(standing in the need of prayer!)

So! Are we still talking about the Grammys?
YES WE ARE.

Because DAMN. There was so much Jesus!
Madonna brought her trusty gospel choir while she cavorted around with a bunch of horny whatever those were
Pharrell pulled out a gospel choir ‘cause he’s happy that song is still relevant.
(Hint: It isn’t)
Katy Perry was singin’ bout the Grace of God
Beyonce was there so that the Precious Lord could take her hand.
Looks like everybody was sangin’ ‘bout the Lord.
‘cept Kanye. Who really needed to have Jesus walk with him to the nearest seat.
Sir. You can decide who wins the MFing awards
When you have YOUR OWN AWARD SHOW.
Beyonce has the WHOLE ENTIRE BEYHIVE to keep her ego on 100.
Worry ‘bout yourself!

ALSO: Any of y’all up on the chisme with that whole Beyonce/Ledisi thing?
I mean…listen. Yes. Beyonce has a great voice. AND she’s hugely popular.
BUT. In my probably unpopular opinion, she coulda let Ledisi gon’ and sang that song.
1. She IS ALREADY SINGING THE SONG.
2. She woulda tore the house down.
a. Have you heard her sing it?
b. Here you go!
c. GIRL. YOU BETTA SANG THAT SONG.
3. Beyonce, you’ve got plenty of exposure.
a. Go ahead and share your spotlight, boo.
b. WE GOT IT OKAY. YOU DA QUEEN BEY.
4. Still though, everything isn’t about you.

Anyways, Ledisi handled it beautifully.
“What I will say and what I’m excited about is that I had the pleasure of playing an iconic figure in Selma, and the song, ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord,’ it’s been going on forever—starting with the queen Mahalia [Jackson], the queen of soul Aretha Franklin
“Then, I was able to portray and sing my version of the song, and now we have Beyoncé (interjection: I’m imagining side eye. Because I want there to be side eye). Her generation will now know the song, so I’m a part of history.”

I guess.

I mean…she got to play Mahalia Jackson. So I guess she still wins. Because DO YOU KNOW WHO MAHALA* JACKSON IS?
(look at me workin’ in this here black history fact!)

The Queen of Gospel. The first gospel singer to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
She was also, Martin Luther (the) King Jr’s theme music. I’m kiddin’, sorta.
Ms. Jackson (‘cause I’m nasty) played an important role during the civil rights movement. In August 1956, she met Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the National Baptist Convention.
A few months later, both King and Abernathy contacted her about coming to Montgomery, Alabama, to sing at a rally to raise money for the bus boycott. They also hoped she would inspire the people who were getting discouraged with the boycott.
And she did. In fact, Ms. Jackson appeared often with King, singing before his speeches and for SCLC fundraisers. In a 1962 SCLC press release, he wrote she had “appeared on numerous programs that helped the struggle in the South, but now she has indicated that she wants to be involved on a regular basis”. She said that she hoped her music could “break down some of the hate and fear that divide the white and black people in this country”

She also sang “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” at The Reverend Doctor King’s funeral after he was assassinated.
And when she passed on in 1972, Coretta Scott King eulogized her during the Chicago funeral as “a friend – proud, black and beautiful” with Aretha Franklin closing the Chicago rites with that very song.

So there you go. A story about the Grammys and how EVERYBODY there needs Jesus.
Especially Beyonce.
Jesus be some humility. JAYSUS.

Happy Monday!

* Not a typo! She ain’t add the “I” to her name until 1931.

Yes. I just made a Missy Elliot the subject of an e-mail. From my job.
You can blame it on the a a a a a alcohol…umm…the boogie… The Superbowl.
(I’m kiddin’ about the alcohol y’all. I haven’t drank on the job since I worked at Spencer’s Gifts. Don’t ask)
ANWAYS. Now that people who stopped checkin’ for Misdemeanor remembered the she’s a badass
She’s on the radio all the time. Which I’m sure SUPER ENTERTAINING for the people watching me car dance.

Also: Two outta Three ain’t bad right?
Got my nails done last week.
Gel nails last forever. Or around 2 weeks. Whatever comes first.

Yesterday I got my hair did. YES. DID.
Last night as a matter of fact.
JUST IN TIME FOR THE GRAMMY’S

No. I’m not going.
I am, however, gonna go to one of my favorite couple’s house and snark about it on the internet.
From her couch. While probably fighting off a twin child trying to eat food off my plate.
I think I win. I don’t even have to change out of my pajama pants.

