Category: Soul Train

Happy Black History Month!! Basketball, Rap, and Selling Crack

Today we honor the only three things a Black man can hope to find success in growing up in the hood… Basketball, Record Deals, and Crack sells.  Who in the hell do we think we are fooling?  Let’s be real, when was the last time you saw a 12-year-old Black kid say when he grows up he wants to be a CPA… NEVER!  Balla, Rappa, Hustla… IN THAT ORDER!  The only things celebrated on BET.

Hey you gotta get paid somehow, until there is a government program giving out free Nike’s a brotha has to figure out how to make that gwop (that is ‘street’ for money to all my Republican friends and anyone that is over the age 25 and does not work with kids all damn day).  In the words of the Notorious B.I.G. ‘either you slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot’.  Because the dream is the life, you don’t care how you get the money to afford the life as long as you get to live it.

Ball players, rappers, and drug dealers tend to run in the same circles even if on different levels.  The NBA player’s money is guaranteed, when the 6’7” guy that averaged 18.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 4.5 rebounds over the last 3 years signs a 4-year $38 million dollar contract, he will see all 38 of them milli’s!  The rapper may get a half a million advance but if you don’t like his songs he doesn’t go on tour.  The rapper gets paid from performing; only a few guys in hip-hop are really making money when a rapper gets a show he is guaranteed to make money that night.  For the crack dealer, ain’t a damn thing guaranteed.

So the ball players throw the party and hire the rappers to perform at the party so they get to hang out.  The crack dealer can afford to buy tickets and a VIP table to the ball players party… if they don’t get pulled over by the Feds on their way to the party, ain’t a nothing guaranteed for him not even a 15 minute drive downtown.  The crack dealer can usually crack the inner circle of the balla and the rapper by, getting weed to the ball player (dude’s in the L smoke a lot of weed, trust me on this one), bringing X-pills for the trifling broads hanging out so they now have something to blame the freaky things they were going to do anyway on.  A gram or two of coke for the rapper… yep coke, when you see a rapper smoking a joint it is because he has an interview on TV or morning radio in ten minutes and needs to come down from the coke he was tootin’ that boy all night long.

Hood stars, the guys in the hood that get all the attention.  The basketball player gets the girls he got grown women in the 10th grade, the dope man has a FINE girl the only thing he is guaranteed, and the rapper… well they get a girl once they get a contract.  The life is about the women, you need the clothes, cars, and jewelry to attract the women.  You need the money to get the clothes, cars, jewelry and to keep the women.  So when you see basketball player that does not get drafted and has no other options because he never learned to read, when you see a guy with an incredible flow but unfortunately he turned 30 before he could sign his name to a record deal, and when you see a drug dealer’s laid out in the middle of street unrecognizable from the 39 bullets to his upper body… blame women.

So on this the 26th day in February, the day the NBA is having their All Star game (you thought it was a coincidence the NBA had this event in February?  Oh no, this is event on the Black Calendar… I once heard someone say “it’s more nigga’s at NBA All-Star weekend than in college”) we salute the 3 things that you see most during All-Star weekend, basketball players, rappers, and dope dealers.  Unfortunately you also saw a lot of boring dunks this year, but that is NOT the fault of women.  Happy Black History Month to hopes and dreams as limited as they may be.

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… Now-N-Later Gators

Now-n-Later Gators… when you want to make more than a fashion statement but also want to let people know that you do not live within your means, slide on a pair of these jokers. Be them Apple Green or Banana Yellow when it comes down to the light bill or making a fashion statement at your god-cousin’s wedding the gators win every time.

Now-n-Later Gators are seen on the feet of Bishop Don Magic Juan while holding a pimp cup while standing behind Snoop Dogg all the time now, or on one of your deacons on Easter Sunday.  When you see the NLG’s you think you would never be caught dead in them, until you see the right color.  Everyone has a color they would give in to when it comes to the NLG’s.  Match those jokers up with a 7-button suit from the Steve Harvey collection and you are ready to go to the ‘real’ Blues Club or that one bar on the Black side of town somebody gets shot at every other month.  Number 1 reason for shootings at those clubs… stepping on somebody’s Now-N-Later Gators!  In the movie the Mack, when Goldie told Pretty Tony:

“Mr. Pretty Tony, I mean, you know the rules of the game. I mean, your bitch just chose me. Now we can settle this like you got some class…or we can get into some gangsta shit.”

He said it with Gators on his damn feet!  Anyone that know’s those lines JUST read that quote and could hear Goldie’s voice in their head… you know what I mean babeeeeee.

