chinaka and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

chinaka knew it was going to be a bad day when she woke up falling off of her sofa, crumbs from the night before in her toes. she still felt sick. it was hard to move.

but up she got, and into the shower. wash, wash she went, until she knocked over the special pantene pro-v for women of color. she wondered why they put it in a brown bottle anyway? "no matter" she thought.
out of the shower and on the way to get dressed she noticed the time. "my word," she thought, "i'm going to be late for work. i'd better hustle. it seems like everyday i'm hustling. hustling, hustling. everyday."

chinaka decided to text message her friend lauren. days were always better when lauren rode to work with her. "scop you at nine forty five" she texted. then deleted. then she texted again: "scoop you at 945?". lauren wrote back quickly "i'm in berk. trying to take my final, but it's locked in some woman's desk."

womp. womp. this day was shaping up poorly. thought chinaka. "no matter," she thought. "soon enough I'll be at work, and this day will be ending as soon as it began."

no such luck. there was so much traffic on the freeway that they announced it on the radio. that's bad traffic. the drive to work usually took chinaka fifteen minutes. today it took over an hour. and in chinaka's car, that was very dangerous. chinaka's car needed a new timing belt, and any idle moments let it almost break down. there were a lot of idle moments. chinaka wanted to go home. chinaka should have turned around and gone home.

but she went to work. work wasn't so bad. lunch was good. then chinaka met with very nice people at the museum of african diaspora and guess who was there? chinaka's friend's parents who were always very nice to chinaka. chinaka waved! hi mrs. johnson! hi mr. johnson! this day was looking up. then chinaka noticed a huge crowd. what were all these people doing at the museum in the middle of the day? didn't they have jobs? they were listening to a man speak. who was this man?

chinaka looked closer. it was michael eric dyson. he liked hip hop. chinaka liked hip hop. chinaka liked that michael liked hip hop. he seemed like a smart man. chinaka liked smart men.
but chinaka had to have a meeting and couldn't keep listening to the smart man. that was bad news. goodbye mr. dyson.



after the meeting, chinaka left the museum. she checked her phone. bad news on the voicemail. she found out that she wouldn't be seeing some of her good friends for a very long time. this made chinaka sad. very sad. chinaka needed a hug.

"but wait!," thought chinaka, "i'm close to my mommy. she works nearby." and chinaka went to visit her mommy. it bothered chinaka a little bit that she was almost 24 years old and still needed hugs from her mommy. but she needed a hug, so she went. she hoped her mom was not too busy at work.

guess what? mom was busy, but mom took time. it was nice. mom let chinaka talk about nothing, and shared her cranberry juice with chinaka. chinaka loved cranberry juice, but she loved mom more. yay mom.


but it was time to go back to work.

chinaka decided to take a taxi. taxi cabs were fun. chinaka went to a nearby hotel and waved for a taxi. the cabdriver pulled up and asked chinaka if she was going a long way away. chinaka wondered why cabdrivers always assumed she was going far away from the center of the city. it was almost like just by looking at her they could tell where she lived. incredible.

chinaka said, "tenth and division."

the cabdriver said "hop in."

as soon as chinaka got on her seatbelt, the cabdriver asked her to get out.

"why?" she asked?

"because that guy is going to pay me more," he said.

chinaka got out. chinaka noticed who that guy was. he was very tall, white and had on a tie.

the cabdriver was white. but he was not as tall. and he didn't have on a tie.

chinaka was not white. she was not tall. she did not have on a tie. too bad for chinaka.

the taxi dispatcher told the taxi driver that he was being unfair to chinaka.

the cabdriver was a dick.

fuck that motherfucker. ruined my children's story like day. he was all: but that guy's going to pay me more. actually said that. and then went on to say that he was just trying to eat. never asked where the tall white guy was going. just assumed that i wouldn't be paying as much. and proceeded to say "sorry, but I'm sure you understand. everybody deserves to be able to eat. this is america, after all, you work at the gym down here? you look pretty tough..."

you bet your ass i look tough.

