My blackberry buzzed and I looked at the message, “Do you want to see a play about the Scottsboro boys?” I replied, “yeah.” Then the second message came in: “It’s a musical.” At that moment I wondered, who and why would someone make a musical out of tragedy of the railroading of nine Black men for the alleged rape of two White women in Alabama … after watching it I had more questions and even more anger.

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From the moment of the opening credits when the viewer beings to read phonetic words, you are forced inside the life of Precious. I found the narrative was powerfully weaved. The viewer gets to see the compounding hazardous factors that assault Precious on the daily: failing schools, inadequate academic preparation, lack of healthy food options, substandard housing, negotiating the social welfare system, domestic violence, sexual assault, just to name a few. These hazards, for me, fall into two categories, the former are normative of many families mired in poverty and the latter two are often more prevalent in families mired in poverty but are not necessary conditions of poverty. Put another way, the first are features of what it usually means to grow up in a poor neighborhood and household. For the last two, the odds of them occurring are increased by being in poverty but that does not mean they happen in most poor homes. Poverty, like most social forces, has a way of making bad things worse and Precious illustrates this painful circumstance. The movies portraiture of the mid 1980s New York scene is disturbing and rings with a tenor of truth and fantasy. I expect nothing less from a film about urban issues and youth.

The character Precious’ agency, her ability to make independent choices that affect her life, is wonderfully represented in the face of the social maladies she encounters (yes, I know most have an opposite take on this and I’m likely setting myself up for a battle but it’s all good). For those of us who have committed many hours to working with urban Black poor communities, we know that success or transcendence is not always or even often the outcome. You begin to look for the small victories that some would not see as minor, but are nonetheless steps to persevering with the goals of thriving. Our communities are resilient and I think the film captures this and puts context on that resilience. For example, in the movie, the decision to speak up in the welfare office knowing she would compromise her safety, housing, and potentially her life was beyond brave. While sitting in an arm chair and suggesting such a decision is the “obvious” one or one that is “unhelpful” is too narrow a perspective on the faces at the bottom of the well.

I was moved by the film and the story because it represented, in many ways, the lives of the students who I could not touch in New Haven, Atlanta, Detroit and New York. The children who moved, by force and by choice, from the classrooms and schools which I’ve visited, taught in, or spoke at. All too often their agency becomes rendered invisible while their transgressions such as imprisonment, welfare receipt, and deaths are hyper-visible in the public sphere. For this reason, I appreciated the voices and lives the film narrated. There are a number of excellent reviews on what the film missed and some issues that deserve serious consideration. Both The Root and Racialicious do an excellent job of taking these on and I won’t rehash them so please do read them!!! This is not so much a review but rather a reflection and endorsement of stepping out to see the film for yourself. I am excited by the debates and conversations that are erupting for the film and hope they lead us to new ground in transforming communities.

My first real introduction to Islam came from Hip-Hop, as is the case for many of my peers. Coming of age on the east coast in the late 80s and 90s meant that Islam became part of the songs you listened to, the names children were given, and was part of “fighting the power.” As a teenager, my naive understanding of the deen of Islam was small, but Hip-Hop showed me that being Muslim and a rapper demanded a different set of standards for living, from not eating pork to dropping knowledge in rhymes. In short, I was in love, but from a far. Fast forward and I find myself in my 30s and have seen the influence of Islam come and go in Hip-Hop culture, but was I reminded of the power of spirituality and creativity merged when watching New Muslim Cool which premiers tonight on PBS POV. Check your local listing.

There are a number of reviews of New Muslim Cool already popping up so if you want a more traditional review check the the Times or for a piece with good context check the Root. The film traces the protagonist Hamza of the M-Team (Muhajideen Team) as he forms a family, builds a career in community transformation, and rocks as a Puerto Rican Muslim MC. Whether hopping on stage with flaming machetes, making dua in Al-Aqsa Islamic Center in Philadelphia, or speaking to Christians in prison, Hamza shows the power of being grounded in spirituality, yet not encumbered by culture. I was most impressed that the film showed indigenous Islam at its finest. (Indigenous Islam usually refers to people born and raised in the US who have practiced Islam outside of a predominantly Muslim cultural context … if you really want to learn more, in particular about the role of Black folks laying the foundation for Islam in America, check out Islam and the Blackamerican.) While the recent 15 years have put a face on Islam in America that is predominantly Arab and South Asian, there are large indigenous communities practicing various forms of Islam and continuing to challenge and refine the relationship between the religion and culture.

