The fragrance: Sweet
The petals: Many & delicate
The color: Bright & vibrate
The history: Rich & wide spread

Black Magic: Her Hands
Black Magic: Her Smile
Black Magic: Her Skin
Black Magic: Her Being
Black Magic: Her Promise
Black Magic: Her Love

Art Credits:
2010 Tafari Stevenson-Howard
Muse: Tamara Rasberry

Where are your heroes, my little Black ones

You are the Indian you so disdainfully shoot
Not the big bad sheriff on his faggoty white horse

You should play run-away-slave
Or Mau Mau
These are more in line with your history

Ask your mothers for a Rap Brown gun
Santa just may comply if you wish hard enough
Ask for CULLURD instead on Monopoly
DO NOT SIT DO NOT FOLLOW KING
GO DIRECTLY TO STREETS
This is a game you can win.

As you sit there with all your understanding eyes
You know the truth of what I’m saying
Play Back-to-Black
Grow a natural and practice vandalism
These are useful games (some say a skill even learned)

There is a new game I must tell you of
Its called Catch The Leader Lying
(and knowing your sense of the absurd you will enjoy this)

also a company called revolution has just issued a special kit for little boys called Burn Baby
I’m told it has full instructions on how to siphon gas and fill a bottle

Then our old friend Hide and Seek becomes valid
Because we have much to seek and ourselves to hide from a lecherous dog

And this poem I give is worth much more than any nickle bag or ten cent toy
And you will understand all too soon
That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play.

Art Credits:
Poem: “Poem for Black Boys” by Nikki Giovanni

“…I came from what they call a broken home but if they ever really called it a house, they would have known how wrong they were.

We were working on our lives and our homes dealing with what we had not what we didn’t have.

My Life has been guided by women, but because of them, I am a man.

God bless you momma.” ~ 2010 Gil Scott-Heron

Right now, she’s my baby.

Tomorrow, she’s my baby.

Forever she is mine to care for, love, nurture & hold.

I value her playfulness, inquisitiveness & yes sometimes her wild child craziness.

She is my daughter.

A perfect being in my eye.

The spitting images of love between my wife and I.

What more can a man want but more.

Jíbaro, mi negro lindo
De los bosques de caña
Caciques de luz
Tiempo es una cosa cómica.

Jíbaro, my pretty nigga.
Father of my yearning for the soil,
The land,
The earth of my people.

Father of the sweet smells of fruit in my mother’s womb,
the earth brown of my skin,
the thoughts of freedom that butterfly through my insides.

Jíbaro, my pretty nigga.
Sweating bullets of blood and bedbugs,
Swaying slowly to the softly strummed stains of a five string guitar
Remembering ancient empires
Of sun gods and black spirits and things that were once
So simple.

How times have changed Man.
how Man has changed time.
“Unnatural,” screams the wind.
“Unnatural.”

Jíbaro, my pretty nigga man.
Fish smells and cane smells and
Fish smells and cane smells and
Tobacco
And oppression makes even God smell foul.

As foul as the bowels of the ship
That vomited you up on the harbors of a cold metal city to die.
No sun, no sand, no palm trees

And you clung,
Yes, you clung to the slimy ribs of an animal
Called the Marine Tiger,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost Amen.

Jíbaro, did you know you my nigga?
I love the curve of your brow,
The slant of your baby’s eyes
The calves of your woman dancing;
I dig you!

You can’t hide.
I ride with you on subways.
I touch shoulders with you in dances.
I make crazy love to your daughter.
yea, you my cold nigga man.
And I love you ’cause you’re mine.

And I’ll never let you go.
And I’ll never let you go.
(You mine, nigga!)
And I’ll never let you go.
Forget about self.
We’re together now.
And I’ll never let you go!
Uh’uh
Never, Nigga.

Art Credits:
Poem: “Jibaro My Pretty Nigger” by Felipe Luciano
Image: “Obama” by Andrew Bannecker

Gil Scott-Heron is back like a mofo with “I’m New Here;” his 1st album in 16 years. After listening to “I’m New Here” many times, its clear that Gil still has that magic with his powerful rough but smooth voice proving that he’s still powerful, relevant & on pint.

The release has 15 cuts & is a hot 28 minutes long but it packs a powerful punch with poetry, re-memories, hip-hop beats, blue grass themes & the devil!

“Me & The Devil” was the 1st single from the album & it really is a soul stirring, head bopping song that reminds me of why I LOVE Gil Scott-Heron so much. A musical bro-mance if you will. And damn the song’s video is almost too good. It’s just as raw as Gil himself & equally intense.

