Don’t worry ’bout where I been–it’s Wednesday!

Uhn!

(still Mos Def back then)

A cloudy Saturday after a long week–real long. So I turned on the grease and what dropped into the shuffle?

“Shake that load off, shake that load off, shake that load off, shake that load off…”

Somebody say “Amen!”

And let us not forget:

“… as you downplay your glory, cackling, helping the shackling of your brethren happen just by rapping. Libertad.”

Libertad, my brothers, libertad.

On repeat.

The production, oh man, the production.

Yes, I know, the hype and all that, but sometimes you just have to give it up.

Don’t know if it was Gil Scott Heron, or Shaq retiring, or just the grey skies, but this morning I suddenly, fully realized, Teena Marie is gone…

Yet, she lives on. Went back and listened to her dropping rhymes on “Square Biz” and felt compelled to fire up the fryer and share.

“You know I like spirituals and rock, Sarah Vaughn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni, just to name a few.

I’m wild and peaceful, Lady Tee, I got to keep my irons in the fire you see. I got the point, the scam, the low, the deal. What you feel, say what!”

I cannot think of anything adequate to say about Teena Marie’s voice except listen (especially on “Yes Indeed”). But here, check the flow and delivery. She says it herself:

“I’ve heard a boatload of other ladies’ raps, but they ain’t got nothin’ on me.”

Givin’ it up for Lady T,

JB

Thank you, Gil Scott Heron.

2010 interview footage: Gil Scott Heron

“If we only work for peace, if everyone believed in peace the way they say they do, we’d have peace.”

- Gil Scott Heron, “Work for Peace”

Peace be with you.

JB

President Barack Obama mentions two Hip Hop greats, Biggie and Tupac, plus throws in some classic ODB in this speech. Wait for it…

The President doing his thing.

(Yeah, I know, it’s not Wednesday.)

Still out, back soon,

JB

So I was listening to a cassette tape (that’s right–cassette tape) recording of the 1997 Wake Up Show Countdown when “Making a Name for Ourselves” came in at number seventeen.

Canibus:

“Niggaz be diggin my styles like fossils and Pterodactyls. Who wanna battle? I’m bad to the bone marrow.”

The word Pterodactyls is hard enough to spell, forget about rhyme with (or near rhyme with, anyway).

and then

The Canibus is an animal with a mechanical mandible. Coming to damage you, spitting understandable slang at you.

I mean “mandible?”

Common (Sense was still lingering at the time):

“Move crowds with kinetic wisdom. It’s like a Malcolm X-orcisim.”

plus

“Relaxed like Dru Down’s hair.”

That just took me back– and now back to the countdown. Hope my tape player keeps working.