A freelance writer's take on beats, rhymes and life. My work appears in Creative Loafing Atlanta, okayplayer, The Boombox.com. I also contributed to Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label
I do not hate this woman. At one point, I really wanted to like her. I am far less concerned about the use of the N-word, than her overarching vision of African Americans as inferior. That appears ingrained in her psyche no matter the words she chooses.
Deen’s well-publicized fantasy for a wedding catering venture involved a concept of all black everything. Middle-aged black male staff members, dressed in white shirts, serving everyone like slaves. This comes amid allegations from a former restaurant manager that she and her brother contributed to a racially hostile work environment in their family-owned eateries.
To the post-racial pundits and Deen apologists, it is abominable to cast these views as inherently southern. That ignorant and outmoded thinking is simply inexcusable. I can not only count many white southerners as friends, but among my favorite authors and educators – people who challenged me to think beyond my gritty Pittsburgh upbringing and aim for my best self.
Perhaps I should not be so disturbed since I did not pay her a great amount of attention to begin with. Sure, I may have smiled about her victories in the battle of the bulge, which is tough all by yourself, let alone under public scrutiny in a culinary career. And yes, during one Thanksgiving I indulged in some blueberry cobbler at a family dinner from one of her recipe books (belonging to a cousin). Beyond that, I liked her “hey y’all” goodness and started-from-the-bottom-now-she’s-here rise to success.
Today, her high calorie fare and newly surfaced repugnant views have no place at my table.
Deen only let us know that wealth and fame do not change a person, but magnify what already exists. She let us know that while health milestones are measurable, the internal demons she has to fight may not come down like blood sugar and cholesterol after taking the right (sponsored or not) medication. She also reminded us that there is no way to reveal a changed heart and mind, other than careful public relations planning and strategic career moves. It is up to viewers and consumers to take a bite or shove away the plate. A diverse public armed with nutritional awareness and lots of choices may very well choose the latter.
Her apology video is here. Let me know what you think.
About four years ago, I was a regular at a music and art function held every other Wednesday night at the now closed Sambuca Jazz Café on Piedmont Avenue – home of Atlanta’s grown up restaurant/bar scene. From the beginning, I was in my element. The soundscape was dominated by young instrumentalists and vocalists doing funk, soul, jazz and a little hip-hop, or any combination of them all. They jammed alongside several visual artists live painting mostly musical themes on canvasses or nearly nude models.
Fabian Williams was one of them. The event’s hosts introduced me to the talented group. Williams, who always secured a spot near the front left of the stage, looked me squarely in the eye, cocked his head back, grinned and said, “Interview me.” So I did.
Enter Occasional Superstar – Williams’ brand persona and key character. When we first sat down for an interview he was in one of those contemplative moods not unusual for creative and writerly types. Once we dived into the art conversation, he turned up like he had an amp in his back.
When I listen now to the audio of that talk, I think I sounded like a little kid at her first magic show. The unintended oohing and ahhing embarrassed the hell out of me. The cool part, though, is that it reawakened my love for art and taught me a lot of new things. I’m from Pittsburgh, the city of Warhol – one of the coolest cultural districts in the U.S., if not the world. By writing about Fabian, I also realized – and I told him so – that I was honoring the memory of my high school friend, Javon Thompson, a brilliant young artist and writer who was tragically gunned down during a home invasion in 1994.
By reconnecting with the arts in a new way, I felt powerfully inspired. I can’t draw worth a damn, but just being in the same space with Fabian and his peers was cathartic. I’ve done some of my best writing alongside painters.
I was very shocked to learn that I was the first to write about him. He not only had a house full of paintings, but video, illustrations and a deck of face cards featuring hip-hop stars with two-sided, but different images. After, about forty-five minutes of conversation, almost as an afterthought, he talked about the art battle.
Performance art. My last experience with performance art was in high school at a warehouse where some kid rode around a dim light on a tricycle, wearing a tin foil mask while reciting a poem. Weird shit.
The World Wide Arts Federation, Williams’ promotion vehicle, was anything but. He took the best of everything – from classic paintings, to video, hip-hop and, yes the Ric Flair days of WWF pro-wrestling -and put it in a crazy, never-done-before kind of mix. Dude sings, he acts, he’s loud and he’s badass, but he has an inner humility that helped him keep it all under wraps until it was buffed, polished and fit for public consumption.
Now with Last Man Standing, the 10th battle, Williams wants the baddest to take home some cash. In the past art battles, like my personal favorites, Paint, Sketch or Draw Blood! and The Art of War of Art, participants “won” crowd favor by virtue of applause. This time, there is a diverse panel of judges, who will see that the last man or woman takes home $1000. If I could draw…
Anyway, if you’ve never been to an art battle, this is the one to watch. Over the years, I’ve written over half a dozen articles about Williams’ work. My editors at Creative Loafing Atlanta chose him as a staff pick for Poets, Artists and Madmen in the 2011 Best of Atlanta issue. They invented the category, “Best Local Art Beef” to describe his brand of painterly mayhem.
