In just under a month, Def Jam will release Nasir Jones’ ninth studio album. I’m not quite sure what to call it.

For the most part, I’ve steered clear of the much anticipated and even more debated effort. Nas’ iconography is built as much on hype as it is in his discography itself. If I got caught up in every Nasty Nas debate, I’d scarcely have time to memorize Streets Disciple Disc two. I certainly wouldn’t have time to play ultimate frisbee with the QB’s Finest LP. Considering the mid-nineties funk with Puff Daddy over Hate Me Now, the long term Jay beef turned marketing scheme, the minor squab with 50, and the pomp and circumstance of his marriage to his bossy wife– my Nassip-o-meter doesn’t really peak like yours do. It makes me very little nevermind until he’s on my stereo.

Even the debate over the controversial album title didn’t get to me until these last few incarnations. So the album was scheduled to be called Nigger. Yeah? As the wholly patriotic Thickwitness you know me to be, I could barely set down my copy of the First Amendment long enough to phone C. Dolores Tucker. Even when I did dial, the line was busy ’cause she was on Sharpton’s call waiting.

Not to worry. I’m fairly certain that Nas, Def Jam, and Virgin Megastore are still protected under the Bill of Rights. Plus, how could I possibly be offended before hearing the album? If we negated Dick Gregory’s autobiography before cracking the pages, one may never bear witness to the comedic and ethnographic genius therein. I think. I still ain’t read the book. Which is why I can’t really pass judgment on it.

I should say that everything in my Pan-Africanist upbringing taught against using the word. I don’t think I’d even spoken it aloud until I was well into my teenage years– not even in class read alouds of Mark Twain. Or Joseph Conrad. Or neighborhood rap alongs to Biggie or Jigga or Stevie Wonder. (Yes, even Stevie Wonder has said it on track) In recent history, I must admit that the N-word has made it’s way into my vocabulary. Not my daily lexicon, but certainly my monthly. And every last time I use it, I feel guilty. The remnants of the word live in my chest as a reminder that I’m somehow betraying my grandmothers– shame on me.

Conversely, I’m disappointed when tired discourse with which we’re all familiar surfaces. We’re still asking ourselves: Why affirm a word that holds such dismal history for the descendants of enslaved Africans in this county? What happens if white folks start using it? Will there be a series of VH1 celebreality dedicated to finding the truth?

But for me, Nas’ album and the surrounding debate spurn a different set of questions:
At which point does an artist gain authority to use a word consistently directed at him? Why are we comfortable hearing the N-word on each of his eight preceding efforts if we can’t tolerate it as the title? What if the album, heaven forbid, actually spoke towards The State’s niggardly spending on African-American education, health, and general well being? Would it be an acceptable album title then? Is Nas the speaker of his album title, or is it in the voice of say Michael Richards, or that kid on your block? Will there be a Tavis Smiley episode dedicated to paneling the truth?

Both sets of questions, however, fell by the wayside once I heard that he and the label had abandoned his proposed album title. What kind of biyatch move…?

First of all, I’d been looking forward to the release to see if the album could really withstand the enormous responsibility of its moniker. How monumental would it have been if the potential classic began to change the way the hood imagines itself? If it talked about the fact that young black men still feel like niggers — If the album ignites a much needed discussion in the listenership, and sets down a new framework for evaluating our own complicated self affirmation, n-words just may gain their minds.

But the album isn’t going to drop it like that. It’s either called Nas or Untitled, depending on who you’re asking. And that’s what really springs my sprockets. Cause come on, Esco. It’s courageous to begin the debate and see it through to the end. It’s irresponsible art making if it’s just the house that hype built. Which makes me wonder…

Based on my complicated history with the music of Olu Dara’s son, I’d have to assume that the album is much more profound than Kelis’ beadazzled slur lets on. Using Nas’ preceding works as the (cough) blueprint, we can assume that there will be a good deal of autobiography. There will be an indictment or two of the way this country operates. The production will be reflexive of a midnight drive at high speeds down the BQE, and my boy Ramon Cabrera reliving each line as gospel. Nasir is the truth.

I think.

What burns deepest is the possibility that the album title could be swapped out for his own, given name. If the album, years in the making at this point, can easily be renamed– if each track applies to both Nas and the antecedent title, something’s worth inspecting. Is “Nas” a placeholder for “Nigger”? The man who was once God’s son? Escobar? Kid Wave? Are we to distill that after nine albums QB isn’t far from where it began? What does Nas lose if he becomes the epithet’s stand in? What does he stand to gain?

