They say that it takes about 7 years 4 u 2 recycle all the cells in your body. This took place abt 2 Pierre’s ago.

Chakaras & I went to art school together. We had several small adventures during the time we knew each other… our last big one was a road trip to the Million Man March in October 1995.

I was inspired to get this photo essay/album scanned and uploaded by his untimely passing last week. It’s dedicated to him, his memory, and all of those whose lives he touched.

You always hear the cliche about the journey and the destination. We’re all destined to end up in the same place, but i am thankful that our journeys crossed paths at some point. I am better because of it. Thank you, Chakaras. rest in peace.

Our Last Big Adventure

Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu takes the Afrofuturism genre one step further with her short SciFi film “Pumzi.” The dystopic flick is set in an enclosed, underground future society, “35 years after water wars have torn the world apart,” and chronicles the efforts of one young woman to bring life back to the surface of the planet.

Unique opportunity to see this groundbreaking, award-winning film this sunday in Brooklyn, NY — at a free screening hosted by mtkalla keaton sunday evening, april 18th. details below.

“Pumzi” Brooklyn Screening @ Le Grand Dakar (Grand ave and Clifton Pl)

Sunday April 18th @ 8pm.
Please RVSP via text (917 771 2747)

Click below to see the trailer. Wow.

Duke professor Mark Anthony Neal and Grammy winning producer 9th Wonder (pictured left) are using SunMoonChild – amazing song by imani uzuri, amazing video by Pierre Bennu – as part of the midterm exam for their course, ’sampling soul.’ The course is about black cultural production and the tradition of borrowing/remixing/sampling and how it all relates to today’s legal issues of intellectual property rights and copyright law. Since YouTube just removed SunMoonChild after three years this issue cuts particularly close for us.

He’s made the midterm public on his blog to encourage a wider dialogue and wider exposure to the ideas. Stop by and give it a read, comment if you can! )

–jb.

As a DJ, an artist, a sometime teacher, and the son of an academic, I will never get tired of marveling at the intersection of HipHop and academia. It’s an honor to have my work thought of as contributing to this discussion.

–pb

Jean-Michel Basquiat : The Radiant Child

’till then love what you do.

- Dear you, yeah you complaining about how movies suck, music sucks? make your own. Yeah make it! it used to be hard but if you’re reading this on the internet chances are you have the tools. and clearly you have a creative mind cause you complain with such eloquence. Clearly you have a flair for fiction when you romanticize the past as if Hollywood & the music industry just started making crap in the late 90’s. Trust me the crap that exists now stands on the shoulders of a great legacy left by the crap b4 it. technology has just made it quicker and easier to make so there is a lot more of it. so get up and add YOUR crap to the mix, I dare you.

- Dear lame un imaginative DJ I love MJ and I don’t pretend to know what he thought but I would imagine that he would have wanted us to play more than just his music at a tribute to him.

- Note to self don’t bite your nails before scratching sensitive parts of your anatomy

- Dear supermarket why am I checking myself out?! WTF I don’t work here. How do you call yourself a supermarket when I’m checking myself out bagging and weighing  my own vegetables? Didn’t some one used to work here? and instead of hiring a person you now make me do it myself for free? I miss the line at the supermarket. Where you get to read the stuff you would never buy and eat the grapes and candy only to ask if they could just ring up the wrapper. Then there were those once in a life time i’ll probably never talk to you again friendly over polite conversations that you got into with strangers. I miss those and some how automated food checkout thingy it’s all your fault. I’m heading to the farmers market , they might not have a ceiling but they sell real food and have cool people.

- Note to self A notarized letter of permission signed by a handicapped person pinned to the windshield of your car does not give you permission to park in the handicapped spaces. ever.

- Dear PETA you can’t tell me that killing a mosquito on the back of your leg in mid suck isn’t satisfying

- Dear CNN Did you know that the demographic with the highest increase in HIV consistently for the past several years has been young black women?  next time you want to do a “blacks in America” show change your mind and do something about this thing that is still an epidemic, it’s called AIDS. what happened to AIDS? I have heard more about the bird flu. They say in news if it bleeds it leads. Well people still die from this illness so make this your lead. or even use it as filler next time you feel the need to cover a mans death 24 hours for 5 days strait. You’re welcome.

- note to self: when you fall down in public again (and you will fall down in public again) DO NOT pop back up as fast as you can! Laughter directed at your pain and ripped clothing hurts your feelings instead… lie motionless for as long as possible hold your breath and when you can no longer do that roll your eyes to the top of your head and twitch violently till some one calls the ambulance. If you can muster up some drool that’s a plus. Then when you hear the paramedics, that’s when you pop up as fast as you can, dust yourself off and walk through the crowd surrounding you and off into the sunset. PS Remember to wipe the drool off.

- dear wife: 10 years! WOW that’s cool. but isn’t it kind of random how they only make a big deal on anniversaries that are divisible by 5?  I say after this, let’s celebrate on years that are prime numbers.

