Wednesday, February 23, 2011

They Don't Dance No More....and for good reason....




Hey all, it's your boy BitterBrutha back with another round of unmitigated rambling thought. I just got in from the gym...ok, I just got in from driving BY the gym on the way to Five Guys Burgers but hey, that counts right?
Anyway, my cd player is on the blink so I had to listen to regular radio and I had an epiphany....music today sucks more than Karrine Steffans and Kat Stacks at the NBA ALL-STAR weekend.

I mean for real, what happened to music you could legitimately groove to without feeling the subliminal urge to either start selling rocks, taking over blocks, pulling the trigger on Glocks, or running through hoes/b*tches/chicks women with your....well, you get the point. ( Wait...that actually rhymed, I may have to see if I can get signed to a label and drop a single, hmmm...) I mean damn near every song was about nothing besides the "4 B's"...Booty, Bread, Bling, and Bullsh*t. And I'm not even talking about the subliminal way that Marvin and Teddy used, but so up front that it might have violated a few solicitation laws in a few southern states. We've gone from being romantic to just nasty as hell, and noone seems to mind or think its an issue. We've gone from the mellow "Come on over to my place" to "The neighbors know my name"...from "I was made to Love her" to "No Hands". I'm not going to even give my computer digital chlamydia by even posting the lyrics to that last one, I read them and I think I need a penicillin eyewash...sigh. And these aren't songs that you have to buy the album to hear on the B side, these have been in Billboards top 10.

I of all people understand that every generation has changes in the music art form, from jazz to soul for example, but what kind of progression have we made when our music does nothing but uplift everything that's wrong with our culture and society? The artists with the MOST airplay and attention in mainstream are the ones that have given nothing of value to this generation. Case in point, picture this... when this years current HS graduates have their 20 year reunion, some their music artists rotation is going to be:

Nicki Minaj
Drake
Rick Ross
Waka Flaka Fla....oh who gives a hell with a name like that...
Lil Wayne
Wiz Khalifa


Yep...I can see nurses and chiropractors on standby waiting for them to throw they backs out trying to dance to any of this stuff, maybe they can get Doans Back Pills and Ben-Gay to sponsor it.

I will be the first to admit there are good artists out there, and I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to the ones that gladly sell their souls for a gold record and their Maybach, not realizing that in the fine print it includes pulling as many of our children and young adults down as well. You have ex-project chicks (if there is such a thing) becoming "Barbies", dudes with barely a misdemeanor becoming drug kingpins with body counts that surpass WWII, and dudes still living with their mother talking about buying out bars and making it rain.

Anyway...back to the story at hand. I'm sitting in the car trying to hurry home and enjoy a truly artery clogging masterpiece of grilled burger with just enough toppings that I can say I had some vegetables today, and I turn to the supposed "R&B Station" and out comes the mellow relaxing sounds of...

"Now normally I play the nice guy.
Tonight ima show the other side.
Want me to grab you by your neck
I can tell it make you wet
Ooo girl it aint workin unless you sweatin (nowww)
Brought you back girl
Arch your back girl
Meet me upstairs, so I can beat it upstairs
Leave that teddy on
Take them panties off
Like Trey say "I Cant Help But Wait"
Got that oven pre-heated
Trey invented sex, but he aint teach you how to eat it
On ya back now, spread it out now.
Oooohhh!"


Sigh....yep...I can see that as some young ladies song for her "first time"...

(At this point I wish my cd player was working, but that's what happens when you try one of those $2.00 mixtape cd's from the guy at the gas station...damn)

Now, I'm all for artistic expression, but only when it's YOUR art being expressed...not the record labels with their hand so far up your azz that you look like a black corndog. How you going to talk about holding down blocks and pushing weight, when reality is if you really did that stuff you'd be in jail because your CONFESSION went triple platinum? And for my ahem..."female" artists like Nicki Minaj, Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, Khia, etc., that continues to allow the industry and their own sense of greed to drag down and basically corrupt the young ladies coming up that are trying to emulate them, I have one thing to say:

"You are hereby sentenced to 6 months of home confinement, where you will be required to listen only to Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, Chaka Khan, Fugees-era Lauryn Hill, and for some variety...Teena Marie. You will then have 4 weeks of watching nothing but YouTube videos of the young ladies you have influenced shaking their azzes, so you can see the damage you've done. Then you will be placed on "Mic Probation", whereas you can only do duets with established and RESPECTED female artists until you learn how to act."


