The Significance of a Slow Dance

"I'm dreaming of a slow wine heavy on the bass with your hands around my waist. You can cup my behind as long as I can lay my head on your shoulders. When I inhale, the butterflies in my stomach make it hard to catch my breath because you smell so good. And when my knees get weak, you hold me and rock steady to the beat until I'm no longer conscious and our bodies become one."

Where they still do that at? Do people even dance like that anymore? The relationship I dream of is heavy on the music and a big part of that is a slow dance. Why don't folks slow dance anymore?! It's preposterous. Can I get a slow dance before you try to stick your tongue in my mouth?!

The only man that ever slow danced with me was a poet. He wooed me with his spontaneous prose lauding everything from my curves to my heart. He was smart. He quickly learned the way to my heart: Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and meaningful conversation. I found myself ignoring big red flags and getting lost in his words. Yeah. He used to slow dance with me. I'm about to be 31. I deserve a man who can and will rock nice and steady to a one drop beat or a soulful ballad. It's not that difficult. Come on guys!

"Slow Dance" by John Legend

How I used to feel about Beyonce

Today I came across cold hard proof that I didn't always drink the Beyonce kool-aid. Here is a expletive-infested tirade I wrote about her in the summer of 2003 when "Crazy in Love" had just come out:

People! That "Crazy in Love" video is a fucking soft-porn.  The first time I saw it I was speechless.  I felt like I had been tainted.  I mean what the fuck? Beyonce has talent and she's beautiful.  Why the fuck does she feel the need to gyrate and roll around on the street in her panties to make money?  The worst thing is that the shit is HER song.  She's not some video hoe in Jay-Z's video. She's the fucking artist exploiting herself!  It's her video, her song and all she could come up with the video is running around in lingerie?  C'mon.  The only good thing that came out of that video is the "uh-oh" booty dance.  Many, many good nights at the club have been jump-started with that wonderful little move.  As for the song itself, those horns can get pretty fucking annoying when the DJ plays them over and over again before starting the song.  But I can't deny that that song overflows with energy.  I prefer her other song with Sean Paul though.  You know the song.  I can't think of the title.  It goes "Baby boy you stay on my mind fulfill my fantasies."  Yeah, that one.
Oh, and by the way.  That fucking ugly, bad-singing bitch Lumidee(or however you spell her dumb name) is fucking singing that uh-oh shit right out-fucking-side my window right now and NO I don't like it.  That song was annoying when it first came out and I just didn't want to admit it cause everyone liked it.  But people, don't you realize, you don't like the song, it's just impossible to get the shit out of your head so you decide to like it cause you gonna be singing it for a long ass time. The bitch sounds like she's whining on the playground in kin-deee-gaarten. If anyone sang that way in my presence, it would vex me beyond belief.  I would take a basketball and chuck it directly at their face repeatedly until they stopped.  Please don't believe the hype.  You don't like that horrible song.

Damn. I used to say "fuck" a LOT!

Beyonce, the Heartbreaker (you've got the best of me)

     I have always stayed quiet about the Beyonce hype... well, "always" is relative. But, I know a lot of people really like her- including the Obamas. And including my dear friend, Kayla, whose opinions I respect. Anyway, I wasn't surprised that Bey ripped out her heart. I kinda think that Beyonce ruins everything. The inauguration, the power grid at the Super Bowl, and the axiom for black women's looks are just a few examples. But, I tried to like her. I like "Love on Top." I don't really like much of her other solo work, but I attribute that to my general taste in music.

      Anyway, back to Kayla's heart. First, she was offended that Bey named the song "Bow Down." I was not too offended because, sometimes Bey is ratchet. eg. "Ring the Alarm," chinchilla coats!?! Ok, Pimps-R-Us frequent shopper!  Second, there was the cussing- especially "bitches."  I was surprised at this. Bey doesn't cuss! (or didnt used to-- but today is her and Jay-Z's 5 year anniversary, and I think a lot of women's language gets more colorful during marriage).  I know Bey considers herself a feminist.  I also know there are a lot of ways to be feminist.  She did write a song about who "Run the World," but it's (Girls), not women...hmmmm...no comment. 

