REPOST: You know what, Hip Hop needs a PR person

Some of you may have read my post a few days ago entitled “Machine Guns And Stupid Choices” about my desire to have Jay Smooth be our own “go to” pundit in situations requiring a uniformed defense to all public matters related to Hip Hop. Someone to “Stay on message”, conveying the concerns and perspectiveof the culture while at the same time destroying all those who attempt to mislead and bring down Hip Hop with propaganda campaigns the likes unseen since… Ok, who am I kidding the propaganda campaigns of the Bush administration and Fox News on any day. No point going back to Hitler, even he’s like “Damn, the republicans sure know how to push that rhetoric”.

So I came across a post today from The Humanity Critics Blog for Vibe.com entitled “You know what, Hip Hop needs a PR person” which delves even deeper into our need for our own pundits to raise our flag and go to war on our behalf in an intellectual and steadfast manner, undeterred by the elementary debate club tactics of Fox, Bush, O’Reilly, Oprah, and all the rest that bully anyone who dares speak out on behalf of the culture. Check out the post below.

http://www.vibe.com/blog/humanitycritic/2007/10/you_know_what_hip_hop_needs_a_1.html

GVG
~we’re the warriors they write epics about~

Machine Guns And Stupid Choices

I truly love Jay Smooth. Every time I watch someone on TV trying to "represent" or "defend" our culture, in most cases making us look worse than they already perceive us, I’m always left thinking "I wish Jay Smooth was on there.”Here is a clip of Jay discussing the psychology of stupid as I coined it. Please check out his site www.illdoctrine.com for great pieces and numerous topics related to the culture of Hip Hop not just the culture of capitalism that creates and perpetuates all the worst images of us by corporations who only care about promoting the worst to garner the most profits.

VIDEO LINK HERE

GVG
~we’re the warriors they write epics about~

MY BLACKBERRY CRASHED!!! HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!!!

As the subject said my BlackBerry just crashed. Thanx friends and family. Do not text me; leave a voice message with your contact info or send me an e-mail. Don't expect an immediate response.

T. 212.300.6450
E. GVG@iamGVG.com

GVG
~seeing clearer~

...

Wouldn’t it be great if I actually did some writing on this thing again? You might get your wish, working on some things...

GVG
~living in my head~

Haitians in U.S. Revolution get monument in Savannah, Georgia

Click on photo for larger view

After 228 years as largely unsung contributors to American independence, Haitian soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War's bloody siege of Savannah had a monument dedicated in their honor Monday.

About 150 people, many of them Haitian-Americans who came to Savannah for the event, gathered in Franklin Square where life-size bronze statues of four soldiers now stand atop a granite pillar 6 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter.

``This is a testimony to tell people we Haitians didn't come from the boat,'' said Daniel Fils-Aime, chairman of the Miami-based Haitian American Historical Society. ``We were here in 1779 to help America win independence. That recognition is overdue.''

In October 1779, a force of more than 500 Haitian free blacks joined American colonists and French troops in an unsuccessful push to drive the British from Savannah in coastal Georgia.

More than 300 allied soldiers were gunned down charging British fortifications Oct. 9, making the siege the second-most lopsided British victory of the war after Bunker Hill.

Though not well known in the U.S., Haiti's role in the American Revolution is a point of national pride for Haitians. After returning home from the war, Haitian veterans soon led their own rebellion that won Haiti's independence from France in 1804.

``It's a huge deal,'' said Philippe Armand, vice president of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America, who flew to Savannah from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. ``All the Haitians who have gone to school know about it from the history books.''

Fils-Aime's group has spent the past seven years lobbying Savannah leaders to support the monument, which the city approved in 2005, and raising more than $400,000 in private donations to pay for it.

Fils-Aime said the historical society still needs $250,000 more to finish two additional soldier statues.

As it stands now, the monument features statues of two Haitian troops with rifles raised on either side of a fellow soldier who has fallen with a bullet wound to his chest.

