So, Last night I went to peep The Roots and Ms. Erykah Badu live in Montreal. All I can say is that that is one of the best shows I have seen in my city EVER. The Roots came out mad early (7 pm) and rocked for about an hour and a half. Black Thought never dissapoints. As an MC, his delivery, presence, breath control and overall ability to say ANYTHING at ANY SPEED is something I look up to and hope to be able to achieve. The band is next level, segway-ing from song to song to song without interruption or break, making the Roots experience an expanding and growing relationship between the crowd and themselves. I've seen them three times so far in my life and each time it felt like a new chapter. ?uestlove then gave a talk about how Erykah is late and they aren't supposed to play this long, but they will anyway. After doing tracks from their new record for the first hour, the Roots did a medley of all the latest tracks you and yours know ("This is why I'm hot" or "Hot Thing", "Hip-Hop is dead" and a slew of classic tracks around some jiggy joints.)
As the Roots slowly filed off stage, the MTL crowd was anxious for Erykah to hit us with the light like the powerhouse that she is. I had never seen her in person or on stage in my life, and her last album (or all her albums) are on LP on my Ipod. For those of you who haven't bought New Amerykah Part 1, I suggest you step out of your crib and go purchase it asap. The spiritual, lyrical, personal and political on this album are so on-point for our generation of Arab. We can learn and grow from her words and the depth of her experience as an African-American Woman in babylon.
Erykah was late. She hit the stage about an hour after the Roots so people started getting antsy. As she started, she hit us with the first four tracks off her new record and then went into a bunch of old joints like "On and On" and "Tyrone". Far from being the worst show-woman, she never stopped between tracks either. Her band in her fingertips, Badu would stop and pull on the drummers rhythm, have the keys come in where she wanted to wail out and orchestrated her back-up singers like they were her own voice. She had to finish at 11, so I felt like the set was short (probably due to the fact that her bus driver hit the wrong city). She ended her set with TELEPHONE, a song she wrote for the late great J Dilla (James Yancey). It is one of the best songs I have heard come out of this queen and the one i relate to the most. Losing a brother is always hard to deal with. She of course came back for an encore. She did SOLDIER, the next single off her record. This is the one that addresses the more inconsistencies in North America, where she has lines like "To my folks in Iraqi fields, this ain't no time to kill". I love her.
If this tour is rolling through to your town, go check it out. I promise you it is something you will remember infinitely. From the lights, to her ever-expanding voice, to the soul and love in the room, Erykah and the Roots is my show of the year. And her album is album of the last three years. GO COPP THAT.
Slingshot Hip-Hop: Right-wingers, put a Lyd on it!
A couple of years ago, I got an e-mail from a dude called Ragtop. He was asking my crew Euphrates to hand a track in for a compilation that is soon to come out, by the name "Free the P"- he wasn't talking about the immediate release of half the legendary Mobb Deep. Talking amongst ourselves, we decided to hand in "I.R.A.Q.", a song about the love for our nation and people. Seeing as I am of Iraqi descent, I felt it only right to show the love for our motherlands and how similar our plights as Arabs are. A lot of the time, the focus and actions of our respective national representatives has been that of a divisive, antagonistic and back-stabbing nature. Nowhere in the public consciousness is there a general strengthening of our need to stick together when weathering the storm of our deserted nomadic roots.
Five years later, Ragtop is known to me as Nizzy (aka Rusty T), we've collaborated on the ARAB SUMMIT record and FREE THE P was a success story. The oneness we showed as artists helped in the semi-fundage of Director/Artiste Extraordinary Jackie Salloum's SLINGSHOT HIP-HOP. Two weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure to be sitting next to Invincible, one of the artists featured on the aforementioned compilation. We weren't saying much to each other. Being at the MOMA in New York, I was too busy shaking my head in amazement (shaking like 'tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk, this is some history-prone celluloid'). The New York Premiere of SLINGSHOT was-in the memory of Siskel and Ebert- riveting, groundbreaking and a stereotype shattering two-thumbs and two big toes up material.
