When theres Arab Money......

**just wanted to highlight a few reactions by Arab-Americans to arab money:

"Busta Rhymes is a genius to me musically, he is someone who pioneered a style and someone I grew up listening to since the age of 13. ... But man, you know, the time and effort put into the hook by Ron Browz was really really really really depressing. At a time when our brothers and sisters are dying worldwide, we are subject to so much racism and insanity, I would want or expect a brother of this stature to speak on our people in a way that is intellectual, understanding and of growth. " - via The Narcicyst / Yassin Alsalman's clever response to arab $$

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"My first thought when I heard the offensive chorus sandwiched in between gibberish "Arabic" ("The way i make the people wanna sing the hook in Arabic : LaLaLa HaleHeloHaLow/HelaBalaHeHeleBalo/We gettin Arab Money/We gettin Arab Money"): WTF Busta?" - Maytha @ Kabobfest

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"At the end of the day, its up to the artist to win over the crowd. As an artist i dont do music to cater to just my people. I make music and I make a living off of it. I make it for the love of hip hop. I love my people and always represent and will always let the world know who I am and where I come form. I recommend to other up and coming artists to cater to all types of demographics and not just one group.. be diverse in your message." - Noose / Naseem

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"Sometimes, people like to twist things. We ain't mockin' the culture. We ain't tryin' to be disrespectful. Ain't no racism going on right here.
If you listen to the song, you see that we are actually acknowledging the fact that the Arabian culture, a middle East culture is one of the few cultures, that value passing down hard work riches that's been built amongst the family.
It would be nice if a lot of other cultures did the same thing. Feel me? So, I would like for it to be like that in my culture where we could build things to the point where we got so much that we don't need to rely on other cultures to contribute majorly in a financial way, or in whatever other way, to societies, communities or whatever governments we might live in. So, we are actually biggin' up the culture. At the end of the day, I want to be like that. I think a lot of us want to be like that." - Busta HISSESLF

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The real real arab money. Those Khaleeji arabs might get one Khaleeji $$$

ps. whaaaaaaa?

media linkz

I'm going to miss all these songs!!!



Obama coupe-decale created by dj Kadhafi based in the Bronx @ club Zoodo, a center of nyc francafrique. Its website is in french but you can manage. They occasionally bring in some pretty big Ivorian stars, check them out!

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Iran Negah is BACK online! An Irani video site w/ an array of cool vids from revolutionary anthems , beautiful silent documentaries about the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia in 1925, bling cell phone youth culture, etc..

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Some dj went and made a Lebanon repping creamy house track incorporating techtonik moves and using those big yelle letters to spell out BERUIT

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Galsen youth teching and insane skating across Dakar

wah wah wah

its my blog so ill rant if I want to...

This past week ive been skitzo & range from this / omg to unbelievable rage and sadness at the passing of prop 8, which affects family friends personally as well as totally fucking breaks my heart. It may not be that bleak but it feels like the entire gay rights movement which I have participated in during my lifetime is a failure, backfiring across the country w/ at least 41 states that now have statutes and/or constitutional provisions that prohibit same-sex marriage.

I guess the narrative is that we need to step back and win the affections of the people. (o rly? gag) we laugh and joke and act all cute on tv, and people love us and presidential candidates are hamming it up with ellen and you turn around and no everyone haaates us. [ ahem .. where were you barack] I always thought courts were the way to go, pushy but less humiliating than propositions. And we're right, not with this psuedo democratic mass rule but b/c we're created equal. I dont really know whats going to happen to the gay rights movement, but for now it feels like we are back to ZERO and its mindblowingly frustrating.

I cant avoid the personal. Esp when these scum have the audacity to call themselves things like Focus on the Family. My little brother just transfered from community college and entered his first semester at SCAD in Georgia studying achitecture. I'm so proud of him! But as my only sibling who is gay, he gets the bulk of my worries. Will his generation be as scarred and dysfunctional as my parents? Like them, will his friends be refugees confined to urban centers?

Theres a quote about fellow gayspawn in this 2004 article:

"For every kid who champions the brand-new world his gay parents have created, there's another one who sees his gay parents as so banal that they're not worth mentioning, or another who resents the way her parents' sexuality has become the central feature of her life. One young woman I interviewed, an academic in her late 20's who is still close with her out gay father, recently started dating a man who told her on their first date that he didn't believe gays should raise kids. She kept seeing him anyway, as if to prove she wouldn't let that one issue define her life, wouldn't use it as the litmus test by which she judged every person she encountered."

ugh, the dreaded litmus. I hate that i feel confined to an urban liberal bubble, and I always try to escape it but no it folloooowwws me. and it will always be the test by which I judge my nation.

USA USA USA ETAZ-UNISS .... <3 <3 <3

nervous election stomach ache...





America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

*****UPDATE***********

I got up to get a drink, came back and my cat was all: get offline and vote!

ring ring ring

Global cell phone use at 50 percent

"At present, Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular subscribers in the world, its markets expanding nearly twice as fast as Asian markets. The availability of prepaid or 'pay-as-you-go' services, where the subscriber is not committed to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth in Africa as well as in other continents." ~ wiki

To people going global south, esp Africa, i'd say avoid internet & get a cell! a. You can integrate / meet up better b. they are cheap and c. as Carlos recently reminded me, its the main way virals and memes and such get spread. Its youtube, boombox, AIM. Plus, its the only way to learn text languages. Im particularly fasinated with Arabizi, which is easier for me b/c I can't really read arabic w/o harakat anyway and I gratefully <3 the simple grammar.

Being able to understand chat language is really useful & surprisingly hard to get w/o traveling. Ive been really pissed off at wordreference.com, whose message boards have always been godly while trying to write french papers or translating messages at work. But the moderators have actually deleted my recent posts asking about west african french e-speak b/c they 'werent inquiring about correct french grammar', proving once again how commited most of french language academia in the US is to maintaining their own irrelevency. porkoi?!!



Above are the strangly appealing graphics of Kosovar youtuber Legoistat, who contributes to a long line of 'local' refurbishings of universal tech noises,in this case Nokia ringtones. He also made an amazing nationalist / homophobic video which gays up all the the flags of countries that did not recognize Kosovo. Somehow the hate ends up as a magical art.

These refurbs appeal to me as a nerd and lover of what may be now "contemporary post-colonial urban electronic dance music"






msn carib/braziled:


and dancinggg