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An Open Letter to Michelle Obama
Dear Michelle, Can Barack please have a cigarette? No, stop right there, maybe you don’t get it: the future of the free world depends on it. Barack looks tired, and he’s been awful on TV. I think he’s bitter, bitter about not being able to have a cigarette. Cigarettes got him this far…can he please…
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Is Barack in Charge of Campaign Obama?
Albert Murray was the as-told-to author of Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie (1985). He first met Basie in the 1970s, though he’d followed Basie’s band since the 30s. In 1958, he wrote this about Basie to Ralph Ellison. (It was published in Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert…
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Cut From the Same Cloth?
Are you an Obama supporter who feels a certain amount of unease with your candidate’s occasional bouts of schlockiness? This is not to say you don’t appreciate his speaking skills. You cheered at the Philadelphia race speech, but had to dredge up the patience to get through some of his others. At times, Obama can…
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Save The Obama Drama
Nov. 19, 2008—Having already gone through my—now regretted—Obama tantrums in July (and on this Web site), I do not want to hear about anyone else’s. Please try to get over yours as soon as possible. Let’s clear up a few things. The right is all in a tizzy because it is trying to project itself…
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Reparations as Bailout
Don’t call it reparations. Call it a belated bailout of the Freedman’s Savings Bank, chartered by Congress in 1865 as a financial haven for freed slaves, and failed in 1874 after its white board lost all the money after a spree of wild speculation. It was like black people’s version of Bernie Madoff (but the…
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Happy Birthday, Clef Club!
Virginia Woolf famously wrote that on or about December 1910 human character changed. Another important change happened in 1910, when on April 11, the Clef Club was founded over a dinner of possum at the Marshall Hotel in Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, the way black popular musicians in New York City were treated and viewed nationwide…
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Teena Marie: The Godmother of Hip-Hop
I don’t know what you do, but like Nas in “Book of Rhymes” (at 2:30 in), I pump some Rick James with that Teena Marie. The R&B legend passed away on Sunday at age 54, leaving one of the great vocal legacies in music, in a career that spanned nearly 40 years. From her world-famous…
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The Best Martin Luther King Jr. Anthem Ever
Shortly after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, songwriter Dick Holler penned a beautiful tribute, “Abraham, Martin and John,” a meditative, poetic eulogy that also had a verse dedicated to Robert Kennedy. First recorded by Dion, it was famously covered by Marvin Gaye and has been covered many times by others. “Abraham, Martin and…
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The Root Roundup: Raekwon, Delfeayo Marsalis and Marsha Ambrosius
Shaolin vs. Wu Tang by Raekwon “Now we are the masters of our fate,” says the voice of Winston Churchill on Raekwon the Chef’s new album. “Ain’t no recycle bin for rappers,” says Busta Rhymes on a different track. Taken together, these statements say much about Raekwon’s career: He persevered through several difficult years, including…
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Hear This: Les Nubians, Ambrose Akinmusire, Pharoahe Monch
When the Heart Emerges Glistening by Ambrose Akinmusire Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (ah-kin-MOO-sir-re) has just released When the Heart Emerges Glistening, his first album for major jazz label Blue Note Records. The Oakland, Calif., native was the subject of a major profile in last Sunday’s New York Times. Heart is a shifty and fascinating album for…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
