DJ Zita: Where My Ladies At?

Check out my latest interview with DJ Zita on Wiretap:

On political work:

Feminism or gender equality is perhaps most important to me because being a woman in a male-dominated game is a hustle. From club owners/managers to DJs to hip-hop itself, I'm working in a industry that is largely run by men. When you take a glimpse of the big picture, you see men in the highest positions of power running the clubs, running hip-hop, running our country. Hip-hop and the club industry's portrayals of women are also largely negative. I believe that what I represent is a strong, positive female-of-color force in the game of DJ'ing, promoting and hip-hop.

On Everlasting BASS:

Two years ago, I was discouraged by the fact that I was DJ'ing either as the only woman on an otherwise all-male bill, or DJ'ing with a line-up of all women at an event promoted by men. I realized that the only reason this was possible is because women DJs in the Bay did not have solidarity. We few women were all doing our own thing, and I feel that we needed to come together in sisterhood. These disappointing realities are my inspirations for starting B.A.S.S., short for "Bay Area Sistah Sound."

Read the entire interview here.

Sure sure to subscribe to Wiretap's weekly mailing list to get her exclusive new mix: Where My Ladies At: A Tribute to the Queens of True School Hip-Hop.

DJ Zita - WHERE MY LADIES AT? A Tribute to the Queens of True School Hip Hop by DJ Zita

Wax Poetics

A behind-the-scenes look at one of my all-time favorite mags:

Lost Documentary on James Baldwin's Visit to San Francisco: Take This Hammer (1963)

There's a recently uncovered PBS documentary on James Baldwin's 1963 visit to San Francisco.  Watch the entire thing online. 

From Kenyon Farrow:

Take This Hammer, follows author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he’s driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African-American community. He is escorted by Youth For Service’s Executive Director Orville Luster and intent on discovering: “The real situation of Negroes in the city, as opposed to the image San Francisco would like to present.”

Money quote: "There is no moral distance … between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham. Someone’s got to tell it like it is. And that’s where it’s at.”

For me, the most interesting part of this documentary wasn't necessarily Baldwin's astute observations or the frank conversations he has with Black residents of the Fillmore and Bayview. It's seeing the fruits of San Francisco urban renewal come into form. Baldwin tours the Fillmore, where some of the 'hoods most notorious projects are in the middle of construction. Crazy to see the despair on people's faces even before they were built; crazier still to see anyone refer to a newly-minted OCP as "marvelous on the outside."

Photos from the film:

Ancient Jigga

Before cristal, Atlantic Yards and Beyonce, there was Jay-Z speed rapping about Nubians in a high top fade:




Via Te-Nehisi Coates.

====

Anyway, had an interesting discussion with KG on gchat yesterday about Jay-Z's complex endorsement of revolutionary figures. Most notably, I was raving after finally having gotten around to listening to Mike Love's Nigerian Gangster. KG pointed out that that it was ironic that Jay-Z, the unrelenting capitalist, was paired up with Fela Kuti, one of the 20th century's most vehement anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist public figures. It's definitely complex, as is everything in our political and artistic landscape, but ultimately it comes down to the one thing that transcends political allegiances: good music.

Jay-Z is easily one of my favorite rappers of all time, and it has nothing to do with his politics, and everything to do with his honesty. And word play. I don't think that any artist should be burdened with touting the views of anyone but themselves.


And, quite frankly, a lot of underground, so-called "conscious" rap bores me to death. Not only is it preachy and, at times, cheesy as hell, but it's also lyrically stagnant. In his brilliant new book Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop*, CMC English Professor Adam Bradley argues that this point:

"Some rap critics, and a fair number of rap fans, have bemoaned the limited thematic range in mainstream rap in recent years. The culprit they most commonly blame is big business -- the record labels, radio comglomerates, and other commercial forces that treat rap as product rather than poetry. Undoudbtedly, rap's growing commodification plays a significant role in limiting the variety of raps we hear, and yet another answer lies in rap's rhymes themselves. When MC's settle into familiar pairs of rhyme words, they also tend to settle into familiar themes and attitudes. Someone who set out to sound like 50 cent will likely use many of the same rhyme words that 50 cent employs and, as a consequence, end of rapping about the same topics."

I would also extend this analysis to underground hip-hop. There's only so much you can do with the word "revolution" in 16 bars. Stylistically, I think it pays to pay homage not to any one person or experience, but to how complex reality can be, and how no opinion ever stays the same. Not only do you have more to say, but you have more ways to say it. Cee-Lo, Outkast, Weezy, hell, even Eminem, are good examples.

*Nerd Alert: Book of Rhymes is a must-read for any hip-hop head and/or literary dweeb.

