Things That Have Nothing To Do With Today’s Primary

1. Gary Dourdan was fired from CSI. I don’t watch CSI so I didn’t realize he’d been unceremoniously fired from the show. Gary is a member of The Great Wall of Sexy. He’s been hot since “A Different World” when he sent Freddie’s woman-parts aflame. He was also hot in Janet Jackson’s video “Again.” And I’m sure he continued to be hot when he was busted after Coachella with a bunch of drugs in the car.

Those totally weren’t his. Complete misunderstanding there, I’m sure.

Once again, while I didn’t watch the show, this has to be just as bad when Jesse L. Martin announced he was leaving “Law and Order.” Jesse is also a Great Wall alumnus. Who is driving all the hot black men from network television? Who, I say, WHO??? If CSI: NY (which I also don’t watch) dumps Hill Harper (also on the wall) I’m going to call “shenanigans” and declare this an official conspiracy to deny women of hot black men on television. When they came for Isaiah Washington, I said nothing. Then they came for Jesse L. Martin, and I said nothing. How far will this purging of hotness go, Hollywood? HOW FAR!!!

2. Things I’m declaring a moratorium on:

  • Songs about strippers
  • Young-Joc
  • So-called “hip hop” radio stations who only play Young-Joc and T-Pain
  • Ray J
  • $4-per-gallon gasoline
  • “thrown under the bus”
  • Bossy people
  • This Montag person
  • Making fun of Britney Spears
  • Celebrating athletes for being “good fathers” who aren’t married to the women who gave birth to the kid, but are shacking up with her anyway (And I mean you, LeBron James.)
  • Crip walking if you are not, in fact, a gangbanger
  • Gangbangers
  • Wolf Blitzer
  • Wearing all your money on your back
  • “I wanna make love in this club.”
  • Cigarette smoking in clubs and bars
  • Will Smith

3. What is the cheesiest song you love? Mine is Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It’s shitacular, only rivaled by every song recored by Sir Mix-A-Lot and songs from Hall & Oates’ 80s period. M-E-T-H-O-D O-F L-O-V-E! It’s the method of modern love!

daniellebelton

25 responses to “Things That Have Nothing To Do With Today’s Primary”

  1. J-I-N-G-O Avatar
    J-I-N-G-O

    LOL…I’ve always had a deep seeded hatred of that Rod Stewart song…and here is a little known fact…The melody of the song was stolen from Jorge Ben’s Taj Mahal…

    Reply
  2. Tamra Avatar
    Tamra

    I think Gary has issues. He’s a hottie alright, but I swear, in every candid shot he’s in he always looks like he’s on another planet. I was shocked out of my britches to know he and Roshumba were married…As for item #3–Safety Dance by Men Without Hats–and I absolutely love the video… (Shhhh, don’t tell anybody I said that.)Oh, and Tubthumper by Chubawamba is a huge fave.

    Reply
  3. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    j-i-n-g-o: Stewart, like many Brits who LOVE black music, has been all over every soul recording since “The Midnight Hour,” which reportedly made him cry the first time he heard it. It amazes me how revolutionary black music was/is in Great Britain. Heck, in most of Europe, even. But the Brits latched on to it the hardest and took it the furthest. There is simply a bigger, more unashamed love for it in the UK. It’s not that white Americans don’t also love black music. They obviously do. But the Brit’s just take it a lot further, unbridled from our little racial drama in the states.tamra: I wouldn’t be surprised if Gary pulled an Amy Winehouse and tried to go to rehab.But seriously. If they take Hill Harper I’m starting a one-woman picket line with posters saying “Bring Back The Sexy” with pictures of Isaiah Washington and Jesse L. Martin on them. It’s getting ri-got-dam-diculous out there.And Tubthumper is a good one. I like to sing along when its’ on the radio. So is “Safety Dance.” Because if your friends don’t dance, if they don’t dance then they’re no friends of mine! I almost like it more than fellow anti-nuclear holocaust song Nena “99 Luft Balloons.”Although it is not embarrassing to love that song. It’s basically the greatest German 80s dance song ever. And it’s hard to make German sound good in a song.

