Screw the term “light-skinned pretty” — I say we bring on “brown-skinned pretty.” Watch this.
The lyrics are tight (and readable), but the flashing images in the video clip just make me lean back and go, “Word…!” Bad ass video stumble courtesy of the website The Poet Project, virtual home base to Canada’s Humble the Poet otherwise known as the photographic Kanwer Singh.
“Appearances can be deceiving, and Toronto based artist Humble The Poet has used every misconception and assumption about him to amplify his message to the masses. … His first public release, Voice for the Voiceless, is a social commentary on the Taboos of the South Asian community, and has been the subject of acclaim and reference during public discourse on topics ranging on domestic abuse, violence in the community.[poetproject]”
I’m really impressed with his lyrics – it’s clear this guy is poetic musician verses flipped around and he understands the power of words (Not many hip-hop artists would have lyrics dance across their videos).
I’m a fan of the conscious hip-hop, but this guy’s clean flow and smart lyrics just put him on another level. You can bop your head and get educated. I’d not heard of him before this comment – anyone know who this cat is? I just found my latest twitter crush to follow.
This guy’s amazing, very powerful.
Very powerful.
They should play his video Voice for the Voiceless in very high school with young “Indo-Canadians” (that’s what they call us in Canada). Definitely in Surrey where I am from. Have friends who have lost family (or even been attacked themselves) over ridiculously random stupid altercations. The Bleaching cream video is great too – hell, even TMBWITW used to pitch that stuff.
watching the kids with the dolls at the end was just crushing.
It’s pretty amazing that you think a guy blandly rhyming on the most basic concepts about skin color is a “poet” with “clean flow and smart lyrics.” That says a lot about your baseline for hip hop, poetry, and music in general.
Also, I like how the foxy browns and lauryn hills that are held up as paragons of black beauty are, if not as caucasian-featured as black girls can get, then pretty close to it. The lines sure got flipped.
At least Jahcoozi has good beats and lyrics that, as straight-forward as they are, are positively edgy compared to this dope.
I’d say the second video is better than the first, the initial lyrics aren’t synched well with the following tape of the study of the children. It would have made more sense to remix the audio/video of the study in some way to make them stronger. Hard to beat that final scene of the girl having to choose the ‘bad’ doll as the representation of herself.
To Builder goes the prize though, that song has Much better lyrics, and while the visuals are just the photo of the girl (I’m assuming the artist as a child), I was kept busy listening to the lyrics and their meaning.
ouch on the first vid.
lol on the jahcoozi vid psted yb builder. dntbeso bitter budlier man.
I didn’t find the songs entertaining or educational.
I was touched by the young children in the doll experiment though. Makes me want to try that experiment on my American born “wheatish” toned nieces to see what they think.
Lauren Hill Caucasian featured??? This is troll bait, right?
The doll test is part of a 7 min. short film called “A Girl Like Me,” and based on similar 1940s tests that were used in the Brown v. Board desegregation case.
We can be absolutely certain that in India the number of not just kids but even adults who prefer the lighter skinned doll over the one that looked like themselves will be far higher than the 15 out of 21 in the video of these african american kids. That is how pathetically beaten down the indian psyche is.
Builder, give the girl a break. She tried. You can’t expect people who did not grow up living, breathing and sleeping hip hop 24/7 in their environment to be true connaisseurs and authoritative critques of the same.
Here’s some.
We can be absolutely certain that in India the number of not just kids but even adults who prefer the lighter skinned doll over the one that looked like themselves will be far higher than the 15 out of 21 in the video of these african american kids
don’t you think that unlike these kids they are likely to pick the light-skinned doll as looking like “themselves” because that’s what their own self-conception is? i think non-whites in the united states who live in a majority white society simply are used to thinking of themselves as dark-skinned; that’s just what we are on a relative scale no matter how light brown someone might be. in contrast it seems in societies where there is a continuum of complexion instead of a “binning” into white/non-white, such as india or brazil, everyone seems to try and assert they are a shade or two lighter than they really are objectively (e.g., very dark-skinned afro-brazilians tend not to want to refer to themselves as ‘preta,’ black, excepting those who have been influenced by afrocentric thinking).
i do wish that people could engage in anti-prejudice and anti-racism consciousness raising without being anti-white. just because you think black or brown is beautiful doesn’t mean that white isn’t alright.
