Cdot The Catalyst is a dope lyricist who I’ve been chatting with on Twitter and iChat since last year. She’s cool, uber smart, talented, and well, definitely under exposed. We’ve had so many great talks and I love her irreverence and snark so much that I wanted her to submit this piece explaining her identity as a “femcee.” (I was supposed to post this months ago as part of a project that I never really got off the ground but that’s another story). Check out C Dot The Catalyst as she breaks down her disdain for the “f word” (femcee) and why Nicki Minaj gives her hope…

Words By C Dot The Catalyst

Apparently the tweets is watchin’ and reading my mind because I noticed a trending topic that read #becauseofnickiminaj…now aside from reading the obvious comments about chipmunk voices, Barbie personas and butt pads, I had my own response. “because of Nicki Minaj…I might have a chance.” My name is Charity Clay and I’m a woman and an emcee. I have difficulties with the term femcee because it implies that the term emcee is normalized to be a guy and I don’t think mic skills have a gender. I consider myself to be a lyricist and only measure myself by who I consider to be the best, but I digress. I was talking about how the popularity of Nicki Minaj is a good thing for us women in hip-hop who consider ourselves to be emcees. Now one would assume that my claim to be a lyricist would indicate some desire to reject the Nicki Minajes of the world because of the belief that they are destroying the purity of hip-hop but I have a different perspective on the situation.
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Yaaay for creative well thought out videos!

A lot of folks are taking back to the 60s these days. I’m not mad but what’s up with that? lol

BET premiered My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip-Hop last night and it was good, really good. I was actually surprised at how good it was. The filmmakers did a superb job conveying the tremendous impact of those of the xx variety on the culture. I didn’t learn anything new but it was informative enough for people who may have needed that lesson.

However, there wasn’t much of a solution presented. They tried at the end but most of the people they interviewed had a very industry way of thinking ie, shallow and narrow-minded.

“For me to try to find another Lauryn Hill is like for me to try to find another Jay-Z. That’s not happening. It’s like you don’t find those things those things find us,” said Kevin Liles.

That’s part of the problem.

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This is the last installment of my chat with Jessica Estevez of iHeartDilla.com. Here we talk about so-called tastemakers taking payola to promote artists, women in hip-hop and how Jessica got into J Dilla. Make sure you check her out at www.BlackWeblogAwards.com and vote for her for “Best Music Blog.” Tomorrow is the last day to cast your votes!

Blogger Sessions With iHeartDilla.com Pt 2 from GangStarrGirl.com on Vimeo.

CLICK HERE for part 1.

I attended a nice dinner with R&B singer/songwriter Tank along with a few other journos and bloggers a couple of weeks ago, at a Chinese Restaurant called Chin Chin. We dined on good Chinese, as in, there was no General Tso’s or chicken wings and pork fried rice on the menu lol, and we chatted with Tank as we listened to some of his music, old and new.

Tank is promoting is new album, Now or Never, which drops on September 21. We only heard snippets of the new stuff and our chatter was raucous so it was hard to pay attention but what I did manage to hear was good. The main point of this dinner was for Tank to get to know the media because although he has done some interviews here and there, people still don’t really know who he is.

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www.poepicasso.com

Bedy-Stuy, that is…

It’s a cute video and definitely a nice song to rock out at a bbq. If I were a DJ I’d spin it.

Fresh Daily- “In the Stuy (On my mind)” from CHANCLETAFILMS on Vimeo.

Keep up with Fresh via his Twitter.

What a beautiful message. I needed this.

Thanks Maroon Dawta (and India Arie).

This is so much better than that “Massive Attack” disaster.

She looked really nice and I loved the Samurai theme. I chuckled at the melodramatic ending but Michael Jai White was definitely a nice touch.

What people don’t realize is that Nicki Minaj is a true thespian. That’s why I don’t mind the dramatics in her wardrobe and the videos and the crazy voices (sans the Barbie talk). I get it because I grew up a theater kid too. Her music is still hit or miss for me but I know from personal experience that she’s very talented. She’s going to go far.

Nice!

Jesse Boykins III – Amorous (Official Music Video) from Jesse Boykins III on Vimeo.