I Like Sex and I'm Good At It

The irascible John Mayer and his foray into hip-hop.
Source via the internet

Do you believe him?

Lil Wayne - Prom Queen

Prom Queen

So the video for Lil' Wayne's 'Prom Queen' premiered recently and I found it a lot easier to watch when I left the sound off. This song is one of Weezy's latest "eclectic" efforts and I really can't do it with him this round. But I also know that there are lots of things I can't fucking stand that get inexplicable love from the masses and this I presume shall be no different.

Thoughts
- O Hai Thar! Is that Ms. Katrina LaVerne?
- The moshpit scene is the most staged and confused moshpit scene I have ever observed. Hannah Montana and them can go harder than that!
- I never see this many black women in rock videos. I'll tentatively drop that in the positive box for safe keeping.
- Ron Howard passed on the cameo because the set was not trill enough for his liking.

2009 Oscars

I'm sure you know the drill. Tonight is the Academy's 51st Motion Picture Awards Ceremony and I will be liveblogging it. Check back during the show and/or follow me on twitter.

8:29 - Sippity sip sip.
8:30 - SHOW STARTS. A brilliant crystal set design. It's got old world glam and I love that stuff
8:31 - Hugh Jackman takes the stage.
8:32 - He takes a dig at New Zealand. Ouch, can't you guys get along?
8:33 - Now he's performing a music number...I'm gonna throw my remote somewhere with my eyes closed so that I don't change the channel.
8:34 - He busted an ill move with the "Craigslist?" dancers
8:35 - Performing Frost/Nixon with Anne Hathaway
8:36 - Now he's a performing a hot ass mess with some people in silver suits
8:40 - Hugh's gonna be a decent host. he's quite the showman
8:43 - Tilda Swinton looks alien and sexy.
8:44 - Whoopi's dress says 'So you want me to wear a dress huh? I'll show you a dress alright, i'm gonna wear some bullshit, and ima wear it to the Oscars."
8:47 - The Best Supporting Actress goes to Penelope Cruz. She looks kinda platinum quincenera but she actually looks great
8:52 - Tina Fey and Steve Martin take the stage in a comedy bit. "to write is to live forever, the man who wrote that is dead." Then they take a dig at Scientology.
8:57 - Dustin Lance Black wins the Best Screenplay award for 'Milk' gives a pretty equal rights speech.
8:59 - Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Simon Beufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. I didn't love this movie but I didn't see the other ones so maybe it deserved it. Good for him/them/everyone/whatever
9:02 - Jack Black and Jen Aniston present the nominees for Best Animated Feature. Jack Black's muggung is amusing/tolerable but the montage makes zero sense. Camera cuts away to Angelina who giggles knowingly.
9:06 - Wall-E wins it.
9:08 - The Best Animated Short award goes to a polite asian man who says Sank You like a dozen times and then ends w Domo Arigato and scurries of stage. I laugh because I am culturally deficient in many ways.
9:15 - Daniel Graig's sexy ass saunters onstage with Sarah Jessica Parker whose dress I hate. They present nominees for Best Art Direction.
9:17 - Goes to Benjamin Button..yawning
9:31 - Okay Natalie Portman takes the stage and Ben Stiller comes out doin a disheveled insane Joaquin Phoenix impression complete w beard and sunglasses. Natalie kills him and says "you look like you work at a Hassidic meth lab"
9:35 - Slumdog takes it for best cinematography
9:39 - Jessica Biel comes out lookin like she rolled out of bed,wrapped the silksheets around her toga style and pulled her hair back. She presents some technical award and proceeds to bore the sht outta me with a category that would be interesting had it been presented on the Discovery Channel
9:41 - A commercial airs for what looks like a hilarious tragedy starring Jamie Foxx as an insane musician
9:42 - Seth Rogen and James Franco reprise their Pineapple Express roles and remind me how I should be watching this award show. High as shit! This interlude is pretty funny, Franco kinda confuses Robert Downey Jr. for Barack Obama
9:47 - Oscar goes to some folks with thoroughly unpronounceable names, Seth and Franco Present the award and giggle at the names like school children. I love it.
9:52 - Hugh comes back go do another fancy dandy musical number. Then he's joined by Beyonce in a red sequin Shug Avery getup. They perform some musical numbers while my blood pressure rises.
9:56 - The HighSchool Musical kids join them and I will never forgive the Academy.
10:04 - Cuba is trying to bu funny... embarassing himself though.
10:06 - Ledger gets the Oscar for the Joker. Amazing performance. He totally deserved it, His performance was amazing
10:09 - His family accepts the award for him and gives a polite and moving speech honoring his memory. It's nice.
10:13 - Documentary montage pops on screen, this dude with the most unruly set of teeth i've seen in some time says something. I lol.
10:14 - Bill Mahr plugs Religulous and the award goes to Man on a Wire, this little frenchman is adorable, and then he balances the Oscar on his face! *clapping*
10:25 - Will Smith comes onstage to present for Outstanding Visual Effects...tries to be funny...fading
10:26 - All the action movies get shtted on and it goes to Benjamin Button...yay
10:30 - Nominees for soundmixing are...Oscar goes to Slumdog...
10:35 - Nominees for editing are...Oscar goes to Slumdog...headache again, tired..will smith acknowledges he is inexplicably still on stage tryna make this borin sht sound interesting
10:40 - I QUIT THIS BITCH. Gonna lay down I can't make it through. Sorry people but if you are watching this then you have my sympathy.

