Whatever critique I have of the production on Q.U.E.E.N. Janelle is really fighting for her identity as a black woman. I know folks probably tuned out but the rap at the end is so fucking heartfelt.

Badu still doing what Badu do. That video with glasper doing "Danger" kills.

I'm still holding out full praise for Lion Babe but optimistically so.

Laura Mvula just walked in the room and threw down a full house. Watching her live videos with the full band... sheeit. Killer.

Alice Smith's album is steady in rotation. It has some really amazingly good songs, which show in the stripped down live versions she's been doing with one accompaniment (keys or guitar).

Valerie June is holding on to her southern roots music strong and doing it from the heart. Again her live sets show she doesn't have to get it, she just is it.

And then there's Lauryn Hill.

Yall realize that she just did one of the most 'revolutionary' things in hip-hop ever?

Put all of your being tired of her or thinking that she's washed up aside and put her actions in context.

She was part of one of the best selling group hip-hop albums ever. She had one of the top selling debut albums. During this rise to fame everyone tries to industry-ize her. She resists. But contractually she's already been industry-ized. She has ontractual obligations to keep making the labels money. Upon realizing this, rather than go back to what worked for her before, she picks up an acoustic guitar and releases a double live album of new material with just that.

Label's like yeah that was cute and all but you still owe us. In the midst of that she has kids by a Marley, which ties into her mythos which should be noted is shaped by her mind which has been poisoned in the pro-black rap era (© AFKAP). And its a hodge podge of these 'beliefs' that are shaping her perspective.

In the cours of this she prolly reads something about the evils of the tax system and skips paying. Shit she's got kids and shouldn't someone else be handling that anyway. Besides fuck saatan's tricks. Right.

She's moving around with her family which consists of her kid and not husband (entendre). Trying to keep the music going whenever she can, but not to fulfill any contracts mind you but because music is in her. When the need arises she pulls together a band and does a few live dates.

During this whole period mind you the label can't monetize her for shit. They own her but they can't monetize her for shit. When you think about that, it's pretty amazing.

Fast forward to now and she gets hit with tax evasion charges and found guilty. The label is like AHA!! Now we gotcha! So they say to the judge hey we've got million dollar contracts with this woman. She can make us bread if she's not in jail. And the judge is like cool if yall gon vouch for her I'll let her stay out of jail but she gotta stay working for yall. She got 30 days to comply.

Now it would seem as a mother and all that the wise thing is to stay out of jail and comply. But complying would be making the label money which she really still ain't changed her mind to heavy on. So what does she do?

Rather than go back to the tried and true little strong black woman pop ditty that the label is begging for, she goes back to that pro-black rap era and drops this poison (pleas read this shit):


We're living in a joke time, metaphorical coke time
Commerce and guru men, run the whole world man
Drunken debauchery, old world brutality
Cold world kills softly, whole world runs savagely
Reading into prior things, program TV screens
Quick scam and drag queens, real likely to blast fiends
Think twice and past dreams, crime if you ask clean
Quick fast, for poison has entered the blood stream
Psychological master, consequences of tragedy
Mythological characters, men and women is parody
Superficial the vanity, borderline the insanity
Out of order humanity, crime committed so passively
Desperados and casualties, corporations want batteries
Explanations of strategies, domination and mastery
Own zones and the bankrupt grown people, so corrupt
Vice lords and yellow men, junkies and popularity
Culture so independent, vultures scavenge reality
Past, feel the depravity, decaying social cavity
Preying on human ignorance, popular immorality
Sympathy, disease head, population misled
Self indulgent past dead, absence of the God head
Pimps, pushers and,
Nepotism, no artistery
Despotism and privacy
Desperation, dishonesty
Physicist is your policy, more money, less equality
Inflated global ego, imitating reality
Fuel cycle pharaoh, poisonous poison arrows
Hypocritics on salary, idle hands that was agency
Predisposed to complacency, jealousy, audacity
Contagious social gluttony, stages of mass belignency
Effort to make conception, generation in atrophy
Glam life in debt, scam life in editors
Byproducts of neglect children hiding from crediters
Absence of self respect, fully scared of competitors
Lifestyle of luxury at someone's expense
Sensitive children, used up and sacrificed
Blind to the consequence, smoked up on dope pipes
Ecstasy, fast life, recklessly past life
Narcotics and cash fight in this neurotic society
Benefactors turned actors, addictions triple captors
Experience manufactures in this neurotic toxic society


