Outasight Drop for GangstarrGirl.com from Starrene on Vimeo.

See feature below.

It’s human nature to generalize, compartmentalize and label, especially when it comes to music. There’s “gangsta” rap, “conscious” rap, “hipster” rap and when it comes white R&B crooners, “blue eyed soul.” But what happens when those eyes are hazel green?

I did my research on him before we met but I still didn’t know what to expect that early December night when I walked into Earth Matters, an organic market/cafe tucked away on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. But there he was, the dark haired olive-skinned white boy who has got to be the love child of Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder, Mos Def and Maroon 5. He was laid back, wearing a blue button down shirt topped with a black and gray striped cardigan, gray pants and red and black hi-top Adidas, while eating a veggie burger. So this was Outasight? The man who should now be on every Gangstarr Girl’s radar.

Since creating an online buzz with the release of his June LP Radio New York, the Yonkers native has gone on to sign a three album deal with Select Records (in November), and has been featured by premier websites like Okayplayer.com and XXLMag.com. He even beat Jack Bauer (not really but kind of) in a competition where the end result was his video for “Good Evening (Dream Big)” being placed in rotation on MTVU. Everything about him came together as I engaged him in conversation. He’s witty, funny, cute, unassuming and smart–everything that is Gangstarr. He chopped it up with me about his burgeoning career, why he likes Gangstarr Girls and how he manages to create his own lane in the world of hip-hop soul.

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*Dances around like the people in the red sequence in Emerald City, from The Wiz

I’ve been dying my hair for about 6 years now. It’s been black, brownish-bronze and cherrywood but the color that seems to have struck a chord is the red that I rock now. I get a lot of compliments on the color and people often ask how I dye my hair, and tend to be shocked that I do it myself. I retouched recently so I decided to blog it.

Look at the roots. Not cute.

Tips:
1. Lightening your hair first with welloxide will always guarantee brighter results.

2. Be careful with lightening your hair first because it’s an extremely drying process. Your hair’s natural emollients will return in a few weeks, but if you have a perm or some other type of chemically processed hair, lighten it one day, then wait until the next day to apply dye.

3. If you aren’t down with lightening your hair, no worries. You may not get the brightest results, but adding an extra five minutes to how ever long you should let the dye sit, in the first place, helps. You can also try two boxes at once. That’s what I do when I’m too lazy to pre-lighten.

4. Don’t think that natural hair is invincible, it can still fall out from overdrying. It happened to me a few years ago. I got dye happy and reapplied the second I saw new growth (about once a week) and my hair started thinning around the edges. I waited about 6 months before I dyed again. After that, I only dyed my hair about once every two months (sometimes longer).

5. Dying can be frustrating for some because everyone is different, hair included (obviously). Some people’s hair may have a harder time taking to dye than others. I read that when I did my research (it has to do with porosity and all this scientific stuff), but I’ve also seen it in real life. What may work for someone else may not work for you.

I’ve tried Creme of Nature, Clairol (regular), Feria and Clairol’s Tones and Textures (specifically for women of color). My number one is Clairol’s Tones and Textrues. The runner up is Creme of Nature. I didn’t like Feria or the original Clairol because I could tell it was for someone with thin, stringy hair. Plus, they weren’t as user friendly.

The color that stuck for me is:

Red Hot Red! My signature!

My hair is getting long so I need two boxes (and that’s how I discovered that two boxes also intensifies the color).

Step 1: Apply

The directions say to leave it on for about 20 minutes if your hair is permed or chemically processed in any way, and 30 minutes if you’re natural. My hair is loc’d and therefore harder to penetrate, so I leave it on for about 40 minutes (under a shower cap so that the dye doesn’t get all over the place).

Rinse thoroughly! This is the most tedious part because you have to rinse it until the water runs clear. This is really important because any left over dye can cause your hair to break off, even if your hair is loc’d.

This is me after the first rinse. I rinse and repeat about four or five times because it’s harder to wash my locs out, like I said. I like to take brief breaks to give my arms a rest.

After a couple of rinses I move on to deep conditioning. I use Pantene’s “Red” Expressions conditioner in addition to an hour hot oil treatment. I love using coconut oil because it smells wonderful, and leaves my hair soft and supple, even after I rinse it out (sometimes I just leave it in depending on how much I use).

