Tag: obituary

The Courage of bell hooks

Originally published for Vulture on December 17th, 2021.

The hills of Kentucky are enveloped in a legacy of resistance — first against the white colonizers who touched the Indigenous land we call America, and later against a state that confined an increasingly nonconformist working class, derogatorily designated hillbillies. It’s in the crevices of Appalachian dissent and Southern discontent that bell hooks, née Gloria Watkins, was born, in the small town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952. Her chosen name is an homage to her great grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, styled in lowercase to decenter herself in deference to her family and the work she would go on to produce, publishing over 30 books and scholarly articles — a lodestar for decades of Black feminist writing and scholarship — before her untimely passing at 69.

hooks would eventually leave Kentucky, citing her family’s move away from the hillside and into the fabric of mainstream society — as well as the racialized violence that framed her childhood in the 1950s and ’60s — as the impetus for her urge for other milieus. She went on to study at Stanford, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and UC Santa Cruz, bringing a commitment to community and the spirit of Black self-determination forged in the Kentucky hills to the confined spaces of academia. She was 19 years old when she put pen to paper and offered up the first draft of Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (published in 1981), introducing the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to the feminist canon as a descriptor of the interlocking mechanisms of domination well before intersectional feminism and all of its misapplications would become standard vernacular for the purportedly progressive-minded. She embraced a pedagogical mission of giving clarity and context to ongoing discussions, encouraging those who dared to interrogate existing ideas of race, class, or gender. Her approach to it all was informed by radical possibilities: We are not exclusively defined by any one single classification as long as we are fully present in all of them.

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Posted on by Shamira

The Wild Wonders of Biz Markie

Originally published in Vulture on July 23, 2021.

Around the turn of the century, ViacomCBS property VH1 pivoted to its “Music First” era, punctuated by its original programs like The Greatest, a compilation show that purported to count down influential cultural and musical moments — from the “100 Greatest Love Songs” to the “40 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of the ’90s” — from a position of expertise and authority. One episode that aired in 2002, “100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders,” featured ubiquitous flash-in-the-pan classics like Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” (which topped the list) and Deee-Lite’s dance hit “Groove Is in the Heart.” Rounding out the list at No. 81 stood “Just a Friend,” the smash hit from Marcel Theo Hall out of Long Island, better known as the late New York legend Biz Markie. Known for its intentionally scratchy and warbly refrain — a fortuitous result of requested singers failing to show up to the recording session — and simple yet distinct C-major melody, the track, alongside the debut of his album The Biz Never Sleeps, went gold in 24 hours.

Much of what informed the popularity of the single was endemic to both the time in which it was released and the persona of Markie himself. The lyrics, depicting a lamentable tale of thwarted affections, are delivered in a deliberate, narrative style that leaves the listener both bemused and curious about the veracity of the sequence of events (Markie, for the record, has always claimed his lyrics to be renditions of real stories: “I didn’t know how to write no other way,” he said). The corresponding video serves as a capsule in time to a specific era in Black American urban history: Markie is resplendent with rope chains and Cuban links, donning a Georgetown sweater that hearkens back to a time when the university’s basketball team felt indelible to the Black cultural fabric of the 1980s, generating stars like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, and later Allen Iverson. For nearly half of the video, Markie engages in jocular theatrics, switching into a powdered wig and embodying a character that is equal parts Mozart and James Brown. These dismembered pieces — self-deprecating lyricism, dynamic percussion, and whimsical, referential presentation — boiled together to help establish Markie’s unofficial status as the self-declared Clown Prince of Hip-Hop.

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Posted on by Shamira

The Irreplaceable Black Rob, Bad Boy’s First Street Story

Originally published for Vulture on April 19th, 2021.

“I work hard for everything I own, and I deserve this / The hardest thing right about now is staying alive, who’d’ve thought Diddy would part ways with Clive?” 

Black Rob, “Live From the Eastside” (unreleased)

When people think of the dawn of the Bad Boy era in hip-hop in the early to mid-’90s, the focal point is often centered on the Notorious B.I.G. — his meteoric rise and tragic end. Less commonly recognized is the fact that Black Rob, né Robert Ross of Spanish Harlem, was one of the earliest signees to Bad Boy Records — joining the camp, founded by Uptown Records alum and mogul-in-training Sean “Puffy” Combs, soon after Craig Mack’s arrival in 1994 — and helped lay the groundwork for some of the quintessential moments in the label’s legacy for years before his platinum-selling debut album, Life Story, was finally released for public consumption in 2000, resulting in his biggest hit, “Whoa!” A street soldier who might have looked out of place in the Shiny Suit Era of Bad Boy’s glossy music videos but stood strong among some of the era’s greatest artists from Biggie to Mase, Black Rob charted his own critically acclaimed path in a dominant space up until his death at 51 on Saturday, April 17.

Originally under the moniker Bacardi Rob, it was Rob’s ear to the bellicose rhythms that pervaded Harlem’s streets that brought the fellow raucous rapper from the Johnson Houses, G. Dep, into the Bad Boy Entertainment fold in 1998. The two collaborated repeatedly throughout their tenure on the label, most notably on the classic single and video “Let’s Get It.” But even prior to getting G. Dep signed, Rob was essential to establishing the label’s presence. It was mutual friend R.P. who connected Bacardi Rob with Combs, whom he impressed with his skill set; Rob allowed Combs to rename him Black Rob for the stage. He also gained the favor of longtime Bad Boy executive and current president, Harve Pierre, who would ultimately prove critical to Rob’s career trajectory at the label. He’d go on to give a scene-stealing performance on Mase’s 1997 debut, Harlem World, with “24 Hrs. to Live,” alongside DMX; his “I Dare You” collaboration with Pierre, then performing under the stage name Joe Hooker, made the soundtrack to the 1998 film Slam; his rapport with the LOX — Bad Boy’s rap trio of Jadakiss, Styles P, and Sheek Louch — on the 2000 album cut “Can I Live” showcased his ability to hold court with some of the New York area’s biggest heavyweights. Rob was prominently featured on the iconic cover of Puff’s 1997 debut album, No Way Out, with a standout track of his own, “I Love You Baby,” and had features on tracks with Bad Boy’s stable of R&B artists, from 112 to Total. Biggie anointed him on 1998’s “Victory”: “Black Rob joined the mob, it ain’t no replacin’ him.”

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Posted on by Shamira