C.L. Smooth: Perfect Timing Ft. Skyzoo (Audio)

C.L. Smooth Ft. Skyzoo: Perfect Timing (Prod. by M-Phazes)
Unearthed (Coalmine, 2008)

+Instrumental l Acappella: The Rap Up

This is song is worth 1000 words for the sonic imagery it induces...

+C.L. Smooth: Discogs l MySpace
+C.L. Smooth Interview: No Need To Reminisce Over You: Playahata

+Skyzoo: MySpace

LeBron Should be More Careful with his Image

See any similarities?

CLD
PRSS

Baby Huey & The Babysitters: Monkey Man
7” (Satellite, 1965)

Play Monkey Man while you read...

Full article: ESPN l Page 2: by Jemele Hill, updated: March 20, 2008, 3:59 PM ET:

If you've ever seen photos of LeBron James away from the basketball court, it's obvious he takes great pride in his appearance.

In fact, he's widely considered one of the best-dressed guys in the NBA -- perhaps even in all of sports. LeBron's mentor is Jay-Z, the rapper-turned-mogul who dropped throwbacks for Armani suits years ago.

LeBron's image clearly means a lot to him, maybe even as much as pursuing a championship. And that's why I can't understand why he would allow Vogue to feature him with supermodel Gisele Bundchen in such a distasteful manner.

In case you haven't seen the cover, LeBron has Gisele in one hand and a basketball in the other. LeBron is dressed in basketball gear, with his muscles flexing, tattoos showing and bared teeth. Gisele, on the other hand, is wearing a gorgeous slim-fitting dress, and smiling.

She looks like she's on her way to something fashionable and exciting. He looks like he's on his way to a pickup game for serial killers.

Now, maybe the point was to show the contrast between brawn and beauty, masculinity versus femininity, strength versus grace. But Vogue's quest to highlight the differences between superstar athletes and supermodels only successfully reinforces the animalistic stereotypes frequently associated with black athletes.

A black athlete being reduced to a savage is, sadly, nothing new. But this cover gave you the double-bonus of having LeBron and Gisele strike poses that others in the blogosphere have noted draw a striking resemblance to the racially charged image of King Kong enveloping his very fair-skinned lady love interest.

LeBron is just the third male ever to appear on Vogue's cover, but it's hard to believe Vogue would have made Brett Favre, Steve Nash or even David Beckham strike his best beast pose. And even if Vogue had, it wouldn't carry the same racial undertones as having a fear-inducing black man paired with a dainty damsel.

Too often, black athletes are presented as angry, overly aggressive and overly sexual. Or sometimes, they're just plain emasculated.

The examples of this are endless. The 2002 Sports Illustrated cover that featured Charles Barkley chained like a slave. Ricky Williams wearing a wedding dress on an ESPN The Magazine cover in 1999. And while it didn't appear in a magazine, the Terrell Owens-Nicolette Sheridan intimate-encounter tease for "Monday Night Football" gave viewers a sexualized image of a black man.

In fact, the shirtless black male athlete cover is pretty much a staple, reinforcing the idea that black athletes were blessed with physical characteristics, not mental ones.

"Society has become more civilized, more humane over 150 years or so, and that's all fine and good," said Dr. John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor and author of the controversial book "Darwin's Athletes: How Sports Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race." "But what happens to these fundamentally racist ideas over a period of time? Do they simply disappear?"

Having studied the images of black athletes for years, Hoberman contends that the images of black athletes presented today are no better than the ones offered centuries ago. And if it matters to you, Hoberman is white.

"One of the 19th-century themes was the savage versus the civilized," Hoberman said. "The practice of stripping black males above the waist and displaying him is as American as apple pie."
But we don't even have to dip back to the 19th century to see how images of black athletes have affected how we think and thus how we view sports. In 1994, Jack Nicklaus said there weren't more African-Americans in golf because "blacks have different muscles that react in different ways."

And that backward thinking isn't limited to whites, either. Former ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin channeled his inner Jimmy the Greek when attempting to explain Tony Romo's abilities. Irvin surmised that Romo was good because his "great, great, great, great grandma pulled one of them studs up outta the barn [and said], 'Come here for a second.'"