Oh I couldn’t help myself, much respect to Richard Pryor!

Nobody can ever tell you the name of a store that sales the gators, they can only give you directions.  No matter where you go the directions are exactly the same.  Head south on 8th Avenue, make a right on Martin Luther King Drive, and before you get to the rib joint, right after the check cashing place, and across the street from the liquor store is the place that sells Now-N-Later Gators, you won’t be able to see the shoes in the window.  Just look for the picture of Steve Harvey in the window with the words “Steve Harvey Suits Sold Here” written beneath all 183 of his teeth.

Now & Later Gators with the matching brim are the official uniform of the life of the party. Those gators and that brim can be found starting the Electric Slide… AGAIN, or fast walking back to his Caddie at 3 in morning after ‘handling’ some biznezz, or talking to your girl at the Steppers set you took her too and eating a plate of rib tips. You did not even know they had rib tips at the Steppers set, but the brotha in the Now-N-Later Gators did and now your girl does too.

Happy Black History Month to the NLG’s, pimps, extra’s in 50 Cent video’s, wanna be hustlas, people that don’t have their priorities together and make bad financial decisions and really dark-skinned Baptist ministers… you guys allow Now-N-Later Gators to be something to strive for in our community.  Thank you Now-N-Later Gators for allowing breaking your foot off in someone’s ass, look so mutha-fuckin’ good!

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… The Maury Povich Show

Always more comforting to see someone else embarrass themselves while eventually becoming the laughing-stock of whatever small town in Arkansas, they must come from. The Maury Povich Show has caught more men in lies than a prosecuting attorney.  Maury is an equal opportunity, opportunist we can all agree the show is much more fun when Black people are on it.

The ‘cut-away’ where one of the guests are taped saying whatever they want to say about the person that bought them on the show is always a delight.  The degradation of women by the men is usually reserved to an NWA song.  This is always made better when the mother or current girlfriend of the man is right behind him looking like hype man, the only thing missing is a clock hanging from their neck and an occasional ‘yeeeeahhh boyeeee’.  The woman escorting the man to the show is never more attractive than the woman he use to date and usually outweighs the ex-girlfriend by exactly 122 lbs.  Proving these men have never been told, “if you are gonna cheat… you do not fuck down, you fuck up”.

When the mother escorts her son to the taping of the show, the mother always takes over the cut-away segment.  The looks in the mother’s eyes are similar to the look of the dominant inmate during a brutal prison shower rape and it will end in a similar fashion, in tears with someone’s ass torn up.  The son is always in the back mouthing either ‘help me’ or ‘I still love you, help me’.  The mother’s never believe anything the lying tramp said and freely tells all she ‘heard’ about who the little heffa has been sleeping with.  LOVE IT!

For the record, not every question answered turns out to be a lie but every man is caught in a lie.  No man is going to pass the ‘have you ever thought about sleeping with another woman’ question.  No man can pass the questions:

  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with your girlfriend’s best friend?”
  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with your girlfriend’s cousin?”
  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with your girlfriend’s sister?”
  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with your girlfriend’s enemy?”
  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with your girlfriend’s mother?”
  • “Have you ever thought about sleeping with any combination of your girlfriend’s relatives, friends, enemies, neighbors, co-workers, Facebook friends?”

No man can pass those questions without being really good at passing lie detector test or by just answering “Yes Maury I have thought about sleeping with all of them, and since we are being honest I am now thinking about sleeping with your wife Connie and your show’s producer”.  It is a no win situation for a man.

Now the moment you have all been waiting for:

Maury has made more men a “baby’s daddy” than Erykah Badu.  The Maury Povich Show has bought more recognition to DNA than crime scene investigations, wrongly convicted inmates, or even Watson & Crick!  Swab them cheeks, 24 hours later come back to the studio (usually in the same polo shirt) and find out if ‘in the case of … YOU ARE THE FATHER’.  From the women who have been on the show more than five times to the women that have had more than 30 men tested (let’s just make this clear, you should be able to narrow down the ‘possible’ fathers down to TWO.  It should either be Eric or Michael, anything more confirms you as a whore and that’s real talk) no episode has bought me such side-splitting laughter while cringing for the future of a child than the case of little Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr.