I’ll be honest. I had totally forgotten about the Grammy’s even though they’re having a pre-Grammy concert RIGHT DOWN THE STREET (from my job. I am not getting paid well enough to live in the 90210).
But then the ladies in the shop were all up in arms about Beyonce singing Mahalia Jackson’s “Precious Lord” in a Selma tribute even though Ledisi SANG THE DAMN SONG IN THE SELMA MOVIE AS MAHALIA JACKSON. Grammy’s. I need y’all to get your sh!t together. Seriously.

SO I GUESS Y’ALL KNOW WHERE I’M GOING WITH TODAY’S BHFOTD.

LIGHTNING ROUND

DID YOU KNOW:
1. That Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. has the record for the most Grammy nominations (79)?
a. And that his middle name was DELIGHT.
b. DELIGHT.
2. That Jamie Foxx (and T-Pain) actually WON A GRAMMY for Blame It?
3. The Jackson 5 won NO Grammys. MJ won all his sh!t SOLO BOLO y’all.
a. (At least Beyonce and ‘nem won a few thangs before she kicked ‘em all to the curb and BLEW UP)
4. Michael Jackson held the record until 2000 for most Grammys won in one night (12).
a. AND He’s also been nominated for a Grammy in the last 5 decades (70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s)

Okay. I guess I’m done randomly tellin’ y’all stuff about the Grammys. Because I’ve got stuff to do. But I guess I can’t mention Missy and then not leave you a little something: Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott – The ONLY female rapper to have six albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one double platinum for her 2002 album Under Construction. I guess a song should go here. So here it go.

Happy Friday!
See y’all Monday. Maybe I can convince my sister to get off her ass and write me a thing next week.

YOU GUYS. I am tired.
Because I decided to NOT workout yesterday morning, I decided to do a workout after work.
A few things:
1. I am a morning person.
2. I hate leaving the house after I’ve already taken off my work pants.
a. That’s a metaphor. I almost always wear dresses.
3. I HATE WORKING OUT IN THE EVENING.

ANYWAYS.
Because going to the gym is an exercise in aggravation after 5PM
And I can’t burn any calories staring angrily at people hogging machines or sighing loudly at people blocking the way chit chatting,
I decided on Zumba! Because I do hate working out at night, but this is DANCING!
And if there’s anything that people like to stereotype black people liking more’n music, it’s DANCING.

I haven’t been to a Zumba class in FOREVER.
But rest assured when I DO go, and they are randomly playing Nicki Minaj,
Of all the black people in this class, the instructor comes RIGHT UP TO ME and I end up in some sort of weird dance battle.
Because NO SENOR (sorry, no tilde), you are not getting ready to drop it lower than me.
Also be absolutely positive that my body is gonna make me pay for that later.
(oy! My hip!)

What? Onika in a Zumba class? YES.
Zumba is a mixture of hip hop, with some salsa, soca and such thrown in.
There is nothing more fun that going from La Vida es un Carnival to the Ying Yang twins.
And really the beats are easily interchanged. Probably because some of them have African roots.
Because even though people like to pretend that latinos only look like J.Lo and Shakira
Black People are EVERYWHERE.

This pretty Afro-Latina is Ursula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso of Havana.

That a LOT of names. Let’s just call her Celia Cruz for short.
She first gained recognition in the 1950s, as a singer with the orchestra Sonora Matancera. She relocated to the United States after the ascent of Fidel Castro in 1961.
The social culture in New York — where she lived — was beginning to change, as a massive infusion of Latino youth entered the city.
Cruz plunged into the New York music scene, filled with musicians from across the Caribbean and Latin America.
She began a musical relationship with Tito Puente began in 1966 and lasted until 1973. Together, they recorded memorable numbers such as “Aquarius,” which brought Cruz closer to the new musical landscape that was developing in New York City during the 1960s and 70s. This new sound came to be called salsa —music born of Cuban and other Afro-Latin mixed musical traditions. By 1971, it was an important genre with a record label, Fania, devoted solely to it.

Cruz put salsa music on the map at a time when most Latinos didn’t have their own special kind of music that they could relate to their culture.
Whites had stolen and claimed rock music; blacks had soul music.
Now, thanks to Celia Cruz, Latinos had salsa music.
She not only pioneered the genre of salsa, but was one of the most popular salsa artists of the 20th century.
She is known all over the world as “The Queen of Salsa”

*AZUCAR! : When Cruz shouts, “Azucar!” it’s an allusion to the African slaves that worked on the sugar plantation in Cuba and the violent history of slavery on the island.

