Keepingitreal

Too $hort, Career Counselor

After 25 years as the nasty-mouthed purveyor of "Freaky Tales," the rapper hopes to change his legacy by helping troubled kids. But is "$horty the Pimp" the best role model? By Eric K. Arnold  - -The 2006 Youth UpRising Christmas party featured healthy helpings of fried chicken, greens, and mac and cheese. That was certainly part of the appeal for the several hundred young people in attendance, the majority of whom were low-income and could be considered at risk of falling into lives of drugs or violence. But to their delight, the party also boasted a contingent of ghetto celebrities, including the head of a hip-hop record label founded by the late Mac Dre and the popular rappers E-40 and Mistah F.A.B. Turf-identified rappers seldom interact directly with fans or involve themselves in community affairs — actions seemingly at odds with their hypermasculine public images. But that's just what happened on December 22. President J. Diggs of Thizz Entertainment donated shoes, warm coats, T-shirts, and PlayStation IIIs to needy youngsters. He even went so far as to disassociate himself from "thizzing," street slang for using the drug Ecstasy. But the afternoon's biggest surprise came when Todd Shaw — aka Too $hort, the most iconic Oakland rapper of all time — announced that he was moving back to "tha town" and joining the two-year-old East Oakland community center as a career counselor. $hort's remarks were met with cheers, and attracted favorable notice from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson four days later — yet also drew pointed criticism from one of Youth UpRising's most outspoken opponents. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Covergirl: Keyshia Cole

Keyshia Cole covers the October issue of Essence Magazine and in her feature story she addresses her childhood as the daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute to her rise to platinum-status fame...Here is a snippet of the interview:

ESSENCE: Were you always going to be a solo artist?

KEYSHIA COLE: Well, actually, I was gonna be in a group with these two girls. We were in Los Angeles and we were working with Damon Elliot, who is Dionne Warwick’s son, and he was like, “Keysh, if you wanna sign with the girl group, you can; but I’ll sign you solo.” And I was like, I’d rather be solo because I do everything in the group anyway. They’re just pretty. We were gonna get, like, a $30,000 advance and split it ten/ten/ten; but I figured, "Why should I give them my $20,000 when I can get it myself?" So I told them, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Then I recorded a couple songs with Damon and one of them was (the hit single) “Love.” ESSENCE: Early in your career you went to Los Angeles and met legendary music producer Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur. What was that like? COLE: My brother was close with Pac, he got records with Pac and everything. And Pac’s mother is really cool with my brother and me. So to me, Pac was just like a big brother. That time was like one of the biggest moments in history, and I saw everything. I was with them in Malibu and Vegas and I stayed in the “big house” by myself. I knew the world, the whole industry, everything. I was only fourteen. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

America’s Two Destinies 9/11 Anniversary

America has ever had this dual identity, this androgyny, this split personality, this ambivalence that needs to be resolved. As a nation, we grew to power by force. We forced the Native Americans off their land. We forced Africans onto tiny ships and forced them to work. We forced other nations to do our bidding. But that is not the only story of America. Even before we took on the national karma of slavery and subjugation, we were a vessel, a refuge. We were a collecting place of nations. Our heritage as a multicultural haven precedes — if only by a few months — our legacy of patriarchal terror. And it is the more feminine ideal that is enshrined in our nation’s founding documents (aside, of course, from the three-fifths clause). America has never resolved this ambivalent dialectic between the two distinct versions of its Manifest Destiny. The patriarchal version is that of the monochromatic, conquering, Christian nation. Its power comes from singular vision and singular direction. It’s George W. Bush’s America. The matriarchal version is of the dynamic, polyglot, polycultural cauldron. Its power comes from the explosive reaction between different elements. It’s Hip-Hop’s America. In that transformation at Ground Zero lay the lesson that America needed to learn. Was the answer simply to find a suitable target and blast away? To symbolically rebuild those two big gun barrels and get our power back? To use brute force to retain our place as the first among all nations? Or was the answer to stand down for a bit. To grieve. To plan. To gather information. To accomplish by stealth what could not possibly be accomplished by force. To use out intelligence to attain our rightful place, not as the first among nations, but as the best. To rebuild, not towers of steel, but towers of light. This is what could have been after September 11, 2001. But it wasn’t. America got what we deserved. We voted, twice, for the favorite son of a patriarch, and we got patriarchy. We got repression at home and wars of expedition abroad. The vision of the American patriarchs is no different, really, from the Islamist patriarchs. It’s just another fundamentalism: a singular vision of the world led by a singular nation, run by a singular people. Meanwhile, our generation, the hip-hop generation, has really sat this one out. The meager lyrical reaction to 9-11 was tantamount to a shrug. Nas offered a mere, “What goes around comes around.” Everybody blamed Bush. And when Bush sent thousands of young Americans to die in a desert, in turn imperiling hundreds of thousands of innocent humans, hip-hop shrugged again. Blamed Bush again. Eminem was the only high-profile hip-hop act to make some kind of grand artistic statement in an effort to sway the 2004 election. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Penn to star as Harvey Milk

