theme Music" - Skyzoo
4. "For U" (M-Phazes Remix) - Buff 1
5. "Play Your Position" - Skyzoo (feat. Guilty Simpson)
6. "The Haters Wish" - Clipse
7. "Incoming Message" - Son of Ran and The Messangers
8. "Gladiator" - Common
9. "Runnin' Out of Time" - Nature
10. "The A" - Now On (feat. Buff 1)
11. "Bac Stabbers" - EPMD
12. "The Leak" - Slaughterhouse (Royce Da' 5'9", Joe Budden, Crooked I & Joell Ortiz)
13. "Heart Breakers" - Son of Ran and The Messangers
14. "Street Lights" - Kanye West
15. "Turn It Up" - Skyzoo
16. "Last of a Dying Breed" - Ludacris (feat. Lil' Wayne)
17. "Heartless" - Kanye West

Sexuality in the gym

2008-12-08T21:14:00.000-08:00

Having made my unceremonious return to the gym-rat lifestyle, one of things that really caught my attention this time around is the rampant sexuality in the environment.

Not only are all the attractive ladies I see on the streets in my everyday life also in the gym, but they’re half-naked and contorted in all kinds of suggestive positions; often using those big rubber balls that started popping up in everyone’s living room a few years ago. Never before have I felt so envious of something created in a Taiwanese sweatshop.

You look on the TV monitors of the treadmills and stair machines, and most are tuned into music video channels featuring half-naked video yamps whose bodies undoubtedly serve as a motivating factor for patrons of either sex.

You can tell the difference between the cats on the freeweights who want their muscles ogled and those who are putting in an honest workout: the latter have on hoodies, and the former are wearing tank-tops that Carmen Electra would consider too small.

Even many of the gym’s staff members - especially the ones responsible for selling memberships for commission - are preternaturally attractive (Keep in mind I’m a member of a trendy new spot in Chicago, not a soccer mom-attracting YMCA in Hoboken, N.J.).

Admittedly, the whole aesthetic appeals to a longtime fetish of mine: women who are in the process of – or just completed – working out. It’s something about spandex, a sports bra and lots and lots of glistening sweat that revs the kid’s engine. Lots of women feel all gross and disgusting after working out, but I look at them and think to myself, “Let’s make babies!”

I wonder how many people are looking – consciously or not – to find their partners at the gym. It’s an environment in which people are already trying to improve themselves, so why not capitalize on that insane monthly membership and get the body and the booty in the same building?

I’m guessing it’s a glorified hookup environment, much in the same way that the undergrad library is at any major university. I bet many folks don’t just go to the gym to get right…they do it to see and be seen, with the hope of a denouement that involves them doing squat thrusts with someone else back at the cut.

And with the enticing visuals – the big, bulging muscles; bare, toned tummies and the aforementioned glisten – it seems like folks should be in a mindset where it shouldn’t be TOO hard to pull the math from the dime on the treadmill next to you. “Hi…can I wipe down your machine for you? What are you up to after this? Wanna go grab a wheat germ smoothie?”

Plus, if you see someone in the gym frequently, you know they’re dedicated to keeping their body right and are probably not as likely to pack on that spare tire or thunderous ass anytime in the near future. All the better for the resume.

For me, the sexy visuals are just a motivating factor, and you’re a damned liar if you say that all those pretty folks in there don’t motivate you to run a bit faster or lift a bit more. The reasoning is twofold: You don’t wanna look like a chump with the right set of eyes on you, and there’s the fantasy that the person attached to those eyes might be more obtainable to you once you actually get your frame right.

Ladies, think about it: who would better motivate you to turn that treadmill up a bit higher – an unattached Morris Chestnut or George Costanza from Seinfeld?

The Perfect MK

2008-12-04T12:13:00.001-08:00

About a month ago, I undertook a project to compile my very favorite Black Milk tracks onto one mp3 CD that I could pretty much bump on a whole road trip from Chicago to Detroit. The process was tedious but ultimately very rewarding.

The Perfect MK is a testament to the millennium's best new hip-hop artist. A labor of love, if you will. If you're a fan of boom-bap, you can't do much better in the 21st Century. If you're a hip-hop neophyte and need some relevant hot shit to get you jump-started, please don't start with Lil' Wayne, Gucci Mane or the throng of wack motherfuckers mass-producing assflakes and calling it music. Take the time to mine these 80 cuts and get back to me.

Merry Christmas, bitches.

Disc 1 - http://www.zshare.net/download/522296028eefc08b/

1. “Take it There” (feat. One Be Lo)
2. “Multiply” – Slum Village
3. “The Matrix” (feat. Sean Price and Pharoahe Monch)
4. “Action” (feat. Slum Village and Baatin)
5. Beat 1
6. “U’s a Freak Bitch”
7. “Ahead of the Basics” – Nametag
8. “Get Focus” – Black Milk & Fat Ray (feat. Phat Kat & Elzhi)
9. “So Gone”
10. Beat 2
11. “Superman”
12. “Motown 25” – Elzhi (feat. Royce Da 5’9”)
13. “Stern” – Illy Hutch & Black Milk
14. “Duck”
15. “Set It” – Slum Village
16. Beat 4
17. Purple Track #1
18. “Now We Gone” – Black Milk & Fat Ray
19. “Fire”(Solo mix) – Elzhi
20. “Play Your Position” – Skyzoo (feat. Guilty Simpson)

Disc 2 – http://www.zshare.net/download/5222998904ee7adc/

1. “Never Fall” – Buff 1 (feat. Black Milk)
2. “Watch Em” (feat. Que Diesel & Fat Ray)
3. “The Intro” – Nametag
4. “Lookout” – Fat Ray & Black Milk (feat. Nametag)
5. “Try”
6. “Pressure”
7. Sound of the City Intro
8. “Play the Keys”
9. “Marvelous” – Baatin
10. “Keep it Live” (feat. Mr. Porter)
11. “Brag Swag” – Elzhi
12. “Nothing to Hide” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
13. “Rhyme Royal” – Nametag
14. “Popular Demand”
15. “Bounce”
16. “Bootleggers” – Slum Village
17. “Sound The Alarm” (feat. Guilty Simpson
18. “About Me”
19. “Anotha Club Hit” – Nametag
20. “Hold Tight” (Remix) (feat. Black Milk) - Skyzoo

Disc 3 - http://www.zshare.net/download/522304657053084f/

1. “That’s That One” – Elzhi
2. “Goatit” (feat. Phat Kat)
3. Beat 2
4. “Not U” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
5. “U” (feat. Ty & Kory)
6. “Long Story Short”
7. “Action Pack” – Nametag (feat. Useless Detroit Niggas)
8. “Insane”
9. “This That” (feat Marv Won)
10. “Reunion” – Slum Village
11. “Trinity” (interlude) – Slum Village
12. “Say Something” (feat. Nametag)
13. “Bond 4 Life” (feat. Melanie Rutherford)
14. “Tell ‘Em” (feat. Nametag)
15. “Ugly” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
16. “Danger” – Phat Kat (feat. T3 and Black Milk)
17. “Shut it Down”
18. “Guessing Game” – Elzhi
19. “Bang Dis Shit” (feat Nametag)
20. “Hold Tight” – Skyzoo
21. “Momentum Music” - Nametag

Disc 4 - http://www.zshare.net/download/5223089344a14e4d/

1. “Losing Out” (feat Royce Da 5’9”)
2. “Welcome to the District” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
3. “Applause”
4. “Middle of the Map, Part 1” – Kidz in the Hall
5. “Middle of the Map, Part 2” – Kidz in the Hall
6. “Bang That Shit Out” – Black Milk and Bishop Lamont (feat. Diverse)
7. “Give The Drummer Sum”
8. “Let’s Go” – Pharoahe Monch (feat. Mela Machinko)
9. “Three+Sum”
10. “The Leak” - Elzhi (feat. Ayah)
11. “Sound the Alarm” (Remix) (feat. Royce Da 5’9” and Guilty Simpson)
12. “The Transitional Joint” – Elzhi
13. “Overdose”
14. “Flawless” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
15. “Home of the Greats”
16. “Hear This” – Slum Village
17. “About You” – Nametag
18. “Get Up” – Fat Ray & Black Milk
19. “I’m Out”

Sure enough...

2008-12-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

Yeah I saw it coming. We all did. The nets predicted that Universal Mind Control would be every bit the train wreck that it is, but I'm gonna bitch about it anyway.

I've never seen such a cascade of change and experimentation dictate a rapper's career as I have Common's. I mean, the man is hip-hop's premier rolling stone. Despite the fact that he's never found a solid footing with any particular sound - opting instead to experiment with various different producers from album to album - more often than not he makes artistically sound decisions and his raw talent always shines through. Even as his flow has devolved over the past few albums, I always extended him a line of credit by virtue of the facts that he puts on an amazing live show and every album to date contains at least one heat rock symbiosis of beat and rhymes (yes, even Can I Borrow a Dollar?).

Yeah...he just put a squash on all that.

UMC's ten tracks are just not enough, by any definition. I have always been an apologist of the much-maligned Electric Circus, and this shit makes it come off like Illmatic in comparison. And it's not just the production (the Neptunes should be ashamed of themselves), but Common's lyrics and flow are prosaic and meant to invoke the Euro-synth-pop trash that he's aiming for with this record. I mean, "You call me Smoky and I'll call you the bear"? A song actually titled "Sex 4 Sugar"? Really, Com? What happened to that "Watermelon" flow? How 'bout that goosebump-inducing "Hungry" single verse?"

This album is just another in a litany of "experimental projects" from otherwise quality rapper/producers this year. The price that the Commons and the Phontes and the Kanye Wests pay is the virtual alienation of their original fanbase. But what do they gain from it? Excluding mainstream darling Kanye, I don't think that artists who are even flirting with the underground have much to gain from pushing it away. Jay-Z could come out with an album produced entirely by 9th Wonder, Jake One, Black Milk and Khrysis, and fans would embrace his "return" to the essence. But Com can't hop from underground to mainstream because he's catered to the boom-bap faithful for 16 FUCKING YEARS.

He's probably already reached his creative apogee. And frankly, I think his attempt to capture a new audience and reap the subsequent buckage will fail considering that this album was already pushed back several months because none of the singles caught fire.

Universal Mind Control is pretty much an epic fail all around and extremely disappointing considering who's behind it. This will be the first Common record in 14 years that I will leave on the shelf.

Silver lining in the Mind Control cloud...?

2008-11-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

I'm still not exactly hype about Common's upcoming Universal Mind Control album, considering his inspiration for it and the leaked material to date. But this new joint, Gladiator, actually bangs pretty hard and inspired the beginning of my workout today. I know the album is gonna at least be mostly produced by the Neptunes, so if this beat belongs to Pharrell and Chad, my hats off; it's their hardest since Busta's "Call the Ambulance."

Still not that excited, but I know there'll at least be one dope cut.

Two steps forward, one step back...

2008-11-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

I've learned the hard way that, even in an increasingly progressive, post-Obama-as-president society, publications still shy away from polarizing, controversial viewpoints so as to protect their image and/or their hard dollars. And sometimes, the wrong people associated with said publications just flatly disagree with the viewpoint.

Such has been the issue I've found with this editorial. I'm sure if I kept shopping it around a bit more, I'd find someone who would accept it, but the topic has grown somewhat cold. I did spend time writing this, so I want it to be read by someone, goddammit.

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I’ve been pretty disappointed in black folks these past couple weeks.

The beauty and historical significance of Barack Obama’s election has, in my eyes, been dramatically undercut by the passing of Proposition 8 in California. The proposition was designed to amend the Constitution to state that true marriage is only between a man and a woman. Its passing sets the gay rights movement back heaven knows how many years, and will essentially serve to preserve their status as second-class citizens.

That this proposition was even on the ballot is troubling. That it was the most highly-funded state campaign in the country is baffling. But that black voters – who no doubt turned out in record numbers to elect our champion – played a pivotal role by being some 70 percent of people who voted for the proposition simply angers me and proves that we still have a long, long way to go.

Unfortunately, nothing about it surprises me; the 800-pound gorilla in the room here is definitely the church. Black folks are a spiritual people, and we’re rather steadfast in our ideas about the family structure. So because we interpreted the antiquated text of the Holy Bible as any and everything gay is “against God,” we leveraged that as an excuse to vote for the proposition…exercising a right we didn’t even have 140 years ago because they thought we were second class citizens.

If you have half a brain that isn’t slowly leaking out of your ass, it should be easy to come to the conclusion after very little invested thought that the civil rights of homosexuals are no intrusion on the rights straight people have to marry whomever they want of the opposite sex. It should be easy to deduce that using the term “marriage” to define existing gay civil unions isn’t going to make more people gay, corrupt our children or lead to plague, genocide and the collapse of American civilization as we know it.

People need to understand that legalization of gay marriage won’t require any church to marry who they don’t want to marry, just as no church or its pastor is required to marry a straight couple.

Gay marriage isn’t going to serve as a detriment to the existing shitty institution of marriage. Folks harp on about how straight marriage is a cornerstone of the traditional family; meanwhile, over half of them end in divorce and any pairing of straight people who’ve known each other for one evening and several Jagerbombs can jaunt down to any city hall with a few bucks and get married only to get that shit annulled the next day.

If anything, gay marriage may help boost the existing divorce rates given that they’ve fought so hard just to have the right.

I could go on and on and on with this topic...it runs that deep. In summation: Americans in general – and black folks specifically – need to pull their heads out of their collective ass and recognize the existence of prejudice in its purest, most malevolent form. I urge you to think long and hard about nature, the history of America, the essential tenets of your religion and the basic common sense that is all too often obfuscated by dogma.

If you still come to the conclusion that gay equals bad, then hopefully your god can help you…because I sure can’t.

