VH1's Hip Hop Honors

Well last night VH1 unfurled and hurled at us one of their most notorious, most popular and probably most successful shows, their "VH1's Hip Hop Honors." It was something that I was actually looking forward to especially after not participating or attending one of the many events held in NYC in conjunction with this highly feted event.

I heard that Dougie Fresh performed at Plumm last Thursday night. On Friday there was some panel with the unfortunate, lame as$, oh so tired title "Does Hip Hop Hate Women" (hip hop is a culture first of all; and can we stop just looking at rap and look at our communities, at education, at family life... shoot the more interesting topic would be does the public educational system hate black children or does US Healthcare hate Black women and if so how do these dilemmas affect the shape and contours of Black (self) love). This panel was produced ironically by this hip organization with the crazy cool name Black Girls Rock! that on the following night, kicked it up 50 notches with an awards ceremony that honored women of color in the hip hop game like Missy Elliott, music industry prez Sylvia Rhone and designer Tracy Reese. If the weather wasn't so dang amazing this past weekend I would've love to have attended the awards ceremony, which I think is an absolutely wonderful and most needed exercise in these days when sisters are still overlooked for their many accomplishments. I was also invited to my very first 'gifting lounge' like the kind they have at the Oscars but alas the ocean was calling my name and I couldn't resist Her sweet whisper and so I headed to Sag where I went swimming, sunning and even attempted to fish with a rickety rod. I was totally, incredibly blissed out!

So last night back in the city I wanted to get my taste of Hip Hop Honors and see what I had missed. These are my thoughts. Please tell me what you thought:

The Best:
The tributes to Tribe and Wild Style (seeing Grandmaster Caz, KRS-One and Busy Bee, backed by Grandwizard Theodore on one stage gave me goosebumps) were top-notch but the best moment of the night for me was seeing Whodini on stage. They looked like they were having fun and when the guys started battle dancing and freestyling it instantly took me back to the days when rap music was pure fun and brothas used to dance and act silly all the while keepin it funky fresh. The fact they ended their set by literally pulling Grandmaster Dee of of the turntables was also special because everyone knows hip hop, back in the day, was all about the dj and so that was a very symbolic end to a hot performance.

The Worse:
There's nothing more excruciating than T-Pain w/o his vocoder or voice synthesizer. He can't sing a lick and tarnished the entire New Jack swing set. I know Andre Harrell was pissed!

The Most Inexplicable Guest:
Harvey Keitel

The Least Recognizable Guest:
Phife - man has he aged but he's been sick struggling with diabetes and from I've heard needs a kidney transplant so that I guess would also explain the bloating

Pepa – what's up with her Latoya Jackson nose job. And you can tell she obviously had the surgery after her VH1 loot came through because in previews of her and Salt's show she's got, what Paul Mooney would call, her Black nose. She unlike Phife has NO excuse!

Most Fun Moments:
Hearing the honorees talk about their genesis and evolution especially Snoop, Andre & Whodini!

Dead Air:
After awhile Tracy Morgan's taxi hip hop escapades got a bit redundant and stupid.

Overall it was cool. I am a big fan of Tribe and Snoop; I've had Wild Style on VHS since the early 90's; used to sweat out my press & curl dancing to Whodini's Friends and The Freaks Come out at Night; and I still have my Teddy Riley – Marley Marl 'New Jack Swing' mix tape that I recorded straight off the radio waaaay back in the day.

I'm not sure how it is that Missy who I LOVE got inducted before Queen Latifah. I just don't feel like she has the history or is a legend like that quite yet. Her all grrrl tribute though was nice and I must say I was most impressed by Nelly Furtado. Her tone, cadence and inflection of melody is stupid fresh never mind that fly Black dress she rocked. Does anyone know if she wrote her verse in the remix to Get Ur Freak ON? Yo she may need to start rhyming and if she can flow as tightly in Spanish and sing.. she could really do some damage.
It was good to see Tweet although I couldn't really see her for the mop on her head but you know what I mean. And after last night performance I look forward to finally hearing Tip's solo record. Has anyone seen him on tour with Common? It seems like he still has a lot of fire up in those bones and his vocal chords are still nice and chiseled with that quirky uniquely cute voice of his. What did you think of the show?