    Reply
  4. grown Avatar
    grown

    Wall of Sexy Conspiracy Theory: Maybe the producers of these shows read your blog and checked out your WOS and they are taking them out one by one.Hey! I like Heidi Montag!

    Reply
  5. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    grown: OMG! Not my Great Wall of Sexy! Leave the brothers alone! I love their sexy asses so much. I couldn’t bare for another one to get axed.When CW didn’t renew “The Game,” I lost biracial actor Coby Bell (also on the wall). Then they axed ‘Girlfriends,’ hurting Malik Yorba (also on the wall.) If someone hurts Wentworth Miller, James Pickens Jr. or Donald Fasion, so help me God it will be “Burn, Hollywood, Burn!” I’m prepared to organize a coalition of women and gays of all races who want their men on TV hot n’ black. Sweet Jesus! Leave the sexy be!And I’ll just ignore the fact that you like this Montag person. 😉

    Reply
  6. Danielle Avatar
    Danielle

    “Reunited” – Peaches & HerbCoby Bell is gone? Oh my friggin’ God! Coby was the hotness. Gary needs to leave the damned drugs alone.If Wentworth Miller leaves TV, I swear I will take to my bed and draw the shades in mourning.Hey Snob, where’s Daniel Sunjata in the “wall of sexy?” He was in “The Devil Wears Prada”, “Rescue Me” and played Langston Hughes in “Brother to Brother”.Google him and let me know what you think.

    Reply
  7. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    danielle: Daniel Sunjata is SO <A HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blacksnob/2295058140/“ REL=”nofollow”>already on the wall!I’ve loved him since I saw him in the miniseries “A Feast of All Saints.”

    Reply
  8. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Wentworth will be fine. I love me some Prison Break. T-Bag forever!I think Black People are on a time-delay. It’s like we keep thinking that Hollywood has to take care of us and our feelings. We are not in style anymore. Blacks were in vogue in the 70’s and 80’s but were like a shooting comet in the 90’s descending to this marginalization. We peaked. Why do we keep thinking that people HAVE TO take care of us and regard us? I just can’t get down with Tyler Perry’s productions but I love, love, love his ethic of hiring his own in the most organic, old school type of methodology. He has yet to create a bricks-and-mortar studio and theatre. I hope that is next for him where he could employ other voices and other lens. Who knows what his vision is though.We kept trying to fit in and fit in until now we are boring. We may have members of our sect that look good but so few are dynamic or interesting. James Picken is interesting and talented but he is old school. Jesse Martin too is trained. Having myself studied and graduated with a degree in theatre, I know why we are played out. You can keep trying to fit in and fit in until you are not interesting anymore because you dumb down everything about you that was unique to a caricature. That’s why I respect true Black Actors that train and refuse to assimilate into token celebrity wattage for their yearly quota of diversity. Tyler Perry is hiring most Black Stars (who say they are actors) when most actors in the past came up through the Negro Ensemble Company, The Howard Players, or Yale Conservatory. People move to LA or NY wanting to be stars in an industry that only wants to continue to use them as cattle.I can’t and won’t take on a campaign of saving people who wanted to be stars and celebrities when the real craft was neglected and misunderstood. We have cheapened everything about ourselves. We no longer play instruments or read music. There is so much we let go and lost wanting to assimilate into being alike to be liked that we lost our essence. I ain’t gonna hype up the bad news. It is what it is.

    Reply
  9. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Oh…Flashdance…my favorite movie until…I never liked “What a Feeling” that much. I loved “Manaic” though.

