Without Further Ado.... I Give you M.I.A.

So here it is in a nutshell: Atrice, Sam and Culture Snobette journeyed to a far away land, Philly, to witness the sounds and sights of the MIA, Santogold & Cool Kids Tour.





Santi was up first. I had the privilege of bumping into her on the streets of the east village a couple of weeks prior to the concert, and i truly like her. Santi's music is soo different than what most artists are pushing right now. And though there are many comparisons to her and MIA, upon further listening they become apples and oranges. Not to mention that she was one of the geniuses behind Res's Album
How I Do back in 2001.

Her live performance great, and towards the end of her set she brought on SpankRock and Amanda Blank to do Loose (aka She ain't nuthin but a hootchie mama).


SPANK RIZZLE

After Santi ripped, then came the Cool Kids. Who, unfortunately I just couldn't get with. They rapped about Bikes (black Mags or some nonsense like that), sneakers and other boy-stuff that just was not meant to be Snob-Approved....Simply not my cup of tea.


BOY #2 of The Cool Kids
Boy#1 wouldn't stand still long enough for a proper shot.


Next we had the Main Event, the Meat & potatoes, the center piece of this 3 ring circus, MIA.


MIA came out looking like a cross between George Clinton and DanceHall Queen 2025!!

She stood behind this sparkly podium thing and queued up her visual art for each song.



MIA had crazy energy during her performance, which included the ubiquitous stage dive, followed by a full lap around the crowd.




She closed her encore with Paper Planes, a song that brags of her abilities to produce visas, "I make 'em all day, ... I'll get one down in a second if you wait" are her words to be exact. But much to the contrary MIA mentioned during her encore that this was her last performance in the states and that she probably wouldn't be back for a while; she garbled something about having to wait till bush was out of office(1/20/09 in case you're wondering).

Well. we're glad we got our piece of MIA while we could.....

Oh and by the way, those 3 obnoxious girls bullying their way to the front, stepping on your shoes and laughing at your foreign clothes...yeah that was us

Great success!!!

Questionable Cover-age

Fact #245 about Culture Snobette: I am a Newsstand Addict!!
I absolutely adore magazines and publications in general and have been known to spend large amounts of Other People's Money on my voracious mag appetite.
So as apart of my self-imposed 12 Steps, I no longer have to buy each mag that I want/NEED. Thanks to steps 6 & 7, I can now simply peruse the covers, smell the pages and leave Universal News with my fix fully satisfied.

Anyway, while browsing the racks, I came across a few covers that were questionable to say the least, and others that were in clear Violation of The Culture Code of Ethics.

First up was Marie Claire


Christina, Whoring out your pregnancy for media coverage is a sad and dangerous game...We all saw what happened to Britney.... Now they only see mommy on saturdays and sundays between 12-4.

NOT SNOB-APPROVED!

Next up is KING


Now while I don't really expect much from this urban men's mag...I do expect more from it's cover girl Angel Melaku. Her parents are Ethiopian and Trinidadian and I hope they raised her better than this. Even if she is trying to parlay this videoHo thang (and yes, i did say thang!!) into an acting, singing, heck even book deal, she must know that know one is gonna take her seriously with such a huge ass. Point blank.
For further inspection


Hate to break it to ya...but you'll be doing bootie mags and BET Uncut till that thing starts to sag.
By the way Real or Fake????

NOT SNOB-APPROVED!

Last and definitely least is XXL



Lil Wayne. I'm over it. Period.

Coming from someone that grew up on AND with hip hop, someone who pressed their face to the window as The Notorious BIG's motorcade rolled pass that bleak day in Brooklyn, someone who has walked with the Greats (okay, maybe not all of that, but I was at an LL Cool J videoshoot and shook his hand).....Lil Wayne is neither great, nor good, muchless is his crap acceptable to anyone who has even heard of the word quality.

If you wanna listen to crappy hip hop while you're up in the club (Lil John & Ying Yang Twins), or even when you're taping your friends for YouTube (Chicken Noodle Soup & Soulja Boy), that's all well and good. But please people, Please I Implore you, don't exhalt these carbon copy "rappers" to the heights of Biggie, Tupac, Big L, Rakim.

And Most importantly "DON'T BELIVE THE HYPE" - Public Enemy



DEFINITELY NOT SNOB-APPROVED!

A-Train Girl Gang Attacks....

I recently came across this article and video on the website The Smoking Gun.
A gang of teenage girls attack a grown man on the A Train in Bedstuy section of Brooklyn.


Sounds crazy right... and whats even shadier is that the video was submitted to YouTube by one of the girls, who is an aspiring video director....

Smells fishy ehh?? ...Funny either way, to me at least

Check out the video, and tell me what you think...

By the Way, Meet My Homies Writer's Block

Hey Culture Snobbers out there, I wanna introduce you to my Spoken Word family Writer's Block.



This artist collective consist of a rotating cast of colorful and super-talented characters: Kesed Ragin, Soulful Jones, Falu, Jason Reynolds, Shanelle Gabrielle and last but definitely not least, the leader of the pack, RIP.



Each artist has reached heights of notoriety in their own right and under the suggestion of RIP have joined forces to destroy the existence of sucky poetry (no finger snapping please!!),and to knock the spoken word scene on its ass!!

Hmmm reminds me of another group......


I, Culture Snobbette, know all of them personally, and can attest to their lyrical capabilities, (ie: they are all FIERCE on the mic).

Therefore, it is soo very necessary to catch their debut performance at the Bowery Poetry Club on December 20 at The Black Power Poetry Party!!




Writer's Block is teaming up A.L.I.E.N. , the omniscient downtown extraterrestrials, to bring y'all this fly ass poetry set and super party.

Check Out their Trailer, and feel free to hit up their Myspace for more tracks and pics.

Diary of a Hustla!!

Yo, so i finally got my lazy ass out of bed and down to willamsburg to flip some barely worn clothes into COLD HARD CASH

The first stop was Buffalo Exchange on Driggs ave



I had heard many comparisons of Buffalo and Beacon's; some good some not so good.
Either way if they'd buy the shit i was slingin'...then they're fine by me.

Unfortunately: this place was a shithole: they're buying practices are lame. They only wanted items from current seasons, which is absolutely ridiculous. And they have no innate sense of style; which can severly thwart one's attempts to bump last season's mis-purchases and let-downs.

Let me put it to u this way...if i saw one more J Crew v-neck for $40, i was gonna storm out the door, holding back the vomit that their poor selection induced.

So from all my good shit they bought, a dress and a pair of Skiing gloves
SUB TOTAL: $17.55

Next I was on to that old stalwart of second and vintage shopping, Beacon's Closet



Now i've had good days and bad days at Beacon's and recently i was on the verge of ruling them out of my shopping rotation. but today they redeemed themselves.
At the selling counter i bumped into a stylist friend of mine, we started catching up and the associates over heard which Fly ASS Store i work for. I'm pretty sure that helped to sway their purchases from me...but shit, it ain't gonna hurt nobody!!

So Beacon's came thru and picked up most of my things for really good price (ex: the bought a dress for $25, and i paid $5 for it. NICE!)
I don't know what Buffalo was thinking, but they missed out on my Goodies!!!
SUB TOTAL: $39.75

GRAND TOTAL:$57.30

So i hopped back on the L train with an extra $57.30 in my pocket. And trust me, any smart working stiff knows that $57.30 can go a long way.