Challah back girls

Thanks to Susie (my favorite shiksa) for pointing me to the YouTube debut of “MC Jew C” and “Lil Mitzvah.” Just in time for Chrismukkah!

And if you think the whole Yiddishkeit rap thing played out 15 years ago... well, you’re probably right.

Stakes Be High, pt. 3

Continuing my five-part political discourse with DeAngelo Starnes (pt. 1 is here, pt. 2 is here), Mr. Starnes poses the next question.

It deals with the subject of economics.

As always, readers are encouraged to follow the discussion in the comments section and to weigh in if you are so moved.

QUESTION #3: I remember reading the following quote from Neely Fuller: “In a socio-material system dominated by white supremacists, white people are the greatest producers of money. In a socio-material world dominated by white supremacists, all non-white people are in a weak ‘economic’ condition. None of them can afford to borrow from, or lend to, the other.”

The conclusion that seems to flow from this premise is that worldwide wealth is controlled by white persons, regardless of whether they are racists (it is recognized that not all white persons are racist/white supremacist under a system of white supremacy). Does Mr. Fuller’s premise suggest evidence of a white supremacist system, regardless of whether you agree with it?

Second, do you believe that worldwide wealth is controlled by white persons?

A free Jody Watley download

Many of you are probably more fond of Jody Watley than I am. (I did like Shalamar, though.)

For you: a FREE MP3 of Ms. Watley’s cover version of Chic’s “I Want Your Love.”

It came out as a single over the summer, and it spawned a remix disc. It originally appeared on Watley’s 2006 CD, “The Makeover,” on which she also covers tunes by Diana Ross, Madonna and Bob Marley.

To hear “I Want Your Love” streaming on my Vox site, click here.

See, to me, there’s something cold about Jody Watley’s singing. But on the plus side, Nile Rodgers went into the studio and re-performed his funky, chicken-scratch guitar part.

To download the track, click the song title below.

“I Want Your Love” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at eMusic
Album available at Amazon

Cynthia McKinney is running for president...

... on the Green Party ticket. (Who knew?) Thing about it is, she’s going up against a sista who probably has punched more cops than she has. (Or wanted to, at least.)

Here is Ms. McKinney’s 7½-minute announcement of her candidacy, uploaded to YouTube this week:

A free Curtis Mayfield download

Want a soul-salving antidote to “Stop Snitching 2”? How about some vintage Curtis Mayfield?

“Future Shock,” a 2007 digital album, contains remastered versions of some big Mayfield hits, including “Superfly,” “Freddie’s Dead,” “Kung Fu” and “Move On Up.”

“Move On Up” is available as a FREE MP3. To hear it streaming on my Vox blog, click here. To download it, click the song title below. (MP3 provided by IODA Promonet.)

“Move On Up” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon

Just in time for the holidays... ‘Stop Snitching 2’

Hat-tip: Breitbart TV.

David Milch, live onstage

My old boss David Milch, the best writer in television, will deliver a lecture today in Beverly Hills on “The Idea of the Writer.” It is open to the general public.

It’s Part Three of a free-wheeling discussion Milch began on Tuesday. (He also spoke two days last week.)

What a wonderful idea to boost the morale of striking writers. Because Milch is also a great talker. No one approaches the art of storytelling for TV with his degree of moral seriousness.

If you haven’t heard David Milch lecture, you really should. Especially if you’re a fan of “Deadwood,” “NYPD Blue” or “Hill Street Blues.”

Plus... Milch is always flat-out entertaining.

Today’s discussion will take place from 2:15 to 4 p.m. at the WGA Theater, 135 So. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills. Admission is free. First come, first served.

(Hat-tip: David Latt at United Hollywood.)

Tracking the virus...

It’s not that I want to feed this thing. For me, the anticipation of a scandal outbreak – and the excitement of it now – is almost clinical. Like being dropped in a “hot zone” to track the spread of a new virus.

So... 24 hours after the Drudge Report trumpeted the National Enquirer’s “love child” claim regarding John Edwards, where has it moved?

This morning, Don Imus talked it up on his radio show.

Rush Limbaugh brought it up also, hinting (of course) that Hillary Clinton’s campaign planted the whole story. (Limbaugh also took the opportunity to say “selling drugs” and “Obama” in the same breath. Again.)