    Reply
  10. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I’ve never quite understood why so many people hate will smith. I understand if you’re not into his style of rap, but I know a lot of other people that also have an extreme dislike for will smith.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was with you until you hit Will Smith. The man is the most versatile famous actor in America. He is also extremely easy on the eyes. Also, “The Game” has been tentatively renewed. Check out theybf.com 🙂

    Reply
  12. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    andrea: I don’t really have an issue with black actors who want to be major stars in Hollywood. Every actor would like to earn some degree of fame. It’s just that superstardom is hard for white actors to attain, let alone black actors who are in the minority in Hollywood.Also, while some of the more indie/artsy creativity in Hollywood is on the wane, there are decent opportunities for black actors to play complex characters on television. Even Shemar Moore gets some deep storylines on “Criminal Minds.” I can remember watching a pretty intense episode about him returning to his old neighborhood to confront the father figure who molested him as a child. And Isaiah Washington had a great character on “Grey’s Anatomy” as Preston Burke who represented a part of black life most people didn’t even know existed: the huffy, stuffy super elite educated class.The bigger problem is the lack of diversity among writers, directors and producers. Hollywood is fine with hiring black actors but the writers often don’t know enough about black experience to pen a decent storyline that weaves in their ethnicity. Law and Order is notoriously hit or miss with its black actors, although they did a good job with the Ice T/Ludacris storyline which involved abandonment, frayed black male/female relations, violence, self-hatred, homosexuality, child abuse and incest.So I’m not willing to give up on everyone. Tyler Perry’s simply the latest, most successful form of black (church folk) drama. I don’t mind career actors taking work from the man. At least they didn’t have to actually hit the “chitlin’ gospel play” circuit. And the pay is better.Career actors, after all, do have to keep their lights on. Most have not abandoned their serious aspirations because they took a Perry paycheck to the bank. dewfish: I can’t speak for everyone but my annoyance with Will is that he is basically the “McDonalds” of box office star. I find him bland, tasteless, odorless and uninteresting. He’s a hard-working guy and his acting as improved dramatically since the first “Bad Boys,” and I even like some of his films. But with the exception of his dramatic work, he’s playing the same guy over and over again and unlike Sam Jackson’s one-note-self-parody, I don’t find Will’s one guy interesting.I probably would like him more if he’d switch it up a little. I thought he was brilliant in “The Pursuit of Happyness” even though it was one of the most depressing movies I’d seen in a while.anonymous: But the Hancock trailers just look ridiculous. Ridiculous, I tell you!And thanks for the heads up on “The Game.”

    Reply
  13. starrie Avatar
    starrie

    i do watch csi and i’m so sad to see the sexy gary is leaving… he is the main reason i watch the show…i also watch csi:miami and last night (may 5) was the final episode for khandi alexander…she played the medical examiner on the show and her ponytails were awesome…this leave hill harper on csi:new york…now if he leaves, then something in the milk ain’t clean…as for sappy songs, i have many on my list that i love…but for now, i will go with journey’swill “who’s crying now”…btw, i saw rod stewart in concert a few years ago in phoenix…one of the best shows i ever saw…

    Reply
  14. starrie Avatar
    starrie

    whoops, this should say…journey’s “who’s crying now”…

    Reply
  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Gary Dourdan will always be Shazza Zulu in my heart! I hope he gets help (and a black woman).

    Reply
  16. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    snob, I agree with you on the Hancock trailer. It does look very stupid.

    Reply
  17. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    starrie: And now they’re axing hot black women? When will the carnage end??? Is Oprah going to fire herself?dewfish: Like Star Wars and Indian food, Will Smith is one of those things I like “in theory” but dislike in execution.