     When I first heard the song, I thought it was nothing I would want to dance to, but I was happy that Mike Jones was working again.  I had just been trying to remember his phone number and here he was!  Then, I realized it's Beyonce the whole time!!  I should have known because Beyonce ft. Mike Jones would've appeared on some headline.  Also, sometimes she doesn't work with others.  She does most of her own backup vocals and, even at the Super Bowl, she did much of her back-up dancing- with those giant screens and her video duplicates.  She did allow Michelle and Kelly to make an apperance--how nostalgic *sigh*

     Then -back to "Bow Down"- to exacerbate matters, Rush Limbaugh got into the mix.**  Beyonce brought Rush into the media's commentary of R&B.  Like I said, she ruins everything!!  He interpreted her song to mean that women should bow down, know their place, and accept a good man when they have one.  Oh, Rush! We already know nothing is too unimportant for him, especially when he can use it to make black people, Obama, women, or anything liberal look bad.  So, it's not entirely her fault.  Bey is just always in a place that has wide-reaching effects.  I guess that is what super stardom and "queen-ality" is.

     So, in conclusion, I am sorry to all those who have been hurt, shocked, offended, insulted by Beyonce.  All I can advise is to let her have her pedestal, but to keep it in the realm of music, and *gulp* fashion.  (But don't tell that to PETA.  She is always angering them because she wears a lot of animals.  Again, no comment)

**(http://www.eonline.com/news/399922/rush-limbaugh-slams-beyonc-for-bow-down-song-says-she-pulled-a-180)

If you recognized the title from another R&B Royal... all I can say is, Bey is no Mariah! I had a vision of a pop/R&B queen and it was not what Beyonce turned out to be.

      

Tonight, Beyonce Shattered my Heart

"I've got drafts written for this very blog extolling this bitch as the post-modern feminist and she pulls THIS SHIT?! Now I can't even publish the shit."

OK. OK. Let me rewind. I'm Sorry. I'm gonna try to make this coherent and succinct but its going to be hard as BEYONCE JUST SHATTERED MY FUCKING WORLD!

Oh, expletive warning y'all. My emotions are running high.

I don't have the time or the emotional wherewithal to explain to you just how much I loved Beyonce. I don't have the time to explain that I was very sure about my love because she had to work hard to earn since I hated her for a while (see, I can't even write proper sentences cause my stomach is upset and I feel like I might have a stroke).

 I'm trying to explain to you how earth-shattering this is for me. I want to make sure you know that I loved Beyonce fiercely for some concrete reasons. I loved her level of innovation as a musician. Her talent as a vocalist. I loved her work ethic, her classic appeal. I loved her commitment to performing and doing it well. I loved her strength as a woman. I consider myself a feminist and I LOVE women who lift up other women. One of the reasons I loved Beyonce is because I felt she did this in her own way.

Well who the fuck told me to scroll down my damn Facebook newsfeed tonight? I don't know why I did it. I was getting ready to go to bed. I wasn't even prepared to have my world rocked like this. But, lo and behold, I'm scrolling down my newsfeed and I see this:

So I'm like, WTF? The Beyonce I love wouldn't say something so brazenly obnoxious. Yes, she gets a little playful with her banter sometimes but, "bow down?" I was immediately offended.

Little did I know, this was just the tip of the iceberg! Then, I discovered the song. Please try to listen to the whole thing. I know its hard. (Note to Beyonce, if you're going to make an obnoxious, disrespectful song, at least make it sound good!):


SIGH.

