Michael Jackson.....The epitome of brilliance in music and entertainment. Truly a perfectionist in his essence as a Virgo, Michael achieved unprecedented and unsurpassed feats as a pop superstar. With humble beginnings as a child star grouped with his four brothers ( Jermaine, Tito, Jackie, and Marlon) to form The Jackson 5, Michael later launched his solo career with Off The Wall(1979). Which was the first album to have four U.S top ten hits, including "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You".Off the Wall reached number three on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified for 7 million shipments in the US and eventually sold over 20 million copies worldwide. In 1980, Michael won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Music Awards for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for ( "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough").Also that year Michael secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37% of wholesale album profit. After Michael's early 1982 contribution, "Someone In the Dark", to the blockbuster film E.T. the Extra- Terrestrail, which garnered him a Grammy for Best Album for Children, Epic issued his second album, Thriller. In what would turn out to be the apex of Michael's career, the album remained in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for 80 consecutive weeks, 37 at the peak. Seven singles from Thriller concurrently hit theBillboard Hot 100 top 10, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'".Thriller went on to sell upwards of 109 million copies, making it the best selling album of all time causing Michael's biographer to muse that "at some point, Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item — like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie — and started selling like a household staple." The period of Thriller was an extraordinarily lucrative one for Michael, whose lawyer Thriller also help forge MTV into it's heydayeven as MTV helped to fuel Thriller's sucssess. At the 1984 Grammy Awards Michael won eight awards: 1.Record of the year for "Beat It", 2. Album of the year for Thriller, 3.Best recording for children for "Someone In the Dark" E.T. movie, 4.Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male for Thriller, 5.Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical Bruce Swedien (engineer) for Thriller By Michael, 6. Producer of the year (Non-Classical) Micheal & Quicy Jones, 7.Best R&B vocal performance, male for "Billie Jean", 8. Best Rock vocal performance, male for "Beat It". This feat only matched numerically by Santana(Carlos Santana's Band). This post could actually become perpetual, considering his tenure streached over 4 decades... woooow. I guess what I really wanted to say was Michael spawned inspiration and exordinary music that shaped pop culture as we know it today. He will surely be missed..


Rest In Peace Mike

¿Si Habla Español?

The mighty Mos Def has always gone by the spanish nickname, “Pretty Flaco,” but who would’ve known he would actually embody the name. In his new album, The Ecstatic, the mighty Mos Def becomes Pretty Flaco, rhyming in spanish on the track, “No Hay Nada Mas.” The track is reminiscent of “Umi Says” from Mos’ solo debut album, Black on Both Sides. It takes on the “Umi Says” sound of a dim prayer authored by Mos (and I think he actually concludes his bars with “Amen”). But that’s the thing... I say “I think” because some of the lyrics are unclear. It takes a few listens to get the idea. The words/lyrics that stand out are: “Guerra y vida” “Familia…la luz en la distancia” “Mi vista, mi casa, mi sueños, mi alma.” Seems like Mos is saying that we live in a constant state of paranoia—feeling a need to protect ourselves and the things that we give weight. Kinda dark, I know, but I think he’s saying there’s nothing more to being a human being. . .”No Hay Nada Mas.” But there is more to Pretty Flaco and this new album, so pick it up!

underground SOUL...How I roll

Internet or Blackberry? Which of the two can we live without?

ALife Sneakers, They're dope, I hope pop culture haven't caught on to these yet.

Video blog 1

Vicious Cylce... continum

I guess I'm yet that phlegmatic observer, had a random thought a couple of weeks ago. Even though it was happenstance, it's been plaguing me... Here it is... As young adults or pre teens, people in general usually have dreams and aspirations.

You know?, Wants and desires? I mean people never really WANT their lives to end up scarce and desolate or boring and mundane. Growing up we usually have wild and vivid imaginings of this, that, and the third. You know, GRANDIOSE houses, ABUNDANT bank accounts, everything we'd ever want through the POWER of imagination....

Then...... we became an adult, moved out on our own, start working to keep the bills paid, all the while trying to hold fast to those ambitions we had coming up. Unbenounced to us we've become less visionary, and more close sighted on balances and pass due notices.

I call to court for the suppression of imagination,... The COMFORTABILITY of ROUTINE! You see, monotony has the mastery to render us unconscious and this mastery is so superior, that we DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT! Untiiil, we reach 45 or so and have that RANDOM THOUGHT while sitting in that cubical, or driving that transit bus or wearing that hard hat and swinging that sledge hammer, that "HEY! I NEVER DID ANYTHING I SAID I WOULD DO!" Which is usually followed by a MID LIFE CRISIS. (SCREAMS)

Well... I guess I'm just having a quarter life crisis. I charged myself never to let my free spirit be captured, and to make sure my visionary imagination remains 20/20. If you're reading this, I want to charge you with the same duty. You owe it to yourself not to have to bust your ass from check to check and SELDOM if EVER see the fruition of your labor. SO.... NEVER SETTLE! You see what happened when that last of A people settled...Stay MINDFUL.


-NEM