    Reply
  18. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Well I agree with you about the dynamics of the lack of writers. I starred in a movie as a supporting character titled “Detention”. The writer was a Black guy and he got a job as a staff writer (not spec writer) on Homicide after that. We filmed the movie in Baltimore and Homicide was already in production for years. (If you look it up, it does not show my name but I am the 4 actor on the cover of the visual image of the movie. IMDB does not list the entire cast or even the production crew. Weird.)But he moved to LA to strike gold but never did. He toured the film festival circuit with the film and it played on the Independent Channel and BET but that is about as far as it went. So eventually he did various things and even went to live in Japan for awhile writing for Japanese animation. But what he wanted to do he couldn’t because the competition was too vast and those that financed were not interested in Black Stories unless they were cliche. We all have heard that scenario.What I think about is of all the people that could have been more useful in other ways but they spend so much time on a “dream” that depends on White Liberal fiscal support instead of our own independence. Black Theatre’ used to manifest of of that creed. But like everything, we chase our Masters wanted to assimilate so fast in mimicking them that we neglect our own enterprises.I was the youngest and only young person in my twenties back in the 90’s at the National Consortium of African American Theatre Conference. There were all these old-heads there but no young people. It was sad. Luckily the African-American Theatre Festival is still kicking and they are filled with Hollywood types that came up through the theatre or academic theatre (conservatory or university).Right now I see one of the actors that starred in the same film I was in in 2 running commmercials. Reggie is (I think) in an AT & T commercial and some other commercial on a bike. He is the featured speaking actor in both. Another friend I have not seen in awhile pops up on series from “24” to The Suite Life to Zack and Cody. Most of the people I know studied and rationalized the risk to never make it big because they loved the craft first. Those guys did theatre first and it was Black Theatre and traditional mainstream theatre. And as much as they went to college they don’t guilt people that we have to take care of them because they know they are in it for themselves. I have watched so many Black entertainers play up the victimology when being an artist is a choice. Many people get into it thinking their fantasy/dream will play out the way they constructed it. It’s sad when reality bites and so much of their life is gone. Most of them are unemployed and could be useful human capital.Most people that go to LA go wanting to be a star and that is just more of the frivilous desire to play out fantasy rather than what we need in social capital of them and the resources they wasted never developing usefulness of themselves.I copped this excerpt from Ta-nehisi Coates’ excerpt on The Root today:”There were no answers in the broader body, where the best of us went out like Sammy Davis, and spoke like there had never been war. I will avoid the cartoons—the hardrocks loved Billy Ocean, Luther was classic, and indeed, I did sit in my 7th period music class eyeing Arletta Holly, and humming Lost In Emotion. But you must remember the era. Niggers were on MTV in lipstick and curls, extolling their exotic quadroons, big-upping Fred Astaire and speaking like the rest of us didn’t exist. I’m talking S-curls and sequins, Lionel Ritchie dancing on the ceiling. I’m talking the corporate pop of Whitney, Richard Pryor turning into the Toy. It was like Parliament had never happened, like James Brown had never hit. All our champions were disconnected and dishonored, handing out Image Awards, while we bled in the streets.”Right along with the case I made about expecting more, when I taught it seemed as if 2/3 or more of every class of mine, the young Black Students wanted to be stars (athletes or entertainers). This was in the late 90’s that I, the English one year and Theatre Instructor the next, ended up sounding like a fascist trying to make cases that we were in a state of emergency with our supposed “could have been” best and brightest only wanted to be the equivalent of Cotton Club, vaudevillian circuit bit players hoping Whites would pay them handsomely for all of their grinning. As much as the Harlem Renaissance was great, the cattle ranches of the Harlem Renaissance was also exploitative of our people who had no skills or could get them. We are now capable of learning and advancing when it seems so many young people only want to be stars. And it is just not about wanting to be singers or actors, I’ve heard disgruntled students at Howard announce the plight as well of their same peers ruining the legacy of the school caring more about fame, even if through journalism or business, means more than excellence in discovery new in making achievements not met yet. That legacy of Howard’s ended a long time ago.I support Isaiah Washington and Hill Harper without a doubt. They worked and paid their dues. You can tell they value education and the output of more than artistry. They are two social engineers who want to leave more to the world than just their acting. That can’t be said of most Blacks in Hollywood. And they are not there teaching our kids to realize the severe Brain Drain. No people can last on this slide with too many people afraid of “being the bad guy” to bring this to our attention about the frame of reality our children understand and value.