The film smoothly captures the contours of Hamza’s life ranging from the struggles of his newly open Masjid (Mosque) getting raided by the Feds, his own quest to grow as a father, and his entering into a cross-cultural marriage. Unfortunately, a capstone narrative on how Hip-Hop fully fit into his evolved life was missing. Filmed over the span of multiple years, I wanted to know, how did Hamza’s view on Hip-Hop as a site for resistance evolve? How had his embracing of Malcolm X evolved as he studied more? How did he see other Muslims in Hip-Hop, particularly non-Sunni Muslims? There is really rich territory to be unearthed on the marriage, divorce, and sometimes estranged relationship between Hip-Hop and Islam. But no film can cover all the bases. I thoroughly enjoyed New Muslim Cool for its careful treatment of Hamza who beautifully embodies two of the most powerful social forces of the past 30 years: Hip-Hop and Islam. As a child of Hip-Hop and an admirer of Islam, I was pleased to see that the “new muslim cool” may just be the maturation of the old muslim cool.

So I had no intention of writing a review of the new movie on Biggie, Notorious, but the reviews that I’ve been reading have left me with no choice. I will keep my comments brief and give you the punchline upfront. The movie sucks, if you have ten dollars I can think of plenty of other things to spend it on. In fact, if you were going to take someone else, you two can put your money together and get two snuggies … they even come with a free reading light. Alright, to my review/thoughts.

I got a chance to see the movie at screening in Chicago, which means I spent no money on it, meaning I’m as objective as they come… well as objective as I can be. I’m a Hip-Hop head, I consider Biggie one of the all time greats. I love Hip-Hop. I am a tough critic of movies, so going in I decided to take it easy on the film. Coming in, it was my hope that Notorious was not another Too Legit. I hoped that it would capture the complexity of cat who could drop Suicidal Thoughts and Dreams. I wanted the movie to really get at the changes that Biggie underwent that led him to end up ensnared in a tumultuous battle with a man who he felt taught him the game. I wanted to see how the cat who called himself “Black and ugly as ever” was able to become a sex symbol and the poet laureate for the hood. Instead, I encountered a movie that is destined to be a BET Blackbuster hit that will certainly be on Saturday day afternoon rotation soon enough. Now if you’re reading this and saying “what’s wrong with BET Blackbuster movies?” Stop reading, really dog? How did you even get to this blog?  ;)

Back to the task at hand. There are a few MAJOR issues with the movie. First, the script must have been inspired by MC Lyte’s early work, cause it was paper thin (not a diss to MC Lyte, really a diss to the writers). It was like a long ass Vibe article that was uncomplicated, trite and lop-sided. Obviously it was supposed to tell Biggie’s side, but when we got to the East v. West beef part of the story and Biggie was shown to be  “above the fray” I had already grown tired of yelling to myself, “this is some bull****.”

The second issue is that there was very little acting in the movie, but there were a whole lot of impersonations. I, nor the folks sitting with me, could control our laughter every time Derek Luke did his Diddy impression. It was like watching an Aries Spears skit, spot on, but it was so ridiculous that it could only be parody. Don’t believe me, watch it yourself. Then can someone explain to me why every time Puffy was on screen his lips looked like he had just finished off a 2 piece from Popeye’s? Can someone tell me why Lil’ Cease looked pre-pubescent the whole movie? Can someone tell me why Lil’ Kim couldn’t keep her clothes on in more than two scenes? Come someone tell me where and what kind of accent did Voletta Wallace have? And will someone please tell me explain to me how Puffy was the Dalai Lama with all his “wise counsel”? All of it was like a Vanilla Ice album (get it? to the extreme).

