the dotmatrix project

A few thoughts on this mess:

• Jesse Jackson is a man of the cloth, right? Under what circumcision circumstance should he be talking about cutting off anyone’s nuts?
• Nick Fieldz is spot on.
• I dig Nas, but I would’ve rather he dropped Bushwick Bill over Young Jeezy as a voice of the people. Seriously.

UPDATE: More from Nas:

Not that Fox is responsible for Jackson’s stupidity, but Nas makes a good point — why does Jackson keep flocking to spots like Fox? Particularly in the age of self-broadcasting? I think it’s because he’s not even trying to speak to or represent the < 35 yr. old demographic, which supports Nas' take on "Messy Jesse" even more.

One point of contention with the last Nas video, though: nuts have nothing to do with prostate cancer. Where are the freestyle torture schoolings of Method Man when you need them?

(via Nah Right)

(via Nah Right)

Instant classic.

(via Davey D)

Freelance artist Ray Noland, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute, holds one of his posters of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, at a gallery on Madison Street in Chicago, February 4, 2008. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/MCT)

Noland is part of a recent boom in Obama Art.
…

Political art is a phenomenon that “goes back to Jefferson and probably Washington too,” noted Larry Bird, political curator at the National Museum of American History. Today, campaigns work vigorously to control the message, often refusing to allow supporters to bring their own signs and instead mass producing placards that look “homemade.” Such a heavily-orchestrated political environment can make original images even more striking. “In this day and age, when everything is focus-grouped tested and gone over, it’s refreshing when you do stumble upon a sign that was made by the person carrying it.”

I have a huge affinity for graffiti, particularly with stencil, and I ran across the following picture. I started some google researching and didn’t realize how extensive the library of political freelance art is becoming.

Noland’s stencil is not for the graffiti below but this is my favorite political piece, so far..

Some interesting items I’ve found for Barack Obama:

and to be fair, some art pieces of John McCain, unfortunately, I could only find one piece of graffiti for him:

and one of my favorite pieces, non-political, from Banksy:

And to extend the focus on his third point about hypocritical laws regarding drugs, check out this gem of a Canadian PSA I found:

Produced by DJ Green Lantern

(via Nah Right)

UPDATE: The Nigger Tape is now available online (via NappyAfro). Don’t know why it’s compressed as a .rar file, but you can decompress it with either RAR Expander (Mac) or WinRAR (PC)

Wow.

That’s pretty much all I can say. Today, I just got back from my first trip to Boston. It was cold and rainy for the most part but a very interesting city.

I was in the walking city because Inflowential, an artist I manage, won first place in an mtvU competition to open up for Wyclef Jean at UMASS. It was my first time seeing Wyclef perform and it was definitely the most exciting concert I’ve ever been to.

He is the most passionate performer I’ve seen live and everything he did was with such amazing ease.

He kept us on our toes for the entire performance with the surprises of:

• Playing the guitar behind his head
• Bringing his wife on stage — a beautiful lady who I had never seen before and who he admitted didn’t come to a lot of his shows
• Inviting 50 audience-member “Shakira’s” on stage to perform “Hips Don’t Lie” with him. (I had to be one..)
• Undressing down to his T-shirt in what felt to me like 40 degree weather and convincing the audience to do the same. (I did as well)
• Climbing the scaffolding
• Mixing his own vocals from the DJ booth

The picture above that I took from backstage shows right where he got everyone to take off their coats as well and wave them above their heads as we chanted “O-O-O-O-O” to a particular tune in support for Barack Obama.

The video below is very simple but touches my heart. I put together a quick video of two of my favorite clips of the concert, one from the beginning and one towards the end where his head was steaming in the chilly weather.

I had never seen something like this before.

I really hope you get to check out his live performance one day, it’ll be well worth it.

Is the Obama shoulder brush in 2008 the pop equivalent of Clinton playing the sax on Arsenio Hall in ‘91?

Classic.

(via Nah Right)

If you should choose to spend the next 37 minutes and 10 seconds sincerely listening to Barack Obama speak on American life as he has experienced it, I promise that you will feel a connection to a fellow human being, not merely a politician.

David Weinberger summed up the speech the best for me:

[...] Obama is asking us to do what is perhaps hardest. What it takes adults to do. Obama’s speech asks us to embrace difference and simultaneously to transcend it. [...]

Who else is tired of the romper room, polarizing, media frenzied society we live within?

Five years ago, today, The United States of America went to war — the epitome of a last measure — with a country because a majority of Americans were led to believe that they had a good excuse to do so.

Barack Obama is making no excuses.

UPDATE: Check out what real people have to say about the speech:

King Anyi from Oakland, California

Cosmo from somewhere in America

Mike Dayvas from somewhere in America

VerticalPolitics from somewhere in America

Students react to Obama’s speech

And to round off this topic, let’s see how Fox News handles the issue:

As always, Fox goes for the binary response. Everything is either a yes or no answer, because it either fits their “gotcha agenda” or it doesn’t.

Big props to Davey D for flippin’ the script on their reporter.

I’m trying to keep this blog free of political discussions, but this has to be shared.

While there’s a decent chance that Clinton could actually be adding fuel to a potential Democratic loss in November — which should in reality be equitable with hell freezing over — I believe that she and Bill have differentiated themselves as people in ways far more damaging to their own place in society rather than simply the confined parameters of this campaign.

I know we’re talking politics here, but who at this point has blinders thick enough to consider Hillary anything more than a desperate, self-serving shell of a public servant?

Previously.