“On Coming From A Broken Home” (Part 1) & (Part 2) are haunting like “Home Is Where the Hatred Is.” These are the kind of pieces that makes me stop, play, process & repeat.

It’s no surprise that critics from NPR to Soulbounce are enjoying Gil’s latest work, because this shit is just all that; true amalgamation of musical & poetic deliciousness.

I’m happy that www.gilscottheron.net released a free preview! Check it out cause it’s so worth your time.

I’ll tell you, Feb 9, 2010 is a day of great musical releases. Gil Scott-Heron & Sade! Who could ask for more?

I have my mother’s thighs.
I have my father’s last eye.
I have my mother’s sense of humor.
I have my father’s strong desire to be organized.
I have my own style.
I am not afraid.
I am me.
I am many things.

It’s amazing to be a young black man. who is a black artist. a black singer. a black writer & all the while more than black.

There is so much to me and so much at my feet as a black man and because I’m a black man and despite the fact I’m a black man.

And that to me is fucking beautiful.

~ Joshua Washington 2008

It’s been a while since I have actually written a poem but my boo inspired me last week when she presented me with a delicious gift.

Rarely do I totally bite a post from other blogs but after I seen’t this video over on Concrete Loop & just had to bite. Yes, I do read Concrete Loop! Most often I read shaking my head in disgust sighing oh hell no; what is wrong with some of these damn Negro celebs, who the hell are these “new” singers/actors, & am I the only person in the world sick of hearing about B-yon-say, that Um-ba-rell-a girl & other no count talents??? Occasionally the Concrete Loop put me up on something that I am talkin’ bout, which I guess gives it some balance after all they are one of the most popular Black blogs ever.

So I officially got me some black history this week.

Thx Concrete Loop!
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Hottentot Venus: The Story

“Je est an autre” – I is another – A. Rimbaud

Saartjie Baartman was a Quena (or Hottentot) woman who was brought to Europe in 1810, to be exhibited for public inspection as an example of her tribe. Like many African tribes, the Hottentots were a significant part of ethnographic study during the 19th century. Indigenous tribes around the world provided cultural and intellectual challenges to European notions of civilisation, spiritual belief, and human body ideals – beauty and health.

The Hottentots were particularly interesting to Europeans not only because of the unpronounceable click in their language but also the physical characteristics of their women. The most significant of these were their external hanging genitalia and their large, pronounced bottoms – both of which posed a significant contrast to the bodies of women in Europe.

When she arrived in Britain and later France, Saartjie was confronted with the astonishment, curiousity and cruel heckling of a public that had limited contact with native Africans, but already had preconceived notions about them. In London Saartjie was displayed as a freak show display piece amidst the hairy women, vitiligo sufferers and obese people of the time. Since the freak shows were established on the premise of exhibiting difference, Saartjie was a marketable attraction.

Georges Cuvier, an anatomist who was familiar with the Hottentot natives, noted his astonishment about Saartjie in particular:

“What is striking about her shape is the enormous size of her hips, wider than 18 inches, and the protuberance of her buttocks, which was more than half a foot” – Georges Cuvier, 1817 Extraits dobservations

African women in particular were viewed as exotic and represented a ‘native’ eroticism, relative to ‘forbidden’ sexual life. In France, black women were used to promote brothels and their visual presence amidst white prostitutes on postcards and later in photographs, usually ensured successful patronage. Saartjie’s extreme physical difference to the established black prostitutes in Paris made her an instant target for lurid sexual advances.

Saartjie died of an infection in 1816 after prostitution and excessive alcohol abuse had consumed her body. Following her death, Cuvier made a cast of her body and dissected her brain and genitalia to be pickled in jars for ethnographic display at the Musee de l’homme in Paris. The jars remained on public display there until 1985, when they were finally put into storage.

The subject of Saartjie’s remains highlights the problematic history of acquisition and display in museums. Since Europe had a complex power relationship with Africa, it stands to reason that the development of ethnographic collections was driven by beliefs about Africans as savage peoples from a dark and uncivilised continent – notions which colonialism help to quantify.

‘Rare things or beautiful things here learnedly assembled to educate the eye of the beholder like never before seen all things there are in the world’ – Inscription Musee de L’Homme, Paris

Worldwide collections continue to grapple with the legacy of this history, and the foundations of the Musee de L’Homme were shaken when the Khoisan people (descendants of the Hottentots and Bushmen) officially asked for Saartjie’s remains to be taken back home. Since 1994, the museum has battled with the politics of her display and continued to stake their claim to her remains.

In a significant and historic feat, human rights activists, the South African government and the Khoisan people ensured that in 2002 her remains were taken back to South Africa where she was given a traditional burial. (Source: The Image of Black)
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If you are interested in large African clits click here