I figured everyone would get a lot of entertainment value out of this. I think C.Brown is probably the best known re-creator of Michael Jackson artistry. Ive always admired the young mans talent in the dance arena. Thanks to silly BET and Jay-z (see previous post) we didn't get to see something like this at the network awards immediately following M.Jackson's death, the timing could have been impeccable for C.Brown.
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Thank You Mr. West
Much of this has been through the wringer already and im going to approach this with a sense of delicacy. Kanye's actions of taking the microphone from Taylor Swift was nothing that i condone and i actually feel it was out of pocket. However most of life is layered and this is no different, occasionally things get in the way and nullify the good intentions or scramble the hearts meaning.
I've heard people say that he is pompous and they will never support him... but i think that's the perspective of someone who doesn't see the complete scope of the situation. First lets make this point Taylor won "Best Female Video" and Beyonce proceeds to win "Video of the Year". This is like saying you didn't make the playoff but you won the title, totally paradoxical. Of all the people i have talked to, not a single person has been able to make sense of this for me. MTV is the same network that a couple of years ago gave Britney Spears the main stage at the VMAs and gave Kanye a side room to perform in. Here is the context, Britney had not been doing anything but rehab, she hadn't been making music and she was definitely out of game shape to even return on a national stage such as that. It is utterly ridiculous to surrender her the stage in denial of Kanye who was killing the networks and radio alike with his Graduation album.
You see MTV plays politics and charades, for an honest and authentic artist this is your greatest fear. Kanye doesn't have a malicious bone in his body concerning music, he loves it, perhaps to a fault. His gripe is completely with MTV not with Taylor, i don't think in his tactless rant he meant to decry Taylor, she was merely a byproduct of the fight with the network which is part of the machine. He actual prefaces his declaration with "yo Taylor Im really happy for you ..." He meant everything he said, he really was happy for Taylor. See the thing with Ye is that he perhaps is honest to a detriment. If he were to craft his method better perhaps his blow would have landed more effectively and the public would not be blinded by his incurtious actions. But trust me his heart is in the right place. Just like when Kanye stuck up for the people in Katrina with the George Bush comment, the man honestly means well. The most intriguing facet of this is that he fought for someone else. And not to say that Ye is the only one passionate about his craft (because he's not) but he one of the few within his circle that is passionate enough along with a platform to keep the validity of music achievements. If you follow the mans career, when he came out on his first album he said " at the tender age of six she was arrested for the sit-ins, with that in my blood i was born to be different" referring to his grandfather taking his mother with him to the sit-ins. He believes in standing up for what he considers are the ills of the music game. And unfortunately that is something that i cannot be mad at, granted he could certainly have crafted his tactic better. Generally we forget that everything has two sides, if Kanye wasn't the dominant personality he is, we would never know his name. He had to basically kick the door in because nobody was even giving him a shot with his music career. Certainly becoming more refined would serve him well but when you allow people to be themselves you must accept the good with the bad.
I've watched the Taylor video that won. MTV is "reaching". I'll leave it at that. And its not about how many albums the person sold its about the video and "Single ladies" has penetrated darn near every culture to the point where they spoofed it on Saturday Night Live, that's penetrating. Whether we think the video was great or not the impact was certainly monolithic and obviously MTV agrees giving her the "Video of the Year" award. There is certainly contradiction there and for honest people (trust me I know) it eats you alive when people are deceptive. Some people have cynically responded that he knew what person to do that to and that he calculated this. I can't argue his calculations or not, but you would be hard pressed to get the proper factors to align again. Kanye ONSTAGE next to a microphone, overt bias occurs, network has previously snubbed him. You can make a case either way.