The fourth statue, a drummer boy, depicts a young Henri Christophe, who served in Savannah as an adolescent and went on to become Haiti's first president _ and ultimately king _ after it won independence.

It's unclear exactly what role Haitian troops played in the battle at Savannah because Haitian records from that era were destroyed by fire in the 1830s, said Scott Smith, director of Savannah's Coastal Heritage Society, which is dedicating a park on the battlefield site Tuesday.

But surviving records show 545 Haitian soldiers sailed to Savannah in 1779 _ making them the largest military unit of the Savannah battle. The Haitians are also believed to have been the largest black unit to serve in the American Revolution.

In the 1800s, Savannah erected monuments in its oak-shaded squares to Revolutionary War heroes Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene, one of George Washington's most trusted generals, as well as Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski and Sgt. William Jasper, both killed in the Savannah siege.

More than a century later, Haitian troops who fought for the same cause have rejoined them in history's ranks.

``When you look at the other monuments in the city of Savannah and then you look at this one, this is first class all the way,'' said Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson.

Haitian-American Historical Society: http://www.haitianhistory.org

Jay-Z, "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)"

Jay- Z "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)"

TURN YOUR SPEAKERS UP TO 11

To play click on title.

GVG

~Thanking my connect~

ONE LIFE TO LIVE – WITH RAPPERS?

So I get a phone call from my cousin Stephanie telling me to check out “One Life to Live.” tomorrow to see our other cousins husband John to us D.O.E to you (The guy in the black shirt) with Timbaland and Keri Hilson performing their hit "The way I are". I then found out that Timbaland, D.O.E, and Keri Hilson are the first Hip-Hop acts to appear on “One Life to Live.” Thought it was a big deal, so I’m handing them my platform. Enjoy people.



Here is the official video for "The way I are"


GVG
~we're the warriors they write epics about~

WE NEED TO DO BETTER.

I just saw this amazing video and wondered why it was Fall Out boy and Bono were going harder for our cause then we were. Where are our artists creating art to speak to the problems that harm and affect us as a people on a daily basis, not just on the block, but globally? “We need to do better, If not for us then for the children.”

GVG
~dreaming of better dayz~

BOONDOCKS/HIP HOP HONORS BAD BAD BAD THEN SOME GOOD

I was so excited about TV this evening; I turned my computer on to find that a strangely humorous (At times) little person posted a link to watch the season 2 premiere of the Boondocks online (Watch here). Which for anyone who’s ever watched the show knew that it was one of the biggest disappointments in recent satirical history. I didn’t laugh once, not even one of those cover my mouth and look around to see if anyone saw me guilty “I can’t believe they said that” laughs. McGruder; as my mother always told me “If you didn’t want to do it right, you shouldn’t have done it at all. Now go clean your room!” Then I watched "THE HIP HOP HONORS" – Hip Hop Honors my ass.

A few questions:

How does Missy Elliot get honored when she just came out? Isn’t this show supposed to represent the artist of the past that created the art that influenced today? Doesn’t Missy have a single out now?

Why didn’t Aaron Hall come out to slap T Pain and Ne-Yo for messing up his songs?

How you going to honor New Jack Swing and not do a tribute to Bobby “Crack head’s prerogative” Brown?

What the Hell do Doug E. Fresh, Kool Moe Dee, and Michael Jackson have to do with New Jack Swing?

Am I buggin or didn’t Black Street come out years after New Jack Swing?

Did Teddy Riley catch something?

Why does LL Cool J still dress like my Godson when he’s older than me???

When did Gucci start making cowboy hats and leather track suits? Let me find out Dapper Dan is making a come back.

Nick Cannon wasn’t horrible.

I did like the Whodini Tribute and performance. I miss the days of real stage performers.

How the hell you going to wear red for a Snoop Dogg tribute then scream out “Two Loked out Gs”?


