PHOTO BY T.A.E. HOFFMAN .....WE ARE ALL OSCAR GRANT

Sunday I went to the rally held in downtown Oakland protesting the release of Johannes Mehserle , the Bart cop who murdered Oscar Grant in front of crowds transiting through Fruitvale Station early morning New Years day 2009. I am a recent resident of California and an even more recent resident of Oakland. I live in the Fruitvale area and I was sickened and saddened the more I came to know about this particular miscarriage of justice. All the same, and I hate to say it, but this is not anything new.  Desensitization is at an all time high and  I can say from personal experience that the barrage of blatant abuses of our human and civil rights can be numbing. It seems like every time I turn around there is another story about police brutality. Another life gone. Another exclusive clip taken from a security camera or cell phone of the police beating the crap out of young black and brown men and women ,or a wheelchair bound drunks, or in instances like the tragedy that took place at the Fruitvale Bart, murdering unarmed civilians. Being someone who has felt outrage concerning the wrongful deaths  and beatings of my people at the hands of thugs with badges,  and the system’s disregard for the value of our LIVES,  I wanted to go and be a physical presence at this event.

It was peaceful with few casualties, as I believe there were a few arrests made during the march to downtown.  The experience was phenomenal for the most part. There were some low points. There were a few folks that seemed motivated to grab the mic for personal gain rather than being genuinely moved by the sentiment of the occasion. Mistah Fab was pretty much booed during his whole speech and the crowd momentarily dipped into bicker mode when a young man stepped to the mic calling people out for getting on Mistah Fab’s case. Overall I picked up on a sense of people wanting to feel the heat and fire of protest but not necessarily wanting to listen to people who stepped to the podium and spoke with general calm and introspection.

There were several people who called for adults to go out into their communities and begin mentoring the youth. Others called for us to take accountability for our role in perpetuating the stereotypes and negativity that  keeps black and brown youth in a cycle of violence and doing something about it. Those comments, however impassioned they were, did not receive the same roar from the crowd as the cries of , “Shut this muthafuckin city down!”.  Many speakers were urging for the crowd to sign up for coalitions and groups and continue to support the radical movements in their communities 24/7. The response was less than enthused. A lot of them asked us what we were going to do after the rally, how were we going to be agents for change in our everyday lives. I took this message to heart. With that aside, the high points far outweighed the lows.  There was spoken word, an Egyptian activist who spoke about one of the brothers he lost in the struggle to police brutality, a young woman seeking justice for her brother who was falsely convicted and sentenced to 65 years, and  a mother showed pictures of her son after he was shot 7 times by an OPD officer while sitting unarmed in the passenger side of a vehicle. The young man who was the most vocal about his displeasure during Mistah Fab’s  speech was genuinely affecting. He spoke with as much intelligence as fury and reminded us that he was Oscar Grant. He walked the streets of Oakland everyday and the police were gunning down his peers left and right. To this young man being smack in the middle of the struggle was not an option , freedom equalled sacrifice, and revolutions were never peaceful. “In Oakland, there were men who used to walk down these streets with guns. Do you know what that means?!”  He asked us if we knew what it was to give our lives for revolution, for freedom, for change. What happened downtown was bigger than breaking news or saying fuck you to the man. At its core it was the human spirit, the resiliency and fight of generations, in full effect that day. When we come together in that spirit we can do anything. Overall,  I’m glad I took the initiative to get involved. I have been wanting to do volunteer work with some grassroots  organizing programs and associations and going to the rally definitely lit a fire under me. It’s up to all of us to be that change that we want to see in this world, and we can not bring about that change if we don’t have the drive, time, dedication, or whatever else excuse you can think of to take action to make it so. I did capture some nice images as well and as I was looking back through my shots I realized I was especially drawn to all of the signs and imagery of Oscar Grant present. It was truly beautiful, protest art is a powerful thing. To see the set of images click here.

PHOTO BY T.A.E. HOFFMAN.....WE ARE ALL OSCAR GRANT

Penetration of Light

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDALPHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDALPHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

PHOTO BY CARNALUS VIDAL

Directed by ZFCL this is one of the most interesting and beautiful pieces of cinematic artistry I’ve seen. Their website is dope too. They make my inner candy kid very happy.

Conceptually, the show looked like it would be phenomenal. Consisting of works from five contemporary Chicana artists, the pieces featured articulated the perspectives of these young women raised in the Bay area on the heels of the Chicano Civil Rights movement. Issues of culture, identity, power, protest, race, gender, and sexuality would be explored by this eclectic and talented group of female artists. I could dig it. 