Punk-ass Kanye

2008-11-24T09:34:00.001-08:00

I'm still convinced he's straight. I suppose.

I was not nearly as excited about 808s and Heartbreaks as I was his previous three albums, for obvious reasons. It's really difficult to stomach one of the best hip-hop artists of the new millennium singing for a whole album when he can't actually sing. On top of that, I think the Autotune craze that's perverted contemporary rap/R&B is worth burying deep below the Mariana Trench.

That said, I appreciate no more than three songs on this album from a production standpoint alone. Indeed, this is where 'Ye has always shined. "Street Lights" is dope and atmospheric, and "Say You Will" has an extra-dope piano.

So while this will be the first of his albums on which I will not shovel out any loot, a few of those songs will make it on my drive-to-Detroit compilation for tomorrow.

Peep the album here.

What being in love means to me

2008-11-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

To me, being in love…

…is kindness.

…is a key to the crib.

…is a random email saying "I love you," at 3:47 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, just because.

…is goodness with the potential of greatness.

…is an Al Green song belting from your stereo.

…is growth.

…is "well…let me tell you all about her!"

…is the maturation of infatuation.

…is a shine that doesn't wear off.

…is that…that je ne sais quoi.

…is the sacrifice that reaps interminable dividends.

…is truth in position.

…is finding gray hairs on one another.

…is fingers on the keys of a piano.

…is knowing you have a confidant without prejudice.

…is saying "okay" to things you don't wish to do, just to see her smile.

…is Oslo omelettes and potatoes with Hollandaise sauce on a Sunday morning.

…is flashing a toothy grin for no good reason.

…is reflection.

… is a weekend wasted away between the bedsheets.

…is an embrace so tight that she can come no closer.

…is uplifting when desired.

…is honesty when needed.

…is patience always.

…is a shared sense of humor.

…is a toothbrush in the bathroom and panties left on the bedroom floor.

…is sneaking a kiss when no one is looking. And sometimes even when they are.

…is the peace in a mind at war.

…is striving to do better.

…is a high that doesn't crash; a drunk that doesn't hang over.

…is dancing the entire night away.

…is forgiveness.

…is an unchained melody.

…is the kindred spirit. The creation and sustenance of family.

…is the duality of joy and agony.

…is the juice that gets you out of bed on an early Monday morning.

…is "what the fuck is this I'm feeling?!?!?"

…is intimacy that disgusts everyone else.

…is a desire to put her comfort over your own.

…is an incomparable elation.

…is stealing food from her plate.

…is omnipresence of the light.

…is the most profound inspiration.

…is shared, knowing glances.

…is an agreement; a contract with no paper.

…is a letter written on yellow paper.

…is the excitement at what's to come.

…is a beautiful surrender.

…is a honeymoon phase that doesn't end.

…is showing your homies a part of you they've never seen.

…is a warm blanket, a couch and a DVD on a cold evening.

…is truly not mattering what anyone – ANYONE – thinks.

…is a restless heart.

…is folks telling you that you're "glowing."

…is reaction we don't always intend.

…is unprecedented exposure of vulnerability.

…is holding her face in your hand and locking her eyes with yours.

…is Sex 2.0: The Lovemaking Edition.

…is the best and worst of circumstances shared.

…is some of the only hard work worth working for.

…is left of center.

…is the essence of the mortal coil.

…is not being able to run away. And not wanting to.

…is many streaming tears.

…is many spent years.

…is waiting for her to return.

ER's first interactive blog: What does being in love mean to you?

2008-11-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

My girl Lisa made a pretty good point: sitting at home all day allows for some interesting ruminations.

One topic occupied much of yesterday's thought processes: The meaning of "in love."

It made me curious about what other people think it means. Of course, I don't mean loving someone; like your mama, your child or your dog. I mean the true acknowledgment that you are all-consumingly in love, romantically, with one other person (or persons? Is this possible?).

I don't care if you come to this blog for the sex/relationship stuff, for the hip-hop or for both; please get at me with your three cents. It can be a word, a few words, a sentence or a whole damn essay if you please. Think about what being in love means to you, and drop me a line.

I look forward to reading what you have to say.

All dope things...

2008-11-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

Travel back with me for a bit.

February 1999. State Theater; Detroit, Michigan. Every bit a 17-year-old, there wasn't much to my life besides school, a part-time job at Media Play and the interminable-yet-unsuccessful panty chase. Standing outside in the cold for a concert hours before doors opened so as to secure a spot front row, center-stage for a Roots concert was nothing. During that wait, I met a dope sister who, little did I know, would still be in my life nearly a decade later (One Love, Liz...I know you're reading, ma!).

As for the show itself, I wasn't ready. Little did I know that almost 10 years and many, many concerts later, it would remain the best live show I've ever attended.

That tour was to promote the release of Things Fall Apart, which was phenomenal in that zeitgeist but stands the test of time as the group's magnum opus and a true classic in hip-hop's canon.

The band - then Black Thought, ?uestlove, Kamal, Hub and Scratch - walked out single-file shaking tambourines before taking their positions on stage. And for the following two-and-a-half hours, they gave us more. Late in the show, Thought introduced to the stage a slovenly-dressed, shy young newcomer by the name of Jill Scott as the original songstress behind the "You Got Me" hook. Folks came up to me months later reminding me how she blew everyone away.

The Roots remain my favorite band of all time. Not only is their studio recording catalog stellar, but they singlehandedly set the gold standard of what I have come to expect from a hip-hop show. Such is why the news of their retirement from touring breaks my heart.

The group is transcendent not only in that it's the only hip-hop group I can think of that doesn't rely on machine-driven production or a DJ, but because you could get a different version of their show even if you went on every stop of a single tour. That alone trumps the prosaic nature of most other hip-hop artists who do the same shit with the same DJ every single show.

They don't just get on the stage and play: they have fun. From no other band will you see a nigga with a tuba do the Cupid Shuffle onstage with the bass guitar player. ?uest battling Knuckles in percussion has to be experienced. Scratch emanating noises from his mouth that no human should be able to is insane and eerie. And every time Thought and ?uest do "The Web", I get amped.

While the band's live recordings (which apparently will continue as long as they're under contract) did take a dip in quality for a spell (see: Phrenology and The Tipping Point), many of those songs are interpolated much better in concert.

I've seen them numerous times since that February: the legendary Okayplayer Tour; the stop at Congress Theater on the single hottest day of summer 2006 - after which Vernal and I were exhausted, drenched in sweat and completely satisfied; the stop at The Kaleidoscope last year during which Skillz and Dice Raw (successfully) filled in for an ailing Thought and ?uest and Thought ripping an afterparty at the Victor Hotel earlier this year during the first time I shared a live hip-hop experience with She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

I do respect the difficulty that these cats have to endure living with each other on the road for all these years, and I'm not entirely surprised at this decision. Having a regular gig on a television show with Jimmy Fallon - the biggest tool on television since Carson Daly - will definitely stack the math. I just wonder where Thought will fit in, if at all, with a format that probably doesn't allow for an emcee in the mix.

I saw them here in Chicago last Thursday; the evening ?uest made the announcement posted after the jump. I suppose I'm glad I dragged my ass out the house for it; especially they and Cee-Lo straight bodied shit and showed us all what a free concert should be like.

If that really, truly was my swan song with the band, then it's been a fantastic 10 years. We'll always have Detroit.

Get your shit together, America

2008-11-13T07:26:00.000-08:00

I'm a card-carrying cynic when it comes to major news network pundits. I take most all of them, liberal or conservative, with a grain of salt.

But I came across a video last night of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann (props, Steele) speaking on Proposition 8 that gave me sheer goosebumps. He demonstrated a disarming passion and perspicacious judgment the likes of which I don't hear or read nearly enough from the newsfolk.

And while I'm sure that many politicians and bureaucrats feel the same way Keith does - President-elect Obama included, i'll wager - not nearly enough of them speak with this level of passion for fear of losing their electorate's imprimatur.

Folks, I implore you to listen to all six-plus minutes of this video. I couldn't have voiced it better myself.

Diatribe of a dickrider

2008-11-11T13:32:00.001-08:00

It’s been kinda slow on the hip-hop tip these days….not much out there blowing up my skirt. But yesterday my travels took me to this audio of eternal G-Unit sycophant Tony Yayo talking on Shade 45 radio as reckless as I’ve heard any rapper speak. And that’s a tall motherfucking order.

The only two reasons I listened to him go on and on – barely letting the DJs get a word in edgewise – are because I was cooking dinner and because this train wreck of an "interview" was the most amusing shit I’ve heard in weeks. He dedicates at least 15 minutes talking trash about Young Buck and throwing all manner of rumors out there. He spends the rest of the time talking about other rappers like The Game, kowtowing to his boss 50 Cent and expounding on how he’s one of the realest niggas alive.

Seriously, there are so many quotables in this audio that you have to listen for yourself, even if it’s just background for whatever else you might be doing. This is the most I’ll probably EVER listen to Tony Yayo say anything anywhere – on- or off-wax.

Another Banned RedEye column: On sexual assault

2008-11-07T09:24:00.001-08:00

This was deemed too "serious" by my editors. Plus, they weren't about to allow me to level my own personal indictment of R. Kelly given that he'd just been acquitted in a court of law. Politics, man.
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I was raised, not surprisingly, with a male-centric perspective on sex: get laid if you can, as much as you can.

I think a by-product of that upbringing was a rather skewed perception of sexual assault: As a youngster, I used to think rapists were evil men with no moral code or redeeming social value who resembled guys like Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson.

And when I did hear about rapes in the media, they were distant occurrences; acts toward women in rural areas that I didn’t regard nearly as much as I would the victim of any other violent crime.

Most unfortunately, I’d always cast a shadow of doubt over a victim’s truth-telling when she described her story of being raped.

But with age and experience came enlightenment on the realities of rape and sexual assault.

Offenders went from bearded freaks to famous people I respected, like Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur. In adulthood they became even more mainstream characters like Michael Jackson, R. Kelly and the occasional Catholic priest.

The victims went from nameless faces on television to those close to me: Friends, girlfriends, relatives and so-forth. The first time I read the statistics - one in six American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, according to Rainn.org - was a sobering moment.

With it came my “come to Jesus” moment: sexual assault is a bigger problem than many people realize or are willing to accept.

The issue typically evokes three emotions: anger, helplessness and self-reflection.

I’m angry because I want to commit unthinkable acts of violence against the people who‘ve hurt those I love. I feel helpless because I know I can’t.

I can’t do anything about the fact that women I care about have to carry that burden around with them for life. Every sexual experience, every partner, everything…is somehow connected to that negative experience, and I can’t change it.

I stand in self-reflection because I try to figure out in what ways I’ve contributed to what’s really a systemic problem. Obviously, I’m far removed from the idea of ever forcing myself upon someone, but I know that, at least in the past, I have done things to subconsciously contribute to the problem.

When I was in college, I stood outside of a friend’s dorm room, and said something to him along the lines of, “did that exam rape you yesterday?” A woman I knew came outside of her room and asked me not to use that verb in such a cavalier context.

At the time, I was pissed off that someone would try to censor me, but it dawned on me later that she had probably been a victim of sexual assault herself.

And no doubt she was at least close to someone who was assaulted. We all are.

I wonder about the adult material I consume: How much of it actually perpetuates a culture of sexual assault? I don’t personally care for porn that is violent or demeaning to women, but I’ve likely shelled out money for something that indirectly – or directly – supports or promotes sexual assault.

R. Kelly’s acquittal prompted this column: if his video, which clearly depicts an illegal sexual act (yes, I saw it years ago) is not sufficient for a conviction, it simply serves as a reminder that we have such a long way to go.

In the interim, I’m still working to figure out how I can further alter my mentality and behavior to not contribute to the problem.

I suppose I could continue by symbolically ditching my R. Kelly albums.

Presidential blue

2008-11-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Let’s say you just scored the post of the highest office in the land.

The world is quite literally at your fingertips. You’ve got countless subordinates and droves of followers. You have the military might to erase entire countries off the map, and you know that all world leaders will think long and hard before developing the grapes to fuck with you.

Through it all, you have a taut, attractive wife by your side who has bore your children, defended you against all detractors and stood by you through the best and worst.

What would your very first move be?

No question for me. I’m finding the closest bed behind four walls and I’m making love to her.

And not just any old love will do. It’s gotta be that toe-curling, pillow-biting, sheet-loosening, sweaty, liquid-y screaming and hollering, yelling-'till-God-tells-you-to-keep-that-shit-down sex. That sex that makes quadruplets. That sex she’ll tell all her friends about and make them look at their sorry-ass partners like “You limp-dick mothafuckah!!!”

Y’all already know how my mind works. For some reason I got to thinking last night about if and how either of the presidential candidates maintained a sex life with their wives during this arduous campaign trail. I mean, you still gotta keep the home fires burning on the road to the big seat, right?

Did they get it on in their respective airplanes? They send all the advisors to the front of the cabin and put a sock on the curtain? Is there some smashing in the makeup room after a debate well-done? Perhaps the occasional nooner before getting in the hot seat with Bill O’Reilly or Larry King? Did Cindy McCain take care of Little John after he got pwned on The View?

It only fits the aesthetic of the presidency that the man holding the post should be capable of doing equal damage with his actual phallus as he is with the phallic weapons he has control over. The feeling I got from meeting Barack in person several years ago is that he’s probably sporting a hang low that crashes to the floor when he drops trou and that Michelle gets it on the regular. It wouldn’t surprise me a tad if President-Elect beats it up all week and we see Cute Obama Daughter #3 pop out in the White House's West Wing sometime next summer.

The feeling that I (and anyone with a high-definition television should) get from McCain is that he hasn’t had a natural erection since Bush 41 was in office, and that it probably takes nothing short of a truck-mounted crane to get him at any kind of attention to please Cindy. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a scandal dropped in which Cindy – just a few years and a couple Botox injections past MILF status – is exposed to have participated in an extramarital affair sometime in the past decade.

