Ken J. Makin

When Jay-Z wrote and released “The Black Album” in 2003, it was supposed to be a (Black) swan song — well, it was advertised as such.

We remember the album for “Change Clothes,” “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” and that epic mic drop on “What More Can I Say.” Yet there’s a telling commentary on the eighth track off the album, “Moment of Clarity”:

Music business hate me ‘cause the industry ain’t make me
Hustlers and boosters embrace me and the music I be making
I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars
They criticized me for it, yet they all yell “holla”
If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did 5 mill’ – I ain’t been rhyming like Common since (wooo!)
When your cents got that much in common
And you been hustling since your inception
Fuck perception! Go with what makes sense
Since I know what I’m up against
We as rappers must decide what’s most important
And I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them
So I got rich and gave back, to me that’s the win/win
So next time you see the homie and his rims spin
Just know my mind is working just like them (rims, that is)

Folks have pulled the “Common Sense” and “I can’t help the poor” one-liners and turned them into commentaries on their lonesome, but it is important to look at the entirety of that second verse.

It is, in many ways, a declaration of capitalism. “F— perception! Go with what makes sense!”

That declaration is important, because it makes Jay’s decision henceforth more understandable. Not justifiable. Understandable. It lacks depth to suggest Jay is a “sellout,” because that general characterization doesn’t allow for accurate criticism of the decisions he makes — for better or for worse.

Rather than say Jay-Z is selling out, let’s just say he’s “playing the game” — the same excuse we make for not only taking on bad jobs, but also bad politics and relationships, for the promise of security and pay. And yes, it is a dangerous game.

•••

Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played the game in three years. That reminder was posted by Kaepernick himself on Twitter on August 14, in a 2-minute video that began with this text:

IT’S BEEN 3 YEARS SINCE

COLIN KAEPERNICK FIRST PROTESTED

AGAINST SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION

We shouldn’t need that reminder, but we do. This was always about more than Colin Kaepernick. It was about the people — Black people. It was always about systemic oppression, shown viscerally through police brutality and injustices extended to and through environmental and economic racism. 

The partnership between Jay-Z and the NFL was destined to be criticized, not because of the nature of social media or because our society is extremely polarized. It was justifiably criticized because social justice and entertainment aren’t two properties that can be mixed and packaged so callously.

When Jay-Z says the equivalent of “we’ve moved past kneeling,” it isn’t just a slight to Colin Kaepernick. It is a slight to the reasons — beautiful, yet oppressed Black people — for which Kaepernick kneeled.

And yet the oppression that exists in the NFL is deeper than Kaepernick. There’s the story of former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks, a Black man. who was literally fired in a calendar year. He was hired on January 22, 2018 and fired on New Year’s Eve after a three-win season. Wilks didn’t even get an adequate chance to build a winning tradition. He was replaced by a white college coach, Kliff Kingsbury, who had a career 35-40 record. That trend has befallen the likes of former Denver Broncos coach Vance Joseph, and those coaches take virtual demotions as coordinators. Meanwhile, another coach with a losing record, Adam Gase, was not only hired by the New York Jets, but allowed to serve as an interim general manager for nearly a month.

That’s just the coaches. We know what the players deal with — being caught between white billionaire owners and a leisure-class fan base, a dynamic beautifully described in Howard Bryant’s The Heritage. And despite the fact that players put their lives and livelihoods on the line on virtually every down, there are still tired narratives of how much players are worth and whether they’re “giving 100 percent.” All of this with the potential of a work stoppage on the horizon in an American culture where we inexplicably side with management over the labor force, even as most of us are punching the clock.

It’s the height of hypocrisy, and I must ask Jay, in Nas’ voice and inflection from “Ether”: 

And these the guys you choose to make company with?

What’s sad is I love you cause you’re my brother
You traded your soul for riches

•••

Of COURSE Eric Reid is taking this personally. He has skin in the game and his brother is on the sidelines.