And what is up with women in hip hop? We weren't well represented last night but then again half of the ladies are going to jail or just got out-- Foxy, Remy, Lil Kim and Eve. A couple are alleged looney tunes Lauryn Hill and Da Brat. And the rest are simply MIA—Rage, Miss Melody, Rah Digga, Yo-Yo.

What other women in hip hop could/ should VH1 honor? Check out one of my faves> And someone please tell me where I can get a Wild Style t-shirt? Holllaaaa!

Revenge of the HipHop Publishing Outcasts

Title of this post courtesy of Greg Tate.

From Tuesday's AdAge.com.

New music title slated to debut next month
by Nat Ives

The ousted owners of The Source and Vibe's recently fired editor in chief
are launching newwstand-only Hip Hop Weekly.

The ousted owners of The Source and Vibe's recently fired editor in chief
are launching a newsstand-only music title.

Hip Hop Weekly is slated to debut on Oct. 16 with a guaranteed paid
circulation of 100,000.

David Mays and Ray "Benzino" Scott, who started The Source in 1988, were
forced out last January amid allegations of tax evasion and a sexual
harassment suit filed by two former staffers. Mimi Valdes was booted from
Vibe after a change in ownership last summer.

Ms. Valdes, now the editor in chief at Hip Hop Weekly, said the magazine
will try to get in on the celebrity-weekly action, particularly through
columns by radio veterans Wendy Williams and Star & Buc Wild.

"The rest of the magazine is really about trying to offer some insight,
reflection and criticism on hip-hop as it influences everything," she said.

The weekly format will also make the title more competitive with monthly
music books, whose long lead times make it harder to present
up-to-the-minute news and photos.

Hip Hop Global Media, the holding company backing Hip Hop Weekly, will price
the first issue at $2.99 and subsequent issues at $3.99.

That's more expensive than OK magazine and Bauer Publishing's In Touch and
Life & Style Weekly, which sell for $1.99, and even Wenner Media's Us Weekly
and Time Inc.'s People, which sell for $3.49.

The Roots, Erykah Badu & Dave Chappelle @Radio City

On Friday night I went to see The Roots. I thought I was going with GT, but at the last minute I discovered I was on my own. No problem cause I'ma hustla baby. At 8pm, showtime, I was sittin' pretty and ticketless at B. Smith's having drinks with my cousins (whom I introduced to Lady B herself who was having dinner with her hubby). At 8:45pm I was sitting mid-orchestra right on the aisle and next to a really cool sista, Safiya, who quickly became my Radio City Cut Buddy. Yeah, I got my NYC hustle on and used all of my Boogie Down bionics and ebonics and copped great seats! Don't ask cause I'll never tell.

By the time I got there I had missed most of Mos. But from all accounts I heard he was fresh. Jack Davey was J*Davey. I just don’t get it. I like their recorded ish so much, but live, well they just don't move me. As a matter of fact I guess that sentiment was shared throughout the arena cause folks started walking out to the concession stands like prisoners on the first day of work release. Rocking hot pants and a Native American headdress, Jack looked sexy as hell, but her vocals sounded so teany-- they just didn’t seem strong enough to handle the vastness of RCMH. Safiya leaned over and whispered: "She looks cute but so do most of the sisters here tonight so she really needed to come correct on her vocals and she is so not." She then showed me a text from her cousin who was also in the house and it read, "She's a hot mess!" On that note I headed out to get a drink. I was still feeling myself for making some very sly maneuvers earlier that evening that resulted in my wonderful seats, so I ordered Alize Passion on the rocks. Very Boogie Down! Like I said, I was feeling quite gully.