Relationship Machine

I don't get it. I don't understand how we end up at these points. How does this relationship machine work? And why do so many of us strive to throw ourselves through it? We enter as two complex individuals, get squeezed through the cogs, the machinery. And somehow, somewhere down the line, beaten and broken, we're purged--mere scraps of our true selves and blaming each other for our losses.

Why is it? How does it happen? Those two people stand next to each other where water meets sand, digging toes deeper, taking root in the glow of each others' aura and in the promise of possibilities. There is something "soul mate" here, and each knows it. And each marvels at the others complex existence. ...So they decide to walk together. Interlocking fingers form container for that magic between them and they move to fertile grounds. Together.

How does it happen? When is it that hands stiffen, when fingers slip from crevices, when "complex" whittles down to simple? And when the simple reality is that the land beneath the two has become so parched that nothing can take root? How do we form those habits and why do we each play detective, examining each others' patterns in an attempt to deduce the truth? Why do we whittle each other down to nothing despite ourselves? Why do we shave off that complex beauty and love until we are left with only negatives. With this tiny little nugget that we decide we can afford to throw away and so we rid ourselves of each other and move on to the next.

Why? I don't get it. It seems like things should be simpler. Kinder. Gentler. But those possibilities are always dangling just out of reach. I can hear them calling me from just beyond the audible, but I can't quite get close enough to decipher instructions.

Why do we do it? Why does this happen? Why do we so often lose ourselves and each other?

I don't get it. It just doesn't make sense.

Ill Be In The Sky - B.o.B

detroit's underground resistance

ah, to be a black girl in the 'hood with a love for techno. 'twas a lonely childhood at times, trying to explain to my basketball friends how eifle 65 and alice deejay ended up in my cd player. but maybe if i had been in detroit, i would've found a place -- or at least, some better techno.

i've heard rumblings about detroit's very black, very queer and oh-so-legendary techno scene for years now. and while i'm super excited to go to the city this summer to check it out first-hand, i'm also trying to get my homework in ahead of time. underground resistance is detroit's premier techno label, where the jazz, funk and rock roots of techno are put on full display.

short documentary:


(hilarious) interview:

favianna rodriguez

don't you wish you could throw down like this? 'cause i do.


"Pasandola de Avión en Avión" (Going from Plane to Plane)


"Raw"


"Separación"

via favianna. see more images here.

favianna rodriguez is an artist and activist based in oakland, calif. she founded the east side arts alliance in oakland in 1999 and is probably iller than you.

under construction

don't mind the mess. i'm playing around with a few things, so the site might look a little crazy over the next few days.

Texting Your Way to Love

So heteronormative. And so, so true:

Intersecting lines will meet at some point

Girlfriends are not overrated whats overrated is Girlfriends UPN and brunch
and lines and geometry are a little overrated
because they fail to exist in this world
parallel parking can not exist
but we do it anyway
diameters radii
the circumference of her waist
exists
the area between us and the right angle her hips and torso make
maybe I can believe
calculate the distance from her ankle to your face
professor okay Ive come to realize
this world revolves around Math
and Time= distance/speed
time equals distance over speed
I am two kisses away from her making 1 mph circles around her neck
how much time will it take to genuflect and read between the intersecting lines
because mom and dad will eventually meet girlfriends
at some point
how much longer will we wait
girlfriends are not overrated
geometry could
possibly exist here

Learning to Run

I don't run on sand, really. Mostly, it's because I don't run--not for running's sake, anyway. Only if I'm chasing after something like a ball or a disc. Or a person.

You talked about running on sand like maintaining that solid friendship with an ex. Until now I could only nod along to your words with feigned understanding and false commiserations because I had never tried to do it. Don't get me wrong; I'm friendly with exes--friends, even--but never best friends like before the break-ups. This time is different. This time there is something about that friends'-girl-turned-romantic-interest-turned-girlfriend-turned-ex-turned-who-knows-what that won't allow me to just let go.

I mean, if she and I were honest with each other, or if we took the world's perspective as any kind of reflection of truth, we would say that we are more than just friends. But whatever we are, and regardless of my desire for more, I SO badly want to retain this friendship. I am afraid of what I am leaving myself when she moves out and on, but for the life of me I can't back away from this connection.

We have been through far too much together, and the Universe has said in Her many ways that she and I are meant to be together in some form. We dated through earthquakes, car accidents, flat tires, near deaths, and She showed us that we could move through these things unscathed. For me, though, the biggest sign came after the break-up. The end of my relationship with her knocked me off balance in my friendship with you, and at the time of your accident, I had decided to push her out of my life and to call you for a game of hoops. But She burned this from possibility.

