Here’s some of that YouTube nonsense to tide you over whilst I create some drops for tomorrow,
At 1:28 homegirl shows out.
Sistas, step your booty pop game up.
White has been coming out with the Black girl seat for a minute, but up until this point they could never twerk it for real. This video is a watershed moment in racial understanding. Like BARACK OBAAMA at the D.N.C.
Coincidence?
I think not.
At the height of my comic collection era I had four(4) copies of Hulk #181. This is the first issue that Wolverine appears in a comic storyline. I bought this comic at every turn of my economic fortune. From my first paper route up until the point I was traveling O.T. to Virginia and North Carolina with them “things”. I had the comic in several different grades. My mint condition copy was bomb-proofed in a mylar plastic bag with an acid-free backing board in a stiff vinyl sleeve.
When I had to sell off my collection my heart was broken in half to lose the copies of the JOHN BYRNE X-Men run, the FRANK MILLER Daredevil run, the NEAL ADAMS X-Men, the NEAL ADAMS Batman run, the one-offs and cameos of my favorite characters and artists in different titles. I was given several hundred bucks for well over a thousand issues with books like X-Men #94, Daredevil #158, Hulk #181 the individual Dark Knight Returns series and several more issues with multiple copies.
Marvel Comics is returning the love back to me and all of their classic storyline fans by creating direct to DVD animated origins episodes. COMBAT JACK sent me this link from a preview at ComicCon 2008…
Old fanboys like myself and young new stans can rejoice together as our favorite characters are pulled off the pages and given new life on the screens. And I don’t feel too bad about selling off all of my books now.
It looks like another week where I am popping No-Doz like Tic-Tacs.
Blitz x Embassy Ensemble x DJ Spinna = You do the math!
S.O.B.’s
Varick Street @ Houston Street, NYC
8pm
Editor’s note: Koe Rodriguez is a Hip-Hop historian and graphic artist. He lives and works in New Jersey. Special thanks to one of the coolest and most talented artists in the game, Nicer/TATS for his contribution to this piece.
In ‘hoods across America, “Memorial Walls” are as common as barber shops and bodegas. We’ve seen them time-and-time again. Whether big or small; crude shrines or elaborate murals; on tenement walls or corner stores; and usually accompanied by an array of candles, flowers and personal items. While some memorials reflect a bout loss to a fatal disease or an unfortunate accident; many are crime related and harsh reminders of how fleeting life is in the ghetto.
R.I.P. walls have been around for quite some time and commemorating the dead can be traced back to the pharaohs and prior. Hip-Hop is no different. Paying homage to a fallen comrade, loved one, or an influential figure has always been expressed in one medium or another. For as long as I’ve been documenting graffiti culture, and that’s going back to Reganomics, graff writers have acknowledged the dead perhaps like no other. In 1981, Lady Pink and Iz The Wiz’s eulogy to John Lennon and a host of deceased rocks stars consisted of two beautiful top-to-bottom, end-to-end subway cars and let an entire city know that even so-called outlaws mourned. Ten years later, West & Serge FC dedicated their upside down burners to fellow friends, Sane, Shadi and money maker, Lil Edgar on graff’s holiest grounds: The Graffiti Hall of Fame.
Recently, I rapped with graff heavyweight, Nicer, of the famed TATS Crew, arguably the illest R.I.P. muralist in the game, on the crew’s history of honoring the dead, or what I call a “R.est I.n P.iece.” Nicer explained that his earliest recollection of the crew throwing up an R.I.P. was around 1983 or so, and totally unplanned. “We were doing a piece on a handball court in Bronx River, (laughing) illegally, and a dude came up to Bio and asked if he would throw his deceased brother Pollo up. The first real memorial wall we did was on Cypress Avenue & East 141st Street in the Bronx for a guy named Tony, who was murdered, and then set on fire in his car.”