I’ve always been fascinated by people, the ways they choose to express themselves, and the things these expressions tell us, the things we interpret about that person. From their style of dress to the peculiarities of dialect, the gait in their walk to the staple foods of their diet; we form the picture of who people are from these things. Yet this is only the superficial and sometimes misleading outer dermis that protects the more subtle and less controlled inner mechanisms. I never made the time to go and see the artwork, procrastination is a mutha, but in conducting some research I found the artist whose work  on the posters drew the bulk of my interest . Her name is Mitsy Avila Ovalles. After reading her blog I knew there was a reason I liked her.On top of being ill with the art, Ms. Ovalles is pretty witty, and shares my musical sensibilities. Like attracts like, no? Below are some of my favorite digital drawings from her portfolio courtesy of her site which is here. Check her blog here.

E40 by Mitsy Avila Ovalles

Nancy by Mitsy Avila Ovalles

Mona by Mitsy Avila Ovalles

Untitled by Mitsy Avila Ovalles

Duckhand by Mitsy Avila Ovalles

I saw this picture today and it’s one of those images that I just…….like. I could go on about the symbolism, the underlying themes, and all that but I’m currently working on a writing project right now so I’ll just keep it short and sweet. When I see this picture I think of  the fact that love is often times a battlefield, requiring a fierce weilding of the intellect that guards one’s heart from those unworthy to possess it. If love be a battlefield, be wise about your opponent. As you would in a game of chess…….

Just hooked up with a DOPE magazine out of LA, I’ll be doing some writing for them and it feels good to be linked up with some creative individuals  all reaching for the same goal. Show some love, click it and check it out.

link up on facebook and twitter

 I was not impressed by Black Friday. Lil Kim’s “tongue lashing” did not get me excited as Globalgrind would have you believe. I wonder if this cancels me out as a true hip-hop head? I take no pleasure in watching a woman that I respect, that I grew up listening to, desperately trying to hold onto to the star of her youth. Clinging to scraps of faded glory, shredding them more and more, the harder she grips. It’s quite clear that Kim is mad, and it’s not because Nicki has failed to pay homage.  This ”beef” is nothing more than the trainwreck that takes place when insecurity meets a threat, and any attempts at making it seem like anything less than that are insulting to my intelligence. Further more I’m tired of gimmicks and scandal being used as a means to maintain relevancy and divert the attention of the public, so the powers that be can continue the systematic dismantling of the black musician’s image while keeping the true power of the music safely contained.

 I admire the woman who passes into each decade of her life with grace and class.  These are the women we flock to for advice and support, which young women sorely need, because they’ve been there and done that. These are the women who make us yearn for the days when we too will be as confident, secure, and happy with ourselves and our positions in life as they are.  With Kim’s 35 years to Nicki’s 26 , you think she would be more prone to mentoring her than picking fights with her. You would think she would be wise enough to know what competition is and that she shouldn’t attempt it;  not because she can’t compete with young Nicki, but because she doesn’t have to, and for a woman of her stature it’s just plain poor taste.  

In Black Friday Kim says we need to, ” Cut the comparisons,” because she’s in the ”legendary lane”.  Apparently not so. If  one is in the “legendary” lane wouldn’t they be too far ahead of to look back and even have the time to speak two words about the maneuvers of a rookie?  I realize that ’diss records’ are a long standing quirk of the culture but……..I still say hatin’ is hatin’, and hatin’ is so not cool. I’d rather yall fist fight and get it over with, so you can get back to making music that actually speaks to the masses, moves somebody, touches somebody. Insecurities, fear, and hurt feelings masquerading as bravado does not do the job. 

 My heart aches for Kim, and the way the industry turns artists into cannibals makes my stomach turn.  The game moves on with or without some of it’s star players, but the game is just a sham, big buisness’s ruse to control the powerful and primal force musicians and artists weild, especially within the black community.  Fame is an alternate universe from which some people never escape. A universe where a woman goes from gracing the stages of packed stadiums full of fans thirsty to hear her voice, to dancing the Fox Trot in front of a studio audience, half of whom know nothing about her or her catalog aside from what they learned in Notorious.  The artist is no longer validated by the satisfaction of producing material that is important and meaningful to themselves, that is in turn important and meaningful to the ones they create for. They become the equivalent of their numbers, the byproduct of their buzz. They remain trapped in the image of themselves that catapulted them to superstardom long after the crowd has lost interest,  and it’s hard to watch…..and listen to. 

P.S.  I just have no comment on Foxy Brown and her Christmas Massacre…..none.