For a while, I have reflected on this gut feeling that she and I are meant to be together. This feeling has been too strong to dismiss or reason away as mere infatuation or fantasy, but now I fear that I am holding onto something that she let go a long time ago. I have held it in my lungs for so long that it trapped some infection last week, and now my body needs to purge it in order to be healthy again.

I wish you were here to talk me through this. I wish you could advise me on what to do. I could really use some Mick and Rocky-style coaching on this one. I don't want to be chasing after anything anymore. I want to run on sand for running's sake and not because I hope that one day this relationship will work out. I don't quite know how to do that and I'm not sure if anyone but you could help me figure it out.

Today, like yesterday, I went to the beach and walked. I have to walk now because my lungs are too weak and my breath too shallowed from illness. While I was there, I remembered the days of sand tunnels, frisbees, and coronas that you and I shared last summer...and I remembered my first night with her. Wet-cold and warm blues and "letting her win" our race down the beach, and magic. She and I have run on sand together once before; I am gearing myself up to run again.

here's the thing about writing a bad review

it's really easy if you're a hater. and i like to hate. especially when a film/album/person gets a lot of attention in a relatively short amount of time -- slumdog, kanye, hot cheetos. it's not really that i enjoy hating, it's just that once everybody starts telling me how amazing something is, my inner critic starts to rebel and i feel like i need to hate, if only to salvage some part of my individual humanity.

so after all this hoopla over medicine for melancholy, i had to be honest with myself. was i hating because i was truly concerned about the films content? or was my haterade coming from a deeper, more selfish space?

probably both.

i'd first heard about the film at the end of january when it was premiering in brooklyn. by mid-february i'd seen it getting favorable reviews in everything from the fader to post bougie to the san francisco chronicle (front page, even). my inner hater started creeping. slowly at first -- i didn't wanna read the reviews -- but by the time my transplanted white friends were talking about it, hatestronomous was in full blown survival mode.

i had to remind myself: calm down, jay. you have to like this film. it's about san francisco and alternablacks and bikes and fucked up romantic relationships and gentrification. and dammit, it's an indy film, too. not some fucked up commercial shit produced by sean penn and starring larenz tate and rosario dawson (although on second thought that might not be too bad).

in the span of little more than a month, medicine for melancholy went from a little-known niche film about black people and gentrification to one of this year's "it" films, something that the masses -- from brooklyn to boston and beyond -- could identify with on a personal level. and therein lay my problem: i didn't want to identify with something that everyone else could identify with on a personal level. for me, the experience of being born and raised and black in san francisco is uniquely personal. for me, seeing the film was like having of some inner part of myself put on display for everyone else to dissect, and internalize on their own accord. and the thing is about me is, despite putting all my dirty laundry in the blogesphere for everyone to see, i'm an intensely private person when it comes to the things i hold most dear. and i guess this -- whatever this is -- is one of those things.

i guess in that regard, i can relate to desi folks who have a complex appreciation for slumdog millionaire. sure, it's a great story, but there's something endlessly vapid about packaging someone else's pain and identity and marketing it as 'socially conscious' entertainment. it's voyeuristic, it's shameful, it's triggering, and yes -- it's annoying as fuck.

but medicine for melancholy is no slumdog millionaire. in its most basic description, it's an independent film made by a struggling filmmaker living out of a friends parents attic. it explores important troupes, such of race, class and sex, and does so in some rather cliched ways. the narrative never really settles smoothly. in fact, there's an awkwardness to the entire film that works well under the guise of uncomfortable one-night stands, but not so well when it comes to discussing the disappearance of black people from san francisco. the pace of the film is slow and, at times, boring. so is the film sweet? yes. does it provoke important questions? of course. is it groundbreaking? hardly.

that the truth is, in all my anticipation, i was setting myself up to be disappointed.

here's another thing about writing a bad review: opinions --especially mine -- are always bound to change, and are always the subjective fodder of the viewer, who inevitably brings their own biases and baggage to whatever it is they're ripping to shreds.

if melancholy were to be released on video, sure, i'd buy it. i'd watch it a few more times, mull over plotlines and maybe recommend it to a few more friends. but i can't say that i'll ever like it, because the subject matter is too painful to begin with, and too painfully under-explored in the film for me to truly appreciate.

is your relationship occasionally on the rocks?

notice it. the way you feel when you allow yourself to love her. And be loved by her. notice the way you smile without insecurities clasping onto the ends of your lips. notice how you float and feel weightless next to her. notice how your limbs feel relaxed and your stomach doesn't turn in knots of worry. notice how only the two of you exist, unburdened by the stares of strangers and the admonitions of mothers. remind yourself of this whenever you start to doubt her. remember how amazing it is to live in a moment of love, and to trust that she's living in that moment with you.

Me’shell Ndegeocello --Leviticus: Faggot (1996)

Dope.



Written for a friend who died from gay-bashing.