[Edit: I completely forgot the one song that I really meant to post. Luther Vandross - Dance With My Father. Thanks to that special someone in my life who reminded me about it.]

Hip-hop isn’t known for dedicating many songs to Pops, since there’s too many dead beat dad’s that disregard the responsibility of raising their children.. Better known as cowards.

That’s not to say there aren’t some good ones out there. Here are three cuts plus a bonus non hip-hop song that deserve your attention as you celebrate today.

Happy Father’s Day to the real men out there, Enjoy!

Ed O.G. & The Bulldogs – Be A Father To Your Child

Ja Rule – Daddy’s Little Baby

Nas ft. Olu Dara – Bridging The Gap

Bonus: Cat Stevens – Father & Son

Bonus: Luther Vandross – Dance With My Father

Put this song on repeat.

Wish Olu Dara would play in South Florida!

http://preview.tinyurl.com/covaqj

My man Fokis recently laid a track with Nas’ pops Olu Dara this is that behind the scenes ish.

Check out Fokis as he works with Olu Dara & Producer Dahoud Darien at Kyrstal Clear Recording Studio, on the History remix from the upcoming album “My Name Is Fokis”. – Coming Soon.

Five releases in rotation at home and in the car – a list without comment (in alphabetical order):

The Bad Plus, For All I Care (Heads Up, 2009)

Olu Dara, Neighborhoods (Atlantic, 2001)

Mosquitos, Mosquitos (Bar None, 2003)

Umphrey’s McGee, Mantis (Sci Fidelity, 2009)

Neil Young,  Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968 (Reprise, 2008)

Como los Reyes Majos sigo las señales y aquí os traigo los presentes…

Varios años como esclavo y llega la liberación, no puedo tener mejores noticias.

TRAIGO MUSICA!

Las primeras palabras -de esperanza- son de Rafael, gritadas y susurradas: VIVA LA VIDA!!

Aquí esta el primer RECOPETÍN deseamos lo disfruteis y contribuyáis con sonrisas y lagrimas para vosotros y para nosotros.

Aquí está la carátula:

BONITA CARATULA

Y aquí la música MUSICA MUSICA MUSICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   24 temazos.

Te lo dice al oido<–Descarga

 R-E-V-O-L-U-C-I-O-N-!

 $

Original del 11En09

PLAY: I Been Runnin

I think this song captures how I feel right about now extremely well. Although I usually prefer faster beats, the lyrics on this are succinct, direct and generally really good.

After Johnny filled in real nice on the anthemic “Black President” beside Olu Dara’s son, I was wondering what he’d deliver next. He definitely need not go the same route as Tre Williams or that other guy Nasir had appear on “Just a Moment.” (Quan is his name, but I just forgot it; I think Quan’s doing time, hope he’s aight tho’)

[Shouts to Matt at MAC Media for this]

Conjure. Mumbo jumbo. Hoodoo. Lashings of sexual intercourse.

Upfront. The albums featuring these tunes are (sometimes) available. You are supposed to buy them, not download them, because they are made by a genius, and the musicians deserve to be paid.

I’m posting these to induce you to go and buy all the Conjure and Kip Hanrahan albums available with the money you earned in your job, or with your drug deals and/ or gaggle of whores or stole from your parents.

Kip Hanrahan is one of the most important artists working in any medium today. His genre happens to be music.

Allen Touissaint, Olu Dara, David Murray, Leo Nocentelli, Eddie Harris, Lester Bowie, Michael Cain, Don Pullen, Robbie Ameen, Steve Swallow and Bobby Womack are on some of these tunes. Ritchie Flores, Fernando Saunders, Milton Cardona too. The Conjure albums are texts for the poet Ishmael Reed. The Kip Hanrahan albums are for describing thoughts, desires and fears you didn’t think anyone else ever had, and most of them are to do with sexual intercourse. This music is sui generis, but these happen to stink like an army of baboons on a humid day in a shut-down lard plant. All are produced (or, rather, directed) by Kip Hanrahan.

This is guitar-led bluesy r’n'b styled funk music. I think you’ll like it. If you like a blog called theheaviestfunkintheworld it’s pretty sure you’ll dig it.

Today is the day we give props to all the fathers of the world. The Hip Hop community has always had an issue with the topic of fatherhood because a lot of cats wouldn’t man up to their responsibilities for one reason or another. For that reason, Father’s Day (just like Mother’s Day), has a special meaning to Hip Hop heads because its a time where respect and tribute can be given to the men that made a difference in our lives as we grew up and continue to grow as people. In honor of the fathers of the world we at HNL Hip Hop dedicate this Throwback Sunday edition to those men.

Videos after the jump…

I didn’t know until I searched for this song that there was a video for this. This is from Mr. X to the Z’s 96 banger of an LP At the Speed of Life.

So this isn’t necessarily a throw back but for anything I might say about Will’s music being bubblegum he did have the courage to make a hit record about his son. We feel it’s appropriate for today.

So this one really isn’t a throw back either (can 4 years ago count for today?) but what a joint! Nas alongside his pops Olu Dara from the double album Street’s Disciple. This 12″ saw a lot of needle time from when it droped.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads of the world.

