"Oh Shit! ... GMO Food Sterilizes People ... And It's Really A Form of Population Control?"
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider - founder Club of Rome - The First Global Revolution, pp.104-105
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
GET A CHICK...
Were We All Kunta Kinte? Or Are We Also Mansa Musa?
Barry Goldwater 1909-1998
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. "
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad
"It Is Easier To Change A Man's Religion Than It Is To Change His Diet"
Private Prison Industry
2,000,000 human beings in American prisons and counting
IS THIS LITTLE GUY A PERSON?
The founders of the American state understood that the proper functioning of a democracy required an educated electorate. It is this understanding that justifies a system of public education and that led slaveholders to resist the spread of literacy among their chattels. But the meaning of "educated" has changed beyond recognition in two hundred years. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are no longer sufficient to decide on public policy. Now we need quantum mechanics and molecular biology. The knowledge required for political rationality, once available to the masses, is now in the possession of a specially educated elite, a situation that creates a series of tensions and contradictions in the operation of representative democracy.
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. P
"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Louis Pasteur
"The Microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything."
Beverly Johnson. Beverly Hills. 1978
"Bra! Tell Me About It!"
"Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes."
Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter - quoted in the The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
Lord Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science On Society (Routledge Press: New York, 1951).
"At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase, which continued throughout each of the world wars.. War has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. The state of affairs might be unpleasant, but what of it?"
Denmark Vesey For President 08
1. Troops Out Of Iraq Immediately. Like By Monday. 2. Money Owed To Haliburton and War Contractors Be Given Directly To The Iraqi People 3. Complete Electoral Reform 4. No Corporate Conglomerate Will Be Allowed To Control More Than 5% Of News Market 5. Federal Reserve Abolished 6. For-Profit Prison Industry Abolished
*George Orwell (1903-1950) English novelist, critic
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness... If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear... The great enemy of clear language is insincerity... The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it... To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle... For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.
“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society will be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values.” – Zbigniew Brzezinski
God Don't Make No Mistakes
Gordon Parks 1912-2006
"I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand."
Great Grandmother Harris
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26 comments:
I LOVE that song, I swear my ex plays it every time I get in his car (might be coincidental but whatever) but that video SUCKS. Is that the actual video for it??? He might as well have made the video on the Degrassi set.
Did Kanye Judas Drake with this video?
Ah, Pink, ex-bf's are great, right? Senior year an ex tried to make me pay for dumping him. As I would walk to school he would speed by in 5.0 playing Gangstar's exgirl to next girl. Pretty silly.
Your's sounds like he's still into you. ;*)
Dude is simply this generation's Will Smith.
Submariner is just saying that because dude is light skin and can rap. What's he doing Wayne hasn't already done?
Such a great, great song with such a shitty, shitty video.
*Sigh*
I hadn't thought about that, LA, that Kanye intentionally debo'd my boy's video. All Kanye's own stuff is so amazing, and this's the best he can come up w/for Drake, some juvenile humor and bouncing d's. WTFHF
Hey Doc, It does kind of make you wonder.
I even saw a comment on the web were someone was named: "The assassination of Drake, by the coward Kanye West." Funny, but wow, I just hope it's not true.
great line doc: "Kanye intentionally debo'd my boy's video"
LOL LA I remember that song! Yeah ex's are funny. Mine is only going hard now because I'm about to move.
Submariner is just saying that because dude is light skin and can rap.
Not so. I never thought that about Red and Meth.
I say it because it's rather obvious to me that Drake has been selected by the style makers. I never heard of the man until DV linked his video and right then I thought that while he was quite mellifluous if this was the next best rapper alive heaven help the rap game.
My feelings were confirmed when I saw the recent BET Awards show and Jamie Foxx singled out the brother in the audience and he gave a sheepish and demure response. This was followed by a singularly undemonstrative stage performance which diverged noticeably from Lil' Wayne.
With the megrims of Chris Brown public knowledge, the trajectory of Drake career seems clear. He'll be in the music scene for a few years then cameo appearances on TV and the big screen then after that he's a household name. I haven't looked at the young man's bio but last week an ER tech told me that he was from Canada and that explained so much for me. In addition to looks and talent he probably shares with Smith an entrenched middle-class sensibility and pliability which makes for unparalleled success in America.
Just an aside but Red and Meth are my favorite couple ever. The love there is palpable.
Sorry, Sub, gotta disagree.
Drake can rap his ass off. Plus he can sing.
Go find his "So Far Gone" mixtape.
Also, if he was just going for raw commercial appeal, I don't think he'd sing "You the fuckin' best, you the fuckin' best" in his hook. And he definitely wouldn't rap verses like "She call me the referee cause I be so official
My shirt aint got no stripes
But I can make ya pussy whiiiiiiiistle
Like the Andy Griffith Theme song."
Dude's flow is amazing. Like check this:
"and I’m in the mood to get faded so please bring your finest
and what are all your names again we drunk remind us
are any y’all into girls like I am lets be honest"
Now say the last three words again, really fast. It sounds like lesbianas. That's simple, but just pure genius when you think of it. I've never heard anyone rap a metaphor like that. Drake constantly does stuff like this with his lyrics that completely catches me off guard. Dude is the truth. Believe that.
Dude is the truth. Believe that.
You've been taken hook line and sinker. In today's cultural climate the best way to "go for raw commercial appeal" is to be raw. This is what attracts the ranks of young white males essential to success. DV's favorite rap icons are indistinguishable from those of a young white male adolescent. Besides you underestimate the ability of style makers who've demonstrated an ability reconfigure an iconoclast like Ice Cube into a harmless and befuddled husband in a family film.
No doubt the young man is talented. And no doubt that if he succeeds it will be by adhering to a well-worn script.