By Gregg Goldstein -- TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Sean Penn is attached to play gay '70s San Franciso politician Harvey Milk, and Matt Damon his assassin in a long-gestating project from director Gus Van Sant. Once a distribution deal is finalized, Van Sant hopes to begin production on the as-yet-untitled feature in San Francisco as early as December. The uncertain start date may affect Damon's participation as Milk's killer, Dan White. It's the latest chapter in a long-running race to film the biopic of the first openly gay prominent elected official, which has pitted Van Sant's project against another from fellow openly gay director Bryan Singer. Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron ("Hairspray") have attempted to produce a big-screen version of Randy Shilts' 1982 bio "The Mayor of Castro Street" for more than 15 years. Warner Bros. Pictures attached Singer to the project two years ago.This summer the studio's art-house arm, Warner Independent Pictures, brought in Singer's "Usual Suspects" scribe Chris McQuarrie to write a new draft of the script. But McQuarrie is now in Germany with Singer working on the Tom Cruise drama "Valkyrie" and also working on the "Castro" script, making an immediate production start less likely to happen before Singer starts his "Superman" sequel commitment. In a coincidental twist, Van Sant once wrote a draft of the "Castro" project and was set to direct his adaptation for Warners. The script for his film was written by Dustin Lance Black ("Big Love"). Producer Michael London and his Groundswell Prods. are financing the film, set to be produced by "American Beauty" producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks. Penn has never portrayed an openly gay character onscreen, but he did play the sexually ambiguous Olivia Newton-John impersonator "Groovin' Larry" in a section of Trent Harris' 2001 cult hit "Beaver Trilogy." Penn's video short was shot in 1981, then combined with Harris' 1979 documentary short on the amateur performer and his 1985 short narrative version "The Orkly Kid," starring Crispin Glover as Larry, to create "Beaver."Damon would play White, who shot San Francisco city supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978. After serving five years of a seven-year sentence, White committed suicide in 1985. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Lots of Trouble

Lots of Trouble BART parking lots are assault-and-robbery hotspots, a vicious killer is finally caught down south, and botanical bandits snip stems. By Anneli Rufus  -- We're not even supposed to notice BART parking lots. But they've become gauntlets, scenes right out of the Wild West. It has been a summer of mayhem. In the Bay Fair station's parking lot June 9, three teens beat a man about the face and fled with his phone and laptop. At El Cerrito del Norte on June 17, a woman was slammed to the ground and her phone was stolen by a teen whose flirtatious advances she had spurned. At the Coliseum station that day, six men attacked another, hurling him to the ground and demanding his money. He managed to wrestle free and escape. At Pittsburg on June 21, two men accosted a couple, punching the man and fleeing with the woman's purse. An hour later, three armed men trailed another into the Bay Fair lot, injured his face, broke two of his teeth, stole $400, and fled in his SUV. At the Coliseum station on August 2, two juveniles wielding a replica rifle robbed a man. Back at the Coliseum on August 13, two teens seized and ran off with a man's backpack. At Bay Fair on August 15, a teen gunman knocked a woman to the ground, escaping with her purse and phone. At Union City on August 22, two juveniles and an adult jumped a man, punched him in the face and stomach, and fled with his wallet and headphones. That same day at Hayward, a teenage girl demanded a woman's purse and chased her, attempting unsuccessfully to seize it. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Britney's Body Gets Brunt of Insults

