Wow is it that serious?!

Peace Fam,

Summer is around the corner. I have a little more time to spare and decided what would make me sweep off the soapbox. Mmmmm well if you remember my previous post. I spoke on how Nicki Minaj is not Hiphop's female saviour. I still think this true (It should never be one saviour of anything. Haven't we learned these lessons from history?!) however, with all the windy hate in the air. I started to catch a chill from the coldness and felt the need to somewhat defend the sister. This seems like its going to be one cold summer. So let me put on the leather, hat, and glove up like an eskimo because some of yall are frozen, stuck in a mindset. For the record my personal opinion I think her earlier work > then current work so far. No she is not L-Boogie, or Rah Digga but her lyrics are not totally toliet items either. I have heard worse. However she has found a niche with a character-created persona and it is what it is. First a lot of artists "remake" themselves its sort of part of the business. I mean has anybody checked Lady Ga-Ga before she was "Lady Ga-Ga." And there are numerous male rappers who have created and are characters on the microphone or switched their styles up. People are focusing hard on Nicki now because she is number one in the mainstream spotlight. As you all know I always argue for balance. So there is room for Nicki, room for Remy, room for Jean G, room for Trina, room for Kim, Foxy, and the future-yet to be named female mcs etc...well you catch my drift. Hiphop has enough space for the silly, sexy, and smart female rapper. Are you not tired of Hiphop wrapped in a neat box? You should be able to have variety on your playlist. Is it her fault because she wants success? Is it her fault there happens to be a formula mixed with the right timing that can equal success? In our society most people want to be successful in whatever field or career they choose. I know its unfair a lot UNTALENTED strands make it through our "modern fast-made celeb" industry. You can drive up and order a combo of poorly developed artists, beats, songs and mistake it for a quality meal. Well thats if you are starving or you never ate at five-star restaurant or had a delicious home-cooked healthy meal made of love. Yeah you could easily mistake the fake for something real...only to end up sick later. You have to fast from that garbage, exercise your mind and musical taste. Get your azzes out there and demand and BUY quality music or at least a VARIETY of music damn. Also are you not tired of some of these so-called Hiphop journalist asking every female about Nicki? Now I understand Hiphop is about competition at its core and when you are the person on top you have all kinds of people gunning for you. And I think that maybe the reason for the early winter in Malibu for Ms. Barbie. However its so sad when there's little meat in the pot for the wolves to go after. It makes the female rap game that more desperate and pitiful looking. The females should be making alliances and going for broke then once the pot is full enough go for it. We got to do better.

One love,

Storm

Guess Who's Back?

Peace Fam,

Well, well it's 2009 and my first post of the year. I have to apologize for not updating on a regular basis. All I can say is academics gotcha' girl...LOL. Again I will strive to update a little more then once a year. I will say right off the bat cop that K'naan joint...its so refreshing because the landscape is still a desert right now with some catuses here and there...make sure you quench that thrist. On the ladies frontier....still not much to say for the ladies in Hiphop...they are exinct on a national industry level and for all those who think young money's princess Nikki is going to save you...NOT! Unless she switches back to her "old" style. Because I am not feeling the created character of Barbie on the microphone and that flow-the flow is throwing me off. I understand everyone has to have a "gimmick." But can they still remain somewhat "them" in the process. Missing that Remy Ma lyrical swiftness right about now...damn. Hey I will let you all know when I get that Jedi-sense of talent lurking for the next xx mic blazer. Anyway I am waiting on Jr Gong and Mr. Nasir to bless us with some of that "you are now rockin with the best..." I am also feeling Damon Dash...aka the other Mr. Producer all up in the videos...his project Blak Roc it's dope, very raw and creatively driven. Emcees, singers, and musicans live in the studio together....none of this "sending" verses ish. And for the most part he picked some spitters...so I can't be mad at that. I will be on the look-out for that. I guess before I sign out I will make a comment on this Beanie, Jay "beef." I can see both their sides, it just boils down to those two men not really talk things through. It seems to be a lot of hurt and confusion and after the hurt and confusion....then I guess comes the anger. Jay and Bean should just squash it on the back burner and then let the battle take place on the frontline. It might be good for Bean's career as far getting a buzz going. But hey they say all is fair in love and war.....
Well I am out until next time fam....see you at the next episode.

