master class: @therealbenjib interviews larry heard

my dear colleague DJ Benji B interviews the Chicago House Music legend Larry Heard aka Mr. Fingers - i twirled on many a dancefloor as a youth to his music.

what can i say other than listen & love.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b014f5tq/Benji_B_Larry_Heard_interview/

for download

http://www.filesonic.com/file/1992139654/Benji_b_-_bbc_radio1-sat-09-15-2011.mp3 

also a proper tribute to DJ Mehdi (RIP) and music by Omar S & Osunlade

MUSIC PLAYED

Mr. Fingers — Can You Feel It [Trax]
DJ Mehdi — We Bounce [Ed Banger]
DJ Mehdi — I Am Somebody (Feat. Chromeo) (Kenny Dope Old School Remix) [Ed Banger]
Joubert Singers — Stand on the Word (Larry Levan Edit) [Next Plateau]
Jay Simon — Faith[ Wild Oats]
Lucy Pearl — Don’t Mess With My Man [Virgin]
Inc — Swear [4AD]
Storm Queen — Look Right Through (Dub Version)[ Environ]
Omar-S — My Naffew Randy [Scion]
[unknown] — Exit [White]
Martyn — Viper (Ghost People Edit)[ Brainfeeder]
Osunlade — Envision [Yoruba]
Mr. Fingers — Beyond the Clouds [Trax]
Fingers Inc. — Distant Planet [Jack Trax]
LARRY HEARD INTERVIEW
Mr. Fingers — Let’s Dance All Night [Alleviated]
Fingers Inc. — Mysteries of Love (Album Version) [Alleviated]
Mr. Fingers — What About This Love [Alleviated]
Mr. Fingers — Washing Machine[ Trax]
Mr. Fingers — The Juice [Jack Trax]
Mr. Fingers — Amnesia [Jack Trax]
Larry Heard — Mercurian Funk [Alleviated]
Mr. Fingers — Waterfall [Alleviated]
Fingers Inc. — Bring Down the Walls [Select]
Mr. Fingers — Slam Dance [Alleviated]
Mr. Fingers — Can You Feel It (Instrumental) [Trax]

Le Freak: @NileRodgers' autobiography excerpt from @NYTimes mag

i for one can't WAIT to read Nile Rodgers' autobiography. this ICON of modern music had a very colorful childhood to say  the least...here's a excerpt posted in the New York Times Magazine.


Excerpt from Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny

It took me a long time to realize that the things my parents did were not exactly normal. I was about 7 years old, and it was the tail end of the 1950s, when it started to dawn on me that they were . . . well, let’s just say they were different. For instance: my friends and I got shots when we went to the doctor and we hated them. But my parents stabbed themselves with needles almost every day, and seemed to enjoy it. Weird.

Most of my friends’ parents sounded like the adults in school or on TV when they talked. People understood them. My parents, on the other hand, had their own language, laced with a flowery slang that I picked up the same way the Puerto Rican kids could speak English at school and Spanish at home with their abuelas.

And then there was the matter of how they talked. My parents and their friends spoke this exotic language very slowly. There were other odd things. For instance, they often slept standing up, and this group narcolepsy could strike right in the middle of the most dynamic conversation. Someone would start a sentence: “Those ofay cats bopping out on the stoop are blowin’ like Birrr . . . ” and suddenly the words would begin to come out slower. And. Slower. Soon they wouldn’t be speaking at all. Eventually our living room would be filled with black and white hipsters suspended in time and space, while I ran through the petrified forest of their legs. My favorite game was waiting to see if the ashes from their cigarettes would ever drop. Somehow they almost never did.

I can still remember the day when I finally realized that there was a name for this unusual lifestyle. My parents were junkies! And their slow-motion thing was called nodding out. read more here

chocolate beauty @NaturiNaughton as Bunny Brenda - the Playboy Club NBC

score one for #teamdarkskin. finally a dark-skinned woman cast in a role as a 'beauty'

you know i have SERIOUS issues with black media outlets BET (BS Everyday Television) and non-black 'mainstream' media outlets NOT casting dark-skinned sisters in 'pretty-girl' roles. yep,  many 'liberal' white folk as well as the so-called industry blacks who run BET and occupy other power positions suffer from colorism + see us dark-skinned girls in one-dimensional roles - hello this is 2011! If u can't pass the paper bag test, you're relegated maid or domestic type 'mammy' & not  hot wife/girlfriend/beauty material. images are powerful. hopefully we can get to the day when black folks will eliminate the phrase "you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl" from our vocabulary and get over our colorstruck sickness. beauty does not automatically equal white/light-skin.

it's GREAT to see a dark-skinned woman with classical West African features cast in a 'pretty-girl' role + it's being filmed in Chicago. even though the Playboy Club is being marketed 'good fun/fluff tv', Playboy Enterprises really did change the culture and it'll be interesting to (hopefully) see that theme explored.

check the first DARK-SKINNED Black woman who was allowed to be SEXY on television Lola Falana + a documentary on ex-Playboy Club employees after the jump