it's really just about doing what you do and being who you are

damn. finally it's all about the music. it's b.phlecksi parmella here. what's a blog for if you can't just speak on a few things, hunh? frank niao put together a gift mix with Spring on his mind. I know we're thoroughly in Winter up here in North America, but we've got an LP coming out in March and we're feeling the vibe. what we've put out so far sounds a little different than what's coming, 'cause everything has been reprocessed, remixed, and in many cases- rewritten.

gotta put forth best efforts right? also, contrary to what we expected being pretty 'under' about our ways here in the bay, we've been busy building with many, many, other musicians. so what? what i'm trying to say is that we are super duper optimistic about what's coming soon. AND if you listen to the Gift Mix for this month, you will hear that there is NO SHORTAGE OF GOOD MUSIC BEING MADE RIGHT NOW!
whether you are a hip hop head, into modern straight up jazz (don't sleep on Herbie Hancock's Joni Mitchell letters jammy out now...) or into the latest round of Akai MPC junkies...some fly 'isht is criss crossing the globe via this internet thing.

now, we have been neglecting our connection to the jump rope world. we're busting that out for our recording release party in March- weeks away. stay tuned....just think frank niao live with the beat tools WE use and some live retooled spit by myself. you really get a feel what emcees nowadays or yersterdays of what they are all about. as i've said before, we are living on Earth with some exceptionally dope emcees, at this very moment. i'm not at liberty to state if i could throw my name into the bin- but you will be able to cast your vote after March! (tee, hee...)

so, frank wanted me to let you know that the Gift Mix for Jan 09' is dedicated to Mike Dream R.I.P. because not enough can be said about just doing what you just fucking do!
and to East Bay kings: Razer, Pace, LORDS crew, Dagon, Ham2, BODE, oh, all right...ICP Crew too doggammit!!!

s'bout it, for the time being.
back to the hustle.

January Broadcast....the other part on blast

Track list:
1.) absence by carrie rodriguez
2.) 100 by axe & dj premiere
3.) for progressive minds by mono poly
4.) ?? by socrates
5.) all day excellence by kid 80
6.) wax poetics primer by currrent news
7.) tao jones pt 2 by tao jones
8.) in search of hope by taidi katham
9.) make it better by j rawls
10.) Ike's rap help me love medley by isaac hayes
11.) obrigado dilla by mochilla crew
12.) sun will rise by shuyi okino
13.) don't ruch me by jean grae & 8th wonder
14.) vice by jarren benton
15.) tell me by innate sounds crew featuring sharelle b
16.) cadillain thu tha hood by noyz & marvo
17.) i got work by big wiz
18.) and that's it...we'll see you in February

beautiful thing tripped on...

i've been sleeping...but it's all out there.
Masta Ace and Marco Polo's Nostalgia.
the video is truly hip hop gorgeous. swells up yo...

-b

January 2009 Broadcast, Pt 1

listen up.

Monday Monday...

We’re taking a break from mastering our upcoming debut lp- Pirates! by producing this show. And often I get asked how we can focus so much on hip hop from all over the country while in the middle of our own thing...well, simply we LIVE hip hop. And curating what’s happening, reaffirms why we do what we do and why we love it. Without you- there can be no us. Fin. Hit us up with your thoughts at bpdoiseaux@yahoo.com.

So, on with the show. While there is a mass exodus to DC this weekend, we’re actually trippin’ back to Chi-town’s underground that has soundtracked the last 6 months of Obama’s landscape. The great thing about hip hop, is that as the commercial media tends to focus on those who pay to play- the underground is more likely to give you the flavor and energy of the creative and hungry. We think we’ve found a little bit of that. I won’t be a spoiler- frank will just lace this up. Its’ better that I hold off this month for parts one and two and let the music speak on it’s own.

But before he does so, I want to say that a lot has happened in the past 3 weeks- the Palestine situation, the Oakland Oscar Grant situation, Chesley Sullenberger the 3rd’s landing on the Hudson, and the solution to the Antwanisha Morgan murder in Frisco. CC Sabathia and Nathan Haynes visiting my students in West Oakland, not to bleak out, but all the while the soot from industrial and automotive sources falling on the snow covered mountains of the Western U.S. and Canada is causing premature snowpack meltings. Speaking of mountains- they say there is no mountain to a climber...which brings us back to Barack Obama. He’s going up. And we’ll be there to make sure he keeps on the rising steady.

No, we’ve REALLY got next.

Frank Niao's Martin Luther King, Jr. Dedication

Now is the time.

The speech in the cut has been edited with an 09' slant in the Brand New remix version...but its' only right that the entire speech be posted here too!

I Have A Dream
by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"


accessed from http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html on 1/15/09 for educational purposes only.

"What's good?!"

