but I do, but I do, do, do

It's almost moving time again. New city, new season, new adventures. I won't have internet for a couple of days but it's not like I post every day anyway. Keep me in your prayers please, I'll need 'em. I'd be lying if I said I was ready, but it's all for the best...right?

"Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home."---Gwendolyn Brooks

WALE's "Mixtape About Nothing" dropped after weeks of hype and anticipation. Get it here. I'll listen to it as soon as I can bring myself to turn off Duffy's "Rockferry."

My new favorite blog: savvyfatty.blogspot.com
Hilarity will ensue. Hilarity as you've never known it before in blog format.

Also, just in time to make your summer play list is a great slow jammer "Five 5enses" by my bff Justin! This was a production that has taken many, many months and all the hard work has paid off. It was more of a joke in the beginning too-- but please believe this just got added to Ipod Jr for the journey tomorrow.

look, well I can ride you on my handle bars

My life force has been restored and my new iPod > yours. New music, new play lists, new soundtrack to life. Also, today I officially reached a library of 17,000 tracks. Yitidee!

Duffy - Mercy (?uestlove Remix) [love this]

C_o_m_m_o_n feat. P_h_a_r_r_e_l_l - Universal Mind Control

R_i_c_k R_o_s_s feat. P_h_a_r_r_e_l_l - Get Down

DJ K_h_a_l_e_d feat. everybody - Out Here Grindin

Lil W_a_y_n_e feat. T-P_a_i_n - Got Money

That picture is from an article in New York Magazine entitled "You Walk Wrong" about how terrible all shoes are for our feet. It's kind of long but really, really interesting. That picture is of a foot, no shoe, but doesn't it look so real? All the photos with the article are feet painted as shoes to get the point across about how great walking barefoot is. They're amazing!

"The researchers concluded that, prior to the invention of shoes, people had healthier feet. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans—i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers—had the unhealthiest. One of the lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel, when commenting on his findings, lamented that the American Podiatric Medical Association does not “actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy individuals. This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet.”

The title a Pharrell quote from the Come Close remix feat. Pharrell and Erykah (number 17)

and by request:

"Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find
You and I collide"
- Howie Day

what I want so much should never hurt this bad

I was planning on writing about church this morning and it seems someone else had the same idea. Today the topic was "self-control." You already know it was hard for me to think outside the box on that one. I was there for a reason, the message was there for me, I don't need to be worrying about anybody else. The scripture was 1 Corinthians chapter 10:

23"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

It was a great message. When we give up something, save money or otherwise, are we doing it so that we're able to provide more for others, or just to serve ourselves? What does self control look like for me? I don't care what the world is doing, I'm still my harshest critic, I'm still holding myself to the highest standard, and no matter what the world would expect from me, I have to go above and beyond that. I was once told to go until you can't go anymore, until someone slams the door in your face. No one has slammed the door yet, what I look like slamming my own door?

I've been real strong. I try to keep everything in perspective and make sure my people know I'm doing good, my life is great, in the grand scheme of the world my little problems aren't anything. But, like I tell my girls, it's still okay to be mad, to hurt, and to lose your self control. It's okay...but at the same time I feel like I have to rise above that. What I look like losing my cool? What I look like worrying about what comes next? What I look like getting myself into a situation I can't get out of? Eleanor Roosevelt once said "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." Lord, if that ain't the truth. I would've never guessed. I made a note to myself in January that I just read: "It is better to fully trust in another and give them your all and to be hurt in the end than to be suspicious and hurt throughout just to end up being hurt in the end anyway. It's the same pain. You might as well be happy in the meantime." I don't have a regret in the world. I can rationalize everything that I've done. I'm not here to judge a single other person, but I will judge myself. If I can't wake up and look myself in the mirror I don't expect anybody else to be able to look at me. And still, I must rise.

The other day I picked up my brother from school. Tootie is severely disabled from a bout with meningitis and can barely communicate by usual standards. He loves to ride around with me with the windows down and our music blaring with our shades on. I played the song below and bless my soul if that boy didn't start singing just as loud as I was. He apparently knows the song and seeing that... I can't even describe it. Nothing else matters. I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I'm better, so much better... never would have made it.

