"She can't sing"..."Such-and-such can sing better than her"..."the only reason she's famous is because her father managed the group"..."she wasn't even the best looking one in Destiny's Child"..."her fans are sheep"..."all she does is shake her booty"..."she's a devil worshipper"..."I heard her breath stinks"..."she's whitewashed and wears European hairstyles"..."she's much older than they're saying that she is"..."she's too sexy"...these are just a few of the most asinine reasons that I've heard for people to dislike Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. It doesn't matter that she's clearly a family-oriented woman who loves her husband of nearly eight years and her four-year-old daughter with all of her heart. It doesn't impress people that her net worth is somewhere between $250 million and $450 million, earning $54.5 million in and being named Forbes magazine's most powerful female musician of 2015. It makes folks no never mind that she has sold over 118 million records worldwide as a solo artist, 60 million records worldwide with Destiny's Child, won 20 Grammy awards and is the most nominated woman since the award's inception. Heck, it doesn't even matter that she just put out what will end up being the most discussed music video and song of 2016, "Formation", let alone have the unmitigated gall to perform it in the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show with a colorful assortment of sistas in all black rocking berets and afros to honor the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party. Some Beyoncé defector out there is still holding on to their baseless beef by the skin of their teeth--a beef that probably has less to do with Beyoncé and more to do with the fact so many like, love, adore and even idolize her as if she's Jesus Christ in Givenchy. However, what I appreciate most about Beyoncé's statement is that she's decreeing the beautifully complicated layers of her Blackness loud and clear while telling anyone who has a problem with that to either fall in line with the much bigger plan of unity and empowerment or build a bridge and get over it. The best way to break down this moment of artistic bravery for an artist of her particular magnitude while exposing a deeper problem within the Black community is through Bey's own lyrics...
The easy post would be to talk about the upcoming golden anniversary of the Super Bowl--or at least that's the post that most would expect coming from the unapologetic football enthusiast. So I could easily ramble on and on about the matchup between two former No. 1 overall picks in Peyton Manning (1998) and Cam Newton (2011). Building up the drama between the No. 1 scoring offense (Carolina) and the No. 1 overall defense (Denver) is a cakewalk. Highlighting that this is the third straight time that both of the No. 1 teams from each conference are facing each other in the Super Bowl is child's play. I could even salivate over the fact that Cam Newton could end up being the third quarterback in NFL history along with Joe Namath and Joe Montana to win a college national championship and a Super Bowl. However, as we are two days into Black History Month, what is even more interesting to me is that Cam Newton could be the first Black starting quarterback in NFL history to win a college national championship and a Super Bowl. Let's be clear: I love Peyton Manning as a person, a football genius, an excellent ambassador for the NFL and the epitome of good sportsmanship. If he were playing anybody else, then maybe I'd be rooting for him. Nevertheless, I have decided to cheer for the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 for the following multilayered reason: a victory for Cam Newton would not only be the first Super Bowl win for the Carolina Panthers franchise, but it would also be another triumph in the rich legacy of Black history as well as the American cultural and historical narrative. As the late, great James Brown once said, "In order for me to get down, I got to get in deep..."
If it hasn't been abundantly clear by now, I kinda sorta have a teeny weeny bit of a love affair with music. Unfortunately, I was on somewhat of a personal protest as I have neither wanted to make music of my own nor listen to any music--especially mine. However, Madden NFL 16 has been my biggest guilty pleasure as of late and it's hard to avoid music when you hear the same songs repeatedly while assembling your Madden Ultimate Team. (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: username is LateBloomer928 if you want that work on PS3. I'm top flight aight, son.) Combine that with the awesomeness of the SoundHound app and I've been looking up many of these artists in between snaps and at least coming around to listening more and sulking less. Because I love to share what's been catching my ear just as much as I love to listen, I have decided to birth a new monthly posting series to do just that. Some stuff I've been hip to for days, weeks, months and years, while other things might have you saying, "Bruh...is Jimmy Hoffa under that same rock with you?" Either way, you'll have an idea of what the soundtrack for my life is--well, at least for that month.
Whelp, despite being perfect during the Divisional Round, I just can't get all of my picks right every single week. Glass half full moment though: some poor guy out there bet on the Patriots and Cardinals and his old lady set her Jesus to the side to cuss him out for pissing away her emergency stash for her Newports. Anyway, since we as avid football fanatics are forced to wait two weeks before the last and most important game of the NFL season, I am not making my highly-anticipated Super Bowl prediction until next Tuesday. In fact, I'm strongly considering not even doing a typical prediction post, but I'll see how I feel by then. However, do not fret as I am here to 1) provide a more extensive recap of the AFC and NFC Championships than I have with the other playoff games and 2) help all five of you with your growing case of #FOFSE (Fear of Football Season Ending). Let's not waste any more time, good people...
When my mother, my brother and I moved to Elmira Street in Southwest D.C. in 1994, we were blessed with a decent snowfall in December. After my brother and I built a snowman named Paco, a few of the neighborhood girls saw him and immediately declared war. Let's just say Paco couldn't withstand the fury of the snow fight and neither did one of my soon-to-be best friends--one of the war declarers who got hit in the head by one of my schoolmates with a hard snowball that sent her in the house. (We all laugh about it now, but she wasn't laughing then. Come to think about it, she doesn't really laugh that much now. Maybe the rest of us just laugh at her.) Fast forward three years later to college and that signaled the end of my love affair with snow. Being in upstate New York where they get snow like Seattle gets rain, they couldn't care less about three feet of snow on the ground; you just better have your butt in class because the professor that lived in nearby Ithaca was going to expand your mind through rain, hail, sleet or snow and make it before the end of that 15-minute grace period. Heck, there was snow on the ground two weeks before my graduation in mid-May of 2001. You grow up and you realize that you don't get to be the teenage kid defending the honor of your pitiful looking snowman anymore. Unfortunately, you have to be the responsible adult who has to lace up his Tims, walk 15-20 minutes to get on the subway and trek to work because you live the second closest out of everyone designated as emergency staff. You get to watch the neighborhood kids sled down hills and snow embankments and play with shovels while you're actually using every muscle in your body with yours while A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory, Royce Da 5'9" and DJ Premier's PRyhme or Freddie Gibbs' Shadow of a Doubt albums are just about the only things helping you to ignore slowly losing the feeling in your fingers and toes. Add insult to injury: you live in a region where schools close if it rains hard enough--except in D.C.--so imagine being told that a snowstorm of historic proportions is on the horizon. Thus, as we deal dig out of the aftermath from Winter Storm Jonas (someone in one of my Facebook said that she didn't realize that they gave names to winter storms), allow me to trudge through five reasons why winter weather in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area bothers every piece and portion of my existence...
