Lil' Kim vs. Nicki Minaj

ROUND 1

Well, hip-hop fans, it's come down to this: the ultimate battle of two of the most publicized female rappers of all time. That's right. It's Kim vs. Nicki!  Who's the better rapper? Is Nicki Minaj really ripping Lil' Kim's style? Or are they both overreacting?

Alrighty, for those of you who have read one or two of my posts before, you're probably remembering my rant on current rap music and my thoughts on what rap should be like. So you're probably thinking something along these lines: "How can she be talking about the Kim/Nicki issue if she doesn't like that kind of rap?"

If it's an important issue in hip-hop, then I've gotta comment!

If those are your thoughts, then you're part right. I don't like their kind of rap. However, Lil' Kim was indeed a part of the era in which I grew up and Nicki Minaj is the biggest female rapper in the game right now, so it's impossible for me not to pitch my two cents in on the matter. So here's my assessment on this little spat. If it's an important issue in hip-hop, then I've gotta comment!

First, we have Kim. One of the most notorious female rappers of the 90's. So notorious, she stole Biggie's title for one of her albums.

The album was entitled "The Notorious K.I.M.". Suspicious? Nah...no way....

She made it to international fame in a reasonably short time and is the only rapper besides a personal favorite of mine--Missy Elliott--to have earned three platinum titles for their albums. That in itself is rather impressive. But when you think about it, her lyrics were mostly selling sex. And there goes the "wow" factor with Lil' Kim.

Though she may claim to have been the original in her Nicki Minaj diss "Black Friday," she basically ripped Biggie's style for a lot of her stuff. (The Notorious K.I.M.? Really?) So does she really have a right to call Nicki Minaj a flow-biter? 

There's my answer to that. But before you get to thinking that I'm pro-Nicki, lemme give my opinion on her.

While she's undoubtedly the biggest female rapper right now, originality isn't what comes to my mind when I see her. The colorful wigs and nutty wardrobe choices remind me of somebody, who in turn also reminds me of somebody.

In case you didn't guess, this is Madonna, the original pop music nutcase.

That's my stance on her originality. Lyric-wise, it's hit-or-miss. She has a few songs with powerful lyrics and then she's got nonsensical, commercial rap like on Big Sean's "Dance."

Don't even get me started on "Starships." For the pop genre, it was great. For rap, YIKES.

Neither Lil' Kim nor Nicki Minaj should waste their time with stupid issues. Kim's had her time in the spotlight---like seven years ago. If Nicki is what's popular, step back and stop hating. Hate is not a cute look. Nicki may not be my choice as a great female rapper, but she's got the fame and approval of the masses, so in this respect, she's the best of the two.

In other words, I have to say that Nicki Minaj has Lil' Kim beat in every aspect when it comes to the modern rap game. Take your loss like a lady, Kim.

DannyRant on Ghetto Chicks & Little Kids on Facebook

Hey, there, everyone! I'd totally love to just sit here and regale you boring stories of how I;ve decided to post more often, but no time for that now--there's a DannyRant to finish!

Now almost everyone is familiar with the MySpace successor, Facebook. I myself have an FB account. It's great for keeping in touch with my relatives and friends who live/have moved far away.

"Haha! Even from all the way in Barbados, you still crack me up, Aunt V!"

 When I first started using Facebook, I found it a nice reprieve from its predecessor (MySpace) because it was a little more streamlined and grown-up. Not to mention a good bit safer. (But that, my friends, is another story.) These days, however, I find myself wondering if Facebook is just another MySpace in disguise rather than merely a successor. Recently, as I was commenting on a friend's status update, I came across a photo that my little brother had been tagged in as I was scrolling down to check out more statuses.

What I saw made me sick, disgusted, annoyed, and sad all at once. What was it? Take a wild guess.

"Was it a bird? Was it a plane? OMG, was it SUPERMAN?!"

  Well, now that you've taken your guess, I'll tell ya: a nude photo. Now I know what some people might think. "So, what?" The "so-what" here is that it was a middle school girl who had taken the photo of herself in a position I hope her mother would have beat her silly for. Yup, a thirteen-year-old had exposed everything God gave her on the internet. (Needless to say, I had a chat with my brother about the kind of chicks he hangs around with 'cause that girl and the whole situation was starting to look like the new Amber Cole.)

What made it that much worse was the fact that it was a thirteen-year-old black girl. And here begins my rant.

