ByronCrawford.com

Black Milk - Tronic: Album Review

Black Milk, Tronic (Fat Beats, 2008)
Last year, Black Milk sort of came out of nowhere with Popular Demand, one of my favorite albums of the year. And already this year, he's produced two of my favorite albums - The Set Up, with Fat Ray, and Elzhi's The Preface. Can he make it three for three, or is it time to cue the backlash? Let's have a look.

• Black Milk @ MySpace

Normandy High School: What Really Happened

Word on the street here in the STL is that the HIV scare at Normandy High School might be even more scandalous than you'd think.

Never mind the fact that as many 50 kids in a single school might have AIDS. Supposedly, they might have gotten it from one of their teachers.

This weekend, I heard from a guy who overhead a guy telling another guy that the way the Health Department found out about this shit in the first place is that a student from Normandy High School came in for a routine AIDS test as part of her prenatal care, and, upon being informed that she's HIV positive, implicated a staff member at Normandy as the father of the child and also the source of the AIDS.

Aww dang!

They didn't have any specifics as far as the names of the individuals involved, nor did they say how they found out about this. But St. Louis isn't a very big town. And you have to think that, if word of this has spread to where I'm from, from where it took place, this must not be a very well-kept secret. If it's true, I'm surprised the mainstream media isn't all over this.

Note that I consulted Google just now, before I went in, and I didn't see anyone else reporting this. Though I did find this story from the Riverfront Times, from 2001, about how the principal there was involved in some improper conduct with the students. Also, I heard from someone else, this weekend, that it's been rumored that the staff at Normandy gets it on with the students.

Someone with the tools and the talent needs to get to the bottom of this shit already.

Previously: I'm bringing classy back [XXL]

T.I. has his own snitching hotline

FAIL

dead prez "PolitricKKKs"

More anti-Obama rap.

You'll recall that I was on top of covering this movement way back before it was all trendy, i.e. going on about a week ago.

This new dead prez record is being billed as the "street single" from their new album, Information Age, set to hit the streets in February of next year.

Sample lyrics: "Billion dollar campaign, trillion dollar bailout. Anyone know the definition of a sellout? And if Obama wins, it wouldn't be the first black. Take your $2 bill and turn it over to the back."

Hmm...

• dead prez "PolitricKKKs" [divShare]

Elzhi is the king of the underground

According to Last Week's Poll
The good thing about underground rap music is that you can put out a CD whenever you want, provided you can talk someone into paying the $600 or whatever it costs to press up a few CDs.

Take for example last week's poll. When I was putting it together, I figured I'd include both major label groups as well as underground groups, just to get an idea of how, say, the new Elzhi stacks up compared to the new T.I. But there were so few recent major releases, I figured why even bother. I might as well do an entire poll with nothing but underground shit, of which there's been no shortage as of late.

Check the results of last week's poll. (Note that, because you could vote for up to three albums, the percentages add up to more than 100. I tried to figure out why once, but I'm not that good at math. For what it's worth, no one in the comments section could figure it out either.)

Best new rap album?

1. Elzhi - The Preface (24.6%)
2. Termanology - Politics as Usual (19.5%)
3. Murs - Murs for President (18.4%)
4. Heltah Skeltah - D.I.R.T. (18.0%)
5. Blu and Mainframe - Johnson & Jonson (16.8%)
6. Jake One - White Van Music (12.9%)
7. DJ Muggs & Planet Asia - Pain Language (6.6%)
8. East Coast Avengers - Prison Planet (6.6%)
9. DJ Revolution - King of the Decks (3.5%)
10. The Mighty Underdogs - Dropping Science Fiction (3.1%)

Total Votes: 256

If there's one downside to underground rap music, it's that there's no guarantee anyone will give a shit. For example, something tells me there would have been way more votes than 256, if there were more albums that most people have heard of. (As I recall, something like 800 people voted in that Carter III poll.) Also, something tells me that, even amongst the people who voted in this poll, probably very few actually listened to all eight of these albums and took the time to determine which three they like best. Maybe just me, and that's just because I don't have shit else better to do.

