At age 13, Lauren Hill gets boo'ed by Apollo

The woman with arguably the greatest album of all time by a female rapper/actor/singer (yes, that's right), got booed off the stage at the Apollo in 1987. Today her debut album, "The Miseducation of Lauren Hill," is considered a masterpiece and the golden age peak of female lyricism.
Who was really "miseducated"?




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Freaknik: A Pictorial Montage

When you hear the term "Freaknik" or "Freaknic," a certain cannotation comes to mind: Unruliness, debauchery, black people having a good 'ole time with no regard to society's woes, traffic or otherwise. Is this characterization somewhat accurate?
In the immortal words of the familiar refrain on Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" album:
"Hell Yeah!"
Let's go down memory lane, Peachtree in fact, in pictures from Freakniks past.



Adina Howard was a household name back then.



Back then, there was "No Time" for fake ones.



Let's be honest: To some people, it was a paradise. To others, it was the day the niggaz took over.



Everybody was on a Creep in the mid-1990s.



Tunes of the times: "Swing low, sweet chariot and ... Let me Ride".



They didn't mean to be so destructive, use your heart to forgive.



People were on some "goobitty gooks" stuff too.



"Still clowning with the Underground, when they come around." - 2Pac, 1993



It was all about "Electric Relaxation" - Tribe Called Quest.









Fancy cars, wild women, men in a metropolis: In 1992, you couldn't ask for a better scenario.






Freaknik does not belong in the 21st century, it died unceromoniously in 1998, choked to death by Atlanta's politicians and beaurocracy. The free-wheeling and high times of the 1990s have been killed by the fearmongering and economic waste of the 2000s. It is what it is.
In conclusion, Freaknik was not a party, it was an idea, a mind-set. Thus, it can never truly die.
It exists in the mind.





















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Where all the black men are

The male-female ratio is causing social havoc and is responsible for how you dress, how you act, what car you drive, and even, how you view yourself, according to Tim Harford, a British economist and author of a book called “The Logic of Life”.
The Economist shines a light on what black women -- actually all women who want a black man -- have to go through in a startling piece.
It's no secret that incarceration rates are affecting family and communities, but the overall effect on something as simple and sacred as love -- LOVE -- remains understudied and underestimated. While there is ample evidence about this subject, Harford has a way of showing the economic side of this travesty, underlining the lost dollars that a household does without due to a jailed husband or father.
A not-too-mentioned side effect of the lack of available, eligible, educated and gainfully employed men of color is that numerous black women are -- whether they like it or not -- forced to compete for the few that are out there.
Sexual urges being what they are in society, competition is not inherently fair.
And that does something, self-esteem-wise, I think. I may not be exactly sure what it does. But the effects are pretty obvious.
What's a single black female to do?




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F@#$! Sex And The City 5

The hags of "Sex & the City" are back in this animated short, with all the alluring asides they cartoonishly said in the successful TV show and movie.
Except, this is actually a cartoon.
Want to know something wierd? Sarah Jessica Parker actually looks younger animated than she does in real life caked in Mac.
Now that's comedy.




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Lady Gaga invades Japan

Lady Gaga recently appeared on a Japanese TV show, and, well, she's bigger than Godzilla over there.
Well, almost.
The Poker-faced music star is riding high after the successful "Telephone" video that borrowed heavily from Tarantino, who borrows heavily from the Japanese.
Gaga was in rare form in the Asian country,even sporting a tattoo that literally read, "I love Litte Monster." No word if she was referring to a love child with a litigation-hurling ex.


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Dance Floor Fail: Why We All Lose

Tt is quite telling when you're dancing and the dance floor parts like the Red Sea only to reveal someone doing their best "scrippa" imitation. It is quite another to see someone doing a windmill with booty shorts on. #Fail via Twitpic.


