The Air Max ’95 remains one of Nike’s most enduring styles desspite the advancements made in the air soles up to this point. That is due to the original colorway of this shoe. The neon accents alomg with the 3M details were fantastically understated. The undersole identification of the air bubble PSI rating made this shoe a technical piece of equipment.
Tech gear was at the height of fashion in the streets. Polo Ralph Lauren, Northface, Timberland, and Nike were introducing Gore-Tex, 3M, and other futuristic fabrics to their product lines. The new millenium was in front of us and all of these fashion brands envisioned a glorious day-glo Y2K. It’s now ten years after 2000 and we are still looking forward to a new ’95.
Unlike my blog brethren, the great Combat Jack, I see the Kat Stacks storyline not as a trainwreck tragedy, but as the last of the great American success stories. Only in America can a whoare, who may very well have a learning disability, be able to negotiate for herself the lifestyle of her choosing.
Here I am going to a panel in Washington D.C. to advise people on how to get a foothold in the realm of social media and marketing and I stay one paycheck(not from any internets endeavors) away from eating at a soupkitchen. The Kat Stacks website is as basic as any basic bitch might devise and it is a murderer for referral traffic.
The sky is the limit for this chick because there is no line that she won’t cross. Kat Stacks’ is getting movie deals that aren’t pr0n? Kat Stacks is functionally illiterate and also securing book deals. This is the rapture ladies and gentlemen.
The cult of celebrity has found their savior and she is a hot mess-iah…
At the end of the day, we are all just suckers for love. Keep stackin’ your paper Kat.
Last summer Rafi Kam turned me on to the alt-rap wunderkinds Das Racist. In many ways they are who I can imagine I would have been if I had the talent and reckless abandon to make rap music, or any music for that matter. Smart, funny and incredibly talented at appearing NOT to give a fux, all the while, REALLY giving a fux. The world is a cruel place and Das Racist wears a coat of armor made of unforced farce. But don’t call these dudes ‘joke rap’ either or you will be missing the point. Das Racist is reality rap. Albeit altered reality. I fux with these dudes. For real.
Das Racist just released a free album called ‘Shut Up, Dude’ and it highlights their zany, focused, multi-culti-influenced rap style. If I had to put this album in a genre I would call it coke rap, but not where you are selling it, where you are taking it. The mistake you are making is looking to find a reference point for Das Racist. Can you imagine what the love children of Afrika Bambaata and Ayn Rand might rhyme like?
It’s called Das Racist, now shut up, dude…
Das Racist – ‘Who’s That Brooown!’
Das Racist – ‘You Oughta Know’
Das Racist – ‘$1 Can’
DP.com fanboy videos are in order. You’ve been warned.
TWitter users have a popular hashtag designation when they want to “tweet” about music they are listening to. They type #MM for ‘music Monday’. It’s silly groupthink (we’ll talk about this later) similar to the #FF (follow Friday) hashtag, but at the end of the day the internets is a bastion for silly groupthink memes.
Maybe that’s why I bought two(2) vinyl copies of Gil Scott-Heron’s latest album ‘I’m New Here’. Maybe I thought I could zig while the rest of the world zags. I suppose the idea of trying to be an individual is also groupthink on some level. I like the vinyl edition mostly because of the art that was issued inside of the album jacket.
Gil Scott-Heron is an amazingly honest artist. In the sense that what you see is what you get and the pretense is removed and thrown away. His greatest characteristic in his music is his frailty, his vulnerability. I think Gil Scott-Heron’s honesty with this characteristic is what makes him so great. He sits before you naked [ll], yet unafraid. There is nothing that you can steal from him that he won’t just give you of his own volition.
Editor’s note: Our good friend Willis Still Sunsweet forwarded this review he posted online elsewhere…
Had Gil Scott-Heron’s (b. 1949) superb I’m New Here not come out recently, this might have been a threnody. Sixteen years had passed since Heron’s previous album, 1994’s invigorating Spirits; more than a decade lay between that and its predecessor, Moving Target. In the interim he’d been adduced “proto-rap”— reductive praise for America’s greatest living blues singer but that doesn’t get it all either; Heron’s brilliance is too vast to summarize.
Gil Scott-Heron’s 1970 debut, Small Talk At Lenox & 125th, set the lyrical tone, a black Phil Ochs via Langston Hughes, “Whitey On The Moon” with spare percussion grooves. His 1971 follow-up, Pieces Of A Man, was the musical future, with pianist/composer Brian Jackson’s avant soul-jazz arrangements allowing Heron to speak and increasingly sing of everything: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” “Home Is Where The Hatred Is,” “Who’ll Pay Reparations On My Soul,” “We Almost Lost Detroit,” “B-Movie,” an epic evisceration of Ronald Reagan and more. Then darkness veiled his eyes.
In November 2001, as New York State prisoner number 01R5191, Heron began serving eighteen months for “Crim Poss Contr Substance 5th.” In July 2006, as 06R3165, twenty-six months more; again, possession of cocaine. Which travails make I’m New Here all the more staggering. He stares down Robert Johnson and Bobby “Blue” Bland, tries to write a letter but can’t get past “Dear Baby, how are you?” He triumphs anyway. Welcome back, brother.
‘I’m New Here‘ is unlike any R & B we are accustomed to because the ‘B’ that normally represents the shallow themes of selfish bullshit has been supplanted with the spiritual ‘B’ that belongs to blues music. The blues isn’t supposed to make you feel bad either. The blues should make you reflect on what you can do to make your soul complete. The blues is your humanity and everything that you love. I’ll cherish my memory of Gil Scott-Heron as the most honest, real artist I ever listened to and I thank him for reminding me of my great-grandma.
The Highline Ballroom has given me an official calendar page. Honestly, I can’t believe that it is really going down in two(2) weeks!?! I think I know what it feels like to be awaiting the birth of your first child. Don’t tell anyone, but I still don’t have an official sponsor yet to help me pay the artists. It looks like I’m gonna go back into foreclosure over this one. Haha. I’m gonna have to sell all my kicks and ‘Lo gear to keep myself above water.
It will all be worth it when this event consummates my vision. It was too epic to go down anywhere other than Manhattan. Several blocks away from a store called BFO which was a legendary Polo come up spot. Humanities High School is only a few blocks away from the Highline Ballroom. We used to trawl the city schools for other kids rocking official hardbody gear and get after them if they weren’t about it. The times haven’t changed that much except I’m too fat to outrun the police. So I buy my fly shit now.
Meyhem Lauren copps his fly shit as well. In this episode of the Sneaker Fiends Unite! NYC tour Meyhem went all the way in copping a pair of purple(eggplant) Foams as well as the mint/grey 95s. I almost copped a pair of $40 New Balance, but the spectre of Sean Price’s disapproval weighed down my decision. The white Mars Blackmon Spiz’ikes were $100 but I passed on those as well in the hopes of a $75 come up for that pair. Jamaica Ave is still the Ave tho’ and there were tables holding $60 joints.
Timeless Truth took us into Corona to visit some of the old spots along Junction Boulevard. The kicks game was lacking at V.I.M. and Robert. We rolled thru the famous ‘hood boutique called All The Right. This spot sells gear and graf equipment. Corona is still keeping it underground rebel style even with the record store now being a video game shop. Sneaker Fiends Unite x Meyhem Lauren x Timeless Truth had to conclude with a freestyle on the corner of Junction and 37th Ave. I’m just surprised JuJu didn’t end up on the tape. The ‘Lo-End Theory is going to be EPIC.
