"Poem for Tia Rosa"

I don’t know why the rain didn’t come yesterday

Yesterday was a beautiful day
The sun moving in and out of clouds
Giving us a loving warmth each time she was open and free

The light breeze touched our skin like a tease, letting us know she was there amongst us, only to leave us right when we began to appreciate her.

Yesterday was a beautiful day
Yet, her air was dry
Warmth too harsh for some

Her harsh warmth made you walk away from home, making you believe it was your cousin, your mom’s fault…

So the rain is here today, and yesterday is gone
All this water could have saved her

A little too late for some,
Just in time for others,

In the end the rain came on time…
… never has water been so precious to me...

Only if she could have mustered enough strength to let the rain in, to let it wash away the fire.

"To my Latino Higher Education Professionals"

"ahem, ahem"

Wear your brown garments with pride!
Tighten that brown tie made with shiny silk
Straighten that pretty skirt with beige trim
Wear your brown guayaberas, sashes, and gowns "con orgullo"

I want to see you strut like the Emperor and Empress you are!
Looking upon everyone, showing off your scratches and bruises
Citing your wisdom and sage that can be seen on page 456b of this month's journal
Be that King and Queen that you are, for all of us to see in awe.

I also want to see you strut!
I want to see you speak and act as that Empress you wish to be
Pass laws, give decrees, and make bold statements for sheep to follow you

Act like every other Emperor I've seen!
Oppress, impart, impose, impede on the gifts and contributions of others
Forget my name, forget my story, forget it all, but revel in your own
The language, the walk, the words you speak are just like every other King or Queen

Oppressive,
Established,
Pedigree,
Classy,

I, and the rest of us, notice your brown shoes lost their shine,
You walk in front of me naked like the day you were born
I see nothing but your strut, your 'position', and your merits
And your brown clothes are all but disappeared…

In the end, you wear your invisible clothes pretty well my friend
Your badges and symbols of credibility cannot be seen
All I see is you… naked, like the day you were born
Frankly, it is sad to see you walk like a King, the walk of power, the walk of conceit and self

Me? I am perfectly fine standing here, not moving, with the rest of the town all around me…
Looking at you walk (to your Ivory Tower) away from us... normal folk

"Para ti"

You grew up alone and beautiful sweetheart
It took everyone else to catch up to you
I’m happy I did… (for a little bit)

Life hurt you my dear
You did what you could (wrote it down, showed love, gave everyone that beautiful smile)
I’m honored you shared with me

And I’m sorry I hurt you too my love
Unlike you, I was behind, slow to see, impatient to continue
I’m hopeful that you enjoyed my company.

RIP Michael Jackson

ill.selection dropped on EXBC Radio with Amitai

Amitai again shows me some love by featuring "Switch Up (Swagger Mix)" on Expansion Broadcast #153 part 1 which you can catch here.

Homie comes through yet again with some ill track selections and sweet mixing. I'm a big fan as its a smooth mixing style, but yet not, as his approach puts the role of the DJ in a more human touch... not trying to simply crossfade, I'm always a fan of DJ's putting some work in with cuts, scratches, mixes, and blends that says "I'm here motherfuckers, and I'm making this shit happen fro you to fucking dance!!" Reminds me of DJ SS back in the day dropping shit quick and fast rough and ready.

So here is the tracklisting... I'm absolutely honored my tune transitioned toward the more breakbeat jungle bizzness, puts me in my place and next to my true love Jungle...

Track Listing

1. Calibre - Hard Times
2. Akira vs. T-Ak - Oceanic
3. Utah Saints - Something Good (HC remix)
4. Joe Tex - I Gotcha
5. State of Mind vs. Chris SU - Flawless (Sigma remix)
6. Santogold - Unstoppable (Calculon & Eric Yo! bootleg)
7. Electric Six - Gay Bar
8. Electric Six vs. Dillinja - Armoured Gay Bar (Datashat remix)
9. Future Signal - Kill Switch
10. Prodigy - Voodoo People (Pendulum remix)
11. Prodigy - Voodoo People (original mix remastered)
12. Benga - One Million
13. Reso - If Ya Can’t Beat Em
14. Richie August - Blood Lust
15. Caspa - Floor Dem
16. 2562 - Kontrol
17. TLC - Silly Ho
18. Benga - Crunked Up
19. Sick Rebel - Lion
20. ill.selection - Switch Up (Swagger mix)
21. Subtropic - Red Hot Rivets
22. Ratpack - Tralala Boom (Jungle edit)
23. DMD and The Bonemen - Sweet Vibrations
24. A.D.O.R. - One For The Trouble (a capella)
25. Channel 2 - Youth Today
26. Drunken Masters- Kill Bill
27. Busta Rhymes - Woo Hah (a capella)
28. Burner Bros - Where I Want You (Subsonik remix)
29. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
30. Burner Bros - Where I want You (Subsonik remix) reload