Yes. I sang it to the tune of M-I-C   K-E-Y    M-O-U-S-E

(alternately titled: I haven’t done a “Reasons why I hate Disney” post this year yet)

I’m just gonna assume that everybody who gets this e-mail has at least a passing  familiarity with The Boondocks. I’m excluding old folks. Well, really, just my mommy and aunties. Daddy, I’m SURE you probably have heard of, if not SEEN it. It’s your kinda show. Srsly.

Did y’all know that Uncle Ruckus’s name is a reference to Uncle Remus or Uncle Tom. He is the darkest-skinned character on the show. His name is also a reference to Amos Rucker, an African-American United Confederate Veterans member, who allegedly wanted to stay a slave after the United States Civil War. (Picks up eyeballs from the floor because EPIC EYEBALL ROLL). He is a black man who firmly doesn’t like black people– the world’s biggest “Uncle Tom”. An overweight, homely man with disproportionate eyes, he enjoys disassociating himself from other African Americans as much as possible, and is outspoken in his support of what Huey calls the “white supremacist power structure.”

I know y’all know about Uncle Tom. Because BOOKS.

But who’s that Uncle Remus fella?

 That there is James Baskett, the singer-dancer-actor who plays Uncle Remus, ex-slave in Walt Disney’s ‘Song of the South.’

Song of the South is about a young boy, who moves to his mother’s family plantation in Georgia right as his father leaves the family to fight…something. Nobody knows what. Alone and depressed, he’s comforted by the tall tales of Uncle Remus. While it’s implied that the black workers are no longer Johnny’s family’s property, they are still completely subservient, and happily so. Remus is a companion, and link between the live-action sequences and the animated ones involving Brer “don’t throw ME in the briar patch” Rabbit and Brer Fox

Fun Fact: Baskett was not allowed to attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta, Georgia because Atlanta was racially segregated by law.

ANYWAYS. Baskett won an “honorary” Oscar for “his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to (white)children of the world. Baskett also introduced the Academy Award-winning song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” (See? Songs I love, CHARACTERS I DON’T)

Moving on… The last time Disney released the film was 1986. But never in home video format in the US. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

And lest you think that I don’t have anything Black History Fact of the Day(ish) to add:

Did you know that James Baskett, a black man, was the VERY FIRST LIVE ACTOR hired by Disney?

And that’s it kids! Another month of “LOOK AT ALL THESE BLACK PEOPLE” in the can. I hope you learned something! Because I always do. After all, ain’t but so many ways you can learn about Martin, and Malcolm, and Harriet and Rosa. Other black people were out there doing shit too! And when they are, I’ll be back next February to tell you about it. Please enjoy not really thinking about black people doing stuff because we can only talk about that during February and tomorrow is March.

I don’t know about y’all. But July 4th is a pretty important holiday at my house. Most of the family (all the sides!) and a lot of friends come over for food and foolishness.
And I’m not gonna lie. THERE IS A LOT OF FOOLISHNESS. One year we had a HUGE water balloon fight. I was winning until Nesto climbed in the window with a water hose. I don’t think I have to tell you that’s cheating.
I wish I could say I was making this story up. Only. Have we met?
I can’t even tell you how hard it was to get that much water out of my living room. I’ll just leave it at VERY. IT WAS VERY HARD. (That is what she said. I can never resist. So I stopped trying)

And then the NEXT year, we had THE GREAT SUPER SOAKER WAR of whatever year that was.
The year where I was making a mad dash for safety and stepped in a hole and tore my Achilles but GOOD.
Sidenote: Say what you want about Kobe. If he could stand on both feet after tearing his Achilles and take free throws, he’s a BAMF. The End.
All those people who work at a hospital at my house. Some of them actually clinically inclined.
And the best they could come up with was to put my foot in a bucket of ice and fix me the largest Vodka drink known to man.
And then I spent the rest of my summer in brightly colored casts (hot pink, and green…the colors, Duke! The COLORS!)

While most people would blame the Vodka, or my general clumsiness, or hidden holes in the grass, I blame Lonnie Johnson.
Because he is the (black) man who invented the Super Soaker!

