Kanye West Power Preveiw

. This kinda production money is only reserved for TV 30 second commercials around SuperBowl time or 2 hour long Tyler Perry movies. But if your gonna go big, this is the way to do it. I think it's GAW-jus, visually, it was the best one minute forty-two-seconds of my day... except when I'm looking at you Boo... you know who you are. (wink)

Black & Blue Print

The Black Male Handbook is a collection of essays for Black males on surviving, living, and winning. Kevin Powell taps into the social and political climate rising in the Black community, particularly as it relates to Black males. This is a must-have book, not only for Black male readers, but the women who befriend, parent, partner, and love them.

The Black Male Handbook answers a collective hunger for new direction, fresh solutions to old problems, and a different kind of conversation -- man-to-man and with Black male voices, all of the hiphop generation. The book tackles issues related to political, practical, cultural, and spiritual matters, and ending violence against women and girls.

The book also features an appendix filled with useful readings, advice, and resources. The Black Male Handbook is a blueprint for those aspiring to thrive against the odds in America today.

Click here for more

LeSean Thomas

Lesean Thomas is the Co-Director & Supervising Character Designer of "The Boondocks" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Season 2 AIRING NOW! StoryBoard Artist on BEN10:ALIEN FORCE and artist extradonaire'

His Space
Deviant Art
Blog

Origin of Break Dance

Alright B-Boys take note

Africanhiphop.com

Africanhiphop.com serves the goal of unifying everybody who's inspired by hip hop and by the cultures of Africa and of African origins. The info at Africanhiphop.com is provided mostly by the artists themselves, and edited by the Africanhiphop.com web team in Amsterdam, Holland. Africanhiphop.com is a project of the African Hip Hop Foundation, a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands which is run by a group of young volunteers from different countries and backgrounds. The foundation board consists of pioneers in African hip hop from South Africa, Uganda and Holland. Our editorial team is made up of young media professionals from Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Cape Verde and Angola, while we work with freelancers from all over the continent.

Click here to see the artist

Cedric the Conscious Entertainer

Considered one of the funniest comics in America, Actor/Comedian Cedric ‘The Entertainer’ is best known as one of the headlining stars of the hit feature film, The Original Kings of Comedy, directed by Spike Lee. Here h appears on Def Poetry and gives the Conscious crowd something to think about


Click here for his foundation

Black Youth Project

LARGEST EVER NATIONAL YOUTH SURVEY ILLUMINATES THE ATTITUDES, EXPERIENCES, HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS OF YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICANS

The Black Youth Project, under the direction of Dr. Cathy Cohen of the University of Chicago, today unveiled the findings of a comprehensive survey of the experiences and attitudes of young African Americans. The national survey questioned 1,590 African American, White and Hispanic young people, ages 15-25, on everything from pre-marital sex to their beliefs about the “color-blind” society. The data present one of the most complete pictures to date of a generation that finds itself in the center of many of the country’s political and social debates.

Click to hear the Black Youth Project audio press conference

Click here to see the report

What is Hardcore

Lyrics 'What's Hardcore?'I put a pen to the paper, this time as visual as possible, guns blast at the hospital,the walls are white washed with tin rooftops, to show love you lick two shots, it's dangerous man, journalists hire gunmen there's violent women, kids trust no one cause fire burnt them, refugees die in boats, headed for peace,is anyone scared of death here' Not in the least,I walk by the old lady selling coconuts under the tree, life is cheap here but wisdom is free, the beach boys hang on the side, leaning with pride,scam artists and gangsters fiendin to fight, I walk with three kids that can't wait to meet Godlately, that's Bucktooth, Mohamed and Crybaby,what they do everyday just to eat lord have mercy,strapped with an AK and they blood thirsty...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.We begin our day by the way of the gun, rocket propelled grenades blow you away if you front,we got no police ambulance or fire fighters,we start riots by burning car tires,they looting, and everybody start shooting,bullshit politicians talking bout solutions, but it's all talk, you can't go half a block with a road block, you don't pay at the road block you get your throat shot,and each road block is set up by these gangsters,and different gangsters go by different standards,for example, the evening is a no go, unless you wanna wear a bullet like a logo,in the day you should never take the alleyway,the only thing that validates you is the AK,they chew on Jad it's sorta like coco leafs,and there ain't no police...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.I'm a spit these verses cause I feel annoyed,and I'm not gonna quit till I fill the void,if I rhyme about home and got descriptive,I'd make Fifty Cent look like Limp Biskit,it's true, and don't make me rhyme about you,I'm from where the kids is addicted to glue,get ready, he got a good grip on the machete,make rappers say they do it for love like R-Kelly,it's HARD, harder than Harlem and Compton intertwined,harder than harboring Bin Laden and rewind,"to that earlier part when I was kinda like"we begin our day by the way of the gun,rocket propelled grenades blow you away if you front,we got no police ambulances or fire fighters,we start riots by burning car tires,they looting, and everybody starting shooting...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore?Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.