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'Brandon and Stephanie': A Surreal Tale of love and abandonment

In a case of forbidden love, lovers Brandon and Stephanie snuck around their parents to have a relationship with each other. Steph's parents -- both dental professionals -- didn't approve of the deejay from Dallas, regarding him as low class.
The couple dated anyway, secretly. Then, she got pregnant. In a startling and surreal turn of events that rocked Brandon's world, Stephanie left for a trip to Florence, Italy.
When she returned, Stephanie wasn't pregnant anymore.
She said she left it there.




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Royce Reed: NBA Bad Girl?

It takes expert editing to manufacture a villain for reality TV. Footage has to be carefully spliced together, sound bites must be edited, and voiceovers added. Then came Royce Reed, the very obvious and deserving antagonist of VH1's new show, "Basketball Wives".
In the case of Reed, a former Miami Heat and Orlando Magic dancer, the show's title is a misnomer: Reed is not married to a basketball player, nor is she married at all. But that doesn't matter to VH1, just like it matters not to the farmer that shoots a wolf that killed one of his sheep. Any wolf will do.
And Reed, who has a baby, Braylon Joshua Robert Howard, by Magic center Dwight Howard, is a wolf in sheep's booty shorts.
To people in Florida, Reed is well known. But VH1 introduced her to the world.
The show, framed against the hedonistic flair of Miami Beach, features other non-basketball wives, such as Evelyn Lozada, the former fiancee of former Heat player Antoine Walker. But it's Reed who earns the Hatorade for her hot-in-the-pants antics and wild booty-shaking that made it to Youtube (Thanks Ms. Bar B).
Reed, who will be confronted by nearly all the wives on the show, is the NBA Bad Girl de jour but only for so long. Before it's over, Shaunie and all of them will drink the Hatorade juice.

Check out the trailer for "Basketball Wives"


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Gynophobia: Why he's scared of you

As a female, it's normal for you to wonder WTH is going on in his head. You've met this new guy and he's yet to call, doesn't seem to take visual hints, or read expressions.
If it weren't for your openness and bold declarations of what could happen, he'd probably still be sitting over in the corner someplace. And yet, here he is, in your life, albeit, barely.
Why hasn't he "manned up" and jumped at the chance to know you?
Maybe, because he's scared of you.
Yes, yes, afraid of you, and mostly, all women that showed even a glimmer of interest in him. See, women are'n't the only ones who get so gun shy that it cripples them.
Gynophobia (also spelled as gynephobia) is an abnormal fear of women. In the past, the Latin term was used, horror feminae, literally meaning "fear of women". The word caligynephobia is also coined to mean the fear of beautiful women. For the latter one the expression venustraphobia is also used.

It should not be confused with misogyny, which is dislike of or prejudice against women, although the term may be seen used in this meaning as well.

Gynophobia used to be considered a driving force toward homosexuality. Havelock Ellis in his 1896 Studies in the Psychology of Sex wrote:
"It is, perhaps, not difficult to account for the horror — much stronger than that normally felt toward a person of the same sex — with which the invert often regards the sexual organs of persons of the opposite sex. It cannot be said that the sexual organs of either sex under the influence of sexual excitement are esthetically pleasing; they only become emotionally desirable through the parallel excitement of the beholder. When the absence of parallel excitement is accompanied in the beholder by the sense of unfamiliarity as in childhood, or by a neurotic hypersensitiveness, the conditions are present for the production of intense horror feminae or horror masculis, as the case may be."
And it should be noted that many females are afraid of males, too, for several reasons.
Wilhelm Stekel, author of "Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty" discusses horror of a male masochist that many women feel.
According to Wikipedia, some authors consider the myths about Amazons evidence of gynophobia in Classical Athens.
Are you (gasp)... afraid?

Celebrity Daddies: The Other Side of Fame

Few people are as silent yet concerned about their celebrity children as celebrity daddies: We see the mamas usually all up in the video shoots and commercials, but we rarely seen the men being these people. Well, rarely see some of them. A few, like these we've corraled below, seem to be celebrities in their own right.

