Social Upheaval « dallaspenn.com

Archive for the ‘Social Upheaval’ Category

DP Dot Com x OhWord Dot Com 2.0

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

Guess who’s bizzack?!? The latest video is titled ‘Bodega’ and it features OhWord Dot Com’s RAFI KAM and I doing what it is we do. It took us a lot longer to get all the clearances in order for this clip since we are doing it legal like. VIDEOMASTER CAS films us as we travel around New York City and uncover some urban treasures. RAFI and I are going hardbody after the titles of ‘Internets Celebrities’. I mean hey, since no one else claimed it we figured we should.

For most city dwellers it has become a chore to find supermercados that carry an array of fresh vegetales daily. There are megastores like Pathmark and WholeFoods, but why don’t the local bodegas keep stock in healthy foods? The only thing green, leafy and fresh in a bodega will be the mint flavored Dutch Master cigar (and surprisingly good I might add).

The bodega contains a nutritional system that can only be consumed by those with the steel lining required for all ghetto stomachs. For these people, green, leafy plants don’t provide nearly the same amount of vitamins that a two for $1 iced honey bun has. Combine that with a two for $1 Tropical Fantasy Passion Fruit Punch drink and you are looking at a year’s supply of high fructose corn syrup, all for a dollar.

Bodegas are not just essential to the ghetto food pyramid. but also especially essential to the ghetto alternate economy. This is the economy based on loose menthol cigarettes. Strangely enough their ratio is also two for $1. Without Bodegas how would preteens know which malt liquor to purchase? And where would a young gangsta buy his first set of dice? That’s why I say “Long Live The Bodega!” Or at least our video version of it.

Bodega – Directors Cut – video powered by Metacafe

Posted in Black Bullshit, C.R.E.A.M., Ghetto Celebs, No Boutros Boutros... Ghali, Social Upheaval, T.O.N.Y., When I Reminisce... | 38 Comments »

OPRAH GIVES THE GASFACE TO U.S. SCHOOLKIDS

Monday, January 8th, 2007

Let’s be clear about my feelings on OPRAH WINFREY from the gate. I don’t like her. Even though her track record for philanthropy is light years in front of the majority of megarich entertainers I’m still not impressed with her.

My problem with OPRAH is that her good works like rebuilding homes for families that lost theirs due to Hurricane Starrkeysha or the scholarships that she has issued or even when she gives her audience vehicles generate maximum publicity for her brand while actually only helping very few people. When OPRAH says that Black women are contracting AIDS disproportionately because they are sleeping with clandestinely gay men she is affecting millions of people. Negatively.

So now OPRAH tells people that she has essentially given up on the attempting to effectuate better education to America’s disenfranchised. She is a bellwether for not just American philanthropy, but the general concensus American public as well. Educating Americans requires a long term committment. The investment in the poor has lately only been for building new prisons. Philanthropists don’t just want a bigger bang for their bucks and subsequently a more colorful feather in their cap, they would love to avoid the complexities of class and race that are right upfront here in America. OPRAH has become the proverbial new ghetto pass that excuses people for ‘getting the fuck outta Dodge’.

My biggest problem with OPRAH’s remarks about the rampant materialism of inner city youth is that she is the captialist cultures’ premier cheerleader. She uses her program to basically tells us what to consume even though she receives these items free of charge. We are constantly surrounded by messages that put the only value in education as the ability to buy more stuff. Learning is not endorsed as a conduit to greater integrity, ethics or morality. The mantra that is repeated ad nauseam is “go to school, get a better job, make more money”.

Lastly… How the fuck is OPRAH gonna shit on kids because of the failure of America’s education system as if it’s the perogative of the children to determine their values? If you thought COSBY was off base for blaming the parents’ of disenfranchised youth for not promoting better values in their children then what would you think of OPRAH for blaming those that can defend themselves the least. OPRAH can spend her and her wife GAYLE’s money wherever she wants, but attacking defenseless kids on their Christmas present choices is baseless and cowardly.

How much you wanna bet OPRAH invests in prison corporations?

