Music Monday: Amy Winehouse Back to Black

A mad genius.

Blog promotion 1: britcooperrobinson.blogspot.com

This blog is maintained by an actor I met at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater in 2009. She finished her masters, (her capstone was a documentary-theater piece about contemporary missionaries, very unique) and she ended up heading to Chicago to make a living. The blog is a living journal of her experiences as an actor, and a young professional in Chicago. Compared to other artist, her perspective is unique, which creates a very interesting story.

britcooperrobinson.blogspot.com 

Twitter Poems

Lately I've been experimenting with "twitter poetry", limiting my thoughts to 140 characters and seeing what I could come up.  I actually got this idea from a slam poet I saw in DC about a year ago, who opened her act with a poem she wrote over the course of a day on twitter. The following "pieces" (can't really call them anything else) were written over the course of a couple of months. As with everything I do feel free to write your comments. I would love to hear your thoughts.  

walking with a fist extend to the sky puffing a blunt and holding on to the last vestige of black power thought.#twitterpoetry

Today I sat, mumbling prophesies, both prophetic and nonsensical, to a 808 backdrop and autotuned to shit.#twitterpoetry

I've been obsessed with "Howl" since I read On the Road in 11th grade. This is a brief attempting at linking "Howl" to hip-hop culture.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroy by hip hop, with a microphone wrapped around their neck #twitterpoetry

shouting hysterical cyphers, naked except for a bullet proof vest and a fat gold chain with a blinged out African piece#twitterpoetry

Dragging themselves through harlem streets, searching for THC #twitterpoetry

A Night Stroll in Hip Hop Minor

This poem took me a minute, but I just manage to finish it. Enjoy!

A Night Stroll in Hip Hop Minor

I wear my hoodie like an extension of my hair, stretching cotton dreads across the shadow of my back.

My iPod pulsates rhythms, forcing me to a Negro march with slave looping rhythmic ciphers of freestyles and black men fantasies.

My chucks dig with my feet, reaching deep into America, unearthing the liquefied ashes of slaves and masters.  

My shades watch as they torture and redefine each other across generations, melting in the crucible of America’s dream.

My jeans sag into my insecurities, weighing like demons, creeping and anchoring, in the shallow of righteous creativity.

The Rain splashes neatly on my shoulders and streaks in my path so that if I close my eyes it feels like I am walking on water.

The Wind raises goose bumps on my skin in a row, forcing my hands deep within my pockets, and my mind back into skull.

And I hum in the tune of Hip Hop minor, and I find comfort in that.

©Copyright Julian Elijah Martinez, All rights reserved 9/14/2010

Amen to the DJ

Amen to the DJ
The divine Party goer
Who spins the hip hop heart
Beat, and connects lyrical
Brain synapse that electrify
Our bodies and minds.
Whose beat spurs hips to turn
And shake off old African spirits
Inviting new American succubuses
To posses, turning us into
Zombified b-boys/girls connected
At the pelvis gyrating in an effort
To stay young and hopeful.
Whose scratches scream like a slave
At a auction
Clawing at cultural chains
Attempting to break
From the limits of any musical slavery.
Who races from funk to acid
Jazz, and soulful Motown
To Ethiopian Punk and Gnarls
Barkley’s uncharacteristic muses on sanity.
Whose Engine Number nine beats
Intergalactiacally and “never knew a lovah”
Or love in California, filling the air
With just a little of that Stankonia.
Maybe the DJ is the last
Unmolested priest,
Spewing a funkified jargon
To the jack and coke baptized masses,
Spreading weed and mirth
While filling our heads with bass and propaganda
And delusions of swagger.

Sure is making me think I can dance anyway.

Amen to the DJ.