“… everybody knows I agree with what you’re saying [in Kaepernick’s underlying message]. So what are we gonna do? … [Help] millions and millions of people, or we get stuck on Colin not having a job.” — Jay

“These aren’t mutually exclusive. They can both happen at the same time! It looks like your goal was to make millions and millions of dollars by assisting the NFL in burying Colin’s career.” — Reid

Then, an inquirer asked how Reid could attack Jay-Z’s partnership when Reid, in fact, was in the NFL. And this is where depth is important, as Reid explained:

“You & some others seem to misunderstand that we had no beef with the NFL until they started perpetuating the systemic oppression that we are fighting by blackballing Colin and then me,” Reid wrote. “Nah I won’t quit playing but I will be a royal pain in the NFL’s a** for acting like they care about people of color by forming numerous disingenuous partnerships to address social injustice while collectively blackballing Colin, the person who brought oppression and social injustice to the forefront of the NFL platform.”

It makes one wonder why Reid and Kaepernick settled with the NFL if they felt so strongly. Was it because they knew the players, and by extension, the fans, gave up on them? Was it to recoup losses? Did they think taking on the League was a losing proposition? Personally, I felt that they should’ve fought the NFL to the end. But — that was truly THEIR decision to make. They had skin in the game.

Saying the equivalent of “all they did was take a knee” is akin to Cedric The Entertainer’s comments about Rosa Parks in the movie Barbershop. “Rosa Parks ain’t do nothing but sit her a— down!” seems provocative and, with the context of Claudette Colvin, may be compelling. It doesn’t make those comments any less disrespectful, and ultimately trivializes the struggle. 

And no — Kaepernick doesn’t have the social justice franchise cornered. But think about that for a second — the idea of social justice being a “franchise.” It just shows how corporate- and capitalist-minded our society is.

“I’m overchargin’ n—s for what they did to the Cold Crush 
Pay us like you owe us for all the years that you hoe’d us.”
— Jay-Z

•••

“It’s a standing ovation and a full embrace to the hip hop culture, first and foremost. And, for those that heard the lyric, Jay-Z saying that he was going to overcharge people for what they did to the Cold Crush, it’s actually happening.” — Jalen Rose on Get Up

To quote Dead Prez, it’s bigger than hip-hop. It’s about the continuing American tradition of profiting off of Black labor. It’s ironic for Rose, he who has been vocal about the failings of the NCAA, to mention the Cold Crush lyric. 

There’s no nobility when Jay-Z, along with the NFL, profits off the sacrifices and conscientiousness of Kaepernick. The optics of Jay-Z “skinning and grinning” with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell are bad enough. But to think of Robert Kraft — with his ties to Donald Trump and the sex scandal allegations — “brokering” a deal between Jay and Goodell reek of establishment politics. And in this case, politics have made strange bedfellows.

That partnership, in and of itself, makes Jay-Z’s previous goodwill gestures seem more like currency —clout-building — instead of actual efforts to uplift our people. And that currency is being exploited by Goodell, Kraft and the owners in “Animal Farm”-like fashion:

The pigs and farmers return to their amiable card game, and the other animals creep away from the window. Soon the sounds of a quarrel draw them back to listen. Napoleon and Pilkington have played the ace of spades simultaneously, and each accuses the other of cheating. The animals, watching through the window, realize with a start that, as they look around the room of the farmhouse, they can no longer distinguish which of the cardplayers are pigs and which are human beings.

In other words, it’s business as usual.

Before she introduced her album with an ode to Nina Simone,
Before she introduced a track listing that featured the names of esteemed Black women,
Before she even thought to name that album after the mother of all living,

Rapsody created a masterpiece.

When we think of the word “tease” in association with women, it harbors a negative connotation. We think of it in terms of sex — which is pretty much how society defines women. 

The very genesis (pun intended) of Rapsody’s latest studio album, “Eve,” was presented in a way that was not only sisterly, but spiritual. It was also presented in a way where we had to praise not only majesty, but mystique.

This is not what we ask from Black female artists. In fact, there was a shortsighted indictment of “female rap” from Jermaine Dupri last month that basically equated the genre to “strippers rapping.” That assessment inspired backlash from the likes of Cardi B, who was brutally honest:

“First of all, I rap about my p***y because she’s my best friend and second of all it’s because it seems like that’s what people want to hear. I ain’t even gonna front. When I did ‘Be Careful’ people was talking mad s**t in the beginning like, ‘What the f**k is this? This is not what I was expecting,'” she continued. “It’s like if that’s what people ain’t trying to hear then I’m going to start rapping about my p***y again.”