Maybe he has a couple blue pills on standby in case the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come trotting up the street and he actually takes this thing.

Not that I see that happening. If you haven’t voted yet, get your monkey ass to the polls now. Time’s still left to ensure that McCain doesn't get any victory cooze.

Viva La Hova

2008-11-03T13:58:00.001-08:00

I will forever reflect upon 2008 for a great many reasons – not the least of which is a true awakening to the merits of alternative rock music. I’ve always listened to it to a small extent, but this year I’ve really opened up the genre for the first time; checking out all these bands’ entire catalogs for the first time and appreciating music I never thought would ever stimulate me.

It all snowballed from Coldplay. Before I even started touching other acts, I had the group’s whole damn catalog. Something about their lush instrumentation and Chris Martin’s bleeding heart falsetto reaches out to my emotional faculties on the strength.

I’ve learned that many, many rappers and rap fans also appreciate all things Coldplay, so it comes as no surprise that a DJ would eventually create something like Viva La Hova, on which the always-capable Mick Boogie partnered with Terry Urban to mesh the sounds of Coldplay with the lyrics of the Jiggaman.

Viva La Hova is worth a listen to anyone who likes hip-hop, but will be especially appreciated by enthusiasts of both artists. If you appreciate their proper pairing – Kingdom Come’s “Beach Chair” – then you’ll dig the blending and instrumentation on this compilation. Don’t come looking for new Hove verses – they’re all jacked from previous albums (probably a good thing).

I’m normally extremely averse to genre crossings, but cuts like “What If We Cry?” (a blend of “What If?” and “Song Cry”) and “Public Speeding” (“High Speed” and “Public Service Announcement”) make me wonder what other rock-hop pairings would sound like. Nas and Radiohead? Common and Death Cab for Cutie?

Hopefully this will start a trend. And hopefully the trend won’t suck donkey balls.

Jesus FUCK!

2008-11-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

It's always a very pleasant surprise when joints come from out of nowhere and completely put me on my ass. I'm damned glad Joey and Royce squashed whatever bootleg "beef" they had going on so they can stay together and keep putting out heat like Slaughterhouse. Joey, Royce, Crooked I and Joell Ortiz jog over this murderous beat like it ain't a thing in the world.

Hip-hop isn't dead. This shit will be my election week theme song.

Let us be FREE!!!!!

2008-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

"Mmm mmmm MmMMmph!!!" said the blonde.

Ever had someone pin your wrists behind your back during sex?

Your back is on the bed while your partner holds your arms and pins your legs down as if to say “I’m running shit here, and you can scream all you want, but no one is gonna hear you come!” And then it leads to that aggressive sex – the type where you look at each other the next morning like “what in the name of Jebediah’s balls possessed you last night?!?!”

If you haven’t, give it a shot. The transference of power from one partner to another in the bedroom – at least on occasion – is a boatload of fun. I personally love it when a woman exerts total dominance and assumes complete control of the goings-on in the sack.

My sex column-travels in Chicago have led me to personal acquaintances with many representatives of the city’s sexual “subculture” that often delve into BDSM (bondage and sadomasochism). I’ve found that it’s the everyday folks – the ones we pass on the street, squeeze fruit in the grocery store next to and cram in with on the train – that are completely into being physically restricted and restrained in the name of getting off.

Through them, I’ve also come to learn that my personal line is drawn when it comes to actual, hardcore bondage: the idea that I can’t physically remove myself from a sexual situation if I truly need to is enough to make Captain Winky take a powder.

I like my sex nice and airy – the opportunity to utilize my natural double-jointedness is essential to fluid bedroom fun. And what about all the little things that being restrained during sex will prevent? What if I accidentally cut one during the act (it’s happened) and I can’t pick my partner up and fling her to the other side of the bed/floor/table/couch to hide the smell? And do I have to suffer the indignity of explaining to my partner that she needs to do something to rectify an itch on my scrotum because I’m tied up?

Sure, I’ve watched plenty of bondage activity through porn and various trips to the “Late Night” category on Comcast On Demand, but it took seeing it live and in living color to realize that it wasn’t my cup of tea.

Early last spring, Julia and I attended an invite-only, private BDSM dungeon party in the West Loop. These parties, held once a month at various locations, are revealed through text message the day of and are completely no-holds-barred.

I remember not thinking too much of the couple that came in right behind us (other than the fact that the guy looked like Keith Richards) until I saw the woman chained to a ceiling apparatus wearing nothing but a corset. Random clips and clothing pins were attached to her nipples and clit throughout the evening, and her man spent hours spanking her all over her body with various devices.

It was interesting to see that she was moist and her nipples were hard from an activity that I got extra-creative to avoid as a young ‘un.

There was also this cat that looked like one of the Indian dudes from The 40-Year-Old Virgin. He was strapped to a vertical platform (as you can see, my BDSM argot isn’t exactly polished) and getting whipped so bad that his asscheeks were bleeding.

Now, I’m all about sexual felicity any way you can get it, but how the hell did he explain to his boss in whatever IT department he works in that he had to do Monday’s decryption exercises standing up?

Some might assume that my aversion to being tied up and whipped comes from the latent slavery issues that come from being a black man. A dubious theory at best; I simply view most things BDSM differently than those who appreciate it. They see a full pleather suit as a skin-tingling, erotic experience; I see it as a profound downside to my thimble-sized bladder. They see rope for genitalia as a way to stimulate orgasms; I see red, swollen balls the size of kiwifruit. They see handcuffs and get wet; I see them as objects that I’ve been fortunate enough to stay out of, in any context, for 27 years.

Picture me in a black leather Speedo with a zippered face mask and arms tied behind my back. My nuts are turning lavender because my partner won’t actually put hand, tongue or anything near them that actually feels good. And for some reason, she suffers a stroke and dies. No safe word will help me, and I’m left there to starve, pass away and rot because I can’t reach my iPhone. This is why I’ll never be the one.

That said, there is something inherently sexy about watching women in leather and bondage. I don’t even know if I’d feel good about being a dom myself…something about having a leash connected to my woman toys with my preference for relationship equality.

But I’ll always appreciate watching. Well, not lashed Indian man-ass, but you know…

The knock you hear from my apartment

2008-10-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Boom-bap is a religion. MK is Jesus."

-Justice

I’ve used this space recently to extol the virtues of Black Milk, so no need for a career retrospective.

This is about his sophomore album, Tronic, which drops tomorrow. It’s the follow-up to Popular Demand, with which Black beat out rather stiff competition in 2007 to win my Album of the Year award.

Popular Demand is probably the best debut hip-hop album since College Dropout; as it goes, when you come out the gate swinging for the fences, your next effort is just destined to be a letdown. While Tronic is very much so not a failure, I can’t say that I’m 100 percent in love with it.

When I saw it hit the net last Thursday night, I almost got into a damn car accident acting like a giddy bitch who just found a bag of coke and lots of money. All plans I had for that evening were put on hold as I hooked the computer up to the stereo and fired that fucker up. My reaction after listening to the first third of the album can best be described as ”…oh.”

You see, I’d already been listening to the album’s first two singles, “The Matrix” and “Losing Out”, pretty consistently. The latter, guest-starring the do-no-wrong Royce Da 5’9”, had just leaked a couple days before and got me amped as the fuck-all for the total project. It was an unpleasant surprise that I found myself wanting to skip blocks of three tracks at a time on Tronic.

Where I normally would have cherry-picked a few of the album’s tracks, put them on a CD-R with some other stuff and moved on, I knew I was dealing with my favorite producer of the new millennium (sorry, ‘Ye), and so I gave Tronic several consecutive listens. I pretty much spent all last Friday listening to the album, from the train to the office and back home again.

And wouldn’t you know – that bastard started growing on me like scabies. I spent the afternoon bouncing texts about it back and forth with my man Joey over at Straight Bangin, and I think we had aligned reactions to the record. I gave some tracks a more discriminate listen and reached the point where with some of the shit I gave the cliff face to on Thursday, I was rocking out to while waiting for the Blue Line train home Friday.

And then I remembered: Many of MK’s beats that didn't hit me immediately did grow on me before long. Sound of the City, Caltroit and much of his other material had something of a delayed response for me, but I ultimately came to adore them. So I found myself going back to the well to listen to some of my more beloved Black Milk goodies, like “Duck,” “Pressure,” and “Bang That Shit Out.”

After four days of listening to Tronic, I can say with certainty that it doesn’t have the staying power of Popular Demand, but it’s gonna be in rotation for much, much longer than most albums that have come out this year.

I don’t know what it is about Milk and those ridiculous drums (if you don’t wanna go to war after listening to “Long Story Short,” you’re light in the ass), but he has made it into the very exclusive cache of artists/producers who I will always, always check for…no matter the weather.

Don’t download this. Go cop it tomorrow.

Black Vibes

2008-10-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been running around busier than a recaptured slave, which is the reason I haven’t been heavy on the blogging this week.

Black Milk’s Tronic leaked to the nets yesterday, so I’ll be bloggin’ about that first thing Monday. But for the time being, I’ll default to the return of my Black Vibes column. For those of you who didn’t know, I had this column a few years ago and it was basically solely focused on hip-hop. But now I’ll be writing about all manner of things.

Ignore the banner picture…I’m about 15 pounds lighter and a lot less hirsute. No less angry, though. I need to get on top of switching that out.

Dustin's ghostwriting skills at work

2008-10-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

I work for a public relations agency here in Chicago. A couple months ago, one of my coworkers asked me if I knew of anyone we could pay to write a rap. Disregarding my failed, dirty gerund-filled raps from high school that sounded as if they were influenced by the bastard protégé of Too Short and B.G., I agreed to write the rap myself.

You all might remember this lady, Ellen Dow, as the old dame who did “Rappers Delight” in the Adam Sandler movie The Wedding Singer. So the schtick is that both she and Life Savers Wint-o-Green – one of the products we work with – turned 90 this year. The rap is supposed to contain equal parts product branding and nonagenarian braggadocio.

I churned out 16 bars that I could imagine an old white lady kicking out with relative ease, and the above video is the end product. This thing is supposed to go viral, and rumblings around the office is that Leno or Letterman have reached out, so here’s to possible bootleg fame. You can view the whole hookup at www.sparking90.com.

The royalty checks aren’t gonna be rolling in for this one, but I’m sure I’m knocking on the door of ghostwriting for Hove or such someday.

Siempre que, Dondequiera, Cualquier

2008-10-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

About seven years ago, my mother and I trotted to the Fox Theater in Detroit to see Maxwell in concert for the first time.

It was his tour to promote his recently released third studio album Now. Opening for him was an up-and-coming New York vocalist named Alicia Keys with minimal stage presence and a horrible, spastic 4-foot-11 hypeman in an orange jumpsuit. Mama and I were happy enough to see her complete her set.

At that point in my life, I was almost exclusively bumping hip-hop and didn't particularly care about singers. I’m a child of old-school soul and most contemporary R&B just bores me – in fact, if your name isn’t D'Angelo, Anthony Hamilton or Raphael Saadiq, there’s a good chance I haven’t checked for your R&B album in the past decade.

But something was different about Maxwell; Now is on the top of a very short list of contemporary R&B albums I can stick in and play from front to back. It is, quite simply, an amazing record.

But Now, as well as Urban Hang Suite and Embrya, have nothing on his live show. Now I’m straighter than a guitar string, but when he started singing “Whenever, Wherever, Whatever,” he almost got a face full of my dirty boxers.

Sunday night was a throwback to that show: Back to the Fox, with that same wonderful young lady by my side. We were delighted to see that, after a good seven damn years out of the spotlight, homeboy still got it.

Maxwell’s stage presence remains stellar, with a full band and backup singers that compliment him famously without ever drowning him out. He was prone to the occasional gratuitous gyration or three, but they didn’t take away from the performance.

As I sat there and listened to the collective soaking of panties all around me, I wondered how many R&B artists are still kicking who can evoke such a reaction from young and old alike. Like, no one over the age of 25 gives a shit about Ne-Yo; while Ronald Isley – whom I actually appreciate more than Maxwell – has an age demographic of about 55.

That show evoked strong reactions from a very diverse age group of women; evident in the fact that my mother was hopping out her seat screaming and hollering along with women my age.

Maxwell apparently has a three-part album in the works called Black Summer’s Night, to be released over the course of three years. During the show he performed a couple new joints, including “Pretty Wings,” which has only marginally sated the fans on the internet who’ve only heard half of the song.

Yet he never gave any of us what were collectively anticipating: a release date.

He made a great point between songs: “I don’t even have an album out, and y’all coming out to see me like this. I don’t know what to say.” He knows damn well what to say: when a truly talented artist puts out some sheer heat and then goes hermetic for fucking years, they steadily build anticipation that results in fans coming out in droves to get a taste when they finally do reemerge.

Either Maxwell is fucking with us, or he’s a genius, and his next album is gonna go diamond. I think D’Angelo could revive his career the exact same way if he cleaned his life up and decided to go back on tour.

When the show ended and we sauntered back to my truck, I realized something: As I grow older and continue an ascent into so-called “manhood” that requires incrementally less maternal guidance, Maxwell will always be our thing. From the moment I put “This Woman’s Work” on a CD for her while in college, mama and I have shared in our love of his music and subsequent frustration in his failure to put out another album. (“What’s up with Maxwell?? Damn!” is a frequent refrain of ours).

Where our paths diverge is in my speculation of his sexuality. But since that’s her second man, I suppose the idea that he might be gay is difficult for her to accept. Frankly, dude could be into spooning warthogs for all I care; as long as Black is dope, whenever the hell he decides to drop it, that’s all that matters to me.

Spell his name right!!!! Please?? For me?!?!?!?