Yes that was Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr., not Sammy Davis III (the third) but yes Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr.  A woman had sex with a man by the name of Sammy Davis Jr. (we do not have time to wonder why his mother would do that to HIM), that woman ended up pregnant and in love with Sammy Davis Jr. had a boy and decided to name her after the father.  Showing her ignorance, instead of informing the hospital to name her son Sammy Davis III, giving the staff to joke about the father’s name, she told them to add a ‘Jr.’.  Why nobody called a social worker on her I will never know.  Why the Social Security Administration and local/state officials did not launch an immediate inquiry on the hospital for failure to report this woman to Child Protective Services and beat her ass with a rolled up magazine is beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Sammy Davis, Jr. was indeed the father of Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr. ending two dreams the father had.  One, being able to hold on to his entire check without a child support deduction; two) having his moment to breakout his version of the “NOT the father” dance.

We honor you, the Maury Povich Show, on this very special Valentine’s Day salute during Black History Month.  So after you buy the flowers from the gas station on your way to ya’ girl’s crib, after you have listened to every slow song you could illegally download, and after you eat that tough ass steak she fired up… remember to ‘strap it up’ before I am laughing at you next year!  With these economic times it is nice to know that we as people have something to keep us entertained until the next Tyler Perry mess… I mean movie, comes out.

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… C.P. Time

My bad for posting so late, I got caught up… Thanks for holding me down.  Since I am late in putting this together let’s just go ahead and salute something found in every situation involving more than 4 Black people… Colored People Time (CPT)!  If you have to be some place on time, I hope you are not depending on Black people to help you get there.  If you do find yourself in a situation where the meeting starts in 15 minutes and the Black person you are riding with has noticed the bakery you are passing just opened and there isn’t a line, start getting your lie together.  That’s even if it is that simple as realizing you are going to be late.

Most CPT’ers cannot put a finger on why they are always late.  They eventually get to a point where their tardiness is their excuse for being tardy:

“Come on let’s get to the meeting”

“I ain’t in no rush.  They know I’m always late”

True, people have come to expect the CPT’er to arrive late, pushing anything that needs to be discussed with them present to the back of the agenda.  CPT’ers cannot tell you exactly why they are late, they leave on time.  They stopped to get gas, an Egg McMuffin, and a card for everyone to sign for the boss’ birthday.  That is not enough to make them real late.  The 10 minutes they spent checking their lottery numbers at the gas station, the 3 minutes it took for the attendant to check those numbers again, and the additional 5 minutes it took for them to get today’s numbers (no quick picks for a CPT’er) all before they got to the 10 second transaction of “20 dollars on pump 7” never factors in to their thought process.

The 4 minutes they spent staring at the McDonald’s menu, trying to figure out what to order, after spending 10 minutes in line complaining about ‘how can someone get to the front of the line and not know what they want’?  Only to order the same Egg McMuffin the CPT’er orders every day, add to the situation that this is a CPT’er we are talking about which means they stopped at a Black owned and operated McDonalds where the ‘fast’ in fast food in considered something to aspire to, not something to be applied today.  So add another five minutes to the standard 3 minute Micky D’s wait time.

Picking up the birthday card from the pharmacy was the easy part, walked right in, grabbed the first card in the birthday section that made reference to ‘Our Boss’ and the CPT’er made their way to check-out.  Oh, the magazines are here, and the new Jet Magazine is out.  If it is a woman CPT’er, they have to read that article about how Toni Braxton or LisaRaye overcame something, if the CPT’er is a brotha straight to the Jet Beauty of the Week, a check of the Top Singles and Albums, and one more good look at the Beauty of the Week.  By the time they arrive to work, the ‘birthday breakfast’ for their boss is about over and everyone had to awkwardly step out to sign the card without the big guy seeing them do so.  What is usually 30 minutes of errands for most people before work, the CPT’er turns into an hour and 47 minutes of randomness and a written warning from HR.

Let’s take some time to recognize some famous CPT’ers:

Dr. Dre: Made his fans wait 7 years for the follow-up to The Chronic and is currently putting those same fans through a 13 year wait for his ‘final’ CD Detox.  It now takes Dr. Dre so long to complete projects that beats he has made for Detox just end up on the albums of people signed to his label, if they stay.  Contracts of some of his artists expire before he gets around to working with them. Last year he finally released a song that is listed as being from his upcoming Detox CD called “We Need A Doctor”… as in, “We need a doctor, to hurry the fuck up and release his album”.  Ironically, Dr. Dre is from Compton, California a city also known as the ‘C.P.T.’, can’t make this shit up folks.