True. Many Desis in Desh say that they are Caucasian and “aryan” is often used.
the anti-white rhetoric is mostly a ruse. the unmentioned but implicitly understood strategy is to fight white racism by overcompensating on the other side. instill your kids with racialist or ethnocentric pride and when they inevitably encounter white supremacy and eurocentrism they simply revert back to a neutral, ie non-racist, middle ground, rather than self-hatred.
say it loud i’m black and i’m proud
James Brown reminds me, here’s some real flow.
@GoanTGF: You don’t have to even come close to breathing hip hop, or any other form of art, to have some basic ability to discern something of substance from, say, total crap.
They can and they do. White people also engage in the same, as well as ethnic-pride, without indulging in anti-non-white hate, but the thing is, in today’s multi-culti-we-are-all-the-same-world, anyone who shows pride in their culture, ethnicity, whatever, whether it be brown-pride, white-pride, black-pride, whatever, they are often accused of being racist, when in reality, they are not anti-anyone-else, they are just pro-their-own-culture, and that’s OK.
Crap is relative. For instance, as much as I respect Jahcoozi, (and I do have a couple of her songs and we did blog about her plenty already on SM, and we’ve NEVER blogged about this guy before) when her song comes up on my ipod shuffle, I tend to press skip and go to the next song. If humble poet came on, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t press skip. Thus, if skipping songs are any indication of CRAP, then to me, Jahcoozi is CRAP. And Humble the Poet isn’t.
Like I said, Builder, crap is relative. And yours is tinged with elitist blipster.
You are using self-delusion as a justification for what can only be described as self-loathing 🙂
Have you heard of that ancient invention called the “mirror”?
It’s not as if there is not a continuum of skin-tone in the U.S…. even among “white” people…
I grew up in a small town in Maine where most people where of French or Irish descent… since I am partly Croatian , my skin-tone is darker, a color I call ‘olive’ (image the shade of a very light toned Panjabi, for example)… as a ‘dark’ white person, I was often singled out as ‘ethnic’ or asked where I was from/if I was from this or that place much more often. As a little child, I thought my olive skin made me look ‘dirty’ (compared to the pinkish people around me) and I remember trying to scrub that color off in the shower.
As I got older, I felt that my skin tone and very dark hair made me feel unique, and became quite proud of my heritage.
Taz,
forgive the impertinence, but in what aesthetic is the following considered “smart” or “conscious?”
when I think of palestinians who died this century Over 6 milli, like the israelis are competing wit nazis Stop me, if Im lying, cop these, vivid rhymes
If this isn’t testimony to the connection between desi and african culture, I don’t know what is.
Note: “I accept your parents as my own”.
Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
Desi mother-in-law found in African Tribe!
n today’s multi-culti-we-are-all-the-same-world, anyone who shows pride in their culture, ethnicity, whatever, whether it be brown-pride, white-pride, black-pride, whatever, they are often accused of being racist,
the video above has a lot of unflattering depictions of white women. i don’t think talking about how lauryn hill is a hot sister, or a nubian queen, or whatever, is racist or anti-white. but the juxtaposition was what irritated me. being into your own culture doesn’t always necessitate denigrating others.
“Aryan” is probably extreme BS, like “Caucasian”, but sooner or later, most people, and even researchers, will realize/grasp that white people are simply the northern-sun-bleached variety of browns. ie, not the default setting.