Posted in Black Bullshit, C.R.E.A.M., Fashion Faux Pas, Ghetto Celebs, Social Upheaval | 44 Comments »

A LETTER FROM THE MANAGEMENT

Monday, January 8th, 2007

Now that I’ve thrown up for eight consecutive days in honor of Kwaaaanzaaaa it’s time to get back to the internets. Big up to RAFI and COMBAT JACK for leaving me expletive laden messages of encouragement on my voicemail. Since the gang is all here I guess there’s nothing to it other than to do it.

Who should we bring the fire to first?

OPRAH? THE N.Y.P.D.? DEAD SADDAM? BRITNEY? WACK RAPPERS?

Rest assured that the usual suspects won’t be able to hide from us, nor will we forget to remind you of what’s truly important to us. Community. Respect. Humanity.

So let’s definetly not call this a comeback since I’ve been here for virtual years, but rest assured I am going to put the suckas in fear for the ’07.

Posted in Black Bullshit, Crappers, Ghetto Celebs, Jig Lit Review, Lust = Love, No Boutros Boutros... Ghali, Social Upheaval, Straight Laced, T.O.N.Y. | 7 Comments »

MERRY CHRISTMAS From TUPAC’s Hockey Jersey…

Sunday, December 24th, 2006

I was talking with a few kids who were way more pysched about ‘My Morning Jacket’ and ‘Panic At The Disco’ than they were about ANYTHING that was going on in rap music. It’s interesting to have a conversation about Jay-Z and Nas with people that don’t know (or care) who Peedi Crack or Nashawn are. As big a commercial juggernaut as Hip-Hop may seem it still doesn’t resonate past popular culture when you cross reference mainstream America. When I asked these kids who they thought the best rapper was they all agreed that Tupac Shakur was the “realest”.

Like it or not, and I don’t like it at all, but Tupac is the zenith for rap music in many people’s minds. It’s already been more than ten years since Tupac’s untimely death and Hip-Hop has gone on to transcend the violence that defined the period when Tupac and Biggie were killed, but we find that it now sputters in the hands on corporate mismanagement and artistry that is neither compelling nor challenging intellectually.

These are dark days for the artistic movement called Hip-Hop. Will it descend from omnipotence much like cubism and jazz have done when there were no longer significant artists to push the envelope of creativity? Hip-Hop is surely in danger, but I believe in the talent and desire of a few artists that remain in the genre. Hopefully their light will shine on as an example for a future generation of artists. Not just to save Hip-Hop, but the essence of the griots, who speak the pre-historic poems of the honored elders.

RAEKWON
The first piece in my holy trinity of rap music is Raekwon the Chef. Only Built For Cuban Links has stood the test of time as one of, if not the definitive snapshot of Hip-Hop music. The soundscape and lyrical content described a place that was battered and bruised by supremacy, but through faith in GOD it would persevere. Contained therein was the charisma and swagger of the essence of Hip-Hop. Something was being made from nothing. I can find the DNA traces of OB4CL in not just Hip-Hop music, but television and cinema as well. It’s the album that keeps giving back.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH
The second piece of Hip-Hop music’s holy trinity is the yin to Raekwon’s yang. Ghostface and Raekwon exist on the highest plane of complementary artists. This is Hip-Hop’s version of MILES and ‘TRANE. Both are virtuosos that can bland in with a larger group. To my ears, GHOSTFACE represents the evolution of Kool G Rap.

NaS
Some might argue that in terms of sheer talent NaS is the greatest Hip-Hop artist ever, but it has always been a seemingly on again off again relationship that he has with Hip-Hop that prevents me from giving him that title. There is no question in my mind that NaS, Chef and Ghost are the next generation behind RAKIM, KANE and G RAP who were the followers of CAZ, STARSKI and MELLE MEL. I anxiously await the next trinity of prophet artists to emerge. Until then, I know who killed it with his ether and his rhymebook.

THE GAME
There is a short list of emcees that give me the impression that they would rhyme for no money at all. It just means that much to them. GAYME is one of those dudes. His style continues to improve and he mainatains an intensity and purpose for his art. He constantly gives homage to the people that have influenced him almost to the point that it become annoying. His age and his attitude all point to an upside still for his potential. That and the fact he can always find an issue to grind his axe on means he should remain interesting to listen to in the new year.