I cannot get over the fact that black people wail and bemoan the way other people characterize us and our behavior, yet there are always those morons and attention-whores who make us look like a bunch of unintelligent, ghetto jackasses. 

Most of the world sees us all as ghetto-dwellers who have grills, huge gold chains, glocks, and, oh, yeah, a bag of weed somewhere in our glove compartments.

Yes, I did.

 First, it was The Jerry Springer Show and Maury, where all of North America got to see black people air their dirty laundry over "who da baby daddy be" or "who man he is" or, my personal favorite, "how many women/men he/she got." Yes, lovely morning-time entertainment.

"You, see, Jerry, what had happened was..."

This is just a WTF moment. Point-blank.

Then, we had this bozo:

YEAAAH, BOI!!

And now we've got little kids and ghetto chicks using the internet to post nasty photos/videos of themselves and generally making us look like unprincipled whores. The worst of these are the self-taken mirror pics. You've all seen em at one point or another--that photo of the girl (or guy) who takes it upon themselves to shame their parents by posing like a total hooch while scantily-clad or *SMH moment* nude. One word for that, kids: SAD.


So sad, that I'm thinking that maybe I oughta invest in one of these sporty shirts:

Now, keep in mind that I'm not trying to be a self-racist or anything. That's actually the complete opposite of my purpose here. My purpose is to show black people that if we wanna get other people to stop stereotyping us in a negative light, we have to do something about it ourselves. That means teaching black girls and boys that it is NOT okay to post dirty pictures of themselves online (or anywhere else, for that matter) and leading by example and not posting things like that ourselves.

"Follow me! We're getting out of this evil forest and back to civilization!"

So, please, keep in mind what I've said in this little rant. Somebody once told me this: "We're only as good as what we show others." And you can fry me in butter and call me a flounder if that's not true. (And if you got what that last part referenced, kudos to you, my friend!)

Would be nice if I remembered who the hell said it, though.

Well, that's the end of my DannyRant. Til next time! :)
 



 
 

 

Fashion Spotlight: Steampunk!

Hidey-ho, ladies n' gentlemen (AKA the 2 or 3 people who stumble upon this blog)! The Danster is back! I know, it's been like 20 years since I last posted. -___- I have the new school semester to thank for that.  Adjusting to a new college (or university, depending on where you're from) is easier said than done, believe me.

 Well, I come to tell all about my newest obsession: steampunk!

Mom, check out the shiny toys this guy's got!

Steampunk (AKA neo-Victorian) style is something I've admired for years. It combines the class of the Victorian era with industrial, steam-based inventions and gadgets. As a former fashion major (I am now an English major), I am beyond fascinated with steampunk fashion--the clothing is super-imaginative and intricate. It's a style genre that has a little something for everyone's tastes. If you're into accessories, the jewelry is gorgeous. If you're into tech, I guarantee you'll have a field day checking out the cool technology steampunk artists have thought up.

This is a really great example of steampunk fashion. If you're gonna be a sailor man, you might as well be a fashionable sailor man and look sharp, right?

 There's just so much you can do with steampunk because of the way it allows the imagination to run wild. I personally love the fact that steampunk can work as a setting for a story. (For examples of this, check out my favorite author Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel from her series The Infernal Devices.)

Great series; I suggest you give it a try!

The Jackie Chan movie Around the World in 80 Days has some steampunk elements to it as well. Phileas Fogg's inventions definitely quialified as steampunk.

It's Phileas Fogg! Remember the wheelie-shoes?

Well, I'm sorry to say it, but that's it for now. Schoolwork to do and whatnot. For those of you who are in college or graduated already (Lucky ducks!), you know how it is. But before I skidaddle, here are some more examples of steampunk stuff:

In the immortal words of my orange pal Tigger, "Ta-ta for now!"

Hi-Def Color: The Truth About Black People & Skin Tones

 There are just some things I will never understand. As much as I try to, I only end up annoyed or wondering what the hell's wrong with people. My ancestry yields many different nationalities--Barbadian (from Barbados), Nigerian, Panamanian, Caucasian, and Arawak (West Indians who inhabited Barbados a verrrrrrry long time ago). I suppose with my heritage being such a hodge-podge it's only normal that i don't get the big deal about skin tones. I don't understand it, but it seems to be a huge thing to other people. The other day, I heard a little girl say she wished she wasn't "so dark" because "dark" was ugly and she didn't want to be ugly. She was about a shade darker than myself, and I'm just plain brown (exactly like the brown color in the crayon box). It made me sad to see a little kid unhappy about something superficial like that.

