AnythingUrban - by R Eldridge

I ♥ AFRO Divas - a few of my favorites

Pam Grier ICON - The greatest female heroine in film history, in my humble opinion.  During the blaxpoitation era in cinema, Pam was a one woman "terminator".  I recall a role she played in Coffy, where as a sexy nurse she would meet and great you, hit you with her unique style of swag, and just as your libido reached a climatic apex, she would merc you. Picture that.  She would further her cinematic career in the 70's for her role as Foxy Brown.  She left an indelible impression in film and also in hip hop.

Question: Can somebody make a Foxy Brown action figure?

Vivian S. Amundsen

 

 

Video: Erykah Badu “Window Seat”

Last night Erykah’s debuted her latest video for “Window Seat” at precisely 3:33am on her website. Once again she delivers incredible visuals with a message. The inspiration for the video comes from Matt & Kim’s “Lesson’s Learned”. The video is shot in the same streets of the JFK assassination in Texas. Erykah comes out of the same car he did. We find Erykah stripping herself figuratively and literally of layers in order to evolve and liberate herself in a new way. But in life, change is always met with opposition;

…quick to assassinate what they do not understand….A single person within a circumstance can move one to change, to love ourself, to EVOLVE.

The words in blue paint at the end read ‘Groupthink‘.

// Due to some IMG violation related BS, the video is deemed 'restrictive' //

The MANChild Swagga has found a work around though - enjoy the video:

My Invisibility

Ralph Ellison’s classic novel, Invisible Man, starts off brilliantly.  I really feel this.  It starts:

"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me."

I’ll never get over the irony of how visibility contributes to invisibility. 

I choose to write about this as a reflection of so many beautiful things that have occurred to me ever since I decided to write.  I started this blog in October 2008.  As I am invisible to many of you - you've never met me, yet I am a part of your day.  There is an irony to this, I'm not quite sure if this will make complete sense.

DAY Zero: MANChild in the Promised Land

For those that don't know, I created this blog, aptly titled MANChild Swagga, in honor of a book that I read when I was a young teenager.  This book changed my life as a wayward teenager growing up in NYC (sure... I'll elaborate on this one day).  ManChild in the Promised Land, an autobiography by Claude Brown, chronicled the hardship and glory of growing up as one of a first generation of blacks that migrated from the South in search of prosperity, equality and hope in what was referred to at the time as "the Promised Land".  Far from a land of promise, Claude painted a picture of a life as:

Video: City of God's Son

City of God’s Son (COGS) is all-things: an epic, a musical, a soundscape, a movie for the blind, an art installation, and a coming of age story.  Through its blend of multiple media and art genres, COGS explores new grounds for unconventional storytelling and ultimately gives rise to the world’s first “Beat Cinematic”.