And if the album remains untitled come July 15th, what does it say about our readiness to listen? How does one hear the truth in word, if she is to scared to look at it? Or will a blank spot on the album cover forever point to the word too taboo to say aloud?

Today’s guest Thick Witness is Paloma Belara, the public relations mastermind behind much of the ill-Literacy success. She’s the smiling face over your shoulder at the party, and easily the drop dead gorgeous-est at all times. Paloma’s on loan from her own daily blog, and writes about her time asserting herself as a young PR genius girl with hips phenom. Thickwit’s proud to have her before she becomes your household name in music industry baller-dom.

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I’ve really only started working in the music/entertainment industry for about three years now. Ever since I moved back to the Bay from my 2+ year adventure in New York, it has been a period of trial and error and many successes as well. I’m proud of myself. From securing a trademark, building a website, producing an open mic, freelance writing for a magazine, managing, booking, counseling a group during their breakup, securing a clothing sponsorship, co-producing an online remix contest, producing shows, managing distribution and promotions, securing features on prominent publications and media outlets, shiiiiet… I’ve done a lot!!

So after all that, I burned myself out… go figure! I was warned by those close to me of the workload…but I’ve always been rebellious or hard headed (depends on the situation), so I had to go through several breakdowns before I dropped everything and decided to take a leave of absence. Re-evaluate, find balance, research, breathe, spend time with all the children in my life (eight nephews and one niece to be exact), and mostly to organize myself so that I could come back into the biz feeling confident about the goals being set.

Six months into my hiatus, and I’m gearing up for my return! There are hella things about to pop off and way too many opportunities sitting there calling my name that I couldn’t stand back and let it pass me by. I’m excited, nervous, anxious, confident, insecure. All that, and then some… rolled into one.

I have my days… where I’ll hit up one of my confidants seeking moral support. I start the conversation with, “I’m having a moment…” because the fear and insecurity takes over me, it happens… and then I have my good days as well, I’m on top of my game and the drive to make moves is like an adrenaline rush after the end of a roller coaster ride.

So here I am ready to give “birth” to what I hope will become a Bay Area (and beyond), household name within the independent music and entertainment industry, enter – “The Papa Lo-Down”

Right now what you see is a blog of my experiences in the music industry – with the objective to provide tips, advice, and insight for independent artists that are self-managing their careers. I definitely don’t think I know everything, but I hope by offering what has or hasn’t worked and what I think could work, from my point of view, will in turn benefit someone else’s career.

I’ll be launching a PR (public relations) service in the fall and expanding the scope of the blog to include more news and information surrounding the Bay Area Hip Hop Industry. And please believe the “contractions” I’m having are going to come much more frequently as my “due date” approaches, so to all my homies – I suggest you block me from your gchat list if you don’t want to hear me stress out!

The support I get from my family, friends, and community (aka network), is truly a driving force in keeping me on track and focused, giving me confidence that all the heartache, sleepless nights, and half empty gas tanks are not in vain.

Damn, being a “single mother” is not easy, but as the saying goes “it takes a village to raise a child…”, and I happen to live in the freshest village on the west coast.

www.papalodown.com

Guest Thickwitness, Sherlynn Hicks, lives in Southern California. She is an actor, writer, and regular contributor to BrooWaha Los Angeles. Sherlynn is a self proclaimed Buffy enthusiast. Hicks is one of two original girls with hips and has the power to oust or ordain all potential thickwits. She’s got more backside than you’ve got wit, and more wit than you’ve got backside. Sucks to be you. Plus, Sherlynn’s way too fine. See?

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Sasha Obama with Secret Service Agent at Iowa Minor League Game

There’s a photograph in the newly released Esquire Magazine, the one with Barack Obama on the cover. In the center of the frame is his daughter Sasha, eyes wide, mouth open. Michelle’s face is crinkled in a tickled laugh. The camera catches the back quarter of Senator Obama. His hand is reaching past his daughter to someone’s hand in the crowd to shake. His face is tilted upwards, surveying the crowd obscured in the black background of the photograph. Sasha’s yellow hair ribbon is tied in an askew bow and cute as hell. The caption reads “The day after announcing for president in February 2007, Obama greeted a crowd in Chicago. His daughter Sasha, trying to get her father’s attention, shouted, ‘I love you, Daddy!’”

I can’t stop crying.

This little girl might to lose her daddy to things larger than her existence. The look on her face. That adoring, loving look on her face clamoring for her daddy’s attention in a crowd of adoration less personal than her own, is…heartbreaking.

