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Unable to explore psychology, personality or aesthetics, Rapaport has no story to tell. Anvil: The Story of Anvil is the great document about the unifying love of pop music, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster had moments of stark, clear conflict. But Beats, Rhymes & Life is hardly more than a video scrapbook—one with uneven lighting and amateurishly blurry camerawork. Fatally, no unifying structure means it lacks a beat, rhyme and life. Best to revisit ATCQ’s several inventive music videos (especially Scenario and Electric Relaxation), the finest documents of a movement.

via www.nypress.com

I love Armond White. I guess I'll see the A Tribe Called Quest documentary, but I have a bad feeling about it, and Armond White's description more or less sum up my worst fears. I think White tends to really hammer on filmmaker's blind spots, so I wouldn't be surprised if their was something redemptive about the film, even if it's only the sountrack.

Speciali Competition Winners Announced

After thousands of entries, here at Umbro we can unveil the finalists in our competition to customise the sole on a pair of Specialis. The response we had was amazing, with a fantastic range of designs from different ages and different countries around the world. These are the final 14, chosen from the thousands of different designs by a team of judges which included Umbro designers Stuart Semple and Stewart Scott-Curran, and Esquire’s art director David McKendrick. Initially we planned to have 11 winners, but the points system used by the judges to pick their favourites meant that we ended up with four designs tied in 11th place!

via blog.umbro.com

The Morning News' Digest

I just noticed The Morning News Digest, "A weekly round-up of books (Mondays), mp3s (Wednesdays), and videos (Fridays)." This is my 18 year-old self's internet holy grail. My 30 year-old self is a little overwhelmed with a "books to read" list fifty titles long and an impossibly large mp3 collection, but this is still a fantastic resource.

Remember Manifesto?

On Monday O-dub posted a link to a Mos Def interview from 1998 on his blog Pop Life (not that Pop Life). A discussion about the role of white people in hip-hop ensued, and in his postscript O-dub says:

Now, if there's one thing I love, it's seeing white people bitch about black people bitching about white people

I love this too, and I'm white. Anyway, if it's not the most insightful discussion in the world, it's spirited. Hip-hop was a huge part of my life in 1998, and I identify with the sense of lost hope that O-dub is feeling. I must have played Manifesto 500 times; I literally burned through 4 copies of that vinyl. I definitely consider myself still a part of the culture, even though I'm mostly just a bedroom dj now.

Ishle Yi Park is Hip-Hop

Stingy Kids on the difficulty of selecting the Queens poet laureate:

Though Simmons argued that most of his rap songs begin as silent lyrics, he failed to secure the position. "I don't know if Queens is ready for a rapper as a poet," he said. But Parks's own work engages the different modes in which poetry is made public these days.

Ishle may not be a "rapper," but she's an innovator in her own right. Simmons has his Sprite commercials and fame for life, and quite frankly Ishle is the superior rhymer. No disrespect to Reverend Run, one of the founders, but it's time to let the new generation shine.

Bye Bye Baraka

The New Jersey State Legislature has cut funding for
the state poet laureate position, largely in response to Amiri Baraka's political stance on 9/11.