Submariner is truth.
accept no substitutes....,
that Drake video is taken DIRECTLY from the current rotation of serialized teevee shows aimed at a broad crossover/cross-sectional youth audience.
Drake is Kanye and Weezy's bastard son.
His whole style sounds like what they are doing.
>>>You've been taken hook line and sinker. In today's cultural climate the best way to "go for raw commercial appeal" is to be raw.<<
Which is why all these other, super raw rappers have been making off like bandits, right?
Only they haven't. In fact, raw hip hop is dying a slow death right now. So there must be some other element there contributing to his success, no? Many artists get really good pushes by the "tastemakers", but if the talent's not there, they still don't break through.
>>>DV's favorite rap icons are indistinguishable from those of a young white male adolescent.<<
Which means.... what, exactly? That young white males respond to the same entertainment stars that young black males do? We are the world, after all... (Heh, watching the MJ tribute as I type this.)
Kanye got his start with "Through the Wire", the most unlikely of hip hop hits, given the climate he came out in.
"What if somebody from the Chi was ill got a deal on the hottest rap label around
But he wasn't talking bout coke and birds it was more like spoken word
Except he really putting it down
And he explained the story about how blacks came from glory
And what we need to do in the game"
So he's admittedly not rapping about drugs, and even *gasp* doing conscious black rap. (When we all know THAT doesn't sell anymore.)
Kanye said that when he rapped for a lot of execs, including Jay at Roc-A-Fella, they'd be like, "Yeah, that's nice, but stick to producing." He did songs like "Jesus Walks", do you really think that was designed to be a mainstream hit in hip hop's hedonistic environment?
You guys seem to conveniently overlook the fact that Kanye and Weezy both have the raw talent to back whatever media market push they've been given. Or that both, if they were designed to merely be mass appeal pop stars, went about it in a very unlikely way. In a world of gold teeth, gold chains and air force ones, Yeezy swaggers in in loafers, slacks and sweaters. You might say, that's just an attempted grasp at mass appeal, but when he came out people thought that'd be career suicide. And like you say, even white fans like raw artists, so who was his target audience again, exactly?
Lil Wayne didn't even curse when he first started rapping. Don't forget, Cash Money was an indy label. Their whole success was unexpected. And lately he's been rapping about being a pill popper from outer space. Not exactly mainstream fare. (Well, it's becoming mainstream, but this is a case of the dog wagging it's tail, not vice versa.) It's just like the people who discredit Eminem being just another commercial rapper. Do you honestly think when he came out songs about murdering his mother and girlfriend were mainstream, what hip hop thought would be hot right then? Dude was just dope as a muthafucka, and people responded to it.
You might not have heard of Drake, but I keep up with the underground, and the mixtape game. He's been a fixture on "Whiteowl Drop That", "Exclusive Tunes" and other mixtape series for awhile now. I've been listening to Best I Ever Had for months now, long before it hit the radio. Dude definitely put in mad work to get where he is right now.
The Doc
I'm not arguing with you about whether Drake has talent, dude obviously does.
I'm just saying his style isn't new or innovative. It's exactly what Kanye and Wayne have been doing for a minute. At least it sounds that way to me.
You misread my position. I actually agree with you about the essence or nature of Drake's talent. And I'm not saying that just any fool with aspirations could become "the next greatest rapper alive" anymore than I would say that any articulate telegenic brother could become POTUS. It takes a special combination of rare ability and pure luck to reach such heights. I'm just saying that those who do, like Jackie Robinson did a generation ago, get there with the acquiescence of gatekeepers.
Of course the better rappers like a Jay-Z on DOA are going to express their autonomy and challenge the prevailing aesthetic which confines rap to bald misogyny, redundant violence, tales of narco-trafficking, and a lazy posture of unconfined luxury. Similar to box office draws George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt, they will cut against the grain and refuse to be stereotyped. But inevitably they will don the superhero costume and make the typical summer or holiday blockbuster. For every one song that they make which is animated by a countervailing vision they will make five songs about the typical fare. And if they choose not to follow this ratio, they will still be celebrated but become peripheral like Wyclef Jean currently is or Will.I.Am used to be. So the bottom line is be very careful about accepting labels like the "Best Rapper Alive" or "God's Son."
Sub
Good point.
"which confines rap to bald misogyny, redundant violence, tales of narco-trafficking, and a lazy posture of unconfined luxury. " Submariner
... as opposed to tales of what?
... as opposed to tales of what?
DV, as if you don't know. Surely you didn't limit yourself to the blacktops of Dean Street during your stay in Brooklyn.
What You Know About Dean Street Sub!?
That's where I got my first dunk. (rims must me about 2 inches short).
But nah man. Really. I'm curious:
"which confines rap to bald misogyny, redundant violence, tales of narco-trafficking, and a lazy posture of unconfined luxury. " Submariner
... as opposed to tales of what?
Being proximal in age and distance to the cultural environment from which hip hop emerged, I remember local stations playing hit songs with topics ranging from basketball to double dutch to, believe it or not, King Louis XVI. The reservoir of human experiences to draw from is practically limitless.
The areas to which most rap presently confines itself came from a mutually reinforcing combination of marketing decisions and the culture wars waged by conservatives in the Eighties. Even a marginal talent like Ice T could sell records and be a household name. In turn cultural critics would reduce the entire rap genre to him or 2 Live Crew and you would arrive at mutually reinforcing polemicists.
meant to link this earlier
Sub speaks the truth.
Exhibit A.
Andre 3000.
And Wu Tang utilizing something as remote as kung fu movies. I am not saying that rappers lack intelligence, drive, and creativity. Many commercially successful rappers broach taboo and unconventional subjects. But like all humans they respond to structural incentives.
Big Man do you recall the name of the film with Elijah Wood and Raekwon?
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