anti-bossip.

okay. so the thing is i have nothing against
two of the men i love most in the world read it on a daily basis. i'm not one to hate on anyone's news outlet. i mean some of y'all watch cnn daily. no bubbles burst when i tell you they're not actually the best political team on television. sometimes there's some really interesting info on bossip. like, for example, apparently remy ma and papoose are engaged to be married. married. which will make for just about the ugliest nuptials ever. also, i got updated on the former mrs. bobby brown, tyra, rev. wright, and most importantly khia. ( if you don't know who khia is-- good for you. suffice it to say she's on a show hosted by mc serch of white rapper show fame)

i take issue with bossip not because it's a stockade of useless information-- that's half my game plan here-- i take issue with bossip because it's a name that supposes you can slide the letter b in front of anything and blacken it. as if gossip isn't already a part of the rich cultural heritage of our diaspora. i thought we at least had gossip on lock and didn't have to qualify it as our own, somehow othered from all of the mainstream gossip.

but i'm not here to hate on black folks. i'm just here to provide a counterweight.
so here's my deal. this blog right here. this shit right here will be the absolute last blog where i write about absolutely nothing. if i don't have something constructive to say, and all the homies are out writing meaningful words else where you'll see this at thickwit: anti-bossip-- the nothing stops here, and i'll link you through to something much better. it'll actually work unlike that link you tried at the top of the page. come on now. why would i link you to the shit i'm hating on?

from coachella, with love (and anxiety)

Guest thickwitness, Jose Vadi, is originally from the 909.
He is a national collegiate poetry slam champion and music and film freelance journalist. If there were a prize for someone least like a girl with hips, we'd give it to T.I.-- but the runner up would be Jose. Thickwit would like to congratulate Jose on almost winning T.I.'s imaginary trophy. In the event T.I. can't perform his duties- Jose will get his tiara.

****************************************************************************

i really enjoy popping people's Purple Rain cherries.

my old roommate Nate in Washington DC being one of them. for a white man from Milwaukee who demanded to the dj at Saint Ex on 14th and U to play "Ridin Dirty" so he could helicopter his ass across the dance floor before last call (knocking over several drinks and their respective owners in the process),I was surprised this obviously musically inspired chap had never seen Purple Rain in its entirety.

"I've got the album...somewhere"
"I know you do, you're a former dj, that's mandatory. But, you --"
"You mean there really is a Lake Minatonka? It's not just something Chappelle made up?"

that's when i ran upstairs, got the dvd, popped it in, and watched Nate's entire existence crumble. 22 years on this earth, and he had never seen Jerome prop up Morris Day's mirror. and of course, Prince is much more than Purple Rain, but the shit's classic ("Thriller with more fucking" as a friend of mine once described), and people will still line corners for our favorite Jehovah's Witness from Minnesota who saved Coachella from being equated solely with Jack Johnson as this year's headliner.

which leads to the point of this blog: to recount my Coachella experience seeing Prince.

a friend of mine, a music journalist, couldn't make the show, and passed down the gig to yours truly. Free tickets and a Press Pass, plus a stipend, to see Prince? Word. Called Adriel, heard him scream in an excitement for a good ten minutes over the phone, and plans were made for Palm Springs.

should be noted that since 2004, this poster has been on every bedroom wall i've inhabited...

somehow, at 23, my love for Prince has left me sock less, stoned, and stranded on some polo field in over one hundred degree heat, music blaring from all directions, cell phone dead, and surrounded by white people with dread locks. it was as if the desert scenes from "Lawrence of Arabia" fell into the living rooms of a half-baked frat house with Death Cab blaring in the background. it was only mid-afternoon, the second of this three day festival, and i was over it -- fuck Prince, fuck Portishead, fuck all the bros/bras here, fuck any awesome band that I could see right now because I'm about to die of heat stroke and that totally sucks worser, dude.