Halle Berry:  Made brothers wait 13 years into her acting career before she showed us a titty.  Then she couldn’t stop showing her titties.  Most amazing thing is (other than her titties, honestly very nice.  I don’t know how they are holding up post babies), once she started showing the C-cups to us she won an Academy Award.  So she made herself wait too… she could have popped a titty out back in 1998 in Bullworth with Warren Beatty and saved herself the shame of begging Billy Bob Thornton to make her feel good.

The Black community’s recognition of their own economic power:  Real talk, still waiting on this.  Hold tight, this should have been here by now.

Kobe Bryant: It took Kobe Bryant 5 years to realize what most basketball fans already knew, he is no Michael Jordan and needs a star center by his side for him to win titles.  It took 10 years, even though his daddy Joe “Jellybean” Bryant screamed it at him in 2002, for Kobe to realize he DID need a prenuptial agreement.

Black Entertainment Television:  In what is an absolute record for CPT’ers… 25 years!!! 25 years is how late BET was to getting to something.  It took 25 years for BET to arrive to the conclusion they didn’t give a fuck about reporting the news, even when the news meant something to Black people.  When every cable network carried Corretta Scott-King’s funeral, BET put its big black middle finger up, took a swig of Hennessy and aired 106th and Park again.  Bye Ed Gordan, Bye Tavis Smiley, Bye Jackie Reid (that one hurt me most of all), bye accountability to your community.  Hello butt naked hoes in rap videos!!!

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… 2 Dollars

2 dollars have helped more Black People get by than a police escort. You want to see a Black person at their best?  Give us two dollars and get the hell out our way!  Today you see on Yahoo, the Food Network, and other places “How to prepare dinners for your family on $10 dollars a day”.  For $10 a Black family can get through 2 weeks of dinners.  I have personally seen Black people (from my grandmother to people on the blocks I have lived) turn two bucks into a full meal with leftovers for the next couple days.  Bag of beans from the corner store for 75 cents, grab some salt pork for 30 cents, a small container of milk for 35 cents, and grab a bag of cheap caramel at 50 cents for dessert.  That’s $1.90 with room to spare for when the store decides it wants to charge tax today.

Some of you see the meal I am talking about and your mouth is watering now.  Those of you that are thinking “what kind of meal is that and what the fuck is ‘salt pork’?” are about to get a lesson in ‘making it work’.  Salt pork is just that pork cured in salt and it is very, very cheap it has also caused more heart attacks than shoveling snow and walking in your home finding your woman bent over and getting raw dogged by the deacon of your church.  Along with the salt it is loaded with fat, actually there is very little actual pork; it should probably be called ‘salt fat’.  As we all know, fat TASTE GOOD and when it sits in some boiling water with a nice amount of seasonings whatever you add to it taste like you should pay way more than 2 dollars.  Even if you have a six-figure salary in the Black community, you still find yourself eating a salt pork flavored meal a few times a year.  You’ll have a stroke one day, but if you are already left-handed what do you care.

Add the beans to the pot of salt pork, water, and seasonings and leave it alone.  With the small container of milk, you hook up some cornbread.  That’s if you have eggs.  If you do not have eggs and the corner store won’t let you buy just 1 egg (oh yeah in the hood, depending on who is working or how cute the store owner thinks you are you can buy just 1).  So what if you don’t have eggs, you are asking and don’t you need cornmeal?  A little secret about Black people, there are a few things you can find at every Black home, a bottle of hot sauce, cornmeal and a picture of Malcolm X next to Martin Luther King Jr. sitting with Jesus.  With no eggs, we do not buy the small container of milk and apply that change to buy the bigger piece of salt pork.  Then we make HOT-WATER CORNBREAD!!!  Heck we make hot-water when we get money.  It is exactly what it sounds like, hot water and cornmeal.  The hot water begins to cook the cornmeal when combined and then you put in a pan, fry it up like a pancake and tell everyone you know you are making hot-water cornbread because it means you are eating something tasty with it.

When dinner time hits, which is usually around 8 PM in a Black house (we don’t eat too early white people, if we have dinner at 5 or 6 it means we will be hungry again at 9, who has money for that!  We got two dollars to last us until our check comes and this meal needs to drag out at least one more day) the kids run in see a bowl of beans with little pieces of meat floating in a thick gravy like sauce with a side of HOT-WATER CORNBREAD!  When we find out mom bought us candy too, we don’t even get upset when we find out that the only thing she could afford for us to drink was one packet of ‘red’ Flava-Aid.  MMM… this is bringing back memories, PASS THE HOT SAUCE!  I bet you want some of this Malcolm and Martin.

