It's been a minute mainly because I chose to be quiet and let my music and words kinda do the talking. This summer, props go out to PE management for centralizing us into the key major festivals in the US. There is no better place to play than here in the summer, and this is because of convenience and proximity. TOUR 59 was an assemblage of these dates including a West Coast run of SAN DIEGO, SANTA CRUZ, TV performances, and an appearance at the Apple Store in San Francisco. First off spinning out of New Orleans where we played in the Superdome with CREW GRRL ORDER it was a beautiful time in the Easy. Longtime natives and EBs Gina Tillman and Kory Doss returned and attended the festival. We did two shows, same room, same night. It was the first time in many years that much of our folk caught us.

There's two ways of looking at this: 1. Most black folk have moved on with their lives and 2. The only thing catching them from entertainers is the radio, TV and from hip hop.... the news. There's a literal gap from artists and a black public post age thirty it seems. I've seen the black gigantic crowds of the SUPERFEST stadium 70's get knocked to the Arena 80's ( where hip hop acts used to fill with 4-5 acts) to the theater tours of the 90's, to the clubs of now. Extinct like a dinosaur? Where we at? The other night I saw a TV broadcast of SPIKE LEE'S 1999 KINGS OF COMEDY. Live in Charlotte, North Carolina. Packed with black folk in a arena we helped open up with GUY and KID AND PLAY in 1990. The arena is now deemed as obsolete by the NBA as the other old coliseum on Independence Road downtown. Flashback and it was packed with black folk. As with this years Essence Fest with 90% women in the Dome. STEVE HARVEY, BERNIE MAC, CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER and DL HUGHLEY only had a mic and their outfits. They entertained the hell out of that crowd and most of all related. And they simply 'rocked' recordings by ONE WAY, EARTH WIND AND FIRE and LENNY WILLAIMS. Made the crowd feel good.

Possibly the tricks of video and lack of effort had chased the blackout in hip hop. The 'awe' had long left the audience in the rap game, like the SLAMdunk contest in the NBA. I'm not from the school that attacks today's rap like it's lesser than. In some ways it may be 'lazier' than though. Effort still has to be made. Diversity must still be the thing that makes this really tick. I'm getting into more debates at heated emcees who are mad at the ATL -SOUTH. I simply retort that New York - NORTHEAST emcees had chose to forget history: CREWS developing from R&B groups, harmonizing, the music came out of soul and disco. The peace, love, unity of BAM and The ZULUS had still made people feel great after performance. And there was nothing on the stage considered too wack or soft to try for the sake of entertainment. The stage is pretty much the same as Shakespeare and beyond, audience out front (with a small exception the rounded theatres built in the 70's) Gotta rock, because most of the time people have paid for entertainment with either their money or their time. Cannot waste either, coming from folks. At least the crunk rappers lean on them hooks, then again is that much different than MR. JAMES BROWN?

Which brings me to what I really think about ROCK THE BELLS 2007. Chang Weisberg took his branded hip hop festival and made a national hip hop OZZFEST-WOODSTOCK out of it. Critics immediately judged it from a record sales point saying that all the acts were past their record selling peak. How shallow is that ? Somebody tell them quickly the recording business has had its seismic collapse. Other than Justin Timberlake or the saccrined PUSSYCAT DOLLS ....EVERYBODY is past their record selling peak. Some journalist thought I was just talking about the RTB acts. One thing I can tell you about the acts from RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE on down to PHAROHE MONCHE, was the effort was put out on stage . E-f-f-o-r-t. We played in great choice spots in the middle. I dug this POSITION. Although we just played the festivals in NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, and SAN FRANCISCO we were proud to be part of it. Yes. As expected it was a reunionfest. EPMD ERICK SERMON, PARRISH SMITH, and DJ SCRATCH had talked about an upcoming short two week tour....CYPRESS HILL one of the greatest groups and people, SEN DOG, B REAL, MUGGS and BOBO are like family. I thanked PHAROHE MONCH for his terrordome cover....again thank you. ERIC BOBO son of the great Willie has contributed to a Spanish spoken dedication album to PE. Gracias. RAHZEL is always a smile. My man- LOVE is again always a great collision. He discussed compiling and remixing a NATIONS20 album. I told him that I was working on other things in 2008, and want to tell him to be my guest.