"This world'll try to break you with lies and fables
Make you not even believe in you no more
Had to get back to me, get back to mines
Get back to fam, get back to rhymes
Lay down at night and say without shame
Today I was a [wo]man, tomorrow I'll be the same
Be a bonfire when others are just a flame
Be a memory when others are just a name...
That's real words from a true heart
You can take it as a old ending or a new start"
-- Phonte

no matter what I say it's nothing but words

A while back I wrote about Anthony David. I think he's sensational. His video for "Words" with India Arie just came out and I have to say.... I love it. I'll even give him a pass for that nose ring. It's a great song, but I haven't heard anything from him I haven't found enthralling. I'll upload a couple more of his songs once I get hooked back up to my external hard drive. India Arie looks beautiful and her voice is as rich and strong as always. The woman just seems to personify "organic" to me.


AND 2dopeboyz posted up the W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E. video that has fiiiinally come out. I posted the preview a minute ago -- ya'll already know I love the sample and Wale! The video is nice, there are a ton of pop culture references. I might like the original Justice version a bit better-- it blew my mind the first time I saw it. Anyhow, did you see Harold and the Purple Crayon? I love it!


This album is from 1957 with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. It coincides with the 1959 movie of the same name starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis, Jr which my mom went to see as a little girl with my grandmother. Then, earlier this year, I saw the amazing, wildly acclaimed play put on by the Zachary Scott Theater in Austin. I love how things carry over like that. Everything in this world is so ephemeral, I like when something lasts longer than the usual fad. It's a classic, I know you know "Summertime" -- there have been a million and one covers of it since it was first written - just type in "Summertime" on Youtube. I used to run track with the nicest, sweetest, most genuine girl who had a voice that rivaled any classic singer and when she sang "Summertime" I still remember the whole world stopping except for her and her amazing voice. She passed away from a brain tumor and I still think of her every time I hear the song. It was so amazing and I don't think it's recorded anywhere. Anyway, get familiar with some good music, the good Lord knows we need it after all the Soulja Boys and Soulja Girls running around the airwaves today.

hater for the greater good

"Look, it is what it is, because of what it was

I did what I did, cause it does what it does
I don't put nothin' above what I am, what I love
My family, my blood, my city and my hood
Hater for the greater good
I'm back from Hollywood
And I ain't changed a lick
Though, I know I probably should"
-- Black Thought "Criminal"

Mmmm yes. Moving cities again tomorrow -- I didn't see nearly enough people while in the H, but it's a good problem to have in the grand scheme of things. I'm blessed. Today I fed a giraffe. My life > yours

• Wale's much anticipated (at least by me) "the mixtape about nothing" will be out 5/30/08 @ elitaste.com see the tracklist here. Also, there is another random Wale "Voice of the City" mixtape TSS posted. Tracklist.
  
• Rihanna's "Take a Bow" is the number one song on iTunes. I take issue with the fact that 267,000+ people are loving a song about a lying, cheating, trash of a man so much that they'll PAY Apple for it. That's nearly 300 grand just from iTunes. What a world, what a world. But let me not front like that's not my next ring tone.
• Angelina Jolie is having twin babies which makes numbers 5 and 6 (I think, it's hard to keep up with the population growth within that household). I just can't tear my eyes away from that family. Please grow up in the public eye Brady Bunch-style.
  
• If you haven't seen "crazy girl on train" aka "Soulja girl" yet, brace yourself. Before you watch this be aware that she has been diagnosed as bipolar and was off her meds and has since been in police custody. Ladies and gentlemen, I now bring you the effects of a Soulja Boy world:

+ related tee

(by request - sorry it took so long, I think I finally found it!)
(unreleased "album" aka collection of songs from 2008)

I'm rehabilitating and still feeling rebellious

"My head already so heavy it's making the scales tip, I got my own pressure and got everyones elses, I'm rehabilitating and still feeling rebellious"

-- Black Thought "I Can't Help It"

I finally got in the mood today to listen to "Rising Down" in its entirety. My respect is such for the Roots that I can't just listen casually to the album, I feel the mood, the mind frame, the time must be right for the first real go round... except for "Rising Up" which already got the appropriate first run treatment months ago.

It's finally summertime! I'll be working all summer but it'll be great for a lot of reasons. I'm actually finally looking forward to it. I just got back from the Magnolia State for a huge, country family reunion and it was darn near life changing. It was exactly what I needed after themostintensefinalsweekever. Sorry to leave y'all hanging though - there's lots of good music circulating so I'll just throw a bunch in this post.

+ Producto Digestivo just posted every Little Brother/9th Wonder/Phonte mixtape and album that I've ever heard of and a good number I didn't know were out there.