NEW YORK (Sept. 11) - The consensus is clear: Britney Spears performed like she was sloshing blindfolded through mud at MTV's Video Music Awards. No one disputes that the troubled pop princess royally mangled her much-heralded comeback. But what about the nastiest comments of all - those about her body? "Lard and Clear," read Monday's headline in the New York Post. "The bulging belly she was flaunting was SO not hot," wrote E! Online. And so on. Was it fair? Did Spears, lest we forget a mother of two, deserve to be held up against the standard of her once fantastically toned abs, sculpted by sessions of 1,000 tummy crunches? Or was she asking for it by choosing that unforgiving black-sequined bikini?  More profoundly, in an age where skinny models and skeletal actresses are under scrutiny for the message they're sending young girls, what does it say that we're excoriating a young woman for a little thickness in her middle?  Certainly people were curious to see her. The show drew 7.1 million viewers Sunday, up 23 percent over last year's VMAs, and was the highest-rated cable program of the year among people aged 12 to 34, according to Nielsen Media Research.  On the morning after what the VH1 channel called Spears' "already historic" performance, the blogosphere was buzzing with opinions. For every "fat" comment there was an impassioned retort. "Give her a break," wrote one blogger on Aboutthink.com. "The girl's had two kids - I hope I'm a size 10 after having kids!" SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Going Beyond Skin-Deep With the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’

Most people know Hill Harper as Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, the prodigious and contemplative chief medical examiner on the popular television drama CSI: NY.  What most people don’t know is that the 38-year-old actor, deemed one of People NYPD Blue and Married…With Children, No matter how busy his career, Harper makes time for another profound passion: service to organizations that encourage the education of young people and foster their development. In 2006 Harper published his first book, Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny, modeled after Rilke’s classic Letters to a Young Poet. A motivational book designed to inspire and mentor young African American men, Harper’s Letters debuted at No. 6 on the New York Times best-seller list in the self-help/miscellaneous category, rose to No. 7 on the Washington Post’s best-seller list and remains a top selling title on Amazon.com. In conjunction with the publication of Letters, Harper established MANifest Your Destiny, a foundation whose aim is to provide young African American men with the support, community and resources needed to rise to their fullest potential. Recently, Harper, who is single, spoke to RealTALK LA about his life, work and why he believes that giving back should not be seen as a responsibility, but rather as a privilege and a priority. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Fade to Blacc: Genre-busting MC Aloe Blacc Breaks New Ground

LA native Aloe Blacc straddles multiple identities as easily as he slips from English and Spanish, the piano to the trumpet. With Panamanian parents, a West Indian heritage and a strong reverence for African American history, the bilingual multitasker jigs across hip-hop, R&B, folk and Pan-Latin musical styles. He’s gained success as one-half of the indie hip-hop duo Emanon with high school buddy DJ Exile. Although he cops to being “braggadocious” as an MC, his debut solo album, Shine Through (Stones Throw Records), emanates conscious positivity. Now he’s lending his voice and his outlook to the Academy (www.kidmillionaires.com), an organization that encourages youths to think and act—you got it—positively.You grew up in Orange County, went to USC and now live in Hancock Park. How has Southern California influenced your music? The diversity of my social groups within Southern California has been a huge influence. When I was growing up, my parents would have a lot of different music in the house. Of course they had R&B of the day, but [I heard] a lot of Latin and Central American and Caribbean music, reggae, soca, calypso, salsa, merengue and even tipico. I grew up playing the trumpet. Then in junior high jazz band, I got into jazz and started to really feel Stan Getz and follow Brazilian music. Southern California has been my learning ground. I’ve learned so much here, especially over the last couple years doing a party in Hollywood called Do Over. That’s kind of how I ended up putting together my album. Shine Through was very much related to my experience with LA’s finest DJs. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Pundin' the Art Scene with CCH Pounder