The story follows the growth of the Palestinian Hip-Hop scene, but by no means is limited to the music. In the first scene we are introduced to DAM, the premiere Palestinian Hip-Hop representatives, visiting the US for the first time. You see the members of the group humbled by the presence of one of their idols, Chuck D. On a promo run for their album DEDICATION, Public Enemy's head honcho invited the group over to his radio show for an exclusive interview and discussion about Hip-Hop and Politics. With DAM garnering international status, we return to the isolated experience that is being Palestinian in a world that doesn't recognize the identity as legitimate. As the film progresses, we are introduced to several groups such as PR, Arabeeyat and Sabreena The Witch, only a few of the burgeoning boom-bapers coming out of the holy land. Salloum takes us across the landscape of modern-day Palestine analyzing the omnipresence of the security wall and its effect on the psyche of the younger population, injustice, historical narratives (in some of the most bananas animation I have seen in a while!) and personal relationships that are obstructed by the inability to cross borders. (something most Arabs can relate to!)
Without giving away too much, the viewer is immediately invited into the homes of Tamer and Suhail (two members of DAM), going through their CDs, books and old home video footage of their passionate discovery of Hip-Hop. From Tamer's rendition of 2pac classics to the old school mistakes and lessons, I related to this film on so many levels. From growing up as the outsider that wore baggy pants and retarded steez to the close bond between strangers through music, I couldn't help but snap my fingers exponentially as the movie rolled out in front of my eyes. There is one scene towards the end that blew my mind. I am of course, not doing justice to the work put into this film. The first thing I thought was "wow". My second thought was "Jackie is the illest". Third, "How is this not huge yet?". Fourth was "I can't wait to go back to Iraq". Lastly, I couldn't help but feel for brothers and sisters trying to make it out the madness that is occupation and disillusionment.
The characters are multi-faceted, intelligent, well-spoken and fun to be around. From Mahmoud Shalabi to Abeer, we notice how distance cannot get in the way of passion and perseverance. One thing I really appreciated about this film is the way the director represented Palestinians. In general, the media representation of our brothers and sisters from another colored mother and mister are as follows:
1.victims- Media images littered with impoverished, desolate and downtrodden Arabs. Although this is true to certain parts of the East, this is by far not the only face we can be painted with. The understanding that the Arab populace is greater than one type of being is much needed and more importantly, needs to be reinforced through our independent media peoples.
2.violent oppressors- Bomb Laden-Gun Totting-Bullet Ridden-Headwrap Rocking-Eye only seeing-Black turtle neck sporting-Islamo Camo Couture-Jihad Claimin'-Arm Flailing- Lu'tmiya Crying-Revenge Yielding- Money Hungry- Oil Poor-Ghetto Imprisoned- America Hating- Non MTV watching-Arab Jarab Haters. In other words, you turn on CNN or FOX news and realise that, there has got to be an agenda going on here. From Chuck Norris to Arnie, the engendered relationship between Arab men and women, and the propagated bloody terror that is attached to our identity is one of the commodities of the the War on Terror. (the supposed War on Terror, you mean, the War for Power).
3.Over-sexualized Harem Lovers- Lastly The image of Arab men as porno addicts and exotic punanee mongers is another unavoidable stereotype. Not to say we aren't good in bed now, but I digress.
To most readers of this website, these are obvious things to avoid when making a visual document of our existence. Let just say this now, at the cost of getting some belligerent post about how "one sided" I am. In no way am I simply negating these faces of Arabs. We do have angry-ass militias, we do have over-sexed leaders who indulge in more prostitution than hugh hefner, and yes, we definitely have victims to tragedy that are implausible to say the least. BUT, my point is, Jackie Salloum manages to turn these faces onto themselves. At no point in the movie do you feel the stars are WEAK, in fact, you see the total opposite; a group of youth coming up through hardship and staying positive, resilient and hopeful. She also avoids the regular rhetoric of most films I have seen about the occupation. In no way is there a finger pointing session; most of the explanation is backed up by facts, political history, and a general understanding of the situation as a whole. You can tell the director, producer (shout out Rumzi) and the animation team (freehabib.com) had a good head on their shoulders and decided to, once and for all, bring truth to the light through a human story.