Knaan website

Hip Hop & Public Safety

Source: Davey D Hip Hop Blog

Legendary Hip Hop star KRS One blew up the spot the other week at the FCC hearings in Chicago. It was a contentious session where Chicago's Hip Hop community made their presence felt. Here in this clip provided by Freepress.. KRS drops serious science about the imbalanced power dynamics that exists between rappers and radio station owners.

He also called for the attendees to not just hold hearings but to actually walk out and surround Chicago Hip Hop station WGCI which he helped put on the map by starting a Hip Hop show called Rap Down with the late legendary Chicago icon DJ Pinkhouse back in the early 90s. KRS notes that despite the postivite efforts he puts forth he can no longer get any of material played on that station.

KRS wraps up his remarks by explaining that radio stations like WGCI and other big businesses have criminalized Hip Hop with its continuous negative presentations. This has caused a public safety issue because police officers and others listen to the radio and come away beliving the falsehoods. This in turn leads to increase profiling of all Hip Hoppers and Black people in general.

KRS gets major props for taking time out to attend the hearings even though he was in town just to do a concert.

Here is the link to those remarks just in case the audio player is not working.

Click here

Hip Hop Supports the Jenna 6

A delegation from the Hip Hop activist community will serve as Ambassadors for Common Peace at the September 20th, 2007 protest rally of the Jena 6 trial in Jena, Louisiana. Mr. J. Michael Carr Jr. of the Fathers for the Future Foundation (FFF) and Troy Nkrumah of the National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC) will lead a delegation of young people to Jena to monitor, mediate, and demonstrate for the justice of the six young youth who are on trial and unless justice is served could spend the decades in prison. This delegation will also include over 10 young lawyers from around the country who will work as legal observers to ensure that the constitutional rights of the demonstrators are not violated by law enforcement.

Invited by the "Friends of Justice", the actual organization to first break the Jena 6 story to the Chicago Tribune and BBC in December 2006, the Ambassadors For Common Peace will work to promote civility and goodwill at the mobilization in Jena, LA. It is the belief of the Hip Hop community that this is one of the most salient racial trials since the Rodney King verdict in 1992 and has the potential to repeat the disastrous outcome if justice is not met for the defendants. This one trail has the potential to set back race relations and delegitimize the current strides made in the fight for racial justice, thus furthering the heightened racial tensions.

Just as with the 1964 deaths of the three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, the six black youth facing attempted murder and aggravated assault charges in Jena, Louisiana are bringing the national climate of racial injustice to another tipping point. The hip hop generation has taken a stand to voice their objection to the circumstances around this trial, because the impact will have such long term ramifications on American society, thus silence is not an option.

The Ambassadors For Common Peace understand that it is the proclivity of both sides to interpret the case based on their own perceptions; however, we would like to state that it is our intention and objective to remain true to the philosophy of nonviolent direct action. Therefore, our focus is to be advocates for a peaceful, but vocal demonstration and to discourage those who seek to agitate through the call for violence at the September 20th rally. We encourage all who are concerned with this matter to come out and participate in a safe, constitutional and effective mobilization for the justice for the Jena 6. for more info click here

Venus Takes You Back To The Day

One of my favorites

Click here and enjoy

Nomadic Wax Hip Hop & Advocacy

Nomadic Hip Hop

While the conversation in the states is whether Hip Hop is dead or alive. It continues to flourish abroad. Case in point, Nomadic Wax

Nomadic Wax is a mobile "guerilla-style" production company and record label dedicated to recording, producing, and distributing hip-hop talent from Africa.

Nomadic Wax was conceived by Benny Herson who stumbled upon a thriving underground hip-hop scene during a trip to Senegal in the summer of 1999.

In 2000, Herson returned to Senegal to write "Fat Beats, Dope Rhymes and Thug Lives" a scholarship-wining thesis documenting the rise of Senegalese hip-hop and the power of hip-hop as a means of political/social expression.

In 2001 Herson returned to Dakar with no more than a hard disk recorder, a laptop computer and a couple of microphones. With engineering help from ASCAP award winning engineer Dan Cantor (Notable Productions) and 14 of Herson’s dopest beats Nomadic Wax recorded African Underground Vol. 1 "Hip-Hop Senegal" a compilation featuring 14 of Dakar’s illest MCs.