    Reply
  19. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    andrea: Well, I have only one slight bone to pick with Ta-nehisi Coates assessment of 1980s artists. There were exceptions to the rule. Pretty much everyone out of the Minneapolis Sound, even in glitter and Jheri Curls, had more in common with James Brown and Parliament Funkadelic than Billy Ocean. Including the ability to play their own instruments.Rick James was hardly cross-over friendly. I had to explain who he was to countless white friends after Dave Chappelle made him a household name. And I can recall pop songs by black artists big and small about saving starving Africans, freeing Nelson Mandela, telling me “Not to play Sun City” and thanking Miss Rosa Parks “for starting our freedom movement.”Hip Hop was feeling its’ political legs at the time (only to have them chopped off when the art form became “commercially viable” in the mid-1990s.) But from the late 80s to early 90s it combated police brutality, racism, drugs, self-hatred, unwed pregnancy, sexual abuse and gang violence.The Dr. Dre made “The Chronic” which would later inadvertently turn the whole genre to weed, liquor, sex and Snoop Dogg. Not to mention the celebration of “pimp culture.”If you ask me it was still easy for most black music to be about just black people back in the 1980s (save for pop/dance variety which has historically gone for the mushy middle.) It wasn’t until MTV went “Hey! You CAN make money off of black music!” and made black music, which was largely “for us, about us” for more than 150 years, and made it all about cash.So I think I heard more protest songs about black experience in the late 80s than now where I hear *crickets* and some ululating from Beyonce. That’s no “Free Mandela” or “The Message.” It’s not even “White Lines.”But I get what you were using that statement for — to address the moral bankruptcy that exists within our now limited “art” community. Yes. Totally with you there.This speaks back to the need for reinvestment in our fine arts community. I don’t know how Paul Lawrence Dunbar would have survived in this present environment where the only voice that matters is the market’s. And since black dollars only make up a minority of that market what is commercially viable is determined by the tastes of large swaths of White people who like their black experience real stereotyped-like. Sort of like classic Vaudeville only you don’t need to purchase any black grease paint or Al Jolson records. Sort of like 1920s Harlem, only you don’t have to go to the Cotton Club. You can just listen to Akon and sing about how “shorty is dancing like she ain’t got manners” with “mo’ booty than one man can handle.”What a Gilded Age we live in nowadays.