Now it must be said, in all honesty, the only reason I cancelled my plans for the evening was for one thing and one thing only – A.TRIBE.CALLED.QUEST. So all that other stuff was fluff on my way to the main show. Just wish the fluff was better, almost gave up and turned off my TV. Then it finally happened - The Tribe tribute with Pharrell (Backpack in tow) Lupe (Just lost almost all the respect I had for this idiot, if you want read about why here) and the biggest and best surprise – BUSTA BUST RIPPING IT DOWN FOR THE SCENERIO!!! Tribe was still Tribe even with Phife in a sickened state from Kidney problems, you have all our prayers. They did a short set and made you really want to get out of your seat like I did and take it to that feeling the first time you heard "Award tour" or any other of their seminal works. It was all worth it to see one of my all time favorite Hip Hop groups and the influence for any artist that I give any attention to today with any common sense (pun intended).

I like em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian
My name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu nation
Told you in the jam that we can get down
Now let’s knock the boots like the group H-Town
You got BBD all on your bedroom wall
But I’m above the rim and this is how I ball
A pretty little somethin on the New York streets
This is how I represent over this here beat

Talkin bout you...

HOW HARD IS THAT???!!!!!

GVG

~missing the time I lost~

AUDIO FOREPLAY SUNDAYS: CAN I PLAY YOU SOMETHING?

If player isn't showing click on standalone player and the song will begin to play.

Just listen...

GVG
~allowing it to speak for itself~

SOME MORE OF THAT 90s HIP HOP FOR THAT A@@

Don’t know how I missed it, but Flex did another CRAZY 4 HOUR 90s Hip Hop set Labor day weekend. Peter Rosenberg had it on his blog and thought you’d like to check it out as much I did.

Part 1 http://www.sendspace.com/file/8rb483
Part 2 http://www.sendspace.com/file/unu3aq
Part 3 http://www.sendspace.com/file/n6nkmx

GVG
~so sincere about this Hip Hop thing of ours~

MEET INSPIRATION...

GVG
~we're the warriors they write epics about~

DO I MUSE YOU?

I’m an inspiring force. Who would have thunk it other than my mother. I had sent the below listed post of a conversation amongst two people on Craig's list forum out to everyone I knew. The future co-author of my over-stylized memoirs madam Demetria read the postings and was inspired to create a post about it on her own blog for Honey Magazine. I knew my witty ladies and all my IBs (Investment Bankers) friends would get a huge kick out of it. The funny thing is a group of us, including D and another IB friend, had just finished having a discussion about IB’s lack of personalities the night before I was sent this by one of my female Hedge fund manager friends, who by the way wasn’t privy to our conversation, wanting to prove her ilk had a bit of wit to them. Enjoy. READ HERE.

GVG

~we're the warriors they write epics about~

Who said Wall Street Bankers had no sense of humor or personality! HILARIOUS!!!

True Story.
A Must Read. Please read all the way to the end...I promise you its worth it!

THIS APPEARED ON CRAIG'S LIST

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy.

I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think I'm overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms
- What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my feelings
- Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?
- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who havenothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys.I've seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story there?
- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, Investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?
- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

THE GUYS RESPONSE - MY FAVORITE PART!

PostingID: 432279810
THE ANSWER
Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I'm not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here's how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a cr@ppy business deal. Here's why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity...in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and old...hence the rub...marriage. It doesn't make good business sense to "buy you"(which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease. In case you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when our beauty fades I need an out. It's as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as "articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful" as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn't found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn't need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you're going about it the right way. Classic "pump and dump." I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

ONE STEP BACK: KNEW IT COULDN'T LAST TOO LONG...

One big F'ing swoosh back. I had finally gotten one of those things that was bothering me out of my head when I finally decided to read the essay Michael Medved wrote about slavery. Why did I do that?

