Ernest Hardy’s gift as a cultural critic is his ability to listen. Whether it be in an interview with a filmmaker, the songs on a pop album, or literary prose and poetry floating off the page, Mr. Hardy hears, feels, and then filters through his own heart and mind the stuff of possibility. His words are not the answer but the beginnings of deep questions. His analysis bubbles above mediocrity like spring water quenching the thirst of those of us who are parched for a way to understand what it means to create and what it means to consume from the slipstream that is our contemporary culture. —Cauleen Smith, director of Drylongso, and professor of film at Massachusetts College of Art Ernest Hardy’s talent and reputation as one of the preeminent critics working today are beyond reproach, but with Blood Beats: Vol. 2, he establishes himself as a singular force in contemporary cultural criticism. —Mark Anthony Neal, author Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic For anyone interested in the historical significance of black cultural production, from commercial to indie, Ernest Hardy’s Blood Beats:Vol. 2 is a must-read.Witty as hell, an erudite critic: the brotha knows his shit. Whether it’s cinema or music, his prose makes you want to grab your iPod and experience the visceral connections between art, love, sexuality, politics and the sacrosanct role of blackness in the entertainment industry. OK, this academic lesbian fell in love with the gay boy journalist. —Phyllis J. Jackson, Ph.D., filmmaker, Comrade Sister:Voices of Women in the Black Panther Party
bloodbeats: vol.2
bloodbeats: vol.2 the bootleg joints
ernest hardy
WASHINGTON, DC
www.redbonepress.com
Blood Beats: Vol. 2 the bootleg joints Copyright © 2008 by Ernest Hardy Published by: RedBone Press P.O. Box 15571 Washington, DC 20003 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of reviews. Portions of this book originally appeared in Flaunt, the Los Angeles Times’ West Magazine, LA Weekly, Millennium Film Journal and Minneapolis City Pages. Permissions appear on p. 398. 11 10 09 08
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First edition Cover photo copyright © 2006 by Alex Demyanenko Cover design by E.M. Corbin Logo design by Mignon Goode Printed in the United States of America ISBN-13: 978-0-9656659-9-5 ISBN-10: 0-9656659-9-2 www.redbonepress.com
Blood Beats: Vol. 2 is dedicated to my parents.
thank yous and acknowledgments BLOOD: Edna Spotser, Robbie Joan Perkins, John and Edna Perkins, Harriett Perkins, Lesley Daniel & Family, Terrence Perkins, Sheldon Perkins & Family, Juanita Poole, Laura Poole & Family, the Hardy family, the Rollins Family.
CHOSEN: Billbrown, Dennis Casey, Brett Collins, Vaginal Davis, Jeff Forman, David Marine, Lainie Nakai, Joseph Nouril, Joshua Nouril, Lisa Rosen,Alfonso F. Ruiz, Jason Van Veen, Jason Vance, Antony Yee, John Young.
THANK YOU: Ben Adair, Donnell Alexander, Lorraine Ali, Shawn Amos, Ron Athey, Erin Aubry, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, Nathan Brackett, Dale Brasel, Greg Burk, Steven W. Burt, Sonya Chi, Alex Demyanenko, Joe Donnelly, Jack Curtis Dubowsky, Hazel Dawn Dumpert, Scott Foundas, Shari Frilot, David Hansor, Hilary Hart, Monica Hernandez, Dylan Hicks, Jim Hubbard, Diane Hurd, Ellen Krout-Hasegawa, Ngozi Inyama, Kristi Lomax, Joe Loya, Paul Malcolm, Rob Marriott, Jordan Moore, Lisa Moore, Rhonda Murphy, Mimi McCormick, Jim Nicola, John Payne, Ben Quinones, Ron Stringer, Kate Sullivan, Ella Taylor, Delores Taylor Walls, Chuck Wilson, Connie Young.
HEROES AND HEROINES: Dorothy Allison, Pedro Almodovar, Erykah Badu, James Baldwin, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Bey, Kristen Bjorn, Donald Bogle, Octavia Butler, Jean-Daniel Cadinot, Don Cheadle, Countee Cullen, Manohla Dargis, Angela Davis, Miles Davis, Claire Denis, Electrifyin’ Mojo, Nikki Giovanni, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Dianna Hardy, Essex Hemphill, Kim Hill, Lauryn Hill, Billie Holiday, Shirley Horn, Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, Frenchy Hodges, Diane Hurd, Zora Neale Hurston, Derek Jarman, Chaka Khan, Martin Luther King, Gladys Knight, Frankie Knuckles, Spike Lee,Audre Lorde, David
Morales, Toni Morrison, Meshell NdegeOcello, Huey P. Newton, Prince, Marlon Riggs, Diana Ross, Bayard Rustin, Sarah Schulman, Pamela Sneed, Billy Strayhorn, Sylvester, Greg Tate,Wallace Thurman,Wong Kar Wai, Jeffrey Wright, Malcolm X, Ledisi Young, Howard Zinn.