that's when all the hate seeped in. separated from the pack with very little cell phone juice to meet up with friends, i people watched alone with glaring eyes amidst the stifling Saturday heat. I decided that as a youth I heard Kurt Cobain's shotgun blast as the last bell for a generation's musical potential. I decided that everyone at this festival was a cultural, musical dick rider. I declared that music festivals were designed the be a buffet for the uninformed that are looking solely for a good time, and for music heads who are pissed that all their favorite bands overlap within the weird-band-mid-day-time slot.

i sat up. i noticed that when the bands change, there were so many tens of thousands of people walking from stage to stage that you can literally see the patron's popularity sway in flesh amidst the waves of desert heat rising from the polo field. and i wondered, "what's driving them to their favorite artist? how'd they get into them? are they even into them?" I decided, right then and there, that when these bands die everyone here will play catch-up to the memory of their ashes. I knew that no one here had heard of any of these bands, that this was just some party that Prince was playing to them, and that everyone should really spend the other 362 non-Coachella days of the year following these bands in their natural club environments instead of trying to get the most bang for their buck through all this festival business.

I mean, that's how I got into music -- didn't everyone? Why couldn't they do the same.

finally, i got some water. i took deep breaths. "It's just anxiety and heat" I told myself. i found Adriel. we smoked and waited for Animal Collective to come on. halfway through the song "Fireworks", i saw a girl who looked like every trashy peroxide-blonde beach-bunny from high school i hated singing along to a song that had lifted me out of many a psychological gutter. and i couldn't be mad. a little while later, watching Portishead, i saw a girl in a white blouse and cut off daisy-dukes who I'd seen looking for tickets at the Box Office before the show. she had come alone, ticketless and got in somehow. and she was loving it. every bar of imported British trip hop, she was feeling it, allowing herself to have a good time.

maybe this is truly the state of music -- you go to the desert once a year, drink a lot of water, smoke a lot of weed, drink even more water, and hopefully come out a fan of some new bands and see old favorites. who am i to judge who comes to these things? aren't you freelancing for clear channel? i suppose hindsight got the best of me when really I should have just realized outdoor multi-day festivals in the desert just aren't my thing. i prefer the intimate over the spectacle, but if big time entertainment is what Coachella and its followers long to generate, mission accomplished.

Maybe it's on me to realize we are living in a time when a band's three songs on their MySpace are more powerful than any of their albums; when young acts like Black Lips and M.I.A can already be considered veteran musicians; when a festival is one of the few chances kids from the sticks will have to see all their favorite bands at once, bands they'd never see otherwise. Who knows.

I don't go to shows nearly as much as I used to. If anything I follow the protocol of the punk rock retirement program and just stand in the back and drink beer instead of jumping on some dude's shoulders and propelling myself toward the front. Either way, people are still interested in music. Good music. Like Prince. The man who saved Coachella from the grip of Jack Johnson.

He killed, by the way. Morris and Jerome showed up. SHEILA E CAMEO! It was amazing. I almost cried during the slower version of "Little Red Corvette". He had two encores. He covered Radiohead's "Creep". Radiohead themselves rarely plays this song, and this fool does it first encore!



now all i have to see left on the MUST SEE BEFORE I DIE list are stevie and fugazi...

reporting live from palm desert,
jose vadi
4/27/08

Go Here.

close your eyes and make a wish.

Okay. Very short spiel today. Maggiano's Italian restaurant changed my life this evening.
Good service. Better food. Best cheesecake of my life, and believe you me, I've had cheesecake.

I have all sorts of qualms with all sorts of things, particularly any major non-black owned franchise, but Maggiano's is food like it should be. Big portions, amazing textures, attention to detail and fair price. $27.95 will get you full as you want to be, and you can take as much as you want to go. I'm saying. Appetizers, two salads, two pastas, two entrees and two desserts for the cost of your busting ass drive and meal at Olive Garden. Oh. The possibilities. May I suggest the cheese ravioli and the medallions? Also the best shirley temple I've had in a while. They've got stores all over. Check Maggianos.com for the full menu and spots in your area. Plus eating there this week supports the work of Make-a-wish.

right here she's saying she likes italians.