The little girl said she wanted to have "pretty skin like Beyonce." As I walked past, I'll admit I wanted to cry. Not really because of what she'd said, but more because what she'd said had reminded me of a boy who'd teased me relentlessly when I was little, always calling me "blackie" or "darkie," which had made me feel the same as the little girl--ugly. (It wasn't until I'd gotten a little older that I realized that the boy himself had been much darker than me and therefore had had no right to make fun of my skin tone.) 

Add caption

When I got home, I started to wonder about the effect the superficiality of TV and magazines have on people--on black women in particular. And as I thought about it, I realized that none of the popular black female celebrities of Hollywood--Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Halle Berry, Gabrielle Union, Taraji P. Henson to name a couple--had skin even a shade close to mine. Some, like Halle Berry, are hailed as the most beautiful women in the world. All of them very light, and all of them with minimal (if any) negroid features. The media shoves these kind of black women in our faces all the time because they are what is preferred. 

The character of Kim Reese from "A Different World," played by Charnele Brown. Think of this as the "before" photo.

 Ever seen a show called "A Different World"? In season 2, there was a character by the name of Kim Reese played by Charnele Brown, who was the darkest black actress on TV at the time. Both the character in the show and the actress in real life expressed concerns about having a darker skin tone while all the other black actresses were light. Brown said that being darker made it very difficult to get parts in any shows because lighter black women were what the studios wanted. From what I see today, I don't doubt it.

Here's the "after" photo--as in it was taken after she underwent an operation to have her skin lightened. No, seriously. She had it lightened a few years after the show ended.

Please don't think that I have some sort of envious vendetta against the lighter black chicks. Definitely not. The only thing I'm saying is that being darker in skin tone shouldn't be seen as ugly. What the hell for? Colors make the world go round. (Or is that love?? Whatever.) A little girl shouldn't feel that she's ugly just because she's not cappuccino or caramel-colored. I'm chocolate-colored, and, not to be conceited, I am pretty. Beauty comes in all different shades, and if the media would stop being such stuck-up jerks, maybe they'd realize that and stop promoting their idiotic "light is right" doctrine because I honestly never want to hear something like that out of a child's mouth ever again. I never want a child to have to feel that they're inferior because of their skin tone. 

The color of this model's skin doesn't even enter into my mind. She's a beautiful person, period--with amazing bone structure that I wish I had.

 This is 2011, not 1911, and yet black women still feel the same oppression. From the "master" we call the media machine. I happen to be a fashion student, and believe me, the cold truth hit me like a splash of ice water in the winter. I wish I could say that I believe it'll get better one day, but I somehow don't think it will. Black chicks have even started segregating themselves from one another because of the skin tone thing, which I find not only disturbing, but ridiculous. Jeez. We're all people here. Does the amount of melanin in my skin really make that much of a difference in how people see me, in how they see each other? I wanna say no...but I know better.

DannyRant on Music: The Pop Bandwagon & Rap n' (c)Rap

Music. One of the hugest forms of entertainment in the world. It's on TV, it's all over the radio...hell,  it's even written about in books these days. Well, if you've read my bio, you'd know that I'm 18. Yup, a 90's baby. The 90's: age of some of the best TV shows (in my opinion) and music. Sad to say, though, that the trend for producing quality entertainment like the dudes in the pic below (A Tribe Called Quest) did totally died out by 2003. Now let's get one thing straight. 2011 may be the year of the rabbit or whatever, but 2003 was the year of mainstream (c)Rap music's beginning.

The most real rap I have EVER come across. Seriously talented poets.

Don't even try to argue with me. You'd never win. Instead of music with some kind of meaning, all we have in rap today is "I'm such a gangsta, look at my gold, look at my money, look at these whores I pulled in, look at my pants that are too damn low to walk properly in." Really. That's basically what every rap song nowadays says. And you know what cracks me up? Millions of stupid kids--a lot of em around my age--buy into that BS. So much so that if a station dared to put my boys ATCQ (my abbreviation for A Tribe Called Quest) on the radio, they (a) wouldn't know who they hell they are, (b) would be like "WTF?! What happened to Wiz Khalifa?!" and (c) would immediately reject it. If you haven't heard ATCQ's music before, get your butt on youtube and listen to 2 of my favorite ATCQ songs: Jazz We've Got and Bonita Applebum. You'll thank me for the education you receive.

