Share I’ve been away on a hiatus… but I’m back in force. I must admit that I have been sucked into the abyss that is Twitter (follow me!) and am just dragging myself out. There really is something to be said for micro-blogging. In any case, I have still been writing. So here are some [...]
Share I haven’t posted for a while… but I couldn’t not post today. Michael Jackson’s impact will probably only really hit home now, posthumously. But this is the man who was the first ever black person to be played on MTV, in the days when MTV wouldn’t play black music. This is the man who [...]
Share I’m going to write some more on this topic in due course, and I have a Guardian piece coming out soon talking about Obama and the hip hop generation, but for now let me post this video of Senator Obama himself talking about his love of hip hop and how he thinks it needs [...]
Share I love Common….aaah…Anyway – check out this video of Common showing off his freestyling skills at (Jeremiah Wright’s) church: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSXnQkqYqA4&hl=en]
Share Prior to living in America, I had already visited the country a number of times. But that’s not how I am able to sing RnB songs, or how I’m able to rap full verses from artists like Common, Jay Z, Biggie and Tupac or even much older hip hop groups. It’s not how I [...]
Share Since I’ve been living in America, one thing that has shocked me is the amount of racial terminology and general derogatory language that people use. ‘Nigga’, ‘bitch’, ‘cracker’, ‘muthaf***a’ - I hear them all… and often. Until I came here, I thought that the N word was used mainly in music, until I realized that [...]
Share Nas has sparked controversy with his new track “Be A Nigger too” . Personally I don’t really understand what he’s trying to say or why he feels the need to use the word – other than for publicity’s sake. I don’t think he’s made any insightful, enlightening or political points in the song, or said anything [...]
Share In an era when most music is disposable and carries meaningless messages, it’s great to see Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am and friends making the most of the power of music in this way. I didn’t realise how powerful Obama’s speech was until I saw this video. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY]
Share For years there has been an ongoing debate about how much of an impact hip hop music has on the lives of today’s young people. It has been blamed for a myriad of problems that affect black kids. The misogyny, violence and promiscuity (amongst other things) depicted in popular music videos have been said [...]
Share The Live Earth concerts kick off today…9 concerts around the world, on 7 continents, in 24 hours. Live Earth is apparently going to raise awareness of climate change. Excuse me for being a bit cynical, but the idea of flying hundreds of pop stars around the world, in gas-guzzling jets, to play in huge [...]