    Reply
  20. Andea Avatar
    Andea

    Well I am still leaning more inclined to agree with Ta-Nehisi. I grew up here on the East Coast to live in the South and see how they interpreted “all we have to do is become stars” as well as after I moved up North but still East, it was the same attitude but on steroids. It is so like that that in NYC. It is so like that here in DC and B’More. It does not matter about the contributions of those true artists that played instruments, too many had the same attitude that they were doing their thing and that they were not entitled to pull visual duty. Blacks were in vogue in the 70’s, 80’s and early to mid 90’s. There was art that trickled down to mass commercialization that made a lot of these people rich and they detached themselves from The Struggle. Common idealogy was to “gets yours…cause I gots mine!” When integration was enacted, Blacks thought they were retired from obligation to duty. They all wanted to chase glory. And how to you tell people that they should not do that when that is the marketing scheme of The American Dream? How do you tell Blacks that The American Dream is a marketing scheme manufactured to hold the country together after The Stock Market 1927 and when Whites were killing themselves left and right feeling like The Great Experiment was a failure? One writer wrote about the American Dream and it got fire with the government and puppet masters that needed the people to get a hold of themselves.Just as you questioned about deriliction of duty recently of the socialized fabric and fabricated ideas of the who is going to campaign the redemption of the public health outlook and behaviors in treatment and understanding of the Black Woman, we must also ask those uncomfortable questions about duty of artists and faux artists. Everyone should be sent to the tribunal. That is what we don’t get.When we judged and assess, sometimes we leave ourselves out because we have superior ideas and excuses. I am not excusing “Black Celebrity” but we had solid models of socially responsible artists that made the opportunities these same very people are coasting on. Ossie, Ruby, Harry, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, Lena Horne, Dizzy, Max Roach you name them — they all were committed to Black Improvement and Advancement while doing their art. That’s why people give Bill Cosby such a hard time because he choose not to pull visual duty while he was making it. He is doing it now though and it is not sticking because it is too late. The trust element is not available for him as much because people remember and is suspicious of his intentions now. I get him but then again, I don’t have trust issues of him. I understand his nuanced fabric of intent and desperation.But just like with Cosby focusing in on Spelman and Morehouse in financing the infrastructure of those two schools, he didn’t know the mindsets of the very students that were matriculating there until after he saw that pop cultural had tied up and removed the esteemed Black anthropological relevant culture of the Black Experience. He found out that younger people valued him more for being famous rather than him supporting traditional jazz and having the largest Black art collection. Students cared more about his endorsement deals and wanted to mimick his luck when he and his family were thinking they were safeguarding Black Heritage. They had to learn the hard way that our people were more interested in being rich and famous and on a magazine or mimicking the look of success instead of striving for excellence.Like your question not asked, people will continue to not understand there is a line of measure or that their should have been one until someone besides the Cos’ asks the question. I wish Arthur Ashe was still alive. I can see that he would have done it. I am not sure why Kareem Abdul Jabbar has not. I think most people are torn and don’t want to be viewed as fascists so they don’t say anything.At Black Colleges the instructors shake their heads at their own students while still passing them along to not change the behaviors and mindsets. If you have Student Affairs operating on the model to bring famous celebrities to come talk to the students about being successful when their footprint has never shown of them doing duty, then the students get high off of the one-time speech. They show up to the lyceum because they have to but they think the person is worthy because the speaker is famous — not because of the work.I heard that a few years ago Sonia Sanchez and Amira Baracka challenged those girls at Spelman to get out of their comfort zones and to stop looking at them as celebrities. I was not there. A student told me because she knew I was trying to get students to understand that but I was a nobody so it was not sticking when the school was structured on stroking celebrity. The staff was put on blast when Ms. Sanchez and Amira said what they said. Think about: the schools want to hire celebrities to join their faculties or pressure their faculty members to go the celebrity book writing and tour route to bring some gloss to the school. That’s the model big schools use.We keep mimicking our Masters when everything they do is not structurally safe for us to imitate.Danielle…you would have to come to the East Coast to see the population and attitudes of our people. Atlanta…Brooklyn, Harlem…Newark…all the people born after 1980 especially have been affected by the reality to value celebrity. Even our generation was drugged on the idea.I have this book titled, “A Nation of Salesmen”. Think about it: how many blogs are out here that really are copy-cats of more meritocratic writings (a more meritocratic writer). Like you…you have a trademark and clearly no blog is like yours but people will copy it because they think that is the route for success. They think they have to copy someone who may be divinely choosen to be who they are and are not to be copied. Instead, kids will want to be you and try to copy your essence instead of invest in all that it took in education and mentoring and experience to give you the meritocratic clout. We need a renaissance of meritocracy in expectations of excellence and duty.

    Reply
  21. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I agree with this last statement by andrea. I think many people (including non-blacks) feel that merely being famous is “success”, rather than being a symptom of success due to hard work.

