The Hip Hop and Violence Suite by Vthov

This managed to hold my interest for a full 7 mins (it's 9mins in total) so I guess it's probably worth checking out. I like the total package of the integration of news clips and sound bites from Dr. Cornel West into the video. I'm not in love with all the ryhmes but dude is decent. I might have to pick up this Books Over Bullets mixtape of his. If I do I'll do a review. Which reminds me that I need to write up reviews for the following new joints I've come across: Mixtapes David by BEEF The Enimal Kingdom by Fly Guy Enimal AoM: The Prequel by Estelle Late Nights and Even Earlier Mornings by Marcia Ambroise Ignorant Art by Iggy Azaela LPs Soul Punk by Patrick Stump Talk that Talk by Rihanna Papercut Chronicles II by The Gym Class Heroes

The Real Bey-Z: Marriage, Affect, and the Politics of Display

The below piece is a reflection on an essay written by Renina "Black Relationship Politic: Do You Believe Beyonce" over at The New Model Minority. In it I explore Renina's call out of Beyonce for not showing affection toward Jay-Z and the questions that raises for Renina about the realness of their marriage and what messages that sends to Black women and others.

In it I discuss some of the larger ramifications of discourses on Black women in public life that are important in my work. And while I did not evoke the term in the comment itself I think this work is reflective on my ruminations of my concept (as far as I know it's not been talked about in this way) of the Politics of Display for Black women.

You can read more of Renina's thoughts on Beyonce (which full disclosure I had not read all of these essays when making my comment) at: Beyonce and Black Women's Empowerment Making Conncections Between Odd Future X Jay Z X Beyonce Arielle Loren Asks 'Is Beyonce the Contemporary Face of Feminism?' My Response And "What Sarah Palin Taught me About Beyonce (linked in the text of this post, which is the one other Beyonce post I read before commenting.)

The Real Bey-Z: Marriage, Affect, and the Politics of Display

I found this and you're first piece (What Sarah Palin Taught Me) to be very intriguing and evocative. Evocative because while dealing with a similar set of issues in my own work I don't reach all of the same conclusions.

I for example am not as convinced as you seem to be at the weight that hegemony plays specifically in Black- U.S. based popular culture. I think that like all forms of culture, Black people have through necessity been trained to have an oppositional consciousness towards the media that they encounter. This oppositional consciouness has not, I believe, died with the advent of mass distribution of Black images. And in this I'm riffing off the work of Jacqueline Bobo.

I make this point because I feel that you're expression of Beyonce as dangerous to young girls' (and grown women's) understanding of relationships, marriage, and patriarchy I see similar tendencies toward work that warns against the dangers of the "loose" woman image in popular culture. For me these arguments tend to unfold as such: We must save young Black women from X image because they will believe it is true, the only possibility of being, and/or become it by consuming it.

I think it's dangerous ground to equate consumption with identification (though I acknowledge that there are many scholars and critics who believe that this how identity works in the era of global capitalism.) I would point to the work of queer of color scholars on disidentification and counteridentification (particularly Joze Munoz) for conversations on how one can consume images/artificacts that either don't reflect themselves or their values without necessarily becoming convinced by those images/artifacts.

All that to say that I believe that culture is at its worst a co-conspirator of oppressive regimes. That while media does send messages about the nature of life to people, young Black girls, that we are capable of more sophisticated and nuanced relationships than we at times give credit. And I don't mean after being "trained" in media literacy. I mean that every day we (re)learn how to understand the images/artifacts that we encounter. I don't believe that people act in the ways they do because they have been duped by cultural products. Instead I believe it is a messy interweaving of discourse, individual and group psychology, social opportunity, and history. Scapegoating culture production I think leaves us without out anyway to hold accountable the structural forces and personal and group complicity with oppressive regimes. Rappers did not teach me about patriarchy and the domination of Black women by Black men...my father did.

So ultimately it doesn't matter, to me, whether or not Beyonce and Jay-Z marriage is real. Whatever a real marriage is supposed to be. For me what the public's unease about the authenticity of their marriage reflects is a national and more specifically Black people's long sordid anxieties about what marriage means. Particularly important to U.S.-based notions of marriage in the 20th century is the attempt through law and cultural production to create a rule of marriage as a romantic partnership between two opposite gender individuals. Part of the purpose of the creation of such a rule was to separate "American" marriage from 'foreign' and 'ethnic' (and I am attempting to connote what was a pejorative concept of both terms) notion of marriage that was seen as being basely economic in it's reasoning. (This argument is based largely in my readings of Pamela Haag and Katherine Franke on race, post-emancipation , immigration, and marriage.) Ultimately America has always been afraid of thinking of marriage as the economic institution that I believe it to be. Marriages that starkly bring that into the public milieu often excite this anxiety. A condition of our acceptance into American society has been Black people's investment into this ethical anxiety about marriage (Franke.)