A third issue was that none of the characters had depth. During the course of the movie I managed to not become connected to anyone! Not Biggie when he was locked up. Not Kim when she was “the other woman.” Not Faith when she was cheated on. Not the White girl when Faith whooped her butt. I swear I was reading characters written by a high schooler they were so flat.

I could document the many issues with this movie, like the way Biggie’s cadence was off, how lyrics were flubbed, but that ain’t even the point. I’d rather just tell you what I never felt. I really, really, really wanted to get pulled back to that golden age in my mind of Hip-Hop. I wanted to hear a beat drop and have my head compulsively nod and remember what it felt like to lug around timbs in the cold, to floss in sun, or to consider the value of my life. These were the things Biggie meant to me and the movie captured NONE of that. As a fan of the man and the music, this movie fell short from start to finish. When the movie ended I wanted to leave and put on a Mister Cee Mixtape like the “Best of Biggie” to cleanse my eyes and ears of the visual catastrophe that should be called “The Worst of Biggie.”

Lately I’ve been reading Black scholar’s takes on the Black experience and one theme that continues to come up over and over again is the difficulty of displaying humanness and complexity with the Black experience. How does one write about a people who are de-identified yet identified, homeless yet at home, the contradictions are multitudes. Well, if Cornel West is right in saying that Du Bois failed to capture the humanity and love of Black people in the Souls of Black Folks. I hope West takes the time to see Bamuthi’s performance of double consciousness and beyond.

The Breaks is a performance piece that takes the viewer on a journey with Bamuthi as he travels from NYC to Africa to Europe and all stops in between. As you watch Bamu wind through his history and experiences, you begin to understand why his tales are the Break/s. Initially I wasn’t sure what to expect, of course, the break beat is a blessed moment in Hip-Hop, that moment when reality and fantasy meet in a fury, the moment when B-Boys and B-Girls would go into a frenzy to create something dangerous, alluring, and sacred by those who knew what it meant to uprock, freeze, and get off. On the other side, the title reminds me of Kurtis Blow’s classic song about the ways that life deals us obstacles and the dynamic responses we answer with. Well from the opening when you watch Bamuthi spin slowly on the floor, you’re taken into the turntable of not just Hip-Hop but life as lived through Hip-Hop.

There are too many themes covered to really expound on any one, but let me say, that I was touched. For me, there is art that moves and there is art that moves you to be better. The Break/s challenged me personally and socially to think about how I understand myself, the actions of my past, and what is to happen as I experience the Breaks. Years ago, I had a discussion with Bamuthi when he opined that Hip-Hop is young people’s. He said to me “bruh, it ain’t my and your music anymore.” The throw back to the “golden age” is just an idealized past, but most importantly past. I painfully chewed on his reflection but still felt that I was Hip-Hop, just a different Hip-Hop than the one that I would hear commonly.

In watching Bamuthi work through his performance, I saw, heard, and felt the twoness of past and present. The warring souls, that were represented by my aging body, my love for the people, and Hip-Hop. He tugged at my psyche to he discussed acceptance, rejection, imperfection, broken promises, all while telling his life (possibly both real and imagined).His performance challenged me to think about how distant am I from who I was and who I will be.  I kept searching for the break beat to bring me back to my groove, only to realize that my groove is not a singular break, it’s a compilation of the breaks of my life and those that surround me. For most of my life I have attempted to find solace from the breaks of life in hip-hop, sometimes successfully and other times unsuccessfully. The battle for balance and transformation are beautifully captured in Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s piece The Break/s, more so than any other performance piece I’ve seen in years. Check it out at until Saturday (1/18) in NYC at the New York Public Theater with Under the Radar or catch him on the road as he brings The Break/s to the nation.