]]> http://getrelated.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/are-you-a-securely-attached-anxiously-attached-or-avoidantly-attached/ Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:27:00 +0000 kyraocity http://getrelated.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/are-you-a-securely-attached-anxiously-attached-or-avoidantly-attached/

Last night went to see Choreographer Dianne McIntyre and Mississippi Bluesman musician Olu Dara (Nas’s dad) in Brooklyn perform Peaches, Plums, and Pontifications at the BRIC Studio. This collaboration between a woman and a man couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I knew, if I ever got a chance to work with Dianne, it would be like a horse and a carriage,” [Olu Dara] said in a recent interview in his apartment in Harlem. “I felt she needed something closer to who she was….She would be fully Dianne,” he added, chuckling, and “I could be fully Olu.”(La Rocco, NYTimes May 25. 2008).

I went to a lovely little restaurant called Scopello in Fort Greene to grab a bite after the show. Had the best ceasar salad with homemade dressing and anchovies I have had in years. Also had the butternut squash ravioli. It was a lovely meal. Struck up a conversation with a man at the bar. He’s an Algerian-born New Yorker now living in Atlanta. (That’s life for you in the 21st century!) The gentleman, a chef by trade, seemed quite interested in our conversation and eventually me. During our conversation, after I shared about Success with the Opposite Sex (TM), I noticed how resigned he is about relating to the opposite sex and romantic relationships. He is not alone, I told him. Most of us in our thirties and forties are saying this, as if it’s true we are never going to be happy.

This got me thinking about how attached we are to having things work and then we give up when the last relationship doesn’t turn out. So I did a little work on attachment for you today. But first a little more about the collaboration I experienced last night in the performance.

Dianne and Olu are…secure individuals working and collaborating together without trying to make it fit. Olu is a ladies’ (emphasis on the plural) man, a playa, a sweet-talkin’, bullshittin’, cut-you-to-the-core-with-laughter, bluesman who makes the greatest live musical experiences I have ever had. Dianne’s choreography is from Slavery and Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance Reloaded for the 21st century. It’s Improvisational downhome-edness with rigorous dance technique. She asked the audience how we would describe Peaches, Plums, and Pontifications after the show. I said “There are a lot of themes about death and rejuvenation. It’s like the blues come alive.” What I left thinking about relative to attachment from their collaboration is, they have no attachment to how things should be, how they should work together, they are just totally connected without changing a thing about the other. KnowwhatImean???!!??

CONDITIONS OF ATTACHMENT (cf. John Bowlby’s Theory):

“When potential threats are perceived, secure individuals should remain confident that current [partners] will be attentive, responsive, and available to meet their needs and mitigate their distress. These beliefs should increase their feelings of security, deactivating their [need for] attachment … and allowing secure individuals to use constructive, problem-focused coping strategies. …

[W]hen [insecurely attached] individuals who are anxiously attached perceive threats, they are likely to be uncertain that their attachment figures will be sufficiently attentive, available, and responsive to their needs. These worries should sustain their anxiety and keep their attachment systems online, leading anxious persons to adopt emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., remaining hypervigilant to signs of possible loss, ruminating about worst-case scenarios).

When individuals who are avoidantly attached feel threatened [i.e., trust issues abound], they are likely to experience—but perhaps not consciously acknowledge—distress and anxiety at a physiological level. To keep their attachment systems deactivated, these individuals would be expected to strive to inhibit and control their emotions by deploying avoidant coping strategies.

[PROBABLE RESPONSES:] Securely attached individuals, for example, [usually] focus on building greater intimacy with their attachment figures. Individuals who are insecurely attached … cope differently, consistent with the particular form of insecurity they manifest. Those who are anxiously attached [often] yearn to achieve greater “felt security” [perhaps experienced as "neediness" in lay terms]. Those who are avoidantly attached [often] strive to obtain and maintain interpersonal autonomy and control [I'm fine and I don't need you. /I can do bad by myself .].”
(Simpson, Jeffry A. et. al. 2007. “Attachment and the Experience and Expression of Emotions in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 92, No. 2: 355–367.)

So where are you right now? You could be in a different space tomorrow? Just check in right now. Are you a securely attached individual, an anxiously attached individual, or an avoidantly attached individual when it comes to SUCCESS with the OPPOSITE SEX (TM)?? Where are you on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being securely attached and 5 being avoidantly attached?

One day I am gonna get y’all to really reply instead of lurking out their anonymously. LOL!
Oh me? Where am I? Today, with no one calling and me not calling anyone, I might say that I am a 5, avoidantly attached. Hey but I have an adult playdate today with a male friend who adores me. And I am not avoiding it. LOL!

Olu Dara, a guitarist, cornet player (is there a word for this? Cornetist?), and father to Nas.
While he’s definitely been eclipsed by his son in terms of fame and fortune, that’s no indication of his talent and spirit.
Neighborhoods was Dara’s sophomore album and one heavily influenced by god.
Posting up a few songs by him and his son’s song “life’s a bitch”. Dara played cornet on it at the end and its interesting to think about what talks the two might have together. What their relationship is like and how the teach each other.

Olu Dara – Strange Things Happen Everyday

Olu Dara – Herbman

Olu Dara – Used To Be

Love the intonation he puts on “foxy” in the first line.

Nas – Life’s a Bitch

Bridging The Gap