I watched his apology on Leno and he emphasized that he has nothing against Taylor and feels tremendously horrid for degrading her music ability and her moment because those weren't his intentions. He would never want to take anything away from people musically, that would be counter productive to his quest. He simply has too much love and passion for music to watch people politic'it. I don't think people really understand K.West and just because he isn't always politically correct doesn't make him a bad guy. I personally think we need more Kanye's. We all hear of the ills of the music industry and how biased it can be. I've watched other artist gripe about it and nobody ever does anything and for that matter i can't particularly take exception when someone finally steps up and says something. Kanye isn't quite jaded like most of the world, remember that approach we all had as children, when things were wrong we said so; we didn't look at life and say "oh this isn't the right time somebody might get offended". He often holds that same approach. Ye doesn't do this for fame or glitz, as a matter of fact he hates seeing the paparazzi and the like. In his apology he said "i have to accept that i am a celebrity", indicating that he fights with this fact; in his brain he wants to be "A real boy" and live in a real world. Any mistakes made blame it on the mind not the heart. Remember "Everything im not made me everything i am"
I've heard people say that he is pompous and they will never support him... but i think that's the perspective of someone who doesn't see the complete scope of the situation. First lets make this point Taylor won "Best Female Video" and Beyonce proceeds to win "Video of the Year". This is like saying you didn't make the playoff but you won the title, totally paradoxical. Of all the people i have talked to, not a single person has been able to make sense of this for me. MTV is the same network that a couple of years ago gave Britney Spears the main stage at the VMAs and gave Kanye a side room to perform in. Here is the context, Britney had not been doing anything but rehab, she hadn't been making music and she was definitely out of game shape to even return on a national stage such as that. It is utterly ridiculous to surrender her the stage in denial of Kanye who was killing the networks and radio alike with his Graduation album.
You see MTV plays politics and charades, for an honest and authentic artist this is your greatest fear. Kanye doesn't have a malicious bone in his body concerning music, he loves it, perhaps to a fault. His gripe is completely with MTV not with Taylor, i don't think in his tactless rant he meant to decry Taylor, she was merely a byproduct of the fight with the network which is part of the machine. He actual prefaces his declaration with "yo Taylor Im really happy for you ..." He meant everything he said, he really was happy for Taylor. See the thing with Ye is that he perhaps is honest to a detriment. If he were to craft his method better perhaps his blow would have landed more effectively and the public would not be blinded by his incurtious actions. But trust me his heart is in the right place. Just like when Kanye stuck up for the people in Katrina with the George Bush comment, the man honestly means well. The most intriguing facet of this is that he fought for someone else. And not to say that Ye is the only one passionate about his craft (because he's not) but he one of the few within his circle that is passionate enough along with a platform to keep the validity of music achievements. If you follow the mans career, when he came out on his first album he said " at the tender age of six she was arrested for the sit-ins, with that in my blood i was born to be different" referring to his grandfather taking his mother with him to the sit-ins. He believes in standing up for what he considers are the ills of the music game. And unfortunately that is something that i cannot be mad at, granted he could certainly have crafted his tactic better. Generally we forget that everything has two sides, if Kanye wasn't the dominant personality he is, we would never know his name. He had to basically kick the door in because nobody was even giving him a shot with his music career. Certainly becoming more refined would serve him well but when you allow people to be themselves you must accept the good with the bad.
I've watched the Taylor video that won. MTV is "reaching". I'll leave it at that. And its not about how many albums the person sold its about the video and "Single ladies" has penetrated darn near every culture to the point where they spoofed it on Saturday Night Live, that's penetrating. Whether we think the video was great or not the impact was certainly monolithic and obviously MTV agrees giving her the "Video of the Year" award. There is certainly contradiction there and for honest people (trust me I know) it eats you alive when people are deceptive. Some people have cynically responded that he knew what person to do that to and that he calculated this. I can't argue his calculations or not, but you would be hard pressed to get the proper factors to align again. Kanye ONSTAGE next to a microphone, overt bias occurs, network has previously snubbed him. You can make a case either way.
I watched his apology on Leno and he emphasized that he has nothing against Taylor and feels tremendously horrid for degrading her music ability and her moment because those weren't his intentions. He would never want to take anything away from people musically, that would be counter productive to his quest. He simply has too much love and passion for music to watch people politic'it. I don't think people really understand K.West and just because he isn't always politically correct doesn't make him a bad guy. I personally think we need more Kanye's. We all hear of the ills of the music industry and how biased it can be. I've watched other artist gripe about it and nobody ever does anything and for that matter i can't particularly take exception when someone finally steps up and says something. Kanye isn't quite jaded like most of the world, remember that approach we all had as children, when things were wrong we said so; we didn't look at life and say "oh this isn't the right time somebody might get offended". He often holds that same approach. Ye doesn't do this for fame or glitz, as a matter of fact he hates seeing the paparazzi and the like. In his apology he said "i have to accept that i am a celebrity", indicating that he fights with this fact; in his brain he wants to be "A real boy" and live in a real world. Any mistakes made blame it on the mind not the heart. Remember "Everything im not made me everything i am"
Saturday, September 6, 2008
My Award
I got an award from fellow blogger expert Autumn Jones and i have to do my due dillegence. The award is for "blogs whose content and design are brilliant as well as creative."