It just isn’t a pot of beans that we can make happen… a cheap loaf of bread, a 99 cent pound of ground beef, some ketchup and mustard packets snatched up from the cafeteria (or from the last time you could afford White Castles) and now you have ‘Burger Night’ at the poor little Black family home.  If you live buy yourself, McDonald’s is your best friend if you only have to try to make it through the night.  Two McDoubles or McChicken with small fries, hold off eating it until you are really sleepy and you can fall off to sleep with a satisfied tummy and wake up to payday.

Man $2 dollars can be your best friend in hard times.  As Tupac said in “Dear Mama”:

Working with the scraps you were given’

This is a survival instinct that is just in us, it dates back to slavery.  We had to take what was not wanted and make something we enjoyed out of it.  Why do you think the intestines of a pig have turned into a holiday delicacy for our people?  You heard the saying ‘from the rooter to the tooter’?  Now it means ‘the whole thing’, but it started from Black people talking about the pig.  We would (and still do) eat everything on the pig from the ‘rooter’ (the snout) to the ‘tooter’ (the tail, yes the tail!  Walk into a corner store in a Black community and right next to the pickled eggs, there should be a big jar of pickled pig-tails and an assortment of other ‘pickled’ items… except actual pickles.  We like our pickles individually wrapped in plastic coming in an assortment of flavors and heat levels)… WE EAT THE WHOLE PIG!  If you eat hot dogs at a baseball game, so do you!

We have written songs about 2 dollars:

OH I LOVE THAT SONG!  I have been in many a bar on the South Side, drunk, at 2 o’clock in the morning (the only time that song can legally be played in Chicago, Detroit, and Mississippi) singing that song louder than the DJ could play it or the band could sing it.

Sadly, we have to pay a solemn tribute to a 2 dollar classic never to be uttered again.  When you said this, you knew you were about to have a great night or go get something you been wanting for a long time (like that girl you been chasing since 11th grade), “let me get 2 dollars on pump number fo”, in the Black community from 1955 to 1998 that phrase was second only to “let me borrow… 2 dollars” in number of times heard per day.  Here’s to you 2 Dollars!!! We love you more than this country, most of our cousins, every member of Destiny’s Child not named Beyonce… but not as much as Marvin Gaye and the 1st of the Month. We celebrate those last 2 dollars because when we get to those last couple, that is exactly what is next…

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… The Hater

Today we salute the most controversial person of all the people we will honor in Black History Month… The Hater.  People say the best way to deal with the Hater is to ignore them, but Haters are not to be ignored, they refuse to be ignored, they will not let you ignore them, and you should not ignore them.  The Hater is confirmation that what you are doing is impressive.  So keep doing it!  Remember when you were good at baseball and everyone told you how well you were doing?  What happened?  You didn’t want to play baseball the next year, instead you learned how to smoke weed with your friends without getting caught.  Remember when your teacher told that you were good at Biology and that you should think about being a doctor?  Now you are pulling double-shifts at Wendy’s trying to keep a roof over your head and looking at those ‘you can still get a degree’ commercials they show during Judge Judy in the afternoon, like you still have hope.

You need the Hater; there was that time your brother told you that you would never beat him.  Within a year you were kicking his ass up and down the block, he started locking his door at night out of fear that you would walk in at 3 in the morning and resume the ass whupping.  Think about the time your friends said you couldn’t dance and laughed at you for hours, then days, then weeks about it.  That became a running joke on the block, so much so you stopped hanging out and stood in front of your TV watching Rap City and 106th and Park until you learned how to do the Bankhead Bounce, the Harlem Shake… the Roger Rabbit.  By the time the Spring Dance rolled up, you were killing it on the dance floor (if you did learn the Roger Rabbit, you were hurting the ankles of the person dancing behind you), man you were coming in 2nd and 3rd place at lunch hour dance competitions!  How about that time your ex told you that you would never amount to shit?  Well, the jury is still out on that one, but you are still trying to prove them wrong!  See, praise does nothing for you but a Hater can turn your whack ass into a star.

You think Barack Obama always wanted to be president?  Hell no, that brother wanted to be Dr. J, but you try being the only Black dude walking around a private high school in Hawaii, he got sick of being ignored by everyone but the basketball coach.  As soon as he could, took his but to the main land, started off in Cali, then finished up hitting the East Coast, finally settling in Chicago where a brotha has to be a brotha.  Before you knew it that dude was walking around the hood talking to people like he grew up on the South Side, eating rib tips, and eventually got him a big booty sista as confirmation of how you do the damn thing!  You see how he walked up to the podium after they killed Bin Laden?  You don’t “learn” that walk… you EARN that walk.  You earn it by putting Haters in their place.  He has Haters now, Mitt Romney, let the unemployment rate dip below 8% in the next couple of months, when people come to see Obama talk they are going to have to wait a couple of minutes from the time he gets to mic to when he says his first word.  Long enough for him to take off his hat, get a swig out his glass, and put on his sunglasses… so he can see what he’s saying!!