2008-10-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Dude looks like a pudgy, grown version of that one kid from Kindergarten Cop

Statik Selektah did his damn thing.

In a week that saw two egregiously shitty album leaks from rappers who need to hang it up and should have never picked it up, the Lawrence, Massachusetts DJ/producer dropped a compilation album with an above-average amount of heat. Stick 2 The Script is by no means perfect, but there are at least six tracks worth bumping for various reasons. Here are a few:

- “To The Top” (Cassidy, Saigon, Termanology): but Sai and Term both bring it over a pretty jazzy smooth beat, though I’d never normally care to hear rap abortion Cassidy over anyone’s track,

- “For The City” (M.O.P., Jadakiss): Oh my Christ, that sample from New Jack City caught my attention before Fame, Billy Danze and ‘Kiss ever did. I suppose it’s good that these cats are still getting work. But seriously, how close are we to that plastic surgery operation, guys?

- “Talkin’ Bout You (Ladies)” (Skyzoo, Joell Ortiz, Talib Kweli) – An ode to Brooklyn chicks. I like this because I can actually visualize the type of woman they’re describing. It’s also kinda sad to me because eight years ago I would salivate anytime saw Kweli associated with any track. Now, I just don’t care that much.

- “On The Marquee” (Little Brother, Joe Scudda, Chaundon): A Little Brother track that sounds like a Little Brother track from the group’s glory days. I really, really wish someone would step on Joe Scudda’s larynx though. And not because he’s white, but because listening to him rap is the equivalent of watching three straight hours of C-Span.

- “Streets of M.A.” (Masspike Miles, Termanology, Reks & some other useless Boston mothafuckas): I’m sure someone somewhere still cares about Boston rap and is convinced that the hardest niggas alive inhabit that city and its whereabouts. Right. I like this joint because of the boom-bap beat and the fact that Reks leans into this bitch. The hook is homo-riffic, though.

- “Destined to Shine” (Torae, Sha Stimuli, Jon Hope): Ill, ill beat. Epic, just like I like ‘em. Torae is straight, but there are some otherwise seriously unimportant cats on here not worthy of this beat.

I was gonna link to each individual song, but ZShare is acting like a bitchmonger right now, so here’s the entire album.

How Dustin loses his hood cred...

2008-10-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah....

Color me a masochist.

But when I’m in a fragile state – as I have been for the past couple weeks – I tend to partake in activities that exacerbate that. It’s my way of getting in touch with that which is troubling me.

Back to that later. There are very few movies that I avoid like the plague: English period films, gay porn and anything starring Queen Latifah are on the short list. One film I’ve especially avoided in the four years since it came out is The Notebook. If you’d have asked me two months ago, I would've confirmed that I'd never, ever subject myself to what I was certain was the celluloid version of receiving a colonic.

Well, not only did I watch it last night, but I watched it alone. No folks, not even the opposite sex had to coerce me into watching this estrogen fest. But I can find the merits in any movie, even if it’s not targeted toward my demographic. Frankly, The Notebook just wasn’t as stellar as everyone would have me believe.

It wasn’t a bad movie per se, and films don’t get much more plaintive. But I tend to bristle at movies whose principal agenda is to make you cry; when the music, the dialogue, the acting and storyline all take a backseat to attempts at emotional invocation. This is why I thought Million Dollar Baby was overrated. I mean (*spoiler alert!*), the Notebook couple dies at the same time, in the same bed?

Come the fuck on. I know the film is adapted from a book, but LIE to me, yo! Rewrite it with James Garner’s character getting his hands on a couple blue pills and rocking Gena Rowland’s wrinkly loins to the point where she’ll never forget his ass again! Happy ending!

I like sad movies that sustain you in a state of melancholy throughout their entirety instead of breaking out the violins and fucking with you near the end (see Fresh, Dolores Claiborne or House of Sand and Fog for good examples of the former). I prefer a level of emotional resonance in romantic films that’s less hamfisted and in-your-grill: they should ask you to embrace the humanity of the protagonists' relationship instead of focusing on its sappy aspects. Some might argue that true romantic movies can’t do that, but I disagree.

I think Ryan Gosling is a superb young actor, but he didn’t deliver to his capabilities in this film. And I sure as shit got tired of hearing Rachel McAdams squealing like a damn banshee with a thumb tack stuck in her left asscheek.

This movie didn’t earn any real tears from me, even in my state of mind (I've only released the waterworks for one film ever). But it did remind me of what it’s like to love someone even more than myself and to want to be around them at all times despite constant fighting and nitpicking.

And it also made me never wanna get old. Let me get to, say, 69, then push me onto the L tracks or something...just dont let me see it coming.

Coolio's Fantastically Fucked Voyage

2008-10-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Fuckin' give it UP, yo...

Show of hands: How many of you can name a Coolio song OTHER than “Gangsta’s Paradise” or “Fantastic Voyage”?

Okay…now how many of you were in high school last time he was relevant? Show of hands…

I’ve about had it with this reality television formula: Take one part aging, washed-up former A-list music artist; one part sagacious, centering wife; add several parts’ rowdy, defiant, image-annihilating children; shake up, and strain in a nice, big house with cameras.

Coolio is the latest artist, but not the last I’m sure, to subject himself to the platitudinous reality show circuit with “Coolio and the Gang,” as a single dad “raising” (read: exploiting) his six teenaged kids (Two bits to a bottle of piss says they aren’t all from the same woman). I’m assuming that those Dangerous Minds royalty checks are drying up, so of course this must be the only reasonable way to maintain the opulent rapper lifestyle.

The idea behind “Coolio and the Gang” is that he’s looking after these mini-Coolios (who we’ll call “Coolats”) while starting a clothing line and “maintaining” his rap career, which is akin to convincing Aaliyah to be in a relationship with me. And the show is gonna be on the Oxygen network, of all stations! How in the blue hell does an unattractive, black rap artist with cornrows whose spent his career romancing gang culture get an audience with the white, XX-chromosome-having target Oxygen viewers?!?!? Was VH1’s programming schedule already too full of emu shit?

I’m going to call this now: Coolio will never release another album that anyone will truly care about, and his clothing line might rock on the boys’ rack at TJ Maxx, but he won’t be giving Sean John or Roc-a-Wear a run for their loot.

I’m also gonna call that no one will give a damn about “Coolio and the Gang.” The last time I recited any Coolio lyrics, I was still able to count my pubes, and I’m guessing you couldn’t pick up the phone and call someone who's bumped any of his music in the past several years.

Besides, no one is looking for a replacement of “Run’s House.”

Banned RedEye column: Clearing the room in the name of love

2008-10-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Note from my editor after receiving this column: Seriously? Farting? I'm passing on this one. Even if you wrote a column on bodily functions with incredible tact, it's still not something I'm going to give to RedEye readers as they're sitting on the bus or grabbing morning coffee. But there was none of that in your column. It was crass and juvenile.

------------------------------------------------------------

Guys, tell me this hasn’t happened to you before:

You’re laying on the couch with your sweetie, forced to dedicate your evening to an “America’s Next Top Model” marathon. Those Extreme Nachos with jalapenos you ate earlier make your stomach start rumbling.

You do your best to hold it in, but then you chuckle at something on the television, and before you know it: “BRRBBBFFFFTTT!!!”

You have just christened your girl to a fact your friends already knew about you: You’re a nasty bastard prone to clearing out rooms.

We have an idea on how we wish to conduct ourselves when we first start dating someone, and it’s seldom indicative of our true natures. In the words of Chris Rock, we put forth “representatives” of ourselves when dating.

“Representatives” don’t belch, have no need for tampons and won’t rattle couch cushions with powerful emanations.

But we all get to a point where our unsavory habits come out, and I think a lot of people look at that as an inevitable, irritating – if not often comical - aspect of every relationship.

I think that getting to the point in a relationship where one feels comfortable farting around their partner is a sign of progression. Smelly progression, but progression nonetheless.

Flatulence and other putrefaction can be interpreted as signs of intimacy. If, during the shooting of deuces, the bathroom door gradually becomes open wider and wider, and he becomes less and less concerned about leaving his skid mark-infused tightie-whities on the bathroom floor in plain sight, it means he’s extremely comfortable with you.

That disgustingness is not only a sign of growing fondness, but also of increased vulnerability. It’s on the level of a man sobbing in front of his woman, letting her know how much money he earns or (shudder) letting her drive his car.

Ripping farts and similar foul behavior is often considered juvenile in nature and typically associated with men. In my experience, that just isn’t the case.

Women like to let off those “silent murder” farts that you can’t hear, but find out about when it’s too late. Even as your nose hairs start falling out, she vehemently denies it’s her, even when it’s only the two of you in the room.

And as much as it still makes me bristle when I hear a woman speak – in detail - about her “monthly visitor,” I appreciate that no woman ever did it unless they were completely comfortable with me.

Interestingly, just about everyone I polled informally agreed with me: gas passing is an innocuous natural bodily function. Several said they don’t see a problem with enduring the filth from people with whom they have sex with and see at their most vulnerable.

Of course, you have to get to that point with people, so nasty behavior doesn’t often fly in early courtship. Be mindful not to make disgusting mistakes of an epic caliber, as I have:

Maybe two weeks into dating a new woman, I did the unthinkable and, umm, forgot to flush her toilet after copping a squat.

She told me about it weeks later. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she never wanted to see me again, but she didn’t think my leaving floaters in her toilet was a big deal.

I imagine things like that happen in relationships all the time, so if a woman can be that forgiving of that level of nastiness early on, it’s probably a good sign that longevity is in the cards.

Still, I wouldn’t do what I did so early on and expect a phone call back.

Common...WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

2008-10-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

Oh dear mother of Christ....

Some 11 years ago, a young, aspiring Chicago emcee named Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. made one of the fiercest one-verse tracks the genre has ever seen. It's called “Hungry,” and it sits as the ninth track on his stellar One Day It’ll All Make Sense album. On that track he defiantly declared, “Skip ladies, this is ‘rip-a-mothaFUCKA night” - on some "come-and-get-me" type shit - over a fierce No I.D. loop.

Now, in 2008…he’s “rapping” lines like “This-is-that-automatic/I stay fresh like I’m wrapped in plastic” over some techno, Euro-synth-shitbag beat straight from the boards of Pharrell’s confused ass.

What the fuck happened? Common has been sitting comfortably in my “Top 10 Greatest Emcees of All Time” list for a decade, which is the main reason I’ve let him get away with more and more of his creative liberties as the years pass and I witness with consternation the devolution of the flow that still gives me goosebumps every time I listen to “Watermelon.”

I found merits in Electric Circus that most folks couldn’t. I thought Be was a fantastic album despite a clearly watered-down flow in comparison to just about anything on Resurrection. I even gave him a pass for the generally inferior Finding Forever (especially for that pedo look he shot us all on that homo-tastic album cover).

But there’s no forgiving “Universal Mind Control.” This shit is hot, liquid garbage that even Common purists will find it a tall order to justify. I could take a shit on a blank CD-R and come up with something better than this. And the knowledge that Pharrell has taken the bulk of the production credits on his upcoming album, also titled Universal Mind Control, leads me to believe that it will actually be WORSE than Electric Circus.

And this is what Common wants. I read an article a few months ago about how he wants to emulate the music that gets asses shaking in European nightclubs. Man, fuck all that; you’re a rapper…RAP. If I wanna hear shit like this, I'll go hang out in Wicker Park or tune into MTV2 at 3 a.m.

Common is a rapper constantly struggling for an identity under the facade of constantly “reinventing” himself. I like that he found a “home” with Kanye for a while, but I simply don’t think he really knows what or where home is. I fear that in figuring it out, he’s gonna alienate his fan base while maybe (maybe!) getting the mainstream success that’s basically eluded him his entire career.

First, The Foreign Exchange and now Common. *Sigh*.

The halcyon days of sex in cinema

2008-10-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Shannon...the queen of 90s sex cinema. All bow down.

Man, Mr. Skin ain’t got nathan on the kid.

I was in the sex-and-nudity movie clips game far before launched his website. The difference between him and me is that now he’s making a pretty robust living doing it on his website and I’m stuck in admiration and frustration that I didn’t come up with the idea first.

As with many hormonally insane young teenagers, I couldn’t easily get my mitts on hardcore porn, so I defaulted to cable television. Good thing I grew up in the 1990s Red Shoe Diaries era, when skin flicks and softcore premium TV shows reigned supreme. Thanks to a highly liberal father who didn’t care if I was watching loose titties so long as I wasn’t out doing dirt in the streets, my VCR was always programmed to record age-inappropriate material, like episodes of HBOs Real Sex, Luke’s Peep Show on Pay-Per-View, and movies like Showgirls where my childhood innocence was truly put to the test.

But I will always have a special place in my heart for the 1990s B-grade cinema that went out of its way to show as many long legs, taut tummies and ridiculously long, fake hair (and even faker boobs) in (and out of) lycra. These were the movies in which some 21-year-old first-year film school student probably hammered out scripts for a few hundred bucks a pop so there could be SOME dialogue between the naked shower montages.

Instead of searching for incrementally creative ways to tape all this filth-flarn-filth over my parents’ movies and TV shows, I undertook an amateur video editing operation called simply “The Tape:” I cut and spliced all of my favorite sex scenes and skin-revealing moments from everything ranging to Skinemax movies to random episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 (yes, Donna was that deal…don’t hate).

When you think about it, some of this stuff is better to watch at times than porn: Even though the action is simulated, a lot is left to the imagination...which can at times be a bit sexier than seeing that gyno closeup.