- dear guy with one eye working at that place: I would think (seeing as how someone poked out your eye and you have no depth perception and you wouldn’t make a good eye witness and no one is really gonna see what your saying) that you would be a nicer less rude person…oh well guess I was wrong. I got my eye on you.
- Dear conspiracy theory documentarians: Are there any big organizations that work and do good?

- dear everyone at every store I’ve ever been in,  No I don’t work here!

- dear son “NO”does not mean look at me smile and then proceed to do what ever wrong thing you were doing, faster.
- dear doubt F%$@ you and anyone that look like you!
- dear men who try to pick up women on the street with that weak game: STOP! Seriously please. She hears you! she just is not listening to you. I’m am convinced that there is a legend of a man who did this sometime in the late 1700’s and went on to have the most amazing love affair that ever existed. I’m also convinced that every man that tries  to hit on a woman in this manner is either young & ignorant, has more ‘hope’ than the obama campaign, or has heard this amazing myth. who has this ever worked on, and would you really want anything from a woman that responded to your barking upon first call?  I just don’t get it. it’s summer time in the new millennium fellas step your game UP.

- dear professional athletes why don’t losers thank god at the end of games? Here is a short list of things to be thankful for, getting paid millions to play a game, the humility of losing that builds character, those nice sneakers you have on… im sure you and your loser friends can think of more
- dear producers of random crap and bad packaging please  stop making unnecessarily hard to open non biodegradable packaging for simple things then tell me I’m polluting the planet. Do your part.

- Dear any one who finds themselves saying “I’m a grown ass man/woman,” ponder this: When you see a guy in knee high socks with cleats on and a baseball cap holding a bat and swinging it at a ball with outquestion that’s a …come on…say it…yes that’s a baseball player. That person never has to yell up to the stands that he is indeed a baseball player. Let me make it plain I think what’s confusing people are one of 3 things. where you are, what you’re wearing or how you’re acting. Next time you feel the need to say that phrase check one of those 3 things take a deep breath then ask yourself if you need to go home change your clothes, not be where you are and or put some bass in your speaking voice.
- dear children I’m sorry adults run everything and nothing works. I swear some of us are really trying hard…my advice is to  have the good sense to create your own mistakes and don’t repeat ours.

Perez got pretty slammed on the Brooklyn blogs for her comments. “As much as I find Rosie Perez to be a decent actor, sexy and certainly part of NYC’s charm, I must say comments like these make me want to kick her in the shins,” wrote one commenter on Brownstoner. We cornered Perez after the show, and she was happy to clear up what she worried was a hostile comment. “What I really wanted to say was that, yes, I’m nostalgic for the past, but I’m also excited about the present and hopeful for the future,” she explained. “Things do change. Water always has to flow or else it becomes stale. But with change, you can bring along some of the good minerals that came from the top of the waterfall.” She said she’d read some of the blogs and seen the nasty comments. “I think it’s their guilt of being the gentrifiers. They don’t know how to take it,” she said. “But I had to look at myself and I realized it came off a little hostile, to be honest.”

What Rosie meant to express was that the neighborhood has a growing sense of elitism. “I live in Clinton Hill. The gentrification is not only the mom-and-pop shops getting displaced, residents getting displaced, people getting priced out even of the Associated markets,” she said. “It’s the sense of entitlement that people bring with them to the neighborhood.” People seem to think since they’re paying a premium for the lovely neighborhood, they don’t have to say hello, and they should be able to rule the space. They’ll think to themselves, Perez groans, “‘This is our place in the park, I don’t care if you played soccer here, we want to put our baby strollers here.’ What? Excuse me? That is not the feeling of New York. That is why New York City is the only place where you can come, whether you’re gay, straight, transgender, freak, geek, and live a fairly decent life and not get killed. If you do get killed, it’s probably a tiny, tiny percentage because of the color of your skin or because you want to wear a pink tutu on your head. But if you do that in Arkansas, you might get killed. In NYC, your chances [of getting killed] are very slim because it’s called tolerance and respect for your fellow humans. And saying hello to your neighbor is a great start. Even if you’re in a bad mood, just give me a nod.”

Next time we’re in Clinton Hill, Ms. Perez is certainly getting a tip of our hat.

by  Emma Pearse copied from www.nymag.com

Originally self-published, this book was the reason we first built the site and ventured into e-commerce, back in the dial-up days in summer 2001. It was picked up and reissued by a US gift book publisher in 2003 and made available nationwide in a brand-new edition; in 2004 it was even translated into Japanese! Click here to enter the book’s site for info, reviews, an inspirational column from author Pierre Bennu, and photos.

Original copies are available at this page; leave a note with your order if you’d like it autographed by the author.

 The show “all things considered”  on NPR had a broadcast on about the history of BoomBoxes. For some reason it really struck a chord with me and I was actually quite moved by it. Read the article but be sure to watch the video.