Remember how George Jefferson was walking during the opening credits of “The Jefferson’s”?  Remember how hard he was pimping as he escorted his woman into their new building up to their ‘deluxe penthouse in the sky-i-i’?  That was the first time George had ever walked like that, if you look really close you can see and lip read Weezy’s mouth you can see her saying “why in the fuck are you walking like that”?  He had no idea that was the first time he had ever walked like that.  People called it a ‘pimp’, that was not a ‘pimp walk’ that was George stepping on every Hater in his life.  With each step he crushed another Hater, “take that Archie Bunker”!

People focus on their ‘swag’ now; you cannot have swagga without having Haters.  When you see a 16-year-old kid walking around dressed like a fake member of Young Money, claiming that is their ‘swag’ they do not have it.  When you have Haters you do not need to dress a certain way, you just carry yourself a certain way.  You do not need skinny jeans that would just give the Hater another reason to hate on you.

You eventually realize there is nothing you can do about Haters, but appreciate their hate.  The Hater will talk about how your brand new, fresh off the lot, BMW 650i “ain’t all that”, then turn around and ask you for a ride to the ‘sto’.  A Hater will clown you about your new higher paying job, then send you an email at your work account asking if “y’all hiring”.  The Hater will disrespect your new home, tell you it is too small, that the neighborhood sucks, that they wouldn’t be caught dead over there, but they never miss a cookout and is the last one to leave.  The Hater looks at your watch and say “its a’ight”, then pop up 3 weeks later with a fake TAG Heuer and act like it the most expensive thing in the room.  Don’t get upset and challenge the Hater, you might beat the brakes off the Hater all the Hater will do is get up, wipe the blood from their lips and tell you his little brother and sister hit him harder than that when they were kids.

Let your Hater be your motivation, matter of fact any time you have spent too much time with your Hater go home and put on “Motivation” by Kelly Rowland.  Zone out for a few minutes and let your success show itself to you.

The saying ‘behind every successful man is a great woman’ is only partly true.  It should actually be gender neutral and more to the point “Behind every successful person, is a Hater… still hating on them”.  Keep doing you, you are fine and close to reaching your goals.  We need our Haters, so today let’s celebrate the Hater in our communities.  Call your Hater today and thank them for everything they haven’t done for you.  The only thing The Hater has ever done and will ever do is give birth to some hating ass kids. But if you do not know who The Hater is in your life… Hi Hater!

Happy Black History Month!! Today We Salute… The Thug ‘As A Fashion Statement’

As important as the ‘Jheri Curl’ or the ‘Zipper’ jacket Michael Jackson wore in the “Beat It” video.  Bigger than an Andre 3000 bow tie or Throw-back jersey with some S. Carter Reeboks and dookie gold rope chains, the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ has lasted longer than the careers and lives of rappers. 20 years ago rappers started dressing like they were going to rob their fans.  NWA came on the scene and even though they looked tough, nobody could remember seeing their local gang member walking down the street in a black Raiders hat with matching $200 Starters jacket.  That changed after an arrest and eventual release from jail of Tupac Shakur.  Tupac emerged from a precinct after making bail, spitting on camera men and cussing… acting like a real G!  From that point on, people wanted to dress like they were ‘real’.

In 1994, a group out of Cleveland, Ohio emerged and changed not only the sound of rap for a brief period, but changed fashion… for a really long time.  When people became fascinated by the sound from the song “Thuggish Ruggish Bone”, they ached to see who these guys were.  When the video “Foe the Love of Money” appeared on BET (where else), people finally saw what a ‘thug’ wore.  Looking like they were in the same clothes they rode the Greyhound bus to Los Angeles wearing, young men began to dress like they couldn’t afford anything else, on purpose.  Bones Thugs and Harmony not only made Eazy E relevant again; they put iron and ironing board manufacturers out of business.  They also saved a lot of money on the wardrobe budget… MO WEED MO WEED MO WEED!