SLINGSHOT HIP-HOP is one of the best documentaries I have seen on Arab Hip-Hop (if not the only one) coming straight outta the P. This movie rocked! (pun intended brothers and sisters!) I look forward to more of Ms. Salloum's work and the next DAM record. Not only are these people at the forefront of changing our image, they have a perspective that by in-large is something my generation of Arab migrant share. I urge all you to go see it, enjoy it, soak it in and understand that the voice of the oppressed is legitimate, powerful and full of hope. That's definitely one thing I left the MOMA feeling. Hope.
Who Gonna Save Us? Smif-N-Wessun was a group I listened to back as a teenager and plus some. This expressly political song is full of the type of content I never heard from them.
Best line:
"the world ain't ready for a black President Obama I stand beside ya Gun in hand, in body armor"
Best Moment: Tek and Steele kick it with a white family at the end.
After 4 and a half years of waiting, of stalkerishly following the filmmaker's every move, of hounding her down any chance I got, of watching and re-watching the online trailer, of forwarding and re-forwarding the trailer, of blogging anything affiliated with the film's stars and pr ogres, of feeling like a nerdy Star Wars fan-all of that Luvox-necessitating obsessive fixating was somewhat normalized yesterday. Because yesterday marked the long-awaited NYC screening of Pali-American filmmaker Jackie Salloum's Sundance entry "Slingshot Hip Hop" at the MoMA (actually the second of two this past weekend). In a future post I will provide a much more expansive review of the film. So for now, all I will say is that, just like our very own Mehammed, it was all that and a bag of batata-satiating obscenely high expectations set by half a decade's worth of hungering and craving.
But for now, enjoy Abeer's (the vocals behind the chorus for DAM's "Born Here" video) post film screening singing (sorry in advance for the random head moment towards the end of the video):
DJ Khaled, sporting a Terror Squad piece over "Allah" bling, on his former moniker and the Arab American dream: "I want to own gas stations, cornerstores...I want to do it all"
If I were to do an anthropologically-inspired power point presentation for this interview, here would be some key points I would devote slides to:
1. "The best" as a discursive tradition: Drawing from the communal spirit of Arab culture, "the best" is a shared cultural practice, one for "we" and not just "I."
A. Defining "the best":
"Why did you go with "we the best." "Cause we the best...if you don't want to be part of the best, you aren't the best."
B. Greetings, discursive affirmations, and conversational closers: The hip hop, southern-inspired version of a "Ma Salaama" or an "Araf-tee Keif" or "know what I'm saying?" or "word", a discursive affirmation or conversational closer, seems to be "we are the best."
2. Memory in the Diaspora: Arab American second generation youth haven't forgotten about their history and roots: gas stations and cornerstores.
3. Pseudonyms and Identity Construction: Is DJ Khaled's rejection of the moniker "Arab Attack" an act of assimilation or one culturally resisting Arab stereotypes, and therefore taking ownership over self-determining identity?
Pali-Canadian rapper Arabesque gives you hopeless lads the key lines to get that raqam from a hot habibti on his latest jam, "How to Chop An Arab."
And *gasp*, not only does this A-rab wear kuffiyahs, but he actually waxes on about the phenomenon surrounding the bedouin orginating scarf quite wittyily on a blog on his myspace music page.
Besque on the cover of NOX issue 14
Additionally, in an interview with Arab man's mag NOX, the rapper sizes up and provides commentary on the Arab Rap scene, calling the Iron Sheik "DC's finest" (and now that the Iron Sheik has relocated, does that mean he has lost his finest-ness?), and of our very own Excentrik, he argues because the "producer/venom spitter's" contribution, "The bay area has never sounded so nice."