    Reply
  22. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    andrea: I get the point. I’m just saying not all black artists at that time were of that nature. I mean, “White Lines” came out of New York as all early hip hop did. So did “The Message.” And X-Clan. And Public Enemy came out of the DC are (if I’m remembering correctly. They definitely came out of the HCBUs.) Boogie Down Productions, a socially conscious rap act was from NY. Tribe Called Quest. De La Soul. Monie Love. MC Lyte. Salt-N-Pepa’s songs about race, safe sex and AIDS. Even NWA and Ice Cube had streaks of socially conscious music. And Prince, Ready For The World, Rick James and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, were all artists first and foremost and did sound like no one else out there.So I wanted to defend those individuals, amongst a few others I haven’t named, who were making music during the late 80s and mid 90s that had social relevance or was uniquely creative (like Run DMC and a young LL Cool J). If you wanted to listen to fluff, yeah, you had Billy Ocean (who was like my mom’s kind of music) and classic Whitney (who I learned to like later in life.) But “White Lines” tackled cocaine/crack in the black communities back when everyone was still in denial that there was a real problem. “Love’s Gonna Get You” by KRS-One tackled how gross materialism, social relativism, drug dealing and gangbanging only leads to death and jail time.MTV ONLY played the fluff back in the 80s. They did NOT (and still don’t) want to play anyone challenging. In the 80s I only watched BET (before it went off the deep end). In the 80s they still played black artists who were unencumbered by the pressures of the pop market. Hence the free South Africa jams, songs thanking Rosa Parks and rapper all-star groups telling me not to do drugs and not to gangbang and to go to school. Plus there were aspiration, positive images of black women in singers like singers Vespa, Loose Ends, Full Force, Guy, Troop and Karyn White all of whom I’m almost would not have had a career if it weren’t for BET. So the images that I saw as a kid on BET and heard on the radio in St. Louis did reflect my black experience. And these artists were all popular at one time (among black people). People happily jammed to “Fight the Power,” even if they didn’t understand the social relevance of the song.Even New Jack City and Ice T’s “New Jack Hustler” was socially relevant to how crack/gangbanging hurts the black community. How people glorify murderers when in reality they are sadists who will destroy everything around them to make the bottom line.I don’t think any of these artists could make it in the industry now because the present environment does not want rappers or singers who make music that make white people “uncomfortable” or make music that white people “won’t get.” So Lionel Richie did dance on the ceiling while Rome burned, but Prince was writing jams like “Ronnie Talk to Russia” and “1999.” Not to mention “Sign O’ the Times” which deals with AIDS, drug abuse, consumer culture and gang violence.And Prince found time to tackle religion, race, war, poverty, familial dramas, sexuality and party jams as well. I just wanted to stick up for the folks who didn’t just sit on the laurels being not innovative or not challenging. (Sade was also very innovative and not going for any particular audience when she blew up.) That’s what music I heard growing up and that was the music I liked the most. (Even though the PE video for “Can’t Truss It” kind of scared me when I was a kid.)And save Prince, most of the acts I mentioned did not make near the money 50 Cent is clocking now rapping about the prowess of his penis and how he got shot some odd times, taking Tupac’s skin and draping himself in it yearning for ghetto legitimacy before anyone finds out he’s just some regular dude, like Akon. Or opportunist, like Akon.So, yes, there are poseurs singing odes to 9mms and strippers, but that has everything to do with the market and the individuals who will leave their consciouses at the door to make bank. The market has spoken and no one wants to listen to the “race” music I grew up with.

    Reply
  23. Bronze Trinity Avatar
    Bronze Trinity

    This is not good. First the get rid of Sarah and now Gary! There won’t be anyone left on the show who I care about. Without Gary that show would not longer meet my criteria of having a Black actor in a lead role in order for me to watch it. The show has been a little off since Sarah left. I don’t know what they are going to do with it now.

    Reply
  24. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I also agree with Snob. the “message music” of yesteryear would never get radio or video channel play today. If “Mecca and the soul Brother” or even “Midnight marauders” came out today, it would flop.

    Reply
  25. TheBlue Avatar
    TheBlue

    I love Hall & Oates. I believe I own their whole catalog. I am not ashamed of that fact. What I am ashamed of, however, is how long I went thinking these two guys were black. And probably from Detroit.

    Reply

Leave a reply to dewfish Cancel reply

Live Your Best Life.