Schools across the country had to issue uniforms to offset a student body looking as if they would shoot you for getting a Master’s in Education.  This did not stop the thug ‘as a fashion’ statement, the thug ‘as a fashion statement’ is intelligent in his ignorance; “you want me to wear a uniform?  I won’t put on the belt”.  The thug ‘as a fashion’ statement never grew out of (or into) their choice of clothes.  They became 35-year-olds with a closet full of oversized jeans, 40 pairs of Nikes but not a pair of slacks or dress shoes for a job interview.  The thug ‘as a fashion statement’ helped society in one major way… it let companies know who not to hire.  The unemployment rate has been tied to trends in the economy, bad decisions by the Federal government, even the greed of Wall Street.  High unemployment rates can also be tied directly to a large number of people in the ‘hiring pool’ that don’t own a tie and think their whitest T-shirt is appropriate interview attire.

The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ has a hard time making connections.  He questions why the police are always stopping him when walking down the street.  He fails to make the connection that REAL thugs only wear hooded sweatshirts, in 90 degree heat, when they have something to hide… like when they are trying to hide their gun or their face, after they have used their gun.  Police are trained to stop people who look like they are hiding a gun, they learned this in class they took while in the police academy called “Characteristics of Individuals Carrying Guns” which has been retitled “What Thugs Wear”.  Those characteristics happen to be the style of choice for the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’, oversized clothes to hide the bulk of a weapon, pants sagging from the bulk of a weapon, walking slow as if the they are being slowed down from the weight from the bulk of a weapon.  The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’, thinks that looks cool… because the thug ‘as a fashion statement’ is stupid.

Real thugs have learned that when a cop stops you, talk to him.  If you act like you have nothing to hide and not give a police officer a reason to arrest you, the cop probably won’t arrest you… cops do not like writing ‘arrest reports’.  The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ always runs and he is always caught.  Because he is not wearing a belt, so his pants fall to his ankles, causing him to trip and fall, allowing the fat cop to slowly walk over to him and place him in handcuffs.

Real thugs dress like this out of necessity or lack of money to afford better.  The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ can actually afford to buy proper and better fitting clothing.  Instead they shop at “Thugs Iz Us” and pay 200 percent more for a style a real thug gets from the Dickies section at Wal-Mart or from his older brother after he grows out of it.

The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’, believes that the world is against them and that everybody hates them because they are constantly being jumped and attacked by large groups of teenagers.  When in reality, the thug ‘as a fashion statement’ fails to realize that real thugs beat up anyone in a ‘thug uniform’ they do not recognize.  It is a defense mechanism for real thugs; they have come to learn that people they do not recognize that look like they are carrying guns are probably carrying guns.

What is most upsetting to grown men, that act like grown men and dress like grown men, about the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ is not the embarrassment they feel when they see men from their community looking ignorant.  Not even the initial fear that comes across them when they see the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ until they realize they are not real thugs.  What is most upsetting to grown men, that act like grown men and dress like grown men, is that at least 3 times a week because the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ is not wearing a belt they look at another man’s ass to realize they have on the same pair of draws!

Because you are not going anywhere, reluctantly we honor you the Thug ‘as a fashion statement’.  Even though the rappers that influenced your style opted for $3,000 suits as soon as they could afford them (have you seen T.I. in a crooked hat and sagging jeans since his third album?  Nope), even though we tried our best to forget about you for some reason you held on until we had to embrace you.  Kind of like Betty White, you out lived everyone in your generation until we had no choice but to give you a Life Time Achievement Award… The Thug ‘as a fashion statement’ the “Betty White” of Black History Month.  Please accept this award, this job application, and this belt.  You can either put it on and wear it at an appropriate level or we can whup your ass with it, the choice is yours.

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute… Yo Mama!!!

Today we honor Yo Mama! She may be so fat it takes a bus and 2 trains to get on her good side, so fat when her cell phone rings people think she’s backing up, so fat it takes a calendar year for her to put on her belt, we still honor her.  Yo mama is timeless and resilient, right before God said let there be light He told Yo Mama to move out the way, scientists have said after the bomb drops the only survivors will be rats, roaches, and Yo Mama.

On this day we pay respect to Yo Mama, even though you may have heard her say ‘mama be back’ more than ‘mama love you’, even though she has had more men than money, even though she missed your 8th, 9th, 12th, 17th birthdays and graduation because she was locked up, we respect that woman today.