BLACK THOUGHT is always a humble dude and I'm always happy to see him soak his stardom. Former tour buddies BLACKALICIOUS CHEF EXEL and GIFT OF GAB, was a warm revisit. Again I enjoyed talking to the great MURS who a year ago visited the PE comic book booth in SAN DIEGO. I sat and broke bread with SAGE FRANCIS and talked about some 2008 collaboration....great talk with him. BOOTS RILEY and PAM the FUNKSTRESS were in effect. I told her I still ain't heard any woman cut so sharp and precise. Few dudes can match her as well. Saw DJ FUZE for the first time in about.....fifteen years ...DIGITAL UNDERGROUND'S mixman IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE and JEAN GRAE were regal and it was great seeing them in a light tour moment. Told REDMAN thank you for the CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? TRACK and through his haze he smiled and kinda wondered about it. I told METHOD MAN, MASTA KILLA (who I thanked for that verse on HE GOT GAME's Resurrection') RAEKWON, GZA, RZA, and CAPPADONNA that I was sooooo happy to see them tour that WU - MACHINE and taking the description from ICE-T, I repeated to METH that they were 'super heroes' and the sky was limit because they accomplished the necessary performances for the genre. NAS said he'd picked up my LYRICS OF A RAP REVOLUTIONARY, and appreciated the holla an the idea that he definitely should do one of his own. Volume One. At a gigantic tour photo, I clasped hands with my man ZACK DE LA ROCHA and rather than say welcome back, I flipped back to one time when we were simultaneously filling our hooptie tanks with gas on Cahuenga over a decade ago. It was a chance meeting.

ROCK THE BELLS 2007 broke attendance records. It was a testament to the power of crews and groups. A notion that had been forsaken by the labels trying to always capture, thus exploit the DNA of sht. Also coupled with the mentality of thinking that splitting money is never as grand as getting it alone i.e. solo. Somebody bring the JURASSIC 5 back please.

IS YOUR GOD A DOG? My take on the MICHAEL VICK story is simple. When we start thinking that everything in the hood ain't under a microscope, then we need to start thinking again. I don't own a dog. Why? Because I know if I did have one the necessary time in maintenance would be past my limits. So I personally do not. Again this pit bull fixation from the hood amazes me, because I know many cats who can't even take care of themselves, but have a dog. Complain at paying child support ...but got a dog.

As for fighting dogs and training them to fight, this is some 'I ain't got nothing better to do with my time but fight em and then gamble on them'. Beware of time being the devil's workshop. History alone would keep us away from being cruel to any creature. The movie ROOTS had BEN VEREEN's Chicken George character fighting roosters. And was applauded. As with horse racing and those able to jockey it. Still we need to understand that a dog has been the western world's white man's best friend way before a black man. History would prove that.

As for Mike Vick he's being associated with the hood as the cleaning up of the sports world continues. There are powerful, mostly white men behind the owner sports world seats, who do not dare have their money fu*ked with like the music game has screamed about; with the takeover of the' hood ethic coupled with the onslaught of basement technology. He is the sacrifice saying to all, no matter how good these nig*ers are in the game, they will not be above or will ever RUN the game. Yes, this is beyond a dog, two hundred dogs, or a thousand. I hope MIKE VICK doesn't do jail time. He can do many things in society to associate himself to many good causes and keep young men out of the 'prison industrial complex'. And even keep dogs out of the kennels, as said before there are other types of dogs our neighborhoods can adopt. But beyond MIKE VICK, the hood from the states and now other worldwide places has adopted 'killer dog' mentality as it has 'killanigga' ethic. He didn't even see this coming. I've been there. I wish him well...

MAX ROACH The passing of this stellar drummer and musician, great man was seismic to say the least. I had the fantastic opportunity to share a panel in Tennessee about a decade ago. He single handedly revolutionized drumming in the 40's up to the millennium in the realm of bop and Jazz. His daughters were always continuing his social effort and class as well. On the Los Angeles House Of Blues performance, our moment of drum tapped silence was in memorial of one of our indeed greats. Prayers and condolences to his family.

VIBE, OKAY PLAYER, THE 90's AND THE VIBRATION OF SMOKE.....

Speaking of drummers at the San Bernardino ROCK THE BELLS, I ran into backstage, the one and only Mr. AHMIR 'QUESTLOVE' THOMPSON. He's indeed one of my favorite figures in this game. He has transcended the ROOTS into a category of it's own. Inspiring the baNNeds' formation behind the PE performance, as well as telling many of their continuous world travels and shows. I've said many times that the ROOTS cannot be simply measured on their recordings ala like the GRATEFUL DEAD, but by all the envelope pushing they bring to the table. Of course I see many critics that want to see them do so many things at the same time without taking in of the great things they already do. Yes, I would like to see BLACK THOUGHT command the players a bit more but that will happen more each year. His blending in doesn't make me mad at all.