It's like Barack Obama said in his much-talked about speech on race Tuesday. We know so little about one another. Even scarier, we know even less about the fallout of racist history.

"It's a great, great issue that Vogue has made trivial," Hoberman said. "It's exploitative. It's going for the primitive, racial emotion as opposed to something tasteful and edifying."

Vogue deserves criticism, but more blame should go to LeBron and other black athletes, who need to exercise stricter control of their images. If LeBron is brave enough to wear a Yankees cap at an Indians playoff game, picking up a history book and educating himself shouldn't cause a strain.

This isn't to say Vogue's cover deserves to be in the same category as Golfweek magazine, which featured a noose on its front during the Kelly Tilghman-Tiger Woods flap. But as always, it's important to question who was in the room when the cover decisions were made.

As it is, LeBron was the first African-American male to grace Vogue's cover. Too bad it will be memorable for the wrong reasons.

+Playahata

In other news:

+Don 'Magic' Juan Launches Web Site To Save Britney: EURweb l Playahata
+Vick Quarterbacks Prison Football Team: EURweb l Playahata
+Thomas Beatie: Five Months Pregnant Man: The Times l Playahata

Gnarls Barkley: Elpuoc Ddo Eht

Duplicating 2 Dope Boyz: Musical bohemians Gnarls Barkley: Cee-Lo Green (Thomas Callaway)and Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) release their latest album: The Odd Couple.

In reverse, this FREE DOWNLOAD starts with the album closer: A Little Better.

Noting the lengthy .mp3 of reversed vocals and music I’m reminded of Special Ed’s: I’m The Magnificent, Youngest In Charge (Profile, 1998) album which producer Howie Tee features the vocals and music of the original mix reversed (although Special Ed calls on his DJ Action Love to perform the reversal). “So Action Love, put it in reverse…”

Japanese Fertility Festival & Prostitute Pants Padlocked (Video)

Per title chronology the videos are explained respectively: Reuters Video

Apr. 7, 2008: A 300-year-old fertility festival at a Japanese shrine celebrates the coming of spring with raunchy symbols carried through public streets.

The Kanamara fertility festival, with its trademark parades of portable phallic shrines, is widely known, not only to locals but also foreigners, who make up nearly half this day's crowd.

Gwen Guthrie: Padlock (Special Mix by Larry Levan)
Padlock 12" (Mini-Album) (Garage, 1983)

Apr. 15, 2008: Masseuses in Indonesia's East Java province are now required to wear padlocks on their pants to stop prostitution.

The padlocks come courtesy of a recently-implemented policy of local government. Authorities want to take the initiative a step further and make the padlocks law. But some local politicians say the policy is an insult to women and will only promote promiscuity.

+Super Pii Pii Brothers: Think Geek l Playahata

Producer Teddy Riley Reportedly Broke

CLD
PRSS

Excerpts from: EURweb:

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper is reporting that famed producer Teddy Riley, born Edward Theodore Riley, October 8, 1967 in Harlem, New York, has fallen on hard times and is selling his Virginia Beach recording studio to help get himself out of debt.

According to the newspaper, the architect of New Jack Swing owes $1 million to several creditors and is hoping money from the sale of his Future Records Recording Studio will satisfy the bill. But that's not likely to happen.

The one-story building was considered state-of-the-art when Riley purchased it for $3 million in 1991, but the equipment is now thought to be out of date. The house was reportedly assessed at only $460,000.

During a court hearing on Friday, Feb. 1, 2008, lawyers representing two different creditors to whom Riley reportedly owes money agreed to seek a buyer for the studio. Both attorneys understand that the studio has dated technology, but Richard J. Conrod, Sr., a lawyer for one of the creditors, is hoping to sell the property as a working business instead of just real estate.

Riley has reportedly been in debt since at least 2002, when he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He bounced back a year later, only to have the IRS file a $1 million lien against him for unpaid income taxes in 2004. Two years later he was forced to sell his home in the posh Church Point neighborhood of Virginia Beach for $1.5 million to pay off federal and city taxes, as well as the home's remaining mortgage.

In 2007, the IRS filed another tax lien against him for $196,747 and just this past month the state of Virginia filed a $93,684 income tax lien against the musician.

