J. Cole is my new favorite rapper. And no, it’s not because he is the first artist signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. It’s because the dude can actually SPIT. Check out his mixtape “The Warm Up” if you don’t believe me. At first, I thought Charles Hamilton was going to be the next superstar but he self destructed, so now, J. Cole is up next.

Check the video for his song “Simba”, after the jump!!! Read the full story

Did your parents ever yell at you for wasting electricity? You know, for keeping the TV and the radio on at the same time? Or not turning your light off when you leave a room? Mine did. I was the child of a thrifty family.

So, naturally, this would drive my mother to drink: apparently, there is so much energy being generated by wind and nuclear power, that electricity has become ‘cheaper to use than free’ for certain people. Check this:

In west Texas and Illinois, when the wind blows at night and nuclear plants run around-the-clock, power generators produce more electricity than people need. This oversupply “has forced electricity prices into the negative range,” an expert explains—meaning that some customers are paid to use electricity.

Energy companies are experimenting with ways to store this excess energy, such as with compressed air. Pacific Gas and Energy can be done by “pumping compressed air into an underground reservoir, using mainly wind energy produced during non-peak hours, and then release it to generate electricity during periods of peak demand”. However, it’s going to take 5 years to develop this technology. As of now, there’s no technology in place, so all of this energy is going to waste. Is this drastically unsustainable? What do you think?

I’m currently chillin’ in Madison, Wisconsin for an event and watching Jay-Z and Alicia Keys perform before the start of Game 2 of the World Series last night, filled me with such pride - both as a born-and-raised New Yorker, and for hip-hop. Yeah, I’m a longtime Yankee fan since the Reggie Jackson candy bars in 1978, but it was the fact here this dude Sean Carter, from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn (Bedford-Stuyvesant stand up!!), who went to high school with some of my homies from back-in-the-day, has the whole world’s attention (again. smile) in this forum, was a really, really dope event to witness!

I’m 36 and I don’t have the same passion for rap music like I used to (enter anyone of your criticisms here_______________ ). I get more hyped watching Countdown with Keith Olberman these days or NBC’s “The Office”. I’m older, I have a beautiful wife and son, so what goes in the world on a spiritual/social/political level has much more of effect on me these days than your favorite hip-hop blog. However, last night I could not help in reveling in all things, Jay, Brooklyn, Alicia (oooooh : ) ) New York…hip-hop.

Go Yankees!!!

When it comes to smart, funny television, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart run neck and neck in the race for the lead. In a brilliant piece of satire and biting television, last night’s Colbert Report took on Insurance Companies. Absolutely genius:

I’m gonna digress for a second. Instead of simply asking what you think and sending this piece out to pasture, I’ll present you with some commentary that a “for-serious” pundit actually spit onto the airwaves.

When you’re going to have to make a decision because we can’t afford good healthcare for everybody, somebody’s not going to get a kidney transplant. Somebody’s not going to get heart surgery. Somebody’s not going to get kidney dialysis. Somebody’s not going to get that surgery. Who’s it going to be? Is it going to be the Millennial that doesn’t give a flying crap about anybody else but themselves because they’re special, look at all the trophies they won?

That was an actual recent quote from your favorite pundit and mine: Glenn Beck.

I find it ironic that Beck can go spout this sort of nonsense when youth are so engaged in the health care debate, as activists for a hundred different youth driven organizations or in more passive roles, as a segment of the American citizenry facing some of the highest rates of unemployment and lack of healthcare coverage.

Think about it this way: many young people are voting their confidence in progressive health care reform by consistently watching programs, such as The Daily Show and Colbert Report, which are lately discussing health reform every other night. These young people keep coming back: Jon Stewart isn’t the most trusted man in news for nothin’.

Alas, I’m taking a long road to a short conclusion: as much as the ‘RAWR I’M LOUD’ pundits like to say young people aren’t engaged, you and I - the engaged young people - know we are. We’re living with the health care crisis some like to think only exists in “REAL America” - the America where everyone has two-and-a-half kids, a picket fence, a dog and a yard - which is insulting and degrading to the diverse ranks of our society. But hey, you knew that.