On this day we hold her up high… because she is so short she models for trophies, so short her homies are the Keebler Elfs, so short that in her driver’s license picture you can see her feet but we still look up to her.  A wise woman Yo Mama is, so old and wise her memories are in black and white, so old and wise her birth certificate expired, so old and wise she co-wrote the Bible.  So old and wise Yo Mama gave Harriet Tubman directions to the Underground Railroad… wise, wise, wise woman.  Old too!

Yo Mama tried her best to give you the best, although her idea of a well-rounded meal was a burger, a cookie, and a donut, she was so poor your TV had 2 channels “on/off”, so poor in a conversation she can’t put in her 2 cents, so poor she made you eat cereal with a fork to save milk damn it she tried her best!

Life was not easy for Yo Mama, she faced challenges daily due to her short comings.  So ugly when she walked into banks, they turned the cameras off.  She still carried on!  When she was 39 years old, she lost a finger so she could no longer count to 10.  She still carried on!  So dumb she took a survey and failed it. She still carried on!  So dumb, when asked to make up her mind, she put lipstick on her forehead.  She still carried on!  Unfortunately she lost her job as a phone sex operator for giving out ear infections. She still carried on and eventually became famous!  She went on to become a stunt double for Chubaca, the symbol of the Republican Party, today Big Foot takes pictures of her!

Without a doubt Yo Mama is one tough woman.  Hell, Yo Mama is twice the man YOU are.  The bitch’s middle name is Rambo.  She got called in to serve jury duty and they found HER guilty.  When watching a shoot out scene in a movie, she takes notes.  She is undefeated in organized pit bull fights.  She got a tattoo on her left tittie that says “GIMME YO FUCKIN’ MONEY”.  Yo Mama knows what she wants too, for Christmas she bought your father knee pads.  People call her squirrel because she’s always got nuts in her mouth.  Yo Mama is still a considerate person, after sex she asks everybody for their name.

Though she wears a wig with a chin strap and has a fake leg with a kick stand she is still Yo Mama, so tell her… I’ll be home late for dinner, keep my plate warm, and make sure she puts your ass to sleep. Finally, a Happy Black History Month to Yo Mama… old heffa been around for all of them.

Happy Black History Month!!! Today We Salute, White Singers Trying To Sing Black, Badly

One of the Super Bowls major moments is the singing of the National Anthem, let’s reflect back to last year’s Super Bowl where Christina Aguilera and her impersonation of a stereotypical R&B singer took center stage and performed the “Star Spangled Banner”… sadly.  Most upsetting to Black people about Christina Aguilera is not the ‘she sounds just like a Black singer’ statement people have mistakenly attached to her for her entire career, but that she puts a run on every note!  If you do not know what a run is, it that thing you notice black singers do when they hit a not and they control it by holding it but not steady it seems like it is going up and down… if that does not make you understand what a run is, it is that thing Christina Aguilera does all the time that makes you think she sounds like a Black singer.  For the record you do not have to put a run on every other note, Luther may have done it 3 times an album and he was the master! Luckily for you, Christina, security was tight at the Superbowl… Teena Marie (the white woman BLACK people say sounds like a Black singer) crawled up out her grave to slap the shit out of you, but the cops held her off.

Unfortunately it was a Black person singing the National Anthem that led to Christina Aguilera’s style.  Ms. Aguilera attended a high school basketball game when she was 8 years old and saw Spectacular Jones, her real name, sing the longest Anthem in history, longer than the game it was for. After ‘land of the free’ Spectacular screamed out ‘REEEMIX’ another first, the Star Spangled Banner monster mix.  A little Christina Aguilera, the only person in attendance that night who left impressed by Spectacular Jones, turned to her mother and said “mama I wanna sing”.  Her mother took another swig of the vodka she snuck in, now mixed with Hawaiian Punch purchased at the school concession stand looked at little Christina and said the words Black people have said to Christina for the past 15 years… “Do you ever shut the fuck up”?

Michael Bolton, yes ‘the’ Michael Bolton. Unlike Elvis, Eminem, and Hall from Hall and Oates (nobody gives a damn about Oates) who all listened to the songs of Black artists and borrowed the style to eventually shape their own personal styles, Michael Bolton borrowed the whole damn song.  Elvis saw Little Richard and wanted to move like him, Eminem heard Rakim and wanted to flow that way, Hall listened to the Temptations and wanted to sound like David Ruffin and Paul Williams.  Michael Bolton heard Otis Redding and said “if it works for him, my long flowing blond hair and extremely average voice can make tens of millions”.  We honor Christina and Michael because where would they be without Black people! I think sitting at an actual dock, at an actual bay, watching an actual tide roll away… penniless.