It’s also worth mentioning that Cardi did shout out a few women who made music without sexually overt themes — and mentioned Rapsody by name.

For her part, Rapsody has graduated from those conversations and criticisms. That’s what happens when you put aside petty debates and align yourself with a goddess.

Typing in genesis320.com will take you to the site of Rapsody’s latest project. That web address, along with a upside-down triangle, represented the initial “teases” of the project.

“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” — Genesis 3:20

That level of intricacy is what makes this project truly brilliant. It’s one thing to appreciate Black women. It’s something entirely to celebrate Black women not only collectively, but individually — pain, progress, “flaws and all,” as Beyonce once expressed.

It’s the attention to detail in a logo to accompany the project — an upside-down triangle which is “female, lunar and symbolizes Mother,” according to Rapsody’s Instagram post from July 24. 

Those gestures, in addition to an article from Essence Magazine, were the eve of construction. 

“Women are realizing we can support each other,” she said. “We can talk life and good things into each other. We can compete musically because we all should compete musically. …When you compete like that, it helps the art, and outside of that, you still can respect each other and love what each other brings to the table.”

Again, graduation. That followed with “Ibtihaj,” a project which featured D’Angelo and GZA. A song about an accomplished Black Muslim female fencer with a guest appearance from he of the liquid swords himself. Oh, and the video took place in Harlem — the Black mecca.

And then came the track listing. 

Nina. Cleo. Aaliyah. Oprah. Whoopi. Serena. Tyra. Maya. Ibtihaj. Myrlie. Reyna. Michelle. Iman. Hatshepsut. Sojourner. Afeni.

Those names are standards for not only Black women, but for the best their respective fields have to offer. And so it is with Rapsody’s “Eve.”

From the punctual and passionate intro — complete with Nina Simone sample — to “Afeni,” with its nod to her son Tupac and inspiration from Deniece Williams’  “Free,” Rapsody celebrates Black women with incredible detail and depth.

Oh, and there are bars. Or, in her words:

I don’t speak on it nowadays, I just meditate
Y’all can have the bars n—, I spit hard metal gates
Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate
Make room for myself, I’m in a way different mental place

She draws lines without showing her body — again, her words and her skill. Intricate wordplay has always been part of Rapsody’s forte, but adding an intricate concept to her natural gift has the potential to change the way we look at rap — regardless of gender. This album is that important, even down to the final track, which is less a rebuke of Black men and more a plea for togetherness. 

The Tupac vocals from “Keep Ya Head Up” are familiar and iconic:

And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?

The vocals from PJ Morton also take a page from Tupac, expressing that Black women are “appreciated.”

That appreciation is about more than five stars or awards of critical acclaim. It’s about finding your lane, and realizing that lane is the Euphrates River. Or the Milky Way. That’s the standard which Rapsody has created with her latest project — truly, the Eve of construction. 

Nike’s ‘Betsy Ross’ Flap An Ironic Twist On ‘Sewing’ Discord, Lies

It was the shot heard ‘round the world — according to certain Republicans.

Nike’s decision to pull its Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July trainers, which featured a Betsy Ross flag on the back of the shoe, angered Arizona governor Doug Ducey to the point where he sought to pull financial incentives for Nike across the state.

The fact that the decision came at the behest of Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback-turned-GOP Public Enemy No. 1, only riled critics even further.

The whole episode was on-brand with Nike’s willingness to engage controversy. Are we really to think that Nike, with its b/rand awareness and attention to detail, didn’t know how folks would respond to a Betsy Ross flag on the back of its sneakers?

This was a masterful troll job only days before the Fourth of July, and the controversial kicks have already seen a dramatic markup on resale sites.

And yet, the irony of the backlash behind Nike’s decision to pull a shoe with the “Betsy Ross Flag” cannot be overlooked.

Faux patriots are angry about a flag likely based on a lie.

Elizabeth Griscom Ross was born a New Year’s baby in 1752. She’s credited with the design of the flag — even though there’s no recorded or archived evidence to uphold that claim.