There is a video I saw that sums up this whole thing perfectly, I would post the video here, but I know I'd be shut down 4 minutes later. I'm going to post the link, but keep in mind 2 things:
1. It is definitely NOT safe for work...language and some graphic images.
2. The language is bad, but the point he's making is very valid.

Here's the link, just copy and paste it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOtFcuDtOLU

Anyway....I'm not hating the players of the game, in fact I'm not even hating the game itself....
I'm hating the fact that most don't even realize it IS a game...

Anyway, I have a bottle of Cisco flavored Snapple and chocolate covered lithium waiting on me, with some Harold Melvin playing in the background, so I'm out ya'll.

I would say the usual "This is only my opinion, blah blah blah..." but I'm not, because honestly...I don't care, and neither do the rest of voices.

Until then, remember this:

Monday, February 21, 2011

The Revolution will NOT be televised…due to lack of Nielsen ratings...



As I sat here enjoying a nice day day off courtesy of our former Presidents, I ended up flipping thru the tv and realized something…black Television now really aint sh*t. Now before some of yall go hard and say we do have quality programming let me ask you this; name one quality show that doesn’t have us buffoning or extra dramatic? It’s ok….I’ll wait…
We used to have decent shows that actually reflected some true aspect of black culture and family, even when it was a comedy. We may have forgotten or glossed over them but here are a few:
• Good Times: The family unit remained strong even they didn’t have much of anything
• Cosby Show: Showed that middle class was nothing to be afraid of, and you could be well off and still stay true to being black. I admit they did push the boundries of what we could relate to as a whole, but the message was always there.
• Different World: College?? Yeah, that show made HBCU’s cool to aspire to going to, hence more of us wanted to go to college.
• Fresh Prince of Bel Air: Upper Class blacks that still had real issues, centered around the very real topic of family stepping in to raise a child when his own mother couldn’t.

These are shows that showed it was ok to struggle, and that content of character was more important than material gain or wealth. An entire generation grew up with these and went on to let these shows help shape them into the people they are now. You see them everyday, grinding hard to provide for their families, starting businesses, shaping policy, etc. That’s because their role models actually offered REAL lessons they could carry with them, unlike todays generation. I’m not exactly bashing current offerings of tv shows, but I will kind of smack them around a bit. We’ve become a generation of people that believe that wisdom and life lessons can come from people that were nobodies yesterday, but today are “stars”. These Antoine Dodsons of our time are allowed to perpetuate unscripted ignorance and we eat it up like it’s the best thing since fried chicken, when in reality it’s the appetizer of a ignorance buffet with a main course of mental genocide.

I’m not going to point a finger and say any particular show that began the downward slide of our televised media but I will say that WE are all complicit in it. We haven’t demanded better from the writers or the networks to put out quality productions, and we actually take whatever they give us ( WB Network anyone??? ). We have nothing to relate to except for coonery and buffoonery and bootleg versions of shows other networks did already. ( College Hill –vs- Real World…I rest my point ). Now I know some of you will point to “The Game” as quality drama programming, and while it might be…can we relate to that more than “The Cosby Show”, “Good Times”, or even “Family Matters”? Let’s see, most blacks live in a middle to low income status, yet “The Game” is one of the highest rated shows for our demographic. There are 1103 black players in the NFL, and 346 in the NBA that brings us to a total of 1449 for the both. According to the last census, there are 39,603,844 blacks in the US, which means that the best show we can ask them to give us is something that only .00003% of us can relate to…think about that.

We’ve been hoodwinked and sold out by networks that claim to be for “us” but could really give a damn less about anything other than our spending power. Look at these networks and tell me if any of “our” networks have a nightly news program, once again…I’ll wait. This partially rolls over to “our” movies as well, but I would require a whole different bottle of Ritalin for that one ( do we REALLY need another Big Mommas House…how about another Love Jones instead? ), and I just got to the point that I realized there is no good way to make Prozac Jello Shots…so I don’t want to have a setback today.

So unless we collectively stand up and demand better and more realistic shows, the revolution will not be televised….unless it’s on at 3am, cuz we’re too busy watching Real Basketball Wives and Real Housewives of ATL/DC/Orange County/Boise/Tupelo...etc...

Enjoy your evening...I'm going back to watching "Cooley High"...sigh

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Setting up house...

Welcome to my house...I'm (kinda )affectionately known as Bitter Brutha, and this will be a place where as the title suggests, I'll wax psuedo-philosophic on various topics.  I just moved in so allow me a moment to get the place setup for company...

MORE COMING SOON.....
(I always wanted to say that....)