And when I’m finally good to go–hair dry and twisted–It looks like this…

NAAAANG!!!!

Marvo

*WARNING* Please read part 1 and part 2 before you continue.

Howie McDuffie, a music industry insider greets Marvo and Creature. McDuffie owns a record label, Howie McDuffie Music
Group ─ and has done artist development for Mos Def, WU-Tang, Big Pun, etc. He admires the gumption Marvo and Creature show as independent artists.

“These guys are the truth. These guys are moving more units than probably a commercial artist like Chamillionaire,” McDuffie said. “Chamillionaire is platinum, but if him, Jay-Z, Jada Kiss, went on the corner and did this shit, I think fans would look at them a little different.”

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Creature

*WARNING* Read part 1 before you continue.

Creature and Marvo migrate during the day, like H The Great. However, they mainly stay in the West Village.
As if instantly on cue, Aerz Nights, an A&R rep for up-and-comer, Skyzoo, appeared in front of the group. He heard what Creature said and was ironically coming from 14th Street, where he almost had an altercation with one of the “Neanderthals.”

“It’s funny because I see them messing with people all the time, but they don’t usually be messing with me like that,” said Aerz. “But today I was really about to hurt dude.”

Aerz says the “Neanderthal” who got out of line with him tried to force him to buy a CD by demanding so in a hostile tone of voice. He also flexed as if he were going to push or throw a punch. An altercation did not ensue, but for the most part, what Creature describes as being an artistpreneur is more refined and respectable. Marvo, who has been a full-time artistpreneur for a little over a year, says that he originally did not respect people who are doing what he’s doing today.
“Before I started doing this, I used to come to Fat Beats and walk past the Virgin Mega Store, and I used to be embarrassed for the dudes that was doing this,” Marvo says. “I would look down on the dudes that were doing this but now, I can say that this is the best job I ever had.”

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Have you ever been approached by an unknown rapper on the street, trying to sell you his music? This is the true story of their hustle. I spent some time with a couple of rappers that I met and gained new insight on what they do for a living. It was originally intended for a magazine, but it never got picked up. Instead, I posted it up on hiphopdx.com. But I love the story so much, I decided to give it new life and repost. Enjoy…

Hustling is not a foreign concept to the Hip-Hop culture. Numerous references to “the hustle” and “the struggle” by various rappers can be found on vinyl, disc, MP3s or anywhere Hip-Hop is sold. Some hustles are illegal, others are legit, but the concept surmounts simply being recorded and transcends into reality. H the Great, Marvo (formerly known as Marvalous) and Creature are living proof.

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It’s a triple feature! Yaaaay! These are some of my favorite movies ever:

Uptown Saturday Night

1974

This flick was unique because it was atypical of the other movies in the genre because whereas the other flicks were pretty much about down with whitey and killing, the man, this one was about two average guys (Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby) who got caught up in drama when their wallets get stolen at a seedy nightclub they were visiting–one problem–one of the wallets contained a winning lottery ticket so they went on a hunt for their rightful property. And that’s what happens when you go uptown Saturday night, lol. It was directed by Sidney Poitier. Uptown got soooo popular that it spawned two spin-offs that did equally as well.

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I didn’t do one last week so why not get a bit of a jump start, a couple of hours ahead of time? Today’s feature is a unique double feature becuase one flick is about the making of the other. It’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, 1971.

Produced, written and directed by Melvin Van Peebles, this film is considered to be the flick that started the “blaxploitation” genre. Although techincally, blaxploitation movies previously existed (The Big Doll House and When Cotton Comes to Harlem–to name a few) this was the most paramount and controversial, rendering it an almost unheard of (at the time) “X” rating. It’s the tale of Sweetback (who earned his name at 13 while losing his virginity to a grown woman–a prostitute who came on to him) played by Melvin’s son Mario, who saved a Black Panther from the cops by killing the harassing office, then going on the run from “The Man” and successfully getting away. The tagline for this flick is “The film the man doesn’t want you to see.”

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Black Caesar, 1973

Plot: Foine a$$ Fred Williamson stars as Tommy Gibbs a man raised in the ghetto who grows up to become Harlem’s top kingpin. Angry at the racist society around him…

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