Who’s Your Hero? … The VIBE Mag Rebuttal.
by Chuck D

…. When I was first asked to do an interview answering to VIBE’s concern about reality shows and the mismanagement of female images in media, I straight out flatly refused. I’m neither arrogant, elitist, nor bitter, its just that the problems with the topic are beyond articles, sound bites, and special one off tele, broad, or even webcasts. It’s worthy of dissertation, educational curriculum, and books of new social science containing cultural analysis yet to be published and exposed. Quite frankly I had my reservations until Danyel Smith took over the magazine (one which to me has had the tendency of coming off like a cultural coloring book). I wish the mag and VIXEN a testosterone-less good look and luck. And it’s the main reason agreeing to the issue here at hand.

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Mike Believe of exittheapple re-visions Fat Albert footage as a video for Biggie’s “Things Done Changed.” In its time, Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids” addressed a lot of often serious issues faced by inner city youth. In Biggie’s time, it could be argued he did much the same, although perhaps with a different perspective. The goal of this piece was to find common ground between the two icons from different eras. click here to view … (more)

excerpted from No Money Down, a collection of Cobb’s essays forthcoming from Thunder’s Mouth Press in April 07. You can read more of his work at www.jelanicobb.com

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We could have known that it would come to this way back in 1896. That was the year that Paul Lawrence Dunbar dropped a jewel for the ages, telling the world that “we wear the mask that grins and lies.” The poet’s point was that beneath the camouflage of subservient smiles, black folks of the Jim Crow era were hiding a powder keg of other emotions, waiting patiently for the chance to detonate. The thing is, Dunbar never got the chance to spit bars with 50 Cent or throw in a guest collabo on a Mobb Deep album. If he had, then he would’ve known that grins and lies were only half the story.

These days, camouflage is the new black. Glance at hip hop for less than a second and it becomes clear that the music operates on a single hope: that if the world mistakes kindness for weakness it can also be led to confuse meanness with strength. That principle explains why there is a permanent reverence for the thug within the music; it is why there is a murderer’s grit and a jailhouse tat peering back at you from the cover of damn near any CD you picked up in the last five years. But what hip hop can’t tell you, the secret that it would just as soon take to its deathbed is that it this urban bravado is a guise, a mask, a head-fake to shake the reality of fear and powerlessness in America. Hip hop will never admit that our assorted thugs and gangstas are not the unbowed symbol of resistance to marginalization, but the most complacent and passive products of it.

We wear the mask that scowls and lies.

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here is a NY Times article about the matter.

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An accelerating exodus of American-born blacks, coupled with slight declines in birthrates and a slowing influx of Caribbean and African immigrants, have produced a decline in New York City’s black population for the first time since the draft riots during the Civil War, according to preliminary census estimates.

press ‘more’ to read the rest here. or see the original piece @ the nytimes.com [Read more]

this clipping is from a cleveland newspaper and reposted courtesy trula mama. it’s a few years old and contains some inspiring comments from Gordon Parks, widely accomplished photojournalist, writer, and filmmaker.

all we can think, when elders pass over with the frequency that we’ve seen of late, is of that quote from frantz fanon: “each generation must, out of relative obscurity, define its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”

This weekend, our server was hacked and certain sections of exittheapple were lost. Applesauce was among them. We logged in Friday night to add the newest installment of poetry edited by L. N. Diggs, only to find an impenetrable set of coded gibberish. In english, we believe the code read: start over from scratch, suckas!
This makes us sad.

But we are blessed with perspective right now since this weekend also marked the passing of SciFi giant Octavia Butler. There is little we could say to convey the sense of loss we feel at the silencing of her powerful voice and ruthless social imagination. In the face of this elder’s sudden journey, our database problems seem a touch more manageable. We look forward to building up our zine again and reinstalling our archives. Smile. Rebirth is the stuff of life.

Rest in peace, ms. butler; your legacy is cherished and your work has been well loved.

The first thing Chappelle wants is to dispel rumors—that he’s got a drug problem, that he’s checked into a mental institution in Durban—that have been flying around the U.S. for the past week. He says he is staying with a friend, Salim, and not in a mental institution, as has been widely reported in America. Chappelle says he is in South Africa to find “a quiet place” for a while. “Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can’t at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh. I’m an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking here.”

On the Beach With Dave Chappelle
In South Africa, TIME’s Simon Robinson talks with the comic about his sudden disappearance from Chappelle’s Show

In this week’s TIME, Christopher John Farley reveals why Dave Chappelle decided to leave his hit show and what he’s been up to since he disappeared to South Africa two weeks ago. Last Friday night, TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Simon Robinson met with the comic at uShaka Marine World on the beach in the South African port of Durban. In a ninety minute conversation, Chappelle was eager to set the record straight on why he suddenly left the U.S. and what he’s doing in South Africa. Here’s Robinson’s account: [Read more]

DEF POERY JAM REVIEW

byLATASH N NEVADA DIGGS
so yeah…this girl said “he fucked me like brooklyn” at a recent taping for
Def Poetry Jam’s fourth session.

so what’s in it for me?

(I) am the voyeur who needs to be viewed w/ parameters. a (hy)brid
mix master of hermit & camera hog. harlem/chicago
cage dancer & green thumb
good days. sour months. wick wick wack poems. analog prose.

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PUT YOUR CAP ON

by FARI CHIDEYA
Nov. 11th, 2004.

Has anyone else here been letting themselves go? I admit, I’ve been in a totally crappy mood for a week solid. I’ve been eating lots of sugar, breaking out like a teenager, and furtively pulling up to drive-throughs. (Yes, I read “Fast Food Nation.” I know what’s in that stuff, and I ate it ANYWAY.)

I guess that was my own culinary version of the primal scream. But hey, the joyride’s over. Time to go back to the gym, cook, find conversation topics other than politics… and stop wincing when I read the newspaper.

Now’s the time to take care of yourself.

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LATASHA N NEVADA DIGGS INTRODUCES POETRY UPDATE
words from in(be/tweEn) SpaCe #2

Sometime ago, roughly a month or more, there was this girl on the train begging for money. I had seen her before. Clearly the young woman was on something. Not actually sure what it was though. Just appeared more than just a crack head. What sealed it for me was that she either white or Latina (including South America) with no accent. American. She was definitely not from New York. Something was Tomboyish. Was mid-west. Was being from a somewhat middle class background. Still I had problems placing her. I just knew she wasn’t from New York.

The first time I saw her was over a year ago. She could not look anyone in the face.

She was kinda fading back and forth between her story and the euphoria of what she was on. No, she wasn’t nodding. Just not in real time you know. What I did remember was that a man, (definitely from New York) propositioned her for sex right on the train. Suddenly, her eyes did focus, kinda smirked and sat beside the man. He lifted one arm and like a daddy (I suppose) placed it around her shoulder. Other women on the train, including myself, just stared confused as to what just happened.

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