Next up was Dave Chappelle and he damn near stole the show. Yep it was the Dave Chappelle Show up in that piece for a good 10-15 mins. With lines or should I say, observations, like: I don't show up for sh*t. I don't even show up for my own show, so you know this has got to be hot, and I'm the very first missing Black person America has ever looked for, you know Dave was bringing the intellectual comedic goods. It was like homie was bursting at the seams with anecdotes. And considering the cancellation of his show I guess Dave did have a lot of material. I really don't know what was funnier his theory on Planet of The Apes and how the original title was probably Planet of the Ni**as or his philosophical musings about Iceberg Slim and how it is the key to understanding the game of life. He was so on point and had us so in the palm of his hand that when he paused to mull something over you could hear ice melting in abandoned cups back in the lobby at the concession stand.

After that everything and everybody was just jittering from excitement, awe and sheer delight. Well, that was until Bilal hit the stage. As soon as I heard those first notes I exclaimed, "Yo, I can’t believe he’s covering this song." As James Poyser and Kirk Douglass started eeking out those distinctively sonorous notes of Everything in its Right Place, I was floored by the selection and was crazy curious to see how shorty was going to rock this Radiohead joint. Needless to say he didn’t. He held onto and mangled the notes as he sang eeeehhh vreeeeeetheeannngg so that he sounded like a crackhead pleading for another hit, whining and screeching that he would give everythiiinnnng for just another hit. Even though he loved it, I hated it! This cat was so off key that he couldn't hit a note to save his life never mind this performance.

Moving along, the always beautiful Erykah Badu rocked the stage lovely. Singing a number of her joints including You Got Me, Other Side of The Game and Tyrone, she blessed the set and then in her usual gracefully gully way, she straight ripped it! We were on our feet from beginning to end and oh what an ending. After Badu walked out stage right, some dude entered from stage left wearing a hood over his head. All of a sudden we hear Public Service Announcement and the hood flies off and it’s muckingfuther Jay-Z in the house. What?! It was insane! I caught myself acting like a dang groupie at a Menudo concert. Everyone was screaming and jumping up and down. Madness! Of course he did Encore and in between all of that Hova-Baduism, The Roots jammed Pussy Galore, The Seed, Lighters Up and a bunch of other classics. It was an absolutely beautiful night!

The Pink Side of HipHop: Pimped Out & Pissed Off

Well it seems that Crunchy Black done did it now. All that talk about how hard it is out here to be a pimp has come back and pimped slap him right in the kisser. And surely if it had not won that dang Oscar, his song, like the movie (Hustle & Flow) in which it was featured, would have vanished right back into the blight realm of pop culture from whence it sprung without anyone so much as even remembering the lyrics or being concerned with how the social ramifications of pimp culture affect women, especially Black and Latina women. I mean we weren’t mesmerized or affected by the performances, or for that matter, the plot, of H&F like we were when we had seen other flicks like The Matrix, Daughters of the Dust or Do The Right Thing. And as far as that song was concerned it may have had a catchy hook that we couldn’t get out of our heads, but we all knew and agreed it was a horrible rap. No? The rhymes were simplistic, Mother Goose-like fodder that would never have the roof, the roof, the roof on fire. But real life is stranger than fiction and so when Crunchy Black and his Three 6 Mafia crew trounced the podium accepting their honor for having best song in a movie, it forced us to actually think about this rap for more than 2 minutes and consider what it may say about us as Americans-- that we honor a song that makes the exploitation of women sound so dutiful and sentimental. And it's when we started thinking deeply, that us so called beeyotches started to brew... with anger and disgust. First up, writer Jill Nelson and she’s fuming:

