For The Love Of War & Vice Versa

Liberating
Very liberating
Liberating, Liberating, Liberating
The sudden realization that this is not Sparta
But very different, irrational battle stadia
All of a sudden, nobody bothers to try keeping score
Victory and Defeat are merely different coloured roses
Plucked hastily and scattered on top of rotting corpses
Or at the feet of living beings to whom proposals are given
Devils and angels being manufactured in random succession
Depending on which ingredient falls off the conveyor belt
Yet still, liberation is the only thing capable of being felt
It’s a revolution, it’s an unstoppable movement
Liberation, Liberation, Liberation
Liberation of the bowels
An ordinary day in the life of a little boy at war
An ordinary day in the life of a grown woman in love

Any, Amy, Amy...

“Sometimes that kind of blues will make you even kill one another … or do anything, that kind of love … that’s where the blues started.” _ Son House

She was in many ways the Eminem of soul and jazz. Fancy her – white, British and thinly framed – to be the one to revitalize a genre that has always been heavily rooted among African Americans. In as much she managed to sound 60-70s soul/rock ‘n’ roll, she looked nothing like your traditional soul diva. It’s easy to compare her with Aretha Franklin and perhaps Dionne Warwick vocally (despite her sometimes shocking colourful lyrics about weed, alcohol and sex), but you’d never see the long respectable evening dresses and gloves that were the standard garb of soul singers ever since. When Amy hit the stage, it was almost always in the tiniest of dresses, party cup containing some mysteriously coloured liquor in hand. Many times, the performances would get more haphazard as the party cup emptied, but that was her.

Amy at the "I Told You I Was Trouble" Concert w/ the partycup

I really liked the way she oozed out a different kind of diva in the songs she wrote – imperfect but powerfully feminine in a way that screamed for a man worth his salt to step up to the plate, and not in one of those sappy gay ways you see in soap operas, despite the weird romance she carried on with that Blake character:

“Feel like a lady, but you my lady boy,
You should be stronger than me”

Her kind of diva was flawed but balanced and in need of being complemented, unlike the entirely obnoxious ultra-feminist manifestos I hear being sang along every day by girls around the world (hint hint):

“Nobody stands in between me and my man
'Cause it's me and Mr Jones (Me and Mr Jones)
What kind of fuckery are we?
Nowadays you don't mean dick to me (dick to me)
I might let you make it up to me (make it up)
Who's playing Saturday?”

Even though her long drawn drug habits might be the possible cause of her death, it’s not the drugs that killed her. She had always been a troubled soul, struggling with her inner demons to an extent that it was amazing how she could channel this darkness into such beautiful music, kinda like the blues singers of old. She possessed the kind of blues that could kill a man or woman for that matter, and she succumbed. Considering it was her talent that probably kept her sane and at the same time managed to win almost every single award capable trying to stay sane, I think she’d done well and she’d done enough.

Her death is a slightly personal loss for me, given she was the only permanent member of my fantasy weed parties on twitter lol. It is hard to imagine that I can no longer tweet “Smoking kush with Amy Winehouse” with a straight face. She was always a living statement that it was okay to self-lacerate sometimes. Well, that’s all gone now; all that’s left is Public Service Announcements as if she’d do it differently if given the chance:

“Don't make no difference if I end up alone
I'd rather have myself a smoke my homegrown
It’s got me addicted, does more than any dick did
Yeah I can get mine and you get yours”

The Plank Dahlia

By now, everyone short of owning a kabambe phone with GPRS and has a facebook account (at least) knows what planking is. For those residing beneath rock faces, I can describe it as the awkward act of lying down awkwardly in awkward positions on equally awkward locations, then having somebody else take pictures as visual evidence of your awkward behaviour for later presentation to those who did not witness your awkwardness via social networks. And the fad has attacked the internet like the Y2K that never was. It has earned some tweeps 100,000+ followers, just like that! Amazing, huh? Women be laying themselves down by the thousands, you’d think it prevents breast cancer. Men be kissing the streets you’d expect their penile size would have doubled once they rise (pun intended). Anyway…

As for my planking virginity, I shamefully disclose that it remains intact, because I still do not understand WHY I should plank. I’m a firm believer of asking why ever since the Enron execs begged the world to do so to deaf ears before The Most Admired Company in the World at one point went to colossal shit. I just don’t understand planking, what is all that about?



Since it is one of those mass movements that involving in someone’s body laid awkwardly somewhere, I’m tempted to compare it with mob justice. However, mob justice is a movement that ends in a number of human beings losing their lives – planking really picked up after some folks in Australia died after setting themselves up for an awkward fall thus death was but a beginning for this craze. The motivation for those who mete out mob justice (or even lynching of black people in the Deep South back in the day) is the feeling that they have contributed to the well being of society in some way or the other. Planking on the other hand, does not bring with it this sense of purpose and eventual satisfaction.

Others say planking is street art. If you ask them how, it just draws more and more blanks. I think art must also have motive, at least from the point of view of the artist him/herself even if the rest of the world ends up not understanding that motive. The motivation for planking today is usually to participate in the trending topic of the moment, one of the unspoken rules of social networks, in essence beating the fundamental logic of street art being a public show of non-conformity. Planking is a public display of conformity with the norms of the virtual society in which we spend more time in than real, physical tangible society – just another Milgram-type experiment.

The debate surrounding the origins of planking has also precipitated some very interesting points of view. Others are convinced that the roots of planking lie in the slave trade between Africa and the New World where the slaves were laid awkwardly in slave ships to enable more slaves to be ‘packed’ and sufficiently chained. To this school of thought, the act of planking (especially by African-Americans) has insulting, even racial connotations. Another school of thought trace the fad to an old European game while others insist it sprung from awkward Australians in 1997. What I have found extremely interesting is Wikipedia’s apparent inability to bring an end to this debate, further proof that wikis should never be assumed to be the final word on anything.

The most convincing argument for planking I have heard so far ends at: “It’s funny.” Yeah, funny… Even though I can laugh at almost anything, the extreme awkwardness of planking just gets me wondering and worrying more than laughing. I know social networks require a relaxed-er sense of humour but as the kind lady in the Brookside ad says, the funny cow “has refused”. I still don’t get the punchline, sorry. Planking has become our century’s Black Dahlia – a corpse abandoned awkwardly, a lot of people claiming responsibility with no obvious motive, a lot of suspects, a lot of theories and of course, a lot of media coverage. An unsolved mystery.

And there’s more where planking came from – just like the hundreds of crunk dancing styles that got people muttering under their breath “I hope the song came before the dance” - more and more awkward-position fads are coming up. Last week, I heard it was all about Owling (awkwardly perching on something like a bird) and this week, someone was all excited by something called Pumping. I was afraid to even ask what that was about.

Smooth Afrique

A smooth, inspirational, laid back, 90% African set featuring: Sudanese Al Sarah churning out a sublime chorus in Vote off the Sudan Votes Music Hopes project that was carried out during their referendum elections - check it out HERE - congratulations to Republic of Southern Sudan, the newest African Nation!! // Nigerian singer-activist Nneka also with an election themed tune Suffri // Ugandan femcee Keko drops Miya Piny // Kenyan sensation Sauti Sol with Coming Home off their sophomore album, its got a great video as well - check it out HERE // Signature tunes from Amadou & Mariam and Asa dubbed out with a little help from The Disciples // Classic African stuff: Jonathan Butler with River of Life, Youssou N'Dour's probably best known track 7 Seconds and lastly vintage Ethio-jazz from Mahmoud Ahmed off the unmatchable compilation series Ethiopiques.

If it touches you, here's the DOWNLOAD LINK