In 1989 Johnson formed his own engineering firm and licensed the Super Soaker water gun to Larami Corporation. Two years later the Super Soaker generated over $200 million in retail sales and became the best selling toy in America. Over the years, Super Soaker sales have totaled close to one billion dollars. Johnson reinvested a majority of his earnings from the Super Soaker into research and development for his energy technology companies – “It’s who I am, it’s what I do.” (Huh. I thought that praise was what we do. No?)

Currently, Johnson holds over 80 patents, with over 20 more pending, and the author of several publications on spacecraft power systems.

I’d say that I’m sorry for slipping in a random gospel song except I’m not. God is everywhere! Even in random stories about my left foot.

I often get super short texts from Spank instead of phone calls.
Spanky is a girl living in a digital world.
I’m cool with it. At least she’s thinking enough of me to keep me updated.
(Also, generally, these texts will turn into conversations about what’s new in college life)

She told me she was going to a party. Then I got a text that said:
Black girls in Boston: Black Girls that can’t dance.

Yeah. She’s that black girl. And quite frankly, I’m not taking any blame. Because she’s got rhythm.
She didn’t wanna LEARN to dance. So her not knowing how to dance? Not my fault.
Because I sure did a lot of dancing at home. And in public. Because nothing is more fun that embarrassing my kids.
(Nesto didn’t teach either of the kids to dance. Because gangsters don’t dance, they boogie)
And you know how most black people learn how to dance?
From their families: mostly cousins and older siblings. (Included: “play” cousins, god sisters/brothers. THEY ARE SO PART OF THE FAMILY.)
Because most dancing happens in everyday spaces, children often dance with older members of the community around their homes and neighborhoods, at parties and dances, on special occasions, or whenever groups of people gather to ‘have a good time’.
Cultural dance traditions are therefore often cross-generational traditions, with younger dancers often ‘reviving’ dances from previous generations, albeit with new ‘cool’ variations and ‘styling’.

That’s right! Like people everywhere, our traditions, including dancing were passed down. But UNLIKE people everywhere, the passing of traditions was likely to get you killed. Back in ye olde slave times, dancing helped enslaved Africans connect with their homeland keeping their cultural traditions alive. Which. YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, TOBY. THIS YO’ HOME NOW. *cough* Sorry.

Before enslavement, Africans danced for special occasions, such as a birth or a marriage, or as a part of their daily activities and dance affirmed life and the outlook of a better future. African-Americans sang and danced while working as slaves, and as they converted to the religions of the Americas, they incorporated these traditions into these religions. Blacks who worked in the colonies of Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean, and South America were given more freedom to dance than enslaved Blacks in North America. Many North American slave owners barred Africans from most forms of dancing Africans found ways of getting around these prohibitions. For example, since lifting the feet was considered dancing, many dances included foot shuffling and hip and torso movement.

The dances of the plantation moved onto the stage through Minstrel shows, which introduced black dance to large audiences during the 1800s. As popular entertainment, both Blacks and whites performed them. Initially, Blacks appeared as giant teddy bears while some white girl struggling with the her transition from Disney teen queen to “adult” “twerked” and made exaggerated facial expressions that I can only assume was her take on what black girls looked like while dancing caricatures that were often ridiculed, but they drew from their cultural traditions even as they made fun of themselves. In 1891, The Creole Show, a revue staged on Broadway introduced The Cakewalk, the FIRST (but certainly NOT THE LAST) dance created by Blacks to become popular with the white population. Other black-influenced dance trends that followed were the Charleston, the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, and the Twist. The 1920s and 1930s were an especially fruitful time for black dance in the United States. During the Harlem Renaissance, similar innovations in theater, music, literature, and other arts accompanied African-American developments in dance. Black musical theater, derived from minstrel shows, continued to popularize and legitimize black dance traditions and black performers, as it had in the 19th century and continues into the present day.

In fact, have y’all seen Azonto? Azonto is a dance and a music genre originating from Ghana. (I’m not giving y’all the whole background and junk. Look it up! That’s what the internet is for. Not you know… PORN) This is one of my favorite videos. It’s fun! And cute! And, oh, FOR FUCKS SAKE, WATCH IT.

I can’t wait until white people start doing this. Oh WAIT.*

*Cultural appropriation: When a group (usually the dominant group in society, though not always) takes aspects of another culture without permission and adopts it as part of its own, often without recognition(or acknowledgment) to the roots and history of the cultural tradition in question.