The Tape made it somewhere close to the four-hour mark before the project came to an end (read: I grew up). But here are five of my favorite movies that helped define that glorious project:

Body of Evidence (1993) – Damn what any of y’all have to say about it, but I had a massive crush on Madonna’s pasty behind in the 1990s. Essentially a ripoff of Basic Instinct, she plays a woman on trial for murder who ends up seducing her lawyer (a post-Mississippi Burning, pre-Inside Man, still fugly Willem Dafoe), who’s having trouble with the morality of it all. Made during Madonna's more sexually liberated (than usual) period, perhaps this movie is the most exhibitionistic thing she did. I mean, she goes apeshit in this bad boy. As with many of the movies of its ilk – and most on this list – you’re best off grabbing the unrated version for the extended scenes.

Favorite Scene: She masturbates in front of Dirty Dafoe before he ties her to the coffee table and takes her forcefully from behind. And Madonna is Madonna, so of course she enjoys it.

Poison Ivy 2: Lily (1999) – If you’re anywhere near my age and didn’t have a major crush on Alyssa Milano at some point in your life, you’re either gay or a castrati. She did a number of films during this time period of her early 20s where she worked very goddamn hard to break away from that squeaky-clean “Who’s The Boss” image, nipples-first. In a movie series that features the penis-numbingly overrated Drew Barrymore (who used body doubles) and that one chick from My Name Is Earl, Alyssa came right in and showed why she's the boss. (*crickets chirping*)

Favorite Scene: Milano gets seduced in a recliner by her much-older schoolteacher who looks like one of the Middle Eastern bad guys from True Lies.

Sex and the Single Alien (1993) – This film has always troubled me: for some reason, the scenes from it were erased from one of the original cuts of The Tape, and now I can’t find the film anywhere for the life of me. A touching story about a guy who is suddenly adorned by aliens with the power to make women orgasm just by looking at them, there is very little actual sex in this movie, but the tons of gorgeous wimins writhing and moaning to “climax” appeal to my female masturbation fetish. It’s not on video, it’s not on DVD and I haven’t seen it on television since I went through puberty. If anyone can hunt this bad boy down for me, and I have two dollars to my name, I’ll give you one.

Favorite Scene: Dude uses his talent on a woman in the backseat of a convertible broken down in the middle of nowhere. Seriously folks…find me this movie!

Bound (1996) – Gina Gershon, even in her forties, is one of the sexiest women breathing. Jennifer Tilly is also sweat-inducing, despite a voice that makes you wanna commit hari-kiri. Put them together in a lesbian-infidelity mob thriller and greatness is destined. Gina played the masculine half of the coupling, but her sheer gorgeousness shined through the baggy pants and no makeup. Unlike many of the movies on The Tape, this one is actually worth watching all the way through, if for no other reason than an always-exciting Joey Pants sighting.

Favorite Scene: There’s really only one clip in this movie that matters: their one and only lesbian love scene, in which Gina’s toes curl and make the mattress cover come off. It’s not very long, but it’s entirely impactful. Again, cop the unrated version.

Illegal in Blue (1995) – The ultimate B-Movie sex fest, and my personal favorite. A pre-Clueless-fame Stacey Dash and the peckerhead from Son In Law spend an entire movie frolicking around in the bedroom in some of the most extended sex scenes I’ve ever seen in mainstream cinema. The plot is definitely derivative of Basic Instinct and so many sex-kitten-with-a-lethal-secret movies like it, but the reason it works is because a) Stacey Dash was then, and still is, one of the most beautiful women in the world; and b) She really did look vicious in blue lingerie. This is another one that I really, truly wish someone would release on DVD. I mean, this film has a cult following from just about every pervert I know. Seriously. Can the mofuckas in charge of DVDs please get it in gear?!?!?

Favorite Scene: So many I cant even decide. The movie was like 45 minutes of fucking and 30 minutes of “plot.” If you are fortunate enough to come across this somewhere and it’s the R-rated version and not Unrated, please don’t bother. Keep looking. And then send me a copy.

You may wanna leave this all behind...

2008-10-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

Cakemasters in full effect

If I had to name five hip-hop albums that have a dedicated following in the proper circles, yet are underground enough to remain criminally slept-on, 2004’s Connected by The Foreign Exchange would be near the top of that short list.

That album was groundbreaking not only because of North Kakalak native Phonte’s very capable flow and gut-busting-yet-always-candid lyrics, but mainly because of Netherlands expatriate Nicolay’s groundbreaking, highly atmospheric, keyboard-driven production. It’s one of those rare contemporary rap albums that captivates both vocally and musically and pretty much holds onto you through every track. Everyone needs to hear it before they pound dirt.

Connected’s follow-up has been as about as long-awaited as the Second Coming of Jesucristo. But I’m not quite sure we were waiting for…this. After my first listen-through of Leave It All Behind, three questions came to mind: 1) Who, or what, deluded Phonte into thinking his singing could carry a whole damn album; 2) How can he not realize this will probably further drive a descent of quality that started when 9th Wonder left Little Brother; and 3) Do I still have that bottle of cyanide in my medicine cabinet?

Nicolay is still the truth, and he definitely comes correct with the album’s often melancholy production. Only problem is, I’d rather hear the album’s instrumentals more often than not. Phonte-as-singer and the Justus League’s crooning elite have always worked best in minimal doses, peppered across a track or three of any given project. But when I heard a few weeks ago that ‘Tay literally raps about three verses on this entire album, my stomach started to ache...on that "oh shit...here we go" tip.

If it were a double album with discs dedicated each to R&B and rapping, or even if they announced there would be a lyrics-driven album coming shortly after, I would be more forgiving of Leave It All Behind. But fact of the matter is, I’ll probably be listening to this joint about 90 percent for Nic’s production, and I’m not sure how far even that’ll get me.

R.I.P. Rap City

2008-10-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

BET's Rap City is done. It's not the best of news, but considering what the show has become in the past few years – basically a reflection of the ever-deteriorating quality of BET programming – it’s hardly a tearjerker.

I used to tune into Rap City not just to witness Joe Clair's often-erratic behavior and ogle Big Lez, but to get the dish on some of the best hip-hop artists of the mid- to late-90s, watch whole blocs of their videos and peep their newest cuts. Rap City was at its prime in an era when video shows still played the whole damn video, and you could still peep low-budget films from underground artists. If not for the show, I may have never fallen in love with Black Star after seeing Common walking up the street rapping in the video.

I think if I dig in my daddy's basement far enough, I could still find the VHS tape of the Wu Tang episode they played before Wu Tang Forever dropped; they had damn near EVERY Wu video that mattered play through the two-hour episode. I cared a bit less about it when Big Tigger was running The Basement, but the artists he had come on were often reflective of hip-hop's general decline.

Not quite as sad as when Yo! MTV Raps went off the air, but we did lose a one-time bastion of the genre; regardless of the number of Yung Joc videos that aired in its final days.

Figuring out when to say...when

2008-10-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

This song is to be bumped while reading the blog.

Story time, folks.

About a month ago I met this woman – Let’s call her “O-Ren Ishii” for functional purposes – through a University of Michigan Black Alumni Association event. I took to her immediately because she had this feisty, take-no-shit vibe to her that I always find entertaining. We started to build a friendship based on our talking copious amounts of trash to one another.

She gave me shit because I’m a “baby:” four years younger than her. I also nipped at her age, as well as her height (she’s a shorty) and the fact that she’s biracial (Black and Vietnamese). Our nascent friendship was one of humor and innocuous ribbing; mostly executed via text message.

Last week, O-Ren asked to go out for dinner; our first time just hanging out together outside of the association. We had a great sushi dinner and ice cream; complimented by great conversation throughout the evening that vacillated between the serious (relationships and jobs) and light-natured shit-talking.

At the very end of the evening, I told her the story about the sex tour I’d gone on in Chicago at the beginning of the year. During that story, I mentioned that we passed by the massage parlors where they give the “happy endings;” places where they traffic in illegal sex slaves, who are often of Asian descent.

I told her “they took us by the places where they traffic in your people…”

She cut me off with a “goodbye Dustin” and ran off to her car with what I perceived to be a half-smile on her face, so I just giggled to myself as she drove off, thinking nothing of it. After I got back home and looked at my phone, I saw that she’d gone apo-fucking-plectic with a barrage of text messages that ultimately went something like this:

“IamLIVIDandoffendedyouaresoinsensitivetheseareCHILDRENandwomenstrugglingsexexploitationisDISGUSTINGIhopeyouTEACHyourchildrenbetterwhatwouldyourdearJULIAthinkofyoumakingsuchajokeIREGREThavingdinnerwithyouandIREGRETopeninguptoyouhaveaNICELIFEandIwishyouthebestinallthatyoudo!!!!”

The whole thing caught me off-guard. I played it so mellow and cool because I couldn't see or smell the fire, only to realize that she was genuinely pissed off. Over the course of the next 24 hours I actually did apologize for making that joke to her, but when she pressed me I maintained that it was a joke and that not everyone would necessarily take offense to it.

Needless to say, that wasn’t good enough for her. I thought her approach in dealing with it all was borderline infantile, so I was alright with deading the friendship in the water.

I mean, I tried.

I have a reputation among many of my closest friends as the cat without a filter: I’m prone to say or write whatever’s on my mind, whenever, with little regard to the consequences.

I actually pride myself on eschewing political correctness. No demographic has ever been safe from my crosshairs: men, women, black, whites, Hispanics, Asians, fat people, skinny people, gay people, straight people, handicapped folks, living people, dead people, freakishly tall people, freakishly midgety people, ugly babies, ugly octogenarians and the occasional green muhfuckah.

The Manifesto is a character I created over eight years ago to house that character: a truth-teller rooted in biting humor that is not necessarily a direct reflection on who Dustin is as a person. The Manifesto thrives on stereotypes and minimal facts but utilizes little to none of Dustin’s compassion.

Here’s the key: at the end of the day – for either character – it’s all in jest. I can make jokes about how Asian people can’t back out of their garages without getting in an accident, or how John McCain could take away the whole black vote from Obama by mass-mailing “Free November 4 Brunch at Old Country Buffet” flyers throughout the country, but it’s really all for shits and giggles.

The real me has friends and family of all different races, sizes and religions. The real me is hospitable and jovial to the people he meets, with no judgment. The real me keeps the prejudice to a minimum. The real me is extremely loyal to his family, friends and partners.

The real me is disgusted by the world’s social and economic ills every single day; and that includes sex trafficking (for what it’s worth, the joke was less about sex trafficking and more of another shot at O-Ren’s “Asianness”); so much so that he strives to find the humor in all of it.

My obstacle is that women have historically been a lot less tolerable of that “unsavory” side of me. I’ve gotten minimal consternation from men for my ribald brand of humor, for obvious reasons, but I’ve only met a couple women in my life who truly “get” me in that aspect.

Ironically, the only two women I ever fell in love with are stalwart feminists who fit in a demographic least likely to put up with my crapola.

I saw the writing on the wall even back in college with my then-girlfriend: I remember one of my best friends Leland telling me that my writing “softened up” – shedding a bit of the Angry Black Man edge – when I started dating her.

For example, she hated the use of the word “bitch” - one of my favorite expletives - in any context, so I often went out my way to curb that when I was with her. During one impassioned discussion/argument/debate, I even offered to permanently put The Manifesto to bed if it met a more comfortable relationship; something she wouldn’t allow.

We worked past it by default, because I retired The Manifesto when we graduated. But now that I’ve resurrected it, I find myself staring down the barrel of the same issues all over again.

Loving someone else just enough forces you to put things in perspective, and it made me set out to answer two questions: 1) What can one sacrifice to improve a relationship without sacrificing one's true essence; and 2) At what point should I become socially responsible and acknowledge that my words might have more power than I previously gave them credit for?

I acknowledge that with age and wisdom comes a heightened sensitivity to the power of words, especially when they can reach many people. What I need to figure out is exactly how I factor that into my writing. The funny thing is, I’d be right at home at a gay pride parade or a women’s rights march, but what does it mean if the things I write for public consumption are diametrically opposed to my true opinions?

But then, I also wonder exactly how far I should go in censoring myself. Again, I pride myself on being an equal-opportunity shit-talker, but frankly, everyone is offended by something. For example, the non-black women I date might have iron-clad feminist sensibilities, but might also turn around and laugh aloud at something that a lot of Black folks wouldn’t find funny. Or able-bodied Hispanic folks might laugh at something that the handicapped don’t find the least bit humorous.

We’re a nation of hypocrites, and no one is offended by all the things they should be…just those which closely pertain to them.

Of course, as the issue pertains to a woman that I am with and intend on staying with for awhile, I believe my words should be kept in closer consideration; if only for the preservation of a relationship that is important to me. I’ve never looked for a woman who is in lockstep with my brand of humor - I realize that’s a tall goddamn order - so I know that I need to make an effort to meet halfway.

Still, I admit the whole thing is somewhat perplexing, at any rate. What do you all think?

I really want feedback. All comments welcome.

A decade in the Belly

2008-10-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

I was a precocious 17-year-old.

That made for insolence, defiance and a general annoying nature; as it does for many 17-year-olds. But being as how my life was not yet my own, that insolence ended up pissing my father off to such a high degree (for what I don’t even remember), that I was dead to rights on Friday, November 4, 1998, when I wanted nothing more than to be in the movie theater for the opening night of Belly.

A couple weekends ago, I decided on an impulse to dust off the DVD (which I got for free a few years ago). It was my first time watching the film it in its entirety since the 1990s, and it forced me to put the movie in a present-day context.

It’s important to understand first that these two eras in hip-hop – the late ‘90s and the late ‘00s – are quite disparate. New York still ran hip-hop back then, and Def Jam was going through a renaissance period thanks to the popularity and album sales of then-newcomer DMX, Erick Sermon and the Def Squad, Onyx, Method Man, Redman and the whole “Survival of the Illest” movement.

Despite the ignoble, money-hungry intentions of cats like Ma$e and the erstwhile Puff Daddy during the much-maligned Shiny Suit Era, the grimy dark-clouds-and-hard-times, baggy-jeans-and-Timbs, run-yo’-jewels hip-hop was still embraced.