I am beyond disappointed. I've been fiercely defending this woman for years and she makes me look like an idiot with this shit!? This goes against everything I stand for as a woman. I cannot be who I am and continue to love and support an artist that thinks this shit is OK. I don't know what happened to her brain but she was way off with this. I know she's trying to push the envelope and break out of this image the world has of her but I happen to like the classic Beyonce. The woman who left it all on the stage. Who didn't care if people thought she was boring and simple because she consistently killed it in the studio and in concert. The Beyonce I love wouldn't stoop to the level of addressing her haters this way because she would know it's not worth losing the self-respecting fans she has who don't give a fuck about her struggle to be "relevant." The Beyonce I love let her music speak for her, not the other way around. If I wanted to listen to another record calling me a bitch, I would just turn on the hip-hop station.

Why does Beyonce think her fans want her to be Rihanna?! Why did she take it there? Clearly, we know you are an amazingly talented person but did Michael Jackson ever release a record like this? No!  He went as far as "Bad" and that's it. Maybe "Leave me Alone" but he made it clear who he was talking to (the papparazzi).

Why Bey! Why?!

I have to stop here. I'm starting to ramble.

More later. I have to pull myself together somewhat.

Survival - Bob Marley and the Wailers

I should be in my bed and I'm about to go there but I was just overwhelmed my how amazing the Survival album is that I had to blog real quick about it.  It's not just the most amazing Bob Marley album but one of the best albums of all time.  If you've never heard it, listen to it.  If you don't have a visceral reaction to that music then I don't know what you got going on in your soul.

I'm a little emotional, yes, and some say I'm dramatic but I'm tearing up just thinking about how deeply those tracks affected me growing up.  Its blowing my mind just thinking about how painfully relevant those tracks are to our world right now!  "Babylon System," could easily be an anthem for the Occupy Wall Street movement!  I love this album!  It contains my favorite Bob Marley song of all time (although I'm pretty sure that statement is not really feasible cause I love all of his art) "One Drop."

 When I was in my angry phase in high school, I used to just sing it in my head over and over again to drown out the bullshit they tried to teach me about myself and my culture. 

There is so much emotion dripping out of that song. It wells up in my heart and...sigh.  I just can't explain it.

Just promise me that you will make every effort to listen to this album as soon as possible.  And if you feel me, leave a comment!

Monica is amazing!

This was one of those performances I watched in awe and that is mostly because of Monica.  Now, I love Keyshia Cole.  She is a passionate and beautiful artist but this wasn't her moment.  Although she did alright, she was pitchy.  She gets nervous often when she performs live and you can hear it in her voice. 

Monica proves herself to be a seasoned veteran and an explosive talent in this performance.  I mean, she is just a natural.  I have been meaning to post this video for quite some time but...you know how that goes.

Anyhoo, I LOVE Monica and have gained a new respect for her artistry and skill in the past 3-4 years.  What makes it better is that she has proven herself to be a classy and beautiful person inside and out as well.  That just makes her music sound 10 times better.  Enjoy Monica's performance here.

Nappy-headed hoes and other musings

So I posted the following on Facebook this morning. "Lord forgive me for calling that girl a "nappy-headed hoe" last night. Although the name was astonishingly perfect, it still doesn't excuse me being mean." Surprisingly, I received a lot of feedback so I figured I would post about it here in more detail.

First of all, let me make it clear that I do not dislike nappy hair. I've been wearing my hair natural my whole life. It started with my mother not letting me get a perm until I reached a certain age. By the time she let me, I didn't want one anymore. Needless to say, I've been a "nappy-headed hoe" my whole life. I was natural before it was hip. I was perm-free before it became a badge of honor for everyday card-carrying Black Nationalist. When I was in my early teens people would continually ask me "So when are you going to get a perm?" and "Don't you think you're getting a little too old for the curly hair thing?" And then they'd try to use positive reinforcement every time I got a blow-out by telling me "You look so nice with straight hair. You should keep it that way!" My conservative Jamaican aunt would continually ask me if I'd combed my hair that day and my even more conservative 90-year old Jamaican aunt sincerely expressed concerns about why I was growing dreadlocks (I was not growing locks).