The rules are as follows:
1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (we do it different on the Sofa though) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’
4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).
5. And then we pass it on!
My Slick Six consists of:
The rules are as follows:
1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (we do it different on the Sofa though) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’
4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).
5. And then we pass it on!
My Slick Six consists of:
1. Autumn Jones
3. Lupe Fiasco
4. SlamxHype
5. Yeezy
6. BBC
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Such a Long way to Go
On June 24th the BET Awards were held in Los Angeles, CA. Standard procedure was followed for the ethnic award show, several musical performances with a few awards sprinkled in between. Among all the gripes i could make about the show i will save the remaining 34 and just vocalize the one which i feel is one of the most indicative of suppressed issues.
For the male hip hop award, my man Lupe Fiasco was not nominated. For a gentlemen who has contributed some incredible, innovative, and prolific pieces to a musical genre that is devoid of such attributes it excavates my heart to see him overlooked. For as much concept and musical structure as he puts into his music it is funny (or not) how he can win a grammy but he cant get a BET Award! Not as if he needs a BET statue would validate him, although i feel it would dignify their awards, it just shows our lack of direction. As a side note i should mention that the audience wasn't really clapping when they were listing the nominees and they said Missy Elliot but the people went crazy when they mentioned Trina. Missy puts exponentially more work into her music than Trina and it shows, however i digress.
People have the liberty to create whatever they would like, and that is fine by me. The more appalling fact is what the people support. When you have a song and you can say "that song is just like song x" then it really isn't that creative. Take the hip hop condition at the moment for example, one person makes something that's hot and then you have 10 replicas behind it, yeah the songs may sound catchy at the time because that's just like the other song that was hot. But are you really that talented if your song is just like many others on the radio. At that point you haven't created anything, you have just issued your version of it. On the contrary when you have something innovative and pioneering that's put together then thats what should be rewarded. That is pushing the envelope and showing true musical talent. So back to my man Lupe, his music is novel, articulate, and musically authentic as a song and not just a track. If you haven't noticed it really isn't about Lupe exclusively, the roots to this soliloquy run deeper than that.
Music is meant to do a lot of things such as evoke fun, tears, reflections, and many other feelings. Most of us like to have a good time and i am no different, but my deepest rift lies in the fact that we consistently like our music dumbed down. It doesn't appear that as a culture we enjoy our simple, fun, and exuberant tracks as well as the tracks that supply the content, we are always stuck on the same gear. As I state all the time, when people feel connected to the music thats when its potency is highest, and as fictitious as some of these tracks are it amazes me that people are able to label them as "real talk" and people don't realize how uncool and serious some of that talk is until it jumps off the paper into real life.
I will slow it down and finish with these few paragraphs. We are stuck in a bad gear and driving nowhere fast, at some point you have to take the hip hop car out of park and drive around the block and see whats really happening. Oh, and reward the people who are really putting their creativity and concept into their music, that's probably why Kanye was always so upset about awards, i would be too if people were winning awards for music i could put out in my sleep and i put intricate amount of details into my pieces and the awards are being handed to the other guys. It just highlights the idea that you can't give a kid filet mignon and a burger and expect him to pick the filet, he just doesn't know any better. Im gone!
Just had to get that off my chest...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Oscars 2008!
Okay this post is for my movie heads. I don't get a whole lot of movie viewing in, however i usually at least know the names of the movies. I heard a whole lot of buzz about Juno. And what is There will be blood? Why are there such dynamic performances in these movies i.e. best original screenplay and best lead actor but i never even heard of these movies.
Where are my personal movie critics "The Records" aka Netflix Royalty, because i need some answers. The eminent question however is, who got robbed? It happens at every award show. So i want to know who was the snub this time, and give it to me straight don't hold back.
Also what is the time frame in order for the movie to be considered, because my favorite movie of all time 300 wasn't even mentioned in the mistakes column. Is it just not our time yet (notice i said our like i was in the movie, I WAS), do we have to wait till next year to shine or what. And don't say we missed our boat, cause i don't want to hear that!
Oops, this is real one:
I need answers people, let me know something. I need reactions to the Oscars. If i could only see one of the movies that won some sort of an award, which one would it be?
And who is Oscar anyway?
Oh yeah shout out to Jeff, Myron, and UG.
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