Big up to VOODOO RAY and the folks at the NIKE I.D. Design Studio.
Here is a sneak peek at two joints that will be hot fire in the streets this winter. The NIKE x DALLASPENN.COM ‘Brownies’ are like that hashish for your feet. Using premium leathers and exclusive midsole colorways these joints are sure to put necks on a swivel. NIKE I.D. is graciously giving each pair a second set of colored laces.
Neon for the Air Max 1’s
Laser (blue) for the A.M. 90’s
JEROME BAKER Stand Up!!!
MANTRONIX ‘Needle To The Groove’ cover by Gnome/Gemini
Did I tell you that Hip-Hop should have been diagnosed with the cancer of greed from the moment that the SugarHill Gang dropped their classic track ‘Rapper’s Delight’. If one of the members of the group had not willingly stolen GRANDMASTER CAZ’ rhymebook and brought it with him to the studio them dudes wouldn’t have had shit to say. Hip-Hop stopped being art a long time ago. It’s been dead for a long time too. All I see now are the cultural hustlers picking scraps off the carcass just like vultures. I see you out there…
When COMBAT JACK expressed himself last week I was going to let that be the end of the story since he bodied the dude who had been the lightning rod for the divisive seperatist talk. I don’t come from a place in Hip-Hop where there is a thing such as old school or new school, ’70s or ’80s baby. Where I come from there is only fresh and wack, good or bad. Don’t buy product or ideas from a seperatist. They might have on a fitted cap and a hoodie, but trust me they are only posing. They aren’t really Hip-Hop. Another thing that has killed Hip-Hop has been the people with no talent thirsty to wear the laminate that reads ‘Talent’. If any of you young dunns out there are trying to put yourself onstage please don’t put your trust in management that puts their name before yours.
Whenever I see an A & R or a manager that has a thirsty gut for the ‘Talent’ laminate I feel sorry for the artist that they are supposed to be working for. The artists needs are not going to be addressed when the A & R or the managment is doing everything other than working on the artists’ project. I watched my peoples work at Rawkus and bust their ass for the stable of musicians that were on that label. MOS, TALIB, PHAROE and the immortal BIG L had a team of people behind them that could have easily wanted to jump around on stage with a microphone they damn selves, but those cats played their position and rocked their lane. Some of y’all might know some of the names and that is my point right there. For the true backbone and support staff in the game there is no lust for fame that supersedes the desire to have the artist top billin’. If you are an A & R or an artist manager I should not know your name. Even if you have groomed dozens of artists for the big show I still should not know your name. If I know of you but don’t know of any musicians you have prepared for the grind then you are fronting. There ain’t no future in fronting.
Speaking about fronting, what it do with all the ghostwriting in the crap game? I stopped by ESKAY and picked up the Dre/Crooked I track and I thought it was weird that someone was spitting something obviously written to be performed by someone else. Crooked I didn’t even apend the verses to sound as if her were an emissary of Dre. He spit the rhymes as if HE was Dre. What the fuck is that about? I know that Dre has dudes writing for him since forever. Cube, D.O.C., Snoop even Jigga gave him a song or two, but this episode calls into question the rumors that I have heard for years that Dre doesn’t even produce his tracks.
What is real and originally created in the crap music industry now? Which is worse, biting someone’s rhymes or writing someones’ lyrics? Is it fair for those artists that create the persona and toil in background? Or does all of this go back to my point at the top of the page? Is this the lane that some folks choose for themselves or is it being assigned to them? Hip-Hop lost its way in the bright lights of big business and was run over like a deer caught dead in the headlights of a corporate Mack truck. All that’s left now is a rotting carcass for the vultures to pick away.
Labor Day for me was always the time of year to refocus and prioritize on what it was that I wanted for myself for the rest of the year. I typically spent the summer playing the field of love, but in late August my hormones turned up the frequency so I didn’t end up with zero during the snowswept snuggle and cuddle winter months. I preferred a cutie from one of the Black colleges that occupied the mid-Atlantic states because I could always hop on the turnpike for a few hours and I still had my relative autonomy while I remained in New York City. I would have sworn to you that NYC had the greatest collection of redbone cuties until SOUNDWAVE, RANDY and I came across a pack of hotties from Howard University during the 1989 Labor Day Greekfest at Virginia Beach.
