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“I did joints with Mary J. Blige …..” - Jay Z

Who doesn’t love a cool Jay and Mary J collab? I think it’s one of the craziest Bonnie & Clyde combos in hip hop. Remember “Can’t Knock The Hustle?” Anyways, I think they did this track for the upcoming tour. Check it out. Tell me what you think!

“Some people recognize the light but they can’t handle the glare…” Common

I remember when Common’s original version of “The Light” came out on the Like Water for Chocolate album. That was a good time in hip hop… I long for those days to come back… Outkast, Common, Mos Def, Black Star, The Roots… they all had banging albums out and nobody was trying to “Crank Dat” next stupid dance. Anyways, Common, Marsha Ambrosius, Bilal and “Justin” Blaze (as Jay Z calls him) and the other usual suspects are still trying to keep hip alive with some really good music. Check out this remix “The Light 2008″. Enjoy!

(picture from rollingstone.com)

I’ve been really excited about the elections this year. My heightened interest has been for the obvious reasons, but also because there are so many other people participating that otherwise would have not. There is something special in the air this time around! I don’t consider myself to be a Democrat or a Republican, but I do think that I’m an Independent - a person with my own personal views and opinions that doesn’t simply vote based on a party affiliation, but based on political platforms that best serve my interests.

It’s interesting because Clinton and Obama aren’t much different in their platforms, so we as voters are truly left to pick from those two candidates based on the person and his or her character. This is one time in history that we have an African American male that can actually become arguably the most powerful person in the world. There is actually a person who can being more light to issues the African American and other minority communities face, but are often forgotten about or not considered at all. We potentially have a candidate that could push an agenda through the House and the Senate relatively easily because he is widely seen as a unifying entity. In other words, there is finally a Black man that could represent and lead not only Black America, but all of America and create better relations with other world powers.

I am very excited about the infinite possibilities that electing a person as Obama could do for the USA and the World. What I am not excited about is the fact that no matter how much positivity emanates from the African American communities (doctors, authors, lawyers, professors, pastors, corporate executives, athletes, musicians, etc.) there will always be something that somehow finds its way into mainstream media and perpetuate lowly thoughts of us. A lot of people make music just to make money and aren’t sensitive to the ill effects that may result from detrimental music. A hit single or record means that you are sub-consciously programming people with the message that’s in your music, whether it be good or bad. Music and video media has the unparalleled power to morally shape the conscious of the world and shape their views about women, politics, clothes, cars, etc.

A lot of people may not see anything wrong with the following video (obviously if you look at the number of people in the video), but I think it’s truly sad. Nationally we are on the verge of the possibility of our first African American president of the United States and in a hood near you this is going on:

Okay, so you decide to make a satirical video encouraging people to uh, read a book. Does your satire have to still be degrading to make its point clear? I tell you what, look at these two videos and tell me which one you think is more effective:

Video #1 (Thanks Shawna!)

Video #2

I’m over here crying laughing!!

B. you my girl, but this is funny. I wasn’t going to post this at first because of respect for the artists, but uh, if she can joke about it then so can I!

Come holla at ya folk!!!

So uh, I ran across this video on YouTube. Supposedly, it was aired on BET (I wouldn’t know cause I refuse to watch that channel). It seems to be “positive”, although I think gratuitous use of the “N” word wasn’t necessary for the message to be effective. Anyways… check it out and tell me what you think.

About 10 years ago, I was a die hard southern music fan. The music we now call “crunk music” was in it’s humble beginnings and a fellow by the name of Lil’ John had this high energy, infectious track on the radio featuring hip hop’s favorite pimp Too Short telling the world “You couldn’t be a better playa than me….”. You had “Two Dope Boys in a Cadillac” riding “Elevators”, confusing the world and making people think they were trippin off some weed. The truth is that these “ATLiens” were just inspired by a star formation that we now call “Aquemini” and they were taking us all to a mystical, yet real place called “Stankonia”. And even if you weren’t caught up in the extra terrestrial pimp music and were left “Still Standing” in “The Dirty South”, you could always just look in your “Goodie Bag” and get some “Soul Food”. When it was all said and done, you and your crew could pile up in the car “Front Back Side To Side” go to Greenbriar Mall and try to convince your favorite shawty to “Let Me See It”.

To me, this is what good southern hip hop was all about. Poisoning beats, lyrics full of unique imagery and memorable skits and interludes made each CD worth the $15 you paid at Peppermint Records and Tapes (yeah, I said Tapes). The art work was amazing and you would read the credits cover to cover - just to get to the thank you’s just and get a glimpse of the artist’s personality. The great albums were the ones that you had to buy three or four times because you would play them so much that they would get scratched up and become unreadable by your CD player.

We loved these artists because they all seemed like cool people that you would love to kick it with. They were a group of people that were very expressive, easy to be understood in the music, and very articulate in interview sessions. Representation of themselves and their craft was always above par.

I know that music, like anything else, has to evolve so that it will continue to live. I just don’t know if I’m a fan of the current state of southern hip hop. I stopped listening to the radio for a while and decided to revisit it recently. To my dismay, I heard a lot of music that was just not any good to me. Every track had 808’s in the same place, finger snaps loitering everywhere, 16th notes in every hi hat pattern, and a hook about a dance that took me at least 32 times to understand what the heck they were saying. I would even ask my high school aged cousins what they were saying, and they didn’t even have a clue… but they own almost all of the music by these artists.

I just feel like the quality of music from the south has diminished. Being a musician in a hip hop band, we run into artists all of the time that are making really good music but cannot get a good grip on the industry because of the kinds of music that dominates radio and other media. It’s very easy to see why there are so many musical clones. I don’t have any stats available, but I’m sure that they’ll show that the number of one hit wonders have increased dramatically. It just seems like it’s not about the craft or longevity anymore. It’s just about making money. I could be wrong.

At any rate, check out this video. I haven’t seen a video this great in a minute.

I don’t know if you guys remember me speaking about it, but the water situation over seas is crazy. When AFAR was preparing for our Africa Tour, the first thing everyone would say is “Don’t drink the water!”. We even heard that from people that had been no further than the East Point / College Park border, much less out of the country (I know that was a cheap shot, lol, please forgive me…). Most of the hotels we stayed in had some kind of issue with drinking and bath water being unclean or not sufficiently sanitized.

The organization Blue Planet Run (a race across the world to bring awareness to the state of the world’s drinking water) teamed up with AFAR to create the soundtrack for the run. AFAR keyboardist DoronJazz is a part of the relay team as well. Check out the video below and tell me what you think.

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