i mean, do i really need to say more?! there was a mountain of shoes, a puppet band, AND a technicolor caddy. i’m way too excited for big boi’s new project.

[Read more →]

i like my job. i do…yesterday i served brooke shields…that was cool. and these days, of course, working is a privilege. but then again, there’s nothing like being shitted on at a restaurant by people who can’t even pronounce “tor-tee-ya” that makes you wanna be successful at the thing you do that doesn’t make you enough money to not work as a server on the side (or whatever the side hustle be). youknowwhatimean? today, i left like usual…feeling shitted on and slightly demoralized, ’bout to put on Reasonable Doubt…when what happens?? muthafuckin Jay-Z pulls around the corner in some old but new looking wrangler with Beyonce just cruising. this might be a common thing for long time nyers, but as a west coaster that shit had me stuck…literally. made me realize spring is upon us people, and i need to step my game up…time to get on the real job. naturally, to begin this month’s sunday sermon, here’s a few clips from Jay’s interview with Charlie Rose. chuuch.

click here for full interview.

[Read more →]

one day, i’m a be like, “yeah, i use to live with Nobel Prize winning Chinaka Hodge.” and then i’m gonna be like, “she obviously drew inspiration from me living on her couch and eating her food and whoopin her ass in bones”…….too far??? too far. jk…about the bones. feels like that day is coming soon. as my former roomie, and all-time intellectual muse, i had the privilege to witness (no pun intended) some of the creation of Mirrors In Every Corner, and i must say, if you’re in the bay between Feb 25th and Mar 21st and have any free time…actually, even if you don’t have any free time, GO support iLL-homie Naka and mind expansion in general. directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the new play will run at Intersection for the Arts starting tomorrow and be the shit forever. i’m so excited.

[Read more →]

the first piece of recorded poetry i ever heard was cassette tape of gil scott. this was back when i still made mixtapes…like real mixtapes. little did i know then (although i probably should’ve guessed) his work would be a reoccurring point of inspiration throughout my writing life…not to be oblique, but “why do they do not see,” it’ll make sense later. thank you, the forthcoming project, I’m New Here, is kinda unreal. in stores next week.

[Read more →]

it’s crazy sometimes to know who you know, you know?  adding to the list of crazy projects the getback has been banging out lately, getbacker (former star athlete and accomplished thespian) Daveed Diggs has just released his first official music video for his upcoming LP, Small Things to a Giant. diggs is one of my all time favorite emcee’s because he always raps about everything i would want a smart black person to rap about in the way i want them to rap about it (i.e. “but social conscience only slaps cars about as much as insecurity/don’t tell me how to my job, i do it well/just tell me what i have to do to make my records sell”). beyond that, the video is absolutely amazing, and absolutely diggs. love the concept and direction. getback!

[Read more →]

continuing from last week, the word in all of its various forms…nothing quite like honesty to inflate words with meaning. and honestly, i can only think of a small handful of new artists who are as honest as nneka in all of her work. plus her voice is fuckin crazy. and good honest writing + honest good voice = great music. check out a few tracks from j.period and nneka’s new mixtape, The Madness.

05 The Uncomfortable Truth

18 Suffri (Nigerian in Berlin Remix) f. Fela Kuti

download more nigerian goodness here.

[Read more →]

it might be pretty obvious by now, but juuuuust in case…we here in the iLL-universe can definitely be described as fela-heads. if anyone fully embodies the original concept of wednesday word–the word in all of its various forms and manifestations–fela’s political message couched in the base formulations of afrobeat is a guidepost for how the word can move and (re)move, if you digg what i’m saying. check iLL-homie sahr performing zombie from the broadway production FELA! on the colbert report.

[Read more →]

ok. besides sunday sermon slowly morphing into munday mermon…recently, we’ve entered but another feedback loop, another debate that goes everywhere and nowhere. thought i’d put it out there for some traction. so…hovi is often compared to frank sinatra, and even himself has frequently drawn the same parallel (“we ratpack niggas, let sam tap dance on you, then i sinatra shot ya god damn you”…for example). given the analogy, the other day we tried to follow through and list off who the other members of the ratpack would be if jay was sinatra. we didn’t get far…because the first question was who’s sammy. someone threw out kanye. i said bullshit. and the debate pretty much went in circles from there. we obviously love kanye, BUT sammy was an entertainer that was everything an entertainer can be–a showman, a translator, a time capsule, an interloper, an agent of change. i see the argument for kanye with regard to genius, entertainment (adjusting for the ways in which the stakes have changed, and a variety show wealth of talent is no longer required to be in the game), and access/ability to navigate an extremely diverse number of places. BUT for me, kanye (esp recently) has a loooonnnng way to go before becoming all that was, is and can be represented by sammy davis jr. just my opinion. you decide.

[Read more →]

to finish what ada and dahlak started, thought i’d post the final lost interview for the first “munday mermon” (been outside as much as possible b/c i’m afraid i may never go out again once winter hits!) of this month.

i always remark at just how much i still think about pac. maybe it’s because we got the same birthday, maybe it’s because i always find myself in some kind of sustained discussion on “hip-hop” and tupac inevitably enters the discussion, or maybe it’s because i’m tired of seeing black men disallowed the opportunity to make it past their anger (whatever ‘disallowed’ means). i really don’t know. sometimes (usually) it’s an angry thought, and sometimes i really just sit and wonder…what would this world be if pac had the chance to make it past his anger??? anger is good sometimes, but i think nothing is ever as rigid or simple as anger would have us believe. and anger is generally self-indulgent, even if you are angry for someone else (i.e. how poor blackfolk are treated the world over or what a world looks like without pac). he was so young, i find myself still wishing he got the chance to grow into his conviction (if that makes sense) because that type of vulnerability is not seen in popular culture anymore. to pac

[Read more →]

this past weekend (shout out to eli and jenny, thank you for letting me and ada cold clock your whiskey) i revisited one of my favorite authors. jamaica kincaid was perhaps the most important writer for me to discover in my undergraduate years. At a time when i believed to “dyson” all of my writing and riddle poetry with all kinds of -isms and -izes (words like “ontologize”) was the best way to simultaneously make a point and debunk popular beliefs held about young black men (and the ability to speak), kincaid rocked my world with spare and precise language. she provided, and still provides, me with the most useful vocabulary to discuss colonialism and loss. one of my favorite books of all time is The Autobiography of My Mother. check it out. she’s the shit. today’s word is a passage from her essay, A Small Place.

[Read more →]