Media Credit: DTH/Nicolas Gullett The Iron Sheik, a Palestinian-American writer, activist and hip-hop artist performs in the Great Hall on Saturday.
The culmination of Palestine Week at UNC wasn't a keynote address by a renowned politician and wasn't a lecture by a tenured professor in the history department. It wasn't even a vigil marked by a candlelit Polk Place.
But the event's organizers and performers would argue "Hip-Hop for Palestine," a concert that took place Saturday night in the Great Hall, was perhaps the best way to tie the week's events together.
One performer who hoped to prove that notion was Jacob Winterstein, a 21-year-old senior at Temple University. When he took the stage, Winterstein, born and raised Jewish, elicited powerful emotional responses from a crowd of more than 100 people.
"I like to provoke people," Winterstein said. "I hope I'll say something tonight that makes someone mad or happy or want to start a conversation about the issues."
Winterstein's performance poetry, he said, is the one way he believes he can best make his voice heard on issues such as Israel's oft-disputed occupation of Palestine, which was the focal point of Palestine Week.
"Please don't be indifferent," he said. "I want the end of these three minutes to be the reason for something else to begin."
And Winterstein, like all of Saturday's performers, said hip-hop is a dynamic and relevant method of both bringing specific issues to the attention of students and encouraging them to explore activism in general.
"When you add things like rhythm, rhyme, metaphors, analogies, intonation and speed, people hear things differently than if you tell it to them in a conversational way," he said.
That theory seemed to ring true, as the crowd collectively nodded, groaned and applauded with approval after powerful moments during Winterstein's performance.
But content is just as important as delivery, and Tarik Kazaleh, aka Excentrik, who also performed, followed a different path in compiling his message.
Kazaleh, a Palestinian brought up as an Eastern Orthodox Christian in the Bay area of California, said performers must be careful when dealing with issues pertaining to religion and ethnicity.
"I'm a savage secularist," he said. "If you're an extreme religious person, get out of my face."
So instead, Kazaleh said he relates events from his past in the context of his personal theology.
"It can be hard to fit in when you're automatically some kind of terrorist Arab," he said. "It's like a tub of those big Legos, and you're the Lincoln Log that got in there and doesn't belong."
But Kazaleh didn't pretend to conform to political correctness, and his set was interspersed with chants such as "Bye bye Bush" and "Oh! Bama! Oh! Bama!"
The last performer, Kevin James, aka Son of Nun, was perhaps the most effective in ensuring the continuation of discussions about the occupation of Palestine and the United States' role therein.
James stood in the middle of the crowd for his entire set, rapping about issues including the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips gang, and Hurricane Katrina, in addition to the situation in Palestine.
And James said he thinks both Saturday's show and the week as a whole were effective in encouraging further discussion of the role of U.S. foreign policy in Palestine .
"From what I've heard about the week this far, it's resulted in people taking sides on Palestinian issues," he said. "People are learning what their opinions should be because they've seen these issues addressed in this way."
-- Bennett Campbell, Daily Tar Heel University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2/4/08
We're at Sundance y'all! Thanks in large part to so many of you and your support, enthusiasm, and generosity.
And we're making history.... 5 of the 8 rappers who are a part of Slingshot are arriving today in Utah to perform for the first time all together...we are filled with hope as well as anger.
We're angry because Mahmoud Shalaabi, a rapper from Akka (in Palestine 48), has been denied a visa after spending weeks jumping through hoops, gathering documents, and paying tons of his own money for application fees.
The visa was denied because they claim another person with his name is on their wanted list. They claim it will be cleared up in one month.
However, this is exactly what they did to Mahmoud 2 years ago when he was denied a visa for the same ridiculous reason. And they told him that it would be cleared up within a month then!
We were all preparing to have Mahmoud here with us to celebrate his own life and work and perform and speak at the premiere of Slingshot Hip Hop. We wanted HIM to tell his OWN story here.
But we can't give up- that's what Israel wants- they want Mahmoud to feel powerless and trapped and give up.
