Here’s an audio/video mixtape from some of the best MJ mixes I’ve heard recently. How many times can we say “RIP Michael?!”

SIDE A : The MJ Warm Up

Track 1. Come On Come On Come On/Lemme Show You What It’s All About: Love the five-part Minding Michael podcast series from Qool DJ Marv Aural Memoirs & da Buttamilk Archives. Featuring the MJ hits I had forgotten along with those beloved pop standards, this podcast is not to be missed. My favorites are Part One, “A Good Time,” for its melancholy, and Part Three, “Grab Your Belt Buckle/Music’s Taking Over” for the disco hits that make you move even when you’re sitting down. “Roughly 75 percent of these songs, I’ve never played in public,” Qool DJ Marv wrote about Minding Michael. “This is my translation of Michael as a fan and DJ, as a boy who grew up with stronger together black family vibes and Black is Beautiful all up in my head, and as a man who still embraces that exuberant idealism by perpetuating it and sustaining it through the magic of the music in the mix.” (Ranging from 47 mins. to over an hour long)

Track 2. Shake It, Shake It, Baby: Eclectic Method’s The Michael Jackson Video: Don’t be deterred by the Peter Jennings intro to this MJ memory lane video mix. For my money, the highlight comes midway through the video when London-based Eclectic Method mashes up “Blame It On the Boogie” with “Black or White,” and then moves seamlessly into “Rock With You” on top of “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Favorite parts of this video show not one, but TWO Michael Jackson videos that stream simultaneously. Shows just what a versatile dancer and performer Michael really was! (4:51 mins)

Track 3. You Can’t Run Away From/This Love I Got: Can’t even remember hearing Jackson Five do “Ready or Not Here I Come,” but you can groove to it here on Norwegian DJ and Producer Teddy Touch’s Memories MJ Tribute mix. Love mixing freestyling and beats with MJ’s classics. (40:04 mins)

SIDE B (The Flip Side)

Track 4. And Don’t Go Around Breaking Young Girls’ Hearts: If you like it when Michael Jackson goes all electronic on you, check out this Billie Jean remix from Philadelphia’s DJ Apt One. Guaranteed to make you move! (6:06 mins)

Track 5. Let Us Realize that a Change Can Only Come/When We Stand Together As One: Believe it or not, there are a handful of viral music videos out there that feature performances by inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a maximum security prison in the central Philippines. (The prison management has inmates do choreographed dances there for exercise.) The CPDRC did a Thriller video remake in July of 2007, and a “We Are The World” Michael Jackson Tribute just days after Michael passed away. Neither performance needs any introduction. (4:26 and 3:39 mins)

Track 6. Never Can Say Goodbye: DJ Ayres did this Michael Jackson Mix for The Rub, a party that creates long lines around the block of Brooklyn’s Southpaw the first Saturday of every month. The mix is a great chronological history of Michael’s music from “Maybe Tomorrow” (the ’70s) to  “Butterflies” (2001). (53:47 mins) –AFS

Abbie Fentress Swanson is a freelance radio radio reporter (and music addict) based in Brooklyn, New York.

New York-based writer, publicist, and activist April Silver says she continues to get feedback about a piece she wrote in response to this performance by Lil’ Wayne and Drake at the BET Awards 2009. Director Byron Hurt also responded, and wrote the following to BET’s Debra Lee on June 29:

“Sunday night’s BET Awards show was a disgrace. It’s sad and unfortunate that your network, owned by Viacom, continues to crank out mediocrity and perpetuate negative stereotypes of black men, women, and children. Although you likely received high ratings for the awards show, there is no honor in reinforcing the status quo’s opinion of black people. Your tribute to Michael Jackson and the overall show had its great moments, however, BET failed to deliver a solid, quality show. Rather than “raising the bar” and presenting African-Americans as a creative, proud, dignified people, BET lowered the bar for the entire world to see. The BET Awards drew a huge audience to watch a tribute to Michael Jackson, but left millions of viewers feeling disappointed, embarrassed, and reduced to classic stereotypes.