I feel the same way about Bey-Z as I do Kim Kardashian's marriage, I am only as concerned about it to the extent that everyone else seems to find it so anxiety provoking. This isn't to say that public figures, and celebrities are who we're talking about right now specifically, are beyond the bounds of critic or observation. I make my living largely based on doing just that. However, what I am saying is that our observations and criticism need to think of these things with a consideration of the historical context which they are found within. As other's have mentioned there are many contemporary and historical examples of Black marriage/relationships/love that don't fit within the affection rubric that you're outlining in the above piece.

It's popped into my head that there is an interesting relationship between the way you have described Beyonce in this work and some of the charges that Condoleezza Rice has often faced for seeing cold and detached. And while I'm probably the last person to launch a defence of Condy campaign, I ultimately think this policing of her affective displays was ultimately a way for both Black and whites to question her femininity, moral character (which there were soo many other policy related ways of doing THAT), and her authentic human being-ness. I am brought to this comparison largely by your repeated invocation of Beyonce's class status (as now wealthy and formerly middle class--which is suggested by you're comment that she grew up in the suburbs of Houston, which is inaccurate in my opinion as I'm from the area she was born in (I went to the neighboring high school that she, kind-of attended) and it was hardly a suburb much less a Black middle class area. This image of the aloof and austere middle class Black woman, I'm thinking Sanai in Somethings Gotta Give, is an enduring cultural trope of the last 50 years at least in Black cultural production and I think it deserves much more consideration.

I'm going to tr to wrap up because I think I've probably over stayed my welcome at this point. I guess my though is *of course* there is artifice in how Beyonce does or does not display affect in public. That is ultimately a part of the lives of all Black women. There is often an unusual burden of such artifice placed on the bodies and movements of professional and public Black women (I'm thinking here of the work of Darlene Clark Hine and cultures of dissemblance.) That is not to say that working class, poor, and the everday Black women don't enact this artifice either. Nor am I arguing that this is healthy. I think that dissemblance is a historical trauma that reeks havoc on the psyches of Black women constantly. However, I am arguing I guess that this is not a phenomenon that was started by Beyonce, nor is she the most important or powerful actor in this issue.

*I would also like to say that if her career is looked at in the fullness of it's development that there is, I believe, a distinct shift in the ways that she is able to talk about sex, love, and desire after the dismissal of Matthew Knowles as her manager (and in large part constructor of her public image) which is most visible in the, I think, sea change between the albums I am...Sasha Fierce and 4. Where Beyonce goes from singing about putting rings on it and instead to treating her husband to erotic dances.

**I'm going to post this to my blog and link back to your piece. I will take down the link if you request.

Fox Boogie, the Brown Fox: Some thoughts on Longevity and the Nature of Rapping for the (Female) Emcee

JumpOffTV had a discussion on the potential of Fox becoming relevant in rap again. I think most people were hopeful (as am I) but offered legit criticism (except the main woman who obviously has no faith in Fox.) Kim has a new deal, Digga dropped a mixtape this year, Trina's about to drop a new video any day now. You can be a female rapper from the 90s and still do something in the biz. But disses, with no new, hot material? Not the way.


I'm a Fox supporter. I think that there was a time when she was one of the illest lyricist. BUT! The only thing coming from her these days is controversy. I don't think it's all her. I definitely think she had some shady industry shit go down on her over the years. But I don't want that to keep her from ever making music again.  


I think she has to step up her game though. Even Eminem, who is acknowledged by most (FUCK BENZINO) to be one of the dopest lyricist of our times, has said that rhyming is a skill that takes practice to hone. That means you can't just stop writing for damn near a decade and then expect greatness. I really wish she would take sometime and just go write somewhere, not put out the first shit she puts together but keep honing it until it's at the Ill Na Na level, THEN come back out.


I like Beef rap, i can't lie, but Beef rap doesn't sell records like it used to. Not saying everyone should roll up all their beef lyrics but you have to have more going on in a record/album in order have significant shine. 


Ultimately I want Foxy to be great again. I think she can rhyme, I think there are STILL not enough dark brown women making it in rap, and I think--at her best--she forces the game to elevate itself. I write often about Kim because Kim stays making music and giving me material to analyze...I want to be writing about Foxy too. I want her to succeed, if this is her desire.