Personally, i like Humble the poet better. Both jahcoozi and htp are cliche as hell, but i find htp’s voice/flow better than jahcoozi’s. I don’t get whats wrong with what saying israeli’s are competing against nazi’s. I’m not taking it for fact or anything, but its not a terrible rhyme or anything like that. And it can be considered conscious because the msm doesn’t really talk about palestinan deaths. The public opinion in america probably thinks palestinan=hammas. But, even if you disagree and don’t think its a smart/conscious rap, how is that any worse than jahcoozi rappin about a guy who’ll go down on her?
Its always funny to me when people say one artist is crap and this artist is better. Nobody can tell me who is better than who. Only i can make that choice. Jahcoozi isn’t bad and i don’t think htp is great, but i will certainly cop some of his music.
“Aryan” is probably extreme BS, like “Caucasian”, but sooner or later, most people, and even researchers, will realize/grasp that white people are simply the northern-sun-bleached variety of browns. ie, not the default setting.
minor scientific note. the genetic data suggest that:
1) humans developed dark skin more 1 million years ago, probably when we lost our fur. we know this because of the nature of the genes which cause skin color variation.
2) genuinely pale humans are recent, probably within the last 10,000 years, though light brown people have probably been around longer (though neandertals likely had red hair and were pale, but i don’t know if you want call them humans).
so the “default” human setting is dark skin. but the “default” primate setting is not. like our speech or hairlessness dark skin is a human innovation.
Yeah, how could stupid Americans think that, given that Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas. . . .
Razib once again makes the best point here.
I’ll watch it again, but I don’t think white people are tottering on the edge of developing low self esteem because they are the default comparison for black or brown folk. Can you imagine being thought of so much? Its the greatest compliment actually.
He should’ve juxtaposed that 2 decade old pic of Lauryn with a latest one. Have you seen her recently? Oprah in a clown suit.
25 · razib on May 25, 2009 02:06 AM · Direct link “Aryan” is probably extreme BS, like “Caucasian”, but sooner or later, most people, and even researchers, will realize/grasp that white people are simply the northern-sun-bleached variety of browns. ie, not the default setting. minor scientific note. the genetic data suggest that: 1) humans developed dark skin more 1 million years ago, probably when we lost our fur. we know this because of the nature of the genes which cause skin color variation. 2) genuinely pale humans are recent, probably within the last 10,000 years, though light brown people have probably been around longer (though neandertals likely had red hair and were pale, but i don’t know if you want call them humans). so the “default” human setting is dark skin. but the “default” primate setting is not. like our speech or hairlessness dark skin is a human innovation.
Razib,
I’ve read something quite a few years ago that contradicts some of what you’re saying. I read that human races only started occuring about 30,000 years aog. This article was a little “tree-hugging” and what I call “feel-good” science. It was also quite PC.
BTW, I also read that the default setting for humans is pale skin and dark hair – like chimpanzees!
Brown-Black-Oriental is the world majority…white in world terms is a minority..so why the complex for the coloured man??
i thought your poinrt was better, suki
because of the massive power imbalance present in the modern world? The last few empires are/were all predominantly white (Britain, Russia, USA). They had many people within them who were important economically, but the power-brokers were predominantly white. The focus of power has been shifting though, from the USA, diffusing East (to the EU) and West (to China and to a lesser extent India).
Why do black americans feel downtrodden by white men? Because they are? Indians? Ever read about the British Raj? Africans? Jamaicans? Pacific Islanders? Australian Aborigines? Sure, numbers are imporant, but then, so is money . . .
I’m a white guy (as in German, Irish, Danish white), and there are a Few things to apologise for. At least our Australian ‘dear leader’ Kevin Rudd did Something about the past when he apologised. There have been some Pretty messed up things done by those who speak the Queen’s English (or the King’s, depending on what decade). Not that most nations as a whole aren’t above a good bit of slaughter now and then, but I don’t speak for them, I’m a white guy.
I’m a white guy (as in German, Irish, Danish white), and there are a Few things to apologise for.
Yay, white guilt!!!!!!!!
So, pale white Europeans are the highest evolution of our species?
I keed. I keed.
