Chucks you can't beat em with a stick. I like to see you try!

Sup y'all?!

It's been a minute! I know I've been slacking hard! All this nice weather, I've been busy working on trying to line up gigs to get that bread, and not to mention the album with South Broad, (Which will be dope on plastic!) I've just been enjoying life! We only get one then there's the box! Enough wax-philosophises. I just yesterday went up the street to my local Sneaker Villa and brought me a pair of white Converse All-Stars low cut Chuck Taylor's. I flipping Love those shoes! On a swag meter they are a 10! They are the AK-47 of sneakers! Durable, fashionable, anybody can pull em off!

They were endorsed by a high school basketball player from Indiana named... You guessed it! Chuck Taylor. Converse had originally made the show before Taylor. But it was a tough sell with consumers of the time. This was the teens and early twenties most people wore dress shoes even while playing sports! So Taylor being a high school basketball phenom goes to the company and says "I can help you sell more shoes." He suggested the company make design changes and voila! The Converse All Star as we know it, is born! The company sold more shoes and eventually the product would bear his name. The design hasn't changed one bit in Eighty years! The range of colors rivals that of that of everyday life. Taylor would go on to be the company's spokesmen. He would travel around the country giving demonstrations of his sneakers, living out of hotels. He repersented Converse faithfully until his death in 1969. The All-Star would go on to sell billions of pairs worldwide. Word!!! Until next time make it happen like rappin!

Wiki-p,

South Broad family.

Bossanova Classic!

Sup Y'all,

Today is the perfect precursor to spring.. The sun is out, clouds in the sky, the warm feeling in the air. It's flipin beautiful!!!! What better companion to a day like this than something equally beautiful. A great piece of music. The album that so aptly fits this occasion would have to be Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim's classic album Getz, Gilberto, and Jobim. This is a beautifully haunting, lyrically ambidextrous album that provides all classics and no throw aways. Starting with the standard ballad to unrequited love, Girl from Ipanema, which was so immortally sung by Joao Gilberto's wife Astraud, and my personal favorite... Corcavado a song which Astraud also lends her vocal talents . There are too many great songs to name. But I had to pay this album Homage. Great music, Great singing Impeccable guitar playing... Not to mention the whole album is sung in Portuguese, I found myself learning some Portuguese. Bonus! So check this one out and get acquainted. This is a audiophiles dream.

Is the art of freestyle lost?

Sup y'all,

Hip Hop by nature is a spontaneous art form. I liken it to Be-Bop Jazz musicians, constantly innovating their craft, yearning for respectability but relishing the underground cult-status that comes with their art and proscribed lifestyle. We all know...(At least most of us do.) That when Hip Hop started it was an alternative to the violence and gang warfare that plagued under-developed and impoverished late 70's and early 80's New York. As the art became more commercial and global in reach. Things like The B-boy, The graph artist, The DJ, began to take a backseat. Now the art is more image and reputation driven than ever!

Rappers with larger than life personalities , over the top images, and scant or mediorce lyrical talent dominate the general perception of this music. What ever happened to the cypher ? A place where you gathered around and said something ill? When you pushed yourself to improvise and outdo your man, in friendly lyrical competition? I was watching World star Hip Hop on Saturday when I saw a favorite MC of mine Joel Ortiz kick a freestyle off of his Blackberry. It was sick don't get me wrong! It was a written. Done on the radio, which gave everyone the impression it came striaght off of his head. The point. It ain't freestyle unless it's improvised. Isn't that what freestyle is? Or least I thought it was. Until next time make it happen like rappin....

Wiki-P,

South Broad family.

Is old school better by default?

Sup y'all?

I always get into these conversations with older people who were alive in the 70's. Almost universally the theme and the line is always the same. " That's when music was music!" Before I used to disagree with them. I used to argue vehemently the merits of contemporary music, a la Hip Hop and R+B and the dance music of our day. But is it me? Or is the music of the last couple years almost indefensible? Don't get me wrong. I aint one of those people who slams contemporary popular music as being "devoid of talent or musicality." But some of these hip hop "club bangers" I hear... I used make songs like that up in the shower as a joke! The pallets of contemporary listeners have changed, in fact... Our taste buds change as we mature?

But there are certain constants in the world. Although things evolve, things still stay the same in some regards. The principal example being music. They are core elements that make a song great, good, or just plan listenable. There are a lot of young people such as myself who opt for "old school music" because you can listen to it. It tells a story, it's not obnoxious, and you can tell it took more than five minutes to make. Isn't that what we appreciate about music and musicians? So the ol' head was right. "Music was music." But he's right, on couple conditions... Until the listeners pallet changes and the industry stops being greedy and pandering. Until musicians want to make music and not auto-tune everything. Until there is an acceptance of diversity. The ol'head will be right. The past will always be better than the present. Until next... Make it happen like rappin.

