The Hip Hop Anthropologist

What defines NeoSoul? The question has not been clearly answered. But Neosoul is what the name implies: Neo meaning "new" plus soul music. If we start from that simple proposition instead of what some fans and aficionados and even industry insiders post, we have to define soul music, before we can even get to NeoSoul.  According to Wikipedia, "Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African-American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues." Now that we have that out of the way, we can begin to talk about the evolution of NeoSoul, or "new" soul music that started being produced and recorded in the mid-to-late sixties. Who were the top five major Black musical talents or influences in the mid-sixties: Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and  Marvin Gaye. All of these artists had careers that spanned decades and, mor...

 While the RNC chair is a regular fixture on Fox News, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison has been virtually missing in action. Suddenly he pops up like a weed in a flourishing garden. Too much posturing, gladhanding, backslapping, high fiving, self-congratulatory performative bs'ing; too many photo-ops; not nearly enough work down in the trenches meeting with grassroot organizers, building coalitions, relationships, and raising the capital necessary for a sustained effort to wrest this election out of the hands of scared-outta-their-wits yt Nationalists who plan to take US back to the Antebellum South. We have to keep it real. Harrison like Tom Perez his predecessor has not been an effective Chair😢Both Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush are a sad testament to Harrison's ineffectiveness, however.🥺

There was some lively, humorous discussion swirling about a Facebook group regarding some members desire to leave (for good reason - though many are victims of their own choosing). According to the group's administrator "over 60 and fab" was supposed to facilitate "love connections." But in practice is little more than a used car showroom for some attractive "involved" or married  women "kicking the tires" by posting self-congratulatory pictures of themselves soliciting complements like they were still the belle of the ball or, worse, back in high school (some in college) when all the handsome, buff jocks were chasing them (neither very hard nor very fast before they caught up, however). The remaining men and women are embittered, lonely, old folks desperately seeking love in a veritable sea of vanity that may have islands of unrealistic expectations upon which they can cling tenuously, resting briefly before washing back out to sea helplessl...

 Gen xers you failed us. You raised these Millennials. Some of whom can be our (Baby Boomer generation) kids but more likely they are our pathetically spoiled, bratty grandkids. Gen Xers kid's (Millennials) are a hot mess. Indolent, apathetic, disheveled, pampered, coddled, privileged, and wholly unconscious without a clear sense of legacy. The folks in the picture are who we (Baby boomers) were raised to emulate, not the tong wearing hoodrats twerking in the mall for impressions on social media or homo-thugs wearing sagging britches with soiled drawers in plain sight slinging dope and flinging shot on the corner of some dilapidated real estate he does not own. We were loathe to step out without being dressed to the nines; our hair cut, hat on, and shoes polished to a simmering gloss. And we now wonder why we get no respect and can be shot down like a rabid dog for sassing the police... We have lost our sense of style. If you look good, you feel good, and people around you will fee...

 Rittenhouse got away with murder. But the Spector of murderer clings to his dark spirit like a foul stench no decent human being can tolerate without gagging: an instinctual, primordial feeling  that they are in the presence of malevolence. To be continued.

 Prompted by weariness with the pedestrian fare found on social media, a group entitled "Black Intellectuals" seemed to be the ideal landing spot. However, unless I am missing something, it is also bereft of content. There is a lot of news directly impacting Black folks throughout the Diaspora. But "Black Intellectuals" are not discussing any of it either critically or in depth. In fact they seem to be "missing in action." I used to be in a group that will remain anonymous because a member there is also a member of Black Intellectuals. We used to have always lively, often raucous, sometimes bitter conversations about topics that engaged Black men of all races. It had over ten thousand members during its height of all political persuasions.  The group's owner was around my age in his mid-sixties but unlike me, retired. After a series of posts Meta's online reputation management (ORM) system and/or human censors found objectionable, the group had to ...

 Abortion is an issue that affects all women. But it is primarily designed to force young, child-bearing aged, yt women preferring the C-Suite to a hospital suite in some dusty, under-equipped, understaffed backwater clinic to produce more "Masters of the Universe." That's the real reason yt conservatives are pushing so hard for a nationwide ban on the controversial medical procedure. Black and brown women's concerns are only collateral to this fool's errand by the MAGA wing of the lunatic fringe. The analogy is yt feminism, which Blk women full-throatily but naively endorsed around the time the Black Liberation Movement was gaining a following in the early 1970s only to find out they were not welcomed at the all-white tea party. The fall out from their famously failed attempt to crash that party is still reverberating in our community as a wedge issue divided along gender lines that even the intrepid, "big-mouth" Reverend Al Sharpton only briefly touche...

 So, how do you strategically combat against an avaricious, aggressive, violent, warmongering tribe who projects its duplicity, hypocrisy, and criminality on to other tribes? By roundly denouncing the off-the-reservation tribe at every turn without fear of either reprisal or retaliation: its brazen theft of innate creativity, intellectual property, valuable mineral (and human) resources and real property of other tribes; by championing our own story: promoting excellence in our community where possible, agitating for it where not. By becoming the protagonist in our own stories. By becoming agents of change. The tribe in question is no longer in the mainstream of American political discourse replete as it is with ancient alabaster relics of a time long past. Its current worldview is a rusty artifact of that period fostered by a false sense of racial superiority naively employed to rationalize "manifest destiny," which is little more than an euphemism for conquest, plunder, mur...

  I never got how playing music at disco volumn or, more importantly, sitting in a car with music blaring so loud you can hear it a mile away was pleasurable. You have to know that you're damaging your hearing beyond disturbing the peace. A good stereo is like seasoning on food. It is supposed to accentuate the music enabling you to hear the highs, midrange, and lows with clarity. Allowing you to savor every note. Like a perfectly cooked steak seasoned with only clarified butter and a few grains of kosher salt. 'nuff said.