Don Palabraz

Amin David of Los Amigos of Orange County and a longtime community activist fixture took to the podium of the Anaheim city council to give Mayor Curt Pringle a piece of his mind. It was an eloquent denunciation that deserves to be viewed widely as a counter to the accolades that will assuredly follow Pringle’s departure from office. In between the comprehensive critique, David turned to specifics and the platinum triangle development. As FFFF noted, the community activist had good side jabs for “Sidhu as Pringle’s puppet-monkey and Hernandez as a dim-wit.”

Here are some of the best haymakers!

*The legacy that you are leaving, Mr. Mayor is that your vision has been clouded, obstructed by the smoke of political gamesmanship, and the fog of arrogance. A vision that has refused to be inclusive.

*In fact, Mr. Pringle, as the years have passed you’ve acted more like a lobbyist than a Mayor!

*Mr. Mayor, good tiding to you as you ride off into the sunset and into the pockets of those developers!

DAMN! Well, Pringle is going away (with an expensive ticket for a party thrown by the Chamber of Commerce that I will skip) The future doesn’t bode well, however. Two right-wing “Disnocrats” took the open seats on the city council and the in-coming Mayor, Tom Tait, is a Pringle Clone. There is much to be done politically to shift the balance of power away from such politicians, S.O.A.R., and other interests that keep the multicultural, working class city of Anaheim under corporate/developer dominance.

But David’s words did not let the Kingmaker of the past years leave without a lashing. Well done!

Steven Slater become a folk hero this summer when he grabbed some Blue Moon beers and quit his job in epic fashion as a Jet Blue flight attendant. In the interim, he was offered a reality show, but ultimately settled on being a judge of a “Mile High Text Club” contest sponsored by Line 2 (iPhone app) As part of his new gig, Slater cut a rap video advertisement and sang the praises of both. What’s worse, he did it all – poorly – over a weak version of Dead Prez’s “Hip Hop” beat! It’s sad all around.

Watch the video and read up on it at my latest Heard Mentality OC Weekly blog post:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2010/11/steven_slater_folk_hero_turned.php

Noami Klein had the “Shock Doctrine” to explain disaster capitalism. In the spirit of LMFAO, I explain our rough economic times through what I call the “Shot Doctrine!” What the fuck could this song with one of the most repetitive hooks in music history (Shots x 32 / Everybody! x 2) have to do with the Great Recession? More than you think. Our economy is a dysfunctional alcoholic and anthems like LMFAO’s are cultural mirrors that reflect that reality.

Read on and go deeper into the “Shot Doctrine” on my latest Heard Mentality Blog Post for the OC Weekly:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2010/11/explaining_the_shitty_economy.php

Ps, I could have as easily picked Gucci Mane’s “Wasted,” but Dead Prez already flipped that song on their latest mixtape “RBG Gangsta Grillz”

“Rockstar lifestyle/economy ain’t gonna make it! 7 trillion dollars on Wall Street WASTED!”

The arrival and performance of Los Aldeanos – a Cuban Hip Hop group – in Miami raised questions about censorship of the art form on the island nation. Censorship functions for real over there…but it does over here too. Univision and Telemundo failed to check themselves in wanting zealous anti-government soundbites from the visiting MCs! And what’s better…Univision has a record label themselves and promotes artists like Flakiss as part of their “Urban Regional Movement.” There’s plenty of Cuban Hip Hop groups that have immigrated here. Sign them up and present them as they are! They’ve got talent, so what are y’all waiting for?

Backing off Spanish language media for a second, I want to press “zoom out” on the way in which censorship – or self-censorship – operates here at home on a larger level concerning Hip Hop. First, turn on your radio. Do you hear American equivalents of Los Aldeanos? How about on those Urban Latino spots? Not really. The corporate state – in this case record labels and radio stations – tell listeners what they want to hear. It tries to define culture and in our inverted totalitarianism, we largely do as we see – or in this case hear. Take a look at the cipher in the first minute of the documentary clip of “Beyond Beats and Rhymes.”

It will tell you all you need to know about how we behave as if there is a bludgeon above us…

A trio more controversial than Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Lebron James made their way to Miami this weekend. Cuban based rappers Los Aldeanos, alongside Silvito “El Libre” ‘brought their talents to South Beach’ in a cultural exchange. The MCs have garnered reputations for being critical of the Cuban reality so Spanish language media was thrilled at the opportunity to get soundbites critical of the Castro government. Los Aldeanos and Silvito “El Libre” largely stuck to a message of unity and love and deflected questions about things like artistic censorship back home. One program even described – or derided – them as being “tigres” in Cuba and “gatitos” in Miami.

On the flip side, some Cuban rappers saw a familiar practice in play. Under the Castro government traveling outside of Cuba to perform is done only with the state’s official blessing. That, according to many underground artists including Krudas Cubensi, comes with a price to be paid in silence. If observing this weekend’s cultural exchange is illustrative of anything, it’s that culture is politics and there is no getting around that, especially when it comes to the U.S., Cuba and Hip-Hop. Any exchange between Havana and Miami is going to provoke heated debate…but the exchanges should keep coming because all we are left with in the meantime is Pitbull! (And bring artists to Los Angeles next time to the Ford Amphitheater or something! West Coast! Don’t Cuban Hip Hoppers want to throw up the “W”?)

Read more about this issue on my latest OC Weekly Heard Mentality blog post:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2010/11/los_aldeanos_concert_in_miami.php