Even with those comments, I think most would agree, my hair has always looked "put together." I have always worn my natural hair extremely neatly. It's probably due to the fact that I cultivated my natural look in a time without much acceptance for natural hair in almost any state but I have always been obsessed with looking neat. Honestly, if I walk out the house looking wild, I have always secretly believed I looked akin to a runaway slave. I'm not even gonna lie.

That being said, I don't think that every girl who wears her hair natural should wear it conservatively. One should express their own personality with all aspects of their style. My personal penchance for structure (read:anal retentive OCD) is clearly expressed with the way I choose to style my hair but I see lots of women who wear a more whimsical style beautifully. For the record, I'm learning to break out of my strict Caribbean upbringing by letting my hair wild a little more often. People always respond with praise to my wild hair days.

Needless to say, I am not biased against a little wild nappyness. What I do not like is a woman who figures that, because her hair is natural, WHATEVER she chooses to do with it is a good look. Let's be real here. God made us naturally beautiful but he gave us hands for a reason. They should be used to arrange one's hair on their head in an aesthetically pleasing form. At least that is what I believe. I am tired of girls using natural hair as an excuse to come out their house looking tore up. These women are giving natural hair a bad name.

I bumped into a girl like this last night. Actually, she bumped into me. That's why she became the object of this post. To be honest, if she had never started bumping into me and my friend repeatedly and unnecessarily while dancing off-beat and flailing her horrible hair in our faces, I would have just regarded her as a poor girl who hadn't quite mastered her hair yet. But it was this bothersome behaviour that made her the target of my ire and thus christened her "the nappy-headed hoe."

There were actually a number of nappy-headed hoes at the party I went to last night. I'm not surprised as "The Freedom Party" is pretty much their scene. I have nothing but love for The Freedom Party. I am now officially too old to be going to parties where the DJ is going through the top-played 10 Hot 97 records of the past 10 years. The Freedom Party is where music lovers come to church. It's a party where everyone is focused on the music and they're singing along to every word.

This party attracts a different crowd. At their best, they are naturally beautiful, intelligent positive people of color who want to go to a party with a good vibe and not have to hear about bitches crawling from the window to the wall with skeet skeet skeet on their backs getting superman'd and all other types of ignorance. At their worst, they attract a bunch of self-righteous negroes who believe their education and enlightenment give them the right to look down on people whose hair doesn't look like a bird's nest and don't feel the need to always wear earth-toned linens and "I *heart* my hair" tees to prove they love black people.

Last night, the balance was off. There were some beautiful positive people there just having a great time dancing to the music but they were overpowered by a number of nappy-headed hoes who looked like they ran out of moisturizer before they finished their hairstyle so they had to pretend that's how they meant to look. The particular young lady that I took issue with looked as if she actually worked hard to make her hair look dry and trashy. I wish I had a picture but I'll try to paint a picture for you all. The hair was dyed reddish brown. A hair color that you think only still exists in a Blaxploitation film. It's definitely not a modern auburn. I don't even think this color comes in a box. It looked like she poured scalding hot water on one of my mother's sweaters from the 70's until the color began to bleed and then soaked her hair in it. I didn't know hair color could be vintage until I looked at hers.

Anyhoo, the hair looked in need of a wash. It wasn't curly but it wasn't knotty throughout. Just at the ends, like she had attempted to run a comb through it but gave up and only succeeded in pushing all the naps to the end. Is this a style? No, seriously. Because I'm seeing a lot of women with this and it honestly looks like they didn't finish combing their hair. Anyway, it seems that once she gave up on "combing it through", she then haphazardly placed a few bobby pins in various parts of the hair with no rhyme or reason. Furthermore, I don't even know what she was attempting to hold with those pins. What resulted was a badly clipped, un-sexy mess.

Maybe the bad lighting did her wrong. If that's the case, I sincerely apologize to that nappy-headed hoe for so harshly judging her. Unfortunately, it's more likely that she was just a nappy-headed hoe. And in accordance with her "free spirit" hairstyling, this black lovechild was swaying back and forth like she was auditioning for Alvin Ailey and not in the middle of a packed party in a Brooklyn basement.