Interspersing the vid with pics of white girls like the neo-Nazi tween folk group (twins with Hitler smiley face t-shirts) is needlessly inflammatory. The internalized racism of African-Americans can be blamed on white media to a large extent, but last time I checked Bollywood is run be desis. Indian ‘fair skin” color preference predates European colonialism and I have no doubt Hollywood/European media are more open to representative examples of Indian beauty than Indian media are
While Obama’s victory does not change the economic position of African-Americans I hope it does bring about rapid changes in how kids view themselves
Hmmmm…. I think Ju Ju Mama gets it right here, in the Quantum Perspective on the African Slave Trade – Finding Love – Healing Humans
Though Australia’s gesture is certainly commendable. I hope it doesn’t feed further into dysfunction (like the US welfare system does) but can actually serve to empower people in a real, concrete way.
You’ve got to be kidding, right?
The Nazi’s thought that they were purifying the human race by shoving Jews, the mentally challenged, gypsies, etc. into ovens.
Isrealis think that they are protecting themselves from Hamas when they fight. You could argue that they are “defending” themselves too aggresively but comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is just B.S.
But does it predate the conquest of India by the relatively fair skinned muslim invaders? The indian epics/puranas tell us that in ancient times the bias was in favor of dark/black skin: Rama, Krishna, Draupadi et all are all described as kalas.
Indians have been an abjectly defeated race for a very long time and even after “independence” the servile mentality of a subjugated race continues to define and demean the indian psyche.
Bulleh Shah, Haven’t you read your Congress-approved Indian history books? Muslims were not invaders, they were tourists blown off course, who became very popular with the locals and had many, many willing and unforced converts! 😉
Well, based on his blog that does seem to be the judgement of our resident euro-obsessed geneticist. Pretty ignorant when you consider that the northern blond race he lusts after were considered barbarians by the greeks and romans; and many of whom were enslaved by “less evolved” mongols, arabs and turks for centuries.
Yeah, but just look how far they’ve come.
The only constant in this world is change.
Fair and Lovely Skin-Lightening Cream Ad
Dark & Lovely
Kala Bane Ga
Hum Kaale Hai To Kya Hua
Some white/pink people actually think I got a awesome skincolor. I smile/laugh when I see arabs and turks who have taken alot sun tanning to get that skincolor I got. For those aryan/nazi believing people “try to compare the runic alphabets vs sanskrit and see who is most advanced” Pinky Please!
Dude WTF!
If you dont like me for my skincolor.. you just lost a friend.
Brown&Proud/Dark&Lovely
But the thing is, Pinkies don’t harp on about the past. Pinkies don’t give a damn which civilization was the most advanced 1, 2, 3, or 13,000 years ago.
For such type of conversations you have to engage with Dravidians, Arya Samajees, 2012 psychics, Moors, 5%ers, 777ers and KMTians.
Pinkies are all about the here and now and even more than that – the future.
Israel is not protecting themselves from Hamas — Hamas is protecting itself from Israel, which displaced and destroyed existing arab villages to make way for Israel. Hamas came into existence as a counter to Israel’s continued encroachment on what is left of palestine. Israel continues to destroy Arab homes and replacing them with homes and settlements for Jews only, Jews who are of European descent almost exclusively.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8020825.stm
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LO377494.htm
Has anyone here read White Teeth with Zadie Smith? Razib reminds me of Dr. Sick and Magid from the book. He has the anglophilia masking as science thing going.
How did those villages in Israel become “arab,” being outside of Arabia? More Muslim tourists who lost their way and became popular with the locals?
When did it become Jewish? Why not pave Israel over for some dark skinned Congolese?
Well, Lulu, one needs justified principles of acquisition and transfer in property–neither the Congolese nor the Arabs have a legitimate claim on Israel, I’m afraid. Nor the Turks on Turkey, but that’s another story.
my vote is for Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist Though the fictional character had an easier time passing, and moved in a social circle more upscale than Steve Sailer &Co, there is a resemblance.