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Showing posts from June, 2018

Mediocre Month for Hip-Hop? Part 1: G.O.O.D Music

A mediocre Black Music Month In recent years we have gotten so used to being inundated by content that we rarely notice if the product is worth our time. I've found that this month has showed us just how much our favorite artists expect our loyalty, but don't always give us quality in return. This month was set to be one of the biggest months in Hip-Hop and I was left underwhelmed by mediocrity and HASTE.  First mistake music lovers made prior to the start of music month, was allowing Kanye to bait us on Twitter and TMZ with MAGA hats and deplorable slavery comments. That was followed by the anti-climatic Pusha-T and Drake beef that started the month.  More importantly, the media as well as fans were more concerned with Drake's secret baby. Seemingly far less baffled with the fact that everyone aligned to G.O.O.D music was releasing 25 minute EP's.  Social media allowed us to get the inside scoop on the listening parties, and tune in to the brief pres

What my Dad loving Prince taught me about gender

Sierra Pepin It was June 7 th , the Wednesday before last, and Prince was playing on the throwback station. I sat in the car and my dad said, “You know, today is my guy’s birthday.” I didn’t know. I did know that it made perfect sense for dad to bring this to my attention. For decades, my father has been a Prince fan. When The Purple One died two years ago, his kids, nieces, and nephews called him while he was at work, to see if he’d heard the news. To half-jokingly see if he had to mourn the news. My father, a hetero-normative  father of three, stan-ed a man who didn’t just make great music, but ferociously pushed norms about sexuality and gender ( until he didn’t ) through his clothes, lyrics , and actions. Little did I know, right in our home, they both were normalizing the spectrum of gender. My dad, an Afro-Latino man, born in the 60’s, loved an artist who was popular culture’s poster child for “ is he or is he not [insert gay, queer, bisexual]?” Dad’s love fo

When only the Sistas are CANCELED!

New Blogger Alert!!! This post was submitted by the ever talented Seirra Pepin! ***** Drake’s Nice For What dropped just in time to be mine, and plenty of women’s Summer ‘18 anthem. What a thoughtful king. @Defend_Brooklyn said it best, the video has the Infinity Stones of Black women. But Aubrey’s female empowerment jam doesn’t exempt him from flaw. Like many other rappers, he uses expletives to describe women. He’s belittled Kid Cudi’s mental health . Nevertheless, our problematic fave has yet to be canceled. Neither has Kanye West after his slavery comments, not really . This isn’t about our Canadian Prince or Chicago’s troubled son. It’s about Black women and the nuance and forgiveness we deny them. Start the cancellation parades organized by forward-thinking millennials (like myself) that aim to diminish the platforms of Cardi B , Chrisette Michelle , Azealia Banks , Tina Campbell , and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . Think about how swift, and in some of these cases, impac