Once again, Jasiri X drops a heat bomb.

This time the Pittsburgh based MC goes after BET and its CEO Debra Lee. At this point, I think Jasiri is prolly the most consistent MC in the game. Come on, who else has dropped so many “good” viral videos on such a regular basis? Check the video after the jump.

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Yesterday, in an act of protest, students living in Chicago’s Gardens neighborhood who attend Fenger High (the high school that slain teenager Darrion Alberts atteneded) stayed home from school.   With the support of their parents, the teenagers are protesting conditions by staying home and boycotting the violence they have to face to get an education. More after the jump.









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The homie Toki Wright hits the web with a powerful new video entitled “Devil’s Advocate. The song is from his current Rhymesayers’ release a Different Mirror. Minneapolis stand up!!!  This organizer/MC is fosho using his art for a purpose.

My art is a medicine for the community. You can’t heal the land until you heal the minds of the people.

-Tyree Guyton

Despite classifications of Detroit as an ‘urban wasteland’, I can’t help but disagree.

Maybe it’s blindness, optimism or stupidity but the concept of a city becoming a wasteland while people live there confounds me.

Nevertheless, countless articles refer to Detroit as a shadow of it’s former self. A dead zone. This past week, over 9,000 properties were auctioned off by the city - with many not even being picked up.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York’s Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

However, a wasteland is dead. Detroit is not. Against the odds, there remains an energy in the city. The picture above is from The Heidelberg Project: a street filled with vacant houses that were decorated into a large art project by those in the neighborhood. Tyree Guyton and his family, seeing the city ravaged by the Detroit riots in 1986, Guyton transformed the ravaged street into a giant art installation: one that is just as important almost 25 years later.

Check it below:

Tyree Guyton and The Heidelberg Project remain an incredible inspiration for our hard hit times. By transforming the landscape, Guyton has pushed the greater public to get involved and invest their time and effort in neighborhoods that are the hardest hit. But I can let the folks at the Heidelberg Project tell you about that in their own words:

“The Heidelberg Project offers a forum for ideas, a seed of hope, and a bright vision for the future. It’s about taking a stand to save forgotten neighborhoods. It’s about helping people think outside the box and it’s about offering solutions. It’s about healing communities through art - and it’s working!”

I just jacked this blog from Sura Faraj’s Facebook page.  It’s a pretty provocative list.

How do you pick ten things when there are so many to choose from? It’s pretty tough, so I thought I’d just start my own list (in no particular order) and ask you all to add one or two or ten more things. We can whittle it down from there. Or make it into a zine.

1. Stop drinking coffee (after all, it’s shipped from a long way away)
2. Take public transit and ride your bike.
3. Take local vacations. Visit the places in your city that visitors love, but you’ve never or rarely seen, b/c you take them for granted.
4. Insulate your houses, put plastic on the windows, put on sweaters and long johns and turn your heat down.
5. Buy food from local growers (within 100 miles), or grow your own food. Most of the food we eat is shipped in from an average of 1500 miles away. (Think of all the things we eat that come from far away — bananas, mangoes, rice, potatoes from Idaho, apples from New Zealand. I just heard that most garlic is from China. wtf?)
6. Question your consumerism. Do you really need more stuff?
7. Stop having children. Not only is overpopulation one of our biggest problems, you’re going to have to watch your children suffer through what we are dishing out to them.
8. Work to end corporate charters. Corporations are forcing our govt to its knees on the economy, peak oil, climate change, war, giant agribusiness, water rights, surveillance, the prison industrial complex, and the list goes on ad nauseum.
9. Hang with friends. More bodies keep you warmer, give you hope, generate ideas, bond you tightly. When the proverbial shit hits the fan, it’s organized groups (think fundamentalists and gangs) who will fill power vacuums. We need to counter that with our own organized and bonded selves.
10. Barter. It builds relationships, saves money and keeps the exchange local.
11. Repurpose everything. Reduce your garbage and your recycling.