contents xiii
Introduction: SampladelicaFemmeatopia
01
The Gleaners and I (03.29.01)
02
Agnès Varda: Trembling Like When You Are in Love (03.29.01)
12
Fuck, Die: Baise-Moi—Porno Art from France (06.01.01)
15
Raoul Peck: On Lumumba, the ’60s and the Role of Art in Politics (07.20.01)
25
Freddie Gets Fingered: Notes on the Prinze of Hollywood (08.30.01)
28
Ja Rule, Krayzie Bone: Inside the New Sensitive Thug (11.23.01)
33
Life and Debt (02.07.02)
35
Turntablin’: Scratch (03.01.02)
39
Meeting Ledisi on a Wednesday: The Best Singer in America Breaks It Down (04.24.02)
62
For Colored Girls: Kim Hill’s Real Hip-Hop (06.29.02)
86
Lauryn Hill Unplugged: She Makes the Songs Cry (07.12.02)
89
The Cockettes: Living at the End of Imagination (07.26.02)
91
Biggie & Tupac (Remix): Nick Broomfield Imitates Life Imitating Art (10.04.02)
95
Eminem’s Imitation of Life (12.2002)
99
Antwone Fisher: Bonds Beyond Blood (12.19.02)
102
R Kelly:Tossed Salad,Tossed Cookies Al Green:The Definition of Soul (04.17.03)
106
Assholios & Goddesses: Raising Victor Vargas and Lilya 4-Ever (04.18.03)
110
Sarah Schulman: Acting Up and Defending Names (06.04.03)
127
Young Soul Rebels: Negro/Queer Experimental Filmmakers (08.2003)
136
From Capoeira to Catfights: Madame Satã (08.22.03)
139
Worldwide Underground Sonic Jihad: Erykah Badu and Paris Funk U Up (10.03.03)
143
Bus 174 (10.24.03)
145
PSTOLA: Packin’ Heat (02.06.04)
160
Fear of a Black Titty: Treating Janet Like You Don’t Love Her (05.07.04)
164
What Lies Beneath: Carl Hancock Rux on Asphalt, War-torn Cities and the State of Black Literature in America (07.02.04)
170
White Man’s Burden: Eminem’s Encore (12.09.04)
177
The Roots/Dolly Parton (03.16.05)
183
Rize (06.16.05)
206
Meshell:Voice of the Infidel (08.10.05)
215
Outkast in Love (08.25.05)
227
Kanye West: Up from the Middle Class (09.15.05)
232
Mary J. Blige: The Breakthrough (01.14.06)
237
Fugees: Hollywood & Vine Kanye West: Avalon (02.10.06)
241
Black Lily L.A. (04.01.06)
245
The Eye of L.A.: Mark Bradford (06.11.06)
257
Diana Ross: OG Diva Sings the Blues (07.05.06)
265
K.I.M.She.Is (11.29.06)
274
Black Music 2006 (01.12.07)
285
Bastards of the Party (02.07.07)
293
Shut Up, Already! Damn... File Under: Dead Horses (05.2007)
298
Medusa: The Real (05.11.07)
313
Cross Dressers: Björk and Ryan Shaw Go Genre Bending (06.06.07)
downloads 319
The Pornographer’s Son
381
The Pornographer’s Daughter: Lil’ Kim Likes It Raw
398
Permissions
399
About the Author
ernest hardy
xiii
SampladelicaFemmeatopia “[Black Americans] created within [the United States] a powerful culture, specifically of themselves, that was magnificently universal. What you think you know about U.S. culture... much of it, its roots are from African-Americans. We made modernity in that country.” —Toni Morrison, speaking to the press in November of 2006 from the Louvre, where she programmed rappers and slam poets in her role as guest curator Audre Lorde: I’ve never forgotten the impatience in your voice that time on the telephone, when you said, “It’s not enough to say to me that you intuit it.” Do you remember? I will never forget that. Even at the same time that I understood what you meant, I felt a total wipeout of my modus, my way of perceiving and formulating. Adrienne Rich: Yes, but it’s not a wipeout of your modus… One of the crosses I’ve borne all my life is being told that I’m rational, logical, cool—I am not cool, and I am not rational and logical in that icy sense. But, there’s a way in which, trying to translate from your experience to mine, I do need to hear chapter and verse from time to time… So, if I ask for documentation, it’s because I take seriously the spaces between us that difference has created, that racism has created. Audre Lorde: But I’m used to associating a request for documentation as a questioning of my perceptions, an attempt to devalue what I am in the process of discovering. Adrienne Rich: It’s not. Help me to perceive what you perceive.That’s what I’m trying to say to you. Audre Lorde: But documentation does not help one perceive. At best, it only analyzes the perception. At worst, it provides a screen by which to avoid concentrating on the core revelation, following it down to how it feels. Again, knowledge and understanding.They can function in concert, but they don’t replace each other. —from “An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich” (Sister Outsider)
xiv
bloodbeats: vol. 2
“All of American culture is pimp culture. It’s killing our country and the world.” —Roseanne Barr, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2007 “Music just became grotesquely egocentric and made for money. It wasn’t music—there was no muse. Music requires a muse. The producer is not a muse. He’s a manufacturer. Contemporary music made me want to punch people. I couldn’t stand any of it. The whoring, the drive-by shooting of it all. I don’t care how well crafted it is. America is in a runaway-train position and dragging all the world with it. It's grotesquely mentally ill.” —Joni Mitchell, in www.nymag.com, September 26, 2007, speaking about the music of the previous ten years. “Art creates worlds. It makes everything possible. If what I’m offering the audience is truly transforming, the rules should not matter.” —Sarah Schulman, The Child