Grownheadz : For adults who love hip-hop

Who, outside of MBA and CPA types, likes the word budget?

It sounds like being bogged down with a lot of papers and doing all sorts of math and trying to remember if you’re supposed to pay $5 on the 10th or $10 on the 5th.

Many of us say we’ve got it “all in our head.” According to productivity expert David Allen, storing un-acted on information in your head is the cause of our daily stress and strain. Wouldn’t you like to know how much money you’ve got and should have on any given day? If you don’t already have a budget, you’ll love my 5 Minute Budget. All it requires is a calendar, a pencil and five minutes! (more…)

We’ve been meaning to post this for awhile since it just came out a few weeks ago, but my local record store had problems with their debit machine and every time I strolled up in there I never had enough cold hard cash in hand. Anyhoo, Immortal Technique has been in it for minute, if you wondered what ever happened to the rappers who were kicking it about life, the world and politics well here he is. Now the knowledge he’s kickin is the pure uncut, so be forwarned that when i mean uncut, I MEAN UNCUT. I ain’t ever had a problem with profanity (although I did think Katt Williams did cuss a little to much on his HBO special but that;s a different post) but my man Immortal Tech IS NOT holding back. As always, these are not the complete songs, just 90-second clips to give you a feel for the music. If you like what you hear, buy the CD. We’ve gotta support if we want real hip hop to flourish.

DISCLAIMER: If you spent Sept. 11th hiding under the bed and jumping every time a car backfires, I apologize in advance. I mean no disrespect to the thousands of folks who were traumatized, lost a loved one or died seven years ago in the Twin Towers attack.

However. I mean every disrespect to the scheming, slimy bastards who cooked up the plot, blamed it on Muslims and have spent the last couple years terrorizing gullible white folks into trading away every civil liberty “we” think “they” hate us for.

I’ve never admitted this to anyone before, but I have a rather humorous 9/11 memory. I was working at the time at a terribly homogenous, but rather quirky academic journal. I had one colleague of color, we’ll call him Prakesh (name and nationality changed), who despite not being from the motherland was even more Afrocentric than me. Prakesh put me up on the hidden racism in Moulin Rouge, white rappers and the way company photographers always wanted us front and central. Needless to say, Prakesh and I were plotting uprising and rebellion daily, in that fresh-out-of-college kind of way.
When the first plane hit, around 9:30 or so, our reaction was absolutely nothing. We went on doing something close to nothing, no different than the day before.
The second plane hit, about 10 I think. Paul, second editor-in-command, ran into the room and shouted “Planes have hit the World Trade Center! It’s on the breakroom TV!”
We shrugged as all the white folks fled the room, and kept up our idle chat. I think they noticed we were missing, because Deaglan called into the main office, “The Pentagon has been attacked!”
That woke us up. Prakesh and I stared at each other, twin mirrors of shock–and anticipation.

Me: “Did you hear that?”
Him: “Whoa.”
Me: “Is this the [whispered] Revolution?”
Him: “Should we kill the white people?”
Me: “I don’t know! I didn’t get an email!”

We knocked off the rest of the afternoon instead, took a 2 hour lunch break and tried not to roll our eyes as our coworkers buzzed around in a daze, or the drama queens with no personal ties to the tragedy openly wept.
9/11 was a day of tremendous satisfaction for me. Not because I want to see those people killed. That was horrible, a terrible accident of birth and circumstance. But the attack–let’s be honest, the routing–took away some of (white) America’s smug sense of safety, razed all false sense of impunity and killed utterly the idea that we are not held responsible for the actions of our government.
“The world is a different place now.” That phrase irked me to no end. The world is the exact same afterward as it was before. The only difference is, Americans now knew their real place in it, and had to deal with the knowledge that billions of people worldwide live with everyday: Anyone can be touched.

Resident Alien

In case your just joining us, we showed part 1 of the hypeman contest from a year ago (it was so hype they didn’t do it this year). Try outs took place in Chicago, Atlanta , and LA. We rejoin our saga here in Part 2. Enjoy.