Well, that’s 11. Feel free to add to this list.

Speaking of, check out this video by LYVEF: Shut Up, Windmill!

Five teenagers were charged with aggravated battery last week for SETTING ANOTHER TEENAGER (15-YR-OLD MICHAEL BREWER) ON FIRE! Yes, three teens poured rubbing alcohol over the teenage victim and set him on fire! Reason: because he stopped someone from stealing his father’s bicycle (dang…tisk), authorities said! And the sad thing, Michael had been avoiding school since the bicycle incident; these kids found him at an apartment complex, far away from school property!

The young burn victim is now hospitalized with burns on more than three-quarters of his body. He is expected to remain in the hospital for the next five months. The Broward County sheriff’s office in Florida, said in a news release that 15-year-olds Matthew Bent, Denver Jarvis, Steven Shelton and Jesus Mendez and 13-year-old Jeremy Jarvis were charged with aggravated battery for the event. Mendez, because he lit the flame, has been charged with second degree murder.

So, it is to be said, noticed, marked that the violence is increasing…?! I do believe so! And the types of demoralizing acts OUR children are engaging in are alarming deeds! What will the cultural consequences of these violent acts look like!? Will the next generation be even more violent? The piper will have to be paid for these collective actions. Slipping……How do we grab this beast…..?

Here is the original post by Ebony Joy at: 5 TEENAGERS CHARGED W/ SETTING FELLOW TEEN ON FIRE!

What commercials do you remember? One of them - which is kinda before my time - is the Apple “1984″ commercial. About 25 years ago, a commercial came out symbolizing Apple as a ‘change from the ordinary’. Today, it seems, commercials are pushing the envelope a bit more: in England, a climate change ad is on the chopping block due to content that is “scaring kids”.

According to Treehugger,

The premise is simple enough: it’s a British TV ad designed to get adults’ attention and to highlight the importance of acting to stop climate change. It shows a father reading a bedtime story about global warming to his daughter. The story comes to life, showing starving, crying cartoon bunny rabbits and drowning dogs–and the daughter is terrified.

Check it:

Is it too scary? Or just scary enough?

I love my home state, Mississippi, warts and all. I feel lucky to come from a place where people still talk to strangers, where hipsters aren’t the only things tweeting, and that’s not even to mention the food, the music, the landscape.

But Mississippi has a less than stellar reputation, and we’ve spent the last one hundred and fifty years dealing with the social shock of war, reconstruction, distrust and violence. The future of Mississippi will take massive effort to make right, to keep all that is good and excise the demons of the past. But change is gonna come, and one Mississippian, Ceara Sturgis, is taking that change all the way to the bank.

Ceara is a 17 year old “straight-A student, goalie on the soccer team, a trumpet player in the band and active in Students Against Drunk Driving.” A model kid, until she chose to submit a Senior yearbook photo in which she’s wearing a tuxedo (check the left).

Ceara is gay, and she decided that after 12 years of education she would pose in the clothes she was comfortable in. But that decision caused her School Board to forbid the photo’s publication and has  ignited a discussion of Mississippi and sexual equality, the kind of discussion that is a long time coming.

Read the full story

If there’s something I personally hate, it’s when people abuse their power to accomplish their own personal vendettas. When TV hosts, politicians and famous people use their social standing to attack topics they have no right or basis to speak about. Especially when that topic is love.

This is why it makes my blood boil when discrimination about marriage or sexuality comes into play. When someone beats their definition of marriage as ‘it was in the bible’ into law, knowing this because they are religious and white, it undermines the progress towards unity that we’ve made over the past 50 years.

Frankly, some of these people know about as much about ‘traditional marriage’ as Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heene knows about flying - basically nothing.

Nevertheless, bigots pushing their own dated views are nothing new. Let’s take a look at a Justice of the Peace who denies marriage licenses for interracial couples and a bunch of politicians who are calling for a Department of Education appointee to be kicked out because he is.. wait for it.. gay. Stay tuned, after the jump. Read the full story

As far back as I can remember, water was a right, and right there for the drinking. When I was a kid, I would turn the knob and cool, clear H2O would just come out, as much as I could want.