Richard Williams: Serving it while it's hot

Richard Williams is famous for saying he was watching TV one day and noticed a young girl being handed $30,000 for winning a tennis match. What he has waffled on is when he actually saw it: Was it before his two last daughters were born or shortly after? The difference is the same difference between renting an ATM machine and creating one. Along the way, Richard has steadfastly defended his girls from slander and bias, even when they don't want him to. If any parent could hold his own in a reality show, Richard Williams is it.

Jamie Spears: In total control of Britney Inc.

Few fathers have as much control of their grown children as Jamie Spears, father of derailed megastar Britney Spears. When Britney temporarily lost it, father Jamie swooped into court to get named head of the "conservatorship," which basically means he controls all her assets. She is no longer able to as much as hail a taxi without it being ok'ed by Daddy Dearest. Is it fair? Debatable. Is it legal. Definitely. Oops, Britney, you done did it this time.

The Cos: Hold the Jello Pudding pops, the lower economic people are not holding up their end of the bargain!

As everyone's iconic father on the Cosby Show, Bill Cosby could do no wrong as he showed America a slice of middle-class America few had recognized. But now that the show is over, Cosby has been busy chastizing "the lower economic people." He meant no harm but some took offense anyway. But the way Cosby sees it, he lost his son Ennis to ignorance more than anything else. He wants to change that. I can't blame him.

Rev Run: Tougher than old, waxy, wrinkled-up leather

So-called "Rev" Run has made more money in the last five years than he has in the previous 20, and he's rapped nary a rhyme for it. What with his two daughters doing their thing, his famous rich brother, ex-sister-and-law Kimora, you'd never think he was one-half of the greatest rap duo of all time. But now he's a fat slob. Not that that's a bad thing. He's a paid fat slob.

Lenny Kravitz: Always on the Run, hun

That's right, Lenny Kravitz has a grown-up daughter that you'd date, holla at and kick it with: Get over it. He can also jam. Born to "Jefferson's" actress Roxie Roker and a Jewish father, Kravitz bang on pots and pans as a toddler until his parents bought him real instruments. At a '80s party, (not an '80s party per se, but a party in the 1980s, which, technically was an '80s party)he met Lisa Bonet, and they had little Zoe. Today she's big Zoe, and Lenny is Old Lenny. In January 2008, Kravitz did a nine-city tour to promote his new album "It Is Time for a Love Revolution." The album has yet to catch on, but it will.

Lionel Richie: Easy Like Sunday Moaning

When your father's most famous refrain is a triumphant "All nIIiight LooOOONG!" there's not alot of hiding you can do: Enter Nicole Richie, who managed to stay out of the limelight until she befriended a wildin' adolescent with the last name of Hilton. Lionel Richie is quite simply Mopheus to alot of old heads before the Matrix was even heard of. He's the only living, active bridge between old-school 20-person funk bands and modern-day solo balladeers and was a songwriting machine before R. Kelly was bumpt and ground upon. Nowadays is a bonafide megastar in the Arab world, repeatedly selling out in places like Qatar, Dubai and Morocco. Why? Because with him, it's "All nIIiight LooOOONG!"

Michael Jackson: Off the Freakin' Wall

To top it all off, MJ is the anti-father-figure of celebrity dads, irrevocably more famous than any of his seeds will ever be, and cursed to shield their faces from society. Is he a good father? Not for me to say, but he most certainly is a walking WTF.

Related Post
Check out Celebrity Mamas: the Other Side of Fame

Uh-Oh, an influx of "Window Seat" videos

The popularity of a music video these days is not how many people vote for it (especially since the demise of MTV's TRL) but how many people imitate it on Youtube. (See definition of "Single Ladies")
Erykah Badu's "Window Seat," worth a small indecency ticket to hear in real terms, but a gazillion bucks in fame and notoriety, is one such video. People are starting to post their own "Window Seat" parodies, complete with strip-downs in public places. Such fun.
This guy is nutz. Actually pretty funny, especially toward the end.


And this chick here, is, well, interesting.


Of course, Wanda Sykes had her fun.


And this is just, well, goofy.