As such, Belly, a tale of two street hustlers, their descent into the dubious worlds of drugs and the underworld, followed by their respective redemptions, rang a bit more vivid in the pre-Y2K era.

DMX was a stellar breakout artist, having dropped two great albums in one year. Nas was my hero, and I think most of the hip-hop community felt the same way back then. So seeing Belly without getting an exact handle on what it was about beforehand was not even a question.

When my punishment was finally lifted, my first order of business was to see it alone on a weekend afternoon. A muddled, storyline, terrible dialogue (which, to be fair, is not too far off from how street niggas actually talk) and ridiculous cinematography from director and former music video maven Hype Williams (watch to see how many facial shots were cut off by any corner of the screen for "artistic effect") made for a resoundingly disappointing experience.

That was Nas’ first, and as far as I know, last acting experience. As it should be…stick with what you know, yo.

The dark and ominous era of the genre that allowed for Belly has largely passed in favor of a lighter, more emo-infused hip-hop culture: Big jeans and Timbs have been replaced with nut-groping jeans and extra-medium sweaters. The most popular rappers are barely old enough to buy an issue of Playboy. Horrible gun-clap rap has replaced well-executed gun-clap rap. The internet exposes cats for bullshitting. And New York’s contemporary hip-hop heroes are either so far gone from the street life or they just plain fucking suck.

I mean, who would star in a movie like Belly today? Lil’ Wayne and The Game?? And who would fill T-Boz’s role? Matter fact, where the fuck is T-Boz these days anyway?!?!?!?

As for me, I’ve become something of a cinema elitist in the past 10 years. Despite a guilty penchant for certain questionable film genres, I tend to gravitate toward movies that offer pretty much everything that Belly doesn’t: a coherent plot, an engaging storyline, true emotional resonance and actors whose only camera experience is not limited to lip-sync rapping in front of one, swinging a bottle of Moet while surrounded by video “models” and hype men.

Despite the movie’s mind-blowing ill opening sequence, over Soul II Soul’s, “Back to Life” acapella (linked below), Belly really is a shitfest of a movie. But while I couldn’t even appreciate the movie as a teenager, I appreciate the era from which it was born. Belly IS hip-hop. Watching it again made me reminisce on that simple and musically rich period of my life; not to mention it made me want to pull out the movie’s dope soundtrack from the stacks.

I think what bothers me most is that no movie of its ilk could come out in 2008 without starring Michael Jai White and making its way straight to the “Urban” DVD section of your movie rental joint. It’s not that hip-hop is dead…it’s that we don’t care about it like we used to.

Scary Spice...Channel

2008-10-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

I don't care, son...this is good news.

Maybe now I can do what I haven't done in years: Read it for something other than the articles.

A case for yellow line paper

2008-09-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

Un mes, un deseo

Ladies and germs, the digital age is ruining true romance.

Forms of communication are much less intimate than they were for the generation that preceded us: we just rattle off whatever the hell we want, when we want via email, text, MySpace, blogs, etc., and just click the ‘send’ button – often recklessly and with little aforethought.

What we gain in convenience, I think we lose in intimacy.

I’m a writer by trade, and my ability to type several words a minute is a necessary skill. But I am of the old-school thought process that taking time to actually write things out on paper – particularly meaningful things – trumps typing any day.

I think sending very deep-seated, personal emails to loved ones should be limited, if not altogether ixnayed. Things get lost in translation, context is misappropriated and confusion is made even more profound….not to mention such forms of communication are often used as methods of cowardice from people who cant look others in the face. Next time you find yourself going nuts over email, consider actually driving to someone’s house to talk to them in person; if not, pick up the phone.

As for communications of unbridled love, writing a letter instead of an email signifies that you have taken the time and effort to pour your heart and emotions into a piece of paper instead of over the interminable information superhighway. Even a small note on a nightstand, written on a napkin, saying “I love you!” is far more likely to garner a smile than “from so-and-so@peckerhead.com; Subject: RE: I love you.”

If you pay close attention, you can see the fluctuations in handwriting that convey the emotion the author had when writing each word. Rushed heart? Cautious pragmatist? Empathetic? Apathetic? In certain occasions, I imagine, you can even see the dried-up teardrops on the page that let you know just how impactful writing the letter was.

The connection between you, the pen and the eyes of the recipient. Short of physical contact, how much more intimate can it get?

I’ve only written letters to women whom I truly, wholeheartedly care for. It means something for me to write page after page in handwriting which closely resembles a medical doctor off his Ritalin. Yellow line paper is my canvas of choice, because anything resembling the paper I wrote essays on in high school is not a good look.

My most valued possession is a letter my mother wrote me when I was about four years old and she and my father were going through a rough divorce/custody battle. I didn’t read it for the first time until I was in college and at a point emotionally where it was truly impactful.

So 25 years from now, if I wrote my son a similarly impassioned email that he just happened to save on his Crackberry, would it have a similar resounding emotional effect? I’m guessing not.

At least I hope not. It’d be a sad testament to the fact that the digital age has taken over shop.

Murs...the "Bad Man" or the savior?

2008-09-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

I appreciate Murs. Not only is he a capable rapper, but I dig his refreshing playful, goofball emcee persona in a genre where stone-faced bellicosity is the modus operandi.

But he’s also one of few emcees for whom “keeping it real” most likely applies. He’s all about race and personal uplifting, and it’s pretty convincing considering he’s a struggling emcee not trying to bend to what the “kids” wanna hear. He’s the rapper Kanye could be if he got the fuck over himself and actually improved his mic skills.

His so-called “debut” album, Murs For President, is his first foray into major label territory, with production that isn’t limited to 9th Wonder. The title makes more sense after you listen to the record: he’s seriously on some “Captain Save-em” – type shit, “campaigning” to the listener to change our troubled lives and mentalities; which are often direct reflections of the genre of music he holds so dear. With lines like “Don’t ever let the fact that you can’t be perfect stop you from doing your best,” he does saccharine with the zeal of your average Christian rap band.

Only Murs also talks about crazy hoodrat dealings and busting nuts as well. An everyman’s rapper, if you will.

What surprised me most is the album’s production. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting to nod my head as much as I did to the upbeat samples and loops designed to fit the lyrical positivity of the record. I don’t have the full credits yet, but I know for sure 9th does make an appearance or three.

Apparently, Murs wants to blow up and go mainstream, because opening for Dead Prez probably doesn’t keep steaks in the fridge as often as it should. His goals are extremely reflected in his choice of guests like Snoop Dogg (whom I haven’t been interested in hearing on new material since the turn of the century) and will.i.am - the patron saint of rap sellouts - who shows up on “Lookin’ Fly,” incidentally one of the album’s worst cuts.

I think he’s one of those cats who could luck up on some commercial success with just the right song hitting the waves at just the right time…ala Kanye. And in a zeitgeist when his brand of positivity could be very refreshing to the masses, I am definitely in support of him blowing.

On an unrelated note, I feel pretty much the same way most folks do about the new Termanology album: a lackluster effort from a relatively talented cat who essentially blew it despite the best lineup of producers I’ve seen on a single album in the past decade. But my favorite cut on there, minus the ancient “Watch How it Go Down,” is album closer “The Chosen.”

It’s a Havoc beat that sounds straight from the Hell on Earth era, over which Term completely blacks out on the second verse. It’s one of those cuts that makes you wanna strap on your tan Timbs and XXL down coat and cut a mothafuckah’s throat from ear to ear with the ox.

Which, of course, I’m not advising. But check out the song anyway.

Among the many reasons why I hate 50 Cent

2008-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

Motherfucker.

Rat bastard. This delusional clown clearly has a new album coming out soon.

Also, I am on Twitter now. Get at me.

The 10 most underrated beautiful women according to me

2008-09-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a young buck, “the baddest babe ever” has been one of my favorite random topics of conversation. Discussing with friends and family the most delectable women of Hollywood and the music industry often reveals some of the same answers from all conversation participants (Halle Berry? Boring. Stacey Dash? Blah. Gabrielle Union? Ehh.).

There are those women, however, that I think have fallen through the cracks now and throughout the years; the ones that everyone will agree are fine but don’t remember to bring up in conversation.

Here are ten that I try not to forget, in no particular order:

1. Kerry Washington – She’s newer to the scene, and she’s kept a pretty steady flow of work, but she’s yet to truly blow up on some superstar-type ish. Every time she pops onscreen, she has my undivided attention. It’s that pout she has going on with those sexy soup-coolers and these dagger-ish eyes. She was absolute divinity via the female form in Chris Rock’s I Think I Love My Wife. She also comes off like she would cut you off at the grapes in an argument and put you square in your place should you ever get out of line. Gotta love that.

2. Paula Patton – The finest new actress in Hollywood right now, bar none. The Halle Berry 2.0. I’m pretty sure if she smiled in my face, she could get me to sign over my car, my cat and the rest of my existence. Idlewild be damned; watch her in regular-woman mode – minimal makeup and all – opposite Denzel Washington in Déjà Vu to feel where I’m coming from. That d-bag son of Alan Thicke’s is one lucky man, I gotta say…

3. Salli Richardson – The ultimate badass of yore and a personal favorite for over 14 years. Part black, part Cherokee and part God DAMN, she managed to make Jada Pinkett look like Beetlejuice in 1994’s A Low Down Dirty Shame. She also killed it in the Western schlockfest Posse. She still pops up every now and again, having had bit parts in Antwone Fisher, Biker Boyz (where she pulls off the dykish look with awesome panache) and at least one episode of “House.” She’s 40 years old and still one of the most beautiful women on earth. I mean honestly…who’s fucking with Pocahontas???

4. Roselyn Sanchez – Late last year, I was walking through my office and saw a Spanish-language magazine sitting around with Roselyn on the cover in a bikini. I think I literally lost my composure right then and there. She isn’t a great actress and her body of celluloid or television work won’t be remembered by many (Boat Trip, anyone? No? Didn’t think so.). But her actual body itself is bound to cause an automobile accident or three. I mean, just look at that core! No one does fiery Latina like Roselyn does fiery Latina. Imagine getting screamed at by her in Spanish. During sex. “Mas rapido!” “Mas duro!!” Whatever you say, Miss Sanchez.

5. N’Bushe Wright – N’Bushe will fuck you up. She will beat…your…funky…black…ass. If Dead Presidents was any indication, she’s the perfect black female anachronism; she’d fit just marvelously in the 1970s Blaxploitation era; with dual afro puffs, bellbottoms and the midriff-baring blouses tied up at the stomach; all the while loading a shotgun that she’s just going to end up busting you upside the head with anyway. I haven’t seen in her in much of anything since the first Blade movie in 1999, but I’d love it if this beautiful, chocolate babe popped up again.

6. Tracie Spencer – I can’t name or recite any Tracie Spencer songs anymore. It’s been that many years. But considering how fiery beautiful she was back in the early 1990s, I have no doubt that she is lingering somewhere in MILF status right now. Y’all remember that episode of Family Matters when Eddie finagled his way into her hotel room? I was, like, 12, and you can only imagine what was running through my horny little domepiece at the thought of what I’d (attempt to) do if I were in his place.

7. Cree Summer – So, Whitley was cute, Denise was annoying as shit and Jaleesa looked like a damn fullback. But Winifred? Bad, son. BAD. She did neo-soul before neo-soul was hot, and somehow managed to get sexier when she switched it up as the conservative lawyer type on later seasons of of A Different World. Sure, her voice sounded like a bag of kittens drowning in the Chicago River (which is probably why her singing career never went anywhere), but she was always something to look at. Yeah, she got all flower child-y and made questionable jewelry and tattoo decisions when she got older, but hey…the foundation is still there, from what I can surmise.

8. Karyn Parsons – I think just about every fine black actress of the 1990s that wasn’t named Halle or Jada made some form of appearance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But I don’t think any of them could contend with my girl Hillary. Even when Tatyana Ali started to come into her own as a looker herself, she couldn’t mess around with big sister. Unlike most of the women on my list, Karyn has seldom ever shown any real skin in her career, yet has managed to stay in the wet dreams of dirty old men like myself. I never bought into her being a true ditz, so when she went on to movies like Major Payne, even finer than she was on Fresh Prince, she pretty much cemented fantasy wifey status.

9. Bern Nadette Stanis – All TGIF-era-and-beyond TV cuties, pay homage to the original badass sitcom dime. Fine before my miserable behind ever fell out of my mother, I didnt appreciate her until I got much older; despite a nice, healthy diet of Good Times reruns as a child. Though she was forced to act next to a pre-pubescent Janet Jackson, I imagine I would have chosen posters of Thelma over Janet for my bedroom wall if given the option. I saw her on BET’s Comic View maybe eight years ago or so, and she was still pretty slammin’! I wonder if J.J. ever smashed in real life…

10. Emmanuelle Chriqui – Very attractive women are guaranteed to pop up frequently on the HBO show Entourage. But being as how it’s a show about the film industry in Los Angeles, shot in Los Angeles, it should come as no surprise that many of them are about, say, 30 percent actual human being and 70 percent plastic, makeup and extensions. Not one of them has ever made me stop and do double- and triple-takes like Ms. Chriqui did. She’s crotch-rackingly gorgeous, but she also comes off as real and unpretentious. Her hair, face and complexion are insane; thank her Israeli background for that. If she can stay clear of Adam Sandler bombs and demonstrate some passable amount of talent to go along with her looks, she could potentially end up being a more useful version of Jessica Alba.

Termanology and Heltah Skeltah: Two new joints

2008-09-24T09:12:00.001-07:00

Tuesday night was pretty big for hip-hop and the nets: First leaked Heltah Skeltah’s D.I.R.T. (Da Incredible Rap Team), the loooooong awaited follow up to their 1998 album Magnum Force. And there’s Termanology’s Politics as Usual, his anticipated freshman album coming on the heels of 812645862148764 mixtape appearances.