A self-described 'international small town girl', acclaimed South American-born actress CCH Pounder, who was raised on a sugar cane estate and now resides in LA, takes timeout to talk to RTLA. When did your love of art begin? I actually remember my father used to have a little Nigerian head in his pocket a lot of the times. It was a little ebony carved head. I always admired it. I was a teenager, but I was just struck by the fact that he kept it in his pocket a lot of the time. Every now and again, I’d see it back up on the shelf with the rest of them. There was a row of African animals, all in ebony, and then these two little African heads, and I never quite knew what he used them for but, for me, it was like, “Oh it must be dad’s good luck piece.” It always had an element of mystery for me.There’s a rumor that you opened a gallery because you need more space; your house is too packed with art. Ironically enough, I had a gallery in my home when I first started. When I was coming out of boarding school in England, I had a wonderful mentor, she said, “What do you want to do?” And I told her, “Well, I’d like to be an artist, but I really want to act, so I’m not quite sure.” She said, “They’re both very grand mistresses. Choose one and have the other as a plaything, and then, when you’re ready, choose the other and make the first a plaything.” And that’s exactly what I’m sort of heading toward. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Breaking Up Is Not So Hard to Do

Getting kicked to the curb by the love of your life is actually far less emotionally devastating than most would predict. That's the word from new research that found men and women who claim to be deeply in love are the worst at making accurate predictions about a possible break-up and vastly overestimate their potential despair. "We're not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that breaking up is a good time, or that people enjoy it -- a breakup is a distressing experience for most people, " explained the study's lead author, Paul W. Eastwick, a doctoral candidate in Northwestern University's department of psychology. "But what we're talking about is how upset people are going to be. And it turns out that it's not nearly as catastrophic as people predict." The finding is published in the August issue of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. To gauge the accuracy of pre-break-up forecasting, Eastwick teamed with Northwestern psychology department professor Eli Finkel, alongside researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Together, they followed the relationship experiences of 69 Northwestern University undergraduate freshmen over a nine-month period. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

HOT WATER CORNBREAD

Spoken Word Soul Fest!
Tickets go on sale August 1st! Hot Water Cornbread presents the 1st Annual Spoken Word Soul Fest featuring the hottest poets, musicians and speakers around! Join us for a week of community events, workshops, panels, showcases, jam sessions and after-parties! 5 days of building with a closing banquet featuring BET's Cousin Jeff and a host of other speakers and performers! Come out during the week and build with artists such as Jaguar Wright, Eric Roberson, Raheem DeVaughn, Conya Doss, Martin Luther, Mystic, Anthony David, Bahamadia, Sy Smith and many more! And in terms of POETS...the world is not ready...performances, panels and workshops led by Ursula Rucker, Amir Sulaiman, Ise Lyfe, Sunni Patterson, Ove, Ainsley Burrows, Black Ice, Lemon, GeorgiaMe, Abyss, Tshaka, Redstorm, M'Reld, Mahogany Browne, Scorpio Blues, Suheir Hammad, Prentice Powell, Shihan, Poetri and SO MANY MOORE! Come help us breathe life back into The Bay...one day...one piece at a time! Hot Water Cornbread! Come Hungry...Leave Full! TICKET INFORMATION

ERIC BENET: Some Words for Halle Berry

Maxwell Resurfaces With New Song; CD Due Next Year

Maxwell is finally giving fans a peek of his long-in-the-works new album. Today, the R&B singer uploaded a snippet of "Pretty Wings" on his MySpace site, the singer's first communication about new music since announcing his next album, "Black Summer's Night," on the site in October 2006. New Columbia urban music exec Kyambo "Hip-Hop" Joshua tells Billboard he expects the album, originally due in February 2007, next year. "Maxwell's still working with Sade's band, his tried-and-true team," he says. "He took some time off and now he's ready." "He's recorded so much material that he's got a couple of albums done," he continues. "So, he might be going out on the road touring for this album soon. I won't say the album will drop first-quarter 2008, but [next] summer sounds good." Maxwell's last album, "Now," was released in 2001 and has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Kanye West and 50 Cent Rolling Stone Cover Photo

Kanye West and 50 Cent Rolling Stone Cover Photo I'm gonna indulge the obvious and point out that this pic seems inspired the "you lean in 90%" kissing scene from Hitch. NTTAWWT..