But it is also indicative of my fears for my preferred candidate. I worry that if elected, will he be up to the task? And if up to the task, will he be allowed to excel? And if allowed to excel, will his excellent choices be free of corruption? And if free of corruption, will the path of this country be righteous? And if the path of this country is righteous, will the world’s as well?

It’s as if I don’t want to lose my preferred candidate to the things that are larger than his daughter’s existence.

I haven’t much time to write this.

My computer is dying. My phone is dying. My car is dead.

But spring is doing it’s thing outside.

It’s an unexpected 95 degrees in Oakland.

Allergies at an all time high.

Stop reading this. I have nothing special to say.

The site was broken last week, but my spirit wasn’t.

Go outside.

Find the spring you’ve forgotten.

Listen to Mahalia Jackson. Reacquaint yourself with the Staple Singers.

Love abounds, and is for you, right now.

My friend George Watsky got this in the mail today…
Tell me reader, what should George do?

I’m pretty sure that the allergens are in the claritin.

Today’s a day shy of a week after the release of Rising Down, The Roots’ tenth effort. In the last six days two things have happened:

1. I’ve listened enough to put a scratch in the mp3. Dad’s going to kill me.
2. I’ve become increasingly aware of the history behind my anger. Oh, and it’ so justified.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to cut YOU specifically or ANYONE in the abstract, but I am saying that Rising Down provides an excellent road map to my aggression towards all of the people and instances between the specific and the abstraction. If William T. Vollman’s seven volumes of Rising Up and Rising Down “attempts to establish a moral calculus to consider the causes, effects, and ethics of violence” and tracks the knowing of these internationally– then The Roots give the math on why black folks might could be angry right about now. I think.

Maybe it’s more focused than that, even. It’s almost as if The Roots take us into the intimacies of their own potentials for violence and freedom, and compass how the music has served, for the last decade and a half, as their own urgent means of retaliation. The album begins with a antique for ‘94 audio-recording of a Roots conference call gone super duper hyphy– screams peak out, provoked by a conversation about the band’s conflicts with the label, and the way frustrations are articulated. Whole lot of, albeit justified, black-man yelling, fuck you, fuck this, i’m trying to be heard, threatening to drop the line. Hello, hello?

And then the album begins. From there we hear Mos on the opening track, bearing witness that the earth is spinning away from itself, and someone really should let God know about it. Then they Get Busy on the required banger with appearances from long time collaborator Dice Raw and some cat named Peedi Peedi, who’s my new favorite (his cadence is mangoes). We move back to the history of inverse flight with Tariq at age 15, rhyming harder than you, your moms, and your set, ala Kool G– which really just serves as an introduction to 75 bars– a track that’s exactly what it sounds like. 75 bars of Thought on red niggas, brown niggas, high yellow niggas, and his place in all of that. The album goes on to scribble between dismal and concerned, frenetic and tactical. But in an extra live way. Like a party just before dawn on a derailed SEPTA train. Rhymes from the talented electric tenth rail. “WEB Dubois meets Heavy D and the Boys…”

If Phrenology tapped into The Roots’ mental landscape, and The Tipping Point spoke towards the fulcrum of madness, then this album moves across the vertex of intellect and a broken heart. It’s written from beyond the barrel, before the verdict. It’s post-Obama hype, pre-President Barack. It answers questions about the cultural differences between those who yell and those who take that shit personally– and how trust has been built between the two.

Plus it answers my ongoing hate on Tariq– the critique that he rarely tells a story– with the exceptions of Water, Silent Treatment and You Got Me– I been thinking Thought was just flexing his superior skill in rhyme… But the poet in me has always craved narrative. Which I didn’t think Black would ever do– until I realized that the story’s been told over 10 albums– maybe 12 or 13. Oops. He’s kind of “the Ernest Hemmingway of b-boy poems, can’t take the pen away he’s Leroi Jones.”

And with that said– It’s also worth noting that The Roots been trying to get my bourgignant behind to read since five albums back. Peep: Things Fall Apart. Phrenology. The Tipping Point. Game Theory. And now some shit named after a 7 volume McSweeney’s text. If I cared so much about stories, you’d think I’d get my library card current.

As always, Questlove’s musical direction is superior. The album has cameos out the ass- the aforementioned Mos, Kweli in tow, Peedi Peedi, Styles P, Malik B., Common, Chrisette Michelle, Patrick Stump, Saigon, Truck North– and a couple more heads. Still, somehow, none seem out of place, or additions for crossover purposes. Everyone’s rhyming to the same end– like they revised verses, or something. Or wrote in the same place.