Today Nomadic Wax has successfully produced over 60 hip-hop groups from all over Africa. With the advent of portable digital studio technology, Nomadic Wax is able record on location, thus reaching even in the most remote of locations. click here to visit

Bell Hooks on Rap

Bell Hooks gives an amazing acount of the machinary that produces

the vulgarity that we see and hear in rap

 

Davey D's List of Hip Hop Anti-War Songs

Below is a list of other anti-war songs that just aren't being played by the Clear Channels, Viacoms, Infinities, Emmis', Radio Ones and other corporate media outlets of the world.. Call up your local station and ask why?
If I missed any songs please drop me a line mrdaveyd@aol.com

WHAT ABOUT US?-Hard Knock Records compilation' 'PEACE NOT WAR' [www.peace-not-war.org][double cd compilation] WAR TIMES 'Reports From the Opposition' [Bay Area Compilation] 2PAC 'Never B Peace' 2PAC 'War' AK9INE 'Let My Nine Ring' AFRIKA BAMBAATAA 'World Destruction' AZEEM 'George Bush Is A Gangsta' BEASTIE BOYS 'In A World Gone Mad' BLUE SCHOLARS 'Back Home' BLUE SCHOLARS 'Blink' BROTHER ALI 'Letter From the Government' CHUCK D & FINE ARTS MILITIA 'Twisted Sense of God' CHUCK D & FINE ARTS MILITIA 'Twisted Sense of God pt 2' COMPANY OF PROPHETS 'Hush' [War Times LP] CONSOLIDATED 'We Gotta Have Peace' CRACK EMCEE 'Hoeing For George' CRACK EMCEE 'Red, White & Blue' DEAD PREZ 'Know Your Enemy' DEAD PREZ & The COUP 'Get Up' DEAD PREZ 'Revolution' DEAD PREZ 'War' DE LA SOUL 'Held Down' DENIZEN KANE 'Lost Found Nation' DIGITAL UNDERGROUND, PARIS, SWAY & TECH 'Time For Peace' DILATED PEOPLES 'War' DJ DISORIENTALIST 'Occident & Emergency' DJ KUTTIN KANDI '9-11' spoken word piece DJ SPINNA 'Fly or Burn' DJ VADIM 'Pacifist' DJ VADIM 'Ghetto Rebel' EMINEM 'Mosh' EUPHRATES 'Oil Slick' EUPHRATES 'Haliburton' EUPHRATES 'Spider in the Hole' EUPHRATES 'IRAQ' EYDEA and ABILITIES 'Murder of Memories' ERIC B & RAKIM 'Casualties of War' FELONIOUS 'Protest' FREDWRECK w/ WC, Defari, RBX, Dilated Peoples, SoopaFly, Daz, 'Down with Us' FREDWRECK w/ KRs, Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill, Westside Connection 'Dera Mr President' FUNDAMENTAL 'Rape [Tactic of War]' GOAPELE 'Red, White and Blue'[War Times LP] GRIME 'Everywhere is War' HANNIFAH WALIDAH 'Soldierman'[War Times LP] HASSAN SALAAM 'Speak the Truth' IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE 'Bin Laden' JAHI 'Neva The Same' JAZZY JEFF AND RAHIEM 'My People' J-LIVE 'Satisfied' JURASSIC 5 'Freedom' KNOWN ASSOCIATES 'World So Cold' KNOCTURNAL 'War' KOS 'Heaven Only Knows' KRS-ONE'Soldier' KRS-ONE'World Peace' LUPE FIASCO 'American Terrorist' MELE-MEL 'World War III' ME'SHELL NDEGEOCELLO 'God Bless America' MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD 'We Can Bomb The World to Pieces' MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD 'Water Pistol Man' MICHAEL FRANTI & DISPOSABLE HEROES 'Satanic Reverses' MR LIF 'Home of the Brave' MUD FAMILY 'Peace Not War' NAS 'Rule' NAS & JAY-Z'Rule'rmx NAS'My Country' NATIVE GUNS 'Treason' NIDIRAH SHAKOOR 'Winds of Karma' NO THE PIPER of FLIPSYDE 'God Bless America' NO THE PIPER of FLIPSYDE 'US History' PARIS 'What Would You Do?' PARIS'Sheep to Slaughter' PERCEPTION 'Memorial Day' PUBLIC ENEMY 'Son of a Bush' PUBLIC ENEMY 'Black Steel In the Hour of Chaos' PUBLIC ENEMY 'Make Love Fuck War' QUEEN LATIFAH 'The Evil That Men Do' RAPPIN 4TAY w/ Congressman Dennis Kucinich 'Weapons of Mass Distraction' RED GUARD 'United We Stand' [War Times LP] SAIGON'Kiss the Babies' SAGE FRANCIS 'Make Shift Patriot' SAUL WILLIAMS 'Not In Our Name' SAUL WILLIAMS 'Anti-War Freestyle' SAMANTHA LIAPES 'Masters of War' [War Times LP] SELF SCIENTIFIC'Better Days' SNOOP DOGG 'Brothers and Sisters' TALIB KWELI 'The Proud' THREE TIMES DOPE 'Peace Ya Self' WYCLEF JEAN 'War No More' ZACK DE LA ROCA 'March of Death'

Spin Masters

What is mixing?