The first 10 times she bumped into me, I thought, "Fine. She's having a good time and has a loosely held concept of personal space. I'm not gonna get angry because this is a party of positive people."  Seriously, I really have to talk myself down in these situations. I have an anger management problem. This is my self-help. But after being bumped and pushed around for a half-hour, I could make no more excuses. This nappy-headed hoe was about to get it.

So, I pulled out the comb I usually carry around in my purse for moments like this and placed myself behind her carefully so I could be perfectly poised for the task at hand. I waited until a song transition when my nappy-headed friend would undoubtedly hesitate before failing at an attempt to catch the beat of a new song and grabbed her by the forehead. I tackled her and pinned her down to the ground like a wrestler or like my mother used to do me on Sunday nights after a laborious whole day of hair-washing and proceeded to run a comb from the roots of her hair to the ends. But alas, the task I had taken on was more than I could have ever imagined. The comb would not move. The hair was much too dry. So I called for back up.

"Joanne!" I cried to my friend. "Please grab that spray bottle and carrot cream from my purse!" Joanne gave me the tools I desired and I went to work. My nappy-headed friend didn't know what hit her. By the time she figured it all out I had moisturized and combed those ends, rearranged those sadly placed pins and made this child a woman again. I let her up (I had been holding her down this whole time) and she slowly and incredulously placed her hands on her hair. Smiling slowly, she realized what had been done and thanked me. The young man dancing with her thanked me even more for she had been assaulting his face with her dry-ass hair. I put my tools away and went back to dancing, secure in the knowledge that I was changing the world, one nappy-headed hoe at at a time

Disclaimer: I shouldn't need one because this is my blog and I can be as ign'ant as I want on here but I love black women and I want to make sure that it's clear how much I love natural hair of all textures, fully support black women going natural and have never used the n'word (nappy) so much in my life. Please know that I have no problem with nappy-headed hoes. I have a problem with dry-ass, lazy hair-styled hoes.

I Heart Mike Tyson's Running Man

Every Little Step with Mike Tyson & Wayne Brady from Mike Tyson

A few friends of mine already posted this video on Facebook but I had to share because Mike Tyson is the most endearing dancer I've ever seen. He's so animated and excited in this video it makes me wanna ask, "What ear-biting incident?" and "Robin Who?" Who can deny that face and those sincerely executed 90's moves? Lub-dub goes my heart.

On another note, I know it's common knowledge that Bobby Brown is a full-blown crackhead, among other things but am I the only person who gasped in horror at 2:30 when he opens his shirt and goes "aaaaahhhh"? Where are his teeth? I don't know if there's a couple missing or they just spread themselves apart. This is the "King of R&B"? Meanwhile, Whitney can't sing anymore.

These folks are just fanning the flames of a fire in which my childhood memories, heroes and innocence are all burning. Luckily, I'm quite good at separating who these people have become from the people I loved when I was a child. It's really helped me preserve good memories. You should try it. It works with people you know too! Just don't do it on a significant other because it'll be the reason you stay in a relationship too long. Then you'll wake up one day and realise that you don't even know the person you're with anymore because you've been too busy loving up who they used to be. Anyhoo, I have more than digressed. That is all for now.

Uptown Girl

Because "Anonymous" (reveal yourself!) left me a "motivating" comment on my last post, I decided not to get up from this chair until I have published something.



This video is hilarious because it highlights the uptown/downtown dichotomy in Kingston. Can you guess which one of these women is from Uptown? The concept is ingenious. Snaps to the creator. Apparently, this whole business about uptown men going downtown for "good pussy" is quite real. Ever heard the song "Wicked Slam" by Beenie Man? Ha ha! "Man if yuh waan fi get di medal, yuh haffi get a slam fram a real ghetto gyal."


Speaking of uptown and downtown, I actually found this video on Timberlee's Myspace page. I'm kind of liking Timber-lee.


