Radiant Child: Jean Michel-Basquiat Reflection
Today, I went to see “Radiant Child” a Documentary directed by Tamra Davis about the her good friend legendary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, with my friend John. Instead of giving a review of the film, I thought I’d go through specific ideas I learned about Basquait about his legend in general because honestly, it’s a story [...]
“Mind Sex” With Dead Prez
What’s better then sexual stimulation, than mental stimulation? I think if you can stimulate someone mentally, it’s more powerful, pleasurable, than if you could sexually stimulate them because let’s face it that could be done from anyone and everyone. Let’s travel into mental stimulation courtesy Dead Prez with “Mind Sex.” What’s “Mind Sex”? “It’s time [...]
Jean-Michel Basiquat: Radiant Child Documentary
If you are in the Bay Area, make sure you go to either Lumiere Movie Theatre in San Francisco, or Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley, to watch Radiant Child, a documentary about Jean-Michel Basiquat, directed by his good friend Tamara Davis. The film opened in theatres this past Friday (September 3) and will only be available [...]
BET’s My Mic Sounds Nice Recap
BET’s new documentary, “My Mic Sounds Nice” aired tonight, and let me first say congratulations to BET. As a network, I feel that BET ‘s shows a lot of time only helps to deepen the negative stereotypes associated with people of color. Maybe a little harsh, but that’s how I feel—we have shows like “Frankie [...]
Foreign Exchange | Authenticity (Tracklist) (@FEofficial)
I saw the official Foreign Exchange twitter tweeting about their upcoming project when I was half asleep, so I thought I’d post the information about their new album. I am beyond excited for their new project entering stores October 12th (8 days before my birthday, shameless self plug) because both of their projects– Connected, and [...]
Bandcamp Sundays: Daru Jones
Typically, I never get to enjoy the simplicity and mellowness of Sundays because I’m always working (weekend receptionist). But, today aside from not attending Outside Lands, I’m in good spirits. I worship BandCamp, if you know me you know this is true, and last week I finally downloaded a few Daru Jones albums, so this [...]
Nobody Wants An Ambitious Girl (Nicole Bitchie)
This is from Nicole Bitchie’s Bitchielife and I couldn’t agree more. Good one really. I like this poem, song, spoken word, track, I don’t know what to call it, it’s original. I’m real happy for Wale, and imma let him finish, but…I can’t cosign on this one. I want to, but if I did, women [...]
MTV’s First TJ @GabiFresh
A few months ago, MTV announced a contest to find their first annual MTV TJ. Everyone and their mothers wanted to be a TJ because of the perks you get. First being the first ever TJ so you’d be making history, and secondly, the 100K salary. After months of voting and promoting, last night [...]
Slow Sundays: Little Dragon
Didn’t have much to post today so I thought, why not highlight one of my favorite groups–Little Dragon through a video compilation via Youtube. I was put onto Little Dragon earlier this year (late I know) but for a while I had heard the name but didn’t really want to listen because I thought it [...]
Jay-Z’s Book “Decoded” Due In November
On November 16th Hov’s book “Decoded” will finally be released. The 300 plus page book is apparently a first person memoir where he also discusses some of his most famous lyrics. “It’s too much. For the book, I was interviewed, people close to me were interviewed. So I was learning a lot of things I [...]
Throwback Thursday: Illmatic Edition
I’m (re)reading Beyond Beats, by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai which explores how iconic of an album Nas’ debut–Illmatic was, or still is to hip-hop music. I would be a liar to say that this album has shaped my musical experience and helped build my love of hip-hop, because in all honesty, I listened [...]
Where is Samantha Jade?
This is a very random post, but I was watching Step Up, one of my favorite movies, and I was wondering, what happened to Samantha Jade. She sang the theme song on the movie and me and my friends used to write her on myspace, but now I wonder, WHERE ARE YOU SAMANTHA? I think [...]
Killing Our Dreams: Paulo Coehlo
The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They [...]
Alicia Keys & Swizz Beatz Wedding Pictures
Welcome the Beatz. Clearly, Swizz Beats real name isn’t Swizz Beatz but uh yea. This weekend, the couple got hatched in Italy and Ms. Keys looks beautiful. Honestly she’s one of the only truly beautiful pregnant woman I’ve seen. Swizz looks dapper… I like the untraditional yet classic look he has. Honestly, I hope they [...]
Throwback Thursday: Positive K- “I Got A Man”
So, I used to love this song to the point I’d attempt to request it on The Box, or Soul Beat. I was like, 4 or 5 when this song came out and my mom loved this song so she’d be dancing to it in the house on our radio– well this big sound thing, [...]
Lupe Fiasco & Producer Prolyfic Twitter Rants
I think one of the most profound things I’ve heard in the past few days was found in an interview my friend Yohance (Merc80) did with one half of J*DaVeY–Miss Jack Davey. She stated basically how the music industry is inevitably changing because everyone wants to be a music critic–instead of just a listener and [...]
20Somethings | Can you JUST be friends with someone you slept with?
Some say you can’t. Others refute that. But, nothing’s impossible. Scaling the situation is a most, of course. “Feelings even the smallest ones arise that cause thoughts. There’s always gonna be an attachment.” I spoke about this with a couple of people. I asked an even male/female ratio, I’d say. A female friend of mine said, “Even if [...]
Bella’s Top 50 Love Songs
Last night, I was on the phone with my friend and he asked me what are my favorite love songs of all time and I went on this crazy tangent with like 40 songs, plus the songs that made me cry, my favorite lyrics of each and then I was like, “want me to play [...]
Throwback Thursday-Mario
I’m going to try to post a “Throwback Thursday” post, every Thursday obviously. This week is Mario’s “Like Me Real Hard,” off his sophomore album Turning Point. At this time in my life, I was like a sophomore in high school because this album came out in 2004 (yes I’m young), but I would sing [...]
The Hype with Eating, Pray and Loving
I’m a huge book reader, and believe that movies based on books always fall short of the book examples shown with: “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “My Sisters Keeper” “Lovely Bones.” Despite all these movies being good, the books were better. In any attempt, I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert when it first [...]
Honor Killings/Noor Almaleki
When I was a freshman in college, I was in an upper division Ethnic Studies class where we were given an essay where we had to write about some human rights issue in 15 pages or more. I chose to write about Human Rights issues that affect women in Middle Eastern communities. Over 27 pages [...]
Throwback Thursday: Boo’s, Lost Loves and etc.
This is my first Throwback Thursday post and despite the Oscar Grant verdict, I’ve had a lovely day. I was talking to a friend about lovers to friends then friends to lovers so figured why not take a stab at writing about things synomous to relationships–boo’s, dilemia’s and etc. This weeks throwback Thursday are “My [...]