The crew would soon be approached by fellow Bronx bomber and budding rapper, Crack, aka Fat Joe, to memorialize close friend and resident hustler, Tony Montana. The piece, a striking portrait on a handball court on Trinity Ave would forever be memorialized in the artwork of Joe’s debut LP, “Represent.” Although Nicer confesses that the crew paints fewer memorials (by choice) nowadays, with the continued rise in gang activity, Aids and other socioeconomic conditions affecting urban America, we can sadly expect to see more blank walls transformed into colorful tombstones real soon.
IN MEMORY OF: Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost, Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes.
See KOE RODIGUEZ’ Rest In Piece photo gallery here…
When are we gonna get another S.F.U. tour on the calendar? How about 08.30.08? I think that will be a great day to come up on some real ‘Back 2 School’ deals that the ‘hood spots are always known for. I’m sure Dr. Jay’s will have some general release butters on their $20 tables. Dr. Jay’s holds you down when the economy is fucked the fuck up.
I took a mission on Saturday to patrol Jamaica Avenue to see who had it for cheap. My real goal was to hit up the V.I.M. store on the Ave. These folks boast the best prices on general release NIKE shoes anywhere on the Ave. Jamaica Avenue is another one of the city’s great ‘hood retail destinations. You can get anything imaginable that Black kids are into wearing right now.
The patty shop on 164th stay with a line always…
When I was a kid it used to be the jewman that ran the Ave. Now its the Hindurabic dudes and Koreans. They are both a lot harder to negotiate with than the Israelis. If the Palestinian conflict had been brokered by the Israeli sneaker dealers that shit would have been over. Hamas might have spent more than they thought they would, but they would have left the shop with a free fitted cap. But I digress…
Take the F train to 169th Street (one stop before the last) or take the E train to the last stop. The hub of activity is the outside of the bus terminal on 164th Street. The street is a pedestrian walkway during the day. You can enter the Colosseum mall on 164th Street. This was the ‘hoods first indoor mall. A lot of kids got their first leather jacket from the Colosseum mall. A lot of kids got their leather jacket vicked for the first time at the Colosseum mall as well.
Jamaica Avenue is a crossroads for African Americans like nowhere else in the city. All kinds of levels of income, education and class overlap each other on the daily. The subways and the buses link hardscrabble southern Queens neighborhoods like Baisley Park and Ozone Park with well-heeled ‘hoods like Floral Park, Long Island. Eastern Queens meets East New York and so on and so forth. Jamaica Avenue was also where you could meet the finest women in the world. This is where I bagged up the grey-green eyes from Elmont and Rosedale. These chicks were not only the baddest evar, but their parents had homes with carpeted basements. If you bagged up a chick from one of the Five Towns you could effin’ retire.
My missions to scoop chicks on the Ave are long gone. The foxy lady that I am looking for today is a pair of kicks that makes me wanna copp ’em. V.I.M. had a few deals but nothing too crazy. You know they are an official ‘hood spot because the signage over their front door has been broken for years. They were holding the Wildwood ACG x AF-1’s for a nice price – $69.99. Too bad I don’t fucks with AF-1’s like that. I would copp the Mowabb ACG x AF-1 collabo for that price though.
*Reminder: I wonder what the Vault is doing with those Mowabb AF-1’s?*
Since the Ave didn’t hold anything today that I wanted to squeeze off my grip on I made a move across Queens to one of my old stomping grounds called Jackson Heights. This is the ‘hood where you can get that chica Colombiana or that chica blanca. The only drug I came to copp today though is the high I get from smelling a crispy pair still in the box. You folks already know how I get down for some colorful shit. SprintII had just the shit the addict was looking for.
I’m gonna call these my NIKE SB ‘Cherry Garcias’.
These joints are so fresh they even come with their own soundtrack.
TOMMY ROE – ‘Dizzy’
I was feeling myself[ll] since I found some fresh kicks , so I also got a shape up too.
You can hate me now.