Damn. You selfish. You've read this far and still aren't planning on going. How you going to deny a dying child's last wish cause you don't want to drive to San Jose for family style Italian food? And what you got against Italians? You ain't never seen A Bronx Tale? If Taral Hicks could fall in love with Cologgiero, and then fucks with Nas in Belly, you ain't too hood to have a little antipasti.

Keep Her.

I think about the woman.

She is still alive, has bills to pay, washes her hair, uses grease; the woman rides the subway. Justice will not cover the fare increase or a carton of cigarettes. Justice won't find her after work with a quarterwater and a chicken patty. Justice has no arms, no chest, no jokes for her to rub the top of her head into. She sleeps alone. She does.

So really, there can be no recompense. Nothing's going to soothe. Today is in many ways like yesterday, like every night before that one. That one. She will mark time in terms of 11/25. Before. After. Similar to. Smells like. Christmas will always be one month after.

As angry as I would like to be, my thoughts are with Nicole, who ultimately has Sean's children to raise. I'm hoping for her sanity and well being, that she gets some respite from the cameras. I know from experience that the retelling of tragedy isn't always the best way to get over it, so I'll spare my outrage, I'll not comment on the way I'm not surprised.

I can't even really be that upset. In my lifetime there have been three notable instances where The People vs. have failed on such a scale. How long before another? Bell joins King and Diallo in that brimming corner of black memory. Bell becomes part of a litany of the failure of American Justice. But what, in this country, does justice buy? And why should we be shocked?



I am neither shocked nor content. I am at the end of breath and patience. I am nauseous and cold and inclined to forget. A man was killed and I am writing about myself. I am distinctly American at the moments I'm least welcome in this country. I have nothing left worth saying, only thoughts of this woman. Lord. Help me.

A prayer for Nicole:

God,

Keep her. Let her cry the way she needs to. Keep her close. And away from the edge. Help her raise children who feel safe to smile and aren't afraid of being scared, who have wounds that scab and heal. Dear God, she is us: at once ashamed of and confident in the humanity of twelve of her peers. Let us be near to her heart, and cautious with such a responsibility. Keep us well. Let Nicole live, as we pray to be, in your sight, and livid when it is time to be. It is time now, but let her sleep deeply tonight. Make us better by dawn, by trial and by fire.

God, not another Sean Bell.

Let this singular prayer have force, Let it have power, Let it be so.

Hip-Hop Elitism a.k.a. Why Soulja Boy is More Hip-Hop Than Your Snobby Ass

by Adriel Luis

Earlier this month my group iLL-Literacy performed at the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival in Hartford, CT. Although many of the folks we met during the festival were really dope, down to earth people, there was also a frighteningly large presence of people that you'd expect to see at something called an "international hip hop festival." You know, the knit caps, the worn-out hoodies, and the noses staunchly pointed upward at anything that doesn't fit into the mold of hump-Atmosphere-on-the-leg real hip-hop. As a result, we found ourselves dodging Hiero vs. Pharcyde debates and roaming through venues that spun ATCQ and EPMD songs all day long, just to retreat to our hotel room, crack open some forties and unapologetically pump Lil Wayne into the weezy hours of the morning.

However, it wasn't until we sat down for our interview that people started looking at us like the ugly ducklings of the day. It was at this moment that we were asked the fateful question that must be asked at all such hip-hop events: "How do you feel about how mainstream rappers like Soulja Boy are tarnishing real hip-hop?" Our response might or might not have been something that could be chiseled down to "Soulja Boy is real hip-hop, SON!" Whatever it was that we actually said, we left many a jaw gaped open and I'm sure that rappers from at least three countries have it somewhere in their heads to email us a diss track soon. Regardless, as someone who once regularly wore a headwrap and memorized The Roots' Things Fall Apart, I'd like to state my case for all the Soulja Boys out there:


There's something so incredibly perverse about 30-year-old white suburbans assuming the role of Hip-Hop Fairy, dashing their microphone-shaped wands at black youth and delineating that they're not speaking from the voice of real hip-hop. Can one of you hip-hop purists please tell me, how many Sage Francis albums do you have to memorize before you get to reach "hip-hop enlightenment" and start seeing the real/fake hip-hop binary like Neo? As you stand outside your local divebar's open mic nite and declare with angst that you're going to "take things back to hip-hop's foundation," I'd like to point out that when the Get Fresh Crew first started cyphering in the Bronx, the last thing they were thinking about was your leprechaun ass. If hip-hop is dying, it's more than likely that your 1993-jocking emo rap is only making its death more annoyingly painful.