And we promised Mahmoud that we would get everyone we know to call and email the embassy all day today and every day until they grant him a visa!
So friends- please, please call and email the numbers below off the hook!
Demand that Mahmoud Shalaabi, an important Palestinian artist with Israeli citizenship, be granted a visa immediately so he can attend the Sundance Film Festival.
CALL- Nonimmigrant Visa Unit in Tel Aviv: (from the U.S) 011-972-3519-7617
EMAIL- Nivtelaviv@state.gov
If you email, cc " support@slingshothiphop.com" and if you call, please send an email saying you called to " support@slingshothiphop.com " so we can track the support we're getting to show the Israeli authorities (and to show Mahmoud he's not alone!!!)
Kudos to the establishment newspaper for running an non-ideological review of DAM's album, "Dedication." DAM, for those who don't know, is the premier Palestinian hip-hop group.
Successful American rap artists squandered their political bully pulpit long ago. Now they're bullies, plain and simple. But abroad, hip-hop is still the voice of the oppressed, influencing politics and moving the masses.
From the Middle East comes D.A.M. (Da Arabic MCs), three Palestinian rappers and citizens of Israel who mock the widely accepted notion of equal rights for so-called "Israeli Arabs." In so doing, D.A.M. has become one of the most powerful and popular cultural voices for the global Palestinian diaspora. Its first single, 2001's "Min Irhabe?" ("Who's the Terrorist?"), was reportedly downloaded more than 1 million times from D.A.M.'s Web site.
Its follow-up track, "Born Here," was rapped in Hebrew in a direct appeal to Israeli youth. In 2007, D.A.M. visited the United States to support its first full album, "Dedication," a collection of political anthems rapped almost entirely in Arabic, but packaged cleverly for the English-speaking consumer with liner notes and translated lyrics.
D.A.M.'s cross-cultural approach is largely the work of its leader, Tamer Nafar, who began his career in the late 1990s as a member of a peacefully coexisting posse of Jewish and Palestinian rappers led by Israeli rapper Subliminal. When the Second Intifada ignited and negotiations withered, it also severed the friendship of Subliminal and Tamer, each taking a more polar, polemical stance in a public war of words.
D.A.M.'s rappers aren't demagogues. "Don't grab a gun, grab a pen and write," Mahmoud Jreri raps in Arabic on "Change Tomorrow." But their indictment of Israel is unflinching. So it's ironic that one of the most powerful songs on "Dedication" is "Usset Hub," literally "A Love Story," exploring the metaphorical minefield of young love within the confines of a closed and enclosed community. Even in Palestine, politics need a break.
-- Dan Charnas
DOWNLOAD THESE:"Da DAM" ("It's DAM"), "Mali Huriye" ("I Don't Have Freedom"), "Usset Hub" ("A Love Story")
Not only did homegirl finish the much anticipated documentary on the Palestinian hip hop scene entitled "Slingshot Hip Hop," but out of the record-breaking 3,624 submissions, Jackie Salloum's film was one of the 64 selected to be shown in 2008's Sundance Film Festival in January.
Hopefully, this will hold you over until then:
As for now, instead of twiddling our thumbs while we wait for a distributor to bring the film to our respective cities, I say we organize a KABOBvan trip out to Mormon land to show our support.
How does DC to Michigan (for old-time's sake-but, this time, Will, you can be sandwiched by two hormonal Arab men) to Utah sound? If we are lucky, we might be blessed with another Ann Coulter sighting!!!
Who knew a group of three Palestinian young men from Lid could renew my faith in hip hop, a faith that was being battered to the ground by the strong, yet ho-hum, winds of banality and redundancy? I certainly didn't. But at the end of last week's concert "From Brooklyn to Palestine" at the BK's very own Southpaw, as hyperbolic as it sounds, I was a born again hip hopper.
To rap in a language foreign to the ears of the crowd, to successfully teach a packed house of mostly Americans how to chant Egyptian theatre rhymes, to be masters in call and response, to use beats and arabic samples that inspire non-Arabs to haz tease-hom, is quite a feat, and a testament to the charisma that oozes out of these men like "petrodollars" seem to ooze from the pockets of "the Arabs of Apple Dubai."