Now I’m sure many people will be moved by the first half of the film and discuss it a lot, but the second half is what moved me. The first half covers the 26th of July Movement/Cuban Revolution while the second half covers Che’s time in Bolivia organizing the Bolivian Liberation Army. I was struck because the second half displayed Che’s spirit and drive for revolution. While he was immortalized as a figure in the Cuban Revolution, in reality, his vision was far greater than Cuba and even the Americas. When I was a bit younger I tried to read Che in Africa but couldn’t finish it, because I wanted to read about the “victorious” Che. My own naivity kept me from understanding how “victorious” Che and “failing” Che were one in the same. Guevara had a deep belief in the ability of people to transform their realities into something better than what they lived in. This belief and purpose allowed him to continue to fight until the end of his and his comrades lives. As he said, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, a true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” This impulse caused Che to travel the globe with the goal of revolution backed and carried out by the people.

In conversations when I discuss change, not even revolution, the two greatest issues tend to be: conceptualizing a different world and beliefs about human nature. We remain in a world where what is in front of us, becomes real. This reality, in turn, becomes a psychological prison where the status quo is the only modus operandi. In the second half of the film, we see Guevara and his troops “fail” at their attempted revolution, in large part due to their inability to convince the people of Bolivia that armed struggle is relevant and another way of life is possible. The social order that we observe, particularly the inequities that we burdened with, do not have to be the way we live. Whenever this point comes up, people quickly ask me, “Well what’s the alternative?” And nearly any alternative that I present seems to “sound good” but is dismissed as impossible. Recently, in one of my courses, students assured me that capitalism could not fail and that the United States would remain the superpower of the world. I was most shocked by these propositions because the majority of my students are of color and come from working class or low income backgrounds. By traditional Marxist theory, they should be the harbingers of class consciousness and potentially even revolution, but they were far from it! In my eyes, they’d resolved themselves to the scraps, trials, and tribulations that the country had doled out to them. Sadly, this is a view that I’ve heard echoed many times by the most oppressed. I wonder, what does it take to break down this allegiance to the present for a vision for the future?

The second barrier goes beyond simple social possibilities and rests at the core beliefs. What is human nature? In everyday conversation I hear people say “well you know it’s human nature.” Well to be honest, I don’t know what human nature is, in fact I’m pretty sure no one does. In this world, the second we enter the earth we are barraged with images and ideas, so what we would “naturally” do is virtually unknown. Couldn’t it be that human nature is not about accumulation of physical goods (meaning greed)? Isn’t it just a possible that human nature is about the accumulation of well being for self and others (meaning valuing life)? Sure, it’s much more difficult to observe the latter, but it seems that there is little reward for valuing someone else’s well-being in contemporary society so I’d expect to witness the former. Is it even possible to see a different world if you believe humans to be corrupt and self-serving? Unfortunately, I’m not even sure that’s rhetorical question to me anymore.

The Che film left me with so many thoughts about what a true revoluationary is. For those wondering, yes the film did sanitize revolution in many ways by curtailing a lot of the blood and guts, but it showed a much different side of struggle. I know towering revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Kwame Ture took their vision beyond borders and gave their lives for potential and actual revolutions, but what does revolution look like for the everyday man? I mean the everyday people who do not become a guerilla, who do not dedicate their life to the struggle? I guess, in the end, that is up to use to decide and demand.

“Rosa sat so Martin could walk, Martin walked so Obama could run, Obama ran so our children can fly!”**

This message, while inspirational, demonstrates the ways that one of the most historic and powerful presidential runs ever gets looked over, if not just downright ignored. In 1972, the campaign of Shirley Chisholm broke both the gender and race barrier in American presidential politics, but her campaign is still relatively unknown. Let me start this with an admission, I knew that Chisholm ran in 1972 but I had no idea about the discourse she pushed, assassination attempts, and what was certainly more than a symbolic run. At the close of the summer, I got to watch the documentary Chisholm 72- Unbought & Unbossed at Sundae Sermon. As I sat on a hill watching Shirley Chisholm challenge historical figures like George Wallace, George McGovern, and Hubert Humphrey, I was amazed at her vision, inspired by her bravery, and humbled by the ways we leave her out of history. That is a living example of why we need herstory, particularly within the Black community.