“During the most blatantly sexist performances of the night, the executives at BET failed to act and display intelligence, courage, and leadership. Show executives watched, approved, and applauded as artists Lil’ Wayne, Drake, and Cash Money brought young, under-aged girls onto the stage to dance and serve as window dressing while they performed ‘Every Girl,’ a song that reduces girls and women to sex objects. In a culture where one out of four girls and women are either raped or sexually assaulted – and where manipulative men routinely traffic vulnerable women into the sex industry – it is not okay that BET allowed this to happen. BET owes its entire audience – particularly girls and women around the world – an apology for its failure to intervene. BET should also take immediate steps to ensure that this kind of sexist performance does not happen again. Sunday night’s show epitomizes why so many black people worldwide are fed up with BET and feel strongly that your network inaccurately represents black men and women.”

# # #

“Last night, live at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, a room full of head-bobbing, consenting adults bounced to Drake and Lil Wayne’s back-to-back performances of the hit songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl.” I watched, underwhelmed. I wanted more “Michael” in what was supposed to be this award-show-turned-Michael-Jackson-tribute. I watched, ever puzzled by the Lil Wayne phenomena that has captivated the music industry. I watched, wondering when the set was going to end.

“Then the little girls came onstage…literally the little girls. “Are those children?” I asked out loud, in disbelief. Then the camera panned the audience. Everyone was still head-bobbing as the little Black girls huddled around these superstars.

“‘Are those little girls on stage…for this song?!?!‘ I, still in disbelief, lost breath and forced myself to exhale. ‘Why are these little girls featured on this performance? Is somebody going to stop this?’ Again, the show was live, though for a nano-second, I was hoping that a hunched-over stage manager would bust through from back stage to scoop up the children, rescuing them from harm’s way…from being associated from this song. But instead, what those girls witnessed from the stage was hundreds and hundreds of adults (mostly Black people) staring back at them, co-signing the performance. These girls, who all appeared to be pre-teens, were having their 15 minutes of glam on one of the biggest nights in televised Black entertainment history, with two of pop culture’s biggest stars at the moment, with millions of people watching. They must have been bubbling with girlish excitement, shimmering like princesses all night. Pure irony: one of them wore a red ballerina tutu for the special occasion. And we applauded them.

“But did no one care that Lil Wayne’s song Every Girl is about grown men and their sexual escapades with women? Did the meaning and intent of the song matter to anyone, this song whose hook and other lyrics required a re-write in order to get air play? ‘I wish I could love every girl in the world.‘ That’s the radio-friendly version of ‘I wish I could f–k every girl in the world.‘ But Lil Wayne’s BET performance was the clean edit of the song. Perhaps he (and the show producers) thought that there was nothing wrong in featuring the children in the clean version. Perhaps we were supposed to see the whole bit as cute and innocent. Absolutely not. There’s no other way to cut it: in presenting little girls in a performance of a song that is about sex, group sex, and more sex, BET and Lil Wayne set the stage for child pornography. It doesn’t matter what version of the song was played, much like a man who batters women is still an abusive man, even if uses flowery phrases while battering.

“In the song, Lil Wayne mentions superstar Miley Cyrus, but Cyrus gets a pass on this lyrical sex escapade because, as he acknowledges, she is a minor. Huh? Why, then, is he comfortable with featuring four minors, these four little Black girls, in the show? How deep exactly is this inability of some men to respect women, and how deep is Lil Wayne’s disregard for the safety of little girls?

“I’m told that one of the girls is Lil Wayne’s daughter. That doesn’t matter. In fact that makes it worse. Last night we were reminded that there are few safe spaces for our little girls to be children; that some of us are willing to trade their innocence for a good head nod. BET and Lil Wayne are beneath low because, in effect, they have given premium assurance to these and other little girls that their best value, their shining moment, their gifts to display to the world, all lie within a context that says they are fuckable.

“The programming at BET has been heavily criticized by artists, concerned citizens, college students, parent groups, social justice organizations, media reform activists, and many others for over a decade now. Their programming seems hell bent on broadcasting the worst pathologies in the Black community. Some have joined the anti-BET movement by simply tuning out. Others have been more pro-active. National letter-writing campaigns and other activities designed to shame and/or pressure the network into improving its programming have been in play for some time now. Boycotts have been called as well. Two years ago, for example, the network found itself in the line of fire as it planned to air the very controversial series “Hot Ghetto Mess.” Advertisers, such as State Farm Insurance and Home Depot, responded to pressure and requested that their ads be disassociated with the series (though, their ads could be placed in other programming slots). None of this has made a difference. In fact, it seems to have emboldened the network, for it is now expanding. In the fall, BET is due to launch another channel.

