Let me say at the outset that there’s no truth to the rumor on the street that a local emcee was tight on cash and outsourced the beatmaking for his CD to an Eastern European sweatshop, where oompa loompas–newly freed from the grips of communism–toil around the clock in dank basements, hovering over SP-1200’s and […]
hi-tylertraveling
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In the Valley
They’d lived in the valley for far longer than the span of their recorded history. Since before, even, the time of the Others. Their existence was merely sufficient. Arable land was scarce in the valley, with sparse vegetation strewn like tattered rags across the scant few feet of dirt that, in turn, blanketed the volcanic […]
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The transition game
“All a man’s got is the integrity of his work.” That was the lead sentence to the last column written by sports journalist Ralph Wiley, who died of a heart attack on June 14 while watching the NBA finals with his son. Hell of a way to start off an article on a basketball game. […]
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Lesser evil in ’04?
Yeah, I’m going there. It’s been a minute since I’ve written on politics, and, particularly, about our liar-in-chief. It hasn’t been for lack of opportunity, though. A decided lack of challenge is what has stilled my pen for the last few months. There is no sense of sport, and certainly no sense of accomplishment in […]
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Thinking crazy
When I used to live in the Maryland/D.C. area, my car windshield framed vistas of urban blight while I drove around. It irked me to see large, abandoned buildings. Viewed by themselves, they symbolized many things, including the decline of the cities as industrial centers and, in a broader sense, the waning of the way […]
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This Christmas
I’ve written before that I really don’t get into the proverbial Christmas Spirit until I hear “This Christmas” by Donny Hathaway. Why that song? I can’t really call it. But I think it has to do with conflict and contradiction, disappointment and hope. “Hang all the mistletoe, I’m gonna get to know you better… This […]
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Keepin it: Real estate
Land. At once, it’s undeniably tangible and yet, extremely symbolic. It is as immediate as the ground beneath our feet, as inescapable as the horizon. But the idea of land, this is what resonates so deeply within the human spirit, inspires a sense of belonging, of connection. As agriculture heralded the dawn of human civilization, […]
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Black Future Month redux
I wrote almost a year ago about the need for a Black Future Month, a time in which black people would collectively work toward determining what we could do in the present to position ourselves where we want to be in the future. In particular, I was speaking of what we must do to transform […]
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Derek Jennings
That long, soft, whooooosssssssshhhhh sound that you’re hearing? That’s the collective exhalation of North Carolina schoolchildren who’ve recently completed the latest round of all-important annual end-of-grade (EOG) tests. That “drip-drip-drip” that you hear? That’s the sound of students, teachers and administrators sweating the test results. My kids are fairly low maintenance when it comes to […]
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Derek Jennings
Shady Aftermath is the record label co-owned by hip-hop megastars Dr. Dre and Eminem. While their latest protege, rapper 50 Cent, is of the sort that generally inspires alarmists to herald the decline of Western civilization, the aftermath I’m more concerned with nowadays is the one our government has created in Iraq. For the most […]