As you can tell, I was thoroughly impressed!
Arabian reggae-they do it all folks!
And the group's most popular single, "Men Erhabe"
*BONUS: Here's a standout performance from the night-by NYC Urban word poestess Tahani Salah:
With the critically acclaimed "Food & Liquor", last year's breakout hip hop rookie sports a red kuffiya on the front of this month's "Leader's of the New School" XXL mag cover as he discusses his much-anticipated folllow-up. The rest of the "New School Leaders" are dressed in the cover's red, white and black color theme scheme. But even in the sea of blood red hats, white hoodies and chains, Lupe stands out with the patterned clothe wrapped around the rapper's neck.
My question: Does Lupe Fiasco, an avowed Muslim rapper, join the ranks of trend-following celebrity lemmings, like Justin Timberlake, David Beckham, Ashely-Mary-Kate Oslen, Kirsten Dunst, as ignorant cultural consumers or is his decision to wear the kuffiya on the front cover of one of the most popular hip hop magazines carry more significance?
I am not trying to create a spectrum of varying degrees of cultural appropriation and/or cultural solidarity; but given Lupe's religio-cultural background, I would argue come off more as a display of cultural solidarity than an empty fashion statement. I am willing to wager that Lupe knows a little something about the kuffiya's history in the Arab world and its association with the Palestinian Liberation struggle. My perspective on this issue is possibly colored by the fact that I did indeed buy a Yemeni kuffiya on 125th from a devout African American Muslim who was also selling kufis many of whom in the Harlem and Brooklyn area have surprised me how much better their MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) is than someone who graduated with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies! But, in all actuality, African American Muslims who account for 30 percent of the Muslim population in America (edging out the percentage of American Muslims who are Arab), and especially Muslim hip hop artists, are no strangers to donning Arab/Islamic cultural symbols. Prominent hip hop journalist Harry Allen goes as far to say that Islam is hip hop's official religion. Actor and hip hop artist, Mos Def, who has put on concerts to raise funds for the Palestinian struggle, has been seen on many occasions wearing a kuffiya and the Palestinian flag on stage!
But back to this question of cultural appropriation versus cultural solidarity, of ultimately authenticity; such a claim begs certain philosophical questions about culture: Who really owns culture? Can it be owned? Who determines authenticity? What determines authenticity? Attempting to tackle the first three questions would require more than the five paragraphs I set out to write for this piece (but feel free to wax on about them in the comments section!), so let me address the last of the series of questions. Even though the kuffiya has its roots in apolitical, non-religious beginnings, we cannot deny the symbolic evolution of the kuffiya to an icon for the Palestinian Liberation Movement. So, for me, those who are unaware of its past and current significance, and wear it because they saw it on a goth-ed out Galliano model, in the back pocket, gangsta style of a celebrity, or in Urban Outfitters as a "anti-war woven scarf," those people, would qualify as culturally appropriating the kuffiya versus those knowledgeable of the misunderstood 'clothe's history would on the flip side qualify as expressing cultural solidarity.
Who knows, Lupe could just as easily be one of those ignorant trend-following celebrity lemmings as well...
With three successful mixtapes under his belt and after almost a decade as a hip hop producer and songwriter, Ottawa rapper Belly’s double-disc debut ‘The Revolution’ premiered at number one on the rap charts in Canada in June of 2007. In the same month, the Palestinian-born Canadian rapper took home a MuchMusic Video Award (MMVA) for Best Rap Video for ‘Pressure’ featuring Ginuwine.
Ever hear of Belly? This dope Pali-Canadian rapper tore up the charts (and mainstream hip-hop conventions) with his debut album 'The Revolution'.
True, the video for 'History of Violence' is probably not your best choice to get the party started, but in the words of one young Belly fan, it "tells the story everybody is scared to tell."