If you want to check out the entire EXBC crew doing their thing, check it here

More of Amitai here!

brief wondrous life of oscar wao

I finally finished this and I'm grateful that i did. I guess i was fortunate enough to be in college during the 'great' 90's boom of Latino fiction where "Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love", "The House On Mango Street" and "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent" reigned as champions of some sort of supposed new era of the Latino rise in American literary culture. In pure demographics, I think it achieved that feat, but as a literary rise, I think it came short. Here are my reasons...


For one, the one critique was that the market had a stronger role in the shaping of this 'rise' than the movement itself did, focusing mostly on female writers (Julia Alvarez, Cristina Garcia, Sandra Cisneros, etc.) with the occasional droplets of male voice. This overrepresentation of attention to female writers reminds me of how most of us get through in major mass market media... where females are the first 'presenters' of culture to mainstream TV, film, and Literature. (Rita Moreno, Charo, Eva Morales, J-Lo, Shakira, Selena, etc.). Juxtapose this with a "(white) man" dominated publishing market... letting 'the fellaz' in would be somewhat threatening? I do not think this is exclusive to Latinos as you can see the biggest stars for other identity groups seem to be again overrepresented by females.

The other issue is the idea that most of these books' subject matter focused on the negotiation and admission to assimilation/acculturation in a linear/dichotomous view of a US Latino identity, where each of these books have their protagonists resolve their issues on a scale between US and Latino culture. As a result, most of the work felt like we got defeated, eventually, by gringo culture... that we had to find a resolution on how these cosmic forces of immigration, language, exploitation, and racism have affected us. It felt like we were quite defenseless to the forces around us.

My final gripe with the works of the past, which now extends to what I see as the genesis of Latino literature "Down these mean streets" is the use of language. For some reason, I felt very proud that these authors used 'our words' in the mostly English texts. Yet, it felt soooo much like sprinkles of authenticity, a 'lets teach these gringos some Spanish words' approach, I kept asking myself that most of the words written in Spanish could of been kept in English and not lose any value. I do know there were some words here and there that couldn't be translated, but for the most part... I felt we were tokenizing our words... we kept the English syntax and grammar 'standard' and 'proper' and threw the Spanish (mostly colloquial, street, or slang... in comparison to proper English) words in for some spicy flavor to show we are Caliente!!!

See... doesn't that sound cheesy right about now????

But now we have this!! And what a glorious piece of writing it is. I have not seen so many hyper-specific references to all our inter and intra-cultures as much as this book. I've never felt more comfortable with the use of Spanish, the complexity of how our culture is presented, and the use of Sci-fi, Hip Hop, Street, codes and contexts removes the dichotomous and tokenized feel of previous Latino based literature as we see a multpllicity of cultures shaped not just by race or history, but by interests, SES, popular culture, and so forth. The book's scope covers various themes and subgenres of literature which allows 2nd gen Latinos (like myself) to feel the immigrant experience and not be outside of it, as we see multiple entry points of the United States between characters. It resonates legacy, cultural fantasy, cultural code switching and all who we are used with such ease.

Its this disregard of traditional barriers of navigation, the ease of code-switching between subgenres and subcultures is what makes the book wonderful. I remember seeing B-Boy Latinos who didn't dress like Black B-Boys. I see Reggaeton as a removed version of "Rudeboy culture' which Hip Hop was to Dancehall in the 80's. I remember seeing the occasion Indian or Puerto Rican Goth in the clubs. I also remember seeing the highly acculturated Latino who lives with the most down family. These ruffles present the complexity of our people as complex hybrids of hybrids... a truer expression of Latinidades. Intra-differences among family and friends, alongside parallels between generational differences shows a circular motion, where we progress as a wheel moving forward, yet returning to common themes and elements over and over again.

In other words, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao carries themes from the 90's era pop Latino 'movement' but its enhanced to such a degree of complexity that tells them all to sit down.

NY Times Review here

Him here...