Friday, October 13, 2006

BET on Mute

At the gym other day, trying to get my work-out on. So, I am on the exercise machine and I am watching various mute channels on the multiple TV's that are overhead of these machines. On one TV, a rerun of CSI Miami was intriguing, another TV had CNN with the daily fear-fuelled news, but what caught my eyes was the TV showing some hip-hop music video on BET. No all of these TV's were muted; no sound emitting - which is an important fact in all of this. The particular music video on BET was your derivative content for the average hip-hop song; ice-flashing, booty shaking, hood themed, and of course the new crave -- the obligatory regional dance. This one in particular was the 'snap dance'.

What was shocking was that with no sound emitting from the tube, to attempt to correlate meaning to the visual mess in the music video, the music video seemed almost comical -- even amusing. Without sound, the people gyrating, and jumping around looked so funny, and even asinine. I guess sound, at least attempts to give the viewer a sense of meaning to what is going on in the video -- and even in the presence of sound, most music videos on BET look ridiculous. So imagine, how when other cultures view BET who do not understand the language or culture .... they must be laughing and having a good time watching the perception of black culture.

Thus, try watching BET with no sound ... get the popcorn out.

Can we really be mad at BET for this? I don't know .....

Peace,
DesieB

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www.vacantlot.org

Hip-Hop Food for thought ... feast up.

posted by Vacant Lot @ 9:00 AM Comments: 0



Monday, October 09, 2006

No, I don't Have any weed

Has this ever happened to you
Several times while I was at University, in the mall, walking down the street, minding my own god damn business - people would approach me to ask if I got that 'sticky-icky'. You know, that chronic, cheeba, herb, dro, hi-grade, gunja, and whatever other terminology is out there for weed.

I guess my attire labels me as a certain type: you know, that young black hip-hop male who probably has no education or job, so naturally he must be involved in 'pushing' some kind of illegal drugs (of course, to afford his flossed-out name brand attire). So I guess I just fit a stereotype, thus I should accept all of its parameters .... I think not. One should only change behaviour or style because of their own intuition - not society.
So in the future if I am asked for any 'hi-grade', depending on the race of the questioner (even if black), I will respond with an equal or greater level of ignorance.

Yes, I know 'two wrongs don't make a right', but if someone slaps me, and I turn around and stomp them f--- out, then they are less likely (deterred) to ask that type of question to a dude like me.

Get High Mofo's....


www.vacantlot.org

posted by Vacant Lot @ 4:29 PM Comments: 0



Friday, October 06, 2006

Vacant Lot : Hip-Hop Wisdom

1st of many coming soon

posted by Vacant Lot @ 3:32 PM Comments: 0