Rising Down is musically light years beyond that The Dream single you’ve been knocking all week, and the Danity Kane jump I’ve had on repeat. (Do do you have a first aid kit handy?) I’m pretty sure this album is the alcohol to Bad Boy’s hydrogen peroxide. Both from brown containers, but one’s a little cleaner, a little more burn in the wound.

And don’t your life sting from time to time? Make you want to holler? Soundtrack it with this.

Thickwit approves.

thickwit is anti-bossip: we stop at nothing.

chinaka knew it was going to be a bad day when she woke up falling off of her sofa, crumbs from the night before in her toes. she still felt sick. it was hard to move.

but up she got, and into the shower. wash, wash she went, until she knocked over the special pantene pro-v for women of color. she wondered why they put it in a brown bottle anyway? “no matter” she thought.
out of the shower and on the way to get dressed she noticed the time. “my word,” she thought, “i’m going to be late for work. i’d better hustle. it seems like everyday i’m hustling. hustling, hustling. everyday.”

chinaka decided to text message her friend lauren. days were always better when lauren rode to work with her. “scop you at nine forty five” she texted. then deleted. then she texted again: “scoop you at 945?”. lauren wrote back quickly “i’m in berk. trying to take my final, but it’s locked in some woman’s desk.”

womp. womp. this day was shaping up poorly. thought chinaka. “no matter,” she thought. “soon enough I’ll be at work, and this day will be ending as soon as it began.”

no such luck. there was so much traffic on the freeway that they announced it on the radio. that’s bad traffic. the drive to work usually took chinaka fifteen minutes. today it took over an hour. and in chinaka’s car, that was very dangerous. chinaka’s car needed a new timing belt, and any idle moments let it almost break down. there were a lot of idle moments. chinaka wanted to go home. chinaka should have turned around and gone home.

but she went to work. work wasn’t so bad. lunch was good. then chinaka met with very nice people at the museum of african diaspora and guess who was there? chinaka’s friend’s parents who were always very nice to chinaka. chinaka waved! hi mrs. johnson! hi mr. johnson! this day was looking up. then chinaka noticed a huge crowd. what were all these people doing at the museum in the middle of the day? didn’t they have jobs? they were listening to a man speak. who was this man?

chinaka looked closer. it was michael eric dyson. he liked hip hop. chinaka liked hip hop. chinaka liked that michael liked hip hop. he seemed like a smart man. chinaka liked smart men.
but chinaka had to have a meeting and couldn’t keep listening to the smart man. that was bad news. goodbye mr. dyson.

after the meeting, chinaka left the museum. she checked her phone. bad news on the voicemail. she found out that she wouldn’t be seeing some of her good friends for a very long time. this made chinaka sad. very sad. chinaka needed a hug.

“but wait!,” thought chinaka, “i’m close to my mommy. she works nearby.” and chinaka went to visit her mommy. it bothered chinaka a little bit that she was almost 24 years old and still needed hugs from her mommy. but she needed a hug, so she went. she hoped her mom was not too busy at work.

guess what? mom was busy, but mom took time. it was nice. mom let chinaka talk about nothing, and shared her cranberry juice with chinaka. chinaka loved cranberry juice, but she loved mom more. yay mom.

but it was time to go back to work.

chinaka decided to take a taxi. taxi cabs were fun. chinaka went to a nearby hotel and waved for a taxi. the cabdriver pulled up and asked chinaka if she was going a long way away. chinaka wondered why cabdrivers always assumed she was going far away from the center of the city. it was almost like just by looking at her they could tell where she lived. incredible.

chinaka said, “tenth and division.”

the cabdriver said “hop in.”

as soon as chinaka got on her seatbelt, the cabdriver asked her to get out.

“why?” she asked?

“because that guy is going to pay me more,” he said.

chinaka got out. chinaka noticed who that guy was. he was very tall, white and had on a tie.

the cabdriver was white. but he was not as tall. and he didn’t have on a tie.

chinaka was not white. she was not tall. she did not have on a tie. too bad for chinaka.

the taxi dispatcher told the taxi driver that he was being unfair to chinaka.

the cabdriver was a dick.

fuck that motherfucker. ruined my children’s story like day. he was all: but that guy’s going to pay me more. actually said that. and then went on to say that he was just trying to eat. never asked where the tall white guy was going. just assumed that i wouldn’t be paying as much. and proceeded to say “sorry, but I’m sure you understand. everybody deserves to be able to eat. this is america, after all, you work at the gym down here? you look pretty tough…”

you bet your ass i look tough.