+Teddy Riley discography: Discogs
+On the Continuing Resonance of "Rump Shaker": Village Voice: Status Ain’t Hood
+Harlem Renaissance: Audio Files
+O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants: Media Matters

+Playahata

Bill Cosby vs Michael Eric Dyson: A Scholarly Rap Battle?

CLD
PRSS

Below find AHH article published Thursday, January 31, 2008, 11:00 AM by Houston Williams

Bill Cosby: a staunch critic of some rap music - is set to release a Hip-Hop album called State of Emergency, which will be a sanitized, issue-oriented CD.

Sources told AllHipHop that the actor, comedian and philanthropist will address issues like proper parenting, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, Black-on-Black crime and the dropout rate in America's high schools.

In 2004, Cosby said in a speech, "Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other [the N-word] as they're walking up and down the street. They think they're hip. They can't read. They can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

Cosby's album will not contain any profane language, nor will it offer any denigrating comments towards women.

State of Emergency would be the 35th album for the legendary comedian, actor, who released his first album Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow in 1963.

Whether or not Cosby will work with rappers on his lyrical flow or his musical selection was not known at press time.

+Below excerpts from AHH, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:25 AM by Houston Williams:

Could Hip-Hop see an epic rap battle between two titans of culture, knowledge and entertainment?

Michael Eric Dyson strongly suggested during a recent outing that he would be recording an album that would respond to Bill Cosby’s upcoming rap album, State of Emergency.

“There’s nothing worse than a comedian that’s trying to be serious on a certain level. That could be hazardous to your career. And to your health,” Dyson, 49, told AllHipHop.

Whether or not they spar lyrically remains to be seen, but they have wrangled via the written word.

In Bill Cosby’s 2007 book Come On, People, he chastises gangsta rappers saying that that artists and corporations promote the N-Word, degrade women and attempt to normalize deviant behavior.

In 2006, Dyson responded to Cosby’s notions in the award-winning book Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?, where he looked at what he considered an “assault on the Black poor.”

Cosby is an accomplished musician whose harmonious achievements didn’t go unnoticed to Dyson.

“Bill Cosby’s made some great albums. Some of the stuff he’s done in jazz pioneering has been incredible,” admitted Dyson, who also confessed to being interested in what his peer had in store.
“I actually am interested in hearing what he’s got to say, if he is rapping himself or does he have guest rappers or if he’s going to do his thing…because he’s a funny dude,” Dyson said.

Of the album title Dyson said, “That doesn’t sound too comedic.”

Both men have a storied history of service in the community, but neither album has a specific release date at press time.

+Bill Cosby's "Prior Bad Acts": Alleged sex assault victim says 10 other women will come forward: The Smoking Gun
+Cosby's Image Problem by Earl Ofari Hutchinson: AlterNet
+News for Bill Cosby: IMDB
+Quote of the Day: Bill Cosby: Bossip

Political Jay-Z?

Ready for change?
Depends on the change(s).

The Last Poets: Black Woman
Right On! (Juggernaut, 1968)

+A Vote of Allegiance?

For the full article by DeNeen L. Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer from Monday, March 24, 2008; C01: Washington Post l Playahata

In the Obama-Clinton Battle, Race & Gender Pose Two Great Divides for Black Women

Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet, and the Negro, too, has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed. There are two great oceans; in the one is the black man, and in the other is the woman. . . . I will be thankful in my soul if any body can get out of the terrible pit."

-- Lucy Stone, 19th-century abolitionist and suffragist, after women were excluded from the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote.

The "isms" have once again been pitted against each other. Sexism or racism -- which ism is deepest? All things being equal, should a woman or a black man be lifted to the presidency? Which "first" is the imperative first?

The admonitions of white feminists urging black women to vote gender over race have cracked open a scab, a festering sore, that had crusted over the history of this country's competing isms. A scab that covered the lingering tension between some white feminists and some black women, with their dual historic burden of race and gender. It is black women, after all, who have faced both sexism and racism in their lives.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, which ism goes first? Some women fear the question, say it is divisive, explosive, should never be asked. But it has been asked -- in the recent writings of feminists including Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The question is ripe, reeling under the surface, discussed with muffled outrage by black women grown weary of white feminists seeming to tell them what to do.