In 1870, Ross’ grandson, William Canby, delivered a paper before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania entitled “The History of the Flag of the United States.” In that paper, he shared what Ross told him before she died. He was six at the time of her death.

Nearly a century prior, in 1776, Ross said she was visited and commissioned by a group, to include former president George Washington. The paper and story claimed that Washington showed a rough design for a national flag, and Ross not only suggested changes, but later presented them with said design.

Except for the fact that Ross made flags for the Pennsylvania Navy during the American Revolution, there’s no proof that she made the first American flag. Yet her story resonates with people who fancy themselves patriots or nationalists — in the traditional sense.

There is a more wicked idea of nationalism — white nationalism — that the Betsy Ross flag debate is currently centered around. And the ugly truth of it all is this — both the “Betsy Ross Flag” and the idea of white nationalism are both powered by ahistorical and willfully ignorant narratives.

It’s the idea of “white nationalism” that believes the extent of American history is about flags and Confederate statues. The very idea of the Confederacy is anti-Union — anti-American — in nature. That didn’t stop monuments from being erected many years after the Confederacy lost the war. Even today, there are inexplicable debates about the relevance and reasoning for keeping monuments to slavery and oppression in public view.

Ross’ lie — or, at best, lack of historical basis — is dangerous and provides a cautionary tale on the importance of accurately depicting history.

Nike had every right to pull the shoe because of what the Betsy Ross Flag represents to certain people. And yet, Nike has crafted controversy into a money-making machine. Nike stock jumped after they ran Kaepernick in its line of “Just Do It” ads last year. The controversial Air Max shoes in question are up to more than $2,000 a pair on resale sites.

Controversy sells — but at what cost? Why intentionally weave discord onto and into a controversial shoe? Nike pitches itself on not only style, but substance. And if the brand wants to be truly authentic by integrating social awareness into its business model, then it has a cultural responsibility to engage controversial items with the intent of productive dialogue, not profits.

The last thing Nike wants to become is like the folks who peddle Betsy Ross flags and such — the same folks won’t let a few historical inaccuracies get in the way of a dollar.

Back in 2015, Ebony Magazine recognized its 70th anniversary. It should have been an occasion where the publication, which was the crown jewel and flagship production of the Johnson Publication Company (JPC), celebrated its past and a prosperous future.

Instead, JPC sought a buyer for its iconic photo archive.

It’s been less than a week since it was announced that the archive is slated to go on the auction block, pending approval from a Chicago bankruptcy court.

As one can imagine, the archive has photos from the Civil Rights Movement, as well as other iconic pieces of Black activism and achievement. The fact that such a historic and honored hall is being peddled like flea market jewelry hurts in its own right.

There is a more pressing concern — if this is the fate of arguably the most successful Black media enterprise, what chance does the rest of Black media have?

Whether one agrees with its content or character, Ebony Magazine represented a marriage of two central ideas in coverage: news and entertainment. Ebony was so locked in to the idea that, in 1957, it welcomed a new advice columnist — the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While some of the commentary might draw a few side-eyes today, it was a year-long attempt at news and nuance.

One of the tragedies of Black media is, with so much focus on entertainment, it has lost fervor (and funding) for more hard-hitting news.

When one looks at their smartphone, or TV, or listens to the radio, there are a number of recognizable faces and presentations, and yes, some of them do attempt to cover the news. How much of that coverage is whimsical, though, because their bread and butter is entertainment?

Black media’s departure from news can be seen from another former Black media standard — Black Entertainment Television (BET). Launched in 1980, BET’s star shined so brightly that in 1988, it presented a news program, “BET News.” The network’s news coverage reached out to audiences and asked for their perspective about incidents such as the L.A. Riots. BET’s attention to news waned the closer it became to losing its Blackness; well, at least its status as a Black-owned business. It was bought by media conglomerate Viacom in 2001 for $3 billion. By 2005, BET had done away with both its “BET Tonight” and its “BET Nightly News” shows, and had gone so far away from news that it didn’t even offer live coverage of the death of Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King.

Black people need Black media, not only for characterization, but for character. There are two dangers with mainstream media as it relates to Black folks — for starters, the wholly negative picture that it paints of Black folks. The other danger is that mainstream media would rather view Black folks as a monolith instead of a nuanced group of people with differing sets of views. We need dedicated outlets to focus on issues such as wealth disparities and police brutality — not with respectability politics, but realness.