Atlanta Part 2

Chicago Part 2

LA Part 2

UPDATE

Just when you thought it was safe, future hypemen or women of the world unite here it is, BAM…

We here at Grownheadz try and offer you something on occasion to show our appreciation. So occasionally comes today. For those in the know Murs has been around for awhile (just ask the Hip Hop Purist). He’s been an indie label stalwart for years recording solo and with various groups. Of late he has teamed with producer 9th Wonder formally of Little Brother fame for his last three albums, in fact we featured their last collaboration Murray’s Revenge here in Album of the Weeek. Well Mr. Murs has went and got himself signed to a major label an his newest 9th Wonder collabo is due at the end of this month titled appropriately enough Murs For President. I guess he and 9th just had too many tracks for the album (or couldn’t clear some samples) so they realesed a FREE mixtape for the fans. So you can listen to the mixtape in its entirely below an then DOWNLOAD IT FROM HERE. Enjoy.

ARE RAPPERS THE NEW SUPERHEROS?

by D-Dot for nappyafro.com

I’m a big kid. You know it, I know it. I paid to see all the Spider-Man movies and all three X-Men movies. I own the entire collection of Star Wars movies on DVD. The “Special Collector’s Edition” of course. So when I started seeing the trailers for the new Batman, Iron Man, and Incredible Hulk movies I was happier than pig in slop.

The closer we get to the release date the more excited I get so I decided to call my ten year old nephew and pass my excitement on. It didn’t work. It turns out that the youngest of us doesn’t really care too much about Superman or Batman or any super heroes for that matter or at least not as much as us old folks.

That’s when I realized that Hip-Hop stars have become the new Super Heroes to a lot of kids. Sad but true. So I decided to do a little comparing to see which hero and Hip-Hop star correspond to each other.

Superman/Jay-Z: The most recognizable hero and easily more powerful than all the others. He also married to a really hot chick that is quite ambitious and aspires to be the best reporter there has ever been or as like to put it “the hottest chick in the game”. Figure it out yet? Easy I know. Jay-Z is one of the few rappers that has gained the same level of respect that Tupac and Biggie didn’t receive until after their death. He also lives his daily life as the mild mannered Shawn Carter before flying to the rescue of the artist at the Daily Planet….er Def Jam or Roc Nation if that ever actually happens. The best rappers in the world aspire to be him and of course Beyonce is our new Lois Lane. I would say that Jim Jones is Lex Luthor but that’s giving that little piss ant too much credit.

Batman……?

The Hulk…..?

Spiderman…..?

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY CLICK HERE

Who Are Hip Hop Republicans?

EDITOR”S NOTE since the GOP are doing there thang this week with there convention we thought we might see what the othe side of the asle thinks)

By Lenny McAllister for TheRoot.com

A lot of labels, theories and bits of conventional wisdom have been tossed around by pundits and experts lately, as they try to figure out how citizens will vote in November. We are conservative and liberal. We are boomers, Gen Yers, the hip-hop generation. We are blue-collar voters, working-class voters and black voters. There are energized Democrats, disaffected Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

There is one demographic category, however, that regularly gets overlooked. It is a group that most people simply laugh off, are puzzled by or outright dismiss. Meet the “Hip-Hop Republicans” of 2008.

The moniker may seem like an oxymoron at first, but the worldview that it encompasses fits the politics of many in the post-civil rights generation.

It may be easier, in some ways, to begin with what a hip-hop Republican is not.

A Hip-Hop Republican is not an Uncle Tom.A Hip-Hop Republican is not a sellout.A Hip-Hop Republican is not a race traitor, willing to sell out the best interests of the black community for the scraps off of the proverbial political table.A Hip-Hop Republican is not meek and mild, content to be a poster-child for GOP diversity.

FOR THE REST OF STORY CLICK HERE