It's Always Personal

For 2021, I had to drop a special Martin Luther King  Jr. Day episode. Honestly, it's unbelievable that it took over 50 years to hear about the strength of the relationships between young heavyweight champion Cassius Clay, NFL icon Jim Brown, Civil Rights leader Malcolm X and legendary singer/songwriter Sam Cooke. Playwright Kemp Powers (Pixar/Disney's Soul) and No. 1 draft pick director Regina King (Watchmen, Boyz in Da Hood, Insecure) linked up and brought the story together in the gripping One Night in Miami. Who brought Clay, Brown, Malcolm and Cooke to life on-screen? Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Leslie Odom, Jr. Everybody was in their bag!

Gathering with others, sharing and exchanging ideas and views with others... leaving ones house, everything "the American Way" took a major hit when "the walls fell" at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. Lemme guess, the average brother didn't care. A lot of white people cared way too much. Busta Rhymes has been right all along!!! Genesis. Anarchy. When Disaster Strikes... It Ain't Safe No More. We'll get into all of this in this episode where I've coined the concept of "trickle-down fvckery" in these Unified States. However, in the intro I had to get into why Skyzoo's Milestones EP couldn't get a fraction of the love that Stove God Cooks got from everywhere for Reasonable Drought. I also had to tease some thoughts on the Regina King-directed One Night in Miami which I'll handle in a forthcoming episode of It's Always Personal. Lastly, and in this podcast episode, business differences and dealings, alone, doesn't always mean the parties involved are racists. Brothers are out here just throwing "racist" and "racism" out, and don't even consider any of the details of a situation.

(Not sure If I mentioned it on the podcast, but if Heaux Tales is a hard pass, give Tianna Major9's At Sixes and Sevens a listen.) I continue to just be an onlooker regarding the ever-evolving state of relations between black men and women. There's a major rift, and confusion, between "the point (guard) and the center" that I've noticed growing since the '90s. Personal politics as a black man or woman are just exhausting - especially if one factors in social media. We deal with all this, once a-gain, in this episode's intro, and then this Friday RnB songstress Jazmine Sullivan dropped a bomb on this hot-button subject with her latest EP Heaux Tales. By "Heaux Tales" alone, I'm guessing this serves as a de factor "Beware of Dog" sign to brothers who might either be a fan of Sullivan's music, RnB, or just wanted to check out a new project. As with anything, I'd just urge brothers not to judge the EP by its cover.

I'm talking about Ma Rainey's Black Bottom because it should be what everybody's talking about, frankly. We can't give the late Chadwick Boseman his flowers, but he knew what kind of gem he left us with in his masterful performance as "Levee Green" - a young recklessly ambitious cornet player from Down South. As for Denzel Washington, the project's producer, and director George C. Wolfe and co-star Viola Davis... I honestly can't do these remarkable folks any justice. I'm just speaking on the film as a fan, but I'm in awe of how late playwright August Wilson shows us that a lot of our problematic treatment of one another has really changed very little in the last 100 years. However, dysfunction and discord never looked so remarkable. I can't downplay the magnificent performances by Colman Domingo ("Cutler") and Glynn Turman ("Toledo") - somebody had to play along with Boseman.

Former NFL All Pro defensive back Nnamdi Asomugha is busy being the change, I suspect, he'd like to see in the world. His latest movie Sylvie's Love, co-starring Tessa Thompson, is available to be streamed on Amazon/Prime Video. You should f------ watch it, and give Asomugha his f------ flowers. Or, shut the f--- up.

I continue to struggle with who gets to define who is a real Black man. Or what a real Black man represents. At a point, can I really be concerned with being a real Black man? 50 Cent, 45 year old, just posted a photo on Instagram to congratulate La La Anthony for her latest TV project. Then, he asked, "Who these other b!tches? Lol" in reference to Issa Rae and two other women. They were Anthony's co-producer Angelica Nwandu and director Thembi Banks, who'll all create upcoming horror-comedy JuJu.

Former ESPN personalities Cari Champion and Jemele Hill have landed on VICE TV with their show Stick To Sports. They recently had YouTuber and undefeated boxer Jake Paul on, and asked him if knocking out former NBA player and multi-time Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson was racist. Outkick writer Joe Kinsey told his Conservative readers the race war rages on with race baiters like Cari and Jemele. They just might be shitty sports talk show co-hosts.

Pres. Barack Obama sat down for an interview with The Breakfast Club to promote his new book A Promised Land. And, of course, he had school Charlemagne the God on the reality of politics and "simple math." Then, I went and got involved with the infamous comment section of TBC's YouTube clips. This sent me head-first down a rabbit hole with the critiques of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Byron Allen of Barack Obama. Ehhh, fair enough.

Black men seem to be waging a few wars that... to which I'm just going to have to be a conscientious objector. The reaction of Black men to a Malcolm Jenkins Open Letter to Black Women on YouTube is beyond concerning. Secondly, hip hop just can't keep it a buck on violence in the Black community. I take a look at some lyrics from "Rock Bottom", a single from rapper Rasheed Chappell on his new album Sinners and Saints.

I hear a lot of woke cats talking reparations, but I honestly feel like they're great with super chats. If we're going to do it some real talk, and most importantly action, has to follow "Reparations..." BET founder and America's first Black billionaire, Bob Johnson, has thrown out $14 trillion as his cost of reparations. I hear Me. Johnson but he lost me when he got to a certain part of his proposal on recent Facebook live on the Black Enterprise page. Lastly, on July 14, 2020 reparations were actually approved by a city in North Carolina. HOW, is why I don't pay these social media cats too much mind.