The film, by Shola Lynch, brilliantly transports the viewer into the political terrain and turmoil of 1972 politics. Watching primary footage of candidates eerily disturbed me as I heard the same rhetoric batted around 36 years later. In fact, while John McCain was still a P.O.W., Chisholm was the original maverick. She was the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Chisholm was the first serious female presidential candidate and she had a platform that explicitly spoke to the interests of Black people throughout the United States. Born to Bajan parents and raised in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, Chisholm formed political alliances with the Black Panther Party, National Organization for Women, pushed the Democratic party to the left as they grappled with the development of splitting factions, and was founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (though the CBC couldn’t get their act together to endorse her… gender politics as usual).

Chisholm’s campaign was absent from our discussions of Black presidential candidacies as we deferred to Jackson’s runs as the foundation for Obama’s run. In reality, had Chisholm not ran, neither Jackson nor Obama’s campaigns would have been able to achieve what they did. As we celebrate the historic election of Barack Obama, I pray that we do not wash the memory of Chisholm from our already tattered ledger. Her run, her work, and her vision laid the foundation, and her words still are relevant,

Prejudice and hatred built the nation’s slums, maintains them and profits by them …. Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.

*The title of this post is an adaptation of a line from Biz Markie in “Nobody beats the Biz.” He said, “Reagan is the pres, but I voted for Shirley Chisholm.”

**The first variation of this I heard was at the 2008 Black State of the Union by Rep. Cleo Fields. There is a lot of internet debate about its origins, so I thought I’d link to the youtube here.

Not your Idlewild?
There has been a little bit of controversy around the movie being set in Idlewild, Ga (a mythical place). A year or so ago I heard about Idlewild, MI and thought that the movie was going to have a special connection to the area. I didn’t particularly have an issue with the name and the setting, which was cool with me, but not with some.

“They take something with such historical significance as Idlewild, take the peripheral aspects of it, and turn it into a shoot-‘em-up, bang-bang minstrel show. It demeans me as an African-American.”

That was the comment of Coy Davis, the director of Whatever Happened to Idlewild. I hear that it’s a good documentary, but I was pretty suprised that he would come out his neck so quickly about the film. There was shooting, but it wasn’t a shoot-em up film. A minstrel show, interesting… there weren’t even any White folks in the movie that I recall. There was the presence of the Black Middle class,decent representations of the juke joint, commentary on the “chitterling circuit”, oh I guess characterizing Black culture in rural areas is minstrely … maybe I missed it. I think it would have been nice to set it in Michigan, but maybe people like Davis’ reaction dissuaded that possibility seriously.

Also, I think the name Idlewild represents the condition of the place. Percival (Andre) was “idle” in his place in the town, while the Church represented a dynamic setting with almost a religious excuberance from its attendees and was often “wild”.

Storyline and Acting
I think the story line was solid. I didn’t expect to have a thriller or many plot twists, instead it was straight forward movie. One where the viewer is encouraged to suspended disbelief. As the film opens the cinematography moves you into the images of old and I felt there (in part) for the time in my seat. I think the script was written close enough to Big Boi and Andre’s characters that I didn’t feel uncomfortable with their acting, even though Faizon Love was a little over the top, but delivered some great quotables.

Time Travellin’
The times that I was taken out of the old occured via the music. If the film made me realize one thing, it is that Andre is a musical genius! I wanted to see how they blended hip-hop music and classic juke joints. I was kind of shocked honestly, most of the music performed in the film were tracks that Outkast had already done, with some very small alterations (i.e. no references to tapes, cds, baby please…). I coudn’t quite figure out why they didn’t remix more stuff or change up the messaging. My best explanation is that they were attempting to challenge our conceptions of time and the fluidity between the juke joint and the hip hop spot. Some of the music meshed seamlessly (Andre’s She Lives in my lap) while other moments felt odd (Big Boi rapping Church into the camera). The fluidity with with they treated time and progress was best represented by Percival’s room and his wall of clocks. Throughout the film I kept thinking of afrofuturism, but that may just be me seeing too much Andre in the film.

My Verdict
Overall I was impressed with the film. It was an ambitious and well executed. Of course there could have been things that were done better, but the overall project was pretty fresh. It’s what Carmen could have been (lol).