by La Shawn on February 13, 2008
in Reviews
At 43, Lenny Kravitz is more self-reflective than usual.
He recently spoke to Maxim magazine about his newly declared sexual abstinence, “a promise I made until I get married.” Sex-free for the past three years, Kravitz wants more than just a physical connection. “I’m looking at the big picture.”
Relishing the satisfaction that can result from practicing self-discipline in a gratify-me-now culture, the four-time Grammy winner told Australia’s Herald Sun that abstinence “frees you from a lot of things and it also takes a lot of power away from people who are trying to seduce you… Ultimately I’m trying to do the right thing, to honour myself and the other person and honour God.”
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Later…Thanks for the linkage, Webutante and Randy.
by La Shawn on February 4, 2008
in Reviews
Blacks in country music are rare.
America’s most well-known black country singer is Charley Pride, whose crossover hit, “Kiss an Angel Good Morning,” garnered him a Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year award in 1971 and Male Vocalist of the Year in 1971 and 1972. In 1967, he was the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since DeFord Bailey, who appeared between the mid-1920s and 1941.
Throughout the legendary Ray Charles’s career, he recorded in various genres, including a style known as “country soul.” Several years ago, a self-described “blackneck” named Troy Coleman, better known as Cowboy Troy, exploded onto the scene with an audacious blend of country music and rap he dubbed “hick-hop.”
But Rissi Palmer, whose self-titled debut album was released last October, isn’t dabbling in country music, nor is she trying to invent a new style; however, she’s not your typical country singer. Palmer, 26, said when country music radio programmers find out she’s black, they inevitably wonder, “Is she really country?”
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by La Shawn on January 22, 2008
in Reviews
I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman
The physical chains of American slavery may be broken, but the mental chains are still there. That’s the message of filmmaker Janks Morton’s 84-minute documentary, What Black Men Think.
Stereotypes and myths perpetuated by the government, the media, and so-called black leadership about black men fuel an “undeclared civil war” between black men and women, according to Morton. The film features man-on-the-street interviews, interspersed with commentary from conservative and moderate black writers like Shelby Steele, actor Joseph C. Phillips, Jesse L. Peterson, John McWhorter, Armstrong Williams, FOX News analyst Juan Williams, former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele, Mychal Massie, and Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
Morton was inspired to make the documentary after hearing an alarming and well-known statistic. While watching a C-SPAN debate between Juan Williams and professor and author Michael Eric Dyson, he heard Williams say that 70 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock. Morton said he didn’t believe him until he looked it up.
Continue reading What Black Men Think.
by La Shawn on January 8, 2008
in Reviews
The setting is New York City. The time is the near future. Fourteen hundred people have been killed in a terrorist attack in Los Angeles, similar to the one in New York on September 11, 2001. The war on terror intensifies, and the U.S. reinstates the draft.
You get a draft notice. You have 30 days to report for duty. What would you do?
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