Michael Steele Is A Very Willing "Token" For The GOP!

So,Michael Steele will use his "blackness" to bring "change" to the Republican Party.As it's new head,Michael Steele has come up with a tried & true strategy to reform his struggling party.In order to remain relevant,he has decided that the way to modernize the GOP is through hip-hop.You see,Michael Steele believes that will be the way to win more votes.Does he care anything at all about the hip-hop community?What is his strategy when it comes to dealing with poverty & the host of other issues that plague most in the hip-hop community?

I would be interested in hearing how he will deal with the problems that are expressed in the lyrics of many rappers who come from the ghetto.But of course,Michael Steele is only interested in the amount of votes he could generate from celebrities & their fan bases.In other words,Michael Steele is a very willing "token".He knows full well that he is only the head of the GOP because they desperately need the minority vote!Now,he's looking to hip-hop not because he's a fan of the genre,like President Obama.Michael Steele just wants to find more tokens for the Republican party.Here's more on his phony hip-hop endeavor from The Village Voice:

"Now, this comes as no surprise from a party that famously managed all of 26 total black delegates at the 2008 Republican National Convention, a figure that was good for slightly less than 2% of the total delegation. This, among other things, represented a 40-year-low: a flashback to 1968 for a party that was running against an African-African candidate in a country that's 15% black. Michael Steele was there of course, getting his credentials in order: we have him to thank for "Drill Baby Drill."

Add the murderous drubbing the Republicans took from so-called hip-hop voters (a demographic approximated by mashing up the African-American vote and the youth vote, which both swung overwhelming Democratic compared to 2004, to the tune of as many as 73 electoral votes), not to mention actual hip-hop stars, and Steele's coronation was probably inevitable. And not because Steele was likely to be more effective. The tokenistic-type magical thinking that the Republicans awkwardly flashed in Minneapolis basically prophesized the party's ensuing blind faith that a moderately qualified former Lieutenant Governor and current Fox News talking head would, by virtue of being black, somehow turn back the tide.

And Steele, apparently, is going to get very complicit with this myth indeed:

"There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort" zones, he said, citing defeats in such states as Virginia and North Carolina. "We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings."

Nevermind that "urban-surburban hip-hop settings" are fundamentally deaf to a message that involves enormous emphases on incarceration, draconian drug laws, regressive taxes, and the shredding of whatever meager social safety net still remains in this country. "Under Mr. Steele's helm," writes the piece's author, Ralph Z. Hallow, "the 'old' may seem inappropriate in the Grand Old Party's affectionate nickname. [Steele] said he is putting a new public relations team into place to update the party's image. 'It will be avant garde, technically,' he said. 'It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.'"(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

I'm Really Digging Somalian Rapper K'Naan Right Now!

K'Naan should be on your radar if he already isn't.For one thing,he's totally gorgeous.And I love that this guy has a flow that is reminiscent of Lil'Wayne,but he has a tremendous respect for women.Because he came from such strong African women,this Somalian-Canadian married father of two has the highest regard for females.Now,isn't that refreshing?!

His music is about the trials & tribulations of a Somalian.He even has verses that are entirely in the language of his homeland.The beats are catchy & unique.All I have to say is wow!If he doesn't blow the hell up,it would have to be because he didn't get enough publicity.Here's more on this deep, budding artist from TheStar.com:

"Never mind the CNN spot, Los Angeles Times nod, Esquire plug and all the other high-profile buzz around K'Naan's forthcoming sophomore disc. As far as the Toronto rapper is concerned, Troubadour is already a smash.

"It's how my mother feels – that's the trajectory of success, that is how I decide; and she's been moved by the album," says the 30-year-old performer of the 14 tracks comprising urgent, universal songs about love, hope and struggle in a mélange of traditional African rhythms, hip hop, rock, reggae and pop.

"And my second measure of success is how my own people feel about the music I make about them," says Somali-born Keinan Warsame, who settled here with his family in the early '90s after fleeing civil war at home

"If they feel like the music is about them and not for them, it's not successful to me; but if it's about and for them, as well as for everyone else, then I'm satisfied."

While "America" features entire verses in his native tongue, "Somalia" recounts Mogadishu's mean streets, and references to uniquely African immigrant experiences are sprinkled throughout the album,

K'Naan knows some members of his ethnic community won't be able to get past the hip-hop overtones in his work.

"The older people who understand my music, who understand English, they don't think I'm a rapper, they think I'm a poet." And for that, says the grandson of famed Somali poet Haji Mohamed says, "they really honour it."

But the elders generally "don't like hip hop; they don't think the kids should be listening to it. They see it as vulgar joke music that is demeaning and degrading to women, and that's not in our culture. A guy from Somalia calling a girl a ho is unheard of. We don't demean our women that way."

This brings to an interesting juncture our conversation over tea at a downtown Toronto hotel during K'naan's hectic days of promotion prior to the launch of his first North American headlining tour, which lands at the Mod Club on album release day, Feb. 24.

Earlier in our chat, in his unhurried, philosophical way, the MC defended his use of the N-word in his rhymes, which, with no equivalent term in Somali, doesn't seem like a natural undertaking.

"I grew up partly in Somalia's vicious streets and partly in North American streets," he said. "I never lived in the circles of the goody-goodies. I was a high-school dropout, hung out with thugs.

"I learned the endearment of `n----r.' It would be nice and all positive of us to say, `Well, let's not do it in music,' but we say it in our households. Until we agree to stop that ..."

I wonder now, albeit gratefully, why he cherry-picked this word, and not that other term, from the urban landscape. "I think it's different in the sense that there is no way to make `ho' nice," he replies with a laugh. "Even if Lil' Kim can sound good saying it, `ho' is still a problem.

"`N----r' is a problem in the sense that it was connected to social class and such, but it's not a personal ... degrading of a woman – that's intense to me, and I'm from powerful women." (END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

A Florida Woman's Boyfriend Gets Arrested For Molesting 5 Kids That She Babysat!

These type of stories really make you never want to use a babysitter.I don't understand why this Florida woman would have her boyfriend around the kids she was watching.Especially this guy.Here's more on this story from The Palm Beach Post:

"A convicted murderer and child molester was arrested Thursday on charges that for months he sexually molested five young girls who his longtime girlfriend babysat, police said.

Sheriff's officials say Marcus Blanchard, 54, fondled the girls, who ranged in age from 5 to 10, and had sex with a 7-year-old.
The alleged acts occurred at the home of his girlfriend, Lois Vendecreek, 64, at 1569 Citation Drive in West Palm Beach, according to an arrest report.

The charges were not a novelty for Blanchard.

In 1980, he was arrested and later convicted of molesting his own daughters, 5 and 7 at the time, according to police.

And then in the mid-1980s he made local headlines when he killed a man in a fight over drug money, got away with it, then confessed three years later because he said his conscience was bothering him.

He was convicted in 1988 of second-degree murder and sentenced after reciting a poem about the murder, titled "That Very Day."

He was released in 1997. Four years later, sheriff's deputies found his mother, Flora Coffey, two-days dead in her suburban West Palm Beach home and him asleep in another room.

He was ultimately determined not to be responsible for her death but taken all the same to the 45th Street Mental Health Center for evaluation.

Vendecreek said she and Blanchard had been living together for nearly seven years and said she couldn't believe that he had molested the children she cared for in her home."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.