“As a social entrepreneur and activist, my entire life/work has been dedicated to standing up for what’s right, especially within the culture of hip hop. When identifying what cancerous elements exist within the Black community, many fellow activists agree with Chuck D (of Public Enemy), and even Aaron McGruder (of The Boondocks), when they targeted BET as one of those elements. That said, I didn’t think that we would ever have to take the network to task for what amounts to child pornography.

“But millions of Black people are not offended by the network and welcome anything BET has to offer, no matter how much it continues to unravel the fabric of our community. Imagine, if you will, BET as a human being and the viewers as the community. You would have to imagine BET as a drug dealer, with his swag on…perhaps outside standing atop a truck, the community crowded beneath him. Imagine him throwing nicely wrapped gifts into the crowed, or giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day and he buys dinner and teddy bears to all the single moms and grandmothers around the way. Despite his best efforts and despite the approval of his fans, he is still a drug dealer, pimping death to the masses.

“Proverbs is full of sacred text that teaches us that there will always be fools amongst us. Some of them will be highly paid, protected, and given world-wide platforms to show off what they do best. And these fools (be they performers, corporate executives, or others), will have fans and loyal supporters, and a place to call home, like a BET.

“But as long as there will be fools amongst us, there will also be wise ones – a small group of people concerned about the long term health and well being of the community. This small group will often go unheard and they will be outmatched. They will struggle over which problem to address first: the child pornographer, the batterer, the pimp, the prostitute, the thief, the slumlord, or the system that enables it all. They will get tired and their defense will pale in comparison to the almost crushing offense. And they will be betrayed from within. Historically and universally, this is what happens in the struggle for what is right. But eventually, with continued pressure, something will shift. A radical new thinking will emerge, and the fools will lose their stronghold.

“The sure expectation of victory, however, can not be understated. It is a concrete ingredient in the struggle against the death that is being paraded in our community…as necessary as letter writing campaigns, economic boycotts, symbolic and actual protests, and other pressure-oriented activities. It is indeed possible to bring more life into our community.

Copyright 2009, by April R. Silver. Silver is a social entrepreneur, activist and writer/editor. She is also founder of the communications agency AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc. Her first book is the critically acclaimed anthology “BE A FATHER TO YOUR CHILD: REAL TALK FROM BLACK MEN ON FAMILY, LOVE AND FATHERHOOD.” Contact Info: silver@aprilsilver.com or www.aprilsilver.com.

###

BET responded July 3 in a statement to AllHipHop.com:

“BET Networks deeply regrets the performance by Young Money at the BET AWARDS ‘09 (featuring Lil Wayne, Drake, Gudda Gudda and Mack Maine). Elements of the performance were unplanned and should not have happened.”

BET also said it found viewers’ opinions, like Hurt’s and Silver’s, useful. “We have edited Young Money’s performance for all BET Awards ‘09 encore presentations,” a representative said.

BET Awards 2009

I recently released Kiss the Sky, a novel about a black rock musician. Then I did an event with an actual black rock musician who read my book and said that the part about Michael Jackson was so eerie. I had forgotten all about it. But I found it…written years ago… and yes, eerie.

Tell me what you think about MJ and your memories… I am getting creeped out watching all the old footage, especially the ones of Diana calling Michael “sexy” while they are are both wearing those dark spangly shirts…

I wish he’d been happy. I find it hard to believe he was.

Peace,
F

____________________________________________________

Excerpt, Kiss the Sky, Atria Books, 2009
(Written from the P.O.V. of the main character.)

Drifted into a drowse and thought about the way music was my whole life.

My great grandfather sold Billie Holiday reefers, back when she was a bad little girl and he was a dirty old man. A withered up little yellow man. Always looking at the girls of school-age. A sailor, in and out of port. In town just long enough every time to get great-grandma pregnant. And wasn’t it just like me to love Billie, all of her, even her vices.

Then there was my first musical love, Michael Jackson. I was six, and to my child’s eyes he seemed just enough older to know a lot of things I wanted to learn. He was pure music, shimmering, shimmying, shaking, grooving, moving, liquid hipbones and fluid bell-bottomed pantlegs, denim, slouchy caps, a sexy choirboy backed up by his older brothers; plus television, dancing lions and tin-men, a too-old Diana as Dorothy. But wait, that last part was later.

