I hate to break my silence here on the blog on such a somber note, but as a fan, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this moment to pay homage to the man, the legend, the greatest entertainer of my generation, The King of Pop, The King…Michael Jackson.

Hours later, and the thought of his passing is still as shocking, numbing as it was the first second I heard it reported, and later confirmed across the media last evening.

And today, as I look around and see manifestations of the undeniable impact that he had on our culture, on music, on people, I can only think that this may well be the most devastating loss that we’ve ever endured collectively as fans of music. That is, since MJ impacted everyone, regardless of race, culture, generation, location or musical preference. All boundaries were transcended on his watch.

I mean, just with my generation alone (true 80’s babies), you’d be hard pressed to find individuals who, at some point in their lives, didn’t try to emulate him on a talent show stage or dance floor (hell, sometimes breaking into an MJ dance move was just instinctive); who didn’t own a screenprinted t-shirt bearing his image at some point in their lives or other memorabilia; who didn’t want to dress as him atleast once for Halloween (respectfully); who didn’t have an extreme appreciation for the Thriller video (though most of us were way too young to remember when it premiered); who didn’t go to school buzzing about the “Black & White” (the morphing sequence) or “Remember the Time” (the cameos and guest appearances) videos the day after they premiered on Fox; who didn’t wish they could hang out with the dude just once (no *pause* necessary). I could go on and on.
I’m not sure how much music he was able to record in the time leading up to his planned comeback, but if there is some I hope that it receives a proper release.

Peace to his kids, the entire Jackson family, and the millions of devoted and loyal fans around world, who I count myself among, that admired and respected him, as both a person and an artist.

If not for every official Michael Jackson video on YouTube having the embed feature “disabled by request” at the moment (I’m guessing the content owners are trying to keep the views local), I’d end this by posting one of my all time favorite MJ vids here, Bad.

Instead, here’s a clip of him at the 2007 BET Awards, making a surprise appearance alongside his idol James Brown. James was in shock, the crowd was in shock; it was a thrilling moment all around, and also one of MJ’s last televised performances. RIP:

Make that $2-million on Doom against Wayne.

Update 2/3: On second thought, this isn’t “ether”, and to have labeled it as such is actually an insult to the word and all that it stands for in hip-hop. True, 50 succeeds at delivering some pretty harsh blows to Rick’s character (which is the ultimate goal of any rapper engaging in battle with his/her opponent), however, the method behind his madness here (using his opponent’s ex-girlfriend as a pawn in such an unprecedented fashion) is all too real, too sleazy to sit back and cheer on as one would in a normal rap battle (which this is clearly not). This is the sort of thing that you’d expect to see on daytime televison, not in the midst of a what should be an entertaining rap battle confined to lyrics. What I fear most, though, is that in this age of hip-hop meets new media, this will become the norm. Just as “Nas vs. Jay” gassed up a legion of mediocre rapcats to take their best shots at hip-hop’s elite, this stunt and others like it, will give the go ahead to a new legion mediocre rapcats to take to youtube (and other video outlets) to do what it is that they are not artistically capable of doing on pen and pad, in the booth, or on the mic.

It’d be nice to get a proper release from this guy but, honestly, I kinda dig the way that he just pops out of nowhere and drops loose, random gems down to us mortals from time to time. That’s been a huge part of the allure to Jay Electronica from day one. I’m still waiting on that Act II Mixtape, by the way. For now, I’m still living off this bit of loose fire.

The most interesting thing about it, to me, isn’t the artwork itself, but the fact that it’s designed by KAWS–the renowned graff artist and designer. This is a guy whose art sells out just as fast as it goes up on his website. And whose toys and clothing are hugely popular amongst the HypeBeast-reading, Complex-subscribing “hypester” crowd–which just so happens to make up a hefty portion of Kanye’s base. So of course I’m curious to see if his involvement here will have a profound impact on sales. Are folks going to buy the album twice? Once when it’s first released, and again when the KAWS packaging goes on sale December 16th? It should be interesting to see.

Nonetheless, Kanye deserves tremendous props for never neglecting or ignoring the importance of the visuals that are attached to his albums.

Imagine this scenario: You walk into your local polling place and discover that, as a result of some twisted turn of events, Barack Obama, John McCain, Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nadar are no longer running as candidates for PoTUS. Instead, they’ve been replaced on the ballots by Murs, Mos Def and Wyclef–all members of a newly formed, leftist political party known as the Sedgwickrats.

Now, considering you don’t go totally berserker (c)(John McCain) on a poll worker at this point and, you stick around to catch a glimpse of the following videos that
have been supplied by the respective candidates to aide you in this 11th hour decision. Which candidate would win your vote in the end:

Murs:

Mos:

Wyclef:

I’m telling you, if stores continue to die off at this pace, I’m gonna find myself digging full time on eBay one of these days. Or maybe not.

Anyhow, I went in hoping to get lucky and stumble across a gem or two hidden away amongst the hugely discounted inventory, instead I got my hands on two records from the premium stash that satisfied my hunger just the same, if not more:

Doug Carn ft. Jean Carn – Revelation (1973)
Doug Carn – Adams Apple (1974)

Both are from the catalog of the short-lived Black Jazz Records imprint founded by the late jazz pianist Gene Russell. Huge scores for my collection! Thinking on it now, even though I didn’t pick up much that day, I think that may have been one of the more satisfying digs that I’ve ever had at that spot. Guess that last trip was worth it.

Basic Vocab – Come Get With It

Oh, and, by the way: Late & Pass.