Anyway, back to Soulja Boy. Yes, his rhyme scheme is basic. And yes, the implications of "Crank That" are pretty vulgar--as were the "I'm gonna rip off your epidermis and feed it to your mother" battle rhymes of underground legends like Canibus, Jedi Mind Tricks, and early Eminem. But just not liking someone or not thinking someone is skilled or constructive isn't really a basis to decide that it's not real. In fact, basing validity on skill is pretty elitist of you, and despite what you might claim on Track 3 on your demo, you did not bust out of your mom's womb ripping mics. Like all other art forms, hip-hop should be allowed the freedom and versatility to include the good (Dilla, some would argue), the bad (Soulja Boy, some would argue), and the ugly (Jermaine Dupri, everyone agrees).


See, you agree.
Next, have you forgotten that Soulja Boy is probably younger than your grimy ass Walk This Way t-shirt? The guy is 17 and is probably doing more artistically at his age than you were, working at the mall serving Icees in the name of hip-hop. To judge the validity of any artist based on their first record, not to mention first single, ignores the growth and depth that are instrumental in the foundation of hall-of-famers like Tupac, OutKast, and Jay-Z. Now I'm definitely not saying that souljaboytellem.com (yes that's the album name) is equivalent to Reasonable Doubt, but when it comes to "upliftment" one has to question if gaining momentum through a raunchy online video is really that much more detrimental to society than moving to Virginia to sell enough crack to start a record label. And lets not forget about Mr. Weezy F. Baby b.k.a. Lil Wayne, who many continue to dismiss based on their perception of him as the teenaged King of Bling. Ten years later, while the purists have had their heads up the Grouch's ass all this time, Weezy has put New Orleans back on the music map, been featured on your favorite rapper's latest album, and is blueballing the world with the most highly anticipated music album of the day. Lick on that lollipop, suckers.

So when it comes to understanding what real hip-hop encompasses, it's inescapable to consider the foundation of it being about turning nothing into something. In the way that cats in the late 70s took their parents' records, wrote rhymes over them, and turned that concept into a worldwide phenomenon. Or in the way that NWA understood that the media virtually ignored life in the ghetto, and used rap to bring their point of view into popular consciousness. And yes, even in the way that a 17-year-old from Mississippi posted a YouTube video one day, gained enough momentum to independently release a record, and ended up topping the Billboard charts and getting a Grammy nomination. Ultimately, Soulja Boy did exactly what you've been trying to do in your mom's basement since you were 14. Don't get your cargo shorts in a bunch just because you've been competing at Scribble Jam for the past three years and still don't have any Myspace friends.


Many of the hip-hop purists who would call Soulja Boy a "mainstream clown" would agree that Slug is a real emcee (pictured above, as a clown).
Speaking of foundation, the state of hip-hop is best demonstrated by what urban youth of color find relevant, not what backpackers from Walnut Creek are nodding their beanie hats to. For better or worse, Soulja Boy is globally appearing on kids' iPods more frequently than, say, Brother Ali. Regardless of what you think of Soulja Boy's message, it speaks to the youth that hip-hop has sought to speak to since it was first born. If the youth are in a position where the songs that they can relate to depict "supersoaking hos," there's a much larger issue at hand than just the song or the artist that composed it. If you feel like Soulja Boy isn't real hip-hop because of his graphic and negative songs, find a way to educate the kid or at least the kids that are bumping his shit. But plugging your ears and saying "Well that's not real hip-hop"...that would be like living in a neighborhood and seeing some kids from down the block stealing an old lady's purse and being like "Oh that's not very positive...those must not be real neighbors." Simply pushing it all outside of your consciousness, deeming it irrelevant, or disowning it from your utopian and fluffy concept of reality won't solve anything. Instead, it will continue to alienate the voices and preferences of oppressed youth, and toss hip-hop into the cesspool of musical genres that have become dominated by flannel-wearing goose hunters from Providence.