She's a relatively new dancehall artist who benefits from the fact that her rudegyal deejay style doesn't exactly fit her pretty face. Personally, I love the idea that she's a confident thick girl who can get down on the mic. Most other people like her because she's an uptown girl with downtown style and people are always fascinated by a situation like that. That kind of annoys me because it's akin to people loving Justin Timberlake because he's a white and makes black music or any situation when the originator of culture is marginalised because they don't fit the image of what people want to see delivering that culture. ANYWAY! Her popular song "Bubble Like Soup" is a dancehall classic. I like!


"Hot Gyal a Hot Gyal! Sweet like a honey!"

The video is cool although I do not promote the early whore-ification of the little girl nor do I approve some of Timber-lee's outfits. Still rooting for Timber-lee for now.

Missing Stevie

I cried watching this clip. Not simply because hearing Stevie sing does that to me but because I planned to go to this party all week but kept on coming up with excuses for why I shouldn't go. "Oh, I can go next year." "I went to his concert at Madison Square Garden already this year, I don't deserve to go to the party too (little did I know, $20 would have been a small price to pay for an impromptu Stevie performance and a party with so much beautiful people and energy in abundance).

I'm so tired of wanting to live my life and holding myself back. I am no longer going to not go out and do things because I'm broke, tired, depressed etc. I should have gone to this party and though I'm not going to spend the rest of my day crying about it, I'm determined not to let it happen again. Life is so precious. We can never know how much time we have left. If I want to go to a party held in honor of my favorite living artist (to which I've gone before and had an amazing time) then I'm going to go. God help me. I'm going to live my life. In the meantime, please enjoy the sheer Godliness of this man's aura.

What the hell is wrong with Mariah Carey? (in reference to her April 14th appearance on Oprah)

No, Seriously. What happened to her?

Watching her try to act human is like witnessing the scene at a party where the person who has had too much to drink is trying to convince everybody that she's okay to drive. It's just sad. Except, in this case, everybody seems to be believing her crazy ass.

It's really like a train wreck. First of all, let's address that crazy look that she always has on her face. That maniacal smile, like she's on serious uppers. I'm not knocking the drugs but that face makes me uncomfortable.




Yes, Mariah. That face.

Also, the singing. Has anyone noticed that she barely sings full out anymore and when she does it looks and sometimes sounds painful? I feel like she never fully recovered from that breakdown. What is the thing she does with her hands when she sings? It's as if she's trying to summon her voice from her body.





I think what makes me most uncomfortable (because that is the common denominator in all this: how uncomfortable she makes me) are her "mammy-isms". This is what I find most absurd about her. She comes off to me as the white girl who always hung out with black women but never quite fit in. You know that girl. She always liked black music and occasionally tried to inject some ebonics into her daily banter (much to the dismay of the black people around her). Yeah, she was cool enough but her mammy-isms would probably get out of hand every once in a while and you'd have to tell her to tone it down. Overall, you kept her around because she was pretty harmless and it's nice to have someone who idolizes the culture that just comes naturally to you.

Mariah Carey is that girl. Only, now that she's rich, she can buy black women to hang out with. Yes, I said "buy" because they don't seem like her real friends. Has anyone else noticed that she's been surrounded by fat black women since she got into the business? Look at all her early music videos, there's always some fat black women in them. I know she claims to be half black and that is odd to me because I was under the impression that her father is Venezuelan (or from somewhere about those parts) and last I heard, those people were not claiming Africa. Feel free to correct me.

Either way, it doesn't matter to me what you claim as long as you come off as sincere. Bottom line is: her mammy-isms make me waay uncomfortable and they are definitely NOT sincere. What put the icing on the cake was when she performed "Bye Bye" on Oprah. Honestly, talking about it just would take away from the larger effect. Let's just roll the tape.

Okay okay! I have to say something. "This is for my peoples who lost they grandmovas." What?! Not even Ms Mary J. Blige would be caught dead singing that line. It's just silly. There's no way that Mariah Carey actually talks like that and so she just sounds silly. Those crazy ass hand movements don't help. I think Mariah believes that she has a little Della Reese trapped underneath those balloons on her chest.