I hear it also sparked quite a kuffiyeh craze in Canada. (KB, can that be confirmed?)
Regardless, the man has acquired some reach - so whose history of violence is he rhyming about?
Ever since the passing of my intellectual heroes -- Edward Said, Hisham Sharabi, Samih Farsoun, and Yasser Arafat -- I've been a child in search of role models. Filling that large hole in my life, I have to say, is the indomitable DJ Khaled.
"Liiiissssssttttttteeeeeeeeennnnnnn," to quote one of his favorite catch-phrases, this mega-producer, hit-turner-outer, is crazy cool. I know he's not gotten the love he deserves on KABOBfest. Aside from May's ruthlessly underhanded dig at the Man for his hilarious PSA against littering, homey has not got what is rightfully his -- the love and envy of every self-respecting Arab (especially Fayyad, who, by the way, is said to resemble Brian Bosworth).
Yes, he does pose with nekkid ladies in bikinis, while sporting a possibly haram, gaudy platinum "Allah" chain no-less, and stands for almost everything wrong in hip-hop. But, so what. The dude seems cool as hell. His studio, which he named after Jerusalem, has recorded the likes of many performers, from the repulsive (Dirty South BS) to the respected (Fat Joe, Kanye, Consequence, Lil' Wayne, Akon etc.).
And in this flier for an appearance he's making in DC this weekend, he's sporting a beautiful "Fight the Power" shirt in true Palestinian style (and the TS on his necklace stands for "Terror Squad," Fat Joe's crew, who DJ Khaled is part of).
Your dog will be upset with you if you smoke some herb.
Your brain will resemble a pan of fried eggs if you use drugs.
You will have a conspicuous, ghastly hole in the middle of your throat if you chain puff those ciggies
We know these PSAs very well, and I dare say that I am a better person for taking the advice of McGruff the Crime Dog by chowing down on that ubiquitous FBI "Most Wanted Terrorist" poster so I can do my part to take a bite out of crime.
Now Arabs have jumped into the "threaten sure death-or just as effective-public ignobility game" to prevent impressionable teens from spiraling down a staircase of sure-death or public ignobility.
One of MTV's "Fab5 of '07" artists to look forward to, DJ Khaled, is dedicated to cleaning up the world, one bus stop at a time.
The K-man's scare tactic to prevent littering? It'll ruin your game, and forget about getting those digits, cause no dignified hottie is going to respond to someone who disrespects the earth with unrecycled plastic bottles:
Surprisingly, the PSA seems to be successfully embraced by the target audience. So much so that it led youtube commentator SweetToothBeats to proclaim that after watching the clip, he now "fux with DJ Khaled even more now. I like to see someone using their position to do good. Good lookin out Khaled."
I too can fux with DJ "KA"-led's attempt to bring humor to a serious matter like Environmental consciousness.
But the most amusing, no-frills (and consequently no sense of humor) PSA of all time award has to go to Dubai OneTV's ad to stop Murder* The satellite channel's innovative advice? THINK! Who'd a thunk it?
*forgive the shoddy digital camera recording and cut-off taping (I had to rush to grab my camera from another room when the spot appeared)
In "Lupe Fiasco, jihadist," Byron Crawford attempts to diss Lupe Fiasco's album and discredit his artistry by grossly misrepresenting Islam with sweeping statements and unfounded claims.
As a writer for XXLmag.com's blog page entitled "Bol's Saturday Night Workout," Byron, it appears, is a blog-educator first, explaining to those ignorant to Islam the intricate structural details lost on the American plebian. According to Crawford, there are two schools of thought and practice in Islam-no folks, I'm not talking about Sunnis and Shi'as (that too is an overly-simplified categorization of the diverse schools of thought) - "Cat Stevenism and Rakimism."
If the cable signal on your Fox News feed isn't working and you are just in need of a laugh, check out the rest here. Other enjoyable misstatements and false parallels, like assuming that Paula Abdul is Muslim because she is part Arab, appear in this error-filled, intellectual wasteland that is Byron's blog.