We have found ourselves in a Twilight Zone of a situation in which hip-hop--a music form whose history has been paved with the struggle of being validated as "real music"--is now experiencing a micro version of its own peril, in the form of the internal strife over which part of itself can be validated as "real hip-hop." Hip-hop is deeply rooted in opposing the elitism that barred it from shelves in record stores, stages in music halls, and definitely the uppity approval of music intellectuals. In fact, in this whole scheme of things, it seems that the only thing that is truly, defiantly NOT hip-hop, is to claim to have the phantom certification to say what is and isn't.

We can only wait and see what happens with Soulja Boy, Hurricane Chris, Shawty-Lo, and all the other rappers du jour. Maybe like most others, they'll fade away after the first couple of singles. Or maybe they're reinvent themselves like the gun-toting diamond-studded pre-Food & Liquor Lupe Fiasco did. Regardless, it's evident that whether or not you like these rappers there something to be said about the fact that a large portion of our youth gravitate towards them as the the spokespeople of their generation.

So the next time you hear music from someone, particularly a young person of color who is obviously rapping, and who has obviously captured the attention of urban youth--and still somehow find in yourself the audacity to preside over why it is or isn't hip-hop, as yourself: "Am I exhibiting the elitist attitude that has been the primary plague of hip-hop culture and its participants for all these decades?" The answer is most likely: "Yahh, trick, yahh!"


Adrizzle.com: a real blog.

Thickwitness

Welcome to Thickwitness- the blog from a girl with hips.

This is, primarily, a collection of pixels devoted to celebrating the full body of the black female experience. No. Ew. Gross. That last line sounds entirely too much like it was written by one of my white female allies.

Which isn't really what I want to do right here. Hmmm. Okay. Here it go. Feel me on this.

If you wish you still had a Magna Doodle, a Lite Brite, a Kid Sister doll or access to the complete series of Hey Dude, this blog's for you. Meaning: I'm trying to write something on the regular that resonates with your true and vibrant inner dork.

Thickwitness is the companion site to my short book, which is also For Girls With Hips. That said, it is the one place I'll feel comfortable posting about the things which make me most angry. I still have trouble being seated in some restaurants and the lawyer said I came dressed "thugged out" to court last week (though I was rocking a pencil skirt from H+M-- how thug could I be?) This blog is for the everyday of my black girl. For prostyle and prokeds. It is Probama and Creative Rec. Macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese and chips and cheese and recipes and movie reviews. It's hating on The Dream and shameless self promotion. It is about warring ideals, dark bodies and double entendres.

Plus, my cool ass friends will be guesting. Every week a few of my ridiculously cool friends will aid in this exploit. Look for posts from Lauren Whitehead, Nico Cary, Adam Mansbach, Sherlynn Hicks, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Rafael Casal, Weyland Southon, Ise Lyfe, Rolando Brown, Anthony Nguyen, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Well, Fitzgerald may not blog, but then again, I didn't ask him. Kinda like how I didn't ask Mansbach or anyone else on the list.

Which brings me to my next point: I did ask Adriel to help me build the site, and he did.
The guy to my right and your left isn't exactly a girl with hips, but shut your face if he's not the ill-est designer this side of the international date line. That's probably why people are trying to cut in his international date line. Gigantic thanks to Adriel Luis as he fades to black as e-master emeritus, and bows out gracefully in this web design game. To honor his hard work, I'm asking him to write more. Tomorrow, Adriel Luis is Thickwit's inaugural guest blogger.

Blau.