Water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface and is recognized as one of the absolutely essential elements in the development of life as we know it…meaning without water, we wouldn’t be here. Due to climate change, that staple of human life is becoming a bit harder to come by.

Check this factoid from the EPA:

All regions of the world show an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems. Areas in which runoff is projected to decline are likely to face a reduction in the value of the services provided by water resources. The beneficial impacts of increased annual runoff in other areas are likely to be tempered in some areas by negative effects of increased precipitation variability and seasonal runoff shifts on water supply, water quality and flood risks (IPCC, 2007)

This means that due to climate change, water is becoming a precious commodity. While over 90 percent of the world delivers water as a public utility, water privatization is on the rise in poorer countries and now in stressed areas of the US, as the climate of our planet steadily changes.

By 2013, thirty six states will experience some sort of water shortage. And the enterprising businessmen of America would love to step in and charge us to supply fresh water, even though the industrial pollution of our waterways (often by the same businessmen who support privatization) is a primary factor in the climate change that is leading to these water shortages!

The effects of privatization on lower income communities are drastic. Water bills skyrocket and invariably, the city runs dry. Check this real life story, entitled “Water Warriors”:

You’d think that if you’re paying high prices for a substance as fundamental as water that it’d be pristine and non-toxic. According to a recent report by the New York Times, that isn’t always true. Forty percent of community water systems have violated the Safe Drinking Water Act on - at least - one occasion, which is a startling factor.

So, we could look at it this way: we could purchase overpriced, potentially polluted water from multinational corporations or we could urge the administration to rexamine and come down on climate change profiteers, who purchase and poison the water systems of our communities.

Some things are too priceless to sell, and it is an affront to all Americans that we would be required to pay a privately owned company for what is, in affect, the ability to stay alive, if the climate keeps changing. That isn’t consumer choice, that’s piracy, and the question is, what are we going to do about it?  Will we stand back and accept corporate control of our very ability to live and breathe?

It’s our call, and it’s about time we make it.

Posted as part of Blog Action Day | www.blogactionday.org

I don’t have a TV, so I tend to have to catch up with Colbert a few nights after his shows air, but this indictment of pundits is stunning! Don’t just take it as a sarcastic bash at Glenn Beck.. you can basically put any pundit’s name in there.

Whatcha think?

Jay Smooth is back with another powerful YouTube video. This time the New York new media legend posted an insightful rant about the controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski. As usual, Mr. Smooth as he is known in the streets (ok, not really) knocks it out of the park. He definitely believes that the embattled film director needs to do time for his three decade old rape charge. What do you think? Check the video after the jump and chime in. Read the full story

Whoa.

President Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize.

Yes. THAT Nobel Prize.

Instead of jumping in and giving my thoughts, I’m curious as to what you think. Let’s hear it.

Yesterday, US Attorney General Eric Holder gave a powerful speech about the importance of tackling youth violence. I am glad people are finally acknowledging the problem. They say they are going to get beyond the surface issues. I hope so, inner city violence isn’t going to go away just because somebody gives a fancy speech.

Check the video after the jump. Read the full story

After doing some diligent research for this piece, I’ve come to one conclusion that I hope you take with you.

Americans are some greedy mother truckers. Seriously.

Not to get all biblical, but sometimes, our greed can damn us. It’s a scary thought that a perfect storm caused by the green eyed monster can spell a sense of ruin for an entire economy. Much of the ruin can be traced back to a single source: mortgages and foreclosures.

Every thirteen seconds, someone files for foreclosure on a house. Thirteen seconds. That’s roughly 7,000 foreclosures a day, nearly 50,000 foreclosures per week. But that’s the tip of the iceberg - the foreclosures can’t keep up with the fact that millions of Americans can’t pay their bills.

But we need to take a look and investigate where this mess came from. So, it’s time to time travel. Ready? Let’s go to a time when everything was different… when the sky was brighter and there were two rainbows in every garage. The end of the 20th century. Read the full story