So Far Gone

I might as well touch down to let y'all know what's been rocking my world lately. So Far Gone is the latest mixtape from Drake, the Canadian rapper of Degrassi fame. Well, I'm something of a long time listener first time caller. I've enjoyed his style for a while but I never really spoke about him, because no one else (that I know) really seemed to know or care who he was but with the positive buzz surrounding his latest effort I'm comfortable enough to lean over to you and tell you with confidence that if you don't know, you need to ask somebody. As is customary with mixtapes 'Drizzy' rides over a lot of other artists beats but he's done a great job of making each track his own and not just sounding like noise over a great instrumental. He, for instance, remixes Lykke Li's 'Little Bit' and adds his own dimension to the already haunting sort-of love song. He also beasts through Santogold's 'Unstoppable' again, making you wonder how he wasn't already on the track in the first place. This mixtape is great winter music, which is something I've been on the hunt for lately. Live, but not too exuberant. Just haunting hymns and heavy shit that you can drive through dusky snow covered landscapes to. 808's type shit. 'Successful' featuring Lil Wayne and Trey Songz is the track that I would say exemplifies that.
'Drizzy' isn't a gangster and he mostly raps about his actual current life as a pseudo celebrity and yet he is lyrically compelling. I'm willing to venture that the only time he's seen shots fired was that very special episode of Degrassi when he became a cripple but hey, it's only entertainment. I would say that this mixtape has been getting attention not simply because it shows that he can rap, but that he can make an album of listenable songs. I know it's great to be able to 'spit hot fiyah' but it's pretty annoying when your favorite mixtape rapper has no concept of bridges and arrangement and just barrels down each track as if the beats were irrelevant. Do you even like music or do you just like to rap? Enough of my ranting just cop this shit.


Drake - So Far Gone

Next Selection

Ryan Leslie - Ryan Leslie

With all the recent talk about the young prince of R&B getting slap happy and stupidly ruining his career over teenage drama there's still a lot of sympathy for the young boy. I can admit I get a sinking feeling whenever I see the young, Black and talented take a downward spiral, regardless of whose at fault. But, to the left I say, to the left. There's other talented cats out there who can't quite dance but who are better musicians and just as light skinned (I'm not saying it matters but whatever helps), they just may be lacking a bit in the charm department. Enter R. Les. The Nerd. A Weirdo. He's incredibly talented and incredibly slept on. I've discussed how his social skills or lack thereof may be holding him back but most likely forces greater than that (Diddy) are the reason this boy has had limited success because quite frankly the entertainment business is supposed to be a refuge for social deviants and he certainly isn't the first of them …or the most repulsive.

This brings me to Ryan Leslie's self titled album, the follow up to the 2005 release, Just Right which apparently never reached stateside. The album has all the innovative funk balanced at just the right hit-making tempo's that we've come to expect from R. Les. He makes music that suits his nasal vocals and even when he raps you don't quite cringe as much as you thought you would. Clever and self deprecating lines like "If my record don't sell, we'll still go diamond" only endear me to Mr. Leslie further. His album has an electric mellow sound that calls upon his skills as a producer. The tracks don't ever exceed the almost spastic energy of 'Diamond Girl' nor do they sink lower than the sparing synth intensity of Addiction but this isn't a criticism, he simply has an even center he remains in for most of the album. He utilizes the electric guitars on 'Quicksand' and any number of sound FX kits on the track and croons about some pretty girl that he's pining after yet again, but it's really one of my favorite joints on the album in spite of his rhyming emotional with emotional over and over again. You can actually listen to the whole album through and not really be conscious of anything he's said. It's not that his lyrics are awful, they just aren't really important. Leslie seems to layer the vocals over the track as if they were any other instrument, using whatever words sound right. As if to make a point about the irrelevance of the lyrics in his song making process he includes a track titled ' Gibberish' where he basically talks out of his ass about 'lust' 'love' and 'moonlight' and 'ghosts?' There really aren't any words and yes I sat there like an ass for 1:12 trying to figure out if he actually was saying something relevant, but he wasn't. The point is the track was aight in spite of that and I'll give him his props for that, and for tricking me. Honestly, I could attempt to describe how there's comfort in the complexity and the simplicity of the music of R. Les but you really should just cop the album.

Favorite Tracks

Diamond Girl, Addiction, Quicksand

Bonus:

Valentine

It's a Thief In The Night To Come and Grab You

What the fuck?

...Yeah, it's been a few days and that's all I got left. I'm not picking sides and I'm not calling him a monster or saying she provoked him but I will say whatever it was, was it really worth it? The night before the Grammy's of all nights? Not that it's appropriate at any time but just the sheer ease with which some folks can see fit to throw their lives away is nothing if not disturbing. These dumb assed kids are our future, America! It would be awesome if they knew that violence isn't an appropriate response to whatever relationship conflicts they may be having.

Some links and gossip and information on the saga...cause I damn sure ain't a source.

Pop Culture Fix

Necole Bitchie