That's right. I went there.

And now onto my pet peeve. (Look up top.) But before people sharpen their blades and load up the automatics, it's NOT Lady Gaga in particular that I have an issue with. I have no problem with pop music. Some of it's pretty fun to listen to or dance and sing along to. It's the ridiculous way that rappers and R&B singers have hopped onto the pop music bandwagon. I started noticing it with Usher when he came out with "OMG." Then, slowly but surely, more and more rappers and singers began to do the same. 

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh my gosh.

There's nothing wrong with deciding to switch up the flow every once in awhile. But to make a complete 360 turn from "U Don't Have to Call" (one of Usher's earlier hits) to "OMG"? I dunno. I just dunno. And after the pop switch-up worked out for Usher, others decided to cash in on the pop bandwagon, too. Because, unfortunately, all most music is about these days is money. The bottom line and how much can be made off whatever gimmick a musician uses. Lady Gaga's gimmick is the wannabe Madonna thing. Works for her since most of the people who listen to her haven't a clue who Madonna is to begin with. My main issue with this hop-on-top-this-pop-bandwagon deal is that rap should be about rap, not trying so damn hard to make a buck that you forget what genre you're supposed to be in the first place. 

2 of the biggest jokers of the rap industry. Mr. Autotune and the CEO of Young Druggie Entertainment. One pretends he can sing, the other writes raps in his bathtub while he's high. And these guys make money off what they put out. Prime example of (c)Rap.

 Bottom line: if rappers and other singers weren't so freakin' commercialized, they would do their own thing rather than just what's popular. If you have the talent, why become a sellout?

Okay! I'm Back with More!

Alrighty! I'm back with more topics to go on and on about! However, since I don't wanna bore anybody to death ranting, I'll keep it short(ish...) and sweet. I planned to write a lot sooner, but with moving back home from college and transferring schools, it's been hectic. (Though I doubt anybody actually reads this blog to begin with...lol) 

Topics for today are 1. "Why are all the cute guys gay?" 2. My opinion about people who only date within one specific race. Let me stress, topic #1 is something I've been hearing for years now. Personally, I think that if you honestly believe that all good-looking guys are gay, your eyes need checking. There are tons of guys out there who're straight and pretty good on the eyes as well. Another thing I must stress: good-looking people are not always nice people. They're just like everybody else, normal people with very normal flaws like we all have. Keep that in mind, 'kay?  (Wow, I'm actually keeping my opinions short??)

Next, race-specific daters. People. Come ON. Get with the program! With so many different, interesting people on this good green planet, you're going to limit yourself to one race? Now, don't get me wrong. If you're in an area where you don't meet any people of different races (like China or something), then that's perfectly fine. That's just geography. However, if you do have the opportunity to mingle with different people, there's no real excuse. People should be date-worthy based on their personalities, on how they act. Not on whether or not they're black or white or Latino or something. There are a variety of races on the Earth for a reason. (Thank you for bearing with me while I ranted. Couldn't help myself, those kinda people make me sooo annoyed!)

Okay, so that's all for now. Next time, I'll have something better to rant about! (Promise!) Anywho, it'd be great if you left a comment and let me know what your thoughts are or what you'd like to hear my opinion on. Til next time! =)     

There Are 2 Sides to Racism

So. The other day, I was ralking to a friend about guys and asked her what her type of guy was. She responded, "He doesn't have to be cute. But he'd better be black." I was surprised to hear these words come out of her mouth because she's never said anything even remotely along those lines before. It brought another instance to mind where another friend of mine, who is half Puerto Rican and half black, told me that she would never, ever even consider dating a black guy. That struck me as odd, since she is half black herself. Of course I asked why. She then proceeded to tell me that black guys are all the same--they're either irresponsible, ghetto, or have no interest in doing anything productive with their lives. I jokingly called her a self-racist. Now, while I've said before, I like mixed guys myself, but I've got no problem with dating black guys. I honestly disagree with my both of my friends.

What's the big deal about dating someone of a different race? Come on. We're all people! Secondly, don't hate your own race. Especially not just because of a few asanine jerks. Be open-minded. It's not the sixties. You can choose who to hang out with and you can definitely choose who to date and who to like. =)