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Stacey Dash: My husband beat me

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'Tia & Marco'

When a pregnant border patrol agent discovers an illegal immigrant child hiding in her home, she is forced to question her loyalty to a system of exclusion. Directed by Annie J. Howell, "Tia & Marco" is part of the series of Futurestates films, where 11 directors envision the future.




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Rihanna hates commercialism in her videos

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Beyonce is Cheetarah

If you remember the Thundercats then you know that Cheetarah was one of the hottest cartoon characters in the game back in the day. Beyonce is "the hottest chick in the game" today, right? It's only right.
Check out some "Thundercats, Thundercats, Thundercats, HO! here.




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Nicki Minaj: From Myspace to Femme Phenom

At LaGuardia High School in New York, Onika Maraj was as silly as silly puddy. You can tell from the daffy-duck faces she makes even now. But when did the femme fatale known as Nicki Minaj emerge on the hip-hop scene?
In 2002, a group of eUuniverse employees created Myspace. In two short years, the site graduated to a music reservoir for up-and-coming and unsigned acts to show their work. In 2004, hundreds of artists had built pages with free music for the masses. Like the teenage rap sensation Soulja Boy before her, Nicki Minaj is originally a Myspace rapper.
Some of her early songs pull from the grit and grind of her upbringing in New York City.
She was discovered by Dirty Money CEO Fendi. Lil Wayne personally contacted her, and the rest, as they say is Barbie history.
Flash forward to 2010: The little girl from a troubled home is one of the top rappers in hip-hop and poised to be the queen. And there's still no album, and no tentative title or release date. Yet, she's appeared in more than 14 songs for other people.
Her album promises to be one of the most anticipated rap events of the year. And that's a long way from the humble beginnings of LaGuardia.

Venus' alter ego: Ebony Star

Athletic progeny and tennis veteran Venus Williams may have lost the Sony Ericsson Open, 6-1, 6-2, to up-and-comer Kim Clijsters, but don't think she will lose any sleep.
Williams, who is ranked No. 4 in the world, has moved beyond tennis, in a way that clearly indicates that the game needs her -- and her sister Serena -- and not the other way around.
In fact, Venus may as well go by here middle name "Ebony Star," because that's what she is. She has yet to devote the time and energy to her fashion house that it requires to succeed. And acting is still a far off dream.
Critics have long said the sisters -- besides their outfits -- are too preoccupied with other projects to focus on tennis.
What makes the situation more precarious -- or trifling, depending on how you look at it -- is that sister Serena is ranked No. 1 in the world.
Should the top sisters in women's tennis walk away from the game for fear of disrespecting it?



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Janet Jackson holds it together

Janet Jackson, music royalty and one of the youngest 42-year-olds in the world, is back on the big screen in Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married, Too," and it seems that she and both Jill Scott were going through absolute hell while filming, even though part of the set was done in Barbados.
We all know Janet's ordeal with her brother Michael Jackson's death (and the ongoing NippleGate saga), but few knew that Jill Scott was going through a torturous divorce around the same time.
It says something when two music stars, not necessarily known for their acting (at least in the case of Scott) can pull off some fine, theatrical acting under stress.
Jackson said Perry is a stern director but he was patient with her after her brother died.
Perry was "constantly calling me, making sure I was OK, making sure that there wasn't anything that I needed or my family needed," she said.
Perry said he expects to do more movies about marriage and relationships in the future.
Jackson and her family are about to relive the horror all over again as a nasty trial over her brother's death is sure to open newly mended wounds.


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Keri Hilson sings national anthem. Again

Atlanta recording artist Keri Hilson aka Ms. Keri Babay, or as she's recently become known, "Ms. Star-Splanglish Bumbled" got another turn to flub the lines to America's national anthem Sunday.
Turns out fate gave Hilson the honor of singing the national anthem at Fenway Park on Sunday. Just in case she ruined it, there were two F-16 fighter jets above to help drown out the noise. Thankfully they didn't need to perform dangerous zig-zags to divert the audience's horror, and Pedro didn't have to knuckle ball her, as Hilson nailed the anthem. Ms. Keri, you're #turningUsOn again.


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