Oh, and there’s also some mixtape from Crooked I that I could probably care a bit less about if I tried.

I can tell you right now I’m already feeling Term’s album more than Heltah Skeltah, if for no other reason than that the production lineup is fierce: what other album in the 21st Century does or will ever feature the lineup of DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Hi-Tek and Havoc? When dude came out the gate about a year and a half or so ago with “Watch How It Go Down,” it was the best Primo/rapper collaboration since Royce’s “Boom,” and generated a lot of buzz for him. Thing is, Termanology is not consistent, and his uneven flow on this record – vacillating between speedy-dope and dumbed-down generic – proves that he’s yet to find an identity on the mic.

Ruck and Rock, though, maintain their adept lyrical pugilism. The Boot Camp Click mainstays' always-enjoyable court-jester-with-face-stomping-Timbs aesthetic has yet to grow old. Thing is, the production leaves a bit to be desired; Illmind and the almost always-reliable Khrysis just aren’t doing it for me.

This is all after one listen of each album during my bike ride to work. I’m gonna blaze through each again this afternoon.

A PSA on stupid sex

2008-09-23T11:41:00.001-07:00

Why yes...I'll take a loveless marriage with a side of redneck!

My friend Lisa and I were recently discussing “stupid sex” following my trip to the doctor’s office - and subsequent STD testing - earlier that day.

She said she didnt believe there were "degrees" of stupid sex: "If you have it without a condom, it’s stupid." was her assertion. But I thought about all the gray areas that exist in sexuality that make you go, “Hmm…it wasn’t an outright stupid decision, but if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it again.”

I think that above scenario fits in the realm of most sexually active people who’ve had multiple partners in their history. Having questionable sex often fits into being immature and naïve, but sometimes people are just plain stupid with the risks they take.

I devised a list of eight categories that I believe encompass silly, dumb-ass sex. I'm sure I probably missed an item or two, so feel free to shoot me a comment or three.

1. You aren’t using a condom and don’t know your partner’s middle name – Of course the safest sex is to use some method of disease-protecting contraception, but getting involved in a condom-free sexual relationship with someone with whom you’re monogamous should be fine. What’s ig’nant is having unprotected sex with some mofo you met three hours ago at the club over SoCo and lime shots. The “good feeling” you had about that person means the fuck-all when you find yourself leaking feta cheese from your genitals because you had sex with the town rag who “charmed” your silly ass into a foreseeable future with antibiotics.

2. You find a kid growing inside you when you aren’t ready – If you find that you or your partner are pregnant, and your first thought is “holy balls…whatmIgonnadonow??”, you fucked up. This applies to single people, folks in relationships and even married people who weren’t trying to have kids. You were being careless somewhere down the line, so now your whole perspective on life has changed: your plans to travel, grow personally and become financially stable are now accelerated or halted altogether…all because you went in on some dumb shit. Here’s the good thing: you always have the option to hit the “abort” button. If you get pregnant when actually using condoms or birth control, you didn’t have stupid sex…you’re among the two percent of people for whom shit happens. Which leads me to another point:

3. You are sloppy with birth control – Birth control is a bitch. From my understanding, it’s expensive and difficult to take on time all the time. Women make mistakes and forget it. Life happens. But I learned a long time ago that people are still willing to go raw daddy when there’s a missed a pill or two. That’s dumb shit. Either use a condom or wait until your shit is back in line before boning. I don’t wanna take the time to look up to see how many doe-eyed little bastards came into this world because mommy and daddy were slipping on birth control, but I doubt not that the numbers are there.

4. You’re into extreme sadomasochism/dangerous sex – To me, this is like shooting heroin: it may feel good and it should be your prerogative to do what you want to your body, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good idea. If you literally can’t sit down because you have bloody whip welts on your asscheeks, or you like to be choked to near-asphyxiation during sex, you’re playing a dangerous game the likes of which I can’t even get with. Imagine what it’ll read in your obituary when it goes wrong: “Here lies so-and-so, dead from bacterial meningitis after recreating Two Girls and a Cup.” Now imagine how proud your parents would be.

5. One or both of you is cheating – This is the only entry of this list governed by morality, but I’m so fervently opposed to infidelity that a woman cheating on me could potentially be more detrimental to her immediate health than any silly STD. If you need to rail someone else that bad, break up. Or beat off and revisit the situation.

6. She has a ‘1’ in front of her age and you don’t – Not just stupid, but illegal in most cases. Find a grown woman who actually knows her way around a penis to have sex with. If you have any doubts, do like a bouncer and check IDs, because if you get that wrong, your next stop will be state prison where you’ll have to contend with:

7. Anal sex, no lube – See #4. If you don’t get why this is a problem, maybe you shouldn’t be having sex at all.

8. You know something your partner doesn’t - I would imagine strange warts and leaky discharges qualify as things that don’t look well on a resume of someone you’re looking to hop in bed with. That’s why CraigsList forums exist with people who have STDs that can get together. What’s not copacetic is having sex while carrying a disease that your partner doesn’t know about. I don’t care if you’re wearing a hazmat suit on your dick; they deserve the right to make the choice as to whether to sleep with you anyway. Sleeping and infecting someone with a disease you know you have is not only illegal, but it might get you shot before the sickness does you in.

I thought back on any instances of “stupid sex” that I may have had, and I realized that a) It was earlier on in my sex life before I had today’s sense; and b) Even then, I had the good sense to not do anything egregiously reckless with Little Dustin.

That’s why my test results came back clean. I also have to thank my several doctor and nurse friends who’ve shared stories of patients wasting away in the hospital because they chose the wrong hole. Oddly enough though, I think my desire to actually enjoy the financial, personal and sexual freedom of my 20s without having to worry about another mouth to feed besides my cat’s has driven me more than anything not to make ridiculous bedroom decisions.

Maybe the fundamentally religious Bible bangers have something to the simplicity of saving oneself for marriage. But then, those are same folks that also believe the billions of the world’s animal species were herded on one boat two at time, so…

I do think sexuality should be explored and enjoyed, and I don’t think it takes too much to do so safely and intelligently. I mean, shit is real in the field…it really does only take that one damn time to flip your whole world upside down and sideways.

Ryan, Jason and Curtis: Why Detroit runs hip-hop

2008-09-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

Oooh baybee! Betta DUCK, baybee!!!

In the 21st Century, we’ve become a culture of rap fans driven by production.

Sure, the beat has always been a critical aspect of hip-hop, but I think we’re muting emcees’ words and allowing production to guide our listening experiences more than ever. Next time you run into a 16-year-old girl playing Jay-Z in her iPod, ask her if she can recite the verse of the song she’s listening to.

As hip-hop evolves (devolves?), I don’t think we’ve had much of a choice. Our apathy for meaningful and/or well-delivered lyrics is the only way that we can live in a zeitgeist where popular music magazines support Lil’ Wayne’s self-aggrandizing-yet-painfully-off-base “Best Rapper Alive” title.

But every now and again, with the seeming frequency of Halley’s Comet, you get those rappers who are not just lyrical, but whose flow can stand alone. Cats who actually guide the beat instead of the other way around. Cats who can make a Tony Dofat track sound like a Pete Rock wet dream. Cats from whom you’d listen to 16 bars over no beat whatsoever.

If you’d have asked me a decade ago, I would have laughed if you told me that the game’s very best contemporary rappers would be dwelling right there in my struggling rust belt of a hometown in southeast Michigan. But right now, no other city has Detroit beat for good rap music, thanks to Elzhi, Royce Da 5’9” and Black Milk.

Ten years ago, when Eminem dropped his first major label album, The Slim Shady LP, my immediate favorite track was, “Bad Meets Evil,” a duet with Em and Royce, whom I’d never heard before. I was impressed by the white boy’s prowess back then, but his guest actually owned him on that cut, bar for bar.

I’ve followed Royce’s career ever since, and was always perplexed by the second-fiddle role to mentor Eminem that he allowed, despite his undeniable mastery of rhyme style and cadence. Royce was more listenable because he had Eminem’s raw skill on the mic and none of the pop culture histrionics that made the latter so popular.

But three mediocre Royce albums produced only one truly powerful, memorable cut: the DJ Premier-produced “Boom,” which is probably somewhere in my top 20 joints of all time. Following the dissolution of the relationship with his great white mentor and a brief jail stint, he came back with a vengeance last year: older, angrier and brimming to remind folks that he was, indeed, still on the motherfucking scene. The result was The Bar Exam; probably the best mixtape I’ve ever heard.

The first time I heard Elzhi was on J. Dilla’s 2001 Welcome 2 Detroit album. I heard his verses here and there and respected his transition into a Dilla-free Slum Village, but I didn’t really acknowledge him as a force to be reckoned with until the group’s self-titled 2005 album, on which he blacked out on damn near every verse. When Royce was off the scene in the middle of this decade, Elzhi stepped in for the D and basically annihilated every track he was on. All other rappers on a track with him fell in the shadow of his verses. I’ve literally been waiting years for a full-length Elzhi LP, so you can imagine how I felt this past July.

The Slum album was also the first that brought Black Milk on my radar. As one-half of production crew BR Gunna (with Young RJ), he made no secret about trying to emulate J. Dilla’s signature sound. Since Dilla left us at the beginning of ’06, Black has rightfully ascended to the throne – Detroit hip-hop’s panacea for the loss of its patriarch. Dude swung for the fences with the extremely capable Sound of the City, Vol. 1, and hit a home run with his freshman album Popular Demand, my personal favorite for album production in 2007.

MK’s the best producer on the scene right now, bar none. He can make just about any emcee more listenable than they were, and he’s reached that elusive DJ Premier status where I listen to every cut he produces, regardless of the waterhead rapping over it. What excites me more is the faith that he hasn’t even peaked yet, and that we have years and years of those drums that just don’t stop ahead of us.

Oh yeah…he’s a rapper too, but he should definitely expend more energy playing up his production capabilities, much like someone else we know.

I find myself troubled when trying to determine who, between Royce and Elzhi, I think is more skilled. What they have in common is purity on the microphone: they were both born to emcee. With Class-A lyrical exercise, they both have a tendency to completely black out on a verse; making you rewind the track on some “damn, did he just say that?!?!?”

The main difference between the two lies in their delivery: Elzhi sounds like he’s more meticulous and scrutinizing about the bars he puts on paper, while Royce demonstrates an unrestrained nihilism makes him literally scary. Elzhi strikes you as the dude who, despite his battle-happy words, would rather keep peace, while Royce has demonstrated time and again simply does not give a fuck…which could result in something epic very soon.

In a battle, I’d pick Royce all day over Elzhi and just about anyone else. He’s the type to make an opponent laugh through an examination of all the flaws being exposed about him. But Elzhi’s proven he’s actually adept at storytelling; I’ve never heard Royce paint a picture like Zhi does in “Talkin’ in My Sleep.” Elzhi also sounds far more at home in the studio: The Preface, and the slightly-superior Europass LP, both take mango-sized dumps on any project Royce ever put out not called The Bar Exam.

None of these cats, Black MK included, embody cerebral hip-hop. All three are at home in their love for gun-clapping bravado and finding as many clever ways (successfully) to describe the use of a 9 mm. But if you look at the Notorious B.I.G.’s and the Big L’s and all these emcees we consider posthumous legends, most of their songs utilized clever, witty methods and wordplay to rap about much of nothing. This is simply expected in the genre, and it’s why most get a “spit that bullshit” pass.

The current representatives of the Detroit sound are throwbacks to the late 90’s era of hip-hop, when the boom-bap was still alive but on its way south. Popular hip-hop wouldn’t lick your lollipop you or lock your love down…it’d blow your fucking head off and piss on your open neck cavity. None of these cats will ever gain mainstream success – save maybe Milk, if the right cats get their hands on his beats – but that’s not the purpose they serve in the game. They are to keep content the nerds and quasi-purists like me hanging on for dear life to the days of old.

I’ll reiterate what the nets have pretty much unanimously agreed with: These three need to team up to do a full album together, as the results would be legendary. And if you don’t believe the hype, listen to them at work here.

Viva la Detroit.

Banned RedEye column: Memoirs of the lovelorn and unshorn

2008-09-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Meeheehee...I dont care, this shit is funny.

Tampons. SCUD Missiles. Prince's Super Bowl guitar. The Sears Tower.

The phallic symbol is alive and well, manifested in many things we come in contact with on a regular basis. As a result, it doesn't take long for a boy growing up in this country to understand that the ideal penis is nice, long and…skinless.

Just about every circumcised man I've spoken with would have their shaft no other way, and most women admit a sexual preference for a mushroom-esque Johnson.

I'm packing all the skin down below that I fell out of my mama with. And confident as I am in my sexual prowess, I do deal with it as a lingering hang-up.

Between the YMCA showers as a kid and trips to my old man's porn cabinet, I figured early on that I was different than most guys in that department, and I didn't understand it until age 12 when my stepmother explained circumcision.

I didn't dwell much on it until my sophomore year in college, when a young lady who might have otherwise jumped my bones saw Little Dustin accidentally pop out of his hole. She told me some weeks later, in a casual conversation, that she wouldn't "go for mine" because I'm uncut.

That was just the beginning. Between that, and an inordinate number of references in the media to uncircumcised penises resembling a Shar-Pei, I developed a mild insecurity. When I meet someone new whom I think I'll eventually knock boots with, I like to cavalierly mention it at some point in conversation so as to prevent the "shock and awe" factor when the drawers eventually drop. "Wow, that salad really looks nice!" "Yeah, and the lettuce is freshly cut, unlike my penis!"