BTW
Eff that too…

Rising Down: Killer Mike

“I don’t rap for me. I rap for the common man, on some real shit .”
Killer Mike

The follwing features excerpts from XXL's, June 2008, Vol. 12, No. 5, Rising Down article by Branden J. Peters:

Michael “Killer Mike” Rener, the self-proclaimed “Outcast of Outkast” is upset as a man not as a hater. The following excerpts should expound on his perturbation:

“I used to look at rap like it was real,” he says. “And I believed the people who were talking. But them days is gone. Now, I just look at a bunch of lying-ass-ni**as” And sometime they say good shit, but most of the time they say bullshit.

“I’m not into swagger. In fact, swagger’s a bit effeminate for me,” he says. “Before I was a rapper, before I was a drug dealer, before I was a drug dealer, before I was a student at Morehouse College, before I was any of those things, I was a man. And my whole life goal has been to be a man, like the men I admire. And that’s what’s wrong with rap right now―you don’t have any men. You don’t have anybody willing to be responsible. You don’t have anybody willing to give their audience real game.”

Discovered: First Lungless Frog

Peter Herbolzheimer Rhythm Combination & Brass: Frog Dance
Wide Open (MPS, 1973)

For the full article: Live Science l Playahata

The enigmatic amphibian, dubbed Barbourula kalimantanensis, apparently gets all the oxygen it needs through its skin.

Scientists first saw one of these frogs 30 years ago, but due to their rarity, just one other specimen had been collected since then and neither had been dissected.

"No one thought to open them up — there was no real reason to believe that they could be lungless," said researcher David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. "Because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one specimen in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!"

Other organ weirdness

It appears that the rest of the internal organs in these frogs have shifted position to take up the space once filled by the lungs. "So we had the stomach, spleen and the liver up in the area where lungs are normally found," Bickford said. "Interestingly, we also discovered some abnormal cartilage around the area where the lungs should have been that we are still investigating."

The loss of lungs helped the frogs severely flatten their bodies. This in turn increased the surface area of their skin, which helps them absorb oxygen.

The researchers conjecture the loss of lungs might be an adaptation to the cold, fast rivers the frogs live in. Such waters naturally have high oxygen content. Also, the frogs would rather sink than float and get carried away in the water, so getting rid of lungs, which behave as flotation devices, would prove helpful.

Amphibians are also cold-blooded, "so their inherent energy requirements are very small — roughly 10 percent that of a similar sized mammal," Bickford said. "If you don't need as much oxygen anyhow, it might be easier to change, to lose lungs as the primary respiration organ."

Absolut Vodka Pulls Ad Showing California in Mexico

CLD
PRSS

Full article: Yahoo! News l Reuters l Mexico City ll Playahata.
Below find a truncated article reported on Monday, Apr 7, 2008, 9:36 PM ET and written by Noel Randewich and Philip Barbara:

The distillers of Sweden's Absolut vodka have withdrawn an advertisement run in Mexico that angered many U.S. citizens by idealizing an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as Mexican.

The billboard ad has the slogan "In an Absolut World" slapped over a pre-1848 map showing California, Arizona and other U.S. states as Mexican territory. Those states were carved out of what had been Mexican lands until that year.

Defending the campaign last week, Absolut maker Vin & Spirit said the ad was created "with a Mexican sensibility" and was not meant for the U.S. market. "In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," a spokeswoman wrote on Absolut's Web site.

Absolut's blog cite has received more than a thousand comments since the ad campaign was launched a few weeks ago, with many calling for boycotts of the Swedish company.

"I have poured the remainder of my Absolut bottles down the sink," one blogger wrote.

A war between Mexico and the United States from 1846 to 1848 started with Mexico's refusal to recognize the U.S. annexation of Texas and ended with the occupation of Mexico City by U.S. troops.

At the end, Mexico ceded nearly half of its territory to the United States, forming the states of California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Mexicans remain sensitive about the loss and the location of the border. At the same time, the United States is fortifying barriers to keep out undocumented Mexican migrants.

Some Mexicans use the term "Reconquista" (reconquest) to refer to the growing presence in California of Mexican migrants and their descendants.