How can you call something “BlakRoc” when the black folks on the project only rap and the rockers are all white?
BlakRoc is the name of Damon Dash’s upcoming project, a collaboration between white rockers The Black Keys and rappers such as Mos Def, Q-Tip, Ludacris, and Raekwon, to name a few.  Ordinarily, I could care [...]

by Guest Contributor Kelvin

Last Monday, I was in the middle of my daily ritual of checking on my favorite online newspapers and blogs, when I happened upon a blog post on Slate.com written by Jody Rosen. The title of the post is “The DORF Matrix: Towards a Theory of NPR’s Taste in Black Music”. [...]

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

It may very well be time we stopped giving Kanye West attention, but what do y’all think of this NSFW graphic from his blog, promoting his upcoming Fame Kills Tour with Lady Gaga?
Check it out after the jump…

By Guest Contributor Fiqah, originally published at Possum Stew

Some background:  for most of my adult life, I have been a fugitive from religion, the monotheistic “Big Three”, anyway. (Sorry, any faith doctrine that includes an interventionist, anthropomorphic, masculine god/godhead is prolly gonna earn some side-eye from me.)  Because my sociopolitical views and general life philosophy are [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

As we noted in May, Wednesday marked Mexican Independence Day, which kicked off at midnight with the traditional Grito de La Independencia by not only President Felipe Calderón, but all executive office-holders, right down to the local level.
But rather than mark the date here with a history lesson, I want [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
Dear Kanye,
What is it with you and MTV?
Even on a West Coast time delay, seeing you make a fool of yourself on live television because of a teenager – and I’m no Taylor Swift fan by any means, but she at least seemed to honestly enjoy winning Best Female Video [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
These have truly been depressing days. Bad enough that the past few weeks of summer television hasn’t given us anything to rave about. But not even the bad stuff was inspiring – there was nothing that brought out the sweet, bileful taste of anger.
So thank you, Fox, for bringing Glee [...]

By Thea Lim

Reader Ray tipped us off to this musical currently playing at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival: Mercy Madonna of Malawi.
Putting an African spin on the story of four-year-old Mercy James who was adopted by the original Material Girl earlier this year, Mercy Madonna of Malawi is an upbeat musical that takes stock of a [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
The scene from The Prodigal Son starts out typically for kung-fu movies of its’ era: an argument over who has the best fighting skills quickly escalates into demands of empirical evidence. As the strains of Get Ur Freak On start to play, the combatants … wait, say what?
Welcome to Hop-Fu, [...]

By Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at post pomo nuyorican homo

Reuters recently published a pieced entitled “Reggaeton fever shakes up Cuba’s culture” the article cites an now infamous (in reggaeton circles anyway) quote by Juventud Rebelde that calls reggaeton a “reflection of ‘neoliberal thinking’.”
I think the development and growth of reggaeton in Cuba has [...]

By Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally posted at post pomo nuyorican homo

I have a lot of feelings watching this video, but not quite any thoughts yet. I have had some thoughts on Calle 13 in general recently though.
While I like Calle 13, there is something as of late that makes me completely uncomfortable with how [...]

By Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at post pomo nuyorican homo

As I was getting myself ready to head down to the Puerto Rican Day Parade (or more accurately, its aftermath) I found myself dumbstruck by the profundity of what I was hearing and seeing.
Always the multi-tasker I was getting ready with the TV switched [...]

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

Thursday morning, I chanced upon an ESPN piece on Disco Demolition Night. Growing up a baseball fan, the phrase initially conjures up mostly chuckles: the last great Bill Veeck promotion; a well-meaning bust that it drew more than 59,000 people to watch a typically moribund Chicago White Sox team in [...]

Excerpted by Latoya Peterson

In a January 2006 article published by the Village Voice, Jon Caramanica ended a largely celebratory piece on reggaeton with a somewhat sudden, cryptic remark: “Fuck a Slim Shady,” he quipped, “Hip-Hop’s race war begins here.” Caramanica thus suggests that the most prominent “racial” tensions around hip-hop are not between African [...]

by Guest Contributor (and regular commenter) Joseph Shahadi, originally published at Vs. The Pomegranate

Michael Jackson is dead.
My reaction is complicated. On Facebook my high school classmates and I are mourning Michael Jackson and sharing memories. Claudia wrote, “I remember when someone brought the Thriller video to school and there was a ‘viewing’ before 1st [...]