But by the end of Day 1, the scandal hadn’t spread to the cable-news political talk shows. (In keeping with the virus metaphor, it hasn’t yet “jumped the species barrier.”)

On the Web, the Huffington Post hasn’t touched it. But Slate.com blogger Mickey Kaus did. (“The Enquirer drops another Edwards scandal bomb.”) Kaus linked to the Enquirer website soon after Drudge did.

No mainstream American newspaper or wire service has mentioned the rumor. But a British tabloid has.

The Daily Mail went with this headline: “U.S. presidential hopeful John Edwards denies cheating on dying wife in ‘love child’ claims.”

(That is one thing you don’t want in politics: Your name and the words “cheating on dying wife” in the same headline.)

Coming attraction: ‘Never Back Down’

Pop quiz, y’all...

In the upcoming mixed-martial-arts flick “Never Back Down” (due in March), Djimon Hounsou portrays which of the following time-tested Hollywood racial archetypes?

A. Magical Negro

B. Wise Negro Mentor

C. Big Black Buck

D. Drug Dealer

E. Sacrificial Negro

The answer is contained in the trailer:

Bonus freebie: Tony LeMans

For those who had high hopes 20 years ago that Prince’s Paisley Park label would bring forth superb new artists – (you know... like Carmen Electra) – Tony LeMans was a good sign. His 1989 self-titled album was one of Paisley Park’s best.

Unfortunately, Tony LeMans died in a motorcycle accident in 1992. He was 29 years old.

Somebody has created a MySpace page in LeMans’s “loving memory.” It includes three downloadable tracks off the 1989 album. (Downloadable, that is, if you have a MySpace account.)

Two of those three MP3s are marred by technical glitches. But “Higher Than High” – which was a medium-sized hit on the R&B charts – survives intact. To hear it on my Vox blog, click here.

“Higher Than High” combines a Sly Stone lyric, a middle-era Prince synthesizer riff, a little Siedah Garrett on backing vocals, and a good-enough lead singing performance by LeMans. It’s yours if you want it. Follow this link.

A free Steve Reid download

Percussionist Steve Reid has been a presence in black music for more than 40 years. He played drums (alongside Benny Benjamin) on the Motown smash “Dancing in the Street.” He has recorded with James Brown, Fela Kuti and Miles Davis.

Reid’s musical path led to extended stays in Africa and (currently) Europe.

His newest album as leader – “Daxaar” – was released overseas last month. Its North American release will be in February.

On that album, there’s a funky, fusiony track called “Jiggy Jiggy.” You can hear it on my Vox blog by clicking here.

If you want to download a FREE MP3 of it, follow this link to AOL’s Spinner.com

You can dig deeper into Steve Reid at his official website.

Finally... it’s sex-scandal time!

Wow. Is this the campaign scandal that’s been bubbling under the surface for weeks now? The one with game-changing potential?

John Edwards? I didn’t see that coming.

And if there’s substance to it... I mean, with Edwards’ wife battling breast cancer and all... then yeah, I’d say the game most definitely is about to change.

You might wanna check the National Enquirer’s website. And, of course, keep an eye on Drudge.

Wednesday 33⅓ Flashback: ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’

The words “A Christmas gift for you from Phil Spector” may have a dark undertone now. (“Close your eyes, honey... Don’t open ’em... Are they closed?...” BLAM!)

But the 1963 LP “A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector” is, in the words of the All Music Guide, “inarguably the greatest Christmas record of all time.”

(So thank you, crazy Jewish man!)

Here it is. Watch it spin. And listen as the Ronettes sing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” produced by Phil Spector in his prime. This LP came out mere months after the Ronettes had their first hit single, “Be My Baby.”

I hereby send warm holiday wishes to the fellow who posted this on YouTube: the one, the only... thunderbird1958. Keep ’em coming in ’08, T’bird.

Coming attraction: ‘The Wire’ (Season 5)

Here’s the official HBO trailer. (Hat-tip: TV Tattle.)

Bonus freebie: ‘Sometimes I Wish I Was White’

Thanks to Bklyn6 for pointing me to a singer named Allen Watty, who wants to draw a little attention to himself with a song called “Sometimes I Wish I Was White.”