It's like post-war, they looking for the commenters or who the marxs is
Ten thousand pictures on Facebook, it's like the pot callin' the kettle narcissist
Come on really, sayin' it's the devil, but you're the chief arsonist
Hypocrites can't even see their own part in it
No reflection, vampire paradigm
No introspection, break down
Three months before pure obsession, picture can't take down
Children, this a shake down, they just lookin' for a sacrifice
They been doin' this since before Bobby Darin sang Mack the Knife
Before James Dean's car did a jack knife
Perhaps it's because they lack life or lack guts
Never confuse the head with the butt
Opinions are like assholes and most of 'em stink
I was told by a woman, so rethink, don't ever let them ever lead you to drink
Leave you to doubt, lead you to fall
Get up, stand us, pass Lucifer out
Shake it up baby, watch them twist it and shout
Insecure assholes lookin' for a ticket
To ride on somebody like the picket, it's fuckin' wicked, shame on 'em
This neurotic toxic society


Sick cycle psychology in desperate need of psychiatry
Exorcism, sobriety, forcin' social lobotomies
People stuck in dichotomies, pseudo-sicko anxieties
Serial criminals dressed in variety
Social transvestisms, subliminal dressed up as piety
Transforms projections like Cartesian images
Robbing innocence, stealing inheritance
Quiet victims with no defense portrayed over dollars and cents
Maladjusted ignorant malediction and dissonance
Too much addiction, no consciousness
Don't trust it, this cosmology is busted
Broken returns to the dusted, stems of corruption
Oppression, deceit, abuse and repeat
They don't feel complete unless they're robbin' the sheep
Man is not a product if you call it that then stop it
In this neurotic godless society

******

I don't think yall heard her cause she just killt the whole of modern society. And what happens. Judge and Sony are like GTFOHWTBS!! And she's headed to jail. She's going to jail for those verses. Sure she's going to jail for tax evasion, but she could have evaded jail if she hadn't spit them verses. Killer.


█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

franklin, diana ross, evelyn champaign king, stacy lattisaw, natalie cole, dienece williams all say you is a young pup who missed the 70's when the sisters were truly throwin down and i didn't even mention the pointer sisters,taste of honey or patti labelle and the bluebelles,etc,,,

them little assorted kool aid packages of flavor you mentioned ain't got enough to mess with those women's bowl back in the 70's.

now if you mention beyonce,mary j blige, mariah carey, alicia keys,rhianna along with them then you might look a little better and still lose the argument but look better

but them steak ans asle lounge acts you mentioned ain't no superstars

do you not see the 'right now' in the subject line to realize there's no need to bring up anyone who isn't doing it 'right now'.

c'mon maxxx.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

and then acts like these women you mention are some sort of a standard when in reality they in this era or any other are more closer to a tyler collins in rememberence and you refuse to acknowledge beyonce, alicia keys and rhianna

and you could have just posted up ways you think beyonce, alicia and rhianna are killing it 'right now' in support of black women killing it 'right now'.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

I haven't eaten at a Steak and Ale since I was like 12, so you just made me hungry AND sentimental.

fo sho got the munchies in a real real way

I just hope she drops an album soon.

Check out NEW Soul music at: www.myspace.com/starbeing

Bumpin in the STEREO:
Gladys Knight&The Pips
Donald Byrd-Ethiopian Knights
Gene Dunlap -IJTWIF
T.I.-TMHITH
The Whispers-Love For Love
LoKey-B2TH

They had to up the ante after they saw the white women killing it these days post.

theres some sense in the verses but damn if it aint garbled

if you dig it that's one thing, but this song is in no way earth-shattering or monumental even on a lyrical level