Below are some excepts and a link to the full essay. Read and get back to me with your thoughts. Length is not an issue I want to read it all. I need to reread the essay and let it swoosh around a bit more in my head before I can even begin to write a response.

"In short, politically correct assumptions about America’s entanglement with slavery lack any sense of depth, perspective or context. As with so many other persistent lies about this fortunate land, the unthinking indictment of the United States as uniquely blameworthy for an evil institution ignores the fact that the record of previous generations provides some basis for pride as well as guilt. "

That wonderful paragraph ends a long diatribe about how America should be more proud than ashamed of her legacy of slavery.

“Unfortunately, the current mania for exaggerating America’s culpability for the horrors of slavery bears no more connection to reality than the old, discredited tendency to deny that the U.S. bore any blame at all. No, it’s not true that the “peculiar institution” featured kind-hearted, paternalistic masters and happy, dancing field-hands, any more than it’s true that America displayed unparalleled barbarity or enjoyed disproportionate benefit from kidnapping and exploiting innocent Africans.”

"By definition, the crime of genocide requires the deliberate slaughter of a specific group of people; slavers invariably preferred oppressing and exploiting live Africans rather than murdering them en masse. Here, the popular, facile comparisons between slavery and the Holocaust quickly break down: the Nazis occasionally benefited from the slave labor of their victims, but the ultimate purpose of facilities like Auschwitz involved mass death, not profit or productivity. For slave owners and slave dealers in the New World, however, death of your human property cost you money, just as the death of your domestic animals would cause financial damage. And as with their horses and cows, slave owners took pride and care in breeding as many new slaves as possible. "

But wait there is more. Here he argues that the real victims of the slave trade were the slave traders:

"Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean. Estimates remain inevitably imprecise, but range as high as one third of the slave “cargo” who perished from disease or overcrowding during transport from Africa. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean."

"NO SLAVE TRADERS WANTED TO SEE THIS LEVEL OF DEADLY SUFFERING"?

Full essay here

GVG
~we're the warriors they write epics about~

ONE STEP FORWARD

One swoosh down. Two more to go.

GVG
~we're the warriors they write epics about~

TIMES LIKE THIS...

Its 1:34am on Monday morning. As you know if you read this blog with any regularity, every Sunday for as long as this blog has been up I’ve done an Audio Foreplay and yesterday was the first Sunday without one (except for that one drunken Saturday I believed was a Sunday and I posted it a day early, but that doesn’t count). I just couldn’t find the song that described the moment nor did I really care to try. I had a lot swooshing around in my head this weekend and working through those things was of a bit more importance. I am a thinker. You’d think that was a good thing. It’s not. I’m an over thinker. Once something is in my head it takes a lot to get it out. I analyze. Reanalyze. Then do it all over again 1000x more. I seem to be doing a lot of typing as of late and not much writing, more to come on that and the difference between the two very soon. Stay tuned I might need your help with that one.

Bet you thought I was going to give you a bit of insight to all those things that was swooshing around in my head. NOT! Sorry, just not in a place to share. When I’m in analyze mode. It’s all about me and what I’m thinking. I’ll hopefully work through it all soon and get back to the business of writing (Hopefully).

I did however just come across/find/consciously search out (Whichever) someone online that I haven’t seen or spoken to in truly forever. That did put a smile on my face. Looking forward to seeing Chrisette Michelle perform live on Tuesday, heard so many great things about her live show and I know some good music could do my body good right about now. Did I mention it’s also an all night open bar? LOL. Oh yea, we’re walking out of there HAPPY!

ALCOHOLICS AND MUSIC LOVERS UNITE!!!

P.S. The votes have been tallied and we need some new music from D’Angelo and Maxwell out yesterday. If we hear either of them say they’re in the studio working on that new album one more time instead of giving us a cemented release date we starting something. Don’t let the incense burning and Jill Scott playing in the background fool you, we will whip some neo soul ass up out this motha!!!

GVG
~we’re the warriors they write epics about~