Still, the Michael and “The Wiz” were always linked in my mind. When I was six, my Daddy and I went to see “The Wiz,” way before the movie with Michael and Diana, before the nose jobs and the skin lighteners and the hair straighteners and out-of-court settlements. Strange third-person memory: I see myself and my father walk towards the exit, along a half-lit aisle, with the play unfolding (bright reds and golds) behind us.

But: Michael. His was the music of longing, in a man-child’s voice that a little girl could understand before she truly knew desire. I liked Michael the same time Daddy liked to play the Isley Brothers. I didn’t understand the Isley’s lyrics (thank God), but their guitar licks and keyboards made it hard for me not to dance; their whispers tickled my ears.

Older still: When my girl scout troop had a party I brought Stevie Wonder and my friend Ronnice brought Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” which was everything you needed to know about the difference between uncool and cool. Stevie was uplifting and parent-approved; the teenaged Michael was your best friend’s older brother, a boy who you had a crush on so bad you thought you might melt every time you saw him. Ronnice was in fifth grade and I was in third, which might have been part of my problem, but not all of it. She was what my mother called “fast”–loose with the boys, hard and unforgiving with the girls.

I loved Michael, don’t get me wrong. How could I not? He was my first. But I mounted a defense of Stevie, which all the girls took as a weak-assed move.

When I was in eighth grade, Ronnice had an abortion. Like most of my fast girlfriends, she loved house music, the kind you heard in the clubs she’d sneak into. She was underaged but built like a brick shithouse and nobody checked her I.D. When she got into LL Cool J, I was loving Prince.

Later I worked my way through alternative rock, romantic R&B, gay disco, Public Enemy, Madonna and Grace Jones. Music ecstatic and anthemic, smoke drifting through laser lights, tranny boys in platform heels and lip liner, parties on the subway platform, lots of drugs but not down my throat or up my nose, the music simply lifting me, carrying me like the wind under the cape of a superhero or a pigeon caught in an updraft from a subway grate.

The music, just the music, used to be enough for me. Everything else came later.

I wanted to get back to those days again.

____________________________________________

This is an excerpt from Kiss the Sky (Atria Books 2009) by Farai Chideya. Chideya is a multimedia journalist, author, and the founder of PopandPolitics.com

Michael Jackson seemed crushed under a weight of identity: black/man/star/brother/father/son. Add philanthropist/media-victim and -manipulator/accused pederast/primate owner/fashionista and dancer. Owner of, and now perhaps a returnee to, Neverland.

Back in 2003, I wrote a piece asking what happened to the brownskinned boy who stole my heart and those of girls my age across the world. Why did he shed his color, and the sincerity of his smile?

As people gathered today on Twitter to share stories, sift the real news from the fake, and mourn, I saw reporter Lisa Ling post, “RIP Michael Jackson, My First Boyfriend.” I felt the same way. It wasn’t just a childhood crush. Over time, I felt like I was one of millions of people who wanted Michael Jackson to succeed. MTV at first refused to play his videos because black artists, no matter how successful, didn’t fit their idea of their format. Of course Michael, with the help of Quincy Jones, went on to become the King of Pop and the king of music video.
In the intro to Thriller, Michael says “I’m not like other guys” and “I’m different”… and then proceeds to transmogrify into a werewolf.

Pop cult from “Twilight” to “Harry Potter” has taken feelings of alienation and packaged them for wide consumption. Michael was one of the first masters of our modern era to do that well.

But what he could not seem to do is seize control of his own transformation and find his own center as a man, not just a creator. After all, the trope of successful transformation is that the hero becomes something else, but can return to his or her human emotions if not human form.

John Landis, the director of “Thriller,” has called Jackson a “tragic figure.” And that brings me, personally, back to race. Race added a very specific prism to the failed transformation of Michael Jackson. His plastic surgery bordered on pathology and racial caricature. His need for the spotlight brought him, arguably, into clashes with both the law and public opinion. I am thinking specifically of the charges of his treatment of children… others’, and his own.

Would he have felt freer to pursue his own alternative identity if we had not also wanted him to be what he could not seem to be… an adult black man who provided fodder for the fantasies we cherished when he was a child?

In the prelude to the Thriller video, Michael Jackson speaks to the black, bobbysox-wearing girl who is his love interest and says, “You know I like you… And I hope you like me the way I like you.” Sigh.

We always loved you, Michael. I hope you found peace in just being you, whoever you were, and despite what we all wanted you to be.