The title is just an eye-grabber. The song is some same ol’ simple-minded self-pitying blame-whitey bullshit.

Wanna hear it on my Vox blog? Click here.

You can download a FREE MP3, if you’re so inclined, direct from Mr. Watty. He’s offering other tracks as well, such as “The N Word Song” and “The Snitching Song.” (What, no remake of “Cill My Landlord”?)

A free Us3 download

Fourteen years ago today, a song appeared on the Billboard black singles chart with a sound that would define its era.

The record was “Cantaloop” (a.k.a. “Flip Fantasia”) by the British group Us3. Take an old Herbie Hancock beat, a live trumpet, a fun rap... wah-laa! You’ve got “hip-hop jazz”!

Around that time, Guru and Branford Marsalis also hybridized jazz and hip-hop. But Us3 scored with the monster hit.

Founded and led by producer Geoff Wilkinson, Us3 never stopped putting out albums in England. Off its 2007 release “Say What!?,” there’s a FREE MP3 available to those who are registered at AllAboutJazz.com.

(Go ’head and register... it’s easy and costs you nothing. Plus they have a reservoir of 932 free music tracks.)

If you’re registered, follow this link to get the Us3 download. The track is called “The Day That I Died.”

To hear it streaming on my Vox blog, click here.

The current lineup of Us3 features a pair of American rappers – Gaston and Akil Dasan – plus a singer named Adeline.

Musically, it ain’t about the old Blue Note samples no more; it’s about a swinging live band. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.

MBP of the Week: New York Times

Yes... yes, the New York Times misidentified another famous black person.

You go: “Okay, Dave. Athlete or rapper?”

Rapper.

The best newspaper in America published the following correction yesterday, and posted it on its website:

“A picture caption with the Playlist column last Sunday misidentified the rapper at the top of the page. He is Mos Def – not Talib Kweli, whose work was featured in the column.”

Hear that, Mos? You need to star in some more big Hollywood movies, brah. So these muthafuckas know what you look like!

(Hat-tip: Regret the Error.)

Coming attraction: ‘Honeydripper’

Wow, lots to look forward to at the flicks.

“Honeydripper,” the new John Sayles film, opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 28th, and in a few more big cities in mid-January. It is due to open nationwide in February.

“Honeydripper” stars Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Lisa Gay Hamilton, blues musician Keb’ Mo’, and other familiar faces.

I respect Sayles’s work. But based on this trailer... I don’t know. Seems like there’ve been a whooole lotta “juke-joint” movies made. “Idlewild,” “Lackawanna Blues,” “Ruby’s Bucket of Blood”...

Oh well. We shall see.

Bonus freebie: A Wu-Tang Clan remix

Samo, a U.K. beat-mixer, has done a nice remix of “C.R.E.A.M.,” the early Wu-Tang hit. It’s available for downloading at Samo’s MySpace page.

Wanna hear it on my Vox blog? Click here.

Remember Kennedy? (Wish you didn’t?)

Before I fell out of touch with American youth culture (around 1994), I watched a good bit of MTV.

Yep, I was digging Duffy and “Beavis & Butt-head” and “Liquid Television” and the first few seasons of “The Real World.”

But Kennedy? Uhh... I never really got Kennedy.

Know what’s weird? MTV is like this machine that churns out folks whose careers peak in their 20s. Kennedy, Tabitha Soren, Pauly Shore, Ananda Lewis, Eric Nies, Downtown Julie Brown...

Anyways, Kennedy turned up last Thursday and Friday night on my favorite talk-radio station, KFI in Los Angeles. She hosted the 7-to-10 p.m. shift, serving as one of many fill-ins since John Ziegler got shitcanned a few weeks ago.

And Kennedy was pretty painful.

Does she think she’s clever? Entertaining? Got important things to say? Or does Kennedy realize just how lucky she is to have any kind of broadcasting career at all?

Click here to listen to 7 minutes of Kennedy’s witless jabbering from last Thursday evening. Her subject was Oprah Winfrey’s support of Barack Obama, but somehow she managed to blithely demean the Holocaust.

Hey, I got no problem with a woman earning money to feed her kid. But Kennedy represents – and evidently always will – MTV’s dumbing-down of American youth culture.