before i lose my style

blackamazon:

karnythia:

blackamazon:

karnythia:

blackamazon:

karnythia:

blackamazon:

so-treu:

Juvenile - Ha

and see, this is why it sets my teeth to itching, the idea that african american culture is something you can get, or can be picked up easily through MTV Base or whatever sets my teeth to itching. that it is an at all appropriate or easy thing to do. listen to how he talks. listen to that accent. listen to the references and the rhetorical devices. look at how he moves.  and we can sit and trace the foundations and influences back to somewhere, africa, but this shit right here is african american. this shit is the result of processes and practices that were unique to america, and in this case unique to new orleans. like, there’s a reason hip hop was created in america, and it matters.

MAAAAAN !!!!

Listen people get hell mad at me when I say there is a NECESSITY at looking at southern rap as it’s own beast as it’s influences are hugely more Creole /Afro-Latin based than Northern West Indian influenced rap……

There is a good damn reasons why southern rap blew up when it did and why it has certain beats and inflections… MAn look

Now you’re going to get me talking about Chicago & hip hop that is rooted in beats  foot working & women’s voices. And how, despite the hype we have a sound that is both influenced by the voices of those who migrated & that predates them & reaches back to the first settlers here & includes beats that came from intermarriage & interdependency with NDN’s. There’s a reason Common got on & stays on, that Kanye gets the shine that he does & how that has everything to do with the Black Belt & the development of Chicago’s uniquely segregated culture.

But then I’d have to talk bout Chicagos particularly specific class structure and zoning

( or why Kanye’s College Proffessor mom who took him to China and Europe repeatedly could still live in the hood but be bus rides from two of America’s to colleges)

and the Great Migration and how money and cultural capitol influenced Chicago and Detroit specifically …….

Then I’d have to talk about black wealth & how it developed & what it means to live in one of the most corrupt cities in America as a black person. And how most of our stories (hell all of them) can’t be told without talking about the relatives who ran numbers, shine, or something else. We’d also have to get into how interracial interactions happened in front of & away from whiteness simultaneously & how much of our community is closed to outsiders including people from across town. Corners was a song that said so much to people from here & not a whole hell of a lot to people who don’t understand why Chicago has no east side.

Or How Prohibitionand Temperance were hand in hand about drinking AND Jazz and it was as much about sin as it was about preserving white women’s limited social control capital through sex

the proliferation of “italian” kids and what that meant i the Chicago,NYC and Boston

how race mixing in the post WWI/Great Migration era also brought in a lot of classical music to Black vernacular music 

and how Chi rap especially still shows heavy vaudeville comedic influence that are no proliferating outward thanks to the Kanye influence as well as Motown samples and who this era is characterized by that and the heat latin/disco/creole of the south

Ooh, can we talk about how Black Chicago developed & survived through race riots & segregation. Or how much segregation helped our communities develop as well as hurt them over time? And what it meant for black womanhood to perform, but not be valued outside the community? And how vice was a gateway for cultural exchange as well as for appropriation? Oh, and what masculinity means in the context of a city where respect means hustling & fighting?

we need to be paid

Best Music Writing 2013