bellker's Blog

Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud                                          James Brown

Look At Michael Jackson! He looks GOOD!  Just goes to show you that a person really can be RACELESS. That is what he sought to achieve by removing the melane from his skin.  Go ahead Michael with your BAD self!

I use to be a fan. Loved his music as an adult and when he was a child with the Jackson 5. Above all else he is the best enterainer of all time. Gotta give him his props.

After years of silence, rumor and a sordid trial, Michael Jackson has given his first major U.S. interview in a decade. He is 49 years young and appears on the front cover of my favorite African-American magazine "Ebony" to mark the 25th anniversary of "Thriller" -- the world's best-selling studio album that also made him a superstar.

Michael has largely shunned publicity since his 2005 trial and acquittal on child molestation charges. I certainly understand that….

The cover photo of the magazine, whose December edition hits newsstands on November 12, is causing almost as much of a blogging feast as the interview. I think he’s handsome. Other bloggers are focusing on his skin color…now how sick is that… aye?

One post on the pop culture blog commented; "Michael Jackson has to be the whitest person to ever be on the cover of Ebony magazine." Now that’s cruel and unnecessary, don’t you think?

Jackson has in the past attributed his gradual skin whitening to a disease called vitiligo. I think he just wanted to become RACELESS. So am I. He accomplished this and I think he’s cute, even though he has a hard time finding makeup now.

"He's grown-up, learned from his challenges, and stronger. He has three children, and his whole life ahead of him. What do you say, let’s give the man another chance, aye Bloggers and Bloggetts.

He plans to release a 25th anniversary edition of "Thriller" later in November with four new and four remixed tracks. He is said to have worked with Kanye West, Akon and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas. That's a talented bunch right there.

The original 1982 "Thriller" has sold more than 104 million copies worldwide and was the first album in history to produce seven Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles.

Are we ready for our main man, Michael Jackson to come back on the scene… I am, how ‘bout you…

Who’s bad!

Let’s blog….

Talk about a waste in good talent...

Rapper Foxy Brown has received 76 days in punitive segregation after she scuffled with another inmate at Rikers Island jail - separated now from other inmates after Brown and another inmate got into a shoving match.

Then in true rapper style, Brown was abusive toward correction guards and then refused to take a random drug test.

The combined violations earned Brown more than two months in punitive segregation, where an inmate can spend up to 23 hours a day in isolation.

Brown is serving a year at Rikers for violating her probation in a case stemming from a Manhattan fight she had with a manicurists in a nail salon.

Her real name is Inga Marchand. Apparently, Inga skipped her required anger management classes and traveled out of the city without permission. Looks like she really needed that class. 

Brown also refused to attend court in Brooklyn Oct. 12 after she was accused of throwing a cell phone at a neighbor who complained about the volume of her car radio. Four days later, she appeared in court and was arraigned on charges of assault, attempted assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon — the cell phone.

Well at least she didn't pull a gun like her co rappers have done. She has pleaded not guilty.

Somebody tell me, what's wrong with this girl... angry no doubt, just tossing her life away. She's not bad looking either...

Those dancers in the video sure can shake it>

Whose Foxy Brown....

Let's blog...

Jena mayor calls song inflammatory.

A video in which rapper-actor Mos Def asked students around the country to walk out Oct. 1 to support the "Jena Six" escaped comment by this town's mayor. But when John Mellencamp sang, "Jena, take your nooses down," he took issue.

The town of Jena has for months been characterized as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied.  Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin says the Mellencamp video is so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough."

I say, It's getting hot in over there and this is only the beginning.

A brief note from Mellencamp posted Thursday on his Web site says he is telling a story, not reporting. "The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism," it says.

Nooses hung briefly from a big oak tree outside Jena High School a year ago, after a black freshman asked whether black students could sit under it. A white student was beaten unconscious three months later, in December.

Six black students, four of them 17 years old and legally adults, were arrested. Five were initially charged with attempted murder, although that charge has been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery as four of the older youths have been arraigned. The only youth tried so far was convicted, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to juvenile court.

Mellencamp's song opens, "An all-white jury hides the executioner's face; See how we are, me and you?" As he sings, images of Jena, the high school and the tree are followed by video from the 1960s, including civil rights marchers, police beatings, and President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King speaking. Still images include one of a protest sign reading, "God demands segregation," a stylized drawing of people in Ku Klux Klan robes and an older image of a black man in shackles, begging.

"I do not want to diminish the impression that the hanging of the nooses has had on good people," McMillin wrote. "I do recognized that what happened is insulting and hurtful."

But, he said, "To put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory."

Jena Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to create an interracial committee to study racial relations and suggest solutions to any problems.

The saga goes on.... what do you have to say....  it's a story thus far that never ends.

Let's blog...

Record companies win music sharing trial in DULUTH, Minn. The recording industry hopes $222,000 will be enough to dissuade music lovers from downloading songs from the Internet without paying for them.

 "This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for the music companies that sued the woman, after the three-day civil trial in this city on the shore of Lake Superior.

Jammie Thomas, 30, a single mother from Brainerd, was ordered to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all. Wow!

It was the first time one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders had gone to trial. Other defendants settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars, but Thomas decided she would take them on AND LOST BIG TIME.

This girl lives from paycheck to paycheck, and yet she made a stupid decision to take on these companies.  Now she could get a quarter of her paycheck garnished for the rest of her life plus, the plaintiff's attorney fees are automatically awarded in such judgments under copyright law, meaning Thomas could actually owe as much as a half-million dollars.

BAM! She should have settled.

The record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account. During the trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

She was busted. But why did she lie?

Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas' infringement was willful but awarded damages in a middle range;

This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that record companies will protect their rights - as they should. The jury simply did not believed her concerning the replacement of the hard drive. Clearly.

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc. They came out swinging...

Look out yall.... you could be next if you are illegally downloading music and sharing it without paying for it....

Let's blog...

What is R & B music to you?

I grew up on this music as well as Popular Music, now called POP, gospel and country music too.  But R&B is King, or Queen.... 

It 'aint no party with out some Al Green, some Teddy Pendergrass and some Barry White, some Jackson Five, as we would say back in the day.....

Man, I am worried about the future of music now a days.

What about some queen of soul with the ole' Aretha Franklin and some harmony with groups like Earth Wind and Fire or what about some Lenny Williams singing those begging love songs, like Babyface later came out with.

What about that?

Hey, Marvin Gaye and those Supremes and Smoky...got have some Smoky Robinson and the Mircles baby...from Motown.

Then swing around to Philly for that soulful sound of Patti Labelle hitting them high notes and the late Minnie Riperton with that 12 octave range.... died too young... and you can't forget that songtress Phyllis Hyman... girl could sang... not sing, I mean sang baby!!!

Or what about some Winans or CeCe and BeBe Winans... some good strong gospel music which comes from R & B... including some Clark Sisters or Shirley Cesar.... that good ole shouting music like Mahalia Jackson.

Oh, wait, the down home blues. Your cafe' or beer garden wasn't happening unless you had some B B King or some Bobby Blue Bland playing on the Juke box, baby!

Hey we can't forget some good ole light rock like Journey with Steve Perry or Alabama or Crossby Stills and Nash...Christopher Cross or the ole' Marah Carey before she went nasty... Red hot chilli peppers!

Oh, ok, you can toss a little Elvis in the mix for color but then you have to top that off with some 'Lil Richard to make the topping carmel and tasty and fit for a king!  Light rock and was nice with some good roots in R & B and some good lyrics and harmony.

That's what I'm talking about!  What are are you talking about? Let's hear it baby!

Let's blog.....