KANYE WEST
A few years ago when MOS DEF said that KANYE was going to save Hip-Hop I scoffed at the notion. Who was this guy?!? In that small window of time I have come to understand KANYE as someone who respects and revers the architects of Hip-Hop. KANYE is the poduction heir to JAY DILLA and his lyrical ability grows with every album. KANYE took an incredible leap of faith when he made those remarks during the Hurricane Katrina relief telethon. No one in his peer group had similiar courage. The true spirit of Hip-Hop is when you are not a coward to talk truth to power.

Posted in Black Bullshit, Crappers, Ghetto Celebs, Jig Lit Review, Social Upheaval | 9 Comments »

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM JESUS’ Glock 9mm…

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

I’m fairly confident that JESUS will have a gun when he comes back to Earth, especially if he plans on hanging out in America. We loooooooove guns in America. Almost as much as we love GOD. Okay, truth is that we don’t nearly love GOD as much as we love guns, but we love righteous indignation, and that’s a way of loving GOD too I think. As a matter of fact we will shoot you over our righteous indignation, because that’s how JESUS would want it. If he had a gun.

Here’s the short list of people that will be shooting their guns in the air for the new year. Pray that you aren’t caught up in the crossfire…

DUKE LACROSSE TEAM
Now that these young boys can put that silly rape nonsense in the rearview mirror they can go back to being the third best LAX team in the Atlantic Coast Conference. This case was a pile of elephant shit inside of an industrial strength food processor when it first dropped. Ultra sensitive back country Blacks took offense to the notion that a prostitute wasn’t really a college student just because she was taking an english course at a community college. Too bad she wasn’t taking an ethics class. Then she would have known how to spill the beans properly, stating that she was a professional lady who was drugged up by some hormonely agressive college punks. Who knows what the real story is in that shitstorm anyhoo? A drunk STEVEN PAGONES sits in his living room laughing and crying simultaneously.

WALL STREET STOCK BROKERS
JESUS knew that the money changers were steady cooking the books and that’s what these crooks are prah’lee up to when they pay themselves these exorbitant bonuses. I saw a fantastic article in the local newspaper detailing all the people that these billion dollar bonuses fed. The waitress at the Wall Street steakhouse who gets $100 tips. The luxury sportscar dealer and the realtor that sells Manhattan penthouse apartments to hotshot day traders. I’m not an advocate for cannibalism, but these dudes are gonna taste like meat the day the market blows chunks.

VIRGINIA U.S. REP VIRGIL GOODE
In one of those classic hiccups that happen when racist lawmakers hire staffers even more stupid than they are we learned that anti-Muslim xenophobia runs as deep as the Chesapeake River. A U.S. Rep thinks that we can somehow have a moratorium on Muslim immigrants as if they all wear nametags and turbans. That’s almost as stupid as building a fence throughout Texas. GOODE only removes his head from the sand in order to stick it up his arse.

MARY CHENEY
Don’t say nothing sideways about the vice president’s daughter because dude has a gun and he is known to shoot even his friends in the face. It’s just that his daughter is married to another woman so this child might be an immaculate conception. Could this be the second coming of the infant baby JESUS? Give this kid some credit too for all the girl on girl fuckfests he’ll have experienced while in the womb.

NYPD COPS
Right after the murder of SEAN BELL the NYPD went on a shooting spree in New York City. All these additional incidents were publicized to mitigate the fact that the SEAN BELL case was cold blooded murder. Bullets flew in all directions at the scene of SEAN BELL’s death as cops even targeted bystanders. I pray that the family of SEAN BELL doesn’t accept any money for their son’s death. I hope they stop at nothing less than the conviction of the three malicious cops that ignited and continued this tragedy. I believe that this case can change a city for the better. Not just with rhetoric, but with resolutions on the carte blanche that cops have to kill young Black males. If Hip-Hop is dead, why can’t supremacy die one day too?

Posted in Black Bullshit, Jig Lit Review, Social Upheaval, T.O.N.Y. | 2 Comments »