I haven't listened to the whole album yet, but what I've heard from Usher's new material has been fair. He's doing a bit too much with this new video though...

16 When David finished saying this, Saul asked, "Is that your voice, David my son?" And he wept aloud. 17 "You are more righteous than I," he said. "You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly. 18 You have just now told me of the good you did to me; the LORD delivered me into your hands, but you did not kill me. 19 When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the LORD reward you well for the way you treated me today. 20 I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands. -- 1 Samuel 24:16-20

no one even knows it

I know I've been posting a lot of music videos lately but man if I'm in the library until 3 watching old school videos and want to share something then I can do that. This video epitomizes the 90's for me. The dancing, the music, the outfits, the message....I long for a time like that again. One of my history teachers once said she has observed that people basically romanticize the time when they were in early elementary school years. The social and even political culture that pervaded your little life at that time is something that you'll look more fondly upon than you might have done otherwise. I believe it. This is my favorite BBD song (a close tie with "Poison") and I really like how this, in a roundabout way, celebrates strong women. At a time when Too Short, 2 Live Crew, etc were all objectifying women and teaching girls to have a whore mindset that the world may never break, there was still a subculture of men celebrating the strong women in their lives. This is clearly meant to be humorous but, still, the feminine aspects that they sing about aren't your normal "36-24-36" descriptors.

I think our society has very divergent social norms for females and it's basically a toss up where you land. Are you going to be the "I gotta get mines, no shame/dignity, nasty as I wanna be" variety or the "I'm able to look myself in the mirror and not hang my head everyday?" I don't think you can be both. Or maybe I'm naive. How are you going to act like someone's garbage, be dogged by men and women, hide secrets from yourself, and then think you can get married one day, and brush it all under the carpet and turn your ho switch off?

This video, and a lot of the music in the same genre, seems to celebrate the latter type - the strong woman who is her own harshest critic. I've been listening to a lot of music and there are so many mixed messages out there - often from the same artists: "I can't live without you, I'll never be with you, you're my little secret, sideline ho." I do think that the music we surround ourselves with seems to seep in our subconscious thinking - a sort of bandwagon effect, if you will - we identify with the artist and feel that what they're singing about is acceptable because the melody is smooth and it sounds good. Old school music -- really old school music -- has similar messages but they go about it in such a demure way you often don't get the same vibe (there are exceptions, i.e. James Brown, but the exceptions aren't the rule like nowadays). My point is that there is a marked difference in self perception between singing "she's a gaaaangster" and "make it rain on them hoooes." Don't get me wrong, I'll get up and gyrate with the best of them in the club, but when does it stop becoming a dance and start becoming a lifestyle?

G_a_v_i_n D_e_G_r_a_w - "I'm in Love With a Girl"
This song isn't really that new but I saw him perform it last week on some show (Ellen maybe? Best talk show ever, by the way) and at the time I felt like if I tried hard enough I could actually hug the music it was so substantial and powerful. I will always rock out to this young man.

N.E.R.D. - "Spazz"
I'm pretty sure they played this at the GITD concert, I remember hearing the "I'm a little teapot" line and seeing these two girls pretending they were teapots... :-| At the time I figured it was old and off of something besides "In Search Of..." but I guess not. I forgot to mention before I'm actually really, really upset with the fact that there was no CRS performance at the concert. How are you going to have Pharrell, Ye, AND Lupe and NOT do "Us Placers?!" I really felt like the concert was designed to be as mainstream as possible which I understand from a business stand point but in reality you could do anything - people have already paid - and the people who are there to follow the crowd would still cheer no matter what the song.
N.E.R.D. feat. CRS and Pusha T - "Everybody Nose" remix

C_h_r_i_s Brown feat. K_e_r_i H_i_l_s_o_n - "Superhuman"
mediocre at best.

Lil Weezy feat. Teddy Pinderazzdown - "Got Money"
I bet these two have a bet like "How many times can we use the same words, same concepts, and same sound effects and STILL get paid and radio play?" Who could have ever dreamed vocoders would come back with such a vengeance? I never posted the 'Ye remix with a vocoder to "Lollipop" and now I can't find it but it's funny -- everybody had jumped on that bandwagon! And i like it.

I still have not found my iPod. Man oh man. What a time to be abandoned. And the weather changed over night and I woke up sick. And I can't sleep more than like 4 hours at a time. 2 more days. Just 2 more days.