Gil Scott Heron has had a profound impact on black culture and on me personally with his commentary since the 70s. Some people call him the godfather of rap. Some people call him a black nationalist radical. Blah blah blah. He had a voice and he used it to say something. Thank God he did. Although he had his vices, the music and the message were always there and powerful. He will be missed.

The revolution will not be televised!

There are many songs I’ve played by Gil over the years but here is one of my all time favorites, Lady Day & John Coltrane

Download

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

So I never made much of a fuss about my birthday for most of my life. In fact, I barely acknowledged it up until the past couple of years, in which we’ve been throwing an elaborate loft party in Brooklyn mainly for all of my Philly & NYC family to connect, get familiar with each other and celebrate life. Unfortunately, Vero and I were not able to pull it together this year with her having a new edition to her household. Mommy duty comes first! I love and respect her and her choice to put it on hold this year.

So I guess where that leaves me is just appreciating another year of making it and paving my own way. I’ve had plenty of adversity and reasons to throw in the towel year after year but I keep rockin on. So while a lot (if not most) people who work in the music industry lie about their age to stay relevant among the youth driven culture, I’m just proud to be at 31, mature, wiser, and much more ready to handle business. Thank you for reading my posts, downloading my mixes, sweating your hair out at my parties, watching the videos I direct & edit, and for buying the music I put out with my crew. It gives me life for another year.

Respect

S

(Photo by Eric Freund)

All I can say is wow!!!

Photo by Inna Spivakova (2009)

*Sigh* I feel like a zombie as I type this.  Quite a week for the kid and I have so much more to do. One love to the Soul Controllers for having me and Lil’ Dave at their 18th Anniversary Party at Tabaq on Tuesday night in DC. So great to see my friends I haven’t seen in a minute. My cousin Debbie who I hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years even came out.  Crazy! Shout out to everyone who came out to APT on Wednesday as well.  Philly was up in there that night.  Other than that, it was a strange night.  I think some of the fashion week crowd stunk up the place during the earlier portion of the party.  Big up to Grand Puba, John Forte, Phillee Blunt, Mr. Len and others who were hanging while me & Akalepse got it together.

Tonight, I return to Z-Bar.  I spin house, broken, b-more, and some hip-hop too.  Always a good time when I rock there.  Come through if you’re in Philly. And of course tomorrow, it’s back to the Walnut Room.  Last week Lady Alma and company kilt it. Tomorrow, business as usual.

And off topic, I had to share this site.  It has some hilarious takes on Kanye’s VMA stunt the other night. I thought his interruption lacked taste and all but I don’t believe it was inexcusable so please stop it with the Kanye attacks.  He made a big mistake and apologized for it.  It’s a pain to go on Twitter and see people re-posting comments from idiots calling him racial slurs and saying he needs to be lynched with the other monkeys that don’t stay in line, etc.  How sadly typical that a black celebrity could be appreciated by such a wide audience but then persecuted and called a “coon” among other hideous and offensive names as soon as he does something folks disagree with.  No need to burn celebrities at the stake for not living up to our standards.  All of us are capable of making moves that others would disagree with. The only difference is, most of us “couch critics” will never do it in front of more than 100 people at any point in life. Now with that said, I gotta get up, get to the gym and get myself back in shape.  Afterall, critics are watching…