Recently, a grown-up, apparently sane Black woman suggested that I was being overly sensitive because I found the very words "It's hard out here for a pimp" to be absurd--let alone the idea that a song by that name would win an Academy Award in 2006. Couldn't I understand, she asked, that I was taking the words out of context? After all, she continued, what about the pimp's perspective? The pimp's perspective? Correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I looked, pimps were predators and parasites who didn't work. Men who made a living off the sexual labor of women they controlled through abuse and violence. It seems to me that being a pimp is kind of an easy, if reprehensible, way to make a living.... Call me a snob or a hater or whatever you'd like, but I've had enough. I'm bored with, tired of, and disgusted by the overwhelming majority of hip-hop music and culture... I don't think it's OK that Nelly sells pimp juice or Snoop pornography, and yes, I like Kanye West, but his progressive lyrics are a drop in the huge bucket of hip-hop mediocrity. Maybe what breaks my heart most of all is that the uncritical embrace of hip-hop culture by so many of us--and the attempts to dismiss those who speak out against its misogyny, violence, and materialism--are a manifestation of the profound cynicism and hopelessness that define so much of contemporary American life.

On last Sunday’s CBS Morning Show, actress and media commentator, Nancy Giles was simply fed up and pissed off:

“Watching these hoodlums and poser pimps I was at first embarrassed and then I became angry. What makes this aspect of Black life so entertaining? We’re steppin’ fetchin ourselves and I can’t get down with that!

Well when I saw Crunchy snag the award I was just as shocked as Dolly and Latifah and thought the group’s acceptance was hilarious. Honestly it took me a minute to get pissed off. I don’t even take the Academy Awards seriously when it comes to (dis)regarding Black folks. I mean these are the same knuckleheads that honored Denzel for his performance in Training Day and not Malcolm X, honored Whoopi for Ghost and not Color Purple, honored Halle for Monster’s Ball and not Dorothy Dandridge. I thought it was clear that the ignorance didn’t end when the credits rolled. It wasn’t until I realized that people were actually talking about Hard For A Pimp being a legit song, a good rap even that I was taken aback.

Poet Latasha N. Diggs has her theories and breaks this quagmire down along class lines:

Some have called this battle The Talented Tenth vs. the Niggas. Well, one could say that we are angry that a cat named Crunchy Black got an award for portraying a figure in our culture we least support.

Latasha then switches gears though and wonders if we aren’t all pimping ourselves:

Aren't we all pimps in some right? We give props to folks who hustle and flow into the academia, get their papers and pimp the system so fools can get genius awards, NEAs and homes of their own. And in the realm of music, pop or experimental, don't a mofo gotta pimp themselves to get on... ain't we pimping ourselves on myspace?

For the record I think pimping and hustling are fundamentally different than being driven, ingenious and savvy. Yeah maybe you can argue that pimps are savvy and word hard, but you'll never hear anyone say that um, Oprah Winfrey is a great pimp. The word pimp is rooted historically in something specific and like the word “nigger” I just don't believe you can dismiss all that lynching, raping, death and pain to just use it casually. But I do like how Latasha flips the script and turns the mirror around. I don’t know about myspace, but I do think the folks behind BET’s Uncut video series, specifically the President and COO, Debra Lee, is guilty of pimping. And yes I’m talking about pimping in the Hustle & Flow sense with butt naked girls shaking what their mama gave them. They may not be turning tricks in the back room but these girls are being screwed just the same. I think it’s time to pick up where those Spelman girls left off and at least send Ms. Lee an email or two to let her know we’re pimped out and pissed off.

The Pink Side of HipHop: Images of Black Women in Rap Music Videos

I finally made it to Brooklyn this past Saturday to The Reel Sisters Film Fest panel on images of Black women in film. I say "finally" because with that summery weather in effect, everyone I know including myself, was outdoors, chillin at sidewalk cafes and avoiding at all costs, long trips on the subway and even longer moments indoors in some university auditorium. Anyway by the time I arrived panelists and audience members were talking about women in music videos, which isn't film but I guess in terms of Black women and images shaping popular thought and powerful mediums than I guess BET trumps MGM, and videos hos not Regina King are the hot topics of the day. (Sidebar: The success behind Tyler Perry's films and plays were mentioned in reference to the differences in high and low Black entertainment—for the record Madea is considered low and is extremely popular and therefore should be analyzed as one way of pinpointing the social behaviors and pleasures of Black folk. I heard Halle and Monster's Ball was never even mentioned, my oh my how we've moved on!)