I also understand that over on OKAY PLAYER, is an age category and demographic that kind of contrasts with my personal and artistic style. I tend to like harder and faster music. The category of 30-40 is in that zone of lower smoother tempos and sounds give or take a five year buffer on either end. The largest bulk of PE criticism stems from there, since I gotta accept a 'blogattack about irrelevance' every 3 -6th months as an artistic wake up call. In the eighties many in the same age category continuously sandblasted rap music/hip hop as they kept the standard of 'soul-disco-and R&B ' as the theme that had to be supported and not replaced.

We know what was in the late 80's as the diversified music blasted its way out of major corporations as album - music, not singles. It could be expected that within our 5th year in 1992, that the new wave was coming in. 1992 was a teenage breakthrough year for the entire country. You figure after four years of YO MTV RAPS and the cable expanded BET in black homes, the kid at 12 in 1987 was now into their own thing at the cusp of 18.

The points for equality we had resonated from the 60's, the 80's attack had been fueled by a REAGAN-BUSH crack laden administration angst. The 70's weren't in our twenty year cycle. From the high school class of 1978, I personally thought the seventies were wack after 1971. I rebelled against that period and the 1980's with hip hop, at least in my mind. I didn't dig micro-produced synthesized based music. In fact my favorite Stevie Wonder sounds are from his 60's, rather than his higher lauded self produced works of the 70's.

So I never had a smoke or a drink last century and I could never zone out into the oncoming twenty year cycle 'weedfest' that was to emerge into the culture; at the death of crack acceptance and the 70's embracing of the chronic. The independence sought in this CLINTON illusion had been enjoined with a new challenging adulthood for the thugs and the geeks alike. It was as if weed was the universal accepted cloak to blend a nerd back into the, so called, hood. I've seen academics and professionals sink their value system and come up with non stop 'tired' excuses for it. I don't even come up with excuses for Flav other than the fact as a grown man he knows his dos and don'ts and the costs that come down that path.

Music is vibration, and it's easy to miss the vibration of the high if you are not. As it is easy to miss the point of something coming straight at you if you are zoned out. 1994, a lotta folks in hip hop were zoned out because it was the next cultural wave that rode the walls that held of the social order of the time. The President himself said he cracked one but didn't inhale. I guess that caught him cool points. At 34, at the time I was crystal clear about the haze that was happening around me. Change was inevitable but I was damned if I was gonna fall into the 'sound of smoke' just because it was the zone that was happening. The music of OUTKAST, WU-TANG, B.I.G, TUPAC, REDMAN, and SNOOP and the West had the wheels to roll to road of high. Slow that sht down and dance like the party in the video was the vibe, although the artists were dancing less on stage. Speaking of VIBE magazine, the invitation of writers, scribes and once considered geeks to write about the cultural haze in such magazines as THE SOURCE, BLAZE, XXL...etc. The question was how much of these new writer's personal values would be figured in these new evaluations of culture. How much of themselves would be dropped for the sake of being called the new hip overseer? It reminded me of the time where a special screening of ICE CUBEs ...FRIDAY had this ending where CHRIS TUCKER reverses his self-promise to the weedgod and sparks up to a standing ovation on the HOWARD campus in 1997. I was like damn is everybody on this same page? It was like 98% approval. I hated that. For real I just looked at it no different than a mountain of sheep following each other to a pack of wolves. This was a CLINTONERA sleeping pill that ushered in the 'I' vs 'WE' mentality that we're mired in at the moment. Leadership with an urge to fight is misdirected in the under 50 crew. But prospects are easily satisfied in this 30-40, as much as skepticism is high.

Speaking of high, I think that many felt that I personally attacked them with my music because I launched hard and railed against DRUGS and Drink as a topic I knew about. If a person was high or drunk I never held anything against them, I just wouldn't let them drive a car I was sitting in, or leave them with any major responsibility whatsoever. This comes from a person who had friends and family affected by it in the 70's and 80's. This also comes from a person who helped run clubs in the early mid 80's and I was the designated driver. These are the main reasons - that's it. At the same time I ain't trying to hear that I pay an artistic penalty for not swimming in them waters. I'm not generalizing but I know I'm not their 'cat' over there and at the end of the day I doubt if I will ever rank high in the 'vibration of smoke'. Yeah I can hear the response of 'whatever nig*a', but I will tell you this as much of them that are confused with the general attitude of 18-29 there's a zone of rebels between 12-17 who consider a lot of everything old and tired and forming new ways to 'survive'. Check a consensus of Junior and Senior High schools and then we can call our social gauges relevant.

DVD's I picked up. And such choices...eh?

Yeah, like ?uestlove. I'm into crazy eclectic, unexpected sht. Just picked up 1. LES PAUL - CHASING SOUND 2. HANK WILLIAMS - HONKY TONK BLUES 3. JOHNNY CASH - THE MAN HIS WORLD - HIS MUSIC Whoa and what does this all mean? The vibration of drink? Just kidding.

