it's been a minute, but i was inspired last night.. so much so that i woke up today wanting to blog about it..
so it started with me watching Step Up 2.. yea, i Netflix'd it.. didn't want to see it in the theater, cuz i felt a certain away about it being based on white dancers that aren't even from the street.. but i got over it enough to have it in my Queue.. well, last night i watched it, and i was VERY entertained, i won't front.. them cats can move.. i mean Hi-Hat (GREAT choreographer) did the majority of the choreography, so many props to her for that.. but the dancers were sick..
yea, i might have had an issue with the main character's best/signature move being this - in the words of Riley from the Boondocks after he was called the N-Word - peep the S-Word episode - by the way, this is the longest run-on sentence ever - "booty dance, do the booty dance, booty dance, do the booty dance.. ok, if you don't get that, then go buy the 2nd season of the Boondocks.. yeah, that was her best move.. moving on..
they had all types of dancers in there.. sick..
so, as one of my favorite shows is MTV's America's Best Dance Crew (America, y'all suck!! Can you get the voting right, please?? How in the heck is Fanny Pak still there? In the final 3?? Really??), i'm on this dance stuff.. been on it since last season.. so after watching the movie, my mind was going crazy.. shoot, i woke up this morning with the YouTube clips in my head.. and that movie in my head.. Crazy.. here's my issue..
YouTube..
my guilty pleasure when searching for any and everything, but right now i'm on this whole dancing and catching crazy workouts on YouTube.. so, back to the point.. dancing.. last night i stumbled on this:
M&M Cru vs. ACDC
peep it.. dude from Step Up 2 is in the ACDC crew.. basically they challenged Mylie Cyrus and her girl Mandy to a dance competition.. really, it's not a competition at all as ACDC is just retarded.. sick with it.. And Adam grabbed about all the best dancers to form his team.. well, this thing spun out of control as it became the 1st online dance competition.. M&M came back, but so did ACDC.. once you click that link, just look at the other videos.. shoot, ACDC even had Chris Brown join.. and you know he's retarded with it..
so i started to think how it got to this point.. started to think about cultures being mixed and then straight snatched.. i'm not hating right now.. cuz after i thought about it this morning, it's typical.. Black ppl need to get better at owning their own creations, instead of having others snatch it, then flip it, then make loot off of it, then in some cases become better at our own ish!! (see Asher Roth).. i sat there thinking why we can't just put our own stuff out there.. this young white boy, Adam, basically rounded his ppl up and they were all down with it.. could you see Blacks doing that?? that quickly? even turning a profit by making ACDC tshirts.. it's crazy.. it also hurts..
we can't join together for nothing.. yeah, i said it.. nothing.. we suck.. point blank.. we can cry all we want, but we need to take the blame for this ish.. letting our stuff go, and then when we see it going, we don't even try to get back in on it.. we just complain (maybe like i'm doing right now)..
with that said, i'm starting my own dance crew.. i haven't figured out a name yet, but i already have 2 members.. cuz as i started to think this morning, we already have been dancing together.. it's me and 2 women.. 1 older (slightly younger than me) and 1 younger (over half of my age).. the youngest one is the star.. she can dance her lil' behind off.. the other woman can as well.. me? shoot, i just make up dances.. i'm like a bootleg choreographer.. i make up dances to my favorite songs on the fly.. my issue is remembering them.. so, "Don't Touch Me" by Busta Bus?? yea, i have that dance down.. so does the older woman in my crew.. hers is for females, mine adds a masculine flair to it..
i'm definitely a nut, so don't mind me.. we wouldn't be battling ACDC, cuz we ain't that nice.. but i'm seriously going to have our crew do some stuff.. starting later this month, cuz we ain't all together right now.. but, i'm going to come up with a name (y'all can help), and then i'm getting our stuff up on YouTube.. we might have on masks or something, but hey.. i won't talk about it, i'm going to be about it..
stay tuned.. and also check those dang videos.. crazy.. it's worth it.. just click the link and enjoy!!
Q.
3 comments:
Interesting post, but I don't think its fair to characterize the situation as African Americans having created hip hop, and then everybody else came along and misappropriated it. There has been a lot of borrowing by African Americans too. “No ideas original . . .”
i'm convinced i need subtitles for you.. i never said misappropriated or hinted at that.. that was not my intention.. the founders of hip-hop or any other culture/phenomenon is documented, so i don't have to go there.. i'm not saying Blacks don't borrow from Chinese or whites.. i'm not saying that whites don't borrow from Indian culture.. my main point is owning it, and being smarter with profiting off of things that we started.. this post is more a shot at "African Americans" (or any person/group that allows someone to come in and make money off of their stuff without making a dime themselves) to get their act together..
i actually don't agree that no idea is original.. but that's just me.. i do understand the point.. i know that when somebody just makes up a movement based off of how they feel, that's pretty original.. now, could the Harlem Shake just be biting off of a seizure?? who knows..
Subtitles? Ouch. My pride. My poor pride...
Well, I can't argue with you about the intention behind your own words, but that is certainly how I interpreted them. I'll look for those subtitles next time.
But yeah, as far as the main point, I was not disagreeing with that. There are a lot of creative people out there that could probably be doing better as far as exploiting their ideas...
Yeah, there are original ideas. An idea that just comes out of nowhere, that is completely unlike anything before it...I'll agree with you on that. But it seems like maybe 90% of ideas that people make money off of are like an improvement or alteration/variation of something else already out there...
Did you mean anything by putting "African Americans" in quotes? I think you may have posted on this "terminology" question on your old blog, but I don't remember...
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