Freaky Black Greatings aka 6 Degress of Prince

I recently celebrated a birthday, which was quite glorious. The plans were relatively simple, yet yielded awesome results. While I was planning for this day, I was contemplating going to NYC to see Mos Def at the Highline Ballroom. From an account from Brooklyn Vegan/Angry Citizen, maybe I should have...

"If you expected to hear Mos Def rip through 'Black on Both Sides', you left the Highline Ballroom disappointed, but if you did leave disappointed Saturday night, well, then you‘re officially excommunicated from the Mos Def community.

His performance was that kind of performance - provided you went in with an open mind, and permitted Mos and his band Black Radio the room to breathe, groove, and explore the different areas of funk and jazz that Mos has gravitated towards recently. Once their groove took hold, Mos Def rolled through inspired versions of 'Umi Says', 'Boogie Man Song' and 'Napoleon’s Dynamite'. He even threw in a batch of eclectic covers including a Stevie Wonder and Cyndi Lauper song, Bel Biv Devoe's 'Poison', and a portion of The Pharcyde’s 'Passing Me By'. The real fun and show stopper came when Mos brought out special guest, Q-Tip. Tip led the crowd through the chorus of 'Lyrics To Go' as well as 'Bonita Applebum' before jumping into 'Check the Rhime', with Mos picking up Phife’s lines. You on point Mos? All the time Tip!"

No worries though, Mos will be performing on MTV's 45th At Night with Amy Winehouse. This is to air Friday, June 8th at 11:30pm on MTV. It should promise to be a night of beehive hair and black fists!

To connect this all together, and explain the title of this post some, Amy said she would be down for performing with Prince during his 21 London Shows. Whether or not Prince is serious about performing with her, is a different matter. Could you imagine the hair stylist budget?!

Gravel Pit

Today I went on a little Jersey adventure. I jumped from Newark, to West Orange, to Hamilton, then stopped in Mt. Laurel to go shopping with my moms. While driving around, listening to Amy Winehouse, she commented on how Amy looks like a sickly crackhead. I chuckled, but added that this gangly, beehive-havin crackhead has an awesome voice, and money in the bank, which puts her in a class of her own. Then I come home to discover that another distinguishing aspect of this "rock" princess is that she may, or may not be the next Bond girll (GASP). Just the mention of this is as a possibility is pretty upsetting, but perhaps Marge Simpson could play her side kick, with matching Uzis hidden in their lengthy tresses?

In more cheery news, Kanye is so down with Madonna, that he snagged Jamie King to help out with his Glow in The Dark Tour. King has also worked with Prince, Shakira, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey. If we see Kanye with an argyle leotard, we'll be lucky if college is the only think Mr. West drops out of. Even still, it should be a pretty good look. Kanye goes on to tell MTV of all the cool things destined to go down in an interview, but if you just have to hear it from the bear's mouth, he did a little clip with MTV too.

Here I Stand, Six Feet Small

Sometimes I make childish mistakes that make me feel like I'm 6 again. Like forgetting what time my flight leaves, or leaving my cell phone in CA...but those are just extreme..."made up" examples. Now in Phoenix, on the last leg of my journey, I'm taking this time to analyze some music I grabbed in CA. Firstly, the Amy Winehouse Album. Its not much unlike the Lily Allen album, on basic production, but differs in its strong doo-whop structure. The horns provide a deeper bass foundation, which the guitar then builds off, and with the addition of Amy's voice, almost pounds the gritty emotion home. The musical accompaniment provides enough space that she really breezes in and out of the track. Its a good vibe.

That's it....see you on the east coast!