Like my favorite music journalist, dream hampton, who introduced hip-hop’s critical thinkers to Jay Z, I wanted to readers to see what Fabian Williams is up to and reach the unanimous decision, that this kind of performance art should be as much anticipated as a new album from a classic MC.
Last Man Standing Takes place at the Stuart McClean Gallery on 684 John Wesley Dobbs Avenue, Suite A-1 30312 in the historic old fourth ward.
I first met 2 Chainz, then Tity Boi, in October 2009 after the BET Hip-Hop Awards. I was watching performers exit and chatting with fans and anyone else who wanted to talk. He introduced himself and gave me his cell phone number.
We did not talk again until this interview from fall 2011.
At the time, the artist formerly known as Tity Boy talked collabos, codeine and what he really thinks about hair weaves. This all went down before the release of his Grammy-nominated album, Based on a T.R.U. Story,and his part as a major component to radio rap singles – “The Birthday Song,” and “Mercy,” – with Kanye West, “I Love Dem Strippers,” with Nicki Minaj, the Juicy J and Lil Wayne banger, “Bandz A Make Her Dance,” “I’m Different,” and the A$AP Rocky, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar posse cut, “F*ckin’ Problems” – in a flurry of releases of the past year.
Well-spoken and polite, he’s different, yeah he’s different – very much so than his strip-club and round-rumped birthday gift loving video persona. A lot has changed since my phone conversation to the College Park, Ga. native, born Tauheed Epps. Tity Boy was no more and he was busy re-introducing himself.
“My fans understand me as an artist. I believe in prosperity so I grow with every project. I know each one is better than the last one,” he says. “Everyone has to be better than the last one.”
His previous mixtapes, Codeine Cowboy and T.R.U. REALigion generated only moderate buzz. In 2011, he was promoting his now shelved mixtape, Hair Weave Killa. Instead of breaking down the song content, he made a point to tell me that he doesn’t have a problem with women’s hairstyle choices.
“Hair Weave Killa is just another a.k.a. My whole take is pulling hair whether in the bedroom or partying hard, just sweating it out,” he says, laughing.
As for his “Tity Boi,” moniker, the true meaning has nothing to do with mammary objectification. “It’s a country name,” he explained. “It’s nothing derogatory towards women. It comes from my family. It has to do with being spoiled, being an only child.”
He continues, “My name has always been 2 Chainz. I had them on in my 8th grade yearbook picture. It just kinda happened one day.”
His unceremonious name change came after the release of Playaz Circle’s 2007 album Supply and Demand while on Ludacris’ Disturbing The Peace imprint. The single “Duffle Bag Boy,” featuring Lil Wayne, was their biggest hit. Chainz is still grateful for Wayne’s contribution.
“Not as many people would know me if it wasn’t for Dwayne Carter. I’ve known him for a decade,” he says, “Shouts out to Young Money.”
His connection to Weezy and their shared passion for “purple drank” also had a major influence on Chainz’s mixtape, Me Against the World 2: Codeine Withdrawal. Followers of southern hip hop are intimately familiar with several artists’ love for the sweet but dangerous stuff – Texans DJ Screw and Pimp C are among the drug’s best known casualties.
“If you do too much of anything, it’s bad for you,” 2 Chainz warns. “[Codeine] is prescribed by doctors to help, not abuse.” (At the time of the interview, I was battling a cold and cough. He he said that I could use codeine cough syrup. I stuck to Mucinex).
Whether he’s still sippin’ on sizzurp or not, he’s remained focused since he hit the scene through DTP with childhood friend Earl Conyers a.k.a. Dolla Boy. They chose the name as an acronym of Playaz (Preparing Legal Assets from Years A-Z) to let fans know that they planned to be around for the long haul.
“We had the same common denominator, talking about hustling and making money,” 2 Chainz says about his now long defunct duo.
The two met up with Ludacris through a mutual friend when they lived in the same apartment complex near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. While he and Luda have known each other for more than a dozen years, online rumors circulated that their friendship was strained at the time of the eventual departure. Ludacris cleared the air in a June 2012 interview on New York’s Hot 97, stating that “I still call him Tit. That’s the homie man, that’s family…I’m extremely proud of him.”
At the time of our interview, 2 Chainz offered no details on his relationship with Luda.
As the conversation moved deeper into his past, he was reluctant to talk – particularly about the violence and incarceration of his Playaz Circle rhyme partner that stalled his career. “Where I come from we call that puberty; we consider that part of adolescence. I don’t even want to elaborate on that,” his becoming seriousness. “People get shot.”
Nowadays, 2 Chainz is mostly concerned with shooting videos. When we talked, there was nothing anything unique or unusual happening, nor was there anything indicating that he was on the brink of new success.
Despite the protest of parents, women and proponents of lyrically meaningful hip-hop, his star continues to rise.
The Secret Life of Shannon B 