I used to always complain to my dad for not getting me cut after birth, and he'd always tell me to get it done now if I feel that strongly about it. But it's a done deal because an adult circumcision is out of the question; the idea of collapsing in wincing pain for weeks after surgery every time Salma Hayek pops up half-naked on television doesn't bode well with me.

And since the extra skin makes us a bit more susceptible to disease and germs, we need to work harder to keep things cleaner. Guys, keep that in mind next time you sleep with a lady who takes a bucket of Ammonia in the shower to clean herself.

But there are certainly benefits to not getting the big slice as an adult. The diminished sensitivity makes many of us marathon men in the bedroom; and of course, you remove all chances of pesky bleeding and infection from the surgery.

As of late, I've learned that at least one group of people can put uncut penises to practical use. Uncircumcised gay male couples use a sexual technique called "docking."
Google search it…just not in your work place.

Alas, I intend to stay complete for life. Love me, love my penis. Whole cultures have and still do carry on without the surgery, and while I don't have a copy of Gray's Anatomy on my bookshelf, I've never heard of non-circumcision as grounds for a medical disaster. Now if I can just get the idea of that "perfect" penis out of ladies' heads, I'll fare better.

Besides…it's not the size or shape of the sword, but how you wield it, right?

YOU MY BOY, BLU!!!!!!!

2008-09-18T06:21:00.001-07:00

The double-edged sword that is the internet: A virtually bottomless supply of rappers and their music at your pirate-happy fingertips that allows every fuckass with a working vocal cords, an old Ice Cube album for inspiration and a delusion of talent to get on a microphone and cut a demo in their mama’s basement.

With that, I often really have no idea who to listen to and who to pass up. Sometimes I go by what cats on the boards are saying (which are, very often, opinions laced with horseshit), and sometimes I just try new music just to see what’s what. Blu (nee Johnson Barnes) is an example of one of those emcees I stumbled upon on the nets by happenstance one day who I could easily still be oblivious to. The San Pedro, California emcee is a perfect marriage of splendid, rapid-fire rhyme control; a great voice and relatable, self-deprecating lyrics. I’ve been following his career for about a year and some change now now.

Check out his new joint, Johnson & Jonson, a duet album with producer Mainframe. It’s a proper version of the Powders & Oils joint that dropped earlier this year; containing a few new, removed, remixed and remastered cuts. Mainframe’s dusty, Oldies-sampled production seems Madlib-inspired while maintaining its own identity. It’s good stuff, though it doesn’t serve Blu quite as well as producer Exile did on their epic, criminally underrated 2007 Below The Heavens album.

“Long Time Gone” and “Half a Knot” are worth downloading this alone, but the album’s true highlight is the Beatles-sampled “Hold On John,” which they left as an album-ending bonus cut for some strange reason.

Let me know what y’all think.

01. Johnson & Jonson - J & J 04:21

02. Johnson & Jonson - Up All Night 04:38

03. Johnson & Jonson - Half A’ Knot 02:25

04. Johnson & Jonson - Mama Told Me 02:30

05. Johnson & Jonson - The Gusto Room 03:22

06. Johnson & Jonson - Wow! 03:06

07. Johnson & Jonson - The Only Way 02:25

08. Johnson & Jonson - In The Building 01:51

09. Johnson & Jonson - Bout It, Bout It 01:55

10. Johnson & Jonson - Spell Check 03:39

11. Johnson & Jonson - Long Time Gone 02:46

12. Johnson & Jonson - Still Up All Night 01:24

13. Johnson & Jonson - A Perfect Picture 03:20

14. Johnson & Jonson - Anything Is Possible 02:20

15. Johnson & Jonson - The Oath 02:07

16. Johnson & Jonson - Hidden Bonus Track 03:13

Happy Bar Exam 2uesday!!

2008-09-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Your favorite rapper's favorite rapper

I got a lot of work to do today, but I wanted to share with you all the much-anticipated Bar Exam 2 mixtape that dropped last night.

Bang this shit out. More on it later.

Heeeyyy Joe...

2008-09-15T07:58:00.001-07:00

Somebody's watching meee....

Joe Budden is one of contemporary hip-hop’s most glaring cautionary tales. He’s proof that major label politricks and shady creative dealings can blackball an otherwise very promising hip-hop career before it ever has the chance to find its bearings. His eponymous 2003 debut album caught many heads’ attention; no small thanks to his Just Blaze-produced banger “Pump It Up” (which sampled to great effect one of my favorite Tribe Called Quest songs: the “Scenario” remix).

His second album never dropped, he severed ties with Def Jam, and now he’s basically Angry Rapper Who Never Blew Up #29163459162875. Since then, he’s been embroiled in useless rapper beefs that no one gives a bloody hemorrhoid about; all the while working the mixtape circuit and making the internet fiends lick their nerdy chops for the next iteration of “Mood Muzik.”

What separates Budden from (most) struggling east coast rappers is that he’s actually pretty listenable. He’s a mastery of his flow and voice, along with a pretty adept ear for beats. If you compare his mixtapes to his album, it’s evident that he’s just improving over time. I have a feeling that not enough people are up on this summer’s “Who,” a 15-plus-minute indictment of the entire rap industry over a sampling of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” that never tires over the course of the track. He released it in three parts over the course of a few weeks, but the whole version dropped sometime in July. I think anyone who knows anything about hip-hop before the turn of the millennium would appreciate this song in its entirety.

First off, your favorite rapper probably couldn’t put together 15 minutes worth of hook-free bars and make it sound credible, but Budden does so seamlessly. And the amount of asses he crawls in like an Alabama tick – everyone from Lil’ Wayne to Lupe Fiasco to VIBE Magazine – demonstrates that he’s not only a rapper, but also a true fan who, like many of us, has tired of the bastardization of the genre. He’s like me in that he’s frustrated that he can no longer walk to the corner record store once a week, spend a large chunk of his allowance on a new album he’s never heard anything from, and know that it’ll at least be decent. In this zeitgeist, any rapper who can demonstrate a true love and knowledge for the craft has my ear for at least a moment.

I could dissect so many lines from “Who,” but it’s best you listen for yourself.

Couple jammies for a Thursday evening

2008-09-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Right quick: This dizzy dame is bidding off her virginity to the highest bidder, via the Moonlight Bunny Ranch of HBO’s Cathouse fame. I highly doubt she's the first female to have ever pulled this being that it's 2008, but maybe she's the best-looking one. Word on the street is she's up to about $300,000 so far.

Either way, I'm sure her parents are elated. If you listen at about the 0:46 mark in the video, you should be amused by her reasoning for doing it. Classic.

Also, the studio CDQ version of Kanye’s “Love Lockdown” has leaked. It’s even more atrocious than the live version, if that’s possible.

Alright, off to get in some Metal Gear.

Kanye goes wild, turkey-wing homo

2008-09-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

What in the blue fuck???

Alright, you know what…?

Man…

Listen…

I will always give Kanye West his props for successfully carving out a niche for himself as an emo-rapper in the gun clap-happy world of hip-hop. A healthy, if not obnoxious, coalescence of hubris, raw musical talent and spirited drive has helped him traverse the elusive mainstream/underground balance.

Though I probably wouldn’t go out and have a beer with the guy, I am one Kanye fan and apologist.

But he keeps pushing the envelope, seeing how far he can descend into his genre- (gender?) bending persona. The latest result is "Love Lockdown," the new single from his upcoming fourth album 808’s & Heartbreak, due out in December. I listened to the song performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, and all I could muster was a huge, audible groan.

You’ll hear that the song is entirely devoid of any real rapping – something ‘Ye has arguably not even mastered yet – and replaced by singing that is best described as a syphilitic rhesus monkey tossed in a blender. I’m not entirely sure where and when this trend of rappers singing came about, but it seems to be metastasizing into a full-blown virus reminiscent of the shiny-suit era: even Jay-Z is in on it.

Cats on the net are saying that 808’s & Heartbreak will be a heavily sung album; with Kanye utilizing that goddamn vocoder that everyone and their baby’s mama have co-opted since that talentless nadbag T-Pain revived it to fuel his useless career. Maybe the inspiration for the new album is derived from a combination of his mother’s widely publicized death and the breakup of his engagement, both which happened earlier this year.

Trust me…I know what it’s like to go bitch when times are hard, but the public to listen to this music as well. He’s got three solid projects in the can, and something tells me he might finally brick this one. But agonizingly enough, he’s got my attention.

Let’s see how the rest of the album pans out.

Porn Addiction and Me...

2008-09-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I got into an email-based debate with a dude regarding a pro-pornography column I’d written.

His goal was to point out the detriment of pornography from a social standpoint. One of his arguments was that I was “addicted” to it, and - like all addictions – I had a personal obligation to try to nip it in the bud.

I think this cat was one of many with a tendency to misdiagnose addiction.

This CNN article examines the idea of sexual addiction, which obviously includes pornography. One graf reads: “Experts acknowledge that people who have affairs or use pornography are not necessarily sex addicts. Such pastimes form an addiction when they generate negative consequences for a person's relationships, take over free time and become impossible to quit.”

Now, I’ve been looking at porn for a good, long time; harkening back to my single-digit-age days when my erstwhile stepbrother and I would break into my dad’s chest full of Playboys, Penthouses, Hustlers and Players magazines. In high school, finding ever-so-inventive ways to rent movies and record them (over my parents’ VHS tapes) was my hidden little hobby. Now, with Netflix-esque DVD rental programs and computer burners, it’s easier than ever to stock a collection.

But never, in any point during my pre-sex teenage years or my adult years, did smut ever throw a wet blanket over my daily goings-on. Never, ever was porn any kind of substitute for substantive human contact, and – sweet fucking Jesus – NEVER have I thought to substitute porn for sex. Perish the thought into the cold, wet sand.

Dude also “diagnosed” my addiction by pointing out the fact that I have gotten increasingly bored with porn - a characteristic of any addict who is always looking for the next big "high." Though I enjoy wide assortments, and though the same fake-titted, bleached-blonde-who-can-fit-a-Cabernet-bottle-in-her-asspipe aesthetic has worn a bit thin, I don’t have a true compulsion toward it; which is to say that it doesn’t govern my existence, I don’t NEED it…I enjoy porn as I enjoy mainstream movies, good music and feeding that $30-a-week comic book habit I have.

As for internet porn - which is widely castigated as the bastion of porn addicts everywhere - not only am I not addicted to it, but I look at the shit as work: I have access to enough pay sites to fill up terabytes of hard drive space and every bit of free time that I could possibly muster, but I care little more about it than the precious few bucks I earn from reviewing them.

I’m a non-smoker, I don’t do drugs and I drink in moderation. I have no addictions or compulsions. I often joke and say that porn is my only vice, but of course I don’t truly believe it to be a vice.

Now comics, on the other hand...

Despues Hump Day...

2008-09-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

All good things come to an end.

Even if those good things are actually mediocre.

It’s been about two-and-a-half weeks since I was unceremoniously deprived of my weekly RedEye column. I wrote that column for 15 months; having churned out roughly 60 to 65 pieces on my experiences and perspectives that reached the more than 330,000 daily readers of the RedEye. So yes indeed, I was sad as the fuck-all about the whole thing.

Analyzing that sadness and subsequent irritation with the whole thing, I realized it came as a result of three things:

1. Ego – I’m very humble when it comes to most everything in my world except my writing. Their reasoning for clipping me, in so many words, was that I’d said all I really needed to say and that they were looking for “fresh” voices. This from a paper with a history of keeping columnists on for many moons as they find new and inventive ways to write about the same shit. Not too toot my own trombone, but I was the most diverse columnist they had, bar none. I traversed the whole gamut of dating stuff; from religion’s role in sex to online dating to one-night stands to marriage in the black community, and never once did I think I was being stale…but then I’m naturally biased.

2. My existing issues with the RedEye - Remember that column I wrote about anal sex? What about the one on circumcision? How about the one on sexual assault? I’m damn sure you haven’t, because the powers that be voted those fuckers off the island before they ever got a chance to run. The conservative Tribune Company, in my opinion, has found itself time and again entrenched in the paradox of wanting to reach out to new readers while contemporaneously being “edgy” and “bold.” But their idea of bold is definitely not in sync with mine, as they frequently elided words, phrases, and in some instances whole columns, in the name of maintaining some puritanical standards.

I mean, how the fuck can one be expected to write a substantive sex column and not be allowed to use the word “clitoris?” Insane.

3. Cash rules – Goodbye, $3,900 a year. It wasn’t show-stopping paper, but damned if it didn’t cover my car note every month and THEN some.

As do many who mourn, I’m going through my stages. Sadness graduated to anger, anger graduated to acceptance, and now acceptance has graduated to proactiveness.

Steps three and four of the grieving process are going pretty well for me on a day-to-day basis…that is, until some stranger working behind a gas station counter gives me a candy bar gratis because he likes the column; or my dental hygienist says she loves reading it as she polishes my pearly whites, or complete strangers on MySpace message me asking what happened to it.

That doesn’t help the process all. Part of my identity as a Chicagoan is gone, and the void is rather gaping.

It’s the last step of the grieving process, however, that bore this blog; it’s something I’ve been talking about getting going for the longest, and was admittedly hesitant about going through while as a columnist in the public eye. The only similarities Eclectic Relaxation will have with Hump Day is that I’ll be writing about vagina, its ever-turbulent-yet-intriguing relationship with penis, and the wide umbrella that encapsulates that all. I’ll vacillate between that and writing about the goings-on in hip-hop music and culture. Because, oddly enough, I still give a shit.

I never felt more alive than I did when I wrote The Manifesto columns during my University of Michigan days, and never did I feel the sting of not being able to write with my patented élan than when I wrote my RedEye column. So, for those in the know, consider this blog a return to those days…with a little less wordy exposition and the tons more sense that has come with age.

Now, let’s see if I can keep this jumpoff updated on a regular basis, eh?