The panel was pretty much the usual fare served up in black feminism discourse. You know... the way in which rap music is detrimental to the psyche of sisters and is having a huge affect on young girls around issues of self-esteem and body image and how these hiphop videos define Black female idenity on a global level. It also seems like "It’s Hard Out Here for A Pimp" and specifically its Oscar honor has many a folk upset--like undies-in-a-bunch upset. (More on that later too...or this post will be of encyclopedia like proportions)

Anyway I've heard it all before so if my short-hand makes the panel discussion sound like empty blabber, scuse me, cause that’s not my intention. I've just been to too many panels about this subject and for me they just don't inspire. Instead they simultaneously infuriate and bore me (actually the fact that I'm usually bored about what should be a sizzling topic is what leads to the infuriation), which may not necessarily be a bad thing b/c it makes my wandering, incensed mind think about what I can do through my writings to be progressive, proactive and inspiring. But there were two standout memories. The first was how very few people showed up (again the beautiful weather had to be a factor), but how frickin' dynamically bright and well versed the members of the audience were (well except for 1, but that's my 2nd standout memory). In the audience: Bethann Hardison, Greg Tate, Charles Stone, Arthur Jafa, Michaela angela Davis, Shola Lynch, and Vince Morgan.

Some of the things said that I liked:

Jacquie Jones (moderator): "I don’t think it’s okay to make money at our exepense. There needs to be more critical engagement by those that consume these images. Russell Simmons has two daughters and can’t even answer questions on the topic. It's crazy."

Charles Stone: "I think there's no sense of imagination-- guys aren't imagining what a woman looks like without clothes instead it's just about seeing cleavage. With technology's popularity it's just about instant gratification."

Joan Morgan: "When you talk about and critique these images, you give them power."

The 2nd standout moment was when this Black woman filmmaker got up and said that she didn't understand why the panel (and audience) was wasting so much time discussing the perils of how these images affected young girls and how rap music videos promoted unhealthy sexual attitudes between Black girls and boys. She basically was of the mindset that it's the parents responsibility to mold and set the bar for how Black kids behave, and that rappers and filmmakers shouldn't be burdened with the responsibility of having healthy images and portrayals of Black folk in their works. That would be fine and dandy if the Black Family was still intact and on the up and up, but I thought everyone knew that TV, movies, video games and Trina are shaping the consciousness of Black adolescents and adult males and females.

True I didn't grow up wanting to be a stripper or having the desire to shake my booty in some video (even though I did about 11 years ago). Me and my girls grew-up making mud pies, playing double-dutch and eating FDA approved meals every night with our folks. But then again the TV programs of choice back then were The Electric Company and Fame and later they became Video Music Box, Kojak and Dallas. A far cry from today's totally popular BET's "Uncut", Sex and The City, MTV's "Real World." By no means did I ever want to re-enact the crazy shower scenes featuring JR Ewing and his many mistresses. And Music Box was no Music Television! It was harmless hiphop profiling that featured cats around our way in videos shot in someone's basement or in the some park. There were no video vixens just girls chillin (albeit in the background) in their Le Tigre tops and Lee jeans. We knew about the prostitutes in Times Square and Hunts Point and that the strip joint over the bridge going to Pelham right before you got to IHOP hired some high school girls, so we heard. But we thought all of that was nasty and being nasty was being unladylike. We wanted to be doctors, teachers and actresses like Diana Ross in Mahoghany...we wanted to be ladies. I mean when we wore miniskirts we usually had shorts underneath cause no one was down for having their booty accidentally exposed. It just wasn't fresh back then. So times they are a changing and yeah it may be hard out here for a pimp, but it's even harder out here for 12-year old girls who give blow jobs to be popular and whose parents have no clue or worse could care less. Infuriated indeed!