How else to explain the fact that Termanology showed up in second and third, respectively, behind Elzhi's The Preface, which was obviously gonna win this thing? Obviously, I voted for The Preface myself. I think my other two votes went to the East Coast Avengers, and DJ Muggs & Planet Asia, which tied for seventh place. If you haven't heard those albums (and something tells me you haven't), you might want to DL and have a look.

Mos Def "Life in Marvelous Times"

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the album is as dope as the widget.

Michael Moore & Plumbers for Obama

On Larry King Live last night.

They discuss John McCain's assertion that Obama is a socialist, who wants to "spread the wealth around." Which is just silly, though you wish Moore would have mentioned the fact that it is kinda Obama's fault, in that he has been hijacking the rhetoric of socialist types. You hear him on the campaign trail these days, and it sounds like Naomi Klein or somebody, despite the fact that he isn't planning on doing anything any more socialist than rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Of course, the reason he does that is because that kind of talk resonates with people. People might not like the word socialism, but they like the idea of socialism more than they think. And Barack Obama's hardly a socialist. Michael Moore did an entire film arguing in favor of a single-payer health care system, which is socialist, and which most people in this country are in favor of. Barack Obama isn't. I'm surprised Moore didn't bring that up. I guess he didn't want to throw any salt right before the election.

Parts 1 through 4 are after the jump.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology: Album Review

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Cardinology (Lost Highway, 2008)
I saw Ryan Adams & The Cardinals here the other day, and it was one of the best concerts evar. Adams, who can be erratic at times, showed up with his motherfucking a-game. It was almost a bit too Las Vegas slick, not unlike his last album, Easy Tiger. Will this new album follow suit? Let's have a look.

Ryan Adams' MySpace is also pretty slick, especially with the new music player.

• Ryan Adams @ MySpace

Naked pictures of Barack Obama's mother

Some guy claims he stumbled upon some naked pictures of Barack Obama's mother, and he's posted them to the Internets.

No, really.

Here's the guy in his own words, on how he found the pictures, and how he determined that the woman in the pictures is Obama's late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. (Yep, that was her name.)

By pure serendipity I found a photo of what I believe is Stanley Ann Dunham; two more I found through sheer plod. They are taken before Christmas by the decorations and unopened presents. Also a stereo and records that an expert could confirm as jazz records are in view.There is a distinctive grain to the wood floors. I do research including genealogical and had downloaded everything I could find. Not much. So when I saw the picture, I locked on the the ear lobes, chin, eyebrows. It is she. A nude photo,not distasteful, but posed, I believe, by a mature man who knows what he likes, including jazz and now we know young girls. One could ascertain the location of where the photos were taken.

And the shoes..not indigenous to Hawaii,but maybe not unsual for Helen Canfield Chicago socialite and Marshall's second wife. The photos are important in the sense that they explain the going to Chicago and the immediate acceptance by the hard left, if his father is Frank Marshall Davis, not just his mentor.

I found that excerpted at Gawker. But they wouldn't post a link to the blog where they found it, because Gawker's kinda classy and bitchmade like that. Fortunately, I was able to find the pictures myself, using Google - though I don't think the site where I found them is the site where they originally surfaced.

I don't have the uncensored versions of the pics, either, and, honestly, I'm not even sure if I want to see them. She looks like she might have a nasty, hairy bush. And because I hate women, I like my women nice and clean downstairs, as if they were young girls. But with fully formed ass and boobs like a grown woman, natch.

I'm no pervert.

Is this really Barack Obama's mother? Check the pics for yourself after the jump. And don't say I never gave you anything.

DJ Green Lantern - Yes We Can: Album Review

DJ Green Lantern, Yes We Can: The Mixtape (Mixtape, 2008)
In the interest of fairness and equal time and not sweating having to come up with something else to post about on a hump day, I figured I'd go ahead and take a look at this Green Lantern Barack Obama mixtape hosted by Russell Simmons.

OnSmash has a link, if you wanna DL and have a look.