Wiki-p,

South Broad family.

The music in your head

Sup y'all?

You ever have a song stuck in your head? Of course you have. We've all had songs in our head. Melodies that play like loops in our conscious and sub-conscious. Imagine your brain is a iTunes. (Well in a sense it is.) You have hundreds of songs at your disposal. There's one you hate. There's one you like. One you love! One you adore! The awkward one you tolerate because it has a "Je ne sais qoui" about it, that if comes on at the right time you're so about it! You may ask yourself what's the purpose of this post?

Well..... I don't really know myself.....? Oh! Music is mad important! We all have a hard-wired response to rhythms and beats and melodies. The stuff goes back to our ancestors who would celebrate a successful hunt by doing a cave man type Soul Train line down the fireside, while they burned calories and staved off the "itis." (You never know when a saber tooth tiger could come outta the cut.) Yeah... But take time to sing along with that music in your head. You may look like a "nutbag" But as the late-great Teddy Pendergrass once sang, "Life is a song worth singing." Till the next time. Make it happen like rappin...

Wiki-p,

South Broad family.

Slept on... Why?

Sup Y'all,

The other day my partner Milez, who can be found at http://www.mxleshxgh.blogsopt.com/ Put me on to this group who has a quite a formidable following in the electro-hip hop genre. But curiously doesn't have such resonance in Philly. There are many reasons for that. Who knows? But that's besides the point. This group is dope on plastic! They've got all the right mix of lyrics, style, and feel-good electro-grooves that are all the rage in today's eclectic music landscape.

The group consists of a MC and a producer, Proto and Xaphoon Jones, who together wield immense power to tell stories over the template of rhymes and beats. They're organized, they have videos, style and not to mention a fan-base. Two tracks that are a must hear from this group are "Opposite of Adults" which explores the classic theme of the irresponsibility of childhood versus the drudgery of adulthood. The catchy and deliberate, "Fresh like us." Which goes to detail, love of craft and the work that goes into making it in this "rap shit." The group is presently signed to Parlophone which is a UK label. They tour the world and pretty much make it pop! Don't take my word for it y'all. Have a look for your selves. They can be peeped at: www.myspace.com/chiddybang Until the next time make it happen like rappin....

Paix,

Wiki-P, South Broad family.

Sex and Politics... Is there a difference?

Yeah Y'all!

I know lately we haven't been to enamored with politicians. When have we ever been for that matter? Go figure? Health care reform, Jobs, and the incorrigible maleficence in which the business of government is conducted. Yeah it's a shitshow!Don't get me started!!! Lol! But there is something more insidious and equally disconcerting.... The male-female sexual dynamic and how differently it's perceived by the two parties. For example:" Men just wanna bone." "Women are only after relationships." "Why doesn't she wanna have sex with me? She'll only like it anyway." "What's wrong with sex?" "If I have more than one partner am I considered a whore?" "She don't want it as much as I do." The list goes on....

There is a reason that things are constructed the way they are. There's a biological answer and there's a Moral answer. There is also a ethical answer. The biological: Men have innumerable sperm, while woman have only one egg they drop per month. The moral: Your body is a temple and God will be displeased with you if you fornicate freely. The ethical: You gotta wait for marriage sex isn't the be all end all. It's a action for the greater good in a larger scheme of building a family unit. For each one of these categories the answers interchangeable. But the fact still remains... Whatever side you're on in the dating game. "It can frustrate the hell outta ya!" Not to be wax-philosophical, but in our universe there is positive and negative. Opposing forces on opposite sides with different agendas. Nothing is ever completely facile. Animals have to work for their food. Humans have to work for theirs as well. Anything worth having is worth working for...Blah, blah, blah. Now we see why porn, smuts, prostitutes are so popular.

But no really. There is a new openness when comes to sex that is almost seemingly banal. On television, movies, music, videos, personal conversations. Sex is the perquisite of any potential romantic relationship. We fuckin anticipate it! (No pun intended.) The 50's puritanical attitudes are gone! So is the pretense of civility in such matters. Now intentions are blatantly out in the open. "I'm just tryna fuck." "It's a sex thing." "This is the sixth date and still no sex!" (fifth date rule out the window. Oh no!!!) Yeah the stories about sex create a colorful Mosaic of triumphs, failures, and heart-ache. But we must remember.. Sex is only as important as you make it. You want sex. Find someone that wants to give it to you. ( Easier said than done. I know.) In most cases sex is the beginning. Whether it be a relationship, or a fuckbuddyship. It just the means to an end. Yeah it may be up there with eating and breathing and drinking as important survival mechanism. But we gotta take the politics out of it. Like The movie Ving Rhames was in and he played a drag queen? I forgot? Oh.. " Relax it's just sex... Not politics. Until next time make it happen like rappin....

Wiki-p South Broad family.