Speaking of Miles Davis, let’s talk about his former wife Betty Davis. I know I should have posted this in March, but school distracted me until now. But better late than never, right? Betty Davis is one of my favorite artists and when I heard about the concert on March 7th at the Schomburg Center, […]
Read More Freakin’ It: A Betty Davis RetrospectiveToday, I was on my daily blog scroll and came across this article that Mark Anthony Neal put on his blog, New Black Man. The article is from the music magazine, Wax Poetics and reflects on the genre of Jazz Fusion from Miles Davis to Esperanza Spalding: “Yet, from fusion’s early days as a noisy […]
Read More Destroying Jazz?Yesterday, I was sad to find out that singer and poet Gil Scott Heron died at the age of 62. Best known for his poem and song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Heron was one of the important links between the 60s Beat poets and the Black Arts/Power Movement, and the Hip Hop and […]
Read More Gil Scott Heron: A Poetic Revolutionaryvia The Ase Fountain “AfroFutures. Postmodern Ancients. Spoek Mathambo – Control This is such a great video, it can be read on so many levels. A South African cover version of an English tune (Joy Division – She’s Lost Control) to me it plays with the kinds of images that signal a terrible, fearful ‘voodoo’ to the […]
Read More Lose Control!One of the reasons I was never impressed with Lady Gaga is that I feel as if what she does and wears has been done before and she does not even do a great job at naturally making it her own. Here is a picture I saw on Tumblr today comparing Grace Jones and Gaga, […]
Read More Sorry, You’re Not That OriginalThis is why I believe it is important to put things into context, including historical context. It provides for a better argument. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show totally owned Bill O’ Reilly on his own Fox News show. He could not even properly answer Stewart’s questions; he looked like a complete and utter fool. Also, […]
Read More Jon Stewart, I Love You!I remember growing up how I gazed in amazement when I saw Michael Jackson doing this move. Every time I tried to do it, I felt I could never do it justice, my feet would always find it hard to slide back properly. To this day, I think Michael Jackson is one of the greatest […]
Read More Backslide to the Moonwalk“Open your ears to hear words, songs and other important matters.” Last week, while looking up poetry from the Harlem Renaissance writers, and the Jazz drummer, Art Blakey, for my honors thesis, I stumbled upon a piece by Ned Sublette wrote two years ago about his theory of “Postmamboism:” “…Postmamboism is closely allied with (but not […]
Read More Postmamboism: History Through MusicDo you know how long I have been trying to find this film?! And the only place where I can find it, sells it for almost $300!!!! Directed by Ghana-born English director, John Akomfrah, the 1995 documentary, The Last Angel of History,explores the intersections between Black music, science fiction, and African Diasporic religion, spirituality and […]
Read More The Last Angel of History
Sherese Francis 