Nicole be Thinking...

At some point in the conversation that inspired this week of music posts, my mother told me Kanye West isn't a rapper. She doesn't dislike him… (She did one of my numbers…) "I don't not like him. He's just not hip hop." I was shocked at first. Then I thought it through. As I was going through my music to prove Kanye's "hip-hop-ness" to her, I went to Jay-Z songs first. Clearly I still think of Kanye the Producer, first. As I started going through his music, I realized that Kanye the Rapper is pretty solid, too. It all got me thinking about what she said about him not being hip hop. Where does he fit in hip hop? For many of us, Kanye was just another producer when he almost died in a car crash in 2002. The release of his first single, "Through the Wire," in 2003 was like an awakening. The album that followed, College Dropout , went double platinum within 4 months of its release, which is stellar for a debut. The combination of Kanye...

The Boondocks lost me with their last episode and they are officially adding to the ignorance of this younger generation. I understand the episode was taken from an MSNBC segment from a few years ago. Believe it or not, most of the words are verbatim. Starting the episode this way made me think it would be more about pedophilia, but then again, I was focused on To Catch a Predator , not the man raping Chris Hansen. Anyway… I have three main problems with this episode: the homophobia that has become a Boondocks staple, the misogyny, and the glorification of prison. The episode starts by saying that Tom is a "friend of the gay movement," but he has a fear of going to prison and being anally raped. What does that fear have to do with being a "friend of the gay movement?" Is Tom afraid of random gay men raping him? No. Does Tom think all gay men want to rape him? No. He has a very specific fear. What does it have to do with being a "friend to the gay movement?...

We all have our own little place in society. Our niche, our lane, our job. Confusion, frustration, stress, fights, all that shit would be reduced dramatically if people did what they were hired to do and let other people do what they were hired to do… There's a server at my job who is always complaining. Every time I look up, he's at the door greeting patrons, getting menus, telling me what table to take them to, warning me about other servers being inattentive or slow. He's not management. He's not a hostess. Just a server. Granted… Restaurants run best when it's a team effort, when everyone works together. So some degree of "looking out for one another" is necessary. But people need to worry most about doing their own job. My job is most stressful when too many people are telling me what to do and I don't have the proper tools because those people aren't doing their jobs. It works the same way in every job I have had. There's always...

I have had a hate-hate relationship with Puff Daddy for years now. Anyone who knows me -- or has taken any amount of time to talk about music with me -- knows that I believe that everything that's wrong with music today is Puff Daddy's fault. It's like my own version of "Six Degrees of Separation." Look: Do you remember what female emcees were like before Puff Daddy came along? Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shante, etc. Salt-n-Pepa were as raunchy as it got. But then… Puff Daddy saw how much money he made when he introduced "hardcore" R&B singers like Mary J. Blige, so he decided to flip it, mind fuck us, if you will, and give us an uber sexualized "hardcore" female rapper. And voila… Lil Kim. What happens to female emcees after that? Foxy Brown, Eve, and eventually Nikki Minaj happens. Puff Daddy also made it cool to rap about excess and money. Mo' money, mo' problems, right? Had he not made that shift in the paradigm w...

I was catching up on Twitter the other day and saw a retweet of a post from untiligetmarried.com entitled, " Just Because I Want to Sleep with You Doesn't Mean I'm Disrespectful ." I had been dealing with a situation the night before with a dude's whose attitude seems perfectly summed up in that title. I was prepared to hate it. Jozen Cummings, who is also the Senior Culture and Music Editor for Global Grind writes that "sex [is] the highest form of praise one can give another." Though he goes on to admit this is problematic because "each encounter must be evaluated … in context because sex is a lot of things," his main point is that sex, and his desire to have sex with a woman is never disrespectful: "Just because all I want to do is have sex with them, doesn't mean I don't respect all of the other great things they have to offer. […] I just don't care about what else they have to offer at the time I want to have sex with ...

I had plans to respond to last night's Boondocks episode today, but I was teaching... then I was working out... then I was on a field trip. So... It'll be posted tomorrow. Until then, I'd like you all to read up on blacks and prisons in this country since so many of you think it's funny... Slavery and Prison - Understanding the Connection (Kim Gilmore) The Social Functions of Prisons in the United States ( Bettina Aptheker ) Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex ( Angela Davis ) Women in Prison: How It Is With Us ( Assata Shakur ) Enjoy...

Do you remember when Kenan Thompson joined the cast of Saturday Night Live ? It was weird. Not because Kenan's not really that funny… But because he was the first SNL cast member born after the show's premiere in 1975. It left some wondering how someone who didn’t witness the greatness of something could contribute to that greatness. That's an essential question of hip hop today. Ponder this…. Rakim and Jay-Z were about 10 when "Rapper's Delight" hit the top of the charts in 1979. When he was barely 20, Rakim released Paid in Full . Soulja Boy was 6 when Reasonable Doubt was released. And what did he give the world? "Crank That." What's worse… Soulja Boy had the nerve to "beef" with Ice T, to whom he owes much respect. Soulja Boy’s quest to legitimize his rap career has him doing somersaults on the toes of his forefathers. There appears to be a tremendous generation gap between older hip hop heads and the people enjoying the music t...

People are upset about the Boondocks' characterization of Tyler Perry and his work. In a recent episode of The Boondocks, called "Pause," Aaron McGruder and his writers attacked Tyler Perry personally, professionally, and spiritually. Since people are ignoring the scene between Riley and Granddad about the importance of saying "no homo" because "If it sounds gay, it's gay," and "How [will anybody] know you not a homo if you don't say 'no homo?'" I can only assume that that's all perfectly fine and dandy. Let's focus on the critiques of Tyler Perry instead. The episode pissed Tyler Perry fans off, to say the least. Twitter was all abuzz with folks on both sides of the action going at the other. The problem is… Tyler and Aaron have two different, yet equally ignorant, fan bases. My light bulb went off and it hit me: the two can't have an intelligent discourse about their opinions because they don't understand ...

didn't go as planned. at all... but it's ok... i'm learning that a good teacher is always revising her lesson plan... stay tuned.

About two weeks or so ago (when Metro Public Schools ended classes for the summer) I had a conversation with my 14-year old brother, who had just finished his first year of high school. "So how did you do on your exams?" I asked. "Fine. I got all Bs. Well, I got a 63 on one exam, but I got an 83 in the class, so it's ok." He replied. "So… You failed?" "Naw. I passed." "Hmmm… What are you going to do all summer?" "Nothing. I'm just gonna hang out with my friends. Go to the movies. Relax." ( Images of LaTarrian Milton bombarded my brain. ) "Nothing? All summer?" "Yeah. I've been working hard for 9 months. I deserve to do nothing." And there I was. Staring at myself. All my rationalized laziness, unusually-poor work ethic, and bad grades from the Spring 2010 semester were in my brother and flipping me off. I decided I would do something to help him so that I could help myse...