FIRSTFRIDAYZLA

SOHH.COM

Congress to Hold Hearing on Hip-Hop, "I Respect the 1st Amendment, But Rights W/out Responsibility is Anarchy"

The lyrical content and imagery surrounding hip-hop will once again be under scrutiny as the United States Congress has set its first hearing to investigate media "stereotypes and...

Visit SOHH.com for the complete story.

SPOTLIGHT ON LEDISI: LOST AND FOUND

Ledisi (means to bring forth in Nigerian) was born in the Big Easy where she sang with New Orleans Symphony Orchestra when she was eight years old and spent many adolescent hours watching her mom perform with a local R&B band, often in a nearby park. After the family relocated to Oakland, CA, Ledisi followed her mom's lead and sang in a local band but left to form her own group and identity. She's most noted for her continuous performances in Beach Blanket Babylon, a long running San Francisco-based cabaret that features song parodies, celebrity impersonations, and enormous hats; she got the gig after being nominated for a Shellie award in 1990 for her role as Dorothy in a local version of the Wiz. She later formed Anibade, Ledisi's middle name, which depending on what you read means "to bring forth luck" or "my mother is great" in Yorubu. The players are: Sundra Manning (keyboards and chief songwriter), Cedrickke Dennis (guitar), Nelson Braxton (bass), Wayne Braxton (saxophone), and Tommy Bradford (drums); while the lineup is similar to Chaka Khan & Rufus, the sound — on record anyway — is mellower than Rufus' energized, excellent-engineered sounds. Ledisi sometimes fuses R&B, hip-hop, urban, jazz, and funk in the same pot. PURCHASE THIS AMAZING CD TODAY

The Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion By Keith Boykin ---- One day last summer I was walking home from the gym in Harlem when I noticed a young shirtless man walking slowly in front of me. He was walking with the familiar side-to-side swagger of young men in hip hop as I followed far behind. By the time I approached him, I realized the reason he was walking so slowly. His pants were sagging so far down that the full length of his boxer shorts were exposed. He must have heard my footsteps as I approached from behind because he turned around just as I got closer. He scowled a look that could kill, pulled up his pants and then stood on the edge of the sidewalk until I walked by. What was that all about? If you're going to walk around half naked in the streets, don't get offended when people stare at you like you're crazy. And as much as I appreciate the right of all people to dress the way they want, I have to be honest. I certainly would not want my kids to dress like thugs, and I'm glad that my two teenage godsons don't. I once had a prospective intern (who I later hired) who dressed this way to his job interview with me, and I had to warn him that he would never get a job in most places dressed like a thug. But having said all that, I am still troubled by the new trend, reported in today's New York Times, of cities that are outlawing sagging pants. Since June of this year, sagging pants have been against the law in Delcambre, Louisiana, a small town of 2,231 that is 80 miles from Baton Rouge. The fine for violators is as much as $500 or up to a six-month sentence. A new law in Mansfield, another small Louisiana town, will fine violators as much as $150 or up to 15 days in jail. And they're not alone. Other cities and states are considering laws to ban sagging pants as well. As much as I hate this sartorial style, I cannot support a law that sends young people to jail just because of what they wear. And let's be truthful. The people who will be going to jail will mostly be young black and Latino men, the very people who are already overcrowding the nation's penal system, many of them for petty and harmless offenses. Nor does it matter to me that some of the officials sponsoring these laws are black themselves. Older, well established black people can be some of the most socially conservative people around. And this issue, no matter how much I dislike it, is not the biggest threat to black America. But try telling that to Atlanta Councilman C. T. Martin, who last week sponsored an amendment to the city’s indecency laws to ban sagging pants, which he called an epidemic. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Keyshia Cole To Sing National Anthem @ NFL Kick Off

Rock & Roll, R&B and gospel soul will fill the RCA Dome during the “NFL OPENING KICKOFF 2007 PRESENTED BY SPRINT” on Thursday, September 6. Award-winning R&B singer-songwriter KEYSHIA COLE will be joined by Ft. Wayne , Indiana ’s VOICES OF UNITY YOUTH CHOIR in singing the National Anthem to kick off the 2007 NFL season. As part of the show, the anthem and the celebratory moment will be televised live from 8 – 8:30 PM ET on NBC and the NFL Network and leads into the season opener between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

WHAT DO BLACK MEN THINK