RANDY was S.W.’s cousin who lived in VA Beach. RANDY’s folks put us up for the weekend and we all spent our time on the strip bothering anything that would give us the time of day. As usual, I have to be the clown of the crew and the sassy sisters didn’t mind putting me in my place when I got too sideways. My G was always too futuristic for young girls anyhoo. I needed some college meat to test my mettle. I complimented toenail polish colors and whoever had done the best job in shaving herself. My dudes and I were having a good enough time just posting up on the boardwalk when along came this crew of cocksmashers. I call them that because they all had their walk together and proper. You know that walk that a young lady has when she is trying to tell everybody that she has been doing her ‘Kegel’ exercises? These little girls had that walk and they had the prettiest eyelashes of any crew that was on the strip that weekend. These broads had that kryptonite.
The next step for the dudes and I was to get to know this crew of young sweet hotness, but how do you break into a girl group that is seven deep without getting dissed and dismissed? This is my specialty. I attack the alpha females top lieutenant with my charm. Not the alpha female, because she will have to show out for her girls to prove her leadership dominance, and not the weakest link among the ladies who is still slightly uncomfortable in her skin and may not know how to receive a compliment yet. The second in charge was a tender little brownskin sister with a battery pack bubble backside just as sweet as a piece of chocolate cake. In my mind, I am sure I made that sound where your lips smack just as you are about to enjoy something tasty.
“Hello Ms. Beautastic, you look just like my favorite cup of coffee, dark and sweet.”
Okay, I agree, but that is how you do it people — confident cornballness. The laugh of the sister and some of her friends meant that I hit my target. The next step was for me to introduce my dudes. S.W. and RANDY are both good lookin’ dudes so that wasn’t the problem in as much as there were seven ladies and only three of us. Don’t play yourself into thinking that ratio means menage status because most college girls in the ’80s and ’90s that weren’t into coke weren’t into swinging either. Don’t get me wrong, college girls were always giving up mean head and booty pie, but unless they were from Detroit you weren’t gonna be able to freak out.
None of these ladies were from the ‘D’ either. They were all Cali broads that were attending Howard University. They were all freshmen and they had heard about the Greekfest on campus so they decided to drive down. 18yr olds with their own cars 3000 miles from home. I give credit to these Cali broads for being as gangster as they were. They drove to the beach on a whim and they didn’t even have a hotel room. We all hung together for the rest of the day into the evening. Later that evening when the strip was fully crowded and blown out a riot began. It was so crazy that Army helicopters and National Guardsmen cut off access to the beach. Since we were all stuck together we decided to share a hotel room. Real talk is that all 10 of us slept together on two queen size beds and no one popped off anything.
What that night allowed us was carte blanche to hang with these sisters at Howard U. anytime we wanted. S.W. and I ‘borrowed’ a Maserati from Greenich Village and went to their Homecoming weekend. The ladies brought us to a brunch spot called Julios that served chicken, waffles and mimosas for only $7 bucks a person. Those Howard U. chicks knew how to have a good time too. Almost twenty years later I am still friends with them. Even the ones that I’m not friends with anymore.
Too bad youth is wasted on the young.
Best record in the bigs boyee!
Just wanted to tell you humps that WILLIE RANDOLPH is going to be the National League Manager of the Year.
Carry on.
I am on my sneaker grind extra heavy this weekend. I am visiting the NIKE I.D. Design Studio today as well as some of the other local haunts throughout the city. Air Max is the order of the day. I want to see if I can come up on something that isn’t blown out of the water just yet. I am thinking about having a party at I.D. for the Air Moire+. All my generation iPod peeps are welcome (’70s, ’80s & ’90s babies). Holla Black if you are interested and I will set a date.
This Sneaker Fiends post is to celebrate a couple of pairs of Air Max 90 that I copped over the summer. We already kicked it about the Fantastic Four A.M. 90’s back in June and they didn’t disappoint me either. The whole series is pretty tight and the Doctor Doom Foamposite Pros are sick even if they aren’t in the right colorway.
NIKE hits another home run with a Marvel Comics collabo. The joints I am putting you up on in this post are the new Dark Phoenix Air Max 90’s. Some of you heads are gonna trip and say that these sneakers are really the STEVE NASH Quickstrikes, but that is what you can call them if you want to. For me, these sneakers were made by NIKE because they read my mind and they know how much I loved Jean Grey even though she was manipulated by the Phoenix force.
Don’t hate me because NIKE shares a telepathic bond with me. The people in Beaverton have been riding with me for years and this instance is no different. Premium leather is in effect all over the shoe as well as a custom insole representing the Phoenix force. These jawnts is straight flames!
Fire red and orange all over your feets boyeee! The Phoenix is reborn. Air Max forever.