=====

Farai Chideya’s new novel Kiss the Sky, is about a black rock star struggling with fame. She is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.

This article is also cross-posted on The Grio.

Thinking,
Hoping the best for his family,
F
=======================

You were my first. Back when the other kids were swaying to nursery rhymes, I wanted to rock with you. I had everything I needed — a portable stereo and an album of you singing with the Jackson Five. According to my mother, I would drag around my little stereo, and I would put you on, and I would dance. Nothing else in the world could have made me happier.

I remember you. Your lips were full and your nose was wide and your face was brown. This only rates mentioning because it is no longer true, so untrue, in fact, that sometimes I wonder if I imagined you as you once were. I’m sure at night, as a child, I dreamed of the boy with the afro who sang and spun on his heels like a miniature James Brown.

I wish that boy had become a man. That wish seemed reasonable all the way through “Off the Wall,” when your nose grew narrower and hair more lank, but you were still visibly black. With every subsequent album your relationship to your original appearance grew fainter and fainter, until you were no longer even an echo of yourself. But the further you fled from black masculinity, the more international crowds lionized you. Today you are a grotesque.

And an alleged child molester — that too? If we can believe what we see in the camera lens — that this pale alien being (recently parodied in “Scary Movie 3″) was once cute little Michael — then we can believe anything. The danger for us is that we will judge you by your appearance. The danger for you is that you have set up a situation, with your reckless behavior around your own children and others’, that we cannot help but judge.

In his book The Hip Hop Generation,” Bakari Kitwana relentlessly outlines America’s broken promise to black males. Mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines and unbalanced enforcement of drug laws have helped make prison a waystation or home for many more black men than white. In Los Angeles and Cincinnati, frustrated youth up-end their own neighborhoods to draw attention to police brutality. The global economy undermines the fortunes of lower-skilled workers, many of them African-Americans. The military, in many cases, remains the only way out.

This social warfare has hardened many black men, aiding and abetting the culture of hypermasculinity that permeates hip hop. It’s hard to be a sister and be down with the bitch/’ho lyrics, hard to be down with men who spout rhymes full of anti-female fury. Commercial hip hop may appeal to young women who can pretend that the men are calling out someone else, but to an older head like myself it sounds as if they are speaking my name. I cannot listen to it. I cannot dance.

But I long to take the floor with the same childish glee that I did when you and I were together. I desperately want you to be there for me, to reassure me that things aren’t so bad that the primary options open to black men are hatred of black women or physical and mental disintegration. I would like to think that you, the shadow Michael who never had a chance to grow up, wouldn’t treat me the way those other men do. But I’m the furthest thing from your mind.

In your absence, the absence of a Michael I can relate to, I have only questions. Why does America destroy and pervert black men? Were you squeezed between racism and perfectionism until your very soul compressed? And what about those without your millions of dollars? What options are left for them?

I feel — and I know it cannot be true, for I still breathe — that if you cannot exist, I cannot exist. If there is no room for a loving black masculinity in the world, I fear there is little room for the black feminine as well. You, Michael Jackson, are not all black men, and for that I am grateful. But your decline says more about America than we can bear to hear.

====

Farai Chideya’s new novel Kiss the Sky, is about a black rock star struggling with fame. She is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.
This was posted on Alternet.org on November 26, 2003.

The artist formerly known as who? … Well, it’s Prince. The Purple Rain singer will be performing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno for three nights in a row on March 25-27 in effort to garner support for the March 29 release of not one, but two albums. The albums, LOtUSFLOW3R and MPLSoUND, will be available for purchase with a third album from artist Bria Valente exlusively at Target for $11.98.  And if you can’t get enough of the guy, catch Prince for a fourth night on March 28 for Leno’s Tonight Show retirement.

What about the real King of Pop? … Michael Jackson has announced 26 new dates for his comeback “This Is It” tour, all of which take place in London alone. The concert series, which includes 10 shows in July and an additional 18 in September,  is speculated to be part of a bigger world tour that has yet to be revealed. Tickets have been priced between 50 and 75 pounds ($70 and $105), a seemingly decent price range compared to today’s pop stars (ahem, Jo Bros). This will be Michael Jackson’s first tour in 12 years.

And the other Jack? … Jack White shows no sign of exhaustion as the White Stripes and Raconteurs frontman has developed a third band along with a new album. The new group, The Dead Weather, will be debuting their first album Horehound in June on White’s label, Third Man. The band also includes Alison Mosshart of The Kills, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age, and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes. White reportedly says that the band will go on tour this year.