Good question. In the next issue of BWLP which will be broadcast here on January 20th, we'll be investigating just, what indeed IS good. Love is the theme, and we need to flip the applique, so to speak: some issues need love.
Because we know what rage is for, don't we?




because...
as we ask,
when will there be justice for Oscar Grant?
we ask in the same breath,
when will there be justice for Chauncey Bailey?
we ask,
when will Israel stop treating Palestinians like concentration camp detainees?
and
when will Israel not have rockets rain down from their skies?
(And the answer can't really be.."when they stop...")

Oh, and you DO know that China is the largest financial investor to the Unites States- we've got a deficit and who do you think we owe?

Obama's grappling with an economy so thrashed from the gluttonous heyday that thrived under previous administrations (both Clinton AND the Bushes) and although we have love for the brother, he's going to need all the ethereal instance and aura that has blessed him to take this country UP.
We're hopeful. Because we have to be.
Some really crappy things go down. But as we breathe and pursue something better with focus and attention to detail...we will not only scratch the surface of solutions to reverse the turmoil in the hearts of humanity- but massage the psyche of our world for beautiful days ahead for future generations.

Come on y'all. Let's do this thing- the right way.
We try and bring about change by celebrating the things we love.
For your pleasure and healing. But for the other full range of emotions and states you go through as well. It's just that hip-hop is our thing.

The January 2009 issue of Birds Who Like Pomegranate Mixed Music Magazine will be our first hat to be thrown into the ring of positive expression using the tools we get down with: a camera, musical equipment, and the net coming straight to you.
It will be VERY VERY special indeed. Parts 1 and 2. Pulling out all the stops.

-b.p.p.

Trees, Not Ephemera

Trees.

About Barack Obama’s clinching the presidential nomination, Recently gay Roman Catholic author, Richard Rodriguez, noted in the SF Chronicle, “on election night, (he) found himself in a Houston hotel room weeping after the official announcement had been made. And thought "those tears cannot be forgiveness for everything we've done to African Americans in our culture,...noting further that:

slavery, lynchings and segregation are too embedded in the nation's memory, It will not be washed away with one man's election. There are a lot of ghosts in this country, and ghosts don't get expelled with one election."

This got me to thinking more about our preoccupation with trees and their social relationship to us of the hip hop constituency.
Preoccupation with TREES!? you say.
Yup. Trees.

Particularly us here at Birds Who Like Pomegranate. One thing you would notice upon entering our office- would be the extensive photography of trees throughout West Berkeley. Some in full leaf fro’s, to the strikingly spare. And even some from our recent trip to Peoria, Illinois.
Being that the majority of our supermodels are of the deciduous type, those who’s leaves begin to turn at the onset of the autumn, we have our aesthetic preferences. We admire the stature and branch viewpoints of what goes down in the hood. In the Bay Area, our urban landscapes are not without trees. If they could talk, many a homicide could be solved. Just that notion alone is worth digging a tree. Think about it.

As an aside, how many of you are accustomed to, what I can only relate to as an antiquated African American familial practice of, picking your own switch for reprimand. In other words, picking out your own switch for somebody to beat your ass with. It’s a psychological relay of sorts- meant to intensify personal reflection towards redemption after performing a bad deed. After all, you did something wrong, so you’re about to get your ass whipped for it.
Don’t do it again?

In our December broadcast, we included a phenomenal tune from Malika Madremana who describes how some racist boys she encountered gave her cause to see trees as enemies- no doubt with ties to lynching references. So it’s 2009; how should YOU see trees? Maybe as we see them- as nature’s fly on the wall or as THE barometers of environmental health.

The United States Forest Service National Lichens & Air Quality Database and Clearinghouse is a fine reference for detecting your local air quality- just by looking at trees around your way for lichen. Lichen, are a growth collaboration between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner. Basically, fungi are nature's decomposers and photosynthetic plants make food from sunlight. These two entities come together as one to grow on trees, plants, rocks, fences, and soil, et al. Thriving in various air quality conditions. So if you see some, you can reference the type to get some info on YOUR air quality...for all you alter ego backyard scientists out there in hip-hop-landia.

Sorry folks, the geek come out at light for this particular emcee.

But seriously, I do want to say this, I laid eyes on the most beautiful specimens (trees not lichen) encapsulated in frosty crystalline this past December 22nd, 2008 in Peoria, Illinois. Iced out trees that gave credence to the cheesiest decorative Christmas schmaltz found in any pharmacy after Thanksgiving. Now I understand. In nature it goes down gorgeous beyond belief. I may now be put to rest.

S’go.

(this editorial will be featured in the upcoming BWLP Mixed Media Music Magazine for January 2009, premiering 1/15/09)

so far so...

we're working on a best of graf that came across our shutters this year.
Bode stuff is in there...
just so you know.

the latest mag is in the works- promises to be catastrophically ill.
while hip hop production is on some regular isht,
we 'bout to come irregular like a mug.
watch.
It's 2009; time to get your game together.
-b.p.d.