My Artist Find!

I really love music. Like, I LOVE music. Everything I do has a soundtrack or a song. Corny, I know, but I don't mean to do it- it just happens. Some of my favourite moments in life are when I listen to an artist that I can totally relate to, an artist that takes me back to a place that my memory alone can't take me to. I'm reeling right now because I've just been transported back to a point in my life where nothing really mattered- except contemplating the complexities of life, and not necessarily living them. But I'm older now, and the real world is oh so real. I now engage with music on a very real level: I question why Snoop leads two black women on a leash into the MTV Awards (and then consciously listen to his music selectively). Ja ne... Boys need better role models. So do girls. Lil Kim is a self confessed ho and her face is falling apart. Foxy Brown stays beating people up and the lesser known Trina's music straight up puts her out there as a whore. Then again, maybe she isn't a whore, seeing that Rick Ross isn't really gangsta. Still, we need good role models.

So here I am stalking the e-streets and I find AMANDA DIVA. Think Lauryn Hill circa '96 when she killed the Fugees' album The Score- before she flipped, cross that with the fierceness and feeling of Mary J, Gil Scott-Heron's poetry without the heroin- actually, scratch that- Ima give her Saul Williams smooth poetry. Oh shit, this woman's got me. According to Amanda's myspace, she's about to save female mceeing from itself. I know we all listen to all the Lil Kim's; the Trina's and the rest of their ilk but for real, we don't take them seriously, and I doubt the industry does either. If the case is that women won't be taken seriously unless their half nekked (lies, because no one takes Kim, Trina and Foxy seriously) then it's time for someone to step up and rep for a women on a smarter level. I hope Amanda proves that you don't have to be a Hip Hop bimbo to be heard. She's with The Aphilliates and everyone knows if you roll with DJ Drama's movement, everyone is bound to PAY CLOSE FUCKIN ATTENTION. For real though. Listen to this chick. I'm digging her.

Amanda Diva Official Site
Amanda Diva on Myspace

Gosh.

Last week at Moloko I was tempted to compare this guy to Superfly, but I changed my mind after going back to the post to refresh my memory. Still thoug, this guy and his boys are kind of stale. I saw them for the first time last year in the exact same handmade, velvet, badly sequined 'Oh My Gosh' jacket. Talking about how they're the next best thing in S.A and that they had some record deal in the States. Fools.

Album on the Horizon: The Roots- Rising Down

The Roots are about to release their 10th studio album (release date: 29 April '08) and I can't wait! Man, I love The Roots and since they're releasing their album via Def Jam again, let's hope that they get more promo support- unlike with the very slept on Game Theory release. I came across a really special recording on OkayPlayer- it's a 1994 freestyle that was later slated to be a bonus track on the "Rising Down" album, but it was excluded because they couldn't get full clearance for the track.

Listen/Download the freestyle featuring a very young Black Thought here.

Image & Freestyle via OkayPlayer

I'm on my sneaker shit...Chuck Taylor All-Star Gold Zipper

I have no words. Only available in Hong Kong or on ebay. Certainly not at your local South African Converse stockist. Watch me get em. Watch you sip on that haterade and hate, hate, hate!!

Loving It...

This man is too cool. I'm no photography fundi but I love him.



His name is Hiroshi Sugimoto and he's a Japanese photographer and in his opinion, "art is possible even without artistic intention". CLICK THE PITCHAS FOR MORE