Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
Tupac Shakur
Month: July 2011
10th Grade Olivertwisted feels no shame for buying this album. It hasn’t aged well, but damn if it still doesn’t earn an occasional spin.
Yoooooooooooooooooooooooou crazy. “It hasn’t aged well.” You could say that about many of the early Cash Money releases, but there’s a reason this album stayed near the top of the album charts and went 4x platinum. This album signaled a serious shift in hip-hop’s sound, showcased the creative genius of Mannie Fresh, and proved that Master P wasn’t the only Southern player in the game.
And everything from “Rich Niggaz” to “Juvenile on Fire” is flawless. Ya heard me? FLAWLESS. The sequencing on this album is amazing. 400 Degreez is one of those albums, my man … shit’s incredible.
One of my all-time favorites, although I’m even more nostalgic about “Souljah Rag”, the Juvenile album before this one, when Cash Money was still an independent label.
San Quinn. Frisco Legend
San Quinn’s new album “Can’t Take The Ghetto Out A N__a” will be in stores July 19, 2011
Mahalia Jackson Chicken in Dallas TX, 1969
Back in June, I blogged about the Mahalia Jackson Chicken System after I had seen one of their old buildings in Tallahassee. The African-American franchise venture was started in 1968 by Dr. Benjamin Hooks and State Representative A. W. Willis Jr in Memphis as an experiment in Black entrepreneurship. Mahalia Jackson had always been a supporter of Black business as well and had her own recipe for fried chicken. Besides that, it was the late 1960’s, and thanks to Colonel Sanders, franchising was the hottest thing going. Some research in old newspapers at the University of Memphis led to these photos and advertisements from the Dallas, Texas store, which was on Forest Avenue in South Dallas. While the logo and graphics are the same, the building architecture is slightly different from the standard ones seen in Orange Mound on Park Avenue, in Milwaukee, in South Memphis or in Tallahassee. Now if I could only find their chicken recipe…
Dallas-based Dondria is the most recent female singer to be introduced to the world by Jermaine Dupri’s venerable So So Def imprint, now distributed by Malaco Urban. Her debut album is entitled “Dondria vs. Phatfffat” (“Phatfffat” was a childhood nickname), and reveals immediately her extensive vocal gifts. She is a fine and versatile singer, with a clear, powerful and expressive voice. The songs, of course, deal with the usual currency of R & B, songs about break-ups (“Where Did We Go Wrong” and “No More”), pleas for a second chance (“You’re The One”) and songs about sex (“Making Love”). The best of these have a strong summertime vibe, however, and make for pleasurable listening, particularly “No More” and the “Jeep Remix” of “You’re The One”, with its familiar “I’d Rather Be With You” sample. The final slow ballad “Kissed By The Sun” leaves the realm of R & B entirely for the world of pop, demonstrating Dondria’s versatility and mainstream commercial potential. Altogether, Dondria vs. Phatfffat is a respectable first outing from a voice that I would hope to hear from in the future.
Celebrating DJ Bay’s birthday at the 2 For 1 Taste Bar and Grill on Winchester in Hickory Hill, July 9, 2011