FLAV Headed to Beijing Festival in China where the next T-dome will be chock full. In the interim, I'll expect to try to field a whole lot of FLAVOR OF LOVE questions. As he searches for another girlfriend on TV. Meanwhile his real love and newborn have already had some pub last year. It's a pity how folks will 'believe' the tube. He will not be present in CHINA. And as for as the RED BLACK and GREEN Machine it's slowed until December with a possible South African run. There are some proposed dates around the Vegoose Festival

CRITICS I make it a point of considering the source when it comes to criticism. Always something poppin up, like ALLHIPHOP rumor mill saying that there's a lyric in SEX, DRUGS, AND VIOLENCE claiming I'm secretly dissing B.I.G. with the lyrics about 'ready to die that sounds like quitting'. Dying is easy. I don't hide my distaste at the concept. To target B.I.G. is small, especially since he's gone. The philosophical thought of it all has led me to look at the TUPAC - B.I.G. murders of a decade ago as so unnecessary. Ridiculous that we lost those two. Over bullsht.

CLEMENTE Again I don't think people still realize that the black and gold Pittsburgh Pirate hat I wear is always in honor of the athlete who transcended into a great human being. Can't get enough of the lasting impact. Kennesaw Mountain Landis should be tossed out of the HALL OF FAME if it continues to keep PETE ROSE out and playahate on Home Run King BARRY BONDS. Landis was a straight out cracker who said he wouldn't let black ball players in ...like over his dead body. No coincidence JACK ROOSEVELT ROBINSON enters the bigs in 1947 after Landis dies. If you're gonna clean up then clean out. There are other racists to be reconsidered Cap Anson who in the late 1800's refused to play with anyone dark thus starting the ban on black players. Yankee GM George Weiss who thought that bringing a black player to the Yankees would damage their 'character' post Jack Robinson. Then we have the, so called, beloved Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey who was the last major league team to have a black player i.e. Pumpsie Green in 1959. Yeah if we're gonna talk about 'ethics' then scrape them out. I would say Ty Cobb but c'mon his stats are baseball achievements, undeniable. Although a racist to the last breath. Thus baseball needs to look at the numbers of ROSE and Bonds when he's eligible as no brainers.

ROCK THE MCCOVEY COVE Playing ROCK THE BELLS looking over McCovey Cove Parking lot, I couldn't help but think how many folks had not a clue who the great Willie McCovey is. One of my early heroes as well. I remember how as a fan, I remember baseball heads calling his career a bum-kneed injury plagued finish in 1976 after a sub-par split year with the SD Padres and the Oakland A's. Then he proceeded to hit twenty-eight homers the next year after being reacquired by the SF GIANTS in 1977, thus winning comeback player of the year. I was thinking all of this while rhyming at RTB 007. Also I knew that it all took place at the old Candlestick Park just down Hwy 101 where the 49ers still play. Now called MONSTER Park, what a hideous stadium name. Named after the Monster cable company. Damn, this is appearing like a baseball column. Back to the rap.

APPLE STORE SF 'Performing at APPLE SF was kinda surreal. Here I finally found an oasis for all my techgear synching... finally. Many of the songs we played were conceived and created musically and lyrically on my MAC laptops and other APPLE computers. The fact that I could tell people everything was available on itunes and could call to tell them on my iphone, was a page I'd been trying to get folks on for years. The performance in front of the overstanders in SF APPLE was an enjoyable full circle experience. Thanks to Thuy-AN, Greg Tease and the rest of the APPLE crew.' Still hope they come out with a stylus for the next version of iphone. This ain't lotion friendly, since I'm ashy a lot and I carry lotion to avoid the ash. Lucky I stopped eating chicken for a decade, it would be impossible to use the screen.

LI MUSIC HALL OF FAME Public Enemy has been inducted into the Long Island Music Hall Of Fame. I can really dig it. Beyond my imagination in fact. OCTOBER 21 at Queens College it is. Last Year RUN-DMC were inducted. Among many others this year and last year if I just mention those from Nassau and Suffolk counties; BLUE OYSTER CULT, MARIAH CAREY, THE STRAY CATS, PAT BENATAR, JOAN JETT, BILLY JOEL and my man DEE SNIDER and TWISTED SISTER. I will submit and expect in the years to come. RAKIM and EPMD to be added. http://www.limusichalloffame.org/home.html

HOW COME Sen. Edwards can't be the designated 'white man' and cooly have Hillary and Barack as VP and Sec Of State? Damn it's why the Dems can't win sht. Little teamwork or recognition of it. Especially when you can trace a lotta these Son Of A Bushers back to Richard Milhous Nixon.

I'm out like Craig mistachuck@rapstation.com