One love,
Storm
The rare breed

The Doctor is In!

Peace Fam,

It's been a real minute since I have posted on my blog. I am going to strive to be more active on updating.

As I am dusting off my soapbox, I have to fill you in on what I have noticed as of lately. It could be I have just noticed it more as of late. It seems the journalism in particularly in hiphop has taken on a turn of just getting quotes about how "rappers" feel about other "rappers" whether its their actions or comments. I understand asking questions related to certain happenings but for instance to ask Jim Jones how does he feel about Nas's association with the "faux" petition? I mean what is the true purpose of that? We all know by now how jimmy feels about nas and vice versa etc. The only reason you pose a question like that is for the negative reaction and to stir some ish up. Come on people-seriously. And what's worse the rapper actually answering the question? How many times do we have to hear different rappers comment on the Souljah boy

verses Ice T? It could just be the era we are in with finger-tipped media access.

Well whatever it is it's growing out of hand.

Ok my next observation was of the Game in which he showed heartfilled tears regarding

the sad turnout from his peers when asked to contribute to a song for sean bell (rip). It really

moved me and it takes a lot to move me (especially with hiphop/rappers) these dayz. It does fill one with sorrow when you have "certain" so-called "gangsta/hardcore" rappers who will kill a thousand n-words in a minute but run "scared" to rap against police brutality/murder of an INNOCENT man. That is crazy to me-see it's all entertainment folks! I guess that why I find myself drawn to only certain artists and internationl hiphop lately it's at a place where I rather be.....And no I don't mean hiphop with only a message. I am hiphop head-so I enjoy all kinds but I mean mcs who appreciate skills, creativity and beats.

Ok I am done for now...I will update soon. Please feel free to leave your thoughts.

One

storm

the rare breed (walks again)

Kings lose crowns but Teachers stay intelligent!

Peace Fam,

It's been quite some time. Oh so much has been going on in the news, and personally that I have rarely had a moment to stop and drop some lines. Then I realize that this past weekend one of our greatest leaders birthdays had came upon us. I had to make a point to write, and make note of this.

El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz or Malcolm X as most knew him as was a living example of one being lost then found, one coming from self-hate to self-love. He was a man of vision. He was one of our greatest teachers and thinkers. There is not enough that can be said of him. On that note I will cut it short and encourage everyone to read, research, and learn about the Great Builder for he was a man of both actions and words which can be a deadly force.

Know thy self........

We love you El-Hajj Malik/Malcolm!

One

Storm the rare breed

Biggie Smalls is the Illest!

Peace Fam,

You all know what it is. Rip Christopher Wallace. We'll always love Big Poppa.

Storm
The Rare Breed

Bob Marley - No woman No cry

Peace Fam,
Big Respect to the Great Bob Marley. Today would have been his b-day. May his family continue to have blessings. His music touches the soul, and flourishes. This is the type of music that makes immortals. Therefore the legend lives. Big shout out to all the Wailers. We love you!

Storm
The rare breed

You Must Learn!.........

Peace Fam,
On this day which is the "official" day of celebration for the honorable Martin Luther King Jr, I came across an article that was orginally written in 1995. I think we should reflect on the points in the article when we look at his life in it's full context. And also because they are revelant on this day and time. Sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to find certain jewels.

Take a moment to read it below, and get those brain cells going. All Respect due to MLK!

One

Storme

*******************************************************************

The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TVMedia Beat (1/4/95)By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years — his last years — are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).

An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.

Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.

Why?

It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.

In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" — including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

"By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 — a year to the day before he was murdered — King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.

"From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.

In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.

"You haven't heard the "Beyond Vietnam" speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 — and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post patronized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.

"In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would descend on Washington — engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be — until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an "insurrection.

"King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor" — appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness.

"How familiar that sounds today, more than a quarter-century after King's efforts on behalf of the poor people's mobilization were cut short by an assassin's bullet.

As 1995 gets underway, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. And so do most mass media. Perhaps it's no surprise that they tell us little about the last years of Martin Luther King's life.