Play both a second apart and you have a concert

Hip Hop as a Means of Empowerment

The Hip Hop Project is the compelling story of Kazi, a formerly homeless teenager who inspires a group of New York City teens to transform their life stories into powerful works of art, using hip hop as vehicle for self-development and personal discovery. In contrast to all the negative attention focused on hip hop, this is a story of hope, healing and the realization of dreams.

For more information about the film please visit - www.hiphopproject.com
From Executive Producers Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah,

Keeping Speech Free (part 2)

This video is fake. But it looks convincing to me.
It shows Marc Ecko tagging the US President's Air Force One jet
with the words "Still Free." Ecko explains why below

6 Reasons Why Things In Hip Hop Are Changing for Good by Jahi

by Jahi
#1 KRS-One and Marley Marl
Why there is no conversation about this being the most anticipated album
in a long time is crazy to me. Have you heard the lyrics to

"Kill a Rapper?" Instead of talking about all the things that are wrong,

KRS and Marley Marl stand as giants and bring it where it needs to be. On Point.

www.myspace.com/templeofhiphop
http://www.myspace.com/djmarleymarl

#2 Stephon Marbury
The Starbury line of shoes is the most revolutionary
thing happening in the sneaker world. While we've all known
that it only costs a fraction of what we are paying for a fresh pair of
Air Ones, Jordans, Bapes, or whatever you are rocking, Stephon Marbury
has become a champion to this cause. For 15 buck you can get his
Starbury shoe, and it matches up in quality and style with all
these high price shoes in the marketplace.
Maximum respect to Stephon for this.

www.steveandbarrys.com

#3 Eryka Badu is coming back...finally
I heard "Real Thing" (Music is Everything) on Hiphopgame.com.
It is so refreshing to hear my sistah come back to balance the equation.
I don't know about you but I missed her. It's time for the feminine
energy to speak on what's happening from a female's perspective,
so we can have a balanced overstanding to what is going on. Lovin you Badu

#4 Chamillionaire steps up to the plate
I have to be honest, I may not be dude's number one fan, but
I really respect the fact that he publically came out and responded
to all this controversy by doing a clean album. Everyone has been saying
it's freedom of speech, it's not my job to raise your kids, bla bla bla,
but this brother was smart enough to know it's better to embrace
change than to fight it. Props.

#5 MYSPACE
I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about myspace,
but I feel like it's how you use it that makes it powerful.
I don't know about you, but I've connected with some serious minded,
progressive, Hip Hop to the core folks via myspace.
I've worked with producers overseas got up to date news,
found out about a new artist, a new spot to go check out, and great
video and social commentary. It's an avenue that's bigger than soft
porn and trying to virtual date. Use technology to your advantage
is what I say.

#6 Black-Owned Roberts Broadcasting Cos. LLC
After all this Don Imus talk, a black owned company who has a
Hip Hop station and TV stations stepped up to the plate and
changed the format. They went against the grain and said they
would not support the garbage anymore.. Something Radio
One is not woman enough to do!!

Owning Up Part 4

Found this blog over at Afrogeek
Also check out my earlier blog on this issue click here
To snitch or not to snitch, that is the question. Actually, it’s not. It’s a reduction of a complex set of societal challenges into a slogan that can be put on a t-shirt. Keeping the complexity alive allows for the question: Given the legacy of police brutality does it make sense for those who engage in the guerilla economy of drug dealing to police themselves of their communities? And if so, do those self appointed individuals properly maintain an order that allows civilians, i.e. those not involved in the drug game, to live their lives in a fashion that regular policing would not support? Not so easy to put on a white T.
I was raised not to speak to police. I mean literally. They didn’t have any business with me so I should have any business with them. Even before I started doing the minor dirt that I did, however, I was stopped by police, had dogs sicced on me, had an N.Y.P.D’s knee in my neck for running for a bus, you know all the standard shit a young black man in the U.S has to deal with. But as for this bullshit question of if there was a murderer in my building would I call the police, my answer is and probably always will be “Hell yeah!” click here for more