I don’t want all of Black media to end up like the Ebony photo archive, which, as a professional photographer, I can’t help but think about through a lens. Remember that scene in “Get Out” where Chris is tied down in preparation for the transmutation and Jim Hudson said, “I want your eye, man?” So much of Black media has already been co-opted or left in The Sunken Place.

The crisis of media is also a crisis of vision. I hope people see what’s going on before it’s too late.

On Christmas morning, social media was gifted with a movie preview: the trailer for “Us,” a movie directed by Jordan Peele of “Get Out” fame. The “Us” trailer had all of the makings of a Peele flick — social commentary, horrific images and those now-infamous perpetually crying eyes.

The trailer, which also featured an ominous pair of golden scissors, jumpstarted a series of premature think-pieces and misguided commentaries. The irony of it all is tremendous, because we didn’t need to sink into the depths of fantasy.

Our reality is terrifying enough.

Almost a week before Christmas, there was a report about Andrew Johnson, a 16-year-old high school wrestler out of New Jersey who was forced to cut off his dreadlocks to participate in his team’s wrestling match.

Alan Maloney, the referee who made the controversial decision regarding Johnson’s hair, has a history of making racist remarks during his tenure. Yet the monstrosity of Maloney’s bigotry isn’t the biggest nightmare here.

It’s the inaction of the people around Johnson — his teammates, his coaches, hell, everyone in the facility — to speak up or stop what’s happening to this young man.

They all comply with the standard of racism, none more viciously than the team trainer, who lops off Johnson’s dreadlocks as if it’s old cloth or meaningless paper during the course of cringe-worthy video footage.

The footage ends with the “victorious” Johnson, with his lip bloodied, snatching his raised arm away from Maloney and walking off sadly.

To the initiated and the cultured, it came off as a modern-day scalping — a brutal separation of one’s hair from one’s head. To both African-Americans and Native Americans, our hair isn’t just a covering, it is a crown. Scalping, which began as early as the 11th Century, became a means of suppression against people of color during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The cruel process, which by definition, is the act of cutting or tearing a part of the human scalp, with hair attached, continued during the Indian Wars in the mid-1800s.

Scalping wasn’t only about savagery, though. It was also about sport.

Scalps were not only used for display and decoration, they were also used for currency.

Again, the irony of the situation is tremendous. We find this teenager in a conflict — a wrestling ring, no less — where he competes for Buena Regional High School. Care to take a wager at the high school’s mascot?

And then, there was a poor assessment of the situation from local media:

“The epitome of a team player” is the perfect white bread response from white-bred media.

Only one player had to make a sacrifice — the mixed kid with the “Black” hairstyle.

It would be almost comical to think of Maloney, with his “Three Stooges” balding pattern, making a decision regarding a kid’s full head of hair, if it wasn’t such an insidious part of this country’s culture.

The Supreme Court, allegedly the highest court in the United States of America (the court of public opinion is fast-approaching), refused to address the issue of workplace discrimination regarding hair only months ago. Earlier this year, a six-year-old was forced to withdraw his enrollment from a “Christian” school because his hair was too long. The United States military only allowed female soldiers to wear dreadlocks last year.

It’s an unholy type of assimilation that is synonymous with this country’s job practices and views on being a “team player.” Being a part of the “team” is nothing more than empty rhetoric and respectability politics that not even the Black establishment is immune from. Centuries and centuries of oppression provide a cruel reminder almost daily — “assimilation” is nothing more than compliance with white supremacy.

That supremacy vilifies and villainizes a child’s Black hairstyle, but provides multiple chances to Maloney, who in 2016 reportedly used a racial slur against a Black referee. After the incident was reported, he participated in “sensitivity training,” which, according to what happened recently, has not worked.

Even now, the decision to not assign Maloney to any wrestling events until further notice feels like a slap on the wrist. History indicates that Maloney’s reign of terror will be allowed to continue.

Such actions reinforce a culture of supremacy and silence, and, as the late Rev. Dr. King said in an indictment of the war on Vietnam, “there is a time when silence is betrayal.”

Those times say so much about Us.