Speakin’ of new bands … Ben Harper and his new bluesy band Relentless7 have released the music video for their new single “Shimmer and Shine.” The track comes from their upcoming release White Lies For Dark Times, which is scheduled to drop later this year. Check out the video below.

Ozzy holds Ozzfest … It looks like this year will not be blessed (or cursed) with an Ozzfest, as the big man himself, Ozzy Osbourne, has decided to spend the time working on his upcoming album instead. Though the fest has lasted for the last 12 years, a statement was released saying that the cancellation is only temporary and the fest will return in 2010. The untitled album will be produced by Kevin Churko and is slated for a Thanksgiving 2009 release

Who wants rhinestone-trimmed socks? … Someone is sure to find them worthy, as it is one of Michael Jackson’s items up for grabs in a five-day auction beginning April 21. The king of pop has decided to let go of over 2,000 of his personal items, including his American Music Award for “Thriller,” a basketball signed by Michael Jordan, a customized Harley Davidson, and even his own original artwork. Dibs on the socks!

She’s back, and better than ever … After suffering the tragic loss of her mother, brother, and nephew in a triple homicide last fall, Jennifer Hudson has announced that she is back at work and ready to tour this spring. Teaming with hottie pop-soul sensation Robin Thicke, Hudson will be kicking off her tour in Albany, NY March 31, and will end the month-long gig in Houston, TX on May 8.

Luda says sorry … Ludacris made amends to Senator John McCain and his wife Cindy at the All-Star Game Sunday, apologizing for any offense taken by the lyrics in his song “Politics (Obama Is Here).” The song takes a sharp turn in one line where Luda says, “McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed.” The senator appeared to have accepted the rapper’s apology, as they reportedly “spoke pleasantly for several minutes” afterward. My bet is Johnny boy didn’t know what Luda was referring to, that is, until a quick Google search after the game.

As an African-American woman, I do not believe in voting for a man because he is of a similar race as myself (I say similar due to his bi-racial heritage). Race is an ever-present influence in our society and, therefore, influences the minds of most Americans. I cannot deny that it had maybe a 15-20% influence on my vote. According to this CNN article, 20 percent of those polled say that race played a factor—in Obama’s favor.

It’s hard not to want to make history for civil rights. Yet in all honesty, I think it is unfortunate how much race affected the election because I fear that, not only has it put lofty expectations on Obama now that he has won, but that these lofty expectations, if they are not reached, might set African-Americans back in the game of racial disparity. Michael Jackson (whom I adore) is an example of an African-American who fell fro grace. He was the King of Pop for over a decade. Then, two accusations (not even guilty verdicts) of child molestation tanked his career and have made him a nationally understood joke. I don’t want that to happen to Obama.

What if now that “we’ve” gotten “our” chance, it comes back in failure? Sure we’ve got one Black president, but it doesn’t guarantee there will ever be another one, especially if Obama doesn’t follow through on his promises. It is much more important to vote for a man on what he can do than who he is.

I await his actions as President before I can make any judgment as to whether or not this was a wise choice for America, as I would for any other President. I would like to see what he does about the looming Social Security problem and about our collapsed economy. The number of people of retirement age in this country will be in a one-third ratio with the workforce that is supposed to support them by 2020. This means less social security benefits for retirees or more taxes for the workers. This will be a huge economic problem that has not been planned for. This is in addition to the fact that future generations are going to be paying for the recent bailout, the economic future of America is grim. Obama plans to cut taxes for the middle class, but that might be completely offset by these future financial burdens. If he can truly turn our country around and straighten things out when it falls on these aspects, he will be a great president in my eyes, not just a great Black president.

Yelping frontman Ben Bridwell (who looks like he may be related to hip-hop-video-stars Will Oldham and Zach Galifianakis) may not have Obama’s jumper, but dude’s got some kinda game at least! His Band of Horses has also got a new cd in the can and yay for them for putting this new song up to grab on their space. Thanks to Fader for the tip.

[display_podcast]

Also at Fader today, the Mitchell Brothers’ “Michael Jackson” video, which reminds in a ridiculous way how the most incredible thing about the one-gloved-wonder is still, despite all the madness, the guy’s talent. Just watch. You’ll see.